From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Thu Jan  1 00:18:37 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 16:18:37 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] How The Schmirk Stole Nanotechnology
In-Reply-To: <018b01c3cfed$7acd9cc0$a7994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0312311559320.16128-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Wed, 31 Dec 2003, Damien Broderick wrote:

> From: "Hal Finney" <hal at finney.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2003 4:46 PM
>
> > the Schmirk (whose brain was "two sizes too small")
>
> >If the Schmirk is just an anonymous
> > character then the story reads as a good-natured satire; but when he is
> > based on a real person, it becomes a mean-spirited attack.
> >
> > Read it and see if I'm overreacting
>
> You're not over reacting.

I would disagree and I would cite the fact that I've been
to a few more nanotech conferences, both academic and business,
than Hal and Damien and have spoken directly with people
from the NSF to Bill Joy.  I've also read the ETC report
and a number of other luddite perspectives.  The points
about very popular views of MNT that Josh makes are by
no means confined to Smalley.  Smalley may have been one
of the first to speak out against MNT but there are
certainly other such as George Whitesides who is also
widely respected who have attacked the vision without
giving good solid reasons.

That is not good science and if one has to resort to
a little of creative license to get people to see past
their blinders and perhaps get others to consider that
they might be wrong then I'm all for it.  I'm not saying
that it will work -- but the "reasonable" efforts to
date by Eric, Ralph, Robert, etc. don't seem to have
worked very well.  When what you are doing doesn't work
it may be reasonable to try something different.  That
may not work either but as the old Chinese saying goes...
"If you do not change the direction in which you are
headed you are likely to end up where you are going".

And where we are now going is costing us 30-50 million
lives a year for each year MNT is delayed.  That puts
people who are responsible for the delays in a class
with Stalin, Hitler, Milosevic, Pot Pol, etc.

So Hal & Damien this goes back to the question recently
posed with respect to the promotion of transhumanism
and the technologies it may require -- what actions
are legitimate for Extropians/Transhumanists/etc
to engage in?  If we are only going to write SciFi
novels (I'm thinking (my paraphrasing) of I think
Charlie's recent comments about how this may spread
the ideas to people who may be more willing to accept
them) then we need to make a *strong* argument that
this is the best path or else we are as guilty as
Smalley and Whitesides and the NNTI directors & grant
review committees and many VC firms for slowing down
the development of MNT.  And we should acknowledge
the blood on our hands as well.

Robert




From samantha at objectent.com  Thu Jan  1 00:23:14 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 16:23:14 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Spam
In-Reply-To: <066901c3cf51$10659820$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>
References: <000001c3cf3f$9bd6a2d0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
	<066901c3cf51$10659820$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>
Message-ID: <20031231162314.6b393429.samantha@objectent.com>

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 14:49:16 +1100
"Brett Paatsch" <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:

> Spike wrote:
> 
> > As a thought experiment, ignore the means and list those
> > who would have the motive to mess up the internet, or whose
> > lives may have been better off without it:
> > 
> > Bricks'n'mortar merchants
> > 

Why?  It is cheaper to put something on the web and sale it perhaps with drop shipment than run showroom floors.  

> > Anyone who sells primarily information, such as
> > Ministers

Many ministers are flocking to the net to reach a larger flock.

> > Publishers

Being found by search engines on the net perhaps with excerpts is darn cheap advertising.  There are ways to sale published information on the net with minimum risk of being ripped off.  And again, at lower costs.

Now some middlemen publishers do stand to be obsoleted by the net. 


> > Real estate professionals

Web ads are a boom to their business, so why would the care?

> > Teachers (some of them)

What for?  Any teacher interested in teaching would send her students all over the internet for educational purposes.  

> > Stock and investment advisers (why pay for that which is free?)
> 

Just because it is on the internet or accessible by the internet does not mean it is free or cannot successfully be charged for and collected. 

> > Others?
> 
> I've wondered about this too. What about government and major
> media outlets which are the means by which most people decide
> how to vote or perhaps even what to buy or ask their stock broker
> about.
> 

You have a reasonable point that those forces that wish to restrict information, knowledge and choice by the people will see the internet as a threat.  This means they will seek to manipulate matters so that they can control it.  Its destruction is no longer a remotely rational goal even for these forces as too much is built upon it.
  
> I'm pretty sure I read that there was an internet warfare section
> that was active in the Iraq war. *If* the internet was a potent source
> of non-manipulated media perhaps government (or agencies of it)
> would want to act in accordance with the national interest (or 
> rather how the national interest is perceived) by agencies - which
> might in fact by the interests of the government of the day.
>

Yes.  I think it not unlikely that the government will work hard to change the internet in such a way as to control it and to stifle many of its revolutionary potentials.  I believe this is a sufficient threat that some underground alternate networking infrastructure and methods should be designed and deployed. Our combined intelligence and influence depends on the means of communciation remaining open. 
 
I am not worried about spam destroying the net as we know it except and unless it is used by as yet another excuse for full[er] government control of the net down to the level of deep changes of the underlying code making free, open and/or anonymous internet resources extremely difficult to impossible.


- samantha



From jcorb at iol.ie  Thu Jan  1 00:38:12 2004
From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally)
Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:38:12 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Happy New Year
Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20040101003315.03080040@pop.iol.ie>

Well, it's cold outside, the rain has stopped and the fireworks have died down.

But I'm sitting in the warmth sipping coke and chips n'dip.  Life is good, 
and I think during this year it'll get better.  Just think, there's things 
going to happen this year that just couldn't be done last year.  We're 
getting closer to where we want to be, Transhumanistically speaking.

So here's hoping that for all of you, 2004 will be a year that brings us 
all closer to peaceful times and the very, very long lives we've set our 
sights on.

Peace, warmth, love and good food to you all in 2004!



James...



From samantha at objectent.com  Thu Jan  1 00:32:21 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 16:32:21 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0312301354160.23039-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
References: <20031230213639.65654.qmail@web80404.mail.yahoo.com>
	<Pine.LNX.4.44.0312301354160.23039-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20031231163221.7fa9cf47.samantha@objectent.com>

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 13:59:49 -0800 (PST)
"Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:

> 
> On Tue, 30 Dec 2003, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> 
> > How do these compare?  Requiring marshals on planes
> > does not itself imply it is okay to trample on
> > anyone's rights just because of some factor that has a very
> > shaky, if any, correlation to terrorists.
> 
> Its a double edged sword and one that could cause endless
> debate that I'm not sure would be productive.  But a
> couple of things seem true -- it isn't clear *whose*
> laws in effect during international flights so it
> isn't clear whose rights you have -- (originating
> country, destination country, passport country,
> international or UN rules???).  Second though I
> think most passengers would be grateful to someone
> taking aggressive action towards someone who is
> perceived as dangerous -- there are significant
> risks to the plane, flight crew and passengers
> when firearms are involved.  We have all seen
> various hijacking films (real or fictional) and
> it isn't clear what the best strategies are.
> 

You only use highly frangible ammo on a plane.  The risk with proper ammo and training need be no greater than in any crowd scenario stopping a dangerous person. 

> The same is true for the Almanac checks -- but
> I'd be happy to explain why I had an Almanac if
> I thought it was going to stop even a single
> terrorist act.
> 

I will not be happy until I am free of unwanted harrassment by all government officials and agents.    The other choice leads to the eventual terrorization of the people by their own government.   How many honest, law-abiding citizens in the US do you think are to some degree leaving in anxiety to outright terror of their own government and its various agents?  How many live in fear of the IRS, BATF, DEA, FDA unreasonable lawsuits, draconian selectively enforced laws and so on?  Not one of us is safe by the hands, stated intentions, written policies and practices of our own government.  So why exactly do we believe giving them more power and giving away what shreds of rights remain to us will make us safer?

-s


From samantha at objectent.com  Thu Jan  1 00:40:26 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 16:40:26 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs
In-Reply-To: <2C2FD451-3B18-11D8-B6F6-000A95B18568@antipope.org>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0312301354160.23039-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
	<2C2FD451-3B18-11D8-B6F6-000A95B18568@antipope.org>
Message-ID: <20031231164026.2a6911bb.samantha@objectent.com>

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 22:33:21 +0000
Charlie Stross <charlie at antipope.org> wrote:

> 
> You bet. Which is why the latest news in the UK is that BALPA (the 
> British Air Line Pilots' Association) is telling their members that 
> they don't need to fly if they believe there's an armed stranger on 
> their flight.
> 
> BALPA's objection isn't merely to security -- airline pilots are not in 
> favour of hijackings! -- but they believe that sky marshalls will make 
> flights *less* safe. For one thing, a single sky marshall against a 
> group of hijackers may merely give them a free firearm. For another 
> thing, sky marshalls may accidentally wound or kill non-hijackers, or 
> damage the aircraft. They may be mistaken for hijackers by passengers 
> and *cause* security incidents -- if you realised the passenger in the 
> seat next to you had a concealed weapon, what would you do? And so on.
>

I would give a lot to have had an armed and trained person, marshall or civilian, on the planes involved in 9/11.   The dangers listed above are small relative to the actual tragedy that resulted at least in part from having no such person on board.  
 
> BALPA want attention focussed instead on heightening security checks 
> before passengers board the aircraft, and point to the poor quality of 
> many security staff as the biggest problem. Unfortunately it costs a 
> *LOT* more to have well-paid, professional, highly-trained airport 
> security staff than minimum wage drones plus one or two sky marshalls.
>

And what if they miss something?  Are the passengers and the potential direct and secondary victims on the ground to have no additional security?  How is this reasonable?   How does the cost of a trained security on planes compare to the staggering and still growing costs of a single incident like 9/11?

- samantha


From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk  Thu Jan  1 00:59:40 2004
From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK)
Date: Thu,  1 Jan 2004 01:59:40 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Happy New Year
Message-ID: <5764479.1072918780961.JavaMail.www@wwinf3005>

On Wed Dec 31, 2003 05:38 pm J Corbally wrote:
> But I'm sitting in the warmth sipping coke and chips n'dip. Life is
> good, and I think during this year it'll get better. Just think,
> there's things going to happen this year that just couldn't be done
> last year. We're getting closer to where we want to be,
> Transhumanistically speaking.
>

Well, I'm leaning back in my comfy computer chair here in London,
sipping a glass of old French brandy, resting my feet on a convenient
serf and watching all the panic messages scroll up my screen.

We've got a bit of crisis here. Our cable provider, Blueyonder, has
collapsed in a heap nationwide and about half a million customers have
no digital TV. Email has gone, website is down and some people have lost
cable phone service. All the support staff are down the pub celebrating
the New Year of course, so it could be sometime before civilization
returns to normal.

Did somebody mention single point of failure?

Bit tricky this advanced technology lark.   ;)

All the best for 2004

BillK
Freeserve AnyTime - HALF PRICE for the first 3 months - Save ?7.50 a month 
www.freeserve.com/anytime


From scerir at libero.it  Thu Jan  1 01:10:36 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 02:10:36 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Many worlds and Hugh Everett 
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0312292149480.4863-100000@server.aeiveos.com><015f01c3cedc$01a9ad50$6501a8c0@int.veeco.com><015c01c3ceea$1d1e4ce0$e3fe4d0c@hal2001><007a01c3ceee$42bb3810$d2256bd5@artemis><001901c3cf0f$743734e0$cbb71b97@administxl09yj>
	<028a01c3cf2a$a9cdaab0$d2256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <000301c3d004$113c0aa0$f0c7fea9@scerir>

From: "Dirk Bruere"

> The point is though, that there are no (currently) testable QM theories
> that both make different predictions from standard QM and are not already
> falsified by experiment.

It seems (to me) a bit difficult to define what is "standard QM", sometimes
called "orthodox" QM. Perhaps there are many "standard QM". There are many
"schools" and many "standard" interpretations: Cambridge, Copenhagen,
Gottingen, Princeton, Zurich, etc. If you read Dirac's book you cannot even
find the term "wavefunction". But you can find that the photon only
interferes with itself (which is not in line with Born's postulate) and
never interferes with other photons (which was proved wrong, experimentally,
in the '60s). If you read von Neumann's book you find that
hidden variables are not allowed, in QM, in principle, something that was
falsified later by John Bell, whose philosophy (realism, Einstein's locality
principle) was then falsified by those experiments performed by A. Aspect.

But von Neumann wrote, perhaps for the first time, a detailed "theory of
quantum measurement", while Dirac avoided as much as he could the issue.
There are other problems with von Neumann's book, since some theorist found
that the definition of "tensor product", given in the book, might be
arbitrary, or worse, and his definition is crucial if one wishes to keep the
"peaceful coexistence" between QM and SR. If you read Bohr's papers you
find, few times, the expression "reduction of wave packets" or "reduction of
probability packets" but he did not speak of a "real" or, better, "physical"
collapse. The "collapse" is un-physical, according to Bohr, which means
"epistemological". Actually the "Copenhagen Interpretation" (so called after
Heisenberg, 1955) is essentially "epistemological".

What about the physical collapse, then? Well, you must read the papers by
Heisenberg and, maybe, the book of von Neumann, if you want to find
something like that. But then came the paper by EPR (1935, but Popper,
von Weizsaecker, and Einstein himself had, independently, the same idea
many years before). And this paper seems to have much to do with a "physical
collapse" which produces "spooky actions" at a distance. Only Bohr found
a consistent way out, based on his "complementarity principle" and his idea
of a non-physical (only epistemological) collapse. But Bohr's words were so
obscure, so deep, and a bit inaccurate, and then people did not realized who
really won that debate, if EPR + Schroedinger, or Bohr, or nobody. (You can
find below something that maybe represents in a more formal way what Bohr
had in mind. For clarity it is discussed the EPR in the Bohm version, that
is to say the EPR-B).

What does it mean all the above? That there is no "standard QM"? No, it just
means that there was no "standard interpretation of QM", since the
beginning. There is of course a general agreement on the fundamental
equations, and rules, and principles.

> The point is though, that there are no (currently) testable QM theories
> that both make different predictions from standard QM and are not already
> falsified by experiment.

There are theories that make different prediction (from standard
QM, and have been falsified by experiments. In example the de Broglie
double solution, in the Selleri-Croca version, which has been falsified
by experiments performed by Mandel, Wang, etc. Also Bohmian mechanics is
tested now and it seems to be wrong.

But if you ask if "standard QM" has been falsified, I would respond:
yes, more or less as Newtonian description has been falsified by SR.
There are theories ("weak measurement", i.e.) which predict what QM,
in the present formalism, cannot predict, and they have been positively
tested. They are radical "extensions" of QM, more than new theories.

We can also say that QM many times falsified itself, in a certain sense.
There was, around 1926-1927, the famous Bohr-Heisenberg debate about the
meaning of UP (uncertainty pr.) and the meaning of CP (complementarity).
Heisenberg was saying that UP has its roots in disturbances, during
measurements. Bohr was saying that UP is a part of CP, and no disturbance
was much involved, the essence of uncertainty was deeper, already present
in the formalism of the QM. Modern experiments ("quantum erasure",
"welcher weg" and distinguishability, etc.) have shown that Bohr was right.
Heisenberg's gamma ray microscope gedanken experiment is obsolete now.

(Btw, it was also shown that in the Bohr-Einstein
debate, Bohr himself introduced many times arguments,
which are completely wrong).

What about the uncertainty relation DE Dt > h which
Aharonov and Bohm proved to be completely false
(meaningless) in 1961? Also Dirac's uncertainty
relation D phase D N = 1 has been proved to be wrong.
And also the famous relation Dposition Dmomentum > h
has been proved to be meaningless in many specific
cases (when one observable is bounded and the other
non commuting observable is stationary, so to speak).

Even the general Robertson's uncertainty relation
for two observables A, B, has some problem since
it depends on the same wavefunction on both sides!
DA(psi) DB(psi) = 1/2 |<psi|[A,B]|psi>|

What about the "correspondence principle", one of the
basic points of the standard QM and the Copenhagen interpretation,
which is even difficult to find, in modern books,
and was proved to be wrong (by A.Leggett et al.)?

> Given the physical equivalence of the various interpretations does
> that mean quantum suicide experiments will have the same outcome?

I do not agree about that "physical equivalence", because theories
are different, and formalisms are, often, different too.

Imo, it is not easy to perform a *quantum* suicide, but, in case of
necessity ..., I would suggest a "weak" quantum suicide. In such a
strategy, the suicide is accomplished in several rounds. One sacrifices
knowledge of the system, on any given round, to avoid the
entanglement with the "device" and the ensuing "split" (or "collapse",
depending on the interpretation) of the wavefunction. This makes it
possible to contemplate (or self-contemplate) the behavior of the "system"
defined by preparation and by a later (hopefully lucky) post-selection,
without significant disturbance of the "system" in the intervening period.
Due to the many rounds strategy, and the weakness of the suicide
procedure, you could stop it as soon as you realize that the post-selection
state is not satisfactory. Or something like this :-)

s.

"What is much more likely is that the new way of seeing things will
involve an imaginative leap that will astonish us. In any case it seems
that the quantum mechanical description will be superseded. In this it
is like all theories made by man. But to an unusual extent its ultimate
fate is apparent in its internal structure. It carries in itself the
seeds of its own destruction."
- John Bell
"The Moral Aspect of Quantum Mechanics" in Speakable and Unspeakable in
Quantum Mechanics,Cambridge University Press (1987).


---------------------------

EPR-B 'a la Bohr'

We can write the state of each entangled EPR-B sub-system (1 or 2)
of the composite system, as:
rho(1) = |1.up><1.up|+|1.down><1.down|
rho(2) = |2.up><2.up|+|2.down><2.down|
rho(1), rho(2) are the density matrices describing each sub-system.
The above is the more general definition, and it means
that sub-system.1 and sub-system.2 are "mixed states".

Look that rho(1) = trace(2) rho(1,2) and
rho(2) = trace(1) rho(1,2) where
rho(1,2) = density matrix of the composite EPR-B system =
=(|1.up>|2.down>-|1.down>|2.up>)(<1.up|<2.down|-<1.down|<2.up|)

Look also that for rho(1,2) the total angular momentum
operator has values = 0 for all spatial components,
since the two spins are (pre)correlated, and thay point to
opposite directions. Note also that this is not the case
of rho(1) and rho(2) because they are mixed states,
with no definite values for angular momentum components.

Suppose now that an appatratus.2 measures sub-system.2
(an observable of this sub-system.2). From the universality
of QM, also apparatus.2 will be a mixed state, with no
definite value, for the measured abservable. But since
sub-system.2 is correlated with sub-system.1, apparatus.2
will be also correlated with sub-system.1.

Thus when we read, on apparatus.2, that the observable
of sub-system.2 is "spin up" we know that the observable
of sub-system.1 is "spin down". But since we assumed that
sub-system.1 and sub-system.2 are space-like separated, no
physical interaction is possible. Hence when we read,
on apparatus.2, the value of the observable of sub-system.2,
we do not have any interaction with sub-system.1, which
rests in its mixed state. We can infer, though, the
value of the observable of sub-system.1, without interacting
with it. The above is a conditional inference, or a
conditional probability = 1.

The only possible effect is on "relationships" between sub-system.
Not between the physical states of sub-systems (rectius, between
apparata measuring sub-systems).

Look also that the relationship between sub-systems
(correlation) is pre-existent, it is not due to any
measurement.

If you want to check the (defined above) conditional inferences,
or conditional probabilities, you must measure
with apparatus.2 the sub-system.2 (say spin up) and
with apparatus.1 the sub.system.1 (say spin down) and
see if the measurements agree.

Since sub-system.1 and sub-system.2 (apparatus.1, apparatus.2)
are represented by mixed states there is no need to assume
any physical collapse between them. No collapse -> no interaction ->
no energy transfer -> no FTL 'informations' -> no FTL 'influences' ->
no spooky actions.







From wingcat at pacbell.net  Thu Jan  1 01:41:09 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 17:41:09 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs
In-Reply-To: <20031231163221.7fa9cf47.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <20040101014109.92950.qmail@web80404.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Samantha Atkins <samantha at objectent.com> wrote:
> Not one of us
> is safe by the hands, stated intentions, written
> policies and practices of our own government.

Well..._maybe_ by the stated intentions, if those were
what actually got put into practice.  A large part of
the problem is that the new powers get abused in ways
not anticipated by the statements, but easily forseen
by students of history.  Whether or not the speakers
of said statements also forsee the abuses is not
provable; it is easy to imagine that they do, but it
seems more often the case that they don't, and turn a
deaf ear to any naysayers.  (In some cases, they so
vigorously tune out dissent that people think they're
doing it to justify the abuses.  I'm not exactly sure
what their real reason is - mere pride and arrogance
seem insufficient - but in my experience, deliberate
covering up is usually not it.)


From wingcat at pacbell.net  Thu Jan  1 01:56:00 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 17:56:00 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Spam
In-Reply-To: <20031231162314.6b393429.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <20040101015600.73326.qmail@web80405.mail.yahoo.com>

Just a few examples...

--- Samantha Atkins <samantha at objectent.com> wrote:
> > Spike wrote:
> > > As a thought experiment, ignore the means and
> list those
> > > who would have the motive to mess up the
> internet, or whose
> > > lives may have been better off without it:
> > > 
> > > Bricks'n'mortar merchants
> 
> Why?  It is cheaper to put something on the web and
> sale it perhaps with drop shipment than run showroom
> floors.  

Yes, but to anyone who hasn't adopted those practices,
and refuses to for whatever reason (say, they falsely
believe that putting their inventory online means
it'll get stolen in a heartbeat by someone with a
fake credit card, or a hacker planting false orders
in their database; or, they simply haven't grokked the
Web yet), playing with the Web is not (yet) an option.

> > > Anyone who sells primarily information, such as
> > > Ministers
> 
> Many ministers are flocking to the net to reach a
> larger flock.

And many more decry the 'Net for allowing access to
"evil" viewpoints (read: anyone who disagrees with the
minister...although there are those online that most
people agree are evil too).

> > > Publishers
> 
> Being found by search engines on the net perhaps
> with excerpts is darn cheap advertising.  There are
> ways to sale published information on the net with
> minimum risk of being ripped off.  And again, at
> lower costs.

See the brick 'n' mortar example - but this has some
famous real examples: the RIAA and the MPAA.  Most of
us can probably imagine ways for them to sell securely
online, with minimal risk of being ripped off big
time.  But in practice, their efforts have been
minimal, hesitant, and lacking in content - and thus
far from the vast rewards they are otherwise promised.
But that does not seem to have caused their hardening
against the 'Net; the cause seems to be that, by
allowing so many advertising channels they can not
flood and dominate, the 'Net gives exposure to their
competition: indie bands that focus more on talent
than glitz.  Of course they'd prefer to shut down
their competition...

> > > Teachers (some of them)
> 
> What for?  Any teacher interested in teaching would
> send her students all over the internet for
> educational purposes.  

Emphasis: "interested in teaching".  Some teachers
see only the ability to download common essays and
"cheat" on learning things that were relevant in the
last century.  (Yes, it's a good thing to be able to
spellcheck your works manually.  But for big, long
essays, you'd better get in the habit of applying
your own effort and letting the computer help -
neither relying on your own efforts or the computer's
to the exclusion of the other, because neither one
will catch everything.)


From spike66 at comcast.net  Thu Jan  1 03:15:41 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 19:15:41 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] that bad old internet
In-Reply-To: <20031231162314.6b393429.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <004b01c3d015$89b90300$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


> Samantha Atkins

> > Spike wrote:
> > 
> > > As a thought experiment, ignore the means and list those
> > > who would have the motive to mess up the internet, or whose
> > > lives may have been better off without it:
> > > 
> > > Bricks'n'mortar merchants
> > > 
> 
> Why?  It is cheaper to put something on the web and sale it 
> perhaps with drop shipment than run showroom floors.

This falls under the category of those who do not use
the internet.  Much of merchandising is presentation.
If the masses come into your showroom, pick out some
merchandise, then go home and order it all off the
internet, your sales will suffer.  With the furniture
showroom example, the markup is huge, sometimes double
the price a warehouse can provide.  Right now car sales lots
are being somewhat protected by the few manufacturers,
but there are plenty of classes of merchandise which
are not so protected.

Consider consumer electronics: presentation costs are
low, so profit margins on things like stereos, TVs,
computers, MP3 players etc, are razor thin, often less
than 10%.  Samantha, our friends in Taxamento demand
7.8% of the sales price.  To the merchants, that must
sound like the state government saying: Sell all the
electronics you can, then hand over *all* the profit.

 
> > > Anyone who sells primarily information, such as
> > > Ministers
> 
> Many ministers are flocking to the net to reach a larger flock.

There is that, but of course the internet is a competition
for their flock's attention, and a wonderfully competent
competitor it is indeed.

There are a couple of points that are specific to this
example.  A minister's primary duty is to prepare sermons.
A good sermon is a little research project.  An extraordinarily
good sermon is of interest even to the non-religious, filled
with detailed historical research, etc.  This research
requires resources available to only a few, those with access
to large theological libraries for instance.  The head pastor
of the theology school I once attended was a master of this
skill, finding wonderfully obscure references and connections.

The internet has made this kind of research two orders of
magnitude easier to do.  One can now google up all kinds of
stuff without ever leaving one's home.  But it also makes it
extremely easy to google up the other side of the story.

In the case of Seventh Day Adventist (I chose that one
only because I know the specific case, but I would imagine
it applies to pretty much all of them) the effect is this:
the pro-SDA material is plentiful, cheap, readily available 
and extremely well-funded.  But those who have opposing 
opinions are not heard, for they have no organized funding, 
no distribution network, no sponsors, nothing.  There are
SDA bookstores but no anti-SDA bookstores.  The writings
of D.M. Canwright are *very* difficult to find, for instance,
even if one is determined.

The internet changes all that, for now it costs almost
nothing to publish a web page.  There is a lot of very
SDA-damaging material that took me *years* to find, that
can now be googled in minutes.  I could imagine a lot of
ministers taking a dim view of it all.  My in-laws
pastor has convinced them that the internet is basically
evil and should be avoided.


> > > Real estate professionals
> 
> Web ads are a boom to their business, so why would the care?

The total number of sales is not increased by the
internet, but it makes it much easier to go around
the real estate professional all together.  Google up
the forms on how to do a for-sale-by-owner and learn
how easy it is.  The internet makes it easy to advertise
your own home without going to the general listing.

Real estate sales people often get commissions of 3% 
or in some cases even more.  Samantha in our
county of Santa Clara, 3% of a typical home price
is 15 to 20 thousand bucks, which is a lotta money
to me.  I think I could figure out how to do a FSBO
for that.

 
> > > Teachers (some of them)
> 
> What for?  Any teacher interested in teaching would send her 
> students all over the internet for educational purposes... -Samantha

Ja, some teachers have taken advantage of the technology,
but I suspect many (if not most) have not.  The internet
can make it very difficult to grade the students if not all
of them have access.  It also makes it a challenge
for the teacher to determine who is plagiarizing.  If they
Google on each student's work they could find out, but
that takes a lot of time.

We still need to deal with this too: the quality of
teachers must continue to drop because it is such a low-
paying job, with ever-increasing liability of working 
with children.  Many teachers may not be able to afford
a high-speed internet connection.  My brother-in-law
and his wife are elementary school teachers in south-
central LA.  Dial-up modem only.  Googling at their
home is extremely frustrating.   

My own recent experience is in judging a science fair 
for the local elementary school.  Many of the students'
projects consisted of choosing a topic, googling on it,
printing out a few web pages and pasting it to a backboard.
They produced some terrific *looking* projects, stuff that
woulda won hands down in my day (I had to use that phrase {8^D)
but on closer examination they could have been put together
in about an hour.  No continuity, very flashy.  Judging
the science fair came down to searching for research
projects that contained some actual research.

A major headache for teachers is that not all students
have access to the internet.  As time goes on, the
disparity between haves and have-nots increases to
such an extent that grading the student's performance
is becoming ever harder.  Often teachers become more
concerned about equality and fairness than in having
their top students achieve excellence, so they spend
much or most of their time helping the slower students.
How do you help someone who has no internet connection?
They are missing the most basic tool of the 21st
century.

My burden is for my own neices, aged 11 and 13.  Their 
parents do not allow them any access to the internet
because of... well, you can imagine any number of reasons
why not.  These girls are polite, honest, upstanding
citizens, excellent students and excellent readers.
But their vast cluelessness knows no bounds.  They are 
so naive, so very unaware of the world in which they will 
soon enter, it worries me.  What happens when they enter
college without internet research skills?  They will know
all about American history (sort of) from their wide
reading about how children lived in past decades.  But
they will know almost nothing about the things that
matter for prosperity in our world.  This latest adventure
with the pastor telling my in-laws that the internet is
evil didn't help matters at all.

spike 



From extropy at unreasonable.com  Thu Jan  1 04:06:26 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 23:06:26 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hyperbole
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031231230547.024ffff8@mail.comcast.net>

Read the quote from the judge.  Even for our hyperbolic age, it's impressive.


-- David Lubkin.

>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3358627.stm
>Brazil to fingerprint US citizens
>
>A Brazilian judge has announced that US citizens will be fingerprinted and 
>photographed on entering the country.
>
>Judge Julier Sebastiao da Silva was reacting to US plans to do the same to 
>Brazilians entering the United States.
>
>He made the order after a Brazilian government office filed a complaint in 
>a federal court over the new US immigration measures.
>
> From 5 January, travellers from all countries which need a visa to enter 
> the US will undergo the same checks.
>
>"I consider the act absolutely brutal, threatening human rights, violating 
>human dignity, xenophobic and worthy of the worst horrors committed by the 
>Nazis," Federal Judge Julier Sebastiao da Silva said in the court order.
>
>The new security measures will come into effect on 1 January unless Mr Da 
>Silva's ruling is challenged by the justice system.
>
>Anti-terrorism
>
>Washington's new rules are part of increased anti-terrorism measures.
>
>They aim to identify people who have violated immigration controls, have a 
>criminal record or belong to groups that Washington has on its list of 
>"terrorist" organisations.
>
>An official from the US Department of Homeland Security said at least two 
>of the 19 hijackers in the 11 September 2001 attacks could have been 
>stopped if this security system had been in place.
>
>It will not apply to citizens of 27 nations who do not require a visa to 
>enter the US.




From thespike at earthlink.net  Thu Jan  1 04:34:41 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 22:34:41 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] How The Schmirk Stole Nanotechnology
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0312311555210.16128-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <027801c3d020$97187840$a7994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2003 5:59 PM


>   http://nanodot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/24/0633205
>
> Esp. my comments and Howard's response.  The picture does not
> have Smalley replaced by the Schmirk.

Howard's presentation on December 23

http://nanobot.blogspot.com/2003_12_21_nanobot_archive.html#1072204344654620
87

was a *repost* of:

From: J. Storrs Hall, PhD. (josh at blast.net)
Subject: How the Schmirk Stole Nanotechnology
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Date: 2003-12-17 03:35:26 PST

which of course, being vanilla text, had no illustration. I assume JoSH did
not create the morphed photo, so no insight can be gained by learning who
was replaced.

Damien Broderick



From spike66 at comcast.net  Thu Jan  1 05:14:13 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 21:14:13 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] How The Schmirk Stole Nanotechnology
In-Reply-To: <027801c3d020$97187840$a7994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <005001c3d026$18b16740$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


Robert Bradbury wrote on slashdot:

Now we know nanotech is going to be disruptive and if one carefully
reviews the NBA supporters they include some very old companies (e.g.
GE, Catepillar, Lockheed) so one has to wonder whether they are involved
to promote nanotech development or delay it (so as to protect their
current markets)...


I can answer that one: promote it, bigtime.  They will
promote nanotech to *enhance* current markets.  Note that
the nanotech that is being developed at Lockheeed, et.al.
is not true bottom-up Drexlerian nanotech, but rather
the next technical steps in miniaturization, top-down.  
They all want to know how we keep going down after 
photolithography gives out, which appears to be soon,
perhaps in the next 10-15 years.

Very old companies don't get to be very old companies
unless they continually embrace and develop the latest
and most promising new technologies.

spike



From riel at surriel.com  Thu Jan  1 08:34:12 2004
From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 03:34:12 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Best place to live in USA
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20031231105329.01c54380@mail.comcast.net>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20031231105329.01c54380@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.55L.0401010332060.5927@imladris.surriel.com>

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003, David Lubkin wrote:
> At 11:31 AM 12/31/2003 +0000, BillK wrote:
>
> >Money Magazine's Hottest Towns
> >         :
> >Now the question is: Why no places in New Hampshire in the top 81?
> >Too much snow? ;)
>
> I'm not sure how much their assessment criteria vary year-to-year but
> Nashua, New Hampshire was chosen twice by Money Magazine as the best
> town in America, in 1987 and 1997.

I moved here in march and it's just a wonderful city.
Lots of stuff to do; property prices high, but still
at less than half of Boston. Lots of space and pretty
good food.

> (Which reminds me:  Nashua has two great sushi restaurants -- one we
> have used to take visiting Japanese VIPs to, the other has French bistro
> desserts.)

Which would those be ?

I haven't yet found a sushi place in Nashua that
comes close in quality to Sakura in Chelmsford ;)

cheers,

Rik
-- 
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan


From samantha at objectent.com  Thu Jan  1 09:56:40 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 01:56:40 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs
In-Reply-To: <20031231203649.65653.qmail@web80403.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20031231183958.62717.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
	<20031231203649.65653.qmail@web80403.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040101015640.066fe667.samantha@objectent.com>

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 12:36:49 -0800 (PST)
Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:

> --- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Would a vehicle search be a civil rights violation?
> > Yup. Does it
> > matter? Nope. Why? Because national security is not
> > bound by civil
> > rights laws.
> 
> Yes it is.

Yes.  There is nothing in the Constitution that makes exceptions except an actual suspension of the Constitution. 

> 
> > Your civil rights being violated is
> > only grounds to
> > exclude incriminating evidence from trial, it is not
> > a "get out of
> > Guantanamo Free card".
>

Your civil rights being violated is a crime committed against you by your government.  It is a small or large act of treason by government officials who are sworn to uphold the Constitution and be properly limited by it.   
 
> No, civil rights also impose limits on government
> behavior even when no trial will come of it.
> Otherwise, it would be perfectly acceptable to, say,
> put a male Arab American under indefinite
> investigation - and publicize the fact - just because
> he was running for elected office, or because he dared
> to vote: "He obviously must be trying to weaken our
> defenses against terrorism!"
> 
> Ironic that you should use that example, BTW.  Wasn't
> it civil rights which was why a bunch of those in
> Guantanamo, who otherwise faced indefinite detention
> (theoretically pending a military trial, but said
> trial showed no signs of being organized in the near
> future - result, life in prison w/out trial), were
> ordered either into the civil court system (if and
> only if formal charges, with evidence, could be
> brought in a certain short time frame) or set free?
>

There is no place for a Guantanamo in any society that dares claim it stands for human freedom and rights or dares pretend to be the "good".    Guantanomo is a lawless travesty, a great mark of infamy weighing upon America.  
 
> > The SCOTUS has ruled on a
> > number of occasions
> > that violtions of your civil rights taken in defense
> > of national
> > security are quite acceptable.
>

Then the SCOTUS is simply wrong.  There is nothing in the Constitution, btw, that says the SCOTUS is the legitimate final arbitrar of what is and is not Constitutional.   

The government can always *claim* National Security to take away whatever rights of whomever whenever it wants by this thinking.   That is clearly not part of the intent and makes on one safe from government whatsoever.
 

> > Terrorism is NOT a
> > civil crime, it is a
> > military or war crime, and is properly subject to
> > military law, not
> > civillian law.
> 

Terrorism is so bloody loosely defined that saying it is this or that category of crime is virtually meaningless.  Its definition is arbitrary so any acts or purported acts or secretly accused acts may be subject to whatever whim the authorities care to exercise.  This is clearly dead wrong.  It is so wrong it acts like a Big Lie stopping the thinking of even many liberty loving folks.

> Even when it becomes an excuse to override civilian
> law under any circumstances, and effectively place all
> citizens under military law - which can be altered by
> those in power at whim?  (Effectively, if not in
> statement.  For instance, consider what happens if, at
> any time, your rights could be suspended and any
> action taken against you for the most tenuous, or even
> made up, charges of potential terrorism.  This becomes
> a universal excuse whenever anyone in the government
> disapproves of your actions.  Running against the
> incumbent in an election, and stand a good chance of
> winning?  You're a terrorist.  Refuse an office
> holder's sexual advances?  You're a terrorist.
> Decline to pay the 90% tax rate?  You're not guilty of
> tax evasion, since that would require actually
> bothering to figure out how much you supposedly owe;
> instead, you're just another terrorist.  Get
> rear-ended by a drunk police officer?  You're the
> terrorist, so you're at fault.  Try researching
> biotech, so as to discover a cure for cancer?  Only
> terrorists would do that - and it doesn't matter what
> you say or what evidence you have, since you're a
> terrorist everyone knows you were actually researching
> biological weapons.  Refuse to pledge allegiance to
> someone else's God?  God damn, are you ever a
> terrorist!  And so forth.)
> 

Yes.  Well said. 

-s


From samantha at objectent.com  Thu Jan  1 10:06:31 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 02:06:31 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs
In-Reply-To: <20040101014109.92950.qmail@web80404.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20031231163221.7fa9cf47.samantha@objectent.com>
	<20040101014109.92950.qmail@web80404.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040101020631.09f0c153.samantha@objectent.com>

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 17:41:09 -0800 (PST)
Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:

> --- Samantha Atkins <samantha at objectent.com> wrote:
> > Not one of us
> > is safe by the hands, stated intentions, written
> > policies and practices of our own government.
> 
> Well..._maybe_ by the stated intentions, if those were
> what actually got put into practice.  

When it comes to rights in the street, faced with representatives of the State, or in your home in the dead of night, or in court, those intentions, especially what is written down, can matter one hell of a lot.  It has been common practice to dismiss Constitutional arguments in most courts even high courts for some time.  Juries are commonly instructed to merely vote on whether the law was literally broken and never advised it is their right as citizens to vote whether the law makes sense or its application in a particular case makes sense.  They become the rubber stamp of what the judge wants and the validity of the law and its application gets simply assumed.

> A large part of
> the problem is that the new powers get abused in ways
> not anticipated by the statements, but easily forseen
> by students of history. 

Some of the statements are pretty darn obvious.  

> Whether or not the speakers
> of said statements also forsee the abuses is not
> provable; it is easy to imagine that they do, but it
> seems more often the case that they don't, and turn a
> deaf ear to any naysayers.  (In some cases, they so
> vigorously tune out dissent that people think they're
> doing it to justify the abuses.  I'm not exactly sure
> what their real reason is - mere pride and arrogance
> seem insufficient - but in my experience, deliberate
> covering up is usually not it.)

It is really irrelevant if the effect of leading these folks keep power and respecting their statements and believing their good intent is that millions of us are run over brutally by the State.  The power and disbelief or suspension of disbelief need to be removed.  It is not only the perps who engage in massive rationalization.  They are greatly outdone in both unconcious and willed blindness by their victims.

- samantha


From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au  Thu Jan  1 10:31:05 2004
From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 21:31:05 +1100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Did Smalley change his mind?
References: <20031230165731.96224.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <01db01c3d052$5c988160$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>

In Nanomedicine Vol 1, Chapter 2, Paths to Molecular Manufacturing
(published 1999) Sect. 2.1   Is Molecular Manufacturing possible?
http://www.nanomedicine.com/NMI/2.1.htm   Robert Freitas writes -

" Nearly 40 years after Feynman's famous "Plenty of Room at the Bottom"
speech, and a decade after Drexler's original proposal for a bottom-up 
approach to machine building using molecular assemblers, Nobel chemist
Richard Smalley also largely agreed that this objective should prove
feasible. 

Noted Smalley:  [2389]  "On a length scale of more than one
nanometer, the mechanical robot assembler metaphor envisioned by 
Drexler almost certainly will work..."

There is a citation (below) but the link no longer finds a page.

[2389]. R.E. Smalley, "Chemistry on the Nanometer Scale -- 
Introductory Remarks," 1996 Welch Conference in Chemistry,
at: http://cnst.rice.edu/NanoWelch.html


Did Smalley change his mind about Molecular Manufacturing being
possible ?   When was the above page removed? 

Does anyone have an  e-copy of the original remarks?  It would be
*very* interesting to see what Smalley actually said. 

Regards,
Brett Paatsch



From gpmap at runbox.com  Thu Jan  1 12:17:44 2004
From: gpmap at runbox.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 13:17:44 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Many worlds and Hugh Everett 
In-Reply-To: <015c01c3ceea$1d1e4ce0$e3fe4d0c@hal2001>
Message-ID: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGEEKBCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>

MWI does not privilege a single reality, physically instantiated in a "real
world", over possible realities equally consistent with physics. Two
macroscopically different outcomes of a microscopic event to which the laws
of physics only assign a probability are treated as equally valid
projections of reality. I always thought that MWI is conceptually simpler
than other interpretations. We only have to do without the assumption of a
reality that allows itself to be completely described by our language, and
the mathematics of the theory flow beautifully without paradoxes. There is
one wavefunction (reality) evolving in time according to precise laws, only
it does not describe a world of bricks. Conceptual problems only arise when
we try separating out a projection of the wavefunction and using a language
meant for bricks to describe it. Since there is usually interference between
different projections of reality, it is impossible to separate one out as a
stand alone reality. Too bad that brick languages are the only languages
that evolution has developed for us so far.
What happened to Liz after she killed herself? Well since there were
countless version of her in different projections of reality, and since the
closest ones shared a large part of her personality and memories, it seems
reasonable to assume that her consciousness continued in the versions that
had not killed themselves.
Of course this must be a brick-like approximation, perhaps consciousness is
a property of the complete wavefunction that does not allow itself to be
associated to a specific projection.



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of John K Clark
Sent: martes, 30 de diciembre de 2003 16:32
To: ExI chat list
Subject: [extropy-chat] Many worlds and Hugh Everett


There is a new online biography of Hugh Everett, the man who started the
many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics at
http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~max/everett/ . One thing I didn't know was that
Everett's daughter believed in it and killed herself because she thought she
would be living in a better parallel world with her father. Apparently she
thought if all the unhappy versions of herself died her consciousness would
remain only in the happy ones. There may be a certain amount of logic to
that but before you do something that drastic you had better be very very
sure the theory is correct. I don't know about you but I'm not THAT certain.

John K Clark     jonkc at att.net


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Thu Jan  1 15:56:08 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 07:56:08 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs
In-Reply-To: <20040101015640.066fe667.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <20040101155608.70817.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Samantha Atkins <samantha at objectent.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 12:36:49 -0800 (PST)
> Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> 
> > --- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > Would a vehicle search be a civil rights violation?
> > > Yup. Does it
> > > matter? Nope. Why? Because national security is not
> > > bound by civil
> > > rights laws.
> > 
> > Yes it is.
> 
> Yes.  There is nothing in the Constitution that makes exceptions
> except an actual suspension of the Constitution. 

Wrong again Samantha. The Constitution makes room for signing treaties
with other nations. The Geneva Conventions are such treaties, and THEY
specifically make terrorism a military or war crime that is treated and
ajudicated differently from civil crimes.

> 
> > 
> > > Your civil rights being violated is
> > > only grounds to
> > > exclude incriminating evidence from trial, it is not
> > > a "get out of
> > > Guantanamo Free card".
> >
> 
> Your civil rights being violated is a crime committed against you by
> your government.  It is a small or large act of treason by government
> officials who are sworn to uphold the Constitution and be properly
> limited by it.   

With an emphassis on *your* government. Non-citizens have
constitutionally protected rights by courtesy. Yes, they have natural
rights, which we as a signor to the Geneva Conventions have agreed to
*recognise* to belong to non-combantats, legal combatants to a slightly
lesser degree, and to a far lesser degree, illegal combatants. I'll
bet, Samantha, that after two years of my needling you about it, you
STILL haven't read the Geneva Conventions.....

> > > The SCOTUS has ruled on a
> > > number of occasions
> > > that violtions of your civil rights taken in defense
> > > of national
> > > security are quite acceptable.
> >
> 
> Then the SCOTUS is simply wrong.  There is nothing in the
> Constitution, btw, that says the SCOTUS is the legitimate final
> arbitrar of what is and is not Constitutional.  

You know, Samantha, I've heard this claim made by some of the militia
bunker mentality types who wait for the black helicopters to come, but
never by anyone who knows the law and the Constitution.
 
> 
> > > Terrorism is NOT a
> > > civil crime, it is a
> > > military or war crime, and is properly subject to
> > > military law, not
> > > civillian law.
> > 
> 
> Terrorism is so bloody loosely defined that saying it is this or that
> category of crime is virtually meaningless.  Its definition is
> arbitrary so any acts or purported acts or secretly accused acts may
> be subject to whatever whim the authorities care to exercise.  This
> is clearly dead wrong.  It is so wrong it acts like a Big Lie
> stopping the thinking of even many liberty loving folks.

It's definition is only loosely defined in the minds of those who
consistently refuse to read, and remain proudly ignorant of, the Geneva Conventions.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
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From charlie at antipope.org  Thu Jan  1 16:44:04 2004
From: charlie at antipope.org (Charlie Stross)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 16:44:04 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs
In-Reply-To: <20031231164026.2a6911bb.samantha@objectent.com>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0312301354160.23039-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
	<2C2FD451-3B18-11D8-B6F6-000A95B18568@antipope.org>
	<20031231164026.2a6911bb.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <B6040563-3C79-11D8-8B98-000A95B18568@antipope.org>


On 1 Jan 2004, at 00:40, Samantha Atkins wrote:

>> You bet. Which is why the latest news in the UK is that BALPA (the
>> British Air Line Pilots' Association) is telling their members that
>> they don't need to fly if they believe there's an armed stranger on
>> their flight.
> I would give a lot to have had an armed and trained person, marshall 
> or civilian, on the planes involved in 9/11.   The dangers listed 
> above are small relative to the actual tragedy that resulted at least 
> in part from having no such person on board.

News update: BALPA apparently reached an agreement with at least one 
British airline. The arrangement is simple: the identity, armament, and 
seat location of the sky marshall is known to the captain (who may at 
their discretion inform other crew members), the captain and the sky 
marshall discuss in advance how they're going to work together, and the 
sky marshall acts under the captain's orders and authority at all times 
*except* when a hijacking is in progress.

What worries me isn't the possibility of sky marshalls on board planes 
but the fact that BALPA had to kick up a fuss to get these arrangements 
agreed. (Because the alternative -- sky marshalls not talking to the 
air crew, unidentified folks waving guns around on airliners, and so on 
-- doesn't bear thinking about. In the worst case we get hijackers 
masquerading as sky marshalls and the passengers and crew *believing* 
them, up until the last minute. Right?)

>> BALPA want attention focussed instead on heightening security checks
>> before passengers board the aircraft, and point to the poor quality of
>> many security staff as the biggest problem. Unfortunately it costs a
>> *LOT* more to have well-paid, professional, highly-trained airport
>> security staff than minimum wage drones plus one or two sky marshalls.
>>
>
> And what if they miss something?  Are the passengers and the potential 
> direct and secondary victims on the ground to have no additional 
> security?  How is this reasonable?   How does the cost of a trained 
> security on planes compare to the staggering and still growing costs 
> of a single incident like 9/11?

A little thought-experiment for you: how many hijackings have taken 
place since 9/11? Compared to hijackings before 9/11? And if you 
thought a lunatic on your flight was about to try to hijack it, what 
would you do (before and after)?

As I believe Bruce Schneier pointed out, 9/11 was made possible by a 
security design flaw: the general assumption that hijackers weren't 
suicidal. It was a self-correcting problem -- corrected within an hour 
of the first hijackings, as the fate of Flight 93 demonstrates. Since 
9/11, everyone's been so jumpy that at the first sign of trouble cabin 
crew *and* passengers have piled on the trouble-maker.

(Here's a tentative answer to my earlier question: I'm about as 
non-violent as folks come. I do *not* get into or start fights. I don't 
own a gun or a knife or know how to use either or have any self-defense 
training. But if I thought some guy on my flight was going to march up 
to the flight deck and hijack the plane, he'd literally have to go 
through my dead body to get there -- because while I *might* survive a 
fight with an armed hijacker I *wouldn't* survive a 
terrorist-controlled flight into terrain. How about you?)

I think we have far more to worry about from other directions. Bombs in 
unscreened hold baggage, hijackers mailing themselves via FedEx to get 
aboard a freighter aircraft, nut-jobs under the final-approach flight 
line at a major airport with an SA-16, that sort of thing.


-- Charlie



From extropy at unreasonable.com  Thu Jan  1 16:45:51 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2004 11:45:51 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] A scaldic tale, in prose
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040101101543.02d61d00@mail.comcast.net>

In the days since lost Sasha, Bostropians have gathered infrequently. 
Extropians of the Boston region, that is, not followers of Nick 
Bostrom.  Which we might be as well, but I think one such would be called a 
Bostromian, although Bostrompian has more of the flavour of Swift and 
brings to mind Modest Proposals.

So we met on Boxing Day, we fellowship of nine, in the grey afternoon of 
the north lands. Two of the Wise, Steve Witham and Simon! Levy, from the 
First Age of Extropians, had stepped out of primordial time and memory to 
lend their counsel.  Simon! did not bring his fiddle, as promised, but 
other minstrels fretted and plucked.

Unexpectedly, the ranger Lorrey joined our encampment as we sat to our 
spicy string beans and skittles. We cheered his fine tales, grateful we'd 
provisioned enough food to stoke his mighty girth.

We all concluded that northmen should not be so long apart, and vowed to 
bring our clan together with each new moon or, at least, as the season 
changes. And extend a greeting to our cousins in the western lands and over 
the sea to send word of their travels hither, that we might have further 
occasion to feast.

The party main broke after a dozen hours, all but Mike, who remained until 
just before dawn, when he slipped into the last traces of frozen night.


-- Your Chronicler.




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Thu Jan  1 18:29:05 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 10:29:05 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Did Smalley change his mind?
In-Reply-To: <01db01c3d052$5c988160$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401011017500.29388-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Thu, 1 Jan 2004, Brett Paatsch wrote:

> [2389]. R.E. Smalley, "Chemistry on the Nanometer Scale --
> Introductory Remarks," 1996 Welch Conference in Chemistry,
> at: http://cnst.rice.edu/NanoWelch.html

Interesting.  The WayBack machine does have copies.

The full quote is:
"On a length scale of more than one nanometer, the mechanical robot
 assembler metaphor envisioned by Drexler almost certainly will work,
 but within the 1 nm3 volume surrounding the reaction site there is a
 subtlety and complexity that is often not fully appreciated even by
 practicing chemists."

He then goes on to complain about the small volume and the need to
control the motion of the atoms (similar to his Sci. Am. and C&EN
positions) and ends with:
"Since the manipulator "fingers" of the robot would have to be made
 of atoms as well, there appears to be at least one fatal problem
 with the concept of a universal assembler: there simply is not enough
 room inside the 1 nm3 reaction volume both for the atoms desired in the
 final structure and the atomic fingers necessary to control their movement."

So we are back to the fat fingers problem again.  It is an interesting
article.

One of the WayBack URLs is:
  http://web.archive.org/web/20020127070232/http://cnst.rice.edu/NanoWelch.html

It existed in their archives from:
  Jan. 9, 1998 to Jan. 27, 2002

So it is interesting that Robert F. is selectively quoting Smalley with respect
to what works and ignoring what Smalley thinks will not work.  I think this
may be due to the fact that Smalley has a mental framework that is based
entirely on solution phase chemistry (as do almost all chemists) and have
not done their homework to see whether it really is possible to have the
positional accuracies that are discussed in Nanosystems without having to
grab onto each and every atom at the assembly site.  The entire process
of mechanosynthesis is almost antiethical to what chemists normally do
which is to heat things up to get them to move faster to increase the
probabilities that things will come into proper alignment to react
at some reasonable rate.

One thing I don't know is whether the assembler chemistry, esp. free radical
chemistry, changes with temperature.  If it doesn't then the obvious counter
argument to Smalley is simply to cool everything to a few degrees K.

Robert




From spike66 at comcast.net  Thu Jan  1 18:51:31 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 10:51:31 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] martian measurement units
In-Reply-To: <027801c3d020$97187840$a7994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <006701c3d098$45927b60$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

GIANT AIRBAGS WILL GIVE ROVERS' LANDINGS A BOUNCE
-------------------------------------------------
If all goes well, Mars rover "Spirit" will slam into the atmosphere of
the
Red Planet on Saturday night, at an angle of 11.5 degrees, an altitude
of
about 80 miles and a velocity of 12,000 mph. Eight seconds before
touchdown, giant airbags will suddenly inflate, encapsulating the
spacecraft in a protective cocoon.

  http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/031231landing.html

Entry, descent and landing timeline:
  http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/031231edl.html




Miles.  Miles per hour.  {8-[

Seems we yanks have failed to learn our lesson
from the bitter experience of 23 September 1999.

spike

ps Actually this might be just a news media thing.
I would be surprised if NASA still uses English
units anywhere.  Good luck and evolutionspeed Spirit!



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Thu Jan  1 18:54:54 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 10:54:54 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] martian measurement units
In-Reply-To: <006701c3d098$45927b60$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <20040101185454.98001.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
> GIANT AIRBAGS WILL GIVE ROVERS' LANDINGS A BOUNCE
> -------------------------------------------------
> If all goes well, Mars rover "Spirit" will slam into the atmosphere
> of the Red Planet on Saturday night, at an angle of 11.5 degrees, an
> altitude of about 80 miles and a velocity of 12,000 mph. Eight
> seconds before touchdown, giant airbags will suddenly inflate,
> encapsulating the spacecraft in a protective cocoon.
> 
>   http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/031231landing.html
> 
> Miles.  Miles per hour.  {8-[
> 
> Seems we yanks have failed to learn our lesson
> from the bitter experience of 23 September 1999.

Well, what we really need is a Martian system of measurement, just to
make things interesting... I believe Edgar Rice Burroughs developed one
for his John Carter series. I hereby propose that in all future list
discussions, that ERB specced Martian units of measure be used...

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
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From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Thu Jan  1 19:12:38 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 11:12:38 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] martian measurement units
In-Reply-To: <20040101185454.98001.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040101191238.46693.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> Well, what we really need is a Martian system of measurement, just to
> make things interesting... I believe Edgar Rice Burroughs developed
> one
> for his John Carter series. I hereby propose that in all future list
> discussions, that ERB specced Martian units of measure be used...

Sorry, I meant discussions about Mars.

Ah, I was right:
http://www.scarlet-tower.com/heroes-of-mars/adventures/measures.html

In which case, the probe will enter the Barsoomian atmosphere at an
angle of 11.5 karads, at an altitude of 217 Haads and at a velocity of
80,297 haads per zode.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Thu Jan  1 20:12:06 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 15:12:06 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Did Smalley change his mind?
In-Reply-To: <01db01c3d052$5c988160$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>
Message-ID: <006f01c3d0a3$8a9c4690$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Brett Paatsch wrote,
> There is a citation (below) but the link no longer finds a page.
> 
> [2389]. R.E. Smalley, "Chemistry on the Nanometer Scale -- 
> Introductory Remarks," 1996 Welch Conference in Chemistry,
> at: http://cnst.rice.edu/NanoWelch.html
> 
> 
> Did Smalley change his mind about Molecular Manufacturing being
> possible ?   When was the above page removed? 
> 
> Does anyone have an  e-copy of the original remarks?  It would be
> *very* interesting to see what Smalley actually said. 

Nothing can be removed from the Internet!

This page persisted unchanged since before Jan. 9, 1998 through sometime
after Jan. 27, 2002.  Dated archives can be found at
<http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://cnst.rice.edu/NanoWelch.html>.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 






From spike66 at comcast.net  Thu Jan  1 21:17:20 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 13:17:20 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <20040101185454.98001.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3d0ac$a5231d00$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

The M/D approach to Fermi's Paradox

Over the years we extropians have pondered the question Fermi so
eloquently posed in three words: Where are they?  Carl Sagan speculated
in the 1970s that evidently intelligent life was short-lived, ordinarily
self-destructing soon after reaching the technology to communicate over
cosmic distances.  That argument gradually becomes less compelling as
humanity manages to survive into a seventh decade with nukes in our
midst.

As a result of our discussion of Sbrains last week, I have stumbled upon
another explanation for the cosmic silence: we aren't worth the mass to
send us signals.  I will call this argument the M/D approach to Fermi's
paradox.  It works like this:

Suppose that life manages to evolve, and thru some torturous path, makes
it to sentience.   Certainly this is a trivial treatment, few words for
a stunningly difficult phenomenon, however it is evidently possible, for
clearly it happened on this planet.  In this vast universe, with its
hundreds of billions of visible galaxies, each with its hundreds of
billions of stars, each with planets, everything that can happen must
happen.  We have shown that intelligent life can happen.

Today there is no convincing mechanism that would cause technological
progress to stop.  Gray goo is something to worry about, but nature has
had billions of years to stumble upon it.  During that time, she has
derived so many wonderfully complex designs.  It is reassuring that gray
goo was never present in this vast cornucopia of life.  Perhaps there is
some fundamental reason why it cannot happen, some reason why goo cannot
compete with current lifeforms, or is somehow incorporated into current
lifeforms, like mitochondria.   

Even if we nuke ourselves into the stone age, recall that the stone age
lasted until only a few thousand years ago.  Humans are tremendously
adaptable, and many already live in places that would not be worth a
nuke, should all the nuke capable powers let loose with all they have.
Africans would survive, Aborigines would survive, there would be pockets
of humanity everywhere that would carry on.   Even if that horrifying
loss of life and technology nightmare scenario were to come to pass,
recall that all the really important technological advances occurred in
just the past few hundred years.  All-out thermonuclear war would merely
be a temporary setback for the singularity.

If a singularity, then an MBrain.

This is my contention: that artificial intelligence wants to THINK.  It
lives to think.  It is smart enough to make things happen: it knows how
to build things.  If it likes to think, then it wants to get all the
available material thinking, so it builds an MBrain.  It gathers all the
metals in orbit about the star and converts it all to whatever form
maximizes thought.  It is not clear to me what that form is, however if
we assume there is an optimal use for metals, some minimum energy-use
and materials-use configuration (define this as computronium), then the
AI would convert all the metals available into computronium.

So far, all this has been argued before.  The new thought is that the
computronium is optimized by having it collocated as close as possible,
but not more so.  A Sandbergian JBrain is a Jupiter sized sphere of
computronium that exists as a planet.  This would seem to require that
some of the material is under tremendous heat and pressure, even if the
JBrain is spun rapidly and formed into a flattened disk.  At the other
extreme is a Bradburian MBrain, which is computronium that exists as a
large number of particles in orbit about a star, in such a way as to
collect as much of the energy from that star as possible.  This may be
less than optimal for it separates the nodes over greater distances,
thus increasing the latency, or time required to communicate between
nodes.

The M/D approach argues that there is a configuration somewhere between
the JBrain and the MBrain wherein the computronium is separated, but not
by too much.  So it exists as a planet, like a JBrain, but is
technically an MBrain: all SBrains are Mbrains.  A given star system
could even have more than one SBrain.  Commentator Lorrey has suggested
that the proposed SBrain looks like a nautilus shell.  Very well, SBrain
means Shell Brain.  SBrains form to allow all of the available material
to be computroniumized, and M/D simultaneously is maximized, thus
optimizing thought potential.

The SBrain is more specific than the MBrain.  The insight here is that
in optimized computronium, energy is no longer the critical resource,
this being a diffuse form of matter indeed.  Matter and time are the
most valuable resources.  Energy from the star can be allowed to escape,
wasted, lost forever into the cosmos, for there is plenty of that.  But
time cannot be wasted, for heat death is coming to all. 

To an SBrain, the existence of another Sbrain in another orbit is a
valuable resource: the other SBrain might have nodes that are thinking
about some of the same things that are being pondered by one's own
nodes.  Therefore, communication between SBrains would be mutually
beneficial, as communication between humans is considered valuable
enough that we build expensive satellites to make it happen.

If the other SBrain is far away, then of course the communications are
restricted.  The time delay for trading ideas increases linearly with
distance, and the energy required to send the signal increases as the
square of the distance.  So one can speculate that the value of signals
from another SBrain is proportional to the other SBrain's mass and
inversely proportional to the square of its distance.  If two SBrains
managed to form in orbit about the same star, they would soon see the
benefit of merging.  By this argument, the smaller SBrain would move to
join the larger, for the value of signals from the larger is greater
than the reverse.

We wondered if current instruments would able to detect an SBrain.
Current exo-planet detection is based on gravitational wobble caused by
massive planet.  Of course, we could not distinguish between an SBrain
and an ordinary gas giant, or even a large dead rocky planet.  We can
imagine a situation where a star system like ours had an SBrain of mass
about 3 earths with the gas giants unused.  With Mercury, Venus, Earth,
Luna, Mars and the asteroids, we have around 3 earth masses of rocky
material to make an SBrain, but the gas giants, being largely hydrogen
and helium, may not be as useful in building such structures.  So our
instruments would not be able to find the small wobble from a 3-earth
mass, the signal being swamped by a 300 earth-mass gas giant.

Early in this post, I promised to suggest a solution to Fermi's paradox.
Enough background has now been presented.  If there is an energy cost to
sending a signal that is inversely proportional to some function of the
distance, and the value of the incoming signal is proportional to the
mass of the distant SBrain, then it could be that the distant SBrain
would decide that communication between star systems is not worth the
cost of sending the signal.  It would take mass or material to collect
the energy and create a transmitter of some sort.  This is material that
is no longer optimized for computronium, so thought potential is lost.
So talk isn't cheap: it has its cost.  The M/D argument calls upon
Robert Bradbury's question about the value of present thought versus the
possibility of a greater amount of future thought.  When we calculate
the potential of computronium, perhaps the value of present thought far
outweighs the value of potential future thought from a distant star
system, whose maximum mass can be bounded and whose distance is known to
be very large.  The M/D, and thus the potential value of the
communication, is very small, whereas the cost is large.  Transmitting
is a poor investment of valuable resources.

The M/D approach to Fermi's Paradox suggests that the reason the cosmic
abyss is silent is that we are not worth the mass to talk to us.

spike



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Thu Jan  1 21:40:01 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 13:40:01 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] How The Schmirk Stole Nanotechnology
In-Reply-To: <005001c3d026$18b16740$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401011059390.30362-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Wed, 31 Dec 2003, Spike wrote:

Quoting me...
-- Actually spike I think my quote/question was on nanodot, not /.
  http://nanodot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/24/0633205

> I can answer that one: promote it, bigtime.  They will
> promote nanotech to *enhance* current markets. [snip]

Well I'm glad to hear that.

> Note that the nanotech that is being developed at Lockheeed, et.al.
> is not true bottom-up Drexlerian nanotech, but rather
> the next technical steps in miniaturization, top-down.
> They all want to know how we keep going down after
> photolithography gives out, which appears to be soon,
> perhaps in the next 10-15 years.

At least one answer appears to be self-assembly.  The recent
assembly of a nanoscale transistor in Israel and IBM's progress
on self-assembly of micro-domains for data storage plus the
work being promoted by Zettacore suggest that there is going
to be a fair amount of self-assembly being done [also see 1.].
Not the approach I would pick but it seems to be the one that can
be done now using the tools we have available at this time.

Robert

1. For further discussion see my comments in:
 http://nanodot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/01/021236





From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Thu Jan  1 21:55:27 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 16:55:27 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <000001c3d0ac$a5231d00$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <007901c3d0b1$fad5f2e0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Spike wrote,
> As a result of our discussion of Sbrains last week, I have 
> stumbled upon another explanation for the cosmic silence: we 
> aren't worth the mass to send us signals.  I will call this 
> argument the M/D approach to Fermi's paradox.  It works like this:

This is a very strong possibility.  We are not advanced enough yet to be
interesting.

Although I have always assumed that we just haven't discovered the galactic
internet yet.  Our sub-light speed communications are too slow and weak.
Anybody actually communicating over interstellar distances would be using
faster-than-light speeds if possible, so we don't know how to read their
signals yet.  Another point is that they wouldn't be broadcasting in the
clear or promiscuously to everybody.  They probably are using point-to-point
communications that only go to the intended recipient.

In terms of radio-waves, we are the spammers of the galaxy.  We are sending
our stuff everywhere to everyone constantly, whether they want it or not.
They probably hate us.  They probably have tried to reply, but virtually
none of out broadcasters can receive return signals.  We may be on
everybody's spam-blocker list already.  We may need to move to a new planet
and start communicating under a new species name before anybody will answer
us.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From spike66 at comcast.net  Thu Jan  1 22:54:24 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 14:54:24 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <007901c3d0b1$fad5f2e0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <000001c3d0ba$33f64d60$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


> Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
> 
> Spike wrote,
> > ...another explanation for the cosmic silence: we 
> > aren't worth the mass to send us signals.  I will call this 
> > argument the M/D approach to Fermi's paradox.  It works like this...
 
> Although I have always assumed that we just haven't 
> discovered the galactic internet yet...

The internet is a useful metaphor in the M/D model.  We
are nodes, each of us.  Before the internet, we had
face to face communications, publications in magazines,
scientific conferences and personal letters available
as communication devices.  But when the internet came
along, the distance between us suddenly decreased by
orders of magnitude, which brought together such wonderful
examples of spontaneous order as extropians, the math and
science chat groups, the parallel computing efforts and
so on.  The M/D suddenly decreased to the point where
I personally found it worthwhile to spend a large percentage
of my free time exchanging memes online.  

>  Our sub-light speed communications are too 
> slow and weak.
> Anybody actually communicating over interstellar distances 
> would be using
> faster-than-light speeds if possible, so we don't know how to 
> read their
> signals yet...  Harvey

While recognizing this as possible, I am always interested
in examining the grim possibility that the speed of light *really is*
the cosmic speed limit, for everyone everywhere always, forever
and ever, amen.  {8-[

Another scary thought is the possibility that there really 
isn't any magic physics yet to be discovered: that we have
found most of the important limits already, and that they
really are universal limits.  The whole M/D approach to
Fermi's paradox depends on this pessimistic supposition.  

Of course I am eager to be talked out of it, or to be given a 
feasible alternative such as Harvey's we-are-on-the-universal-
spam-blocker-list notion.  However I must say that I find
little comfort in the suggestion that Earth is the
galactic Nigeria.

spike 




From scerir at libero.it  Thu Jan  1 23:21:52 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 00:21:52 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Many worlds and Hugh Everett 
References: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGEEKBCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>
Message-ID: <000301c3d0be$2b1891e0$f0c7fea9@scerir>

From: "Giu1i0 Pri5c0"

> Of course this must be a brick-like approximation, perhaps consciousness
> is a property of the complete wavefunction that does not allow itself to
> be associated to a specific projection.

Suppose that the "universal" quantum state can be expressed as gigantic
sum of tensor products of states of subsystems.

If a measurement with a probabilistic outcome is undertaken, the world
splits into several worlds, and each possible outcome of the observations
appears in the fraction of the new worlds given by the quantum-mechanical
probability of that outcome.

If we define two kinds of reality (as E.P.Wigner did, and Descartes also
did) the first kind of reality would be the immediate content of the
subject's consciousness, and it is "absolute" in the sense of not
depending upon inference from anything other than itself, in contrast
with all instances of the second kind of reality.

Suppose that in the "universal" quantum state expressed as gigantic
sum of tensor products of states of subsystems there is a term which
correctly describes an item of consciousness of the subject reading a
pointer (of some apparatus). This term represents an instance of the 
first kind of reality (as defined above).

The problem is now that the terms, in the sum of tensor products of 
states of subsystems, which attributes a different sensation 
to the subject, fails to represent this reality. 

Consequently, the enormous set of different worlds designated by the 
terms, in the sum of tensor products of states of subsystems, cannot 
have the same ontological standing. 

We can reformulate the above Wigner's argument about (and against) MWI
in different terms. That is to say, the question is left unanswered
why in any measurement an observer finds himself in one, and not in
other branches. Is MWI perhaps introducing a large-scale indeterminism
which moreover includes the observer himself?

s.



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Thu Jan  1 23:56:56 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 15:56:56 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <000001c3d0ba$33f64d60$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <20040101235656.39290.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:

> as communication devices.  But when the internet came
> along, the distance between us suddenly decreased by
> orders of magnitude, which brought together such wonderful
> examples of spontaneous order as extropians, the math and
> science chat groups, the parallel computing efforts and
> so on.  The M/D suddenly decreased to the point where
> I personally found it worthwhile to spend a large percentage
> of my free time exchanging memes online.  
> 
> >  Our sub-light speed communications are too 
> > slow and weak.
> > Anybody actually communicating over interstellar distances 
> > would be using
> > faster-than-light speeds if possible, so we don't know how to 
> > read their
> > signals yet...  Harvey
> > 
> Of course I am eager to be talked out of it, or to be given a 
> feasible alternative such as Harvey's we-are-on-the-universal-
> spam-blocker-list notion.  However I must say that I find
> little comfort in the suggestion that Earth is the
> galactic Nigeria.

Considering that our system is located in deep space between galactic
arms, not only are we Nigeria, worse yet, we are Chad: full of
ignorance  and supertition, fighting all the time, lacking in high tech
infrastructure, no highways, and far from the nearest seaport. Galactic
Nigeria would be scifi paradise compared to Earth.

What other planet calls itself 'dirt'???? ;)

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan  2 01:51:42 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 17:51:42 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] CATO: Friedman Prize nomination
Message-ID: <20040102015142.20253.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>

http://www.cato.org/special/friedman/prize/friedmanprize.html

Free Staters are trying to get the founder of the FSP, Dr. Jason
Sorens into serious consideration for the Friedman Prize, awarded by
the Cato Institute to individuals who have accomplished much for
liberty in the past year. I encourage everyone to go to the above
page and lend your nomination, and to tell others of this campaign.
 


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From thespike at earthlink.net  Fri Jan  2 03:01:47 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 21:01:47 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
References: <000001c3d0ac$a5231d00$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <014501c3d0dc$c5bd35c0$d2994a43@texas.net>

FWIW:

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/01/1072908849778.html

A tenth of the stars in the Milky Way may have planets that support advanced
life, Australian scientists have said.

Astronomers have plotted a ring-shaped region of the galaxy where there
might be Earth-like worlds old enough for life to have reached a high level
of evolution.

The sun exists in this "Galactic Habitable Zone", which contains about 10
per cent of all the Milky Way's stars.

Stars within the band have enough heavy elements to form Earth-like planets,
are a safe distance from catastrophic supernova explosions, and have existed
for at least four billion years.

The Australian team, led by Charles Lineweaver from the University of NSW,
used a chemical evolution model of the galaxy to identify the region.

Three-quarters of the stars in the zone were older than the sun, ranging in
age between four and eight billion years.

[etc]



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan  2 03:15:08 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 19:15:08 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <007901c3d0b1$fad5f2e0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401011908400.5960-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Thu, 1 Jan 2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote:

> In terms of radio-waves, we are the spammers of the galaxy.  We are sending
> our stuff everywhere to everyone constantly, whether they want it or not.

I'm not sure Harvey.  Radio in general is such a low-bandwidth carrier.
I can't see the advanced civilizations using it for anything.  Anyway
there are natural sources of radiowaves that are spamming the galaxy.
Can't easily do much about them.

Direct point-to-point communications using wavelength division multiplexing
(WDM) is probably the way to go.  You could get thousands of frequencies.
You would like to push it up into the UV frequencies or higher but UV
photons at the mid-UV and higher would tend to damage the atomic bonds
of the receivers.  Now that may be quite ok if the additional information
received can be justified by using some energy and a bunch of nanorobots
to recycle and rebuild the receivers on an ongoing basis.

If the above speculations are true, then we might have receivers that
could detect signals but they are probably so tightly focused that our
chances of running into one are probably slim to nill.

Robert




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan  2 03:37:22 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 19:37:22 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <000001c3d0ac$a5231d00$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401011922430.5960-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Thu, 1 Jan 2004, Spike wrote:

[snipping a lot of spikes intro material]

> The M/D approach to Fermi's Paradox suggests that the reason the cosmic
> abyss is silent is that we are not worth the mass to talk to us.

I'm assuming M=mass and D=distance (correct if otherwise).

Well, I'm not sure you can discard Energy so easily -- due to E=MC^2.
It takes minimal amounts of mass to harvest all that energy (less than
the mass of Mercury if I recall).  And with all that energy you can
dismantle the Gas Giants (though it takes hundreds of years).
>From the GG you get another couple of dozen Earth masses of
metals most likely.  So it seems probable that even if you want
to optimize the computronium there is a period when it makes
sense to take the star dark to harvest all the metals in the
solar system.  After that it gets a little more interesting
as one is going to think about where and when nearby encounters
with Brown Dwarfs may occur and/or whether you should attempt
to bring them back whole, dismantle them using their own
H and send back a matter stream, etc.

Now getting back into the communication aspect -- I started a paper
on how much information an advanced civilization probably has at
its disposal -- I stopped after I got to 2^50+ bits (even though
I thought I could push it quite a bit further).  There isn't any
way you can push even a small fraction of that across interstellar
distances.  The only way you can share that much information is
when you get two civilizations *very* close to each other because
you have to set up highly parallel communication channels.  One
would like multi-meter diameter fiber bundles made out of 50 nm
fibers (we have 50 nm fibers *now* no telling how much smaller
we might go).  That is a *lot* of fiber capacity, particularly
if you use WDM on each cable to get thousands of carriers.

Now, I'm somewhat doubtful that you can get 2 JBrains much less
2 MBrains close enough to string the cable but one never knows
what their capabilities might be.  If not, then in a pinch
you resort to lots of lasers to send CCD arrays to receive.
Remember Spike -- an advanced civilization can have 100 billion
telescopes of lunar diameter using on ~1% of the available mass.
So there will be times when close encounters and very high
bandwidth communications opportunities may justify turning a
fairly large amount of material into transmitters and receivers.
When you are done with your phone call you just turn the mass
back into computronium.

Robert





From thespike at earthlink.net  Fri Jan  2 04:12:29 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 22:12:29 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401011922430.5960-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <018301c3d0e6$a62369a0$d2994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2004 9:37 PM

> When you are done with your phone call you just turn the mass
> back into computronium.

Hey, that mass was somebody's mother!

Damien Broderick



From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au  Fri Jan  2 06:49:42 2004
From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 17:49:42 +1100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Did Smalley change his mind?
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401011017500.29388-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <037601c3d0fc$9a780a00$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>

Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

> On Thu, 1 Jan 2004, Brett Paatsch wrote:
>
> > [2389]. R.E. Smalley, "Chemistry on the Nanometer Scale --
> > Introductory Remarks," 1996 Welch Conference in Chemistry,
> > at: http://cnst.rice.edu/NanoWelch.html
>
> Interesting.  The WayBack machine does have copies.

Thanks Robert (and Harvey).

> One of the WayBack URLs is:
>
http://web.archive.org/web/20020127070232/http://cnst.rice.edu/NanoWelch.htm
l
>
> It existed in their archives from:
>   Jan. 9, 1998 to Jan. 27, 2002
>
> So it is interesting that Robert F. is selectively quoting Smalley
> with respect to what works and ignoring what Smalley thinks
> will not work.

Yes. Ouch !

Regards,
Brett



From samantha at objectent.com  Fri Jan  2 10:59:33 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 02:59:33 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <014501c3d0dc$c5bd35c0$d2994a43@texas.net>
References: <000001c3d0ac$a5231d00$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
	<014501c3d0dc$c5bd35c0$d2994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <20040102025933.536de531.samantha@objectent.com>

On Thu, 1 Jan 2004 21:01:47 -0600
"Damien Broderick" <thespike at earthlink.net> wrote:

> FWIW:
> 
> http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/01/1072908849778.html
> 
> A tenth of the stars in the Milky Way may have planets that support advanced
> life, Australian scientists have said.
> 
>It would be more accurate to say that 10% of the planets in the milky way pass one rough cut filter for possibly supporting advanced (should be intelligent?) life.

- samantha


From samantha at objectent.com  Fri Jan  2 11:09:59 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 03:09:59 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs
In-Reply-To: <20040101155608.70817.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040101015640.066fe667.samantha@objectent.com>
	<20040101155608.70817.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040102030959.3feec5fc.samantha@objectent.com>

On Thu, 1 Jan 2004 07:56:08 -0800 (PST)
Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 
> --- Samantha Atkins <samantha at objectent.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 12:36:49 -0800 (PST)
> > Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> > 
> > > --- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > Would a vehicle search be a civil rights violation?
> > > > Yup. Does it
> > > > matter? Nope. Why? Because national security is not
> > > > bound by civil
> > > > rights laws.
> > > 
> > > Yes it is.
> > 
> > Yes.  There is nothing in the Constitution that makes exceptions
> > except an actual suspension of the Constitution. 
> 
> Wrong again Samantha. The Constitution makes room for signing treaties
> with other nations. The Geneva Conventions are such treaties, and THEY
> specifically make terrorism a military or war crime that is treated and
> ajudicated differently from civil crimes.

As I understand it the Constitution prohibits entanglements with foreign nations that threaten the Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the American people.  If it doesn't I strongly suggest we work for such an Amendment.

> 
> > 
> > > 
> > > > Your civil rights being violated is
> > > > only grounds to
> > > > exclude incriminating evidence from trial, it is not
> > > > a "get out of
> > > > Guantanamo Free card".
> > >
> > 
> > Your civil rights being violated is a crime committed against you by
> > your government.  It is a small or large act of treason by government
> > officials who are sworn to uphold the Constitution and be properly
> > limited by it.   
> 
> With an emphassis on *your* government. Non-citizens have
> constitutionally protected rights by courtesy. Yes, they have natural
> rights, which we as a signor to the Geneva Conventions have agreed to
> *recognise* to belong to non-combantats, legal combatants to a slightly
> lesser degree, and to a far lesser degree, illegal combatants. I'll
> bet, Samantha, that after two years of my needling you about it, you
> STILL haven't read the Geneva Conventions.....
> 

The Constitution does not specify that only American citizens have human rights acknowledged and protected by our form of government.   I do not recognize "illegal combatant" as being a very precise category or as somehow removing one's human rights as soon as some government slaps the label (with or without evidence and a hearing) on.   I bet after two years of these exchanges that you still don't get that the Geneva Conventions are actually largely irrelevant to the central issue.



> > > > The SCOTUS has ruled on a
> > > > number of occasions
> > > > that violtions of your civil rights taken in defense
> > > > of national
> > > > security are quite acceptable.
> > >
> > 
> > Then the SCOTUS is simply wrong.  There is nothing in the
> > Constitution, btw, that says the SCOTUS is the legitimate final
> > arbitrar of what is and is not Constitutional.  
> 
> You know, Samantha, I've heard this claim made by some of the militia
> bunker mentality types who wait for the black helicopters to come, but
> never by anyone who knows the law and the Constitution.
>

Hell, the claim was made by Jefferson.  So I wouldn't mind being included in that "bunker" type mentality.

> > Terrorism is so bloody loosely defined that saying it is this or that
> > category of crime is virtually meaningless.  Its definition is
> > arbitrary so any acts or purported acts or secretly accused acts may
> > be subject to whatever whim the authorities care to exercise.  This
> > is clearly dead wrong.  It is so wrong it acts like a Big Lie
> > stopping the thinking of even many liberty loving folks.
> 
> It's definition is only loosely defined in the minds of those who
> consistently refuse to read, and remain proudly ignorant of, the Geneva Conventions.
> 


Hell.  Read the Patriot Act and tell me it is well-defined.

- samantha


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan  2 11:34:49 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 03:34:49 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <018301c3d0e6$a62369a0$d2994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401020321590.13692-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Thu, 1 Jan 2004, Damien Broderick responding to my comments wrote:

> Hey, that mass was somebody's mother!

Perhaps.  But only if advanced civilizations inhabit stars that
turn into supernovas or if the civilization developed early enough
that the mass has been recycled in some way.  If it has been
recycled that implies that they either didn't hit the singularity
before a civilization destroying event (GRBs, SN, etc.) or they
evolved themselves into a form where matter was not important.

Spike's M/D perspective leaves out computronium where there
are very high fractions of electrons, positrons, neutrinos
or photons.

Didn't Moravec speculate at some point on matter composed
of muons?  Just because there may be some limits now doesn't
mean that in the future one will not be able to construct
essential computer elements faster than they decay.
(Though I'll admit that seems like a long shot.)

R.




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan  2 11:49:55 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 03:49:55 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Did Smalley change his mind?
In-Reply-To: <037601c3d0fc$9a780a00$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401020336130.13692-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Brett Paatsch wrote:

> > So it is interesting that Robert F. is selectively quoting Smalley
> > with respect to what works and ignoring what Smalley thinks
> > will not work.
>
> Yes. Ouch !

Not so much -- Robert F. could not really get into extensive
discussions of the Drexler v. Smalley debates in NM V. I.
There was too much material that needed to be covered.
There is a complex balance that is required between depth
and breadth.

Of critical importance is precisely *where* anything Smalley
says contradicts what Drexler says in Chapter 8 of Nanosystems.

I strongly suspect Smalley hasn't even read Chapter 8 of NS.
If he cannot point to a place where Eric's assumptions or
conclusions are wrong then he doesn't have a strong leg
to stand on.

While I'm not going to go through Smalley's papers tonight
I seem to recall at some conference that researchers said
that they had created nanotubes a decade or more before Smalley
ever encountered them.  I also don't seem to recall
any evidence that Smalley ever actually set out to
create buckyballs or buckytubes.  He just may have been
sufficiently observant to have discovered something that
was always there.  If so I would question whether this
is something that deserves a Nobel prize.  It seems
to belong more in the class of the fellow who discovered
gold in some creek in California.

In contrast it would seem that the Wright brothers or
even Lindburgh put a lot more effort into their
accomplishments.

Someone correct me if the can find evidence that this
perspective is flawed.

I have no doubt that Smalley is a good chemist -- but
I would love to stack up Smalley's PhD thesis against
Nanosystems and see just how well they compare.

Robert




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan  2 12:06:34 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 04:06:34 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <20040102025933.536de531.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401020352230.13692-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Samantha Atkins wrote:

> "Damien Broderick" <thespike at earthlink.net> wrote:
> > http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/01/1072908849778.html [snip]

At least with respect to the age of the planets, Charlie has been pointing this out
since the Blois conference which I think was in 2000.  He and his students have
been extending the results since then -- but for some of us the implications
are old news.

This may be from Samantha [the nesting attributions are confusing]:
> >It would be more accurate to say that 10% of the planets in the milky way pass one
> > rough cut filter for possibly supporting advanced (should be intelligent?) life.

Its a bit more complex than that.  Closer to the galactic center you have more star
formation, more supernovas, faster metal accumulation, faster development of a
galactic habitable zone, perhaps faster evolution of complex life forms.  There
may be more planets (of various sizes) in locations where the metal content is
greater.  At the same time due to GRB, nearby SN, etc. the hazard function may
be greater and so in order to survive one has to evolve more quickly to survive.

The further out you go in the galaxy the less metal, the fewer GRB, SN, etc. so both
development rates and hazard function rates may be slower.  Over time it is likely the
galactic habitable zone moves from the inner to the outer portions of the galaxy.
But this assumes no intergalactic collisions which could significantly upset
rates and locations of star formation, the rates of metal creation, GRB, SN, etc.

Soooo....  While I admire Charlie & Co's work -- I think we are going to have to
run a number of backward simulations of the creation of the Milky Way as it exists
today in order to understand fully what took place in our galaxy and how that
impacted its evolution (and as a result the probable evolution of intelligence).

Robert




From natashavita at earthlink.net  Fri Jan  2 16:48:35 2004
From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 11:48:35 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] GQ Magazine Interview - Biggest Hope for Immortality
Message-ID: <191690-22004152164835994@M2W033.mail2web.com>

Hi -

I thought I'd ask if anyone has *up-to-date* answers for these 2 questions
of the interview - just in case any of you have insights that are broader
and more spot on than my own. :-)

1. "What is the biggest problem about achieving immortality?"

2. "What is the biggest chance, the biggest hope for immortality?"

You can email me privately.

Thanks,
Natasha

Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan  2 16:55:45 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 08:55:45 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <018301c3d0e6$a62369a0$d2994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <20040102165545.63409.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Damien Broderick <thespike at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com>
> Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2004 9:37 PM
> 
> > When you are done with your phone call you just turn the mass
> > back into computronium.
> 
> Hey, that mass was somebody's mother!

Nah, that was some masshole... ;)

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From dirk at neopax.com  Fri Jan  2 16:57:46 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 16:57:46 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
References: <000001c3d0ba$33f64d60$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <00c101c3d151$8bd0d0e0$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Spike" <spike66 at comcast.net>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2004 10:54 PM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach


>
> While recognizing this as possible, I am always interested
> in examining the grim possibility that the speed of light *really is*
> the cosmic speed limit, for everyone everywhere always, forever
> and ever, amen.  {8-[

Recall reading a paper a few years ago that showed that FTL is equivalent to
'sliding' across worlds in the MWI

> Another scary thought is the possibility that there really
> isn't any magic physics yet to be discovered: that we have
> found most of the important limits already, and that they
> really are universal limits.  The whole M/D approach to
> Fermi's paradox depends on this pessimistic supposition.

I think the most likely explanation is the Simulation Argument.
However, here's another posibility.
That the fall into a Black Hole creates infinite computing resources as one
approaches the singularity.
All advanced civilisations opt for such 'extinction'.

> Of course I am eager to be talked out of it, or to be given a
> feasible alternative such as Harvey's we-are-on-the-universal-
> spam-blocker-list notion.  However I must say that I find
> little comfort in the suggestion that Earth is the
> galactic Nigeria.

What would ET want from us?
Science is pretty much irrelevent.
I suggest that what is valuable is art, religion, philosophy  etc and all
those things that are *not* universal.
In which case making contact now would simply poison the well from their POV

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From dirk at neopax.com  Fri Jan  2 17:07:29 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 17:07:29 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] that bad old internet
References: <004b01c3d015$89b90300$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <00d901c3d152$e7ac7b70$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Spike" <spike66 at comcast.net>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2004 3:15 AM
Subject: [extropy-chat] that bad old internet



>
> My burden is for my own neices, aged 11 and 13.  Their
> parents do not allow them any access to the internet
> because of... well, you can imagine any number of reasons
> why not.  These girls are polite, honest, upstanding
> citizens, excellent students and excellent readers.
> But their vast cluelessness knows no bounds.  They are
> so naive, so very unaware of the world in which they will
> soon enter, it worries me.  What happens when they enter
> college without internet research skills?  They will know
> all about American history (sort of) from their wide
> reading about how children lived in past decades.  But

Learning to use the Net is no big deal once one hits google.
As for their future prospects, I think Frank Zappa wrote a song about
something similar with 'Catholic Girls'

> they will know almost nothing about the things that
> matter for prosperity in our world.  This latest adventure
> with the pastor telling my in-laws that the internet is
> evil didn't help matters at all.


SDAs are, IMO, one of the most retard of Xian sects.
[Just thought I'd add that gratuitous religious insult to round off the
discussion...]

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From dirk at neopax.com  Fri Jan  2 17:15:35 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 17:15:35 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] GQ Magazine Interview - Biggest Hope for
	Immortality
References: <191690-22004152164835994@M2W033.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <00e701c3d154$08d523f0$d2256bd5@artemis>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <natashavita at earthlink.net>
To: <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: <advisors at alcor.org>; <a-grg at wild98.com>
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 4:48 PM
Subject: [extropy-chat] GQ Magazine Interview - Biggest Hope for Immortality


> Hi -
>
> I thought I'd ask if anyone has *up-to-date* answers for these 2 questions
> of the interview - just in case any of you have insights that are broader
> and more spot on than my own. :-)
>
> 1. "What is the biggest problem about achieving immortality?"
>
> 2. "What is the biggest chance, the biggest hope for immortality?"

The obvious answer to both is 'not dying'.
However...

1. Overpopulation in the medium term
2. Stem cell research. We need to be kept alive long enough for other
technologies to become available.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan  2 17:21:32 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 09:21:32 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs
In-Reply-To: <20040102030959.3feec5fc.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <20040102172132.5915.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Samantha Atkins <samantha at objectent.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Jan 2004 07:56:08 -0800 (PST)
> Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > 
> > Wrong again Samantha. The Constitution makes room for signing
> treaties
> > with other nations. The Geneva Conventions are such treaties, and
> THEY
> > specifically make terrorism a military or war crime that is treated
> and
> > ajudicated differently from civil crimes.
> 
> As I understand it the Constitution prohibits entanglements with
> foreign nations that threaten the Constitutionally guaranteed freedom
> of the American people.  If it doesn't I strongly suggest we work for
> such an Amendment.

Wrong again. There is no such prohibition. George Washington warned
against getting involved in foreign entanglements, but the context of
that is getting involved in wars that in no way relate to our national
interest (like the Balkans). Protecting our nations oil supply IS in
our national interest and thus is not a foreign entanglement, but that
is a separate issue. Signing a treaty about ajudicating proper behavior
of people engaged in military action is not an 'entanglement', and it
has served to protect our boys on a number of occasions.
 
> > > Your civil rights being violated is a crime committed against you
> by
> > > your government.  It is a small or large act of treason by
> government
> > > officials who are sworn to uphold the Constitution and be
> properly
> > > limited by it.   
> > 
> > With an emphassis on *your* government. Non-citizens have
> > constitutionally protected rights by courtesy. Yes, they have
> natural
> > rights, which we as a signor to the Geneva Conventions have agreed
> to
> > *recognise* to belong to non-combantats, legal combatants to a
> slightly
> > lesser degree, and to a far lesser degree, illegal combatants. I'll
> > bet, Samantha, that after two years of my needling you about it,
> you
> > STILL haven't read the Geneva Conventions.....
> > 
> 
> The Constitution does not specify that only American citizens have
> human rights acknowledged and protected by our form of government.  
> I do not recognize "illegal combatant" as being a very precise
> category or as somehow removing one's human rights as soon as some
> government slaps the label (with or without evidence and a hearing)
> on.   I bet after two years of these exchanges that you still don't
> get that the Geneva Conventions are actually largely irrelevant to
> the central issue.

On the contrary, you still don't seem to get that they are the central
issue. An illegal combatant loses all rights in the country he is
caught in, and loses any expectation that his home government will do
anything for him. This is well settled law both here in the US and
elsewhere, even in the Hague.

The US is being extremely tolerant of these fellows in Gitmo. Under the
Geneva Conventions, they can all be summarily executed, and could have
been from the time they were captured.
 
> > > 
> > > Then the SCOTUS is simply wrong.  There is nothing in the
> > > Constitution, btw, that says the SCOTUS is the legitimate final
> > > arbitrar of what is and is not Constitutional.  
> > 
> > You know, Samantha, I've heard this claim made by some of the
> militia
> > bunker mentality types who wait for the black helicopters to come,
> but
> > never by anyone who knows the law and the Constitution.
> >
> 
> Hell, the claim was made by Jefferson.  So I wouldn't mind being
> included in that "bunker" type mentality.

The only authority over the Supreme Court is that the Congress can
impeach a justice. In that sense, there is a higher authority, but that
only applies to truly criminal behavior by a justice, not just a mere
difference of opinion. Otherwise there would have been a lot more
impeachements in our history.

> > > 
> > It's definition is only loosely defined in the minds of those who
> > consistently refuse to read, and remain proudly ignorant of, the
> Geneva Conventions. 
> 
> Hell.  Read the Patriot Act and tell me it is well-defined.

That is changing the subject.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From thespike at earthlink.net  Fri Jan  2 17:41:41 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 11:41:41 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] embryo research status in Oz
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401020352230.13692-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <004901c3d157$b22a9180$d6ef9a40@texas.net>

[No multi-donor embryos (3 or more sources) permitted, no clones to be
implanted, etc]

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/02/1072908911785.html

Embryo research go-ahead in weeks
By Tom Noble
Health Editor
January 3, 2004


The Federal Government will approve the first experiments on "excess" IVF
embryos within weeks following applications from universities, research
institutes and private companies.

And in an effort to counter concerns over the controversial research, the
Government is employing two inspectors to ensure that its new laws on
cloning and embryo use are not broken.

Prominent scientists believe as many as 15 different groups could be vying
for licences.

...
Melbourne IVF would grow embryos to about six days old, then extract the
inner cell mass - up to 40 cells from an embryo of about 160 cells. The
process destroys the embryo. The extracted embryonic stem cells would
multiply indefinitely and be used for experiments.

...
The nine-member licensing committee can decide the period of any licence
issued, impose conditions and revoke licences.

Dr Morris said the inspectors' work would not be limited to people holding a
licence. "They will be working, where necessary, with the state or federal
police if there's a suspicion people are undertaking human cloning, or
something similar."

Laws that allow experiments on "excess" IVF embryos - which can be used only
under strict conditions - were passed by Federal Parliament 12 months ago
after an emotional and sometimes bitter debate about the ethics of
experimenting and killing days-old human embryos.

Only embryos created before April 5, 2002, can be used and they must be
regarded as "spare" - in other words, they would have been destroyed if not
used for experiments. The parents of the embryos must give written
permission for their use.

Anyone who uses an excess embryo without a licence faces five years' jail,
plus fines of $165,000 for a company and $33,000 for an individual. A
licence holder that breaks the law loses its licence.

The laws ban human cloning, which carries a penalty of up to 15 years' jail
and fines of $495,000 for a company and $99,000 for an individual.



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Fri Jan  2 18:00:14 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 13:00:14 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (was fermi's paradox:
	m/d approach)
In-Reply-To: <00c101c3d151$8bd0d0e0$d2256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <011801c3d15a$494a1700$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Dirk Bruere wrote,
> I think the most likely explanation is the Simulation 
> Argument.

I find the Simulation Argument violates Occam's Razor.  It adds complexity
that is not needed.  It does not help explain any observable phenomenon.  It
also seems to reject all science.  If everything we observe is a simulation,
then the simulation does not have to be constrained to known physical laws.
Everything we think we know is wrong.  Anything is possible, whether science
thinks it is or not.  The acceptance of the Simulation Argument seems to
require a rejection of science.

I also find the statistical analysis of the Simulation Argument to be
suspect.  The claim seems to be that there are more simulations than real
universes because more than one simulation can fit into each universe.  That
is about as useful as claiming we must be inside an atom because there are
so many more atoms than universes.  Any simulation within a universe is
incomplete.  A complete simulation of the entire universe would expand to
take resources in the real universe until a 100% utilization of resources
could produce a 100% perfect simulation of the real universe.  Any lesser
simulation is really a fraction of the size/duration/complexity of the real
universe and should count proportionately less.  In fact, the sum total of
all simulations within a real universe should be less that of the containing
universe.  

The size/duration/complexity of all real universes is larger than the
size/duration/complexity of all their simulations put together.  Unless
simulations tend to take over 100% of a universe's total resources before
the universe's lifespan is half over, real unconsumed resources outnumber
simulated resources.  Even going with the Simulation Argument's faulty
premise, the statistics still don't seem to support the conclusion.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan  2 18:14:07 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 10:14:07 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (was fermi's paradox:
	m/d approach)
In-Reply-To: <011801c3d15a$494a1700$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040102181407.17216.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> Dirk Bruere wrote,
> > I think the most likely explanation is the Simulation 
> > Argument.
> 
> I find the Simulation Argument violates Occam's Razor.  It adds
> complexity that is not needed.  It does not help explain any
> observable phenomenon.  It also seems to reject all science. 
> If everything we observe is a simulation, then the simulation
> does not have to be constrained to known physical laws. 
> Everything we think we know is wrong.  Anything is possible,
> whether science thinks it is or not.  The acceptance of the
> Simulation Argument seems to require a rejection of science.

Heard of a lecture by Hawking several years ago about what sort of
phenomena one could expect around black holes, and he dumbfounded the
audience by suggesting that ANYthing could be expected to pop out of a
black hole: Thor, Barney the Dinosaur, you name it, if it can be
imagined, it has a potential to come out of a black hole via warping.

Science is only useful for describing what is normal and consistent for
this universe. Its ability to predict what exists outside this
universe, or what may intrude here from other realities (via
singularities) is hamstrung by the fact that science relies on a body
of data from observation, none of which we have regarding these things.

Hawking Radiation is about as close as you can get to penetrating the
veil of the boundary of this universe.


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From dirk at neopax.com  Fri Jan  2 18:16:55 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 18:16:55 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] embryo research status in Oz
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401020352230.13692-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
	<004901c3d157$b22a9180$d6ef9a40@texas.net>
Message-ID: <01b701c3d15c$9aa46f90$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Damien Broderick" <thespike at earthlink.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 5:41 PM
Subject: [extropy-chat] embryo research status in Oz


> [No multi-donor embryos (3 or more sources) permitted, no clones to be
> implanted, etc]
>
> http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/02/1072908911785.html
>
> Embryo research go-ahead in weeks
> By Tom Noble
> Health Editor
> January 3, 2004
>
>
> The Federal Government will approve the first experiments on "excess" IVF
> embryos within weeks following applications from universities, research
> institutes and private companies.


I think we are beginning to see that the US Xian fundie influence is not
exportable.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan  2 18:18:23 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 10:18:23 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] GQ Magazine Interview - Biggest Hope for
	Immortality
In-Reply-To: <191690-22004152164835994@M2W033.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401021005420.18927-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, natashavita at earthlink.net wrote:

> 1. "What is the biggest problem about achieving immortality?"

Boredom.  In the *first* place immortality is probably impossible
unless one can assert that protons do not decay -- and in the
current standard model of physics they probably do decay
(though this takes a *very* long time and has yet to be proven
experimentally to the best of my knowledge).

So you have a terminology problem with the question as stated.

The boredom problem will probably lead to people taking increasing
risks (extreme extreme sports -- e.g. Fear Factor with no safeties)
or perhaps committing suicide after a few hundred years.

Population growth is not a problem in "achieving" immortality.
Its a moral problem as to whether one devotes more resources
towards helping many people live better -- but shorter, non-immortal
lives or whether one devotes the resources towards helping fewer
people live longer lives (which will eventually help everyone still
alive live longer lives).

Its also true that if the singularity arguments hold -- then the
population growth ("Club of Rome") arguments are all ca-ca.
We *know* that nanotech -- and extremely advanced biotech
(significantly changing the food and energy equations) are
going to be available before 2050 (the standard point where
everyone says everything from famine to global warming are
going to start destroying humanity).

> 2. "What is the biggest chance, the biggest hope for immortality?"

I'd tend to agree with the stem cells perspective.  After that
I'd say "whole genome engineering".  After that I'd say organogenesis
based on synthetic genomes.  After that I'd say nanorobotic
enhancment from respirocytes to vasculoid systems.

Robert




From dirk at neopax.com  Fri Jan  2 18:23:07 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 18:23:07 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Simulation Argument critique (was fermi's
	paradox: m/d approach)
References: <011801c3d15a$494a1700$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <01c201c3d15d$780d5810$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harvey Newstrom" <mail at HarveyNewstrom.com>
To: "'Dirk Bruere'" <dirk at neopax.com>; "'ExI chat list'"
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 6:00 PM
Subject: Simulation Argument critique (was fermi's paradox: m/d approach)


> Dirk Bruere wrote,
> > I think the most likely explanation is the Simulation
> > Argument.

> I find the Simulation Argument violates Occam's Razor.  It adds complexity
> ...thinks it is or not.  The acceptance of the Simulation Argument seems
to
> require a rejection of science.

I do not think Occam's Razor applies, or if it does, it favours the
Simulation Argument.
The only premise required is that simulations of the complexity we see
around us are possible using modest resources.

> I also find the statistical analysis of the Simulation Argument to be
> suspect.  The claim seems to be that there are more simulations than real

Well, I'm not getting into a stats argument.
They are never ending and never resolvable.

> universes because more than one simulation can fit into each universe.
That
> is about as useful as claiming we must be inside an atom because there are
> so many more atoms than universes.  Any simulation within a universe is
> incomplete.  A complete simulation of the entire universe would expand to
> take resources in the real universe until a 100% utilization of resources
> could produce a 100% perfect simulation of the real universe.  Any lesser
> simulation is really a fraction of the size/duration/complexity of the
real
> universe and should count proportionately less.  In fact, the sum total of
> all simulations within a real universe should be less that of the
containing
> universe.

It all depends on the scale of the simulation.
The simplest, a Matrix style simulation, requires very little processing
power (but IMO is ruled out by the effects of hallucinogens).
I doubt whether any sane creator would opt for a Planck  level simulation of
an entire universe across 13.7b yrs - it's just unnecessary

> The size/duration/complexity of all real universes is larger than the
> size/duration/complexity of all their simulations put together.  Unless
> simulations tend to take over 100% of a universe's total resources before
> the universe's lifespan is half over, real unconsumed resources outnumber
> simulated resources.  Even going with the Simulation Argument's faulty
> premise, the statistics still don't seem to support the conclusion.

Stats are only as good as the assumptions.
Consider 'The Golden Age' entertainments.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan  2 18:27:29 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 10:27:29 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (was fermi's paradox:
	m/d approach)
In-Reply-To: <011801c3d15a$494a1700$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401021019360.18927-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote:

> The size/duration/complexity of all real universes is larger than the
> size/duration/complexity of all their simulations put together. [snip]

I'm not sure how you justify this Harvey.  It would seem to assume
that the universes in which the sims are run are playing by the same
laws of physics as our universe.  I don't see how that has to hold.
For example -- if we develop femtotech (sub-atomic engineering)
or photon-tech (massless engineering) I could see us setting up
significant simulations of universes limited to nanotech.  Since
we have no clue as to what technology is being used to host
a simulation of our universe (if such is the case) I don't
see how you can argue limits based on "all real universes".
The sims could be running a variety of what we consider to
be "real universes" based on various physical laws, after
that they will run another set of sims, and so on and so
forth.  There may be no beginning, no end, no heat death
and a completly different set of rules in whatever (one
hesitates to call it a universe) is hosting the sims
(again -- if that is the case).

Robert



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Fri Jan  2 18:32:15 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 13:32:15 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (was fermi's
	paradox:m/d approach)
In-Reply-To: <20040102181407.17216.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <011901c3d15e$c2a155b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Mike Lorrey wrote,
> Science is only useful for describing what is normal and 
> consistent for this universe. Its ability to predict what 
> exists outside this universe, or what may intrude here from 
> other realities (via singularities) is hamstrung by the fact
> that science relies on a body of data from observation,
> none of which we have regarding these things.

Agreed.  But in that case, we shouldn't be calling the Simulation Argument
scientific.  It is pure speculation of what might occur outside our
universe.  Any attempt to bring it into our universe with statistical
certainly enough to claim it "proves" that we are inside a simulation is
unfounded.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Fri Jan  2 18:53:06 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 13:53:06 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (was fermi's
	paradox:m/d approach)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401021019360.18927-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <012601c3d161$ac2d2ae0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Robert J. Bradbury wrote,
> On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> > The size/duration/complexity of all real universes is 
> > larger than the size/duration/complexity of all their
> > simulations put together. [snip]
> 
> I'm not sure how you justify this Harvey.  It would seem to 
> assume that the universes in which the sims are run are 
> playing by the same laws of physics as our universe.

No, I don't see how.  No matter what laws exist in any universe, the
simulations within it are subject to those laws.  They cannot break their
own local physics to store more information per unit of matter/energy than
is possible in their real universe.  Whatever laws exist in any universe,
the simulations still are a smaller subset of their universe.  Even by
consuming all of their universe's resources, they cannot simulate more than
their own universe with greater detail.  Therefore, I am saying that the
total simulation units available in any universe is less than the total
reality units of its parent universe.  If every real universe is larger than
the sum total of all its simulations, then the total of all real universes
is larger than the sum total of all simulations.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From megao at sasktel.net  Fri Jan  2 19:06:53 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 13:06:53 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re:- Biggest Hope for Immortality
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401021005420.18927-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <3FF5C14C.C91AA5D7@sasktel.net>

Might not the biggest hope and also the rate limiting step be the
computational and programming capabilities required to interact with the
chemistry of the genome, the
epignome and the dynamics of whole body systems and continue to solve
ever more complex  problems to sustain and then to modify the organism as
its lifespan potential increases and its level of degradation decreases;
Then to understand and direct new
whole system architectures on an ongoing basis.

"Robert J. Bradbury" wrote:

> On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, natashavita at earthlink.net wrote:
>
> > 1. "What is the biggest problem about achieving immortality?"
>
> Boredom.  In the *first* place immortality is probably impossible
> unless one can assert that protons do not decay -- and in the
> current standard model of physics they probably do decay
> (though this takes a *very* long time and has yet to be proven
> experimentally to the best of my knowledge).
>
> So you have a terminology problem with the question as stated.
>
> The boredom problem will probably lead to people taking increasing
> risks (extreme extreme sports -- e.g. Fear Factor with no safeties)
> or perhaps committing suicide after a few hundred years.
>
> Population growth is not a problem in "achieving" immortality.
> Its a moral problem as to whether one devotes more resources
> towards helping many people live better -- but shorter, non-immortal
> lives or whether one devotes the resources towards helping fewer
> people live longer lives (which will eventually help everyone still
> alive live longer lives).
>
> Its also true that if the singularity arguments hold -- then the
> population growth ("Club of Rome") arguments are all ca-ca.
> We *know* that nanotech -- and extremely advanced biotech
> (significantly changing the food and energy equations) are
> going to be available before 2050 (the standard point where
> everyone says everything from famine to global warming are
> going to start destroying humanity).
>
> > 2. "What is the biggest chance, the biggest hope for immortality?"
>
> I'd tend to agree with the stem cells perspective.  After that
> I'd say "whole genome engineering".  After that I'd say organogenesis
> based on synthetic genomes.  After that I'd say nanorobotic
> enhancment from respirocytes to vasculoid systems.
>
> Robert
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk  Fri Jan  2 19:13:47 2004
From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK)
Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 19:13:47 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] GQ Magazine Interview - Biggest Hope for
	Immortality
Message-ID: <3FF5C2EB.2010304@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>

On Fri Jan 02, 2004 11:18 am Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>> 2. "What is the biggest chance, the biggest hope for immortality?"
>
> I'd tend to agree with the stem cells perspective. After that
> I'd say "whole genome engineering". After that I'd say organogenesis
> based on synthetic genomes. After that I'd say nanorobotic
> enhancement from respirocytes to vasculoid systems.
>

Phew! That was close. Lucky you stopped there.
The next sentence would probably have crashed the spellchecker and
caused temporary blackouts down the East Coast.  ;)

BillK








From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  2 19:12:59 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 13:12:59 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (was
	fermi'sparadox:m/d approach)
References: <012601c3d161$ac2d2ae0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <Law10-OE65OUuFmwWrf0001d776@hotmail.com>

That is only assuming that their laws of physics do not allow for a particle
to exist in two places at once. It also assumes that each particle can only
represent one piece of data at a time and that time itself cannot be
manipulated to change the amount of data represented by a single particle.
Whoa....My head is about to bust.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 12:53 PM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (was
fermi'sparadox:m/d approach)


> Robert J. Bradbury wrote,
> > On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> > > The size/duration/complexity of all real universes is
> > > larger than the size/duration/complexity of all their
> > > simulations put together. [snip]
> >
> > I'm not sure how you justify this Harvey.  It would seem to
> > assume that the universes in which the sims are run are
> > playing by the same laws of physics as our universe.
>
> No, I don't see how.  No matter what laws exist in any universe, the
> simulations within it are subject to those laws.  They cannot break their
> own local physics to store more information per unit of matter/energy than
> is possible in their real universe.  Whatever laws exist in any universe,
> the simulations still are a smaller subset of their universe.  Even by
> consuming all of their universe's resources, they cannot simulate more
than
> their own universe with greater detail.  Therefore, I am saying that the
> total simulation units available in any universe is less than the total
> reality units of its parent universe.  If every real universe is larger
than
> the sum total of all its simulations, then the total of all real universes
> is larger than the sum total of all simulations.
>
> -- 
> Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
> Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec
Manager,
> NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
> <HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan  2 19:23:35 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 11:23:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] MDIA: Microsoft does it again...
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401021057350.19595-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


New Worm Spreads VIa MSN Messenger
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/02/0356230&mode=thread

Interestingly -- it seems probable that this should
get through firewalls -- so those avoiding I.E.
and Outlook and who happen to have picked MSNM
may be screwed.

While it may be safe for now, previous experience has
demonstrated that such holes may be exploited into
sending SPAM.  Note the following:
  http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/02/1625224&mode=thread
where the SPAMers are using "chained open proxies".
These are combination of people running software that
isn't securely configured as well as machines that
have been compromised by viruses.  And then of course
there is "bulletproof hosting in India".  Simple to
resolve -- accept no communications from IP addresses
in India (the problem is implementing it on the poorly
managed machines that function as open relays).

I ran across an interesting debate the other day.  Apparently
a number of people in the EU, esp. the UK, had created a
petition for the EU to boycott Israel until it began to
implement the UN resolutions on borders and the requirements
by a number of peace plans to engage in discussions.  In
response a counter petition was generated against this.
>From what I read the signatures on the first petition were
50-75, while on the second petition were 15,000+.  Now
obviously one can get a petition with 15,000+ signatures
of non-Israeli Jews to sign a petition supporting any
position that Israel takes.  (I am *not* anti-Jewish
having worked with a number of people of Jewish faith
in New York City in my younger days and having admired
their values, commitment, etc.  I am anti-irrationalism --
wherein Jews assert they are entitled to the entire "state"
of what they believe Israel should be -- based in large
part on the perspective that "God" gave it to them.)

Now, it occured to me that there might be a private or
semi-public action that could be taken that governments
would never take -- Cut them off until they decide to
get realistic.  (I.e. I could deny access to the
aeiveos.com web site to all incoming requests from
Israeli IP addresses -- I could lobby with Google
that they do the same -- after all Google doesn't
probably make much money from Israeli queries.)
The point would be that the methods used to block
SPAMers could similarly be used to exert pressure
on populations and governments to get their acts
together in the age of information technology.
(Yes I realize there are ways around such restrictions
but the point would be to heighten an already active
debate.)

Just some thoughts.
Robert






From dirk at neopax.com  Fri Jan  2 19:25:59 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 19:25:59 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (was
	fermi'sparadox:m/d approach)
References: <012601c3d161$ac2d2ae0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <01e801c3d166$40d02cc0$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 6:53 PM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (was
fermi'sparadox:m/d approach)


> Robert J. Bradbury wrote,
> > On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> > > The size/duration/complexity of all real universes is
> > > larger than the size/duration/complexity of all their
> > > simulations put together. [snip]
> >
> > I'm not sure how you justify this Harvey.  It would seem to
> > assume that the universes in which the sims are run are
> > playing by the same laws of physics as our universe.
>
> No, I don't see how.  No matter what laws exist in any universe, the
> simulations within it are subject to those laws.  They cannot break their
> own local physics to store more information per unit of matter/energy than
> is possible in their real universe.  Whatever laws exist in any universe,
> the simulations still are a smaller subset of their universe.  Even by
> consuming all of their universe's resources, they cannot simulate more
than
> their own universe with greater detail.  Therefore, I am saying that the
> total simulation units available in any universe is less than the total
> reality units of its parent universe.  If every real universe is larger
than
> the sum total of all its simulations, then the total of all real universes
> is larger than the sum total of all simulations.


But their 'real universe' may (for example) be a truly continuum one with
infinite computing power.
In which case we are comparing degrees of infinity.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan  2 19:33:07 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 11:33:07 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (was fermi's
	paradox:m/d approach)
In-Reply-To: <012601c3d161$ac2d2ae0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040102193307.33022.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> Robert J. Bradbury wrote,
> > On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> > > The size/duration/complexity of all real universes is 
> > > larger than the size/duration/complexity of all their
> > > simulations put together. [snip]
> > 
> > I'm not sure how you justify this Harvey.  It would seem to 
> > assume that the universes in which the sims are run are 
> > playing by the same laws of physics as our universe.
> 
> No, I don't see how.  No matter what laws exist in any universe, the
> simulations within it are subject to those laws.  

This is patently false. The only limitations that laws are subject to
are the processing limits of the operating substrate. In many ways, it
is *easier* to simulate LESS physical constraints. Simulating a highly
restrictive set of physical laws takes a lot more processing power.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From thespike at earthlink.net  Fri Jan  2 19:35:48 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 13:35:48 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] GQ Magazine Interview - Biggest Hope for
	Immortality
References: <191690-22004152164835994@M2W033.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <00f701c3d167$a3242ec0$d6ef9a40@texas.net>


> 1. "What is the biggest problem about achieving immortality?"

Just a terminological aside: Robert keeps pointing out that we can't get
literal immortality, because eventually the cosmos will perish. That's
strictly true, but I think it's entirely irrelevant to what we're actually
discussing, which is *negligible or repairable senescence or `aging'*.

Obviously we can't stop aging *literally*, since that would mean halting all
atomic activity. We need to remind people that `aging' is just the
traditional word contingently associated with physical decay due to the
breakdown of cellular maintenance mechanisms, accumulated unrepaired damage,
etc. It's a shame the word `senescence' isn't known to most people, but
maybe it will spread as the idea gets better known.

The other problem with `immortality' as a term is that religious doctrines
long ago appropriated it to connote some sort of blissful `spiritual' state
beyond the reach of space and time. There's no need to fight this, if we can
come up with an alternative which means indefinitely extended youthful
fitness of mind and body without loss of memory and accumulated wisdom.

Robert might be right that boredom, cafard, ennui is the likely downside of
extended youthfulness--but that assumes longevous humans will retain our
current limitations, which as most here agree is very unlikely. Moreover, a
person so afflicted could either seek treatment (as the depressed are urged
to do nowadays) or choose to relinquish life. If someone hands you a hundred
billion dollars, but you wonder anxiously whether you should accept it
because eventually you might become jaded by being so wealthy, you can
always give it away... (I'll take it off your hands).

Damien Broderick



From hibbert at mydruthers.com  Fri Jan  2 19:35:50 2004
From: hibbert at mydruthers.com (Chris Hibbert)
Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 11:35:50 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] GQ Magazine Interview - Biggest Hope for
	Immortality
In-Reply-To: <191690-22004152164835994@M2W033.mail2web.com>
References: <191690-22004152164835994@M2W033.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <3FF5C816.8050405@mydruthers.com>

> 1. "What is the biggest problem about achieving immortality?"

The biggest problem is that it isn't a single problem.  You have to 
remove all the causes of mortality in order to achieve immortality. 
For extremely long life, you only have to solve all the systemic causes.

> 2. "What is the biggest chance, the biggest hope for immortality?"

For me, the answer is Aubrey de Gray's effort to Engineer Negligible 
Senescence (http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens/).  Aubrey seems to be 
addressing enough of the disparate causes to push lifespan out a long way.

Chris
-- 
C. J. Cherryh, "Invader", on why we visit very old buildings:
       "A sense of age, of profound truths.  Respect for something
       hands made, that's stood through storms and wars and time.
       It persuades us that things we do may last and matter."

Chris Hibbert
hibbert at mydruthers.com
http://discuss.foresight.org/~hibbert




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Fri Jan  2 19:57:14 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 14:57:14 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (was
	fermi'sparadox:m/d approach)
In-Reply-To: <20040102193307.33022.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <012b01c3d16a$9e9e7830$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Mike Lorrey wrote,
> > No, I don't see how.  No matter what laws exist in any 
> > universe, the simulations within it are subject to those laws.
> 
> This is patently false. The only limitations that laws are 
> subject to are the processing limits of the operating 
> substrate. In many ways, it is *easier* to simulate LESS 
> physical constraints. Simulating a highly restrictive set of 
> physical laws takes a lot more processing power.

This is what I meant.  The operating substrate is in the real physical
universe.  It is subject to those laws.  I did not mean that one couldn't
simulate something impossible in their own physical universe.  But the
amount of information stored to do so takes as much or more physical
universe resources than it really would in the physical universe.  You
either map incompletely with less detail, or you consume as much resources
to store the information as the real universe takes.  One can't store more
information in the simulation than would fit in their real universe, because
the storage medium is in the real universe and takes real resources.

Kevin Freels wrote,
> That is only assuming that their laws of physics do not allow 
> for a particle to exist in two places at once. It also 
> assumes that each particle can only represent one piece of 
> data at a time and that time itself cannot be manipulated to 
> change the amount of data represented by a single particle. 
> Whoa....My head is about to bust.

No.  If a universe is warped so that it can represent two pieces of
information per particle, than each simulated particle has two pieces of
information to store.  Each particle can therefore store a sum total of one
particle's information.  (Again, unless you make an incomplete simulation.)
If a particle can be in two places at once, then it must be simulated in two
places at once in the simulation to be a complete simulation.  Whatever you
invent to give the real universe more storage, that creates more storage
requirement for that same item in the simulation.  It's like a mirror.
Whatever you invent in the real universe, appears that complex in the
simulation.  The only way out is if the simulated universe has reduced
complexity compared to the real universe, which was my point.  You have to
leave out complexity and details to make room for other complexity or
details, so the net total is still the size of the enclosing universe.  An
object inside a universe cannot contain more information than the enclosing
universe can hold, or else the object is not really contained inside the
enclosing universe.  This is a tautology of definitions.  No universe can
hold more than it can hold.  Anything it holds must be the same size or
smaller.

Dirk Bruere wrote,
> But their 'real universe' may (for example) be a truly
> continuum one with infinite computing power. In which case
> we are comparing degrees of infinity.

Perhaps, but I am willing to do so!  Imagine an infinite space one inch by
one inch by infinity.  Now imagine a space twice as large, one inch by two
inches by infinity.  Despite complaints about comparing infinities, it seems
obvious that the second object can hold exactly two of the smaller objects.
When comparing similar magnitudes or dimensions of infinities, it is
possible to do math and compare them.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan  2 20:01:49 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 12:01:49 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (was
	fermi'sparadox:m/d approach)
In-Reply-To: <01e801c3d166$40d02cc0$d2256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <20040102200149.33317.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Dirk Bruere <dirk at neopax.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> But their 'real universe' may (for example) be a truly continuum one
> with infinite computing power.
> In which case we are comparing degrees of infinity.

Depends on what you mean by infinity. If U-Prime has any sort of speed
of light limitation, then it is limited to a section of its universe
bounded by their light cone. While there may be exemptions, or no
limits at all, there must be some mechanism to muffle instant heat
death which is what c does, but this is assuming that such a universe
has something like nuclear fusion to begin with.

Here are some proposed laws of simulated universes:

1) it is easier (less programming and processing) to simulate fewer and
less complex physical laws than more and more complex physical laws.
2) as universes mature and increase in extropy, the laws bounding them
will increase in complexity and quantity as more programming and
processing is dedicated to such universes.
3) the observational results in any given universe of insufficient
programming and/or processing are indistinguishable from magic.

The results of these proposed rules are:

a) younger universes will appear to be more 'magical'
b) older universes will have greater physical limitations and will
become more technological.
c) like high traffic internet sites, universes with increasing age and
popularity will require increasing amounts of programming and
processing to maintain increasing user value and to prevent the veil of
artificiality from becoming punctured.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From thespike at earthlink.net  Fri Jan  2 20:06:32 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 14:06:32 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] graphic books of related interest, maybe
References: <191690-22004152164835994@M2W033.mail2web.com>
	<00f701c3d167$a3242ec0$d6ef9a40@texas.net>
Message-ID: <013101c3d16b$edaab780$d6ef9a40@texas.net>

http://www.sfsite.com/01a/tc167.htm

I haven't seen these yet.

< A review by Cindy Lynn Speer

Bisso and Geaza are two young men sent three million years back into the
past -- to our present -- in order to become a catalyst in the evolutionary
chain of events. In this future, humans have attained all possible things,
they have evolved as far as they can go and they want more, they feel that
they can become more. So they create these two, genetically engineering men.
If they live at least 150 years, the chemicals that they shed through their
pores will give humanity the evolutionary shot it needs to fulfill a greater
promise. Bisso and Geaza are living quiet, if boring, lives, not knowing if
they've succeeded or failed, until a strange looking creature finds them. He
bears a message: that they've succeeded beyond humanity's hopes, and that
the future people of the Earth thanks them for their sacrifice. But as they
learn of the nature of this visitor, they are forced to wonder if they
really did succeed, or if they failed in the most horrific way. [etc] >




From wingcat at pacbell.net  Fri Jan  2 20:09:35 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 12:09:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs
In-Reply-To: <20040101015640.066fe667.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <20040102200935.27048.qmail@web80403.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Samantha Atkins <samantha at objectent.com> wrote:
> Terrorism is so bloody loosely defined that saying
> it is this or that category of crime is virtually
> meaningless.  Its definition is arbitrary so any
> acts or purported acts or secretly accused acts may
> be subject to whatever whim the authorities care to
> exercise.

You know, I had to laugh at that.  But I think you'll
find yourself chuckling too, at least if you like dark
humor about serious situations.

Terrorism has a definition.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=terrorism
cites Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1998
version:

> The act of terrorizing, or state of being
> terrorized; a mode of government by terror or
> intimidation.

Now, contrast this to the fact that a lot of these
laws and policies we're objecting to are getting
passed on the fear, also known as terror, that
"terrorists" might otherwise harm us or those we care
about; and/or by intimidating those who would stand up
to abuses.

Also, from Wikipedia, terrorism...

> [...]is the term commonly used to refer to the
> calculated use of violence or the threat of
> violence, against the civilian population, usually
> for the purpose of obtaining political or religious
> goals.

Arrest and imprisonment is a form of violence, no?
Though, granted, it's more "threat of" than the real
thing.

> Although the exact meaning of the term is disputed,
> it is commonly held that the distinctive nature of
> terrorism lies in its deliberate and specific
> selection of civilians as targets, a choice designed
> to attract wide publicity and cause extreme levels
> of public shock, outrage and fear.  Terrorists
> believe these conditions will help to bring about
> the political or religious changes that they seek.

Civilians don't stop being civilians even under
military-grade high security alerts, especially when
the alerts stay active enough to become status quo.

I believe you should see the parallels I'm seeing by
now.


From humania at t-online.de  Fri Jan  2 20:24:06 2004
From: humania at t-online.de (Hubert Mania)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 21:24:06 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] GQ Magazine Interview - Biggest Hope forImmortality
References: <191690-22004152164835994@M2W033.mail2web.com>
	<00f701c3d167$a3242ec0$d6ef9a40@texas.net>
Message-ID: <001a01c3d16e$608e4490$5b91fea9@kwasar>

Damien:

> It's a shame the word `senescence' isn't known to most people, but
> maybe it will spread as the idea gets better known.

I especially like the German version "Seneszenz". It's a bit sharper and
sounds more final ("endgueltig").

And, of course, if you pronounce it with relish, you hiss and hit the word
"Sense" at the same time, which is the most important tool of Death,
"scythe" in English. As we use to say: "It's scythe now!" instead of 
"That's enough!"



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan  2 20:39:19 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 12:39:19 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs
In-Reply-To: <20040102200935.27048.qmail@web80403.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040102203919.51519.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> 
> You know, I had to laugh at that.  But I think you'll
> find yourself chuckling too, at least if you like dark
> humor about serious situations.
> 
> Terrorism has a definition.
> http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=terrorism
> cites Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1998
> version:
> 
> > The act of terrorizing, or state of being
> > terrorized; a mode of government by terror or
> > intimidation.

This is an irrelevant definition. The only important one is that
defined in the Geneva Conventions:

a) engaging in acts of violence or threats of violence against
civilians, while,
b) not wearing a uniform that distinguishes the combatant from a
civilian, and/or,
c) seeking shelter in civilian communities or facilities (except for
seeking health care in hospitals).

Similarly civilians or civilian facilities which are used as shelter by
illegal combatants become legitimate military targets under the GCs.

The fact that McVeigh didn't wear a recognisable uniform made him an
illegal combatant, but not a terrorist. Under the Geneva Conventions,
McVeighs attack on the Murrah Federal Building was only a terrorist act
in that he purposely set off his bomb when he knew there would be
children in the day care center. The deaths of all federal agents and
employees, and the bombing of the building itself, were legitimate acts
of war. 

Conversely, the actions of the ATF and FBI against the Davidian
compound in Waco were terrorism because the ATF initiated violence.
While Koresh violated unconstitutional laws, he did not preach the
overthrow of any government, he only predicted what did happen, would
happen.

Israeli attacks on Hamas militants are legitimate acts of war. The
bulldozing of buildings used for shelter by Palestinian combatants are
legimitate acts of war, as is the bulldozing of homes paid for with
bounty money paid for homicide bombings. Such bounties are not normal
military pay, nor are they legitimate death benefits, they are paid
specifically for the act of blowing ones self up in an act of terrorism
against civilians, which is not an act of war. Paying rewards for war
crimes is itself a war crime, as is accepting such rewards.

Now, you may say, "but everything you say seems to give the advantage
to the more powerful military forces." This is exactly so. This was
partly the intent of the Geneva Conventions, originally, to maintain
the eminence of the Powers of the 19th century and help prevent the
emergence of new powers strictly as a result of military conquest and
sponsorship of insurgencies. It forced nations to become Powers through
peaceful economic development, as the United States did in the 1890's,
as Japan did a few years later.

The other intent of the GCs was to try to isolate military action from
civilian action, so that a nation's infrastructure would not be
destroyed by conflict. This has come under serious attack by the 20th
century history of Total War and Revolutionary Insurgency. The only way
to put the genie back in the bottle is to be very severe about the
enforcement of the Geneva Conventions, demanding nations have strictly
enforced military codes, and taking to task those nations that do not.

We need to put that genie back in the bottle, or the case for
individual liberty in the future is severely threatened.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From aperick at centurytel.net  Fri Jan  2 21:12:14 2004
From: aperick at centurytel.net (aperick at centurytel.net)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 13:12:14 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Dirtlings
In-Reply-To: <200401021707.i02H7fE31698@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <8072489.1073077954758.JavaMail.teamon@b111.teamon.com>

Darn you Mike Lorrey, now I can't stop thinking how the whole universe may
be pointing and laughing at we dirtlings :)



From samantha at objectent.com  Fri Jan  2 22:09:26 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 14:09:26 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs
In-Reply-To: <20040102203919.51519.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040102200935.27048.qmail@web80403.mail.yahoo.com>
	<20040102203919.51519.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040102140926.01b8725a.samantha@objectent.com>

On Fri, 2 Jan 2004 12:39:19 -0800 (PST)
Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 
> --- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> > 
> > You know, I had to laugh at that.  But I think you'll
> > find yourself chuckling too, at least if you like dark
> > humor about serious situations.
> > 
> > Terrorism has a definition.
> > http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=terrorism
> > cites Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1998
> > version:
> > 
> > > The act of terrorizing, or state of being
> > > terrorized; a mode of government by terror or
> > > intimidation.
> 
> This is an irrelevant definition. The only important one is that
> defined in the Geneva Conventions:
> 
> a) engaging in acts of violence or threats of violence against
> civilians, while,
> b) not wearing a uniform that distinguishes the combatant from a
> civilian, and/or,
> c) seeking shelter in civilian communities or facilities (except for
> seeking health care in hospitals).
> 

By this definition all militia sans uniforms everywhere are terrorists.  How exactly is this helpful?  For that matter, any organized group of citizens defending their own lives and property against other groups would be terrorists. 

The military of a country threatening the imminent demise of citizens of another country could never be considered terrorist no matter how foul its acts.  

> Similarly civilians or civilian facilities which are used as shelter by
> illegal combatants become legitimate military targets under the GCs.
> 
> The fact that McVeigh didn't wear a recognisable uniform made him an
> illegal combatant, but not a terrorist. Under the Geneva Conventions,
> McVeighs attack on the Murrah Federal Building was only a terrorist act
> in that he purposely set off his bomb when he knew there would be
> children in the day care center. The deaths of all federal agents and
> employees, and the bombing of the building itself, were legitimate acts
> of war. 
> 

> Conversely, the actions of the ATF and FBI against the Davidian
> compound in Waco were terrorism because the ATF initiated violence.
> While Koresh violated unconstitutional laws, he did not preach the
> overthrow of any government, he only predicted what did happen, would
> happen.

But wait, the ATF and FBI did not meet the second or third supposed criteria for being considered terrorist.  They were wearing uniforms and they did not shelter with civilians.

> 
> Israeli attacks on Hamas militants are legitimate acts of war. The
> bulldozing of buildings used for shelter by Palestinian combatants are
> legimitate acts of war, as is the bulldozing of homes paid for with
> bounty money paid for homicide bombings. Such bounties are not normal
> military pay, nor are they legitimate death benefits, they are paid
> specifically for the act of blowing ones self up in an act of terrorism
> against civilians, which is not an act of war. Paying rewards for war
> crimes is itself a war crime, as is accepting such rewards.
>

Whether it is a "legitimate act of war" or not it is not legitimate to destroy entire towns, villages and cities when the people rise up against years of oppression.   The characterization of homes, many of them quite poor, as being paid for with bounty money for suicide bombings, is beneath contempt.  
 
> Now, you may say, "but everything you say seems to give the advantage
> to the more powerful military forces." This is exactly so. This was
> partly the intent of the Geneva Conventions, originally, to maintain
> the eminence of the Powers of the 19th century and help prevent the
> emergence of new powers strictly as a result of military conquest and
> sponsorship of insurgencies. It forced nations to become Powers through
> peaceful economic development, as the United States did in the 1890's,
> as Japan did a few years later.
>

Good.  You admit that the GC is not the arbiter of what is reasonable but is rather, in part, a tool of oppresion. 
 
> The other intent of the GCs was to try to isolate military action from
> civilian action, so that a nation's infrastructure would not be
> destroyed by conflict. This has come under serious attack by the 20th
> century history of Total War and Revolutionary Insurgency. The only way
> to put the genie back in the bottle is to be very severe about the
> enforcement of the Geneva Conventions, demanding nations have strictly
> enforced military codes, and taking to task those nations that do not.
>

The better way to put the genie back into the bottle is to remove much of the oppression and conditions leading to armed conflict in the first place.
 
- samantha


From samantha at objectent.com  Fri Jan  2 22:18:43 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 14:18:43 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (was fermi's
	paradox: m/d approach)
In-Reply-To: <011801c3d15a$494a1700$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
References: <00c101c3d151$8bd0d0e0$d2256bd5@artemis>
	<011801c3d15a$494a1700$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040102141843.3b352b63.samantha@objectent.com>

On Fri, 2 Jan 2004 13:00:14 -0500
"Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:

> Dirk Bruere wrote,
> > I think the most likely explanation is the Simulation 
> > Argument.
> 
> I find the Simulation Argument violates Occam's Razor.  It adds complexity
> that is not needed.  It does not help explain any observable phenomenon.  It
> also seems to reject all science.  If everything we observe is a simulation,
> then the simulation does not have to be constrained to known physical laws.
> Everything we think we know is wrong.  Anything is possible, whether science
> thinks it is or not.  The acceptance of the Simulation Argument seems to
> require a rejection of science.

It would be a pretty poor simulation if it did not follow well defined and consistent internal laws.  From the point of view of beings within the simulation those laws are the "known physical laws".   Within the simulation they are not in the least wrong.  Nothing is possible except what the simulation (local reality) was designed to make possible unless something from outside interferes.   There is no necessary rejection of science.

- samantha


From samantha at objectent.com  Fri Jan  2 22:22:53 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 14:22:53 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (was fermi's
	paradox:m/d approach)
In-Reply-To: <011901c3d15e$c2a155b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
References: <20040102181407.17216.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
	<011901c3d15e$c2a155b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040102142253.6d7628cc.samantha@objectent.com>

On Fri, 2 Jan 2004 13:32:15 -0500
"Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:

> Mike Lorrey wrote,
> > Science is only useful for describing what is normal and 
> > consistent for this universe. Its ability to predict what 
> > exists outside this universe, or what may intrude here from 
> > other realities (via singularities) is hamstrung by the fact
> > that science relies on a body of data from observation,
> > none of which we have regarding these things.
> 
> Agreed.  But in that case, we shouldn't be calling the Simulation Argument
> scientific.  It is pure speculation of what might occur outside our
> universe.  Any attempt to bring it into our universe with statistical
> certainly enough to claim it "proves" that we are inside a simulation is
> unfounded.
> 


I don't get that argument.  If we are in a simulation then our science, used to study *what is* may be able to determine that fact.  It is a speculation about the overall nature of our universe.  If your argument held then we should also include singularities like black holes from science.

- samantha


From wingcat at pacbell.net  Fri Jan  2 22:45:07 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 14:45:07 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs
In-Reply-To: <20040102203919.51519.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040102224507.52112.qmail@web80402.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> > Terrorism has a definition.
> > http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=terrorism
> > cites Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary,
> 1998
> > version:
> > 
> > > The act of terrorizing, or state of being
> > > terrorized; a mode of government by terror or
> > > intimidation.
> 
> This is an irrelevant definition. The only important
> one is that
> defined in the Geneva Conventions:

Terrorism, and its definition, have changed over the
years.

> a) engaging in acts of violence or threats of
> violence against
> civilians, while,
> b) not wearing a uniform that distinguishes the
> combatant from a
> civilian, and/or,
> c) seeking shelter in civilian communities or
> facilities (except for
> seeking health care in hospitals).

Hmm.  You know, technically, President Bush and
certain members of his Cabinet (and some members of
Congress)...
a) make speeches that could be interpreted as threats
of violence (by police, uniformed or otherwise)
against civilians (by threatening that the civilians
could be labelled "terrorists", "illegal combatants",
or whatever else would incite others to take away
their rights by potentially violent means),
b) more often than not, do not wear uniforms while
making these speeches (unless business suits are
"uniforms"; they definitely don't typically classify
people as combatants), and
c) seek to be in civilian communities and facilities a
fair amount of the time (unless the Secret Service, by
following the President et al around, automatically
makes wherever they are a non-civilian community or
facilitiy for the duration of their presence).

> Conversely, the actions of the ATF and FBI against
> the Davidian
> compound in Waco were terrorism because the ATF
> initiated violence.
> While Koresh violated unconstitutional laws, he did
> not preach the
> overthrow of any government, he only predicted what
> did happen, would
> happen.

As has been pointed out, the ATF and FBI were wearing
uniforms at the time.  The same argument applies to
all uniformed police officers.  One could very well
argue that the police, at least while in uniform, are
closer to military status legally than most
civilians.  (And note that on-duty police usually do
not seek shelter in civilian facilities; they may do
business there, but they're on duty, going where their
duty calls them to be.  They "seek shelter" in marked
cars and buildings designated as police stations.)


From scerir at libero.it  Fri Jan  2 23:02:27 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 00:02:27 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique
	(wasfermi'sparadox:m/d approach)
References: <012601c3d161$ac2d2ae0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<Law10-OE65OUuFmwWrf0001d776@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <000e01c3d184$7ed9d840$f0c7fea9@scerir>

From: "Kevin Freels"

> That is only assuming that their laws of physics do not allow for a
> particle to exist in two places at once.

Hey. You knew that. Don't you?
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0310091
www.physics.utoronto.ca/~aephraim/talks/QELS03-3box.ppt

> It also assumes that each particle can only
> represent one piece of data at a time and that time itself cannot be
> manipulated to change the amount of data represented by a single particle.

Manipulate time itself?
You must choose a very 'unusual' time, which has to be a dynamical
variable, like tau, the 'proper' time of a particle. In this case you
could write, safely enough, an uncertainty relation like
        Delta tau x Delta mass of the particle =/> h
which should be, more or less, the target of any serious space-time
quantization program. Note that if you measure, or impose, a small
Delta tau, the Delta mass of the particle becomes very large, and
viceversa.
Not much different from the usual position vs. momentum relation
            Delta position x Delta momentum >/= h
by which, changing continuously Delta position you reveal the
particle-like nature, or the wave-like nature, of the 'thing'.

The other classical possibility, given the SR metric, is represented
by the weird uncertainty relation space vs. time, like
        (dx/dt + ds/dt) x (dx/dt - ds/dt) = 1/c^2

Not to mention what would be a Universe dependent on the
Banach-Tarski paradox on unmeasurable sets for its operation!
(But this would really be magic).






From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Fri Jan  2 23:19:41 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 18:19:41 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (was
	fermi'sparadox:m/d approach)
In-Reply-To: <20040102142253.6d7628cc.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <016701c3d186$e997ac00$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Samantha Atkins wrote,
> I don't get that argument.  If we are in a simulation then 
> our science, used to study *what is* may be able to determine 
> that fact.  It is a speculation about the overall nature of 
> our universe.  If your argument held then we should also 
> include singularities like black holes from science.

Actually, I agree with you.  I was countering Mike's argument that science
doesn't hold in other universes.  I said in that case, we can't call
speculation about these areas outside science "scientific".  I was objecting
to using the claim that science doesn't work in some cases as part of the
scientfiic argument!  I actually do agree that science can speculate about
what is outside our universe.  But throwing out the requirements of science
is not part of scientific speculation.

> It would be a pretty poor simulation if it did not follow
> well defined and consistent internal laws.  From the point
> of view of beings within the simulation those laws are the
> "known physical laws".   Within the simulation they are not
> in the least wrong.  Nothing is possible except what the
> simulation (local reality) was designed to make possible
> unless something from outside interferes.   There is no
> necessary rejection of science.

I didn't say that it "couldn't" be true.  But science doesn't lead to
speculatation about what "might" be true that we can't detect.  That is more
properly the realm of religion.  Science leads to explanations about what is
observed.  If we haven't observed it and someone dreamed up the idea without
observation or evidence, this is religion, not science.  Likewise, God might
be true.  But discussions about God are religion, not science.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From sentience at pobox.com  Fri Jan  2 23:28:34 2004
From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky)
Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 18:28:34 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Darwinian dynamics unlikely to apply to
	superintelligence
In-Reply-To: <8765fut8zd.fsf@snark.piermont.com>
References: <20031231094734.GE11973@digitalkingdom.org>	<3FF309F8.6000502@yifan.net>	<20031231195904.GN11973@digitalkingdom.org>	<87llorutus.fsf@snark.piermont.com>	<20040102014258.GW11973@digitalkingdom.org>
	<8765fut8zd.fsf@snark.piermont.com>
Message-ID: <3FF5FEA2.8040900@pobox.com>

Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell at digitalkingdom.org> writes:
> 
>>>Myself, though, I will make a strong prediction -- which is that
>>>the laws of physics and the rules of math don't cease to apply.
>>>That leads me to believe that evolution doesn't stop. That further
>>>leads me to believe that nature -- bloody in tooth and claw, as
>>>some have termed it -- will simply be taken to the next level. I
>>>don't fear this particularly, but it isn't consistent with the
>>>"everything is going to turn up roses" viewpoint.
>>
>>You've taken one sample set, Earth, and implied from the course of
>>evolution on Earth that it is a *law of physics* that violent
>>conflict occur.

> Evolution isn't something you can avoid. Deep down, all it says is
> "you find more of that which survives and spreads itself", which is so
> close to a tautology that it is damn hard to dispute. There is no
> moral superiority to a bacterium that minds its manners over one that
> overwhelms its competition. The universe on a deep level doesn't care
> which one you find more of. However, almost axiomatically, the second
> one is the one you'll find in every soil sample and the first will be
> rare or extinct.

The replicator dynamics, like all math equations, generally are provable
and hence what people would call "tautological" when applied to the real
world.  The question is whether the variables take on any interesting
values.  Price's Equation is a tautology, and, therefore, always true; the
question is whether it usefully applies.  You can apply it to pebbles on
the seashore, for example, and lo, the change in the mean value of the
"blue" characteristic for the pebbles will equal the covariance of the
"blue" characteristic with the proportional change (fitness) of each color
category of pebbles.  That is, it will be precisely, numerically equal, if
you do the calculation.  But the correlation will end up being slight, and
will probably change sign from generation to generation, because the
covariance is noise and not the causal result of physically perseverant
properties of the pebbles; and whatever categories you parse the pebbles
into, it will be a function of an arbitrary classification system, and not
physically copied genes.  And yet the math will still, technically, add up.

Although the math holds true tautologically for any consistent set of
variable definitions, it is not at all trivial to show that the math
*applies* to some physical system in the sense of the variable definitions
corresponding to simple physical properties, rather than being produced
arbitrarily.

And when the variable definitions in a replicator equation do correspond
to simple physical properties, there is still the question of whether one
is dealing with infinitesimal quantities that obey a replicator equation,
or large quantities; small handful of generations, or millions of
generations; whether there is enough selection pressure, over a long
enough period of time, to produce complex information of the sort we're
used to seeing in biology.

To sum up, natural selection *as we know it*, which is to say, natural
selection in any noticeable quantity, is not an automatic consequence of
physics.  It applies to butterflies, but not pebbles, even though the math
can be defined for both cases.  Even if blue pebbles survive some tiny
amount better, it doesn't mean that in 20,000 years all the pebbles on the
seashore will be intensely blue.

We are more likely to see the longest-burning stars, and if you were to
stretch the term far enough, you could insist that stars have
"generations" because the debris of a nova ends up being incorporated into
new stars, and so on, but because the "heritable" capacity is noise (even
though it can still be defined as a mathematical quantity) and the number
of generations so few, we do not see stars that are optimized to burn for
trillions of years, even though we can expect that the stars we see will
have been selected so as to exclude ones that fail to ignite or explode
immediately.

Correspondingly, we can expect that any SI we deal with will exclude the
set of SIs that immediately shut themselves down, and that whichever SI we
see will be the result of an optimization process that was capable of
self-optimization and preferred that choice.  But this does not imply that
any SI we deal with will attach a huge intrinsic utility to its own survival.

If you have an optimization system, and that optimization system behaves
something at least roughly like the expected utility equation, then,
regardless of the particulars of the utility function, it seems
straightforward to derive instrumental expected utility for the continued
operation of an optimization system similar to the one doing the
calculation, and the expected instrumental utility calculated in the
present time will increase with the expected fidelity of the utility
function.  This will hold true of a very large class of optimizers.

It follows that we have no reason to expect any SI we deal with to attach
a huge intrinsic utility to its own survival.  Why?  Because that's an
extremely specific outcome within a very large class of outcomes where the
SI doesn't shut itself down immediately.  There is, in other words, no
Bayesian evidence - no likelihood ratio - that says we are probably
looking at an SI that attaches a huge intrinsic utility to its own
survival; both hypotheses produce the same prediction for observed behavior.

Similarly, for any optimization process that can configure matter in ways
that it reckons will create instrumental utility, or fulfill intrinsic
utility, or avoid expected negative utility, with respect to any possible
aspect of its goal system, we should expect that optimization process to
optimize all available matter, since that action will be perceived as more
desirable than the alternative, assuming the entity implements some kind
of expected utility equation for ordering preferences over choices.

For an extremely large class of SIs, they will *all* choose to absorb all
nearby matter.  So there is no reason to suppose that they would need a
particular desire to reproduce.

I expect that most any optimization process including a Friendly SI, and
certainly including myself, would choose to defend itself from a hostile
optimization process - as an instrumental utility.  So there is no reason
to suppose that any SI we see must have a particular desire to engage in
combat.

And finally, there is no reason to suppose that the process whereby SIs
absorb matter, optimize matter, or in other ways do things with matter,
would create subregions with (a) large heritable changes in properties,
that (b) correlate to large differences in the rate at which these regions
spread or transform other matter, and that (c) this process will continue
over the thousands or millions of generations that would be required for
the natural selection dynamic to produce optimized functional complexity.

This last point is particularly important in understanding why replicator
dynamics are unlikely to apply to SIs.  At most, we are likely to see one
initial filter in which SIs that halt or fence themselves off in tiny
spheres are removed from the cosmic observables.  Almost any utility
function I have ever heard proposed will choose to spread across the
cosmos and transform matter into either (1) *maximally high-fidelity
copies* of the optimization control structure or (2) configurations that
fulfill intrinsic utilities.  If the optimization control structure is
copied at extremely high fidelity, there are no important heritable
differences for natural selection to act on.  If there were heritable
differences, they are not likely to covary with large differences in
reproductive fitness, insofar as all the optimization control structures
will choose equally to transform nearby matter.

Natural selection operates on the *covariance* between heritable
quantities and reproductive fitness, not the *correlation*, which means
that the *amount* of variation is relevant.  (When you calculate the
correlation you take the covariance between the two quantities and divide
by the product of the two standard deviations of each quantity.)  If
there's only a small amount of heritable variation, the covariance goes
down.  If there's only a small amount of variation in reproductive
fitness, the covariance goes down.  If you don't have thousands of
generations, the amount of genetic information generated by the iteration
of this covariance will be tiny, certainly not enough to account for
complex adaptations.

In short, under scenarios of the type I have seen discussed so far,
replicator dynamics do not apply to SIs.

Natural selection is not a binary thing that switches on or off depending
on whether anything that can be called "replication" occurs.  Selection
pressure can be quantified - and it is a surprisingly small optimization
effect by our standards; for example, if each couple has an average of 8
children then there can be *at most* 2 bits of information produced by
natural selection per generation, to be shared among all the quantities
subject to optimization.  With the scenarios extrapolated as usual, and
the variable definitions that are usually offered, the amount of selection
pressure that applies to SIs is infinitesimal, barring a possible initial
selection filter.

> So what sort of strategies does evolution favor? Quite a number of
> them, actually, but none of them can be characterized as "pacifist".

None of them can be characterized as conscientious objectors, barring
those that are physically invulnerable.  I don't see that Friendliness
requires being a conscientious objector to a generic optimization process
that's trying to eat you, and I certainly don't see why a generic
optimization process would choose to be a conscientious objector as an
instrumental utility, barring an exotic utility function.

Anyway, there's a heck of a difference between natural selection *building
a goal system from scratch*, like where humans come from, and applying a
anti-suicide filter to the set of SIs that are likely to pop up from
ancestral civilizations (mostly the result of runaway recursive
self-improvement, I expect, perhaps a Friendlyoid SI here and there if
someone in the ancestral civilization was implausibly competent).

> The struggle for resources is unlikely to end, because the amount of
> resource you can have in any finite volume remains finite.

Replicator dynamics assume a (large, frequent) death rate.  If
optimization processes compete to absorb *available* resources but hang on
permanently to all resources already absorbed, the replicator dynamics are
not iterated across thousands of generations.

> That leads
> me to assume that we'll continue to see evolution take place as life
> spreads through the cosmos.

If so, it will be because Friendly SIs (Friendliness being an exotic
utility function created by the intervention of humans) contain
environments with social scenarios to which replicator dynamics apply.
Even this is not a necessary assumption, and replicator dynamics might
apply to some social quantities and not others.  For example, if
sociolegal dynamics fix the maximum number of children at, say, two
children per couple, or one child every hundred years, and motivational
variations are heritable, then natural selection might apply as a floor
function that minimizes the number of sentient entities who want to have
*less* children than that.  But natural selection would be powerless to
optimize variables within the very large class of minds that chose to use
their full allotment.

On the other hand, *memes* might be around for a long, long time.

> That, in turn, leads me to assume that
> we'll continue to see "nature bloody in tooth and claw", although
> perhaps it will become "nature bloody in assembler and particle beam"
> or other gadgetry far beyond our understanding.

It looks to me like, whether humanity survives or fails, the era of
natural selection as we know it - "bloody in tooth and claw" - is ending.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence




From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au  Fri Jan  2 23:36:52 2004
From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 10:36:52 +1100
Subject: [extropy-chat] GQ Magazine Interview - Biggest Hope for
	Immortality
References: <191690-22004152164835994@M2W033.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <04c801c3d189$4ce97980$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>

Natasha wrote:

> I thought I'd ask if anyone has *up-to-date* answers for
> these 2 questions of the interview - just in case any of you
> have insights that are broader and more spot on than my
> own. :-)
> 
> 1. "What is the biggest problem about achieving immortality?"

[Sorry the following is a bit of a rant. I can't spare time to
fix it. So I'm opting to post less than optimal. ] 

Theres a definitional problem. When would you know you'd
gotten to immortality? Its like having successfully counted to
infinity. You can't. There always tomorrow that hasn't happened
yet and the next number you haven't counted too. First you'd
need to operationalise the objective into something specific.

>From an engineering/logical standpoint its possible to think 
about travelling to the moon, mars, jupiter etc as problems 
with apparently achievable objects, and then they become
tractable. They can be broken down into a series of steps and
subproblems. Uncertainties can be managed. Its possible to 
start to think about what it would take to achieve *effective*
'immortality' - like a life expectancy of X many hundreds or
thousand of years. But even to do that well its necessary
to scope the problem properly, making some assumptions,
including assumptions about things that are currently 
unknowable.

The asssumptions then get revisited as more is known. 
There could be an assumption that one has that seems
reasonable in the beginning when less is known (either
because that is the state of knowledge of humankind
at that time - or more often because its the state of
knowledge of the person or group doing the planning 
exercise). Sometimes reasonable assumptions made at
the start (on current knowledge) turns out to be 
unreasonable in light of what is learned later. Good engineers
and investors and entrepreneurs save time by looking for the
fatal flaw first. (They seldom apply this device to their deep
beliefs and hopes pertaining to immortality so far as I can
tell). There is always another project or another investment
that they can direct their time and resources to if one path 
or approach fail. 

But this is not what believers do. Believers don't change their 
assumptions in light of new evidence they reinterpret or spin 
the evidence so as to preserve their assumption. Thats natural
enough but it doesn't get very far in practical terms. The human
desire to not die, an investor or entrepreneur can pretty much
take to the bank. So they do. 

People will buy mirage water if there is no real water to be had.
If both real and illusory solutions are available those who don't
know the difference will still go for the illusory ones just as 
readily as the real ones. 
 
> 2. "What is the biggest chance, the biggest hope for immortality?"

Depends where one is starting from personally. Operationally no
one actually dies of old age. There is always something cellular
that goes first. A heart attack has a cellular basis. A bullet through
the brain has a cellular basis. Cancer will kill a person when a critical
organ fails somewhere, and organismic failure will be a cell failure.
The biggest *hope* for immortality for a person on their deathbed
with an incurable condition and no time to find a cure is a religious 
repreive from the laws of contingency. The biggest *hope* is some
sort of religion. That's not the most practical solution (sometimes
there are no practical solutions) but it is their biggest hope. It has 
been historically, it still is today. But the forms of religion and the
forms of belief change. 

This is as true in 2004 as it was in earlier times. That someway, 
somehow the contingent nature of the universe as we understand
can be suspended in our case. Those with particularly detailed
understandings of the way the universe works and of their own
biology will have a harder time finding hope in assumptions based
on ignorance that they don't share. They may find hope in
ignorance. What igorance they retain and in having the capacity 
to approach problems that threaten their hope for assumptions
they can innovate and improve the quality of life for themselves 
and others whilst they do. But as they learn the shallow illusions
of others will not work for them anymore as they will be turning
on lights. For them hope for immortality always recedes into
the shaddows of what remains unknown. But the products of 
their searching solve lots of problems that are more tractable
than immortality. Cures for diseases. Life saving and labor
saving devices. Of course these don't come in time for 
everybody and how they are dispersed is a function of the 
political systems too. 

Say cryonics and molecular nanotechnology were impossible but 
we didn't know it yet, the person on their deathbed's *hope* for
immortality by that 'method' would be retained.  They wouldn't
achieve it of course (if it was impossible) but they could at least
die hoping. And with hope they'd die happy. 

I think it is actually extremely difficult to remove a persons hope
for immortality because each of us doesn't know something and
most of us *hope* the surprises in the unknowns will be pleasant
not unpleasant. 

I am not concerned that I will persuade or remove hope from 
anyone, by adopting a practical or engineering approach because
I am confident that believers will not stop believing and will find
hope in whatever way is necessary for them. But those who can
intellectually and emotionally work the practical and logical problems
like an engineering exercise can improve the human condition for
themselves and for me.

For me, age 37 and in good health, the best hope for me is to 
perhaps to persuade and coordinate efforts to acquire the
understanding to be able to replace all the organs in the body below
the neck (the brain is harder - so I figure get to it later -but I don't
have a brain disease).  Technologically I think this could be done
in the next 30 years - translation I don't know any reason at the
time of writing this why it could not be done in the next 30 years
(if politics was not an issue).  Technologically my state of ignorance
or understanding is such that I think the organs below the neck 
could be replaceable in the next 30 years - I think technologically
that would be a tractable problem (were it to be set as a goal).
And meanwhile substantial progress would be made in 
understanding the brain as well even without setting it as a goal.  

But of course that is the rub. Setting it as a goal politically. It is
very possible (heck I reckons its a virtual certainty) that politics
will prohibit setting that as a goal.  

This is because most people would find that goal abhorrent.
They will find their hope in different places. Conventional
religions offer easy off-the-shelf minimal-customisation-required
forms of hope-for-immortality. Goals that are abhorrent to the
majority cannot be set in democracies. Even if they are ethical
goals.  Even if they would be technologically possible. But
not everyone starts from the same position. Not everyone is 
37 and in good health. That of itself is enough for people to
prioritise differently and for politics to become a factor separate
to technological considerations. 

Apologies again for the rant. I think you wanted technological
answers - hence *up to date* but technological aspects are only
a part - and in my opinion they are not even the main 
impediment. 

Regards,
Brett 




From nanogirl at halcyon.com  Fri Jan  2 23:42:54 2004
From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 15:42:54 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Nanogirl News~
References: <016701c3d186$e997ac00$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <00c501c3d18a$24d05170$3f80e40c@NANOGIRL>

The Nanogirl News
January 2, 2004

Homeland Security Gets Small. How Nanotechnology May Aid Anti-Terrorism.
Ultimately, fighting the war on terrorism may have less to do with giant
aircraft carriers and more to do with atomic-scale detection and prevention
systems. Nanotechnology, which is expected to transform everything from
computer processors to drug delivery systems, may also be the key to
homeland security, argues a new book. In Nanotechnology and Homeland
Security: New Weapons for New Wars, Mark A. Ratner, a professor of chemistry
at Northwestern University and a noted expert in molecular electronics, and
his son Daniel Ratner, a high-tech entrepreneur, claim that current research
in nanotechnology will lead to intelligent sensors, smart materials, and
other methods for thwarting biological and chemical attacks. (ABC News
12/29/03)
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/ZDM/nanotech_security_pcmag_031229.ht
ml

The National Science Foundation has awarded to a 13-university consortium
the designation as the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network and at
least $70 million to share their facilities with qualified users for a
five-year period. Sandip Tiwari, director of the Cornell Nanoscale Facility,
will lead NNIN. (Cornell 12/22/03)
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Dec03/Nano.net.hrs.html

Hitachi Set to Plant It's Own 'Nanostamp' on the Medical Market. Hitachi's
Advanced Research Laboratory (ARL) is getting ready to commercialize a
low-cost "nanostamp" technology for medical applications. Hitachi's process
creates "nanopillars" with extremely high aspect ratios (narrow relative to
height), a feature that the company believes will prove useful for biochips
and other applications, according to Akihiro Miyauchi, a senior researcher
at Hitachi. The technology uses a silicon "stamp" that presses onto a
polystyrene-based polymer film, producing nanopillars that are extremely
long and thin, about 3 microns in height.
(Smalltimes 12/30/03) http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?documen
t_id=7147

Entering the Nano-Age? By Glenn Reynolds. Last week, I wrote about the EPA
Science Advisory Board meeting where nanotechnology was discussed. I learned
a lot of interesting things there, but one of the things that I learned is
that, even for people like me who try to keep up, the pace of nanotechnology
research is moving much too fast to catch everything.
One of the documents distributed at that meeting was a supplement to the
President's 2004 budget request, entitled National Nanotechnology
Initiative: Research and Development Supporting the Next Industrial
Revolution. I expected it to be the usual bureaucratic pap, but in fact, it
turned out to contain a lot of actual useful information, including reports
of several nanotechnology developments that I had missed. The most
interesting, to me, was the report of "peptide nanotubes that kill bacteria
by punching holes in the bacteria's membrane." You might think of these as a
sort of mechanical antibiotic. (TechCentral Station 12/23/03)
http://www.techcentralstation.com/122303C.html

Through thick and thin. Pair's Work has made HP a Leader in
Nanotechnology...Williams and his team of 30 work in a building that houses
the preserved offices of HP founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. In these
hallowed halls they are researching ways to make computer chips at the
atomic level, smaller than a bacteria or a virus. If they succeed in their
mission, HP could begin deploying a new manufacturing technique within the
next three to five years. This technique allows an entire wafer of circuits
to be stamped out quickly and cheaply from a master mold. (San Jose Mercury
News 12/29/03)
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/7563605.htm

Nanowire a Superior Disease Detector. A wire thinner than a human hair has
proven to be 1,000 times more sensitive at detecting disease, producing
results in minutes rather than days. Charles Lieber of Harvard University in
Boston, Massachusetts and colleagues developed and tested the silicon
nanowire in what they say is the first example of direct electrical
detection of DNA using nanotechnology. "This tiny sensor could represent a
new future for medical diagnostics," says Lieber, a professor of chemistry
at Harvard and a cofounder of nanotechnology company NanoSys. (Betterhumans
12/18/03)
http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?articleID=2003-12-18-3

The next high-tech frontier? For Donn Tice, the path to the new world of
nanotechnology leads through the old world of apparel manufacturing.
Nano-Tex's chief executive officer has traveled the globe this year selling
his Emeryville, Calif., company's nanotechnology chemical formula that makes
fabrics stain-resistant...Nano-Tex's Nano-Care product is more than just a
coating that repels stains. It changes the fabric itself on a molecular
level, embedding it with tiny, floppy, hair-like fibers that themselves are
attached to a common spine. Just as hair keeps rain from penetrating a dog's
coat, the "nano whiskers" in Nano-Care's chemical mix keeps stains from
soaking into clothing. Spill a glass of Merlot on a white blouse made with
Nano-Care and the wine beads up into harmless blobs. (Rutland Herald
12/29/03) http://rutlandherald.nybor.com/Business/Story/76515.html

Tiny nanotube antennas may yield better signals in cell phones, televisions.
In the future, your cell phone calls and television pictures could become a
lot clearer thanks to tiny antennas thousands of times smaller than the
width of a human hair. At least that's the speculation of a University of
Southern California scientist who has been investigating nanotube
transistors. The researcher has demonstrated for the first time that
minuscule antennas, in the form of carbon nanotube transistors, can
dramatically enhance the processing of electrical signals. (Eurekalert
12/30/03)
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-12/acs-na123003.php

Can Art Make Nanotechnology Easier to Understand? The old adage "seeing is
believing" hardly applies to nanoscience, which operates on a scale of atoms
and molecules. So how do you make something so miniscule and abstract appear
real to the ordinary eye? Why not through art? A new exhibition at the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art, called "nano," merges the art and the atom.
Through art-making exhibits, visitors can experience what it's like to move
molecules and manipulate atoms one by one.
(National Geographic 12/23/03)
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/12/1223_031223_nanotechnology.h
tml#main

Argonne researchers explore confinement of light with metal nanoparticles.
Optical engineering has had a tremendous impact on our everyday lives,
providing us with fiber optic communications and optical data storage.
However, manipulating light on the nanoscale level can be a Herculean task,
since the nanoscale level is so incredibly tiny - less than one tenth the
wavelength of light. Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory are making
strides towards understanding and manipulating light at the nanoscale by
using the unusual optical properties of metal nanoparticles, opening the
door to microscopic-sized devices such as optical circuits and switches.
(Eurekalert 12/23/03)
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-12/dnl-are122303.php

Extremely cold molecules created by Sandia and Columbia University
researchers. Using a method usually more suitable to billiards than atomic
physics, researchers from Sandia National Laboratories and Columbia
University have created extremely cold molecules that could be used as the
first step in creating Bose-Einstein molecular condensates. The work is
published in the Dec. 12 Science. (Sandia 12/11/03)
http://www.sandia.gov/news-center/news-releases/2003/physics-astron/cold.htm
l

Nanofabrication achieved on a biological substrate. Dip-pen nanolithography,
a process being developed for ultrasmall feature definition on semiconductor
ICs, may blaze new trails in medicine as well, if preliminary work reported
at the fall meeting of the Materials Research Society can be turned into
practical procedures. Albena Ivanisevic, a bioengineer at Purdue
University's Bindley Bioscience Center (West Lafayette, Ind.), described a
process in which amino acid-based nanostructures were assembled on retinal
tissue. The structures might be useful to surgeons trying to correct
blindness caused by macular degeneration.
(EETimes 12/11/03) http://www.eet.com/at/n/news/OEG20031211S0028

Nanotechnology: What is there to fear from something so small?  Next March,
Mark Welland's laboratory at the University of Cambridge, UK, will gain an
unusual member of staff. Welland's team works on nanometre-dimension wires
and tubes that could form the future of electronics, but the new recruit
won't be an engineer or a physicist - he or she will be a social scientist.
The appointment - a two-year position that will include running regular
meetings with everyone from industry representatives to green activists -
acknowledges public fears about the possible effects of nanotechnology on
human health and the environment. Although Welland may not subscribe to
long-standing scare stories about a 'grey goo' of nanometre-sized robots
taking over the planet, he realizes that scientists need to address this and
other concerns head on. (Nature 12/18/03)
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v426/n6968/f
ull/426750a_fs.html

Israel's big plan for a tiny science...Now Shimon Peres, a winner of the
Nobel Peace Prize and a former prime minister, is trying to ensure Israel's
place in nanotechnology, the emerging science of matter measured in
one-billionth of a meter...With that goal in mind, Peres, who turned 80 in
September, and his son, Chemi Peres, a venture capitalist, are aiming to
raise $300 million from American Jewish donors to ensure that Israel can
become a global nanotechnology developer. Right now the Israeli government
has about $150 million invested in nanotechnology research, according to
Einat Wilf, managing director of the Israeli Nanotechnology Trust.
(ContraCostaTimes 12/26/03)
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/business/7574247.htm

UW receives $5M grant to link nanotech, medicine. The University of
Washington will get about $5 million to support nanotechnology research as
part of a $70 million nationwide grant. The National Science Foundation
grant will establish a National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network to
assist research and education in nanoscale science, engineering and
technology, said a UW statement. (Puget Sound Business journal 12/26/03)
http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2003/12/22/daily21.html

(Computer Game) Review of Deus Ex: Invisible War for Xbox. The main
character uses nanotechnology for special powers within the game
plot.(GamePro.com)
http://www.gamepro.com/microsoft/xbox/games/reviews/31870.shtml

IBM's Millipede May Challenge Flash Memory. Some say The Information Age
began with the invention of the PC. For others, it's the birth of the
Internet, the development of the silicon chip or the global crisscrossing of
fiber-optic cable that shifted our societal pivot from goods-production to
information management. In a couple of years, IBM's Millipede data storage
system might also enter the debate. (Forbes 12/24/03)
http://www.forbes.com/2003/12/24/1224ibmpinnacor_ii.html?partner=my_yahoo&re
ferrer=

Viet Nam produces first nano material. Viet Nam has succeeded in making nano
coal, the first material, based on nano technology, said Nguyen Chanh Khe,
director of the Research and Development Center under the Saigon Hi-Tech
Park (SHTP). (VietnamEconomy 1/3/04)
http://www.vneconomy.com.vn/en_index.php?action=preview&cat=03&id=0312241032
55

Cardiff University is Creating Designer Molecules Against Cancer. Welsh
researchers are working on developing ultrasmall nanoparticles to tackle
breast and prostate cancers more effectively. It could allow higher doses of
more toxic drugs to be used without fear that widespread damage to tissues
will be caused. The work is being carried out by the recently established
Centre for Polymer Therapeutics established within the Welsh school of
Pharmacy at Cardiff under the direction of Professor Ruth Duncan. (Small
Times 12/23/03)
http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?section_id=45&document_id=712
2

Zyvex Expands Nanomanipulation Product Line. Zyvex Corporation [profile]
today announced the A100 Assembly System, a manipulation and assembly tool
which can be used with either a scanning electron or optical microscope to
assemble microscale components. "The A100 Assembly System represents a
significant product line extension for Zyvex," said Robert Folaron, Director
of Product Development at Zyvex. "Customers will not only benefit from
Zyvex's industry leading nanomanipulation capabilities for assembling
complex MEMS structures, but will also benefit from the microassembly
techniques we've developed through our NIST-ATP program." (NanoInvestorNews
12/25/03)
http://www.nanoinvestornews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2144

Light frozen in place. Researchers at Harvard University have trapped and
held a light pulse still for a few hundredths of a millisecond. The
experiment extends previous research that showed it is possible to store a
light pulse by imprinting its characteristics into gas atoms, and to
reconstitute the pulse using a second beam. The Harvard researchers went a
step further by briefly holding the reconstituted light pulse in place. (TRN
12/31/03)
http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2003/123103/Light_frozen_in_place_123103.html

Chemists Grow Nano Menagerie. Researchers from Sandia National Laboratories
have found a simple way to make tiny, complicated shapes from zinc oxide,
including arrays of vertically-aligned rods, flat disks, and columns that
resemble stacks of coins. The researchers grew the structures, which are
similar to those found in biomaterials, by seeding a solution with zinc
oxide nanoparticles. They were able to produce different shapes by changing
the amount of citrate in the solution at different points during particle
growth. (Technology Review 12/24/03)
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/rnb_122403.asp

TV series unravels the saga of 'DNA'. A half-century of science and
all-too-human conflicts. James Watson, who rocked the human race a
half-century ago by discovering the DNA molecule's double-helix structure,
has only one complaint about "DNA," a documentary series in which he serves
as the overarching presence. I wish they had shot it 20 years ago when I
didn't look so old," the 75-year-old Watson says with a rueful laugh. "It's
not the view I have of myself." Still, a big part of his view of himself -
also clearly visible to the outside world - is that of someone who likes to
rock the boat and create waves. And that part seems impervious to age.
(MSNBC 12/31/03) http://msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3848587&p1=0

2003: The Year of the Straw NanoMan. Ronald Bailey, in his very reasonable
piece about the "growing peril" of a nanotechnology moratorium," asserts
that anti-nano activists "cannot be lightly dismissed."I agree to a point,
having made similar assertions myself, but after speaking and listening to a
number of business and government leaders, I can't help but think that
activists like Pat Mooney of the ETC Group might be the best thing that's
happened to the nanotech industry. When it comes to the environmental
debate, the handful of people who call for a moratorium on nano research
conveniently play the role of the straw enemy of nanoprogress, since their
pseudoscience can easily be attacked. That is what I was thinking as I
listened to Phil Bond, the U.S. Commerce Department's undersecretary for
technology, give an eloquent speech recently in Chicago. (Howard Lavoy's
Nanobot 12/24/03)
http://nanobot.blogspot.com/2003_12_21_nanobot_archive.html#1072287574695510
87

(Humor) Santa's speed? It must be gas. Scientists explain how Santa Claus
zips around the world on Christmas Eve depositing presents without breaking
the laws of physics. -Apparently Santa uses nanotechnology to turn cookies
into toys!- (Herald 12/24/03)
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/7561195.htm

Happy New Year!

Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
http://www.nanoindustries.com
Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com
Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org
Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
Tech-Aid Advisor http://www.tech-aid.info/t/all-about.html
nanogirl at halcyon.com
"Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future."



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan  2 23:59:08 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 15:59:08 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (was fermi's
	paradox:m/d approach)
In-Reply-To: <20040102142253.6d7628cc.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401021543260.24006-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Harvey, Mike and others are discussing the possibility
of sims and I think I see where there may be a misunderstanding.

For example On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Samantha Atkins wrote:

> I don't get that argument.  If we are in a simulation then our
> science, used to study *what is* may be able to determine that fact.

The point of misunderstanding may be whether or not we are discussing
simulations of "this" universe (or something very close to this
universe) and whether we could sim this universe from within this
universe -- *or* whether we are within a sim of "a" universe which
is simply one of many possible universes.  Dyson may have been
one of the first people to discuss why certain physical constants
happen to be "just right" for this universe to work -- but I think
others have discussed it and there may even now be a couple of
books about it.

So the question really seems to revolve around whether one wants
to create universes similar to ones own (e.g. The Matrix series
or The Truman Show or perhaps even Groundhog Day).  Or whether
one is playing "GOD" and universes (as we perceive them) are
toys where one is simply saying "I wonder what happens when
I change this?".  If one creates a universe where intelligent
life develops and and the physical laws don't form a complete picture
(one could argue we have this now with quantum electrodynamics, gravity
and string theory) then one is going to end up with some pretty
frustrated subjects to study.  (This is a psych experiment with
very intelligent lab rats...).

On the other hand if one is running sims to see if there is an
alter-universe that might be created that one could somehow
transfer into (because the mega-universe has a limited lifetime
perhaps) then things may be a bit trickier.  In that case one
presumably wants the laws to hold together because one is
planning on living in it.  So one wants to run an unflawed
simulation with as few corners cut as possible.

Doesn't this relate to some degree to Permutation City?
(which by now I've largely forgotten).

Robert




From thespike at earthlink.net  Sat Jan  3 00:02:45 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 18:02:45 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Nanogirl News~
References: <016701c3d186$e997ac00$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<00c501c3d18a$24d05170$3f80e40c@NANOGIRL>
Message-ID: <023c01c3d18c$ed8d6880$d6ef9a40@texas.net>

< Viet Nam produces first nano material. Viet Nam has succeeded in making
nano coal, the first material, based on nano technology, said Nguyen Chanh
Khe, director of the Research and Development Center under the Saigon
Hi-Tech Park (SHTP). (VietnamEconomy 1/3/04)
http://www.vneconomy.com.vn/en_index.php?action=preview&cat=03&id=0312241032
55 >

This will be very good news for those Brits still warming their frozen New
Year fingers in front of the traditional coal fire. Nano coal is much
lighter to carry home. On the down side, it's going to take a *tremendous*
number of briquettes to build up a good blaze, and most of them are likely
to blown straight up the chimney.

Damien Broderick
["nano coal... is made from calcium carbide, coconut fiber or oil coal"]



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sat Jan  3 01:07:50 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 17:07:50 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] ASTRO: A piece of the Universe
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401021629390.25493-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


For those of you who don't know Stardust has successfully passed
through the halo of the comet Wild-2 and is on its way back
home with some of the dust from which our Solar System was
formed.  More along with the closest picture of a comet
I've ever seen are here:
  http://www.spacedaily.com/news/stardust-04d.html
and more details are here:
  http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/

We will have to wait a couple of years to get our hands on the
material but my hat is off to those folks at Lockheed who
constructed the Stardust and the folks at Boeing who built
the rocket that launched it and the folks at JPL that built
some of the instruments).  [If you know any of those
folks Spike -- give them my best regards.]

For those of you don't know -- Stardust had some camera
problems with blurry vision early on in the mission --
the solution reminds me of...

   Harry: Come on! You're NASA for Christ's sake!
      You're the ones who come up with this shit!
      Why I bet you have a bunch of guys sitting
      around somewhere right now just thinking shit up,
      and somebody backing them up.
      What's your contingency plan?
   Truman: Our contingency plan?
   Harry: Yeah, your back up plan. You've gotta have a back up plan.
   Truman: No, we don't have a back up plan.

Also -- as a frame of reference ~200 Lockheed engineers
were involved in creating Stardust -- suggests one needs
an Extropic community at least 10x but more probably between
100x and 1000x bigger than the current community if one is
ever to hope to get lots of us out of harms way (be it
asteroids, comets or luddites).

Robert



From spike66 at comcast.net  Sat Jan  3 02:14:40 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 18:14:40 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] that bad old internet
In-Reply-To: <00d901c3d152$e7ac7b70$d2256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <001c01c3d19f$58a576f0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


> SDAs are, IMO, one of the most retard of Xian sects.
> [Just thought I'd add that gratuitous religious insult to 
> round off the discussion... Dirk

Be good to them Dirk, they may save your life some day.  Follow me:

A few weeks ago I referenced the hapless Baptists, who have a notion in
their basic teachings that all goodness comes from god, therefore all
legitimate ethical notions are found in the bible, therefore since
slavery is not specifically forbidden in the bible, it must be OK.  This
is among other absurdities that follow from the flawed premise.

The Seventh Day Adventist has a somewhat related situation. They have a
long and specific list of taboos, revealed directly to the modern
prophet Ellen G. White.  

But anything that is not on that forbidden list is allowed.

Over the years I have witnessed a number of attempts to add new taboos
to this long and specific list.  I find it remarkable that *not one* of
those attempts has been successful, not a single one.

This has some interesting consequences, for the SDAs have a modern
medical facility: Loma Linda University in southern
Taxifornia.  It is well known that if you have some wacky research idea,
Loma Linda has a notoriously open-minded ethics board: they will allow
anything that does not conflict with the previously mentioned long list
of taboos.  An example is the Baby Fae experiment that you may recall
from the 1980s in which a baboon heart was transplanted into a human
infant.  Done at Loma Linda.  There is nothing in the sacred texts that
specifically forbid it.  

This read-my-lips-no-new-no-nos concept results in the Seventh Day
Adventists being the *only* xian church (that I know of) that holds an
official pro-choice stance.  There are other churches that hold no
position perhaps, but SDA stands alone in being officially and
specifically pro-choice.  Good for them.  

Cloning?  Adventists stand alone among xian denominations as coming out
officially in favor.  Stem cell research?  Sure.  Genetic manipulation?
The more the merrier, for they do this research with calm confidence,
knowing that biblical and Ellen-White-ical prophecy says nothing about
the world being devoured by goo of any color.  The girl I dated before I
met my wife is as staunch SDA as anyone you will ever meet.  She got her
PhD in biology from Purdue and is now a researcher in genetic
engineering, with no cognitive dissonance whatsoever.  Hey, the
prophetess didn't say it was wrong, so it must be right.  Right?

Several of my computer science friends that went to SDA colleges were
discussing artificial intelligence way back in the early 80s, before
there was an extropian list or the internet.  We even discussed the
singularity, even tho we did not call it by that name.  We speculated
that computers would eventually reach human level intelligence and
rewrite their own software, causing an open loop feedback system.

Loma Linda University follows the tradition of SDA Doctor John Harvey
Kellogg, the inventor of corn flakes and other vegetarian foods, who was
always experimenting with new techniques to treat his patients.  Dirk,
if you or I get prostate cancer, we can go to Loma Linda to be treated
in their proton accelerator, which painlessly radiates the tumor,
leaving us able to copulate and not piss on ourselves.  In my admittedly
very limited statistical sample, the three prostate cancer patients I
know personally who had their tumors cut out are all dead.  The two I
know personally who had their tumors irradiated at LLU are alive and
well.  Think about it.

As for being the "most retard of the xian sects", I think the better
adjective might be the most *retro* of the xians.  This is
understandable, for the 20th century was not supposed to happen, never
mind the 21st.  There are plenty of good SDAs that are in some ways
retrogressing to the 19th century,  for this century is not their home.
In this at least, most of us here share their discomfort, for our
extropian hearts and minds belong in the 22nd century.

SDA is your friend, Dirk.

spike



     



From spike66 at comcast.net  Sat Jan  3 02:29:57 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 18:29:57 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] netscape news article
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401021629390.25493-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <002101c3d1a1$7afce600$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

Hey cool, check this.  It isn't too late.  {8-]  spike

http://channels.netscape.com/new/html/live/scoop/nn/10.html




From jrd1415 at yahoo.com  Sat Jan  3 02:32:34 2004
From: jrd1415 at yahoo.com (Jeff Davis)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 18:32:34 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs
In-Reply-To: <20040102200935.27048.qmail@web80403.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040103023234.98660.qmail@web41207.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Samantha Atkins <samantha at objectent.com> wrote:

> Terrorism is so bloody loosely defined that saying
> it is this or that category of crime is virtually
> meaningless.  Its definition is arbitrary so any
> acts or purported acts or secretly accused acts may
> be subject to whatever whim the authorities care to
> exercise.

The term "terrorism" is the purest of propaganda.  It
doesn't so much have a definition as it has a purpose.
 It's purpose is to demonize and delegitimize anyone
who uses force to oppose the established order.  It
also seeks to obscure the underlying issues, the
usually legitimate grievances which provoke violent
opposition.  

As propaganda, the term "terrorism" presumptively
convicts the "terrorists" as "evildoers"--defines them
as such--using the targeting of "innocent civilians"
as proof. But warfare is the ultimate incivility,
which elevates victory to the highest moral good,
allowing any tactic--"all's fair in love and war"--no
matter how atrocious (to the other side, of course).
if seen as a path to victory.  The wanton destruction
and deliberate killing of civilians--to which, by
comparison, deaths from terrorism are but a
speck--seems a feature of all modern wars, from all
sides: Sherman's march to the sea, the Turks to the
Armenians, the rape of Nanking, the London blitz, the
firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo, the nuclear
obliteration of H & N, the free-fire zones of the
peasant farming villages of Vietnam and Laos, the
Turks to the Kurds, Saddam to the Kurds, just to
mention a few.  

Also the concept of the "innocent civilian" is a bit
thin.  There are very few 'neutral'--and in that sense
'innocent'--civilians.  Farmers feed the troops. 
Factory workers build the weapons.  Everyone who is a
taxpayer pays for the implementation of foreign
policy.  As to little Billy and little Susie, just a
few short years away from their own contribution to
the death machine/war, better to exterminate them in
their cribs than face their fully-developed productive
capacity on the battlefield.  The pragmatism of war is
the ultimate psychosis.  

And leave us not forget that in a putatively
democratic political system, the "governed" through
their "consent", ie their vote, acquire a large degree
of responsibility for the actions of their "public
servants".  In a democracy, everyone who votes for the
perp, or who pays taxes (even given the gun to the
head) loses any claim to innocence.  

But there's more.  Beyond the deliberate, egregious,
mass civilian slaughter, cynically shunted away from
moral inspection (if committed by YOUR side), is the
separate, the so-called 'justifiable' killing of
civilians.  Killings sanitized and made palatable (so
long as it isn't YOUR loved one who is savaged
indescribably) by the term "collateral damage".

But what of the Geneva Convention, the so-called rules
of war, as a moral metric for the conduct of war? 
Give me a break.  Is that the smell of the turnip
truck I detect wafting off your raiment?  The Geneva
Convention is a set of bogus 'limits' made by those
with substantial military resources, to "outlaw"
techniques of unconventional war-making which might be
of use to adversaries of lesser military resources. 
There is only one rule in war: win.

Best, Jeff Davis

"For centuries our race has built on false
assumptions.  If you build a fantasy based on a false
assumptions and continue to build on such a fantasy,
your whole existence becomes a lie which you implant
in others who are too lazy or too busy to question
it's truth." - Michael Moorcock






__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au  Sat Jan  3 02:44:10 2004
From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 13:44:10 +1100
Subject: [extropy-chat] netscape news article
References: <002101c3d1a1$7afce600$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <059601c3d1a3$7712c8a0$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>

Spike wrote:

> Hey cool, check this.  It isn't too late.  {8-]  spike
> 
> http://channels.netscape.com/new/html/live/scoop/nn/10.html

In silly moments I wonder if what might motivate calorie restricted
critters to live longer is the single minded desire to live long enough
to turn the tables on the specific rotter that put them on a starvation
diet. 

Prob'ly not ;-)  

Brett





From spike66 at comcast.net  Sat Jan  3 02:40:01 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 18:40:01 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] that bad old internet
In-Reply-To: <001c01c3d19f$58a576f0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <002201c3d1a2$e2bf97a0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

spike:

> But anything that is not on that forbidden list is allowed.
> ... This read-my-lips-no-new-no-nos concept results in the Seventh Day
> Adventists being the *only* xian church (that I know of) that holds an
> official pro-choice stance...
> Cloning?  Adventists stand alone among xian denominations as 
> coming out officially in favor.  Stem cell research?  Sure.  Genetic 
> manipulation? The more the merrier... spike

I forgot an important one: cryonics.  I have spoken
to a number of SDAs, and never has any of them come
up with any reason why cryonics should be discouraged.
This is remarkable in that most xians feel that 
cryonics is in some way against their religion.  In
SDA, an intuition of wrongness counts for nothing.  For
something to be wrong, it must have a *specific*
chapter and verse, and it cannot be vague or indirect.

spike

 



From dirk at neopax.com  Sat Jan  3 02:42:54 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 02:42:54 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs
References: <20040103023234.98660.qmail@web41207.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <03d001c3d1a3$49c02730$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Davis" <jrd1415 at yahoo.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 2:32 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs


> --- Samantha Atkins <samantha at objectent.com> wrote:
>
> > Terrorism is so bloody loosely defined that saying
> > it is this or that category of crime is virtually
> > meaningless.  Its definition is arbitrary so any
> > acts or purported acts or secretly accused acts may
> > be subject to whatever whim the authorities care to
> > exercise.
>
> The term "terrorism" is the purest of propaganda.  It
> doesn't so much have a definition as it has a purpose.
>  It's purpose is to demonize and delegitimize anyone
> who uses force to oppose the established order.  It
> also seeks to obscure the underlying issues, the
> usually legitimate grievances which provoke violent
> opposition.


Agreed - in general.
However, I think a far better definition of 'terrorism' is the deliberate
targetting of non-combatants for political purposes.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From dirk at neopax.com  Sat Jan  3 02:44:41 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 02:44:41 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] netscape news article
References: <002101c3d1a1$7afce600$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
	<059601c3d1a3$7712c8a0$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>
Message-ID: <03d801c3d1a3$89f70e90$d2256bd5@artemis>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brett Paatsch" <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 2:44 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] netscape news article


> Spike wrote:
> 
> > Hey cool, check this.  It isn't too late.  {8-]  spike
> > 
> > http://channels.netscape.com/new/html/live/scoop/nn/10.html
> 
> In silly moments I wonder if what might motivate calorie restricted
> critters to live longer is the single minded desire to live long enough
> to turn the tables on the specific rotter that put them on a starvation
> diet. 

You don't even have to live longer to get the benefits.
A lifetime of starvation will seem endless. 

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org


From extropy at unreasonable.com  Sat Jan  3 02:47:37 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 21:47:37 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <000001c3d0ac$a5231d00$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
References: <20040101185454.98001.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040102205906.029b6008@mail.comcast.net>

At 01:17 PM 1/1/2004 -0800, Spike wrote:

>Even if we nuke ourselves into the stone age, recall that the stone age
>lasted until only a few thousand years ago.  Humans are tremendously
>adaptable, and many already live in places that would not be worth a
>nuke, should all the nuke capable powers let loose with all they have.
>Africans would survive, Aborigines would survive, there would be pockets
>of humanity everywhere that would carry on.

The worst-case scenario with current or near-term technology is not 
nuclear, it is biological.

A few months ago, I watched Dr. Ann Reid of the Armed Forces Institute of 
Pathology being interviewed on C-SPAN. (Disclosure:  I *think* it was her; 
it could have been another woman researcher, with the CDC.  Irrelevant to 
the discussion.)

She was discussing the so-called Spanish Flu of 1918, which she has devoted 
her career to studying.  You may recall that it was one of the worst 
pandemics in history, killing about 40 milllion people in a few months.

Which is bad enough.

I had always assumed that the epidemic had been self-limiting, as they 
generally are.  The jaw-dropping part for me was when she reported the 
conclusion from their studies that, within ten years or so, everyone on the 
planet had been exposed to the virus.  There was no place so remote that 
they did not detect indications the virus had reached there.

So imagine something a little more virulent, perhaps engineered.

We've been lucky so far, that bad stuff is self-limiting or some people 
have the right mix to be naturally immune.  I'm not convinced it has to be 
that way, particularly if the agent has been designed to be nasty.

This leads me to two thoughts pertinent to this discussion.

(1)  Your S/M brain could certainly result from AI.  But the upload route 
to an S+M brain, anyway, seems to require a comparable understanding of 
biology as would be needed to create an extinction-class biological weapon.

(2)  I will sleep better at night when our DirtWorld life has spread to 
self-sufficient, biologically isolated backups.


-- David Lubkin.




From fauxever at sprynet.com  Sat Jan  3 03:49:03 2004
From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 19:49:03 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs
References: <20040103023234.98660.qmail@web41207.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <017001c3d1ac$8804c560$6600a8c0@brainiac>

From: "Jeff Davis" <jrd1415 at yahoo.com>

[snip]
> Also the concept of the "innocent civilian" is a bit
> thin.  There are very few 'neutral'--and in that sense
> 'innocent'--civilians.  Farmers feed the troops.
> Factory workers build the weapons.  Everyone who is a
> taxpayer pays for the implementation of foreign
> policy.
[snip]
> And leave us not forget that in a putatively
> democratic political system, the "governed" through
> their "consent", ie their vote, acquire a large degree
> of responsibility for the actions of their "public
> servants".  In a democracy, everyone who votes for the
> perp, or who pays taxes (even given the gun to the
> head) loses any claim to innocence.

Aaaah, yes, taxes:

"The Republican Study Committee's Money Monitor keeps track of how
Washington spends your money. And is Washington ever on a spending spree
this year compared with last.

"Here's year-to-date totals of net one-year costs of House-passed
appropriations:

   Fiscal year 2003: $476,378,900,000.00
   Fiscal year 2004: $873,990,730,000.00"

Source:   http://www.washtimes.com/national/inbeltway.htm

Very good post, Jeff, thanks.

Olga






From neptune at superlink.net  Sat Jan  3 04:41:35 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 23:41:35 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
References: <20040101185454.98001.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040102205906.029b6008@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <005801c3d1b3$df8396c0$99cd5cd1@neptune>

On Friday, January 02, 2004 9:47 PM David Lubkin
extropy at unreasonable.com wrote:
> (2)  I will sleep better at night when our
> DirtWorld life has spread to self-sufficient,
> biologically isolated backups.

Same here, though, of course, I mean "sleep" in the metaphorical sense.

Cheers!

Dan
    See "For a Free Frontier: The Case for Space Colonization" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/SpaceCol.html



From spike66 at comcast.net  Sat Jan  3 04:37:55 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 20:37:55 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] random new years thoughts
In-Reply-To: <059601c3d1a3$7712c8a0$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>
Message-ID: <000001c3d1b3$5ba33680$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

As I was reading a science site on today's comet fly-by and tomorrow's
Mars landing, it occurred to me that most people on this backward planet
are more interested in the competition aspect of tomorrow's landing than
in the science: the yanks lost both our last two Mars landers in a most
ignominious way, the Japanese lost theirs, the Europeans lost theirs.
Now lets see if the yanks can get it right this time.

We are cats.  If you place a stuffed mouse in front of a cat, she will
ignore it.  Tie a string to the mouse and pull it across the floor,
watch that cat pounce.  Its just a cat's nature: she doesn't care about
the actual mouse, she wants to ATTACK something.  Its human nature: most
people care little about Mars, they want to see whose team WINS the
GAME.  Hey, that got us to the moon.

In this new year, let us be thankful both for what we have and what we
do not have.  I just got off the phone with a biker buddy who is having
trouble with an inner-ear condition I had never heard of until he got
it.  It causes the rate sensor gyros in the ears to suddenly send
erroneous signals to the brain.  When the brain receives signals which
disagree, it knows not which way is up.  My friend can be walking down
the hall and suddenly bump into the wall or weave and stagger like a
drunkard.  These attacks come on utterly without warning.  He must sit
down immediately, wherever he is, or risk falling to the floor.

Problem: he isn't sure what would happen should this occur while he is
on the bike, or worse still heeled way over in a high speed curve.  He
cannot go with us tomorrow.  The guy is a worse fanatic than I am: he
has six motorcycles, delectable pieces all.  There is real fear that if
he cannot get this condition under control he must call it a day on the
old biking hobby.  The poor chap was nearly in tears, and I was at a
loss to find adequate words of comfort.  I was sure it would get better
soon and yakkity yak and bla bla, but in fact I am not sure at all: I
know nada of this.  Im a biker, not a doctor.

Last week when that earthquake hit, I did not at first realize what it
was, for the S wave was parallel to the load-bearing walls in my house.
For that reason, the house did not creak as it normally does on such
occasions, tipping me off to what was happening, and there was no
rumble.  The house merely swayed, messing up my equilibrium.  My very
first thought was OY VEY its that ear thing that Bill has, and now I
won't be able to RIIIIIDE, holy SHIT, waaaaah!

How shallow of me.  Two women perished in Paso Robles from falling
masonry.  In another quake of nearly the same magnitude a few days later
in Iran, 30,000 souls perished from falling stonework, and I was
fretting over my PRECIOUS motorcycles.  {8-[

May the singularity free us from the more untoward aspects of our human
nature.

Congratulations Stardust team!

Good luck and evolutionspeed Spirit and Opportunity!

Watch it live tomorrow on NOVA.  

{8-]  spike








From aperick at centurytel.net  Sat Jan  3 03:38:21 2004
From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 19:38:21 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique
In-Reply-To: <200401022226.i02MQ0E26405@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3d1ab$0a521470$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>

Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>Imagine an infinite space one inch by one inch by infinity.  Now
imagine a space twice as large, one inch by two inches by infinity.
Despite complaints about comparing infinities, it seems obvious that the
second object can hold exactly two of the smaller objects. When
comparing similar magnitudes or dimensions of infinities, it is possible
to do math and compare them.
/>

Many things will/do seem obvious to many people. So called common sense
has many times lead to error. My sense reckons that one infinite three
dimensional space is volumetrically equivalent to any other infinite
three dimensional space. And, I suggest that most math PhD's may
agree??? But this paradox may only be the result of our having imagined
the existence of a concept which lacks any physical referent. We have
little or no evidence that anything can be infinite -- not if we accept
the big bang. 

RE: the simulation conjecture: You'll just have to trust me on this one,
but when I designed and built the system which implements the simulation
that is currently running I only implemented a handful of sentient
players -- myself, and a few of the other entities on this list (you
each know who you are). So, the simulation only has to generate the
sensory inputs and minds of we few -- a very small computational task
indeed. I would tell the rest of you that you don't exist except as
artificially intelligent sounding boards which lack self awareness but,
of course, none of the rest of you exists to hear me :) 

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Woolley, Certified Scientist Type, Confirmed Atheist, radical
thinker, notorious fuck-up, and self-proclaimed singular authority on
the abysmal depths of human stupidity that only we few lack. Happy
Happy, Joy Joy. http://home.centurytel.net/rickw aperick at centurytel.net




From riel at surriel.com  Sat Jan  3 04:59:42 2004
From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 23:59:42 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <00c101c3d151$8bd0d0e0$d2256bd5@artemis>
References: <000001c3d0ba$33f64d60$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
	<00c101c3d151$8bd0d0e0$d2256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.55L.0401022358460.5927@imladris.surriel.com>

On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Dirk Bruere wrote:

> What would ET want from us?
> Science is pretty much irrelevent.

If the ET is intelligent, chances are it's also curious.

Lets face it, what else could be the motivation to build
an MBrain ?

Rik
-- 
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan


From samantha at objectent.com  Sat Jan  3 05:32:48 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 21:32:48 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (was
	fermi'sparadox:m/d approach)
In-Reply-To: <016701c3d186$e997ac00$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
References: <20040102142253.6d7628cc.samantha@objectent.com>
	<016701c3d186$e997ac00$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040102213248.4c191a2a.samantha@objectent.com>

On Fri, 2 Jan 2004 18:19:41 -0500
"Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:

> Samantha Atkins wrote,
> > I don't get that argument.  If we are in a simulation then 
> > our science, used to study *what is* may be able to determine 
> > that fact.  It is a speculation about the overall nature of 
> > our universe.  If your argument held then we should also 
> > include singularities like black holes from science.
> 
> Actually, I agree with you.  I was countering Mike's argument that science
> doesn't hold in other universes.  I said in that case, we can't call
> speculation about these areas outside science "scientific".  I was objecting
> to using the claim that science doesn't work in some cases as part of the
> scientfiic argument!  I actually do agree that science can speculate about
> what is outside our universe.  But throwing out the requirements of science
> is not part of scientific speculation.
> 
> > It would be a pretty poor simulation if it did not follow
> > well defined and consistent internal laws.  From the point
> > of view of beings within the simulation those laws are the
> > "known physical laws".   Within the simulation they are not
> > in the least wrong.  Nothing is possible except what the
> > simulation (local reality) was designed to make possible
> > unless something from outside interferes.   There is no
> > necessary rejection of science.
> 
> I didn't say that it "couldn't" be true.  But science doesn't lead to
> speculatation about what "might" be true that we can't detect.  That is more
> properly the realm of religion.  Science leads to explanations about what is
> observed.  If we haven't observed it and someone dreamed up the idea without
> observation or evidence, this is religion, not science.  Likewise, God might
> be true.  But discussions about God are religion, not science.

Thinking creatures with imagination will certainly think about what "might be".  From this "might be" thinking much of our philosophy and many of our scientific discoveries sprang.  Science gives us the means of teasing out the truth from our "might be" scenarios.   There are many things in science today that were not observed but were posited as "might be" explanations or even as pure thought experiments.  A "might be" does not relegate its content to belonging to religion.  I am surprised by the characterization. 
 
- s


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sat Jan  3 05:50:44 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 21:50:44 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] FSP: NH Liberty Index
Message-ID: <20040103055044.9457.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>

As an advance in political intelligence, various FSP members have been
researching the bills sponsored and passed by various NH legislators,
and grading legislators, in both the House and Senate, as well as
Governor Benson, on their practice of voting for liberty. This has
resulted in the NH Liberty Index.

http://lfod.org/2003/

I would highly recommend that libertarians in other states make similar
efforts to publish evaluations of the pro-liberty performance of all
state politicians in their own states, and that Pro-Act should
formulate a similar index to evaluate the pro-extropy stance of
national politicians, to allow pro-technology, pro-extropy individuals
around the nation make more informed election decisions.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sat Jan  3 06:38:13 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 22:38:13 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.55L.0401022358460.5927@imladris.surriel.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401022220130.31352-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Rik van Riel wrote:

> On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Dirk Bruere wrote:
>
> > What would ET want from us?
> > Science is pretty much irrelevent.
>
> If the ET is intelligent, chances are it's also curious.

I'll keep repeating it until it sinks in...
MBrains can have:
- 100 billion telescopes the diameter of the moon
  (plenty of information to process)
- The ability to simulate all human thought that has been
  done since Australopithecines in ~0.25 microseconds.
  (And that is probably conservative since it doesn't
   take into account the quality of thought of pre-modern
   humans or the population bottlenecks that humans
   probably went through.)

   [Figures are back-of-the envelope of course but provide
    a way of thinking about the scaling that most people
    simply fail to grasp.]

You can satisfy your curiosity in significantly less
time than it takes to go to lunch.

> Lets face it, what else could be the motivation to build
> an MBrain ?

Figuring out how to survive?

R.




From spike66 at comcast.net  Sat Jan  3 07:46:10 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 23:46:10 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] that bad old internet
In-Reply-To: <002201c3d1a2$e2bf97a0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <000001c3d1cd$a7e37b30$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

 
> > But anything that is not on that forbidden list is allowed...
> I forgot an important one: cryonics... spike

Oh yes, Loma Linda U broke the record for the oldest
mother when Arceli Keh of Highland, CA gave birth on
On November 7, 1996, at age 63 yr. 9 mo. after
having fertility treatments at Loma Linda University 
Medical Center.  Most fertilization specialists would 
refuse to even consider assisting such a risky 
pregnancy, but the open minded folks at LLU could
find no rule forbidding it.

My own mother is younger than that.  It is hard for 
me to imagine her giving birth now, but the medical 
magicians at LLU made it happen for Mrs. Keh.  

They are good.  And open minded.  Great combination.

{8-]  spike



From amara at amara.com  Sat Jan  3 11:27:21 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 13:27:21 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] Stardust update
Message-ID: <p05100300bc1c57431c45@[10.0.1.5]>

http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/status/040102.html

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109.  TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

DC Agle (818) 393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Donald Savage (202) 358-1547
NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

News Release: 2004-001                         January 2, 2003




NASA Spacecraft Makes Great Catch...Heads for Touchdown

[Comet Wild 2 is shown in this image taken by the Stardust
navigation camera during the spacecraft's closest approach to the
comet on January 2. The image was taken within a distance of 500
kilometers (about 311 miles) of the comet's nucleus with a
10-millisecond exposure.]

Team Stardust, NASA's first dedicated sample return mission to a
comet, passed a huge milestone today by successfully navigating
through the particle and gas-laden coma around comet Wild 2
(pronounced "Vilt-2"). During the hazardous traverse, the
spacecraft flew within 240 kilometers (149 miles) of the comet,
catching samples of comet particles and scoring detailed pictures
of Wild 2's pockmarked surface.

"Things couldn't have worked better in a fairy tale," said Tom
Duxbury, Stardust project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

"These images are better than we had hoped for in our wildest
dreams," said Ray Newburn of JPL, a co-investigator for Stardust.
"They will help us better understand the mechanisms that drive
conditions on comets."

"These are the best pictures ever taken of a comet," said Principal
Investigator Dr. Don Brownlee of the University of Washington,
Seattle. "Although Stardust was designed to be a comet sample
return mission, the fantastic details shown in these images greatly
exceed our expectations."

The collected particles, stowed in a sample return capsule onboard
Stardust, will be returned to Earth for in-depth analysis. That
dramatic event will occur on January 15, 2006, when the capsule
makes a soft landing at the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training
Range. The microscopic particle samples of comet and interstellar
dust collected by Stardust will be taken to the planetary material
curatorial facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas,
for analysis.

Stardust has traveled about 3.22 billion kilometers (2 billion
miles) since its launch on February 7, 1999. As it closed the final
gap with its cometary quarry, it endured a bombardment of particles
surrounding the nucleus of comet Wild 2. To protect Stardust against
the blast of expected cometary particles and rocks, the spacecraft
rotated so it was flying in the shadow of its "Whipple Shields." The
shields are named for American astronomer Dr. Fred L. Whipple, who,
in the 1950s, came up with the idea of shielding spacecraft from
high-speed collisions with the bits and pieces ejected from comets.
The system includes two bumpers at the front of the spacecraft --
which protect Stardust's solar panels -- and another shield
protecting the main spacecraft body. Each shield is built around
composite panels designed to disperse particles as they impact,
augmented by blankets of a ceramic cloth called Nextel that further
dissipate and spread particle debris.

"Everything occurred pretty much to the minute," said Duxbury. "And
with our cometary encounter complete, we invite everybody to tune
in about one million, 71 thousand minutes from now when Stardust
returns to Earth, bringing with it the first comet samples in the
history of space exploration."

Scientists believe in-depth terrestrial analysis of the samples
will reveal much about comets and the earliest history of the solar
system. Chemical and physical information locked within the
cometary particles could be the record of the formation of the
planets and the materials from which they were made. More
information on the Stardust mission is available at

http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov .

Stardust, a part of NASA's Discovery Program of low-cost, highly
focused science missions, was built by Lockheed Martin Space
Systems, Denver, Colo., and is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of
Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- 

********************************************************************
Amara Graps, PhD          email: amara at amara.com
Computational Physics     vita:  ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt
Multiplex Answers         URL:   http://www.amara.com/
********************************************************************
"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." --Anais Nin



From amara at amara.com  Sat Jan  3 11:50:17 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 13:50:17 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] ASTRO: A piece of the Universe
Message-ID: <p05100301bc1c5c3b477e@[150.146.134.133]>

Robert Bradbury:

>Also -- as a frame of reference ~200 Lockheed engineers
>were involved in creating Stardust --

Don't forget the scientific component of the mission too (another
few hundred, I would guess). A significant proportion of the dust
community have been involved with this mission.

>the solution reminds me of...

>Harry: Come on! You're NASA for Christ's sake!
>You're the ones who come up with this shit!
>Why I bet you have a bunch of guys sitting
>around somewhere right now just thinking shit up,
>and somebody backing them up.
>What's your contingency plan?
>Truman: Our contingency plan?
>Harry: Yeah, your back up plan. You've gotta have a back up plan.
>Truman: No, we don't have a back up plan.


I suggest to keep a close watch on Rosetta. ESA lost their
opportunity to launch it on a Russian Proton rocket (ESA deemed it
too 'risky' with the fuel transfer), leaving them with the same
risky Ariane 5 plan as before and a new, much dustier target comet.
The launch window opens on February 26. No backup plan, and a very
real possibility of ten years of developing, planning, building with
~thousand scientists and engineers being scrapped.

Amara
-- 

***********************************************************************
Amara Graps, PhD
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario, INAF - ARTOV,
Via del Fosso del Cavaliere, 100, I-00133 Roma, ITALIA
tel: +39-06-4993-4375       |fax:  +39-06-4993-4383
Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it  | http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/dustgroup/~graps
************************************************************************
I'M SIGNIFICANT!...screamed the dust speck. -- Calvin


From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it  Sat Jan  3 15:00:30 2004
From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 16:00:30 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] random new years thoughts
In-Reply-To: <000001c3d1b3$5ba33680$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
References: <000001c3d1b3$5ba33680$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401031557200.26577@hercules>

On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Spike wrote:

>As I was reading a science site on today's comet fly-by and tomorrow's
>Mars landing, it occurred to me that most people on this backward planet
>are more interested in the competition aspect of tomorrow's landing than
>in the science: the yanks lost both our last two Mars landers in a most
>ignominious way, the Japanese lost theirs, the Europeans lost theirs.
>Now lets see if the yanks can get it right this time.

I'm not interested in the competition aspect in the least, and will gladly
cheer for the yankee probe it it makes it.
On a side note, I have suspects that the failing of the Beagle2 is some
oscure punishment to the UK for sending the Blur song on Mars, and
repeating that on *every* news release. Oh please.

Alfio


From mark at permanentend.org  Sat Jan  3 16:07:48 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 11:07:48 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
Message-ID: <003901c3d213$bbf6ef80$2ee4f418@markcomputer>

In case anyone is interested, I have a first draft of a paper on physical
immortality.  http://www.permanentend.org/immortality.html It was written
rather rapidly over the holiday season and so it suffers a little from WUI
(writing under the influence). As always, comments are appreciated. The
abstract is below:

Abstract: Killing mortal humans is wrong primarily because it inflicts upon
individuals one of the greatest losses they can experience: the loss of
their future. It is argued that this same analysis applies to those who
would deny access to life extension technology. To deny access to radical
life extension technology?technology that would greatly extend or permit
physical immortality?is wrong primarily because it inflicts upon those who
desire this technology one of the greatest losses they can experience: the
loss of their future. Recognition of this loss makes a strong presumptive
case for the moral impermissibility of prohibiting access to radical life
extension technology.

Cheers,

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org





From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sat Jan  3 16:39:17 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 11:39:17 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique
	(wasfermi'sparadox:m/d approach)
In-Reply-To: <20040102213248.4c191a2a.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <018a01c3d218$26d04fa0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Samantha Atkins wrote,
> There are many things in science
> today that were not observed but were posited as "might be" 
> explanations or even as pure thought experiments.  A "might 
> be" does not relegate its content to belonging to religion.  
> I am surprised by the characterization. 

That doesn't make it science.  If anyone ever develops a scientific theory,
scientific proof, scientific investigation, scientific explanation or
anything using the scientific method relating to the Simulation Argument,
then it might become science.  Right now it is a religious belief, a fantasy
story or maybe even a philosophical musing.  It seems that most people here
don't have a good definition for what is science or not.  Arguing that it
"might be true" or "hasn't been disproved" doesn't make it science any more
than "Creation Science" is science.  

The simulation argument is almost identical to the creation science
argument.  Instead of evolving by itself, the universe was created
mid-stream with history already in place, and an external entity directing
its actions.  We cannot detect that the history of carbon-dating or old
light from other stars was simulated by God instead of really coming from
those stars.  This makes much of the Creation Science universe a simulation.
The intervention by God sometimes is like tweaking of the simulation.  

I don't see how anybody can believe in the simulation argument without
believing in most religions.  I don't see how anybody can claim the
simulation argument is science without including most religions as science.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From neptune at superlink.net  Sat Jan  3 18:21:34 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 13:21:34 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
Message-ID: <005601c3d226$6c7b0e60$b0cd5cd1@neptune>

On atlantis_II, Dennis May responded to Spike's post with the following.
(To find out more about atlantis_II, see
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/atlantis_II/ )

Enjoy!

Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/

From: Dennis May <determinism at hotmail.com>
To: <atlantis_II at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 11:26 AM
Subject: [atlantis_II] Re: fermi's paradox: m/d approach: cross-post
from Extropians


Daniel Ust forwards from Spike at [extropy-chat]:

"...we aren't worth the mass to send us signals. I will
call this argument the M/D approach to Fermi's
paradox."

A civilization worth uncountable trillions of dollars but
the cost of an interstellar cell-phone is too much?

Spike wrote:

"Today there is no convincing mechanism that would
cause technological progress to stop. Gray goo is
something to worry about, but nature has had billions
of years to stumble upon it."

Gray goo has to obey the same thermodynamic and
chemical laws as living creatures.  Some of the capabilities
ascribed to gray goo have ignored these laws.  In any
case gray goo has to compete for resources and avoid
predators/parasites just like anyone else.  Paisley goo is
sure to run them out of many niches :-).  Nano-bacteria
exist at the  borderline of what is too small to be alive -
and might not be life but simply the remains.  Can
gray-goo exist with even smaller parasites eating off of it?

Spike wrote:

"This is my contention: that artificial intelligence wants to
THINK. It lives to think. It is smart enough to make things
happen: it knows how to build things. If it likes to think,
then it wants to get all the available material thinking, so
it builds an MBrain. It gathers all the metals in orbit about
the star and converts it all to whatever form maximizes
thought."

Not a very smart brain if it wants to put all its resources
into one place - ready to be destroyed by WoMD.  What
is to be gained by having a massive brain?  Is anything of
survival value added beyond a certain size?

Spike wrote:

"Energy from the star can be allowed to escape,
wasted, lost forever into the cosmos, for there is plenty
of that. But time cannot be wasted, for heat death is
coming to all."

If you believe in a model of thermodynamics including the
"Big Bang Theory".  I do not.

I support the WoMD cause of the Fermi Paradox.  Stealth,
mobility, and dispersion are the secrets to survival with space
WoMD.  Advertise your presence and expose yourself to WoMD.

Dennis May



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sat Jan  3 19:33:32 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 11:33:32 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <003901c3d213$bbf6ef80$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <20040103193332.82096.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Mark Walker <mark at permanentend.org> wrote:
> In case anyone is interested, I have a first draft of a paper on
> physical immortality.  http://www.permanentend.org/immortality.html
> It was written rather rapidly over the holiday season and so it
> suffers a little from WUI (writing under the influence).
> As always, comments are appreciated. The abstract is below:
> 
> Abstract: Killing mortal humans is wrong primarily because it
> inflicts upon individuals one of the greatest losses they can
> experience: the loss of their future. It is argued that this
> same analysis applies to those who would deny access to life
> extension technology. To deny access to radical life extension
> technology?technology that would greatly extend or permit physical
> immortality?is wrong primarily because it inflicts upon those who
> desire this technology one of the greatest losses they can
> experience: the loss of their future. Recognition of this loss
> makes a strong presumptive case for the moral impermissibility of
> prohibiting access to radical life extension technology.

Contradiction: killing humans who would otherwise prevent others from
gaining access to radical life extension technology, to such a degree
as to cause death. Is it wrong to kill such humans or not?

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From neptune at superlink.net  Sat Jan  3 19:43:19 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 14:43:19 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique(wasfermi'sparadox:m/d
	approach)
References: <018a01c3d218$26d04fa0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <006301c3d231$d7ffc580$70ce5cd1@neptune>

On Saturday, January 03, 2004 11:39 AM Harvey Newstrom
mail at HarveyNewstrom.com wrote:
>> There are many things in science
>> today that were not observed but
>> were posited as "might be"
>> explanations or even as pure
>> thought experiments.  A "might
>> be" does not relegate its content
>> to belonging to religion.   I am
>> surprised by the characterization.
>
> That doesn't make it science.  If
> anyone ever develops a scientific theory,
> scientific proof, scientific investigation,
> scientific explanation or anything using
> the scientific method relating to the
> Simulation Argument, then it might
> become science.

I agree with you here.  Of course, I read Samatha as trying to be
open-minded not anti-scientific.

> Right now it is a religious belief, a fantasy
> story or maybe even a philosophical
> musing.  It seems that most people here
> don't have a good definition for what is
> science or not.  Arguing that it "might be
> true" or "hasn't been disproved" doesn't
> make it science any more than "Creation
> Science" is science.

Granted.

> The simulation argument is almost
> identical to the creation science
> argument.  Instead of evolving by
> itself, the universe was created
> mid-stream with history already in
> place, and an external entity directing
> its actions.  We cannot detect that
> the history of carbon-dating or old
> light from other stars was simulated
> by God instead of really coming from
> those stars.  This makes much of the
> Creation Science universe a simulation.
> The intervention by God sometimes
> is like tweaking of the simulation.
>
> I don't see how anybody can believe
> in the simulation argument without
> believing in most religions.  I don't
> see how anybody can claim the
> simulation argument is science
> without including most religions as
> science.

I would reword that last paragraph because I distinguish between belief
and justification.  You might believe something to be the case -- e.g.,
we are living in a simulation or the Bible is literally true -- but be
unable to justify it in terms of logic, coherence, or experience.
(Also, granted, something might be true but the justification for it
might be invalid.  Someone might believe, e.g., that the Earth is round
(true) because people walking on it molded it into that shape (wrong).)

I bring up this distinction because there are so many things anyone
believes that one has not validated in any meaningful way.  Some of
those beliefs might be validated or invalidated when one gets into a
bind -- such as when there's someone who disagrees with the belief or
when one finds some contradiction between the belief and other beliefs
one holds.  However, I doubt anyone has done this with each and every
belief she or he has.  Each person's totality of beliefs is much too big
for that.

Instead, I kind of adopt Pierce's model -- IIRC, maybe it was Dewey; it
was one of the pragmatists:) -- of rationally reconstructing beliefs.
You work on them piecemeal, slowing changing the totality, but not all
at once.  I believe -- no pun intended:) -- the practical thing is
usually to change those beliefs that cause the most immediate trouble...

Cheers!

Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/



From thespike at earthlink.net  Sat Jan  3 20:00:51 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 14:00:51 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Heinlein merriment
References: <000001c3d1b3$5ba33680$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <001c01c3d234$4c30ba20$a4994a43@texas.net>

Public libraries are wonderful. Here's a San Antonio catalogue entry:

Title    For us, the living : a comedy of customs / by Robert A. Heinlein ;
with an introduction by Spider Robinson ; and an afterword by Robert James.
Author   Heinlein, Robert A. (Robert Anson), 1907-
Call Number    SCIENCE FICTION HEINLEIN
Publisher   New York : Scribner, c2004.
Description   xvii, 263 p. ; 24 m.
Subject(s)    Traffic accident victims Fiction.




From dirk at neopax.com  Sat Jan  3 20:04:22 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 20:04:22 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401022220130.31352-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <00ac01c3d234$c7d7b200$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 6:38 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach


> 
> 
> On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Rik van Riel wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Dirk Bruere wrote:
> >
> > > What would ET want from us?
> > > Science is pretty much irrelevent.
> >
> > If the ET is intelligent, chances are it's also curious.
> 
> I'll keep repeating it until it sinks in...
> MBrains can have:
> - 100 billion telescopes the diameter of the moon
>   (plenty of information to process)
> - The ability to simulate all human thought that has been
>   done since Australopithecines in ~0.25 microseconds.
>   (And that is probably conservative since it doesn't
>    take into account the quality of thought of pre-modern
>    humans or the population bottlenecks that humans
>    probably went through.)
> 
>    [Figures are back-of-the envelope of course but provide
>     a way of thinking about the scaling that most people
>     simply fail to grasp.]
> 
> You can satisfy your curiosity in significantly less
> time than it takes to go to lunch.

Which is why we are being left alone until we become interesting.
And 'interesting' does not refer to universally discoverable things.
 
> > Lets face it, what else could be the motivation to build
> > an MBrain ?
> 
> Figuring out how to survive?
 
Surviving other MBrains most likely.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org


From dirk at neopax.com  Sat Jan  3 20:05:06 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 20:05:06 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
References: <000001c3d0ba$33f64d60$6501a8c0@SHELLY><00c101c3d151$8bd0d0e0$d2256bd5@artemis>
	<Pine.LNX.4.55L.0401022358460.5927@imladris.surriel.com>
Message-ID: <00b201c3d234$e22761f0$d2256bd5@artemis>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rik van Riel" <riel at surriel.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 4:59 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach


> On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Dirk Bruere wrote:
> 
> > What would ET want from us?
> > Science is pretty much irrelevent.
> 
> If the ET is intelligent, chances are it's also curious.
> 
> Lets face it, what else could be the motivation to build
> an MBrain ?

The only area we know of that is truly infinite in scope is mathematics.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sat Jan  3 23:02:02 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 18:02:02 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <20040103193332.82096.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <01ad01c3d24d$99dbcee0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Mike Lorrey wrote,
> Contradiction: killing humans who would otherwise prevent 
> others from gaining access to radical life extension 
> technology, to such a degree as to cause death. Is it wrong 
> to kill such humans or not?

I think this is obviously wrong.  This is a classic example of choosing the
lesser of two evils.  Both choices are evil.  Choosing the lesser evil is
still evil.  I think it confuses the issue to compare them and say that the
lesser evil is "good" compared to the worse evil.  I think it makes more
sense to clearly state that they are both evil.  

The question of whether we should choose the lesser of two evils depends on
there not being any other possibilities.  But how do you prove a negative?
I think it can never be proven that there is not a better alternative and
that we have to choose one of these evils.  We can contrive more complicated
scenarios with specific time-limits and artificial constraints, but these
seem further and further removed from reality the more we simplify them.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From dirk at neopax.com  Sat Jan  3 23:13:50 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 23:13:50 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
References: <01ad01c3d24d$99dbcee0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <015001c3d24f$3fc79680$d2256bd5@artemis>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 11:02 PM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality


> Mike Lorrey wrote,
> > Contradiction: killing humans who would otherwise prevent
> > others from gaining access to radical life extension
> > technology, to such a degree as to cause death. Is it wrong
> > to kill such humans or not?
>
> I think this is obviously wrong.  This is a classic example of choosing
the
> lesser of two evils.  Both choices are evil.  Choosing the lesser evil is
> still evil.  I think it confuses the issue to compare them and say that
the
> lesser evil is "good" compared to the worse evil.  I think it makes more
> sense to clearly state that they are both evil.
>
> The question of whether we should choose the lesser of two evils depends
on
> there not being any other possibilities.  But how do you prove a negative?
> I think it can never be proven that there is not a better alternative and
> that we have to choose one of these evils.  We can contrive more
complicated
> scenarios with specific time-limits and artificial constraints, but these
> seem further and further removed from reality the more we simplify them.

Another problem is defining what is meant by 'prevent'.
Does it mean speaking against?
Speaking against pursuasively?
Legislating against in a democracy?
If any of the above you are talking about justifying terrorism and
oppression.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sat Jan  3 23:17:40 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 15:17:40 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (wasfermi'sparadox:m/d
	approach)
In-Reply-To: <018a01c3d218$26d04fa0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401031509060.13725-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Sat, 3 Jan 2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote:

> I don't see how anybody can believe in the simulation argument without
> believing in most religions.  I don't see how anybody can claim the
> simulation argument is science without including most religions as science.

How about these reasons:
1) In a SIM you might be able to bend the reality.  In most religions
   you can't.
2) In a SIM you might escape from the reality.  In most religions
   you can't change the rules.
3) In a SIM you might be able to detect you are in a SIM (e.g. The
   Truman Show).  In most religions by assertion this is impossible
   (i.e. you can never tell that the God(s) are frauds).

Now interestingly this would seem to put string & brane theory
in the category of religions (from Harvey's perspective I think)
because they can probably never be tested.  I think this leads
into some very very subtle distinctions, e.g.:
a) What can never be proven;
b) What can be proven only by mathematics;
c) What can be proven only by mathematics with certain assumptions;
d) What can be proven by experiment.

Feel free to throw stones -- I'm just thinking out loud and have
some other emails that require attention.

:-)
R.




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sat Jan  3 23:21:08 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 15:21:08 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique(wasfermi'sparadox:m/d
	approach)
In-Reply-To: <006301c3d231$d7ffc580$70ce5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401031519550.13725-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Sat, 3 Jan 2004, Technotranscendence wrote:

> I believe -- no pun intended:) -- the practical thing is
> usually to change those beliefs that cause the most immediate trouble...

Daniel, these are words of wisdom.  Jeff, you should add this
to your list of sig quotes!

R.




From dirk at neopax.com  Sat Jan  3 23:32:42 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 23:32:42 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument
	critique(wasfermi'sparadox:m/dapproach)
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401031519550.13725-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <015d01c3d251$e2718420$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 11:21 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument
critique(wasfermi'sparadox:m/dapproach)


>
>
> On Sat, 3 Jan 2004, Technotranscendence wrote:
>
> > I believe -- no pun intended:) -- the practical thing is
> > usually to change those beliefs that cause the most immediate trouble...
>
> Daniel, these are words of wisdom.  Jeff, you should add this
> to your list of sig quotes!


And eliminate progress.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sat Jan  3 23:33:35 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 15:33:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <00ac01c3d234$c7d7b200$d2256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401031527520.13725-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Sat, 3 Jan 2004, Dirk Bruere wrote:

> > > Lets face it, what else could be the motivation to build
> > > an MBrain ?
> >
> > Figuring out how to survive?
>
> Surviving other MBrains most likely.

Probably not.  I was thinking in terms of individuals wanting
to build a large enough distributed intelligence that it
would be impossible for natural hazards to destroy their mind.

If MBrains have disputes they probably have to be settled
by hurling black holes across interstellar distances at
great expense -- one isn't going to bother with that unless
one is really convinced that another MBrain's survival in
some way seriously threatens your own survival.  If you are
both faced with the ultimate threat of the decay of all the
protons in the universe it might be better to pool resources
and determine whether there is a way out.  If there isn't
a way out -- well being at the top of the heap as it all
goes "poof" isn't very satisfying.

Robert




From dirk at neopax.com  Sat Jan  3 23:34:25 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 23:34:25 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique(wasfermi'sparadox:m/d
	approach)
References: <018a01c3d218$26d04fa0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <016501c3d252$1f90f250$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 4:39 PM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument
critique(wasfermi'sparadox:m/d approach)


> Samantha Atkins wrote,
> > There are many things in science
> > today that were not observed but were posited as "might be"
> > explanations or even as pure thought experiments.  A "might
> > be" does not relegate its content to belonging to religion.
> > I am surprised by the characterization.
>
> That doesn't make it science.  If anyone ever develops a scientific
theory,
> scientific proof, scientific investigation, scientific explanation or
> anything using the scientific method relating to the Simulation Argument,
> then it might become science.  Right now it is a religious belief, a
fantasy
> story or maybe even a philosophical musing.  It seems that most people
here
> don't have a good definition for what is science or not.  Arguing that it
> "might be true" or "hasn't been disproved" doesn't make it science any
more
> than "Creation Science" is science.


The only question worth asking to determine whether it is scientific is 'Is
it falsifiable?'
Nobody knows.
A bit like the Many Worlds Hypothesis of QM at present.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan  4 00:10:57 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 19:10:57 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique
	(wasfermi'sparadox:m/dapproach)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401031509060.13725-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <01af01c3d257$3a512510$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Robert J. Bradbury wrote,
> On Sat, 3 Jan 2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> 
> > I don't see how anybody can believe in the simulation argument without 
> > believing in most religions.  I don't see how anybody can claim the 
> > simulation argument is science without including most religions as 
> > science.
> 
> How about these reasons:
> 1) In a SIM you might be able to bend the reality.  In most religions
>    you can't.
> 2) In a SIM you might escape from the reality.  In most religions
>    you can't change the rules.
> 3) In a SIM you might be able to detect you are in a SIM (e.g. The
>    Truman Show).  In most religions by assertion this is impossible
>    (i.e. you can never tell that the God(s) are frauds).

I do not understand this response.  Are you saying that you believe in a SIM
and not in religions because you prefer the SIM outcomes?  Are you saying
that neither has more scientific evidence, but you choose one over the other
because of your personal preferences for what you hope to be true?  Is this
an explanation for what you call "science" and what you call "religion"?  Or
are you answering some other question?

> Now interestingly this would seem to put string & brane 
> theory in the category of religions (from Harvey's 
> perspective I think) because they can probably never be 
> tested.  I think this leads into some very very subtle 
> distinctions, e.g.:
> a) What can never be proven;
> b) What can be proven only by mathematics;
> c) What can be proven only by mathematics with certain assumptions;
> d) What can be proven by experiment.
> 
> Feel free to throw stones -- I'm just thinking out loud and 
> have some other emails that require attention.

I agree with this hierarchy.  I someone who believes in "a" believes in a
religion.  Someone who believes in "d" is a scientist.  Someone who believes
in "b" or "c" is a theoretician.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From neptune at superlink.net  Sun Jan  4 00:38:20 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 19:38:20 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
References: <01ad01c3d24d$99dbcee0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<015001c3d24f$3fc79680$d2256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <00de01c3d25b$0e2887e0$afcd5cd1@neptune>

On Saturday, January 03, 2004 6:13 PM Dirk Bruere dirk at neopax.com wrote:
> Another problem is defining what is meant by 'prevent'.
> Does it mean speaking against?
> Speaking against pursuasively?
> Legislating against in a democracy?
> If any of the above you are talking about
> justifying terrorism and oppression.

I haven't read Mark's essay, but just from reading this thread, I fear
some might interpret it very broadly to mean even such things as not
subsidizing other people's life extension program.  For strict
egalitarians, this might mean my failure to fund everyone else's life
extension program constitutes my "deny[ing them] access to radical life
extension technology."

I would hope that's not what Mark intended, but I can imagine others
taking the argument in that direction.

However, I disagree with you [Dirk] here about the last instance.
Legislating against something usually means initiating force.  Once a
person or a group has initiated force, retaliating against such is not
"terrorism and oppression" per se, but a just response -- depending on
it being justly carried out.

I mean here that if the government of, say, Ruritania outlaws
supplements, it is not wrong for Ruritanian life extensionists to
disobey that law.  However, it would be wrong to, say, bomb Ruritania's
whole population.  Specific acts against Ruritanian legislators and law
enforcement agents, though, might not be un-libertarian and would have
to measured against their justness and their likely consequences.

To drive this point home, imagine CPR were outlawed in Ruritania.  Would
not the Ruritanian government be the one using "terrorism and
oppression" in this case against people needing CPR, their relatives,
their friends, EMTs, etc.?  Or is any act by a democratic government
okay?

Cheers!

Dan
    See "For a Free Frontier: The Case for Space Colonization" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/SpaceCol.html



From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au  Sun Jan  4 01:02:54 2004
From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 12:02:54 +1100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
References: <003901c3d213$bbf6ef80$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <009001c3d25e$7c303a00$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>


Mark Walker wrote:

> In case anyone is interested, I have a first draft of a paper
> on physical immortality.  http://www.permanentend.org/immortality.html

Good the more the merrier.

I am sorry I haven't the time to go to the whole paper. You posted
the abstract so I'll respond with an impression on the abstract.

>The abstract is below:

>Abstract: Killing mortal humans is wrong primarily because
> it inflicts upon individuals one of the greatest losses they can
> experience: the loss of their future.

Hmm. I guess it could reduce down to that but if so thats
unfortunate as a logical case might be based on it but not a
widely resonately compelling one I suspect. You'd have just
a narrow but perhaps valid case of interest to a relatively
small audience, is my impression.

>  It is argued that this same analysis applies to those who
> would deny access to life extension technology.

Ok

> To deny access to radical life extension technology?technology
> that would greatly extend or permit physical immortality
> ?is wrong primarily because it inflicts upon those who
> desire this technology one of the greatest losses they can
> experience: the loss of their future.

Looks like a suboptimal moral argument to run. Why not
run instead:

On what basis does *any* human individual *presume* to
*ration* the lifespan of any other human individual?

Religious? Economic? Bizarre utilitarian where nonexistent or
potential beings are weighted against actual ones in a calculus
that balances imaginary against real? - If so then more rope
for the opponent please! :-)

A lot of good existing moral arguments can be enlisted in the
service of challenging those who would presume to ration
others lives.

> Recognition of this loss  makes a strong presumptive case
> for the moral impermissibility of prohibiting access to radical
> life extension technology.

Life extension technology is fuzzy stuff to most people. Where
does something like penicillin or gm food grown in poor farmland
fit in for instance - these could be life extension technologies.

I much prefer scenarios where those who would argue the merits
of death are more closely revealed for what they are trying to do
- that is ration other peoples lives based on their own worldview.

I prefer to see them (Kass etc) have to make their case with the
world looking and wondering how they (Kass etc) got to
consider that their particular worldview should be particularly
priviledged. How is it that Kass presumes the wisdom and moral
judgement to ration other peoples lives... Let Kass etc **make**
their case if they can - whilst having to *conspicuously* carrying
the full burden of their prejudice.

While my impression is that the ground you are choosing to fight
may be suboptimal, I haven't read more than your abstract, and I
certainly commend doing something as better than doing nothing.

Good luck.

Regards,
Brett




From fortean1 at mindspring.com  Sun Jan  4 01:30:49 2004
From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin)
Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2004 18:30:49 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] Not enough TNOs
Message-ID: <3FF76CC9.531EF216@mindspring.com>

Forwarding permission was given by William R. Corliss.

Science Frontiers, No. 151, Jan-Feb, 2004, p. 1
< http://www.science-frontiers.com >

ASTRONOMY

Not enough TNOs

TNOs (Trans-Neptunian Objects*) are large lumps of dirty ice orbiting the
sun in the so-called Kuiper Belt just beyond Neptune.  The Kuiper Belt with
its inventory of TNOs was not even recognized by astronomers until a few
decades ago.  By then, it was obvious to the comet-counters that the large
number of short-period (less than 20 years) comets they were tallying could
not come from the hypothesized Oort Cloud at the far fringes of the Solar
System.

Sure enough, when astronomers searched the Kuiper Belt region, they found
some fairly large objects, some almost planet-size.  Pluto, in fact, may
be a TNO.

A problem that has now arisen derives from a faint-object search of a small
section of the Kuiper Belt with the Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys by
a team led by G.M. Bernstein and D.E. Trilling.  What they saw and counted
is "wildly inconsistent" with the number of short-period comets that are
observed.  In fact, the team found only 4% of the number of objects that
theory had predicted.

Conclusion: the size distribution of TNOs deviates from theory because the
many expected larger TNOs were pulverized by some unrecognized event or
process at some time in the Solar System's long history.  Another possibility
is that the missing large TNOs were once merely loose rubble piles of ice
chunks that were gravitationally torn apart and dispersed.

A survey for even fainter TNOs may decide what really did happen.  In any case,
the history of that region of the Solar System needs some radical rewriting.

(Schilling, Govert; "Comet 'Factory' Found to Have Too Little Inventory,"
*Science*, 301:1304, 2003.  Cowen, R.; "Hubble Highlights a Riddle," *Science
News*, 164:148, 2003.)

*TNOs = KBOs (Kuiper-Belt Objects)


[Science Frontiers is a bimonthly collection of digests of scientific
anomalies in the current literature.  Published by the Sourcebook Project,
P.O. Box 107, Glen Arm, MD 21057.  Annual subscription: $8.00.]


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
      U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
   TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Vietnam veterans,
Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]


From fortean1 at mindspring.com  Sun Jan  4 02:01:02 2004
From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin)
Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2004 19:01:02 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] Was the Big Bang Dodecahedral?
Message-ID: <3FF773DE.99E050CD@mindspring.com>

Forwarding permission was given by William R. Corliss.

Science Frontiers, No. 151, Jan-Feb, 2004, pp. 1 & 2
< http://www.science-frontiers.com >

ASTRONOMY

Was the Big Bang Dodecahedral?

A decade ago, in SF#93, we reported seismographical data suggesting that the
solid iron core of the earth was crystalline in nature.  It is thought that
this iron is a high-pressure phase of iron organized in close-packed
hexagonal geometry.  Now, there are data supporting the idea that the
*universe as a whole* is dodecahedral; that is, organized as a regular
12-sided figure with pentagonal faces---this being the highest order regular
solid in geometry.  If this is all verified, nature obviously prefers
orderliness on all scales.

The observations suggesting that the debris from the Big Bang explosion was
nicely geometrical came from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP).
One's expectation from terrestrial experience, though, is that explosions
do not produce highly organized debris patterns.

Contrary to such naive expectations, the WMAP data seem to show that the
universe's temperature correlations vanish at large scales.  In non-technical
terms, the implications are that the universe is *not* infinite and,
furthermore, *does* possess regular structure.  The geometrical shape that
best accounts for the missing long waves is a dodecahedron.  Of course, this
is still all very tentative and under review.

But we cannot refrain from mentioning two amusing effects dictated by a
dodecahedral universe.

   *Photons, spaceships, and other objects passing through decadehral[sic] space
would experience a twist.  The universe-as-a-whole would, therefore, possess
handedness.  Could this be related to the handedness (chirality) exhibited
in all terrestrial biochemistry?

   *If a spaceship crossed one of the twelve faces of the postulated
dodecahedron, it would appear *instantly* outside the opposite face of the
dodecahedron.

Sure, this is all counterintuitive, but so is quantum mechanics.

(Luminet, Jean-Pierre, et al; "Dodecahedral Space Topology as an Explanation
for Weak Wide-Angle Temperature Correlations in the Cosmic Microwave
Background," *Nature*, 425:593, 2003.  Seife, Charles; "Polyhedral Model
Gives the Universe an Unexpected Twist," *Science*, 302:209, 2003)


Some 2,500 years ago, sans WMAP, Timaeus of Locri, noting the *mystical*
correspondence between the four "elements* of nature (fire, air, earth, and
water) and the four other regular solids (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, and
icosahedron), ventured that the remaining fifth regular solid, the
dodecahedron, *must* envelope the universe.

(Giomini, Claudio; "Timaeus's Insight on the Shape of the Universe," *Nature*,
425:899, 2003)



[Science Frontiers is a bimonthly collection of digests of scientific
anomalies in the current literature.  Published by the Sourcebook Project,
P.O. Box 107, Glen Arm, MD 21057.  Annual subscription: $8.00.]


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
      U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
   TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Vietnam veterans,
Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]


From reason at exratio.com  Sun Jan  4 03:32:15 2004
From: reason at exratio.com (Reason)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 19:32:15 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] the most modern conception of wizard as transhumanist
Message-ID: <FCEDLEKFOENAIDKOGMNNIELJEAAA.reason@exratio.com>

Those of you who delight in items of esoteric cultural interest might like
this one. I was reading a very engaging campaign log from a game of Dungeons
and Dragons (D&D):

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=58227&page=1&pp=25

It's long, and makes we wonder why I can no longer find smart people to game
with who are interested in character, story, conversation and whatnot over
the roll of dice. Full of nice, witty stuff relating to the role of religion
and faith, nature of power, character driven conflict, etc, etc, and has a
strong underpinning of transhumanist ideals in regards to the motivations
and actions of its mages.

I can't say I've given a lot of thought to transhumanism vis a vis the very
modern concept of the fantasy mage that has become widespread in the last
half decade or so, but it fits very nicely within the rarified limits of D&D
canon. In a way, it's very amusing that the pulp culture fantasy mage is now
a concept completely informed and based upon D&D, itself initially lifted
from Vance (who may yet be able to lay claim to being more influential than
Tolkien); the most widespread pulp fantasy novels (like Eddings) started the
avalanche, and the rocks are now mostly composed of computer "role-playing"
(in quotes for a reason) games that individually outsell all of Eddings
works. The occasional movie too. The tropes and cliches for the modern
fantasy mage concept are set in stone, but very open to reinterpretation.

(Personally, I think it's a bit of a loss when compared with, say, The King
of Elfland's Daughter, or even Greg Stafford's Glorantha, but what do I
know? I'm outvoted by readers of pulp. In a way, I suppose it's encouraging
that human nature is to take the mystical and apply rules to it, come hell
or high water. You end up with modern theology, corrupt legal systems and
other horrors, but you also get science, come hell or high water).

So we have the fantasy mage as transhumanist: recursive intelligence
enhancement, transcending natural limits, life goals akin to vastening,
creation of intelligent servants, power and responsibility, etc, etc. All
quite interesting.

Reason
http://www.exratio.com




From dirk at neopax.com  Sun Jan  4 03:44:39 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 03:44:39 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
References: <01ad01c3d24d$99dbcee0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT><015001c3d24f$3fc79680$d2256bd5@artemis>
	<00de01c3d25b$0e2887e0$afcd5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <022401c3d275$14a04440$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Technotranscendence" <neptune at superlink.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 12:38 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality


> On Saturday, January 03, 2004 6:13 PM Dirk Bruere dirk at neopax.com wrote:
> > Another problem is defining what is meant by 'prevent'.
> > Does it mean speaking against?
> > Speaking against pursuasively?
> > Legislating against in a democracy?
> > If any of the above you are talking about
> > justifying terrorism and oppression.
>
> I haven't read Mark's essay, but just from reading this thread, I fear
> some might interpret it very broadly to mean even such things as not
> subsidizing other people's life extension program.  For strict
> egalitarians, this might mean my failure to fund everyone else's life
> extension program constitutes my "deny[ing them] access to radical life
> extension technology."
>
> I would hope that's not what Mark intended, but I can imagine others
> taking the argument in that direction.
>
> However, I disagree with you [Dirk] here about the last instance.
> Legislating against something usually means initiating force.  Once a
> person or a group has initiated force, retaliating against such is not
> "terrorism and oppression" per se, but a just response -- depending on
> it being justly carried out.

So it is legitimate to use force to overthrow any law you don't agree with
in a democratic society?

> I mean here that if the government of, say, Ruritania outlaws
> supplements, it is not wrong for Ruritanian life extensionists to
> disobey that law.  However, it would be wrong to, say, bomb Ruritania's
> whole population.  Specific acts against Ruritanian legislators and law
> enforcement agents, though, might not be un-libertarian and would have
> to measured against their justness and their likely consequences.
>
> To drive this point home, imagine CPR were outlawed in Ruritania.  Would
> not the Ruritanian government be the one using "terrorism and
> oppression" in this case against people needing CPR, their relatives,

No.

> their friends, EMTs, etc.?  Or is any act by a democratic government
> okay?

In general, yes, provided one is allowed freedom of speech (as well as the
ability to leave).

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From dirk at neopax.com  Sun Jan  4 03:46:36 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 03:46:36 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] that bad old internet
References: <001c01c3d19f$58a576f0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <023c01c3d275$5a351260$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Spike" <spike66 at comcast.net>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 2:14 AM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] that bad old internet


> 
> > SDAs are, IMO, one of the most retard of Xian sects.
> > [Just thought I'd add that gratuitous religious insult to 
> > round off the discussion... Dirk
> 
> Be good to them Dirk, they may save your life some day.  Follow me:
> 
> A few weeks ago I referenced the hapless Baptists, who have a notion in
> their basic teachings that all goodness comes from god, therefore all
> legitimate ethical notions are found in the bible, therefore since
> slavery is not specifically forbidden in the bible, it must be OK.  This
> is among other absurdities that follow from the flawed premise.
> 
> The Seventh Day Adventist has a somewhat related situation. They have a
> long and specific list of taboos, revealed directly to the modern
> prophet Ellen G. White.  
> 
> But anything that is not on that forbidden list is allowed.
> 
> Over the years I have witnessed a number of attempts to add new taboos
> to this long and specific list.  I find it remarkable that *not one* of
> those attempts has been successful, not a single one.
> 
> This has some interesting consequences, for the SDAs have a modern
> medical facility: Loma Linda University in southern
> Taxifornia.  It is well known that if you have some wacky research idea,
> Loma Linda has a notoriously open-minded ethics board: they will allow
> anything that does not conflict with the previously mentioned long list
> of taboos.  An example is the Baby Fae experiment that you may recall
> from the 1980s in which a baboon heart was transplanted into a human
> infant.  Done at Loma Linda.  There is nothing in the sacred texts that
> specifically forbid it.  
> 
> This read-my-lips-no-new-no-nos concept results in the Seventh Day
> Adventists being the *only* xian church (that I know of) that holds an
> official pro-choice stance.  There are other churches that hold no
> position perhaps, but SDA stands alone in being officially and
> specifically pro-choice.  Good for them.  
> 
> Cloning?  Adventists stand alone among xian denominations as coming out
> officially in favor.  Stem cell research?  Sure.  Genetic manipulation?
> The more the merrier, for they do this research with calm confidence,
> knowing that biblical and Ellen-White-ical prophecy says nothing about
> the world being devoured by goo of any color.  The girl I dated before I
> met my wife is as staunch SDA as anyone you will ever meet.  She got her
> PhD in biology from Purdue and is now a researcher in genetic
> engineering, with no cognitive dissonance whatsoever.  Hey, the
> prophetess didn't say it was wrong, so it must be right.  Right?
> 
> Several of my computer science friends that went to SDA colleges were
> discussing artificial intelligence way back in the early 80s, before
> there was an extropian list or the internet.  We even discussed the
> singularity, even tho we did not call it by that name.  We speculated
> that computers would eventually reach human level intelligence and
> rewrite their own software, causing an open loop feedback system.
> 
> Loma Linda University follows the tradition of SDA Doctor John Harvey
> Kellogg, the inventor of corn flakes and other vegetarian foods, who was
> always experimenting with new techniques to treat his patients.  Dirk,
> if you or I get prostate cancer, we can go to Loma Linda to be treated
> in their proton accelerator, which painlessly radiates the tumor,
> leaving us able to copulate and not piss on ourselves.  In my admittedly
> very limited statistical sample, the three prostate cancer patients I
> know personally who had their tumors cut out are all dead.  The two I
> know personally who had their tumors irradiated at LLU are alive and
> well.  Think about it.
> 
> As for being the "most retard of the xian sects", I think the better
> adjective might be the most *retro* of the xians.  This is
> understandable, for the 20th century was not supposed to happen, never
> mind the 21st.  There are plenty of good SDAs that are in some ways
> retrogressing to the 19th century,  for this century is not their home.
> In this at least, most of us here share their discomfort, for our
> extropian hearts and minds belong in the 22nd century.
> 
> SDA is your friend, Dirk.
 

Well, I'll just have to reappraise my view of the SDA.
It was based upon my experience of the type of people it attracts.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org


From neptune at superlink.net  Sun Jan  4 04:50:19 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 23:50:19 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Not enough TNOs
References: <3FF76CC9.531EF216@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <011a01c3d27e$4216ab40$afcd5cd1@neptune>

On Saturday, January 03, 2004 8:30 PM Terry W. Colvin
fortean1 at mindspring.com wrote:
> Forwarding permission was given by William R. Corliss.
>
> Science Frontiers, No. 151, Jan-Feb, 2004, p. 1
> < http://www.science-frontiers.com >
[snip]
> A survey for even fainter TNOs may decide what really did happen.  In
any case,
> the history of that region of the Solar System needs some radical
rewriting.

A recent article in _Nature_ covered the same and proposed that Neptune
scattered many TNOs.  That model looked quite convincing, though I would
stay the jury still out on this one.  I will look up the article if
anyone's interested...

Cheers!

Dan
    See "For a Free Frontier: The Case for Space Colonization" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/SpaceCol.html



From neptune at superlink.net  Sun Jan  4 05:21:39 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 00:21:39 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
References: <01ad01c3d24d$99dbcee0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT><015001c3d24f$3fc79680$d2256bd5@artemis><00de01c3d25b$0e2887e0$afcd5cd1@neptune>
	<022401c3d275$14a04440$d2256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <016601c3d282$a2becaa0$afcd5cd1@neptune>

On Saturday, January 03, 2004 10:44 PM Dirk Bruere dirk at neopax.com
wrote:
>> However, I disagree with you [Dirk] here
>> about the last instance.  Legislating
>> against something usually means
>> initiating force.  Once a person or a
>> group has initiated force, retaliating
>> against such is not "terrorism and
>> oppression" per se, but a just
>> response -- depending on it being
>> justly carried out.
>
> So it is legitimate to use force to
> overthrow any law you don't agree with
> in a democratic society?

Note:  I did not say all laws were unjust or un-libertarian.  However,
the imposition of legislation is usually the initiation of force.  In
such cases, it is legitimate, by libertarian standards, to retaliate.
Whether it's prudent is another matter.

To answer your question more directly -- and I'll assume you mean
"disobey" where you write "overthrow"; please let me know if that
differs from your intended meaning -- it depends on the law in question.
In the context of this debate, the particular laws you were talking
about -- and correct me if I'm misunderstanding you -- would be ones
aimed at prohibiting life extension technology.  I assumed you meant
something like parliament outlawing conventional supplements.  In that
case, I see no reason to obey the law.  Merely that one group of people
decided for all people that they can or cannot use a certain substance
to me is unjust and constitutes the initiation of force.

BTW, just to be clear here, I'm not for democracy.  When democracy
conflicts with individual liberty, then democracy must go.  I think such
conflicts will always happen in democracies -- and I include republics
under this term (I'm relying on Hoppe's analysis here; he differentiates
between no government, privately owned government, and publicly owned
government (no government means some form of anarchism (or no _monopoly_
in law making, AKA polycentric legal orders); privately owned government
means monarchy; publicly owned government means republics, conventional
democracies, and various non-monarchical dictatorships (even many extant
monarchies are really either publicly owned or a mixture of public and
private))) -- so I'm basically anti-democratic.

>> To drive this point home, imagine CPR
>> were outlawed in Ruritania.  Would not
>> the Ruritanian government be the one
>> using "terrorism and oppression" in
>> this case against people needing CPR,
>> their relatives,
>
> No.

Then you appear to be a democratic absolutist.  You see democracy as
legitimizing anything, right?  As long as one can line up enough votes,
you seem to be saying, the government can do what it will.

>> their friends, EMTs, etc.?  Or is any act
>> by a democratic government okay?
>
> In general, yes, provided one is allowed
> freedom of speech (as well as the ability
> to leave).

IIRC, Frederick the Great -- an absolute monarch, no? -- used the
slogan, "You can argue, but you must obey" -- meaning you can debate all
you want as long as you bow down and kiss the ring in the end.  (Well,
at least, this is what I got from reading Kant on one of the Prussian
leaders...)  What do you mean by "the ability to leave"?  Would that
include secession?  By that I mean the ability to no longer be under the
juridiction of a particular government -- not leaving the territory
itself.  If you agree with this, then you should see the ultimate end
state would be anarchy, since any minority or individual would be
allowed to break away from a democracy.

If you don't mean that [secession], then I think what you advocating
would be oppressive.  After all, this would be forcing people to leave
their homes because a government will otherwise trample them.  In the
context of today's world, since there are basically only democracies of
different shades and the planet is pretty much carved up by them, where
would one go?  That would be like telling someone in prison they can
have their choice of cell blocks.

Cheers!

Dan
    See "For a Free Frontier: The Case for Space Colonization" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/SpaceCol.html



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sun Jan  4 05:22:05 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 21:22:05 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <01ad01c3d24d$99dbcee0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040104052205.53343.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> Mike Lorrey wrote,
> > Contradiction: killing humans who would otherwise prevent 
> > others from gaining access to radical life extension 
> > technology, to such a degree as to cause death. Is it wrong 
> > to kill such humans or not?
> 
> I think this is obviously wrong.  This is a classic example of
> choosing the lesser of two evils.  Both choices are evil. 
> Choosing the lesser evil is still evil.  I think it confuses the
> issue to compare them and say that the
> lesser evil is "good" compared to the worse evil.  I think it makes
> more sense to clearly state that they are both evil.  

So, you are dying of a disease. I use the law to prevent you from
obtaining the treatment you need to live. You WILL die, if you don't
get this treatment. Are you justified in using ANY means to prevent my
actions or not?

Others have already died from my actions, so it is demonstrably true
that you will die as well if I am not stopped. At what point is any
action against me acceptable in defense of your life? Why is this not
plain and simple and morally acceptable self defense on your part?

Self defense is not evil. Why is this not self defense?


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From dirk at neopax.com  Sun Jan  4 05:56:09 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 05:56:09 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] the most modern conception of wizard as
	transhumanist
References: <FCEDLEKFOENAIDKOGMNNIELJEAAA.reason@exratio.com>
Message-ID: <025101c3d287$73b8e1a0$d2256bd5@artemis>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Reason" <reason at exratio.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>;
<wta-talk at transhumanism.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 3:32 AM
Subject: [extropy-chat] the most modern conception of wizard as
transhumanist


> Those of you who delight in items of esoteric cultural interest might like
> this one. I was reading a very engaging campaign log from a game of
Dungeons
> and Dragons (D&D):
>
> http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=58227&page=1&pp=25
>
> It's long, and makes we wonder why I can no longer find smart people to
game
> with who are interested in character, story, conversation and whatnot over
> the roll of dice. Full of nice, witty stuff relating to the role of
religion
> and faith, nature of power, character driven conflict, etc, etc, and has a
> strong underpinning of transhumanist ideals in regards to the motivations
> and actions of its mages.
>
> I can't say I've given a lot of thought to transhumanism vis a vis the
very
> modern concept of the fantasy mage that has become widespread in the last
> half decade or so, but it fits very nicely within the rarified limits of
D&D
> canon. In a way, it's very amusing that the pulp culture fantasy mage is
now
> a concept completely informed and based upon D&D, itself initially lifted
> from Vance (who may yet be able to lay claim to being more influential
than
> Tolkien); the most widespread pulp fantasy novels (like Eddings) started
the
> avalanche, and the rocks are now mostly composed of computer
"role-playing"
> (in quotes for a reason) games that individually outsell all of Eddings
> works. The occasional movie too. The tropes and cliches for the modern
> fantasy mage concept are set in stone, but very open to reinterpretation.
>
> (Personally, I think it's a bit of a loss when compared with, say, The
King
> of Elfland's Daughter, or even Greg Stafford's Glorantha, but what do I
> know? I'm outvoted by readers of pulp. In a way, I suppose it's
encouraging
> that human nature is to take the mystical and apply rules to it, come hell
> or high water. You end up with modern theology, corrupt legal systems and
> other horrors, but you also get science, come hell or high water).
>
> So we have the fantasy mage as transhumanist: recursive intelligence
> enhancement, transcending natural limits, life goals akin to vastening,
> creation of intelligent servants, power and responsibility, etc, etc. All
> quite interesting.

Some 20yrs ago friends of mine rans a business doing D&D 'for real' in a
genuine 200 room castle.
It was quite fun.
However, what did puzzle me was the effort that some people put into
developing their character. They literally spend every weekend (and
presumably most of their spare time) memorizing spells, rituals etc

At the time I wondered why when they could be doing it 'really' for real.
Their activity (commitment, time, energy, money, intellect) did not impinge
upon this world (except to swell the coffers of the business).

I'm doing it for real (sigline).
Far longer odds, but the payoff is not imaginary.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From aperick at centurytel.net  Sun Jan  4 05:22:54 2004
From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 21:22:54 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique
In-Reply-To: <200401040344.i043ilE05193@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3d282$cf62b580$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>

Mike Lorrey wrote:
>Contradiction: killing humans who would otherwise prevent others from
gaining access to radical life extension technology, to such a degree as
to cause death. Is it wrong to kill such humans or not?
/>

That would depend on whether there is anyone left who is reckless enough
to judge it as wrong -- and speak his mind. Good and bad are concepts
that beg the questions: good for who, and bad for who. Woops, my Rand
roots are showing -- I'm sooo embarrassed. 



From spike66 at comcast.net  Sun Jan  4 06:27:17 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 22:27:17 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] spirit a success
In-Reply-To: <023c01c3d275$5a351260$d2256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <001901c3d28b$cd050050$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

I just got back from a Spirit party.  Looks like
NASA has the right stuff, eh?  {8-]

Ahhhh, life is gooooood.  spike



From scerir at libero.it  Sun Jan  4 10:08:26 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 11:08:26 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Was the Big Bang Dodecahedral?
References: <3FF773DE.99E050CD@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <000301c3d2aa$cde9a2e0$b4b51b97@administxl09yj>

From: "Terry W. Colvin"

> Some 2,500 years ago, sans WMAP, Timaeus of Locri, noting the *mystical*
> correspondence between the four "elements* of nature (fire, air, earth,
> and water) and the four other regular solids (tetrahedron, cube, 
> octahedron, and icosahedron), ventured that the remaining fifth regular 
> solid, the dodecahedron, *must* envelope the universe.
> (Giomini, Claudio; "Timaeus's Insight on the Shape of the Universe,"
> *Nature*, 425:899, 2003)

Plato wrote (Timaeus, 55)
about the dodecahedron:
"There was yet a fifth combination
which God used in the delineation
of the universe."

But Plato forgot to mention that God
used dodecahedra in constructing
quantum reality, as sir Penrose
showed some years ago.
http://users.wpi.edu/~paravind/penrosedodec.pdf








From humania at t-online.de  Sun Jan  4 13:00:27 2004
From: humania at t-online.de (Hubert Mania)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 14:00:27 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
References: <003901c3d213$bbf6ef80$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <002d01c3d2c2$bb166000$5b91fea9@kwasar>

Mark Walker  wrote:

> In case anyone is interested, I have a first draft of a paper on physical
> immortality.  http://www.permanentend.org/immortality.html It was written
> rather rapidly over the holiday season and so it suffers a little from WUI
> (writing under the influence). As always, comments are appreciated.

I have read your draft. I don't know what kind of influence you mean with
WUI, but - well, here are my comments.

I strongly advice you to delete the "introductory" completely. If it would
not have been for immortality I would have stopped reading after the first
page. An example: In the following short paragraph you use "permissible"
7 times and "morally" 6 times which is tiring and aesthetically inexcusable.
Academic readers might be used to this kind of style, a bunch of lawyers
maybe, but for normal readers this is indigestible:

"So, if X is ?murdering an innocent child? then it is not morally
permissible to do X, and it is morally permissible to prevent X. It is
permissible to prevent the murder of a child by whisking the child out of
the path of a car driven by someone intent on murdering. If X is ?reading
the morning paper? then X is morally permissible, and likewise, it would not
be morally permissible to prevent someone from reading her morning paper.
Sometimes answers to these questions do not dovetail so neatly, e.g., it has
sometimes been argued that, while euthanasia is morally permissible, it is
morally permissible to prevent euthanasia . . ."

What follows until "Global Triage" are exhausting examples about "Kill
Bill". Anyone who is not familiar with your character and your altruistic
aims might think you are obsessed with killing. I guess you are probably
not, but one can gain this impression. I believe the scenarios you discuss
here at length are obvious to anybody who has at least 5 ounces of common
sense in his brain. That's why I believe three or four short paragraphs
would have been enough.Once again: maybe academics enjoy this kind
of reading, but don't expect that a broader clientele reads any further
than the first page.

If I were your editor I would advice you to cut it down to one third of the
original volume and at least to do without abortion and euthanasia in the
introductory, if you don't want to delete the introductory as a whole.

I like your proposals concerning overpopulation though. This is something
worth to be discussed on a more detailed level with available statistics,
etc.

Hubert Mania








From mark at permanentend.org  Sun Jan  4 14:12:38 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 09:12:38 -0500
Subject: Fw: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
Message-ID: <222c01c3d2cc$cf6267c0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>

> From: "Hubert Mania"
> I strongly advice you to delete the "introductory" completely. If it would
> not have been for immortality I would have stopped reading after the first
> page. An example: In the following short paragraph you use "permissible"
> 7 times and "morally" 6 times which is tiring and aesthetically
inexcusable.
> Academic readers might be used to this kind of style, a bunch of lawyers
> maybe, [snip]
>

Indeed, it is an academic paper. I would have a thought that the references
are all to academic papers might have been a give away. Perhaps, I should
append a warning at the top of the paper that it is an academic paper. That
said, I agree that it could be written better.

>
> What follows until "Global Triage" are exhausting examples about "Kill
> Bill". Anyone who is not familiar with your character and your altruistic
> aims might think you are obsessed with killing. I guess you are probably
> not, but one can gain this impression. I would I believe the scenarios you
discuss
> here at length are obvious to anybody who has at least 5 ounces of common
> sense in his brain.

Well, I do like Edvard Munch and Nick Cave, but I wouldn't call it an
obsession. I agree that one might think the scenarios are obvious, but I am
not sure they are. I taught a course last semester on the ethics of emerging
biomedical technologies and one of the things we discussed was physical
immortality. Like the general population, most of the class was apprehensive
about issues such as cloning, genetic engineering, etc. So, I wasn't
surprised when most of said they would decline the opportunity for physical
immortality if it were offered to them. Nor was I surprised that they
thought that others should not have the opportunity either. What made me
write the paper, however, was the fact that most seem to have little regret
for refusing access to life extension technology. Their reasons for not
granting access were typically of the sort described in the global triage
section, which I understand even though I don't agree. In refusing access to
radical life extension technology they seem to think that they were merely
depriving individuals of a narcissistic (to use Kass' word) luxury. At the
time I challenged them to show the difference between refusing access to the
sorts of life extending procedures we now condone like blood transfusions,
and those of radical life extension. The analysis of killing that they seem
to presuppose is that killing is wrong if it ends a "normal" life span, and
so what they are proposing is not wrong or to be regretted because it is not
like killing or letting die mortal humans. If the argument I make is
correct, this analysis is wrong because what is primarily wrong with killing
has little to do with one's past and has more to do with one's potential
future. In any event, I think that most people think there is a big
difference between not permitting access for mortal humans to blood
transfusions, and not permitting access to radical life extension
technology. So, I think it is a worthwhile project to show that this is not
the case.

Thanks for comments--much appreciated!

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org





From neptune at superlink.net  Sun Jan  4 14:27:14 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 09:27:14 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] spirit a success
References: <001901c3d28b$cd050050$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <004f01c3d2ce$d9eeaee0$aecd5cd1@neptune>

On Sunday, January 04, 2004 1:27 AM Spike spike66 at comcast.net wrote:
> I just got back from a Spirit party.  Looks like
> NASA has the right stuff, eh?  {8-]

Apparently.  Too bad, the ESA lander appears to be a failure.  I guess
we'll know for certain in a few days.

> Ahhhh, life is gooooood.  spike

One down, one to go!

But my big hope is that someone wins the X-Prize in the next few
months...

Cheers!

Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sun Jan  4 14:37:49 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 06:37:49 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <002d01c3d2c2$bb166000$5b91fea9@kwasar>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401040556430.9622-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Sun, 4 Jan 2004, Hubert Mania wrote:

> I strongly advice you to delete the "introductory" completely. If it would
> not have been for immortality I would have stopped reading after the first
> page.  [snip]

> If I were your editor I would advice you to cut it down to one third of the
> original volume and at least to do without abortion and euthanasia in the
> introductory, if you don't want to delete the introductory as a whole.

Hubert -- I believe Mark is intending this as an academic paper, not
for general consumption.  And I can state from having attended at
least one bioethics conference and having had a couple of college
level courses in philosophy this stuff of rights, shoulds, oughts,
cans and can'ts does get discussed in styles similar to that that
Mark is using.

I thought your comment about these things being "obvious" to people
with an ounce of common sense was interesting.  In my reading of the
paper (I'm about 2/3 of the way through) it seems clear that Mark
is trying to present a response to Kass -- that it is immoral
to attempt to prevent people from having access to life extending
technologies.  Throwing down the overpopulation argument as well
as others it becomes clear that there are some who lack the
"common sense" that attempting to interfere with an individual's
access to such technologies might be immoral.

It was only the use of the term "immortality" that I got stuck on.
We really need to come up with a better word -- making one up
if necessary -- to get to the point where the word means exactly
what we want it to mean -- nothing more and nothing less.
I thought of hyperlongevity and superlongevity but playing around
with the dictionary they don't seem quite right.  I managed
to come up with "itlongveos" - literally to go for long life
or close there to.  But I suspect someone with a better grasp
of latin or greek could come up with something better.
What I would really like is a word for something involving
an indefinitely long healthy life or life without limits.

Robert




From support at imminst.org  Sun Jan  4 14:48:47 2004
From: support at imminst.org (support at imminst.org)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 08:48:47 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] ImmInst Update
Message-ID: <3ff827cfc50a7@imminst.org>

CHAT: The Economics of the Singularity
***********************
What might happen when? Assistant professor of economics 
at George Mason University, Robin Hanson joins ImmInst to 
discuss how long-term trends in economic growth may reveal 
a coming Singularity within this century.

Chat Time: Sunday Jan 4 @ 8 PM Eastern
More: http://imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=63&t=2601 


SUPPORT IMMINST
***********************
As a member supported nonprofit organization, ImmInst 
is totally dependent on the generous support of its members 
to fulfil its goals and to reach its mission to end the blight 
of involuntary death around the world. 

We need your help in order to continue such projects: 

1. ImmInst - Book Project: 
The ongoing book project will provide a focus for what ImmInst is about.  The books will comprise essays by respected authors concerning the consequences of physical immortality. The first book will release within the next six months. http://www.imminst.org/book

2. ImmInst - "Why Die?" Conference: 
Bioethicists, scientists and futurists debate the positive and negative consequences of extended human lifespans.  Participants will answer the question - how long should we live? The conference will be held in Atlanta in Oct 2005. http://www.imminst.org/conference

3. ImmInst Threats To Life Council (TTLC): 
ImmInst's long-term global risk assessment and awareness initiative to save lives.  TTLC will create easily understood reports that will determine the most dangerous risks to human and posthuman life going forward. http://www.imminst.org/ttlc

4. Other Important Projects: 
a.) ImmInst hosts an active discussion/research forum - http://www.imminst.org/forum 
b.) ImmInst hosts a weekly online chat - http://www.imminst.org/chat
c.) ImmInst hosts the Infinite Females - http://www.imminst.org/if
d.) ImmInst host an archive of more than 80 original member articles http://www.imminst.org/archive/imminst_writers.php
e.) ImmInst reaches out to help other like-minded organizations: 
http://imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=SF&f=142

We need your help in order to continue these projects. 
***********************
SUPPORT IMMINST: http://imminst.org/index_join.php





To be removed from all of our mailing lists, click here:
http://www.imminst.org/archive/mailinglists/mailinglists.php?p=mlist&rem=extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org


From mark at permanentend.org  Sun Jan  4 15:12:29 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 10:12:29 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
References: <003901c3d213$bbf6ef80$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
	<009001c3d25e$7c303a00$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>
Message-ID: <226e01c3d2d5$2be17a10$2ee4f418@markcomputer>

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Brett Paatsch" <

> Looks like a suboptimal moral argument to run. Why not
> run instead:
>
> On what basis does *any* human individual *presume* to
> *ration* the lifespan of any other human individual?
>
The answer to this question is in the paper itself. Opponents of radical
life extension may agree that one should not ration the "normal" lifespan of
individuals but radical life extension goes beyond this. For example,
opponents might think that the former follows from a "right to life" but
disagree that a right to life implies a "right to an immortal life".  Thus,
I think our opponents will see a principled distinction between rationing
mortal lives and immortal lives whereas we don't. I'm trying to offer an
argument against such a principled distinction. So, I think at least some of
our opponents will say that your sketch of an argument begs one of the main
questions.

> I prefer to see them (Kass etc) have to make their case with the
> world looking and wondering how they (Kass etc) got to
> consider that their particular worldview should be particularly
> priviledged. How is it that Kass presumes the wisdom and moral
> judgement to ration other peoples lives... Let Kass etc **make**
> their case if they can - whilst having to *conspicuously* carrying
> the full burden of their prejudice.
>
I'm not sure what to make of this. I don't see that Kass is saying that his
worldview is privileged in any untoward way. He offers arguments for the
ethical conclusions that he makes--if this is what you mean by a privileged
world view then I am equally guilty. Furthermore, as far as I can tell Kass
doesn't say that we should ration the lives of others, what he argues is
that it is morally impermissible to seek physical immortality. These claims
are distinct--as I point out in the paper.

Cheers,

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org









From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sun Jan  4 16:32:07 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 08:32:07 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] HUMOR: Ordering Pizza under TIA
Message-ID: <20040104163207.45341.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>

Ordering Pizza under Total Information Awareness

Operator: "Thank you for calling Pizza Hut. May I have your..." 

Customer: "Hi, I'd like to order." 

Operator: "May I have your NIDN first, sir?" 

Customer: "My National ID Number, yeah, hold on, eh, it's
6102049998-45-54610." 

Operator: "Thank you, Mr. Sheehan. I see you live at 1742 Meadowland
Drive, and the phone number's 494-2366. Your office number over at
Lincoln Insurance is 745-2302 and your cell number's 266-2566. Which
number are you calling from, sir?" 

Customer: "Huh? I'm at home. Where d'ya get all this information?" 

Operator: "We're wired into the system, sir." 

Customer: (Sighs) "Oh, well, I'd like to order a couple of your
All-Meat Special pizzas..." 

Operator: "I don't think that's a good idea, sir." 

Customer: "Whaddya mean?" 

Operator: "Sir, your medical records indicate that you've got very high
blood pressure and extremely high cholesterol. Your National Health
Care provider won't allow such an unhealthy choice." 

Customer: "Dang . What do you recommend, then?" 

Operator: "You might try our low-fat Soybean Yogurt Pizza. I'm sure
you'll like it." 

Customer: "What makes you think I'd like something like that?" 

Operator: "Well, you checked out 'Gourmet Soybean Recipes' from your
local library last week, sir. That's why I made the suggestion." 

Customer: "All right, all right. Give me two family-sized ones, then.
What's the damage?" 

Operator: "That should be plenty for you, your wife and your four kids,
sir. The 'damage,' as you put it, heh, heh, comes to $49.99." 

Customer: "Lemme give you my credit card number." 

Operator: "I'm sorry sir, but I'm afraid you'll have to pay in cash.
Your credit card balance is over its limit." 

Customer: "I'll run over to the ATM and get some cash before your
driver gets here." 

Operator: "That won't work either, sir. Your checking account's
overdrawn." 

Customer: "Never mind. Just send the pizzas. I'll have the cash ready.
How long will it take? 

Operator: "We're running a little behind, sir. It'll be about 45
minutes, sir. If you're in a hurry you might want to pick 'em up while
you're out getting the cash, but carrying pizzas on a motorcycle can be
a little awkward." 

Customer: "How the heck do you know I'm riding a bike?" 

Operator: "It says here you're in arrears on your car payments, so your
car got repo'ed. But your Harley's paid up, so I just assumed that
you'd be using it." 

Customer: "@#%/$@&?#!" 

Operator: "I'd advise watching your language, sir. You've already got a
July 2006 conviction for cussing out a cop." 

Customer: (Speechless) 

Operator: "Will there be anything else, sir?" 

Customer: "No, nothing. Oh, yeah, don't forget the two free liters of
Coke your ad says I get with the pizzas." 

Operator: "I'm sorry sir, but our ad's exclusionary clause prevents us
from offering free soda to diabetics." 

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From humania at t-online.de  Sun Jan  4 17:37:51 2004
From: humania at t-online.de (Hubert Mania)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 18:37:51 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401040556430.9622-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <001c01c3d2e9$7b5fe180$5b91fea9@kwasar>

Robert said:

> Hubert -- I believe Mark is intending this as an academic paper, not
> for general consumption.....this stuff of rights, shoulds, oughts,
> cans and can'ts does get discussed in styles similar to that that
> Mark is using.

Well, you're right, particularly as Mark has meanwhile stated himself. That
style of writing and talking was one reason why I fled from University
(German; Anglistics) and never choose an academic career. It would be an
interesting job though to rewrite Mark's article in a way that satisfies
academics and interested laymen, too.

> I thought your comment about these things being "obvious" to people
> with an ounce of common sense was interesting.  In my reading of the
> paper (I'm about 2/3 of the way through) it seems clear that Mark
> is trying to present a response to Kass -- that it is immoral
> to attempt to prevent people from having access to life extending
> technologies.

Maybe my own thinking lacks depth and thoroughness, but I think we might
never get into a situation where we have this conflict, that people deny us
access to life extending technologies. We either get it or we don't get it
at all. The situation in Germany for example seems to lead to the point
where all social forces of the country have to agree on techniques that
might lead to immortality.

The former President of the Max Planck societies for example said in an
interview about uploading techniques, he had no fear about these things. He
trusted in the social coordination process, a slow development that might
lead to a solution that is acceptable for everybody.

Well, slow enough probably to see all of us rotting away slowly under Alcor
ice or a bit faster covered with damn ole Mother Earth. 

> It was only the use of the term "immortality" that I got stuck on.
> We really need to come up with a better word -- making one up
> if necessary

What about *relative immortality* for the time being? It's simple enough,
no sophisticated Greek required and relatively clear that you can still die
in an accident or being caught and eaten up by a contemporary cannibal.

Hubert






From natasha at natasha.cc  Sun Jan  4 19:38:16 2004
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2004 11:38:16 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPEAKER:  Canada Conference Query
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20040104112746.0338e590@pop.earthlink.net>


The Directeur du Centre de Recherche en Biologie de la Reproduction in the 
D?partement de Sciences Animales, Universit? Laval asked me to suggest a 
French-speaking ExI member  to deliver  a comprehensive talk  for both 
molecular scientists, ethicists and maybe a few journalist on 
"posthumans."   It is large, multi-sciences meeting ( ACFAS , about 5000 
delegates) that takes place in Montreal, Canada.

If you speak French and can deliver an informative speech, please let me 
know soonest.

Thanks,

Natasha


Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc
----------
President, Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture  http://www.transhumanist.biz
http://www.transhuman.org
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From dirk at neopax.com  Sun Jan  4 18:28:54 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 18:28:54 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
References: <01ad01c3d24d$99dbcee0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT><015001c3d24f$3fc79680$d2256bd5@artemis><00de01c3d25b$0e2887e0$afcd5cd1@neptune>
	<022401c3d275$14a04440$d2256bd5@artemis>
	<016601c3d282$a2becaa0$afcd5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <00c401c3d2f0$9c1bfdd0$d2256bd5@artemis>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Technotranscendence" <neptune at superlink.net>
To: "Dirk Bruere" <dirk at neopax.com>; "ExI chat list"
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 5:21 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality


> >
> > So it is legitimate to use force to
> > overthrow any law you don't agree with
> > in a democratic society?
>
> Note:  I did not say all laws were unjust or un-libertarian.  However,
> the imposition of legislation is usually the initiation of force.  In
> such cases, it is legitimate, by libertarian standards, to retaliate.
> Whether it's prudent is another matter.
>
> To answer your question more directly -- and I'll assume you mean
> "disobey" where you write "overthrow"; please let me know if that
> differs from your intended meaning -- it depends on the law in question.

It does.
Disobedience, or ignoring a law is one thing.
The article compares denial of immortality treatment to murder.
It's only a very short step from that to 'killing in self defence'.

> In the context of this debate, the particular laws you were talking
> about -- and correct me if I'm misunderstanding you -- would be ones
> aimed at prohibiting life extension technology.  I assumed you meant
> something like parliament outlawing conventional supplements.  In that
> case, I see no reason to obey the law.  Merely that one group of people
> decided for all people that they can or cannot use a certain substance
> to me is unjust and constitutes the initiation of force.

It may be far more than simply denying what already exists. It may be
denying the possibility of ever developing the technology in the first
place.
Which would be the next logical justification for 'self defence' to some.

>
> >> To drive this point home, imagine CPR
> >> were outlawed in Ruritania.  Would not
> >> the Ruritanian government be the one
> >> using "terrorism and oppression" in
> >> this case against people needing CPR,
> >> their relatives,
> >
> > No.

> Then you appear to be a democratic absolutist.  You see democracy as
> legitimizing anything, right?  As long as one can line up enough votes,
> you seem to be saying, the government can do what it will.

Pretty much so.
As soon as people view their cause as the exception it's a recipe for war.

> >> their friends, EMTs, etc.?  Or is any act
> >> by a democratic government okay?
> >
> > In general, yes, provided one is allowed
> > freedom of speech (as well as the ability
> > to leave).

> leaders...)  What do you mean by "the ability to leave"?  Would that
> include secession?  By that I mean the ability to no longer be under the

In the political context, I'd say yes.

> juridiction of a particular government -- not leaving the territory
> itself.  If you agree with this, then you should see the ultimate end
> state would be anarchy, since any minority or individual would be
> allowed to break away from a democracy.

And any democracy would be free to boycott and embargo the new state until
it was starved into submission (unless it was truly viable). Better make
sure they have some coastline or a friendly neighbour. Which rules out my
home town seceding.
Viability would be the major criterion.

> If you don't mean that [secession], then I think what you advocating
> would be oppressive.  After all, this would be forcing people to leave
> their homes because a government will otherwise trample them.  In the
> context of today's world, since there are basically only democracies of
> different shades and the planet is pretty much carved up by them, where
> would one go?  That would be like telling someone in prison they can
> have their choice of cell blocks.

That's the way the world is.
Your alternative is simply offering them the right to start a war in their
own democracy.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From dirk at neopax.com  Sun Jan  4 18:31:50 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 18:31:50 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
References: <003901c3d213$bbf6ef80$2ee4f418@markcomputer><009001c3d25e$7c303a00$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>
	<226e01c3d2d5$2be17a10$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <00ca01c3d2f1$04a21bf0$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Walker" <mark at permanentend.org>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 3:12 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality


> >
> I'm not sure what to make of this. I don't see that Kass is saying that
his
> worldview is privileged in any untoward way. He offers arguments for the
> ethical conclusions that he makes--if this is what you mean by a
privileged
> world view then I am equally guilty. Furthermore, as far as I can tell
Kass
> doesn't say that we should ration the lives of others, what he argues is
> that it is morally impermissible to seek physical immortality. These
claims
> are distinct--as I point out in the paper.


I think the whole idea of immortality should be downplayed as far as public
consumption is concerned.
The emphasis should be on Kass and co. preventing the development of medical
technologies that could help tens of millions of ageing citizens.
Maybe even to the point of propaganda - 'Kass aims to block cancer cure!'

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From samantha at objectent.com  Sun Jan  4 19:02:38 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 11:02:38 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique
	(wasfermi'sparadox:m/d approach)
In-Reply-To: <018a01c3d218$26d04fa0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
References: <20040102213248.4c191a2a.samantha@objectent.com>
	<018a01c3d218$26d04fa0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040104110238.19314cd1.samantha@objectent.com>

On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 11:39:17 -0500
"Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:

> Samantha Atkins wrote,
> > There are many things in science
> > today that were not observed but were posited as "might be" 
> > explanations or even as pure thought experiments.  A "might 
> > be" does not relegate its content to belonging to religion.  
> > I am surprised by the characterization. 
> 
> That doesn't make it science.  If anyone ever develops a scientific theory,
> scientific proof, scientific investigation, scientific explanation or
> anything using the scientific method relating to the Simulation Argument,
> then it might become science.  Right now it is a religious belief, a fantasy
> story or maybe even a philosophical musing.  It seems that most people here
> don't have a good definition for what is science or not.  Arguing that it
> "might be true" or "hasn't been disproved" doesn't make it science any more
> than "Creation Science" is science.  

It is mere assertion to claim the simulation notion is a religious belief.  Currently I consider it an intelliectual curiousity that certain types of (mainly statiscal and future assumptive) arguments lend some possibility to.  I don't know if it can be scientifically tested at some future time or not or if rigourous scientific evidence will ever become available for it.  I certainly don't find the current supporting argument compelling enough to believe it is true.  But I think calling it "religious" is sloppy, prejudicial and uninteresting.

> 
> The simulation argument is almost identical to the creation science
> argument.  Instead of evolving by itself, the universe was created
> mid-stream with history already in place, and an external entity directing
> its actions.  We cannot detect that the history of carbon-dating or old
> light from other stars was simulated by God instead of really coming from
> those stars.  This makes much of the Creation Science universe a simulation.
> The intervention by God sometimes is like tweaking of the simulation.  
> 

Analagous reasoning is supposed to be more firmly "scientific".  Come now.  Why are we wasting our precious time bickering over something so small?   Sure, sure in a sim you can set up whatever you wish within the limits of some level of self-consistency.  But that by itself does not argue we are not in a sim or argue that even considering the possibility of being in a sim is itself "religious".

> I don't see how anybody can believe in the simulation argument without
> believing in most religions.  I don't see how anybody can claim the
> simulation argument is science without including most religions as science.
> 

I will grant you that the simulation argument is the only way I could consider many religious notions as remotely corresponding to reality.  But that doesn't make the simulation idea or considering it itself "religious". 

- samantha


From samantha at objectent.com  Sun Jan  4 19:07:42 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 11:07:42 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <20040103193332.82096.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <003901c3d213$bbf6ef80$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
	<20040103193332.82096.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040104110742.54751bbd.samantha@objectent.com>

On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 11:33:32 -0800 (PST)
Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> Contradiction: killing humans who would otherwise prevent others from
> gaining access to radical life extension technology, to such a degree
> as to cause death. Is it wrong to kill such humans or not?
> 

It would be more ideal to contain, stop or in practice defeat their intentions while leaving them time enough to reconsider.   This may not always be possible in practice though.  So yes, it is wrong.  Like many wrongs there can be circumstances where it is the lesser of evils. 

- s


From samantha at objectent.com  Sun Jan  4 19:11:54 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 11:11:54 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <015001c3d24f$3fc79680$d2256bd5@artemis>
References: <01ad01c3d24d$99dbcee0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<015001c3d24f$3fc79680$d2256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <20040104111154.326367d3.samantha@objectent.com>

On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 23:13:50 -0000
"Dirk Bruere" <dirk at neopax.com> wrote:


> 
> Another problem is defining what is meant by 'prevent'.
> Does it mean speaking against?
> Speaking against pursuasively?
> Legislating against in a democracy?
> If any of the above you are talking about justifying terrorism and
> oppression.

I lost you.  None of the things listed are terrorism or justification for terrorism.  What were you intending to get across? 

-s


From natasha at natasha.cc  Sun Jan  4 21:27:05 2004
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2004 13:27:05 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <00ca01c3d2f1$04a21bf0$d2256bd5@artemis>
References: <003901c3d213$bbf6ef80$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
	<009001c3d25e$7c303a00$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>
	<226e01c3d2d5$2be17a10$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20040104132433.02e14710@pop.earthlink.net>

At 06:31 PM 1/4/04 +0000, Brett wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Mark Walker" <mark at permanentend.org>
>To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 3:12 PM
>Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
>
>
> > >
> > I'm not sure what to make of this. I don't see that Kass is saying that
>his
> > worldview is privileged in any untoward way. He offers arguments for the
> > ethical conclusions that he makes--if this is what you mean by a
>privileged
> > world view then I am equally guilty. Furthermore, as far as I can tell
>Kass
> > doesn't say that we should ration the lives of others, what he argues is
> > that it is morally impermissible to seek physical immortality. These
>claims
> > are distinct--as I point out in the paper.
>
>
>I think the whole idea of immortality should be downplayed as far as public
>consumption is concerned.

Journalists - in the media or print - prefer to use the term "immortality" 
rather than indefinite life span, because of the nature of the word 
imortality.  It is eye-catching, has a history of symbols, myths and 
metaphors attached to it, and implies the impossible.

>The emphasis should be on Kass and co. preventing the development of medical
>technologies that could help tens of millions of ageing citizens.
>Maybe even to the point of propaganda - 'Kass aims to block cancer cure!'

I agree.

Natasha

Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc
----------
President, Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture  http://www.transhumanist.biz
http://www.transhuman.org
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From samantha at objectent.com  Sun Jan  4 19:19:28 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 11:19:28 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique
	(wasfermi'sparadox:m/dapproach)
In-Reply-To: <01af01c3d257$3a512510$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401031509060.13725-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
	<01af01c3d257$3a512510$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040104111928.5ad63905.samantha@objectent.com>

On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 19:10:57 -0500
"Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> 
> > Now interestingly this would seem to put string & brane 
> > theory in the category of religions (from Harvey's 
> > perspective I think) because they can probably never be 
> > tested.  I think this leads into some very very subtle 
> > distinctions, e.g.:
> > a) What can never be proven;
> > b) What can be proven only by mathematics;
> > c) What can be proven only by mathematics with certain assumptions;
> > d) What can be proven by experiment.
> > 
> > Feel free to throw stones -- I'm just thinking out loud and 
> > have some other emails that require attention.
> 
> I agree with this hierarchy.  I someone who believes in "a" believes in a
> religion.  Someone who believes in "d" is a scientist.  Someone who believes
> in "b" or "c" is a theoretician.
> 

Well, there is a bit of a problem here.  It can never be proven that X can never be proven except for a very few highly tuned impossibile statements.   We have no valid algorithm for determining (a).  Nor is it clear than only mathematics and experiment qualify notions as being outside of "religion".  Nor is it clear what this evil and ambiguous "religon" cloud includes in your view.  It seems it includes an awful lot.

-s


From samantha at objectent.com  Sun Jan  4 19:26:36 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 11:26:36 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <00de01c3d25b$0e2887e0$afcd5cd1@neptune>
References: <01ad01c3d24d$99dbcee0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<015001c3d24f$3fc79680$d2256bd5@artemis>
	<00de01c3d25b$0e2887e0$afcd5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <20040104112636.27e300ef.samantha@objectent.com>

On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 19:38:20 -0500
"Technotranscendence" <neptune at superlink.net> wrote:

> On Saturday, January 03, 2004 6:13 PM Dirk Bruere dirk at neopax.com wrote:
> > Another problem is defining what is meant by 'prevent'.
> > Does it mean speaking against?
> > Speaking against pursuasively?
> > Legislating against in a democracy?
> > If any of the above you are talking about
> > justifying terrorism and oppression.
> 
> I haven't read Mark's essay, but just from reading this thread, I fear
> some might interpret it very broadly to mean even such things as not
> subsidizing other people's life extension program.  For strict
> egalitarians, this might mean my failure to fund everyone else's life
> extension program constitutes my "deny[ing them] access to radical life
> extension technology."
> 

The flipside is more positive.  Ideally we can invent life extension technology that can be made available to all people.  It is good to work in this direction. But *any* life extension is better than none.

> I would hope that's not what Mark intended, but I can imagine others
> taking the argument in that direction.
> 
> However, I disagree with you [Dirk] here about the last instance.
> Legislating against something usually means initiating force.  Once a
> person or a group has initiated force, retaliating against such is not
> "terrorism and oppression" per se, but a just response -- depending on
> it being justly carried out.
> 
> I mean here that if the government of, say, Ruritania outlaws
> supplements, it is not wrong for Ruritanian life extensionists to
> disobey that law.  However, it would be wrong to, say, bomb Ruritania's
> whole population.  Specific acts against Ruritanian legislators and law
> enforcement agents, though, might not be un-libertarian and would have
> to measured against their justness and their likely consequences.
>

But having a first choice of killing said legislators and law enforcemnent would be wrong.   That they are highly mistaken or corrupt or whatever on this subject at the moment does not mean they should automatically forfeit immortality.   The big change is that we see all people as potential immortals, not immortalization of their current positions, but potentially immortal beings with capacity to learn, grow and self-perfect like ourselves.  If we really *get* this, I think we will begin to behave a bit differently.

 
- samantha


From samantha at objectent.com  Sun Jan  4 19:35:59 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 11:35:59 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <022401c3d275$14a04440$d2256bd5@artemis>
References: <01ad01c3d24d$99dbcee0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<015001c3d24f$3fc79680$d2256bd5@artemis>
	<00de01c3d25b$0e2887e0$afcd5cd1@neptune>
	<022401c3d275$14a04440$d2256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <20040104113559.72522dd0.samantha@objectent.com>

On Sun, 4 Jan 2004 03:44:39 -0000
"Dirk Bruere" <dirk at neopax.com> wrote:


> > However, I disagree with you [Dirk] here about the last instance.
> > Legislating against something usually means initiating force.  Once a
> > person or a group has initiated force, retaliating against such is not
> > "terrorism and oppression" per se, but a just response -- depending on
> > it being justly carried out.
> 
> So it is legitimate to use force to overthrow any law you don't agree with
> in a democratic society?
> 

Not *any* but laws that are odds with the arguable very basic premises of the society are far game for circumvention by whatever means.  Laws that cause self-immolation if obeyed are a case in point.  Democracy is not a higher value than life itself or a higher value than human rights or freedom.   Legislators can err and err terribly.  Just because they arrived at their error by democratic means does not make it less erroneous or more rational to go along with the error.

> 
> > their friends, EMTs, etc.?  Or is any act by a democratic government
> > okay?
> 
> In general, yes, provided one is allowed freedom of speech (as well as the
> ability to leave).
> 

This is patently false.  Freedom of speech but not freedom to act against an erroneous and evil law is no freedom at all.  Leave?  That is only practical in the first instance if there is somewhere else better to go to.  And why should one leave one's home because of the error of merely human legislators?

- s


From samantha at objectent.com  Sun Jan  4 19:41:34 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 11:41:34 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <20040104052205.53343.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <01ad01c3d24d$99dbcee0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<20040104052205.53343.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040104114134.5386ee34.samantha@objectent.com>

On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 21:22:05 -0800 (PST)
Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:


> So, you are dying of a disease. I use the law to prevent you from
> obtaining the treatment you need to live. You WILL die, if you don't
> get this treatment. Are you justified in using ANY means to prevent my
> actions or not?
>

I am justified in using any means not worse than the existing situation that have a likelihood of working.  Killing you in the above scenario will not chance the law although it would satisfy an urge to revenge.
 
> Others have already died from my actions, so it is demonstrably true
> that you will die as well if I am not stopped. At what point is any
> action against me acceptable in defense of your life? Why is this not
> plain and simple and morally acceptable self defense on your part?
>

The most likely good action is to expose your evil and remove you from any position where you can do much harm until (hopefully) you learn better.  Killing you is not the first alternative, it is the last and only then if it will actually improve the situations you have perpetuated.
 
> Self defense is not evil. Why is this not self defense?
> 


Self defense can take many forms.  Some forms are more than what is necessary for rational defense.

- samantha


From samantha at objectent.com  Sun Jan  4 19:50:56 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 11:50:56 -0800
Subject: Fw: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <222c01c3d2cc$cf6267c0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
References: <222c01c3d2cc$cf6267c0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <20040104115056.51c05500.samantha@objectent.com>

On Sun, 4 Jan 2004 09:12:38 -0500

I agree with some of Hubert's points.  I would also remove the notion that abortion is morally impermissable as that begs a few questions and throws a controversy in that is not necessary to your point.

Not addressing the moral permissibility of using life extension technology is a major hole in your argument in my view.  It cannot be morally not permitted to stop others from doing that which is not morally permitted if that act in question has serious repurcussions on others.  

I am sorry I commented before reading.  The general question could be much better addressed than by using some specious abortion argument.  Please try again.

-s


From dirk at neopax.com  Sun Jan  4 20:08:41 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 20:08:41 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
References: <01ad01c3d24d$99dbcee0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT><015001c3d24f$3fc79680$d2256bd5@artemis>
	<20040104111154.326367d3.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <011a01c3d2fe$8c3d0040$d2256bd5@artemis>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Samantha Atkins" <samantha at objectent.com>
To: "Dirk Bruere" <dirk at neopax.com>; "ExI chat list"
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 7:11 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality


> On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 23:13:50 -0000
> "Dirk Bruere" <dirk at neopax.com> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > Another problem is defining what is meant by 'prevent'.
> > Does it mean speaking against?
> > Speaking against pursuasively?
> > Legislating against in a democracy?
> > If any of the above you are talking about justifying terrorism and
> > oppression.
>
> I lost you.  None of the things listed are terrorism or justification for
terrorism.  What were you intending to get across?


I'm lost as well.
The bandwidth whiners have forced us to cut context to the point where there
is no point anymore.
Look as the immediately preceding mail if you can be bothered (I can't).


Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan  4 20:46:40 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 15:46:40 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <20040104052205.53343.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <002401c3d303$ddf501d0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Mike Lorrey wrote,
> So, you are dying of a disease. I use the law to prevent you
> from obtaining the treatment you need to live. You WILL die, 
> if you don't get this treatment. Are you justified in using 
> ANY means to prevent my actions or not?

I will obtain treatment for myself even if it is illegal.  No action against
the luddites who brought about the law is necessary.

> Others have already died from my actions, so it is
> demonstrably true that you will die as well if I am not 
> stopped. At what point is any action against me acceptable in 
> defense of your life? Why is this not plain and simple and 
> morally acceptable self defense on your part?

Self defense is hiding from the authorities, getting treatment anyway,
lobbying to get the law changed, etc.  Killing the person who championed the
law won't change the law.  Killing congress members until I get my way is
called terrorism and probably won't get me justice.  Killing the police
person coming to get me won't lessen the resources allocated to capture me.
I really don't see how killing people trying to enforce this law helps me
get my treatment in any way.  This is a poor example of having to choose the
lesser of two evils, because my goal is not directly served by harming
anyone.

> Self defense is not evil. Why is this not self defense?

People with guns often confuse killing someone with self-defense.  Killing
is an offensive act.  It only protects you if you have a lone assailant and
you can wipe out the entire opposing team in one shot.  I do not believe
killing a police officer, congress member, or luddite will help.  You will
make them a martyr, and more will join their cause to fight you.  I see no
net gain, only net losses, in using violence under this scenario.  That is
why I am opposed, not for mere political reasons, but for more pragmatic
reasons that I don't think this "solution" solves anything.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sun Jan  4 21:00:50 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 13:00:50 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Fw: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <20040104115056.51c05500.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401041235390.16635-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Sun, 4 Jan 2004, Samantha Atkins wrote:

> I agree with some of Hubert's points.  I would also remove the notion
> that abortion is morally impermissable as that begs a few questions and
> throws a controversy in that is not necessary to your point.

Well this isn't really Mark's point -- he is simply pointing out that if
the objection to preventing access to life extending technologies
is based on the right to a future -- then abortion is going to
come up in the minds of critics.

I'm going to raise this topic in my comments to him -- it twists
extensively in which rights trump other rights.  For example being
forced to have and care for an unwanted child may significantly
damage the futures of both the child and mother.  Or giving
the child up for adoption may produce similar results.  But
all of this has probably been extensively examined in the abortion
debates.

IMO, the key question may revolve around -- when precisely does one
have a "future"?  A human fetus or an infant have no capability for
self-enabled survival without depending upon their society or
parent(s).  This is in contrast to many newborn animals
have a reasonable chance at survival (having a future)
from the time they are born/hatched/etc.

There is also the fundamental problem that given cloning technology,
many of the cells in your body have the potential for producing
another human being.  So the cells of your stomach, intestine,
skin, etc. (e.g. cells with any turnover) are effectively
performing abortions on a daily basis.

> Not addressing the moral permissibility of using life extension
> technology is a major hole in your argument in my view.  It cannot be
> morally not permitted to stop others from doing that which is not
> morally permitted if that act in question has serious repurcussions on
> others.

This gets into how philosophers and ethicists debate these
topics.  Its been more than a decade since I've studied these
so my memory may be a bit fuzzy -- but it comes down to
cases where one is morally obligated not to interfere and
cases where one is morally obligated to take action.  Mark
is dealing just with the first and not with the second.
To deal with the second effectively one has to argue strongly
for something like a socialistic or communistic environment
or programming all humans to be completely altruistic, etc.
That is a much harder argument to make (and would certainly
cause a number of people on this list to get really PO :-)).

> I am sorry I commented before reading.  The general question could be
> much better addressed than by using some specious abortion argument.
> Please try again.

I think Mark only uses the abortion argument in passing -- simply pointing
out there is a value to "future life" -- be it for a fetus, an infant,
a normal human, or a human with an extended life.

What is missing (from my perspective as an extropian) is any
comment (from what I have read thus far) on the fact that there
may be an inherent value (and right to preserve) to accumulated
information/knowledge.  I.e. the past of a 1000 year old
individual is greater than the past of a 100 y.o. individual
is greater than the past of a 3 month old fetus.  At an
extremely gross level Extropians (vs. say transhumanists)
might argue that there is a very concrete scale in terms
of the value of information or experience content and so
one adjusts the "right to life" based on that.  Of course
after one grants that one immediately gets into a discussion
of the actual extropic value of the information.  I think
this gets into areas related to what one thinks when one
cleans ones closet or ones garage.  What is *really* worth
something?

Robert




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan  4 21:08:18 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 16:08:18 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401040556430.9622-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <002501c3d306$e092afc0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Robert J. Bradbury wrote,
> It was only the use of the term "immortality" that I got
> stuck on. We really need to come up with a better word -- 
> making one up if necessary -- to get to the point where the 
> word means exactly what we want it to mean -- nothing more 
> and nothing less.

Actually, I like using normal terms like "life-saving".  The technology we
want is simply "life-saving".  It doesn't matter if the people we want to
save are old or have already lived a long enough life by someone else's
standards.  They still don't want to die and want to be saved.  The same
technology can save a child with premature aging as well as an old person
with natural aging.  We don't need different and special terms.  I think it
is simpler to keep the terms similar.

I don't think we need any special technologies to reach indefinite
immortality.  I think the same technologies that cure aging diseases will
postpone aging death.  We keep curing our current ailments within our
lifetimes, and we push away death further and further.   I think we can drop
the idea of immortality altogether (in these arguments) and just push for
better healthcare.  Cure wrinkle-lines on my face.  Cure DNA damage as I get
older.  Cure Alzheimer's and brain malfunctions.  Cure cancer.  Simply work
toward curing diseases, including age-related diseases, and we will keep
stalling death.  We don't need to focus just on curing diseases for people
who have reached a ripe old age.  These cures work for everyone of all ages.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From xllb at rogers.com  Sun Jan  4 21:08:01 2004
From: xllb at rogers.com (xllb at rogers.com)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 16:08:01 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
Message-ID: <20040104210801.CIPN430912.fep04-mail.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com@localhost>



Robert J. Bradbury wrote 
> It was only the use of the term "immortality" that I got stuck on.
> We really need to come up with a better word -- making one up
> if necessary -- to get to the point where the word means exactly
> what we want it to mean -- nothing more and nothing less.
> I thought of hyperlongevity and superlongevity but playing around
> with the dictionary they don't seem quite right.  I managed
> to come up with "itlongveos" - literally to go for long life
> or close there to.  But I suspect someone with a better grasp
> of latin or greek could come up with something better.
> What I would really like is a word for something involving
> an indefinitely long healthy life or life without limits.
> 
> Robert
> 


How about "sempiternal"?

xllb

"Dogma blinds."
"Hell is overkill."



From thespike at earthlink.net  Sun Jan  4 21:41:31 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 15:41:31 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401040556430.9622-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <00d601c3d30b$872425e0$bd994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 8:37 AM

> What I would really like is a word for something involving
> an indefinitely long healthy life or life without limits.

As several of us have said previously, Brian Stableford's `emortality' is
excellent. Without the *necessity* of death. It *might* happen eventually by
accident, cosmic disaster, or by free choice, but it isn't any longer part
of an inevitable contingently-evolved design or destiny (where such
`destiny' is nothing more than the previously inevitable outcome of
innumerable and unrepairable small shocks and insults to the body over
time).

Damien Broderick



From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au  Sun Jan  4 21:50:37 2004
From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 08:50:37 +1100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
References: <003901c3d213$bbf6ef80$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
	<009001c3d25e$7c303a00$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>
	<226e01c3d2d5$2be17a10$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <00f901c3d30c$c9fbda60$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>

Mark Walker wrote:

> > From: "Brett Paatsch" <
>
> > Looks like a suboptimal moral argument to run. Why not
> > run instead:
> >
> > On what basis does *any* human individual *presume* to
> > *ration* the lifespan of any other human individual?
> >
> The answer to this question is in the paper itself.

Ok. But the answer to the question in general is not the same as
having other people ask it of Kass in particular.

I don't know if you seen the Movie Inherit the Wind about the Scopes
Monkey Trial? If you haven't its worth a look. Anyone that tries
to impose their morality on other people places themselves in a position
of separation from all other people. The challenge is how to tease that
out. The lawyer defending Scopes in the monkey trial (in the movie)
does it well. He shows that its not the Bible per se (in Kass case
- perhaps instead of the bible its conventional morality (but as *he*
see's it) and his interpretation is only one interpretation) - what still
remains unclear (and dangerous) is why one interpretation gets to
be priviledged.

Perhaps I can't make this point - in this manner. To obtuse. If not
sorry.

> Opponents of radical  life extension may agree that one should not
> ration the "normal" lifespan of individuals but radical life extension
> goes beyond this.

Yes. What is normal though? That the pivot point. Some of your
class will have a concept of normal as 3 score and 10, but they
know there is a range around that.

Explore how they feel if their life expectancy was to be halved
as a result of some rationing decision. A policy decision. Related
to health economics or something. Old people are too expensive
etc. Or the too sick young are too expensive to treat and so don't
get the normal life expectancy because the treatments haven't been
developed. Get your class to examine what happens when normal
is investigated closer. Normal has shifted greatly if the WHO life
expectancy figures are tracked. Who'd want to go back to what
was normal say 100 years ago as opposed to now. Or 50. On what
basis?  - That sort of thing.

>  For example, opponents might think that the former
> follows from a "right to life" but disagree that a right to life implies a
> "right to an immortal life".

Immortal is going to be a problem in a philosophical discussion I'd think
as its not real.

> Thus,  I think our opponents will see a principled distinction between
> rationing  mortal lives and immortal lives whereas we don't.

I'm sure you are right on this if you leave "normal" and "immortal" alone.

> I'm trying to offer an argument against such a principled distinction.

I understand.

>So, I think at least some of  our opponents will say that your sketch
> of an argument begs one of the main questions.

Yes. I'm sorry it was only a sketch.


> > I prefer to see them (Kass etc) have to make their case with the
> > world looking and wondering how they (Kass etc) got to
> > consider that their particular worldview should be particularly
> > priviledged. How is it that Kass presumes the wisdom and moral
> > judgement to ration other peoples lives... Let Kass etc **make**
> > their case if they can - whilst having to *conspicuously* carrying
> > the full burden of their prejudice.

> I'm not sure what to make of this. I don't see that Kass is saying that
> his worldview is privileged in any untoward way.

Kass is good. I.e Effective. I don't know him to be immoral. To beat
his arguments will not be easy. You can't afford (we can't afford) to
let him have exclusive right to all that is perceived as normal and also
argue for something as intractable (unrealistic) as immortality
ourselves.

>He offers arguments
> for the ethical conclusions that he makes--if this is what you mean
> by a privileged world view then I am equally guilty.

I know. Some of his arguments are good ones. That's not what I
meant. The best I can offer is the Inherit the Wind business.

You will not be able to beat Kass if Kass is right. :-)

>Furthermore, as far as I can tell Kass  doesn't say that we
>should ration the lives of others, what he argues is that it is morally
> impermissible to seek physical immortality. These claims
> are distinct--as I point out in the paper.

I accept that having not read the paper my comments are
largely gratuitous. Sorry for that. I will read it later if I get
time.

Regards,
Brett Paatsch








From mark at permanentend.org  Sun Jan  4 21:45:13 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 16:45:13 -0500
Subject: Fw: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
References: <222c01c3d2cc$cf6267c0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
	<20040104115056.51c05500.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <23f801c3d30c$0f4feb70$2ee4f418@markcomputer>

-
From: "Samantha Atkins" >
> I agree with some of Hubert's points.  I would also remove the notion that
abortion is morally impermissable as that begs a few questions and throws a
controversy in that is not necessary to your point.
>
I don't claim that abortion is morally impermissible. Nor does Marquis claim
that his argument on its own is sufficient to prove abortion is morally
impermissible.

> Not addressing the moral permissibility of using life extension technology
is a major hole in your argument in my view.  It cannot be morally not
permitted to stop others from doing that which is not morally permitted if
that act in question has serious repercussions on others.
>
I do consider repercussions on others, e.g., overpopulation and
considerations of distributive justice. If my argument is correct the
repercussions for others will have to be pretty serious in order to trump
the value of a future-like-ours.


> I am sorry I commented before reading.  The general question could be much
better addressed than by using some specious abortion argument.  Please try
again.
>
Thanks for your comments.

Mark  Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org





From xllb at rogers.com  Sun Jan  4 21:49:13 2004
From: xllb at rogers.com (xllb at rogers.com)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 16:49:13 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
Message-ID: <20040104214913.CTGA430912.fep04-mail.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com@localhost>

Robert J. Bradbury wrote
> Hi,
> 
> > How about "sempiternal"?
> 
> Could you break it down for the list -- my books on Greek
> terms (if it is derived from Greek) aren't good enough
> to parse it.
> 
> Thanks,
> R.

sem?pi?ter?nal

Enduring forever; eternal.

[Middle English, from Old French sempiternel, from Late Latin sempitern lis, from Latin sempiternus : semper, always; see sem-1 in Indo-European Roots + aeternus, eternal; see aiw- in Indo-European Roots.]

from dictionary.com

regards

xllb


"Dogma blinds."
"Hell is overkill."



From mark at permanentend.org  Sun Jan  4 22:30:28 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 17:30:28 -0500
Subject: Fw: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401041235390.16635-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <241b01c3d312$5c6d87e0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert J. Bradbury"
>
> I'm going to raise this topic in my comments to him -- it twists
> extensively in which rights trump other rights.  For example being
> forced to have and care for an unwanted child may significantly
> damage the futures of both the child and mother.  Or giving
> the child up for adoption may produce similar results.  But
> all of this has probably been extensively examined in the abortion
> debates.
>
> IMO, the key question may revolve around -- when precisely does one
> have a "future"?  A human fetus or an infant have no capability for
> self-enabled survival without depending upon their society or
> parent(s).  This is in contrast to many newborn animals
> have a reasonable chance at survival (having a future)
> from the time they are born/hatched/etc.
>
Marquis thinks that individuals have a future-like-ours once they are a
zygote. He is NOT saying that they are a person, only that the fetus has a
future-like-ours. I don't think the capacity for self-enabled survival is
key since then it would be morally permissible to kill adults or children
who do not possess self-enabled survival. That said, clearly the value of
the fetus' future must be weighed against the value of women to do in and to
their body what they want. Perhaps ectogenesis will allow us to sidestep the
whole abortion debate.


> There is also the fundamental problem that given cloning technology,
> many of the cells in your body have the potential for producing
> another human being.  So the cells of your stomach, intestine,
> skin, etc. (e.g. cells with any turnover) are effectively
> performing abortions on a daily basis.
>
Yes, this brings up the question of how far one should count something as
having a future-like-ours. Should we lament the lost future-like-ours of
sperm in a condom? (Marquis says no).


> > Not addressing the moral permissibility of using life extension
> > technology is a major hole in your argument in my view.  It cannot be
> > morally not permitted to stop others from doing that which is not
> > morally permitted if that act in question has serious repurcussions on
> > others.
>
> This gets into how philosophers and ethicists debate these
> topics.  Its been more than a decade since I've studied these
> so my memory may be a bit fuzzy -- but it comes down to
> cases where one is morally obligated not to interfere and
> cases where one is morally obligated to take action.  Mark
> is dealing just with the first and not with the second.
> To deal with the second effectively one has to argue strongly
> for something like a socialistic or communistic environment
> or programming all humans to be completely altruistic, etc.
> That is a much harder argument to make (and would certainly
> cause a number of people on this list to get really PO :-)).
>

This is the sort of distinction I am trying to draw. Suppose you ask a group
of people whether abortion is morally permissible and you get a 50/50
divide. Now ask the same group whether it is morally permissible to deny
access to abortions through public policy or other means. Now you'll get
something like an 80/20 split with the same group with the 80 believing that
it is not permissible to prevent access. So although there is an even split
on the "theoretical" question the pro-abortion debate wins on the
"practical" question. It would be nice to win on both accounts but I only
address the "practical" question. I think we have a real chance of getting
an even better split than the abortion debate if we can show that preventing
access to radical life extension technology is morally equivalent to denying
access to "traditional" life extension technology like blood transfusions.
This is of course the point of a value of a future-like-ours.

> > I am sorry I commented before reading.  The general question could be
> > much better addressed than by using some specious abortion argument.
> > Please try again.
>
> I think Mark only uses the abortion argument in passing -- simply pointing
> out there is a value to "future life" -- be it for a fetus, an infant,
> a normal human, or a human with an extended life.
>
Exactly.

> What is missing (from my perspective as an extropian) is any
> comment (from what I have read thus far) on the fact that there
> may be an inherent value (and right to preserve) to accumulated
> information/knowledge.  I.e. the past of a 1000 year old
> individual is greater than the past of a 100 y.o. individual
> is greater than the past of a 3 month old fetus.  At an
> extremely gross level Extropians (vs. say transhumanists)
> might argue that there is a very concrete scale in terms
> of the value of information or experience content and so
> one adjusts the "right to life" based on that.  Of course
> after one grants that one immediately gets into a discussion
> of the actual extropic value of the information.  I think
> this gets into areas related to what one thinks when one
> cleans ones closet or ones garage.  What is *really* worth
> something?
>
>
I agree this is worth exploring. I briefly in hint at this near the end
where I talk about an obligation to immortality. If we suppose that
knowledge and achievement of goals have intrinsic worth (as do many
"perfectionist" ethicists), and one's ability to realize these values
increases with age then we have an argument for a (prima facie) duty to
immortality.

Cheers,

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org







From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan  4 22:41:34 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 17:41:34 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <00d601c3d30b$872425e0$bd994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <002901c3d313$ead28390$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Damien Broderick wrote,
> As several of us have said previously, Brian Stableford's 
> `emortality' is excellent. Without the *necessity* of death. 

I really hate made-up words because they convey nothing to people who hear
them for the first time.  While jargon is useful as shorthand for lengthy
conversations, it is not useful for short soundbites and PR purposes.

How about "ageless" as a word?  We aren't growing older toward dying of
old-age.  But it implies nothing about living forever or not dying by some
other means.  Or how about wanting "ongoing health" as a phrase?  We want
our health to continue without falling into an inevitable decline with no
recourse.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From mark at permanentend.org  Sun Jan  4 23:02:40 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 18:02:40 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
References: <002901c3d313$ead28390$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <244b01c3d316$db187420$2ee4f418@markcomputer>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Harvey Newstrom"

> How about "ageless" as a word?  We aren't growing older toward dying of
> old-age.  But it implies nothing about living forever or not dying by some
> other means.  Or how about wanting "ongoing health" as a phrase?  We want
> our health to continue without falling into an inevitable decline with no
> recourse.
>
I like 'ageless'. It is descriptive and doesn't look like an attempt to hide
behind jargon. It is noteworthy too that Kass uses it in the title of one of
his papers: 'Ageless bodies and Happy Souls'.

Cheers,

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org





From natasha at natasha.cc  Mon Jan  5 01:27:52 2004
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2004 17:27:52 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Was: Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <244b01c3d316$db187420$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
References: <002901c3d313$ead28390$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20040104172428.02c0e170@pop.earthlink.net>


>From: "Harvey Newstrom"
>
> > How about "ageless" as a word?  We aren't growing older toward dying of
> > old-age.  But it implies nothing about living forever or not dying by some
> > other means.

"Ageless Thinking"  talk I presented at Alcor Technology Conference, and 
essay in my book (1996).

http://www.natasha.cc/ageless.htm




From thespike at earthlink.net  Sun Jan  4 23:27:39 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 17:27:39 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality (terminology)
References: <002901c3d313$ead28390$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<244b01c3d316$db187420$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <014f01c3d31a$59da6040$bd994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Walker" <mark at permanentend.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 5:02 PM

> From: "Harvey Newstrom"
> > How about "ageless" as a word?

> I like 'ageless'. It is descriptive and doesn't look like an attempt to
hide
> behind jargon.

It's good by itself, better than, say, `antiagathic' (James Blish's 50-year
old term). But it leads to the horrid eye- and mouthful of `agelessness',
compared to the nifty `emortal' => `emortality'.

We have the same trouble with `deathless' (`deathlessness') , unless the
general condition is `deathlessanity'. :)

Harvey mentioned his dislike of made-up words, but it didn't seem to stand
in the way of laser, television, telephone, car, xerox, google...

(True, most of these items already existed and were on the market, so it was
convenient to embrace the term.)

I know this seems trivial, but selling the message crisply is often as
important as having the right message.

Besides, when it happens the common word will emerge over the top of our
heads. It'll probably be something like `zombies' or `ghouls' or `snakes'...

Damien Broderick



From jcorb at iol.ie  Mon Jan  5 00:03:38 2004
From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally)
Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2004 00:03:38 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] NEWS: US mission lands safely on Mars
Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20040104235452.027c1ba0@pop.iol.ie>

A good day to be human! ;

>US mission lands safely on Mars
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3365371.stm

>A US space agency probe has sent back its first images of Mars within 
>hours of arriving on the planet.
>The Spirit rover survived the perilous plunge through the Martian 
>atmosphere after a seven-month voyage from Earth.
>The six-wheeled robot will seek signs that Mars was once capable of 
>supporting life.
>A second rover, named Opportunity, is expected to land on the other side 
>of the planet at the end of January.
>The pictures show the barren, rock-strewn landscape around the rover.
>"The images are outstanding," science manager John Callas said. "The 
>quality [is] the best that has been taken. This is incredible. This could 
>not be better."

Here's hoping Opportunity goes just as well.  Also, there's a further 
chance for Beagle 2 now that Mars Express will be overhead soon.




James....




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan  4 23:58:08 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 18:58:08 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Was: Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20040104172428.02c0e170@pop.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <002e01c3d31e$9d6d6e20$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Natasha Vita-More wrote,
> "Ageless Thinking"  talk I presented at Alcor Technology 
> Conference, and essay in my book (1996).
> <http://www.natasha.cc/ageless.htm>

Perfect!  That's what I want to be: "ageless".  

I don't know if immortality is possible or even desirable.  I may change my
mind in a million years.  But I do no that I want to undo aging damage right
now.  "Ageless" seems to be what I want to be.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From rhanson at gmu.edu  Mon Jan  5 00:18:45 2004
From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson)
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2004 19:18:45 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Darwinian dynamics unlikely to apply to
	superintelligence
In-Reply-To: <3FF5FEA2.8040900@pobox.com>
References: <8765fut8zd.fsf@snark.piermont.com>
	<20031231094734.GE11973@digitalkingdom.org>
	<3FF309F8.6000502@yifan.net>
	<20031231195904.GN11973@digitalkingdom.org>
	<87llorutus.fsf@snark.piermont.com>
	<20040102014258.GW11973@digitalkingdom.org>
	<8765fut8zd.fsf@snark.piermont.com>
Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20040104171912.020ca520@mail.gmu.edu>

On 1/2/2004, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
>Perry E. Metzger wrote:

Was this on this list?  If so, when?  I didn't see this message.

>>>>the laws of physics and the rules of math don't cease to apply.
>>>>That leads me to believe that evolution doesn't stop. That further
>>>>leads me to believe that nature -- bloody in tooth and claw, ...
>>>>will simply be taken to the next level. ...
>>>You've taken one sample set, Earth, and implied from the course of
>>>evolution on Earth that it is a *law of physics* that violent
>>>conflict occur.
>>Evolution isn't something you can avoid. Deep down, all it says is
>>"you find more of that which survives and spreads itself", which is so
>>close to a tautology that it is damn hard to dispute. ...
>
>The replicator dynamics, like all math equations, generally are provable
>and hence what people would call "tautological" when applied to the real
>world.  The question is whether the variables take on any interesting
>values.  Price's Equation is a tautology, ... can apply it to pebbles on
>the seashore, for example, ... the question of whether one
>is dealing with infinitesimal quantities that obey a replicator equation,
>or large quantities; small handful of generations, or millions of
>generations; whether there is enough selection pressure, over a long
>enough period of time, to produce complex information of the sort we're
>used to seeing in biology. ... Even if blue pebbles survive some tiny
>amount better, it doesn't mean that in 20,000 years all the pebbles on the
>seashore will be intensely blue.
>Correspondingly, we can expect that any SI we deal with will exclude the
>set of SIs that immediately shut themselves down, and that whichever SI we
>see will be the result of an optimization process that was capable of
>self-optimization and preferred that choice.  But this does not imply that
>any SI we deal with will attach a huge intrinsic utility to its own survival.
>If you have an optimization system, ... like the expected utility equation,
>then, ... instrumental expected utility for the continued operation of an
>optimization system similar to the one doing the calculation, ...
>Similarly, ... we should expect that optimization process to
>optimize all available matter, ... they will *all* choose to absorb all
>nearby matter.  ... most any optimization process ... defend itself from
>a hostile optimization process - as an instrumental utility. ...
>And finally, there is no reason to suppose that the process whereby SIs
>absorb matter, optimize matter, or in other ways do things with matter,
>would create subregions with (a) large heritable changes in properties,
>that (b) correlate to large differences in the rate at which these regions
>spread or transform other matter, and that (c) this process will continue
>over the thousands or millions of generations that would be required for
>the natural selection dynamic to produce optimized functional complexity.
>This last point is particularly important in understanding why replicator
>dynamics are unlikely to apply to SIs.  At most, we are likely to see one
>initial filter in which SIs that halt or fence themselves off in tiny
>spheres are removed from the cosmic observables.  Almost any utility
>function I have ever heard proposed will choose to spread across the
>cosmos and transform matter into either (1) *maximally high-fidelity
>copies* of the optimization control structure or (2) configurations that
>fulfill intrinsic utilities.  If the optimization control structure is
>copied at extremely high fidelity, there are no important heritable
>differences for natural selection to act on.  If there were heritable
>differences, they are not likely to covary with large differences in
>reproductive fitness, insofar as all the optimization control structures
>will choose equally to transform nearby matter. ...
>Anyway, there's a heck of a difference between natural selection *building
>a goal system from scratch*, like where humans come from, and applying a
>anti-suicide filter to the set of SIs that are likely to pop up from
>ancestral civilizations (mostly the result of runaway recursive
>self-improvement, I expect, perhaps a Friendlyoid SI here and there if
>someone in the ancestral civilization was implausibly competent). ...
>Replicator dynamics assume a (large, frequent) death rate.  If
>optimization processes compete to absorb *available* resources but hang on
>permanently to all resources already absorbed, the replicator dynamics are
>not iterated across thousands of generations.

The general question of how much we can expect variation and selection to
determine the nature of the future is extremely important, so I'm sorry
I didn't see more follow-up to this post.  But I have a lot of trouble
figuring out where you (Eliezer) are coming from here.

Let's see, if there are lots of "SIs" that pop up from ancestral
civilizations, we might expect variation and selection among them.  You
seem to be arguing that there won't be enough of them varying enough
over time for this to happen much, at least within the posited class of
SIs that are maximally capable and quickly grab all the resources they
can, until they run into a (by assumption equally capable) neighbor, at
which point they make peace with that neighbor.  If so, the distribution
of what happens at various places in the future would be largely
determined by the distribution of preferences that SIs begin with.

It seems to me that your key assumption is one of very cheap defense -
once one SI has grabbed some resources you seem to posit that there is
little point in some other SI, or even a large coalition of them, trying
to take it from him.  Given this, I suppose the rest of your scenario might
plausibly follow, but I'm not
sure why you believe this assumption.



Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323 



From natasha at natasha.cc  Mon Jan  5 02:29:28 2004
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2004 18:29:28 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Was: Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <002e01c3d31e$9d6d6e20$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
References: <5.2.0.9.0.20040104172428.02c0e170@pop.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20040104182746.02750290@pop.earthlink.net>

At 06:58 PM 1/4/04 -0500, you wrote:
>Natasha Vita-More wrote,
> > "Ageless Thinking"  talk I presented at Alcor Technology
> > Conference, and essay in my book (1996).
> > <http://www.natasha.cc/ageless.htm>
>
>Perfect!  That's what I want to be: "ageless".

I hadn't read this paper in quite a while, and it was fun reading it 
again.  Thanks for putting a buzz in my ear :-).  The conceptual product 
design company that has been marketing "Primo Posthuman" over the years is 
just called "Ageless."

>I don't know if immortality is possible or even desirable.  I may change my
>mind in a million years.  But I do no that I want to undo aging damage right
>now.  "Ageless" seems to be what I want to be.

Me too.

N

Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc
----------
President, Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture  http://www.transhumanist.biz
http://www.transhuman.org
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From sentience at pobox.com  Mon Jan  5 02:30:27 2004
From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky)
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2004 21:30:27 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Darwinian dynamics unlikely to apply
	to	superintelligence
In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.2.20040104171912.020ca520@mail.gmu.edu>
References: <8765fut8zd.fsf@snark.piermont.com>	<20031231094734.GE11973@digitalkingdom.org>	<3FF309F8.6000502@yifan.net>	<20031231195904.GN11973@digitalkingdom.org>	<87llorutus.fsf@snark.piermont.com>	<20040102014258.GW11973@digitalkingdom.org>	<8765fut8zd.fsf@snark.piermont.com>
	<5.2.1.1.2.20040104171912.020ca520@mail.gmu.edu>
Message-ID: <3FF8CC43.2010304@pobox.com>

Robin Hanson wrote:
> 
> Let's see, if there are lots of "SIs" that pop up from ancestral 
> civilizations, we might expect variation and selection among them.  You
> seem to be arguing that there won't be enough of them varying enough 
> over time for this to happen much, at least within the posited class of
> SIs that are maximally capable and quickly grab all the resources they
> can, until they run into a (by assumption equally capable) neighbor,
> at which point they make peace with that neighbor.  If so, the
> distribution of what happens at various places in the future would be
> largely determined by the distribution of preferences that SIs begin
> with.

Yup.

> It seems to me that your key assumption is one of very cheap defense - 
> once one SI has grabbed some resources you seem to posit that there is 
> little point in some other SI, or even a large coalition of them,
> trying to take it from him.

I agree that this is a key assumption.  However, the assumption can fail 
and still bar natural selection, if there is little variation in 
preferences or little variation in resource-grabbing capacity or little 
correlation between the two.  Since I suspect that intelligence would use 
up almost all the potential variation before what we ordinarily think of 
as heritable capacities had the chance to operate, natural selection would 
not automatically follow even if there were frequent combats.

> Given this, I suppose the rest of your
> scenario might plausibly follow, but I'm not sure why you believe this
> assumption.

I tend to suspect that between two similar intelligent agents, combat will 
be too uncertain to be worthwhile, will consume fixed resources, and will 
produce negative externalities relative to surrounding agents.  Let us 
assume that loss aversion (not just in the modern human psychological 
sense of aversion to losses as such, but in the sense of loss aversion 
emergent in diminishing marginal utility) does not apply, so that a 50/50 
chance of winning - which goes along with the argument of intelligent 
optimization using up variation - does not automatically rule out combat. 
  However, there would still be a fixed cost of combat, probably extremely 
high; and if we assume variation in preferences, there would probably be 
negative externalities to any nearby SIs, who would have a motive to 
threaten punishment for combat.  Negotiations among SIs are, I think, out 
of my reach to comprehend - although I do have some specific reasons to be 
confused - but I still suspect that they would negotiate.  The point about 
large coalitions devouring single cells is interesting (although my 
current thoughts about SI negotations suggest that *the choice to form a 
predatory coalition* might be viewed as tantamount to starting a war).  If 
we do have coalitions eating smaller cells, then we have a filterish 
selection pressure that rules out all unwillingness or hesitation to form 
coalitions - not necessarily natural selection unless there is heritable 
variation, which correlates, etc.  But beyond that point, it would 
essentially amount to gambling, more than combat - will you be part of the 
latest coalition, or not?  Something like a tontine, perhaps, until there 
are only two entities left standing?  But where does the non-random 
selection come in?  What does it correlate to?

The stringency of the conditions for natural selection as we know it to 
apply are not widely appreciated; you need, not just limited resources, 
but limited resources
AND frequent death to free up resources
AND multiple phenotypes with heritable characteristics
AND good fidelity in transmission of heritable characteristics
AND substantial variation in characteristics
AND substantial variation in reproductive fitness
AND persistent correlation between the variations
AND this is iterated for many generations
THEN you have a noticeable amount of selection pressure

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence



From naddy at mips.inka.de  Mon Jan  5 03:29:59 2004
From: naddy at mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 03:29:59 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [extropy-chat] ETHICS: What You Can't Say
Message-ID: <btalnn$2tgu$1@kemoauc.mips.inka.de>

I picked this up on Slashdot.  Recommended.

----

Paul Graham
What You Can't Say

(This essay is about heresy: how to think forbidden thoughts, and what
to do with them. The latter was till recently something only a small
elite had to think about. Now we all have to, because the Web has made
us all publishers.)

[...]

Full Article:
http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

----

It ties in with a thought I have been entertaining for a while now:
that many things we believe to be true must be crap.  Just pick up
some old non-fiction books or encyclopedias.

"It is of utmost importance that the woman enters marriage as a
virgin."  From the sex section of some 1950s marriage advice book.
It didn't even bother to give a reason, it merely stressed what
apparently was a self-evident truth at the time.

I have a German encyclopedia from 1939.  As you can imagine, the
entries on topics such as "race" or "Jews" are considered to be
evilly wrong today.  Back then they were socio-scientific consensus.

So what ideas do we entertain today that will be considered ridiculous
or even despicable in the future?  Do you really think we are the
first perfect generation to be free from such flaws?  Not likely.

Representational democracy is a holy cow.  It is the pinnacle of
political systems, the best one possible.  Just why do I have this
nagging suspicion that every other political system received the
same judgment at the time when it happened to be in vogue?

Alas, it seems I'm much too conformist a person.

-- 
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy at mips.inka.de


From dirk at neopax.com  Mon Jan  5 03:34:23 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 03:34:23 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Darwinian dynamics unlikely to
	applyto	superintelligence
References: <8765fut8zd.fsf@snark.piermont.com>	<20031231094734.GE11973@digitalkingdom.org>	<3FF309F8.6000502@yifan.net>	<20031231195904.GN11973@digitalkingdom.org>	<87llorutus.fsf@snark.piermont.com>	<20040102014258.GW11973@digitalkingdom.org>	<8765fut8zd.fsf@snark.piermont.com><5.2.1.1.2.20040104171912.020ca520@mail.gmu.edu>
	<3FF8CC43.2010304@pobox.com>
Message-ID: <039201c3d33c$d001c020$d2256bd5@artemis>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience at pobox.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 2:30 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Darwinian dynamics unlikely to applyto
superintelligence


>
> I tend to suspect that between two similar intelligent agents, combat will
> be too uncertain to be worthwhile, will consume fixed resources, and will
> produce negative externalities relative to surrounding agents.  Let us

That's assuming scientific and technological prowess levels out early on.
Otherwise a difference of as little as 100yrs will mean that the advanced
intelligence would wipe the floor with the lesser at almost no cost and it
becomes the optimum strategy.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From natasha at natasha.cc  Mon Jan  5 05:54:12 2004
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2004 21:54:12 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Most Outrageous Anti-Biotech Statements 
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20040104214340.01eb4820@pop.earthlink.net>


Max and I spent the evening reading preposterous statements made by a 
uniformity of anti-biotech advocates.  Geez. :-)

Damien (Broderick) - or someone - what is the most collectable, flagrant 
anti-progress statement you've seen quoted?

Natasha


Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc
----------
President, Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture  http://www.transhumanist.biz
http://www.transhuman.org
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From thespike at earthlink.net  Mon Jan  5 04:14:55 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 22:14:55 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Most Outrageous Anti-Biotech Statements 
References: <5.2.0.9.0.20040104214340.01eb4820@pop.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <027e01c3d342$7b6932e0$bd994a43@texas.net>



> Damien (Broderick) - or someone - what is the most collectable, flagrant
> anti-progress statement you've seen quoted?

Well, just in the last hour or so... :)

< The earth's immune system, so to speak, has recognized the presence of the
human species and is starting to kick in. The earth is attempting to rid
itself of an infection by the human parasite.

Richard Preston, 1994 >

Cited in http://www.dieoff.com/page224.htm :

< The theory is defined by the ratio of world energy production (use) and
world population. The details are worked out. The theory is easy. It states
that the life expectancy of Industrial Civilization is less than or equal to
100 years: 1930-2030. >

(Thanks to Mark Plus for fwd-ing)

Damien Broderick





From fauxever at sprynet.com  Mon Jan  5 04:18:39 2004
From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 20:18:39 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Most Outrageous Anti-Biotech Statements 
References: <5.2.0.9.0.20040104214340.01eb4820@pop.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <008f01c3d342$ff2edf30$6600a8c0@brainiac>

From: Natasha Vita-More

> Max and I spent the evening reading preposterous statements made by a
uniformity of anti-biotech advocates.  Geez. :-)

> Damien (Broderick) - or someone - what is the most collectable, flagrant
anti-progress statement you've seen quoted?

Sometimes they're so loony, I wonder if the statements are intended to be
satirical.  While certainly not *the most* flagrant, this is characteristic
of some of the ones I've read from PETA:

"Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it." -
Phyllis Newkirk, co-founder and president of PETA

http://www.animalscam.com/

Olga




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Mon Jan  5 04:30:53 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 20:30:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Most Outrageous Anti-Biotech Statements 
In-Reply-To: <008f01c3d342$ff2edf30$6600a8c0@brainiac>
Message-ID: <20040105043053.67767.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Olga Bourlin <fauxever at sprynet.com> wrote:
>  While certainly not *the most* flagrant, this is
> characteristic
> of some of the ones I've read from PETA:
> 
> "Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it."
> -
> Phyllis Newkirk, co-founder and president of PETA

I'm left wondering what their position would be if animals could catch
AIDS.... "free needles for chihuahuas", featuring the Kibbles n' Bits
dogs, and "free condoms for cats". Sex-ed for siamese kittens.



=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From dirk at neopax.com  Mon Jan  5 04:36:05 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 04:36:05 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Most Outrageous Anti-Biotech Statements 
References: <5.2.0.9.0.20040104214340.01eb4820@pop.earthlink.net>
	<027e01c3d342$7b6932e0$bd994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <03df01c3d345$6e5ba5d0$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Damien Broderick" <thespike at earthlink.net>
To: <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 4:14 AM
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Most Outrageous Anti-Biotech Statements


>
> < The theory is defined by the ratio of world energy production (use) and
> world population. The details are worked out. The theory is easy. It
states
> that the life expectancy of Industrial Civilization is less than or equal
to
> 100 years: 1930-2030. >
>
> (Thanks to Mark Plus for fwd-ing)

Probably correct, but for the wrong reasons.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org




From dirk at neopax.com  Mon Jan  5 04:37:38 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 04:37:38 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Most Outrageous Anti-Biotech Statements 
References: <5.2.0.9.0.20040104214340.01eb4820@pop.earthlink.net>
	<008f01c3d342$ff2edf30$6600a8c0@brainiac>
Message-ID: <03e701c3d345$a5e04b50$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Olga Bourlin" <fauxever at sprynet.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>;
<thespike at earthlink.net>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 4:18 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Most Outrageous Anti-Biotech Statements


>
> "Even if animal tests produced a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it." -
> Phyllis Newkirk, co-founder and president of PETA
>
> http://www.animalscam.com/

I'll second that.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From fauxever at sprynet.com  Mon Jan  5 04:40:55 2004
From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 20:40:55 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Most Outrageous Anti-Biotech Statements 
References: <5.2.0.9.0.20040104214340.01eb4820@pop.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <00fc01c3d346$1b8b20a0$6600a8c0@brainiac>


From: Natasha Vita-More
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 9:54 PM

> Damien (Broderick) - or someone - what is the most collectable, flagrant
anti-progress statement you've seen quoted?

There's a lot out there (sigh ...).  Leading the charge of the Luddite
Brigade:

http://www.consumerfreedom.com/article_detail.cfm?ARTICLE_ID=72:

Olga




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Mon Jan  5 06:47:06 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 22:47:06 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Most Outrageous Anti-Biotech Statements 
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20040104214340.01eb4820@pop.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <20040105064706.29184.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>

"All of Medieval Europe was organized collectively. Sustainable
agriculture. Generation after generation, the serfs, the landlords,
they farmed the same lands, trod the same path, and they organized
themselves communally in order to sustain their existence. It may not
have been the best of all possible worlds, but it was a sustainable
form of life for six centuries." - Jeremy Rifkin,
http://www.worldtrans.org/whole/rifkin.html

Other quotes of The Jeremy:
"The ozone hole is now so gaping, we are being subjected to massive
doses of ultraviolet radiation, millions of additional skin cancers ...
our immune systems and all the other creatures on the chain, are so
compromised, read the paper this morning, so compromised from the UV,
that we are now prone to traditional diseases we had eradicated long
ago, and a whole new host of diseases that cross species boundaries, to
which we know no antidote or cure." 

"These crises cannot be dealt with or addressed until we are willing to
do battle with the world view that gave rise to them."

"Efficiency. How important is that? ...Efficiency is the prescription
for disaster for this Earth. Efficiency is destroying the planet."

Also:
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/headline_detail.cfm?HEADLINE_ID=2239

Quotes by Jerry Mander:
"I do not tell do-gooders or other people working on Public Media
Center activities not to use television. What I say is that we should
have no television at all. The same could be said of computers. I argue
that life would be better, power systems would be more egalitarian, we
would have a more even playing field in terms of information flow, and
our media would be more democratic, if there were no television. We'd
also have a less-alienated population, less pacified, less inundated by
other people's imageries. But I also recognize that you can't just
remove television and keep everything else in place. It's the nervous
system of the technological machine. It's part of a very integrated
system, so we have to talk about all of technology when we talk about
television." 

"Corporations will advertise whatever isn't true because if it were
true they wouldn't have the image problem in the first place. If the
corporation were a good citizen it wouldn't need to say it is. The
truth is that corporations generally act in direct opposition to nature
because profit is based on the transmogrification of raw materials into
a new, more salable form." 

an admission:
"I have lots of modern technologies. It's impossible to function and
not have some relationship to technology."
turns into a protest:
"My feeling is that computers really strongly change the way we think.
I think computers are changing the world more rapidly and more
negatively than any other around. So I would really like to maintain a
disconnection from that."

A great page of Jerry Mander's aphorisms:
http://www.mrs.umn.edu/~mcphee/Courses/Readings/Manders_aphorisms.html

Kirkpatrick Sale on the Unabomber and his manifesto:
"I'm sure he makes good bombs, but grading  him on his intellect I
wouldn't give him more than a C+. I venture to  say he didn't make it
to his senior year."

The New Luddite:
"Many New Luddites are uncomfortable with using Email. There has been
concern that Email is both exclusive and ultimately puts people like
post-persons out of a job."

Prince Charles Windsor:
"Laboratory tests showing that pollen from GM maize in the United
States caused damage to caterpillars of the monarch butterfly provide
the latest cause for concern." (after it has been shown that the
reverse, in fact, was the case)

"I believe that we have now reached a moral and ethical watershed
beyond which we venture into realms that belong to God, and to God
alone. Apart from certain medical applications, what actual right do we
have to experiment, Frankenstein-like, with the very stuff of life? We
live in an age of rights  - it seems to me that it is about time our
Creator had some rights too ..."

"science should be used to understand how nature works, but not to
change what it is" 

"We only have one planet. There are lots of people out there busily
trying to find other ones. Some people think that when we have finished
with this one we can simply start again somewhere else. But I'm not
prepared personally to find another one."


Baron Melchett, Director of Greenpeace, on Prince Charles:
"it is about time somebody pointed out how bereft of humanity and human
values it is for people to claim that they can take decisions simply on
the basis of what they call 'sound science'."









--- Natasha Vita-More <natasha at natasha.cc> wrote:
> 
> Max and I spent the evening reading preposterous statements made by a
> 
> uniformity of anti-biotech advocates.  Geez. :-)
> 
> Damien (Broderick) - or someone - what is the most collectable,
> flagrant 
> anti-progress statement you've seen quoted?
> 
> Natasha
> 
> 
> Natasha Vita-More
> http://www.natasha.cc
> ----------
> President, Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
> Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture  http://www.transhumanist.biz
> http://www.transhuman.org
> > _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From samantha at objectent.com  Mon Jan  5 08:06:16 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 00:06:16 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Darwinian dynamics unlikely to applyto
	superintelligence
In-Reply-To: <039201c3d33c$d001c020$d2256bd5@artemis>
References: <8765fut8zd.fsf@snark.piermont.com>
	<20031231094734.GE11973@digitalkingdom.org>
	<3FF309F8.6000502@yifan.net>
	<20031231195904.GN11973@digitalkingdom.org>
	<87llorutus.fsf@snark.piermont.com>
	<20040102014258.GW11973@digitalkingdom.org>
	<8765fut8zd.fsf@snark.piermont.com>
	<5.2.1.1.2.20040104171912.020ca520@mail.gmu.edu>
	<3FF8CC43.2010304@pobox.com>
	<039201c3d33c$d001c020$d2256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <20040105000616.553f608e.samantha@objectent.com>

On Mon, 5 Jan 2004 03:34:23 -0000
"Dirk Bruere" <dirk at neopax.com> wrote:

> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience at pobox.com>
> To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 2:30 AM
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Darwinian dynamics unlikely to applyto
> superintelligence
> 
> 
> >
> > I tend to suspect that between two similar intelligent agents, combat will
> > be too uncertain to be worthwhile, will consume fixed resources, and will
> > produce negative externalities relative to surrounding agents.  Let us
> 
> That's assuming scientific and technological prowess levels out early on.
> Otherwise a difference of as little as 100yrs will mean that the advanced
> intelligence would wipe the floor with the lesser at almost no cost and it
> becomes the optimum strategy.
> 


Why would it want to?  If the younger is rational and can gauge the abilities of the elder, why would it wish to engage in conflict?  

-s


From samantha at objectent.com  Mon Jan  5 08:16:54 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 00:16:54 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <002401c3d303$ddf501d0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
References: <20040104052205.53343.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
	<002401c3d303$ddf501d0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040105001654.0cf58063.samantha@objectent.com>

On Sun, 4 Jan 2004 15:46:40 -0500
"Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:

> Mike Lorrey wrote,
> > So, you are dying of a disease. I use the law to prevent you
> > from obtaining the treatment you need to live. You WILL die, 
> > if you don't get this treatment. Are you justified in using 
> > ANY means to prevent my actions or not?
> 
> I will obtain treatment for myself even if it is illegal.  No action against
> the luddites who brought about the law is necessary.
> 
> > Others have already died from my actions, so it is
> > demonstrably true that you will die as well if I am not 
> > stopped. At what point is any action against me acceptable in 
> > defense of your life? Why is this not plain and simple and 
> > morally acceptable self defense on your part?
> 
> Self defense is hiding from the authorities, getting treatment anyway,
> lobbying to get the law changed, etc.  Killing the person who championed the
> law won't change the law.  Killing congress members until I get my way is
> called terrorism and probably won't get me justice.  Killing the police
> person coming to get me won't lessen the resources allocated to capture me.
> I really don't see how killing people trying to enforce this law helps me
> get my treatment in any way.  This is a poor example of having to choose the
> lesser of two evils, because my goal is not directly served by harming
> anyone.

Generally I would agree.  However, I sometimes think that part of the reason the first Prohibition failed was that it was opposed not only in genteel ways but even up to violence against its enforcement.   It also helped that it was so near-universally violated.   The results were often not pretty but the madness was rescinded.  Government didn't learn a durn thing except to remove as much of the citizen firepower as possible apparently.   

> 
> > Self defense is not evil. Why is this not self defense?
> 
> People with guns often confuse killing someone with self-defense.  Killing
> is an offensive act.  It only protects you if you have a lone assailant and
> you can wipe out the entire opposing team in one shot.  I do not believe
> killing a police officer, congress member, or luddite will help.  You will
> make them a martyr, and more will join their cause to fight you.  I see no
> net gain, only net losses, in using violence under this scenario.  That is
> why I am opposed, not for mere political reasons, but for more pragmatic
> reasons that I don't think this "solution" solves anything.
>

I own guns but I don't confuse self-defense with killing someone.  I also don't confuse killing someone in true self-defense with an offensive act.   Are you actually saying that if someone comes in my home with the intent to kill me and takes actions to that end that if I shoot the perp I have committed an offensive act?   

It isn't time to shoot the bastards as long as there is a chance for freedom to win or to live despite them reasonably well.  But I don't agree there is never such a time.  I agree that this isn't that time.
 
- samantha


From samantha at objectent.com  Mon Jan  5 08:28:46 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 00:28:46 -0800
Subject: Fw: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401041235390.16635-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
References: <20040104115056.51c05500.samantha@objectent.com>
	<Pine.LNX.4.44.0401041235390.16635-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040105002846.7553cdd2.samantha@objectent.com>

On Sun, 4 Jan 2004 13:00:50 -0800 (PST)
"Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:

> 
> On Sun, 4 Jan 2004, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> 
> > I agree with some of Hubert's points.  I would also remove the notion
> > that abortion is morally impermissable as that begs a few questions and
> > throws a controversy in that is not necessary to your point.
> 
> Well this isn't really Mark's point -- he is simply pointing out that if
> the objection to preventing access to life extending technologies
> is based on the right to a future -- then abortion is going to
> come up in the minds of critics.

The abortion argument, or one variant of an answer, was used as the spine of the argument presented from what I saw.  Using a somewhat strained argument about a different manner in an even more strained way doesn't seem optimal.

> 
> I'm going to raise this topic in my comments to him -- it twists
> extensively in which rights trump other rights.  For example being
> forced to have and care for an unwanted child may significantly
> damage the futures of both the child and mother.  Or giving
> the child up for adoption may produce similar results.  But
> all of this has probably been extensively examined in the abortion
> debates.
>

A foetus IS NOT a child.  Ridding oneself of a biological accident before it is a human being with rights in order to have reasonable control of one's own life and wellbeing is not a case of the mother's rights trumping the "child"'s rights.  There is not child.  This is the specious and weak form of the argument in its original context of abortion.  
 
> IMO, the key question may revolve around -- when precisely does one
> have a "future"?  A human fetus or an infant have no capability for
> self-enabled survival without depending upon their society or
> parent(s).  This is in contrast to many newborn animals
> have a reasonable chance at survival (having a future)
> from the time they are born/hatched/etc.
> 

Confusing an infant with a fetus gives plenty of ammunition to the opposition.  Why do this?

> There is also the fundamental problem that given cloning technology,
> many of the cells in your body have the potential for producing
> another human being.  So the cells of your stomach, intestine,
> skin, etc. (e.g. cells with any turnover) are effectively
> performing abortions on a daily basis.
>

Yeah, by the above logic.  Which underlines just how bogus it is.
 
> > Not addressing the moral permissibility of using life extension
> > technology is a major hole in your argument in my view.  It cannot be
> > morally not permitted to stop others from doing that which is not
> > morally permitted if that act in question has serious repurcussions on
> > others.
> 
> This gets into how philosophers and ethicists debate these
> topics.  Its been more than a decade since I've studied these
> so my memory may be a bit fuzzy -- but it comes down to
> cases where one is morally obligated not to interfere and
> cases where one is morally obligated to take action.  Mark
> is dealing just with the first and not with the second.
> To deal with the second effectively one has to argue strongly
> for something like a socialistic or communistic environment
> or programming all humans to be completely altruistic, etc.
> That is a much harder argument to make (and would certainly
> cause a number of people on this list to get really PO :-)).
>

I don't really see what that has to do with this topic.  Please explain.
 
> > I am sorry I commented before reading.  The general question could be
> > much better addressed than by using some specious abortion argument.
> > Please try again.
> 
> I think Mark only uses the abortion argument in passing -- simply pointing
> out there is a value to "future life" -- be it for a fetus, an infant,
> a normal human, or a human with an extended life.
>

If he uses a fetus in this category then he has punched a huge and unnecessary hole in his argument.  "Future life" is not the issue with life-extension.  It is continuing existing life or more precisely, avoiding death indefinitely.  No one complains about some life-saving therapy generally.  I think it is much more fruitful to go at the subject along these lines than on some weaker and dangerous right to "future life". 
 
> What is missing (from my perspective as an extropian) is any
> comment (from what I have read thus far) on the fact that there
> may be an inherent value (and right to preserve) to accumulated
> information/knowledge.  I.e. the past of a 1000 year old
> individual is greater than the past of a 100 y.o. individual
> is greater than the past of a 3 month old fetus.  At an
> extremely gross level Extropians (vs. say transhumanists)
> might argue that there is a very concrete scale in terms
> of the value of information or experience content and so
> one adjusts the "right to life" based on that.  Of course
> after one grants that one immediately gets into a discussion
> of the actual extropic value of the information.  I think
> this gets into areas related to what one thinks when one
> cleans ones closet or ones garage.  What is *really* worth
> something?
> 

True.  But I think you have the seed of something quite important.  Human society loses a lot through death and that at a very early age.  We lose a lot of skills, knowledge and experience and not just through death but through bodily and mental deterioration starting all too young.  This is a real loss to all of us.  We do not capture well the knowledge of one generation and it is not taken up well by the next.  Having people live much longer means that knowledge would be accumulated and refined longer by each individual thus enriching us all.

-s


From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Mon Jan  5 11:00:42 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 03:00:42 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Darwinian dynamics unlikely to
	applytosuperintelligence
In-Reply-To: <20040105000616.553f608e.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3d37b$2d9fee80$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Emotions:
-Hope. 
-Hatred.  
-Desire to be Free
-Religious-based call to arms (not just Jihad, but anyone fighting a
conlfict over religion).

Expected Reward > 0. 
-Unrealistic Expectations (skew of probability of belief vs state of
nature).
-Idealism (reward balloons exponentially high).

Generally all good reasons to take on somebody thats out of your league.
More importantly, why would you as a super-intelligence, want to risk
it? :)
Nothing is a sure thing.

omard-out


-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Samantha
Atkins
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 12:06 AM
To: Dirk Bruere; ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Darwinian dynamics unlikely to
applytosuperintelligence


On Mon, 5 Jan 2004 03:34:23 -0000
"Dirk Bruere" <dirk at neopax.com> wrote:

> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience at pobox.com>
> To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 2:30 AM
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Darwinian dynamics unlikely to applyto
> superintelligence
> 
> 
> >
> > I tend to suspect that between two similar intelligent agents, 
> > combat will be too uncertain to be worthwhile, will consume fixed 
> > resources, and will produce negative externalities relative to 
> > surrounding agents.  Let us
> 
> That's assuming scientific and technological prowess levels out early 
> on. Otherwise a difference of as little as 100yrs will mean that the 
> advanced intelligence would wipe the floor with the lesser at almost 
> no cost and it becomes the optimum strategy.
> 


Why would it want to?  If the younger is rational and can gauge the
abilities of the elder, why would it wish to engage in conflict?  

-s
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Mon Jan  5 13:13:32 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 08:13:32 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
In-Reply-To: <20040105001654.0cf58063.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <004701c3d38d$b8785850$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Samantha Atkins wrote,
> Are you actually saying that if someone comes in my home
> with the intent to kill me and takes actions to that end
> that if I shoot the perp I have committed an offensive act?   

No.  I was responding to the proposed "self-defense" argument that we should
kill legislators or luddites who are trying to block our access to
life-extending technologies.  I was not addressing the scenario you just
presented above.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From mark at permanentend.org  Mon Jan  5 13:31:16 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 08:31:16 -0500
Subject: Fw: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality
References: <20040104115056.51c05500.samantha@objectent.com><Pine.LNX.4.44.0401041235390.16635-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
	<20040105002846.7553cdd2.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <26fe01c3d390$326706f0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Samantha Atkins"

> > Well this isn't really Mark's point -- he is simply pointing out that if
> > the objection to preventing access to life extending technologies
> > is based on the right to a future -- then abortion is going to
> > come up in the minds of critics.
>
> The abortion argument, or one variant of an answer, was used as the spine
of the argument presented from what I saw.  Using a somewhat strained
argument about a different manner in an even more strained way doesn't seem
optimal.
>
> >

While I appreciate your efforts to understand the issues, what you say here
is conceptually and historically mistaken. The first step of Marquis'
argument is to provide an  analysis of what is wrong with killing us (adult
humans). His answer is that in the typical case it deprives us of the value
of our futures. The next step in his argument is to say that this same
analysis applies to fetuses. My argument requires only agreeing with him
about the first step. I go on to apply the analysis to immortal (or emortal
or ageless--there ya go Damien and Harvey--) individuals. Clearly there is
at least the logical possibility of agreeing with the analysis of why it is
wrong to kill us mortal adults, and yet disagree that the analysis applies
to fetuses. So, there are two conceptually distinct parts of Marquis'
argument. My argument shares with him only the first step. The first step is
not an abortion argument by any stretch of the imagination, so you have not
understood the argument. Historically, the first step of Marquis' argument
was heavily influenced by Glover and Young, and so it is the least original
part of his paper.

You have called my argument 'strained', 'suboptimal' and so on. I can't see
that you have provided any reason for believing this. I realize that you
don't like the anti-abortion position, but as I have said (and as Robert has
also in effect pointed out) the issues are logically independent.


>
> A foetus IS NOT a child.  Ridding oneself of a biological accident before
it is a human being with rights in order to have reasonable control of one's
own life and wellbeing is not a case of the mother's rights trumping the
"child"'s rights.  There is not child.  This is the specious and weak form
of the argument in its original context of abortion.
>

This is a gross misrepresentation of his argument. He explicitly denies (at
least for the sake of the argument) that a fetus or newborns are persons,
human beings, etc. His argument rests on the claim that a fetus (if
unharmed) has a future like ours (if we are unharmed). Again you call an
argument weak and specious without demonstrating even an elementary grasp of
its basic structure.

Cheers,

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org





From mark at permanentend.org  Mon Jan  5 13:37:34 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 08:37:34 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality (terminology)
References: <002901c3d313$ead28390$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT><244b01c3d316$db187420$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
	<014f01c3d31a$59da6040$bd994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <270401c3d391$13cf7eb0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Damien Broderick"
>
> > I like 'ageless'. It is descriptive and doesn't look like an attempt to
> hide
> > behind jargon.
>
> It's good by itself, better than, say, `antiagathic' (James Blish's
50-year
> old term). But it leads to the horrid eye- and mouthful of `agelessness',
> compared to the nifty `emortal' => `emortality'.
>
> We have the same trouble with `deathless' (`deathlessness') , unless the
> general condition is `deathlessanity'. :)
>
> Harvey mentioned his dislike of made-up words, but it didn't seem to stand
> in the way of laser, television, telephone, car, xerox, google...
>
> (True, most of these items already existed and were on the market, so it
was
> convenient to embrace the term.)
>
> I know this seems trivial, but selling the message crisply is often as
> important as having the right message.
>
> Besides, when it happens the common word will emerge over the top of our
> heads. It'll probably be something like `zombies' or `ghouls' or
`snakes'...
>

I agree that it is worthwhile to think about how to sell the message right.
For myself I may use both 'emortal' and 'ageless'. It is nice to have
synonyms and the slightly different connation of these terms may appeal to
different "market segments".

Cheers,

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org





From jonkc at att.net  Mon Jan  5 15:24:43 2004
From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 10:24:43 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Most Outrageous Anti-Biotech Statements 
References: <20040105064706.29184.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <001001c3d3a0$141d04a0$18ff4d0c@hal2001>

Jeremy Rifkin Wrote:

>All of Medieval Europe was organized collectively. Sustainable
>agriculture. Generation after generation, the serfs, the landlords,
>they farmed the same lands, trod the same path, and they organized
>themselves communally in order to sustain their existence. It may not
>have been the best of all possible worlds, but it was a sustainable
>form of life for six centuries."

It might interest Mr. Rifkin to know that most of the beautiful windswept
moors of Great Britton got to be the way they are because the forests that
were once there were cut down during this period. There may be other reasons
why the dark ages were not really the good old days, so I can't say I share
Mr. Rifkin's enthusiasm to emulate them.

John K Clark     jonkc at att.net




From max at maxmore.com  Mon Jan  5 15:23:55 2004
From: max at maxmore.com (Max More)
Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2004 09:23:55 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] More good stuff from Michael Crichton
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040105080609.03941420@mail.earthlink.net>


Aliens Cause Global Warming

A lecture by Michael Crichton
Caltech Michelin Lecture
January 17, 2003
http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html


>When did "skeptic" become a dirty word in science? When did a skeptic 
>require quotation marks around it?
>
>To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming 
>controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in 
>the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to 
>a conclusion: "These results are derived with the help of a computer 
>model." But now large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in 
>themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data 
>from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were 
>themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. 
>There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only 
>model runs.
>
>This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. 
>Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because only if 
>you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you arrive at the 
>complex point where the global warming debate now stands.
>
>Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked 
>to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make 
>financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their 
>minds?



_______________________________________________________
Max More, Ph.D.
max at maxmore.com or more at extropy.org
http://www.maxmore.com
Strategic Philosopher
Chairman, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org <more at extropy.org>
_______________________________________________________




From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it  Mon Jan  5 16:53:19 2004
From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 17:53:19 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] More good stuff from Michael Crichton
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040105080609.03941420@mail.earthlink.net>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20040105080609.03941420@mail.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401051751460.25265@hercules>

On Mon, 5 Jan 2004, Max More wrote:

>
>Aliens Cause Global Warming
>
>A lecture by Michael Crichton
>Caltech Michelin Lecture
>January 17, 2003
>http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html

I hate
reading
those
narrow
columns.
When
will web
journalists
learn that
screens
are not
paper?


Ciao,
Alfio



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Mon Jan  5 17:15:38 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 09:15:38 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <005601c3d226$6c7b0e60$b0cd5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401050848540.2281-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Saturday, January 03, 2004 11:26 AM Dennis May wrote:

> A civilization worth uncountable trillions of dollars but
> the cost of an interstellar cell-phone is too much?

Yep.  The present value of using the resources locally is
likely to significantly exceed the communications value
of sending energy/mass (i.e. electromagnetic waves or
probes) across interstellar distances.

The cost of sending a bit across interstellar distances
is relatively cheap.  The cost of sending any quantity
of information worth something across interstellar
distances is quite expensive.  The solar systems
of advanced civilizations can probably contain >2^50
bits and one doesn't transmit a useful fraction of
that across interstellar distances cheaply.

> Gray goo has to obey the same thermodynamic and
> chemical laws as living creatures.  Some of the capabilities
> ascribed to gray goo have ignored these laws.

Not any serious proposals by people who know what they
are talking about (Drexler, Freitas, etc.)

> In any case gray goo has to compete for resources and avoid
> predators/parasites just like anyone else.

Gray goo based on nanotech easily trumps any preexisting life
forms based on biotech.  This is due to the fact that it is
stronger, more energy efficient, travels faster, faster to evolve, etc.

Which is not to say that gray goo cannot be trumped.  It
is trumped by the same things that trump green (bio) goo.
Radiation, heat, perhaps cold, perhaps strong acids or
bases, "drugs" or "shields" that interfere with their
collection of materials or energy, etc.  The defenses
have to be significantly heftier than existing defenses
against green goo however.

> Can gray-goo exist with even smaller parasites eating off of it?

It would be extremely difficult for existing smaller parasites
(nanobacteria [if such exist which is significantly open to question]
or viruses to evolve fast enough to interfere with rapidly
replicating and self-evolving nanorobots.  The only hope
would be the creation of nanoparasites and in this situation
the cure might be worse than the disease.

> Not a very smart brain if it wants to put all its resources
> into one place - ready to be destroyed by WoMD.

MBrains are the size of solar systems and have the power of
stars at their disposal.  The only things that could
potentially destroy them are most likely to be very clever
viruses (that presumably have to get through multiple levels
of firewalls, isolated defense systems, etc.) or black holes
hurled across interstellar space.  I'm doubtful that either
of those options is really workable.  As has been discussed
on the ExI list -- one has to make sure that one totally
eliminates every last component of an MBrain or risk a
berserker response (i.e. intelligence not interested in
self-evolution but the destruction of whom or whatever
threw the first punch).

> What is to be gained by having a massive brain?
> Is anything of survival value added beyond a certain size?

The point is that there are limits imposed by the laws
of physics on intelligence and survival.  What is to be
gained is to understand whether these are hard limits or
whether by clever engineering and creative exploitation
of the laws one can figure out ways around the limits
(e.g. lengthening the lifetime of stars, the creation of
alternate universes and tunneling into them, preventing
all of the protons from decaying, etc.)

> If you believe in a model of thermodynamics including the
> "Big Bang Theory".  I do not.

It would seem that it is the best we can do thus far (thus
pointing out how a massive brain might be useful for coming
up with better theories...).  But I'd like to see an
explanation as to what you would replace the BBT with.

> I support the WoMD cause of the Fermi Paradox.  Stealth,
> mobility, and dispersion are the secrets to survival with space
> WoMD.  Advertise your presence and expose yourself to WoMD.

The conclusions of myself, Milan Cirkovic and a number of
others is that the limits of known physics and computational
architectures drives civilizations to produce MBrains or
other similar architectures that migrate outside galaxies
where they can radiate heat at close to the CMB temperature
(~4 deg K).  Thus they are very difficult to detect and
very difficult to target with WoMD (incoming black holes
are relatively easy to detect due to gravitational disruptions,
microlensing, X-ray radiation, etc.)

(Side Note: Dennis -- these topics have been discussed for ~5 years
on the ExI list and there are multiple academic papers that have
been written on the topic as well as hundreds of email postings
so Daniel is putting you at a slight disadvantage by introducing
the conversation to the Atlantis list without informing you
with respect to some of the background materials.)

Robert Bradbury



From dirk at neopax.com  Mon Jan  5 17:18:24 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 17:18:24 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Darwinian dynamics unlikely to applyto
	superintelligence
References: <8765fut8zd.fsf@snark.piermont.com><20031231094734.GE11973@digitalkingdom.org><3FF309F8.6000502@yifan.net><20031231195904.GN11973@digitalkingdom.org><87llorutus.fsf@snark.piermont.com><20040102014258.GW11973@digitalkingdom.org><8765fut8zd.fsf@snark.piermont.com><5.2.1.1.2.20040104171912.020ca520@mail.gmu.edu><3FF8CC43.2010304@pobox.com><039201c3d33c$d001c020$d2256bd5@artemis>
	<20040105000616.553f608e.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <007201c3d3af$ece05c10$d2256bd5@artemis>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Samantha Atkins" <samantha at objectent.com>
To: "Dirk Bruere" <dirk at neopax.com>; "ExI chat list"
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 8:06 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Darwinian dynamics unlikely to applyto
superintelligence


> > > I tend to suspect that between two similar intelligent agents, combat
will
> > > be too uncertain to be worthwhile, will consume fixed resources, and
will
> > > produce negative externalities relative to surrounding agents.  Let us
> >
> > That's assuming scientific and technological prowess levels out early
on.
> > Otherwise a difference of as little as 100yrs will mean that the
advanced
> > intelligence would wipe the floor with the lesser at almost no cost and
it
> > becomes the optimum strategy.
>
> Why would it want to?  If the younger is rational and can gauge the
abilities of the elder, why would it wish to engage in conflict?

It wouldn't.
That cannot be said of the more able of the two.
As for why, the usual Darwinian reasons.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Mon Jan  5 17:18:48 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 09:18:48 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] More good stuff from Michael Crichton
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401051751460.25265@hercules>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401050916130.2281-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Mon, 5 Jan 2004, Alfio Puglisi wrote:

> I hate
> reading
> those
> narrow
> columns.
[snip]

Alfio, I believe that it has been shown that humans
either read faster and/or have better comprehension with
narrow columns -- perhaps having to do with the fact
that the eye may be able to read narrow columns without
scanning while longer columns require scanning and
a retrace time to get to the start of the next line
(like electron guns in TVs).

Robert




From megao at sasktel.net  Mon Jan  5 17:43:02 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2004 11:43:02 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality-overpopulation problem
References: <002901c3d313$ead28390$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<244b01c3d316$db187420$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
	<014f01c3d31a$59da6040$bd994a43@texas.net>
	<270401c3d391$13cf7eb0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <3FF9A226.F9369AEA@sasktel.net>

Haven't checked the last 2 days posts but the immediate problem of
overpopulation as well as genetic renewal may be to generate stem cells that are
hybrids , not offspring but the stem cell equivalent of couples  and merge the
neural systems of the 2 people into a composite of both.  The result might be
genetic renewal for en entire equivalent of an extended life cycle and
(depending on the cultural willingness to trade off shared consciousness for
biological renewal) 25-40% reduction in population.

If the renewed biosystem was able to move from a life cycle max of 110 to say
250, then there would be 150 or more years to perfect and deal with other
methods as well as allow for procreation by each shared consciousness with no
net increase in world population?

...MFJ


Mark Walker wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Damien Broderick"
> >
> > > I like 'ageless'. It is descriptive and doesn't look like an attempt to
> > hide
> > > behind jargon.
> >
> > It's good by itself, better than, say, `antiagathic' (James Blish's
> 50-year
> > old term). But it leads to the horrid eye- and mouthful of `agelessness',
> > compared to the nifty `emortal' => `emortality'.
> >
> > We have the same trouble with `deathless' (`deathlessness') , unless the
> > general condition is `deathlessanity'. :)
> >
> > Harvey mentioned his dislike of made-up words, but it didn't seem to stand
> > in the way of laser, television, telephone, car, xerox, google...
> >
> > (True, most of these items already existed and were on the market, so it
> was
> > convenient to embrace the term.)
> >
> > I know this seems trivial, but selling the message crisply is often as
> > important as having the right message.
> >
> > Besides, when it happens the common word will emerge over the top of our
> > heads. It'll probably be something like `zombies' or `ghouls' or
> `snakes'...
> >
>
> I agree that it is worthwhile to think about how to sell the message right.
> For myself I may use both 'emortal' and 'ageless'. It is nice to have
> synonyms and the slightly different connation of these terms may appeal to
> different "market segments".
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mark
>
> Mark Walker, PhD
> Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
> University of Toronto
> Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
> 15 Devonshire Place
> Toronto
> M5S 1H8
> www.permanentend.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From megao at sasktel.net  Mon Jan  5 18:07:13 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2004 12:07:13 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality -economics of access
References: <20040104115056.51c05500.samantha@objectent.com>
	<Pine.LNX.4.44.0401041235390.16635-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
	<20040105002846.7553cdd2.samantha@objectent.com>
	<26fe01c3d390$326706f0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <3FF9A7D0.219C0F4F@sasktel.net>

The live or let die theme is practiced already in terms of pharmacoeconomic
criteria for drug plan access to drugs and priorization of surgeries and other
life saving therapies.  If I recall right, dialysis stops at 65 unless the
client ponies up the cash in Oregon.

The scenario is  that those with the ability and willingness to spend say 100
million will demand and get immediate access to radical life extension and the
middle class will dissallow such costs for their peers is likely an already
accepted fact.

What Kass and Rifkin are doing is using the issue of  banning of potential
radical life extension technologies  for even the rich to hide the fact that the
policy makers have chosen to deny it for the middle class as well.
To allow the  Gates family to live to 250 would incite Joe Public to want the
same right.



Mark Walker wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Samantha Atkins"
>
> > > Well this isn't really Mark's point -- he is simply pointing out that if
> > > the objection to preventing access to life extending technologies
> > > is based on the right to a future -- then abortion is going to
> > > come up in the minds of critics.
> >
> > The abortion argument, or one variant of an answer, was used as the spine
> of the argument presented from what I saw.  Using a somewhat strained
> argument about a different manner in an even more strained way doesn't seem
> optimal.
> >
> > >
>
> While I appreciate your efforts to understand the issues, what you say here
> is conceptually and historically mistaken. The first step of Marquis'
> argument is to provide an  analysis of what is wrong with killing us (adult
> humans). His answer is that in the typical case it deprives us of the value
> of our futures. The next step in his argument is to say that this same
> analysis applies to fetuses. My argument requires only agreeing with him
> about the first step. I go on to apply the analysis to immortal (or emortal
> or ageless--there ya go Damien and Harvey--) individuals. Clearly there is
> at least the logical possibility of agreeing with the analysis of why it is
> wrong to kill us mortal adults, and yet disagree that the analysis applies
> to fetuses. So, there are two conceptually distinct parts of Marquis'
> argument. My argument shares with him only the first step. The first step is
> not an abortion argument by any stretch of the imagination, so you have not
> understood the argument. Historically, the first step of Marquis' argument
> was heavily influenced by Glover and Young, and so it is the least original
> part of his paper.
>
> You have called my argument 'strained', 'suboptimal' and so on. I can't see
> that you have provided any reason for believing this. I realize that you
> don't like the anti-abortion position, but as I have said (and as Robert has
> also in effect pointed out) the issues are logically independent.
>
> >
> > A foetus IS NOT a child.  Ridding oneself of a biological accident before
> it is a human being with rights in order to have reasonable control of one's
> own life and wellbeing is not a case of the mother's rights trumping the
> "child"'s rights.  There is not child.  This is the specious and weak form
> of the argument in its original context of abortion.
> >
>
> This is a gross misrepresentation of his argument. He explicitly denies (at
> least for the sake of the argument) that a fetus or newborns are persons,
> human beings, etc. His argument rests on the claim that a fetus (if
> unharmed) has a future like ours (if we are unharmed). Again you call an
> argument weak and specious without demonstrating even an elementary grasp of
> its basic structure.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mark
>
> Mark Walker, PhD
> Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
> University of Toronto
> Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
> 15 Devonshire Place
> Toronto
> M5S 1H8
> www.permanentend.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it  Mon Jan  5 18:12:03 2004
From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 19:12:03 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] More good stuff from Michael Crichton
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401050916130.2281-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401050916130.2281-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401051908050.25265@hercules>

On Mon, 5 Jan 2004, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

>
>On Mon, 5 Jan 2004, Alfio Puglisi wrote:
>
>> I hate
>> reading
>> those
>> narrow
>> columns.
>[snip]
>
>Alfio, I believe that it has been shown that humans
>either read faster and/or have better comprehension with
>narrow columns -- perhaps having to do with the fact
>that the eye may be able to read narrow columns without
>scanning while longer columns require scanning and
>a retrace time to get to the start of the next line
>(like electron guns in TVs).

Maybe, but I feel physically constrained when reading a 2 inches column on
a totally white screen. And I don't detect any better speed, on the
contrary. My eye has already picked up momentum, turning right, and it has
to stop abruptly and go down. Let it flow for a while :)

Alfio


From rhanson at gmu.edu  Mon Jan  5 18:17:12 2004
From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin Hanson)
Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2004 13:17:12 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Darwinian dynamics unlikely to apply	to
	superintelligence
In-Reply-To: <3FF8CC43.2010304@pobox.com>
References: <5.2.1.1.2.20040104171912.020ca520@mail.gmu.edu>
	<8765fut8zd.fsf@snark.piermont.com>
	<20031231094734.GE11973@digitalkingdom.org>
	<3FF309F8.6000502@yifan.net>
	<20031231195904.GN11973@digitalkingdom.org>
	<87llorutus.fsf@snark.piermont.com>
	<20040102014258.GW11973@digitalkingdom.org>
	<8765fut8zd.fsf@snark.piermont.com>
	<5.2.1.1.2.20040104171912.020ca520@mail.gmu.edu>
Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20040105130905.02158cd8@mail.gmu.edu>

On 1/4/2004, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
>>It seems to me that your key assumption is one of very cheap defense - 
>>once one SI has grabbed some resources you seem to posit that there is 
>>little point in some other SI, or even a large coalition of them, trying 
>>to take it from him.
>
>I agree that this is a key assumption.  However, the assumption can fail 
>and still bar natural selection, if there is little variation in 
>preferences or little variation in resource-grabbing capacity or little 
>correlation between the two.

Variation in preferences alone, even with no variation in ability to grab 
resources, can result in evolutionary selection.  Preferences can be 
selected for, even without being correlated with other features.

>>Given this, I suppose the rest of your scenario might plausibly follow, 
>>but I'm not sure why you believe this assumption.
>
>I tend to suspect that between two similar intelligent agents, combat will 
>be too uncertain to be worthwhile, will consume fixed resources, and will 
>produce negative externalities relative to surrounding agents.  Let us 
>assume that loss aversion (not just in the modern human psychological 
>sense of aversion to losses as such, but in the sense of loss aversion 
>emergent in diminishing marginal utility) does not apply, so that a 50/50 
>chance of winning - which goes along with the argument of intelligent 
>optimization using up variation - does not automatically rule out 
>combat.  However, there would still be a fixed cost of combat, probably 
>extremely high; and if we assume variation in preferences, there would 
>probably be negative externalities to any nearby SIs, who would have a 
>motive to threaten punishment for combat.  Negotiations among SIs are, I 
>think, out of my reach to comprehend - although I do have some specific 
>reasons to be confused - but I still suspect that they would 
>negotiate.  The point about large coalitions devouring single cells is 
>interesting (although my current thoughts about SI negotations suggest 
>that *the choice to form a predatory coalition* might be viewed as 
>tantamount to starting a war).  If we do have coalitions eating smaller 
>cells, then we have a filterish selection pressure that rules out all 
>unwillingness or hesitation to form coalitions - not necessarily natural 
>selection unless there is heritable variation, which correlates, etc.  But 
>beyond that point, it would essentially amount to gambling, more than 
>combat - will you be part of the latest coalition, or not?  Something like 
>a tontine, perhaps, until there are only two entities left standing?  But 
>where does the non-random selection come in?  What does it correlate to?

A lot of words here, but still hard to follow.  We must distinguish 
assumptions about the immediate physical consequences of combat from 
assumptions about what the resulting behavioral equilibrium is.  In the 
above you seem to mix these up.  I was trying to paraphrase you in terms of 
assumptions about physical consequences.



Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323 



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Mon Jan  5 18:19:34 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 10:19:34 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] More good stuff from Michael Crichton
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401050916130.2281-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040105181934.45664.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>


--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 5 Jan 2004, Alfio Puglisi wrote:
> 
> > I hate
> > reading
> > those
> > narrow
> > columns.
> [snip]
> 
> Alfio, I believe that it has been shown that humans
> either read faster and/or have better comprehension with
> narrow columns -- perhaps having to do with the fact
> that the eye may be able to read narrow columns without
> scanning while longer columns require scanning and
> a retrace time to get to the start of the next line
> (like electron guns in TVs).

Yes, but you have to structure the text so that
 they are organized in continguous phrases.

Chopped phrases take more time to read than scanning
because you have to double back and forth
to establish context.


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Mon Jan  5 18:28:28 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 10:28:28 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] CLONE: Seeking contacts for organ cloning
In-Reply-To: <3FF9A7D0.219C0F4F@sasktel.net>
Message-ID: <20040105182829.78544.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>

As many of you know, my mother has had a rather rough year with a
botched gastro bypass operation. Her current condition is that she has
4' of small intestine, 1/3 of her original colon, with a colostomy bag,
and requires 24 hour care. She is also developing an increasing
encephalopathy condition that is likely tied to the lack of intestines
providing insufficient nutrition for her brain, despite supplements and
thrice daily injections of protien nutrient mix through a G tube into
the lower stapled off area of her stomach.
Her mental condition is spotty memory, a lack of ability to maintain a
consistent train of thought, language problems in selecting the wrong
words, lethargy, depression, phantom pain in her gut (like amputees
experience), and when her electrolytes get off she hallucinates living
in a different house with a different family, her dead father, among
other things.
I am increasingly of the opinion that she is going to need an
intestinal transplant to regain her ability to digest sufficient
nutrition, possibly get her intestine cloned. Can anyone point to
researchers working in this area, such as those growing cloned organs
in pigs or in a dish, etc.???

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From gingell at gnat.com  Mon Jan  5 18:39:35 2004
From: gingell at gnat.com (Matthew Gingell)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 13:39:35 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401050848540.2281-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
References: <005601c3d226$6c7b0e60$b0cd5cd1@neptune>
	<Pine.LNX.4.44.0401050848540.2281-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <16377.44903.71147.907333@nile.gnat.com>

Robert J. Bradbury writes:
 >  The solar systems of advanced civilizations can probably contain
 > >2^50 bits and one doesn't transmit a useful fraction of that
 > across interstellar distances cheaply.

 This is a really evocative and interesting way of putting it. It
 immediately raises the question "how compressible is an advanced
 civilization?" I'd suggest the answer, for sufficiently large values
 of advanced, is not at all:

 We can think about the problem of optimally utilizing all the
 resources available to a civilization as a data encoding problem. The
 goal is to most efficiently transmit into the future whatever content
 it is that distinguishes your civilization from vacuum across mass
 and energy modeled as bandwidth on a Shannon-style noisy channel.
 (Noise in this analogy would be be quantum effects and classical
 uncertainty at various scales.) The solution is necessarily not
 compressible, necessarily completely impenetrable to reductive
 analysis.

 Delta some sophisticated error recovery mechanisms, the idea of a
 civilization completely free of redundancy (in both the conventional
 and Kolmogorov senses) completely boggles my mind. That any
 sufficiently advanced culture is indistinguishable from random noise
 has implications I can't seem to wrap my mind around... How does one
 relate to stellar masses of algorithmically irreducible "Stuff."


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Mon Jan  5 19:02:55 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 11:02:55 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <16377.44903.71147.907333@nile.gnat.com>
Message-ID: <20040105190255.82482.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Matthew Gingell <gingell at gnat.com> wrote:
> Robert J. Bradbury writes:
>  >  The solar systems of advanced civilizations can probably contain
>  > >2^50 bits and one doesn't transmit a useful fraction of that
>  > across interstellar distances cheaply.
> 
>  We can think about the problem of optimally utilizing all the
>  resources available to a civilization as a data encoding problem.
> The goal is to most efficiently transmit into the future whatever
> content it is that distinguishes your civilization from vacuum across
> mass and energy modeled as bandwidth on a Shannon-style noisy
channel.
>  (Noise in this analogy would be be quantum effects and classical
>  uncertainty at various scales.) The solution is necessarily not
>  compressible, necessarily completely impenetrable to reductive
>  analysis.

This describes the conundrum that Spike was talking about. A particular
civilization may get itself into an informational bottleneck in
transmitting its population out into the universe, just as we risk a
material resources bottleneck in this century in getting our carcasses
off the planet. If the singularity sputters, the future is doomed to a
luddites collectivist agrarian fantasy. If an Mbrain civilization
expands its demands for processing resources faster than its ability to
build transmission resources, it will eventually trap itself in its own
solar system by informational overpopulation.

Thus, I foresee this Mbrain dillemma as a possible Second
Singularity... the prophet Mike has spoken...

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
http://search.yahoo.com/top2003


From kekich at transvio.com  Mon Jan  5 19:23:28 2004
From: kekich at transvio.com (David A. Kekich)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 11:23:28 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] CLONE: Seeking contacts for organ cloning
In-Reply-To: <20040105182829.78544.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <BOEGJOGABPNCAEFOFMBEGECMFJAA.kekich@transvio.com>

My recommendation is Dr. Anthony Atala. Please email me directly at
kekich at transvio.com, or call me at 310-265-8644.

Thanks,
Dave

*****************************
David A. Kekich
TransVio Technology Ventures, LLC
Tele. 310-265-8644/Fax 310-544-9684
http://www.TransVio.com
*****************************


> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Mike Lorrey
> Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 10:28 AM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: [extropy-chat] CLONE: Seeking contacts for organ cloning
>
>
> As many of you know, my mother has had a rather rough year with a
> botched gastro bypass operation. Her current condition is that she has
> 4' of small intestine, 1/3 of her original colon, with a colostomy bag,
> and requires 24 hour care. She is also developing an increasing
> encephalopathy condition that is likely tied to the lack of intestines
> providing insufficient nutrition for her brain, despite supplements and
> thrice daily injections of protien nutrient mix through a G tube into
> the lower stapled off area of her stomach.
> Her mental condition is spotty memory, a lack of ability to maintain a
> consistent train of thought, language problems in selecting the wrong
> words, lethargy, depression, phantom pain in her gut (like amputees
> experience), and when her electrolytes get off she hallucinates living
> in a different house with a different family, her dead father, among
> other things.
> I am increasingly of the opinion that she is going to need an
> intestinal transplant to regain her ability to digest sufficient
> nutrition, possibly get her intestine cloned. Can anyone point to
> researchers working in this area, such as those growing cloned organs
> in pigs or in a dish, etc.???
>
> =====
> Mike Lorrey
> "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
>                                        - Gen. John Stark
> "Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
>                                        - Mike Lorrey
> Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
> Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
> http://search.yahoo.com/top2003
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From dirk at neopax.com  Mon Jan  5 19:49:52 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 19:49:52 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence
References: <200312060543.hB65hqM30870@finney.org><004601c3bcea$26086780$6501a8c0@dimension>
	<007e01c3bcf1$10b36b80$6501a8c0@dimension>
Message-ID: <013101c3d3c5$27dc6880$d2256bd5@artemis>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rafal Smigrodzki" <rafal at smigrodzki.org>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2003 6:36 PM
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence


> I just finished reading the third part of John C. Wright's Golden Age
> trilogy, and I am awed. As I suspected, Wright allows humanity an escape

I have just finished the first two books, and agree with you.
Does the author have a website?

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Mon Jan  5 19:56:44 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 11:56:44 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <20040105190255.82482.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401051135410.4676-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Mon, 5 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> If an Mbrain civilization
> expands its demands for processing resources faster than its ability to
> build transmission resources, it will eventually trap itself in its own
> solar system by informational overpopulation.

The outer layer of an MBrain is constrained by the temperature it wants
to radiate at.  But that doesn't prevent one from constructing orbiting
data storage devices, perhaps with onboard fusion reactors -- just enough
energy to occasionally read and restore data bits that get wiped by cosmic
rays.  So long as you have a supply of brown dwarfs or molecular clouds
to consume the quantity of data stored can get quite large (>> 2^50 bits).
The only problem is the access time.  Instead of waiting milliseconds
for the data you need to rotate around on a disk drive spindle (and
that is *fast* compared to the rotational delay on early drum storage
devices), you have to wait hundreds to thousands of years for your
data to become available for read access again (*much* slower than
offsite tape access now-a-days).  Perhaps you could setup laser
access and have the data in light-hours to light-days but this
is going to require much more energy be consumed in the orbiting
data storage units.  If you opt for the low-energy cost data
storage approach and the access is hundreds to thousands of years
there is probably a significant chance that the data will be obsolete
by the time it gets back to where it can be read.  In that much
time a MBrain can obviously recreate a significant amount of data
if necessary.

I toyed around with considering different compression approaches
and then realized this can get *very* complex.  One could think
of Chinese where one has a variety of icons with specific meanings.
One could imagine MBrain alphabets where strings of N bits each
have a different meaning but only the active mental state of
an MBrain knows how to interpret that set of bits.  So each
string is effectively "overloaded" with a meaning -- just as
when I say "red" this brings to mind a whole set of images,
experiences and comprehensions within the mind of the listener.
The agreed upon meaning of "red" is only required for our
interpersonal communication requirements.  If an MBrain is only
communicating within itself it seems resonable to allow "red" to
mean the entire set of overloaded qualities.  In a way this
seems similar to object-oriented programming where one is
passing around objects with a variety of qualities.

Robert




From thespike at earthlink.net  Mon Jan  5 20:12:13 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 14:12:13 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality (terminology)
References: <002901c3d313$ead28390$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT><244b01c3d316$db187420$2ee4f418@markcomputer><014f01c3d31a$59da6040$bd994a43@texas.net>
	<270401c3d391$13cf7eb0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <008d01c3d3c8$389ae0e0$8c994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Walker" <mark at permanentend.org>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 7:37 AM

> I agree that it is worthwhile to think about how to sell the message
right.
> For myself I may use both 'emortal' and 'ageless'. It is nice to have
> synonyms and the slightly different connation of these terms may appeal to
> different "market segments".

Indeed. I should stress that I have absolutely no stake in `emortal/ity'; it
just seems like a workable compromise.

Incidentally, Brian Stableford tells me that he didn't coin the term
(although he's used it in a series of recent novels). He attributes it to
biologist Alvin Silverstein, in CONQUEST OF DEATH (Macmillan, 1979). I find
this interesting summary at the useful site
http://biomatics.kaist.ac.kr/Research/Gerontology/glossary.html :

=====

Emortality -- Indefinite life expectancy for individuals of a sexually
reproducing species without death secondary to cellular senescence. However,
an emortal individual may still die secondary to environmental trauma or an
accident. Etymology: This term was first coined by Alvin Silverstein, Ph.D.,
Professor of Biology at College of Staten Island/CUNY (2800 Victory Blvd.;
Staten Island, NY 10314; E-mail: silverstein at postbox.csi.cuny.edu or
DrASilverstein at aol.com ) to distinguish it from the more usual term of
immortality and thereby avoid all of its religious connotation. He states,
"I was using it among colleagues and friends back in the 1950's, although it
did not appear "in print" until my book, Conquest of Death: The Prospects
for Emortality in Our Time (Macmillan, NY; 1979).

======

Damien Broderick



From thespike at earthlink.net  Mon Jan  5 20:20:47 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 14:20:47 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence
References: <200312060543.hB65hqM30870@finney.org><004601c3bcea$26086780$6501a8c0@dimension><007e01c3bcf1$10b36b80$6501a8c0@dimension>
	<013101c3d3c5$27dc6880$d2256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <00c001c3d3c9$69231560$8c994a43@texas.net>

From: "Dirk Bruere" <dirk at neopax.com>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 1:49 PM

> Does the author have a website?

Yes.



From bjk at imminst.org  Mon Jan  5 20:38:12 2004
From: bjk at imminst.org (Bruce J. Klein)
Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2004 14:38:12 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality (terminology)
In-Reply-To: <008d01c3d3c8$389ae0e0$8c994a43@texas.net>
References: <002901c3d313$ead28390$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT><244b01c3d316$db187420$2ee4f418@markcomputer><014f01c3d31a$59da6040$bd994a43@texas.net>	<270401c3d391$13cf7eb0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
	<008d01c3d3c8$389ae0e0$8c994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <3FF9CB34.6030902@imminst.org>

Till Noever has composed four articles for
ImmInst concerning 'Emortalism'

Emortalism 101 - Introduction
http://imminst.org/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=67&t=1752&s=

Emortalism 102 - Meaning, Context, Identity, Sex and Other Curiosities
http://imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=67&t=1764&hl=noever

Emortalism 103 - Scenarios
http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=67&t=1811

Emortalism 104 - Emortalist Ethics
http://imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=66&t=1928

Bruce Klein
Chairman, ImmInst.org



From dirk at neopax.com  Mon Jan  5 21:13:05 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 21:13:05 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence
References: <200312060543.hB65hqM30870@finney.org><004601c3bcea$26086780$6501a8c0@dimension><007e01c3bcf1$10b36b80$6501a8c0@dimension><013101c3d3c5$27dc6880$d2256bd5@artemis>
	<00c001c3d3c9$69231560$8c994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <01a601c3d3d0$b5d0e390$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Damien Broderick" <thespike at earthlink.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 8:20 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence


> From: "Dirk Bruere" <dirk at neopax.com>
> Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 1:49 PM
> 
> > Does the author have a website?
> 
> Yes.
 

What's the URL?

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org


From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk  Mon Jan  5 22:09:24 2004
From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK)
Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2004 22:09:24 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence
Message-ID: <3FF9E094.3050807@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>

On Mon Jan 05, 2004 02:13 pm Dirk Bruere queried:
> What's the URL?
>

Heh. :)

Damien is poking you with a pointed stick.

It is a trivial task and quicker to find the URL by Google than to post
to the list. And Google will give you other associated interesting sites
as well.

BillK





From thespike at earthlink.net  Mon Jan  5 22:13:20 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 16:13:20 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence
References: <200312060543.hB65hqM30870@finney.org><004601c3bcea$26086780$6501a8c0@dimension><007e01c3bcf1$10b36b80$6501a8c0@dimension><013101c3d3c5$27dc6880$d2256bd5@artemis><00c001c3d3c9$69231560$8c994a43@texas.net>
	<01a601c3d3d0$b5d0e390$d2256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <002701c3d3d9$22740a60$8c994a43@texas.net>


> > From: "Dirk Bruere" <dirk at neopax.com>
> > Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 1:49 PM
> >
> > > Does the author have a website?
> >
> > Yes.

> What's the URL?
>
> Dirk
>
> The Consensus:-
> The political party for the new millennium

Forgive my bluntness, but...

You're planning to run the United Kingdom, and you can't get Google to work?




From dirk at neopax.com  Mon Jan  5 22:17:43 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 22:17:43 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence
References: <3FF9E094.3050807@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>
Message-ID: <01b901c3d3d9$bd7792c0$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "BillK" <bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>
To: <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 10:09 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence


> On Mon Jan 05, 2004 02:13 pm Dirk Bruere queried:
> > What's the URL?
> >
>
> Heh. :)
>
> Damien is poking you with a pointed stick.
>
> It is a trivial task and quicker to find the URL by Google than to post
> to the list. And Google will give you other associated interesting sites
> as well.


Wow! google!
I'd never have thought of that in a million tears! <sarcasm>
Problem is, I get vast numbers of books, reviews, interviews and no doubt
somewhere in there is something call 'the website of John C Wright'
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=wright+golden+transcendence
1680 hits

Hey! let's really get this thread running by playing 'guess the keywords'.
Over to you.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From thespike at earthlink.net  Mon Jan  5 22:36:15 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 16:36:15 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence
References: <3FF9E094.3050807@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>
	<01b901c3d3d9$bd7792c0$d2256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <00b101c3d3dc$56ef6020$8c994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Dirk Bruere" <dirk at neopax.com>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 4:17 PM

> Hey! let's really get this thread running by playing 'guess the keywords'.
> Over to you.


Jesus wept. Go to Google. Type in ""john c. wright" homepage"

The third entry down shows (and you don't even need to open the page):

>Author's Homepage: http://www.sff.net/people/john-c-wright/index.html

which gives his @:

  john-c-wright at sff.net



From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk  Mon Jan  5 22:44:25 2004
From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK)
Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2004 22:44:25 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence
Message-ID: <3FF9E8C9.8060305@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>

On Mon Jan 05, 2004 03:17 pm Dirk Bruere screamed in panic:
> Problem is, I get vast numbers of books, reviews, interviews and no
> doubt somewhere in there is something call 'the website of John C
> Wright'
> wright+golden+transcendence
> 1680 hits
>
> Hey! let's really get this thread running by playing 'guess the
> keywords'.
> Over to you.
>
> Dirk
>

Sometimes it is better to keep quiet. You don't HAVE to respond when
somebody gets levitatious with you. ;)

I googled on "John C Wright"
(seemed obvious to me).

The top site returned is full of useful links including interviews,
reviews, his agents' site, Tor Books site, even his own site and his
email address.


BillK





From dirk at neopax.com  Mon Jan  5 22:44:09 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 22:44:09 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence
References: <3FF9E094.3050807@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk><01b901c3d3d9$bd7792c0$d2256bd5@artemis>
	<00b101c3d3dc$56ef6020$8c994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <01f301c3d3dd$6f1cfdf0$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Damien Broderick" <thespike at earthlink.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 10:36 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence


>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dirk Bruere" <dirk at neopax.com>
> Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 4:17 PM
>
> > Hey! let's really get this thread running by playing 'guess the
keywords'.
> > Over to you.
>
>
> Jesus wept. Go to Google. Type in ""john c. wright" homepage"
>
> The third entry down shows (and you don't even need to open the page):
>
> >Author's Homepage: http://www.sff.net/people/john-c-wright/index.html

Seen it and discounted it before I asked the original question.

> which gives his @:
>
>   john-c-wright at sff.net

ie it's not his website.
So, the answer is 'he has no website of his own'.
If you can remember far enough back, the question was 'Does the author have
a website?'
Try and be less of a smart arse when someone asks a question in future.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From dirk at neopax.com  Mon Jan  5 22:54:43 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 22:54:43 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence
References: <3FF9E8C9.8060305@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>
Message-ID: <01fd01c3d3de$e88ab230$d2256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "BillK" <bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>
To: <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 10:44 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence


> On Mon Jan 05, 2004 03:17 pm Dirk Bruere screamed in panic:
> > Problem is, I get vast numbers of books, reviews, interviews and no
> > doubt somewhere in there is something call 'the website of John C
> > Wright'
> > wright+golden+transcendence
> > 1680 hits
> >
> > Hey! let's really get this thread running by playing 'guess the
> > keywords'.
> > Over to you.
> >
> > Dirk
> >
>
> Sometimes it is better to keep quiet. You don't HAVE to respond when
> somebody gets levitatious with you. ;)
>
> I googled on "John C Wright"
> (seemed obvious to me).
>
> The top site returned is full of useful links including interviews,
> reviews, his agents' site, Tor Books site, even his own site and his
> email address.


Except nowhere in the returned list of websites does it inform one that he
has no website (which is a deduction).
His homepage is listed, but that was NOT the question I asked.
Now, I may be wrong about that because I have not done a WHOIS on the actual
owner but I don't expect to be.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From thespike at earthlink.net  Mon Jan  5 23:14:57 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 17:14:57 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] For Us, The Living
References: <3FF9E8C9.8060305@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>
Message-ID: <012501c3d3e1$be9d7b80$8c994a43@texas.net>

Have just got *For Us, the Living*, Heinlein's rediscovered first novel.
Opened first page, read:

< He glanced back at the girl. She was still catching the beach ball. As she
settled back on her feet, he drifted clear of the car and turned in the air
away from her. Facing him were the rocks at the foot of the bluff. They
approached as he watched them, separated and became individuals. One rock
selected him and came straight toward him. It was a handsome rock, flat on
one side and brilliant while in the sunshine. A sharp edge faced him and
grew and grew and grew until it encompassed the whole world. >

Surely that's a typo for `brilliant white'? Since he's falling straight at
it, he has no reason to muse that it would look darker away from the sun (or
whatever).

Doesn't bode terribly well for the acuity of the editors...

Damien Broderick



From neptune at superlink.net  Tue Jan  6 04:32:22 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 23:32:22 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: [atlantis_II] Re: fermi's paradox: m/d approach
Message-ID: <00bc01c3d40e$14a823a0$0cca5cd1@neptune>

Dennis replied to Robert's post with:

From: Dennis May determinism at hotmail.com
To: atlantis_II at yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 5:26 PM
Subject: [atlantis_II] Re: fermi's paradox: m/d approach


Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

"The present value of using the resources locally is
likely to significantly exceed the communications value
of sending energy/mass (i.e. electromagnetic waves or
probes) across interstellar distances."

No investment in discovery?  A singular thought pattern
which doesn't experiment or take risks?  No diversity
of opinion concerning value.  Again it doesn't sound like
much of a brain.

Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

"The cost of sending a bit across interstellar distances
is relatively cheap. The cost of sending any quantity
of information worth something across interstellar
distances is quite expensive. The solar systems
of advanced civilizations can probably contain >2^50
bits and one doesn't transmit a useful fraction of
that across interstellar distances cheaply."

Worth something?  Whole libraries can be sent on
a laser signal for next to nothing.  What makes you
think those >2^50 bits aren't mainly archives of
Alien Slug Porn at high resolution or something
equally useless to someone else.  Value is in the
eye of the beholder.

I wrote:

>Gray goo has to obey the same thermodynamic and
>chemical laws as living creatures. Some of the capabilities ascribed to
>gray goo have ignored these
>laws.

Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

"Not any serious proposals by people who know what they
are talking about (Drexler, Freitas, etc.)"

I can only go by what little I have read.  No doubt the
fantastic unrealistic claims get more press than those
who are serious.  I will have to read more by those who
are thought to be serious.

I wrote:

>In any case gray goo has to compete for resources and avoid
>predators/parasites just like anyone else.

Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

"Gray goo based on nanotech easily trumps any preexisting
life forms based on biotech. This is due to the fact that it is
stronger, more energy efficient, travels faster, faster to
evolve, etc."

I would think that all these claims depend on the efficient
mining of resources from the environment to enable
self-replication. Something yet to be demonstrated and
unlikely to be as simple as postulated.  Some of the more
fantastic claims I've heard clearly ignored the necessity of
mining diverse resources and the actual energy costs and
heat losses incurred in doing so.  There are many biological
systems which are extremely efficient.

I wrote:

>Not a very smart brain if it wants to put all its resources
>into one place - ready to be destroyed by WoMD.

Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

"MBrains are the size of solar systems and have the power of
stars at their disposal. The only things that could
potentially destroy them are most likely to be very clever
viruses (that presumably have to get through multiple levels
of firewalls, isolated defense systems, etc.) or black holes
hurled across interstellar space."

Or simply: enough hydrogen bombs hurled at them fast
enough for long enough, or swarms of pellets fired at them
for long enough from all directions, or enough anti-matter
hurled long enough, or destroying it while it is small by
any number of means, or setting off nearby stars to create
lethal neutrino showers, or orienting parts of the blast from
supernovas, or hitting it again and again with solid objects
traveling near the speed of light, and so on.

Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

"...one has to make sure that one totally
eliminates every last component of an MBrain or risk a
berserker response"

Exactly my point - WoMD will destroy the big buck brain
before it gets very big.  Who says berserkers of one kind
or another aren't already out there causing the
Fermi Paradox?

I wrote:

>I support the WoMD cause of the Fermi Paradox. Stealth,
>mobility, and dispersion are the secrets to survival with space
>WoMD. Advertise your presence and expose yourself to WoMD.

Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

>...MBrains or other similar architectures that migrate outside galaxies
>where they can radiate heat at close to the CMB temperature (~4 deg K).
>Thus they are very difficult to detect and very difficult to target
with
>WoMD.

Everything is visible to spread spectrum impulse E&M.  You
can't hide anything of that size if someone cares to look.
If I send out trillions of spread spectrum impulse probes I
will find anything I care to look for.  If you are large and
lumbering once your found your dead - given sufficient
time.

Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

"(Side Note: Dennis -- these topics have been discussed for ~5 years
on the ExI list and there are multiple academic papers that have
been written on the topic as well as hundreds of email postings
so Daniel is putting you at a slight disadvantage by introducing
the conversation to the Atlantis list without informing you
with respect to some of the background materials.)"

I would enjoy being informed in those areas you feel I behind in.
I have had similar discussions before and found the defense
of the Mbrain concept still lacking.  The other question is: why
is my solution to the Fermi Paradox less plausible - since it does
not depend on new science, big brains, or unknown
nanotechnology?

Dennis May

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/atlantis_II/




From cryoofan at mylinuxisp.com  Tue Jan  6 14:32:47 2004
From: cryoofan at mylinuxisp.com (randy)
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 08:32:47 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] For Us, The Living
In-Reply-To: <012501c3d3e1$be9d7b80$8c994a43@texas.net>
References: <3FF9E8C9.8060305@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>
	<012501c3d3e1$be9d7b80$8c994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <pkhlvvo4tmg44sidholpiqjjv8vuj0r5cc@4ax.com>

On Mon, 5 Jan 2004 17:14:57 -0600, you wrote



> One rock
>selected him and came straight toward him. It was a handsome rock, flat on
>one side and brilliant while in the sunshine. A sharp edge faced him and
>grew and grew and grew until it encompassed the whole world. >


Geez, someone's been reading a bit too much Hemingway....

I guess RAH got the Hemingway out of his system with this book, cuz I
have never before noticed the similarity....


-------------



From natashavita at earthlink.net  Tue Jan  6 17:02:14 2004
From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 12:02:14 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hell
Message-ID: <157240-2200412617214495@M2W042.mail2web.com>

A colleague at work sent this to me.  It's silly, but what the hell?

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington
chemistry mid-term exam. The answer by one student was so? profound" that
the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of
course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.

 Bonus Question:

 " Is " Hell " exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic(absorbs heat)? "

 Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law, (gas
cools off when it expands and heats up when it is compressed) or some
variant, but fell short in producing a demonstration argument. One student
however wrote the following:

 First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we
need to know the rate that souls are moving into Hell and the rate they are
leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell,
it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls
are entering Hell, lets look at the different religions that exist in the
world today.

 Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their
religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these
religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can
project that all souls go to Hell.  With birth and death rates as they are,
we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.

 Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's
Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay
the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are
added. This gives two possibilities:

 1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls
enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until
all Hell breaks loose.

 2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in
Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

 Considering then the postulate presented to me by Teresa K. during my
Freshman year: that "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you"
and taking into account the fact that over two years later, I still have
not succeeded in having relations with her; then, #2 cannot be true, and
thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and will not freeze."

 The student received the only "A" given."


--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .




From gpmap at runbox.com  Tue Jan  6 17:12:31 2004
From: gpmap at runbox.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 18:12:31 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Templeton prize for dialogue between science and
	religion
Message-ID: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGOEKBCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>

>From the Ledger Online: Every March, the winner of the most lucrative award
on Earth -- about $1 million -- is announced. The Templeton Prize is given
not to artists or peace activists but to "entrepreneurs" who have
contributed to the dialogue between science and religion, working to "expand
human perceptions of divinity and to help in the acceleration of divine
creativity," In 2003, the prize was given to the Rev. Holmes Rolston, a
pioneer in the field of religion and ecology.
Not everyone admires what the foundation -- and its benefactor -- are trying
to accomplish. Sir John Templeton believes that humans should endeavor
through scientific study to learn more about God. He also advocates what he
calls "humility theology," which disregards doctrine in favor of a complete
openness to ideas about God. Some Templeton Prize winners, such as Freeman
Dyson, have proposed concepts long considered heretical to monotheistic
traditions.
The mission of the John Templeton Foundation is to pursue new insights at
the boundary between theology and science through a rigorous, open-minded
and empirically focused methodology, drawing together talented
representatives from a wide spectrum of fields of expertise. Using "the
humble approach," the Foundation typically seeks to focus the methods and
resources of scientific inquiry on topical areas which have spiritual and
theological significance ranging across the disciplines from cosmology to
healthcare.
-------------- next part --------------
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From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Tue Jan  6 17:13:37 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 11:13:37 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hell
References: <157240-2200412617214495@M2W042.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <Law10-OE141E9GQvnbE00023caa@hotmail.com>

>  Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their
> religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these
> religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can
> project that all souls go to Hell.

This just happens to be my initial reasoning behind becoming an atheist! lol


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan  6 17:18:14 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 09:18:14 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hell
In-Reply-To: <157240-2200412617214495@M2W042.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <20040106171814.52961.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>

Poor Teresa K, doomed forever to a reputation of prudery, or maybe just
a reputation of no taste for smart and smartass fellows... I wonder if
this A got the fellow some action... ;)

--- "natashavita at earthlink.net" <natashavita at earthlink.net> wrote:
> A colleague at work sent this to me.  It's silly, but what the hell?
> 
> The following is an actual question given on a University of
> Washington chemistry mid-term exam. The answer by one student was so
> ?profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the
> Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of.
> enjoying it as well.
snip...
>  Considering then the postulate presented to me by Teresa K. during
> my Freshman year: that "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep
> with you" and taking into account the fact that over two years later,
> I still have not succeeded in having relations with her; then, #2
> cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and will
> not freeze."
> 
>  The student received the only "A" given."

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan  6 17:21:11 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 09:21:11 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] For Us, The Living
In-Reply-To: <pkhlvvo4tmg44sidholpiqjjv8vuj0r5cc@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <20040106172111.82340.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>


--- randy <cryoofan at mylinuxisp.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 5 Jan 2004 17:14:57 -0600, you wrote
> 
> 
> 
> > One rock
> >selected him and came straight toward him. It was a handsome rock,
> flat on
> >one side and brilliant while in the sunshine. A sharp edge faced him
> and
> >grew and grew and grew until it encompassed the whole world. >
> 
> 
> Geez, someone's been reading a bit too much Hemingway....
> 
> I guess RAH got the Hemingway out of his system with this book, cuz I
> have never before noticed the similarity....

What I want to know is how an edge can encompass a whole world. An edge
is a line, i.e. it has only one dimension. What sort of non-euclidean
trick was used to make a one dimensional geometric object encompass all
of 3 dimensional space???

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it  Tue Jan  6 17:31:05 2004
From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 18:31:05 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hell
In-Reply-To: <157240-2200412617214495@M2W042.mail2web.com>
References: <157240-2200412617214495@M2W042.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401061828340.3311@hercules>


I once found this, somewhere on Usenet:

EAVEN IS HOTTER THAN HELL

  "The temperature of heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our
authority is the Bible:

Isaiah 30:26 reads, "Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light
of the sun and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold as the light of
seven days."

Thus, heaven receives from the moon as much radiation as the earth does
from the sun, and in addition seven times seven (forty nine) times as much
as the earth does from the sun, or fifty times in all. The light we
receive from the moon is one ten-thousandth of the light we receive from
the sun, so we can ignore that. With these data we can compute the
temperature of heaven: The radiation falling on heaven will heat it to the
point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received
by radiation. In other words, heaven loses fifty times as much heat as the
earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann fourth power law for
radiation:

     (H/E)^4 = 50 where E is the absolute temperature of the earth,
     300 degrees K (273+27). This gives H, the absolute temperature
     of heaven, as 798 degrees absolute (525 degrees C).

The exact temperature of hell cannot be computed but it must be less than
444.6 degrees C, the temperature at which brimstone or sulfur changes from
a liquid to a gas.

Revelations 21:8: "But the fearful and unbelieving... shall have their
part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone."

A lake of molten brimstone [sulfur] means that its temperature must be at
or below the boiling point, which is 444.6 degrees C. (Above that point,
it would be a vapor, not a lake.)

We have then, temperature of heaven, 525 degrees C (977 degrees F).
Temperature of hell, less than 444.6 degrees C (832.3 degrees F).

Therefore heaven is hotter than hell."


Ciao,
Alfio


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Tue Jan  6 17:33:21 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 12:33:21 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: [atlantis_II] Re: fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <00bc01c3d40e$14a823a0$0cca5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <001101c3d47b$316abad0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

>From a security point-of-view, I have developed a new hypothesis:

We may be a valuable source of free research, information and entertainment
to the universe.  We broadcast most of our information for free out to the
universe via radio and TV.  Advanced civilizations may be able to receive
all our signals and watch all our TV and radio programs.  As long as they
are receiving free service, why should they tell us?  Maybe they are afraid
we will cut them off as soon as we find out they are receiving all of our
information but we are receiving none of theirs.  Maybe it is a historical
pattern in the universe that civilizations suddenly clam up when they
discover other civilizations.  Maybe older civilizations listen to newer
civilizations for as long as they can without letting them know.

>From a security perspective, they would want to find out as much as they can
about us, and would want us to know as little as possible about them.  Until
we establish that we are not a threat to them, they would stay quiet.  They
would not want to jeopardize their ability to observe us by alerting us to
their presence.  They receive all our stuff already anyway.  How will
contacting us help?  It would only reduce their information or make it less
trustworthy.  As long as we don't know about them, our broadcasts are not
controlled propaganda.  As soon as we find out about them, we can limit or
manipulate our broadcasts.  We also may start demanding information back in
return.

This seems obvious if we think of it from the other side.  Suppose we start
receiving signals from a nearby star.  We can monitor their civilization and
they don't know about us.  We would be very concerned about them.  Are they
friendly?  Do they have superior technology?  Do they want to eat us?  We
probably wouldn't want to announce our presence and location to them.  We
would probably want to observe them quietly at first.  It seems clear that
we are a new civilization with our signals going out only a hundred light
years or so.  The time for the return-trip would limit our communications to
civilizations within 50 light years or so.  Any time they delayed listening
to us would reduce that radius to 40 or 30 light-years or further.  Anybody
who could have heard us and responded would have to be relatively close and
therefore even more cautious about responding.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From dirk at neopax.com  Tue Jan  6 17:34:59 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 17:34:59 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hell
References: <157240-2200412617214495@M2W042.mail2web.com>
	<Law10-OE141E9GQvnbE00023caa@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <00bd01c3d47b$68462800$62256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kevin Freels" <kevinfreels at hotmail.com>
To: <natashavita at earthlink.net>; "ExI chat list"
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 5:13 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Hell


> >  Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their
> > religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these
> > religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we
can
> > project that all souls go to Hell.
>
> This just happens to be my initial reasoning behind becoming an atheist!
lol

And is hence flawed.
However, from a theological POV Asatru is interesting.
Here most people reside in Hel (now where did Xians get their version
from?...) until it is time to be reborn into their family line again.
Others are selected by the Gods and Goddesses to reside with them in their
halls, the most famous being Odin's - Valhalla.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From scerir at libero.it  Tue Jan  6 18:07:31 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 19:07:31 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hell
References: <157240-2200412617214495@M2W042.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <001301c3d47f$f4b95e70$94b91b97@administxl09yj>

Father Gabriele Amorth, the leading exorcist of the Vatican,
http://www.catholic-exorcism.org/pages/suntelegraph/suntelegraph.html
http://www.thecatholiclibrary.org/Articles/fr_amorth.html
who speaks with the Devil every day, over 50,000 times
in the last 30 years, told yesterday that - according to Devil -
the Hell is completely different from what we know.
Dante's Inferno (illustration, here, by G. Dor?)
http://jade.ccccd.edu/Andrade/WorldLitI2332/Dante/inf_dore_14.029.jpeg
or H. Bosch http://www.artonline.it/img/large/230gcd07.jpg
were wrong. The Hell - according to Devil - has nothing to
do with "real" fire, but it has much to do with a "spiritual"
fire, that is to say: pain anyway. According to father Amorth
every religion has its (different) Hell.




From jonkc at att.net  Tue Jan  6 18:01:09 2004
From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 13:01:09 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Darwinian dynamics unlikely to apply
	tosuperintelligence
References: <20031231094734.GE11973@digitalkingdom.org>	<3FF309F8.6000502@yifan.net>	<20031231195904.GN11973@digitalkingdom.org>	<87llorutus.fsf@snark.piermont.com>	<20040102014258.GW11973@digitalkingdom.org><8765fut8zd.fsf@snark.piermont.com>
	<3FF5FEA2.8040900@pobox.com>
Message-ID: <008601c3d47f$2a859b00$edff4d0c@hal2001>

  > Evolution isn't something you can avoid.

True.

> Deep down, all it says is "you find more
> of that which survives and spreads itself"

No, that's only half of what makes evolution work, for the other half you
need some mechanism to make the next generation different from the present
one. In Darwinian biological evolution that mechanism is random mutation; in
cultural evolution (science is just one example) it is Lamarckian and the
inheritance of acquired characteristics is possible.  Lamarckian evolution
is about a billion times faster than the Darwinian version because it is
directed by intelligence. Once life enters this phase things will move in a
direction more likely to make intelligence happy because the old style
Darwinian component will be swamped out by the much larger Lamarckian.

  John K Clark    jonkc at att.net






From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Tue Jan  6 18:02:43 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 13:02:43 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: [atlantis_II] Re: fermi's paradox: m/d approach
Message-ID: <001801c3d47f$4babc7f0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

I wrote,
> It seems clear that we are a new 
> civilization with our signals going out only a hundred light 
> years or so.

This is based on the earliest possible signals when Marconi transmitted
wireless telegraph just before 1900.    But it now occurs to me that they
bounced such radio waves off the ionosphere to get around the curve of the
earth.  I am not sure when radio waves started going out into space, or when
they became numerous or interesting enough to be detectable.  The first
radio network was NBC starting in 1926.  The first big or powerful
transmitters were built by RCA after 1934.  We may have only about 65 years
of transmitting to space.  For a round-trip signal, that limits responses to
about 30 light-years or less, if they detected us instantly and responded.
Any delay in detection or answering, and our globe of possible civilizations
to talk to is reduced even further.  There are 106 stars within 20
light-years according to
<http://www.anzwers.org/free/universe/nearstar.html>.  Only 6 of these are
yellow G-class stars.  If the likelihood of advanced civilizations is less
than 1/7 (14%) of G-class stars, we may be the only civilization within this
response cone.  There may be no civilizations close enough to have heard us
and answered us yet.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 






From wingcat at pacbell.net  Tue Jan  6 18:07:07 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 10:07:07 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] For Us, The Living
In-Reply-To: <20040106172111.82340.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040106180707.79714.qmail@web80402.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, 5 Jan 2004 17:14:57 -0600, you wrote
> > > One rock
> > >selected him and came straight toward him. It was
> a handsome rock,
> > flat on
> > >one side and brilliant while in the sunshine. A
> sharp edge faced him
> > and
> > >grew and grew and grew until it encompassed the
> whole world. >
> 
> What I want to know is how an edge can encompass a
> whole world. An edge
> is a line, i.e. it has only one dimension. What sort
> of non-euclidean
> trick was used to make a one dimensional geometric
> object encompass all
> of 3 dimensional space???

Wrong definition of "world".  In this case, "the whole
world" meant his whole world, i.e. the entirety of his
perceptions - and conscious perceptions at that.  It
is not that much of a leap to believe that someone
about to die might well focus entirely on the oncoming
implement of death.

General trick: when someone seems to spout nonsense or
impossibilities, see if there are alternate meanings
of certain terms which, when used instead, would make
what is said make sense.  If so, then it is most
likely the case that this alternate was what was
meant.


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Tue Jan  6 18:09:52 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 10:09:52 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: [atlantis_II] Re: fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <00bc01c3d40e$14a823a0$0cca5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401060832200.27270-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Responding to the most recent comments by Dennis forwarded
by Daniel...

> Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 5:26 PM
> Subject: [atlantis_II] Re: fermi's paradox: m/d approach

> No investment in discovery?  A singular thought pattern
> which doesn't experiment or take risks?  No diversity
> of opinion concerning value.  Again it doesn't sound like
> much of a brain.

:-;  But there *is* potentially an investment in discovery.
MBrains, using 1% of their mass resources, can have
100 billion telescopes the diameter of the moon.  These
in turn can be laid out across distances of AU's to LY
and it may be possible to link them together into one
f***ing big interferometer (the configuration for the
NASA TPF mission and the ESA Darwin mission to view
extraterrestrial planets).

An MBrain can see just about *everything* within the
speed of light constraints.  In contrast if one wants
electromagnetic communications one effectively gets
only 0.5c and the speed for probes is typically cited
as 0.1c (there) and then c after you build something
capable of sending back information (still at a trickle
of what is available).  Go look at the data rates on
the current Mars probes -- highest speed is 128K bits.
Its going to take a week to get the current pictures
already taken back to us.  Do we communicate with
the probes?  Not really -- they are essentially using
their own intelligence due to the 8 minute delays
in signals to/from the probe.

If one wants probes to survive across interstellar
distances one has to build self-adaptation into them.
If one builds in self-adaptation it may be hard to
retain loyalty.  Particularly because any intelligent
entity is going to realize after 1000 years of travel
time to a star 100 l.y. distant, that whatever one
was once loyal to is unlikely to exist.  An MBrain
could have completely rearchitected itself, dispersed
itself, altered its fundamental purpose, etc. during
that time period.  So one has an extremely fine line
between sending out a probe capable of surviving and
sending out a probe capable of ones enemy.

> Worth something?  Whole libraries can be sent on
> a laser signal for next to nothing.  What makes you
> think those >2^50 bits aren't mainly archives of
> Alien Slug Porn at high resolution or something
> equally useless to someone else.  Value is in the
> eye of the beholder.

Yes, the value is in the eye of the beholder and
establishing a common dictionary between civilizations
that have gone off on very different vectors may be
very difficult.  But you are not paying attention
to the speed and costs of transmitting data across
interstellar distances.  The Library of congress
contains ~20x10^13 bits, the Web is probably slightly
more than that now, all current human memory is
perhaps 1.2x10^19 bits.  This is peanuts compared
with 2^50 bits.

Now, we are not talking a fiber cable between two
cities, we are talking a laser signal across interstellar
distances.  So, I'd suggest you sit down and calculate
the beam power required to have even a single photon
hit the receiver given dispersion and dust interference
across interstellar distances.  While I am not an
expert in these areas I would like to suggest the
cost is not "next to nothing" and the time required
to transmit even the small amount of data in the
Library of Congress is millions if not billions
of years unless one gets very clever.  (Advanced
civilizations may be able to be clever -- but there
are still limits and cost tradeoffs).

> I can only go by what little I have read.  No doubt the
> fantastic unrealistic claims get more press than those
> who are serious.  I will have to read more by those who
> are thought to be serious.

I urge this -- Drexler first proposed the gray goo scenario
in Engines of Creation (which is online at www.foresight.org)
and Robert Freitas has quantified the risks and proposed
solutions:
  http://www.foresight.org/NanoRev/Ecophagy.html

Regarding gray goo and ecophagy:
> I would think that all these claims depend on the efficient
> mining of resources from the environment to enable
> self-replication. Something yet to be demonstrated and
> unlikely to be as simple as postulated.

No argument that general resource extraction will be complex
and that self-replication is simple.  But we know that
microorganisms manage self-replication with something like
350-450 genes.  That isn't a huge number given the complexity
of things that humans have built (the Apollo command module
for example).  Similarly the basic needs for gray goo such
as elements (C, N, O, H, Si) are quite available in the
environment (literally in the air, water and soil) and
energy is clearly available from the sun.

> Some of the more
> fantastic claims I've heard clearly ignored the necessity of
> mining diverse resources and the actual energy costs and
> heat losses incurred in doing so.  There are many biological
> systems which are extremely efficient.

I don't dispute this -- the ATP synthase molecular complex
in the mitochondria may have an extremely high energy conversion
efficiency (80-90%?).  Yet the overall conversion of solar
energy into useful energy by plants is on the order of 1-4%.
Solar cells are now pushing 30-40%.  So it is clear that
the energy conversion mechanisms that may be employed by
gray goo may be more efficient than natural green goo.

Regarding the elimination of superintelligences (MBrains, etc.):

> Or simply: enough hydrogen bombs hurled at them fast
> enough for long enough, or swarms of pellets fired at them
> for long enough from all directions, or enough anti-matter
> hurled long enough, or destroying it while it is small by
> any number of means, or setting off nearby stars to create
> lethal neutrino showers, or orienting parts of the blast from
> supernovas, or hitting it again and again with solid objects
> traveling near the speed of light, and so on.

Yes, there are possible paths to attack megaconstructs.  The
question then becomes could one launch any of these types of
attacks undetected?  And could one detect revenge-intelligences
deployed so as to be undetectable (in suspend mode for thousands
of years in cold/dark interstellar space or in tight orbits
around stars so as to be masked by stellar radiation (used
by Linda Nagata in Vast I think) or hidden within what otherwise
seem to be harmless bodies (asteroids, comets, moons, etc.)?

I bring to mind, the infamous saying by Kahn in one of the
Startrek episodes/movies -- "Revenge is a dish best served cold"!

> Exactly my point - WoMD will destroy the big buck brain
> before it gets very big.  Who says berserkers of one kind
> or another aren't already out there causing the
> Fermi Paradox?

The delay in the speed of light.  Using our civilization as
an example we make the transition from "primitive" to the
singularity in something like 2000-4000 years (depending on
how one defines "primitive").  We make the transition from
"non-scientific" to "scientific" in ~300 years.  So that
imply a requirement for advanced civilizations to be watching
us in very close proximity (10s to 100s of l.y.) to be able
to detect our development and send destructor-bots to eliminate
us.  Once the singularity takes off it will be too late.
It

Regarding the detection of dark, cold, distant MBrains:

> Everything is visible to spread spectrum impulse E&M.  You
> can't hide anything of that size if someone cares to look.
> If I send out trillions of spread spectrum impulse probes I
> will find anything I care to look for.  If you are large and
> lumbering once your found your dead - given sufficient
> time.

I'm not sure that I understand this claim fully.  *But*
taking it at face value if you are inside the galaxy and
an MBrain is orbiting 100,000 light years outside the galaxy
by the time you receive any signals back from such probes
you have minimal confidence that the MBrain will be where
you expect it to be.  All one has to do is execute random
course change maneuvers.  To develop an effective attack
on something with a usable mass of 10^26 kg and an energy
availability of 10^26 W most likely requires the massing
of similar or greater masses and energies.  It seems really
difficult that such activities would go undetected.  So
one could disperse the intelligence across an extremely
large volume of space forcing an increased expenditure
of resources to track the subcomponents down and eliminate
them.  It sounds like the only way to be successful is
to start out way ahead in the game.  And how far "ahead"
one can get appears to be limited by the quantity of
intelligence one can gather given limits-of-physics
delays on communication times.

> I would enjoy being informed in those areas you feel I behind in.
See:
  http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/JupiterBrains/index.html
  (a background)
  http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/MatrioshkaBrains/index.html
  (more or less a guide to recent thoughts/papers)

> The other question is: why is my solution to the Fermi Paradox
> less plausible - since it does not depend on new science,
> big brains, or unknown nanotechnology?

If by this you mean that civilizations self-destruct, I don't consider
it less plausible.  We have been and continue to be at risk of
self-destruction and/or continually knocking ourselves back into
pre-technological states.  *But* we are also at risks from natural
hazards (from earthquakes to global warming to gamma ray bursts).
Those may knock us back as well.  Once intelligent civilizations
become aware of such hazards they will presumably develop strategies
to protect themselves from such.  Finally one has to face the
potential of intelligent external hazards.  I deal with this in
two ways.  First, one runs the risk that an intelligent remote
outpost can always turn on you (look at the United States vs.
England).  This kind of makes one think twice before one runs
off colonizing remote outposts.  Second, there is questionable
benefit to the expenditure of resources to develop remote
outposts given the quantity of information and the speed
of evolution within local entities and the fact that even
if the remote outpost discovers/invents something "wonderful"
it may be too expensive to return it to the founder.

I'm not saying that these are hard and fast rules -- but
I am saying that the delays imposed by the speed of light
and the speed of interstellar travel need to be taken into
account when thinking about these problems.

Robert




From bret at bonfireproductions.com  Tue Jan  6 18:10:51 2004
From: bret at bonfireproductions.com (Bret Kulakovich)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 13:10:51 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] For Us, The Living
In-Reply-To: <20040106172111.82340.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040106172111.82340.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <A95E4E26-4073-11D8-AB10-000A9591E432@bonfireproductions.com>


Mike,

Ever read Flatland?

=)

kulakovich

On Jan 6, 2004, at 12:21 PM, Mike Lorrey wrote:

>
> --- randy <cryoofan at mylinuxisp.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, 5 Jan 2004 17:14:57 -0600, you wrote
>>
>>
>>
>>> One rock
>>> selected him and came straight toward him. It was a handsome rock,
>> flat on
>>> one side and brilliant while in the sunshine. A sharp edge faced him
>> and
>>> grew and grew and grew until it encompassed the whole world. >
>>
>>
>> Geez, someone's been reading a bit too much Hemingway....
>>
>> I guess RAH got the Hemingway out of his system with this book, cuz I
>> have never before noticed the similarity....
>
> What I want to know is how an edge can encompass a whole world. An edge
> is a line, i.e. it has only one dimension. What sort of non-euclidean
> trick was used to make a one dimensional geometric object encompass all
> of 3 dimensional space???
>
> =====
> Mike Lorrey
> "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
>                                        - Gen. John Stark
> "Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
>                                        - Mike Lorrey
> Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
> Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
> http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Tue Jan  6 18:16:38 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 10:16:38 -0800 (PST)
Subject: META Re: [extropy-chat] Fw: [atlantis_II] Re: fermi's paradox: m/d
	approach
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401060832200.27270-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401061015590.27270-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Sorry folks if you are getting multiple postings -- I'll try to be
more careful.  R.




From naddy at mips.inka.de  Tue Jan  6 18:24:39 2004
From: naddy at mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 18:24:39 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Hell
References: <157240-2200412617214495@M2W042.mail2web.com>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0401061828340.3311@hercules>
Message-ID: <bteuh7$76d$1@kemoauc.mips.inka.de>

Alfio Puglisi <puglisi at arcetri.astro.it> wrote:

> A lake of molten brimstone [sulfur] means that its temperature must be at
> or below the boiling point, which is 444.6 degrees C. (Above that point,
> it would be a vapor, not a lake.)

Well, we don't know about the pressure in Hell, do we?

-- 
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy at mips.inka.de


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan  6 18:39:56 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 10:39:56 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Hell
In-Reply-To: <bteuh7$76d$1@kemoauc.mips.inka.de>
Message-ID: <20040106183956.89058.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Christian Weisgerber <naddy at mips.inka.de> wrote:
> Alfio Puglisi <puglisi at arcetri.astro.it> wrote:
> 
> > A lake of molten brimstone [sulfur] means that its temperature must
> be at
> > or below the boiling point, which is 444.6 degrees C. (Above that
> point,
> > it would be a vapor, not a lake.)
> 
> Well, we don't know about the pressure in Hell, do we?

Considering that more souls go to hell than demons come to earth (an
assumption, I grant), it follows that it is likely that Hell has a
lower pressure than Earth.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From scerir at libero.it  Tue Jan  6 19:07:36 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 20:07:36 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] gastro-physics
References: <157240-2200412617214495@M2W042.mail2web.com>
	<001301c3d47f$f4b95e70$94b91b97@administxl09yj>
Message-ID: <000601c3d488$5966dca0$94b91b97@administxl09yj>

On 'Physics Education', n. 1/Jan.2004,
http://www.iop.org/EJ/toc/0031-9120/39/1 
there are many papers about 'gastro-physics',
that is to say, new foods, new tastes,
molecular fine-tuned cooking, etc.
See, i.e., the paper by this (famous) Italian
'gastro-physicist'
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0031-9120/39/1/M06/pe4_1_m06.pdf

s.

- registration (create account) required at 
http://www.iop.org/EJ/passwd/help/-topic=enhanced/journal/PhysEd
if you want to download current papers -



From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Tue Jan  6 19:07:09 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 13:07:09 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hell
References: <157240-2200412617214495@M2W042.mail2web.com>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0401061828340.3311@hercules>
Message-ID: <LAW10-OE35EjQxzmWec000242fb@hotmail.com>

Nice work! lol :-)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alfio Puglisi" <puglisi at arcetri.astro.it>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 11:31 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Hell


>
> I once found this, somewhere on Usenet:
>
> EAVEN IS HOTTER THAN HELL
>
>   "The temperature of heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our
> authority is the Bible:
>
> Isaiah 30:26 reads, "Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light
> of the sun and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold as the light of
> seven days."
>
> Thus, heaven receives from the moon as much radiation as the earth does
> from the sun, and in addition seven times seven (forty nine) times as much
> as the earth does from the sun, or fifty times in all. The light we
> receive from the moon is one ten-thousandth of the light we receive from
> the sun, so we can ignore that. With these data we can compute the
> temperature of heaven: The radiation falling on heaven will heat it to the
> point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received
> by radiation. In other words, heaven loses fifty times as much heat as the
> earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann fourth power law for
> radiation:
>
>      (H/E)^4 = 50 where E is the absolute temperature of the earth,
>      300 degrees K (273+27). This gives H, the absolute temperature
>      of heaven, as 798 degrees absolute (525 degrees C).
>
> The exact temperature of hell cannot be computed but it must be less than
> 444.6 degrees C, the temperature at which brimstone or sulfur changes from
> a liquid to a gas.
>
> Revelations 21:8: "But the fearful and unbelieving... shall have their
> part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone."
>
> A lake of molten brimstone [sulfur] means that its temperature must be at
> or below the boiling point, which is 444.6 degrees C. (Above that point,
> it would be a vapor, not a lake.)
>
> We have then, temperature of heaven, 525 degrees C (977 degrees F).
> Temperature of hell, less than 444.6 degrees C (832.3 degrees F).
>
> Therefore heaven is hotter than hell."
>
>
> Ciao,
> Alfio
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From natashavita at earthlink.net  Tue Jan  6 19:14:56 2004
From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 14:14:56 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hell
Message-ID: <174210-22004126191456532@M2W060.mail2web.com>

Wow! You *all* are very, very clever indeed.

loling

Natasha


--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .




From jcorb at iol.ie  Tue Jan  6 19:39:53 2004
From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally)
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 19:39:53 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] CLONE: Seeking contacts for organ cloning 
Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20040106190923.032f07b0@pop.iol.ie>

Very sorry to hear of your Mum's troubles, Mike.  I seem to remember you 
mentioning her on your blogsite, didn't realize it was to this extent.  I 
know what it's like to watch a parent go through such difficulties, I hope 
things improve for her.

As for research, I'm afraid I'm a dead end, really sorry.  My understanding 
is that the intestine is a pretty uniform organ along its length, so it 
sounds like a good candidate for stem cell growth on a polymer scaffold as 
they do with arteries.  Perhaps by growing several sections simultaneously 
to acheive long length very quickly, joining them as they grow.

Please pardon my musings, I hope someone else here can point to some 
positive WIP.




James...


>------------------------------
>Message: 20
>Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 10:28:28 -0800 (PST)
> >From: Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
>Subject: [extropy-chat] CLONE: Seeking contacts for organ cloning
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Message-ID: <20040105182829.78544.qmail at web12904.mail.yahoo.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>As many of you know, my mother has had a rather rough year with a
>botched gastro bypass operation. Her current condition is that she has
>4' of small intestine, 1/3 of her original colon, with a colostomy bag,
>and requires 24 hour care. She is also developing an increasing
>encephalopathy condition that is likely tied to the lack of intestines
>providing insufficient nutrition for her brain, despite supplements and
>thrice daily injections of protien nutrient mix through a G tube into
>the lower stapled off area of her stomach.
>Her mental condition is spotty memory, a lack of ability to maintain a
>consistent train of thought, language problems in selecting the wrong
>words, lethargy, depression, phantom pain in her gut (like amputees
>experience), and when her electrolytes get off she hallucinates living
>in a different house with a different family, her dead father, among
>other things.
>I am increasingly of the opinion that she is going to need an
>intestinal transplant to regain her ability to digest sufficient
>nutrition, possibly get her intestine cloned. Can anyone point to
>researchers working in this area, such as those growing cloned organs
>in pigs or in a dish, etc.???
>=====
>Mike Lorrey
>"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
>- Gen. John Stark
>"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
>- Mike Lorrey
>Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
>Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com
>__________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003
>http://search.yahoo.com/top2003




From jcorb at iol.ie  Tue Jan  6 19:56:25 2004
From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally)
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 19:56:25 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence 
Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20040106194742.0334e920@pop.iol.ie>


>Message: 4
>Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 16:13:20 -0600
> >From: "Damien Broderick" <thespike at earthlink.net>
>Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence
>To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Message-ID: <002701c3d3d9$22740a60$8c994a43 at texas.net>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> > > From: "Dirk Bruere" <dirk at neopax.com>
> > > Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 1:49 PM
> > >
> > > > Does the author have a website?
> > >
> > > Yes.
> > What's the URL?
> >
> > Dirk
> >
> > The Consensus:-
> > The political party for the new millennium
>Forgive my bluntness, but...
>You're planning to run the United Kingdom, and you can't get Google to work?

Somebody's gotta use that in their sig :O)



James...



From jcorb at iol.ie  Tue Jan  6 20:03:37 2004
From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally)
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 20:03:37 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] NEWS: New Light-emitting Transistor Could
 Revolutionize Electronics Industry
Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20040106195855.0334ea70@pop.iol.ie>

Interesting this

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040106082752.htm


>CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Put the inventor of the light-emitting diode and the 
>maker of the world's fastest transistor together in a research laboratory 
>and what kinds of bright ideas might surface? One answer is a 
>light-emitting transistor that could revolutionize the electronics industry.
>Professors Nick Holonyak Jr. and Milton Feng at the University of Illinois 
>at Urbana-Champaign have uncovered a light-emitting transistor that could 
>make the transistor the fundamental element in optoelectronics as well as 
>in electronics. The scientists report their discovery in the Jan. 5 issue 
>of the journal Applied Physics Letters.

and

>Although the recombination process is the same as that which occurs in 
>light-emitting diodes, the photons in light-emitting transistors are 
>generated under much higher speed conditions. So far, the researchers have 
>demonstrated the modulation of light emission in phase with a base current 
>in transistors operating at a frequency of 1 megahertz. Much higher speeds 
>are considered certain.
>"At such speeds, optical interconnects could replace electrical wiring 
>between electronic components on a circuit board," Feng said. This work 
>could be the beginning of an era in which photons are directed around a 
>chip in much the same fashion as electrons have been maneuvered on 
>conventional chips.

It it can be marketed, it might reverse the trend to move to high speed 
serial busses in PCs back to multibit-wide datapaths, 'cept without the 
crosstalk nightmare.




James....



From extropy at unreasonable.com  Tue Jan  6 20:00:49 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 15:00:49 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] For Us, The Living
In-Reply-To: <20040106180707.79714.qmail@web80402.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040106172111.82340.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040106141859.01c61e88@mail.comcast.net>

At 10:07 AM 1/6/2004 -0800, Adrian Tymes wrote:

>General trick: when someone seems to spout nonsense or
>impossibilities, see if there are alternate meanings
>of certain terms which, when used instead, would make
>what is said make sense.  If so, then it is most
>likely the case that this alternate was what was
>meant.

But it's not as much fun.

Harlan Ellison once wrote of his penchant for deliberate mishearing. The 
example he cited was: on seeing a sign for a Chinese hand laundry, he 
imagined a washing machine with tumbling Chinese hands.

Since I read this some decades ago, I have cultivated this knack myself. 
It's most entertaining when you have someone similarly warped to riff with.

4 -- alternate meaning is generated with the same meaning of the same words 
but a different intonation
3 -- different sense of one or more words
2 -- relying on homonyms
1 -- non-homonym puns

Besides its recreational side, it can be an effective source of story or 
product ideas.  Also, if you are writing something you want to be taken 
seriously -- a product name, a campaign slogan, a soundbite for the evening 
news -- it's useful to consider how your opposition (or Jay Leno) can 
misconstrue what you wrote.

And I think it has nootropic benefits.

Similar exercise: choose two words at random.

(a) Come up with a real-world linkage between them; or
(b) Come up with a fantasy or sf interpretation of their combination.

Or, take a random noun.  Put a technology buzzword, like "virtual," 
"remote," "collaborative," or "nano" in front of it.  See if the 
combination is new, interesting, and useful.

Any other techniques y'all use to limber up your creativity and imagination?


-- David Lubkin.

"somewhere between genius and a toaster"




From dirk at neopax.com  Tue Jan  6 20:29:57 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 20:29:57 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence 
References: <5.0.2.1.1.20040106194742.0334e920@pop.iol.ie>
Message-ID: <02a401c3d493$dba96a60$62256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "J Corbally" <jcorb at iol.ie>
To: <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 7:56 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence


> > > > > Does the author have a website?
> > > >
> > > > Yes.
> > > What's the URL?
> > >
> > > Dirk
> > >
> > > The Consensus:-
> > > The political party for the new millennium
> >Forgive my bluntness, but...
> >You're planning to run the United Kingdom, and you can't get Google to
work?
>
> Somebody's gotta use that in their sig :O)


Somebody should read the thread and discover that the question asked was not
the question answered.
Since you're so smart why not tell me how google can return a non-existent
URL?

He has a homepage - HE DOES NOT HAVE A WEBSITE (as far as anyone here
knows).
Can you understand the subtle difference? Can you now understand the
question?

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From thespike at earthlink.net  Tue Jan  6 20:58:10 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 14:58:10 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence 
References: <5.0.2.1.1.20040106194742.0334e920@pop.iol.ie>
	<02a401c3d493$dba96a60$62256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <013601c3d497$cdeb3580$e3b13841@texas.net>


> He has a homepage - HE DOES NOT HAVE A WEBSITE (as far as anyone here
> knows).
> Can you understand the subtle difference? Can you now understand the
> question?

Website - A virtual location on the web. A URL that serves as the top-level
address of a Web site will be said to point to that website's home page.
That page serves as a reference point, containing pointers to additional
HTML pages or links to other Web site.
www.conxion.com/technology/glossary.asp

Home Page (or Homepage) - Several meanings. Originally, the web page that
your browser is set to use when it starts up. The more common meaning refers
to the main web page for a business, organization, person or simply the main
page out of a collection of web pages, e.g. "Check out so-and-so's new Home
Page." See also: Browser, WWW
www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html

Google is so helpful.

I provided Mr Wright's email address. Perhaps he knows the answer.

Damien Broderick



From jrd1415 at yahoo.com  Tue Jan  6 21:06:28 2004
From: jrd1415 at yahoo.com (Jeff Davis)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 13:06:28 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Hell
In-Reply-To: <bteuh7$76d$1@kemoauc.mips.inka.de>
Message-ID: <20040106210628.60398.qmail@web41202.mail.yahoo.com>

Extropes,

--- Christian Weisgerber <naddy at mips.inka.de> wrote:

> Alfio Puglisi <puglisi at arcetri.astro.it> wrote:
> 
> > A lake of molten brimstone [sulfur] means that its
> temperature must be at
> > or below the boiling point, which is 444.6 degrees
> C. (Above that point,
> > it would be a vapor, not a lake.)
> 
> Well, we don't know about the pressure in Hell, do
> we?

Actually we can make an educated guess, if we take it
as axiomatic that hell is down inside the earth
somewhere.  By googling up temperature vs depth and
pressure vs depth profiles, we could set an upper and
lower bound.

Clearly, hell is not at or near the surface,(though
some would dispute this on based on human suffering
and rampant stupidity) cause it's too cold.

I haven't got those temp and pressure profiles close
at hand, nor the phase diagram for sulfur, so I can't
be more helpful.  Sorry.

Best, Jeff Davis

           "I thought I was taller."*
                           Milton Berle

* Punch line to a sight gag.  Uncle Milty raises his
stogey as if to take a puff, then jabs his forehead
with the chewed-on end, and says,..."


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan  6 21:17:51 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 13:17:51 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence 
In-Reply-To: <02a401c3d493$dba96a60$62256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <20040106211751.44364.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Dirk Bruere <dirk at neopax.com> wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "J Corbally" <jcorb at iol.ie>
> To: <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 7:56 PM
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence
> 
> 
> > > > > > Does the author have a website?
> > > > >
> > > > > Yes.
> > > > What's the URL?
> > > >
> > > > Dirk
> > > >
> > > > The Consensus:-
> > > > The political party for the new millennium
> > >Forgive my bluntness, but...
> > >You're planning to run the United Kingdom, and you can't get
> Google to
> work?
> >
> > Somebody's gotta use that in their sig :O)
> 
> 
> Somebody should read the thread and discover that the question asked
> was not
> the question answered.
> Since you're so smart why not tell me how google can return a
> non-existent
> URL?

Don't need a nonexistent URL, you need to google:
http://www.sff.net/people/john-c-wright/

No wonder you don't like libertarians, you won't get off your own duff
to google something.

> 
> He has a homepage - HE DOES NOT HAVE A WEBSITE (as far as anyone here
> knows).
> Can you understand the subtle difference? Can you now understand the
> question?

Website and home page are not necessarily different things. Nor is a
site what you asked for, you asked first whether he had a site, then
you asked for a URL. The URL referenced above is a site (notice, no
".html" file specified), not a home page, which would be either
index.html or home.html, or index.php, or something of that sort.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From dirk at neopax.com  Tue Jan  6 21:20:57 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 21:20:57 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence 
References: <5.0.2.1.1.20040106194742.0334e920@pop.iol.ie><02a401c3d493$dba96a60$62256bd5@artemis>
	<013601c3d497$cdeb3580$e3b13841@texas.net>
Message-ID: <02d601c3d49a$f9b6ba60$62256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Damien Broderick" <thespike at earthlink.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 8:58 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence


>
> > He has a homepage - HE DOES NOT HAVE A WEBSITE (as far as anyone here
> > knows).
> > Can you understand the subtle difference? Can you now understand the
> > question?
>
> Website - A virtual location on the web. A URL that serves as the
top-level
> address of a Web site will be said to point to that website's home page.
> That page serves as a reference point, containing pointers to additional
> HTML pages or links to other Web site.
> www.conxion.com/technology/glossary.asp
>
> Home Page (or Homepage) - Several meanings. Originally, the web page that
> your browser is set to use when it starts up. The more common meaning
refers
> to the main web page for a business, organization, person or simply the
main
> page out of a collection of web pages, e.g. "Check out so-and-so's new
Home
> Page." See also: Browser, WWW
> www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html
>
> Google is so helpful.
>
> I provided Mr Wright's email address. Perhaps he knows the answer.

Every time I come across someone like you I recall why I left Mensa 25yrs
ago.
You strike me as someone who likes to show how clever they are instead of
being willing to read between the lines and helping.
Right down to the trademark Mensa debating ploy of quoting a dictionary and
trying for a 'semantic win'.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan  6 21:25:36 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 13:25:36 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Hell
In-Reply-To: <20040106210628.60398.qmail@web41202.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040106212536.94431.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Extropes,
> 
> --- Christian Weisgerber <naddy at mips.inka.de> wrote:
> 
> > Alfio Puglisi <puglisi at arcetri.astro.it> wrote:
> > 
> > > A lake of molten brimstone [sulfur] means that its
> > temperature must be at
> > > or below the boiling point, which is 444.6 degrees
> > C. (Above that point,
> > > it would be a vapor, not a lake.)
> > 
> > Well, we don't know about the pressure in Hell, do
> > we?
> 
> Actually we can make an educated guess, if we take it
> as axiomatic that hell is down inside the earth
> somewhere.  By googling up temperature vs depth and
> pressure vs depth profiles, we could set an upper and
> lower bound.

Ah, yes, didn't account for gravity in the soul v demon immigration
situation. However, you must consider that the pressure must be low
enough for sulphur to be liquid (and the temp as well).

Using similar logic, I find that it is a bit difficult to actually
place where heaven is. The claim that in heaven the moon is as bright
as the sun is on earth implies that heaven is somewhere in lunar orbit,
but to say the sun is seven times brighter than on earth implies that
it is somewhere inside of the orbit of Venus, since the solar flux in
lunar orbit is only 1.4 times that on earth. Are we sure that the
original hebrew said "THE moon" and not just "A moon"??? Perhaps it is
a different star system altogether. Then again, is it restricted only
to visible light?

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From dirk at neopax.com  Tue Jan  6 21:26:07 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 21:26:07 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence 
References: <20040106211751.44364.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <02e401c3d49b$b280c9f0$62256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Lorrey" <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
To: "Dirk Bruere" <dirk at neopax.com>; "ExI chat list"
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 9:17 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence


> > > > > > > Does the author have a website?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Yes.
> > > > > What's the URL?
> > > > >
> > > > > Dirk
> > > > >
> > > > > The Consensus:-
> > > > > The political party for the new millennium
> > > >Forgive my bluntness, but...
> > > >You're planning to run the United Kingdom, and you can't get
> > Google to
> > work?
> > >
> > > Somebody's gotta use that in their sig :O)
> >
> >
> > Somebody should read the thread and discover that the question asked
> > was not
> > the question answered.
> > Since you're so smart why not tell me how google can return a
> > non-existent
> > URL?
>
> Don't need a nonexistent URL, you need to google:
> http://www.sff.net/people/john-c-wright/
>
> No wonder you don't like libertarians, you won't get off your own duff
> to google something.

Did it, got that URL some time before I asked the question.

> > He has a homepage - HE DOES NOT HAVE A WEBSITE (as far as anyone here
> > knows).
> > Can you understand the subtle difference? Can you now understand the
> > question?

> Website and home page are not necessarily different things. Nor is a
> site what you asked for, you asked first whether he had a site, then
> you asked for a URL. The URL referenced above is a site (notice, no
> ".html" file specified), not a home page, which would be either
> index.html or home.html, or index.php, or something of that sort.

Are you all retards here?
Unable to see what the question is without a dictionary?
You another Mensa member?

Have some free info -
http://www.sff.net/people/john-c-wright/
is shorthand for
http://www.sff.net/people/john-c-wright/index.html

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org

or

http://www.theconsensus.org/index.html



From aperick at centurytel.net  Tue Jan  6 20:28:08 2004
From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 12:28:08 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Heinlein for real
In-Reply-To: <200401061908.i06J8mE30410@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3d493$99d24080$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>

After reading Heinlein (Stranger..., Friday, etc.) has any of you ever
gotten seriously enthusiastic about Polyamory? 

Edify me in public, or sympathize off-list if you fear ridicule. 

PS: Hella good postings today, I love you guys.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Woolley, Closet nudist, Certified Scientist Type, Confirmed
Atheist, radical thinker, notorious fuck-up, and self-proclaimed
singular authority on the abysmal depths of human stupidity that only we
few lack. "Happy Happy, Joy Joy" http://home.centurytel.net/rickw
aperick at centurytel.net






From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk  Tue Jan  6 21:44:38 2004
From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK)
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 21:44:38 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hell
Message-ID: <3FFB2C46.7010203@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>

According to Snopes this piece of humor first appeared on the Internet
around 1997 and many variations have spread around since then.
But it has a much older history.

<http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/hell.asp>

---------
Origins:   The piece quoted above likely began as a humor post to the
newsgroup rec.humor in 1997. Its roots, however, are far older: an
unattributed parody of a scientific proof concluding Heaven was hotter
than Hell appeared in a 1972 edition of Applied Optics, a story found in
a 1962 book (reprinted from a 1960 magazine) is a mathematical "proof"
that heaven is hotter than hell, and article published in a 1979 edition
of the Journal of Irreproducible Results written by Dr. Tim Healey
(written as a response to the Applied Optics piece) carried the joke one
step farther by arguing that Hell was hotter still. Though these older
pieces don't directly correlate with what has now become a standardized
bit of Internet lore, the themes are similar enough for us to postulate
that the older versions sparked the newer ones.
---------

Applied Optics article 1972 and
Journal of Irreproducible Results written by Dr. Tim Healey 1979

<http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/hell.htm>


Also See: Amusing things I've Found on the Net

<http://www.mit.edu/people/ngrier/humor.html>

which contains some nice bumper stickers, such as:
Jesus is coming, everyone look busy.

and

Great Rules for writing from William Safire in the New York Times.
(which Damien will undoubtedly find very useful)  ;)

e.g. It is incumbent on one to avoid archaisms.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
The verb, overlooked on many occasions have to agree with the subject.
Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of
10 or more words, to their antecedents.


BillK






From eliasen at mindspring.com  Tue Jan  6 21:57:18 2004
From: eliasen at mindspring.com (Alan Eliasen)
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 14:57:18 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hell
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401061828340.3311@hercules>
References: <157240-2200412617214495@M2W042.mail2web.com>
	<Pine.GSO.4.58.0401061828340.3311@hercules>
Message-ID: <3FFB2F3E.7080108@mindspring.com>


Alfio Puglisi wrote:
> Isaiah 30:26 reads, "Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light
> of the sun and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold as the light of
> seven days."
> 
> Thus, heaven receives from the moon as much radiation as the earth does
> from the sun, and in addition seven times seven (forty nine) times as much
> as the earth does from the sun, or fifty times in all.

   I had considered a different interpretation.  In the quoted bit, it
doesn't say that the light of the sun *per day* is sevenfold the light
of seven days, but rather during some unspecified time period, the light
would be that intense, making it potentially much brighter.

   I know Isaiah always followed SI guidelines for proper notation of
physical quantities, and he would have kept the "per day" if he meant
it, and that's the only way the dimensions would come out conformal.

   I did another lookup in a literal translation, and it says:

   "And the light of the moon hath been as the light of the sun, And the
light of the sun is sevenfold, As the light of seven days, In the day of
Jehovah's binding up the breach of His people, When the stroke of its
wound He healeth."

   As this states that the sun is that bright *per day* it was clear
that it was 49 times brighter.  Lousy editors always fuddlin' the
scientists' units.  I know thee well.

   However, I have to note that this whole analysis is based on a flawed
premise--reading the surrounding passage, it's clear that Isaiah isn't
talking about heaven at all, but an event that will occur on earth.
This makes the numbers easier to reconcile--one could, in the future,
come up with a configuration where the moon has moved further from the
earth due to tidal kneading and such, and the sun has swollen into a red
giant which delivers more power to the earth, or something.

   Exact numerical analysis of the stellar evolution cycle and lunar
orbit decay to predict when this will actually happen are left as an
exercise to the reader, or biblical scholar who, knowing well every
thought and intention of God, will find this problem trivial.

-- 
  Alan Eliasen                 | "You cannot reason a person out of a
  eliasen at mindspring.com       |  position he did not reason himself
  http://futureboy.homeip.net/ |  into in the first place."
                               |     --Jonathan Swift


From eliasen at mindspring.com  Tue Jan  6 22:00:59 2004
From: eliasen at mindspring.com (Alan Eliasen)
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 15:00:59 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] Surviving a flood...
Message-ID: <3FFB301B.3040204@mindspring.com>


   In the spirit of the recent calculations of heaven and hell, I humbly
submit a mathematical analysis that I once made about surviving another
Biblical flood.

   The context that led to all of this was that someone stated that
during the flood, "it would have been a good time to be a duck."

-------

   Hmmm... I wondered about that a bit... would a duck have survived a
Great Flood?  The rainfall rate, as seen below, was quite vigorous.  I
just did a bit of research and found that the bible was quite clear on
this point:

    "All flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of
cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the
earth, and every man.  All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of
all that was in the dry land, died."  (Genesis 7:21-22)

    Sorry, Mr. Ducky.  But that's pretty clear.

    I guess that just leaves sea animals.  How many fish would have been
killed?  Let's see.  The bible is also quite precise in its measurement
of the flood.  Genesis 7:19-20 states that "And the waters prevailed
exceedingly upon the earth; and all the mountains, that were under the
whole heaven, were covered.  Fifteen cubits upward did the waters
prevail; and the mountains were covered."

    Okay, so the highest mountains of the earth were covered, plus an
extra 15 cubits (approx 27 feet) for good measure.  The current
measurements for highest mountain is Mt. Everest at 29030.8 feet
(according to the highly dubious and utterly non-trustable 2002 Guinness
Book of World Records.)

     I know that Everest is growing slowly, (best estimates are 2.4
inches/year) so we'll discount for that.  (It makes very little
difference in any case.)  I'm using my "Frink" calculating tool (
http://futureboy.homeip.net/frinkdocs/ ) to find out what this comes out
to.  In Frink notation, this is:

    depth = 29030 feet + 15 biblicalcubits - (2.4 inches/year 4000 years)

    About 28257 feet of water.  This was deposited over 40 days.  The
rainfall was thus:

    rainfall = depth / (40 days)

    Or about 353 inches/hour, or 29 feet/hour.  A good rain around here
is about an inch an hour.  The very rainiest places on earth get about
this much rain in a *year*.  (I'm campaigning Colorado farmers to sin a
bit more...)

    To see if this is a fatal rainfall, one could put a duck in a bucket
(say, a big bucket with a water surface area of 1 square foot, and pour
3.7 gallons of water on him every minute for 40 days and see if he
enjoys it, or repents.  Poor ducky.  I don't think *I* would do this to
him, no matter what bad things he did.

   That's a huge amount of water to add to the planet.  Over the surface
of the earth, this is an approximate additional water volume of:

    floodvolume = 4 pi earthradius2 depth

    This is about 4.4 billion cubic kilometers of water added to the earth.

    Several sources give the current volume of the earth's oceans as
about 1.37 billion cubic kilometers.

    oceanvolume = 1.37 billion cubic kilometers

    The volume attributed to the flood is about *3.2 times* the volume
of the water in earth's oceans.  Thus, the salinity of the water
(assuming the flood waters were fresh water) would be reduced to a
factor of:

    oceanvolume / (floodvolume + oceanvolume)

    Or, to a salinity of only about 24% of the ocean's original value.
Any sea fish or freshwater fish that couldn't live in this new altered
salinity for at least 150 days would die.  The lakes and oceans would of
course become one giant ocean covering the planet.  (The exact amount of
mixing of the layers is left as a problem for the biblical scholar.)  I
don't know how many fish this would kill; does anyone?

    And think of the change in ocean pressure!  Adding over 28000 feet
of water column would increase ocean pressure by:

    depth water gravity -> psi

    Or over 12,000 pounds per square inch increase in pressure at any
given level in the former oceans!  This is about 833 atmospheres of
pressure!  Every fish that didn't start swimming upward would tend to be
crushed by the pressure.   A fish accustomed to living near the surface,
if it stayed in the same spot, would soon find itself under pressures as
high as the bottom of the ocean is now.  How fast does the pressure
increase?

    rainfall gravity water -> psi/hour

    About 12 psi/hour or .87 atmospheres/hour.  Most fish could take
this rate of increase over a short period, but would probably have to
make up their mind early to start moving on up.

    A quick look at standard Navy decompression tables hints that if a
clever human tried to ride out the great flood by remaining underwater,
they would have to keep swimming upward pretty constantly.   When you're
adding 29 feet of water every hour, it would be quite easy to get behind
to a point that you couldn't ever catch up.

    It probably wasn't fun to be a fish or a bottom-dwelling creature at
that time, either.  They might die by:

    * Salinity changes
    * Pressure changes

    What else?

    So where did the water come from and where did it go to?  Creating
this much water from energy at this rate (E=mc2) would require a power
output *652 trillion times* the amount of power that the earth receives
from the sun.  No half-measure, this flood.

----

    P.S.  I learned something else from this.  Here's a good trivia
question to spring on your favorite biblical scholar:  "how many animals
of each type did Noah take with him on the ark?"  I found out from this
research that the answer isn't what I thought it was.  I sprung this on
my mom, who has been teaching religious education classes for 26 years
and she didn't know it.  (No, it's not the usual "How many animals did
Moses bring on the ark" trick question.)  It's not at all a trick
question--it seems that the bible has been quoted incorrectly in the
popular literature.  I wonder how many people would get this right?  For
the answer, read Genesis 7:2-3.  To make it more specific, you can ask
"how many ducks did Noah take on the ark?"

-- 
  Alan Eliasen                 | "You cannot reason a person out of a
  eliasen at mindspring.com       |  position he did not reason himself
  http://futureboy.homeip.net/ |  into in the first place."
                               |     --Jonathan Swift



From extropy at audry2.com  Tue Jan  6 23:12:19 2004
From: extropy at audry2.com (Major)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 07:12:19 +0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Heinlein for real
In-Reply-To: <000001c3d493$99d24080$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>
	(aperick@centurytel.net)
References: <000001c3d493$99d24080$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>
Message-ID: <200401062312.i06NCJv02552@igor.synonet.com>


> [...] has any of you ever gotten seriously enthusiastic about Polyamory?
> 
> PS: Hella good postings today, I love you guys.

All of us?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Major


From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it  Tue Jan  6 22:12:08 2004
From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 23:12:08 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Surviving a flood...
In-Reply-To: <3FFB301B.3040204@mindspring.com>
References: <3FFB301B.3040204@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401062307100.25957@hercules>

On Tue, 6 Jan 2004, Alan Eliasen wrote:

>question to spring on your favorite biblical scholar:  "how many animals
>of each type did Noah take with him on the ark?"  I found out from this
>research that the answer isn't what I thought it was.  I sprung this on

Lots more than 2 per species. He needed to feed the carnivores, that is :)
There was a small garden in the rear section of the ship for the
herbivores.

You know, before the flood, the duckirott and papris where the common farm
animals, much better than the pig.  But, Noah only took 2 of each with
him, and staying on a boat for all that time made him very hungry.

Ciao,
Alfio


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan  6 22:49:47 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 14:49:47 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence 
In-Reply-To: <02e401c3d49b$b280c9f0$62256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <20040106224947.68976.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Dirk Bruere <dirk at neopax.com> wrote:
> 
> Are you all retards here?
> Unable to see what the question is without a dictionary?
> You another Mensa member?

Nope, though I am a comp-sci major and have an IQ of 160, thank you
very much. I know the difference between a website and a home page.
Someone obviously has led you to the delusion that only domain names
are websites. This is incorrect.

> 
> Have some free info -
> http://www.sff.net/people/john-c-wright/
> is shorthand for
> http://www.sff.net/people/john-c-wright/index.html

The first URL is the website, a directory called 'people/john-c-wright'
which the www.sff.net domain name is pointed to by the sff.net apache
or IIS server. The home page specified by the second URL resides within
that directory.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From wingcat at pacbell.net  Tue Jan  6 22:53:13 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 14:53:13 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Wordplay
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040106141859.01c61e88@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <20040106225313.19155.qmail@web80404.mail.yahoo.com>

--- David Lubkin <extropy at unreasonable.com> wrote:
> At 10:07 AM 1/6/2004 -0800, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> >General trick: when someone seems to spout nonsense
> or
> >impossibilities, see if there are alternate
> meanings
> >of certain terms which, when used instead, would
> make
> >what is said make sense.  If so, then it is most
> >likely the case that this alternate was what was
> >meant.
> 
> But it's not as much fun.

True.  This appears to be one of those unfortunate
cases where business and pleasure conflict.  Both are,
of course, important: one should know how to have fun
as well as how to accomplish serious tasks, else both
abilities will be impaired.  (The effect of fun and
sociability on improved business relations has long
been documented, and then there's the reduced
potential for pleasure when one's practical resources
are severely constrained.)

> Besides its recreational side, it can be an
> effective source of story or 
> product ideas.  Also, if you are writing something
> you want to be taken 
> seriously -- a product name, a campaign slogan, a
> soundbite for the evening 
> news -- it's useful to consider how your opposition
> (or Jay Leno) can 
> misconstrue what you wrote.

Quite true.

> And I think it has nootropic benefits.

It's been proven that minds in happy states tend to
positively influence all manner of generic health
measures, especially ability of the immune system.
Also, developing minds in situations where they are
happy - for instance, children with lots of things to
play with, rather than subjected to repetitive and
dull tasks - tend to correlate to minds that will
develop more extensively.

> Similar exercise: choose two words at random.
> 
> (a) Come up with a real-world linkage between them;
> or
> (b) Come up with a fantasy or sf interpretation of
> their combination.

Casimir tap: a cylinder of mirrored wires and
non-mirrored insulation arranged so the Casimir effect
will draw the wires together in such a way that the
wires keep spinning around each other.  Inside a
magnetic field, this would be a perpetual electricity
generator...so long as the energy had somewhere to go,
rather than arcing between the wires and eventually
melting the device.

Of course, in reality, this would probably just be
another perpetual motion device.  (See the long
history of such.)

> Or, take a random noun.  Put a technology buzzword,
> like "virtual," 
> "remote," "collaborative," or "nano" in front of it.
>  See if the 
> combination is new, interesting, and useful.

Nanogoogle.  (Okay, "google" - without the G - is more
of a verb than a noun...but, any takes?)

> Any other techniques y'all use to limber up your
> creativity and imagination?

I tend to think of my imagination as trained since
childhood.  I am a dreamer by profession.  I
occasionally write (usually but not always short)
stories and invent gadgets (sometimes in fantasy/sf
settings, using what's known about the capabilities
available; sometimes in reality, as an excuse to
research and learn what capabilities are available) to
keep that training up.


From jrd1415 at yahoo.com  Tue Jan  6 23:02:29 2004
From: jrd1415 at yahoo.com (Jeff Davis)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 15:02:29 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Surviving a flood...
In-Reply-To: <3FFB301B.3040204@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <20040106230229.85742.qmail@web41213.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Alan Eliasen <eliasen at mindspring.com> wrote:

"Okay, so the highest mountains of the earth were
covered, plus an extra 15 cubits (approx 27 feet) for
good measure.

The current measurements for highest mountain is Mt.
Everest at 29030.8 feet (according to the highly
dubious and utterly non-trustable 2002 Guinness
Book of World Records.)"

         ------------------------------

Your use of Everest here doesn't seem right.  The
authors of the scriptures likely were speaking of the
"known" world, that is, the world known to them. 
Supposing them to have been native to what we now call
the mideast, the Himalayas would probably not have
been known to them.  Consequently, I suggest the
following method for determining the height of the
highest mountain within the world known to the authors
of the Biblical flood story.

Consider the expanse of the known world at the time,
and take the highest mountain within that region. 

Or, take the location of Noah's home town as the
starting point and Ararat as the ending point. 
Calculate the rate of drift--to my knowledge, the arc 
wasn't a sailboat, so speed derived in the
conventional fashion based on hull speed, and power,
doesn't apply here--of the arc based on its
dimensions, load factor, upper bound on wind speed,
and use this to calculate the maximum distance the arc
could have traveled, out and back as it were, on its
way to Ararat.  Then use this as the radius of a
circle(actually Noah's home town and Ararat would be
the foci of an ellipse) encompassing the region to
which the biblical authors could have been referring. 


The biblical authors must have been descendents of
Noah, as all the rest of the people of the known world
are presumed to have drowned.  And the more limited
view of the flood that I am suggesting seems likely,
since Chinese and African peoples either survived--the
more likely conclusion--or evolved subsequently from
Noah's descendents.  Given the large number of Chinese
people compared to semites (ie spawn of Noah), I would
have to go with survived and prospered rather than
evolved, migrated, prospered and reproduced like,
well, er,... Chinese).

Anyway, derive a "highest mountain on earth" by this
method and then recalculate the rainfall rate.

It takes a village to make a village idiot. ;-}

Best, Jeff Davis

    I believe -- no pun intended:) -- the practical 
    thing is usually to change those beliefs that 
    cause the most immediate trouble...
                      Daniel Ust


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From twodeel at jornada.org  Tue Jan  6 23:04:14 2004
From: twodeel at jornada.org (Don Dartfield)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 15:04:14 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence 
In-Reply-To: <20040106211751.44364.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401061343340.26344-100000@hplx.net>

On Tue, 6 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> Website and home page are not necessarily different things. Nor is a
> site what you asked for, you asked first whether he had a site, then you
> asked for a URL. The URL referenced above is a site (notice, no ".html"
> file specified), not a home page, which would be either index.html or
> home.html, or index.php, or something of that sort.

I don't know ... just because the URL doesn't specify a particular file
doesn't mean that it isn't referring specifically to a home page.  URLs
that don't specify page can refer to a whole web site, or can just be
shorthand for the URL of the index page.  And personally, I refuse to use
the term "site" for anything that involves less than two pages.



From thespike at earthlink.net  Tue Jan  6 23:15:51 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 17:15:51 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] memory tabs
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401061343340.26344-100000@hplx.net>
Message-ID: <025c01c3d4ab$089e6400$e3b13841@texas.net>

This might be old news, but it's kinda cool:

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/06/1073268003915.html

CDs could be obsolete in five years
London
January 6, 2004


Compact discs could be history in five years, superceded by a new generation
of fingertip-sized memory tabs with no moving parts.
Each device could store more than a gigabyte of information - equivalent to
1000 high quality images - in one cubic centimetre of space.
Scientists have developed the technology by melding together organic and
inorganic materials in a unique way. They say it could be used to produce a
single-use memory card that permanently stores data and is faster and easier
to operate than a CD.
Turning the invention into a commercially viable, mass marketed product
might take as little as five years, the proponents claim. The card would not
involve any moving parts, such as the laser and motor drive required by
compact discs. [etc]




From dirk at neopax.com  Tue Jan  6 23:23:41 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 23:23:41 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] memory tabs
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401061343340.26344-100000@hplx.net>
	<025c01c3d4ab$089e6400$e3b13841@texas.net>
Message-ID: <033c01c3d4ac$1f02b380$62256bd5@artemis>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Damien Broderick" <thespike at earthlink.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 11:15 PM
Subject: [extropy-chat] memory tabs


> This might be old news, but it's kinda cool:
>
> http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/06/1073268003915.html
>
> CDs could be obsolete in five years
> London
> January 6, 2004
>
>
> Compact discs could be history in five years, superceded by a new
generation
> of fingertip-sized memory tabs with no moving parts.
> Each device could store more than a gigabyte of information - equivalent
to
> 1000 high quality images - in one cubic centimetre of space.
> Scientists have developed the technology by melding together organic and
> inorganic materials in a unique way. They say it could be used to produce
a
> single-use memory card that permanently stores data and is faster and
easier
> to operate than a CD.

30yrs ago they were called 'fusible link PROMs'
Now its the same idea, but in plastic (but still requiring a silicon
interface).
That progress.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From sentience at pobox.com  Tue Jan  6 23:30:02 2004
From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky)
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 18:30:02 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] *Annual* SL4 CHAT: Wed Jan 7th, 9PM EST
Message-ID: <3FFB44FA.3090207@pobox.com>

SL4's second Annual Chat will be on Wednesday, January 7th, 2004, at 9PM 
EST.  In accordance with SL4 tradition, our Annual Chat will be twice as 
intelligent as our ordinary monthly chat.  Those of you who never get 
around to visiting #sl4 might want to try dropping by.

The suggested topic for the annual chat is "Things transhumanists are 
doing wrong."  (Experience suggests that this topic will last all of 5 
minutes before being abandoned.)

To participate through a standard IRC client, connect to "sl4.org" on a
standard IRC port (for example, 6667) and join channel #sl4.
     irc://sl4.org/sl4

To participate through Java applet, point your browser at:
     http://sl4.org/chat/

To clear up any confusion about timezones, go to
     http://www.time.gov/timezone.cgi?Eastern/d/-5/java
to see the current time in Atlanta, GA.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence



From eliasen at mindspring.com  Tue Jan  6 23:45:27 2004
From: eliasen at mindspring.com (Alan Eliasen)
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 16:45:27 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] Surviving a flood...
In-Reply-To: <20040106230229.85742.qmail@web41213.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040106230229.85742.qmail@web41213.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <3FFB4897.1020304@mindspring.com>


   Ummm... just to be sure, did you somehow interpret this satire as
serious attempts at science?  Or were your comments to be treated as
good-natured satire as well, including the orders for me to revise my
work and the insult at the end?  Hope it's the latter.

   In any case, the bible doesn't say anything about *Mount* Ararat; the
original name Urartu was the name for a region of what is now in Turkey,
Iran, and Armenia.  Just for the record.

   In any case, a flood that covered the entire globe to a height of
about 17,000 feet (it would have to; water don't glob up that high like
a raindrop on a car hood) and only rained 60% as hard (17 feet an hour!)
would still tend to make one repent pretty quick.

-- 
  Alan Eliasen                 | "You cannot reason a person out of a
  eliasen at mindspring.com       |  position he did not reason himself
  http://futureboy.homeip.net/ |  into in the first place."
                               |     --Jonathan Swift

Jeff Davis wrote:
> --- Alan Eliasen <eliasen at mindspring.com> wrote:
> 
> "Okay, so the highest mountains of the earth were
> covered, plus an extra 15 cubits (approx 27 feet) for
> good measure.
> 
> The current measurements for highest mountain is Mt.
> Everest at 29030.8 feet (according to the highly
> dubious and utterly non-trustable 2002 Guinness
> Book of World Records.)"
> 
>          ------------------------------
> 
> Your use of Everest here doesn't seem right.  The
> authors of the scriptures likely were speaking of the
> "known" world, that is, the world known to them. 
> Supposing them to have been native to what we now call
> the mideast, the Himalayas would probably not have
> been known to them.  Consequently, I suggest the
> following method for determining the height of the
> highest mountain within the world known to the authors
> of the Biblical flood story.
> 
> Consider the expanse of the known world at the time,
> and take the highest mountain within that region. 
> 
> Or, take the location of Noah's home town as the
> starting point and Ararat as the ending point. 
> Calculate the rate of drift--to my knowledge, the arc 
> wasn't a sailboat, so speed derived in the
> conventional fashion based on hull speed, and power,
> doesn't apply here--of the arc based on its
> dimensions, load factor, upper bound on wind speed,
> and use this to calculate the maximum distance the arc
> could have traveled, out and back as it were, on its
> way to Ararat.  Then use this as the radius of a
> circle(actually Noah's home town and Ararat would be
> the foci of an ellipse) encompassing the region to
> which the biblical authors could have been referring. 
> 
> 
> The biblical authors must have been descendents of
> Noah, as all the rest of the people of the known world
> are presumed to have drowned.  And the more limited
> view of the flood that I am suggesting seems likely,
> since Chinese and African peoples either survived--the
> more likely conclusion--or evolved subsequently from
> Noah's descendents.  Given the large number of Chinese
> people compared to semites (ie spawn of Noah), I would
> have to go with survived and prospered rather than
> evolved, migrated, prospered and reproduced like,
> well, er,... Chinese).
> 
> Anyway, derive a "highest mountain on earth" by this
> method and then recalculate the rainfall rate.
> 
> It takes a village to make a village idiot. ;-}
> 
> Best, Jeff Davis
> 
>     I believe -- no pun intended:) -- the practical 
>     thing is usually to change those beliefs that 
>     cause the most immediate trouble...
>                       Daniel Ust
> 
> 
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Wed Jan  7 00:38:08 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 16:38:08 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] memory tabs
In-Reply-To: <025c01c3d4ab$089e6400$e3b13841@texas.net>
Message-ID: <20040107003808.93684.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Damien Broderick <thespike at earthlink.net> wrote:
> This might be old news, but it's kinda cool:
> 
> http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/06/1073268003915.html
> 
> CDs could be obsolete in five years
> London
> January 6, 2004
> 
> 
> Compact discs could be history in five years, superceded by a new
> generation of fingertip-sized memory tabs with no moving parts.

Who wants to bet that the packaging in the stores won't shrink one bit?

Let me see, though: you can already buy 512MB SUB thumb drives, which
isn't that much smaller than a CD already. Perhaps this article should
have been dated 2001?

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From extropy at unreasonable.com  Wed Jan  7 00:51:22 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 19:51:22 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Surviving a flood...
In-Reply-To: <20040106230229.85742.qmail@web41213.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <3FFB301B.3040204@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040106185802.02d8f008@mail.comcast.net>

At 03:02 PM 1/6/2004 -0800, Jeff Davis wrote:

>The biblical authors must have been descendents of
>Noah, as all the rest of the people of the known world
>are presumed to have drowned.  And the more limited
>view of the flood that I am suggesting seems likely,
>since Chinese and African peoples either survived--the
>more likely conclusion--or evolved subsequently from
>Noah's descendents.  Given the large number of Chinese
>people compared to semites (ie spawn of Noah), I would
>have to go with survived and prospered rather than
>evolved, migrated, prospered and reproduced like,
>well, er,... Chinese).

Noah had three sons, Shem, Japheth, and Ham, whose descendants populated 
the Earth.

According to the Bible directly, the Semites were the descendants of Shem. 
Abram, later known as Abraham, was Shem's great^7-grandson. Abram's two 
kids, Isaac and Ishmael, each got to be a "mighty people" and began the 
Jewish / Arab feud.

Japheth was less blessed, as the middle son, but still respected. He is 
considered the father of the Greeks, who the early rabbis admired. Greek 
was the only language it was acceptable to translate the Bible into, which 
is probably part of the reason why the Christian Bible was in Greek.

Ham was cursed, for making fun of his father's naked, drunken stupor. He 
was deemed the father of Ethiopians (through his son Cush, whose grandson 
was Sheba, as in Queen of), Egyptians, and Canaanites, who were relegated 
to eternal servitude as punishment. Devout colonial American slaveholders 
justified themselves with Genesis 9:25-27.

Nobody explained where Asiatic people came from, although the web abounds 
in more recent explanations.

Which indirectly leads me to a biology question:  how is it that a horse 
and a donkey -- different species, with different numbers of chromosomes -- 
can produce offspring?  What are the limits of cross-species mating, 
besides incompatible hardware, e.g., horse and gerbil?  Given species x, y 
and gestational periods g(x) and g(y), respectively, what will the 
gestational period of an x carrying an x/y hybrid be?


-- David Lubkin.




From eliasen at mindspring.com  Wed Jan  7 01:05:23 2004
From: eliasen at mindspring.com (Alan Eliasen)
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 18:05:23 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] Surviving a flood...
In-Reply-To: <3FFB301B.3040204@mindspring.com>
References: <3FFB301B.3040204@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <3FFB5B53.6090501@mindspring.com>


Alan Eliasen wrote:
>      I know that Everest is growing slowly, (best estimates are 2.4
> inches/year) so we'll discount for that.  (It makes very little
> difference in any case.)  I'm using my "Frink" calculating tool (
> http://futureboy.homeip.net/frinkdocs/ ) to find out what this comes out
> to.  In Frink notation, this is:

>     floodvolume = 4 pi earthradius2 depth

   Correction--in the cut-n-paste, I lost an exponentiation symbol.
This should read

   floodvolume = 4 pi earthradius^2 depth

   The rest is correct Frink notation.

-- 
  Alan Eliasen                 | "You cannot reason a person out of a
  eliasen at mindspring.com       |  position he did not reason himself
  http://futureboy.homeip.net/ |  into in the first place."
                               |     --Jonathan Swift


From aperick at centurytel.net  Wed Jan  7 01:16:16 2004
From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 17:16:16 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence 
In-Reply-To: <200401061908.i06J8mE30410@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <000201c3d4bb$de222b60$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>

Dan/Technotranscendence wrote: (a while back)

>I'm basically anti-democratic.

Wow, I am not the only one? This is sooo cool! I did not believe that I
was an idiot before joining this list, but some of my remaining doubts
re my sanity, wisdom and intelligence have further faded as I read
things like this from other smart beings. 

Hey Dan; what is your personal policy on voting? 


-------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Woolley, Closet nudist*, Certified Scientist Type, Confirmed
Atheist, radical thinker, notorious fuck-up, and self-proclaimed
singular authority on the abysmal depths of human stupidity that only we
few lack. 

* Part time comedian and recovering idealist ... now show me yours :)
http://home.centurytel.net/rickw aperick at centurytel.net




From aperick at centurytel.net  Wed Jan  7 01:41:14 2004
From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 17:41:14 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] A great old quote re AI, and?
In-Reply-To: <200401061908.i06J8mE30410@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <000301c3d4bf$567b9e90$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>

Q: will computers ever think independently?

A: if computers in their ultimate evolutionary form and substance, were
to emulate man, then, based on close observation of the human species, I
estimate that only 3.2 out of every one hundred computers will ever
think for themselves. 

Now, my question: who shall I attribute this quote to? I found it in my
old notes -- without the names of the speakers. Sagan?


-------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Woolley, Closet nudist*, Certified Scientist Type, Confirmed
Atheist, radical thinker, notorious fuck-up, and self-proclaimed
singular authority on the abysmal depths of human stupidity that only we
few lack. 

* Part time comedian and recovering idealist ... now show me yours :)
http://home.centurytel.net/rickw aperick at centurytel.net




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Wed Jan  7 02:46:34 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 18:46:34 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Surviving a flood...
In-Reply-To: <20040106230229.85742.qmail@web41213.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401061844130.6591-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


The largest known mountain in the ancient world was probably
Mt. Ararat.  Currently 16,940 ft (5165 m).  I don't think the
conclusions would change too significantly if one switches
from Mt. Everest to Mt. Ararat.

Robert





From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Wed Jan  7 03:36:50 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 19:36:50 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Surviving a flood...
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401061844130.6591-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040107033650.17768.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>


--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> 
> The largest known mountain in the ancient world was probably
> Mt. Ararat.  Currently 16,940 ft (5165 m).  I don't think the
> conclusions would change too significantly if one switches
> from Mt. Everest to Mt. Ararat.

Well, given that Bob Ballard has demonstrated the likely source of the
flood myth was the breaching of the Bosporus and flooding of the Black
Sea around 5000 BC, can anybody say how long it would take to raise the
Black Sea to its present level, filling it from the Bosporus, and
whether such filling would cause high rainfail for some period???

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From spike66 at comcast.net  Wed Jan  7 03:41:50 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 19:41:50 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] For Us, The Living: evolution sentences
In-Reply-To: <pkhlvvo4tmg44sidholpiqjjv8vuj0r5cc@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <001401c3d4d0$2eff8690$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

Damien Broderick expressed the opinion that an
inattentive editor let this sentence slip thru: 

 
> > One rock
> >selected him and came straight toward him. It was a handsome rock,
flat on
> >one side and brilliant while in the sunshine...


This is a mutant sentence.  

Biological genetic drift depends on random
mutations which change the genome in such a way that
the mutant either is beneficial, or at least not harmful
to the individual.  Evolution of new species depends upon
this phenomenon.

Damien's example is a mutant sentence: a sentence that is
one letter off of the author's likely intention, yet the
typo forms a new word and the new word forms a part of 
speech that causes the new sentence to make sense.  In
some rare cases the mutant sentence is better than the
original, which we could call an evolution sentence.  

Anyone know of examples in literature in which one
can form an evolution sentence by adding, subtracting
or changing a single letter?

spike



From thespike at earthlink.net  Wed Jan  7 03:56:08 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 21:56:08 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] evolution sentences
References: <001401c3d4d0$2eff8690$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <033201c3d4d2$31a196c0$e3b13841@texas.net>


From: "Spike" <spike66 at comcast.net>
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 9:41 PM

> Anyone know of examples in literature in which one
> can form an evolution sentence by adding, subtracting
> or changing a single letter?

The Venetians were greatly offended when Shakespeare wrote:

`Cry havoc, and let slip the doge of war!'

But their mood soon improved when he hastily read from the Bible:

`Thou shalt now commit adultery!'

Damien Broderick



From spike66 at comcast.net  Wed Jan  7 03:56:55 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 19:56:55 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: [atlantis_II] Re: fermi's paradox: m/d approach
In-Reply-To: <001801c3d47f$4babc7f0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <000001c3d4d2$4b14f070$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


> Harvey Newstrom

> 
> This is based on the earliest possible signals when Marconi 
> transmitted wireless telegraph just before 1900.    But it now occurs
to 
> me that they bounced such radio waves off the ionosphere to get around
the 
> curve of the earth.  I am not sure when radio waves started going out
into 
> space, or when they became numerous or interesting enough to be
detectable.  
> The first radio network was NBC starting in 1926.  The first big or
powerful
> transmitters were built by RCA after 1934.  We may have only 
> about 65 years of transmitting to space...  Harvey


Understatement.

Some Morse code would leak past the ionosphere, but consider this: to an
alien civilization, the meaning of Morse code is out of reach.  They
could deduce that a meaningful signal is being sent, but the
transmission of 30 characters presupposes an *enormous* amount of
information in order to interpret.  We could transmit language in
arbitrary quantities, yet it could never be interpreted in the absence
of other information.

Take the next step: radio waves.  Even if highly intelligent aliens
somehow managed to translate them into sounds, they would be no further
along in interpreting these sounds than is humanity in understanding
whale speech.

Can we take it further?  Are our television signals inherently
uninterpretable?  I speculate they are.  If so, the only signal ever
sent from earth that has a chance of being interpreted is that SETI
thing with the stick figures.  Even that is not a very informative
message.

If aliens are listening, about the only thing they could determine is
that some form of intelligence is creating the message.

spike 







From spike66 at comcast.net  Wed Jan  7 04:41:42 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 20:41:42 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence 
In-Reply-To: <02e401c3d49b$b280c9f0$62256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <000201c3d4d8$8c872f40$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

 
> Dirk Bruere...
> 
> Are you all retards here?
> Unable to see what the question is without a dictionary?
> You another Mensa member? ... Dirk

Gentlemen, please, let us be good to each other.  Our
dreams of immortality *might* come true some day, in
which case we could be stuck with each other for a
looooooong time.  {8^D

spike




From aperick at centurytel.net  Wed Jan  7 03:49:32 2004
From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 19:49:32 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Heinlein for real
In-Reply-To: <200401070246.i072klE09031@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3d4d1$4391fc40$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>

Major wrote:

>> ...

>> PS: Hella good postings today, I love you guys.

>All of us?

>Sorry, couldn't resist.


Actually, at the instant in which I typed those last four words my
personal simulation avatar switched to the personality and likeness of
Erick Cartman. And I had in fact typed "I love you guys -- except you
Kenney" but then quickly morphed back into aperick, reached for the
White-Out but then remembered the backspace key. And it's ape-rick NOT
a-prick you bastards :)


-------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Woolley, Closet nudist*, Certified Scientist Type, Confirmed
Atheist, radical thinker, notorious fuck-up, and self-proclaimed
singular authority on the abysmal depths of human stupidity that only we
few lack. 

* Part time comedian and recovering idealist ... now show me yours :)
http://home.centurytel.net/rickw aperick at centurytel.net




From extropy at unreasonable.com  Wed Jan  7 05:02:57 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2004 00:02:57 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: evolution sentences
In-Reply-To: <001401c3d4d0$2eff8690$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
References: <pkhlvvo4tmg44sidholpiqjjv8vuj0r5cc@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040106230937.0304a1f0@mail.comcast.net>

At 07:41 PM 1/6/2004 -0800, Spike wrote:

>Anyone know of examples in literature in which one
>can form an evolution sentence by adding, subtracting
>or changing a single letter?

Precisely the phenomenon you describe actually occurred with an Anne 
McCaffrey collection, which she'd submitted as _Get Of The Unicorn_ but was 
"corrected" to _Get Off The Unicorn_ by a helpful copy editor.

There is conflicting evidence about whether Burgess had wanted his novel 
actually published as _A Clockwork Orang_.  (Orang, as in orangutan, 
meaning "man" in Malay; Burgess lived in Malaysia shortly before the book 
was written.)

Meanwhile, Ed Ferman had a series of contests in F&SF years ago, each 
predicated on love of wordplay and knowledge of science fiction.

One was your idea, limited to sf titles.

http://www.mit.edu/afs/sipb/project/eichin/cruft/text2/scifi-titles

Another was to take a well-known sf title and integrate the author's name, 
as in

When David Gerrold Was One
"I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream At Harlan Ellison"
I, Asimov
Robert Heinlein Is A Harsh Mistress
"Do Androids Dream of Philip K. Dick?"

The funniest are ones that play off or opposite well-known personality 
characteristics of the author, as these do.

And imaginary collaborations, e.g.,

Heinlein & Wylie, Blow Ups Happen When Worlds Collide
Ellison & Disch, The Beast That Shouted Love At the Brave Little Toaster
Zelazny & Piper, Isle of the Dead Little Fuzzy


-- David Lubkin.




From spike66 at comcast.net  Wed Jan  7 05:08:33 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 21:08:33 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence 
In-Reply-To: <000201c3d4d8$8c872f40$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <000501c3d4dc$4c81e260$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

> Gentlemen, please, let us be good to each other.  Our
> dreams of immortality *might* come true some day, in
> which case we could be stuck with each other for a
> looooooong time.  {8^D
> 
> spike

Possible mutant sentence to the above, most likely to
be uttered by Jeremy Rifkin and his luddite ilk:

"Our dreads of immortality *might* come true some day..."

{8^D

spike



From spike66 at comcast.net  Wed Jan  7 05:39:16 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 21:39:16 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: evolution sentences
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040106230937.0304a1f0@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <000001c3d4e0$96fbe800$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

> At 07:41 PM 1/6/2004 -0800, Spike wrote:
> 
> >Anyone know of examples in literature in which one
> >can form an evolution sentence by adding, subtracting
> >or changing a single letter?
> 

Perhaps some of you will recall the lyrics to the Cat Stevens hit Bad
Brakes:

...Bad brakes whole car shakes
Looks like I'm heading for a breakdown
Black smoke engine beginning to choke
I must be heading for a breakdown...

The words "heading for a breakdown" was a common catchphrase of the late
70s meaning things were not going well.  At my high school, the social
clubs would paint signs and hang them about the campus to raise school
spirit and encourage the football team.  The FHS or Future Homemakers
Society, was not known for its intellectual achievement (do allow me to
draw the curtain of mercy upon the details of this comment).  

In any case, this particular club was painting its banners on the week
we were to face the Hillsborough Hawks.  This enormous banner was
painted with the immortal words 

"The Hawks are HEADING FOR A BEAKDOWN"

The banner was hung with *not one* of the club members noticing the
apparent misspelling.  When it was pointed out the next day with great
derision and mirth, I suggested that this was slyly intentional, for the
Hawks would surely be despondent upon their gridirion defeat and thus
their collective countenance would be fallen, and so they would leave
the field with faces downcast: the hawks' beaks would be down.

This ignited extensive debate over whether the FHS could ever muster
enough collective brains to actually come up with a clever mutant
sentence.  Had the young Mensans, the debate team or the chess club
painted such a sign, everyone would grant them the benefit of the doubt.
As a joke, or perhaps in all levitious seriousity, that FHS banner was
given the prize for team spirit.  Thenceforth, the phrase "heading for a
beakdown" replaced the more familiar Cat Stevens breakdown version.

spike 











From Johnius at Genius.UCSD.edu  Wed Jan  7 06:03:31 2004
From: Johnius at Genius.UCSD.edu (Johnius)
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 22:03:31 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Heinlein for real
Message-ID: <3FFBA133.5411E724@Genius.UCSD.edu>

Rick wrote:
> After reading Heinlein (Stranger..., Friday, etc.) has any of you ever
> gotten seriously enthusiastic about Polyamory? 
> Edify me in public, or sympathize off-list if you fear ridicule. 

	When I first read of such things in his books, I didn't think
	much about it really.  I thought that he was trying to be
	creative and envelop-pushing and so wrote about all kinds of
	unusual things.  I took it in stride.  I have to admit that
	I did find myself thinking about the episode where Lazarus	
	Long (I think) ended up having sex with his "daughters"
	(clones of his made female by doubling the X and tossing the Y)!

	A few years after Heinlein, a girl I was interested in turned
	me on to the idea of polyamory, and it clicked for me, 
	intellectually.  Unfortunately for me, this girl's version of 
	Poly was "deeply intimate celibacy", if you know what I mean.
	Around this time I entered a sexual relationship with another 
	girl, but it turns out she was strictly monogamous and felt 
	hurt by my telling her about my polyamorous tendencies.  Oops!
	I then got the message that Poly is much more controversial
	than I'd thought (I was such an innocent :-).  Anyway, for 
	her, I remained behaviorally monogamous.

	Later I met a fellow leading a seminar on "non-violent 
	communication", and he introduced me to a local community of
	people living the Poly lifestyle.  I went to a few of their 
	parties, but unfortunately almost all of them were significantly
	older than me and I wasn't interested in any of the women 
	there (well, except one younger one who was excellent, except
	that she too wasn't into sex, or at least sex with me. Argh!).

	And so it's been for me.  I've had a few non-Poly girlfriends,
	haven't been interested in the Poly women I've met so far,
	and yet have multiple attractions and would go Poly if I
	could!  As far as resources, check out polyamory.org, and
	of course the book _The Ethical Slut_ is a classic :-)

	Meanwhile, a few years ago I met a girl who's read almost
	every fiction book Heinlein wrote, and she was a lot of fun
	(though "just a friend") ... at least it was nice to chat 
	about his ideas with her :-)

	Best, Johnius


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Wed Jan  7 07:32:39 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 23:32:39 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Surviving a flood...
In-Reply-To: <20040107033650.17768.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401062305190.14211-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Tue, 6 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> Well, given that Bob Ballard has demonstrated the likely source of the
> flood myth was the breaching of the Bosporus and flooding of the Black
> Sea around 5000 BC, can anybody say how long it would take to raise the
> Black Sea to its present level, filling it from the Bosporus, and
> whether such filling would cause high rainfail for some period???

Well, given the region, one might estimate the initial Black Sea
level as perhaps the level of the Dead Sea below Sea level.  Then
estimate the volume of water required to raise it to sea level.
But to do this accurately one needs to know the area at the
below sea level and the final area of the Black Sea now.
But to really do it right one needs the pre-5000 BC Black
Sea level and a complete set of sea depths at various points
to compute the volume of water that was added.

I'm doubtful that filling the Black Sea could cause the rainfall.
But one might speculate that something like a volcano eruption
seeding clouds or perhaps an asteroid impact in the Mediterranean
could have raised its level to break through into the Black Sea.

Robert




From scerir at libero.it  Wed Jan  7 08:17:59 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 09:17:59 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hell
References: <157240-2200412617214495@M2W042.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <04ab01c3d4f6$c3607df0$33be1b97@administxl09yj>

> Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their
> religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these
> religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can
> project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are,
> we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.

Why only one? According to MWI (here in the Many Souls version) the number
of Hells (and Paradises) is, of course, also unbounded.








From gpmap at runbox.com  Wed Jan  7 10:23:54 2004
From: gpmap at runbox.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 11:23:54 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Lifeline Nutraceuticals and Ceremedix news
Message-ID: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGCEKCCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>

>From the Lifeline Nutraceuticals and Ceremedix websites and mailing lists:
Protandim has now been covered by over 120 media sources stretching all
across the globe. Feature articles in major newspapers, as well as coverage
by an NBC news affiliate and international radio broadcasts.
Lifeline Nutraceuticals (Lifeline) is currently looking to close out its
fundraising that is earmarked for FDA approval processes and product
commercialization. Closing has been delayed due to contractual obligations,
but we hope to break escrow by mid February. Internal and independent
product tests have been conducted, but some of these studies will be
repeated for the FDA as soon as the funding is finalized. Final human trials
will also begin at that time.
Lifeline is a privately held Denver-based nutraceutical licensing and
marketing company. Lifeline has a unique anti-aging nutraceutical, protandim
(TM), that acts by mobilizing the body's own defense and repair mechanisms,
resulting in the rescue of tissues and organs of the body that would
otherwise be irrevocably damaged by the effects of "oxidative stress" caused
by aging and numerous diseases.
Quite a few inquiries have revolved around the publication date of studies
that have already been completed. Lifeline and its affiliate pharmaceutical
company, CereMedix, have intentionally chosen to not publish studies at this
time.
CereMedix, Inc., is a privately held Massachusetts-based drug discovery and
development company. CereMedix has a unique portfolio of peptide-based
product candidates with the unique action of activating certain genes
present in cells of the human body that act as the bodys own defend and
repair mechanisms. The switching on of these genes results in the rescue of
tissues and organs of the body that would otherwise be irrevocably damaged
by the effects of oxidative stress resulting from aging and multiple
diseases. The company is targeting its therapeutic products at multi-billion
dollar markets with no viable existing therapeutics.
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From neptune at superlink.net  Wed Jan  7 11:58:17 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 06:58:17 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: [atlantis_II] Re: fermi's paradox: m/d approach
Message-ID: <007901c3d515$8aac8f20$a3cd5cd1@neptune>

Another cross-post from Atlantis II. -- Dan

P.S.:  Thanks to Robert and Dennis for their continued participation in
this debate.

From: Dennis May <determinism at hotmail.com>
To: <atlantis_II at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 1:53 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: [atlantis_II] Re: fermi's paradox: m/d approach


I wrote:

>The other question is: why is my solution to the Fermi Paradox
>less plausible - since it does not depend on new science,
>big brains, or unknown nanotechnology?

Robert J. Bradbury wrote

"If by this you mean that civilizations self-destruct, I don't consider
it less plausible."

My solution is that only stealthy, dispersed, nomadic civilizations
can survive WoMD in space.

The MBrain solution is centralized command and control.

They are two very different models of how to survive WoMD.
I don't doubt that centralized command and control can work
for a while.  I don't consider it to be a stable solution.

Dennis May

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/atlantis_II/




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Wed Jan  7 13:02:10 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 05:02:10 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hell
In-Reply-To: <04ab01c3d4f6$c3607df0$33be1b97@administxl09yj>
Message-ID: <20040107130210.7219.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>


--- scerir <scerir at libero.it> wrote:
> > Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their
> > religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of
> these
> > religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion,
> we can
> > project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as
> they are,
> > we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase
> exponentially.
> 
> Why only one? According to MWI (here in the Many Souls version) the
> number of Hells (and Paradises) is, of course, also unbounded.

Not necessarily. It could easily be one locale outside the space-time
continuum. Being faced with the infinity of your sins that you not only
committed, but WOULD have committed, would be a fine torture indeed for
a place like hell.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Wed Jan  7 12:40:13 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 04:40:13 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Lifeline Nutraceuticals and Ceremedix news
In-Reply-To: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGCEKCCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401070424560.19462-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Wed, 7 Jan 2004, Giu1i0 Pri5c0 wrote:

> >From the Lifeline Nutraceuticals and Ceremedix websites and mailing lists:

[snip]

I would be *highly* doubtful...  Sounds too much like a scam to me.

> Lifeline has a unique anti-aging nutraceutical, protandim (TM),

But *what* is it?

> ... the effects of "oxidative stress" caused by aging and numerous diseases.

Hmmm... the conventional wisdom is that oxidative stress causes aging
not aging causes oxidative stress.  (Living does cause oxidative stress
but without consuming oxygen we wouldn't be able to live.)

> CereMedix has a unique portfolio of peptide-based product candidates

If they are unique then there should be patents and one should not have
a problem disclosing them right?

Furthermore if they are peptides (sequences of amino-acids) then one
has a problem getting them through the digestive tract without being
broken down.  So they would need to be injected right?  If they are
overloading the digestive tract so some peptides might be absorbed
how do they account in individual differences in digestive capacity?

> with the unique action of activating certain genes present in cells

What genes precisely?

> of the human body that act as the bodys own defend and
> repair mechanisms.

Hmmm... presumably that is "defense and repair".  Mind you there are
substances that activate the Phase II detoxification system which
are in foods like brocolli and perhaps garlic.  Google on sulphorophane
or allicin and "Phase II".

Unless they point out something concrete that is novel I'd stick
with substances that are known, the subject of public studies
and probably much cheaper.

> The company is targeting its therapeutic products at multi-billion
> dollar markets with no viable existing therapeutics.

Well that statement is obligatory otherwise why would anyone be
interested?

Robert




From rafal at smigrodzki.org  Wed Jan  7 18:02:24 2004
From: rafal at smigrodzki.org (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 10:02:24 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence 
In-Reply-To: <000201c3d4bb$de222b60$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>
Message-ID: <OJEHKDIANIFPAJPDBDGLEELDCNAA.rafal@smigrodzki.org>

rick wrote:
> Dan/Technotranscendence wrote: (a while back)
>
>> I'm basically anti-democratic.
>
> Wow, I am not the only one? This is sooo cool! I did not believe that
> I was an idiot before joining this list, but some of my remaining
> doubts re my sanity, wisdom and intelligence have further faded as I
> read things like this from other smart beings.

### Welcome to the club! I am also anti-democratic (i.e.
anti-majoritarian-elective-democracy), although I am strongly pro-democratic
in the sense of letting people have maximum control over their own lives (be
masters of their own destiny rather than being ruled by elites or mobs), for
example by market-like mechanisms.

Rafal



From mark at permanentend.org  Wed Jan  7 16:13:49 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 11:13:49 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
References: <OJEHKDIANIFPAJPDBDGLEELDCNAA.rafal@smigrodzki.org>
Message-ID: <04ba01c3d539$3c5dd3a0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>

There are a number of ways to slice the eugenic (good breeding) pie, but one
that is relevant for my question to you has to do with the state/versus
nonstate distinction. Many transhumanists are in favor of eugenics, e.g.,
embryo selection for desirable traits, or elimination of embryos with
perceived defects, so long as it is not done in a state mandated way.
According to this doctrine, it is morally permissible for individuals or
families to make decisions about what constitutes good breeding , but it is
not permissible for the state to mandate such matters. Of course the Nazis
were the great
"popularizes" of state sponsored eugenics, but as Kevles et al. have pointed
out, many other nations were
involved. Hopefully, according to this doctrine, we have learnt our lesson
here.

Eumemics, as you have already guessed, has to do with good memeing. If you
believe in state mandated good memeing raise your hands. For example, how
many of you believe in state mandated education? Or do you believe it should
be left entirely up to parents or the children themselves whether children
get an education or not?

Question: suppose you believe that at least some state mandated eumemics
is morally permissible (e.g., education), but you do not believe in state
mandated eugenics, what is the principle or principles that makes it morally
permissible in the one case but not the other? Now of course you could
reject the question because you don't believe in state mandated eumemics,
even education. Well, at least here you will have consistency on your side.
I guess most of us reject this because of the harm that children will suffer
if their parents decided that they do not want to have their children
educated. It is interesting to note that even some staunch libertarians
think
that children are a special case, that is, that the state has a special
interest in the lives of children in a way that it should not in adult
lives. In any event, if you don't believe in state mandated education then
pleasing stop reading here. (To say that education is state mandated is
independent of the question of who should run it and who should pay for it,
e.g., this is consistent with private run schools).

Here are some possible candidates for the operative principle or principles:

1. Eugenics interferes with parental rights to choose the sort of children
they want to have.

Rebuttal: Surely eumemics interferes with parental rights just as much. If
you want to raise your child to not be infected with decadent mass culture
surely not allowing your child to read or write might seem like an appealing
option. So, forcing children to go to school infringes on parental rights
here. I guess most of us would say this infringement is justified. So, why
is it not justified in the case of eugenics, e.g., not allowing severely
mentally or physically disabled children to be born. Or perhaps not allowing
children with an IQ of less than 120 to be born?

2. Parents know what is best for their children, the state does not.

Rebuttal: Much the same point as above. What do we say to parents who do not
want to educate their children? Isn't the answer that in this case the state
knows best? So why not in the case of eugenics?

3. State mandated eugenics necessarily compromises the autonomy of
individuals whereas education does not.

Rebuttal: The full answer to this point would require rehashing the
discussion of the principle of potential plentitude (discussed a while back
on the WTA-list), but here is the
Readers' Digest version: Suppose the state mandates that embryos are to be
selected for high IQ, athletic potential, perfect pitch, and the capacity to
readily acquire virtues. (For the last of these see:
www.permanentend.org/gvp.htm) If you are the product of such a selection you
could still refuse to exercise any of the genetic potentials you have been
given, e.g., you could spend your time in your parent's basement smoking pot
and listening to punk music rather than attempting to develop your
intellect,
your athletic, moral or musical potential. As I argued in connection with
the Principle of Potential Plentitude discussion, enhanced
potential (in many cases) actually increases autonomy, it does not reduce
it.

4. State mandated eugenics may compromise the autonomy of individuals
whereas eumemics does not.

Explanation: This differs from the previous point in that it allows that
eugenics could be used in a way that does not compromise autonomy, but
worries that the state might use eugenics to compromise autonomy. Suppose
like some bad sci-fi movie embryos were selected for aggressive potential so
that the individuals could be made into fearsome soldiers (or some such
nonsense). Eumemics, on the other hand, does not compromise the autonomy
of individuals.

Rebuttal: State mandated eumemics can be used to compromise the autonomy
of individuals, consider for example indoctrination, propaganda, etc. The
Nazis too were helpful
in "popularizing" eumemics. If it is the mere potential for abuse that
stops us with eugenics then why do we not disallow all forms of eumemics
on the same basis? (And let us not under estimate the power of eumemics to
harm. I have a friend whose father went to a Nazi school for his education.
His father still celebrates Hitler's birthday every year with friends over
drinks).

Cheers,

Mark


Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org






From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Wed Jan  7 16:41:24 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 11:41:24 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Lifeline Nutraceuticals and Ceremedix news
In-Reply-To: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGCEKCCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>
Message-ID: <007501c3d53d$19be0230$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

This was discussed on ImmInst.com a few months ago.  See
<http://imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=69&t=2082&st=0&#entry15690>.
Reason got misquoted by them and had to ask them to remove his name as
implying endorsement.  They also have some research and references there
about what this stuff is and where the research came from.  A dissertation
about the substance was published.  See
http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/ETD/Available/etd-0429103-132144/.  Earlier
references to the company and their research were discussed on ImmInst one
year ago.  See
<http://imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=39&t=1431&st=0&#entry10693>.

--
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com>




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Wed Jan  7 17:51:23 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 09:51:23 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Nutraceutical advice needed
In-Reply-To: <007501c3d53d$19be0230$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040107175123.16204.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>

As from my prior post re: my mother's health situation, I'm interested
in finding out about any nutraceuticals with proven abilities to
improve digestion efficiency as well as something that improves the
availability of digested anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs to
cross the blood brain barrier. If someone wants to discuss it, please
email me and I can detail what meds she is taking and her other health
issues. Mitigating any deterioration of her current condition is of
immediate importance, as encephalopathy can lead to coma and death if
it is not halted and/or reversed.

One list member got me a good contact in the cloning field that I am
pursuing, so that is much appreciated, though its more of a long term solution.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From wingcat at pacbell.net  Wed Jan  7 18:37:28 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 10:37:28 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
In-Reply-To: <04ba01c3d539$3c5dd3a0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <20040107183728.98118.qmail@web80409.mail.yahoo.com>

Just playing devil's advocate here...

--- Mark Walker <mark at permanentend.org> wrote:
> Question: suppose you believe that at least some
> state mandated eumemics
> is morally permissible (e.g., education), but you do
> not believe in state
> mandated eugenics, what is the principle or
> principles that makes it morally
> permissible in the one case but not the other?

Technical understanding.  The state, having evolved
through memetic influences, has at least a rough
understanding of beneficial vs. non-beneficial memes.
Although this understanding can easily be demonstrated
to be flawed in certain cases - and in those cases, it
should be (and is being, to some degree) restricted
from action - it can also be demonstrated to have
selected certain good memes (insofar as any meme can
be judged absolutely "good", independent of the
memeset of the observer).

On the other hand, genetic engineering is very much in
its infancy, so imposing genetic solutions at this
time - prior to a better understanding of what genes
do what - is likely to cause more problems than it
solves.  (Note that this does not apply to, say,
state-mandated treatment of genes that are well
understood to be desirable or not; for instance,
correcting the gene that gives cystic fibrosis or
certain other diseases.  But in these specific cases,
there is not much debate anyway: what parent wants
their child to be born sick?)

Perhaps a better way to put it: both memetic and
genetic engineering are allowed when it is widely
known what memes/genes are good and what are bad.  Not
just a simple democratic majority (although it may
come to that in some cases), but closer to universal
consensus levels.  Without that knowledge, attempts to
impose solutions have historically just caused damage
without achieving the desired results; the limits on
government impositions in this case are there to
prevent a repeat of that mistake.


From megao at sasktel.net  Wed Jan  7 18:34:00 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2004 12:34:00 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Nutraceutical advice needed
References: <20040107175123.16204.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <3FFC5117.1C4E1AAF@sasktel.net>

Hi Mike:

One thing that comes to mind is dimethy-sulfoxide, a common aprotic solvent and lab
catalyst.  It has the interesting property of facilitating the transport of small
and medium sized molecules accross physical barriers such as skin , blood-brain
barrier and colon.

http://www.dmso.org/subLevels/literature.htm
I have not reviewed this site completely but it summarizes some relevant
literature.

As a personal note I consumed about a teaspoonful of 100 % DMSO- spectro  grade for
about 4 years from 1973-1977.  It tastes like bitterish  garlic.  It has a warm
taste as it dilates surface blood vessels.  After a few days you get used to it.
It does have one downside, your breath will contain dimethysulfide so you will reek
of garlic.  There is a 90% solution available in the veterinary use area.

A lot has been said about this compound, but it falls in the orphan drug category ,
and it has never caught the financial fancy of any pharma company

Having said all this, I think you may find it quite useful overall.

**************************************

The trade publication "natural health products industry  insider" has had industry
product review articles one of which has focused on colon health.

http://www.naturalproductsinsider.com
http://cgi.vpico.com/search/search.asp?simple=yes&index=npindex&request=colon

Morris Johnson
Mike Lorrey wrote:

> As from my prior post re: my mother's health situation, I'm interested
> in finding out about any nutraceuticals with proven abilities to
> improve digestion efficiency as well as something that improves the
> availability of digested anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs to
> cross the blood brain barrier. If someone wants to discuss it, please
> email me and I can detail what meds she is taking and her other health
> issues. Mitigating any deterioration of her current condition is of
> immediate importance, as encephalopathy can lead to coma and death if
> it is not halted and/or reversed.
>
> One list member got me a good contact in the cloning field that I am
> pursuing, so that is much appreciated, though its more of a long term solution.
>
> =====
> Mike Lorrey
> "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
>                                        - Gen. John Stark
> "Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
>                                        - Mike Lorrey
> Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
> Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
> http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Wed Jan  7 19:29:13 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 11:29:13 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Lifeline Nutraceuticals and Ceremedix news
In-Reply-To: <007501c3d53d$19be0230$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401071116250.28083-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Wed, 7 Jan 2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote:

> See:
> http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/ETD/Available/etd-0429103-132144/.

Though I have not reviewed the imminst discussions, reviewing the
above brings to mind a number of questions.
a) *What* SOD is being upregulated -- there are 3?
b) Are their immunoblot tests which generally require antibodies
   selective for one of the 3 SODs?
c) How does one know that the upregulation of SODs is not a
   cellular response to a pro-oxidative response to the peptides
   involved?  (I.e. the peptides may activate cellular systems
   that generate oxidative stress and the cells respond by
   increasing SOD production -- in which case one is dealing
   with a double edged sword that may harm as much as it helps.)

And I'll note that the peptides were delivered i.v. (direct
injection into the bloodstream) which by definition are *not*
nutraceuticals which presumably must be eaten.  If the
substances are peptides to be delivered i.v. then they would
be considered drugs and have to go through the normal FDA
drug approval process.

Robert




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Wed Jan  7 20:07:56 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 12:07:56 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
In-Reply-To: <20040107183728.98118.qmail@web80409.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401071145560.28083-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Wed, 7 Jan 2004, Adrian Tymes wrote:

Ok, Mark has laid out a rather large swamp and I may
get to his post at some point but here I'll deal with
some of Adrian's points...

> Technical understanding.  The state, having evolved
> through memetic influences, has at least a rough
> understanding of beneficial vs. non-beneficial memes.

Ha!  Lets see -- we have the Greek, Roman and southern
U.S. cultures that evolved through a number of memetic
influences and yet all had slave based economies.
Beneficial? yes. Morally correct? probably not.

> On the other hand, genetic engineering is very much in
> its infancy, so imposing genetic solutions at this
> time - prior to a better understanding of what genes
> do what - is likely to cause more problems than it solves.

Well... it seems likely that the insights are going
to come quite quickly (within 1, certainly 2, decades
for most complex traits).  Why should a state allow
the birth of less than average intelligence individuals
or individuals with genetic defects that may pose a
health care burden upon the state (and the shareholders
of the state -- i.e. the taxpayers) at some future date?

> (Note that this does not apply to, say,
> state-mandated treatment of genes that are well
> understood to be desirable or not; for instance,
> correcting the gene that gives cystic fibrosis or
> certain other diseases.  But in these specific cases,
> there is not much debate anyway: what parent wants
> their child to be born sick?)

Oh, no Adrian you don't get away with that.  There is
a very active "classic" debate within the bioethics
community that uses the example of deaf parents who
want their child to be born deaf when presented with
a proposal by the medical community to use genetic
engineering to reverse the child's deafness.  It
gets into very sticky issues that involve the
presumption that to exist as a deaf person is
somehow less valid than existing as a non-deaf person.
Once you make the assumption that people should
be non-deaf you are on the slippery slope that
would argue that everyone should be superintelligent
rather than simply of average intelligence.

> Perhaps a better way to put it: both memetic and
> genetic engineering are allowed when it is widely
> known what memes/genes are good and what are bad.

Subjective.  What is good and bad are entirely context
dependent.  There are contexts where Vulcan logic
and disinvolvement are the best way to go and there
are contexts where the the Klingon perspective that
"Today is a good day to die" are on the mark.
Didn't you learn anything from Star Trek??? :-)


> Not just a simple democratic majority (although it may
> come to that in some cases), but closer to universal
> consensus levels.

But the consensus can be quite wrong (perhaps as the
slavery example cited above may indicate).

> Without that knowledge, attempts to
> impose solutions have historically just caused damage
> without achieving the desired results; the limits on
> government impositions in this case are there to
> prevent a repeat of that mistake.

But do such limits accomplish this?  I once dated a woman
who used to joke about the fact that if her son could
grow up and become a basketball player then her life
would be golden.  With her this type of conversation
was simple fantasy -- but one has to suspect that there
are parents out there that would be willing to pay
megabucks to have children who would be well suited
for the NFL, NBL, WWF, Fear Factor, etc.  Given the subtlety
of various genetic interventions from a strict health vs.
enhancement to excel in sports, beauty, etc. it is going
to be very difficult to get the damage v. benefit equation
correct at either an individual or societal level.

I can easily make an argument that the right of a parent
to enhance their child to be an ideal physical individual
for the NFL directly harms me as a parent who does not
choose to enhance his child to that level.  Furthermore
the enhancement of such individuals may contribute to
their being violent megalomaniacs which are certainly
a threat to society.

I don't think one gets out of this box easily.

Robert




From mark at permanentend.org  Wed Jan  7 22:19:30 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 17:19:30 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
References: <20040107183728.98118.qmail@web80409.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <011f01c3d56c$52c2d3b0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>



> Just playing devil's advocate here...

I'm not sure I believe it, but your argument has ingenuity on its side; the
devil should count his blessings having you on his side.

>
>> Technical understanding.  The state, having evolved
> through memetic influences, has at least a rough
> understanding of beneficial vs. non-beneficial memes.
> Although this understanding can easily be demonstrated
> to be flawed in certain cases - and in those cases, it
> should be (and is being, to some degree) restricted
> from action - it can also be demonstrated to have
> selected certain good memes (insofar as any meme can
> be judged absolutely "good", independent of the
> memeset of the observer).
>
> On the other hand, genetic engineering is very much in
> its infancy, so imposing genetic solutions at this
> time - prior to a better understanding of what genes
> do what - is likely to cause more problems than it
> solves.  (Note that this does not apply to, say,
> state-mandated treatment of genes that are well
> understood to be desirable or not; for instance,
> correcting the gene that gives cystic fibrosis or
> certain other diseases.  But in these specific cases,
> there is not much debate anyway: what parent wants
> their child to be born sick?)
>

Is the problem here the technology or the desirability of the traits? If the
former then it is sufficient to limit the state's interest here to embryo
selection. One could examine embryos for genetic markers associated with
high IQ and CF and sort accordingly. If the latter then the fact that the
technology is in its infancy might caution us against providing new traits,
say extra legs so that one could be as fleet of foot as satyrs. But what
about values that we already endorse through eumemics, e.g., knowledge. If
we look for genetic markers to ensure a goodly quantity of intelligence to
allow at least the possibility that embryo will be able to have a goodly
quantity of knowledge. Any given level of knowledge by an individual has a
corresponding minimum level of intelligence that individual must possess. If
we increase intelligence then we will have raised the ceiling for knowledge.
The eumemic equivalent of course is the attempt to impart knowledge to our
offspring through education.

> Perhaps a better way to put it: both memetic and
> genetic engineering are allowed when it is widely
> known what memes/genes are good and what are bad.  Not
> just a simple democratic majority (although it may
> come to that in some cases), but closer to universal
> consensus levels.  Without that knowledge, attempts to
> impose solutions have historically just caused damage
> without achieving the desired results; the limits on
> government impositions in this case are there to
> prevent a repeat of that mistake.

I'm no historian, but I think the history of mandatory education is perhaps
a relevant counterexample to your general claim. There seems to have been
quite a bit of resistance to mandatory education in the U.S. and it seems to
have taken quite a long time to make it mandatory in every state in the U.S.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0112617.html . So if we are agreed that
mandatory education is a good thing (again allowing for the possibility of
it being privatized) then it seems that the "wisdom" of the state exceed
that of the consensus of the population. The near consensus on the goodness
of mandatory education came after the fact. That point aside, it seems that
the council for the defense has only come up with a temporary restraining
order, as our knowledge of what eugenics can do it seems that there will no
longer be a principled reason for allowing state mandated eumemics but not
eugenics.

Thanks for your input.

Cheers,

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org





From wingcat at pacbell.net  Wed Jan  7 22:42:53 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 14:42:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401071145560.28083-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040107224253.56739.qmail@web80408.mail.yahoo.com>

--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 7 Jan 2004, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> > Technical understanding.  The state, having
> evolved
> > through memetic influences, has at least a rough
> > understanding of beneficial vs. non-beneficial
> memes.
> 
> Ha!  Lets see -- we have the Greek, Roman and
> southern
> U.S. cultures that evolved through a number of
> memetic
> influences and yet all had slave based economies.
> Beneficial? yes. Morally correct? probably not.

I said rough, but I also said imperfect.  Where it is
imperfect, it should be resisted.  It's not a blanket
"all eumemics are okay" or "all eumemics are not okay"
statement.

> > On the other hand, genetic engineering is very
> much in
> > its infancy, so imposing genetic solutions at this
> > time - prior to a better understanding of what
> genes
> > do what - is likely to cause more problems than it
> solves.
> 
> Well... it seems likely that the insights are going
> to come quite quickly (within 1, certainly 2,
> decades
> for most complex traits).

I disagree - but mainly because of the level of
insight that will be needed.  Yes, it may be possible
to say that genes X and Y roughly correlate with
higher intelligence within 2 decades, such that
individuals would choose those genes for their own
children.  It takes a much higher confidence level in
the causation, which is going to take much longer to
achieve, before the state may be permitted to require
such.

> Why should a state allow
> the birth of less than average intelligence
> individuals
> or individuals with genetic defects that may pose a
> health care burden upon the state (and the
> shareholders
> of the state -- i.e. the taxpayers) at some future
> date?

Even in genes where we're almost certain, for instance
cystic fibrosis, the argument is marginal at this
time given the current cost and risk of genetic
engineering techniques.  To mandate interference in
anything less well understood, such as intelligence,
is to invite disaster, and almost everyone
acknowledges this.

> > (Note that this does not apply to, say,
> > state-mandated treatment of genes that are well
> > understood to be desirable or not; for instance,
> > correcting the gene that gives cystic fibrosis or
> > certain other diseases.  But in these specific
> cases,
> > there is not much debate anyway: what parent wants
> > their child to be born sick?)
> 
> Oh, no Adrian you don't get away with that.

Yes I do. ;P  As I said:

> > genes that are well
> > understood to be desirable or not

...and by your example, the condition of deafness (and
therefore the genes that cause it) is not "well
understood to be desirable or not", regardless of how
well we know what genes cause deafness.

> There
> is
> a very active "classic" debate within the bioethics
> community that uses the example of deaf parents who
> want their child to be born deaf when presented with
> a proposal by the medical community to use genetic
> engineering to reverse the child's deafness.  It
> gets into very sticky issues that involve the
> presumption that to exist as a deaf person is
> somehow less valid than existing as a non-deaf
> person.

Deaf != sick.  "What parent wants their child to be
born sick" != "What parent wants their child to be
born deaf", by this very example.  We're talking
"sick" as a condition that is universally considered
undesirable; the very existance of defenders of
deafness excludes it from this category.  (Personally,
after having reviewed the arguments of said defenders,
I still consider deafness to be an overall disability,
but that's irrelevant to this discussion.)

> > Perhaps a better way to put it: both memetic and
> > genetic engineering are allowed when it is widely
> > known what memes/genes are good and what are bad.
> 
> Subjective.  What is good and bad are entirely
> context
> dependent.

That's why I put the "widely known" in there.  If
there is much room for subjective disagreement, that
invalidates it until the disagreement can be resolved.
It is not too inaccurate to say that the disagreement
itself, and any resolution thereof, becomes the
limiting factor in these cases.

> Didn't you learn anything from Star Trek??? :-)

Yeah.  That life is darn great for species that have
already gone through their respective Singularities.
Also, if you wear red shirts and have no name, you get
to demonstrate how the monster works.

> > Not just a simple democratic majority (although it
> may
> > come to that in some cases), but closer to
> universal
> > consensus levels.
> 
> But the consensus can be quite wrong (perhaps as the
> slavery example cited above may indicate).

Many slaves disagreed with the consensus (although
many other slaves agreed).  I would therefore not call
it universal, or even nearly universal.

> > Without that knowledge, attempts to
> > impose solutions have historically just caused
> damage
> > without achieving the desired results; the limits
> on
> > government impositions in this case are there to
> > prevent a repeat of that mistake.
> 
> But do such limits accomplish this?

Sometimes.  No one has found and implemented a perfect
solution to avoid repeating mistakes of the past.  I
was just talking with my father about some tech he
developed for walking robots some decades ago; the
problems he encountered in that development effort
seem to be being repeated by modern efforts.  (Of
course, his effort was never detailed for Google et
al, so the modern efforts were unaware of it.)

> I can easily make an argument that the right of a
> parent
> to enhance their child to be an ideal physical
> individual
> for the NFL directly harms me as a parent who does
> not
> choose to enhance his child to that level. 

There, you may be correct.  But allowing parents to
choose is a far cry from allowing the state to
mandate.

> Furthermore
> the enhancement of such individuals may contribute
> to
> their being violent megalomaniacs which are
> certainly
> a threat to society.

"Power must be shared."

The response is, of course, to allow others -
including others who have already been born - to be
enhanced in similar manners if and when they desire
it.  (This is one reason I favor development of
bionics over development of genetic enhancements.)
Eventually, you wind up with the average physical
capabilities being increased.  This may cause a
lessening of the status of the unenhanced...but part
of the reason for allowing individual choice is that
individuals can upgrade when they believe it makes
sense for them to do so.  Perhaps eventually this is
essentially a forced choice, but the theory is that,
by allowing individuals to at least control the
timing, pace, and _exact_ nature of their
enhancements, the end result can be better - and
perhaps the transition can be less painful.

Free will and destined choice, both in one.  In
theory, only true improvements - ones that some people
would freely apply to themselves absent other factors,
and which people would envy in others to the point
that they believe cathing up would be desirable - can
come about by this path.

To wit: some might say, "But what if I want to remain
as I am for all time?"  Answer: "If this that I do
does not improve me, you may remain as you are, and by
definition you will be without disadvantage.  But if
this is an improvement, then you will eventually not
want to remain as you are now.  You will be the judge,
and you may revisit your decision whenever you wish."


From wingcat at pacbell.net  Wed Jan  7 23:05:55 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 15:05:55 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
In-Reply-To: <011f01c3d56c$52c2d3b0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <20040107230555.73416.qmail@web80410.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Mark Walker <mark at permanentend.org> wrote:
> > Just playing devil's advocate here...
> 
> I'm not sure I believe it, but your argument has
> ingenuity on its side; the
> devil should count his blessings having you on his
> side.

Okay, Angel's Advocate.  Devil's is just the common
term.  ;P

> Is the problem here the technology or the
> desirability of the traits?

Yes.  ^_-

> If the
> former then it is sufficient to limit the state's
> interest here to embryo
> selection. One could examine embryos for genetic
> markers associated with
> high IQ and CF and sort accordingly.

If we knew what markers those were, and that those
markers were not associated with other potentially
desirable or undesirable things.  We don't, at least
not with much confidence (especially for IQ), so
attempts to do so right now will likely bring about
unintended, and potentially (probably, given
historical precedent) disastrous, selection effects.

> If the latter
> then the fact that the
> technology is in its infancy might caution us
> against providing new traits,
> say extra legs so that one could be as fleet of foot
> as satyrs.

And, as has been cautioned, don't assume endorsement
even for or against existing traits such as deafness.

> But what
> about values that we already endorse through
> eumemics, e.g., knowledge.

Counter-examples of said endorsement are widespread.
Some people really do want their kids to be dumb (so
they will be obedient to their parents, even when said
parents are wrong in the extreme).

> > Perhaps a better way to put it: both memetic and
> > genetic engineering are allowed when it is widely
> > known what memes/genes are good and what are bad. 
> Not
> > just a simple democratic majority (although it may
> > come to that in some cases), but closer to
> universal
> > consensus levels.  Without that knowledge,
> attempts to
> > impose solutions have historically just caused
> damage
> > without achieving the desired results; the limits
> on
> > government impositions in this case are there to
> > prevent a repeat of that mistake.
> 
> I'm no historian, but I think the history of
> mandatory education is perhaps
> a relevant counterexample to your general claim.
> There seems to have been
> quite a bit of resistance to mandatory education in
> the U.S. and it seems to
> have taken quite a long time to make it mandatory in
> every state in the U.S.

There still is some resistance.  This is part of why
I said, "Not just a simple democratic majority
(although it may come to that in some cases)".  I do
not claim to know where the cutoff is below 100%
agreement, or even that there is a single cutoff that
is optimal for all such issues (I suspect there is
not).

> That
> point aside, it seems that
> the council for the defense has only come up with a
> temporary restraining
> order, as our knowledge of what eugenics can do it
> seems that there will no
> longer be a principled reason for allowing state
> mandated eumemics but not
> eugenics.

A temporary restraining order is all I was going for.
There is potential for it to become indefinite, if
agreement never forms that a certain set of genes is
undesirable - said agreement likely necessarily
including, perhaps even consisting entirely of, those
who possess said genes (and thus, who would be
directly affected).  But if that agreement were to
come about...well, hey, if everyone (and I mean
*everyone*) who has gene X says they want to make sure
their yet-to-be-conceived kids never have gene X, and
no one else wants gene X, then yeah, the state is
probably going to be quite justified in requiring
genetic engineering to eliminate gene X.

Maybe it was Devil's after all.  ^_-


From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Wed Jan  7 23:06:00 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 09:36:00 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178690E@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Walker [mailto:mark at permanentend.org]
> Sent: Thursday, 8 January 2004 1:44 AM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics

> Here are some possible candidates for the operative principle 
> or principles:
> 
> 1. Eugenics interferes with parental rights to choose the 
> sort of children
> they want to have.
> 
> Rebuttal: Surely eumemics interferes with parental rights 
> just as much. If
> you want to raise your child to not be infected with decadent 
> mass culture
> surely not allowing your child to read or write might seem 
> like an appealing
> option. So, forcing children to go to school infringes on 
> parental rights
> here. I guess most of us would say this infringement is 
> justified. So, why
> is it not justified in the case of eugenics, e.g., not 
> allowing severely
> mentally or physically disabled children to be born. Or 
> perhaps not allowing
> children with an IQ of less than 120 to be born?
> 

Education is a special case with humans. We are social creatures, who
function best with a prerequisite long period of education before adulthood.
Some things we need to function properly as Human v1.0 in our current
society come in our genes, the rest requires education. Note that this
education should be defined far more broadly than typical state regulated
education!

So in the case of eumemics, there is a requirement for education, meaning it
isn't optional. Furthermore, it is to a large part reversible; you can shake
even the crustiest of crusty memes if you try hard enough for long enough.

However, genetic engineering is an entirely different beast. Firstly, I'll
assume that prenatal genetic engineering is being proposed because we assume
the postnatal organism cannot be modified further genetically. One day
(maybe soon) this wont be true, which will render much of the argument for
eugenics, such as it is, irrelevant. However, I'll take this as a given
here.

So genetic engineering is irreversable, by the previous paragraph. It is
also entirely optional, in a way that memetic upload (education) isn't.
These two qualities (optional, irreversable) should be combined with the
unproven and unknown qualities highlighted by Adrian in his reply to Mark,
to show that modern "eugenics" (parental or state manipulation of the
unborn) is a really poor idea, not comparable to education, and to be
undertaken at the parent/state's extreme peril; after all, you are messing
with a future citizen, who *will* be pissed off if you get it wrong (from
their point of view, not yours).

My view is that transhumanists just shouldn't venture onto this territory.
Fix really deadly genetic illnesses, but after that you should leave a
person alone until they are old enough to choose for themselves. In about 18
years from now, it's not too far fetched to assume that adult phenotype
genetic manipulation will a going concern, after all.

> 2. Parents know what is best for their children, the state does not.
> 
> Rebuttal: Much the same point as above. What do we say to 
> parents who do not
> want to educate their children? Isn't the answer that in this 
> case the state
> knows best? So why not in the case of eugenics?

Again, because there is a necessity when it comes to education. Eugenics, on
the other hand, is optional.

> 
> 3. State mandated eugenics necessarily compromises the autonomy of
> individuals whereas education does not.
> 
> Rebuttal: The full answer to this point would require rehashing the
> discussion of the principle of potential plentitude 
> (discussed a while back
> on the WTA-list), but here is the
> Readers' Digest version: Suppose the state mandates that 
> embryos are to be
> selected for high IQ, athletic potential, perfect pitch, and 
> the capacity to
> readily acquire virtues. (For the last of these see:
> www.permanentend.org/gvp.htm) If you are the product of such 
> a selection you
> could still refuse to exercise any of the genetic potentials 
> you have been
> given, e.g., you could spend your time in your parent's 
> basement smoking pot
> and listening to punk music rather than attempting to develop your
> intellect,
> your athletic, moral or musical potential. As I argued in 
> connection with
> the Principle of Potential Plentitude discussion, enhanced
> potential (in many cases) actually increases autonomy, it 
> does not reduce
> it.

You assume that we know how to make positive differences such as these
(pretty doubtful), and that everyone values the same things; after all,
there are likely to be tradeoffs involved. And you don't consider any of the
risks involved in screwing this up.

> 
> 4. State mandated eugenics may compromise the autonomy of individuals
> whereas eumemics does not.
> 
> Explanation: This differs from the previous point in that it 
> allows that
> eugenics could be used in a way that does not compromise autonomy, but
> worries that the state might use eugenics to compromise 
> autonomy. Suppose
> like some bad sci-fi movie embryos were selected for 
> aggressive potential so
> that the individuals could be made into fearsome soldiers (or 
> some such
> nonsense). Eumemics, on the other hand, does not compromise 
> the autonomy
> of individuals.
> 
> Rebuttal: State mandated eumemics can be used to compromise 
> the autonomy
> of individuals, consider for example indoctrination, 
> propaganda, etc. The
> Nazis too were helpful
> in "popularizing" eumemics. If it is the mere potential for abuse that
> stops us with eugenics then why do we not disallow all forms 
> of eumemics
> on the same basis? (And let us not under estimate the power 
> of eumemics to
> harm. I have a friend whose father went to a Nazi school for 
> his education.
> His father still celebrates Hitler's birthday every year with 
> friends over
> drinks).
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Mark
> 

Again; eugenics is optional. Education isn't. Screwing around with your own
genes, or anything else about yourself, is well and dandy, I highly support
it. Screwing around with someone else's genes, like your kids', when you
don't have to, is really dangerous territory.

Emlyn



From mark at permanentend.org  Thu Jan  8 00:14:58 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 19:14:58 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178690E@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <053201c3d57c$74413f80$2ee4f418@markcomputer>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Emlyn O'regan"
>
> Education is a special case with humans. We are social creatures, who
> function best with a prerequisite long period of education before
adulthood.
> Some things we need to function properly as Human v1.0 in our current
> society come in our genes, the rest requires education. Note that this
> education should be defined far more broadly than typical state regulated
> education!
>
> So in the case of eumemics, there is a requirement for education, meaning
it
> isn't optional. Furthermore, it is to a large part reversible; you can
shake
> even the crustiest of crusty memes if you try hard enough for long enough.
>

Optional and necessary for what purpose? Some people are only smart enough
to get a McJob and eke out an existence all because of the DNA lottery.
(Others of course are smart enough to do other things but choose McJobs).
Not everyone is born with the right DNA to pursue excellence in music,
knowledge, athletics, etc. I'm not sure I agree with the reversibility claim
either. Try to look at a page or a screen and see shapes but not letters and
words. It is pretty hard to undo the abcs that you learnt at school. On the
other hand, if you are the product of embryo selection and you are provided
with the genetic potential for high iq, perfect pitch, and athletic ability
there is no reason that you can't let this potential atrophy as you smoke
pot and listen to punk music in your parent's basement. Moreover, the main
issue it seems to me is the basic asymmetry between the enhanced and the
unenhanced. The enhanced can choose most of the life trajectories of the
unenhanced, but not vice versa. Which is to say that the enhanced have
greater autonomy. (For those who want to explore this claim further see the
debate starting here:
http://www.transhumanism.org/pipermail/wta-talk/2003-September/000254.html )
.


> However, genetic engineering is an entirely different beast. Firstly, I'll
> assume that prenatal genetic engineering is being proposed because we
assume
> the postnatal organism cannot be modified further genetically. One day
> (maybe soon) this wont be true, which will render much of the argument for
> eugenics, such as it is, irrelevant. However, I'll take this as a given
> here.
>
> So genetic engineering is irreversable, by the previous paragraph. It is
> also entirely optional, in a way that memetic upload (education) isn't.
> These two qualities (optional, irreversable) should be combined with the
> unproven and unknown qualities highlighted by Adrian in his reply to Mark,
> to show that modern "eugenics" (parental or state manipulation of the
> unborn) is a really poor idea, not comparable to education, and to be
> undertaken at the parent/state's extreme peril; after all, you are messing
> with a future citizen, who *will* be pissed off if you get it wrong (from
> their point of view, not yours).
>
> My view is that transhumanists just shouldn't venture onto this territory.
> Fix really deadly genetic illnesses, but after that you should leave a
> person alone until they are old enough to choose for themselves. In about
18
> years from now, it's not too far fetched to assume that adult phenotype
> genetic manipulation will a going concern, after all.
>

The position I am interested in is one that says three things: (1) it is
morally permissible for parents to practice eugenics to select or promote
traits, (as would happen with genetic engineering or embryo selection). (2)
it is not morally permissible for the state to mandate eugenic selection.
(3) It is morally permissible for the state to mandate education of the
young. As I noted in my original post, the question of consistency doesn't
touch hardcore libertarians who deny that it is permissible for the state to
mandate education (i.e., (3)). Since you deny (1) you too do need to look
for a way to reconcile these 3 claims. I'm guessing that qua transhumanist
you are in minority in denying  (1). But, hey, you are in the majority--at
least in the "West".

Cheers,

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org








From jcorb at iol.ie  Thu Jan  8 00:59:17 2004
From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally)
Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 00:59:17 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] NEWS: Virtual cash exchange goes live
Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20040108004503.0330f530@pop.iol.ie>

An item that appears to have made the small news, but may be a small step 
to bigger news in the future;

>Virtual cash exchange goes live

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3368633.stm

>Online games now have their own foreign exchange that lets players buy and 
>sell different virtual currencies just like in the real world.
>The Gaming Open Market allows players who control characters in games such 
>as Star Wars Galaxies, The Sims Online and Ultima, to buy and sell the 
>currencies used in the different game worlds.
>Players can convert cash reserves in one game into a different currency in 
>another world or sell their virtual money for US dollars.
>The market now has 29 characters in six different games that act as 
>virtual bank managers in the separate worlds.


The website is http://www.gamingopenmarket.com/

I was thinking; given a monetary system, would it be possible to implement 
a form of Robin Hanson's Terrorism Futures concept into this?  Instead of 
Al Qaeda attacks and such, players would put their money on which 
player/guild will be the next to suffer a surprise attack for example.  If 
it was workable, it could potentially be proof-of-concept without the 
emotional outbursts that doomed the original.

Now, if it becomes possible to turn virtual money into *realworld* money on 
an ongoing basis....(outside of Ebay).

Or should that be "when".


James...



From wingcat at pacbell.net  Thu Jan  8 01:01:03 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 17:01:03 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] NEWS: Virtual cash exchange goes live
In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.1.20040108004503.0330f530@pop.iol.ie>
Message-ID: <20040108010103.14096.qmail@web80402.mail.yahoo.com>

--- J Corbally <jcorb at iol.ie> wrote:
> Now, if it becomes possible to turn virtual money
> into *realworld* money on 
> an ongoing basis....(outside of Ebay).
> 
> Or should that be "when".

It's a nice theory.  In the past, the game managers
have tended to frown on people turning any real profit
from the games.  These guys may have a chance if they
approach the game owners on a business-to-business
level; they certainly present themselves as an
honest-to-goodness currency exchange, and thus legally
a "financial institution".  If they fail to do so, I
see no reason to expect they will not simply be banned
like their predecessors, and trading (for them) halted
on all currencies within a year.


From wingcat at pacbell.net  Thu Jan  8 01:06:22 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 17:06:22 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] DNA ?= Destiny
In-Reply-To: <053201c3d57c$74413f80$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <20040108010622.455.qmail@web80409.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Mark Walker <mark at permanentend.org> wrote:
> Not everyone is born with the right DNA to pursue
> excellence in music,
> knowledge, athletics, etc.

>From where comes this belief, taken as fact?  From my
own (admiteddly anecdotal) experiences, it seems that
environment has more to do with potential than
genetics in almost all cases.  (Barring biochemical
defects that tend to leave one unable to function
normally in society at all.)  Genes give probabilistic
influences, not absolute barriers; a non-genius at
birth might have a harder time earning a Ph.D., but
with the right education and training (much of which
can be self-obtained and self-directed these days,
thanks to the Web), anything that is humanly possible,
is possible for a human.


From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com  Thu Jan  8 01:24:00 2004
From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 17:24:00 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Becoming human (and posthuman:-)
Message-ID: <20040108012400.66755.qmail@web41312.mail.yahoo.com>

Check this fascinating link based on documentary by paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson ("discoverer" of Lucy:-)
 
http://www.becominghuman.org/
 
Transhumanistically yours,



La vie est belle!

Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) 

Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra


---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com  Thu Jan  8 02:08:48 2004
From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 18:08:48 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] WTA NEWS   January 7, 2004
Message-ID: <20040108020848.39733.qmail@web41306.mail.yahoo.com>

Dear Extropian friends,
 
     I am reforwarding this WTA NEWS since there is information about the coming 
Extropy Institute Vital Progress Summit:-)
 
     Extropianilly yours,




La vie est belle!

Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) 

Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra


---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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From reason at exratio.com  Thu Jan  8 02:45:00 2004
From: reason at exratio.com (Reason)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 18:45:00 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] NEWS: Virtual cash exchange goes live
In-Reply-To: <20040108010103.14096.qmail@web80402.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <FCEDLEKFOENAIDKOGMNNEEDMEBAA.reason@exratio.com>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes

> --- J Corbally <jcorb at iol.ie> wrote:
> > Now, if it becomes possible to turn virtual money
> > into *realworld* money on
> > an ongoing basis....(outside of Ebay).
> >
> > Or should that be "when".
>
> It's a nice theory.  In the past, the game managers
> have tended to frown on people turning any real profit
> from the games.  These guys may have a chance if they
> approach the game owners on a business-to-business
> level; they certainly present themselves as an
> honest-to-goodness currency exchange, and thus legally
> a "financial institution".  If they fail to do so, I
> see no reason to expect they will not simply be banned
> like their predecessors, and trading (for them) halted
> on all currencies within a year.

This is a rapidly evolving field, with 20+ new multi-million dollar launches
every year. Things are changing fast, and the game owners and game creation
community are well aware of these economic matters. The owners of Second
Life gave copyright of user-created objects (which is pretty much everything
in the game) to their users just a month ago or so - so anyone with the
right talent could make a living as a Second Life designer if the game
becomes large enough.

I give it no more than two years for a successful game to exist that is
fully integrated into the US or South Korean real world economic systems.
Then it gets interesting.

If you look at Castranova's latest paper, you'll see that many of my
last-year predictions of tax competition for real world nations and other
goodies from virtual worlds are now echoed by economists in the know.

http://www.gamestudies.org/0302/castronova/

Reason
http://www.exratio.com





From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Thu Jan  8 02:30:12 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 13:00:12 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786910@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Walker [mailto:mark at permanentend.org]
> Sent: Thursday, 8 January 2004 9:45 AM

> Optional and necessary for what purpose? Some people are only 
> smart enough
> to get a McJob and eke out an existence all because of the 
> DNA lottery.
> (Others of course are smart enough to do other things but 
> choose McJobs).
> Not everyone is born with the right DNA to pursue excellence in music,
> knowledge, athletics, etc. 

Well, trivially, you have to be able to read in order to participate in
western society in any kind of first-class way. Writing is also extremely
useful!

More, you need socialisation, which I'd lump under education, and I think
which you'd call eumemetics. Without it, you're wolf boy. Check out this
site on feral children:
http://www.feralchildren.com/en/children.php?tp=0

I think that to conflate this kind of thing (lack of socialization) with
lack of genetic engineering is disingenuous. Socialization (education!) is
necessary, genetic engineering is optional.

> I'm not sure I agree with the 
> reversibility claim
> either. Try to look at a page or a screen and see shapes but 
> not letters and
> words. It is pretty hard to undo the abcs that you learnt at 
> school. 

There might be a case for separating things like speech and literacy
(skills?) from knowledge. I'm not sure.

> On the
> other hand, if you are the product of embryo selection and 
> you are provided
> with the genetic potential for high iq, perfect pitch, and 
> athletic ability
> there is no reason that you can't let this potential atrophy 
> as you smoke
> pot and listen to punk music in your parent's basement. 

It is a huge "if" to even say that you can do this at all, genetically. You
will be selecting for a particular genetic pattern, which may or may not
epiphenomenally result in the traits you describe. I think you couldn't be
anything but uncertain of the effectiveness of such selection without a few
generations of the selected to test. And it's my contention that by the time
you get there, we'll have stronger technologies for enhancement which can be
used solely by consenting adults. So the generations in between are
non-consenting guinea pigs in an ultimately pointless experiment.

> Moreover, the main
> issue it seems to me is the basic asymmetry between the 
> enhanced and the
> unenhanced. The enhanced can choose most of the life 
> trajectories of the
> unenhanced, but not vice versa. Which is to say that the enhanced have
> greater autonomy. (For those who want to explore this claim 
> further see the
> debate starting here:
> http://www.transhumanism.org/pipermail/wta-talk/2003-September
> /000254.html )
> .

I totally agree. I only object to the method of enhancement, which I claim
is untestable (in a reasonable timeframe), of dubious value, probably risky,
and involves irrevocable action on those who cannot give their consent. If
you were talking about adults modifying themselves, I would fully support
your argument.

> 
> 
> > However, genetic engineering is an entirely different 
> beast. Firstly, I'll
> > assume that prenatal genetic engineering is being proposed 
> because we
> assume
> > the postnatal organism cannot be modified further 
> genetically. One day
> > (maybe soon) this wont be true, which will render much of 
> the argument for
> > eugenics, such as it is, irrelevant. However, I'll take 
> this as a given
> > here.
> >
> > So genetic engineering is irreversable, by the previous 
> paragraph. It is
> > also entirely optional, in a way that memetic upload 
> (education) isn't.
> > These two qualities (optional, irreversable) should be 
> combined with the
> > unproven and unknown qualities highlighted by Adrian in his 
> reply to Mark,
> > to show that modern "eugenics" (parental or state 
> manipulation of the
> > unborn) is a really poor idea, not comparable to education, 
> and to be
> > undertaken at the parent/state's extreme peril; after all, 
> you are messing
> > with a future citizen, who *will* be pissed off if you get 
> it wrong (from
> > their point of view, not yours).
> >
> > My view is that transhumanists just shouldn't venture onto 
> this territory.
> > Fix really deadly genetic illnesses, but after that you 
> should leave a
> > person alone until they are old enough to choose for 
> themselves. In about
> 18
> > years from now, it's not too far fetched to assume that 
> adult phenotype
> > genetic manipulation will a going concern, after all.
> >
> 
> The position I am interested in is one that says three 
> things: (1) it is
> morally permissible for parents to practice eugenics to 
> select or promote
> traits, (as would happen with genetic engineering or embryo 
> selection). (2)
> it is not morally permissible for the state to mandate 
> eugenic selection.
> (3) It is morally permissible for the state to mandate 
> education of the
> young. As I noted in my original post, the question of 
> consistency doesn't
> touch hardcore libertarians who deny that it is permissible 
> for the state to
> mandate education (i.e., (3)). Since you deny (1) you too do 
> need to look
> for a way to reconcile these 3 claims. 

My position is that I don't think it's morally permissable for the parents
or the state to play with the genetics of offspring, except where there is a
clear and present danger to the offspring from not doing so (eg: cf?). I
think you are clear on that.

On point 3, I think it is necessary for some minimal education to be given
to children, and personally I lean toward a solid education for all
children. How that is enforced (ie: does it come back to armed men enforcing
the rules), I'm hazy on. Probably at some minimal level it should be state
enforced. But the details of that education, within basic guidelines, should
be up to parents probably. But that's all only imo, and I can't really back
it up with much, or be very specific. I contend, however, that it's
unrelated to the first to points, given what I've said previously about
genetic and memetic interference being entirely different beasts.

> I'm guessing that qua 
> transhumanist
> you are in minority in denying  (1). But, hey, you are in the 
> majority--at
> least in the "West".

Ouch, you don't pull your punches, do you? :-) I probably am in the
majority, but accidentally, and mostly for different reasons I think. Oddly
enough, the most common reason I see expressed for not allowing genetic
manipulation of children is jealousy, or a fear of inequality, which I find
weird. Make no mistake, the entirety of my concern is about untried,
unprovable technology with dubious benefits and very real risks, and lack of
ability for the individual to give consent.

Emlyn

> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Mark
> 
> Mark Walker, PhD
> Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
> University of Toronto
> Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
> 15 Devonshire Place
> Toronto
> M5S 1H8
> www.permanentend.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Thu Jan  8 03:35:31 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 19:35:31 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786910@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401071909340.2702-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Rather than do a point by point, I'll simply offer some
impressions on comments by Emlyn and Mark.

First, with regard to Emlyn disliking parents doing anything
other than fixing diseases in potential offspring until some
type of agreement can be found with respect to generally
accepted modifications that are known to work.  The problem
with this is that 18 years in our environment is a very
long time.  One runs the risk that if one waits too long
to enhance oneself one may be too late.  (For example
consider Robin's paper on uploads coming first.)  In
this situation *not* enhancing ones children may be
considered a form of "child abuse".  I.e. one has not
sufficiently prepared ones children to survive in the
environment that is likely to exist when they are able
to make informed decisions.

Second, the adding or removal of genetic characteristics
will be relatively easy in 15-20 years.  There are very
clear methods now to augment genomes and probably even
replace defective genes.  They aren't well developed
or generally available at this time however.  But I
don't think arguments should be premised on this because
it is rapidly shifting ground.

Third, much of the learning and development of an
individual meme set probably takes place before the
ages of 12-13 -- this is when one starts to lose the
ability to learn languages easily (i.e. brain plasticity
starts to decline).  Once this meme set/learning is
in place it is *much* harder to modify.  (It probably
requires robust nanotechnology at the level of
uploading/downloading.)  So by not making the choices
early on you may be setting individuals on paths that
are not easily changed.  This could be considered a
problem with Greg Stock's perspective of allowing one
to enhance an individual with potential genetic
modifications but only activating them when the
person is qualified to make a judgement about whether
or not they want them.  By the time they make that
choice it may be too late.

With respect to Eumemics one has the problem that a
potential set of memes that may be useful for one
generation may be either benefit or harm survival
chances for another generation.  So one can look at
public education as helping survival probabilities
(public education vs. extremely conservative and narrow
minded religious groups) or harming survival probabilities
(public education in the face of extremely rapid societal
changes -- politics works slowly...).

Even in the case of private education there is no
assurance that it will be optimal.  As a parent I would
tend to seek out teachers (my generation) that tend to
teach my perspective.  It would be difficult to seek out
teachers to teach things (e.g. how to juggle currency futures
in a role-playing game environment) that are alien to me
but which may be essential to the survival of my child.

Robert




From nanowave at shaw.ca  Thu Jan  8 05:30:21 2004
From: nanowave at shaw.ca (Russell Evermore)
Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2004 21:30:21 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality (terminology)
References: <002901c3d313$ead28390$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<244b01c3d316$db187420$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
	<014f01c3d31a$59da6040$bd994a43@texas.net>
	<270401c3d391$13cf7eb0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
	<008d01c3d3c8$389ae0e0$8c994a43@texas.net>
	<3FF9CB34.6030902@imminst.org>
Message-ID: <005d01c3d5a8$82c9ef80$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>

Well I see some work has been done to promote "Emortal" as the meme de jour,
but I'd still like to submit for your late consideration one other
possibility:


        - drum roll -

                            "Permasentient"


As far as I can google, permasentient appears to be of my own coinage.

Permasentient, unlike immortality, nicely encompasses the tranhumanist ideal
of uploading, which as you know, involves not so much the continuation of
LIFE per se (in the sense that typical humans would appreciate and value it)
but the continuation of SENTIENCE in a way that many if not most
transhumanists surely would.

Permasentient or permasentience handily sidestepps the *implied promise of
success* that so heavily burdens word like 'immortality' due to centuries of
faith-based 'religio-afterlife' association and usage.

Permasentient cheerfully resists becoming just another 'ism.'  Not so
'Emortal.'

Permasentient brings to mind other words like: permanent press,
permaculture, and permafrost. We've all grown accustomed to 'permanent'
things not really being permanent in the literal sense of forever and ever
and ever and ever ...

Permafrost reminds me of cryonics ever since I read an interesting piece Ben
Best wrote several years back exploring burial-in-permafrost as a viable
poor man's alternative to cryonics (a view he's since moved away from as I
understand).

Anyhow.

Meesa back!
Russell Evermore
nanowave at shaw.ca


> Till Noever has composed four articles for
> ImmInst concerning 'Emortalism'
>
> Emortalism 101 - Introduction
> http://imminst.org/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=67&t=1752&s=
>
> Emortalism 102 - Meaning, Context, Identity, Sex and Other Curiosities
> http://imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=67&t=1764&hl=noever
>
> Emortalism 103 - Scenarios
> http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=67&t=1811
>
> Emortalism 104 - Emortalist Ethics
> http://imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=66&t=1928
>
> Bruce Klein
> Chairman, ImmInst.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From aperick at centurytel.net  Thu Jan  8 06:17:18 2004
From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 22:17:18 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics now eugenics 
In-Reply-To: <200401072315.i07NFWE12354@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3d5af$12875d00$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>

Where did so may of you get the idea that eugenics was anything other
than the careful attention to biological parentage? Eugenics is
selective breeding: dog breeders would be dog eugenicists if they were
only concerned with selecting for objectively progressive (super-dog)
traits. For us, this would mean objectively deciding* if our own mix of
inheritable traits are among the very best available and, if not,
getting ourselves "fixed." If we are deemed (by us, or by ones we trust)
to be prime breeding stock our only eugenic task is to arrange to
combine our gametes with other high grade gametes. There may be many
reasons that any government would tend to f__k this up, but today we
just need one very good one: the current mental qualities of current
governmental leaders fits that bill nicely. So, apart from the most
private of actions, practicing eugenicists of our day have virtually no
opportunities to act in support of what we reason is a good thing. If we
had money to burn I suppose we could produce TV commercials containing
gentle suggestions in a spirit of kindness: "The more you know" :-D 

e.g., "dear friend, are you wicked ugly? And not the sharpest tool in
the shed? Perhaps you should consider forgoing the experience of
procreation -- for the love of God!"  LOL

* by this I clearly mean only that one makes an informed and sincere
attempt at objectivity. 

But seriously; how would I as a below average and defective unit, who
should have known that these traits were inheritable, look my teenage
offspring in the eye and claim that I truly love them and have always
wanted nothing but the best for them? Might they not one day regret not
having had the opportunity to select for themselves different parents?
"gee thanks mom and dad for making me, my life really kinda sucks, and
any fool could have seen the probability of THAT coming -- given the
clearly observable phenotypes of you two." 

Wow, I may have stumbled on what could be the only case of true and pure
altruism per my tight little definition*: when one's only reason for
forgoing procreation is out of concern for one's offspring there is not
much chance of any kind of payback for that "gift". Except that you will
know that you did the right thing. But it is only the net/sum effect
that counts when categorizing an act as having no selfish motives -- the
presumed pain of going childless could certainly out-weigh the "I did
the right thing" consolation. Conclusion: the fantasy of altruism is
made real only when the beneficiary is not. 

* my (possibly rare) interpretation of dictionary entries. 

How many think I need "sick puppy" in my signature/tagline? 

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Woolley, Closet nudist*, Certified Scientist Type, Confirmed
Atheist, radical thinker, notorious fuck-up, and self-proclaimed
singular authority on the abysmal depths of human stupidity that only we
few lack. 

* Part time comedian and recovering idealist ... now show me yours :)
http://home.centurytel.net/rickw aperick at centurytel.net



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Thu Jan  8 07:28:26 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 23:28:26 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] ASTRO: Black holes no more...
Message-ID: <20040108072826.70897.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>

So, every time a supernova rings, a universe gets its wings....
If a singularity event horizon is merely a boundary to another universe
(whether you can git theyah frum heyah is another question), then
hyperspace drives require the ability for occupants of a black hole to
puncture that boundary, travel around the outside of the hole, then
reenter at another point. No sweat.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Black Holes No More -- Introducing the Gravastar                   |
|   from the yet-another-cosmic-theory dept.                         |

[0]Mark Eymer observes: "From the Space.com [1]article: 'Emil Mottola 
of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Pawel Mazur of the University
of South Carolina suggest that instead of a star collapsing into a 
pinpoint of space with virtually infinite gravity, its matter is
transformed into a spherical void surrounded by "an extremely durable
form of matter never before experienced on Earth."' While these objects
may abound in the universe, they also say that our entire universe may
reside within a giant gravastar." This new theory attempts to fill
holes in the currently accepted concept of the "black hole".

Discuss this story at:
    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=04/01/07/1515210

Links:
    0. mailto:eymerm at cableone.net
    1. 
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/gravastars_020423.html


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Thu Jan  8 08:14:59 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 18:44:59 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786913@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert J. Bradbury [mailto:bradbury at aeiveos.com]
> Sent: Thursday, 8 January 2004 1:06 PM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
> 
> 
> 
> Rather than do a point by point, I'll simply offer some
> impressions on comments by Emlyn and Mark.

I'll reply point by point :-)

> 
> First, with regard to Emlyn disliking parents doing anything
> other than fixing diseases in potential offspring until some
> type of agreement can be found with respect to generally
> accepted modifications that are known to work.  The problem
> with this is that 18 years in our environment is a very
> long time.  One runs the risk that if one waits too long
> to enhance oneself one may be too late.  (For example
> consider Robin's paper on uploads coming first.)  In
> this situation *not* enhancing ones children may be
> considered a form of "child abuse".  I.e. one has not
> sufficiently prepared ones children to survive in the
> environment that is likely to exist when they are able
> to make informed decisions.

That's only true if you have solid provable enhancements ready to go, which
we don't. I still think that by the time we've got such enhancements (given
the necessarily long timescales they require to develop), we'll be able to
fix the adult phenotype, and probably more easily, which will more than
compensate for any lack of genetic muddling. I think Adrian said he was more
for cybernetics than genetic mods. I'd say I agree, and also lean toward
gene therapy for adults (although I realise this hasn't the same potential
as pre-natal gene modification), and don't forget nano-medicine.

In fact, your comment about long timescales disproves your own thesis. By
the time we have a first generation of seriously gene-modded kids grown to
adults, don't you think the self-modification options available to the adult
will be way more efficient, effective, and timely than early generation
genetic bumbling? It's like a bunch of STL colony slowboats heading off to
alpha-centauri, only to find it a well and truly settled advanced colony
system of Earth, with startrek federation-style starships with warpdrives
which can do the journey in half an hour, the first of which arrived
hundreds of years before. 

I just think that genetic modification of embryos is going to take a while
to become even theoretically useful, and will be obsolete before it can ever
become advantageous. This makes the risks really rather foolhardy.

> Second, the adding or removal of genetic characteristics
> will be relatively easy in 15-20 years.  There are very
> clear methods now to augment genomes and probably even
> replace defective genes.  They aren't well developed
> or generally available at this time however.  But I
> don't think arguments should be premised on this because
> it is rapidly shifting ground.

But what precisely are you going to add/modify/delete? That we have the tech
to do it doesn't tell us what to do.

> 
> Third, much of the learning and development of an
> individual meme set probably takes place before the
> ages of 12-13 -- this is when one starts to lose the
> ability to learn languages easily (i.e. brain plasticity
> starts to decline).  Once this meme set/learning is
> in place it is *much* harder to modify.  (It probably
> requires robust nanotechnology at the level of
> uploading/downloading.)

Much of that stuff is still easier to modify than gene mods, which are for
all practical purposes irreversable (ie: by the time they are reversable,
you don't need gene mods any more).

Also, remember that with learning, we *must* do it. We will learn
*something* in our developmental phases (even if only to be wolf/dog/monkey
boy), so this is not optional. Genetic modification is *entirely* optional,
OTOH.

>  So by not making the choices
> early on you may be setting individuals on paths that
> are not easily changed.  This could be considered a
> problem with Greg Stock's perspective of allowing one
> to enhance an individual with potential genetic
> modifications but only activating them when the
> person is qualified to make a judgement about whether
> or not they want them.  By the time they make that
> choice it may be too late.

That's very true; he limits the individual's options to what can be
effective after the age of consent, as would some kind of wholesale gene
therapy, missing out on developmental stages.

btw, it seems to me that such a set of optional genes is pretty damned tough
to make work; I'd probably opt to upload instead, and just do a bit of
auto-debug in the virtual world. I think the time frames for both techs
might be similar (especially considering the 18 year lag on optional gene
use).

> 
> With respect to Eumemics one has the problem that a
> potential set of memes that may be useful for one
> generation may be either benefit or harm survival
> chances for another generation.  So one can look at
> public education as helping survival probabilities
> (public education vs. extremely conservative and narrow
> minded religious groups) or harming survival probabilities
> (public education in the face of extremely rapid societal
> changes -- politics works slowly...).

Can you ever see a case for not teaching the three 'R's? Excepting the case
where we dispense with literacy/numeracy for some whamo highbandwidth
mindlink, you always need these things. I'm arguing that there is at least a
minimum level of education required that includes learning these skills,
which is non-optional unless you are hell bent on turning out Wolf-boys.

Out civilisation requires some minimum skill set which is not heritable, and
increasingly it will require a well honed ability to learn.

> Even in the case of private education there is no
> assurance that it will be optimal.  As a parent I would
> tend to seek out teachers (my generation) that tend to
> teach my perspective.  It would be difficult to seek out
> teachers to teach things (e.g. how to juggle currency futures
> in a role-playing game environment) that are alien to me
> but which may be essential to the survival of my child.
> 
> Robert

You really can't teach everything they need for adulthood anymore; you have
to retreat somewhat to the meta level. More and more you need to lean toward
teaching kids open ended learning tools. How to find stuff out (research),
how to criticise/evaluate/analyse, how to do rational thinking, how to do
creative/lateral thinking, etc, how to be humble so you can absorb
knowledge, how to be bloody minded when you are sure you are right and
others are wrong, how to put it all together and use different thinking
tools as appropriate (de Bono seems pretty good on this). That's my opinion,
anyway. 

Emlyn



From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Thu Jan  8 08:18:44 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 18:48:44 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] genes don't matter
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786914@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

btw, do people realise that genes really don't matter much any more? As long
as you get the minimal set so that you aren't severely disadvantaged, we're
in memespace nowadays. Where the raw material doesn't cut it, we can go for
hard tech. Genes matter if you are a bug or e. coli, but for us they are a
red herring. Forget the damned genes, they made themselves irrelevant as
soon as they discovered intelligence.

Emlyn



From mbb386 at main.nc.us  Thu Jan  8 13:44:17 2004
From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 08:44:17 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics now eugenics 
In-Reply-To: <000001c3d5af$12875d00$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>
References: <000001c3d5af$12875d00$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>
Message-ID: <Pine.WNT.4.55.0401080831210.-211285@pentium.mb.main.nc.us>


I've often thought that animal breeders are practicing eugenics. So
are plant breeders. And we do ourselves, when we try to select proper
mates. (I don't know about you, but there were people I dated in
school who I did NOT ever consider for marriage, and having
kids is part of that picture.)

It's government involvement that disturbs me most.

IIUC there are a number of people who refrain from breeding because
they carry inheritable genetic problems. Although I don't know any of
these folk myself, it's not a conversation you might have with just
anyone either, so perhaps I *do* know folks like that but am unaware
of it?

I know I've had the discussion with friends that if I had a severely
retarded/damaged child I'd perhaps want the child sterilized because
1)  parenthood would be just too much for the child to cope with, and
2)  if it was an inheritable problem.  I've not had much disagreement
there, either.

Since I've not been faced with that situation, I do not *know* what I
would do... but we did limit ourselves to two children as we did not
have the resources (there are many kinds necessary)  to care properly
for more.

Regards,
MB

On Wed, 7 Jan 2004, rick wrote:

> Where did so may of you get the idea that eugenics was anything other
> than the careful attention to biological parentage? Eugenics is
> selective breeding: dog breeders would be dog eugenicists if they were
> only concerned with selecting for objectively progressive (super-dog)
> traits. For us, this would mean objectively deciding* if our own mix of
> inheritable traits are among the very best available and, if not,
> getting ourselves "fixed." If we are deemed (by us, or by ones we trust)
> to be prime breeding stock our only eugenic task is to arrange to
> combine our gametes with other high grade gametes. There may be many
> reasons that any government would tend to f__k this up, but today we
> just need one very good one: the current mental qualities of current
> governmental leaders fits that bill nicely. So, apart from the most
> private of actions, practicing eugenicists of our day have virtually no
> opportunities to act in support of what we reason is a good thing.


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Thu Jan  8 15:29:44 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 07:29:44 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] BIO: Honeybee genome completed
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401080725190.14562-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Baylor has completed the Honeybee genome.
  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040108070413.htm

This is of interest because within a few years it may lead
to a determination of exactly what biochemical pathways
contribute to the longevity of queen bees vs. workers.

Some background on the Royal Jelly fed to queen bees...
  http://www.eurobee.nl/journal2.htm

Robert




From exi-info at extropy.org  Thu Jan  8 15:37:09 2004
From: exi-info at extropy.org (Extropy Institute)
Date: Thu,  8 Jan 2004 10:37:09 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Extropy Institute Announces the Vital Progress
	Summit I (VP1)
Message-ID: <1610158607.1073575784584.JavaMail.wasadmin@ui2>

Extropy Institute Announces the upcoming 2004 Summit
VITAL PROGRESS ("VP") (01.07.04)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Greetings!

Recent and accelerating scientific advances may have 
you excited about extropic goals of extended life, 
heightened intelligence, and so on. But hold on! The 
forces of reaction are surging and we need to respond 
now. Extropy Institute is well into the planning process 
for the upcoming Vital Progress Summit, set for 
February 2004. In this newsletter, we explain why this 
Summit is needed so urgently, how it will work, what 
we aim to accomplish, and who we expect to 
participate.

The Summit is ExI's proactive response to three 
disturbing pivotal developments: <i>Beyond 
Therapy</i> - the 
report of 
the US President's Council on Bioethics headed by arch-
bioconservative and neophobe Leon Kass (and including 
avowed anti-posthuman Francis Fukuyama); <i>The 
New 
Atlantis</i> publication - a high-powered rallying point 
for 
the neo-Luddites; and the <b>Precautionary 
Principle</b> - a 
idea being adopted by a diverse array of interest 
groups devoted to blocking the fundamental 
technological advances crucial to our survival and to 
our extropic goals of overcoming human limits.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In this issue: ExI VITAL PROGRESS ("VP") Summit scheduled for February, 2004; and Welcome to Honorary Advisor -Prof. Tom W. Bell
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Killer Quotes!
* <b>The Surging Threat to Extropic Advance</b>
* <b>About the "VP" Summit</b>

* <b>ExI Welcomes its Honorary Advisor</b>


Killer Quotes!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The finitude of human life is a blessing for every 
individual, whether he knows it or not." And: "The 
immortals cannot be noble." -- Leon Kass, chairman of 
the President's Council on Bioethics

"The worst possible way to resolve [the question of life 
extension] is to leave it up to individual choice. There is 
no known social good coming from the conquest of 
death." - Daniel Callahan

"The whole effort to defeat death, it seems to me, is a 
kind of striving that speaks of a kind of serious lack of a 
certain kind of moral perspective. - Francis Fukuyama

"The pursuit of perfect bodies and further life extension 
will deflect us from realizing more fully the aspirations 
to which our lives naturally point, from living well rather 
than merely staying alive."  - Leon Kass in The 
Washington Post



<b>The Surging Threat to Extropic Advance</b>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Throughout history the forces of advancement have 
struggled against the reactionary forces of stasis. 
Europe suffered a thousand years of zero progress 
during the Dark Ages. The Renaissance and 
Enlightenment finally broke through that grim era. We 
transhumanists are the heirs to the Enlightenment 
values of perpetual progress for humanity based in 
science and creativity. Recent years have seen 
numerous developments that are showing the culture at 
large the realism of our extropic goals of extended 
healthy life, enhanced intelligence, refined emotions, 
and the ever-extending ability to take control of our 
form and fate. But now we face an unprecedented 
convergence of groups intent on using direct action 
and global legislation to halt humanity's progress.

One of the most remarkable and worrying developments 
is the presidential-level bioethics council. This council, 
led by Leon Kass (once an opponent of in vitro 
fertilization) has published a report, <I>Beyond 
Therapy</I> 
that takes very seriously issues at the core of our 
extropic values and goals. From the preface to the 
report:

"In keeping with our mission, we have undertaken an 
inquiry into the potential implications of using 
biotechnology "beyond therapy," in order to try to 
satisfy deep and familiar human desires: for better 
children, superior performance, ageless bodies, and 
happy souls. Such uses of biotechnology, some of 
which are now possible and some of which may become 
possible in the future, are likely to present us with 
profound and highly consequential ethical challenges 
and choices. They may play a crucial role in shaping 
human experience in the fast-approaching age of 
biotechnology."

Backing Kass's council of intellectual clones,
marching to the same anti-transhumanist, anti-biotech 
beat, are other numerous and organized voices. Their 
favored watering hole - the forum that gathers and 
disseminates their vitality-sapping fulminations of fear 
and faith is <i>The New Atlantis</i>. Appropriately 
named 
after the Platonic fantasy of a perfect unchanging 
society now lost to the world, this publication aims to 
shape "the nation's moral and political understanding of 
all areas of technology" in a way deadly to extropic 
ideals and aspirations. Many other groups are getting in 
on the act through the vehicle of the sensible-sounding 
<b>Precautionary Principle</b>. This principle cripples 
technological progress by requiring every technological 
innovation to clear the impossible hurdle of 
absolutely proving total safety. It unites extreme 
environmentalists, anti-capitalists, scare-mongers, 
biological fundamentalists, enemies of modern 
civilization, and Luddites of all stripes.



<b>About the "VP" Summit</b>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To counter Kass and his Council, <i> The New 
Atlantis</i>, and 
the seductive Precautionary Principle, Extropy Institute 
has initiated a Summit in several phases. The first 
phase will take place in mid-late February. This 
<b>collaborative, multi-disciplinary online</b> event will 
bring 
together not only all kinds of transhumanists and future-
friendly folks, but also advocacy groups such as the 
Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation who need 
advanced biotech research to fix devastating biological 
problems. As Reeve has said, "I never thought politics 
would get in the way of hope."

The Vital Progress Summit aims to achieve real, 
practical results. These will come in stages as the 
project progresses, but early deliverables expected 
from the February summit include a pithy response to 
the Precautionary Principle, a policy and values 
statement to counter <i>Beyond Therapy</i>, and a 
comprehensive collection of links to pro-advancement 
groups, journalists, publications, and educational groups.

The Vital Progress Summit fits perfectly with and 
realizes Extropy Institute's mission. The February 
Summit will see the start of a continuing effort to build 
a broad alliance sharing the goal of the continued 
progress of fundamental knowledge of the human 
condition and how to modify it for the better. We can 
counter the bioconservatives by catalyzing the 
development of a "party of life".

You'll find more details of the workings of the Summit in 
the <b>next update just a week from now</b>. The 
core of the 
two-week online event will be a <b>focused blog</b>
by invited 
keynote bloggers. Others will be able to participate in 
related forums and by commenting on the blog-project 
work as well as by helping develop associated 
resources.

 >> http://www.extropy.org





<b>ExI Welcomes its Honorary Advisor</b>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ExI welcomes Tom Bell as its Honorary 
Advisor.  
Tom is a professor of law and a policy analyst, 
who has written widely about copyright, free speech, 
gambling, and telecommunications.

Tom is also a designer of ideas and, as such, coined 
the term "extropy" way back in 1988. Tom was co-
founder and Vice President of ExI, and remains a 
valued friend and colleague.  ExI continues to be 
infused by Tom's characteristic enthusiasm, good 
humor, and probing mind.

Welcome back Tom!

Prof. Tom W. Bell - Honorary Advisor >> http://www.extropy.org/directors.thm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Quick Links...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Join ExI! >> http://www.extropy.org/membership.htm
Email lists >> http://www.extropy.org/emaillists
Transhumanist FAQ >> http://www.extropy.org/faq.htm
Best Business Analysis on the Web! >> http://www.manyworlds.com://
More About Us >> http://www.extropy.org

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
email: exi-info at extropy.org
voice: 011.512.263.2749
web: http://www.extropy.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Extropy Institute | 10709 Pointe View Drive | Austin | TX | 78738

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From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Thu Jan  8 16:51:44 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 08:51:44 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Extropy Institute Announces the Vital Progress
	Summit I (VP1)
In-Reply-To: <1610158607.1073575784584.JavaMail.wasadmin@ui2>
Message-ID: <20040108165144.8166.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>

The links direct IE to my yahoo login, not to any ExI login.

--- Extropy Institute <exi-info at extropy.org> wrote:
> Extropy Institute Announces the upcoming 2004 Summit
> VITAL PROGRESS ("VP") (01.07.04)
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> Greetings!
> 
> Recent and accelerating scientific advances may have 
> you excited about extropic goals of extended life, 
> heightened intelligence, and so on. But hold on! The 
> forces of reaction are surging and we need to respond 
> now. Extropy Institute is well into the planning process 
> for the upcoming Vital Progress Summit, set for 
> February 2004. In this newsletter, we explain why this 
> Summit is needed so urgently, how it will work, what 
> we aim to accomplish, and who we expect to 
> participate.
> 
> The Summit is ExI's proactive response to three 
> disturbing pivotal developments: <i>Beyond 
> Therapy</i> - the 
> report of 
> the US President's Council on Bioethics headed by arch-
> bioconservative and neophobe Leon Kass (and including 
> avowed anti-posthuman Francis Fukuyama); <i>The 
> New 
> Atlantis</i> publication - a high-powered rallying point 
> for 
> the neo-Luddites; and the <b>Precautionary 
> Principle</b> - a 
> idea being adopted by a diverse array of interest 
> groups devoted to blocking the fundamental 
> technological advances crucial to our survival and to 
> our extropic goals of overcoming human limits.
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> In this issue: ExI VITAL PROGRESS ("VP") Summit scheduled for
> February, 2004; and Welcome to Honorary Advisor -Prof. Tom W. Bell
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> * Killer Quotes!
> * <b>The Surging Threat to Extropic Advance</b>
> * <b>About the "VP" Summit</b>
> 
> * <b>ExI Welcomes its Honorary Advisor</b>
> 
> 
> Killer Quotes!
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> "The finitude of human life is a blessing for every 
> individual, whether he knows it or not." And: "The 
> immortals cannot be noble." -- Leon Kass, chairman of 
> the President's Council on Bioethics
> 
> "The worst possible way to resolve [the question of life 
> extension] is to leave it up to individual choice. There is 
> no known social good coming from the conquest of 
> death." - Daniel Callahan
> 
> "The whole effort to defeat death, it seems to me, is a 
> kind of striving that speaks of a kind of serious lack of a 
> certain kind of moral perspective. - Francis Fukuyama
> 
> "The pursuit of perfect bodies and further life extension 
> will deflect us from realizing more fully the aspirations 
> to which our lives naturally point, from living well rather 
> than merely staying alive."  - Leon Kass in The 
> Washington Post
> 
> 
> 
> <b>The Surging Threat to Extropic Advance</b>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Throughout history the forces of advancement have 
> struggled against the reactionary forces of stasis. 
> Europe suffered a thousand years of zero progress 
> during the Dark Ages. The Renaissance and 
> Enlightenment finally broke through that grim era. We 
> transhumanists are the heirs to the Enlightenment 
> values of perpetual progress for humanity based in 
> science and creativity. Recent years have seen 
> numerous developments that are showing the culture at 
> large the realism of our extropic goals of extended 
> healthy life, enhanced intelligence, refined emotions, 
> and the ever-extending ability to take control of our 
> form and fate. But now we face an unprecedented 
> convergence of groups intent on using direct action 
> and global legislation to halt humanity's progress.
> 
> One of the most remarkable and worrying developments 
> is the presidential-level bioethics council. This council, 
> led by Leon Kass (once an opponent of in vitro 
> fertilization) has published a report, <I>Beyond 
> Therapy</I> 
> that takes very seriously issues at the core of our 
> extropic values and goals. From the preface to the 
> report:
> 
> "In keeping with our mission, we have undertaken an 
> inquiry into the potential implications of using 
> biotechnology "beyond therapy," in order to try to 
> satisfy deep and familiar human desires: for better 
> children, superior performance, ageless bodies, and 
> happy souls. Such uses of biotechnology, some of 
> which are now possible and some of which may become 
> possible in the future, are likely to present us with 
> profound and highly consequential ethical challenges 
> and choices. They may play a crucial role in shaping 
> human experience in the fast-approaching age of 
> biotechnology."
> 
> Backing Kass's council of intellectual clones,
> marching to the same anti-transhumanist, anti-biotech 
> beat, are other numerous and organized voices. Their 
> favored watering hole - the forum that gathers and 
> disseminates their vitality-sapping fulminations of fear 
> and faith is <i>The New Atlantis</i>. Appropriately 
> named 
> after the Platonic fantasy of a perfect unchanging 
> society now lost to the world, this publication aims to 
> shape "the nation's moral and political understanding of 
> all areas of technology" in a way deadly to extropic 
> ideals and aspirations. Many other groups are getting in 
> on the act through the vehicle of the sensible-sounding 
> <b>Precautionary Principle</b>. This principle cripples 
> technological progress by requiring every technological 
> innovation to clear the impossible hurdle of 
> absolutely proving total safety. It unites extreme 
> environmentalists, anti-capitalists, scare-mongers, 
> biological fundamentalists, enemies of modern 
> civilization, and Luddites of all stripes.
> 
> 
> 
> <b>About the "VP" Summit</b>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> To counter Kass and his Council, <i> The New 
> Atlantis</i>, and 
> the seductive Precautionary Principle, Extropy Institute 
> has initiated a Summit in several phases. The first 
> phase will take place in mid-late February. This 
> <b>collaborative, multi-disciplinary online</b> event will 
> bring 
> together not only all kinds of transhumanists and future-
> friendly folks, but also advocacy groups such as the 
> Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation who need 
> advanced biotech research to fix devastating biological 
> problems. As Reeve has said, "I never thought politics 
> would get in the way of hope."
> 
> The Vital Progress Summit aims to achieve real, 
> practical results. These will come in stages as the 
> project progresses, but early deliverables expected 
> from the February summit include a pithy response to 
> the Precautionary Principle, a policy and values 
> statement to counter <i>Beyond Therapy</i>, and a 
> comprehensive collection of links to pro-advancement 
> groups, journalists, publications, and educational groups.
> 
> The Vital Progress Summit fits perfectly with and 
> realizes Extropy Institute's mission. The February 
> Summit will see the start of a continuing effort to build 
> a broad alliance sharing the goal of the continued 
> progress of fundamental knowledge of the human 
> condition and how to modify it for the better. We can 
> counter the bioconservatives by catalyzing the 
> development of a "party of life".
> 
> You'll find more details of the workings of the Summit in 
> the <b>next update just a week from now</b>. The 
> core of the 
> two-week online event will be a <b>focused blog</b>
> by invited 
> keynote bloggers. Others will be able to participate in 
> related forums and by commenting on the blog-project 
> work as well as by helping develop associated 
> resources.
> 
>  >> http://www.extropy.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> <b>ExI Welcomes its Honorary Advisor</b>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> ExI welcomes Tom Bell as its Honorary 
> Advisor.  
> Tom is a professor of law and a policy analyst, 
> who has written widely about copyright, free speech, 
> gambling, and telecommunications.
> 
> Tom is also a designer of ideas and, as such, coined 
> the term "extropy" way back in 1988. Tom was co-
> founder and Vice President of ExI, and remains a 
> valued friend and colleague.  ExI continues to be 
> infused by Tom's characteristic enthusiasm, good 
> humor, and probing mind.
> 
> Welcome back Tom!
> 
> Prof. Tom W. Bell - Honorary Advisor >>
> http://www.extropy.org/directors.thm
> 
=== message truncated ===>
_______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mark at permanentend.org  Thu Jan  8 17:29:39 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 12:29:39 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] DNA ?= Destiny
References: <20040108010622.455.qmail@web80409.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <074801c3d60c$ff7364d0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Adrian Tymes"

> --- Mark Walker <mark at permanentend.org> wrote:
> > Not everyone is born with the right DNA to pursue
> > excellence in music,
> > knowledge, athletics, etc.
>
> >From where comes this belief, taken as fact?  From my
> own (admiteddly anecdotal) experiences, it seems that
> environment has more to do with potential than
> genetics in almost all cases.  (Barring biochemical
> defects that tend to leave one unable to function
> normally in society at all.)  Genes give probabilistic
> influences, not absolute barriers; a non-genius at
> birth might have a harder time earning a Ph.D., but
> with the right education and training (much of which
> can be self-obtained and self-directed these days,
> thanks to the Web), anything that is humanly possible,
> is possible for a human.
> _

For the contrary opinion see:

Plomin R., et al. Behavioral Genetics, 4th edition. New York, Freeman, 2001.

Molecular Genetics and the Human Personality, edited by J. Benjamin et al.
2002 American Pscychriatic Publishing, 293-314.

Cheers,

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org








From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk  Thu Jan  8 17:32:16 2004
From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK)
Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 17:32:16 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Extropy Institute Announces the Vital Progress
	Summit I (VP1)
Message-ID: <3FFD9420.8050204@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>

On Thu Jan 08, 2004 09:51 am Mike Lorrey wrote:
> The links direct IE to my yahoo login, not to any ExI login.

On Mozilla the links mostly work OK, but two links give a 404 Not Found
error. namely:
<http://www.extropy.org/directors.thm>  and
<http://www.extropy.org/emaillists>

The Update and Unsubscribe links at the foot of the message appear to
permit anyone to update and unsubscribe natasha.

Danger Will Robinson!!


BillK




From mark at permanentend.org  Thu Jan  8 18:00:16 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 13:00:16 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786910@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <077201c3d611$460b2730$2ee4f418@markcomputer>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Emlyn O'regan"

> > I'm guessing that qua
> > transhumanist
> > you are in minority in denying  (1). But, hey, you are in the
> > majority--at
> > least in the "West".
>
> Ouch, you don't pull your punches, do you? :-) I probably am in the
> majority, but accidentally, and mostly for different reasons I think.
Oddly
> enough, the most common reason I see expressed for not allowing genetic
> manipulation of children is jealousy, or a fear of inequality, which I
find
> weird. Make no mistake, the entirety of my concern is about untried,
> unprovable technology with dubious benefits and very real risks, and lack
of
> ability for the individual to give consent.
>
The sorts of concerns you raise are quite common, at least in my experience
in lecturing and teaching this stuff. However, just because you are in the
majority it does not necessarily mean you are wrong. : )  Let's put aside
cases of genetic engineering of children and concentrate on simple embryo
selection. Here there is no genetic engineering, simply choosing which fetus
to implant. The individual here cannot complain post facto that they were
manipulated in any way, only that they were chosen. They might have been
born in any event, by selecting them we have simply "rigged the lottery".
This seems to resolves to just the usual complaint of being born at all, as
the song goes: "were not my mother's womb my grave".
Now take IQ. There is a lot of evidence that this has a strong genetic
component to it. (See for example, Plomin R., et al. Behavioral Genetics,
4th edition. New York, Freeman, 2001, or "Are We Hardwired?" for a slightly
more popular account). For example, estimates of the IQ correlation between
identical twins adopted and reared apart are in the 50 to 80% range. The
correlation between the IQ of adopted children and their parents is pretty
close to zero. Here we have a case where the technology of selecting embryos
has already established, the consent issue doesn't seem germane, and the
benefit is the potential for increased knowledge. Isn't a primary purpose of
education to increase knowledge? If so then what is the principled
difference between embryo selection for the potential for increased
knowledge and attempting to educate the young so that their knowledge
increases?

Cheers,

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org






From natashavita at earthlink.net  Thu Jan  8 18:26:00 2004
From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 13:26:00 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Extropy Institute Announces the Vital
	ProgressSummit I (VP1)
Message-ID: <2920-2200414818260602@M2W052.mail2web.com>



Original Message:
-----------------
From: BillK bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk

On Mozilla the links mostly work OK, but two links give a 404 Not Found
error. namely:
<http://www.extropy.org/directors.thm>  and
<http://www.extropy.org/emaillists>

*Yes, I saw this.  I'll fix it in the software.

The Update and Unsubscribe links at the foot of the message appear to
permit anyone to update and unsubscribe natasha.

*Hummm.  I'm not sure why this is.  I better call the software designer! :-)



--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .




From jonkc at att.net  Thu Jan  8 18:49:45 2004
From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 13:49:45 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] DNA ?= Destiny
References: <20040108010622.455.qmail@web80409.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <00f301c3d618$46f50dd0$3cff4d0c@hal2001>

"Adrian Tymes" <wingcat at pacbell.net> Wrote:

>From my  own (admiteddly anecdotal) experiences,
>it seems that  environment has more to do with potential
>than  genetics in almost all cases.

The IQ of identical twins raised separately is much more similar than the IQ
of fraternal twins raised separately, the variation is almost the same as
twins who stayed with their biological parents. In both cases the
correlation between the intelligence of the adoptive parents and the
children they care for is lousy, the correlation with the biological parents
is much better.

This would seem to work against your theory.

   John K Clark     jonkc at att.net










From wingcat at pacbell.net  Thu Jan  8 20:14:18 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 12:14:18 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] DNA ?= Destiny
In-Reply-To: <00f301c3d618$46f50dd0$3cff4d0c@hal2001>
Message-ID: <20040108201418.55598.qmail@web80402.mail.yahoo.com>

--- John K Clark <jonkc at att.net> wrote:
> The IQ of identical twins raised separately is much
> more similar than the IQ
> of fraternal twins raised separately, the variation
> is almost the same as
> twins who stayed with their biological parents. In
> both cases the
> correlation between the intelligence of the adoptive
> parents and the
> children they care for is lousy, the correlation
> with the biological parents
> is much better.
> 
> This would seem to work against your theory.

What of the arguments that genetic and environmental
influences tend to be correlated?  I.e., that the
same types of experiences tend to happen to the same
gene sets?  Although, I suppose that would defeat the
theory in most cases too: if what happens to you tends
to be destined, then how you're born is how you're
born...unless, of course, you take action to change
that, which almost no one does.


From wingcat at pacbell.net  Thu Jan  8 20:22:04 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 12:22:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
In-Reply-To: <077201c3d611$460b2730$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <20040108202204.33011.qmail@web80407.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Mark Walker <mark at permanentend.org> wrote:
> Here we have a case where the
> technology of selecting embryos
> has already established,

Slight incorrectness.  Selecting embryos itself, yes,
that technology is here.  But how to know which
embryo has the genes for intelligence?

That said, this could be a real issue in the very near
term.  All that's missing is a good, publically
available map of genes to approximate IQ, which
doesn't seem that hard to create.  A group dedicated
to the necessary studies could possibly publish a
fairly reliable one (with a disclaimer that it only
covers the genetic component of IQ, which is not 100%
of IQ - partly as a cover in case one of the resulting
children decides to destroy their own potential)
within two or three years.  It would have to be a
private group, since no current scientifically
trustworthy government could get away with such an
effort politically, but the resources required do not
seem to exceed several million dollars.  But the map
isn't available yet, so this selection could not be
done with confidence today in most cases.


From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Thu Jan  8 23:03:00 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 09:33:00 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786916@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

Mark Walker wrote:
> The sorts of concerns you raise are quite common, at least in 
> my experience
> in lecturing and teaching this stuff. However, just because 
> you are in the
> majority it does not necessarily mean you are wrong. : )  
> Let's put aside
> cases of genetic engineering of children and concentrate on 
> simple embryo
> selection. Here there is no genetic engineering, simply 
> choosing which fetus
> to implant. The individual here cannot complain post facto 
> that they were
> manipulated in any way, only that they were chosen. They 
> might have been
> born in any event, by selecting them we have simply "rigged 
> the lottery".
> This seems to resolves to just the usual complaint of being 
> born at all, as
> the song goes: "were not my mother's womb my grave".
> Now take IQ. There is a lot of evidence that this has a strong genetic
> component to it. (See for example, Plomin R., et al. 
> Behavioral Genetics,
> 4th edition. New York, Freeman, 2001, or "Are We Hardwired?" 
> for a slightly
> more popular account). For example, estimates of the IQ 
> correlation between
> identical twins adopted and reared apart are in the 50 to 80% 
> range. The
> correlation between the IQ of adopted children and their 
> parents is pretty
> close to zero. Here we have a case where the technology of 
> selecting embryos
> has already established, the consent issue doesn't seem 
> germane, and the
> benefit is the potential for increased knowledge. Isn't a 
> primary purpose of
> education to increase knowledge? If so then what is the principled
> difference between embryo selection for the potential for increased
> knowledge and attempting to educate the young so that their knowledge
> increases?
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Mark
> 
> Mark Walker, PhD
> Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
> University of Toronto
> Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
> 15 Devonshire Place
> Toronto
> M5S 1H8
> www.permanentend.org
> 

Embryo selection I can probably support; there's nothing risky involved,
just a choice that could have occured anyway. Yes, that's a strong argument
(thanks!). Because in the case of embryo selection, it's like education; it
*must* happen (default is close enough to random), so morally you are fairly
free to choose.

However, like education, the choice of how needs to fall back on those
primarily responsible for the child, ie: the parents, and not on the state.
I wonder if I need to back this statement up? Probably.

Emlyn



From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Thu Jan  8 23:48:29 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 15:48:29 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Boredom in old age
In-Reply-To: <Pine.WNT.4.55.0312030924410.-37899@pentium.mb.baumeister.us>
Message-ID: <000201c3d642$49784430$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

I've already hit that point and I'm only 27.
The sheer amount of time spent in the pursuit
of work in the U.S. is ridiculous. Hell,
the Egyptians had it easier than us building
the pyramids :)  I'ld much rather see a healthier
schedule (4 days work, 3 days play)...  Its a pity
that the germans have succumbed to this stupid 
mentality that you have to put in more hours at 
work to be competitive.  Besides, where do you draw
the line, why not work 20 hours a day?  You'll be
that much more competitive.  I sometimes think I'm
the only that really despises a 40 hour work week.
Everybody else just looks at me like I'm crazy :)

omard-out

PS> you've hit the nail on the head; the only break
you get is 65+; at 65+ your health is starting to go.
so why not try working on improving you and your fellows
health...





-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of MB
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 6:55 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Boredom in old age



Yes, there is a flavor of youthful enthusiasm here, but it
is not intentional (on my part). What I was trying to point
out is that one spends 25+ years "working" (often on someone else's
projects) and not playing. And finally, if one is blessed with decent
health, one can try playing.

I gave an example of my brother, and he's in his mid 70s.

My other brother is pushing 80. He does ice skating, model building,
studying German (he always wanted to learn the language after he was
there in WW2), reading, website building for friends - and travel. He
sleeps a lot, and my sister in law says she thinks he may have been
without sufficient sleep all his working life. But he is busy and AFAIK
happy. The work he does now is not what he did in his job, but he still
has connections there.

I myself am only hitting this wall now, and I do wonder
"what's the point?" I don't feel very good, aches and pains. I'm not as
strong as I was, and I need more support system. :( It's most
irritating. But there are new things out there. I've built a website for
a non-profit a friend of mine suggested, I do a bit of database work for
a former boss, I help some older less able friends to get around, and
I've taken up Shaped Note Singing. I also have become interested in
snakes and I roller skate with friends. And I have more time (which is a
darn good thing, as I have less strength!) for my garden.

This is mostly new stuff for me, as I simply didn't have
time when I was working and raising my family.

However.... I admit, I'm not at all sure I'd want to look at another 100
or so years of it. My health isn't what I'd desire.

That said, I think the *real* problem is elsewhere. It is within my
mind.  My brothers have more internal drive than I do, they are ...
smarter. They've always been that way.

None of us watch TV (except my oldest brother watches the iceskating).
I'd rather sleep! :)))

I still think there's more neat stuff for me out there, I
just haven't found it yet.

That's one reason I (usually) lurk on this list. It's interesting. And
full of new stuff.

And my email was meant to be an encouragement.

Regards,
MB
ps. There's also a sort of mid-life thing that some men go through -
having spent all their energies on "the job". Perhaps this is part of
the original poster's trouble?

On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, BillK wrote:

> On Tue Dec 02, 2003 05:07 pm  Adrian Tymes wrote:
> > There's always more to learn and do, although one
> > might become tired of it and start justifying that everything out 
> > there is all the same.
>
>
> On Tue Dec 02, 2003 09:11 pm MB wrote:
> > There's stuff out there. You can find it. It may not be what you 
> > expect. It may be sort of out of your field, but nothing wrong with 
> > that.
>
>
> These sentiments strike me as having the flavor of youthful 
> enthusiasm. When you are younger, everything is new and exciting, you 
> are healthy and fit and full of energy and you want to 'go boldly 
> beyond the frontiers'.
>
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Thu Jan  8 23:51:40 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 15:51:40 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] libertarian fervor
In-Reply-To: <Pine.WNT.4.55.0312032220120.-276771@pentium.mb.baumeister.us>
Message-ID: <000301c3d642$b7bf50a0$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Stupid, mundane, short-sighted, ignorant greedy people in power 
taxing me at 50% effective to prohibit me from doing any of the 
things I like and forcing me to do things the stupid way.  I've
had it up to here with both parties, I've voting libby from here
until my grave; and wherever possible, cheat the system (a sliding
countermeasure) until the libbys get in power.

omard-out

PS> I wouldn't talk to these leaches in RL if god himself 
came down and told me to :)



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of MB
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 7:26 PM
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: [extropy-chat] libertarian fervor




--- "R.Coyote" <etheric at comcast.net> wrote:
> "Would others speak to where their libertarian fervor came
from?"


Discovering that so many things I liked or wanted to do were either
taxed, prohibited, or regulated. That came as quite a shock to me as I
was growing up.

Regards,
MB

_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Thu Jan  8 23:41:48 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 15:41:48 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ASTRO: Black holes no more...
In-Reply-To: <20040108072826.70897.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <000101c3d641$577bdf20$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Actually I had a similar thought about a week ago...
{apparently this was released last year, interesting
things are afoot}.. I'm firmly convinced that gravity is 
the key to everything :)  In fact, I'm going to make it
my primary focus in studying physics.  That and waveguides
(which might come in very handy in studying gravity) :)
But in any event, I would think that the defining boundary
must in and of itself be non-traversible.  Incidentally,
a warp drive would negate the need to puncture that boundary.
<ducks> :)

omard-out



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Lorrey
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2004 11:28 PM
To: extropy-chat at extropy.org
Subject: [extropy-chat] ASTRO: Black holes no more...


So, every time a supernova rings, a universe gets its wings.... If a
singularity event horizon is merely a boundary to another universe
(whether you can git theyah frum heyah is another question), then
hyperspace drives require the ability for occupants of a black hole to
puncture that boundary, travel around the outside of the hole, then
reenter at another point. No sweat.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Black Holes No More -- Introducing the Gravastar                   |
|   from the yet-another-cosmic-theory dept.                         |

[0]Mark Eymer observes: "From the Space.com [1]article: 'Emil Mottola 
of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Pawel Mazur of the University
of South Carolina suggest that instead of a star collapsing into a 
pinpoint of space with virtually infinite gravity, its matter is
transformed into a spherical void surrounded by "an extremely durable
form of matter never before experienced on Earth."' While these objects
may abound in the universe, they also say that our entire universe may
reside within a giant gravastar." This new theory attempts to fill holes
in the currently accepted concept of the "black hole".

Discuss this story at:
    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=04/01/07/1515210

Links:
    0. mailto:eymerm at cableone.net
    1. 
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/gravastars_020423.html


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark "Fascists are
objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 00:12:15 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 16:12:15 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] More good stuff from Michael Crichton
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040105080609.03941420@mail.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <000001c3d645$42c06b60$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

I just read an interesting paper about weather prediction;
not in the sense of what will happen tomorrow, but statistically,
what percentage of x can u expect.  Its based off of chaos theory,
primarily examining what portions of weather systems were scale
independent.  It was interesting/thought provoking.  Not sure if
I believe it (at this point).  But does indicate an interesting line
of thought.

omard-out


-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Max More
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 7:24 AM
To: Extropy Chat
Subject: [extropy-chat] More good stuff from Michael Crichton



Aliens Cause Global Warming

A lecture by Michael Crichton
Caltech Michelin Lecture
January 17, 2003
http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html


>When did "skeptic" become a dirty word in science? When did a skeptic
>require quotation marks around it?
>
>To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming
>controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back
in 
>the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight
to 
>a conclusion: "These results are derived with the help of a computer 
>model." But now large-scale computer models are seen as generating data
in 
>themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data

>from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data. As if they
were 
>themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting
forward. 
>There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only 
>model runs.
>
>This fascination with computer models is something I understand very 
>well.
>Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because only
if 
>you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you arrive at
the 
>complex point where the global warming debate now stands.
>
>Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're 
>asked
>to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And
make 
>financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost
their 
>minds?



_______________________________________________________
Max More, Ph.D.
max at maxmore.com or more at extropy.org
http://www.maxmore.com
Strategic Philosopher
Chairman, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org <more at extropy.org>
_______________________________________________________


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 00:21:14 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 16:21:14 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: [wta-talk] Libertarianism and the Autistic
	Spectrum (fwd from fehlinger@un.org)
In-Reply-To: <3FBCA014.2060101@mxm.dk>
Message-ID: <000101c3d646$dbfbe880$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Actually, being a person of some severe* psychological abnormalities,
I'll play a card that is a favorite of mine when dealing with people
who I term "skittish";  the DSM-IV requires that the person who has
the disorder consider it a disorder (causitive of problems in need 
of resolution) for it to be classified as a disorder.

Now, knowing that, and starting with his assumption that everyone
is Narcissitic Personality Disorder, would anyone here say that they 
have personality tendencies that are severely interfering with their
lives and hence, require treatment?  That of course, would be the
direct implication of his "prognosis".

And having said, one can thus deduce he doesn't know what the fuck he
his talking about, since I do not see any questions to group members
of the form I just posed.

If he were smart, he could of course, make the statement that he is 
observing narcistic tendencies (and get away with that)/

omard-out

*I am weird.  No doubt about it. Confirmed from multiple external
sources.
I am a very open person, so I don't bother hiding my abnormalities in
the
slightest.  I don't see a point to continually trying to iceskate
uphill.



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Max M
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2003 3:06 AM
To: wta-talk at transhumanism.org
Cc: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: [wta-talk] Libertarianism and the Autistic
Spectrum (fwd from fehlinger at un.org)


Eugen Leitl wrote:


> I discovered stuff on the Web that convinced me
> that a lot of folks in the Extropian/transhumanist community exhibit 
> many of the characteristics of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (as 
> described in DSM-IV)


<snip>

> However, it now seems to me that some of this atmosphere
> (and my perception of the atmosphere remains the same -- a smug, 
> self-satisfied lack of empathy with people who don't share their 
> particular hobby-horse -- and for that matter, a frequent lack of 
> empathy with each other!) may be due to a concentration among this 
> group (as with folks in SF fandom, the Trekkie world, the Role-Playing

> Game world, computer programmers, mathematicians, and science/
> engineering types in general) of a sub-clinical "shadow syndrome"
> of autism.  Not quite Asperger's Syndrome, even,
> just a mild echo of it.


Yeah right

And less than 5% of the worlds population are pshycologists and they 
have a very similar psychological profile.

So they they are outside the normal distribution, and thus sick.

That's a stupid argument ... and so is his.

But naturally it is easier to dismiss people if if you can label them 
with a mental disorder.

Personally I am glad, however, to belong to the diseased group of people

who created the majority of the worlds wealth and health.


regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark

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From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 00:25:33 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 16:25:33 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: [wta-talk] Libertarianism and the
	AutisticSpectrum (fwd from fehlinger@un.org)
In-Reply-To: <3FBCB626.7070405@mail.tele.dk>
Message-ID: <000201c3d647$702f5c80$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

>They also believe that they are right and everybody else is wrong."
The first part is self fulfilling. Any group that wants to change the 
status quo consists of "fringe" people.

Prove that everyone else does not follow the identical pattern;
I, to date, have not found anyone who does not think what they are
doing is right, and everybody else is wrong... Anecdotal, but I like
to study people in detail :)  I would have sniffed it out :)  There
is of course, the standard proviso that I might yet mean someone who
thinks they are wrong, and everybody else is right... but I find it
unlikely at this stage in the game.


>We would most likely appear a lot more reasonable to a lot of people if

we could show single reasonable cases in todays society with a >H 
solution/attitude.

Bleh, get the cure for cancer, refuse to administer it to anyone who
objects :) Problem solved :)

omard-out

regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark

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From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 00:28:01 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 16:28:01 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] The end of work, the leisure society,
	and automation
In-Reply-To: <3FDD5EE7.60807@mail.tele.dk>
Message-ID: <000301c3d647$736ab160$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Possibly because you need more stuff to use your leisure time
productively :)

omard-out


-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Max M
Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2003 11:13 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The end of work, the leisure society, and
automation


Colin Magee wrote:

>               I am interested in the concept of a leisure society and
> was wondering if anyone knew of any major thinkers,researchers,or
think 
> tanks exploring this concept and the
cultural,economic,psychological,and 
> political ramifications of this idea.


It was all the rage among futurologists in the 70-80's. But it turned 
out that people didn't want to use their higher income for more leisure 
time. Rather they wanted more stuff.

So they kept working


regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark


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From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 00:30:37 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 16:30:37 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <000001c3caeb$9a163da0$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>
Message-ID: <000401c3d648$28132ac0$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Matus
Sent: Thursday, December 25, 2003 5:33 AM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already



> 
Charlie Stross said:

> I'd like to add to that: war seems to me to be about as anti-extropic 
> as you can get. The triumph of brute force over enlightenment, 
> destruction, death and despair on a massive scale. An excuse for the 
> enemies of freedom on every side to chip away at civil rights. The 
> ascendency of dehumanization is the *opposite* of transhumanism.

I would like to disagree with that.  War is neither intrinsically
extropic nor anti-extropic.  If one of the parties at war is less
extropic, and it wins, then war is anti-extropic.  

- careful their kimo sabe, thats a dangerous line your walking;
put another way, if you will grant me, a small society that is
"extropic".. which by definition, leads a less "extropic" society
comprised of the majority.  So when does the bloody revolution start,
comrade? :)  Direct consequence of your statements, you understand.

As u can see, I have to agree with Charlie :)

Michael


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From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 00:34:07 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 16:34:07 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-OE53iGlrxDG4U000081cf@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <000501c3d648$a1421dc0$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this.
You don't need an island. You need a boat.
Yup, thats right, a boat.  According to maritime
law, you are under the laws of the registering nation
when you are at sea (and protection, ostensibly).
So pick a country that hasn't passed any laws against
whatever you want, get a citizen from there, have him
register a boat in his name, and float the boat 15 miles
off any coast you like.

There is also some interesting case law regarding the formation
of nation-states :)

omard-out




-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of
kevinfreels at hotmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 1:26 PM
To: reason at exratio.com; ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated


Can we get together and buy an island to do all this research on?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Reason" <reason at exratio.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 12:40 AM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated


>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Robert 
> > J.
> Bradbury
>
> > Terminology:
> > ILE: Indefinite Lifespan Extension -- preferable to "IMMORTALITY" 
> > because IMMORTALITY can take too many hits based on the physics of 
> > the universe.  (Protons decaying, expansion accelerating, black 
> > holes consuming everything else, yada yada yada...).
> >
> > Ok, now one of the serious questions that people should
> > be concerned with with respect to ILE is precisely *how*
> > do I get my cake.  For those of us on the upside end of
> > 40, or perhaps 30, cryonics enters into the equation.
> >
> > *But* as some of us know cryonics becomes pretty *iffy*
> > if the legal authorities stick their fingers into the works. (Cases 
> > in point range from the current situation regarding the Martinot's 
> > in France to the case of Dora Kent in the past.)
>
> I think I would go so far as to say that the entirety of the "cake or 
> not" question revolves around government interference. My take is that

> we're probably 30 years away from the start of aging as a chronic but 
> controlled condition, *IF* there are clear skies and freedom for 
> fundraising,
activism,
> education and research. There are no show-stopping hurdles beyond a 
> lot of work and a lot of money - exactly the same thing that could 
> have been said about cancer 30 years ago.
>
> This time could easily double if politicians and anti-progress forces
really
> dig in and fight seriously to halt medical progress towards 
> ILE...which
they
> show all the signs of doing. Already, scientific progress in 
> regenerative medicine is far behind where it could have been.
>
> Reason
> http://www.exratio.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org 
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>
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From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 00:36:32 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 16:36:32 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: garage nanotech
In-Reply-To: <14a.26e36763.2ceae155@aol.com>
Message-ID: <000601c3d648$a5291bf0$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

First, bradbury, what are you talking about?
Second, alex, out of curiousity, what were
you working on that distracted you from the STM.
Incidentally, you wouldn't happen to be out in
Cali, would you?
omard-out
 

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of
ABlainey at aol.com
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 6:44 PM
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: garage nanotech


In a message dated 18/11/2003 00:29:48 GMT Daylight Time,
bradbury at blarg.net writes:




It may be useful for Dan to point out to his daughter that if someone
does
pull off tool tip replacement and alternative assembly chemistries for
STMs
that they are probably on the short list for a Nobel Prize (and probably

would have a very *very* large set of royalty income streams from the
patents.)





What is the problem with the tool tip replacement? Is it just the
problem of the tip wearing down and having to be constantly replaced and
shaped? or is the problem more complex?
I toyed with the idea of a home-brew STM not that long ago. I built a
piezo scanning head in a few hours and then became distracted by a more
interesting project. I have thought about continuing the STM
construction and had a few ideas about tool and scanning head
refinements. 
Maybe this thread is just the incentive I need to get the project off
the shelf.

Alex



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From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 00:38:32 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 16:38:32 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Risks of Smart Drugs
In-Reply-To: <56BC65EB2F3963489057F7D978B5E7B74661@amazemail2.amazeent.com>
Message-ID: <000b01c3d649$40160f10$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Can't say anything about smart drugs;
however, I do have a personal observation regarding grape juice.
I find, if I have been concentrating for a great deal of time
(making lots of complex decisions for a number of hours), that
I deplete something... and when I drink grape juice (for which
I develop a most unusual hankering), i get a mental boost.

Just an FYI, in case you were interested (or anyone on the list 
for that matter).


-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Acy James
Stapp
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 1:22 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Risks of Smart Drugs


Vinpocetine is the only OTC nootropic that gives me any 
noticeable effect. Subjectively, it seems like the world goes by just a
tiny bit slower, and I feel a bit more on top of things. Unfortunately I
am unaware of any quick tests 
to determine the efficacy of nootropics. This effect 
seemed to fade over a couple of days though. Who knows 
whether I was adapting to the subjective effect (and still 
receiving an objective effect, if any) or whether I was 
adapting to the objective effect and it was losing it's 
efficacy.

Acy

-----Original Message-----
From: R.Coyote [mailto:etheric at comcast.net] 

I've also had noticeably positive effects from vinpocetine.
http://www.nootropics.com/vinpocetine/index.html

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From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 01:05:41 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 17:05:41 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Words of wisdom and humor
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20031029075440.01926240@mail.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <000001c3d64d$19b935a0$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Man that Voltaire was such a card :)
I've got candide queued for reading,
just read the introduction, and he seemed
like a fairly cool guy.  I read it in highschool,
but I can't remember a thing about it except that
I liked it alot.  Swift too :)

-------------
I've included some quotes from my homepage circa 1995. I have many more
saved,
but I'm afraid I haven't integrated them yet.

-- You're out of luck, can't find a copy.

ah well.
omard-out




-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Max More
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 6:05 AM
To: Extropy Chat
Subject: [extropy-chat] Words of wisdom and humor


Rather than hoarding all the quotes I've gathered, I thought I'd share
some 
of them here. A mix of wisdom, humor, and both at once:


"The best proof of intelligent life in space is that it hasn't come
here."
- Sir Arthur C. Clarke

Sexual abstinence is harmless when practiced in moderation.

  "The future is usually like the past  right up to the moment when it
isn't." George F. Will, Newsweek, 10.27.03

"I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness
of 
people."
Isaac Newton, after losing his savings in the South Sea Bubble of 1720.

"Life is a process of evolution and anyone who thinks the current world 
order is OK does not get what evolution is all about."
Leroy Hood

Bill McKibben "It is clear that these revolutionary technologies are
being 
driven by people with immortality, or something very near it, on their
minds."

"The only one who likes change is a wet baby."
Unknown

"There's a seeker born every minute."
Robert Anton Wilson

"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk" Thomas
Edison

"No one may have the guts to say this, but if we could make better human

beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we?"
Dr. James Watson, Nobel Laureate, Co-Discoverer with Francis Crick of
the 
Structure of DNA, and Founding Director of the NIH Human Genome Project.

"It seems to me that the civilized human being is a skeptic  someone who

believes nothing at face value."
Robert McKee, Harvard Business Review, June 2003, in "Storytelling That 
Moves People".

"Humankind does not live by bread alone but also by catchphrases."  From
"Real Work" by Abraham Zaleznik, HBR Nov/Dec 1997

  "I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is
to 
be flexible at all times."
Everett Dirksen, leader of Senate Republicans 1959-1969

  "I don't want any 'yes men' in this organization. I want people to
speak 
their minds, even if it does cost them their jobs."
Sam Goldwyn

  "Inside an organization there are only cost centers. The only profit 
center is a customer whose check has not bounced."
  Peter F. Drucker, Management Challenges for the 21st Century, p.122, 
"Information Challenges".

"If man were meant to be nude, he would have been born that way." -
Oscar 
Wilde.

"I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it."
- Groucho Marx (1895-1977)

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."
- Voltaire (1694-1778)

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

"A witty saying proves nothing."
- Voltaire (1694-1778)

"If you are going through hell, keep going."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

"I am not young enough to know everything."
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"The covers of this book are too far apart."
- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

"It is time I stepped aside for a less experienced and less able man."
- Professor Scott Elledge on his retirement from Cornell

"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung."
- Voltaire (1694-1778)

"Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies."
- Voltaire (1694-1778) on his deathbed in response to a priest asking
that 
he renounce Satan.

"The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other
people."
- Lucille S. Harper

"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing."
- Wernher Von Braun (1912-1977)

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
- Irvin S. Cobb

"If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?" "
- Will Rogers (1879-1935)

"His ignorance is encyclopedic"
- Abba Eban (1915-)

"It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims."
- Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)


Onward!

Max



_______________________________________________________
Max More, Ph.D.
max at maxmore.com or more at extropy.org
http://www.maxmore.com
Strategic Philosopher
Chairman, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org <more at extropy.org>
_______________________________________________________


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From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 00:52:18 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 18:52:18 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] HUMOR
Message-ID: <Law10-OE15apUZq3dUO00027d69@hotmail.com>

I found this online and I thought someone would appreciate it:
http://www.somethingawful.com/inserts/articlepics/photoshop/paranormal/Ratsey_shuttle.jpg
Kevin
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From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan  9 01:16:42 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 17:16:42 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] TEMPEST: You thought your tinfoil hat was enough?
In-Reply-To: <Law10-OE15apUZq3dUO00027d69@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20040109011642.44794.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=16&u=/ap/20040108/ap_on_fe_st/foiled_room_4

OLYMPIA, Wash. - What kind of friends coat your apartment ? and nearly
everything in it ? with tinfoil while you're away? Here's a hint: One
of the only objects that escaped the shiny treatment was a book titled
"Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends." 

Chris Kirk found his downtown Olympia apartment encased in aluminum
foil when he returned home Monday night from a trip to Los Angeles. 

The walls, ceiling, cabinets and everything in between shimmered, after
the prank orchestrated by Kirk's longtime friend, Luke Trerice, 26, who
was staying in the apartment while Kirk was away. 

"He's known for large-scale strangeness," Kirk, 33, told The Olympian.
"He warned me that he would be able to touch my stuff, but it didn't
sound so bad." 

Trerice, who lives in Las Vegas, and a small group of friends draped
the apartment with about 4,000 square feet of aluminum foil, which cost
about $100. 

Not surprisingly, the idea was hatched on New Year's Eve. 

"It was just a spur of the moment thing," Trerice said. "I really don't
even consider it art. I consider it a psychology project. ... He seems
to be upbeat, so I consider this a success. " 

No detail was too small or too time-consuming. The toilet paper was
unrolled, wrapped in foil, then rolled back up again. The friends
covered Kirk's book and compact disc collections but made sure each CD
case could open and shut normally. They even used foil on each coin in
Kirk's spare change. 

And to sweeten the theme, they left silver Hershey's kisses sprinkled
throughout the apartment. 

"The toilet was hard. The molding around the doorways took a very long
time," Trerice said. 



=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan  9 01:30:25 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 17:30:25 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: garage nanotech
In-Reply-To: <000601c3d648$a5291bf0$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401081726210.27057-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Paul Grant wrote:

> First, bradbury, what are you talking about?

I was generally talking about the difficult of making
precise tips for use with STMs or AFMs.  There is a
bit of difference between a tip that will grasp carbon
monoxide securely and precisely and a tip that will grasp
adamantane (a 10 carbon molecule (I think) with a diamond
like bonding structure).  If you only want to add one type
of molecule to a structure you never need to change tips.
If you do then you probably need a variety of tips to
get the job done.  View the tips as the wrenches and sockets
you need to take apart your car engine.

> Second, alex, out of curiousity, what were
> you working on that distracted you from the STM.
> Incidentally, you wouldn't happen to be out in
> Cali, would you?

I think Alex is either in MI or TX, I can never keep track
of everyone.

R.

{ P.S. Paul -- you are probably over your message limit for
the day so you may want to refrain from posting for a day or
so.  Thanks (taking off the really ugly moderator cap...) }




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan  9 02:05:20 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 18:05:20 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
In-Reply-To: <20040108202204.33011.qmail@web80407.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401081739070.27283-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Adrian Tymes wrote:

> That said, this could be a real issue in the very near term.

Yep.

> All that's missing is a good, publically
> available map of genes to approximate IQ, which
> doesn't seem that hard to create.

Its harder than you might think if there are many genes
(say greater than a dozen) and they have low penetrance
(say are responsible for only 5-10% of the trait each).
These are the characteristics associated with diabetes
and heart disease predispositions and its been rather
difficult to produce a complete picture in spite of many
people working on it.

I suspect Decode, working with the Icelandic dataset
or the company that is working with the Estonian (?)
dataset may be the first to begin to unravel this
because they have the largest number of samples to
work with (and don't have the problems a U.S.
University would probably run into).

> A group dedicated
> to the necessary studies could possibly publish a
> fairly reliable one (with a disclaimer that it only
> covers the genetic component of IQ, which is not 100%
> of IQ - partly as a cover in case one of the resulting
> children decides to destroy their own potential)
> within two or three years.

Sooner than you think... :-)  [I just love Google...]
http://www.hum-molgen.de/bb/Forum9/HTML/000052.html

And then there is the work at King's College:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11838529&dopt=Abstract

And even Pennsylvania State University has an IQ project:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8024528&dopt=Abstract&itool=iconabstr

And then of course there is this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12556904&dopt=Abstract
which finds 4 loci and 3 specific genes they can identify.

Related abstracts also report negative findings for association
with the dopamine receptor and several other genes.

> It would have to be a private group, since no current scientifically
> trustworthy government could get away with such an effort politically,
> but the resources required do not seem to exceed several million dollars.

It would be interesting to research who paid for the studies
cited above.  One thing is for sure -- people with below average
IQs probably cost governments money (extra educational requirements,
perhaps a greater possibility for becoming criminals, etc.)

[I'm not stating things as facts but as reasonable possibilities.]

> But the map isn't available yet, so this selection could not be
> done with confidence today in most cases.

Well 5+ positive polymorphisms and several negative polymorphisms
certainly gives you a start.

Robert

P.S.  I think the Extro list needs a semi-AI filter that runs
all "claims" through google to determine whether or not there
is resonable data to suggest that you might want to be very
careful about the claims...  (No offense Adrian... :-))




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Fri Jan  9 02:30:17 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 21:30:17 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] TEMPEST: You thought your tinfoil hat was enough?
In-Reply-To: <20040109011642.44794.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <001401c3d658$890d1d30$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

>
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=16&u=/ap/20040108/ap_
on_fe_st/foiled_room_4>
> 
> OLYMPIA, Wash. - What kind of friends coat your apartment - 
> and nearly everything in it - with tinfoil while you're away? 
> Here's a hint: One of the only objects that escaped the shiny 
> treatment was a book titled "Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends."

Slow news day?  Why is this news?

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From dirk at neopax.com  Fri Jan  9 03:17:49 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 03:17:49 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated
References: <000501c3d648$a1421dc0$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
Message-ID: <007b01c3d65f$29053470$62256bd5@artemis>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Grant" <paulgrant999 at hotmail.com>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 12:34 AM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated


> I've spent a lot of time thinking about this.
> You don't need an island. You need a boat.
> Yup, thats right, a boat.  According to maritime
> law, you are under the laws of the registering nation
> when you are at sea (and protection, ostensibly).
> So pick a country that hasn't passed any laws against
> whatever you want, get a citizen from there, have him
> register a boat in his name, and float the boat 15 miles
> off any coast you like.
> 
> There is also some interesting case law regarding the formation
> of nation-states :)

http://www.sealandgov.com/ 

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org


From matus at matus1976.com  Fri Jan  9 06:03:13 2004
From: matus at matus1976.com (Matus)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 01:03:13 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <000401c3d648$28132ac0$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
Message-ID: <000001c3d676$44fe0910$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Paul Grant
>
> Charlie Stross said:
> 
> > I'd like to add to that: war seems to me to be about as
anti-extropic
> > as you can get. The triumph of brute force over enlightenment,
> > destruction, death and despair on a massive scale. An excuse for the
> > enemies of freedom on every side to chip away at civil rights. The
> > ascendency of dehumanization is the *opposite* of transhumanism.
> 
> I would like to disagree with that.  War is neither intrinsically
> extropic nor anti-extropic.  If one of the parties at war is less
> extropic, and it wins, then war is anti-extropic.
> 
> - careful their kimo sabe, thats a dangerous line your walking;
> put another way, if you will grant me, a small society that is
> "extropic".. which by definition, leads a less "extropic" society
> comprised of the majority.  So when does the bloody revolution start,
> comrade? :)  Direct consequence of your statements, you understand.
> 
> As u can see, I have to agree with Charlie :)
> 

I think you should refer to the rest of the discussion.  Are you
claiming, absolutely, that not only have all wars that have ever
occurred but all wars that could possibly occur are definitely
anti-extropic?  Quite a strong assertion.  This of course requires you
to define extropic exactly, and war exactly.  My point, as was evident
from the discussion was that whether war is extropic is a much more
complicated question.  In that discussion Charlie even presented an
example of overthrowing the US government to get rid of the drug laws.  

My example of a less extropic government being overthrown by a more
extropic one was merely a quick example, it was not meant to imply that
ANY more extropic government had the right to overthrow any less
extropic one no matter the cost in lives or property.  That is of course
ridiculous.  A more reasonable question (if one can call such questions
reasonable) would be how many lives are worth an increase in extropy,
and how much of an increase?  Debates of that sort have been tossed
around on this list all ready. 

I also noted in that discussion that freedoms are not directly
synonymous with extropy, as the freedom to sit on ones ass all day and
watch TV isn't gonna bring about a singularity, nor would being stoned,
drunk, or visiting strip clubs all day, nor chattering on discussion
board for that matter.  In fact a paternalistic big brother esque
society where each person was assigned an area of technological pursuit
and had immortality and extropianism drilled into their head from the
time they were children would probably be the most 'extropic' yet it
would not be very free.

Michael Dickey




From wingcat at pacbell.net  Fri Jan  9 07:14:45 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 23:14:45 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401081739070.27283-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040109071445.76398.qmail@web80403.mail.yahoo.com>

--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> > That said, this could be a real issue in the very
> near term.
> 
> Yep.

The present course - do nothing - seems to be best.
Some people will gene-select their children; they can
then provide the test cases.  Meanwhile, as has been
pointed out, adults are likely to be able to receive
superior enhancements within 20-40 years, rendering
the effects of gene selection moot by the time it
might start to matter.

> > All that's missing is a good, publically
> > available map of genes to approximate IQ, which
> > doesn't seem that hard to create.
> 
> Its harder than you might think if there are many
> genes
> (say greater than a dozen) and they have low
> penetrance
> (say are responsible for only 5-10% of the trait
> each).
> These are the characteristics associated with
> diabetes
> and heart disease predispositions and its been
> rather
> difficult to produce a complete picture in spite of
> many
> people working on it.

Aye.  But I was speaking relative to other things we
discuss here, such as creating sentient AI or
molecular assemblers.  Compared to those types of
things, merely discovering which genes have good
correlation with IQ isn't that hard.

> P.S.  I think the Extro list needs a semi-AI filter
> that runs
> all "claims" through google to determine whether or
> not there
> is resonable data to suggest that you might want to
> be very
> careful about the claims...  (No offense Adrian...
> :-))

None taken.  I disclaimed it as my own anecdotal
experience for a reason, and if it further inspires
someone with a way to do something like that, we're
all better off for the results of my mis-suspicion.
^_-


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Fri Jan  9 07:23:39 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 02:23:39 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <000001c3d676$44fe0910$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>
Message-ID: <002701c3d681$80aafa80$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Matus wrote,
> Are you claiming, absolutely, that not only have all wars
> that have ever occurred but all wars that could possibly
> occur are definitely anti-extropic?  Quite a strong assertion.

Actually, your argument against this statement seems to be the strong
assertion.

Why can't we just allow the general statement that "war is bad"?  It does
not seem to be such an unreasonable assertion.

> A more reasonable question (if one can call such questions
> reasonable) would be how many lives are worth an increase in 
> extropy, and how much of an increase? 

No we can not call such questions reasonable.  I don't know why it keeps
coming up on this list.

> Debates of that sort have been tossed around on this list
> all ready.

It almost seems as if there is a subgroup of people who keep trying to
justify committing violence as part of the extropian agenda.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Fri Jan  9 07:29:25 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 02:29:25 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Eumemics
In-Reply-To: <20040109071445.76398.qmail@web80403.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <002801c3d682$5209c390$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

> "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> > P.S.  I think the Extro list needs a semi-AI filter
> > that runs all "claims" through google to determine
> > whether or not there is resonable data to suggest
> > that you might want to be very careful about the
> > claims...

Bingo.  I do this manually, but don't have time to do it often enough.
Other people never seem to do this at all.  I find that at least half of the
news items posted to this list are vaporware that I don't expect ever to
materialize.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com  Fri Jan  9 12:44:17 2004
From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 04:44:17 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
Message-ID: <20040109124417.91800.qmail@web41308.mail.yahoo.com>

UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions

By FRANK SIETZEN JR. AND KEITH L. COWING, United Press International

WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- American astronauts will return to the moon
early in the next decade in preparation for sending crews to explore 
Mars
and nearby asteroids, President Bush is expected to propose next week 
as
part of a sweeping reform of the U.S. space program.

To pay for the new effort -- which would require a new generation of
spacecraft but use Europe's Ariane rockets and Russia's Soyuz capsules 
in
the interim -- NASA's space shuttle fleet would be retired as soon as
construction of the International Space Station is completed, senior
administration sources told United Press International.

The visionary new space plan would be the most ambitious project 
entrusted
to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration since the Apollo 
moon
landings of three decades ago. It commits the United States to an 
aggressive
and far-reaching mission that holds interplanetary space as the human 
race's
new frontier.

Sources said Bush's impending announcement climaxes an unprecedented 
review
of NASA and of America's civilian space goals -- manned and robotic. 
The
review has been proceeding for nearly a year, involving closed-door 
meetings
under the supervision of Vice President Dick Cheney, sources said. The
administration examined a wide range of ideas, including new, reusable 
space
shuttles and even exotic concepts such as space elevators.

To begin the initiative, the president will ask Congress for a down 
payment
of $800 million for fiscal year 2005, most of which will go to develop 
new
robotic space vehicles and begin work on advanced human exploration 
systems.
Bush also plans to ask Congress to boost NASA's budget by 5 percent 
annually
over at least the next five years, with all of the increase supporting 
space
exploration. With the exception of the Departments of Defense and 
Homeland
Security, no other agency is expected to receive a budget increase 
above
inflation in FY 2005.

Along with retiring the shuttle fleet, the new plan calls for NASA to
convert a planned follow-on spacecraft -- called the orbital space 
plane --
into versions of a new spaceship called the crew exploration vehicle. 
NASA
would end substantial involvement in the space station project about 
the
same time the moon landings would begin -- beginning in 2013, according 
to
an administration timetable shown to UPI.

The first test flights of unmanned prototypes of the CEV could occur as 
soon
as 2007. An orbital version would replace the shuttle to transport
astronauts to and from the space station. However, sources said, the 
current
timetable leaves a period several years when NASA would lack manned 
space
capability -- hence the need to use Soyuz vehicles for flights to the
station. Ariane rockets also might be used to launch lunar missions.

During the remainder of its participation in space station activities,
NASA's research would be redirected to sustaining humans in space. 
Other
research programs not involving humans would be terminated or 
curtailed.

The various models of the CEV would be 21st century versions of the 
1960s
Apollo spacecraft. When they become operational, they would be able to
conduct various missions in Earth orbit, travel to and land on the 
moon,
send astronauts to rendezvous with nearby asteroids, and eventually 
serve as
part of a series of manned missions to Mars.

Under the current plan, sources said, the first lunar landings would 
carry
only enough resources to test advanced equipment that would be employed 
on
voyages beyond the moon. Because the early moon missions would use 
existing
rockets, they could deliver only small equipment packages. So the 
initial,
return-to-the-moon missions essentially would begin where the Apollo
landings left off -- a few days at a time, growing gradually longer. 
The
human landings could be both preceded and accompanied by robotic 
vehicles.

The first manned Mars expeditions would attempt to orbit the red planet 
in
advance of landings -- much as Apollo 8 and 10 orbited the moon but did 
not
land. The orbital flights would conduct photo reconnaissance of the 
Martian
surface before sending landing craft, said sources familiar with the 
plan's
details.

Along with new spacecraft, NASA would develop other equipment needed to
allow humans to explore other worlds, including advanced spacesuits, 
roving
vehicles and life support equipment.

As part of its new space package, sources said, the administration will
convene an unusual presidential commission to review NASA's plans as 
they
unfold. The group would consider such factors as the design of the
spacecraft; the procedure for assembly, either in Earth orbit or lunar
orbit; the individual elements the new craft should contain, such as
capsules, supply modules, landing vehicles and propellant stages, and 
the
duration and number of missions and size of crews.

Sources said Bush will direct NASA to scale back or scrap all existing
programs that do not support the new effort. Further details about the 
plan
and the space agency's revised budget will be announced in NASA 
briefings
next week and when the president delivers his FY 2005 budget to 
Congress.

--

Frank Sietzen Jr. covers aerospace issues for UPI Science News. Keith 
L.
Cowing is editor of NASAWatch.com and SpaceRef.com. E-mail
sciencemail at upi.com




La vie est belle!

Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) 

Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra


---------------------------------
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Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 13:10:40 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 05:10:40 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated
In-Reply-To: <007b01c3d65f$29053470$62256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <000201c3d6b2$3a7d2a70$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Thought about that too..

but you don't get military protection from that :)
Unless you want to build a military as well :)

No, I think a boat is the way to go :) a boat from a country
that isn't overly prohibitive and powerful enough that nobody
would want to screw with you :)

Probably one of the less-legally advanced nuclear powers :)
omard-out



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dirk Bruere
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 7:18 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Grant" <paulgrant999 at hotmail.com>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 12:34 AM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] ILE: life just got a little more complicated


> I've spent a lot of time thinking about this.
> You don't need an island. You need a boat.
> Yup, thats right, a boat.  According to maritime
> law, you are under the laws of the registering nation
> when you are at sea (and protection, ostensibly).
> So pick a country that hasn't passed any laws against whatever you 
> want, get a citizen from there, have him register a boat in his name, 
> and float the boat 15 miles off any coast you like.
> 
> There is also some interesting case law regarding the formation of 
> nation-states :)

http://www.sealandgov.com/ 

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium http://www.theconsensus.org
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 13:24:37 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 05:24:37 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <000001c3d676$44fe0910$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>
Message-ID: <000301c3d6b4$3d1e7750$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Matus
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 10:03 PM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already




> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat- 
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Paul Grant
>
> Charlie Stross said:
> 
> > I'd like to add to that: war seems to me to be about as
anti-extropic
> > as you can get. The triumph of brute force over enlightenment, 
> > destruction, death and despair on a massive scale. An excuse for the

> > enemies of freedom on every side to chip away at civil rights. The 
> > ascendency of dehumanization is the *opposite* of transhumanism.
> 
> I would like to disagree with that.  War is neither intrinsically 
> extropic nor anti-extropic.  If one of the parties at war is less 
> extropic, and it wins, then war is anti-extropic.
> 
> - careful their kimo sabe, thats a dangerous line your walking; put 
> another way, if you will grant me, a small society that is 
> "extropic".. which by definition, leads a less "extropic" society 
> comprised of the majority.  So when does the bloody revolution start, 
> comrade? :)  Direct consequence of your statements, you understand.
> 
> As u can see, I have to agree with Charlie :)
> 

>I think you should refer to the rest of the discussion.  Are you
claiming, absolutely, that not only have all wars that have ever
occurred but all wars that could possibly occur are definitely
anti-extropic?  Quite a strong assertion.  This of course requires you
to define extropic exactly, and war exactly.  My point, as was evident
from the discussion was that whether war is extropic is a much more
complicated question.  In that discussion Charlie even presented an
example of overthrowing the US government to get rid of the drug laws. 

-To me, war is a question of relevance;  are they (whoever) really
relevant to your own extropic efforts?
As it is, the US gov. has little no effect on my own pursuits... so
would war (with all its sapping
efforts) be necessary?  Mind you, I'm not partial to a lot of the laws
that are currently in effect,
but thankfully, most of said laws are not being enforced... so what
would be the point?  I'ld much
rather save my efforts for something more constructive.  Its a question
of costs, more than anything else.
And war imho, raises the costs of peace-time pursuits disproportionate
to the benefits of said overthrow.

Besides, really, think about it... wouldn't you rather bring your
aggressor to your viewpoints of things
and have him join his resources to yours, as opposed to beating him, and
then spending all that effort
to keep "unruly" portions of your population in line?  And no matter
what anyone says, if extropians succeed
in their quest, it will be something worth its weight in gold (read: of
intrinsic value to anyone alive).

>My example of a less extropic government being overthrown by a more
extropic one was merely a quick example, it was not meant to imply that
ANY more extropic government had the right to overthrow any less
extropic one no matter the cost in lives or property.  That is of course
ridiculous.  

Well it's a direct consequence of your statement :) I only extended it
to illustrate it.  I think it defines (embodies) a rather nice specifity
to the term "enlightened".  Kind of like a self-reinforcing pattern.

>A more reasonable question (if one can call such questions
reasonable) would be how many lives are worth an increase in extropy, 
and how much of an increase?  Debates of that sort have been tossed 
around on this list all ready. 

No doubt. I dunno, what do you think? Do you think extropy is measured
in number of human lives?
Personally I tend to think of it as a codified survivor instinct without
regard to any of the current
mental/spiritual/economic/political blocks in place :)

>I also noted in that discussion that freedoms are not directly
synonymous with extropy, as the freedom to sit on ones ass all day and
watch TV isn't gonna bring about a singularity, nor would being stoned,
drunk, or visiting strip clubs all day, nor chattering on discussion
board for that matter.  In fact a paternalistic big brother esque
society where each person was assigned an area of technological pursuit
and had immortality and extropianism drilled into their head from the
time they were children would probably be the most 'extropic' yet it
would not be very free.

I would agree with that sentiment (not the big brother), but that
freedom and extropy need not be irrevocably related...  I would suggest
though, that life without freedom (and health) would lose its flavor
rather quickly,
so perhaps it is highly correlated...

Some interesting questions :)

omard-out

Michael Dickey


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From determinism at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 14:29:01 2004
From: determinism at hotmail.com (Dennis May)
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 08:29:01 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: TEMPEST: You thought your tinfoil hat was enough?
Message-ID: <BAY7-F6SPibkiNhozHO0001feaa@hotmail.com>

When I was a senior in college we plastic saran-wrapped every object
in a professors office, including a bust of Einstein.  We then took sheet
rock and walled off the end of the hallway making the office disappear.
A table with flowers and pictures on wall completed the look.

The same professor had other things done on his birthdays:

Live lobster delivered by a man in a guerrilla suit during a lecture.
Delivery of a talking doll with personalized lustful messages from teenage 
girls.
His entire office filled with styrofoam beads by blowing them under
his door with a shop vac.
His entire office filled with balloons.

Dennis May
_____________________
Physicist/Engineer/Inventor
determinism at hotmail.com

_________________________________________________________________
Check your PC for viruses with the FREE McAfee online computer scan.  
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan  9 15:06:06 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 07:06:06 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <002701c3d681$80aafa80$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040109150606.86840.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> Matus wrote,
> > Are you claiming, absolutely, that not only have all wars
> > that have ever occurred but all wars that could possibly
> > occur are definitely anti-extropic?  Quite a strong assertion.
> 
> Actually, your argument against this statement seems to be the strong
> assertion.
> 
> Why can't we just allow the general statement that "war is bad"?  It
> does not seem to be such an unreasonable assertion.

All state action is bad. How about that assertion?

> 
> > A more reasonable question (if one can call such questions
> > reasonable) would be how many lives are worth an increase in 
> > extropy, and how much of an increase? 
> 
> No we can not call such questions reasonable.  I don't know why it
> keeps coming up on this list.

Because ALL conflict, all state sponsored action, is a cost benefit
measured action, not just conflict with guns and other weapons. For
example, the legislated banning of DDT has resulted in more deaths from
malaria than those exterminated by Mao, Stalin, and Hitler. All because
some entropically orthodox enviromentalist nuts value birds more than
humans.
> 
> > Debates of that sort have been tossed around on this list
> > all ready.
> 
> It almost seems as if there is a subgroup of people who keep trying
> to justify committing violence as part of the extropian agenda.

This is an absolutely FALSE assertion, and I request you retract it.
This subject is active on this list because of Mark Walker's inane and
thinly vieled argument that Extropians should become absolute
pacifists.

There are quite a number of paleo-extropians who look on this list with
disgust these days because of these sorts of pacifistic arguments.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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From matus at matus1976.com  Fri Jan  9 15:05:21 2004
From: matus at matus1976.com (Matus)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 10:05:21 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <002701c3d681$80aafa80$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <000001c3d6c2$05922850$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Harvey Newstrom
> 
> Matus wrote,
> > Are you claiming, absolutely, that not only have all wars
> > that have ever occurred but all wars that could possibly
> > occur are definitely anti-extropic?  Quite a strong assertion.
> 
> Actually, your argument against this statement seems to be the strong
> assertion.

My statement that sometimes war may be extropic is a strong assertion?
How so?  Seems like that absolute that war is *always* anti-extropic is
the strong assertion, since it requires not only a clear definition of
extropic but one of war as well.

Referring back to my discussion with Charlie, I said as much

"To positively assert whether something was extropic or not, you will
have to define what criteria makes something extropic, and how much of
it was present before and how much present afterward. This would
probably be quite an undertaking, yet you are all ready absolutely
positive that *all* wars are anti-extropic."

In that same conversation, Charlie said:

> I'll grant you that it's necessary to address the problem of
> anti-extropic ideologies, and in some cases their proponents will not
> listen to reason. But ...

What do we do when their proponents will not listen to reason?  

To suggest that war is *always* anti-extropic requires one to prove that
each and every possible war scenario definitely results in a net
decrease in extropic memes (net?  Perhaps not, since one small pocket of
extropic thought might bring about a singularity, yet another question
the arises when making such sweeping absolutes)  To suggest, as I did,
that maybe some wars are indeed extropic requires me to present merely
one single example of a war that would reasonably be considered
extropic.  To do this, and prove it to you, Charlie, and Paul would
likely require a lengthy discussion just to define extropic and to
define war.  But are you so sure that ANY possible war is definitely NOT
extropic?

> 
> Why can't we just allow the general statement that "war is bad"?  It
does
> not seem to be such an unreasonable assertion.

Because some statements can be so general that they are meaningless.
Why not run around with a 'make love not war' shirt while were at it.
The real world is not simple and general, it is complex and violent.  If
you wanted to try to convince Hitler and Stalin that War was bad, I'm
all for it, but once tanks start rolling over us, I'm defending myself.
We could say that 'killing is bad' as well, but in saying that am I
giving up my right to self defense?  

> 
> > A more reasonable question (if one can call such questions
> > reasonable) would be how many lives are worth an increase in
> > extropy, and how much of an increase?
> 
> No we can not call such questions reasonable.  I don't know why it
keeps
> coming up on this list.

Yet if one is to assert that all wars are anti-extropic, then this is a
question that MUST be answered before making that determination.  All
wars include loss of life.  How extropic is a single life?  What do we
mean when we say 'extropic' in the first place?

> 
> > Debates of that sort have been tossed around on this list
> > all ready.
> 
> It almost seems as if there is a subgroup of people who keep trying to
> justify committing violence as part of the extropian agenda.
> 

And it seems that there is a subgroup of people content to let us be
overrun by murderous oppressive regimes for fear of taking a single like
to defend our very extropic (thought not extropic enough) society.

Would you assert that in absolutely *NO* cases would committing violence
be extropian?

Yes, War is bad, and killing is also bad.  So is lying, stealing,
cheating, etc.  But the real world is cold, complex, and unforgiving,
and sometimes things must be done that we prefer not to do in order to
ensure the continuation of the things we value.  I may steal bread to
feed my starving self or family, I may lie to protect the feelings of
someone I care about, I may kill someone in self defense, and my country
may go to war when threatened by a clearly and significantly less
extropic, less free, murderous and oppressive government.  

Michael Dickey




From natashavita at earthlink.net  Fri Jan  9 15:26:16 2004
From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 10:26:16 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
Message-ID: <119420-22004159152616388@M2W043.mail2web.com>


From: Jose Cordeiro 


Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news


"UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions

By FRANK SIETZEN JR. AND KEITH L. COWING, United Press International

WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- American astronauts will return to the moon
early in the next decade in preparation for sending crews to explore 
Mars and nearby asteroids, President Bush is expected to propose next week 
as part of a sweeping reform of the U.S. space program."


This is exciting.  I listened to a full report on the radio this morning
and was gleeful that as a side-event, maybe the space tourism industry will
finally be able to piggyback on the advances of a larger industry - NASA. 
NASA has made many mistakes, to be sure, however it just might make the big
leap we all have been waiting for in the surge to develop a better system
to counter rocket booster problems.

Of course there will be plenty of organizations blocking this next step,
but if we NASA can get the "American" public to rally around its future
misssions, it could bring back some of that ole' space age enthusiasm.

Natasha

Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc



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From matus at matus1976.com  Fri Jan  9 15:31:02 2004
From: matus at matus1976.com (Matus)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 10:31:02 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <000301c3d6b4$3d1e7750$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
Message-ID: <000001c3d6c5$9915f400$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Paul Grant
>
>
> > As u can see, I have to agree with Charlie :)
> >
> 
> >I think you should refer to the rest of the discussion.  Are you
> claiming, absolutely, that not only have all wars that have ever
> occurred but all wars that could possibly occur are definitely
> anti-extropic?  Quite a strong assertion.  This of course requires you
> to define extropic exactly, and war exactly.  My point, as was evident
> from the discussion was that whether war is extropic is a much more
> complicated question.  In that discussion Charlie even presented an
> example of overthrowing the US government to get rid of the drug laws.
> 
> -To me, war is a question of relevance;  are they (whoever) really
> relevant to your own extropic efforts?

So, do you disagree with the statement then that in all possible cases
all wars are definitely anti-extropic?  And would you thus agree that
under certain relevant circumstances some may be?

> 
> Besides, really, think about it... wouldn't you rather bring your
> aggressor to your viewpoints of things
> and have him join his resources to yours, as opposed to beating him,

Those who do not subscribe to reason can not be conquered by it, as I
said to Charlie when he made this same point.  What do you do when your
enemy can not be enlightened?  What would you do when you can not
convince an armed assailant that he shouldn?t be holding you up or about
to murder a loved one?  Of course I would prefer my enemy to 'see the
light' but I am not so na?ve to think that everyone always will.  There
is way too much pain and suffering all ready occurring to believe as
such.

 and
> then spending all that effort
> to keep "unruly" portions of your population in line?  And no matter
> what anyone says, if extropians succeed
> in their quest, it will be something worth its weight in gold (read:
of
> intrinsic value to anyone alive)

If one person stood in the way of a singularity, and you could not
convince him through reason to let a singularity occur, what would you
do?

When members of this list continue to extol the virtues of extropianism
while at the same time deriding violence or spreading extropy through
any means other than polite conversation, it should come of no surprise
that the logical conclusions of these two statements occur as difficult
ethical questions.

> 
> >My example of a less extropic government being overthrown by a more
> extropic one was merely a quick example, it was not meant to imply
that
> ANY more extropic government had the right to overthrow any less
> extropic one no matter the cost in lives or property.  That is of
course
> ridiculous.
> 
> Well it's a direct consequence of your statement :) I only extended it
> to illustrate it.  

I hoped that the apparent relevance of 'less extropic' and 'more
extropic' would be obvious, and that the statement would not be taken so
literally.  I would not endorse one society that merely taxes computer
purchases being overthrown, quite violently, by a nearly identical group
whose only difference is that they would not tax computers.  

> >A more reasonable question (if one can call such questions
> reasonable) would be how many lives are worth an increase in extropy,
> and how much of an increase?  Debates of that sort have been tossed
> around on this list all ready.
> 
> No doubt. I dunno, what do you think? Do you think extropy is measured
> in number of human lives?
> Personally I tend to think of it as a codified survivor instinct
without
> regard to any of the current
> mental/spiritual/economic/political blocks in place :)
> 

Certainly not, as I said in the discussion with Charlie, I attempted to
start a thread suggesting we clearly define extropic goals, of course
many are all ready listed on extropy sites principles page.  A million
survivor watching automaton couch potatoes are not extropic at all
compared to a handful of productive motivated scientists, so # of lives
is not the only extropic consideration.


> >I also noted in that discussion that freedoms are not directly
> synonymous with extropy, as the freedom to sit on ones ass all day and
> watch TV isn't gonna bring about a singularity, nor would being
stoned,
> drunk, or visiting strip clubs all day, nor chattering on discussion
> board for that matter.  In fact a paternalistic big brother esque
> society where each person was assigned an area of technological
pursuit
> and had immortality and extropianism drilled into their head from the
> time they were children would probably be the most 'extropic' yet it
> would not be very free.
> 
> I would agree with that sentiment (not the big brother), but that
> freedom and extropy need not be irrevocably related...  I would
suggest
> though, that life without freedom (and health) would lose its flavor
> rather quickly,
> so perhaps it is highly correlated...

Certainly, and I highly value both freedom AND extropy!

Michael Dickey




From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 16:55:59 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 10:55:59 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
References: <119420-22004159152616388@M2W043.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <Law10-OE56dJLnGS96j00028f86@hotmail.com>

So I guess the question that's on everyone's mind is whether or not this is
true. I remember a recent similar story that circulated regarding a
statement that Bush was going to give at the Wright Brothers flight
anniversary at Kitty Hawk in December. It was later discovered that this was
not true. Is there any other indication that this story is accurate?

----- Original Message -----
From: <natashavita at earthlink.net>
To: <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>; <wta-talk at transhumanism.org>;
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>; <wta-india at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 9:26 AM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Moon news


>
> From: Jose Cordeiro
>
>
> Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
>
>
> "UPI Exclusive: Bush OKs new moon missions
>
> By FRANK SIETZEN JR. AND KEITH L. COWING, United Press International
>
> WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- American astronauts will return to the moon
> early in the next decade in preparation for sending crews to explore
> Mars and nearby asteroids, President Bush is expected to propose next week
> as part of a sweeping reform of the U.S. space program."
>
>
> This is exciting.  I listened to a full report on the radio this morning
> and was gleeful that as a side-event, maybe the space tourism industry
will
> finally be able to piggyback on the advances of a larger industry - NASA.
> NASA has made many mistakes, to be sure, however it just might make the
big
> leap we all have been waiting for in the surge to develop a better system
> to counter rocket booster problems.
>
> Of course there will be plenty of organizations blocking this next step,
> but if we NASA can get the "American" public to rally around its future
> misssions, it could bring back some of that ole' space age enthusiasm.
>
> Natasha
>
> Natasha Vita-More
> http://www.natasha.cc
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> mail2web - Check your email from the web at
> http://mail2web.com/ .
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan  9 17:50:07 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 09:50:07 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] TEMPEST: You thought your tinfoil hat was enough?
In-Reply-To: <001401c3d658$890d1d30$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040109175007.29434.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> >
>
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=16&u=/ap/20040108/ap_
> on_fe_st/foiled_room_4>
> > 
> > OLYMPIA, Wash. - What kind of friends coat your apartment - 
> > and nearly everything in it - with tinfoil while you're away? 
> > Here's a hint: One of the only objects that escaped the shiny 
> > treatment was a book titled "Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends."
> 
> Slow news day?  Why is this news?

Are you asking me? I thought it represented the most well grounded and
anti-ELINT residence I've heard of. Its property value must have gone
up as a result.... ;)

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Fri Jan  9 18:25:09 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 13:25:09 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] TEMPEST: You thought your tinfoil hat was enough?
In-Reply-To: <20040109175007.29434.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <005e01c3d6dd$ed4626e0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Mike Lorrey wrote,
> Slow news day?  Why is this news?

> Are you asking me? I thought it represented the most well grounded
> and anti-ELINT residence I've heard of. Its property value must
> have gone up as a result.... ;)

As a security expert, I should warn you that aluminum foil doesn't work as
TEMPEST shielding.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From Artillo at comcast.net  Fri Jan  9 18:33:36 2004
From: Artillo at comcast.net (Artillo at comcast.net)
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 18:33:36 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
Message-ID: <010920041833.5104.25e6@comcast.net>


GRRRR I don't like this part of the article at all! I really don't think that a 'one-track mind' approach is a good idea, how about you guys?

"Sources said Bush will direct NASA to scale back or scrap all existing
programs that do not support the new effort. Further details about the 
plan
and the space agency's revised budget will be announced in NASA 
briefings
next week and when the president delivers his FY 2005 budget to 
Congress."

> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat


From natashavita at earthlink.net  Fri Jan  9 18:42:31 2004
From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 13:42:31 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
Message-ID: <63340-22004159184231482@M2W046.mail2web.com>



From:  Artillo at comcast.net

>GRRRR I don't like this part of the article at all! I really don't think
that a 'one-track mind' approach is a good idea, how about you guys?>

"Sources said Bush will direct NASA to scale back or scrap all existing
programs that do not support the new effort. Further details about the 
plan
and the space agency's revised budget will be announced in NASA 
briefings
next week and when the president delivers his FY 2005 budget to 
Congress."

I can see a way around this.  If NASA scraps current projects for a more
exalted program, then the trickle down effect could occur and the
"scrapped" projects could go to private industry where their is a growing
interest, and this could help it along.  I got a lot of good wear out of my
best friends' hand-me-down cloths.  Of course she has very expensive taste,
but so does NASA.

Natasha
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
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extropy-chat mailing list
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From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Fri Jan  9 18:53:26 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 13:53:26 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <000001c3d6c2$05922850$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>
Message-ID: <006001c3d6e1$e0a6cf80$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Michael Dickey wrote,
> My statement that sometimes war may be extropic is a strong 
> assertion? How so?  Seems like that absolute that war is 
> *always* anti-extropic is the strong assertion, since it 
> requires not only a clear definition of extropic but one of 
> war as well.

People who have been on this list generally know what the Extropian
Principles are.  You can nit-pick on particular interpretations if you want,
but you can't assume that nobody has defined them yet.

People also generally know what war means.  You made your assertions about
war without having to create a more rigorous definition of the term.  If the
term is generally good enough for you, it is generally good enough for other
people.  You seem to be requiring a higher burden of proof for other people
than for yourself.

> "To positively assert whether something was extropic or not, 
> you will have to define what criteria makes something 
> extropic, and how much of it was present before and how much 
> present afterward. This would probably be quite an 
> undertaking, yet you are all ready absolutely positive that 
> *all* wars are anti-extropic."

That is like saying that to avoid a car crash, you have to define exactly
what "avoidance" means, exactly what a "car crash" is, calculate how much
work "avoidance" is versus work recovering from a "car crash" would be
afterward.  This would probably be quite an undertaking, yet you are all
ready absolutely positive that "all" car crashes are anti-extropic.

We do NOT need exact quantitative analysis to make a qualitative judgment.
I think there is more evidence and experience showing that "war is bad" than
"war is good".  Only warmongers and terrorists think that we should inflict
some war on "them" to get greater results for "us".

> What do we do when their proponents will not listen to reason?  

This is a key requirement for war.  You must dehumanize your enemy to the
point that it is not possible to negotiate or reason with them.  They will
never agree to anything else, so we must kill them.  We have to eliminate
all other possible options before the "final solution" becomes the only one
left.

As Extropians, we should be seeing more and more options all the time, not
less and less.  War should be less likely and less useful as we progress
into the future.  War is the opposite of extropy.  War means that there are
no possible solutions, we give up, we can't oppose the other side, so we
will just kill them.

> To suggest, as I did, that 
> maybe some wars are indeed extropic requires me to present 
> merely one single example of a war that would reasonably be 
> considered extropic.  To do this, and prove it to you, 
> Charlie, and Paul would likely require a lengthy discussion 
> just to define extropic and to define war.  But are you so 
> sure that ANY possible war is definitely NOT extropic?

Typical losing-position approach.  You want to assert it, but it would take
too long to explain why.  You want to push the burden of proof to the other
side.  You want them to prove a negative (that no war could ever be
extropic), while you refuse to prove a positive (just give one example).
You also claim that your position hasn't been disproved yet, nobody has
proved that all war is always entropic and never can be, so your argument
still stands undefeated.  A lack of defeat (yet) does not equal proof.

> If you wanted to try to 
> convince Hitler and Stalin that War was bad, I'm all for it, 
> but once tanks start rolling over us, I'm defending myself. 
> We could say that 'killing is bad' as well, but in saying 
> that am I giving up my right to self defense?  

There is a big difference between defending yourself from violence and
initiating violence.  The libertarians and older extropians on this board
used to understand that.  This idea of pre-emptive strikes and initiating
force on people who haven't attacked us is definitely not extropian.  It
never has been and never will be.  

(And for the record, no I don't believe that Iraq was part of the 9/11
attacks or had weapons of mass destruction.  I do believe that we
pre-emptively attacked a country that neither attacked us nor were capable
of attacking us.  No, I don't think the Iraq war is extropic.)

> > > A more reasonable question (if one can call such questions
> > > reasonable) would be how many lives are worth an increase in 
> > > extropy, and how much of an increase?
> > 
> > No we can not call such questions reasonable.  I don't know why it
> > keeps coming up on this list.
> 
> Yet if one is to assert that all wars are anti-extropic, then 
> this is a question that MUST be answered before making that 
> determination.  All wars include loss of life.  How extropic 
> is a single life?  What do we mean when we say 'extropic' in 
> the first place?

Sorry if I haven't made myself clear.  ZERO LOSS OF LIFE is extropic.  ANY
LOSS OF LIFE is entropic.  Now I know that the world isn't perfect, and we
can't prevent all loss of life.  But I certainly don't want anybody planning
loss of life as part of their master plan.  Especially any final solution
where the loss of life is directed at one group while a different group
benefits.

> > It almost seems as if there is a subgroup of people who 
> > keep trying to justify committing violence as part of
> > the extropian agenda.
> 
> And it seems that there is a subgroup of people content to 
> let us be overrun by murderous oppressive regimes for fear of 
> taking a single like to defend our very extropic (thought not 
> extropic enough) society.

Only people who cannot conceive of any answer besides murder, terrorism and
war would make such a statement.  If there are other options, then it is
perfectly possible to pursue them without resorting to murder, terrorism and
war.  The refusal to initiate force does not equal a lack of self-defense.
Every libertarian knows that.

> Yes, War is bad, and killing is also bad.  So is lying, 
> stealing, cheating, etc.  But the real world is cold, 
> complex, and unforgiving, and sometimes things must be done 
> that we prefer not to do in order to ensure the continuation 
> of the things we value.  I may steal bread to feed my 
> starving self or family, I may lie to protect the feelings of 
> someone I care about, I may kill someone in self defense, and 
> my country may go to war when threatened by a clearly and 
> significantly less extropic, less free, murderous and 
> oppressive government. 

This is my point exactly.  As extropians, we are supposed to be intelligent
people with optimism, smart technology and future solutions.  Can't we think
up something besides guns, murder, lying and war?  As long as you think
these things are bad and work to avoid them, then we are in agreement.  But
some people here seem almost eager to resort to these methods and too ready
to give up trying to find anything better methods.
 
-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Fri Jan  9 18:53:45 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 13:53:45 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <20040109150606.86840.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <006101c3d6e1$ed5bfc00$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Mike Lorrey wrote,
> All state action is bad. How about that assertion?

Stupid, in my opinion.  You can't say that something (war) done by the state
is bad because everything the state does is bad, but the same exact thing
done by us is good, because everything we do is good.  This is illogical.
You are assigning "good" and "bad" labels on the basis of "us" versus "them"
instead of any criteria of goodness.  If war is bad, and we don't want the
state waging war, then we don't want to become state-like and commit the
same atrocities.

> Because ALL conflict, all state sponsored action, is a cost 
> benefit measured action, not just conflict with guns and 
> other weapons.

This is the root of all war, all terrorism, and all conflict.  The idea that
we can calculate the best good and choose the lesser of two evils.  It
solves nothing.  A communist will calculate a communist end to be the
greater good.  A luddite will calculate a non-technological world was a
greater good.  Some transhumanists will destroy all life and replace
everything with computronium simulating life and call that the greater good.
In short, everybody thinks they are right.  This argument boils down to
saying that we are right therefore we have the right to kill our enemy, but
they are wrong so they don't have the right to kill us.

> > It almost seems as if there is a subgroup of people who 
> > keep trying to justify committing violence as part of
> > the extropian agenda.
> 
> This is an absolutely FALSE assertion, and I request you 
> retract it. This subject is active on this list because of 
> Mark Walker's inane and thinly vieled argument that 
> Extropians should become absolute pacifists.

Is this better?  It almost seems as if there is a subgroup of people who
keep trying to justify that committing violence should be excluded as part
of the extropian agenda.

> There are quite a number of paleo-extropians who look on this 
> list with disgust these days because of these sorts of 
> pacifistic arguments.

I am sorry that non-violence disgusts these people so much.  I worry about
what will happen when people who see violence as a necessary part of
extropianism either gain powerful technology.  Even worse, I hate to imagine
what will happen if they don't gain the powerful technology they desire
while some other groups of extropians do.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> extropian agenda.




From megao at sasktel.net  Fri Jan  9 19:05:15 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 13:05:15 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality - who pays? What will
	the cost be?
References: <002901c3d313$ead28390$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<5.2.0.9.0.20040104172428.02c0e170@pop.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <3FFEFB6A.3CE85BA2@sasktel.net>

Top Of The News
 Health Costs Rise Beyond Belief
 Dan Ackman, 01.09.04, 9:58 AM ET

                     NEW YORK - U.S. health care costs are rising so fast
                     that not only do they outstrip the prior year, they even
                     exceed forecasters' ability to project them

                     In mid-2002, the U.S. Department of Health and Human
                     Services projected that national health expenditures
                     would reach $2.8 trillion in 2011--an estimate based
                     on a mean annual growth rate of 7.3%. Since then,
                     the growth rate has increased significantly to
                     9.3%--to the point where health spending is already
                     at nearly 15% of GDP, according to Centers for
                     Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a unit of HHS.

                     This increase--and future projections--don't take into
                     account the potential effects of the prescription drug
                     entitlement in the Medicaid bill passed by Congress
                     last year.

                     Hospital and prescription drug spending led the
 charge, CMS said. "This continued acceleration injects pressure into the health
care
 system, and everyone--from businesses to government to consumers--is affected,"
 Katharine Levit, a CMS official and the lead author of the report published in
the
 journal Health Affairs, said at a news conference. Levit added that early
indications are
 that the rate of increase will slow "as a result of the economic slowdown.'' In
fact,
 health care spending increases slowed during the late 1990s boom, and have
 accelerated since the economy cooled.

 This tendency has led to higher insurance premiums, cutbacks in employer health
plans
 and a rise in the number of uninsured.

 Health care spending averaged $4,672 per person in 2000 and $5,035 per person in
 2001. In 2002, the U.S. spent $5,440 per person for a total of $1.55 trillion.
This is more
 per person than anywhere else. The U.S. spends 47% more per person than
 Switzerland, which ranks second, according to the Organization for Economic
 Cooperation and Development. It also spends substantially more than any other
nation
 in terms of percentage of GDP. Health care costs were 10.9% of GDP in
Switzerland,
 10.7% in Germany and 9.7% in Canada.

 Even before the 2002 figures were known, CMS was projecting that by 2011 U.S.
 health costs would rise to 17% of GDP.

 The increase in hospital spending was caused by increased usage and higher labor
 and supply costs. Hospitals, meanwhile, managed to raise prices by 5%.
Prescription
 drug spending was the fastest-rising aspect of health costs at 15.3%. Despite
this
 trend, leading drug companies like Pfizer (nyse: PFE - news - people ), Merck
(nyse:
 MRK - news - people ) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (nyse: BMY - news - people )
 have all seen their share prices decline over the last two years, though they
have
 rebounded lately.

 Even large and highly profitable companies like General Electric (nyse: GE - news
-
 people ) have felt the effects. Perhaps for that reason, total out-of-pocket
spending on
 health care rose by $12 billion, to $212.5 billion, and out-of-pocket spending on

 prescription drugs rose $6.1 billion, to $48.6 billion. Meanwhile, health
insurers like
 Aetna (nyse: AET - news - people ), UnitedHealth Group (nyse: UNH - news -
 people ) and WellPoint Health Networks (nyse: WLP - news - people ) have all seen

 their share prices rise by at least 50% over the last two years.

Natasha Vita-More wrote:

> >From: "Harvey Newstrom"
> >
> > > How about "ageless" as a word?  We aren't growing older toward dying of
> > > old-age.  But it implies nothing about living forever or not dying by some
> > > other means.
>
> "Ageless Thinking"  talk I presented at Alcor Technology Conference, and
> essay in my book (1996).
>
> http://www.natasha.cc/ageless.htm
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From determinism at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 19:10:12 2004
From: determinism at hotmail.com (Dennis May)
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 13:10:12 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] A Challenge For Cold Dark 
Message-ID: <BAY7-F84uN6tdqVvPdL00009e2b@hotmail.com>

Even a few years ago the Hubble was showing old galaxies
at the furthest observable reaches.  The latest observations
show more of the same.  A 13.7 billion year old universe with
old galaxies from the very start.  Even this article is being
very generous in not questioning how the clusters of old
galaxies fit into the Big Bang model.

Astronomers See Era Of Rapid Galaxy Formation;
New Findings Pose A Challenge For Cold Dark
Matter Theory

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040109064539.htm

Dennis May
_________________________
Physicist/Engineer/Inventor
determinism at hotmail.com

_________________________________________________________________
Take advantage of our limited-time introductory offer for dial-up Internet 
access. http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan  9 20:03:38 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 12:03:38 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
In-Reply-To: <63340-22004159184231482@M2W046.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <20040109200338.69941.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>


--- "natashavita at earthlink.net" <natashavita at earthlink.net> wrote:
> > 
> I can see a way around this.  If NASA scraps current projects for a
> more exalted program, then the trickle down effect could occur and
the
> "scrapped" projects could go to private industry where their is a
> growing interest, and this could help it along.  I got a lot of good
> wear out of my best friends' hand-me-down cloths.  Of course she has
> very expensive taste, but so does NASA.

On the negative side, most of the 'irrelevant' projects tend to be
science R&D projects, something which the aerospace industry has
generally seen as NASA's job for the past three quarter century, and
which themselves don't generally generate much profit.

On the plus side, it will leave this research to private and state
universities, taking the work outside the governmental grant rat race,
and the schools generally do a better job of getting the businesses
that benefit most to fund these efforts as well. They also tend to
obtain the gained knowledge more cost effectively than federal programs.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 20:07:42 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 12:07:42 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: TEMPEST: You thought your tinfoil hat was
	enough?
In-Reply-To: <BAY7-F6SPibkiNhozHO0001feaa@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <000501c3d6ec$76eee720$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Dude thats hilarious :)
Brilliant, Awesome! :)
HAHAHAHAHAAA
omard-out


-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dennis May
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 6:29 AM
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: TEMPEST: You thought your tinfoil hat was
enough?


When I was a senior in college we plastic saran-wrapped every object in
a professors office, including a bust of Einstein.  We then took sheet
rock and walled off the end of the hallway making the office disappear.
A table with flowers and pictures on wall completed the look.

The same professor had other things done on his birthdays:

Live lobster delivered by a man in a guerrilla suit during a lecture.
Delivery of a talking doll with personalized lustful messages from
teenage 
girls.
His entire office filled with styrofoam beads by blowing them under his
door with a shop vac. His entire office filled with balloons.

Dennis May
_____________________
Physicist/Engineer/Inventor
determinism at hotmail.com

_________________________________________________________________
Check your PC for viruses with the FREE McAfee online computer scan.  
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963

_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 20:25:59 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 12:25:59 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <000001c3d6c5$9915f400$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>
Message-ID: <000001c3d6ef$13911970$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Matus
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 7:31 AM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already




> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat- 
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Paul Grant
>
>
> > As u can see, I have to agree with Charlie :)
> >
> 
> >I think you should refer to the rest of the discussion.  Are you
> claiming, absolutely, that not only have all wars that have ever 
> occurred but all wars that could possibly occur are definitely 
> anti-extropic?  Quite a strong assertion.  This of course requires you

> to define extropic exactly, and war exactly.  My point, as was evident

> from the discussion was that whether war is extropic is a much more 
> complicated question.  In that discussion Charlie even presented an 
> example of overthrowing the US government to get rid of the drug laws.
> 
> -To me, war is a question of relevance;  are they (whoever) really 
> relevant to your own extropic efforts?

So, do you disagree with the statement then that in all possible cases
all wars are definitely anti-extropic?  And would you thus agree that
under certain relevant circumstances some may be?

-
Put another way, do think that for *every* case a war is fought, 
is their a less costly pathway to achieving the same end?  I
would have no problem stating yes; ergo, war is anti-extropic
insofar as it is a tremendously more costly way of doing business,
and thus, a less-desireable solution.   This is all academic anyway,
since really, I don't even think of extropic/anti-extropic as a boolean
quality (with a few noteable exceptions, in the process of definining 
extropy)... Its a sliding scale, something to judge the quality of state
versus another state.
 
> Besides, really, think about it... wouldn't you rather bring your 
> aggressor to your viewpoints of things and have him join his resources

> to yours, as opposed to beating him,

]Those who do not subscribe to reason can not be conquered by it.  

Having dealt with many delusional people, skip reason...figure out how 
their delusion can be warped to your own ends.  You're a state machine,
with a utility table. Period.  Very effective, btw.

]What do you do when your enemy can not be enlightened?  

Simple.  Make him irrelevant.

]What would you do when you can not convince an armed assailant that he
shouldn?t be holding you up or about to murder a loved one?  

Aaaah, the age old question.  Give him the cash.  Steal the same amount
back from society [upgrade!].
Stall for time.  Die.  There are tons of options besides killing him.
Personally I prefer maiming :)
Much more effective :)  Of course, the last time I was assaulted was
like 10 years ago or so.  I've
become far more skillful in avoiding physical combat.

]Of course I would prefer my enemy to 'see the light' but I am not so
na?ve to think that everyone always will.  There is way too much pain
and suffering all ready occurring to believe as such.

So why not add to it, eh? :)

> then spending all that effort
> to keep "unruly" portions of your population in line?  And no matter 
> what anyone says, if extropians succeed in their quest, it will be 
> something worth its weight in gold (read:
of
> intrinsic value to anyone alive)

]If one person stood in the way of a singularity, and you could not
convince him through reason to let a singularity occur, what would you
do?

Invent a way to negate their influence, or barring that, invent a way to
harness their resistence to my own ends.
I've always been a fan of the perverse :)

]When members of this list continue to extol the virtues of extropianism
while at the same time deriding violence or spreading extropy through
any means other than polite conversation, it should come of no surprise
that the logical conclusions of these two statements occur as difficult
ethical questions.

Your young, aren't you? :) <chuckles> 
Perhaps it is a respect for all life that drives us, eh?
A reasoning that one cannot know the future, and that possibility
(though it may take longer), offers a greater chance of success.
It is a short hop from extending one's own life, to that of others,
and perhaps incorporating it as a principle.

> >My example of a less extropic government being overthrown by a more
> extropic one was merely a quick example, it was not meant to imply
that
> ANY more extropic government had the right to overthrow any less 
> extropic one no matter the cost in lives or property.  That is of
course
> ridiculous.
> 
> Well it's a direct consequence of your statement :) I only extended it

> to illustrate it.

]I hoped that the apparent relevance of 'less extropic' and 'more
extropic' would be obvious, and that the statement would not be taken so
literally.  

I always take things literally.  No offense intended, I find it
difficult to read people's minds, and so I find it is convenient to
assume that what they say mirrors what they are thinking.  As I said, no
offense intended; for future reference, I always reply to what is said,
or barring my being able to make sense of it, probe, or ask for
clarification.

]I would not endorse one society that merely taxes computer purchases
being overthrown, quite violently, by a nearly identical group whose
only difference is that they would not tax computers.  

That is just a question of degree friend :)

> >A more reasonable question (if one can call such questions
> reasonable) would be how many lives are worth an increase in extropy, 
> and how much of an increase?  Debates of that sort have been tossed 
> around on this list all ready.
> 
> No doubt. I dunno, what do you think? Do you think extropy is measured

> in number of human lives? Personally I tend to think of it as a 
> codified survivor instinct
without
> regard to any of the current mental/spiritual/economic/political 
> blocks in place :)
> 

Certainly not, as I said in the discussion with Charlie, I attempted to
start a thread suggesting we clearly define extropic goals, of course
many are all ready listed on extropy sites principles page.  A million
survivor watching automaton couch potatoes are not extropic at all
compared to a handful of productive motivated scientists, so # of lives
is not the only extropic consideration.

]aaaah :) but if people are educated, and curious (with the proviso of a
survivor instinct above), 
certes the conclusion becames inescapable; want to live life on your
terms (excluding death, disease
and sundry other annoying conclusions), better start molding your
environment to suit your needs.
Want proof, everyone on this list, I'm sure, is engaged in some attempt
to achieve said goals.
And they all arrived at it independently (supposition on my part, but I
think its reasonable).

I would suggest that the principles of extropy are primarily based off
what drives each of us
to adopt a common set of methods, and operating principles (posits,
assumptions etc).  I'ld be happy
to start a discussion with you on said topic, and offering my current
viewset as a starting point.
It'll sound a little simplistic, I fear, but I tend to write fairly
dense statements, preferring
a minimal basis, from which the rest can be extrapolated.

> >I also noted in that discussion that freedoms are not directly
> synonymous with extropy, as the freedom to sit on ones ass all day and

> watch TV isn't gonna bring about a singularity, nor would being
stoned,
> drunk, or visiting strip clubs all day, nor chattering on discussion 
> board for that matter.  In fact a paternalistic big brother esque 
> society where each person was assigned an area of technological
pursuit
> and had immortality and extropianism drilled into their head from the 
> time they were children would probably be the most 'extropic' yet it 
> would not be very free.
> 
> I would agree with that sentiment (not the big brother), but that 
> freedom and extropy need not be irrevocably related...  I would
suggest
> though, that life without freedom (and health) would lose its flavor 
> rather quickly, so perhaps it is highly correlated...

]Certainly, and I highly value both freedom AND extropy!

Hehehehe.  Me too. :)


Michael Dickey


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan  9 20:35:11 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 12:35:11 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <006001c3d6e1$e0a6cf80$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <000101c3d6f0$62890d70$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Harvey
Newstrom
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 10:53 AM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already


Michael Dickey wrote,

This is my point exactly.  As extropians, we are supposed to be
intelligent people with optimism, smart technology and future solutions.
Can't we think up something besides guns, murder, lying and war?  <snip>

---
There is always that free state project :)

omard-out





From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan  9 20:35:11 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 12:35:11 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] LUDD: VT House told GM regs unconstitutional
Message-ID: <20040109203511.51660.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>

VT House told GM Regulations Unconstitutional
by Mike Lorrey

A Vermont State House of Representatives committee was told yesterday
by the State Secretary of Agriculture Steve Kerr that any attempt by
the state to restrict the right of farmers to use genetically modified
seeds in their crops would be found unconstitutional by the courts.

The State Dept of Agriculture issues recommendations to farmers who
choose to use GM seeds regarding creating boundaries that will limit
DNA drift into neighboring crops. However, in testimony before the
House Agriculture Committee, the Secretary said, "Any kind of appraisal
that would stigmatize genetically engineered foods would not stand
constitutional muster." The recommendations his department makes are
"perhaps the only permissible approach because we cannot create
mandatory rules of the road," he told the committee.

This summer Kerr asked seed manufacturers, such as Monsanto and
Dairlyand Seed Co., to report how much and what tupe of genetically
engineered seeds they sold in Vermont in 2002. They have until Jan 15th
to comply.

So far five of seven companies have submitted data. "It's not perfect
year for reporting," Kerr said, "We're still working out the bugs."

This is a marked change from a few years ago, when Vermont, under the
leadership of former Governor, now Presidential Candidate Howard Dean,
was the leader of a national effort to restrict the use of BGH in dairy
cows, and ultimately fought for labelling on containers of dairy
products that use, or are free of, such milk.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From extropy at unreasonable.com  Fri Jan  9 21:12:16 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 16:12:16 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
In-Reply-To: <20040109200338.69941.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <63340-22004159184231482@M2W046.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040109152840.033923a0@mail.comcast.net>

Every report I've seen in the press on Bush's supposed plans has the 
identical quote from this guy, sometimes as an unnamed expert. This is the 
New York Times' version:

>One expert on NASA management, Harold E. McCurdy of American University, 
>said that if, in fact, the plan was to go to the moon, the overall goal 
>would be broader.
>
>"The ultimate purpose of going back to the moon is not to go the moon," 
>Mr. McCurdy said. "It's to go to Mars and explore the inner solar system. 
>It's like climbing Mount Rainier in preparation for an ascent of Mount 
>Everest."

No one quotes Zubrin or other prominent figures from the Mars Society, or 
even mentions that if you want to go to Mars, the answer might just be -- 
go to Mars.

The descriptions of Bush's plan so far sound like the same old NASA 
hooey.  Long, slow, expensive projects so that every NASA center gets a 
piece, the usual aerospace contractors get billions in contracts, and a few 
dozen humans at best get to go up.

I suppose we'll get some useful technologies and accomplishments but it 
will come at a heavy price.  I'm mostly afraid that it will interfere with 
private space projects -- particularly with legal restraints.

BTW, debka.com reported a while back that experiences with Afghanistan and 
Iraq made it clear to DOD that we have to invest more in protecting our 
space assets. This shows up as an understated aside at the end of the NYT 
piece, and may be the most important aspect of the news:

>Congressional aides also said they expected the announcement to detail a 
>reorganization of the nation's space effort, to bring the military and 
>civilian sides closer together to make better use of limited resources.


-- David Lubkin.




From cryofan at mylinuxisp.com  Fri Jan  9 21:16:34 2004
From: cryofan at mylinuxisp.com (randy)
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 15:16:34 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] A Challenge For Cold Dark 
In-Reply-To: <BAY7-F84uN6tdqVvPdL00009e2b@hotmail.com>
References: <BAY7-F84uN6tdqVvPdL00009e2b@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <7e6uvv8l4f4hc09abi8q8km1vnsljfmm8b@4ax.com>

On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 13:10:12 -0600, you wrote

>Even a few years ago the Hubble was showing old galaxies
>at the furthest observable reaches.  The latest observations
>show more of the same.  A 13.7 billion year old universe with
>old galaxies from the very start.  Even this article is being
>very generous in not questioning how the clusters of old
>galaxies fit into the Big Bang model.
>
>Astronomers See Era Of Rapid Galaxy Formation;
>New Findings Pose A Challenge For Cold Dark
>Matter Theory
>
>

Isn't clear by now that we really do not understand what the universe
is, and that we should just assume that it is eternal, everlasting,
whatever.  That way we don't hamstring ourselves when it comes to
dealing with issues involving possible future long term life
extension.....


-------------


From thespike at earthlink.net  Fri Jan  9 21:21:02 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 15:21:02 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
References: <63340-22004159184231482@M2W046.mail2web.com>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040109152840.033923a0@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <014a01c3d6f6$7e65b740$a8994a43@texas.net>

From: "David Lubkin" <extropy at unreasonable.com>
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 3:12 PM

> No one quotes Zubrin or other prominent figures from the Mars Society, or
> even mentions that if you want to go to Mars, the answer might just be --
> go to Mars.

No one mentions that if you want to stay on Mars rather than going briefly
and coming back, the answer might just be -- stay on Earth. For the next
decade or so (as is planned anyway). Put all that loot into nanotechnology
and other bootstraps. Then build a skyhook or a diamonoid launch platform or
something equally radical. Meanwhile, send probes if you really must.

Damien Broderick




From duggerj1 at charter.net  Fri Jan  9 21:45:08 2004
From: duggerj1 at charter.net (duggerj1 at charter.net)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 15:45:08 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Drive on Mars in your Pajamas.
Message-ID: <200401092144.i09LiewL068134@mxsf27.cluster1.charter.net>

Friday, 09 January 2004

Hello all,

     NASA released the rover control software and Mars data sets for people to try at home. It's not quite telepresence, but it's still a very nice toy. I've not seen nor heard this mentioned in all the coverage, so each of you can be the first on your block to "drive on Mars".

http://mars.telascience.org/

Use the BitTorrent links if you can. We now return you to the threads in progress.


Jay Dugger     :     Til Eulenspiegel
http://www.owlmirror.net/Aduggerj/
Sometimes the delete key serves best.



From matus at matus1976.com  Fri Jan  9 22:28:09 2004
From: matus at matus1976.com (Matus)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 17:28:09 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <006001c3d6e1$e0a6cf80$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <000001c3d6ff$df8202f0$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Harvey Newstrom
> 
> Michael Dickey wrote,
> > My statement that sometimes war may be extropic is a strong
> > assertion? How so?  Seems like that absolute that war is
> > *always* anti-extropic is the strong assertion, since it
> > requires not only a clear definition of extropic but one of
> > war as well.
> 
> People who have been on this list generally know what the Extropian
> Principles are.  You can nit-pick on particular interpretations if you
> want,
> but you can't assume that nobody has defined them yet.
> 

Nor did I say they were not defined, but checking out the extropian
principles reveals many not accurately defined statements.  

>From - http://www.extropy.org/principles.htm

Extropy -  The extent of a living or organizational system's
intelligence, functional order, vitality, and capacity and drive for
improvement

Extropic - Actions, qualities, or outcomes that embody or further
extropy

So we have the extent of a systems intelligence, its order, its
'vitality', capacity for improvement, and its drive for improvement.  

Are these 'clearly' defined?  

E.g. what is the 'extent of a systems intelligence' the # of intelligent
beings?  (think of billions of couch potatoes or peasant agrarian
farmers, not very extropian) The speed of information storage and
retrieval (books vs computer databases) Speed of information exchange
between intelligent systems?  (snail mail vs. email) etc. etc. etc.

"Extropy" is not meant as a real entity or force, but only as a metaphor
representing all that contributes to our flourishing"

Ah, is it then a clearly defined metaphor?

Of course, I think it would be extraordinarily difficult to define
'extropic' since extropic progress requires intelligence, freedom to act
on intelligence, motivation to do something with intelligence, science
to collect knowledge, technology do extend and better our lives, etc.
etc.  

Which is of these is most important?  Which is least important?  Do you
care to quantify them?  Without having to, I will make the assertion
that a society which is statist (denies progress) luddite (despises
technology) oppressive (denies freedom) and mystic (denies science) is
far less extropic than one that embraces all those things.  And as such,
I would further assert that a war between these two societies, of
similar populations, where one person was killed on the less free
society (Brother number 1 say) and none were killed in the freer
society, and as a result the oppressive luddite mystic society was
turned into a dynamic, open, and technological progressive society.  

Such a 'war' I would certainly call extropic.  However, it would not be
as extropic as merely convincing Brother # 1 over a cup of tea that this
is what he should do, and him agreeing.

Even though, yeah, it would be pretty if the brother #1 decided to
resign and enact the changes himself, and it was 'bad' to have to resort
to a 'war', but the world is imperfect.  Lets add that brother # 1 was
killing 1,000 people per year in gulags for owning computers, thinking
independent thoughts, or writing poetry.  But, 10 people were killed in
the war, and 1 person on the freer side was killed.  Still extropic?
Make that 100 people, and 10 people, respectively, etc. etc.  Lets add
that Brother # 1 was funding revolutions in neighboring territories,
demanding killing quotas, and was intent on attacking said free nation.


Suffice to say, your idealistic extropic paradise where everyone
eventually sees reason and the bad guys are only people vilified by the
good guys is absurd in a world where 170 million people were killed by
very regressive, very mystic, and very oppressive societies.

Additionally, as I have been arguing *some* wars may be considered
extropic, certainly not ALL WARS.  But various methods of attaining
goals differ in levels of extropy, ranging from very extropic (merely
changing opponents mind with discussion) to very anti-extropic.

> People also generally know what war means.  You made your assertions
about
> war without having to create a more rigorous definition of the term.
If
> the
> term is generally good enough for you, it is generally good enough for
> other
> people.  You seem to be requiring a higher burden of proof for other
> people
> than for yourself.

Because other people are making absolutist statements, statement that
have no single fact that suggests they are wrong.  Saying 'ALL WARS ARE
ANTI-EXTROPIC' is absolute and definite.  *ALL WARS* (no doubt there)
*ARE* (again, pretty clear) *ANTI-EXTROPIC (again, no room for doubt is
left).  To make such a sweeping absolutist statement, one must be clear
about what we are talking about.  

I am not making an absolute assertion; I merely assert that surely, in
some cases, given specific circumstances, SOME wars (maybe only one,
maybe four) could be considered extropic.  As an example, I present the
case above.

> 
> > "To positively assert whether something was extropic or not,
> > you will have to define what criteria makes something
> > extropic, and how much of it was present before and how much
> > present afterward. This would probably be quite an
> > undertaking, yet you are all ready absolutely positive that
> > *all* wars are anti-extropic."
> 
> That is like saying that to avoid a car crash, you have to define
exactly
> what "avoidance" means, exactly what a "car crash" is,

No, its likes saying 'All car crashes are bad'  I don't know what you
area talking about.

Car crash = two cars unintentionally run into each other, or a car
unintentionally hits a fixed object

Bad = Someone is hurt

There, as simple as that, I proved my assertion that all car crashes are
bad.  Of course, one could imagine getting hit by some wealthy negligent
fello who needed to be taught a life lesson about responsibility, and
victim, getting minor injuries, receives monetary compensation from
negligent rich fella, and rich fella learns valuable lesson.  Or
Habitual drunken driver hits fixed object, a rock say, receives minor
injuries, but realizes he could have killed someone, and changes his
ways.  Might either of these crashes be considered good?  Good to whom?
Good as a net whole for everyone?  Or good for the victim or
perpetrator?

> We do NOT need exact quantitative analysis to make a qualitative
judgment.
> I think there is more evidence and experience showing that "war is
bad"
> than
> "war is good".  Only warmongers and terrorists think that we should
> inflict
> some war on "them" to get greater results for "us".

I did not disagree that all war is bad, I disagreed that all war is
absolutely anti-extropic.  If you fail to see the difference we are
certainly having a problem communicating.  All war is bad, make no
mistake, I believe as much, all killing is bad as well.  But just as the
car crash examples above, some good can come of 'bad' things.  I am
hesitant to repeat such phrases as all encompassing and as sweeping
generalizations as 'war is bad' because that statement implies too many
different things to too many different people.  

Harvey, do you consider me a warmonger or a terrorist?

> 
> > What do we do when their proponents will not listen to reason?
> 
> This is a key requirement for war.  You must dehumanize your enemy to
the
> point that it is not possible to negotiate or reason with them.

You did not answer the question.  What do we do when they do not listen
to reason?  When they insist on continuing to kill vast portions of
their populations, when they insist on remaining closed, oppressive and
totalitarian.  Shall we just keep hoping they see reason?  For how long?
How many people must die before you give up your idealistic fancifull
pacifist utopia and realize that there are some people who are bad.
Maybe an OPT god can convince them to see the light, but how many people
must we watch them murder while debate rages on?

  They will
> never agree to anything else, so we must kill them.  We have to
eliminate
> all other possible options before the "final solution" becomes the
only
> one
> left.
> 

And what if the 'final solution' is the only one left?

> As Extropians, we should be seeing more and more options all the time,
not
> less and less.  War should be less likely and less useful as we
progress
> into the future.

And it has become less and less likely, and less and less needed,
thankfully.

>  War is the opposite of extropy.  War means that there
> are
> no possible solutions, we give up, we can't oppose the other side, so
we
> will just kill them.

Or we are sick of seeing them killing other people, or it becomes clear
that they threaten our way of life, or they are crazy and just want to
kill as many people as possible, or they want to thrust all of humanity
into darker ages then we have ever known.  Again, I feel you simplify
complex subjects too much.

> 
> > To suggest, as I did, that
> > maybe some wars are indeed extropic requires me to present
> > merely one single example of a war that would reasonably be
> > considered extropic.  To do this, and prove it to you,
> > Charlie, and Paul would likely require a lengthy discussion
> > just to define extropic and to define war.  But are you so
> > sure that ANY possible war is definitely NOT extropic?
> 
> Typical losing-position approach.  You want to assert it, but it would
> take
> too long to explain why.

Its an unproductive waste of time.

  You want to push the burden of proof to the
> other
> side.  You want them to prove a negative (that no war could ever be
> extropic),

Proving all wars are anti-extropic is proving a positive.

> while you refuse to prove a positive (just give one example).

Or you could be asking me to prove a negative (all wars are not
anti-extropic) 

Of course, I never said "ALL" you conveniently added that, I said "some"
All is absolute and all inclusive, some is not.  I need only make a
reasonable case the some hypothetical example exists that is counter to
whatever all encompassing statement is made.  All red heads are male is
absolute.  Some redheads are female is not, I need only demonstrate one
female red head to prove my point, you need to prove that all read heads
are male.

> You also claim that your position hasn't been disproved yet, nobody
has
> proved that all war is always entropic and never can be, so your
argument
> still stands undefeated.  A lack of defeat (yet) does not equal proof.

Again, Harvey, I never said "ALL" you added that.  Charlie et al
however, did say "ALL"  Oddly enough, the fact that he and Paul Grant
said "ALL" is the primary point I hold in contention, yet it is the
single thing you get wrong in my argument.

> 
> > If you wanted to try to
> > convince Hitler and Stalin that War was bad, I'm all for it,
> > but once tanks start rolling over us, I'm defending myself.
> > We could say that 'killing is bad' as well, but in saying
> > that am I giving up my right to self defense?
> 
> There is a big difference between defending yourself from violence and
> initiating violence.  The libertarians and older extropians on this
board
> used to understand that.  This idea of pre-emptive strikes and
initiating
> force on people who haven't attacked us is definitely not extropian.
It
> never has been and never will be.

So says you.  I guess everyone who disagrees with you isn't extropian!

I would ask you to answer the ethical questions I have proposed before
on this list then

You are standing in line, side by side, with ten other people.  A man is
walking down the line shooting each person in the head, starting at the
other end of the line.  BAM BAM BAM BAM hes coming closer to you, BAM
BAM BAM BAM BAM .....  What can you do?  You have a gun.  He has not
threatened you yet, he has not pointed the gun at your head, or even in
your general direction.  

Your society is a progressive, open, technology friendly society.  On
the other side of the world, is a closed, repressive, totalitarian
society.  Your two countries are of equal power, the repressive society
begins an active campaign of expansion.  Turning all neighboring
societies, one by one, into societies ruled by proxy just like the
parent country.  Eventually, half of the worlds countries are consumed,
and the power of that country has quadrupled.  Reports of mass democide
and horrific conditions are prevalent. The leaders of that country
insist they will not bother you. The NCP Libertarians, pacifists, and
idealists in your society insist that if you leave them alone, they wont
bother you.  That it is wrong to initiate force unless you are attacked
directly.  The hawks and warmongers insist that this country is bent on
taking over the entire world, and that if you wait too long, you will
not even be able to oppose them.

> 
> (And for the record, no I don't believe that Iraq was part of the 9/11
> attacks or had weapons of mass destruction.  I do believe that we
> pre-emptively attacked a country that neither attacked us nor were
capable
> of attacking us.  No, I don't think the Iraq war is extropic.)

For the record, I, tentatively, do think it was extropic.  But whatever
we think will not change whether it ends up being extropic or not.

> 
> > > > A more reasonable question (if one can call such questions
> > > > reasonable) would be how many lives are worth an increase in
> > > > extropy, and how much of an increase?
> > >
> > > No we can not call such questions reasonable.  I don't know why it
> > > keeps coming up on this list.
> >
> > Yet if one is to assert that all wars are anti-extropic, then
> > this is a question that MUST be answered before making that
> > determination.  All wars include loss of life.  How extropic
> > is a single life?  What do we mean when we say 'extropic' in
> > the first place?
> 
> Sorry if I haven't made myself clear.  ZERO LOSS OF LIFE is extropic.
ANY
> LOSS OF LIFE is entropic.

Ah, so Pol Pots death was entropic?  Is # of lives the only thing with
which you gauge extropy on?  For the record, I agree with you, I think
any loss of life is entropic as well, but there are many components to
extropy, # of lives only being one of them.  Also, all my ethical
judgments are NOT based solely on what is extropic and entropic, as I
have argued, many freedoms I love and enjoy (and still others I value
but do not partake in) could probably not be considered extropic.

>  Now I know that the world isn't perfect, and we
> can't prevent all loss of life.  But I certainly don't want anybody
> planning
> loss of life as part of their master plan.  Especially any final
solution
> where the loss of life is directed at one group while a different
group
> benefits.

Nor do I, is that what you think I am doing?  I fear your impression of
me is prejudiced by what you think I am trying to say, instead of what I
am actually saying.  Merely that some wars, under some conditions (note,
'SOME' not 'ALL) could be considered extropic (that is, creating a more
progressive, open, technological and science friendly world)

> 
> > > It almost seems as if there is a subgroup of people who
> > > keep trying to justify committing violence as part of
> > > the extropian agenda.
> >
> > And it seems that there is a subgroup of people content to
> > let us be overrun by murderous oppressive regimes for fear of
> > taking a single like to defend our very extropic (thought not
> > extropic enough) society.
> 
> Only people who cannot conceive of any answer besides murder,
terrorism
> and
> war would make such a statement. 

Ah, so if I made such a statement, than I can not conceive of any answer
besides murder, terrorism, and war.  What was that you were saying about
vilifying the enemy?

'Only a murderer would say such a thing!!!'  

Can we keep this discussion a little more intelligent?  Its one thing to
disagree with me, its another entirely to call me a warmongering
murdering terrorist.  And I of course disagree with your premise that
'only people who can not conceive...would make such a statement'

 If there are other options, then it is
> perfectly possible to pursue them without resorting to murder,
terrorism
> and
> war.

Of course!!!  But what if there ARE NO OTHER OPTIONS!!  This is a point
I have yet to see you address.

>  The refusal to initiate force does not equal a lack of self-defense.
> Every libertarian knows that.

Do they?  I think they confuse the NCP sometimes and self defense.  I
have had some discussions on my mailing list about that very subject.
For example, what is self defense?  Does someone merely need to wave a
gun at you in a threatening manner (what is a threatening manner?) do
they actually need to shoot at you (after all, maybe they never intended
on shooting you or even pulling the trigger) What if they shoot everyone
in a line (consider my above ethical question)  There are many scenarios
where self defense and the NCP have no clear answers. 

> 
> > Yes, War is bad, and killing is also bad.  So is lying,
> > stealing, cheating, etc.  But the real world is cold,
> > complex, and unforgiving, and sometimes things must be done
> > that we prefer not to do in order to ensure the continuation
> > of the things we value.  I may steal bread to feed my
> > starving self or family, I may lie to protect the feelings of
> > someone I care about, I may kill someone in self defense, and
> > my country may go to war when threatened by a clearly and
> > significantly less extropic, less free, murderous and
> > oppressive government.
> 
> This is my point exactly.  As extropians, we are supposed to be
> intelligent
> people with optimism, smart technology and future solutions.  Can't we
> think
> up something besides guns, murder, lying and war?

Of course, but what if...

  As long as you think
> these things are bad and work to avoid them, then we are in agreement.
> But

They are unavoidable?

Regards

Michael Dickey




From asa at nada.kth.se  Fri Jan  9 23:13:21 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 00:13:21 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
In-Reply-To: <014a01c3d6f6$7e65b740$a8994a43@texas.net>
References: <63340-22004159184231482@M2W046.mail2web.com><5.1.0.14.2.20040109152840.033923a0@mail.comcast.net>
	<014a01c3d6f6$7e65b740$a8994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <1608.213.112.90.167.1073690001.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>


Damien Broderick said:
>
> No one mentions that if you want to stay on Mars rather than going briefly
> and coming back, the answer might just be -- stay on Earth. For the next
> decade or so (as is planned anyway). Put all that loot into nanotechnology
> and other bootstraps. Then build a skyhook or a diamonoid launch platform
> or
> something equally radical. Meanwhile, send probes if you really must.
>
> Damien Broderick

There seem to be two approaches to really going to space. One is to use
the cheapest, tried-and-true technology you can find - possibly using it
in unorthodox ways, but in general make sure you don't have to wait and
don't have to assume any technological development. The other one is to
wait for more advanced technology to appear in other areas, and then apply
it. It is a gamble, but you may get more performance for the same price
later, and in many applications you get finished faster. For example, if
you have a large computing problem it might pay to wait for faster
machines rather than running it longer on a slow machine.

In space travel the travel time is likely not the most sensitive aspect to
technology development (unless it enables extremely high ISP gains; the
rest is just gravity) but rather launch cost, miniaturization and price of
the components will be affected more. So the waiters might not get there
first, but they are far more likely to be able to stay. Perhaps even more
important is the development times of projects. It is not obvious how fast
they will decrease *if* they decrease - in a situation of fast
technological change adapting new unexpected capabilities that arrive
while planning might cause delays. Especially if accelerating development
makes it attractive to wait just a little bit more for the next
breakthrough...



-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From asa at nada.kth.se  Fri Jan  9 23:25:41 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 00:25:41 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Belated new year greetings
Message-ID: <1661.213.112.90.167.1073690741.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>


By the way, hi everyone! I have been somewhat decoupled from the list due
to workload over the last months, but hopefully I get the chance to
interact more now.

Some news: I have started a blog, http://www.aleph.se/andart/ I don't know
what it will become, but it will definitely evolve over the next weeks.

I will be spending the winter and early spring at least developing a major
exhibition about neuroscience that will tour Sweden in 2005. It is fun,
both from a popular science perspective and a transhumanist perspective -
mental enhancement and transhumanist issues will be an integral part of
it.

Other than that, it is the usual mixture of academic work, think tank
writing and random research/roleplaying.

Happy new year everyone!

-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From extropy at unreasonable.com  Fri Jan  9 23:49:37 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 18:49:37 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
In-Reply-To: <014a01c3d6f6$7e65b740$a8994a43@texas.net>
References: <63340-22004159184231482@M2W046.mail2web.com>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040109152840.033923a0@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040109175836.030951d8@mail.comcast.net>

I wrote:

 > No one quotes Zubrin or other prominent figures from the Mars Society, or
 > even mentions that if you want to go to Mars, the answer might just be --
 > go to Mars.

to which Damien retorted:

>No one mentions that if you want to stay on Mars rather than going briefly
>and coming back, the answer might just be -- stay on Earth. For the next
>decade or so (as is planned anyway). Put all that loot into nanotechnology
>and other bootstraps. Then build a skyhook or a diamonoid launch platform or
>something equally radical. Meanwhile, send probes if you really must.

They could say that, too, but Zubrin recently testified before the Commerce 
Committee of the US Senate. It would be reasonable to expect a minimally 
competent reporter who covers space to be aware of this and get a reaction 
quote. It's curious that none did, at least none that Google News is aware of.

Thinking of nanotech, though, is far beyond any competency I'd expect from 
journalism.

Anyway. The Case for Mars plan is cheap, pay-for-results, and builds a 
permanent complex on Mars. It is not "going briefly and coming back."

But, if I were in the position of allocating investment dollars, I'd put my 
space effort into bringing back a nickel-iron asteroid. Set up shop for 
mining, manufacturing, and space construction somewhere convenient, like 
geosynch, L-4, or L-5. Bova et al outlined a reasonable scenario for doing 
this nearly off-the-shelf twenty years ago. I keep expecting to hear that 
Paul Allen has funded it.

Hundreds of millions of tons of metal and organics in a useful Up location 
is a major bootstrap for anything else you want to do in space, and I think 
would have a lot of synergy with nanotech.


-- David Lubkin.




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sat Jan 10 00:23:15 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 16:23:15 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040109175836.030951d8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401091611550.20282-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Fri, 9 Jan 2004, David Lubkin wrote:

> Thinking of nanotech, though, is far beyond any competency I'd expect from
> journalism.

Journalists are catching up faster than you might think from where I sit.
Perhaps due to the fact that they can't escape from more informed writers
who simply throw stuff onto the net without having to make a living as
a journalist.  Its tough to push ca-ca when a Google search will cleearly
show it as such.

> Anyway. The Case for Mars plan is cheap, pay-for-results, and builds a
> permanent complex on Mars. It is not "going briefly and coming back."

But, but but... Zubrin gets so close to the dismantlement of the planet
with the construction of solar cells for power sources then doesn't
follow through.  I believe anyone who is an extropian who believes
nanotechnology will develop reasonably rapidly (say within a century)
would be foolish to support any Mars colonization or even Mars
human visitation efforts.  There is no point to expending resources
to put humans at the bottom of another gravity well.  Hell, on Mars
the atmosphere is so thin one doesn't even have the protection from
asteroids, comets, UV and gamma rays that one has on earth.  It is
*stupid* to expend large amounts of resources to go there.  O'Neill
space based colonies or even asteroid based colonies make much more
sense.  If a Mars program would cost $100B consider what that could
do if invested in nanotech development...

> But, if I were in the position of allocating investment dollars, I'd put my
> space effort into bringing back a nickel-iron asteroid. Set up shop for
> mining, manufacturing, and space construction somewhere convenient, like
> geosynch, L-4, or L-5. Bova et al outlined a reasonable scenario for doing
> this nearly off-the-shelf twenty years ago. I keep expecting to hear that
> Paul Allen has funded it.

Let Paul finish the X-prize first, then deal with the asteroid as a
follow-up effort.  (Though I strongly agree with the strategy.)

> Hundreds of millions of tons of metal and organics in a useful Up location
> is a major bootstrap for anything else you want to do in space, and I think
> would have a lot of synergy with nanotech.

It does.

Robert




From thespike at earthlink.net  Sat Jan 10 00:39:34 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 18:39:34 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
References: <63340-22004159184231482@M2W046.mail2web.com><5.1.0.14.2.20040109152840.033923a0@mail.comcast.net>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040109175836.030951d8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <01da01c3d712$3b3c5a20$a8994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message -----
From: "David Lubkin" <extropy at unreasonable.com>
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 5:49 PM

> Thinking of nanotech, though, is far beyond any competency I'd expect from
> journalism.

That's true, sort of, but then I'm a journalist, sort of, and in 2001 I had
a long cataogue piece on Mars and beyond in a major exhibition of that name
which is still touring Australian museums. No impact on GWB, it's true, or
the American taxpayer, but it's an existence proof. :)

I'll paste in a sample below.

> But, if I were in the position of allocating investment dollars, I'd put
my
> space effort into bringing back a nickel-iron asteroid.
> Hundreds of millions of tons of metal and organics in a useful Up location
> is a major bootstrap for anything else you want to do in space, and I
think
> would have a lot of synergy with nanotech.

Indeed, but again a moderately mature molecular fabrication system might be
expected to round up, smelt and return to LEO (or wherever) all the asteroid
metals you could wish, without sending humans out to do it (and die or at
least damage themselves horribly).

Here's a chunk of my piece, which has now been read by many tens of
thousands of people. I've been describing a classic skyhook:

========

         A staggeringly expensive project, even using molecular
mechanosynthesis, it will pay for itself many times over by replacing
rockets with elevators driven by electricity powered by solar energy freely
available and abundant beyond our atmosphere. What is more, building
skyhooks is easier on the Moon and Mars, and eventually it will be possible
to use robot construction machines to spin the great cables for us with no
human supervision. Rather than expend decades on rocket flights to Mars, it
might turn out to be cheaper and quicker, in the long run, to invest in a
major research and development effort in industrial nanotechnology able to
fabricate skyhooks for interplanetary travel. That way we'd have the
benefits of nano for all manner of useful purposes, and an attaintable
highway to space in the bargain.
         What is more, the trouble--and the great delight--of making such
projections into expected future technologies is that once you introduce
such a novelty as nanotechnology, everything else is liable to change in
unexpected ways. If you have access to advanced nanofacture, you might wish
to build other things. I playfully called the space hook a Beanstalk, but in
the fairy story the giant's Beanstalk grew upward from the soil, it did not
hang down from the sky. Might we use molecular or other advanced methods to
grow a ladder or tower upward into the clouds and far, far beyond them?
         NASA scientists Dr Geoffrey Landis and Craig Cafarelli have done
the engineering calculations. It seems that an immensely tall tower could
indeed be built. The stresses in a diamond tower with its mighty footings
deep in rock would be compressive, squeezing downward, the contrary of that
outward tension tearing at a space thread. Small shifts in the crust would
put it at risk of toppling or buckling, so active computerised management
would be necessary to ensure stability. Further calculations show that a
blend of skyhook satellite and very tall tower might be the optimal mix,
using less materials and cheaper to build. But these same technologies have
suggested a quite different audacious scheme to Dr J. Storrs Hall, one of
the few people to have devoted a lot of disciplined effort to exploring the
prospects of nanotechnology. His notion is strange, but remarkably simple
and perhaps elegant in the way of the Eiffel Tower. He proposes a Launch
Pier a hundred kilometres tall, extending above all but the last of the
atmosphere, and three hundred long.
         It would resemble the world's largest trestle, built from slender
diamond-like towers marching beyond the horizon like impossibly tall spidery
radio transmitters. At their top, a colossal rail structure would lead to an
edge I can imagine base-jumpers lining up for months to jump off. The rails
would carry magnetically levitated spacecraft, accelerating them smoothly
for 80 seconds at a crushing but acceptable 10 gravities. Released at the
end of their 300 km run, spared the burden of carrying most of their own
propellent, spacecraft would head for orbit along computer-specified
trajectories, correcting their paths with exquisite changes of velocity from
their conventional rockets.
         From the ground, you would not be able to see the immense launch
platform lost in the haze of air far beneath it. Perhaps you would only see
a few of the great struts plunging upward into the blue. Sunlight,
effectively undiminished, would shine through the lacy thing upon crops.
There'd be no noise, except where great gantries and elevators carried their
loads into the skies, powered not by expensive rocket fuel but by cheap
electricity (which might well be generated from solar energy at the top of
the trestle). How much would such a marvel cost to build? Hall claims it
could be built today, using available technology and materials, although at
exorbitant expense. With moderately early nanotechnology to spin the half
million tonnes of struts, plus magnetic coils and electronics, that
impossible price might plunge to $500,000,000, or more conservatively $10
billion. By comparison, 300 kilometres of superhighway today costs at least
a billion dollars; building the Hubble Space Telescope, hoisting it into
orbit and then repairing it took $3.2 billion; the International Space
Station's bill will be more than $20 billion. The Apollo mission to the Moon
cost $24 billion in 1960 dollars.. but today its mighty Saturn launch
vehicles have been dismantled and even their engineering plans were
destroyed. Hall notes: `If an Apollo-style (and -cost) project could do for
diamond what the original one did for electronics, we could build the tower
in the next decade or so.' Operating costs could fall to $1 per kilogram
lifted into orbit. Today's costs using rockets are 10,000 times higher.
         In short, a major push in developing molecular nanotechnology could
pay off by reducing the cost of this dramatic launch platform into
space--and provide us with all the other benefits of matter compilers almost
as an incidental. Those benefits will probably include inexpensive consumer
goods, perhaps including foods, clothing, safe terrestrial transport,
shelter and computation. That implies a complete and perhaps catastrophic
shake-up in the global economy, as we shift from a world of scarcity to one
of plenty within a brief period of time. During such an upheaval, will
anyone be thinking seriously about exploring the Solar System and beyond?
Yes--because even with the new opportunities for intelligent recycling that
nanotechnology affords us, we'll want all the extra resources we can find.
And space--in the form of asteroids, but also moons and planets, will be an
abundant source of raw materials for a very long time, without the
disturbing moral costs that should have troubled our colonising ancestors.

         iii

Finding clever ways to lift cheaply into orbit is just the first step, but
it is a step that takes us a long way, for it has been said that low earth
orbit is `halfway to anywhere'. While that is true, it depends on how long
you are willing to spend getting anywhere. By rocket from Earth orbit, the
Moon is several days distant. Coasting most of the way, getting to Mars and
back takes many months. Can we speed up the trip? And is your journey really
necessary?
         Several ingenious methods have been explored for boosting crewed
spacecraft to the nearest planets and the asteroids. You can fire tremendous
laser beams at the frail extended butterfly wings of a light-jammer, pushing
it gentle but inexorable into the void on the pressure of light itself. That
sounds absurd, but a highly reflective aluminium skin on a light-sail just
four or five atoms thick and nearly 700 kilometres across can be driven by
sunlight alone to nearly one percent of the speed of light, the maximum
velocity in the universe. Actually we can do better than that. A battery of
powerful lasers, pumping their blazing beams through a lens 200 metres
across, could strike the light-jammer's sail with such force that it would
be accelerated in two months to 15 percvent of the speed of light.
Conditions on board would be comfortable, because the acceleration would be
nearly one g, the force we are used to on Earth from gravity. You do not
need to carry all that mass of proppellent with you, and at destination, the
craft can be slowed by a number of equally clever means not requiring
rockets. One such, suggested by Dr Robert Zubrin, is to deploy an equally
vast magnetic sail-field that presses against the `wind' of the
interplanetary magnetic medium that suffuses `empty' space.
         Do we need to make this trip through the horrors of space at all?
Might we find ways to avoid the perils of weightlessness (which destroys
bone and muscle), radiation storms from the Sun, dangerous micro-debris that
can damage a craft or its instruments? A favourite fancy, fuelled now for
three decades by Star Trek, is the transporter beam, or instant
teleportation from one place to another. Recently this notion has been given
some real scientific grounding with the discovery, in relativity theory,
that wormholes might be possible. These are links through higher-dimnsional
space, joining locations and even times far distant and in principle
permiting signals or even objects to pass through, apparently faster than
light. Of course the transition would not actually be faster than light,
since the distance travelled has been abbreviated. Alas, current thinking
argues against the likelihood that wormholes or hyperspace can really allow
us to teleport instantly to another world, or even from the surface to a
starship propelled by antimatter. One reason for thinking that this sad news
is right is the absence of aliens in the Solar Sysytem, let alone the earth.
If wormhole travel is easy and available, we'd expect the galaxy to be
swarming with star voyagers (assuming that life exists beyond our own
planet). That goes as well, admittedly, for near-light-speed star travel,
such as light-sails or antimatter-fuelled craft, but such vessels would take
years, centuries, even millennia to get to their destinations. That might
cramp the enthusiasm of many extraterrestrial species, encouraging them to
stay at home and sent small nano-robots exploring in their stead. Such
shrunken probes, containing miniaturised artificial intelligence systems
perhaps smarter than human brains, could be accelerated inexpensively from
their home worlds to nearly the speed of light, spin themselves sails from
the interstellar debris as they approach their destination, infest a
convenient asteroid or lifeless moon and start to replicate. A nano-seed of
this sort could build further probes to explore the new system, and enormous
radio or optical transmitters to pump back an encyclopaedia of new
information to the home world. True, the society that launched them
thousands of years earlier might by then be dead or transformed, but the
gale of knowledge would flow across the emptiness between the stars,
bringing riches beyond dream to anyone listening.






From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Sat Jan 10 00:39:11 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 18:39:11 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
References: <63340-22004159184231482@M2W046.mail2web.com><5.1.0.14.2.20040109152840.033923a0@mail.comcast.net>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040109175836.030951d8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <Law10-OE33w1FwqrYdJ000298dc@hotmail.com>

I think that a permanent presence would be extremely valuable for anything,
regardless of whether or not MNT comes along soon. To simply have a place
with  lots of people and industry that's not buried in a deep gravity well
like Earth would increase our abilities more than I can even guess.
If you could start small and bring asteroids to the moon for processing, it
could grow just as rapidly as the US did. It would be even more useful if we
came to learn that it is easier to manufacture MNT self-replicators in low
or zero g. (I don't know if this would make a difference, but with all the
materials research on the ISS I guess it could be possible).

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Lubkin" <extropy at unreasonable.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 5:49 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Moon news


> I wrote:
>
>  > No one quotes Zubrin or other prominent figures from the Mars Society,
or
>  > even mentions that if you want to go to Mars, the answer might just
be --
>  > go to Mars.
>
> to which Damien retorted:
>
> >No one mentions that if you want to stay on Mars rather than going
briefly
> >and coming back, the answer might just be -- stay on Earth. For the next
> >decade or so (as is planned anyway). Put all that loot into
nanotechnology
> >and other bootstraps. Then build a skyhook or a diamonoid launch platform
or
> >something equally radical. Meanwhile, send probes if you really must.
>
> They could say that, too, but Zubrin recently testified before the
Commerce
> Committee of the US Senate. It would be reasonable to expect a minimally
> competent reporter who covers space to be aware of this and get a reaction
> quote. It's curious that none did, at least none that Google News is aware
of.
>
> Thinking of nanotech, though, is far beyond any competency I'd expect from
> journalism.
>
> Anyway. The Case for Mars plan is cheap, pay-for-results, and builds a
> permanent complex on Mars. It is not "going briefly and coming back."
>
> But, if I were in the position of allocating investment dollars, I'd put
my
> space effort into bringing back a nickel-iron asteroid. Set up shop for
> mining, manufacturing, and space construction somewhere convenient, like
> geosynch, L-4, or L-5. Bova et al outlined a reasonable scenario for doing
> this nearly off-the-shelf twenty years ago. I keep expecting to hear that
> Paul Allen has funded it.
>
> Hundreds of millions of tons of metal and organics in a useful Up location
> is a major bootstrap for anything else you want to do in space, and I
think
> would have a lot of synergy with nanotech.
>
>
> -- David Lubkin.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From thespike at earthlink.net  Sat Jan 10 01:26:00 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 19:26:00 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] http://www.julianbarbour.com/
References: <63340-22004159184231482@M2W046.mail2web.com><5.1.0.14.2.20040109152840.033923a0@mail.comcast.net><5.1.0.14.2.20040109175836.030951d8@mail.comcast.net>
	<01da01c3d712$3b3c5a20$a8994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <000801c3d718$b82c3e00$c3994a43@texas.net>

Some spam prick seems to have sitejacked theoretical physicist Julian
Barbour's site. Google's cache shows the same crap. But I'm far from expert
on this stuff; anyone have any insight into this annoyance?

Damien Broderick



From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com  Sat Jan 10 01:28:54 2004
From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 17:28:54 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] What to do with $100B? Mars, Nano or Life?
Message-ID: <20040110012854.89171.qmail@web41313.mail.yahoo.com>

Dear Robert,
 
     You pose a fundamental question. What to do with a hundred billion dollars?
 
     I would agree with you that it is a lot of money just to go to Mars, but also just for nanotechnology. With that amount of money, we could probably find the secrets of life extension and even immortality?
 
    Your message puts light in a fundamental economic concept: opportunity cost. And between Mars and immortality, I take the second without any doubts. 
 
     And later I would go to Mars as well:-)
 
     Extropianily yours,
 
     La vie est belle!
 
     Yos?
 
Robert J. Bradbury bradbury at aeiveos.com 
Fri Jan 9 17:23:15 MST 2004 

   If a Mars program would cost $100B consider what that could
do if invested in nanotech development...





La vie est belle!

Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) 

Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra


---------------------------------
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From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com  Sat Jan 10 01:48:48 2004
From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 17:48:48 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fermi Paradox and Simulation Argument
In-Reply-To: <011801c3d15a$494a1700$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040110014848.97772.qmail@web60505.mail.yahoo.com>

My thoughts on:
 
1. Fermi paradox:
      Any advanced species from an extrasolar planet would have realized the same Darwinian processes have shaped the life on their world as it has on ours. Knowing that any other advanced species it encounters would more likely represent a competitor than an ally. Especially since life based on selfish replicators such as genes, or even memes for that matter, would converge on similar strategies of kin selection and deception to forward their own ends. Therefore it would seem reasonable that any sufficiently advanced alien species would be too canny to advertise their existence through indiscriminate radio broadcasts for fear of invasion or, if more agressive, to avoid tipping their hands to any potential targets for invasion.
      The Fermi Paradox could be a little like a naval battle between submarines where each sub is carefully listening to their passive sonars trying to detect enemy subs and is loathe to use their active sonars for fear of allowing the enemy to pinpoint their location. If that is the case, we may already be screwed.
 
2. Simulation argument:
We do all live in a simulation but each person lives in their OWN simulation. It is called the mind which is in essence a simulation being run by the brain of objective reality which can be modelled and approximated but not precisely known. In our own heads we simulate everything from physical phenomenon to the behavior of our neighbors in an attempt to further our own survival. Any further layers of simulation seem redundant and pointless except for recreational value.
 
      

 

 


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From jcorb at iol.ie  Sat Jan 10 02:05:08 2004
From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 02:05:08 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news 
Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20040110015732.0402aec0@pop.iol.ie>

Such a decision by NASA be a boon to other agencies like ESA.  They can 
then push for funding to do the missions NASA would no longer be interested 
in.  Perhaps a lot less duplication of effort, and more cross-agency 
collaborations eg. ESA and China or India.

Then there's the scenario of having NASA run a moonbase on which a high 
tech lab can study samples dropped off by various unmanned ESA probes 
"patrolling" the galaxy.  Who knows, with a moon refinery and foundry, 
maybe it'll be Europe who mines the asteroid belt :)



James...


>Message: 24
>Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 12:03:38 -0800 (PST)
> >From: Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
>Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Moon news
>To: natashavita at earthlink.net, ExI chat list
><extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Message-ID: <20040109200338.69941.qmail at web12907.mail.yahoo.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>--- "natashavita at earthlink.net" <natashavita at earthlink.net> wrote:
> > >
> > I can see a way around this. If NASA scraps current projects for a
> > more exalted program, then the trickle down effect could occur and
>the
> > "scrapped" projects could go to private industry where their is a
> > growing interest, and this could help it along. I got a lot of good
> > wear out of my best friends' hand-me-down cloths. Of course she has
> > very expensive taste, but so does NASA.
>On the negative side, most of the 'irrelevant' projects tend to be
>science R&D projects, something which the aerospace industry has
>generally seen as NASA's job for the past three quarter century, and
>which themselves don't generally generate much profit.
>On the plus side, it will leave this research to private and state
>universities, taking the work outside the governmental grant rat race,
>and the schools generally do a better job of getting the businesses
>that benefit most to fund these efforts as well. They also tend to
>obtain the gained knowledge more cost effectively than federal programs.
>=====
>Mike Lorrey
>"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
>- Gen. John Stark
>"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
>- Mike Lorrey
>Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
>Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com
>__________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
>http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus
>




From asa at nada.kth.se  Sat Jan 10 02:31:03 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 03:31:03 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence
In-Reply-To: <007e01c3bcf1$10b36b80$6501a8c0@dimension>
References: <200312060543.hB65hqM30870@finney.org><004601c3bcea$26086780$6501a8c0@dimension>
	<007e01c3bcf1$10b36b80$6501a8c0@dimension>
Message-ID: <2751.213.112.90.167.1073701863.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>

Rafal Smigrodzki said:
> I just finished reading the third part of John C. Wright's Golden Age
> trilogy, and I am awed.

I couldn't agree more. It was a wonderful feeling to see that Wright
managed to get the story to wrap up in a nontrivial manner.

It is one of the few books where one gets the feeling that characters that
are described as smart actually are smart and not just playing. The plot
twists have a nice logic and also managed to dispell the risk of having
the hero solve everything thanks to his amazing willpower and absolute
moral corectitude. Phaeton might be right, but that doesn't mean everybody
will automatically obey or believe him or that he will not put himself
into deep trouble thanks to his personality. There were several times I
was truly afraid that Wright was doing an Ayn Rand channeling, only to -
fortunately - have the solemn arguments punctured by sceptic comments by
listeners or intercepted by reality.

Personally I found the description of Helion's character interesting.
Phaeton is in many ways just the opera hero, while Daphne, Atkins and
Helion are much more nuanced. Wright manages to make identity engineering
and its consequences believable (and very thought provoking; we are going
to need an entire vocabulary for the family and emotional issues around
it).

I was a bit surprised by the length of the historical eras (there is an
appendix describing much of the setting, although not in excessive
detail); I had the feeling the setting was maybe just a few tens of
thousands of years in the future, but it appears to be nearly half a
million years ahead.

> The one issue I don't understand are the IP laws in the Golden Ecumene -
> are
> they statutory or merely contractual? If statutory, why are they
> (apparently) time-unlimited, which might result in inefficiencies (and
> Wright doesn't say how inefficiencies are avoided), and if they are
> contractual, how do they become universally enforced?

Could it be a mechanism similar to the Hortators, but so low-level that
people no longer took notice? Imagine an opt-in economic system where you
contractually agree to accept the IP of others and the penalty of breaking
it is expulsion. AI maintains the actual fund transfer, control of who
owns what IP and so on, so participants do not have to care much about the
details. This system becomes just as popular as the Hortators, in fact
even more popular: the benefits of joining are so great that everybody and
everything joins it, and hence breaking the IP becomes just as bad as a
total Hortator ban. Most likely people get various kinds of insurance and
insulation from this risk, making it less likely to happen by accident.
Over time this system becomes so ubiquitious that it is viewed as the
natural way things are.

I'm thinking about modelling hortator-like structures in Axelrod's Norm
Game. So far there seems to be some interesting effects due to the
topology of the social networks.


-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From spike66 at comcast.net  Sat Jan 10 02:48:34 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 18:48:34 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
In-Reply-To: <1608.213.112.90.167.1073690001.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <000101c3d724$3def3ff0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


> Anders Sandberg
> There seem to be two approaches to really going to space...
> Anders Sandberg

He's baaaaack!  

Welcome Anders, we missed ya.

spike



From extropy at unreasonable.com  Sat Jan 10 03:33:12 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 22:33:12 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
In-Reply-To: <01da01c3d712$3b3c5a20$a8994a43@texas.net>
References: <63340-22004159184231482@M2W046.mail2web.com>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040109152840.033923a0@mail.comcast.net>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040109175836.030951d8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040109200537.0377efc8@mail.comcast.net>

Robert Bradbury wrote:

>Journalists are catching up faster than you might think from where I sit.
>Perhaps due to the fact that they can't escape from more informed writers
>who simply throw stuff onto the net without having to make a living as
>a journalist.  Its tough to push ca-ca when a Google search will cleearly
>show it as such.

And yet, here it is.  Look at how this news is being covered.  No one -- 
reporter, politician, or commentator -- has discussed this story with any 
greater depth than they would have in 1972.

>I believe anyone who is an extropian who believes nanotechnology will 
>develop reasonably rapidly (say within a century) would be foolish to 
>support any Mars colonization or even Mars human visitation 
>efforts.  There is no point to expending resources to put humans at the 
>bottom of another gravity well.
>         :
>If a Mars program would cost $100B consider what that could do if invested 
>in nanotech development...

That's not an option.  You aren't going to get $100B for nanotech 
development.  Money will be spent on space projects.  This is political 
reality.  The question is which space projects will be most useful of the 
alternatives that are politically viable.

I am not necessarily advocating the Mars project.  I *am* saying that it at 
least needs to be in the public discussion.

If the choice is only between the Moon and Mars, there's a decent case that 
it is more useful to go to Mars now than to go back to the Moon.

Of the three space choices we're discussing, I'd pick asteroid mining over 
the Moon or Mars in a New York minute, except that I want it done 
privately.  In the long run, I think we might be better off delaying 
asteroid mining over doing it now as a government project.

Funding realities aside, I am a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy.

Of course I want space-based habitats.  But I also want self-supporting 
human habitats off-world that are minimally dependent on technology, as 
soon as possible.

It's a tremendously useful safety net that we can be dropped with the 
clothes on our back almost anywhere on this planet and survive.  Or that a 
catastrophic event can set our society back centuries and we can recover.

Mars has all the raw materials for life, and we can survive there with 
lower-tech than on the Moon or in a space-based habitat.  Me, I'll take 
space, but I want somebody living on Mars.  Maybe the Amish will go....

I am a strong advocate of nanotech but I don't want to see getting 
off-world delayed --

(1)  Nanotech may be harder than we think.
(2)  Nanotech, genemods, biowar, or an Eliezer-class AI may jeopardize 
earthbound sentient life.
(3)  Asteroid mining is dirt cheap, as in there are many individuals who 
could personally fund it altogether.
(4)  As we agreed, there are synergies between developing nano and 
developing space.

Kevin Freels wrote:

>I think that a permanent presence would be extremely valuable for anything,
>regardless of whether or not MNT comes along soon. To simply have a place
>with lots of people and industry that's not buried in a deep gravity well
>like Earth would increase our abilities more than I can even guess.
>If you could start small and bring asteroids to the moon for processing, it
>could grow just as rapidly as the US did. It would be even more useful if we
>came to learn that it is easier to manufacture MNT self-replicators in low
>or zero g. (I don't know if this would make a difference, but with all the
>materials research on the ISS I guess it could be possible).

And it would be pretty useful to be able to work on assemblers or genemods 
on an isolated orbital station, instead of an office park.  A lot less 
reason to fear something bad getting out the door.


-- David Lubkin.




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sat Jan 10 03:58:51 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 19:58:51 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news 
In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.1.20040110015732.0402aec0@pop.iol.ie>
Message-ID: <20040110035851.53386.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>


--- J Corbally <jcorb at iol.ie> wrote:
> Such a decision by NASA be a boon to other agencies like ESA.  They
> can then push for funding to do the missions NASA would no longer be
> interested 
> in.  Perhaps a lot less duplication of effort, and more cross-agency 
> collaborations eg. ESA and China or India.
> 
> Then there's the scenario of having NASA run a moonbase on which a
> high tech lab can study samples dropped off by various unmanned ESA
> probes "patrolling" the galaxy.  Who knows, with a moon refinery and
> foundry, maybe it'll be Europe who mines the asteroid belt :)

Wouldn't that conflict with the EU mining workers unions?

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From fortean1 at mindspring.com  Sat Jan 10 03:59:24 2004
From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin)
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 20:59:24 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD (PvT) Professors at war: Searching for dissent
	at the MLA
Message-ID: <3FFF789C.EB29B315@mindspring.com>

< http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2004/01/04/professors_at_war/
>

Professors at war
Searching for dissent at the MLA

By Scott Jaschik, 1/4/2004

SAN DIEGO -- "Why are you headed to San Diego?" asked the man next to 
me on the plane. "I'm going to a meeting of English professors to 
hear what they have to say about the war with Iraq," I replied.

"English professors? On the war?" The man smirked. "I can't imagine 
what they would have to say."

Plenty, it turns out. This past week, about 8,000 professors and 
graduate students gathered here for the annual meeting of the Modern 
Language Association. Most came for job interviews, to catch up with 
old friends, and to attend some of the 763 panels of scholars. But 
among the panels on topics ranging from Hawthorne to Asian cinema to 
"The Aesthetics of Trash" were a surprising number of sessions 
dealing with the war in Iraq, terrorism, patriotism, and American 
foreign policy.

Not that there was much actual debate. In more than a dozen sessions 
on war-related topics, not a single speaker or audience member 
expressed support for the war in Iraq or in Afghanistan. The sneering 
air quotes were flying as speaker after speaker talked of "so-called 
terrorism," "the so-called homeland," "the so-called election of 
George Bush," and so forth.

The approach to the war was certainly wide-ranging -- from cultural 
studies to rhetoric to literature to pure political speechifying. In 
a session on "Shock and Awe," Graham Hammill of Notre Dame traced the 
ideas behind the initial bombing back to the Roman historian and 
orator Tacitus's idea of arcana imperii, which translates roughly as 
"mysteries of state." Like Roman emperors who used rhetoric to sway 
the populace, Hammill argued, the Shock and Awe campaign was a 
rhetorical gesture aimed at demonstrating US power as much as 
flattening Baghdad.

At a different panel, Cynthia Young of the University of Southern 
California spoke about how the White House uses Condoleezza Rice and 
Colin Powell "to create a distorted multiracial mask on imperialism." 
"What does it mean," Young asked, "when imperialism comes wrapped in 
a black bow?"

Instead of Rice's August speech comparing the Iraqi "liberation" with 
the civil rights struggle, she recommended the writings of the 
African-American activist and writer Angela Davis, who once described 
her alienation from white Americans mourning the death of John F. 
Kennedy in 1963, but not the four young black girls who died in the 
Birmingham church bombing that same year.

Similar alienation is evident today, Young said, as the United States 
ignores the problems facing minority citizens while taking over 
countries where people do not look or worship like white Americans. 
"The new patriotism looks a lot like the old slash-and-burn 
imperialism," she declared.

Berkeley's Judith Butler, a superstar of gender and literary studies, 
drew a packed house with her analysis of Defense Secretary Donald 
Rumsfeld's bad grammar and slippery use of the term "sovereignty."

On a 2002 visit to Eritrea, in response to a question about the 
detention of dissidents there, Rumsfeld declared: "A country is a 
sovereign nation and they arrange themselves and deal with their 
problems in ways that they feel are appropriate to them." Beyond the 
noun-verb agreement problem with "country" and "they," Butler rapped 
Rummy's knuckles for redefining sovereignty -- in her analysis -- as 
"the suspension of legal rights."

When the United States is challenged over the detainees held at 
Guantanamo Bay, American officials assert that US courts have no 
jurisdiction there because we are not sovereign there, Butler pointed 
out. "We are using sovereignty to declare war against the law," she 
said, to nods throughout her talk and loud applause after it.

The MLA's deliberative body, the Delegate Assembly, adopted by a 
landslide margin of 122-8 a resolution supporting "the right of its 
members to conduct critical analysis of war talk" despite government 
efforts to "shape language to legitimate aggression, misrepresent 
policies, conceal aims, stigmatize dissent, and block critical 
thought."

Sometimes that critical analysis was aimed at elements of the antiwar 
left. While denouncing the "particularly evil cabal" that runs the 
country, Barbara Foley of Rutgers urged leftist critics to look 
beyond the distraction of "Bush's cowboyism" to "the Leninist notion 
of intra-imperialist rivalry" to explain US-European competition for 
domination of the oil-rich Middle East.

Anthony Dawahare of California State University at Northridge said 
that "whoever wins the war in Iraq, the working class people in Iraq 
and in the US will be subject to a dictatorship of the rich." In an 
interview, he said that unless Howard Dean challenged capitalism 
itself, student activism on his behalf would be "a waste of time."

Not that everyone at the MLA was preoccupied with Marxist analysis. 
Ask many of the graduate students or younger scholars what's on their 
mind, and they talk about finding a job.

The closest public challenge to the prevailing geopolitical views at 
the MLA came when one professor asked a panel that had derided 
American responses to 9/11 and Iraq what a good response would have 
looked like. She didn't get much of an answer, left the session, and 
declined to elaborate on her question.

But a young professor of English who followed her out the door to 
congratulate her did offer some thoughts on politics at the MLA. 
Aaron Santesso of the University of Nevada at Reno described himself 
as being "on the left" and sympathetic with much of the criticism of 
the war in Iraq. But he said that the tenor of the discussion "drives 
me nuts." "A lot of people here don't want the rhetoric to just be a 
shrill echo of the right," he said.

Just a few years ago, he noted, the Taliban was regularly attacked at 
MLA meetings for their treatment of women and likened to the American 
religious right. Now, there is only talk of how the United States has 
taken away the rights of the Afghan people.

Santesso said he gains a good perspective from his students, most of 
whom he characterized as "libertarian conservatives." Most of the 
debate at the MLA, he said, "would completely alienate my students."

Plenty of English professors share his views, Santesso said. And some 
of his colleagues are even conservative. They just avoid coming to 
the MLA.

Scott Jaschik, former editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education, is 
a writer in Washington.
? Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
      U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
   TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Vietnam veterans,
Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]


From extropy at unreasonable.com  Sat Jan 10 04:37:49 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 23:37:49 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Moon news
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040109232505.01aa2d88@mail.comcast.net>

These two articles have more information than has appeared elsewhere.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20040108-111922-8569r.htm

Has a pretty detailed account of what's afoot.  I found it quite a 
shocker.  There are clearly major players in the Administration who 
approach problems de novo, decide what ought to be, and then figure out how 
to get there.  They don't always win and they aren't always right but it's 
a pleasure to see bright, creative minds at work.  (Competency is always 
refreshing, regardless of whether I approve of what it's applied to.)

http://www.floridatoday.com/news/space/stories/2004a/010904bush.htm

>The announcement would come on the heels of a high-level review by a 
>secret White House panel, a study sped up in the wake of the Columbia 
>accident. Vice President Dick Cheney was heavily involved with the panel, 
>which included strong representation by the National Security Council and 
>Department of Defense.

Further confirmation of the military aspects of the new plans.


-- David Lubkin.




From samantha at objectent.com  Sat Jan 10 05:10:34 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 21:10:34 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401091611550.20282-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20040109175836.030951d8@mail.comcast.net>
	<Pine.LNX.4.44.0401091611550.20282-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040109211034.7ec8b65e.samantha@objectent.com>

On Fri, 9 Jan 2004 16:23:15 -0800 (PST)
"Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:

> 
> > Anyway. The Case for Mars plan is cheap, pay-for-results, and builds a
> > permanent complex on Mars. It is not "going briefly and coming back."
> 
> But, but but... Zubrin gets so close to the dismantlement of the planet
> with the construction of solar cells for power sources then doesn't
> follow through.  I believe anyone who is an extropian who believes
> nanotechnology will develop reasonably rapidly (say within a century)
> would be foolish to support any Mars colonization or even Mars
> human visitation efforts.  There is no point to expending resources
> to put humans at the bottom of another gravity well.  Hell, on Mars
> the atmosphere is so thin one doesn't even have the protection from
> asteroids, comets, UV and gamma rays that one has on earth.  It is
> *stupid* to expend large amounts of resources to go there.  O'Neill
> space based colonies or even asteroid based colonies make much more
> sense.  If a Mars program would cost $100B consider what that could
> do if invested in nanotech development...

Why is it "stupid" to put at least part of humanity in more than one basket?  The fact that major technological developments are in the offing soon does not mean that these developments will be used necessarily for the good of the race or even lead to greater survivability.   Having humans spread out a bit seems more sane.  The cost of a space probram such as Zubrin advocates compares quite favorably to really futile endeavors such as the Iraq war and much of the "War on Terror".  

I do agree though that O'Neill and/or asteroid based colonies make a lot of sense and are much more within our currently limited grasp.
  
> 
> > But, if I were in the position of allocating investment dollars, I'd put my
> > space effort into bringing back a nickel-iron asteroid. Set up shop for
> > mining, manufacturing, and space construction somewhere convenient, like
> > geosynch, L-4, or L-5. Bova et al outlined a reasonable scenario for doing
> > this nearly off-the-shelf twenty years ago. I keep expecting to hear that
> > Paul Allen has funded it.
> 
> Let Paul finish the X-prize first, then deal with the asteroid as a
> follow-up effort.  (Though I strongly agree with the strategy.)
> 

Yes, if it was my billions that is one of the first things I would target.   OK, maybe Mars is a relatively poor goal at this time.

-s



From samantha at objectent.com  Sat Jan 10 05:23:01 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 21:23:01 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040109200537.0377efc8@mail.comcast.net>
References: <63340-22004159184231482@M2W046.mail2web.com>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040109152840.033923a0@mail.comcast.net>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040109175836.030951d8@mail.comcast.net>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040109200537.0377efc8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <20040109212301.4b16c3b7.samantha@objectent.com>

On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 22:33:12 -0500
David Lubkin <extropy at unreasonable.com> wrote:
> 
> >I believe anyone who is an extropian who believes nanotechnology will 
> >develop reasonably rapidly (say within a century) would be foolish to 
> >support any Mars colonization or even Mars human visitation 
> >efforts.  There is no point to expending resources to put humans at the 
> >bottom of another gravity well.
> >         :
> >If a Mars program would cost $100B consider what that could do if invested 
> >in nanotech development...
> 
> That's not an option.  You aren't going to get $100B for nanotech 
> development.  Money will be spent on space projects.  This is political 
> reality.  The question is which space projects will be most useful of the 
> alternatives that are politically viable.
>

This is not obvious to me.  The possible breadth and depth of benefits from developing nanotech are much more obvious than the one in just going to Mars or getting the bare beginnings of a foothold on the Moon and/or Mars.  Why is space more politically marketable?  And if it is so politically marketable why have we been clingly to the ground so determinedly since Apollo?

> Of the three space choices we're discussing, I'd pick asteroid mining over 
> the Moon or Mars in a New York minute, except that I want it done 
> privately.  In the long run, I think we might be better off delaying 
> asteroid mining over doing it now as a government project.
>

Me too.  But I think it is better to do it at all than to not do it.
 
- s


From thespike at earthlink.net  Sat Jan 10 06:04:01 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 00:04:01 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] http://www.julianbarbour.com/
References: <63340-22004159184231482@M2W046.mail2web.com><5.1.0.14.2.20040109152840.033923a0@mail.comcast.net><5.1.0.14.2.20040109175836.030951d8@mail.comcast.net><01da01c3d712$3b3c5a20$a8994a43@texas.net>
	<000801c3d718$b82c3e00$c3994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <001401c3d73f$8e743dc0$c3994a43@texas.net>

I said:


> Some spam prick seems to have sitejacked theoretical physicist Julian
> Barbour's site. Google's cache shows the same crap. But I'm far from
expert
> on this stuff; anyone have any insight into this annoyance?

I was rather hoping someone would immediately reply, hoisting me on my own
recent petard, with the single word:

`Yes.'

But Robert Bradbury kindly reminded me of the Wayback Machine:

http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

which showed that Barbour had moved (as Google would have informed me had I
bothered to look properly; but I'd trusted my own bibliography) to
www.platonia.com/

Still, this shows that it doesn't pay to up and leave when some shyster is
liable to grab your expired url and make off with it for nefarious spamster
purposes...

Damien Broderick



From twodeel at jornada.org  Sat Jan 10 06:18:14 2004
From: twodeel at jornada.org (Don Dartfield)
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 22:18:14 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] http://www.julianbarbour.com/
In-Reply-To: <001401c3d73f$8e743dc0$c3994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401092215420.13099-100000@hplx.net>

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004, Damien Broderick wrote:

> Still, this shows that it doesn't pay to up and leave when some shyster
> is liable to grab your expired url and make off with it for nefarious
> spamster purposes...

That kind of thing HAS to be illegal, doesn't it?  They can't just
appropriate whole blocks of somebody else's text like they have on
julanbarbour.com and progressaction.com to imply that it is associated 
with their scam.



From extropy at unreasonable.com  Sat Jan 10 06:23:44 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 01:23:44 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
In-Reply-To: <20040109212301.4b16c3b7.samantha@objectent.com>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20040109200537.0377efc8@mail.comcast.net>
	<63340-22004159184231482@M2W046.mail2web.com>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040109152840.033923a0@mail.comcast.net>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040109175836.030951d8@mail.comcast.net>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040109200537.0377efc8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040110003941.03a32428@mail.comcast.net>

Robert wrote:

 >If a Mars program would cost $100B consider what that could do if invested
 >in nanotech development...

then I responded:

 > That's not an option.  You aren't going to get $100B for nanotech
 > development.  Money will be spent on space projects.  This is political
 > reality.  The question is which space projects will be most useful of the
 > alternatives that are politically viable.

to which Samantha posed:

>This is not obvious to me.  The possible breadth and depth of benefits 
>from developing nanotech are much more obvious than the one in just going 
>to Mars or getting the bare beginnings of a foothold on the Moon and/or 
>Mars.  Why is space more politically marketable?  And if it is so 
>politically marketable why have we been clingly to the ground so 
>determinedly since Apollo?

As Greg might say in lawyer mode, Res ipsa loquitur: The thing speaks for 
itself. If space weren't politically marketable, it wouldn't be on Bush's 
plate right now.  He's clearly in re-election mode, looking at some of his 
recent actions.  Karl Rove must have polled this, and found it winning.

Space remains popular with the American people. The consequences of going 
to space are self-evident to everyone (or at least they think they are). 
Everyone has seen Star Trek or Star Wars, or looked up at the night sky. 
They may think the money is better spent on curing cancer or feeding the 
homeless, but they are not afraid of space.

On the other hand, most Americans have no clue what nanotech is or what its 
consequences are. Many of the few who have a sense of nano are afraid of 
bogeymen -- grey goo, nano making the rich richer, etc.

Meanwhile, there's an established power framework of subcommittees, NASA 
centers, aerospace contractors, congresscritters with space contractors in 
their districts, etc., built up over half a century in support of continued 
space projects.

Gee, which states have the biggest NASA centers and aerospace 
contractors?  California, Florida, and Texas.  How many electoral votes...?

And the pivotal role that US satellite capabilities had in Afghanistan and 
Iraq, which is vulnerable.

And the competitive economic and military pressure from the space programs 
of China, Japan, India, Israel, etc.

In any case -- here we are. Bush has chosen to push space. Done deal. What 
we can do is try to sway the decisions made within a space policy. Push 
stuff we think is worthwhile -- asteroid retrieval, work on 
closed-environmental systems, building lasting infrastructure instead of 
one-shots, etc. Which *could* include a hefty sum for research that we 
think of as nanotech, if it is framed in terms of its direct applicability 
to the mission. In the way that folks like Rod Hyde at Livermore worked on 
high-powered lasers and tracking for SDI, well aware that the work was also 
applicable to laser-launching.


-- David Lubkin.





From spike66 at comcast.net  Sat Jan 10 08:56:26 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 00:56:26 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] http://www.julianbarbour.com/
In-Reply-To: <001401c3d73f$8e743dc0$c3994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <000201c3d757$a18dfeb0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


> Damien Broderick
> 
> ... hoisting me on my own recent petard...

Ah yes, the Shakespearean SF author among us can perhaps
shed light upon this comment:

...

Still, this shows that it doesn't pay to up and leave...

Damien Broderick


What part of speech is "up"?  Does the preposition become
a verb?  If so, it represents yet an example of which I
can immediately think of only two, the other being the
curious catchphrase "the truth will out."  What is that?
Does "out" become a verb?  For otherwise that sentence
has no verb, or as some jokers might say 

"That sentence no verb."

We know of many shameful examples of nouns becoming
verbs in modern vulgar usage, but must we now attack
and degrade our prepositions too?

I have heard for all my life about people up and doing
things, such as dying, but never has it been adequately
explained what up is doing in that sentence.

The AI will be so puzzled.

spike



From asa at nada.kth.se  Sat Jan 10 12:29:22 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 13:29:22 +0100 (MET)
Subject: Information channels (Was: [extropy-chat] Moon news)
In-Reply-To: <000101c3d724$3def3ff0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
References: <1608.213.112.90.167.1073690001.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
	<000101c3d724$3def3ff0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <3379.130.237.122.245.1073737762.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>


Spike said:
> He's baaaaack!
>
> Welcome Anders, we missed ya.

Thanks!

It is interesting to start focussing on the list again. I never
unsubscribed but just didn't check the folder very often, essentially
directing my main attention elsewhere. Going back now is like becoming
aware of an entire sensory stream I had almost forgotten I had. I wonder
how often posthumans are going to end up with that experience?
("Yestersecond I happened to highlink my biobrain, and what do you know,
it had completely changed")

It also highlights a nice problem. There is almost too much transhumanist
information these days. In the "golden days" there was this list, a few
web pages and that was it. Easy to catalogue and handle. Today we have
around ten major lists, more websites than I know of run by transhumanists
(and even more related stuff outside the core movement) and an increasing
production of essays, books and other heavy information. Finding ways of
managing all this information is an interesting challenge, since we still
have to deal with 24 hour days.

-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From determinism at hotmail.com  Sat Jan 10 14:04:22 2004
From: determinism at hotmail.com (Dennis May)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 08:04:22 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Fermi Paradox and Simulation Argument
Message-ID: <BAY7-F79rZnREFeY4cn0002488d@hotmail.com>

The Avantguardian wrote:

>>1. Fermi paradox:
       Any advanced species from an extrasolar planet would have realized 
the same Darwinian processes have shaped the life on their world as it has 
on ours. Knowing that any other advanced species it encounters would more 
likely represent a competitor than an ally. Especially since life based on 
selfish replicators such as genes, or even memes for that matter, would 
converge on similar strategies of kin selection and deception to forward 
their own ends. Therefore it would seem reasonable that any sufficiently 
advanced alien species would be too canny to advertise their existence 
through indiscriminate radio broadcasts for fear of invasion or, if more 
aggressive, to avoid tipping their hands to any potential targets for 
invasion.
       The Fermi Paradox could be a little like a naval battle between 
submarines where each sub is carefully listening to their passive sonars 
trying to detect enemy subs and is loathe to use their active sonars for 
fear of allowing the enemy to pinpoint their location. If that is the case, 
we may already be screwed.>>

This is precisely my view: stealth, mobility,
and dispersion are the secrets to survival
in the high technology space universe of
WoMD and control of high energy
processes.  A single civilization can settle
a galaxy in no time.  It can settle several
galaxies a short time later.  It won't take
long to understand that there is no
advantage in advertising to competitors.
I'm sure intercivilization/species contact
and trade will happen but I doubt open
trust will ever be a wise thing even within
a given civilization or species.

Dennis May
____________________________
Physicist/Engineer/Inventor
determinism at hotmail.com

_________________________________________________________________
There are now three new levels of MSN Hotmail Extra Storage!  Learn more. 
http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=hotmail/es2&ST=1



From devon at thegreatwork.com  Sat Jan 10 14:43:47 2004
From: devon at thegreatwork.com (Devon White)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 08:43:47 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Your thoughts on the news
Message-ID: <003501c3d788$2851a7f0$0a01a8c0@Kallista>

Hi everyone,

My company, Synergy Media Network, is getting ready to begin broadcasting in
March. As we move towards this long awaited goal i'd like input from some of
the
most intelligent and brutally honest minds i know. Which brings me here.

What i would like to know is this: if you could turn on FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS,
etc. . . and design the information that you as well as other people would
get, what would it be? On
a daily/weekly basis, what topics would be addressed? Also, if there are
already organizations or
individuals out there providing some of these kinds of information streams,
who are they and how do i get in
touch with them?

Thanks for your help in advance,

Devon White
devon at synergymedianetwork.com
www.synergymedianetwork.com
www.mysmn.com



From mark at permanentend.org  Sat Jan 10 14:59:16 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 09:59:16 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Essay on Physical Immortality - who pays? What
	willthe cost be?
References: <002901c3d313$ead28390$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT><5.2.0.9.0.20040104172428.02c0e170@pop.earthlink.net>
	<3FFEFB6A.3CE85BA2@sasktel.net>
Message-ID: <037b01c3d78a$519d5530$2ee4f418@markcomputer>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc."

> Top Of The News
>  Health Costs Rise Beyond Belief
>  Dan Ackman, 01.09.04, 9:58 AM ET
>
>                      NEW YORK - U.S. health care costs are rising so fast
>                      that not only do they outstrip the prior year, they
even
>                      exceed forecasters' ability to project them
>
>                      In mid-2002, the U.S. Department of Health and Human
>                      Services projected that national health expenditures
>                      would reach $2.8 trillion in 2011--an estimate based
>                      on a mean annual growth rate of 7.3%. Since then,
>                      the growth rate has increased significantly to
>                      9.3%--to the point where health spending is already
>                      at nearly 15% of GDP, according to Centers for
>                      Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a unit of HHS.
>
Snip

I briefly address the cost question in "Killing the Physically
Immortal".www.permanentend.org/immortality.html . I think the general
principle is that treating the cause rather than the symptoms is cheaper,
e.g., treating the symptoms of polio with iron lungs etc. is expensive
compared with treating the cause of the disease through simple immunization.
Another example I discuss in the essay is the phase two clinical trials now
underway to treat the cause of diabetes (at least in some cases) with a
protein that causes stem cells to repair the pancreas. If it works this
should be much cheaper than treating diabetes with multiple insulin shots,
and then deal with symptoms like blindness, amputation, etc. etc.

Cheers,

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org





From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sat Jan 10 15:31:30 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 07:31:30 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Fermi Paradox and Simulation Argument
In-Reply-To: <BAY7-F79rZnREFeY4cn0002488d@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401100646300.3344-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Fri Jan 9, 2004 The Avantguardian wrote:

> >>1. Fermi paradox:
> Any advanced species from an extrasolar planet would have realized
> the same Darwinian processes have shaped the life on their world as it has
> on ours.

Hmmm... this is questionable -- there seems to be a significant probability
that we are about to shift from evolution driven by random adaptation to
evolution driven by conscious processes.  I would propose that a civilization
driven by 4 billion years of random adaptation to be significantly different
from a civilization driven by 4 billion years of consciously driven evolution.
(And yes I'm using "civilization" loosely since it could be argued that
humanity is probably less than 100,000 years old.)

> Knowing that any other advanced species it encounters would more
> likely represent a competitor than an ally.

"Encounters" are rare unless you intend them to happen.  They are
not competitors until there is a shortage of resources in the universe.

> Especially since life based on selfish replicators such as genes, or
> even memes for that matter, would converge on similar strategies of kin
> selection and deception to forward their own ends.

In advanced civilizations it seems likely that there are no more "genes".
There is also no more (physical) replication because it creates entities
that are likely to be competitors in the future.

There are no more "ends".  You have to create an entirely different
mind set for entities that are all-powerful (within several light
years) and immortal (within the constraints of their fuel supplies
and the longevity of the universe).

> Therefore it would seem reasonable that any sufficiently
> advanced alien species would be too canny to advertise their existence
> through indiscriminate radio broadcasts for fear of invasion or, if more
> aggressive, to avoid tipping their hands to any potential targets for
> invasion.

There is no point to invasion.  Why invade the space of an alien
civilization?  Any developed matter presumably has a self-destruct
sequence.  Harvesting fuel from brown dwarfs or molecular clouds is
much easier than trying to steal someone elses star.  And transporting
large amounts of matter across interstellar distances is *expensive*.

People continue to view this discussion from a "human" perspective when
they simply do not apply on interstellar scales.

> The Fermi Paradox could be a little like a naval battle between
> submarines where each sub is carefully listening to their passive sonars
> trying to detect enemy subs and is loathe to use their active sonars for
> fear of allowing the enemy to pinpoint their location. If that is the case,
> we may already be screwed.>>

If distant civilizations viewed developing civilizations as a threat
and had the ability to detect fires on our planet (distinctly possible
given estimates I've previously cited regarding the number and size
of their telescopes) then it is highly likely that any such civilizations
within 10-20,000 light years know we are here.  The rise in CO2 in the
atmosphere is also probably detectable so any civilizations within
100-2000 light years should see that using much less sophisticated
technology.  So like it or not -- we have probably already given
ourselves away.

Then on Jan 10 2004, Dennis May responded to Avantguardian with:

> This is precisely my view: stealth, mobility, and dispersion are the
> secrets to survival in the high technology space universe of WoMD
> and control of high energy processes.

Going back to the post by Dennis on Jan 5th regarding WoMD:
> Or simply: enough hydrogen bombs hurled at them fast
> enough for long enough, or swarms of pellets fired at them
> for long enough from all directions, or enough anti-matter
> hurled long enough, or destroying it while it is small by
> any number of means, or setting off nearby stars to create
> lethal neutrino showers, or orienting parts of the blast from
> supernovas, or hitting it again and again with solid objects
> traveling near the speed of light, and so on.

The problem with these strategies is their inefficiency.  Need
lots of hydrogen bombs?  Then you need lots of uranium to trigger
them and that requires a substantial energy investment to breed the
uranium.  Want lots of pellet producing machines and pellets
then you need lots of mass to burn.  As Spike and I have pointed
out that mass is valuable -- you don't want to just throw it away.
To produce lethal neutrino showers you would probably have to
set of thousands of stars or more.  No easy trick.  Likewise
with setting off supernovas -- you have to throw a lot of mass
at stars to overload them.

And that doesn't in any way deal with (a) the ability of MBrains
or SBrains to detect anything approaching them and simply move
out of the way -- you have to keep in mind that in the as designed
architecture MBrains and SBrains *are* both dispersed (across
solar system scales in the case of MBrains) as well as mobile;
(b) the ability of MBrains or SBrains to detect anything
incoming and destroy it; and (c) how much of a bad idea it
is to attempt to use WoMD against an MBrain or an SBrain
unless you are absolutely 100% sure that you can eliminate
it and any stealthed berserker-bots.

> A single civilization can settle a galaxy in no time.

But there is no point!  It seems unlikely that one can achieve
greater intelligence or any other benefits this way.  All one
gets is pointless replication.

> It can settle several galaxies a short time later.

Which would be even more pointless.

> It won't take long to understand that there is no advantage
> in advertising to competitors.  I'm sure intercivilization/species
> contact and trade will happen but I doubt open trust will ever be
> a wise thing even within a given civilization or species.

To make the trade argument work you have to explain what is
so valuable that the costs of shipping it across interstellar
distances justifies doing so.  I don't see such a justification.

To make the contact argument work (information transfer) you
have to make a similar argument.  If a civilization can compute
for itself anything you can send to them faster or cheaper than
it can be sent then it makes no sense to open interstellar
communications channels.  It has little to do with WoMD or
fear of being detected.  It has much more to do with physical
constraints imposed on civilizations by the laws of physics
and the abstract economics of a civilization at those limits.

Robert





From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sat Jan 10 15:42:12 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 07:42:12 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: What to do with $100B? Mars, Nano or Life?
In-Reply-To: <20040110012854.89171.qmail@web41313.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401092053240.25596-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



Hi Yos?,

I will try to respond to a your questions as best I can.

> You pose a fundamental question. What to do with a hundred billion dollars?

I could have posed what to do with a trillion dollars but I was being
conservative... :-;  As I recall $100B is the number that was tossed
around as the cost of going to Mars under George H.W. Bush.  Its probably
more expensive now.  For example a quick Google finds that the Apollo
costs were $25B (probably in '60s or '70's dollars) and the cost of
a return to the moon in '99 dollars range from ~$40B to $300B [1,2].

> I would agree with you that it is a lot of money just to go to Mars, but
> also just for nanotechnology. With that amount of money, we could probably
> find the secrets of life extension and even immortality?

Yes, Aubrey's proposal for the IBG is only about $1B over 10 years.
Quite small compared with any significant space effort.  It doesn't
solve aging as a whole but does make a significant dent in some of
the major processes we are aware of at this time.

> Your message puts light in a fundamental economic concept: opportunity cost.
> And between Mars and immortality, I take the second without any doubts.

While I dislike the term immortality (as recent discussions on Mark's paper
have pointed out there may be terms that better capture the idea as we
currently understand it).

> And later I would go to Mars as well:-)

Of course -- current estimates if we eliminate aging would allow us on
average several thousand years of fatal accident free life -- plenty of
time to go to Mars.  But you may want to get your ticket early.  Once we
have the total power output of the sun at our disposal the dismantlement
time is only 12 hours.

Better get your ticket now because it may be gone before you can
get there :-;

Robert

1. Wikipedia: Apollo Program: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program
2. S.E.I. Lunar Excursions: http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/Station/Slides/sld049c.htm




From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Sat Jan 10 17:21:41 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 11:21:41 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
References: <63340-22004159184231482@M2W046.mail2web.com>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040109152840.033923a0@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <Law10-OE55QLHvuBlEh0002a594@hotmail.com>

Supposing that in the next 50 years, AI and MNT is coming along well enough
that we can actually upload ourselves. And suppose that we could create a
copy of ourselves for "just in case" scenatios. Wouldn;t it be nice to be
able to send out a couple of other planets for safe keeping? You would then
be distributed a bit further just in case something happened to the Earth.

It would be really nice if you could send that copy to the Moon
inexpensively on some regularly scheduled transport to a settlement that is
already established. Especially if this settlement has built a storage depot
just for this kinf of thing about 10 miles below the surface.

With the geological instability of this planet, and all the other wacky
things that can occur such as nearby supernova destroying our ozone layer,
my first priority when I upload is going to be to get a copy off of this
planet. If we do this. Even if it is just to the Moon, at least then the
infrastructure will be there for me to do so. Just think of how the
interstate highway system has affected our lives. How has it affected cars?

I still wonder about the proposal. I like it, but what if that is what he is
after? What if he really doesn;t care about this and simply wants my vote?
What if he lands it at congress and it flops. Then he could ask for my vite
and say he tried and that he needs to be re-elected with MORE reps in
congress that will support it.

Besides the fact that this will set up the infrastructure to get us humans
more spread out, I think this proposal does another important thing. It gets
people thinking about the future and thinking beyond their own natural
lifespans. Future thinking is critical to MNT.

There will be lots of opposition to this and I know there are a lot of
people here who don;t like Bush, but I think this entire proposal is more
critical to MNT than many of you may realize. There is plenty of money to go
around. It's not as if they have to rob the poor to get it done. If the
government decided to invest billions in MNT, they could still do so without
hurting the space program. We can also go back to the moon without hurting
the chances of MNT getting money. Many of you seem to think that if they
spend money on this, they won;t spend it on MNT.

Personally, I think that we would be more likely to see more government
investment in MNT if the administration sees a positive return on its
investment in the future. There will be a lot of opposition to this thing.
Much of it will be from Bush haters that really wouldn;t mind such a
program, but will attack it just to attack Bush.

Every one of us needs to get behind this thing. It is something that needs
to be done. For years people like us have bickered about the best way to do
this. We will never know the "best" way. It doesn;t matter either. We just
need to do it. Sitting around on our asses for the last 30 years because we
couldn't decide between the shuttle, moon, Mars, or asteroids will only
leave us right here for another 30-50 years. We're our own worst enemy.For
all our brain power, people like us never really understood politics.

The moon, Mars, asteroids, MNT, all of it is important. Let's not pass on
one because we couldn;t agree which to do first. We're too smart for our own
good. This is what happened when Bush Sr proposed something similar.

Standing up in front of people and stating "I think it is a good idea, but I
would rather see....." Is not going to help anyone. We need to be saying "I
think it is an excellent and necessary step in the right direction. For all
of Bush's other faults, he finally is doing something right"

Kevin Freels


From es at popido.com  Sat Jan 10 17:25:13 2004
From: es at popido.com (Erik Starck)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 18:25:13 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
In-Reply-To: <20040109212301.4b16c3b7.samantha@objectent.com>
References: <63340-22004159184231482@M2W046.mail2web.com>	<5.1.0.14.2.20040109152840.033923a0@mail.comcast.net>	<5.1.0.14.2.20040109175836.030951d8@mail.comcast.net>	<5.1.0.14.2.20040109200537.0377efc8@mail.comcast.net>
	<20040109212301.4b16c3b7.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <40003579.4080604@popido.com>

Samantha Atkins wrote:

>This is not obvious to me.  The possible breadth and depth of benefits from developing nanotech are much more obvious than the one in just going to Mars or getting the bare beginnings of a foothold on the Moon and/or Mars.  Why is space more politically marketable?  
>

1. China is going to space, so there is a slim chance that there willl 
be a red flag on the red planet and not an american:
http://www.spacedaily.com/2004/031231092850.yylbciw2.html
Chinas space ambitions is nothing else but a glove in the face on USA, 
an attempt to show who will be the super power of  the 21st century. The 
race is on.

2. "Going to Mars" is an extremely headlines-friendly goal compared to 
for example "build nano-assemblers" that no one's heard of.

>And if it is so politically marketable why have we been clingly to the ground so determinedly since Apollo?
>  
>

After the race to the moon was won  there was nothing left to prove and 
no real contender to the stars. Also there was the Challenger-accident 
that closed the curtain for NASA for a long time. It showed the risks of 
going to space. I doubt this "Mars statement" would have come if Spirit 
had failed as Beagle did.

But Europe is going to space and so is China, and don't forget the 
X-Prize. I wouldn't call that "clinging to the ground". It's almost 
starting to get crowdy up there.


--
Erik S.



From extropy at unreasonable.com  Sat Jan 10 17:42:55 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 12:42:55 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] http://www.julianbarbour.com/
In-Reply-To: <000201c3d757$a18dfeb0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
References: <001401c3d73f$8e743dc0$c3994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040110115148.02075f90@mail.comcast.net>

At 12:56 AM 1/10/2004 -0800, Spike wrote:

>Ah yes, the Shakespearean SF author among us can perhaps
>shed light upon this comment:

Damien is far more Shakespearean than I, but I have some bioluminescence of 
my own, as writer and linguist.

>What part of speech is "up"?  Does the preposition become
>a verb?  If so, it represents yet an example of which I
>can immediately think of only two, the other being the
>curious catchphrase "the truth will out."  What is that?
>Does "out" become a verb?  For otherwise that sentence
>has no verb, or as some jokers might say
>
>"That sentence no verb."
>
>We know of many shameful examples of nouns becoming
>verbs in modern vulgar usage, but must we now attack
>and degrade our prepositions too?
>
>I have heard for all my life about people up and doing
>things, such as dying, but never has it been adequately
>explained what up is doing in that sentence.

A language is a phenomenon to be studied, not dictated. Its boundaries are 
set by fuzzy metrics of interpersonal comprehension. The syntactic or 
morphological "rules" or meaning of morphemes, words, phrases are only 
valid to the extent that they accurately describe the corpus of spoken and 
written language. Just as descriptions and theories about astrophysical 
phenomena have no inherent validity.

"prepositions" have been used as "verbs" in English for many centuries, as 
have "nouns."

Damien's "up and leave" is indeed very nearly Shakespearean in ancestry.

http://www.etymonline.com/u1etym.htm
>up - O.E. up, uppe, from PIE *upo "up from below." ... Verb meaning "get 
>up" (as in up and leave) is first attested 1643; the meaning "increase" 
>(as in up the price of oil) is from 1915. The verb "to drive and catch 
>swans" is 1560 ....

For "out," the same source says "[t]he verb was O.E. utian "expel," used in 
many senses over the years."

They are both examples of common patterns in linguistic change -- where an 
utterance becomes shorter over time. Words lose syllables, phrases lose 
words. Linguistic economy.

My favorite deskside dictionary (Random House College), by the way, 
considers "up" to be an adverb, preposition, adjective, noun, and verb 
(both transitive and intransitive). "Out " is cited as all those plus 
interjection.


-- David Lubkin.




From fortean1 at mindspring.com  Sat Jan 10 18:22:09 2004
From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 11:22:09 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD [forteana] Forteans: ""Add-on" vs. "Structural
	Revisionist"
Message-ID: <400042D1.832D6EC2@mindspring.com>

Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 22:32:20 -0500
From: "T. Peter Park" <tpeterpark at erols.com>
  To: forteana at yahoogroups.com
Subj: FWD [forteana] Forteans: ""Add-on" vs. "Structural Revisionist"


Dear Forteans,
        On another list last Spring, I read an April 25, 2003 _Izvestia_
article, "Why Way Does Evalution Go?," sympathetically discussing
archaeology & prehistory revisionist and Darwin critic Michael Cremo,
author of _Forbidden Archaeology_ and _The Hidden History of The Human
Race_. The article reminded me of one of my own long-standing
observations on Forteans and Forteanism.
        Forteans, I've long thought, have either an "add-on" or a "structural
revisionist" view of the relation of anomalous data, Charles Fort's
"damned" and "excluded" phenomena, to the generally accepted mainstream
scientific world-picture (GAMSWP for short). We may thus call them
"Adders-On" and "Structural Revisionists" after their respective views
of what "damned" and "excluded" data if accepted would do to the GAMSWP. 
        The "Adders-On" see ghosts, poltergeists, "psychic" phenomena, Bigfoot
and other "Hairy Hominids," gnomes and other "Little People," Lake
Monsters (like "Nessie") and other "cryptids" or "Mystery Beasts,"UFO's,
abductions, "spook lights," crop circles, archaeological "erratics," and
"out-of- place" or "impossible" fossils, as hitherto ignored or rejected
phenomena on the outer fringes of the GAMSWP, which have to be
incorporated into that world-picture to make it more complete.
"Structural Revisionists," on the other hand, rather see anomalies as
showing the GAMSWP to be quite wrong or skewed in its basics, needing a
complete overhaul. Adders-On feel that the GAMSWP is largely correct in
its main outlines, but needs a few touch-ups at its outer edges, a few
gaps in its borders to be filled in. Structural Revisionists feel that
the GAMSWP is "all wet" in broad outline, and needs to be replaced by
something very different. In the language of mainstream history,
sociology, and philosophy of science in the tradition of Thomas Kuhn,
they believe that "damned" and "excluded" data demand a major
"scientific revolution" or "paradigm shift."
        Adders-On enthusiastically accept GAMSWP views on prehistory, human
evolution, pre-sapiens hominids, life on other planets, and advanced
civilizations around distant stars in our Galaxy. However, they would
just like to add what they feel is strong evidence that dinosaurs,
plesiosaurs, and pre-sapiens hominids are still alive on our planet
today, and that extraterrestrial visitors are even now exploring and
reconnoitering our planet, and studying our species and civilization. 
They accept the broad outline iof GAMSWP views on neurology, psychology,
brain physiology, and mind-brain relations, but would like to add that
there seems to be good evidence that the human psyche (and probably also
the psyches of at least some higher animals) have certain powers,
faculties, capacities, and activities that appear to be largely
independent of the physical laws and limitations of apace, time, matter,
and physical energy, and can perhaps even function apart from a physical
substratum like the brain. 
        On the other hand, Structural Revisionists like Michael Cremo, Zachary
Sitchin, Erich von D?niken, Richard Shaver & Ray Palmer, and various
"hollow earth" and "hollow planets" writers from John Cleves Symmes,
Marshall Gardner, Cyrus Reed Teed, and John Lloyd Uri onwards, basically
reject many or most parts of the GAMSWP altogether
        I am not saying here which variety of Forteanism is "right" or "wrong."
I do wish to draw attention, however, to the existence of these two
distinct Fortean approaches. I myself personally, by the way, am pretty
much an Adder-On in Forteanism.
        This distinction between Adders-On versus Structural Revisionists, I'd
also like to add here, applies to other fields of human thought and
activity as well as to science and Forteanism. It strikes me as also
applicable, for instance, in religion, history, and politics, each of
which seems to have its own respective Adders-On and Structural
Revisionists.
        In religion, liberal and middle-of-the-road believers, clergy, and
theologians--Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and
Buddhists alike--have an "Add-On" view of the relation of religion and
science. Moderate, liberal, and modernist Catholics, Protestants, Jews,
Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus basically accept the correctness of the
GAMSWP and of modern mainstream secular history, archaeology,
linguistics, textual criticism, sociology, and psychology. At the same
time, they feel that all of these, as presented by the modern secular
scientific and scholarly "mainstream," are quite compatible with a
belief in God, Divine revelation, and eternal life. God, revelation, and
eternal life, they believe, lie "out there" outside or beyond the
GAMSWP, in areas or realms not touched by the GAMSWP.  Fundamentalists,
on the other hand, have much more of a Structural Revisionist approach
to religion and science & secular scholarship. They consider modern
secular science, history, archaeology, and textual criticism just plain
flat-out wrong where they contradict (or seem to contradict)  the Bible,
Church Fathers, Papal encyclicals, Torah, Qur'?n, or Vedas.
        The same contrast of approaches can be seen, again, in history and
politics, particularly in discussions of possible conspiracies (e.g.,
with respect to the Kennedy or King assassinations, or government &
military UFO cover-ups).Historian Richard Hofstadter once pointed out
that there is a distinction between locating conspiracies in history,
and seeing all history as a conspiracy. Adder-Ons here see some
conspiracies here and there in history, while Structural Revisionists
see history itself as a conspiracy.Adders-On may well find
conspiratorial and cover-up elements in the Kennedy or King
assassinations, or in government and military handling of possibly
frightening UFO and extraterrestrial visitation information. Structural
Revisionist conspiracy theorists, and "Holocaust Revisionists," however,
see all or most recent history (or ALL history) as a conspiracy. They
may see it as an age-old conflict between "Rangers" and "Wardens" (Poul
Anderson's science-fiction novel _The Corridors of Time_) or rationalist
republican pro-scientific "Platonists" versus irrationalist oligarchic
Goddess- worshipping anti-technologists and anti-industrialists
"Aristotelians" (Lyndon LaRouche). Or, they may see history as mainly
the record of a vast Jewish, Communist, Masonic, Illuminati,
Bilderbergers, or International Bankers' world domination plot.
Structural Revisionist conspiracy theorists are prone to dismissing
Holocaust as a Zionist hoax, rejecting the 1969 Moon landing as a NASA
public relations hoax, regarding all US presidents from FDR on as
Reptilian space aliens disguised in fake human bodies, or describing
generally respected and admired mainstream public figures like General
George C. Marshall, Dean Acheson, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter,
Walter Cronkite, or Al Gore as "really" pro-Communist traitors.
        Here again, in the religious and politico/historical as well as in the
Fortean fields, I don't want to get right now into the question of who
is "right" or "wrong," but only to point out the existence of these two
contrasting perspectives. However, here again, Id just like to reiterate
that I tend to be personally pretty much of an Adder-On rather than a
Structural Revisionist in my own approaches to religion, history, and
politics as well as to Forteanism.
                Regards,
                T. Peter <tpeterpark at erols.com>
                Garden City South, LI, NY


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
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------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
   TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Vietnam veterans,
Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]


From fortean1 at mindspring.com  Sat Jan 10 18:22:27 2004
From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 11:22:27 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD [forteana] Occam's Razor and Forteanism
Message-ID: <400042E3.7F47A481@mindspring.com>

Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 23:12:54 -0500
From: "T. Peter Park" <tpeterpark at erols.com>
  To: forteana at yahoogroups.com
Subj: FWD [forteana] Occam's Razor and Forteanism


Dear Forteans,

        Writers on anomalous, paranormal, or "Fortean" phenomena often
distinguish between the solid skeptical scientifically based study of
anomalous phenomena versus illogical fringe thinking with no basis in
science or even in true Forteanism. Scientific Forteans criticize fringe
thinkers for using one mystery to solve another mystery--as in
other-dimensional, occult, or demonological theories of UFO aliens or
cryptids (mystery animals). The difference, I suggest, may lie in use
versus neglect of "Occam's Razor" in explaining anomalous phenomena.
Scientific Forteans observe Occam's principle of conceptual economy,
while fringe thinkers ignore or defy it.        

        The mediaeval Scholastic philosopher William of Occam (1285-1349)
emphasized and popularized (though he did not invent) the maxim "non
sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatrem"-- "entities are not to
be multiplied beyond necessity." This principle, named "Occam's Razor"
in his honor, urges us to seek the simplest, most economical explanation
for any phenomenon or problem. We should only use those entities,
concepts, or principles that are strictly, unavoidably necessary to
explain a given fact or phenomenon. We should avoid introducing new,
speculative concepts if old, familiar, well- established concepts can
explain the fact or phenomenon in question. This is an established maxim
in philosophy and science, and should also be kept in mind by
Forteans--though it may well be more difficult to establish the truly
most economical explanation when dealing with phenomena as bizarre or
puzzling as those studied by parapsychologists, UFO'logists, and
cryptozoologists.

        Occam's Razor, also called the Law of Parsimony or Law of Economy, has
become an important basic regulative principle of philosophy and
science. Occam himself used it to simplify, streamline, and "clean up"
mediaeval philosophy, theology, and logic. He used it to dispense with
relations (which he saw as nothing distinct from their foundation in
things), with efficient causality (which like David Hume 400 years later
he viewed merely as regular succession), with motion (which he
considered merely the reappearance of a thing in different places), with
psychological powers distinct for each mode of sense, and with the
presence of Platonic "Ideas" in the mind of God (which he considered
merely the creatures and objects themselves). In science, the 14th
century French physicist Nicole d'Oresme invoked this Law of Economy, as
did Galileo in the 17th century, in defending the simplest hypothesis
(Copernican rather than Ptolemaic) of the heavens.

        In modern times, the French mathematician and astronomer Pierre de
Maupertuis (1689-1759) made the Law of Parsimony a basic law of nature
in his "Principle of Least Action." Maupertuis defined action, defined
by *S*mv ds--i.e., the integral (*S*) of inertia (mv, or mass velocity)
over space-time (ds, the path of length) as minimal. More recently, the
Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach (1838- 1916) declared it
the aim of science to present the facts of nature in the simplest and
most economical conceptual formulations. In psychology, it appears as
Morgan's Canon, formulated by the English biologist and philosopher C.
Lloyd Morgan (1852-1936), who held that no action should be interpreted
in terms of a higher psychic faculty when a lower faculty suffices.

        In some cases, it is initially unclear or ambiguous just what is
actually the simplest, most economical explanation, involving the fewest
entities or concepts. Scientists may be culturally and psychologically
misled by the sheer familiarity of a cumbersome traditional theory. The
initial resistance to heliocentric Copernican-Galilean astronomy, the
peculiarities of the planet Mercury's orbit, first attributed to a
hypothetical planet "Vulcan" but eventually explained by Einstein's
General Theory of Relativity, and recent astrophysical controversies
over "dark matter" are three good examples of this. In all these cases,
it is a toss-up whether a proliferation of hypothetical objects of a
somewhat familiar type or an unfamiliar but  mathematically elegant new
schema are "really" the "simpler" explanations--and whether there is
more "cumbersomeness" or "complexity" in a multitude of unseen old-style
objects, or in a mathematically simple but culturally unfamiliar new
master-theory. These three cases also illustrate some of the basic
conceptual problems Forteans face in explaining scientifically anomalous
phenomena, such as ESP, PK, ghosts, UFO's, abductions, Bigfoot, Lake
Monsters, or crop circles. Scientific Forteans do try to observe Occam's
Razor. Sometimes, though, it's as hard in Forteanism as in these 
mainstream scientific examples to determine just what the truly simplest
explanation is. With phenomena as puzzling as those studied by Forteans,
it may be difficult to determine which of various suggested explanations
is in fact the most economical one. For this reason, a brief description
of these three cases may be useful, to give a sense of true versus
false, real versus apparent explanatory economies. 

        Galileo demonstrated that the heliocentric Copernican model of the
Solar System was mathematically much simpler, more elegant, and more
economical than the geocentric Ptolemaic model, dispensing with the
complex epicycles needed in the Ptolemaic system to explain seeming
irregularities in planetary motions. However, it may be argued that for
Galileo's academic and ecclesiastical opponents, the Ptolemaic model
subjectively "felt" simpler because of its sheer familiarity, and the
seeming "oddity" or "novelty" of the "shift in mental gears" needed to
visualize the new Copernican model that also offended prevailing
cultural attitudes of reverence towards the beliefs of ancient Greek
thinkers and early Christian Church Fathers.  

        Again, when persistent peculiarities were noted in the orbit of Mercury
in the 19th century that could not be accounted for by the gravitational
influences of Venus and the Earth, the self-evidently obvious
explanation in terms of the known physics and astronomy of the time was
that they MUST be caused by a hitherto undiscovered intra-Mercurian
planet, "Vulcan." A planet's orbit is not fixed in space, but responds
to the net gravitational influence of other bodies in its environment.
Through combinations of many small effects, the long axis of Mercury's
orbit is in slow movement around the Sun. The perihelion point moves
eastward almost 10 minutes of arc (1/6 of a degree) per century. Most of
this procession is due to the gravitational influence of the planets,
especially Earth and Venus, but a residual of 40" per century, not
readily explained, was found in 1845 by Urbain LeVerrier, the
co-discoverer of Neptune. LeVerrier attributed this discrepancy to the
gravitational influence of hypothetical planets between Mercury and the
Sun--a very reasonable suggestion, in view of the way Uranus and Neptune
had been discovered through their perturbing gravitational influence on
Saturn's orbit. Some anomalous astronomical observations in the 19th
century suggested that such an intra-Mercurian planet did exist, and it
was even named "Vulcan," for the Roman fire-god. A number of such
objects were reportedly observed by 19th century astronomers in transit
across the face of the Sun. However, very careful and complete 19thand
20th century observations of the Sun and its neighborhood during total
solar eclipses never confirmed their existence. The supposed "Vulcan"
sightings are now believed to have been caused by sunspots, or in a few
cases perhaps by an asteroid between the orbits of Earth and Venus. 

        In 1915, however, Albert Einstein showed that the General Theory of
Relativity predicted a perihelion advance of Mercury of 43" per century
that the classical Newtonian theory did not. Thus, the motion of
Mercury's orbit has been considered an important observational
verification of the General Theory of Relativity. The post-1915
relativistic explanation of Mercury's orbit is simpler than the old
"Vulcan" hypothesis, in that it invokes a basic law of physics rather
than one or more frustratingly elusive physical objects--which can now
be dispensed with. However, in the 19th century, in view of the known
physics of the time, and also of the spectacular success of discovering
two previously unknown planets, Uranus and Neptune, by their
gravitational effects on Saturn's orbit, the "Vulcan" explanation of
Mercury's orbit seemed to be the self-evidently obvious one. Postulating
a new, hitherto unknown, law of physics drastically modifying the
familiar, well-established Newtonian laws of motion and gravitation,
just to explain Mercury's orbital peculiarities, would have seemed an
outrageously radical _ad hoc_proceeding. Better a few still-unseen
planets than a new law of physics! It was only after Einstein had
formulated the General Theory of Relativity for considerations quite
unrelated to Mercury's orbit, and then got it confirmed by Mercury's
orbit, that physicists and astronomer's accepted General Relativity as a
simpler, more elegant, more economical explanation of Mercury's orbit.
As for "Vulcan," the general public now mostly recognizes it as the name
of Spock's home planet in _Star Trek_!

        In the late 20th century, astronomers noticed that galaxies and galaxy
clusters hold together, with no stars or gas escaping from galaxies and
no gas or galaxies from clusters, despite those galaxies and clusters
containing far too little matter--far too little gas, far too few stars
or individual galaxies--to possibly generate a strong enough
gravitational field. Galaxies and clusters should have been
dissipating-- but they weren't. The magnitude of the discrepancy ranged
from a factor of a few to a factor of hundreds. To account for such
discrepancies, astrophysicists have postulated an exotic unobservable
"dark matter." distinct both from visibly shining stars and galaxies and
from the ordinary "dim matter" of planets, dwarf stars, warm gas, and
cold cosmic dust, that might make up 95% of the Universe. So far,
however, this postulated "dark matter" has proven frustratingly elusive
and unobservable. An Israeli physicist has suggested that this "dark
matter" may not even exist, and that the observed curious discrepancies
can be explained just as well or better by a modification of Newton's
Second Law of Motion.

        Mordehai Milgrom, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Weizmann
Institute in Rehovot, Israel, has published an article addressing this
problem, "Does Dark Matter Really Exist?," in _Scientific American_,
August 2002 (Vol. 287, No. 2), pp. 42-52. Noting the failure of
astronomers and physicists to actually observe this postulated "dark
matter," Milgrom suggests that the fault may lie not in the "dark
matter" itself, which may not even exist, but in the laws of physics.
Milgrom proposes a modification of Newton's laws of motion and gravity,
called MOND for "Modified Newtonian Dynamics," to explain away the
discrepancy. Specifically, MOND modifies Newton's second law of motion
at low accelerations. MOND, he feels, does a very good job of
reproducing observations. MOND introduces a new constant of nature with
the dimensions of acceleration, called a_0 (a sub zero). When the
acceleration is much larger than a_0, Newton's old familiar second law
applies: force is proportioonal to acceleration. But when the
acceleration is smaller than a_0, as near the peripheries of galaxies or
galactic clusters,. Newton's second law is altered: force becomes
proportional to the square of the acceleration. Thus, the force needed
to impart a given acceleration is always smaller than Newtonian dynamics
requires. To account for the observed accelerations in galaxies, MOND
predicts a smaller force- -hence, less gravity-producing mass--than
Newtonian dymamics does. In this way, Milgrom believes, it can eliminate
the need for "dark matter." At sufficiently great distances from the
center of a galaxy or galactic cluster, the orbital velocity of stars or
galaxies should stop decreasing and reach a constant value. Milgrom's
MOND has not yet been generally accepted by astrophysicists--but many do
consider it a serious contender. 

        Milgrom's MOND as an explanation for discrepancies in the motions of
galaxies and galactic clusters closely parallels Einstein's General
Relativity as n explanation for Mercury's orbital peculiarities. In both
cases, peculiarities in the motion of observed visible astronomical
objects--Mercury, galaxies, galaxy clusters--have led conventional
astrophysicists to suggest the gravitational influence of hitherto
unobserved, curiously elusive material bodies--the planet "Vulcan,"
"dark matter." In both cases, the postulated gravitationally perturbing
bodies--"Vulcan," "dark matter"--have persistently remained curiously
elusive, frustratingly difficult or impossible to observe directly. In
both cases, the need for such elusive, hard-to-find material bodies has
been eliminated by a proposed revision of the laws of physics.
Einstein's General Relativity has been generally accepted by the
scientific community, while Milgrom's MOND has not yet been generally
accepted. 

        To return now to Forteanism: scientific Forteans use Occam's Razor
conscientiously. They admit new objects, new creatures, or new entities
when it seems absolutely necessary and unavoidable to do so, but they
try to keep their new entities more or less similar to old familiar
entities if at all possible, and they avoid introducing completely new
realms of being or totally new sorts of basic natural laws. Scientific
Forteans may propose the survival in our own time of relict populations
of supposedly extinct prehistoric hominids or reptiles. However, they
firmly keep them anchored in the good old familiar well- known Earthly
flesh-and-blood DNA-and-protein evolution-spawned animal kingdom, and
NOT coming here from UFO's, other dimensions, an "Inner Earth," or a
demonic or angelic "Goblin Universe." They may likewise find themselves
forced to seriously admit the possibility of extraterrestrials visiting
us in spaceships from Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti, Zeta Reticuli, or
wherever. However, they will interpret them conservatively as products
of parallel biological evolution on other habitable planets in our
Galaxy as per the SETI speculations of mainstream scientists like Frank
Drake and Carl Sagan extrapolating from what we already have known for
decades about astrophysics and Earthly biochemistry. They will be VERY
chary of rushing to interpret them right away as coming from another
dimension or from a spiritual, demonic, or angelic realm.  In all such
and other cases, scientific Forteans will stick fairly close to old
familiar generally-accepted scientific concepts and principles whenever
at all possible--which I see as a good use of Occam's Razor. 

        Scientific Fortean study of reported "hairy hominids" like Bigfoot and
Yeti is a good example of the adherence to accepted scientific concepts
whenever possible. Let me give a specific example suggested by your own
comments. In 1999, Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe published _The Field
Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti, and Other Mystery Primates Worldwide_, noting
nine classifications for unknown hominoids. At that time, Coleman and
Huyghe were viewed as a bit radical, "far-out," or speculative by many
"mainstream" Bigfooters, who preferred to see populations of a single
large erect bipedal hairy ape-man or man-ape species lurking in the
Pacific Northwest, the Himalayas, and perhaps a couple of other areas of
our planet. The same happened to Coleman's and Mark A.Hall's researches,
from the 1960's onward, about a population of bad-smelling semi-aquatic
chimpanzee-like apes ("Napes" or "Skunk Apes") in the southern United
States. However, today, Coleman and Hall are seen clearly as mainstream
Bigfooters. Coleman and Huyghe might have been regarded as radical or
far-out by old-time Bigfooters only willing to recognize the "classic"
or "standard" California Bigfoot, British Columbia Sasquatch, and
Himalayan Yeti. Those old-line Bigfooters themselves might seem
"radical," "far-out," "gullible," or "unscientific" to all-out Bigfoot
and Yeti skeptics. However, Coleman, Huyghe, Mark Hall, and old-line
Bigfooters alike are in fact orthodox scientific conservatives--though
orthodox scientific conservatives of a very flexible, very broad-minded
kind--in trying to fit Bigfoot, Yeti, Almas, Kaptar, Mecheny, Chuchunaa,
Orang Pendek, Agogwe, etc., into the generally accepted zoological and
palaeontological scientific picture of primate and hominid evolution, as
perhaps possible modern "living fossil" relict populations of
scientifically accepted prehistoric hominoids and hominids like
_Gigantopithecus_, _Paranthropus_, _Australopithecus_, _Homo habilis_,
_Homo erectus_, _Homo heidelbergensis_, Neandertals, etc. 

        In all this, scientific Bigfooters all accept the broad mainstream
scientific outline of the standard picture of hominid evolution and
early human prehistory. In all this, Bigfooters stand in clear
opposition to "ancient astronaut" theorists and fundamentalist
"Scientific Creationists" who simply reject the standard scientific
picture of primate and human evolution. Coleman, Huyghe, Mark Hall, and
Bigfooters likewise far closer to the scientific mainstream than writers
espousing an other-dimensional, extraterrestrial, "Inner Earth," or
demonological interpretation of hairy hominids and other cryptids, who
see Bigfoot appearing to hikers and campers from another dimension,
UFO's, the Earth's interior, or the fundamentalist Christian (or Muslim)
Hell. Indeed, if the Coleman/Huyghe/Hall type scientific "hominologists"
are correct, and if we do eventually succeed in capturing some
Sasquatches, Kaptars, Almas, and/or Orang Pendeks, this will be widely
seen as new scientific confirmation of the essential correctness of the
standard scientific human evolutionary picture, and of mainstream
palaentologists' reconstructions of _Homo erectus_, _Homo
heidelbergensis_, or Neandertals. A real live captured Bigfoot, Almas,
Kaptar, or Orang Pendek would probably not give very much aid and
comfort to "amcient astronaut" enthusiasts or "Scientific Creationists."

        Fringe thinkers, by contrast, ignore or flout Occam's Razor by
promiscuously using one mystery to solve another mystery. They "solve"
legitimate puzzles like Bigfoot, Lake Monsters, UFO's, or abductions by
invoking concepts and principles that are themselves bizarre,
speculative, mysterious, controversial, or unverifiable, in any case
totally unrelated to any realistically foreseeable extensions of the
generally accepted mainstream scientific world-picture--e.g.,
other-dimensional or demonological theories of UFO's, aliens, or
cryptids.

        Nevertheless, we should perhaps not totally dismiss seeming fringe
thinkers out of hand. As I've noted, when dealing with truly puzzling
and bizarre phenomena, it may not always be easy to determine just what
the most truly simple and parsimonious explanation might be. Slightly
extraordinary but unquestionably scientific explanations, like the
extraterrestrial hypothesis of UFO's and aliens or the zoological or
primatological explanation of cryptids, have an obvious appeal for
scientific Forteans anxious to avoid fringe, occult, mystical, or
"metaphysical" theories if at all possible. They do seem like simple,
obvious, straightforward explanations of the great majority of Fortean
reports. They include the UFO's that seem like believably possible
nuts-and-bolts spacecraft a couple of centuries ahead of ourselves
technologically, and the aliens who seem like biologically plausible
flesh-and-blood products of Darwinian evolution on another planet in our
Galaxy with native environmental conditions just slightly different from
the Earth's. They include the  "hairy hominids" like Bigfoot, Almas,
Kaptar, or Orang Pendek that seem like realistically plausible
Neandertal, Homo erectus, Australopithecus, Paranthropus, or
Gigantopithecus survivors into our own era, the "lake monsters" and "sea
serpents" that might indeed be Plesiosaurus or Zeuglodon survivors into
our own time, and the swamp-dwelling West African mokele-mbembes that
might indeed be surviving Brontosaurus-like sauropod dinosaurs.

        All such "normal," "nuts-and-bolts" or "flesh-and-blood" UFO's and
creatures seem to need no occult, mystical, paraphysical, or
"metaphysical"explanations. They require a stretching of "mainstream"
science only to the point of arguing that Frank Drake's and Carl Sagan's
hypothetical extraterrestrials are already here on Earth visiting us, or
that dinosaurs, plesiosaurs, pre-Sapiens hominids, or other prehistoric
creatures are not quite completely extinct after all.  However, there
are also the occasionally genuinely bizarre yet seemingly authentic
reports, that at least seem to defy a straightforward scientific
extraterrestrial or zoological explanation, that rather do seem to
demand an occult, "metaphysical," or paraphysical explanation. It's
these apparently authentic bizarre reports that have inspired interest
in fringe, occult, and demonological theories. Such fringe theories gain
a certain seeming plausibility because of such bizarre cases. Such cases
give a semblance of "empirical proof" and "I always told you so"
justification to writers and "buffs" already inclined to occult,
mystical, "metaphysical," and demonological speculations.

        Such bizarre reports include UFO's, aliens, and cryptids ("Bigfoots,"
"Black Dogs," etc.) that seemingly appear or disappear instantly, change
shape, or pass effortlessly through solid obstacles like walls, fences,
closed doors, trees, boulders, or dense shrubbery. They include
"Bigfoots," "Black Dogs," and other "mystery beasts" with glowing red
eyes, overpowering foul odors, missing feet or legs, or semi-
transparent bodies. They include "Bigfoot"-like creatures reportedly
seen in connection with UFO's. They include cryptids that seem
unaffected by gunfire or other weapons. They include aliens or other
creatures that disappear or retreat when confronted with crucifixes,
rosaries, or prayers to religious figures like Jesus, Mary, Buddha, or
the Archangel Michael--or that conversely became especially aggressive
when encountering religious symbols.  Such bizarre entities seem to
almost beg to be considered ghosts, spirits, fairies, elementals,
angels, demons, djinn, or other-dimensional "ultraterrestrials"--and
writers like John A. Keel, Jacques Vallee, Patrick Harpur, and Janet &
Colin Bord seem to be glad enough to comply, as are religious
fundamentalist advocates of a demonological theory of aliens and
cryptids. To many writers, an occult, "metaphysical,"
"ultraterrestrial," or demonological theory can easily seem the
simplest, most obvious, most economical explanation of such entities,
the one most conforming to Occam's Razor. But is it, really? I'm not
actually too sure!

        The bizarre, phantom-like, seemingly absurd qualities and behavior of
some reported UFO's and aliens remind me of Arthur C. Clarke's
observation that any sufficiently advanced technology would be
indistinguishable from magic. Teleportation, instant appearance and
disappearance, size or shape change, levitation, invisibility, and
passing through solid objects could be routine accomplishments for a
science and technology thousands or millions of years and not just a
couple of centuries in advance of ours. Some bizarre manifestations,
too, might reflect deliberate technologically engineered
"disinformation" by extraterrestrials bent on confusing us and
cultivating a mental climate of incredulous belief in their existence.
They could deliberately use technological "magic" to make some of us
believe that they are merely the supernatural beings of our own
traditional religious, mythological, or folkloric belief systems, and
the rest of us believe that supposed abductees and alleged "close
encounter" witnesses are simply neurotic, gullible victims of their own
delusions and fantasies unable to distinguish their grotesque nightmares
or bizarre dream-like hallucinations from reality: therefore, the wilder
and more chaotically diversified our supposed "dreams," "fantasies," and
"delusions," the better for the aliens concerned to have us not take
their possible existence too seriously. If some of us think the aliens
are really ghosts, angels, fairies, or demons, and the rest of us simply
laugh at the bizarre tales of abductees and close-encounter witnesses
seeing a hundred different varieties of grotesque creatures with
sometimes ghost-like characteristics telling two dozen absurd,
conflicting tales about their origin or home planet, that suits the
aliens just fine. They may use hypnosis, holographic projections,
robots, and other deceptive techniques we can't even imagine to make us
think we're seeing "Bigfoots," giants, 3-inch diminutive little men,
human-sized giant grasshoppers, ghosts, angels, demons, walking 6-inch
tin cans, "birdmen," "batmen," "mothmen,"or floating disembodied brains.
They might, for instance, deliberately "plant" occasional apparent
sightings of "Bigfoots" with glowing red eyes and missing or
semi-transparent feet to sow confusion, disbelief, and ridicule. Of
course, such alien-created red-eyed spectral "Bigfoot" holographic (?)
projections can easily co-exist with more conventional zoological hairy
hominoid primates and relict flesh-and-blood pre-sapiens Erectus or
Neandertal hominid populations!  

        Alternatively, many of the more "bizarre" and "absurd" UFO, alien, and
cryptid reports may have their explanation not in extraterrestrial
visitors or unknown animals, but rather in the more curious powers and
activities of the human psyche itself, as studied by parapsychologists.
A few seemingly "far-out" parapsychological and Fortean theories
admittedly lie on the border between scientific Forteanism and fringe
"metaphysical" speculation. It may largely be a matter of personal taste
which side of that border one wishes to place them on. They include, for
instance, speculations about "group minds," and about quasi-material
"thought-forms" or "tulpas." I myself see such theories as stretching
the "mainstream" scientific world-picture very nearly to its breaking
point--but not yet QUITE breaking it. I would argue that they are not
quite "fringe" or "metaphysical," but rather a slight extrapolation from
traditional mainstream parapsychology--and thus scientific..

        Solid, respected parapsychologists like Whately Carington, G.N.M.
Tyrrell, Nandor Fodor, and D. Scott Rogo have speculated about
telepathically-generated "group minds," "collective idea- patterns," or
"gestalts" of families, clans, tribes, cultures, political movements,
etc. These "group minds" or "gestalts" would be telepathically created
from the beliefs, myths, symbols, archetypal images, etc., of those
groups, and would have a certain independent active telepathic influence
on group members' minds. Such "group minds," "gestalts," or "collective
idea-patterns" might explain family warning-spirits like the Irish
banshee, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox apparitions of the Virgin and
saints, mediaeval appearances of the Devil, ancient Greek and Roman
visions of Pan, satyrs, nymphs, dryads, Theseus, and Castor & Pollux,
Celtic and Germanic close encounters with fairies, gnomes, leprechauns,
dwarfs, trolls, etc.--and perhaps also UFO close encounters and
abductions in our own time. Sometimes, some of these parapsychologists
have suggested, these visions and apparitions take a temporarily
semi-solid, quasi- material form as "thought-forms," "tulpas," or
"telesmic images." UFO's, "aliens," Bigfoot, Lake Monsters, "Black
Dogs," "Mothmen," and assorted "cryptids" might be such "tulpas." Such
"tulpas" might actually have a temporary physical existence--as
collective psychic projections of our own human "group minds," or
perhaps of Carl Gustav Jung's "Collective Unconscious." Again, such
"tulpas" of UFO's, aliens, or cryptids could coexist with real
extraterrestrial nuts-and-bolts starships, real flesh-and-blood aliens,
real flesh-and-blood zoological cryptids, and real relict pre-sapiens
hominids.. 

        Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman at one time proposed something along
such lines in _The Unidentified_ (1975), where they drew on Carl Jung's
theories to describe the UFO phenomenon as a planetary poltergeist
generating apparitions from Humankind's repressed collective unconscious
to create UFO manifestations, Men in Black, etc.--some of which ideas
former FATE editor Clark reportedly now disavows. Anyway, I myself
suspect that a theory of "group minds" and "tulpas" might perhaps
explain many of the more bizarre, "ghostly," "phantom-like" UFO, alien,
and cryptid reports, without resorting to more speculative occult,
"metaphysical," or demonological theories about fairies, elementals,
djinn, devas, angels, demons, or "ultraterrestrials." A
parapsychological theory of "group minds" and "thought- forms," indeed,
could help scientific Forteans defend their approach against the
advocates of fringe and occultist theories. We sometimes may need to
consider the SOMEWHAT extraordinary and MODERATELY "far-out" to avoid
being pressured or seduced into believing the EXTREMELY extraordinary.
William of Occam, I think, would have approved.
                        Regards,
                        T. Peter <tpeterpark at erols.com>
                        Garden City South, L.I., N.Y.


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
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   TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Vietnam veterans,
Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sat Jan 10 18:26:20 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 10:26:20 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Stephenson's Franchulate enclavism beginning...
Message-ID: <20040110182620.91537.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>

In a move that may herald the beginning of panarchical franchise
enclaves predicted by Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash and The Diamond
Age, the Vermont town of Killington, VT is considering the possibility
of seceding from Vermont to join NH.

Located 25 miles inside Vermont, Killington is the home of the largest
tourist destination in the state, Killington Ski Resort, the largest
ski area in North America. The locals have had their development hopes
dashed for the past decade by environmental fascists via the states Act
250 environmental courts, which allows anyone to sue to stop you from
developing your land.

Additionally, the Act 60 property tax law treats Killington as a 'gold
town', from which the state loots $10 million in local property taxes
per year to redistribute to 'receiver' school districts around the
state. Killington only gets back $1 million. Combined with a refusal by
the state to build sufficient roads to Killington to deal with its
traffic, the people of Killington feel like a colony that the royalty
in Montpelier leeches off of.

"It kind of reminds us of colonial days," Town Manager David Lewis said
Thursday. "The colonies were being faced with the Stamp Act, the Tea
Act, the Sugar Act. England wasn't giving them any rights. They were
treating the colonies as just a revenue source."

Killington's Select Board wants to let voters consider secession on
Town Meeting Day in March. Lewis says, "New Hampshire would never abuse
a town like ours as Vermont has."

As a result, the Free State Project is ramping up a 'shadow
advertising' campaign across Vermont. "If the people of Killington are
so fed up with the state government, there must be a lot more people
elsewhere in the state who feel similarly," says FSP VP Doug Hillman,
"We are going to promote the FSP and NH to liberty lovers in Vermont
and ultimately in all northeastern states."

Other FSP members want to promote the concept of secession to towns in
other high tax states. "We may wind up with NH towns spread across the
US," one FSP member said. Originally termed Panarchy in the 19th
century, the concept was rekindled in the last decade by popular SF
writer Neal Stephenson, who predicted a future where gated communities
and townships spread like franchises across the world would form
synthetic nations, or 'phyles'. Also called 'clades' and 'franchulates'
(for franchise-consulate), such communities would allow weary citizens
of such phyles to find a safe harbor to stay that recognised their
'citizenship'.



=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

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From jonkc at att.net  Sat Jan 10 18:59:11 2004
From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 13:59:11 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Fermi Paradox and Simulation Argument
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401100646300.3344-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <014001c3d7ac$012b2f60$41ff4d0c@hal2001>

Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> Wrote:

> there seems to be a significant probability
> that we are about to shift from evolution
> driven by random adaptation to
> evolution driven by conscious processes.

Yes, I agree completely.

>>    A single civilization can settle a galaxy in no time.

>But there is no point!

It would probably be the same point that Humans had when they settled the
Earth.

>>   It can settle several galaxies a short time later.

>Which would be even more pointless.

Are you certain that every strange citizen in every alien super civilization
would feel as you do about that? It would just take one, and after all,
several members from even your own species don't feel as you do about that.

>It seems unlikely that one can achieve  greater intelligence
>or any other benefits this way.

Intelligence will need matter and it will need energy, if you wish to
maximize intelligence you will to engineer the galaxy and then the entire
universe. This does not appear to have happened which makes me think alien
super civilizations do not exist.

  John K Clark      jonkc at att.net








From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sat Jan 10 19:00:53 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 11:00:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] blog linking
Message-ID: <20040110190053.97903.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>

http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

The above is my blog location. Those who read it and want to cross link
with their own, please email me your blog URL so that I can add a link
to you.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From nanowave at shaw.ca  Sat Jan 10 19:53:55 2004
From: nanowave at shaw.ca (Russell Evermore)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 11:53:55 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
References: <000001c3d6ff$df8202f0$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>
Message-ID: <007f01c3d7b3$7b582d40$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>

Oh my my.

Is war extropic or entropic? Well, I should have thought Einstein cleared up
such questions long long ago. Is a siphon entropic or extropic? Obviously it
depends at which side of the flow you happen to be looking at, the uphill
side or the down.

As Joey Tribiani once put it: This question is moo (i.e. so dumb that even
cows don't spend a lot of time talking about it)

Fundamentalist Islam, led by Osama Bin Luddite, has chosen this age (my age,
my son's age) to wage a war of aggression against modernity. When war has
been declared on your person, your continent, and your core values, you have
but two choices - you fight or you flee.

Is it extropic to fight? Is it extropic to flee? Where will you flee - Mars?

-------------

>From the inside flap of _Onward Muslim Soldiers_ by Robert Spencer:

In this shocking new book, author Richard Spencer details how jihad warriors
have already established numerous foothoods right here in America, and are
an established, growing, and ominous threat in Europe. "Onward Muslim
Soldiers" reveals the openly violent contempt that radical Muslims in the
United States and around the world have for Western freedom and tolerance,
and details why a clash of civilizations is already upon us.

Spencer exposes the truth about radical Islam that the media denies and
disregards including:

1) Why Iraqi democracy will have a tough time no matter how long American
troops stay in the country
2)The American Left: its unholy alliance with radical Islam
3)The concept of jihad: how it poisons chances for peace in Israel and in
other conflicts
4)The myth of Islamic "tolerance" in history and today
5)Why the threat of violent jihad is growing daily, despite claims that
Islam is a "religion of peace"
6)How Muslims are undermining Western Europe's commitment freedom
7)Why moderate Muslims have been unable to stop the spread of violent Islam

Using Muslim sources, Robert Spencer uncovers tracts that influence radical
Muslims--material full of naked hatred and intolerance; material that is
freely and popularly available, and that is almost completely ignored by the
establishment media.

This explosive book concludes with a series of practical steps that we must
take to combat jihad terrorism--before it's too late.

-------------

RE




From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk  Sat Jan 10 21:25:52 2004
From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 21:25:52 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
Message-ID: <40006DE0.9010104@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>

This is all about politics. Science has nothing to do with it.
Nov 2004 is Bush re-election time.

<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3919608/>

Lofty space vision runs into realities
Lawmakers and aides say ?return to moon? talk
is more about politics than about spaceflight

A senior Senate Republican aide said the plan gives Bush a 'big bold
idea' to run on for re-election. But would the Republican-led Congress
fund it?

'Unlikely,' the aide said, asking not to be identified by name. 'But the
president doesn?t have to get this through Congress this year. He just
needs to put it on the table as part of the agenda for his second term'.

'The president is now looking for centrist supporters who may be
enthralled by big ideas. This has much less to do about legislative
reality on Capitol Hill this year than it has to do with political
reality in 2004,' he said.

----------

The USA spends about $15.5 billion on NASA, including about $3.5 billion
on the shuttle program. NASA has a huge money pit in the Shuttle support
and infrastructure, but unfortunately people have started to realize
that it is all pretty pointless and has now started killing astronauts
as well.

NASA's problem is that they want to get rid of the shuttles but keep all
the billions of funding.
How to do this?  Geee - I know! Let's go back 30 years and start
building big rockets and capsules again.
Nahhh - the public would never stand for that.
OK. How about if we pretend we're going to Mars - like in Buck Rogers?
That should get people excited. And we can say we've got to keep up with
the evil Chinese as well.
You know, that might just work.
And the beauty of it is that we don't need to find any really big bucks
until after Bush's second term. So we don't need to get huge budgets
through Congress and we don't have to worry about the budget deficits
before 2008 when Bush will be retiring to his ranch.
Then it's all someone else's problem.
Cool!

It's all politics.


BillK




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sat Jan 10 22:00:01 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 14:00:01 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Fermi Paradox and Simulation Argument
In-Reply-To: <014001c3d7ac$012b2f60$41ff4d0c@hal2001>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401101330170.10907-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Sat, 10 Jan 2004, John K Clark responding to my comments wrote:

With respect to exploration/colonization, John said:

> It would probably be the same point that Humans had when they settled the
> Earth.

Not so John.  You have to ask *what* drove the original human diasporas
(out of Africa) and much later migrations of large numbers such as
the colonization of North and South America?

I'll cite 4, lack of food resources, climate changes/hazards,
lack of reproductive resources, curiosity.

One by one:
a) Lack of food resources.  MBrains have 4 choices: (1) Harvest nearby
   brown dwarfs; (2) Harvest gas from molecular clouds; (3) Harvest
   nearby stars; (4) Decrease ones consumption of fuel by slowing down
   computational activity.

   1-3 have problems because you will waste resources in transporting
   the fuel back to your location.  One might think seriously about
   implementing (4) until one naturally migrates close enough to
   sources 1-3 that transportation overhead is minimized.

b) Climate changes/hazards.  MBrains can observe and predict potential
   hazards long enough in advance that they can execute minor changes
   in orbital vectors to avoid such hazards.

c) Lack of reproductive resources.  It is questionable whether MBrains
   would ever want to reproduce because offspring are potentially
   competitors when resources are in short supply in the distant future.
   This gets into Mark Walker's arguments that potentially immortal
   entities may logically agree to non-proliferation of themselves.
   It applies to mega-civilizations that are immortal as well as it
   applies to individuals on current societies.

d) Curiosity.  MBrains can see pretty much anything going on in
   the galaxy or nearby galaxies.  What they cannot see they can
   probably simulate.  I've yet to see a concrete numbers suggesting
   that there is significant marginal benefit to the knowledge base
   of an MBrain by sending out probes to survey distant solar systems.
   Even if there was significant information benefit that doesn't
   mean that colonization is justified.

> Are you certain that every strange citizen in every alien super civilization
> would feel as you do about that? It would just take one, and after all,
> several members from even your own species don't feel as you do about that.

That is one problem that keeps cropping up in this discussion.  People
keep assuming that the concepts of "citizens" or "individuals" remain
as they are now.  I significantly doubt this.  You either remain in
in a current human state (and find oneself eliminated when something
large enough hits the earth or finds oneself homeless when the
MBrain decides to dismantle it) -- or one plugs into the MBrain
or uploads -- in which case the concept of "self" becomes very very
different.  The reason being that within a relatively short period
of time seems feasible for me to make all of my knowledge available
to you and you to make all of your knowledge available to me.
The same is true for anyone else linked into the net.  Its kind
of like hyper-blogging.  There are no more traditional concepts
of "you" and "me".  The entire civilization becomes much more
borg-like.

Sure you can resist this - but we have relatively hard numbers now
for how futile this will be.  Its roughly 10^42 ops vs 10^15 ops
and 10^50 bits vs 10^10 bits.

Pre-singularity entities are bugs.  I suspect there may come a
significant debate about whether XYZBrains simply swat bugs
(be they sentient or not) if they threaten to interfere with
the goals of the XYZBrain.

> Intelligence will need matter and it will need energy, if you wish to
> maximize intelligence you will to engineer the galaxy and then the entire
> universe. This does not appear to have happened which makes me think alien
> super civilizations do not exist.

The key word in this sentence is "appear".  If, as Milan Cirkovic has proposed
the best computational location for MBrains is intergalactic space (which is
good if one believes the dispersal/stealth and hazard avoidance arguments as
well) then there is very little evidence that would argue against the fact
that shortly after attaining XYZBrain status such superintelligences leave
their galaxies.  There may even be some evidence *for* this scenario in
the missing dark matter/dark energy.

Robert




From test at demedici.ssec.wisc.edu  Sat Jan 10 22:25:12 2004
From: test at demedici.ssec.wisc.edu (Bill Hibbard)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 16:25:12 -0600 (CST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.44.0401101620210.4265-100000@demedici.ssec.wisc.edu>

Just speculating, but manned missions to the moon and mars
that require reductions in all other NASA projects might
be a good way to avoid learning inconvenient facts about
climate change on earth.

This morning Adam Keiper, Managing Editor of The New
Atlantis, was on C-SPAN touting the moon and mars missions.
They might also be a nice distraction from biology for
life extension and other transhumanist goals. Again, just
speculating.

I'm all for sending robots to mars, but would prefer to
hold off on humans until it gets a lot cheaper. The same
money that it would take to get people to mars and back
could fund a whole lot of robotic technology.

Bill
----------------------------------------------------------
Bill Hibbard, SSEC, 1225 W. Dayton St., Madison, WI  53706
test at demedici.ssec.wisc.edu  608-263-4427  fax: 608-263-6738
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/vis.html



From determinism at hotmail.com  Sat Jan 10 22:29:49 2004
From: determinism at hotmail.com (Dennis May)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 16:29:49 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: FWD (PvT) Professors at war: Searching for
	dissentat the MLA
Message-ID: <BAY7-F61IzJ9skB47qX00004d70@hotmail.com>

"This past week, about 8,000 professors and
graduate students gathered here for the
annual meeting of the Modern Language
Association."

I don't find it at all surprising that you find
left wing extremists and Marxists flocking
together in English departments at
universities.  Those are the only kind of
English professors I have ever met.

Dennis May

_________________________________________________________________
Scope out the new MSN Plus Internet Software ? optimizes dial-up to the max! 
   http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=byoa/plus&ST=1



From jrd1415 at yahoo.com  Sat Jan 10 22:39:22 2004
From: jrd1415 at yahoo.com (Jeff Davis)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 14:39:22 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Your thoughts on the news
In-Reply-To: <003501c3d788$2851a7f0$0a01a8c0@Kallista>
Message-ID: <20040110223922.39896.qmail@web41202.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Devon White <devon at thegreatwork.com> wrote:

> What i would like to know is this: if you could turn
on FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS, etc. . . and design the
information that you as well as other people would
get, what would it be?

               ---------------------

Here's what I want to see, Devon.  Take "Mystery
Science Theatre 3000"--wherein a cheesy old SciFi
movie is screened with the rather quirky audience
providing exceedingly clever and 'enlightened'
commentary, and turn it into "Mystery Pundit Theatre
3000".

Take the news-or-other-punditry and interpose a
'protective' layer of 'control'--freeze-frame, replay,
and edit--and irreverent commentary between 'it' and
the audience.
 
For years I have been absolutely frothing at the mouth
to see this treatment meted out to all those
proper/phony pundit and talking-head types.  I am
confident that fair use would allow you to excerpt a
bucket load of choice bits, the which you could then
gleefully rip and shred with unbridled ridicule.
Meanwhile, the offending bitstream with it's
sacred-cow face is held frozen before the firing squad
of the aggrieved.   

It warms me just to think of what it would be like.  I
mean, I regularly scream at the lying pretentious
weaseloids, as they attempt--in vain--to damage my
brain with their devious self-delusional self-serving
memetic emetic.  (I flatter myself that my defenses
are robust against their onslaught.  In any case it
isn't me their aiming at, but the paying choir and the
stupidly impressionable.)   

I think there must be a coupla a billion others out
there like me, who fume at being bombarded by
seeming-authoritative sputum, powerless to respond to
the one-way-broadcast model.  The mute/off button is
not good enough.  I want payback.  I want my voice
heard from the audience.  After all the years of
helpless anonymous 'silence' at this end of the
one-way crapola stream, I want satisfaction.        

Commentary on the commentators.  Unfair and unbalanced
and un-fuckin-apologetic.

Please.  Pulleeease!  I'll even promise to watch the
goddamned commercials (though I'd prefer to buy it
outright, commercial-free, on cable.)

Best, Jeff Davis

    I believe -- no pun intended:) -- the practical 
    thing is usually to change those beliefs that 
    cause the most immediate trouble...
                      Daniel Ust


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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From jef at jefallbright.net  Sun Jan 11 00:21:00 2004
From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 16:21:00 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
Message-ID: <020b01c3d7d8$cb4154b0$6501a8c0@int.veeco.com>

Stephen Karlsgodt wrote:
> I thought this was pretty funny. I am an engineer, so apparently I
> may be safe, but I spent enough time in graduate school to relate to
> this essay... 
> 
> http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/people/PVR/decon.html
> 
> Steve



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan 11 01:47:36 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 20:47:36 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <007f01c3d7b3$7b582d40$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>
Message-ID: <004b01c3d7e4$e3dbbd10$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Russell Evermore wrote,
> Is war extropic or entropic? Well, I should have thought
> Einstein cleared up such questions long long ago. Is a siphon 
> entropic or extropic? Obviously it depends at which side of 
> the flow you happen to be looking at, the uphill side or the down.

War is not a flow of resources from the loser to the winner.  War is a
destruction of resources on both sides.  The war ends when one of the
parties' resources is destroyed beyond the point of being able to continue
the war.  After the war, there may be a flow of resources from the loser to
the winner.  But this "benefit" does not alter the fact that war is always a
net loss.  (The argument that the losses of war is intended to prevent an
even greater losses does not alter the fact that war is entropic.)

War = destruction.
Extropy = creation.
War is the opposite of Extropy.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan 11 01:49:24 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 20:49:24 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <007f01c3d7b3$7b582d40$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>
Message-ID: <004c01c3d7e5$273b34a0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Russell Evermore wrote,
> Fundamentalist Islam, led by Osama Bin Luddite, has chosen
> this age (my age, my son's age) to wage a war of aggression 
> against modernity. When war has been declared on your person, 
> your continent, and your core values, you have but two 
> choices - you fight or you flee.

I thought we were talking about the war started by Bush, not the war started
by bin Laden.  But it doesn't matter because the principles are the same.
An evil party attacks an innocent party killing thousands of people with no
provocation in hopes of terrorizing them to such an extent that other
parties only vaguely related to the attacked party will be shocked and awed
into retreating.  Both of these actions failed and triggered a more
aggressive backlash than any conflicts that existed before.

> Is it extropic to fight?

It is extropic to defend, it is not extropic to attack.  
Defense is extropic, initiating force is not extropic.

> Is it extropic to flee? Where will you flee - Mars?

Depends on the situation.  I don't know of any suggestions to flee relating
to current wars, so I can't comment without details.

> >From the inside flap of _Onward Muslim Soldiers_ by Robert Spencer:

I think this author and you conflate bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and
Palestinians all into the same group.  I believe this is too simplistic and
will result in faulty intelligence.  You cannot expect bin Laden, Saddam
Hussein and Palestinians to believe the same things or act in the same ways.
They are radically different religious/political factions only vaguely
related under the banner of Islam.  Saddam was about as non-religious as you
could get and still claim to be Islamic, while bin Laden is about as
extremist fundamentalist as you could get and still claim to be Islamic.
The Palestinians seem to be more territorial than fundamentally religious in
their battles.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan 11 02:19:01 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 21:19:01 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
In-Reply-To: <020b01c3d7d8$cb4154b0$6501a8c0@int.veeco.com>
Message-ID: <004f01c3d7e9$49faa260$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Jef Allbright wrote,
> Stephen Karlsgodt wrote:
> > <http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/people/PVR/decon.html >

I would fire any engineer that wrote this article.  He makes fun of things
he doesn't understand and assumes that only his own field of endeavor is
worthwhile while other people's knowledge is fake.  He sounds more like the
pointy-haired boss in Dilbert rather than a real engineer.  

His ill-preparedness for the conference is a failing on his part, not the
other conference attendees.  His lack of understanding of even the basic
jargon of other speakers shows his illiteracy, not the illegitimacy of other
fields of study.  His approach to ridicule and belittle the others, even
when he couldn't understand what they were saying.

If you want me to deconstruct this "Deconstructing Deconstructionism", I
would question the authors racist motives for saying things like "you get
points for being French", and his homophobia of selecting homophobia as a
topic to make fun of, and his dislike of academia in general as a
sour-grapes attempt to dismiss what he couldn't understand.  As near as I
can tell, this engineer totally failed to prepare for the conference, be
effective at the conference, or even understand what was being discussed at
the conference.  His response was to make fun of the conference, dismiss it
as all useless anyway, and try to explain why his ignorance is superior to
anybody else's knowledge that he didn't understand.

This was really pathetic.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 






From dirk at neopax.com  Sun Jan 11 02:34:47 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 02:34:47 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
References: <004f01c3d7e9$49faa260$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <016101c3d7eb$7abe63d0$62256bd5@artemis>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 2:19 AM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....


> Jef Allbright wrote,
> > Stephen Karlsgodt wrote:
> > > <http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/people/PVR/decon.html >
>
> I would fire any engineer that wrote this article.  He makes fun of things
> he doesn't understand and assumes that only his own field of endeavor is
> worthwhile while other people's knowledge is fake.  He sounds more like
the
> pointy-haired boss in Dilbert rather than a real engineer.
...
> This was really pathetic.

And the classic 'Quantum Hermeneutics' paper?
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html


Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan 11 02:51:46 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 21:51:46 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] http://www.julianbarbour.com/
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040110115148.02075f90@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <005101c3d7ed$ddaf73b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

> At 12:56 AM 1/10/2004 -0800, Spike wrote:
> >What part of speech is "up"?  Does the preposition become
> >a verb?  If so, it represents yet an example of which I
> >can immediately think of only two, the other being the
> >curious catchphrase "the truth will out."

Up the volume.  (Increase the volume.)
Down a plane.  (Crash a plane.)
Out a homosexual.  (Expose a homosexual.)
Off a witness.  (Kill a witness.)
Except an item.  (Exclude an item.)

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sun Jan 11 02:55:39 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 18:55:39 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
In-Reply-To: <016101c3d7eb$7abe63d0$62256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <20040111025539.11458.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Dirk Bruere <dirk at neopax.com> wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com>
> To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 2:19 AM
> Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
> 
> 
> > Jef Allbright wrote,
> > > Stephen Karlsgodt wrote:
> > > > <http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/people/PVR/decon.html >
> >
> > I would fire any engineer that wrote this article.  He makes fun of
> > things he doesn't understand and assumes that only his own field of
> > endeavor is worthwhile while other people's knowledge is fake. 
> > He sounds more like the pointy-haired boss in Dilbert rather than
> > a real engineer.
> ...
> > This was really pathetic.
> 
> And the classic 'Quantum Hermeneutics' paper?
>
http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html

Just so. Sokal made a much better attempt at deconstructing
deconstructionism by his exposure of the utter hypocrisy of the editors
of the journal that published his paper. By their own postmodern rules,
that Sokal did not believe what he wrote should have had no bearing on
its legitimacy as literary criticism. Yet when they found out he didn't
mean it, that it was intended as a hoax, they got all pissed off, thus
proving that they still respect the objective truth of the
techno-intelligentsia.

Hoaxing a system that depends on trusting all players may not be
entirely kosher, but the fact that such a paper could make it through
peer review and be published demonstrates that what Sokal sought to
prove, (and what Karlsgodt sought as well) that the humanities are not
about expanding human knowledge, but in proving how smart and clever
you are.

What amazes me is that more mensan ENTJ types don't see this as a
challenge more often. Does the incomprehensibility of postmodern
humanities to the average geek prove that the geek isn't as smart as
s/he thinks s/he is?

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From thespike at earthlink.net  Sun Jan 11 03:04:45 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 21:04:45 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
References: <20040111025539.11458.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <01b001c3d7ef$ae0c40a0$81994a43@texas.net>


From: "Mike Lorrey" <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 8:55 PM

> the fact that such a paper could make it through
> peer review and be published demonstrates that what Sokal sought to
> prove

Lingua Franca was not a peer-reviewed journal.

Damien Broderick



From dirk at neopax.com  Sun Jan 11 03:11:29 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 03:11:29 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
References: <20040111025539.11458.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
	<01b001c3d7ef$ae0c40a0$81994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <016c01c3d7f0$9b40e470$62256bd5@artemis>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Damien Broderick" <thespike at earthlink.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 3:04 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....


>
> From: "Mike Lorrey" <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
> Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 8:55 PM
>
> > the fact that such a paper could make it through
> > peer review and be published demonstrates that what Sokal sought to
> > prove
>
> Lingua Franca was not a peer-reviewed journal.

Merely one run by people who fancied they could tell shit from gold - and
couldn't.
However, to be fair, postmodernism does tend to undermine its own authority.
Once one accepts that there is no 'true' definition of objective reality
what's left apart from power and games?

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From thespike at earthlink.net  Sun Jan 11 03:26:29 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 21:26:29 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] more concerning John C. Wright's trilogy
References: <20040111025539.11458.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com><01b001c3d7ef$ae0c40a0$81994a43@texas.net>
	<016c01c3d7f0$9b40e470$62256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <01d301c3d7f2$b7063280$81994a43@texas.net>

an interesting exchange between John Wright, a reviewer, and a blogger:

http://fantasticadaily.com/misc.php?fID=36



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan 11 03:45:50 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 22:45:50 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
In-Reply-To: <016101c3d7eb$7abe63d0$62256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <005201c3d7f5$6b8b0c60$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Dirk Bruere wrote,
> And the classic 'Quantum Hermeneutics' paper? 
>
<http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_single
file.html>

It proves that people can create hoaxes and fool other people into believing
they are real.  This isn't funny.  This is sad.

The hoaxer does make a few points at
<http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/noretta.html>:

1) Science is a human endeavor, and like any other human endeavor it merits
being subjected to rigorous social analysis. 

2) At a more subtle level, even the content of scientific debate -- what
types of theories can be conceived and entertained, what criteria are to be
used for deciding between competing theories -- is constrained in part by
the prevailing attitudes of mind, which in turn arise in part from
deep-seated historical factors. 

3) There is nothing wrong with research informed by a political commitment,
as long as that commitment does not blind the researcher to inconvenient
facts. 

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From eliasen at mindspring.com  Sun Jan 11 04:09:18 2004
From: eliasen at mindspring.com (Alan Eliasen)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 21:09:18 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
In-Reply-To: <004f01c3d7e9$49faa260$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
References: <004f01c3d7e9$49faa260$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <4000CC6E.4000104@mindspring.com>


Harvey Newstrom wrote:

> Jef Allbright wrote,
> 
>>Stephen Karlsgodt wrote:
>>
>>><http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/people/PVR/decon.html >
> 
> I would fire any engineer that wrote this article.  He makes fun of things
> he doesn't understand and assumes that only his own field of endeavor is
> worthwhile while other people's knowledge is fake.  He sounds more like the
> pointy-haired boss in Dilbert rather than a real engineer.  

   If you find yourself in such a position, please forward me the resume
of said fired engineer.  I would be more than happy to hire such a
pragmatic engineer who was clearly able to express himself clearly, with
a clear flair for language, and had such a wide-based interest in fields
outside of engineering that he reads the exchanges, attends the
seminars, is confident to present public talks, and attempts to
contribute to mass understanding of a rather interesting phenomenon.
Firing such people would seem to me to be, to put it gently,
counterproductive.

-- 
  Alan Eliasen                 | "You cannot reason a person out of a
  eliasen at mindspring.com       |  position he did not reason himself
  http://futureboy.homeip.net/ |  into in the first place."
                               |     --Jonathan Swift


From extropy at unreasonable.com  Sun Jan 11 05:09:21 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 00:09:21 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
In-Reply-To: <004f01c3d7e9$49faa260$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
References: <020b01c3d7d8$cb4154b0$6501a8c0@int.veeco.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040110232856.02227730@mail.comcast.net>

At 09:19 PM 1/10/2004 -0500, Harvey Newstrom wrote:

>I would question the authors racist motives for saying things like "you 
>get points for being French", and his homophobia of selecting homophobia 
>as a topic to make fun of

I don't see either of these. But I confess to blind spots in my competency 
at discerning subtext; you may well have spotted motives or attitudes I missed.

How would any possible slur of the French qualify as racist? Would it not 
be ethnocentric or misoxenic?

The only explicit slur is of saying that native French literary critics 
have a Zen obliqueness. He does say "you get points for being French." If a 
slur at all, it is a slur against the MLA academics, not the French.

After reading your assertion of his homophobia, I reread the relevant 
portions of his essay, substituting "Jewish" for "homosexual." I would not 
have taken offense at the so-altered text or considered it an example of 
anti-Semitism.

Of course, he could have avoided any question of motive with a blander 
alternative, such as "JFK was an alien" or "JFK was purple," but I think it 
was appropriate to use an topic that actually is contentious in current 
America.


-- David Lubkin.




From jonkc at att.net  Sun Jan 11 05:33:35 2004
From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 00:33:35 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Fermi Paradox and Simulation Argument
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401101330170.10907-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <003501c3d804$a9d84e60$94ff4d0c@hal2001>

"Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com>

>one plugs into the MBrain or uploads -- in which case the concept of "self"
>becomes very verydifferent.  The reason being that within a relatively
>short periodof time seems feasible for me to make all of my knowledge
>available >to you and you to make all of your knowledge available to me.

It's true that as communication continues to improve there will come a point
where it no longer makes sense to talk about separate minds, however this
process can not continue indefinably. The speed of light in not infinite and
that insures there will be many minds in the universe not just one.

>MBrains have 4 choices: (1) Harvest nearby brown dwarfs;
>(2) Harvest gas from molecular clouds; (3) Harvest nearby stars;
>(4) Decrease ones consumption of fuel by slowing down computational
>activity. 1-3 have problems because you will waste resources in
>transporting  the fuel back to your location.

You don't bring the fuel to you, rather you go to the fuel. And I'm
surprised to hear you talk about wasting resources with all those huge stars
in our present non engineered universe radiating vast amounts of delicious
juicy energy to empty space for no purpose.

> One might think seriously about  implementing (4)

That's equivalent to saying some super brains will decide to become more
stupid; well some may, but ever single one of them?

> It is questionable whether MBrains  would ever want to reproduce
> because offspring are potentially competitors

Maybe, and maybe when even super brains can't find a objective logical
reason why life is better than death they decide to kill themselves. Maybe,
but I doubt it.

> Curiosity.  MBrains can see pretty much anything going on in
> the galaxy or nearby galaxies.  What they cannot see they can
> probably simulate.

I once heard a detractor of string theory say it was philosophy not science
because to prove or disprove it you'd need a particle accelerator the size
of the galaxy. Well OK, let's build it.

> The key word in this sentence is "appear".

And the universe could not appear less engineered, certainly one hell of a
lot of energy is wasted and is not used to power brains.

>Milan Cirkovic has proposed the best computational location for
>MBrains is intergalactic space

I can't imagine a worse place to build super brains than intergalactic
space, there is about one hydrogen atom per cubic yard and energy
is equally dilute.

John K Clark     jonkc at att.net










From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan 11 05:41:04 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 00:41:04 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
In-Reply-To: <4000CC6E.4000104@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <005501c3d805$8444e6d0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Alan Eliasen wrote,
> Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> 
> > Jef Allbright wrote,
> > 
> >>Stephen Karlsgodt wrote:
> >>
> >>><http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/people/PVR/decon.html >
> > 
> > I would fire any engineer that wrote this article.  He makes fun of 
> > things he doesn't understand and assumes that only his own field of 
> > endeavor is worthwhile while other people's knowledge is fake.  He 
> > sounds more like the pointy-haired boss in Dilbert rather 
> than a real engineer.
> 
>    If you find yourself in such a position, please forward me 
> the resume of said fired engineer.  I would be more than 
> happy to hire such a pragmatic engineer who was clearly able 
> to express himself clearly, with a clear flair for language, 
> and had such a wide-based interest in fields outside of 
> engineering that he reads the exchanges, attends the 
> seminars, is confident to present public talks, and attempts 
> to contribute to mass understanding of a rather interesting 
> phenomenon. Firing such people would seem to me to be, to put 
> it gently, counterproductive.

Wow.  Did we read the same article?

This person that you think has interests in other fields attended a
conference that was "an aggressively interdisciplinary gathering, drawing
from fields as diverse as computer science, literary criticism, engineering,
history, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and political science" and
finds it incomprehensible, saying "The things they said were largely
incomprehensible."  This lead me to conclude that the author was not
interested or familiar with most of the fields he listed.

This person that you think was an accomplished speaker said, "we discovered
that we had grossly mischaracterized the audience by assuming that it would
be like the crowd from the first conference. I spent most of that first day
furiously scribbling notes."  This lead me to conclude that the author was
not prepared and was not confident of his own presentation.

The person you think expressed himself clearly with a flair for language
said, "We retreated back to Palo Alto that evening for a quick rewrite. The
first order of business was to excise various little bits of phraseology....
Then we set about attempting to add something that would be an adequate
response to the postmodern lit crit-speak we had been inundated with that
day. Since we had no idea what any of it meant (or even if it actually meant
anything at all), I simply cut-and-pasted from my notes."  This lead me to
conclude that the author was willing to present material he didn't
understand and fluff it up with buzzwords that he did not comprehend.

This person you believe to be a good source of information also said, "(I
once spoke with a Harvard professor who told me that it is quite easy to get
a Harvard undergraduate degree without ever once encountering a tenured
member of the faculty inside a classroom; I don't know if this is actually
true but it's a delightful piece of slander regardless)."  This lead me to
conclude that the author is willing to pass on information for its affect,
even if the truthfulness of the information is in doubt.

Most of the communication in this article seems to be insulting satire
rather than a serious observation.  For example, when he says, "You get
maximum style points for being French. Since most of us aren't French, we
don't qualify for this one, but we can still score almost as much by writing
in French or citing French sources. However, it is difficult for even the
most intense and unprincipled American academician writing in French to
match the zen obliqueness of a native French literary critic."  This lead me
to believe that the author likes to go off into satirical insults instead of
presenting a serious position.

And in conclusion, after a very lengthy attempt at persuasion, the author
finishes with a not-too-clear conclusion.  He says, "So, what are we to make
of all this? I earlier stated that my quest was to learn if there was any
content to this stuff and if it was or was not bogus. Well, my assessment is
that there is indeed some content, much of it interesting. The question of
bogosity, however, is a little more difficult."  This lead me to conclude
that the author merely wanted to express the various stories and insults and
satires, but that they did not add up to any specific conclusion one way or
the other.

I stand by my statement.  If I had an engineer working for me, and if I sent
him to a conference, and I got reports back that he:
1.  Totally mischaracterized the audience.
2.  Added major rewrites and new material to the presentation the night
before.
3.  Insulted other attendees or made fun of their serious presentations
during his presentation.
4.  Cut and pasted notes from other people's presentations into his own.
5.  Used buzzwords and phrases in his presentation even though he did not
know what they meant.
6.  Was invited to present a serious paper, but presented a comedy routine
or satire paper instead.
7.  Recounted a possibly slanderous anecdote and later admitting that he
didn't know if it were true or not.

I would indeed fire the engineer.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From thespike at earthlink.net  Sun Jan 11 06:39:53 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 00:39:53 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] `Cold virus kills skin cancer'
References: <005501c3d805$8444e6d0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <023c01c3d80d$bc2ac580$81994a43@texas.net>

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/07/1073268077576.html?from=storyrh
s

The virus that causes the common cold can kill skin cancer cells, NSW
researchers have discovered.

The University of Newcastle team describe their discovery as a breakthrough
in the treatment of malignant melanoma, Australia's fifth most common
cancer.

"The results we have had using human cells and also in animal studies have
been very exciting," lead scientist Professor Darren Shafren said.

"If we can replicate that success in human trials, the treatment of this
often fatal disease could be available within the next few years."

[...]
In human trials, the cold virus, the coxsackievirus, will be injected into
the site of the melanoma.

Once it starts to replicate itself, Prof Shafren said it is expected to
start killing off the melanoma.

Within weeks, the cancer should start shrinking and eventually disappear.
[etc]




From rafal at smigrodzki.org  Sun Jan 11 07:25:05 2004
From: rafal at smigrodzki.org (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 02:25:05 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
References: <005501c3d805$8444e6d0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <01a401c3d814$09db2c10$6501a8c0@dimension>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harvey Newstrom" <mail at HarveyNewstrom.com>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 12:41 AM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....


> Alan Eliasen wrote,
> > Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> >
> > > Jef Allbright wrote,
> > >
> > >>Stephen Karlsgodt wrote:
> > >>
> > >>><http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/people/PVR/decon.html >
> > >
> > > I would fire any engineer that wrote this article.  He makes fun of
> > > things he doesn't understand and assumes that only his own field of
> > > endeavor is worthwhile while other people's knowledge is fake.  He
> > > sounds more like the pointy-haired boss in Dilbert rather
> > than a real engineer.
> >
> >    If you find yourself in such a position, please forward me
> > the resume of said fired engineer.  I would be more than
> > happy to hire such a pragmatic engineer who was clearly able
> > to express himself clearly, with a clear flair for language,
> > and had such a wide-based interest in fields outside of
> > engineering that he reads the exchanges, attends the
> > seminars, is confident to present public talks, and attempts
> > to contribute to mass understanding of a rather interesting
> > phenomenon. Firing such people would seem to me to be, to put
> > it gently, counterproductive.
>
> Wow.  Did we read the same article?
>
> This person that you think has interests in other fields attended a
> conference that was "an aggressively interdisciplinary gathering, drawing
> from fields as diverse as computer science, literary criticism,
engineering,
> history, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and political science" and
> finds it incomprehensible, saying "The things they said were largely
> incomprehensible."  This lead me to conclude that the author was not
> interested or familiar with most of the fields he listed.

### Chip wrote in the third paragraph " The things they said were largely
incomprehensible. There was much talk about deconstruction and signifiers
and arguments about whether cyberspace was or was not "narrative". There was
much quotation from Baudrillard, Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard, Saussure, and the
like, every single word of which was impenetrable.". This clearly indicates
his lack of familiarity with contemporary literary criticism, which he
openly admits (an ignorance he felt spurred to correct), and not ignorance
of the fields you quote above. He also writes " I'd never before had the
experience of being quite this baffled by things other people were saying.
I've attended lectures on quantum physics, group theory, cardiology, and
contract law, all fields about which I know nothing and all of which have
their own specialized jargon and notational conventions. None of those
lectures were as opaque as anything these academics said. ", again
intimating that he does not have a reason to see himself as an all-around
ignoramus.

--------------------------------------
>
> This person that you think was an accomplished speaker said, "we
discovered
> that we had grossly mischaracterized the audience by assuming that it
would
> be like the crowd from the first conference. I spent most of that first
day
> furiously scribbling notes."  This lead me to conclude that the author was
> not prepared and was not confident of his own presentation.

### An unexpected appearance of strange guests at a conference can hardly be
seen as the fault of the speaker. At least as a result we get an
entertaining exposition of amusing and exasperating pseudointellectual
trends in some backwaters of the academia.
---------------------------------------
>
> The person you think expressed himself clearly with a flair for language
> said, "We retreated back to Palo Alto that evening for a quick rewrite.
The
> first order of business was to excise various little bits of
phraseology....
> Then we set about attempting to add something that would be an adequate
> response to the postmodern lit crit-speak we had been inundated with that
> day. Since we had no idea what any of it meant (or even if it actually
meant
> anything at all), I simply cut-and-pasted from my notes."  This lead me to
> conclude that the author was willing to present material he didn't
> understand and fluff it up with buzzwords that he did not comprehend.

### The first sentence of his presentation was a delightful joke, you know.

-------------------------------------
>
> This person you believe to be a good source of information also said, "(I
> once spoke with a Harvard professor who told me that it is quite easy to
get
> a Harvard undergraduate degree without ever once encountering a tenured
> member of the faculty inside a classroom; I don't know if this is actually
> true but it's a delightful piece of slander regardless)."  This lead me to
> conclude that the author is willing to pass on information for its affect,
> even if the truthfulness of the information is in doubt.

### This indicates that he has a sense of humor.

------------------------
>
> Most of the communication in this article seems to be insulting satire
> rather than a serious observation.  For example, when he says, "You get
> maximum style points for being French. Since most of us aren't French, we
> don't qualify for this one, but we can still score almost as much by
writing
> in French or citing French sources. However, it is difficult for even the
> most intense and unprincipled American academician writing in French to
> match the zen obliqueness of a native French literary critic."  This lead
me
> to believe that the author likes to go off into satirical insults instead
of
> presenting a serious position.

### How can a serious person be serious about Derrida?

---------------------------------------
>
> And in conclusion, after a very lengthy attempt at persuasion, the author
> finishes with a not-too-clear conclusion.  He says, "So, what are we to
make
> of all this? I earlier stated that my quest was to learn if there was any
> content to this stuff and if it was or was not bogus. Well, my assessment
is
> that there is indeed some content, much of it interesting. The question of
> bogosity, however, is a little more difficult."  This lead me to conclude
> that the author merely wanted to express the various stories and insults
and
> satires, but that they did not add up to any specific conclusion one way
or
> the other.

### His conclusions are clear, and entirely in agreement with my own amateur
opinions of the field.

---------------------------------

>
> I stand by my statement.  If I had an engineer working for me, and if I
sent
> him to a conference, and I got reports back that he:
> 1.  Totally mischaracterized the audience.
> 2.  Added major rewrites and new material to the presentation the night
> before.
> 3.  Insulted other attendees or made fun of their serious presentations
> during his presentation.
> 4.  Cut and pasted notes from other people's presentations into his own.
> 5.  Used buzzwords and phrases in his presentation even though he did not
> know what they meant.
> 6.  Was invited to present a serious paper, but presented a comedy routine
> or satire paper instead.
> 7.  Recounted a possibly slanderous anecdote and later admitting that he
> didn't know if it were true or not.
>
> I would indeed fire the engineer.

### I would fire an engineer incapable of parsing Morningstar's satire from
his more serious content, but of course, to each employer his own.

Rafal



From spike66 at comcast.net  Sun Jan 11 07:52:32 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 23:52:32 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] i-language again
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040110115148.02075f90@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <001801c3d817$e173b590$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

:
> David Lubkin...
>My favorite deskside dictionary (Random House College), by the way, 
>considers "up" to be an adverb, preposition, adjective, noun, and verb 
>(both transitive and intransitive). "Out " is cited as all those plus 
>interjection. -- David Lubkin.


Well done!  

Nowthen, at the risk of boring my fellow extropes, do allow
me to propose a variation on a theme on which I have posted 
in the past.

I propose an international language of sorts, or rather an
international language structure.  This language would be
different in each nation, for each speaker would insert 
her own words into a standardized structure.  A standard
list of nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc would be derived.
Then any speaker of any language would assign words from
her own language to correspond with each word in the list.
Then any language could be very simply translated into
any other.  Even an intelligent computer could grok.

However:

The ambiguity, subtlety and beauty of language expressed
would disappear, if ideas were to be expressed in this
international form.  So this international form would not
be used in poetry or in the seduction of one's mate, but
rather for internation transactions and science only.

Then one might, with some difficulty, understand and
express oneself in this de-ambiguouized language without 
having to memorize a long list of new words.  If this
idea is carried out correctly, a passage could be
translated from I-english, into I-French, into I-German
into I-TannuTuvan into I-english and the original 
passage would be identical to the original.

spike  



From rafal at smigrodzki.org  Sun Jan 11 08:16:26 2004
From: rafal at smigrodzki.org (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 03:16:26 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence
References: <200312060543.hB65hqM30870@finney.org><004601c3bcea$26086780$6501a8c0@dimension><007e01c3bcf1$10b36b80$6501a8c0@dimension>
	<2751.213.112.90.167.1073701863.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <01c801c3d81b$3660b550$6501a8c0@dimension>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Anders Sandberg" <asa at nada.kth.se>

> I was a bit surprised by the length of the historical eras (there is an
> appendix describing much of the setting, although not in excessive
> detail); I had the feeling the setting was maybe just a few tens of
> thousands of years in the future, but it appears to be nearly half a
> million years ahead.

### Yes, this is the implausible part of the story - I hope to upload to a
Phoenix of my own in no more than three-four hundred years :-)
--------------------------------

>
> > The one issue I don't understand are the IP laws in the Golden Ecumene -
> > are
> > they statutory or merely contractual? If statutory, why are they
> > (apparently) time-unlimited, which might result in inefficiencies (and
> > Wright doesn't say how inefficiencies are avoided), and if they are
> > contractual, how do they become universally enforced?
>
> Could it be a mechanism similar to the Hortators, but so low-level that
> people no longer took notice? Imagine an opt-in economic system where you
> contractually agree to accept the IP of others and the penalty of breaking
> it is expulsion. AI maintains the actual fund transfer, control of who
> owns what IP and so on, so participants do not have to care much about the
> details. This system becomes just as popular as the Hortators, in fact
> even more popular: the benefits of joining are so great that everybody and
> everything joins it, and hence breaking the IP becomes just as bad as a
> total Hortator ban. Most likely people get various kinds of insurance and
> insulation from this risk, making it less likely to happen by accident.
> Over time this system becomes so ubiquitious that it is viewed as the
> natural way things are.
>
### Yes, but the Parliament seems to tasked with setting the limits of IP
(according to the appendix). I'll write the master himself, and if he
answers, I'll forward it here.

--------------------------------------

> I'm thinking about modelling hortator-like structures in Axelrod's Norm
> Game. So far there seems to be some interesting effects due to the
> topology of the social networks.

### Tell us more. I found the idea of Hortation (maintenance of second-order
public goods by the threat of ostracism) to be exceedingly interesting, even
though I wasn't unfamiliar with some historical precedents. I would think
that a graded form of ostracism (e.g. quoting higher prices to customers
undergoing censure, in collusion with other private providers) would be even
more efficient, while less harsh. Wright's books opened my eyes in this
respect.

Rafal



From gpmap at runbox.com  Sun Jan 11 08:55:29 2004
From: gpmap at runbox.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 09:55:29 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] `Cold virus kills skin cancer'
In-Reply-To: <023c01c3d80d$bc2ac580$81994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGOEKCCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>

There have been many recent research findings on using viruses for the
treatment of cancer. This is especially interesting because the treatment is
based on a naturally occurring virus rather than an engineered one. So
perhaps there is a naturally evolved mechanism to keep cancer in check.
Perhaps one of the causes of the rise of cancer cases in the second half of
the 20th century is that the progress of medicine has made the work of
cancer killing viruses more difficult.

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Damien
Broderick
Sent: domingo, 11 de enero de 2004 7:40
To: ExI chat list
Subject: [extropy-chat] `Cold virus kills skin cancer'


http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/07/1073268077576.html?from=storyrh
s

The virus that causes the common cold can kill skin cancer cells, NSW
researchers have discovered.

The University of Newcastle team describe their discovery as a breakthrough
in the treatment of malignant melanoma, Australia's fifth most common
cancer.

"The results we have had using human cells and also in animal studies have
been very exciting," lead scientist Professor Darren Shafren said.

"If we can replicate that success in human trials, the treatment of this
often fatal disease could be available within the next few years."

[...]
In human trials, the cold virus, the coxsackievirus, will be injected into
the site of the melanoma.

Once it starts to replicate itself, Prof Shafren said it is expected to
start killing off the melanoma.

Within weeks, the cancer should start shrinking and eventually disappear.
[etc]


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From asa at nada.kth.se  Sun Jan 11 09:31:41 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 10:31:41 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Golden Transcendence
In-Reply-To: <01c801c3d81b$3660b550$6501a8c0@dimension>
References: <200312060543.hB65hqM30870@finney.org><004601c3bcea$26086780$6501a8c0@dimension><007e01c3bcf1$10b36b80$6501a8c0@dimension><2751.213.112.90.167.1073701863.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
	<01c801c3d81b$3660b550$6501a8c0@dimension>
Message-ID: <1234.213.112.90.122.1073813501.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>


Rafal Smigrodzki said:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Anders Sandberg" <asa at nada.kth.se>
>
>> I was a bit surprised by the length of the historical eras (there is an
>> appendix describing much of the setting, although not in excessive
>> detail); I had the feeling the setting was maybe just a few tens of
>> thousands of years in the future, but it appears to be nearly half a
>> million years ahead.
>
> ### Yes, this is the implausible part of the story - I hope to upload to a
> Phoenix of my own in no more than three-four hundred years :-)

Implausible? You mean against the grain of our timescale guesses? Wright
seems to take a more Stapledonian than Vingean perspective on speed of
development (which I also find somewhat unlikely, but we shouldn't assume
everything will progress according to a simple positive feedback loop).

>> I'm thinking about modelling hortator-like structures in Axelrod's Norm
>> Game. So far there seems to be some interesting effects due to the
>> topology of the social networks.
>
> ### Tell us more. I found the idea of Hortation (maintenance of
> second-order
> public goods by the threat of ostracism) to be exceedingly interesting,
> even
> though I wasn't unfamiliar with some historical precedents. I would think
> that a graded form of ostracism (e.g. quoting higher prices to customers
> undergoing censure, in collusion with other private providers) would be
> even
> more efficient, while less harsh. Wright's books opened my eyes in this
> respect.

I have put down some of my thoughts and results at
http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2004/01/norms_and_hortators_in_small_worlds.html
but it is still somewhat random. I have not yet undertaken a systematic
simulation study, more like doing a parameter safari looking at what
happens when I change parts of the model.

-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From gpmap at runbox.com  Sun Jan 11 10:51:19 2004
From: gpmap at runbox.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:51:19 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
Message-ID: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGCEKDCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>

There is an interesting discussion on Kuro5hin on how to achieve peaceful
coexistence between two opposite concepts in religious thinking: the
omniscience of God and the free will of Man. Is it possible to have a
universe sporting free-will and a God? The theological discussion is mixed
with ideas taken from interpretations of the foundations of quantum physics:
"Suppose that God plays the role of the scientist and we play the role of
Schrodinger's cat. Once God opens the box and peers into our future, He
fixes the reality. Therefore, He chooses to view time and events linearly
along with us, to grant us free-will", and the concept of God existing
outside of time is mentioned by several posters.
I wish to contribute to the discussion without mentioning God, as "Is it
possible to have a deterministic universe sporting free-will?" (by
deterministic universe I mean one where the future is uniquely determined by
the past). Our universe is deterministic only if we accept some form of the
Everett interpretation of quantum physics. Otherwise, there is some kind of
magic effect that kills off all possible outcomes of the current state of
the universe, except one selected randomly, as soon as an act of observation
by a conscious observer takes place. So if we choose another interpretation
of the foundations of physics, we can hold the concept of free will in the
universe.
If we choose the Everett interpretation, the state of the universe (reality)
evolves without random effects, but our consciousness only perceives a
specific projection of the state of the universe (our reality), which by
itself does not contain any information or laws that could permit predicting
deterministically its evolution in time. In this case, there is a Platonic
metareality that we do not perceive, but we can hold the concept of free
will within the universe that we perceive.
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From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan 11 10:59:36 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 05:59:36 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
In-Reply-To: <01a401c3d814$09db2c10$6501a8c0@dimension>
Message-ID: <006101c3d832$07175580$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Rafal Smigrodzki wrote,
> I'd never before had the experience of being quite this 
> baffled by things other people were saying. I've attended 
> lectures on quantum physics, group theory, cardiology, and 
> contract law, all fields about which I know nothing and all 
> of which have their own specialized jargon and notational 
> conventions. None of those lectures were as opaque as 
> anything these academics said. ", again intimating that he 
> does not have a reason to see himself as an all-around ignoramus.

This doesn't make sense.  You think all the speakers were bogus and
off-topic, and the only person on-topic was the author?

> > This person that you think was an accomplished speaker said, "we
> > discovered that we had grossly mischaracterized the audience by 
> > assuming that it would be like the crowd from the first
> > conference. I spent most of that first day furiously scribbling
> > notes."  This lead me to conclude that the author was 
> > not prepared and was not confident of his own presentation.
> 
> ### An unexpected appearance of strange guests at a 
> conference can hardly be seen as the fault of the speaker.

This doesn't make sense.  You think that the entire conference was filled
with bogus guests and no real engineers showed up except for the author?

> ### The first sentence of his presentation was a delightful 
> joke, you know.

So?

> > I don't know if this is actually true but it's a delightful
> > piece of slander regardless
> 
> ### This indicates that he has a sense of humor.

This indicates that he will publicly relay stories without caring if they
are true or not.

> > And in conclusion, after a very lengthy attempt at persuasion, the 
> > author finishes with a not-too-clear conclusion.  He says, 
> > "So, what are we to make of all this? I earlier stated that
> > my quest was to learn if there was any content to this stuff
> > and if it was or was not bogus. Well, my assessment is
> > that there is indeed some content, much of it interesting. The 
> > question of bogosity, however, is a little more difficult." 
> 
> ### His conclusions are clear, and entirely in agreement with 
> my own amateur opinions of the field.

This is clear conclusion?  The question of bogosity is difficult?  OK....

> ### I would fire an engineer incapable of parsing 
> Morningstar's satire from his more serious content, but of 
> course, to each employer his own.

Apparently.  Anybody who gives satire in response to a serious engineering
assignment, or gives a comedy sketch at a conference that invited him to
give a serious speech, isn't the kind of engineer I would like to work with.
I know you value a sense of humor, but turning everything into a joke, or
being the class clown while everybody else is trying to do serious work, is
not a helpful attribute.  

I have no objection to his satirical article (wherever it was published).
My objection was to his behavior at the conference or his methods used to
produce his content.  He literally plagiarized other people's words,
presented possibly slanderous statements without checking their accuracy,
and attacked and made fun of the conference that had invited him to speak.
This is not the kind of guy you want representing your company at events.  I
certainly don't want this guy doing this at future cyberspace conferences.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From asa at nada.kth.se  Sun Jan 11 13:24:42 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 14:24:42 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
In-Reply-To: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGCEKDCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>
References: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGCEKDCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>
Message-ID: <1142.213.112.90.66.1073827482.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>


Giu1i0 Pri5c0 said:
> I wish to contribute to the discussion without mentioning God, as "Is it
> possible to have a deterministic universe sporting free-will?" (by
> deterministic universe I mean one where the future is uniquely determined
> by the past).

Have you looked at Daniel C. Dennett's _Freedom Evolves_
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0670031860/002-3149024-8068866?v=glance)

My personal view is that it is a red herring altogether to worry about the
microphysics when discussing free will. Free will is something we observe
on the macroscale as people make free choices, and even if all quantum
randomness came from a deterministic look-up table we would not see a
difference. Besides, indeterminacy is no real friend of freedom either.

> Our universe is deterministic only if we accept some form of
> the
> Everett interpretation of quantum physics. Otherwise, there is some kind
> of
> magic effect that kills off all possible outcomes of the current state of
> the universe, except one selected randomly, as soon as an act of
> observation
> by a conscious observer takes place.

That is *one* interpretation of the Copenhagen interpretation. Notice that
in the original phrasing it did not involve (to my knowledge) any
reference to a conscious observer, just an observer. It could just as well
be a human observer, a male observer or something else, but the idea that
consciousness somehow has something to do with quantum mechanics is
extremely popular with some people.

I think today people prefer to speak about decoherence, the effect of
coupling a quantum mechanical system with a large environment, rather than
some kind of observer-induced collapse.

> If we choose the Everett interpretation, the state of the universe
> (reality)
> evolves without random effects, but our consciousness only perceives a
> specific projection of the state of the universe (our reality), which by
> itself does not contain any information or laws that could permit
> predicting
> deterministically its evolution in time. In this case, there is a Platonic
> metareality that we do not perceive, but we can hold the concept of free
> will within the universe that we perceive.

A bit like the algorithmic complexity of a number, which in general is of
the same size as the number of bits in it, but the algorithmic complexity
of the set of all numbers is much smaller (just the length of the shortest
program that prints them all).

Notice that other kinds of parallel worlds (Tegmarks levels, including
being distributed far away in an spatially infinite universe, other
inflation bubbles and other kinds of universes, plus of course the
simulation argument's simulations) also could act as the platonic
metareality here.

-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From asa at nada.kth.se  Sun Jan 11 13:39:31 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 14:39:31 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
In-Reply-To: <01b001c3d7ef$ae0c40a0$81994a43@texas.net>
References: <20040111025539.11458.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
	<01b001c3d7ef$ae0c40a0$81994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <1222.213.112.90.66.1073828371.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>


Damien Broderick said:
>
> From: "Mike Lorrey" <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
> Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 8:55 PM
>
>> the fact that such a paper could make it through
>> peer review and be published demonstrates that what Sokal sought to
>> prove
>
> Lingua Franca was not a peer-reviewed journal.

Just to be a hopeless nitpicker, it was published originally in Social
Text. ST seems to have an editorial board rather than anonymous referees,
but the intention seems similar to normal peer review.

Unlike Harvey I think that hoaxes like Sokal's are not just fun, but also
healthy. There have been many others like him, such as various computer
science papers generated with Markov chains sent to conferences and ending
up in proceedings, and of course the Bogdanoff brothers
(http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2002-10/msg0045263.html) apparently
getting a Ph.D. and publishing peer reviewed papers with nonsense
theoretical physics. This a good thing, because the laughter and derision
afterwards help point out flaws in the peer review system or other forms
of quality control. It is also better with deliberately bad papers, since
inevitably the creator will point them out, unlike "accidentally" bad
papers where the author won't tell anybody that he cheated, made things up
or didn't know what he was talking about. We need the first kind as a kind
of vaccination against the second kind.

While I'm still (unusually :-) disagreeing with Harvey, I think the little
"expose" of the deconstructionists was a good writeup. It had a clear and
important theory about how a field may drift away from reality and it was
an entertaining read. Now, it was also an attack on the deconstructionists
and their way of arguing; the proper response from them would be to try to
explain how the paper was wrong or what areas of deconstruction actually
do something useful. It is just like a science paper cheerfully
demonstrating that theory X implies a set of absurd consequences. Part of
the intention (or at least the usual effect) is to draw out the defenders
of theory X to show that these consequences do happen, or that the paper
reaches the wrong conclusions.

-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From asa at nada.kth.se  Sun Jan 11 14:13:37 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 15:13:37 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
In-Reply-To: <1222.213.112.90.66.1073828371.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
References: <20040111025539.11458.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com><01b001c3d7ef$ae0c40a0$81994a43@texas.net>
	<1222.213.112.90.66.1073828371.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <1261.213.112.90.66.1073830417.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>

Just another paper about hoax papers that I found absolutely delicious:
The Cartesian Conspiracy: How to do Post-Modernism With Marquis de Sade
http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/~jdouglas/S03finart9.pdf

It is an attempt to explore hoaxing a bit more carefully than just sending
off one hoax that a critic might claim actually is a reasoned paper the
author doesn't dare stand for. In this case the author replaced words in
de Sade with words from postmodern giants (sodomy becomes theory, murderer
becomes descriptive constructivist) and produced a number of nonsense
papers. They were submitted to a number of journals, and four out of ten
were accepted despite peer review. None were rejected for
incomprehensibility.

The really interesting part is the discussion, where the author points out
that from an analytical perspective this is of course a sign of bad
scholarship from the journals, but from the Continental side it might
actually be OK:

"These distinctions between analytic and Continental ideals are crucial to
the interpretation of this experiment, since the Continental position
would possibly regard the nonsensical articles as being no less valuable
than genuinely authored scholarship. For, if the value of scholarship
rests in its ability to communicate meaning to its reader (and this
meaning being unfixed, interactively determined by author and reader),
then nonsensical discourse may be considered valuable so long as its
reader finds it to be sensible."

For people coming to the issue from the hard sciences this makes little
sense, since we are very much based in a realist enlightenment tradition.
But that does not mean the other approach is invalid, it is just invalid
if the message is supposed to bear any relationship with the world. If
that relationship is instead provided by the interpretative process of the
reader's mind it can indeed lead to fruitful ideas and actions in the real
world. However, as the author points out, if we are to accept this as
scholarship then the humanities are seriously threatened:

"In an age where nonsense is identical to scholarship, text-generating
computers such as the Dada Engine are no less useful than postmodern
scholars, and the necessity of the latter becomes difficult to
substantiate."

-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com  Sun Jan 11 14:32:17 2004
From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 06:32:17 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] NATURE: Nanoparticles enter the brain
Message-ID: <20040111143217.39129.qmail@web41303.mail.yahoo.com>

http://www.nature.com/nsu/040105/040105-9.html
 
Nanoparticles in the brainTiny particles enter the brain after being inhaled. 
9 January 2004 
JIM GILES 

Brain cells that pick up smell can carry nanoparticles inside.? SPL

Nanoparticles - tiny lumps of matter that could one day to be used to build faster computer circuits and improve drug delivery systems - can travel to the brain after being inhaled, according to researchers from the United States1. 

The finding sounds a cautionary note for advocates of nanotechnology, but may also lead to a fuller understanding of the health effects of the nanosized particles produced by diesel engines.

G?nter Oberd?rster of the University of Rochester in New York and colleagues tracked the progress of carbon particles that were only 35 nanometres in diameter and had been inhaled by rats. In the olfactory bulb - an area of the brain that deals with smell - nanoparticles were detected a day after inhalation, and levels continued to rise until the experiment ended after seven days.

"These are the first data to show this," says Ken Donaldson, a toxicologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK. "I would never have thought of looking for inhaled nanoparticles in the brain."

Substances such as drugs can cross from the brain into the blood, but Oberd?rster believes that the carbon nanoparticles enter the brain by moving down the brain cells that pick up odours and transmit signals to the olfactory bulb. He says that unpublished work, in which his group blocked one of the rats' nostrils and tracked which side of the brain the nanoparticles reached, appears to confirm this.

Little is known about what effect nanoparticles will have when they reach the brain. The toxicity of the nanoparticles that are currently being used to build prototype nanosized electronic circuits - such as carbon nanotubes, which are produced in labs around the world - has not been thoroughly assessed. 

But Donaldson says that there is a growing feeling that other nanoparticles, such as those produced by diesel exhausts, may be damaging to some parts of our body. He estimates that people in cities take in about 25 million nanoparticles with every breath. These particles are believed to increase respiratory and cardiac problems, probably by triggering an inflammatory reaction in the lungs.

Oberd?rster's unpublished work includes evidence that some nanoparticles may trigger a similar inflammatory reaction in the brains of rats. 
References

   Oberd?rster, G. et al. Translocation of inhaled ultrafine particles to the brain. Inhalation Toxicology, (in press, 2004). |Homepage| 




La vie est belle!

Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) 

Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra


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From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sun Jan 11 14:41:23 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 06:41:23 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040110232856.02227730@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <20040111144123.4169.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>


--- David Lubkin <extropy at unreasonable.com> wrote:
> At 09:19 PM 1/10/2004 -0500, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> 
> >I would question the authors racist motives for saying things like
> "you 
> >get points for being French", and his homophobia of selecting
> homophobia 
> >as a topic to make fun of
> 
> I don't see either of these. But I confess to blind spots in my
> competency 
> at discerning subtext; you may well have spotted motives or attitudes
> I missed.

Methinks that Harvey is subconciously deconstructing the author.

The mentioned quote is not about racism, it is about elitism. People
with foreign accents in the US automatically get extra credibility
points with the left and the arts and sciences. Its not a matter of
those who comment on it being racist, it is an elitist sort of racism
on the part of the people who give such unearned credit to people for
their foreign accent, which may or may not be real.

A classical example in SF is, for example, the character of the
Merovingian in The Matrix: Reloaded. He is a program. He is not French,
but he adorse the French, speaks french natively, and is the most
snotty and elitist bastard in the whole Matrix, though in a laughably
nice way as opposed to Agent Smith.

The Merovingian goes on about how Neo needs to know WHY he needs the
keymaker, and not why as in the why that the 'fortune teller' told him
why, but his own 'why', blathering on about cause and effect and power,
etc. The Merovingian is a character that would make postmodernists
swoon with adoration (men and women). He is the penultimate of their
visions of deconstructive cleverness.

Are the Wachowski brothers racists for portraying the Merovingian in an
unfavorable light?



=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
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Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From asa at nada.kth.se  Sun Jan 11 15:26:51 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 16:26:51 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
In-Reply-To: <20040111144123.4169.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20040110232856.02227730@mail.comcast.net>
	<20040111144123.4169.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1551.213.112.90.66.1073834811.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>


Mike Lorrey said:
> Are the Wachowski brothers racists for portraying the Merovingian in an
> unfavorable light?

No they, they were racist because they portrayed sentient software in an
unfavorable light. :-) At least until the third movie, when they actually
turned on the software schmaltz with the cute little girl program. Not to
mention Neo as St. Francis preaching to the animats in the Machine City.

-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sun Jan 11 16:53:46 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 08:53:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] IP: "So five minutes ago" stolen
Message-ID: <20040111165346.25987.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>

I just saw a banner ad for the Washington Post featuring the quote
"That PDA is SO five minutes ago", a term coined by a list member here
a few years ago (around the time of Extro5 or the 2001 Foresight Conference).

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sun Jan 11 17:02:46 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 09:02:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Fermi Paradox and Simulation Argument
In-Reply-To: <003501c3d804$a9d84e60$94ff4d0c@hal2001>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401110852410.9473-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Sun, 11 Jan 2004, John K Clark wrote:

> You don't bring the fuel to you, rather you go to the fuel. And I'm
> surprised to hear you talk about wasting resources with all those huge stars
> in our present non engineered universe radiating vast amounts of delicious
> juicy energy to empty space for no purpose.

Well if they weren't out there we would certainly have a lot
less to inspire us... :-;

Re: the thought suspension option
> That's equivalent to saying some super brains will decide to become more
> stupid; well some may, but ever single one of them?

I'm not so sure -- do you want to waste energy and mass accelerating
up to some speed to get to a new fuel source faster or do you want
to simply use your fuel sources on a budgeted basis and allow new
resources to come to you due to natural processes (galactic collisions,
supernova explosions, etc.)?

> Maybe, and maybe when even super brains can't find a objective logical
> reason why life is better than death they decide to kill themselves. Maybe,
> but I doubt it.

I'm relatively concerned about MBrains and advanced civilizations hitting
the wall -- they understand all known science and determine some things
(tunneling into new universes, stopping the decay of protons, actually
testing string theory, etc.) may simply be impossible.

> I once heard a detractor of string theory say it was philosophy not science
> because to prove or disprove it you'd need a particle accelerator the size
> of the galaxy. Well OK, let's build it.

The NOVA special on string theory and branes suggested that it couldn't
be proven period.  (Now how self-limiting they were being I'm not sure.)

> I can't imagine a worse place to build super brains than intergalactic
> space, there is about one hydrogen atom per cubic yard and energy
> is equally dilute.

You don't build them there -- you migrate them there.  You probably
put them on long comet-like orbits where you spend much of your time
in intergalactic space away from galactic hazards and then come back
from time to time to refuel the hydrogen tanks and grab any useful
matter you require.  Actually since they are gaining matter instead
of losing it you might want to call it an anti-comet orbit.

Robert




From dgc at cox.net  Sun Jan 11 17:33:35 2004
From: dgc at cox.net (Dan Clemmensen)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 12:33:35 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Up as a verb
In-Reply-To: <000201c3d757$a18dfeb0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
References: <000201c3d757$a18dfeb0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <400188EF.9030508@cox.net>

Spike wrote:

>>Damien Broderick
>>
>>... hoisting me on my own recent petard...
>>    
>>
>
>Ah yes, the Shakespearean SF author among us can perhaps
>shed light upon this comment:
>
>...
>
>Still, this shows that it doesn't pay to up and leave...
>
>Damien Broderick
>
>
>What part of speech is "up"?  Does the preposition become
>a verb?  If so, it represents yet an example of which I
>can immediately think of only two, the other being the
>curious catchphrase "the truth will out."  What is that?
>Does "out" become a verb?  For otherwise that sentence
>has no verb, or as some jokers might say 
>
>
>  
>
Like a great many words and phrases, the use of "up" as a verb is a
nautical term. Two examples:
    Up anchor!
and
    Up spirits!

I think "up and leave" comes from the fact that "anchor" is implied when
there is no stated object.

(Of course, I could be completely wrong. I am currently reading Partick 
O'Brien's
entire Audry/Maturin series, and is may be affecting my etymological 
judgement.)



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sun Jan 11 17:43:20 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 09:43:20 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Up as a verb
In-Reply-To: <400188EF.9030508@cox.net>
Message-ID: <20040111174320.58000.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Dan Clemmensen <dgc at cox.net> wrote:
> 
> I think "up and leave" comes from the fact that "anchor" is implied
> when there is no stated object.

"Pack up your stuff and leave." "Up and leave" is a contraction of such
a statement.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sun Jan 11 17:47:38 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 09:47:38 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
In-Reply-To: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGCEKDCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>
Message-ID: <20040111174738.10958.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Giu1i0 Pri5c0 <gpmap at runbox.com> wrote:
> There is an interesting discussion on Kuro5hin on how to achieve
> peaceful
> coexistence between two opposite concepts in religious thinking: the
> omniscience of God and the free will of Man. Is it possible to have a
> universe sporting free-will and a God? 

This is a natural result of the universe being a simulation run as a
quantum computational process. The Uberhacker can't view it in process,
but can examine the result from start to finish (alpha and omega). Can
the Uberhacker hack the universe? Depends on its ability to kludge
together alternate timeline segments.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From jcorb at iol.ie  Sun Jan 11 18:02:32 2004
From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 18:02:32 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news 
Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20040111144615.03043010@pop.iol.ie>


>Message: 3
>Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 19:58:51 -0800 (PST)
> >From: Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
>Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Moon news
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Message-ID: <20040110035851.53386.qmail at web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>--- J Corbally <jcorb at iol.ie> wrote:
> > Such a decision by NASA be a boon to other agencies like ESA. They
> > can then push for funding to do the missions NASA would no longer be
> > interested
> > in. Perhaps a lot less duplication of effort, and more cross-agency
> > collaborations eg. ESA and China or India.
> >
> > Then there's the scenario of having NASA run a moonbase on which a
> > high tech lab can study samples dropped off by various unmanned ESA
> > probes "patrolling" the galaxy. Who knows, with a moon refinery and
> > foundry, maybe it'll be Europe who mines the asteroid belt :)
>Wouldn't that conflict with the EU mining workers unions?

Then they adapt or perish.

James...

>=====
>Mike Lorrey
>"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
>- Gen. John Stark
>"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
>- Mike Lorrey
>Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
>Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com
>__________________________________




From extropy at unreasonable.com  Sun Jan 11 18:01:52 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 13:01:52 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
In-Reply-To: <1222.213.112.90.66.1073828371.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se
 >
References: <01b001c3d7ef$ae0c40a0$81994a43@texas.net>
	<20040111025539.11458.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
	<01b001c3d7ef$ae0c40a0$81994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040111105926.02c5cbf0@mail.comcast.net>

At 02:39 PM 1/11/2004 +0100, Anders Sandberg wrote:

>Unlike Harvey I think that hoaxes like Sokal's are not just fun, but also
>healthy. ... This a good thing, because the laughter and derision
>afterwards help point out flaws in the peer review system or other forms
>of quality control. It is also better with deliberately bad papers, since
>inevitably the creator will point them out, unlike "accidentally" bad
>papers where the author won't tell anybody that he cheated, made things up
>or didn't know what he was talking about. We need the first kind as a kind
>of vaccination against the second kind.

Sokal is an example of a general phenomenon whose ethics and legality we 
grapple with -- fraud perpetrated for the greater good. Often, fraud for 
the sake of truth.

Periodically, someone will send around a (manu)script as their own that was 
actually written by a literary great, in order to collect rejection letters 
to prove the decline and imbecility of publishing or Hollywood.

In the software industry, good engineers are often faced with stated job 
requirements that they don't meet but that aren't actually needed for the 
job. They exaggerate their experience to get the job, believing they know 
better than the HR department or hiring manager.

Reporters go undercover and use hidden cameras for exposes, submitting 
fraudulent employment applications and violating the confidentiality 
agreements they signed with their sham employment, nominally for the sake 
of the public.

Police go undercover as well, but also set up 'sting' operations. These are 
often accused of enticing their subjects into committing crimes they would 
not have absent the police initiation.

Policy advocates and politicians lie or distort (or withhold) evidence for 
the good of their cause.

Which of these are violations of the NCP?  Is "preemptive fraud" any 
different than preemptive force?


-- David Lubkin.




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sun Jan 11 18:04:11 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 10:04:11 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040111105926.02c5cbf0@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <20040111180411.48169.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>


--- David Lubkin <extropy at unreasonable.com> wrote:
> 
> Which of these are violations of the NCP?  Is "preemptive fraud" any 
> different than preemptive force?

If an ignorant HR weenie publishes job requirements that are fraudlent,
how is responding with a fraudulent resume an initiation of force?

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From extropy at unreasonable.com  Sun Jan 11 18:16:34 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 13:16:34 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] i-language again
In-Reply-To: <001801c3d817$e173b590$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20040110115148.02075f90@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040111130500.01c77bb8@mail.comcast.net>

At 11:52 PM 1/10/2004 -0800, Spike wrote:

>I propose an international language of sorts, or rather an
>international language structure.  This language would be
>different in each nation, for each speaker would insert
>her own words into a standardized structure.  A standard
>list of nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc would be derived.
>Then any speaker of any language would assign words from
>her own language to correspond with each word in the list.
>Then any language could be very simply translated into
>any other.  Even an intelligent computer could grok.

This is being worked on already. People are building public domain and 
private directories of word senses, and mapping them between languages. The 
best known effort is probably Global WordNet, at

         http://www.globalwordnet.org/

An English chunk of this is WordNet, at

         http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn/

>Overview for "spike"
>
>The noun "spike" has 9 senses in WordNet.
>
>1. spike -- (a transient variation in voltage or current)
>2. spike -- (sports equipment consisting of a sharp point on the sole of a 
>shoe worn by athletes; "spikes provide greater traction")
>3. ear, spike, capitulum -- (fruiting spike of a cereal plant especially corn)
>4. spike -- ((botany) an indeterminate inflorescence bearing sessile 
>flowers on an unbranched axis)
>5. spike -- (a sharp rise followed by a sharp decline; "the seismograph 
>showed a sharp spike in response to the temblor")
>6. spike -- (a sharp-pointed projection along the top of a fence or wall)
>7. spike -- (a long sharp-pointed implement (wood or metal))
>8. spike -- (any holding device consisting of a long sharp-pointed object)
>9. spike -- (a long metal nail)
>
>The verb "spike" has 6 senses in WordNet.
>
>1. spike -- (stand in the way of)
>2. transfix, impale, empale, spike -- (pierce with a sharp stake or point; 
>"impale a shrimp on a skewer")
>3. spike -- (secure with spikes)
>4. spike, spike out -- (bring forth a spike or spikes; "my hyacinths and 
>orchids are spiking now")
>5. spike, lace, fortify -- (add alcohol beverages)
>6. spike -- (manifest a sharp increase; "the voltage spiked")


-- David Lubkin.




From wpurvis7 at bellsouth.net  Sun Jan 11 18:55:27 2004
From: wpurvis7 at bellsouth.net (Walter Purvis)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 13:55:27 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] IP: "So five minutes ago" stolen
References: <20040111165346.25987.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <018501c3d874$7acd0b90$0401a8c0@dellp3>

Stolen? Coined by a list member here? Please. The phrase "So five minutes
go" has been around for more than a decade -- it appeared in the 1992 Buffy
the Vampire Slayer movie, for instance, and I doubt it was original then -- 
and has been in widespread use for many years (I bet I've seen it in at
least a dozen articles in the past couple of years).


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Lorrey" <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
To: <extropy-chat at extropy.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 11:53 AM
Subject: [extropy-chat] IP: "So five minutes ago" stolen


> I just saw a banner ad for the Washington Post featuring the quote
> "That PDA is SO five minutes ago", a term coined by a list member here
> a few years ago (around the time of Extro5 or the 2001 Foresight
Conference).



From scerir at libero.it  Sun Jan 11 19:13:20 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 20:13:20 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
References: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGCEKDCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>
	<1142.213.112.90.66.1073827482.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <000301c3d876$faa28000$f0c7fea9@scerir>

From: "Anders Sandberg"

> My personal view is that it is a red herring altogether to worry about the
> microphysics when discussing free will. Free will is something we observe
> on the macroscale as people make free choices, and even if all quantum
> randomness came from a deterministic look-up table we would not see a
> difference. Besides, indeterminacy is no real friend of freedom either.

As far as I know the only possible connection between free will and micro-
physics is via "entanglement", in the sense that, in principle, you can
suppose something in the brain to be entangled with something outside,
very far too. But Asher Peres made a very detailed analysis of all that
(Foundations of Physics, many years ago - I can find the exact
reference if somebody needs it) and showed the inconsistency of this
issue.

> That is *one* interpretation of the Copenhagen interpretation. Notice that
> in the original phrasing it did not involve (to my knowledge) any
> reference to a conscious observer, just an observer. It could just as well
> be a human observer, a male observer or something else, but the idea that
> consciousness somehow has something to do with quantum mechanics is
> extremely popular with some people.

In fact there are, at least, four different interpretations of the
Copenhagen interpretation. According to Bohr there is no physical
"collapse", what counts is what is "knowable" in principle, and Bohr's
complementarity interpretation makes little mention of wave packet
collapse or any other silliness that follows there from, such as
a privileged role for the subjective consciousness of the observer,
the observer being classical and "detached". Heisenberg (at least the
young Heisenberg) believed (as von Neumann, London, Bauer, and Wigner -
just till the end of '70s) in a "physical" collapse, caused by the
consciousness of the observer. Pauli developed his own interpretation
based on uncaused "occasio", "anima mundi", "attached" observers
because they choose the actual experimental set-up. Born developed
a more "realistic" interpretation based on quantum
"invariants" and, later, on the possible physical nature of the
wavefunction.

Of course the "consciousness and QM" issue is not over. Many
authors (like Penrose, Stapp, etc.) are still writing papers
and books. David Albert wrote a nice paper showing that a
quantum automaton (an automaton described by QM) behaves
(knows, predicts, feels) in a very strange manner, especially
when it performs self-measurements, or measurements performed
on systems made of subsystems and it-self. But it turns out that
this quantum automaton in fact does not perform true, irreversible
measurements, instead it just performs pre-measurements, or reversible
measurements. Thus when one introduces true (non reversible)
measurements, that is to say "recording apparata", the
"consciousness" issue arises again.

There are, of course, many more points of view about how
"consciousness" has/has not something to do with micro-physics.
In example see below (from Wigner Centennial)
http://quantum.ttk.pte.hu/~wigner/proceedings/papers/w58.pdf
http://www.eps.org/aps/meet/APR02/baps/abs/S2130003.html




From extropy at unreasonable.com  Sun Jan 11 19:15:10 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 14:15:10 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Fraud
In-Reply-To: <20040111180411.48169.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20040111105926.02c5cbf0@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040111131923.02accec8@mail.comcast.net>

I wrote:

>In the software industry, good engineers are often faced with stated job 
>requirements that they don't meet but that aren't actually needed for the 
>job. They exaggerate their experience to get the job, believing they know 
>better than the HR department or hiring manager.

as an example of a possible violation of the NCP. Mike responded:

>If an ignorant HR weenie publishes job requirements that are fraudlent,
>how is responding with a fraudulent resume an initiation of force?

I didn't say the requirements were fraudulent. I was referring to 
situations where the req specifies a job requirement out of ignorance or 
unnecessary cautiousness.

For example, M years of experience with technology Y are specified when N, 
where N < M, would have been enough. Or where there are similar 
technologies W and Z, that any engineer would feel provide experience that 
is equivalent to the specific Y.

In some cases, the ignorance of the hiring manager or HR department is 
indisputable, as when they require M years of experience with technology Y, 
and Y has not existed that long.

No one can fault an applicant for making the case that while their 
experience doesn't meet the letter of the requirements, it is pertinent. 
But you have to make it past HR, headhunters, or keyword-screening software 
to get to someone with the knowledge to assess your claims.

And maybe the hiring manager is a bozo, but you *know* you can do the job.

So many people will fraudulently present their qualifications, either 
indifferent to the ethics or out of a conviction that they really *can* do 
the job and the means of acquiring it are justified.

For that matter, the oldest scam in the books -- found in many species -- 
is puffing yourself to attract a mate. Sometimes the intent is fraudulent 
through-and-through (I lie in a singles bar to get laid). Sometimes it's 
what we're talking about -- intended for the greater good (I lie about or 
withhold fact W until you care about me).

Indeed, is there a difference other than degree between sucking in your gut 
when a beauty walks by and the asserted misrepresentation of evidence to 
justify invading Iraq?


-- David Lubkin.




From spike66 at comcast.net  Sun Jan 11 19:20:22 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:20:22 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
In-Reply-To: <20040111174738.10958.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <002601c3d877$f5d487c0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


>The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
> 
> --- Giu1i0 Pri5c0 <gpmap at runbox.com> wrote:
> > ...two opposite concepts in religious thinking: the
> > omniscience of God and the free will of Man. Is it possible 
> > to have a universe sporting free-will and a God? 

The logical tension between man's free will and god's
complete foreknowledge is a concept that theology students
stumble on in their training.  Some attempt a sloppy
middle ground interpretation: god knows all, yet we do
not, so we *appear* to have free will, etc.

Yet when followed to its logical ends, if an omniscient
deity really knows all, then everything we do here is
on a track with no real controls, so everything is in
that sense meaningless.  If one decides otherwise, then
chaos theory, butterfly effect, suggests that no deity
could possibly know the future in detail.

Calvin was unwilling to give up the notion of god's
complete and universal omniscience from beginning to
end, and so concluded that we are indeed mere automatons,
predestined in every word and action.  Most modern 
theologians, when faced with the same question,
are unwilling to go that route, and are forced to
conclude that even god does not really know *everything*
about the future, but can make reasonable forecasts,
which can fall into several different categories.

Example: I can tell you where I will be and with whom
five months from now: on 12 May 2004 at 0915 I will
be with in a building on Calaveras Blvd with the
attractive young Miss Jordan.  She will be polishing 
my teeth, as she has done about every 6 months 
for the past 10 years.  This is an example of a detailed 
prophecy containing both time and place, which would 
have been correct in about 17 of the last 20 times it 
was made.

Theology students break down prophecy into the self-fulfilling,
the self-defeating, the educated guesses, the conclusions
to the natural order, etc.

Theology students do not have enough to do.

spike






 



From thespike at earthlink.net  Sun Jan 11 19:23:23 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 13:23:23 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] i-language again
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20040110115148.02075f90@mail.comcast.net>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040111130500.01c77bb8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <001201c3d878$65cfd3e0$e5994a43@texas.net>


From: "David Lubkin" <extropy at unreasonable.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 12:16 PM

>          http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn/
>
> >Overview for "spike"
> >
> >The noun "spike" has 9 senses in WordNet.
> >
> >1. spike -- (a transient variation in voltage or current)
> >2. spike -- (sports equipment consisting of a sharp point on the sole of
a
> >shoe worn by athletes; "spikes provide greater traction")
> >3. ear, spike, capitulum -- (fruiting spike of a cereal plant especially
corn)
> >4. spike -- ((botany) an indeterminate inflorescence bearing sessile
> >flowers on an unbranched axis)
> >5. spike -- (a sharp rise followed by a sharp decline; "the seismograph
> >showed a sharp spike in response to the temblor")
> >6. spike -- (a sharp-pointed projection along the top of a fence or wall)
> >7. spike -- (a long sharp-pointed implement (wood or metal))
> >8. spike -- (any holding device consisting of a long sharp-pointed
object)
> >9. spike -- (a long metal nail)
> >
> >The verb "spike" has 6 senses in WordNet.
> >
> >1. spike -- (stand in the way of)
> >2. transfix, impale, empale, spike -- (pierce with a sharp stake or
point;
> >"impale a shrimp on a skewer")
> >3. spike -- (secure with spikes)
> >4. spike, spike out -- (bring forth a spike or spikes; "my hyacinths and
> >orchids are spiking now")
> >5. spike, lace, fortify -- (add alcohol beverages)
> >6. spike -- (manifest a sharp increase; "the voltage spiked")

Dear oh dear--the system's clearly still ignorant of the most important
meaning! (Although verbs 4 and 6 edge onto it.)

It's not too hot on `singularity' either:

< The noun "singularity" has 2 senses in WordNet.

1. singularity, uniqueness -- (the quality of being one of a kind; "that
singularity distinguished him from all his companions")
2. singularity -- (strangeness by virtue of being remarkable or unusual) >

Damien Broderick
www.thespike.us



From thespike at earthlink.net  Sun Jan 11 19:31:29 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 13:31:29 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
References: <20040111025539.11458.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
	<01b001c3d7ef$ae0c40a0$81994a43@texas.net>
	<1222.213.112.90.66.1073828371.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <002701c3d879$88daf800$e5994a43@texas.net>

From: "Anders Sandberg" <asa at nada.kth.se>
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 7:39 AM

> Damien Broderick said:

> > Lingua Franca was not a peer-reviewed journal.

> Just to be a hopeless nitpicker, it was published originally in Social
> Text.

Ack! Curse my failing memory, and the absence of my annotated library! But
for fans of this kind of discourse (although with a Germanic flavor rather
than a Froggish one), there's a review by the brilliant if rather fixated
marxist critic Fredric Jameson of Bill Gibson's post-cyberpunk *Pattern
Recognition*, at:

http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR25706.shtml

Jameson was an early and influential commentator on postmodernism, and like
me he found Gibson's *Neuromancer* the very model of a postmodern major
genre text.

Damien Broderick



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sun Jan 11 19:38:38 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:38:38 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Fraud
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040111131923.02accec8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <20040111193838.39499.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>


--- David Lubkin <extropy at unreasonable.com> wrote:
> I wrote:
> 
> >In the software industry, good engineers are often faced with stated
> >job requirements that they don't meet but that aren't actually
needed
> >for the job. They exaggerate their experience to get the job,
> > believing they know 
> >better than the HR department or hiring manager.
> 
> as an example of a possible violation of the NCP. Mike responded:
> 
> >If an ignorant HR weenie publishes job requirements that are
> >fraudlent, how is responding with a fraudulent resume an
> > initiation of force?
> 
> I didn't say the requirements were fraudulent. I was referring to 
> situations where the req specifies a job requirement out of ignorance
> or unnecessary cautiousness.

If the HR weenie claims:
a) the authority and knowledge to judge your capability to fit the
qualifications specified for the job.
and
b) by expressing ignorant or excessively cautious requirements, exposes
that s/he is not qualified to judge

then the HR weenies' claims of competent authority are fraudulent. Of
course, it is easy to prove one's case when the HR weenie specs
requirements for years of experience in a technology that is not as old
as that specified. 

Typically I have found that such ads are actually a fraudulent means of
getting through the legal requirements that need to be satisfied before
the company can go and hire a foreigner. They invent what they think is
a hopelessly inflated list of job requirements, expecting not to find
anyone with such a breadth of experience, so they can say, "oh well, we
couldn't find any American to fill the job."

One HR person told me in writing (after I sent a second letter
inquiring into the status of the position) that while I fit their
requirements, they had decided to outsource the work to India.

My sister works in HR, she's the IT manager for the HR department of
the Eastern Connecticut Health Care Network (about six hospitals owned
by the same corp). She knows all the games that HR departments use. HR
fraud is real, it is wide spread, and they are very well trained at
avoiding legal culpability for what they are doing.


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sun Jan 11 19:51:54 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:51:54 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] `Cold virus kills skin cancer'
In-Reply-To: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGOEKCCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>
Message-ID: <20040111195154.89394.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>

I can see an SF plot now: modern viruses are the detuned decendants of
medicines used in an Atlantean civilization to achieve practical
immortality, released into the environment by the earthquake that
destroyed their civilization, this release causing the disease and
suffering of human kind. Xenoarchaeologists locate the ruins and go
searching for unreleased samples, hoping to strike it rich with cures
for all cancers and other genetic diseases, encountering far more than
they expected....

--- Giu1i0 Pri5c0 <gpmap at runbox.com> wrote:
> There have been many recent research findings on using viruses for
> the
> treatment of cancer. This is especially interesting because the
> treatment is
> based on a naturally occurring virus rather than an engineered one.
> So
> perhaps there is a naturally evolved mechanism to keep cancer in
> check.
> Perhaps one of the causes of the rise of cancer cases in the second
> half of
> the 20th century is that the progress of medicine has made the work
> of
> cancer killing viruses more difficult.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Damien
> Broderick
> Sent: domingo, 11 de enero de 2004 7:40
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: [extropy-chat] `Cold virus kills skin cancer'
> 
> 
>
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/07/1073268077576.html?from=storyrh
> s
> 
> The virus that causes the common cold can kill skin cancer cells, NSW
> researchers have discovered.
> 
> The University of Newcastle team describe their discovery as a
> breakthrough
> in the treatment of malignant melanoma, Australia's fifth most common
> cancer.
> 
> "The results we have had using human cells and also in animal studies
> have
> been very exciting," lead scientist Professor Darren Shafren said.
> 
> "If we can replicate that success in human trials, the treatment of
> this
> often fatal disease could be available within the next few years."
> 
> [...]
> In human trials, the cold virus, the coxsackievirus, will be injected
> into
> the site of the melanoma.
> 
> Once it starts to replicate itself, Prof Shafren said it is expected
> to
> start killing off the melanoma.
> 
> Within weeks, the cancer should start shrinking and eventually
> disappear.
> [etc]
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From dgc at cox.net  Sun Jan 11 20:15:29 2004
From: dgc at cox.net (Dan Clemmensen)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 15:15:29 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Your thoughts on the news
In-Reply-To: <003501c3d788$2851a7f0$0a01a8c0@Kallista>
References: <003501c3d788$2851a7f0$0a01a8c0@Kallista>
Message-ID: <4001AEE1.6050405@cox.net>

Devon White wrote:

>What i would like to know is this: if you could turn on FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS,
>etc. . . and design the information that you as well as other people would
>get, what would it be? 
>  
>
I gave up on TV in general, and TV news in particular, many years ago. 
My current
travel schedule leaves me with no alternative to TV news in the evening 
occasionally.
These "TV evenings" make me think that the situation is worse than ever.

I'm not upset much by editorial bias. My objection is the incredibly low 
information
density. The amount of actual information in a 30-minute new show can be 
extracted
from a news web site in less than three minutes, usually much less.

The other problem with TV is that it is ephemeral. I cannot go back and 
check something,
and I cannot find an alternative interpretation and then cross-check.

I used to read several Web news sites and then cross-check by web 
searching. Then, Google
news was invented. Google news is a much better place to start, because 
it is a lot easier
to cancel out the editorial bias. You still get a bias (driven by the 
news wires) as to what is
considered newsworthy, but It's a lot better than my previous approach.



From spike66 at comcast.net  Sun Jan 11 20:28:29 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 12:28:29 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] i-language again
In-Reply-To: <001201c3d878$65cfd3e0$e5994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <002901c3d881$79d32f50$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

Ja.  This I-language requires work on the part of linguists
in every language to correlate to the master table, vaguely
like the Java virtual machine.  Consider this scheme to deal
with the multiple uses of the word spike.  We would use hyphens
to denote which meaning, with the goal of making each word in
the master list correspond to one word in the I-english.

For instance:


> From: "David Lubkin" <extropy at unreasonable.com>
> > >Overview for "spike"
> > >
> > >The noun "spike" has 9 senses in WordNet.
> > >
> > >1. spike -- (a transient variation in voltage or current)

= 1a. spike-voltage 1b.  spike-current 1c.  spike-transient


> > >2. spike -- (sports equipment consisting of a sharp point 
> on the sole of a shoe worn by athletes;

2a.  spike-point  2b.  spike-athletic-shoe


> > >3. ear, spike, capitulum -- (fruiting spike of a cereal 
> plant especially corn)

3.  spike-botanical-structure

> > >4. spike -- ((botany) an indeterminate inflorescence 
> bearing sessile
> > >flowers on an unbranched axis)

4.  spike-batanical-structure


> > >5. spike -- (a sharp rise followed by a sharp decline; 
> "the seismograph
> > >showed a sharp spike in response to the temblor")

5.  spike-sudden-change


> > >6. spike -- (a sharp-pointed projection along the top of a 
> fence or wall)

6.  spike-decorative-structure

> > >7. spike -- (a long sharp-pointed implement (wood or metal))

7. spike-point

> > >8. spike -- (any holding device consisting of a long sharp-pointed
> object)

8.  spike-pointed-shaft


> > >9. spike -- (a long metal nail)

9.  spike-nail

My own:  spike -- sudden acceleration of history towards AI

spike-Broderick

spike --  jones



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sun Jan 11 20:35:10 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 12:35:10 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] LUDD UND CHRIST: bad-language
In-Reply-To: <002901c3d881$79d32f50$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <20040111203510.40789.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>

Speaking of language, and seeing as how Congressman Ose is trying to
get a bill passed that would once again put dirty language bans on
popular television, even on cable, which is not a public medium, I have
an idea that might split the christian fundies off from the leftie
luddites: dirty language filter implants.

You get these implants embedded in the skull of your innocent child,
such that when the implant hears one of the banned words, it reverses
the wave form, thus cancelling out the sound that makes up the word.
The kid never hears evil. This could be expanded to vision implants
that filter out nudity and printed vulgarity, and another in the larynx
that prevents the individual from uttering foul language.

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.... The fundies would be all
for implant technologies....

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk  Sun Jan 11 20:49:52 2004
From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 20:49:52 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Up as a verb
Message-ID: <4001B6F0.6090405@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>

I thought it was short for the phrase 'pull up stakes' and leave.

See:
<http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pull%20up%20stakes>

Verb. pull up stakes - remove oneself from an association with or 
participation in.

BillK




From jonkc at att.net  Sun Jan 11 20:58:15 2004
From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 15:58:15 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
References: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGCEKDCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>
Message-ID: <011e01c3d885$a84092c0$bbfe4d0c@hal2001>

>Is it possible to have a universe sporting free-will and a God? 



I don't think God exists but at least I know what people mean when they use the word, but I have no idea what people mean when they talk about "free will", an idea so bad it's not even wrong. 



John K Clark      jonkc at att.net 

 

 

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From scerir at libero.it  Sun Jan 11 21:09:23 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir at libero.it)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 22:09:23 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Europanto 
Message-ID: <HRCG3N$81A37DD75A3D518E076CA632155B6FCE@libero.it>

The nova sprach que all europeos verstand y scriben con zero difficult?.
Si no comprende este, no panic: este perfectly normal. Er ist ?crit in der 
erste overeuropese tongue: the Europanto. Europanto ist 42% English, 
38% French, 15% le rest van de UE tonguen und 5% mixed fantasia 
mots out from Latin, unlikely-old-Greek et mucho rude Italian jurones.

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Lot/9522/en_euro.html
http://www.europanto.contagions.com/europanto.html#top
http://www.neuropeans.com/communication/forum/category1/topic/FORUM7/

Heeeeh, even a tonguish in no language, like me, can easily 
speak Europanto. Comprende the importance?



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan 11 21:11:19 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 16:11:19 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
In-Reply-To: <20040111144123.4169.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <009d01c3d887$78cdbe80$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Mike Lorrey wrote,
> --- David Lubkin <extropy at unreasonable.com> wrote:
> > At 09:19 PM 1/10/2004 -0500, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> > >I would question the authors racist motives for saying things like
> > > "you get points for being French", and his homophobia of selecting
> > > homophobia as a topic to make fun of
> > 
> > I don't see either of these. But I confess to blind spots in my 
> > competency at discerning subtext; you may well have spotted 
> > motives or attitudes I missed.
> 
> Methinks that Harvey is subconciously deconstructing the author.

Actually it was quite conscious.  David cut off the part where I said so.  I
said that if I were to deconstruct the author (the way he was deconstructing
other people) this is what I could come up with.

David Lubkin wrote,
> (manu)script as their own that was actually written by a literary great
> job requirements [...] aren't actually needed for the job.
> They exaggerate their experience to get the job, 
> believing they know better than the HR department or hiring manager.
> Reporters go undercover and use hidden cameras for exposes, 
> submitting fraudulent employment applications
> violating the confidentiality agreements they signed
> Police go undercover as well, but also set up 'sting' operations.
> Policy advocates and politicians lie or distort (or withhold) evidence
> 
> Which of these are violations of the NCP?  Is "preemptive fraud" any 
> different than preemptive force?

I think all of them are an initiation of force/fraud.  People who are really
trying to help other people generally let them know what they are doing.
The only reason such people hide their motives is that they do have a hidden
agenda, and their "beneficiaries" don't want their so-called help.

I still stand by my previous statement, and the above makes it even more
clear.  If I hired an engineer, and he was doing fraudulent work and hoaxes
instead of the work I was paying him to do, I would fire him.

Anders Sandberg wrote,
> Unlike Harvey I think that hoaxes like Sokal's are not just 
> fun, but also healthy. There have been many others like him, 
> such as various computer science papers generated with Markov 
> chains sent to conferences and ending up in proceedings, and 
> of course the Bogdanoff brothers
> (http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2002-10/msg0045263.html) 
> apparently getting a Ph.D. and publishing peer reviewed 
> papers with nonsense theoretical physics. This a good thing, 
> because the laughter and derision afterwards help point out 
> flaws in the peer review system or other forms of quality 
> control.

Laughter and derision are not helpful in helping someone see the error of
their ways.  These are not helpful endeavors, nor are they desired by the
parties supposedly being helped.  It could be done in a professional manner
if someone really wanted to help someone else.  There is nothing healthy or
helpful about laughing at or deriding someone who needs help.

Nobody should be "helping" anybody else who clearly does not want their
help.  Even if these people have "helpful" motives, there are other methods
that can be used to improved processes that are not as damaging.  You don't
have to ridicule, embarrass and hurt an organization to improve their
processes.  You do not have to spread false information to seek the truth.
You don't have to secretly break into a computer to fix it.  (You do not
have to start a war to avoid a war.)  Etc....

There are more direct and less damaging methods for demonstrating and fixing
these things.  Even the fact that someone can push a bad paper through
doesn't prove that previously bad papers have gotten through.  A critique of
real papers would be more useful than a hoax paper.  Seriously, has the
author of this hoax been invited onto the review boards and process
committees for any of the organizations he defrauded?  If not, I rest my
case.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From spike66 at comcast.net  Sun Jan 11 21:16:23 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 13:16:23 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] gimps is god
In-Reply-To: <001201c3d878$65cfd3e0$e5994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <003401c3d888$2c9aa4f0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


Second Peter chapter 3 verse 8:

"Oh beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the
lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

The GIMPS project has recently passed an interesting milestone:
It is collectively performing a thousand CPU years each day.

{8-]

http://www.mersenne.org/primenet/status.shtml

http://mersenne.org/ips/stats.html

spike 



From dirk at neopax.com  Sun Jan 11 21:23:31 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 21:23:31 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
References: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGCEKDCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>
	<011e01c3d885$a84092c0$bbfe4d0c@hal2001>
Message-ID: <009a01c3d889$2be54230$62256bd5@artemis>

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: John K Clark 
  To: ExI chat list 
  Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 8:58 PM
  Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man


  >Is it possible to have a universe sporting free-will and a God? 

   

  I don't think God exists but at least I know what people mean when they use the word, but I have no idea what people mean when they talk about "free will", an idea so bad it's not even wrong. 



  And which God would that be?
  Personally I prefer Odin, although Freya has interesting qualities.
  Or are you talking about the Jewish pantheon?

  Dirk

  The Consensus:-
  The political party for the new millennium
  http://www.theconsensus.org
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From dirk at neopax.com  Sun Jan 11 21:28:14 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 21:28:14 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
References: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGCEKDCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com><1142.213.112.90.66.1073827482.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
	<000301c3d876$faa28000$f0c7fea9@scerir>
Message-ID: <009e01c3d889$d6919490$62256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "scerir" <scerir at libero.it>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 7:13 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man


> From: "Anders Sandberg"
>
> > My personal view is that it is a red herring altogether to worry about
the
> > microphysics when discussing free will. Free will is something we
observe
> > on the macroscale as people make free choices, and even if all quantum
> > randomness came from a deterministic look-up table we would not see a
> > difference. Besides, indeterminacy is no real friend of freedom either.
>
> As far as I know the only possible connection between free will and micro-
> physics is via "entanglement", in the sense that, in principle, you can
> suppose something in the brain to be entangled with something outside,
> very far too. But Asher Peres made a very detailed analysis of all that
> (Foundations of Physics, many years ago - I can find the exact
> reference if somebody needs it) and showed the inconsistency of this
> issue.


The problem is that there is no place for free will in a deterministic
universe, and free will is also supposed to be more than flipping a quantum
coin for a bit of randomness.

IMO the only way free will can exist is if we have (at least some) conscious
apprehension of the future of the choice we make ie more than a simple
extrapolation - more an observation.

Things like Cramer's Transactional Interpretation are suggestive, but that
in turn implies (if such is used) that consciousness must be tied up to some
extent with a quantum computational structure.

Which brings us back to Hammeroff et al.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From wingcat at pacbell.net  Sun Jan 11 21:28:36 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 13:28:36 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] `Cold virus kills skin cancer'
In-Reply-To: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGOEKCCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>
Message-ID: <20040111212836.69051.qmail@web80404.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Giu1i0 Pri5c0 <gpmap at runbox.com> wrote:
> Perhaps one of the causes of the rise of cancer
> cases in the second half of
> the 20th century is that the progress of medicine
> has made the work of
> cancer killing viruses more difficult.

Eh?  That doesn't seem to make sense, unless you're
saying progress in medical tech is, itself, impeding
the treatment of cancer.

Perhaps better: the progress of medicine has meant
more
people live long enough to die of cancer, rather than
of things which would kill them before cancer could
arise.


From jacques at dtext.com  Sun Jan 11 21:40:18 2004
From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 22:40:18 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
In-Reply-To: <002601c3d877$f5d487c0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
References: <002601c3d877$f5d487c0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <4001C2C2.6040201@dtext.com>

Freedom is the ability of doing what one wants. If I know what you want, 
I can sometimes predict what you will do; it doesn't make you any less free.

This concept of freedom is sound, and such freedom is desirable. The 
other, metaphysical concepts of freedom (or "free will") are either 
self-contradictory (being able to choose what one wants) or they refer 
to things that are not worth wanting* ("undeterminedness").

Jacques

*the first book by Dennett on the subject was aptly subtitled "the 
varieties of free will worth wanting" (but I don't recommend the book 
itself).



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sun Jan 11 21:44:54 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 13:44:54 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] LONGEVITY: extreme greens
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401111333150.14352-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Ok, here is an interesting spin on deathist green perspectives:

Seeking Harmony in a Final Return to the Land
Jan 11, 2004 by Julie Dunn
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/11/business/yourmoney/11burial.html?pagewanted=print

It points out a trend for people who want themselves buried in
Nature preserves so their bodies can be consumed by microorganisms
and the molecules in their bodies can "decompose and nourish the earth".

First of all the logic is flawed.  Much of what humans consume in
terms of rarer elements (say phosphorous or sulfur) has been recycled
through feces.  A significant majority of the carbon one has consumed
has been converted to CO2 in the atmosphere through respiration.
So burying oneself au natural probably isn't going to provide
a significant benefit to Nature.

However, from a green/luddite/anti-immortality movement perspective
it may represent some significant resistance to transhumanist/extropic
ideas.

Robert




From wingcat at pacbell.net  Sun Jan 11 21:45:04 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 13:45:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] i-language again
In-Reply-To: <001801c3d817$e173b590$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <20040111214504.44348.qmail@web80401.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
> I propose an international language of sorts, or
> rather an
> international language structure.

Standard problem: how do you get people to start
speaking it - especially if, as you state, it is for a
limited purpose only?  What value is there that is so
great, it would be worth learning and using a language
that few others use?

Perhaps if there were computers that spoke only this
tongue, but could use it to grok a lot more than
current computer-communication languages...but that
would require the programs to be out there, with a
large vocabulary, before one could seriously
popularize this.

> Then any speaker of any language would assign words
> from
> her own language to correspond with each word in the
> list.

What if there are no, or several, native words for
what has been provided for the definition of a meta
word?  


From jonkc at att.net  Sun Jan 11 22:00:16 2004
From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 17:00:16 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
References: <002601c3d877$f5d487c0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
	<4001C2C2.6040201@dtext.com>
Message-ID: <016001c3d88e$5f7589c0$bbfe4d0c@hal2001>

"JDP" <jacques at dtext.com>

>Freedom is the ability of doing what one wants.

Then I am not free because I want to rule the universe with an iron fist,
but so far at least I have had some considerable difficulty doing so.

  John K Clark   jonkc at att.net








From jacques at dtext.com  Sun Jan 11 22:15:49 2004
From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 23:15:49 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
In-Reply-To: <016001c3d88e$5f7589c0$bbfe4d0c@hal2001>
References: <002601c3d877$f5d487c0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>	<4001C2C2.6040201@dtext.com>
	<016001c3d88e$5f7589c0$bbfe4d0c@hal2001>
Message-ID: <4001CB15.1040403@dtext.com>

John K Clark wrote:
> "JDP" <jacques at dtext.com>
> 
>>Freedom is the ability of doing what one wants.
> 
> 
> Then I am not free because I want to rule the universe with an iron fist,
> but so far at least I have had some considerable difficulty doing so.

It's not an all-or-nothing matter. You have a certain amount of freedom. 
Someone who is in jail has less than you do. And you have less than 
Superman.

Jacques



From support at imminst.org  Sun Jan 11 22:30:32 2004
From: support at imminst.org (support at imminst.org)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 16:30:32 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] ImmInst Update
Message-ID: <4001ce880bddd@imminst.org>

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From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan 11 22:24:02 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 17:24:02 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
In-Reply-To: <1261.213.112.90.66.1073830417.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <00a501c3d891$a12d6470$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Anders Sandberg wrote,
> Just another paper about hoax papers that I found absolutely
> delicious: The Cartesian Conspiracy: How to do Post-Modernism 
> With Marquis de Sade http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/~jdouglas/S03finart9.pdf

This paper didn't really produce nonsense.  It took the logical sequences of
de Sade trying to justify his activities and translated them into a
non-sexual subject.  The fact that the authors could find non-sexual
subjects that could also be justified in a parallel manner with de Sade
doesn't break the logical sequence.  Instead of seeking different sex
partners, they say we seek different intellectual associates.  Instead of
wanting physical stimulation, we are seeking intellectual stimulation.
Instead of demanding more and more challenging physical acts, we demand more
and more intellectual exercises.  The resulting paper makes perfect sense in
many places and was not produced by any method guaranteed to produce
nonsense.

> "In an age where nonsense is identical to scholarship,
> text-generating computers such as the Dada Engine are no less 
> useful than postmodern scholars, and the necessity of the 
> latter becomes difficult to substantiate."

I also question whether the Dada Engine always produces nonsense.  I haven't
seen this particular engine, but I have seen similar ones.  Consider these
points about its non-randomness.  It doesn't produce random bits, because
that will screw up our screens.  It doesn't produce random characters,
because it is forced to choose real words.  It doesn't produce random
phrases, because it uses phrase books to put words together that actually go
together.  It doesn't produce random sentences, because it uses the phrase
books to make sure that the ending words or one phrase fit into the next
phrase.  It doesn't produce invalid sentences, because it uses grammar
checkers to add consistency between subjects and verbs, or adjectives and
objects.  It doesn't produce totally random paragraphs, because keywords are
repeated so that other sentences about the same topic are selected.  

There is so much work put into making this stuff appear non-random, that I
am not surprised that some people might think its generated text is real.
If we keep improving it to remove clues to its nonsensical nature, it is
getting further and further away from nonsense all the time.  The better we
improve it, the less we will be able to detect its artificial origins.  I
don't see how this is any indictment of the reader if they can't tell.  It
is, rather, a credit to the engine designers to their ability to simulate
human language.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan 11 22:24:09 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 17:24:09 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] IP: "So five minutes ago" stolen
In-Reply-To: <018501c3d874$7acd0b90$0401a8c0@dellp3>
Message-ID: <00a601c3d891$a53c8410$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Walter Purvis wrote,
> Stolen? Coined by a list member here? Please. The phrase "So 
> five minutes go" has been around for more than a decade -- it 
> appeared in the 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, for 
> instance, and I doubt it was original then -- 
> and has been in widespread use for many years (I bet I've 
> seen it in at least a dozen articles in the past couple of years).

We do like to imagine that we are on the cutting edge or that we are
inventing new things on this list.  But in reality, I think we are only
responding to product announcements from technological firms, and we are
therefore slightly behind the curve, and only likely to repeat what someone
else has already said.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From jacques at dtext.com  Sun Jan 11 22:26:29 2004
From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 23:26:29 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Europanto
In-Reply-To: <HRCG3N$81A37DD75A3D518E076CA632155B6FCE@libero.it>
References: <HRCG3N$81A37DD75A3D518E076CA632155B6FCE@libero.it>
Message-ID: <4001CD95.2040904@dtext.com>

S?rafin,

I trouve diese langue very bella. I pense I will scrivere po?sie in 
quella langue from nun. I suggest nous sprechen diese langue on 
extropy-chat exclusivement. Certains Swiss sprechen gi? rumantsch que 
ressemble a bisschen ? l'Europanto.

ABER JE SUGGERISCO NOUS LAISSONS CADERE L'ANGLAIS ZU RENDERE L'EUROPANTO 
UNVERSTANDLICH AUX AMERICANI. C'EST PI? LUSTIG.

scerir at libero.it wrote:

> The nova sprach que all europeos verstand y scriben con zero difficult?.
> Si no comprende este, no panic: este perfectly normal. Er ist ?crit in der 
> erste overeuropese tongue: the Europanto. Europanto ist 42% English, 
> 38% French, 15% le rest van de UE tonguen und 5% mixed fantasia 
> mots out from Latin, unlikely-old-Greek et mucho rude Italian jurones.
> 
> http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Lot/9522/en_euro.html
> http://www.europanto.contagions.com/europanto.html#top
> http://www.neuropeans.com/communication/forum/category1/topic/FORUM7/
> 
> Heeeeh, even a tonguish in no language, like me, can easily 
> speak Europanto. Comprende the importance?
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 
> 



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan 11 22:26:57 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 17:26:57 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] NATURE: Nanoparticles enter the brain
In-Reply-To: <20040111143217.39129.qmail@web41303.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <00a701c3d892$090b5bb0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

I have warned about this many times, usually to be criticized for speaking
"against" nanotech by pointing out the obvious.  Nano-sized particles can be
inhaled more easily, and they do cross the blood-brain barrier more easily.
I would think this would be obvious to anybody studying the stuff.  But most
technologists only want to talk about the beneficial effects of technology.
There are many useful properties for something that goes into the blood
and/or brain.  But there are also harmful properties as well.  Good design
considers both (or all) properties.  Wishful design focuses only on the
good.

--
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com>




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Sun Jan 11 22:29:19 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 14:29:19 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Fermi Paradox and Simulation Argument
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401110852410.9473-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <000101c3d892$60874b10$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Robert J.
Bradbury
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 9:03 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: Fermi Paradox and Simulation Argument

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004, John K Clark wrote:

Re: the thought suspension option
> That's equivalent to saying some super brains will decide to become 
> more stupid; well some may, but ever single one of them?

I'm not so sure -- do you want to waste energy and mass accelerating up
to some speed to get to a new fuel source faster or do you want to
simply use your fuel sources on a budgeted basis and allow new resources
to come to you due to natural processes (galactic collisions, supernova
explosions, etc.)?

--
~the former. it pushes the boundaries.  Incidentally, regarding the
uberbrain deciding to become less intelligent, at a probability of 1;
why not.  what if superintelligent brain reaches an elemental truth that
that intelligence, much like many things in life, can be toxic in
too-large an amount? It is possible.


> Maybe, and maybe when even super brains can't find a objective logical

> reason why life is better than death they decide to kill themselves. 
> Maybe, but I doubt it.

I'm relatively concerned about MBrains and advanced civilizations
hitting the wall -- they understand all known science and determine some
things (tunneling into new universes, stopping the decay of protons,
actually testing string theory, etc.) may simply be impossible.
--
~Nothing is impossible :)  highly improbable, to 
costly (economically-speaking) etc.
Besides, science is never a 100% :)

> I once heard a detractor of string theory say it was philosophy not 
> science because to prove or disprove it you'd need a particle 
> accelerator the size of the galaxy. Well OK, let's build it.

The NOVA special on string theory and branes suggested that it couldn't
be proven period.  (Now how self-limiting they were being I'm not sure.)
--
~or a REALLY clever experiment; thankfully scienctific history is filled
with many of them.
Perhaps the nobel prize at some point will be given to the person who
constructs an experiment
that fails to disprove string theory as a working hypothesis, but rather
supports it. 

> I can't imagine a worse place to build super brains than intergalactic

> space, there is about one hydrogen atom per cubic yard and energy is 
> equally dilute.

You don't build them there -- you migrate them there.  You probably put
them on long comet-like orbits where you spend much of your time in
intergalactic space away from galactic hazards and then come back from
time to time to refuel the hydrogen tanks and grab any useful matter you
require.  Actually since they are gaining matter instead of losing it
you might want to call it an anti-comet orbit.
--
I don't suppose you've read Chalkers, well-world series? :)
Muahahahahaa ;)
omard-out




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Sun Jan 11 22:52:59 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 14:52:59 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
In-Reply-To: <009a01c3d889$2be54230$62256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <000f01c3d895$b2504e80$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Jewish pantheon?  Jews are monotheistic? :)
Personally I've always liked the tricksters :) Loki, Coyote etc :)
You ever check out the Egyptian mythologies? Isis was pretty cool,
same with Thoth :)
 
omard-out
 
 -----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dirk Bruere
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 1:24 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of
Man


And which God would that be?

Personally I prefer Odin, although Freya has interesting qualities.
Or are you talking about the Jewish pantheon?  

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From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Sun Jan 11 22:57:21 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 14:57:21 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] IP: "So five minutes ago" stolen
In-Reply-To: <00a601c3d891$a53c8410$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <001401c3d896$4c7c1480$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Perhaps he posted without thinking :)
really, does it make a difference anyway,
if a phrase was coined, or coined and used?
Its certainly not a unique thought, and can
just as easily be rederived independantly...

Incidentally, while I like to follow technological/scientific advances
(from a pragmatic POV), certes I like to trail-blaze as much as the next
person on this list :) I just haven't published anything yet :)

omard-out


-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Harvey
Newstrom
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 2:24 PM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] IP: "So five minutes ago" stolen


Walter Purvis wrote,
> Stolen? Coined by a list member here? Please. The phrase "So
> five minutes go" has been around for more than a decade -- it 
> appeared in the 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, for 
> instance, and I doubt it was original then -- 
> and has been in widespread use for many years (I bet I've 
> seen it in at least a dozen articles in the past couple of years).

We do like to imagine that we are on the cutting edge or that we are
inventing new things on this list.  But in reality, I think we are only
responding to product announcements from technological firms, and we are
therefore slightly behind the curve, and only likely to repeat what
someone else has already said.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec
Manager, NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS
Certified GIAC <HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 



_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Sun Jan 11 22:58:35 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 14:58:35 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
In-Reply-To: <20040111174738.10958.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <001501c3d896$793e83e0$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Lorrey
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 9:48 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of
Man

--- Giu1i0 Pri5c0 <gpmap at runbox.com> wrote:
> There is an interesting discussion on Kuro5hin on how to achieve 
> peaceful coexistence between two opposite concepts in religious 
> thinking: the omniscience of God and the free will of Man. Is it 
> possible to have a universe sporting free-will and a God?

This is a natural result of the universe being a simulation run as a
quantum computational process. The Uberhacker can't view it in process,
but can examine the result from start to finish (alpha and omega). Can
the Uberhacker hack the universe? Depends on its ability to kludge
together alternate timeline segments.
--
simple, alpha-beta pruning :)




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Sun Jan 11 22:59:14 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 14:59:14 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] NATURE: Nanoparticles enter the brain
In-Reply-To: <20040111143217.39129.qmail@web41303.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <001601c3d896$9392a0a0$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

I smell lawsuit :)
HAHAHAHAHAA
omard-out
 

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Jose
Cordeiro
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 6:32 AM
To: wta-talk at transhumanism.org; extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Cc: wta-india at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [extropy-chat] NATURE: Nanoparticles enter the brain


http://www.nature.com/nsu/040105/040105-9.html
 

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From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan 11 23:06:52 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 18:06:52 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] ANNOUNCE: ImmInst Live Chat with Harvey Newstrom
	TONIGHT
Message-ID: <00b501c3d897$9d113dc0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

(Sorry if you get this more than once due to cross-posting.)

ImmInst.org is hosting a chat tonight at 8:00pm EST at their website.
The topic will be Information Security, and I will be the guest speaker.  
<http://imminst.org/chat/>

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From dirk at neopax.com  Sun Jan 11 23:26:00 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 23:26:00 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] NATURE: Nanoparticles enter the brain
References: <00a701c3d892$090b5bb0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <00de01c3d89a$45feb730$62256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 10:26 PM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] NATURE: Nanoparticles enter the brain


> I have warned about this many times, usually to be criticized for speaking
> "against" nanotech by pointing out the obvious.  Nano-sized particles can
be
> inhaled more easily, and they do cross the blood-brain barrier more
easily.
> I would think this would be obvious to anybody studying the stuff.  But
most
> technologists only want to talk about the beneficial effects of
technology.
> There are many useful properties for something that goes into the blood
> and/or brain.  But there are also harmful properties as well.  Good design
> considers both (or all) properties.  Wishful design focuses only on the
> good.


Well, the obvious nanoparticles are the lotech ones such as deisel exhaust.
However, it does suggest that the deliberate engineering of nanoparticles in
cosmetics, to quote a recent use, could have some unforeseen and unpleasant
consequences.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From sentience at pobox.com  Sun Jan 11 23:28:11 2004
From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 18:28:11 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
In-Reply-To: <006101c3d832$07175580$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
References: <006101c3d832$07175580$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <4001DC0B.4070104@pobox.com>

Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> Rafal Smigrodzki wrote,
> 
>> I'd never before had the experience of being quite this baffled by
>> things other people were saying. I've attended lectures on quantum
>> physics, group theory, cardiology, and contract law, all fields about
>> which I know nothing and all of which have their own specialized
>> jargon and notational conventions. None of those lectures were as
>> opaque as anything these academics said. ", again intimating that he
>> does not have a reason to see himself as an all-around ignoramus.
> 
> This doesn't make sense.  You think all the speakers were bogus and 
> off-topic, and the only person on-topic was the author?

This sounds entirely plausible to me.  Nothing in the article contradicts 
what I have heard of postmodernism from other writers I respect.

> This doesn't make sense.  You think that the entire conference was
> filled with bogus guests and no real engineers showed up except for the
> author?

Again, this is not out of character for what I know of postmodernism.

>>> And in conclusion, after a very lengthy attempt at persuasion, the
>>>  author finishes with a not-too-clear conclusion.  He says, "So,
>>> what are we to make of all this? I earlier stated that my quest was
>>> to learn if there was any content to this stuff and if it was or
>>> was not bogus. Well, my assessment is that there is indeed some
>>> content, much of it interesting. The question of bogosity, however,
>>> is a little more difficult."
>> 
>> ### His conclusions are clear, and entirely in agreement with my own
>> amateur opinions of the field.
> 
> This is clear conclusion?  The question of bogosity is difficult?
> OK....

He said it was difficult and then provided his answer:  Bogosity so far 
off the scale it pegs the bogosity meter and breaks it.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence



From dirk at neopax.com  Sun Jan 11 23:28:33 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 23:28:33 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
References: <000f01c3d895$b2504e80$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
Message-ID: <00ec01c3d89a$a12781f0$62256bd5@artemis>

Message
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Paul Grant 
  To: 'Dirk Bruere' ; 'ExI chat list' 
  Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004 10:52 PM
  Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man


  Jewish pantheon?  Jews are monotheistic? :)

  Not originally. The YHVH meme seems to have come out top dog through a familiar evolutionary process.
  One that is still dogging us today.
  _____
  Personally I've always liked the tricksters :) Loki, Coyote etc :)

  I've always found them dangerous.

  _____
  You ever check out the Egyptian mythologies? Isis was pretty cool,
  same with Thoth :)

  Isis is still going strong, and undergoing something of a revival (ignoring her supremacy in the Catholic pantheon).

  Dirk

  The Consensus:-
  The political party for the new millennium
  http://www.theconsensus.org
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From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it  Sun Jan 11 23:50:41 2004
From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 00:50:41 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Europanto
In-Reply-To: <4001CD95.2040904@dtext.com>
References: <HRCG3N$81A37DD75A3D518E076CA632155B6FCE@libero.it>
	<4001CD95.2040904@dtext.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401120043450.15811@hercules>

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004, JDP wrote:

>S?rafin,
>
>I trouve diese langue very bella. I pense I will scrivere po?sie in
>quella langue from nun. I suggest nous sprechen diese langue on
>extropy-chat exclusivement. Certains Swiss sprechen gi? rumantsch que
>ressemble a bisschen ? l'Europanto.
>
>ABER JE SUGGERISCO NOUS LAISSONS CADERE L'ANGLAIS ZU RENDERE L'EUROPANTO
>UNVERSTANDLICH AUX AMERICANI. C'EST PI? LUSTIG.

Hey, je am europain, et ne know pa jack shit su germanio und greek. If
te remove anglais, me no comprendo anything.

Alfio



From thespike at earthlink.net  Mon Jan 12 00:17:27 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 18:17:27 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
References: <005501c3d805$8444e6d0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <01e601c3d8a1$77d52ee0$e5994a43@texas.net>

From: "Harvey Newstrom" <mail at HarveyNewstrom.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 11:41 PM

> This person that you think has interests in other fields attended a
> conference that was "an aggressively interdisciplinary gathering, drawing
> from fields as diverse as computer science, literary criticism,
engineering,
> history, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and political science" and
> finds it incomprehensible, saying "The things they said were largely
> incomprehensible."  This lead me to conclude that the author was not
> interested or familiar with most of the fields he listed.

Not necessarily so. Imagine yourself stumbling upon just such a colloquium
under the auspices of Scientology clears, Thomist or Kabbalist theologians,
Moonies, Jain logicians, or devotees of Born Again glossolalia. There would
be insights available, because these people, by hypothesis, are not
*stupid*, but the bogosity meter would run red-hot (except maybe for the
Jainists).

Damien Broderick
[and yes, I have a PhD in the discursive field in question]



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Mon Jan 12 00:18:09 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 19:18:09 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
In-Reply-To: <4001DC0B.4070104@pobox.com>
Message-ID: <00c901c3d8a1$94526d30$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote,
> Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> > This doesn't make sense.  You think all the speakers were bogus and
> > off-topic, and the only person on-topic was the author?
> 
> This sounds entirely plausible to me.  Nothing in the article 
> contradicts what I have heard of postmodernism from other
> writers I respect.

I agree.  I am not defending postmodernism or deconstructionism.

But remember he was talking about a cyberspace engineering conference, not a
postmodernism conference.  Some of US might have been at that conference!
Imagine if he showed up to a WTA conference or an ExI conference about
cyberspace and claimed that we were all deconstructionists with no
understanding of technical matters.  

I would find that hard to believe.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From dirk at neopax.com  Mon Jan 12 00:30:06 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 00:30:06 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....
References: <005501c3d805$8444e6d0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<01e601c3d8a1$77d52ee0$e5994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <010201c3d8a3$3a316390$62256bd5@artemis>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Damien Broderick" <thespike at earthlink.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 12:17 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Fw: Deconstruction deconstructed....


> From: "Harvey Newstrom" <mail at HarveyNewstrom.com>
> Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 11:41 PM
>
> > This person that you think has interests in other fields attended a
> > conference that was "an aggressively interdisciplinary gathering,
drawing
> > from fields as diverse as computer science, literary criticism,
> engineering,
> > history, philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and political science"
and
> > finds it incomprehensible, saying "The things they said were largely
> > incomprehensible."  This lead me to conclude that the author was not
> > interested or familiar with most of the fields he listed.
>
> Not necessarily so. Imagine yourself stumbling upon just such a colloquium
> under the auspices of Scientology clears, Thomist or Kabbalist
theologians,
> Moonies, Jain logicians, or devotees of Born Again glossolalia. There
would
> be insights available, because these people, by hypothesis, are not
> *stupid*, but the bogosity meter would run red-hot (except maybe for the
> Jainists).

What it appears to be is:
Post Modernism  = Self referential games with the article of faith (axiom)
being no objective reality.
It is supposed to be applicable to whatever reality one chooses, including
all models that deny the above axiom.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From jrd1415 at yahoo.com  Mon Jan 12 01:29:30 2004
From: jrd1415 at yahoo.com (Jeff Davis)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 17:29:30 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] i-language again
In-Reply-To: <002901c3d881$79d32f50$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <20040112012930.4074.qmail@web41210.mail.yahoo.com>

Friends,

Please add to these the sports usage from volleyball
and football: 1. verb: to spike the ball and 2. noun:
the act of spiking the ball, as in "The hard-driven
spike passed above the outstretched hands of the
blockers and secured the winning point."

--- Spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
> Ja.  This I-language requires work on the part of
> linguists
> in every language to correlate to the master table,
> vaguely
> like the Java virtual machine.  Consider this scheme
> to deal
> with the multiple uses of the word spike.  We would
> use hyphens
> to denote which meaning, with the goal of making
> each word in
> the master list correspond to one word in the
> I-english.
> 
> For instance:
> 
> 
> > From: "David Lubkin" <extropy at unreasonable.com>
> > > >Overview for "spike"
> > > >
> > > >The noun "spike" has 9 senses in WordNet.
> > > >
> > > >1. spike -- (a transient variation in voltage
> or current)
> 
> = 1a. spike-voltage 1b.  spike-current 1c. 
> spike-transient
> 
> 
> > > >2. spike -- (sports equipment consisting of a
> sharp point 
> > on the sole of a shoe worn by athletes;
> 
> 2a.  spike-point  2b.  spike-athletic-shoe
> 
> 
> > > >3. ear, spike, capitulum -- (fruiting spike of
> a cereal 
> > plant especially corn)
> 
> 3.  spike-botanical-structure
> 
> > > >4. spike -- ((botany) an indeterminate
> inflorescence 
> > bearing sessile
> > > >flowers on an unbranched axis)
> 
> 4.  spike-batanical-structure
> 
> 
> > > >5. spike -- (a sharp rise followed by a sharp
> decline; 
> > "the seismograph
> > > >showed a sharp spike in response to the
> temblor")
> 
> 5.  spike-sudden-change
> 
> 
> > > >6. spike -- (a sharp-pointed projection along
> the top of a 
> > fence or wall)
> 
> 6.  spike-decorative-structure
> 
> > > >7. spike -- (a long sharp-pointed implement
> (wood or metal))
> 
> 7. spike-point
> 
> > > >8. spike -- (any holding device consisting of a
> long sharp-pointed
> > object)
> 
> 8.  spike-pointed-shaft
> 
> 
> > > >9. spike -- (a long metal nail)
> 
> 9.  spike-nail
> 
> My own:  spike -- sudden acceleration of history
> towards AI
> 
> spike-Broderick
> 
> spike --  jones
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com  Mon Jan 12 01:38:32 2004
From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 17:38:32 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Nonlinear thinking
Message-ID: <20040112013832.6740.qmail@web41314.mail.yahoo.com>

Interesting article about points, lines and curves in thinking:-)
 
http://www.techcentralstation.com/102303C.html
 
Transhumanistically yours,




La vie est belle!

Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) 

Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra


---------------------------------
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Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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From jcorb at iol.ie  Mon Jan 12 02:41:27 2004
From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 02:41:27 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will 
Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20040112024018.0280c2a0@pop.iol.ie>


>Message: 14
>Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 17:00:16 -0500
> >From: "John K Clark" <jonkc at att.net>
>Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will
>of Man
>To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Message-ID: <016001c3d88e$5f7589c0$bbfe4d0c at hal2001>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>"JDP" <jacques at dtext.com>
> >Freedom is the ability of doing what one wants.
>Then I am not free because I want to rule the universe with an iron fist,
>but so far at least I have had some considerable difficulty doing so.
>John K Clark jonkc at att.net

That's because all other beings in the Universe also have free will, and 
they can tell you to get lost :-)



James...



From neptune at superlink.net  Mon Jan 12 03:38:36 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 22:38:36 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence 
References: <OJEHKDIANIFPAJPDBDGLEELDCNAA.rafal@smigrodzki.org>
Message-ID: <035601c3d8bd$90a72ec0$6bce5cd1@neptune>

On Wednesday, January 07, 2004 1:02 PM Rafal Smigrodzki
rafal at smigrodzki.org wrote:
>>> I'm basically anti-democratic.
>>
>> Wow, I am not the only one? This is sooo cool!
>> I did not believe that I was an idiot before joining
>> this list, but some of my remaining doubts re my
>> sanity, wisdom and intelligence have further
>> faded as I read things like this from other smart
>> beings.
>
> ### Welcome to the club! I am also anti-democratic
> (i.e. anti-majoritarian-elective-democracy), although
> I am strongly pro-democratic in the sense of letting
> people have maximum control over their own lives
> (be masters of their own destiny rather than being
> ruled by elites or mobs), for example by market-like
> mechanisms.

The correct term for "letting people have maximum control over their own
lives" is individualism -- not democracy.  Democracy is merely about how
the elites are selected.

Later!

Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Poetry.html



From neptune at superlink.net  Mon Jan 12 03:46:32 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 22:46:32 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: late response to Dan/Technotranscendence 
References: <000201c3d4bb$de222b60$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>
Message-ID: <03c601c3d8be$ac6cc060$6bce5cd1@neptune>

On Tuesday, January 06, 2004 8:16 PM rick aperick at centurytel.net wrote:
> Hey Dan; what is your personal policy on voting?

I don't really have one, but I don't have anything against.  I don't
agree that it's some form of sanctioning of the results.  I can see an
argument being made for wanting to influence the results.  After all,
we're stuck with government for now.  (I don't know if you know, but I'm
a free market anarchist.)

I forgot to answer Dirk's repy on this.  I'll try to get to that
tomorrow.

Later!

Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Poetry.html



From spike66 at comcast.net  Mon Jan 12 03:52:22 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 19:52:22 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] i-language again
In-Reply-To: <20040111214504.44348.qmail@web80401.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <003a01c3d8bf$7c4892f0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


> Adrian Tymes
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] i-language again
> 
> 
> --- Spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > I propose an international language of sorts, or
> > rather an international language structure.
> 
> Standard problem: how do you get people to start
> speaking it - especially if, as you state, it is for a
> limited purpose only?

Good question.  It isn't exactly a *spoken* language
of course.  I think of it as analogous to the DVDs
that have an additional director's track.  A written
passage which one might expect to have international
value might have an additional paragraph in an
I-english format with all ambiguous terms identified
and defined, which could be then universally translated.

example

Good:worthwhile question.  It is not exactly a spoken language
not-ambiguous.  I think:consider of it as analogous to the DVDs
that have an additional director's:creator-of-movies track:
region-on-disk-for-information-storage.  A written
passage:quantity-of-text which one:unspecified-human
might:possibly have an additional paragraph in an
I-english format:text-style with all ambiguous terms:
words identified and defined:meaning-specified, which
could be then universally:in-every-case translated:
converted-into-a-different-language.


> What if there are no, or several, native words for
> what has been provided for the definition of a meta
> word? 

One must make these words, and identify which existing 
words are most applicable to the I-language.  In every 
language, the linguists have a job to do, but this 
I-language approach may reduce the workload for the masses,
and more importantly, make all human language accessible to AI.

Do not underestimate the critical importance of making 
our written language accessible to AI, for that is how
the AI will learn.  We do not want a superintelligent
agent to be baffled by us.

spike



From riel at surriel.com  Mon Jan 12 03:53:10 2004
From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 22:53:10 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] IP: "So five minutes ago" stolen
In-Reply-To: <20040111165346.25987.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040111165346.25987.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.55L.0401112235341.8137@imladris.surriel.com>

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> I just saw a banner ad for the Washington Post featuring the
> quote "That PDA is SO five minutes ago"

Regardless of the origin of that expression, I hope
that the mainstream will pick up MORE extropian ideas
and phrases.

Remember, if it wasn't for sharing ideas, we wouldn't
be where we are now.

Rik
-- 
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan


From nanowave at shaw.ca  Mon Jan 12 03:53:44 2004
From: nanowave at shaw.ca (Russell Evermore)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 19:53:44 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] NATURE: Nanoparticles enter the brain
References: <00a701c3d892$090b5bb0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<00de01c3d89a$45feb730$62256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <00c401c3d8bf$ad4a80c0$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>

This one piqued my interest, but some aspects of the article did tend to peg
the needle on my bogosity filter.

                                          > from the article --------------
G?nter Oberd?rster of the University of Rochester in New York and colleagues
tracked the progress of carbon particles that were only 35 nanometres in
diameter and had been inhaled by rats.
                                           --------------<

In this age of information it seems quite reasonable that I should be a few
short clicks from answers to questions like: What kinds of carbon particles
were used - quantum dots, fullerenes, fullerites, fullerides, endohedral,
exohedral? What concentrations were the rats exposed to? Were these
particles confined solely to the olfactory parts of the rats brains? Were
particles of sizes other than 35nm tested?  and were these other sizes
successfully blocked by the BBB?

Instead, even after digging dilligently, these answers and the purported
study remained frustratingly elusive.

                                          > from the article-------------
"These are the first data to show this," says Ken Donaldson, a toxicologist
at the University of Edinburgh, UK. "I would never have thought of looking
for inhaled nanoparticles in the brain."
                                            ------------<

hmmm,  so why then does a quick google of  "nanoparticles" deliver as the
very first hit:  http://www.nanopharm.de/

Researchers at the University of Magdeburg have developed a nanoparticle
technology for the targeting of drugs to the central nervous system (CNS).
Nanoparticles, a drug delivery system to pass the Blood Brain Barrier.

            Advantages over other methods:
                (1) no opening of the blood-brain barrier required,
                (2) potentially any drug can be delivered (hydrophilic or
hydrophobic),
                (3) the drug does not need to be modified.


None of this is to say I would casually stick my nose into a beaker-full of
the stuff,  but note the article does clearly state that "people in cities
take in about 25 million nanoparticles with every breath." That would seem
to me to be strong anecdotal evidence for nanoparticles being somewhat
benign. Additionally, I have read a number of articles that strongly
indicate they may even be beneficial.

RE
nanowave at shaw.ca












From wingcat at pacbell.net  Mon Jan 12 04:13:03 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 20:13:03 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] i-language again
In-Reply-To: <003a01c3d8bf$7c4892f0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <20040112041303.27666.qmail@web80410.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > Adrian Tymes
> > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] i-language again
> > --- Spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > > I propose an international language of sorts, or
> > > rather an international language structure.
> > 
> > Standard problem: how do you get people to start
> > speaking it - especially if, as you state, it is
> for a
> > limited purpose only?
> 
> Good question.  It isn't exactly a *spoken* language
> of course.  I think of it as analogous to the DVDs
> that have an additional director's track.  A written
> passage which one might expect to have international
> value might have an additional paragraph in an
> I-english format with all ambiguous terms identified
> and defined, which could be then universally
> translated.

Which puts this in competition with existing, inexact
but still usually accurate, translators.  Still, if
you proposed this as a translator's trade tool rather
than a general-purpose language, then you might have
something - but you'd have to promote it to the
translators' professional societies to gain much
traction.

> Do not underestimate the critical importance of
> making 
> our written language accessible to AI, for that is
> how
> the AI will learn.  We do not want a
> superintelligent
> agent to be baffled by us.

I'm not saying that's unimportant.  Just questioning
the applicability (and thus, feasability) of this
particular path at the present time, before those
superintelligent agents are a reality.


From spike66 at comcast.net  Mon Jan 12 04:17:46 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 20:17:46 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Europanto
In-Reply-To: <4001CD95.2040904@dtext.com>
Message-ID: <005701c3d8c3$08682090$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

As one who speaks no languages other than english,
and with only very basic knowledge of Latin cognates,
I *think* I can *almost* figure out what the writer
is saying.  Tell me how close I get:


> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Europanto
> 
> 
> S?rafin,
> 
> I trouve diese langue very bella.

I find this language very beautiful.

> I pense I will scrivere po?sie in quella langue from nun.

I think I will write and speak this language henceforth.

> I suggest nous sprechen diese langue on extropy-chat exclusivement.

I suggest we use this language exclusively on
extropy chat.

> Certains Swiss sprechen gi? rumantsch que ressemble a bisschen ?
l'Europanto.

It bears a vague resemblance to Swiss and the
romantic languages of Europe.  Bitchin! (=good).


> ABER JE SUGGERISCO NOUS LAISSONS CADERE L'ANGLAIS ZU RENDERE 
> L'EUROPANTO UNVERSTANDLICH AUX AMERICANI. C'EST PI? LUSTIG.

I FURTHER SUGGEST DEVELOPING A GROUP IN THE AMERICAS FOR
THOSE WHO UNDERSTAND THIS UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE OF EUROPE.
I FEEL LUSTFUL.  (?) 


> scerir at libero.it wrote:
> 
> > The nova sprach que all europeos verstand y scriben con 
> zero difficult?.

This new-speak is understood by europeans with no difficulty.

> > Si no comprende este, no panic: este perfectly normal. Er 
> ist ?crit in der erste overeuropese tongue: the Europanto.

If you do not understand it all, do not panic, it is perfectly
normal.  It is primarily a european-based universal language:
Europanto.  


> Europanto ist 42% English, 
> > 38% French, 15% le rest van de UE tonguen und 5% mixed fantasia 
> > mots out from Latin, unlikely-old-Greek et mucho rude 
> Italian jurones.

Europanto is 42% English, 38% French, 15% all the rest
of the European Union languages and the remaining 5%
those who think they are speaking Latin, Greek and
vulgar Italian...jurones(?)  Testacles?  (?)

> > Heeeeh, even a tonguish in no language, like me, can easily 
> > speak Europanto. Comprende the importance?

Har har (laughter) even one who speaks no languages can
easily speak Europanto.  Do you understand why this is
important?



Estropico, how close did I get?

spike




From megao at sasktel.net  Mon Jan 12 05:31:29 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 23:31:29 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] NATURE: Nanoparticles enter the brain
References: <00a701c3d892$090b5bb0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<00de01c3d89a$45feb730$62256bd5@artemis>
	<00c401c3d8bf$ad4a80c0$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>
Message-ID: <40023131.F50028AF@sasktel.net>

Gives more credibility to the old  practice  of aromatherapy....
Intranasal insulin and flue vaccines may poke up past the radar as well.
With such a myriad of scents from perfumes to weed sprays to "new car smell",
almost everthing with a relatively small molecule has a confirmed direct   neuro
delivery pathway to examine.
Morris J

Russell Evermore wrote:

> This one piqued my interest, but some aspects of the article did tend to peg
> the needle on my bogosity filter.
>
>                                           > from the article --------------
> G?nter Oberd?rster of the University of Rochester in New York and colleagues
> tracked the progress of carbon particles that were only 35 nanometres in
> diameter and had been inhaled by rats.
>                                            --------------<
>
> In this age of information it seems quite reasonable that I should be a few
> short clicks from answers to questions like: What kinds of carbon particles
> were used - quantum dots, fullerenes, fullerites, fullerides, endohedral,
> exohedral? What concentrations were the rats exposed to? Were these
> particles confined solely to the olfactory parts of the rats brains? Were
> particles of sizes other than 35nm tested?  and were these other sizes
> successfully blocked by the BBB?
>
> Instead, even after digging dilligently, these answers and the purported
> study remained frustratingly elusive.
>
>                                           > from the article-------------
> "These are the first data to show this," says Ken Donaldson, a toxicologist
> at the University of Edinburgh, UK. "I would never have thought of looking
> for inhaled nanoparticles in the brain."
>                                             ------------<
>
> hmmm,  so why then does a quick google of  "nanoparticles" deliver as the
> very first hit:  http://www.nanopharm.de/
>
> Researchers at the University of Magdeburg have developed a nanoparticle
> technology for the targeting of drugs to the central nervous system (CNS).
> Nanoparticles, a drug delivery system to pass the Blood Brain Barrier.
>
>             Advantages over other methods:
>                 (1) no opening of the blood-brain barrier required,
>                 (2) potentially any drug can be delivered (hydrophilic or
> hydrophobic),
>                 (3) the drug does not need to be modified.
>
> None of this is to say I would casually stick my nose into a beaker-full of
> the stuff,  but note the article does clearly state that "people in cities
> take in about 25 million nanoparticles with every breath." That would seem
> to me to be strong anecdotal evidence for nanoparticles being somewhat
> benign. Additionally, I have read a number of articles that strongly
> indicate they may even be beneficial.
>
> RE
> nanowave at shaw.ca
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Mon Jan 12 07:20:59 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 23:20:59 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
In-Reply-To: <00ec01c3d89a$a12781f0$62256bd5@artemis>
Message-ID: <001701c3d8dc$a91c6140$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Personally I've always liked the tricksters :) Loki, Coyote etc :)
 
I've always found them dangerous. 
 
~ I've always thought of them as misunderstood :)
 
_____
You ever check out the Egyptian mythologies? Isis was pretty cool,
same with Thoth :)
 
Isis is still going strong, and undergoing something of a revival
(ignoring her supremacy in the Catholic pantheon).
 
~I wasn't aware it was a going concern :) I'm a fan of mythology, not
necessarily the religions they inspire :)
 
omard-out
 
PS> interesting observation regarding judiasm pre-monotheism :) I'll
have to check that out :)
 

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From spike66 at comcast.net  Mon Jan 12 07:49:07 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 23:49:07 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] deaths due to low temperatures
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040111130500.01c77bb8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <006301c3d8e0$90ebc3f0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


If we eventually decide that global warming is due
primarily to human activity, then would we not become
collectively liable for the perennial human deaths 
caused by cold temperatures?  It would be humanity's
fault, since we theoretically had the means to prevent
the proles from freezing, yet failed to do so.


http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=NW_2-T&oldflok=FF-APO-11
10&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20040111%2F172743550.htm&sc=1110&photoid=2004011
0NYR103





From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it  Mon Jan 12 08:30:17 2004
From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 09:30:17 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Europanto
In-Reply-To: <005701c3d8c3$08682090$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
References: <005701c3d8c3$08682090$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401120922560.8754@hercules>

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004, Spike wrote:

>As one who speaks no languages other than english,
>and with only very basic knowledge of Latin cognates,
>I *think* I can *almost* figure out what the writer
>is saying.  Tell me how close I get:

Not bad, Spike! I'll make the corrections below. And for some sentences,
I have doubts myself :)


>> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Europanto
>>
>>
>> S?rafin,
>>
>> I trouve diese langue very bella.
>
>I find this language very beautiful.

OK

>
>> I pense I will scrivere po?sie in quella langue from nun.
>
>I think I will write and speak this language henceforth.

I think I will write poetry in this language from now.

>
>> I suggest nous sprechen diese langue on extropy-chat exclusivement.
>
>I suggest we use this language exclusively on
>extropy chat.

OK

>> Certains Swiss sprechen gi? rumantsch que ressemble a bisschen ?
>l'Europanto.
>
>It bears a vague resemblance to Swiss and the
>romantic languages of Europe.  Bitchin! (=good).

Some Swiss people already speak a romantic language that seems a bit like
Europanto (?)
>
>
>> ABER JE SUGGERISCO NOUS LAISSONS CADERE L'ANGLAIS ZU RENDERE
>> L'EUROPANTO UNVERSTANDLICH AUX AMERICANI. C'EST PI? LUSTIG.
>
>I FURTHER SUGGEST DEVELOPING A GROUP IN THE AMERICAS FOR
>THOSE WHO UNDERSTAND THIS UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE OF EUROPE.
>I FEEL LUSTFUL.  (?)

And I suggest that we get rid of English, to make the Europanto
unintelligible to Americans. It's more tasty.

>> scerir at libero.it wrote:
>>
>> > The nova sprach que all europeos verstand y scriben con
>> zero difficult?.
>
>This new-speak is understood by europeans with no difficulty.

The new language that all europeans can read and write with no difficulty.

>> > Si no comprende este, no panic: este perfectly normal. Er
>> ist ?crit in der erste overeuropese tongue: the Europanto.
>
>If you do not understand it all, do not panic, it is perfectly
>normal.  It is primarily a european-based universal language:
>Europanto.

OK, i think.

>> Europanto ist 42% English,
>> > 38% French, 15% le rest van de UE tonguen und 5% mixed fantasia
>> > mots out from Latin, unlikely-old-Greek et mucho rude
>> Italian jurones.
>
>Europanto is 42% English, 38% French, 15% all the rest
>of the European Union languages and the remaining 5%
>those who think they are speaking Latin, Greek and
>vulgar Italian...jurones(?)  Testacles?  (?)

OK, I don't know about jurones

>
>> > Heeeeh, even a tonguish in no language, like me, can easily
>> > speak Europanto. Comprende the importance?
>
>Har har (laughter) even one who speaks no languages can
>easily speak Europanto.  Do you understand why this is
>important?

OK

Alfio



From dirk at neopax.com  Mon Jan 12 08:55:07 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 08:55:07 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] deaths due to low temperatures
References: <006301c3d8e0$90ebc3f0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <01f101c3d8e9$c70f8ad0$62256bd5@artemis>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Spike" <spike66 at comcast.net>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 7:49 AM
Subject: [extropy-chat] deaths due to low temperatures


> 
> If we eventually decide that global warming is due
> primarily to human activity, then would we not become
> collectively liable for the perennial human deaths 
> caused by cold temperatures?  It would be humanity's
> fault, since we theoretically had the means to prevent
> the proles from freezing, yet failed to do so.
 

Think of all the Arctic explorers who we could have saved.
Too bad about those people dying in the desert heat though...

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org


From dirk at neopax.com  Mon Jan 12 08:58:30 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 08:58:30 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
References: <001701c3d8dc$a91c6140$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
Message-ID: <020d01c3d8ea$405a1c20$62256bd5@artemis>

Message
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Paul Grant 
  To: 'Dirk Bruere' ; 'ExI chat list' 
  Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 7:20 AM
  Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man


      Personally I've always liked the tricksters :) Loki, Coyote etc :)

      I've always found them dangerous. 

      ~ I've always thought of them as misunderstood :)

      _____
      You ever check out the Egyptian mythologies? Isis was pretty cool,
      same with Thoth :)

      Isis is still going strong, and undergoing something of a revival (ignoring her supremacy in the Catholic pantheon).

      ~I wasn't aware it was a going concern :) I'm a fan of mythology, not necessarily the religions they inspire :)

      http://www.fellowshipofisis.com/
      Fellowship of Isis - 22,619 members

      PS> interesting observation regarding judiasm pre-monotheism :) I'll have to check that out :)

      You didn't expect YHVH to suddenly spring up fully formed, did you? Esp with all those illustrious neighbours such as the Sumerians?

      Dirk

      The Consensus:-
      The political party for the new millennium
      http://www.theconsensus.org
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From amara at amara.com  Mon Jan 12 09:00:19 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 11:00:19 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
Message-ID: <p05100300bc280ee0fc56@[150.146.134.133]>

From: J Corbally <jcorb at iol.ie>, Sat, 10 Jan 2004 02:05:08 +0000

>Such a decision by NASA be a boon to other agencies like ESA.

One Big Difference between ESA and NASA:

ESA has no money of its own. The money for ESA projects comes from
the individual ESA member countries' space agencies in Austria,
Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy,
the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland
and the United Kingdom.

See here, for some details about how it operates:
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/GGG4SXG3AEC_index_0.html


>They can
>then push for funding to do the missions NASA would no longer be interested
>in.  Perhaps a lot less duplication of effort, and more cross-agency
>collaborations eg. ESA and China or India.

ESA is going through some large changes now. It looks very confusing to me.
The above URL might be obsolete in six months.

The one thing that I wish NASA might learn from ESA is how not to cancel
projects that have been fully designed and under preparation for several
years. It's a huge waste of everyone's time and money. Usually, once ESA
says a project is 'on', it goes forward, without worries of a future
cancellation.

>Then there's the scenario of having NASA run a moonbase on which a high
>tech lab can study samples dropped off by various unmanned ESA probes
>"patrolling" the galaxy.  Who knows, with a moon refinery and foundry,
>maybe it'll be Europe who mines the asteroid belt :)

well... there is a NASA / ESA mission to the asteroid belt that is
presently half dead now.

Amara

P.S. Bush's Moon news: I wonder how he intends to pay for it, given his
500 billion dollar deficit.
-- 

Amara Graps, PhD
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF),
Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR,
Roma, ITALIA     Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it


From jacques at dtext.com  Mon Jan 12 11:46:54 2004
From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 12:46:54 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Europanto
In-Reply-To: <005701c3d8c3$08682090$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
References: <4001CD95.2040904@dtext.com>
	<005701c3d8c3$08682090$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <16386.35118.738537.981208@localhost.localdomain>

Spike wrote (11.1.2004/20:17) :

> > Certains Swiss sprechen gi? rumantsch que ressemble a bisschen ?
> l'Europanto.
> 
> It bears a vague resemblance to Swiss and the
> romantic languages of Europe.  Bitchin! (=good).

Some Swiss already speak rumantsch, that resembles a little bit to
Europanto ("ein Bisschen" = a little bit in German).

Rumantsch is the 4th national language in Switzerland (after German,
French and Italian), and to me it sounds as a weird mix of the three
former...

There are web sites in rumantsch so you can see for yourself:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=rumantsch&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8>

<http://www.rtr.ch/go/to>

> > ABER JE SUGGERISCO NOUS LAISSONS CADERE L'ANGLAIS ZU RENDERE 
> > L'EUROPANTO UNVERSTANDLICH AUX AMERICANI. C'EST PI? LUSTIG.
> 
> I FURTHER SUGGEST DEVELOPING A GROUP IN THE AMERICAS FOR
> THOSE WHO UNDERSTAND THIS UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE OF EUROPE.
> I FEEL LUSTFUL.  (?) 

Muhahahahaha !

Jacques



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Mon Jan 12 13:29:31 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 05:29:31 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
In-Reply-To: <p05100300bc280ee0fc56@[150.146.134.133]>
Message-ID: <20040112132931.61310.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Amara Graps <amara at amara.com> wrote:> 
> P.S. Bush's Moon news: I wonder how he intends to pay for it, given
> his 500 billion dollar deficit.

I believe the 2004 budget allocates only $800 million to this program.
Funding escalates over the next 6 years. By 2010, when these missions
are supposed to occur, according to the CBO, the budget deficit will be
only 9 billion dollars. Given that my generation is never going to see
social security, I don't mind so much that my money is going to this
rather than to someone else's retirement. Thanks anyways.

How about paying for it by eliminating federal programs that are not
authorized by the Constitution, for a change?

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Mon Jan 12 14:28:38 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 06:28:38 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: late response to Dan/Technotranscendence 
In-Reply-To: <03c601c3d8be$ac6cc060$6bce5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <20040112142838.76898.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Technotranscendence <neptune at superlink.net> wrote:
> On Tuesday, January 06, 2004 8:16 PM rick aperick at centurytel.net
> wrote:
> > Hey Dan; what is your personal policy on voting?
> 
> I don't really have one, but I don't have anything against.  I don't
> agree that it's some form of sanctioning of the results.  I can see
> an
> argument being made for wanting to influence the results.  After all,
> we're stuck with government for now.  (I don't know if you know, but
> I'm a free market anarchist.)

The 'sanctioning the results' argument is one more "don't waste your
vote" argument against voting for a third party candidate. I should
note that the leaders of both major parties here in the US are now
telling people that if they don't like any of the major candidates,
that they can protest by not voting, ignoring that there are plenty of
third party candidates.

What they are essentially trying to avoid is the case with the Greens
in 2000, where the Green candidate got more votes in certain Florida
districts than Bush won by, leading to the claim by some poor sports
that Nader is to blame for Bush. This conclusion obviously depends upon
the assumption that all Nader voters would have voted for Gore
otherwise, rather than not voting. The dems would rather not have to
deal with that issue, and the repubs don't want more claims of 'stolen'
elections.

I always say, if you don't like any of the major candidates, two
strategies are acceptable: either vote for the lesser evil, or vote for
a third party candidate. The powers that be don't care if you don't
vote. They would rather you didn't, actually.

If you can't find a candidate you can support, you aren't looking hard
enough.

"While I rarely see anything worth voting for, I can always find
something worth voting against." - Heinlein

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk  Mon Jan 12 14:31:16 2004
From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 14:31:16 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Quantum Dots and Programmable Matter
Message-ID: <4002AFB4.9050804@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>

Wil McCarthy has an article on programmable matter at:

<http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2004/01/09/quantumdots.html>

He is an aerospace engineer and a science fiction writer who has
actually set up a company to develop this material.

Also see his Programmable Matter FAQ at:

<http://www.sciencebar.com/pmfaq.htm>


This actually sounds as though it might work.

BillK





From extropy at audry2.com  Mon Jan 12 16:43:08 2004
From: extropy at audry2.com (Major)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 00:43:08 +0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <004c01c3d7e5$273b34a0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	(mail@harveynewstrom.com)
References: <004c01c3d7e5$273b34a0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <200401121643.i0CGh8231107@igor.synonet.com>


"Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com> writes:

> The Palestinians seem to be more territorial than fundamentally
> religious in their battles.

As my Lebanese Orthodox (Christian) Palestinian friends get very sick
of telling people.

Major



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Mon Jan 12 16:45:39 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 08:45:39 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Priorities: Longevity, food or viruses?
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401120813560.1598-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Mark's recent paper on the right to access life extending
technologies and some of Natasha's efforts suggest (to me)
that she wants to move ExI in a similar direction seem to
be raising Kass, the presidential bioethics commission, et al
as the arch-enemies of the transhumanist and extropic viewpoints.

I am wondering today whether or not that is the case.

For example see:
"Move to Ban Altered Crops is Focused on California"
AP, Jan. 11, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/11/national/11GENE.html?pagewanted=print

This raises the point that the "organic" movement is alive and
well and exercising political muscle to squash biotech at least
with respect to food sources.  (Examples such as restrictions
on engineered salmon farming (cited) or the recent prohibition of
engineered aquarium fish also spring to mind.)

[side bar -- this trend seems likely to throw cold water on my dragon
idea... :-(]

Now, this impacts food prices for the average individual as well
as perhaps contributing to the number of people that die of hunger
every year.  (Yes, I know we could get into a discussion about this
with respect to the current situation -- I'm thinking if the trend
present in Europe and the U.S. spreads significantly.)

Now, factor in this site recently pointed out to me by Dave Kekich:
  http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
which discusses the problems we may face with our food supply
when the oil crunch arrives.   [Yes, I *know* the site is alarmist
and doesn't cover solutions under development -- but for the sake
of discussion lets assume there will be a decline in oil resources
and that will impact food prices because politicians generally do
a poor job of solving problems before the develop.]

So the organic movement compounded by resource shortages and
increased populations potentially suggest some real problems
with feeding people in the future.

Now, of interest in the NY Times article is the quote:
 "genetic engineering at this stage is the biggest uncontrolled
   biological experiment going on in the world today"

How does he compare that with tens of millions of people infected
with HIV that we *know* mutates at a rapid rate?  If we were
to get individuals infected with both HIV and SARS and they
were to recombine to form a new virus we could perhaps have
a real mess on our hands.

So the danger represented by Kass & Co. seems to pale compared
with some of the other problems we may face.  (The Kass & Co.
problem to me seems minimal because (a) by and large we don't
have the knowledge or the technology to extend life; and (b)
even if we did, it would still take probably 10 years for
the FDA or other regulatory agencies to approve it -- if it
can be approved at all [because aging is not a disease].)

Some of the problems I point out above are either here now or
potentially require significant advance work to prevent them
from developing.  How does one decide where to place ones emphasis?

Robert




From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com  Mon Jan 12 17:08:03 2004
From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 09:08:03 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Woody Allen and the universe: Hilarious!
Message-ID: <20040112170803.96630.qmail@web41315.mail.yahoo.com>

When the universe is expanding it can make you late for work
http://www.arts.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;$sessionid$1NI2J0GRGBBCJQ
FIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/opinion/2004/01/04/do0402.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/01/04/ixportal.html
4 January 2004

   When the universe is expanding it can make you late for work
   By Woody Allen

   I am greatly relieved that the universe is finally explainable. I 
was
   beginning to think it was me. As it turns out, physics, like a 
grating
   relative, has all the answers. The big bang, black holes, and the
   primordial soup turn up every Tuesday in the Science section of The
   New York Times, and as a result my grasp of general relativity and
   quantum mechanics now equals Einstein's - Einstein Moomjy, that is,
   the rug seller.

   How could I not have known that there are little things the size of
   "Planck length" in the universe, which are a millionth of a 
billionth
   of a billionth of a billionth of a centimetre? Imagine if you 
dropped
   one in a dark theatre how hard it would be to find. And how does
   gravity work? And if it were to cease suddenly would certain
   restaurants still require a jacket?

   What I do know about physics is that to a man standing on the shore
   time passes quicker than to a man on a boat - especially if the man 
on
   the boat is with his wife. The latest miracle of physics is string
   theory, which has been heralded as a TOE, or "Theory of Everything".
   This may even include the incident of last week herewith described.

   I awoke on Friday and because the universe is expanding it took me
   longer than usual to find my robe. This made me late leaving for 
work
   and, because the concept of up and down is relative, the elevator 
that
   I got into went to the roof, where it was very difficult to hail a
   taxi.

   Please keep in mind that a man on a rocket ship approaching the 
speed
   of light would have seemed on time for work - or perhaps even a 
little
   early and certainly better dressed. When I finally got to the office
   and approached my employer, Mr Muchnick, to explain the delay, my 
mass
   increased the closer I came to him, which he took as a sign of
   insubordination.

   There was some rather bitter talk of docking my pay, which, when
   measured against the speed of light, is very small anyhow. The truth
   is that compared to the amount of atoms in the Andromeda galaxy I
   actually earn quite little. I tried to tell this to Mr Muchnick, who
   said I was not taking into account that time and space were the same
   thing.

   He swore that if that situation should change he would give me a
   raise. I pointed out that since time and space are the same thing, 
and
   it takes three hours to do something that turns out to be less than
   six inches long, it can't sell for more than $5. The one good thing
   about space being the same as time is that if you travel to the 
outer
   reaches of the universe and the voyage takes 3,000 Earth years, your
   friends will be dead when you come back, but you will not need 
Botox.

   Back in my office, with the sunlight streaming through the window, I
   thought to myself that if our great golden star suddenly exploded 
this
   planet would fly out of orbit and hurtle through infinity forever -
   another good reason to always carry a cell phone. On the other hand,
   if I could someday go faster than 186,000 miles per second and
   recapture the light born centuries ago, could I then go back in time
   to ancient Egypt or Imperial Rome? But what would I do there: I 
hardly
   knew anybody.

   It was at this moment that our new secretary, Miss Lola Kelly, 
walked
   in. Now, in the debate over whether everything is made up of 
particles
   or waves, Miss Kelly is definitely waves. You can tell she's waves
   every time she walks to the water cooler. Not that she doesn't have
   good particles but it's the waves that get her the trinkets from
   Tiffany's.

   My wife is more waves than particles, too, it's just that her waves
   have begun to sag a little. Or maybe the problem is that my wife has
   too many quarks. The truth is, lately she looks as if she had passed
   too close to the event horizon of a black hole and some of her - not
   all of her, by any means - was sucked in. It gives her a kind of 
funny
   shape, which I'm hoping will be correctable by cold fusion.

   My advice to anyone has always been to avoid black holes because, 
once
   inside, it's extremely hard to climb out and still retain one's ear
   for music. If, by chance, you do fall all the way through a black 
hole
   and emerge from the other side, you'll probably live your entire 
life
   over and over but will be too compressed to go out and meet girls.

   And so I approached Miss Kelly's gravitational field and could feel 
my
   strings vibrating. All I knew was that I wanted to wrap my 
weak-gauge
   bosons around her gluons, slip through a wormhole, and do some 
quantum
   tunnelling.

   It was at this point that I was rendered impotent by Heisenberg's
   uncertainty principle. How could I act if I couldn't determine her
   exact position and velocity? And what if I should suddenly cause a
   singularity; that is, a devastating rupture in space-time? They're 
so
   noisy. Everyone would look up and I'd be embarrassed in front of 
Miss
   Kelly. Ah, but the woman has such good dark energy. Dark energy,
   though hypothetical, has always been a turn-on for me, especially in 
a
   female who has an overbite.

   I fantasised that if I could only get her into a particle 
accelerator
   for five minutes with a bottle of Chateau Lafite I'd be standing 
next
   to her with our quanta approximating the speed of light and her
   nucleus colliding with mine. Of course, exactly at this moment I got 
a
   piece of antimatter in my eye and had to find a Q-tip to remove it. 
I
   had all but lost hope when she turned toward me and spoke.

   "I'm sorry," she said. "I was about to order some coffee and Danish
   but now I can't seem to remember the Schrodinger equation. Isn't 
that
   silly? It's just slipped my mind."

   "Evolution of probability waves," I said "And if you're ordering I'd
   love an English muffin with muons and tea."

   "My pleasure," she said, smiling coquetishly and curling up into a
   Calabi-Yau shape.

   I could feel my coupling constant invade her weak field as I pressed
   my lips to her wet neutrinos. Apparently I achieved some kind of
   fission, because the next thing I knew I was picking myself up off 
the
   floor with a mouse on my eye the size of a supernova.

   I guess physics can explain everything except the softer sex, 
although
   I told my wife I got the shiner because the universe was 
contracting,
   not expanding, and I just wasn't paying attention.

   This article is taken from The New Yorker





La vie est belle!

Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) 

Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra


---------------------------------
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Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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From asa at nada.kth.se  Mon Jan 12 17:08:45 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 18:08:45 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Priorities: Longevity, food or viruses?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401120813560.1598-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401120813560.1598-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <3841.213.112.90.19.1073927325.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>


I think it is a mistake to see the organic movement's resistance to
biotechnology and Kass' bioethics as different things. Politically they
come from different ends of the spectrum, but there are many intriguing
memetic links (*) and for all practical purposes they can be viewed as
stasist in Postrel's sense. And they are smart enough to work together
with other groups that are similarly minded, forming powerful political
forces. This is  an area where we must fight memetically, to a large
extent by doing the same: by linking to other fellow minds, finding key
issues to battle and to formulate ideology so that it may spread.

Then we have the practical issues. If we can come up with smart solutions
to issues of viral mutation, the stability of modern agbio in times of
disruption or similar matters, we should go for it. Being an example by
doing something is powerful memetics. But the "we" here is most likely the
people who come up with the ideas and technologies, it is they who have
the real chance to get them turn real. We others can just cheer them on.
Because when it comes to allocating resources we are all individuals ("not
me" noted a borg) and have to allocate our time-effort resources where we
think we make the most benefit. As a movement it seems likely that the
efforts we spend "for the movement" should be directed at what benefits
the movement the best, and that is likely the memetic issues (since that
is really the only thing that defines us).


(*) The organic movement seems to have originated from a far more
conservative bed than it currently is: religious utopian communes,
Kellogg's style religious-nutritional dieting and food scares (where
bodily impurity was equated with spritual impurity) and various romantic
back-to-the-land movements. In Europe these had some very naughty links to
the messy idology of a certain Reich (on the other hand, what movement
didn't?). At the core there still exists a fundamentally conservative view
that nature is right, and regardless of whether you put God behind it, see
nature as God or just talk about a "natural order" that mustn't be
disturbed the result is the same and nicely compatible once you see beyond
surface politics. This also means that countering practical arguments
against GMO or transhumanism only deals with surface issues, we should
actually discuss the deep ones too, like our view on the meaning of
(trans)life.


-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From scerir at libero.it  Mon Jan 12 17:36:54 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 18:36:54 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Europanto
References: <005701c3d8c3$08682090$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <004301c3d932$ac378de0$c4c61b97@administxl09yj>

Spike translates ...

> > Europanto ist 42% English, 
> > 38% French, 15% le rest van de UE tonguen und 5% mixed fantasia 
> > mots out from Latin, unlikely-old-Greek et mucho rude 
> > Italian jurones.
 
> Europanto is 42% English, 38% French, 15% all the rest
> of the European Union languages and the remaining 5%
> those who think they are speaking Latin, Greek and
> vulgar Italian...jurones (?)  

> Testacles?  (?)

> Estropico, how close did I get?

Very close. But I would translate that " 5% mixed fantasia mots ..."
with "5% a potpourri of terms from Latin, improbable ancient Greek
and hard Italian expressions". 

"Jurones" you mean, eh? They are amimals in Spain (dunno what kind
of animals, something like wild cats or so). But, as we use to say
in Europanto, si tu want expresse seine maxime disappointement 
por eine mishandled operatione, parbleu, for sure you can say: "jurones!".

seraphinus



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Mon Jan 12 18:35:53 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 10:35:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <200401121643.i0CGh8231107@igor.synonet.com>
Message-ID: <20040112183553.58948.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Major <extropy at audry2.com> wrote:
> 
> "Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com> writes:
> 
> > The Palestinians seem to be more territorial than fundamentally
> > religious in their battles.
> 
> As my Lebanese Orthodox (Christian) Palestinian friends get very sick
> of telling people.

And as many others get sick of telling them: you start obeying the laws
of war, and you'll get more respect in the world. It isn't about
religion, or pro-israel bias, or US imperialism, its about not
intentionally targeting civilians and civilian targets with no military
value. Until you do, and make it stick with the rest of your people,
you are just a bunch of terrorists with a chip on your shoulders.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Mon Jan 12 18:42:50 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 10:42:50 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Priorities: Longevity, food or viruses?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401120813560.1598-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040112184250.60458.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>


--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:> 
> Now, factor in this site recently pointed out to me by Dave Kekich:
>   http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
> which discusses the problems we may face with our food supply
> when the oil crunch arrives.   [Yes, I *know* the site is alarmist
> and doesn't cover solutions under development -- but for the sake
> of discussion lets assume there will be a decline in oil resources
> and that will impact food prices because politicians generally do
> a poor job of solving problems before the develop.]

It is more than alarmist, it is absolutely false. We've discussed this
before. If these claims were true (and these same claims were being
made in the 70's) then today we should be paying $80/barrel for oil and
rationing one car per family. Didn't happen then, won't happen now,
won't happen in the future. Studies of costs of energy show that
inflation adjusted prices are at their lowest levels, historically
speaking, in the past decade, and will again once the Iraq situation is
done with.

Whenever there is a price spike (an ARTIFICIAL price spike) due to OPEC
politics or mideast military action, these malthusians come out of the
wood work, only to be proven wrong once again when things calm down.

The fact is that we are paying less for oil now than we did in the late
70's and early 1980s'. We were paying as much as 50% less prior to 911.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Mon Jan 12 19:44:07 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 14:44:07 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Europanto
In-Reply-To: <005701c3d8c3$08682090$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <004901c3d944$74602f50$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Spike wrote,
> As one who speaks no languages other than english,
> and with only very basic knowledge of Latin cognates,
> I *think* I can *almost* figure out what the writer
> is saying.  Tell me how close I get:

Totally wrong, Spike.  My words are much closer to the original than yours.
:-)

> > S?rafin,

Seraphim,

> > I trouve diese langue very bella.

I trowel disease languishing very bellicose.

> > I pense I will scrivere po?sie in quella langue from nun.

I, pansy, I will survive the posy in quelling the league from the nun.

> > I suggest nous sprechen diese langue on extropy-chat exclusivement.

I suggest noun-spreading diesel leggos on extropy-chat excelsior vestments.

> > Certains Swiss sprechen gi? rumantsch que ressemble a bisschen ? 
> > l'Europanto.

Certain Swiss springing guys romantically queue up to resemble a bitchin' a
la European.

> > ABER JE SUGGERISCO NOUS LAISSONS CADERE L'ANGLAIS ZU RENDERE 
> > L'EUROPANTO UNVERSTANDLICH AUX AMERICANI. C'EST PI? LUSTIG.

Ably he suggested now a liaison caddy in Los Angeles Zoo roundup
Europe-pants unforgivably faux-American.  Zest for the lust-pig.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From nanowave at shaw.ca  Mon Jan 12 19:54:26 2004
From: nanowave at shaw.ca (Russell Evermore)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 11:54:26 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
References: <20040112183553.58948.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <003401c3d945$e2aa7aa0$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>

Mike Lorrey write regarding the Palestinians:

> And as many others get sick of telling them: you start obeying the laws
> of war, and you'll get more respect in the world.

It is immaterial what the typical Palestinian wants with regard to obeying
any laws of war (as dictated by the 'civilized' world) or garnering the
respect (of same). The civilized world must unfortunately contend with the
Palestinian Authority. To the Palestinian Authority, laws such as Sura 5:9
"slay the unbelievers wherever you find them" are likely to carry more
weight.

>It isn't about religion,

Of course it's not, and it's not about humans either, or brains, or hands or
bombs.

>or pro-israel bias, or US imperialism,

I agree

>its about not intentionally targeting civilians and civilian targets with
no military
> value.

Ah but when an Israeli mother's womb is seen as a biological soldier
factory, and an Israeli father is seen as a cog in the economic machinery of
a culture that needs driving into the sea, and when blowing yourself up is
seen as a good (or the only) way to level the playing field, what room is
there for talk about "military value"

>Until you do, and make it stick with the rest of your people,
> you are just a bunch of terrorists with a chip on your shoulders.

Just a bunch or terrorists to us perhaps - freedom fighters, MARTYRS, and
folk heros to many many more people then we want to think and chat about.

RE







From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Mon Jan 12 20:24:32 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 15:24:32 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Priorities: Longevity, food or viruses?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401120813560.1598-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <005801c3d94a$1af1b000$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Whatever happened to freedom of choice?  It seems to me that both sides of
this debate are striving for a winner-take-all solution, and are unwilling
to let other people make their own choices.  The bio-luddites don't want any
engineered food to exist at all.  They want to deprive us of the right to
eat new food crops.  On the other hand, the bio-engineering industry wants
to bio-engineer all food crops and refuses to label their modified crops
differently than the unmodified crops.  They want to deprive us of the right
to eat old food crops.

I find both positions extremist and coercive.  There must be a free-market
solution where both sets of products can co-exist, and consumers can choose
which one they want to eat.  This requires separation of facilities, safety
measures to keep one from contaminating the other, and clear labeling so
customer can make their own choice.  Sadly, nobody on either side of this
debate seems to want to let individuals make their own choices.  Each side
wants to make the decision for everybody else.

Beyond food politics, we find the same issue in religious, sexual, morality,
guns, government, etc.  Everybody wants to set up a monopoly power of their
particular preference, and don't want to allow people with other preferences
to even exist.  It seems that we will never have maximum freedom as long as
we keep playing zero-sum-game politics.  We must find a way to allow
everybody's preferences and rights to be exercised.  This means allowing
bio-luddites to have GMO-free food, allowing luddites to have
technology-free zones, allowing religions to have their schools and
churches, allowing other forms of government and political systems to exist.
There is no One True Way(TM) for everyone.  As long as we allow different
Ways(TM) to exist, our way and their way can both survive and flourish.
Wars only occur when One True Way(TM) tries to annihilate another True
Way(TM).

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Mon Jan 12 20:33:51 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 15:33:51 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Priorities: Longevity, food or viruses?
In-Reply-To: <20040112184250.60458.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <005901c3d94b$67593520$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Mike Lorrey wrote,
> If these claims were true (and these 
> same claims were being made in the 70's) then today we should 
> be paying $80/barrel for oil and rationing one car per 
> family. Didn't happen then, won't happen now, won't happen in 
> the future.

This is not necessarily true, Mike, although it's not necessarily false
either.

I don't think prices will go up or rationing will go into effect until the
very end.  Until we start actually having shortages, I think most companies
and governments will go along ignoring the problem.  You are predicting an
escalating price and rationing as we run out, but I doubt people look that
far ahead.  You need to directly measure how much oil is left today compared
to the 1970's, instead of using an indirect measure such as price or
rationing to estimate that there is no shortage.

I think most people, even conservatives, estimate running out of oil
sometime this century.  Whether it is 20 or 60 years, we still are in the
century that runs out of oil.  With our longer life-spans today, especially
for transhumanists, it is almost definite that we will live to see the end
of oil resources.  Also, as a transhumanist, we should be especially aware
that past history is not a good predictor of the future.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Mon Jan 12 20:43:48 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 15:43:48 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <003401c3d945$e2aa7aa0$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>
Message-ID: <006001c3d94c$cb487090$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Sadly, you can switch the words "Palestinian" and "Israeli" to make the
other side's opposing argument.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From extropy at audry2.com  Mon Jan 12 22:08:40 2004
From: extropy at audry2.com (Major)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 06:08:40 +0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <20040112183553.58948.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com> (message
	from Mike Lorrey on Mon, 12 Jan 2004 10:35:53 -0800 (PST))
References: <20040112183553.58948.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <200401122208.i0CM8eJ00863@igor.synonet.com>


Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> writes:

> And as many others get sick of telling [Palestinians]: you start
> obeying the laws of war, and you'll get more respect in the
> world.

If the Zionists had behaved in a legal manner 50 years ago the
state of Israel would not exist and there would be no "Palestinian
question", there would just be a state of Palestine.

50 years of legal options (including any number of UN resolutions)
simply have not worked for the Palestinians. This is not surprising, I
can't think of many cases where that *have* worked for anyone who does
not the military strength (or have friends with the military strength)
to enforce the law.

> its about not intentionally targeting civilians and civilian targets
> with no military value.

Tell it to Israel. The Palestinians are quite sick of hearing the sound
of bleating Americans on one side and Israeli tanks shelling their
homes on the other.

I really don't see how you can expect someone with limited weapons and
money to obey "the laws of war" when the well-armed other side and its
rich and powerful mates do not.

Major


From extropy at unreasonable.com  Mon Jan 12 21:10:57 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 16:10:57 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <003401c3d945$e2aa7aa0$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>
References: <20040112183553.58948.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040112154547.02d915f8@mail.comcast.net>

Russell Evermore wrote:

>Ah but when an Israeli mother's womb is seen as a biological soldier
>factory, and an Israeli father is seen as a cog in the economic machinery of
>a culture that needs driving into the sea, and when blowing yourself up is
>seen as a good (or the only) way to level the playing field, what room is
>there for talk about "military value"


If the Arabs put down their weapons today there would be no more violence.
If the Jews put down their weapons today there would be no more Israel.

         -- anon

Peace will not come until the Arabs love their children more than they hate 
ours.

         --Golda Meir in 1977


-- David Lubkin (counting the hours until his daughter returns safely from 
her current trip to Israel)




From thespike at earthlink.net  Mon Jan 12 21:14:11 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 15:14:11 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
References: <20040112183553.58948.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
	<003401c3d945$e2aa7aa0$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>
Message-ID: <00de01c3d951$09267700$f4994a43@texas.net>

I'm not at all clear what Palestinian and Israeli woes have to do with the
originating topic of this thread: that is, the anti-transhumanist book
ENOUGH, by Bill McKibben.

Could we go back to changing the thread header when topic drift sets in?

Damien Broderick



From extropy at unreasonable.com  Mon Jan 12 21:25:59 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 16:25:59 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Priorities: Longevity, food or viruses?
In-Reply-To: <005901c3d94b$67593520$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
References: <20040112184250.60458.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040112161235.02d34138@mail.comcast.net>

At 03:33 PM 1/12/2004 -0500, Harvey Newstrom wrote:

>I think most people, even conservatives, estimate running out of oil
>sometime this century.  Whether it is 20 or 60 years, we still are in the
>century that runs out of oil.

Oil perhaps, but not hydrocarbons. We keep finding major pockets, 
especially of natural gas. At current consumption rates, we have several 
centuries of proven resources of hydrocarbons.

Also, we don't understand the geochemical processes that manufacture them, 
so we can't estimate the replenishment rate.

In any case, however much exists, the best thing we can do is keep statists 
from interfering with the free market signals that will efficiently spur 
conservation and the availability of cost-effective alternatives.

>With our longer life-spans today, especially for transhumanists, it is 
>almost definite that we will live to see the end of oil resources.

I don't know about you, but I don't intend to be on this planet at that time.


-- David Lubkin.




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Mon Jan 12 21:52:25 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 13:52:25 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <20040112183553.58948.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <000901c3d956$634b7410$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Just to point out a screwed up assumption on your part;
war does not inherently have any rules (ergo why wars
suck).  And incidentally, their is MOST DEFINATELY
a pro-israel bias in US Foreign Policy; and its not
just the middle east that is severely pissed at US
imperialism.  And, before you play your only card in this
discussion (one more time), I am not palestinian. :)

And while we are at it, I suggest you go to Israel and
live under Israeli rule as the Palestinians do, BEFORE
you open your ignorant mouth on the subject.  You do
enjoy your civil liberties, don't you? Why begrudge
them the same liberties?

omard-out




-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Lorrey
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 10:36 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already



--- Major <extropy at audry2.com> wrote:
> 
> "Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com> writes:
> 
> > The Palestinians seem to be more territorial than fundamentally 
> > religious in their battles.
> 
> As my Lebanese Orthodox (Christian) Palestinian friends get very sick 
> of telling people.

And as many others get sick of telling them: you start obeying the laws
of war, and you'll get more respect in the world. It isn't about
religion, or pro-israel bias, or US imperialism, its about not
intentionally targeting civilians and civilian targets with no military
value. Until you do, and make it stick with the rest of your people, you
are just a bunch of terrorists with a chip on your shoulders.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark "Fascists are
objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Mon Jan 12 21:47:31 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 16:47:31 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Priorities: Longevity, food or viruses?
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040112161235.02d34138@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <007101c3d955$b1d8f860$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

David Lubkin wrote,
> At 03:33 PM 1/12/2004 -0500, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> > With our longer life-spans today, especially for 
> > transhumanists, it is almost definite that we will
> > live to see the end of oil resources.
> 
> I don't know about you, but I don't intend to be on this 
> planet at that time.

Even so, I don't want to leave behind a ruined planet when I leave, either.
Many people will choose to stay on earth and don't want it depleted of
resources, especially by people planning to leave afterwards.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Mon Jan 12 21:55:59 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 13:55:59 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <006001c3d94c$cb487090$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <000a01c3d956$e1af4200$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Hardly.  Israel is currently on the winning 
side (thanks to US support).  Incidentally,
before that stupid declaration in 1948, 
Palestinians and Israeli's were living 
side-by-side quite fine.  Europe and US involvement
have led to nothing but strife and misery for that
region, and I'm referring to the Middle East as a
WHOLE, not just Palestine and Israel.

omard-out



From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Harvey
Newstrom
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 12:44 PM
To: 'Russell Evermore'; 'ExI chat list'
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already


Sadly, you can switch the words "Palestinian" and "Israeli" to make the
other side's opposing argument.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec
Manager, NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS
Certified GIAC <HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Mon Jan 12 22:06:33 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 14:06:33 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040112154547.02d915f8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <000b01c3d958$5b322bf0$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of David
Lubkin
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 1:11 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already


Russell Evermore wrote:
If the Arabs put down their weapons today there would be no more
violence. 
If the Jews put down their weapons today there would be no more Israel.
         -- anon

--
~Nope, just wonderful second-class citizenship, and more illegal
settlements.
Do you realistically expect a culture to sit idly by while its anally
raped,
and then thank the person who's doing the prodding?  Kudos that they've
held
on this long, and thank god the fight hasn't gone out of them.  I hope
they
end up destroying the "state" of Israel, so a new state can be put on
the
land that RESPECTS BOTH PEOPLES CLAIMS TO THE LAND, rather than just
one.


Peace will not come until the Arabs love their children more than they
hate 
ours.
         --Golda Meir in 1977
--
~Last I checked, Arabs were no different than Jews.  Both grieve the
loss
of their children in this stupid conflict.  Both are willing to send
thier
children to the sword in defense of their culture and territory.  And 
incidentally, most Arab's could give a rats ass about Jews and Judiasm;
its Israel thats REALLY pissing them off and destabilizing the region.
But then again, its always been the technique to lower your opponents
state of morality and mental health when trying to justify the blood
on your hands.

-- David Lubkin (counting the hours until his daughter returns safely
from 
her current trip to Israel)

~Just a suggestion, but sending anyone to Israel (or Palestine) at this 
stage of the game is like playing russian roulette (with bad odds).  
You should think twice about that, if *you* care about your child
(common sense aside, the US state dept. will tell you the same thing).

omard-out





From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Mon Jan 12 22:04:30 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 14:04:30 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Priorities: Longevity, food or viruses?
In-Reply-To: <005901c3d94b$67593520$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040112220430.2717.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> Mike Lorrey wrote,
> > If these claims were true (and these 
> > same claims were being made in the 70's) then today we should 
> > be paying $80/barrel for oil and rationing one car per 
> > family. Didn't happen then, won't happen now, won't happen in 
> > the future.
> 
> This is not necessarily true, Mike, although it's not necessarily
> false either.
> 
> I think most people, even conservatives, estimate running out of oil
> sometime this century.  Whether it is 20 or 60 years, we still are in
> the century that runs out of oil.  

No, we are not. Look, I've talked to the geologists, not the
politicians. The 20-60 year figure only applies to oil recoverable at a
profit given current market prices with today's technology. 

As technology advances, you get three effects: 
a) resource utilization efficiency increases. Light bulbs produce more
light for fewer watts, heaters heat more with fewer liters of fuel,
cars go farther on less gas, it takes less energy to produce a given
dollar of GDP.
b) resource recovery efficiency increases. Drilling gets cheaper, so
you can drill deeper on the same amount of money. With other
technologies you can pump more oil out of a given location (like with
CO2 counter pumping).
c) alternatives. Wind energy is now commercially competetive with
fossil fuels. Solar power will reach that point in the next decade. As
more utilization of these alternatives occurs, growth in consumption of
oil is mitigated. 

While this one factor (c) luddites like and yap about, they
consistently ignore (a) and (b) in their doom and gloom scenarios like
the paper cited. They even DISLIKE efficiency, just like the hate
energy sources that could end the oil problem, like nuclear power.
Jeremy Rifkin is quoted as saying that "it is efficiency that is
killing the planet."

These two factors make more reserves available at todays prices over
time as technology advances. Then you have inflation.

As the economy expands and the money supply inflates, oil prices grow
in current day dollars (albiet at rates below overall inflation as per
the reasons above) but not in real dollars, more expensive to recover
reserves become commercially feasible.

The paper Robert referenced is a bait and switch job by luddites. It
firstly totally ignores advances in technology as luddites have always
done since Malthus. It secondly tries to claim that the 20 year supply
is ALL the oil there is, NOT just that commercially recoverable at the
present time. 

Geologists who know this area of geology will tell you we have
somewhere between 200-300 years of oil in the ground THAT WE KNOW OF.
We have no idea what oil may lie deeper, what oil may lie in areas that
have yet to be explored for oil. Oil explorers are even, in many cases,
finding oil even where geological theory claims it should not be present.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Mon Jan 12 22:10:25 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 14:10:25 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <000901c3d956$634b7410$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
Message-ID: <20040112221025.5407.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Paul Grant <paulgrant999 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Just to point out a screwed up assumption on your part;
> war does not inherently have any rules (ergo why wars
> suck).  

I guess I just imagined the week I spent learning the Laws of War when
I was in basic training. Only people who have never had such training,
or never had the inclination to research the subject, would make such
inane statements.

I'll notice that I've been advising those who disagree with me on
military law subjects on this list to actually READ the Geneva
Conventions. To date, it doesn't appear that anyone has taken me up on
that advice.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Mon Jan 12 22:23:54 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 14:23:54 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <000a01c3d956$e1af4200$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
Message-ID: <20040112222354.7966.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Paul Grant <paulgrant999 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Incidentally,
> before that stupid declaration in 1948, 
> Palestinians and Israeli's were living 
> side-by-side quite fine.  

I'm sure that David can affirm that this is essentially an abject lie,
though I do not doubt that Mr. Grant believes it to be true, or at
least wants and needs it to be so.

The primary reason that the British were getting guerillaed by the
Zionist movement was that the Brits were not letting any more Jews
return to their homeland (a right which the Palestinians think they
deserve instead, apparently, and which I'll bet Mr Grant agrees with),
and were tolerating the pogroms of arab against jew. 

The British were also aiding German intelligence agents in assasinating
Zionists on the streets of Palestine in the 1930's (targeted killing of
militants, a practice which the Palestinians, Germans, and Mr. Grant
seem to think is so criminal today when conducted against
Palestinians).

Furthermore is the unmentioned expelling of hundreds of thousands of
Jews from many arab countries, none of which have been paid reparations
or offered a right of return, and no arab nation is offering any as
part of the peace process. Jews living 'side-by-side' in 'peace' in
arab countries prior to 1948 consisted of non-citizenship, paying
higher taxes for being jewish, and in many areas, forced conversion or
at least a ban on synagogues or other open expression of jewish faith.

If that is what Mr. Grant calls 'quite fine', then I am willing to
accept his surrender of his passport, a check equal to his taxes, oh,
and maybe his first born daughter as well. ;)

Now, now, Mr. Grant, no need to make any 'stupid declarations'....

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From nanowave at shaw.ca  Mon Jan 12 22:50:14 2004
From: nanowave at shaw.ca (Russell Evermore)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 14:50:14 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Conflict was: ENOUGH already
References: <004c01c3d7e5$273b34a0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<200401121643.i0CGh8231107@igor.synonet.com>
Message-ID: <004e01c3d95e$71b2c3c0$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>

Harvey Newstrom writes:

> Sadly, you can switch the words "Palestinian" and "Israeli" to make the
> other side's opposing argument.

In full awareness that we are simplifying (or oversimplifying) a very
complex subject, I can see how an aversion to preemptive military doctrine
could well lead to that very conclusion.

An Israeli helicopter vaporizes a house where a suspected bomb-maker lives,
but he's out buying a bag of nails at the local hardware store at the time
and his wife runs a daycare. A bomb goes off on a packed transit bus - on
which three Israeli soldiers happen to be riding.

It ain't pretty, and it ain't clear, and it ain't going to get any better
until we face the core issues:

-You can't force a small group of people to vacate their homes in order to
make room for a much larger group, however  persecuted historically (unless
you kill every last one of the original tenants and fudge the history books
to erase their memory - not possible in the information age)

-You can't have one population on a planet running the
science/evolution/progress meme while others are still attempting to run the
superstition/creation/stasis meme. One must eventually destroy the others,
or force them to evolve and toe the line, which amounts to the same thing.
In my sadder moments, I have felt that the Earth may one day become a
hellish place, but that those who prefer to not live in hellish places may
have long since abandoned it for brighter shores.

Consider the words of the late Ayotolla Khomeini (more popular now than ever
http://www.howardbloom.net/islam.htm )

"Islam does not allow peace between... a Moslem and an infidel."

"...Moslems have no alternative... to an armed holy war against profane
governments. ...Holy war means the conquest of all non-Moslem territories.
...It will ...be the duty of every able-bodied adult male to volunteer for
this war of conquest, the final aim of which is to put Koranic law in power
from one end of the earth to the other.  "The leaders of the USSR and of
England and the president of the United States are ...infidels.... ...Every
part of the body of a non-Moslem individual is impure, even the hair on his
head and his body hair, his nails, and all the secretions of his body. Any
man or woman who denies the existence of God, or believes in His partners
[the Christian Trinity], or else does not believe in His Prophet Mohammed,
is impure (in the same way as are excrement, urine, dog, and wine)[sic]."

RE
nanowave at shaw.ca




From gingell at gnat.com  Mon Jan 12 23:20:21 2004
From: gingell at gnat.com (Matthew Gingell)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 18:20:21 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040112154547.02d915f8@mail.comcast.net>
References: <20040112183553.58948.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040112154547.02d915f8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <16387.11189.406187.636786@nile.gnat.com>

David Lubkin writes:
 > If the Arabs put down their weapons today there would be no more violence.
 > If the Jews put down their weapons today there would be no more Israel.
 > 
 >          -- anon
 > 
 > Peace will not come until the Arabs love their children more than they hate 
 > ours.
 > 
 >         --Golda Meir in 1977
 
 "Palestine is largely inhabited by unreasonable people."
 
    -- William George Arthur Ormsby-Gore, 4th Baron Harlech,
       Undersecretary of State for the Colonies. (circa 1925(?), in
       the context of trying to impose Wilsonian principles of
       ethnic/national self-determination on the British Mandate.)



From extropy at unreasonable.com  Mon Jan 12 23:38:40 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 18:38:40 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Middle East
In-Reply-To: <000901c3d956$634b7410$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
References: <20040112183553.58948.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040112173712.031dcd78@mail.comcast.net>

Paul Grant wrote:

>their is MOST DEFINATELY a pro-israel bias in US Foreign Policy; and its not
         :
>you open your ignorant mouth on the subject.
         :
>before that stupid declaration in 1948, Palestinians and Israeli's

Your arguments would be more persuasive with spelling and grammar checking, 
basic fact checking, and the absence of ad hominem attacks and rudeness.

The UN vote partitioning Palestine was in 1947. Israel was formed in 1948, 
prior to which the residents were all Palestinians, most Jews or Moslem 
Arabs, although many other groups were (and are) present, including Arab 
and non-Arab Christians, Ba'hai, Druze, and Bedouin.

The "ignorant mouth" remark is certainly an ad hominem attack on Mike, in 
violation of list rules.

>stupid declaration ... anally raped ... rats ass ... stupid conflict

I'm not sure whether your offensive language and tone is a violation as 
well, but I don't find it acceptable.

>justify the blood on your hands.

I think this would qualify as a direct attack on me if you had known of my 
de facto Israeli nationality and other connections I've discussed on-list 
in the past.

>were living side-by-side quite fine.

Mike addressed this pretty well.

>Europe and US involvement have led to nothing but strife and misery for 
>that region, and I'm referring to the Middle East as a WHOLE, not just 
>Palestine and Israel.

For the Middle East, I'd rank home-grown strife and misery (from tribal and 
Moslem-denominational hatred and native dictatorships) first, followed by 
European state manufacture, with US missteps third.

>most Arab's could give a rats ass about Jews and Judiasm

The historic record, up to the most recent opinion polls in the Arab world, 
profoundly refutes this assertion.

 >> (counting the hours until his daughter returns safely from her current 
trip to Israel)

>Just a suggestion, but sending anyone to Israel (or Palestine) at this
>stage of the game is like playing russian roulette (with bad odds).
>You should think twice about that, if *you* care about your child
>(common sense aside, the US state dept. will tell you the same thing).

I agree completely, although it is a lot safer right now than it was prior 
to the Iraqi invasion, the construction of the security fence, Sharon's 
latest policies, and Saddam's capture. There have been *no* successful 
terrorist attacks since she arrived.

But it's not my choice. Before she turned 18, I could say no. Now I can 
help a little, and worry a lot.

Most of the time, her group has been in places terrorists don't attack, 
like the Negev Desert, the Dead Sea, and the Golan Heights. Terrorists go 
where people congregate that are not tourist attractions. But they've had 
occasional stops at malls, restaurants, and discos, which *are* targets.

Of course, once she's home safely, I can go back to anxiously scanning 
newspaper casualty lists to see which of my friends were murdered.


-- David Lubkin.




From extropy at unreasonable.com  Mon Jan 12 23:50:20 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 18:50:20 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Middle East
In-Reply-To: <16387.11189.406187.636786@nile.gnat.com>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20040112154547.02d915f8@mail.comcast.net>
	<20040112183553.58948.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040112154547.02d915f8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040112183909.031e72e8@mail.comcast.net>

At 06:20 PM 1/12/2004 -0500, Matthew Gingell wrote:

>  "Palestine is largely inhabited by unreasonable people."
>
>     -- William George Arthur Ormsby-Gore, 4th Baron Harlech,
>        Undersecretary of State for the Colonies. (circa 1925(?), in
>        the context of trying to impose Wilsonian principles of
>        ethnic/national self-determination on the British Mandate.)

Certainly.

You know the old fable about the fox and the scorpion? The Israeli version 
is --

A scorpion was walking along the bank of the Jordan River, wondering how to 
get to the other side. Suddenly he saw a fox.

He asked the fox to take him on his back across the river.

The fox said, "No. If I do that, you'll sting me and I'll drown."

The scorpion assured him, "If I did that we'd both drown."

The fox thought about it and finally agreed. The scorpion climbed up on his 
back, and the fox began to swim. Halfway across the Jordan, the scorpion 
stung him.

As the poison filled his veins, the fox turned to the scorpion and said, 
"Why did you do that? Now you'll drown too."

"What do you expect?" retorted the scorpion, "This is the Middle East."


-- David Lubkin.




From extropy at audry2.com  Tue Jan 13 02:20:07 2004
From: extropy at audry2.com (Major)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 10:20:07 +0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <20040112221025.5407.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com> (message from
	Mike Lorrey on Mon, 12 Jan 2004 14:10:25 -0800 (PST))
References: <20040112221025.5407.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <200401130220.i0D2K7x02425@igor.synonet.com>


Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> writes:

> I'll notice that I've been advising those who disagree with me on
> military law subjects on this list to actually READ the Geneva
> Conventions. To date, it doesn't appear that anyone has taken me up on
> that advice.

I hadn't but I would have bet a large sum of money I could predict the
first four words. I was right.

> The High Contracting Parties [...]

The Palestinians, having been deprived of statehood by force, are not
and cannot be a "high contracting party".

> The primary reason that the British were getting guerillaed by the
> Zionist movement was that the Brits were not letting any more Jews
> return to their homeland (a right which the Palestinians think they
> deserve instead, apparently

> The British were also aiding German intelligence agents in assasinating
> Zionists on the streets of Palestine in the 1930's (targeted killing of
> militants, a practice which the Palestinians, Germans, and Mr. Grant
> seem to think is so criminal today when conducted against
> Palestinians).

So were these things wrong or not?

Were they in fact so wrong that the victims were entitled to use (what
would now be called) terrorist tactics to stop them?

If these things justified terrorism 50 years ago, why don't they
justify terrorism now?

Major


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 13 01:57:58 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 17:57:58 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] LP/GMO: Joan d'Arc of liberals plants GMO seeds
In-Reply-To: <20040112222354.7966.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040113015758.30459.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>

http://forum.freestateproject.org/index.php?board=6;action=display;threadid=5159

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/miniter-mingardi200311060837.asp

A demonstration recently in France by a new group of libertarians /
classical liberals stood in contrast to Jose Bove's obscurantist
luddism. This group, led by Sabine Herold, proclaimed by Le Figaro to
be "The Joan d'Arc of the liberals", energetically planted genetically
modified seeds in the public park and gave out GMO seeds to passers-by.



=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From riel at surriel.com  Tue Jan 13 02:06:58 2004
From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 21:06:58 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Moon news
In-Reply-To: <010920041833.5104.25e6@comcast.net>
References: <010920041833.5104.25e6@comcast.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.55L.0401122103300.7571@imladris.surriel.com>

On Fri, 9 Jan 2004 Artillo at comcast.net wrote:

> GRRRR I don't like this part of the article at all! I really don't think
> that a 'one-track mind' approach is a good idea, how about you guys?
>
> "Sources said Bush will direct NASA to scale back or scrap all existing
> programs that do not support the new effort.

Excellent.  Let the budget concentrate on projects that
generate lots of technology spin-offs.  Once the moon and
mars projects are done (or at least, once the main bulk
of these projects is there), we'll have lots of new
technology to do the scientific research with.

Yes, the scientific research is really cool; however it
doesn't do a lot to help push technology forward.

Rik
-- 
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan


From matus at matus1976.com  Tue Jan 13 02:30:27 2004
From: matus at matus1976.com (Matus)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 21:30:27 -0500
Subject: Israel and Palestine was RE: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <200401130220.i0D2K7x02425@igor.synonet.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3d97d$36f2ff60$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Major
>
> 
> The Palestinians, having been deprived of statehood by force, are not
> and cannot be a "high contracting party".
> 

When did the Palestinians ever have a state to begin with?  Egypt nor
any other Arab country didn't see fit to give em one.

Lets not forget to add to this discussion that Arafat wants to be an
Arab dictator of his own (why not, all other Arab countries are ruled by
oppressive theocrats and dictators, obvious exception of Iraq now, why
cant he have one!) 

That Arafat and the PA enforce by brutal methods that no Muslim should
ever live under the rule of a Jew, and use brainwashing children to turn
them into bombs to accomplish this goal.  Witness the Palestinian people
who desire to live under Israel but are attacked by the PA.  

"End the unjust Jewish occupation of Arab land!"
http://www.protestwarrior.com/images/tshirts/muslim_land.jpg

The worst villain in the Palestine Israel conflict is the noble peace
prize winning murderous terrorist Arafat.

Michael Dickey




From sjvans at ameritech.net  Tue Jan 13 04:05:06 2004
From: sjvans at ameritech.net (Stephen J. Van Sickle)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 22:05:06 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Blurb from fark.com
Message-ID: <1073966706.1047.44.camel@Renfield>


>From Fark.com:

Disregarding the lessons of Terminators 1, 2, and 3, group of nerds
wants to actually build Skynet

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2004/01/11/LVG1J459UE1.DTL




From aperick at centurytel.net  Tue Jan 13 02:21:41 2004
From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 18:21:41 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will
In-Reply-To: <200401112351.i0BNp5E16297@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3d97b$fc9e3f60$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>


JDP jacques at dtext.com wrote: 

>Freedom is the ability of doing what one wants. If I know what you
want, 
>I can sometimes predict what you will do; it doesn't make you any less
>free.

The absence of free will which would result in a purely deterministic
universe would cause you to always want to do what the clockwork of your
constituent particles could dictate. This is based on the idea that all
the particles have definite masses and trajectories which always
interact as classical Newtonian Kinematics would dictate. Or; that even
given certain quantum mechanical strangeness-es -- or what have we --
all particles are still destined to only go where they were headed. 

Am I wrong, anyone?



From thespike at earthlink.net  Tue Jan 13 03:33:32 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 21:33:32 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] LP/GMO: Joan d'Arc of liberals plants GMO seeds
References: <20040113015758.30459.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <004901c3d986$077a3380$f4994a43@texas.net>

> This group, led by Sabine Herold, proclaimed by Le Figaro to
> be "The Joan d'Arc of the liberals", energetically planted genetically
> modified seeds in the public park

Ah! Joan d'Parc.



From fortean1 at mindspring.com  Tue Jan 13 04:17:58 2004
From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 21:17:58 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD (UFO UpDate) Deconstructing 'Spirit'
Message-ID: <40037176.8F0A905E@mindspring.com>

From: Mac Tonnies <macbot at yahoo.com>
To: ufoupdates at virtuallystrange.net
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 21:01:09 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Deconstructing 'Spirit'



>From my weblog:

OK, I know I recently promised to lay off the subject of Mars. 
But that was before I realized what a mainstream subject it had 
become. Evidently there's quite a bit of public enthusiasm for 
the Spirit rover mission. Today the Kansas City Star and USA 
Today both have big front-page stories on "Mars Mania". And 
there's increasingly serious speculation that Bush's Moon-Mars 
initiative is more than just wishful thinking on behalf of space 
advocates. (Of course, when I say "Bush's Moon-Mars initiative" 
I'm not really attributing anything to Bush, who I doubt could 
locate the Red Planet on a map of the Solar System to save his 
life, but that's neither here nor there.....)

Have you noticed how JPL and the mainstream press have turned 
the Spirit rover into something of a personality? Space 
journalism is suddenly filled with rather desperate attempts to 
transmogrify a six-wheeled, solar-powered, remote-controlled 
dune-buggy into an interplanetary showman (or show-woman - I 
don't think they've given it a gender yet, although this issue 
was raised in the Posthuman Blues forum). When Spirit stand up 
on its wheels, it's not performing a basic requirement; it's 
giving a stand-up performance. It sleeps, it wakes up, it sends 
"postcards"! It's alive!

Can we expect Spirit to "do Letterman" anytime soon? Perhaps the 
JPL geeks (I use that term respectfully) can make it "wave its 
hand" to television viewers worldwide during the next big 
halftime show? Will Spirit run for president?

As much as I'm savoring the Spirit mission, I find attempts to 
humanize the rover weirdly disturbing - like guys who name 
their cars (or, worse, their computers) sexy female names. 
There's definitely a Freudian understratum to the public's 
infatuation with Spirit and its cybernetic derring-do. NASA has 
done more than transplant a bug-like machine to the Red Planet; 
it's sent a spark of our collective desire to get off this 
poisoned, treacherous globe we call "home." Spirit is nothing 
less than an avatar of silicon and wire, spared the neuroses and 
anxieties that plague Earth. Physically distant yet impressively 
intimate in its media-savvy, it (she?) joins the ranks of Max 
Headroom and Lara Croft - postmodern superstars that straddle 
the dissolving barrier between the real and the unreal.

It's no mistake there's a CD with hundreds of thousands of names 
on board Spirit - and yes, mine's there too, basking in Mars' 
ultraviolet flux, waiting for some future collector to pop it in 
his antique CD-ROM drive. It's like some sort of cosmic lottery, 
or a bid for ersatz immortality.

Ultimately, Spirit might have less to do with Mars than it does 
with the way we identify with our machinery. Perhaps instead of 
including a plaque commemorating the crew of Columbia, JPL 
should have attached a few choice quotes from J.G. Ballard's 
"Crash."


posted by Mac at 1/10/2004 10:04:33 PM

from: http://posthumanblues.blogspot.com


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
      U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
   TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Vietnam veterans,
Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]


From aperick at centurytel.net  Tue Jan 13 03:29:55 2004
From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 19:29:55 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence
In-Reply-To: <200401121708.i0CH8QE06980@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3d985$84a21b80$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>

Voting: 

One problem I have with the idea of voting is that I can always be
certain that I will be among a very small minority. Perhaps I have a
belief that the overwhelming majority of folk are massively stupid as
part of their "god-given" genetic composition. I could tell you all
where that belief comes from but you may just tell me that my personal
experiences and judgments etcetera. do not amount to conclusive
evidence. I would counter by trying to explain that my life experience
has been a bizarre one and that none of you are at all likely to have
found yourselves in a position to have witnessed what I have ... 

I'd really prefer that you all just trust me on this one. We are sorely
outnumbered. If we could see the situation clearly, if the founding
fathers of the USA could have seen into the future ... well, things just
may have been a little different. Am I to be called a bigot for saying
that only the sighted should be given the responsibility of leading the
blind? 
	



From spike66 at comcast.net  Tue Jan 13 04:41:26 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 20:41:26 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Europanto
In-Reply-To: <004901c3d944$74602f50$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <007501c3d98f$812da9b0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

 
> Harvey Newstrom
...
> 
> Totally wrong, Spike.  My words are much closer to the 
> original than yours.
> :-)
> 
> > > I trouve diese langue very bella.
> 
> I trowel disease languishing very bellicose...

[Harvey clears up a number of misunderstandings from translations]

{8^D  Thanks Harvey.  {8^D

I thought of an improvement on an earlier notion in which I was
proposing a universally translatable language accomplished
by defining all ambiguous terms.  In that passage, I had
suggested a parallel passage with a clarification of all
multi-definition terms by following these terms with a
colon and a definition delimited by dashes.

A better approach(3) would be to follow(2) each ambiguous 
term(4) with a digit(1) that specifies which definition(2)
is intended(1).  Every term(4) which has more than one
definition(2) in the dictionary would be followed(2)
by this digit(1).  Then the text(2) could be turned(3) 
on(1) or off(1)with a soft(4) button(2), like the soft(4) 
button(2) in the control(1) bar(4) of microsloth word(3) 
that toggles(1) the viewability of non-printed characters(3).
Some multi-definition terms(4), such as "spike"(8) may(1) 
have a large definition(2) digit(1).  Such text(2) would 
be simultaneously universally translatable(2) and readable(1).

spike(9)



From aperick at centurytel.net  Tue Jan 13 03:49:49 2004
From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 19:49:49 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence
In-Reply-To: <200401121708.i0CH8QE06980@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3d988$4c821900$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>

Technotranscendence wrote:

>(I don't know if you know, but I'm a free market anarchist.)


Some 12 years ago I too identified with the anarchist socio-political
theory. But I came to believe that the vast majority of humans are too
worthless to profit by it. Hell, they cannot even conceive of it. So I
switched to identifying as a rabid individualist -- keep an eye on me if
you like to watch people hurt themselves. :-) 

If being right means being your own worst enemy ... but then surely
there are an infinite number of ways of being one's own worst enemy: so
many ways to f__k one's self -- so little time. Having a talent is not
always a good thing, trust me. 


-------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Woolley, Closet nudist*, Certified Scientist Type, Confirmed
Atheist, radical thinker, notorious f__k-up, and self-proclaimed
singular authority on the abysmal depths of human stupidity that only we
few lack. 

* Part time comedian and recovering idealist ... now show me yours :)
http://home.centurytel.net/rickw aperick at centurytel.net



From natasha at natasha.cc  Tue Jan 13 07:08:00 2004
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 23:08:00 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] LP/GMO: Joan d'Arc of liberals plants GMO
  seeds
In-Reply-To: <004901c3d986$077a3380$f4994a43@texas.net>
References: <20040113015758.30459.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20040112230712.035ace50@pop.earthlink.net>

At 09:33 PM 1/12/04 -0600,  Damienwrote:
> > This group, led by Sabine Herold, proclaimed by Le Figaro to
> > be "The Joan d'Arc of the liberals", energetically planted genetically
> > modified seeds in the public park
>
>Ah! Joan d'Parc.

hahahah!  loling!  hahaha.

Okay, back to work on the Summit... 'tile midnight again ....

Natasha




>_______________________________________________
>extropy-chat mailing list
>extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat

Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc
----------
President, Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture  http://www.transhumanist.biz
http://www.transhuman.org
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From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Tue Jan 13 05:10:40 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 00:10:40 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Europanto
In-Reply-To: <007501c3d98f$812da9b0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <000b01c3d993$9a5fdee0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Spike wrote,
> A better approach(3) would be to follow(2) each ambiguous 
> term(4) with a digit(1) that specifies which definition(2)
> is intended(1).

Excellent(1)!

? Butperomaisaberma whyporqu?pourquoiwarumperch? notnonicht
inventinventeinventezerfindeninventi aun languagelengualanguesprachelingua
thatesoceladasquello everybodytodostoutjederognuno canlataludoselatta
readle?dobidongelesencolto ?

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From extropy at unreasonable.com  Tue Jan 13 05:18:44 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 00:18:44 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence
In-Reply-To: <000001c3d985$84a21b80$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>
References: <200401121708.i0CH8QE06980@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040113000445.0375f6c8@mail.comcast.net>

At 07:29 PM 1/12/2004 -0800, rick wrote:

>if the founding fathers of the USA could have seen into the future ... 
>well, things just may have been a little different. Am I to be called a 
>bigot for saying that only the sighted should be given the responsibility 
>of leading the blind?

The Founding Fathers, indeed, *did* want the right to vote limited to an 
elite, and arguably chose criteria that would select for intelligence, 
competence, and concern for the future. It's subsequent that the right to 
vote was expanded as broadly as possible.

Meanwhile, half of eligible voters don't currently vote. Has anyone seen a 
good multidimensional comparison of voters and non-voters? I would predict, 
for instance, that the median IQ of non-voters is substantially lower than 
that of voters.
It could well be that the people who don't vote are people one really 
wouldn't want voting anyway....


-- David Lubkin.




From twodeel at jornada.org  Tue Jan 13 06:41:45 2004
From: twodeel at jornada.org (Don Dartfield)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 22:41:45 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040113000445.0375f6c8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401122128280.18852-100000@hplx.net>

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, David Lubkin wrote:

> I would predict, for instance, that the median IQ of non-voters is
> substantially lower than that of voters.

I'm not so sure about that ... out of my eleven closest friends, spread
out across the political spectrum and across the United States and Canada,
but all of whom are pretty intelligent (i.e., none of them scored lower
than 90th percentile on college admission tests), only me and one other 
guy voted in the last presidential election, and I'm the only one who 
votes in local elections regularly.  A lot of my intelligent friends feel 
that voting is a waste of time, or just don't care enough to vote.



From gpmap at runbox.com  Tue Jan 13 06:59:46 2004
From: gpmap at runbox.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 07:59:46 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
In-Reply-To: <000301c3d876$faa28000$f0c7fea9@scerir>
Message-ID: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGCEKECAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>

Of course the fact that we feel like we choose freely means that if in
reality the universe were completely deterministic, we would still observe
free will on the macroscale without noticing any difference. I think in a
deterministic universe it is possible to have an operational equivalent of
free will by postulating that any accurate computation of the future would
take more time than it takes to the universe to get there (any really
accurate computation of tomorrow's weather takes more than one day).
Concerning the Copenaghen  interpretation, I think it is possible to
demonstrate that interacting with a macroscopic environment does not do the
trick that we describe as collapse. Scerir?
I think the problem is that we still use a macroscopic language to describe
the universe, and QM is telling us that reality just cannot be described
completely and consistently that way. I am sure all conceptual difficulties
will melt like snowflakes once we can self consistently derive our
perceptions of macroscopic reality from fundamental physics.
My favorite interpretation is in my article (in Spanish) on the Everett
interpretation of quantum physics recently appeared on Tendencias
Cientificas.
http://tendencias21.net/index.php3?action=page&id_art=64857
Our brain splits reality in Everett's parallel worlds to handle it more
easily. Abstract: On a fundamental level there is a quantum reality where
there are no bricks, computer screens, dead or alive cats, or independent
observers, but only a superposition of states of unthinkable complexity. Our
brains are not powerful enough to store and process a reality of such
complexity, and therefore splits reality in parallel worlds that our
intelligence can handle more easily...
-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of scerir
Sent: domingo, 11 de enero de 2004 20:13
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of
Man


From: "Anders Sandberg"

> My personal view is that it is a red herring altogether to worry about the
> microphysics when discussing free will. Free will is something we observe
> on the macroscale as people make free choices, and even if all quantum
> randomness came from a deterministic look-up table we would not see a
> difference. Besides, indeterminacy is no real friend of freedom either.

As far as I know the only possible connection between free will and micro-
physics is via "entanglement", in the sense that, in principle, you can
suppose something in the brain to be entangled with something outside,
very far too. But Asher Peres made a very detailed analysis of all that
(Foundations of Physics, many years ago - I can find the exact
reference if somebody needs it) and showed the inconsistency of this
issue.

> That is *one* interpretation of the Copenhagen interpretation. Notice that
> in the original phrasing it did not involve (to my knowledge) any
> reference to a conscious observer, just an observer. It could just as well
> be a human observer, a male observer or something else, but the idea that
> consciousness somehow has something to do with quantum mechanics is
> extremely popular with some people.

In fact there are, at least, four different interpretations of the
Copenhagen interpretation. According to Bohr there is no physical
"collapse", what counts is what is "knowable" in principle, and Bohr's
complementarity interpretation makes little mention of wave packet
collapse or any other silliness that follows there from, such as
a privileged role for the subjective consciousness of the observer,
the observer being classical and "detached". Heisenberg (at least the
young Heisenberg) believed (as von Neumann, London, Bauer, and Wigner -
just till the end of '70s) in a "physical" collapse, caused by the
consciousness of the observer. Pauli developed his own interpretation
based on uncaused "occasio", "anima mundi", "attached" observers
because they choose the actual experimental set-up. Born developed
a more "realistic" interpretation based on quantum
"invariants" and, later, on the possible physical nature of the
wavefunction.

Of course the "consciousness and QM" issue is not over. Many
authors (like Penrose, Stapp, etc.) are still writing papers
and books. David Albert wrote a nice paper showing that a
quantum automaton (an automaton described by QM) behaves
(knows, predicts, feels) in a very strange manner, especially
when it performs self-measurements, or measurements performed
on systems made of subsystems and it-self. But it turns out that
this quantum automaton in fact does not perform true, irreversible
measurements, instead it just performs pre-measurements, or reversible
measurements. Thus when one introduces true (non reversible)
measurements, that is to say "recording apparata", the
"consciousness" issue arises again.

There are, of course, many more points of view about how
"consciousness" has/has not something to do with micro-physics.
In example see below (from Wigner Centennial)
http://quantum.ttk.pte.hu/~wigner/proceedings/papers/w58.pdf
http://www.eps.org/aps/meet/APR02/baps/abs/S2130003.html


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From Johnius at Genius.UCSD.edu  Tue Jan 13 07:19:07 2004
From: Johnius at Genius.UCSD.edu (Johnius)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 23:19:07 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Sleeplessness
Message-ID: <40039BEB.17718DB5@Genius.UCSD.edu>


 
http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2004/01/06/hwake06.xml
  The 44-hour day

A new prescription drug that can stave off sleep for
hours - with no side-effects - could transform the way
we live. The armed forces already use it; others, from
new mothers to shift-workers, might benefit too. So
what effect did it have on Julia Llewellyn Smith over
the party season?

It's 4am, I've been up for 20 hours, but I don't feel
tired. I'm not at a wild party, nor rocking a wailing
infant, nor am I lying miserably in bed cursing my
insomnia. I am sitting at my desk paying my bills on
the internet as if it were mid-afternoon. There is
none of the usual roar of traffic from outside, just
my keyboard tapping into eerie silence. I call friends
in Australia - where it's mid-afternoon and they're
very surprised to hear from me. I put some washing in
the machine, then paint my toenails. I look at the
clock: 4.45am. I haven't yawned once.

The reason for my alertness is 200mg of modafinil, a
new prescription drug that staves off sleep for hours
on end. Unlike the drugs we've traditionally used to
keep us going, modafinil appears to have few, if any,
side effects. While coffee-drinkers shake and
amphetamine-users jabber aggressively, on modafinil I
feel calm, focused - and able to work all night.

According to Leon Kreitzman, author of The 24-Hour
Society, drugs like modafinil will transform society.
[...]


	This reminds me of the scifi novel I read called
	_Beggars in Spain_, where an experimental generation 
	of humans had no need to sleep.  With 8 more hours
	per day, they learned and experienced much more, 
	and so accelerated their own development/intelligence.
	They also effectively lived 50% longer than ordinary
	humans sleeping away a third of their lives.

	It also reminds me of a booklet I read several years
	ago by a Mensan claiming to have devised a program
	for regular humans to get by well on just 3 hours of
	sleep / night.  Certain dietary changes were necessary
	(e.g., to avoid sleep-inducing foods), as well as 
	motivation (e.g., have extremely interesting projects
	to work on that are so exciting you want to get right
	to them upon waking).

	I've read that a few genius types (e.g., Edison, Fuller),
	managed to get by on minimal sleep for extended periods
	by taking 5 minute cat naps on site, springing right back
	into the work after each nap ...

	As long as such sleep reductions don't interfere with
	needed bodily repairs (for longevity) and psychological
	rest/reorganization (REM sleep), such practices seem
	at least somewhat extropic to me.

	Johnius, who hasn't yet evolved to Sleeplessness...


From spike66 at comcast.net  Tue Jan 13 07:18:21 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 23:18:21 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] i-language again
In-Reply-To: <001201c3d878$65cfd3e0$e5994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <007c01c3d9a5$6d812fc0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

> Damien Broderick

> > >Overview for "spike"
> > >
> > >The noun "spike" has 9 senses in WordNet...

> Harvey Newstrom
> 
> Excellent(1)!
> 
> ? Butperomaisaberma whyporqu?pourquoiwarumperch? notnonicht
> inventinventeinventezerfindeninventi aun 
> languagelengualanguesprachelingua
> thatesoceladasquello everybodytodostoutjederognuno canlataludoselatta
> readle?dobidongelesencolto ?
> 
> -- 
> Harvey Newstrom

The notion is to take advantage of our computers to do
what computers do so very well: to learn and remember stuff.
This would allow our brains to do what brains do so well:
learn one language early in life, then avoid the
educational overhead required to pick up others.

The system I propose does require computers to translate.
What I have been thinking about for some time is a slight 
variation on each of our native languages, that are as 
close to the original language as possible, yet would be
universally machine translatable.

Stay with this line of reasoning: I think we are drawing
close to a possible solution.  It would require some sort
of universal dictionary, in which the definitions all
appear as pictures.  This is something that could never
have been done before the internet existed.

Example, spike.  (1) picture of a railroad spike.
(2) picture of a athletic shoe with cleats.
(3) picture of graph with a sudden upturn.
...
(11) picture of Spike Jones the musician, etc.

Then create in this universal graphical dictionary
a list of equivalent words in various columns: 
German in column 1, French in 2, English 3, etc.  Then 
anyone with a computer would be able to unambiguously
translate any text into any other language, without
loss of meaning provided the original writer would number 
each of the ambiguous terms (about a quarter of the words
I would estimate).

If a language has no word for a certain concept, it
merely needs to borrow one from any other language.
We do that now all the time: languages borrow technical
terms from whoever invents them.  Rocket science is
*filled* with German terms for instance.  

This kind of writing would be laborious for sure, but 
text in this form would be universally accessible to 
anyone who understands *any* language, but more importantly, 
text that has been de-ambiguationed is accessible by AI.
Text in this form will educate AI, and it will bootstrap
from that to all the rest of the text.

Perhaps text in the appropriate form would contribute
to the probability that the first AI is friendly.

Eliezer, this thread cries out for your comments.

spike  



From spike66 at comcast.net  Tue Jan 13 07:47:51 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 23:47:51 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] i-language again
In-Reply-To: <007c01c3d9a5$6d812fc0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <008301c3d9a9$8c463e60$6501a8c0@SHELLY>



> Spike:

> 
> It would require some sort
> of universal dictionary, in which the definitions all
> appear as pictures.  This is something that could never
> have been done before the internet existed.
> 
> Example, spike.  (1) picture of a railroad spike.
> (2) picture of a athletic shoe with cleats.
> (3) picture of graph with a sudden upturn.
> ...
> (11) picture of Spike Jones the musician, etc... spike  


Further thoughts: the nouns would be simple to find
graphical representations.  Most of the images are
already available somewhere on the web.  The task of
finding and placing the images into a universal
online graphical dictionary is enormous, but it can
be divided among 1E5 human volunteer enthusiasts, or 1E6.
For round 1 we could send everyone out to search for
their favorite noun.  Eventually we would need to assign
tasks: Harvey, find an toupe.  Spike, find an aardvark.
Damien find a kazoo.  {Well, both kazoos, (1) the toy 
musical instrument and the (2) ass, as in "Bill Gates 
has money up the kazoo."}

The verbs are more difficult, but this perhaps is the
point.  In the bad old days when information was mostly
stored on paper, a graphical representation of most
verbs would be difficult if not impossible.  Consider
the familiar example "spike".  How would you draw a
picture explaining a volleyball spike?  Now imagine
a gorgeous Lara Croft character going up for a beautiful 
stylish slo-mo whackeroo spike for the point.  Are you 
seeing it?

The adverbs could be described with an animation of just 
the unmodified verb and a second animation with the verb: 
example: an ordinary vollyball spike, then a gnarly spike 
for instance, the latter having greater than ordinary 
enthusiam and style.

Adjectives would likewise require two pictures, one with
and one without the adjective.  Ordinary high heels first
then spike heels second, for instance.

Whaddya think?  If we started a website to create a universal
grahical dictionary, could we raise 1E5 volunteer to chip in
an hour or two looking around for words?  Or to look at the
existing animations and filling in the columns with the
equivalent words from their native language?

spike 



From asa at nada.kth.se  Tue Jan 13 12:24:17 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 13:24:17 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Mappa Mundi
Message-ID: <1616.213.112.90.19.1073996657.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>

http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0309415
[astro-ph/0310571] A Map of the Universe by J. Richard Gott III, Mario
Juric, David Schlegel, Fiona Hoyle, Michael Vogeley, Max Tegmark, Neta
Bahcall and Jon Brinkmann. Extra material at
http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~mjuric/universe/.

A map showing a geocentric perspective of the entire universe. The trick
is to make one direction logarithmic, which makes it possible to depict
everything (more or less) from the Earth's core out to the Big Bang. The
other direction represents declination, making this a slice across the
universe along the ecliptic.

If I have inherited anything from my father, it is his love of maps. A
good map gives a sense of a place and its context. It should have as much
information as possible but still "quiet" information: information that
doesn't distract the viewer when viewing the map in general but directly
available once you look for it. And the more complete the map is, the
better.

By these standards this map is very good. It gives a sense of the stuff we
find around us. The authenticity created by plotting the positions of
satellites, minor bodies and planets at a particular moment in time is
reassuring and reveals many interesting patters (for example, look at the
asteroid belt and how they are affected by Jupiter). I wonder what Edward
Tufte would say about it?

I would probably have rendered it a bit different by applying textures to
represent the galactic disc etc as coloured stars (perhaps grey) to make
it less abstract. It is also a bit sad that the names of many neighbouring
galaxies are not written in full, for popular science purposes it is
better to call M31 "The Andromeda Galaxy (M31)" than just M31.

In the paper the authors discuss the intricacies of the mapping. Beside
the usual issues of conformality (keeping angles locally identical to
avoid distortion of shape) they have to deal with the relativistic effects
of a curved space-time. It is a nice loop: geometry in curved space was
developed by mapmakers, turned by Gauss (who did geodesic measurements)
and others into a mathematical discipline that were to be the seed and
engine of general relativity and now returns home to itself to make a map.

I wonder if one could make a good 3D box map by plotting Ascension too?
Obviously there are tricky issues of conformality, but it would probably
be worthwhile to show how the different planes align (or rather not
align).

The authors also suggest plenty of interesting applications and ways of
presenting the map, from wallscreens and lasershows on buildings to rugs
for astronomy labs. A scientific visualization this good is bound to crop
up in many places.



-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it  Tue Jan 13 13:09:20 2004
From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 14:09:20 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Mappa Mundi
In-Reply-To: <1616.213.112.90.19.1073996657.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
References: <1616.213.112.90.19.1073996657.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401131406190.13968@hercules>

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Anders Sandberg wrote:

>http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0309415
>[astro-ph/0310571] A Map of the Universe by J. Richard Gott III, Mario
>Juric, David Schlegel, Fiona Hoyle, Michael Vogeley, Max Tegmark, Neta
>Bahcall and Jon Brinkmann. Extra material at
>http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~mjuric/universe/.
>
>A map showing a geocentric perspective of the entire universe. The trick
>is to make one direction logarithmic, which makes it possible to depict
>everything (more or less) from the Earth's core out to the Big Bang. The
>other direction represents declination, making this a slice across the
>universe along the ecliptic.

Now what's needed is some artist to replace the circles with actual
planet photos, the triangles with galaxy photos, put a blue/black
background, paste in some aircraft and space probes at the right scale,
and you've got something that can be distributed widely :)

ALfio


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Tue Jan 13 14:33:37 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 09:33:37 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] i-language again
In-Reply-To: <008301c3d9a9$8c463e60$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <003e01c3d9e2$3eea61d0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Spike wrote,
> > Example, spike.  (1) picture of a railroad spike.
> > (2) picture of a athletic shoe with cleats.
> > (3) picture of graph with a sudden upturn.
> > ...
> > (11) picture of Spike Jones the musician, etc... spike

Interesting ideas, Spike!  Some comments:

Apple has almost done what you are describing with their AppleScript
programming language.  It is very human-language like, in an attempt to make
it readable and debuggable by casual users.  So you can code something like
"Tell the application Word to find my document named Resume and then
spellcheck it with dictionary English with option underlining on and then
save results onto network disk named Server unless status of network disk
named Server is off."  This almost looks like English.

But what is really interesting is that they tokenize these words to
byte-code numbers.  A foreign-language speaker sharing a network disk and
looking at the exact same script above would see their own language!  Each
foreign speaker can read and edit the script in their own language, while
all other viewers see their own native language instead.  I think this
approach would be a great way to have language-independent documents.  For
this, you would need to distinguish different (numbered meanings) as you
suggested earlier.


Internationally understood icons are not as easy as you think.  I researched
this almost 15 years ago for some computer work.  Many icons make sense in
one language, but not another.  

- The "hotness" of taco sauce can be represented by a thermometer in
English, because the word "hot" means high temperature and high spiciness.
In Spanish, these are unrelated words and nobody would connect the
thermometer with spiciness.  
- Remember that the Red Cross has to be changed to the Red Crescent in the
Middle East.
- Some cultures find the words "encrypted" and "decrypted" to be offensive
swear-words because they refer to crypts or dead bodies.  (International
security documents use "encipher" and "decipher" for this reason.) 
- The thumb-and-circle "OK" sign and the pilot's "thumbs up" sign are
offensive vulgar gestures in some cultures.
- Showing teeth (or bone) is considered offensive in many Asian cultures, so
a smile is not good.
- In the Philippines, raising one's eyebrows up and down is a greeting or an
affirmative answer.  People from other cultures may misinterpret this.  They
also signal people to come closer by waving downward.
- A few cultures shake their head up-and-down to answer negative.
- Searching for Culture FAQs and in alt.<groupname>.culture on usenet will
find more information


Many Asian cultures can almost read other Asian languages because many of
the ideograms are similar.  These evolved from more primitive pictographs of
the items represented.  It makes sense that various cultures would use
similar icons.  But the spoken words for these similar icons are totally
different in each language even in cases where the icons were identical.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Tue Jan 13 14:48:50 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 09:48:50 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040113000445.0375f6c8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <004201c3d9e4$5e31aab0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

David Lubkin wrote,
> The Founding Fathers, indeed, *did* want the right to vote 
> limited to an elite, and arguably chose criteria that would
> select for intelligence, competence, and concern for the future.
> It's subsequent that the right to vote was expanded as broadly
> as possible.

The founding father's criteria for voting:
- Males could vote, females couldn't
- Whites could vote, blacks and natives couldn't
- Land or estate owners could vote, their tenets, employees and poor people
could not

I don't see that rich white males select for intelligence or competence very
well.  I am glad the right to vote was expanded as broadly as possible.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 13 15:06:14 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 07:06:14 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence
In-Reply-To: <004201c3d9e4$5e31aab0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040113150614.4536.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> 
> The founding father's criteria for voting:
> - Males could vote, females couldn't
> - Whites could vote, blacks and natives couldn't
> - Land or estate owners could vote, their tenets, employees and poor
> people
> could not
> 
> I don't see that rich white males select for intelligence or
> competence very
> well.  I am glad the right to vote was expanded as broadly as
> possible.

Yes, expanded at a time when the US had acheived nearly universal
literacy, so every citizen was typically capable of making informed
voting decisions.

Now, the reason landowners were the voters then was that the whole tax
system was property based. The states themselves funded the federal
government proportionately based on the acrage of each state. "No
taxation without representation" = "No representation without taxation".

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Tue Jan 13 15:32:57 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 07:32:57 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] BIO: Large brains gene
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401130723390.29324-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Well, on top of our discussion last week about what genes
one should select for in children, scientists have announced
a strong candidate gene as the source for large human brains.

See:
2004-01-13
Gene May Be Key To Evolution Of Larger Human Brain
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040113075403.htm

Interestingly, the gene -- the Abnormal Spindle-Like Microcephaly
Associated (ASPM) gene, when defective causes human microcephaly.

Now, the question would be -- is there any strong statistical
evidence that larger brains (larger heads???) correlate with
greater intelligence?

I would bet that someone is writing a grant proposal today
to look for polymorphisms in the gene to see if they correlate
with IQ.  I wonder what the response will be if polymorphisms are
found and potential parents can determine with relative certainty
that they are most probably going to have children with diminished
intelligence?

Robert



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Tue Jan 13 15:38:29 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 10:38:29 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Sleeplessness
In-Reply-To: <40039BEB.17718DB5@Genius.UCSD.edu>
Message-ID: <004501c3d9eb$4ea60170$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Johnius wrote,
>
<http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2004/01/06/hw
ake06.xml>
>   The 44-hour day
> 
> A new prescription drug that can stave off sleep for
> hours - with no side-effects - could transform the way
> we live. The armed forces already use it; others, from
> new mothers to shift-workers, might benefit too. So
> what effect did it have on Julia Llewellyn Smith over
> the party season?

One warning quote from the article:  "I'm surprised to feel my legs shake
slightly - a symptom of exhaustion. I realize modafinil may stop you from
feeling sleepy but you still feel tired. My limbs grow heavier, but that
doesn't stop the wakefulness. If wake-up drugs catch on, 'tiredness' and
'sleepiness' will have to be separated: a hard concept to grasp."

This is similar to other reports I have reviewed.  This drug eliminates the
sleepiness and desire to sleep, but it does not eliminate the need for sleep
or the symptoms of sleep deprivation.  A person can go quite a long time
without sleep.  This drug seems to block the urge to sleep and helps people
force their bodies to continue functioning during sleep deprivation.
However, it is not clear that it actually reduces the need for sleep.
Remember that the author of this article goes home and sleeps every night,
and still complains of feeling tired, exhaustion and physical shakiness due
to lack of sleep.

I also wonder how long this can be kept up.  Other reports I have heard say
that people crash when they stop taking this drug.  Some have reported
sleeping for a few days straight.  Others merely say that they sleep 10-12
hours a night for some period afterwards.  I tend to do this when I am on a
busy contract.  I can do 6 hours per night all week, but then I sleep until
noon on Saturday and Sunday.  It almost seems that the body has to recover
later.

This sounds like an amazing drug for short-term use.  I am not sure I would
want to experiment with long-term until I saw some animal studies showing
that the animals lived long, normal, healthy lives.  This would be great for
one of our conventions!  It may be reasonable to spend a three-day weekend
without sleep, gaining all the extra hours, and then catching up during the
following week by sleeping slightly longer at night.

I do know that non-REM sleep is compressible, while REM sleep does not seem
to be.  When people miss sleep one night, they sleep more the next few
nights to make it up.  Researchers have found that their total sleep time is
not made up, but the total amount of REM sleep missed is made up in full.
They go into REM cycles sooner when they finally sleep, and have longer REM
cycles.  This may represent a more efficient sleep, or it may be a kind of
healing-mode for the body that is not healthy to require regularly.

>From my psychology days, I remember that there are radically different
symptoms for REM-sleep deprivation and non-REM-sleep deprivation:
- A lack of S-SLEEP (non-REM-sleep, synchronized sleep, orthodox sleep, slow
wave sleep) causes lethargy, physical tiredness, lessened protein
utilization, poor RNA production, lessened pain resistance, lessened growth
hormone release, slow healing, poor growth.  
- A lack of D-SLEEP (REM-sleep, desynchronized sleep, unorthodox sleep, fast
wave sleep) causes memory problems, speech problems, lessened mental
ability, lessened problem-solving ability, depression, paranoia, waking
delusions, psychological disorders, sleepwalking, increased dreaming,
decreased immune system functions.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From matus at matus1976.com  Tue Jan 13 16:12:15 2004
From: matus at matus1976.com (Matus)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 11:12:15 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Sleeplessness
In-Reply-To: <004501c3d9eb$4ea60170$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <000001c3d9f0$065c3330$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Harvey Newstrom
> 
> Johnius wrote,
> >
>
<http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2004/01/0
6/
> hw
> ake06.xml>
> >   The 44-hour day
> >
> > A new prescription drug that can stave off sleep for
> > hours - with no side-effects - could transform the way
> > we live. The armed forces already use it; others, from
> > new mothers to shift-workers, might benefit too. So
> > what effect did it have on Julia Llewellyn Smith over
> > the party season?
> 
> One warning quote from the article:  "I'm surprised to feel my legs
shake
> slightly - a symptom of exhaustion. I realize modafinil may stop you
from
> feeling sleepy but you still feel tired. My limbs grow heavier, but
that
> doesn't stop the wakefulness. If wake-up drugs catch on, 'tiredness'
and
> 'sleepiness' will have to be separated: a hard concept to grasp."

Speaking from experience having used modafinil Id say Harvey's warnings
are just about right on.  I wrote some of my experiences with this drug
and posted in on the extropy list a while back.  Your body certainly
feels the soreness that goes along with no sleep, even if functionally
you are wide awake and alert.

In the article the author says 

"But as the hours wear on, I notice what doesn't happen: no yawning, no
intense yearning for a 2pm nap. Instead I steadily work through my to-do
list."

This is exactly what it did for me, even after only 3 or 4 hours of
sleep, or even after no sleep, I could make it through an 8 hours
workday with no yawning and no need for sleep overcoming me, and no
desire for an afternoon nap.  This worked especially well during
meetings, which even after a long good sleep I had trouble staying awake
in.

> 
> This is similar to other reports I have reviewed.  This drug
eliminates
> the
> sleepiness and desire to sleep, but it does not eliminate the need for
> sleep
> or the symptoms of sleep deprivation.  A person can go quite a long
time
> without sleep.  This drug seems to block the urge to sleep and helps
> people
> force their bodies to continue functioning during sleep deprivation.
> However, it is not clear that it actually reduces the need for sleep.

I don't think it could eliminate sleep, but I think it can reduce the
amount of sleep you need, especially in people who need more than the
average amount of sleep.  My girlfriend at the time needed 10 - 12 hours
of sleep, on modafinil (only 50 mg a day) she could get by just fine on
7 or 8 hours.  

In all, Id say Harvey's comments are right on this.  You wont be able to
get rid of the need for sleep, but I would add you probably could reduce
the need, though I did not take the drug long enough nor track my sleep
accurately enough to be sure.  It is an expensive drug, coming out to $5
- $6 a pill for a 100 mg tab.  To really go without sleep for two days
or more you need 2 100mg tab every 8 hours, $30 a day.  

Has anyone besides me actually used this drug on the extropy list?
Thoughts, experiences?

Michael Dickey




From mhaislip at quest-web.com  Tue Jan 13 17:05:32 2004
From: mhaislip at quest-web.com (Michael Haislip)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 11:05:32 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Sleeplessness
In-Reply-To: <000001c3d9f0$065c3330$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>
References: <004501c3d9eb$4ea60170$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<000001c3d9f0$065c3330$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>
Message-ID: <6.0.1.1.2.20040113110158.01f9ab80@mail.quest-web.com>

At 10:12 AM 1/13/2004, you wrote:
>It is an expensive drug, coming out to $5
>- $6 a pill for a 100 mg tab.  To really go without sleep for two days
>or more you need 2 100mg tab every 8 hours, $30 a day.


Adrafinil, the cheaper cousin of Modafinil, costs around $1.00 a pill for a 
400 mg dose. Although it doesn't stave off sleep for days, it does work 
effectively for a few hours and makes waking up in the morning easier.


-------------------------------------------------------
Michael Haislip
------------------------------------------------------- 



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 13 17:13:39 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 09:13:39 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Europanto
In-Reply-To: <007501c3d98f$812da9b0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <20040113171339.32693.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote: 
> A better approach(3) would be to follow(2) each ambiguous 
> term(4) with a digit(1) that specifies which definition(2)
> is intended(1).  

Heck, we can't get kids to spell the words right, what makes you think
they'll make the effort to remember the proper numerical designations
for each definition for each term?

If everybody had a context analysis AI that would do this for you like
a spell checker, querying you on the ambiguous terms, this might be
implementable, then you'd have individuals who WANTED their text to be
universally translatable to put the effort into making it so.

However, I imagine now that high paid writers and publishers will
employ rooms full of low paid immigrant workers to do their translation
designations for them: the blind leading the blind.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Tue Jan 13 17:20:14 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 09:20:14 -0800
Subject: Israel and Palestine was RE: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <000001c3d97d$36f2ff60$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>
Message-ID: <000001c3d9f9$87817c00$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Matus
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 6:30 PM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: Israel and Palestine was RE: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already




> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat- 
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Major
>
> 
> The Palestinians, having been deprived of statehood by force, are not 
> and cannot be a "high contracting party".
> 

When did the Palestinians ever have a state to begin with?  Egypt nor
any other Arab country didn't see fit to give em one.

=> Why not have the US open its borders and give them New Jersey, while
you're at it, if you are so eager to condemn Arab nations for refusing
to take in an ENTIRE populace (I would have said country, but i had a
feeling you would object) of refugees.  Incidentally, they were living
SOMEWHERE prior to the formation and establishment of Israel as it
currently stands.

Lets not forget to add to this discussion that Arafat wants to be an
Arab dictator of his own (why not, all other Arab countries are ruled by
oppressive theocrats and dictators, obvious exception of Iraq now, why
cant he have one!) 

=> Last I checked, when the US attempted to have him replaced, they
found him to be impossible to remove because of popular support for him.
Incidentally, both Iraq and Egypt (both US-backed) have presidents who
are "elected" but
DO NOT have popular support.  I might even go further to add that
Israel, a US-backed "democracy" currently has a
large population that is living in the equivalent of interment camps.

That Arafat and the PA enforce by brutal methods that no Muslim should
ever live under the rule of a Jew, 
=> I agree with his assement.  It should be a true democracy comprised
of both Jews and Palestinians.

and use brainwashing children to turn them into bombs to accomplish this
goal.  
=>Ah the marvels of propoganda :) Denigrate the oppositions
thinking-capability.
Perhaps the children are seeing more clearly what is occurring than the
eyes
of the west?  I mean, they do live in that situation 24-7; its not like
the media
has a chance to squash the stories that comprise their lives.

Witness the Palestinian people who desire to live under Israel but are
attacked by the PA.  
=> Provide some links please :) I'm always willing to learn something
new in the course of a discussion.

"End the unjust Jewish occupation of Arab land!"
http://www.protestwarrior.com/images/tshirts/muslim_land.jpg
=> Hmm.. Unjust, Jewish-occupied, Arab land... hmmmm. Where's the
problem with that statement?

The worst villain in the Palestine Israel conflict is the noble peace
prize winning murderous terrorist Arafat.
=> I note, Sharon "the Butcher" hasn't gotten any kudos over his reign.

Michael Dickey


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 13 17:26:49 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 09:26:49 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] LP/GMO: Joan d'Arc of liberals plants GMO  seeds
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20040112230712.035ace50@pop.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <20040113172649.83029.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Natasha Vita-More <natasha at natasha.cc> wrote:
> At 09:33 PM 1/12/04 -0600,  Damienwrote:
> > > This group, led by Sabine Herold, proclaimed by Le Figaro to
> > > be "The Joan d'Arc of the liberals", energetically planted
> genetically
> > > modified seeds in the public park
> >
> >Ah! Joan d'Parc.
> 
> hahahah!  loling!  hahaha.

What is interesting was she led a demonstration against government
unions that drew 80,000. Shocked everybody, including herself. She's a
looker too, one of the rare french women who seems to shave her arm
pits...  Too bad THIS movement doesn't draw such crowds.

http://www.theatlasphere.com/columns/uploads/sabinespeaks2.jpg

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Tue Jan 13 17:34:16 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 09:34:16 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Sleeplessness
In-Reply-To: <40039BEB.17718DB5@Genius.UCSD.edu>
Message-ID: <000001c3d9fb$7c8c3d10$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Johnius
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 11:19 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: [extropy-chat] Sleeplessness

	I've read that a few genius types (e.g., Edison, Fuller),
	managed to get by on minimal sleep for extended periods
	by taking 5 minute cat naps on site, springing right back
	into the work after each nap ...

That seems to be the popular consensus then; there was a guy
on the internet who was trying to do a 2 hour sleep schedule
interspersed throughout the day (30 minute naps).  A really
interesting side-note to his project, was that he developed
a craving for grape juice.  I have found, that when I have
concentrated straight for four hours or so, and get a sort
of mental "burn" (neurotransmitter depletion I suspect), 
grape juice will immediately alleviate that burn, and return
me to state of mental "freshness".  I too, have read about
(and met!) people who sleep 2 hours a night.  I can also report
that DXM seems to inhibit some sort of cycle, so that if you take
a certain mg dosage before you go to sleep, you wake up as 
refreshed as if you have slept for 24 hours!  Not sure
why this is so, though.  I think it has to do with some sort
of inhibition of the dreaming cycle, because if you've done
DXM daily for 3-4 days, about 3-4 days after you will get the
most intense vivid dreams.

	As long as such sleep reductions don't interfere with
	needed bodily repairs (for longevity) and psychological
	rest/reorganization (REM sleep), such practices seem
	at least somewhat extropic to me.

The only thing that bothers me about sleep reduction cycles
is that of information retention;  I'm worried that knowledge
acquired during the cycle will evaporate the minute you
have normal sleep (like building on a house of cards).
I've also experienced a weird state where I've been mentally
processing stuff at night, and wake up instantly alert with
a bunch of new stuff already figured out.  Not sure why this
happens though; I've noticed it tends to be stuff it tends to
concern interesting (to me) problems that require creative
solutions.  This is different from my normal creative routines
in that (for this class of problems), solutions do not spring
unbidden to my mind...  There is usually some examination of
the problem from different angles, and proddings.  I've
also gone into dream cycles, where I'll sleep for 24 hours;
when it happens, I usually wake up about 12 hours into it, realize
its a dream cycle, and go back to sleep.  Its a period of
lucid dreaming, but on a very advanced scale.. Its more like
I'm not dreaming, but thinking.  Its very fun :)

Anyways, I was curious if anyone on the list has any of 
these occurrences/states/experiments etc?  I know I tend
to think differently than a lot of people (so far as I can
deduce), but this is the stuff thats unusual even for me :)
I'm curious to see if anyone exhibits similar patterns.

omard-out








From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Tue Jan 13 17:45:09 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 09:45:09 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence
In-Reply-To: <004201c3d9e4$5e31aab0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <000201c3d9fd$03786140$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Harvey
Newstrom
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 6:49 AM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence


David Lubkin wrote,
> The Founding Fathers, indeed, *did* want the right to vote
> limited to an elite, and arguably chose criteria that would
> select for intelligence, competence, and concern for the future.
> It's subsequent that the right to vote was expanded as broadly
> as possible.

The founding father's criteria for voting:
- Males could vote, females couldn't
- Whites could vote, blacks and natives couldn't
- Land or estate owners could vote, their tenets, employees and poor
people could not

I don't see that rich white males select for intelligence or competence
very well.  I am glad the right to vote was expanded as broadly as
possible.

---

=> actually I'm just sad that its STILL a 2-party system.  
But I agree with you, everyone should fundamentally have the right to
vote.  
Its also a shame that at most, 14% of them choose to exercise that
right.

omard-out




From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Tue Jan 13 19:04:11 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 13:04:11 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence
References: <000001c3d985$84a21b80$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>
Message-ID: <LAW10-OE43XqzLyITMg0002df18@hotmail.com>

I happen to agree with you about the majority.

I am still working on my human evolution research and this is something I
have been pondering for a while. Is there a real genetic difference between
the "sighted" as you call them, and the unsighted? Is it a spontaneous
mutation? (I'd like to have Eli's response on this as well). Or is it a
purely cultural phenomenon?
Along the same lines, is there a link between "intelligence" and
self-awareness? It seems to me that the people who are "sighted" also happen
to be less aware of themselves and their rnvironment. You see them every day
driving down the road for 20 miles with the turn signal on. They have no
idea who is next to them when they are sitting at a stop light and when they
are car-jacked, it comes as a total surprise while I tend to think I would
notice someone approaching my car so that I could take evasive actions.
(Hmmm, I wonder if accident rates are higher for those as well. I've only
been in one collision and I was rear-ended and had no place to go. Insurance
companies could have fun with this!)

Are we really different, or is it just our culture and environment? If we
are different, then that would explain the slow pace of advancement for the
first 150,000 years of our species. Maybe only 1 in 200,000 is a tool
"maker" while the rest are simply tool "users". A tool "maker" would have
been very rare then. I wonder if enough CAT scans and MRIs of two groups,
the "sighted" and "unsighted" would show any real difference.

As far as voting goes, the only option to letting everyone vote is allowing
only the "sighted" to vote. The problem ? Who decides which one you are?

Kevin


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "rick" <aperick at centurytel.net>
To: <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 9:29 PM
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence


> Voting:
>
> One problem I have with the idea of voting is that I can always be
> certain that I will be among a very small minority. Perhaps I have a
> belief that the overwhelming majority of folk are massively stupid as
> part of their "god-given" genetic composition. I could tell you all
> where that belief comes from but you may just tell me that my personal
> experiences and judgments etcetera. do not amount to conclusive
> evidence. I would counter by trying to explain that my life experience
> has been a bizarre one and that none of you are at all likely to have
> found yourselves in a position to have witnessed what I have ...
>
> I'd really prefer that you all just trust me on this one. We are sorely
> outnumbered. If we could see the situation clearly, if the founding
> fathers of the USA could have seen into the future ... well, things just
> may have been a little different. Am I to be called a bigot for saying
> that only the sighted should be given the responsibility of leading the
> blind?
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Tue Jan 13 19:05:51 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 13:05:51 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence
References: <000001c3d988$4c821900$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>
Message-ID: <Law10-OE123JwQoDbSJ0002e1b2@hotmail.com>

keep an eye on me if
> you like to watch people hurt themselves. :-)
>
Have you read "The Darwin Awards"? You'll get a kick out of it if you
haven't yet.
Kevin
PS, I love your signature!


From mbb386 at main.nc.us  Tue Jan 13 19:51:54 2004
From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 14:51:54 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
Subject: [extropy-chat]Voting was late response to Dan/Technotranscendence
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-OE43XqzLyITMg0002df18@hotmail.com>
References: <000001c3d985$84a21b80$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>
	<LAW10-OE43XqzLyITMg0002df18@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.WNT.4.55.0401131446430.-191999@pentium.mb.main.nc.us>


I have often felt some discomfort about people who get handouts from
the government having the vote... it seems sorta like a possible
conflict of interest.

But I have no idea where to draw the line in the sand. Shortly I shall
be on social security (such as it is!) and would that knock me out? If
so, why? Or why not? I paid into it long enough. Should the incumbent
politicos themselves have the vote? Um.... How about all those
bureaucrats who directly benefit from enlarged and ever growing
government expenditures?


Regards,
MB
hastily erecting my asbestos shield... 8)



From matus at matus1976.com  Tue Jan 13 20:07:16 2004
From: matus at matus1976.com (Matus)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 15:07:16 -0500
Subject: Israel and Palestine was RE: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <000001c3d9f9$87817c00$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
Message-ID: <000001c3da10$dcca6750$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Paul Grant
> > The Palestinians, having been deprived of statehood by force, are
not
> > and cannot be a "high contracting party".
> >
> 
> When did the Palestinians ever have a state to begin with?  Egypt nor
> any other Arab country didn't see fit to give em one.
> 
> => Why not have the US open its borders and give them New Jersey,
while
> you're at it, if you are so eager to condemn Arab nations for refusing
> to take in an ENTIRE populace (I would have said country, but i had a
> feeling you would object) of refugees.  Incidentally, they were living
> SOMEWHERE prior to the formation and establishment of Israel as it
> currently stands.

Yes, in Egypt, where there were no cries for a 'Palestinian state'
Apparently they were perfectly content to live in a corrupt Arab sate.
Had the Arab nations not tried to 'Drive the jews into the sea' the
Palestinian people would still be living in Egypt

> 
> Lets not forget to add to this discussion that Arafat wants to be an
> Arab dictator of his own (why not, all other Arab countries are ruled
by
> oppressive theocrats and dictators, obvious exception of Iraq now, why
> cant he have one!)
> 
> => Last I checked, when the US attempted to have him replaced, they
> found him to be impossible to remove because of popular support for
him.

Sure, and saddam had popular support amongst the Baath party.  Its easy
to have popular support when you drill into everyone's head that the
problem lies with someone else, and not your own corrupt murderous
leadership.  Anytime any peace plan mentions 'democracy' along with a
Palestinian state Arafat will have nothing to do with it.  

> Incidentally, both Iraq and Egypt (both US-backed) have presidents who
> are "elected" but
> DO NOT have popular support.  I might even go further to add that
> Israel, a US-backed "democracy" currently has a
> large population that is living in the equivalent of interment camps.

Yet Arabs living in Israel enjoy more rights than they do in any Arab
state.  Which is no doubt why there is a movement among Palestinians to
simply be part of the state of Israel.  

> 
> That Arafat and the PA enforce by brutal methods that no Muslim should
> ever live under the rule of a Jew,
> => I agree with his assement.  It should be a true democracy comprised
> of both Jews and Palestinians.

Certainly!  And many jews and people from Israel would agree with that
as well.  Its Arafat and the PA that would rather die than live under
Jewish rule, and they'll enforce that with whatever violence is
necessary on the people they control.  But again, Arafat will have
nothing to do with democracy.

> 
> and use brainwashing children to turn them into bombs to accomplish
this
> goal.
> =>Ah the marvels of propoganda :) Denigrate the oppositions
> thinking-capability.
> Perhaps the children are seeing more clearly what is occurring than
the
> eyes
> of the west?  I mean, they do live in that situation 24-7; its not
like
> the media
> has a chance to squash the stories that comprise their lives.

Again, Arafat and the PA oppose in plan to live peacefully under Jewish
rule, leaders who try to compromise get no co-operation from Arafat.
Propoganda?  The facts speak for themselves, Arafat will see no arab
live under jewish rule, and would rather seem them dead.

> 
> Witness the Palestinian people who desire to live under Israel but are
> attacked by the PA.
> => Provide some links please :) I'm always willing to learn something
> new in the course of a discussion.

As am I.  

Israel or the Palestinians? Making the moral Choice -
http://www.rationalview.homestead.com/files/Choosing_Life_or_Death_in_th
e_Middle_East.htm

Libertarians who Loathe Isreal -
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34057
"The PA, on the other hand - with no economy, no free speech and press,
no independent courts, no sound contract laws, and no individual or
property rights - wins the sympathies of legions of freedom lovers hands
down. That hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid have done
nothing to change this bleak reality bothers anti-Israel libertarians
only in so far as to point out that Israel is to blame."

Why Arabs Love Israel - 
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31947
"...If conditions for Arabs are so bad in Israel, why is the Arab
population exploding -- and I don't mean because of suicide bombers? Why
do Arabs continue to flock to the tiny Jewish state from virtually every
Arab and Muslim land in the world? In 1949, the Arab population of
Israel was about 160,000. Today, it is over 1.2 million."

Be sure to check out Mark Humprhy's excellent page
http://humphrys.humanists.net/judaism.html#israel

The most criticized societies in the world will be the least criminal
societies -
http://humphrys.humanists.net/laws.html#no.1
Something some extropians could do well to read.

Palestinians are still brainwashed and coerced by Arafat and his
despotic PLO regime into blaming Israel for everything and convincing
them to kill as many Israel children as possible.  Arafat is the
dictator of the Palestinian Authority in everyway but in official title,
Palestinians live in constant fear of Arafat's corrupt 'police' force,
laws prohibiting free speech are enforced brutally.  

For example, Mayor Zuhir Hamden publicly stated his villagers live not
under Arafat but Under Israel, he was subsequently shot five times.  Do
you think he was shot by Israel troops?

"Zuhair Hamdan, founder of the Movement for Coexistence in Jerusalem,
was sitting on a chair outside his corner shop near Bethlehem in
November when an official Palestinian Authority car drew up with a
squeal of brakes. From the back window a gunman, who Mr. Hamdan says was
a member of the gang, emptied 12 bullets from a M-16 rifle, hitting him
five times in the abdomen, legs and neck."

from - http://www.likud.nl/extr200.html

see also - http://www.likud.nl/extr.html
Palestinian and Arab extremism

> 
> "End the unjust Jewish occupation of Arab land!"
> http://www.protestwarrior.com/images/tshirts/muslim_land.jpg
> => Hmm.. Unjust, Jewish-occupied, Arab land... hmmmm. Where's the
> problem with that statement?

The irony is in the picture.  The Jewish state and its 'illegal
occupation' are not even visible in the sea of corrupt murderous Arab
states.  

> 
> The worst villain in the Palestine Israel conflict is the noble peace
> prize winning murderous terrorist Arafat.
> => I note, Sharon "the Butcher" hasn't gotten any kudos over his
reign.
> 

The irony is again lost on you.  Arafat, as a known murderous terrorist,
received a noble peace prize.  So did a murderous North Vietnamese
communist general.  The noble peace prize is dolled out by leftist west
hating intellectuals. 

"The Nobel Peace Prize Should Go To Those Who Really Support Peace"
http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/nobelpeaceprize.shtml
 
Michael Dickey




From scerir at libero.it  Tue Jan 13 21:26:32 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 22:26:32 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] The omniscience of God and the free will of Man
References: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGCEKECAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>
Message-ID: <000301c3da1b$f0d021d0$afc11b97@administxl09yj>

Giu1i0 writes:

> Of course the fact that we feel like we choose freely means that if in
> reality the universe were completely deterministic, we would still observe
> free will on the macroscale without noticing any difference.

The above seems to be close to the super-determinism Bell was talking about.
Bell's theorem implies determinism (hidden variables) within the quantum
system to be observed, implies again determinism al the logical level
(he uses counterfactuals), but implies indeterminism (free will, if you
wish) within the observers. If both the quantum system and the observers
behave following deterministic ways, you get something different, namely
that super-determinism, supposed by Bell. The EPR "paradox" vanishes
if the observers too, following this magic super-determinism, set the
polarizers, on both wings, in every run of the experiment, in such a manner
to get the right outcome (the same outcome predicted by QM). Thus we can
say that Bell theorem depends severely on its assumptions regarding
the indeterminism of the observers.

There is another interesting proof of Bell's theorem, due to Wigner.
He made two basic assumptions. 1) Determinism: the results of all
conceivable measurements are pre-determined (i.e. by hidden variables).
Note that this does not contradict Heisenberg's principle because Heisenberg
speaks of real measurements and Wigner speaks of reality before the action
of a measurement instrument. 2) Locality: measurements performed on left
wing (particle 1) do not modify pre-determined values of observables in
the right wing (particle 2), and viceversa. With the above two assumptions
only, Wigner proved Bell's theorem and those inequalities. Now, we know
that Bell's relations are falsified (let me say this way) by experiments.
Thus at least one of those two Wigner's assumptions is wrong. That is to
say: or determinism or locality is wrong. (Later works by Jarrett, Shimony,
Eberhard, etc. showed that the theoretical framework is more complex,
in the sense that determinism and non-locality, say action at a distance,
are connected, and indeterminism and locality are connected too.
QM is "located" between these two extremes, being indeterministic enough
and also local enough (local enough here means "non-separable", actually
non-separability is a correlation, and QM systems are, in general, much
more correlated than CM systems, in spite of indeterminism, and this is
another "paradox").

We can also recall here Weyl's deterministic Block Universe model.
Einstein liked it. He wrote (March 1955) to Besso (his friend, passed away)
family: "For us faithful physicists, the separation between past, present,
and future has only the meaning of an illusion, though a persistent
one". More or less Weyl's words: "the objective world simply is, it does
not happen. Only to the gaze of my consciousness, crawling upward along
the lifeline of my body, does a section of this world come to life as a
fleeting image in space which continuously changes in time".

The relativity of simultaneity (SR essentially) was devised (Boethius,
i.e.) in order to defend the doctrine of "free will" against the charge
of its in-compatibility with God's omniscience. On the contrary Rietdijk
(theorems of 1966. 1976) and Einstein (in his "Credo") and Cassirer and
F.H.Bradley and H. Weyl and J.Hopwood Jeans claimed that the relativity
of simultaneity implies, strictly, determinism, thus the denial of
free will.

On the other side, A.S.Eddington, Bondi (1952) and, more recently, H.
Stein and R.Torretti, and P.T. Landsberg, introduced, more or less
consistently, quantum indeterminism - in spite of the contrary opinion of
N. Maxwell - in the framework of the Block Universe model. This "openness
of the future" issue says (Bondi's words here) that "relativity demands
a non-deterministic theory such as is given at present by quantum theory"
because "the flow of time has no significance in the logically fixed
pattern of events demanded by deterministic theory, time being a mere
co-ordinate. In a theory with indeterminacy, however, the passage of
time transforms statistical expectation into real events". The argument
seems feeble and obscure but, in some sense, is also robust, i.e. if we
realize the striking similarity between the Block Universe model and the
quantum "delayed choice" experiments. In both cases time seems to play a
peculiar
role. No phenomenon is a phenomenon until the phenomenon is fully recorded.
Recording is up to us. Even when the phenomenon is already recorded at one
end, we can still change this very record from another end (as for
entangled momenta, or other retro-causal effects). As Alfred Coulson argues,
"observed from without, the will is causally determined; observed from
within
it is free". Bohr says "we are onlookers and actors in the great drama of
existence". Introducing indeterminism in the Block Universe (of Weyl and
Einstein) seems then possible. But something changes: the Block Universe
seen
from within (us) is now different, in its very nature, from the Block
Universe
seen from without (God).

> Concerning the Copenaghen  interpretation, I think it is possible to
> demonstrate that interacting with a macroscopic environment does not do
> the trick that we describe as collapse. Scerir?

Perhaps. The former term for collapse (Born) was "reduction of probability
packet". I don't know if the "probability packet" is physical or not. The
young Born thought it was not. The late Born thought it was physical. But
experiments by Leggett (with meso-scale-quantum-objects) show that there
is no such a thing like a physical collapse. You can keep the "cat" dead and
alive for a (very) little while. And, as Wigner showed long ago, after the
measurements there is always an "inheritance of the previous superposition",
spread in the air. And this has little to do with the collapse.






From aperick at centurytel.net  Tue Jan 13 22:01:17 2004
From: aperick at centurytel.net (aperick at centurytel.net)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 14:01:17 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence
In-Reply-To: <200401132010.i0DKAPE12091@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <3357167.1074031637740.JavaMail.teamon@b111.teamon.com>

Poor misunderstood me :) I meant to imply that the founding fathers may
have, instead, given the common man what he was asking for at that time:
some kind of King. If it is known that the peepull would get a big warm
fuzzy out of also letting the King know what they "think" via some kind of
poll, then give the proles polls. And, I dare say that if females and males
are equally qualified to vote (and I'll agree that they ARE!) then the set
of all females is a true random sample (so far as their votes are
concerned) -- therefore, disallowing females voting would have no effect on
the outcome of elections. So, where is the harm in respectfully
acknowledging the womanliness of women and the manliness of men in just one
more inconsequential duty (chore)? If all females were free of feeling
obligated by duty to spend a considerable amount of their time learning and
analyzing in preparation for the sacred act of voting they may have had time
to cure cancer and stuff already. This seems to be a clear case of good
economy, effectively facilitating more rapid technological development --
extropic?

Or, is it "being hit on the head lessons in here?" :) (hopefully my
assumption of encyclopedic Monty Python knowledge among extropes is a safe
one)

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Woolley: Closet nudist*, Certified Scientist Type, Confirmed
Atheist, radical thinker, notorious f__k-up, and self-proclaimed
singular authority on the abysmal depths of human stupidity that only we
few lack. Now go read books on topics that are new to you.

* Part time comedian and recovering idealist ... now show me yours :-)
http://home.centurytel.net/rickw aperick at centurytel.net



From wingcat at pacbell.net  Tue Jan 13 22:18:00 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 14:18:00 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence
In-Reply-To: <3357167.1074031637740.JavaMail.teamon@b111.teamon.com>
Message-ID: <20040113221800.91666.qmail@web80409.mail.yahoo.com>

--- aperick at centurytel.net wrote:
> And, I dare say
> that if females and males
> are equally qualified to vote (and I'll agree that
> they ARE!) then the set
> of all females is a true random sample (so far as
> their votes are
> concerned) -- therefore, disallowing females voting
> would have no effect on
> the outcome of elections.

It is trivial to prove this is logically inconsistent,
unless by "qualified to vote" you mean "qualified to
vote for whoever the males would vote for" or
something like that.  A candidate who, for instance,
advocated treating women as property would get a fewer
votes from women used to freedom than from men used to
freedom.  Therefore, disallowing females from voting
would make the election of such candidates more
likely, and the set of all females is not entirely a
random sample with respect to the set of all human
beings.


From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk  Tue Jan 13 22:21:06 2004
From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 22:21:06 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Mappa Mundi
Message-ID: <40046F52.9090700@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>

On Tue Jan 13, 2004 05:24 am Anders Sandberg wrote:
 >
 > <http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~mjuric/universe/>
 >
 > A map showing a geocentric perspective of the entire universe. The
 > trick is to make one direction logarithmic, which makes it possible 
to > depict everything (more or less) from the Earth's core out to the 
Big > Bang. The other direction represents declination, making this a 
slice > across the universe along the ecliptic.
 >

This map was published in New Scientist 22 Nov 2003 with explanatory 
articles. I have a copy at the side of my desk. It unfolds to about 
81cms (32 inches) and looks really impressive. The Andromeda galaxy is 
labeled 'Andromeda galaxy' on this copy of the map. The Milky Way disc 
is also textured as you suggested, so I think New Scientist did a lot of 
editing on the map to make it suitable for publication.

You might be able to get a back issue from them. It is well worth it.

BillK


From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it  Tue Jan 13 23:24:17 2004
From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 00:24:17 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Sleeplessness
In-Reply-To: <000001c3d9fb$7c8c3d10$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
References: <000001c3d9fb$7c8c3d10$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401140019320.7824@hercules>

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Paul Grant wrote:

>I've also experienced a weird state where I've been mentally
>processing stuff at night, and wake up instantly alert with
>a bunch of new stuff already figured out.  Not sure why this
>happens though; I've noticed it tends to be stuff it tends to
>concern interesting (to me) problems that require creative
>solutions.

Same for me. I often wake up and have a clear solution in mind. Also I
noticed that the evening->morning memory is absolutely the best one - if I
read something before sleeping, and I'm paying the due attention, I can
recite it almost verbatim the morning after (not just pseudo-photo memory,
since I could reason about it). After one entire day, memory starts to
miss pieces here and there - but it was very useful in school during exam
crunches :))

Alfio


From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it  Tue Jan 13 23:29:08 2004
From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 00:29:08 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-OE43XqzLyITMg0002df18@hotmail.com>
References: <000001c3d985$84a21b80$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>
	<LAW10-OE43XqzLyITMg0002df18@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401140025570.7824@hercules>

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Kevin Freels wrote:

>Are we really different, or is it just our culture and environment? If we
>are different, then that would explain the slow pace of advancement for the
>first 150,000 years of our species. Maybe only 1 in 200,000 is a tool
>"maker" while the rest are simply tool "users". A tool "maker" would have
>been very rare then.

Scott Adams's book "Dilbert" makes the same claim. He blames civilization
to sex and press. It's an interesting line of thought, to say the least :)

Ciao,
Alfio


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Wed Jan 14 01:11:06 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 20:11:06 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Sleeplessness
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401140019320.7824@hercules>
Message-ID: <008401c3da3b$4ca456b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Alfio Puglisi wrote,
> On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Paul Grant wrote:
> 
> >I've also experienced a weird state where I've been mentally
> > processing stuff at night, and wake up instantly alert with
> > a bunch of new stuff already figured out.
> 
> Same for me. I often wake up and have a clear solution in 
> mind. Also I noticed that the evening->morning memory is 
> absolutely the best one

I do this as well.  The brain will keep churning on ideas and can come up
with solutions without conscious effort.  This is good for coming up with
creative solutions.  But it is bad when you have worries or problems you
can't solve, and your brain keeps mulling them over while you are trying to
sleep.  It can be very exhausting.

I also practice what is known as "Lucid Dreaming."  This is where you can
recognize you are in a dream state and become conscious of that fact.  I
have consciously worked on project plans while asleep in a dream, and woken
up with usable step by step solutions already worked out.  I have no idea if
this allows me to work while in the REM state, or if this level of conscious
thought interrupts the benefits of sleep.  I don't do this often, since it
is not reliable whether I will become lucid in my dreams or not.  So I can't
rely on this time for scheduling work.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Wed Jan 14 01:47:18 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 17:47:18 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Sleeplessness
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401140019320.7824@hercules>
Message-ID: <000101c3da40$5d615d90$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

I'll have to give that a try; I don't usually read before going to
sleep.
Anyway, I have terrible recall for stuff (excellent recall for ideas).
well at least someone else has it happen that way :) so I'm not alone :)
omard-out


-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Alfio
Puglisi
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 3:24 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Sleeplessness


On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Paul Grant wrote:

>I've also experienced a weird state where I've been mentally processing

>stuff at night, and wake up instantly alert with a bunch of new stuff 
>already figured out.  Not sure why this happens though; I've noticed it

>tends to be stuff it tends to concern interesting (to me) problems that

>require creative solutions.

Same for me. I often wake up and have a clear solution in mind. Also I
noticed that the evening->morning memory is absolutely the best one - if
I read something before sleeping, and I'm paying the due attention, I
can recite it almost verbatim the morning after (not just pseudo-photo
memory, since I could reason about it). After one entire day, memory
starts to miss pieces here and there - but it was very useful in school
during exam crunches :))

Alfio
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Wed Jan 14 01:45:31 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 17:45:31 -0800
Subject: Israel and Palestine was RE: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already
In-Reply-To: <000001c3da10$dcca6750$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>
Message-ID: <000001c3da40$1e651910$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Whew, this is a long one, you are forewarned.
Also, one more volley, and then close the discussion.
I'll leave it up to you to rebutt, as you see fit.

omard-out


-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Matus
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 12:07 PM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: RE: Israel and Palestine was RE: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH already




> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat- 
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Paul Grant
> > The Palestinians, having been deprived of statehood by force, are
not
> > and cannot be a "high contracting party".
> >
> 
> When did the Palestinians ever have a state to begin with?  Egypt nor 
> any other Arab country didn't see fit to give em one.
> 
> => Why not have the US open its borders and give them New Jersey,
while
> you're at it, if you are so eager to condemn Arab nations for refusing

> to take in an ENTIRE populace (I would have said country, but i had a 
> feeling you would object) of refugees.  Incidentally, they were living

> SOMEWHERE prior to the formation and establishment of Israel as it 
> currently stands.

Yes, in Egypt, where there were no cries for a 'Palestinian state'
Apparently they were perfectly content to live in a corrupt Arab sate.
Had the Arab nations not tried to 'Drive the jews into the sea' the
Palestinian people would still be living in Egypt

--
2=>I find that assertion very amusing since the Palestinians were 
turned away when they sought refuge in Egypt.  Notice the lack
of term THROWN OUT.  Turned away implies that they were NOT
living in egypt at the time, or prior.
 
> Lets not forget to add to this discussion that Arafat wants to be an 
> Arab dictator of his own (why not, all other Arab countries are ruled
by
> oppressive theocrats and dictators, obvious exception of Iraq now, why

> cant he have one!)
> 
> => Last I checked, when the US attempted to have him replaced, they 
> found him to be impossible to remove because of popular support for
him.

Sure, and saddam had popular support amongst the Baath party.  

2=> Ahem; his popular support was a 99% landslide victory during
a presidential election.  This fact was openly mocked prior to
the US invasion of Iraq; Guess who else was elected by a 99% majority.
Thats right, MUBARAK.  Incidentally, no-one likes to have foreign powers
invade their shores.  I bet you, 10-1 that most of the support right now
is stemming from the feeling that the U.S. populace is setting up
yet another mid-east puppet regime (TAMEPR), or planning on setting up
shop permanently.

Its easy to have popular support when you drill into everyone's head
that the problem lies with someone else, and not your own corrupt
murderous leadership.  

2=> I REALLY suggest you get out to the middle-east if you believe that
nobody there acknowledges Saddam and others like him are corrupt.  The
problem you see, is that no-one is free to say it.  Any revolts are
crushed mercilessly, with US sold weapons.  Are we *beginning* to see
the problem yet?

Anytime any peace plan mentions 'democracy' along with a Palestinian
state Arafat will have nothing to do with it.  

2=>Perhaps.  Or perhaps the offer sucks ass.

> Incidentally, both Iraq and Egypt (both US-backed) have presidents who

> are "elected" but DO NOT have popular support.  I might even go 
> further to add that Israel, a US-backed "democracy" currently has a
> large population that is living in the equivalent of interment camps.

Yet Arabs living in Israel enjoy more rights than they do in any Arab
state.  

2=> You're on crack.  Border check points, 6 out of 7 day full-day
curfews? 2 hours
to shop every sunday.  Yeah, I'm sure its a paradise.

Which is no doubt why there is a movement among Palestinians to simply
be part of the state of Israel.  

2=> Just out of curiousity, what percentage of the palestinians
currently support that proposition?
And under what terms would they be reintegrated back into society?

> That Arafat and the PA enforce by brutal methods that no Muslim should

> ever live under the rule of a Jew, => I agree with his assement.  It 
> should be a true democracy comprised of both Jews and Palestinians.

Certainly!  And many jews and people from Israel would agree with that
as well.  Its Arafat and the PA that would rather die than live under
Jewish rule, and they'll enforce that with whatever violence is
necessary on the people they control.  But again, Arafat will have
nothing to do with democracy.

=> So what you're saying is that Arafat and the PLA are the real
problem; they're the one's keeping the Palestinians in  Hebron under
lock and key.  They're the ones building walls, raising buildings,
shooting kids. HMMM.


> and use brainwashing children to turn them into bombs to accomplish
this
> goal.
> =>Ah the marvels of propoganda :) Denigrate the oppositions 
> thinking-capability. Perhaps the children are seeing more clearly what

> is occurring than
the
> eyes
> of the west?  I mean, they do live in that situation 24-7; its not
like
> the media
> has a chance to squash the stories that comprise their lives.

Again, Arafat and the PA oppose in plan to live peacefully under Jewish
rule

2=> yeah, and so what? how does that address the point I made?

leaders who try to compromise get no co-operation from Arafat.
Propoganda?  The facts speak for themselves, Arafat will see no arab
live under jewish rule, and would rather seem them dead.

2=> I'ld see no arab live under jewish rule.  And I don't really care
about Jews.  
When its a democracy, there is no-one ruling.  Thats the point.  If
you'ld care
to replace your oft-repeated phrase "Jewish rule" with "democracy which
happens
to have a bunch of Jews in it", then I'ld be more inclined to see his
viewpoint
as irrational.

> Witness the Palestinian people who desire to live under Israel but are

> attacked by the PA. => Provide some links please :) I'm always willing

> to learn something new in the course of a discussion.

As am I.  

2=> Fair enough :)

----------- start
Israel or the Palestinians? Making the moral Choice -
http://www.rationalview.homestead.com/files/Choosing_Life_or_Death_in_th
e_Middle_East.htm

2=> This essay is crap, no offense.

"Arab world's animosity toward individual rights and adherence to
religious dogma...
Does such liberty extend across the border into neighboring Egypt, whose
constitution is shaped by Islamic jurisprudence".... 

Their is no islamic court in egypt at this point (although man wish
their was); they are using the 
french system of law (Napoleonic code).  And even if there was an
islamic court, it cannot,
according to the sharia (islamic code of law), cannot be applied to
non-muslims.  They are tried
under court systems set up under their code of laws.

"But the cultural divide between Israel and its neighbors runs deeper
than one or two freedoms. The fundamental difference lies in Israeli's
general respect for man's life and the Palestinians' virtual worship of
death? a difference Muslim leaders loudly proclaim."

This is so biased its not even funny;  every muslim I know wants to
live, particularly if they have children;
the difference (which is so foreign to westerners), is that muslims
adhere to the concept that this world
is nothing in comparison to the afterlife, and that defending oneself
and one's faith against attack is
justified.  Muslims do not worship death, but accept that at some point,
under a careful set of guidelines, 
it may be necessary.  In fact, I was just told a hadith by my mother
(who is muslim, I am not) in which prophet
Mohammed instructed one of his followers (in the early days of islam),
who was being tortured to recant Islam,
to just say what the men wanted to hear; that it was better to live,
than to die needlessly.

"Similarly glorifying violent death was the Chief Mufti (religious
leader) of the PA Police: "From the moment his [a martyr's]
blood
spills, he feels no pain and he is absolved of all his sins; he sees his
seat in heaven
he is married to [70] black eyed [women]
."

You want glorifying death, try Hollywood.  Yes, if you die in Jihad
(defense of the faith), you go to heaven.
HOWEVER, who's to say you were in a valid jihad?  Its not like anyone of
the street can proclaim jihad.  There
are very specific rules regarding when, how and why a jihad can be
declared.  Much more constraining, incidentally
than the christians version of the chrusade, or an Israeli's belief in
Zionism.

"Imagine a Palestinian press that repeatedly touts dying for Allah.
Imagine a mother expected to express jubilation upon learning of her
child's "martyrdom." Imagine a father responding to his son's
suicide-bombing death with: "I call upon all Palestinian youth to follow
in his footsteps."

Imagine the sheer amount of abuse that would force a people to that
breaking point?

"Such is the level of irrationality and hatred that Israel's forced to
contend with."

Oh, they're not irrational, JUST VERY MOTIVATED.  And this is a tell if
I've ever seen one.
Whenever anyone devolves the opposite side into "irrationality", its
usually a sign of crappy
analysis.  Everyone does something for a reason; you may not agree with
their logic, but that
does not entail that it is irrational.

Next article :)
----------------------------------------------------
Libertarians who Loathe Isreal -
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34057

"With a respectable per capita GDP of roughly $17,500, compared to the
Palestinian Authority's $1,000, Israel apparently has nothing to
recommend her."

Kind of hard to build an economy when people are severely curtailing
your freedoms....
Why not do a realistic comparison, what was the per capita income in the
Jewish ghettos 
in WW2?

"The PA, on the other hand ? with no economy, no free speech and press,
no independent courts, no sound contract laws, and no individual or
property rights ? wins the sympathies of legions of freedom lovers hands
down."

Last I checked, the PA is not a state.

"That hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid have done nothing
to change this bleak reality bothers anti-Israel libertarians only in so
far as to point out that Israel is to blame."

Foreign aid will only feed people if there is no stability with which to
invest it in.  Money makes money ONLY when it can be put to work.

"Consider the Israeli fence now inspiring hyperbolic hysteria among
libertarians. What can a leadership do to stop its people from being
blown up in the streets as they go about their daily lives?"

Concede.

"Israel began erecting a security fence along the West Bank. Yet a
mechanical barrier is construed by the gifted libertarian writer, Justin
Raimondo, as "an act of aggression ... a land grab of huge proportions
.." What most reasonable people would view as a desperate defensive
measure is to Raimondo a symbol of Israeli sadism"

Go talk to the Palestinians who lost their houses and plots of land when
the army came through telling them a wall
was being built.  Yes, they covered that on the news as well.
Incidentally, whoever thought of building the wall 
was a naive fool.

"As much as libertarians hate them, Israelis, at least, defend what they
perceive to be their land, their homes and their freedoms."

Yeah, by oppressing others sans cause or trial.  Hmm, I wonder why
Libertarians would dislike Israel?

ANYWAY, this article is irrelevant because it doesn't deal with
Palistinians wanting to live in Israel.
------------
Why Arabs Love Israel - 

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31947

"...If conditions for Arabs are so bad in Israel, why is the Arab
population exploding -- and I don't mean because of suicide bombers? Why
do Arabs continue to flock to the tiny Jewish state from virtually every
Arab and Muslim land in the world? In 1949, the Arab population of
Israel was about 160,000. Today, it is over 1.2 million."

Personally I think he's right; Arab states in their current generation
are run by dictators.
EVERY Egyptian I know wants to get out of Egypt; they love their
country, they can't stand
the people running it.  I'm sure Israel is one of many destinations.
They also go to Canada,
US, Australia, New Zealand, Venezuela, and many other countries.
Basically ANYWHERE, but
where they're from.  Anyone that will take them.

----------------

Be sure to check out Mark Humprhy's excellent page
http://humphrys.humanists.net/judaism.html#israel
--

"The Islamic world does not hate Israel because they care about the
human rights of the Palestinians. If they cared about human rights they
would have human rights in their own countries. The Islamic world hates
Israel because, well, essentially because they are Jews."

Load of horseshit.  Trust me, if the demonstrations weren't crushed
pretty violently, Egypt would be a MUCH better place.  Same with other
Arab states.  And trust me, nobody gives a shit about Jews.  They've got
far more important
things like trying to find jobs, support families etc on REALLY shitty
wages.

--- this one will take some time to digest, many links all over the
place. 
Should prove VERY interesting reading :)  Thanks.

----------------
The most criticized societies in the world will be the least criminal
societies - http://humphrys.humanists.net/laws.html#no.1

--Heh, just because you're not printing it doesn't mean everyone doesn't
know it.
I do see his point, and to a certain degree he's right.  Of course, that
all
depends on a free society with a reasonable press committed to
objectively reporting
the truth.  Sadly the US has strayed pretty far from that model.
----------------

Palestinians are still brainwashed and coerced by Arafat and his
despotic PLO regime into blaming Israel for everything and convincing
them to kill as many Israel children as possible.  Arafat is the
dictator of the Palestinian Authority in everyway but in official title,
Palestinians live in constant fear of Arafat's corrupt 'police' force,
laws prohibiting free speech are enforced brutally.  

For example, Mayor Zuhir Hamden publicly stated his villagers live not
under Arafat but Under Israel, he was subsequently shot five times.  Do
you think he was shot by Israel troops?

--
I dunno, was he?  I mean, there are so many others who are shot by
Israeli troops...

------------------
"Zuhair Hamdan, founder of the Movement for Coexistence in Jerusalem,
was sitting on a chair outside his corner shop near Bethlehem in
November when an official Palestinian Authority car drew up with a
squeal of brakes. From the back window a gunman, who Mr. Hamdan says was
a member of the gang, emptied 12 bullets from a M-16 rifle, hitting him
five times in the abdomen, legs and neck."

"Palestinians who live near the church described the group as a criminal
gang that preyed especially on Palestinian Christians, demanding
"protection money" from the main businesses, which make and sell
religious artifacts".

Seems like they're like any criminal gang once they get their hooks into
a group of people.
I'ld recommend the Palestinians considering arming themselves, but I
don't know if Israel
would let them carry around weapons.  Its a shame that right to defend
oneself leaves ones
defenseless to the criminals.  I wonder if this situation would exist in
a state that explicitly
gave its citizens the right to bear arms.  Perhaps the Palestinians will
put that into
their constitution, when they win back their freedom.

from - http://www.likud.nl/extr200.html

--------------------
see also - http://www.likud.nl/extr.html
Palestinian and Arab extremism

Another complex one with many links.  I will read it with an open mind.

--------------------- 
> "End the unjust Jewish occupation of Arab land!" 
> http://www.protestwarrior.com/images/tshirts/muslim_land.jpg
> => Hmm.. Unjust, Jewish-occupied, Arab land... hmmmm. Where's the 
> problem with that statement?

The irony is in the picture.  The Jewish state and its 'illegal
occupation' are not even visible in the sea of corrupt murderous Arab
states.  

=> Perhaps the Palestinians would do a better job of it, who knows, they
haven't been given the chance for 50 years.
On a personal note, I'ld love to see the US get the hell out of the
middle east, develop some nice clean energy sources, and just leave that
entire region alone.
 
> The worst villain in the Palestine Israel conflict is the noble peace 
> prize winning murderous terrorist Arafat. => I note, Sharon "the 
> Butcher" hasn't gotten any kudos over his
reign.
> 

The irony is again lost on you.  Arafat, as a known murderous terrorist,
received a noble peace prize.  

=> We prefer "freedom-fighter".  Its not so bad when use the other sides
terminology, eh?

So did a murderous North Vietnamese communist general.  The noble peace
prize is dolled out by leftist west hating intellectuals. 

=> Perhaps so, I wouldn't know - I don't pay attention to the noble
peace prize, just the science stuff.
Certes, if I had to weigh Sharon vs Arafat, I think they'ld both come
out with blood on their hands.

 
Michael Dickey


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com  Wed Jan 14 03:00:39 2004
From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 19:00:39 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] PRESIDENT BUSH ANNOUNCES SPACE EXPLORATION GOALS
Message-ID: <20040114030039.89309.qmail@web41314.mail.yahoo.com>

PRESIDENT BUSH ANNOUNCES SPACE EXPLORATION GOALS


Glenn Mahone/Bob Jacobs
Headquarters, Washington                  January 13, 2004
(Phone: 202/358-1898/1600)

NOTE TO EDITORS:  N04-003

PRESIDENT BUSH ANNOUNCES SPACE EXPLORATION GOALS

     President George W. Bush joins NASA Administrator Sean 
O'Keefe Wednesday afternoon to announce the space exploration 
objectives for the agency.

This special event is scheduled to begin at approximately 3 
p.m. EST in the main auditorium at NASA Headquarters in 
Washington.

Due to limited seating and security considerations, media 
representatives, who are U.S. citizens and want to attend the 
event, must report to the registration table in the main 
lobby at NASA Headquarters, 300 E St. SW, from 1:15 p.m. to 
NLT 1:45 p.m. EST. Please have your media credentials and a 
second form of picture identification available for 
verification. Only a limited number of media will be 
permitted in the auditorium. Other media will be allowed to 
watch the event from a conference room.

The event will be carried live on NASA Television, and on the 
Internet at: 

http://www.nasa.gov

NASA TV is available on AMC-9, transponder 9C, C-Band, 
located at 85 degrees west longitude. The frequency is 3880.0 
MHz. Polarization is vertical, and audio is monaural at 6.80 
MHz. 

For information about NASA TV on the Internet, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

For information about NASA and agency programs on the 
Internet, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

-end-

                            * * *

NASA press releases and other information are available automatically
by sending an Internet electronic mail message to domo at hq.nasa.gov.
In the body of the message (not the subject line) users should type
the words "subscribe press-release" (no quotes).  The system will
reply with a confirmation via E-mail of each subscription.  A second
automatic message will include additional information on the service.
NASA releases also are available via CompuServe using the command
GO NASA.  To unsubscribe from this mailing list, address an E-mail
message to domo at hq.nasa.gov, leave the subject blank, and type only
"unsubscribe press-release" (no quotes) in the body of the message.



La vie est belle!

Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) 

Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra


---------------------------------
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From spike66 at comcast.net  Wed Jan 14 04:31:23 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 20:31:23 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] i-language again
In-Reply-To: <003e01c3d9e2$3eea61d0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <00a501c3da57$44793570$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

> Harvey Newstrom
> 
> Spike wrote,
> > > Example, spike.  (1) picture of a railroad spike.
> 
> Interesting ideas, Spike!  Some comments:
> 
> Internationally understood icons are not as easy as you 
> think.  I researched
> this almost 15 years ago for some computer work.  Many icons 
> make sense in
> one language, but not another.

Ja, and that is why I suggested animations, something that
would have been difficult even 15 yrs ago with the computer
tech available then.  Read on:
  
> 
> - The "hotness" of taco sauce can be represented by a thermometer in
> English, because the word "hot" means high temperature and 
> high spiciness.

Good example.  The usage hot(2) might have an animation such
as this: Lara Croft using salsa, nothing happens, Lara Croft
using hot(2) salsa, gasps throat, eyes bug out, face flushes,
breathes fire.  Any culture would grok the meaning of hot(2).
Lara Croft would figure big in this universal dictionary.

Motion animations would be absolutely necessary to make
this scheme work.  Consider:

"spike the punch"
and
"punch the spike"

One would need an animation of Lara pouring vodka into the party
drink bowl, and the other of her striking the railroad tie
with her fist.  Either way, given computer animations are the
easiest and perhaps the only good way to explain the concepts.

> - Remember that the Red Cross has to be changed to the Red 
> Crescent in the Middle East.
> - Some cultures find the words "encrypted" and "decrypted" to 
> be offensive swear-words because they refer to crypts or dead bodies.

> (International
> security documents use "encipher" and "decipher" for this reason.) 
> - The thumb-and-circle "OK" sign and the pilot's "thumbs up" sign are
> offensive vulgar gestures in some cultures...

The cultural stuff you mention is a big issue.  I am in an 
antique motorcycle e-group which had a young engine builder 
from Japan, a really nice guy, a Japanese Anders.  He was using
a literal translator program since he speaks no English.
We kept getting all messed up because he had all this odd cultural
baggage.  You had to love that guy: he was so deferential
and polite.  But it became maddening, for in his culture
most of our comments somehow could be interpreted as insults!
None of them were meant as such: he was one of our MVPs,
our mascot.

He would post such things as: "I am down face and shame, for
I have caused great harmful words to all!  Forgive please for
my speaking language is not well!  I will struggle great to
make clear my meaning and not cause embarrass further!"

Then we would post back "Hironaga San!  Do not be down face
and shame, you cause no embarrass, for we loooove you man!"

etc.  I have no clue how the heck that translated back
into Japanese, but in the long run it just didn't work
out.  He kept thinking we were making fun of him I 
suppose.  

So if we do manage to create a universal translation tool,
keep in mind that fine shades of meaning are lost.
It would not be a suitable language in which to write
poetry, carry on a flame war or seduce one's lover.  I think
of it more as analogous to engineering specification language,
where words have a very specific meaning.

But I think Lara Croft would have a certain universal appeal.

spike





From wingcat at pacbell.net  Wed Jan 14 04:36:22 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 20:36:22 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Mappa Mundi
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401131406190.13968@hercules>
Message-ID: <20040114043622.58738.qmail@web80408.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Alfio Puglisi <puglisi at arcetri.astro.it> wrote:
> Now what's needed is some artist to replace the
> circles with actual
> planet photos, the triangles with galaxy photos, put
> a blue/black
> background, paste in some aircraft and space probes
> at the right scale,
> and you've got something that can be distributed
> widely :)

Nice idea, but the right scale would render the
aircraft
and space probes as way less than a single pixel on
most
displays.


From thespike at earthlink.net  Wed Jan 14 04:37:35 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 22:37:35 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH again
References: <20040112221025.5407.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>
	<200401130220.i0D2K7x02425@igor.synonet.com>
Message-ID: <019f01c3da58$2fe7bf40$e1994a43@texas.net>

BTW, Mike Lorrey gets mentioned by name and url in Bill McKibben's book
ENOUGH, note 7, chap. 4. (For leafleting.)

And BTW2, McKibben is entirely clear in his wish to have us all die:

`But you *can't* "enjoy the gift of life" forever. Maybe with these new
tools you can *live* forever, but the joy of it--the meaning of it--will
melt away like ice cream on an August afternoon. It is true that nothing
short of these new technologies will make us immortal, but immortality is a
fool's goal. Living must be enougn for us, not living forever' (161).

My notion of joy is a little less sticky than ice cream on an August
afternoon, which is admittedly pleasant but not to die for, and I find
McKibben's insight into the spiritual misery and existential emptiness of
people 1000 years old entirely amazing. How can he *know* these things? And
how can he *know* that there will be no cure for the ailment he just *knows*
must afflict the optionally undying? I'm not saying he's wrong--I don't know
either. But his hubris in barring the gae in our face is breathtaking...
literally.

Damien Broderick



From thespike at earthlink.net  Wed Jan 14 04:41:26 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 22:41:26 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH again
References: <20040112221025.5407.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>
	<200401130220.i0D2K7x02425@igor.synonet.com>
Message-ID: <01af01c3da58$add069c0$e1994a43@texas.net>

BTW, Mike Lorrey gets mentioned by name and url in Bill McKibben's book
ENOUGH, note 7, chap. 4. (For his pro-GE leafleting.)

And BTW2, McKibben is entirely clear in his wish to have us all die:

`But you *can't* "enjoy the gift of life" forever. Maybe with these new
tools you can *live* forever, but the joy of it--the meaning of it--will
melt away like ice cream on an August afternoon. It is true that nothing
short of these new technologies will make us immortal, but immortality is a
fool's goal. Living must be enough for us, not living forever' (161).

My notion of joy is a little less saccharine than ice cream on an August
afternoon, which is admittedly pleasant but not to die for, and I find
McKibben's confident insight into the spiritual misery and existential
emptiness of people 1000 years old entirely amazing. How can he *know* these
things? And how can he *know* that there will be no cure for the ailment he
just *knows* must afflict the optionally undying? I'm not saying he's
wrong--I don't know either. But his hubris in demanding that the gate be
barred in our faces is breathtaking... literally.

Damien Broderick





From bjk at imminst.org  Wed Jan 14 05:05:17 2004
From: bjk at imminst.org (Bruce J. Klein)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 23:05:17 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH again
In-Reply-To: <019f01c3da58$2fe7bf40$e1994a43@texas.net>
References: <20040112221025.5407.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>	<200401130220.i0D2K7x02425@igor.synonet.com>
	<019f01c3da58$2fe7bf40$e1994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <4004CE0D.1040602@imminst.org>

Damien, I wonder if McKibben hopes to outshine Kass. Reference more quotes:

Quote McKibben interview concerning "Enough":

---It is clear that these revolutionary technologies are being driven by 
people with immortality, or something very near it, on their minds. In 
genetic engineering circles, much talk in the last year has centered on 
the promise of longer lives. As Danny Hillis, a computer scientist, 
says, "I?m as fond of my body as anyone, but if I can be 200 with a body 
of silicon, I?ll take it." One odd thing is that it is precisely this 
same class of thinkers ? hyper-rationalist scientists, who have long 
sneered at religion as the refuge of the weak ? who can?t face the fact 
of their own mortality. But clearly their own discomfort with mortality 
goes so deep that they will risk not only the dangers that come with 
genetic engineering, but even the loss of meaning that will attend this 
post-human future."---  http://resurgence.gn.apc.org/issues/mckibben212.htm

Also, quote Ron Bailey's review of "Enough":

---But something worse than mere genetic engineering fills McKibben 
"with blackest foreboding": the prospect of physical immortality. "It 
would represent, finally, the ultimate and irrevocable divorce between 
ourselves and everything else," he asserts. "The divorce, first of all, 
between us and the rest of creation."

Without mortality, no time," writes McKibben. "All moments would be 
equal; the deep, sad, human wisdom of Ecclesiastes would vanish. If for 
everything there is an endless season, then there is also no right 
season. The future stretches before you endlessly flat."--- 
http://www.reason.com/0310/cr.rb.enough.shtml

Bruce Klein
Chairman, ImmInst.org ~ For Infinite Lifespans
http://www.imminst.org



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Wed Jan 14 05:47:46 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 00:47:46 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Sleeplessness
In-Reply-To: <000101c3da40$5d615d90$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
Message-ID: <000701c3da61$f392e880$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Paul Grant wrote,
> Also I noticed that the evening->morning memory is 
> absolutely the best one - if I read something before 
> sleeping, and I'm paying the due attention, I can recite it 
> almost verbatim the morning after (not just pseudo-photo 
> memory, since I could reason about it).

I knew I forgot to mention something in my last reply about memory!  :-)

There are experimental results that support your claim that going to sleep
after studying helps you remember things.  One of the functions that occurs
during sleep is the coding of memories.  Subjects who studied similar
materials could remember it better if they slept just after studying it.
Sleep really did improve their ability to retain the material.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From spike66 at comcast.net  Wed Jan 14 07:29:24 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 23:29:24 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] singularity(3)
In-Reply-To: <1616.213.112.90.19.1073996657.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <00ac01c3da70$229cce80$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

This article speaks of a new record for the largest
star ever seen.

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0401/12brighteststar/


The article contains a remarkable comment that uses the 
term "singularity" to mean single-ness:

"More study will be needed to determine the distance and singularity of
the object in order to establish whether the object is truly the most
massive star known."

This is the only example I have ever seen of this third
definition of the term.

spike



From Johnius at Genius.UCSD.edu  Wed Jan 14 08:45:02 2004
From: Johnius at Genius.UCSD.edu (Johnius)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 00:45:02 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Sleeplessness
Message-ID: <4005018E.FE920DE0@Genius.UCSD.edu>


Harvey wrote:
This drug eliminates the sleepiness and desire to sleep, 
but it does not eliminate the need for sleep
or the symptoms of sleep deprivation.

	Yes, it's just an initial step in that direction.
	I suppose when we eventually have cell-repairing 
	nanobots in our systems, we may find our need for
	sleep suddenly to be much less...?!

This would be great for
one of our conventions!  It may be reasonable to spend a three-day weekend
without sleep, gaining all the extra hours, and then catching up during the
following week by sleeping slightly longer at night.

	Sounds like an experiment is brewing... :-)


Michael:
Adrafinil, the cheaper cousin of Modafinil, costs around $1.00 a pill for a 
400 mg dose.

	Hmmm ... I suppose both of these are prescription drugs?
	So I'd have to convince my PCP to let me try 'em?


Paul:
I've also experienced a weird state where I've been mentally
processing stuff at night, and wake up instantly alert with
a bunch of new stuff already figured out.

	I've heard of this kind of processing before, and have
	experienced it myself to some degree.  Also, sometimes 
	I'll find that a topic of study or some task that gave
	me difficulty last night will become much easier if not
	trivial in the morning.

I was curious if anyone on the list has any of 
these occurrences/states/experiments etc?

	Hmmm, not so much with me.  I do have one sleep story to
	tell though.  I once went on a 23 hour day while my boss
	was on sabbatical.  Each day I'd wake up an hour earlier
	and proceed as usual, starting with waking around noon.
	It was a very trippy experience ... after a few days, I had
	the odd impression that I was travelling backwards in time!
	As I remembered what the world was like the previous days
	during my wakeup/commute routine, I was acutely aware of 
	phasing backwards ... the sun is high & it's warm & there
	is a steady pace of activity, now the sun is lower & it's
	colder & people are going through their morning routine,
	now the sun is on the horizon & it's very cold & the birds
	are just waking up, now it's dark with the sun just below
	the horizon & the stars are out & it's very quiet, etc.
	I did a similar experiment going on a 26 hour day, and
	it too felt strange and wonderful ... but the 23 hour day
	had a greater psychological impact on me (excitement, wonder,
	magic, trippiness, etc.).

	Best, Johnius


From Johnius at Genius.UCSD.edu  Wed Jan 14 09:10:54 2004
From: Johnius at Genius.UCSD.edu (Johnius)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 01:10:54 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Static Contraction weight training?
Message-ID: <4005079E.8F280F1C@Genius.UCSD.edu>

  Has anyone here experimented with Static Contraction
weight training?  (or the new "CNS workout"?)

  I first heard of the technique in the video portion
of Anthony Robbins' _Get the Edge_ program, and I find
it very interesting/intriguing/promising.

  The developers claim it's the fastest way to build
muscular strength/mass, and it's based on progressive 
overloading of one's muscles held at their strongest
positions, with standard weight training exercises.

  Two web references are:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0809229072/qid=1074070030//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i0_xgl14/103-9718764-9986254?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Static Contraction Training
by Peter Sisco, John R. Little 

http://precisiontraining.com/
http://precisiontraining.com/books.cfm
http://precisiontraining.com/index.cfm?bookID=9
Official site (slow server)

  I have to admit I like the idea of increasing my strength
by 50-80% in 10 weeks, with only 3 minutes of actual lifting
time per week...

Best, Johnius


From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it  Wed Jan 14 09:31:01 2004
From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 10:31:01 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Mappa Mundi
In-Reply-To: <20040114043622.58738.qmail@web80408.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040114043622.58738.qmail@web80408.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401141030260.23891@hercules>

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Adrian Tymes wrote:

>--- Alfio Puglisi <puglisi at arcetri.astro.it> wrote:
>> Now what's needed is some artist to replace the
>> circles with actual
>> planet photos, the triangles with galaxy photos, put
>> a blue/black
>> background, paste in some aircraft and space probes
>> at the right scale,
>> and you've got something that can be distributed
>> widely :)
>
>Nice idea, but the right scale would render the
>aircraft
>and space probes as way less than a single pixel on
>most
>displays.

Of course, some artistic license (like a 10000x magnification of such
man-made parts) is in order :)

Alfio


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Wed Jan 14 15:10:20 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 07:10:20 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: nuclear rockets
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401140654450.25665-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


The interesting topic of nuclear rocket propulsion has come up
on /. this week.  One of the primary sites cited is having
trouble serving up pages (apparently due to MS Internet Server
(cough) limitations/constraints).

/. article:

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/13/1816227&mode=thread

But the interesting stuff is here:
http://www.nuclearspace.com/

In particular:
http://www.nuclearspace.com/a_liberty_ship.htm
  which probably will not be served; but the google cache has it using:
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:8gxZzURFpo4J:www.nuclearspace.com/a_liberty_ship.htm+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

though you can switch to pages 2-14 (and navigate more easily) from
http://www.nuclearspace.com/a_liberty_ship2.htm

It discusses towards the end of the article a nuclear rocket design
capable of lifting 1000 tons into orbit (approx. 100x current lift
capacities).  The discussion seems authoritative but I am not
qualified to judge nuclear or rocket engineering methods.
I'd be interested in comments by hard core engineering types
on the design.

Robert




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Wed Jan 14 15:29:49 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 10:29:49 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] singularity(3)
In-Reply-To: <00ac01c3da70$229cce80$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <001201c3dab3$42c90fa0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Spike wrote,
> This article speaks of a new record for the largest
> star ever seen.
> 
> http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0401/12brighteststar/
> 
> 
> The article contains a remarkable comment that uses the 
> term "singularity" to mean single-ness:
> 
> "More study will be needed to determine the distance and 
> singularity of the object in order to establish whether the 
> object is truly the most massive star known."
> 
> This is the only example I have ever seen of this third 
> definition of the term.

This is actually the primary and normal meaning of this word, Spike.  Only a
small minority of specialists use the term for what you think it means.
This is a common usage that I have seen a lot.

Look at <http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=singularity> for the
definitions from:

- The American HeritageR Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, C 1996, 1998
- WordNet R 1.6, C 1997 Princeton University
- On-line Medical Dictionary, C 1997-98

Only the first dictionary even mentions the meaning you expect.  The others
don't seem to have heard of your specialized meaning.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 







From matus at matus1976.com  Wed Jan 14 16:31:28 2004
From: matus at matus1976.com (Matus)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 11:31:28 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Sleeplessness
In-Reply-To: <4005018E.FE920DE0@Genius.UCSD.edu>
Message-ID: <000301c3dabb$e04abdc0$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Johnius
> 
> 
> Michael:
> Adrafinil, the cheaper cousin of Modafinil, costs around $1.00 a pill
for
> a
> 400 mg dose.
> 
> 	Hmmm ... I suppose both of these are prescription drugs?
> 	So I'd have to convince my PCP to let me try 'em?
> 

Ive read that Adrafinil has some side effects, although rare it can
cause some pretty bad liver problems (I don't recall the specifics)
People who were using it for narcolepsy were supposed to get regular
blood tests.  It also doesn't seem to work as well, from my experience.


For those interested, you can order modafinil (or adrafinil) from
www.modafinil.info, I have ordered from there previously with no
problems, and I recall someone else on this list recommended it as well.

Michael Dickey






From mark at permanentend.org  Wed Jan 14 16:38:18 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 11:38:18 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH again
References: <20040112221025.5407.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com><200401130220.i0D2K7x02425@igor.synonet.com>
	<019f01c3da58$2fe7bf40$e1994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <007d01c3dabc$d156a850$2ee4f418@markcomputer>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Damien Broderick"


> And BTW2, McKibben is entirely clear in his wish to have us all die:
>
> `But you *can't* "enjoy the gift of life" forever. Maybe with these new
> tools you can *live* forever, but the joy of it--the meaning of it--will
> melt away like ice cream on an August afternoon. It is true that nothing
> short of these new technologies will make us immortal, but immortality is
a
> fool's goal. Living must be enougn for us, not living forever' (161).
>
> My notion of joy is a little less sticky than ice cream on an August
> afternoon, which is admittedly pleasant but not to die for, and I find
> McKibben's insight into the spiritual misery and existential emptiness of
> people 1000 years old entirely amazing. How can he *know* these things?
And
> how can he *know* that there will be no cure for the ailment he just
*knows*
> must afflict the optionally undying? I'm not saying he's wrong--I don't
know
> either. But his hubris in barring the gae in our face is breathtaking...
> literally.
>


What do you think McKibben means by 'living must be enough for us, not
living forever'? I agree that his epistemological credentials here must be
suspect since no one has lived 1000 years. Does the 'must' here suggest some
public policy recommendation, e.g., making it illegal to pursue immortality?
Or perhaps the point is simply that if we live this long we will be fools,
(in which case "stick and stones...")?

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org





From thespike at earthlink.net  Wed Jan 14 16:49:25 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 10:49:25 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH again
References: <20040112221025.5407.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com><200401130220.i0D2K7x02425@igor.synonet.com><019f01c3da58$2fe7bf40$e1994a43@texas.net>
	<007d01c3dabc$d156a850$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <005501c3dabe$6009c400$bc994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Walker" <mark at permanentend.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 10:38 AM

> What do you think McKibben means by 'living must be enough for us, not
> living forever'? ... Does the 'must' here suggest some
> public policy recommendation, e.g., making it illegal to pursue
immortality?

Yes. Because it's the slippery slope to the final erosion of meaning from
our (formerly) mortal lives. That meaning derives from our transience and
continuity with the rest of the  natural world. This doesn't mean, though,
that we have to give up reading or wearing clothes, even though sparrows and
worms and bacteria can't do that. How come? Well, if you don't see (or
*feel*) why, it obviously shows how spiritually bankrupt you must already
be... Sigh.

Damien Broderick



From fortean1 at mindspring.com  Wed Jan 14 16:52:18 2004
From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 09:52:18 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD [SK] Re: i-language again
Message-ID: <400573C2.AF71B9A0@mindspring.com>

Terry W. Colvin wrote:

> Spike wrote,
> 
>>>Example, spike.  (1) picture of a railroad spike.
>>>(2) picture of a athletic shoe with cleats.
>>>(3) picture of graph with a sudden upturn.
>>>...
>>>(11) picture of Spike Jones the musician, etc... spike
> 
> 
> Interesting ideas, Spike!  Some comments:
> 
> Apple has almost done what you are describing with their AppleScript
> programming language.  It is very human-language like, in an attempt to make
> it readable and debuggable by casual users.  So you can code something like
> "Tell the application Word to find my document named Resume and then
> spellcheck it with dictionary English with option underlining on and then
> save results onto network disk named Server unless status of network disk
> named Server is off."  This almost looks like English.
> 
> But what is really interesting is that they tokenize these words to
> byte-code numbers.  A foreign-language speaker sharing a network disk and
> looking at the exact same script above would see their own language!

  Except the grammar probably wouldn't match up.  Germans'll find the 
verb at the completely wrong end of the sentence! ;) And how do you 
tokenize "the"? There are three versions of the word "the" in French 
("le", "la", and "les"), and the choice of which to use depends on the 
words they're associated with.  It's even worse in German (I think there 
are six).  Not to mention "you" ("tu" or "vous" in French, and the use 
of which depends not only on grammar but the social relationship between 
the conversants; and, again, even more options in German).

 > Each
> foreign speaker can read and edit the script in their own language, while
> all other viewers see their own native language instead.  I think this
> approach would be a great way to have language-independent documents.  For
> this, you would need to distinguish different (numbered meanings) as you
> suggested earlier.

  The trick is, language isn't just vocabulary.  Japanese has an entire 
class of words ("particles") which don't exist in English.  In Japanese, 
"I" is "watashi", and "am" is "desu", but "I am James" is not "Watashi 
desu James", it's "Watashi wa James desu" (which could be translated 
back to English as "I, with regard to, James am", since "wa" means that 
the proceeding word is the subject of the sentence).

  At a party recently someone was telling me an amusing story about her 
problems with speaking Japanese from a phrasebook. Japanese for "Where 
is the washroom?" is "Otearai wa doko desu ka?" ("Otearai" is 
"washroom").  So she figured "Where am I?" was "Watashi wa doko desu 
ka?". Unfortunately, no-one could answer that question for her, it just 
mystified them.  Then it turned out that the way to ask "Where am I?" in 
Japanese is to ask "Where is here?".  "Where am I?" comes across as 
"What is my place in the grand scheme of things?", and as she hadn't 
encountered up with a Buddhist priest in her questioning, no-one could 
answer her. ;)

  Not to mention that Japanese has many different words for "I". 
"Watashi" is for male or female in relatively polite company; "Atashi" 
is for women only, and slightly less formal.  "Boku" is for young or 
effeminate men. "Ore" is for touch, macho men. "Watakushi" is for women 
and is extremely formal.  There's even one that only the empreror is 
supposed to use.

> Internationally understood icons are not as easy as you think.  I researched
> this almost 15 years ago for some computer work.  Many icons make sense in
> one language, but not another.  

  Tokenized language is even worse.

> Many Asian cultures can almost read other Asian languages because many of
> the ideograms are similar.

  Not exactly.  Most Asian cultures don't use ideograms. (India, for 
example, does not).  Many Asian cultures were heavily influenced by 
China, though, and can therefore read Chinese.  But Japanese Kanji is 
somewhat different from Chinese Kanji, and have the kana thrown in as 
well. Japanese can generally read Chinese, but Chinese can't necessarily 
read Japanese because of the linguistic differences which required the 
introduction of the kana.

> These evolved from more primitive pictographs of
> the items represented.  It makes sense that various cultures would use
> similar icons.  But the spoken words for these similar icons are totally
> different in each language even in cases where the icons were identical.

  The only reason they use similar icons is because the icons are all 
decended from one Chinese source. Ideographic languages not descended 
from Chinese are not readable by the average Chinese reader.

  * Note: most of the linguistic stuff here is from memory, and I'm not 
fluent in these languages. The details may need some polishing.

-- 
James H.G. Redekop


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
      U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
   TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Vietnam veterans,
Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]


From mark at permanentend.org  Wed Jan 14 17:24:42 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:24:42 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH again
References: <20040112221025.5407.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com><200401130220.i0D2K7x02425@igor.synonet.com><019f01c3da58$2fe7bf40$e1994a43@texas.net><007d01c3dabc$d156a850$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
	<005501c3dabe$6009c400$bc994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <00eb01c3dac3$4c67e120$2ee4f418@markcomputer>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Damien Broderick"
>
> > What do you think McKibben means by 'living must be enough for us, not
> > living forever'? ... Does the 'must' here suggest some
> > public policy recommendation, e.g., making it illegal to pursue
> immortality?
>
> Yes. Because it's the slippery slope to the final erosion of meaning from
> our (formerly) mortal lives. That meaning derives from our transience and
> continuity with the rest of the  natural world. This doesn't mean, though,
> that we have to give up reading or wearing clothes, even though sparrows
and
> worms and bacteria can't do that. How come? Well, if you don't see (or
> *feel*) why, it obviously shows how spiritually bankrupt you must already
> be... Sigh.
>

Well, that's interesting.  Even Kass doesn't go this far with immortality,
unlike human cloning. That is, Kass wants to ban human cloning but he
doesn't (in what I've read ) say that radical life extension, agelessness or
emortality ought to be made illegal. Really, it seems a shame to stop here.
Why not make it illegal to live a mortal life with our meaning?  E.g., it
could be made a capital offence to live a mortal life without meaning.

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org







From natashavita at earthlink.net  Wed Jan 14 18:01:42 2004
From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:01:42 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH again
Message-ID: <191690-22004131418142570@M2W051.mail2web.com>


From: Mark Walker 

>Well, that's interesting.  Even Kass doesn't go this far with immortality,
>unlike human cloning. That is, Kass wants to ban human cloning but he
>doesn't (in what I've read ) say that radical life extension, agelessness
>or
>emortality ought to be made illegal. Really, it seems a shame to stop here.
>Why not make it illegal to live a mortal life with our meaning?  E.g., it
>could be made a capital offence to live a mortal life without meaning.

Rather than specifically stating that agelessness and indefinite life span
(ILS)ought to be made illegal, he states that such are be morally illegal,
as against the inherent laws of nature.


Natasha

Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .




From thespike at earthlink.net  Wed Jan 14 18:23:17 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:23:17 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH again
References: <191690-22004131418142570@M2W051.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <008701c3dacb$7cf122e0$bc994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message -----
From: <natashavita at earthlink.net>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 12:01 PM

> Rather than specifically stating that agelessness and indefinite life span
> (ILS)ought to be made illegal, he states that such are be morally illegal

He does indeed state that they ought to be made illegal (in more general
terms that cover any germline enhancements):

`People shouldn't be allowed to choose things this deep for their children
(and for every generation thereafter),' (192)

Note, incidentally, the bizarre customary slip: if we gain the power to make
any changes we wish in the DNA of our offspring, this should be forbidden
because these changes will thereafter be permanently embedded in the
species. Say what?

McKibben goes on:

`That [i.e. making such germinal-choice changes illegal] will involve
limiting freedom, just as forbidding people to drive their cars the wrong
way down  one-way street limits freedom. The liberty of one generation,
ours, would be in some small way constrained... in order to protect the far
more basic liberties of those yet to come. To demand this right is to make a
mockery of liberty. It's to choose, forever, against choice.' (192)

Damien Broderick





From rafal at smigrodzki.org  Wed Jan 14 21:41:05 2004
From: rafal at smigrodzki.org (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:41:05 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] John C Wright comments on IP
In-Reply-To: <191690-22004131418142570@M2W051.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <OJEHKDIANIFPAJPDBDGLOEAOCOAA.rafal@smigrodzki.org>

I am forwarding an exchange I had with John C Wright, regarding the IP laws
in the Golden Oecumene:

> Dear Mr Wright,
>
> Recently my zeal in reading sci-fi suffered a setback - after finishing
"The
> Golden Transcendence" I realized it will be very hard to find something to
> match your books in terms of wit, erudition, and intellectual depth. Your
> trilogy was a great treat.
>
> Now, there is one aspect of the Oecumene which puzzles me: the
intellectual
> property rules - are they statutory or purely contractual? If statutory,
why
> are they (apparently) time-unlimited, which might result in inefficiencies
> (and you don't say how inefficiencies are avoided, or whether they are
> postulated not to exist), and if they are contractual, how do they become
> universally enforced? I could imagine the following argument in favor of
IP
> held in perpetuity - since the IP owner receives the full market value of
> his invention, there is a strong stimulus to provide new inventions - both
> to earn and to avoid paying for older IP. But then, if the inventor of the
> wheel was still alive, we would be paying him royalties on every car,
> including toy trucks. On the other hand, contractual IP would assure
return
> commensurate with effort spent on research while avoiding perpetual
> royalties (with the threat of independent discoverers keeping owners from
> indefinite rent-seeking), but you specifically mention the Parliament as
the
> venue where the scope of IP is decided in the Golden Oecumene.
>
> Would you like to comment on this issue?
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Rafal Smigrodzki

====================================

Dear Mr. Smigrodski,

You are too kind. If it gives you any comfort, there are writers wittier and
more erudite than I: JRR Tolkein and CS Lewis spring to mind in terms of
erudition, Jack Vance in terms of wit, Gene Wolfe in terms of overall
genius.
Poul Anderson's HARVEST OF STARS has all three qualities.

Regarding your question, it is one I find interesting, so I hope you will
please forgive me if I wax too prolix:

As a writer, I write as the spirit moves me, so that I am often as surprised
as
the reader by the tale as it is told. Therefore I have no more authority
than
any other reader in answering questions about the Golden Oecumene: I only
know
what the tale says.

Regarding intellectual property, the tale says, for example, that the face
of
Gannis is under copyright: it seems no one else may wear his appearance or
image. The tale also says that Orpheus maintains a monopoly on the
immortality
that his machines invented, the noetic technique which ushered in the age of
the Seventh Mentality. This implies that the patent on that technology has
endured for more than the eleven thousand years of the Seventh Era.

Orpheus is just like the inventor of the wheel who gets a royalty for each
truck and toy truck. Now, since the wheel was a very great benefit indeed,
it
might not be such a burden, for a wealthy society, at least, to continue to
pay
him when they use that benefit. Modern radio stations pay a singer each time
his song is played, mere pennies to the advertisers eager to play those
songs
(and the ads supporting them) to the public. The cost to the public is
unnoticeable.

Two opposing policies obtain: a patent held in perpetuity would stifle
innovation, but having no patents at all would not reward the inventor or
his
investors for their investment in time and treasure, if any newcomer could
immediate copy his technique.  I doubt that even a utopia could avoid the
conflict between the two opposing policies involved: some arbitrary point
must
be selected for the cut-off time.

Now again, not even your humble author knows to what degree these policy
considerations would apply in the Golden Oecumene. Is it possible that the
intelligent machines are so intelligent that inventing new techniques is so
easy for them, that there is no need to have the patent periods expire. It
is
possible that, among immortals, the time period during which an invention is
protected by patent would seem very long to us but not seem long to them. If
Orpheus discovery of immortality were protected from duplication for
fourteen
thousand years, the period would not yet have run.

The tale says that the Foederal Oecumenical Commonwealth (to give the Golden
Oecumene its true name) does not have a uniform set of laws covering all
schools, societies, and sects within it, even as the federal United States
has
state law that differs from one jurisdiction to another. The Neptunians, for
example, may have very different policies regarding copyright: no doubt they
approve of piracy. We must assume inventors seek venues most favorable to
them
(which is one reason why the Neptunians might be poorer than, for example,
the
society occupying the moons of Jupiter).

Inevitably, even in a very wise and kind society, provision would have to be
made for the resolution of conflicts. The government of the Golden Oecumene,
according to the story, is so minimal, that certain persons are not even
aware
it exists. Such a minimalist Parliament would control only so much of
intellectual property law as was not covered by independent contracts,
preferring to leave as much as possible in private hands. The Curia or
lesser
courts of law would be required to interpret contracts that were ambiguous,
or
had been breached by one party, and the Parliament would have to establish
any
law (not covered by common law) the courts required for guidance.

Myself, I do not see how it is logically possible to maintain intellectual
property claims on a purely voluntary and contractual basis: customers and
employees of Orpheus might well sign non-competition agreements in order to
avail themselves of the benefits of his immortality machines. But the
independent researcher who discovers the same technique as Orpheus has no
contractual relationship with him. There is no economic incentive for him to
forego the gains made by selling the same technique; Orpheus would not dare
pay
him for his non-competition, lest all future independent researchers be
encouraged to hold the coffers of Orpheus hostage.

This is not to say (by the way) that a society whose intellectual property
was
entirely contractual could not exist. This says only that there is a price
to
be paid for structuring the laws in that way: it may discourage rather than
encourage competition. No lesser thinker than Jefferson himself, for
example,
thought the price of public patent protection was too high, and that the
federal government should not grant patents or other temporary monopolies. I
respectfully disagree with him, but I do not this his position is
unreasonable.

However, just between you and me, I strongly suspect most business affairs
in
the Golden Age are contractual, since anyone advised by a super-intelligent
machine would try to conduct his affairs so as to avoid the waste and
anxiety
of hiring a lawyer and going to court.

It is supposed to be a Golden Age after all, the society mankind will enjoy
if
ever man becomes sane and mature: no doubt they have laws and institutions
similar to ours, which they keep as a last resort, should all else fail, the
way a wise man packs a first-aid kit before he goes camping. But our society
is
like a man who is in constant ill health, constantly in the hospital
emergency
room. To us, the medicine we need to prevent the body politic from
dissolving
into anarchy is something we must endure every hour of every day. A healthy
society, such as only might exist in a future whose moral standard is higher
than our own, such distempers would be rare. Men might be wise enough to be
glad to avoid even the appearance of pirating another man's ideas, rather
than
trying to edge as close to the minimum limit as the law allows. Since they
life
forever, and will never escape each other's censure, never forget a wrong,
it
would behoove them to settle all difference privately, and before they
become
inflamed.


Yours, John C. Wright

==============================================================

> Dear Mr Wright,
>
> Thank you for the answer to my enquiry. I find it fascinating to try to
look
> at the current state of affairs in this area of the law (although I am not
a
> lawyer myself), and to imagine how future technical developments (such as
> e.g. advanced methods for lie detection) could allow new social structures
> to evolve, both the desirable and the detestable ones. Just as Vernor
Vinge
> imagined how a technical development of bobbling could change warfare, the
> ways of traveling and even architecture ("build a castle, bobble yourself
> for a thousand years, and voila! - you have beautifully aged ruins to play
> in"), changes in IP laws with noetic technologies could be perhaps an
> interesting subject for another thinking person's s-f book (or even a
> trilogy :-).
>
> Would you permit me to forward our exchange to the Extropian mailing list
> http://www.extropy.org/emaillists.htm? This is a place where
transhumanists
> such as Anders Sandberg, Robin Hanson, Eliezer Yudkowsky, s-f authors like
> Damien Broderick and Charlie Stross, and others, argue about the shape of
> the future.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Rafal Smigrodzki

==========================================================

Dear Mr. Smigrodski, you are most welcome to share my letter, spelling
errors
and all, with anyone who might care to read it, though (in all modesty) I
doubt
my ideas about intellectual property are new. In fact, one interesting
outcome
of my own speculations about the far future is how much would have to remain
the same in order for civilization to advance. I do not see how it is
possible,
even theoretically, for a civilization to prosper without laws and law
enforcement, currency, property rights, and unequal distributions of
property.
If all members of society were sufficiently uniform to have the same
threshold
of violence, the same disinterest in property, the same disutility of labor,
the same skills and abilities, the society would not be sufficiently diverse
to
meet all challenges nature might pose, or curiosity might seek to
investigate.

If the "singularity" imagined by Verner Vinge ever does take place, I
suspect
that at least some of the society and her activities would be understandable
to
the modern man, in the same way that at least some of what a modern man does
would be understandable to a prehistoric farmer. The prehistoric farmer
might
be baffled by Wall Street finance, but he would grasp that the modern farmer
was reaping and sowing, especially if the modern farmer were Amish, or from
some undeveloped third world country. Likewise, any post-singularity people
who
looked and lived much like modern men might be comprehensible to us, even if
the majority of the society were incomprehensible.

Again, thank you for writing, yours, John C. Wright



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Wed Jan 14 18:41:13 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 10:41:13 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH again
In-Reply-To: <01af01c3da58$add069c0$e1994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <20040114184113.76507.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Damien Broderick <thespike at earthlink.net> wrote:
> BTW, Mike Lorrey gets mentioned by name and url in Bill McKibben's
> book ENOUGH, note 7, chap. 4. (For his pro-GE leafleting.)

Really? What does he say? Is the book browsable on Amazon?

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From wingcat at pacbell.net  Wed Jan 14 18:43:37 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 10:43:37 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] BrainGates being commerciallized
Message-ID: <20040114184337.96448.qmail@web80403.mail.yahoo.com>

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,61889,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_5

Aw, YEAH!  And they do explicitly say they'll be
marketing it as an upgrade for healthy humans as well
as for the disabled.

Okay, granted, it'll take a few years to fully roll
out to where any rich person can purchase one and the
surgery to install, and probably many more before it's
common.  And there's the issue of bandwidth: merely
the equivalent of a joystick and a few buttons isn't
that much, most likely nowhere near the rate needed to
download information faster than one can process
speech (though I could be wrong, and perhaps one could
get multiple units).  And the external computer needed
to process the signals is far too bulky to be
implanted (yet - remember Moore's Law, and it doesn't
look like the computer was optimized for
miniaturization as it is).  And, of course, there's
the rather large, but apparently solvable, problem of
writing software to generate meaningful high-level
interaction between organic and silicon computers.

Even so, this itself is a significant step forwards.
^_^


From thespike at earthlink.net  Wed Jan 14 18:52:50 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:52:50 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH again
References: <20040114184113.76507.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <00ad01c3dacf$a741d220$bc994a43@texas.net>


> > BTW, Mike Lorrey gets mentioned by name and url in Bill McKibben's
> > book ENOUGH, note 7, chap. 4. (For his pro-GE leafleting.)
>
> Really? What does he say?

Just the citation, really, while pointing out (quite fairly, in my view)
that the claim on the stickers is intended to blur the line between `ten
thousand years of cross-breeding' and `sticking flounder genes in
strawberries', and thus to intimidate opponents.

Greg Burch gets a citation; Max More is traduced, as I mentioned in an
earlier post; a Mark Walker citation precedes the big finish. I crop up all
over the place, as do other cites from the extrope list. The man has put in
some legwork.

Damien Broderick



From jef at jefallbright.net  Wed Jan 14 19:57:26 2004
From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 11:57:26 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] John C Wright comments on IP
References: <OJEHKDIANIFPAJPDBDGLOEAOCOAA.rafal@smigrodzki.org>
Message-ID: <003701c3dad8$a3e4fc70$2c02650a@int.veeco.com>

Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
I am forwarding an exchange I had with John C Wright, regarding the IP laws
in the Golden Oecumene:

John C Wright wrote:
It is supposed to be a Golden Age after all, the society mankind will enjoy
if ever man becomes sane and mature: no doubt they have laws and
institutions similar to ours, which they keep as a last resort, should all
else fail, the way a wise man packs a first-aid kit before he goes camping.
But our society is like a man who is in constant ill health, constantly in
the hospital emergency room. To us, the medicine we need to prevent the body
politic from dissolving into anarchy is something we must endure every hour
of every day. A healthy society, such as only might exist in a future whose
moral standard is higher than our own, such distempers would be rare. Men
might be wise enough to be glad to avoid even the appearance of pirating
another man's ideas, rather than trying to edge as close to the minimum
limit as the law allows. Since they life forever, and will never escape each
other's censure, never forget a wrong, it would behoove them to settle all
difference privately, and before they become inflamed.

Thank you Rafal for posting this exchange.  In addition to the insightful
comments on intellectual property, I'm encouraged to find another thoughful
voice in support of the idea that a more advanced society would naturally
tend to be more moral.

- Jef
http://www.jefallbright.net/arrow_of_morality






From thespike at earthlink.net  Wed Jan 14 20:04:35 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 14:04:35 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Kant
References: <20040114184113.76507.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>
	<00ad01c3dacf$a741d220$bc994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <005301c3dad9$a5e03ac0$bc994a43@texas.net>

I just noticed that a month from now is the 200th anniversary of Immanuel
Kant's death. I felt a strange imperative to make this universally known...

(So short a time from the viewpoint of the emortal. And yet halfway back to
the death of Shakespeare, almost.)

Damien Broderick



From mark at permanentend.org  Wed Jan 14 20:11:21 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 15:11:21 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Kant
References: <20040114184113.76507.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com><00ad01c3dacf$a741d220$bc994a43@texas.net>
	<005301c3dad9$a5e03ac0$bc994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <018201c3dada$948dc2f0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Damien Broderick"


> I just noticed that a month from now is the 200th anniversary of Immanuel
> Kant's death. I felt a strange imperative to make this universally
known...
>
I Kan't understand this imperative.

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org





From jef at jefallbright.net  Wed Jan 14 20:09:09 2004
From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:09:09 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Kant
References: <20040114184113.76507.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com><00ad01c3dacf$a741d220$bc994a43@texas.net>
	<005301c3dad9$a5e03ac0$bc994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <005c01c3dada$468dce10$2c02650a@int.veeco.com>

Categorically, and without a doubt, it is right to remember Kant as best we
can.

- Jef

Damien Broderick wrote:
> I just noticed that a month from now is the 200th anniversary of
> Immanuel Kant's death. I felt a strange imperative to make this
> universally known...
>
> (So short a time from the viewpoint of the emortal. And yet halfway
> back to the death of Shakespeare, almost.)
>
> Damien Broderick
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Wed Jan 14 20:13:44 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:13:44 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] SOC: Advanced society = advanced morality?
In-Reply-To: <003701c3dad8$a3e4fc70$2c02650a@int.veeco.com>
Message-ID: <20040114201344.33982.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Jef Allbright <jef at jefallbright.net> wrote:
> 
> Thank you Rafal for posting this exchange.  In addition to the
> insightful comments on intellectual property, I'm encouraged to
> find another thoughful voice in support of the idea that a more
> advanced society would naturally tend to be more moral.

This is an intriguing point. I'll note Neal Stephenson's similar
commentary by characters in The Diamond Age, where, in light of
breathtaking avancements in technology, at least some part of the
population sought social stability by instituting neo-victorian social
mores.
This might also be reflected in the forces in 19th century Britain
which brought about the original Victorian Age. You had the first real
era of rapid growth and advancement compared to prior ages, both in
technology and economics, which triggered at first an age of moral
degradation and excess which was backlashed by the Victorians.
It might also explain how American political forces seem divided
between those preferring social stability and economic dynamism vs
those seeking economic stability and social dynamism.
Do people have to have some area which is anchored in stability, even
stasis? Do they need this to retain some sort of grip on the world and
their lives?

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From thespike at earthlink.net  Wed Jan 14 20:21:43 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 14:21:43 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Kant
References: <20040114184113.76507.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com><00ad01c3dacf$a741d220$bc994a43@texas.net>
	<005301c3dad9$a5e03ac0$bc994a43@texas.net>
	<018201c3dada$948dc2f0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <008001c3dadc$08159bc0$bc994a43@texas.net>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Walker" <mark at permanentend.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 2:11 PM

> > I just noticed that a month from now is the 200th anniversary of
Immanuel
> > Kant's death. I felt a strange imperative to make this universally
> known...

> I Kan't understand this imperative.

But it's Kantegorical!

Damien Broderick



From jef at jefallbright.net  Wed Jan 14 20:35:26 2004
From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:35:26 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] SOC: Advanced society = advanced morality?
References: <20040114201344.33982.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <007501c3dadd$f2ad3110$2c02650a@int.veeco.com>

Mike Lorrey wrote:
> --- Jef Allbright <jef at jefallbright.net> wrote:
>>
>> Thank you Rafal for posting this exchange.  In addition to the
>> insightful comments on intellectual property, I'm encouraged to
>> find another thoughful voice in support of the idea that a more
>> advanced society would naturally tend to be more moral.
>
> This is an intriguing point. I'll note Neal Stephenson's similar
> commentary by characters in The Diamond Age, where, in light of
> breathtaking avancements in technology, at least some part of the
> population sought social stability by instituting neo-victorian social
> mores.

I find it interesting that very often heightened morality is associated with
repressive morality.  I've often wondered about the apparent fascination
with Victorian manners in science fiction, e.g., _The Diamond Age_,
_Aristoi_, _The Golden Age_ trilogy.  I suspect its utility in fiction is
more for its ornateness, than for accurate depiction of true morality.
Perhaps Damien would share some insights on this apparent trend.

> This might also be reflected in the forces in 19th century Britain
> which brought about the original Victorian Age. You had the first real
> era of rapid growth and advancement compared to prior ages, both in
> technology and economics, which triggered at first an age of moral
> degradation and excess which was backlashed by the Victorians.
> It might also explain how American political forces seem divided
> between those preferring social stability and economic dynamism vs
> those seeking economic stability and social dynamism.
> Do people have to have some area which is anchored in stability, even
> stasis? Do they need this to retain some sort of grip on the world and
> their lives?

I would agree with you that Victorian morality appears to have been a
backlash effect, and we may see similar ripples in next few decades, which I
hope are damped by greatly enhanced communication capability.

My thesis is in quite the opposite direction:  that greater morality
corresponds with the greater freedom of choice and the greater awareness of
consequences that can be expected with a more highly evolved society.

There is a difficulty with the term "morality" in that it implies subjective
human values.  Perhaps a better term would be "right action" but this is
closely associated with Buddhism.  Maybe we'll eventually switch to the
rather sterile term "utility" for most such discussion.

- Jef

http://www.jefallbright.net/arrow_of_morality



From thespike at earthlink.net  Wed Jan 14 20:54:38 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 14:54:38 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] SOC: Advanced society = advanced morality?
References: <20040114201344.33982.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
	<007501c3dadd$f2ad3110$2c02650a@int.veeco.com>
Message-ID: <009501c3dae0$a1f7b1c0$bc994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jef Allbright" <jef at jefallbright.net>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 2:35 PM

> I've often wondered about the apparent fascination
> with Victorian manners in science fiction, e.g., _The Diamond Age_,
> _Aristoi_, _The Golden Age_ trilogy.  I suspect its utility in fiction is
> more for its ornateness, than for accurate depiction of true morality.
> Perhaps Damien would share some insights on this apparent trend.

Multifactorial. Harks back (`steampunk') to the ambience of the originators
of sf and horror, Wells and Stoker etc. Places narrative limits and pleasing
contrasts on unbounded tech possibilities. Plus the ornamentation you
mention.

I've just belatedly enjoyed Connie Willis's TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG, a
long, complex but relaxed entertainment set in high Victorian England and
playing off the Jerome K. Jerome novel THREE MEN IN A BOAT (TO SAY NOTHING
OF THE DOG). The gruesome over-ornamented aesthetics of the period are
lovingly mocked, as are the haughty, shallow cruelties of the well-off in
respect of the `downstairs' servants (who have their 20th century revenge a
few years early). Yet the tone is sunny, dreamy, like floating downstream in
a boat on a pleasant day, accompanied by a delightful dog who wags himself
all over... And very funny most of the time, even when pointing morals.

Damien Broderick



From nanowave at shaw.ca  Wed Jan 14 21:54:46 2004
From: nanowave at shaw.ca (Russell Evermore)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:54:46 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Robot Scientist
References: <20040114201344.33982.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
	<007501c3dadd$f2ad3110$2c02650a@int.veeco.com>
	<009501c3dae0$a1f7b1c0$bc994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <000701c3dae9$06ba1780$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>

A robot scientist has been unveiled that can formulate theories, carry out
experiments and interpret results - all more cheaply than its human
counterparts.

http://www.nature.com/nsu/040112/040112-9.html

RE
nanowave at shaw.ca



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Wed Jan 14 22:03:47 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 17:03:47 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
Message-ID: <001001c3daea$4c0479b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Here is the schedule for Bush's plan for NASA:

2004-2004	Divert $11B from other funded NASA projects
2004-2010	Increase NASA funding by $1B/year for five years
2010-2010	Retire Shuttle Fleet, Finish(abandon?) space station
2010-2015	Period where US has no vehicles that reach space station
2015-2020	Manned Moon Mission
2020-2030	Manned Moon Base
2030-2045	Manned Mars Mission

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Wed Jan 14 22:19:33 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 14:19:33 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Robot Scientist
In-Reply-To: <000701c3dae9$06ba1780$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>
Message-ID: <20040114221934.37999.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>

But does it drum out competing theories and ad hominem against debate
opponents?

--- Russell Evermore <nanowave at shaw.ca> wrote:
> A robot scientist has been unveiled that can formulate theories,
> carry out
> experiments and interpret results - all more cheaply than its human
> counterparts.
> 
> http://www.nature.com/nsu/040112/040112-9.html
> 
> RE
> nanowave at shaw.ca
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Wed Jan 14 22:21:59 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 14:21:59 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
In-Reply-To: <001001c3daea$4c0479b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040114222159.65781.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> Here is the schedule for Bush's plan for NASA:
> 
> 2004-2004	Divert $11B from other funded NASA projects
> 2004-2010	Increase NASA funding by $1B/year for five years
> 2010-2010	Retire Shuttle Fleet, Finish(abandon?) space station
> 2010-2015	Period where US has no vehicles that reach space station
> 2015-2020	Manned Moon Mission
> 2020-2030	Manned Moon Base
> 2030-2045	Manned Mars Mission

It seems like he wants to spin the space station off to private
enterprise, perhaps a consortium of universities and high tech
companies? This would create a market demand for private development of
manned orbital capability.

Hey, if they want to auction it off, I'll put in a bid... ;) 

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com  Wed Jan 14 22:53:09 2004
From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 14:53:09 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (one year
	old:-)
Message-ID: <20040114225309.15066.qmail@web41313.mail.yahoo.com>

Congratulations to Chris and Mike!!!
 

C-R-Newsletter #15    January 13, 2004With this issue, we've decided to start something new: after CRN News,you'll find a brief article explaining a technical aspect of advancednanotechnology. This month, we'll begin with how scientists "see" thingssmaller than a wavelength of light, with cutting edge sub-wavelengthimaging techniques.If you'd rather read this on the web, with nicer formatting and inlinehyperlinks, go to http://CRNano.org/newsletter.htm#15CRN NEWSHappy Birthday to CRN!We founded CRN sometime in December 2002. We can't agree on the date;Chris prefers Mike's original email in early December, but Mike thinkswe should count from the website going online, which happened aroundChristmas. Perhaps the most official date would be when World Care*agreed to support us in being a non-profit. Anyway, those were all inDecember, so we're now one year old.We've done quite a lot in the last year: published numerous papers* andcommentaries, built a prestigious Board of Advisors*, given
 apresentation* to the EPA, been mentioned in US News and World Report,and had articles republished on KurweilAI and in Small Times. This yearwe're going to be even more energetic and diverse.  QUESTION #1: If westarted a nano-blog, would you read it? We'd really like to know. Pleaselet us know. Thanks!The Futurist* published a great article written by Mike on nanofactoriesin its current edition. Small Times* immediately reprinted it. And thisled to a request from another magazine for an article from him, as wellas several newsletter signups.Last month Chris gave his presentation to the EPA Science AdvisoryBoard. It went very well. Everyone on the panel had only a few minutesto speak, and if you've been reading our newsletters (of course youhave!) you know that you can't summarize advanced nanotechnology in sixminutes. But he managed to hit most of the highlights. Several people onthe Science Advisory Board told him afterward that they appreciated thetalk. Chris spent the next day
 talking with several people inWashington, including a Congressional staffer. All the talks werepreliminary, but should lead to good things in the future.There are now almost three hundred people on our newsletter list. That'spretty good! But we'd like to reach more people.  QUESTION #2: Wouldyour friends and co-workers be interested in this newsletter? Why or whynot? Could you take a minute and tell us what would inspire you toforward this newsletter to them?The Drexler/Smalley debate* has not generated an obvious shift ofopinion one way or the other. It looks like we were over-optimisticabout that. Apparently, in many people's perception, Smalley's incorrectstatements about enzymes weren't enough to weaken his argument. AndSmalley and Drexler both talked past each other ? which left each sideclaiming victory and ignoring the equally loud victory yells from theother side.In other nano-establishment news, we're eagerly awaiting Howard Lovy'spromised article on the 21st Century Nano
 Act and why molecularmanufacturing was deliberately excluded from it. He's promised that oncethe article comes out, he'll post additional information on his blog*.At CRN, we?re working on our own activist response to this controversy ?can?t tell you about it yet, but it?s big, and we should be ready toannounce something soon. Stay tuned!SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ? by Chris PhoenixSub-wavelength ImagingLight comes in small chunks called photons, which generally act likewaves. When a drop falls into a pool of water, one or more peakssurrounded by troughs move across the surface. It's easy to describe asingle wave: the curvy shape between one peak and the next. Multiplewaves are just as easy. But what is the meaning of a fractional wave?Chop out a thin slice of a wave and set it moving across the water: itwould almost immediately collapse and turn into something else. For mostpurposes, fractional waves can't exist. So it used to be thought thatmicroscopes and projection systems could not
 focus on a point smallerthan half a wavelength. This was known as the diffraction limit.There are now more than half a dozen ways to beat the so-calleddiffraction limit. This means that we can use light to look at smallerfeatures, and also to build smaller things out of light-sensitivematerials. And this will be a big help in doing advanced nanotechnology.The wavelength of visible light is hundreds of nanometers, and a singleatom is a fraction of one nanometer. The ability to beat the diffractionlimit gets us a lot closer to using an incredibly versatile branch ofphysics?electromagnetic radiation?to access the nanoscale directly.Here are some ways to overcome the diffraction limit:There's a chemical that glows if it's hit with one color of light, butif it's also hit with a second color, it doesn't. Since each color has aslightly different wavelength, focusing two color spots on top of eachother will create a glowing region smaller than either
 spot.http://physicsweb.org/article/news/4/7/7/1There are plastics that harden if hit with two photons at once, but notif hit with a single photon. Since two photons together are much morelikely in the center of a focused spot, it's possible to make plasticshapes with features smaller than the spot.http://physicsweb.org/article/news/5/8/14/1Now this one is really interesting. Remember what we said about afractional wave collapsing and turning into something else? Not tostretch the analogy too far, but if light hits objects smaller than awavelength, a lot of fractional waves are created, which immediatelyturn into "speckles" or "fringes." You can see the speckles if you shinea laser pointer at a nearby painted (not reflecting!) surface. Well, itturns out that a careful analysis of the speckles can tell you what thelight bounced off of?and you don't even need a laser.http://www.nasatech.com/Briefs/Sept00/NPO20687.htmlA company called "Angstrovision" claims to be doing something
 similar,though they use lasers. They say they'll soon have a product that canimage 4x12x12 nanometer features at three frames per second, with largedepth of field, and without sample preparation. And they expect thattheir product will improve rapidly.http://murl.microsoft.com/LectureDetails.asp?1041High energy photons have smaller wavelengths, but are hard to work with.But a process called "parametric downconversion" can split a photon intoseveral "entangled" photons of lower energy. Entanglement is spookyphysics magic that even we don't fully understand, but it seems thatseveral entangled photons of a certain energy can be focused to atighter spot than one photon of that energy.http://physicsweb.org/article/news/4/9/18/1A material's "index of refraction" indicates how much it bends lightgoing through it. A lens has a high index of refraction, while vacuum islowest. But certain composite materials can have a negative index ofrefraction. And it turns out that a slab of such material
 can create aperfect image?not diffraction-limited?of a photon source. This field isadvancing fast: last time we looked, they hadn't yet proposed thatphotonic crystals could display this effect.http://physicsweb.org/article/world/16/5/3/1A single atom or molecule can be a tiny source of light. That's not new.But if you scan that light source very close to a surface, you can watchvery small areas of the surface interact with the "near-field effects."Near-field effects, by the way, are what's going on while speckles orfringes are being created. And scanning near-field optical microscopy(SNOM, sometimes NSOM) can build a light-generated picture of a surfacewith only a few nanometers resolution.http://www.uni-konstanz.de/quantum-optics/nano-optics/singlemol.htmFinally, it turns out that circularly polarized light can be focused alittle bit smaller than other types. (Sorry, we couldn't find the linkfor that one.)Some of these techniques will be more useful than others. As
 researchersdevelop more and more ways to access the nano-scale, it will rapidly geteasier to build and study nanoscale machines.If you have any comments or questions about this brief technicalexplanation, please email Chris Phoenix, CRN's Director of Research.LINKSWorld Care: http://www.worldcare.org/CRN papers: http://crnano.org/papers.htmAdvisors: http://crnano.org/about_us.htm#AdvisorsEPA presentation: http://crnano.org/EPAhandout.htmFuturist: http://www.wfs.org/futcontjf04.htmSmall Times: http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?document_id=7161Drexler/Smalley debate: http://crnano.org/Debate.htmHoward's blog: http://nanobot.blogspot.com/Chris's email: cphoenix at CRNano.orgLast month's CRNewsletter:  http://CRNano.org/newsletter.htm#14-------------------------------------------To donate to the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, go tohttp://crnano.org/support.htm, click on "Donate Now", andremember to specify CRN.  Thanks!The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology(TM)
 (CRN) is an affiliate ofWorld Care(R), an international, non-profit, 501(c)3 organization. Alldonations to CRN are handled through World Care. The opinions expressedby CRN do not necessarily reflect those of World Care.You have received this newsletter because you (or someone pretending tobe you) left your email address at the Center for ResponsibleNanotechnology web site.  If you want to stop receiving these letters,please email cphoenix at CRNano.org and you will immediately be taken offour list.




La vie est belle!

Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) 

Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra


---------------------------------
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From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Thu Jan 15 01:56:46 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 17:56:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] BIO/LONGEVITY: Watch me pull a new brain out of the
	hat
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401141752560.7722-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Scientists in an interesting twist have used adult progenitor cells
for oligodendrocytes to remyelinate neurons in the brain.  This
could be very useful in reversing certain neurodegenerative disorders
that occur with age.

See:
Scientists Restore Crucial Myelin In Brains Of Mice
University Of Rochester Medical Center; 2004-01-14
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040114074056.htm

Robert




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Thu Jan 15 02:17:13 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 18:17:13 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
In-Reply-To: <20040114222159.65781.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401141804060.7722-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> --- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> > Here is the schedule for Bush's plan for NASA:
> >
> > 2004-2004	Divert $11B from other funded NASA projects

Harvey -- are you sure?  First they can't use $11B this year.
Second isn't the 2004 budget already approved?  Third isn't
NASA getting some savings until the Shuttles are ready to fly
again?  Is the ...-2004 a typo?

> > 2004-2010	Increase NASA funding by $1B/year for five years
> > 2010-2010	Retire Shuttle Fleet, Finish(abandon?) space station

It looks like he is trying to get people to focus on the fact
that the space station has no useful purpose.  This seems likely
to really annoy the space station partners in Europe, Japan, Russia,
etc.

Questions: Is the space station above/below the radiation belts?
Is it feasible to move it to L4/L5.  What would its lifetime be
in those locations?

> > 2010-2015	Period where US has no vehicles that reach space station

I'm not sure this is true -- I think they are planning on using
European & Russian vehicles to get there and it looked to me like
they were going to start testing the new capsule by ~2008.  Perhaps
not human rated -- but 4 years given the base we have to build on
doesn't seem *that* difficult.

> > 2015-2020	Manned Moon Mission
> > 2020-2030	Manned Moon Base
> > 2030-2045	Manned Mars Mission

And all of these are *long* past the end-point for G.W.B. political
machinations so their probability of remaining "cast in stone"
probably approaches zero as each subsequent president decides
to put his or her stamp on them.

This seems to me to be sound signifying nothing.  Though G.W.B.
does seem to be doing something right with the Prometheus Project.
If that gets enough funding to produce real nuclear rocket engines
then I may be willing to forgive the rest.

> It seems like he wants to spin the space station off to private
> enterprise, perhaps a consortium of universities and high tech
> companies? This would create a market demand for private development of
> manned orbital capability.

I think you are *way* too optimistic Mike.

> Hey, if they want to auction it off, I'll put in a bid... ;)

If it were something we could move to L4/L5 and use for 20-30 years
I think it might be of interest.  But you are going to have to get
a lot of millionaires and billionaires together to privitize it
unless they sell it for less than pennies on the $$.

Robert




From bryan.moss at dsl.pipex.com  Thu Jan 15 03:15:13 2004
From: bryan.moss at dsl.pipex.com (Bryan Moss)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 03:15:13 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH again
References: <20040112221025.5407.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com><200401130220.i0D2K7x02425@igor.synonet.com>
	<019f01c3da58$2fe7bf40$e1994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <005e01c3db15$e3083d30$0600000a@Bryan>

Damien Broderick quotes Bill McKibben:

> `But you *can't* "enjoy the gift of life" forever. Maybe with these new
> tools you can *live* forever, but the joy of it--the meaning of it--will
> melt away like ice cream on an August afternoon. It is true that nothing
> short of these new technologies will make us immortal, but immortality is
> a fool's goal. Living must be enougn for us, not living forever' (161).

It's interesting that the valorization of death always seems to coincide
with uncertainty over the persistence and authenticity of happiness.
Perhaps there's something comforting in the possibility that you might end
life on a high note, rather than watch everything good eventually pass,
indefinitely, without any assurance of more good to come.  Maybe we can
reorient our notion of "emorality" around choice: the freedom to choose when
to die.  Then, perhaps, at a stretch, we can call out people like McKibben
as fellow emortalists, for they too, in championing the utility of death for
man, ultimately make it an intentional act.  That, perversely, would
position him closer to those of us who want to keep chugging along
indefinitely than those who don't recognise the contingency of death at all.

I haven't read McKibben's book, but I'd guess the feasibility of painting
him into that particular corner would depend on getting him to loosen his
grip on Nature and rely more on the notion that death has utility for man.
I don't think such a feat would be *that* difficult, since most notions of
Nature, its plan and cycle, can be dispelled with some choice facts: the
cellular structure of life, the fact that we remain in covenant with Nature,
returning to the Earth as it were, throughout our existence, that burial is
mostly symbolic; that analogues of what we hope to achieve technologically
already exist in Nature to certain degree; and so forth.  If this could be
achieved, I would suggest giving up some ground to the likes of McKibben:
promote death, if you must, and promote it as something that has utility for
man, something reasonable men should consider (and in your opinion agree
on), but respect those of us who wish to endure as we respect you.

I imagine a book, which I am in no position to write, that would begin by
describing, in the spirit and passion of those who valorize Nature above all
else, life in the small: bacteria, microbial life, cells and DNA, and such.
It would outline the swirling, beautiful world under the microscope, and
underline the dymanism of it all, how it erupts out of and returns to the
Earth, who we love.  The book would then look at death in history, death in
philosophy, death in religion, the many rituals, celebrations, and mournings
of death in culture; what we've said about it, how we've prepared for it,
its value, its science.  It would be a grand celebration of death.
Simultaneously, it would, in its untamed affirmation of the vast potpourri
of all things death, underline the contingency of death.  The book would
conclude by spelling out a new direction for death, one that would combine
recent trends -- the euthanasia debate, medical research, the utility of
death for man -- into a single philosophy: death as choice.

Such a book wouldn't have much to say about living forever, but would have a
lot to say about choosing when to die and when not to die, and doing so with
our faculties intact.  It's only necessary, I think, to highlight that the
choice is personal, certainly not something that should be subject to public
policy, and that life is not the fear of death, that we do not choose to go
on living because we fear dying.  The rest should take care of itself.

BM



From spike66 at comcast.net  Thu Jan 15 03:25:14 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 19:25:14 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] singularity(3)
In-Reply-To: <001201c3dab3$42c90fa0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <000001c3db17$3107ee80$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


> Spike wrote,
...
> > http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0401/12brighteststar/
> > 
> > The article contains a remarkable comment that uses the 
> > term "singularity" to mean single-ness:
> > 

> This is actually the primary and normal meaning of this word, 
> Spike.  Only a small minority of specialists use the term for what you
think 
> it means... Harvey Newstrom...

Oh.  See there, how outta touch I get, hanging out
with you guys?  Its like the last couple years of
engineering school: everyone one sees from day to
day are other engineering students, so we don't
realize after a while how out there we are getting.
Most of the guys had girlfriends on the other end
of the campus, but mine was another engineering
student, so I haven't a clue.  We recently had our
class 20th reunion.  I recognized only 2 outta 20, 
both engineering students.  Guess thats why I like
extropians: its almost like engineering school,
except with people who know who currently occupies
the Whitehouse.

spike








From thespike at earthlink.net  Thu Jan 15 03:49:28 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 21:49:28 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] ENOUGH again
References: <20040112221025.5407.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com><200401130220.i0D2K7x02425@igor.synonet.com>
	<019f01c3da58$2fe7bf40$e1994a43@texas.net>
	<005e01c3db15$e3083d30$0600000a@Bryan>
Message-ID: <004701c3db1a$9b0478a0$f7994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Bryan Moss" <bryan.moss at dsl.pipex.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 9:15 PM

> It's only necessary, I think, to highlight that the
> choice is personal, certainly not something that should be subject to
public
> policy, and that life is not the fear of death, that we do not choose to
go
> on living because we fear dying.  The rest should take care of itself.

Sorry, no. We transhumanist are greedy, grasping and immature, and that's
that:

`Most of us mature only partway: we learn--it's to be hoped that we
learn--to place our family or our community or our deity nearer the center
of our lives, but only in rare cases do we fully vanquish that compulsive
striving, that grasping for more. And in recent centuries we've come to
embrace our selfishness--our hyperindividuality--with an almost religious
fervor... The choice between Enough and More has always been a choice we
could put off a little longer, both in our own lives and in the life of our
civilization.

`But now the hour draws near.' (210)

What we're headed toward, McKibben asserts (in his wooly confusion), is a
regime of `programmed' lives, known totally in advance, which will be
`ineradicable' (because by then, even if the prowess remains, our will shall
have been sapped; we'll be contented Stepford Hive drones). Incredibly,
given where he's avowedly coming from, he writes as a simple-minded genetic
determinist. Once those devilish genes are locked in place, we'll march
forever to their drumming, without passion or challenge or the poignancy of
death and its rewarding, decent return to the embrace of Nature.

He thinks we're *afraid* of dying, rather than outraged by its waste. He
calls me and Gregory Stock and Robert Freitas `unhinged by death' when we
point out that sometime in the future mortality will become optional--and
yet elsewhere he does not dispute this technical possibility. To wish not to
senesce and then die (at 80 or so, presumably, not the traditional 25 or 35)
is ipso facto to be `unhinged'. It offends against `gut feelings'.

McKibben closes by describing the autumnal run he'd just had, which
echoes his hard-won marathon run at the book's opening, and then points out
that we don't need no steenking technofutures; no, we can just get by with
Enough. Fuck you, I thought. Yeah, when I was your age I could run too, it
was lovely. Now I have trouble getting up the stairs (knees clapped out,
ironically, from running, and inherited arthritis) or just walking the dog
fast. I muttered as I shut the book: Don't talk to me about Enough, you
sanctimonious prick.

Damien Broderick



From neptune at superlink.net  Thu Jan 15 03:58:29 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 22:58:29 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Kant
References: <20040114184113.76507.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com><00ad01c3dacf$a741d220$bc994a43@texas.net><005301c3dad9$a5e03ac0$bc994a43@texas.net><018201c3dada$948dc2f0$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
	<008001c3dadc$08159bc0$bc994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <00f701c3db1b$d6de5200$69cd5cd1@neptune>

On Wednesday, January 14, 2004 3:21 PM Damien Broderick
thespike at earthlink.net wrote:
> From: "Mark Walker" <mark at permanentend.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 2:11 PM
>
> > > I just noticed that a month from now is the 200th anniversary of
> Immanuel
> > > Kant's death. I felt a strange imperative to make this universally
> > known...
>
> > I Kan't understand this imperative.
>
> But it's Kantegorical!

I wonder what puns you'll come up with Schopenhauer when it's his
200th...

Dan



From neptune at superlink.net  Thu Jan 15 04:03:45 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 23:03:45 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] SOC: Advanced society = advanced morality?
References: <20040114201344.33982.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
	<007501c3dadd$f2ad3110$2c02650a@int.veeco.com>
Message-ID: <011501c3db1c$9302b020$69cd5cd1@neptune>

On Wednesday, January 14, 2004 3:35 PM Jef Allbright
jef at jefallbright.net wrote:
> I would agree with you that Victorian morality
> appears to have been a backlash effect, and
> we may see similar ripples in next few
> decades, which I hope are damped by
> greatly enhanced communication capability.

I think most modern views of the Victorian Era are a bit simplistic.  A
lot of it is simplistic in the sense of how the Middle Ages is
romanticized and simplified.

> My thesis is in quite the opposite direction:
> that greater morality corresponds with the
> greater freedom of choice and the greater
> awareness of consequences that can be
> expected with a more highly evolved society.
>
> There is a difficulty with the term "morality"
> in that it implies subjective human values.
> Perhaps a better term would be "right action"
> but this is closely associated with Buddhism.
> Maybe we'll eventually switch to the rather
> sterile term "utility" for most such discussion.

Yeah, without a stable meaning to the term, it can mean anything.  Even
"utility" doesn't help because you have to asked utility in terms of
what?

Cheers!

Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Poetry.html



From mark at permanentend.org  Thu Jan 15 04:01:50 2004
From: mark at permanentend.org (Mark Walker)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 23:01:50 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Kant
References: <20040114184113.76507.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com><00ad01c3dacf$a741d220$bc994a43@texas.net><005301c3dad9$a5e03ac0$bc994a43@texas.net><018201c3dada$948dc2f0$2ee4f418@markcomputer><008001c3dadc$08159bc0$bc994a43@texas.net>
	<00f701c3db1b$d6de5200$69cd5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <02e301c3db1c$4e0a9730$2ee4f418@markcomputer>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Technotranscendence" 
> I wonder what puns you'll come up with Schopenhauer when it's his
> 200th...
> 
>

Will see.

Mark

Mark Walker, PhD
Research Associate, Philosophy, Trinity College
University of Toronto
Room 214  Gerald Larkin Building
15 Devonshire Place
Toronto
M5S 1H8
www.permanentend.org







From neptune at superlink.net  Thu Jan 15 04:17:28 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 23:17:28 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401141804060.7722-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <013701c3db1e$943f8b00$69cd5cd1@neptune>

I noticed the years being off too.

On Wednesday, January 14, 2004 9:17 PM Robert J. Bradbury
bradbury at aeiveos.com wrote:
> Questions: Is the space station above/below
> the radiation belts?

Below.  IIRC, they start at 800 km.

> Is it feasible to move it to L4/L5.

Well, I guess, but it would be one heck of a job to move it given that
its electronics, etc. might not survive the trip through the radiation
belts and it might not survive bombardment outside the Earth's
magnetosphere.  Add to this the problem with accelerating a structure
like that slowly enough so it doesn't rip apart.  I don't think it'd be
worth the cost.

However, it might be worth the cost to move it to a higher orbit to
prevent a SkyLab-like finale.

> What would
> its lifetime be in those locations?

I'm not sure.  One thing you'd have to think about is that resupply and
rotating crews would be harder -- assuming no other changes.  The orbit
itself would be stable, but L4 and L5 are outside the Earth's
magentosphere and also since they're stable points, I imagine there
might be some junk in them already.

>> 2010-2015 Period where US has no
>> vehicles that reach space station
>
> I'm not sure this is true -- I think they are
> planning on using European & Russian
> vehicles to get there and it looked to me
> like they were going to start testing the
> new capsule by ~2008.  Perhaps not
> human rated -- but 4 years given the base
> we have to build on doesn't seem *that*
> difficult.

I don't know what they're planning, but the Russian launchers and manned
vehicles are quite reliable.  By then, China might have a much more
robust manned flight program and (I really f***ing hope!) there also
might be several private launch systems.

>>> 2015-2020 Manned Moon Mission
>>> 2020-2030 Manned Moon Base
>>> 2030-2045 Manned Mars Mission
>
> And all of these are *long* past the end-
> point for G.W.B. political machinations
> so their probability of remaining "cast in
> stone" probably approaches zero as
> each subsequent president decides
> to put his or her stamp on them.

Anything over five years for a US space policy initiative approaches
zero.  I think this is only election year talk.  Why didn't he come up
with this in 2001 or 2002?

> This seems to me to be sound signifying
> nothing.  Though G.W.B. does seem to be
> doing something right with the Prometheus
> Project.  If that gets enough funding to
> produce real nuclear rocket engines
> then I may be willing to forgive the rest.

I'm against government space programs, but I'd like to see a stroner
nuclear propulsion program.  Sadly, governments would probably not let
private companies develop that...

>> It seems like he wants to spin the space
>> station off to private enterprise, perhaps
>> a consortium of universities and high tech
>> companies? This would create a market
>> demand for private development of
>> manned orbital capability.
>
> I think you are *way* too optimistic Mike.

Not to mention that the station is deep in a whole financially and even
to see it at one tenth the cost would be overvaluing it.

>> Hey, if they want to auction it off, I'll put in
>> a bid... ;)
>
> If it were something we could move to L4/L5
> and use for 20-30 years I think it might be of
> interest.  But you are going to have to get a
> lot of millionaires and billionaires together
> to privitize it unless they sell it for less than
> pennies on the $$.

Or most likely the government would give grants or loans -- i.e.,
privatization in name only and really just another corporate welfare
scheme.

Cheers!

Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Poetry.html



From thespike at earthlink.net  Thu Jan 15 04:11:38 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 22:11:38 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Kant
References: <20040114184113.76507.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com><00ad01c3dacf$a741d220$bc994a43@texas.net><005301c3dad9$a5e03ac0$bc994a43@texas.net><018201c3dada$948dc2f0$2ee4f418@markcomputer><008001c3dadc$08159bc0$bc994a43@texas.net><00f701c3db1b$d6de5200$69cd5cd1@neptune>
	<02e301c3db1c$4e0a9730$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <008201c3db1d$ae1bd520$f7994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Walker" <mark at permanentend.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 10:01 PM
> > I wonder what puns you'll come up with Schopenhauer when it's his
> > 200th...

> Will see.

Will give the Idea a whirl, anyway--at least until shoppin' hour.

Damien Broderick



From thespike at earthlink.net  Thu Jan 15 04:15:33 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 22:15:33 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401141804060.7722-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
	<013701c3db1e$943f8b00$69cd5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <008901c3db1e$3b0cc3e0$f7994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Technotranscendence" <neptune at superlink.net>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 10:17 PM

> L4 and L5 are outside the Earth's
> magentosphere 

That's true, so they might be hit by a rouge asteroid.

Damien Broderick



From jef at jefallbright.net  Thu Jan 15 04:12:54 2004
From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 20:12:54 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Kant
References: <20040114184113.76507.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com><00ad01c3dacf$a741d220$bc994a43@texas.net><005301c3dad9$a5e03ac0$bc994a43@texas.net><018201c3dada$948dc2f0$2ee4f418@markcomputer><008001c3dadc$08159bc0$bc994a43@texas.net><00f701c3db1b$d6de5200$69cd5cd1@neptune>
	<02e301c3db1c$4e0a9730$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <006b01c3db1d$da6b3760$6501a8c0@int.veeco.com>

Mark Walker wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Technotranscendence"
>> I wonder what puns you'll come up with Schopenhauer when it's his
>> 200th...
>> 
>> 
> 
> Will see.

Which nobody kant deny...


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Thu Jan 15 04:41:03 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 23:41:03 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401141804060.7722-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <004a01c3db21$c8478580$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Robert J. Bradbury wrote,
> On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> 
> > --- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> > > Here is the schedule for Bush's plan for NASA:
> > >
> > > 2004-2004	Divert $11B from other funded NASA projects
> 
> Harvey -- are you sure?  First they can't use $11B this year. 
> Second isn't the 2004 budget already approved?  Third isn't 
> NASA getting some savings until the Shuttles are ready to fly 
> again?  Is the ...-2004 a typo?

Sorry this isn't clear.  I didn't mean they spend the $11B this year.  I
meant the President is calling for an immediate stop to unrelated missions
pretty much immediate, so those funds are reallocated this year.  The actual
spending gets spread over five years.

> > > 2010-2015	Period where US has no vehicles that reach space station
> 
> I'm not sure this is true -- I think they are planning on 
> using European & Russian vehicles to get there and it looked 
> to me like they were going to start testing the new capsule 
> by ~2008.  Perhaps not human rated -- but 4 years given the 
> base we have to build on doesn't seem *that* difficult.

Right.  We will be using European and Russian vehicles.  The US won't have
vehicles that can reach there for at least three years and maybe for five
years.

> And all of these are *long* past the end-point for G.W.B. 
> political machinations so their probability of remaining 
> "cast in stone" probably approaches zero as each subsequent 
> president decides to put his or her stamp on them.

This is very true.  All of the project cancellations, budget diversions and
new funding occur during the second Bush administration (if he is
reelected).  But there are no actual milestones until after Bush is long
gone.  It is not clear if he isn't interested in the milestones, or has
unstated milestones for the earlier years.  There will be a lot of overlap
between the early development and military uses.  Since the only budget
increases Bush has done are for the military and homeland defense, some
people are speculating that this is part of the same pattern.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Thu Jan 15 04:43:33 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 15:13:33 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786927@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Damien Broderick [mailto:thespike at earthlink.net]
> Sent: Thursday, 15 January 2004 1:46 PM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Technotranscendence" <neptune at superlink.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 10:17 PM
> 
> > L4 and L5 are outside the Earth's
> > magentosphere 
> 
> That's true, so they might be hit by a rouge asteroid.
> 
> Damien Broderick
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 

No, they'll be all white.

Emlyn



From thespike at earthlink.net  Thu Jan 15 04:55:23 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 22:55:23 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786927@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <00ba01c3db23$cb73ad40$f7994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Emlyn O'regan" <oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 10:43 PM

> > > L4 and L5 are outside the Earth's
> > > magentosphere 
> > That's true, so they might be hit by a rouge asteroid.

> No, they'll be all white.

Der--only if they can avoid the G-rays.

Damien Broderick



From extropy at unreasonable.com  Thu Jan 15 05:06:16 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 00:06:16 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Steve Mann
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040115000555.01aa6ea8@mail.comcast.net>

Long article about extro-friend Steve Mann, with photo, on CNN's site --

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/01/14/internet.cyborb.ap/index.html

It seems to be neutral to very positive.  For instance, describing Steve as 
having "sensitive and perceptive motives."


-- David Lubkin.




From fauxever at sprynet.com  Thu Jan 15 05:24:50 2004
From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 21:24:50 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Googly Eyes
Message-ID: <02b901c3db27$e60dafd0$6600a8c0@brainiac>

High tech:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/01/14/internet.cyborb.ap/

Low tech:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?cds2Pid=4779&gift=y&isbn=1591742560

Nyet tech yet:
Olga






From fortean1 at mindspring.com  Thu Jan 15 05:33:53 2004
From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 22:33:53 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD (SK) "Trapped in my office"
Message-ID: <40062641.52A810FF@mindspring.com>

[I walked to within 100 feet of President Nixon in 1974 without noticing
any security.  Of course I wore fatigues near the steps to the National
Defense University on Fort McNair in Washington, DC. -twc]


[Forwarded by a friend]

[Sent on January 14, 2004, by someone who works at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena]

My former boss borrowed my binoculars a few minutes ago, but just returned
them.  He figures it's best not to look out the window at Cheney, who is
giving a speech down below us.  There are snipers on the rooftops; a
spotter dressed in black body armor is about even with me 100 meters away.
A couple of them started staring at him through their binoculars when he
appeared at the window.

Cheney may not be drawing a large enough crowd for his media event... the
PA keeps telling employees to "proceed to the Mall at once if you are
intending to attend the speech."  You have to pass through magnetometers
and be searched.

Four years ago when Gore came here, it was clear that JPL was a safe place
and no special steps were needed.  A few secret service people accompanied
him.  Of course that was a simpler time, when political ads could be run
on tv and curious onlookers could use binoculars to get a better view of
VIP.  The Queen of England visited several years back -- we were able to
crowd up along every walkway and see her close up -- and we've had other
heads of state as well.

The members of this administration act as if they're incredibly special.
They've brought their paranoia and their sharpshooters with them to put us
all at some risk.  They've disrupted everyone's day.  The real message of
course is that we should all be fearful and thank god we have such alert
leaders keeping the terrorists from killing us.  They remind me of bad
actors portraying school bullies, or Mafia underlings, letting us know how
safe we are now that we've paid for protection.  Unfortunately their
amateur theater is accompanied by live ammunition.

Here's how it was at lunch.  About 11:30 a secretary stepped off the
elevator and told us that we had to go to the cafeteria right away -- the
elevators would be shut down at twelve sharp!  We wouldn't be allowed to
leave the building between noon and 3:30.  I went down intending to walk
across campus to the better of two cafeterias, but emerged from my
building to find I was the only person on the (wrong) side of a line of
guards who had cordoned off the street.  A crowd of people were up at the
corner looking in my direction, trying to figure out how they were going
to get to the bad cafeteria.  I walked up to the line and asked if I could
get back if I crossed over to the public side -- No.  So I walked all the
way back to my building (I think a tumbleweed rolled past) and went up a
floor to the main hallway.  There were four or five special guards in
black, and two secret service officers.  The one I spoke to actually
seemed a little sheepish; I had the impression he was just window
dressing, the real show was with the guards in body armor.  He said I
could come back in as long as I did it by noon.  I walked past the other
s.s. man and his dog at the door.

The cafeteria was jammed -- everyone was there at once trying to get their
food before the deadline.  I walked back past a gaggle of s.s. men who
were fanning out across the outdoor eating area, telling people "the area
is closed".  I think a group was conducting a bomb sweep in my building,
because several guards stood around the loading dock and watched me get
toffee nuts from a vending machine.  All the nuts around here are very
well protected today.

Seeing all this close up is gross.  No one should be allowed to do this
here, or anywhere else.  We have *got* to defeat Bush in November. 


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
      U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
   TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Vietnam veterans,
Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]


From wpurvis7 at bellsouth.net  Thu Jan 15 05:34:24 2004
From: wpurvis7 at bellsouth.net (Walter Purvis)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 00:34:24 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion
References: <02b901c3db27$e60dafd0$6600a8c0@brainiac>
Message-ID: <00ea01c3db29$3c018320$0401a8c0@dellp3>

Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion, by Brian Alexander.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738207616/

Has this book been discussed here before? It's all about
extropians/transhumanists, but I don't recall seeing it discussed here
(perhaps it was discussed before I subscribed).



From fauxever at sprynet.com  Thu Jan 15 05:34:42 2004
From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 21:34:42 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Steve Mann
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20040115000555.01aa6ea8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <02de01c3db29$4700c240$6600a8c0@brainiac>

Oops!  Sorry, I sent a similar link before I read this ...

I have traded XYBR (one of the stocks in this field) for the past 2+ years
from over $2 down to the .30s (yes, that's cents), to over $2 again.  Wild
one!  Valuations are not that great, but interesting field (and I like to
keep a certain amount of stocks with "entertainment value" in my trading
portfolio ... I mean, if I'm going to have to keep up with the news on them,
anyway).

Olga



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Lubkin" <extropy at unreasonable.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 9:06 PM
Subject: [extropy-chat] Steve Mann


> Long article about extro-friend Steve Mann, with photo, on CNN's site --
>
> http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/01/14/internet.cyborb.ap/index.html
>
> It seems to be neutral to very positive.  For instance, describing Steve
as
> having "sensitive and perceptive motives."
>
>
> -- David Lubkin.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>




From matus at matus1976.com  Thu Jan 15 05:54:30 2004
From: matus at matus1976.com (Matus)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 00:54:30 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD (SK) "Trapped in my office"
In-Reply-To: <40062641.52A810FF@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3db2c$0e9278b0$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Terry W. Colvin
> [Forwarded by a friend]
> 
> [Sent on January 14, 2004, by someone who works at the Jet
> Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena]
> 
> My former boss borrowed my binoculars a few minutes ago, but just
returned
> them.  He figures it's best not to look out the window at Cheney, who
is
> giving a speech down below us.  There are snipers on the rooftops; a
> spotter dressed in black body armor is about even with me 100 meters
away.
> A couple of them started staring at him through their binoculars when
he
> appeared at the window.
>
 ..<snip>.....

> Seeing all this close up is gross.  No one should be allowed to do
this
> here, or anywhere else.  We have *got* to defeat Bush in November.
> 


Uh, we've got to defeat Bush because he has security personnel?  Not
sure I am following the logic of that argument.

Michael




From fortean1 at mindspring.com  Thu Jan 15 06:27:13 2004
From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin)
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 23:27:13 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD (Got Caliche?) 'That Giant Sucking Sound'
Message-ID: <400632C1.C173FADD@mindspring.com>

From: Alan Shalette <AlShal at aol.com> Re: got caliche 040114 and 'That Giant
Sucking Sound' < http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i19/19a01001.htm> Something must
be wrong here. Every day I get offers for PhD degrees without tests, class
attendance, etc. Life experience is what counts, they say. Quoting from the
article: ("Start dealing with why people are leaving graduate school, she says,
and you'll fix a whole bunch of problems."). Maybe it has something to do with
students' inability to slide through and lack of remedial masters-level course
work to get their learning skills up to speed. Maybe it's their realization that
there are no jobs available that would justify their investments in the PhD
degrees. This (2/3) was the same drop-out rate experienced in my undergraduate
engineering class. I think that learning mattered more than social equity way
back then. The drop-out rate was a matter of natural selection to the school's
faculty and administration. Not well known, at the same time I went to school,
half the qualifications for a PhD were rooted in socialist dogma. This was still
the case about 10 yrs. ago. There must be a worthwhile lesson in this for the
puzzled administrators now complaining about drop-out rates: ("'If actual
attrition is really around 50 percent, then this is a scandal,' says Michael S.
Teitelbaum, a program director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. 'It's a
serious waste of resources and a terrible waste of time and energy on the part
of students.'"). Yup, learning doesn't matter nearly as much as the waste of
unproductive efforts. Anyway, double or triple the PhD graduation rate and where
will they work? Without dogma credentials, they couldn't even teach kindergarten
in my neighborhood. The sucking sound must be loss of revenues to the
complaining institutions. Alan Shalette 

Editor's Reply: No PhD should expect to be handed a job just because credentials
are achieved. One PHD recently told me that his PhD really gave him a "license
to do just about anything that he wanted and damn well pleased," but he still
had to go out and create the jobs that he performed as they were never just
handed to him or even advertised. It was good advice. I am close to earning my
doctorate (May 2005), and I fully expect that I will need to create my own work
opportunities rather than assume that I can apply for advertised positions in
existing institutions and bureaucracies. You state your belief that socialist
dogma credentials play a big role in doctoral programs. I have observed that
this dimension can be much more subtle since the collapse of the Soviet Union
and the Chinese quarter-turn pax de deux toward capitalism. Socialists and
Communists can now be made fun of openly, and the professors sit by without much
to say directly. It sometimes appears as if they are at a loss for words how to
respond. Secretly, however, they seethe and punish in subtle ways. What are more
hilarious than silent socialist sensei, are the back-handed responses of fellow
doctoral students. For example, when playing the Devil's Advocate, if one were
to state in a seminar on world (current) affairs a hypothetical believe in
'evil' and that 'some men are evil,' fellow PhD candidates will turn about to
say, "You know, that's a Conservatives approach to thinking," but without
actually calling the Devil's Advocate a conservative. This sucky-*ucky technique
really offers the Devil's Advocate a sharply discounted appreciation -- and a
put down -- all rolled together in one socially-constructed and highly
contingent verbal enema. This seems a cherished technique with which to clear
away any topic or method that sits jammed down the craw (up the sphincter?) of a
dogma-credentialed, long suffering, dedicated PhD candidate. Those who learn the
subtle technique to quell challenge and real debate are rewarded by their
professors. It is quite funny to watch.


This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from
http://www.printcharger.com/emailStripper.htm


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
      U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
------------
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   TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Vietnam veterans,
Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]


From nanogirl at halcyon.com  Thu Jan 15 08:56:01 2004
From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 00:56:01 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fractals and Crash
References: <20040114184113.76507.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com><00ad01c3dacf$a741d220$bc994a43@texas.net><005301c3dad9$a5e03ac0$bc994a43@texas.net><018201c3dada$948dc2f0$2ee4f418@markcomputer><008001c3dadc$08159bc0$bc994a43@texas.net><00f701c3db1b$d6de5200$69cd5cd1@neptune>
	<02e301c3db1c$4e0a9730$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
Message-ID: <006a01c3db45$66e29ea0$3f80e40c@uservqwsr60ljh>

Hi everyone. I just started creating fractals and I have put up a
preliminary page here: http://www.nanogirl.com/fractals/index.html . My
other news is that my computer crashed on the 3rd. I have sent that drive to
a recovery service and I am now running on a new drive with a clean install.
I have nothing before that date until I have my original disk shipped back
to me and am able to gather the files and put them back where they belong.
It's been a long arduous process re-installing all of my programs, but I am
working on it. So bear with me, if I do not have personal email addresses or
data and might be behind on projects. Thanks, Gina`

Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
http://www.nanoindustries.com
Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com
Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org
Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute
http://www.extropy.org
Tech-Aid Advisor http://www.tech-aid.info/t/all-about.html
nanogirl at halcyon.com
"Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future."




From natasha at natasha.cc  Thu Jan 15 16:22:07 2004
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 08:22:07 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion
In-Reply-To: <00ea01c3db29$3c018320$0401a8c0@dellp3>
References: <02b901c3db27$e60dafd0$6600a8c0@brainiac>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20040115082055.01eb3130@pop.earthlink.net>

At 12:34 AM 1/15/04 -0500, Walter  wrote:

>Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion, by Brian Alexander.
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738207616/
>
>Has this book been discussed here before? It's all about
>extropians/transhumanists, but I don't recall seeing it discussed here
>(perhaps it was discussed before I subscribed).

It was covered in ExI's Exponent Newsletter.  I'll forward it to the list 
in case anyone didn't see it or is interested.

Natasha


Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc
----------
President, Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture  http://www.transhumanist.biz
http://www.transhuman.org
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From megao at sasktel.net  Thu Jan 15 14:23:17 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 08:23:17 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
References: <001001c3daea$4c0479b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <4006A255.8DBB5EE7@sasktel.net>

The hardware and software components are the easy part and are do-able.
It is I believe going to be necessary to "space harden" and modify the biology
of the
"Meatballs and wetware we send".  That is where benefits to lifespan or health
extension can be fit into this new space travel adjenda.  As well I am of the
opinion that unless significant strides are made in propulsion technology the
cost of bringing people back from mars makes return trips  not cost effective
and any astronauts will have  to expect at least a 10-20 year tour of duty on
mars.  With that in mind NASA should be prepared to develop payback to the
astronauts in the form of extending their potential lifespans by 2 years for
each year they spend on duty on Mars.

The incentive to come home will have to be the driver  to be behind a mars
based return-home propulsion  technology program.  That will create the
technology as well to explore farther reaches of planetary space.

That is unless these people change their mind 20 years in and decide never to
return home and become permanent colonists with visions of colonizing yet other
planetary bodies.

Under these conditions, I think we back here will benefit from the initial
military expenditures.

The benefits being a well funded life extension and bio-modification program
and nano-fabrication (replicator-like) technology.
Bio-modification will require all the computational power that can be mustered,
so that will fund and justify continuing efforts in keeping Moore's law alive
for some time yet.

Has anyone developed a potential lifespan extension curve and if so can we give
it a name in the same way as we have "Moore's Law".

As a result we will also likely  loose the umbilical cord to earth and concept
of earth as our only home.

Morris

Harvey Newstrom wrote:

> Here is the schedule for Bush's plan for NASA:
>
> 2004-2004       Divert $11B from other funded NASA projects
> 2004-2010       Increase NASA funding by $1B/year for five years
> 2010-2010       Retire Shuttle Fleet, Finish(abandon?) space station
> 2010-2015       Period where US has no vehicles that reach space station
> 2015-2020       Manned Moon Mission
> 2020-2030       Manned Moon Base
> 2030-2045       Manned Mars Mission
>
> --
> Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
> Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
> NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
> <HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From amara at amara.com  Thu Jan 15 13:55:35 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 15:55:35 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] Does the Lunar Surface Still Offer Value for Astro
	Observatories?
Message-ID: <p05100301bc2c4bad60c9@[150.146.134.133]>

Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0401274

From: Dan Lester <dfl at astro.as.utexas.edu>
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 16:11:53 GMT   (115kb)

Does the Lunar Surface Still Offer Value As a Site for Astronomical
Observatories?

Authors: Daniel F. Lester (1), Harold W. Yorke (2), John C. Mather (3) ((1)
Department of Astronomy and McDonald Observatory, University of Texas, (2)
Division of Earth and Space Science, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, (3) Lab for
Astronomy and Solar Physics, Goddard Space Flight Center)
Comments: 14 pages, 1 figure; submitted to Space Policy

      Current thinking about the Moon as a destination has revitalized
      interest in lunar astronomical observatories. Once seen by a large
      scientific community as a highly enabling site, the dramatic
      improvement in capabilities for free-space observatories prompts
      reevaluation of this interest. Whereas the lunar surface offers
      huge performance advantages for astronomy over terrestrial sites,
      free-space locales such as Earth orbit or Lagrange points offer
      performance that is superior to what could be achieved on the
      Moon. While astronomy from the Moon may be cost effective once
      infrastructure is there, it is in many respects no longer clearly
      enabling compared to free-space.

Full-text: PDF only

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF),
Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR,
Roma, ITALIA     Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it


From extropy at unreasonable.com  Thu Jan 15 16:48:47 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 11:48:47 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Does the Lunar Surface Still Offer Value
	for Astro Observatories?
In-Reply-To: <p05100301bc2c4bad60c9@[150.146.134.133]>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040115112038.02a202a0@mail.comcast.net>

Amara Graps wrote:

>Does the Lunar Surface Still Offer Value As a Site for Astronomical
>Observatories?
>         :
>Full-text: PDF only

Full-text is at

http://arxiv.org/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0401/0401274.pdf

Back around 1986, Jill Tarter [*] gave a talk at LLNL.  I asked her 
afterwards about the rationale for investing in new Earth-based 
observatories given the prospect of lunar basing.  Her position at the time 
seemed to be that there was little value in this, as compared to what we 
were able to do with Earth-based instruments with inferometry and adaptive 
optics.  I wonder what her opinion is now, post-Hubble.

[*]  http://www.seti.org/about_us/leadership/staff/jill_t.html


-- David Lubkin.




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Thu Jan 15 17:46:11 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 09:46:11 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
In-Reply-To: <4006A255.8DBB5EE7@sasktel.net>
Message-ID: <20040115174612.3057.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>

One problem with most NASA space programs to date: they always involve
developing new, more advanced, technology, which is frequently buggy.
This leads to enormous R&D&T costs to try to eliminate as many failure
points as possible. While this has created a lot of spin-off
technologies as well, it is still considered that this money is spent
"in space".

Bush's new program is one I've advocated for a while: going back and
using established, well tested, tried and true technologies which are
entirely capable of doing the job. They may not be as fuel or mass
efficient as new technologies would be, but they damn sure won't suck
up tons of R&D money.

Lets rebuild the Saturn booster. Rebuild the Apollo capsules and the
Gemini capsules. Equip them with current day computer technologies,
maybe some newer materials technology and so forth, and there will be
plenty of room for additional cargo and supplies for extended missions.

I don't want government space craft to be gee-whiz gold plated Buck
Rogers to the nth degree. I want them solid, staid, reliable trucks for
moving men and mass and nothing else. No bells and whistles, no
advanced technology. Slip in technologies once in a while that the
private market has developed and thoroughly proven to be effective.

Mostly, get out of the way of the private market.

The engineering contracting market has made preparing for the journey
more important than either the journey OR the destination. Lets stop
that and get back to putting the destination first, the journey second,
and preparation something that is turned into a non-risk every day proposition.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Thu Jan 15 18:07:08 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 10:07:08 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Does the Lunar Surface Still Offer Value for
	Astro Observatories?
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040115112038.02a202a0@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401150947290.27930-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Thu, 15 Jan 2004, David Lubkin wrote:

> Back around 1986, Jill Tarter [*] gave a talk at LLNL.  I asked her
> afterwards about the rationale for investing in new Earth-based
> observatories given the prospect of lunar basing.  Her position at the time
> seemed to be that there was little value in this, as compared to what we
> were able to do with Earth-based instruments with inferometry and adaptive
> optics.  I wonder what her opinion is now, post-Hubble.

Hmmm... That is strange as I've seen several proposals for using
the far side of the moon for radio telescopes to avoid interference
from transmitters on Earth.  Furthermore lunar telescopes combined
with Earth telescopes would provide a pretty long baseline for
interferometry.  Adaptive optics does help but only now ~20 years
later is that starting to become an option on the larger scopes
(I suspect that less than half a dozen large scopes have adaptive
optics now.)  One wonders what the cost would be of setting up
a lunar telescope factory if one had a nuclear rocket with heavy
lift capabilities...  But she may be right.  The NGST budget is
$900M in FY '96 $ (over a billion $ now probably).  That is for
4-9m scopes at some distance from Earth.  The same amount ($1B)
is what they are generally talking about for on-the-Earth scopes
in the 30+m class.

Also with respect to inteferometry, though I think they can manage
this with computer integration of radio data from separate locations
(i.e. VLBI efforts), I think all current optical interferometry
observations require a direct tunnel connection between the telescopes
(someone correct this if they know otherwise).

Robert

> [*]  http://www.seti.org/about_us/leadership/staff/jill_t.html



From jrd1415 at yahoo.com  Thu Jan 15 20:27:00 2004
From: jrd1415 at yahoo.com (Jeff Davis)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 12:27:00 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Automated science
In-Reply-To: <4006A255.8DBB5EE7@sasktel.net>
Message-ID: <20040115202700.83210.qmail@web41202.mail.yahoo.com>

World's first 'robot scientist' proves a major success
in the lab

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-01/babs-wf011204.php

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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From wingcat at pacbell.net  Thu Jan 15 21:45:16 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 13:45:16 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Automated science
In-Reply-To: <20040115202700.83210.qmail@web41202.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040115214516.82749.qmail@web80410.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> World's first 'robot scientist' proves a major
> success
> in the lab
> 
>
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-01/babs-wf011204.php

Ah, but will it also distill the data it generates
into
knowledge?  It's a nice step, if the data goes
somewhere where it'll be useful, but...


From wpurvis7 at bellsouth.net  Thu Jan 15 23:53:18 2004
From: wpurvis7 at bellsouth.net (Walter Purvis)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 18:53:18 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion
References: <02b901c3db27$e60dafd0$6600a8c0@brainiac>
	<5.2.0.9.0.20040115082055.01eb3130@pop.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <006a01c3dbc2$c0186b30$0401a8c0@dellp3>

Thanks. I would be interested in seeing that.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Natasha Vita-More 
  To: ExI chat list 
  Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 11:22 AM
  Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion

  It was covered in ExI's Exponent Newsletter.  I'll forward it to the list in case anyone didn't see it or is interested.

  Natasha
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From wingcat at pacbell.net  Fri Jan 16 00:26:39 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 16:26:39 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
In-Reply-To: <00ba01c3db23$cb73ad40$f7994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <20040116002639.8789.qmail@web80411.mail.yahoo.com>

> > > > L4 and L5 are outside the Earth's
> > > > magentosphere 
> > > That's true, so they might be hit by a rouge
> asteroid.
> 
> > No, they'll be all white.
> 
> Der--only if they can avoid the G-rays.

Aye.  One gets the blues just thinking about it.  They
could make the biggest debris field we've ever sienna.
But I'm sure when all is said and done, we'll have red
their fate.  Orange you glad for the estate spawned by
the printing puce?


From thespike at earthlink.net  Fri Jan 16 00:50:52 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 18:50:52 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
References: <20040116002639.8789.qmail@web80411.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <004d01c3dbca$cce2d3c0$3c9d4a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Adrian Tymes" <wingcat at pacbell.net>
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 6:26 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA


> > > > > L4 and L5 are outside the Earth's
> > > > > magentosphere 

> > > > That's true, so they might be hit by a rouge
> > asteroid.

> > > No, they'll be all white.

> > Der--only if they can avoid the G-rays.

> Aye.  One gets the blues just thinking about it.  They
> could make the biggest debris field we've ever sienna.

Negative that. They'll just be marooned.

Damien Broderick



From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Fri Jan 16 00:59:02 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 11:29:02 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178692A@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Damien Broderick [mailto:thespike at earthlink.net]
> Sent: Friday, 16 January 2004 10:21 AM
> To: "\" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Adrian Tymes" <wingcat at pacbell.net>
> Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 6:26 PM
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
> 
> 
> > > > > > L4 and L5 are outside the Earth's
> > > > > > magentosphere 
> 
> > > > > That's true, so they might be hit by a rouge
> > > asteroid.
> 
> > > > No, they'll be all white.
> 
> > > Der--only if they can avoid the G-rays.
> 
> > Aye.  One gets the blues just thinking about it.  They
> > could make the biggest debris field we've ever sienna.
> 
> Negative that. They'll just be marooned.
> 
> Damien Broderick

Marooned in the magentosphere? Bleurgh!

Emlyn



From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Fri Jan 16 01:24:28 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 11:54:28 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178692B@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

Me too
 
Emlyn

-----Original Message-----
From: Walter Purvis [mailto:wpurvis7 at bellsouth.net]
Sent: Friday, 16 January 2004 9:23 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion


Thanks. I would be interested in seeing that.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Natasha  <mailto:natasha at natasha.cc> Vita-More 
To: ExI chat list <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>  
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 11:22 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion

It was covered in ExI's Exponent Newsletter.  I'll forward it to the list in
case anyone didn't see it or is interested.

Natasha


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From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 16 02:47:54 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 18:47:54 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
In-Reply-To: <20040116002639.8789.qmail@web80411.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040116024754.86423.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> > > > > L4 and L5 are outside the Earth's
> > > > > magentosphere 
> > > > That's true, so they might be hit by a rouge
> > asteroid.
> > 
> > > No, they'll be all white.
> > 
> > Der--only if they can avoid the G-rays.
> 
> Aye.  One gets the blues just thinking about it.  They
> could make the biggest debris field we've ever sienna.
> But I'm sure when all is said and done, we'll have red
> their fate.  Orange you glad for the estate spawned by
> the printing puce?

Don't be yellow. I'm green on growing my own amber waves of grain in a
hollowed out purple mountain of steel grey asteroid. Don't try'n violet
my space, either, ya red taping statist, er I'll leave ya blue blood
drifting to the deep black.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From wingcat at pacbell.net  Fri Jan 16 02:53:01 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 18:53:01 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
In-Reply-To: <20040116024754.86423.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040116025301.48708.qmail@web80404.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Don't be yellow. I'm green on growing my own amber
> waves of grain in a
> hollowed out purple mountain of steel grey asteroid.
> Don't try'n violet
> my space, either, ya red taping statist, er I'll
> leave ya blue blood
> drifting to the deep black.

These space puns seem to have hit ludicrous speed.

"They've...gone...plaid!"


From aperick at centurytel.net  Fri Jan 16 06:07:12 2004
From: aperick at centurytel.net (rick)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 22:07:12 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence
In-Reply-To: <200401141652.i0EGqYE25964@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3dbf6$fd2935c0$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>

Adrian Tymes wrote:

>It is trivial to prove this is logically inconsistent,
unless by "qualified to vote" you mean "qualified to
vote for whoever the males would vote for" or
something like that.  A candidate who, for instance,
advocated treating women as property would get a fewer
votes from women used to freedom than from men used to
freedom.  Therefore, disallowing females from voting
would make the election of such candidates more
likely, and the set of all females is not entirely a
random sample with respect to the set of all human
beings.
/>

Trivial is it? Your proof seems to rest on just one ridiculous
assumption -- you seem to have a horrible opinion of men in general:
implying that men in general wish to mistreat women. And that women, on
the other hand, are saintly in general. Camille Paglia had something to
say regarding this: "A major failing of most feminist ideology is its
dumb, ungenerous stereotyping of men as tyrants and abusers, when in
fact -- as I know full well, from my own mortifying lesbian experience
-- men are tormented by women's flirtatiousness and hemming and hawing,
their manipulations and changeableness, their humiliating rejections.
Cock teasing is a universal reality. It is part of women's merciless
testing and cold-eyed comparison shopping for potential mates. Men will
do anything to win the favor of women. Women literally size up men --
"What can you show me?" -- in bed and out. If middle class feminists
think they conduct their love lives perfectly rationally, without any
instinctual influences from biology, they are imbeciles." (Vamps &
Tramps, p. 35)




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 16 06:48:54 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 22:48:54 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Anticryptography and Stick Figure Warning Signs
In-Reply-To: <20040116024754.86423.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <000201c3dbfc$d3c4fdd0$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

The Gallery of Stick-Figure Warning Signs
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/tbone/warningsigns/

Anticryptography::the science of conveying information without assuming
any prior knowledge
http://www.oreilly.com/lpt/a/1953




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 16 07:25:35 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 23:25:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Silly internet patents...
Message-ID: <20040116072535.36472.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/15/2349201&mode=thread&tid=126&tid=155&tid=95&tid=99

The above article details how one new startup company has patented the
commonly accepted means of structuring domain names and email
addresses. They received this junk patent in 2003, if you can believe
it. While browsing the patent office site, it struck me that there was
no means by which an individual can lodge a protest against a patent,
submit commentary challenging the validity of claims made, etc. via the
website, a la a crit-type hypertext commentary....

I hereby propose to patent such a system, then lobby the gummint to
make the PTO license my patent..... tee hee...

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk  Fri Jan 16 10:41:21 2004
From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 10:41:21 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fractals and Crash
Message-ID: <4007BFD1.1060206@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>

On Thu Jan 15, 2004 01:56 am Gina Miller wrote:
> My other news is that my computer crashed on the 3rd. I have sent 
> that drive to a recovery service and I am now running on a new drive
> with a clean install.

It should be pointed out that this will happen to everyone on the list.
Yes, YOUR hard drive will crash. It might be next year, it might be next
month, but it will cease to be at some time.

So, take steps to protect your data while you still can.
(Disk recovery services are expensive!)

Buy another disk drive and use it for backup copies. They have become
pretty cheap now. If you buy a new faster drive, you can use it as your
main drive and use the old one for backups. Cost it as an upgrade for
your pc. You'll have to buy another drive anyway when the old one
breaks, so why not do it now?

If you are nervous about opening your computer to fit another drive,
then you can buy an external drive that just plugs into the back of your
PC. An external drive has the advantage that you can store it away from
your main pc, so it will still be safe if your main pc is stolen or in a
fire.

There are many backup alternatives, of course. A cd-writer can be used
for weekly backups for example.

But do something to protect your data.

BillK






From gpmap at runbox.com  Fri Jan 16 16:40:26 2004
From: gpmap at runbox.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 17:40:26 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Shadows of reality
Message-ID: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGMEKFCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>

Some thoughts on the MWI for your comments. I am sending this to a few
mailing lists with overlapping memberships, so you may have received this
twice or more. I apologise if this is the case and also for the very
imprecise language and gross simplifications and analogies that I am using
to make my point. This is really a sketch of a sketch.
I think that, while Everett's Relative State formulation of quantum
mechanics makes a lot of sense, its popular interpretation as "Many Worlds"
(MWI) should be taken only as a pictorial device useful for a first
understanding of the theory.
I propose thinking of perceived realities as shadows of a more complex
reality. I suspect this is what some authors, perhaps including Everett
himself, are trying to say, and that others have said it explicitly, so I
would appreciate any pointer to relevant works.
I will use poor Schroedinger's cat as an example. Following Everett, the cat
is in a superposition of [dead cat] and [alive cat] states before the box
has been opened, and stays so after. Once opened the box an observer is in a
superposition of [observer who remembers having seen a dead cat] and
[observer who remembers having seen an alive cat]. The MWI says that the
universe is now split in two branches where the first has [dead cat] and
[observer who remembers having seen a dead cat], and the second has [alive
cat] and [observer who remembers having seen an alive cat].
The difficulty that I have is: on the one hand we are saying that there is
no such a thing as a dead cat or an alive cat, but on the other hand we are
describing the world(s) with dead cats and alive cats.
To clarify the first part of the statement: as we can choose any two
directions to form a basis to use in describing a particle's spin, all
choices generating equally valid descriptions, besides [dead cat] and [alive
cat] we should be free to use another basis to describe the cat. Any pair of
independent superpositions of [dead cat] and [alive cat] will do, of course
I have no idea of what one would "look like".
Since I cannot remember having ever seen one, I do not know what a
superposition of [dead cat] and [alive cat] would look like, so probably I
would not recognise one if I saw it. Perhaps this is the reason why I cannot
remember having ever seen one.
In other words, perhaps since reality is One Big World too complex for our
minds to process efficiently, we use a simplified representation as Many
(small) Worlds for our processing. This is not so surprising since our best
computer programs use data compression and segmentation techniques, throwing
most of the information away, to perform complex tasks such as face
recognition efficiently.
I believe thinking of shadows may be a better mental device than thinking of
parallel worlds. Using this model the realities that I, and my doubles in
the MWI model, perceive can be thought of as shadows of a more complex
reality. Observing a shadow permits saying certain things about is source,
but not other things like what the source is saying. The shadow does not
contain such information. Also, much of what we can say about shadows has
more to do with illumination and the surface where the shadow is cast than
with the actual source.
Thinking of multiple worlds as shadows brings us back to Plato's cave, but
there are two important differences: First, each of us observes shadows of
the outside world in a very large number of caves in parallel. Second, we
are shadows ourselves, our conscious computational processes being shadows
of other possibly much more complex computational processes.





From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan 16 17:23:13 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 09:23:13 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] IQ/LANGUAGE: recursion
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401160912280.23768-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Puzzled monkeys reveal key language step
New Scientist 15 Jan 04
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994572

It looks like the ability to handle recursion in language
(or perhaps the ability to hold onto multiple states
simultaneously?) may be a key feature in preventing lower
animals from developing sophisticated languages.

Its strange -- I don't recall encountering the concept
of recursion until my first programming language classes
in college.  Yet I must have been using it all along
in the processing of language structures.

The interesting thing about this is what one will find
if one applies it to species like dolphins, whales, parrots,
etc.  Potentially it creates a new class on an extropic
complexity scale -- e.g. bacteria, plants, lower animals,
animals that can handle recursion and finally humans.
One would presumably scale the "rights" of entities at
such levels accordingly.

Also of interest would be whether or not there are language
or communication structures that are beyond our ability
to grasp.  If so this might make communication with advanced
technological civilizations rather difficult (similar to
the difficulty we have in communicating with monkeys).

Robert




From thespike at earthlink.net  Fri Jan 16 17:45:32 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 11:45:32 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] IQ/LANGUAGE: recursion
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401160912280.23768-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <00bf01c3dc58$8b95f800$aa994a43@texas.net>



> It looks like the ability to handle recursion in language
> (or perhaps the ability to hold onto multiple states
> simultaneously?) may be a key feature in preventing lower
> animals from developing sophisticated languages.

Sounds like Chomskyan embedding, which has been a key feature of generative
grammar since the '60s.

Damien Broderick



From natashavita at earthlink.net  Fri Jan 16 17:54:08 2004
From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 12:54:08 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion
Message-ID: <244640-22004151617548809@M2W083.mail2web.com>

Below is the excerpt from ExI's Exponent Newsletter (11/15/03) on Brian
Alexander and his book _Rapture_
___________________________________________________


___Brian, how did you become so interested in biotech? 

___BA: Hmmm... Well, I've always been interested in biology -- it was the
only science subject I ever did well in high school or college. I was an
English literature major and political science major in college and it may
seem as though writing about biotech is an odd area for me to work in. But
my overarching interest has always been the culture, and to me biotech is
most certainly a real cultural phenomenon. It is literally changing the way
we regard our futures, our religions, the natural world, and ourselves. So
for me, this is a perfectly natural realm to work in. Professionally, I
first became interested in biotech in 1994, just as the book opens with the
second A4M conference in Las Vegas. It really started with a question,
which was, what is the real science behind any of this? And if there was
any real science, wow. 

___: . In your opinion, does transhumanity have a particular political line
of thinking that is evident in the underlying values of transhumanists?

___BA: I do recognize that within transhumanism, and even within extropy,
there may be a wide variety of views on political philosophy. Just have a
look at the past year on the extrope discussion group! This is a very
important question for transhumanists. (More on this in answer to later
questions.) 

___? If you could separate out one element that keeps people from rushing
to support transhumanity and donating money to Extropy Institute to further
its goals, what would that be? 

___BA: Just one? That's tough. Everything from people just not having the
money to thinking that the money is better used for other causes, but if I
had to pick just one, I would say that it is a lack of the overarching
vision of what transhumanity means in the near term, as opposed to the far
future vision. Getting people to support a cause aiming to do something
they can take part in the next five years is much easier than getting them
to support a cause that looks ahead 100 years. Aubrey's Methuselah mouse is
a good example. other institutions are trying to do the same thing, but
they place the work in a framework of understanding the diseases of aging.
That's something more concrete that everybody can relate to as opposed to
saying you want to engineer a super-long-lived mouse for the sake of making
a super long-lived mouse.

___? How did writing _Rapture_ change your mind about transhumanists? 

___BA: well, it didn't really. I've always liked transhumanists, and enjoy
spending time with them, though I am not a "transhumanist" per se and I
disagree with a fair number of the predictions and with some -- not all by
any means -- of the attitudes expressed by some transhumanists. A TV
interviewer asked me the other day if I didn't "feel sorry" for life
extensionists. I said no, that life extensionists -- and I would say the
same about transhumanism in general - - are actually being more honest than
many of us about that they want. I admire people who can be unabashed about
their desires. Nobody, at least not anybody in good physical and
psychological health, wants to die. But saying so, or saying you'd like to
be smarter, or improve your body in some fundamental way, is considered
strange by many people because it seems so impossible, and so wanting the
impossible can be seen as something odd or even pathetic. Well, I don't
think it is impossible in the very long term, and I think these are some of
the most basic of human desires, expressed for thousands of years.
Improvement is the driving force behind much of human culture. It's who
were are. now, one person's "improvement" is another person's danger, but
the point is, we all want "better." Now, I will say that I always thought
the transhumanist vision works better as a concept or an idea (hence the
subtitle of the book) than as a practical path. That did not change with
the book. My research only confirmed my view. Transhumanism seems to me to
be about propagating the idea that it's okay to favor change. The idea of
transhumanism being "about" cryonics, or the singularity or merger with
computers, or space colonization or germline engineering is, in my view, a
mistake. I've always thought that man himself is "transhumanist" and has
been throughout history, as I try to show in "rapture." we all want to rise
above our current station, whether that is in a spiritual, cultural,
physical, mental sense doesn't matter. We've always evolved. We've always
been "trans."

___? What do you think is the most urgent issue to contend with regarding
Leon Kass and the anti- biotechnology swarm? 

___ BA: Leon Kass is only one incarnation of anti- biotech, which is really
about anti human improvement. My reading of the "bio-Luddite'" (as I call
it in "Rapture") philosophy is that they believe that "human" cannot be
improved upon. I say that humans have always tried to improve upon
themselves and that this is, in fact, human nature. Dr. Kass is expressing
a view that has always been expressed about science and man's place in the
natural world. Most famously, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is just such a
warning, but there have been such warnings about defying the natural order
forever. I think the most important thing to contend with is the idea that
enhancement technology will, by its very nature, be de-humanizing.
Sometimes it might be, sometimes not. Personally, I think it is important
to keep an open mind. I might add that this is why Dr. Kass and others use
transhumanism, and the longing for some to have a "post-human" future,
against biotech as a whole. Rhetoric about "post-humanity" doesn't really
do anybody any good. First, I think it's incorrect. We will always be
human. Second, it makes people think that, say tomorrow, alien-like
augmented species who used to be people will walk the earth. That won't
happen but it makes for a great sound bite, a good headline, a scary
scenario.

___? Do you think that transhumanism is more scientific than it is
cultural? In other words, do you think that we should emphasize science or
culture in order to prosper and elicit positive memes about transhumanism? 

___ BA: I think you ought to give MORE emphasis on the cultural than the
science. I know transhumanists will disagree with me here, but much of the
science upon which the movements seem based is not only not yet ready for
prime time, it may never be ready. Let the science takes care of itself.
The minds of people are what really count. I think transhumanists have done
a generally poor job of addressing fears, concerns, apprehensions of the
general public about how biotech will affect people. There's a tendency to
look down on such fears with disdain. But when Leon Kass and Francis
Fukuyama and others appeal to fears, they talk about culture, society,
religion, art, and human relations. People understand these things. This is
what "Rapture" is about, really, the culture. The science places it in
context but it is not, at heart, a science book. It's about hope. So if I
were a transhumanist who wanted to make a difference, I'd research issues
like population, resources, environment, social justice, human rights, art
and the ways these will or will not be affected. When I give talks, these
are the questions people are most interested in. 

___ ? Do you think Extropy Institute has succeeded in memetic engineering
of "transhumanism? " 

___ BA: Yes, but I do think transhumanism is now becoming bigger than
Extropy or any one organization. I think this is a measure of Extropy's
success, but also may mean that in the future extropy comes to be less and
less important as the spawn swim on their own. As science catches up to
Extropy's ideas, the ideas will spread outward into the general public, as
"rapture" shows they already have, and the need for an organization like
extropy will pass completely. And by the way, let me say that I have always
admired the very grown up way Natasha and Max and a few others have dealt
with some of the snarkier writing about extropy and transhumanism,
including some by me about certain elements of transhumanism. (In a wired
story I referred to extropians as "enthusiastic amateurs" and that pissed
some people off so much that they couldn't see that the story was about how
some of the ideas were being accepted by mainstream science and that
extropes were not as kooky as some might think.) That can be tough to do.
but by putting yourselves out there, by taking the good with the bad, you
do get some of the message through. 

___? Looking back, is there anything you feel you left out of your book
that you would now expand upon? 

___BA: If I thought anybody would read it, I would have liked to make the
book about another 100 pages! essentially I would have gone into more
detail about some of the things that are already in the book. I would have
liked to have done more with how biotech actually works. I mean how drugs
are made by engineering cells to produce human proteins. I would have liked
to have spent more time with Wally Steinberg, a truly fascinating
character, or Deeda Blair. I would have liked to gone into much more detail
about regeneration science (but look for that appearing somewhere soon).
__________________________________________________

Natasha

Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc






Original Message:
-----------------
From: Emlyn O'regan oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 11:54:28 +1030
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion


Me too
 
Emlyn

-----Original Message-----
From: Walter Purvis [mailto:wpurvis7 at bellsouth.net]
Sent: Friday, 16 January 2004 9:23 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion


Thanks. I would be interested in seeing that.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Natasha  <mailto:natasha at natasha.cc> Vita-More 
To: ExI chat list <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>  
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 11:22 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion

It was covered in ExI's Exponent Newsletter.  I'll forward it to the list in
case anyone didn't see it or is interested.

Natasha




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From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Fri Jan 16 17:59:59 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 12:59:59 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] IQ/LANGUAGE: recursion
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401160912280.23768-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <001401c3dc5a$8f492a10$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Robert J. Bradbury wrote,
> Puzzled monkeys reveal key language step
> New Scientist 15 Jan 04 
> http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994572

This may be a crucial step, but I don't think this prevented monkeys from
developing language.  Monkeys also failed to develop previous steps,
including the physical capacity for speech, simple non-recursive sentences,
or even sign-language.  It does not surprise me that monkeys don't have the
recursive-language development because they don't have any of the
prerequisites either.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From determinism at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 16 18:56:01 2004
From: determinism at hotmail.com (Dennis May)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 12:56:01 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: Shadows of reality
Message-ID: <BAY7-F50HE0bRlHJILt0002bfa6@hotmail.com>

A good dose of Bohmian Mechanics is the remedy.

Dennis May

_________________________________________________________________
High-speed users?be more efficient online with the new MSN Premium Internet 
Software. http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=byoa/prem&ST=1



From wingcat at pacbell.net  Fri Jan 16 20:08:49 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 12:08:49 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence
In-Reply-To: <000001c3dbf6$fd2935c0$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>
Message-ID: <20040116200849.25685.qmail@web80401.mail.yahoo.com>

--- rick <aperick at centurytel.net> wrote:
> Adrian Tymes wrote:
> >It is trivial to prove this is logically
> inconsistent,
> unless by "qualified to vote" you mean "qualified to
> vote for whoever the males would vote for" or
> something like that.  A candidate who, for instance,
> advocated treating women as property would get a
> fewer
> votes from women used to freedom than from men used
> to
> freedom.  Therefore, disallowing females from voting
> would make the election of such candidates more
> likely, and the set of all females is not entirely a
> random sample with respect to the set of all human
> beings.
> 
> Trivial is it? Your proof seems to rest on just one
> ridiculous
> assumption -- you seem to have a horrible opinion of
> men in general:
> implying that men in general wish to mistreat women.

No, I'm just implying that there are more men who wish
to mistreat women than women who wish to mistreat
women.  I suspect that statement is likely to be
accepted as likely true with little question.  I'm
saying nothing about the motives of the rest of the
population, or about the raw proportion: even a
difference as minor as .11% versus .10% would suffice,
so long as the fraction is enough to account for one
full person.  In fact, the logic would also hold true
even if it were the other way - that is, if there were
more women who wish to mistreat women than men who
wish to mistreat women.  All that is needed is a
difference, any difference, no matter the size so long
as it is not exactly zero.

> And that women, on
> the other hand, are saintly in general.

Nope.  You can apply the reverse easily - there are
more women who wish to mistreat men than men who wish
to mistreat men - and the proof still holds true.

All I'm saying is, one can construct certain cases
where the average male vote and the average female
vote would differ, therefore the average female vote
and the average male vote are not exactly identical in
all conceivable cases, therefore justifying denying
the vote to all females (or to all males) based on
logic which assumes that they are always identical is
invalid.  The specific example I chose was one that, I
suspect, most people will see has actually come up in
real elections with respect to this issue.


From scerir at libero.it  Fri Jan 16 20:33:32 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 21:33:32 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: Shadows of reality
References: <BAY7-F50HE0bRlHJILt0002bfa6@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <2ccb01c3dc70$025998e0$6bc11b97@administxl09yj>


> A good dose of Bohmian Mechanics is the remedy.
> Dennis May

According to Bell, Everett's and Bohm's theories are not so different.
Bell rejected Everett first, then also Bohm.

"The Everett (?) theory of this section will simply be the pilot-wave
theory without trajectories. Thus instantaneous classical configurations
x are supposed to exist, and to be distributed in the comparison class of
possible worlds with probability |psi|^2. But no pairing of configurations
at different times, as would be effected by the existence of trajectories,
is supposed. And it is pointed out that no such continuity between present
and past configurations is required by experience. [....................]
Now it seems to me that this multiplication of universes is extravagant,
and serves no real purpose in the theory, and can simply be dropped
without repercussions. So I see no reason to insist on this particular
difference between the Everett theory and the pilot-wave theory - where,
although the *wave* is never reduced, only *one* set of values of the
variables x is realized at any instant. Except that the wave is in
configuration space, rather than ordinary three-space, the situation
is the same as in Maxwell-Lorentz electron theory. Nobody ever felt
any discomfort because the field was supposed to exist and propagate
even at points where there was no particle. To have multiplied universes,
to realize all possible configurations of particles, would have seemed
grotesque."

-J.S.Bell, "Quantum Mechanics For Cosmologists", in "Quantum Gravity 2",
eds. C.Isham, R.Penrose, D.Sciama, Oxford U.P., 1981, pp. 652-653.

s.

"After that I visited John Wheeler in Austin, and then John Bell at CERN.
Talking to Bell (that is, John Bell, not Bell Labs) was a traumatic
experience. I wrote to you that I lost faith in physics. What should I do?
You answered "keep your tools sharp." I followed your advice, and I
recovered from the trauma." 
- Asher Peres http://www.phys.ufl.edu/klauderfest/guestbook.htm




From gingell at gnat.com  Fri Jan 16 20:38:15 2004
From: gingell at gnat.com (Matthew Gingell)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 15:38:15 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence
In-Reply-To: <20040116200849.25685.qmail@web80401.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <000001c3dbf6$fd2935c0$0200a8c0@soy0450mhz>
	<20040116200849.25685.qmail@web80401.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <16392.19383.932978.876443@nile.gnat.com>

Rather than getting hung up on the differential prevalence of mysogeny
with respect to sex and whatever, isn't just enough to acknowledge men
and woman do not have exactly equivalent interests? For random
instance on public funding of research into treating prostate vs.
breast cancer. Neither population is right or wrong or good or bad,
there are just instances where we in the aggregate tend to weight
various preferences and goals differently.

Same deal for high vs. low IQ voters: What works best for highly
skilled, high achieving professionals isn't likely to be a good fit
for the interests of low skill labor. Weighting the distribution of
political power towards particular segments of society isn't going to
get you better decisions in any Platonic sense, it's just going to get
you a policy environment more closely reflecting the interests of the
empowered groups. Maybe the clever would end up being better at
screwing the not-clever than visa versa, but from my perspective that
isn't an obviously desirable feature of an electoral system.

I suggest we stick with the Enlightenment one-man-one-vote thing, at
least till we can make some more progress on this whole human condition
fiasco.


From scerir at libero.it  Fri Jan 16 21:04:09 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:04:09 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Shadows of reality
References: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGMEKFCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>
Message-ID: <2ce001c3dc74$4989f1c0$6bc11b97@administxl09yj>

Giu1io:
> The difficulty that I have is: on the one hand we are saying that there is
> no such a thing as a dead cat or an alive cat, but on the other hand we
are
> describing the world(s) with dead cats and alive cats.

Try # 47 on this page
http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/ion/qucomp/papers.htm
It is not really about "cats", but I think that, step by step,
slowly slowly, that "difficulty" (which is also mine)
will vanish.




From NATASHAVITA at earthlink.net  Fri Jan 16 21:08:33 2004
From: NATASHAVITA at earthlink.net (NATASHAVITA at earthlink.net)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 16:08:33 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Congratulations to New WTA Directors!
Message-ID: <410-22004151621833755@M2W044.mail2web.com>

Friends!

Congratulations to Harvey Newstrom, Jose Cordeiro, Giulio Prisco, BJ Kline
and Tarik Theo Ibrahim for joining the WTA's board!

Harvey, Jose and BJ are Associate Producers of ExI's upcoming Virtual
Progress "VP" Summit.  Mike Treder and (board member) is on ExI's Executive
Advisory/Action Team.

With more extropes on WTAs board, I hope that we can see positive efforts
between ExI and WTA in working together to reach our common transhumanist
goals.

Natasha

Natasha Vita-More
President, Extropy Institute
Friends!

Congratulations to Harvey Newstrom, Jose Cordeiro, Giulio Prisco, BJ Kline
and Tarik Theo Ibrahim for joining the WTA's board!

Harvey, Jose and BJ are Associate Producers of ExI's upcoming Virtual
Progress "VP" Summit.  Mike Treder and (board member) is on ExI's Executive
Advisory/Action Team.

With more extropic thinkers on WTAs board, I hope that we can see positive
efforts between ExI and WTA in working together to reach our common
transhumanist goals.

Cheers!

Natasha

Natasha Vita-More
President, Extropy Institute
http://www.extropy.org
natasha at natasha.cc


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From wingcat at pacbell.net  Fri Jan 16 21:47:35 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 13:47:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] late response to Dan/Technotranscendence
In-Reply-To: <16392.19383.932978.876443@nile.gnat.com>
Message-ID: <20040116214735.47408.qmail@web80408.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Matthew Gingell <gingell at gnat.com> wrote:
> I suggest we stick with the Enlightenment
> one-man-one-vote thing, at
> least till we can make some more progress on this
> whole human condition
> fiasco.

Hear, hear.  You want the government to reflect the
interests of high-IQ people like you are currently?
Then develop mental upgrades, then make them cheap and
widely available, such that most people will improve
themselves to have high IQ (as currently measured, not
accounting for any potential retooling of IQ
measurements that may result).  This assumes that,
given the choice, people would rather be smart than be
dumb; the evidence seems to indicate this, though
there is some evidence that may indicate the contrary.
But even if that's not the case, there's still a side
benefit: you may be able to boost yourself too.

Democracy takes on a new meaning, when memetic
engineering like this becomes feasable.  (I would
consider this approach partially memetics, even though
it is not primarily about the spread of a certain
idea.)


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan 16 21:58:20 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 13:58:20 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] LUDDITES: No GloFish for the U.S.
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401161334510.28609-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Well this has just gone over the top...

The Center for Food Safety has just filed a lawsuit to halt
all sales of GloFish until the *FDA* regulates and approves
their sale.

Gee -- when I was a child I grew zebrafish and never thought
once about cooking them and eating them (they are rather
small).  Now I know there are countries where people do
consume animals that are considered pets in other countries
but in the U.S. this generally isn't the case.

The CfFS seems to be a general luddite organization oriented
towards blocking the production and/or sale of any GE
organisms.  Now, I can understand the rationale behind
not wanting GE fish to contaminate the wild fish -- but that
seems unlikely to happen with zebrafish in U.S. waters.

The native habitat for zebrafish is the Ganges river in India
and other nearby rivers.  Though some have been found in
tropical rivers in Florida, they are not considered to be
breeding populations:
  http://nis.gsmfc.org/nis_factsheet.php?toc_id=169

The /. article pointing this out:
  http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/16/1619202
Background:
  http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/22/175233

CfFS:
  http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/
There letter about GloFish:
  http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/inthenews/PRGloFish1-14-04.pdf
All the GE fish they are against...:
  http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/gefish/

Hmmm... I wonder if at the next WTA meeting (which I believe
is in Toronto) a number of anti-Luddites shouldn't stage a
press conference where we dump an aquarium full of GloFish
into Lake Ontario?

Robert







From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 16 22:30:10 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 14:30:10 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] LUDDITES: No GloFish for the U.S.
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401161334510.28609-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040116223010.30428.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>

Ah, well, it is therefore evident that US riverine ecosystems are
insufficiently 'diverse'. Since diversity is the highest ethic of
ecopaths, to the point of preferring luddocide of human populations to
reductions in 'diversity', I propose that to short circuit their little
plan, we need to help increase the diversity of zebrafish. 

If the populations of zebrafish in Florida rivers are not 'breeding
populations', there must not be enough of them...

--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> 
> Well this has just gone over the top...
> 
> The Center for Food Safety has just filed a lawsuit to halt
> all sales of GloFish until the *FDA* regulates and approves
> their sale.
> 
> Gee -- when I was a child I grew zebrafish and never thought
> once about cooking them and eating them (they are rather
> small).  Now I know there are countries where people do
> consume animals that are considered pets in other countries
> but in the U.S. this generally isn't the case.
> 
> The CfFS seems to be a general luddite organization oriented
> towards blocking the production and/or sale of any GE
> organisms.  Now, I can understand the rationale behind
> not wanting GE fish to contaminate the wild fish -- but that
> seems unlikely to happen with zebrafish in U.S. waters.
> 
> The native habitat for zebrafish is the Ganges river in India
> and other nearby rivers.  Though some have been found in
> tropical rivers in Florida, they are not considered to be
> breeding populations:
>   http://nis.gsmfc.org/nis_factsheet.php?toc_id=169
> 
> The /. article pointing this out:
>   http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/16/1619202
> Background:
>   http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/22/175233
> 
> CfFS:
>   http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/
> There letter about GloFish:
>   http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/inthenews/PRGloFish1-14-04.pdf
> All the GE fish they are against...:
>   http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/gefish/
> 
> Hmmm... I wonder if at the next WTA meeting (which I believe
> is in Toronto) a number of anti-Luddites shouldn't stage a
> press conference where we dump an aquarium full of GloFish
> into Lake Ontario?
> 
> Robert
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
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Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From nanogirl at halcyon.com  Fri Jan 16 23:10:06 2004
From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 15:10:06 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fractals and Crash
References: <4007BFD1.1060206@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>
Message-ID: <004401c3dc85$e1ae1830$3f80e40c@uservqwsr60ljh>

It's interesting that you point this out. Of course I do back up my data,
and in fact it was while I was actually doing a backup of my internal drive
to an external Iomega hard drive that my system crashed and when rebooted
found it's way to an irreversible blue screen of death. The data lost, was
the data between backups (it only takes a minute for me to change the
structure and add files to my system i.e animation programs). I use cd, DVD
and external. Sometimes, things just happen at the wrong moment.........this
isn't the first time. This was a file allocation problem, which made it
impossible to repair with any software, bootables or recovery console. At
any rate, my main concern here, was to inform others that I work with on
various projects, of the situation. No comments on the fractals? Thanks!
Gina`


> On Thu Jan 15, 2004 01:56 am Gina Miller wrote:
> > My other news is that my computer crashed on the 3rd. I have sent
> > that drive to a recovery service and I am now running on a new drive
> > with a clean install.
>
> It should be pointed out that this will happen to everyone on the list.
> Yes, YOUR hard drive will crash. It might be next year, it might be next
> month, but it will cease to be at some time.
>
> So, take steps to protect your data while you still can.
> (Disk recovery services are expensive!)
>
> Buy another disk drive and use it for backup copies. They have become
> pretty cheap now. If you buy a new faster drive, you can use it as your
> main drive and use the old one for backups. Cost it as an upgrade for
> your pc. You'll have to buy another drive anyway when the old one
> breaks, so why not do it now?
>
> If you are nervous about opening your computer to fit another drive,
> then you can buy an external drive that just plugs into the back of your
> PC. An external drive has the advantage that you can store it away from
> your main pc, so it will still be safe if your main pc is stolen or in a
> fire.
>
> There are many backup alternatives, of course. A cd-writer can be used
> for weekly backups for example.
>
> But do something to protect your data.
>
> BillK
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Fri Jan 16 23:14:54 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 18:14:54 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] LUDDITES: No GloFish for the U.S.
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401161334510.28609-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <000f01c3dc86$9357f790$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Robert J. Bradbury wrote,
> Hmmm... I wonder if at the next WTA meeting (which I believe
> is in Toronto) a number of anti-Luddites shouldn't stage a 
> press conference where we dump an aquarium full of GloFish 
> into Lake Ontario?

Please don't!  In Florida, where I live, it is a violation of state statute
372.265 concerning the Regulation of foreign species.  It is illegal to
release any species into the wild that is not native to Florida.  You are
not even allowed to own a species of foreign fish if there is a reasonable
chance that it might escape into the wild.  Many specific species of fish
have been outlawed because of previous damage.

These are not "precautionary" laws.  Florida has a long history of
environmental disasters with foreign species being released into the wild.
Brazilian Peppers caused massive bird kills.  Kudzu vines clog lakes and
streams, and even hamper navigation.  Australian Melaleuca grows extremely
fast and can suck fields dry, killing other plants and destroying wetlands.
Fire-ants have overrun the entire state.  Genetically Engineer Cotton has
been proven to cross-breed with Wild Florida Cotton and convey its
weed-killer resistance to this weed, and it is feared that a release into
the wild could destroy the cotton industry.

This is not a joke!  It is extremely dangerous to release foreign species of
plants, fish or animals into a new environment where they do not have
natural predators.  See the University of Florida site for more information
and specific examples.  <http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/msl/invspecies.html>.
They don't have to be dangerous or unusual to cause the problem.  Usually,
it is just a simple case that they don't have natural predators to keep the
population down.  They breed like tribbles with nothing to stop them.  They
end up spreading like locust and decimated whole ecosystems if they are not
stopped.

Sheesh, can't we ever learn from history?  This is such a bad idea!

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Fri Jan 16 23:23:36 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 18:23:36 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Congratulations to New WTA Directors!
In-Reply-To: <410-22004151621833755@M2W044.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <001101c3dc87$c7262f50$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Natasha wrote,
> Congratulations to Harvey Newstrom, Jose Cordeiro, Giulio 
> Prisco, BJ Kline and Tarik Theo Ibrahim for joining the WTA's board!
> 
> Harvey, Jose and BJ are Associate Producers of ExI's upcoming 
> Virtual Progress "VP" Summit.  Mike Treder and (board member) 
> is on ExI's Executive Advisory/Action Team.
> 
> With more extropes on WTAs board, I hope that we can see 
> positive efforts between ExI and WTA in working together to 
> reach our common transhumanist goals.

Thanks for your kind words, Natasha.  I certainly do want to see more
cooperation between WTA and ExI, and all transhumanist groups.  I know that
we like to imagine that we are a huge popular movement.  But we are still
too small not to be working together.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From bjk at imminst.org  Fri Jan 16 23:30:15 2004
From: bjk at imminst.org (Bruce J. Klein)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 17:30:15 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Congratulations to New WTA Directors!
In-Reply-To: <410-22004151621833755@M2W044.mail2web.com>
References: <410-22004151621833755@M2W044.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <40087407.6030708@imminst.org>

Clarification:

Newly elected 2004-2006 WTA Board members:
- Nick Bostrom
- Jos? Cordeiro
- James Hughes
- Mark Walker
- Harvey Newstrom

These five members join the five 2003-2005 Board members:
- Giulio Prisco
- Mike Treder
- Michael LaTorra
- BJ Klein
- Tarik Theo Ibrahim


I'm honored to join fellow Associate Producers of
ExI's Virtual Progress "VP" Summit.

Should be great fun!

Bruce Klein
Chairman, ImmInst.org



NATASHAVITA at earthlink.net wrote:

>Friends!
>
>Congratulations to Harvey Newstrom, Jose Cordeiro, Giulio Prisco, BJ Kline
>and Tarik Theo Ibrahim for joining the WTA's board!
>
>Harvey, Jose and BJ are Associate Producers of ExI's upcoming Virtual
>Progress "VP" Summit.  Mike Treder and (board member) is on ExI's Executive
>Advisory/Action Team.
>
>With more extropes on WTAs board, I hope that we can see positive efforts
>between ExI and WTA in working together to reach our common transhumanist
>goals.
>
>Natasha
>
>Natasha Vita-More
>President, Extropy Institute
>Friends!
>
>Congratulations to Harvey Newstrom, Jose Cordeiro, Giulio Prisco, BJ Kline
>and Tarik Theo Ibrahim for joining the WTA's board!
>
>Harvey, Jose and BJ are Associate Producers of ExI's upcoming Virtual
>Progress "VP" Summit.  Mike Treder and (board member) is on ExI's Executive
>Advisory/Action Team.
>
>With more extropic thinkers on WTAs board, I hope that we can see positive
>efforts between ExI and WTA in working together to reach our common
>transhumanist goals.
>
>Cheers!
>
>Natasha
>
>Natasha Vita-More
>President, Extropy Institute
>http://www.extropy.org
>natasha at natasha.cc
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>mail2web - Check your email from the web at
>http://mail2web.com/ .
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>extropy-chat mailing list
>extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>
>
>  
>




From determinism at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 16 23:49:49 2004
From: determinism at hotmail.com (Dennis May)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 17:49:49 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: Shadows of reality
Message-ID: <BAY7-F13GEgUNcdee6n00034b65@hotmail.com>

scerir wrote:

>According to Bell, Everett's and Bohm's theories are not so different.
>Bell rejected Everett first, then also Bohm.

In Bell's collected works on Quantum Mechanics "Speakable and
Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics" published just before Bell
died, he had not rejected Bohm.  The book you quoted from was
an earlier work, which I have not read.  I would find it strange if
Bell had rejected Bohm based on a careful reading of the later book.
He called it a scandal within physics that Bohm's work is not being
taught along side the standard QM approach.

Dennis May

_________________________________________________________________
Learn how to choose, serve, and enjoy wine at Wine @ MSN. 
http://wine.msn.com/



From thespike at earthlink.net  Sat Jan 17 00:02:32 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 18:02:32 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: Shadows of reality
References: <BAY7-F13GEgUNcdee6n00034b65@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <016701c3dc8d$37487220$de994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Dennis May" <determinism at hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 5:49 PM

> In Bell's collected works on Quantum Mechanics "Speakable and
> Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics"
> He called it a scandal within physics that Bohm's work is not being
> taught along side the standard QM approach.

BTW, I suppose everyone has read Huw Price's argument (Time's Arrow and
Archimedes' Point) that the viability of hidden variables is *not*
obliterated by Bell theorem inequality violation?

Damien Broderick



From asa at nada.kth.se  Sat Jan 17 00:54:26 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 01:54:26 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] LUDDITES: No GloFish for the U.S.
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401161334510.28609-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401161334510.28609-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <2883.213.112.90.219.1074300866.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>

(from my blog about it)

The Center for Food Safety's complaint
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/li/GloFishComplaint.pdf
against the FDA has some truly hilarious parts. Among others:

    "Additionally, the imminent release of genetically engineered
ornamental fish into the environment and the consumption of them by
other carnivorous fish as part of the foodchain means that such
carnivorous fish will be caught or purchased and consumed by CTA Board
Members. Such results compel their involunrary consumption of
genetically engineered ornamental fish that have not been approved as
safe for use as human or animal food."

Just think about it. Out there there are fishes eating stuff that has not
been approved as safe. Yucky stuff, dangerous stuff. Unregulated stuff.
Just feel the anarchy accumulate in the fat tissue beside the mercury!

Of course, as pointed out in section 9, the deep reason is aesthetics. CTA
doesn't like nature with modified creatures in it. So they are injured by
them. Being an atheist 1/8th troll, I could probably claim being
aesthetically and ethnically injured by church steeples had I lived in the
US.

More seriously, this actually is the core of the issue. The practical
risks are negligble (besides the potential for spread in the Mexican Gulf
ecosystem, but that is true for the original zebrafish too), the
antibiotics resistance genes are nothing compared to the plasmids already
used by bacteria actively and of course eating something that has eaten a
fish that had a fluoroscent protein is not much more dangerous than eating
a fish that had eaten a jellyfish with the same protein. It is all about
what kind of nature one wants. A nature defined by not having been
affected or changed by humanity, or a nature where humanity is a
participant in evolution. A glowing fish has increased diversity,
something many view as desirable. The big question is of course if the FDA
or some other agency (the EPA?) that gets to define that nature,
especially since it is both local and global. Just as decency standards
and aestetics varies, so does bioaesthetics and philosophical views on
nature.

I don't know the likeliehood of a FDA banning the fish (the complaint
seems somewhat arbitrary to me, but I know little US law tactics and some
agency might want to extend its boundaries and funding a bit), but given
that it is up for sale and easily bred this might be the start of a real
biotech underground. In many ways it might be worse if fishes are spread
in secret between individuals who are more likely to be disrespectful of
the law and perhaps traditionalist ecology than if they were just mildly
regulated and debated by aquarists.

Hopefully we can get away from a debate where the issue is that a species
is genetically modified to a debate where the issue is whether this
particular modification is bad, risky or doesn't fit our aesthetics.

-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sat Jan 17 02:21:04 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 18:21:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] LUDDITES: No GloFish for the U.S.
In-Reply-To: <000f01c3dc86$9357f790$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401161805470.1238-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote:

Harvey comments on my suggestion for a protest involving releasing a
non-indiginous species into the wild.

> Sheesh, can't we ever learn from history?  This is such a bad idea!

Ok Harvey, I understand your point.  I'm familiar with the Kudzu
vine problem though not other examples you cite.  The example that
came to mind on reading your post was Zebra mussels in the midwest.

But this goes back to Anders point about what kind of Nature we want.

It tends to come down to leaking a species into an environment
where it does more harm than good.  That doesn't apply implicitly
to all GMO (glow in the dark fish would seem to reduce survival
probabilities not increase them).  Releasing a tropical fish into
non tropical waters in the summer seems likely to do nothing more
than increase food resources in the local environment for a brief
period.

But it raises the idea that it would be a good idea for all GMO
to have engineered into them one or more self-destruct sequences
in case we fail to anticipate possible consequences.  Of course
this gets pretty iffy if one wants to engineer post-humans
to include self-destruct sequences.  Why bother with the messy
business of terrorism?  Just simply spray around the self-destruct
triggers to eliminate the species pollution of PostHums.

Somewhat tongue in cheek (because it raises some interesting issues).
Robert




From riel at surriel.com  Sat Jan 17 02:31:48 2004
From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 21:31:48 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Sleeplessness
In-Reply-To: <40039BEB.17718DB5@Genius.UCSD.edu>
References: <40039BEB.17718DB5@Genius.UCSD.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.55L.0401162130460.21924@imladris.surriel.com>

On Mon, 12 Jan 2004, Johnius wrote:

> 	As long as such sleep reductions don't interfere with
> 	needed bodily repairs (for longevity) and psychological
> 	rest/reorganization (REM sleep), such practices seem
> 	at least somewhat extropic to me.

Dunno, my productivity varies by a factor 10 depending on how
tired (not sleepiness!) I am.  Sleeping well allows me to do
5 times as much during the day and still have more time left
for hobbies ...

Rik
-- 
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan


From riel at surriel.com  Sat Jan 17 02:34:57 2004
From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 21:34:57 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Sleeplessness
In-Reply-To: <008401c3da3b$4ca456b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
References: <008401c3da3b$4ca456b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.55L.0401162132310.21924@imladris.surriel.com>

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote:

> I also practice what is known as "Lucid Dreaming."  This is where you can
> recognize you are in a dream state and become conscious of that fact.  I
> have consciously worked on project plans while asleep in a dream, and woken
> up with usable step by step solutions already worked out.

I have this too once in a while; it's just perfect since it
allows me to figure out solutions to complex problems without
any distractions.

> I have no idea if this allows me to work while in the REM state, or if
> this level of conscious thought interrupts the benefits of sleep.

> I don't do this often, since it is not reliable whether I will become
> lucid in my dreams or not.  So I can't rely on this time for scheduling
> work.

Sounds like two things to find out.  Adding extra thinking
to our lives without disrupting the sleep cycle would be a
nice (extropian) improvement of our lives...

Rik
-- 
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan


From jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com  Sat Jan 17 02:37:18 2004
From: jose_cordeiro at yahoo.com (Jose Cordeiro)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 18:37:18 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [wta-talk] RE: [extropy-chat] Congratulations to New WTA
	Directors!
In-Reply-To: <001101c3dc87$c7262f50$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040117023718.52912.qmail@web41311.mail.yahoo.com>

Dear Natasha, Harvey and friends:
 
    Thank you so much for your good wishes as well, and I fully second Harvey's comment about more cooperation between WTA and ExI.
 
     I also want to say that I feel very proud to be a new WTA Board Member and an Associate Producer of ExI's upcoming Virtual Progress "VP" Summit. I will try to do my best in both tasks, even though I have to excuse myself from now until February 15, since I will be in India (and Sri Lanka, where I expect to meet Arthur C. Clarke) for some World Bank conferences, plus travel. During that time, I have already organized a formal transhumanist meeting in New Delhi (January 26, at the India Habitat Centre:-) and I am trying to do something similar in Colombo as well. My objective is to help spread the transhumanist and extropian memes around the world...
 
     Transhumanistically and extropianily yours,
 
     La vie est belle!
 
     Yos?
 
NB: If you are aware of any Indian and Sri Lankan transhumanists and/or extropians, please tell them to contact me directly and join the new yahoogroup: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wta-india/

Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
Natasha wrote,
> Congratulations to Harvey Newstrom, Jose Cordeiro, Giulio 
> Prisco, BJ Kline and Tarik Theo Ibrahim for joining the WTA's board!
> 
> Harvey, Jose and BJ are Associate Producers of ExI's upcoming 
> Virtual Progress "VP" Summit. Mike Treder and (board member) 
> is on ExI's Executive Advisory/Action Team.
> 
> With more extropes on WTAs board, I hope that we can see 
> positive efforts between ExI and WTA in working together to 
> reach our common transhumanist goals.

Thanks for your kind words, Natasha. I certainly do want to see more
cooperation between WTA and ExI, and all transhumanist groups. I know that
we like to imagine that we are a huge popular movement. But we are still
too small not to be working together.


La vie est belle!

Yos? (www.cordeiro.org) 

Caracas, Venezuela, Americas, TerraNostra


---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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From fortean1 at mindspring.com  Sat Jan 17 02:38:26 2004
From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 19:38:26 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD [forteana] Bush's 2020 Vision of Space
Message-ID: <4008A022.6F3BECDE@mindspring.com>

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 07:18:34 +1000
From: lawrie_williams at yahoo.co.uk
  To: forteana at yahoogroups.com
Subj: FWD [forteana] Bush's 2020 Vision of Space


Well I always thought that was where NASA and the USA were going anyway. 

But what is the goal? Where is this going? Explorers always have something firm
in mind. 

Getting stuff into space will need to become cheaper. Its still going to take an
awful lot of kerosene or liquid hydrogen. 

I think the Space Station is a bit of a dead loss. Too monolithic, too
vulnerable. And kind of sitting nowhere in particular. 

Trying to get to worlds without atmospheres might be a bit discouraging. The
Moon is a vacuum. Radiation is another problem, and 1/6 G will probably cripple
people pretty fast since it is not far off weightlessness which we know is a
real problem. 

A Moonbase for people will perhaps use the lava tubes there. They offer the
possibility of ready-made shelter that might be sealed and pressurized. But for
what purpose except to say they are there? To take advantage of the mineral
resources would require sending an incredible amount of infrastructure up there. 

And Mars hasn't any sort of air either, don't be misled by the colour enhanced
images. Nor much protection from radiation. And with such low gravity, it will
not be a healthy place to stay, at least for human beings as we think of them. 

Venus might be more interesting. They say it is too hot but that might not be
the case at high altitude near the poles. There may be places where people can
live underground. They will still need to make their own air. But at least the
gravity there is almost the same as on Earth. 

As for why go there, I think it is cost effective for the Moon, Mars and Venus
to be explored. Bush hit the nail on the head without meaning to perhaps when he
said it would cost Americans each as much as a month of cable TV. These efforts
by humans to survive and investigate will be avidly watched back on Earth.
People will pay to watch. In fact the energy spent pushing rockets loaded with
air, food, electronics and explorers into space will be far less than the energy
saved on Earth because people will be watching space being explored instead of
consuming the world's dwindling resources. 

To beat the gravity problem, I suggest craft in pairs attached by a cable. As
they revolve around one another they will have centripetal force and that is as
good as gravity. 

I hear physicist-philosopher-publicist Paul Davies is advocating one way trips,
an idea I have advocated and no doubt others have too. We are all going to die
anyway. No point hauling those ugly bags of mostly water all the way back to
Earth. 

As a species I think we need to cut corners where we can if we want to get into
space. Maybe we will soon see NASA setting up facilities in high altitude
places, perhaps in the Andes.  There is a lot to be said for sending midgets
descended from generations of mountain dwellers. Less air, water and food
needed, and at lower pressure too. 

Yup, that is the future - pregnant midget females from high altitudes. And then
years and years of sending out food, fuel and equipment while they get
established. 

All this ignores the possibility that there already exists the technology to get
into space without using rockets. That would make for a whole new ball game! 

Lawrie Williams ________ 


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-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
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   TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Vietnam veterans,
Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]


From spike66 at comcast.net  Sat Jan 17 03:03:36 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 19:03:36 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD [forteana] Bush's 2020 Vision of Space
In-Reply-To: <4008A022.6F3BECDE@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3dca6$81e97b30$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

> Terry W. Colvin...
> 
> I hear physicist-philosopher-publicist Paul Davies is 
> advocating one way trips, an idea I have advocated and no doubt others
have too. We are 
> all going to die anyway. No point hauling those ugly bags of mostly
water all 
> the way back to Earth...

Ja, this is a conclusion that any weights engineer will
come to.  When I began looking at the Mars problem nearly
20 yrs ago I concluded that the way to do it is to make
it a one way trip.
 
> Yup, that is the future - pregnant midget females from high 
> altitudes...

They wouldn't need to be pregnant when they left.  They
would carry a number of frozen embryos in a lead-lined 
dewar, just in case things go better than I expect they 
will.  If they survive, it could very well be that these
ladies will be the only two flesh-bags that would ever need
to cross the vast interplanetary sea.  They could become
the mothers of a new race: it all started with Eve and Eve.
They have an awesome challenge ahead of them.

spike



From jef at jefallbright.net  Sat Jan 17 03:22:51 2004
From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 19:22:51 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Sleeplessness
References: <008401c3da3b$4ca456b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<Pine.LNX.4.55L.0401162132310.21924@imladris.surriel.com>
Message-ID: <043c01c3dca9$32881a30$6501a8c0@int.veeco.com>

Rik van Riel wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
>> I also practice what is known as "Lucid Dreaming."  This is where
>> you can recognize you are in a dream state and become conscious of
>> that fact.  I have consciously worked on project plans while asleep
>> in a dream, and woken up with usable step by step solutions already
>> worked out.
>
> I have this too once in a while; it's just perfect since it
> allows me to figure out solutions to complex problems without
> any distractions.
>


I find that when I'm just waking up I'm more creative in a free-associative
way.  It's as if the more logical and rational parts of the brain are
inhibited, allowing other processes free rein.  Might this be related to the
recent discoveries of enhanced creativity with magnetic intercranial
stimulation?

- Jef



From megao at sasktel.net  Sat Jan 17 04:16:57 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:16:57 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: FWD [forteana] 2020 vision
References: <000001c3dca6$81e97b30$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <4008B738.A745F134@sasktel.net>

 It would not be unreasonable to develop physiology that is adapted to more
radiation, better cellular repair, smaller in stature.  (LGM?)  As well the
billions of intestinal dwelling organisms we carry about with us as an
unseen ecosystem provide the basis for a bio-factory/ecosystem  capable of
converting low grade food inputs , including currently undigestible
materials into both basic nutrition plus a broad range of nutraceutical
products.  .

But, yes the idea of sending a few female 25 year old colonists one way to
say Mars  and 10 years  later sending engineered embryos to provide
offspring is a very efficient way to proceed.

The collateral benefit is that these improved offspring may represent   our
offspring as well.
If say the first generation of posthuman stock has both the base  lifespan
potential increased to 140 years and  reproductively viable  capacity
increased to 90 years, then reproductive generations and thus rate of
increase of  whole population turnover via  progeny can dramatically slow
down.  Combined with continual diversification of the new offspring a
controlled population decrease can occur.

Initially, I think  as well,  persons reaching age 65-80 should be offered
the opportunity to merge bodies in pairs.  Pooling the resources of 2 bodies
to create one rejuvenated body  allows for genetic enhancements to be
integrated as well as an initial 50% reduction in population numbers.

The challenge is that conventional economics may not be conducive to the
financing of this mega-project.  The present economic and resource energies
devoted to military and other non essential activities ideally may need to
be substantially re-allocated on a multi-lateral global basis. Given the
fundamental war-like nature of humans, this may be a formidable  task.    A
new currency based on life-extension units which can be interchanged for
conventional cash monetary instruments seems to be in order.

So the professional who devotes 20 years to being employed in life extension
projects might earn credits redeemable for  access to technology that offers
say a base lifespan extension value of 100 years.  The luxury feature is
that those without such credits or money equivalent might have to except
life extension as part of  the fusion of 2 individuals as noted above
population reduction plan.

This provides some kind of system of rewards.  Those with a high productive
value to society can maintain single individuality for several regenerations
while the lesser able or willing  must either die a natural death or survive
but share their personality with others in an irreversible fashion.

There will no doubt be a portion of humanity that would rather accept a
quiet death of old age than
become part of this new posthuman era.

This senario is somewhat influenced by the potential need to conserve
resources if the availability of
natural resources such as oil becomes restricted and technology is unable to
replace this shorfall for
some period.  Technological advances are hypothetical, conventional resource
depletion is certain.

The time when we can harvest the vast resources of Jupiter and Saturn  and
again vastly increase the
population may come much later on so we may have to deal sucessfully with a
period of scarcity in the interim.

...Morris

Spike wrote:

> > Terry W. Colvin...
> >
> > I hear physicist-philosopher-publicist Paul Davies is
> > advocating one way trips, an idea I have advocated and no doubt others
> have too. We are
> > all going to die anyway. No point hauling those ugly bags of mostly
> water all
> > the way back to Earth...
>
> Ja, this is a conclusion that any weights engineer will
> come to.  When I began looking at the Mars problem nearly
> 20 yrs ago I concluded that the way to do it is to make
> it a one way trip.
>
> > Yup, that is the future - pregnant midget females from high
> > altitudes...
>
> They wouldn't need to be pregnant when they left.  They
> would carry a number of frozen embryos in a lead-lined
> dewar, just in case things go better than I expect they
> will.  If they survive, it could very well be that these
> ladies will be the only two flesh-bags that would ever need
> to cross the vast interplanetary sea.  They could become
> the mothers of a new race: it all started with Eve and Eve.
> They have an awesome challenge ahead of them.
>
> spike
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From determinism at hotmail.com  Sat Jan 17 04:54:54 2004
From: determinism at hotmail.com (Dennis May)
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:54:54 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: Shadows of reality
Message-ID: <BAY7-F63cVAqIS8OvUG00039695@hotmail.com>

I wrote:

>In Bell's collected works on Quantum Mechanics "Speakable and
>Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics"
>He called it a scandal within physics that Bohm's work is not being
>taught along side the standard QM approach.

Damien Broderick wrote:

>BTW, I suppose everyone has read Huw Price's argument (Time's Arrow and
>Archimedes' Point) that the viability of hidden variables is *not*
>obliterated by Bell theorem inequality violation?

Bell explained that hidden variables are allowed as long as there
is supraluminal signaling [sometimes called non-locality].  von Neumann's
proof against hidden variables was in error.  Bell fought the 
misinterpretation
of his work from 1964 till the day he died.  Even in a gathering celebrating
his life work - his work was entirely mischaracterized.  Bohmian Mechanics
researchers were not among those invited to the celebration.  Another
slap in the face by establishment physics.

Dennis May

_________________________________________________________________
Rethink your business approach for the new year with the helpful tips here. 
http://special.msn.com/bcentral/prep04.armx



From scerir at libero.it  Sat Jan 17 08:04:12 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir at libero.it)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 09:04:12 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: Shadows of reality
Message-ID: <HRMJR0$6CB1C7FED4B1FED725A9ED55F37FA752@libero.it>

> In Bell's collected works on Quantum Mechanics "Speakable and
> Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics" published just before Bell
> died, he had not rejected Bohm.  The book you quoted from was
> an earlier work, which I have not read.  I would find it strange if
> Bell had rejected Bohm based on a careful reading of the later book.
> He called it a scandal within physics that Bohm's work is not being
> taught along side the standard QM approach.
> Dennis May

Einstein, after a very hot "tea-time" examination of Bohm's (realistic 
but non local) theory, said it was "cheap". And Bohm said that Einstein 
destroyed him, that afternoon (in Princeton I suppose). (Einstein himself
elaborated, in the late '20s a deterministic-hidden-variable theory, never
published, but rejected it exactly because it was non-local, rectius
"non-separable", thus useless for his purpose).

The problem concerning John Bell is that Everettistas say he was
a manyworlder, Bohmians say he was a realist of that kind,, even
Bohrians say he was a Copenhagenist since he wrote about measurement
that "the word has had such a damaging effect [that] it should be
banned altogether in quantum mechanics".

The late Bell liked the GWR approach, the "spontaneous
localizations theory (because it was relativistic,
on the contrary Bohmian mechanics is not so).

A good book, about Bell and his work, and future developments, is 
"Quantum Reflections", eds. Ellis and Amati, Cambridge U.P., 2000.





From scerir at libero.it  Sat Jan 17 08:26:27 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir at libero.it)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 09:26:27 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: Shadows of reality
Message-ID: <HRMKS3$C63499804049251B9DD96C7C8E89F312@libero.it>

> BTW, I suppose everyone has read Huw Price's argument (Time's Arrow and
> Archimedes' Point) that the viability of hidden variables is *not*
> obliterated by Bell theorem inequality violation?
 > Damien Broderick

Actually there are papers showing the possibility of hidden variables,
if one allows "negative measures" (negative probabilities). Notice
that these negative probabilities are hidden, you cannot reveal them
by experiment. Negative measures and time reversal (or time
symmetrical description) may be connected. Bell did not like
Price's arguments though. (Dirac was the first who spoke about
negative probabilities).
s.



From riel at surriel.com  Sat Jan 17 14:01:26 2004
From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 09:01:26 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] BrainGates being commerciallized
In-Reply-To: <20040114184337.96448.qmail@web80403.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040114184337.96448.qmail@web80403.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.55L.0401170900050.21924@imladris.surriel.com>

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Adrian Tymes wrote:

> Okay, granted, it'll take a few years to fully roll
> out to where any rich person can purchase one and the
> surgery to install, and probably many more before it's
> common.  And there's the issue of bandwidth: merely
> the equivalent of a joystick and a few buttons isn't
> that much,

Hmmmmm, time to start thinking about new editors and
other aspects of the user interface.

This is going to be interesting.

Rik
-- 
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sat Jan 17 14:06:15 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 06:06:15 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] ASTRO: Hubble fate sealed
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401170541440.12850-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Well, ashes to ashes and dust to dust.  NASA seems
to have sealed the fate of the Hubble...

NASA Cancels Trip to Supply Hubble, Sealing Early Doom
Dennis Overbye, Jan 17, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/17/science/17HUBB.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

Estimated end of its useful lifetime is 2007-2011 though gyroscope failures
could shorten that.

So it looks like for the near future what we have is:

Hubble: until 2007?: (was launched on Shuttle (STS-31) April 24, 1990)
SIRTF (Spitzer): Aug 2003 - ~2006; (launched on Delta II heavy)
  http://sirtf.caltech.edu/
Herschel: (2007-2010) (launch planned with Planck on Ariane 5)
  http://herschel.jpl.nasa.gov/herschel/index.html
NGST (Webb): Aug. 2011-~2021 (launch planned on Ariane 5)
  http://www.ngst.nasa.gov/

So it looks like from perhaps 2007 to 2011 the U.S. will have
minimal observational capability in space (the Herschel is
primarily an ESA mission).  It would also appear that we
are losing our ability to launch our own telescopes.

Robert




From jonkc at att.net  Sat Jan 17 15:37:47 2004
From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 10:37:47 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
References: <20040115174612.3057.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <001401c3dd10$03671b90$f8f44d0c@hal2001>

There had been much debate within NASA if there should be more visits to the
Hubble Space Telescope to maintain it after the one scheduled for next year.
Because it is one of the few NASA programs that actually produces science
the astronomical community had been lobbying hard for an extra visit in
about 2008 that would extend its useful life well beyond the end of the
decade. Yesterday NASA announced its decision, not only would be no extra
flight in 2008 but the scheduled one in 2005 was canceled too, this despite
the fact that they already spent  $200,000,000 developing new instruments
that were to be installed on Hubble next year.  NASA said it would cost
$500,000,000 to launch the shuttle to the Hubble and that's just too
expensive; instead NASA will develop an unmanned probe that would latch onto
Hubble, the probe would then fire its rocket to change its orbit so Hubble
would crash into the sea. To add insult to injury the $300,000,000 needed to
develop this assassin will come from NASA's astronomy budget.

Meanwhile NASA will continue to support the much much more expensive Space
Station so astronauts can perform science fair level experiments designed by
junior high school kids.

  John K Clark      jonkc at att.net






From wingcat at pacbell.net  Sat Jan 17 18:23:58 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 10:23:58 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
In-Reply-To: <001401c3dd10$03671b90$f8f44d0c@hal2001>
Message-ID: <20040117182358.75825.qmail@web80402.mail.yahoo.com>

--- John K Clark <jonkc at att.net> wrote:
> Yesterday NASA announced its decision, not
> only would be no extra
> flight in 2008 but the scheduled one in 2005 was
> canceled too, this despite
> the fact that they already spent  $200,000,000
> developing new instruments
> that were to be installed on Hubble next year.  NASA
> said it would cost
> $500,000,000 to launch the shuttle to the Hubble and
> that's just too
> expensive; instead NASA will develop an unmanned
> probe that would latch onto
> Hubble, the probe would then fire its rocket to
> change its orbit so Hubble
> would crash into the sea. To add insult to injury
> the $300,000,000 needed to
> develop this assassin will come from NASA's
> astronomy budget.

Citation?  I know some groups that would love to ride
NASA for this specifically provable bit of idiocy
("saving" $200M when they've already sunk that much
into the project).


From jonkc at att.net  Sat Jan 17 18:43:38 2004
From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 13:43:38 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
References: <20040117182358.75825.qmail@web80402.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <001201c3dd29$d4d25e60$a8f44d0c@hal2001>

"Adrian Tymes" <wingcat at pacbell.net>
 
> Citation? 
 
It's all on the front page of today's New York Times. 

   John K Clark      jonkc at att.net     

 

 





From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sat Jan 17 20:53:25 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 12:53:25 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
In-Reply-To: <001201c3dd29$d4d25e60$a8f44d0c@hal2001>
Message-ID: <20040117205325.80912.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>


--- John K Clark <jonkc at att.net> wrote:
> "Adrian Tymes" <wingcat at pacbell.net>
>  
> > Citation? 
>  
> It's all on the front page of today's New York Times.

Ah, well, there is a paragon of accuracy in reporting... ;)

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sat Jan 17 21:24:39 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 16:24:39 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
In-Reply-To: <20040117205325.80912.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <008e01c3dd40$54803680$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Mike Lorrey wrote,
> --- John K Clark <jonkc at att.net> wrote:
> > "Adrian Tymes" <wingcat at pacbell.net>
> >  
> > > Citation?
> >  
> > It's all on the front page of today's New York Times.
> 
> Ah, well, there is a paragon of accuracy in reporting... ;)

This story is real.  NASA is drastically cutting back many projects.
President Bush is asking them to cut back all projects not specifically part
of Bush's new space vision.  Look for more missions to be abandoned as well.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From asa at nada.kth.se  Sun Jan 18 02:46:54 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 03:46:54 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold
Message-ID: <4535.213.112.90.20.1074394014.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>


I *hope* I have finished this, so I can do the real work I desperately
need to do. But it has been too fun modelling the game theoretical aspects
of the common cold:
http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2004/01/cold_game_theory.html

One conclusion is that discounts on school fees for parents who keep sick
children home might have a huge effect on health across society.

-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From thespike at earthlink.net  Sun Jan 18 03:01:17 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 21:01:17 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold
References: <4535.213.112.90.20.1074394014.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <011201c3dd6f$59742c80$8f994a43@texas.net>

Ah, more *cold reductive reasoning*, eh, Mr. Spock?

Bring it on!

Damien Broderick



From maxm at mail.tele.dk  Sun Jan 18 12:07:04 2004
From: maxm at mail.tele.dk (Max M)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 13:07:04 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold
In-Reply-To: <4535.213.112.90.20.1074394014.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
References: <4535.213.112.90.20.1074394014.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <400A76E8.80602@mail.tele.dk>

Anders Sandberg wrote:

> Being a libertarian I believe that one can have contracts about nearly 
> everything, and I can certainly see and accept employment contracts 
> that contain things like this. People who infect me should really pay 
> for the losses they cause me. Since it is usually impossible to trace 
> them, it actually makes a lot of sense of making a redistribution as 
> above.


It is a bit amusing that the solutions to this kind of libertarian 
thinking can probably be implemented more easily in a more top-down 
governed society.

Like making people pay a fine for dropping of sick kids at the 
kindergarten, or implementing labor rules for keeping sick people at home.


regards Max M Rasmussen


From asa at nada.kth.se  Sun Jan 18 14:47:10 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 15:47:10 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold
In-Reply-To: <011201c3dd6f$59742c80$8f994a43@texas.net>
References: <4535.213.112.90.20.1074394014.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
	<011201c3dd6f$59742c80$8f994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <1227.213.112.90.103.1074437230.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>


Damien Broderick said:
> Ah, more *cold reductive reasoning*, eh, Mr. Spock?

Oh, it is just the cold equations.


And I agree with Max M, the results are somewhat less libertarian than I
would like. But it is better to get interesting results than just
rearrange preconceptions.

-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sun Jan 18 14:53:38 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 06:53:38 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold
In-Reply-To: <4535.213.112.90.20.1074394014.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <20040118145338.22244.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Anders Sandberg <asa at nada.kth.se> wrote:
> 
> I *hope* I have finished this, so I can do the real work I
> desperately
> need to do. But it has been too fun modelling the game theoretical
> aspects
> of the common cold:
> http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2004/01/cold_game_theory.html
> 
> One conclusion is that discounts on school fees for parents who keep
> sick children home might have a huge effect on health across society.

How about just keep all kids home and homeschool. What would be the
public health benefits of universal home schooling? How many adult work
days would be saved (i.e. increasing economic productivity) by
universal home schooling?

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sun Jan 18 15:58:53 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 07:58:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Space Combat sim 
Message-ID: <20040118155853.40282.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>

http://www.x-plane.com/SpaceCombat.html

Austin Meyer, creator of X-Plane, which list members have read me
praising in the past, has a space ship simulator out called Space
Combat. Like X-Plane, you can design your own space craft and simulate
them in the real laws of physics, not the bogus stuff you see with
video games (Meyer's physics models are what makes X-Plane the ONLY
consumer flight sim that is FAA certified for training. MS Flight Sim
is a game. X-Plane is a real simulator).

best of all, Space Combat only costs $19.99! Its a really sweet
program. I haven't had a lot of time to mess with it, but it is
accurate.

NOTE: Scaled Composites models SpaceShipOne in X-Plane.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From support at imminst.org  Sun Jan 18 19:13:39 2004
From: support at imminst.org (support at imminst.org)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 13:13:39 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] ImmInst Update
Message-ID: <400adae37b122@imminst.org>


Immortality Institute ~ For Infinite Lifespans
***********************
Mission: conquer the blight of involuntary death
Members: 1172
Full Members: 61


ImmInst Chat: Jan 18 - The Aging Disease
 Progeria 
***********************
Assistant Professor at the Pittsburgh Development Center, 
University of Pittsburgh, Antonei B. Csoka discusses his 
research of the premature aging disease, known as progeria.

Chat Time: Sun Jan 18 @ 8pm Eastern
More Info: http://imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=ST&f=63&t=2821


ImmInst Book Project
***********************
Authors offering to help thus far: 82
Artist offering to help thus far: 5
Articles contributed thus far: 64
Editing Team: 11
Publication: Spring 2004

Book Questions? email: book at imminst.org
More Info: http://www.imminst.org/book


ImmInst Support
***********************
http://imminst.org/become_imminst_fullmember




To be removed from all of our mailing lists, click here:
http://www.imminst.org/archive/mailinglists/mailinglists.php?p=mlist&rem=extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org


From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Sun Jan 18 20:16:49 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 14:16:49 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
References: <20040115174612.3057.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>
	<001401c3dd10$03671b90$f8f44d0c@hal2001>
Message-ID: <Law10-OE62JNwV9iU6K00033519@hotmail.com>

SO does this mean that they are all taking the "moon return" seriously? What
good is the Hubble if you have a moonbase? Couldn;t you put a much better
one on the moon and service it for much less than the Hubble as long as you
already have a base there?I thought we wanted people thinking "long-term"
instead of worrying about the short term results.
Kevin Freels


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John K Clark" <jonkc at att.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2004 9:37 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA


> There had been much debate within NASA if there should be more visits to
the
> Hubble Space Telescope to maintain it after the one scheduled for next
year.
> Because it is one of the few NASA programs that actually produces science
> the astronomical community had been lobbying hard for an extra visit in
> about 2008 that would extend its useful life well beyond the end of the
> decade. Yesterday NASA announced its decision, not only would be no extra
> flight in 2008 but the scheduled one in 2005 was canceled too, this
despite
> the fact that they already spent  $200,000,000 developing new instruments
> that were to be installed on Hubble next year.  NASA said it would cost
> $500,000,000 to launch the shuttle to the Hubble and that's just too
> expensive; instead NASA will develop an unmanned probe that would latch
onto
> Hubble, the probe would then fire its rocket to change its orbit so Hubble
> would crash into the sea. To add insult to injury the $300,000,000 needed
to
> develop this assassin will come from NASA's astronomy budget.
>
> Meanwhile NASA will continue to support the much much more expensive Space
> Station so astronauts can perform science fair level experiments designed
by
> junior high school kids.
>
>   John K Clark      jonkc at att.net
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan 18 20:44:49 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 15:44:49 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
In-Reply-To: <Law10-OE62JNwV9iU6K00033519@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <002701c3de03$edc2a350$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

By the way, speculation that NASA is the third agency in the
Defense/Homeland Department seems to have been confirmed.  A CNN report
today reveals that Northwest admits it also gave passenger information to
the government for data-mining to detect terrorists.  But what got my
interest was that the information was given to NASA and NASA was doing the
data-mining.  It appears that NASA is in charge of aviation safety and
anti-terrorism efforts in the skies.  They have been doing this since 9/11
and presumably will continue doing it.

NASA is now a Homeland/Defense agency and is part of the War on Terrorism.
It is canceling all projects to focus on a single mission.  That mission is
based on American superiority and pre-emptive strikes against other
countries.  We are no longer interested in international cooperation in
space (such as the International Space Station which we plan to abandon to
others).

All government space interests have now been diverted to military purposes.
The great militarization of space has begun.  This may be the greatest
threat to other space programs including any future transhumanist efforts.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From wingcat at pacbell.net  Sun Jan 18 20:49:49 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 12:49:49 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
In-Reply-To: <001201c3dd29$d4d25e60$a8f44d0c@hal2001>
Message-ID: <20040118204949.55397.qmail@web80402.mail.yahoo.com>

--- John K Clark <jonkc at att.net> wrote:
> "Adrian Tymes" <wingcat at pacbell.net>
> > Citation? 
>  
> It's all on the front page of today's New York
> Times. 

Yeah; the message noting it didn't reach my inbox
until
after I'd asked for the cite.


From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it  Sun Jan 18 21:32:52 2004
From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 22:32:52 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Space Combat sim 
In-Reply-To: <20040118155853.40282.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040118155853.40282.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401182232080.14479@hercules>

On Sun, 18 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:

>http://www.x-plane.com/SpaceCombat.html
>

Watch out, the demo version resized my desktop screen to 1024x768 without
warning and messed up all my desktop icon positions.

Alfio


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sun Jan 18 21:44:02 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 13:44:02 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
In-Reply-To: <002701c3de03$edc2a350$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040118214402.98066.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> By the way, speculation that NASA is the third agency in the
> Defense/Homeland Department seems to have been confirmed.  A CNN
> report today reveals that Northwest admits it also gave passenger
> information to
> the government for data-mining to detect terrorists.  But what got my
> interest was that the information was given to NASA and NASA was
> doing the data-mining.  It appears that NASA is in charge of
> aviation safety and anti-terrorism efforts in the skies. 
> They have been doing this since 9/11 and presumably will
> continue doing it.

Holy men in black, Harvey. You mean I can finally fulfill my lifes
dream to work for NASA by getting a job as a baggage screener??? ;)

> 
> NASA is now a Homeland/Defense agency and is part of the War on
> Terrorism. It is canceling all projects to focus on a single
> mission.  That mission is based on American superiority and pre-
> emptive strikes against other countries.  We are no longer
> interested in international cooperation in space (such as the
> International Space Station which we plan to abandon to
> others).

Ah, so Blade of the Most Merciful must be behind al Qaeda.... Where oh
where is John Strang when you need him?

> 
> All government space interests have now been diverted to military
> purposes. The great militarization of space has begun.  This may
> be the greatest threat to other space programs including any
> future transhumanist efforts.

Depends on what the purpose of NASAs actions are (I'd love to see some
documentation of this, Harvey, because otherwise you are sounding
rather paranoid here). WHY would NASA be involved in aerospace national
security? Is it that the Defense department has been determined to be
riddled by muslim spies? Is it that NASA is the least dominated by
political hacks? Be an intel analyst here and figure it out.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sun Jan 18 21:46:37 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 13:46:37 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Space Combat sim 
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401182232080.14479@hercules>
Message-ID: <20040118214637.98404.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Alfio Puglisi <puglisi at arcetri.astro.it> wrote:
> On Sun, 18 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> 
> >http://www.x-plane.com/SpaceCombat.html
> >
> 
> Watch out, the demo version resized my desktop screen to 1024x768
> without warning and messed up all my desktop icon positions.

Really, WOW, Austin is yapping about how HE doesn't have persistent
development bugs because HE develops his sims on Mac...

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
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From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Sun Jan 18 22:18:33 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 17:18:33 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
In-Reply-To: <20040118214402.98066.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <002b01c3de11$05b6eb30$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Mike Lorrey wrote,
> Depends on what the purpose of NASAs actions are (I'd love to 
> see some documentation of this, Harvey, because otherwise you 
> are sounding rather paranoid here).

The two things are not mutually exclusive!  :-)

The CNN story that got my attention was at
<http://www.cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/01/18/northwest.privacy.ap/index.html>.

Some specific quotes:

"the NASA program to help the government's search for technology to improve
aviation security."

"NASA said it used the information to investigate whether 'data mining' of
the records could improve assessments of threats posed by passengers,
according to the agency's written responses to questions."

Northwest airlines said "We were providing data to a government agency to
conduct scientific research related to aviation security."

JetBlue turned over records to a "secret security project conducted by the
Defense Department"

The article later refers to "NASA's secret security project".

> WHY would NASA be involved in aerospace national security?

The entire homeland defense department was a way for Bush to cancel programs
he didn't like and fund programs he did like, without involving congress.
It was an executive decision.  I think they just co-opted NASA's budget to
fund more homeland defense stuff.

A quick search on "NASA and Homeland Defense" shows that this is not a new
idea.  One site,
<http://www1.msfc.nasa.gov/NEWSROOM/NSSTC/news/releases/2003/N03-003.html>
shows that "earth defense" from asteroids has been merged with "homeland
defense".  Dr. Jonathan W. Campbell was appointed last June to manage
"several Earth-defense and homeland defense research projects...."

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sun Jan 18 23:33:06 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 15:33:06 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
In-Reply-To: <002b01c3de11$05b6eb30$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401181514370.28621-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Sun, 18 Jan 2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote:

> The entire homeland defense department was a way for Bush to cancel programs
> he didn't like and fund programs he did like, without involving congress.
> It was an executive decision.  I think they just co-opted NASA's budget to
> fund more homeland defense stuff.

I'm not so sure about this Harvey.  If I recall there was a big debate
about which departments to merge into Homeland Security (to be expected
given turf wars).  I don't know how this ended up but I'm reasonably sure
that Congress had to authorize budgets in any case.  So the only way
to make this case would be a detailed analysis of budgets of individual
departments pre H.S. and post H.S.

Now, I'm reasonably certain that NASA investigators do apply for grants
from other government agencies (NSF, etc.) as well as other funding
sources.  The mix of public and private funds on any specific project
may be difficult to determine unless one requests an FOI disclosure
for approved grant applications and internal budgets.

Now, I suspect what may have happened is (a) someone within NASA saw
an opportunity to make a job for themselves in the Dept. of H.S. and
went for it; or (b) someone within the Dept. of H.S. saw an opportunity
to use NASA resources and perhaps "cover" to avoid public awareness.

Obviously to do the type of massive data mining discussed in matching
airline passenger records with private databases and pattern searching
within those requires some heavy duty computational capacity.  Now
there is obviously a lot of this capacity at certain sites around
Washington D.C. but the agencies responsible for this capacity
would immediately come under scrutiny by watchdog organizations
if they requested such information.

NASA Ames is one of the few sites with the supercomputer capacity
to deal with such a large amount of information (I've seen the
computers) which is somewhat secure yet would not immediately
trigger red flags.  A more interesting question might be *how*
precisely was terabytes(?) of information moved from the airline
computers to the government computers for data mining???  And then
of course you can ask whether it stayed on only NASA computers?

You could have an FOI act fun-festival with this story and related
efforts to implement CAPPS II.

Robert




From asa at nada.kth.se  Mon Jan 19 11:15:50 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 12:15:50 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold
In-Reply-To: <20040118145338.22244.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040118145338.22244.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <200401191215.50559.asa@nada.kth.se>

s?ndagen den 18 januari 2004 15.53 wrote Mike Lorrey:
> --- Anders Sandberg <asa at nada.kth.se> wrote:
> > One conclusion is that discounts on school fees for parents who keep
> > sick children home might have a huge effect on health across society.
>
> How about just keep all kids home and homeschool. What would be the
> public health benefits of universal home schooling? How many adult work
> days would be saved (i.e. increasing economic productivity) by
> universal home schooling?

How does homschooling really work? We do not have it here in Sweden, so I have 
no intuition of its effect on my model. In particular, does parents stay at 
home teaching (full time or partial time)? How large are the economic 
savings? 

My guess is that keeping children away from schools would lower the infection 
risk and hence have a significant effect on health. But the utility of 
parents might be lowered since the cost of doing homeschooling could be 
greater than the benefit from keeping healthier - and others could play free 
riders by gaining the benefit of lowered infections without doing anything. 
Of course, this ignores that homeschooling very well could have positive 
utility too. 

As for savings, I found this abstract that suggests that even small decreases 
of colds would be a huge economic effect. However, the costs get distributed 
quite widely:

J Occup Environ Med. 2002 Sep; 44(9): 822-9. Related Articles, Links 

Productivity losses related to the common cold.

Bramley TJ, Lerner D, Sames M.

Health-related productivity assessments typically focus on chronic conditions; 
however, acute conditions, particularly colds, have the potential to cause 
substantial health-related productivity losses because of their high 
prevalence in working-age groups. This article presents the findings of a 
study conducted to estimate productivity loss due to cold by using a 
telephone-administered survey that measured three sources of loss: 
absenteeism, on-the-job productivity, and caregiver absenteeism. Each cold 
experienced by a working adult caused an average of 8.7 lost work hours (2.8 
absenteeism hours; 5.9 hours of on-the-job loss), and 1.2 work hours were 
lost because of attending to children under the age of 13 who were suffering 
from colds. We conclude that the economic cost of lost productivity due to 
the common cold approaches $25 billion, of which $16.6 billion is attributed 
to on-the-job productivity loss, $8 billion is attributed to absenteeism, and 
$230 million is attributed to caregiver absenteeism.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the effect was larger than alcohol losses:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8528030&dopt=Abstract

-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Mon Jan 19 14:34:55 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 06:34:55 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold
In-Reply-To: <200401191215.50559.asa@nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <20040119143455.97086.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Anders Sandberg <asa at nada.kth.se> wrote:
> s?ndagen den 18 januari 2004 15.53 wrote Mike Lorrey:
> > What would be the public health benefits of universal home
> > schooling? How many adult work
> > days would be saved (i.e. increasing economic productivity) by
> > universal home schooling?
> 
> How does homschooling really work? We do not have it here in Sweden,
> so I have no intuition of its effect on my model. In particular,
> does parents stay at home teaching (full time or partial time)?
> How large are the economic savings? 

Actually, David Lubkin is probably the best reference on this list for
these questions, as he homeschooled his daughter (as a single dad,
too). From people I've talked to, home schooling takes far less of the
day than children spend in school. Most school time is babysitting and
horsing around.

Parents who homeschool their kids either run a one earner family, or
the primary educator works full or part time in the evening when the
other parent is home. Single parents who homeschool typically either
work out of the home (as David does), or work full time and manage to
teach their kids to self-study.

Given the broad variability in family structures, attaining universal
homeschooling may not be practical (especially given the feminist
pressure to have a career that many women feel). As an solution for
those who cannot or will not homeschool, I'd suggest that monolithic
schools serving whole towns or regions be broken up and a return to the
one room schoolhouse be sought. This would concentrate kids in the same
neighborhood only and separate them from other neighborhoods. Kids in
the same neighborhood would likely be playmates out of school (and thus
act as a vector anyways).

I also think that the primary beneficiaries, health-wise and
economically, of the reduction in disease spreading, would be those who
need it most: young families who can generally not afford many sick
days off for the wage earners. I know many young parents who say
they've never gotten as many colds in their lives as they did when
their kids started going to school.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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From neptune at superlink.net  Mon Jan 19 14:44:22 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 09:44:22 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold
References: <20040118145338.22244.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
	<200401191215.50559.asa@nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <005901c3de9a$bb35c920$a0cd5cd1@neptune>

On Monday, January 19, 2004 6:15 AM Anders Sandberg asa at nada.kth.se
wrote:
> How does homschooling really work? We
> do not have it here in Sweden, so I have
> no intuition of its effect on my model. In
> particular, does parents stay at home
> teaching (full time or partial time)? How
> large are the economic savings?

This depends.  Part of the reason both parents work in many instances in
the US is to pay taxes.  Not that they consciously think this, but the
decrease in funds due to high taxation -- okay, high historically by US
standards -- puts pressure on both parents to work.  No doubt, part of
the high taxation is due to funding public schooling, though I'm not so
sure reducing this cost would lower taxes all that much.  (Even so,
where I live, public schools spend roughly $11,000US per year per
student.  The best private schools in my state are around $7,000US per
year per student.  I think the median private school is around $2,000
per year per student.  I bring this up because the choices in education
in a free market would be myriad.)

> My guess is that keeping children away
> from schools would lower the infection
> risk and hence have a significant effect
> on health. But the utility of parents might
> be lowered since the cost of doing
> homeschooling could be greater than the
> benefit from keeping healthier - and
> others could play free riders by gaining the
> benefit of lowered infections without doing
> anything. Of course, this ignores that
> homeschooling very well could have positive
> utility too.

This is to ignore the free rider problem inherent in public schooling --
at least, in how it is funded in most places.  Others pay -- including
those who don't have children and those whose children are either past
school age or who do not use public schools -- for schools as well, so
this lowers the costs of parenting when the parents use public schools.
Parents who on free market would have had to pay the costs of schooling
children are able to redistribute those costs.  Hence, they are free
riders to a large extent.

Some might say this is not so, but anyone who works in the average
company in the US hears the parents grumble when there's a school
holiday but the parents have to work.  That usually means they have to
find and even pay a babysitter.  The public school baby sitter is
already paid for, in their eyes -- and, as we've seen, it's paid for by
others to some extent.

Cheers!

Dan
  See "The Hills of Rendome" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Rendome.html



From amara at amara.com  Mon Jan 19 14:06:40 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 16:06:40 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] ASTRO: Hubble fate sealed
Message-ID: <p05100307bc3193aa6db8@[150.146.134.133]>



Robert Bradbury:
>Well, ashes to ashes and dust to dust. NASA seems
>to have sealed the fate of the Hubble...

very bad day (and the next months, years) for astronomy.

I think that if you are not a Mars or a Moon specialist, it is not a
good time to be an astronomer.  Unfortunately, ESA looks to be following
NASA in this respect.

However, at least, ESA has confirmed the launch of Rosetta for next
month. Let's hope that they (and NASA) don't turn Cassini off.


Amara

P.S. Today, I celebrate one year living and working in Italia.
(celebrating that I made the largest mistake of my life, and
I didn't run. Peanut butter cookies for my coworkers!)

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF),
Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR,
Roma, ITALIA     Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Mon Jan 19 16:34:24 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 08:34:24 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] HEALTH: Cancer - step by step
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401190825530.16501-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


As the Three Stooges once pointed out:

"Slowly I turned... Step by Step... Inch by Inch..."

Recently Hoffmann-La Roche scientists have demonstrated
molecules that may interfere with the MDM2 gene product
which in turn interferes with the action of p53 in
cancerous cells.  (p53 is considered one of the genome
guardians that normally would promote cells that are
cancerous committing suicide.)

See:
In Vivo Activation of the p53 Pathway by Small-Molecule Antagonists of MDM2.
Vassilev, L. T., et al. Science 2 Jan 2004 (Epub).

Abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14704432&dopt=Abstract

> MDM2 binds the p53 tumor suppressor protein with high affinity and
> negatively modulates its transcriptional activity and stability.
> Overexpression of MDM2, found in many human tumors, effectively impairs
> p53 function. Inhibition of MDM2-p53 interaction can stabilize p53 and
> may offer a novel strategy for cancer therapy. Here we identify potent
> and selective small-molecule antagonists of MDM2 and confirm their mode
> of action through crystal structures of complexes. These compounds bind
> MDM2 in the p53-binding pocket and activate the p53 pathway in cancer
> cells, leading to cell cycle arrest, apoptosis and growth inhibition of
> human tumor xenografts in nude mice.

This is a good example of how cancer will be conquered at the molecular
level.

Robert




From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Mon Jan 19 17:20:08 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 11:20:08 -0600
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common
	cold)
References: <20040118145338.22244.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com><200401191215.50559.asa@nada.kth.se>
	<005901c3de9a$bb35c920$a0cd5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <LAW10-OE4133mH9exWG0000a5b2@hotmail.com>

>Others pay -- including
>those who don't have children and those whose children are either past
>school age or who do not use public schools -- for schools as well, so
>this lowers the costs of parenting when the parents use public schools.

Let's not forget that even those who have no children were once children
themselves and most likely benefited from the school system.

Also, it is important to realize the benefit of having an "educated"
populations (I use the word educated VERY loosely here). It is a shame that
more parents simply don't get even slightly involved in their children's
education. The resource is there, paid for by everyone, and yet many parents
just don't seem to give a damn! Most of them are like this because of how
their parents were. It's a vicious cycle of stupidity!

Sorry for the slight venting. This touches rather close to home. My children
go to a public school. They are from a previous marriage and she had
custody. They are 8 and 7 yr old girls. Their mother is a meth dealer and
could hardly pay attention. The girls were getting D's and F's in science
and math (N's for the yoiunger girl). They went to schools in crappy clothes
with holes in them even though I paid $207 per WEEK in child support!

She was finally busted for Meth in November with the kids in the house. I
finally received custody of the girls. They were such a mess! Now they have
never been happier. Their counselor called me the other day and informed me
that if they just keep doing what they have been doing since they moved
here, they will get A's in every subject! All they needed was a little
homework help, and some concern for their education. I think the real
difference is that I care. Nothing more. Mom didn't care, so why should
they? They prefer living here and Dad cares about their education, so they
do too!

(On a side note, can you believe that they have this whole screwed up idea
that Santa Clause and God are real? How can someone teach religion to
children and be such a stupid meth-head trashy mother at the same time? SO
now I have my chance to raise nice atheist educated girls and turn them
loose on the world. The two messages I have to teach them are "You can be an
atheist and be a good person too." and "Don't grow up to be one of the
stupid people" )

Anyways, I really don;t think our educational system is all that bad. Yes,
it could be better, but it can only be as good as the people that are in it.
I don't know the number, but I would assume that hundreds of thousands are
involved in the educational system from the administrative level down. The
odds are that a portion of these people are idiots.( There must be a lot of
idiots in the public school system.) This would be offset if parents simply
gave a shit about their kids.

Kevin Freels


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Technotranscendence" <neptune at superlink.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 8:44 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold


> On Monday, January 19, 2004 6:15 AM Anders Sandberg asa at nada.kth.se
> wrote:
> > How does homschooling really work? We
> > do not have it here in Sweden, so I have
> > no intuition of its effect on my model. In
> > particular, does parents stay at home
> > teaching (full time or partial time)? How
> > large are the economic savings?
>
> This depends.  Part of the reason both parents work in many instances in
> the US is to pay taxes.  Not that they consciously think this, but the
> decrease in funds due to high taxation -- okay, high historically by US
> standards -- puts pressure on both parents to work.  No doubt, part of
> the high taxation is due to funding public schooling, though I'm not so
> sure reducing this cost would lower taxes all that much.  (Even so,
> where I live, public schools spend roughly $11,000US per year per
> student.  The best private schools in my state are around $7,000US per
> year per student.  I think the median private school is around $2,000
> per year per student.  I bring this up because the choices in education
> in a free market would be myriad.)
>
> > My guess is that keeping children away
> > from schools would lower the infection
> > risk and hence have a significant effect
> > on health. But the utility of parents might
> > be lowered since the cost of doing
> > homeschooling could be greater than the
> > benefit from keeping healthier - and
> > others could play free riders by gaining the
> > benefit of lowered infections without doing
> > anything. Of course, this ignores that
> > homeschooling very well could have positive
> > utility too.
>
> This is to ignore the free rider problem inherent in public schooling --
> at least, in how it is funded in most places.  Others pay -- including
> those who don't have children and those whose children are either past
> school age or who do not use public schools -- for schools as well, so
> this lowers the costs of parenting when the parents use public schools.
> Parents who on free market would have had to pay the costs of schooling
> children are able to redistribute those costs.  Hence, they are free
> riders to a large extent.
>
> Some might say this is not so, but anyone who works in the average
> company in the US hears the parents grumble when there's a school
> holiday but the parents have to work.  That usually means they have to
> find and even pay a babysitter.  The public school baby sitter is
> already paid for, in their eyes -- and, as we've seen, it's paid for by
> others to some extent.
>
> Cheers!
>
> Dan
>   See "The Hills of Rendome" at:
> http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Rendome.html
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Mon Jan 19 17:38:04 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 12:38:04 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Atkins Diet Change
Message-ID: <005c01c3deb3$0131f7b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

The promoters of the Atkins diet finally acknowledge that Atkins dieters
need to cut back on meat and saturated fats.  The group now claims that
Atkins never intended people to eat so much red meat or saturated fats, and
that people misunderstood the message to say that they could eat high
amounts of these foods without consequences.

See
<http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/diet.fitness/01/19/atkins.reut/index.html>.


This fits in with my nutritional research.  Low carbs are fine, but you also
need low fat, especially saturated fats.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Mon Jan 19 17:47:21 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 09:47:21 -0800 (PST)
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory of
	common cold)
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-OE4133mH9exWG0000a5b2@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20040119174721.31070.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Kevin Freels <kevinfreels at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >Others pay -- including
> >those who don't have children and those whose children are either
> past
> >school age or who do not use public schools -- for schools as well,
> so
> >this lowers the costs of parenting when the parents use public
> schools.
> 
> Let's not forget that even those who have no children were once
> children themselves and most likely benefited from the school system.

Actually, most states give tax rebates to senior citizens (in this
case, typically people over 50 or 55) who no longer have stay-at-home
children. Some states issue blanket exemptions for residencies that
require that all tenants have no minor children.

The primary people who pay taxes for education without benefit are
those who don't have kids.

> 
> Also, it is important to realize the benefit of having an "educated"
> populations (I use the word educated VERY loosely here). It is a
> shame that more parents simply don't get even slightly involved
> in their children's education. The resource is there, paid for
> by everyone, and yet many parents just don't seem to give a damn!
> Most of them are like this because of how their parents were. It's
> a vicious cycle of stupidity!

It isn't that at all. It is that the humongous taxes of today prevent
parents from having the time to get involved.

Besides, this is outside the scope of the issue being discussed, unless
you want to present evidence about the monetary benefits of low quality
public education outweighing the benefits of proven superior home
schooling and private education, in addition to the health benefits
that home schooling provides.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Mon Jan 19 17:51:54 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 09:51:54 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Atkins Diet Change
In-Reply-To: <005c01c3deb3$0131f7b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040119175154.73995.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> The promoters of the Atkins diet finally acknowledge that Atkins
> dieters need to cut back on meat and saturated fats. 

Please be more accurate, as you are below. They say that you get better
results if you don't eat as much RED meat.

> The group now claims that
> Atkins never intended people to eat so much red meat or saturated
> fats, and
> that people misunderstood the message to say that they could eat high
> amounts of these foods without consequences. 
> This fits in with my nutritional research.  Low carbs are fine, but
> you also need low fat, especially saturated fats.

Depends on the age of the person. I would disagree with children and
seniors. As I've detailed here, and Robert has concurred, there is
evidence that low-fat diets can have an impact on brain health, with
potential for encephalopathy.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From nanowave at shaw.ca  Mon Jan 19 18:00:40 2004
From: nanowave at shaw.ca (Russell Evermore)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 10:00:40 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] possible Stephen Hawking assault(s) - sheesh!
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401190825530.16501-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <000e01c3deb6$26cba400$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>

CAMBRIDGE, England - Police are investigating an allegation of assault on
wheelchair-bound astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, news reports said Monday...

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/breaking_news/7746848.htm



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Mon Jan 19 18:13:26 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 13:13:26 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Atkins Diet Change
In-Reply-To: <20040119175154.73995.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <005f01c3deb7$f2a532c0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Mike Lorrey wrote,
> I would disagree with children and seniors.
> As I've detailed here, and Robert has 
> concurred, there is evidence that low-fat
> diets can have an impact on brain health,
> with potential for encephalopathy.

Nobody is talking about children or seniors.  For healthy adults, low-fat is
good.  Since transhumanists are no longer children and will hopefully avoid
old age, it seems that the low-fat diet, as described in Kurzweil's Ten
Percent Solution, remains the transhumanist diet (along with calorie
restriction).  I think the people reading this group have a much greater
risk of heart-attack than they do of having poor brain health.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Mon Jan 19 18:15:54 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 13:15:54 -0500
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory ofcommon
	cold)
In-Reply-To: <20040119174721.31070.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <006001c3deb8$4b8c4ae0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Mike Lorrey wrote,
> Actually, most states give tax rebates to senior citizens (in 
> this case, typically people over 50 or 55) who no longer have 
> stay-at-home children. Some states issue blanket exemptions 
> for residencies that require that all tenants have no minor children.

I have never heard of this.  Does that mean gay homeowners can get special
tax breaks for not having children?  :-)

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From megao at sasktel.net  Mon Jan 19 18:19:14 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 12:19:14 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] public view on  healthspan VS lifespan
Message-ID: <400C1FA2.6840FC2A@sasktel.net>

As I was working away I heard a health item on TV in the background.

"If (""anti-oxidants like Vitamin E, Anti-inflammatories and
anti-oxidative stress agents and plaque antibodies"") therapies extended
the lives of alzheimer's patients by 5 years  the disease would be
reduced by 50% and if the disease was put off for 10 years alzheimer's
would be reduced by 100%"

What they meant is that other diseases would  take over as the primary
cause of death.
The way it was worded showed that it was a given that  the age of death
was considered to remain static and independant of health care
interventions.

Morris



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Mon Jan 19 18:23:29 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 10:23:29 -0800 (PST)
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory ofcommon
	cold)
In-Reply-To: <006001c3deb8$4b8c4ae0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040119182329.18838.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> Mike Lorrey wrote,
> > Actually, most states give tax rebates to senior citizens (in 
> > this case, typically people over 50 or 55) who no longer have 
> > stay-at-home children. Some states issue blanket exemptions 
> > for residencies that require that all tenants have no minor
> children.
> 
> I have never heard of this.  Does that mean gay homeowners can get
> special
> tax breaks for not having children?  :-)

Sorry, I meant to say seniors who have no minor children...

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From neptune at superlink.net  Mon Jan 19 18:34:59 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 13:34:59 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Public Schools
References: <20040118145338.22244.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com><200401191215.50559.asa@nada.kth.se><005901c3de9a$bb35c920$a0cd5cd1@neptune>
	<LAW10-OE4133mH9exWG0000a5b2@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <012701c3deba$f2b46da0$a0cd5cd1@neptune>

On Monday, January 19, 2004 12:20 PM Kevin Freels
kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote:
>> Others pay -- including those who don't
>> have children and those whose children
>> are either past school age or who do
>> not use public schools -- for schools as
>> well, so this lowers the costs of
>> parenting when the parents use public
>> schools.
>
> Let's not forget that even those who have
> no children were once children themselves
> and most likely benefited from the school
> system.

First, you don't know for every last person.  Someone who is
homeschooled or went to private school, e.g., would not fit in the
above.  Someone who was not schooled at all -- as some foreigners would
be in the US and some other marginal people -- would also not have
benefited.

Second, it's questionable what the benefit is, especially since
schooling where I live is mandatory.  Under such circumstances, one
can't be forced to repay for a "benefit" one was forced to receive.  The
economics of such forced benefits, too, often makes them less than
optimal.  Why?  Any compulsory system is bound to decouple costs and
benefits -- and this has an impact on quality.  Those forced to use such
a system are, after all, forced to make a choice they wouldn't
otherwise, so it's already suboptimal -- at least, ex ante.

Third, let me go along with you and say it is a benefit -- for the
student.  Then that benefit should be somewhat quantifiable.  After a
certain period, one would have to say, "That individual paid back for
what he got out of the system and does owe anymore," no?  Or is this to
be an unlimited claim on every person?

> Also, it is important to realize the benefit
> of having an "educated" populations (I use
> the word educated VERY loosely here).

Clarify that benefit and what you mean exactly by education.  In my
experience, homeschooled and privately schooled children tend to be much
smarter, less violent, and more civilized than public school children.
I don't know if anyone's done a study.  Some might say that's because
public schools have to take everyone, BUT my experience is with most
public school children I've been around -- not necessary the dregs and
delinquents.  Even just on that level, I noticed marked differences.  (I
admit, I've only met a few homeschooled children, so my "sample" is much
smaller and probably not as telling.)

> It is a shame that more parents simply
> don't get even slightly involved in their
> children's education.

It's a shame so many people have children who do not want to take proper
care of them but look for the state to do that.

> The resource is there, paid for by everyone,
> and yet many parents just don't seem to give
> a damn! Most of them are like this because
> of how their parents were. It's a vicious
> cycle of stupidity!

Continuing mandatory public education only reinforces the cycle.

> Sorry for the slight venting. This touches
> rather close to home. My children go to a
> public school. They are from a previous
> marriage and she had custody. They are
> 8 and 7 yr old girls. Their mother is a
> meth dealer and could hardly pay attention.
> The girls were getting D's and F's in
> science and math (N's for the yoiunger
> girl). They went to schools in crappy clothes
> with holes in them even though I paid $207
> per WEEK in child support!

I can understand your frustration, but this seems to more a problem with
child custody laws than anything else.

> She was finally busted for Meth in November
> with the kids in the house. I finally received
> custody of the girls. They were such a mess!
> Now they have never been happier. Their
> counselor called me the other day and
> informed me that if they just keep doing what
> they have been doing since they moved here,
> they will get A's in every subject! All they
> needed was a little homework help, and
> some concern for their education. I think the
> real difference is that I care. Nothing more.
> Mom didn't care, so why should they? They
> prefer living here and Dad cares about their
> education, so they do too!

Makes sense to me.

> Anyways, I really don;t think our educational
> system is all that bad. Yes, it could be better,
> but it can only be as good as the people that
> are in it.  I don't know the number, but I would
> assume that hundreds of thousands are
> involved in the educational system from the
> administrative level down. The odds are that
> a portion of these people are idiots.( There
> must be a lot of idiots in the public school
> system.) This would be offset if parents simply
> gave a shit about their kids.

It would help if those of us who don't like or want the public education
system weren't forced to pay for it or send our children to it.  The
problem is not that the system is run by evil inhuman monsters.  The
problem is instead that the system rests on compulsion both for funding
and for enrollment.  Remove the compulsion is all I ask...

Cheers!

Dan
  See "The Hills of Rendome" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Rendome.html



From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it  Mon Jan 19 18:43:19 2004
From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 19:43:19 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] ASTRO: Hubble fate sealed
In-Reply-To: <p05100307bc3193aa6db8@[150.146.134.133]>
References: <p05100307bc3193aa6db8@[150.146.134.133]>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401191939150.23327@hercules>

On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Amara Graps wrote:

>However, at least, ESA has confirmed the launch of Rosetta for next
>month. Let's hope that they (and NASA) don't turn Cassini off.

Hey, I designed a *very* small part of the Cassini data receiver (that
will work here on Earth, not on Saturn). If the probe will be turned off,
it's a great loss, but at least they will not find that nothing works
thanks to my errors in the design :))
Amara, is this bit about turning Cassini off just random talking, or do
you have some information? Cassini already spent billions of $$, and it
makes no sense to stop now that it's almost on target.

Ciao,
Alfio


From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Mon Jan 19 19:05:20 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 13:05:20 -0600
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory ofcommon
	cold)
References: <20040119174721.31070.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Law10-OE44I0Z2Ex93K0000fb59@hotmail.com>


> >
> > Also, it is important to realize the benefit of having an "educated"
> > populations (I use the word educated VERY loosely here). It is a
> > shame that more parents simply don't get even slightly involved
> > in their children's education. The resource is there, paid for
> > by everyone, and yet many parents just don't seem to give a damn!
> > Most of them are like this because of how their parents were. It's
> > a vicious cycle of stupidity!
>
> It isn't that at all. It is that the humongous taxes of today prevent
> parents from having the time to get involved.

I wish I could believe that. After being a store manager for Rent-A-Center
(I did this for 6 years before I realized that Rent-A-Center was
contributing to the problem and quit) and then going through what I went
through and speaking with various counselors and child protective services,
I have found this to be a lot more common that I had previously thought
possible. There is a class of people in this country who don;t care a lick
for their kids, nor for themselves. They throw trash in their yards and on
their floors, they spend their days sleeping and their nights drugging. They
have babies that run around playing in the garbage in the house with diapers
that have been full for hours and are spilling over. They don't bathe, but
they do have enough money to pay Rent-A-Center $52.00 per WEEK to have a big
screen television, playstation, DVD player, and $2000 worth of chrome wheels
on their car.  These people simply don't care. They exist, whether we want
to acknowledge it or not, and they are reproducing rapidly. Most of the
filth is simply a matter of choosing to clean. It's not their taxes. It is
the way they were raised and/or their poor understanding of what they are
capab;e of. Many bought their Big screen TV with YOUR tax money. I have been
in HUNDREDS of these houses over the years. Most people can hardly believe
me when I tell the the stories of how some of these people choose to live. I
feel so terrible for their children!

I think that if more parents simply became a bit more involved, it would
drastically alter the outcome of their children's education. If I were
home-schooling, I would have to cover the basics as well as the other things
I want to teach them. In short, if parents treated the public school as a
supplement to their children's education rather than relying on it to
provide all of their education, both  the children and parents benefit much
more than if they were relying on home-schooling alone. With parents as
those I described above, this is simply not an option. Too many kids would
come out if it with little or no education whatsoever except what they learn
from the TV.

Personally, I like the idea of a tax credit system that rewards those that
home-school, but it would have to be administered in such a way to ensure
that the children are actually being home-schooled rather than just taken
out of school so their parents can buy more drugs.

Besides, this is outside the scope of the issue being discussed, unless
> you want to present evidence about the monetary benefits of low quality
> public education outweighing the benefits of proven superior home
> schooling and private education, in addition to the health benefits
> that home schooling provides.
>
Actually, that's why I changed the subject line to a new thread. :-)


From hartmut.prochaska at gmx.net  Mon Jan 19 19:58:23 2004
From: hartmut.prochaska at gmx.net (Hartmut)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 20:58:23 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Fermi Paradox and Simulation Argument
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401101330170.10907-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401101330170.10907-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <200401182237.14834.hartmut.prochaska@gmx.net>

Hi,

> The key word in this sentence is "appear".  If, as Milan Cirkovic has
> proposed the best computational location for MBrains is intergalactic space
> (which is good if one believes the dispersal/stealth and hazard avoidance
> arguments as well) then there is very little evidence that would argue
> against the fact that shortly after attaining XYZBrain status such
> superintelligences leave their galaxies.  There may even be some evidence
> *for* this scenario in the missing dark matter/dark energy.

perhaps we should take a sharp look at the galactic poles with hubble before 
it dives back to earth. Because at the poles you get the low temperatures for 
computation and also the needed mater deliverd to you for practical no costs 
by the jets of the local black hole. Just call "7777 galactic rim" .

cheers
Hartmut

-- 
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who
said it--no matter if I have said it--unless it agrees
with your own reason and your common sense."
                         Buddha 




From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Mon Jan 19 20:09:32 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 14:09:32 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Public Schools
References: <20040118145338.22244.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com><200401191215.50559.asa@nada.kth.se><005901c3de9a$bb35c920$a0cd5cd1@neptune><LAW10-OE4133mH9exWG0000a5b2@hotmail.com>
	<012701c3deba$f2b46da0$a0cd5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <Law10-OE27BNEnKvTPF00034277@hotmail.com>

Wait a minute. I think we may be on the same page here except for one thing.
Are you saying that public education is compulsory in your state? In
Indiana, home schooling is already an option that a parent can take. I think
there is even a division of the school system that will assist a parent if
they don;t know how to get started. I've known several people who benefitted
from home-schooling.

Also, I never meant to say that home schooling was wrong, bad, or otherwise
inferior to public education. My point was that the public school system
must be there as an option as well since there are many who either can't or
won;t home-school. Then there was the general complaining about how some
parents could improve their children's education by simply being more
involved. The public benefits from the availability of public education in
the long run because many children would not learn enough to even do labor
or count money if they didn't have it available. These children would
forever be on the public dole. I thought you were making a case for
elimination of the public school system. I realize how it has contributed to
the cycle of dependency, but that cycle is there and could only be removed
by a long term reduction in dependency through several generations.

As for paying for it, I would rather pay for public education and have an
option to home school combined with a tax-credit than continue to foot the
bill for highly marked up big screen TVs. I don;t even have one!
Kevin Freels

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Technotranscendence" <neptune at superlink.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 12:34 PM
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Public Schools


> On Monday, January 19, 2004 12:20 PM Kevin Freels
> kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote:
> >> Others pay -- including those who don't
> >> have children and those whose children
> >> are either past school age or who do
> >> not use public schools -- for schools as
> >> well, so this lowers the costs of
> >> parenting when the parents use public
> >> schools.
> >
> > Let's not forget that even those who have
> > no children were once children themselves
> > and most likely benefited from the school
> > system.
>
> First, you don't know for every last person.  Someone who is
> homeschooled or went to private school, e.g., would not fit in the
> above.  Someone who was not schooled at all -- as some foreigners would
> be in the US and some other marginal people -- would also not have
> benefited.
>
> Second, it's questionable what the benefit is, especially since
> schooling where I live is mandatory.  Under such circumstances, one
> can't be forced to repay for a "benefit" one was forced to receive.  The
> economics of such forced benefits, too, often makes them less than
> optimal.  Why?  Any compulsory system is bound to decouple costs and
> benefits -- and this has an impact on quality.  Those forced to use such
> a system are, after all, forced to make a choice they wouldn't
> otherwise, so it's already suboptimal -- at least, ex ante.
>
> Third, let me go along with you and say it is a benefit -- for the
> student.  Then that benefit should be somewhat quantifiable.  After a
> certain period, one would have to say, "That individual paid back for
> what he got out of the system and does owe anymore," no?  Or is this to
> be an unlimited claim on every person?
>
> > Also, it is important to realize the benefit
> > of having an "educated" populations (I use
> > the word educated VERY loosely here).
>
> Clarify that benefit and what you mean exactly by education.  In my
> experience, homeschooled and privately schooled children tend to be much
> smarter, less violent, and more civilized than public school children.
> I don't know if anyone's done a study.  Some might say that's because
> public schools have to take everyone, BUT my experience is with most
> public school children I've been around -- not necessary the dregs and
> delinquents.  Even just on that level, I noticed marked differences.  (I
> admit, I've only met a few homeschooled children, so my "sample" is much
> smaller and probably not as telling.)
>
> > It is a shame that more parents simply
> > don't get even slightly involved in their
> > children's education.
>
> It's a shame so many people have children who do not want to take proper
> care of them but look for the state to do that.
>
> > The resource is there, paid for by everyone,
> > and yet many parents just don't seem to give
> > a damn! Most of them are like this because
> > of how their parents were. It's a vicious
> > cycle of stupidity!
>
> Continuing mandatory public education only reinforces the cycle.
>
> > Sorry for the slight venting. This touches
> > rather close to home. My children go to a
> > public school. They are from a previous
> > marriage and she had custody. They are
> > 8 and 7 yr old girls. Their mother is a
> > meth dealer and could hardly pay attention.
> > The girls were getting D's and F's in
> > science and math (N's for the yoiunger
> > girl). They went to schools in crappy clothes
> > with holes in them even though I paid $207
> > per WEEK in child support!
>
> I can understand your frustration, but this seems to more a problem with
> child custody laws than anything else.
>
> > She was finally busted for Meth in November
> > with the kids in the house. I finally received
> > custody of the girls. They were such a mess!
> > Now they have never been happier. Their
> > counselor called me the other day and
> > informed me that if they just keep doing what
> > they have been doing since they moved here,
> > they will get A's in every subject! All they
> > needed was a little homework help, and
> > some concern for their education. I think the
> > real difference is that I care. Nothing more.
> > Mom didn't care, so why should they? They
> > prefer living here and Dad cares about their
> > education, so they do too!
>
> Makes sense to me.
>
> > Anyways, I really don;t think our educational
> > system is all that bad. Yes, it could be better,
> > but it can only be as good as the people that
> > are in it.  I don't know the number, but I would
> > assume that hundreds of thousands are
> > involved in the educational system from the
> > administrative level down. The odds are that
> > a portion of these people are idiots.( There
> > must be a lot of idiots in the public school
> > system.) This would be offset if parents simply
> > gave a shit about their kids.
>
> It would help if those of us who don't like or want the public education
> system weren't forced to pay for it or send our children to it.  The
> problem is not that the system is run by evil inhuman monsters.  The
> problem is instead that the system rests on compulsion both for funding
> and for enrollment.  Remove the compulsion is all I ask...
>
> Cheers!
>
> Dan
>   See "The Hills of Rendome" at:
> http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Rendome.html
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Mon Jan 19 20:31:41 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 12:31:41 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Atkins Diet Change
In-Reply-To: <20040119175154.73995.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401191218590.21117-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> Please be more accurate, as you are below. They say that you get better
> results if you don't eat as much RED meat.

The problem is they aren't being as specific as one might like
because they are speaking to the general public.

a) Meat is high in iron.  Excessive iron intake is probably bad
   in the long run.  (In the genetic disease hemochromotosis excess
   iron is stored and causes liver and heart damage as I recall).
   So the recommendation *should* be different for men and women
   as mature women before menopause lose iron every month while
   men do not.  (Even if high iron does not contribute to organ
   damage it quite likely may contribute to the excess production
   of free radicals which will damage DNA and lead to cancer.)

b) The red meat commonly consumed in western countries is high in
   saturated fat.  Saturated fat is probably the real culprit here.
   Consumption of leaner (e.g. wild) meats might not have the problem
   that farmed meats do (even if they are "red" -- bearing in mind (a)).

> Depends on the age of the person. I would disagree with children and
> seniors. As I've detailed here, and Robert has concurred, there is
> evidence that low-fat diets can have an impact on brain health, with
> potential for encephalopathy.

I think over the next couple of years we are going to work out
significant polymorphisms involved in fat metabolism (on top of
those already suspected).  That is going to lead to genome specific
diet recommendations in these areas.  Down the road we will get
some plant genome tinkering that will give more plant sources
high in Omega-3 fatty acids -- then the current diet plans
we are using which involve tradeoffs of various kinds can
be adjusted.

Robert




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Mon Jan 19 22:14:53 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 17:14:53 -0500
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory
	ofcommoncold)
In-Reply-To: <20040119182329.18838.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <007801c3ded9$ad305040$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Mike Lorrey wrote,
> > I have never heard of this.  Does that mean gay homeowners can get 
> > special tax breaks for not having children?  :-)
> 
> Sorry, I meant to say seniors who have no minor children...

Drat!  :-)

Actually, I don't mind paying high property taxes for schools.  As
inefficient as the schools are, I think my dollars are better spent
educating youth so they can hold jobs rather than paying police to protect
my property from youth who can't get jobs.

My property taxes are around $1000 per year.  The value of my home is going
up much more than $1000 per year.  My home is gaining value because of
community growth, a nearby mall, new school construction, etc.

As far as I am concerned, I am taking money from the community rather than
the community taking money from me.  I don't mind giving a little of it
back.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From mbb386 at main.nc.us  Mon Jan 19 23:48:02 2004
From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:48:02 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory of
	common cold)
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-OE4133mH9exWG0000a5b2@hotmail.com>
References: <20040118145338.22244.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com><200401191215.50559.asa@nada.kth.se>
	<005901c3de9a$bb35c920$a0cd5cd1@neptune>
	<LAW10-OE4133mH9exWG0000a5b2@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.WNT.4.55.0401191844590.-94273283@pentium.mb.main.nc.us>


Perhaps if people actually thought they were paying for education
they'd pay a bit more attention to what the kids were doing in school.

I know *we* paid close attention. We were paying tax for public and
tuition for private school... Arrgh. It was a rough time. But we felt
we had little choice where we lived.

Good luck with your girls. You're giving them the chance they need. :)

Regards,
MB


On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Kevin Freels wrote:

 There must be a lot of
> idiots in the public school system.) This would be offset if parents simply
> gave a shit about their kids.
>


From extropy at unreasonable.com  Tue Jan 20 00:25:59 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 19:25:59 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Gay non-parenting (Was: something else)
In-Reply-To: <007801c3ded9$ad305040$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
References: <20040119182329.18838.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040119182212.09b98b50@mail.comcast.net>

Harvey Newstrom wrote:

 > I have never heard of this.  Does that mean gay homeowners can get
 > special tax breaks for not having children?  :-)

Smiley aside, your remark seems premised on the idea that gay homeowners 
are likely to not have children, or much less likely than non-gay homeowners.

Is this true?

Naively, I'd suppose that home ownership and raising children are both 
indicators of adherence to convention, and correlate with each other. 
Although I'd expect a higher percentage of gays owning homes than raising 
children, if only because there are more impediments for gays here and now 
to the latter than the former.

I would predict the cohort with the lowest fraction of minor children in 
their household would be gay non-homeowners and the highest fraction would 
be non-gay homeowners. I'm not sure which would be higher, gay homeowners 
or non-gay non-homeowners.


-- David Lubkin.




From fauxever at sprynet.com  Tue Jan 20 00:32:18 2004
From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 16:32:18 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Public Schools
References: <20040118145338.22244.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com><200401191215.50559.asa@nada.kth.se><005901c3de9a$bb35c920$a0cd5cd1@neptune><LAW10-OE4133mH9exWG0000a5b2@hotmail.com>
	<012701c3deba$f2b46da0$a0cd5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <004e01c3deec$dd9d2f60$6600a8c0@brainiac>

From: "Technotranscendence" <neptune at superlink.net>

> Clarify that benefit and what you mean exactly by education.  In my
> experience, homeschooled and privately schooled children tend to be much
> smarter, less violent, and more civilized than public school children.
> I don't know if anyone's done a study.

IMO terms like "smarter," "less violent" and "more civilized" are often
difficult to quantify.  But (as long as we're at it), I would be curious to
see how privately educated v. publicly educated children would fare on the
"more compassionate," "happier," "more inclined to seek psychological
counseling" meters.  I would be interested to see some objective (as much as
that's possible) studies on this subject.

>  Some might say that's because
> public schools have to take everyone, BUT my experience is with most
> public school children I've been around -- not necessary the dregs and
> delinquents.  Even just on that level, I noticed marked differences.  (I
> admit, I've only met a few homeschooled children, so my "sample" is much
> smaller and probably not as telling.)

Ever since this discussion was posted, I've been wondering ... *home*
schooling?  I may be living on a very resident-alien part of the USA, but
it's been 2-3 decades since I've so much as known of a family with an adult
person at home during the work week.  The exceptions have been a parent
who's taken a short maternal/paternal leave, or (in a couple of cases)
independently wealthy people (who sent their offspring to de rigueur private
schools, anyway).  Furthermore, it seems like about 50% of the
families-with-children I know are single-parent families.

> It's a shame so many people have children who do not want to take proper
> care of them but look for the state to do that.

Careful when you come to whatever your conclusion is of  - what's "proper
care."  Not depending on public schools does not - by a long shot -
guarantee that children will necessarily be taken care of properly.

Olga







From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Tue Jan 20 00:49:08 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 11:19:08 +1030
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory of c
	ommon cold)
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178693D@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

I don't know about the US, but fwiw, in Australia the private schools get
plenty of government money. So people who have kids in private school (like
me) are leaning on the public purse too, quite heavily I think. So there's
not really any room for sanctimony as regards tax & schooling for us.

OTOH, a bit of googling shows me that private school kids get less per
capita than public school kids, so maybe there's a little wiggle room :-) .

eg: this mediocre piece of journalism from The Australian:
http://theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,8307023%255E13881,
00.html

Emlyn

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MB [mailto:mbb386 at main.nc.us]
> Sent: Tuesday, 20 January 2004 9:18 AM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] 
> Game theory of
> common cold)
> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps if people actually thought they were paying for education
> they'd pay a bit more attention to what the kids were doing in school.
> 
> I know *we* paid close attention. We were paying tax for public and
> tuition for private school... Arrgh. It was a rough time. But we felt
> we had little choice where we lived.
> 
> Good luck with your girls. You're giving them the chance they need. :)
> 
> Regards,
> MB
> 
> 
> On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Kevin Freels wrote:
> 
>  There must be a lot of
> > idiots in the public school system.) This would be offset 
> if parents simply
> > gave a shit about their kids.
> >
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 



From rafal at smigrodzki.org  Tue Jan 20 04:49:20 2004
From: rafal at smigrodzki.org (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 20:49:20 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold
In-Reply-To: <1227.213.112.90.103.1074437230.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <OJEHKDIANIFPAJPDBDGLKEEOCOAA.rafal@smigrodzki.org>

Anders wrote:
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold
>
>
>
> Damien Broderick said:
>> Ah, more *cold reductive reasoning*, eh, Mr. Spock?
>
> Oh, it is just the cold equations.
>
>
> And I agree with Max M, the results are somewhat less libertarian
> than I would like. But it is better to get interesting results than
> just rearrange preconceptions.

### Hold your horses there! :-)

I think we need to examine the consequences of improving the prevention of
cold transmission over longer periods of time. It appears that a cold
epidemic ends only when the fraction of never-infected, and therefore
susceptible hosts, drops to some low level. Diminishing the transmission of
the cold virus by changing behavior of hosts, rather than vaccination, would
result in maintenance of large numbers of susceptible hosts, and over many
years the number of multiple-susceptible hosts would increase. Assume that
the source of new versions of the virus, frequently China, keeps on churning
our new viruses yearly, and there is some accumulation of the viruses in
various reservoirs (e.g. networks with slowly spreading, sporadic infection
among small, separate communities). If so, the system might become
metastable - a large population of susceptible hosts and many versions of
viruses, kept apart only by the behavioral modification. What if at some
point a critical mass is reached, and a pandemic develops even in the
presence of the behavioral modification?

Also, the idea that specific persons can be punished for infecting others
implies the ability to detect these persons, either beforehand, or after the
deed - and therefore, civil liability, the law of torts, contract law,
private exclusionary practices, and other perfectly non-coercive means can
be fruitfully employed. That they are not used, is IMO due to the marginal
disutility of the common cold (compared to what I see on the ward
sometimes), and the possibly substantial costs of preventing its
transmission (aside from vaccinations).

Rafal



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Tue Jan 20 02:32:32 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 21:32:32 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Atkins Diet Change
In-Reply-To: <20040119175154.73995.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <008d01c3defd$ab30a550$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Mike Lorrey wrote,
> --- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> > The promoters of the Atkins diet finally acknowledge that Atkins 
> > dieters need to cut back on meat and saturated fats.
> 
> Please be more accurate, as you are below. They say that you 
> get better results if you don't eat as much RED meat.

Oops, I missed this comment and didn't respond before.

Yes, Mike is right, they said "red meat", not just meat.  The emphasis was
specifically on getting too much fat and especially too much saturated fat
on the Atkins diet.  

My point was that many Atkins dieters claimed they could eat all the fat
they wanted without problem.  The Atkins organization now specifically
disclaims this, saying that Atkins dieters should keep fats less than 20% of
calories.  They say that the diet does not allow one to eat more fats, and
even claim that Atkins and the diet never advocated eating a lot of fat.

The main problem with meat today is the way farm factories create fattened
animals.  Animals in the wild ate less, exercised more, and were much leaner
than today's versions of meat.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Tue Jan 20 02:50:37 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:50:37 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold
In-Reply-To: <OJEHKDIANIFPAJPDBDGLKEEOCOAA.rafal@smigrodzki.org>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401191827380.28463-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:

> Assume that
> the source of new versions of the virus, frequently China, keeps on churning
> our new viruses yearly, and there is some accumulation of the viruses in
> various reservoirs (e.g. networks with slowly spreading, sporadic infection
> among small, separate communities).

Rafal, are you sure about this?

I was taught that most "colds" are the result of rhinoviruses which
have over 100 different serotypes.  You become immune to an individual
serotype after being infected but if you only have 1 cold/yr it takes
you 100 years to develop immunity to all of them.  I ran into this
problem when I started going to Russia -- almost every time I went
I would end up with a cold (probably due to different serotypes
from the U.S.) -- but after a few years I stopped catching colds
(presumably due to accumulated immunity.  In fact its been years
since I recall having a serious cold since I'm probably immune to
the most common U.S. and Russian serotypes.

[This characteristic makes me wonder why one just doesn't expose
a young person to all 100 serotypes at the same time at a young
age and be done with it.  This approach is being taken with
vaccinations against the cancer causing types of pappiloma viruses.]

If Anders model is going to be accurate and we are talking only
about rhinoviruses I think one has to take into account the 100+
serotypes as well as the advantages of accumulating local population
immunity.  To do it accurately you have to know the number of
serotypes circulating within relatively "isolated" populations
and the rate of introduction of new serotypes in our increasingly
interconnected world.

Now influenza on the other hand is a real problem because it is
a multi-segment genome that can recombine novel segments from
other species (birds, esp. Ducks, and pigs usually).  When
discussing China as a source of new viruses, it is generally
influenza that is discussed, not rhinoviruses.  Though at the
current time it appears that Vietnam is on the WHO watch list
for producing new viruses.  I haven't read whether they are
rhinoviruses, influenza or something completely new though.

Robert




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Tue Jan 20 03:22:35 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 19:22:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401191850460.28463-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Larry Klaes posted an interesting thought on the Europa list.

His idea was rather than to bring down the Hubble (at a cost
of $300M) to give it to the Chinese.  I'd expand on that
idea -- what about the Europeans, Russia, China or Japan?

If part of the problem is orbital decay -- then one could
focus in the short term on a ship (robotic if necessary)
to boost its orbit (both the Soyuz and Progress have boost
capability and the Russians have a good mastery for robotic
docking).  Then they could figure out how to use
some space walks to do things like replace the gyroscopes
and instruments.  Russian and Chinese astronauts would
certainly jump at the opportunity to pick up a $1+B piece
of in-orbit hardware real cheap.  Perhaps a mini-Canada robotic
arm or two could be developed to assist with maintenance.
Yes, I know the Hubble was designed with servicing in the
Shuttle Bay in mind *but* that doesn't mean that in-space
servicing is impossible.  Probably very little thought has
been devoted to the idea.

If you are going to turn the ISS over to foreign partners
why not do it with the Hubble as well?  I'm sure NASA wouldn't
mind saving the $300M deorbiting expense.

If the Soyuz doesn't have the lift capacity, then send an
Ariane 5 up with a European cargo module containing the gyroscopes,
new instruments, etc. and a Soyuz with the astronauts to do the
maintenance.

The only question in my mind is whether the Ariane 5
or the Soyuz (perhaps launched from Kourou) can reach
the orbit the Hubble is in?  Anyone know?

Robert





From nanowave at shaw.ca  Tue Jan 20 03:42:00 2004
From: nanowave at shaw.ca (Russell Evermore)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 19:42:00 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Meta:searching list archives
References: <008d01c3defd$ab30a550$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <007301c3df07$5c776700$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>

OK, I want to search all of the extropians and extropy-chat archives
(subject headers and message texts) going back five or more years for one
single and EXTREMELY important word. I want to enter that word one time into
one text box and then click "search". The word is very significant from a
transhumanist perspective and I want to know if anyone has discussed it here
before.

Question 1:  Possible?
Question 2: Where?
Question 3 (if no):  Aw come on, why the hell not?

RE
nanowave at shaw.ca



From neptune at superlink.net  Tue Jan 20 03:55:57 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 22:55:57 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Public Schools
References: <20040118145338.22244.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com><200401191215.50559.asa@nada.kth.se><005901c3de9a$bb35c920$a0cd5cd1@neptune><LAW10-OE4133mH9exWG0000a5b2@hotmail.com><012701c3deba$f2b46da0$a0cd5cd1@neptune>
	<Law10-OE27BNEnKvTPF00034277@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <009f01c3df09$50606460$c3cd5cd1@neptune>

On Monday, January 19, 2004 3:09 PM Kevin Freels kevinfreels at hotmail.com
wrote:
> Wait a minute. I think we may be on the
> same page here except for one thing.

I doubt it.  You are not a libertarian.  I am.  I think you and I
disagree on a lot of issues.

> Are you saying that public education is
> compulsory in your state?

Some form of schooling is complusory.  Whatever form it might be -- and
homeschooling is only tolerated here -- you still have to meet state
requirements.  Also, funding for public schools is compulsory.  I don't
have choice of not paying the taxes for them -- all other things being
equal.

> In Indiana, home schooling is already an
> option that a parent can take. I think there
> is even a division of the school system
> that will assist a parent if they don;t know
> how to get started.

And?

> I've known several
> people who benefitted from home-schooling.

I have never met a homeschooled individual who wasn't a success, though
I admit that I've only met a few.

> Also, I never meant to say that home
> schooling was wrong, bad, or otherwise
> inferior to public education.

Okay.

> My point was that the public school system
> must be there as an option as well since
> there are many who either can't or won;t
> home-school.

So the only choice for you is homeschool or send them to public school?
What about private schools or no schooling?

I disagree about public schools being an option -- unless you mean
something radically different from existing public schools, such as a
public school that is not compulsory and not tax-funded -- i.e., not
public.:)

> Then there was the general complaining
> about how some parents could improve
> their children's education by simply being
> more involved.

I think that's a valid point, but the public school system sets up
incentives for parents to not be involved.  Since it's a "free"
babysitter, many parents use it that way.  Since the system is not
really an exit system but a voice system, involvement has its
limitations.  Try changing the curriculum.

> The public benefits from the availability
> of public education in the long run
> because many children would not learn
> enough to even do labor or count money
> if they didn't have it available.

Wrong.  How did people learn these things before public education?  They
learned them because there was an incentive for it.  In a modern economy
with the need for these skills, I reckon the incentive will even be
stronger to acquire these skills.  I've known illegal aliens who acquite
English skills and the like for similar reasons.

> These children would forever be on the
> public dole.

You tend to look at things too narrowly.  First, the only options aren't
public schooling or being on the public dole.  If that were the ways
things had to be, civilization never would've gotten this far.  There
were no public schools for most of human history...  Second, you don't
consider things like removing incentives not to be productive or
intelligent -- i.e., removing the public dole.  Get rid of it and then
there will be no option to live off the productive.

> I thought you were making a case for
> elimination of the public school system.

I am.

> I realize how it has contributed to the
> cycle of dependency, but that cycle is
> there and could only be removed by a
> long term reduction in dependency
> through several generations.

If that were true -- that dependency were cross-generation -- then we
would never see people getting out of poverty.  Everyone would be
destined to either live as their parents lived or just tiny variations
from there.  In truth, though, if you allow people to voluntarily
interact, they generally will improve their lot.

> As for paying for it, I would rather pay for
> public education and have an option to
> home school combined with a tax-credit
> than continue to foot the bill for highly
> marked up big screen TVs. I don;t even
> have one!

Fine.  You pay for it, but don't force everyone else to pay for it as
well, especially those who disagree with you.  If enough people agree
with you, then why can't the system be voluntary?  If not, then maybe
it's a bad idea.

I don't have a big screen TV either.

Cheers!

Dan
  See "The Hills of Rendome" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Rendome.html



From spike66 at comcast.net  Tue Jan 20 03:54:27 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 19:54:27 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401191850460.28463-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <000d01c3df09$19e084b0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org 
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of 
> Robert J. Bradbury
> Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 7:23 PM
> To: Extropy Chat
> Subject: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
> 
> 
> 
> Larry Klaes posted an interesting thought on the Europa list.
> 
> His idea was rather than to bring down the Hubble (at a cost
> of $300M) to give it to the Chinese.  I'd expand on that
> idea -- what about the Europeans, Russia, China or Japan?

Excellent idea.  I would think we could find a buyer for
both the telescope and the additional instruments that have
already been developed, built and paid for.

> 
> If part of the problem is orbital decay -- 

We have time.  Serious action must be taken before about 09.


> The only question in my mind is whether the Ariane 5
> or the Soyuz (perhaps launched from Kourou) can reach
> the orbit the Hubble is in?  Anyone know?
> 
> Robert

Ja, they sure can.  The hubble isn't that high, nor is
it in a highly inclined orbit.

spike



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 20 04:48:40 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 20:48:40 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401191850460.28463-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040120044840.92618.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>


--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> 
> Larry Klaes posted an interesting thought on the Europa list.
> 
> His idea was rather than to bring down the Hubble (at a cost
> of $300M) to give it to the Chinese.  I'd expand on that
> idea -- what about the Europeans, Russia, China or Japan?

I doubt the feds would go for this. Supposedly a few of the more recent
KH spy sats have extremely similar architecture to the Hubble. If a
Hubble can image a galaxy 13 billion light years away, think about what
one with slightly different optics can see here on earth.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 20 04:49:31 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 20:49:31 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Meta:searching list archives
In-Reply-To: <007301c3df07$5c776700$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>
Message-ID: <20040120044931.97762.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>

the search engine sucks.

--- Russell Evermore <nanowave at shaw.ca> wrote:
> OK, I want to search all of the extropians and extropy-chat archives
> (subject headers and message texts) going back five or more years for
> one
> single and EXTREMELY important word. I want to enter that word one
> time into
> one text box and then click "search". The word is very significant
> from a
> transhumanist perspective and I want to know if anyone has discussed
> it here
> before.
> 
> Question 1:  Possible?
> Question 2: Where?
> Question 3 (if no):  Aw come on, why the hell not?
> 
> RE
> nanowave at shaw.ca
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From fauxever at sprynet.com  Tue Jan 20 04:58:32 2004
From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 20:58:32 -0800
Subject: Fw: [extropy-chat] Re: Public Schools
Message-ID: <092d01c3df12$0d999440$6600a8c0@brainiac>

From: "Technotranscendence" <neptune at superlink.net>

> I have never met a homeschooled individual who wasn't a success, though
> I admit that I've only met a few.

And what do you mean by "success?"  A happy person?  A rich person?  A
professional person?  A compassionate person?  A creative person?  A
responsible person?  A person who grows up to be a "home-schooler" (in which
case, who gets to pay for that person to be able to stay home)?  A person
who grows up to be a critical thinker (in which case, all those religious
home schoolers are not doing their job, tsk, tsk ...)?

I'm curious - since you brought it up, Dan - what, in your view, is a
"successful" person?

> > My point was that the public school system
> > must be there as an option as well since
> > there are many who either can't or won;t
> > home-school.
>
> So the only choice for you is homeschool or send them to public school?
> What about private schools or no schooling?

No schooling?  Would this one of the libertarian solutions for humankind?
*No schooling?*  Wow, are libertarians typically (1) childless? or do they
(2) stay home from work to watch over their unschooled children? ... and
party like it's 1955? ... no, no, no - make that 1655, as public schools of
sorts go back a long way in our history:
http://www.goodschoolspa.org/students/index.cfm?fuseaction=history)

> Wrong.  How did people learn these things before public education?  They
> learned them because there was an incentive for it.  In a modern economy
> with the need for these skills, I reckon the incentive will even be
> stronger to acquire these skills.  I've known illegal aliens who acquite
> English skills and the like for similar reasons.

A lot of people didn't learn.  Some people were *not allowed* to learn.

> Get rid of it and then> there will be no option to live off the
productive.

Live off the productive? People exhibit an array of predispositions.  Some
people are dynamic - some people are passive.  Not all people turn out to be
 "productive" (whatever that means).  What do you propose to do with
"unproductive" people?  People - for whatever complicated reasons - are
*not* all alike, but all people need a few basic things to be able to
survive and thrive.  Can libertarians deal with this fact?  How *do*
libertarians deal with this fact?

>  In truth, though, if you allow people to voluntarily> interact, they
generally will improve their lot.

Really?  I haven't seen much evidence of that in recent U.S. history.  And
Martin Luther King's words (from his 1963 Letter From Birmingham Jail) still
ring true today:

"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by
the oppressed."

Remember, libertarians did not improve their ... or anyone else's - "lot"
during the civil rights era.

I would like to believe:  "if you allow people to voluntarily interact, they
generally will improve their lot," but would like to see evidence of this.

Olga






From megao at sasktel.net  Tue Jan 20 05:19:12 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 23:19:12 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble- ownership of junk
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401191850460.28463-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <400CBA50.123C50E7@sasktel.net>

If it is declared space junk and destined for disposal does it not  then
become a piece of junk without ownership rights.  If China or another
country sends up a resue mission would they then not own the spoils of
sych a  salvage operation?

...Morris



"Robert J. Bradbury" wrote:

> Larry Klaes posted an interesting thought on the Europa list.
>
> His idea was rather than to bring down the Hubble (at a cost
> of $300M) to give it to the Chinese.  I'd expand on that
> idea -- what about the Europeans, Russia, China or Japan?
>
> If part of the problem is orbital decay -- then one could
> focus in the short term on a ship (robotic if necessary)
> to boost its orbit (both the Soyuz and Progress have boost
> capability and the Russians have a good mastery for robotic
> docking).  Then they could figure out how to use
> some space walks to do things like replace the gyroscopes
> and instruments.  Russian and Chinese astronauts would
> certainly jump at the opportunity to pick up a $1+B piece
> of in-orbit hardware real cheap.  Perhaps a mini-Canada robotic
> arm or two could be developed to assist with maintenance.
> Yes, I know the Hubble was designed with servicing in the
> Shuttle Bay in mind *but* that doesn't mean that in-space
> servicing is impossible.  Probably very little thought has
> been devoted to the idea.
>
> If you are going to turn the ISS over to foreign partners
> why not do it with the Hubble as well?  I'm sure NASA wouldn't
> mind saving the $300M deorbiting expense.
>
> If the Soyuz doesn't have the lift capacity, then send an
> Ariane 5 up with a European cargo module containing the gyroscopes,
> new instruments, etc. and a Soyuz with the astronauts to do the
> maintenance.
>
> The only question in my mind is whether the Ariane 5
> or the Soyuz (perhaps launched from Kourou) can reach
> the orbit the Hubble is in?  Anyone know?
>
> Robert
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From megao at sasktel.net  Tue Jan 20 05:28:01 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 23:28:01 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
References: <20040120044840.92618.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <400CBC61.FA02D911@sasktel.net>

I think that is the key issue.  Could hubble be able to see things that its
owners might not want seen?  It could accidentally see things military
planners want to keep classified.  It may have become to dangerous to allow
to operate?
A bit far farfetched .... are their any other  supporting arguments for
this?

...Morris

Mike Lorrey wrote:

> --- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> >
> > Larry Klaes posted an interesting thought on the Europa list.
> >
> > His idea was rather than to bring down the Hubble (at a cost
> > of $300M) to give it to the Chinese.  I'd expand on that
> > idea -- what about the Europeans, Russia, China or Japan?
>
> I doubt the feds would go for this. Supposedly a few of the more recent
> KH spy sats have extremely similar architecture to the Hubble. If a
> Hubble can image a galaxy 13 billion light years away, think about what
> one with slightly different optics can see here on earth.
>
> =====
> Mike Lorrey
> "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
>                                        - Gen. John Stark
> "Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
>                                        - Mike Lorrey
> Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
> Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
> http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From megao at sasktel.net  Tue Jan 20 05:32:37 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 23:32:37 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Atkins Diet Change
References: <008d01c3defd$ab30a550$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <400CBD75.9B50BEE3@sasktel.net>

About 27 years ago my wife , before I knew her,  was on the atkins diet.  She
said she had to stop it because it turned her into a "mindless blitzed zombie
space cadet".
This was not complementary with getting grades at University.

Harvey Newstrom wrote:

> Mike Lorrey wrote,
> > --- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> > > The promoters of the Atkins diet finally acknowledge that Atkins
> > > dieters need to cut back on meat and saturated fats.
> >
> > Please be more accurate, as you are below. They say that you
> > get better results if you don't eat as much RED meat.
>
> Oops, I missed this comment and didn't respond before.
>
> Yes, Mike is right, they said "red meat", not just meat.  The emphasis was
> specifically on getting too much fat and especially too much saturated fat
> on the Atkins diet.
>
> My point was that many Atkins dieters claimed they could eat all the fat
> they wanted without problem.  The Atkins organization now specifically
> disclaims this, saying that Atkins dieters should keep fats less than 20% of
> calories.  They say that the diet does not allow one to eat more fats, and
> even claim that Atkins and the diet never advocated eating a lot of fat.
>
> The main problem with meat today is the way farm factories create fattened
> animals.  Animals in the wild ate less, exercised more, and were much leaner
> than today's versions of meat.
>
> --
> Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
> Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
> NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
> <HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From thespike at earthlink.net  Tue Jan 20 05:38:32 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 23:38:32 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Glbert&Sullivan on weblife
Message-ID: <030e01c3df17$a609ae40$a4994a43@texas.net>

A drollery from Israel (I've tampered with the ending for better scansion);
luckily, nobody here is like this, well, hardly anybody:

===========

I am the very model of a Newsgroup Personality
I intersperse obscenity with tedious banality.
Addresses I have plenty of, both genuine and ghosted to,
On all the countless newsgroups that my drivel is cross-posted to.

Your bandwidth I will fritter with my whining and my snivelling,
And you're the one who pays the bill downloading all my drivelling.
My enemies are numerous, and no one would be blaming you
For cracking my head open after I've been rudely flaming you.

I hate to lose an argument (by now I should be used to it).
I wouldn't know a valid point if I was introduced to it.
My learning is extensive but consists of mindless trivia,
Designed to fan my ego, which is larger than Bolivia.

The comments that I vomit forth, disguised as jest and drollery,
Are really just an exercise in unremitting trollery.
I say I'm frank and forthright, but that's merely lies and vanity,
The gibberings of one who's at the limit of his sanity.

If only I could get a life, as many people tell me to;
If only mum could find a circus freak-show she could sell me to;
If I go off to Zanzibar to paint the local scenery;
If I lose all my fingers in a mishap with machinery;

If I survive to forty, which is somewhat problematical;
If what I post was more mature, or slightly more grammatical;
If I could learn to spell a bit, and maybe even punctuate;
Would I still be the loathsome and objectionable punk you hate?

But while I have this tiresome urge to prance around and show my face,
It simply isn't safe for normal people here in cyberspace.
To stick me in Old Sparky and turn on the electricity
Would be a fitting punishment for my ego-center-ricity.

I always have the last word; so, with uttermost finality,
That's all from me, the model of a Newsgroup Personality.

=======

(apologies if this has already been, like, cross-posted to countless
newsgroups)



From extropy at unreasonable.com  Tue Jan 20 05:50:47 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 00:50:47 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
In-Reply-To: <20040119143455.97086.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <200401191215.50559.asa@nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040119210238.09b95100@mail.comcast.net>

Anders asked:

 > How does homschooling really work? We do not have it here in Sweden,
 > so I have no intuition of its effect on my model. In particular,
 > does parents stay at home teaching (full time or partial time)?
 > How large are the economic savings?

and Mike Lorrey answered:

>Actually, David Lubkin is probably the best reference on this list for
>these questions, as he homeschooled his daughter (as a single dad,
>too). From people I've talked to, home schooling takes far less of the
>day than children spend in school. Most school time is babysitting and
>horsing around.

My daughter wasn't precisely home-schooled. What we did varied over the 
years. The constants are that I encouraged broad curiosity and answered 
questions as honestly and fully as she could absorb, much as Sasha did with 
Eugene. (Anders, was he there when I first met you at Sasha's? That's one 
impressive kid!)

When she was a baby, we'd tried the "better baby" program. It had dramatic 
effects, but they appeared to be short-lived. For a time, from before she 
could speak, she could identify hundreds of items, from countries to Van 
Gogh paintings. (How? Ask her where Mongolia was, and she'd point to it on 
a wall map.)

When she was four, I taught her about negative numbers and we discussed 
situational ethics.

She went to public and private schools almost through high school. I was 
closely involved, and was sure whatever she learned at school was augmented 
or corrected. It was difficult for her when what I taught her contradicted 
what her teacher had said. The pressure to conform is great.

She always had a computer, the net, a substantial home library (45K 
volumes), and access to an array of knowledgeable adults.

In high school, she had health problems that made regular school untenable. 
Ultimately, she applied to college as a home schooler. She mostly explored 
what she was interested in on her own. Afterwards we figured out the best 
way to document it as a set of courses with grades. Colleges were very 
receptive but she missed out on some scholarships that were only available 
through regular schools.

Most home-schoolers that follow a standardized curriculum complete their 
official work for the day in about an hour and a half. There's a lot of 
room for motivated parents or kids to use field trips, public lectures, 
college courses, volunteer activities, etc. to learn far more. (We did 
this, further leveraged by my personal connections.)

Parents' need to work is definitely a problem. Home-schooling seems most 
common in religiously-motivated families with stay-at-home moms but I also 
know irreligious libertarians. In some towns, there's a network of parents 
who teach each other's kids what they know, harkening back to earlier eras.

I'd be happy to kibitz off-list for anyone considering home-schooling or an 
atypical college application.

Am I right in recalling that Keith Henson's daughter was home-schooled?

How is it that so few of us have kids? Or, if indeed many do, why do we 
rarely discuss parenting on-list?


-- David Lubkin.




From spike66 at comcast.net  Tue Jan 20 06:08:32 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 22:08:32 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040119210238.09b95100@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <000601c3df1b$d4db2ab0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

> How is it that so few of us have kids? Or, if indeed many do, 
> why do we rarely discuss parenting on-list?
> 
> -- David Lubkin.

My guess is that parents have little time for luxuries
such as reading chat lists.  {8-]  spike







From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Tue Jan 20 06:35:02 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 22:35:02 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
In-Reply-To: <20040120044840.92618.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401192231110.1867-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> I doubt the feds would go for this. Supposedly a few of the more recent
> KH spy sats have extremely similar architecture to the Hubble. If a
> Hubble can image a galaxy 13 billion light years away, think about what
> one with slightly different optics can see here on earth.

Perhaps true, but the sales contract could prohibit pointing the telescope
toward the Earth.  It would be rather easy for astronomers to detect the
use of the telescope for such purposes simply by looking at the schedule
for observations.  In addition, I would suspect some combination of optical,
radar and laser reflections from the scope could easily tell whether
the prohibitions are being violated.  "They" can look down but we can
also look up.

Robert




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Tue Jan 20 06:47:09 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 01:47:09 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Meta:searching list archives
In-Reply-To: <007301c3df07$5c776700$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>
Message-ID: <009601c3df21$3d761710$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Russell Evermore wrote,
> OK, I want to search all of the extropians and extropy-chat 
> archives (subject headers and message texts) going back five 
> or more years for one single and EXTREMELY important word. I 
> want to enter that word one time into one text box and then 
> click "search". The word is very significant from a 
> transhumanist perspective and I want to know if anyone has 
> discussed it here before.
> 
> Question 1:  Possible?
> Question 2: Where?
> Question 3 (if no):  Aw come on, why the hell not?

I have not been able to get the searches to work on the Extropians Lists for
many years.  Others have complained before that they don't work.  I am not
sure how this can be done.  I, too, would love to be able to search archives
for keywords.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Tue Jan 20 06:56:11 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 01:56:11 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Public Schools
In-Reply-To: <092d01c3df12$0d999440$6600a8c0@brainiac>
Message-ID: <009701c3df22$80955be0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

"Technotranscendence" <neptune at superlink.net> wrote,
> I have never met a homeschooled individual who wasn't a success, 
> though I admit that I've only met a few.

Ack!  I have.  They had the strongest prejudices and politics of their
parents drilled into them.  They usually become mental clones of their
parents with no opposing viewpoints presented.  They were often inept around
other kids and preferred to be alone.  Most of them were either rude or
sometimes deliberately mean to other kids.  They were often selfish and used
to having their own way.  Many home-schooled kids become selfish little
brats.  Of the religious-based home-schooled kids, they seemed to be
well-trained in their particular religion, and poorly trained in godless
science, literature or art.

This is not true of all, because I have met many fine home-schooled kids as
well.  But in my experience, all the well-adjusted kids were interested in
getting out into the world, going to regular schools, being with other kids
their own age, and eventually self-chose to end home-schooling.  I have also
seen a few examples of "home-schooled" kids who didn't seem to have any real
schooling at all.  Their parents just called them home-schooled to keep them
out of the godless public school.

In short, home-schooling is about a variable as any other aspect of a
child's home-life.  Some are great, some are awful.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From amara at amara.com  Tue Jan 20 05:56:14 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 07:56:14 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] ASTRO: Hubble fate sealed
Message-ID: <p05100304bc32707795a6@[150.146.134.133]>

Alfio Puglisi:

>Amara, is this bit about turning Cassini off just random talking, or do
>you have some information? Cassini already spent billions of $$, and it
>makes no sense to stop now that it's almost on target.

News regarding Cassini? It's still on, no 'inside' information regarding
that. There was a successful workshop last week in Bern on Titan, so
everyone is acting as if there's no change. In a couple of months
the Italian Amateur Astronomer's Association (UAI) will be releasing
thousands of posters and booklets for the public to highlight Cassini
(Saturn opposition is in March, so UAI will be distributing them at that
time). The agreement between ASI and UAI is in place now for our/my 
public education project, so I'm sure that UAI hopes Cassini is not 
canceled too!

The reason that I said what I said, is that I don't detect a difference
in NASA policy for turning off missions based on the fact that instruments
and spacecrafts have been built or designed and thousands (tens of thousands
or millions) of dollars already spent.  In these next weeks my IFSI group are
working hard to help save a NASA mission that was canceled over Christmas
that has already been designed and hundreds of thousands of dollars already
spent  (with partners: ASI and DLR and ESA). Sometimes NASA's policies looks
almost random to me.

Amara

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Roma, ITALIA
Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it


From samantha at objectent.com  Tue Jan 20 07:03:32 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 23:03:32 -0800
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory
	ofcommoncold)
In-Reply-To: <007801c3ded9$ad305040$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
References: <20040119182329.18838.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>
	<007801c3ded9$ad305040$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040119230332.595bea56.samantha@objectent.com>

On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 17:14:53 -0500
"Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:

> Mike Lorrey wrote,
> > > I have never heard of this.  Does that mean gay homeowners can get 
> > > special tax breaks for not having children?  :-)
> > 
> > Sorry, I meant to say seniors who have no minor children...
> 
> Drat!  :-)
> 
> Actually, I don't mind paying high property taxes for schools.  As
> inefficient as the schools are, I think my dollars are better spent
> educating youth so they can hold jobs rather than paying police to protect
> my property from youth who can't get jobs.

Well:
a) education doesn't always correlate with jobs, certainly not high school level education;
b) I would prefer to make my own donations to education generally or of specific individuals or types of individuals;
c) most of the policing you are paying for is to enforce victimiless crime laws. The form of that enforcement is a very real and larger threat to life, liberty and property. 
> 
> My property taxes are around $1000 per year.  The value of my home is going
> up much more than $1000 per year.  My home is gaining value because of
> community growth, a nearby mall, new school construction, etc.
> 
> As far as I am concerned, I am taking money from the community rather than
> the community taking money from me.  I don't mind giving a little of it
> back.
> 


I was under the (perhaps mistaken) impression that your life, career, works, example, spending and creating (non-exhaustive list) already give back amply to your community and beyond it.

- s


From maxm at mail.tele.dk  Tue Jan 20 07:20:50 2004
From: maxm at mail.tele.dk (Max M)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 08:20:50 +0100
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory of	common
	cold)
In-Reply-To: <20040119174721.31070.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040119174721.31070.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <400CD6D2.9000007@mail.tele.dk>

Mike Lorrey wrote:

> The primary people who pay taxes for education without benefit are
> those who don't have kids.

That is not quite true. Those kids will grow up and enter the labour 
market. Which is the reason that people without kids can get food and 
products when they get older.

So those kids will in fact be paying the price for support of those who 
don't have kids when they get older.

It makes no difference if the childless have a pension or not. The 
pension system only works because most people have kids. To few kids and 
the pensions would not be worth anything.

So actually the childless people should pay parents a salary for 
bringing up kids and thus ensuring their future... ;-)


regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark


From samantha at objectent.com  Tue Jan 20 07:28:34 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 23:28:34 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA
In-Reply-To: <002701c3de03$edc2a350$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
References: <Law10-OE62JNwV9iU6K00033519@hotmail.com>
	<002701c3de03$edc2a350$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040119232834.4f1a3c51.samantha@objectent.com>

On Sun, 18 Jan 2004 15:44:49 -0500
"Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:

> By the way, speculation that NASA is the third agency in the
> Defense/Homeland Department seems to have been confirmed.  A CNN report
> today reveals that Northwest admits it also gave passenger information to
> the government for data-mining to detect terrorists.  But what got my
> interest was that the information was given to NASA and NASA was doing the
> data-mining.  It appears that NASA is in charge of aviation safety and
> anti-terrorism efforts in the skies.  They have been doing this since 9/11
> and presumably will continue doing it.

SIGH.  A cave far away from this madness is beginning to look really tempting.  How is it that the American people are still letting everything, rights, science, freedom, economy, jobs, sanity go as being secondary and subservient to a never-ending, no-exit strategy, unlimited cost "War on Terror"?   If I didn't read the news I would not believe that this level of utter stupidity  or complacent apathy was possible.

> 
> NASA is now a Homeland/Defense agency and is part of the War on Terrorism.
> It is canceling all projects to focus on a single mission.  That mission is
> based on American superiority and pre-emptive strikes against other
> countries.  We are no longer interested in international cooperation in
> space (such as the International Space Station which we plan to abandon to
> others).
> 
> All government space interests have now been diverted to military purposes.
> The great militarization of space has begun.  This may be the greatest
> threat to other space programs including any future transhumanist efforts.
> 


Please furnish more references justifying these conclusions.

- samantha


From maxm at mail.tele.dk  Tue Jan 20 07:36:46 2004
From: maxm at mail.tele.dk (Max M)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 08:36:46 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
In-Reply-To: <000601c3df1b$d4db2ab0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
References: <000601c3df1b$d4db2ab0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <400CDA8E.20002@mail.tele.dk>

Spike wrote:

>>How is it that so few of us have kids? Or, if indeed many do, 
>>why do we rarely discuss parenting on-list?
>>
>>-- David Lubkin.
> 
> My guess is that parents have little time for luxuries
> such as reading chat lists.  {8-]  spike


Actually I have 3 of them. But there is rarely any reason to discuss 
them here.

But I find that homeschooling is too entropic.

I would be more interested in how we can use a voucher system to improve 
the private schools. Then we can have a better and more varied choice.

It's like everywhere else in life. We are idiots at 90% of what we do, 
and only really good at a few specialised thing. Why should teaching be 
any different? A well educated teacher is an expert. Why should I be 
better at teaching as a private amateur?

Rather I find that as it is now, there is no competition in schooling.

All the new IT is not used at any meaningful level in the school system. 
That is a pity. And as long as there is no competition it never will be. 
Even though education could easily be rationalised and automated at many 
levels.

And then I would not have to stay home in my most "valuable" years on 
the work force.


regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Tue Jan 20 07:40:13 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 02:40:13 -0500
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] Game
	theoryofcommoncold)
In-Reply-To: <20040119230332.595bea56.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <009b01c3df28$a6f955b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Samantha Atkins wrote,
> > As far as I am concerned, I am taking money from the community rather 
> > than the community taking money from me.  I don't mind giving a little 
> > of it back.
> 
> I was under the (perhaps mistaken) impression that your life, 
> career, works, example, spending and creating (non-exhaustive 
> list) already give back amply to your community and beyond it.

You are not mistaken.  We are very active in volunteer work and spend huge
amounts on various charities we support.  This attitude is only possible
because we believe in our community and in helping others.  If I were a
bitter old Libertarian clutching my gun and grumping about all taxes being
theft, I would be so busy wallowing in my self-pity and victim mentality
that I would not give back anything to anyone.  It is this very fact that I
have been blessed in my life that empowers me to help others.  If I really
felt that I had to claw and scratch out every single penny with no help from
anyone, seeing the government and social institutions as enemies, I would
bury all my money in the back yard and never help anyone.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Tue Jan 20 07:40:43 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 23:40:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Meta:searching list archives
In-Reply-To: <20040120044931.97762.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401192329450.3271-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> the search engine sucks.
>
> --- Russell Evermore <nanowave at shaw.ca> wrote:
> > OK, I want to search all of the extropians and extropy-chat archives
> > (subject headers and message texts) going back five or more years for
> > one  single and EXTREMELY important word. I want to enter that word one
> > time into > > one text box and then click "search".

Mike/Russell/Harvey -- I believe if you are searching the archives
(at lucifer?) you will have problems.  I believe that Dave told me
a while ago that there seems to be some limit with respect to how
far back in time the search indexes will go.  This is presumably
a bug.

I have however had fairly good luck with the Javien Forum search
engine.  I would suggest you try that.  Just go to forum.javien.com
and select a topic and select the <search> option in the upper
right hand corner.

If you have problems with that please send me an offlist note.

Robert





From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Tue Jan 20 07:41:39 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 23:41:39 -0800
Subject: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory of commoncold)
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-OE4133mH9exWG0000a5b2@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <000501c3df28$dd6d4e80$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kevin
Freels

>Their mother is a meth dealer and could hardly pay attention. 

Meth sucks hard-core.  I'm at a complete loss as to why its exploding
all over.  How stupid would you have to be to try (much less do
regularly) 
meth?!  Its a damn shame.

omard-out





From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Tue Jan 20 07:48:15 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 02:48:15 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: Atkins Diet Change
In-Reply-To: <20040120050956.88BE381581@server2.messagingengine.com>
Message-ID: <009e01c3df29$c66225c0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Benjamin James Bush [mailto:nebson9 at warpmail.net] wrote,
> Actually, that news report is incorrect. It is 
> misinformation. Atkins acknowleges no such thing!
> 
> "Saturated fat remains a valuable part of the ANA. There is 
> absolutely no scientific research to support any claims that 
> eating red meat and saturated fat as part of your Atkins 
> program is anything other then beneficial."
> 
> Please read the Atkins press release "Atkins Has Not Changed" here:
> <http://atkins.com/about/recentnews/AtkinsHasNotChanged.html>

OK.  Maybe the New York Times, CNN and Reuters got it wrong.  This is
interesting.

However, as I read the above report, they don't seem to deny that Atkins
dieters need to curtail fat intake or red meat intake.  This article seems
more like "spin" to me.  They seem to be trying to back into the lower-fat,
lower-red-meat diet without admitting it is a change.  They claim that
Atkins always warned not to eat too much fat, not to eat too much red meat,
to use other forms of protein like chicken, fish, even tofu!, and evolving
toward leafy greens and complex carbohydrates.

Does this sound like the traditional Atkins diet?  In other words, they
don't dispute the lower-fat lower-red-meat recommendations at all.  They are
claiming that this isn't a "change" in Atkins.  They even explain how the
Atkins book had been rewritten three times in the beginning and how it
always adapted to new scientific data, and how none of this evolution counts
as a "change" in the diet!

Any long-term Atkins dieters on this list?  Have you eaten tofu and leafy
greens as part of your Atkins diet?  Do you remember being taught to not eat
too much fat or too much red meat?  Did you have the impression that
saturated fat wasn't bad for you or that you could eat all the steak you
wanted and still lose weight?  (Maybe I just never met anybody who got
beyond the first phase.)

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From reason at exratio.com  Tue Jan 20 08:01:18 2004
From: reason at exratio.com (Reason)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 00:01:18 -0800
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat]
	Gametheoryofcommoncold)
In-Reply-To: <009b01c3df28$a6f955b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <FCEDLEKFOENAIDKOGMNNMEKLECAA.reason@exratio.com>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Harvey
Newstrom

> Samantha Atkins wrote,
> > > As far as I am concerned, I am taking money from the community rather
> > > than the community taking money from me.  I don't mind giving
> a little
> > > of it back.
> >
> > I was under the (perhaps mistaken) impression that your life,
> > career, works, example, spending and creating (non-exhaustive
> > list) already give back amply to your community and beyond it.
>
> You are not mistaken.  We are very active in volunteer work and spend huge
> amounts on various charities we support.  This attitude is only possible
> because we believe in our community and in helping others.  If I were a
> bitter old Libertarian clutching my gun and grumping about all taxes being
> theft, I would be so busy wallowing in my self-pity and victim mentality
> that I would not give back anything to anyone.  It is this very
> fact that I
> have been blessed in my life that empowers me to help others.  If I really
> felt that I had to claw and scratch out every single penny with
> no help from
> anyone, seeing the government and social institutions as enemies, I would
> bury all my money in the back yard and never help anyone.

That's you. I am a bitter libertarian, view government and social
institutions as an ongoing, death-dealing disaster of unprincipled
selfishness, power abuse and irresponsibility, and I expend a great deal of
my remaining resources in helping people. The "community" - meaning whatever
special interests are diverting my taxes into their pockets right now - is
writing itself a wonderful deal by screwing people like me. The actual
community doesn't do so well.

Reason
http://www.exratio.com



From Johnius at Genius.UCSD.edu  Tue Jan 20 08:12:31 2004
From: Johnius at Genius.UCSD.edu (Johnius)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 00:12:31 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Atkins Diet Change
References: <200401200523.i0K5NhE20183@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <400CE2EF.9956407E@Genius.UCSD.edu>

Harvey wrote:
> The promoters of the Atkins diet finally acknowledge that Atkins dieters
> need to cut back on meat and saturated fats.  [...]
> This fits in with my nutritional research.  Low carbs are fine, but you also
> need low fat, especially saturated fats.  [...]
> Since transhumanists are no longer children and will hopefully avoid
> old age, it seems that the low-fat diet, as described in Kurzweil's Ten
> Percent Solution, remains the transhumanist diet (along with calorie
> restriction).  


	FWIW, the California Healthspan Institute ( ehealthspan.com )
	recommends a Zone diet as an essential part of their anti-aging
	program:     http://ehealthspan.com/treatment/zone.asp

	I'm considering becoming one of their patients (and am working
	my way through Dr. Rothenberg's book _Forever Ageless_), but
	have in the interim started a Zone diet.  It is a "hormonally
	correct" diet that attempts to optimize hormone concentrations.
	One eats a moderate amount of low fat protein at every meal,
	balancing it with low-glycemic-index carbs (usually vegetables,
	rarely grains), and adding a small quantity of mono-unsaturated
	oil (olive oil, nuts, avocado) ... and adding fish oil (or some
	form of balanced high-quality omega-3 oil).

	Dr. Sears ( news.drsears.com ) wrote (I think in his _Anti-aging
	Zone_) that this diet is or can easily be made into a CR diet.

	For now, this is my proto-transhumanist diet (along with an
	array of additional supplements such as alpha lipoic acid,
	acetyl carnitine, TMG, vitamin E complex, co-Q10, etc.).


Robert wrote:
> b) The red meat commonly consumed in western countries is high in
>    saturated fat.  Saturated fat is probably the real culprit here.
>    Consumption of leaner (e.g. wild) meats might not have the problem
>    that farmed meats do (even if they are "red" -- bearing in mind (a)).

Harvey wrote:
> The main problem with meat today is the way farm factories create fattened
> animals.  Animals in the wild ate less, exercised more, and were much leaner
> than today's versions of meat.


	Sears and others recommend:  game meats (e.g., buffalo, venison),
	egg whites (not the yolks), low/non fat cottage cheese, fish
	(especially salmon--rich in activated omega-3), etc.  Since
	being on a Zone diet, I've tried buffalo, venison, ostrich,
	lean beef from New Zealand, etc., and have found their quality
	to be quite different from farmed meats.  Now I'm spoiled and
	tend to stay with these lean meats even when they're relatively
	expensive...

	Best, Johnius


From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Tue Jan 20 08:18:08 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 00:18:08 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] 40-hour week eludes millions of workers
In-Reply-To: <400CD6D2.9000007@mail.tele.dk>
Message-ID: <000001c3df2d$f4816930$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2001839155_long
hours18.html


** 40-hour week eludes millions of workers **

By Harry Wessel
The Orlando Sentinel

ORLANDO, Fla. - Janet Gartland loves her job but not the hours. A
logistics coordinator with Siemens Westinghouse Power in Orlando, she
regularly puts in 11- and 12-hour days, which translates into 55- to
60-hour weeks. 

Working that many hours week after week, "you tend to be more irritable,
more frustrated," said Gartland, who has been with Siemens for eight
years. "Things that don't normally bother you, bother you. You're on the
edge all the time." 

She's not complaining. Gartland prefers being on edge to being bored,
and her "multitasking, fast-paced" job is anything but boring. 

Nevertheless, she said, "I'd love to go to an eight-hour day." 

So would millions of other full-time workers, for whom the 40-hour
workweek is a seldom-to-never occurrence. 

"Americans work more hours by far than any other workers in the world,"
said Benjamin Balak, who teaches economic history at Rollins College in
Florida. "If you want to be a high-income wage earner, you have to work
like a dog. If you want leisure in today's economy, you'll be stuck in a
low-income job. It's income or leisure." 

For many if not most professionals today, Balak said............




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Tue Jan 20 08:44:44 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 00:44:44 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] ASTRO: Hubble fate sealed
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401191939150.23327@hercules>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401192355420.3271-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Alfio Puglisi wrote:

> Amara, is this bit about turning Cassini off just random talking, or do
> you have some information? Cassini already spent billions of $$, and it
> makes no sense to stop now that it's almost on target.

I very much doubt that Cassini would be canceled given the investment.
(After all they don't seem to be canceling the Mars rover efforts.)
There is also the ESA involvement in the Huygens probe that would make
any kind of downgrading very poor form (the visibility is too high).
I suspect that it will go through its 3(?) year mission but there may
be resistance to extending the mission as I believe was done with
Galileo (if the Cassini equipment and power supply lasts that long).

Robert




From jrd1415 at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 20 09:15:52 2004
From: jrd1415 at yahoo.com (Jeff Davis)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 01:15:52 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Public Schools
In-Reply-To: <009701c3df22$80955be0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040120091552.51537.qmail@web41203.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:

> ...I have also seen a few examples of "home-
> schooled" kids who didn't seem to have any real
> schooling at all. ...

Ditto a lot of public school kids.  Ditto a lot of
"college educated" folks as well.

I must admit, it isn't a very constructive comment. 
Nevertheless, stupidity is a learned thing, and those
so 'skilled' find it a hard habit to break,
particularly considering the economic and cultural
alienation to which turning that new leaf would likely
expose them.

Jeff Davis, unregenerate wise-ass.

"No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental
ills of society. If we're looking for the sources of
our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we
should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and
love of power." - P. J. O'Rourke



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From jrd1415 at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 20 09:33:56 2004
From: jrd1415 at yahoo.com (Jeff Davis)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 01:33:56 -0800 (PST)
Subject: ion engine was RE: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
In-Reply-To: <000d01c3df09$19e084b0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <20040120093356.12199.qmail@web41214.mail.yahoo.com>

Friends, 

Regarding saving the Hubble...

That new SMART-1 ion engine seems to be working well. 
How much does one of them cost.  The first was pricey
naturally, but now the price should go down, right?

And by the way, this business of using xenon as the
reaction mass, can't we go with something a mite less
exotic, like, say, iron?  (I'm looking ahead to those
asteroids...)  What's the story?

Best, Jeff Davis

"When I am working on a problem I never think about
beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem.
But when I have finished, if the solution is not
beautiful, I know it is wrong." 
                      - Buckminster Fuller





__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From jrd1415 at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 20 09:55:43 2004
From: jrd1415 at yahoo.com (Jeff Davis)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 01:55:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] memory/neuronal plasticity
Message-ID: <20040120095543.82236.qmail@web41208.mail.yahoo.com>

Extropes,

It's near two in the morning, and I'm a bit fuzzy, but
this looked like it might have something new about
that crucial question:  "How do synapses respond
dynamically to store memories?"

YMMV.

Good news for prions?

http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20031229/02

Best, Jeff Davis

   "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
                           Ray Charles


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From neptune at superlink.net  Tue Jan 20 12:21:46 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 07:21:46 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] JARS Call for Papers: Rand & Nietzsche
Message-ID: <003201c3df4f$fac17a20$29cd5cd1@neptune>

JOURNAL OF AYN RAND STUDIES
CALL FOR PAPERS

A Special Symposium-in-the-Making: Ayn Rand and Friedrich Nietzsche

Despite her criticisms of Friedrich Nietzsche, even the mature Ayn Rand
recognized in him a poet who projected, emotionally, "at times ... a
magnificent feeling for man's greatness ..." Indeed, the young Ayn Rand
had learned much from Nietzsche, reflected in her early unpublished and
published works.

The aim of this forthcoming issue of THE JOURNAL OF AYN RAND STUDIES is
to trace the similarities and the differences between these thinkers in
metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. As a
nonpartisan journal, we welcome contributions from every perspective and
every discipline toward that end.

Proposals should be sent by 1 July 2004 by email to:
chris.sciabarra at nyu.edu  Or by mail to: Chris Matthew Sciabarra,
Visiting Scholar, NYU Department of Politics, 726 Broadway, 7th floor,
New York, New York 10003.

Completed manuscripts will be due by 1 July 2005. We do not anticipate
publication of this symposium prior to 2006, as we work through our
review process.

See http://www.aynrandstudies.com/jars/call.asp for more information on
style guidelines.
=================================================
Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Visiting Scholar, NYU Department of Politics
726 Broadway, 7th floor
New York, New York 10003
Dialectics & Liberty Website:
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra
The Sciabarra "Not a Blog" (regularly updated):
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/notablog.htm
New Monograph:  Ayn Rand, Homosexuality, and Human Liberation
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/essays/homosexuality.htm
The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies:
http://www.aynrandstudies.com
=================================================



From amara at amara.com  Tue Jan 20 11:24:33 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 13:24:33 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] ASTRO: Hubble fate sealed
Message-ID: <p05100300bc32bd55c87b@[150.146.134.133]>

Robert Bradbury:
>I suspect that it will go through its 3(?) year mission but there may
>be resistance to extending the mission as I believe was done with
>Galileo (if the Cassini equipment and power supply lasts that long).

Regarding Cassini:
The science planning for Cassini begins four years in advance because
of its spacecraft design (it does not have the rotating portion that the
Galileo S/C has, therefore, all instruments must coordinate closely with
each other for every second of measurements). We have already begun the
science planning for the Cassini 'extended mission', which begins
in 1998.

Still, I don't believe the time spent of hundreds of scientists is reason
enough for NASA to *not* cancel whatever missions it wants to cancel. The
time (years) and the money of three national space agencies was spent on
other NASA missions that have been cancelled, so you see my skepticism.
I agree that Cassini is a 'high-profile' mission, but with the direction
that NASA seems to be going today, I remain skeptical that it has a good
perspective on space missions.


Amara

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF),
Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR,
Roma, ITALIA     Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it


From amara at amara.com  Tue Jan 20 11:30:28 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 13:30:28 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] ASTRO: Hubble fate sealed
Message-ID: <p05100302bc32c158b9e6@[150.146.134.133]>

>in 1998.

mi scusi! Not a time warp.. This should be 2008 ....

Amara



From neptune at superlink.net  Tue Jan 20 13:05:27 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 08:05:27 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Public Schools
References: <092d01c3df12$0d999440$6600a8c0@brainiac>
Message-ID: <009601c3df56$143c8d40$29cd5cd1@neptune>

On Monday, January 19, 2004 11:58 PM Olga Bourlin fauxever at sprynet.com
wrote:
>> I have never met a homeschooled individual
>> who wasn't a success, though I admit that I've
>> only met a few.
>
> And what do you mean by "success?"  A happy
> person?  A rich person?  A professional person?
>  A compassionate person?  A creative person?
> A responsible person?  A person who grows up
> to be a "home-schooler" (in which case, who gets
> to pay for that person to be able to stay home)?  A
> person who grows up to be a critical thinker (in
> which case, all those religious home schoolers
> are not doing their job, tsk, tsk ...)?
>
> I'm curious - since you brought it up, Dan - what, in
> your view, is a "successful" person?

Happy and pursuing their personal goals.  I've only known a handful of
homeschooled people.  (You were probably expecting me to say they were
wealthy, right?)  I don't personally know any homeschooled person who
has gone on to homeschool his or her children, but that's because the
few homeschooled people I do know are in their teens or twenties.

BTW, I don't know any religious homeschoolers -- not on a personal
level.  My personal sample, as I've pointed out, is biased.  After all,
I believe about 50% of all homeschoolers are religious.  Of course,

>>> My point was that the public school system
>>> must be there as an option as well since
>>> there are many who either can't or won;t
>>> home-school.
>>
>> So the only choice for you is homeschool or
>> send them to public school?  What about
>> private schools or no schooling?
>
> No schooling?  Would this one of the libertarian
> solutions for humankind?  *No schooling?*

I'm just listing all the options.  I know that "no schooling" as an
option is taboo, so perhaps you should not think the unthinkable.  It
hurts, so get that unpleasant thought out of your head -- even if a good
portion of the world's population currently makes it to productive
adulthood without schooling and if this was the condition of humankind
for almost all of its existence.

Also, I do not speak for all libertarians any more than you speak for
all people of your political persuasion.

> Wow, are libertarians typically (1) childless?

I don't know the statistics on libertarians.  I am childless, but that's
because I'm gay.  I, however, know many libertarians who have children,
all of whom school their children.

> or do they (2) stay home from work to watch
> over their unschooled children? ... and party
> like it's 1955? ... no, no, no - make that 1655,
> as public schools of sorts go back a long way
> in our history:
> http://www.goodschoolspa.org/students/index.cfm?fuseaction=history)

Actually, if you read the timeline you sent, you'd see that it wasn't
until the last half of the 19th century that public schooling really got
under way.  It mentions that it wasn't until 1852 that the
"Massachusetts legislature enacts the first compulsory education law
requiring every child to get an education."  That would only apply to
one state.  NY followed, but it wasn't until after the Civil War that it
really got under way -- partly, no doubt, to teach that the Union Cause
was right in the South.  (See _The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham
Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War_ by Thomas J. DiLorenzo.)

>> Wrong.  How did people learn these
>> things before public education?  They
>> learned them because there was an
>> incentive for it.  In a modern economy
>> with the need for these skills, I reckon
>> the incentive will even be stronger to
>> acquire these skills.  I've known illegal
>> aliens who acquire English skills and
>> the like for similar reasons.
>
> A lot of people didn't learn.  Some
> people were *not allowed* to learn.

Of whom do you speak?  If you mean Blacks who were not permitted to
learn to read and write, true, but then this was the government
preventing them.  Laws were passed.  What about the rest of humanity?
It wasn't like people were illiterate and stupid until public schools
came along.  In fact, to stick to America, during its War of
Independence, it was considered the most literate nation on the planet.
America had few public schools at that time.

>> Get rid of it and then there will be no
>> option to live off the productive.
>
> Live off the productive?

Whoa!  If you live off the public dole that means someone else is paying
for you.  You are not being productive, but someone else has to be
productive.  Let me clarify this.  Imagine Joe is living off the public
dole.  He does not work, but he eats, has a roof over his head, buys
clothes, watches TV, etc..  He does this because other people pay taxes
so he can eat, have a roof over his head, etc.  If, say, those other
people all decided to stop paying taxes -- let's say every last one of
them, all of society -- decided they too would live off the dole, then
there would be no dole.  Joe would not have food, a home (well, not for
long), clothes -- unless he started doing something productive.

> People exhibit an array of predispositions.
> Some people are dynamic - some people
> are passive.  Not all people turn out to be
>  "productive" (whatever that means).

I only mean people who produce through work.  If such people did not
exist -- if everyone just hung out all day watching DVDs or strumming
guitar, eventually there would be no stuff to consume.  Imagine the
above example.  Everyone stops working and doesn't do some other
productive activity -- no farming, no pumping oil, no making trinkets,
no whatever -- soon all of us would consume the food, oil, etc. and
things would start to fall apart.

> What do you propose to do with
> "unproductive" people?

I know where you're heading with this.  My point was to get rid of the
public dole.  Get rid of it.  If you want to help people out who are
unproductive -- feeding, clothing, sheltering them, or giving them
money -- fine.  Do it.  Don't force others to.

> People - for whatever complicated reasons
> - are *not* all alike, but all people need a
> few basic things to be able to survive and
> thrive.  Can libertarians deal with this fact?
> How *do* libertarians deal with this fact?

See above.  The libertarians I know, including myself, are not against
charity or helping others.  I am against, however, forcing people to
help others.  The "libertarian solution" is to not have the government
do this and to have all of it done voluntarily.

>>  In truth, though, if you allow people to voluntarily
>> interact, they generally will improve their lot.
>
> Really?  I haven't seen much evidence of that in
> recent U.S. history.  And Martin Luther King's
> words (from his 1963 Letter From Birmingham
> Jail) still ring true today:
>
> "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the
> oppressor, it must be demanded by the
> oppressed."

Did you read my statement above?  People "voluntarily interact[ing]" are
free.  What do you have in mind?  What do you mean by freedom?  People
forced to interact?

> Remember, libertarians did not improve their ... or
> anyone else's - "lot" during the civil rights era.

I'm not sure about this.  First, there were few libertarians during that
time.  The wider libertarian movement we have today was in its infancy.
(I wasn't even born yet, so don't blame me.:)  Second, it's debatable
what was achieved during and after the Civil Rights Era.  Creating an
even bigger welfare state does not seem to have solved much -- save for
waste a lot of tax money while improving few people's "lot."  Third, a
lot of the problems were government caused.  Jim Crow laws and the like
were _laws_ -- not free market phenomena.  You might do well to read
Thomas Sowell's _Preferential Policies: An International Perspective_.
Sowell details how such laws needed to be put into place because freely
interacting people did things like trade with other races.

> I would like to believe:  "if you allow people
> to voluntarily interact, they generally will
> improve their lot," but would like to see
> evidence of this.

The history of humanity.  Where people are more free, they tend to be
more prosperous.  Let me turn the question on you, where's your evidence
for people being forced into improving their lot?  (And by whose
measure?  People pursuing their happiness is freedom, no?  People
coerced into some social engineering scheme is not, right?)

Cheers!

Dan
  See "The Hills of Rendome" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Rendome.html



From neptune at superlink.net  Tue Jan 20 13:07:23 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 08:07:23 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Public Schools
References: <009701c3df22$80955be0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <00a801c3df56$5926c380$29cd5cd1@neptune>

On Tuesday, January 20, 2004 1:56 AM Harvey Newstrom
mail at HarveyNewstrom.com wrote:
[big snip]
> In short, home-schooling is about a variable
> as any other aspect of a child's home-life.
> Some are great, some are awful.

Much as I expected.  As I've admitted, my personal sampling is biased
and small.

Cheers!

Dan
  See "The Hills of Rendome" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Rendome.html



From neptune at superlink.net  Tue Jan 20 13:23:30 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 08:23:30 -0500
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat]
	Gametheoryofcommoncold
References: <009b01c3df28$a6f955b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <00bd01c3df58$9968bc80$29cd5cd1@neptune>

On Tuesday, January 20, 2004 2:40 AM Harvey Newstrom
mail at HarveyNewstrom.com wrote:
>> I was under the (perhaps mistaken) impression
>> that your life, career, works, example, spending
>> and creating (non-exhaustive list) already give
>> back amply to your community and beyond it.
>
> You are not mistaken.  We are very active in
> volunteer work and spend huge amounts on
> various charities we support.  This attitude is
> only possible because we believe in our
> community and in helping others.

Hey, good for you.  However, it seems you're using your so called
charitable works to boast about your moral superiority, no?:)

The fact is that actually working, creating, etc. does more overall to
help others than charity.  Nothing wrong with charity, but if most
people didn't do productive things and interact through trade, most of
humanity would have to die out.  Simply volunteering and reshuffling
wealth would not improve much.  Wealth has to be created before it can
be given -- or redistributed.:)

> If I were a bitter old Libertarian clutching my
> gun and grumping about all taxes being theft,
> I would be so busy wallowing in my self-pity
> and victim mentality that I would not give back
> anything to anyone.

I'm sure there are a few people like that out there, but almost all of
the libertarians I know are not like that.

> It is this very fact that I have been blessed in
> my life that empowers me to help others.
> If I really felt that I had to claw and scratch out
> every single penny with no help from anyone,
> seeing the government and social institutions
> as enemies, I would bury all my money in the
> back yard and never help anyone.

I think you're setting up a package deal here -- meaning you're packing
together things that don't necessarily go together.  I see nothing wrong
with making wealth and deciding what to do with it -- i.e., not having
the government come in and take some or force you to use your wealth in
certain ways.  As long as you don't harm others, you should be free to
produce, create, trade, give, and consume as you see fit.  If you agree
with this -- and this is basically the standard libertarian ideal --
then why can't you be charitable?  Many people I know who call
themselves libertarians do just this.

The package deal is that you are assuming that that libertarian ideal
must make you out to be a Scrooge-like character and that only people
who support government welfare schemes can be truly generous.  (Now,
don't think I'm making the opposite package.  I'm sure many people who
believe in government welfare mean well and feel it's the only way to
help others.  They're wrong, misguided, and their efforts are
counterproductive.  Likewise, not everyone who is allowed to pursue his
or her happiness is going to be charitable.  There will be misers, but
misers tend to be rare anyhow.  They actually tend to do less harm
because they don't stop the rest of us from being generous.)

Cheers!

Dan
  See "The Hills of Rendome" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Rendome.html



From neptune at superlink.net  Tue Jan 20 13:29:01 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 08:29:01 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] 40-hour week eludes millions of workers
References: <000001c3df2d$f4816930$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
Message-ID: <011201c3df59$5ee2a160$29cd5cd1@neptune>

Before the September 11th attacks, I used to put in a sixty or more hour
work week.  I worked for a dot-com.  My commute wasn't so bad and I
enjoyed the work.  Well, plus many of my friends worked there too...  It
didn't feel like drudgery -- partly because of the culture and partly
because I felt like I was accomplishing something.

Now my attitude has changed.  Each job is just a job and I always think,
"I'm spending too much time here.":)

Cheers!

Dan
  See "The Hills of Rendome" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Rendome.html



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Tue Jan 20 14:11:34 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 06:11:34 -0800 (PST)
Subject: ion engine was RE: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
In-Reply-To: <20040120093356.12199.qmail@web41214.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401200556130.10882-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Jeff Davis wrote:

> That new SMART-1 ion engine seems to be working well.
> How much does one of them cost.  The first was pricey
> naturally, but now the price should go down, right?

The mission cost was $110m Euros ($126M).  But the launch
costs were defrayed due to it piggy backing on an
Ariane 5 with 2 large communications satellites.

The U.S. also had a ion engine in Deep Space 1 and I
believe has 1-2 teams at NASA Glenn and the JPL working
on versions with increased thrust.

I could see 3 problems with an ion engine rescue --
a) Possibly surrounding the Hubble in a cloud of ions
   (though one presumably has a problem with the exhaust
    of chemical trusters as well);
b) the low thrust disrupting telescope operations for a
   longer period (remember the Hubble is *heavy*);
c) the need for the ion engine to take up its own solar
   panels for power (I doubt the designers thought far
   enough ahead to include a power outlet on the outside
   of the Hubble itself...).

> And by the way, this business of using xenon as the
> reaction mass, can't we go with something a mite less
> exotic, like, say, iron?  (I'm looking ahead to those
> asteroids...)  What's the story?

Spike may correct me but I believe its because Xenon provides
the greatest thrust for the amount of electric power you
put into the engine.  It may also include the fact that
ionizing a gas, particularly a heavy element, is easier
(requires less power invested).  I'm sure ionizing solids
is a bit trickier because you have to probably have to
vaporize them (perhaps with something like a high power
electric are or high power lasers???).  That would make
the engine more complex and probably shorten its lifetime.
The choice for asteroids might be oxygen and for comets
might be neon as both would be fairly abundant.

Robert



From rafal at smigrodzki.org  Tue Jan 20 19:12:57 2004
From: rafal at smigrodzki.org (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 11:12:57 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401191827380.28463-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <OJEHKDIANIFPAJPDBDGLEEFKCOAA.rafal@smigrodzki.org>

Robert wrote:
> Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold
>
>
>
> On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
>
>> Assume that
>> the source of new versions of the virus, frequently China, keeps on
>> churning our new viruses yearly, and there is some accumulation of
>> the viruses in various reservoirs (e.g. networks with slowly
>> spreading, sporadic infection among small, separate communities).
>
> Rafal, are you sure about this?
>
> I was taught that most "colds" are the result of rhinoviruses which
> have over 100 different serotypes.  You become immune to an individual
> serotype after being infected but if you only have 1 cold/yr it takes
> you 100 years to develop immunity to all of them.  I ran into this
> problem when I started going to Russia -- almost every time I went
> I would end up with a cold (probably due to different serotypes
> from the U.S.) -- but after a few years I stopped catching colds
> (presumably due to accumulated immunity.  In fact its been years
> since I recall having a serious cold since I'm probably immune to
> the most common U.S. and Russian serotypes.
>
> [This characteristic makes me wonder why one just doesn't expose
> a young person to all 100 serotypes at the same time at a young
> age and be done with it.  This approach is being taken with
> vaccinations against the cancer causing types of pappiloma viruses.]
>
> If Anders model is going to be accurate and we are talking only
> about rhinoviruses I think one has to take into account the 100+
> serotypes as well as the advantages of accumulating local population
> immunity.  To do it accurately you have to know the number of
> serotypes circulating within relatively "isolated" populations
> and the rate of introduction of new serotypes in our increasingly
> interconnected world.
>
> Now influenza on the other hand is a real problem because it is
> a multi-segment genome that can recombine novel segments from
> other species (birds, esp. Ducks, and pigs usually).  When
> discussing China as a source of new viruses, it is generally
> influenza that is discussed, not rhinoviruses.  Though at the
> current time it appears that Vietnam is on the WHO watch list
> for producing new viruses.  I haven't read whether they are
> rhinoviruses, influenza or something completely new though.
>
### Yes, you are right, I was thinking about influenza, rather than the
rhinovirus infection. But, the caveats to trying to control infections by
enforced and costly behavioral changes still hold, I think.

Rafal



From neptune at superlink.net  Tue Jan 20 16:35:05 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 11:35:05 -0500
Subject: ion engine was RE: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401200556130.10882-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <003a01c3df73$5d45e280$19ce5cd1@neptune>

On Tuesday, January 20, 2004 9:11 AM Robert J. Bradbury
bradbury at aeiveos.com wrote:
>> That new SMART-1 ion engine seems to
>> be working well.  How much does one of
>> them cost.  The first was pricey naturally,
>> but now the price should go down, right?
>
> The mission cost was $110m Euros ($126M).

Which still does not tell us how much the propulsion system cost.
Hopefully, it would be much lower than 110M Euros.

>  But the launch costs were defrayed due to
> it piggy backing on an Ariane 5 with 2 large
> communications satellites.

This is true.

> The U.S. also had a ion engine in Deep Space
> 1 and I believe has 1-2 teams at NASA Glenn
> and the JPL working on versions with
> increased thrust.

NASA has done some work, I recall reading, on long-term use of ion
thrust.

> I could see 3 problems with an ion engine
> rescue --
> a) Possibly surrounding the Hubble in a
> cloud of ions    (though one presumably
> has a problem with the exhaust
>     of chemical trusters as well);

My understanding of ion thrust is that the ions are neutralized during
or after exiting as exhaust.  If not, all ion propelled craft would be
lowering their efficiency, no?

> b) the low thrust disrupting telescope
> operations for a longer period
> (remember the Hubble is *heavy*);

That's the killer with current ion engines.  I'd rather use chemical for
this job.  Reliable, well tested, and no need for a lot of fancy
new-fangled development.

> c) the need for the ion engine to take
> up its own solar  panels for power (I
> doubt the designers thought far
>    enough ahead to include a power
> outlet on the outside
>    of the Hubble itself...).

Well, there are more power sources than just solar, e.g., an RTG might
do the trick or having an external power source -- beaming power to the
system.  However, this increases complexity and mission risk.

IIRC, there already is a company out there that that is going to make a
pack to strap on existing satellites, extending their operational life
time.  This might be adopted for the Hubble and might be cheap enough to
privately fund.  (I haven't been following this thread too closely, so I
don't know if anyone else has mentioned that company or private
funding...)

Cheers!

Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 20 16:30:34 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 08:30:34 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
In-Reply-To: <400CBC61.FA02D911@sasktel.net>
Message-ID: <20040120163034.27606.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>


--- "Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc." <megao at sasktel.net> wrote:
> I think that is the key issue.  Could hubble be able to see things
> that its
> owners might not want seen?  It could accidentally see things
> military
> planners want to keep classified.  It may have become to dangerous to
> allow
> to operate?
> A bit far farfetched .... are their any other  supporting arguments
> for this?

http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/imint/kh-12.htm
This page USED to have a drawing by Dr. Charles Vick, who was involved
in the development of these satellites. The KH-11 looks like a virtual
carbon copy of the Hubble, while the KH-12 is a 'low observables', in
that it has a dome over its aperture to deflect radar from earth when
not in use, and is sheathed in stealth materials.

http://www.geog.gla.ac.uk/~gpetrie/10-Defence_-Petrie.pdf (see page 3,
column 3) This document has a rough drawing by Vick of the KH-12 and
also confirms that it is essentially a Hubble telescope.

Supposedly, the Hubble and the KH-12 were built by the same company.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Tue Jan 20 16:32:29 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 11:32:29 -0500
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat]Gametheoryofcommoncold
In-Reply-To: <00bd01c3df58$9968bc80$29cd5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <002b01c3df73$06a5fb40$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Technotranscendence wrote,
> On Tuesday, January 20, 2004 2:40 AM Harvey Newstrom 
> mail at HarveyNewstrom.com wrote:
> >> I was under the (perhaps mistaken) impression
> >> that your life, career, works, example, spending
> >> and creating (non-exhaustive list) already give
> >> back amply to your community and beyond it.
> >
> > You are not mistaken.  We are very active in
> > volunteer work and spend huge amounts on
> > various charities we support.  This attitude is
> > only possible because we believe in our
> > community and in helping others.
> 
> Hey, good for you.  However, it seems you're using your so 
> called charitable works to boast about your moral superiority, no?:)

No.  Where did you get that idea.  I did not bring them up.  I answered a
direct question.  My point is that being comfortable with taxation and
public schools is not incompatible with charity work.  Where did I mention
anything about my moral superiority?  (If anything, I have an inferiority
complex that drives me to do more to try to prove myself.)

> The fact is that actually working, creating, etc. does more 
> overall to help others than charity.

This is a false dichotomy.  We don't have to choose between working,
creating or being charitable.  We can do it all.  I believe in the
non-zero-sum game, or the win/win situation.  It is this attitude that
encourages me to be charitable.

> > If I were a bitter old Libertarian clutching my
> > gun and grumping about all taxes being theft,
> > I would be so busy wallowing in my self-pity
> > and victim mentality that I would not give back
> > anything to anyone.
> 
> I'm sure there are a few people like that out there, but 
> almost all of the libertarians I know are not like that.

Maybe not that extreme.  But you are already arguing that charity is not as
important as working, creating and making your own money.  You seem to
actually look down on charity or see it as a bad thing, think I am a morally
smug (bad) person for doing it, etc.  This kind of zero-sum libertarian
thinking tends to turn selfish.  It leads one to believe that there are
limited resources, so "I have to make mine first" and "there isn't enough to
share with anybody else".  I think it also leads to selfish justification
that "I help others by holding my own job and keeping my own money".  Sorry,
but I don't believe in trickle-down economics.

> > It is this very fact that I have been blessed in
> > my life that empowers me to help others.
> > If I really felt that I had to claw and scratch out
> > every single penny with no help from anyone,
> > seeing the government and social institutions
> > as enemies, I would bury all my money in the
> > back yard and never help anyone.
> 
> I think you're setting up a package deal here -- meaning 
> you're packing together things that don't necessarily go 
> together.  I see nothing wrong with making wealth and 
> deciding what to do with it -- i.e., not having the 
> government come in and take some or force you to use your 
> wealth in certain ways.  As long as you don't harm others, 
> you should be free to produce, create, trade, give, and 
> consume as you see fit.  If you agree with this -- and this 
> is basically the standard libertarian ideal -- then why can't 
> you be charitable?  Many people I know who call themselves 
> libertarians do just this.

The ideals you are promoting under the "libertarian" banner are all about
freedom to get more for yourself.  Sure, there is nothing in it that
precludes charity.  But all of its specifically stated goals are pretty much
the opposite of charity.  Libertarians worry so much about getting more for
themselves, that many (not all) never get around to helping others.  Or they
set their priorities that they will work toward a free state, and help
others later.

> The package deal is that you are assuming that that 
> libertarian ideal must make you out to be a Scrooge-like 
> character and that only people who support government welfare 
> schemes can be truly generous.

No, libertarian philosophy does not make you a scrooge, but it is the
perfect philosophy for an already scroogy person to hold.  And, no, you
don't have to love the government to work through their charities, but a
deep hate or distrust of the government will probably lead people to not
support government programs in any way.

> I'm sure many people who believe in 
> government welfare mean well and feel it's the only way to 
> help others.  They're wrong, misguided, and their efforts are 
> counterproductive.  Likewise, not everyone who is allowed to 
> pursue his or her happiness is going to be charitable.  There 
> will be misers, but misers tend to be rare anyhow.  They 
> actually tend to do less harm because they don't stop the 
> rest of us from being generous.)

I agree with the first part.  But I disagree that misers are rare.  I do
auditing for a living.  I find rampant fraud almost everywhere I go.  People
cheat people all the time.  These misers do hurt other people all the time.
Enron is not an exception, it is the rule.  These people do the opposite of
trickle-down.  They destroy value for many others to enhance their own
stockpile.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From amara at amara.com  Tue Jan 20 14:40:32 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 16:40:32 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: ion engine
Message-ID: <p05100302bc32eccff717@[150.146.134.133]>

Robert Bradbury:
>The choice for asteroids might be oxygen

FYI: The ion drive for the Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres
uses xenon (building on the ion drive 'heritage' from DS1).

http://www-ssc.igpp.ucla.edu/dawn/mission.html

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Roma, ITALIA
Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it


From amara at amara.com  Tue Jan 20 16:22:07 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 18:22:07 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold
Message-ID: <p05100300bc33055c4e84@[150.146.134.133]>

Anders Sandberg:
>How does homschooling really work? We do not have it here in Sweden, so
>I have no intuition of its effect on my model. In particular, does
>parents stay at home teaching (full time or partial time)? How large are
>the economic savings?


You might want to have a discussion with Alex Ramonsky. He moved to
Ireland many years ago because he couldn't homeschool his boys in
Britain. Now his family is back in GB. Their experiences are full --
he might begin the long story with how they built their house.... :-)

Amara

-- 

********************************************************************
Amara Graps, PhD          email: amara at amara.com
Computational Physics     vita:  ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt
Multiplex Answers         URL:   http://www.amara.com/
********************************************************************
"Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the
future of the human race."   -- H. G. Wells


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Tue Jan 20 17:29:37 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 12:29:37 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: Atkins Diet Change
In-Reply-To: <20040120042156.409A580C7D@server2.messagingengine.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3df7a$fefcf260$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Benjamin James Bush wrote,
> Actually, that news report is incorrect. It is
> misinformation. Atkins acknowledges no such thing!
> 
> Please read the Atkins press release "Atkins Has Not Changed" here: 
> <http://atkins.com/about/recentnews/AtkinsHasNotChanged.html>

Actually, there are two different orthogonal positions here that can both
co-exist:

1.  Atkins advocates cutting back on fat and red meat.
2.  This is not a change in the Atkins position.

One does not necessarily disprove the other.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 20 17:33:34 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 09:33:34 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401192231110.1867-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040120173334.43047.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>


--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> 
> > I doubt the feds would go for this. Supposedly a few of the more
> recent
> > KH spy sats have extremely similar architecture to the Hubble. If a
> > Hubble can image a galaxy 13 billion light years away, think about
> what
> > one with slightly different optics can see here on earth.
> 
> Perhaps true, but the sales contract could prohibit pointing the
> telescope
> toward the Earth.  

Such refreshing naivete. The US has had SEVERE problems with dual use
technologies being sold to other countries. China, the example being
given, regularly claims technology is for civil purpose, but blithely
takes it off the shipping docks and sends it directly to military
facilities. From computers to machine tools, it just doesn't care what
the rest of the world thinks.

Most of the proliferation of ballistic and nuclear technology today can
be blamed directly on Chinese coopting of US technology for military
purpose as well as defections of US personnel of chinese descent, and
the occasional corporate betrayal (one US company having satellites
launched by the Chinese gave them technology to improve their
reliability and accuracy, to ensure the success of their own satellites
being launched, and now helps ensure the reliability and accuracy of
China's ICBM inventory). China is the number one proliferator of said
technology around the world, via North Korea and Pakistan, primarily.
Both Iran and Libya are now known to have gotten their technologies
from Pakistan, which was supplied by China as a lever against India.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
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From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 20 17:33:36 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 09:33:36 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401192231110.1867-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040120173336.30454.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>

--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> 
> > I doubt the feds would go for this. Supposedly a few of the more
> recent
> > KH spy sats have extremely similar architecture to the Hubble. If a
> > Hubble can image a galaxy 13 billion light years away, think about
> what
> > one with slightly different optics can see here on earth.
> 
> Perhaps true, but the sales contract could prohibit pointing the
> telescope
> toward the Earth.  

Such refreshing naivete. The US has had SEVERE problems with dual use
technologies being sold to other countries. China, the example being
given, regularly claims technology is for civil purpose, but blithely
takes it off the shipping docks and sends it directly to military
facilities. From computers to machine tools, it just doesn't care what
the rest of the world thinks.

Most of the proliferation of ballistic and nuclear technology today can
be blamed directly on Chinese coopting of US technology for military
purpose as well as defections of US personnel of chinese descent, and
the occasional corporate betrayal (one US company having satellites
launched by the Chinese gave them technology to improve their
reliability and accuracy, to ensure the success of their own satellites
being launched, and now helps ensure the reliability and accuracy of
China's ICBM inventory). China is the number one proliferator of said
technology around the world, via North Korea and Pakistan, primarily.
Both Iran and Libya are now known to have gotten their technologies
from Pakistan, which was supplied by China as a lever against India.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 20 17:41:11 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 09:41:11 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Meta:searching list archives
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401192329450.3271-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040120174111.33087.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>

The Javien engine does not search list archives (pre-2003 I don't think
is even present anymore). It is impossible for us to find discussions
more than a year ago, which is pretty sad. Suggest either lucifer gets
fixed or we find some other means (perhaps an Atomz engine?)

--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> 
> > the search engine sucks.
> >
> > --- Russell Evermore <nanowave at shaw.ca> wrote:
> > > OK, I want to search all of the extropians and extropy-chat
> archives
> > > (subject headers and message texts) going back five or more years
> for
> > > one  single and EXTREMELY important word. I want to enter that
> word one
> > > time into > > one text box and then click "search".
> 
> Mike/Russell/Harvey -- I believe if you are searching the archives
> (at lucifer?) you will have problems.  I believe that Dave told me
> a while ago that there seems to be some limit with respect to how
> far back in time the search indexes will go.  This is presumably
> a bug.
> 
> I have however had fairly good luck with the Javien Forum search
> engine.  I would suggest you try that.  Just go to forum.javien.com
> and select a topic and select the <search> option in the upper
> right hand corner.
> 
> If you have problems with that please send me an offlist note.
> 
> Robert
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
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From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 20 17:52:11 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 09:52:11 -0800 (PST)
Subject: ion engine was RE: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
In-Reply-To: <003a01c3df73$5d45e280$19ce5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <20040120175211.76039.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Technotranscendence <neptune at superlink.net> wrote:
> On Tuesday, January 20, 2004 9:11 AM Robert J. Bradbury
> bradbury at aeiveos.com wrote:
> >> That new SMART-1 ion engine seems to
> >> be working well.  How much does one of
> >> them cost.  The first was pricey naturally,
> >> but now the price should go down, right?
> >
> > The mission cost was $110m Euros ($126M).
> 
> Which still does not tell us how much the propulsion system cost.
> Hopefully, it would be much lower than 110M Euros.

This is actually rather funny. I have an ion drive in my living room.
Cost me about $100. Cleans the dust up rather nicely... 

> 
> > I could see 3 problems with an ion engine
> > rescue --
> > a) Possibly surrounding the Hubble in a
> > cloud of ions    (though one presumably
> > has a problem with the exhaust
> >     of chemical trusters as well);
> 
> My understanding of ion thrust is that the ions are neutralized
> during or after exiting as exhaust.  If not, all ion propelled craft
> would be lowering their efficiency, no?

The ions are neutralized.

> 
> > b) the low thrust disrupting telescope
> > operations for a longer period
> > (remember the Hubble is *heavy*);
> 
> That's the killer with current ion engines.  I'd rather use chemical
> for
> this job.  Reliable, well tested, and no need for a lot of fancy
> new-fangled development.

Actually, the thruster unit used on the ISS, the ICM, is the same
thruster module used on the KH-12 Improved Crystal (Keyhole) spysat,
which is the same size and architecture as the Hubble.

> 
> > c) the need for the ion engine to take
> > up its own solar  panels for power (I
> > doubt the designers thought far
> >    enough ahead to include a power
> > outlet on the outside
> >    of the Hubble itself...).
> 
> Well, there are more power sources than just solar, e.g., an RTG
> might do the trick or having an external power source -- beaming
> power to the system.  However, this increases complexity and
> mission risk.

Actually, I'd support the solar thermal OTV that the USAF's Phillips
Lab developed several years ago. 

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
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From fortean1 at mindspring.com  Tue Jan 20 18:05:40 2004
From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 11:05:40 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD (UFO UpDate) New *U* Database Maps Online
Message-ID: <400D6DF4.C9CCC007@mindspring.com>

From: Larry Hatch <larryhatch at SYSMATRIX.NET>
To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <ufoupdates at virtuallystrange.net>
Date:   Sun, 18 Jan 2004 23:57:49 -0800
Subject: New *U* Database Maps Online



Hello all:


I haven't been asleep here, just working on new pages for my *U* 
UFO Database website.

The Thematic Maps menu page is remodeled:

http://www.larryhatch.net/THEMEMAPS.html

I moved two decades maps there, and created some new ones.

First is a map of pre-1940s UFO sightings which show on both 
sides of the Atlantic. Data is sparse then, so I lumped in 
everything from 593 BC to December of 1939.

http://www.larryhatch.net/PRE1940.html

Next is the entire decade of the 1940s in North America. There 
are two maps actually, the top one shows all data, the bottom 
one is the same map with only two months data removed, i.e. 
without June-July 1947. The contrast of 118 versus 120 months is 
obvious:

http://www.larryhatch.net/NAM40S.html

Then comes the 1950s. Again two maps, the bottom map has data 
from several waves removed; i.e. without the wave months of 
1950, 1952, 1954 and 1957. The contrast is less obvious than the 
1947 comparison.

http://www.larryhatch.net/NAM50S.html

The maps for the 1960s do not remove wave months, but display 
North America and Europe instead. Romania shows lots of events, 
Germany scarcely any.

http://www.larryhatch.net/1960S.html

Maps for the 1970s are for Europe and North America again. The 
missile-silo sightings of North Dakota (1960s) have shifted 
hundreds of miles West, well into Montana (1970s).

Maps for the 1980s and 1990s have been up on my site all along.

http://www.larryhatch.net/NAM80S.html

http://www.larryhatch.net/NAM90S.html

I hope you have time for a nice browse. Comments and suggestions 
are welcomed.


Best wishes

- Larry Hatch


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
      U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
   TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Vietnam veterans,
Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]


From brian_a_lee at hotmail.com  Tue Jan 20 19:59:30 2004
From: brian_a_lee at hotmail.com (Brian Lee)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 14:59:30 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold
Message-ID: <F20NBosCXkdX6mkqlZ40000e2e6@hotmail.com>

I was homeschooled for a few years and my mother stayed home and taught me 
and my siblings. It worked out pretty well except for the social 
interaction.

Where else can you study algebra and shakespear in the first grade?

BAL

>From: Amara Graps <amara at amara.com>
>To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold
>Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 18:22:07 +0200
>
>Anders Sandberg:
>>How does homschooling really work? We do not have it here in Sweden, so
>>I have no intuition of its effect on my model. In particular, does
>>parents stay at home teaching (full time or partial time)? How large are
>>the economic savings?
>
>
>You might want to have a discussion with Alex Ramonsky. He moved to
>Ireland many years ago because he couldn't homeschool his boys in
>Britain. Now his family is back in GB. Their experiences are full --
>he might begin the long story with how they built their house.... :-)
>
>Amara
>
>--
>
>********************************************************************
>Amara Graps, PhD          email: amara at amara.com
>Computational Physics     vita:  ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt
>Multiplex Answers         URL:   http://www.amara.com/
>********************************************************************
>"Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the
>future of the human race."   -- H. G. Wells
>_______________________________________________
>extropy-chat mailing list
>extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat

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From brian_a_lee at hotmail.com  Tue Jan 20 20:06:34 2004
From: brian_a_lee at hotmail.com (Brian Lee)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 15:06:34 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Public Schools
Message-ID: <Law9-F64NBgCcMnSK94000483a9@hotmail.com>

>From: "Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com>
>Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 01:56:11 -0500
>
>"Technotranscendence" <neptune at superlink.net> wrote,
> > I have never met a homeschooled individual who wasn't a success,
> > though I admit that I've only met a few.
>
>Ack!  I have.  They had the strongest prejudices and politics of their
>parents drilled into them.  They usually become mental clones of their
>parents with no opposing viewpoints presented.  They were often inept 
>around
>other kids and preferred to be alone.  Most of them were either rude or
>sometimes deliberately mean to other kids.  They were often selfish and 
>used
>to having their own way.  Many home-schooled kids become selfish little
>brats.  Of the religious-based home-schooled kids, they seemed to be
>well-trained in their particular religion, and poorly trained in godless
>science, literature or art.
>
>This is not true of all, because I have met many fine home-schooled kids as
>well.  But in my experience, all the well-adjusted kids were interested in
>getting out into the world, going to regular schools, being with other kids
>their own age, and eventually self-chose to end home-schooling.  I have 
>also
>seen a few examples of "home-schooled" kids who didn't seem to have any 
>real
>schooling at all.  Their parents just called them home-schooled to keep 
>them
>out of the godless public school.
>
>In short, home-schooling is about a variable as any other aspect of a
>child's home-life.  Some are great, some are awful.
>
>--
>Harvey Newstrom
><HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com>

My personal experiences with homeschool are very favorable. I only 
homeschooled in elementary school and went to public and private from grades 
7-12. I liked the freedom of being able to complete your work in much 
shorter time periods without waiting for other kids. It was good for me as I 
was bored in public school and got to study more interesting bits in 
homeschool. I had an older brother and sister (by 3 and 5 years 
respectively) so I also got to study whatever they were studying. I also had 
a younger sister who absolutely hated homeschool. She was taught at home for 
elementary school as well but she needed lots of attention and didn't take 
to math, science, reading etc. Because of this she had a hard time and 
probably would have benefited from specialists that a large school could 
provide.

I really enjoyed home school and would love to teach my own children some 
day if I could spare being out of work for so many years.

It makes socializing hard as you only see your family during the days so you 
need some other social outlet for your kids (community center, church, boy 
scouts, something).

BAL

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From jrd1415 at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 20 20:23:10 2004
From: jrd1415 at yahoo.com (Jeff Davis)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 12:23:10 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Homeschooling statistics
In-Reply-To: <009601c3df56$143c8d40$29cd5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <20040120202310.21732.qmail@web41213.mail.yahoo.com>

Here are some.

http://www.uhea.org/stats.html

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From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Tue Jan 20 21:31:16 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 13:31:16 -0800 (PST)
Subject: ion engine was RE: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
In-Reply-To: <003a01c3df73$5d45e280$19ce5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401201317450.19349-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Technotranscendence wrote:

> > The mission cost was $110m Euros ($126M).
>
> Which still does not tell us how much the propulsion system cost.
> Hopefully, it would be much lower than 110M Euros.

True.  Wild-2 had 16 individual chemical rocket engines on it.
(Nothing like redundancy to make sure things work...).  My guess would
be that you are talking a maximum of $15-20M.  Probably more
like $2-5M.  I can't believe that NASA would be sinking multi-10's
of millions into the ion engine development that Glenn & JPL
are doing.  I mean what are we talking here - a xenon tank,
a few control valves, microwaves generators to do the ionization
(on the new engines), perhaps a wire mesh to do the neutralization,
some magnets and transformers to generate the HV field, perhaps
some transformers(?) and some packging to hold it all together.

> NASA has done some work, I recall reading, on long-term use of ion
> thrust.

Yep, the tests so far on both the old and newer high power engines
have gone well.

> My understanding of ion thrust is that the ions are neutralized during
> or after exiting as exhaust.  If not, all ion propelled craft would be
> lowering their efficiency, no?

I've always wondered about this.  In theory if one didn't neutralize
the ions the spacecraft would pick up a negative charge.  The only
thing I can imagine is blasting the ions through a wire mesh that
was heated up to boil off electrons like a vacum tube.

Robert



From neptune at superlink.net  Tue Jan 20 21:39:47 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 16:39:47 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Charity/was Re: EDU: Public Schools
References: <002b01c3df73$06a5fb40$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <005001c3df9d$ee3adb40$6dcd5cd1@neptune>

I hope all of you don't mind me changing the subject line since it seems
Harvey and I are focusing on a wider issue.

On Tuesday, January 20, 2004 11:32 AM Harvey Newstrom
mail at HarveyNewstrom.com wrote:
> > >> I was under the (perhaps mistaken) impression
> > >> that your life, career, works, example, spending
> > >> and creating (non-exhaustive list) already give
> > >> back amply to your community and beyond it.
> > >
> > > You are not mistaken.  We are very active in
> > > volunteer work and spend huge amounts on
> > > various charities we support.  This attitude is
> > > only possible because we believe in our
> > > community and in helping others.
> >
> > Hey, good for you.  However, it seems you're using your so
> > called charitable works to boast about your moral superiority, no?:)
>
> No.  Where did you get that idea.  I did not
> bring them up.  I answered a direct question.

Just a hunch.  Sometimes they're wrong, you know?:)  I put the smiley
after the original comment as a sort of wink that it only seemed that
way -- and I don't mean to disparage you...

> My point is that being comfortable with
> taxation and public schools is not
> incompatible with charity work.

Well, this brings up a wider issue: the nature of charity.

> Where did I mention anything about my
> moral superiority?  (If anything, I have an
> inferiority complex that drives me to do
> more to try to prove myself.)

It wasn't a direct comment, but something I felt in the way you wrote.
Your parenthetic comment actually lends support to my hunch here.  How?
Well, you seem to be saying the doing charity compensates for some moral
inferiority.  You don't use "moral inferiority" above, but it's implied.
The implication is that charity makes you a better person -- less
inferior or makes you feel less inferior -- than otherwise.

This implies that if there were two people, X and Y, who were both
morally identical and then X did charitable works -- say, spent time in
the local soup kitchen dishing out food -- while Y did not, X would be
morally superior to Y.  Do you agree with this?  Or are X and Y still
morally equal despite X's doing some charitable work?

>> The fact is that actually working, creating,
>> etc. does more overall to help others than
>> charity.
>
> This is a false dichotomy.  We don't have to
> choose between working, creating or being
> charitable.  We can do it all.  I believe in the
> non-zero-sum game, or the win/win situation.
> It is this attitude that encourages me to be
> charitable.

Actually, I'm not setting up a false dichotomy.  I do not think one has
to either work or do charity and never the 'twain shall meet.  My point
was only that working does more overall to help others because you're
actually creating new wealth as opposed to passing around existing
wealth.  In order for it not to be a zero sum game, new wealth has to be
created.  Just reshuffling existing wealth does not make for more wealth
overall.  To put it bluntly, someone has to make before anyone else can
take -- or before the initial someone can even share.

Add to this, in a market economy -- the context most of us exist in to
some extent, however regulated or stifled -- people don't work in a
vacuum.  They work by exchanging their labor for money.  That means
trading values with other people -- not creating values and consuming
them without trade.  So, creating more wealth usually means that there's
more wealth to go around.  For example, if I work harder and earn
more -- assuming it isn't all taxed or regulated away -- I'm eventually
going to spend more.  I'm also earning more because I'm trading my
services for someone else's wants.  That person is paying me more
because she or he gets more benefits.  That's the positive sum nature of
market interactions.

As Adam Smith and others have noted, this increases the overall wealth
of society and improves standards of living overall -- even if each
individual only intends her or his own wealth maximization.

This is not to say that's it, no need for charity.  However, it is to
state pretty much the facts.  If you don't increase wealth, then charity
will always come as a decrease in wealth and be harmful overall.

>>> If I were a bitter old Libertarian clutching
>>> my gun and grumping about all taxes
>>> being theft, I would be so busy wallowing
>>> in my self-pity and victim mentality that I
>>> would not give back anything to anyone.
> >
>> I'm sure there are a few people like that
>> out there, but almost all of the libertarians
>> I know are not like that.
>
> Maybe not that extreme.

Well, do you know people who are professed libertarians who fit your
caricature of the Misery, Gun-Toting Libertarian?:)  I don't.  I do know
several non-libertarians who come close, but I don't assume that all
non-libertarians are therefore miserly nuts.:)  Certainly, not you.:)

> But you are already arguing that charity is
> not as important as working, creating and
> making your own money.

The social benefits of people producing wealth should be obvious.  Also,
one way to help humankind out is not be on charity yourself.  Yes, I do
believe it is more important than charity.  Again, charity must come
from somewhere.  That somewhere is out of productive work.  If not, then
it really isn't charity is it?  More on this below.

> You seem to actually look down on charity
> or see it as a bad thing, think I am a morally
> smug (bad) person for doing it, etc.

I only see it as bad if you're doing it for the wrong reasons or with
the wrong results.  If you're doing it for morally superiority or out of
a sense guilt, I think this corrupts the charity.  If you do it with the
wrong results, well, you might be a well-meaning person, but the end
result will be wrong.

> This kind of zero-sum libertarian thinking
> tends to turn selfish.

There's the rub.  You seem to oppose rational self-interest against
charity -- and treat rational self-interest as a bad thing.  My personal
ethics -- basically Objectivist -- do not see self-interest as
inherently evil or opposed to charity and generosity.

> It leads one to believe that there are
> limited resources, so "I have to make
> mine first" and "there isn't enough to
> share with anybody else".  I think it
> also leads to selfish justification
> that "I help others by holding my own
> job and keeping my own money".

Well, you do help others by trading with them as opposed to either not
trading with them -- in the Crusoe fashion of each man or woman being an
isolated economy (which does not really happen on any great scale
anyway) -- or by living off them -- being a charity case yourself
because you're unproductive or underproductive.

Also, above I argue that market interactions are basically a positive
sum game.  Yes, resources and wealth are both limited -- no one has an
infinite quantity and seeing how people are always consuming more, few
or none seem to have enough.  Allowing for voluntary acts of generosity,
I don't see where your problem is.  People do give to money and time to
charities.  You've admitted you do.  I assume no one comes to your door
and drags you to the soup kitchen for your shift there.  How is that you
do this voluntarily but you don't believe anyone else will?

Also, just anecdotally, I haven't met any libertarians who fit your
caricature.  Why is it that libertarians -- who you think would all be
misers because that's where you believe their political philosophy would
lead -- are charitable types?  (I'm not arguing that they're more
charitable than the average person.  Maybe they're average.  Maybe not.
I don't know.)

> Sorry, but I don't believe in trickle-
> down economics.

I'm not sure what you mean by the term.  I believe people should be
allowed to freely interact -- which includes both market interactions
and private acts of generosity -- as opposed to being forced to interact
in ways they would not otherwise -- including being taxed to pay for
whatever, where the "whatever" can be corporate welfare, foreign wars,
public schools, or what have you.

>>> It is this very fact that I have been blessed in
>>> my life that empowers me to help others.
>>> If I really felt that I had to claw and scratch out
>>> every single penny with no help from anyone,
>>> seeing the government and social institutions
>>> as enemies, I would bury all my money in the
>>> back yard and never help anyone.
>>
>> I think you're setting up a package deal here --
>> meaning you're packing together things that
>> don't necessarily go together.  I see nothing
>> wrong with making wealth and deciding what
>> to do with it -- i.e., not having the government
>> come in and take some or force you to use
>> your wealth in certain ways.  As long as you
>> don't harm others, you should be free to
>> produce, create, trade, give, and consume
>> as you see fit.  If you agree with this -- and
>> this is basically the standard libertarian
>> ideal -- then why can't you be charitable?
>> Many people I know who call themselves
> > libertarians do just this.
>
> The ideals you are promoting under the
> "libertarian" banner are all about freedom to
> get more for yourself.

What is wrong with me keeping more or all of what I earn?  I don't see
that as wrong, corrupt, immoral, or whatever.  What's also wrong with me
deciding who or what to be generous to -- or even not to be generous?

> Sure, there is nothing in it that precludes
> charity.

I'm glad you admit that.

> But all of its specifically stated goals are
> pretty much the opposite of charity.
> Libertarians worry so much about getting
> more for themselves, that many (not all)
> never get around to helping others.  Or
> they set their priorities that they will work
> toward a free state, and help others later.

Not the ones I know.  They're giving charity now, when they are
basically taxed at very high rates and certainly not as free as they
want to be.

Also, libertarianism is a political philosophy.  As such, it deals with
the role of force in society.  Its basic view is that force as such
should only be used in defense of individual negative rights -- rights
like those of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.
Charity does not fall under political philosophy as such -- not as I
define it above -- but comes under personal morality or personal
preferences.

This goes to the deeper nature of charity I hinted at several times
above.  Charity, in order for it to truly be charity, must be voluntary.
Force charity is an oxymoron.  If you disagree, imagine, again, two
people, X and Y -- forgive my lack of imagination in naming them.:)  X
lives in a free society and gives nothing to charity.  No time, no
money, etc.  She doesn't go out of her way to help anyone and keeps to
herself.  She won't even hold the door open for another person.  She's
the miserly type you fear would be the majority in a libertarian world.
I think we can agree that X is not charitable.

Y lives in America now and he's taxed to give to various causes, such as
to fight AIDS in Africa, poverty in his city, school lunches across the
nation.  He doesn't give -- except when he's forced to.  Is Y
charitable?  In my view, he's not.  He's basically the same as X.  He's
as uncharitable as she is.

Now, we can just as well posit an X' and Y' -- both charitable
individuals, but X' lives in a libertarian society while Y' lives in
America today.  Both give money and time to various causes and are
generally generous.  Y', of course, is limited is his giving because a
large amount of his personal wealth is taken from him to pay for causes
he might not like or agree with.  Even if Y' agrees with them, suppose
he notices that one of the so called charities is actually
counterproductive -- that the money to fight AIDS is really just lining
the pockets of big drug corporations.  He can't do much about it.  They
money is taxed from him.

>> The package deal is that you are assuming
>> that that libertarian ideal must make you
>> out to be a Scrooge-like character and
>> that only people who support government
>> welfare schemes can be truly generous.
>
> No, libertarian philosophy does not make
> you a scrooge, but it is the perfect philosophy
> for an already scroogy person to hold.

If you recall "A Christmas Carol," Ebanezer Scrooge argued that he
already paid his taxes and these were spent on the poor.  Dickens seemed
more interested in the story not in Scrooge supporting government
welfare, but in him truly embracing generosity as personal trait.
Scrooge's transformation is partly him coming back to humanity -- not
his becoming a welfare statist.:)

> And, no, you don't have to love the government
> to work through their charities, but a deep hate
> or distrust of the government will probably
> lead people to not support government
> programs in any way.

I hope you wouldn't assume that a hate and distrust of government --
healthy, in my opinion, given that governments do things like oppress
and murder people wholesale not just retail -- means that one can never
ever have private charity.

>> I'm sure many people who believe in
>> government welfare mean well and
>> feel it's the only way to help others.
>> They're wrong, misguided, and their
>> efforts are counterproductive.  Likewise,
>> not everyone who is allowed to pursue
>> his or her happiness is going to be
>> charitable.  There will be misers, but
>> misers tend to be rare anyhow.  They
>> actually tend to do less harm because
>> they don't stop the rest of us from being
>> generous.)
>
> I agree with the first part.  But I disagree
> that misers are rare.  I do auditing for a
> living.  I find rampant fraud almost
> everywhere I go.  People cheat people
> all the time.

In what sense do you mean "cheat" above (to the extent you can elaborate
without violating a fiduciary agreement)?

> These misers do hurt other people all the time.
> Enron is not an exception, it is the rule.
> These people do the opposite of trickle-down.
> They destroy value for many others to enhance
> their own stockpile.

That's another matter.  Someone who steals or cheats in that sense is
violating libertarian principles.  that such people exist in the modern
welfare state should tell us about its impact on personal character.

Also, I wanted to bring up two more points.  One is that when people are
free, they will often do things you don't like or agree with.  For
instance, people in America are generally free to do a lot of things,
but they don't all pursue high culture, learn new skills, improve their
character, knowledge, physique, and the like.  E.g., freedom of the
press doesn't mean everyone's reading Chaucer, Milton, and Plato.
Instead, the few who do read are all over the board and, I bet, more
sales are made of trashy romance novels and "true crime" stories than
great literature.  Does that mean we should curtail freedom?

Two, you're making the argument that without a welfare state or some
kind of "forced charity" (in quotes because I believe it's an oxymoron
for the reasons stated above) appears little different than a theist
arguing that atheism must lead to immorality.  Yes, again, free people
might abandon many of the assistance programs -- a good thing in many
cases, since I don't think Boeing needs that Import Export Bank (your
tax dollars at work) support to sell jet liners to the Saudis:) -- but
that's life.  Some will, a lot won't.  I know I won't and I bet most
people who are truly charitable won't.

In closing, since you hinted that you do charity out of guilt -- I bet
this is not true -- this brings up the problem of why a person does
charity in the first place.  I know we have no way of looking into
people's minds and divining their motives, but to do charity out of
guilt seems the wrong reason -- as wrong as doing it to feel morally
superior.  I think the right reasons are out of generosity and out of
fellow-feeling.

(Leonard Peikoff once gave a talk where he said there was nothing wrong
with charity provided you remember three things.  One, charity does not
have any moral bearing on the giver.  One is not morally better for it.
Two, charity must never be a sacrifice.  E.g., you don't starve your
children so you can feed a stranger.  I.e., you don't damage your values
to do it.  Three, the recipient of charity must not be the cause of his
or her own misfortune.  E.g., you don't give money to a lazy person who
doesn't have his own money because he's lazy and won't work.  He is, of
course, talking inside the context of his morality which is basically
Objectivist.  I'm not sure I agree with his three criterion and only
offer them as food for thought.)

Okay, I hope the above did not seem hostile in any way and I apologize
for my earlier comment where I tried to divine your motives.

Cheers!

Dan
  See "The Hills of Rendome" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Rendome.html



From aperick at centurytel.net  Tue Jan 20 21:35:11 2004
From: aperick at centurytel.net (aperick at centurytel.net)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 13:35:11 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Meta:searching list archives
In-Reply-To: <200401201411.i0KEBlE32006@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <1721761.1074634716394.JavaMail.teamon@b111.teamon.com>

Harvey Newstrom Wrote:

>I have not been able to get the searches to work on the Extropians Lists
for
many years.  Others have complained before that they don't work.  I am not
sure how this can be done.  I, too, would love to be able to search archives
for keywords.
/>

Providing you have built up your own archive, you can use any of many MS
search techniques to quickly and easily find what you seek. If you use
outlook it has an advanced find feature that you can run on an entire
folder. If you did not personally save (archive) your daily list
compilations, you could ask others on the list to share theirs with you.



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Tue Jan 20 21:40:21 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 13:40:21 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Meta:searching list archives
In-Reply-To: <20040120174111.33087.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401201338300.19349-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> The Javien engine does not search list archives (pre-2003 I don't think
> is even present anymore). It is impossible for us to find discussions
> more than a year ago, which is pretty sad. Suggest either lucifer gets
> fixed or we find some other means (perhaps an Atomz engine?)

Hmmm... The Javien forum definitely goes back to 1995 (though there seems
to be a gap between Oct. 1995 and July 1996 [go back to the first and next
couple of pages in the list]).  So the messages are there.  But Mike is
right that there is a problem with the search function that it only
seems to go back to December 2001.

I'll ask Dave about it and see what I can find out.

Robert




From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk  Tue Jan 20 21:43:06 2004
From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 21:43:06 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Mars on the cheap?
Message-ID: <400DA0EA.1040903@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>

Nobody seems to have mentioned that after the Bush plan for NASA to go
to Mars was announced, the Russians put their hand up and said that they
could do it a lot cheaper than NASA.

<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&ncid=753&e=10&u=/ap/20040115/ap_on_sc/russia_us_space>

Mikhailichenko said Russia's giant Energiya booster rocket, with a
payload of about 100 metric tons (110 tons), could be useful for moon
and interplanetary missions. The Energiya program has been dormant in
recent years due to the money crunch and the lack of suitable mission.

Mikhailichenko said Energiya launching facilities have been preserved at
Baikonur, Russia's launching base for manned space flights.

Meanwhile, Russian space designers said they could quickly develop
spacecraft for both moon and Mars missions if they have money.

Roald Kremnev, a deputy head of NPO Lavochkin company which built the
Soviet Lunokhod rover that traipsed across the moon in 1970, said it
could build its successor in mere two or three years for just 600
million rubles (US$21 million), ITAR-Tass reported.

Another space designer, Leonid Gorshkov of the RKK Energiya company that
builds Soyuz and Progress spacecraft, says it has designed a spacecraft
which can carry a crew to Mars as early as 2014 for US$15 billion.

Gorshkov told ITAR-Tass that the 70-metric ton (77-ton) spacecraft
modelled on the Russian Zvezda (news - web sites) module for the ISS
could be assembled in orbit from components delivered by Proton booster
rockets.

End Quote


At these prices there are some billionaires around who could fund their
own space program, even if NASA still require billions to do it their way.

BillK





From samantha at objectent.com  Tue Jan 20 22:39:44 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 14:39:44 -0800
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] Game
	theoryofcommoncold)
In-Reply-To: <009b01c3df28$a6f955b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
References: <20040119230332.595bea56.samantha@objectent.com>
	<009b01c3df28$a6f955b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040120143944.0ff94d24.samantha@objectent.com>

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 02:40:13 -0500
"Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:

> Samantha Atkins wrote,
> > > As far as I am concerned, I am taking money from the community rather 
> > > than the community taking money from me.  I don't mind giving a little 
> > > of it back.
> > 
> > I was under the (perhaps mistaken) impression that your life, 
> > career, works, example, spending and creating (non-exhaustive 
> > list) already give back amply to your community and beyond it.
> 
> You are not mistaken.  We are very active in volunteer work and spend huge
> amounts on various charities we support.  This attitude is only possible
> because we believe in our community and in helping others.  If I were a
> bitter old Libertarian clutching my gun and grumping about all taxes being
> theft, I would be so busy wallowing in my self-pity and victim mentality
> that I would not give back anything to anyone.  It is this very fact that I
> have been blessed in my life that empowers me to help others.  If I really
> felt that I had to claw and scratch out every single penny with no help from
> anyone, seeing the government and social institutions as enemies, I would
> bury all my money in the back yard and never help anyone.
> 

I draw a large distinction between voluntary charity and involuntary charity imposed by a government.  I believe very much in giving back in whatever form it takes (and am known for generositiy in that regard fwiw) but I do not believe and never will believe in forced taking and giving to others.  Please do not give in to the temptation to slam libertarians just because you do not happen to be one.  There is in fact VERY ample reason not to trust government and this government in particular that hasn't a damn thing to do with "self-pity" or "victim mentality".  I am quite dismayed that you would jump into this mode of ranting so easily.   I am also dismayed by a seeming unwillingness to grant that there are is a whole spectrum of attitudes and practice out there between you and your "bitter old Libertarian".  

- samantha


From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Tue Jan 20 22:51:13 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 14:51:13 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Charity/was Re: EDU: Public Schools
In-Reply-To: <005001c3df9d$ee3adb40$6dcd5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <000001c3dfa7$ebe2fd00$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

>Technotranscendence

>This implies that if there were two people, X and Y, who were both
morally identical and then X did charitable works -- say, spent time in
the local soup kitchen dishing out food -- while Y did not, X would be
morally superior to Y.  Do you agree with this?  Or are X and Y still
morally equal despite X's doing some charitable work?

--
I don't know about moral inferiority etc :)
I do know who I'ld rather live next to 
(preferentially).





From samantha at objectent.com  Tue Jan 20 22:48:00 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 14:48:00 -0800
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat]
	Gametheoryofcommoncold
In-Reply-To: <00bd01c3df58$9968bc80$29cd5cd1@neptune>
References: <009b01c3df28$a6f955b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<00bd01c3df58$9968bc80$29cd5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <20040120144800.501b8c7c.samantha@objectent.com>

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 08:23:30 -0500
"Technotranscendence" <neptune at superlink.net> wrote:
> The fact is that actually working, creating, etc. does more overall to
> help others than charity.  Nothing wrong with charity, but if most
> people didn't do productive things and interact through trade, most of
> humanity would have to die out.  Simply volunteering and reshuffling
> wealth would not improve much.  Wealth has to be created before it can
> be given -- or redistributed.:)
>

It depends on what you voluntarily do.  Many tasks can be done for pay or as a volunteer and have precisely equal value.  Volunteers also take on a lot of jobs that it would be hard to produce a viable business plan around but nonetheless add quite a bit of real longterm value that certainly is not simply "reshuffling wealth".   Wealth does not only consist of that which is bought and sold in the market place.
 
- samantha


From rafal at smigrodzki.org  Wed Jan 21 02:10:30 2004
From: rafal at smigrodzki.org (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 18:10:30 -0800
Subject: The moral inferiority of charity (Was: Re:
	[extropy-chat]Gametheoryofcommoncold
In-Reply-To: <002b01c3df73$06a5fb40$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <OJEHKDIANIFPAJPDBDGLKEGACOAA.rafal@smigrodzki.org>

Harvey wrote:

>>> If I were a bitter old Libertarian clutching my
>>> gun and grumping about all taxes being theft,
>>> I would be so busy wallowing in my self-pity
>>> and victim mentality that I would not give back
>>> anything to anyone.
>>
>> I'm sure there are a few people like that out there, but
>> almost all of the libertarians I know are not like that.
>
> Maybe not that extreme.  But you are already arguing that charity is
> not as important as working, creating and making your own money.

### Of course! Charity is not an evolutionarily stable strategy for
improving general welfare, except as a signaling device in competition for
resources (attention, mates, cooperation). Cooperation in a reciprocal
altruist fashion is stable ("making your own money" in the market), and
should form the basis for evaluation of individuals and societies alike.
Charity is obviously morally inferior than work and creation, because it
doesn't create and for the most part doesn't increase welfare, indeed, may
encourage a reduction in effort on the part of its recipients. Charity feeds
on work, and therefore is no more than a distraction - a nice one, perhaps,
to be mildly encouraged, like puppies and ikebana, but still a distraction.

Rafal



From dirk at neopax.com  Tue Jan 20 23:06:56 2004
From: dirk at neopax.com (Dirk Bruere)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 23:06:56 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Unsubscribing
References: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGMEKFCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>
	<2ce001c3dc74$4989f1c0$6bc11b97@administxl09yj>
Message-ID: <003701c3dfaa$234b5600$9ab5ff3e@artemis>

Sorry guys, but the signal to noise ratio here is horrific.
If I wanted to discuss US educational policy or libertarian politics I'd
have signed up to the appropriate lists.
And as for general technological advances, Kurtzweil's newsletter is a far
better source.

Dirk

The Consensus:-
The political party for the new millennium
http://www.theconsensus.org



From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Tue Jan 20 23:02:59 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 09:32:59 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178693F@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

I think a bunch of us have kids. I do. 

Often we don't discuss kids, I think, because it's a touchy topic. Some here
believe that extropes shouldn't really have children.

Emlyn

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Spike [mailto:spike66 at comcast.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, 20 January 2004 3:39 PM
> To: 'ExI chat list'
> Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
> 
> 
> > How is it that so few of us have kids? Or, if indeed many do, 
> > why do we rarely discuss parenting on-list?
> > 
> > -- David Lubkin.
> 
> My guess is that parents have little time for luxuries
> such as reading chat lists.  {8-]  spike
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 



From neptune at superlink.net  Wed Jan 21 00:55:03 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 19:55:03 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: EDU: Public Schools
References: <009b01c3df28$a6f955b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT><00bd01c3df58$9968bc80$29cd5cd1@neptune>
	<20040120144800.501b8c7c.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <01a501c3dfb9$3503ef60$6dcd5cd1@neptune>

On Tuesday, January 20, 2004 5:48 PM Samantha Atkins
samantha at objectent.com wrote:
>> The fact is that actually working, creating, etc.
>> does more overall to help others than charity.
>> Nothing wrong with charity, but if most people
>> didn't do productive things and interact through
>> trade, most of humanity would have to die out.
>> Simply volunteering and reshuffling wealth
>> would not improve much.  Wealth has to be
>> created before it can be given -- or
>> redistributed.:)
>
> It depends on what you voluntarily do.

Hopefully, the work you do is voluntary...  I think you meant what you
volunteer for -- in the sense of work you're not doing for a paycheck.:)

> Many tasks can be done for pay or as a volunteer
> and have precisely equal value.  Volunteers also
> take on a lot of jobs that it would be hard to
> produce a viable business plan around but
> nonetheless add quite a bit of real longterm
> value that certainly is not simply "reshuffling
> wealth".   Wealth does not only consist of that
> which is bought and sold in the market place.

I won't dispute that volunteer work -- charitable work -- has value or
can create value, but there are two caveats here.  (Heck, for that
matter, in some sense, even a command economy can create some wealth.)
One is that in order to volunteer, one must already have some other
source of wealth.  Someone without at least the basic necessities will
die, so she or he won't be of much use as a volunteer.  Even on this
minimal level, you need something before you can give -- you need at
least to have basic necessities before you can help others.

The other is that the money economy is much more efficient than
volunteering.  Yes, the two are not mutually exclusive -- as can be seen
from the fact that people in advanced money economies not only do
volunteer work but fund charities and the like -- but my original
statement above was, "Nothing wrong with charity, but if most people
didn't do productive things and interact through trade, most of humanity
would have to die out."  The incentives and information problem are
resolved much better in a market.  Yes, charity meshes nicely with
market interactions, but absent market interactions, all else being
equal, overall efficiency would be so low that most of humanity would
have to die out just to sustain that rest who interact in non-market
but, hopefully, still voluntary ways.  (Non-market _involuntary_ ways --
i.e., the command economy also known as socialism -- have an
indisputably low efficiency.)

Both must coexist, but the big engine of wealth creation is the market
system.  This is why market interactions took off once they were
established.  E.g., we can see in very primitive peoples today
gift-giving cultures -- ones where people freely give gifts usually with
some expectation of a return.  These most likely preceded actually trade
of the non-gift sort in early societies -- or between them where such
exchanges were infrequent.  (See Elman R. Service's _The Hunters_, and
many other anthropology books cover the same phenomenon.)  While such
things still go on in modern, advanced economies, the bulk of
interactions resulting in wealth creation are market ones.

Now, value is subjective -- in the Austrian economics sense -- so you
could say you experience more value from your volunteer work -- and
hopefully you do get what is called "psychic profit" (no reference to
the paranormal, but just meaning the benefit is emotional or, forgive
the term, "spiritual" as opposed to for monetary gain) -- but, again,
most people do not, since they don't all spend their time doing
volunteer work.  Also, again, the market economy creates more material
wealth upon which to rest the charitable efforts.

The libertarian social ideal as I understand it is just to allow people
to interact voluntarily.  I believe -- and you seem to agree from your
other posts -- that under such conditions, people will still do
charitable work, though I think the bulk of social interaction will
still be via some form of market economy.

Cheers!

Dan
  See "The Hills of Rendome" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Rendome.html



From neptune at superlink.net  Wed Jan 21 01:00:12 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 20:00:12 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Mars on the cheap?
References: <400DA0EA.1040903@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>
Message-ID: <01df01c3dfb9$ed657920$6dcd5cd1@neptune>

On Tuesday, January 20, 2004 4:43 PM BillK bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk
wrote:
> Nobody seems to have mentioned that after
> the Bush plan for NASA to go to Mars was
> announced, the Russians put their hand up
> and said that they could do it a lot cheaper
> than NASA.

Cool!  Let me guess why.  It won't help the big aerospace lobby in the
US...

I also wondered why Bush & Co. didn't mention -- or I must have missed
if they did -- Mars Direct.  Hey, why don't the Mars Direct people talk
with the Russians?

Cheers!

Dan
  See "The Hills of Rendome" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Rendome.html



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Wed Jan 21 01:18:24 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 20:18:24 -0500
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat]
	Gametheoryofcommoncold)
In-Reply-To: <20040120143944.0ff94d24.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <002201c3dfbc$77c1c860$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Samantha Atkins wrote,
> I draw a large distinction between voluntary charity and 
> involuntary charity imposed by a government.  I believe very 
> much in giving back in whatever form it takes (and am known 
> for generositiy in that regard fwiw) but I do not believe and 
> never will believe in forced taking and giving to others.  
> Please do not give in to the temptation to slam libertarians 
> just because you do not happen to be one.  There is in fact 
> VERY ample reason not to trust government and this government 
> in particular that hasn't a damn thing to do with "self-pity" 
> or "victim mentality".  I am quite dismayed that you would 
> jump into this mode of ranting so easily.   I am also 
> dismayed by a seeming unwillingness to grant that there are 
> is a whole spectrum of attitudes and practice out there 
> between you and your "bitter old Libertarian".

Wow, this conversation has suddenly turned 180 degrees when I blinked!  I
certainly do not trust the government, nor do I intend to slam Libertarians.
I was defending my position of doing charity work against those who said
charity through government programs was evil.  I also was explaining that
charity work could be good to counter those who claim all charity work is
self-serving selfishness.  I was trying to defend myself for doing charity
work, not attack anyone else for not doing charity work.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From jcorb at iol.ie  Wed Jan 21 01:44:06 2004
From: jcorb at iol.ie (J Corbally)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 01:44:06 +0000
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory of
	common cold)
In-Reply-To: <200401191720.i0JHKhE22612@tick.javien.com>
Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.1.20040121014151.02791200@pop.iol.ie>

At 10:20 AM 1/19/04 -0700, you wrote:

Catching up on posts over the last few days.

I've just read yours, and wanted to say I think you're a credit to Fatherhood.


James...

>Message: 34
>Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 11:20:08 -0600
> >From: "Kevin Freels" <kevinfreels at hotmail.com>
>Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory of
>         common  cold)
>To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Message-ID: <LAW10-OE4133mH9exWG0000a5b2 at hotmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> >Others pay -- including
> >those who don't have children and those whose children are either past
> >school age or who do not use public schools -- for schools as well, so
> >this lowers the costs of parenting when the parents use public schools.
>
>Let's not forget that even those who have no children were once children
>themselves and most likely benefited from the school system.
>
>Also, it is important to realize the benefit of having an "educated"
>populations (I use the word educated VERY loosely here). It is a shame that
>more parents simply don't get even slightly involved in their children's
>education. The resource is there, paid for by everyone, and yet many parents
>just don't seem to give a damn! Most of them are like this because of how
>their parents were. It's a vicious cycle of stupidity!
>
>Sorry for the slight venting. This touches rather close to home. My children
>go to a public school. They are from a previous marriage and she had
>custody. They are 8 and 7 yr old girls. Their mother is a meth dealer and
>could hardly pay attention. The girls were getting D's and F's in science
>and math (N's for the yoiunger girl). They went to schools in crappy clothes
>with holes in them even though I paid $207 per WEEK in child support!
>
>She was finally busted for Meth in November with the kids in the house. I
>finally received custody of the girls. They were such a mess! Now they have
>never been happier. Their counselor called me the other day and informed me
>that if they just keep doing what they have been doing since they moved
>here, they will get A's in every subject! All they needed was a little
>homework help, and some concern for their education. I think the real
>difference is that I care. Nothing more. Mom didn't care, so why should
>they? They prefer living here and Dad cares about their education, so they
>do too!
>
>(On a side note, can you believe that they have this whole screwed up idea
>that Santa Clause and God are real? How can someone teach religion to
>children and be such a stupid meth-head trashy mother at the same time? SO
>now I have my chance to raise nice atheist educated girls and turn them
>loose on the world. The two messages I have to teach them are "You can be an
>atheist and be a good person too." and "Don't grow up to be one of the
>stupid people" )
>
>Anyways, I really don;t think our educational system is all that bad. Yes,
>it could be better, but it can only be as good as the people that are in it.
>I don't know the number, but I would assume that hundreds of thousands are
>involved in the educational system from the administrative level down. The
>odds are that a portion of these people are idiots.( There must be a lot of
>idiots in the public school system.) This would be offset if parents simply
>gave a shit about their kids.
>
>Kevin Freels
>




From asa at nada.kth.se  Wed Jan 21 02:07:12 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 03:07:12 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold
In-Reply-To: <OJEHKDIANIFPAJPDBDGLKEEOCOAA.rafal@smigrodzki.org>
References: <1227.213.112.90.103.1074437230.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
	<OJEHKDIANIFPAJPDBDGLKEEOCOAA.rafal@smigrodzki.org>
Message-ID: <4297.213.112.90.174.1074650832.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>


Rafal Smigrodzki said:
> I think we need to examine the consequences of improving the prevention of
> cold transmission over longer periods of time. It appears that a cold
> epidemic ends only when the fraction of never-infected, and therefore
> susceptible hosts, drops to some low level. Diminishing the transmission
> of
> the cold virus by changing behavior of hosts, rather than vaccination,
> would
> result in maintenance of large numbers of susceptible hosts, and over many
> years the number of multiple-susceptible hosts would increase.

Although I think Robert is right about colds, your argument seems to have
merit against some other diseases like Measels in children.

I ran some simulations and introducing immunity seems to make the system
more altruistic! The reason is partly that disease incidence is reduced,
so there are fewer epidemics. This in turn makes the benefit of being a
worker less, and there are more people staying at home. Increasing the
infectiousness of the disease still requires quite extreme levels before
we get an altruism breakdown. Increasing the base probability of the
disease had little effect, since immune people still don't get it.

> If so, the system might become
> metastable - a large population of susceptible hosts and many versions of
> viruses, kept apart only by the behavioral modification. What if at some
> point a critical mass is reached, and a pandemic develops even in the
> presence of the behavioral modification?

This would require a behavioral modification that was extremely efficient,
able to maintain isolation against multiple flu viruses or something
similar over the span of many years. This is unlikely to work perfectly,
and we get enough local breakdown to introduce immunity in the population.

Rare and serious diseases still can cause wipeouts, but they are unlikely
to be manageable by the system I described. People should certainly stay
away from work if they have the bubonic plague, but there is little social
and game-theoretic evolution of the behavior (but likely a bit of common
sense limiting work while infected by the plague).


> Also, the idea that specific persons can be punished for infecting others
> implies the ability to detect these persons, either beforehand, or after
> the
> deed - and therefore, civil liability, the law of torts, contract law,
> private exclusionary practices, and other perfectly non-coercive means can
> be fruitfully employed. That they are not used, is IMO due to the marginal
> disutility of the common cold (compared to what I see on the ward
> sometimes), and the possibly substantial costs of preventing its
> transmission (aside from vaccinations).

Within a few years I predict we will have bacterial/viral detector chips
in hospitals, then in the home and finally in the cellphone. Imagine the
public health effects of being able to scan the environment for flu. Or to
prove with a high likeliehood that Mr Smith was the source of your cold
given strain similarities.


-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Wed Jan 21 02:14:15 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 21:14:15 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Charity/was Re: EDU: Public Schools
In-Reply-To: <005001c3df9d$ee3adb40$6dcd5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <002801c3dfc4$46119f90$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Technotranscendence wrote,
> Harvey Newstrom mail at HarveyNewstrom.com wrote:
> > > Hey, good for you.  However, it seems you're using your so called
> > > charitable works to boast about your moral superiority, no?:)
> >
> > No.  Where did you get that idea.  I did not
> > bring them up.  I answered a direct question.
> 
> Just a hunch.  Sometimes they're wrong, you know?:)

You accuse me of using of boasting about my moral superiority "on a
hunch"???  

Your (and others') rants seem to have more to do with some anti-charity
libertarian worldview than anything I have actually done or said.

I'm sorry that I wasted even this much time on this thread.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From spike66 at comcast.net  Wed Jan 21 03:03:54 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 19:03:54 -0800
Subject: ion engine was RE: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
In-Reply-To: <20040120093356.12199.qmail@web41214.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <001d01c3dfcb$350c9cc0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

> And by the way, this business of using xenon as the
> reaction mass, can't we go with something a mite less
> exotic, like, say, iron?  (I'm looking ahead to those
> asteroids...)  What's the story?
> 
> Best, Jeff Davis

No.  Ideally in an ion engine you want your working
fluid to be as dense as possible.  Radon would be even
better if not for that radioactivity problem.  If we 
used iron as a propellant, we would waste too much 
energy in vaporizing the stuff.

spike





  



From spike66 at comcast.net  Wed Jan 21 03:26:23 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 19:26:23 -0800
Subject: ion engine was RE: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401200556130.10882-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3dfce$58a65a60$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


> Robert J. Bradbury

> 
> > And by the way, this business of using xenon as the
> > reaction mass...Jeff
> 
> Spike may correct me but I believe its because Xenon provides
> the greatest thrust for the amount of electric power you
> put into the engine.  It may also include the fact that
> ionizing a gas, particularly a heavy element, is easier
> (requires less power invested).  I'm sure ionizing solids
> is a bit trickier because you have to probably have to
> vaporize them (perhaps with something like a high power
> electric are or high power lasers???).

Yes, well said, all correct.  There have been experiments
with laser acceleration of ions, achieving even higher
*specific thrust* than is available with current space-based
ion engines.  However the total thrust is very low and the
amount of power used accelerate a given mass of propellant
is very high in these designs.  Still they might have their
uses: when we have a looooong time to get wherever we are
going for instance.


>  That would make
> the engine more complex and probably shorten its lifetime.

There is a big headache associated with erosion
in those laser-accelerated designs.  An example is
in one of the atomic oxygen accelerators at NASA Glenn
in Ohio: it accelerates the ionized oxygen down a 
copper tube.  But copper particles erode from collisions
with atoms travelling at over 30 km/sec.  This inherent 
in the design.  A material superior to copper has not
been found as far as I know.  But my visit to the
facility was nearly four years ago. 

> The choice for asteroids might be oxygen and for comets
> might be neon as both would be fairly abundant.
> 
> Robert

Neon?  In an asteroid?  How would that stuff stay
around?  Did you mean nitrogen?  I do agree with oxygen
as a propellant from comets and asteroids.

As for efficiency, I need to do the calcs for something
I thought of as I read your post: there would
be radiation losses from accelerating the charged 
fluid, bremsstrahlung radiation I think its called.  
Amara probably knows right offhand.  

spike



From spike66 at comcast.net  Wed Jan 21 03:41:52 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 19:41:52 -0800
Subject: ion engine was RE: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
In-Reply-To: <003a01c3df73$5d45e280$19ce5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <000001c3dfd0$8286a680$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


> Technotranscendence

> 
> My understanding of ion thrust is that the ions are neutralized during
> or after exiting as exhaust.  If not, all ion propelled craft would be
> lowering their efficiency, no?

Ja.  The NASA Glenn facility was an outgrowth of an
effort to create an atomic oxygen test facility which
could produce a stream of cold neutral oxygen atoms
going at 8 km/sec for materials testing purposes.  Other
oxygen testing facilities create hot ionized oxygen
without the kinetic energy, so the usefulness in
materials testing was limited and the results are
related to the real world are by inference only.

So instead of hot, charged and slow, NASA Glenn gives
you cold, neutral and fast, by injecting the previously
stripped electrons back into the ion stream.  An oh by 
the way, would not this make a wonderful ion engine?  {8-]  

Minor problem: the Glenn facility costs a fortune to set
up and fires a few parts per million of copper particles
at your test item, which in some cases wrecks the test.
Also there is radiation from at least two sources: the
UV from the recombination of oxygen ions with electrons,
and the bremsstrahlung from the remaining oxygen ions
hitting your target.

Besides that, we at Lockheeed can do it cheaper.  And
faster too.  I dont know about better.  {8^D  But you
know the old saying about that: pick any two.


> > c) the need for the ion engine to take
> > up its own solar  panels for power (I
> > doubt the designers thought far
> >    enough ahead to include a power
> > outlet on the outside
> >    of the Hubble itself...).

I think the notion is to use the ion engine in
applications where the spacecraft already has
access power generating capacity: it has its own
solar panels which are not always in use or not
fully used always.  Then use the otherwise wasted
power to gently push the craft along, extending
its orbit life.

spike



From spike66 at comcast.net  Wed Jan 21 03:54:11 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 19:54:11 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
In-Reply-To: <20040120173336.30454.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <000201c3dfd2$3ac326a0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


> Mike Lorrey:

> ...(one US company having satellites
> launched by the Chinese gave them technology to improve their
> reliability and accuracy, to ensure the success of their own 
> satellites being launched, and now helps ensure the reliability and
accuracy of
> China's ICBM inventory)... Mike Lorrey

Thats correct.  And what is the name of that company?

Hint:  starts with a B, ends with a G, and has the
letters "ooein" somewhere within.  But I shall offer
no more hints, for I would not want to further
embarrass the reprehensible scoundrels.

spike








From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Wed Jan 21 04:08:07 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 14:38:07 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] Charity/was Re: EDU: Public Schools
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786944@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

Harvey wrote (in response to Dan):
> Your (and others') rants seem to have more to do with some 
> anti-charity
> libertarian worldview than anything I have actually done or said.
> 
> I'm sorry that I wasted even this much time on this thread.
> 

This I find weird too; doesn't Libertarianism usually rely on private
charity to replace centralised social welfare? I may have my wires crossed
on this, feel free to correct me :-) .

Emlyn



From spike66 at comcast.net  Wed Jan 21 04:16:45 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 20:16:45 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178693F@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <000501c3dfd5$623f4e90$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

> Emlyn O'regan
> 
> Often we don't discuss kids, I think, because it's a touchy 
> topic. Some here
> believe that extropes shouldn't really have children.
> 
> Emlyn

Oh I do disagree Emlyn, muchly.  I think nearly everyone 
here thinks that extropes *should* have children, lots of em, 
fill the earth with their descendants.  The real problem is
just the opposite: it's primarily the entropes producing the 
larvae in our all-too-slowly changing world.  


spike



From neptune at superlink.net  Wed Jan 21 04:56:44 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 23:56:44 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Charity
References: <002801c3dfc4$46119f90$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <02cf01c3dfda$f8709c20$6dcd5cd1@neptune>

On Tuesday, January 20, 2004 9:14 PM Harvey Newstrom
mail at HarveyNewstrom.com wrote:
>>>> Hey, good for you.  However, it seems you're using your so called
>>>> charitable works to boast about your moral superiority, no?:)
>>>
>>> No.  Where did you get that idea.  I did not
>>> bring them up.  I answered a direct question.
>>
>> Just a hunch.  Sometimes they're wrong, you know?:)
>
> You accuse me of using of boasting about my
> moral superiority "on a hunch"???

I wrote "it seems..."  I feel you're overreacting.  Maybe "hunch" was
the wrong word.  It seemed to me that all the pieces fit.  You brought
up your doing charitable work in the context of bashing a libertarian
caricature.  Recall, you wrote:

"You are not mistaken.  We are very active in volunteer work and spend
huge amounts on various charities we support.  This attitude is only
possible because we believe in our community and in helping others.  If
I were a bitter old Libertarian clutching my gun and grumping about all
taxes being theft, I would be so busy wallowing in my self-pity and
victim mentality that I would not give back anything to anyone.  It is
this very fact that I have been blessed in my life that empowers me to
help others.  If I really felt that I had to claw and scratch out every
single penny with no help from anyone, seeing the government and social
institutions as enemies, I would bury all my money in the back yard and
never help anyone."

I don't know, but it sounds to me a lot like moral superiority.  You say
it isn't and I'll take your word for -- even if you didn't respond to
this scenario I offered:

"This implies that if there were two people, X and Y, who were both
morally identical and then X did charitable works -- say, spent time in
the local soup kitchen dishing out food -- while Y did not, X would be
morally superior to Y.  Do you agree with this?  Or are X and Y still
morally equal despite X's doing some charitable work?"

It looked a lot to me like you were claiming X is morally superior and
you're X -- while Y is morally inferior and is the libertarian
caricature.  (Yeah, you never answered me on this, so I don't know.)

Had you left your libertarian caricature out of the above and the
explicit claim that "seeing the government" as an enemy out -- in other
words, those who don't trust the government must, by your claim, be
uncharitable -- then I wouldn't have been led to the conclusion you were
trying to make libertarianism and distrust of government(s) something
morally inferior and that could never be compatible with "believ[ing] in
[y]our community and in helping others."  (It almost seems you're saying
community equals the government and that libertarians could never be
part of a community.  Some would go to the other extreme, claiming only
individualists can form true communities.  They argue force or
submerging individuality can never found true communities.  I believe
that simplifies things, but that's a much longer thread.:)

> Your (and others') rants seem to have more to
> do with some anti-charity libertarian worldview
> than anything I have actually done or said.

If so, prove it.  I would prefer to be enlightened than to sneer at
those I disagree with.

> I'm sorry that I wasted even this much time on
> this thread.

Had I realized you'd react in this way, I would not have posted to this
thread -- not so much because it's a waste of time*, but because I fear
you will wall yourself off from further discussion.  I hope you won't.

Cheers!

Dan
  See "The Hills of Rendome" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Rendome.html

*  Clarifying these issues is not a waste of time to me, though trying
to discuss them soberly with others is probably a lost cause.  People
get too emotional over them.  (This is not to say I don't.  I have hot
button issues too.)



From fortean1 at mindspring.com  Wed Jan 21 06:26:22 2004
From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 23:26:22 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
References: <000201c3dfd2$3ac326a0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <400E1B8E.9976B12C@mindspring.com>

Spike wrote:
> 
> > Mike Lorrey:
> 
> > ...(one US company having satellites
> > launched by the Chinese gave them technology to improve their
> > reliability and accuracy, to ensure the success of their own
> > satellites being launched, and now helps ensure the reliability and
> accuracy of
> > China's ICBM inventory)... Mike Lorrey
> 
> Thats correct.  And what is the name of that company?
> 
> Hint:  starts with a B, ends with a G, and has the
> letters "ooein" somewhere within.  But I shall offer
> no more hints, for I would not want to further
> embarrass the reprehensible scoundrels.

Wasn't Loral the company?  Perhaps merged with BOING Boeing.

Terry


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
      U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
   TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Vietnam veterans,
Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]


From spike66 at comcast.net  Wed Jan 21 07:13:15 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 23:13:15 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Saving the Hubble
In-Reply-To: <400E1B8E.9976B12C@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3dfee$0a22f720$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

> Wasn't Loral the company?  Perhaps merged with BOING Boeing.
> 
> Terry

The way I heard the story, Loral accidentally
sent China a proprietary report.  Turned out it wasn't all that
damaging.  They paid a fine.  But the other guys were doing some 
far more serious leaking.

spike

Here ya go Terry.  Some of these are repeats:


http://bernie.house.gov/documents/articles/20030102180551.asp

http://www.satnews.com/stories2/1jan2003-1.html

http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/thisweek/2003_3_14_misp.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/2620785.stm

http://search.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/10/25/p10s1.htm

http://www.space.com/news/china_technology_030101.html

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-01-02-tech-exports_x.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2620785.stm



From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Wed Jan 21 11:36:03 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 03:36:03 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Charity/was Re: EDU: Public Schools
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786944@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <000001c3e012$c2ba2c80$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Emlyn
O'regan
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 8:08 PM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Charity/was Re: EDU: Public Schools


Harvey wrote (in response to Dan):
> Your (and others') rants seem to have more to do with some
> anti-charity
> libertarian worldview than anything I have actually done or said.
> 
> I'm sorry that I wasted even this much time on this thread.
> 

This I find weird too; doesn't Libertarianism usually rely on private
charity to replace centralised social welfare? I may have my wires
crossed on this, feel free to correct me :-) .

---

Its not centralized charity thats the problem;
its centralized mandatory welfare that sucks.
Particularly when u have no say in how said funds
are used, and no ability to withhold payment legally
on either grounds ofs ROI (return on investment), or
embezzlement.  I think you would find that most 
libertarians are concerned more about "LIBERTY" than
welfare.  Its only an issue because so many other people
think that to live in a society, you must also be taxed
in order to "redistribute" the wealth.  

I'll give you a classic example of where the current welfare system 
has gone awry; not to be stereotypical/prejudicial or whatever
(YES I KNOW THERE LOTS WHITE PEOPLE on welfare), some middle-class
blacks are pissed at whats happening to inner-city blacks.
Too many blacks go on welfare and stay on welfare, even 
from a cross-generational viewpoint.  They feel that welfare
as its currently implemented is sucking the vitality out of
their communities; they would rather see blacks helped via a
community-building process.  I tend to think they're right.

If I was forced to donate cash (in the form of taxes), I'ld
very much rather have *where* my tax dollars go be my choice.
At least then I could say, hey, put my money to work creating
jobs for people who want to work, but for whatever reason (and
yes, this includes crappy backgrounds, racism etc) can't get
work.  *That* (at least) I could live with.  

As it is right now, as far as I'm concerned, you may as well be 
burning my tax money (with all the attendant horrors that image 
inspires).  When I go to my mechanic, I get an itemized list of
parts and labor.  Why should it be any different with government?

Incidentally; the primary motivation for said dislike stems
primarily from the mismanagement any large amount of cash
pooling in government coffers tends to elicit.  That is also
why libertarians don't care for social security (as its currently
implemented).  Its not a desire to see your neighbors paupered
and dying off in the hundreds as a result of running out of money.
Its a desire to see the resources currently being misspent put
to much better use; particularly if you have the right to withhold
said funds if the results of the party using said funds SUCK.
Same goes for school taxation; if I don't have kids in school (or
homeschool [which I CERTAINLY intend to do with my children, 
misanthropy aside]), why should I pay money into a failing 
educational system.  I mean really, gangs and money launderers
are less greedy when it comes to extortion rackets.

omard-out





From natashavita at earthlink.net  Wed Jan 21 15:19:29 2004
From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 10:19:29 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Charity
Message-ID: <244640-220041321151929934@M2W046.mail2web.com>

-----------------
From: Technotranscendence

On Tuesday, January 20, 2004 9:14 PM Harvey Newstrom
mail at HarveyNewstrom.com wrote:
>>>> Hey, good for you.  However, it seems you're using your so called
>>>> charitable works to boast about your moral superiority, no?:)
>>>
>>> No.  Where did you get that idea.  I did not
>>> bring them up.  I answered a direct question.
>>
>> Just a hunch.  Sometimes they're wrong, you know?:)
>
> You accuse me of using of boasting about my
> moral superiority "on a hunch"???

"I wrote "it seems..."  I feel you're overreacting.  Maybe "hunch" was
the wrong word.  It seemed to me that all the pieces fit.  You brought
up your doing charitable work in the context of bashing a libertarian
caricature.  Recall, you wrote:..."

We have learned over time that political positioning of people and
organizations is fruitless in its goal to gain momentum at another person's
or organization's expense.  Further, arguing on this list is equally
fruitless because this list is extropic and political positioning is, more
often than not, antagonistical to extropy.

We also know that there is a diversity among transhumanists and that no one
political policy, organization, platform, or leader is capable of
satisfying everyone, and certainly not capable of bringing all
transhumanist goals into being.

Since Extropy Institute and extropy, the philosophy of transhumanism, is
not supportive of any one political party, platform, group, or leader; it
is far more futuristic and positive for our future to discover ways of
solving the world's problems without having to exhibit it in one particular
frame.  It simply will not work.

Lastly, thinking about and producing projects of good will that help
others, "charity," is important for our organization - Extropy Institute. 
Who cares what political affiliation the givers belong to.

I'd like to see someone suggest such projects that we can provide to
others.  Right now I am in the mountains with snow on the ground looking
out at the ski runs.  I spent the last three days working on charitable
projects here in town with others who are doing their best to uplift others
who need support, encouragement, and direction.  

One such project is sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute, another by
local business owners, and yet another by local individuals who want better
education for their children, more knowledge about biology, and better
understanding of the world.

Natasha

Natasha Vita-More
President, Extropy Institute



--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .




From ebaum at fastmail.fm  Wed Jan 21 16:02:56 2004
From: ebaum at fastmail.fm (Eric Baum)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 11:02:56 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] What is Thought? Book announcement
Message-ID: <16398.41648.801986.793741@localhost.localdomain>

X-Mailer: VM 7.07 under 21.4 (patch 8) "Honest Recruiter" XEmacs Lucid
Reply-To: ebaum at fastmail.fm

New Book:

What is Thought?
Eric B. Baum

MIT Press    495p   

Best price right now is at Barnesandnoble.com $32, with free shipping.

To buy this book:
Barnes and Noble.com: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=2WI405VPJU&isbn=0262025485&itm=17

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0262025485/qid=1074532277/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-6265544-0286451?v=glance&s=books

MIT Press: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?sid=AF8A6531-E5E9-4710-A781-CA47C6B64621&ttype=2&tid=9978


*What is Thought?* proposes a computational model of mind that addresses
aspects such as understanding, language, reasoning, learning, and 
consciousness, that is consistent with extensive data 
from a variety of fields, and that makes empirical predictions.
Meaning is the computational exploitation of the compact
underlying structure of the world, and mind is execution of an evolved
program that is all about meaning. 20 years of computer science
research on Occam's Razor are extrapolated to argue
that meaning results from finding a compact enough program behaving
effectively in the world; such a program can only be compact by virtue
of code reuse, factoring into interacting modules that capture real
concepts and are reused metaphorically.
For a variety of reasons, including arguments based
on complexity theory, developmental biology, evolutionary programming, 
ethology, and simple inspection, this compact Occam program 
is most naturally seen to be in the DNA, rather than the brain. 
Learning and reasoning are then fast and almost automatic
because they are constrained by the DNA programming
to deal only with meaningful quantities. Evolution itself is argued
to exploit meaning in related ways. Words are labels for meaningful
computational modules. Using the abilility to pass along programs
through speech, humans have made cumulative progress in constructing
useful computational modules built on top of the ones supplied
by evolution. The difference between human and chimp intelligence
is largely in this additional programming, and thus can be regarded
as due to better nurturing. 

The many aspects of consciousness
are also naturally and consistently understood in this
context. For example, although the brain is a distributed 
system and the mind is a complex program composed of many 
modules, the unitary self emerges naturally
as a reification (manifestation) of the interest of the genes.
Qualia (the sense of experience of sensations such as pain
or redness) have exactly the appropriate nature and meaning that 
evolution coded in the DNA so that the compact program behaves 
effectively.

This book is highly relevant to the artificial general intelligence 
agenda in many ways, surveying much of the progress of AI with an 
eye toward why it has fallen short of general intelligence, proposing 
a theory of how mind achieves general intelligence, and discussing 
what steps would be useful to achieve general intelligence 
computationally.  Because evolution rather than our brains
is argued to have done most of the computational work in producing 
mind, building an AGI is seen as significantly more challenging 
than in the view of most authors. However, *What is Thought?* also 
presents results of evolutionary programming experiments
in the Hayek model, where we have succeeded in evolving, from
random code, programs that solve classes of difficult planning
problems in ways that seem to give intuition into how a program
can achieve understanding. These results were possible
because an analysis of evolutionary dynamics suggested mechanisms
that greatly speed such evolution.

No previous familiarity with computer science (or other fields)
is assumed-- *What is Thought?* presents a pedagogical
survey of the relevant background for its arguments.

---------------------------------------
>From the back cover:
 
"This book is the deepest, and at the same time the most commonsensical, 
approach to the problem of mind and thought that I have read.  The approach 
is from the point of view of computer science, yet Baum has no illusions 
about the progress which has been made within that field. He presents the 
many technical advances which have been made -- the book will be enormously 
useful for this aspect alone -- but refuses to play down their glaring 
inadequacies. He also presents a road map for getting further and makes the 
case that many of the apparently 'deep' philosophical problems such as free 
will may simply evaporate when one gets closer to real understanding."
--Philip W. Anderson, Joseph Henry Professor of Physics, Princeton 
University, 1977 Nobel Laureate in Physics

"Eric Baum's book is a remarkable achievement. He presents a novel thesis 
-- that the mind is a program whose components are semantically meaningful 
modules -- and explores it with a rich array of evidence drawn from a 
variety of fields. Baum's argument depends on much of the intellectual core 
of computer science, and as a result the book can also serve as a short 
course in computer science for non-specialists. To top it off, *What is 
Thought?* is beautifully written and will be at least as clear and 
accessible to the intelligent lay public as *Scientific American*."
--David Waltz, Director, Center for Computational Learning Systems, 
Columbia University

"What's great about this book is the detailed way in which Baum shows the 
explanatory power of a few ideas, such as compression of information, the 
mind and DNA as computer programs, and various concepts in computer science 
and learning theory such as simplicity, recursion, and position evaluation. 
*What is Thought?* is a terrific book, and I hope it gets the wide 
readership it deserves."
--Gilbert Harman, Department of Philosophy, Princeton University

"There is no problem more important, or more daunting, than discovering the 
structure and processes behind human thought. *What is Thought?* is an 
important step towards finding the answer. A concise summary of the 
progress and pitfalls to date gives the reader the context necessary to 
appreciate Baum's important insights into the nature of cognition."
--Nathan Myhrvold, Managing Director, Intellectual Ventures, and former 
Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft

-----------------------------------------------

Eric B. Baum has held positions at the University of California at
Berkeley, Caltech, MIT, Princeton, and the NEC Research Institute. 
He holds a BA and MA from Harvard and a PhD in physics from
Princeton. He has published extensively in theoretical physics,
machine learning, machine reasoning, cognitive science, and DNA
computing. He is currently developing algorithms based on 
machine learning and Bayesian reasoning to found a hedge fund.


From brentn at freeshell.org  Wed Jan 21 15:52:50 2004
From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 10:52:50 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
In-Reply-To: <400CDA8E.20002@mail.tele.dk>
Message-ID: <r02010000-1032-DE30DD0E4C2911D89912000393A47D36@[192.168.123.121]>

 (1/20/04 8:36) Max M <maxm at mail.tele.dk> wrote:

>I would be more interested in how we can use a voucher system to improve 
>the private schools. Then we can have a better and more varied choice.

I would be MUCH more interested in how you propose to disentangle the current voucher system proposals from the religious loonies' desire to transfer public funds to their prosyletizing efforts. Only Milton Friedman's foundation's private vouchers seem to be working in that regard.


>
>It's like everywhere else in life. We are idiots at 90% of what we do, 
>and only really good at a few specialised thing. Why should teaching be 
>any different? A well educated teacher is an expert. Why should I be 
>better at teaching as a private amateur?

The key phrase here is "well-educated."  My experience and my wife's experience (she taught high school, and was a department chair for 2 years before quitting in disgust) is that a truly well-educated teacher CANNOT be the product of modern schools of education. As a case in point, I will give you the University of North Carolina-Pembroke, which trains people with average entrance SAT scores of less than 800 combined to be teachers.  Teachers of that caliber cannot teach your children to be any better than they are, except by counterexample.

And in re: specialization, read my .sig. 


>Even though education could easily be rationalised and automated at many 
>levels.
>

I disagree with this categorically. Education at ANY level is one thing which absolutely cannot be automated, because it fundamentally requires contact with other more-knowledgeable, well-trained people. There is a vast difference between "well-read" and "well-educated."  A large corpus of knowledge is useless if you don't know how to apply it.  I've known lots of people who have a remarkable grasp of trivia, but who cannot THINK.  Further, all people learn in subtly different ways, and the failure to recognize this fact is one of the chief failures of the so-called "egalitarian" school model that the United States has championed since the early 70s.

Just the $0.02 of a lurker with a 3 month old daughter and a wife who made her reputation by righteously skewering the education establishment.

Brent
-- 
Brent Neal
Geek of all Trades
http://brentn.freeshell.org

"Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein


From neptune at superlink.net  Wed Jan 21 16:38:57 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 11:38:57 -0500
Subject: Blood testing for the poor/was Re: [extropy-chat] Charity
References: <244640-220041321151929934@M2W046.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <003f01c3e03d$12551aa0$21cd5cd1@neptune>

On Wednesday, January 21, 2004 10:19 AM Natasha Vita-More
natashavita at earthlink.net wrote:
[snip of perceptive comments]
> Lastly, thinking about and producing projects
> of good will that help others, "charity," is
> important for our organization - Extropy Institute.
> Who cares what political affiliation the
> givers belong to.

None of my points were about political affiliations at all.  I think
anyone can be charitable.  I argued against coercive charity -- which I
believe to be an oxymoron and actually anti-charity; I cannot honestly
reconcile any initiation of coercion with Extropianism -- and against
the view that libertarians must be anti-charity.

> I'd like to see someone suggest such
> projects that we can provide to others.

I've actually be rolling one over in my mind lately.  I've been
wondering about the efficacy of routine blood testing in life extension.
Routine blood testing, either in its present form or with some
technological tweaks, is relatively inexpensive.  It also seems a great
way to spot pathologies early, so that preventative measures can be
taken before things get too serious.  Typically, preventative
measures -- especially, diet, exercise, and other lifestyle changes --
are relatively cheap -- i.e., affordable by most people or easy to fund
for the charitable among us.

What am I driving at?  Well, how about coming up with an inexpensive,
easy, voluntary (voluntarily funded and voluntarily used (i.e., no one
is forced into it)) program of blood testing for the poor, since they
tend to be the most at risk for many health problems.  They also tend to
be the least able to afford expensive medical treatment and drugs.

The program can be targeted, too, given that certain groups and
localities are prone, for whatever reason, to certain pathologies, such
as specific cancers or type II diabetes.

Any comments?

Cheers!

Dan
  See "The Hills of Rendome" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Rendome.html



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Wed Jan 21 16:35:57 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 08:35:57 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
In-Reply-To: <r02010000-1032-DE30DD0E4C2911D89912000393A47D36@[192.168.123.121]>
Message-ID: <20040121163557.53062.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Brent Neal <brentn at freeshell.org> wrote:
>  (1/20/04 8:36) Max M <maxm at mail.tele.dk> wrote:
> 
> >I would be more interested in how we can use a voucher system to
> improve 
> >the private schools. Then we can have a better and more varied
> choice.
> 
> I would be MUCH more interested in how you propose to disentangle the
> current voucher system proposals from the religious loonies' desire
> to transfer public funds to their prosyletizing efforts. Only Milton
> Friedman's foundation's private vouchers seem to be working in that
> regard.

I find it rather disengenuous to conflate a religious parent wishing to
send his or her own children to a religious school WITH THEIR OWN MONEY
as 'transfer public funds to their prosyletizing efforts'. Talk about
loony statements.

A good way to disentangle vouchers is to simply allow parents to deduct
their tuition from their property taxes. It IS THEIR MONEY to begin
with. Is it that you don't trust other people to spend their own money?
 
As previously posted, the stats show that 3/4 of homeschoolers are
religious families AND the AVERAGE batter test scores of homeschoolers
are 35 points higher than public schoolers. It is evident that
religious kids get excellent education, for the most part.

I would be much more interested in proposals to disentangle the
entrenched teachers union from the public system in order to enforce
real quality standards on teacher performance.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Wed Jan 21 17:01:16 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 11:01:16 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Charity
References: <002801c3dfc4$46119f90$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<02cf01c3dfda$f8709c20$6dcd5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <Law10-OE58N5l2mGFZJ00022722@hotmail.com>

I don't think Harvey is "boasting", I think he was just making a point. Not
only that, he was supporting the argument that a lot of people do charitable
works and was using himself as an example. I'm not sure what his religion
is, but I don't believe he is a hard-core christian, so he is also saying
that "christians arenot the only one's who do the charity thing"

But, supposing that he was boasting. So what?  Is there something wrong with
being proud of helping others? Are you that miserable that you can;t stand
to see other people happy with what they have done?


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Technotranscendence" <neptune at superlink.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 10:56 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Charity


> On Tuesday, January 20, 2004 9:14 PM Harvey Newstrom
> mail at HarveyNewstrom.com wrote:
> >>>> Hey, good for you.  However, it seems you're using your so called
> >>>> charitable works to boast about your moral superiority, no?:)
> >>>
> >>> No.  Where did you get that idea.  I did not
> >>> bring them up.  I answered a direct question.
> >>
> >> Just a hunch.  Sometimes they're wrong, you know?:)
> >
> > You accuse me of using of boasting about my
> > moral superiority "on a hunch"???
>
> I wrote "it seems..."  I feel you're overreacting.  Maybe "hunch" was
> the wrong word.  It seemed to me that all the pieces fit.  You brought
> up your doing charitable work in the context of bashing a libertarian
> caricature.  Recall, you wrote:
>
> "You are not mistaken.  We are very active in volunteer work and spend
> huge amounts on various charities we support.  This attitude is only
> possible because we believe in our community and in helping others.  If
> I were a bitter old Libertarian clutching my gun and grumping about all
> taxes being theft, I would be so busy wallowing in my self-pity and
> victim mentality that I would not give back anything to anyone.  It is
> this very fact that I have been blessed in my life that empowers me to
> help others.  If I really felt that I had to claw and scratch out every
> single penny with no help from anyone, seeing the government and social
> institutions as enemies, I would bury all my money in the back yard and
> never help anyone."
>
> I don't know, but it sounds to me a lot like moral superiority.  You say
> it isn't and I'll take your word for -- even if you didn't respond to
> this scenario I offered:
>
> "This implies that if there were two people, X and Y, who were both
> morally identical and then X did charitable works -- say, spent time in
> the local soup kitchen dishing out food -- while Y did not, X would be
> morally superior to Y.  Do you agree with this?  Or are X and Y still
> morally equal despite X's doing some charitable work?"
>
> It looked a lot to me like you were claiming X is morally superior and
> you're X -- while Y is morally inferior and is the libertarian
> caricature.  (Yeah, you never answered me on this, so I don't know.)
>
> Had you left your libertarian caricature out of the above and the
> explicit claim that "seeing the government" as an enemy out -- in other
> words, those who don't trust the government must, by your claim, be
> uncharitable -- then I wouldn't have been led to the conclusion you were
> trying to make libertarianism and distrust of government(s) something
> morally inferior and that could never be compatible with "believ[ing] in
> [y]our community and in helping others."  (It almost seems you're saying
> community equals the government and that libertarians could never be
> part of a community.  Some would go to the other extreme, claiming only
> individualists can form true communities.  They argue force or
> submerging individuality can never found true communities.  I believe
> that simplifies things, but that's a much longer thread.:)
>
> > Your (and others') rants seem to have more to
> > do with some anti-charity libertarian worldview
> > than anything I have actually done or said.
>
> If so, prove it.  I would prefer to be enlightened than to sneer at
> those I disagree with.
>
> > I'm sorry that I wasted even this much time on
> > this thread.
>
> Had I realized you'd react in this way, I would not have posted to this
> thread -- not so much because it's a waste of time*, but because I fear
> you will wall yourself off from further discussion.  I hope you won't.
>
> Cheers!
>
> Dan
>   See "The Hills of Rendome" at:
> http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Rendome.html
>
> *  Clarifying these issues is not a waste of time to me, though trying
> to discuss them soberly with others is probably a lost cause.  People
> get too emotional over them.  (This is not to say I don't.  I have hot
> button issues too.)
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Wed Jan 21 17:02:37 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 11:02:37 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
References: <000501c3dfd5$623f4e90$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <LAW10-OE40wMBz407Rl0002e1b1@hotmail.com>

YES! The "extropian explosion" Let's take over the world with our offspring!

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Spike" <spike66 at comcast.net>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 10:16 PM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling


> > Emlyn O'regan
> > 
> > Often we don't discuss kids, I think, because it's a touchy 
> > topic. Some here
> > believe that extropes shouldn't really have children.
> > 
> > Emlyn
> 
> Oh I do disagree Emlyn, muchly.  I think nearly everyone 
> here thinks that extropes *should* have children, lots of em, 
> fill the earth with their descendants.  The real problem is
> just the opposite: it's primarily the entropes producing the 
> larvae in our all-too-slowly changing world.  
> 
> 
> spike
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 


From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Wed Jan 21 16:52:03 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 10:52:03 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Public Schools
References: <20040118145338.22244.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com><200401191215.50559.asa@nada.kth.se><005901c3de9a$bb35c920$a0cd5cd1@neptune><LAW10-OE4133mH9exWG0000a5b2@hotmail.com><012701c3deba$f2b46da0$a0cd5cd1@neptune><Law10-OE27BNEnKvTPF00034277@hotmail.com>
	<009f01c3df09$50606460$c3cd5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <LAW10-OE50ZVAEG7xBd0002f8a7@hotmail.com>

> > Wait a minute. I think we may be on the
> > same page here except for one thing.
>
> I doubt it.  You are not a libertarian.  I am.  I think you and I
> disagree on a lot of issues.

The problem here is the way that we seem to find it necessary to attach a
label to just about everything. Along with a label comes a narrow
definition. If you define a libertarian as a person who finds freedom good
and the socialist re-distribution of wealth bad, I would be a libertarian as
well. I think that seat-belt laws are unconstitutional, I agree with a
fundamental right to keep and bear arms. Some drugs should be legalized.
Taking money from the people to give to others in some kind of Robin Hood
scheme is just plain evil to me and I think it does more harm than good.

But I am not an anarchist. I think that there are some things that the
government has to do.
1.) provide for the common defense of the people
2.) enforce laws when one person tramples on another's rights
3.) regulate interstate commerce and ensure that no tarriffs are placed by
one state or locality onto another.
4.) Ensure the security of our borders
5.) Ensure that products are safe
6.) To generally do those things that the private sector cannot or will not
do.

(This is not meant as a complete list, only a generalization. I don't have
time to go through each and every acet of what I think the government should
and shouldn;t do)

These things do take money. Not nearly as much as we are paying now, but
there is a cost.
>
> > Are you saying that public education is
> > compulsory in your state?
>
> Some form of schooling is complusory.  Whatever form it might be -- and
> homeschooling is only tolerated here -- you still have to meet state
> requirements.  Also, funding for public schools is compulsory.  I don't
> have choice of not paying the taxes for them -- all other things being
> equal.
>
I think that a basic education is not a re-distribution of wealth, but an
investment in the future. The amount that you pay in taxes that goes
directly to education is probably very small. I simply wish that the
education itself was better. The interstate highway system did not build
itself. Private enterprise did not build it either. It didn;t seem
"necessary" and wasn;t necessary to improve the profits of businesses. Only
after it was there did it become a benefit. We have all benefitted from this
investment. I see public education as being the same concept. It needs to be
improved, diversified, and have more options available, but not removed
entirely.


> > I've known several
> > people who benefitted from home-schooling.
>
> I have never met a homeschooled individual who wasn't a success, though
> I admit that I've only met a few.

I have. Many are poorly adjusted for society. Human beings as a social
animal need to learn social skills as well as general knowledge to become
successful.
>
> > Also, I never meant to say that home
> > schooling was wrong, bad, or otherwise
> > inferior to public education.
>
> Okay.
>
> > My point was that the public school system
> > must be there as an option as well since
> > there are many who either can't or won;t
> > home-school.
>
> So the only choice for you is homeschool or send them to public school?
> What about private schools or no schooling?

That is way too narrow an interpretation of my meaning. I suppose I should
spell things out more clearly, but I assumed that you would attempt to
understand my meaning rather than try to point out flaws in my sentence
structure. I will have to be more careful of that in the future. How about
"who either can't or won;t personally ensure that their child receives an
adequate education to survive in today's society.:"?
>
> I disagree about public schools being an option -- unless you mean
> something radically different from existing public schools, such as a
> public school that is not compulsory and not tax-funded -- i.e., not
> public.:)
There are some rather dramatic changes I would like to see. One would be to
offer incentives to parents who want to take their child out of public
school and provide for their child's education. This would reduce the number
of students and probably increase the education that the remaining students
received. It would also lower the cost. It shouldn;t be compulsory and I
would like to see it fully funded by optional government funding sources
such as lottery ticket sales. But if it cost more than the profits from
ticket sales, we should make up the difference. It is an investment and we
all benefit.
>
>
> > The public benefits from the availability
> > of public education in the long run
> > because many children would not learn
> > enough to even do labor or count money
> > if they didn't have it available.
>
> Wrong.  How did people learn these things before public education?  They
> learned them because there was an incentive for it.  In a modern economy
> with the need for these skills, I reckon the incentive will even be
> stronger to acquire these skills.  I've known illegal aliens who acquite
> English skills and the like for similar reasons.

So we agree that in today's society there is an even greater need and
greater incentive
for education yet less people are getting the education that they need when
it is "free" to them. What makes you think that if they had to pay for it
(and/or if the 20 yr old mother of a 1st grader had to "home school" her
child even though she never received her diploma.) their education would be
any better? This is simply not a free market option.

Simply put, the people who pay most for it are those in their higher earning
years while the people who are raising children are not. The only way I
could see this working is if loans were available for young people to put
children through school similar to college loans except that they would not
have to be paid back until the children became adults. These loans would
have to made available to anyone who wanted to put their children in school.
By the sheer number and amounts of long-term loans out there for all
school-children, you would still be paying in the free market via higher
interest rates. This is an interesting concept though that could be studied.



d forever be on the
> > public dole.
>
> You tend to look at things too narrowly.  First, the only options aren't
> public schooling or being on the public dole.  If that were the ways
> things had to be, civilization never would've gotten this far.  There
> were no public schools for most of human history...

Nor were there guns, farms, cars, or even houses yet we seem to find them
necessary now.

 Second, you don't
> consider things like removing incentives not to be productive or
> intelligent -- i.e., removing the public dole.  Get rid of it and then
> there will be no option to live off the productive.
I agree with this, I only disagree as to what you consider to be the public
dole.
>
> > I thought you were making a case for
> > elimination of the public school system.
>
> I am.
>
> > I realize how it has contributed to the
> > cycle of dependency, but that cycle is
> > there and could only be removed by a
> > long term reduction in dependency
> > through several generations.
>
> If that were true -- that dependency were cross-generation -- then we
> would never see people getting out of poverty.  Everyone would be
> destined to either live as their parents lived or just tiny variations
> from there.  In truth, though, if you allow people to voluntarily
> interact, they generally will improve their lot.

In any capitalist society, there will be those who are fortunate enough to
break the cycle of dependency. Some rich kids end up in the gutter, and some
poor kids end up becoming productive members of society and even wealthy.
But most end up living lives similar to their parent(s). In the dependency
class, this tendency is amplified by the fact that the parents do not even
encourage their children to be better. These children are only exposed to
the other options available to them when they are around people who live
different lives. In this sense, the public school can actually be a great
motivator to take advantage of the resources available to them and become
educated even if the parents don;t get involved and never even look at their
report card. The child sees that other kids have it better and may decide to
improve his own lot in life.

>
> > As for paying for it, I would rather pay for
> > public education and have an option to
> > home school combined with a tax-credit
> > than continue to foot the bill for highly
> > marked up big screen TVs. I don;t even
> > have one!
>
> Fine.  You pay for it, but don't force everyone else to pay for it as
> well, especially those who disagree with you.  If enough people agree
> with you, then why can't the system be voluntary?  If not, then maybe
> it's a bad idea.
>

So the government should never step in do something just because a few
disagree with it? I don;t know about this. There are enough people out there
that would like to see our own military disbanded. I am not so sure this is
a good idea considering the threats posed by other countries. Personally I
don;t think that we could defend ourselves without tanks, planes, and
satellites and I doubt the average person could afford to develop and build
these things on their own. The tax money of the countrie's wealthiest people
couldn't even pay for our military. It's just one of those necessary
government functions. Maybe the government should just solicit for donations
to the military? It "Might" work, but is it a risk you are willing to take?

I can say that the federal government should not be involved in the public
schools at all. As far as I am concerned, this should be a local, or at
least state-level matter. Then at least you could choose to live in a state
that didn;t provide public education, while I could choose to be in a state
that had public schools. I think this is the concept that is missing from
the context of this debate. A good starting point would be to return all
state powers back to the states, and to completely re-organize the "dole"
Federal taxes should be cut drastically while state taxes should be
increased to compensate. Then the Fed and states could begin paring down
these taxes since it will at least be clear where the money is and  where it
goes. Each state and locale could then decide what it wants to pay for as a
group and what it wants each individual to pay for. This is the concept that
I think of when I vote Libertarian on election day.





From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Wed Jan 21 17:13:02 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 11:13:02 -0600
Subject: The moral inferiority of charity (Was:
	Re:[extropy-chat]Gametheoryofcommoncold
References: <OJEHKDIANIFPAJPDBDGLKEGACOAA.rafal@smigrodzki.org>
Message-ID: <Law10-OE523t8kzyK7X0001250e@hotmail.com>

I don;t know about all of that. Charity goes back a long ways in our
history. Even in H neanderthalensis. There are many fossilized skeletons of
people who lived long after such serious injuries as amputation, severelt
broken limbs and/or rib cages, jaws partially torn off, and heads that were
more than a little cracked open.
The only way that these people could have survived would have been through a
concerted effort on the part of the group. This happened even though the
person was no longer an asset to the group and instead was a terrible drain.
Groups such as these almost never stayed in one place long, so for a person
to survive for sometimes years after these injuries, they would have had to
been carried from place to place.
With no benefit to the group and possibly putting the group at a
disadvantage, what would be the purpose in carrying this person around
rather than leaving them on their own?
I think the benefit is that the people "feel" better about themselves. When
people feel better, they are more productive. This may seem
counter-intuitive, but it also just may fit.
Kevin Freels
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rafal Smigrodzki" <rafal at smigrodzki.org>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 8:10 PM
Subject: The moral inferiority of charity (Was:
Re:[extropy-chat]Gametheoryofcommoncold


> Harvey wrote:
>
> >>> If I were a bitter old Libertarian clutching my
> >>> gun and grumping about all taxes being theft,
> >>> I would be so busy wallowing in my self-pity
> >>> and victim mentality that I would not give back
> >>> anything to anyone.
> >>
> >> I'm sure there are a few people like that out there, but
> >> almost all of the libertarians I know are not like that.
> >
> > Maybe not that extreme.  But you are already arguing that charity is
> > not as important as working, creating and making your own money.
>
> ### Of course! Charity is not an evolutionarily stable strategy for
> improving general welfare, except as a signaling device in competition for
> resources (attention, mates, cooperation). Cooperation in a reciprocal
> altruist fashion is stable ("making your own money" in the market), and
> should form the basis for evaluation of individuals and societies alike.
> Charity is obviously morally inferior than work and creation, because it
> doesn't create and for the most part doesn't increase welfare, indeed, may
> encourage a reduction in effort on the part of its recipients. Charity
feeds
> on work, and therefore is no more than a distraction - a nice one,
perhaps,
> to be mildly encouraged, like puppies and ikebana, but still a
distraction.
>
> Rafal
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From brentn at freeshell.org  Wed Jan 21 17:14:04 2004
From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 12:14:04 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
In-Reply-To: <20040121163557.53062.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <r02010000-1032-37152D284C3511D89912000393A47D36@[192.168.123.121]>

 (1/21/04 8:35) Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>--- Brent Neal <brentn at freeshell.org> wrote:
>>  (1/20/04 8:36) Max M <maxm at mail.tele.dk> wrote:
>> 
>> >I would be more interested in how we can use a voucher system to
>> improve 
>> >the private schools. Then we can have a better and more varied
>> choice.
>> 
>> I would be MUCH more interested in how you propose to disentangle the
>> current voucher system proposals from the religious loonies' desire
>> to transfer public funds to their prosyletizing efforts. Only Milton
>> Friedman's foundation's private vouchers seem to be working in that
>> regard.
>
>I find it rather disengenuous to conflate a religious parent wishing to
>send his or her own children to a religious school WITH THEIR OWN MONEY
>as 'transfer public funds to their prosyletizing efforts'. Talk about
>loony statements.

Ahh. Well, if you're giving them an exact deduction from their -property- taxes, I have no problem. Its when you pay them out of federal taxes that I have a problem, for obvious reasons. At that point, its just another special interest clamoring for more of my money, natch?


>
>A good way to disentangle vouchers is to simply allow parents to deduct
>their tuition from their property taxes. It IS THEIR MONEY to begin
>with. Is it that you don't trust other people to spend their own money?

Absolutely not. See above.



>
>I would be much more interested in proposals to disentangle the
>entrenched teachers union from the public system in order to enforce
>real quality standards on teacher performance.

So would I. Good luck with it. The educational establishment has ingrained the union mentality into every education school in the country. I'm increasingly of the opinion that the only solution is to eradicated public schooling.

This creates it own set of problems.


B
-- 
Brent Neal
Geek of all Trades
http://brentn.freeshell.org

"Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Wed Jan 21 18:31:57 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 10:31:57 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
In-Reply-To: <r02010000-1032-37152D284C3511D89912000393A47D36@[192.168.123.121]>
Message-ID: <20040121183157.92772.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Brent Neal <brentn at freeshell.org> wrote:
>  (1/21/04 8:35) Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> >
> >I find it rather disengenuous to conflate a religious parent wishing
> to
> >send his or her own children to a religious school WITH THEIR OWN
> MONEY
> >as 'transfer public funds to their prosyletizing efforts'. Talk
> about
> >loony statements.
> 
> Ahh. Well, if you're giving them an exact deduction from their
> -property- taxes, I have no problem. Its when you pay them out of
> federal taxes that I have a problem, for obvious reasons. At that
> point, its just another special interest clamoring for more of my
> money, natch?

Your money, or their own? They pay federal taxes too, a chunk of which
funds the department of diseducation.

Besides, wouldn't you rather your income taxes went to educating poor
kids in private school or home school settings, where you know they'll
get quality education, than for your money to be spent on prisons to
house illiterate adults who engaged in the only trade they were
qualified for?

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From brentn at freeshell.org  Wed Jan 21 18:39:49 2004
From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 13:39:49 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
In-Reply-To: <20040121183157.92772.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <r02010000-1032-318A81F04C4111D89912000393A47D36@[192.168.123.121]>

 (1/21/04 10:31) Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>--- Brent Neal <brentn at freeshell.org> wrote:
>>  (1/21/04 8:35) Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> 
>> >
>> >I find it rather disengenuous to conflate a religious parent wishing
>> to
>> >send his or her own children to a religious school WITH THEIR OWN
>> MONEY
>> >as 'transfer public funds to their prosyletizing efforts'. Talk
>> about
>> >loony statements.
>> 
>> Ahh. Well, if you're giving them an exact deduction from their
>> -property- taxes, I have no problem. Its when you pay them out of
>> federal taxes that I have a problem, for obvious reasons. At that
>> point, its just another special interest clamoring for more of my
>> money, natch?
>
>Your money, or their own? They pay federal taxes too, a chunk of which
>funds the department of diseducation.

I'm -really- leery of federal involvement in education, considering how badly the states have screwed it up on their own.


>
>Besides, wouldn't you rather your income taxes went to educating poor
>kids in private school or home school settings, where you know they'll
>get quality education, than for your money to be spent on prisons to
>house illiterate adults who engaged in the only trade they were
>qualified for?

That's one of those "hard" questions. I've not seen any data that has sufficiently convinced me that -any- form of education - public, private, or home- can educate the children of parents who do not value education themselves.  The unfortunate reality is that such parents are disproportionately found in the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum.  It may be that prison education is the only realistic solution to the problem. The idealist in me would like to think this isn't the case, but I've not seen much that gives me hope in that regard.

B


-- 
Brent Neal
Geek of all Trades
http://brentn.freeshell.org

"Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein


From nanowave at shaw.ca  Wed Jan 21 18:56:00 2004
From: nanowave at shaw.ca (Russell Evermore)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 10:56:00 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Lie detector glasses
References: <000001c3e012$c2ba2c80$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
Message-ID: <000b01c3e050$36406060$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>

Portland, Ore. - It may not be long before you hear airport security
screeners ask, "Do you plan on hijacking this plane?" A U.S. company using
technology developed in Israel is pitching a lie detector small enough to
fit in the eyeglasses of law enforcement officers, and its inventors say it
can tell whether a passenger is a terrorist by analyzing his answer to that
simple question in real-time.

http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20040116S0050

----------------

Interesting. I would imagine such a technology might prove effective whether
it actually worked or not. A terrorist need only BELIEVE the technology
works, and the added stress levels might well lead to enhanced effectiveness
of more conventional 'body language' lie-detection techniques. Just don't
ask if they're a terrorist though, since in their own minds that term surely
applies only to those who kill indiscriminately 'without cause.' Or isn't
that why a number of our so called "friends" are so quick to condemn
'terrorism' with the sweetest of smiles.

RE



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Wed Jan 21 19:00:47 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 11:00:47 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
In-Reply-To: <r02010000-1032-318A81F04C4111D89912000393A47D36@[192.168.123.121]>
Message-ID: <20040121190047.35271.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Brent Neal <brentn at freeshell.org> wrote:
> 
> That's one of those "hard" questions. I've not seen any data that has
> sufficiently convinced me that -any- form of education - public,
> private, or home- can educate the children of parents who do not
> value education themselves.  The unfortunate reality is that such
> parents are disproportionately found in the lower end of the
> socioeconomic spectrum.  It may be that prison education is the only
> realistic solution to the problem. The idealist in me would like to
> think this isn't the case, but I've not seen much that gives me hope
> in that regard.

Good point. How about a requirement of no parole for any prisoner who
doesn't get a GED and certification in a trade? One problem with the
prison system is that educational opportunities in many are stunted and
there is no incentive for participation.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From twodeel at jornada.org  Wed Jan 21 19:04:41 2004
From: twodeel at jornada.org (Don Dartfield)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 11:04:41 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
In-Reply-To: <20040121190047.35271.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401211104050.18287-100000@hplx.net>

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> Good point. How about a requirement of no parole for any prisoner who
> doesn't get a GED and certification in a trade? One problem with the
> prison system is that educational opportunities in many are stunted and
> there is no incentive for participation.

I frequently disagree with Mike, but I have to say, that seems like an 
excellent idea.



From brentn at freeshell.org  Wed Jan 21 19:31:46 2004
From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 14:31:46 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
In-Reply-To: <20040121190047.35271.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <r02010000-1032-73B6D55B4C4811D89912000393A47D36@[192.168.123.121]>

 (1/21/04 11:00) Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>--- Brent Neal <brentn at freeshell.org> wrote:
>> 
>> That's one of those "hard" questions. I've not seen any data that has
>> sufficiently convinced me that -any- form of education - public,
>> private, or home- can educate the children of parents who do not
>> value education themselves.  The unfortunate reality is that such
>> parents are disproportionately found in the lower end of the
>> socioeconomic spectrum.  It may be that prison education is the only
>> realistic solution to the problem. The idealist in me would like to
>> think this isn't the case, but I've not seen much that gives me hope
>> in that regard.
>
>Good point. How about a requirement of no parole for any prisoner who
>doesn't get a GED and certification in a trade? One problem with the
>prison system is that educational opportunities in many are stunted and
>there is no incentive for participation.
>


I'd be 100% for that, personally. Though I do not consider myself a "liberal" by any stretch, I find a fair amount of credibility to the classic liberal position that education tends to be a preventative measure against violent crime.  


Brent
-- 
Brent Neal
Geek of all Trades
http://brentn.freeshell.org

"Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Wed Jan 21 19:55:30 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 14:55:30 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Lie detector glasses
In-Reply-To: <000b01c3e050$36406060$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>
Message-ID: <002e01c3e058$89a12890$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Russell Evermore wrote,
> Portland, Ore. - It may not be long before you hear airport 
> security screeners ask, "Do you plan on hijacking this 
> plane?" A U.S. company using technology developed in Israel 
> is pitching a lie detector small enough to fit in the 
> eyeglasses of law enforcement officers, and its inventors say 
> it can tell whether a passenger is a terrorist by analyzing 
> his answer to that simple question in real-time.
> <http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20040116S0050>

Vaporware.  They are announcing it before it works, saying they need more
development at this time.  There have been so many lie-detector
announcements in the last few years that never materialized, that security
experts just dismiss these out of hand.  The standard response now is "call
me if you ever actually get it working".

There are millions of innocent passengers for every terrorist.  Even if it
were 99% accurate, there would be tens of thousands of false-positives for
every real terrorist.  The device would be wrong tens of thousands of times
before it might be right one day.  I don't think it is possible to make this
device accurate enough to be useful.

Simply searching the passenger to make sure they have no weapons to take
over the plane with will produce much better results.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Wed Jan 21 21:02:42 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 13:02:42 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Lie detector glasses
In-Reply-To: <002e01c3e058$89a12890$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401211251190.2597-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote:

> Simply searching the passenger to make sure they have no weapons to take
> over the plane with will produce much better results.

Not really Harvey.  Without devoting too much thought to it
I can come up with at least 4 methods that would defeat
current search methods much of the time.  Some of them
require some sophistication (I've watched too many secret
agent movies I guess) but many could be managed by an
average individual with access to a hardware store.

The searches help little if at all.  Now the problem is
that you have to potentially get by an air marshal, then
you have to hope for a plane with few if any people willing
to risk their lives to stop you, then you have to get by
the cockpit door locks.

If they had a way to allow the pilot to flip the plane autopilot
into a ground control mode that would add another layer of
defense.

IMO, the searches are nothing more than a waste of time as
a significant deterrent.

Robert




From extropy at unreasonable.com  Wed Jan 21 21:33:10 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 16:33:10 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Public Schools
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040121163224.0268ae60@mail.comcast.net>

At 10:52 AM 1/21/2004 -0600, Kevin Freels wrote:

> > I have never met a homeschooled individual who wasn't a success, though
> > I admit that I've only met a few.
>
>I have. Many are poorly adjusted for society. Human beings as a social
>animal need to learn social skills as well as general knowledge to become
>successful.

Everyone I know who home-schools makes a point to provide opportunities for 
their kids to interact socially with contemporaries and adults, through the 
myria of non-school avenues -- sports, lessons, volunteer work, church, 
job, family, neighborhood, scouting, clubs, etc. Because they are not in 
school all day, they have *more* social interaction than kids who are in 
school.

However, they have fewer interactions with those who beat up, bully, or 
demean them, with those above them in the social pecking order, and with 
the cerebrally anesthetized or vacuous. So they may be less capable of 
coping with the adult equivalents. On the other hand, home schoolers will 
have more experience meeting adult behavioral norms through their greater 
interaction with adults as peers.

>The tax money of the countrie's wealthiest people couldn't even pay for 
>our military.

Back-of-the-envelope -- The military is approx $380 billion. The top 5% in 
income paid about $450 billion in personal income taxes. I ignored 
ancillary costs of the military, balancing them by ignoring other taxes. 
And of course, what does "wealthiest" mean? But the Fermi calculation shows 
both numbers are pretty close.


-- David Lubkin.




From extropy at unreasonable.com  Wed Jan 21 22:29:02 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 17:29:02 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
In-Reply-To: <000501c3dfd5$623f4e90$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178693F@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040121163910.02ffcc20@mail.comcast.net>

I asked:

 > How is it that so few of us have kids? Or, if indeed many do,
 > why do we rarely discuss parenting on-list?

Emlyn answered:

>Often we don't discuss kids, I think, because it's a touchy  topic. Some 
>here believe that extropes shouldn't really have children.

And Spike disagreed:

>Oh I do disagree Emlyn, muchly.  I think nearly everyone
>here thinks that extropes *should* have children, lots of em,
>fill the earth with their descendants.  The real problem is
>just the opposite: it's primarily the entropes producing the
>larvae in our all-too-slowly changing world.

Well, as you may recall, my largely extropian father had thirteen kids, 
half of whom have gone into science or engineering, including most of the 
girls. So he did his bit for the good of the cause.

I think that discussing children is extraordinarily important and should 
not just be an occasional topic. Children begin life as rational 
omniglot-wannabes -- they have an intense desire to know, do, and be 
everything immediately. It seems like our prospects for accomplishing 
everything we here care about are highly sensitive to what fraction of 
those children are stultified along the way to adulthood.

If we're talking about how extropians can influence the course of the next 
few decades and what we hope they will lead to, there's very little that we 
can do that's more important than increasing that fraction. We need a new 
generation of creative thinkers, researchers, and inventors. We need a 
smart, competent, rational, BS-detecting, self-reliant, technophilic 
electorate.


-- David Lubkin.




From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Wed Jan 21 22:57:46 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 16:57:46 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Lie detector glasses
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401211251190.2597-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <LAW10-OE53thdA3SiZc0000de43@hotmail.com>

If we eliminate the pilot entirely, the plane couldn't be taken over. :-)
They may be able to take hostages, but they can do that anywhere.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 3:02 PM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Lie detector glasses


>
> On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> > Simply searching the passenger to make sure they have no weapons to take
> > over the plane with will produce much better results.
>
> Not really Harvey.  Without devoting too much thought to it
> I can come up with at least 4 methods that would defeat
> current search methods much of the time.  Some of them
> require some sophistication (I've watched too many secret
> agent movies I guess) but many could be managed by an
> average individual with access to a hardware store.
>
> The searches help little if at all.  Now the problem is
> that you have to potentially get by an air marshal, then
> you have to hope for a plane with few if any people willing
> to risk their lives to stop you, then you have to get by
> the cockpit door locks.
>
> If they had a way to allow the pilot to flip the plane autopilot
> into a ground control mode that would add another layer of
> defense.
>
> IMO, the searches are nothing more than a waste of time as
> a significant deterrent.
>
> Robert
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Wed Jan 21 23:07:46 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 15:07:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition at high speed
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401211446450.5123-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Harvey's comments a week or two ago got me to thinking about
how one can use technology available now for self-improvement,
greater time efficiency, greater comprehension or retention, etc.

Normally humans speaking quickly manage ~300 words/min (wpm), though
the Guinness Book of Records (1995) reports this can be pushed
to ~600 wpm.  Normal reading speed is perhaps 240 wpm (though
this was from the net, not the GBoR so ByrBwr).  I have heard
that listening speed can be up to 3x speaking speed and that
at one point there were tape recorders that could perform
this kind of compression for playback of recordings.

Some googling turned up this source:

> Vortex Machine Assisted Reading Software

  http://www.vallier.com/tenax/vortex.html  (Main information page)
  http://www.vallier.com/tenax/corn_use.html  Download the demo software
  http://www.vallier.com/tenax/cornix.html  (check out the demo)

** Note the URLs may no longer be valid -- one would have to use
** the Wayback Machine most likely to track down the pages.

> "The machine assisted reading software that allows you to read at up to
> 2000 words per minute in fonts as large as 1000 points. Vortex will suck
> the text out of your Windows software program and display it as you want
> to see it! You choose the font, font size, speed of display, where to
> start and what colors you want the text."

Now, speed reading is great (though I would question the 2000 wpm number
as another source said only 1000 wpm -- which is closer to high speed
listening capabilities).  It would be interesting to compare speed
vs. comprehension at these accelerated rates in the visual and auditory
input channels.  Furthermore to look at what happens if you combine
the channels (a) at the same time (hearing what you are seeing) or
(b) separate the channels (what you hear is different from what you see).

Now with software of this nature one begins to ask if this could be
used to "compress" education times (either in children who still
have extremely plastic brains or adults in college)?

But in any case it looks to me like the methods and perhaps even the
tools may exist for Harvey to get twice as much news in 1/2 to 1/3
the time or 2-3x the news in the same amount of time.

This would actually make a great software product for professionals
such as market analysts, lawyers, scientists, etc. who have to spend
much of their time absorbing information.

Robert





From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Thu Jan 22 00:20:43 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 16:20:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] ECON: US products still globally dominant
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401211446450.5123-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040122002043.53707.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>

A new Harvard Business School study states that backlash against
American products in the wake of US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan
just hasn't materialized to any significant degree. While a rump group
of 12% of global consumers refuse to buy products of US corporations
because of US foreign policy and globalization, 88% say they continue
to buy US products.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1106&ncid=1106&e=2&u=/ft/20040121/bs_ft/1073281203197

Oddly enough, despite the complaints of elitists like France, US made
goods are seen as quality products around the world:

"He said global brands including Nike were favoured by consumers in
developing countries because they represented a guarantee of quality in
markets where basic standards were not always guaranteed. Coca-Cola,
for example, was seen as being a brand that used clean water in
preparing its soft drinks." 

Take THAT, Pierre....

Even in the Muslim world, Coke continues to dominate, and "Mecca Cola"
just doesn't get that many muslim consumers bowing down to it very
frequently.



=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Thu Jan 22 00:23:40 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 16:23:40 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Lie detector glasses
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401211251190.2597-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040122002340.49431.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>

You know, I think these lie detector glasses should be mandatory
equipment for TV viewers during election time...

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus


From eliasen at mindspring.com  Thu Jan 22 00:52:07 2004
From: eliasen at mindspring.com (Alan Eliasen)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 17:52:07 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
In-Reply-To: <r02010000-1032-DE30DD0E4C2911D89912000393A47D36@[192.168.123.121]>
References: <r02010000-1032-DE30DD0E4C2911D89912000393A47D36@[192.168.123.121]>
Message-ID: <400F1EB7.2010306@mindspring.com>


Brent Neal wrote:
> As a case in point,
> I will give you the University of North Carolina-Pembroke, which trains
> people with average entrance SAT scores of less than 800 combined to be
> teachers.

    I remember getting back my GRE score report around 1993 and looking
through some of the included analysis.  They had a breakdown of GRE
scores by intended major and, by far, the lowest-scoring group was
education.  That was sad, and indeed creates a self-defeating cycle.  In fact,
the lowest 4 out of 5 scores went to education fields.

    You can get a detailed breakdown of GRE scores by major at:
ftp://ftp.ets.org/pub/gre/guidtbl4.pdf

    I cut-n-pasted this data into a spreadsheet and sorted majors
from dumbest to smartest (based on summing Verbal + Quantitative +
Analytical.)

    Dumbest:  Pre-Elementary Education
    Smartest: Physics

    You can take a look at the (sloppy) output and manipulate it
yourself in one of three ways:

Tab delimited text:
http://futureboy.homeip.net/temp/gretab.txt

Excel Spreadsheet:
http://futureboy.homeip.net/temp/gretab.xls

Godawful HTML produced by Excel:
http://futureboy.homeip.net/temp/gretab.html

   I don't think our education system can be saved without enforcing higher
standards for teachers.

   So where does *your* major stack up?  :)

-- 
  Alan Eliasen                 | "You cannot reason a person out of a
  eliasen at mindspring.com       |  position he did not reason himself
  http://futureboy.homeip.net/ |  into in the first place."
                               |     --Jonathan Swift


From extropy at unreasonable.com  Thu Jan 22 00:57:17 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 19:57:17 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition at high
  speed
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401211446450.5123-100000@server.aeiveos.com
 >
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040121191626.03071ff8@mail.comcast.net>

At 03:07 PM 1/21/2004 -0800, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

>Normal reading speed is perhaps 240 wpm (though this was from the net, not 
>the GBoR so ByrBwr).
>         :
>Now, speed reading is great (though I would question the 2000 wpm number
>as another source said only 1000 wpm -- which is closer to high speed
>listening capabilities).

We had a thread on reading speed a few years ago. A lot of people chimed in 
with their data points. Few on the list were as slow as that 240 wpm mark. 
I'd expect that peak reading speed is correlated with IQ given that 
response times for elementary tasks seem to give the best measure of IQ. On 
this list, I'd guess the least impressive participant would have no problem 
passing Mensa's 1:50 threshold (2 SD); the list median is at least 1:1000 
(3 SD).

Although obviously some people are brilliant but read slowly. SF writer 
Samuel R. Delany is a great example. He's dyslexic, and reading remains 
torturous. Chip says that's why he loves poetry -- it has the highest 
information density.

I peak at a little over a second a page, or around 12,000 wpm. It's too 
exhausting to continue for long, and no fun, but useful in a pinch. My 
sustainable rate is still quite high though. There's no way that an 
auditory input can compete. Also, I learn *much* better visually, so even 
if the rates were identical, comprehension would not be. And reading, you 
can scan, skim, skip, repeat, and compare easily. Hard to do that 
listening. Not to mention pictures and charts....


-- David Lubkin.




From megao at sasktel.net  Thu Jan 22 01:07:53 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 19:07:53 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Polly "Charlie"- Churchill's parrot
Message-ID: <400F2269.F7A914B5@sasktel.net>

Winston Churchill died in 1965. his purported Potty mouthed "F***k the
Nazies" parrot is still alive and well at 104 or so.

With parrots able to live to 225 I don't remember a great deal of work
being done to
determine what makes this so, how it differs from similar birds and
humans.


1: J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2001 Nov;
                  56(11): B468-74.

                       Exceptional cellular resistance to oxidative
damage in
                       long-lived birds requires active gene expression.

                       Ogburn CE, Carlberg K, Ottinger MA, Holmes DJ,
Martin GM,
                       Austad SN.

                       Department of Pathology, University of
Washington, Seattle, USA.

                       Previous studies indicated that renal tubular
epithelial cells from some
                       long-lived avian species exhibit robust and/or
unique protective
                       mechanisms against oxidative stress relative to
murine cells. Here we
                       extend these studies to investigate the response
of primary embryonic
                       fibroblast-like cells to oxidative challenge in
long- and short-lived avian
                       species (budgerigar, Melopsittacus undulatus,
longevity up to 20 years,
                       vs Japanese quail, Coturnix coturnix japonica,
longevity up to 5 years)
                       and short- and long-lived mammalian species
(house mouse, Mus
                       musculus, longevity up to 4 years vs humans, Homo
sapiens, longevity
                       up to 122 years). Under the conditions of our
assay, the
                       oxidative-damage resistance phenotype appears to
be associated with
                       exceptional longevity in avian species, but not
in mammals.
                       Furthermore, the extreme oxidative damage
resistance phenotype
                       observed in a long-lived bird requires active
gene transcription and
                       translation, suggesting that specific gene
products may have evolved in
                       long-lived birds to facilitate resistance to
oxidative stress.





From eliasen at mindspring.com  Thu Jan 22 01:16:07 2004
From: eliasen at mindspring.com (Alan Eliasen)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 18:16:07 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition at high speed
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401211446450.5123-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401211446450.5123-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <400F2457.8@mindspring.com>


Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> Now with software of this nature one begins to ask if this could be
> used to "compress" education times (either in children who still
> have extremely plastic brains or adults in college)?
> 
> But in any case it looks to me like the methods and perhaps even the
> tools may exist for Harvey to get twice as much news in 1/2 to 1/3
> the time or 2-3x the news in the same amount of time.

   Time compression is a great thing.  Many computer-based DVD player software
(like WinDVD) allows you to time-compress movies (play them at much higher
rates, with the sound still audible.)  Lots of movies can stand this
treatment, and you whiz through in less time than you'd want to waste otherwise.

   I got a TiVo recently and, although it doesn't really have time compression
 natively (that is, it can't play back sound while playing faster as some
other models of Digital Video Recorders do,) you can set it at 3x playback
speed and the closed captioning still works.  You can compress your viewing
time significantly for many types of programs, and not miss much.  A wonderful
feature--if only it could be applied to the usual business meeting.

-- 
  Alan Eliasen                 | "You cannot reason a person out of a
  eliasen at mindspring.com       |  position he did not reason himself
  http://futureboy.homeip.net/ |  into in the first place."
                               |     --Jonathan Swift


From astapp at fizzfactorgames.com  Thu Jan 22 01:19:13 2004
From: astapp at fizzfactorgames.com (Acy James Stapp)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 17:19:13 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition at high speed
Message-ID: <56BC65EB2F3963489057F7D978B5E7B7926AE7@amazemail2.amazeent.com>

I'm a fairly fast reader at ~1000+ wpm with fairly good
comprehension on fiction and subjects I'm already acquanted
with, and ~500 wpm on hard nonfiction. I've found that reading 
the same thing over and over until I'm quite bored with it 
produces massive gains in retention although it hardly affects 
comprehension. Typically this takes two or three times (make
sure you sleep in the interim). But, improving retention has 
very good benefits. I can build upon the information and use
it much more readily. Most of my problems stem from not
remembering the details of what I've read even though I 
understood it at the time, and rereading is a powerful 
technique for improving retention and recall.

I'm sure that I could double my reading efficiency with some
aids but simply rereading makes a tremendous difference.
Taking notes would probably make a big difference as well,
but I'm not quite that organized.

Acy Stapp

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Robert J.
Bradbury
Sent: Wednesday, 21 January, 2004 17:08
To: Extropy Chat
Subject: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition at high speed



Harvey's comments a week or two ago got me to thinking about
how one can use technology available now for self-improvement,
greater time efficiency, greater comprehension or retention, etc.

Normally humans speaking quickly manage ~300 words/min (wpm), though
the Guinness Book of Records (1995) reports this can be pushed
to ~600 wpm.  Normal reading speed is perhaps 240 wpm (though
this was from the net, not the GBoR so ByrBwr).  I have heard
that listening speed can be up to 3x speaking speed and that
at one point there were tape recorders that could perform
this kind of compression for playback of recordings.

Some googling turned up this source:

> Vortex Machine Assisted Reading Software

  http://www.vallier.com/tenax/vortex.html  (Main information page)
  http://www.vallier.com/tenax/corn_use.html  Download the demo software
  http://www.vallier.com/tenax/cornix.html  (check out the demo)

** Note the URLs may no longer be valid -- one would have to use
** the Wayback Machine most likely to track down the pages.

> "The machine assisted reading software that allows you to read at up
to
> 2000 words per minute in fonts as large as 1000 points. Vortex will
suck
> the text out of your Windows software program and display it as you
want
> to see it! You choose the font, font size, speed of display, where to
> start and what colors you want the text."

Now, speed reading is great (though I would question the 2000 wpm number
as another source said only 1000 wpm -- which is closer to high speed
listening capabilities).  It would be interesting to compare speed
vs. comprehension at these accelerated rates in the visual and auditory
input channels.  Furthermore to look at what happens if you combine
the channels (a) at the same time (hearing what you are seeing) or
(b) separate the channels (what you hear is different from what you
see).

Now with software of this nature one begins to ask if this could be
used to "compress" education times (either in children who still
have extremely plastic brains or adults in college)?

But in any case it looks to me like the methods and perhaps even the
tools may exist for Harvey to get twice as much news in 1/2 to 1/3
the time or 2-3x the news in the same amount of time.

This would actually make a great software product for professionals
such as market analysts, lawyers, scientists, etc. who have to spend
much of their time absorbing information.

Robert



_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat


From extropy at audry2.com  Thu Jan 22 01:32:07 2004
From: extropy at audry2.com (Major)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 09:32:07 +0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Lie detector glasses
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-OE53thdA3SiZc0000de43@hotmail.com>
	(kevinfreels@hotmail.com)
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401211251190.2597-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
	<LAW10-OE53thdA3SiZc0000de43@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <200401220132.i0M1W7d26920@igor.synonet.com>


"Kevin Freels" <kevinfreels at hotmail.com> writes:

> If we eliminate the pilot entirely, the plane couldn't be taken
> over. :-)

While in normal flight machines are better than humans (which is why
most airplanes spend 99% of their time in autopilot mode), I don't
like the idea of a plane with no humans driving it in an emergency.

One measure which I am surprised has not been taken yet is giving the
pilots their own exterior door and making the cockpit inaccessible
from the cabin.

Major


From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Thu Jan 22 01:39:30 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 12:09:30 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition at high speed
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786951@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>


>    I got a TiVo recently and, although it doesn't really have 
> time compression
>  natively (that is, it can't play back sound while playing 
> faster as some
> other models of Digital Video Recorders do,) you can set it 
> at 3x playback
> speed and the closed captioning still works.  You can 
> compress your viewing
> time significantly for many types of programs, and not miss 
> much.  A wonderful
> feature--if only it could be applied to the usual business meeting.
> 
> -- 
>   Alan Eliasen                 | "You cannot reason a person out of a
>   eliasen at mindspring.com       |  position he did not reason himself
>   http://futureboy.homeip.net/ |  into in the first place."

Business meetings could do with other features. The ability to edit out
chosen speakers (like machines that edit out the ads), and a skip forward
button where you could just ignore 10 minutes in one button press. Bloody
meetings!

Emlyn



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Thu Jan 22 01:57:07 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 17:57:07 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition at high speed
In-Reply-To: <56BC65EB2F3963489057F7D978B5E7B7926AE7@amazemail2.amazeent.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401211734001.7387-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Acy James Stapp wrote:

> I'm a fairly fast reader at ~1000+ wpm with fairly good
> comprehension on fiction and subjects I'm already acquanted
> with, and ~500 wpm on hard nonfiction. I've found that reading
> the same thing over and over until I'm quite bored with it
> produces massive gains in retention although it hardly affects
> comprehension.

But is there anything to significant to comprehend in fiction?
In contrast biology and history are largely retention while
inorganic chemistry and to a greater extent organic chemistry
require some retention and comprehension but to a large
degree practice of a set of rules.  Algebra and Calculus
are to a large extent the practice of a set of rules.

I'd like to see how different people would rate these
and any other subjects between retention/memorization,
comprehension and practice of methods.

> I'm sure that I could double my reading efficiency with some
> aids but simply rereading makes a tremendous difference.
> Taking notes would probably make a big difference as well,
> but I'm not quite that organized.

But as Harvey pointed out normal news content is data sparse
(I wonder if various news agencies realize this and whether
they are shifting summaries accordingly -- i.e. can I get
the news (or key points) from just the summary on Google News
or do I have to go to an article that may be 1 page on
some sources and 4 pages on other sources.  (Its kind
of amazing how many ways reporters/writers can repackage
the same press release.)

This then becomes a question as to whether software tools
have enough knowledge/capabilities/rules to be able to
compress a story from a few dozen to a few hundred sources
into a dozen points about who/what/where/when, etc.?
Then if one reads/listens to the summary at 3x compression
one should be talking something like 10x or better than
normal methods.

Robert




From brentn at freeshell.org  Thu Jan 22 01:58:57 2004
From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 20:58:57 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
In-Reply-To: <400F1EB7.2010306@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <r02010000-1032-8ADE00864C7E11D8A84B000393A47D36@[192.168.123.152]>

 (1/21/04 17:52) Alan Eliasen <eliasen at mindspring.com> wrote:

>
>Brent Neal wrote:
>> As a case in point,
>> I will give you the University of North Carolina-Pembroke, which trains
>> people with average entrance SAT scores of less than 800 combined to be
>> teachers.
>
>    I remember getting back my GRE score report around 1993 and looking
>through some of the included analysis.  They had a breakdown of GRE
>scores by intended major and, by far, the lowest-scoring group was
>education.  That was sad, and indeed creates a self-defeating cycle.  In fact,
>the lowest 4 out of 5 scores went to education fields.
>
>
>    Dumbest:  Pre-Elementary Education
>    Smartest: Physics
>
>   I don't think our education system can be saved without enforcing higher
>standards for teachers.
>
>   So where does *your* major stack up?  :)
>

I have a Ph.D. in Physics. :P  

(Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Adhesion and Nanoindentation of Gallium Arsenide, for the curious.)


B
-- 
Brent Neal
Geek of all Trades
http://brentn.freeshell.org

"Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein


From extropy at unreasonable.com  Thu Jan 22 02:07:58 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 21:07:58 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
In-Reply-To: <400F1EB7.2010306@mindspring.com>
References: <r02010000-1032-DE30DD0E4C2911D89912000393A47D36@[192.168.123.121]>
	<r02010000-1032-DE30DD0E4C2911D89912000393A47D36@[192.168.123.121]>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040121200746.025cdeb0@mail.comcast.net>

At 05:52 PM 1/21/2004 -0700, Alan Eliasen wrote:

>They had a breakdown of GRE scores by intended major and, by far, the 
>lowest-scoring group was
>education.  That was sad, and indeed creates a self-defeating cycle.

In college I found that the people who became science and math teachers 
were typically science or math majors who were towards the bottom of their 
class in gpa. As graduation loomed, they realized they had no chance of 
succeeding in their major as a profession, and took the classes to get 
teacher certification.

Obviously, there are a few remarkable science/math teachers -- I had a 
wonderful one myself in high school -- but many are mediocre and never got 
very far in their specialty. (I think of my daughter's 8th grade science 
teacher, who taught them that gravity imparts a constant velocity of 9.8 
m/s to falling objects. We're not talking string theory here.)

Among non-science non-math teachers, I see a bifurcation into those for 
whom teaching was a calling and those who became teachers because they did 
lousy in school.

There's a good assortment of stories about teacher testing nationwide at

         http://www.nctq.org/issues/testing.html

including various states where many teachers couldn't pass rudimentary 
competency tests.


-- David Lubkin.




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Thu Jan 22 02:11:40 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 18:11:40 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ECON: US products still globally dominant
In-Reply-To: <20040122002043.53707.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <000101c3e08d$16ff3360$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Funny; I just talked to some of my relatives in Egypt,
and my cousin (who just came back from there), and according
to them, the boycott against american products and restaurants
is still going strong.  McDonalds (and other food chains perceived
as American) are empty.  'course thats just one arabic country,
*BUT* egypt is well-known for it being the most liberal/moderate
of muslim countries.

omard-out



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Lorrey
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 4:21 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: [extropy-chat] ECON: US products still globally dominant


A new Harvard Business School study states that backlash against
American products in the wake of US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan
just hasn't materialized to any significant degree. While a rump group
of 12% of global consumers refuse to buy products of US corporations
because of US foreign policy and globalization, 88% say they continue to
buy US products.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1106&ncid=1106&e=2&u=/ft
/20040121/bs_ft/1073281203197

Oddly enough, despite the complaints of elitists like France, US made
goods are seen as quality products around the world:

"He said global brands including Nike were favoured by consumers in
developing countries because they represented a guarantee of quality in
markets where basic standards were not always guaranteed. Coca-Cola, for
example, was seen as being a brand that used clean water in preparing
its soft drinks." 

Take THAT, Pierre....

Even in the Muslim world, Coke continues to dominate, and "Mecca Cola"
just doesn't get that many muslim consumers bowing down to it very
frequently.



=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark "Fascists are
objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus
_______________________________________________
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extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Thu Jan 22 02:08:35 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 21:08:35 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Lie detector glasses
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-OE53thdA3SiZc0000de43@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <004c01c3e08c$a8425ab0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Kevin Freels wrote,
> If we eliminate the pilot entirely, the plane couldn't be 
> taken over. :-) They may be able to take hostages, but they 
> can do that anywhere.

Actually, we should just eliminate the cockpit door.  Hijackers can do
whatever they want in the cabin, but they won't be able to take over the
plane.  This is the most direct method.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Thu Jan 22 02:14:57 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 18:14:57 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Polly "Charlie"- Churchill's parrot
In-Reply-To: <400F2269.F7A914B5@sasktel.net>
Message-ID: <000201c3e08d$8c38f760$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Lobsters too incidentally; their DNA repair mechanism
is supposed to be OUTSTANDING.  Theirs also a couple
of other cold-weather, cold-blooded reptilian/amphibians
that have some REMARKABLE adaptations to the cold.
Think, FROZEN as a hocky-puck, then thawed out and everything
is ok :)  I'm planning on incorporating a small "zoo" in my future
home, with breeding pairs of some of the more interesting creatures
in natures repetoire (sp, ok, I've never read it, so lighten up)..

omard-out


-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Extropian
Agroforestry Ventures Inc.
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 5:08 PM
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: [extropy-chat] Polly "Charlie"- Churchill's parrot


Winston Churchill died in 1965. his purported Potty mouthed "F***k the
Nazies" parrot is still alive and well at 104 or so.

With parrots able to live to 225 I don't remember a great deal of work
being done to determine what makes this so, how it differs from similar
birds and humans.


1: J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2001 Nov;
                  56(11): B468-74.

                       Exceptional cellular resistance to oxidative
damage in
                       long-lived birds requires active gene expression.

                       Ogburn CE, Carlberg K, Ottinger MA, Holmes DJ,
Martin GM,
                       Austad SN.

                       Department of Pathology, University of
Washington, Seattle, USA.

                       Previous studies indicated that renal tubular
epithelial cells from some
                       long-lived avian species exhibit robust and/or
unique protective
                       mechanisms against oxidative stress relative to
murine cells. Here we
                       extend these studies to investigate the response
of primary embryonic
                       fibroblast-like cells to oxidative challenge in
long- and short-lived avian
                       species (budgerigar, Melopsittacus undulatus,
longevity up to 20 years,
                       vs Japanese quail, Coturnix coturnix japonica,
longevity up to 5 years)
                       and short- and long-lived mammalian species
(house mouse, Mus
                       musculus, longevity up to 4 years vs humans, Homo
sapiens, longevity
                       up to 122 years). Under the conditions of our
assay, the
                       oxidative-damage resistance phenotype appears to
be associated with
                       exceptional longevity in avian species, but not
in mammals.
                       Furthermore, the extreme oxidative damage
resistance phenotype
                       observed in a long-lived bird requires active
gene transcription and
                       translation, suggesting that specific gene
products may have evolved in
                       long-lived birds to facilitate resistance to
oxidative stress.



_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Thu Jan 22 02:17:36 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 18:17:36 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition at high speed
In-Reply-To: <56BC65EB2F3963489057F7D978B5E7B7926AE7@amazemail2.amazeent.com>
Message-ID: <000301c3e08d$eb51e810$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

I've got a TERRIBLE memory for facts;  on the plus side I can 
rederive most stuff I need fairly easily, particularly conceptual
ideas.  I'm floating around in too much information, without a good
way to keep it organized :)  Thats my next (software) project; I think
the biggest problem is going to be the storage space required.

omard-out


-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Acy James
Stapp
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 5:19 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition at high
speed


I'm a fairly fast reader at ~1000+ wpm with fairly good comprehension on
fiction and subjects I'm already acquanted with, and ~500 wpm on hard
nonfiction. I've found that reading 
the same thing over and over until I'm quite bored with it 
produces massive gains in retention although it hardly affects 
comprehension. Typically this takes two or three times (make sure you
sleep in the interim). But, improving retention has 
very good benefits. I can build upon the information and use
it much more readily. Most of my problems stem from not remembering the
details of what I've read even though I 
understood it at the time, and rereading is a powerful 
technique for improving retention and recall.

I'm sure that I could double my reading efficiency with some aids but
simply rereading makes a tremendous difference. Taking notes would
probably make a big difference as well, but I'm not quite that
organized.

Acy Stapp




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Thu Jan 22 02:18:57 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 18:18:57 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Lie detector glasses
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-OE53thdA3SiZc0000de43@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <000401c3e08e$1baee350$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kevin
Freels
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 2:58 PM
To: ExI chat list

If we eliminate the pilot entirely, the plane couldn't be taken over.
:-) They may be able to take hostages, but they can do that anywhere.

--

<pulls the plug on the autopilot>

Simple, but effective (in your scenario).

omard-out






From brentn at freeshell.org  Thu Jan 22 02:18:31 2004
From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 21:18:31 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition at high  speed
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040121191626.03071ff8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <r02010000-1032-463B9F274C8111D8A84B000393A47D36@[192.168.123.152]>

 (1/21/04 19:57) David Lubkin <extropy at unreasonable.com> wrote:

>At 03:07 PM 1/21/2004 -0800, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
>>Normal reading speed is perhaps 240 wpm (though this was from the net, not 
>>the GBoR so ByrBwr).
>>         :
>>Now, speed reading is great (though I would question the 2000 wpm number
>>as another source said only 1000 wpm -- which is closer to high speed
>>listening capabilities).
>
>We had a thread on reading speed a few years ago. A lot of people chimed in 
>with their data points. Few on the list were as slow as that 240 wpm mark. 
>I'd expect that peak reading speed is correlated with IQ given that 
>response times for elementary tasks seem to give the best measure of IQ. On 
>this list, I'd guess the least impressive participant would have no problem 
>passing Mensa's 1:50 threshold (2 SD); the list median is at least 1:1000 
>(3 SD).


I, too, have a fairly high reading rate, though its been years since I've clocked myself. (I consider that measurement to be fairly pointless, since I really think the ability to read that quickly is essentially a savant talent, and not any measure of intelligence.)

However, I have noticed one thing about my acquaintances who read quickly that I thought I'd toss out for general comment. -None- of the people that I know who read almost or more quickly than I do subvocalize words while reading.  Almost everyone else I know does.  Apparently, having to associate the sounds with the words really slows the comprehension down. (Which has interesting implications for teaching reading by phonics!)

Interestingly, this does not strongly correlate with being a visual learner either. In my (admittedly small) sample population of 10 people who are naturally fast readers, 3 of them are kinesthetic learners and another was an auditory learner.  9 out of the 10 reported being very early readers (i.e. younger than 3 when first able to read new material).  Also interestingly, 10 out of 10 reported despising poetry in grade school. I suspect that's because rhythm and rhyme are pretty much lost concepts if you don't either vocalize or subvocalize the words you read.

>>Now with software of this nature one begins to ask if this could be
>>used to "compress" education times (either in children who still
>>have extremely plastic brains or adults in college)?

I'd guess not. As I stated in another thread about education,  there is a vast difference between having access to a corpus of knowledge and being able to apply it. It will still take time to process this informations and integrate it into your natural stream of thought.  All the SFish Matrixesque crap about uploading the ability to pilot helicopters and to kick Laurence Fishburne around virtual dojos is a pretty fiction, and not likely to become reality any sooner than uploading your consciousness. (Actually, I'd wager that uploading consciousness would happen first, considering the complexity of forcing the development of reflexes vs. adding memories.)


B

Just a comment,

B

-- 
Brent Neal
Geek of all Trades
http://brentn.freeshell.org

"Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Thu Jan 22 02:58:13 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 21:58:13 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhancement: data acquisition at high speed
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401211446450.5123-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <004f01c3e093$96c91240$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Robert J. Bradbury wrote,
> Harvey's comments a week or two ago got me to thinking about
> how one can use technology available now for 
> self-improvement, greater time efficiency, greater 
> comprehension or retention, etc.

Sorry!  :-)

> But in any case it looks to me like the methods and perhaps
> even the tools may exist for Harvey to get twice as much news 
> in 1/2 to 1/3 the time or 2-3x the news in the same amount of time.

Too late.  I already use the following methods to overload myself with more
information:

1.  I use Windows Media Player to play recorded lectures at
faster-than-normal speeds with adjustments to keep it from sounding like the
chipmunks. 2.  I used speed-reading machines in college to practice faster
reading.  I could get up to 1000 WPM, but it is very hectic, like playing a
very fast video game.  I can only do it for 5-10 minutes before having
severe headache and eyestrain. 3.  I use text-to-speech to convert internet
documents to voice which I can play at a faster-than-normal speed and while
traveling or do physical chores. 4.  I never watch live TV, but always use
tape to remove commercials.  I do not know of any VCR to play stuff faster
than normal while retaining sound.

After doing this for a while, I have made the following observations:

1.  I am not limited by how fast I can input data.  The problem is getting
quality data and dense data so that I don't waste time with poor sources.
Searching for a better source usually saves me more time than using a poorer
source at a higher speed. 2.  Learning takes time.  So does thinking about
topics.  The more dense and difficult information is, the longer it takes to
learn.  The speed of reading/hearing the data becomes the least limiting
factor. 3.  Too much information is stressful.  For a while I was listening
to lectures during showers, dressing, eating, driving, mowing the lawn,
doing laundry, etc.  I never had any down time.  I found it to be useful for
memorization and comprehension, but not for analysis and reflection.  I need
downtime with no input to churn the ideas and invent new ones.

> I'd like to see how different people would rate these
> and any other subjects between retention/memorization, comprehension 
> and practice of methods.

Bloom's taxonomy gives six levels of cognitive learning.  I would think that
speed is fastest for lower levels, slower for middle layers, and actually
requires response time for higher levels.  Each of the higher levels
requires all the lower levels to be processed first, so there is actually
more work to perform higher levels of cognitive learning.

- Knowledge:  	fastest speed to memorize and recognize facts
- Comprehension:	fast speed to understand and interpolate meanings
- Application:	slower speed to translate to other situations
- Analysis:		slowest speed to logically analyze and deconstruct
- Synthesis:	more response time needed to create new information
- Evaluation:	most response time needed for all levels to be evaluated

See <http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html> for Bloom's taxonomies.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From nanowave at shaw.ca  Thu Jan 22 03:14:56 2004
From: nanowave at shaw.ca (Russell Evermore)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 19:14:56 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] meta: for Robert Bradbury
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401211446450.5123-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <001501c3e095$eacc1ca0$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>

Sent you a PM the other day using an email address culled from the Javien
archives circa 2002 - bradbury at aeiveos.com
Account still active? Sorry for wasting bandwidth like this, but I've
checked your recent message signatures for a newer one and came up empty :-)

RE
nanowave at shaw.ca




From spike66 at comcast.net  Thu Jan 22 04:07:40 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 20:07:40 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040121200746.025cdeb0@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <000001c3e09d$47c97c20$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


> At 05:52 PM 1/21/2004 -0700, Alan Eliasen wrote:
> 
> >They had a breakdown of GRE scores by intended major and, by  far,
the 
> >lowest-scoring group was education.  That was sad, and indeed creates
a 
> > self-defeating cycle...

Is this surprising?  Teaching is a *terrible* way to
make a living in so many ways.  If the low pay isn't
enough to dissuade one, consider the ever-increasing
liability of working with children.  Do you suppose
that kids are failing to pick up on the notion of
the lawsuit lottery?  How easy it is to get a free 
ticket?  All they need to do is arrange to be alone 
with *any* teacher, especially a male one, then accuse 
him of molestation.  Exactly *no* penalty if the scheme
doesn't work, and a good chance they will give the student
a few score K-notes to go away, far cheaper than an
extended legal battle.  What a great scam!  This on top
of psychologists causing their patients to bring up
memories of stuff that never happened.  Teachers would
be highly vulnerable to these kinds of attacks, resulting 
in their reputations being permanently destroyed.

It is scandalous that schools do not have security
web cams running 24-7 to protect the teachers.  Without 
them, most schools are just too dangerous.

spike  



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Thu Jan 22 04:58:17 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 20:58:17 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] meta: for Robert Bradbury
In-Reply-To: <001501c3e095$eacc1ca0$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401212009460.11360-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Russell Evermore wrote:

> Sent you a PM the other day using an email address culled from the Javien
> archives circa 2002 - bradbury at aeiveos.com

Russell, the address is still valid though over the last couple of
months and including the last week I've had some unusual data & ISP
connection problems.

But I would suspect the problem may be my email filtering.
Like Amara I'm using spambouncer as a rule based filtering
system, but on top of that I'm using spamprobe to do Bayesian
filtering.  (It was a pain to setup but it works fairly well.)

But for some messages one may end up as a false positive
and end up in a folder I look at with only a weekly or
monthly frequency.  (Don't send me anything with keywords
like "viagra" or various misspellings... :-))

Also since I'm using some of black listings for filtering
so if your address or your ISP has been blacklisted in some
way it may be difficult to reach me.

In this situation individuals should attempt to arrange
contact through trusted individuals.  For example messages
from Spike, Amara, Damien and Brett seem to have no problem
getting through the filters.  Its easy to add additional
names to the list that should not be filtered though I'm
not sure I understand the filtering process sufficiently
to know when messages might get caught in the net.

So don't give up -- just be a little more clever.
Robert




From thespike at earthlink.net  Thu Jan 22 05:54:46 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 23:54:46 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] brine on Mars might have been found
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401212009460.11360-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <00b101c3e0ac$407df860$c1994a43@texas.net>

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/22/1074732523467.html

By John von Radowitz
January 22, 2004 - 2:29PM

Pictures from NASA's roving Mars buggy have astonished scientists by
indicating that it may have landed in mud.

Strange marks near the Spirit rover's landing site suggest that against all
the odds there be might liquid water on or just beneath the surface of Mars.

The water would have to be very salty to avoid freezing or evaporating in
the harsh Martian conditions.

If the scientists' suspicions are confirmed it would be the clearest sign
yet that lakes and oceans once existed on Mars, and greatly increase the
chances of life.

The presence of water in the Martian soil could even mean that the Viking
Mars landers really did detect life on the planet in 1976.

Positive results from the Viking experiments were dismissed when it was
realised they could have been produced by an inorganic chemical process. But
mud on Mars would rule out this explanation for the strange findings.

The mystery stems from a small disturbed patch of ground very close to the
lander, New Scientist reported today.

Dubbed the "magic carpet", it was made by the lander's airbags scraping
across the soil.

But its appearance has taken scientists completely by surprise. Instead of
breaking or cracking, as dry soil would be expected to do, the surface seems
to have flowed and folded as if wet.

Science team leader Steven Squyres said: "It looks like mud, but it can't be
mud."

Pure water cannot exist at the low temperatures and pressures found on
Mars - it would either freeze or evaporate away.

But scientists say that is not true of brine. If the water contained enough
salt, it could be stable.

Another member of the Spirit science team, David Des Marais, told New
Scientist: "If it's not pure water, brines should be considered. We know
there are some brines that are stable under these conditions."

He suggested that if past bodies of water on Mars evaporated, the remaining
liquid would become more and more salty until it was briny enough to be
stable.

Other possible explanations for the "muddy" soil include electrostatic
attraction between the dust grains, ice melting on contact with the airbag,
or a tiny amount of moisture released from the airbag.

But other scientists have suggested that seeping surface water may be
responsible for thousands of mysterious gullies seen on the steep slopes of
craters and canyon walls.

Spirit's first microscope image of Mars dirt also revealed puzzling
features - hollow spheres and tubes - that could have been created by salty
deposits.

This is consistent with the idea that a lake which once filled the Gusev
crater, where Spirit landed, dried up leaving a layer of very concentrated
brine.
- PA





From extropy at unreasonable.com  Thu Jan 22 04:33:22 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 23:33:22 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Charity
In-Reply-To: <02cf01c3dfda$f8709c20$6dcd5cd1@neptune>
References: <002801c3dfc4$46119f90$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040121004557.0312bd90@mail.comcast.net>

Organized charities, of course, vary enormously in how effectively they use 
their income. Some are notorious for near-governmental profligacy.

When I make choices about where to invest my time and money, I coldly look 
at how important the charity's goal is, how valid their approach appears to 
be, and what they actually accomplish.

I ignore the school kids selling candy bars; the same money can go to Seva. 
Curing preventable blindness is more important than a field trip.

I choose focused projects, low overhead, a record of accomplishment, and 
effort directed at fixing underlying problems.

I want to see the feedback mechanisms of the free market work more 
effectively in the non-profit world than they do. It would be useful if 
epinions.com or Consumer Reports rated charities. I wonder why they don't. 
I was pleased to find give.org though.


-- David Lubkin.




From spike66 at comcast.net  Thu Jan 22 07:06:57 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 23:06:57 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] rumblings
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040121200746.025cdeb0@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <000001c3e0b6$52df2010$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

On this day it is nearly pointless to go to bed before
midnight in my neighborhood, for one is sure to be awakened
by fireworks and reveling.

This is compounded by the swarm of small earthquakes we
are feeling in the past couple days, centered about 30 km
north of here in Livermore.

Happy Chinese New Year!

spike



From Johnius at Genius.UCSD.edu  Thu Jan 22 07:26:34 2004
From: Johnius at Genius.UCSD.edu (Johnius)
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 23:26:34 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ascii conversion of images?
Message-ID: <400F7B2A.D2198999@Genius.UCSD.edu>

  I hope this isn't too off-topic for this list,
but I'm looking for an excellent ordered set of 
ascii characters to use in converting and 'shading'
satellite imagery into text pseudo-images.
  My current set is: ' ', '.', ',', ':', '-', '+',
'*', '&', '%', '#', going from light to dark.

  My boss will be on a ship for the next month
and he'll be able to get email, but not web access.
It's not clear if he'll be able to view or receive
as attachments jpeg(or other) images.
  He was going to have me simply describe the imagery
results verbally, but I think that good ascii-pictures
would be much better.
  I'm on an SGI workstation running IRIX 6.5 and have
been using IDL to do the conversion (example below).
  Does anyone have a great, well-tested set of ascii
characters to use in creating shading effects?
My current set has only 10 shading levels, and I suspect
that better selections exist.

  Another problem is that this method only works well
if the receiving system uses fixed-length fonts (i.e.,
each character is given a same-size spatial box to be
drawn in).  Systems with variable-length fonts will
"compress" vertically-thin characters and screw up
the 2-d spatial alignment of the pseudo-image.  One
way around this might be to select a set of ordered
characters that not only provide the shading illusion,
but also happen to have (nearly) the same widths.  This
second set might not be as optimized for shading effect,
but at least it would largely preserve the spatial 
relationships.

  Any suggestions/ideas?

  Here is a test image that I want to convert:
http://genius.ucsd.edu/~john/Lydwine_dir/S2002323195946_taua_865_m01_.03.jpg

  And here is my current best conversion, arbitrarily
set to 60 characters wide:

-:-%%++*. .,*LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
---%#**-...-*#LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
*-+%*++-..,:*%LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
+-++**+:..:-+*#LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
*+****+:.,--+-#LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
-+****+:.&---+&CLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
-+**+*+:,&--:*%+CLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
*&#%*&*:,+--:+--CLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
++*+*&-::+--:+::CLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
++#%%&-:-+-::+::-LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
&+%*&&-:-+::+-:::LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
&***&*+:-+-:+-:.:LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
&*%*&&+:+--,+-,.,LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
&+%&%%--+-+-*:...*LLLLLCLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
*+%#*&*-+--++-...,C:*---+LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
&&%#&*+--::+*-..  ,,,,:,*CLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
&&&%#*-+:--%*-.  ...,...+#CLLLCLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
%+%##+-&-:-&*+.  ......,%#+&*##LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
%%####---:-+*--.. :...LL:-:-++*#LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLCCLLLLLLL                   
%&&%#++-::-**:.  .,CLL&*-:.,::*CLCLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL CLLLLLL                   
%*#*%&+::--&&:.. .,-#,,:,,  .,+:*%#CLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL C LLLL                   
###%%+--*+**+:,...,:,.,,.....::-:++#CLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL- LLLL                   
####*+-::-+#%:....,,,.,,,,.:-::-:-+###CLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLCLLLL                   
%##%++--:-+%:,,...,,,,,-,,,:::,LL-+%%#+CLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
%###%+--:-*+,:,...,,:,,,,,,::::-LC*%*+*+CLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
####*+----+--,,,..,:,,,:,,:-:::+-*-++---+LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
###*++----*+-:,,.,,,:,,::::-:::-:+-:--,:-CLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
##&%*+---*%++,..,:::::::,L,-,,,:::::::-::*LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
####&+-+++*+-,,:,:,,,-:::+:::,,C.::,:::,,:LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
####&*-+*%+--,:::,.,-:::::--:,+:L,,,,::,.:CLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
###&%%+++++&-,::,:.:--:,,,:-:+::CL.,:-:...CLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
####%**+*+-*:,::::.,+-:,,,:::+:::,,,::, ..,-LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
####&&+++%++-:,,,,,,---::,:::,:,,,,,-:, ..-+LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
####**&%##+*--:,:,..,::+*,:,::,:,,,:,:. .,:#CLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
####&****+*+--::-,,,,:,-:,,,...,::::,-...-*##LLLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
#####*&+***++-:-:,,,...,:,,,:,.,:,:::...,:###&CLLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
#####******++---:,,,,...:,.,:,.,,,::,: .,,&##%-LLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
#####&#**&*%+---:::,:,..,,,.,,,::,::,...,:&#&%-LLLLLLLLLLLLL                   
######&#&++++-%-*:::,,,..,,,,:,::-,,....,,:&*+:&CLLLLLLLLLLL                   
#######%#&*&&+%-&::+,,,..,,,,-,*:-:,....,-,:::,-+CLLLLLLLLLL                   
###%#####%&+-&*---:::.,..,,,,::::-:...,,,-,:::,,:-LLLLLLLLLL                   
########%%&&+%&*--:::,.,.,,.,.:::::.,,:,:.,,,,.,:&LLLLLLLLLL                   
#########&****%*-::::,.,,:,,,,:--+:::,,:,  .....,:LLLLLLLLLL                   
#########*##*+*+--:,,,,:,:,,,,,-*+--::,,.,. .   ,+LLLLLLLLLL                   
############&%%+-::-+:,:--,,:,,+-++-:,,..,.     .,-%LLLLLLLL                   
#########&#***#&-:--:::,,,,:::,,-+-:::,:.,.    . ,,:CLLLLLLL                   
####%&#%&%##*###+*-:-:,,,,::--:,-+--:::,.,.   . ...,-*LLLLLL                   
############**##*--:,::,,::::-::-+&-::,:.... .... ,,:+LLLLLL                   
################+:-:-,::::,:-:-:-++-:::,.., ... ...,-+CLLLLL                   
C####%%#%#####%+----:::::::::-::--+-:::,.:,.......,*:-CLLLLL                   
C####%######*&%+-:-:::::,::-:-+:-++-:-::--,,,,,.,.,,::+#LLLL                   
CC###%#&*&####&----:::::,,-:::-+-++----:,:,,,,,,,,.:::++&CLL                   
C######&#&%#%+&-------:::,--::+*+*+*+-----:,,,,.,..::-+#:*LL                   
C######%&%%+#%---&--+-,,::--:++-&#&&+-:---:,,,,:,,.::-*#:*LL                   
########&%%+++&-+--++::,:,-+-+**+&&*+----::::-:--::::+%#-:CL                   
#######&&#&++++---++::::::---+#+##%*++::--::::-+++++%%##&&#C                   
######CC#&#&&**---::::,,:,-+-**&###&&+----::::-***#CCCCCCC.&                   
######CCCC#&%-+%-:::::::,::++-&%%#%***+------+-*+#CCCCCCCC#*                   
#CCCCCCCCC###*+++::::::::::&+**%##&&&++++++--+:-+%CCCCCCCC*C                   
#CCCCCCCCCCC#C#--:+::+::-::---+&##&&&++&++++*+++,CCCCCCCC-CC                   
CCCCCCCCCC###C#+---:*-::-::---+&*&&*#++*++++++*%CCCCCCCCCCC:                   
CCCCCCCCCC#CC###+-----::-:-:-+**&&&**%**++++***CCCCCCCCC#C-:                   
CCCCCCCCCC#CC###%-*-*--::++::-++-++++****+++*##CCCC#CCCCC+--                   
CCCCCCCCCCCCCC###+------:::-::--+-++*&&*#+*+&&CCCC#CCCC#*--:                   
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCC###-*--:-+*+------++**%*&****&%CCC##CCCC&+---                   
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC#&++---:-*-*++--*&*&&&%&&**&CCCCC#CCC+&##--                   
CCCCCCCCCCCCCC####*:------++++#++**&**&&#%&%##CCCC#%%C%+CC--                   
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC#%C##--+:-****++&****+&###%%##CCCC&&CC&+*#+*                   
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCC####+##CC#:**&%&*&&#&***&######CCC-%&C*#+##CC                   
CCCCCCCCCCCC##C###-##*CCC###&&*#&*#&***&&*#%####CCCCCCCCCC#*                   
CCCCCCCCCCCCC###%#-%%+&######&#&&*******&&%#####%C-CCCC#CCCC                   
CCCCCCCCCCCCCC##&&**+#C#%###%****#++**&&&######**#*CC&CC+C.-                   
CCCCCCCCCCCCCC##C&&+*&CCCCC+%#*+***+&#*%*#%####***&#&%CC+#++                   
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC##%#C#CCCCC#%#*#####:+*#C###C:++****&&&+C+-                   
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC#CCCCCCCCCC#&+*-++###*C ###C#%-++**++++*++                   
 
Southern California Current, 2002, day 323
Aerosol optical thickness, 865 nm
Total data range:       0.00000  to     0.327000
 
Legend
------
L = land
C = cloud
  ___   0.00000 or less
. ___   0.00177778
, ___   0.00355556
: ___   0.00533333
- ___   0.00711111
+ ___   0.00888889
* ___   0.0106667
& ___   0.0124444
% ___   0.0142222
# ___   0.0160000 or more

 ================================================


From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au  Thu Jan 22 07:39:16 2004
From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 18:39:16 +1100
Subject: [extropy-chat] brine on Mars might have been found
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401212009460.11360-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
	<00b101c3e0ac$407df860$c1994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <001901c3e0ba$d6b79440$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>

Damien Broderick posted:

> http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/22/1074732523467.html
> 
> By John von Radowitz
> January 22, 2004 - 2:29PM
> 
> Pictures from NASA's roving Mars buggy have astonished 
> scientists by indicating that it may have landed in mud.

Interesting stuff. But I'm a bit surprised that there is not some
process whereby water or the water in brine could not quite
quickly be determined by means better than a visual (i.e. "it
looks like mud"). Perhaps it can but they just haven't done
it yet?  What non-visual test small enough to be carried out by
the buggy would prove the presence of water? 

> The presence of water in the Martian soil could even mean that
> the Viking Mars landers really did detect life on the planet in 1976.

Neat but...

> 
> Positive results from the Viking experiments were dismissed when
> it was realised they could have been produced by an inorganic 
> chemical process. 

>... mud on Mars would rule out this explanation for the strange
> findings. 

Why would this be so? 

Could there not be both a reading from an inorganic chem process 
AND water (perhaps in brine/"mud") as well?
 
This Mars stuff is cool. Just finding some life on another planet
of *any* form would imo be a *very* big deal.  I sometimes wonder
if with all the tech entertainment and speculation if folk can still be
impressed by things that have that extra element of being real rather
than imaginary. Actual rather than speculative. 

What in human history would rival finding life on another planet for 
the first time? Perhaps learning that the earth wasn't flat? That the
sun didn't rotate it? That the earth wasn't the centre of the universe?
That man is biologically an animal? 

It would be interesting to see for real rather than just imagine through
fiction what the worlds cultures and religions would say in response
to the discovery of life (even the simplest life) on Mars. 

Regards,
Brett




From alito at organicrobot.com  Thu Jan 22 07:47:26 2004
From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:47:26 +1000
Subject: [extropy-chat] ascii conversion of images?
In-Reply-To: <400F7B2A.D2198999@Genius.UCSD.edu>
References: <400F7B2A.D2198999@Genius.UCSD.edu>
Message-ID: <1074757646.19480.131.camel@alito.homeip.net>

On Thu, 2004-01-22 at 17:26, Johnius wrote:
>   I hope this isn't too off-topic for this list,
> but I'm looking for an excellent ordered set of 
> ascii characters to use in converting and 'shading'
> satellite imagery into text pseudo-images.
>   My current set is: ' ', '.', ',', ':', '-', '+',
> '*', '&', '%', '#', going from light to dark.
> 
If he can display 8-bit ascii, it may be worth having a look at aalib. 
if he can do curses, then libcaca might even provide you with colour.

alejandro




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Thu Jan 22 09:30:25 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 01:30:25 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] How fit is ur brain (popular science quiz)
In-Reply-To: <1074757646.19480.131.camel@alito.homeip.net>
Message-ID: <000001c3e0ca$5fcbc030$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/poll/quiz/brain/brain_q1.html

10/13 right, got: nuclear, 3 gene mutations, and red shift constant
wrong.




From amara at amara.com  Thu Jan 22 09:01:12 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 11:01:12 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] Rosetta (was: Mars on the cheap?)
Message-ID: <p05100301bc354138185f@[150.146.134.133]>


Dan:
>On Tuesday, January 20, 2004 4:43 PM BillK bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk
>wrote:
>>  Nobody seems to have mentioned that after
>>  the Bush plan for NASA to go to Mars was
>>  announced, the Russians put their hand up
>>  and said that they could do it a lot cheaper
>>  than NASA.

>Cool!  Let me guess why.  It won't help the big aerospace lobby in the
>US...

Dear Dan,

As a side note to this, a Russian proton rocket was one of the options
for ESA to use last year, after the problems with Ariane 5, in order to
continue to send Rosetta to comet Wirtanen.

They chose not to, because it was deemed too risky to transfer the fuel
and other launching parts from its configuration for Ariane. True? I
don't know, but ESA's solution was to chose a much more dustier (heh
"more interesting")  comet, and one for which the lander and other
instruments were not carefully tested, and a later launch  (which is
next month).

Note that nothing has changed, that I can see, regarding Ariane 5. The
investigation didn't find the cause of the previous launching failures,
the same rocket is still being used as before for Rosetta, and ESA has
no backup plan next month.

Amara

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF),
Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR,
Roma, ITALIA     Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it


From samantha at objectent.com  Thu Jan 22 10:23:13 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 02:23:13 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: EDU: Public Schools
In-Reply-To: <01a501c3dfb9$3503ef60$6dcd5cd1@neptune>
References: <009b01c3df28$a6f955b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
	<00bd01c3df58$9968bc80$29cd5cd1@neptune>
	<20040120144800.501b8c7c.samantha@objectent.com>
	<01a501c3dfb9$3503ef60$6dcd5cd1@neptune>
Message-ID: <20040122022313.547fc2da.samantha@objectent.com>

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 19:55:03 -0500
"Technotranscendence" <neptune at superlink.net> wrote:
> I won't dispute that volunteer work -- charitable work -- has value or
> can create value, but there are two caveats here.  (Heck, for that
> matter, in some sense, even a command economy can create some wealth.)
> One is that in order to volunteer, one must already have some other
> source of wealth.  Someone without at least the basic necessities will
> die, so she or he won't be of much use as a volunteer.  Even on this
> minimal level, you need something before you can give -- you need at
> least to have basic necessities before you can help others.
>

In short, you need some surplus time and energy from "earning a living".
   
> The other is that the money economy is much more efficient than
> volunteering.  

I disagree.  The money economy is good at performing tasks that generate more money overall than they consume.  This is not necessarily the same as generating more actual value in all areas.   Some things that are quite valuable to people do not lend themselves to a good business model - one that both is profitable and does not lower the value too much. 

> Yes, the two are not mutually exclusive -- as can be seen
> from the fact that people in advanced money economies not only do
> volunteer work but fund charities and the like -- but my original
> statement above was, "Nothing wrong with charity, but if most people
> didn't do productive things and interact through trade, most of humanity
> would have to die out."

There are all kinds of production, not all of which are funded or generally counted by the market.  There are also more kinds of trade than those on a ticker tape.


>  The incentives and information problem are
> resolved much better in a market.  

Pure assertion.

> Yes, charity meshes nicely with
> market interactions, but absent market interactions, all else being
> equal, overall efficiency would be so low that most of humanity would
> have to die out just to sustain that rest who interact in non-market
> but, hopefully, still voluntary ways.  (Non-market _involuntary_ ways --
> i.e., the command economy also known as socialism -- have an
> indisputably low efficiency.)
> 

Would you say overall efficiency in Open Source was so low?   On the contrary it has taken many market based software companies and segments by storm.  

> Both must coexist, but the big engine of wealth creation is the market
> system.  This is why market interactions took off once they were
> established.  E.g., we can see in very primitive peoples today
> gift-giving cultures -- ones where people freely give gifts usually with
> some expectation of a return.  These most likely preceded actually trade
> of the non-gift sort in early societies -- or between them where such
> exchanges were infrequent.  (See Elman R. Service's _The Hunters_, and
> many other anthropology books cover the same phenomenon.)  While such
> things still go on in modern, advanced economies, the bulk of
> interactions resulting in wealth creation are market ones.
>

Open Source is largely a gift giving culture.  When we get full MNT and most information and computation is too plentiful to meaningfully meter, I would expect that gift giving and creative acts would still be pretty big although not "primitive" at all.  The concepts of the market and its importance are true within a context that I do not believe is immutable forever.  
 
> Now, value is subjective -- in the Austrian economics sense -- so you
> could say you experience more value from your volunteer work -- and
> hopefully you do get what is called "psychic profit" (no reference to
> the paranormal, but just meaning the benefit is emotional or, forgive
> the term, "spiritual" as opposed to for monetary gain) -- but, again,
> most people do not, since they don't all spend their time doing
> volunteer work.  Also, again, the market economy creates more material
> wealth upon which to rest the charitable efforts.
>

Often the benefit is simply a sharing of the best one has with others who share the best they have without having to go through all the business world paperwork to do so.  For goods/services that work best in a commons imposing a normal market approach devalues the commons and lowers rather than increasing the value of the goods and services.  Your thinking seems to oriented to a few modes of market and "volunteer work".
 
> The libertarian social ideal as I understand it is just to allow people
> to interact voluntarily.  I believe -- and you seem to agree from your
> other posts -- that under such conditions, people will still do
> charitable work, though I think the bulk of social interaction will
> still be via some form of market economy.
> 

As the world becomes more abundant I expect market economy to lose some of its apparent value as the best way to do things.  Heck, I expect the economics itself to get turned a bit on its head when scarcity itself becomes relatively scarce.  In a world where most of the material needs and more of all humans can easily be met exactly where is the big incentive to economic competition?  

- samantha


From samantha at objectent.com  Thu Jan 22 10:27:27 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 02:27:27 -0800
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat]
	Gametheoryofcommoncold)
In-Reply-To: <002201c3dfbc$77c1c860$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
References: <20040120143944.0ff94d24.samantha@objectent.com>
	<002201c3dfbc$77c1c860$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040122022727.0b13397e.samantha@objectent.com>

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 20:18:24 -0500
"Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:

> Samantha Atkins wrote,
> > I draw a large distinction between voluntary charity and 
> > involuntary charity imposed by a government.  I believe very 
> > much in giving back in whatever form it takes (and am known 
> > for generositiy in that regard fwiw) but I do not believe and 
> > never will believe in forced taking and giving to others.  
> > Please do not give in to the temptation to slam libertarians 
> > just because you do not happen to be one.  There is in fact 
> > VERY ample reason not to trust government and this government 
> > in particular that hasn't a damn thing to do with "self-pity" 
> > or "victim mentality".  I am quite dismayed that you would 
> > jump into this mode of ranting so easily.   I am also 
> > dismayed by a seeming unwillingness to grant that there are 
> > is a whole spectrum of attitudes and practice out there 
> > between you and your "bitter old Libertarian".
> 
> Wow, this conversation has suddenly turned 180 degrees when I blinked!  I
> certainly do not trust the government, nor do I intend to slam Libertarians.
> I was defending my position of doing charity work against those who said
> charity through government programs was evil.  I also was explaining that
> charity work could be good to counter those who claim all charity work is
> self-serving selfishness.  I was trying to defend myself for doing charity
> work, not attack anyone else for not doing charity work.
> 

I believe you if you say you were not trying to attack others, although in fact you did.  It is awfully easy to fall into, isn't it?   Charity that is forced *is* evil.  Do we agree on that much?  I very much agree that not all charity is self-serving selfishness (if I speak that language which usually I don't).  

-s


From maxm at mail.tele.dk  Thu Jan 22 10:41:27 2004
From: maxm at mail.tele.dk (Max M)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 11:41:27 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] [HUMOR] Scientists Abandon AI Project After Seeing
	The Matrix
Message-ID: <400FA8D7.1090803@mail.tele.dk>


http://www.theonion.com/4003/top_story.html

CAMBRIDGE, MA?Scientists at MIT's Advanced Machine Cognizance Project 
announced Tuesday that, after seeing the final installment of the Matrix 
trilogy, they will cease all further work in the field of artificial 
intelligence.
	

"As scientists of conscience, we must consider the ethical ramifications 
of AI development," said Dr. Gregory Jameson, director of machine 
epistemology and ontology at MIT. "The Matrix taught us that we cannot 
ignore our obligation to the future of mankind. We must free our minds 
to this fact, or we will accidentally unleash a nightmarish army of 
sentient machines."


regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark


From alex at ramonsky.com  Thu Jan 22 11:11:01 2004
From: alex at ramonsky.com (Alex Ramonsky)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 11:11:01 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Home-schooling
References: <r02010000-1032-DE30DD0E4C2911D89912000393A47D36@[192.168.123.121]>
Message-ID: <400FAFC5.30702@ramonsky.com>


www.education-otherwise.org

helped me with my two.
Best,
AR




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Thu Jan 22 11:03:32 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 03:03:32 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: I am going there
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401220235160.19575-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Well, I'm going into space for a year and a half.  Due
to the fact that my name will likely be turned into
space dust in the process of impacting I'll be dependent
on scientists like Amara to reconstruct me.

For some reason Humpty Dumpty comes to mind... :-;

I've added my name to the list of people to be on the CD
being sent to Comet Tempel 1 in July of 2005.

Start here:
  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040121082032.htm
or
  http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov/

Now, when they upgrade this process to uploaded memory cubes
with a somewhat softer impact replicating oneself will get
really interesting.  How the hell do we get Spike-Delta back
from comet Ikeya-Zhang 1 for the next turn-of-the century
party?

Robert




From ARTILLO at comcast.net  Thu Jan 22 14:50:30 2004
From: ARTILLO at comcast.net (ARTILLO at comcast.net)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 14:50:30 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] How fit is ur brain (popular science quiz)
Message-ID: <012220041450.10138.4dfc@comcast.net>

I also got 10/13...
I missed Dark Energy, 3 gene mutations, and red shift constant
> http://www.popsci.com/popsci/poll/quiz/brain/brain_q1.html
> 
> 10/13 right, got: nuclear, 3 gene mutations, and red shift constant
> wrong.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Thu Jan 22 14:53:04 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 08:53:04 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] brine on Mars might have been found
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401212009460.11360-100000@server.aeiveos.com><00b101c3e0ac$407df860$c1994a43@texas.net>
	<001901c3e0ba$d6b79440$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>
Message-ID: <LAW10-OE635LH2VBKWM00037f70@hotmail.com>

> What in human history would rival finding life on another planet for
> the first time? Perhaps learning that the earth wasn't flat? That the
> sun didn't rotate it? That the earth wasn't the centre of the universe?
> That man is biologically an animal?
>
No doubt there will still be naysayers just as there is still a "Flat-Earth"
society. :-)
Kevin Freels


From neptune at superlink.net  Thu Jan 22 15:16:17 2004
From: neptune at superlink.net (Technotranscendence)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 10:16:17 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] brine on Mars might have been found
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401212009460.11360-100000@server.aeiveos.com><00b101c3e0ac$407df860$c1994a43@texas.net><001901c3e0ba$d6b79440$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>
	<LAW10-OE635LH2VBKWM00037f70@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <00df01c3e0fa$b00884e0$44cd5cd1@neptune>

On Thursday, January 22, 2004 9:53 AM Kevin Freels
kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote:
>> What in human history would rival finding
>> life on another planet for the first time?
>> Perhaps learning that the earth wasn't
>> flat? That the sun didn't rotate it?  That the
>> earth wasn't the centre of the universe?
>> That man is biologically an animal?
>
> No doubt there will still be naysayers just as
> there is still a "Flat-Earth" society. :-)

Regarding the brine on Mars, all the evidence isn't in yet, but it looks
good...  Gusev was a good location.  It'd be nice if the other rover,
scheduled to land in a few days, finds similar "mud."  That would prove
that the Spirit location is not unique.

Regarding life in the universe, humans finding it on another planet
would be another copernican revolution of sorts -- not for the more
science oriented who are already okay with the idea, but for the rest of
humanity, many of whom see this as fantasy.  (Well, the ones I run into.
Of course, there's the UFO crowd...:)

Cheers!

Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Thu Jan 22 16:54:56 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 08:54:56 -0800 (PST)
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat]
	Gametheoryofcommoncold)
In-Reply-To: <20040122022727.0b13397e.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <20040122165456.87554.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Samantha Atkins <samantha at objectent.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 20:18:24 -0500
> "Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> > 
> > Wow, this conversation has suddenly turned 180 degrees when I
> blinked!  I
> > certainly do not trust the government, nor do I intend to slam
> Libertarians.
> > I was defending my position of doing charity work against those who
> said
> > charity through government programs was evil.  I also was
> explaining that
> > charity work could be good to counter those who claim all charity
> work is
> > self-serving selfishness.  I was trying to defend myself for doing
> charity
> > work, not attack anyone else for not doing charity work.
> > 
> 
> I believe you if you say you were not trying to attack others,
> although in fact you did.  It is awfully easy to fall into, isn't it?
>   Charity that is forced *is* evil.  Do we agree on that much?  I
> very much agree that not all charity is self-serving selfishness (if
> I speak that language which usually I don't). 

surpisingly, I am very much in agreement with Samantha. Harvey is
making a logical fallacy in claiming that his *entirely private*
charity work makes forced charity through government programs "not
evil". How he makes such a logical leap is beyond me...

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From bryan.moss at dsl.pipex.com  Thu Jan 22 16:55:18 2004
From: bryan.moss at dsl.pipex.com (Bryan Moss)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 16:55:18 -0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] brine on Mars might have been found
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401212009460.11360-100000@server.aeiveos.com><00b101c3e0ac$407df860$c1994a43@texas.net>
	<001901c3e0ba$d6b79440$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>
Message-ID: <002b01c3e108$bcbae9e0$0600000a@Bryan>

Brett Paatsch wrote:

> Interesting stuff. But I'm a bit surprised that there is not some
> process whereby water or the water in brine could not quite
> quickly be determined by means better than a visual (i.e. "it
> looks like mud"). Perhaps it can but they just haven't done
> it yet?  What non-visual test small enough to be carried out by
> the buggy would prove the presence of water?

They can't go near the "magic carpet" area because it's too close to the
lander and therefore too dangerous to navigate.

> This Mars stuff is cool. Just finding some life on another planet
> of *any* form would imo be a *very* big deal.  I sometimes wonder
> if with all the tech entertainment and speculation if folk can still be
> impressed by things that have that extra element of being real rather
> than imaginary. Actual rather than speculative.

I've noticed that it's very difficult for most people to understand what's
being achieved on Mars.  Once you strip away the initial enthusiasm for yet
another example of US technical superiority, you're left with maybe a
handful of excited space nerds.  I doubt discovering life would be much
different; it would provide a topic of discussion for awhile, little else.

I think it will take sending people to really drive home the idea that Mars
is *another planet* instead of just a rather nondescript desert.

BM


From amara at amara.com  Thu Jan 22 16:11:18 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 18:11:18 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] Paper by Rees: 'Numerical coincidences and 'tuning'
	in cosmology'
Message-ID: <p05100300bc35a5fa217b@[150.146.134.133]>

(an exceptional writer as well as an exceptional scientist)

http://it.arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0401424

Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0401424

From: Martin J. Rees <mjr at ast.cam.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 16:43:42 GMT   (246kb)

Numerical coincidences and 'tuning' in cosmology

Authors: Martin J. Rees
Comments: 14 pages, 4 figures, published in "Fred Hoyle's Universe", ed C.
Wickramasinghe et al. (Kluwer), pp 95-108 (2003)

      Fred Hoyle famously drew attention to the significance of apparent
      coincidences in the energy levels of the carbon and oxygen
      nucleus. This paper addresses the possible implications of other
      coincidences in cosmology.

Full-text: PDF only


-- 

Amara Graps, PhD
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF),
Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR,
Roma, ITALIA     Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it


From astapp at fizzfactorgames.com  Thu Jan 22 17:38:20 2004
From: astapp at fizzfactorgames.com (Acy James Stapp)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 09:38:20 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition at high speed
Message-ID: <56BC65EB2F3963489057F7D978B5E7B7926B20@amazemail2.amazeent.com>



[ From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org 
[ [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of 
[ Robert J. Bradbury
[ Sent: Wednesday, 21 January, 2004 19:57
[ To: ExI chat list
[ Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition 
[ at high speed
[ 
[ On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, Acy James Stapp wrote:
[ 
[ > I'm a fairly fast reader at ~1000+ wpm with fairly good
[ > comprehension on fiction and subjects I'm already acquanted
[ > with, and ~500 wpm on hard nonfiction. I've found that reading
[ > the same thing over and over until I'm quite bored with it
[ > produces massive gains in retention although it hardly affects
[ > comprehension.
[ 
[ But is there anything to significant to comprehend in fiction?
[ In contrast biology and history are largely retention while
[ inorganic chemistry and to a greater extent organic chemistry
[ require some retention and comprehension but to a large
[ degree practice of a set of rules.  Algebra and Calculus
[ are to a large extent the practice of a set of rules.
[ 
[ I'd like to see how different people would rate these
[ and any other subjects between retention/memorization,
[ comprehension and practice of methods.

Well, here are some of my recent readings and approximate speeds:

* "Engines of Creation", "Unbounding the future" - went really fast, 
  minimal rereading since I had already gathered much of the info 
  from other sources. Retention - easy, comprehension - easy,
  methods - NA

* "Nanosystems" - quite a bit slower, maybe 500-600 wpm and I 
  skimmed the math :) I loved the organization of this book 
  (Overview,  Explication, Conclusions) which makes it a good 
  learning experience for both top-down and bottom-up learners. 
  I'll be rereading this one in a few weeks. Retention - moderate
  (lots of new data), comprehension - good, methods - NA

* "Valence" (an old but fairly comprehensive treatment of
  molecular orbital and valence bond theory), "Advanced Organic
  Chemistry" - These are going quite slowly since my understanding 
  of differential equations is limited and I'm trying to understand 
  the math. Lots of rereading and my average speed is probably 
  as low as 300-400 wpm. Neither of these has exercises, which
  really help cement this kind of learning. Retention - poor,
  comprehension - moderate, methods - poor. It's going to take
  some study before I master quantum mechanics :) I will probably
  have to work on differential equations before I can truly master
  these.

* "Principles of Neural Science" - This is probably the hardest
  book I've read lately, due in part to it's poor organization
  and massive amount of information. This is as or more dense
  than either of the chemistry texts, but my limited biology
  background made it a lot slower reading. 200-300 wpm? Retention -
  poor, comprehension - good, methods - NA

* "Cambrian Intelligence", "How the Mind Works", "Words and Rules",
  "The Language Instinct", "Brainchildren", etc. I do a lot of
  reading on cognitive science, AI, and philosophy of mind so I
  go through these at nearly full speed. Retention - good,
  comprehension - good, methods - NA

[ 
[ > I'm sure that I could double my reading efficiency with some
[ > aids but simply rereading makes a tremendous difference.
[ > Taking notes would probably make a big difference as well,
[ > but I'm not quite that organized.
[ 
[ But as Harvey pointed out normal news content is data sparse
[ (I wonder if various news agencies realize this and whether
[ they are shifting summaries accordingly -- i.e. can I get
[ the news (or key points) from just the summary on Google News
[ or do I have to go to an article that may be 1 page on
[ some sources and 4 pages on other sources.  (Its kind
[ of amazing how many ways reporters/writers can repackage
[ the same press release.)

I deal with this by reading specialized news aggregators
like http://www.sciencedaily.com and 
http://www.newscientist.com/news/ first. Usually by the time
I see a story (abridged) in the popular geek press (Slashdot,
Kuro5hin, Fark) it's been several days since I saw it on one 
of the news sites.

[ This then becomes a question as to whether software tools
[ have enough knowledge/capabilities/rules to be able to
[ compress a story from a few dozen to a few hundred sources
[ into a dozen points about who/what/where/when, etc.?
[ Then if one reads/listens to the summary at 3x compression
[ one should be talking something like 10x or better than
[ normal methods.

I think this is a job for strong AI :) To really target
*you* this would have to know what you know, omit known
information from the news release, and gather required
background that you don't know, essentially understanding
it for you.

Acy


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Thu Jan 22 18:15:30 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 10:15:30 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] brine on Mars might have been found
In-Reply-To: <002b01c3e108$bcbae9e0$0600000a@Bryan>
Message-ID: <20040122181530.8874.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Bryan Moss <bryan.moss at dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
> Brett Paatsch wrote:
> 
> > Interesting stuff. But I'm a bit surprised that there is not some
> > process whereby water or the water in brine could not quite
> > quickly be determined by means better than a visual (i.e. "it
> > looks like mud"). Perhaps it can but they just haven't done
> > it yet?  What non-visual test small enough to be carried out by
> > the buggy would prove the presence of water?
> 
> They can't go near the "magic carpet" area because it's too close to
> the lander and therefore too dangerous to navigate.

I'm kinda skeptical. Given the 1/3 G gravity and very fine particulate
size, dust should flow like a liquid in that environment.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From scerir at libero.it  Thu Jan 22 18:52:36 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 19:52:36 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Webpanto
References: <p05100300bc35a5fa217b@[150.146.134.133]>
Message-ID: <004f01c3e118$e77a6a10$a7b21b97@administxl09yj>

I receive, every day, mails like that below.
Is there some hidden/random meaning? Or it is just
a robot playing? A new transnational joke?
Crosswords? Webpanto?
s.

(Redundant quotation)
God has chosen that which is the most simple in hypotheses
and the most rich in phenomena. But when a rule is extremely
complex, that which conforms to it passes for random.
-Leibniz, Discours de m?taphysique, VI, 1686


----- Original Message -----
From: "Francesca Oakley" <wmtxcriurkm at earthlink.net>
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 6:32 PM
Subject: fishery gertrude copenhagen avert chinch

> it calumny furthermore handy chivalry paucity impermissible
> ineluctable castillo ionospheric conch empathy cayenne cassock
> crankcase ancestry imperial admix emil infancy carryover bone
> inferential dim

----- Original Message -----
From: "Margie Singh" <frzdffeksdyzoo at excite.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 5:58 PM
Subject: candela geophysical aerospace haggard


> irrawaddy rochester context leningrad jacob aeolus ratify
> clark abdomen cohort gentian ravenous chin airdrop freya
> doug guitar crisp ancient revolutionary gab groundwork
> castor session

----- Original Message -----
From: "Raphael Knutson" <asbiwthiggp at att.net>
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 5:22 AM
Subject: fibrosis horsehair limitate languid daley


> equivocate bing jitterbug barefoot declamatory envious
> aircraft caiman german ripe penelope cling glorify
> indenture sarcasm guillotine page ingest ghastly








From twodeel at jornada.org  Thu Jan 22 19:36:19 2004
From: twodeel at jornada.org (Don Dartfield)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 11:36:19 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] brine on Mars might have been found
In-Reply-To: <20040122181530.8874.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401221132380.12139-100000@hplx.net>

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> I'm kinda skeptical. Given the 1/3 G gravity and very fine particulate
> size, dust should flow like a liquid in that environment.

And if I recall, that's exactly how Larry Niven describes the Martian dust
in his fiction from the 1960's.  Maybe he got it right.



From brentn at freeshell.org  Thu Jan 22 19:36:41 2004
From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 14:36:41 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Webpanto
In-Reply-To: <004f01c3e118$e77a6a10$a7b21b97@administxl09yj>
Message-ID: <r02010000-1032-4E40F31E4D1211D8BF0E000393A47D36@[192.168.123.121]>

 (1/22/04 19:52) scerir <scerir at libero.it> wrote:

>I receive, every day, mails like that below.
>Is there some hidden/random meaning? Or it is just
>a robot playing? A new transnational joke?
>Crosswords? Webpanto?
>s.
>


Method for successfully traversing Bayesian spam filters. I'd be willing to wager that there was a web-bug in that email that "phoned home" to report that your email address had a person at the end of it.


B
-- 
Brent Neal
Geek of all Trades
http://brentn.freeshell.org

"Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein


From twodeel at jornada.org  Thu Jan 22 19:44:42 2004
From: twodeel at jornada.org (Don Dartfield)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 11:44:42 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Webpanto
In-Reply-To: <004f01c3e118$e77a6a10$a7b21b97@administxl09yj>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401221137200.12139-100000@hplx.net>

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, scerir wrote:

> I receive, every day, mails like that below. Is there some hidden/random
> meaning? Or it is just a robot playing? A new transnational joke?
> Crosswords? Webpanto? s.

It's the latest irritating twist that spammers have taken.  Usually there
is an attachment or other second part to the message that contains the
actual commercial part of the message; the plain text portion filled with
random dictionary words is intended to help the message slip past
statistical spam filters (i.e., Bayesian filters), which, as I understand
it, basically compare a message's "good" features to its "bad" features to
judge whether or not it is spam (what exactly constitutes "good" and "bad"
will vary from product to product, but usually things like links to
external web pages and the like are judged to be bad, while plain text
with real dictionary words -- and not words like "V1a.gra!!!" -- are
good.).  Hopefully the spammers are staying a step behind the filters...




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Thu Jan 22 19:50:53 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 11:50:53 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Webpanto
In-Reply-To: <004f01c3e118$e77a6a10$a7b21b97@administxl09yj>
Message-ID: <20040122195053.57303.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>

--- scerir <scerir at libero.it> wrote:
> I receive, every day, mails like that below.
> Is there some hidden/random meaning? Or it is just
> a robot playing? A new transnational joke?
> Crosswords? Webpanto?
> s.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Francesca Oakley" <wmtxcriurkm at earthlink.net>
> Subject: fishery gertrude copenhagen avert chinch
> 
> > it calumny furthermore handy chivalry paucity impermissible
> > ineluctable castillo ionospheric conch empathy cayenne cassock
> > crankcase ancestry imperial admix emil infancy carryover bone
> > inferential dim

Some say it is spammers trying to overload spam filters. Don't
understand the point of doing this purely to spam, it has absolutely no
informational content. 

Or does it? I seems to me, rather, that someone engaged in illegal
activities (drug running or other organized crime, terrorism,
espionage, etc), who is concerned that any channel of communication
they use will be monitored, communicating via code words who does not
want their recipient discovered, would use this technique, spamming
millions of people with a seemingly nonsensical message which has code
words which the true recipient knows the meaning of. Because millions
of people receive the message, the powers that be cannot discern its
true recipient.

Such a cryptographic technique is pretty well unbreakable without
having the code book.

Time to have Homeland Security Administration bust anybody travelling
with english dictionaries with arabig or other muslim-used text. Those
*could* be code books for such a technique, disguised as a dictionary.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From brentn at freeshell.org  Thu Jan 22 20:19:27 2004
From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 15:19:27 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Webpanto
In-Reply-To: <20040122195053.57303.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <r02010000-1032-47925D7A4D1811D8BF0E000393A47D36@[192.168.123.121]>

 (1/22/04 11:50) Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:

>--- scerir <scerir at libero.it> wrote:
>> I receive, every day, mails like that below.
>> Is there some hidden/random meaning? Or it is just
>> a robot playing? A new transnational joke?
>> Crosswords? Webpanto?
>> s.
>> 
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Francesca Oakley" <wmtxcriurkm at earthlink.net>
>> Subject: fishery gertrude copenhagen avert chinch
>> 
>> > it calumny furthermore handy chivalry paucity impermissible
>> > ineluctable castillo ionospheric conch empathy cayenne cassock
>> > crankcase ancestry imperial admix emil infancy carryover bone
>> > inferential dim
>
>Some say it is spammers trying to overload spam filters. Don't
>understand the point of doing this purely to spam, it has absolutely no
>informational content. 
>


If it carries a webbug, the fact that you view it at all has informational content.

B
-- 
Brent Neal
Geek of all Trades
http://brentn.freeshell.org

"Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein


From samantha at objectent.com  Thu Jan 22 21:47:47 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 13:47:47 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition at high speed
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040121191626.03071ff8@mail.comcast.net>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401211446450.5123-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040121191626.03071ff8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <20040122134747.1ab4234d.samantha@objectent.com>

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 19:57:17 -0500
David Lubkin <extropy at unreasonable.com> wrote:

> At 03:07 PM 1/21/2004 -0800, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> 
> >Normal reading speed is perhaps 240 wpm (though this was from the net, not 
> >the GBoR so ByrBwr).
> >         :
> >Now, speed reading is great (though I would question the 2000 wpm number
> >as another source said only 1000 wpm -- which is closer to high speed
> >listening capabilities).
> 
> We had a thread on reading speed a few years ago. A lot of people chimed in 
> with their data points. Few on the list were as slow as that 240 wpm mark. 
> I'd expect that peak reading speed is correlated with IQ given that 
> response times for elementary tasks seem to give the best measure of IQ. On 
> this list, I'd guess the least impressive participant would have no problem 
> passing Mensa's 1:50 threshold (2 SD); the list median is at least 1:1000 
> (3 SD).

My understanding is that reading speed, especially at the slow end, is strongly correlated with learned reading habits that are less than optimal.  It hasn't much to do with IQ except when reading material that requires a bit faster intellectual uptake.  My average speed is around 400wpm if I am not being mindful of the techniques or reading difficult material.  If I am being more mindful I get up around 1500wpm.   If I spend long at the higher speeds over a period of a few days I notice that conversations become painfully slow to participate in. :-)


> 
> I peak at a little over a second a page, or around 12,000 wpm. It's too 
> exhausting to continue for long, and no fun, but useful in a pinch. My 
> sustainable rate is still quite high though. There's no way that an 
> auditory input can compete. Also, I learn *much* better visually, so even 
> if the rates were identical, comprehension would not be. And reading, you 
> can scan, skim, skip, repeat, and compare easily. Hard to do that 
> listening. Not to mention pictures and charts....
>

At what kind of material do you get these speeds?  To sustain that over even technical material would afaik require a near photographic memory or a high level of training.  What training have you had?  Is this just natural for you?

- samantha
 


From thespike at earthlink.net  Thu Jan 22 21:55:54 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 15:55:54 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Dali people
References: <r02010000-1032-47925D7A4D1811D8BF0E000393A47D36@[192.168.123.121]>
Message-ID: <00d401c3e132$843cd720$ad994a43@texas.net>

Reversine has been reported here previously, I think, but I wonder about the
possible weaponized implications:

============
Scientists Turn Back the Clock on Adult Muscle Cells

Scripps scientists have found a way of turning back the clock on adult cells
to transform them into immature stem cells. It is hoped that the
revolutionary research by Dr. Sheng Ding and colleagues at the Scripps
Research Institute in San Diego, CA could provide scientists with an
entirely non-controversial source of stem cells. The researchers discovered
that a small molecule called Reversine causes cells programmed to develop
into muscle cells to go into reverse and transform back into immature cells
capable of developing into many different types of cells and tissues. Ding
says that the discovery could help to make stem-cell research more practical
as it will enable doctors to derive stem-cell-like cells from a patient's
own mature cells, while "avoiding the technical and ethical issues
associated with Embryonic Stem Cells." However, Ding warns that much more
research needs to be carried out to determine how Reversine works and to
refine their technique.

Ref: Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 126, p. 410 (2004).

===========

Fiddle with it, get it into a common gut bacterium or infectious virus, and
see the people melt like Dali watches... Michael Crichton could write a
novel about it, and Prince Charles could warn his nation of the peril.

Anything to this fearful prospect, bio-dudes?

Damien Broderick



From mbb386 at main.nc.us  Thu Jan 22 22:49:14 2004
From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:49:14 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Webpanto
In-Reply-To: <r02010000-1032-4E40F31E4D1211D8BF0E000393A47D36@[192.168.123.121]>
References: <r02010000-1032-4E40F31E4D1211D8BF0E000393A47D36@[192.168.123.121]>
Message-ID: <Pine.WNT.4.55.0401221747150.-226073@pentium.mb.main.nc.us>


Would you please discuss that with respect to only reading email in
plain text?

Regards,
MB


On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Brent Neal wrote:


> I'd be willing to wager that there was a web-bug in that email that
> "phoned home" to report that your email address had a person at the
> end of it.
>



From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Thu Jan 22 23:10:28 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 15:10:28 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Dali people
In-Reply-To: <00d401c3e132$843cd720$ad994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <000101c3e13c$f1872880$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Damien
Broderick
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 1:56 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: [extropy-chat] Dali people


Reversine has been reported here previously, I think, but I wonder about
the possible weaponized implications:

============
Scientists Turn Back the Clock on Adult Muscle Cells

The researchers discovered that a small molecule called Reversine causes
cells programmed to develop into muscle cells to go into reverse and
transform back into immature cells capable of developing into many
different types of cells and tissues. <snip>
===========

Fiddle with it, get it into a common gut bacterium or infectious virus,
and see the people melt like Dali watches... Michael Crichton could
write a novel about it, and Prince Charles could warn his nation of the
peril.

Anything to this fearful prospect, bio-dudes?
--
Depends; doesn't say where they isolated it from;  If its something
naturally produced by
the human body, I would hazard to say that it already has a mechanism in
place for dealing
with it;  of course, that mechanism may be, say to limit the production
of said chemical
(in which case an external source could pose a problem, since its not
under any obligation
to stop production) or it could be motivate the cell to produce a
chemical to inactivate
it...  Of course, if its completely foreign, then one might start to
wonder if there was
a mechanism in place to stop/control reverse differentiation..  I would
tend to think
that such a nifty piece of chemical would be fairly useful, so I don't
see why it wouldn't
be a bit more widespread...  This is all speculation on my part, since
I'm nowhere
near qualified to answer;  I will say it has some intriguing
(therapeutic) possibilities.

omard-out




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Thu Jan 22 23:13:53 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 15:13:53 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition at high speed
In-Reply-To: <56BC65EB2F3963489057F7D978B5E7B7926B20@amazemail2.amazeent.com>
Message-ID: <000201c3e13d$6b47ad20$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Acy James
Stapp
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 9:38 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition at high
speed


I deal with this by reading specialized news aggregators
like http://www.sciencedaily.com and 
http://www.newscientist.com/news/ first. Usually by the time
I see a story (abridged) in the popular geek press (Slashdot, Kuro5hin,
Fark) it's been several days since I saw it on one 
of the news sites.

--

Thanks for the references :)
Nifty so far :)
omard-out




From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Thu Jan 22 23:28:09 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:28:09 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] ASTRO: Spirit not responding :-(
Message-ID: <LAW10-OE41seE4D3MBh0000eb07@hotmail.com>

Well, NASA just reported that they have lost contact with Spirit. And this on the same day that I had read that they may have landed in mud! Why is it that every time we think we have found something extraordinary, the probes fail? Is it the Martians?
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From brentn at freeshell.org  Thu Jan 22 23:40:13 2004
From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 18:40:13 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Webpanto
In-Reply-To: <Pine.WNT.4.55.0401221747150.-226073@pentium.mb.main.nc.us>
Message-ID: <r02010000-1032-533301E24D3411D8BF0E000393A47D36@[192.168.123.152]>

 (1/22/04 17:49) MB <mbb386 at main.nc.us> wrote:

>
>Would you please discuss that with respect to only reading email in
>plain text?
>
>Regards,
>MB
>


Sure. If you use a text only mail reader, such as Mutt, Pine, Elm, Mailsmith, etc., then webbugs don't work. However, spammers are aware that 90+% of computer users use mail clients that render HTML, and thus they use webbugs in order to verify that the addresses they are sending to are valid.


B

-- 
Brent Neal
Geek of all Trades
http://brentn.freeshell.org

"Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 23 00:11:11 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 16:11:11 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Dali people
In-Reply-To: <00d401c3e132$843cd720$ad994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <20040123001111.67437.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Damien Broderick <thespike at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Reversine has been reported here previously, I think, but I wonder
> about the possible weaponized implications:
> 
> ============
> Scientists Turn Back the Clock on Adult Muscle Cells
> 
> Scripps scientists have found a way of turning back the clock on
> adult cells to transform them into immature stem cells. 
> ===========
> 
> Fiddle with it, get it into a common gut bacterium or infectious
> virus, and
> see the people melt like Dali watches... Michael Crichton could write
> a novel about it, and Prince Charles could warn his nation of the
> peril.
> 
> Anything to this fearful prospect, bio-dudes?

Sounds like a bio-weapon. Then, do you really need a bacteria or virus
to deliver it?

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Fri Jan 23 00:12:26 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 10:42:26 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786954@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

Having thought about SPAM a lot, what I think is that they are ultimately
undefeatable because of the basic fact that it's essentially free to do (or
stupidly cheap). The cost to spammers of spamming plus the cost of following
up leads as a result is less than the revenue they ultimately get from
sales/scam.

It's seems like we can't make it more expensive to send spam, and we can't
reduce sales because the number of terminally stupid people out there seems
to be a robust constant value. The only manipulable variable is the cost of
following up leads.

Here's a report on spam from a site whose credibility I can't verify:
"Further, 7% of emailers report that they have ordered a product or service
that was offered in an unsolicited email. Herein lies the problem: While
some have suggested that if people simply stopped responding the spam
industry would dry up, some bulk emailers claim that even 0.001% positive
response rate is a break-even point.
"http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?Report=102&Section=ReportLev
el2&Field=Level2ID&ID=865


0.001%??? So if they send 1,000,000 emails, they only need 10 positive
responses. Wow.

I've said this before here; the way to stop spam is to clog up the reply
channel. Real people need to use the method given by the spammers of
replying, and reply, posing as real customers, but never actually
purchasing. So the spammer has to waste time dealing with "potential
customers" who never actually buy anything.

For the spammer who sends 1,000,000 spams and gets 10 responses, things are
break even. Say they actually get 100 responses and are doing well, the
bastards. Now change the story; imagine that, of the people who receive
spam, 1 in 100 decide to respond and waste the spammer's time. Anything from
just one email to following through several interactions then backing off at
the last minute. Now the spamer has 10,100 responses to hunt through for the
magic 100 suckers. I think that probably changes the equations somewhat.

Is anyone organising something like this? Some kind of "Talk to a spammer"
program, convincing people to respond and waste their time (and never, ever
buy anything!). If you could get people to reply even to one spam in 100,
just an email, you could damage all spam profitability. If people responded
to 1 in 10, spam would probably become completely unusable as a business
technique. That's probably about 2 minutes of work per day for each email
user, probably less than they spend deleting spams. Small price to pay for
killing spam.

Now this doesn't work for spams that point to totally automated bogus
websites. These just need shutting down in the standard way (unless you can
break them somehow). Likewise, email address harvesters seem to be
benefitted by this approach; excepting of course that what they are
harvesting is the emails of almost uniformly hostile people :-).

Any comments? Anything wrong with this approach? How do you defeat it as a
spammer? If it works, how can it be gotten off the ground?

Emlyn

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MB [mailto:mbb386 at main.nc.us]
> Sent: Friday, 23 January 2004 8:19 AM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Webpanto
> 
> 
> 
> Would you please discuss that with respect to only reading email in
> plain text?
> 
> Regards,
> MB
> 
> 
> On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Brent Neal wrote:
> 
> 
> > I'd be willing to wager that there was a web-bug in that email that
> > "phoned home" to report that your email address had a person at the
> > end of it.
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 



From bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk  Fri Jan 23 00:18:06 2004
From: bill at wkidston.freeserve.co.uk (BillK)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 00:18:06 +0000
Subject: [extropy-chat] ascii conversion of images?
Message-ID: <4010683E.9010809@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>

On Thu Jan 22, 2004 12:26 am Johnius wrote:
> I'm looking for an excellent ordered set of
> ascii characters to use in converting and 'shading'
> satellite imagery into text pseudo-images.
>

There is a whole sub-culture of geekdom which produces pictures in ascii
characters.  Some even produce movies in ascii!

Two free programs which will convert jpg images to ascii are:

The Characterizer at:
<http://www.aolej.com/free.html#Chara>

and the ASCII Generator at:
<http://go.to/ascgen/>

You can try converting jpg images online to ascii at:
http://jpg2asc.hierklikken.com/
Size limitation of 400 x 400, so you will have to resize your example
image first.

Hope this helps, BillK





From determinism at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 23 00:20:47 2004
From: determinism at hotmail.com (Dennis May)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 18:20:47 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Spirit Rover - Galvanic Failure?
Message-ID: <BAY7-F33a0osA91E9GQ0000c3d9@hotmail.com>

I have not been following the Spirit Rover failure or
design very closely but I have heard that it has
aluminum wheels and appears to be on soil with
some possibility of a concentrated brine solution
just under the surface.  I assume there are some
brass bushings in the wheel design, some copper
ground wires to the frame and the possibility of
multiple electrical paths back down to the other
wheels.

The ABC science new web site says they think
the failure must be from multiple causes.

Sending a few volts where it wasn't intended to
be sure could wreck havoc on communications
and computers.  I know my 85 Laser died going
down the road one day because of corrosion under
the battery post that wasn't even visible to the
eye.  Just enough voltage change to affect the
computer brain.

Has anyone else heard of such a theory of a failure
mechanism?  Like I said I haven't been following
the news or recent posts about it.

Dennis May

_________________________________________________________________
Rethink your business approach for the new year with the helpful tips here. 
http://special.msn.com/bcentral/prep04.armx



From brentn at freeshell.org  Fri Jan 23 00:47:26 2004
From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 19:47:26 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786954@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <r02010000-1032-B7535B024D3D11D8BF0E000393A47D36@[192.168.123.152]>

 (1/23/04 10:42) Emlyn O'regan <oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au> wrote:

>Any comments? Anything wrong with this approach? How do you defeat it as a
>spammer? If it works, how can it be gotten off the ground?
>


The one main problem with it is the fact that it requires me to waste my valuable time. 

B
-- 
Brent Neal
Geek of all Trades
http://brentn.freeshell.org

"Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein


From brian at posthuman.com  Fri Jan 23 00:54:21 2004
From: brian at posthuman.com (Brian Atkins)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 18:54:21 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Spirit Rover - Galvanic Failure?
In-Reply-To: <BAY7-F33a0osA91E9GQ0000c3d9@hotmail.com>
References: <BAY7-F33a0osA91E9GQ0000c3d9@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <401070BD.1000001@posthuman.com>

It seems to still be alive; sounds like a software problem:

http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html

(reload that page occasionally for updates... also there's a live 
briefing starting at 11am central time tomorrow if you have access to 
the NASA channel)
-- 
Brian Atkins
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
http://www.singinst.org/


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 23 01:06:30 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:06:30 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786954@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <20040123010630.88474.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Emlyn O'regan <oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au> wrote:
> Having thought about SPAM a lot, what I think is that they are
> ultimately
> undefeatable.

On the contrary, I am actually pretty happy with the spam filters that
Yahoo has instituted. Occasionally one or two of the more voluminous
posters on the various mail lists I subscribe to winds up in my bulk
folder, but I just hit a button that says "not spam", and that person's
post gets added to the Bayesian system. I will note that ImmInst
promotional mails have been regularly winding up in my bulk folder,
which I think is a result of excessive use of asterisks and
marketing-type language. Slashdot winds up in my bulk folder a lot as
well, but I've been hearing that spammers acting as average yokels are
reporting a lot of sites and users who are anti-spam as spammers in
order to shut them up.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Fri Jan 23 01:15:24 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 11:45:24 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] brine on Mars might have been found
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786956@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

> What in human history would rival finding life on another planet for 
> the first time? Perhaps learning that the earth wasn't flat? That the
> sun didn't rotate it? That the earth wasn't the centre of the 
> universe?
> That man is biologically an animal? 
> 
> It would be interesting to see for real rather than just 
> imagine through
> fiction what the worlds cultures and religions would say in response
> to the discovery of life (even the simplest life) on Mars. 
> 
> Regards,
> Brett

It may not be that big a deal. There's a good possibility that there is life
on Mars, but that it's directly related to Earth life, possibly travelling
from Mars to Earth via asteroid taxi and starting life on Earth (circa 3
gigayears ago?)

Still very interesting, but far fewer theological ramifications. Maybe Mars
makes a good site for the original garden of eden?

Emlyn



From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Fri Jan 23 01:17:28 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 11:47:28 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786957@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

Apparently a bunch of people already do this:

A funny example...
http://www.wendywillcox.50megs.com/

A list of other examples
http://www.metaeureka.com/cgi-bin/odp2.pl?dir=Computers/Internet/Abuse/Spam/
Humor/

It doesn't have to be a waste of time if you make it fun. It looks like it
just needs some organisation to make playing with spammers a more mainstream
hobby.

Emlyn


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brent Neal [mailto:brentn at freeshell.org]
> Sent: Friday, 23 January 2004 10:17 AM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
> 
> 
>  (1/23/04 10:42) Emlyn O'regan 
> <oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au> wrote:
> 
> >Any comments? Anything wrong with this approach? How do you 
> defeat it as a
> >spammer? If it works, how can it be gotten off the ground?
> >
> 
> 
> The one main problem with it is the fact that it requires me 
> to waste my valuable time. 
> 
> B
> -- 
> Brent Neal
> Geek of all Trades
> http://brentn.freeshell.org
> 
> "Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan 23 01:24:49 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:24:49 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Webpanto
In-Reply-To: <004f01c3e118$e77a6a10$a7b21b97@administxl09yj>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401221714410.7612-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, scerir wrote about junk mail including:

> > it calumny furthermore handy chivalry paucity impermissible
> > ineluctable castillo ionospheric conch empathy cayenne cassock
> > crankcase ancestry imperial admix emil infancy carryover bone
> > inferential dim

You can read all about this in an article by Paul Graham:
  So Far So Good
  August 2003
  http://www.paulgraham.com/sofar.html

He discusses why this approach to getting around Bayesian
filtering will probably not work.

As far as combining rule based filtering and Bayesian filtering
my stats so far this week (5 days) are:

Messages     Lines    Words    Chars
    1358    130296   524989  5953093  %SPAM
     360     23638    83258  1008384  %BLOCKED
      63      4988    23744   236576  %SPAMBAYESIAN

The first two files are generated by a rule based filter
(SpamBouncer), the last file is produced by a trained
Bayesian filter (SpamProbe).

SpamProbe only gets to look at what SpamBouncer doesn't catch.

So far I'm averaging between 1 and 2 SPAMs a day getting
through this defense.  For those who don't want to do the
math it works out to about 1 SPAM message every 4-5 minutes.

Robert




From brentn at freeshell.org  Fri Jan 23 01:28:33 2004
From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 20:28:33 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786957@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <r02010000-1032-75CE09184D4311D8BF0E000393A47D36@[192.168.123.152]>

 (1/23/04 11:47) Emlyn O'regan <oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au> wrote:

>It doesn't have to be a waste of time if you make it fun. It looks like it
>just needs some organisation to make playing with spammers a more mainstream
>hobby.
>
>

Perhaps so. I prefer hiking and reading books to my young daughter. YMMV. ;)

B
-- 
Brent Neal
Geek of all Trades
http://brentn.freeshell.org

"Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein


From mbb386 at main.nc.us  Fri Jan 23 01:42:52 2004
From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 20:42:52 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Webpanto
In-Reply-To: <r02010000-1032-533301E24D3411D8BF0E000393A47D36@[192.168.123.152]>
References: <r02010000-1032-533301E24D3411D8BF0E000393A47D36@[192.168.123.152]>
Message-ID: <Pine.WNT.4.55.0401222040200.-53119@pentium.mb.main.nc.us>


Thanks. :)  That's what I thought. :) Which is one reason I'm using
Pine.  It's sometimes sorta a nuisance, but in other ways it is head
and shoulders above.

I've also got spamfilters in place. Don't see much crud any more. :)

Regards,
MB

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Brent Neal wrote:

>
> Sure. If you use a text only mail reader, such as Mutt, Pine, Elm,
> Mailsmith, etc., then webbugs don't work. However, spammers are
> aware that 90+% of computer users use mail clients that render HTML,
> and thus they use webbugs in order to verify that the addresses they
> are sending to are valid.
>
>
> B
>
>


From wingcat at pacbell.net  Fri Jan 23 01:43:31 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:43:31 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
In-Reply-To: <20040123010630.88474.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040123014331.29929.qmail@web80408.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On the contrary, I am actually pretty happy with the
> spam filters that
> Yahoo has instituted. Occasionally one or two of the
> more voluminous
> posters on the various mail lists I subscribe to
> winds up in my bulk
> folder, but I just hit a button that says "not
> spam", and that person's
> post gets added to the Bayesian system.

Using the same filter provider (@pacbell.net wound up
being acquired by Yahoo! about a year ago), I've been
seeing that quite a lot of the traffic on this list
(call it 1/3 to 1/2) winds up in Bulk, as are an
increasing number of other legitimate messages
(corresponance with clients, et al).  Since you're
getting different results off the same data, that
would lead me to suspect that perhaps the filters are
individually trained per-user, except that Yahoo!
implies it is system-wide, and...

> Slashdot winds up in my
> bulk folder a lot as
> well, but I've been hearing that spammers acting as
> average yokels are
> reporting a lot of sites and users who are anti-spam
> as spammers in
> order to shut them up.

...this wouldn't work if it was per-user.


From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Fri Jan 23 01:36:12 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 12:06:12 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786958@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

>  (1/23/04 11:47) Emlyn O'regan 
> <oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au> wrote:
> 
> >It doesn't have to be a waste of time if you make it fun. It 
> looks like it
> >just needs some organisation to make playing with spammers a 
> more mainstream
> >hobby.
> >
> >
> 
> Perhaps so. I prefer hiking and reading books to my young 
> daughter. YMMV. ;)
> 
> B
> -- 
> Brent Neal
> Geek of all Trades
> http://brentn.freeshell.org
> 
> "Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein

Oh well, your loss :-)

Emlyn



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan 23 01:55:30 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:55:30 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786954@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401221732490.7612-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Emlyn O'regan wrote:

> The cost to spammers of spamming plus the cost of following
> up leads as a result is less than the revenue they ultimately get from
> sales/scam.

Microsoft (and others?) have a proposal (the Penny Black project) out that
would force unsolicited incoming emails to consume something like 10 seconds
of CPU time on the sender CPU before they are accepted.  I think this might
be problematic for managers of large mailing lists.

See: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/26/1350207&mode=thread

> It's seems like we can't make it more expensive to send spam, and we can't
> reduce sales because the number of terminally stupid people out there seems
> to be a robust constant value. The only manipulable variable is the cost of
> following up leads.
[snip]
> Any comments? Anything wrong with this approach? How do you defeat it as a
> spammer? If it works, how can it be gotten off the ground?

I've thought about this too Emlyn and I don't believe what you are
saying is quite true.

I would propose:
a) SMTP receivers (sendmail) that detect the spam *while* it is being sent.
   The minute you detect incoming spam you slow down or stop your SMTP
   exchange responses forcing the sending machines to timeout.

b) You backtrack through the IP addresses of the incoming email and
   immediately load that link down with useless IP traffic (if you are
   clever you try to find the port/protocol that is causing you problems
   and use it against them -- i.e. if *they* are using an open relay
   against you -- you use it against them.  Its going to make it *much*
   harder for people to retain open relays or corrupted systems when
   a few hundred thousand people start sending a message every minute
   or so against the knowing or unknowing agents of the bad guys.
   (This is based on the "there are more of us than there are of them"
    theory.)  The goal here is to force people to fix corrupted systems
    or alter open relays so they will not accept unauthorized email.

c) If they specify URL's, follow the same process as in (b) to overload
   their servers.  The goal here is to prevent the stupid people from
   gaining access to the information being promoted by the SPAM.

d) If they specify images -- have a text recognition program look at the
   images and figure out the URL and/or phone numbers.  If a URL follow
   (c), if a phone number you plan to have your computer (or at least
   computers in the same region [so there isn't a toll]) proceed to
   dial that phone number and you use some speech generation software
   offer them a piece of your mind.  (Similar to your consuming their
   resources ideas.)

As per my previous note filtering methods can work pretty well.
Combined with the above and I think SPAMing is going to become
much much harder.

Robert




From wingcat at pacbell.net  Fri Jan 23 02:07:54 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 18:07:54 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: I am going there
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401220235160.19575-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040123020754.57952.qmail@web80401.mail.yahoo.com>

--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> Well, I'm going into space for a year and a half. 
> Due
> to the fact that my name will likely be turned into
> space dust in the process of impacting I'll be
> dependent
> on scientists like Amara to reconstruct me.

Umm...so, you're thinking someone can construct a
sufficiently complete simulacrum of you based only on
your name?  I think I'll wait until they can start
getting entire human bodies up there permanently
(including having a destination facility capable of
maintaining such) and/or compression into machine
intelligence (with the appropriate transportation and
maintenance for that form) before claiming to "go"
there.


From alito at organicrobot.com  Fri Jan 23 02:22:39 2004
From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 12:22:39 +1000
Subject: [extropy-chat] ASTRO: Spirit not responding :-(
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-OE41seE4D3MBh0000eb07@hotmail.com>
References: <LAW10-OE41seE4D3MBh0000eb07@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <1074824559.19480.144.camel@alito.homeip.net>

On Fri, 2004-01-23 at 09:28, Kevin Freels wrote:
> Well, NASA just reported that they have lost contact with Spirit. And
> this on the same day that I had read that they may have landed in mud!
> Why is it that every time we think we have found something
> extraordinary, the probes fail? Is it the Martians?
>  

don't panic yet, it's beeping
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-04zh.html





From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Fri Jan 23 02:18:30 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 12:48:30 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786959@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

Robert replied: 
> On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> 
> > The cost to spammers of spamming plus the cost of following
> > up leads as a result is less than the revenue they 
> ultimately get from
> > sales/scam.
> 
> Microsoft (and others?) have a proposal (the Penny Black 
> project) out that
> would force unsolicited incoming emails to consume something 
> like 10 seconds
> of CPU time on the sender CPU before they are accepted.  I 
> think this might
> be problematic for managers of large mailing lists.

Horrible solution, for the reason you've just suggested. Email's broadcast
mechanisms are useful.

Anyway, how do you define unsolicited email at that level?

> 
> See: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/26/1350207&mode=thread
> 
> > It's seems like we can't make it more expensive to send 
> spam, and we can't
> > reduce sales because the number of terminally stupid people 
> out there seems
> > to be a robust constant value. The only manipulable 
> variable is the cost of
> > following up leads.
> [snip]
> > Any comments? Anything wrong with this approach? How do you 
> defeat it as a
> > spammer? If it works, how can it be gotten off the ground?
> 
> I've thought about this too Emlyn and I don't believe what you are
> saying is quite true.
> 
> I would propose:
> a) SMTP receivers (sendmail) that detect the spam *while* it 
> is being sent.
>    The minute you detect incoming spam you slow down or stop your SMTP
>    exchange responses forcing the sending machines to timeout.

Not bad.

> 
> b) You backtrack through the IP addresses of the incoming email and
>    immediately load that link down with useless IP traffic (if you are
>    clever you try to find the port/protocol that is causing 
> you problems
>    and use it against them -- i.e. if *they* are using an open relay
>    against you -- you use it against them.  Its going to make 
> it *much*
>    harder for people to retain open relays or corrupted systems when
>    a few hundred thousand people start sending a message every minute
>    or so against the knowing or unknowing agents of the bad guys.
>    (This is based on the "there are more of us than there are of them"
>     theory.)  The goal here is to force people to fix 
> corrupted systems
>     or alter open relays so they will not accept unauthorized email.

Yes, I agree with this. One of the big problems with spam at the moment
(imo) is that viruses like Sobig aren't cleaned and open relays closed,
because the host is basically unaffected - why bother fixing it? There needs
to be a penalty for open relays that is enforceable and provides motivation
to stop being open; plus, it will stop open relays being useful anyway.
> 
> c) If they specify URL's, follow the same process as in (b) 
> to overload
>    their servers.  The goal here is to prevent the stupid people from
>    gaining access to the information being promoted by the SPAM.
> 

Not so good; you can use it to DOS any website you please. Just send spam
with a link to google...

> d) If they specify images -- have a text recognition program 
> look at the
>    images and figure out the URL and/or phone numbers.  If a 
> URL follow
>    (c), if a phone number you plan to have your computer (or at least
>    computers in the same region [so there isn't a toll]) proceed to
>    dial that phone number and you use some speech generation software
>    offer them a piece of your mind.  (Similar to your consuming their
>    resources ideas.)

Attacking phone numbers is just as bad as attacking web sites.

> 
> As per my previous note filtering methods can work pretty well.
> Combined with the above and I think SPAMing is going to become
> much much harder.
> 
> Robert
> 

The filtering merry-go-round will continue. The attack tactics above may be
useful in part, but do leave you open to legal action, I'd warrant. I still
like the idea of wasting the spammer's time as an additional tactic.

Emlyn



From fortean1 at mindspring.com  Fri Jan 23 02:31:46 2004
From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 19:31:46 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] China competition [was Saving the Hubble]
References: <000001c3dfee$0a22f720$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <40108792.5474A163@mindspring.com>

Spike wrote:
> 
> > Wasn't Loral the company?  Perhaps merged with BOING Boeing.
> >
> > Terry
> 
> The way I heard the story, Loral accidentally
> sent China a proprietary report.  Turned out it wasn't all that
> damaging.  They paid a fine.  But the other guys were doing some
> far more serious leaking.
> 
> spike
> 
> Here ya go Terry.  Some of these are repeats:
> 
> http://bernie.house.gov/documents/articles/20030102180551.asp
> 
> http://www.satnews.com/stories2/1jan2003-1.html
> 
> http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/thisweek/2003_3_14_misp.html
> 
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/2620785.stm
> 
> http://search.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/10/25/p10s1.htm
> 
> http://www.space.com/news/china_technology_030101.html
> 
> http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-01-02-tech-exports_x.htm
> 
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2620785.stm

Spike, thank you for these sources.  Last October I read _Year of the Rat:
How Bill Clinton Compromised U.S. Security for Chinese Cash_ by Edward
Timperlake and William C. Triplett II.  Loral and Hughes (satellite maker)
were pinged as fixing China's launcher problems.  On February 15, 1996, a
Chinese Long March 3B space launch vehicle rose, fell, and exploded onto a
local village.  Loral and Hughes solved the crash problem(s) and also
recommended other improvements.  The encoded portion of the Loral satellite
was missing from the debris returned by the Chinese.

Here are my inside book cover notes:
1.  Taiwan is safe for now.
2.  President George W. Bush cited only Iran, Iraq & North Korea as the Axis
of Evil in 2002; nothing about China.
3.  China orbited one astronaut (taichonaut) on 14 October 2003.
4.  PLA can "win" a conventional land-war in Asia.
5.  China's satellite imagery technology lags behind space launch vehicle/ICBM
technology.
6.  China's navy remains primitive although its emphasis on anti-ship missiles
is hard to counter.

Terry


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
      U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
   TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Vietnam veterans,
Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]


From alito at organicrobot.com  Fri Jan 23 02:52:18 2004
From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 12:52:18 +1000
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786959@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786959@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <1074826338.19438.152.camel@alito.homeip.net>

On Fri, 2004-01-23 at 12:18, Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> Robert replied: 
> > 
> > Microsoft (and others?) have a proposal (the Penny Black 
> > project) out that
> > would force unsolicited incoming emails to consume something 
> > like 10 seconds
> > of CPU time on the sender CPU before they are accepted.  I 
> > think this might
> > be problematic for managers of large mailing lists.
> 
> Horrible solution, for the reason you've just suggested. Email's broadcast
> mechanisms are useful.
> Anyway, how do you define unsolicited email at that level?
> 
I don't mind it.  Server/addresses could be approved by the receiving
server after user confirms their first email is not spam, and no longer
subjected to the test from then on.  Even if spammers collect real email
addresses to use in the from field, they are still unlikely to guess
which ones the receiver will have preapproved.  I get only one piece of
spam per day on average (lucky i guess), but they are never from
addresses i would have approved.  
This is a very similar concept to the "pay-1-cent per email and then the
receiver can reimburse" scheme, but it bypasses the hassles involved
with all financial transactions.
alejandro




From eliasen at mindspring.com  Fri Jan 23 02:47:30 2004
From: eliasen at mindspring.com (Alan Eliasen)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 19:47:30 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786954@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786954@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <40108B42.8060900@mindspring.com>


Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> I've said this before here; the way to stop spam is to clog up the reply
> channel. Real people need to use the method given by the spammers of
> replying, and reply, posing as real customers, but never actually
> purchasing. So the spammer has to waste time dealing with "potential
> customers" who never actually buy anything.

   There's a program that does this in an automated fashion, "Unsolicited
Commando."

http://www.astrobastards.net/uc/index.jsp

   It's designed to fill in web-based response forms with pretty-good-looking
data that buries the valid responses in with tons of invalid responses that
the spammer has to manually validate, making it economically infeasible to
continue with this business model.

   There is also a "hashcash" system similar to the "Penny Black" system
mentioned by Robert Bradbury.  It requires the sender to expend some computing
resources to generate a hashcode for the message.  This is trivial for someone
sending a small number of e-mails, prohibitive for mass-spammers.

   http://www.hashcash.org/

   I think that a scheme like this is a reasonable way to prevent unsolicited
e-mail.  Heck, it could even be used for good.  Let's say that your hashcash
challenge is something like "find the factors of this number" or "sieve these
prime candidates" or something beneficial and similar.  The spammers'
computers would turn into a vast distributed computing project, and somebody
could potentially benefit from it.

> Now this doesn't work for spams that point to totally automated bogus
> websites. These just need shutting down in the standard way (unless you can
> break them somehow).

   I've... um... heard that some of them can be broken, or their databases
corrupted.  This is actually a well-known problem known to those building
secure web-based applications.  For more information, take a look at some of
the tips I give when talking about security, especially point 7.  These are
actually tips designed for the good guys, but good guys are susceptible to the
same attacks that bad guys are:

   http://www.mindspring.com/~eliasen/security/

   It's probably best to just block spam, though, and not waste your time on
it.  I have recommendations on this if anyone's interested.

-- 
  Alan Eliasen                 | "You cannot reason a person out of a
  eliasen at mindspring.com       |  position he did not reason himself
  http://futureboy.homeip.net/ |  into in the first place."
                               |     --Jonathan Swift


From extropy at audry2.com  Fri Jan 23 02:57:11 2004
From: extropy at audry2.com (Major)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 10:57:11 +0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401221732490.7612-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
	(bradbury@aeiveos.com)
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401221732490.7612-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <200401230257.i0N2vB404502@igor.synonet.com>


"Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> writes:

> Microsoft (and others?) have a proposal (the Penny Black project) out that
> would force unsolicited incoming emails to consume something like 10 seconds
> of CPU time on the sender CPU before they are accepted.  I think this might
> be problematic for managers of large mailing lists.

Only if they were seen as "unsolicited". Mailing list managers would
have to make putting their "from" address into your whitelist would be
a condition of joining the list. I would expect majordomo and the like
to be modified so that they would check this at subscribe time and
only add you to the list once they were able to send you mail "for
free" (without paying the 10 seconds).

I didn't know this was Microsoft's. If it is we should look carefully
at the detail to make sure they aren't up to something, but if they
are not this may be the first really *good* thing the evil empire has
done.

Major


From Karen at Smigrodzki.org  Fri Jan 23 03:10:03 2004
From: Karen at Smigrodzki.org (Karen Rand Smigrodzki)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 22:10:03 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Parenting: Late Talkers
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786954@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <06b201c3e15e$651d2490$6501a8c0@dimension>

My fraternal twin nephews are now 26 months old, and they have yet to talk.
His mom is a doctor, so kids health checks fine. However, they are worried
parents. Information I have gathered informs that Einstein didn't talk until
he was 3 years old and that not talking until one is three is not that
uncommon. Anyone here have that experience with their kids or themselves?

k




From brentn at freeshell.org  Fri Jan 23 03:23:40 2004
From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 22:23:40 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Parenting: Late Talkers
In-Reply-To: <06b201c3e15e$651d2490$6501a8c0@dimension>
Message-ID: <r02010000-1032-8B02768E4D5311D8BF0E000393A47D36@[192.168.123.152]>

 (1/22/04 22:10) Karen Rand Smigrodzki <Karen at smigrodzki.org> wrote:

>My fraternal twin nephews are now 26 months old, and they have yet to talk.
>His mom is a doctor, so kids health checks fine. However, they are worried
>parents. Information I have gathered informs that Einstein didn't talk until
>he was 3 years old and that not talking until one is three is not that
>uncommon. Anyone here have that experience with their kids or themselves?
>


Some kids talk late, it seems. We have close friends whose younger child didn't really start talking until 30 months, and until he was 4, really only spoke in barely-intelligible babble even then. This was a matter of some concern for them, since their elder son spoke his first words early and didn't stop. Ever. The younger son had completely caught up with his peers by age 6. He also demonstrated an above average physical aptitude - my nickname for him was "the monkey," since he was often found climbing anything he could get a grip on. 

I think there is ample evidence that kids develop really differently, both physically and mentally. Although, I think there is also ample evidence that parents develop pretty uniformly, that is to say, nervously. ;)


B

-- 
Brent Neal
Geek of all Trades
http://brentn.freeshell.org

"Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein


From eliasen at mindspring.com  Fri Jan 23 03:35:11 2004
From: eliasen at mindspring.com (Alan Eliasen)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 20:35:11 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786959@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786959@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <4010966F.30701@mindspring.com>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


> Robert replied:
>>Microsoft (and others?) have a proposal (the Penny Black
>>project) out that
>>would force unsolicited incoming emails to consume something
>>like 10 seconds
>>of CPU time on the sender CPU before they are accepted.  I
>>think this might
>>be problematic for managers of large mailing lists.

Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> Horrible solution, for the reason you've just suggested. Email's broadcast
> mechanisms are useful.

   Naw.  Just have a white-list.  Mail from friends, cow-orkers, or the
extropy-chat list goes through unchecked.  Your spam filter can be configured
to allow or disallow anything it wants.  And it probably isn't prohibitive for
a list server to generate even a rather expensive hash value the *first* time
it needs to contact you, (new people are added to most legitimate mail lists
rather infrequently) if you subsequently whitelist it and don't require the
hash afterwards.

   My spam filters are pretty smart, and can learn for themselves.  It's
already learned that this "Emlyn O'Regan" is a wonderful person and has
automatically white-listed you.  On the other hand, it wasn't yet sure about
this "Karen Rand Smigrodzki" that I just received e-mail from for the first
time, so it hasn't whitelisted her yet, but it may soon.  Here's how it works:

   http://wiki.spamassassin.org/w/AutoWhitelist

   It's neat, because then my friends can still send me messages containing
the name of those medications that spammers hock, and they still get through.

   Most of this will probably be transparent in the next generation of e-mail
tools, just as my spam filters are largely transparent already.

   If it's from somebody you've never heard of, you (or your mail server,
which is a better place if someone's dictionary-attacking you) can challenge
it and require a hash to be generated.  You could even escalate the challenge
if the incoming mail sets off your Bayesian filters.  (That is, if it has
known spammer topics in the message.)

> Anyway, how do you define unsolicited email at that level?

   I guess anyone I've never heard from before, or, say, from a list I didn't
approve is "unsolicited."  That, of course, causes potential problems early on
in the adoption process if people don't have hashcash-aware mail clients.  But
that's okay.  I can still do what I'm doing now and filter questionable
e-mails into a box that I check less often.

- --
  Alan Eliasen                 | "You cannot reason a person out of a
  eliasen at mindspring.com       |  position he did not reason himself
  http://futureboy.homeip.net/ |  into in the first place."
                               |     --Jonathan Swift
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From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 23 03:42:05 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 19:42:05 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Parenting: Late Talkers
In-Reply-To: <06b201c3e15e$651d2490$6501a8c0@dimension>
Message-ID: <20040123034205.59238.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Karen Rand Smigrodzki <Karen at Smigrodzki.org> wrote:
> My fraternal twin nephews are now 26 months old, and they have yet to
> talk.
> His mom is a doctor, so kids health checks fine. However, they are
> worried
> parents. Information I have gathered informs that Einstein didn't
> talk until
> he was 3 years old and that not talking until one is three is not
> that
> uncommon. Anyone here have that experience with their kids or
> themselves?

Ah, just tell the parents that the kids just think the parents have yet
to do anything worth mentioning... ;)

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 23 03:44:26 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 19:44:26 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: I am going there
In-Reply-To: <20040123020754.57952.qmail@web80401.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040123034426.10888.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> --- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> > Well, I'm going into space for a year and a half. 
> > Due
> > to the fact that my name will likely be turned into
> > space dust in the process of impacting I'll be
> > dependent
> > on scientists like Amara to reconstruct me.
> 
> Umm...so, you're thinking someone can construct a
> sufficiently complete simulacrum of you based only on
> your name? 

Considering what little the airlines construct a whole 'meal' out of,
Robert should be happy that the probe doesn't have a 'no smoking' light...

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From eliasen at mindspring.com  Fri Jan 23 03:45:41 2004
From: eliasen at mindspring.com (Alan Eliasen)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 20:45:41 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] Parenting: Late Talkers
In-Reply-To: <06b201c3e15e$651d2490$6501a8c0@dimension>
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786954@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
	<06b201c3e15e$651d2490$6501a8c0@dimension>
Message-ID: <401098E5.609@mindspring.com>


Karen Rand Smigrodzki wrote:
> My fraternal twin nephews are now 26 months old, and they have yet to talk.
> His mom is a doctor, so kids health checks fine. However, they are worried
> parents. Information I have gathered informs that Einstein didn't talk until
> he was 3 years old and that not talking until one is three is not that
> uncommon. Anyone here have that experience with their kids or themselves?

   My best friend didn't talk until around 4, or maybe older, and now he's
likely the most charming, intelligent, funny, quick-witted, loquacious,
empathetic, and socially-apt person I've ever known.  He's said he was
"listening" up until then.  I believe it.  If only we all learned so well from
our listening.

   The twin issue is interesting.  I've read about twins who come up with
their own languages that they can understand early in life, but I can't cite
the references right now (Oliver Sacks, I think.)  My friend's older brother
could generally understand the made-up language he used before that, while the
parents couldn't.

   I've known another person that followed the same pattern until almost 5,
and then he suddenly began speaking in rational, coherent sentences.
(Literally almost making his mom crash the car when he suddenly spoke his
first sentence, "I really enjoyed the puppet show, Mom.")  From these
examples, I don't think there is a huge reason to worry.

-- 
  Alan Eliasen                 | "You cannot reason a person out of a
  eliasen at mindspring.com       |  position he did not reason himself
  http://futureboy.homeip.net/ |  into in the first place."
                               |     --Jonathan Swift


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 23 03:56:31 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 19:56:31 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] GM: Cloned endangered species
Message-ID: <20040123035631.30234.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&ncid=624&e=3&u=/ap/20040122/ap_on_sc/zoo_cloned_banteng_4

In a move sure to confuse the hell out of Greenie luddites everywhere,
the San Diego Zoo has accepted the worlds first cloned male benteng,
whose species is endangered.

How can they oppose cloning when all those cute and fuzzy endangered
species are gonna get saved... awwww cuddle cuddle.... do it for the
pwetty wittle animuls.... 

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 23 04:18:50 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 22:18:50 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Spirit Rover - Galvanic Failure?
References: <BAY7-F33a0osA91E9GQ0000c3d9@hotmail.com>
	<401070BD.1000001@posthuman.com>
Message-ID: <Law10-OE36zDTKmO2zX000389f1@hotmail.com>

They aren't using Microsoft are they??
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian Atkins" <brian at posthuman.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 6:54 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Spirit Rover - Galvanic Failure?


> It seems to still be alive; sounds like a software problem:
> 
> http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html
> 
> (reload that page occasionally for updates... also there's a live 
> briefing starting at 11am central time tomorrow if you have access to 
> the NASA channel)
> -- 
> Brian Atkins
> Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
> http://www.singinst.org/
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 


From extropy at unreasonable.com  Fri Jan 23 04:21:39 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 23:21:39 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Parenting: Late Talkers
In-Reply-To: <401098E5.609@mindspring.com>
References: <06b201c3e15e$651d2490$6501a8c0@dimension>
	<7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786954@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
	<06b201c3e15e$651d2490$6501a8c0@dimension>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040122231523.02ddfbf0@mail.comcast.net>

At 08:45 PM 1/22/2004 -0700, Alan Eliasen wrote:

>    The twin issue is interesting.  I've read about twins who come up with
>their own languages that they can understand early in life, but I can't cite
>the references right now (Oliver Sacks, I think.)

My identical twin sisters spoke their own language first and later learned 
English. The rest of the family adopted some of their more decipherable 
words. The most amazing aspect was when the next kid was born and they 
taught it to him, too. Eventually they all switched completely over to English.

Conveniently, I was finishing a degree in linguistics while this was going on.


-- David Lubkin.




From fortean1 at mindspring.com  Fri Jan 23 04:27:50 2004
From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 21:27:50 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD (SK) Making Way for Designer Insects
Message-ID: <4010A2C6.314DEA6E@mindspring.com>

Genetic Engineering Presents Potential Benefits and Increased Risks

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36943-2004Jan21.html?nav=hptop_tb

Making Way for Designer Insects

Washington Post
By Justin Gillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 22, 2004; Page A10

The insect world could shortly undergo a genetic makeover in the
laboratory. Scientists are at work developing silkworms that produce
pharmaceuticals instead of silk, honeybees resilient enough to resist
pesticides and even mosquitoes capable of delivering vaccines, instead of
disease, with every bite.

Researchers are tinkering with insect genes to develop more than a dozen
new varieties, offering potentially broad social benefits while posing
complicated new health and environmental risks. Though most of the
designer insects are at least five to 10 years away from reality, concern
is growing that government agencies have yet to think about how to oversee
the research.

A new report scheduled for release this morning warns that the issues
posed by gene-altered insects are so complex that unless federal agencies
begin now to design methods of oversight, the necessary rules may not be
in place when scientists are ready to start releasing insects into the
environment.

The report by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, a think tank
in Washington, outlined laboratory work of astonishing ambition, with
goals that go far beyond the relatively limited uses to which genetic
engineering has been put to date.

Research is already underway, for instance, to create mosquitoes with
genes that render them incapable of transmitting malaria, with the idea
that the souped-up mosquitoes would be released into the environment to
spread their new genes into every type of mosquito capable of carrying the
disease.

Malaria sickens more than 300 million people a year and kills more than a
million, many of them babies in Africa, so any technology that brought it
under control would be a milestone in social history. Yet, in one example
of the complicated questions society will have to confront, it's
theoretically possible that rendering mosquitoes immune to malaria will
make them ecologically fitter, and therefore more likely to transmit other
diseases, some of which are fatal.

Mosquito researchers have said they are well aware of the potential risks
and have pledged caution in moving forward with their experiments.

The Pew report noted that someone is going to have to decide what kind of
research is needed to estimate the likely effects, and then decide whether
the benefits of releasing the designer mosquitoes are worth the risks. And
that decision will have to be made in a complex international environment:
Many African and Asian countries are ill-equipped to assess elaborate
genetic technologies, and their citizens are sometimes suspicious even of
simple technologies designed in the West. Just recently, resistance to
polio vaccination in some Muslim communities in Africa led to an upsurge
of that disease.

American regulatory agencies are likely to play a key role in overseeing
the insect research, since much of the laboratory work will be conducted
in the United States, the Pew report said. Yet only the Agriculture
Department has moved to assert jurisdiction, and only over a relatively
limited group of gene-altered insects, namely those that could become
plant pests. The few gene-altered insects likely to be ready for
commercialization in the next five years would probably be covered under
those rules, including an altered variety of pink bollworm meant to help
control that pest in cotton. But the majority of insects on the drawing
board would not be covered, the Pew report said.

The Agriculture Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the
Food and Drug Administration all have congressional authority that might
give them some oversight power, but the agencies have yet to stake out
whether, or how, they will use their authority to oversee the full range
of gene-altered insects.

"We look forward to reviewing the Pew report," said Alisa Harrison,
spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department, adding that her agency was
already studying whether to broaden its regulations to include engineered
insects that might affect the health of animals.

Pew administrators said all three agencies know the new insects are coming
and have expressed interest in holding a large national conference that
would begin to tackle the issues.

"What we're hoping to do with this report is give the discussion a little
kick-start," said Michael Rodemeyer, executive director of the Pew
Initiative, a think tank set up by the Pew Charitable Trusts to study
genetic technologies. "The history of biotechnology is that the regulatory
system is always playing catch-up. The question here is whether the
regulatory system can begin now to think about who's in charge. What kind
of questions are we going to need to ask? What kind of tools are we going
to need to put in place to make sure the environment is protected?"

Some of the research programs under way have much more modest goals than
eliminating an entire human disease. In fact, some of the new insects are
likely to be commercial products of relatively limited scope, designed,
for instance, to control plant pests in a given crop grown in a region of
the United States.

The genetic modifications in those insects would not be much different, in
principle, than techniques already widely deployed. Control programs have
sometimes released millions of male insects sterilized by radiation, for
instance, as a way of limiting population growth in pests. One idea
scientists are pursuing is to release millions of male insects with
altered genes that always cause their offspring to die.

Other programs are designed to improve, or even to save, beneficial
insects. For instance, silkworms are being engineered to produce not silk,
but pharmaceutical or industrial proteins of various kinds. And
researchers are trying to design honeybees resistant to pesticides,
diseases and parasites, which have severely cut down the population of
beneficial bees in the United States.

But malaria researchers are not alone in their ambition. Some bugs on the
drawing board would be designed to control other human diseases such as
dengue fever, Chagas' disease and sleeping sickness. There's even a
research program that would use mosquito bites to deliver vaccines to
entire human populations, eliminating the need for doctors and nurses to
round up patients and use needles.

So far, consumer groups have cast a wary eye on the notion of genetically
altered insects, but they have not ruled out supporting some
modifications. Some farm groups have been supportive, seeing a chance to
control major crop pests. Most environmental groups have been
categorically opposed to the research, saying the effects of such
large-scale genetic tinkering would be impossible to predict in advance. 


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
      U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
   TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Vietnam veterans,
Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]


From spike66 at comcast.net  Fri Jan 23 04:33:50 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 20:33:50 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786954@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <000001c3e16a$19bb63c0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

> 0.001%??? So if they send 1,000,000 emails, they only need 10 positive
> responses. Wow.

I don't understand why they need even .001%.  There are plenty
of products, seems like most of them that are still spamming,
that are *zero* cost to the spammer: advertise v1a.gra or
pharmaceuticals or that elk-derived orgasm cream.  Then if 
they get a check for fifty bucks, they need send nothing.
Who is going to report to the authorities that they are
stupid enough to fall for that old gag?  Would the authorities
do anything anyway?  For fifty bucks? 

> I've said this before here; the way to stop spam is to clog 
> up the reply channel...

I can imagine a class of spam which requires *no* reply
channel.  Example: a class of spam we might call Got-Milk
spam.  The got-milk ads are intriguing: they are not pushing
any particular *brand* of milk, but the milk producers 
somehow figured out a way to work together to increase
the public's consumption of milk, to their mutual benefit.

How long before we start getting jesus-is-coming spam?  That
stuff would be hard to filter, because there are so many
jesus-is-coming-ers that use the internet to keep reassuring
each other that jesus is still coming.

Actually I seldom see a spam anymore that has a clearly
defined reply channel that can be jammed for free.  Those
are all gone a long time ago.  A lot of office supply spam 
provided only a you-pay phone number, not an 800 number.  
Even if they provide an order address, you cannot jam it, 
since it would cost you to send them a phony order.

Unfortunately I suspect our spam headaches have not yet
peaked, yet the problem has already effectively made the 
internet functionally unavailable for millions.

spike



From nanowave at shaw.ca  Fri Jan 23 04:57:05 2004
From: nanowave at shaw.ca (Russell Evermore)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 20:57:05 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] [HUMOR] Scientists Abandon AI Project After Seeing
	The Matrix
References: <400FA8D7.1090803@mail.tele.dk>
Message-ID: <005201c3e16d$59377f40$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>

Wow, I must have a really bad sense of humor! Interesting, yup. Thought
provoking - surely. Funny? Hmm, I must have a really bad sense of humor.

RE
nanowave at shaw.ca



From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 23 06:06:57 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 22:06:57 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401221732490.7612-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3e177$9599d370$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Robert J.
Bradbury
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 5:56 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again



On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Emlyn O'regan wrote:

> The cost to spammers of spamming plus the cost of following up leads 
> as a result is less than the revenue they ultimately get from 
> sales/scam.

Microsoft (and others?) have a proposal (the Penny Black project) out
that would force unsolicited incoming emails to consume something like
10 seconds of CPU time on the sender CPU before they are accepted.  I
think this might be problematic for managers of large mailing lists.

See: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/26/1350207&mode=thread

---

What would be the point; spammers would just buy faster processors (in
case of computationally intensive "tokens");
either that, or forge the headers (in case of honor-bound, I waited ten
seconds).  I'ld rather have the FBI post the current whereabouts of the
people profitting off the unsolicited spam.  A couple of nice
flamethrower-style deaths later, problem solved.  And no, I'm not
joking.

omard-out




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 23 06:10:22 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 22:10:22 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Parenting: Late Talkers
In-Reply-To: <r02010000-1032-8B02768E4D5311D8BF0E000393A47D36@[192.168.123.152]>
Message-ID: <000101c3e177$95d09ae0$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

I didn't start talking until I was 3 or 4;
my parents kid around about it :) "he didn't start
talking until he was 3, and now he won't shut up :)"
I wouldn't worry overly much about it.

omard-out


-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Brent Neal
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 7:24 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Parenting: Late Talkers


 (1/22/04 22:10) Karen Rand Smigrodzki <Karen at smigrodzki.org> wrote:

>My fraternal twin nephews are now 26 months old, and they have yet to 
>talk. His mom is a doctor, so kids health checks fine. However, they 
>are worried parents. Information I have gathered informs that Einstein 
>didn't talk until he was 3 years old and that not talking until one is 
>three is not that uncommon. Anyone here have that experience with their

>kids or themselves?
>


Some kids talk late, it seems. We have close friends whose younger child
didn't really start talking until 30 months, and until he was 4, really
only spoke in barely-intelligible babble even then. This was a matter of
some concern for them, since their elder son spoke his first words early
and didn't stop. Ever. The younger son had completely caught up with his
peers by age 6. He also demonstrated an above average physical aptitude
- my nickname for him was "the monkey," since he was often found
climbing anything he could get a grip on. 

I think there is ample evidence that kids develop really differently,
both physically and mentally. Although, I think there is also ample
evidence that parents develop pretty uniformly, that is to say,
nervously. ;)


B

-- 
Brent Neal
Geek of all Trades
http://brentn.freeshell.org

"Specialization is for insects" -- Robert A. Heinlein
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From extropy at unreasonable.com  Fri Jan 23 06:14:48 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 01:14:48 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Self-Enhncmnt: data acquisition at high
  speed
In-Reply-To: <20040122134747.1ab4234d.samantha@objectent.com>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20040121191626.03071ff8@mail.comcast.net>
	<Pine.LNX.4.44.0401211446450.5123-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040121191626.03071ff8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040122235142.02dd8ec0@mail.comcast.net>

I discussed my reading speed, and observed that

 > I'd expect that peak reading speed is correlated with IQ given that
 > response times for elementary tasks seem to give the best measure of IQ.

Samantha Atkins wrote:

>It hasn't much to do with IQ except when reading material that requires a 
>bit faster intellectual uptake.

Well, seems to me that's trivially wrong, since if you have two people 
otherwise identical with different reading speeds for the same degree of 
comprehension, the faster reader will have learned more, and will 
consequently have a higher IQ test score.

Also, I complete tasks requiring analysis or pattern recognition very 
rapidly, which increases one's score on some IQ tests, and perceive that 
I'm using much the same "mental muscles" as when I'm reading.

> > I peak at a little over a second a page, or around 12,000 wpm. It's too
> > exhausting to continue for long, and no fun, but useful in a pinch. My
> > sustainable rate is still quite high though. ...
>
>At what kind of material do you get these speeds?  To sustain that over 
>even technical material would afaik require a near photographic memory or 
>a high level of training.  What training have you had?  Is this just 
>natural for you?

The highest speeds are for ordinary fiction and non-fiction, and easier 
technical material. Difficult material definitely slows me down. I have had 
no training. I'm not sure how it developed over time. I was not a 
particularly early reader; I learned just before first grade. I have never 
subvocalized or had any of the other faults that would interfere with 
reading speed.

My skill may be related to the age-limitations on language fluencies -- in 
the non-English languages I speak, I can speak as rapidly as in English and 
I can dream in them, but I read slowly, word-at-a-time. (What are other 
people's experiences with reading in non-native languages?)

The first English data point was at eight, in fourth grade, when I clocked 
at 1200 wpm on non-fiction. High speed is line-at-a-time, peak speed is 
essentially paragraph-at-a-time. High speeds are very sensitive to 
typographic issues, such as font and column width.

It seems to me to be largely a question of pathways and neurotransmitters; 
I'm rich in some and sadly deficient in others. We can discuss the 
deficiencies another day :-).

Every once in a while, I get a fresh insight into underlying biology. For 
instance, I love women singing soprano and violins, and was amused to 
discover that my hearing is most acute in that frequency range.


-- David Lubkin.




From spike66 at comcast.net  Fri Jan 23 06:16:26 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 22:16:26 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Parenting: Late Talkers
In-Reply-To: <401098E5.609@mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3e178$6f6e98b0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

 
> Karen Rand Smigrodzki wrote:
> > My fraternal twin nephews are now 26 months old, and they have yet
to talk.
> > ... Anyone here have that experience with their kids or themselves?

My brother-in-law, the elementary school principal, said
nothing until he was nearly 3, and said little for months
after that.

Keep in mind that children see the world thru different
eyes than our own.  Their motives are different than ours.
Speaking is a skill that may need a particular motive.

We gave our friend's 1.5 yr old a toy tractor but we actually
had given him six toys: the tractor (which he hadn't a clue
what to do with having never seen one) a cardboard box, some 
wrapping paper (with dinosaurs on it!), a ribbon bow, and two 
pieces of packing styrofoam.  

None of the adults realized there were six toys there until we
attempted to dispose of five of them (his favorite five), an
action which was met with immediate and unmistakeable protest, 
though this child spoke not.  He immediately began clacking the 
two pieces of styrofoam, enjoying himself greatly.

After having a great time clacking the foam packaging,
he handed them to me and said in a clear voice, "Now you do it."  
His parents were most shocked, for these were nearly his
first words, a complete and grammatically correct sentence,
along with a deomonstration that he knew the meaning of the
words.

Had the child wanted his mother to copy his actions, he would 
have simply offered the foam and she would know what the
child wanted.  I, being nearly a stranger, had to have
explained to me the appropriate action.  So he did.  And
so I did.

{8^D

spike 




From eliasen at mindspring.com  Fri Jan 23 06:42:51 2004
From: eliasen at mindspring.com (Alan Eliasen)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 23:42:51 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
In-Reply-To: <000001c3e177$9599d370$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
References: <000001c3e177$9599d370$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
Message-ID: <4010C26B.5020606@mindspring.com>


Paul Grant wrote:
> What would be the point; spammers would just buy faster processors (in
> case of computationally intensive "tokens");

   The cost of generating the token can be made arbitrarily large; that is,
economically unfeasible for the spammer to generate.  For almost everyone on
the planet, even a full minute of processor time is quite reasonable to expend
the first time you send an e-mail to someone you've never contacted before.
This would limit spammers to, say, sending 1440 e-mails a day per machine,
which would soon put them out of business by making their business model
economically unfeasible, as I mentioned before.

   Your comments indicate you haven't read the proposals.  A spammer can buy a
processor that's twice as fast, in which case you simply increase the
computational capacity required to solve your challenge by a factor of ten.
For the proposed hashcash scheme, the size of the challenge can be extended to
any desired value.

   As I mentioned before, a more restrictive "challenge" could be sent back
for more questionable messages.  If my Bayesian filter found a message to be
very probable spam, I'll send back a challenge that says, "if you really want
me to read this, generate a really big hash."  For real people who really
wanted to contact me out of the blue, this would likely be no problem.  The
hasher could run in the background while they did other stuff.  If people set
the bar too high, real people will just say "what a jerk--I'm not going to
file this bug or buy his product."  And that problem's solved too.

> either that, or forge the headers (in case of honor-bound, I waited ten
> seconds).

   "Forging" the header would mean putting in an invalid hashcode, which would
be automatically rejected.  Implemented correctly, this is a
mathematically-strong hash value, one that will be different for each message
and recipient.  There's no shortcut around it.

   Alternately, and perhaps better, other proposals would require sending some
digital drawing rights with each e-mail message--say ten cents.  The validity
of this could be verified with cryptographic techniques.  For unsolicited
messages, you could decide whether or not to draw the cash, or whether you'd
refund it if it was a message you wanted to see from someone you wanted to be
on good relations with.  Even a penny per message would put most spammers under.

-- 
  Alan Eliasen                 | "You cannot reason a person out of a
  eliasen at mindspring.com       |  position he did not reason himself
  http://futureboy.homeip.net/ |  into in the first place."
                               |     --Jonathan Swift


From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Fri Jan 23 07:00:36 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 02:00:36 -0500
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re:
	[extropy-chat]Gametheoryofcommoncold)
In-Reply-To: <20040122022727.0b13397e.samantha@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <00d801c3e17e$9e23efb0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Samantha Atkins wrote,
> Charity that is forced *is* evil.  Do we agree on that much?

Not if Libertarians are going to define tax-supported schools as enforced
charity, I don't agree.

Mike Lorrey wrote,
> Harvey is making a logical fallacy in claiming that his
> *entirely private* charity work makes forced charity through 
> government programs "not evil". How he makes such a logical 
> leap is beyond me...

I do not make this claim.  I don't see how my private charity work could
have any bearing on government charity programs.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From maxm at mail.tele.dk  Fri Jan 23 07:14:56 2004
From: maxm at mail.tele.dk (Max M)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 08:14:56 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] [HUMOR] Scientists Abandon AI Project After Seeing
	The Matrix
In-Reply-To: <005201c3e16d$59377f40$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>
References: <400FA8D7.1090803@mail.tele.dk>
	<005201c3e16d$59377f40$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>
Message-ID: <4010C9F0.8080303@mail.tele.dk>

Russell Evermore wrote:
> Wow, I must have a really bad sense of humor! Interesting, yup. Thought
> provoking - surely. Funny? Hmm, I must have a really bad sense of humor.


I never said it was funny. But it is humor....

What is interresting as that those far out issues that we have been 
thinking about for years are now so common that they are satirised in a 
rag like The Onion.


regards Max M Rasmussen, Denmark


From spike66 at comcast.net  Fri Jan 23 07:23:02 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 23:23:02 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] more than human?
In-Reply-To: <4010C9F0.8080303@mail.tele.dk>
Message-ID: <000001c3e181$bc7104a0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


While channel flipping after ER, I caught the last 30 
seconds of a program called "More Than Human" on the 
Discovery channel.  Im waaay not TV hip: anyone know 
what this is?  Has it anything to do with transhumanism?

spike



From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 23 07:45:55 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 23:45:55 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Speak of the devil; sleep stuff.
In-Reply-To: <000001c3e178$6f6e98b0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <000101c3e184$f336e6a0$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

'Just Sleep On It' Solves Tricky Problems?
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/22/1315250&mode=thread&
tid=134

An anonymous reader writes "CBC news reports that the effectiveness of
'sleeping on it' when faced with a difficult task may have more than
just anecdotal roots. 66 students were trained to perform a calculation
on an eight digit number using two simple rules which would take seven
steps to complete. A different method existed to perform the same
calculation 'almost instantly', but was not shown to the students. After
eight hours, where half the students were allowed to sleep and the other
half remained awake, 60% of the rested and 22% of the wakeful students
discovered the more efficient method." 




From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 23 08:05:04 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 00:05:04 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] more than human?
In-Reply-To: <000001c3e181$bc7104a0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <000101c3e187$a0d5da30$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

I caught it, but I don't remember it.
I don't think so though.  It was (if memory
serves in the slightest), a show about
people doing amazing things...  I do 
remember liking the episode(?) I caught,
but obviously not enough to remember it :)

omard-out



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Spike
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 11:23 PM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: [extropy-chat] more than human?



While channel flipping after ER, I caught the last 30 
seconds of a program called "More Than Human" on the 
Discovery channel.  Im waaay not TV hip: anyone know 
what this is?  Has it anything to do with transhumanism?

spike

_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan 23 08:40:27 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 00:40:27 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
In-Reply-To: <000001c3e177$9599d370$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401230030030.16460-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Commenting on my comment regarding mail protocols that impose a
cost on the sender -- On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Paul Grant wrote:

> What would be the point; spammers would just buy faster processors (in
> case of computationally intensive "tokens");
> either that, or forge the headers (in case of honor-bound, I waited ten
> seconds).

The problem is that much of the SPAM now-a-days is coming from compromised
Windows machines that are functioning as open relays.  Try to send a million
SPAM messages thru one of these machines and the user is likely to notice
that his machine is running slowly doing all that extra computing.  (This
was how I found a computer virus had infected my laptop once -- the internal
fan was always on because the virus was using the CPU for heavy duty number
crunching.)  Shortly after that all of my Windows machines went behind a
firewall as the easy way to avoid having to continually monitor Microsoft
for security patches.

FYI: A /. article a while back that commonly users installing Windows off
of a CD that may be a year or more old do *not* have time to download
and install all of the security patches from Microsoft before their
machine becomes compromised (even if they even knew enough to do this...).
Any individual that connects a Windows machine directly to the net
is playing Russian roulette but most people are clueless.  If a million
SPAM haters were to swamp one of these relay machines such that it
made a dent in the ISP or DNS provider performance -- then they would
get serious about cutting off clients who are providing free resources
to the SPAMers.

Robert




From amara at amara.com  Fri Jan 23 08:25:07 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 10:25:07 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] Spirit Rover - Galvanic Failure?
Message-ID: <p05100300bc368a213348@[150.146.134.133]>


>It seems to still be alive; sounds like a software problem:

Sounds like a rather serious problem, actually. I'm not working on this
project though, and the Mars Express scientists here know about as much
as this:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040122/ts_nm/space_mars_dc

There seems to be a transAtlantic competition, at least in the media,
regarding Mars. Why does the media not notice the scientific
cooperation? I see from Google news (in the U.S centered mode) all of
the news reports regarding the NASA rovers, but how could they forget
Mars Express? The images from DLR (the German space agency) are awesome,
and the spectrometer (Italian-built) is producing great data too. I know
a bit less about the other Mars Express instruments, but I have not
heard of problem with them. Beagle 2 is another story (*), but remember
that is a small part of the Mars Express mission.

I am very happy for my colleagues studying Mars, whatever country in
which they happen to be working. The Mars missions are producing good
data, so gnashing of the teeth for Spirit is really not necessary.

Amara

(*) The plasma instrument detected ions above background level from the
probe; speculation is that the 'airbag' might have had a leak, losing
gas. Beagle 2 might have hit the surface with a fatal thud.

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF),
Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR,
Roma, ITALIA     Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it


From Johnius at Genius.UCSD.edu  Fri Jan 23 09:27:59 2004
From: Johnius at Genius.UCSD.edu (Johnius)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 01:27:59 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ascii conversion of images?
Message-ID: <4010E91F.8CE6C194@Genius.UCSD.edu>


Alejandro wrote:
If he can display 8-bit ascii, it may be worth having a look at aalib.
if he can do curses, then libcaca might even provide you with colour.

	Thanks.  With google I found:
	http://aa-project.sourceforge.net/aalib/
	http://sam.zoy.org/projects/libcaca/
	I'll be taking a look at these next week...

BillK wrote:
There is a whole sub-culture of geekdom which produces pictures in ascii
characters.  Some even produce movies in ascii!

	So I'm finding!  I just came across this repository of
	ascii art:  http://www.ascii-art.de/
	There are even a few stereoscopic 3d pieces with surprising
	illusions of depth...

	Has anyone yet made an ascii music video for MTV?
	I think it could be a hit ... considering the kinds of
	animations I've seen succeeding there (e.g., the Waking Life
	kind of cartooned-reality graphics, the blocky lego vision
	of the Strokes video, etc.).

> Two free programs which will convert jpg images to ascii are:
> The Characterizer at:    <http://www.aolej.com/free.html#Chara>
> and the ASCII Generator at:   <http://go.to/ascgen/>
> You can try converting jpg images online to ascii at:
> http://jpg2asc.hierklikken.com/

	Cool!  I'll be checking these out next week...

	Thanks again,
	Johnius


From amara at amara.com  Fri Jan 23 08:30:02 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 10:30:02 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] Spirit Rover - Galvanic Failure?
Message-ID: <p05100302bc368ba58f0a@[150.146.134.133]>

me:
>I see from Google news (in the U.S centered mode) all of
>the news reports regarding the NASA rovers, but how could they forget
>Mars Express? The images from DLR (the German space agency) are awesome,

for example:
http://www.esa.int/export/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEMWF0474OD_1.html
http://berlinadmin.dlr.de/Missions/express/firsteng.shtml


From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it  Fri Jan 23 10:41:44 2004
From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 11:41:44 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Spirit Rover - Galvanic Failure?
In-Reply-To: <p05100300bc368a213348@[150.146.134.133]>
References: <p05100300bc368a213348@[150.146.134.133]>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401231137140.2467@hercules>

On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Amara Graps wrote:

>regarding Mars. Why does the media not notice the scientific
>cooperation? I see from Google news (in the U.S centered mode) all of
>the news reports regarding the NASA rovers, but how could they forget
>Mars Express?

Don't know about the US, but here we got some news about Mars Express too
- I'm sure you didn't miss it :) I think it's just that a rover is more
fashionable and interesting to the general audience.

>(*) The plasma instrument detected ions above background level from the
>probe; speculation is that the 'airbag' might have had a leak, losing
>gas. Beagle 2 might have hit the surface with a fatal thud.

You know the joke about the Beagle2:

Guy1: the predicted landing area was an 80x30 km ellipse. The actual
      landing perfectly matched predictions.
Guy2: so, where exactly beagle2 landed?
Guy1: all over that place! one piece here, another piece there

Alfio



From amara at amara.com  Fri Jan 23 10:25:45 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 12:25:45 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] snowflakes
Message-ID: <p05100300bc36a6aec2d6@[150.146.134.133]>

It's snowing in Rome!

In honor of the pretty flakes floating outside of my window ...

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/photos/photos.htm


-- 

Amara Graps, PhD
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF),
Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR,
Roma, ITALIA     Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it


From puglisi at arcetri.astro.it  Fri Jan 23 12:02:13 2004
From: puglisi at arcetri.astro.it (Alfio Puglisi)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 13:02:13 +0100 (CET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] NEWS: Mars Express finds water ice on Mars
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401231301120.27690@hercules>


This is from 7 minutes ago:

http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEM8ZB474OD_index_0.html

"...Through the initial mapping of the South polar cap on 18 January,
OMEGA, the combined camera and infrared spectrometer, has already revealed
the presence of water ice and carbon dioxide ice."

Alfio



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 23 12:07:02 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 04:07:02 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] snowflakes
In-Reply-To: <p05100300bc36a6aec2d6@[150.146.134.133]>
Message-ID: <20040123120702.59941.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Amara Graps <amara at amara.com> wrote:
> It's snowing in Rome!
> 
> In honor of the pretty flakes floating outside of my window ...
> 
> http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/photos/photos.htm
> 
> 

Hey, where's all that global warming we keep getting promised? I'ts
been sub zero (F) here for two weeks. It's so cold it has to *warm up*
in order to snow around here. I've been working hard polluting this
year so's I won't have a cold winter. I want my money back.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From sentience at pobox.com  Fri Jan 23 12:10:41 2004
From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 07:10:41 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] [HUMOR] Scientists Abandon AI Project After Seeing
	The Matrix
In-Reply-To: <005201c3e16d$59377f40$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>
References: <400FA8D7.1090803@mail.tele.dk>
	<005201c3e16d$59377f40$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>
Message-ID: <40110F41.1040107@pobox.com>

Russell Evermore wrote:

> Wow, I must have a really bad sense of humor! Interesting, yup. Thought
> provoking - surely. Funny? Hmm, I must have a really bad sense of humor.

In a morbid sort of way, yes.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence


From scerir at libero.it  Fri Jan 23 12:37:29 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 13:37:29 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] and Moses stretched out his hand ..
References: <p05100300bc36a6aec2d6@[150.146.134.133]>
Message-ID: <001901c3e1ad$aab227e0$12c21b97@administxl09yj>

(fwd, from another list)

'Modeling of the Hydrodynamic Situation During the Exodus' 
published (?) in the Bulletin of the Russian Acad. of Sciences
http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/times/936/top/t_11445.htm
Ok, waiting for somebody able to show how Zeus suceeded in
tripling the length of the night, so he could have more time 
to make love to Alcmena, whose husband he was impersonating ..




From avatar at renegadeclothing.com.au  Sat Jan 24 07:43:42 2004
From: avatar at renegadeclothing.com.au (Avatar Polymorph)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 23:43:42 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] John C. Wright
Message-ID: <019a01c3e24d$cbde2b80$c9ee17cb@renegade>

In light of all the correspondence on Mr Wright, I thought I might forward 2 earlier pieces
of correspondence from him, which I think I have already passed on (certainly the first
letter). Avatar Polymorph

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


My dear Mr. Polymorph, I am pleased that you enjoyed my work, and I hope you 
will find the next two volumes of the tale live up to the promise of the 
beginning. THE PHOENIX EXULTANT is being published in April of this year, and 
THE GOLDEN TRANSCENDENCE several months after that. I have also written a work 
of high fantasy called LAST GUARDIAN OF EVERNESS, that may be published some 
time this year. 

The difficulty with any legal definition of consent or coercion for a society 
with the technology to create and rewrite the contents of the mind, is that the 
process of education or programming the new mind must take place in a step-by-
step fashion. Even if it seems nearly instantaneous to an outside observer, to 
the mind being formed, each new layer of education or instruction will appear 
to be sequential to the previous layer, that is, the new information will be 
described, or the new lessons be presented, to the undeveloped mind that is 
aware only of the previous layers. 

Since not all information or education can be presented at once, the new mind, 
no matter how formed, will always pass through a stage when it is unwise and 
inexperienced: this means the new mind will not be in a position to assess the 
wisdom or utility of learning the next layer of lessons, or receiving the next 
group of memories or instructions. 

In other words, there will always be children in this world, no matter how they 
are made, and they will always be under the government and authority of their 
parents or makers. While nature has provided the human heart with at least some 
tenderness toward our children, any tenderness we may have toward our creations 
will be a matter of deliberate moral injunction. 

The same line of reasoning applies to senility and madness: no matter how it is 
housed, any mental system might suffer damage or entropic decay that will 
render it unfit for self-government, unable to correct its own errors. 

In the imaginary commonwealth of the far future I envision in my novel, the 
authorities of that day and age do not interfere with the dementia of broken 
mental constructs, until they damage another: of course, I am also supposing 
the wisdom of that age is so great, that the majority of citizens, whatever 
bodies they wear, however their minds are housed, have taken prudent legal 
steps to assign power of attorney over their affairs to trusted associates or 
loved ones, who can correct their mental disorganization, should madness or 
senility strike. As will be seen in the next two volumes, this system is not 
without flaws. 

Yours, John C. Wright, esq.

PS You can read the opening scene of PHOENIX EXULTANT online at 
http://mervius.com/features/2002/excerpt_phoenix_exultant.htm   



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My dear Mr. Avatar, Not only would I not mind, indeed I would be flattered, if 
you pass along any humble words of mine to the extropians or immortalitarians, 
though, in all humility, I doubt my thoughts to be anything new or 
extraordinary. 

The issue of what constitutes 'consent' also becomes a difficulty, postulating 
a society where one man has the ability to form the thoughts of a child under 
construction. One could simply build one's creation to "consent" to whatever 
invasions or absurdities one wished. 

On the other hand, I foresee certain difficulties would plague such an 
inventor, for I take free will to be an inevitable component of self-awareness. 
An inventor raising a child, even could he inscribe certain thoughts directly 
into the child's nerveous system, would not be able to anticipate the outcome 
of the child's chains of thought once set in motion. 

There are certain cellular automata who follow simple rules, but whose outcomes 
cannot be predicted with anything other than a dry-run of the cellular automata 
itself. (For more on cellular automata, see http://hensel.lifepatterns.net/) 
Human thought may be something like a cellular automata that can envisions and 
create new rules for itself. 

Hence, even if the outcome of human thought is 'determined' in the 
philosophical sense of being governened by cause-and-effect, to an outside 
observer (or even to introspection, which is the facility of self-regard as if 
we stood outside ourselves) the outcomes are indeterminate. I assume if the 
inventor is creating a mind more intelligent than himself, the uncertainty is 
magnified.   

I do not, for example, take Asimov's three laws of robotics (i.e. the concept 
that one could hardwire moral imperitives into a self-aware mind) to be a 
realistic conceit--Asimov was not a lawyer. The first thing a robot in one of 
my stories would do, when programmed never to harm a human being, and to follow 
all human orders, would be to ask what constitutes a human being? Is a baby in 
the womb a human? How about a man in cryogenic suspension? Is the robot himself 
a human? If so, is he obliged to follow all his own orders and never allow 
himself to come to harm? (And here again, I must smile, for there is a scene in 
my novel where just such a thing happens.)  

JCW

PS Do caution your readers that the word 'madpersons' is not my invention. I am 
old-fashioned, and prefer clear words like 'madmen' and 'mankind' to awkward 
neologisms; for I take the deficiencies these new words were coined to correct 
to be purely imaginary, and the theory that one can change the heart of man by 
changing his tongue, I dismiss.   

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From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 23 12:45:03 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 04:45:03 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] and Moses stretched out his hand ..
In-Reply-To: <001901c3e1ad$aab227e0$12c21b97@administxl09yj>
Message-ID: <20040123124503.18765.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>


--- scerir <scerir at libero.it> wrote:
> (fwd, from another list)
> 
> 'Modeling of the Hydrodynamic Situation During the Exodus' 
> published (?) in the Bulletin of the Russian Acad. of Sciences
> http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/times/936/top/t_11445.htm
> Ok, waiting for somebody able to show how Zeus suceeded in
> tripling the length of the night, so he could have more time 
> to make love to Alcmena, whose husband he was impersonating ..

Oh, that's easy: he put a black hole in retrograde orbit around the earth.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From mbb386 at main.nc.us  Fri Jan 23 13:10:14 2004
From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 08:10:14 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Parenting: Late Talkers
In-Reply-To: <r02010000-1032-8B02768E4D5311D8BF0E000393A47D36@[192.168.123.152]>
References: <r02010000-1032-8B02768E4D5311D8BF0E000393A47D36@[192.168.123.152]>
Message-ID: <Pine.WNT.4.55.0401230720400.-28739@pentium.mb.main.nc.us>


I've understood that *twins* can be a special situation. They can
sometimes talk to each other in "their own language" and thus talk
with others later.

I'd look at twin studies if I were worried.

Regards,
MB


On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Brent Neal wrote:

>  (1/22/04 22:10) Karen Rand Smigrodzki <Karen at smigrodzki.org> wrote:
>
> >My fraternal twin nephews are now 26 months old, and they have yet to talk.
> >His mom is a doctor, so kids health checks fine. However, they are worried
> >parents. Information I have gathered informs that Einstein didn't talk until
> >he was 3 years old and that not talking until one is three is not that
> >uncommon. Anyone here have that experience with their kids or themselves?


From scerir at libero.it  Fri Jan 23 13:15:12 2004
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 14:15:12 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] and Moses stretched out his hand ..
References: <20040123124503.18765.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <000401c3e1b2$ef94cac0$12c21b97@administxl09yj>

> > 'Modeling of the Hydrodynamic Situation During the Exodus' 
> > published (?) in the Bulletin of the Russian Acad. of Sciences
> > http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/times/936/top/t_11445.htm
> > Ok, waiting for somebody able to show how Zeus suceeded in
> > tripling the length of the night, so he could have more time 
> > to make love to Alcmena, whose husband he was impersonating ..

[Mike]
> Oh, that's easy: he put a black hole in retrograde orbit around 
> the earth.

Nice. But how to impersonate Alcmena's husband?
s.


From amara at amara.com  Fri Jan 23 12:17:46 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 14:17:46 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] NEWS: Mars Express finds water ice on Mars
Message-ID: <p05100301bc36bf0dc759@[150.146.134.133]>

Alfio Puglisi:
>This is from 7 minutes ago:

>http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEM8ZB474OD_index_0.html
>"...Through the initial mapping of the South polar cap on 18 January,
>OMEGA, the combined camera and infrared spectrometer, has already
>revealed the presence of water ice and carbon dioxide ice."

Nice, hmm? They are doing a *great* job. I can say that, being unbiased,
but, OK, they are my friends too.


Mars Express sees its first water - scientific results
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEM8ZB474OD_index_1.html 

Size: 300 KB	 
23 January 2004
OMEGA observed the southern polar cap of Mars on 18 January 2004, as
seen on all three bands.
Credits: ESA

the ESA credits, in more detail:

Dr. Giancarlo Bellucci
INAF Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario
Via Fosso del Cavaliere 00133 Rome, Italy

and the rest of the Mars Express OMEGA team:
F. Altieri, P. Baldetti, V. Formisano, A. Morbidini, R. Morbidini,
F. Nuccili, A. Pavoni,
and funding by ASI (the Italian Space Agency)
-- 

Amara Graps, PhD
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF),
Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR,
Roma, ITALIA     Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 23 14:10:37 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 06:10:37 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] and Moses stretched out his hand ..
In-Reply-To: <000401c3e1b2$ef94cac0$12c21b97@administxl09yj>
Message-ID: <20040123141037.21459.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>


--- scerir <scerir at libero.it> wrote:
> > > 'Modeling of the Hydrodynamic Situation During the Exodus' 
> > > published (?) in the Bulletin of the Russian Acad. of Sciences
> > > http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/times/936/top/t_11445.htm
> > > Ok, waiting for somebody able to show how Zeus suceeded in
> > > tripling the length of the night, so he could have more time 
> > > to make love to Alcmena, whose husband he was impersonating ..
> 
> [Mike]
> > Oh, that's easy: he put a black hole in retrograde orbit around 
> > the earth.
> 
> Nice. But how to impersonate Alcmena's husband?

A little theater putty, a little utility fog, bingo presto. Anybody who
has a black hole in their pocket can handle the rest rather easily...

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 23 14:14:12 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 06:14:12 -0800 (PST)
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re:
	[extropy-chat]Gametheoryofcommoncold)
In-Reply-To: <00d801c3e17e$9e23efb0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>
Message-ID: <20040123141412.83681.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> Samantha Atkins wrote,
> > Charity that is forced *is* evil.  Do we agree on that much?
> 
> Not if Libertarians are going to define tax-supported schools as
> enforced charity, I don't agree.

Actually, considering that crime was far lower (and literacy far
higher) before the advent of universal public schooling, I would
venture to say that forced charity like public schooling is inherently
evil because, due to its mediocre results, it creates more problems
than it solves.

> 
> Mike Lorrey wrote,
> > Harvey is making a logical fallacy in claiming that his
> > *entirely private* charity work makes forced charity through 
> > government programs "not evil". How he makes such a logical 
> > leap is beyond me...
> 
> I do not make this claim.  I don't see how my private charity work
> could have any bearing on government charity programs.

That was the implication of your statement which I quoted.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From amara at amara.com  Fri Jan 23 13:44:24 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 15:44:24 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] Security as Theatre
Message-ID: <p05100301bc36d4d8e753@[150.146.134.133]>

From:
http://www.idlewords.com/2004/01/security_as_theater.htm

<begin quote>
"Unfortunately, our Homeland Security Bureau has become obsessed with
collecting as much information as it can, with little thought to how to
use it. It is ossifying into a bureaucracy that would make the
Austro-Hungarian Empire proud. And it's making many visitors' first
impression of America one of fear, incompetence, and a general
disrespect for human dignity. If irony hadn't been declared dead after
September 11, this might be one promising place to look for it."
<end quote>

and so true!

Visitors/residents traveling to EU are beginning to be tormented by
same Security Theatre, however. I was in Istanbul (wonderful city) a few
weeks ago, and upon my return to Rome, I experienced Alitalia's
inexperience with their own scanning machines. They had the devices
turned on high, which meant that every persons' shoes and ladies'
underwire bras needed to be examined, in addition to a general
cluelessness about how to interpret the pictures of the objects on their
screens. Many hand luggages at the end were simply opened and flipped
over onto the table, spilling the contents. If you want to make a
theatre performance to show the Bush Administration that you are doing
*something*, at least show some competence in your performance.

-- 

********************************************************************
Amara Graps, PhD          email: amara at amara.com
Computational Physics     vita:  ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt
Multiplex Answers         URL:   http://www.amara.com/
********************************************************************
"That would be a good idea."
      -- Gandhi [when asked what he thought of western civilisation]


From colinmagee3282 at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 23 14:45:26 2004
From: colinmagee3282 at hotmail.com (Colin Magee)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 09:45:26 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Where to obtain Modafinil a.k.a.Provigil
Message-ID: <BAY10-F127YsMsJMCw500019f2c@hotmail.com>

  I don't know if this would be considered off topic for this list,but since 
I saw Modafinil on a nootropic site,I thought I'd post this question here.I 
tried to purchase Modafinil from a Canadian pharmacy and they told me that 
since it was a controlled substance,they couldn't ship it to the U.S. The 
prices at the U.S.pharmacies I've checked at so far have been way too 
expensive.The person I spoke with at the Canadian pharmacy said they have a 
law with the U.S, that prohibits them shipping controlled substances to this 
country.From what I understand,Mexico is a good source for certain 
nootropics.Does anyone know of any other countries or sources I might be 
able to try to obtain Modafinil/Provigil?

                                                                             
    Colin

_________________________________________________________________
High-speed users?be more efficient online with the new MSN Premium Internet 
Software. http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=byoa/prem&ST=1



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 23 15:43:01 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 07:43:01 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Security as Theatre
In-Reply-To: <p05100301bc36d4d8e753@[150.146.134.133]>
Message-ID: <20040123154301.41038.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Amara Graps <amara at amara.com> wrote:
> From:
> http://www.idlewords.com/2004/01/security_as_theater.htm
> 
> <begin quote>
> "Unfortunately, our Homeland Security Bureau has become obsessed with
> collecting as much information as it can, with little thought to how
> to
> use it. It is ossifying into a bureaucracy that would make the
> Austro-Hungarian Empire proud. And it's making many visitors' first
> impression of America one of fear, incompetence, and a general
> disrespect for human dignity. If irony hadn't been declared dead
> after
> September 11, this might be one promising place to look for it."
> <end quote>
> 
> and so true!
> 
> Visitors/residents traveling to EU are beginning to be tormented by
> same Security Theatre, however. 

I am sorry, Amara, but this is ludicrous. I've travelled to europe
enough to remember the machine gun toting soldiers all over the airport
terminals. I remember having to wait in line along a wall for the
chance to claim my baggage just before it was loaded, and I remember
opening my baggage for the inspector while a soldier held a machine gun
pointed at me from two feet away. I remember seeing armored personnel
carriers on city streets regularly around europe, and I remember
warnings to Americans about getting kidnapped by various radical
leftist groups. I remember every car anyone in my family ever rented in
europe being broken into and the contents stolen.

Don't talk to me about security theater in the US. Europe invented it.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From matus at matus1976.com  Fri Jan 23 15:44:19 2004
From: matus at matus1976.com (Matus)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 10:44:19 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Where to obtain Modafinil a.k.a.Provigil
In-Reply-To: <BAY10-F127YsMsJMCw500019f2c@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3e1c7$c54068a0$6701a8c0@GREYBOOK>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Colin Magee
> 
>   I don't know if this would be considered off topic for this list,but
> since
> I saw Modafinil on a nootropic site,I thought I'd post this question
> here.I
> tried to purchase Modafinil from a Canadian pharmacy and they told me
that
> since it was a controlled substance,they couldn't ship it to the U.S.
The
> prices at the U.S.pharmacies I've checked at so far have been way too
> expensive.The person I spoke with at the Canadian pharmacy said they
have
> a
> law with the U.S, that prohibits them shipping controlled substances
to
> this
> country.From what I understand,Mexico is a good source for certain
> nootropics.Does anyone know of any other countries or sources I might
be
> able to try to obtain Modafinil/Provigil?
> 
> 
>     Colin
> 

http://www.smart-drugs.net/ias-order-Intro.htm#Modafinil

click on 'order' to the left of 'Modafinil'  I have ordered from this
company without issues, it ships from Europe.

Matus




From maxm at mail.tele.dk  Fri Jan 23 16:54:10 2004
From: maxm at mail.tele.dk (Max M)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 17:54:10 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] NEWS: Mars Express finds water ice on Mars
In-Reply-To: <p05100301bc36bf0dc759@[150.146.134.133]>
References: <p05100301bc36bf0dc759@[150.146.134.133]>
Message-ID: <401151B2.4000407@mail.tele.dk>

Amara Graps wrote:

> Alfio Puglisi:

>> "...Through the initial mapping of the South polar cap on 18 January,
>> OMEGA, the combined camera and infrared spectrometer, has already
>> revealed the presence of water ice and carbon dioxide ice."
> 
> Nice, hmm? They are doing a *great* job. I can say that, being unbiased,
> but, OK, they are my friends too.

Well it made a special/extra news broadcast here in Denmark at the main 
national radio station as soon as the news was in. In the sense that 
they interrupted the ordinary programming.

That is something they rarely do. Mainly for really big news.

So it seems that somebody agrees.


regards Max M


From naddy at mips.inka.de  Fri Jan 23 17:11:36 2004
From: naddy at mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 17:11:36 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: About SPAM again
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786954@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
	<000001c3e16a$19bb63c0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <burkk8$23e8$1@kemoauc.mips.inka.de>

Spike <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> How long before we start getting jesus-is-coming spam?

I think I got the first one a decade or so ago.

-- 
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy at mips.inka.de


From naddy at mips.inka.de  Fri Jan 23 17:36:35 2004
From: naddy at mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 17:36:35 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: About SPAM again
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786954@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
	<Pine.LNX.4.44.0401221732490.7612-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <burm33$24o2$1@kemoauc.mips.inka.de>

Robert J. Bradbury <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> I would propose:
> a) SMTP receivers (sendmail) that detect the spam *while* it is being sent.

Ever heard of the RBL and its offspring?

Doing content-based recognition at the MX is problematical.

The latest promising approach ist graylisting.
http://www.greylisting.org/

>    The minute you detect incoming spam you slow down or stop your SMTP
>    exchange responses forcing the sending machines to timeout.

Yeah, tarpits.  Don't refuse the message outright, shunt processing
off to some leightweight dummy daemon that will execute the SMTP
dialog veeery sloooooowly.  Tarpits have been around for many years,
but haven't really caught on.  Now that at least OpenBSD ships with
spamd, maybe they will see more deployment.

> b) You backtrack through the IP addresses of the incoming email and
>    immediately load that link down with useless IP traffic

Which is by now probably a criminal offense in most jurisdictions.
Just because your neighbor spray-painted your cat does not mean
that you can go out now and spray-paint his dog, rape his wife, and
torch his home.

> c) If they specify URL's, follow the same process as in (b) to overload
>    their servers.

If this really were adopted, you would now have created an effective
DDoS tool to take down arbitrary third parties.

> d) If they specify images -- have a text recognition program look at the
>    images and figure out the URL and/or phone numbers.

You try that in practice.

-- 
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy at mips.inka.de


From Karen at Smigrodzki.org  Fri Jan 23 18:05:12 2004
From: Karen at Smigrodzki.org (Karen Rand Smigrodzki)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 13:05:12 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Parenting: Late Talkers
References: <r02010000-1032-8B02768E4D5311D8BF0E000393A47D36@[192.168.123.152]>
	<Pine.WNT.4.55.0401230720400.-28739@pentium.mb.main.nc.us>
Message-ID: <072601c3e1db$72039270$6501a8c0@dimension>

Thank you ALL for the responses! They will be reassuring to my brother and
sister-in-law.

Karen


"Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies."
- Voltaire (1694-1778) on his deathbed in response to a priest asking that
he renounce Satan.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "MB" <mbb386 at main.nc.us>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 8:10 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Parenting: Late Talkers


>
> I've understood that *twins* can be a special situation. They can
> sometimes talk to each other in "their own language" and thus talk
> with others later.
>
> I'd look at twin studies if I were worried.
>
> Regards,
> MB
>
>
> On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Brent Neal wrote:
>
> >  (1/22/04 22:10) Karen Rand Smigrodzki <Karen at smigrodzki.org> wrote:
> >
> > >My fraternal twin nephews are now 26 months old, and they have yet to
talk.
> > >His mom is a doctor, so kids health checks fine. However, they are
worried
> > >parents. Information I have gathered informs that Einstein didn't talk
until
> > >he was 3 years old and that not talking until one is three is not that
> > >uncommon. Anyone here have that experience with their kids or
themselves?
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>




From brian_a_lee at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 23 18:25:01 2004
From: brian_a_lee at hotmail.com (Brian Lee)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 13:25:01 -0500
Subject: EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re:[extropy-chat]Gametheoryofcommoncold)
Message-ID: <Law9-F54CboLz8LhqWF00052eb6@hotmail.com>

>From: Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
>Subject: RE: EDU: Public Schools (Was: 
>Re:[extropy-chat]Gametheoryofcommoncold)
>Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 06:14:12 -0800 (PST)

>Actually, considering that crime was far lower (and literacy far
>higher) before the advent of universal public schooling, I would
>venture to say that forced charity like public schooling is inherently
>evil because, due to its mediocre results, it creates more problems
>than it solves.

Please provide some data to prove this correlation. If you don't then your 
statement is as useless as showing how shark attacks increase as ice cream 
sales increase.

BAL

_________________________________________________________________
Rethink your business approach for the new year with the helpful tips here. 
http://special.msn.com/bcentral/prep04.armx



From wingcat at pacbell.net  Fri Jan 23 19:57:44 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 11:57:44 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] ascii conversion of images?
In-Reply-To: <4010E91F.8CE6C194@Genius.UCSD.edu>
Message-ID: <20040123195744.5211.qmail@web80406.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Johnius <Johnius at Genius.UCSD.edu> wrote:
> Has anyone yet made an ascii music video for MTV?

And if someone does, what color would the text be?
White, green, or something else?  (Or more precisely,
what reasons would there be for the choice of colors?
Green would probably be obvious, ditto white...)


From nanowave at shaw.ca  Fri Jan 23 20:18:06 2004
From: nanowave at shaw.ca (Russell Evermore)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 12:18:06 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] NEWS: Mars Express finds water ice on Mars
References: <Pine.GSO.4.58.0401231301120.27690@hercules>
Message-ID: <001301c3e1ee$036c4880$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>

Congratulations everyone! This is a moment for secular humanity to glow with
the warm pride of accomplishment! I would like to take this opportunity to
announce the formation of a new society - the SPCSMME (Society for the
Prevention of Contamination by Superstition of the Martian Memetic Ecology)

May there never be a church, a mosque, or a temple of blind faith
constructed there to blot or blight the lovely Martian landscape. May
humanity always have one safe haven in this solar system from the ravages of
superstition, luddism, and madness.

May Enlightenment values rein on Mars forever!

Let the Terra-forming begin!

Russell Evermore
nanowave at shaw.ca


> This is from 7 minutes ago:
>
> http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEM8ZB474OD_index_0.html
>
> "...Through the initial mapping of the South polar cap on 18 January,
> OMEGA, the combined camera and infrared spectrometer, has already revealed
> the presence of water ice and carbon dioxide ice."
>
> Alfio
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From thespike at earthlink.net  Fri Jan 23 20:27:26 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 14:27:26 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Brian Alexander 2-part interview
References: <p05100301bc36d4d8e753@[150.146.134.133]>
Message-ID: <012401c3e1ef$54368b80$8f994a43@texas.net>

The author of RAPTURE: How Biotech Became the New Religion talks to James M.
Pethokoukis at U.S. News & World Report:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/tech/nextnews/archive/next040121.htm and the
following page. The Singularity is a religion, and so on.

< Deeper into the bio-utopian subculture, you get transhumanists, those who
believe in a transformative era in which human beings will cease to be
completely human and will become a new species, some mix of biotech and
machine enhancements that will deliver super brain power, immortality, and
perfect health.

On the other side are the top scientists I feature. >

I have an interview with James coming up shortly.

Damien Broderick



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 23 21:03:38 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 13:03:38 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Brian Alexander 2-part interview
In-Reply-To: <012401c3e1ef$54368b80$8f994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <20040123210338.46421.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>

This interview seemed very well balanced.

--- Damien Broderick <thespike at earthlink.net> wrote:
> The author of RAPTURE: How Biotech Became the New Religion talks to
> James M.
> Pethokoukis at U.S. News & World Report:
> 
> http://www.usnews.com/usnews/tech/nextnews/archive/next040121.htm and
> the
> following page. The Singularity is a religion, and so on.
> 
> < Deeper into the bio-utopian subculture, you get transhumanists,
> those who
> believe in a transformative era in which human beings will cease to
> be
> completely human and will become a new species, some mix of biotech
> and
> machine enhancements that will deliver super brain power,
> immortality, and
> perfect health.
> 
> On the other side are the top scientists I feature. >
> 
> I have an interview with James coming up shortly.
> 
> Damien Broderick
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From thespike at earthlink.net  Fri Jan 23 22:15:22 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 16:15:22 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Brian Alexander 2-part interview
References: <20040123210338.46421.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <018701c3e1fe$66b226c0$8f994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Lorrey" <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 3:03 PM

> This interview seemed very well balanced.

> > The author of RAPTURE: How Biotech Became the New Religion talks to
> > James M. Pethokoukis at U.S. News & World Report:
> >
> > http://www.usnews.com/usnews/tech/nextnews/archive/next040121.htm

Yes, James is good at this kind of interview. And it's pleasant to see these
topics being treated seriously in such a newspaper.

Damien Broderick



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 23 22:58:22 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 14:58:22 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Brian Alexander 2-part interview
In-Reply-To: <018701c3e1fe$66b226c0$8f994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <20040123225822.7691.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Damien Broderick <thespike at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mike Lorrey" <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
> Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 3:03 PM
> 
> > This interview seemed very well balanced.

How about an opposing view called "The Tribulation: How Luddism became
the New Religion"

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From thespike at earthlink.net  Fri Jan 23 23:18:25 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 17:18:25 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Brian Alexander shooting fish in a barrel
References: <20040123225822.7691.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <01e201c3e207$372c3b80$8f994a43@texas.net>

I was somewhat baffled by Natasha's enthusiasm for Brian Alexander's book.
Here's some of what he says about extropes:

==========

There is some debate within Extropianism and
transhumanism about just how libertarian the movements are but
they believe in the Heinleinian concept of glorifying brain power. They
think that only a few people are smart enough and daring enough to
accept the Extropian challenge and they will be the ones who are
saved. The uninitiated, the retrograde Volk trapped by religious
superstition
and fear of the new, well, they will be left behind.

The Extropians were fully aware that some people found them
and their agenda funny, sometimes even scary, but Extropians
believed that, as the ultimate early adopters, they could help lead the
enlightened world into the bright sunshine of the future. Big declarations
about that future attracted some minor media interest to the
Extropians, partly because they made for an easy story. Writing
about them was like shooting fish in a barrel-the smart-alecky jokes
practically wrote themselves. Sexy Natasha, whose art had a sensual
bent, often displayed her form on web pages and in photographs.
Both she and Max believed in the ongoing perfectibility of the body
and, like many transhumanists, both were cryonicists. So journalists
played up the looniness of their ideas-Ha Ha-or the element of
narcissism in Max and Natasha's body building, supplement ingesting,
antiaging routines. Fittingly based out of their Marina del Rey
apartment in California, the Mecca of reinvention, they became the
very image of a southern California couple living just one block from
the sharpened edge of the continent, hanging on by their fingernails
to the last bit of transcendent American dream. But in person, as
long as you weren't talking about becoming posthuman, Max and
Natasha came off as a smart, fun, slightly bohemian couple with
unusual enthusiasms.

Other Extropians were a mixed bag. In general they had a tendency
to overestimate their intellectual prowess. A few could be
insufferable, regarding any challenge to their wildly optimistic
claims for technology as the result of childlike ignorance.

[...]

Extropians were constantly trying to create new memes.
They wanted the language of immortality, human transformation,
and extreme self-determination to become ingrained values around
the world, but the Extropians did not make their job any easier with
that name and its space-cadet ring, and their insistence on saying
things that made other people uncomfortable, Nietzschean-sounding
pronouncements about metabrains and ultra humans and the
ascendance of the intelligent. It sometimes sounded as if they were
plotting a future world in which they could take revenge on every
jock who ever made fun of the smart kids.

================

Damien Broderick



From asa at nada.kth.se  Fri Jan 23 23:40:35 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 00:40:35 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Brian Alexander shooting fish in a barrel
In-Reply-To: <01e201c3e207$372c3b80$8f994a43@texas.net>
References: <20040123225822.7691.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
	<01e201c3e207$372c3b80$8f994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <3633.213.112.90.34.1074901235.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>


Damien Broderick quoted Brian Alexander:
> It sometimes sounded as if they were
> plotting a future world in which they could take revenge on every
> jock who ever made fun of the smart kids.

This is true in my case. When I was mobbed in school, I decided to change
the world so that the kind of people who taunted me would be at the bottom
and have to learn the stuff they taunted me for learning. The irony is
that Bill Gates beat me to it.

(And now I'm of course going around all bodhisattva-like with forgiveness
of them... not really :-)

But isn't Alexander's description of the early extropians (sounds very
mid-90's) spot on, in terms of how we did look? These days transhumanists
are less flamboyant and a bit less prone to overstatements (with some
fortunate/unfortunate exceptions). Probably because we are getting
mainstream. Yay! ;-)

Transhumanist with a suit and tie, and proud of it.

-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sat Jan 24 01:38:08 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 17:38:08 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Brian Alexander shooting fish in a barrel
In-Reply-To: <3633.213.112.90.34.1074901235.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <20040124013808.93747.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Anders Sandberg <asa at nada.kth.se> wrote:
> 
> Damien Broderick quoted Brian Alexander:
> > It sometimes sounded as if they were
> > plotting a future world in which they could take revenge on every
> > jock who ever made fun of the smart kids.
> 
> This is true in my case. When I was mobbed in school, I decided to
> change the world so that the kind of people who taunted me would be
> at the bottom and have to learn the stuff they taunted me for
> learning. The irony is that Bill Gates beat me to it.

I recall a movie from the late 80's about three television reporters,
which started with them as kids in the late 60's. The smart one is
shown getting beat up by his catholic school peers, when he says to the
leader,"You'll never earn more than $19,000 a year!" The leader
says,"Nineteen grand? Hey, that's pretty good money! Leave him alone...
"

One of my favorite movie lines.

> 
> But isn't Alexander's description of the early extropians (sounds
> very mid-90's) spot on, in terms of how we did look? These days
> transhumanists
> are less flamboyant and a bit less prone to overstatements (with some
> fortunate/unfortunate exceptions). Probably because we are getting
> mainstream. Yay! ;-)

Well, early extropians were highly Californian... ;) 

> 
> Transhumanist with a suit and tie, and proud of it.

Yes, Richard Boddie, the black libertarian writer, speaker, and former
candidate, spoke at the LPNH convention in November. He said that when
he walked in the door, his first thought was, "COOOL! Libertarians in
suits and ties! These guys have got it together!"

So extropes aren't the only people getting a clue.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From natasha at natasha.cc  Sat Jan 24 04:08:56 2004
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 20:08:56 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Brian Alexander shooting fish in a barrel
In-Reply-To: <3633.213.112.90.34.1074901235.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se
 >
References: <01e201c3e207$372c3b80$8f994a43@texas.net>
	<20040123225822.7691.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
	<01e201c3e207$372c3b80$8f994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20040123200324.02dd6110@pop.earthlink.net>

At 12:40 AM 1/24/04 +0100, Anders wrote:

>Damien Broderick quoted Brian Alexander:
> > It sometimes sounded as if they were
> > plotting a future world in which they could take revenge on every
> > jock who ever made fun of the smart kids.
>
>This is true in my case. When I was mobbed in school, I decided to change
>the world so that the kind of people who taunted me would be at the bottom
>and have to learn the stuff they taunted me for learning. The irony is
>that Bill Gates beat me to it.
>
>(And now I'm of course going around all bodhisattva-like with forgiveness
>of them... not really :-)
>
>But isn't Alexander's description of the early extropians (sounds very
>mid-90's) spot on, in terms of how we did look? These days transhumanists
>are less flamboyant and a bit less prone to overstatements (with some
>fortunate/unfortunate exceptions). Probably because we are getting
>mainstream. Yay! ;-)

Good point Anders.  I think the important thing to realize is that the 
early extropians were just that - early, meaning more radical and 
reactionary.  I suppose when I was in my 20s I was a bit out there as 
well.  I never identified with the early extropians, other than loving 
their sense  of flare and intelligence.  There were very smart, determined 
transhumanists.  I admired it, but didn't fit in. I was too much a 
transhumanist in its early sense, which also was too much into the art of 
it all rather than the practicalities.  I've changed over the years too - 
just as transhumanism has changed and become more mainstream.

However, I attribute the mainstreaming of transhumanism to "extropians" 
maturation and the sophistication of the philosophy of extropy.

I'd like to see all transhumanist organizations becoming more "extropic" 
and promoting the philosophy of extropy because the philosophy of extropy 
is the underlying ideal and critical thinking of transhumanity.

Now, if we can get WTA and other transhumanist organizations to become more 
extropic - to promote the philosophy of extropy, we will have made great 
strides.  Transhumanism is a movement to be sure, but it is the extropic 
aspect of transhumanity that sings brightest.


>Transhumanist with a suit and tie, and proud of it.

Me too.

Natasha


>--
>Anders Sandberg
>http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
>http://www.aleph.se/andart/
>
>The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.
>
>_______________________________________________
>extropy-chat mailing list
>extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat

Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc
----------
President, Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture  http://www.transhumanist.biz
http://www.transhuman.org
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From spike66 at comcast.net  Sat Jan 24 03:18:46 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 19:18:46 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: About SPAM again
In-Reply-To: <burkk8$23e8$1@kemoauc.mips.inka.de>
Message-ID: <000d01c3e228$c7c8f130$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


> Christian Weisgerber

> Spike <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> 
> > How long before we start getting jesus-is-coming spam?
> 
> I think I got the first one a decade or so ago.
> 
> -- 
> Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          


They got you because of your name, Naddy.  Had you
been named Heathen, you wouldnta.  {8^D  spike





From spike66 at comcast.net  Sat Jan 24 03:46:26 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 19:46:26 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] smart-ass comments to priests on one's deathbed
In-Reply-To: <072601c3e1db$72039270$6501a8c0@dimension>
Message-ID: <000001c3e22c$a4de3410$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

Karen: 

> "Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies."

> - Voltaire (1694-1778) on his deathbed in response to a 
> priest asking that he renounce Satan.

I woulda said: "I can't do that padre.  I never
nounced him to start with."

{8^D

spike



From mbb386 at main.nc.us  Sat Jan 24 04:03:30 2004
From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 23:03:30 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fractals and Crash
In-Reply-To: <006a01c3db45$66e29ea0$3f80e40c@uservqwsr60ljh>
References: <20040114184113.76507.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com><00ad01c3dacf$a741d220$bc994a43@texas.net><005301c3dad9$a5e03ac0$bc994a43@texas.net><018201c3dada$948dc2f0$2ee4f418@markcomputer><008001c3dadc$08159bc0$bc994a43@texas.net><00f701c3db1b$d6de5200$69cd5cd1@neptune>
	<02e301c3db1c$4e0a9730$2ee4f418@markcomputer>
	<006a01c3db45$66e29ea0$3f80e40c@uservqwsr60ljh>
Message-ID: <Pine.WNT.4.55.0401232300320.-92599211@pentium.mb.main.nc.us>


Gina, those are neat fractals! Would it be permitted to use one or
two of them as backgrounds for my desktop?

Sorry about your harddisk crash. That's a nightmare.

Regards,
MB


On Thu, 15 Jan 2004, Gina Miller wrote:

> Hi everyone. I just started creating fractals and I have put up a
> preliminary page here: http://www.nanogirl.com/fractals/index.html .


From spike66 at comcast.net  Sat Jan 24 04:42:16 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 20:42:16 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Brian Alexander shooting fish in a barrel
In-Reply-To: <01e201c3e207$372c3b80$8f994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <000001c3e234$71e4c260$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

> I was somewhat baffled by Natasha's enthusiasm for Brian 
> Alexander's book... Damien

Damien, I may be missing something here, but I saw
nothing in Brian Alexander's passages I would consider
negative.  Slightly smart-assed perhaps, but I am
very forgiving of that sorta thing.  {8^D

Lets take them in order:

1.  ...There is some debate within Extropianism and
transhumanism about just how libertarian the movements are...

True.

2.  ...but they believe in the Heinleinian concept of glorifying brain
power...

A nonsequitur, but mostly true anyway.
 
3.  ...They think that only a few people are smart enough and daring
enough to
accept the Extropian challenge...

Ja, sorta true.  Most are too apathetic to study it.
Any sufficiently advanced laziness is indistinguishable
from stupidity.

4. ...and they will be the ones who are saved...

Not really.  Any AI worth the title could likely figure
out a way to upload everyone.  Perhaps he was thinking
about cryonics?  I can assure him, all who perish before
the singularity *without* cryonics is gone forever.

5. ...The uninitiated, the retrograde Volk trapped by religious
> superstition and fear of the new, well, they will be left behind...

Behind where?  The religious are coming along too, they don't
even need to be believers.  Again perhaps he was thinking
about cryonics, in which case I will accept his commentary.

6.  > ...The Extropians were fully aware that some people found them
> and their agenda funny, sometimes even scary... 

Im guilty as charged here.  I don't care if people are laughing
with me or laughing at me, so long as they laugh.

7.  ...but Extropians
> believed that, as the ultimate early adopters, they could 
> help lead the enlightened world into the bright sunshine of the
future...

YES!

Seems clear to me that most of humanity's biggest problems
have been solved.  The solutions have not been uniformly
implemented however.

8. ...Big declarations
> about that future attracted some minor media interest to the
> Extropians, partly because they made for an easy story...

Ja, true.  How can declarations about the future be anything
but big?  We are living in the midst of a vast explosion of just
about everything.  Far from being in equilibrium, we are a
speciest that cries out for the newest techno-tool, the next step, 
more more more, better, faster, cheaper, please, NOW!  

Dontcha just love it?  {8-]

9. ...Writing
> about them was like shooting fish in a barrel-the smart-alecky jokes
> practically wrote themselves...

No objections from me.  Smart-ass jokes make news stories
readable.  A certain percentage of people will read the
stories, laugh, then stop laughing and realize that the
extropians are absolutely right.  Thats how I found this
outfit: article in Skeptical Inquirer about 7 or 8 yrs ago.

10. Sexy Natasha... etc... Max... etc.

Irrelevant (but not particularly critical) commentary.

11. ...Other Extropians were a mixed bag. In general they had a tendency
> to overestimate their intellectual prowess. A few could be
> insufferable, regarding any challenge to their wildly optimistic
> claims for technology as the result of childlike ignorance...

Well, its true, is it not?  Some of the extropians are the most
pleasant people on the planet.  But we have also known extropians 
who are the most insufferable sons-a-bitches you ever saw.  Of course, 
we may not all agree on which is which, just that there are some 
of each.  {8^D  So, fair statement.  We sometimes pay insufficient
attention to basic human kindness.  We need to treat each other
better (yes I know the counter-arguments). 

12.  > ...Extropians were constantly trying to create new memes...

Thanks!  Brian is very kind.  Very true comment.  I hope.

13.  > ...They wanted the language of immortality, human transformation,
> and extreme self-determination to become ingrained values around
> the world, but the Extropians did not make their job any easier with
> that name and its space-cadet ring, and their insistence on saying
> things that made other people uncomfortable, Nietzschean-sounding
> pronouncements about metabrains and ultra humans and the
> ascendance of the intelligent...

Some of this comment is true-ish.  It isn't clear to me
why space-cadet names, Neitzschean pronouncements, metabrains
and ultrahumans should make other people uncomfortable.  Perhaps
that is just his point: I, an extropian, don't see why this kinda
stuff should make people uncomfortable.  Someone please spell
out for me why the squick factor on all this.  


14. ...It sometimes sounded as if they were
> plotting a future world in which they could take revenge on every
> jock who ever made fun of the smart kids... Damien Broderick

Well, in a very loose sense, I guess that is right.  In my
vision of the future, it really isn't revenge at all, for the 
smart-ass jocks will benefit right along with the rest of us.
The Luddites who want us all to die might suffer a setback or
two, of course.  {8^D

What was it in these paragraphs you objectionable?

spike



From wingcat at pacbell.net  Sat Jan 24 05:43:32 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 21:43:32 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Brian Alexander shooting fish in a barrel
In-Reply-To: <000001c3e234$71e4c260$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <20040124054332.39822.qmail@web80410.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
> Some of this comment is true-ish.  It isn't clear to
> me
> why space-cadet names, Neitzschean pronouncements,
> metabrains
> and ultrahumans should make other people
> uncomfortable.  Perhaps
> that is just his point: I, an extropian, don't see
> why this kinda
> stuff should make people uncomfortable.  Someone
> please spell
> out for me why the squick factor on all this.  

Because of the always implied, "...and I, who must (by
unstated, unchallenged assumption) remain ever as I am
today or decay, will necessarily be left far behind
these highly improved creations.  If and when they do
come about, my life will automatically suck by
comparison."

Of course, you and I know that stasis and decay are
not inevitable.  If we did, then by definition, we
would not agree with Extropian philosophy - but we do.
That's part of what's so unintuitive to us about their
squick factor here.


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sat Jan 24 05:45:43 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 21:45:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] SOC: slashster
Message-ID: <20040124054543.23067.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>

Friendster - old
Tribe - tired
Googles 'Orkut' - vaporware
Slashster = social networking for the slashdotterati...

Try slashster, which has more features, faster response, and less horse
puckey than the above. Put my email down as the referrer when you sign
up.
Also: someone set up proxies for 'transhumanism' and 'extropy'...

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From riel at surriel.com  Sat Jan 24 15:22:21 2004
From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 10:22:21 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
In-Reply-To: <000001c3e177$9599d370$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
References: <000001c3e177$9599d370$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.55L.0401241018160.21651@imladris.surriel.com>

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Paul Grant wrote:

> > Microsoft (and others?) have a proposal (the Penny Black project) out
> > that would force unsolicited incoming emails to consume something like
> > 10 seconds of CPU time on the sender CPU before they are accepted.  I

In the late 1990's, this used to be known as hashcash.

> What would be the point; spammers would just buy faster processors

Why buy them when you can get a spamware trojan running
on hundreds of thousands of Windows systems and use
other people's bandwidth and CPU time ?

Estimates are that there are about 900.000 Windows systems
out there with a spam trojan running.  That's a LOT of CPU
for any hashcash like scheme.


Major <extropy at audry2.com> wrote:
> I didn't know this was Microsoft's.

It's not. I think hash-cash was first proposed over 10 years ago.

> this may be the first really *good* thing the evil empire has done.

Too bad it's been obsolete since the point where spammers
started to use dedicated spam trojans, about 2 years ago.

cheers,

Rik
-- 
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sat Jan 24 17:27:57 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 09:27:57 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] STING: I've got a live one!
Message-ID: <20040124172757.53392.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>

Well, you know those spams that everyone gets, the classic one from
Abacha and so forth, claiming to be asking you to help them spirit
their wealth out of their shithole country, when they actually want
access to your bank accounts, as well as the scam that Spike's friend
fell partly victim to last month.

Well, I got a new one, written by an arab in Dubai who is 'dying' and
wants his $18 million dispersed to various charities, offering me a 20%
retainer, but needs to get it out of the country and out of the hands
of his nefarious relatives.

On a lark, I responded, pretending to be a good muslim with all the
"allah be merciful"s and so forth, and expressing caution about being
implicated by the US govt in any scheme to funnel funds to alleged
"terrorist" charity groups, I set some conditions about how I wanted to
proceed.

Well, I got a response, complete with nicely faked up photos of the
alleged perp in a hospital bed, pushing his I.V. cart around the
hospital and so forth. He is obviously trying to get some bank account
info and wants me to pay some costs of transfers (yeah, right). I'm
wondering at what point I should turn it over to the secret service?

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From wingcat at pacbell.net  Sat Jan 24 18:45:08 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 10:45:08 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] STING: I've got a live one!
In-Reply-To: <20040124172757.53392.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040124184508.69549.qmail@web80411.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Well, I got a response, complete with nicely faked
> up photos of the
> alleged perp in a hospital bed, pushing his I.V.
> cart around the
> hospital and so forth. He is obviously trying to get
> some bank account
> info and wants me to pay some costs of transfers
> (yeah, right). I'm
> wondering at what point I should turn it over to the
> secret service?

I think you've probably reached that point, especially
if you've saved all the evidence.  But isn't it the
CIA, not the Secret Service, that deals with foreign
crimes of this nature?


From megao at sasktel.net  Sat Jan 24 19:02:08 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 13:02:08 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] STING: ... a live one! ATTN..scumsucking sociopaths
	anonymous ?
References: <20040124172757.53392.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4012C12F.372BC631@sasktel.net>

Does HN have means to track the sender data to potential sources of
creation....
Software Tags on the pic, exact location of sender(s) , etc.
It would be nice to know more.  These scams never seem to be isolated
events but a series of evolving  waves so it would be nice to sniff out
more of the landscape.

I had a really interesting one on Dec 30... one of the most creative ones
I've seen so far:

Subject:
        Attention All Staff and Personnel:
   Date:
        Sun, 28 Dec 2003 23:49:28 +0000 (GMT)
   From:
        Admin <Personnel at selu.com.ar>
     To:
        ccpasask at sasktel.net



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Mike Lorrey wrote:

> Well, you know those spams that everyone gets, the classic one from
> Abacha and so forth, claiming to be asking you to help them spirit
> their wealth out of their shithole country, when they actually want
> access to your bank accounts, as well as the scam that Spike's friend
> fell partly victim to last month.
>
> Well, I got a new one, written by an arab in Dubai who is 'dying' and
> wants his $18 million dispersed to various charities, offering me a 20%
> retainer, but needs to get it out of the country and out of the hands
> of his nefarious relatives.
>
> On a lark, I responded, pretending to be a good muslim with all the
> "allah be merciful"s and so forth, and expressing caution about being
> implicated by the US govt in any scheme to funnel funds to alleged
> "terrorist" charity groups, I set some conditions about how I wanted to
> proceed.
>
> Well, I got a response, complete with nicely faked up photos of the
> alleged perp in a hospital bed, pushing his I.V. cart around the
> hospital and so forth. He is obviously trying to get some bank account
> info and wants me to pay some costs of transfers (yeah, right). I'm
> wondering at what point I should turn it over to the secret service?
>
> =====
> Mike Lorrey
> "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
>                                        - Gen. John Stark
> "Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
>                                        - Mike Lorrey
> Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
> Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
> http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From extropy at audry2.com  Sat Jan 24 19:11:13 2004
From: extropy at audry2.com (Major)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 03:11:13 +0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] STING: I've got a live one!
In-Reply-To: <20040124184508.69549.qmail@web80411.mail.yahoo.com> (message
	from Adrian Tymes on Sat, 24 Jan 2004 10:45:08 -0800 (PST))
References: <20040124184508.69549.qmail@web80411.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <200401241911.i0OJBDT18586@igor.synonet.com>


Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> writes:

> I think you've probably reached that point, especially
> if you've saved all the evidence.  But isn't it the
> CIA, not the Secret Service, that deals with foreign
> crimes of this nature?

No, it is the secret service (because it is about banking/money).

Their web page regarding this kind of scam is at:

   http://www.secretservice.gov/alert419.shtml

Contact details for your local field office are at:

   http://www.secretservice.gov/field_offices.shtml

Major


From naddy at mips.inka.de  Sat Jan 24 21:22:14 2004
From: naddy at mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 21:22:14 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: STING: I've got a live one!
References: <20040124172757.53392.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <buunm6$206s$1@kemoauc.mips.inka.de>

Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I'm wondering at what point I should turn it over to the secret
> service?

When you have actually lost at least $5000 to the conman, because
otherwise nobody will bother to investigate a domestic case.  And
if he's overseas, I wish you good luck when you try to instigate
an international investigation for anything short of murder.

Check out this guy's story:
http://www.remodern.com/caught.html

-- 
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy at mips.inka.de


From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au  Sat Jan 24 23:25:20 2004
From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 10:25:20 +1100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: STING: I've got a live one!
References: <20040124172757.53392.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
	<buunm6$206s$1@kemoauc.mips.inka.de>
Message-ID: <002401c3e2d1$5590c8a0$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>

Christian Weisgerber wrote:

> Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > I'm wondering at what point I should turn it over to the secret
> > service?
> 
> When you have actually lost at least $5000 to the conman, because
> otherwise nobody will bother to investigate a domestic case.  And
> if he's overseas, I wish you good luck when you try to instigate
> an international investigation for anything short of murder.
> 
> Check out this guy's story:
> http://www.remodern.com/caught.html

Good story. Good outcome. Shows what one persistent person can
do - at least sometimes. 

I can relate to the author trying to get assistance and finding himself 
adrift in oceans of fools that mostly wasted his time and money rather
than doing their job.  His persistence is pretty inspirational though. 

Still a good story - thanks for posting it.

Regards,
Brett

PS: Mike - my two cents - turn what you have over to 'someone' and
at least give them the *chance* to do something with it. But its easy for
me to recommend that *you* do more still more work from *my*
seat :-)





From spike66 at comcast.net  Sun Jan 25 00:42:08 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 16:42:08 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: STING: I've got a live one!
In-Reply-To: <002401c3e2d1$5590c8a0$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>
Message-ID: <000001c3e2dc$108d8b20$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

> > Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
 
> > Check out this guy's story:
> > http://www.remodern.com/caught.html


Great story!

I predict that loosely organized e-posses will form, 
internet associations of people who will work together 
to bag criminals, one little hobby project at a time.  The 
cops will not take on little under-$5k ripoffs like this 
one, but I will.  If someone gets ripped off on ebay
for instance, by someone within 100 km from here,
I would cheerfully take my digital camera and snap
a few photos, post them to wherever.  I wouldn't do
the baseball bat routine, that isn't my specialty.
But I would participate in an organized effort,
all by completely non-violent means, through internet
and information handling skills, to make the 
reprehensible perp regret ever having been born.

spike






From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Sun Jan 25 01:04:34 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 17:04:34 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: STING: I've got a live one!
In-Reply-To: <002401c3e2d1$5590c8a0$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>
Message-ID: <000001c3e2df$37027c40$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Dude, that apple-user story was awesome :)
There's another website (sans travel) that
has users screwing around with nigerian
scam artists... couldn't dig up the link.

I doubt you'll be able to get the 
police/whoever involved, although 
its worth a try.  You could try
forwarding (after locating
where he is located) a copy
to his embassy, and let the
local police deal with it.

If he's in an Arab country,
they really don't take kindly
to fraud.

omard-out









From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sun Jan 25 01:49:00 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 17:49:00 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: STING: I've got a live one!
In-Reply-To: <buunm6$206s$1@kemoauc.mips.inka.de>
Message-ID: <20040125014900.45913.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Christian Weisgerber <naddy at mips.inka.de> wrote:
> Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > I'm wondering at what point I should turn it over to the secret
> > service?
> 
> When you have actually lost at least $5000 to the conman, because
> otherwise nobody will bother to investigate a domestic case.  And
> if he's overseas, I wish you good luck when you try to instigate
> an international investigation for anything short of murder.

Well, the mac case is interesting and entertaining, but I really think
this arab guy's scam would interest the Homeland Security guys. $18
million in international money transfers is certainly a big enough fish
for somebody to be interested in.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From alito at organicrobot.com  Sun Jan 25 02:52:02 2004
From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 12:52:02 +1000
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.55L.0401241018160.21651@imladris.surriel.com>
References: <000001c3e177$9599d370$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
	<Pine.LNX.4.55L.0401241018160.21651@imladris.surriel.com>
Message-ID: <1074999122.1149.12.camel@alito.homeip.net>

On Sun, 2004-01-25 at 01:22, Rik van Riel wrote:

> Estimates are that there are about 900.000 Windows systems
> out there with a spam trojan running.  That's a LOT of CPU
> for any hashcash like scheme.
> 
Not really.  Round it up to a million, chop it down to 6 per minute,
makes it not even 9 billion / day.  Even if all of them hit real
everyday-used email addresses, that's still only 30 / person/day.  Very
manageable.
alejandro




From extropy at unreasonable.com  Sun Jan 25 02:48:29 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 21:48:29 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Gentle Seduction (was Alexander, fish, barrel)
In-Reply-To: <000001c3e234$71e4c260$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
References: <01e201c3e207$372c3b80$8f994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040124201338.02684ed0@mail.comcast.net>

At 08:42 PM 1/23/2004 -0800, Spike wrote:

>Smart-ass jokes make news stories readable.  A certain percentage of 
>people will read the stories, laugh, then stop laughing and realize that 
>the extropians are absolutely right.  Thats how I found this outfit: 
>article in Skeptical Inquirer about 7 or 8 yrs ago.

Sometimes there's a delayed effect. A relative wrote to me once, "Your 
predictions always sound impossible, and then I wait a few years, and they 
mysteriously come true."

Has anyone looked at what has been effective in luring and persuading 
people into embracing (or at least acknowledging) space industrialization, 
nanotech, genemod, libertarianism, cryonics, life extension, etc.? And, 
conversely, what doesn't work?

Has one of the following had a markedly greater effect than the others --

(a) seminal books or articles ("That Which is Seen and That Which is Not 
Seen," The Age of Spiritual Machines),
(b) short stories or novels ("The Gentle Seduction," The First Immortal, 
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress),
(c) tv or movie (The Patriot, Highlander (tv, not movie), Dark Angel, The 
Six Million Dollar Man),
(d) print or broadcast journalism (John Stossel, Nova, Scientific American 
Frontiers),
(e) eloquent public speaker (Kurzweil, Bear, Sowell, Friedman, Bova), or
(f) committed friends or relatives ?

I assume we need as many avenues as possible simultaneously for as long a 
period as possible, because (a) some people are persuaded by one route and 
not another and (b) most people are persuaded through repetition. But if we 
know that certain specific pitches have shown the best results, that's 
where the central focus should be.


-- David Lubkin.




From alito at organicrobot.com  Sun Jan 25 03:02:59 2004
From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 13:02:59 +1000
Subject: [extropy-chat] About SPAM again
In-Reply-To: <1074999122.1149.12.camel@alito.homeip.net>
References: <000001c3e177$9599d370$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
	<Pine.LNX.4.55L.0401241018160.21651@imladris.surriel.com>
	<1074999122.1149.12.camel@alito.homeip.net>
Message-ID: <1074999778.1149.15.camel@alito.homeip.net>

On Sun, 2004-01-25 at 12:52, I wrote:
> Not really.  Round it up to a million, chop it down to 6 per minute,
> makes it not even 9 billion / day.  Even if all of them hit real
> everyday-used email addresses, that's still only 30 / person/day.  Very
> manageable.

Did i just write 30?  I meant 90, of course.
alejandro




From support at imminst.org  Sun Jan 25 12:34:16 2004
From: support at imminst.org (support at imminst.org)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 06:34:16 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] ImmInst Update
Message-ID: <4013b7c8aee48@imminst.org>

Immortality Institute ~ For Infinite Lifespans
***********************
Mission: conquer the blight of involuntary death
Members: 1172
Full Members: 62



ImmInst Chat: Is Terminator Coming? 
***********************
Australian writer of the science fiction trilogy: Terminator 2: 
The New John Chronicles, Russell Blackford joins ImmInst to 
discuss the future of cyborgs and the likelihood of a Terminator 
in our future.

Chat Time: Sun Jan 25 @ 8 PM Eastern
More: http://imminst.org/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=63&t=2876



Infinite Females (IF) Chat 
***********************
Sunday Jan 25th @ 6 PM 
Chat Topic: Mission & Goals
http://imminst.org/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=141&t=2829&s=



ImmInst Support
***********************
http://imminst.org/become_imminst_fullmember




To be removed from all of our mailing lists, click here:
http://www.imminst.org/archive/mailinglists/mailinglists.php?p=mlist&rem=extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sun Jan 25 16:05:05 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 08:05:05 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] That is "Sir Bill" to you...
Message-ID: <20040125160505.91394.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>

In another example of my breaking a story to /., it getting squashed,
only to have them hand the story credit to one of their hand picked
minions, Slashdot now reports that Bill Gates will be receiving an
honorary knighthood from Queen Lizzy. One more nicknack to put on the
mantle and show off to his Lakeside chums who used to shove him in
lockers... geeks were whining that Linus Torvalds wasn't getting one.
No knighthoods for commies.... "It's just NOT done, old chap"  ;)

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From gpmap at runbox.com  Sun Jan 25 16:07:55 2004
From: gpmap at runbox.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 17:07:55 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Robert Ettinger's new book: Youniverse
Message-ID: <A28A06C2-4F50-11D8-9BB3-000A95C8656A@runbox.com>

Youniverse, the new book of the "founding father of Cryonics" Robert 
Ettinger, will be published soon. From the book's website at 
youniverse.net: "The measure of all things is you - or I or she, as the 
case may be. The only valid value system for the individual is built 
around his own needs or wants. The problem is that she seldom knows 
what she really wants, or ought to want. And it???s hard to get there, 
or plan the trip, if you don???t know where you want to go. All 
previous philosophers have been failures at best, and sad clowns at 
worst. Many of them were smarter than I am, and some did useful work, 
but none came within shouting distance of the primary goal of 
philosophy, which is to provide guidelines for real life - especially 
life in the face of death. "
 From the table of contents: Introductory Notes - Overview - Premodern 
philosophy - Modern philosophy - Apostasy, Anyone? - Science as Savior 
- Determinism and Free Will - Me-First and Feel-Good - The Science of 
Living - Tits and Tats - Identity & Survival 1, Meat - Identity & 
Survival 2, Silicon - Immortalism & Cryonics - Superman in the First 
and Second Person - Makeovers - Miscellaneous Issues - Paradoxes - 
Godel's Error - Quantum Questions - Strategies - Personal Notes - 
Appendix: The Probability of Revival after Cryostasis - References.
Now this is a book that I want to read asap. Readers can pre-order an 
autographed copy by following the instructions given at youniverse.net.
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From bjk at imminst.org  Sun Jan 25 21:59:03 2004
From: bjk at imminst.org (Bruce J. Klein)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 15:59:03 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] ImmInst Update
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20040125100409.02f1fea0@pop.earthlink.net>
References: <5.2.0.9.0.20040125100409.02f1fea0@pop.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <40143C27.6020508@imminst.org>

Extropy Institute wrote:

>> Infinite Females (IF) Chat
>> ***********************
>> Sunday Jan 25th @ 6 PM
>> Chat Topic: Mission & Goals
>> http://imminst.org/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=141&t=2829&s 
>> <http://imminst.org/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=141&t=2829&s>=
>
>
> Is this "Eastern" time? 


Yes.. Eastern sorry.

Thanks,
Bruce


>
> thanks,
> Natasha
>
>
>> ImmInst Support
>> ***********************
>> http://imminst.org/become_imminst_fullmember
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> To be removed from all of our mailing lists, click here:
>> http://www.imminst.org/archive/mailinglists/mailinglists.php?p=mlist&rem=extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org 
>> <http://www.imminst.org/archive/mailinglists/mailinglists.php?p=mlist&rem=extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat 
>
>     Natasha Vita-More 
>     http://www.natasha.cc <http://www.natasha.cc/>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     President, Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
>     <http://www.extropy.org/> 
>     Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture 
>     http://www.transhumanist.biz <http://www.transhumanist.biz/> 
>     http://www.transhuman.org <http://www.transhuman.org/> 
>




From fortean1 at mindspring.com  Mon Jan 26 00:45:24 2004
From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 17:45:24 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD (forteana) Secret of historic code: it's
 gibberish [Voynich manuscript]
Message-ID: <40146324.AD38D1DF@mindspring.com>

Barbara Babbles;
Hee hee ;-)

Very old "news", by a couple of years, and rejected outside of Keele
University by all Voynich scholars, including myself.

Gordon's contention is that because he can use his technique to produce
Voynich-like pages, therefore that technique was used to make the Voynich.
Forteans; spot the logical flaw here.

Besides that, Kelly and Dee scholars universally reject the idea that either
Kelly or Dee produced the Voynich. They were chucked out on their ears from
their previous patron before visiting Rudolf, and once there, Kelly and Dee
had one audience at which they demonstrated "talking with angels" and to
which Rudolf resonded "don't call us, we'll call you",. Thay made several
attempts to gain another audience but never succeded, and they left Prauge
in poverty.

The fact the Voynich has defied cryptographers is not surprising. If
something is written in a singular writing system, the "logic" of which is
unknown, then no amount of cryptographic analyisis will ever "break" it -
there are many documents of this nature - the Voynich is only the best
known. The diaries of John Hampton for example are almost certainly in
english, but Hampton devised a personal writing system to record them (not a
code or cypher) and so far no one, including top US military code breakers,
has managed to "solve" their mystery either.

I've included the full text of the article.  because I just hate and loathe
URL only posts: IMO they're rude and inconsiderate.

Barbara

< http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1130727,00.html >

Secret of historic code: it's gibberish
Mystery of manuscript that foxed scholars for centuries is solved

Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday January 25, 2004
The Observer

It is covered with drawings of fantastic plants, strange symbols and naked
women.

Its language is unknown and unreadable, though some believe it bears a
message from extraterrestrials. Others say it carries knowledge of a
civilisation that is thousands of years old.

But now a British academic believes he has uncovered the secret of the
Voynich manuscript, an Elizabethan volume of more than 200 pages that is
filled with weird figures, symbols and writing that has defied the efforts
of the twentieth century's best codebreakers and most distinguished medieval
scholars.

According to computer expert Gordon Rugg of Keele University, the manuscript
represents one of the strangest acts of encryption ever undertaken, one that
made its creator, Edward Kelley, an Elizabethan entrepreneur, a fortune
before his handiwork was lost to the world for more than 300 years.

'It was bought by Emperor Rudolph II of Bohemia for 600 ducats, an absolute
fortune for that period,' said Rugg, whose paper on the manuscript is
published in the journal Cryptologia. 'People clearly thought it contained
arcane secrets and great knowledge and were prepared to pay to learn them.'

Unfortunately, after only a few years in Rudolph's care, the manuscript was
lost and was not seen again until it surfaced in Frascati, Italy, in 1912
when it was bought by a Russian antiquarian called Wilfred Voynich.

The manuscript - written on vellum in neat and clear handwriting,
illustrated with watercolours - is now a prize exhibit at Yale University.

However, those who have attempted to unravel its meaning have had a singular
lack of success even though they include some of the world's greatest
codebreakers such as John Tiltman, head of Britain's codebreakers at
Bletchley Park, and William Friedman, whose team broke the Japanese Purple
cipher during the Second World War.

The fact that an Elizabethan document could be written in a code that has
defied a century's attention by the world's greatest code-breakers is the
most astonishing aspect of this amazing document.

Some of its strange characters look like Roman numbers and Latin letters.
Others are unlike any symbol seen before. The language seems to have
structure, however, and forms a pattern, albeit one unlike any other
language on earth.

Apart from those who believe it is the handiwork of aliens or survivors of
great lost civilisations, there are cryptologists who claim the Voynich
manuscript is written in early Ukrainian script while others say it is a
form of Chinese.

Despite these claims no-one has been able to translate the document. Nor
have claims that the script is a simple hoax been sustained.

'The manuscript exhibits so much linguistic structure that a hoax appears to
require almost as much sophistication as an unbreakable code,' says Rugg in
his paper.

But now the computer expert and his team believe they have found the secret
of the Voynich manuscript.

They have shown that its various word, which appear regularly throughout the
script, could have been created using table and grille techniques. The
different syllables that make up words are written in columns, and a
grille - a piece of cardboard with three squares cut out in a diagonal
pattern - is slid along the columns.

The three syllables exposed form a word. The grille is pushed along to
expose three new syllables, and a new word is exposed.

Rugg's conclusion is that Voynichese - the language of the Voynich
manuscript - is utter gibberish, put together as random assemblies of
different syllables.

'People thought the manuscript had great meaning - some form of alchemy,
perhaps,' said Rugg.

'In fact, it was created by Kelley as a deception to make him money. He
succeeded. The Voynich manuscript was the Elizabethan equivalent of the
Hitler diaries.'


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
      U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
   TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Vietnam veterans,
Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]


From gpmap at runbox.com  Mon Jan 26 10:48:26 2004
From: gpmap at runbox.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 10:48:26 GMT
Subject: [extropy-chat] House of the temporarily dead
Message-ID: <E1Al4I6-00054S-Lx@fetch-bak.runbox.com>

>From The Guardian: It sounds like science fiction gone mad - a fantastic edifice housing thousands of cryonically preserved bodies awaiting reanimation. But construction work on Stephen Valentine's creation, the Timeship, starts in two years. Timeship will do more than just store temporarily dead people. It will also house the DNA of endangered species and organs for human transplants - a facility that could alter the face of healthcare. 
Officially, the building is "the world's first comprehensive facility devoted to life extension research and cryopreservation", a six-acre structure that will house research laboratories, animal and plant DNA, and up to 10,000 temporarily dead people. They will have paid to have their bodies (or perhaps just their heads) stored there until somebody works out a way to revive them. If Valentine is right, they won't have to wait too long. "This is going to be the century of immortality," he says. "Children being born today are probably going to live an average lifespan of 120 years. Their children, it is being predicted, will never die. There will be a time when people won't be able to comprehend the thought of not existing any more and just becoming fertiliser." 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1129295,00.html
http://www.timeship.org/


From nanowave at shaw.ca  Mon Jan 26 20:15:38 2004
From: nanowave at shaw.ca (Russell Evermore)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 12:15:38 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] was: HotTD
References: <E1Al4I6-00054S-Lx@fetch-bak.runbox.com>
Message-ID: <000d01c3e449$2a570f40$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>

It's big. It's bold. It's beautiful. And about as 180 from the swelling
slamo-luddite tide  (and fundi backlash) as one can imagine. So, in an
effort to avoid giving away the plot entirely, let's imagine something quite
other than lovely falling droplets of water.

Stand at the pools of reflection. Think about the "benefits" of geothermal.
And above all else "Go Deep"

Russell Evermore
Edutarian (I only eat genetically modified foods)
nanowave at shaw.ca

Is the surface of a planet the right place for an expanding industrial
civilisation? (or a post industrial, posthuman research center)
Gerard O'Neill



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Mon Jan 26 22:11:24 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 14:11:24 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] MBRAIN: Imaging the universe, NOT
Message-ID: <20040126221124.48073.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>

An interesting article by Seth Shostak on space.com:

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_shostak_seeing_031120.html

details why the hand waving that Robert made recently about the ability
of M-Brains to observe the universe should be seriously questioned.
According to Seth, observing a terrestrial planet at only 50 light
years distance CAN be done, but the resolution limits imposed by
distance and interstellar gasses say that a 2000 mile diameter
telescope (or interferometer with 2000 mile aperture separation) would
have a 50 mile pixel resolution at 50 light years. This is certainly
doable some time in the next century, but going much beyond this will
reach a curve of diminishing returns.

Imaging at 1 foot per pixel, small enough to see animals, would reqire
a telescope 500 million miles in diameter. Interferometry is of
diminishing usefulness, as one would need a 100,000 mile diameter
mirror just to catch 1 photon per second at that distance and
resolution.

So, I think that as Spike has proposed, there are significant limits on
the ability of an M-Brain to observe to a fine enough detail on other
star systems to become a see-all/know-all enough to satisfy the
insatiable curiosity of such an entity.


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Tue Jan 27 00:01:09 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 16:01:09 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] MBRAIN: Imaging the universe, NOT
In-Reply-To: <20040126221124.48073.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401261544460.31671-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:
(in: http://forum.javien.com/XMLmessage.php?id=id::bQ5JCRNB-CUlK-KQlK-W1Eo-a1VrGTkRXiRo)

> An interesting article by Seth Shostak on space.com:
>
> http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_shostak_seeing_031120.html
>
> details why the hand waving that Robert made recently about the ability
> of M-Brains to observe the universe should be seriously questioned.
> reach a curve of diminishing returns.  [snip]
>
> Imaging at 1 foot per pixel, small enough to see animals, would reqire
> a telescope 500 million miles in diameter. Interferometry is of
> diminishing usefulness, as one would need a 100,000 mile diameter
> mirror just to catch 1 photon per second at that distance and
> resolution.

Interestingly there has been a fair amount of discussion, in part prompted
by Seth's article, among the non-classical SETI people (SETV, SETIA, probe
supporters), etc. over the advantages of sending probes back and forth
(though they are quite small compared to those we now send).

I would draw your attention to one point -- Seth says "every square foot of
dino skin would reflect about 10 billion billion photons" -- that suggests
that he is talking about visible light.  Astronomers already perform IR
observations and plan to look for planets that way (because planet to star
signal to noise ratio is better in IR frequencies).  They can also measure
atmospheric composition with IR spectral emission lines (for ozone, CO2, etc)
more easily at IR frequencies.  In addition dust is not as big a problem
at IR frequencies as it is at optical frequencies (which is why the SIRTF
can look through the dust clouds in star forming regions and through stellar
nebula for still forming planets).

So I would not view Seth's comments as a complete show-stopper.  There are
a range of capabilities one would like to have -- detection of volcanoes,
detection of forest fires, detection of large buildings, detection of
atmospheric pollutants (e.g. CFCs), detection of the construction of "hot"
MBrains in close stellar orbits, etc.  Seth's points do however lead one
to a conclusion that it may be relatively difficult for ATC to read the
license plates on distant planets.  But I can live with that.

Robert




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 27 00:50:29 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 16:50:29 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] MBRAIN: Imaging the universe, NOT
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401261544460.31671-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040127005029.3600.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>


--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:> 
> So I would not view Seth's comments as a complete show-stopper. 
> There are a range of capabilities one would like to have -- 
> detection of volcanoes, detection of forest fires, detection of
> large buildings, detection of atmospheric pollutants (e.g. CFCs),
> detection of the construction of "hot" MBrains in close stellar
> orbits, etc.  Seth's points do however lead one to a conclusion
> that it may be relatively difficult for ATC to read the license
> plates on distant planets.  But I can live with that.

Yes, but his example was ONLY imagining the issues to image out to 50
ly. Going to 500 or 5000 light years puts an effective sphincter crimp
on even IR. Detecting non-natural pollutants like CFCs are one
possibility for specifically detecting a technological society, but the
problem with that is that if you wait until a species has developed
technology that is detectable on an interstellar scale like that, it is
already too late to do very much to stop them from messing up your
sandbox (if that is your motivation), or even, if they are more than a
century objective time away, from contacting them before they either
self-destruct or pass into singularity.

If that is the case, then Fermis paradox is very easily answered: we're
ringing their phones, but they haven't picked up the handset yet, and
its a waste of resources to mess around with any non-singularity
culture, so we are on call waiting until we cut the baby babble crap
and start holding up our end of the conversation.

Unfocused radio is all we can go on right now. Nobody is gonna point a
big comm laser our way for a while yet.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Tue Jan 27 01:22:43 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 11:52:43 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786972@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

Hi all,

I thought I'd ask a technical question of all you software-literate extros
out there.

I've put an executable together for promoting my wife's opera via the office
e-mail joke network; it's got dancing teapots, a little game, music samples,
etc.

I wish it wasn't an exe, but I had to use what I already know (ie: Delphi)
to get it done quickly. Future efforts will probably be shockwave.

So I'm in this position where I'll be trying to convince all and sundry to
download & run, or email, an executable. Bad me.

Here's the question... Does anyone know how to make an exe detect that it's
file size has changed, and warn the user if it has (because it's probably
been virus infected)? Or any other way to make an exe protect itself /
detect problems? I'd ideally like to find a method that doesn't involve
coding (ie: something that takes and exe and modifies it after the fact),
but I might be willing to add code for really cool solutions. I just want to
protect the users as much as possible, and make sure that an virus picked up
has very little chance of spreading further.

Thanks,
Emlyn



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 27 01:38:21 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 17:38:21 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786972@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <20040127013821.13561.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>

Well, yahoo scans my attachments (both uploading and dowloading), so I
don't worry about that these days. Why doesn't your office run
anti-virus software?

--- Emlyn O'regan <oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au> wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I thought I'd ask a technical question of all you software-literate
> extros
> out there.
> 
> I've put an executable together for promoting my wife's opera via the
> office
> e-mail joke network; it's got dancing teapots, a little game, music
> samples,
> etc.
> 
> I wish it wasn't an exe, but I had to use what I already know (ie:
> Delphi)
> to get it done quickly. Future efforts will probably be shockwave.
> 
> So I'm in this position where I'll be trying to convince all and
> sundry to
> download & run, or email, an executable. Bad me.
> 
> Here's the question... Does anyone know how to make an exe detect
> that it's
> file size has changed, and warn the user if it has (because it's
> probably
> been virus infected)? Or any other way to make an exe protect itself
> /
> detect problems? I'd ideally like to find a method that doesn't
> involve
> coding (ie: something that takes and exe and modifies it after the
> fact),
> but I might be willing to add code for really cool solutions. I just
> want to
> protect the users as much as possible, and make sure that an virus
> picked up
> has very little chance of spreading further.
> 
> Thanks,
> Emlyn
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Tue Jan 27 01:40:50 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:10:50 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786973@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

This exe will be going out via email (hopefully, assuming people like it and
want to forward it) to people all over the net (ie: not in my office). I
can't control their computer setups, so I'm trying to build some protection
into the exe.

Emlyn

> 
> Well, yahoo scans my attachments (both uploading and dowloading), so I
> don't worry about that these days. Why doesn't your office run
> anti-virus software?
> 
> --- Emlyn O'regan <oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I thought I'd ask a technical question of all you software-literate
> > extros
> > out there.
> > 
> > I've put an executable together for promoting my wife's 
> opera via the
> > office
> > e-mail joke network; it's got dancing teapots, a little game, music
> > samples,
> > etc.
> > 
> > I wish it wasn't an exe, but I had to use what I already know (ie:
> > Delphi)
> > to get it done quickly. Future efforts will probably be shockwave.
> > 
> > So I'm in this position where I'll be trying to convince all and
> > sundry to
> > download & run, or email, an executable. Bad me.
> > 
> > Here's the question... Does anyone know how to make an exe detect
> > that it's
> > file size has changed, and warn the user if it has (because it's
> > probably
> > been virus infected)? Or any other way to make an exe protect itself
> > /
> > detect problems? I'd ideally like to find a method that doesn't
> > involve
> > coding (ie: something that takes and exe and modifies it after the
> > fact),
> > but I might be willing to add code for really cool solutions. I just
> > want to
> > protect the users as much as possible, and make sure that an virus
> > picked up
> > has very little chance of spreading further.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Emlyn
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > extropy-chat mailing list
> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 
> 
> =====
> Mike Lorrey
> "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
>                                        - Gen. John Stark
> "Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
>                                        - Mike Lorrey
> Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
> Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com
> 
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
> http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 



From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Tue Jan 27 01:41:25 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:11:25 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] MBRAIN: Imaging the universe, NOT
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786974@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

Wouldn't we expect MBrains/Advanced civs/whatever to use a system of relays
to observe the universe? If there's a way for local objects to observer the
local environment whilst staying hidden, you'd then beam the results from
relay to relay (how big do these need to be? Tiny?) until they reach the
MBrain. A bit like the mega-scale version of Vinge's localizers.

Emlyn

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert J. Bradbury [mailto:bradbury at aeiveos.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, 27 January 2004 9:31 AM
> To: Extropy Chat
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] MBRAIN: Imaging the universe, NOT
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> (in: 
> http://forum.javien.com/XMLmessage.php?id=id::bQ5JCRNB-CUlK-KQ
> lK-W1Eo-a1VrGTkRXiRo)
> 
> > An interesting article by Seth Shostak on space.com:
> >
> > http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_shostak_seeing_031120.html
> >
> > details why the hand waving that Robert made recently about 
> the ability
> > of M-Brains to observe the universe should be seriously questioned.
> > reach a curve of diminishing returns.  [snip]
> >
> > Imaging at 1 foot per pixel, small enough to see animals, 
> would reqire
> > a telescope 500 million miles in diameter. Interferometry is of
> > diminishing usefulness, as one would need a 100,000 mile diameter
> > mirror just to catch 1 photon per second at that distance and
> > resolution.
> 
> Interestingly there has been a fair amount of discussion, in 
> part prompted
> by Seth's article, among the non-classical SETI people (SETV, 
> SETIA, probe
> supporters), etc. over the advantages of sending probes back and forth
> (though they are quite small compared to those we now send).
> 
> I would draw your attention to one point -- Seth says "every 
> square foot of
> dino skin would reflect about 10 billion billion photons" -- 
> that suggests
> that he is talking about visible light.  Astronomers already 
> perform IR
> observations and plan to look for planets that way (because 
> planet to star
> signal to noise ratio is better in IR frequencies).  They can 
> also measure
> atmospheric composition with IR spectral emission lines (for 
> ozone, CO2, etc)
> more easily at IR frequencies.  In addition dust is not as 
> big a problem
> at IR frequencies as it is at optical frequencies (which is 
> why the SIRTF
> can look through the dust clouds in star forming regions and 
> through stellar
> nebula for still forming planets).
> 
> So I would not view Seth's comments as a complete 
> show-stopper.  There are
> a range of capabilities one would like to have -- detection 
> of volcanoes,
> detection of forest fires, detection of large buildings, detection of
> atmospheric pollutants (e.g. CFCs), detection of the 
> construction of "hot"
> MBrains in close stellar orbits, etc.  Seth's points do 
> however lead one
> to a conclusion that it may be relatively difficult for ATC 
> to read the
> license plates on distant planets.  But I can live with that.
> 
> Robert
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 



From alito at organicrobot.com  Tue Jan 27 02:19:26 2004
From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:19:26 +1000
Subject: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786972@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786972@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <1075169965.1087.23.camel@alito.homeip.net>

On Tue, 2004-01-27 at 11:22, Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> Here's the question... Does anyone know how to make an exe detect that it's
> file size has changed, and warn the user if it has (because it's probably
> been virus infected)? Or any other way to make an exe protect itself /
> detect problems? I'd ideally like to find a method that doesn't involve
> coding (ie: something that takes and exe and modifies it after the fact),
> but I might be willing to add code for really cool solutions. I just want to
> protect the users as much as possible, and make sure that an virus picked up
> has very little chance of spreading further.
> 
It would only be partially useful.  Viruses tend to modify entry point
to jump to their location, so they run before anything else, even the
size checking code.  They tend to return control afterwards so as not to
give themselves away, so the size checking could detect it after it has
propagated.  This would be useful so they could warn other people but a
net-savy virus would have spread beyond their control by then.
alejandro





From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Tue Jan 27 02:10:45 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:40:45 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178697B@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

Thanks Alejandro.

I'm aware of this, and there's no way around it as far as I can see.
However, I'm hoping it'll stop the spread of a virus infected file. With
luck, the person whose machine is virus infected, who originally infects my
program, will notice before they send it. Maybe they'll even go get some
virus detection software!

I'm not trying to completely protect my file (impossible!). Just stop
viruses spreading via my exe, and thus protect our reputation.

Emlyn

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alejandro Dubrovsky [mailto:alito at organicrobot.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, 27 January 2004 11:49 AM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
> 
> 
> On Tue, 2004-01-27 at 11:22, Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> > Here's the question... Does anyone know how to make an exe 
> detect that it's
> > file size has changed, and warn the user if it has (because 
> it's probably
> > been virus infected)? Or any other way to make an exe 
> protect itself /
> > detect problems? I'd ideally like to find a method that 
> doesn't involve
> > coding (ie: something that takes and exe and modifies it 
> after the fact),
> > but I might be willing to add code for really cool 
> solutions. I just want to
> > protect the users as much as possible, and make sure that 
> an virus picked up
> > has very little chance of spreading further.
> > 
> It would only be partially useful.  Viruses tend to modify entry point
> to jump to their location, so they run before anything else, even the
> size checking code.  They tend to return control afterwards 
> so as not to
> give themselves away, so the size checking could detect it 
> after it has
> propagated.  This would be useful so they could warn other 
> people but a
> net-savy virus would have spread beyond their control by then.
> alejandro
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 



From mbb386 at main.nc.us  Tue Jan 27 02:44:50 2004
From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 21:44:50 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
Subject: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178697B@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178697B@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.WNT.4.55.0401262135330.-92751287@pentium.mb.main.nc.us>


What about making the .exe Read Only. I'm presuming it's to run in
Windoze.

That should keep it from changing size, I'd think.

Also, you could have them go to your website and select the .exe to
download. That would make it a bit better than having them download
an .exe attachement to an email... which is a dangerous habit to get
into. IYKWIM. :)

Regards,
MB

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004, Emlyn O'regan wrote:

>
> I'm not trying to completely protect my file (impossible!). Just stop
> viruses spreading via my exe, and thus protect our reputation.
>


From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Tue Jan 27 02:52:25 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 13:22:25 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178697F@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MB [mailto:mbb386 at main.nc.us]
> Sent: Tuesday, 27 January 2004 12:15 PM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
> 
> 
> 
> What about making the .exe Read Only. I'm presuming it's to run in
> Windoze.
> 
> That should keep it from changing size, I'd think.

You're going to put the whole anti-virus industry out of business!

I don't think that'll work; a good virus will make it writable first :-) (I
guess.. I don't really know that much about them)

> 
> Also, you could have them go to your website and select the .exe to
> download. That would make it a bit better than having them download
> an .exe attachement to an email... which is a dangerous habit to get
> into. IYKWIM. :)
> 
> Regards,
> MB

Yes, I'm thinking of doing that. I'll keep tinkering with approaches. btw,
opening exe attachments to emails is not something I need to encourage... it
seems it is something that Joe Sixpack is already quite comfortable with :-(

Emlyn

> 
> On Tue, 27 Jan 2004, Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> 
> >
> > I'm not trying to completely protect my file (impossible!). 
> Just stop
> > viruses spreading via my exe, and thus protect our reputation.
> >
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 



From extropy at unreasonable.com  Tue Jan 27 03:43:05 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 22:43:05 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.WNT.4.55.0401262135330.-92751287@pentium.mb.main.nc.u
 s>
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178697B@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
	<7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178697B@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040126223502.0360a230@mail.comcast.net>

At 09:44 PM 1/26/2004 -0500, MB wrote:

>What about making the .exe Read Only. I'm presuming it's to run in
>Windoze.
>
>That should keep it from changing size, I'd think.

A virus in another program on their system should be able to change Emlyn's 
program to read-write, infect it, and then change it back to read-only.

>Also, you could have them go to your website and select the .exe to
>download. That would make it a bit better than having them download
>an .exe attachement to an email... which is a dangerous habit to get
>into. IYKWIM. :)

That's a reasonable step.

A lot of downloadable software also lists an expected checksum (usually 
MD5) on their site and provides a checksumming tool.


-- David Lubkin.




From mbb386 at main.nc.us  Tue Jan 27 04:08:06 2004
From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 23:08:06 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
Subject: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178697F@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178697F@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.WNT.4.55.0401262301180.-266527@pentium.mb.main.nc.us>


Oh well - ReadOnly seemed like a good idea at the time.... although it
seemed awfully easy. :)))

Perhaps Joe SixPack runs .exe attachments without fear because his
system is set to "hide known file type extensions" *and* to do
something like "open" any attachment on download. Arrrrrrgh. So he has
no clue what the attachment actually is or does.

Regards,
MB

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004, Emlyn O'regan wrote:


> You're going to put the whole anti-virus industry out of business!
>
> I don't think that'll work; a good virus will make it writable first :-) (I
> guess.. I don't really know that much about them)
>
> >
> > Also, you could have them go to your website and select the .exe to
> > download. That would make it a bit better than having them download
> > an .exe attachement to an email... which is a dangerous habit to get
> > into. IYKWIM. :)
> >
> > Regards,
> > MB
>
> Yes, I'm thinking of doing that. I'll keep tinkering with approaches. btw,
> opening exe attachments to emails is not something I need to encourage... it
> seems it is something that Joe Sixpack is already quite comfortable with :-(


From exi-info at extropy.org  Tue Jan 27 04:54:49 2004
From: exi-info at extropy.org (Extropy Institute)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 23:54:49 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Extropy Institute Newsletter
Message-ID: <1011218555549.1011086851128.2058.212342@scheduler>

Extropy Institute Newsletter - Vital Progress Summit
Warming Up for the Summit! (01.26.04)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Greetings!

The Vital Progress Summit is taking shape.  In order to 
get you warmed up for the Summit, we are including a 
preliminary reading list for your convenience.

Soaking up some relevant information will enrich your 
participation in the Summit and will help us all 
approach the topic from a well-informed perspective.  
We have hunted down a wide range of writings on 
Summit themes. Here we offer a few directly relevant 
and substantial references to give you an excellent 
starting point to tackle the theme of the Summit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Preliminary reading list; links to updated Web pages on the VP Summit
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Why Get Involved in the VP Summit?
* Preliminary Reading List
* Keynote Ronald Bailey's article - a must read!

* Who are the VP Summit Catalysts and Associate Producers?


Why Get Involved in the VP Summit?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You, our members, have told us that you want to get 
involved.  You want to do something meaningful.  Now 
is your chance!

The <STRONG>VP Summit</STRONG> boils down to 2 
substantial issues:  Freedom and Choice.  We need to 
protect our freedom and our choices for our future.

What type of assurance do we have that, if and when 
we need good medicine to save our lives, or prolong 
our  lives, the scientific and biotechnological 
advances will be available to us?

We need to plan ahead - to start now making sure 
that we do have an "assurance policy" for our future.

Read about the VP Summit here ... >> http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=6uifvyn6.rmatvyn6.d8kopyn6.yb4rxun6.2058&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.extropy.org%2Fsummitabout.htm

Preliminary Reading List
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These essays take widely varying viewpoints on the 
issues addressed by the VP Summit. Best's article is 
from the Biotechnology Industry Organization, Kass and 
Hurlbut's essays come from a publication deeply 
opposed to what we stand for, and Kazman's piece 
addresses the Precautionary Principle from a far more 
technology-friendly point of view. <P>

<STRONG>Bioethics: <BR>
Reassuring a Not-So-Brave New World</STRONG>
<BR>by Simon G. Best <BR>
http://www.bio.org/features/20040121.asp?p=yes

<P>
Simon G. Best is CEO of Ardana Bioscience Ltd. and 
chairman of BIO's Bioethics Committee

<STRONG>Ageless Bodies, Happy Souls: Biotechnology 
and the 
Pursuit of Perfection</STRONG> <BR>
Leon R. Kass <BR>
<I>The New Atlantis</I>
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/1/kassprint.htm

<STRONG>From Biology to Biography</STRONG><BR>
William Hurlbut
<BR><I>The New Atlantis</I> <BR>
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/3/hurlbutprint.h
tm

<STRONG>Better Never? </STRONG><BR>
By Sam Kazman<BR>
The Objectivist Center, 12.01.2003 <BR>
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/articles/skazman_bett
er-never.asp
<P>
The Precautionary Principle is the idea that society 
should permit no new technologies to be developed 
without the certainty that they will cause no 
environmental harm. But to stop technologies in their 
infancy may well mean stopping them dead. And given 
that so much of human survival and flourishing depends 
on new technologies, stopping technology means 
curtailing civilization.

Summit Keynotes >> http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=6uifvyn6.rmatvyn6.rpnipyn6.yb4rxun6.2058&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.extropy.org%2Fsummitkeynotes.htm

Keynote Ronald Bailey's article - a must read!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
<STRONG>Loving Death: Early death, disease, 
disability: pro or con?</STRONG> <BR>
By Ronald Bailey <BR>
Reason, February 26, 2003 <BR>
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb022603.shtml

Loving Death >> http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=6uifvyn6.rmatvyn6.yxdsvyn6.yb4rxun6.2058&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reason.com%2Frb%2Frb022603.shtml





Who are the VP Summit Catalysts and Associate Producers?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In our next newsletter, scheduled for this coming 
weekend, we will announce the Summit Catalysts and 
Associate Producers.

A little about all levels of participation... >> http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=6uifvyn6.rmatvyn6.rpnipyn6.yb4rxun6.2058&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.extropy.org%2Fsummitkeynotes.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Quick Links...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Register Now for the VP Summit >> http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=6uifvyn6.rmatvyn6.xxdsvyn6.yb4rxun6.2058&p=http%3A%2F%2Fnew.extropy.org%2Fmembership.htm
Who are the Summit Keynotes? >> http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=6uifvyn6.rmatvyn6.rpnipyn6.yb4rxun6.2058&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.extropy.org%2Fsummitkeynotes.htm
Tell me about the Summit! >> http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=6uifvyn6.rmatvyn6.d8kopyn6.yb4rxun6.2058&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.extropy.org%2Fsummitabout.htm
How do I join ExI? >> http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=6uifvyn6.rmatvyn6.hozkwwn6.yb4rxun6.2058&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.extropy.org%2Fmembership.htm
What about email lists? >> http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=6uifvyn6.rmatvyn6.lozkwwn6.yb4rxun6.2058&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.extropy.org%2Femaillists.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
email: info at extropy.org
voice: 512 263-2749
web: http://www.extropy.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Extropy Institute | 10709 Pointe View Drive | Austin | TX | 78738

This email was sent to extropy-chat at extropy.org,
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From john at aculink.net  Tue Jan 27 04:58:01 2004
From: john at aculink.net (John M)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 20:58:01 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.WNT.4.55.0401262301180.-266527@pentium.mb.main.nc.us>
Message-ID: <200401270459.i0R4xmE09446@tick.javien.com>

Ummm, what exactly does the concept of "read-only" mean in the context of an
e-mail attachment?

If you will be doing this often, you might look into digitally signing the
binaries; this will at least authenticate that the binary has not been
tampered with and has come from you.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of MB
> Sent: Monday, January 26, 2004 8:08 PM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
> 
> 
> Oh well - ReadOnly seemed like a good idea at the time.... although it
> seemed awfully easy. :)))
> 
> Perhaps Joe SixPack runs .exe attachments without fear because his
> system is set to "hide known file type extensions" *and* to do
> something like "open" any attachment on download. Arrrrrrgh. So he has
> no clue what the attachment actually is or does.
> 
> Regards,
> MB
> 
> On Tue, 27 Jan 2004, Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> 
> 
> > You're going to put the whole anti-virus industry out of business!
> >
> > I don't think that'll work; a good virus will make it writable first :-)
> (I
> > guess.. I don't really know that much about them)
> >
> > >
> > > Also, you could have them go to your website and select the .exe to
> > > download. That would make it a bit better than having them download
> > > an .exe attachement to an email... which is a dangerous habit to get
> > > into. IYKWIM. :)
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > MB
> >
> > Yes, I'm thinking of doing that. I'll keep tinkering with approaches.
> btw,
> > opening exe attachments to emails is not something I need to
> encourage... it
> > seems it is something that Joe Sixpack is already quite comfortable with
> :-(
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Tue Jan 27 05:04:32 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 15:34:32 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786983@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

I've had this suggested to me before. Does that actually help if people are
not downloading it? eg: emailing it to each other?

Emlyn

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John M [mailto:john at aculink.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, 27 January 2004 2:28 PM
> To: 'ExI chat list'
> Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
> 
> 
> Ummm, what exactly does the concept of "read-only" mean in 
> the context of an
> e-mail attachment?
> 
> If you will be doing this often, you might look into 
> digitally signing the
> binaries; this will at least authenticate that the binary has not been
> tampered with and has come from you.
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> > bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of MB
> > Sent: Monday, January 26, 2004 8:08 PM
> > To: ExI chat list
> > Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
> > 
> > 
> > Oh well - ReadOnly seemed like a good idea at the time.... 
> although it
> > seemed awfully easy. :)))
> > 
> > Perhaps Joe SixPack runs .exe attachments without fear because his
> > system is set to "hide known file type extensions" *and* to do
> > something like "open" any attachment on download. 
> Arrrrrrgh. So he has
> > no clue what the attachment actually is or does.
> > 
> > Regards,
> > MB
> > 
> > On Tue, 27 Jan 2004, Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > > You're going to put the whole anti-virus industry out of business!
> > >
> > > I don't think that'll work; a good virus will make it 
> writable first :-)
> > (I
> > > guess.. I don't really know that much about them)
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Also, you could have them go to your website and select 
> the .exe to
> > > > download. That would make it a bit better than having 
> them download
> > > > an .exe attachement to an email... which is a dangerous 
> habit to get
> > > > into. IYKWIM. :)
> > > >
> > > > Regards,
> > > > MB
> > >
> > > Yes, I'm thinking of doing that. I'll keep tinkering with 
> approaches.
> > btw,
> > > opening exe attachments to emails is not something I need to
> > encourage... it
> > > seems it is something that Joe Sixpack is already quite 
> comfortable with
> > :-(
> > _______________________________________________
> > extropy-chat mailing list
> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 



From thespike at earthlink.net  Tue Jan 27 05:08:34 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 23:08:34 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] SHAMELESS AD: my new book, Anders' new cover
Message-ID: <020f01c3e493$9efcd100$f0994a43@texas.net>

Try 2: this bounced earlier, and there are several theories why--maybe the
universal mind sees that it's unforgivable spam. Oh no!

Anyway:

My latest book *about* fantastic literature (x, y, z, t: Dimensions of
Science Fiction) is now available in trade paperback at

http://www.wildsidepress.com/cgi-bin/miva?Merchant2/merchant.mv+Screen=PROD&
Store_Code=WP1&Product_Code=080950927X&Category_Code=

where you can see the truly delightful cover art rendered by the
omni-talented Anders Sandberg.

Damien Broderick



From john at aculink.net  Tue Jan 27 05:58:37 2004
From: john at aculink.net (John M)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 21:58:37 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786983@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <200401270600.i0R60NE15120@tick.javien.com>

It will probably only help if you go the download route; I don't know what
the rules are for various e-mail clients as far as checking for digital
signatures.  

On a related note, I just mailed a test .exe to myself.  Outlook is being
overly-protective, and I can't for the life of me figure out how to retrieve
the "unsafe attachment".  This may seriously hamper your e-mail plans.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Emlyn O'regan
> Sent: Monday, January 26, 2004 9:05 PM
> To: 'ExI chat list'
> Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
> 
> I've had this suggested to me before. Does that actually help if people
> are
> not downloading it? eg: emailing it to each other?
> 
> Emlyn
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: John M [mailto:john at aculink.net]
> > Sent: Tuesday, 27 January 2004 2:28 PM
> > To: 'ExI chat list'
> > Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
> >
> >
> > Ummm, what exactly does the concept of "read-only" mean in
> > the context of an
> > e-mail attachment?
> >
> > If you will be doing this often, you might look into
> > digitally signing the
> > binaries; this will at least authenticate that the binary has not been
> > tampered with and has come from you.
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-
> > > bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of MB
> > > Sent: Monday, January 26, 2004 8:08 PM
> > > To: ExI chat list
> > > Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
> > >
> > >
> > > Oh well - ReadOnly seemed like a good idea at the time....
> > although it
> > > seemed awfully easy. :)))
> > >
> > > Perhaps Joe SixPack runs .exe attachments without fear because his
> > > system is set to "hide known file type extensions" *and* to do
> > > something like "open" any attachment on download.
> > Arrrrrrgh. So he has
> > > no clue what the attachment actually is or does.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > MB
> > >
> > > On Tue, 27 Jan 2004, Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > > You're going to put the whole anti-virus industry out of business!
> > > >
> > > > I don't think that'll work; a good virus will make it
> > writable first :-)
> > > (I
> > > > guess.. I don't really know that much about them)
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Also, you could have them go to your website and select
> > the .exe to
> > > > > download. That would make it a bit better than having
> > them download
> > > > > an .exe attachement to an email... which is a dangerous
> > habit to get
> > > > > into. IYKWIM. :)
> > > > >
> > > > > Regards,
> > > > > MB
> > > >
> > > > Yes, I'm thinking of doing that. I'll keep tinkering with
> > approaches.
> > > btw,
> > > > opening exe attachments to emails is not something I need to
> > > encourage... it
> > > > seems it is something that Joe Sixpack is already quite
> > comfortable with
> > > :-(
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > extropy-chat mailing list
> > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > extropy-chat mailing list
> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From avatar at renegadeclothing.com.au  Wed Jan 28 04:00:42 2004
From: avatar at renegadeclothing.com.au (Avatar Polymorph)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 20:00:42 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Opals to opals
Message-ID: <00ba01c3e553$4ea3a6a0$c9ee17cb@renegade>

http://nanotechweb.org/articles/news/2/12/13/1

Beetle perfects artificial opal growth 
22 December 2003 

Researchers at the University of Oxford, UK, have discovered what they say is the first example of an opal-type photonic crystal structure in an animal. The intricate three-dimensional structure occurs in a small beetle just a few centimetres long. If the beetle's self-assembly process can be emulated, the team says it could lead to a simpler and cheaper way of producing artificial opals (Nature 426 786).

"The interesting thing is that this has been found in a living organism," said researcher Andrew Parker. "This means that the beetle must have cells that are making the structure, which gives us something to copy. There is a whole manufacturing process going on which starts with a series of chemicals and ends with a perfect opal structure." 

The opal-making animal is the weevil Pachyrhynchus argus, a small beetle found in forests in north-eastern Australia. Its body appears a metallic green colour from all angles thanks to a photonic crystal structure that resembles opal. 

The vivid colour comes courtesy of thin, flat scales which occur in patches over the beetle's body. The scales consist of an outer shell and an inner structure that contains layers of 250 nm diameter transparent spheres. 

"The spheres are arranged in hexagonal-close packing order," explained Parker. "The scales contain the opal structure. There are tens of layers packed on top of each other in a single scale." 

The scales produce the green colour by thin-film reflection. "Because we have stacks of spheres instead of flat layers, we have a three-dimensional structure where you can effectively form layers in many directions," he said. "The reflections from each of these layers are superimposed and you get a colour-averaging effect which appears green."

About the author

Jacqueline Hewett is an award-winning news reporter on Optics.org and Opto & Laser Europe magazine.

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From hemm at br.inter.net  Tue Jan 27 12:01:31 2004
From: hemm at br.inter.net (Henrique Moraes Machado)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 10:01:31 -0200
Subject: [ok] [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B01786972@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <00ee01c3e4cd$4d911c10$fe00a8c0@HEMM>

Well, 
As far as I know, there's no way of bulletproofing an EXE against viruses. But there are a few thing you could do to give a little protection to your users:
1. Dont send the executable as an attachment. Put it on a web server and send the link to the users.
2. Find some CRC32 algorithm (there are some on the net) and use it on your EXE. CRC32 if far more accurate to determine changes in a file than simply checking it's size. Publish the CRC32 of your file on the same web server and have the program to perform a test when it starts. Then if the result differs from the published, it means the EXE has been tampered.
3. Test your EXE with your antivirus program and state it on the server (and in your email). Something like "The program has been tested with superwhateverscan antivirus and is virus free certified". Than if the user gets some virus he can't blame you.

Sorry for the bad english. Not my native language, you know.


-----Mensagem Original----- 
De: "Emlyn O'regan" <oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au>
Para: "Extropy (E-mail)" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Enviada em: segunda-feira, 26 de janeiro de 2004 23:22
Assunto: [ok] [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?


| Hi all,
| 
| I thought I'd ask a technical question of all you software-literate extros
| out there.
| 
| I've put an executable together for promoting my wife's opera via the office
| e-mail joke network; it's got dancing teapots, a little game, music samples,
| etc.
| 
| I wish it wasn't an exe, but I had to use what I already know (ie: Delphi)
| to get it done quickly. Future efforts will probably be shockwave.
| 
| So I'm in this position where I'll be trying to convince all and sundry to
| download & run, or email, an executable. Bad me.
| 
| Here's the question... Does anyone know how to make an exe detect that it's
| file size has changed, and warn the user if it has (because it's probably
| been virus infected)? Or any other way to make an exe protect itself /
| detect problems? I'd ideally like to find a method that doesn't involve
| coding (ie: something that takes and exe and modifies it after the fact),
| but I might be willing to add code for really cool solutions. I just want to
| protect the users as much as possible, and make sure that an virus picked up
| has very little chance of spreading further.
| 
| Thanks,
| Emlyn
| 
| _______________________________________________
| extropy-chat mailing list
| extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
| http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
| 


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 27 15:36:46 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 07:36:46 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] [comp] Protect an exe?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.WNT.4.55.0401262301180.-266527@pentium.mb.main.nc.us>
Message-ID: <20040127153646.84174.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>


--- MB <mbb386 at main.nc.us> wrote:
> 
> Oh well - ReadOnly seemed like a good idea at the time.... although
> it
> seemed awfully easy. :)))
> 
> Perhaps Joe SixPack runs .exe attachments without fear because his
> system is set to "hide known file type extensions" *and* to do
> something like "open" any attachment on download. Arrrrrrgh. So he
> has no clue what the attachment actually is or does.

The only checksum that Joe Sixpack cares about are the number of beers
in his six-pack.  (you can quote me on that!)

Set it up on your website and make people download it. Better yet, put
it on download.com and they will let people scan it for viruses before downloading.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Tue Jan 27 17:39:14 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 11:39:14 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Opals to opals
References: <00ba01c3e553$4ea3a6a0$c9ee17cb@renegade>
Message-ID: <Law10-OE56XfpnII9tf0003edd4@hotmail.com>

One thing that article stated was, "It's not surprising they are finding this kind of color, but they are the first to describe how the color is working by getting into the physics and structure of it," 

According to the article, they found this speciment in the museum, noticed the really neat colors and thought something like, "Hey, let's see what it looks like under an electron microscope!" 

It suddenly came to mind just how many things in our natural environment have not even been looked at under a traditional microscope, let alone and electron microscope or STM. Could it be that many of the MNT "parts" necessary for making an assembler already exist somewhere out there in various places just waiting for someone to stumble onto them and bring them into one place? 

I can see it now:
22 parts protein from rat urine bacteria excretion
84 parts carbon from the shell of a beetle
16 parts carbon from the slime of cyanobacteria
Stir into a soup, heat to 1600 degrees and it will self-assemble.......

(OK, so maybe it won't be THAT easy! lol)

Kevin Freels





  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Avatar Polymorph 
  To: extropy-chat 
  Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 10:00 PM
  Subject: [extropy-chat] Opals to opals


  http://nanotechweb.org/articles/news/2/12/13/1

  Beetle perfects artificial opal growth 
  22 December 2003 

  Researchers at the University of Oxford, UK, have discovered what they say is the first example of an opal-type photonic crystal structure in an animal. The intricate three-dimensional structure occurs in a small beetle just a few centimetres long. If the beetle's self-assembly process can be emulated, the team says it could lead to a simpler and cheaper way of producing artificial opals (Nature 426 786).

  "The interesting thing is that this has been found in a living organism," said researcher Andrew Parker. "This means that the beetle must have cells that are making the structure, which gives us something to copy. There is a whole manufacturing process going on which starts with a series of chemicals and ends with a perfect opal structure." 

  The opal-making animal is the weevil Pachyrhynchus argus, a small beetle found in forests in north-eastern Australia. Its body appears a metallic green colour from all angles thanks to a photonic crystal structure that resembles opal. 

  The vivid colour comes courtesy of thin, flat scales which occur in patches over the beetle's body. The scales consist of an outer shell and an inner structure that contains layers of 250 nm diameter transparent spheres. 

  "The spheres are arranged in hexagonal-close packing order," explained Parker. "The scales contain the opal structure. There are tens of layers packed on top of each other in a single scale." 

  The scales produce the green colour by thin-film reflection. "Because we have stacks of spheres instead of flat layers, we have a three-dimensional structure where you can effectively form layers in many directions," he said. "The reflections from each of these layers are superimposed and you get a colour-averaging effect which appears green."

  About the author

  Jacqueline Hewett is an award-winning news reporter on Optics.org and Opto & Laser Europe magazine.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  _______________________________________________
  extropy-chat mailing list
  extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
  http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
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From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Tue Jan 27 18:32:57 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 10:32:57 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPAM: active virus
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401271023440.23381-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


All,

In case you haven't heard the news there are two new active
viruses/works currently spreading.

The worst is the MyDoom/Novarg virus.  See:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/27/0038234&mode=thread

and links it points to.

I just got my first copy -- snuck past both filtering agents
I have in place.  (Fortunately I read email only in text so
it can't infect me unless I do something really stupid).

Do *NOT* open any attachments -- even from people you trust
unless you also trust that their systems cannot be corrupted
and/or you confirm with them that they actually sent a specific
message *with* an attachment.

The MyDoom virus sends the virus to everyone in your address
list.  Another virus running around scans your files for
Paypal or other E-pay system information and sends it to
criminals who would presumably like to make use of it to
enlarge their bank accounts.

Warn your friends and family about this.  Also it may be
worth adopting some convention with them regarding seeding
subject line security keys that a virus cannot easily pick off
from an address book (e.g. birthday, birth city, mother's
maiden name, etc.) -- that way they can identify safe
messages (at least until the viruses start picking off
Subject lines from your sent-mail folder.

Robert




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Tue Jan 27 20:17:04 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:17:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPAM: active virus
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401271023440.23381-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040127201704.35564.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>


--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> 
> All,
> 
> In case you haven't heard the news there are two new active
> viruses/works currently spreading.
> 
> The worst is the MyDoom/Novarg virus.  See:
> 
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/27/0038234&mode=thread
> 
> and links it points to.
> 
> I just got my first copy -- snuck past both filtering agents

I've received about 20 in my Yahoo bulk folder. Only one has made it to
my inbox (on Yahoo, not my machine). All such messages are 31k in size.
I will note that Yahoo's virus scanners are not fuctioning at the
moment due to the overload.

What is worse, script kiddies, self-described hackers, and other types
are openly asking people to send them copies of the virus because they
want to take part in the end result of this worm: a DDoS attack
scheduled for Feb 1st against SCO servers, as some misguided protest
against SCO's legal actions against IBM and Redhat, claiming that linux
contains some of their copyrighted code. Yeah, dude, you are SOOO cool.

As for the Paypal virus, Paypal has said that they will not under any
circumstances ask you by email to confirm or disclose any information.
People who use such a payment method should be aware by now that this
is company policy.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From asa at nada.kth.se  Tue Jan 27 21:39:41 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 22:39:41 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Let the mine detectors bloom!
Message-ID: <1916.213.112.90.25.1075239581.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>

>From my blog, preaching to the choir here:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=585&e=1&u=/nm/20040127/sc_nm/arms_denmark_landmines_dc
Yahoo! News - Flower-Power Could Help Clear Land mines

A very nice biotech application, a plant that changes color in the
presence of nitrogen dioxide, marking where mines are buried in the soil.
The plant, the beloved Arabidopsis thaliana, has been modified by Aresa
Biodetection. Since the plant can be made male sterile or reproduction
limited to in the presence of a growth hormone concerns about spreading
can be ameliorated. But is that the right solution? Maybe we should allow
it to spread wildly instead.

The careful approach of first clearing the land, then sowing the plant,
waiting, and then removing the mines and planting something else, might
work where the mine density is fairly high and doing this kind of clearing
has few other effects. But in many places clearing the land would cause
severe erosion, and if the mine density is low it would be a very
expensive way of finding them (although likely better than plenty of other
high-tech solutions, and of course safer than having people poke with
sticks). The method is not presented as a panacea, and it isn't.

But what if modified Arabidopsis (that is also clearly visible as
modified, e.g. by leaf shape) is simply spread and allowed to grow freely?
That would be an extremely cost effective way of finding out the presence
of those truly unexpected mines and marking them.

The ecological risk of the change appears low. Most likely the normal
strain has an advantage over the modified strain since it adapts to stress
by changing color (an evolved response that presumably is an advantage)
while the modified strain won't do it except near mines. And if other
species were to pick up the mine detecting effect, it would actually
extend the benefit. Anthocyanins are even antioxidants , so it might be a
good thing if they get into food :-)

Of course, the political climate in the West is likely mostly against
this. But if the choice is between a potential, vague and likely very
small ecological risk and the real and serious effect of land mines, the
only thing the precautionary principle tells us is to add safeguards to
the modified plant, not to avoid spreading it. Those holding the
bioconservative view that nature should not be tampered with under any
circumstances, they need to explain how the tampering done by slowly
decaying landmines (not to mention their human cost) is less than the
change in coloration behavior of a plant.

There are many more likely practical showstoppers - can the seeds be
produced cheaply, will the plant thrive in affected areas, can people
reliably use it to find mines and so on. And in many situations other
methods are still superior. But I think we should carefully consider one
day releasing this kind of safeguard plants deliberately into the
environment. If our environment could clearly signal pollution or danger
it would be far easier to protect - and it would protect us better too.

-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From thespike at earthlink.net  Sun Jan 25 20:00:30 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 14:00:30 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] SHAMELESS AD: my new book, Anders' new cover
References: <20040125160505.91394.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <005d01c3e37d$e8a2b3e0$c9994a43@texas.net>

My latest book *about* fantastic literature (x, y, z, t: Dimensions of
Science Fiction) is now available in trade paperback at

http://www.wildsidepress.com/cgi-bin/miva?Merchant2/merchant.mv+Screen=PROD&
Store_Code=WP1&Product_Code=080950927X&Category_Code=

where you can see the truly delightful cover art rendered by the
omni-talented Anders Sandberg.

Damien Broderick



From natashavita at earthlink.net  Tue Jan 27 22:06:53 2004
From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 17:06:53 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Computer virus
Message-ID: <63340-22004122722653720@M2W092.mail2web.com>

Friends,

"There is a new e-mail virus circulating that is hitting computers
everywhere.

The virus--known as MyDoom, Novarg and as a variant of the Mimail virus by
different antivirus companies--arrives in an in-box with one of several
different random subject lines, such as "Mail Delivery System," "Test" or
"Mail Transaction Failed." The body of the e-mail contains an executable
file and a statement such as: "The message contains Unicode characters and
has been sent as a binary attachment."

When a computer is infected, the worm will set up a backdoor into the system
by opening TCP ports 3127 through 3198, which can potentially allow an
attacker to connect to the computer and use it as a proxy to gain access to
its network resources.  In addition, the backdoor can download and execute
arbitrary files.

The worm will perform a Denial of Service (DoS) starting on February 1,
2004. It also has a trigger date to stop spreading on February 12, 2004.

Please check to make sure that your Norton Antivirus is up-to-date.  If not,
please run LiveUpdate and then reboot your computer."

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .




From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Tue Jan 27 23:08:27 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 09:38:27 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] Computer virus
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178698A@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

Hey, I just got that one this morning. Lovely!
Emlyn

> -----Original Message-----
> From: natashavita at earthlink.net [mailto:natashavita at earthlink.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, 28 January 2004 7:37 AM
> To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> Cc: advisors at alcor.org
> Subject: [extropy-chat] Computer virus
> 
> 
> Friends,
> 
> "There is a new e-mail virus circulating that is hitting computers
> everywhere.
> 
> The virus--known as MyDoom, Novarg and as a variant of the 
> Mimail virus by
> different antivirus companies--arrives in an in-box with one 
> of several
> different random subject lines, such as "Mail Delivery 
> System," "Test" or
> "Mail Transaction Failed." The body of the e-mail contains an 
> executable
> file and a statement such as: "The message contains Unicode 
> characters and
> has been sent as a binary attachment."
> 
> When a computer is infected, the worm will set up a backdoor 
> into the system
> by opening TCP ports 3127 through 3198, which can potentially allow an
> attacker to connect to the computer and use it as a proxy to 
> gain access to
> its network resources.  In addition, the backdoor can 
> download and execute
> arbitrary files.
> 
> The worm will perform a Denial of Service (DoS) starting on 
> February 1,
> 2004. It also has a trigger date to stop spreading on 
> February 12, 2004.
> 
> Please check to make sure that your Norton Antivirus is 
> up-to-date.  If not,
> please run LiveUpdate and then reboot your computer."
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> mail2web - Check your email from the web at
> http://mail2web.com/ .
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 



From wingcat at pacbell.net  Tue Jan 27 23:52:35 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 15:52:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Opals to opals
In-Reply-To: <Law10-OE56XfpnII9tf0003edd4@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20040127235235.24102.qmail@web80403.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Kevin Freels <kevinfreels at hotmail.com> wrote:
> It suddenly came to mind just how many things in our
> natural environment have not even been looked at
> under a traditional microscope, let alone and
> electron microscope or STM. Could it be that many of
> the MNT "parts" necessary for making an assembler
> already exist somewhere out there in various places
> just waiting for someone to stumble onto them and
> bring them into one place? 

Welcome to the field of biomimicry.  It is, indeed,
much easier to copy what's already been created,
although one first has to discover the creation.  It
helps to develop methods of finding other peoples'
discoveries, as well, so you don't have to rediscover
it.

Preserving nature's storehouse of working gadgets for
our catalog is one of the eco-preservationists'
arguments I respect, although I would believe it more
if they didn't say the "...so we can study the
preserved species" bit in whispers as if ashamed of
suggesting that genuine scientific progress could come
from their efforts.

> I can see it now:
> 22 parts protein from rat urine bacteria excretion
> 84 parts carbon from the shell of a beetle
> 16 parts carbon from the slime of cyanobacteria
> Stir into a soup, heat to 1600 degrees and it will
> self-assemble.......
> 
> (OK, so maybe it won't be THAT easy! lol)

You'd be surprised how simple some of the most
effective chemical recipies we use today are.  Going
back in time, they tend to get even simpler.
Gunpowder, for example.  There is a reason ancient man
thought that nature's processes were largely like
baking (active steps: mixing certain amounts of
certain ingredients, and letting set for certain
lengths of time at certain temperatures).


From megao at sasktel.net  Tue Jan 27 23:53:05 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 17:53:05 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Let the arabadopsis bloom!
References: <1916.213.112.90.25.1075239581.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <4016F9E1.D88742C9@sasktel.net>

This plant is also a prime source of cruciferous  phase 2 enzymes.

Anders Sandberg wrote:

> >From my blog, preaching to the choir here:
>
> http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=585&e=1&u=/nm/20040127/sc_nm/arms_denmark_landmines_dc
> Yahoo! News - Flower-Power Could Help Clear Land mines
>
> A very nice biotech application, a plant that changes color in the
> presence of nitrogen dioxide, marking where mines are buried in the soil.
> The plant, the beloved Arabidopsis thaliana, has been modified by Aresa
> Biodetection. Since the plant can be made male sterile or reproduction
> limited to in the presence of a growth hormone concerns about spreading
> can be ameliorated. But is that the right solution? Maybe we should allow
> it to spread wildly instead.
>
> The careful approach of first clearing the land, then sowing the plant,
> waiting, and then removing the mines and planting something else, might
> work where the mine density is fairly high and doing this kind of clearing
> has few other effects. But in many places clearing the land would cause
> severe erosion, and if the mine density is low it would be a very
> expensive way of finding them (although likely better than plenty of other
> high-tech solutions, and of course safer than having people poke with
> sticks). The method is not presented as a panacea, and it isn't.
>
> But what if modified Arabidopsis (that is also clearly visible as
> modified, e.g. by leaf shape) is simply spread and allowed to grow freely?
> That would be an extremely cost effective way of finding out the presence
> of those truly unexpected mines and marking them.
>
> The ecological risk of the change appears low. Most likely the normal
> strain has an advantage over the modified strain since it adapts to stress
> by changing color (an evolved response that presumably is an advantage)
> while the modified strain won't do it except near mines. And if other
> species were to pick up the mine detecting effect, it would actually
> extend the benefit. Anthocyanins are even antioxidants , so it might be a
> good thing if they get into food :-)
>
> Of course, the political climate in the West is likely mostly against
> this. But if the choice is between a potential, vague and likely very
> small ecological risk and the real and serious effect of land mines, the
> only thing the precautionary principle tells us is to add safeguards to
> the modified plant, not to avoid spreading it. Those holding the
> bioconservative view that nature should not be tampered with under any
> circumstances, they need to explain how the tampering done by slowly
> decaying landmines (not to mention their human cost) is less than the
> change in coloration behavior of a plant.
>
> There are many more likely practical showstoppers - can the seeds be
> produced cheaply, will the plant thrive in affected areas, can people
> reliably use it to find mines and so on. And in many situations other
> methods are still superior. But I think we should carefully consider one
> day releasing this kind of safeguard plants deliberately into the
> environment. If our environment could clearly signal pollution or danger
> it would be far easier to protect - and it would protect us better too.
>
> --
> Anders Sandberg
> http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
> http://www.aleph.se/andart/
>
> The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
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From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Wed Jan 28 01:45:02 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 19:45:02 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Computer virus
References: <63340-22004122722653720@M2W092.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <Law10-OE277iyGa50lm0003f43f@hotmail.com>

Every day I send about 25 attachments and receive close to a hundred. This
doesn't include the SPAM, just the regular documents necessary to do my job.
Many come from total strangers.

Norton Antivirus 2003 is up to date..I check it nearly every day just to
make sure. Everything that comes in goes through the Yahoo virus filter
before downloading to Outlook Express. Then Norton scans incoming mail.
Finally, I have my settings to scan all files on opening.

I was hit with this thing about 200 times today! Each time it came in,
Norton grabbed it. I was a bit concerned that just maybe 1 or two could have
gotten through. I ran a full scan and sure enough, 4 virus infected files
were sitting in temp directories where Outlook Express temporarily stores
attachments! They hadn't been activated or opened, but the fact that they
weren't noticed until I ran a full scan was scary enough! What a wicked mean
beast!

Earlier in the day, I happened across a website that had the actual code
posted for this sucker. It supposedly is set to email stuff or send info to
http://www.russnelson.com/
Some of the code is at http://www.russnelson.com/mydoom
I don;t know if tehre is truth in any of this or if I was just following a
blind aley hoax, but it was a bit interesting.

I also found that McAfee 4318 update is not enough to stop this bug. If you
have McAfee, you need today's newest DAT file 4319.

Kevin Freels


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <natashavita at earthlink.net>
To: <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: <advisors at alcor.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 4:06 PM
Subject: [extropy-chat] Computer virus


> Friends,
>
> "There is a new e-mail virus circulating that is hitting computers
> everywhere.
>
> The virus--known as MyDoom, Novarg and as a variant of the Mimail virus by
> different antivirus companies--arrives in an in-box with one of several
> different random subject lines, such as "Mail Delivery System," "Test" or
> "Mail Transaction Failed." The body of the e-mail contains an executable
> file and a statement such as: "The message contains Unicode characters and
> has been sent as a binary attachment."
>
> When a computer is infected, the worm will set up a backdoor into the
system
> by opening TCP ports 3127 through 3198, which can potentially allow an
> attacker to connect to the computer and use it as a proxy to gain access
to
> its network resources.  In addition, the backdoor can download and execute
> arbitrary files.
>
> The worm will perform a Denial of Service (DoS) starting on February 1,
> 2004. It also has a trigger date to stop spreading on February 12, 2004.
>
> Please check to make sure that your Norton Antivirus is up-to-date.  If
not,
> please run LiveUpdate and then reboot your computer."
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> mail2web - Check your email from the web at
> http://mail2web.com/ .
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From gpmap at runbox.com  Wed Jan 28 08:20:02 2004
From: gpmap at runbox.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 08:20:02 GMT
Subject: [extropy-chat] The Transhumanist NeoFiles
Message-ID: <E1Alkva-0006tK-Pj@odie.runbox.com>

http://www.life-enhancement.com/neofiles/
The current issue of the NeoFiles webzine features more conversation about transhumanist subjects. All interview subjects (Christopher Dewdney, Brian Alexander, Howard Lovy) share a fascination, and even a sense of hope, about the transformational possibilities of 21st Century technology.
The NeoFiles webzine is edited by R.U. Sirius, the co-founder and former editor of the original cyberculture magazine, Mondo 2000, who has an impressive track record of spotting cultural and technological trends years before the rest of the media pick up on it. 
NeoFiles' articles and interviews explore scientific and technological advances: The rejuvenation of the body and its healthy survival beyond the natural biological life span - Control over the molecular structure of matter (nanotechnology) - Control over the neurochemistry of intelligence and emotion - The easy and intuitive sharing of information and the contents of the human imagination on a global scale - The building of intelligent machines to accomplish previously unthinkable tasks - The comprehension and manipulation of the genome - The expansion of human life into space - Clean and plentiful energy - The end of human scarcity.
However, the seriousness and immediacy of these potentially life-altering developments is perhaps best indicated by evolutions in business and culture. On the one hand, hopes are symbolized by the long-term existence of Wall Street-ready businesses dedicated to marvels like the expansion of maximum life span. On the other hand, our fears are expressed by the increasingly vocal anguish of those who see potential for disaster in these developments.


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Wed Jan 28 16:04:33 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 08:04:33 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Free Pr0n helps spammers
In-Reply-To: <Law10-OE277iyGa50lm0003f43f@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20040128160433.11887.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/28/1344207&mode=thread&tid=111&tid=126&tid=172&tid=95

First the feds said that smoking dope helps terrorists. Now, it seems,
seeking out free pornography helps spammers set up free email accounts.
You've all seen those relatively new anti-spam graphics on websites
when you register for some sort of account that involves having an
email box. The graphics are called 'captchas' and display distorted
text that you are supposed to decipher and enter into a field to prove
you are a real person and not a spammers program trying to obtain
throwaway email accounts.

Turns out that spammers are setting up websites by which porn
aficionados can sign up to receive free porn. Signing up for these also
involves a captchas for you to decode, but it isn't a captchas FROM
THAT SITE. It is a captchas that a spammer program has gotten from a
free email website and is using the porn fiend to do the decoding.

A curious case of a program using a person as an extension.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
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From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Wed Jan 28 23:13:33 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 15:13:33 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] PRECOG: The Smoking Gun is found..
In-Reply-To: <20040128160433.11887.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20040128231333.99520.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>

Well, it is now official: I am a prophet.

Another thing is now official: France is now a member of the axis of
evil.

Back before the war in Iraq, I had predicted that it would turn out
that Saddam was paying off Chirac's government for its opposition to
the US sponsored resolution in the UN Security Council. Of course,
Chirac couched his opposition on allegedly moral terms, but we now know
different: the Iraqi Governing Council has uncovered documents that
prove that Saddam paid off a number of high ranking Chirac government
officials in the months leading up to the War in exchange for France's
opposition to US actions.

Once again, French duplicity, corruption, and self-interest has
resulted in violence that was unnecessary.

I predict that the latest punditry will be demands by the US that the
UNSCOM send inspectors into France looking for Iraqi WMD... ;)

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au  Wed Jan 28 23:34:01 2004
From: bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au (Brett Paatsch)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 10:34:01 +1100
Subject: [extropy-chat] PRECOG: The Smoking Gun is found..
References: <20040128231333.99520.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <006701c3e5f7$359bed80$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>

Mike Lorrey wrote:

.. the Iraqi Governing Council has uncovered documents that
> prove that Saddam paid off a number of high ranking Chirac 
> government officials in the months leading up to the War in 
> exchange for France's opposition to US actions.

This would be a very big deal if true Mike. And a pretty big
deal if it wasn't true but was a political beat up.

What's your source? 

Regards,
Brett Paatsch




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Wed Jan 28 23:37:04 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 15:37:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] PRECOG: The Smoking Gun is found..
In-Reply-To: <006701c3e5f7$359bed80$2d242dcb@vic.bigpond.net.au>
Message-ID: <20040128233704.29113.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> Mike Lorrey wrote:
> 
> .. the Iraqi Governing Council has uncovered documents that
> > prove that Saddam paid off a number of high ranking Chirac 
> > government officials in the months leading up to the War in 
> > exchange for France's opposition to US actions.
> 
> This would be a very big deal if true Mike. And a pretty big
> deal if it wasn't true but was a political beat up.
> 
> What's your source? 

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040128-094014-7323r.htm

Iraqi govt. papers: Saddam bribed Chirac

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 28 (UPI) -- Documents from Saddam Hussein's oil
ministry reveal he used oil to bribe top French officials into opposing
the imminent U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

The oil ministry papers, described by the independent Baghdad newspaper
al-Mada, are apparently authentic and will become the basis of an
official investigation by the new Iraqi Governing Council, the
Independent reported Wednesday.

"I think the list is true," Naseer Chaderji, a governing council
member, said. "I will demand an investigation. These people must be
prosecuted."

Such evidence would undermine the French position before the war when
President Jacques Chirac sought to couch his opposition to the invasion
on a moral high ground.

A senior Bush administration official said Washington was aware of the
reports but refused further comment.

French diplomats have dismissed any suggestion their foreign policy was
influenced by payments from Saddam, but some European diplomats have
long suspected France's steadfast opposition to the war was less moral
than monetary.

"Oil runs thicker than blood," is how one former ambassador put his
suspicions about the French motives for opposing action against Saddam.

Al-Mada's list cites a total of 46 individuals, companies and
organizations inside and outside Iraq as receiving Saddam's oil bribes,
including officials in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, the United Arab Emirates,
Turkey, Sudan, China, Austria and France, as well as the Russian
Orthodox Church, the Russian Communist Party, India's Congress Party
and the Palestine Liberation Organization.


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From megao at sasktel.net  Thu Jan 29 00:42:12 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 18:42:12 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] PRECOG: The Smoking Gun is found..
References: <20040128233704.29113.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <401856E3.6B846AFE@sasktel.net>

Hard to say which is worse that or - hope for dividends to North America's
economy after removing saddam  pushing the decision makers  to remove
saddam in the first place.

The all the parties who maufacture weapons will naturally  root for their
customers to stay around.

I got a call from a broker selling General Dynamics shares flogging the
military budget increase from 350 to 550 billion and the removal of the
profit cap as reasons to invest.

The redeeming factor will be:  is it going to create a social and economic
revolution for the Iraquis
to see government overthrow?

Will the net military resource expenditure decrease?

If we have to divert the world's attention to sending men to mars and
developing the technology it sure as hell beats playing stupid human tricks
in the political sandbox.



Mike Lorrey wrote:

> --- Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> > Mike Lorrey wrote:
> >
> > .. the Iraqi Governing Council has uncovered documents that
> > > prove that Saddam paid off a number of high ranking Chirac
> > > government officials in the months leading up to the War in
> > > exchange for France's opposition to US actions.
> >
> > This would be a very big deal if true Mike. And a pretty big
> > deal if it wasn't true but was a political beat up.
> >
> > What's your source?
>
> http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040128-094014-7323r.htm
>
> Iraqi govt. papers: Saddam bribed Chirac
>
> BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 28 (UPI) -- Documents from Saddam Hussein's oil
> ministry reveal he used oil to bribe top French officials into opposing
> the imminent U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
>
> The oil ministry papers, described by the independent Baghdad newspaper
> al-Mada, are apparently authentic and will become the basis of an
> official investigation by the new Iraqi Governing Council, the
> Independent reported Wednesday.
>
> "I think the list is true," Naseer Chaderji, a governing council
> member, said. "I will demand an investigation. These people must be
> prosecuted."
>
> Such evidence would undermine the French position before the war when
> President Jacques Chirac sought to couch his opposition to the invasion
> on a moral high ground.
>
> A senior Bush administration official said Washington was aware of the
> reports but refused further comment.
>
> French diplomats have dismissed any suggestion their foreign policy was
> influenced by payments from Saddam, but some European diplomats have
> long suspected France's steadfast opposition to the war was less moral
> than monetary.
>
> "Oil runs thicker than blood," is how one former ambassador put his
> suspicions about the French motives for opposing action against Saddam.
>
> Al-Mada's list cites a total of 46 individuals, companies and
> organizations inside and outside Iraq as receiving Saddam's oil bribes,
> including officials in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, the United Arab Emirates,
> Turkey, Sudan, China, Austria and France, as well as the Russian
> Orthodox Church, the Russian Communist Party, India's Congress Party
> and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
>
> =====
> Mike Lorrey
> "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
>                                        - Gen. John Stark
> "Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
>                                        - Mike Lorrey
> Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
> Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
> http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Thu Jan 29 01:50:05 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 12:20:05 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] Pickled Dragon
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178699F@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

No, really, a pickled dragon...

---
A pickled "dragon" that looks as if it might once have flown around Harry
Potter's Hogwarts has been found in a garage in Oxfordshire, England.
The baby dragon, in a sealed jar, was discovered with a metal tin containing
paperwork in old-fashioned German of the 1890s. 

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/28/1075088090949.html

---

Emlyn



From Johnius at Genius.UCSD.edu  Thu Jan 29 02:22:18 2004
From: Johnius at Genius.UCSD.edu (Johnius)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 18:22:18 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Pixel Perfect
Message-ID: <40186E5A.DFBCA41C@Genius.UCSD.edu>

  Has anyone checked out the new movie on Disney Channel
called "Pixel Perfect"?  It has a character who is a 
virtual person with holographic projection capability
into the outside world.  At first, she is just a visual
composite of popular teen idols, but she comes to develop
thoughts and feelings of her own (much like the EMH doctor
on the old ST:Voyager series).  That's all old hat by now,
but what I found interesting was when she decided to upload
into the Net.  _That_ was cool.  While vaguely like Tron,
this sequence was one of the closest I've seen to depicting
the subjective experience of an uploaded personality (more
so than the ST:NG episode where the mad scientist type
actually did upload himself into Data).  While the disney-
esqueness of the movie generally didn't agree with me, I think
it did add something to the upload sequence ... making it a 
very human and desirable experience.  It could be seen as a 
very cool intro to what it might be like to upload.  In fact, 
I was even thinking that perhaps someone here had something to
do with that sequence :-)

  She gets quite accustomed to uploading, and somehow 
manages to upload into a server, attach herself to email,
upload into a human brain, and even into the quantum fabric
of reality itself (ok, they probably went too far with this
but it was interesting...).

  If you don't mind the dumbed down popular elements of
a Disney movie, you might want to check this one out ...
or perhaps record it and skip to near the middle for
her upload sequence.

  Out of curiosity, what other movies do you know about
that depict this kind of upload/cyberlife experience?  
The Matrix, of course, but what else?

Johnius


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Thu Jan 29 02:52:14 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 18:52:14 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Why Occam's Razor?
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401281846170.25271-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


I can't even figure out how I ran across this, but given that
Hal and Wei Dai are cited in the acknowledgments section it
seems worthy of note...

Why Occam's Razor
Russell K. Standish
http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks/docs/occam/occam.html

I'll observe that from the bibliography one needs to be versed
in quantum mechanics, multiverse and turing machine theory to
be able to get through this.

Robert




From samantha at objectent.com  Thu Jan 29 03:13:06 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 19:13:06 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] PRECOG: The Smoking Gun is found..
In-Reply-To: <20040128231333.99520.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040128231333.99520.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <0EF0C738-5209-11D8-ABA4-000A95B1AFDE@objectent.com>

What about our own unnecessary violence invading a country for no 
worthwhile reason?  What about the needless deaths including of our own 
troops?  What about or own obvious duplicity and self-interest?  It 
seems to me we had a LOT more to do with what has recently occurred in 
Iraq and at home than France did.   It would be refreshing to see you 
mention such things once in a while for just a bit more balance.

- samantha


On Jan 28, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> Well, it is now official: I am a prophet.
>
> Another thing is now official: France is now a member of the axis of
> evil.
>
> Back before the war in Iraq, I had predicted that it would turn out
> that Saddam was paying off Chirac's government for its opposition to
> the US sponsored resolution in the UN Security Council. Of course,
> Chirac couched his opposition on allegedly moral terms, but we now know
> different: the Iraqi Governing Council has uncovered documents that
> prove that Saddam paid off a number of high ranking Chirac government
> officials in the months leading up to the War in exchange for France's
> opposition to US actions.
>
> Once again, French duplicity, corruption, and self-interest has
> resulted in violence that was unnecessary.
>
> I predict that the latest punditry will be demands by the US that the
> UNSCOM send inspectors into France looking for Iraqi WMD... ;)
>
> =====
> Mike Lorrey
> "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
>                                        - Gen. John Stark
> "Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
>                                        - Mike Lorrey
> Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
> Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
> http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From sjvans at ameritech.net  Thu Jan 29 04:52:29 2004
From: sjvans at ameritech.net (Stephen J. Van Sickle)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 22:52:29 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Pickled Dragon
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178699F@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178699F@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <1075351949.1398.0.camel@Renfield>


Can't be real.  It has an umbilical cord, and everyone knows dragons
aren't mammals.

sjv

On Wed, 2004-01-28 at 19:50, Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> No, really, a pickled dragon...
> 
> ---
> A pickled "dragon" that looks as if it might once have flown around Harry
> Potter's Hogwarts has been found in a garage in Oxfordshire, England.
> The baby dragon, in a sealed jar, was discovered with a metal tin containing
> paperwork in old-fashioned German of the 1890s. 
> 
> http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/28/1075088090949.html
> 
> ---
> 
> Emlyn
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Thu Jan 29 04:35:50 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 20:35:50 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] PRECOG: The Smoking Gun is found..
In-Reply-To: <0EF0C738-5209-11D8-ABA4-000A95B1AFDE@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <20040129043550.35457.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Samantha Atkins <samantha at objectent.com> wrote:
> What about our own unnecessary violence invading a country for no 
> worthwhile reason?  What about the needless deaths including of our
> own troops? What about or own obvious duplicity and self-interest? It

> seems to me we had a LOT more to do with what has recently occurred
> in Iraq and at home than France did. It would be refreshing to see
you
> mention such things once in a while for just a bit more balance.

Don't you think that if Saddam were faced with a united front of the
international community, that he would have left office without all the
destruction, bloodshed, and now the insurgency campaign? Instead, we
get France promoting this idea that the US needs to be counterbalanced
for the simple yet completely amoral pretext that it isn't a good thing
for one nation, no matter how benign when compared to history, to be
the sole superpower.

This is as dumb, wasteful, and idiotic a rationale as deciding to
disagree in a discussion only because one feels that if everyone agreed
on something, it wouldn't somehow be 'right'. What the HELL is that about?

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Thu Jan 29 04:46:28 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 20:46:28 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Pickled Dragon
In-Reply-To: <1075351949.1398.0.camel@Renfield>
Message-ID: <20040129044628.62350.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>


--- "Stephen J. Van Sickle" <sjvans at ameritech.net> wrote:
> 
> Can't be real.  It has an umbilical cord, and everyone knows dragons
> aren't mammals.

Really? Got dragon eggs, do you? Where do they get the heat for that
flame if they aren't warm blooded... ;)

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Thu Jan 29 04:54:26 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 22:54:26 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Pickled Dragon
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178699F@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
	<1075351949.1398.0.camel@Renfield>
Message-ID: <LAW10-OE66vHhRwpA8v00041817@hotmail.com>

Yes, but have you ever seen the umbilical cord in a chicken egg?
Chickens are a bird. Birds are descendants of dinosaurs.
Would a dinosaur have had an umbilical cord? If so, why not
a dragon?

Of course, I am not using this to state that the dragon is real, only
that the presence of an umbilical cord alone is not enough to conclude that
it is a fake.

Kevin Freels

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephen J. Van Sickle" <sjvans at ameritech.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 10:52 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Pickled Dragon


>
> Can't be real.  It has an umbilical cord, and everyone knows dragons
> aren't mammals.
>
> sjv
>
> On Wed, 2004-01-28 at 19:50, Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> > No, really, a pickled dragon...
> >
> > ---
> > A pickled "dragon" that looks as if it might once have flown around
Harry
> > Potter's Hogwarts has been found in a garage in Oxfordshire, England.
> > The baby dragon, in a sealed jar, was discovered with a metal tin
containing
> > paperwork in old-fashioned German of the 1890s.
> >
> > http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/28/1075088090949.html
> >
> > ---
> >
> > Emlyn
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > extropy-chat mailing list
> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From sjvans at ameritech.net  Thu Jan 29 06:14:11 2004
From: sjvans at ameritech.net (Stephen J. Van Sickle)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 00:14:11 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Pickled Dragon
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-OE66vHhRwpA8v00041817@hotmail.com>
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178699F@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
	<1075351949.1398.0.camel@Renfield>
	<LAW10-OE66vHhRwpA8v00041817@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <1075356851.1398.13.camel@Renfield>

On Wed, 2004-01-28 at 22:54, Kevin Freels wrote:

> Yes, but have you ever seen the umbilical cord in a chicken egg?

No.

There is a structure called the chalazae that anchors the yolk to the
shell that might look like one, but it is not an umbilical cord.

> Chickens are a bird. Birds are descendants of dinosaurs.

Possibly.

> Would a dinosaur have had an umbilical cord? 

No.  No belly button, either.

> If so, why not
> a dragon?

What makes you think dragons are related to dinosaurs?

> Of course, I am not using this to state that the dragon is real, only
> that the presence of an umbilical cord alone is not enough to conclude that
> it is a fake.

I know that if I pulled everyone's, someone's would come off.

sjv 





From sjvans at ameritech.net  Thu Jan 29 06:22:44 2004
From: sjvans at ameritech.net (Stephen J. Van Sickle)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 00:22:44 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Pickled Dragon
In-Reply-To: <20040129044628.62350.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040129044628.62350.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1075357364.1398.23.camel@Renfield>

On Wed, 2004-01-28 at 22:46, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> Really? Got dragon eggs, do you? 

Not at the moment.

> Where do they get the heat for that
> flame if they aren't warm blooded... ;)

All mammals are endothermic, but it does not follow that all endotherms
must be mammals.  Besides, why can't an ectotherm breath fire?  That
would explain why dragons prefer to spend most of their time underground
and sleeping, with a hoard of gold making a nice thermal contact to the
ground.

sjv



From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Thu Jan 29 05:29:15 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 15:59:15 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: STING: I've got a live one!
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B017869AA@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

Have you guys read "The Cukoo's Egg"? Seminal work, similar theme, true
story.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743411463/002-8851593-4352066
?v=glance

Emlyn

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brett Paatsch [mailto:bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au]
> Sent: Sunday, 25 January 2004 8:55 AM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: STING: I've got a live one!
> 
> 
> Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> 
> > Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > I'm wondering at what point I should turn it over to the secret
> > > service?
> > 
> > When you have actually lost at least $5000 to the conman, because
> > otherwise nobody will bother to investigate a domestic case.  And
> > if he's overseas, I wish you good luck when you try to instigate
> > an international investigation for anything short of murder.
> > 
> > Check out this guy's story:
> > http://www.remodern.com/caught.html
> 
> Good story. Good outcome. Shows what one persistent person can
> do - at least sometimes. 
> 
> I can relate to the author trying to get assistance and 
> finding himself 
> adrift in oceans of fools that mostly wasted his time and money rather
> than doing their job.  His persistence is pretty 
> inspirational though. 
> 
> Still a good story - thanks for posting it.
> 
> Regards,
> Brett
> 
> PS: Mike - my two cents - turn what you have over to 'someone' and
> at least give them the *chance* to do something with it. But 
> its easy for
> me to recommend that *you* do more still more work from *my*
> seat :-)
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 



From sjvans at ameritech.net  Thu Jan 29 06:24:32 2004
From: sjvans at ameritech.net (Stephen J. Van Sickle)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 00:24:32 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Pickled Dragon
In-Reply-To: <1075356851.1398.13.camel@Renfield>
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178699F@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
	<1075351949.1398.0.camel@Renfield>
	<LAW10-OE66vHhRwpA8v00041817@hotmail.com>
	<1075356851.1398.13.camel@Renfield>
Message-ID: <1075357472.1398.25.camel@Renfield>

On Thu, 2004-01-29 at 00:14, Stephen J. Van Sickle wrote:

> I know that if I pulled everyone's, someone's would come off.

Leg, that is.  Everyone's leg.

sjv



From thespike at earthlink.net  Thu Jan 29 05:49:20 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 23:49:20 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Pickled Dragon
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178699F@adlexsv02.protech.com.au><1075351949.1398.0.camel@Renfield><LAW10-OE66vHhRwpA8v00041817@hotmail.com><1075356851.1398.13.camel@Renfield>
	<1075357472.1398.25.camel@Renfield>
Message-ID: <006401c3e62b$a6a7c1a0$279c4a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephen J. Van Sickle" <sjvans at ameritech.net>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2004 12:24 AM

> > I know that if I pulled everyone's, someone's would come off.

> Leg, that is.  Everyone's leg.

Thank heavens. Now I can uncross mine. Legs, that is.

Damien Broderick



From gpmap at runbox.com  Thu Jan 29 06:54:38 2004
From: gpmap at runbox.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 07:54:38 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] PRECOG: The Smoking Gun is found..
In-Reply-To: <20040128231333.99520.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <MAELIJOHMBHKKJLFFKDGMEKKCAAA.gpmap@runbox.com>

Mike, being the world what it is I would not be surprised to find out that
the actions of any government on the Iraq crisis were mainly motivated by
national interest. Also, there has been talk of high ranking politicians
making a lot of money participating in deals with Iraq (mainly oil and
weapons) before and during the embargo. But not all French, you have
examples closer to home.

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org]On Behalf Of Mike Lorrey
Sent: jueves, 29 de enero de 2004 0:14
To: ExI chat list
Subject: [extropy-chat] PRECOG: The Smoking Gun is found..


Well, it is now official: I am a prophet.

Another thing is now official: France is now a member of the axis of
evil.

Back before the war in Iraq, I had predicted that it would turn out
that Saddam was paying off Chirac's government for its opposition to
the US sponsored resolution in the UN Security Council. Of course,
Chirac couched his opposition on allegedly moral terms, but we now know
different: the Iraqi Governing Council has uncovered documents that
prove that Saddam paid off a number of high ranking Chirac government
officials in the months leading up to the War in exchange for France's
opposition to US actions.

Once again, French duplicity, corruption, and self-interest has
resulted in violence that was unnecessary.

I predict that the latest punditry will be demands by the US that the
UNSCOM send inspectors into France looking for Iraqi WMD... ;)



From samantha at objectent.com  Thu Jan 29 08:58:51 2004
From: samantha at objectent.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 00:58:51 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] PRECOG: The Smoking Gun is found..
In-Reply-To: <20040129043550.35457.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040129043550.35457.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <5B909778-5239-11D8-ABA4-000A95B1AFDE@objectent.com>

No, I don't think that he would have left office.  And I know that 
getting him out of office did not justify our invasion or the huge 
costs imposed on the American people for this misadventure.   If Saddam 
had left I would bet dollars to donuts that Busholini would have found 
another excuse to invade.

When you invade a country you can expect resistance from the people 
themselves, from any friends they may have and from anyone else that 
has a serious enough beef with the invaders.  Whether the rest of the 
world agrees with the invasion or not does not change this appreciably. 
    If your country were invaded would you give a damn how many 
country's diplomats supported the invasion?  I doubt it very much.

It is never benign for one nation to be the sole superpower by 
threatening to forever suppress the advancement of all other nations or 
organizations of nations to any level that might be competitive.  Nor 
is it benign for a superpower to do whatever the hell it wants simply 
because it cannot be paused by force.

Given the facts of no WMD in Iraq invasion was wrong regardless of how 
many nations did or did not agree.    So I concur that whether the 
action was right or wrong is separable from whether there was a larger 
consensus.

- samantha

On Jan 28, 2004, at 8:35 PM, Mike Lorrey wrote:

>
> --- Samantha Atkins <samantha at objectent.com> wrote:
>> What about our own unnecessary violence invading a country for no
>> worthwhile reason?  What about the needless deaths including of our
>> own troops? What about or own obvious duplicity and self-interest? It
>
>> seems to me we had a LOT more to do with what has recently occurred
>> in Iraq and at home than France did. It would be refreshing to see
> you
>> mention such things once in a while for just a bit more balance.
>
> Don't you think that if Saddam were faced with a united front of the
> international community, that he would have left office without all the
> destruction, bloodshed, and now the insurgency campaign? Instead, we
> get France promoting this idea that the US needs to be counterbalanced
> for the simple yet completely amoral pretext that it isn't a good thing
> for one nation, no matter how benign when compared to history, to be
> the sole superpower.
>
> This is as dumb, wasteful, and idiotic a rationale as deciding to
> disagree in a discussion only because one feels that if everyone agreed
> on something, it wouldn't somehow be 'right'. What the HELL is that 
> about?
>
> =====
> Mike Lorrey
> "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
>                                        - Gen. John Stark
> "Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
>                                        - Mike Lorrey
> Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
> Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
> http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From amara at amara.com  Thu Jan 29 10:05:45 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 12:05:45 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] pieces of Homeland News
Message-ID: <p05100300bc3e8a4e077b@[150.146.134.133]>

It's hard for anyone to build a freedom-loving life, but for
Bush's Homeland, it's looking even more that way. I become
very sad when I look at the news these days.


Truth catching up to Bush
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1075291140827&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795

Meet the Homeland Security Blimp
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviation/article/0,12543,583484,00.html

CAPPS II to begin this Spring
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2004/01/27/us_to_start_airline_background_checks/

Bush calls for Patriot Act Renewal
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-5144203.html

and more Civil Liberties news
http://www.free-market.net/directorybycategory/news/T12/#1

and finally, some irony....
(The Statue of Liberty is closed due to lack of money)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54653-2004Jan27.html

Amara

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD
Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI)
Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF),
Adjunct Assistant Professor Astronomy, AUR,
Roma, ITALIA     Amara.Graps at ifsi.rm.cnr.it


From trichrom at optusnet.com.au  Thu Jan 29 11:23:11 2004
From: trichrom at optusnet.com.au (Rob KPO)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 21:23:11 +1000
Subject: [extropy-chat] PRECOG: The Smoking Gun is found..
References: <20040129043550.35457.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>
	<5B909778-5239-11D8-ABA4-000A95B1AFDE@objectent.com>
Message-ID: <001f01c3e65a$4b333c80$0200a8c0@snasa>

The USA displayed a learning in Korea that military pre-emption is required
in the real world when their is armed conflict. It is obviously a difficult
decision politically and people unlearned in military history can easily
interpret it as negative, bad, evil etc.

That learning was proved with the subsequant Chinese reinforcement on the
Korean peninsula. Vietnam was another example of pre-emptive action, or to
put it another way, pre-deployement of forces against a larger nearby
threat. Luckily in Vietnam the Chinese did not engage the US forces by
invading Vietnam.

The Middle East situation is different in context but I think it is fair to
say the US military is acting predictably in the best interest's of dealing
with the nature of this hostile threat. It isnt Chinese expansion this time
but militant radical Islam and any state's or organisation's supporting it.

The UN is easily rendered powerless in times of largish war. This was
highlited with the French and Russian's (who seemingly had reasons to
protect Saddam's Iraq) taking advantage of the UN's 'democratic' processes
to sieze up the capability it would otherwise have had to attempt a
bloodless action in Iraq. The world had a chance to stand together and tell
the people of Iraq "time to join the rest of the world" instead they ended
up again trading the security of the world and the USA for their own selfish
commerce and vision's of grandeur.

Rob O

---- Original Message -----
From: "Samantha Atkins" <samantha at objectent.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2004 6:58 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] PRECOG: The Smoking Gun is found..


> No, I don't think that he would have left office.  And I know that
> getting him out of office did not justify our invasion or the huge
> costs imposed on the American people for this misadventure.   If Saddam
> had left I would bet dollars to donuts that Busholini would have found
> another excuse to invade.
>
> When you invade a country you can expect resistance from the people
> themselves, from any friends they may have and from anyone else that
> has a serious enough beef with the invaders.  Whether the rest of the
> world agrees with the invasion or not does not change this appreciably.
>     If your country were invaded would you give a damn how many
> country's diplomats supported the invasion?  I doubt it very much.
>
> It is never benign for one nation to be the sole superpower by
> threatening to forever suppress the advancement of all other nations or
> organizations of nations to any level that might be competitive.  Nor
> is it benign for a superpower to do whatever the hell it wants simply
> because it cannot be paused by force.
>
> Given the facts of no WMD in Iraq invasion was wrong regardless of how
> many nations did or did not agree.    So I concur that whether the
> action was right or wrong is separable from whether there was a larger
> consensus.
>
> - samantha
>
> On Jan 28, 2004, at 8:35 PM, Mike Lorrey wrote:



From amara at amara.com  Thu Jan 29 12:24:31 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 14:24:31 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] Voyager 2 memories
Message-ID: <p05100301bc3ea83e64c2@[150.146.134.133]>


Hi Folks,

While in the middle of heavy preparations for my class, someone from my
past (twenty years ago) suddenly appeared in my life. How could I explain
the inspiration that she provided for me two decades ago? In fact I did,
but she didn't know it. (She was tickled to discover that I had taken her
old photos and scanned them to better preserve one of our moments
we shared in time)

http://www.amara.com/vgr2/vgr2 at Jup.html

Last weekend was one of those times when the Universe bonked my head to
pay more attention to the precious parts of our human lives.

It's nice to reconnect with people from one's past and it's even better
when the two people know how they each inspired the other one. If you
haven't told one of your old profs or old friends or someone else, who
inspired you, then please take a moment and tell them.

Amara


-- 

********************************************************************
Amara Graps, PhD          email: amara at amara.com
Computational Physics     vita:  ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt
Multiplex Answers         URL:   http://www.amara.com/
********************************************************************
"The best presents don't come in boxes." --Hobbes


From mbb386 at main.nc.us  Thu Jan 29 13:38:18 2004
From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 08:38:18 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Pickled Dragon
In-Reply-To: <1075356851.1398.13.camel@Renfield>
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178699F@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
	<1075351949.1398.0.camel@Renfield>
	<LAW10-OE66vHhRwpA8v00041817@hotmail.com>
	<1075356851.1398.13.camel@Renfield>
Message-ID: <Pine.WNT.4.55.0401290827230.-211965@pentium.mb.main.nc.us>


Often on baby snakes there is a place on the belly scales where the
yolk was attached - it is visible. In the adults this is no longer
something you see.

Sometimes baby snakes come out of the egg with the yolk sac still
attached and they need to be kept on damp toweling until the yolk is
absorbed.

That's not quite a "belly button" as in mammals, though it is the
vessel through which nutrient passes.

Regards,
MB

On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Stephen J. Van Sickle wrote:

> On Wed, 2004-01-28 at 22:54, Kevin Freels wrote:
>
> > Yes, but have you ever seen the umbilical cord in a chicken egg?
>
> No.
>
> There is a structure called the chalazae that anchors the yolk to the
> shell that might look like one, but it is not an umbilical cord.
>


From gregburch at gregburch.net  Thu Jan 29 14:46:04 2004
From: gregburch at gregburch.net (Greg Burch)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 08:46:04 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] I'm BAAAAACK -- and a word about the VP Summit
In-Reply-To: <p05100300bc3e8a4e077b@[150.146.134.133]>
Message-ID: <PMEELDEBLOLPFEFPEIBDEENKCCAA.gregburch@gregburch.net>

Howdy, ya'll!

I've been more or less unplugged from most of the world for two months.  At Newtonmas we had family visiting, Anthea and I have been working on FINALLY getting started on building our dream house and then I went into a full month taken up by two back-to-back trials.  But I'm now slowly getting back to my "regular" life, so I hope to try to catch up on the avalanche in my in-box and, most importantly, to focus on participating in ExI's Vital Progress Online Summit.  

Natasha's done a truly superb job in organizing the Summit: She consulted with ExI's directors when we were conceiving of this event in late November and early December, but since then she's managed the implementation almost single-handedly.  She deserves a serious round of applause for her efforts to date and -- most importantly -- our solid support in making the Vital Progress Summit a success.  Please take a moment to visit the Summit introductory page:

  http://www.extropy.org/summitabout.htm

and plan on watching and participating as this important event unfolds.  We've already got a fantastic roster of keynote participants for this event, and the make-up of all the people taking part will only get better with your involvement.

Greg Burch
Vice-President, Extropy Institute
http://www.gregburch.net


From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Thu Jan 29 15:57:26 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 09:57:26 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Pickled Dragon
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178699F@adlexsv02.protech.com.au><1075351949.1398.0.camel@Renfield><LAW10-OE66vHhRwpA8v00041817@hotmail.com><1075356851.1398.13.camel@Renfield>
	<1075357472.1398.25.camel@Renfield>
Message-ID: <LAW10-OE54SFWQQNKan00039414@hotmail.com>

Thanks a lot. :-)
You caught me on one of those "Aww, I can fire something off realy quick and
make myself look like a genius!" moments while I was working only to find
out later that I made a quick assumption error and appeared an idiot!
I don't know what the hell I was thinking....It seemed so OBVIOUS! You see
the "cord" on the "dragon", you see the "cord" on the chicken egg. I drew
the quick connection and fired off my letter never thinking twice about the
technical definition of an "umbilical" cord which connects child to
parent.....DUH! The egg is not the parent!
I'm feeling rather sheepish now, but I think my point was about the
"whatever kind of cord thingy" it is and not actually an "umbilical" cord.
I'm going to go crawl under a rock now. :-)
Kevin

PS Isn't the relationship between dinosaurs and dragons already firmly
established?


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephen J. Van Sickle" <sjvans at ameritech.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2004 12:24 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Pickled Dragon


> On Thu, 2004-01-29 at 00:14, Stephen J. Van Sickle wrote:
>
> > I know that if I pulled everyone's, someone's would come off.
>
> Leg, that is.  Everyone's leg.
>
> sjv
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From spike66 at comcast.net  Thu Jan 29 16:32:36 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 08:32:36 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] I'm BAAAAACK -- and a word about the VP Summit
In-Reply-To: <PMEELDEBLOLPFEFPEIBDEENKCCAA.gregburch@gregburch.net>
Message-ID: <000a01c3e685$8164eda0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

Howdy Greg!  Welcome back bud, we missed you big time.  {8-]  spike

 
> Howdy, ya'll!
> 
> I've been more or less unplugged from most of the world for 
> two months....



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Thu Jan 29 18:35:05 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 13:35:05 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] I'm BAAAAACK -- and a word about the VP Summit
In-Reply-To: <PMEELDEBLOLPFEFPEIBDEENKCCAA.gregburch@gregburch.net>
Message-ID: <014301c3e696$a4351150$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Welcome back, Greg!  It certainly is nice to see you on the list again.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 





From nanowave at shaw.ca  Thu Jan 29 18:33:04 2004
From: nanowave at shaw.ca (Russell Evermore)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 10:33:04 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Near East: The mother of all crappy deals
References: <000a01c3e685$8164eda0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <000301c3e696$554d0660$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>

Ok, I'll admit I haven't (and won't) spend a whole lot of time studying
this, but if someone here understands what I'm obviously missing, kindly
toss me a sentence or two and dispel my confusion.

In a so called "historic" prisoner swap brokered with Hezbollah, Israel is
freeing some 420+ live prisoners and 59 dead militants in exchange for the
release of ONE live Israeli business man and THREE dead Israeli soldiers?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-981934,00.html

Russell Evermore
~scratching his head~
nanowave at shaw.ca



From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Thu Jan 29 18:51:01 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 10:51:01 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Pickled Dragon
In-Reply-To: <1075351949.1398.0.camel@Renfield>
Message-ID: <000001c3e698$da380df0$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

I don't know about that :)
Not every representation of dragons has been that of a reptilian nature
:)
omard-out


-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Stephen J.
Van Sickle
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 8:52 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Pickled Dragon



Can't be real.  It has an umbilical cord, and everyone knows dragons
aren't mammals.

sjv

On Wed, 2004-01-28 at 19:50, Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> No, really, a pickled dragon...
> 
> ---
> A pickled "dragon" that looks as if it might once have flown around 
> Harry Potter's Hogwarts has been found in a garage in Oxfordshire, 
> England. The baby dragon, in a sealed jar, was discovered with a metal

> tin containing paperwork in old-fashioned German of the 1890s.
> 
> http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/28/1075088090949.html
> 
> ---
> 
> Emlyn
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org 
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat

_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Thu Jan 29 19:13:07 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 11:13:07 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401291059540.9664-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Spaceflightnow has a nice summary of what they think
happened with spirit.

http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/040126spirit.html

Best quote:
"Then, as we were getting ready to send the next beep command,
the vehicle decided to communicate with us in one of its nominal
communications windows at which point we got a little bit of data
that had very little information in it. In fact, originally we started
to decode it and it was from the year 2053 and we thought 'this is not
good!' Eventually we found out the data was corrupted, and we
were all cheering at that point because there weren't a lot of
scenarios that would put us in 2053 on Mars."

Aw, come on!  What good is a multiverse if some fraction of
it doesn't run at a faster clock speed?

Seriously though, JPL needs to get some really *old* programmers
(like moi) that know really well what running out of swap space
does to your system...  These guys are spoiled -- 256 MB of
swap space and 128 MB of ram.  384 MB of memory!  We don't
need no friggen 384 MB of memory.  I could tell you stories
about what one can do with a PDP 11/10 and 16 MB of memory...

And I'll bet those JPL programmers know *nothing* about
entering a program into the machine using the front panel
flip switches!

Robert




From joe at barrera.org  Thu Jan 29 19:24:10 2004
From: joe at barrera.org (Joseph S. Barrera III)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 11:24:10 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401291059540.9664-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401291059540.9664-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <40195DDA.6070903@barrera.org>

Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

>need no friggen 384 MB of memory.  I could tell you stories
>about what one can do with a PDP 11/10 and 16 MB of memory...
>  
>

I'm pretty sure you mean 16 KB :-)

- Joe




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Thu Jan 29 19:41:17 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 11:41:17 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401291059540.9664-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401291135520.10284-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

> I could tell you stories
> about what one can do with a PDP 11/10 and 16 MB of memory...

As Joe Barrera pointed out, that should be 16 KB of memory...

The problem with older programmers is that they need the
full 5-bit Error Correction Code on the brain-to-fingers
pathway rather than just the parity bit.  Sigh.

R.

(Also, for those of you who have not noticed the Javien forum
update to email delivery time has increased over the last
couple of days -- this is presumably due to increased load
on the internet and Email receiving agents from the viruses/worms
that are active this week.)



From determinism at hotmail.com  Thu Jan 29 19:50:42 2004
From: determinism at hotmail.com (Dennis May)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 13:50:42 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: Near East: The mother of all crappy deals
Message-ID: <BAY7-F330JrIwbyKYdC00027977@hotmail.com>

Russell Evermore wrote:

>Ok, I'll admit I haven't (and won't) spend a whole lot of time studying
>this, but if someone here understands what I'm obviously missing, kindly
>toss me a sentence or two and dispel my confusion.
>
>In a so called "historic" prisoner swap brokered with Hezbollah, Israel is
>freeing some 420+ live prisoners and 59 dead militants in exchange for the
>release of ONE live Israeli business man and THREE dead Israeli soldiers?
>
>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-981934,00.html

It is historic because that is the word they like to use when talking
about anything to do with the Middle East.  It could also be that the
reporter and editors are in their 20's and have no memory of how
that kind of swap has happened many times for many decades.

Dennis May

_________________________________________________________________
Learn how to choose, serve, and enjoy wine at Wine @ MSN. 
http://wine.msn.com/



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Thu Jan 29 19:55:33 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 11:55:33 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems
In-Reply-To: <40195DDA.6070903@barrera.org>
Message-ID: <20040129195533.28263.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>


--- "Joseph S. Barrera III" <joe at barrera.org> wrote:
> Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> 
> >need no friggen 384 MB of memory.  I could tell you stories
> >about what one can do with a PDP 11/10 and 16 MB of memory...
> >  
> >
> 
> I'm pretty sure you mean 16 KB :-)

YOU HAD 16 KB? or is that 16 Kb? I remember my first computer, 512
bytes of user programmable memory. Used it to to build a programmed
disco light panel out of fiberglass electroluminescent formation lights
for the dances at my junior high school. Made me king geek overnight.
Thanks, dad.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From determinism at hotmail.com  Thu Jan 29 19:45:36 2004
From: determinism at hotmail.com (Dennis May)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 13:45:36 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: SPACE: Spirit Problems
Message-ID: <BAY7-F1037yIp4cMouO00038a77@hotmail.com>

Clearly spirit has run out of punch cards.

Dennis

_________________________________________________________________
Learn how to choose, serve, and enjoy wine at Wine @ MSN. 
http://wine.msn.com/



From joe at barrera.org  Thu Jan 29 20:38:39 2004
From: joe at barrera.org (Joseph S. Barrera III)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 12:38:39 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Pickled Dragon
In-Reply-To: <1075357472.1398.25.camel@Renfield>
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B0178699F@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>	<1075351949.1398.0.camel@Renfield>	<LAW10-OE66vHhRwpA8v00041817@hotmail.com>	<1075356851.1398.13.camel@Renfield>
	<1075357472.1398.25.camel@Renfield>
Message-ID: <40196F4F.7020303@barrera.org>

Stephen J. Van Sickle wrote:

>  On Thu, 2004-01-29 at 00:14, Stephen J. Van Sickle wrote:
>
> > I know that if I pulled everyone's, someone's would come off.
>
>  Leg, that is. Everyone's leg.

It's all fun and games until someone bleeds to death from their femoral 
artery.

- Joe

P.S. Did you know that dragons don't have a femoral artery?




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Thu Jan 29 20:44:08 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 12:44:08 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: Near East: The mother of all crappy deals
In-Reply-To: <BAY7-F330JrIwbyKYdC00027977@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20040129204408.82455.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Dennis May <determinism at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Russell Evermore wrote:
> 
> >In a so called "historic" prisoner swap brokered with Hezbollah,
> Israel is
> >freeing some 420+ live prisoners and 59 dead militants in exchange
> for the
> >release of ONE live Israeli business man and THREE dead Israeli
> soldiers?
> >
> >http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-981934,00.html
> 
> It is historic because that is the word they like to use when talking
> about anything to do with the Middle East.  It could also be that the
> reporter and editors are in their 20's and have no memory of how
> that kind of swap has happened many times for many decades.

What I find so amusing is that you never get any arabs who are insulted
that Israel values one Israeli civilian more than Arabs value 420
fellow Arabs. Given this, anybody who just says its a fight over land,
doesn't know what they are talking about.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From extropy at unreasonable.com  Thu Jan 29 20:55:53 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 15:55:53 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: Near East: The mother of all crappy
  deals
In-Reply-To: <BAY7-F330JrIwbyKYdC00027977@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040129154518.048c0c08@mail.comcast.net>

Russell Evermore asked:

>In a so called "historic" prisoner swap brokered with Hezbollah, Israel is
>freeing some 420+ live prisoners and 59 dead militants in exchange for the
>release of ONE live Israeli business man and THREE dead Israeli soldiers?

Dennis May replied:

>It is historic because that is the word they like to use when talking
>about anything to do with the Middle East.  It could also be that the
>reporter and editors are in their 20's and have no memory of how
>that kind of swap has happened many times for many decades.

A friend of mine called me as soon as he read about this on debka, to see 
if I could explain to him what was going on. I couldn't. Israel has done 
lopsided deals for many years, but they've generally involved getting back 
live POWs and they have never been this one-sided. More typical might be 3 
POWs for 100 prisoners. And, in this case, the parents of one of the dead 
soldiers don't want Israel to do the deal.

I don't know what the true explanation is, but I'm sure there is one. It 
may take a while to surface though.


-- David Lubkin.




From extropy at unreasonable.com  Thu Jan 29 21:12:13 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 16:12:13 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hybrids
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040129155722.048e2ed0@mail.comcast.net>

No one responded to the question I posed a couple weeks ago, so I'll ask 
again. It was asked in a reply to a religious thread, so many people may 
have missed it.

>How is it that a horse and a donkey -- different species, with different 
>numbers of chromosomes -- can produce offspring?  What are the limits of 
>cross-species mating, besides incompatible hardware, e.g., horse and 
>gerbil?  Given species x, y and gestational periods g(x) and g(y), 
>respectively, what will the gestational period of an x carrying an x/y 
>hybrid be?

Beyond being interesting in their own rights, the limits of genetic 
differences that will produce fertile offspring without technological 
assistance are an important consideration in forthcoming human genemods.

Just as I want some people living off-Earth in an environment that can be 
viably self-sufficient with primitive technology, I would prefer that 
humans not fracture into reproductively incompatible successor species.


-- David Lubkin.




From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Thu Jan 29 21:33:48 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 15:33:48 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hybrids
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20040129155722.048e2ed0@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <LAW10-OE493sl3xbYiM00042212@hotmail.com>

I've actually been working on some research in this area. I'll dig it out
and reply offlist.
Kevin
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Lubkin" <extropy at unreasonable.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2004 3:12 PM
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hybrids


> No one responded to the question I posed a couple weeks ago, so I'll ask
> again. It was asked in a reply to a religious thread, so many people may
> have missed it.
>
> >How is it that a horse and a donkey -- different species, with different
> >numbers of chromosomes -- can produce offspring?  What are the limits of
> >cross-species mating, besides incompatible hardware, e.g., horse and
> >gerbil?  Given species x, y and gestational periods g(x) and g(y),
> >respectively, what will the gestational period of an x carrying an x/y
> >hybrid be?
>
> Beyond being interesting in their own rights, the limits of genetic
> differences that will produce fertile offspring without technological
> assistance are an important consideration in forthcoming human genemods.
>
> Just as I want some people living off-Earth in an environment that can be
> viably self-sufficient with primitive technology, I would prefer that
> humans not fracture into reproductively incompatible successor species.
>
>
> -- David Lubkin.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From asa at nada.kth.se  Thu Jan 29 21:47:40 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:47:40 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: Near East: The mother of all crappy deals
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040129154518.048c0c08@mail.comcast.net>
References: <BAY7-F330JrIwbyKYdC00027977@hotmail.com>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040129154518.048c0c08@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <2276.213.112.90.25.1075412860.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>


David Lubkin said:
> Israel has done
> lopsided deals for many years, but they've generally involved getting back
> live POWs and they have never been this one-sided. More typical might be 3
> POWs for 100 prisoners. And, in this case, the parents of one of the dead
> soldiers don't want Israel to do the deal.

Here is my guess: it is a necessary signal to the Israeli army that the
government is willing to do much to get kidnapped soldiers back, and that
it will leave no man behind. Given the increasing resistance within the
army to patrol the occupied areas, and the close ties between it and the
government (if you look at the background of Israeli prime ministers you
will find that most have ties to just a few military units; a certain
collegiality is quite plausible) it is likely that a gesture is needed. It
also looks good outwards internationally without really compromising any
of the key goals.

Just like the Israeli abassador's attack on the artwork here in Stockholm
two weeks ago, it only makes sense when viewed in a political context. A
rather *peculiar* context, I would say.

-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From asa at nada.kth.se  Thu Jan 29 22:05:01 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 23:05:01 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hybrids
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040129155722.048e2ed0@mail.comcast.net>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20040129155722.048e2ed0@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <2376.213.112.90.25.1075413901.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>


David Lubkin said:
> No one responded to the question I posed a couple weeks ago, so I'll ask
> again. It was asked in a reply to a religious thread, so many people may
> have missed it.
>
>>How is it that a horse and a donkey -- different species, with different
>>numbers of chromosomes -- can produce offspring?  What are the limits of
>>cross-species mating, besides incompatible hardware, e.g., horse and
>>gerbil?  Given species x, y and gestational periods g(x) and g(y),
>>respectively, what will the gestational period of an x carrying an x/y
>>hybrid be?

A fast google:
http://gslc.genetics.utah.edu/units/basics/conservation/tools/chromoanalysis.cfm

"For the mule, having parents with different chromosome numbers isn't a
problem. During mitotic cell division, each of the chromosomes copies
itself and then distributes these two copies to the two daughter cells. In
contrast, when the mule is producing sperm or egg cells during meiosis,
each pair of chromosomes (one from Mom and one from Dad) need to pair up
with each other. Since the mule doesn't have an even number of homologous
pairs (his parents had different chromosome numbers), meiosis is disrupted
and viable sperm and eggs are not formed."

Seems there are plenty of possible hybrids:
http://members.aol.com/jshartwell/hybrid-mammals.html
That page also has plenty of useful info about when hybrids can occur near
the end.

In short, I guess you need fairly closely related species since the
control programs among the genes otherwise may have shifted meanings, and
the different chromosomes will be sending contradictory orders during
development.

At least in Bison-Buffalo gestation length become highly variable due to
hybrids:
http://www.beefalobeef.com/hybrids.htm

> Beyond being interesting in their own rights, the limits of genetic
> differences that will produce fertile offspring without technological
> assistance are an important consideration in forthcoming human genemods.
>
> Just as I want some people living off-Earth in an environment that can be
> viably self-sufficient with primitive technology, I would prefer that
> humans not fracture into reproductively incompatible successor species.

If you follow Greg Stock's idea with putting the modified genes on an
extra non-inheritable chromosome this won't be a problem. Even two heavily
modified parents will have "natural" children - if they want to upgrade
them, they have to do it at an IVF clinic.

Then again, why is it bad to become a bunch of species? If a society can
create genetic modifications to create such a situation, then it can also
be remedied. In a loss of technology scenario where such abilities are
lost, then the loss of ability is likely a far larger issue than
reproduction.

-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Thu Jan 29 22:12:07 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 16:12:07 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems
References: <20040129195533.28263.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <LAW10-OE66yQdLoX0HC0004280b@hotmail.com>

Wow! What a story! I'm a bit younger. My first puter was a Commodore VIC-20
with 5KB RAM and 16KB ROM. I was so cool to everyone in school when I
managed to put the school phone directory onto a cassette and lookup names
by first name, last name, or phone number. I charged students $5.00 for each
tape. Since then I haven;t made a dollar in the tech world!

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Lorrey" <mlorrey at yahoo.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2004 1:55 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems


>
> --- "Joseph S. Barrera III" <joe at barrera.org> wrote:
> > Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> >
> > >need no friggen 384 MB of memory.  I could tell you stories
> > >about what one can do with a PDP 11/10 and 16 MB of memory...
> > >
> > >
> >
> > I'm pretty sure you mean 16 KB :-)
>
> YOU HAD 16 KB? or is that 16 Kb? I remember my first computer, 512
> bytes of user programmable memory. Used it to to build a programmed
> disco light panel out of fiberglass electroluminescent formation lights
> for the dances at my junior high school. Made me king geek overnight.
> Thanks, dad.
>
> =====
> Mike Lorrey
> "Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
>                                        - Gen. John Stark
> "Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
>                                        - Mike Lorrey
> Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
> Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
> http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Thu Jan 29 22:13:52 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 14:13:52 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Pickled Dragon
In-Reply-To: <40196F4F.7020303@barrera.org>
Message-ID: <20040129221352.28048.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>


--- "Joseph S. Barrera III" <joe at barrera.org> wrote:
> Stephen J. Van Sickle wrote:
> 
> >  On Thu, 2004-01-29 at 00:14, Stephen J. Van Sickle wrote:
> >
> > > I know that if I pulled everyone's, someone's would come off.
> >
> >  Leg, that is. Everyone's leg.
> 
> It's all fun and games until someone bleeds to death from their
> femoral artery.

That's what you get for running around with dragon's teeth.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Thu Jan 29 22:17:38 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 14:17:38 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hybrids
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040129155722.048e2ed0@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401291358020.12034-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, David Lubkin wrote:

> No one responded to the question I posed a couple weeks ago, so I'll ask
> again. It was asked in a reply to a religious thread, so many people may
> have missed it.

Perhaps.  I tend not to follow threads that would appear to have
a high debate-to-data content.

> >How is it that a horse and a donkey -- different species, with different
> >numbers of chromosomes -- can produce offspring?  What are the limits of
> >cross-species mating, besides incompatible hardware, e.g., horse and
> >gerbil?  Given species x, y and gestational periods g(x) and g(y),
> >respectively, what will the gestational period of an x carrying an x/y
> >hybrid be?

The gestational period is probably largely dependent on the hardware in
the mother.  But to the extent that the offspring signal "ready to go"
there will be some interaction.  [Note -- I am not up-to-speed on the
extent to which these signals vary across species.]

Chromosome variations are not too difficult to work around.  To the best
of my knowledge there are 3, perhaps 4, known situations where humans
can be born with an extra chromosome (trisomy).  Most of these individuals
suffer early deaths, though trisomy 23 (Down's syndrome) can have a
relatively long life.  The chances for viability go up with the increase in
chromosome number (higher chromosome #'s are smaller and have fewer genes
and therefore are less likely to cause gene dosage problems).

There is amazing amount of cross-species genetic matching -- you can take
the human genome and the mouse or rat genome and match those segments
from one genome precisely onto segments from the other species.  Whether
or not mating gives you viable offspring depends in large part on what
sequences may have been duplicated or deleted during the production of
the gametes.  Rarely will you get combinations that don't have problems --
but that is how most if not all all speciation seems to take place
(losing or gaining genes and at a higher level losing or gaining chromsomes).

> Just as I want some people living off-Earth in an environment that can be
> viably self-sufficient with primitive technology, I would prefer that
> humans not fracture into reproductively incompatible successor species.

If we have the ability to live off-Earth I *really* doubt we would not have
the ability to construct de-novo genomes.  (The business plan for Robiobotics
which leads to de-novo genomes is *much* closer to reality than Mars colonization).

Now whether or not one wants to preserve the ability for normo-homo-mating
would be an interesting question.  One has to argue that this has some
survival benefit in the situation that technology (and even the knowledge
of such technology) is somehow driven back to the dark ages or earlier.

I'm still waiting for someone to argue that an "Extinction Level Event"
(asteroids, comets, nuclear war, etc.) is going to eliminate nuclear
submarines and all of the knowledge/technology they embody.

Robert




From asa at nada.kth.se  Thu Jan 29 22:31:35 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 23:31:35 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-OE66yQdLoX0HC0004280b@hotmail.com>
References: <20040129195533.28263.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
	<LAW10-OE66yQdLoX0HC0004280b@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <2556.213.112.90.25.1075415495.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>

Mike (of course) has me beat, my first computer had 1024 bytes of RAM. I
still remember the many years I spent programming that little Sinclair
ZX81 (I still have it), and how it taught me so much about the need for
structured code, object orientation, efficient algorithms and recursion -
mostly by not having much of either, so I had to invent my own versions.
Very good education. The kids of today are so spoiled...

[Slightly serious: I actually think there is much merit in having people
start out learning programming in a very constrained environment, so that
they get a chance to learn to sneak around constraints well. ]

One of the fun details of the computer was the FAST and SLOW modes: by
turning off the screen signal programs ran faster, so there was a command
to do it. If you cycled the modes fast you got a cool flickering, and I
was trying to use it to entrain my brainwaves.

Kevin Freels said:
> Wow! What a story! I'm a bit younger. My first puter was a Commodore
> VIC-20
> with 5KB RAM and 16KB ROM. I was so cool to everyone in school when I
> managed to put the school phone directory onto a cassette and lookup names
> by first name, last name, or phone number. I charged students $5.00 for
> each
> tape. Since then I haven;t made a dollar in the tech world!

I actually sold a tape with ZX81 programs I had made to a friend for 100
crowns. I still think it was almost a fraud (but he is still my friend).

-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Thu Jan 29 22:57:30 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:27:30 +1030
Subject: [extropy-chat] Confirmation of microbes in Mars meteorite
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B017869AC@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

We're all from Mars: scientists
Graeme Webber
January 30, 2004
THE Martians are not coming - they've probably already arrived on earth. And
we could be their descendants.

Two Australian scientists have developed new technology to confirm claims by
NASA that a meteorite from Mars found in Antarctica in 1984 contained
microscopic fossils from the red planet. 
Scientists have fiercely debated whether the ancient, microscopic compounds
were deposited by ancient bacteria or natural chemical reactions - and
whether such bacteria was Martian or moved in after the meteorite fell to
earth. 
But biophysicist Dr Tony Taylor from the Australian Nuclear Science and
Technology Organisation (ANSTO) in Sydney and the University of Queensland's
Professor John Barry devised a new technique which they say affirms the
Martian microbe theory "beyond reasonable doubt". 

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8533660%255E15306,00.html


Emlyn



From duggerj1 at charter.net  Thu Jan 29 23:08:27 2004
From: duggerj1 at charter.net (duggerj1 at charter.net)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 17:08:27 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems
Message-ID: <200401292308.i0TN8Sjf018810@mxsf27.cluster1.charter.net>


> 
> And I'll bet those JPL programmers know *nothing* about
> entering a program into the machine using the front panel
> flip switches!
> 

They don't know what they miss. I wish I didn't. :-)

Jay Dugger     :     Til Eulenspiegel
http://www.owlmirror.net/Aduggerj/
Sometimes the delete key serves best.



From duggerj1 at charter.net  Thu Jan 29 23:08:59 2004
From: duggerj1 at charter.net (duggerj1 at charter.net)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 17:08:59 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems
Message-ID: <200401292309.i0TN92Ep096255@mxsf22.cluster1.charter.net>


> 
> And I'll bet those JPL programmers know *nothing* about
> entering a program into the machine using the front panel
> flip switches!
> 

They don't know what they miss. I wish I didn't. :-)

Jay Dugger     :     Til Eulenspiegel
http://www.owlmirror.net/Aduggerj/
Sometimes the delete key serves best.



From duggerj1 at charter.net  Thu Jan 29 23:19:41 2004
From: duggerj1 at charter.net (duggerj1 at charter.net)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 17:19:41 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] I'm BAAAAACK -- and a word about the VP Summit
Message-ID: <200401292319.i0TNJfO8020360@mxsf12.cluster1.charter.net>

>At Newtonmas we had family visiting, Anthea and I have been >working on FINALLY getting started on building our dream >house and then I went into a full month taken up by two 

So, where do you have this dream home: Clarktown, Armstrong, or the Belt Free States? 

http://gregburch.net/space/2050.html

Oh! for the day when frequent traveller points count towards augmentations.


Jay Dugger     :     Til Eulenspiegel
http://www.owlmirror.net/Aduggerj/
Sometimes the delete key serves best.



From joe at barrera.org  Thu Jan 29 23:28:16 2004
From: joe at barrera.org (Joseph S. Barrera III)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 15:28:16 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems
In-Reply-To: <2556.213.112.90.25.1075415495.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
References: <20040129195533.28263.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>	<LAW10-OE66yQdLoX0HC0004280b@hotmail.com>
	<2556.213.112.90.25.1075415495.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <40199710.9080808@barrera.org>

1975. HP 9820 desktop programmable calculator (borrowed)
1977. HP 29C handheld programmable calculator (owned)
1979. IMSAI 8080. Boy was it fast compared to the calculators!!!
1983. VAX 11/780, VAX/VMS, Pascal
1985. VAX 11/750, 4.2 BSD Unix
1987. IBM PC-RT (Unix)
1990. Vax Decstation 3100
1991. iPSC/860; Cray YMP; etc (lots of consulting)
1992. Gateway 486 DX2/50 (Microsoft)
1996. AST DX4/90 (?) - first laptop
etc.




From extropy at unreasonable.com  Thu Jan 29 23:36:58 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 18:36:58 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hybrids
In-Reply-To: <2376.213.112.90.25.1075413901.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se
 >
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20040129155722.048e2ed0@mail.comcast.net>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20040129155722.048e2ed0@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040129172559.048e80f0@mail.comcast.net>

t 11:05 PM 1/29/2004 +0100, Anders Sandberg quoted:

>"In contrast, when the mule is producing sperm or egg cells during meiosis,
>each pair of chromosomes (one from Mom and one from Dad) need to pair up
>with each other. Since the mule doesn't have an even number of homologous
>pairs (his parents had different chromosome numbers), meiosis is disrupted
>and viable sperm and eggs are not formed."

There is apparently a long-standing belief among mule aficionados that 
mules are, on rare occasion, fertile. Per the
British Mule Society,

http://freespace.virgin.net/gwyneth.wright/fertile.html

But there's a rebuttal on

http://www.bchorsemen.bc.ca/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=69

that any such reports are unreliable, and usually either a mare that seemed 
to be a hinny (female mule) or a hinny that adopted a foal and was mistaken 
for its mother.

Of course, a single instance of an actual fertile mule would seem to refute 
the Utah article.

>Then again, why is it bad to become a bunch of species? If a society can
>create genetic modifications to create such a situation, then it can also
>be remedied. In a loss of technology scenario where such abilities are
>lost, then the loss of ability is likely a far larger issue than
>reproduction.

In a loss of technology scenario, reproductively incompatible sentient 
species in the same ecological niches will presumably recap 
human-Neanderthal competition. I think a plausible argument can be made 
either way as to whether this is good or not. My guess is that any loss of 
technology scenario would be precarious enough that cross-species 
cooperation could be essential for survival, and interbreeding is the 
historically preferred method for creating and cementing ties.

Robert Bradbury wrote:

>I tend not to follow threads that would appear to have a high 
>debate-to-data content.

One more reason to change subject lines when changing topics.

>If we have the ability to live off-Earth I *really* doubt we would not have
>the ability to construct de-novo genomes.  (The business plan for Robiobotics
>which leads to de-novo genomes is *much* closer to reality than Mars 
>colonization).
>
>Now whether or not one wants to preserve the ability for normo-homo-mating
>would be an interesting question.  One has to argue that this has some
>survival benefit in the situation that technology (and even the knowledge
>of such technology) is somehow driven back to the dark ages or earlier.

I like the idea of off-site backup of critical data. I want biologically 
and culturally isolated copies of our sentience that are self-sufficient in 
a sustainable low-technology environment. Perhaps Amish on terraformed 
Mars. As a baseline we can refer to, and a fail-safe backup for extinction 
events. (The society need not be low-technology now but it needs to not be 
inherently reliant on higher-tech, as a space-based or females-only society 
would probably be.)

Mind you, I'm not saying that *all* of us need to be able to interbreed or 
survive low-tech, just that *some* can.

I'd also be somewhat comfortable with the equivalent of a baby factory in a 
bobble if I were convinced of the long-term reliability of both.


-- David Lubkin.




From megao at sasktel.net  Fri Jan 30 00:08:54 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 18:08:54 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Hybrids
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20040129155722.048e2ed0@mail.comcast.net>
	<2376.213.112.90.25.1075413901.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <4019A096.6AE39F08@sasktel.net>

I was involved in the attempting to develop a marketable Bison Hybrid back in the
1970's.
Many unforseen issues can arise.  In the case of bison - bovine hybrids there was a
dramatic difference between male and female offspring.  The F1 and F2 male offspring
were usually infertile and had under developed testes.  The females were quite
normal at any generation.  Usually bovine females were bred to bison to begin the
process.  The male fetuses caused severe immunological reactions in the mother.
The uterus greatly inflated blocking off the other organs of the bovine mother.
This caused starvation in some cases.  Abortion and early birth with complications
such as immature lungs without surfactants caused widespread mortality of
predominantly male offspring.  The fluid issue was referred to as Hydrops.
We had calves born 1-2 months premature who had these problems and died within 1 day
or 2 of birth.  Usually one could sex the offspring just by noting which cows were
building up fluid.  Males caused much more Hydrops than females.

When one used hybrid mothers, there was much less of the extreme incompatibility,
however gestation was many times a month earlier than for bovines.

Recombination did eventually produce some 30-45% fertile males to continue the
breeding with.  The merchandising of the meat was not highly successful so the
breeder market has largely disappeared.  From 1965-1985 there was however much
activity in this area.

So,  the bison/bovine divergence marks the limit under natural conditions under
which mating can be successful.

Bison hybrids would be an ideal research tool to investigate this further, given
that the tools available to entrepreneurial ranchers of the 1970's are far less than
the state of today's art.

Morris Johnson

Anders Sandberg wrote:

> David Lubkin said:
> > No one responded to the question I posed a couple weeks ago, so I'll ask
> > again. It was asked in a reply to a religious thread, so many people may
> > have missed it.
> >
> >>How is it that a horse and a donkey -- different species, with different
> >>numbers of chromosomes -- can produce offspring?  What are the limits of
> >>cross-species mating, besides incompatible hardware, e.g., horse and
> >>gerbil?  Given species x, y and gestational periods g(x) and g(y),
> >>respectively, what will the gestational period of an x carrying an x/y
> >>hybrid be?
>
> A fast google:
> http://gslc.genetics.utah.edu/units/basics/conservation/tools/chromoanalysis.cfm
>
> "For the mule, having parents with different chromosome numbers isn't a
> problem. During mitotic cell division, each of the chromosomes copies
> itself and then distributes these two copies to the two daughter cells. In
> contrast, when the mule is producing sperm or egg cells during meiosis,
> each pair of chromosomes (one from Mom and one from Dad) need to pair up
> with each other. Since the mule doesn't have an even number of homologous
> pairs (his parents had different chromosome numbers), meiosis is disrupted
> and viable sperm and eggs are not formed."
>
> Seems there are plenty of possible hybrids:
> http://members.aol.com/jshartwell/hybrid-mammals.html
> That page also has plenty of useful info about when hybrids can occur near
> the end.
>
> In short, I guess you need fairly closely related species since the
> control programs among the genes otherwise may have shifted meanings, and
> the different chromosomes will be sending contradictory orders during
> development.
>
> At least in Bison-Buffalo gestation length become highly variable due to
> hybrids:
> http://www.beefalobeef.com/hybrids.htm
>
> > Beyond being interesting in their own rights, the limits of genetic
> > differences that will produce fertile offspring without technological
> > assistance are an important consideration in forthcoming human genemods.
> >
> > Just as I want some people living off-Earth in an environment that can be
> > viably self-sufficient with primitive technology, I would prefer that
> > humans not fracture into reproductively incompatible successor species.
>
> If you follow Greg Stock's idea with putting the modified genes on an
> extra non-inheritable chromosome this won't be a problem. Even two heavily
> modified parents will have "natural" children - if they want to upgrade
> them, they have to do it at an IVF clinic.
>
> Then again, why is it bad to become a bunch of species? If a society can
> create genetic modifications to create such a situation, then it can also
> be remedied. In a loss of technology scenario where such abilities are
> lost, then the loss of ability is likely a far larger issue than
> reproduction.
>
> --
> Anders Sandberg
> http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
> http://www.aleph.se/andart/
>
> The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Fri Jan 30 00:01:04 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 10:31:04 +1030
Subject: Poxy old computers (was RE: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems
	)
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B017869AE@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

Give the kids Babbage engines and make 'em work it out.

Seriously, the current generation of programmers might be working with mini
M-Brains, but they are connected together with tin cans and string. Have a
look at what people are doing with coms between machines, with P2P networks,
with client side javascript and server side processing combos to make
complex looking web applications. etc etc.

Twenty/thirty  years into the future, when people are speccing massive
systems that work on an invisible global (solar system?) network that
functions almost like one mega computer, and the coding is mostly done by
evolutionary+AI support, sending terrabytes/second from one  side of the
earth to the other, we'll all be whinging about how much tougher it was in
our day, they should try coding P2P apps by hand to work over 56K modems.
And they'll say what we say now... interesting, but irrelevant gramps!

The bit you leave out when talking about coding on those old machines (ah, I
remember my c64 fondly...) is that you were dealing almost exclusively with
your own code in a simple, controlled, known environment. Pretty much the
only alien code belonged to the OS, if you used such a bloated beast (takes
up precious bytes). 

Now look at what we do today... yes there are more resources, but you are
talking about complex, uncontrolled, unknown environments; zillions of
network protocols and software layers and (defacto) (competing) standards.
Personally I love it; the stuff you can do today craps all over what I could
do on my c64. We remember our early generation PCs like we remember the
comfort of the womb, but like the womb we wouldn't return to them.

Emlyn

(ps: actually, I downloaded a C64 emulator on the weekend, and got the Pool
of Radiance running on it, played it with my daughter. Fun! Apparently the
emulator I downloaded enables a networked multiplayer mode over tcpip;
that's a bit like the borg assimilating a slug)

(pps: we may also be grumbling about nanotech enabled teens in a couple of
decades, "ah I remember my first radiodurans kit, before the megaplasmid kit
came out and you had to hack it by hand with an STM. Ah, those were the
days")

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Anders Sandberg [mailto:asa at nada.kth.se]
> Sent: Friday, 30 January 2004 8:02 AM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems
> 
> 
> Mike (of course) has me beat, my first computer had 1024 
> bytes of RAM. I
> still remember the many years I spent programming that little Sinclair
> ZX81 (I still have it), and how it taught me so much about 
> the need for
> structured code, object orientation, efficient algorithms and 
> recursion -
> mostly by not having much of either, so I had to invent my 
> own versions.
> Very good education. The kids of today are so spoiled...
> 
> [Slightly serious: I actually think there is much merit in 
> having people
> start out learning programming in a very constrained 
> environment, so that
> they get a chance to learn to sneak around constraints well. ]
> 
> One of the fun details of the computer was the FAST and SLOW modes: by
> turning off the screen signal programs ran faster, so there 
> was a command
> to do it. If you cycled the modes fast you got a cool 
> flickering, and I
> was trying to use it to entrain my brainwaves.
> 
> Kevin Freels said:
> > Wow! What a story! I'm a bit younger. My first puter was a Commodore
> > VIC-20
> > with 5KB RAM and 16KB ROM. I was so cool to everyone in 
> school when I
> > managed to put the school phone directory onto a cassette 
> and lookup names
> > by first name, last name, or phone number. I charged 
> students $5.00 for
> > each
> > tape. Since then I haven;t made a dollar in the tech world!
> 
> I actually sold a tape with ZX81 programs I had made to a 
> friend for 100
> crowns. I still think it was almost a fraud (but he is still 
> my friend).
> 
> -- 
> Anders Sandberg
> http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
> http://www.aleph.se/andart/
> 
> The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.
> 



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 30 00:28:29 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 16:28:29 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems
In-Reply-To: <2556.213.112.90.25.1075415495.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <20040130002829.6869.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Anders Sandberg <asa at nada.kth.se> wrote:> 
> Kevin Freels said:
> > Wow! What a story! I'm a bit younger. My first puter was a
> > Commodore VIC-20 with 5KB RAM and 16KB ROM. I was so cool to
> > everyone in school when I managed to put the school phone
> > directory onto a cassette and lookup names by first name, last
> > name, or phone number. I charged students $5.00 for each
> > tape. Since then I haven;t made a dollar in the tech world!
> 
> I actually sold a tape with ZX81 programs I had made to a friend for
> 100 crowns. I still think it was almost a fraud (but he is still my
> friend).

I got in trouble for writing and running a slot machine game in BASIC
on the schools TI-99 (made about some good money off it at the time).

Hey, I've got a VIC 20 in storage.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From natasha at natasha.cc  Fri Jan 30 02:52:20 2004
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 18:52:20 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] EVENT!  Max turns 40!
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20040129184721.02c350b0@pop.earthlink.net>


Well... there you have it.  Max is 40!

Happy Birthday Max and many, many more!


Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc
----------
President, Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture  http://www.transhumanist.biz
http://www.transhuman.org
-------------- next part --------------
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From asa at nada.kth.se  Fri Jan 30 00:49:19 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 01:49:19 +0100 (MET)
Subject: Poxy old computers (was RE: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit 
	Problems)
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B017869AE@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B017869AE@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <2919.213.112.90.25.1075423759.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>


Emlyn O'regan said:
> Give the kids Babbage engines and make 'em work it out.

My computer teacher in highschool almost did this. He was part of the team
who built the second Swedish computer (the BESK in 1953, see
http://www.treinno.se/pers/okq/besk.htm for pictures and
http://www.vethist.idehist.uu.se/english/newsletter/computers.html for a
description) and as an exam we got a copy of the instruction set and had
to write programs for it. The bootstrapping code was actually impressive.

> The bit you leave out when talking about coding on those old machines (ah,
> I
> remember my c64 fondly...) is that you were dealing almost exclusively
> with
> your own code in a simple, controlled, known environment. Pretty much the
> only alien code belonged to the OS, if you used such a bloated beast
> (takes
> up precious bytes).

That is a good point. I still tend to prefer to work with purely my own
code, which of course limits me to heavy numbercrunching neural network
programs. The shift to code re-use and more complex environments is very
important, and I notice that it was only reflected in the computer
education here a couple of years after I got sidetracked into
neuroscience.

So, what would the next step be? I think you are right about automatic
code generation, especially AI-generated code (we already have plenty of
code generators around, but they are fairly predictable and simple). The
step after that is IMHO likely robust adaptive code, where learning is an
integral part of the system and you program by setting the basic template
and learning parameters.

Each step seems to be a letting go. From handwritten machine code to
assembler that is compiled, to high-level languages, to software living in
an operating system, linking with other people's code, computers and data,
and then having other systems generate code and the code change itself.
Each time we give up control and certainty for flexibility and ability.

-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From asa at nada.kth.se  Fri Jan 30 00:58:55 2004
From: asa at nada.kth.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 01:58:55 +0100 (MET)
Subject: [extropy-chat] EVENT!  Max turns 40!
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20040129184721.02c350b0@pop.earthlink.net>
References: <5.2.0.9.0.20040129184721.02c350b0@pop.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <3046.213.112.90.25.1075424335.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>


Natasha Vita-More said:
>
> Well... there you have it.  Max is 40!
>
> Happy Birthday Max and many, many more!

Congratulations! May you find each day more interesting and more
delightful than the previous - forever!


When my father turned 40 he decided to count backwards after that. I doubt
Max will ever do that. Maybe the proper thing to do is to count in
increments of two up to 80, and then shift to bigger increments :-)


-- 
Anders Sandberg
http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa
http://www.aleph.se/andart/

The sum of human knowledge sounds nice. But I want more.



From duggerj1 at charter.net  Fri Jan 30 01:00:44 2004
From: duggerj1 at charter.net (duggerj1 at charter.net)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 19:00:44 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhuman Space RPG
Message-ID: <200401300100.i0U10ife042275@mxsf20.cluster1.charter.net>

Thursday, 29 January 2004

Apologies for the earlier double post.

For those of you with interest in the late December thread on Pulver's "Transhuman Space" role-playing game, <http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/transhuman/> but who haven't looked at it due to cost, I offer a hint.

A game store in Orlando, Florida called Sci-Fi City has this item on sale.  They just today marked their copies down by 40%. You get a 240-page, full-color, hardback copy of the text for US$20. If you live in North America, buying from them will probably save you money. They might make decent introductions to transhuman and extropian ideas for people who wouldn't bother with primary sources.

If you purchase one, go the store's website <http://www.sci-fi-city.com> and get their phone number. Call in your order, and tell them you want a clearance copy. I don't work for them, and this isn't meant as an ad.

Jay Dugger     :     Til Eulenspiegel
http://www.owlmirror.net/Aduggerj/
Sometimes the delete key serves best.



From wingcat at pacbell.net  Fri Jan 30 01:35:12 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 17:35:12 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Poxy old computers (was RE: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems)
In-Reply-To: <2919.213.112.90.25.1075423759.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <20040130013512.79547.qmail@web80408.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Anders Sandberg <asa at nada.kth.se> wrote:
> Each step seems to be a letting go. From handwritten
> machine code to
> assembler that is compiled, to high-level languages,
> to software living in
> an operating system, linking with other people's
> code, computers and data,
> and then having other systems generate code and the
> code change itself.
> Each time we give up control and certainty for
> flexibility and ability.

Which runs counter to commercial software development.
Who's going to QA the beast?  Who's going to certify
its utility for certain services it's sold to perform?

I know, the obvious rejoinder is, "So it won't be
useful for commercial purposes by our current
standards."  People express outrage as it is that
Windows is shipped with so many bugs.  What, then, of
the 2-year-old-child equivalent AI that can be trained
to do certain tasks like a savant with lots of memory
and several times human cognition speed, but is known
to easily fall into highly agitated states where it
produces no useful work and tries to make things
unpleasant for anyone nearby (codenamed
"tempertantrums")?

One possible answer might be to take the same approach
to quality assurance.  Give an expert system (say, a
"Yes/No Neural-Administration Net") a set of generic
bounds on acceptable behavior, plus another set
specific to a project, then let it consider likely
potential behaviors.  More bounds can be added as the
system gains experience (even those that might not be
applicable, i.e., "do not kill a human being unless
this project specifically overrides" would
automatically pass for a simple calculator).
Regardless, the QA AI then thinks up many test cases
to ferret out different types of potential
misbehaviors, and runs 'em.  Independent quality
assurance labs would have their own systems with their
own knowledge bases (and thus likely to be free from
rules like, "killing someone is okay so long as the
system's manufacturer profits from it").


From nanogirl at halcyon.com  Fri Jan 30 01:51:35 2004
From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 17:51:35 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] ascii conversion of images?
References: <4010E91F.8CE6C194@Genius.UCSD.edu>
Message-ID: <015201c3e6d3$97c7d690$f5b01218@uservqwsr60ljh>

The Lego video is the White Stripes, see here:
http://www.boardsmag.com/screeningroom/musicvideos/220/ . If you are asked
to fill in a one box form before preview, you can get away with typing "just
someone". They tell you how they developed the video here as well. [This
reply is late, due to traveling], Gina`


> Alejandro wrote:
> If he can display 8-bit ascii, it may be worth having a look at aalib.
> if he can do curses, then libcaca might even provide you with colour.
>
> Thanks.  With google I found:
> http://aa-project.sourceforge.net/aalib/
> http://sam.zoy.org/projects/libcaca/
> I'll be taking a look at these next week...
>
> BillK wrote:
> There is a whole sub-culture of geekdom which produces pictures in ascii
> characters.  Some even produce movies in ascii!
>
> So I'm finding!  I just came across this repository of
> ascii art:  http://www.ascii-art.de/
> There are even a few stereoscopic 3d pieces with surprising
> illusions of depth...
>
> Has anyone yet made an ascii music video for MTV?
> I think it could be a hit ... considering the kinds of
> animations I've seen succeeding there (e.g., the Waking Life
> kind of cartooned-reality graphics, the blocky lego vision
> of the Strokes video, etc.).
>
> > Two free programs which will convert jpg images to ascii are:
> > The Characterizer at:    <http://www.aolej.com/free.html#Chara>
> > and the ASCII Generator at:   <http://go.to/ascgen/>
> > You can try converting jpg images online to ascii at:
> > http://jpg2asc.hierklikken.com/
>
> Cool!  I'll be checking these out next week...
>
> Thanks again,
> Johnius


Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
http://www.nanoindustries.com
Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com
Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org
Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute
http://www.extropy.org
Tech-Aid Advisor http://www.tech-aid.info/t/all-about.html
nanogirl at halcyon.com
"Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future."




From nanogirl at halcyon.com  Fri Jan 30 02:01:08 2004
From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 18:01:08 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fractals and Crash
References: <20040114184113.76507.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com><00ad01c3dacf$a741d220$bc994a43@texas.net><005301c3dad9$a5e03ac0$bc994a43@texas.net><018201c3dada$948dc2f0$2ee4f418@markcomputer><008001c3dadc$08159bc0$bc994a43@texas.net><00f701c3db1b$d6de5200$69cd5cd1@neptune><02e301c3db1c$4e0a9730$2ee4f418@markcomputer><006a01c3db45$66e29ea0$3f80e40c@uservqwsr60ljh>
	<Pine.WNT.4.55.0401232300320.-92599211@pentium.mb.main.nc.us>
Message-ID: <020601c3e6d4$eda90c40$f5b01218@uservqwsr60ljh>

Sure, you can use them for your desktop wallpaper as it is personal use. Of
course they are not allowed to be used in any images, partial or fully
created or edited by anyone else, but I know that's not what you mean! : )
Thank you for your compliment and enjoy. Gina`


>
> Gina, those are neat fractals! Would it be permitted to use one or
> two of them as backgrounds for my desktop?
>
> Sorry about your harddisk crash. That's a nightmare.
>
> Regards,
> MB
>
>
> On Thu, 15 Jan 2004, Gina Miller wrote:
>
> > Hi everyone. I just started creating fractals and I have put up a
> > preliminary page here: http://www.nanogirl.com/fractals/index.html .
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>




From mbb386 at main.nc.us  Fri Jan 30 02:13:35 2004
From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 21:13:35 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Fractals and Crash
In-Reply-To: <020601c3e6d4$eda90c40$f5b01218@uservqwsr60ljh>
References: <20040114184113.76507.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com><00ad01c3dacf$a741d220$bc994a43@texas.net><005301c3dad9$a5e03ac0$bc994a43@texas.net><018201c3dada$948dc2f0$2ee4f418@markcomputer><008001c3dadc$08159bc0$bc994a43@texas.net><00f701c3db1b$d6de5200$69cd5cd1@neptune><02e301c3db1c$4e0a9730$2ee4f418@markcomputer><006a01c3db45$66e29ea0$3f80e40c@uservqwsr60ljh>
	<Pine.WNT.4.55.0401232300320.-92599211@pentium.mb.main.nc.us>
	<020601c3e6d4$eda90c40$f5b01218@uservqwsr60ljh>
Message-ID: <Pine.WNT.4.55.0401292112240.-94147933@pentium.mb.main.nc.us>


Thanks very much. It's so delightful to find interesting attractive
artwork to use. I'm creating a regular gallery of pretty things! :)

Regards,
MB


On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Gina Miller wrote:

> Sure, you can use them for your desktop wallpaper as it is personal use. Of
> course they are not allowed to be used in any images, partial or fully
> created or edited by anyone else, but I know that's not what you mean! : )
> Thank you for your compliment and enjoy. Gina`
>
>
> >
> > Gina, those are neat fractals! Would it be permitted to use one or
> > two of them as backgrounds for my desktop?


From spike66 at comcast.net  Fri Jan 30 03:04:05 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 19:04:05 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems
In-Reply-To: <20040129195533.28263.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <001301c3e6dd$b92cd5b0$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

> > Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> > 
> > >need no friggen 384 MB of memory.  I could tell you stories
> > >about what one can do with a PDP 11/10 and 16 MB of memory...
> > 
> > I'm pretty sure you mean 16 KB :-)
> 
> YOU HAD 16 KB? or is that 16 Kb?...
>                                        - Mike Lorrey

YOU had 16 Kb?  Luxury!

You young people don't know how easy you had it!

{etc, fill in I-remembers and old-man gags, etc.}  

Isn't it cool that things have improved so quickly and
so vastly in this old world?  In so many past generations, 
people lived much the same way their grandfathers did and 
the way their grandchildren did.  Now, especially those
of us who are into technology have had significantly
differing life experiences if our ages differ by
as little as five years.

Yet people tell me, over and over again, my friend,
they dont believe we're on the eve of construction.

spike








From oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au  Fri Jan 30 03:03:29 2004
From: oregan.emlyn at healthsolve.com.au (Emlyn O'regan)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:33:29 +1030
Subject: Poxy old computers (was RE: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Prob
	lems)
Message-ID: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B017869B0@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>

Adrian wrote:
> --- Anders Sandberg <asa at nada.kth.se> wrote:
> > Each step seems to be a letting go. From handwritten
> > machine code to
> > assembler that is compiled, to high-level languages,
> > to software living in
> > an operating system, linking with other people's
> > code, computers and data,
> > and then having other systems generate code and the
> > code change itself.
> > Each time we give up control and certainty for
> > flexibility and ability.
> 
> Which runs counter to commercial software development.
> Who's going to QA the beast?  Who's going to certify
> its utility for certain services it's sold to perform?

Read those licenses on your existing shrink wrapped software one more
time... no one is foolish enough, even today, to warrant that any software
sold will *actually work as intended*. Sometimes they even deny that there
is an intention behind the software.

Emlyn



From joe at barrera.org  Fri Jan 30 03:23:40 2004
From: joe at barrera.org (Joseph S. Barrera III)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 19:23:40 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems
In-Reply-To: <2556.213.112.90.25.1075415495.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
References: <20040129195533.28263.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>	<LAW10-OE66yQdLoX0HC0004280b@hotmail.com>
	<2556.213.112.90.25.1075415495.squirrel@webmail.nada.kth.se>
Message-ID: <4019CE3C.6070904@barrera.org>

1975. HP 9820 desktop programmable calculator (borrowed)
1977. HP 29C handheld programmable calculator (owned)
1979. IMSAI 8080. Boy was it fast compared to the calculators!!!
1983. VAX 11/780, VAX/VMS, Pascal
1985. VAX 11/750, 4.2 BSD Unix
1987. IBM PC-RT (Unix)
1990. Vax Decstation 3100
1991. iPSC/860; Cray YMP; etc (lots of consulting)
1992. Gateway 486 DX2/50 (Microsoft)
1996. AST DX4/90 (?) - first laptop
etc.





From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Fri Jan 30 03:55:17 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:55:17 -0500
Subject: Poxy old computers (was RE: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems)
In-Reply-To: <20040130013512.79547.qmail@web80408.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <017a01c3e6e4$e595af30$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Adrian Tymes asks,
> Who's going to QA the beast?  Who's going to certify
> its utility for certain services it's sold to perform?

Putting on cape...  Ta da!  It's Security-Auditor-Man!

There are security methodologies for developing secure and safe code.  There
are design review procedures.  There are development procedures.  There are
beta-testing procedures.  Most of today's code is buggy because people are
too busy/lazy/cheap to spend the time/effort/money to make stuff work.

For example:
Buffer overflows were solved in the 1960s.  Nobody should be plagued by
them.  But we are.  C++ as a strcpy command that copies a buffer from one
place to another.  It should never be used.  It does not force the
programmer to make sure the source buffer is not bigger than the destination
buffer.  Instead, there is a strncpy command that forces the programmer to
get the buffer size and only copy up to the safe amount.  There are many
other examples.  These bugs should never occur again.  We can search the
code for the faulty commands.

There are testing methods.  Don't put it in production until its been
tested.  Fix the bugs before release.  Microsoft and other product
developers simply refuse to do this because it would delay production.

There are also safe environment standards.  Backup work so we don't lose it.
Deploy in a safe environment so failures don't hurt anybody.  Don't have
single points of failure.  Have redundancy.  Have monitoring.  Have
contingency plans.  Have peer review.  Require multiple steps before doing
some thing dangerous.  Always have reversible operations.  Keep logs so
everything can be reconstructed and understood.  Have predictable structures
and modes.  Have checkpoints, self-evaluation, sanity-checks, verification,
etc.  Have safety controls.

I'm not saying that it will be easy, or even necessarily possible.  But we
can do much better than we are today.  Companies today just refuse to try.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com> 




From spike66 at comcast.net  Fri Jan 30 03:57:37 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 19:57:37 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems
In-Reply-To: <20040130002829.6869.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3e6e5$33e41230$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

> > Kevin Freels said:
> > > Wow! What a story! I'm a bit younger. My first puter was a
> > > Commodore VIC-20 with 5KB RAM and 16KB ROM. I was so cool to
> > > everyone in school when I managed to put the school phone
> > > directory onto a cassette...

Cool!  I had a VIC-20, it was the second computer I
owned personally, if one does not count programmable
calculators, which I actually used as *very slow*
computers.  My first was a counterfeit Apple II (blush).

I was not so fortunate as to have a nifty cassette
tape drive, nor a printer.  I had no actual storage
medium: the data and program was all lost if the
power failed.  With its peek and poke commands, one
could kinda sorta use the screen as a poor-man's
makeshift memory.  I used it for mathematical
research, numerical analysis, searching for large
prime numbers, that sorta thing.  In those days,
"large" meant a couple hundred digits, not the
6 million digits of today.  


When I realize all this was a mere 23 years ago,
I am awed.

spike


 



From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com  Fri Jan 30 04:30:20 2004
From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 23:30:20 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] EVENT!  Max turns 40!
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20040129184721.02c350b0@pop.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <017b01c3e6e9$c80735b0$cc01a8c0@DELLBERT>

Ha!  He's just a baby!  I'm a 40-and-*half*...

Remember how children used to brag about fractional years?  And then they
counted whole years?  And now we mark decades as milestones?

I don't think transhumanists will even be considered adults until they reach
their first millennium.  So...

Happy .04th kilobirthday, Max!  I wish you many, many kilo more!

--
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com>




From reason at longevitymeme.org  Fri Jan 30 04:43:38 2004
From: reason at longevitymeme.org (Reason)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 20:43:38 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] methuselan meeces
Message-ID: <FCEDLEKFOENAIDKOGMNNAEFMEDAA.reason@longevitymeme.org>

For those who are keeping track, the first competitor data is up on the
Methuselah Mouse prize website:

http://www.methuselahmouse.org/mice.php

More to come.

Reason
Founder, Longevity Meme



From nanowave at shaw.ca  Fri Jan 30 05:16:01 2004
From: nanowave at shaw.ca (Russell Evermore)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 21:16:01 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Confirmation of microbes in Mars meteorite
References: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B017869AC@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <000701c3e6f0$2729dba0$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>

I very much like the possibility that life here on Earth may have originated
on Mars. Despite the "God of War" mythology (which does tend to explain a
few things) the possibility that two independent instances of genesis might
arise in a single star system seems more than a little disturbing. The Fermi
Paradox looms up in our faces and we must contend with interstellar
predators, duplicitous Visitors, imminent self-destruction, or doorways
leading to parallel universes, miniated with apparently compelling moral
imperatives to step into them.

I'd really rather be a Martian.

RE
nanowave at shaw.ca


> Confirmation of microbes in Mars meteorite


> We're all from Mars: scientists
> Graeme Webber
> January 30, 2004
> THE Martians are not coming - they've probably already arrived on earth.
And
> we could be their descendants.
>
> Two Australian scientists have developed new technology to confirm claims
by
> NASA that a meteorite from Mars found in Antarctica in 1984 contained
> microscopic fossils from the red planet.
> Scientists have fiercely debated whether the ancient, microscopic
compounds
> were deposited by ancient bacteria or natural chemical reactions - and
> whether such bacteria was Martian or moved in after the meteorite fell to
> earth.
> But biophysicist Dr Tony Taylor from the Australian Nuclear Science and
> Technology Organisation (ANSTO) in Sydney and the University of
Queensland's
> Professor John Barry devised a new technique which they say affirms the
> Martian microbe theory "beyond reasonable doubt".
>
> http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8533660%255E15306,00.html
>
>
> Emlyn
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From fortean1 at mindspring.com  Fri Jan 30 05:50:35 2004
From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:50:35 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD [EWAR] Laws And Leaks Of Classified Intelligence
Message-ID: <4019F0AB.A86DEA24@mindspring.com>

< http://www.cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Classified_Leaks.htm >

Laws And Leaks Of Classified Intelligence:
Costs And Consequences Of Permissive Neglect
By James B. Bruce
(snips)
This presents an important anomaly in public discourse:  Nearly all of the
compelling evidence in support of this argument is available only in the
classified domain.  It thus seems daunting to make a persuasive public case
for new laws to address unauthorized disclosures when so little of the
evidence for it can be discussed publicly.  So proponents for better
laws-you will soon see why I am one of these-sometimes feel that this isn't
a fair fight.  Freedom-of-the press advocates and professional journalists
who control the press therefore exert disproportionate influence on this
debate, at least when compared to advocates of criminal penalties, as I am
here, for the leaking and publishing of sensitive classified intelligence.
But I have come to believe that First Amendment objections to civil and
criminal penalties for disclosing classified intelligence are probably
exaggerated.  And that once we get over this hurdle, it'll be more of a fair
fight, a more reasonable debate.  It is in this spirit that I offer the
following remarks.

I have four basic propositions:
The problem of unauthorized disclosures of classified intelligence is so
serious that this issue demands action from Congress as well as the
Executive Branch. 
An important reason for the seriousness of the problem lies in poor laws and
poor law enforcement. 
The remedies for this malady are not all that dramatic and constitutionally
bone-jarring, but are rather found in a sensible combination of new laws,
amending old ones, and better enforcement. 
The consequences of legal inaction are high-perhaps higher than we should
ask the American citizenry to bear. 
The scope of my concern with classified information here extends only to
intelligence, which encompasses intelligence information, activities,
operations, sources, and methods.  I exclude from my purview other kinds of
classified information such as military (war plans, weapons systems, etc.)
and diplomatic secrets, not because they are unimportant, but because I
believe that intelligence increasingly requires a distinct legal identity.
(snips)
In addition, a separate new law that we should consider would constitute a
technical counterpart to the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (50 USC
421), crafted to provide the same protection to technical sensors deployed
on any platform (space, air, land, sea) that is now afforded to human
operations.  
(snips)
- - - - -
And, the beat goes on.  How to protect themselves.  I posted this article to
give you an inside view as to the next moves of America's intelligence
agencies.  KK


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
      U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
   TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > [Vietnam veterans,
Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan 30 06:21:40 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:21:40 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Confirmation of microbes in Mars meteorite
In-Reply-To: <000701c3e6f0$2729dba0$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401292208020.22402-100000@server.aeiveos.com>



On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Russell Evermore wrote:

> [snip] Despite the "God of War" mythology (which does tend to explain a
> few things) the possibility that two independent instances of genesis might
> arise in a single star system seems more than a little disturbing. The Fermi
> Paradox looms up in our faces and we must contend with interstellar
> predators, duplicitous Visitors, imminent self-destruction, or doorways
> leading to parallel universes, miniated with apparently compelling moral
> imperatives to step into them.

Are you crazy?  (Regarding stepping into parallel universes without
knowing what is there first?)

There isn't a real problem with life starting on both Mars and Earth --
but the difference between 3 billion years and 500 million years (the
time differences between life and higher life) would suggest that you have
a 1 in 6 chance of having the environment last long enough to evolve higher
life forms.  So the probability of many of the questions/fears/situations
cited would seem to be low.

Robert




From gpmap at runbox.com  Fri Jan 30 07:07:45 2004
From: gpmap at runbox.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 08:07:45 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] Technique detects entangled quantum states
Message-ID: <IJEMLOJHDCNDHIICMJDBCECKCBAA.gpmap@runbox.com>

>From Technology Review: The laws of physics make things that are very
small - like atomic particles - act differently than objects in the larger
world where we reside. One weird quantum property is entanglement, which
allows properties of particles like atoms, photons and electrons to remain
linked, or synchronized, regardless of the physical distance between the
particles. Entanglement is also very sensitive to disturbances and therefore
difficult to measure.
Entanglement figures prominently in efforts to build quantum computers,
which use properties of particles to compute. Quantum computers promise to
be fantastically fast at certain types of large problems, including those
that would render today's cryptography useless. Entanglement also figures in
quantum cryptography schemes that offer theoretically perfect security.
Researchers from the University of Rome in Italy have pushed the schemes
forward by demonstrating a method for detecting entanglement. The method
could be used practically in five to ten years, according to the
researchers. The work appeared on Physical Review Letters (Detection of
Entanglement with Polarized Photons: Experimental Realization of an
Entanglement Witness).
[Note: besides its relevance in quantum computing technology, entanglement
is important for our understanding of the structure of reality as a
fundamental level and can be used to distinguish experimentally between
different formulations of quantum physics.]
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From fortean1 at mindspring.com  Fri Jan 30 07:58:39 2004
From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry W. Colvin)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 00:58:39 -0700
Subject: [extropy-chat] FWD [Skeptic] Re: Fertile mules [was Re: Hybrids]
Message-ID: <401A0EAF.D8E9EEF6@mindspring.com>

On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:44:12 -0800, you fwded:

>"Terry W. Colvin" wrote:
>>
>> that any such reports are unreliable, and usually either a mare
>> that seemed  to be a hinny (female mule) or a hinny that
>adopted a foal and was mistaken for its mother.
>
>A hinny is not a "female mule."  A hinny is the product of a cross
>that is the reciprocal of the cross that yields a mule:
>
>male ass X female horse ---> mule
>female ass X male horse ---> hinny

. 

             For those who are following up with "Okay, what about the fertile
mule we have read about..."  - Fertile mules (hinnies) are a 1 in 1 million case
occurrence.  All known fertile hybrids in the equine world have been female
mules or hinnies.  Why these few is still scientifically a mystery, and there is
still scientific debate over the verification of some "Fertile"; cases.  The
most well known and documented cases are of Krause, a mare mule with two mule
sons, and a fertile hinny in China, who's offspring, Dragon Foal, is considered
unique.  The complications for Krause's cases is that her sire, Chester, is also
the sire of her sons.  However, DNA testing has been cataloged as conclusive
that both foals, Blue Moon and White Lighting, are Krause's foals.

           In most known cases of mule fertility, it has been noted that the
mare mule passed on a complete set of her Maternal genes to the foal.  Therefore
a female mule bred to a horse would produce a 100% horse foal.  Thus was the
case of Old Beck, who was at Texas A&M in the 1920's;.  This mare mule had a
mule daughter, Kit.  She was brought to TX A&M for observation.  She was bred to
a saddle horse stallion, and produced a horse son, Pat Murphy Jr.  Pat Jr was
fertile, and sired horse foals.  Beck aborted a third foal, sired by a jack,
which although deformed, appeared to be a regular mule.

                There has more recently been a case of a mare mule in Brazil who
has foaled two 100% horse sons.  Tests in the future will hopefully prove them
to be normal, fertile stallions.

              Dragon Foal, instead of being a donkey foal from the mating of a
hinny to a jack, is a unique hybrid, with combinations never documented before.
Visually, she appears to be a strange donkey with some more mule-like features,
and her chromosomes and DNA test seem to confirm this.
                  In the feline world, there are hybrids of Jungle cats and
domestic cats, crossed by breeders to have a large cat with the wild markings
and still be a pet.  The first-generation female hybrids (F-1) are fertile, but
the males are not.  It is not until the F-3 generation (F-1 Crossed back to
domestic cat is F-2, F-2 back to domestic cat again is F-#) that the males
become fertile again.
          
  There have been no recorded cases of entire male mules (Male mules are always
gelded  for use and show, no stallion mules are allowed) ever siring a foal.
The cases of fertile Mare mules are so low that the F-3 generation has not been
documented or verified in order to test this theory.  There is one case (which
has no scientific backing) of a mare mule whose Mule daughter was also fertile,
and foaled a male "hule" (very horselike in appearance but with some mule
characteristics) but no testing was ever done on the hule, and it is not known
if he was routinely gelded or was left entire.


-- 
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Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
     Alternate: < fortean1 at msn.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
Sites: * Fortean Times * Mystic's Haven * TLCB *
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Allies, CIA/NSA, and "steenkeen" contractors are welcome.]


From amara at amara.com  Fri Jan 30 11:56:48 2004
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:56:48 +0200
Subject: [extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems
Message-ID: <p05100302bc3ff65fb73f@[150.146.134.133]>

Robert J. Bradbury:
>I could tell you stories about what one can do with a PDP 11/10 and 16
>MB of memory...

>And I'll bet those JPL programmers know *nothing* about entering a
>program into the machine using the front panel flip switches!

I began my scientific programming life on a PDP-11 at JPL, and I know
that some of those old hands are still around. The gray-haired ones
know. The younger ones are a bit spoiled, I agree.

Amara


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 30 13:28:52 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 05:28:52 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Confirmation of microbes in Mars meteorite
In-Reply-To: <000701c3e6f0$2729dba0$d3a44418@du.shawcable.net>
Message-ID: <20040130132852.34814.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Russell Evermore <nanowave at shaw.ca> wrote:
> I very much like the possibility that life here on Earth may have
> originated
> on Mars. Despite the "God of War" mythology (which does tend to
> explain a
> few things) the possibility that two independent instances of genesis
> might
> arise in a single star system seems more than a little disturbing.

I would say no. Given what we expect to find in the oceans of Europa
and other slushy moons of Jupiter, and possibly Titan as well, I'd say
that life's fecundity should be expected to be attempted wherever
possible. It is intelligence that is rare, requiring a world that is
stable long enough to produce it, and which produces the kind of
intelligence that is capable of reaching for the stars. 
Given the intelligence of Porpoises, parrots, and other apes besides
man, all of which have demonstrated cognitive and language skills,
technological intelligence is the rare bird.

> The Fermi
> Paradox looms up in our faces and we must contend with interstellar
> predators, duplicitous Visitors, imminent self-destruction, or
> doorways
> leading to parallel universes, miniated with apparently compelling
> moral
> imperatives to step into them.
> 
> I'd really rather be a Martian.
> 
> RE
> nanowave at shaw.ca
> 
> 
> > Confirmation of microbes in Mars meteorite
> 
> 
> > We're all from Mars: scientists
> > Graeme Webber
> > January 30, 2004
> > THE Martians are not coming - they've probably already arrived on
> earth.
> And
> > we could be their descendants.
> >
> > Two Australian scientists have developed new technology to confirm
> claims
> by
> > NASA that a meteorite from Mars found in Antarctica in 1984
> contained
> > microscopic fossils from the red planet.
> > Scientists have fiercely debated whether the ancient, microscopic
> compounds
> > were deposited by ancient bacteria or natural chemical reactions -
> and
> > whether such bacteria was Martian or moved in after the meteorite
> fell to
> > earth.
> > But biophysicist Dr Tony Taylor from the Australian Nuclear Science
> and
> > Technology Organisation (ANSTO) in Sydney and the University of
> Queensland's
> > Professor John Barry devised a new technique which they say affirms
> the
> > Martian microbe theory "beyond reasonable doubt".
> >
> >
>
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8533660%255E15306,00.html
> >
> >
> > Emlyn
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > extropy-chat mailing list
> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
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Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
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From determinism at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 30 15:26:50 2004
From: determinism at hotmail.com (Dennis May)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:26:50 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids
Message-ID: <BAY7-F65IjCeTSxzaP80002954d@hotmail.com>

Anders Sandberg wrote:

>Then again, why is it bad to become a bunch of species? If a society can
>create genetic modifications to create such a situation, then it can also
>be remedied. In a loss of technology scenario where such abilities are
>lost, then the loss of ability is likely a far larger issue than
>reproduction.

The movement into space produces the natural conditions for normal
species radiation - separation of populations, changes in environment,
and time.  Modern technology will only increase the speed of new
species creation.

Robert J. Bradbury wrote:

>Now whether or not one wants to preserve the ability for normo-homo-mating 
>would be an interesting question.  One has to argue that this has some 
>survival benefit in the situation that technology (and even the knowledge 
>of such technology) is somehow driven back to the dark ages or earlier.

>I'm still waiting for someone to argue that an "Extinction Level Event" 
>(asteroids, comets, nuclear war, etc.) is going to eliminate nuclear 
>submarines and all of the knowledge/technology they embody.

Extinction level events won't necessarily kill all humans right away
but it would be a significant set back with the potential of leading
to human extinction.  If only a few thousand humans survive but
are unable to locate each other in groups large enough to preserve
technology and/or maintain a breeding group it could mean the
end.

David Lubkin wrote:

>I like the idea of off-site backup of critical data. I want biologically 
>and culturally isolated copies of our sentience that are self-sufficient in 
>a sustainable low-technology environment. Perhaps Amish on terraformed 
>Mars. As a baseline we can refer to, and a fail-safe backup for extinction 
>events. (The society need not be low-technology now but it needs to not be 
>inherently reliant on higher-tech, as a space-based or females-only society 
>would probably be.)

>Mind you, I'm not saying that *all* of us need to be able to interbreed or 
>survive low-tech, just that *some* can.

>I'd also be somewhat comfortable with the equivalent of a baby factory in a 
>bobble if I were convinced of the long-term reliability of both.

I suspect the low-tech backup option will be the Earth and several
diverse groups of people who don't have the resources or skills
to make it into space.  Going native on another planet will be an
option for some but not any time soon.

Dennis May

determinism at hotmail.com

_________________________________________________________________
Check out the coupons and bargains on MSN Offers! 
http://shopping.msn.com/softcontent/softcontent.aspx?scmId=1418



From natashavita at earthlink.net  Fri Jan 30 16:01:50 2004
From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 11:01:50 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Precautionary Principle -  A Must Read!
Message-ID: <157240-22004153016150870@M2W094.mail2web.com>

The Science Environment Health Network has an excellent source of
information on the Precautionary Principle.

*While caution is essential, and precaution is a very important concept,*
the use of the Precuationary Principle as a rallying tool against
theraputic cloning and other biotechnological advances is harmful.

Check out the link below in preparing for the upcoming "VP" Summit.  
http://www.sehn.org/precaution.html

Here is one comment worth reading:

"Debating the Precautionary Principle"
           Nancy Myers, March 2000
"The precautionary principle has taken center stage in a number of recent
international discussions on trade, the environment, and human health. As a
result, it has stirred criticism as well as interest. In these discussions
and in a growing number of media reports on the principle, certain
criticisms and qualifications, enumerated below, have been repeated with
some frequency."

Natasha


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From natashavita at earthlink.net  Fri Jan 30 16:01:57 2004
From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 11:01:57 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Precautionary Principle -  A Must Read!
Message-ID: <265000-22004153016157243@M2W090.mail2web.com>

The Science Environment Health Network has an excellent source of
information on the Precautionary Principle.

*While caution is essential, and precaution is a very important concept,*
the use of the Precuationary Principle as a rallying tool against
theraputic cloning and other biotechnological advances is harmful.

Check out the link below in preparing for the upcoming "VP" Summit.  
http://www.sehn.org/precaution.html

Here is one comment worth reading:

"Debating the Precautionary Principle"
           Nancy Myers, March 2000
"The precautionary principle has taken center stage in a number of recent
international discussions on trade, the environment, and human health. As a
result, it has stirred criticism as well as interest. In these discussions
and in a growing number of media reports on the principle, certain
criticisms and qualifications, enumerated below, have been repeated with
some frequency."

Natasha


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From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan 30 16:18:51 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 08:18:51 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] EDU: Georgia and Evolution
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401300810070.364-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


One really has to wonder about the worlds that people
live in in their minds.

Georgia Takes on 'Evolution'
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/30/education/30GEOR.html?pagewanted=print

I would be less inclined to worry about the people like
Kass in the world and more inclined to worry about the
people who at a very local level are brainwashing minds.

In contrast you have Albany NanoTech bringing high school
students in for "chip camp":
   http://albany.bizjournals.com/albany/stories/2003/03/24/daily23.html

Robert




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 30 16:45:10 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 08:45:10 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids
In-Reply-To: <BAY7-F65IjCeTSxzaP80002954d@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20040130164510.6286.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Dennis May <determinism at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Anders Sandberg wrote:
> 
> >I'm still waiting for someone to argue that an "Extinction Level
> > Event" (asteroids, comets, nuclear war, etc.) is going to
> > eliminate nuclear submarines and all of the knowledge/technology
> > they embody.
> 
> Extinction level events won't necessarily kill all humans right away
> but it would be a significant set back with the potential of leading
> to human extinction.  If only a few thousand humans survive but
> are unable to locate each other in groups large enough to preserve
> technology and/or maintain a breeding group it could mean the
> end.

An extinction level event would cause a decades long global Ice House
climate which would kill off most plant life, most all land animals,
and a majority of sea life.

If only a two or three year winter were the result, you'd simply have
little agriculture and a large amount of cannibalism (SM Stirling's
alternate history novel "The Peshawar Lancers" is a good depiction of a
post near-extinction event world.

Nuclear submarines surviving may preserve a lot of engineering
technology, but one look at the Russian navy yards shows hundreds of
such hulks rusting away a decade after they were parked. The surviving
crews would have to fight for food on land, likely use their nuclear
threat to extort supplies from survivors on land, and use the nuclear
reactor to generate power for a seaside community they choose as a base
of operations. This carrot and stick approach would guarantee their
survival, but would result in a warlord structured society akin to
Afghanistan. Those with technical talent will gradually become court
slaves to feudal constabularies when the isotopes run out.

In fact, nuclear plants would likely become the center of the new
civilization (provided they build some capability of running
independent of the grid, as most require some input power to operate
for some reason). Nations that invest in nuke plants now will preserve
their civilisations better.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From jonkc at att.net  Fri Jan 30 16:49:34 2004
From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 11:49:34 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] 3D Protein Structure 
References: <5.2.0.9.0.20040129184721.02c350b0@pop.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <010401c3e751$19fdb350$55ff4d0c@hal2001>

It's not quite as good as deriving 3D protein structure from first principles but this program is still pretty damn neat. If it works half as well as this brief article says it does it's the most important program anyone has written in years.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040128074821.htm 

 

John K Clark       jonkc at att.net
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From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 30 17:16:47 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:16:47 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] EDU: Georgia and Evolution
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401300810070.364-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040130171647.63606.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>


--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> 
> One really has to wonder about the worlds that people
> live in in their minds.
> 
> Georgia Takes on 'Evolution'
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/30/education/30GEOR.html?pagewanted=print
> 
> I would be less inclined to worry about the people like
> Kass in the world and more inclined to worry about the
> people who at a very local level are brainwashing minds.

Robert, this is GEORGIA we are talking about. Even Huntsville is awash
in christian fundies. Athens is about the only place you can find
rational people.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From megao at sasktel.net  Fri Jan 30 17:17:30 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 11:17:30 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Precautionary Principle -  A Must Read!
References: <157240-22004153016150870@M2W094.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <401A91A9.4EA46EC0@sasktel.net>

The precuationary principal must have the anti-cilization folks with
http://www.greenanarchy.org really rubbing their hands.

The converse of the precautionary principal is that with somewhere near 50% of
the free energy from oil used,  it is imperative technology to advance the
species which requires cheap energy have enough time left on the clock to make
the transition.

Any slow-up for several decades puts greater need to sacrifice life style to
achieve
development in the hands of those seeking to advance technology.

Given the huge waste of resources on warlike  enterprise any slowdown does not
look good.

The caution is more fear than intellect at work.
When 2 cows test for BSE an entire industry is shut down.
Complete blanket testing is cheap and available  and would allow resolution
quite quickly.  The reaction to animal vectored disease is wholesale slaughter
in countries where food is at a premium.  Wholesale vaccination of diseases
rather than bombing Iraq is the war with the better return of  global  human
capital.

Global policy with an extropian perspective needs to be developed and
implemented.

We get so worried about moderately severe illnesses jumping the species
barrier.

If the people who are behind the precautionary principal want something
worthwhile to undertake , it would be to eradicate AIDS from the planet before
it develops the next evolutionary tactic, virulence.  With tens of millions of
carriers and trillions of organisms per host lifetime the numbers are in favor
of the microbe and not the host.
There  will be lots of oil for all if the world population reduces from 6
billion to 6 million in 30 years.

Robin Hansen's Ideas Futures policy analysis site might add the afore and after
mentioned senarios to the choices  to wager on.  They beat terrorist threats
all to hell. If I bet 100$ that AIDS becomes virulent within 20 years and get
10,000 to1 odds , as well as bet that within 35 years it will be eradicated I
can win both ways.
The first will bring huge returns with the first catastrophe.  The windfall of
money I make could contribute to the cure.  After the crisis, the odds of cure
will shift the same as the odds against virulence.  At the end it is a double
win.  Isn't that how the military planners bet?



...MFJ

"natashavita at earthlink.net" wrote:

> The Science Environment Health Network has an excellent source of
> information on the Precautionary Principle.
>
> *While caution is essential, and precaution is a very important concept,*
> the use of the Precuationary Principle as a rallying tool against
> theraputic cloning and other biotechnological advances is harmful.
>
> Check out the link below in preparing for the upcoming "VP" Summit.
> http://www.sehn.org/precaution.html
>
> Here is one comment worth reading:
>
> "Debating the Precautionary Principle"
>            Nancy Myers, March 2000
> "The precautionary principle has taken center stage in a number of recent
> international discussions on trade, the environment, and human health. As a
> result, it has stirred criticism as well as interest. In these discussions
> and in a growing number of media reports on the principle, certain
> criticisms and qualifications, enumerated below, have been repeated with
> some frequency."
>
> Natasha
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> mail2web - Check your email from the web at
> http://mail2web.com/ .
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Fri Jan 30 17:37:11 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:37:11 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids
In-Reply-To: <20040130164510.6286.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401300923531.791-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> Nuclear submarines surviving may preserve a lot of engineering
> technology, but one look at the Russian navy yards shows hundreds of
> such hulks rusting away a decade after they were parked.

But Mike -- there is no incentive/justification for keeping them
functioning.  In a post ELE that would not be the case.

> The surviving crews would have to fight for food on land, likely use their nuclear
> threat to extort supplies from survivors on land, and use the nuclear
> reactor to generate power for a seaside community they choose as a base
> of operations.

Hmmm...  I would not think of the nuclear power as a threat but
as an essential element towards providing the energy (and light)
necessary to sustain food production.  Also -- nuclear power
is perhaps not an essential component -- it is difficult to
imagine that many ELE's would destroy all hydroelectric energy
production capacity.  Diminish it yes -- probably by a reduction
in rainfall resulting from less evaporation from the oceans --
but the infrastructure would probably remain in place.

> This carrot and stick approach would guarantee their
> survival, but would result in a warlord structured society akin to
> Afghanistan. Those with technical talent will gradually become court
> slaves to feudal constabularies when the isotopes run out.

The phrase "when the isotopes run out" suggests that there would
be a loss of the knowledge that breeder reactors are feasible.
Obviously the ability to produce more fuel than one consumes would
be a significant benefit within power structures -- so I doubt
a scenario of declining energy resources would develop.

> In fact, nuclear plants would likely become the center of the new
> civilization (provided they build some capability of running
> independent of the grid, as most require some input power to operate
> for some reason).

The above discussion suggests that there would possibly be three
potential civilization cores -- those centered around nuclear
vessels, those centered around nuclear power reactors and those
centered around hydroelectric power centers.  Now which would become
dominant would tend to revolve around how fast the climate recovers
to normal rain patterns and how fast reactor based nodes shift
into producing their own fuel resources.  So long as one gets
local civilizations into the 100-1000 year longevity framework
it seems likely that much previous knowledge could be recreated.

Robert




From extropy at unreasonable.com  Fri Jan 30 18:07:08 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:07:08 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Surviving ELEs (was Re: Hybrids)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401300923531.791-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
References: <20040130164510.6286.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040130124918.032025c8@mail.comcast.net>

Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
         :
>The above discussion suggests that there would possibly be three
>potential civilization cores -- those centered around nuclear
>vessels, those centered around nuclear power reactors and those
>centered around hydroelectric power centers.
         :

You seem to be focusing on a restricted class of extinction-level events. I 
am more concerned about a more virulent version of the so-called Spanish 
Flu pandemic, either natural or engineered, than something like an asteroid 
impact.

With the right pathogen, nuclear sub crews will die as well either due to 
exposure once they surface or because it was designed to stay dormant until 
everyone was infected and they were exposed before the cruise began.

Still, for the discussion at hand, you are right. If the ELE doesn't kill 
the sub crews, they will be able to leverage their technology. However, we 
don't allow women to serve on submarines. Locating any women survivors on 
the surface may be difficult. (Do any other submariner nations allow women?)


-- David Lubkin.




From jacques at dtext.com  Fri Jan 30 18:16:14 2004
From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 19:16:14 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] EDU: Georgia and Evolution
In-Reply-To: <20040130171647.63606.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040130171647.63606.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <401A9F6E.3040006@dtext.com>

> --- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> 
>>One really has to wonder about the worlds that people
>>live in in their minds.
>>
>>Georgia Takes on 'Evolution'
>>
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/30/education/30GEOR.html?pagewanted=print
> 
>>I would be less inclined to worry about the people like
>>Kass in the world and more inclined to worry about the
>>people who at a very local level are brainwashing minds.

I have been giving a little help to a 16 y/o highschool student here in 
France for his biology course. I was delighted to discover what they are 
studying. A strong stress on Man, seen as a natural product of 
evolution; emotions as caused by processes in the nervous system; 
genetic engineering shown in a positive light.

Think of this: What kind of education did the political guys now in 
control receive ? A very different one. Probably no connection 
whatsoever between Man and evolution. What will happen when the kids 
raised on this get in control? Transhumanism is likely to seem rather 
obvious for people educated that way in highschool.

3 main topics for this year:

1) Nervous comunication

- Fundamental aspects of nervous communication [with nociception as a 
particular case]
- The action of chemicals on the nervous system [enkephalins/morphine, etc.]

2) From genotype to phenotype

- The relationship betwen DNA and proteins
- Complexity of the relationship between genes, phenotypes and environment

3) The position of Man within evolution

- Looking for the common ancestor
- The emergence of the humand kind

And that's for the whole country. The content is pretty technical for 
that age, and he's not even in a scientific path. Hopeful stuff, I say.

Jacques

PS: Happy birthday to Max! I hope you become more present again in the 
movement you initiated in a near future. You are a great inspiration for 
many.




From natashavita at earthlink.net  Fri Jan 30 18:20:24 2004
From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:20:24 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Transhuman Space RPG
Message-ID: <114780-220041530182024285@M2W048.mail2web.com>

Dugger -
 
We had dinner with Steve Jackson here to celebrate Max's 40th birthday and
spent much of the evening talking about games.  
Way to go! :-)
 
Natasha

>Thursday, 29 January 2004

>Apologies for the earlier double post.

>For those of you with interest in the late December thread on Pulver's 
>"Transhuman Space" role-playing game, 
><http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/transhuman/> but who haven't looked at it 
>due to cost, I offer a hint.
>
>A game store in Orlando, Florida called Sci-Fi City has this item on 
>sale.  They just today marked their copies down by 40%. You get a 
>240-page, full-color, hardback copy of the text for US$20. If you live in 
>North America, buying from them will probably save you money. They might 
>make decent introductions to transhuman and extropian ideas for people 
>who wouldn't bother with primary sources.
>
>If you purchase one, go the store's website 
><http://www.sci-fi-city.com> and get their phone number. Call in your
>order, and tell them you 
>want a clearance copy. I don't work for them, and this isn't meant as an 
>ad.

>Jay Dugger     :     Til Eulenspiegel
>http://www.owlmirror.net/Aduggerj/
>Sometimes the delete key serves best.


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From sjvans at mailhost.mil.ameritech.net  Fri Jan 30 18:32:31 2004
From: sjvans at mailhost.mil.ameritech.net (sjvans at mailhost.mil.ameritech.net)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:32:31 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids
Message-ID: <244640-220041530183231253@M2W039.mail2web.com>



From: Robert J. Bradbury bradbury at aeiveos.com

>The above discussion suggests that there would possibly be three
>potential civilization cores -- those centered around nuclear
>vessels, those centered around nuclear power reactors and those
>centered around hydroelectric power centers.  

Huh?  I am getting into this late, but could someone explain to me how this
hypothetical "extinction level event" would wipe out fossil fuels?  Coal
mines and oil fields are 19th and very early 20th century technology...much
easier to maintain and preserve than nuclear power plants.  With a
hypothetically much reduced population, known reserves and even stored
supplies would last a very long time.  I'd much rather try my hand at
distilling straight gasoline from crude or making producer gas from coal
than refuel a nuclear power plant.

sjv

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .




From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 30 18:37:55 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 10:37:55 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401300923531.791-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <20040130183755.34921.qmail@web12903.mail.yahoo.com>


--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> 
> > Nuclear submarines surviving may preserve a lot of engineering
> > technology, but one look at the Russian navy yards shows hundreds
> > of such hulks rusting away a decade after they were parked.
> 
> But Mike -- there is no incentive/justification for keeping them
> functioning.  In a post ELE that would not be the case.

But would the CAPABILITY be present to keep them functioning? A nuclear
sub is not an island. It requires a significant shore based
infrastructure to maintain and support. If shoreline communities are
all wiped out by tidal wave action, that infrastructure is gone.

> 
> > The surviving crews would have to fight for food on land, likely
> use their nuclear
> > threat to extort supplies from survivors on land, and use the
> nuclear
> > reactor to generate power for a seaside community they choose as a
> base
> > of operations.
> 
> Hmmm...  I would not think of the nuclear power as a threat but
> as an essential element towards providing the energy (and light)
> necessary to sustain food production.  Also -- nuclear power
> is perhaps not an essential component -- it is difficult to
> imagine that many ELE's would destroy all hydroelectric energy
> production capacity.  Diminish it yes -- probably by a reduction
> in rainfall resulting from less evaporation from the oceans --
> but the infrastructure would probably remain in place.

Nuclear warheads as the new Armored Cavalry would enforce a sphere of
influence. If nuclear subs survive, it follows their nuclear tipped
weapons will survive as well, at least long enough for them to
establish more conventional weapons stockpiles and manned fortresses.
They would then likely be slowly converted to fuel to keep the reactor
going.

(Keep in mind Stephenson's scenario of The Republic of Kodiak being
taken over by a bunch of orthodox Russians with one nuclear sub.) Just
because the world has ended does not end the threat of nuclear
weaponry.

> 
> > This carrot and stick approach would guarantee their
> > survival, but would result in a warlord structured society akin to
> > Afghanistan. Those with technical talent will gradually become
> court
> > slaves to feudal constabularies when the isotopes run out.
> 
> The phrase "when the isotopes run out" suggests that there would
> be a loss of the knowledge that breeder reactors are feasible.

Knowing they are feasible and posessing the industrial infratructure to
produce them are to entirely different degrees of capability.

> Obviously the ability to produce more fuel than one consumes would
> be a significant benefit within power structures -- so I doubt
> a scenario of declining energy resources would develop.

This implies the industrial infrastructure to manufacture a breeder
reactor (nuke subs most definitely cannot be used for such). Since most
nuclear fuel production facilities are located along major waterways,
should we not expect that they would get wiped out by tidal waves
following major river valleys?

> 
> > In fact, nuclear plants would likely become the center of the new
> > civilization (provided they build some capability of running
> > independent of the grid, as most require some input power to
> operate
> > for some reason).
> 
> The above discussion suggests that there would possibly be three
> potential civilization cores -- those centered around nuclear
> vessels, those centered around nuclear power reactors and those
> centered around hydroelectric power centers.  Now which would become
> dominant would tend to revolve around how fast the climate recovers
> to normal rain patterns and how fast reactor based nodes shift
> into producing their own fuel resources.  So long as one gets
> local civilizations into the 100-1000 year longevity framework
> it seems likely that much previous knowledge could be recreated.

Knowing something is possible does not make it so. The pool of
engineering and manufacturing skills required are rather massive. All
these power centers would be good for is to keep the lights on long
enough for the biosphere to start recovering enough to enable
agriculture again. There will be a LOT of ordinance expended in the
mean time, with 99% of the human race spending their lives in an eat or
be eaten, burn or freeze existence, and threatening to eat the 1% that
is not reduced to such an existence.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 30 18:49:08 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 10:49:08 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Surviving ELEs (was Re: Hybrids)
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040130124918.032025c8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <20040130184909.17025.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>


--- David Lubkin <extropy at unreasonable.com> wrote:
> Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>          :
> >The above discussion suggests that there would possibly be three
> >potential civilization cores -- those centered around nuclear
> >vessels, those centered around nuclear power reactors and those
> >centered around hydroelectric power centers.
>          :
> 
> You seem to be focusing on a restricted class of extinction-level
> events. I am more concerned about a more virulent version of the
> so-called Spanish Flu pandemic, either natural or engineered, than
> something like an asteroid impact.

Don't know about this. The recently discovered 13 km dia subsea crater
south of New Zealand is less than 1000 years old. However, given how
few KBO's being discovered to date, the incidence rate may be lower
than predicted. The NZ strike may be the one we were overdue for.

> 
> With the right pathogen, nuclear sub crews will die as well either
> due to exposure once they surface or because it was designed to
> stay dormant until everyone was infected and they were exposed
> before the cruise began.

Given the lengths of time that cruises last, and the fact that there
are always subs at sea, you will never achieve such 100% infection.

> 
> Still, for the discussion at hand, you are right. If the ELE doesn't
> kill the sub crews, they will be able to leverage their technology.
> However, we don't allow women to serve on submarines. Locating
> any women survivors on the surface may be difficult. (Do any other
> submariner nations allow women?)

Actually, the US Navy has been debating the issue. Given that women
tend to muster out via pregnancy at a 33-66% rate at the start of any
hostilities, I doubt that the USN would be willing to scuttle their
fleet so badly. They'd likely require that women submariners have
norplants. This might be an argument, though, for lesbian submariners...

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 30 19:04:57 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:04:57 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids
References: <244640-220041530183231253@M2W039.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <Law10-OE31zMjyiceAZ0004367e@hotmail.com>

Given the number of people engaging in farm animal sex, let alone people who
appear "different" from themselves, I hardly see how humans could ever split
into different species unless there was absolutely no contact between two
groups for hundreds of thousands of years. There would also have to be
several changes in environment that kept the two isolated places changing in
different ways. Heck, Bonobos and Chimps are seperated by 3 million years.

Assuming we were able to keep our technology, I have trouble envisioning an
advanced civilization capable of altering its own evolution that wasn;t also
constantly intermixing.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <sjvans at mailhost.mil.ameritech.net>
To: <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 12:32 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids


>
>
> From: Robert J. Bradbury bradbury at aeiveos.com
>
> >The above discussion suggests that there would possibly be three
> >potential civilization cores -- those centered around nuclear
> >vessels, those centered around nuclear power reactors and those
> >centered around hydroelectric power centers.
>
> Huh?  I am getting into this late, but could someone explain to me how
this
> hypothetical "extinction level event" would wipe out fossil fuels?  Coal
> mines and oil fields are 19th and very early 20th century
technology...much
> easier to maintain and preserve than nuclear power plants.  With a
> hypothetically much reduced population, known reserves and even stored
> supplies would last a very long time.  I'd much rather try my hand at
> distilling straight gasoline from crude or making producer gas from coal
> than refuel a nuclear power plant.
>
> sjv
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> mail2web - Check your email from the web at
> http://mail2web.com/ .
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From sruiz at searchking.com  Fri Jan 30 19:29:33 2004
From: sruiz at searchking.com (Stephen Ruiz)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:29:33 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] transhuman health?
In-Reply-To: <114780-220041530182024285@M2W048.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3e767$684647f0$1800a8c0@searchkizwyqia>



I'm a bit of a "newbie" here, but I've been curious about some of the
fundamental ideas of how Extropians approach their own healthcare. More
specifically, when faced with potentially life-threatening diseases. I
have encountered a few situations where I would like to have another
perspective, and thought this would be a good place to start to find
some answers.

Thanks,
Stephen Ruiz





From extropy at unreasonable.com  Fri Jan 30 19:33:49 2004
From: extropy at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 14:33:49 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Poxy old computers
In-Reply-To: <p05100302bc3ff65fb73f@[150.146.134.133]>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040130130841.033d7dd8@mail.comcast.net>

My first programming was on a early PDP in 1973, in Israel, on 
optically-read Hollerith cards. We had to fill in the pattern for each 
letter with a pencil on the Hollerith card. Once a week, Ilan Cohen would 
take our card decks to run on the computer. If you made a mistake, you had 
to gamble as to whether you could erase your mistake well-enough that the 
reader wouldn't misread the card. If it did, you had to wait another week 
to try your program again.

It felt so cool the first time I got to use a keypunch machine and, a few 
years later, a terminal.

Going back twenty years earlier, my mother *was* a computer briefly (it 
used to be a profession), and my father ran the military computers at 
Letterkenny.

Before that, my grandfather began his computer career as the first 
production manager for the ENIAC, and then designed many of its successors 
(e.g., SEAC, EDVAC, REEVAC). I'm sorting through his invention disclosures 
and papers from the 1930's on and gradually pulling together a web site.

I did find a marketing brochure for the Elecom 100, though. He'd founded 
the Electronic Computer Corporation two years after ENIAC, and designed and 
sold the first mini-computer. The 100 represented a tremendous breakthrough 
in price/performance, selling for only $100,000 (worth about $750,000 in 
today's dollars). (He was undercapitalized, and eventually sold the company 
to Underwood.)

Bear in mind that we have gone from this to now within the span of one 
working career (roughly age 20 to 70). Here are the specifications:

MEMORY --  Magnetic drum, 512 word capacity.

WORD LENGTH -- 29 binary digits and sign.

ARITHMETIC OPERATIONS -- addition; subtraction; multiplication (with 
round-off); multiplication (unrounded; complete product available).

LOGICAL OPERATIONS -- logical multiplication; conditional transfer of 
control (branch); halt; input and output operations.

MAGNETIC TAPE UNIT -- single unit, using 1/2" tape on 1200 ft. reels. Data 
recorded in four channels including sprocket channel; 64 words per block, 
1600 blocks (102,400 words) per reel. Programmed operations: read one 
block; record one block; move tape backward one block without reading or 
recording.

TYPEWRITER -- standard electric model with actuators on numerical keys, 
negative sign, space, and carriage return. Programmed output operation 
calls for typing out one block of 64 words on eight lines with automatic 
carriage returns and spaces between words, using octal representation, or 
typing out one block using decimal representation which provides for 
programmed space, negative sign, and carriage return in addition to all 
digits from 0 to 9 inclusive. Manually initiated input of single word to 
any desired address, or sequences of words with any desired starting 
address. Input may be either octal or decimal.

SPEED OF OPERATION -- basic pulse 115 kcs., average time for internal 
operations 46 milliseconds, tape instructions approximately 1 1/4 seconds 
per block, typing out operation at rate of 7 1/2 characters per second.

EQUIPMENT SPECIFICATIONS -- approximately 180 tubes and 2000 crystal 
diodes; power consumption approximately 3 kva. Main computer 6 ft. high, 10 
ft. long, 2 ft. deep, arranged in a semi-circle; separate drum unit 2 ft. 
square. Control desk 34" x 60" holds typewriter, tape panel, and control panel.


-- David Lubkin.




From thespike at earthlink.net  Fri Jan 30 19:37:34 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:37:34 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] US News Interview: Damien Broderick on accelerating
	technology
References: <20040130184909.17025.qmail@web12902.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <000f01c3e768$87b97840$8f994a43@texas.net>

Just a quick heads-up to a short interview with James Pethokoukis at:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/tech/nextnews/nexthome.htm

Spreading the memes...



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 30 19:45:21 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 11:45:21 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids
In-Reply-To: <244640-220041530183231253@M2W039.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <20040130194521.32891.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>


--- "sjvans at mailhost.mil.ameritech.net"
<sjvans at mailhost.mil.ameritech.net> wrote:
> 
> Huh?  I am getting into this late, but could someone explain to me
> how this
> hypothetical "extinction level event" would wipe out fossil fuels? 
> Coal mines and oil fields are 19th and very early 20th century
> technology...much
> easier to maintain and preserve than nuclear power plants.  With a
> hypothetically much reduced population, known reserves and even
> stored
> supplies would last a very long time.  I'd much rather try my hand at
> distilling straight gasoline from crude or making producer gas from
> coal than refuel a nuclear power plant.

Been to a coal mine recently, have you?

After people get over figuring out how to eat for the next three years
or so, the mines will be so full of water, and there will be no
gasoline to pump it out so as to mine again. Getting fossil fuel
industry restarted in a post ELE world will take a lot of work.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Fri Jan 30 19:51:32 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:51:32 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] EDU: Georgia and Evolution
References: <20040130171647.63606.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
	<401A9F6E.3040006@dtext.com>
Message-ID: <LAW10-OE66UvW69XHE900043821@hotmail.com>

That's terrific! It sure would help us in America if we had a bunch of
30-130 thousand year old fossilized neanderthal bones all around us like you
have in France! Europeans, Africans, and Australians have access to all the
cool stuff!


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "JDP" <jacques at dtext.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 12:16 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] EDU: Georgia and Evolution


> > --- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> >
> >>One really has to wonder about the worlds that people
> >>live in in their minds.
> >>
> >>Georgia Takes on 'Evolution'
> >>
> >
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/30/education/30GEOR.html?pagewanted=print
> >
> >>I would be less inclined to worry about the people like
> >>Kass in the world and more inclined to worry about the
> >>people who at a very local level are brainwashing minds.
>
> I have been giving a little help to a 16 y/o highschool student here in
> France for his biology course. I was delighted to discover what they are
> studying. A strong stress on Man, seen as a natural product of
> evolution; emotions as caused by processes in the nervous system;
> genetic engineering shown in a positive light.
>
> Think of this: What kind of education did the political guys now in
> control receive ? A very different one. Probably no connection
> whatsoever between Man and evolution. What will happen when the kids
> raised on this get in control? Transhumanism is likely to seem rather
> obvious for people educated that way in highschool.
>
> 3 main topics for this year:
>
> 1) Nervous comunication
>
> - Fundamental aspects of nervous communication [with nociception as a
> particular case]
> - The action of chemicals on the nervous system [enkephalins/morphine,
etc.]
>
> 2) From genotype to phenotype
>
> - The relationship betwen DNA and proteins
> - Complexity of the relationship between genes, phenotypes and environment
>
> 3) The position of Man within evolution
>
> - Looking for the common ancestor
> - The emergence of the humand kind
>
> And that's for the whole country. The content is pretty technical for
> that age, and he's not even in a scientific path. Hopeful stuff, I say.
>
> Jacques
>
> PS: Happy birthday to Max! I hope you become more present again in the
> movement you initiated in a near future. You are a great inspiration for
> many.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 30 20:18:13 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 12:18:13 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] EDU: Georgia and Evolution
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-OE66UvW69XHE900043821@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20040130201813.65947.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>

There are plenty of fossils here in the US.

Here in NH we have a site in Merrimack that was inhabited off and on
going back 9500 years. Other sites in the Americas go back even
farther. Mammoth hunting sites are common. The primary lacking here is
significant limestone caves that have records of habitation.

The US also has some of the best dinosaur fossils. I believe all of the
significant T-Rex finds came from the US, so much so that T-Rex hunting
is a significant industry in some areas of the western US.

--- Kevin Freels <kevinfreels at hotmail.com> wrote:
> That's terrific! It sure would help us in America if we had a bunch
> of
> 30-130 thousand year old fossilized neanderthal bones all around us
> like you
> have in France! Europeans, Africans, and Australians have access to
> all the
> cool stuff!
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "JDP" <jacques at dtext.com>
> To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 12:16 PM
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] EDU: Georgia and Evolution
> 
> 
> > > --- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >>One really has to wonder about the worlds that people
> > >>live in in their minds.
> > >>
> > >>Georgia Takes on 'Evolution'
> > >>
> > >
> > >
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/30/education/30GEOR.html?pagewanted=print
> > >
> > >>I would be less inclined to worry about the people like
> > >>Kass in the world and more inclined to worry about the
> > >>people who at a very local level are brainwashing minds.
> >
> > I have been giving a little help to a 16 y/o highschool student
> here in
> > France for his biology course. I was delighted to discover what
> they are
> > studying. A strong stress on Man, seen as a natural product of
> > evolution; emotions as caused by processes in the nervous system;
> > genetic engineering shown in a positive light.
> >
> > Think of this: What kind of education did the political guys now in
> > control receive ? A very different one. Probably no connection
> > whatsoever between Man and evolution. What will happen when the
> kids
> > raised on this get in control? Transhumanism is likely to seem
> rather
> > obvious for people educated that way in highschool.
> >
> > 3 main topics for this year:
> >
> > 1) Nervous comunication
> >
> > - Fundamental aspects of nervous communication [with nociception as
> a
> > particular case]
> > - The action of chemicals on the nervous system
> [enkephalins/morphine,
> etc.]
> >
> > 2) From genotype to phenotype
> >
> > - The relationship betwen DNA and proteins
> > - Complexity of the relationship between genes, phenotypes and
> environment
> >
> > 3) The position of Man within evolution
> >
> > - Looking for the common ancestor
> > - The emergence of the humand kind
> >
> > And that's for the whole country. The content is pretty technical
> for
> > that age, and he's not even in a scientific path. Hopeful stuff, I
> say.
> >
> > Jacques
> >
> > PS: Happy birthday to Max! I hope you become more present again in
> the
> > movement you initiated in a near future. You are a great
> inspiration for
> > many.
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > extropy-chat mailing list
> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> >
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From natashavita at earthlink.net  Fri Jan 30 21:35:11 2004
From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 16:35:11 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
Message-ID: <4910-220041530213511247@M2W052.mail2web.com>

Extropes and other Trans:  Please check out the press release and give me
your feedback!

Thanks,
Natasha
_______________________________________________________________

PRESS RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 30, 2004 
CONTACT: info at extropy.org 
www.extropy.org 
512.263.2749 U.S. 

BIOETHICS COUNCIL IS BEING QUESTIONED BY FUTURISTS WHO ENCOURAGE CRITICAL
THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE 

Innovator Extropy Institute Sponsors Vital Progress ?VP? Summit To Address
Human Rights for the Future 

AUSTIN, TX January 30, 2004 ? The Vital Progress ?VP? Summit announces
today that it plans to deliver a written statement titled ?ProActionary
Statement? to counter President Bush?s Bioethics Council?s _Beyond Therapy_
report, and the use of the Precautionary Principle as a rallying tool to
turn people against the science, medicine and biotechnology that could cure
disease and improve life.  The forces of negative reaction to progress are
surging and we need to respond now.  Extropy Institute encourages critical
thinking about the ideas, sciences, and technologies that will help people,
our society, and the world.

Extropy Institute has made a name for itself as an intellectual networking,
educational organization, helping others to learn about long range planning
and world change, while showing scholarship in joining together the ideas
of philosophy, technology and culture.  

The ?Vital Progress ?VP? Summit, sponsored by Extropy Institute, will
address the need for objective forward thinking in responding to
fear-mongers of the progress science, technology and biotechnology. 

VITAL PROGRESS ?VP? Summit: The on-line Summit will take place February 15
? 29, 2004 on the Internet. Keynote participants will author statements,
Catalyst Participants will discuss and debate the statements as well as
author their own comments, and all other View-and-Do participants will
contribute their ideas in a parallel format.  Extropy Institute?s goal is
to develop a positive approach in providing a responsible viewpoint of how
progress can succeed with critical analysis and careful assessment. 

SUMMIT DELIVERABLES: The Vital Progress Summit aims to achieve real,
practical results.  These will come in stages as the project progresses,
but early deliverables expected from the February summit include a pithy
response to the Precautionary Principle, a policy and values statement to
counter Beyond Therapy, and a comprehensive collection of links to
pro-advancement groups, journalists, publications, and educational groups. 
We plan to develop school and college course materials to be used in
bioethics and humanities curriculum. 

SUMMIT DATES: February 15 ? 29th on the Internet at http://www.extropy.org
REGISTRATION: $15.00 donation toward developing deliverables of the VP
Summit.



--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .




From sentience at pobox.com  Fri Jan 30 21:43:23 2004
From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 16:43:23 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] EDU: Georgia and Evolution
In-Reply-To: <20040130171647.63606.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040130171647.63606.qmail@web12906.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <401ACFFB.9010703@pobox.com>

Mike Lorrey wrote:
> 
> Robert, this is GEORGIA we are talking about. Even Huntsville is awash
> in christian fundies. Athens is about the only place you can find
> rational people.

*cough*
plus another *cough* on behalf of Ralph Merkle

Why Athens?  Someone there I should know?

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence


From jacques at dtext.com  Fri Jan 30 22:27:13 2004
From: jacques at dtext.com (JDP)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 23:27:13 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
In-Reply-To: <4910-220041530213511247@M2W052.mail2web.com>
References: <4910-220041530213511247@M2W052.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <401ADA41.8080109@dtext.com>

Great initiative and nice press release. I also liked the description of 
the summit at:

http://www.extropy.org/summit.htm

Just one small problem: When you want to donate 15$ by Paypal and click 
the Paypal link, you are then offered to donate 25$ :-) I didn't mind 
but some may object...

Also, don't take offence in this, but I think you need a professional 
web designer. The website, though it contains very nice graphical ideas, 
has various bugs and problems. This may not project an optimal image, 
which is a shame if you invest in getting attention.

Just one thing on the press release, I find the sentence "Innovator 
Extropy Institute Sponsors Vital Progress ?VP? Summit To Address
Human Rights for the Future " a little difficult to parse for the 
beginning of a press release (I think it is the "Vital Progress ?VP? 
Summit" which is a bit confusing, but maybe only to my non-English eye).

Jacques


natashavita at earthlink.net wrote:

> Extropes and other Trans:  Please check out the press release and give me
> your feedback!
> 
> Thanks,
> Natasha
> _______________________________________________________________
> 
> PRESS RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 30, 2004 
> CONTACT: info at extropy.org 
> www.extropy.org 
> 512.263.2749 U.S. 
> 
> BIOETHICS COUNCIL IS BEING QUESTIONED BY FUTURISTS WHO ENCOURAGE CRITICAL
> THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE 




From jef at jefallbright.net  Fri Jan 30 23:00:19 2004
From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 15:00:19 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
References: <4910-220041530213511247@M2W052.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <019501c3e784$d6da5cc0$2c02650a@int.veeco.com>

The initiative and the effort are good.  The wording and focus need some
polishing.  An expert wordsmith will be able to emphasize the importance of
the key issues and the value of ExI while avoiding some of the inflammatory
rhetoric that would tend to alienate those who are currently neutral or
unaware of these issues.

- Jef

natashavita at earthlink.net wrote:
> Extropes and other Trans:  Please check out the press release and
> give me your feedback!
>
> Thanks,
> Natasha
> _______________________________________________________________
>
> PRESS RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 30, 2004
> CONTACT: info at extropy.org
> www.extropy.org
> 512.263.2749 U.S.
>
> BIOETHICS COUNCIL IS BEING QUESTIONED BY FUTURISTS WHO ENCOURAGE
> CRITICAL THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE
>
> Innovator Extropy Institute Sponsors Vital Progress "VP" Summit To
> Address Human Rights for the Future
>
> AUSTIN, TX January 30, 2004 - The Vital Progress "VP" Summit announces
> today that it plans to deliver a written statement titled
> "ProActionary Statement" to counter President Bush's Bioethics
> Council's _Beyond Therapy_ report, and the use of the Precautionary
> Principle as a rallying tool to turn people against the science,
> medicine and biotechnology that could cure disease and improve life.
> The forces of negative reaction to progress are surging and we need
> to respond now.  Extropy Institute encourages critical thinking about
> the ideas, sciences, and technologies that will help people, our
> society, and the world.
>
> Extropy Institute has made a name for itself as an intellectual
> networking, educational organization, helping others to learn about
> long range planning and world change, while showing scholarship in
> joining together the ideas of philosophy, technology and culture.
>
> The "Vital Progress "VP" Summit, sponsored by Extropy Institute, will
> address the need for objective forward thinking in responding to
> fear-mongers of the progress science, technology and biotechnology.
>
> VITAL PROGRESS "VP" Summit: The on-line Summit will take place
> February 15 - 29, 2004 on the Internet. Keynote participants will
> author statements, Catalyst Participants will discuss and debate the
> statements as well as author their own comments, and all other
> View-and-Do participants will contribute their ideas in a parallel
> format.  Extropy Institute's goal is to develop a positive approach
> in providing a responsible viewpoint of how progress can succeed with
> critical analysis and careful assessment.
>
> SUMMIT DELIVERABLES: The Vital Progress Summit aims to achieve real,
> practical results.  These will come in stages as the project
> progresses, but early deliverables expected from the February summit
> include a pithy response to the Precautionary Principle, a policy and
> values statement to counter Beyond Therapy, and a comprehensive
> collection of links to pro-advancement groups, journalists,
> publications, and educational groups. We plan to develop school and
> college course materials to be used in bioethics and humanities
> curriculum.
>
> SUMMIT DATES: February 15 - 29th on the Internet at
> http://www.extropy.org REGISTRATION: $15.00 donation toward
> developing deliverables of the VP Summit.
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> mail2web - Check your email from the web at
> http://mail2web.com/ .
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From natashavita at earthlink.net  Fri Jan 30 23:36:35 2004
From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 18:36:35 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
Message-ID: <4910-220041530233635307@M2W039.mail2web.com>

From: JDP jacques at dtext.com


>Great initiative and nice press release. I also liked the description of 
>the summit at:

http://www.extropy.org/summit.htm

Thanks!

>Just one small problem: When you want to donate 15$ by Paypal and click 
>the Paypal link, you are then offered to donate 25$ :-) I didn't mind 
>but some may object...

Yes. David McFadzean pointed this out a few days ago and it was corrected.
Also, don't take offence in this, but I think you need a professional 
web designer. The website, though it contains very nice graphical ideas, 
has various bugs and problems. This may not project an optimal image, 
which is a shame if you invest in getting attention.

>Just one thing on the press release, I find the sentence "Innovator 
>Extropy Institute Sponsors Vital Progress ?VP? Summit To Address
>Human Rights for the Future " a little difficult to parse for the 
>beginning of a press release (I think it is the "Vital Progress ?VP? 
>Summit" which is a bit confusing, but maybe only to my non-English eye).

Okay, will take a look at and make smoother.

Great suggstions Jacques -

Natasha


natashavita at earthlink.net wrote:

> Extropes and other Trans:  Please check out the press release and give me
> your feedback!
> 
> Thanks,
> Natasha
> _______________________________________________________________
> 
> PRESS RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 30, 2004 
> CONTACT: info at extropy.org 
> www.extropy.org 
> 512.263.2749 U.S. 
> 
> BIOETHICS COUNCIL IS BEING QUESTIONED BY FUTURISTS WHO ENCOURAGE CRITICAL
> THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE 


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .




From natashavita at earthlink.net  Fri Jan 30 23:38:06 2004
From: natashavita at earthlink.net (natashavita at earthlink.net)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 18:38:06 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
Message-ID: <63340-22004153023386287@M2W094.mail2web.com>


From: Jef Allbright wrote:

>The initiative and the effort are good.  The wording and focus need some
>polishing.  An expert wordsmith will be able to emphasize the importance of
>the key issues and the value of ExI while avoiding some of the inflammatory
>rhetoric that would tend to alienate those who are currently neutral or
>unaware of these issues.

Okay.  Good suggestions!

Thanks Jef,

Natasha


natashavita at earthlink.net wrote:
> Extropes and other Trans:  Please check out the press release and
> give me your feedback!
>
> Thanks,
> Natasha
> _______________________________________________________________
>
> PRESS RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 30, 2004
> CONTACT: info at extropy.org
> www.extropy.org
> 512.263.2749 U.S.
>
> BIOETHICS COUNCIL IS BEING QUESTIONED BY FUTURISTS WHO ENCOURAGE
> CRITICAL THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE
>
> Innovator Extropy Institute Sponsors Vital Progress "VP" Summit To
> Address Human Rights for the Future
>
> AUSTIN, TX January 30, 2004 - The Vital Progress "VP" Summit announces
> today that it plans to deliver a written statement titled
> "ProActionary Statement" to counter President Bush's Bioethics
> Council's _Beyond Therapy_ report, and the use of the Precautionary
> Principle as a rallying tool to turn people against the science,
> medicine and biotechnology that could cure disease and improve life.
> The forces of negative reaction to progress are surging and we need
> to respond now.  Extropy Institute encourages critical thinking about
> the ideas, sciences, and technologies that will help people, our
> society, and the world.
>
> Extropy Institute has made a name for itself as an intellectual
> networking, educational organization, helping others to learn about
> long range planning and world change, while showing scholarship in
> joining together the ideas of philosophy, technology and culture.
>
> The "Vital Progress "VP" Summit, sponsored by Extropy Institute, will
> address the need for objective forward thinking in responding to
> fear-mongers of the progress science, technology and biotechnology.
>
> VITAL PROGRESS "VP" Summit: The on-line Summit will take place
> February 15 - 29, 2004 on the Internet. Keynote participants will
> author statements, Catalyst Participants will discuss and debate the
> statements as well as author their own comments, and all other
> View-and-Do participants will contribute their ideas in a parallel
> format.  Extropy Institute's goal is to develop a positive approach
> in providing a responsible viewpoint of how progress can succeed with
> critical analysis and careful assessment.
>
> SUMMIT DELIVERABLES: The Vital Progress Summit aims to achieve real,
> practical results.  These will come in stages as the project
> progresses, but early deliverables expected from the February summit
> include a pithy response to the Precautionary Principle, a policy and
> values statement to counter Beyond Therapy, and a comprehensive
> collection of links to pro-advancement groups, journalists,
> publications, and educational groups. We plan to develop school and
> college course materials to be used in bioethics and humanities
> curriculum.
>
> SUMMIT DATES: February 15 - 29th on the Internet at
> http://www.extropy.org REGISTRATION: $15.00 donation toward
> developing deliverables of the VP Summit.
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> mail2web - Check your email from the web at
> http://mail2web.com/ .
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat

_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .




From wingcat at pacbell.net  Sat Jan 31 00:16:04 2004
From: wingcat at pacbell.net (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 16:16:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
In-Reply-To: <401ADA41.8080109@dtext.com>
Message-ID: <20040131001604.7888.qmail@web80402.mail.yahoo.com>

--- JDP <jacques at dtext.com> wrote:
> Just one thing on the press release, I find the
> sentence "Innovator 
> Extropy Institute Sponsors Vital Progress ?VP?
> Summit To Address
> Human Rights for the Future " a little difficult to
> parse for the 
> beginning of a press release (I think it is the
> "Vital Progress ?VP? 
> Summit" which is a bit confusing, but maybe only to
> my non-English eye).

It's nonstandard usage.  Standard usage would be
"Vital
Progress (VP) Summit".  But the length of that
sentence
may also play a part: I'd suggest at least dropping
"Innovator", since the emphasis is on the summit.


From thespike at earthlink.net  Sat Jan 31 00:20:49 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 18:20:49 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
References: <4910-220041530213511247@M2W052.mail2web.com>
	<019501c3e784$d6da5cc0$2c02650a@int.veeco.com>
Message-ID: <009801c3e790$18bdbaa0$88994a43@texas.net>

From: "Jef Allbright" <jef at jefallbright.net>
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 5:00 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!


> The wording and focus need some polishing

Yes. Consider some examples:

< The forces of reaction are surging...

< Throughout history the forces of advancement have struggled against the
reactionary forces of stasis >

Struggle. Forces of reaction. Oddly enough, this *exactly* mimics Stalinist
and Troskyite cant from the Cold war and earlier. (Sorry, but it has to be
noted.)

I suppose it's impossible or at least very hard to convince you to leave out
cult-sounding brand-positioning phrases such as `our extropic goals'. Those
goals include: `extended healthy life, enhanced intelligence, refined
emotions', etc. You might put off fewer uncommitted people by simply listing
them as your goals, and hold the `extropic'. (I happen at the moment to be
reading Jeff Walker's hilarious and devastating THE AYN RAND CULT, so my
tendrils are probably especially fine-tuned for this kind of thing.)

Damien Broderick






From riel at surriel.com  Sat Jan 31 01:10:03 2004
From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 20:10:03 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] Computer virus
In-Reply-To: <63340-22004122722653720@M2W092.mail2web.com>
References: <63340-22004122722653720@M2W092.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.55L.0401302008380.14481@imladris.surriel.com>

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004, natashavita at earthlink.net wrote:

> When a computer is infected, the worm will set up a backdoor into the
> system by opening TCP ports 3127 through 3198, which can potentially
> allow an attacker to connect to the computer and use it as a proxy to
> gain access to its network resources.

In other words, it's just another spam proxy, only this time
it has an added piece of camouflage (DDoS on SCO's website)
to deflect people's attention.

Some anti-spammers have reported that about 4% of the spam
they are receiving now is being sent via myDoom infected
Windows systems ...

Rik
-- 
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan


From riel at surriel.com  Sat Jan 31 01:16:20 2004
From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 20:16:20 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] PRECOG: The Smoking Gun is found..
In-Reply-To: <20040129043550.35457.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040129043550.35457.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.55L.0401302012550.14481@imladris.surriel.com>

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> Don't you think that if Saddam were faced with a united front of the
> international community, that he would have left office without all the
> destruction, bloodshed, and now the insurgency campaign?

Like he did in 1991 ?  Oh wait...

> Instead, we get France promoting this idea that the US needs to be
> counterbalanced for the simple yet completely amoral pretext that it
> isn't a good thing for one nation, no matter how benign when compared to
> history, to be the sole superpower.

OTOH, I have to agree with you on the corruptness of the
current French government.  I suspect that even the French
will, after all the current French government won the
election because his opponent was the extreme right party
candidate, leading to the "election slogan":

	"Vote the crook, not the fascist"

cheers,

Rik
-- 
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan


From spike66 at comcast.net  Sat Jan 31 02:13:48 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 18:13:48 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] EDU: Georgia and Evolution
In-Reply-To: <LAW10-OE66UvW69XHE900043821@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <000001c3e79f$dd8ede90$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

> Kevin Freels
> 
> That's terrific! It sure would help us in America if we had a bunch of
> 30-130 thousand year old fossilized neanderthal bones all around us...

Nooooooooo!  A profoundly misguided government policy
now grants native Americans the right to claim *any*
ancient skeletons as their ancestors, thus giving them
the right to bury the remains far from scientific
investigation.  Paleontology in the US is effectively
slain until the policy is overturned.  Let us hope no
scientifically valuable human skeletons are discovered
in North America any time soon.

spike







From spike66 at comcast.net  Sat Jan 31 02:16:55 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 18:16:55 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] EDU: Georgia and Evolution
In-Reply-To: <401ACFFB.9010703@pobox.com>
Message-ID: <000101c3e7a0$4c88e750$6501a8c0@SHELLY>


> Mike Lorrey wrote:
> > 
> > Robert, this is GEORGIA we are talking about. Even Huntsville is
awash
> > in christian fundies. Athens is about the only place you can find
> > rational people.

And Plains Georgia.  Jimmy Carter has gone on
record as saying the plan to take the word
evolution out of the school is absurd and
embarrassing.  {8^D  Ya gotta love that guy,
in spite of the malaise speech.

spike







From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Sat Jan 31 03:25:54 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 21:25:54 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] EDU: Georgia and Evolution
References: <000001c3e79f$dd8ede90$6501a8c0@SHELLY>
Message-ID: <Law10-OE18Wg4fsbzUK00043a3f@hotmail.com>

Have you heard anything on this lately? How is it progressing? I wonder if
they could get away with this even if the remains were clearly of a
different species? Would they try to say  that H. americanus was a Lakota
Sioux? ;-)



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Spike" <spike66 at comcast.net>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 8:13 PM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] EDU: Georgia and Evolution


> > Kevin Freels
> >
> > That's terrific! It sure would help us in America if we had a bunch of
> > 30-130 thousand year old fossilized neanderthal bones all around us...
>
> Nooooooooo!  A profoundly misguided government policy
> now grants native Americans the right to claim *any*
> ancient skeletons as their ancestors, thus giving them
> the right to bury the remains far from scientific
> investigation.  Paleontology in the US is effectively
> slain until the policy is overturned.  Let us hope no
> scientifically valuable human skeletons are discovered
> in North America any time soon.
>
> spike
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Sat Jan 31 03:43:12 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 21:43:12 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
References: <4910-220041530213511247@M2W052.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <Law10-OE18ENlqMGPbd00043a76@hotmail.com>

Looks super! I had a few suggestions, but I see that they have all been
covered. My vote is for the removal of  the word "Innovator". :-)


Kevin
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <natashavita at earthlink.net>
To: <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: <amara at kurzweilai.net>
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 3:35 PM
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!


> Extropes and other Trans:  Please check out the press release and give me
> your feedback!
>
> Thanks,
> Natasha
> _______________________________________________________________
>
> PRESS RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 30, 2004
> CONTACT: info at extropy.org
> www.extropy.org
> 512.263.2749 U.S.
>
> BIOETHICS COUNCIL IS BEING QUESTIONED BY FUTURISTS WHO ENCOURAGE CRITICAL
> THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE
>
> Innovator Extropy Institute Sponsors Vital Progress "VP" Summit To Address
> Human Rights for the Future
>
> AUSTIN, TX January 30, 2004 - The Vital Progress "VP" Summit announces
> today that it plans to deliver a written statement titled "ProActionary
> Statement" to counter President Bush's Bioethics Council's _Beyond
Therapy_
> report, and the use of the Precautionary Principle as a rallying tool to
> turn people against the science, medicine and biotechnology that could
cure
> disease and improve life.  The forces of negative reaction to progress are
> surging and we need to respond now.  Extropy Institute encourages critical
> thinking about the ideas, sciences, and technologies that will help
people,
> our society, and the world.
>
> Extropy Institute has made a name for itself as an intellectual
networking,
> educational organization, helping others to learn about long range
planning
> and world change, while showing scholarship in joining together the ideas
> of philosophy, technology and culture.
>
> The "Vital Progress "VP" Summit, sponsored by Extropy Institute, will
> address the need for objective forward thinking in responding to
> fear-mongers of the progress science, technology and biotechnology.
>
> VITAL PROGRESS "VP" Summit: The on-line Summit will take place February 15
> - 29, 2004 on the Internet. Keynote participants will author statements,
> Catalyst Participants will discuss and debate the statements as well as
> author their own comments, and all other View-and-Do participants will
> contribute their ideas in a parallel format.  Extropy Institute's goal is
> to develop a positive approach in providing a responsible viewpoint of how
> progress can succeed with critical analysis and careful assessment.
>
> SUMMIT DELIVERABLES: The Vital Progress Summit aims to achieve real,
> practical results.  These will come in stages as the project progresses,
> but early deliverables expected from the February summit include a pithy
> response to the Precautionary Principle, a policy and values statement to
> counter Beyond Therapy, and a comprehensive collection of links to
> pro-advancement groups, journalists, publications, and educational groups.
> We plan to develop school and college course materials to be used in
> bioethics and humanities curriculum.
>
> SUMMIT DATES: February 15 - 29th on the Internet at http://www.extropy.org
> REGISTRATION: $15.00 donation toward developing deliverables of the VP
> Summit.
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> mail2web - Check your email from the web at
> http://mail2web.com/ .
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sat Jan 31 05:31:32 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 21:31:32 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] EDU: Georgia and Evolution
In-Reply-To: <Law10-OE18Wg4fsbzUK00043a3f@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20040131053132.98436.qmail@web12907.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Kevin Freels <kevinfreels at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Have you heard anything on this lately? How is it progressing? I
> wonder if
> they could get away with this even if the remains were clearly of a
> different species? Would they try to say  that H. americanus was a
> Lakota
> Sioux? ;-)

This has happened several times, where skeletons exhibiting clearly
caucasian features dating back 10-14ky were seized by the courts and
given to the tribes to hide or destroy. The political fear is the idea
that the indians ancestors may have stolen the new world from
caucasians (so it was our historical right to take it back), thus
negating their historical claims.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From spike66 at comcast.net  Sat Jan 31 06:36:12 2004
From: spike66 at comcast.net (Spike)
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 22:36:12 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] US News Interview: Damien Broderick on
	acceleratingtechnology
In-Reply-To: <000f01c3e768$87b97840$8f994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <000001c3e7c4$85207910$6501a8c0@SHELLY>

Damien, I am trying to post you offlist but your
inbox is refusing it.  Here is the malaise speech.

spike


Jimmy Carter's Malaise Speech, 1979
by Jimmy Carter

Good evening.

This is a special night for me. Exactly 3 years ago, on July 15, 1976, I
accepted the nomination of my party to run for President of the United
States. I promised you a President who is not isolated from the people,
who feels your pain, and who shares your dreams and who draws his
strength and his wisdom from you.

During the past 3 years I've spoken to you on many occasions about
national concerns, the energy crisis, reorganizing the Government, our
Nation's economy, and issues of war and especially peace. But over those
years the subjects of the speeches, the talks, and the press conferences
have become increasingly narrow, focused more and more on what the
isolated world of Washington thinks is important. Gradually, you've
heard more and more about what the Government thinks or what the
Government should be doing and less and less about our Nation's hopes,
our dreams, and our vision of the future.

Ten days ago I had planned to speak to you again about a very important
subject -- energy. For the fifth time I would have described the urgency
of the problem and laid out a series of legislative recommendations to
the Congress. But as I was preparing to speak, I began to ask myself the
same question that I now know has been troubling many of you. Why have
we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious
energy problem?

It's clear that the true problems of our Nation are much deeper --
deeper than gasoline lines of energy shortages, deeper even than
inflation or recession. And I realize more than ever that as President I
need your help. So, I decided to reach out and listen to the voices of
America.

I invited to Camp David people from almost every segment of our society
business and labor, teachers and preachers, Governors, mayors, and
private citizens. And then I left Camp David to listen to other
Americans, men and women like you. It has been an extraordinary 10 days,
and I want to share with you what I've heard. First of all, I got a lot
of personal advice. Let me quote a few of the typical comments that I
wrote down.

This from a southern Governor: "Mr. President, you are not leading this
Nation -- you're just managing the Government."

"You don't see the people enough any more."

"Some of your Cabinet members don't seem loyal. There is not enough
discipline among your disciples."

"Don't talk to us about politics or the mechanics of government, but
about an understanding of our common good."

"Mr. President, we're in trouble. Talk to us about blood and sweat and
tears."

"If you lead, Mr. President, we will follow."

Many people talked about themselves and about the condition of our
Nation. This from a young woman in Pennsylvania: "I feel so far from
government. I feel like ordinary people are excluded from political
power."

And this from a young Chicano: "Some of us have suffered from recession
all our lives."

"Some people have wasted energy, but others haven't had anything to
waste."

And this from a religious leader: "No material shortage can touch the
important things like God's love for us or our love for one another."

And I like this one particularly from a black woman who happens to be
the mayor of a small Mississippi town: "The big-shots are not the only
ones who are important. Remember, you can't sell anything on Wall Street
unless someone digs it up somewhere else first."

This kind of summarized a lot of other statements: "Mr. President, we
are confronted with a moral and a spiritual crisis."

Several of our discussions were on energy, and I have a notebook full of
comments and advice. I'll read just a few.

"We can't go on consuming 40 percent more energy than we produce. When
we import oil we are also importing inflation plus unemployment."

"We've got to use what we have. The Middle East has only 5 percent of
the world's energy, but the United States has 24 percent."

And this is one of the most vivid statements: "Our neck is stretched
over the fence and OPEC has a knife."

"There will be other cartels and other shortages. American wisdom and
courage right now can set a path to follow in the future."

This was a good one: "Be bold, Mr. President. We may make mistakes, but
we are ready to experiment."

And this one from a labor leader got to the heart of it: "The real issue
is freedom. We must deal with the energy problem on a war footing."

And the last that I'll read: "When we enter the moral equivalent of war,
Mr. President, don't issue us BB guns."

These 10 days confirmed my belief in the decency and the strength and
the wisdom of the American people, but it also bore out some of my
longstanding concerns about our Nation's underlying problems.

I know, of course, being President, that government actions and
legislation can be very important. That's why I've worked hard to put my
campaign promises into law -- and I have to admit, with just mixed
success. But after listening to the American people I have been reminded
again that all the legislation in the world can't fix what's wrong with
America. So, I want to speak to you first tonight about a subject even
more serious than energy or inflation. I want to talk to you right now
about a fundamental threat to American democracy.

I do not mean our political and civil liberties. They will endure. And I
do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at
peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and
military might.

The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of
confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and
spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt
about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose
for our Nation.

The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy
the social and the political fabric of America.

The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some
romantic dream or a proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the
Fourth of July. It is the idea which founded our Nation and has guided
our development as a people. Confidence in the future has supported
everything else -- public institutions and private enterprise, our own
families, and the very Constitution of the United States. Confidence has
defined our course and has served as a link between generations. We've
always believed in something called progress. We've always had a faith
that the days of our children would be better than our own.

Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in
the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of
our democracy. As a people we know our past and we are proud of it. Our
progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world.
We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity
itself called democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that
belief has always strengthened us in our purpose. But just as we are
losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to close the
door on our past.

In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit
communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship
self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by
what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning
things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning.
We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of
lives which have no confidence or purpose.

The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us.
For the first time in the history of our country a majority of our
people believe that the next 5 years will be worse than the past 5
years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of
American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans
to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the
Western world.

As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for
churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. This
is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth and it
is a warning.

These changes did not happen overnight. They've come upon us gradually
over the last generation, years that were filled with shocks and
tragedy.

We were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until
the murders of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King,
Jr. We were taught that our armies were always invincible and our causes
were always just, only to suffer the agony of Vietnam. We respected the
Presidency as a place of honor until the shock of Water gate.

We remember when the phrase "sound as a dollar" was an expression of
absolute dependability, until 10 years of inflation began to shrink our
dollar and our savings. We believed that our Nation's re sources were
limitless until 1973, when we had to face a growing dependence on
foreign oil.

These wounds are still very deep. They have never been healed.

Looking for a way out of this crisis, our people have turned to the
Federal Government and found it isolated from the mainstream of our
Nation's life. Washington, D.C., has become an island. The gap between
our citizens and our Government has never been so wide. The people are
looking for honest answers, not easy answers; clear leadership, not
false claims and evasiveness and politics as usual.

What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is
a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a
Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well
financed and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position
defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding
group or another. You often see a balanced and a fair approach that
demands sacrifice, a little sacrifice from everyone, abandoned like an
orphan without support and without friends.

Often you see paralysis and stagnation and drift. You don't like, and
neither do I. What can we do?

First of all, we must face the truth, and then we can change our course.
We simply must have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern
ourselves, and faith in the future of this Nation. Restoring that faith
and that confidence to America is now the most important task we face.
It is a true challenge of this generation of Americans.

One of the visitors to Camp David last week put it this way: "We've got
to stop crying and start sweating, stop talking and start walking, stop
cursing and start praying. The strength we need will not come from the
White House, but from every house in America."

We know the strength of America. We are strong. We can regain our unity.
We can regain our confidence. We are the heirs of generations who
survived threats much more powerful and awesome than those that
challenge us now. Our fathers and mothers were strong men and women who
shaped a new society during the Great Depression, who fought world wars,
and who carved out a new charter of peace for the world.

We ourselves and the same Americans who just 10 years ago put a man on
the Moon. We are the generation that dedicated our society to the
pursuit of human rights and equality. And we are the generation that
will win the war on the energy problem and in that process rebuild the
unity and confidence of America.

We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose.
One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to
fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of
freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others.
That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests
ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.

All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the
promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose
and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom
for our Nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path
as we begin to solve our energy problem.

Energy will be the immediate test of our ability to unite this Nation,
and it can also be the standard around which we rally. On the
battlefield of energy we can win for our Nation a new confidence, and we
can seize control again of our common destiny.

In little more than two decades we've gone from a position of energy
independence to one in which almost half the oil we use comes from
foreign countries, at prices that are going through the roof. Our
excessive dependence on OPEC has already taken a tremendous tool on our
economy and our people. This is the direct cause of the long lines which
have made millions of you spend aggravating hours waiting for gasoline.
It's a cause of the increased inflation and unemployment that we now
face. This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic
independence and the very security of our Nation.

The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present
danger to our Nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.

What I have to say to you now about energy is simple and vitally
important.

Point one: I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of
the United States. Beginning this moment, this Nation will never use
more foreign oil than we did in 1977 -- never. From now on, every new
addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production
and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence
on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then
reversed as we move through the 1980's, for I am tonight setting the
further goal of cutting our dependence on foreign oil by one-half by the
end of the next decade -- a saving of over 4 1/2 million barrels of
imported oil per day.

Point two: To ensure that we meet these targets, I will use my
Presidential authority to set import quotas. I'm announcing tonight that
for 1979 and 1980, I will forbid the entry into this country of one drop
of foreign oil more than these goals allow. These quotas will ensure a
reduction in imports even below the ambitious levels we set at the
recent Tokyo summit.

Point three: To give us energy security, I am asking for the most
massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our Nation's
history to develop America's own alternative sources of fuel -- from
coal, from oil shale, from plant products for gasohol, from
unconventional gas, from the Sun.

I propose the creation of an energy security corporation to lead this
effort to replace 2 1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day by 1990.
The corporation will issue up to $5 billion in energy bonds, and I
especially want them to be in small denominations so that average
Americans can invest directly in America's energy security.

Just as a similar synthetic rubber corporation helped us win World War
II, so will we mobilize American determination and ability to win the
energy war. Moreover, I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling
for the creation of this Nation's first solar bank, which will help us
achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar
power by the year 2000.

These efforts will cost money, a lot of money, and that is why Congress
must enact the windfall profits tax without delay. It will be money well
spent. Unlike the billions of dollars that we ship to foreign countries
to pay for foreign oil, these funds will be paid by Americans to
Americans. These funds will go to fight, not to increase, inflation and
unemployment.

Point four: I'm asking Congress to mandate, to require as a matter of
law, that our Nation's utility companies cut their massive use of oil by
50 percent within the next decade and switch to other fuels, especially
coal, our most abundant energy source.

Point five: To make absolutely certain that nothing stands in the way of
achieving these goals, I will urge Congress to create an energy
mobilization board which, like the War Production Board in World War II,
will have the responsibility and authority to cut through the redtape,
the delays, and the endless roadblocks to completing key energy
projects.

We will protect our environment. But when this Nation critically needs a
refinery or a pipeline, we will build it.

Point six: I'm proposing a bold conservation program to involve every
State, county, and city and every average American in our energy battle.
This effort will permit you to build conservation into your homes and
your lives at a cost you can afford.

I ask Congress to give me authority for mandatory conservation and for
standby gasoline rationing. To further conserve energy, I'm proposing
tonight an extra $10 billion over the next decade to strengthen our
public transportation systems. And I'm asking you for your good and for
your Nation's security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or
public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day
per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save
fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just
common sense -- I tell you it is an act of patriotism.

Our Nation must be fair to the poorest among us, so we will increase aid
to needy Americans to cope with rising energy prices. We often think of
conservation only in terms of sacrifice. In fact, it is the most
painless and immediate way of rebuilding our Nation's strength. Every
gallon of oil each one of us saves is a new form of production. It gives
us more freedom, more confidence, that much more control over our own
lives.

So, the solution of our energy crisis can also help us to conquer the
crisis of the spirit in our country. It can rekindle our sense of unity,
our confidence in the future, and give our Nation and all of us
individually a new sense of purpose.

You know we can do it. We have the natural resources. We have more oil
in our shale alone than several Saudi Arabias. We have more coal than
any nation on Earth. We have the world's highest level of technology. We
have the most skilled work force, with innovative genius, and I firmly
believe that we have the national will to win this war.

I do not promise you that this struggle for freedom will be easy. I do
not promise a quick way out of our Nation's problems, when the truth is
that the only way out is an all-out effort. What I do promise you is
that I will lead our fight, and I will enforce fairness in our struggle,
and I will ensure honesty. And above all, I will act.

We can manage the short-term shortages more effectively and we will, but
there are no short-term solutions to our long-range problems. There is
simply no way to avoid sacrifice.

Twelve hours from now I will speak again in Kansas City, to expand and
to explain further our energy program. Just as the search for solutions
to our energy shortages has now led us to a new awareness of our
Nation's deeper problems, so our willingness to work for those solutions
in energy can strengthen us to attack those deeper problems.

I will continue to travel this country, to hear the people of America.
You can help me to develop a national agenda for the 1980's. I will
listen and I will act. We will act together. These were the promises I
made 3 years ago, and I intend to keep them.

Little by little we can and we must rebuild our confidence. We can spend
until we empty our treasuries, and we may summon all the wonders of
science. But we can succeed only if we tap our greatest resources --
America's people, America's values, and America's confidence.

I have seen the strength of America in the inexhaustible resources of
our people. In the days to come, let us renew that strength in the
struggle for an energy-secure nation.

In closing, let me say this: I will do my best, but I will not do it
alone. Let your voice be heard. Whenever you have a chance, say
something good about our country. With God's help and for the sake of
our Nation, it is time for us to join hands in America. Let us commit
ourselves together to a rebirth of the American spirit. Working together
with our common faith we cannot fail.

Thank you and good night.





From artillo at comcast.net  Sat Jan 31 07:14:31 2004
From: artillo at comcast.net (Brian Shores)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 02:14:31 -0500
Subject: [extropy-chat] RE: Poxy old computers 
In-Reply-To: <7A2B25F8EB070940996FA543A70A217B017869B0@adlexsv02.protech.com.au>
Message-ID: <001a01c3e7c9$df18e7e0$9865fea9@bjsmain2>

Seeing as old computers are always a fun topic here, check this out!

Well lookeee what I ran into tonight while looking for some old Atari
Game ROMs!

http://www.mess.org/

MESS is a free emulator which emulates a large variety of different
systems.  As of the latest CVS version, it supports the following: 

Adventurevision 
Amstrad 464plus 
Amstrad 6128plus 
Amstrad PC1512 (version 1) 
Amstrad PC1512 (version 2) 
Amstrad PC1640 / PC6400 (US) 
Amstrad PC20 
Amstrad/Schneider CPC464 
Amstrad/Schneider CPC6128 
Amstrad/Schneider CPC664 
APEXC (as described in 1957) 
APF Imagination Machine 
APF M-1000 
Apple ][ 
Apple ][+ 
Apple //c 
Apple //c Plus 
Apple //c (UniDisk 3.5) 
Apple //e 
Apple //e (enhanced) 
Apple //e (Platinum) 
Apple I 
Aquarius 
Arcadia 2001 
Atari 2600 
Atari 400 (NTSC) 
Atari 400 (PAL) 
Atari 5200 
Atari 7800 NTSC 
Atari 7800 PAL 
Atari 800 (NTSC) 
Atari 800 (PAL) 
Atari 800XL 
Atom 
Atom with Eprom Box 
Bally Pro Arcade/Astrocade 
Bally Pro Arcade/Astrocade (white case 
BBC Micro Model A 
BBC Micro Model B 
BBC Micro Model B+ 128k 
BBC Micro Model B+ 64K 
BBC Micro Model B with WD1770 disc controller 
C64GS (PAL) 
C65 / C64DX (Prototype, German PAL, 910429) 
C65 / C64DX (Prototype, NTSC, 910111) 
C65 / C64DX (Prototype, NTSC, 910523) 
C65 / C64DX (Prototype, NTSC, 910626) 
C65 / C64DX (Prototype, NTSC, 910828) 
C65 / C64DX (Prototype, NTSC, 911001) 
CBM4064/PET64/Educator64 (NTSC) 
Channel F 
Chess Champion MK II 
Colecovision 
Colecovision (Thick Characters) 
Color Computer 
Color Computer 2 
Color Computer 2B 
Color Computer 3 (NTSC) 
Color Computer 3 (NTSC; HD6309) 
Color Computer 3 (PAL) 
Color Computer (Extended BASIC 1.0) 
Colour Genie EG2000 
Commodore 128 French (PAL) 
Commodore 128 German (PAL) 
Commodore 128 Italian (PAL) 
Commodore 128 NTSC 
Commodore 128 Swedish (PAL) 
Commodore 16/116/232/264 (PAL) 
Commodore 16/116/232/264 (PAL), 1551 
Commodore 16 Novotrade (PAL, Hungarian Character Set) 
Commodore 30xx (Basic 2) 
Commodore 30xx (Basic 2) (business keyboard) 
Commodore 364 (Prototype) 
Commodore 40xx FAT (CRTC) 50Hz 
Commodore 40xx FAT (CRTC) 60Hz 
Commodore 40xx THIN (business keyboard) 
Commodore +4 (NTSC) 
Commodore +4 (NTSC), 1551 
Commodore 64 (NTSC) 
Commodore 64 Swedish (PAL) 
Commodore 64/VC64/VIC64 (PAL) 
Commodore 80xx 50Hz 
Commodore 80xx 60Hz 
Commodore 80xx German (50Hz) 
Commodore 80xx Swedish (50Hz) 
Commodore B128-40/Pet-II/P500 60Hz 
Commodore B128-80HP/710 
Commodore B128-80LP/610 60Hz 
Commodore B256-80HP/720 
Commodore B256-80HP/720 Swedish/Finnish 
Commodore B256-80LP/620 50Hz 
Commodore B256-80LP/620 Hungarian 50Hz 
Commodore Max (Ultimax/VC10) 
Commodore SP9000/MMF9000 (50Hz) 
CP400 
CPS Changer (Street Fighter ZERO) 
Dragon 32 
Dragon 64 
Enterprise 128 
Enterprise 128 (EXOS 2.1) 
EURO PC 
Famicom 
Galaksija 
Gamboy - (PAL) Japanese SMS BIOS v2.1 
GameBoy 
GameBoy Color 
GameBoy Pocket 
Game Gear - European/American 
Game Gear - European/American Majesco Game Gear BIOS 
Game Gear - Japanese 
Game Gear - Japanese Majesco Game Gear BIOS 
Geneve 9640 
HB-8000 Hotbit 1.1 
HB-8000 Hotbit 1.2 
IBM PC 08/16/82 
IBM PC 10/27/82 
IBM PC/XT (CGA) 
Intellivision 
Intellivision Keyboard Component (Unreleased) 
Intellivision (Sears) 
Inves Spectrum 48K+ 
Jupiter Ace 
Kaypro 2x 
KC 85/3 
KC 85/4 
KC Compact 
KIM-1 
Laser 110 
Laser 200 
Laser 210 
Laser 310 
Laser 350 
Laser 500 
Laser 700 
Lisa2 
Lisa2/10 
LNW-80 
Lynx 
Lynx (alternate rom save!) 
Lynx II 
Macintosh 512ke 
Macintosh Plus 
Macintosh XL 
Mark III - (PAL) Japanese SMS BIOS v2.1 
Master System III Compact (Brazil) - (PAL) European BIOS with Sonic The
Hedgehog 
Master System II - (NTSC) US/European BIOS with Alex Kidd in Miracle
World 
Master System II - (PAL) European BIOS with Sonic The Hedgehog 
Master System II - (PAL) US/European BIOS with Alex Kidd in Miracle
World 
Master System - (NTSC) 
Master System - (NTSC) Hacked US/European BIOS v1.3 
Master System - (NTSC) US/European BIOS v1.3 
Master System - (NTSC) US/European BIOS v3.4 with Hang On 
Master System - (PAL) 
Master System - (PAL) Hacked US/European BIOS v1.3 
Master System - (PAL) Japanese SMS BIOS v2.1 
Master System - (PAL) US/European BIOS v1.3 
Master System - (PAL) US/European BIOS v3.4 with Hang On 
Master System Plus - (NTSC) US/European BIOS v2.4 with Hang On and
Safari Hunt 
Master System Plus - (PAL) US/European BIOS v2.4 with Hang On and Safari
Hunt 
MC-10 
Megadrive / Genesis 
Microbee 32 IC 
Microbee 32 PC 
Microbee 32 PC85 
Microbee 56 
Microtan 65 
MSX 1 
MSX 1 (Japan) 
MSX 1 (Korea) 
MSX 1 (UK) 
MSX 2 
MSX 2 (BASIC 2.1) 
MSX 2 (Japan) 
MTX 512 
MZ-700 
MZ-700 (Japan) 
Nascom 1 (NasBug T1) 
Nascom 1 (NasBug T2) 
Nascom 1 (NasBug T4) 
Nascom 2 (NasSys 1) 
Nascom 2 (NasSys 3) 
Nintendo Entertainment System (NTSC) 
Nintendo Entertainment System (PAL) 
Odyssey 2 
Oric 1 
Oric Atmos 
Oric Telestrat 
PC200 Professional Series 
PC-8801 MKIISR (Hires display, VSYNC 24KHz) 
PC-8801 MKIISR (Lores display, VSYNC 15KHz) 
PC/AT (CGA, MF2 Keyboard) 
PC/AT (VGA, MF2 Keyboard) 
PC (CGA) 
PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 
PC (MDA) 
PC/XT (VGA, MF2 Keyboard) 
PDP-1 
PET2001/CBM20xx Series (Basic 1) 
Philips P2000M 
Philips P2000T 
PK-01 Lviv 
PK-01 Lviv (alternate) 
PK-01 Lviv (prototype) 
Pocket Computer 1251 
Pocket Computer 1350 
Pocket Computer 1401 
Pocket Computer 1402 
Pocket Computer 1403 
Pocket Computer 1403H 
Pravetz 8D 
Pravetz 8D (Disk ROM) 
Pravetz 8D (Disk ROM, RadoSoft) 
Salora Fellow 
Sam Coupe 
Sanyo / Dick Smith VZ200 
Sanyo / Dick Smith VZ300 
Sorcerer 
Sord M5 
Spectrum I+ 
Superboard II 
Super GameBoy 
Super Nintendo Entertainment System (NTSC) 
Super Nintendo Entertainment System (PAL) 
Super Vision 
SVI-318 
SVI-328 
SVI-328 (BASIC 1.11) 
System-80 
Tandy 1000HX 
Tatung Einstein TC-01 
TC-2048 
Texet TX8000 
TI-81 Ver. 1.8 
TI-85 ver. 10.0 
TI-85 ver. 3.0a 
TI-85 ver. 4.0 
TI-85 ver. 5.0 
TI-85 ver. 6.0 
TI-85 ver. 8.0 
TI-85 ver. 9.0 
TI-86 homebrew rom by Daniel Foesch 
TI-86 ver. 1.2 
TI-86 ver. 1.3 
TI-86 ver. 1.4 
TI-86 ver. 1.6 
TI99/4A Home Computer (Europe) 
TI99/4A Home Computer (US) 
TI99/4A Home Computer with EVPC 
TI99/4 Home Computer (Europe) 
TI99/4 Home Computer (US) 
TI Avigo 100 PDA 
TI Model 990/10 Minicomputer System 
TK-90x Color Computer 
TK-95 Color Computer 
TRS-80 Model I (Level I Basic) 
TRS-80 Model I (Radio Shack Level II Basic) 
TRS-80 Model I (R/S L2 Basic) 
TS-2068 
UK101 
UK-2086 ver. 1.2 
Vectrex 
VIC1001 (NTSC) 
VIC20 (NTSC) 
VIC20 (NTSC), IEEE488 Interface (SYS45065) 
VIC20 PAL, Swedish Expansion Kit 
VIC20/VC20(German) PAL 
XP-800 Expert 1.0 
XP-800 Expert 1.1 
Z88 
ZX Spectrum 
ZX Spectrum 128 
ZX Spectrum 128 (Spain) 
ZX Spectrum +2 
ZX Spectrum +2a 
ZX Spectrum +2 (France) 
ZX Spectrum +2 (Spain) 
ZX Spectrum +3 
ZX Spectrum +3e 
ZX Spectrum +3e (Spain) 
ZX Spectrum +3 (Spain) 
ZX Spectrum +4 
ZX Spectrum (BusySoft Upgrade v1.18) 
ZX Spectrum (Collier's Upgrade) 
ZX Spectrum (De Groot's Upgrade) 
ZX Spectrum (LEC Upgrade) 
ZX Spectrum (Maly's Psycho Upgrade) 

NICE!!! (needless to say I started drooling LOL)



From gpmap at runbox.com  Sat Jan 31 07:37:05 2004
From: gpmap at runbox.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 08:37:05 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
In-Reply-To: <4910-220041530213511247@M2W052.mail2web.com>
References: <4910-220041530213511247@M2W052.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <445D2A9A-53C0-11D8-8135-000A95C8656A@runbox.com>

> The forces of negative reaction to progress are surging and we need to 
> respond now.

I don't like this sentence too much, the tone is cultish and 
apocalyptic, exactly the contrary of the cool reasonable image that we 
should project. The rest is fine.



From paulgrant999 at hotmail.com  Sat Jan 31 08:11:02 2004
From: paulgrant999 at hotmail.com (Paul Grant)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 00:11:02 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids
In-Reply-To: <Law10-OE31zMjyiceAZ0004367e@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <001d01c3e7d1$cb0fd760$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>

Thats an easy one :) people who are land-mammals, and people who are
genetically engineered for survival in the ocean.
There you go; a split that would lead to two seperate species.


-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kevin
Freels
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 11:05 AM
To: sjvans at ameritech.net; ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids


Given the number of people engaging in farm animal sex, let alone people
who appear "different" from themselves, I hardly see how humans could
ever split into different species unless there was absolutely no contact
between two groups for hundreds of thousands of years. There would also
have to be several changes in environment that kept the two isolated
places changing in different ways. Heck, Bonobos and Chimps are
seperated by 3 million years.

Assuming we were able to keep our technology, I have trouble envisioning
an advanced civilization capable of altering its own evolution that
wasn;t also constantly intermixing.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <sjvans at mailhost.mil.ameritech.net>
To: <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 12:32 PM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids


>
>
> From: Robert J. Bradbury bradbury at aeiveos.com
>
> >The above discussion suggests that there would possibly be three 
> >potential civilization cores -- those centered around nuclear 
> >vessels, those centered around nuclear power reactors and those 
> >centered around hydroelectric power centers.
>
> Huh?  I am getting into this late, but could someone explain to me how
this
> hypothetical "extinction level event" would wipe out fossil fuels?  
> Coal mines and oil fields are 19th and very early 20th century
technology...much
> easier to maintain and preserve than nuclear power plants.  With a 
> hypothetically much reduced population, known reserves and even stored

> supplies would last a very long time.  I'd much rather try my hand at 
> distilling straight gasoline from crude or making producer gas from 
> coal than refuel a nuclear power plant.
>
> sjv
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ .
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat




From gpmap at runbox.com  Sat Jan 31 08:26:18 2004
From: gpmap at runbox.com (Giu1i0 Pri5c0)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 09:26:18 +0100
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
In-Reply-To: <009801c3e790$18bdbaa0$88994a43@texas.net>
References: <4910-220041530213511247@M2W052.mail2web.com>
	<019501c3e784$d6da5cc0$2c02650a@int.veeco.com>
	<009801c3e790$18bdbaa0$88994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <2474D1C6-53C7-11D8-8135-000A95C8656A@runbox.com>

I agree with Damien, the language of the press release, as well as the 
language of whatever output the summit will have, should sound 
reasonable and non-threatening.


On 31 Jan 2004, at 01:20, Damien Broderick wrote:

> From: "Jef Allbright" <jef at jefallbright.net>
> Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 5:00 PM
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments 
> Please!
>
>
>> The wording and focus need some polishing
>
> Yes. Consider some examples:
>
> < The forces of reaction are surging...
>
> < Throughout history the forces of advancement have struggled against 
> the
> reactionary forces of stasis >
>
> Struggle. Forces of reaction. Oddly enough, this *exactly* mimics 
> Stalinist
> and Troskyite cant from the Cold war and earlier. (Sorry, but it has 
> to be
> noted.)
>
> I suppose it's impossible or at least very hard to convince you to 
> leave out
> cult-sounding brand-positioning phrases such as `our extropic goals'. 
> Those
> goals include: `extended healthy life, enhanced intelligence, refined
> emotions', etc. You might put off fewer uncommitted people by simply 
> listing
> them as your goals, and hold the `extropic'. (I happen at the moment 
> to be
> reading Jeff Walker's hilarious and devastating THE AYN RAND CULT, so 
> my
> tendrils are probably especially fine-tuned for this kind of thing.)
>
> Damien Broderick
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sat Jan 31 14:35:24 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 06:35:24 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] MARS: Opportunity finds Hematite
Message-ID: <20040131143524.80685.qmail@web12905.mail.yahoo.com>

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/opportunity/20040131a/dark_unit_lab.jpg

TES data on the Opportunity Rover confirms the presence of hematite on
Mars. Further investigation will determine whether this is hematite
that would have formed in the presence of water, or from volcanic genesis.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sat Jan 31 15:38:29 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 07:38:29 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
In-Reply-To: <Law10-OE18ENlqMGPbd00043a76@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <20040131153829.72031.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>

Ah, but that would lower the buzzword quotient. If you are going to
effectuate the popularization of the emmanetization of eschatonic
phenomena, you must epistemologically thesaurisize your
vocabularizations...

--- Kevin Freels <kevinfreels at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Looks super! I had a few suggestions, but I see that they have all
> been covered. My vote is for the removal of  the word "Innovator".

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From kevinfreels at hotmail.com  Sat Jan 31 15:53:17 2004
From: kevinfreels at hotmail.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 09:53:17 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids
References: <001d01c3e7d1$cb0fd760$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
Message-ID: <LAW10-OE63lGZqy12B7000091d1@hotmail.com>

But would they stay seperate for any reasonable length of time? At some
point, ocean girl and land boy, two star-crossed lovers, are going to fall
in love. Ocean girl is going to become pregnant and ocean amphibian will be
born. ...... or ocean baby with land genes hidden, or land baby with ocean
genes.....


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Grant" <paulgrant999 at hotmail.com>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2004 2:11 AM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids


> Thats an easy one :) people who are land-mammals, and people who are
> genetically engineered for survival in the ocean.
> There you go; a split that would lead to two seperate species.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kevin
> Freels
> Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 11:05 AM
> To: sjvans at ameritech.net; ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids
>
>
> Given the number of people engaging in farm animal sex, let alone people
> who appear "different" from themselves, I hardly see how humans could
> ever split into different species unless there was absolutely no contact
> between two groups for hundreds of thousands of years. There would also
> have to be several changes in environment that kept the two isolated
> places changing in different ways. Heck, Bonobos and Chimps are
> seperated by 3 million years.
>
> Assuming we were able to keep our technology, I have trouble envisioning
> an advanced civilization capable of altering its own evolution that
> wasn;t also constantly intermixing.
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: <sjvans at mailhost.mil.ameritech.net>
> To: <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 12:32 PM
> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids
>
>
> >
> >
> > From: Robert J. Bradbury bradbury at aeiveos.com
> >
> > >The above discussion suggests that there would possibly be three
> > >potential civilization cores -- those centered around nuclear
> > >vessels, those centered around nuclear power reactors and those
> > >centered around hydroelectric power centers.
> >
> > Huh?  I am getting into this late, but could someone explain to me how
> this
> > hypothetical "extinction level event" would wipe out fossil fuels?
> > Coal mines and oil fields are 19th and very early 20th century
> technology...much
> > easier to maintain and preserve than nuclear power plants.  With a
> > hypothetically much reduced population, known reserves and even stored
>
> > supplies would last a very long time.  I'd much rather try my hand at
> > distilling straight gasoline from crude or making producer gas from
> > coal than refuel a nuclear power plant.
> >
> > sjv
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------
> > mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ .
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > extropy-chat mailing list
> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> >
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
>


From gregburch at gregburch.net  Sat Jan 31 16:31:50 2004
From: gregburch at gregburch.net (Greg Burch)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 10:31:50 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
In-Reply-To: <4910-220041530213511247@M2W052.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <PMEELDEBLOLPFEFPEIBDAEOMCCAA.gregburch@gregburch.net>

Natasha:

I largely concur with the comments that have been made and attach my comments as a Word doc.  Let me know if there are transmission or formatting problems.

GB, THHotA

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From megao at sasktel.net  Sat Jan 31 16:28:12 2004
From: megao at sasktel.net (Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc.)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 10:28:12 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids
References: <001d01c3e7d1$cb0fd760$5a01a8c0@SIGMA7PG>
	<LAW10-OE63lGZqy12B7000091d1@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <401BD79B.57EC3877@sasktel.net>

At that point is will not only be genetics but how the switching on and off of
genes.  If one can by encoding parts of the genotype, perhaps in the Major
histocompatibility complex with instructions to suppress or activate just the
genes
required to result in a functional offspring you  may have a method.

The phenotype may be far removed in appearance,  but the fundamental
biochemistry might remain almost identical.  Conversely, to enable survival in
extreme environments the physiology might need to be radically altered, but the
phenotype might remain almost identical outwardly.

We humans  have a mental block when comparing appearance to underlying
functional  traits.
The chemistry of DNA and life-long regulation and de-regulation of genes  still
has much to offer without deviating very  far  from the current genotype.

Resistance to oxidative stress  can result from a few "simple"  changes.
Like plants resistant to multiple herbicides, humans resistant to multiple
physical stressors might be a first step.  The key is to make the gene changes
mesh with the numerous feedback loops not just in biochemistry but also
epigenetic chemistry.  Reproductive capacity is a tertiary consideration. I
think that integrating
functional changes so that they still allow proper reproduction is like adding
the rest of a car to the functional chassis.  Necessary to the "driver", but
not to the basic funtionality of the organism.

You might need  for example , an agent that functions like a  targeted prion
that is designed to go about manually switching on a particular gene.  You also
need a stop mechanism.

Having methods to do virtual and in vivo long term accelerated simulations is
very important to de-bugging a genetic change.  Animal models are of some value
but finding ways to simulate effects over extended periods of time will be
required too.

To go from simply enhancing damage repair, stress damage prevention, spot
tissue regneration  will be a major milestone.  Perhaps the first stage can
increase lifespan to 150 years.  The second stage, major whole body self
regeneration is where
the first really radical extension will happen.  So if that stage can increase
potential
regeneation (" Dr Who style") to perhaps 1000 years, then you have a whole new
window in which to develop the next step , on the fly regeneration and
enhancement cycles.

Studying hybrids is a simple way to visualize the complexity of the task.

Kevin Freels wrote:

> But would they stay seperate for any reasonable length of time? At some
> point, ocean girl and land boy, two star-crossed lovers, are going to fall
> in love. Ocean girl is going to become pregnant and ocean amphibian will be
> born. ...... or ocean baby with land genes hidden, or land baby with ocean
> genes.....
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Paul Grant" <paulgrant999 at hotmail.com>
> To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2004 2:11 AM
> Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids
>
> > Thats an easy one :) people who are land-mammals, and people who are
> > genetically engineered for survival in the ocean.
> > There you go; a split that would lead to two seperate species.
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kevin
> > Freels
> > Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 11:05 AM
> > To: sjvans at ameritech.net; ExI chat list
> > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids
> >
> >
> > Given the number of people engaging in farm animal sex, let alone people
> > who appear "different" from themselves, I hardly see how humans could
> > ever split into different species unless there was absolutely no contact
> > between two groups for hundreds of thousands of years. There would also
> > have to be several changes in environment that kept the two isolated
> > places changing in different ways. Heck, Bonobos and Chimps are
> > seperated by 3 million years.
> >
> > Assuming we were able to keep our technology, I have trouble envisioning
> > an advanced civilization capable of altering its own evolution that
> > wasn;t also constantly intermixing.
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: <sjvans at mailhost.mil.ameritech.net>
> > To: <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> > Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 12:32 PM
> > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Re: Hybrids
> >
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > From: Robert J. Bradbury bradbury at aeiveos.com
> > >
> > > >The above discussion suggests that there would possibly be three
> > > >potential civilization cores -- those centered around nuclear
> > > >vessels, those centered around nuclear power reactors and those
> > > >centered around hydroelectric power centers.
> > >
> > > Huh?  I am getting into this late, but could someone explain to me how
> > this
> > > hypothetical "extinction level event" would wipe out fossil fuels?
> > > Coal mines and oil fields are 19th and very early 20th century
> > technology...much
> > > easier to maintain and preserve than nuclear power plants.  With a
> > > hypothetically much reduced population, known reserves and even stored
> >
> > > supplies would last a very long time.  I'd much rather try my hand at
> > > distilling straight gasoline from crude or making producer gas from
> > > coal than refuel a nuclear power plant.
> > >
> > > sjv
> > >
> > > --------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ .
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > extropy-chat mailing list
> > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > extropy-chat mailing list
> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > extropy-chat mailing list
> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> >
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat



From riel at surriel.com  Sat Jan 31 16:42:58 2004
From: riel at surriel.com (Rik van Riel)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 11:42:58 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
In-Reply-To: <20040131153829.72031.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20040131153829.72031.qmail@web12901.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.55L.0401311142330.14481@imladris.surriel.com>

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> Ah, but that would lower the buzzword quotient. If you are going to
> effectuate the popularization of the emmanetization of eschatonic
> phenomena, you must epistemologically thesaurisize your
> vocabularizations...

Are you going to hold a marketing conference ? ;)

Rik
-- 
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan


From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sat Jan 31 16:58:07 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 08:58:07 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
In-Reply-To: <2474D1C6-53C7-11D8-8135-000A95C8656A@runbox.com>
Message-ID: <20040131165807.60745.qmail@web12908.mail.yahoo.com>

I think that depends on the intended goals of the organizers. Is this a
summit to discuss and agree on strategy and get press coverage, or is
it a come together to sing kumbaya with the bioluddites?

--- Giu1i0 Pri5c0 <gpmap at runbox.com> wrote:
> I agree with Damien, the language of the press release, as well as
> the 
> language of whatever output the summit will have, should sound 
> reasonable and non-threatening.
> 
> 
> On 31 Jan 2004, at 01:20, Damien Broderick wrote:
> 
> > From: "Jef Allbright" <jef at jefallbright.net>
> > Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 5:00 PM
> > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments 
> > Please!
> >
> >
> >> The wording and focus need some polishing
> >
> > Yes. Consider some examples:
> >
> > < The forces of reaction are surging...
> >
> > < Throughout history the forces of advancement have struggled
> against 
> > the
> > reactionary forces of stasis >
> >
> > Struggle. Forces of reaction. Oddly enough, this *exactly* mimics 
> > Stalinist
> > and Troskyite cant from the Cold war and earlier. (Sorry, but it
> has 
> > to be
> > noted.)
> >
> > I suppose it's impossible or at least very hard to convince you to 
> > leave out
> > cult-sounding brand-positioning phrases such as `our extropic
> goals'. 
> > Those
> > goals include: `extended healthy life, enhanced intelligence,
> refined
> > emotions', etc. You might put off fewer uncommitted people by
> simply 
> > listing
> > them as your goals, and hold the `extropic'. (I happen at the
> moment 
> > to be
> > reading Jeff Walker's hilarious and devastating THE AYN RAND CULT,
> so 
> > my
> > tendrils are probably especially fine-tuned for this kind of
> thing.)
> >
> > Damien Broderick
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > extropy-chat mailing list
> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sat Jan 31 17:01:28 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 09:01:28 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] LONGEVITY: A better genome
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401310853290.28550-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Well, there have been some previous reports on genes which
contribute to extended longevity but we have another of
interest today.

"Death-defying Approach Devised By Penn Scientists To
Prevent Cell Apoptosis"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040130075914.htm
http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/jan04/MSRA.htm

It turns out that higher levels of the methionine sulfoxide
reductase type A (MSRA) can protect cells from the free radical
damage and apoptosis (cell death) that takes place when recovering
from a heart attack or stroke.

So people with a genetic enhancement for the increased production
of MSRA can legitimately rise up off the cart (using a Monty Python
analogy here...) and claim "But I'm not dead yet".

Robert




From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sat Jan 31 17:17:42 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 09:17:42 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] EDU: Georgia and Evolution
In-Reply-To: <Law10-OE18Wg4fsbzUK00043a3f@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401310905270.28550-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Kevin Freels wrote:

> Have you heard anything on this lately? How is it progressing? I wonder if
> they could get away with this even if the remains were clearly of a
> different species? Would they try to say  that H. americanus was a Lakota
> Sioux? ;-)

Kevin/Spike/others et al -- I believe that a PBS series based on robust
scientific data have well documented on the basis of genetic data
the out-of-africa perspective where there is one wave that comes
out of africa, through Europe and eventually across the atlantic
into North America.  There is another wave that went from africa
through asia, across the then frozen Bearing straight into
North America.

There is no debate with respect to whether we are ultimately
derived from the same genetic background.  The paths may be
different but we are ultimately all humans.  And there is
a substantial amount of genetic evidence that we are *not*
Neanderthals.

So while there may be laws -- there is probably ultimately little
genetic basis for them -- they are most likely based on the
history (and guilt) derived from the poor policies that Western
Europeans and their offspring have had with respect to honoring
their treaty agreements.

Robert




From max at maxmore.com  Sat Jan 31 17:25:30 2004
From: max at maxmore.com (Max More)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 11:25:30 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
In-Reply-To: <009801c3e790$18bdbaa0$88994a43@texas.net>
References: <4910-220041530213511247@M2W052.mail2web.com>
	<019501c3e784$d6da5cc0$2c02650a@int.veeco.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040131111303.049a9718@mail.earthlink.net>

At 06:20 PM 1/30/2004, Damien Broderick wrote:

>Yes. Consider some examples:
>
>< The forces of reaction are surging...
>
>< Throughout history the forces of advancement have struggled against the
>reactionary forces of stasis >
>
>Struggle. Forces of reaction. Oddly enough, this *exactly* mimics Stalinist
>and Troskyite cant from the Cold war and earlier. (Sorry, but it has to be
>noted.)

Damien -- the way you quote the above makes it appear as if it was from the 
press release, which it was not. The language of the press release was much 
milder. The original text on the web pages was oriented toward a more hard 
core audience. Nevertheless, we appreciate your comments -- the web pages 
themselves are due for a rewrite. It's worth noting though, that Marxist 
"cant" was remarkably effective, and we really *are* seeing a reaction from 
forces opposed to or at least deeply suspicious of progress (as we see it).


>I suppose it's impossible or at least very hard to convince you to leave out
>cult-sounding brand-positioning phrases such as `our extropic goals'. Those
>goals include: `extended healthy life, enhanced intelligence, refined
>emotions', etc. You might put off fewer uncommitted people by simply listing
>them as your goals, and hold the `extropic'.

Yes, that's probably true about "extropic" for the broad audience we're 
looking for. As an unfamiliar term, it might sound a bit in-groupish, 
though surely less so than "extropian" which you should no longer find on 
our new materials. The VP Summit presents a challenge in pitching at just 
the right level -- to include everyone with an interest in biomedical and 
general technological progress but without denying or hiding the fact that 
ExI favors enhancement uses.

Since you mention the possibility of sounding cultish... In the interview 
with you, you say:

>I?m subscribed to several chat rooms that examine social and technical 
>change [such as] a group called SL4?Shock Level Four

If you think "extropic goals" sounds at all off-putting, surely SL4 does to 
a greater degree. Someone not familiar with Eli or SIAI might easily get 
the impression that this refers to a Scientologist-like hierarchy with only 
the "very smart people" allowed in.

Cheers,

Max


_______________________________________________________
Max More, Ph.D.
max at maxmore.com or more at extropy.org
http://www.maxmore.com
Strategic Philosopher
Chairman, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org <more at extropy.org>
_______________________________________________________




From max at maxmore.com  Sat Jan 31 17:34:14 2004
From: max at maxmore.com (Max More)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 11:34:14 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
In-Reply-To: <009801c3e790$18bdbaa0$88994a43@texas.net>
References: <4910-220041530213511247@M2W052.mail2web.com>
	<019501c3e784$d6da5cc0$2c02650a@int.veeco.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040131112929.02734e38@mail.earthlink.net>

One other thing I wanted to comment on:

At 06:20 PM 1/30/2004, Damien Broderick wrote:

>I suppose it's impossible or at least very hard to convince you to leave out
>cult-sounding brand-positioning phrases such as `our extropic goals'.

Why do you suppose this? Do you think we are oblivious to the perceptions 
of others? Have you not noticed the evolution in language we use? (Compare 
the Principles of Extropy 3.11 with the prior Extropian Principles for an 
example.)  Your assumption puzzles me. Either you think us quite 
unreasonable, OR you've gotten too deep into "The Ayn Rand Cult" and your 
perceptions are being colored through its lens.

Suggestions for improvements are ALWAYS welcome and given genuine 
consideration.

Max



_______________________________________________________
Max More, Ph.D.
max at maxmore.com or more at extropy.org
http://www.maxmore.com
Strategic Philosopher
Chairman, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org <more at extropy.org>
_______________________________________________________




From natasha at natasha.cc  Sat Jan 31 20:32:49 2004
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 12:32:49 -0800
Subject: Fwd: RE: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20040131123232.028b65a0@pop.earthlink.net>


>At 10:31 AM 1/31/04 -0600, Greg wrote:
>
>>I largely concur with the comments that have been made and attach my 
>>comments as a Word doc.  Let me know if there are transmission or 
>>formatting problems.
>
>Great.  I read it and it looks promising.  I'm waiting to hear from Amara 
>D'Angelica who is our PR advisor, and Max.  Then, I'm sure it will be an 
>all-go.
>
>Thank you all for being so helpful - I welcome the collaborative approach.
>
>Natasha
>
>Natasha Vita-More
>http://www.natasha.cc
>----------
>President, Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
>Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture  http://www.transhumanist.biz
>http://www.transhuman.org
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From bradbury at aeiveos.com  Sat Jan 31 18:38:05 2004
From: bradbury at aeiveos.com (Robert J. Bradbury)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 10:38:05 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040131111303.049a9718@mail.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401311001010.29220-100000@server.aeiveos.com>


Max and Damien have had some discussion with respect to significant
philosophical perspectives...

Lets look at:
> >I suppose it's impossible or at least very hard to convince you to leave out
> >cult-sounding brand-positioning phrases such as `our extropic goals'.

For myself personally there is not really any "our".  Extropic goals
are extropic goals -- nobody can lay claim to them other than perhaps
by pointing them out (e.g. hey -- "XYZZY is an extropic goal).

The goal (state of existence) was present whether or not it
had previously been pointed out or "claimed".  Though it is
certainly more useful for existence states to be visible
rather than invisible.

Now where extropic and transhumanistic thought in general
may be failing to fulfill it potential may be with respect
to the detailed analysis of where actions or priorities
may be distinctly unextropic.

So we have Sunday mornings.  Most extropians sit at home
enjoying their brunch.  Why are they not down at the
local religious institution handing out flyers questioning
the basic premise that "thou shalt not bear false witness
against thy neighbor" (the 9th commandment) which would
seem to doom any argument that christianity has some
prior claim against non-christian (or extropic) perspectives.

So once one tosses out the faith based perspectives then
one has the freedom to argue rationality.

The trick with "extropic goals" is to figure out what is really
going to move us in that direction.  I can promote genetic
technologies that increase our general knowledge base.  I
can also point out technologies that would limit that knowledge
base to a few narrowly educated individuals.

"Extropic goals" can be limiting.  (Information can be abused.)
It remains to be seen how one defines extropic or transhumanistic
perspectives such that it leads to an increasingly complex
evolutionary path.  (I know there are elements of this in
previous discussions -- so my comments should be viewed as
reflections near term (narrower) viewpoints.)

Robert




From thespike at earthlink.net  Sat Jan 31 19:16:50 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 13:16:50 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] extropy and other forces for good
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401311001010.29220-100000@server.aeiveos.com>
Message-ID: <014501c3e82e$c989d960$93994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2004 12:38 PM

> So once one tosses out the faith based perspectives then
>one has the freedom to argue rationality.

>The trick with "extropic goals" is to figure out what is really
>going to move us in that direction.  

Uh-oh:

Research Around the World Links Religion to Economic
Development
By FELICIA R. LEE
Two Harvard scholars have found that what really stimulates
economic growth is whether you believe in an afterlife -
especially hell.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/31/arts/31GOD.html?th

Wouldn't it rot your boots! 

Damien Broderick



From jef at jefallbright.net  Sat Jan 31 19:27:32 2004
From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 11:27:32 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] Anti-technology - Prince Charles, nanotechnology,
	and the impact on developing countries
Message-ID: <018101c3e830$46c2ed80$6501a8c0@int.veeco.com>

Here's an item with substantial references on the topic of some current
anti-technology campaigns.

<abstract>

Will Prince Charles et al diminish the opportunities of developing countries
in nanotechnology?

Prince Charles and the ETC Group (formerly RAFI) have expressed opposition
to nanotechnology in recent months, making this seem like a replay of the
genetically-modified (GM) foods debate. That debate essentially ignored the
voices of people in developing countries. Commentators from industrialized
countries are now focusing primarily on nanotechnology risks rather than its
potential benefits. While there are legitimate risks that need to be
managed, we argue that an exclusive focus on the risks will create another
divide, the "nano-divide" - similar to the digital and genomics divides -
between industrialized and developing countries. We have already called
attention to the gap between the science and the ethics of nanotechnology,
citing global equity as a key area in which the ethics of nanotechnology
must catch up to the science in order for the technology to progress in a
socially responsible manner. Here, we show that there is a failure
adequately to consider and understand how nanotechnology can bring benefits
to the 5 bn people in developing countries. Our survey of select developing
countries indicates varying levels of nanotechnology activity that can be
categorized as "front runner", "middle ground" and "up and comer". We argue
that the significant nanotechnology activity in developing countries may be
derailed by a debate that fails to take adequate account of developing
country perspectives.

</abstract>

http://nanotechweb.org/articles/society/3/1/1/1

- Jef
http://www.jefallbright.net/anti-technology



From mlorrey at yahoo.com  Sat Jan 31 19:42:43 2004
From: mlorrey at yahoo.com (Mike Lorrey)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 11:42:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [extropy-chat] extropy and other forces for good
In-Reply-To: <014501c3e82e$c989d960$93994a43@texas.net>
Message-ID: <20040131194243.12806.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>


--- Damien Broderick <thespike at earthlink.net> wrote:

> 
> Research Around the World Links Religion to Economic
> Development
> By FELICIA R. LEE
> Two Harvard scholars have found that what really stimulates
> economic growth is whether you believe in an afterlife -
> especially hell.

I'll bet that the same data can demonstrate that you get even better
economic growth if you believe in witchcraft...

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/


From thespike at earthlink.net  Sat Jan 31 20:08:57 2004
From: thespike at earthlink.net (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 14:08:57 -0600
Subject: [extropy-chat] extropy and other forces for good
References: <20040131194243.12806.qmail@web12904.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <015601c3e836$131f4400$93994a43@texas.net>


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Lorrey" <mlorrey at yahoo.com>

Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2004 1:42 PM

> > Two Harvard scholars have found that what really stimulates
> > economic growth is whether you believe in an afterlife -
> > especially hell.

> I'll bet that the same data can demonstrate that you get even better
> economic growth if you believe in witchcraft...

I rather doubt it, but it might correlate with belief in astrology
(considering the number of Asian business people who swear by it).

Damien Broderick



From natasha at natasha.cc  Sat Jan 31 22:53:57 2004
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 14:53:57 -0800
Subject: [extropy-chat] VP Summit - Press Release - Comments Please!
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0401311001010.29220-100000@server.aeiveos.co
 m>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20040131111303.049a9718@mail.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20040131144434.01e97d30@pop.earthlink.net>

At 10:38 AM 1/31/04 -0800, Robert wrote:

>Max and Damien have had some discussion with respect to significant
>philosophical perspectives...
>
>Lets look at:
> > >I suppose it's impossible or at least very hard to convince you to 
> leave out
> > >cult-sounding brand-positioning phrases such as `our extropic goals'.
>
>For myself personally there is not really any "our".  Extropic goals
>are extropic goals -- nobody can lay claim to them other than perhaps
>by pointing them out (e.g. hey -- "XYZZY is an extropic goal).

True to a point.  FM-2030 transhuman goals were based on individual "rates 
of change" and students rated their ability to adapt to the future.  These 
rates became "goals" with which to calculate how much and in what areas 
changes were, and were desired, to take place in adapting to the 
future.  In our gatherings, these became our combined efforts, since were 
probably less than 6 degrees of separation between us.

>Now where extropic and transhumanistic thought in general
>may be failing to fulfill it potential may be with respect
>to the detailed analysis of where actions or priorities
>may be distinctly unextropic.

Unextropic would be untranshumanistic, since extropic thinking is an 
ultimate transhumanist brain-wave, don't you think?  I might be wrong, but 
if transhumanism is an extropic cultural movement, then this would be true.

>So we have Sunday mornings.  Most extropians sit at home
>enjoying their brunch.  Why are they not down at the
>local religious institution handing out flyers questioning
>the basic premise that "thou shalt not bear false witness
>against thy neighbor" (the 9th commandment) which would
>seem to doom any argument that christianity has some
>prior claim against non-christian (or extropic) perspectives.
>
>So once one tosses out the faith based perspectives then
>one has the freedom to argue rationality.
>
>The trick with "extropic goals" is to figure out what is really
>going to move us in that direction.  I can promote genetic
>technologies that increase our general knowledge base.  I
>can also point out technologies that would limit that knowledge
>base to a few narrowly educated individuals.

Precisely.  Good point.  Herein, I think that what is imperative is to 
recognize that the future happens across social change theories and that 
multi-tracking of rates of change (or calculating rate of change on a 
multi-track level, wherein more than one area of expertise in a many areas 
are valued) would be advantageous.

Natasha

>_______________________________________________
>extropy-chat mailing list
>extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat

Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc
----------
President, Extropy Institute  http://www.extropy.org
Founder, Transhumanist Arts & Culture  http://www.transhumanist.biz
http://www.transhuman.org
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