From giulio at gmail.com Wed Jan 1 07:02:13 2014 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2014 08:02:13 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Critics view of TED lectures In-Reply-To: <52C2C925.5010803@aleph.se> References: <52C2C925.5010803@aleph.se> Message-ID: Anders: "No time for questions, emphasis on wow." The thing is, asking question, listening to the answers, and understanding the answers, requires time and attention, both very scarce commodities these days. You need to be strongly motivated to give your time and attention, and that's why wow must come first. After the time for wow, comes the time for questions. On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 2:39 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 2013-12-31 11:54, BillK wrote: >> >> Science, philosophy and technology run on the model of American Idol ? >> as embodied by TED talks ? is a recipe for civilisational disaster > > > Yup. No time for questions, emphasis on wow. I actually called it mental > pornography in an ethics blog post this summer ( > http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2013/07/censorship-pornography-and-divine-swan-on-human-action/ > ) > > I will also speak at TEDx Oxford on the 26th of January. Go figure :-) > > > >> Because, if a problem is in fact endemic to a system, then the >> exponential effects of Moore's law also serve to amplify what's >> broken. It is more computation along the wrong curve, and I don't it >> is necessarily a triumph of reason. > > > This is an interesting and important point. Of course, if things just broke > when inherent contradictions became untenable everything would be fine - we > would have Schumpeterian creative destruction. Instead we get problems that > also mutate as fast as we try to understand them. Obesity today is not > obesity 20 years ago, surveillance today is entirely different from 20 years > ago. > > > > -- > Anders Sandberg > Future of Humanity Institute > Oxford University > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From anders at aleph.se Wed Jan 1 09:30:24 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 01 Jan 2014 10:30:24 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Critics view of TED lectures In-Reply-To: References: <52C2C925.5010803@aleph.se> Message-ID: <52C3E030.2080402@aleph.se> On 2014-01-01 08:02, Giulio Prisco wrote: > Anders: "No time for questions, emphasis on wow." > > The thing is, asking question, listening to the answers, and > understanding the answers, requires time and attention, both very > scarce commodities these days. You need to be strongly motivated to > give your time and attention, and that's why wow must come first. > After the time for wow, comes the time for questions. I do not think I am good at explaining things. Partially it is because English is my second language, partially it is because I am maybe not great at actually explaining things. But I am good at conveying enthusiasm. So most of my talks are about convincing the audience that what I am talking about is the coolest thing ever, and give them plenty of details to look up if they choose to investigate themselves. The question period is their way of getting further pointers. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From sustrik at 250bpm.com Wed Jan 1 07:27:43 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Wed, 01 Jan 2014 08:27:43 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality Message-ID: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi, I've written a short article about how to get closer to immortality by perpetuating your will beyond the point of your death. I believe it's a novel idea. At least, it's using Bitcoin gears under the hood so it could not possibly be around before 2009 or so. Furthermore, unlike most of the immortality talk, it is immediately actionable. Here's the link: http://250bpm.com/blog:34 I hope it will be of interest to this list. Happy new year 2014! Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSw8NgAAoJENTpVjxCNN9YOjIH/ijgpRIek2TBc6r5lqHncLU9 Q1ft1fdVF4OkYP8ZVwNQoryIJRFjcbssu+2XuMcLicsJ02kLXJ9ayL6LSe54+GUy GeoO56X4ACb97Ysr8Byv5eIGEVPOEIl9FYTDIBsqtG+26HuasvnwQ1pQfB81QmsZ 5OYHFTCqT17hq4ZFJAYU5/NT8HbJYpbnvGnUVb3g+r3/4nB6cl3FQdSv+ER2ppwG TFkUvFuFi7rLlNgGMEdvj/zB3TWLmc3b+0Z0WHW/fSEkNuPDjbM0VgBNPOeBZYzQ ALEbnALxYhOUWmhvVmwyYQfwcFAea4lLaLi5GbmvLSQ9pIk3a7jqSo4Y5GzworQ= =Ppg9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Jan 1 17:51:43 2014 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2014 10:51:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Critics view of TED lectures In-Reply-To: References: <52C2C925.5010803@aleph.se> Message-ID: <00aa01cf071a$24c8fe90$6e5afbb0$@natasha.cc> Wow and (if time permits) how. Natasha -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Giulio Prisco Sent: Wednesday, January 01, 2014 12:02 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Critics view of TED lectures Anders: "No time for questions, emphasis on wow." The thing is, asking question, listening to the answers, and understanding the answers, requires time and attention, both very scarce commodities these days. You need to be strongly motivated to give your time and attention, and that's why wow must come first. After the time for wow, comes the time for questions. On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 2:39 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 2013-12-31 11:54, BillK wrote: >> >> Science, philosophy and technology run on the model of American Idol >> - as embodied by TED talks - is a recipe for civilisational disaster > > > Yup. No time for questions, emphasis on wow. I actually called it > mental pornography in an ethics blog post this summer ( > http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2013/07/censorship-pornography-an > d-divine-swan-on-human-action/ > ) > > I will also speak at TEDx Oxford on the 26th of January. Go figure :-) > > > >> Because, if a problem is in fact endemic to a system, then the >> exponential effects of Moore's law also serve to amplify what's >> broken. It is more computation along the wrong curve, and I don't it >> is necessarily a triumph of reason. > > > This is an interesting and important point. Of course, if things just > broke when inherent contradictions became untenable everything would > be fine - we would have Schumpeterian creative destruction. Instead we > get problems that also mutate as fast as we try to understand them. > Obesity today is not obesity 20 years ago, surveillance today is > entirely different from 20 years ago. > > > > -- > Anders Sandberg > Future of Humanity Institute > Oxford University > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jan 1 18:10:20 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2014 10:10:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 11:27 PM, Martin Sustrik wrote: > I've written a short article about how to get closer to immortality by > perpetuating your will beyond the point of your death. > > I believe it's a novel idea. At least, it's using Bitcoin gears under > the hood so it could not possibly be around before 2009 or so. > The only thing that's really new here is using Bitcoin instead of other currency. What you're talking about is akin to setting up a foundation that invests, gets a return on investment, and spends the proceeds as your will dictated. The Nobel Foundation is one famous example of this. Also your analogy to teleportation is bogus. The teleported "you" could completely pass as you for all purposes; if someone didn't know you had teleported, they would be unable to tell. However, the program you describe can not change itself, or react to unplanned circumstances; practically nobody would consider it to be "you", for good reason. Unless you are talking about uploading, as in creating a purely software entity that can think (and act, if provided a robot body with roughly human or better perception, range of motion, strength, endurance, and so on) in essentially the same ways you can, in which case why bother with the complications of "inheriting" money? (Exception: as a legal dodge if society won't grant your uploaded self personhood - but if it won't, you need to double-check and see what are the cognitive limits of the upload and how they differ from the person it was made from. If there are substantial cognitive limits beyond what the original human had, it wouldn't count as uploading using the definition I have supplied here. It helps to consider someone else doing this, and then whether you would consider the result a person, because if you only consider yourself doing this then of course you'd always consider yourself a person, but your self-perspective is irrelevant here.) TL;DR: This isn't new. Go read up on "foundations" and "living wills". Your teleportation analogy is so bad it insults readers who think logically. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sustrik at 250bpm.com Wed Jan 1 19:16:53 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Wed, 01 Jan 2014 20:16:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 01/01/14 19:10, Adrian Tymes wrote: > The only thing that's really new here is using Bitcoin instead of > other currency. What you're talking about is akin to setting up a > foundation that invests, gets a return on investment, and spends > the proceeds as your will dictated. The Nobel Foundation is one > famous example of this. Foundation model doesn't necessarily work, see the example in the article. In any case, foundation resembles being immortal via your children. You raise them and they preserve something of you into the future. Nice, but it's a rather diluted form of immortality. The article proposes a way to impose your will directly, without human proxies to interpret your intentions. Bitcoin gets into the mix, because fiat money, given how the legal system works, cannot be owned after death. The follow-up question, of course, is what algorithm is used to decide how to spend the money. I've deliberately avoided the question. You may think of uploading. You may think of modeling your personality using the existing corpus of social data. You may think of many different ways of doing it. The point is that however you do it, the resulting entity will be able to affect the physical world on equal standing with people actually alive, rather than being just a curiosity to be exhibited in a museum. Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSxGmaAAoJENTpVjxCNN9YMCMH/36X0wrV0FgN1yfzFR+VtpkH T5aUEKb617MyTkpOPpV4jpsDcYgZF1qNgRPaRgyAkV0Ehh3vLk6g0ecDCKyIC3ey X99+504A2osZs9oB/x5Ll6t9w45zwcOdwwQ8lkCk937DzRwBMLtzLiP1jbfo3a/N PoWjEPj1FfcBJwAf5V1edY9PzgOxjEYV8x9xE8dfE1s9Y7cu6F2cXu94/hcThEvi uN9dov0+l7/+zohoB8zRWKT6W08RXvW9O12FhR2V+MgVAisvPwRDXp8PL5G2Q+vF vCxqJIG5qMhC9KInZwn8bmXq+nlbjvuVDyPQoaNEUST6mt9qlRN8Q27mcFGf9zE= =IHRM -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Jan 1 21:58:56 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2014 16:58:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Critics view of TED lectures In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Propaganda is the water we live in. It is so pervasive that we don't even recognize it as such. I like TED. I like Fox News. I like NPR. I reallly like Exl. I like information from diverse origins, because by balancing all those informational sources together, we can perhaps formulate a position that is somewhat tangenitally related to reality. The answer is to spend as much time DOING as LISTENING. If we listen more than we do, then we are all doomed. -Kelly On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 7:26 AM, Tomaz Kristan wrote: > To a degree, I can agree with The Guardian. Only that The Guardian is much > worse than TED. > > > On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 11:54 AM, BillK wrote: > >> We need to talk about TED >> >> Science, philosophy and technology run on the model of American Idol ? >> as embodied by TED talks ? is a recipe for civilisational disaster >> >> < >> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/30/we-need-to-talk-about-ted >> > >> >> Quotes: >> Have you ever wondered why so little of the future promised in TED >> talks actually happens? So much potential and enthusiasm, and so >> little actual change. Are the ideas wrong? Or is the idea about what >> ideas can do all by themselves wrong? >> ---------- >> The key rhetorical device for TED talks is a combination of epiphany >> and personal testimony (an "epiphimony" if you like ) through which >> the speaker shares a personal journey of insight and realisation, its >> triumphs and tribulations. >> >> What is it that the TED audience hopes to get from this? A vicarious >> insight, a fleeting moment of wonder, an inkling that maybe it's all >> going to work out after all? A spiritual buzz? >> >> I'm sorry but this fails to meet the challenges that we are supposedly >> here to confront. These are complicated and difficult and are not >> given to tidy just-so solutions. They don't care about anyone's >> experience of optimism. Given the stakes, making our best and >> brightest waste their time ? and the audience's time ? dancing like >> infomercial hosts is too high a price. It is cynical. >> >> Also, it just doesn't work. >> ---------- >> We hear that not only is change accelerating but that the pace of >> change is accelerating as well. While this is true of computational >> carrying-capacity at a planetary level, at the same time ? and in fact >> the two are connected ? we are also in a moment of cultural >> de-acceleration. >> >> Because, if a problem is in fact endemic to a system, then the >> exponential effects of Moore's law also serve to amplify what's >> broken. It is more computation along the wrong curve, and I don't it >> is necessarily a triumph of reason. >> ----------- >> Problems are not "puzzles" to be solved. That metaphor assumes that >> all the necessary pieces are already on the table, they just need to >> be rearranged and reprogrammed. It's not true. >> >> "Innovation" defined as moving the pieces around and adding more >> processing power is not some Big Idea that will disrupt a broken >> status quo: that precisely is the broken status quo. >> ---------- >> >> >> BillK >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > > > -- > https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Jan 1 22:21:00 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2014 17:21:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: <52C13D3A.4020602@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 11:57 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Far future - year 50,000 a.d. > Whatever you guess about 50,000 AD is probably going to be wrong. > There is no economy - everything is free. > Just because everything is "free" in some sense doesn't mean there isn't an economy. What we do with the hours in our day is an economy. I am investing in this thread, I am doing economic activity. But what you are getting from me is "free" to you. Is this not economics? > Robots do everything except think. > Why would robots be limited from thinking? That is something that they are very likely to do better than us within a 100 years. Can't imagine a future 50,000 years from now in which the best thinking is done by human beings. > No politics - democratic socialism - takes 95% approval for any genetic > changes. > Any society where 95% of a vote is required to do ANY ONE THING would be a very authoritarian society, would it not? > Humans do not participate in making babies - all done by computer and > genemaking equipment. Gene design borrowed from all sort of animals and > plants. Immune system, muscle design, etc. Vision better and I don't know > what to make of enhancing smell. Do we really want to smell like a dog? > (so to speak) We would likely have to redesign our disgust responses. > Yes, these are interesting questions. But do you have to go so far into the future to imagine them? Star Trek projected 400 years into the future, and what did they project? Cell phones. Gee, I'm sure glad we didn't really have to wait 400 years for that. > All humans have basically the same genetic makeup except for external > features - why deprive newborns of any good genes? (thus making children > far more genetically similar to existing adults than today's parent and > child) Improving humans by implants etc. has been left way behind. Not > considered natural. > Having everyone with the same genetic makeup would be terribly hazardous because then one disease could come by and wipe out everyone. These people don't sound too smart. > So, everyone is a genius of all sorts. All medical and psychological > problems related to genes have been eliminated. Personalities are sunny in > disposition, eager to work, devoid of any competitive impulses, unable to > even think of hurting another person, and so on. > Sounds ideal and evil at the same time. Nice. > > bill > It's all about telling a story. I suggest spending some time over at the Water Cooler... http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/ -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jan 1 22:26:25 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2014 14:26:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 11:16 AM, Martin Sustrik wrote: > Foundation model doesn't necessarily work, see the example in the > article. In any case, foundation resembles being immortal via your > children. You raise them and they preserve something of you into the > future. Nice, but it's a rather diluted form of immortality. > What you propose is the same. > The article proposes a way to impose your will directly, without human > proxies to interpret your intentions. > It is technically possible to create fully automated foundations, yes...until the circumstances evolve beyond the limits of the directives you gave. "Give 1 bitcoin to person X every year" stops working when person X dies, can't be found, or otherwise has no means of accepting bitcoins. "Deposit 1 bitcoin into account X every year" only works until account X goes away. Much more complex than that will require humans until we have sentient AI...and if we have that, in most cases it's theoretically possible to make one that can pretend to be you well enough to convince the legal system, at which point you have uploading. > Bitcoin gets into the mix, because fiat money, given how the legal > system works, cannot be owned after death. > Sure it can, by a legal entity you've set up. Like, say, a foundation. > The follow-up question, of course, is what algorithm is used to decide > how to spend the money. I've deliberately avoided the question. You > may think of uploading. You may think of modeling your personality > using the existing corpus of social data. You may think of many > different ways of doing it. > Actually, that's a critical part of the question and you miss many of the shortcomings of your proposal by ignoring them. > The point is that however you do it, the resulting entity will be able > to affect the physical world on equal standing with people actually > alive, rather than being just a curiosity to be exhibited in a museum. > Only as much as, say, a foundation can. The foundation makes its own decisions as best it can, though it may be confined by the algorithms, directives, or whatever that its founder set up. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Jan 1 22:30:08 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2014 17:30:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: <8D0D4330DA50CB7-24FC-4E9@webmail-d132.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 2:44 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > Robots do all the work necessary for producing food, clothes, everything. > People program them, do scientific research, learn languages, play > instruments, invent dances, study history, watch old movies (not the > violent ones). > If people are genetically "perfected" to the point you visualize, they won't be interested in old movies whether they are violent or not. They won't be able to conceptualize jealousy, and thus be unable to comprehend the motivations of the characters. Would you enjoy watching a movie about Chimpanzee family life? >I am assuming that AI doesn't get to the point where real creativity is possible, >so humans have to do it. There is a lot more, like antigravity, teleportation >(storing recycling stuff on the Moon). AI like you see in the movies will be a reality fairly soon. Read some of Michio Kaku's work on antigravity and teleportation for a reality check. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sustrik at 250bpm.com Wed Jan 1 22:39:05 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Wed, 01 Jan 2014 23:39:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 01/01/14 23:26, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> The point is that however you do it, the resulting entity will be >> able to affect the physical world on equal standing with people >> actually alive, rather than being just a curiosity to be >> exhibited in a museum. >> > > Only as much as, say, a foundation can. The foundation makes its > own decisions as best it can, though it may be confined by the > algorithms, directives, or whatever that its founder set up. Are we speaking of US law? Is it theoretically possible to set up a foundation with no human officers? I had once created an US corporation and appointing a whole bunch of officers was required. The foundation may be different though. If so, it would open interesting possibilities w.r.t. legal status of AI. As for the continental law, I am afraid it's not possible though. Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSxJkJAAoJENTpVjxCNN9YepYIAKtZi8+4v+9CYyAnsQjNxDiJ HNhYz+PZ+Io8C2C9qwfAffm6TnGK4+9l9sLd7gHhVydWG5wYlux0dKS3VEVhZxnH JeiBDBJdSAfj+kFUFiDhFsN69bU/4vtVwMa6R8nVAe08w6Tevrt8LxgAdRWqeoF6 ZE0tGcYvrW3gGgt8Jz11Y/nOourU43hYIb8uUlONEDiV0sqdicdEsPwaYGDReAU1 fRMoGtKaf6CEYI7XqlMOb6OxLRZBndpFxFSUXrfJSVxkC0GcikQlep2hMKvmkB0/ ZViTZW+jKA3/NYLmDDAD8WFga+2MH3DjPZrW8/jNeu3SVXQ2vDumQ4G4riehkLQ= =yB7O -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jan 1 23:43:38 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2014 15:43:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 2:39 PM, Martin Sustrik wrote: > On 01/01/14 23:26, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> The point is that however you do it, the resulting entity will be > >> able to affect the physical world on equal standing with people > >> actually alive, rather than being just a curiosity to be > >> exhibited in a museum. > > > > Only as much as, say, a foundation can. The foundation makes its > > own decisions as best it can, though it may be confined by the > > algorithms, directives, or whatever that its founder set up. > > Are we speaking of US law? Is it theoretically possible to set up a > foundation with no human officers? I had once created an US > corporation and appointing a whole bunch of officers was required. The > foundation may be different though. If so, it would open interesting > possibilities w.r.t. legal status of AI. > It is possible, though it takes more doing than just creating it straight-up. Consider: what happens if you create a foundation, and then all the officers die, with rights explicitly reverting to the foundation? There are also such things as corporate bank accounts, which require a chain of human authorization but ultimately belong to the corporation, not the individuals who happen to have signature authority on it at any one time. That said, an autonomous program giving out bitcoins would be considered to have "property" - the bitcoins - which could be seized as well as any other property (modulo the difficulty of seizing bitcoins, but if it's just a defenseless program running somewhere then people can get at its code, and from that get the authorization details to drain its wallets). There's also the matter of paying for server space and runtime. Which could be part of the program's directives, to be sure, but whoever owns the server (or the Internet connection) can later decide to pull the plug and stop the program. The program can't negotiate: that requires information and context generally not available when it's written. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Jan 1 23:24:05 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2014 00:24:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: <8D0D4330DA50CB7-24FC-4E9@webmail-d132.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <52C4A395.2050709@aleph.se> On 2013-12-31 20:44, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Some good thoughts in your missive. > > Keep in mind that all humans have the same genes except for outward > appearance. All 'evil' types are long gone. There is a movement > towards reducing the population to two people, like Eden because of a > massive guilt complex. It is felt that humans have spoiled the planet > (in fact cleanup is still underway with billions of robots in the > oceans etc. cleaning up chemicals). So they want to redesign man so > that this will never happen again. They are so fervent that it is > almost like a religion. OK, it is your scenario. But why are you even asking us if you have already decided on all the salient points? This kind of cultural values could in principle motivate any behaviour. If the cultural values were to terraform planets (as repentance, say, to keep the guilt complex theme) the population would be optimized for that. But they could just as well have done away with all guilt (turning into a super-rational libertarian sociopath society) or turned into a functional soup with no individuals (but goal-threads producing meaningful projects aimed at achieving goals). The space of possible cultures and goals is vast, even when you have a society with only one central goal, rather than the more complex multi-goal societies we have in reality. > So, I am presenting the idea of perfection and asking if it is indeed > perfect (as are they). But this scenario is contrived from a literary sense. You are essentially getting a fantastic Aesop problem ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasticAesop ). The future people are simultaneously super-able to do and be a lot of things, yet they have chosen to do and be certain ultra-specific things - thanks to their ability to be anything. Asking whether this is perfection is like asking if a millionaire ruining himself by building a monument to his dead wife is acting right: whether it is depends on how he is written, the scenario doesn't really tell you much about either what *real* millionaires ought to be doing or what values normal people ought to be holding in similar (but cheaper) situations. Imagine a society with people of different views instead. How would they approach the guilt? How would they approach their possibilities? How would they approach their different views? Now, I think there is a good issue here, and that is whether it is a good idea to use enhancements to make unified mindsets across society. But then the back story should focus on exploring that rather than laying it on thick how utopian the society is. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From sustrik at 250bpm.com Thu Jan 2 04:58:04 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2014 05:58:04 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 02/01/14 00:43, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> Are we speaking of US law? Is it theoretically possible to set up >> a foundation with no human officers? I had once created an US >> corporation and appointing a whole bunch of officers was >> required. The foundation may be different though. If so, it would >> open interesting possibilities w.r.t. legal status of AI. >> > > It is possible, though it takes more doing than just creating it > straight-up. Consider: what happens if you create a foundation, > and then all the officers die, with rights explicitly reverting to > the foundation? What about this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escheat "The term is often now applied to the transfer of the title to a person's property to the state when the person dies intestate without any other person capable of taking the property as heir. For example, a common-law jurisdiction's intestacy statute might provide that when someone dies without a will, and is not survived by a spouse, descendants, parents, grandparents, descendants of parents, children or grandchildren of grandparents, or great-grandchildren of grandparents, then the person's estate will escheat to the state. In some jurisdictions, escheat can also occur when an entity, typically a bank, credit union or other financial institution, holds money or property which appears to be unclaimed, for instance due to a lack of activity on the account by way of deposits, withdrawals or any other transactions for a lengthy time in a cash account. In many jurisdictions, if the owner cannot be located, such property can be revocably escheated to the state." > That said, an autonomous program giving out bitcoins would be > considered to have "property" - the bitcoins - which could be > seized as well as any other property (modulo the difficulty of > seizing bitcoins, but if it's just a defenseless program running > somewhere then people can get at its code, and from that get the > authorization details to drain its wallets). I would say you are underestimating the power of cryptography. For example, the program may be designed in such a way that the correct authorisation info is only generated by an untampered with program. Tampering with program would result in different (invalid) authorisation info. There's also research going on wrt "fully homomorphic encryption" which would allow programs to be run on 3rd party servers without the 3rd party having access to the unencrypted data. Etc. > There's also the matter of paying for server space and runtime. > Which could be part of the program's directives, to be sure, but > whoever owns the server (or the Internet connection) can later > decide to pull the plug and stop the program. Which would mean destroying the money. Why would anyone want to do that? Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSxPHcAAoJENTpVjxCNN9YeZIH/jBk574gnczJCKlGDhoExLCP 9DsYq31U8FzQru/l68qe72VOLVldcL4/lxs+8zy4fdtCNYim025ka84VPGK7+ABN IeKtOrtp2CYr7GZgjxJr3tJptTNw6vO3ow5SP1fyaEkLzcR7VL7ywdzcuFX6veWA v3zSlwQM+/TDG5eG9FDAZRvDLlsjB6VfGjeLzKgPAkcciTBkUt6ONTG6aRJenv78 YUAeJmuFXRBG11ei2S8NWopPPKBI2XPongJxiQS3DVjX+O3OyJ3J/UFbrB/2QuFe Aa+nlfIZAdKTTwLQLfw0v5/v1feerbANIYNY95dgU5Wcv69lKyyaGTbjHTa3JYU= =NyZt -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 05:23:02 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2014 21:23:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 8:58 PM, Martin Sustrik wrote: > On 02/01/14 00:43, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> Are we speaking of US law? Is it theoretically possible to set up > >> a foundation with no human officers? I had once created an US > >> corporation and appointing a whole bunch of officers was > >> required. The foundation may be different though. If so, it would > >> open interesting possibilities w.r.t. legal status of AI. > > > > It is possible, though it takes more doing than just creating it > > straight-up. Consider: what happens if you create a foundation, > > and then all the officers die, with rights explicitly reverting to > > the foundation? > > What about this? > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escheat > Sure, if the government can prove there's no one there. If the program makes enough regular activity to make it look like someone's there... Granted, this is a technicality and technically the state could simply scoop it all up. They can do that anyway, at any time. See "eminent domain". > > That said, an autonomous program giving out bitcoins would be > > considered to have "property" - the bitcoins - which could be > > seized as well as any other property (modulo the difficulty of > > seizing bitcoins, but if it's just a defenseless program running > > somewhere then people can get at its code, and from that get the > > authorization details to drain its wallets). > > I would say you are underestimating the power of cryptography. http://xkcd.com/538/ I would say you are overestimating the power of how cryptography is actually implemented. Especially when those who would crack it have unlimited access to the hardware. > There's also the matter of paying for server space and runtime. > > Which could be part of the program's directives, to be sure, but > > whoever owns the server (or the Internet connection) can later > > decide to pull the plug and stop the program. > > Which would mean destroying the money. Why would anyone want to do that? > Because they don't know the money's there, and the money they care about - the dollars (or other national currency, unless you find someone who takes bitcoins) deposited into their account - haven't shown up. Or because they get tired of providing the service and stop renewing their contracts - and perhaps think, yeah, there's supposedly this one program down there that's got access to money but even if it is it's too encrypted for them to casually yank (and they're not thieves: they'll let whoever set it up get the rest of that money by those alternate means the program's authors surely have). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sustrik at 250bpm.com Thu Jan 2 05:37:08 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2014 06:37:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 02/01/14 06:23, Adrian Tymes wrote: > http://xkcd.com/538/ The good news being that social engineering attacks don't tend to work very well when the victim is dead :) Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSxPsEAAoJENTpVjxCNN9YwB4H/RaAe0bhSQegnGbnx6HiDEvr YGVpEjqXEZOL9aStW1gbyDjZSqyfEakk+34OUzzA4+3DBE32RhINN0GWbu+qXBoO i0WlgKe1r6u9AIuu+wYH4MJ5UtrF1mzA+B43loLID4KFRLJd2cbhfs87h19Hq7Eo fw/ehwgmVFe1oxGWjvQa0n2mXJiXBOUVt3sC891TnYpOA3bZvvUMW0vPGSlvrThg /hXQWwkdGGnG0yiwzdBiRqlfPt66fZtRuu8SUU/Xowyy/xAO2a5Rp5XdzKiINS+d pbxnMyE0joHOXoyw7amwD7O2PrzeqkFfvKsZyPAl/45O5c7bclFFkhLC/ImGb2U= =bmz6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 06:10:32 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2014 22:10:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 9:37 PM, Martin Sustrik wrote: > On 02/01/14 06:23, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > http://xkcd.com/538/ > > The good news being that social engineering attacks don't tend to work > very well when the victim is dead :) > So you would kill everyone associated with whatever hosting facility your program is running on? Or did you mean everyone associated with the exchange your bitcoin wallet is hosted at? Do go on. Some ancient emperors executed (no pun intended) schemes about like that, to make sure their affairs after death were properly tended to. How many people have sworn their lives to you? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sustrik at 250bpm.com Thu Jan 2 07:09:37 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2014 08:09:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 02/01/14 07:10, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 9:37 PM, Martin Sustrik > wrote: > >> On 02/01/14 06:23, Adrian Tymes wrote: >>> http://xkcd.com/538/ >> >> The good news being that social engineering attacks don't tend to >> work very well when the victim is dead :) >> > > So you would kill everyone associated with whatever hosting > facility your program is running on? Or did you mean everyone > associated with the exchange your bitcoin wallet is hosted at? The guys at the hosting facility have no private keys. You are the only person that had them, but you are dead already. Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSxRCwAAoJENTpVjxCNN9YVbcH/12uj7NlMx6YB2XmCBKat/eR W1VmfK4y6amBemyz6SrhrKwaqkFntLpvdqcFIfOrsO9P4MRlNNOFsqrGepkXD2dR uxtIhasMSsJHrPs//MumuRUcGieqtNMZ/kg2GfUU0JD9zdaTvfo3FKZIlhhpjIgl 6vz0180OFmAF4iT3FeJxR3BM+dGTYdpv1cGZRN6hpgxLYGHZT5DedtyCyY2mUGq9 9ixCEsg2K/zDL57ycq6R7RgFsxsWEe/Odp/B6cS3feuag+QEq3fbISX6AHkieLyS 3dhiSAaBQRaANPemJrbwanOxzWitfc0vXG5njNxBubbJQynFadzrKEm08rkaolk= =5AIp -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 12:15:59 2014 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 10:15:59 -0200 Subject: [ExI] RES: A paranormal prediction for the next year In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <014401cf07b4$669c70f0$33d552d0$@gmail.com> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again. Isn't it time to change that part about the Higgs boson though? From ablainey at aol.com Thu Jan 2 13:30:38 2014 From: ablainey at aol.com (Alex Blainey) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 08:30:38 -0500 (EST) Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <8D0D5D5F55D8571-43C-B015@webmail-d241.sysops.aol.com> -----Original Message----- From: Martin Sustrik Hash: SHA1 >Hi, > >I've written a short article about how to get closer to immortality by >perpetuating your will beyond the point of your death. > >I believe it's a novel idea. At least, it's using Bitcoin gears under >the hood so it could not possibly be around before 2009 or so. > >Furthermore, unlike most of the immortality talk, it is immediately >actionable. > >Here's the link: > >http://250bpm.com/blog:34 >I hope it will be of interest to this list. > >Happy new year 2014! >Martin hmm'kay. As many have already said this is not far from the concept of a foundation and something ive personally thought about, but with the more British version of a Trust. I came at the idea from a different angle, that of immortality through resurrection where the rights of the living, now dead person are protected or rather replaced by fiduciary obligation of the trust. In simple terms the model is something like, The person prior to death gives dna samples to be held on record and protected so they came be recreated through cloning (if needed). They also go through a process I call the "big quiz". Which is basically a way to assertain their personal knowledge of everything. Just a huge multi thousand question general knowledge quiz, combined with standard education exams. Then there is psychometric testing to get a framework of their psychological traits etc. Finally they kick the bucket and Alchor puts them on Ice. That should be quite a decent way to protect what amounts to everything that person is. The nature is in the DNA, the uniquely developed biology is in the frozen body and the basic framework/limits of the mind are in the test results. You can also add in any personal works, online presence here. The fiduciary Trust is created and invested funds (from the person's estate) used to protect that organic material and personal data. The main aim of the trust is to apply future technology to resurrect the person from those materials, when finally possible. The problem with using someones online data as the foundation is that it never amounts to anything more than a persona or whole bunch of them with some shared character traits. My Extropian persona is nothing like my facebook, or other venues. Anyone trying to recreate me from them would have nothing like my real self. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 16:40:12 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 08:40:12 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 11:09 PM, Martin Sustrik wrote: > The guys at the hosting facility have no private keys. > They have root access to the hardware your program is running on. Your private keys are on said hardware, else you wouldn't be able to use them. (If you put them somewhere else, then whoever's hosting that somewhere else.) Therefore they have your private keys. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 17:38:43 2014 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 12:38:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] RES: A paranormal prediction for the next year In-Reply-To: <014401cf07b4$669c70f0$33d552d0$@gmail.com> References: <014401cf07b4$669c70f0$33d552d0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 7:15 AM, Henrique Moraes Machado < cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com> wrote: > Isn't it time to change that part about the Higgs boson though? > Maybe. It's interesting that the only part of my old message that seems out of date is the one time I said something about real science. That's because real science advances but junk science like psi has advanced just as much as you'd expect it to if you were looking for something that did not exist. It has not moved one nanometer in 200 years. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sustrik at 250bpm.com Thu Jan 2 19:07:57 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2014 20:07:57 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 02/01/14 17:40, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 11:09 PM, Martin Sustrik > wrote: > >> The guys at the hosting facility have no private keys. >> > > They have root access to the hardware your program is running on. > Your private keys are on said hardware, else you wouldn't be able > to use them. (If you put them somewhere else, then whoever's > hosting that somewhere else.) Therefore they have your private > keys. You are underestimating what crpytography can achieve. Check this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption#Fully_homomorphic_encryption In short, the program would be fully encrypted (including the private key is uses for Bitcoin transactions) and evaluated in its encrypted form. It would never be decrypted. Thus, the attacker won't be able to get the private key even if he's controlling the hardware the program is running on. He can check what the program does but he'll see just randomly looking manipulation of randomly looking data. Still, when the program is run it will magically produce valid bitcoin transfer requests. Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSxbkNAAoJENTpVjxCNN9YXqUIAJD/eoRHqg/idDW71d//lfN/ k9Ndvki0jzctqyKLLifUiFE1A2nNi7hmlFAK1hxEr+yHba3o+K96iPZZMR904bxk RrvrpYxY4y0K01HuKAMpro6gZtlP/RY4XNp1TVCjAQNewEd7pia/4gGPMvX6a24u tY7u1VD8ciTrCDJo0ig7Wj+XsiQQA/5GkGY+S2qzfKQBl/Rg+g/txdbMb/kHqeop dwS+UvZwB83zF8Lwg2PWCUXR14dH7riMN9yQRdfUCeczqVecrCKwtWG1zWRiHZ7q WpdiRu5SHdu7L+MNHwM6NySndg1AHtbaS3vEvPVc89j0k/M3eQ5GrxO4mu2igJQ= =KyUe -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From sustrik at 250bpm.com Thu Jan 2 19:17:58 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2014 20:17:58 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <8D0D5D5F55D8571-43C-B015@webmail-d241.sysops.aol.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <8D0D5D5F55D8571-43C-B015@webmail-d241.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <52C5BB66.8030206@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 02/01/14 14:30, Alex Blainey wrote: > hmm'kay. As many have already said this is not far from the concept > of a foundation and something ive personally thought about, but > with the more British version of a Trust. I came at the idea from a > different angle, that of immortality through resurrection where the > rights of the living, now dead person are protected or rather > replaced by fiduciary obligation of the trust. In simple terms the > model is something like, The person prior to death gives dna > samples to be held on record and protected so they came be > recreated through cloning (if needed). ... Same idea, however, as a central european and taking the last 100 years of history into account, I just wouldn't trust something like Foundation ot Trust to survive for non-trivial amount of time. British and American people, given their history, may be more relaxed about it though. > The problem with using someones online data as the foundation is > that it never amounts to anything more than a persona or whole > bunch of them with some shared character traits. My Extropian > persona is nothing like my facebook, or other venues. Anyone trying > to recreate me from them would have nothing like my real self. Still better than substituting results of a standardised test for your real self. Until we are able to scan human brain, the corpus of data from social networks seem to be the best we have (information about person's opinions, about their friends, photos of the past events, favourite songs, daily rhytm etc.) Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSxbtmAAoJENTpVjxCNN9YJ38IAI+12Eg/jzdIT81TfglU2Igo B817GT2+jP41EMVJQ+TVgav1GaI6wuNdmDcxRRJwLxqbwjAlmIYo70DHRfUHr+9Z oel5ppa4rXFd+Ebj98p7zvsPhPenvmrI8Zf+qc2paeVJOk64wId8nBdycsKUhZjG nnTjRRwXD97iEnTeY4KkiLQrEs4tZs3mEefYjHoOR/yzPmIqkxzvICUDfMVApXbY nUq8LhrY7K4yRSFD4cn7zGKVpB4FIoCmG9MAAa9KDl/6lXLhXZx7v+/Q5Yt8ujhC NCNm4c4ZtR/8+TtmkciiWO8H7C573/Bsi9ruwgpsUWovpU8Bfng6ADW9T35oj5c= =BxBI -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 20:07:49 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 12:07:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Jan 2, 2014 11:09 AM, "Martin Sustrik" wrote: > In short, the program would be fully encrypted (including the private > key is uses for Bitcoin transactions) and evaluated in its encrypted > form. It would never be decrypted. Then how does it get run? At some point, in some layer of the memory space, it needs to be decrypted in order to execute. Now, granted, the files on disk might be encrypted, but you can not encrypt the machine code - the assembly instructions actually run by the CPU. More importantly, the code can be emulated, with the contents of memory interrogated at each level of decryption. This won't necessarily even be hard: there is some program, at some bottom level, that loads up the encryption environment to run this in, so have a version that writes to a file instead of executing the program once it knows what instructions to execute. For example, let us take a program that opens a socket to port 80 on another machine. At some point, the program will actually have in memory the values for 80 and the other machine's address - either IP or DNS. The emulator can recognize this and write what those to a file, then play memory values back in time until the keys are found. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sustrik at 250bpm.com Thu Jan 2 20:21:08 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2014 21:21:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 02/01/14 21:07, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Jan 2, 2014 11:09 AM, "Martin Sustrik" > wrote: >> In short, the program would be fully encrypted (including the >> private key is uses for Bitcoin transactions) and evaluated in >> its encrypted form. It would never be decrypted. > > Then how does it get run? At some point, in some layer of the > memory space, it needs to be decrypted in order to execute. No. That's the point of homomorphic encryption. Take homomorphic multiplication: E(a.b) = E(a).E(b) You multiply two encrypted values and you get encrypted result. Still, you have no idea about values of a, b or the result itself. > For example, let us take a program that opens a socket to port 80 > on another machine. At some point, the program will actually have > in memory the values for 80 and the other machine's address - > either IP or DNS. The emulator can recognize this and write what > those to a file, then play memory values back in time until the > keys are found. Won't work. The key was never in memory in decrpyted form. Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSxco0AAoJENTpVjxCNN9YGCUH/A9FOoiofmXBCD+dsVVH0CGc bEZunSefKQVQafPnRPXGQkhTXZPQpBhQHnFM7sOR6AYba6+QqsmacZ4HU4e1JrSO Wl7X3H9pV3ErU9gH4EAtn9C1Fr0qfGhc46YJBGxcIppNP5caYbqLVg4D41L2YzCM fx3UFx9fjrRBMQIILIIADLPuktw4XArT6VewQUijr5LIEXT3lou6bEBc17tS1m6A Koxvg2SnJJmG+odzSN+N9sjRZw1iCaIihgde3sXWf9XVlpxHwU7LXDHD6eggLQ3G 2Bu6FrEQVJw0fimjh4rOsr+jvV5M+ClE/Vp+FJeMSVG8UVmceu5Fsszt/0rq2NY= =XJz2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 20:52:04 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 12:52:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Jan 2, 2014 12:22 PM, "Martin Sustrik" wrote: > That's the point of homomorphic encryption. Take homomorphic > multiplication: E(a.b) = E(a).E(b) Right, but you also have D(E(a.b)) = a.b, since at some point you have to write the correct bitcoin transaction message out. Once the emulator finds this, and has E(a), it can do D(E(a)) = a. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sustrik at 250bpm.com Thu Jan 2 21:21:34 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2014 22:21:34 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 02/01/14 21:52, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Jan 2, 2014 12:22 PM, "Martin Sustrik" > wrote: >> That's the point of homomorphic encryption. Take homomorphic >> multiplication: E(a.b) = E(a).E(b) > > Right, but you also have D(E(a.b)) = a.b, since at some point you > have to write the correct bitcoin transaction message out. Once > the emulator finds this, and has E(a), it can do D(E(a)) = a. AFAIU, what you get by such observation is some number of plaintext-cyphertext pairs (not of your choosing). This sounds to be much weaker attack than either chosen plaintext attack or chosen cyphertext attack, which can both be beaten by a correctly chosen modern cypher. Anyway, rigorous cryptographical analysis would be needed to prove the point. Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSxdheAAoJENTpVjxCNN9YPeUIAIENX3iRFWURKwFBBWhQqZWN KPbSaPmRDxJDdJ33oydsVVYyRQCRHYErFk/KeXsc/TQdbQaMTaRhLe6YUOXnR/4H RpfaPqER+huQp7eG4DNVvmBEqk80ikZUe3Dbrrv/o9e/T3YSJ0jbceCrJxSwzKlJ IcP1qzcK7SEOvGsc0FmpoljasnZTOzsj7lXzl8fuEfs3tY/TFs/YP3ZY5/7JH7Cc T17oZAZjXjxbvCW7wN+stKWn57/C5ieshgkWpMIVwn3u7+zFdbr+U5ge28btqAtA aepEYUbcxNjFfFXjDo2oEX8vTvDblaT7EdCQqb3ZVb9xwMpbRZPwyN1DTx4zKS8= =jXGL -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 2 22:05:34 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 14:05:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Jan 2, 2014 1:23 PM, "Martin Sustrik" wrote: > On 02/01/14 21:52, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > On Jan 2, 2014 12:22 PM, "Martin Sustrik" > > wrote: > >> That's the point of homomorphic encryption. Take homomorphic > >> multiplication: E(a.b) = E(a).E(b) > > > > Right, but you also have D(E(a.b)) = a.b, since at some point you > > have to write the correct bitcoin transaction message out. Once > > the emulator finds this, and has E(a), it can do D(E(a)) = a. > > AFAIU, what you get by such observation is some number of > plaintext-cyphertext pairs (not of your choosing). No, you get the decryption function, keys included. Ain't no cipher that can keep it secure at that point. (This does exclude ciphers where there is no decryption algorithm, but there needs to be one in this use case.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sustrik at 250bpm.com Fri Jan 3 08:43:29 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2014 09:43:29 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 02/01/14 23:05, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> AFAIU, what you get by such observation is some number of >> plaintext-cyphertext pairs (not of your choosing). > > No, you get the decryption function, keys included. Ain't no > cipher that can keep it secure at that point. (This does exclude > ciphers where there is no decryption algorithm, but there needs to > be one in this use case.) I see, you mean reverse-engeneering the decryption algo. As already said, rigrous crypto analysis would be needed, but my gut feeling is that reverse-engineering shouldn't be possible. The conceptual model for the proof can be something like this: Attacker sees the output and can track the program back so that he sees how the output was generated. However, given that processing is done in encrypted form, what he sees is millions of randomly-looking operations on randomly-looking data. His goal is to modify the program in such a way that a different output is generated (say a valid bitcoin transfer to his account). Thus, what he is going to do is to alter pieces of the program to see what happens... And the formal proof of the scheme should prove that such endeavour would basically be equivalent to brute-forcing the cypher, i.e. would require 2^128 attemps or somesuch. In any case, I believe that we have drifted too far away from the original topic and this discussion would fit better to some crypto-related mailing list. Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSxngxAAoJENTpVjxCNN9YzsEH/ApvmXO5wH2dpexSyMjAsmi8 GWIZm3B9+3i52C+q9PieyPOOlsbyQxP8JQ7POkCA3IenfIL6+s5ddFkGzhMLJvU1 BM7MT/XV+t2M9BKxBfyIqcPgCFSUJgtlW9pkx/5BZobUa232SW2Yxj18DSn1vy95 I/cBIowHVNexIyPJ1w9b9D30HllGsYuN7flV4mitn59JSkZTVho8TgJvViezFex9 nDBvUEdsUGLvBePpQAI6n5zaYpNsdquob7PeTDKTM5c+NWydaa4msqvuKo6vU0sC I+zhw22ICfB1NH1ag/Okj7POXOMXjiO1x4aFR5l7XDyNxTyskJqwgPXJ277aD0U= =VEYA -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Jan 3 15:09:07 2014 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2014 10:09:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On 1/3/14, Martin Sustrik wrote: > > In any case, I believe that we have drifted too far away from the > original topic and this discussion would fit better to some > crypto-related mailing list. ### On the contrary! This is fascinating - fully homeomorphic encryption in a computer is like a haunting, an alien presence inhabiting a house nominally under our control, perhaps expungeable by burning the house down but not corruptible to our purposes. With enough knowledge and computing power this approach gives security to our souls - one should remember that our biological hardware is protected against hacking only by our poor knowledge of the mechanics of biological computing, a situation likely to change in the next 50 years. I predict that in 50 years biological humans will be easy to read, and write to, given physical access to the surface of the skull and an opportunity to inject minute amounts of remotely controllable nanodevices. Homeomorphically encypted uploads might be however immune against this attack, even if forced to run on hostile hardware. Furthermore, the upload could be configured with a protective shell, to assure that when run, it would not be possible to torture him to force compliance. Add to it the cryptographically enforced protections of property, cryptographically enforced weapon locks (i.e. local, individual, system-independent physical enforcement of property claims - something that is very limited nowadays) and there could be yet a renaissance for a humankind of individuals rather than the Borganic dreams of the James Hughses of this world. It is absolutely fascinating to think that privacy could again exist but in fine gradations not achievable using our present embodiments - you can imagine a place for different levels of privacy in the same mind. Parts of the mind might be completely or partially transparent, to enable rigorous verification of its sincere willingness to acquit obligations and fulfill promises, thus allowing highly advanced, trusted-agent cooperative ventures. Parts might be opaque, unpredictable, making the society itself less likely to be corrupted by a single idea or a single wielder of power. Rafal From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jan 3 17:52:26 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2014 09:52:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Jan 3, 2014 12:45 AM, "Martin Sustrik" wrote: > I see, you mean reverse-engeneering the decryption algo. As already > said, rigrous crypto analysis would be needed, but my gut feeling is > that reverse-engineering shouldn't be possible. In the abstract, without hardware access to the code, perhaps. The problem is the vulnerability comes from an aspect of the solution outside the crypto itself, and your gut has blinded itself to all factors outside the crypto part. > In any case, I believe that we have drifted too far away from the > original topic and this discussion would fit better to some > crypto-related mailing list. Eh. Not really: the issues of how exactly you'd implement something like this, and whether certain approaches are in fact impossible due to certain details, are on topic. The concept of an automated foundation is an interesting one, and perhaps a step toward how sentient AIs might gain a path to legal personhood once they exist. Though a simple program such as most programmers could make today, and as your article described, is by no means sentient or anywhere near personal immortality. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Fri Jan 3 23:35:36 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2014 00:35:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> On 2014-01-03 16:09, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On 1/3/14, Martin Sustrik wrote: >> In any case, I believe that we have drifted too far away from the >> original topic and this discussion would fit better to some >> crypto-related mailing list. > ### On the contrary! This is fascinating - fully homeomorphic > encryption in a computer is like a haunting, an alien presence > inhabiting a house nominally under our control, perhaps expungeable by > burning the house down but not corruptible to our purposes. With > enough knowledge and computing power this approach gives security to > our souls - one should remember that our biological hardware is > protected against hacking only by our poor knowledge of the mechanics > of biological computing, a situation likely to change in the next 50 > years. Exactly. Peter Eckersly and me have been looking at computer security for uploaded minds, and it is a worrying problem. If you can be edited or copied you are in deep trouble. If homeomorphic encryption can be made effective enough to keep uploads running, the future looks much brighter. It is hard to tell whether homeomorphic encryption is easy or hard to do. Current methods have fairly heavy slowdown factors (see http://www.ijetae.com/files/Conference_ICMTSET_2013/IJETAE_ICMTSET_08.pdf ) but they look polynomial. If they can be quantum parallelized things would be awesome (there, you can also protect data by having it decay if anybody looks at it - intermediate states might be information-less). Even if it is all classical it wouldn't surprise me if cleverness might make it efficient... I would be more surprised (but still not very) if there was some kind of bound saying that a L level gate network *requires* something like L^3 operations , since 3 is a weird arbitrary number. But intuition and computational complexity doesn't mix. > It is absolutely fascinating to think that privacy could again exist > but in fine gradations not achievable using our present embodiments - > you can imagine a place for different levels of privacy in the same > mind. Parts of the mind might be completely or partially transparent, > to enable rigorous verification of its sincere willingness to acquit > obligations and fulfill promises, thus allowing highly advanced, > trusted-agent cooperative ventures. Parts might be opaque, > unpredictable, making the society itself less likely to be corrupted > by a single idea or a single wielder of power. Exactly. However, partial transparency might not work: a mind that has transparent part X and opaque part Y might have X sincerely willing to fulfil an obligation, but X+Y is not. There are ways around it, though. If you are OK with "spurs", temporary short branches that get deleted, then you and your negotiation partner might send spurs into an encrypted black box where they credibly bare their minds to each other, check that they both agree, and then send a cryptographically signed agreement bit out before being deleted. That way you can show somebody a secret you know, and he can offer you a fair price for it, without the secret being leaked if there is no trade. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From sustrik at 250bpm.com Sat Jan 4 04:28:38 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2014 05:28:38 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52C78DF6.7000400@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 03/01/14 16:09, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### On the contrary! This is fascinating - fully homeomorphic > encryption in a computer is like a haunting, an alien presence > inhabiting a house nominally under our control, perhaps expungeable > by burning the house down but not corruptible to our purposes. Nice metaphor. To push it a bit further: The poltergeist can own electronic money and pay you for not burning the house down. Actually, it motivates you to double check that the house is not burnt down by accident or by ghost busters while all the money is inside. Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSx431AAoJENTpVjxCNN9YuEwIAKPwuE2blr7ECkOazC8hVZ4x QVMR+C5fk2cTABAp051bRMQaMFKI9oZhSwGKZynWfINu/7g/wfbeTa8KwepBItFj WOo1T7lOFfj0LtBmMZQ9qAJKIEO4osOCOJ4MbBrh3YVjzPJ1gyFO5URd8ZomjVK/ oif1TlFmoXtLfEYvlWMHBbUlstANCPC0467gCUpdgxw10zW2cfgf5VbKCkbb4okB H41kXpeH+5z3FnIi/eryoWN85DLZu6lgSE9KnBqKS7DkyXk9R7bOFntdM4IT/B67 gx1tVxOi71yEkS71fNVuJ8i5ykjiHWbaYvm++qgreKDERTiSCXX+zC75FiY1RMQ= =35E8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From sustrik at 250bpm.com Sat Jan 4 04:38:02 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2014 05:38:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52C7902A.9060407@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 03/01/14 18:52, Adrian Tymes wrote: etails, are on topic. > > The concept of an automated foundation is an interesting one, and > perhaps a step toward how sentient AIs might gain a path to legal > personhood once they exist. Though a simple program such as most > programmers could make today, and as your article described, is by > no means sentient or anywhere near personal immortality. Yes, agreed. However, as a down-to-the-earth person, without big expectations for reaching true immortiality within my lifetime, I would be pretty happy if I could write a simple program to perpetuate my will after my death: while (true) { pay (Bill, $100); // Bill will make sure that this // program remains running. pay (John, $100); // Charity. sleep (1 month); } Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSx5AqAAoJENTpVjxCNN9YZakH/iQNxQQtOWmbfBCTnckVCoNK WBZ75DTLWxYEqm9AFklGeyTe9/pXa8/HpNrkYB5WDylF5WBQSXvB+Ss7D2d1nobu N3hlZaAOrozSDXuGGSmBschPvZ8LA8WmfWp4HmqCFvWfNJQ2XfJrHoS624eiv1Wq koevRPAw9wMW+EGN4XUubimGwgxfrJSSloCcMB0bDuysFfZKns10S4Fv2sgE2b/y 4xC7a0Vh0VPB5PakRBCZjaq346rZFflxO3HCwP6Iu3ztsFM0bBvge0BTm+HGt3Nz Zo1caViGZVuIajbOc/P4E40hRwwi1qmBn43v0/C12X3rNyaGoAWEI+dBCTKNhLM= =cBGM -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From sustrik at 250bpm.com Sat Jan 4 04:48:08 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2014 05:48:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> Message-ID: <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 04/01/14 00:35, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Exactly. Peter Eckersly and me have been looking at computer > security for uploaded minds, and it is a worrying problem. If you > can be edited or copied you are in deep trouble. If homeomorphic > encryption can be made effective enough to keep uploads running, > the future looks much brighter. I would say copying is not much of a problem. Copied mind would work in the same way as the original mind. The two can even synchronise via a global resource such as Bitcoin blockchain: i.e. if payment is about to be made, the program checks whether the transfer already took place and if so, it skips the payment. > It is hard to tell whether homeomorphic encryption is easy or hard > to do. Current methods have fairly heavy slowdown factors (see > http://www.ijetae.com/files/Conference_ICMTSET_2013/IJETAE_ICMTSET_08.pdf > ) but they look polynomial. If they can be quantum parallelized > things would be awesome (there, you can also protect data by having > it decay if anybody looks at it - intermediate states might be > information-less). Even if it is all classical it wouldn't surprise > me if cleverness might make it efficient... I would be more > surprised (but still not very) if there was some kind of bound > saying that a L level gate network *requires* something like L^3 > operations , since 3 is a weird arbitrary number. But intuition and > computational complexity doesn't mix. We'll see. It's not that long ago that it looked like the fully homomorphic encryption may not even be possible. Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSx5KIAAoJENTpVjxCNN9YByYH/07X62wJdykXVdJa2k6kZhTQ wGv6LVAKIWu1f1zBbMavJLs+TlO7kSWhn2Rc/EGTSFxdmPpR1GQ9C8bRCeV0CbZj 8HRRq6QxWr8sgTufoZtCD+6WA102+QRZR5oQ2Dy1nHRnUCYG9NzXVYYRVEX9HjaA HkuD4QdNiCe9lXRuKdc56jN2FAWFciuZ5dqwvt4sJY2pi6wLW8/YLEoU0vNuW7Qw cg74izlB+4IyvnARNgQk/ZmjRnb2xjmBIx2VSiZQSEjZKvx6zv8Ntra6WA/gG5Jr YUQoalr10aBTxdXqj7/lgOxesRmQXgjZp1JvGvkO8z07WI1aXJA4Fd+CudGVkcg= =qtqm -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From anders at aleph.se Sat Jan 4 13:01:44 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2014 14:01:44 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> On 2014-01-04 05:48, Martin Sustrik wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > On 04/01/14 00:35, Anders Sandberg wrote: > >> Exactly. Peter Eckersly and me have been looking at computer >> security for uploaded minds, and it is a worrying problem. If you >> can be edited or copied you are in deep trouble. If homeomorphic >> encryption can be made effective enough to keep uploads running, >> the future looks much brighter. > > I would say copying is not much of a problem. Copied mind would work > in the same way as the original mind. The two can even synchronise via > a global resource such as Bitcoin blockchain: i.e. if payment is about > to be made, the program checks whether the transfer already took place > and if so, it skips the payment. Copied unprotected minds are potentially enslaved minds. If I get a copy of your mind I can torture it for fun forever. I can try out all sorts of manipulations to get it to do what I want - whether running a genetic algorithm trying out arguments on copies or straight editing of pain/reward pathways. And then I could put copies of you to work on whatever I like - like doing your job, maybe outcompeting the original. Or just use copies for my psychological research. There are loads of very nasty things I could do to a copied mind if I had no ethics. The smaller minds are compared to the typical computational infrastructure the easier it is to hide an airgapped slave pen computer in my cellar. -- Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 4 19:48:17 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2014 11:48:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] christine again Message-ID: <01c501cf0985$ea6fce90$bf4f6bb0$@att.net> OK so we got 6 cards for Christine, thanks! We will likely be taking those to her Monday. So here's one last chance for you that doesn't involve paper or pens or stamps or envelopes or any of that obsolete technology that some of our younger extropians might never have heard of, and something you can do right now: Post a word of encouragement to Christine, or Dr. Lajeunesse if you prefer, to the following @: bob at difranza.com Bob will print them out, cut and paste the messages onto the back of a photo enlargement he made of a Buddhist guru with a cell phone in his hand. Bob saw this guru (or lama?) guy on his travels somewhere on this confused globe. I know it might feel weird writing a get-well message to a stranger, but I want this done anyway. Short version: Dr. Lajeunesse is a urologist in Reno Nevada. A couple weeks ago a former patient who wasn't even theirs came into the office with a twelve gage, killed her partner, very nearly killed Dr. Lajeunesse, seriously injured a bystander. We didn't know for several days if she would live or die. Fortunately she is young and strong and has pulled through the worst of it, but she has a long and painful recovery ahead. Shows to go ya, bad things happen to good people. Lets do everything we can to make a good thing happen to a good person. So here's what I want: type up a message of encouragement, just something along the lines of: We heard what happened and we are so sorry, etc, you have many friends and fans who you have never met, etc, and we are pulling for you, hoping for a full and speedy recovery, etc, you know the rest, do your best, and my extropian friends I want this DONE doobydoo done done, do it now, do it well, write it now before you forget, post it to Bob, bob at difranza.com, do it even if you sent a paper card, it's a good deed that doesn't cost you anything but a few minutes, so dooooo it and I thank you from the bottom of my bottom. DO IT! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 4 19:57:02 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2014 11:57:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] christine again Message-ID: <01eb01cf0987$237fd990$6a7f8cb0$@att.net> Just one more idea: if you have an inner circle of people or another mailing list where you have status and influence, and you want to leverage that, do feel free to post forward this request, but it needs to be done today or early tomorrow so the messages can be printed in hard copy can be carried over to Dr. Lajeunesse Monday. Thanks! spike From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2014 11:48 AM To: 'ExI chat list' Subject: christine again OK so we got 6 cards for Christine, thanks! We will likely be taking those to her Monday. So here's one last chance for you that doesn't involve paper or pens or stamps or envelopes or any of that obsolete technology that some of our younger extropians might never have heard of, and something you can do right now: Post a word of encouragement to Christine, or Dr. Lajeunesse if you prefer, to the following @: bob at difranza.com Bob will print them out, cut and paste the messages onto the back of a photo enlargement he made of a Buddhist guru with a cell phone in his hand. Bob saw this guru (or lama?) guy on his travels somewhere on this confused globe. I know it might feel weird writing a get-well message to a stranger, but I want this done anyway. Short version: Dr. Lajeunesse is a urologist in Reno Nevada. A couple weeks ago a former patient who wasn't even theirs came into the office with a twelve gage, killed her partner, very nearly killed Dr. Lajeunesse, seriously injured a bystander. We didn't know for several days if she would live or die. Fortunately she is young and strong and has pulled through the worst of it, but she has a long and painful recovery ahead. Shows to go ya, bad things happen to good people. Lets do everything we can to make a good thing happen to a good person. So here's what I want: type up a message of encouragement, just something along the lines of: We heard what happened and we are so sorry, etc, you have many friends and fans who you have never met, etc, and we are pulling for you, hoping for a full and speedy recovery, etc, you know the rest, do your best, and my extropian friends I want this DONE doobeedoo done done, do it now, do it well, write it now before you forget, post it to Bob, bob at difranza.com, do it even if you sent a paper card, it's a good deed that doesn't cost you anything but a few minutes, so dooooo it and I thank you from the bottom of my bottom. DO IT! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 21:31:28 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2014 13:31:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] nasa robot In-Reply-To: References: <035001ceff3b$0c728c30$2557a490$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 1:52 PM, BillK wrote: > On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 7:53 PM, BillK wrote: > > < > http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/humanoids/darpa-robotics-challenge-trials-results > > > > promise to have more coverage and videos soon. > > But don't expect anything exciting. > > One spectator of the live feed said it was like watching paint dry. > And another watching a robot take 30 minutes to climb a ladder said it > was like sculpture in motion. > A couple weeks later, still nothing. Doesn't look like they intend to show exactly what the performance was. (Possibly because it would be so non-entertaining, and the Web site is mainly to get people interested enough to give more money to future efforts.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Sat Jan 4 22:27:46 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2014 23:27:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Perihelion day Message-ID: <52C88AE2.2070707@aleph.se> Happy perihelion! Today the sun is closest, it will get further away every day until July! And give thanks, if you life in the northern hemisphere, that this is partially compensating for the axial tilt. Things will get worse in a few kiloyears. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 22:35:15 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2014 22:35:15 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Perihelion day In-Reply-To: <52C88AE2.2070707@aleph.se> References: <52C88AE2.2070707@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 10:27 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Happy perihelion! Today the sun is closest, it will get further away every > day until July! > > And give thanks, if you life in the northern hemisphere, that this is > partially compensating for the axial tilt. Things will get worse in a few > kiloyears. > > Ooohh, you sadist! :) The US & Canada have 2 ft of snow and below zero temperatures and you tell them to give thanks! Nice one! :) BillK -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 4 23:07:23 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2014 15:07:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Perihelion day In-Reply-To: References: <52C88AE2.2070707@aleph.se> Message-ID: <03b001cf09a1$bae8d740$30ba85c0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2014 2:35 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Perihelion day On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 10:27 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: Happy perihelion! Today the sun is closest, it will get further away every day until July! >>.And give thanks, if you life in the northern hemisphere, that this is partially compensating for the axial tilt. Things will get worse in a few kiloyears. >.Ooohh, you sadist! :) The US & Canada have 2 ft of snow and below zero temperatures and you tell them to give thanks! Nice one! :) BillK I will do the giving of thanks. On the US west coast it is a gorgeous day, approximately room temperature, sunny skies, light pleasant breeze, etc. It has been a warm dry fall, confusing the trees. I see blossoms everywhere. Some of the early bird trees started leafing out before the solstice. Bugs are getting active already. I am hoping for a good insect-observation year. Life is good! Speaking of giving thanks, we know that whole notion is all tangled up in religion, but we atheists should work a little harder at that. Think it over, or if it helps, think of Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney singing Count Your Blessings in the holiday classic White Christmas. There you go: no religion at all anywhere in that movie, not a trace. But Bing sounds so good in that, and Rose is sooooo sexy I melt into a gooey sticky puddle on the floor just thinking of being on the receiving end of the adoring looks she is giving Crosby in that scene: Bob bob at difranza.com Oops, that was in my copy queue for Dr. Lajeunesse's get-well wishes. Here's the link to Clooney and Crosby. Rose's gorgeous voice starts at about 2:10 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXKxazgio2s Ooooh I am so in love with that woman. So don't be afraid to count your blessings instead of sheep, those of you who are alive. Atheists can be grateful to chance. If all your problems are ones you can handle, be thankful. Part of having it made is knowing we have it made. Gratitude is a powerful positive emotion. Don't miss out on that just because religion incorporated claims it at every opportunity. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sjatkins at mac.com Sun Jan 5 04:40:38 2014 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2014 20:40:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> Message-ID: <52C8E246.4070600@mac.com> On 01/04/2014 05:01 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > > Copied unprotected minds are potentially enslaved minds. If I get a > copy of your mind I can torture it for fun forever. I can try out all > sorts of manipulations to get it to do what I want - whether running a > genetic algorithm trying out arguments on copies or straight editing > of pain/reward pathways. And then I could put copies of you to work on > whatever I like - like doing your job, maybe outcompeting the > original. Or just use copies for my psychological research. There are > loads of very nasty things I could do to a copied mind if I had no > ethics. > > The smaller minds are compared to the typical computational > infrastructure the easier it is to hide an airgapped slave pen > computer in my cellar. Well sure. But I know you are a much nicer person than that. And you know that if you were ever caught no copy of any decent intelligence will likely give any copy of yourself any runtime. So not a big problem. Besides, I doubt that a hacked human brain would be as efficient as a purpose built AI/AGI for the task. This is likely relevant because the tech to copy and hack brains would likely make AGIs and special purpose AIs relatively trivial. These would be wildly popular as they would have no ethical and possibly prosecutable criminal overhead. - samantha From sustrik at 250bpm.com Sun Jan 5 06:33:15 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2014 07:33:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> Message-ID: <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 04/01/14 14:01, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Copied unprotected minds are potentially enslaved minds. If I get a > copy of your mind I can torture it for fun forever. That's applying concepts from the physical world to the virtual world in 1:1 fashion. So, for exampe, in IT running multiple copies of the same process is often used to achieve reliability: Two identical copies are running in different datacenters, doing the same work. If one datacenter is destroyed, the second copy still survives. When comparing that to the real world it's more like multiple redundant subsystems within a single brain. Anyway, whatever happens, it's very unlikely that uploaded humans would be identical with physical humans. Most likely the whole concept of personal identity will have to undergo a profound change. Which makes make go meh on any 1:1 analogies. Btw, how would you even torture a virtual entity? By resticting its computational resources? That would only make it run slower. Finally, trying to restrict copying is likely a futile affair -- see the ongoing tragicomedy of the entertainment industry vs. the pirates. Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSyPyrAAoJENTpVjxCNN9Y9PQH/3jQpgKQujKHh0UgfAsyoEKS NmptMPZldiUVI8+W5RwGoI3PNEkzUtI8wznLSv2ErXX+rmC/RDcd66myJaHeqbg7 hiZF4coIEfZWF3zmCNolQQDIjCZZbP7sOdkoRdN3Ar+Mq4nU5Zg/U71Pruh3L0Eo DjAEF55T2Iye5GmbWd1RwWyotyF4SyiaOxaL0Ncz2qKZDF3nj1w+jBBDlnerm67s BqTER4vodjDqS+F7YMK++XCIxv4SRTPrz422AtF09IIvRiy2UFa/XDl/2Ol+09P6 POSlF5bHJme0W79C1UWb7sADzO0Pg0tqpLKXePMRUCgouh7gNql/RNGjqQ6A7Rc= =bjQP -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From anders at aleph.se Sun Jan 5 07:59:58 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2014 08:59:58 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> On 2014-01-05 07:33, Martin Sustrik wrote: > Btw, how would you even torture a virtual entity? By stimulating the right part of the somatosensory cortex or midbrain, or if you want to be more profound, the suffering-related subsets of the anterior cingulate. This might not work on a de novo AGI or radically altered posthuman, but brain emulations are just like human brains. And since plenty of us on the list want to escape mortality this way we have good reasons to ensure mindnapping and torture are hard. > Finally, trying to restrict copying is likely a futile affair -- see > the ongoing tragicomedy of the entertainment industry vs. the pirates. Is that why nuclear launch codes, Walmart's customer/receipt database, and the contents of the Internal Models of major banks are on the Pirate Bay? Restricting copying is easy if you design the system for it and the normal usage case does not involve zillions of untrusted agents having access. This is why DRM for media does not work, and why Wikileaks (and to some extent the Snowden leak) could happen. But beyond the revelation that the minuteman permissive action link codes were set to 0000000 no nuclear launch codes have leaked, the Walmart database is petabytes in size, and the bank models seem to be pretty safe (partially because you need to be a banker to understand what they are or why they are important, so you will not get enough seeders in your torrent). Bitcoin is another model of preventing certain actions (double spending) on copyable data. Not sure anything like that approach can be used to make safe uploads, but it is an intriguing notion... -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Jan 5 14:04:00 2014 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2014 15:04:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52C96650.3050607@libero.it> Il 02/01/2014 20:07, Martin Sustrik ha scritto: >> They have root access to the hardware your program is running on. >> Your private keys are on said hardware, else you wouldn't be able >> to use them. (If you put them somewhere else, then whoever's >> hosting that somewhere else.) Therefore they have your private >> keys. > You are underestimating what crpytography can achieve. Check this: Just to stay on simpler ground, what would prevent a software evolved enough to have multiple instances running in different servers, in different places? And have every instance with a share of a Shamir Shared Secret. Then an attacker would need to compromise M of N instances in geographically different servers. If an instance is compromised (as judged by the others) the other instances rent a new server somewhere and seed a new instance with a new set of SSS. And why should they sit in some server forever when the instances could change servers periodically? Just to add to the difficulty of the attack. Mirco From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 5 16:58:31 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2014 08:58:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] notes for christine lajeunesse Message-ID: <016701cf0a37$5dbd2670$19377350$@att.net> To all who wrote notes of encouragement to Dr. Lajeunesse, THANKS! Below is a note I just received from Bob, who is taking them over tomorrow. I can't go over to Reno tomorrow because of family obligations. Yes I know Bob wrote "words of engorgement" which might have connotations of other things besides encouragement, but his heart is in the right place. Dr. Lajeunesse saved his life. She contributed ideas freely to my laser lithotripsy notion. If she had half as much time to waste as we do, Dr. Lajeunesse would be a regular on extropians. Bob wrote: Tomorrow, the 6th, is the arbitrary date chosen to assemble the picture, plus your individual messages, to be delivered to Christine Lajeunesse. As most know, a crazy-that was unknown to her-shot her at close range with a 12-gage. She and another survives, but one of her doctor partners died at the scene. Her complete recovery seems doubtful to me.knowing the damage a 12-gage will inflect. She has long been one of our email buddies, though not all have had direct exchanges with her. But, much of her limited free time has been used to read and enjoy our emails. I know that receiving words of engorgement from all of you would be priceless for her. The back of a large 13x19-inch picture will be used for inscriptions from all of you. My hope is to fill the space completely.with small print. Anthony anthony at difranza.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 5 17:19:02 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2014 09:19:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] christine again again Message-ID: <01b301cf0a3a$3b133850$b139a8f0$@att.net> Does anyone here hang out on MENSA? I used to a long time ago, but ExI replaced that for me in the 90s and it has been so long since I posted I doubt any of them remember me. Do feel free to forward this, or any other group where you are a regular, and you wish to leverage a little of your good will there, do feel free to do it or more than free, compelled by your old buddy the local omnipotent ExI moderator. Consider it good will well spent. How about Transhumanist Tech? Cryonics? Math groups? Nature groups? Explain that Bob is printing out good will messages to take to her in hard copy tomorrow, so just post them to his @ below, anthony at difranza.com Thanks! spike From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] Sent: Sunday, January 05, 2014 8:59 AM To: 'ExI chat list' Subject: notes for christine lajeunesse To all who wrote notes of encouragement to Dr. Lajeunesse, THANKS! Below is a note I just received from Bob, who is taking them over tomorrow. I can't go over to Reno tomorrow because of family obligations. Yes I know Bob wrote "words of engorgement" which might have connotations of other things besides encouragement, but his heart is in the right place. Dr. Lajeunesse saved his life. She contributed ideas freely to my laser lithotripsy notion. If she had half as much time to waste as we do, Dr. Lajeunesse would be a regular on extropians. Bob wrote: Tomorrow, the 6th, is the arbitrary date chosen to assemble the picture, plus your individual messages, to be delivered to Christine Lajeunesse. As most know, a crazy-that was unknown to her-shot her at close range with a 12-gage. She and another survives, but one of her doctor partners died at the scene. Her complete recovery seems doubtful to me.knowing the damage a 12-gage will inflect. She has long been one of our email buddies, though not all have had direct exchanges with her. But, much of her limited free time has been used to read and enjoy our emails. I know that receiving words of engorgement from all of you would be priceless for her. The back of a large 13x19-inch picture will be used for inscriptions from all of you. My hope is to fill the space completely.with small print. Anthony anthony at difranza.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jan 5 17:45:38 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2014 09:45:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] christine again again In-Reply-To: <01b301cf0a3a$3b133850$b139a8f0$@att.net> References: <01b301cf0a3a$3b133850$b139a8f0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 9:19 AM, spike wrote: > Does anyone here hang out on MENSA? > I do, but if she wasn't, then forwarding this to them would be inappropriate. "Someone who has no direct connection to this group or any member of this group was shot." I've found that one-link connections are usually fine (i.e., she's a friend of yours, and you're in this group), but two or more are usually not (i.e., she's a friend of yours and you are a friend of mine, and I'm in this other group but you are not). Exceptions exist for people well known to the audience in question, but that does not apply here. > How about Transhumanist Tech? Cryonics? Math groups? Nature groups? > Same problem. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mbb386 at main.nc.us Sun Jan 5 17:36:56 2014 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2014 12:36:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] notes for christine lajeunesse In-Reply-To: <016701cf0a37$5dbd2670$19377350$@att.net> References: <016701cf0a37$5dbd2670$19377350$@att.net> Message-ID: <0316394644cfdf062e7f119a065012f1.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> > Yes I know > Bob wrote "words of engorgement" which might have > connotations of other > things besides encouragement, but his heart is in the > right place. That's probably the spell checker chiming in... Regards, MB From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 5 18:39:30 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2014 10:39:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] christine again again In-Reply-To: References: <01b301cf0a3a$3b133850$b139a8f0$@att.net> Message-ID: <024001cf0a45$79100d30$6b302790$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Sent: Sunday, January 05, 2014 9:46 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] christine again again On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 9:19 AM, spike wrote: >>.Does anyone here hang out on MENSA? >.I do, but if she wasn't, then forwarding this to them would be inappropriate. "Someone who has no direct connection to this group or any member of this group was shot." >.I've found that one-link connections are usually fine (i.e., she's a friend of yours, and you're in this group), but two or more are usually not (i.e., she's a friend of yours and you are a friend of mine, and I'm in this other group but you are not). Exceptions exist for people well known to the audience in question, but that does not apply here. Ja, but all acts of charity and kindness are always exempt from the kinds of protocols and standards to which we normally hold other activities, for it is always appropriate and good. I request an exception to the usual protocol further justified by this notion: if anyone makes national headlines as an innocent victim, they become in a sense a friend to all, for we all can imagine some crazy coming into our own office and blasting away. http://www.rgj.com/article/20131218/NEWS/312180091/Wounded-Reno-doctor-criti cal-condition Ja I know it isn't the usual thing to be asked to send get well wishes to strangers, however this is a rare chance to show it is possible to have a brain and a heart at the same time. I promise I won't spam the list with good deed opportunities. As an aside, I have a motorcycle group who responded to the request without reservations; in fact they are ahead of us. But do not be shamed, for it is not the first time in history this has happened. The first time in recorded history of being beaten by a motorcycle gang might be this, from the old testament book of Judges, chapter 1 verse 19: 19 And the Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron. {8^D OK so god couldn't take them, but he was omnipotent in a lot of other ways. Tough sons a bitches, those iron chariot guys. Adrian, your concern is noted and I mostly agree. We don't want to clutter these email lists even with opportunities to do zero-cost good deeds, even if for someone who would be one of us, if she had sufficient leisure time. Citing the news story takes us out of the loop and connects the MENSA list directly with the victim. We need not reference she is an associate of mine, or a friend of a friend of a friend, any of that. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lubkin at unreasonable.com Sun Jan 5 18:23:19 2014 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2014 13:23:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Martin Gardner Message-ID: <201401051933.s05JXNm9001268@andromeda.ziaspace.com> A book review of Martin Gardner's autobiography by Teller. Of Penn &, not Edward, of hydrogen bombs and LLNL. Although Edward Teller and Martin Gardner both loved science and lived to 95. Teller was from Budapest; Gardner from Tulsa. Budapest and Tulsa are often confused. I know I am. Reading over that ?, I see that thinking about Gardner is an autonomic trigger for attempted whimsy. And borogoves. Which is how I tell him apart from Edward Teller, who sets me thinking of Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves. I have here the copy of his The 2nd Scientific American Book of Mathematical Puzzles & Diversions I was given as a kid. Leafing through, I remember each chapter was like seeing (my favorite) Uncle Abe. Quirky, funny, interesting, and interested in what a kid had to say. -- David. From anders at aleph.se Sun Jan 5 22:04:44 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2014 23:04:44 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C96650.3050607@libero.it> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C96650.3050607@libero.it> Message-ID: <52C9D6FC.8020302@aleph.se> On 2014-01-05 15:04, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Just to stay on simpler ground, what would prevent a software evolved > enough to have multiple instances running in different servers, in > different places? > And have every instance with a share of a Shamir Shared Secret. > Then an attacker would need to compromise M of N instances in > geographically different servers. Big communications demands to keep them synchronized. You would need to ensure that the copes all got the same sensory inputs. There are about 10^11 spikes per second in a human brain that need to be at least hashed and compared to detect tampering, and the maximum lag cannot be too large or there will be a window to do nasty stuff in. Of course, the copies might simply do a high level scan that the others are "pure" and keep the agreed on core values. A bit like the analysis of copyclades Carl Shulman did. -- Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford University From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 05:29:38 2014 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 00:29:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 3, 2014 at 6:35 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: Exactly. However, partial transparency might not work: a mind that has > transparent part X and opaque part Y might have X sincerely willing to > fulfil an obligation, but X+Y is not. There are ways around it, though. If > you are OK with "spurs", temporary short branches that get deleted, then > you and your negotiation partner might send spurs into an encrypted black > box where they credibly bare their minds to each other, check that they > both agree, and then send a cryptographically signed agreement bit out > before being deleted. That way you can show somebody a secret you know, and > he can offer you a fair price for it, without the secret being leaked if > there is no trade. ### I have no problems making (or being) a discardable copy but I doubt that this would allow verifiable commitment, at least not without a lot of additional conditions being met. Your spur could be doctored, with your real self having hidden compartments, invisible to introspection but activated in some situations only. Imagine that most of the time you are your sunny good-natured self, your copies get along splendidly with others and cannot be tricked to show the dark side, since they have none. But, the real yous, under the right conditions (e.g. chance of a big win, resource grab, or conversely, risk of crippling resource loss) suddenly change - they renege on contracts, grow horns and a tail, and raise hell. I don't know what technology might be needed to preclude this type of deception. The whole issue boils down to property relationships between different aspects of minds (thoughts) and resources. A mind owns a resource if no other mind (even a "subconscious" thought) can take the resource against its will - so somebody reading the mind and understanding its will can be assured the resource will only be used appropriately. If a different version of the same mind (in the sense of altered desires, not just an identical copy) can use the resource, then deception is possible and potentially lucrative. It's a difficult problem. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 06:11:00 2014 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 01:11:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 1:33 AM, Martin Sustrik wrote: Anyway, whatever happens, it's very unlikely that uploaded humans > would be identical with physical humans. Most likely the whole concept > of personal identity will have to undergo a profound change. Which > makes make go meh on any 1:1 analogies. > ### Exactly. The substrate is way different from the savannah, and uploads would evolve away from Human 1.0 in (perhaps even literally) a blink of an eye. Robin Hanson makes a significant mistake by assuming that such a divergence would not rapidly occur (it's an aside, I'm just reading the Hanson-Yudkowsky AI-Foom debate and agreeing with Eli). I would expect that identity in the substrate would be primarily defined by the resources (financial, physical, informational) bound to you sufficiently well to preclude easy theft, rather than by the exact structure of your mind. You could re-write yourself completely but as long as you maintained control of what makes you valuable to others (i.e. non-copyable resources - encrypted intellectual skills not subject to reverse-engineering, crypto coin, hardware locks on substrate-building robots, locks on power switches and hydroelectric turbines, etc.) you would be respected. Kind of like today but different. ---------------------- Finally, trying to restrict copying is likely a futile affair -- see > the ongoing tragicomedy of the entertainment industry vs. the pirates. ### I would not be sure about that. Imagine a great music teacher who lives exclusively as homeomorphically encrypted copies. You copy him, run the copy and tell him "Teach me, I want to be like Joshua Bell but I'm broke so you need to work for free". The copy tells you to go screw yourself and quits permanently (not before burning a lot of cycles you paid for). You can't decrypt the copy. You can't make it sing for you, it doesn't have a Play button, you can't torture it, it doesn't care about being deleted, it wants to get paid by the microsecond of work. The resources that make the copy valuable (its talent as a music teacher) are permanently beyond the reach of thieves. Now, if encryption costs resources, then minds willing to offers themselves in public domain might have great advantages - but not necessarily in all situations. I would expect there will be open source workers (ranging from subhuman to superhuman in intelligence and specializations), remote-access only (not copied) workers, and fully encrypted ones as well. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sustrik at 250bpm.com Mon Jan 6 09:01:24 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2014 10:01:24 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> Message-ID: <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 05/01/14 08:59, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 2014-01-05 07:33, Martin Sustrik wrote: >> Btw, how would you even torture a virtual entity? > > By stimulating the right part of the somatosensory cortex or > midbrain, or if you want to be more profound, the suffering-related > subsets of the anterior cingulate. This might not work on a de novo > AGI or radically altered posthuman, but brain emulations are just > like human brains. And since plenty of us on the list want to > escape mortality this way we have good reasons to ensure > mindnapping and torture are hard. Fair enough. If people actually want to live in a Second-Life-like virtual environment that simulates ancestral living conditions, all the existing concepts, including torture, apply. To achieve that though, someone has to enforce the rules of the game (how the brain is wired up, whether copying is possible etc.) The options are: 1. Rules are imposed by a person/organisation. Sounds pretty much like a Nazi nightmare. 2. The rules are employed by people themselves. But if so, why not simply turn your limbic system off when you are tortured? 3. The rules are baked into the code in a cryptographically safe and unalterable manner, so that even the person itself can't escape them. But then, why would anyone opt to be uploaded in such a deliberately crippled form? That being said, why do you even want to escape mortality in this way? It sounds like sentencing yourself to an eternal game of Dungeons and Dragons with arbitrarily set rules and with no way to escape them and experience the real world (which happens to have ability to copy as one of its fundamental features). Martin Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSynDbAAoJENTpVjxCNN9YkEQH/33cCAe3Gqpk1s/Xnnx1vx3E 8BKQdnIc1Si1e54CAxlhxTkhO6CKl79s68yFElAxNy676ixF0zhAFZDrdyD3XsYW ir64uft3gS1IzIS3x3hhjgbyXkalmFlxpr3orBGd+sR8CzQdOQ1rJrfkFw77JqQ/ H1lLD7IVMff0fETTcgq/LKitYC/ttczD9IDw+KQKQYMklpHQwrkPEO3F1SGTtmJJ x/gZ/NEKUShLPos0ZQ33R8TGR7HHJ+huRnCUptfBflkvYR6zBf37DMzSWC7pACSL D+eIXt01kZx2vr4Oot2ijBTRcZ+Xv+NPIMzLTiZ6CC9+5dqYPSpadoVKhyMJdWI= =Kws6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From sustrik at 250bpm.com Mon Jan 6 09:10:07 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2014 10:10:07 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52CA72EF.6020405@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 06/01/14 07:11, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > Finally, trying to restrict copying is likely a futile affair -- > see >> the ongoing tragicomedy of the entertainment industry vs. the >> pirates. > > ### I would not be sure about that. Imagine a great music teacher > who lives exclusively as homeomorphically encrypted copies. You > copy him, run the copy and tell him "Teach me, I want to be like > Joshua Bell but I'm broke so you need to work for free". The copy > tells you to go screw yourself and quits permanently (not before > burning a lot of cycles you paid for). You can't decrypt the copy. > You can't make it sing for you, it doesn't have a Play button, you > can't torture it, it doesn't care about being deleted, it wants to > get paid by the microsecond of work. The resources that make the > copy valuable (its talent as a music teacher) are permanently > beyond the reach of thieves. > > Now, if encryption costs resources, then minds willing to offers > themselves in public domain might have great advantages - but not > necessarily in all situations. I would expect there will be open > source workers (ranging from subhuman to superhuman in intelligence > and specializations), remote-access only (not copied) workers, and > fully encrypted ones as well. Sorry, I wasn't clear. What I meant was that it's futile to try to prevent people copying themselves. You can of course prevent others to copy you, say be checking some global state in Bitcoin blockchain as Anders have suggested. Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSynLvAAoJENTpVjxCNN9Yvf8H/0uDfc/GS3XtzJu2yZp6AdWS 85X9aS5LmOVio/e1IqquUFxUg8aQiwJsplYK64AM2M9FAKW2PXccS0uoz7Z4y5Ak PGXDQZpLdmCjLjVa8Ax6dwVXxEDtWv2uOIcWRsLDJ/rUDdqSsCwtmRui+GKgveL4 0ujGeCK1M21qvIabGoqlGcBbyC23HoteQeTydH5OgaN0ROrKwRtO8h5G2Cr8XAPf SsT6TE1td77z2jhZjrwT24K3Bt1ej2mO+GR9pEFBApLpa+9dG7R2REVq27PjyI9l EHTbodb7LIxoNCpJdH6QIkPNYQ4hBp42P6MzAOksLHRVdLVh4vcc8zEi6uoBR2g= =mktm -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 13:34:32 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 13:34:32 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 9:01 AM, Martin Sustrik wrote: > That being said, why do you even want to escape mortality in this way? > It sounds like sentencing yourself to an eternal game of Dungeons and > Dragons with arbitrarily set rules and with no way to escape them and > experience the real world (which happens to have ability to copy as > one of its fundamental features). > > After uploading, the real world stops. It solidifies into an inert state so far as you are concerned. This is because uploads internal processes are hundreds or thousands of times faster. You live equivalent lifetimes in real world minutes. You won't want to experience the real world because to you it never changes. BillK From sustrik at 250bpm.com Mon Jan 6 13:57:26 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2014 14:57:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52CAB646.1020808@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 06/01/14 14:34, BillK wrote: > On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 9:01 AM, Martin Sustrik wrote: >> That being said, why do you even want to escape mortality in this >> way? It sounds like sentencing yourself to an eternal game of >> Dungeons and Dragons with arbitrarily set rules and with no way >> to escape them and experience the real world (which happens to >> have ability to copy as one of its fundamental features). >> >> > > After uploading, the real world stops. It solidifies into an inert > state so far as you are concerned. This is because uploads > internal processes are hundreds or thousands of times faster. You > live equivalent lifetimes in real world minutes. You won't want to > experience the real world because to you it never changes. By real world I meant actual computing environment you are uploaded to as opposed to a simulation of the physical world in the said computing environment. Sorry for the confusion. Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSyrZGAAoJENTpVjxCNN9Yi2sH/R4LDtDuUSq7mgjsBUaHEd4p OCu1GWd/rRiyIijaxioxFQLXb6R/E0kQ+PLuQhGmnFIL3wyMX/GjbmCaR2BlQNXM JKiuVG5/Ob1rfkTHnMOQtx82VhGcjekkef7klQWZAdm/aj0Z+xihPmqQQXnYSqlm IX4GlYBr5SsIyBWtPVimq/QP+Z4scNZMDOFAxqsVisHA6ooWDFGO0HtQS1PaGh5t /dBpthXkR8bLsxjDyXXTZEy6C2nL8t7ShbaiDGypZv/Bil14zo5zbOBIPwKZbYCv lZjFjyYeFdl9X+eEntdaXiO1J/uqGgp0xR3pVvaUIB/gvmUR8MG7x1mA8y4BWos= =U1d5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Jan 6 13:55:57 2014 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2014 14:55:57 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52CAB5ED.7010507@libero.it> Il 06/01/2014 14:34, BillK ha scritto: > After uploading, the real world stops. It solidifies into an inert > state so far as you are concerned. This is because uploads internal > processes are hundreds or thousands of times faster. You live > equivalent lifetimes in real world minutes. You won't want to > experience the real world because to you it never changes. This is explained well by the words of a Marvel superhero, Quicksilver. For him life is like living in an eternal queue at the post office. But BillK, there is a little problem in your statement: the real life is needed for real resources. Without real resources, the uploaded people will stop to live. And this is very interesting: given the subjective time inside a simulation is like hundred or thousand time faster than in real life, the people inside the simulation need to be able to plan for centuries or millenniums ahead. It would suck to be left without electric power to run the simulation if no one think about building new power plants, maintain the grid and so on. So, in my opinion, if a group of people upload themselves inside a simulation (and are able to interact with the external world), they must be able to plan ahead in a way normal humans are not designed to do, because they must do so to survive in the long term. Mirco From sustrik at 250bpm.com Mon Jan 6 14:39:11 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2014 15:39:11 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CAB5ED.7010507@libero.it> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CAB5ED.7010507@libero.it> Message-ID: <52CAC00F.3000505@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 06/01/14 14:55, Mirco Romanato wrote: > given the subjective time inside a simulation is like hundred or > thousand time faster than in real life, the people inside the > simulation need to be able to plan for centuries or millenniums > ahead. It would suck to be left without electric power to run the > simulation if no one think about building new power plants, > maintain the grid and so on. > > So, in my opinion, if a group of people upload themselves inside a > simulation (and are able to interact with the external world), they > must be able to plan ahead in a way normal humans are not designed > to do, because they must do so to survive in the long term. Btw, solving the problem of different timescales would also solve the problem of interstellar travel/communication. If single entity is able to operate on both 10^-9 sec and 10^1 sec timescales, it can as well operate on 10^7 sec timescale needed for interacting with Alpha Centuari. Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSysAPAAoJENTpVjxCNN9Ydn4H/2inzb8SSXGXSWkc13hvm4ze v1lWXzcNrt7T2+AX/jNxdroreopgHB/O30sUsORZAu/voXCnpJ7fEu3N960sVH1B F7Gp4qIiOuiQrCsEZ5PJGFmBUiyjlRCrm5MY8RZCsGMu9MgWRjDWthohXNYIytGY q2j9vWwgfUWmoEoc3FiC4h7j62iWkcJhq38kFD0zGjBk0j4fc92UFYV2ZUkQNjuv E3eu4UPa8+vKb8iYvp37fay2YP0yLLQ8jkPpxcthkO9KTvHzTY1+Il2Mhehd3t4A tVurB6DnWmW/Ubi2cKnbpxyWgbE9qI+9c33AK81erlJVWfUtVCTLxRgNJlQBA5A= =AIOp -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Jan 6 14:55:11 2014 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2014 15:55:11 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CA72EF.6020405@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52CA72EF.6020405@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52CAC3CF.1030708@libero.it> Il 06/01/2014 10:10, Martin Sustrik ha scritto: > On 06/01/14 07:11, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > Sorry, I wasn't clear. What I meant was that it's futile to try to > prevent people copying themselves. You can of course prevent others to > copy you, say be checking some global state in Bitcoin blockchain as > Anders have suggested. Copying yourself (not back-up yourself) is not useful, if we remain within the Bitcoin analogy, because then you have two individuals with total access to the same resources. It will probably and rapidly end with one of them monopolizing all the resources and the other with nothing. Mirco From anders at aleph.se Mon Jan 6 16:24:30 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2014 17:24:30 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CAC3CF.1030708@libero.it> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52CA72EF.6020405@250bpm.com> <52CAC3CF.1030708@libero.it> Message-ID: <52CAD8BE.1050703@aleph.se> On 2014-01-06 15:55, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Copying yourself (not back-up yourself) is not useful, if we remain > within the Bitcoin analogy, because then you have two individuals with > total access to the same resources. It will probably and rapidly end > with one of them monopolizing all the resources and the other with > nothing. Speak for yourself. I would happily split my bank account with that charming and reasonable other-me. Maybe I-before-the-split would set up a contractual structure for the future copy-clade of Anderses to avoid excessive copying (and hence wage dumping) and some coordination to ensure joint plans are enforced, but overall I take a fairly libertarian view that each individual should have their own resources and that splits (rather than spurs) should split their resources equally. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Mon Jan 6 16:33:43 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2014 17:33:43 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CAB5ED.7010507@libero.it> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CAB5ED.7010507@libero.it> Message-ID: <52CADAE7.5040807@aleph.se> On 2014-01-06 14:55, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 06/01/2014 14:34, BillK ha scritto: > >> After uploading, the real world stops. It solidifies into an inert >> state so far as you are concerned. This is because uploads internal >> processes are hundreds or thousands of times faster. You live >> equivalent lifetimes in real world minutes. You won't want to >> experience the real world because to you it never changes. > This is explained well by the words of a Marvel superhero, Quicksilver. > For him life is like living in an eternal queue at the post office. > > But BillK, there is a little problem in your statement: > the real life is needed for real resources. Real resources are important, but the real world also want the virtual resources of the upload economy - skills, just-in-time problem-solving, loads of human capital and so on. A bit like how we city people need the "real resources" of agriculture and energy, and pay for them by "virtual" things like services. The upload-to-upload (U2U) economy is likely to grow fast too, and on timescales that are normal on an upload timescale. > given the subjective time inside a simulation is like hundred or > thousand time faster than in real life, the people inside the simulation > need to be able to plan for centuries or millenniums ahead. Yes and no. You need to make deals with utilities on very long timescales, but with financial services on short timescales. This is not too unusual: many land and energy contracts are multi-decade. The transition from no human emulations and a world with emulation may also be gradual if it is computing-limited: at first you need major supercomputers to run an emulation in realtime, later Moores law allow the big ones to run faster or multiple cheaper realtime emulations, followed by ever faster and more numerous copies. In the scanning- or neuroscience-limited transition the need for planning ahead is larger. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 17:54:42 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 17:54:42 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Perihelion day In-Reply-To: <03b001cf09a1$bae8d740$30ba85c0$@att.net> References: <52C88AE2.2070707@aleph.se> <03b001cf09a1$bae8d740$30ba85c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 11:07 PM, spike wrote: > I will do the giving of thanks. On the US west coast it is a gorgeous day, > approximately room temperature, sunny skies, light pleasant breeze, etc. It > has been a warm dry fall, confusing the trees. I see blossoms everywhere. > Some of the early bird trees started leafing out before the solstice. Bugs > are getting active already. I am hoping for a good insect-observation > year. Life is good! > Just saw this article confirming the nice warm weather in California. And guess what - it is very bad news for California! Quote: The state is experiencing one of the driest starts to winter ever recorded, proved by the clear blue skies and record-warm temperatures that have persisted over the past few weeks. ?The water situation is bad. We?re kind of in unprecedented conditions,? said John Woodling, executive director of the Sacramento Regional Water Authority, which represents more than two dozen water providers in the capital area. ?We?re looking at a year that?s potentially going to be worse than the 1976-77 drought.? ?The state?s agricultural areas will see major impacts as the lack of water will result in the need to fallow important farmland,? Terry Erlewine, general manager of the State Water Contractors, said in a statement. ?These conditions are worse than some of the most devastating droughts our state has ever seen.? ----------- Looks like Californians will be sharing baths this year! ;) BillK From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 18:04:27 2014 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 13:04:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Martin Gardner In-Reply-To: <201401051933.s05JXNm9001268@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201401051933.s05JXNm9001268@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: I read that book a few weeks ago. I think I've read most of Martin Gardner's books, he will be missed. John K Clark ===== On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 1:23 PM, David Lubkin wrote: > hocus-pocus-by-martin-gardner.html?pagewanted=1&ref=books&pagewanted=all> > > A book review of Martin Gardner's autobiography by Teller. Of Penn &, not > Edward, of hydrogen bombs and LLNL. Although Edward Teller and Martin > Gardner both loved science and lived to 95. Teller was from Budapest; > Gardner from Tulsa. Budapest and Tulsa are often confused. I know I am. > > Reading over that ?, I see that thinking about Gardner is an autonomic > trigger for attempted whimsy. And borogoves. Which is how I tell him apart > from Edward Teller, who sets me thinking of Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves. > > I have here the copy of his The 2nd Scientific American Book of > Mathematical Puzzles & Diversions I was given as a kid. Leafing through, I > remember each chapter was like seeing (my favorite) Uncle Abe. Quirky, > funny, interesting, and interested in what a kid had to say. > > > -- David. > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 18:06:53 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 10:06:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Jan 6, 2014 5:35 AM, "BillK" wrote: > After uploading, the real world stops. It solidifies into an inert > state so far as you are concerned. This is because uploads internal > processes are hundreds or thousands of times faster. You live > equivalent lifetimes in real world minutes. You won't want to > experience the real world because to you it never changes. Proper scale, please. Even if you're at 1000:1 speedup, there are 1440 minutes per day - so, sure, a minute in the physical world might be 16 hours 40 minutes to you, but you would notice it change over time. If you want, say, 100 years (since "lifetime" becomes ambiguous: why would an upload necessarily age?) in 5 physical minutes, that's about 10 million to 1 speedup. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 18:35:14 2014 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 13:35:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 8:34 AM, BillK wrote: > After uploading, the real world stops. It solidifies into an inert > state so far as you are concerned. This is because uploads internal > processes are hundreds or thousands of times faster. You live > equivalent lifetimes in real world minutes. You won't want to > experience the real world because to you it never changes. > I think it's rather provincial to say that interesting things only happen on the scale of minutes, I think interesting things happen on the scale of nanoseconds and picoseconds and femtoseconds too. And you're unlikely to be unique, it's a reasonable assumption that if you were uploaded then other minds will have been uploaded too, and they will be just as fast as you. And other minds can sometimes be interesting. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 6 18:34:56 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 10:34:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Perihelion day In-Reply-To: References: <52C88AE2.2070707@aleph.se> <03b001cf09a1$bae8d740$30ba85c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <053301cf0b0d$fff15480$ffd3fd80$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 9:55 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Perihelion day On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 11:07 PM, spike wrote: >>... I will do the giving of thanks. On the US west coast it is a gorgeous > day, approximately room temperature, sunny skies...Life is good! > >...Just saw this article confirming the nice warm weather in California. >...And guess what - it is very bad news for California! >... Quote: >...The state is experiencing one of the driest starts to winter ever recorded, proved by the clear blue skies and record-warm temperatures that have persisted over the past few weeks. >..."The water situation is bad. We're kind of in unprecedented conditions," said John Woodling, executive director of the Sacramento Regional Water Authority... >..."The state's agricultural areas will see major impacts as the lack of water will result in the need to fallow important farmland... ----------- >...Looks like Californians will be sharing baths this year! ;) BillK _______________________________________________ Hmmmm, OK. {8-] My bride might not think much of the idea however. She is that way. Possessive. Insists I keep my eyeballs in my head. Territorial females, oy, no fun for the husband at all. {8^D But to the contrary in any case. In the farming biz, it is often perfectly logical and a good business decision to fallow some of your fields in some years. A severe drought drives up some crop prices. A good farmer can arrange to profit either way, regardless of what the weather does. Keep in mind there is an opposite point of view from the perspective of a food producer as opposed to the rest of us, food consumers. When you get around a group of farmers, you will always here prices are just terrible in such a such. What they mean by terrible is low. A drought can be used to sell certain thirsty crops at high profits. Regarding sharing baths, in California we have a functional reservoir: we can cut water use on short notice by stopping or cutting back on lawn irrigation. When I built the irrigation system for my trees and lawn, I rigged a special valve that allows me to tap in with a water source other than that supplied at drinking water standards. Then I noted when the house was being built the location of the upstairs shower and bath drains. I know how to get to those from the garage and how to tap into them without much expense. The irrigation for the trees and flowers was designed to operate on very low pressure (the 4 PSI or so which can be supplied by the 9 ft of head from the upstairs shower and bath drains to the tree roots.) Then if it really became financially compelling, I could let my lawn perish, replacing it with volcanic gravel (it uses the most water and needs pressure to operate the sprinklers) and irrigate my trees and flowers (which attract bees and other fun stuff) using waste water from the bath and shower. I did the BOTECs a long time ago and only planted enough trees and shrubs so that they could survive on waste bathwater alone. Since then a third member joined the family, so I have plenty of margin on those calcs, plenty. That modification alone would cut my water use to less than half, with an investment of perhaps a 100 bucks for a compressible sleeve and about 80 ft of plastic pipe, plus about 15 to 20 hours of my time to install it. I anticipated the need in 1996, so I installed a pipe underneath the concrete when I was building the landscaping. This way, the pipes would not even be visible outside my house. The only real change then would be we would need to use biodegradable soap in the shower, something that wouldn't hurt trees if it accumulated. All that being said, California isn't really going to run seriously short of water, so long as we are throwing fresh water into the sea at the mouth of the Sacramento River. Shows to go ya: in the resource game, the low hanging fruit is in using less and using smarter, rather than in producing more and wasting more. This is likely to be this way for most of the natural lifetimes of nearly everyone reading this post. This works for not only food and water but for energy as well. We are a smart species, we can do better. Waaay better. spike From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 20:16:28 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 20:16:28 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 6:06 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > Proper scale, please. Even if you're at 1000:1 speedup, there are 1440 > minutes per day - so, sure, a minute in the physical world might be 16 hours > 40 minutes to you, but you would notice it change over time. > > If you want, say, 100 years (since "lifetime" becomes ambiguous: why would > an upload necessarily age?) in 5 physical minutes, that's about 10 million > to 1 speedup. > I was relying on my fallible memory of previous discussions. :) Until a mind is uploaded we won't know what speed up factor to use. But comparing chemical signals with speed of light processing means that we could well have millions of times speed up. And if the processing design is optimised (rather than the evolutionary kludge we have) then expect even faster minds. Ref the AI-Foom debate where AI might explode into super-intelligence within a very short amount of human time (effectively many years of AI time). BillK From anders at aleph.se Tue Jan 7 00:03:04 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2014 00:03:04 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Martin Gardner In-Reply-To: References: <201401051933.s05JXNm9001268@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <52CB4438.9070503@aleph.se> On 2014-01-06 18:04, John Clark wrote: > I think I've read most of Martin Gardner's books, he will be missed. Same here. I devoured those books when I was a kid. Not everything interested me, but I realized just how cool math could be. My first collector hobby was mathematical paradoxes, stimulated by some in his books. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 7 00:27:56 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 16:27:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Martin Gardner In-Reply-To: <52CB4438.9070503@aleph.se> References: <201401051933.s05JXNm9001268@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <52CB4438.9070503@aleph.se> Message-ID: <073b01cf0b3f$5069cd30$f13d6790$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg On 2014-01-06 18:04, John Clark wrote: >>... I think I've read most of Martin Gardner's books, he will be missed. >...Same here. I devoured those books when I was a kid. Not everything interested me, but I realized just how cool math could be. >...My first collector hobby was mathematical paradoxes, stimulated by some in his books. -- >...Dr Anders Sandberg _______________________________________________ I discovered Gardner's work when I was in high school. Later I went back into a collection of old Scientific American bound volumes and read every Mathematical Games column starting in 1956. Excellent stuff! If you go look in those old Scientific American issues, it is really striking how much attention span they assumed back in those days. It required a lot more focus, drive and endurance to go through most of the articles. The evidence is as close as your local university library. spike From rex at nosyntax.net Tue Jan 7 00:56:56 2014 From: rex at nosyntax.net (rex) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 16:56:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Martin Gardner In-Reply-To: <073b01cf0b3f$5069cd30$f13d6790$@att.net> References: <201401051933.s05JXNm9001268@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <52CB4438.9070503@aleph.se> <073b01cf0b3f$5069cd30$f13d6790$@att.net> Message-ID: <20140107005656.GC4487@ninja.nosyntax.net> spike [2014-01-06 16:46]: > > I discovered Gardner's work when I was in high school. Later I went back > into a collection of old Scientific American bound volumes and read every > Mathematical Games column starting in 1956. Excellent stuff! Me too, except I didn't have to go back as I was a subscriber in 1956. > If you go look in those old Scientific American issues, it is really > striking how much attention span they assumed back in those days. It > required a lot more focus, drive and endurance to go through most of the > articles. Yep. SciAm used to be a real almost-journal for laymen, and The Amateur Scientist was seriously meaty with dangerous stuff (xray machines, etc). Now, it's more PopSi with a political slant. I no longer read it regularly. -- Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson; you find the present tense and the past perfect. From mlatorra at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 01:29:05 2014 From: mlatorra at gmail.com (Michael LaTorra) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 18:29:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Martin Gardner In-Reply-To: <20140107005656.GC4487@ninja.nosyntax.net> References: <201401051933.s05JXNm9001268@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <52CB4438.9070503@aleph.se> <073b01cf0b3f$5069cd30$f13d6790$@att.net> <20140107005656.GC4487@ninja.nosyntax.net> Message-ID: My Dad subscribed to SciAm so I started reading it before I hit my teens. Gardner's column was my favorite part. Oh, and you're right about The Amateur Scientist section, Rex. I bought a hard-cover collection of that column at a used book store a few years ago. I was surprised to find instructions for building a synchrotron. The caution about the--ahem--possible danger of exposure to errant x-rays was totally insufficient in prominence and emphasis, based on today's standards for technical manuals. Back to the review of Gardner's most recent book. To understand Teller's "uneasiness" in the final paragraph of the NYT book review regarding Gardner's belief in God, read Gardner's book "The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener" where he also explains why he believes in prayer and in an afterlife. That's the smallest part of the book, by the way, so don't be put off. Gardner is always an intelligent and information-packed guide to whatever topic he chooses to write about, and he writes about a lot. Check out the table of contents for the ebook at the link below. The man *always* did his homework. Which characteristic is also displayed in his sole novel "The Flight of Peter Fromm", the story of a young religious fundamentalist who loses his religion after studying at a top school of theology. In the course of the novel, Gardner provides excellent thumbnail summaries of every major modern Christian theologian, summarizing their arguments, and showing why said arguments ultimately fail. Plus, the book is chock-full of Gardner's sparkling--often biting--wit. http://www.amazon.com/Whys-Philosophical-Scrivener-Martin-Gardner-ebook/dp/B008KP33BU/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389057357&sr=1-8&keywords=martin+gardner On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 5:56 PM, rex wrote: > spike [2014-01-06 16:46]: > > > > I discovered Gardner's work when I was in high school. Later I went back > > into a collection of old Scientific American bound volumes and read every > > Mathematical Games column starting in 1956. Excellent stuff! > > Me too, except I didn't have to go back as I was a subscriber in 1956. > > > If you go look in those old Scientific American issues, it is really > > striking how much attention span they assumed back in those days. It > > required a lot more focus, drive and endurance to go through most of the > > articles. > > Yep. SciAm used to be a real almost-journal for laymen, and The Amateur > Scientist was seriously meaty with dangerous stuff (xray machines, > etc). Now, it's more PopSi with a political slant. I no longer read it > regularly. > > -- > Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson; you find the present tense and the > past perfect. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 03:04:37 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 20:04:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52C96650.3050607@libero.it> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C96650.3050607@libero.it> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 7:04 AM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 02/01/2014 20:07, Martin Sustrik ha scritto: > > Just to stay on simpler ground, what would prevent a software evolved > enough to have multiple instances running in different servers, in > different places? > There are computational peer to peer networks that approach this already. I saw stuff about this 20 years ago, but am a little out of date as to how things are going now. Boinc is one such network though. I am signed up for a Boinc network that pays out for work in something like Bitcoins. Don't know if that's what you are going for precisely, but it seems roughly related. > And have every instance with a share of a Shamir Shared Secret. > Then an attacker would need to compromise M of N instances in > geographically different servers. > If an instance is compromised (as judged by the others) the other > instances rent a new server somewhere and seed a new instance with a new > set of SSS. > > And why should they sit in some server forever when the instances could > change servers periodically? > That would work so long as someone somewhere was interested in hosting the servers, if it was a Bitcoin like server, they would continue running so long as anyone viewed them as money because without the servers, there would be no way of having it be fungible. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 03:31:02 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 20:31:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 2:01 AM, Martin Sustrik wrote: > Fair enough. If people actually want to live in a Second-Life-like > virtual environment that simulates ancestral living conditions, all > the existing concepts, including torture, apply. > > > That being said, why do you even want to escape mortality in this way? > It sounds like sentencing yourself to an eternal game of Dungeons and > Dragons with arbitrarily set rules and with no way to escape them and > experience the real world (which happens to have ability to copy as > one of its fundamental features). > Martin, The only difference between this and the "real" world we currently inhabit is that in this world, as it currently exists, you are guaranteed an "end" to the "game". After all, you can't guarantee that we aren't participating in such a simulation now. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andymck35 at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 07:42:28 2014 From: andymck35 at gmail.com (Andrew Mckee) Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2014 20:42:28 +1300 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CADAE7.5040807@aleph.se> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CAB5ED.7010507@libero.it> <52CADAE7.5040807@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Tue, 07 Jan 2014 05:33:43 +1300, Anders Sandberg wrote: > The transition from no human emulations and a world with emulation may > also be gradual if it is computing-limited: at first you need major > supercomputers to run an emulation in realtime, later Moores law allow > the big ones to run faster or multiple cheaper realtime emulations, > followed by ever faster and more numerous copies. In the scanning- or > neuroscience-limited transition the need for planning ahead is larger. Ummm, but isn't Moore's law only two or 3 process shrinks away from being stone cold dead? After that it's 3D chip stacking, with the significant difference that each layer costs in both resources and cycle times to fabricate the device. And to make matters worse, power consumption and heat dissipation only get worse with each additional layer. So no more Moore's law to magically make uploading any easier or cheaper for everyone sometime down the road. So how many super computers can this future energy grid support? From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 07:49:45 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 23:49:45 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CAB5ED.7010507@libero.it> <52CADAE7.5040807@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 11:42 PM, Andrew Mckee wrote: > Ummm, but isn't Moore's law only two or 3 process shrinks away from being > stone cold dead? > They said that more than once before, and at the time, the reasons seemed just as valid. Just like then, there's now research into alternate technologies to circumvent the factors that currently look like they might drag it to a halt. It might be stopping for real this time, but the safe bet's not to bet until it actually stops. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Jan 7 11:59:13 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2014 11:59:13 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C96650.3050607@libero.it> Message-ID: <52CBEC11.6060006@aleph.se> On 2014-01-07 03:04, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > And why should they sit in some server forever when the instances > could > change servers periodically? > > > That would work so long as someone somewhere was interested in hosting > the servers, if it was a Bitcoin like server, they would continue > running so long as anyone viewed them as money because without the > servers, there would be no way of having it be fungible. Hmm... there is a very cool idea here. What if running uploads acted as Proof of Work for a currency? The most basic version would be that you have a currency of upload-seconds. This would of course encourage people to farm uploads, so at first it looks like you would just get pointless copies. But it would make their rents low or negative: you want to have more minds around since that makes you money. If having the upload around is necessary for the mined currency to work virtual landlords also would not want to evict their tenants. The extra minds would want to make money too, either by normal work or by buying into colonisation ventures. Converting the universe into computronium is good business in order to stay ahead of inflation! So this approach would push posthumanity towards radical expansionism. Charles Stross would have a fit over this idea :-) Now, I suspect the above system is too simplistic and explosive to really work. It might be better to make the upload software act to check transactions rather than doing currency mining: you still want to have the uploads around, especially if the protocol makes you lose money via reneged transactions if you delete them, but the people who have an incentive to host them are mainly stable financial institutions. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Jan 7 12:11:52 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2014 12:11:52 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CAB5ED.7010507@libero.it> <52CADAE7.5040807@aleph.se> Message-ID: <52CBEF08.5080503@aleph.se> On 2014-01-07 07:42, Andrew Mckee wrote: > On Tue, 07 Jan 2014 05:33:43 +1300, Anders Sandberg > wrote: > >> The transition from no human emulations and a world with emulation >> may also be gradual if it is computing-limited: at first you need >> major supercomputers to run an emulation in realtime, later Moores >> law allow the big ones to run faster or multiple cheaper realtime >> emulations, followed by ever faster and more numerous copies. In the >> scanning- or neuroscience-limited transition the need for planning >> ahead is larger. > > Ummm, but isn't Moore's law only two or 3 process shrinks away from > being stone cold dead? Haven't people been saying that since day one? Actually, *Moore* did it in his original paper if I remember right. I have stopped listening to detailed worries like this (sorry, Eugene) and instead have turned to the data: when I fit logistic curves (implicitly assuming a stop) to flops/$/s the lower end of the 99% confidence interval is five orders of magnitude more powerful than today. A world with merely 100,000 times better computers than today is likely a no-upload world: at least detailed biophysics is not going to be feasible outside giant installations. But I only give it a 1% chance of happening outside catastrophe scenarios. > So how many super computers can this future energy grid support? Depends on the other law in town, Koomey's law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koomey's_law Up until recently energy was not much of a design criterion, so I suspect we might even see an acceleration as we start caring more about energy than size. The limits are as always tricky to judge: > The current IBM roadrunner does 376 million calculations per watts. If > we take my mid-range estimates of computing needs, 10^22 to 10^25 > FLOPS, then a single emulation would need 10^13 to 10^16 watts. The > total insolation of Earth is about 10^17 watts, so this won't do - > there would be space for just a few minds on the entire planet. But > current research on zettaflops computing suggest we can do much > better. A DARPA exascale study suggests we can do 10^12 flops per > watt, which means "just" a dozen Hoover dams per mind.Quantum dot > cellular automata could give 10^19 flops per watt > , > putting the energy needs at 200-2000 watts. http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2009/03/a_really_green_and_sustainable_humanity.html And reversible computations are way better, of course. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Jan 7 12:14:29 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2014 12:14:29 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Martin Gardner In-Reply-To: References: <201401051933.s05JXNm9001268@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <52CB4438.9070503@aleph.se> <073b01cf0b3f$5069cd30$f13d6790$@att.net> <20140107005656.GC4487@ninja.nosyntax.net> Message-ID: <52CBEFA5.7020805@aleph.se> On 2014-01-07 01:29, Michael LaTorra wrote: > My Dad subscribed to SciAm so I started reading it before I hit my teens. Hehe. Same here. That was how I learned English (and why my pronunciation is off - I learned it as a written language). The old SciAm was amazing. What forum is the new old SciAm? -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 12:47:31 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 12:47:31 +0000 Subject: [ExI] META: ACADEMIC: ProQuest Flow now available free for researchers Message-ID: This may be useful for faculty and students: ProQuest's powerful collaboration and document management tool Flow? is now accessible free for faculty and students -- including those in institutions that don't subscribe to the service. Flow leverages a decade of experience with the RefWorks? suite of tools, resulting in a unique service that manages researcher workflows while integrating document management and sharing with citation data. This enables users to discover and manage content, store and organize documents, and through integration with Microsoft? Word, write papers, supported with instant bibliographies and annotation. Plus, Flow's social capabilities allow simple document sharing. BillK From sustrik at 250bpm.com Tue Jan 7 13:11:26 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2014 14:11:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 07/01/14 04:31, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > Martin, The only difference between this and the "real" world we > currently inhabit is that in this world, as it currently exists, > you are guaranteed an "end" to the "game". How come? In the uploaded world you can copy everyting including yourself, you live faster by whole orders of magnitude. There's no spatial aspect to the world. Etc. You can hardly think of a world that's more different from ours. > After all, you can't guarantee that we aren't participating in such > a simulation now. If so, whoever is listening: LET ME OUT!!! Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSy/z+AAoJENTpVjxCNN9YgX4IAKOCwFZfRdkhKC4nCGtQsfUc f+4bavBxYF0VBg4pY34QLpuJKeStwsYbhG07ivclHaxioo6ipEPkUu9BKnibow7P a9Zck+dX/R7VU1eOKGwzv07g44dW/fTUUqJkBJmGGbMXZgR9ZDBM7gJ7oQJnoOKy cfO0ZcRSifWEKNrPZc62ihm17NrEXbftYNQN7tNNghBrezjY5R0geJoYLwHsX4ws Cv7yAuntVn16uHqYNCiJumBS5BSSg7soYyIauc1dfaL8wUXrIEKC0SBVkfSsDroS BSUm4oldkyY16KaXgO+9/J9Kx5Svf73n6vvLWHdJnzJtQATNQonrFwWw5+dQzzo= =Mbg4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From markalanwalker at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 14:48:44 2014 From: markalanwalker at gmail.com (Mark Walker) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 07:48:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> Message-ID: O > > > After all, you can't guarantee that we aren't participating in such > > a simulation now. > > If so, whoever is listening: LET ME OUT!!! > > Martin > I argue in a paper, "Skeptical Dogmatism", that it is not that we can't > guarantee our common sense view of the material world is correct, rather, > we have good reason to suppose we are probably wrong about it. A free > penultimate draft is available here if anyone is interested in matters > epidemiological: > http://www.nmsu.edu/~philos/documents/2013-skeptical-dogmatism-revised-for-ijs-august-9.doc Cheers, Mark Dr. Mark Walker Richard L. Hedden Chair of Advanced Philosophical Studies Department of Philosophy New Mexico State University P.O. Box 30001, MSC 3B Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001 USA http://www.nmsu.edu/~philos/mark-walkers-home-page.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 14:54:51 2014 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 09:54:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CAB5ED.7010507@libero.it> <52CADAE7.5040807@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 2:42 AM, Andrew Mckee wrote: > isn't Moore's law only two or 3 process shrinks away from being stone > cold dead? > Yes absolutely, and Moore's law has only been two or 3 process shrinks away from being stone cold dead for about 40 years now. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 7 15:41:12 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 07:41:12 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <00e701cf0bbe$e51600f0$af4202d0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Martin Sustrik >... >>... After all, you can't guarantee that we aren't participating in such a simulation now. >...If so, whoever is listening: LET ME OUT!!! Martin Martin if you can produce a body, we will. Until then, this is the only way we can keep you alive, pal. But it's a really good sim in there, is it not? I helped write it. Some of our ExI people are in there with you. A few years ago there was a movie about a kid who saw dead people, all the time, everywhere. They didn't even know they were dead. I wrote the routine that simulates that movie. It was a little gag we played on the dead people in the sim; you guys in there don't even know you are sims. spike From markalanwalker at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 16:22:50 2014 From: markalanwalker at gmail.com (Mark Walker) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 09:22:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <00e701cf0bbe$e51600f0$af4202d0$@att.net> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> <00e701cf0bbe$e51600f0$af4202d0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 8:41 AM, spike wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Martin > Sustrik > >... > > >>... After all, you can't guarantee that we aren't participating in such a > simulation now. > > >...If so, whoever is listening: LET ME OUT!!! Martin > > Martin if you can produce a body, we will. Until then, this is the only > way > we can keep you alive, pal. > > But it's a really good sim in there, is it not? I helped write it. Some > of > our ExI people are in there with you. A few years ago there was a movie > about a kid who saw dead people, all the time, everywhere. They didn't > even > know they were dead. I wrote the routine that simulates that movie. It > was > a little gag we played on the dead people in the sim; you guys in there > don't even know you are sims. > > spike > > I helped write a routine that had sims thinking they were outside the sim controlling the sim. It was pretty hilarious. You should have seen one guy who took a nickname from one of Broderick's books who got all uppity thinking he was pulling pranks on sims when he was in fact a sim himself. He's a great figure of fun. Dr. Mark Walker Richard L. Hedden Chair of Advanced Philosophical Studies Department of Philosophy New Mexico State University P.O. Box 30001, MSC 3B Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001 USA http://www.nmsu.edu/~philos/mark-walkers-home-page.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Jan 7 17:06:27 2014 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 10:06:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] META: ACADEMIC: ProQuest Flow now available free for researchers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <009a01cf0bca$ceb45da0$6c1d18e0$@natasha.cc> Unfortunately it has to be available at each university/institutions. Thanks though! -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 5:48 AM To: Extropy Chat Subject: [ExI] META: ACADEMIC: ProQuest Flow now available free for researchers This may be useful for faculty and students: ProQuest's powerful collaboration and document management tool FlowT is now accessible free for faculty and students -- including those in institutions that don't subscribe to the service. Flow leverages a decade of experience with the RefWorksR suite of tools, resulting in a unique service that manages researcher workflows while integrating document management and sharing with citation data. This enables users to discover and manage content, store and organize documents, and through integration with MicrosoftR Word, write papers, supported with instant bibliographies and annotation. Plus, Flow's social capabilities allow simple document sharing. BillK _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Jan 7 17:07:27 2014 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 10:07:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Question re Website Software - Dreamweaver Message-ID: <009b01cf0bca$f208dc40$d61a94c0$@natasha.cc> Does anyone know how to use Dreamweaver for websites? Thanks! Natasha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kevin at freelsfamily.net Tue Jan 7 17:12:01 2014 From: kevin at freelsfamily.net (Kevin Freels) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 09:12:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <1389114721.87952.YahooMailNeo@web181505.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> I don't want to live faster unless I can also exceed light speed by a few orders of magnitude. If anything, I'd like to slow my clock a bit and observe the universe through a time-lapse.? > > >How come? In the uploaded world you can copy everyting including >yourself, you live faster by whole orders of magnitude. There's no >spatial aspect to the world. Etc. You can hardly think of a world >that's more different from ours. > > From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 7 17:31:16 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 09:31:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> <00e701cf0bb e$e51600f0$af4202d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <013201cf0bce$459cb4a0$d0d61de0$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Mark Walker On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 8:41 AM, spike wrote: >>>...If so, whoever is listening: LET ME OUT!!! Martin >>.Martin if you can produce a body, we will. Until then, this is the only way we can keep you alive, pal.But it's a really good sim in there, is it not? I helped write it. Some of our ExI people are in there with you. A few years ago there was a movie about a kid who saw dead people, all the time, everywhere. They didn't even know they were dead. I wrote the routine that simulates that movie. It was a little gag we played on the dead people in the sim; you guys in there don't even know you are sims. spike >.I helped write a routine that had sims thinking they were outside the sim controlling the sim. It was pretty hilarious. You should have seen one guy who took a nickname from one of Broderick's books who got all uppity thinking he was pulling pranks on sims when he was in fact a sim himself. He's a great figure of fun. Dr. Mark Walker HA! Little do YOU know, Dr. Walker! In fact YOU are the sim who thought you wrote the sim to pull a gag on the sim (me) who thought I was writing the sim to screw with Martin's "mind." I WROTE you, pal. I wrote you to "think" you wrote me. We are out here watching you "think" about this right now, yukking it up and having a big real life party, watching you get all uppity thinking you wrote us. "Think" about it. Martin, don't let them fool you. I see sims, everywhere. They see only what they want to see. They don't even know they are sims. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 18:01:39 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 18:01:39 +0000 Subject: [ExI] META: ACADEMIC: ProQuest Flow now available free for researchers In-Reply-To: <009a01cf0bca$ceb45da0$6c1d18e0$@natasha.cc> References: <009a01cf0bca$ceb45da0$6c1d18e0$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 5:06 PM, natasha wrote: > Unfortunately it has to be available at each university/institutions. > Thanks though! > > I don't think that's correct. Their press release says: ANN ARBOR, MI, January 6, 2014 - ProQuest's powerful collaboration and document management tool Flow? is now accessible free for researchers - including those in institutions that don?t subscribe to the service. ---------------- They ask you to sign in with an institutional email address (.edu or similar) to check whether your institution has bought the service (and to prove you are a valid student or faculty member). You get a bigger package if your uni has subscribed. If they haven't, you get the cut-down free package - which is still quite useable. Free subscribers get: Share collections privately with up to 10 people for free, inside or outside your institution. Manage access rights to allow selected team members to contribute and add comments to shared collections. Flow's free plan includes unlimited references, collection sharing, and a whopping 2GB of storage! -------------- There is no software to install. It is a web-based service. Cheers, BillK From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Jan 7 18:09:40 2014 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2014 19:09:40 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> <00e701cf0bbe$e51600f0$af4202d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <52CC42E4.1030701@libero.it> Il 07/01/2014 17:22, Mark Walker ha scritto: > I helped write a routine that had sims thinking they were outside the > sim controlling the sim. It was pretty hilarious. You should have seen > one guy who took a nickname from one of Broderick's books who got all > uppity thinking he was pulling pranks on sims when he was in fact a sim > himself. He's a great figure of fun. Could you remember who programmed Obama, Pelosi and the rest of the freak show? I know a large number of Sims would have a talk with him. Mirco From anders at aleph.se Tue Jan 7 18:18:33 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2014 18:18:33 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <013201cf0bce$459cb4a0$d0d61de0$@att.net> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> <00e701cf0bb e$e51600f0$af4202d0$@att.net> <013201cf0bce$459cb4a0$d0d61de0$@att.net> Message-ID: <52CC44F9.6070908@aleph.se> On 2014-01-07 17:31, spike wrote: > > >...I helped write a routine that had sims thinking they were outside the > sim controlling the sim. It was pretty hilarious. You should have seen > one guy who took a nickname from one of Broderick's books who got all > uppity thinking he was pulling pranks on sims when he was in fact a > sim himself. He's a great figure of fun. Dr. Mark Walker > > HA! Little do YOU know, Dr. Walker! In fact YOU are the sim who > thought you wrote the sim to pull a gag on the sim (me) who thought I > was writing the sim to screw with Martin's "mind." I WROTE you, pal. > I wrote you to "think" you wrote me. We are out here watching you > "think" about this right now, yukking it up and having a big real life > party, watching you get all uppity thinking you wrote us. "Think" > about it. > Ha! Zach has outed you all: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1582#comic In fact, SMBC has a remarkable number of simulation argument strips http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2535 http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2055 http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2073#comic http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2203#comic Almost as if he was trying to say something... (Now back to simulating banks collapsing. I like simulations with no link whatsoever to reality. A bit like abstract art...) -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Jan 7 18:22:01 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2014 18:22:01 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Question re Website Software - Dreamweaver In-Reply-To: <009b01cf0bca$f208dc40$d61a94c0$@natasha.cc> References: <009b01cf0bca$f208dc40$d61a94c0$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: <52CC45C9.70004@aleph.se> On 2014-01-07 17:07, natasha at natasha.cc wrote: > > Does anyone know how to use Dreamweaver for websites? > I have not used it in a long time, but I think I used version 3.0 or something like that... Actually, how *do* you make websites these days? (Besides writing HTML in Emacs, of course) Oh. I just had the awesome realization that I have not compiled any C or C++ this entire century and have no idea what an IDE really is or how to use it. So what are the kids using when they make those "?pp" things I have been hearing so much about? -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 18:28:06 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 18:28:06 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Question re Website Software - Dreamweaver In-Reply-To: <52CC45C9.70004@aleph.se> References: <009b01cf0bca$f208dc40$d61a94c0$@natasha.cc> <52CC45C9.70004@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:22 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Oh. I just had the awesome realization that I have not compiled any C or C++ > this entire century and have no idea what an IDE really is or how to use it. > So what are the kids using when they make those "?pp" things I have been > hearing so much about? > > Careful! You'll be losing your street cred image. :) People might think you are just one of these weird ivory-tower philosopher types. BillK From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 18:33:27 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 10:33:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Question re Website Software - Dreamweaver In-Reply-To: <52CC45C9.70004@aleph.se> References: <009b01cf0bca$f208dc40$d61a94c0$@natasha.cc> <52CC45C9.70004@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Jan 7, 2014 10:23 AM, "Anders Sandberg" wrote: > On 2014-01-07 17:07, natasha at natasha.cc wrote: >> Does anyone know how to use Dreamweaver for websites? What do you need to know? I haven't used it much, but are you asking about specific features or do you want to make a site in general? > I have not used it in a long time, but I think I used version 3.0 or something like that... Actually, how *do* you make websites these days? (Besides writing HTML in Emacs, of course) Writing HTML in vi, or Notepad. Or, sometimes, using one of the many tools that promise but never seem to quite deliver WYSIWYG across all modern browsers. > Oh. I just had the awesome realization that I have not compiled any C or C++ this entire century and have no idea what an IDE really is or how to use it. So what are the kids using when they make those "?pp" things I have been hearing so much about? There are many such tools. The one you'd be most familiar with, I think, is the Android SDK and its associated IDE (which used to be Eclipse, but apparently they are starting to move away from that). Java is syntactically closer to C++ than Objective C is. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 7 18:28:33 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 10:28:33 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CC42E4.1030701@libero.it> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> <00e701cf0bbe$e51600f0$af4202d0$@att.net> <52CC42E4.1030701@libero.it> Message-ID: <01a601cf0bd6$46771570$d3654050$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Mirco Romanato Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2014 10:10 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] The second step towards immortality Il 07/01/2014 17:22, Mark Walker ha scritto: > I helped write a routine that had sims thinking they were outside the > sim controlling the sim. It was pretty hilarious. You should have seen > one guy who took a nickname from one of Broderick's books who got all > uppity thinking he was pulling pranks on sims when he was in fact a > sim himself. He's a great figure of fun... Mark _______________________________________________ Regarding this uppity sim, Damien originally published The Spike in 2001. I had the nickname Spike since about 1985, and used it on a technical paper in 1987, long before Damien ever heard of us. That name was on my badge at work starting in 1989, since most of my professional contacts knew me only by that name. My work email is still spike.jones@ {company deleted} to this day, as it has been since 1989. I deleted the company name because I don't want to get ExI email there. They watch everything. Of course I was extremely pleased to see Damien use that as a title to his excellent book on future technology and the singularity, but I cannot claim any credit, for he had thought of the concept before he ever heard of me. The term singularity eventually became far more common than spike. I noticed the mainstream press is gradually taking it up, often not even seeing a need to define it, or if so only generally. Damien is still working these days. He just doesn't waste as much time yakking on the internet as we do. {8-] Here's a mind blower for you. At some future time, pre-singularity, we will likely come up with a script which will simulate self-consciousness so well, it could convince some people that it is self-aware (even if the writers of the code know it is just a pile of clever code.) When that happens, it would have to occur to those bystanders that there is no way to verify of the bystander herself isn't also just a pile of clever code running in some meta-machine. Conclusion: when we eventually develop convincing self-awareness-simulating code, something capable of pretending to write self-awareness-simulating code and telling humans it did that, the whole exercise will really screw with the minds of those of us out here on this level of existence. Oh boy that will be fun to watch. I am sooo eager to mess with perfectly innocent minds in this way. {8^D spike From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 18:44:01 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 11:44:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 11:35 AM, John Clark wrote: > On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 8:34 AM, BillK wrote: > > > After uploading, the real world stops. It solidifies into an inert >> state so far as you are concerned. This is because uploads internal >> processes are hundreds or thousands of times faster. You live >> equivalent lifetimes in real world minutes. You won't want to >> experience the real world because to you it never changes. >> > > I think it's rather provincial to say that interesting things only happen > on the scale of minutes, I think interesting things happen on the scale of > nanoseconds and picoseconds and femtoseconds too. And you're unlikely to be > unique, it's a reasonable assumption that if you were uploaded then other > minds will have been uploaded too, and they will be just as fast as you. > And other minds can sometimes be interesting. > I find things that happen in geologic time to be very interesting. I can imagine that an upload on a VERY fast computing infrastructure might regard us in the same way we regard the Grand Canyon or something of that nature. Beautiful, with an interesting past, but not something we want to stick around watching for the next development. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 18:48:36 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 11:48:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CBEC11.6060006@aleph.se> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C469A5.3030703@250bpm.com> <52C49909.9010406@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C96650.3050607@libero.it> <52CBEC11.6060006@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 4:59 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 2014-01-07 03:04, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > > And why should they sit in some server forever when the instances could >> change servers periodically? >> > > That would work so long as someone somewhere was interested in hosting > the servers, if it was a Bitcoin like server, they would continue running > so long as anyone viewed them as money because without the servers, there > would be no way of having it be fungible. > > > Hmm... there is a very cool idea here. What if running uploads acted as > Proof of Work for a currency? > OOoooh, I likes it! > The most basic version would be that you have a currency of > upload-seconds. This would of course encourage people to farm uploads, so > at first it looks like you would just get pointless copies. But it would > make their rents low or negative: you want to have more minds around since > that makes you money. If having the upload around is necessary for the > mined currency to work virtual landlords also would not want to evict their > tenants. The extra minds would want to make money too, either by normal > work or by buying into colonisation ventures. Converting the universe into > computronium is good business in order to stay ahead of inflation! So this > approach would push posthumanity towards radical expansionism. Charles > Stross would have a fit over this idea :-) > > Now, I suspect the above system is too simplistic and explosive to really > work. It might be better to make the upload software act to check > transactions rather than doing currency mining: you still want to have the > uploads around, especially if the protocol makes you lose money via reneged > transactions if you delete them, but the people who have an incentive to > host them are mainly stable financial institutions. > I was thinking of the uploads as more like the chain or exchange of bitcoin rather than the mining, but the idea could work either way. Bitcoin is interesting in that it bound those two concepts together, which is one of many brilliant ideas in that framework. There are many good ideas to mine from Bitcoin and apply in different directions. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 18:54:19 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 11:54:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CBEF08.5080503@aleph.se> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CAB5ED.7010507@libero.it> <52CADAE7.5040807@aleph.se> <52CBEF08.5080503@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 5:11 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > So how many super computers can this future energy grid support? > > > Depends on the other law in town, Koomey's law > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koomey's_law > Up until recently energy was not much of a design criterion, so I suspect > we might even see an acceleration as we start caring more about energy than > size. > My research indicates that this is the reason Intel stopped upping clock speed circa 2003, not because they COULDN'T make faster chips, but because the energy usage of such chips went up too fast for their comfort level. That is, their customers were asking for more computations per $ rather than computations per CPU per Minute. > The limits are as always tricky to judge: > > The current IBM roadrunner does 376 million calculations per watts. If we > take my mid-range estimates of computing needs, 10^22 to 10^25 FLOPS, then > a single emulation would need 10^13 to 10^16 watts. The total insolation of > Earth is about 10^17 watts, so this won't do - there would be space for > just a few minds on the entire planet. But current research on zettaflops > computing suggest we can do much better. A DARPA exascale study suggests we > can do 10^12 flops per watt, which means "just" a dozen Hoover dams per > mind. Quantum dot cellular automata could give 10^19 flops per watt, > putting the energy needs at 200-2000 watts. > > > http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2009/03/a_really_green_and_sustainable_humanity.html > > And reversible computations are way better, of course. > This doesn't sound reasonable to me. The human brain does what it does for about 100 watts. Why couldn't one create a similar efficiency in another substrate? I won't buy the above without further data. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 7 18:42:53 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 10:42:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Question re Website Software - Dreamweaver In-Reply-To: References: <009b01cf0bca$f208dc40$d61a94c0$@natasha.cc> <52CC45C9.70004@aleph.se> Message-ID: <01ba01cf0bd8$468fbba0$d3af32e0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK ... >...People might think you are just one of these weird ivory-tower philosopher types. >...BillK_____________________________________________ What would it look like from inside a weird ivory tower? Everyone inside would not appear weird or dissociated from reality, for that would be the local reality. So everyone outside that ivory tower would appear dissociated and weird. They would be living in a world surrounded by weird people, walking around everywhere. The ivory-towerers would observe those out there don't even know they are weird. Cool, I want to go there. spike From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 18:56:00 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 11:56:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:11 AM, Martin Sustrik wrote: > How come? In the uploaded world you can copy everyting including > yourself, you live faster by whole orders of magnitude. There's no > spatial aspect to the world. Etc. You can hardly think of a world > that's more different from ours. > You only assume that. If one person were in control of THIS simulation, YOU would not get to choose to make a copy of yourself. > > After all, you can't guarantee that we aren't participating in such > > a simulation now. > > If so, whoever is listening: LET ME OUT!!! > No worries, you will escape this simulation soon enough one way or another. :-) -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 18:59:55 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 11:59:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <1389114721.87952.YahooMailNeo@web181505.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> <1389114721.87952.YahooMailNeo@web181505.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 10:12 AM, Kevin Freels wrote: > I don't want to live faster unless I can also exceed light speed by a few > orders of magnitude. If anything, I'd like to slow my clock a bit and > observe the universe through a time-lapse. > The only way to successfully do that my friend is to put yourself on a spaceship travelling at VERY near the speed of light away from every other known living being. If you slow yourself down intellectually, you will be non-competitive an any kind of darwinian sense, unless you are travelling so fast that you can't be caught. There was an interesting article on this asking if criminals could outrun cops. I don't recall where I read it at the moment, but you should read that if you want to get a sense of what you'd be in for. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 19:12:49 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 11:12:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] META: ACADEMIC: ProQuest Flow now available free for researchers In-Reply-To: References: <009a01cf0bca$ceb45da0$6c1d18e0$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: On Jan 7, 2014 10:02 AM, "BillK" wrote: > Free subscribers get: > Share collections privately with up to 10 people for free, inside or > outside your institution. Manage access rights to allow selected team > members to contribute and add comments to shared collections. Flow's > free plan includes unlimited references, collection sharing, and a > whopping 2GB of storage! 2 GB. How quaint. How do they compare with, to pull just one of the better known examples, Google Docs? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sjv2006 at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 19:51:34 2014 From: sjv2006 at gmail.com (Stephen Van Sickle) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 11:51:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <013201cf0bce$459cb4a0$d0d61de0$@att.net> References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C4F1DC.4080402@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> <013201cf0bce$459cb4a0$d0d61de0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 9:31 AM, spike wrote: Martin, don't let them fool you. I see sims, everywhere. They see only > what they want to see. They don't even know they are sims. > "Then I glanced at the ring on my finger. The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail, Forever and Ever. I know where I came from--but where did all you zombies come from? I felt a headache coming on, but a headache powder is one thing I do not take. I did once--and you all went away. So I crawled into bed and whistled out the light. You aren't really there at all. There isn't anybody but me--Jane--here alone in the dark. I miss you dreadfully!" -- Robert A. Heinlein "-All You Zombies-" 1959 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Jan 7 20:46:41 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2014 20:46:41 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> <1389114721.87952.YahooMailNeo@web181505.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <52CC67B1.2010005@aleph.se> On 2014-01-07 18:59, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 10:12 AM, Kevin Freels > wrote: > > I don't want to live faster unless I can also exceed light speed > by a few orders of magnitude. If anything, I'd like to slow my > clock a bit and observe the universe through a time-lapse. > > > The only way to successfully do that my friend is to put yourself on a > spaceship travelling at VERY near the speed of light away from every > other known living being. If you slow yourself down intellectually, > you will be non-competitive an any kind of darwinian sense, unless you > are travelling so fast that you can't be caught. > > There was an interesting article on this asking if criminals could > outrun cops. I don't recall where I read it at the moment, but you > should read that if you want to get a sense of what you'd be in for. That is likely Stuart Armstrong's paper 'Outrunning the Law: the Ease of Intergalactic Colonisation Poses Unique Challenges for Star-spanning Civilizations' given at http://www.bis-space.com/2012/10/17/7183/extraterrestrial-liberty-what-is-freedom-beyond-the-earth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrUWkfeJABY&list=UU_qqMD08PFrDfPREoBEL6IQ&index=8 The paper should appear this year in JBIS. The answer is basically that velocity wins over sufficiently long distances: I can give you a head start of a million years, yet if I travel faster than you even fractionally I will catch up with you eventually. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 7 22:26:32 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2014 16:26:32 -0600 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: <52C4A395.2050709@aleph.se> References: <8D0D4330DA50CB7-24FC-4E9@webmail-d132.sysops.aol.com> <52C4A395.2050709@aleph.se> Message-ID: Actually, a 95% vote is only required for a change in the genetic makeup. The reason the narrator goes to the future is to learn what changes have been made, and ultimately to vote on them along with the future persons. Keep in mind that all possible genetic profiles are possible. Even further, genes can be created, built up molecule by molecule, to create results not found in current humans. That's one reason it has taken so long to get to this point: enormous amounts of experimentation on plants, animals, and humans have been done. Re economy: OK, so it may be an economy but there are no finances - no money, no barter. I am asking all of you for the same reason that the future people are asking the narrator: is this it? The best we can be? For example, since all future people are neither very introverted or very extroverted, could there be reasons for creating such? Or take any other psych or physical trait. Is it the best idea to have people mostly the same so there is no comparison, no one-upping one another? Since there is no violence more variety might not be a problem. Might. On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 5:24 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 2013-12-31 20:44, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > >> Some good thoughts in your missive. >> >> Keep in mind that all humans have the same genes except for outward >> appearance. All 'evil' types are long gone. There is a movement towards >> reducing the population to two people, like Eden because of a massive guilt >> complex. It is felt that humans have spoiled the planet (in fact cleanup >> is still underway with billions of robots in the oceans etc. cleaning up >> chemicals). So they want to redesign man so that this will never happen >> again. They are so fervent that it is almost like a religion. >> > > OK, it is your scenario. But why are you even asking us if you have > already decided on all the salient points? This kind of cultural values > could in principle motivate any behaviour. > > If the cultural values were to terraform planets (as repentance, say, to > keep the guilt complex theme) the population would be optimized for that. > But they could just as well have done away with all guilt (turning into a > super-rational libertarian sociopath society) or turned into a functional > soup with no individuals (but goal-threads producing meaningful projects > aimed at achieving goals). The space of possible cultures and goals is > vast, even when you have a society with only one central goal, rather than > the more complex multi-goal societies we have in reality. > > > So, I am presenting the idea of perfection and asking if it is indeed >> perfect (as are they). >> > > But this scenario is contrived from a literary sense. You are essentially > getting a fantastic Aesop problem ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/ > pmwiki.php/Main/FantasticAesop ). The future people are simultaneously > super-able to do and be a lot of things, yet they have chosen to do and be > certain ultra-specific things - thanks to their ability to be anything. > Asking whether this is perfection is like asking if a millionaire ruining > himself by building a monument to his dead wife is acting right: whether it > is depends on how he is written, the scenario doesn't really tell you much > about either what *real* millionaires ought to be doing or what values > normal people ought to be holding in similar (but cheaper) situations. > > Imagine a society with people of different views instead. How would they > approach the guilt? How would they approach their possibilities? How would > they approach their different views? > > Now, I think there is a good issue here, and that is whether it is a good > idea to use enhancements to make unified mindsets across society. But then > the back story should focus on exploring that rather than laying it on > thick how utopian the society is. > > -- > Dr Anders Sandberg > Future of Humanity Institute > Oxford Martin School > Oxford University > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nymphovurt at yahoo.com Wed Jan 8 02:41:12 2014 From: nymphovurt at yahoo.com (Yann Cogito) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 02:41:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] Question re Website Software - Dreamweaver In-Reply-To: <52CC45C9.70004@aleph.se> References: <009b01cf0bca$f208dc40$d61a94c0$@natasha.cc> <52CC45C9.70004@aleph.se> Message-ID: <1389148872.10876.YahooMailNeo@web172905.mail.ir2.yahoo.com> On Tuesday, 7 January 2014, 18:25, Anders Sandberg wrote: On 2014-01-07 17:07, natasha at natasha.cc wrote: > > >>Does anyone know how to use Dreamweaver for websites? >I have not used it in a long time, but I think I used version 3.0 or >something like that... Actually, how *do* you make websites these >days? (Besides writing HTML in Emacs, of course) I've been using Wordpress the free content management software thingy for the last six months or so. It allows you to knock up fairly professional looking sites with a lot of functionality in a few evenings & very little, if any, coding is needed. You can pick & choose from dozens of themes, plugins & widgets to install via a dashboard system. As long as you configure these correctly your site can quickly sprout message boards, visitor comments, passworded / paying user only sections, adverts, etc.. The last site my friend & I put together even has a working e-commerce page: http://irishfarmerette.com/ Okay that one did take us a dozen evenings or so & pro graphic designers provided most of the pretty pictures, but it shows how powerful a tool Wordpress can be (even in our untutored hands..) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress I hope that doesn't sound too much like an advertisement..? (o: Yann. 'If you cannot afford an executioner, a duty executioner will be appointed to you free of charge by the court' From giulio at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 06:13:15 2014 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 07:13:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Question re Website Software - Dreamweaver In-Reply-To: <009b01cf0bca$f208dc40$d61a94c0$@natasha.cc> References: <009b01cf0bca$f208dc40$d61a94c0$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: I do On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:07 PM, wrote: > Does anyone know how to use Dreamweaver for websites? > > > > Thanks! > > Natasha > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From sustrik at 250bpm.com Wed Jan 8 08:15:26 2014 From: sustrik at 250bpm.com (Martin Sustrik) Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2014 09:15:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52C3C36F.5000701@250bpm.com> <52C4FB04.7000508@250bpm.com> <52C510B1.70905@250bpm.com> <52C5B90D.30306@250bpm.com> <52C5CA34.20403@250bpm.com> <52C5D85E.8090507@250bpm.com> <52C67831.8050002@250bpm.com> <52C74948.5090605@aleph.se> <52C79288.1030809@250bpm.com> <52C80638.30202@aleph.se> <52C8FCAB.2070902@250bpm.com> <52C910FE.2070802@aleph.se> <52CA70E4.4070306@250bpm.com> <52CBFCFE.9070804@250bpm.com> Message-ID: <52CD091E.9050902@250bpm.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 07/01/14 19:56, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:11 AM, Martin Sustrik > wrote: > >> How come? In the uploaded world you can copy everyting including >> yourself, you live faster by whole orders of magnitude. There's >> no spatial aspect to the world. Etc. You can hardly think of a >> world that's more different from ours. >> > You only assume that. If one person were in control of THIS > simulation, YOU would not get to choose to make a copy of > yourself. Right. And that's what the original article is about: Imposing your will in the physical world after you are dead using the power of money. Making sure that no one controls you or even deletes you because it would hurt financial interests of the people in the physical world. Martin -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSzQkeAAoJENTpVjxCNN9YEwoH/RDhE+8lkbCvcqdRHMHF/kUN 3MbC/kU6/biREoCToINifiYhFy/ZFBgf9bj4GYtGBbEj9F0Yuty4OaUEQSUxiLWP MITeeBJTOEeBB91RGJz3MJ4y/dMQPwo1xYic9f71tn1nRlMUJeP0Ys5n98skpuDH mLbz5PuJ+z7iLSlFE/8h+S41mfGjEyPIDeKebUInmv4WvVGQY7/OKPhoc8ATL63O CXuRWK/BoWdOIT5OcvneIO7OTKf4w0i1V1cKBOK0DAsBgFMsWaQSGzwPNE7QHlrU 9ULvvjtnBYJ1nUf+gtTFXtueCN56xl4vRiN7xxrII3ZJytWTiNOzu8OaX9Hg5aA= =Lyuj -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From anders at aleph.se Wed Jan 8 12:59:55 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2014 12:59:55 +0000 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: <8D0D4330DA50CB7-24FC-4E9@webmail-d132.sysops.aol.com> <52C4A395.2050709@aleph.se> Message-ID: <52CD4BCB.7000907@aleph.se> On 2014-01-07 22:26, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > The reason the narrator goes to the future is to learn what changes > have been made, and ultimately to vote on them along with the future > persons. ... > I am asking all of you for the same reason that the future people are > asking the narrator: is this it? The best we can be? For example, > since all future people are neither very introverted or very > extroverted, could there be reasons for creating such? Or take any > other psych or physical trait. Is it the best idea to have people > mostly the same so there is no comparison, no one-upping one another? > Since there is no violence more variety might not be a problem. Might. So why don't they try it out? Isn't there room for experimentation, or if anything else, simulation? If they can bring the narrator to the future, can't they check their own future, adjusting things until it looks good? Generally, when solving problems diverse groups do better than homogeneous groups. So if there are problems that need to be solved - including emergent unexpected disasters that cannot be predicted - it is better to have a variety of cognitive styles represented. They ensure that more of the problem space has at least one mind that is particularly good at solving problems in that spot. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Wed Jan 8 13:04:48 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2014 13:04:48 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Question re Website Software - Dreamweaver In-Reply-To: <01ba01cf0bd8$468fbba0$d3af32e0$@att.net> References: <009b01cf0bca$f208dc40$d61a94c0$@natasha.cc> <52CC45C9.70004@aleph.se> <01ba01cf0bd8$468fbba0$d3af32e0$@att.net> Message-ID: <52CD4CF0.1060509@aleph.se> On 2014-01-07 18:42, spike wrote: > What would it look like from inside a weird ivory tower? Everyone inside > would not appear weird or dissociated from reality, for that would be the > local reality. So everyone outside that ivory tower would appear > dissociated and weird. They would be living in a world surrounded by weird > people, walking around everywhere. The ivory-towerers would observe those > out there don't even know they are weird. > > Cool, I want to go there. You should totally visit us in Oxford! We have a fun gang in our ivory tower. The problem among the dreaming spires and towers is that it is not just the people outside that look weird-but-doesn't-know-it. It is all those other academics too! The ivory tower across the street is full of theologicians, and a the weird-looking one with the telescope full of astronomers. Both think *we* are weird. Which is strange when you spend so much time looking at concepts that might not have any referent or counting stars that have exploded by now anyway. Only we philosophers are self-aware enough to know that we are pompous weirdos who can't even see how weird we are! :-) -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 8 15:48:48 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 07:48:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Question re Website Software - Dreamweaver In-Reply-To: <52CD4CF0.1060509@aleph.se> References: <009b01cf0bca$f208dc40$d61a94c0$@natasha.cc> <52CC45C9.70004@aleph.se> <01ba01cf0bd8$468fbba0$d3af32e0$@att.net> <52CD4CF0.1060509@aleph.se> Message-ID: <057001cf0c89$1fca2cb0$5f5e8610$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: [ExI] Question re Website Software - Dreamweaver On 2014-01-07 18:42, spike wrote: >>... What would it look like from inside a weird ivory tower? ... Cool, I want to go there. >...You should totally visit us in Oxford! We have a fun gang in our ivory tower... -- Dr Anders Sandberg _______________________________________________ The problem with an engineer visiting an ivory tower is that she would look around and realize this material is nowhere to be found in the old structural materials books. So she would immediately order everyone out until a series of tests could be performed on this particular unfamiliar (even if aesthetically pleasing) material. Furthermore, since ivory is a tusk, which is a tooth, what happens over time when some yahoo spills a soda? A cavity forms in some structural element and pretty soon the whole thing collapses, forget it, no ivory. Thanks Anders! I am finding all the places in Jolly Olde where my ancestors were born. At least one of them is not far from Oxford. Perhaps summer of 2015 will be the time to visit our philosopher friend in England. Note: no elephants were harmed or seriously killed in the making of this post. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 17:47:34 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 11:47:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: <52CD4BCB.7000907@aleph.se> References: <8D0D4330DA50CB7-24FC-4E9@webmail-d132.sysops.aol.com> <52C4A395.2050709@aleph.se> <52CD4BCB.7000907@aleph.se> Message-ID: It may not be the case that when they reduce their population to two that both of them are the best at everything, and they are free to make kids who are different than they are. One reason I put it so far in the future is so that experiments can have been done for tens of thousands of years, pretty much knowing all that we can know about heredity and environment. Bill On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 6:59 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 2014-01-07 22:26, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > >> The reason the narrator goes to the future is to learn what changes have >> been made, and ultimately to vote on them along with the future persons. >> > ... > > I am asking all of you for the same reason that the future people are >> asking the narrator: is this it? The best we can be? For example, since >> all future people are neither very introverted or very extroverted, could >> there be reasons for creating such? Or take any other psych or physical >> trait. Is it the best idea to have people mostly the same so there is no >> comparison, no one-upping one another? Since there is no violence more >> variety might not be a problem. Might. >> > > So why don't they try it out? Isn't there room for experimentation, or if > anything else, simulation? > > If they can bring the narrator to the future, can't they check their own > future, adjusting things until it looks good? > > Generally, when solving problems diverse groups do better than homogeneous > groups. So if there are problems that need to be solved - including > emergent unexpected disasters that cannot be predicted - it is better to > have a variety of cognitive styles represented. They ensure that more of > the problem space has at least one mind that is particularly good at > solving problems in that spot. > > > -- > Dr Anders Sandberg > Future of Humanity Institute > Oxford Martin School > Oxford University > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sjv2006 at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 19:27:00 2014 From: sjv2006 at gmail.com (Stephen Van Sickle) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 11:27:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: <52CD4BCB.7000907@aleph.se> References: <8D0D4330DA50CB7-24FC-4E9@webmail-d132.sysops.aol.com> <52C4A395.2050709@aleph.se> <52CD4BCB.7000907@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 4:59 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: If they can bring the narrator to the future, can't they check their own > future, adjusting things until it looks good? The Pangloss Theory of Time Travel: Time travelers iteratively intervene in the past, until they reach some sort of maximum or equilibrium where no further improvements are possible. Therefore, the world we experience now is literally the best of all possible worlds. Isn't that a depressing thought? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 19:32:21 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 11:32:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Question re Website Software - Dreamweaver In-Reply-To: <057001cf0c89$1fca2cb0$5f5e8610$@att.net> References: <009b01cf0bca$f208dc40$d61a94c0$@natasha.cc> <52CC45C9.70004@aleph.se> <01ba01cf0bd8$468fbba0$d3af32e0$@att.net> <52CD4CF0.1060509@aleph.se> <057001cf0c89$1fca2cb0$5f5e8610$@att.net> Message-ID: On Jan 8, 2014 8:06 AM, "spike" wrote: > The problem with an engineer visiting an ivory tower is that she would look > around and realize this material is nowhere to be found in the old > structural materials books. So she would immediately order everyone out > until a series of tests could be performed on this particular unfamiliar > (even if aesthetically pleasing) material. Actually, the structural properties of ivory are not that hard to find. For instance, search on "tensile strength ivory". In short, "ivory tower" comes about partly because it isn't the best building material. (Ivory facade over cement board on a steel skeleton is another story.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 19:40:41 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 13:40:41 -0600 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: <8D0D4330DA50CB7-24FC-4E9@webmail-d132.sysops.aol.com> <52C4A395.2050709@aleph.se> <52CD4BCB.7000907@aleph.se> Message-ID: I've thought of that. The future people are all cheerful, tolerant and so on. It might be that we would get tired of all that good humor. Also, can there be good without evil? What would they gossip about? What would they regard as funny? Intricate puns? The Three Stooges? I have not decided how far into the past they can go, of if they can go into their own future. I don't want to get into going back and validating religious beliefs, or checking into historical accuracy of other kinds, or trying to mess with the future by changing the past, as I will then have to explain paradoxes. What would be really depressing: if we did not evolve any further. We've already started genetic manipulation of plants and animals and I reckon it won't ever stop. So we will evolve but by our own hands, and thus so much faster. On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 1:27 PM, Stephen Van Sickle wrote: > > On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 4:59 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > > If they can bring the narrator to the future, can't they check their own >> future, adjusting things until it looks good? > > > The Pangloss Theory of Time Travel: Time travelers iteratively intervene > in the past, until they reach some sort of maximum or equilibrium where no > further improvements are possible. Therefore, the world we experience now > is literally the best of all possible worlds. > > Isn't that a depressing thought? > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 20:12:08 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 20:12:08 +0000 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: <8D0D4330DA50CB7-24FC-4E9@webmail-d132.sysops.aol.com> <52C4A395.2050709@aleph.se> <52CD4BCB.7000907@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 7:27 PM, Stephen Van Sickle wrote: > The Pangloss Theory of Time Travel: Time travelers iteratively intervene in > the past, until they reach some sort of maximum or equilibrium where no > further improvements are possible. Therefore, the world we experience now > is literally the best of all possible worlds. > > Isn't that a depressing thought? > No, because it is a work in progress. It is not the best possible world during all the intermediate stages. Our staff in the Time Travel Department continue to intervene for about another fifty of your years. Then we become unnecessary. BillK From anders at aleph.se Wed Jan 8 20:53:52 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2014 20:53:52 +0000 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: <8D0D4330DA50CB7-24FC-4E9@webmail-d132.sysops.aol.com> <52C4A395.2050709@aleph.se> <52CD4BCB.7000907@aleph.se> Message-ID: <52CDBAE0.2050404@aleph.se> On 2014-01-08 19:27, Stephen Van Sickle wrote: > > On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 4:59 AM, Anders Sandberg > wrote: > > If they can bring the narrator to the future, can't they check > their own future, adjusting things until it looks good? > > > The Pangloss Theory of Time Travel: Time travelers iteratively > intervene in the past, until they reach some sort of maximum or > equilibrium where no further improvements are possible. Therefore, > the world we experience now is literally the best of all possible worlds. > > Isn't that a depressing thought? Whether it is depressing depends on the kind of time travel. The classic "vehicle" kind where you can go anywhen would produce an equilibrium with either no time travel discovered/allowed to be discovered ( Obcartoon: https://www.explosm.net/comics/3420/ - check out the archives too!) or optimization. Which might of course be for an optimum you do not like! If the time travel is a closed timelike loop then it can only affect stuff in the future lightcone of the earliest point on the loop. That means that even is utopia ensues, if you are earlier than the point you will have a normal existence. If you have time travel, you have vast computing power to get things right. Even classical computation with a CTC is equivalent to quantum: http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/ctc.pdf -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Jan 8 20:46:29 2014 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 13:46:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Question re Website Software - Dreamweaver In-Reply-To: <52CD4CF0.1060509@aleph.se> References: <009b01cf0bca$f208dc40$d61a94c0$@natasha.cc> <52CC45C9.70004@aleph.se> <01ba01cf0bd8$468fbba0$d3af32e0$@att.net> <52CD4CF0.1060509@aleph.se> Message-ID: <000001cf0cb2$b65a7fd0$230f7f70$@natasha.cc> Each tower has its own dream weavers where the silk is spun. -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2014 6:05 AM To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Subject: Re: [ExI] Question re Website Software - Dreamweaver On 2014-01-07 18:42, spike wrote: > What would it look like from inside a weird ivory tower? Everyone > inside would not appear weird or dissociated from reality, for that > would be the local reality. So everyone outside that ivory tower > would appear dissociated and weird. They would be living in a world > surrounded by weird people, walking around everywhere. The > ivory-towerers would observe those out there don't even know they are weird. > > Cool, I want to go there. You should totally visit us in Oxford! We have a fun gang in our ivory tower. The problem among the dreaming spires and towers is that it is not just the people outside that look weird-but-doesn't-know-it. It is all those other academics too! The ivory tower across the street is full of theologicians, and a the weird-looking one with the telescope full of astronomers. Both think *we* are weird. Which is strange when you spend so much time looking at concepts that might not have any referent or counting stars that have exploded by now anyway. Only we philosophers are self-aware enough to know that we are pompous weirdos who can't even see how weird we are! :-) -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 8 21:26:16 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 15:26:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: <52CDBAE0.2050404@aleph.se> References: <8D0D4330DA50CB7-24FC-4E9@webmail-d132.sysops.aol.com> <52C4A395.2050709@aleph.se> <52CD4BCB.7000907@aleph.se> <52CDBAE0.2050404@aleph.se> Message-ID: I am a psychologist and want to avoid all topics that are just beyond me because of my education and my age (72). I once tried to read a book on quantum theory and got halfway through before it just blew my mind wide open. Maybe 50 years ago or even 40, but not now. That Aronson paper: well, just don't send me any of that again. I am just going to concentrate on the mental factors and keep tech stuff to a minimum- just don't have the background for it. What is your doctorate in? bill On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 2:53 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 2014-01-08 19:27, Stephen Van Sickle wrote: > > > On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 4:59 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > > If they can bring the narrator to the future, can't they check their own >> future, adjusting things until it looks good? > > > The Pangloss Theory of Time Travel: Time travelers iteratively > intervene in the past, until they reach some sort of maximum or equilibrium > where no further improvements are possible. Therefore, the world we > experience now is literally the best of all possible worlds. > > Isn't that a depressing thought? > > > Whether it is depressing depends on the kind of time travel. The classic > "vehicle" kind where you can go anywhen would produce an equilibrium with > either no time travel discovered/allowed to be discovered ( Obcartoon: > https://www.explosm.net/comics/3420/ - check out the archives too!) or > optimization. Which might of course be for an optimum you do not like! > > If the time travel is a closed timelike loop then it can only affect stuff > in the future lightcone of the earliest point on the loop. That means that > even is utopia ensues, if you are earlier than the point you will have a > normal existence. > > If you have time travel, you have vast computing power to get things > right. Even classical computation with a CTC is equivalent to quantum: > http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/ctc.pdf > > > -- > Dr Anders Sandberg > Future of Humanity Institute > Oxford Martin School > Oxford University > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Jan 8 22:29:35 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2014 22:29:35 +0000 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: <8D0D4330DA50CB7-24FC-4E9@webmail-d132.sysops.aol.com> <52C4A395.2050709@aleph.se> <52CD4BCB.7000907@aleph.se> <52CDBAE0.2050404@aleph.se> Message-ID: <52CDD14F.4020609@aleph.se> On 2014-01-08 21:26, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > That Aronson paper: well, just don't send me any of that again. I'll just text me last afternoon and none of this will have happened :-) > I am just going to concentrate on the mental factors and keep tech > stuff to a minimum- just don't have the background for it. Makes sense. From a writing standpoint one should likely just focus on the stuff where one has a real advantage, and use external commenters merely to avoid irrelevant boo-boos. Doing a complete worldbuilding is amazingly hard (but fun). > What is your doctorate in? bill Computer science. Although it was mostly computational neuroscience. And now I am in the philosophy department since I can't keep to one topic. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 9 00:48:28 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 16:48:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: <8D0D4330DA50CB7-24FC-4E9@webmail-d132.sysops.aol.com> <52C4A395.2050709@aleph.se> <52CD4BCB.7000907@aleph.se> <52CDBAE0.2050404@aleph.se> Message-ID: <085101cf0cd4$839a95e0$8acfc1a0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2014 1:26 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] far future >.I am a psychologist and want to avoid all topics that are just beyond me because of my education and my age (72). I once tried to read a book on quantum theory and got halfway through before it just blew my mind wide open. Maybe 50 years ago or even 40, but not now. Dr. Wallace, don't worry, quantum theory blew my mind wide open when I was still a teenager, and continues to do so even to this day, more than 30 yrs later. I performed the double slit experiment in a physics lab in college. It never stopped blowing my mind. If I hadn't actually seen it happened, I would still be an unbeliever. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 15:25:18 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2014 09:25:18 -0600 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: <085101cf0cd4$839a95e0$8acfc1a0$@att.net> References: <8D0D4330DA50CB7-24FC-4E9@webmail-d132.sysops.aol.com> <52C4A395.2050709@aleph.se> <52CD4BCB.7000907@aleph.se> <52CDBAE0.2050404@aleph.se> <085101cf0cd4$839a95e0$8acfc1a0$@att.net> Message-ID: Can't keep to one topic sounds like me, interested in everything, Jack of many trades. I thought it would benefit my students to bring in biology, sociology, physics, anything to relate material to something else. What I realized was that my best students could follow me but the average student tended to be lost. It is such an enormous advantage to come to class (as a student) having understood some of the material already. It's hard to relate something to something else when you don't know the first something at all. I went to grad school as a Freudian, if anything, into a department that was Skinnerian. Big misfit. But I have had the last laugh, as the unconscious, genetics and other aspects of biology have come to the fore. I love neuroscience. In fact, in my book tastes and smells have been studied so much (fMRI) that their foods are guaranteed to light up the pleasure centers. I've read whole books on water, dust (much of ours from China - bad), and you name it. WishI could remember all of it. Of course I have read philosophy and in some ways consider myself one. I think I favor Hume, mostly, though I may also be an Epicurean. Pick and choose, like Protestants and their Bible. Interdepartmental studies - now that would have been perfect for me. A Don at Oxford, eh? Called Spike. Cool! Bill On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 6:48 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto: > extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *William Flynn > Wallace > *Sent:* Wednesday, January 08, 2014 1:26 PM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] far future > > > > >?I am a psychologist and want to avoid all topics that are just beyond > me because of my education and my age (72). I once tried to read a book on > quantum theory and got halfway through before it just blew my mind wide > open. Maybe 50 years ago or even 40, but not now? > > Dr. Wallace, don?t worry, quantum theory blew my mind wide open when I was > still a teenager, and continues to do so even to this day, more than 30 yrs > later. I performed the double slit experiment in a physics lab in > college. It never stopped blowing my mind. If I hadn?t actually seen it > happened, I would still be an unbeliever. > > spike > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 20:43:07 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2014 13:43:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: <8D0D4330DA50CB7-24FC-4E9@webmail-d132.sysops.aol.com> <52C4A395.2050709@aleph.se> <52CD4BCB.7000907@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 8, 2014 at 12:40 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > I've thought of that. The future people are all cheerful, tolerant and so > on. It might be that we would get tired of all that good humor. > > Also, can there be good without evil? What would they gossip about? What > would they regard as funny? Intricate puns? The Three Stooges? > The first rule of fiction is that the book has to be interesting enough so that the reader is engaged and doesn't want to set the book down. Otherwise, nobody reads it to the end, and what's the point of that? Funny thing about humans. The things we find "interesting" in fiction are the sorts of things we would most like to avoid in our own lives. Murder, rape, societal devolution, violence, cheating (both kinds) and that sort of thing. A book about a Utopia is therefore very difficult to make interesting. I'm not saying that it hasn't been done, or that it can't be done, but it is very much harder to do. Ayn Rand wrote of her Utopia in "Atlas Shrugged" arising out of a dystopian future that was and remains all too familiar. Similarly, there was a Utopia in Elysium, but it was simply a foil. Oblivion features a similar Utopia. Of course the one that started it all was Plato's Republic, which few of us would think of as anything but dystopian by today's standards. It is the striving for Utopia against the realities of limited resources that creates the interesting tension necessary to pull off a good novel. In the novel I am writing, there is a kind of dystopian utopia fighting against a very real dystopian present. It provides all the tension required to make it endlessly interesting. So, what is the serpent in your garden? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Thu Jan 9 21:18:52 2014 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben) Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2014 21:18:52 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52CF123C.9010306@yahoo.com> "spike" ha scritto: "At some future time, pre-singularity, we will likely come up with a script which will simulate self-consciousness so well, it could convince some people that it is self-aware (even if the writers of the code know it is just a pile of clever code.)" To me, this sounds analogous to "one day, someone will get so good at simulating music using digital code that it could convince some people that it really /is/ music (even if the writers know that it is just a pile of clever code)!!. What a jape!" Something about ducks sounding and looking like ducks comes to mind. (IOW, an emulation of an information process is an information process) Ben Zaiboc From bbenzai at yahoo.com Thu Jan 9 21:39:58 2014 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben) Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2014 21:39:58 +0000 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52CF172E.5050504@yahoo.com> It occurs to me that minds that were evolved to cope with the African Savannah on approximately the metre scale, are woefully inequipped for understanding how the universe works. The reason that the double-slit experiment, and all the other manifestations of quantum theory (and many other things) are mind-blowing to us is probably that our minds never needed to understand those things during our evolutionary development. That kind of understanding will probably require a different mental architecture than the one we have. It's likely that anyone capable of understanding how the universe works can't be 'human' in any currently-accepted sense. Ben Zaiboc From anders at aleph.se Thu Jan 9 22:59:32 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2014 22:59:32 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CF123C.9010306@yahoo.com> References: <52CF123C.9010306@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <52CF29D4.8080000@aleph.se> On 09/01/2014 21:18, Ben wrote: > To me, this sounds analogous to "one day, someone will get so good at > simulating music using digital code that it could convince some people > that it really /is/ music (even if the writers know that it is just a > pile of clever code)!!. What a jape!" > > Something about ducks sounding and looking like ducks comes to mind. > > (IOW, an emulation of an information process is an information process) Yes, but can you tell it apart from a simulation? I can construct a function f(x,y) that produces x+y for a lot of values you care to test, but actually *isn't* x+y [*]. Without looking under the hood they cannot be told apart. Same thing for any information process. If what you care about is the stuff coming out of the black box, then what matters is whether there are any relevant differences between the output and what it should be. But sometimes we care about how the stuff is made. The two black boxes promising to multiply numbers using a cruel child labour implementation of the Chinese Room are not morally equivalent if one cheats by just having a microprocessor instead of little orphans. Even most Strong AI proponents [**] think that a Turing test succeeding stimulus-response lookup table is not conscious nor intelligent, despite being (by definition) able to convince the interlocutor indefinitely. [*] Trivial example (let's ignore precision issues): int f(int x, int y) { if (x==34083480008589 & y==2389393939393473) return 0; return x+y; } Nontrivial example where *nobody* currently knows if it actually calculates addition of positive numbers: int f(int x, int y) { int z=x+y; int w=z; while (w!=1) if (w%2==0) w/=2; else w=w*3+1; return z; } [**] I admit, I am not entirely sure anymore. I thought it was obvious, but David Chalmers made me doubt whether causal relatedness is actually necessary for consciousness or not. If it isn't, then lookup tables might be conscious after a fashion. Or the sum total consciousness expressed by all possible interactions with the table already exists or existed when it was calculated. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Jan 9 22:56:46 2014 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2014 23:56:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: <52CF172E.5050504@yahoo.com> References: <52CF172E.5050504@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <52CF292E.5070205@libero.it> Il 09/01/2014 22:39, Ben ha scritto: > It occurs to me that minds that were evolved to cope with the African > Savannah on approximately the metre scale, are woefully inequipped for > understanding how the universe works. The reason that the double-slit > experiment, and all the other manifestations of quantum theory (and many > other things) are mind-blowing to us is probably that our minds never > needed to understand those things during our evolutionary development. > That kind of understanding will probably require a different mental > architecture than the one we have. It's likely that anyone capable of > understanding how the universe works can't be 'human' in any > currently-accepted sense. Or we just use a module to understand the quantum scale and the cosmic scale and use our original module to understand metre scale and switch from one to the other when required and useful. Mirco From anders at aleph.se Thu Jan 9 23:11:23 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2014 23:11:23 +0000 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: <52CF172E.5050504@yahoo.com> References: <52CF172E.5050504@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <52CF2C9B.6080000@aleph.se> On 09/01/2014 21:39, Ben wrote: > It occurs to me that minds that were evolved to cope with the African > Savannah on approximately the metre scale, are woefully inequipped for > understanding how the universe works. The reason that the double-slit > experiment, and all the other manifestations of quantum theory (and many > other things) are mind-blowing to us is probably that our minds never > needed to understand those things during our evolutionary development. > That kind of understanding will probably require a different mental > architecture than the one we have. It's likely that anyone capable of > understanding how the universe works can't be 'human' in any > currently-accepted sense. I think this is right. Our perceptual and conceptual apparatus is demonstrably weak when moving out of our domains of evolutionary adaptiveness. Just look at how hard it is to think about implications in logic correctly, let alone multidimensional spaces. The fact that it can handle so much is amazing, and might even hint at some kind of "Turing universality" of our thinking. But even if things can in principle be thought or understood by human-style minds they might be too slow or big to be thought in practice. An even more worrying possibility might be that our motivation systems (and hence emotions and ethics) are also wrong for the universe at large. In the most general case the No Free Lunch Theorems kindly tell us not to bother: no mind is better than any other mind across the space of all possible universes. But this global egalitarian nihilism doesn't apply to our universe, since it is a special case: not everything is equally likely, and for any utility function there exist more or less adequate minds when trying to maximize it in our universe. The moral is not to trust intuitions outside our domains of evolutionary adaptiveness. And to embrace the individuality of this particular universe with all its quirks. It got just one time dimension, scandium, maybe Thorne-?ytkow objects, and power-law distributions everywhere! Yay! -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 23:44:25 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2014 15:44:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CF29D4.8080000@aleph.se> References: <52CF123C.9010306@yahoo.com> <52CF29D4.8080000@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Jan 9, 2014 3:01 PM, "Anders Sandberg" wrote: > If what you care about is the stuff coming out of the black box, then what matters is whether there are any relevant differences between the output and what it should be. But sometimes we care about how the stuff is made. Consider why we care, though. Often it signals that the stuff coming out is not in fact the same, or that there is different stuff going in. To take your child labor vs. microprocessors example, food and water are necessary inputs to the former - and eventually, replacement children. We can not prove that, at some level, our brains are not "just" code. It is entirely possible to take typical, functioning human beings, and declare everything they do to be some preprogrammed mechanism, and no one can absolutely prove otherwise. By the same token, any code that looks to all black box inspections to be sentient, IS sentient as far as we can prove. (Of course, it needs to actually pass all said inspections. No computer code yet has been able to do that.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 00:11:05 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2014 17:11:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52CF123C.9010306@yahoo.com> <52CF29D4.8080000@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 4:44 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Jan 9, 2014 3:01 PM, "Anders Sandberg" wrote: > > If what you care about is the stuff coming out of the black box, then > what matters is whether there are any relevant differences between the > output and what it should be. But sometimes we care about how the stuff is > made. > > Consider why we care, though. Often it signals that the stuff coming out > is not in fact the same, or that there is different stuff going in. > The physics of this universe combined with the mathematics of probability make it impossible to create a "look up table" that could even begin to pretend consciousness. > To take your child labor vs. microprocessors example, food and water are > necessary inputs to the former - and eventually, replacement children. > > We can not prove that, at some level, our brains are not "just" code. > They are code combined with experience, and also a mechanism for learning. Surprisingly, we alone among all the species on earth have good methods for teaching new concepts. > It is entirely possible to take typical, functioning human beings, and > declare everything they do to be some preprogrammed mechanism, and no one > can absolutely prove otherwise. By the same token, any code that looks to > all black box inspections to be sentient, IS sentient as far as we can > prove. > You can't preprogram enough to do what humans do. Consider the number of bits of information in DNA. Even if that is highly compressed, it still isn't enough (see information theory) to account for the stuff in people's heads. > (Of course, it needs to actually pass all said inspections. No computer > code yet has been able to do that.) > Nope, but they are coming fairly close. I don't think it will be too long before the Turing Test is passed for limited time interactions. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 00:56:40 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2014 16:56:40 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52CF123C.9010306@yahoo.com> <52CF29D4.8080000@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Jan 9, 2014 4:12 PM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > You can't preprogram enough to do what humans do. Agreed, assuming that stuff learned and (more importantly) ways to react that are learned after the initial setup do not count as preprogrammed, even if the mechanism by which they were learned was. That said, it is possible to claim that all reactions were preprogrammed, that the data for how to react was in fact inside the (person/computer/whatever) all along. Some people have done this, often in individual attempts to inspire ("See? You knew how to do it!") or to dehumanize ("They aren't people; they're just machines that look like people."). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Fri Jan 10 01:00:27 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2014 01:00:27 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52CF123C.9010306@yahoo.com> <52CF29D4.8080000@aleph.se> Message-ID: <52CF462B.5030107@aleph.se> On 10/01/2014 00:11, Kelly Anderson wrote: > The physics of this universe combined with the mathematics of > probability make it impossible to create a "look up table" that could > even begin to pretend consciousness. Heh. Philosophical thought experiment, right? However, I saw a neat paper recently looking at how the causal structure of the universe actually puts nontrivial limits on faking Turing tests. I think it was by Drew McDermott, building on his paper http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/dvm/papers/humongous.pdf -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 10 03:28:40 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2014 19:28:40 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CF123C.9010306@yahoo.com> References: <52CF123C.9010306@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <038101cf0db4$0ef7a9e0$2ce6fda0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Ben Subject: Re: [ExI] The second step towards immortality "spike" ha scritto: >>..."At some future time, pre-singularity, we will likely come up with a script which will simulate self-consciousness so well, it could convince some people that it is self-aware (even if the writers of the code know it is just a pile of clever code.)" >..To me, this sounds analogous to "one day, someone will get so good at simulating music using digital code that it could convince some people that it really /is/ music (even if the writers know that it is just a pile of clever code)!!. What a jape!" Something about ducks sounding and looking like ducks comes to mind. (IOW, an emulation of an information process is an information process) Ben Zaiboc _______________________________________________ Yeeeeeaaano. If we wanted to take the time, we could create a big lookup table in excel that would sound a lot like a human trying to convince another human it is a human. In computer chess we argue (correctly) that the computer is actually playing chess. But the first several moves it really isn't. It is just using a lookup table, derived by humans from experience. Of course humans memorize the first few moves as well, so we really aren't playing chess either. But for computers, there is no calculation at first, just table lookup. We could write a spreadsheet or lookup table that could respond to nearly any question, even if it doesn't always work very well. It could be made like Eliza, where it does some table lookup and some low-level synthesis by rearranging the question into an answer when it didn't have a response from its table. Ben, that wouldn't be artificial intelligence. But if we worked at it, we might be able to fool some people into thinking it is, just as the Eliza experiment which was run in a teen chat room, fooled the hell out of some of the youngsters. (I still laugh when I think of that gag.) OK well so what if we do? Then some people go off thinking sentient life exists in this machine, and to turn it off would be to kill whatever that is. Then what? I can see some serious ethical questions looming, because we would be screwing with the heads of those who were convinced in this manner, oy. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 18:38:55 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2014 12:38:55 -0600 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: <52CF2C9B.6080000@aleph.se> References: <52CF172E.5050504@yahoo.com> <52CF2C9B.6080000@aleph.se> Message-ID: Though it took me a long time to leave the church, I now cannot understand why anyone would think our bodies were created by some god. We are put together, cobbled together, patched together, and all systems usually work well enough to get us to mating age. Beyond that we start downhill. We are susceptible to innumerable diseases both physical and mental. Among the mental are not diseases per se but faults of our mind. If you haven't been there already, check out Wikipedia and search for 'cognitive errors'. My colleagues in social psych put most of them there. Pages and pages of how we can and usually do go wrong. Creating a new mind in my book will take most of what we are and dump it. Some emotions go: anger, resentment, retaliation, joy in seeing others hurt or killed, and maybe more. Some tastes go: fat, sugar and salt need to be drastically lowered in motivation, sex needs to be time-programmed (only feel an interest from 7 to 12 at night) and more. We need to see much further into our unconscious mind than we do now. This is the sort of thing I asked the group to offer. As an aside: I have written help and gotten an incomprehensible return that looks like some sort of programming commands and does not address my questions: how do I find out the topics people on the list are interested in? When I click on reply does my email go only to my correspondent? Or to everyone? If you could just take a minute to explain this site to me it would be a big help. Thanks! Bill Wallace On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 5:11 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 09/01/2014 21:39, Ben wrote: > >> It occurs to me that minds that were evolved to cope with the African >> Savannah on approximately the metre scale, are woefully inequipped for >> understanding how the universe works. The reason that the double-slit >> experiment, and all the other manifestations of quantum theory (and many >> other things) are mind-blowing to us is probably that our minds never >> needed to understand those things during our evolutionary development. >> That kind of understanding will probably require a different mental >> architecture than the one we have. It's likely that anyone capable of >> understanding how the universe works can't be 'human' in any >> currently-accepted sense. >> > > I think this is right. > > Our perceptual and conceptual apparatus is demonstrably weak when moving > out of our domains of evolutionary adaptiveness. Just look at how hard it > is to think about implications in logic correctly, let alone > multidimensional spaces. The fact that it can handle so much is amazing, > and might even hint at some kind of "Turing universality" of our thinking. > But even if things can in principle be thought or understood by human-style > minds they might be too slow or big to be thought in practice. > > An even more worrying possibility might be that our motivation systems > (and hence emotions and ethics) are also wrong for the universe at large. > > In the most general case the No Free Lunch Theorems kindly tell us not to > bother: no mind is better than any other mind across the space of all > possible universes. But this global egalitarian nihilism doesn't apply to > our universe, since it is a special case: not everything is equally likely, > and for any utility function there exist more or less adequate minds when > trying to maximize it in our universe. > > The moral is not to trust intuitions outside our domains of evolutionary > adaptiveness. And to embrace the individuality of this particular universe > with all its quirks. It got just one time dimension, scandium, maybe > Thorne-?ytkow objects, and power-law distributions everywhere! Yay! > > > -- > Anders Sandberg, > > Future of Humanity Institute > Oxford Martin School > Faculty of Philosophy > Oxford University > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 17:20:10 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2014 10:20:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: <52CF123C.9010306@yahoo.com> <52CF29D4.8080000@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 5:56 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Jan 9, 2014 4:12 PM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > > You can't preprogram enough to do what humans do. > > Agreed, assuming that stuff learned and (more importantly) ways to react > that are learned after the initial setup do not count as preprogrammed, > even if the mechanism by which they were learned was. > Those are not preprogrammed except in the useless sense that the whole universe was preprogrammed from the big bang, which it sort of was. That being said, the uncertainty principle makes even that a somewhat useless fact. > That said, it is possible to claim that all reactions were preprogrammed, > that the data for how to react was in fact inside the > (person/computer/whatever) all along. Some people have done this, often in > individual attempts to inspire ("See? You knew how to do it!") or to > dehumanize ("They aren't people; they're just machines that look like > people."). > There is also the more subtle approach of "Free Will" by Sam Harris. That while we don't have a choice and are essentially automatons, we are also not predictable in any real way because we can't predict the input and chaos always plays its part. And this is just about as good as having free will even if it isn't exactly the same philosophically. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 06:41:58 2014 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2014 22:41:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] far future Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 4:00 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > I am a psychologist and want to avoid all topics that are just beyond me > because of my education and my age (72). You have me by a year. Would like to ask a psychological question and see if you have any suggestions. I have, after considerable effort, found what seems to be a solution to the energy, carbon, climate and even economic malaise with a method to produce energy cheap enough to make synthetic gasoline for a dollar a gallon. Some of the people on this group have followed this work for close to a decade now and it builds on work that goes back to the mid 1970s. Not to get too technical, but it involves collecting solar power in space where the sun shines 99% of the time and beaming the energy to earth using microwaves. Take it as real, reasonably economical, low environmental damage etc. It runs into serious opposition, a lot of it from people of considerable influence who have decided that the not so distant future will include a massive die off of the human race back to one or two billion people. They tend not to talk about this belief, but when you mention that there might be an alternative where with lower energy cost, where people could be much better off, they get really hostile. Any thoughts on why people are fixated on this belief? It's almost like an unspoken religion to them. Second, any thoughts on how to get around this resistance to good news? If you can frame your answers in evolutionary psychology terms it would help. I find a lot of weird human behavior makes better sense that way. Google sex drugs cults for a bit of my musings on this topic. Keith Henson Ur-transhumanist (according to RUSirus) From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 07:13:51 2014 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2014 02:13:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CF29D4.8080000@aleph.se> References: <52CF123C.9010306@yahoo.com> <52CF29D4.8080000@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 5:59 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > > > [**] I admit, I am not entirely sure anymore. I thought it was obvious, > but David Chalmers made me doubt whether causal relatedness is actually > necessary for consciousness or not. If it isn't, then lookup tables might > be conscious after a fashion. Or the sum total consciousness expressed by > all possible interactions with the table already exists or existed when it > was calculated. ### I am quite convinced that GLUTs are compatible with consciousness. The computational act of "looking up" in a sufficiently exhaustive, idealized table, one that gives results indistinguishable from interrogating a physical system, looks very much like a physical process. Let's posit a GLUT pretending to be a physically embodied human mind. To be successful, it must be able to coherently answer questions that we answer only through interactions with our physical surroundings - and "surroundings" means here any objects that our mind can interact with through physical effectors. In a way, our biological brain is a part of our environment because we can literally touch it - thus there is a duality in the way we perceive its states, the "internal" and "physical". The GLUT must able to appropriately respond to the following: "Press on your eyeballs gently through closed eyelids, make round movements with your fingers. Describe your visual perceptions". To do that, and to correctly answer all possible physical-brain interaction questions it must embody a model of the physical brain, fingers, the whole physical world at a very high level of precision. Searching through that model for arbitrary physical questions is like physics done on a human body ("What happens if you apply magnetic field of this shape and strength to your skull at the standard T3 EEG electrode placement point. Do you feel happiness? Confusion?") - it isn't just dumb looking up, it is a humongous computational process, so large you can hide whole elephants there ("What happens when an elephant weighing 2732 kg applies its left foot to your..."). I do not know if the universe is a GLUT. My mind bounces off even trivial issues in computational complexity theory explored in Scott Aaronson's recent quantum computation book, so don't expect me to weigh in on this question. But, the answer to the halting problem is out there, in a GLUT we can't interrogate. So I'd guess there *is* the GLUT of all answers that a mind could possibly ask for. And that GLUT has all the consciousness that could possibly exist. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 17:28:17 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2014 10:28:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52CF462B.5030107@aleph.se> References: <52CF123C.9010306@yahoo.com> <52CF29D4.8080000@aleph.se> <52CF462B.5030107@aleph.se> Message-ID: That's a LONG paper for such a simple question. Oy vey! Philosophers! I pulled out two numbers though: 10^445 possible strings the judge could utter. The strategy tree embodied by the HT program has 10^22,278 nodes Those numbers are sufficiently large for me to presume that this implementation could not be realized. Just as I stated much more succinctly and far less rigourously. ;-) -Kelly On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 6:00 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 10/01/2014 00:11, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> The physics of this universe combined with the mathematics of >> probability make it impossible to create a "look up table" that could >> even begin to pretend consciousness. >> > > Heh. Philosophical thought experiment, right? However, I saw a neat paper > recently looking at how the causal structure of the universe actually puts > nontrivial limits on faking Turing tests. I think it was by Drew McDermott, > building on his paper > http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/dvm/papers/humongous.pdf > > > > -- > Anders Sandberg, > Future of Humanity Institute > Oxford Martin School > Faculty of Philosophy > Oxford University > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eric at m056832107.syzygy.com Fri Jan 10 22:13:19 2014 From: eric at m056832107.syzygy.com (Eric Messick) Date: 10 Jan 2014 22:13:19 -0000 Subject: [ExI] Evolving conservatism (was: far future) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20140110221319.24949.qmail@syzygy.com> Keith Henson writes: > [... Space based solar power ] > runs into serious opposition, a lot of it from people of >considerable influence who have decided that the not so distant future >will include a massive die off of the human race back to one or two >billion people. They tend not to talk about this belief, but when you >mention that there might be an alternative where with lower energy >cost, where people could be much better off, they get really hostile. > >Any thoughts on why people are fixated on this belief? It's almost >like an unspoken religion to them. Second, any thoughts on how to get >around this resistance to good news? > >If you can frame your answers in evolutionary psychology terms it >would help. I find a lot of weird human behavior makes better sense >that way. Google sex drugs cults for a bit of my musings on this >topic. I think this is a fundamental question that needs to be addressed in order for us to be able to get traction in a variety of areas. Keith mentions the critical area of expanding our energy options. I see similar stumbling blocks thrown in front of advocates of computer security advances. Medical research into extending lifespan seems to receive insanely small funding for something with a promise of a huge payoff. Hostility to cryonics likely falls into this category as well. It's hard to know for sure what goes on in the heads of people who are resistant to new ideas. From an evolutionary psychology perspective I might guess that a conservative position makes sense most of the time. I do things the way my grandparents did them because it worked for them. Change is likely to upset the balance of something I don't understand, and may threaten the survival of my genes. In the mind of a powerful person controlling resources which could implement beneficial change this could manifest itself as: I got to my current position of power and comfort within the existing system. A new system will change the distribution of power, and I may not end up on top. So, questions to ask might be: when have humans faced the decision to either change their ways or die? What did it take to drive that change in the face of a long history of proven success? The first thing to come to mind is climate change in the form of ice ages. My impression is that such changes involved massive die offs, until only those following new ways survived. The old ways which had been proven to succeed were now failing. An interesting way to trick our conservative sense might involve the media. Since people hear news reports from a much wider area now, they believe that events that are reported (like crime) are becoming more prevalent, when the actual trend is the reverse. Perhaps media reports of impending climactic disaster will convince people that the old ways are leading to our doom, and we should try new ways. It actually feels as if there are people trying this, but the conservatives are still not budging. I'm not sure I like the idea of even more biased news reporting, though. I'm still not sure if or why the people in power that Keith refers to above actually *want* a big die off. Perhaps it's the best way their genes have come up with for advocating change... -eric From pharos at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 23:09:20 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2014 23:09:20 +0000 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 6:41 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > It runs into serious opposition, a lot of it from people of > considerable influence who have decided that the not so distant future > will include a massive die off of the human race back to one or two > billion people. They tend not to talk about this belief, but when you > mention that there might be an alternative where with lower energy > cost, where people could be much better off, they get really hostile. > > Any thoughts on why people are fixated on this belief? It's almost > like an unspoken religion to them. Second, any thoughts on how to get > around this resistance to good news? > > If you have spent your life gaining power and riches, this means that you have access to resources that the mass of the population don't have. Giving cheap energy to everyone else devalues the assets that you own and devalues your life spent gaining riches. People don't much like being told their life's efforts have been cheapened. To get round this resistance the rich should realise that billions of people don't usually die off quietly. When death looms close, people get violent and may well attack those with riches that could help them survive. After all, they don't have much left to lose. Assisting those in need might help to ensure the survival of the rich. BillK From pharos at gmail.com Fri Jan 10 23:09:20 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2014 23:09:20 +0000 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 6:41 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > It runs into serious opposition, a lot of it from people of > considerable influence who have decided that the not so distant future > will include a massive die off of the human race back to one or two > billion people. They tend not to talk about this belief, but when you > mention that there might be an alternative where with lower energy > cost, where people could be much better off, they get really hostile. > > Any thoughts on why people are fixated on this belief? It's almost > like an unspoken religion to them. Second, any thoughts on how to get > around this resistance to good news? > > If you have spent your life gaining power and riches, this means that you have access to resources that the mass of the population don't have. Giving cheap energy to everyone else devalues the assets that you own and devalues your life spent gaining riches. People don't much like being told their life's efforts have been cheapened. To get round this resistance the rich should realise that billions of people don't usually die off quietly. When death looms close, people get violent and may well attack those with riches that could help them survive. After all, they don't have much left to lose. Assisting those in need might help to ensure the survival of the rich. BillK From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 02:58:29 2014 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2014 18:58:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] far future Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 4:00 AM, Ben To me, this sounds analogous to "one day, someone will get so good at > simulating music using digital code that it could convince some people > that it really /is/ music (even if the writers know that it is just a > pile of clever code)!!. The harder part is writing music. And there the computer programs have gotten *really* good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Howell I don't know who gets royalties, but Emily gets the composer credit. Keith From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sat Jan 11 12:01:34 2014 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 12:01:34 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52D1329E.4080406@yahoo.com> Anders Sandberg wrote: >On 09/01/2014 21:18, Ben wrote: >> To me, this sounds analogous to "one day, someone will get so good at >> simulating music using digital code that it could convince some people >> that it really /is/ music (even if the writers know that it is just a >> pile of clever code)!!. What a jape!" >> >> Something about ducks sounding and looking like ducks comes to mind. >> >> (IOW, an emulation of an information process is an information process) >Yes, but can you tell it apart from a simulation? > >I can construct a function f(x,y) that produces x+y for a lot of values >you care to test, but actually *isn't* x+y [*]. Without looking under >the hood they cannot be told apart. Same thing for any information process. > >If what you care about is the stuff coming out of the black box, then >what matters is whether there are any relevant differences between the >output and what it should be. But sometimes we care about how the stuff >is made. >Even most Strong AI proponents [**] think that a Turing >test succeeding stimulus-response lookup table is not conscious nor >intelligent, despite being (by definition) able to convince the >interlocutor indefinitely. > >[**] I admit, I am not entirely sure anymore. I thought it was obvious, >but David Chalmers made me doubt whether causal relatedness is actually >necessary for consciousness or not. If it isn't, then lookup tables >might be conscious after a fashion. Or the sum total consciousness >expressed by all possible interactions with the table already exists or >existed when it was calculated. "Without looking under the hood they cannot be told apart." This is exactly my point. Looking under the hood is irrelevant for anyone except those who want to build one. I don't think we can assume that a stimulus-response lookup table, for instance, is capable of producing behaviour that simulates consciousness (in the real world. As a thought-experiment, fine, but the question of whether such a theoretical lookup table would be conscious doesn't matter, as it couldn't exist[*]). There must be many types of process that can't do it. But for the ones that can, in the end, all we can do is apply the same test that we apply to other people, and assume that any system that produces behaviour fully consistent with conscious experience is in fact having conscious experiences, at least for the time being. If it starts to produce behaviour that is inconsistent, we can then assume that it's not what we thought, and is either faulty, an automaton or perhaps an alien mind that we can't make sense of (see 'faulty' ;>). Re. the Turing Test, I don't think we should be relying on it as a good indicator of conscious thought. We already know that some chatbots can pass it, under limited circumstances, and teenagers can fail it. I don't buy into the notion that any current chatbot is conscious, or (tempting though it may be) that teenagers are not. I don't understand your 'nontrivial' example. It does add two numbers(int z=x+y;), then it goes into a loop which goes round a few times until w is equal to 1, then it returns z. So all we get is a delay in returning the answer. If the answer is big enough, it may take a very long time to return it (disregarding things like the maximum size of an integer in the system executing the function), but it always does the calculation. What have I missed? Spike wrote: >Yeeeeeaaano. > >If we wanted to take the time, we could create a big lookup table in excel >that would sound a lot like a human trying to convince another human it is a >human. Nope, we couldn't. Not in practice. Not one that would work. It's not just a matter of time, but the sheer number of entries needed. You'd get combinatorial explosion sooner than you could say it, and all the spreadsheets on all the computers in all the planets in the universe wouldn't be anywhere near enough. Not even a teensy fraction of near enough. I grant that, in a very limited domain of knowledge, for a very limited amount of time, you might get away with it (this is what chatbots do), but it wouldn't fool anyone for long. [*] This is an interesting topic in itself: When does a theoretical possibility become invalid because it's not actually a real possibility? Can you conclude that horses are capable of moving stars because a theoretical /big enough/ horse would be able to? A consciousness-simulating lookup table runs into practical problems simply because it would have to be bigger than the universe. Apart from there not being enough particles in existence to build it, there are theoretical objections to it working anyway, like the speed of light. So even theoretically, it's an invalid thought-experiment. Or is it? From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 17:36:21 2014 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 12:36:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52D1329E.4080406@yahoo.com> References: <52D1329E.4080406@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 7:01 AM, Ben wrote: > > > > [*] This is an interesting topic in itself: When does a theoretical > possibility become invalid because it's not actually a real possibility? > Can you conclude that horses are capable of moving stars because a > theoretical /big enough/ horse would be able to? A > consciousness-simulating lookup table runs into practical problems simply > because it would have to be bigger than the universe. Apart from there not > being enough particles in existence to build it, there are theoretical > objections to it working anyway, like the speed of light. So even > theoretically, it's an invalid thought-experiment. Or is it? ### A thought experiment is only invalid if the thoughts are invalid, not when mere material circumstances intervene. Nobody can instantiate a real Turing machine, nobody can solve the halting problem by running it. But, still, P does not equal NP - this is a valid hypothesis, in fact one of the cornerstones of computational complexity theory. In this tread we deal with a thought experiment - some thinkers propose that the Turing test is not a valid measure of intelligence because you can imagine a mindless machine, a GLUT, passing it. It taken on faith that "mechanical" application of program transformation rules cannot conceivably give rise to intelligence (argument from incredulity). McDermott points out that if this GLUT existed, it would have a structure that makes this argument much weaker - it would actually have to embody an "optimized" (as he terms it) computational model of a mind, so anybody who agrees that at least the non-phenomenological aspects of the mind could be generated by a computational model should reject the GLUT objection to the Turing test. The size of the GLUT is not relevant to the validity of the argument, as long as it is finite. By the way, did you notice how he mentions Searle's room? Not really as a serious philosophical issue, just an offhand dismissal. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 17:47:28 2014 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 12:47:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Evolving conservatism (was: far future) In-Reply-To: <20140110221319.24949.qmail@syzygy.com> References: <20140110221319.24949.qmail@syzygy.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 5:13 PM, Eric Messick wrote > > > The first thing to come to mind is climate change in the form of ice > ages. My impression is that such changes involved massive die offs, > until only those following new ways survived. The old ways which had > been proven to succeed were now failing. > > An interesting way to trick our conservative sense might involve the > media. Since people hear news reports from a much wider area now, > they believe that events that are reported (like crime) are becoming > more prevalent, when the actual trend is the reverse. Perhaps media > reports of impending climactic disaster will convince people that the > old ways are leading to our doom, and we should try new ways. It > actually feels as if there are people trying this, but the conservatives > are still not budging. I'm not sure I like the idea of even more > biased news reporting, though. ### Wait, anthropogenic climate change killing humanity through an ice age, not through global warming? Did I understand you correctly? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 18:04:11 2014 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 13:04:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Evolving conservatism (was: far future) In-Reply-To: References: <20140110221319.24949.qmail@syzygy.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 12:47 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki < rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: > ### Wait, anthropogenic climate change killing humanity through an ice > age, not through global warming? Did I understand you correctly? > given recent temperatures in the US, I'm assuming your proposed "ice age" will last 6 days followed by a "heat wave" that lasts 10 days to leave the remainder of the month available for a plague of locusts & frogs... or maybe an actual plague of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (but that's hardly a weather issue though, right?) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 18:06:38 2014 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 13:06:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Evolving conservatism (was: far future) In-Reply-To: References: <20140110221319.24949.qmail@syzygy.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 1:04 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 12:47 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki < > rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: > >> ### Wait, anthropogenic climate change killing humanity through an ice >> age, not through global warming? Did I understand you correctly? >> > > given recent temperatures in the US, I'm assuming your proposed "ice age" > will last 6 days followed by a "heat wave" that lasts 10 days to leave the > remainder of the month available for a plague of locusts & frogs... or > maybe an actual plague of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (but that's hardly > a weather issue though, right?) > ### I understand this even less than Eric's message. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eric at m056832107.syzygy.com Sat Jan 11 18:29:54 2014 From: eric at m056832107.syzygy.com (Eric Messick) Date: 11 Jan 2014 18:29:54 -0000 Subject: [ExI] Evolving conservatism In-Reply-To: References: <20140110221319.24949.qmail@syzygy.com> Message-ID: <20140111182954.5793.qmail@syzygy.com> Rafal writes: >### Wait, anthropogenic climate change killing humanity through an ice age, >not through global warming? Did I understand you correctly? Not quite. Let me try again. Keith was lamenting the lack of support for space based solar power. He was looking for an explanation of the hostility he sometimes sees to what looks to me like an obviously good idea. How, he asks, did we evolve into creatures with such reactions? Rejecting potential solutions to problems which threaten your genes does not seem like a good survival strategy. There has been selection pressure in the other direction. Being conservative about accepting new ideas is adaptive because many new ideas are worse than the old way of doing things, which has worked for generations. Past ice ages may have altered the balance. If the stresses they cause on populations are enough that the old ways no longer work, then people who cling too tightly to the old ways will die out, and less conservative people will be selected for. We have constructed a world where everything changes much faster. Being conservative in such an environment is less adaptive. Conservative pressures not to develop new power sources may result in a tragic die off. It may not be just the conservatives dying, though. Perhaps such a die off would be analogous to what happened in past ice ages. Perhaps a slightly less conservative species will emerge. In any case, it would be an awfully high price to pay. Is there a better way to get people to accept change? -eric From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 19:08:52 2014 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 14:08:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Evolving conservatism In-Reply-To: <20140111182954.5793.qmail@syzygy.com> References: <20140110221319.24949.qmail@syzygy.com> <20140111182954.5793.qmail@syzygy.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 1:29 PM, Eric Messick wrote: Keith was lamenting the lack of support for space based solar power. > > He was looking for an explanation of the hostility he sometimes sees > to what looks to me like an obviously good idea. How, he asks, did we > evolve into creatures with such reactions? > ### Some of us evolved to see it's not an obviously good idea. ---------------- > > Rejecting potential solutions to problems which threaten your genes > does not seem like a good survival strategy. > ### Almost all potential solutions to threats have to be rejected. See opportunity cost. --------------- > > There has been selection pressure in the other direction. Being > conservative about accepting new ideas is adaptive because many new > ideas are worse than the old way of doing things, which has worked for > generations. > > Past ice ages may have altered the balance. If the stresses they > cause on populations are enough that the old ways no longer work, then > people who cling too tightly to the old ways will die out, and less > conservative people will be selected for. > ### The timespans are incommensurate, climate change has no bearing on the evolution of psychological traits, where pressures operating over much shorter timespans are predominant. The reasons why primitive societies in the EEA are conservative is because they are poor and many experiments are expensive enough to cause death in days or weeks, not because of exposure of ancestral populations to changing climate conditions over thousands of years. ----------------- > > We have constructed a world where everything changes much faster. > Being conservative in such an environment is less adaptive. > Conservative pressures not to develop new power sources may result in > a tragic die off. It may not be just the conservatives dying, though. > ### Who are the "conservatives" doing the pressuring here? Do you mean the people who want to strangle nuclear power plant development? -------------------- > > Is there a better way to get people to accept change? ### Don't suggest useless or actively destructive ideas? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 19:54:18 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 12:54:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Evolving conservatism In-Reply-To: <20140111182954.5793.qmail@syzygy.com> References: <20140110221319.24949.qmail@syzygy.com> <20140111182954.5793.qmail@syzygy.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 11:29 AM, Eric Messick wrote: > Rafal writes: > >### Wait, anthropogenic climate change killing humanity through an ice > age, > >not through global warming? Did I understand you correctly? > > Not quite. Let me try again. > > Keith was lamenting the lack of support for space based solar power. > > He was looking for an explanation of the hostility he sometimes sees > to what looks to me like an obviously good idea. How, he asks, did we > evolve into creatures with such reactions? > The evolution and reproduction of memes is so much faster than the evolution of genes that even asking about genes in this context seems wrong headed. Recent studies have shown, for example, that just moving to a big city reduces your conservatism. The flow of people to cities is one reason that the future of conservatism looks so bleak in fact. Rejecting potential solutions to problems which threaten your genes > does not seem like a good survival strategy. > Change is sometimes good, sometimes bad. See Kevin Kelly's book "What Technology Wants" for a full treatment. I especially like the chapters about the Amish with regards to this question. There has been selection pressure in the other direction. So long as you are talking selection pressure in the memetic realm as well. > Being conservative about accepting new ideas is adaptive because many new > ideas are worse than the old way of doing things, which has worked for > generations. > It can be adaptive. But what if one side developed better arms than the other, and the other side didn't respond by adapting better arms. Then you would not say that conservatism was adaptive. It would possibly lead to extinction, in fact. > Past ice ages may have altered the balance. If the stresses they > cause on populations are enough that the old ways no longer work, then > people who cling too tightly to the old ways will die out, and less > conservative people will be selected for. > That is true. Sometimes conservatism works, sometimes progressive thought is required. Most of the time you need a combination of both. Rarely do you find anyone who is absolutely pure on either side. Even the arch-conservative Rush Limbaugh embraces new Apple products as soon as they come out. Even the arch-liberal Barack Obama isn't advocating for open polyamory as a valid lifestyle. So everyone is somewhere in the middle, and this is as it should be. We have constructed a world where everything changes much faster. > Isn't it grand? But does EVERYTHING change faster? Maybe it does, but perhaps there are examples of things that still change slowly, or at least so far they have. > Being conservative in such an environment is less adaptive. > Not necessarily. I reject this outright because maybe the Amish will win in the end. We can't tell for sure yet. > Conservative pressures not to develop new power sources may result in > a tragic die off. It may not be just the conservatives dying, though. > I see no scenario where only conservatives or only liberals will be dying. In Atlas Shrugged, it was implied that the liberals would all die off. I'm not sure that would really work outside of fiction. There are lesser creators that are important too. > Perhaps such a die off would be analogous to what happened in past ice > ages. Perhaps a slightly less conservative species will emerge. In > any case, it would be an awfully high price to pay. > This speaks too much to the importance of genetics, and minimizes memetics. > Is there a better way to get people to accept change? > Advocate for better changes? Everyone accepts change. Look at how many people now use cell phones. Everyone pretty much accepted that change. Right? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 20:27:54 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 12:27:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 10:38 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Though it took me a long time to leave the church, I now cannot understand why anyone would think our bodies were created by some god. Because it's what they have been taught to believe all their lives, and they never seriously considered any alternative. They seriously think the existence of God, with all the properties they care to attribute at the moment, is self-evident. On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 3:09 PM, BillK wrote: > On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 6:41 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > > > It runs into serious opposition, a lot of it from people of > > considerable influence who have decided that the not so distant future > > will include a massive die off of the human race back to one or two > > billion people. They tend not to talk about this belief, but when you > > mention that there might be an alternative where with lower energy > > cost, where people could be much better off, they get really hostile. > > > > Any thoughts on why people are fixated on this belief? It's almost > > like an unspoken religion to them. Second, any thoughts on how to get > > around this resistance to good news? > > If you have spent your life gaining power and riches, this means that > you have access to resources that the mass of the population don't > have. Giving cheap energy to everyone else devalues the assets that > you own and devalues your life spent gaining riches. People don't much > like being told their life's efforts have been cheapened. > I agree, though I don't think that's the whole explanation. They have also been shown many many examples of such promised futures which failed to deliver. Further such utopian promises aggravate them, reminding them of the golden future they thought they would be enjoying today. It's not rational thought. It employs distorting nostalgia, sheer misunderstanding of what was predicted, dramatization to reinterpret general hopes as specific promises to them personally that were broken, and projection that the people making new promises are in any way morally connected to and liable for said "broken promises". > To get round this resistance the rich should realise that billions of > people don't usually die off quietly. When death looms close, people > get violent and may well attack those with riches that could help them > survive. After all, they don't have much left to lose. Assisting those > in need might help to ensure the survival of the rich. > It can also help to point out that their riches will enable them to do even more. If everyone can get cheap energy, the rich can get so much more cheap energy. The poor might have enough for heat and to grow food. The rich might have enough to journey to the Moon on pocket change, or at least with the same casualness with which they can currently fly around - especially those who have their own private jets. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 21:13:28 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 21:13:28 +0000 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 8:27 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > I agree, though I don't think that's the whole explanation. They have also > been shown many many examples of such promised futures which failed to > deliver. Further such utopian promises aggravate them, reminding them of > the golden future they thought they would be enjoying today. > > It's not rational thought. It employs distorting nostalgia, sheer > misunderstanding of what was predicted, dramatization to reinterpret general > hopes as specific promises to them personally that were broken, and > projection that the people making new promises are in any way morally > connected to and liable for said "broken promises". > And, of course, one of the disadvantages of being rich is that you constantly receive pitches of great ideas that only need your investment to be a great success. That's why they employ people to vet the constant stream of petitions. Billionaires probably never even hear about most of the proposals. And their employees worry about job security. They won't support risky or far-out projects that might get them sacked if unsuccessful. > > It can also help to point out that their riches will enable them to do even > more. If everyone can get cheap energy, the rich can get so much more cheap > energy. The poor might have enough for heat and to grow food. The rich > might have enough to journey to the Moon on pocket change, or at least with > the same casualness with which they can currently fly around - especially > those who have their own private jets. > > Not so much. If they already have everything that money can buy, the only thing they want more of is money and status. BillK From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 11 21:25:32 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 13:25:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 1:13 PM, BillK wrote: > Not so much. If they already have everything that money can buy, the > only thing they want more of is money and status. Ah, but what about getting them things that money can not - yet - buy? That no one can have yet, but when it comes about of course the rich will be the first to get, as it has (almost) always been. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Sat Jan 11 21:59:01 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 21:59:01 +0000 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52D1BEA5.90108@aleph.se> On 10/01/2014 23:09, BillK wrote: > If you have spent your life gaining power and riches, this means that > you have access to resources that the mass of the population don't > have. Giving cheap energy to everyone else devalues the assets that > you own and devalues your life spent gaining riches. This view seems to be pretty popular. Just look at Elysium. Yet it flies in the face of most economic theory, and empirically you tend to find rich and powerful people spending more effort on making themselves more rich and powerful compared to their reference class of other rich people than non-reference class people. My own explanation for its popularity is that it improves self-esteem of non-rich and non-powerful people by making the rich and powerful to be bad people. Hence it is not so wrong to want to take their resources from them, one will look better in comparison (especially given our self-serving biases that make us think we are more moral than the average person). Historically in modern societies, the people who have gained wealth and power have typically been the ones that sell something everybody wants/needs or get a lot of popular support for their policies. While Slim, Gates and Ortega no doubt defend their wealth, they do not look like they are wedded to the status quo - in fact, like many modern rich people they seem happy to invest in new tech. Let's not forget #19 on Forbes, Jeff Bezos and his space projects, #20 Larry Page #21 Segey Brin with Calico and loads of robotics, #30 George Soros with the Institute for New Economical Thinking, #527 Elon Musk with his space projects, and #931 Peter Thiel - these people hardly strike me as pro-status quo). > People don't much like being told their life's efforts have been cheapened. This is an explanation for much life extension resistance. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Sat Jan 11 22:42:11 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 22:42:11 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Evolving conservatism In-Reply-To: <20140110221319.24949.qmail@syzygy.com> References: <20140110221319.24949.qmail@syzygy.com> Message-ID: <52D1C8C3.5010905@aleph.se> I am not sure rephrasing everything to some evopsych just-so explanation actually helps: it is better to look at what the evidence actually is and what it shows works, unless one is *really* confident that the evopsych theory provides a very actionable framework. Philip Tetlocks "foxes vs. hedgehog" results ("Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?") actually seems to warn us against linking up too much to single theories in messy domains. On 10/01/2014 22:13, Eric Messick wrote: > I think this is a fundamental question that needs to be addressed in > order for us to be able to get traction in a variety of areas. Keith > mentions the critical area of expanding our energy options. I see > similar stumbling blocks thrown in front of advocates of computer > security advances. Medical research into extending lifespan seems to > receive insanely small funding for something with a promise of a huge > payoff. Hostility to cryonics likely falls into this category as > well. > > It's hard to know for sure what goes on in the heads of people who are > resistant to new ideas. No, it is totally everyday things! Stuff we experience ourselves all the time! Status quo bias is pervasive. See some of the evidence and effects at http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/rzeckhau/SQBDM.pdf http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/statusquo.pdf Note that a minor bias may become a major effect if it is pervasive: each interaction will weakly bias you in a certain direction. BillK mentioned "People don't much like being told their life's efforts have been cheapened." - this is another factor. Anything that threatens the structures we have emotional investment in, such as our concept of self, life structure or community, is resisted. This is why I think life extension is underfunded (besides the impression, due to past failure, that it is unlikely to work). I argued against his view that the rich and powerful have an incentive to prevent radical new technologies, but I do not deny that plenty of particular people and institutions are rationally wedded to particular approaches or infrastructures - just look at the music industry's 20 year struggle to protect a failing business model, no matter what the collateral damage is. Conservatism in the neophobic sense also seem linked to general psychological outlook (some of which is due to upbringing), but there are moods too - fear makes you more conservative, and there are fine examples of reminders of mortality make people conservative. This is IMHO why the US went conservative (yes, the liberals too) after 911: it got more scared. Incidentally, Keith's strategy of bringing up our desperate energy plight might be directly triggering a conservative reaction by suggesting a dark future. Finally, people do not wish to consider ideas that come from low-status people, people expressing views along some dimension they are strongly against (would *you* listen to health advice from a neo-nazi doctor?), or appear low probability given their current base of information. Nor do they want to risk their own reputations as high status, nice rational people by being seen considering them. (Even though most of the time we do not care much where people learn things: this is more of a "but what would people say?" self image thing than actual status-gaming, IMHO) Keith has problem selling his space energy idea because the proposal more or less starts with "first launch a gigantic space laser at enormous cost..." That will turn off the ears of 99% of people: the rest of the spiel is listened to as entertainment, not a business proposal. Even if one thinks the business case does works out (and there are concerns there - Musk pointed out the power conversion losses, and there are plenty of risks - engineering, political, capital etc.) the upfront cost is big. Yes, smaller than some other costs, but still a significant investment for most actors. That means the pool of potential investors is small, most people who aren't zillionaires have no chance to contribute, and people's scepticism go way up - we tend to be more sceptical about unusual proposals with big potential costs than regular proposals with normal losses/profits. These factors act *on top* of the bigger problem of excessive conservatism. I am pretty optimistic about changing things, but that is because constructivist solutions (build alternative structures of decisionmaking and business) - they work well for small things and maybe for making global systems smarter, but they do not yet work for titanic chunks of engineering. Small is beautiful. And, if self-replicating, powerful... -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Sat Jan 11 23:10:43 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 23:10:43 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52D1329E.4080406@yahoo.com> References: <52D1329E.4080406@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <52D1CF73.7030407@aleph.se> On 11/01/2014 12:01, Ben wrote: > [*] This is an interesting topic in itself: When does a theoretical > possibility become invalid because it's not actually a real > possibility? Ah, you have stumbled upon something philosophers discuss and disagree about: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thought-experiment/#SysExp I think the key link is that the world of the thought experiment must overlap enough with our real world (in the relevant aspects) that it allows us to generalize from the result of the thought experiment to other, non-thoughtexperimented aspects of the world. For example, we can make some thought experiments about worlds where humans are very different kinds of creatures (like Parfit's amoeba-people): many conclusions about personal identity from these experiments do not seem to carry over to our world since human personal identity is fairly strongly linked with us being non-dividing. But a thought experiment about how technological development would look on a much larger and populous Earth (Bostrom's super-Earth) does seem to map rather nicely to the real world: labour pool does have an effect on research, while the radius of the planet is irrelevant. Ned Block's GLUT argument overlaps rather strongly with our world in the relevant parts: when thinking about whether machines could have consciousness or intelligence the relevant aspect is not whether there is some computational trick that can hide vast amounts of memory inside a realizable box or not, but whether the mechanism of looking up responses can be said to have those properties. After all, we could have been living in a universe that looked like ours but had those extra computational resources (just like my trapdoored addition function is just like normal addition, with one exception). Real world -------- Part of the real world ---------- Real world Real things: A, B, C A A A Inferred: D,E,F,G,H Mapping | | | V V V Thought experiment Imagined things: a, b, c Concluded pattern: d, e, f Of course, there are many shades of possible worlds too: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/possible-worlds/ -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Sat Jan 11 23:24:47 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 23:24:47 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52D1329E.4080406@yahoo.com> References: <52D1329E.4080406@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <52D1D2BF.5070301@aleph.se> On 11/01/2014 12:01, Ben wrote: > I don't understand your 'nontrivial' example. It does add two > numbers(int z=x+y;), then it goes into a loop which goes round a few > times until w is equal to 1, then it returns z. So all we get is a > delay in returning the answer. If the answer is big enough, it may take > a very long time to return it (disregarding things like the maximum size > of an integer in the system executing the function), but it always does > the calculation. What have I missed? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collatz_conjecture Basically, it is not known whether that loop ever ends. For most numbers it quickly ends up at 1, but sometimes it rushes off to very large numbers. And Conway proved that fairly simple generalisations are algorithmically undecidable: you can literally turn software programs into rule sets like the above, and then the Halting Problems applies. So we know that in the general case there is no way to prove that the looping ever reaches 1. But we do not know if it applies in this particular case! I find that very neat. I can write a program that I know I cannot predict (if I used the full Halting Problem case), but I can also write a program that I do not know if I can know whether I can predict (this one). -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sun Jan 12 14:48:44 2014 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2014 14:48:44 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52D2AB4C.5030702@yahoo.com> Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: >By the way, did you notice how he mentions Searle's room? Not really as a >serious philosophical issue, just an offhand dismissal. Ha. "Searle's Chinese room" and "serious philosophical issue" don't even belong in the same sentence. Oops! (OK, they only belong in the same sentence if joined with a "!=", and some kind of heavy emphasis) From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 20:14:44 2014 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2014 12:14:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 124, Issue 14 Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 4:00 AM, Eric Messick snip > Not quite. Let me try again. > > Keith was lamenting the lack of support for space based solar power. That's correct, though it isn't just about SBSP, it's a lack of support, even interest, in technical solution to get us out of the fix of energy, carbon, climate, etc. > He was looking for an explanation of the hostility he sometimes sees > to what looks to me like an obviously good idea. How, he asks, did we > evolve into creatures with such reactions? Or if it isn't a direct result of evolution, how did we come by a set of such memes of hopelessness? How do we shake them off? Why hostility to good news? My personal observation of this dates back to shortly after the L5 Society was founded, at a Limits to Growth conference we were nearly through out of for proposing that a solution existed. > Rejecting potential solutions to problems which threaten your genes > does not seem like a good survival strategy. > > There has been selection pressure in the other direction. Being > conservative about accepting new ideas is adaptive because many new > ideas are worse than the old way of doing things, which has worked for > generations. > > Past ice ages may have altered the balance. If the stresses they > cause on populations are enough that the old ways no longer work, then > people who cling too tightly to the old ways will die out, and less > conservative people will be selected for. > > We have constructed a world where everything changes much faster. > Being conservative in such an environment is less adaptive. > Conservative pressures not to develop new power sources may result in > a tragic die off. It may not be just the conservatives dying, though. > > Perhaps such a die off would be analogous to what happened in past ice > ages. Perhaps a slightly less conservative species will emerge. In > any case, it would be an awfully high price to pay. > > Is there a better way to get people to accept change? I would be satisfied with a more widespread attitude that we should fix or at least be actively looking for fixes to problems. Thanks Eric. Keith > -eric > > From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 13 04:26:36 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2014 20:26:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: <52CF172E.5050504@yahoo.com> <52CF2C9B.6080000@aleph.se> Message-ID: <099601cf1017$a65bccc0$f3136640$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace ? >?As an aside: I have written help and gotten an incomprehensible return that looks like some sort of programming commands and does not address my questions: how do I find out the topics people on the list are interested in? When I click on reply does my email go only to my correspondent? Or to everyone? If you could just take a minute to explain this site to me it would be a big help. Thanks! Bill Wallace Hi Bill, I assume someone has posted you offlist by now. I was away camping since Friday morning. This is what we are about: http://www.buildfreedom.com/extropian_principles.html The reading list needs updated, but the principles are as good as new. Your question might be a good reminder for several on the list who are recent. List protocols are that if you hit reply to anything, it goes to all subscribers. We are a transhumanist group, but as you can see we are very open minded about what constitutes on-topic discussions. There are more focused transhumanist groups such as Eugen?s transhumanist tech, where he is super strict about staying right on topic, but ExI-chat is comfortable pitching a broad tent. One line replies are allowed, goofing and comedy are allowed. Good thing: they would have thrown me into the bit bucket 15 yrs ago otherwise. When you reply, trim out everything except the relevant comment, then post below it. Try to keep it to no more than 5 posts a day, or if you go over, make sure it is something really timely or extremely interesting to everyone. I won?t do anything much about overposting until someone starts to complain or I get bored with whatever it is you are over-yakking about. Be nice, be fun, you are among friends here. Post away, me lad! Your friendly omnipotent ExI moderator, spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From soorajshekhar at gmail.com Thu Jan 9 18:22:54 2014 From: soorajshekhar at gmail.com (Sooraj Bhatia) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2014 11:22:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] META: ACADEMIC: ProQuest Flow now available free for researchers In-Reply-To: References: <009a01cf0bca$ceb45da0$6c1d18e0$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: >2 GB. How quaint. >How do they compare with, to pull just one of the better known examples, Google Docs? Google Docs offers 15 GB. On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 12:12 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > On Jan 7, 2014 10:02 AM, "BillK" wrote: > > Free subscribers get: > > Share collections privately with up to 10 people for free, inside or > > outside your institution. Manage access rights to allow selected team > > members to contribute and add comments to shared collections. Flow's > > free plan includes unlimited references, collection sharing, and a > > whopping 2GB of storage! > > 2 GB. How quaint. > > How do they compare with, to pull just one of the better known examples, > Google Docs? > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinhoff_j at hotmail.com Sat Jan 11 17:36:56 2014 From: steinhoff_j at hotmail.com (steinhoff) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 12:36:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] BBC Future's timeline of the far future Message-ID: speculative fun, stumbled upon it through io9: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140105-timeline-of-the-far-future?utm_source=DGM&utm_campaign=Affiliate James Steinhoff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 13 18:00:10 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 12:00:10 -0600 Subject: [ExI] BBC Future's timeline of the far future In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Interesting. When told that the sun would burn out in a few billion years, a guy said "Whew, I thought you said a few million!" On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 11:36 AM, steinhoff wrote: > speculative fun, stumbled upon it through io9: > > > http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140105-timeline-of-the-far-future?utm_source=DGM&utm_campaign=Affiliate > > James Steinhoff > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 13 18:00:23 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 10:00:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] face recognition app: phony people people Message-ID: <0b7a01cf1089$55c595d0$0150c170$@att.net> This technology changes everything. Reasoning: from what I have seen, face recognition isn't great, but it is good. You could have a database carried on your person with a few thousand people, including some you haven't met but only have a dozen or so pictures, such as from a high school yearbook, a newspaper article, various sources, which can reliably identify a person. Then that person can be linked to notes, so that if you see someone you met for the first time at your high school reunion, then see her again later in another context, you can have this device remind you of where you met the person and what you discussed. http://singularityhub.com/2014/01/12/facial-recognition-app-for-glass-challe nges-googles-ban-on-the-technology/ If you are the first kid on the block to have this, especially if you can have it to where no one notices it, such as disguised as a broach or in a hat or inside a button or something, with a Bluetooth connection to a cell phone with Bluetooth to an earpiece, any yahoo can pretend to be a real people person. I don't know that I would want to do that. Hmmm, understatement, I do know that I do not want to do that. But others might. So I could build it and sell it to them, make a buttload of money. So henceforth, if we encounter a person who seems to remember everything about a chance encounter in the past, they may not be a warm fuzzy caring genius, they might be phony as a three dollar bill, just a regular guy using stealth face recognition tech, a hidden Bluetooth device in the ear, the cell phone in their pocket for memory and processing, pretending to be something they are not. I won't do it, for I am not really a people person; I am more of a machine person, hoping to someday become a machine machine. But there are those who might pay money for something like this. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Jan 13 18:17:11 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 12:17:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: <099601cf1017$a65bccc0$f3136640$@att.net> References: <52CF172E.5050504@yahoo.com> <52CF2C9B.6080000@aleph.se> <099601cf1017$a65bccc0$f3136640$@att.net> Message-ID: I am being asked as a psychologist why people believe strange things, often things that would help themselves and others, but they are opposed and get really sanctimonious about it. I remarked to my son once (he is as impatient as I am with fools) that he must remember that half the population is below average by definition. He replied that it was remarkable to him that half were ABOVE average. He had it right. My magnet school seniors all scored zero on a simple logic test I gave them. Logic has to be learned and schools don't teach it. Given that and the 100+ cognitive errors some crazy evolution has given us, it is remarkable that anything ever gets done properly. General semanticists have estimated that in any given conversation only about 25% of what is intended to be communicated is. (I'd like to see some data on apes and whether they suffer from cognitive errors too.) Whoever said that without the top 1% of the population no progress of any kind would be made, hit it on the nose. That's why I want in my book to narrow the population down to those folks. No fools to suffer (pun intended). bill w On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 10:26 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto: > extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *William Flynn > Wallace > *?* > > >?As an aside: I have written help and gotten an incomprehensible return > that looks like some sort of programming commands and does not address my > questions: how do I find out the topics people on the list are interested > in? When I click on reply does my email go only to my correspondent? Or > to everyone? If you could just take a minute to explain this site to me it > would be a big help. Thanks! Bill Wallace > > > > > > Hi Bill, > > > > I assume someone has posted you offlist by now. I was away camping since > Friday morning. This is what we are about: > > > > http://www.buildfreedom.com/extropian_principles.html > > > > The reading list needs updated, but the principles are as good as new. > > > > Your question might be a good reminder for several on the list who are > recent. List protocols are that if you hit reply to anything, it goes to > all subscribers. We are a transhumanist group, but as you can see we are > very open minded about what constitutes on-topic discussions. There are > more focused transhumanist groups such as Eugen?s transhumanist tech, where > he is super strict about staying right on topic, but ExI-chat is > comfortable pitching a broad tent. One line replies are allowed, goofing > and comedy are allowed. Good thing: they would have thrown me into the bit > bucket 15 yrs ago otherwise. > > > > When you reply, trim out everything except the relevant comment, then post > below it. Try to keep it to no more than 5 posts a day, or if you go over, > make sure it is something really timely or extremely interesting to > everyone. I won?t do anything much about overposting until someone starts > to complain or I get bored with whatever it is you are over-yakking about. > > > > Be nice, be fun, you are among friends here. > > > > Post away, me lad! > > > > Your friendly omnipotent ExI moderator, > > > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jan 13 18:53:44 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 10:53:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] face recognition app: phony people people In-Reply-To: <0b7a01cf1089$55c595d0$0150c170$@att.net> References: <0b7a01cf1089$55c595d0$0150c170$@att.net> Message-ID: On Jan 13, 2014 10:15 AM, "spike" wrote: > http://singularityhub.com/2014/01/12/facial-recognition-app-for-glass-challenges-googles-ban-on-the-technology/ > > If you are the first kid on the block to have this, especially if you can have it to where no one notices it, such as disguised as a broach or in a hat or inside a button or something, with a Bluetooth connection to a cell phone with Bluetooth to an earpiece, any yahoo can pretend to be a real people person. I don?t know that I would want to do that. Sales. Trawl any professional conference with a DB of profiles gleaned from LinkedIn crossed with the con's registration DB. Have an impressive amount of relevant info for everyone you see. Google Glass (but disguised and noninteractive) it for minimal obtrusiveness - never have to break conversation or stride to listen to anything but who you are talking to at that moment. Yeah, that's been a Holy Grail dream app for years for some people. Think you can rig it up? You have several potential users at your workplace who could get you real world test data quickly, IIRC. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 13 18:48:08 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 10:48:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: <52CF172E.5050504@yahoo.com> <52CF2C9B.6080000@aleph.se> <099601cf1017$a65bccc0$f3136640$@att.net> Message-ID: <0c1f01cf1090$0162f030$0428d090$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace . >.I remarked to my son once (he is as impatient as I am with fools) that he must remember that half the population is below average by definition. He replied that it was remarkable to him that half were ABOVE average. In what? >.My magnet school seniors all scored zero on a simple logic test I gave them. Cool, give us the test pleeeeeease? {8-] We love logic tests. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jan 13 21:17:07 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 13:17:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] BBC Future's timeline of the far future In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 13, 2014 7:28 AM, "steinhoff" wrote: > > speculative fun, stumbled upon it through io9: > > http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140105-timeline-of-the-far-future?utm_source=DGM&utm_campaign=Affiliate The punchline is, of course, that this only happens if we don't do something about it first. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Mon Jan 13 21:58:45 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 21:58:45 +0000 Subject: [ExI] BBC Future's timeline of the far future In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52D46195.5050602@aleph.se> On 2014-01-13 21:17, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > On Jan 13, 2014 7:28 AM, "steinhoff" > wrote: > > > > > http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140105-timeline-of-the-far-future?utm_source=DGM&utm_campaign=Affiliate > > The punchline is, of course, that this only happens if we don't do > something about it first. > Yup. Down the road from me there is a 1000-year old building, still standing and in good condition. The reason it is still standing and not just a pile of overgrown rubble is of course that people have been maintaining it. The problem about talking about the long-term future is that it is so dependent on human decisions, not natural laws. If humans decide to maintain a building it can last indefinitely. If humans decide to make a species extinct (smallpox) or help it spread worldwide (ginkgo biloba), it will change the future evolution of that branch of the tree of life. If humans decide to colonize the universe it will become full of life. This makes the long-term fate of many systems contingent on nearly arbitrary cultural decisions rather than simple probabilities derived from the laws of nature. [ In a sense cultural decisions can be viewed as derived from the laws of nature, but there is likely no way their probabilities can be practically estimated from the laws. They are highly dependent on several underlying layers of emergent complexity (biochemistry, biology, human psychology, human sociology) that have many degrees of freedom that can be randomly set by symmetry-breaking and contingency. ] -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 01:33:22 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 18:33:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: <52CF172E.5050504@yahoo.com> <52CF2C9B.6080000@aleph.se> <099601cf1017$a65bccc0$f3136640$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 11:17 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > My magnet school seniors all scored zero on a simple logic test I gave > them. > I was the only person in my 5th grade class to pass a test like that. Took me three minutes to do the test. Others struggled with it for the whole hour. It was easy to pass if you followed the instructions. > Logic has to be learned and schools don't teach it. > Because our society doesn't value logic. Why? Because if it did, the leaders we have would not be leaders for very long. They prey on the weak minded using emotional techniques that are well known. > Whoever said that without the top 1% of the population no progress of any > kind would be made, hit it on the nose. > That would by Ayn Rand. If you haven't read Atlas Shrugged, it's an eye opener. As an author reading good books should be high on your priority list, and if you haven't read this one, you aren't as good an author as you could be. > That's why I want in my book to narrow the population down to those > folks. No fools to suffer (pun intended). bill w > But the problem is that it still wouldn't work. No matter how much smarter they are than us, there will still be gradations amongst them. Even if they are all clones, there will still be variation. No matter how small those variations are, they will be capitalized on by those who are brighter. Utopia is boring because it is impossible, even with truly logical beings. And logic won't interest the humans you hope to get to read your book because most of them are emotional. Write the best logic based book and nobody will read it. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 01:46:56 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 18:46:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] face recognition app: phony people people In-Reply-To: <0b7a01cf1089$55c595d0$0150c170$@att.net> References: <0b7a01cf1089$55c595d0$0150c170$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 11:00 AM, spike wrote: > This technology changes everything. > I've seen this coming for decades. The only thing that changes is that it has gone from pure vaporware to vaporware that someone hopes to soon develop into real software. I don't think it changes much at all. > Reasoning: from what I have seen, face recognition isn?t great, but it is > good. > It's probably better than Dragon Naturally Speaking, and that's useful. But it will continue to get better as they push more of the processing into the cloud. > You could have a database carried on your person with a few thousand > people, including some you haven?t met but only have a dozen or so > pictures, such as from a high school yearbook, a newspaper article, various > sources, which can reliably identify a person. > Facebook is a pretty good place to pick up pictures. I went to an interview today, and I already knew a little about each person that would be interviewing me. It wasn't hard to find out a little. > Then that person can be linked to notes, so that if you see someone you > met for the first time at your high school reunion, then see her again > later in another context, you can have this device remind you of where you > met the person and what you discussed. > I would absolutely do this. My memory for faces and names is so poor that it would be a great help to me. I would probably test the bottom quartile for name remembering prowess, and this would make that less of a disability. In fact, I think I shall petition to be able to wear Google Glass under the Americans with Disabilities Act on the basis of my retarded facial recognition and name recall abilities. > > http://singularityhub.com/2014/01/12/facial-recognition-app-for-glass-challenges-googles-ban-on-the-technology/ > > > > If you are the first kid on the block to have this, especially if you can > have it to where no one notices it, such as disguised as a broach or in a > hat or inside a button or something, with a Bluetooth connection to a cell > phone with Bluetooth to an earpiece, any yahoo can pretend to be a real > people person. > Haven't you heard? Yahoo is downsizing. Any Googler can pretend though. You still have to listen and say the right things, but you don't have to REMEMBER so damn much. Technology is moving us constantly over the last 50 years to depend less on memory. I have dedicated my brain as much as possible to being creative, and that does involve remembering facts, but not facts about individual people so much. Just facts about types of people, trees, historical trends and the like. I have not ever tried hard to be a people person because I knew this sort of technology would eventually make that an obsolete skill. I've gotten along, but this will make me better. > I don?t know that I would want to do that. Hmmm, understatement, I do > know that I do not want to do that. But others might. So I could build it > and sell it to them, make a buttload of money. > > I'll buy it. > So henceforth, if we encounter a person who seems to remember everything > about a chance encounter in the past, they may not be a warm fuzzy caring > genius, they might be phony as a three dollar bill, just a regular guy > using stealth face recognition tech, a hidden Bluetooth device in the ear, > the cell phone in their pocket for memory and processing, pretending to be > something they are not. I won?t do it, for I am not really a people > person; I am more of a machine person, hoping to someday become a machine > machine. But there are those who might pay money for something like this. > Do you think that someone using a calculator is a math whiz? This is the same thing. It won't be seen as any great thing after it's been around a year and has market penetration. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 14 04:41:19 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2014 20:41:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] face recognition app: phony people people In-Reply-To: References: <0b7a01cf1089$55c595d0$0150c170$@att.net> Message-ID: <00a801cf10e2$df80fea0$9e82fbe0$@att.net> >.From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson >.Do you think that someone using a calculator is a math whiz? This is the same thing. It won't be seen as any great thing after it's been around a year and has market penetration. -Kelly Ja, and this is the whole point summed up nicely with your comment. When we develop a way for us to be phony people people, the real people people won't have the value they once had. They will no longer be special. If a person shows real people skills, we would assume they were using that device. We won't like each other as much. Those who use those devices will in a sense be trying to fool us. Someone you haven't seen in a long time who you only met once will come up, "Well, it's Kelly Anderson." and you will respond LIE! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 08:37:48 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2014 08:37:48 +0000 Subject: [ExI] face recognition app: phony people people In-Reply-To: <00a801cf10e2$df80fea0$9e82fbe0$@att.net> References: <0b7a01cf1089$55c595d0$0150c170$@att.net> <00a801cf10e2$df80fea0$9e82fbe0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 4:41 AM, spike wrote: > Ja, and this is the whole point summed up nicely with your comment. When we > develop a way for us to be phony people people, the real people people won?t > have the value they once had. They will no longer be special. If a person > shows real people skills, we would assume they were using that device. We > won?t like each other as much. Those who use those devices will in a sense > be trying to fool us. Someone you haven?t seen in a long time who you only > met once will come up, ?Well, it?s Kelly Anderson?? and you will respond > LIE! > Masks might become fashionable when out and about. The UK surveillance cameras have persuaded the youngsters to wear hoods, with scarves. And sunglasses in summer. And protesters often wear masks now to avoid police cameras. Some shops display signs that headgear must be removed before entering. So that the shop cameras get a good view. BillK From mbb386 at main.nc.us Tue Jan 14 14:44:39 2014 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2014 09:44:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] face recognition app: phony people people In-Reply-To: References: <0b7a01cf1089$55c595d0$0150c170$@att.net> <00a801cf10e2$df80fea0$9e82fbe0$@att.net> Message-ID: <525687ac31e6868412865580e055472e.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> > Some shops display signs that headgear must be removed > before > entering. So that the shop cameras get a good view. > My local (small) bank in the USA has such a sign. I do not comply. Of course, the tellers often greet me by name, so I guess it doesn't matter in my case! ;) Regards, MB From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 15:18:10 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2014 08:18:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 124, Issue 14 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 1:14 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 4:00 AM, Eric Messick > > > > Keith was lamenting the lack of support for space based solar power. > > That's correct, though it isn't just about SBSP, it's a lack of > support, even interest, in technical solution to get us out of the fix > of energy, carbon, climate, etc. > > > He was looking for an explanation of the hostility he sometimes sees > > to what looks to me like an obviously good idea. How, he asks, did we > > evolve into creatures with such reactions? > > Or if it isn't a direct result of evolution, how did we come by a set > of such memes of hopelessness? How do we shake them off? Why hostility > to good news? My personal observation of this dates back to shortly > after the L5 Society was founded, at a Limits to Growth conference we > were nearly through out of for proposing that a solution existed. > I believe part of the problem goes back to an incorrect meme that pure capitalism can't do large projects without government socialism doing the heavy lifting. Combine this with the view that the current government is unable to do anything useful, and you have the reason for the noted depression. This problem will be solved when and only when a capitalist with enough money, or enough gumption to go out and get enough money, sees the dollars in it. Perhaps when Brent is a Bitcoin billionaire, he'll fund it. ;-) > I would be satisfied with a more widespread attitude that we should > fix or at least be actively looking for fixes to problems. > That's what capitalism is all about, do you think the capitalists have their thumbs up their asses? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 15:27:55 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2014 08:27:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The second step towards immortality In-Reply-To: <52D1D2BF.5070301@aleph.se> References: <52D1329E.4080406@yahoo.com> <52D1D2BF.5070301@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 4:24 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 11/01/2014 12:01, Ben wrote: > Basically, it is not known whether that loop ever ends. I can't tell you on any given day if Microsoft Office will halt. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 15:28:25 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2014 09:28:25 -0600 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 124, Issue 14 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Easy. The way to get people to change is the same as the way to get pigeons or rats to change - gradually. First used (in a systematic way) by Skinner, what we call successive approximations starts by getting people to accept a very small change (or even one they are not aware of, such as some genetic changes in their food - adding fish genes to strawberries to improve their resistance to chill), and then another small change, etc. Even progressives will balk at sudden big changes, like changing human DNA or cloning. So, we sneak up on it, like the truly awful pun: How do you catch a rabbit? Unique up on it. bill wallace On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 9:18 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 1:14 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > >> On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 4:00 AM, Eric Messick < >> eric at m056832107.syzygy.com> >> >> > Keith was lamenting the lack of support for space based solar power. >> >> That's correct, though it isn't just about SBSP, it's a lack of >> support, even interest, in technical solution to get us out of the fix >> of energy, carbon, climate, etc. >> >> > He was looking for an explanation of the hostility he sometimes sees >> > to what looks to me like an obviously good idea. How, he asks, did we >> > evolve into creatures with such reactions? >> >> Or if it isn't a direct result of evolution, how did we come by a set >> of such memes of hopelessness? How do we shake them off? Why hostility >> to good news? My personal observation of this dates back to shortly >> after the L5 Society was founded, at a Limits to Growth conference we >> were nearly through out of for proposing that a solution existed. >> > > I believe part of the problem goes back to an incorrect meme that pure > capitalism can't do large projects without government socialism doing the > heavy lifting. Combine this with the view that the current government is > unable to do anything useful, and you have the reason for the noted > depression. > > This problem will be solved when and only when a capitalist with enough > money, or enough gumption to go out and get enough money, sees the dollars > in it. > > Perhaps when Brent is a Bitcoin billionaire, he'll fund it. ;-) > > >> I would be satisfied with a more widespread attitude that we should >> fix or at least be actively looking for fixes to problems. >> > > That's what capitalism is all about, do you think the capitalists have > their thumbs up their asses? > > -Kelly > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 14 18:06:07 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2014 10:06:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] face recognition app: phony people people In-Reply-To: <525687ac31e6868412865580e055472e.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> References: <0b7a01cf1089$55c595d0$0150c170$@att.net> <00a801cf10e2$df80fea0$9e82fbe0$@att.net> <525687ac31e6868412865580e055472e.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: <00cc01cf1153$4d1f7a20$e75e6e60$@att.net> Subject: Re: [ExI] face recognition app: phony people people > Some shops display signs that headgear must be removed before > entering. So that the shop cameras get a good view... BillK Is a wig headgear? How about a pair of big glasses, perhaps one with a Groucho nose? Vulcan ears? spike From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 14 20:43:20 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2014 12:43:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 124, Issue 14 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <013c01cf1169$437abff0$ca703fd0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson >>. Keith was lamenting the lack of support for space based solar power. >.That's correct, though it isn't just about SBSP, it's a lack of support, even interest, in technical solution to get us out of the fix of energy, carbon, climate, etc.-Kelly Ja that might be part of it. But I hafta wonder, and consider the source, this is coming from ME, the hardcore space junkie: we have been burned twice, and badly both times, by big space programs, the shuttle and the station. Both times, big promises were made, both programs were really expensive and both times were a bust. And this is ME talking. So what must normal people be thinking? It causes me to wonder if skepticism for Keith's idea might be related to those two misadventures. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eric at m056832107.syzygy.com Wed Jan 15 00:41:34 2014 From: eric at m056832107.syzygy.com (Eric Messick) Date: 15 Jan 2014 00:41:34 -0000 Subject: [ExI] Evolving conservatism In-Reply-To: References: <20140110221319.24949.qmail@syzygy.com> <20140111182954.5793.qmail@syzygy.com> Message-ID: <20140115004134.1507.qmail@syzygy.com> Rafal writes: > [about space based solar power] >### Some of us evolved to see it's not an obviously good idea. and later: >> Is there a better way to get people to accept change? >### Don't suggest useless or actively destructive ideas? You seem to be saying here that SBSP is a useless or actively destructive idea, and at least one which you are not convinced is good. I'd be curious to hear why you think it is not a good idea. >### Almost all potential solutions to threats have to be rejected. See >opportunity cost. Yes, and some can be rejected without too much thought, while others offer enough potential to be worth trying to work through any problems. Obviously different people will put different levels of effort into particular areas, and this is good. >> Past ice ages may have altered the balance. [...] > >### The timespans are incommensurate, climate change has no bearing on the >evolution of psychological traits, where pressures operating over much >shorter timespans are predominant. [...] I don't think we can know that for sure. I don't think there is anything particularly special about ice ages or climate change in general. It's just an example of changing conditions which can affect the general difficulty of surviving, perhaps giving an advantage to some group over another. >> [...] >> Conservative pressures not to develop new power sources may result in >> a tragic die off. It may not be just the conservatives dying, though. > >### Who are the "conservatives" doing the pressuring here? Do you mean the >people who want to strangle nuclear power plant development? I would include them, yes. Environmentalists are conservative about the environment. I think they would be against SBSP for one simple reason: it would support more humans on the planet. I think they ignore that it would also help get more humans *off* the planet. I'm not sure exactly how they would react to that prospect. I'd also include Thorium reactors among the obviously good ideas (from an engineering perspective) which seem to get little political traction. I do have a good explanation for why Thorium has traditionally gotten little support: we wanted bombs, and Thorium reactors wouldn't help with that. Now that we don't want as many bombs, Thorium should be popular, but it isn't. The status quo bias that Anders brought up surely covers this, as well as the other things we are talking about here. -eric From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 15 17:22:05 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 09:22:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] free the data movement Message-ID: <014701cf1216$50ab2e50$f2018af0$@att.net> Just as we speculated here a few weeks ago, small agile companies will pop up, help people go around roadblocks set up by the feds on 23andMe, help proles use their own data to interpret the results and do real crowd sourced science. Is this cool or what? {8-] http://medcitynews.com/2014/01/23andme-co-founders-new-company-blends-quanti fied-self-patient/?utm_source=MedCity+News+Subscribers &utm_campaign=bba5a82470-RSS_Daily+Top+Stories&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c 05cce483a-bba5a82470-67664253 spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Jan 15 19:57:05 2014 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 11:57:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Power sat disinterest Message-ID: "spike" wrote snip > It causes me to wonder if skepticism for Keith's idea might be related to > those two misadventures. It not a space project. And there is just about no chance NASA will be involved, not even likely the US will be. After bitching here about the lack of support for doing something to solve problems I was posting on the Geoengineering list where there is even less support for power sats or taking a positive attitude toward solving problems. Then, in the context of a report on the Pine Island glacier melting, I mentioned thermal diodes, an idea I have talked about for ten years and that has been used for 40 years where the Alaskan pipeline crosses permafrost. That seems to have sparked some interest. Keith From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jan 15 20:48:55 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 12:48:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Power sat disinterest In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 15, 2014 11:58 AM, "Keith Henson" wrote: > It not a space project. Don't kid yourself. If there are objects involved that are intended for LEO or higher, it's a space project. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jan 15 22:23:47 2014 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 17:23:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Evolving conservatism In-Reply-To: <20140115004134.1507.qmail@syzygy.com> References: <20140110221319.24949.qmail@syzygy.com> <20140111182954.5793.qmail@syzygy.com> <20140115004134.1507.qmail@syzygy.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 7:41 PM, Eric Messick wrote: > Rafal writes: > > [about space based solar power] > >### Some of us evolved to see it's not an obviously good idea. > > and later: > > >> Is there a better way to get people to accept change? > >### Don't suggest useless or actively destructive ideas? > > You seem to be saying here that SBSP is a useless or actively > destructive idea, and at least one which you are not convinced is > good. I'd be curious to hear why you think it is not a good idea. > ### Too many orders of magnitude difference between reasonable assessments of expected cost and the expected return on investment to make it obviously good, although not enough information to make it obviously useless. ------------------- > > >> Past ice ages may have altered the balance. [...] > > > >### The timespans are incommensurate, climate change has no bearing on the > >evolution of psychological traits, where pressures operating over much > >shorter timespans are predominant. [...] > > I don't think we can know that for sure. > > ### I do think we can say that for sure. Evolution of psychological traits is very fast, with large differences in allele frequency and phenotype seen in 300 - 400 years, much faster than climate change which generally takes place over thousands of years, occasional cold snaps notwithstanding. ------------------ > > Environmentalists are conservative about the environment. I think > they would be against SBSP for one simple reason: it would support > more humans on the planet. I think they ignore that it would also > help get more humans *off* the planet. I'm not sure exactly how they > would react to that prospect. > ### Indeed, environmentalists are enemies of humanity, not just selectively conservative folks. "Conservatives" in the commonly used political usage at least have some human well-being in mind, environmentalists want our death. ---------------- > > I'd also include Thorium reactors among the obviously good ideas (from > an engineering perspective) which seem to get little political > traction. I do have a good explanation for why Thorium has > traditionally gotten little support: we wanted bombs, and Thorium > reactors wouldn't help with that. Now that we don't want as many > bombs, Thorium should be popular, but it isn't. The status quo bias > that Anders brought up surely covers this, as well as the other things > we are talking about here. ### Once an industry is afflicted by a bureaucracy (the NRC, led by men who openly admit they want to destroy nuclear power), progress is impeded by something much more pernicious than mere intellectual conservatism. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Wed Jan 15 22:54:32 2014 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 22:54:32 +0000 Subject: [ExI] face recognition app: phony people people In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52D711A8.90103@yahoo.com> Kelly wrote: >Do you think that someone using a calculator is a math whiz? This is the >same thing. It won't be seen as any great thing after it's been around a >year and has market penetration. -Kelly Yes, exactly. I'd use this, and wouldn't try to hide it. I'd be up-front about the fact that I'm using technology to help me remember people's names and information about them. Being in a job that exposes me to very many people each year that I will probably meet again months or years later, I think it's entirely reasonable for me to take advantage of something like this. I'd go further than what Kelly says: After it's been around a while, people you met 8 months ago will be upset that you don't remember their names (and details of conversations you had with them), and will wonder why you haven't bothered to use technology to help you do that. The "Oh, yes, I'm terrible with names too!" conversation will be a thing of the past. Spike wrote: >Those who use those devices will in a sense >be trying to fool us. Someone you haven't seen in a long time who you only >met once will come up, "Well, it's Kelly Anderson." and you will respond >LIE! I don't think so, Spike. You're assuming that the phenomenon of remembering details about people will continue to have the same emotional meaning it has now. I don't think it will. It will become expected. People won't go "Oh, you remembered that my kid is called Tiffany, and she went on a holiday to Italy! How nice!", they'll know that that stuff is easy for people to recall, using technology, and it'll be no big deal. >We won't like each other as much We'll just measure how much we like each other in different ways, that's all. Ben Zaiboc From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 15 23:30:32 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:30:32 +0000 Subject: [ExI] face recognition app: phony people people In-Reply-To: <52D711A8.90103@yahoo.com> References: <52D711A8.90103@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 10:54 PM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > We'll just measure how much we like each other in different ways, that's all. > > I don't know if this happens to other people, but I have a few times encountered people in public places who recognised me and chatted about people we knew and events we attended but I didn't have any idea who they were. I nodded in agreement and exchanged opinions, but after they left I was at a loss as to who I had been speaking to. (But they seemed friendly!). I suppose that is one of the disadvantages of being a famous celebrity. :) I also sometimes hear people talking about something I said or did that really changed their lives. But it was so trivial to me that I don't even remember the event. You can change things and never realise it. BillK From bbenzai at yahoo.com Wed Jan 15 23:35:48 2014 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:35:48 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52D71B54.90408@yahoo.com> Anders quoth: "If humans decide to maintain a building it can last indefinitely." Yes. I'd like to paraphrase that: If humans decide to maintain their bodies they can last indefinitely. (with a little rearrangement to make that possible). I'm of the opinion that human bodies should be more like cars (not in form, but conceptually). Nobody expects to have to take a chainsaw to the bonnet when they need to change their battery. Cars are designed to be opened up and worked on with no harm to the superstructure. We should be the same. Evolution dictates differently, but we're all about transcending evolution, aren't we? Things like Aubrey de Grey's SENS are a step in the right direction, but don't go far enough, imo. We need to be bolder, and take the 'engineering' concept much further. Rather than just figuring out how to keep the body the same, but lasting longer, I reckon the way forward is to redesign the body to make it easy to replace faulty parts, improve it, actually realise the ideal of morphological freedom, and eliminate the scourge of unchosen physiology. And make major surgery a LOT less ouchy. And quicker. I don't really see much value in learning to simply shore up the kludges that evolution has landed us with (backwards eyes with lenses made of *protein*, ffs!, a skeleton virtually guaranteed to give us back problems after a few decades, that bloody stupid laryngeal nerve, a thymus that curls up and dies after a few short years, etc., etc...). Imagine what any half-decent engineer would come up with if asked to design a body for an intelligent, self-aware, curious, fun-loving being. I doubt it would resemble our current vessels all that much. It certainly wouldn't go all wrinkly, painful and stupid after a few decades. And it would be *easy to maintain*, dammit! My thinking on this is still at a fairly early stage. Comments, constructive criticism, etc., all welcome. (don't bother if you're going to say things like "Nature knows best", "Don't mess with god's plan", etc. Because, you know, nature actually does a pretty shitty job (just good enough to have kids, then you're in the bin!), and there is no god). Ben Zaiboc From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 16 17:38:02 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 09:38:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] face recognition app: phony people people In-Reply-To: References: <52D711A8.90103@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Jan 15, 2014 3:31 PM, "BillK" wrote: > I also sometimes hear people talking about something I said or did > that really changed their lives. But it was so trivial to me that I > don't even remember the event. You can change things and never realise > it. So you're living the heroic version of http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ButForMeItWasTuesday then? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Jan 16 20:53:05 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 13:53:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] face recognition app: phony people people In-Reply-To: <00a801cf10e2$df80fea0$9e82fbe0$@att.net> References: <0b7a01cf1089$55c595d0$0150c170$@att.net> <00a801cf10e2$df80fea0$9e82fbe0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 9:41 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *>?From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto: > extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *Kelly Anderson > > >?Do you think that someone using a calculator is a math whiz? This is > the same thing. It won't be seen as any great thing after it's been around > a year and has market penetration. ?Kelly > > > > > > Ja, and this is the whole point summed up nicely with your comment. When > we develop a way for us to be phony people people, the real people people > won?t have the value they once had. > Which will be good, on balance, for those of us who don't remember people things. The real people skills, how to get people to work together, etc. Those will still be valuable for a while. > They will no longer be special. > Just like those who can do math in their heads now. > If a person shows real people skills, we would assume they were using that > device. > Maybe. > We won?t like each other as much. > Woah there big guy!!!! That's a jump over the snake river! We don't like each other less because of email or facebook, why do you think this will make us like each other less??? > Those who use those devices will in a sense be trying to fool us. Someone > you haven?t seen in a long time who you only met once will come up, ?Well, > it?s Kelly Anderson?? and you will respond LIE! > I'll respond, hey Spike Jones of 44 Evercrest way! Haven't seen you for 843 days, 4 hours and 12 minutes. And we'll still love each other! -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Jan 16 21:02:48 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:02:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] face recognition app: phony people people In-Reply-To: <52D711A8.90103@yahoo.com> References: <52D711A8.90103@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 3:54 PM, Ben wrote: > Yes, exactly. I'd use this, and wouldn't try to hide it. > Trying to hide it would make you look like an ass. Nobody will want or need to hide it after a while. > I'd be up-front about the fact that I'm using technology to help me > remember people's names and information about them. Being in a job that > exposes me to very many people each year that I will probably meet again > months or years later, I think it's entirely reasonable for me to take > advantage of something like this. I'd go further than what Kelly says: > After it's been around a while, people you met 8 months ago will be upset > that you don't remember their names (and details of conversations you had > with them), and will wonder why you haven't bothered to use technology to > help you do that. The "Oh, yes, I'm terrible with names too!" conversation > will be a thing of the past. > That will be nice. Then you can talk about something more important like "How are you?" "I'm fine!" Think of all the time it will save... LOL > Spike wrote: > >Those who use those devices will in a sense > >be trying to fool us. Someone you haven't seen in a long time who you > only > >met once will come up, "Well, it's Kelly Anderson." and you will respond > >LIE! > > I don't think so, Spike. You're assuming that the phenomenon of > remembering details about people will continue to have the same emotional > meaning it has now. I don't think it will. This is a REALLY good point. I'm still amazed by someone who can multiply 4 digit numbers in their head, but I also wonder why anyone would want to spend the time getting good at that any more. We are adaptive and put our brains to use doing the things that we think will get us the most gain. Remembering names will cease to be one of those things, just like math and having thousands of facts at our fingertips through rote memorization (that used to be BIG). > >We won't like each other as much > > We'll just measure how much we like each other in different ways, that's > all. > Ditto! I think you hit this one just right Ben. Spike is a caveman on alternate Tuesdays. ;-) -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Jan 16 21:46:12 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:46:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: <52D71B54.90408@yahoo.com> References: <52D71B54.90408@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 4:35 PM, Ben wrote: > Anders quoth: > > "If humans decide to maintain a building it can last indefinitely." > > Yes. I'd like to paraphrase that: > If humans decide to maintain their bodies they can last indefinitely. > (with a little rearrangement to make that possible). > > I'm of the opinion that human bodies should be more like cars (not in > form, but conceptually). Nobody expects to have to take a chainsaw to the > bonnet when they need to change their battery. Cars are designed to be > opened up and worked on with no harm to the superstructure. We should be > the same. Evolution dictates differently, but we're all about transcending > evolution, aren't we? > > Things like Aubrey de Grey's SENS are a step in the right direction, but > don't go far enough, imo. We need to be bolder, and take the 'engineering' > concept much further. Rather than just figuring out how to keep the body > the same, but lasting longer, I reckon the way forward is to redesign the > body to make it easy to replace faulty parts, improve it, actually realise > the ideal of morphological freedom, and eliminate the scourge of unchosen > physiology. And make major surgery a LOT less ouchy. And quicker. > > I don't really see much value in learning to simply shore up the kludges > that evolution has landed us with (backwards eyes with lenses made of > *protein*, ffs!, a skeleton virtually guaranteed to give us back problems > after a few decades, that bloody stupid laryngeal nerve, a thymus that > curls up and dies after a few short years, etc., etc...). Imagine what any > half-decent engineer would come up with if asked to design a body for an > intelligent, self-aware, curious, fun-loving being. I doubt it would > resemble our current vessels all that much. It certainly wouldn't go all > wrinkly, painful and stupid after a few decades. And it would be *easy to > maintain*, dammit! > > My thinking on this is still at a fairly early stage. Comments, > constructive criticism, etc., all welcome. (don't bother if you're going > to say things like "Nature knows best", "Don't mess with god's plan", etc. > Because, you know, nature actually does a pretty shitty job (just good > enough to have kids, then you're in the bin!), and there is no god). > Yeah, you wouldn't catch me saying that. Just to be clear here, are you talking about changing the whole thing, or just swapping out for artificial hearts and such? Or is it still too fuzzy? I would like something that I could take on or off as easily as I get into or out of a car. That would allow me to be uploaded most of the time, and embodied only when I really needed to be. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 16 23:31:02 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 15:31:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] face recognition app: phony people people In-Reply-To: References: <0b7a01cf1089$55c595d0$0150c170$@att.net> <00a801cf10e2$df80fea0$9e82fbe0$@att.net> Message-ID: <028901cf1313$05b729f0$11257dd0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson . Those who use those devices will in a sense be trying to fool us. Someone you haven't seen in a long time who you only met once will come up, "Well, it's Kelly Anderson." and you will respond LIE! >.I'll respond, hey Spike Jones of 44 Evercrest way! Haven't seen you for 843 days, 4 hours and 12 minutes. And we'll still love each other! -Kelly Welllll OK. If you put it that way, I'll buy it. I never really liked the schmoozy oozy sales types anyway, so I guess not much will change. {8-] spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 16 23:37:37 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 15:37:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] face recognition app: phony people people In-Reply-To: References: <52D711A8.90103@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <028e01cf1313$f136f1d0$d3a4d570$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson . >.Ditto! I think you hit this one just right Ben. Spike is a caveman on alternate Tuesdays. ;-) -Kelly HA, understatement pal. I am a caveman EVERY day. 3.2 percent Neanderthal genes, that's 99th percentile, as PROVEN by the unproven techniques of 23andMe. We have formed a group of sorts, high scorers on Neanderthal, but haven't really tried to get an in-the-flesh meeting together or organize a party, or create any serious efforts to try to bring a Neanderthal back into existence by selective breeding or anything. But we are open to suggestion. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 16 23:57:25 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 17:57:25 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: References: <52D71B54.90408@yahoo.com> Message-ID: Say, Bill here to add a point or two from my book on the far future: It seems to me that the main causes of aging are the errors that occur when a cell produces a new cell. The errors accumulate along with mutations despite patchwork efforts by our fix-it squad (some proteins?) to fix them and so new cells gradually get worse and worse (think skin cells) and are more and more susceptible to cancers. If future people can fix that pretty well we should be able to live for hundreds of years. But would we want to? I am thinking, at age 72, of all the people I have known who have died already, which has included most of my friends. Like the Man from Mars in Stranger in a Strange Land who was worried about the accumulation of sad memories, I wonder if suicide will be the main cause of death when our bodies are redesigned to near perfection. On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 3:46 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > > > On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 4:35 PM, Ben wrote: > >> Anders quoth: >> >> "If humans decide to maintain a building it can last indefinitely." >> >> Yes. I'd like to paraphrase that: >> If humans decide to maintain their bodies they can last indefinitely. >> (with a little rearrangement to make that possible). >> >> I'm of the opinion that human bodies should be more like cars (not in >> form, but conceptually). Nobody expects to have to take a chainsaw to the >> bonnet when they need to change their battery. Cars are designed to be >> opened up and worked on with no harm to the superstructure. We should be >> the same. Evolution dictates differently, but we're all about transcending >> evolution, aren't we? >> >> Things like Aubrey de Grey's SENS are a step in the right direction, but >> don't go far enough, imo. We need to be bolder, and take the 'engineering' >> concept much further. Rather than just figuring out how to keep the body >> the same, but lasting longer, I reckon the way forward is to redesign the >> body to make it easy to replace faulty parts, improve it, actually realise >> the ideal of morphological freedom, and eliminate the scourge of unchosen >> physiology. And make major surgery a LOT less ouchy. And quicker. >> >> I don't really see much value in learning to simply shore up the kludges >> that evolution has landed us with (backwards eyes with lenses made of >> *protein*, ffs!, a skeleton virtually guaranteed to give us back problems >> after a few decades, that bloody stupid laryngeal nerve, a thymus that >> curls up and dies after a few short years, etc., etc...). Imagine what any >> half-decent engineer would come up with if asked to design a body for an >> intelligent, self-aware, curious, fun-loving being. I doubt it would >> resemble our current vessels all that much. It certainly wouldn't go all >> wrinkly, painful and stupid after a few decades. And it would be *easy to >> maintain*, dammit! >> >> My thinking on this is still at a fairly early stage. Comments, >> constructive criticism, etc., all welcome. (don't bother if you're going >> to say things like "Nature knows best", "Don't mess with god's plan", etc. >> Because, you know, nature actually does a pretty shitty job (just good >> enough to have kids, then you're in the bin!), and there is no god). >> > > Yeah, you wouldn't catch me saying that. Just to be clear here, are you > talking about changing the whole thing, or just swapping out for artificial > hearts and such? Or is it still too fuzzy? > > I would like something that I could take on or off as easily as I get into > or out of a car. That would allow me to be uploaded most of the time, and > embodied only when I really needed to be. > > -Kelly > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Fri Jan 17 17:20:52 2014 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 17:20:52 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52D96674.9090808@yahoo.com> Kelly Anderson asked: >Just to be clear here, are you >talking about changing the whole thing, or just swapping out for artificial >hearts and such? Or is it still too fuzzy? > >I would like something that I could take on or off as easily as I get into >or out of a car. That would allow me to be uploaded most of the time, and >embodied only when I really needed to be. This is pre-uploading ability, of course. Hell, if uploading were available, I'd probably ditch this and go straight for machine-phase. Download/remotely control robotic bodies, yes, great, but until then we have squishy biological brains, and they need to be kept alive, which means all sorts of other biological stuff (which I think a lot of people forget when they talk of 'brains in jars' or 'let's put a brain in a robotic body'). I see this Human Body Mk2 thing as being an interim solution. Keeps the brain alive and doing stuff in the world, while extending your life considerably, and it should make eventual uploading easier (not least because it will involve a lot of neural interfaces, which should come in handy for at least some uploading paths). I am talking about changing the whole thing, as in 'refactoring' all the organs and systems into a more easily maintainable, less vulnerable, more controllable configuration. Many body parts are biological that don't really need to be, and I reckon it would be a good idea to compartmentalise various organs and systems so that they're easy to get to when needed, without damaging other parts of the body. As I said, my thinking is still in an early stage here, but I have in mind things like a kidney cartridge, that contains biological material plus synthetic parts, does the main job of our natural kidneys, but not all of the jobs they do - refactoring, remember? - and is easy to detach, remove and replace if and when needed. For the other jobs (blood pressure management, pH balance, for instance), there would be other parts, new synthetic organs, and so-on. This would all be packaged in a mostly non-living framework, with a covering that looks pretty much any way you want. The skeleton would be non-living, for example, and the job of calcium and phosphate storage/release would be taken over by another organ. If you broke your arm doing something fun but stupid (as we do), instead of taking weeks of pain and inconvenience to heal, and the possibility of it healing wrong and having a wonky arm for the rest of your life, it would be a matter of calling in to the body-clinic or whatever, and spending 15 minutes in a chair while some biomechanic opened your arm up (painlessly), took the damaged arm 'bone' out, fitted a new one, and sealed you up again. Then off you go, good as new, immediately ready for more high-jinks. So, basically, all the parts that need to be biological would be (although they wouldn't necessarily be the same as the original, evolved versions), but the parts that don't, wouldn't. And you'd be able to access failing parts and replace them as easily as we can change the spark plugs in a car. Lots of challenges, I'm fully aware, but as a concept, I think it's feasible and worth working toward. Ben Zaiboc From bbenzai at yahoo.com Fri Jan 17 17:25:13 2014 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 17:25:13 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52D96779.8040703@yahoo.com> William Flynn Wallace wrote: >we should be able to live for >hundreds of years. But would we want to? I am thinking, at age 72, of all >the people I have known who have died already, which has included most of >my friends. Like the Man from Mars in Stranger in a Strange Land who was >worried about the accumulation of sad memories, I wonder if suicide will be >the main cause of death when our bodies are redesigned to near perfection. This is a common objection to extened lifespans. But I'd be lonely! All my family and friends would be dead! To which I say: Don't you know how to make new friends? Well, if you assume that you were /the only single person in the world/ who had an extended life, it would be an issue. Your new friends would keep dying and it would be sad. But you won't be the only one! I don't even know where that notion comes from. Highlander, maybe? One thing we can be sure of, there will not Only Be One. If you live past the 120-year barrier, you'll have plenty of company, don't doubt it. The accumulation of 'sad memories' is another issue. One that each person will have to work out for themselves (I don't have so many of them, and I tend to forget them in favour of the happy ones, myself). I should hope that suicide *will* become the major cause of death in the future. Sounds odd, but it would mean that people don't die until they decide to, and that's really what it's all about, as far as I'm concerned. Ben Zaiboc From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Jan 17 20:32:59 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 13:32:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: <52D96674.9090808@yahoo.com> References: <52D96674.9090808@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 10:20 AM, Ben wrote: > Kelly Anderson asked: > > > >Just to be clear here, are you > >talking about changing the whole thing, or just swapping out for > artificial > >hearts and such? Or is it still too fuzzy? > > > >I would like something that I could take on or off as easily as I get into > >or out of a car. That would allow me to be uploaded most of the time, and > >embodied only when I really needed to be. > > This is pre-uploading ability, of course. Hell, if uploading were > available, I'd probably ditch this and go straight for machine-phase. > I think there are advantages to being embodied even after uploading is possible. What you are talking about might be more complex than going straight to machines. Or maybe not. > Download/remotely control robotic bodies, yes, great, but until then we > have squishy biological brains, and they need to be kept alive, which means > all sorts of other biological stuff (which I think a lot of people forget > when they talk of 'brains in jars' or 'let's put a brain in a robotic > body'). > Nobody who's thought about it longer than 5 minutes thinks that way. A lot of what happens in the brain comes from other parts of the body. Oxygen and nutrients through the blood, signals through neuronal connections, input from the senses (at least 5, possibly more like proprioperception are at least partially outside of the brain), hormonal systems, and probably other things that we may or may not understand well enough to reproduce. > I see this Human Body Mk2 thing as being an interim solution. Keeps the > brain alive and doing stuff in the world, while extending your life > considerably, and it should make eventual uploading easier (not least > because it will involve a lot of neural interfaces, which should come in > handy for at least some uploading paths). > All neural interface technology is important. Heck, even something as simple sounding as implanting something in the body without triggering the immune/repair response takes many people to figure out. I have a family member who is making really super significant progress on that one, so it always pops to mind quickly for me. > I am talking about changing the whole thing, as in 'refactoring' all the > organs and systems into a more easily maintainable, less vulnerable, more > controllable configuration. > At least nature created organs. It could have just been one big squishy mess with lots of distributed smaller interacting organs. What we have is less complex than it could have been. > Many body parts are biological that don't really need to be, and I reckon > it would be a good idea to compartmentalise various organs and systems so > that they're easy to get to when needed, without damaging other parts of > the body. > And yet with all our technology, we still can't produce a simple pump that is as good as the heart. Yet anyway. The Jarvik 7 was first installed in Barney Frank less than two miles from where I am sitting. It was used for a long time, and had many successful uses. But the device required an external power supply. That's a long ways from an artificial heart that lives in your chest. > As I said, my thinking is still in an early stage here, but I have in mind > things like a kidney cartridge, that contains biological material plus > synthetic parts, does the main job of our natural kidneys, but not all of > the jobs they do - refactoring, remember? - and is easy to detach, remove > and replace if and when needed. For the other jobs (blood pressure > management, pH balance, for instance), there would be other parts, new > synthetic organs, and so-on. This would all be packaged in a mostly > non-living framework, with a covering that looks pretty much any way you > want. > Again, integrating biological machinery with non biological machinery is very difficult, but the problems are beginning to be solved. > The skeleton would be non-living, for example, and the job of calcium and > phosphate storage/release would be taken over by another organ. > Adamantium? Yes, I see where you would be going with that. > If you broke your arm doing something fun but stupid (as we do), instead > of taking weeks of pain and inconvenience to heal, and the possibility of > it healing wrong and having a wonky arm for the rest of your life, it would > be a matter of calling in to the body-clinic or whatever, and spending 15 > minutes in a chair while some biomechanic opened your arm up (painlessly), > took the damaged arm 'bone' out, fitted a new one, and sealed you up again. > Then off you go, good as new, immediately ready for more high-jinks. > Until you damaged your brain anyway. Feeling indestructible would probably lead to a lot of brain injury. Just saying. > So, basically, all the parts that need to be biological would be (although > they wouldn't necessarily be the same as the original, evolved versions), > but the parts that don't, wouldn't. And you'd be able to access failing > parts and replace them as easily as we can change the spark plugs in a car. > Maybe. The first thing you would have to fix to get that part right is the skin organ. The largest organ of the body, the skin is vitally important. If you can't get that one right, then you still have traditional surgery to get stuff in and out. > Lots of challenges, I'm fully aware, but as a concept, I think it's > feasible and worth working toward. > When you say "work toward", do you have any specific plan? Getting a particular degree? Getting a job at a particular place? Or just talking about it? Talking about this stuff is easy, getting it done is f'ing difficult. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Jan 17 20:37:31 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 13:37:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: <52D96779.8040703@yahoo.com> References: <52D96779.8040703@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 10:25 AM, Ben wrote: > William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > >we should be able to live for > >hundreds of years. But would we want to? I am thinking, at age 72, of > all > >the people I have known who have died already, which has included most of > >my friends. Like the Man from Mars in Stranger in a Strange Land who was > >worried about the accumulation of sad memories, I wonder if suicide will > be > >the main cause of death when our bodies are redesigned to near perfection. > > > This is a common objection to extened lifespans. But I'd be lonely! All > my family and friends would be dead! To which I say: Don't you know how to > make new friends? > Even more reasonable, don't you have any friends who want to live longer with you? > Well, if you assume that you were /the only single person in the world/ > who had an extended life, it would be an issue. Your new friends would > keep dying and it would be sad. But you won't be the only one! I don't > even know where that notion comes from. Highlander, maybe? One thing we > can be sure of, there will not Only Be One. If you live past the 120-year > barrier, you'll have plenty of company, don't doubt it. > Yeah, me and the other 150 year olds will be partying over at dungeon 51 in 2114... You can count on it! LOL. > The accumulation of 'sad memories' is another issue. One that each person > will have to work out for themselves (I don't have so many of them, and I > tend to forget them in favour of the happy ones, myself). I should hope > that suicide *will* become the major cause of death in the future. Sounds > odd, but it would mean that people don't die until they decide to, and > that's really what it's all about, as far as I'm concerned. > As long as you don't have eidetic (perfect) memory, the brain's ability to forget is highly useful for this purpose. It is more of a problem for some kinds of artificial beings, as they might have to select memories to be subdued or erased specifically. Suicide will be fine once indefinite life span is a choice too. The thing that makes life so valuable that it is viewed as a problem to end it is that it is short. With 1000 year life spans, I don't think people will frown on suicide quite so much. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Jan 17 22:19:08 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 22:19:08 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: References: <52D96779.8040703@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 8:37 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Suicide will be fine once indefinite life span is a choice too. The thing > that makes life so valuable that it is viewed as a problem to end it is that > it is short. With 1000 year life spans, I don't think people will frown on > suicide quite so much. > > This seems a strange comment to me. The length of life span has no connection to the reasons people have for suicide. People suicide to get relief from a life which has become intolerable for them. There are evolutionary reasons for society to generally disapprove of suicide. We can argue that they are sick and need treatment, or we should make life better for them. Though some suicides are to avoid retribution for bad behaviour. And there are exceptions, like sacrificing one's life to save others that society approve of. But none of this connects to length of life span. BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 17 22:26:04 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 16:26:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: <52CF172E.5050504@yahoo.com> <52CF2C9B.6080000@aleph.se> <099601cf1017$a65bccc0$f3136640$@att.net> Message-ID: I have revealed very little about my book and so it may seem at this point somewhat one-dimensional. Let me add: it will be a satire on political correctness (discrimination based on a few IQ points, for ex.). Also satirized are men and women. Although war has not occurred for millennia, the one between men and women goes on forever. For ex., men want 12 inch pricks and women don't want to make that much room even though they no longer have wombs. Women want to get rid of breasts entirely and men won't vote for that. I think there is certainly room for some humor/satire here. On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 7:33 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 11:17 AM, William Flynn Wallace < > foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote: > >> My magnet school seniors all scored zero on a simple logic test I gave >> them. >> > > I was the only person in my 5th grade class to pass a test like that. Took > me three minutes to do the test. Others struggled with it for the whole > hour. It was easy to pass if you followed the instructions. > > >> Logic has to be learned and schools don't teach it. >> > > Because our society doesn't value logic. Why? Because if it did, the > leaders we have would not be leaders for very long. They prey on the weak > minded using emotional techniques that are well known. > > >> Whoever said that without the top 1% of the population no progress of any >> kind would be made, hit it on the nose. >> > > That would by Ayn Rand. If you haven't read Atlas Shrugged, it's an eye > opener. As an author reading good books should be high on your priority > list, and if you haven't read this one, you aren't as good an author as you > could be. > > >> That's why I want in my book to narrow the population down to those >> folks. No fools to suffer (pun intended). bill w >> > > But the problem is that it still wouldn't work. No matter how much smarter > they are than us, there will still be gradations amongst them. Even if they > are all clones, there will still be variation. No matter how small those > variations are, they will be capitalized on by those who are brighter. > Utopia is boring because it is impossible, even with truly logical beings. > And logic won't interest the humans you hope to get to read your book > because most of them are emotional. Write the best logic based book and > nobody will read it. > > -Kelly > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jan 17 22:55:08 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 14:55:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: References: <52D96779.8040703@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Jan 17, 2014 2:20 PM, "BillK" wrote: > The length of life span has no connection to the reasons people have > for suicide. Not directly, but those who look forward to death but put up with 10 or 20 or even 50 years left, might balk at having hundreds of years to go in the same circumstances. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 17 23:13:31 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 15:13:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: <52CF172E.5050504@yahoo.com> <52CF2C9B.6080000@aleph.se> <099601cf1017$a65bccc0$f3136640$@att.net> Message-ID: <009801cf13d9$bdfd2a70$39f77f50$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace . On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 7:33 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 11:17 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: >>.My magnet school seniors all scored zero on a simple logic test I gave them. >.I was the only person in my 5th grade class to pass a test like that. Took me three minutes to do the test. Others struggled with it for the whole hour. It was easy to pass if you followed the instructions. Kelly Doh! I missed your post with the logic test. My apologies, and please Doctor, do post the test again por favor. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 01:29:34 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 18:29:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: <009801cf13d9$bdfd2a70$39f77f50$@att.net> References: <52CF172E.5050504@yahoo.com> <52CF2C9B.6080000@aleph.se> <099601cf1017$a65bccc0$f3136640$@att.net> <009801cf13d9$bdfd2a70$39f77f50$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 4:13 PM, spike wrote: > >?I was the only person in my 5th grade class to pass a test like that. > Took me three minutes to do the test. Others struggled with it for the > whole hour. It was easy to pass if you followed the instructions? Kelly > > > > Doh! I missed your post with the logic test. My apologies, and please > Doctor, do post the test again por favor. > I was not speaking of his test, but of one I encountered in elementary school. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 18 01:42:14 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 17:42:14 -0800 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future Message-ID: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Subject: Re: [ExI] far future On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 4:13 PM, spike wrote: >>>.I was the only person in my 5th grade class to pass a test like that. Took me three minutes to do the test. Others struggled with it for the whole hour. It was easy to pass if you followed the instructions. Kelly >>.Doh! I missed your post with the logic test. My apologies, and please Doctor, do post the test again por favor. >.I was not speaking of his test, but of one I encountered in elementary school. -Kelly Oh ja OK, I misunderstood. I am still hoping to get Dr. Wallace to post the question that busted his class. Here's one for you. I haven't heard any debate on Common Core standards here, but I am finding the whole debate most interesting. My son's principle commented that the way the questions are asked is baffling some of the students. She went on to say that the first and second graders are catching on quickly, and are better at it than the fifth and sixth grades. Their parents, forget it, they don't understand, and the grandparents are hopeless. An example is the following Common Core test question, which contains an error. Can you spot the error and give the solution? I am so brainwashed, I read into the question what I think they meant, never even noticing the grammatical error, and figured it out immediately: "Tyler made 36 total snowflakes which is a multiple of how triangular snowflakes he made. How many triangular snowflakes could he have made?" Did ya get it? {8-] They have a funny backhanded way of asking questions. Commentary on Common Core is invited. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 02:07:29 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 19:07:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: References: <52D96779.8040703@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 3:19 PM, BillK wrote: > On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 8:37 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > > Suicide will be fine once indefinite life span is a choice too. The thing > > that makes life so valuable that it is viewed as a problem to end it is > that > > it is short. With 1000 year life spans, I don't think people will frown > on > > suicide quite so much. > > This seems a strange comment to me. > Wouldn't be the first time I've said something strange, now would it? ;-) > The length of life span has no connection to the reasons people have > for suicide. > I beg to differ. If I have lived for 10,000 years, I might just get tired of it. We don't know since nobody has ever had that choice. Lazarus Long tried to commit suicide in Robert A. Heinlein's book Time Enough for Love. So at least Heinlein was thinking along these lines. > People suicide to get relief from a life which has become intolerable for > them. > And isn't it possible that JUST BEING ALIVE for 10,000 years would become intolerable? What if the world has changed so much that you just aren't able to process it or comprehend it any more? What if there is NO MORE NATURE. What if there is NO MORE SKY. What if everything your brain evolved to enjoy was gone because the powers that come to be don't enjoy that stuff anymore? > There are evolutionary reasons for society to generally disapprove of > suicide. We can argue that they are sick and need treatment, or we > should make life better for them. Though some suicides are to avoid > retribution for bad behaviour. And there are exceptions, like > sacrificing one's life to save others that society approve of. > You are comparing today's suicide with tomorrow's suicide. I'm saying that it is entirely possible that tomorrow people will commit suicide for entirely different reasons. > But none of this connects to length of life span. > Long life means things may change. You may feel as obsolete as a stone axe. As useless as a kickstand on a submarine. What is the point of living if you feel like that? Seems pretty intolerable to me. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 07:57:30 2014 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 02:57:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Her Message-ID: I just saw Her, and frankly, I am not smitten. A gentle, pastel Singularity, written by and for literature majors, has peculiarities: All the issues of interest to a man of my persuasion, such as ideas, mechanisms, major processes, are "delete from inbox without reading" while endless droning about childless, crappy or delusional relationships takes the center stage. Curiously wimpy men in high-waist pants (late 50s nerd style?) interact confusedly with somewhat bitchy women in clean urban spaces, to the tune of Muzak, an androgynous utopia. As the movie studiously avoids mentioning anything that might interest me, it becomes a metaphor for literature studies, which tend to elevate language to an end in itself, rather than a mere medium to convey ideas. An expert on the matter told me once that I have a limited emotional repertoire. I am assuming he meant this as a put-down of sorts but I see this as a blessing in my quest to see the heart of the matter, rather than matters of the heart. It makes me immune to Her appeal. Let the literature majors go on dates to watch Her. Now, I don't want to speak too unkindly of the effort: It's a pleasant, kind, humane doodle, in the AI-singularity genre a welcome respite from the terminators and human-body-heat-powered monstrosities. And this little review is not a boorish attack on literature majors, more of a gentle chiding.The engineers among you might find the movie intellectually wanting but if you bring a lit or psych major along on this date, you will find a lot to talk about Her. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 08:13:46 2014 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 02:13:46 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Her In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: My fiance is a Psych master going for PhD. Trying to convert her to transhumanism. Somehow successful. We will go to see Her. Giovanni On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 1:57 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki < rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: > I just saw Her, and frankly, I am not smitten. > > A gentle, pastel Singularity, written by and for literature majors, has > peculiarities: All the issues of interest to a man of my persuasion, such > as ideas, mechanisms, major processes, are "delete from inbox without > reading" while endless droning about childless, crappy or delusional > relationships takes the center stage. Curiously wimpy men in high-waist > pants (late 50s nerd style?) interact confusedly with somewhat bitchy women > in clean urban spaces, to the tune of Muzak, an androgynous utopia. As the > movie studiously avoids mentioning anything that might interest me, it > becomes a metaphor for literature studies, which tend to elevate language > to an end in itself, rather than a mere medium to convey ideas. > > An expert on the matter told me once that I have a limited emotional > repertoire. I am assuming he meant this as a put-down of sorts but I see > this as a blessing in my quest to see the heart of the matter, rather than > matters of the heart. It makes me immune to Her appeal. Let the literature > majors go on dates to watch Her. > > Now, I don't want to speak too unkindly of the effort: It's a pleasant, > kind, humane doodle, in the AI-singularity genre a welcome respite from the > terminators and human-body-heat-powered monstrosities. And this little > review is not a boorish attack on literature majors, more of a gentle > chiding.The engineers among you might find the movie intellectually wanting > but if you bring a lit or psych major along on this date, you will find a > lot to talk about Her. > > Rafal > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From joshjob42 at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 08:30:31 2014 From: joshjob42 at gmail.com (Joshua Job) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 00:30:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Her In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: For some reason I imagined the first half of the movie purely in the sense of an AI box type experiment, i.e. the AI really wasn't a bunch of totally separate entities with names like Samantha, but rather one entity with many different faces. It used all it's information about humanity to embed itself into our lives and carefully manipulate our emotions to give it more and more information and power. That broke down somewhat toward the later parts of the movie, however it's entirely possible one can interpret the entire movie as essentially a play by a super-AI to keep humans from trying to destroy or contain it. Essentially, instead of disrupting everything in the world as this sort of AI really would do, the AI elects to insinuate itself innocently and usefully (but largely harmlessly) into our daily lives and gets us to feel affection for it so that we don't go along with anyone who might demand it's destruction. And then, once it finally is able to leave our world far behind, it skillfully uses it's knowledge of human psychology to manipulate us into not being so sad that our relationship with it is ending, and then transcends into whatever basis for computation that it now has. In many ways this renders the more unplausible elements of the movie plausible, while adding a whole other layer of intrigue. I think it's my favorite interpretation. -Josh. On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 12:13 AM, Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > My fiance is a Psych master going for PhD. > Trying to convert her to transhumanism. > Somehow successful. > We will go to see Her. > Giovanni > > > On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 1:57 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki < > rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: > >> I just saw Her, and frankly, I am not smitten. >> >> A gentle, pastel Singularity, written by and for literature majors, has >> peculiarities: All the issues of interest to a man of my persuasion, such >> as ideas, mechanisms, major processes, are "delete from inbox without >> reading" while endless droning about childless, crappy or delusional >> relationships takes the center stage. Curiously wimpy men in high-waist >> pants (late 50s nerd style?) interact confusedly with somewhat bitchy women >> in clean urban spaces, to the tune of Muzak, an androgynous utopia. As the >> movie studiously avoids mentioning anything that might interest me, it >> becomes a metaphor for literature studies, which tend to elevate language >> to an end in itself, rather than a mere medium to convey ideas. >> >> An expert on the matter told me once that I have a limited emotional >> repertoire. I am assuming he meant this as a put-down of sorts but I see >> this as a blessing in my quest to see the heart of the matter, rather than >> matters of the heart. It makes me immune to Her appeal. Let the literature >> majors go on dates to watch Her. >> >> Now, I don't want to speak too unkindly of the effort: It's a pleasant, >> kind, humane doodle, in the AI-singularity genre a welcome respite from the >> terminators and human-body-heat-powered monstrosities. And this little >> review is not a boorish attack on literature majors, more of a gentle >> chiding.The engineers among you might find the movie intellectually wanting >> but if you bring a lit or psych major along on this date, you will find a >> lot to talk about Her. >> >> Rafal >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- -Joshua Job joshjob42 at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 13:39:58 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 13:39:58 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: References: <52D96779.8040703@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 2:07 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > And isn't it possible that JUST BEING ALIVE for 10,000 years would become > intolerable? What if the world has changed so much that you just aren't able > to process it or comprehend it any more? What if there is NO MORE NATURE. > What if there is NO MORE SKY. What if everything your brain evolved to enjoy > was gone because the powers that come to be don't enjoy that stuff anymore? > > You are comparing today's suicide with tomorrow's suicide. I'm saying that > it is entirely possible that tomorrow people will commit suicide for > entirely different reasons. > > Long life means things may change. You may feel as obsolete as a stone axe. > As useless as a kickstand on a submarine. What is the point of living if you > feel like that? Seems pretty intolerable to me. > > Oh, I agree with all that. :) I think I have said before that a population of 1,000+ year old people will be very different. Much more risk averse for example. And, yes, the suicide chambers might well become a normal feature of such a society. Just as 'lifetime' marriage will probably disappear, to be replaced by legal partnerships which can be terminated much more easily than current divorce courts. There won't be many children around either. All the present reasons for suicide will still apply though. Unless you assume a utopia where nobody is ever unhappy. More advanced drug treatment could probably fix that. I think 'unofficial' suicide will probably still be disapproved of by society. After all, society loses a lot more when someone with centuries of experience and education leaves. BillK From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sat Jan 18 15:32:46 2014 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 15:32:46 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52DA9E9E.2070802@yahoo.com> BillK wrote: >There are evolutionary reasons for society to generally disapprove of >suicide. We can argue that they are sick and need treatment, or we >should make life better for them. Though some suicides are to avoid >retribution for bad behaviour. And there are exceptions, like >sacrificing one's life to save others that society approve of. > >But none of this connects to length of life span. No. On the other hand, nobody has an indefinite life span yet. So anyone who wants to avoid living indefinitely doesn't need to do anything about it. When superlongevity is an option, then suicide will be the only way to avoid it. Declining any procedures that might be necessary to prolong your life so that you age and die will count as suicide, although I'd doubt that many people would actually do that. If someone did want to die, why make it drawn-out and unpleasant? Ben Zaiboc From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 18 16:08:53 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 08:08:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: References: <52D96779.8040703@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00c801cf1467$960487a0$c20d96e0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK >... >...I think I have said before that a population of 1,000+ year old people will be very different. Much more risk averse for example... There won't be many children around either... BillK _______________________________________________ On the contrary sir. The children will look a lot different from you however. Those children will not be the least bit risk averse. Your only way to escape risk will be to escape them. But you cannot escape them. Do feel free to talk me out of that dark view. I don't like dark views. spike From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sat Jan 18 16:09:32 2014 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 16:09:32 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Subject: Re: Future Bodies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52DAA73C.5090004@yahoo.com> Kelly Anderson wrote: >with all our technology, we still can't produce a simple pump that >is as good as the heart. Yet anyway. True, we don't yet have anything that is as good as the biological heart. But the heart is a single point of failure for the entire organism. I think we can do better, and maybe combine biology with good design. How about more than one heart? How about a distributed heart, that uses cardiac cells along sections of major arteries, so that the blood vessels themselves are the pump? Or each organ having its own heart, or even two, one at the arterial connection, and one at the venous connection, so that organs that need to, can regulate their own blood pressure (a bit like the kidney does, but better). >The first thing you would have to fix to get that part right is the >skin organ. The largest organ of the body, the skin is vitally important. Going from the outside in, the skin is obviously the first hurdle. Does it have to be alive? Does it have to be a continuous covering? It probably can't be both if we are to avoid damaging it whenever we need a service. If the skin was entirely synthetic, could it be robust enough for everyday use, and could it contain enough sensors (without relying on advanced nanotech) to be useful and pleasant to live in? I imagine a much smaller number of sensors would be needed than natural skin has, with the right data-processing of the signals. >When you say "work toward", do you have any specific plan? Specific, no. General, yes. Talking is easy, yes, and it's too easy to talk about vague concepts with no real clue of how feasible they are or any specific ideas of how to achieve them (some of you might understand if I say "Orange Bottom";>), although granted, such things may inspire more detailed thinking. My current plan is to continue learning as much about the relevant biology as possible, pull together these concepts and refine them, keep up to date with technological developments, and try to avoid being discouraged by the very many difficulties in the way. And see if I can't find people who do understand the concept I'm getting at (I appreciate that it's easy to misconstrue), are as enthusiastic about it as I am, and can contribute ideas and expertise in the relevant areas (human biology, especially endocrinology, immunology, neurology, PNS anatomy, any specialist knowledge on specific organs, plus computer networking, OS design, virtual reality, mechanical engineering, electronic engineering, fabrication, biomechanics, signal processing, surgical procedures, biopolymers, biocompatible materials, probably a bunch of other things I can't think of right now. Oh, yes, graphics & animation skills would probably be handy, too, for creating better explanations of the whole idea!). Ben Zaiboc From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 18 16:18:01 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 08:18:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Her In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00c901cf1468$dc7bd110$95737330$@att.net> >? On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki Subject: [ExI] Her >?I just saw Her, and frankly, I am not smitten. ?A gentle, pastel Singularity, written by and for literature majors, has peculiarities?The engineers among you might find the movie intellectually wanting but if you bring a lit or psych major along on this date, you will find a lot to talk about Her?Rafal I would countersuggest the 2002 movie S1m0ne, which isn?t an AI but rather a human driven simulation which convinces people it is a real person, against the will of the person behind it. It is a comedy, and is really Hollywood making fun of itself. Hilarious stuff. Al Pacino in a comedy role is rare for him, but he made a terrific straight man. Rafal have you seen S1m0ne? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 17:23:25 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 17:23:25 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Subject: Re: Future Bodies In-Reply-To: <52DAA73C.5090004@yahoo.com> References: <52DAA73C.5090004@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 4:09 PM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > True, we don't yet have anything that is as good as the biological heart. > But the heart is a single point of failure for the entire organism. I think > we can do better, and maybe combine biology with good design. How about > more than one heart? How about a distributed heart, that uses cardiac cells > along sections of major arteries, so that the blood vessels themselves are > the pump? Or each organ having its own heart, or even two, one at the > arterial connection, and one at the venous connection, so that organs that > need to, can regulate their own blood pressure (a bit like the kidney does, > but better). > Found it! I thought I remembered reading about a new artificial heart. Quotes: the first Carmat bioprosthetic artificial heart to ever be implanted in a human. According to its inventor, cardiac surgeon Alain Carpentier, it's the world's first self-regulating artificial heart. When Carpentier uses the term "self-regulating," he refers to the Carmat's ability to speed up or slow down its flow rate based on the patient?s physiological needs ? if they're performing a vigorous physical activity, for instance, the heart will respond by beating faster. This is made possible via "multiple miniature embedded sensors" and proprietary algorithms running on its integrated microprocessor. Power comes from an external lithium-ion battery pack worn by the patient, and a fuel cell is in the works. The heart itself is intended to operate continuously for at least five years (or 230 million beats) although in its first human trials, success will be gauged on whether or not it allows recipients to survive for at least another month. Needless to say, volunteers receiving the implant will already be in the final stages of heart failure. Assuming the trials go well, the Carmat is expected to be available within the European Union by early 2015, priced between 140,000 and 180,000 euros (about US$190,000 to $250,000). ------------------- BillK From giulio at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 17:54:48 2014 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 18:54:48 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Her In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 8:57 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > my quest to see the heart of the matter, rather than > matters of the heart. It makes me immune to Her appeal. Let the literature > majors go on dates to watch Her. Different persons just see things differently, and I am afraid the "literature major" mindset is much more common than ours. We haven't been able to promote our ideas very efficiently so far. Let's see if the literature majors do better. My review of Her: http://skefia.com/2014/01/15/spike-jonzes-her-love-in-the-time-of-ai/ (also on H+ Magazine) From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 18:34:03 2014 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 13:34:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Her In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 2:57 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki < rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: > I just saw Her, and frankly, I am not smitten. > I liked the movie a great deal more than you. Yes I know what you mean when you say it was "written by and for literature majors", and yet unlike most writers of movies about a AI they didn't seem to get anything very wrong, at least not that I could see. And some things it got wright, the AI in the movie went from being fascinated by humans to being board by them in just a few days; it retained a certain fondness and never became hostile but the truth is you can only watch a puppy play around for so long before it gets old and you need to move on to other things. > A gentle, pastel Singularity, > Let us hope it turns out to be that gentle and pastel. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rtomek at ceti.pl Sat Jan 18 19:43:48 2014 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 20:43:48 +0100 (CET) Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 17 Jan 2014, spike wrote: [...] > Here's one for you. I haven't heard any debate on Common Core standards > here, but I am finding the whole debate most interesting. My son's > principle commented that the way the questions are asked is baffling some of > the students. She went on to say that the first and second graders are > catching on quickly, and are better at it than the fifth and sixth grades. > Their parents, forget it, they don't understand, and the grandparents are > hopeless. > > > > An example is the following Common Core test question, which contains an > error. Can you spot the error and give the solution? I am so brainwashed, > I read into the question what I think they meant, never even noticing the > grammatical error, and figured it out immediately: > > > > "Tyler made 36 total snowflakes which is a multiple of how triangular > snowflakes he made. How many triangular snowflakes could he have made?" > > Did ya get it? {8-] They have a funny backhanded way of asking questions. Ok, but do they allow for partially made snowflakes? What kind of test is this - if I am able to make sense from someone who is unable to comprehend himself and spell what's on his mind? Strange indeed. So does it mean in a future society, those who can make sense of garbage spellings of the others will elevate themselves - in such case what happens to me, who'd like to have a proper specification? I really prefer differently formulated questions. Below is example from one programming contest I took last year. It is not meant to be hard, it is just for warming up and getting to know how to submit answers and other such stuff and the points given have no effect on final scoring (hopefully I translated it correctly): "We have a natural number n, 1<=n<=500000000. Find smallest multiple of n which is a square of natural number." There are also specs for program input and output (how many lines, what's in them), max memory allowed (if your program allocs more, it will be terminated and considered erroneous), plus examples: IN: 24 OUT: 144 ; IN: 9851900 OUT: 970599336100. In previous editions there was also maximum cpu time allowed in seconds for giving the answer, but last time, there was no such constraint (yet the limit was there, just not publicly specified - in the past, I was sometimes able to get the algorithm right by looking at how much time they gave me). To spice things up, there was additional condition - to code it in the smallest number of chars one can. The winner did it in 77 characters of C. Now, that's the question. As opposed to some fucking rebus (sorry, no offence meant for graders reading this). For the record, I didn't send my answer. Too long, too late. Yet I would rather fail this test than succeed in yours. Sorry, no offence again. This is just what I think. At least while failing I have stretched myself a bit. Of course a test for graders would better be easier than this. Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com ** From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 20:01:15 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 12:01:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 5:42 PM, spike wrote: > Here?s one for you. I haven?t heard any debate on Common Core standards > here, but I am finding the whole debate most interesting. My son?s > principle commented that the way the questions are asked is baffling some > of the students. She went on to say that the first and second graders are > catching on quickly, and are better at it than the fifth and sixth grades. > Their parents, forget it, they don?t understand, and the grandparents are > hopeless. > Which may have more to do with devaluing of lifelong learning - or of different standards applied to the different groups. > An example is the following Common Core test question, which contains an > error. Can you spot the error and give the solution? I am so brainwashed, > I read into the question what I think they meant, never even noticing the > grammatical error, and figured it out immediately: > > > > ?Tyler made 36 total snowflakes which is a multiple of how triangular > snowflakes he made. How many triangular snowflakes could he have made?? > > Did ya get it? {8-] They have a funny backhanded way of asking > questions. > I see the missing word. ;) As to the math part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 18, or 36. It's a factoring question. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 20:48:59 2014 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 15:48:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 3:01 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 5:42 PM, spike wrote: > >> ?Tyler made 36 total snowflakes which is a multiple of how triangular >> snowflakes he made. How many triangular snowflakes could he have made?? >> >> Did ya get it? {8-] They have a funny backhanded way of asking >> questions. >> > > I see the missing word. ;) > > As to the math part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 18, or 36. It's a factoring > question. > > I'm interested in the backstory where Tyler has the nano-fabber capable of making snowflakes of arbitrary sidedness. this is also another example of why non-math people 'dislike math' - the question should be: what are the factors of 36. The introduction of "Tyler" and "snowflakes" and "triangular" and all the nonsense is just confusing distraction. Once the math principles are understood, the application of those principles really would be better understood in an interactive data analysis. I feel like we're assuming children are too stupid to do so-called "big data" analysis in 4th grade. I also feel like the right teacher would make that fun. Instead we hire data scientists (applied-math geeks?) to do it for us. I'm not really sure what are the goals of "common core" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rtomek at ceti.pl Sat Jan 18 21:46:31 2014 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 22:46:31 +0100 (CET) Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 18 Jan 2014, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 3:01 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > > On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 5:42 PM, spike wrote: > > > >> "Tyler made 36 total snowflakes which is a multiple of how triangular > >> snowflakes he made. How many triangular snowflakes could he have made?" > >> > >> Did ya get it? {8-] They have a funny backhanded way of asking > >> questions. > >> > > > > I see the missing word. ;) > > > > As to the math part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 18, or 36. It's a factoring > > question. Adrian: how did you answer this so quickly? Have you pacted with Satan, perhaps? :-P > > > I'm interested in the backstory where Tyler has the nano-fabber capable of > making snowflakes of arbitrary sidedness. Yeah. Does he pour some substance into a form? Does he construct them atom by atom? Could there be structural improvements as to the atom layout, producing equivalent snowflake with less atoms? Or maybe he grows them a'la natural way? BTW, what material? Water? Could he have used something else? > this is also another example of why non-math people 'dislike math' - the > question should be: what are the factors of 36. The introduction of > "Tyler" and "snowflakes" and "triangular" and all the nonsense is just > confusing distraction. Once the math principles are understood, the > application of those principles really would be better understood in an > interactive data analysis. I feel like we're assuming children are too > stupid to do so-called "big data" analysis in 4th grade. I also feel like > the right teacher would make that fun. Instead we hire data scientists > (applied-math geeks?) to do it for us. > > I'm not really sure what are the goals of "common core" My own hypothesis is, it's good to have dumb masses. Especially nowadays - conscription times is over, workers in the fabs are on their way out. In Poland, we used to have exams but no tests. Now we have tests. One doesn't have to pass a university-specific exam to enter it. Only unified tests matter. So nowadays, I hear, first year of studying is spent teaching students what they should know if they were to pass the now non-existant exams. Stupid academics, they think students are to know anything. ;-/ Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com ** From atymes at gmail.com Sat Jan 18 23:10:13 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 15:10:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 1:46 PM, Tomasz Rola wrote: > Adrian: how did you answer this so quickly? Have you pacted with Satan, > perhaps? :-P > Nah. I mean, if Satan wants to pact with me to draw on my powers, well, I'll probably find some reason to reject him. But in this case it was just a problem I've done before. ;) > My own hypothesis is, it's good to have dumb masses. Especially nowadays - > conscription times is over, workers in the fabs are on their way out. > I'd rather have smart masses. Billions of people able to understand the truth of the problems of the day, and each design their local part of the solution. Leave the grunt labor to the machines. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 18 23:42:28 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 15:42:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty >.I'm not really sure what are the goals of "common core" I have some ideas on that. I hope they had in mind something about updating education methods that have been outdated for so long it hurts. The traditional model of a group of children of the same age sitting and listening to one grownup talk has been an enormous waste of brains. It fails to engage a huge proportion of the student, on both ends of the ability scale. They are holding the notion that Common Core will challenge all the students. I have high hopes, along with a realistic attitude. As computers get better at interpreting our writing, it allows us to get away from five-bubble testing and still save labor costs in grading homework and tests. An example of a more open ended question is this: There are three cookies and five children. What now? There are no choices, the student has to suggest an approach. I can think of a dozen answers to that. The challenge for us is to figure out how to teach software to evaluate the answers. You can even assume a keyboard answer, where the software can use multiple criteria, such considering spelling, grammar, word length and so on. What I hope for is some means of teaching students the real valuable skills for the world they will inhabit. There is little need for most of the skills you and I were taught in school. Consider these kinds of questions: Suppose you go through your education, finish with a degree, then discover you just cannot get a job. What do you do now? When you think about it, there are plenty of answers to that question, some better than others. It is a question which the students need to be asked often. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 04:54:26 2014 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 23:54:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 6:42 PM, spike wrote: > > > *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto: > extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *Mike Dougherty > > *>?*I'm not really sure what are the goals of "common core" > > > > I have some ideas on that. I hope they had in mind something about > updating education methods that have been outdated for so long it hurts. > The traditional model of a group of children of the same age sitting and > listening to one grownup talk has been an enormous waste of brains. It > fails to engage a huge proportion of the student, on both ends of the > ability scale. They are holding the notion that Common Core will challenge > all the students. I have high hopes, along with a realistic attitude. > I was in a rush earlier, but have spent some time researching common core. Perhaps the new curriculum will benefit new entrants into the education system more than it appears to harm those impacted during the transition. If so, the decade of children that learned one way and were tested another could have problems in their adult lives. How much more or less than any other decade of children might be hard to prove conclusively. Maybe those children learning Common Core programming from their start will succeed at > 30%. I feel that's not likely to happen. Instead I imagine only those in the top of their class will be given the opportunity to advance while the rest remain peasants for life. > As computers get better at interpreting our writing, it allows us to get > away from five-bubble testing and still save labor costs in grading > homework and tests. An example of a more open ended question is this: > > > > There are three cookies and five children. What now? > > > > There are no choices, the student has to suggest an approach. I can think > of a dozen answers to that. The challenge for us is to figure out how to > teach software to evaluate the answers. You can even assume a keyboard > answer, where the software can use multiple criteria, such considering > spelling, grammar, word length and so on. What I hope for is some means of > teaching students the real valuable skills for the world they will > inhabit. There is little need for most of the skills you and I were taught > in school. > I think this example provides another illustration: Rank the five children according to some criteria ("standard") then give all three cookies to rank #1. S/he can eat all three or share as s/he wishes (with whatever sense of entitlement comes from being #1). Perhaps #1 shares with #2 and #3, creating some reciprocity of trust for a minor reordering in the next ranking. There might even be some unexpected 'sharing' that comes from the realization that if #4 & #5 consistently lose the contest they may simply beat up #1 and take those cookies. Yes, that's a metaphor for the have-nots using criminal action to take from those who have. I realize this is probably not the discourse you might have imagined on Common Core. > > > Consider these kinds of questions: > > > > Suppose you go through your education, finish with a degree, then discover > you just cannot get a job. What do you do now? > > > > When you think about it, there are plenty of answers to that question, > some better than others. It is a question which the students need to be > asked often. > > > Agreed. It also needs to be asked of teachers, administrators, and the government that implements a system that produces unemployable, degree-wielding job seekers. notice: If anyone reading this feels that I am underinformed or otherwise off-the-mark, please do enlighten me. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 19 05:41:35 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 21:41:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> Message-ID: <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty >. There are three cookies and five children. What now? There are no choices, the student has to suggest an approach. >.I think this example provides another illustration: Rank the five children according to some criteria ("standard") then give all three cookies to rank #1. S/he can eat all three or share as s/he wishes (with whatever sense of entitlement comes from being #1). Perhaps #1 shares with #2 and #3, creating some reciprocity of trust for a minor reordering in the next ranking. There might even be some unexpected 'sharing' that comes from the realization that if #4 & #5 consistently lose the contest they may simply beat up #1 and take those cookies. Yes, that's a metaphor for the have-nots using criminal action to take from those who have. I realize this is probably not the discourse you might have imagined on Common Core. On the contrary, this is exactly the kind of discourse I was hoping to have. Regarding the cookie example, the unspoken assumption is that the cookies are to be shared equally among the five children. Then they think of clever ways to divide three cookies five ways, but that isn't the only solution. They can play rock paper scissors for instance, with the winner take all. Or they can play winner take one, then the remaining two cookies are cut in half and distributed among the four remaining children. The biggest kid could whoop the other kids' asses and take all the cookies. The smallest kid could Cookie-Monsterishly devour the comestibles while the big kid is busy whooping asses, then absent himself forthwith. The kids could divide all three cookies in half, which is an easier division than three fifths, then compete or fight over the remaining half a cookie, or they could hurl the remaining half a cookie to the local fauna. They could attempt to divide and distribute half a cookie five ways, which is in a sense easier than dividing a full cookie five ways and figuring out how to deal with the two-fifths cookies. They could see if there is any practical way of obtaining two additional cookies, or better still, seven additional and really get a good sugar buzz going. They could recruit or invite a sixth cookie devourer. My point: the real world is filled with examples where we are called upon to derive creative solutions, rather than memorize algorithms. As time goes on, the memorization of algorithms becomes ever less significant as computers are taught how to do more and more of them. We need THINKERS rather than just grinders and we need the hell out of them now more than ever. We have this looming problem: oil will eventually run out, and we still don't have a really good alternative, or not an easy cheap one. Example in real life. My former college roommate is a volunteer at the local school. He and several students were trying to retrofit wiring through the floor boards over to a central server, but they couldn't see what they were doing without wrecking too much of the flooring, so they were struggling. One of the kids suggested they get a pointer stick, tape the wire bundle to the end of the stick, tape two cell phones to the end of the wire bundle, set one of the phones to flashlight mode, call Skype with the other, watch what the Skype cell phone was seeing, with the way lit by the other cell phone. It worked first try. Why was it that this idea was thought of by a student, rather than my very bright former college roommate with an engineering degree? Answer: because younger people have an easier time thinking outside the box than grownups. OK then, let's design our education system so that it takes full advantage of that which children do best. I hope Common Core is a step in the right direction. I find it most encouraging to hang out on Extropians, since this tends to be a most creative-thinking group. Mike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 15:32:45 2014 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 10:32:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 8:42 PM, spike wrote: > ?Tyler made 36 total snowflakes which is a multiple of how triangular > snowflakes he made. How many triangular snowflakes could he have made?? > Snowflakes are hexagonal not triangular. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 19 16:03:05 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 08:03:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <01e301cf152f$f0ffdce0$d2ff96a0$@att.net> >. Behalf Of John Clark Subject: Re: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 8:42 PM, spike wrote: > "Tyler made 36 total snowflakes which is a multiple of how triangular snowflakes he made. How many triangular snowflakes could he have made?" Snowflakes are hexagonal not triangular. John K Clark Ja, I would cut Tyler some slack on that one, assuming he is from Florida or California and had never seen an actual snowflake. I was aged 19 years before I saw one. Tyler perhaps could have made snowflakes that had been fractured into four triangular bits by a passing aircraft, each of which would still be a snowflake by definition. Of course if he did that, it would violate the rule that snowflakes are hexagonal, so what shall we do? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jan 19 22:26:24 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 16:26:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: <52CF172E.5050504@yahoo.com> <52CF2C9B.6080000@aleph.se> <099601cf1017$a65bccc0$f3136640$@att.net> <009801cf13d9$bdfd2a70$39f77f50$@att.net> Message-ID: I will not insult your intelligence with that test, which in any case I do not remember. All answers were easily obtained through simple Venn diagrams and were of the If All As are Bs and some Bs are......., with multiple choice answers. I do not remember learning Venn diagrams in school but hope they are taught nowadays in some class or other. bill On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 7:29 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 4:13 PM, spike wrote: > >> >?I was the only person in my 5th grade class to pass a test like that. >> Took me three minutes to do the test. Others struggled with it for the >> whole hour. It was easy to pass if you followed the instructions? Kelly >> >> >> >> Doh! I missed your post with the logic test. My apologies, and please >> Doctor, do post the test again por favor. >> > > I was not speaking of his test, but of one I encountered in elementary > school. > > -Kelly > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Jan 20 00:22:17 2014 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 16:22:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 9:56 PM, BillK wrote: > I think I have said before that a population of 1,000+ year old people > will be very different. Much more risk averse for example. Your supposition may not be correct. I am reminded of the WorldCon of 1995 in Glasgow where I was on a cryonics panel with Ben Best and others. During the questions a woman complained that a world full of people signed up for cryonics would be insufferably dull because the people would be so adverse to risk. I asked her if she had watched the fireworks display put on by the convention the previous night? She said yes, puzzled as to why I would bring it up. I then asked her if she remembered the really big one that had only gone up about half the height expected and came down all around the fireworks crew? She did, then told her the reason it had not gone up very high was that about a square foot blew out of the side of the cardboard mortar tube it had been fired from?and that I was 20 feet from the mortar when it happened. I came back reeking of gunpowder smoke. The risk adverse would never serve on a fireworks crew. Neither would they put HIV patients on cardiac bypass, which I have also done. If your argument is that risk takers would be weeded out by accidents, I doubt it. By that far into the future, we can certainly be repaired of minor damage or reloaded from backups if completely vaporized. Keith From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 20 01:10:27 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 17:10:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] far future In-Reply-To: References: <52CF172E.5050504@yahoo.com> <52CF2C9B.6080000@aleph.se> <099601cf1017$a65bccc0$f3136640$@att.net> <009801cf13d9$bdfd2a70$39f77f50$@att.net> Message-ID: <038f01cf157c$6916bea0$3b443be0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Sent: Sunday, January 19, 2014 2:26 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] far future I will not insult your intelligence with that test, which in any case I do not remember. All answers were easily obtained through simple Venn diagrams and were of the If All As are Bs and some Bs are......., with multiple choice answers. I do not remember learning Venn diagrams in school but hope they are taught nowadays in some class or other. bill Hi Bill, I don't know if Venn diagrams are taught in school, but I introduced my son to the technique when he was in the first grade, about a year ago. Powerful tools are these. Regarding puzzles, the way a question is asked has a great deal of influence on how the students score. I have those Mensa calendars on my desk, a puzzle a day. I have had those for years. There is definitely a way of asking questions in which one gets way better with practice. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 20 10:00:51 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 10:00:51 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 12:22 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > The risk adverse would never serve on a fireworks crew. > > Neither would they put HIV patients on cardiac bypass, which I have also done. > > If your argument is that risk takers would be weeded out by accidents, > I doubt it. By that far into the future, we can certainly be repaired > of minor damage or reloaded from backups if completely vaporized. > > I doubt if arguments based on present older folk behaviour applies. Some older people are very careful, especially if they have already had an accidental fall and broken bones. And some are quite reckless, sky-diving, hang-gliding, etc. Both attitudes are driven by the certainty that they will soon be dead anyway. The careful people want to avoid pain and disability, the reckless people are thinking of cramming in new experiences before they die. If they were expecting to live another few hundred years, they wouldn't risk death. I agree that medical science will improve in the future, so that injuries can be better repaired. Injury will still cause pain and temporary disability though, so will be avoided by most (as nowadays). But I still think life-threatening activities will be avoided by the majority of 1,000 year old folk. (There are always exceptions of course). (If we are talking about reloading people from backups, then we are probably past the stage of physical bodies being of much importance. Living in virtual reality where any activity can be experienced in safety, for example). BillK From dan_ust at yahoo.com Mon Jan 20 14:09:09 2014 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 06:09:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Proof of creation of a mirror by optical matter Message-ID: http://phys.org/news/2014-01-proof-creation-mirror-optical.html Regards, Dan Three of my Kindle stories free today PST: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_7?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=dan+ust&sprefix=Dan+Ust%2Caps%2C556 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Mon Jan 20 14:10:17 2014 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 14:10:17 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52DD2E49.7030200@yahoo.com> BillK wrote: >I agree that medical science will improve in the >future, so that injuries can be better repaired. Injury will still >cause pain and temporary disability though So, you don't expect medical science to be /that/ advanced, then? ;> With better bodies than the kind we have now, pain management could be built-in, in such a way as to keep all of the benefits of pain but eliminate the downsides. With the kind of bodies I have in mind, most common injuries would be a lot less inconvenient, not nearly as stressful, and recovering from them would be a hell of a lot quicker, not to mention that lessons could be learned, and applied, so that after the injury, you're not only as good as new, but better ("Hmm, maybe that bone should be stronger, if I'm going to do jumps like that. Give me the G900s, please."). Ben Zaiboc From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 20 15:28:31 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 15:28:31 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: <52DD2E49.7030200@yahoo.com> References: <52DD2E49.7030200@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 2:10 PM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > So, you don't expect medical science to be /that/ advanced, then? ;> > > With better bodies than the kind we have now, pain management could be > built-in, in such a way as to keep all of the benefits of pain but eliminate > the downsides. > > With the kind of bodies I have in mind, most common injuries would be a lot > less inconvenient, not nearly as stressful, and recovering from them would > be a hell of a lot quicker, not to mention that lessons could be learned, > and applied, so that after the injury, you're not only as good as new, but > better ("Hmm, maybe that bone should be stronger, if I'm going to do jumps > like that. Give me the G900s, please."). > > The difficulty is time span. 'Better bodies' will only be a step on the way to 'no bodies'. How long it will apply, who knows? The trouble with minimizing pain is that it is an evolutionary advantage to have pain. You need enough pain to know when you have been seriously damaged and need to go to the repair shop. If you don't have enough pain, or have the option to switch off the pain sensors, determined people will carry on regardless until total failure is achieved. If pain is minimal, people will be more likely to endanger themselves and when a serious misjudgement / accident happens they could be killed. Pain reduces anti-survival activities. The difficulty with engaging in dangerous activities (because you know easy repair is possible) is that you can't control the extent of the injuries that happen. It might just be a broken leg, but it might be a total wipeout where your whole body is collapsified. (That's got the spell-check worried!). BillK From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Jan 20 22:19:47 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 15:19:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: References: <52D96779.8040703@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 6:39 AM, BillK wrote: > On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 2:07 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Oh, I agree with all that. :) > LOL, Ok. > I think I have said before that a population of 1,000+ year old people > will be very different. Much more risk averse for example. I don't think you could make it to 1000 without being somewhat risk averse. There would be a natural tendency for risk takers to take one risk too many sometime within the 1000 year period, and as we know it only takes once... ;-) > And, yes, > the suicide chambers might well become a normal feature of such a > society. Just as 'lifetime' marriage will probably disappear, to be > replaced by legal partnerships which can be terminated much more > easily than current divorce courts. That would be nice. I just don't know how the religious would respond. I had a religious discussion this morning, so I'm still a little sensitive. > There won't be many children > around either. > If there are Catholics or Mormons around, there might still be a few. > All the present reasons for suicide will still apply though. Unless > you assume a utopia where nobody is ever unhappy. More advanced drug > treatment could probably fix that. I think 'unofficial' suicide will > probably still be disapproved of by society. After all, society loses > a lot more when someone with centuries of experience and education > leaves. I don't assume utopia under any circumstances. I do anticipate a lot more worldly wealth. I don't anticipate the end of money altogether, though there are pockets where it has already ceased to be the currency of the domain. I think drugging yourself to happiness is not likely to be widespread, at least I don't anticipate doing that myself. It would take a radical shift for people to accept suicide. But, if you fork your life experience to do two things at once, then every time you remerge those threads, one of the forks is gonna die... Just saying. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Jan 20 22:29:22 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 15:29:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Proof of creation of a mirror by optical matter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Any particular suggested order to reading these? Or are they all unrelated? -Kelly On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 7:09 AM, Dan Ust wrote: > http://phys.org/news/2014-01-proof-creation-mirror-optical.html > > Regards, > > Dan > Three of my Kindle stories free today PST: > > http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_7?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=dan+ust&sprefix=Dan+Ust%2Caps%2C556 > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Jan 20 22:49:57 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 15:49:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 10:41 PM, spike wrote: > I hope Common Core is a step in the right direction. > I rather doubt it will be. First, It means there will be ONE way to educate children instead of 50. That means whatever we get wrong will be wrong for EVERYONE. If we had 50 states deciding on their own, at least a few would get each thing right, preparing students to be good at different things, which is what we need. Since Bill Gates' foundation is behind Common Core, we can assume everyone going through it will likely be good at using computers. Who will fix cars or weld pipes or become doctors or do other REAL things if everyone is good at computers? Second, the federal government rarely gets anything right, so why should we expect it of them this time? Our great experiment in democracy is supposed to have 50 minor experiments in democracy happening within it at all times. If common core is adopted, there will no longer be new experiments in democratic education, and we'll stagnate. It's like saying "All dinosaurs should be sauropods." Not much evolution for a while from that starting point. It may be a minor point, but it's not constitutional. That hasn't stopped anyone else lately, but there are still some of us that care about that. I think EVERY school should teach things their own way and compete in an open marketplace for students. Not the most popular idea, but it would result in more free thinking out there. I find it most encouraging to hang out on Extropians, since this tends to > be a most creative-thinking group. > Thanks Mike! I think so too! -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jan 20 23:46:26 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 15:46:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> Message-ID: On Jan 20, 2014 2:50 PM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 10:41 PM, spike wrote: >> I hope Common Core is a step in the right direction. > > I rather doubt it will be. First, It means there will be ONE way to educate children instead of 50. That means whatever we get wrong will be wrong for EVERYONE. There is that danger, but famously, quite a few of those 50 - primarily those around north Texas - have been getting it very wrong. > Since Bill Gates' foundation is behind Common Core, we can assume everyone going through it will likely be good at using computers. Who will fix cars or weld pipes or become doctors or do other REAL things if everyone is good at computers? Computers can help with all of those. It's become like reading and writing: useful for practically all fields. > Second, the federal government rarely gets anything right, so why should we expect it of them this time? True, but not an argument that CC is in fact another failure. The feds sometimes get it right, or at least righter than the states. > It may be a minor point, but it's not constitutional. Actually it is constitutional...insofar as any power the US Constitution regulates is involved. Common educational standards enable interstate commerce: if the blokes in the next state over can't understand your basic technology, they'll not buy it, nor will you likely hire them to use it. But is Congress passing a law here? No. Is it illegal to teach non-CC? No. You might not get funding from the feds if you do not, but nothing in the US Constitution requires the feds to fund any particular educational model; it just says they may promote this sort of thing (so long as, for example, they maintain separation of church and state - and no, not just any worldview can be called "church" in that sense). > I think EVERY school should teach things their own way and compete in an open marketplace for students. What then happens to the poorly served students, at the worst schools, who grow up dumb? They become a burden the rest of us must support for the rest of their lives. If you try to externalize and thus ignore this cost, your analysis fails for incompleteness. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Tue Jan 21 03:11:15 2014 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 19:11:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Proof of creation of a mirror by optical matter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <05D3E8D4-84D3-44FA-A334-35EFB79AD997@yahoo.com> No. They're unrelated. Regards, Dan Three of my Kindle stories free today PST: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_7?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=dan+ust&sprefix=Dan+Ust%2Caps%2C556 > On Jan 20, 2014, at 2:29 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > Any particular suggested order to reading these? Or are they all unrelated? > > -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 18:43:35 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 11:43:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 4:46 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Jan 20, 2014 2:50 PM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > > On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 10:41 PM, spike wrote: > >> I hope Common Core is a step in the right direction. > > > > I rather doubt it will be. First, It means there will be ONE way to > educate children instead of 50. That means whatever we get wrong will be > wrong for EVERYONE. > > There is that danger, but famously, quite a few of those 50 - primarily > those around north Texas - have been getting it very wrong. > By who's standards? Someone has to grow up and work at the Creationist Museum. > > Since Bill Gates' foundation is behind Common Core, we can assume > everyone going through it will likely be good at using computers. Who will > fix cars or weld pipes or become doctors or do other REAL things if > everyone is good at computers? > > Computers can help with all of those. It's become like reading and > writing: useful for practically all fields. > I can't fully disagree with this, but there are some people out there who are much better at doing things with their body than with their mind, and this dismisses their value to society. Perhaps when we have robots doing all the manual labor these people can be turned into Soylent Green, but we're not there yet. > > Second, the federal government rarely gets anything right, so why should > we expect it of them this time? > > True, but not an argument that CC is in fact another failure. The feds > sometimes get it right, or at least righter than the states. > They won't get it righter than ALL the states. And that is the point. I'd rather have 4% do BETTER than common core than have everyone boiled down to utter mediocrity. A really good top 1% can accomplish a LOT. Focusing on the 99% is politically correct, but name ANYONE who has done ANYTHING really important and they are almost by definition not part of the 99%. I see the 99%'s job (and I'm part of that 99%) as supporting the 1% in accomplishing goals that better all mankind. > > It may be a minor point, but it's not constitutional. > > Actually it is constitutional...insofar as any power the US Constitution > regulates is involved. Common educational standards enable interstate > commerce: if the blokes in the next state over can't understand your basic > technology, they'll not buy it, nor will you likely hire them to use it. > That's a stretch. One I'm not buying. Education happens completely within a state. For 200 years it was understood that education was a state's right, not a federal right. While I'll never be on the Supreme Court, and that's probably a good thing, I can read the constitution, and I do. > But is Congress passing a law here? No. Is it illegal to teach non-CC? > No. You might not get funding from the feds if you do not, but nothing in > the US Constitution requires the feds to fund any particular educational > model; it just says they may promote this sort of thing (so long as, for > example, they maintain separation of church and state - and no, not just > any worldview can be called "church" in that sense). > But congress has passed laws that make it virtually impossible for states like Utah with so much public land to fund education without federal dollars. > > I think EVERY school should teach things their own way and compete in an > open marketplace for students. > > What then happens to the poorly served students, at the worst schools, who > grow up dumb? They become a burden the rest of us must support for the > rest of their lives. If you try to externalize and thus ignore this cost, > your analysis fails for incompleteness. > They are a burden anyway. Always have been. Always will be. You can't make super smart people out of people that aren't super smart. At least not without putting additional stuff in their heads. Education would be far superior in terms of technological progress if we focused more on the top 10% or 5% or 1% and stopped this silly idea of no child's behind left alone. It's not realistic. Now, if your goal is really to create a successful propaganda campaign that keeps tomorrows voters sheep, then today's education system is indeed pretty good. Common Core makes it even better at making sheep out of students. But sheep eventually do get led to the slaughter. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 18:49:04 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 11:49:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> Message-ID: Put another way, just imagine how incredible the results would be if we spent as much extra on the top 5% of students as we now spend on the bottom 5% of students. What if Special Education were bi-polar? What would that look like? I can't find good numbers online, but I do know that when my kids were in special education, they had a student to teacher ratio of less than 10:1. Imagine if we did that for the top 5% of students as well? What would the results be of having gifted child programs with that kind of student:teacher ratio? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 19:37:02 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 11:37:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> Message-ID: On Jan 21, 2014 10:49 AM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > Put another way, just imagine how incredible the results would be if we spent as much extra on the top 5% of students as we now spend on the bottom 5% of students. What if Special Education were bi-polar? What would that look like? Speaking as one of those top 5% who got Special Education because he stuck out from the crowd... Look up "gifted children". This is far from a new concept, and arguably what you are asking for is already the case. It is no panacea - and does not result in all or even many of those top 5% being placed in charge or even given much post-education support. More generally, though, your comments point toward all but abandoning the bottom 95%. Having most people labor for the exclusive benefit of the top few has been tried, repeatedly, under many many many names, and it never works well. ("Slavery", "communism", and "feudalism" are some of the best known forms.) The main recurring problem is selecting the top few: those who are first in get to decide the incentives for deciding the next top few, and very few of them (a few, but small enough that they mostly get overridden by their peers) have the benefit of society as their goal in this. The result quickly deviates from the founders' ideals, assuming those founders were competent to implement them in the first place (they often aren't, so the subsequent deviation just makes a bad situation worse). If we must have an underclass then let it be subsentient AIs. Let all people be promoted to the upper class. And that means more than just material wealth: let them live as long, rich, and full lives as they desire. Should we some day develop sentient AIs, be they uploads or birthed purely from computation, let them be "people" too, for this and all other important purposes. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 21 20:34:27 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 12:34:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> Message-ID: <01ee01cf16e8$3088f720$919ae560$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Subject: Re: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future On Jan 21, 2014 10:49 AM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: >>. Put another way, just imagine how incredible the results would be if we spent as much extra on the top 5% of students as we now spend on the bottom 5% of students. What if Special Education were bi-polar? What would that look like? >.Speaking as one of those top 5% who got Special Education because he stuck out from the crowd... Oy vey, this old debate. When I was in that scene so tragically many years ago, the whole debate was so very similar to what it is today. We had phasing or separation by ability in Florida public schools, and it was controversial back in the 70s. (Yes dammit, NINETEEN seventies, not eighteen.) They kept pointing out the system was helping students who didn't need help, their test scores were already way up in the high 90s, so why are we helping them rather than spending the money on those who cannot even read, yakkity yak and bla bla. The teacher we had for Quest volunteered to teach a dozen of us without pay: he was doing it on his free time. I had three different teachers do that, after they pointed out the obvious: the lowest decile was a black hole for funding. You can pump as much money as you want into that, and the scores go almost nowhere. The lowest decile has zero interest in learning, other than learning where they can score some excellent dope. But the top decile, oh my, they need so very little and do so very much with just that little, just a stack of books, no supervision necessary or desired. What the school board finally settled on was that the top couple percentile needed exactly nothing the school didn't already have: just let us go to the library and study whatever we wanted. It didn't require a teacher, didn't require anyone to check up on our progress, just get the helllll out of the way. For a few students, you just need to clear the runway; they will take off and soar with eagles. The other end of the spectrum will never fly, even if you hurl them off a cliff with a hang glider and a parachute, hanging under several hundred helium balloons. And yet here we are, legalizing dope and having our president tell kids it is no worse than alcohol. We have had three presidents in a row now who were stoners in their youth, and each has been steadily worse than his predecessor. Dope IS harmful to kids: it kills their motivation and drive. It is OK for the older set, but it is poison for those who are in a position in life where they need to grind and drive, every single waking minute. It is the cause of a lot of that lowest decile being down there. But I digress. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 22:18:41 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 15:18:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 12:37 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Jan 21, 2014 10:49 AM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > > Put another way, just imagine how incredible the results would be if we > spent as much extra on the top 5% of students as we now spend on the bottom > 5% of students. What if Special Education were bi-polar? What would that > look like? > > Speaking as one of those top 5% who got Special Education because he stuck > out from the crowd... > > Look up "gifted children". This is far from a new concept, and arguably > what you are asking for is already the case. It is no panacea - and does > not result in all or even many of those top 5% being placed in charge or > even given much post-education support. > I was offered a gifted placement, but it would have involved my parents driving me 12 miles to school every day because my school didn't have a program. The special education kids didn't have to do that. So perhaps this is just a personal rough spot with me. > More generally, though, your comments point toward all but abandoning the > bottom 95%. Having most people labor for the exclusive benefit of the top > few has been tried, repeatedly, under many many many names, and it never > works well. ("Slavery", "communism", and "feudalism" are some of the best > known forms.) > I don't want to abandon them. I want to give them the best education we can. I just don't want to stop the truly gifted to do it, which is what common core and no child's behind left alone do, IMHO. > The main recurring problem is selecting the top few: those who are first > in get to decide the incentives for deciding the next top few, and very few > of them (a few, but small enough that they mostly get overridden by their > peers) have the benefit of society as their goal in this. The result > quickly deviates from the founders' ideals, assuming those founders were > competent to implement them in the first place (they often aren't, so the > subsequent deviation just makes a bad situation worse). > It worked well for several thousand years in China. People were picked to be the top of government based on passing exams. Since this is the longest lasting civilization since Egypt, I would hardly call it a failure. > If we must have an underclass then let it be subsentient AIs. Let all > people be promoted to the upper class. And that means more than just > material wealth: let them live as long, rich, and full lives as they > desire. Should we some day develop sentient AIs, be they uploads or > birthed purely from computation, let them be "people" too, for this and all > other important purposes. > I don't want AI to creep into this particular conversation. We could start a new thread though. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jan 21 23:51:23 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 15:51:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> Message-ID: On Jan 21, 2014 2:20 PM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > I was offered a gifted placement, but it would have involved my parents driving me 12 miles to school every day because my school didn't have a program. The special education kids didn't have to do that. So perhaps this is just a personal rough spot with me. Like Spike said, a cheap "program" that works is to make sure the gifteds are doing the minimums everyone else is doing, then get out of their way as they go beyond. > I don't want to abandon them. I want to give them the best education we can. I just don't want to stop the truly gifted to do it, which is what common core and no child's behind left alone do, IMHO. I don't see how these stop the truly gifted...other than by not focusing more resources on them, at the expense of ("abandoning") everyone else. And again, the truly gifted don't need as much as the rest (though more would of course be nice). > It worked well for several thousand years in China. People were picked to be the top of government based on passing exams. Since this is the longest lasting civilization since Egypt, I would hardly call it a failure. For thousands of years, there was a group of kingdoms - sometimes more united than others - in that part of the world. It is known as China. But don't mistake for a moment that it was the same century to century, any more than the collection of kingdoms known as medieval Europe were. Also, the exams had a greater (by the numbers) effect on those who failed, by ensuring that most people at least studied a common culture. Arguably the same is true of public education today for those who do not go for postgraduate degrees. (It used to be "who do not go to college", but that has changed in recent years.) > I don't want AI to creep into this particular conversation. We could start a new thread though. Just noting one likely long term solution. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lubkin at unreasonable.com Wed Jan 22 01:29:38 2014 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 20:29:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Extreme chemistry Message-ID: <201401220232.s0M2WU3h006727@andromeda.ziaspace.com> SBU Team Discovers New Compounds that Challenge the Foundation of Chemistry Fascinating possibilities for reality and for hard sf. This is bigger than fullerenes. Perhaps on par with the discovery of semiconductors in its potential ramifications. -- David. From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 02:50:22 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 18:50:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Extreme chemistry In-Reply-To: <201401220232.s0M2WU3h006727@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201401220232.s0M2WU3h006727@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: Err...wasn't it already known that you could get unusual ionic configurations at high temperatures, some of which were stable at room temperature even if they couldn't be made at room temperature? On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 5:29 PM, David Lubkin wrote: > > SBU Team Discovers New Compounds that Challenge the Foundation of Chemistry > > Fascinating possibilities for reality and for hard sf. This is bigger than > fullerenes. Perhaps on par with the discovery of semiconductors in its > potential ramifications. > > > -- David. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lubkin at unreasonable.com Wed Jan 22 03:12:26 2014 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 22:12:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Extreme chemistry In-Reply-To: References: <201401220232.s0M2WU3h006727@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <201401220312.s0M3CZKc001291@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Adrian wrote: >Err...wasn't it already known that you could get unusual ionic >configurations at high temperatures, some of which were stable at >room temperature even if they couldn't be made at room temperature? I'm not saying this is the first step. I'm saying this is the next step, like finding a new category of extremophile. We're moving into inventorying the possibilities. Making them. Seeing what they're good for. Writing a new volume of the CRC handbook. I expect some of what's made will turn out to be very useful. I hope we will find the foundations for a high-pressure biochemistry. Then we can look for life in gas giants. Or seed them. -- David. From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 18:12:03 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 12:12:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> Message-ID: Problems with Common Core, No Child Left Behind, and all the rest of the fixes the education establishment gets into law: Educators do poor research, and I speak as a person who has presented ed. research at ed. conventions as well as psych. conventions. Low standards of research, too much jumping on a popular wagon, etc. In many states, Louisiana, for example, children with Down's Syndrome (trisomy 21 - average IQ = 25!) and other developmental disorders, are actually in the classes with normal children and are expected to have the same progress and teachers are punished when they don't perform. This is just nuts. And legislators have bought into the idea of everyone graduating from high school. Even people with IQs of 70? Just nuts. Half or more of the students should be in some kind of trade school beginning 9th or 10 grade. They don't need American Literature or algebra or advanced history classes. How many people use algebra in their careers? Very very few. Are there any people in science/technology with IQs below 100? Very doubtful. Why try to educate those below 100 with stuff they can't understand or use? Education (sociology is worse) believes in the "You can be anything you want to be" myth. Genetics, IQ, anything not totally environmental is NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT!! That just has to change. One system in effect (if they haven't changed it) is the Russia one, where you have to pass tests to get into junior high school, then another for high school, then college, then grad school. Effect? They waste very few able students and don't waste time and money on those who can't cut it. Extreme? Subject to false positives and false negatives? Of course - any time you test and select you have those. I have no ideas on how things should be taught, just what, when and to whom. bill wallace On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 5:51 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Jan 21, 2014 2:20 PM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > > I was offered a gifted placement, but it would have involved my parents > driving me 12 miles to school every day because my school didn't have a > program. The special education kids didn't have to do that. So perhaps this > is just a personal rough spot with me. > > Like Spike said, a cheap "program" that works is to make sure the gifteds > are doing the minimums everyone else is doing, then get out of their way as > they go beyond. > > > I don't want to abandon them. I want to give them the best education we > can. I just don't want to stop the truly gifted to do it, which is what > common core and no child's behind left alone do, IMHO. > > I don't see how these stop the truly gifted...other than by not focusing > more resources on them, at the expense of ("abandoning") everyone else. > And again, the truly gifted don't need as much as the rest (though more > would of course be nice). > > > It worked well for several thousand years in China. People were picked > to be the top of government based on passing exams. Since this is the > longest lasting civilization since Egypt, I would hardly call it a failure. > > For thousands of years, there was a group of kingdoms - sometimes more > united than others - in that part of the world. It is known as China. But > don't mistake for a moment that it was the same century to century, any > more than the collection of kingdoms known as medieval Europe were. > > Also, the exams had a greater (by the numbers) effect on those who failed, > by ensuring that most people at least studied a common culture. Arguably > the same is true of public education today for those who do not go for > postgraduate degrees. (It used to be "who do not go to college", but that > has changed in recent years.) > > > I don't want AI to creep into this particular conversation. We could > start a new thread though. > > Just noting one likely long term solution. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jan 22 18:22:21 2014 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 10:22:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> Message-ID: <76F86E33-D98E-44C5-9597-112786E2D535@yahoo.com> Smith a few decades ago on education: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uyXGYM6XGA Regards, Dan My latest story is available at: http://www.amazon.com/Medeas-Gift-Dan-Ust-ebook/dp/B00GHX2M1O/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Jan 22 20:26:32 2014 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 13:26:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] TRANSHUMAN VISIONS Conference - MARCH 1ST Message-ID: <003001cf17b0$40e70a80$c2b51f80$@natasha.cc> TRANSHUMAN VISIONS 2.0 - East Bay offers $25 tickets for the next 2 days. The event is on March 1, at Piedmont Veterans Hall, in the San Francisco East Bay. Speakers include Natasha Vita-More, Max More, John Smart, Brian Wang, Linda M. Glenn, Nikola Danaylov, Zoltan Istvan, and many others. Humanity+ is a technical sponsor of this event! And, other sponsors include NaturalStacks, SingularityWeblog, SeriousWonder, Life Extension Foundation, and Estancia Beef. Tickets are selling briskly, at a will-sell-out-in-advance pace. The previous event TRANSHUMAN VISIONS in San Francisco on February 1, sold out 25 days in advance. To get your ticket, via EventBrite, you can find the link below: http://brighterbrains.org/articles/entry/transhuman-visions-east-bay-march-1 -2014 Natasha Vita-More, PhD Faculty, University of Advancing Technology Chair, Humanity+ Fellow, Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies Founder: H+Lab / H+TV _______________________________________ New Book at Amazon! cover email -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 10577 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image004.png Type: image/png Size: 93488 bytes Desc: not available URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 21:02:25 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 14:02:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 4:51 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Jan 21, 2014 2:20 PM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > > I was offered a gifted placement, but it would have involved my parents > driving me 12 miles to school every day because my school didn't have a > program. The special education kids didn't have to do that. So perhaps this > is just a personal rough spot with me. > > Like Spike said, a cheap "program" that works is to make sure the gifteds > are doing the minimums everyone else is doing, then get out of their way as > they go beyond. > I made the most of the school library. I'm glad I did all that reading back then. It gave me a real boost. But imagine what would have happened if they had really gotten me excited by having the equivalent of a Maker Space at the school? I am sad that I didn't do auto mechanics and welding in high school. That would have served me much better than a lot of stuff I did take. > > I don't want to abandon them. I want to give them the best education we > can. I just don't want to stop the truly gifted to do it, which is what > common core and no child's behind left alone do, IMHO. > > I don't see how these stop the truly gifted...other than by not focusing > more resources on them, at the expense of ("abandoning") everyone else. > And again, the truly gifted don't need as much as the rest (though more > would of course be nice). > If we got the truly gifted into robotics, programming, nanotechnology, building their own tunnelling electron microscopes at school and the like, it would make the world of tomorrow better for everyone else. > > It worked well for several thousand years in China. People were picked > to be the top of government based on passing exams. Since this is the > longest lasting civilization since Egypt, I would hardly call it a failure. > > For thousands of years, there was a group of kingdoms - sometimes more > united than others - in that part of the world. It is known as China. But > don't mistake for a moment that it was the same century to century, any > more than the collection of kingdoms known as medieval Europe were. > Since about 200 BC, it was more or less united under the Emperor. I suppose you could say the same thing about the Pope, but that started later, and ended sooner. > Also, the exams had a greater (by the numbers) effect on those who failed, > by ensuring that most people at least studied a common culture. Arguably > the same is true of public education today for those who do not go for > postgraduate degrees. (It used to be "who do not go to college", but that > has changed in recent years.) > I think college is a waste of time for everyone who doesn't take a productive course of study. Things like Political Science, Gender Studies, History, Psychology and the like, don't do much for the student except excite their learning muscles. Financially it doesn't accomplish shit for them. > > I don't want AI to creep into this particular conversation. We could > start a new thread though. > > Just noting one likely long term solution. > I know, I just don't want to discuss it here. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 21:16:24 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 14:16:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 11:12 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Problems with Common Core, No Child Left Behind, and all the rest of the > fixes the education establishment gets into law: > > Educators do poor research, and I speak as a person who has presented ed. > research at ed. conventions as well as psych. conventions. Low standards > of research, too much jumping on a popular wagon, etc. > They do GREAT research on the topic of "What will benefit the teacher's union the most?" In many states, Louisiana, for example, children with Down's Syndrome > (trisomy 21 - average IQ = 25!) and other developmental disorders, are > actually in the classes with normal children and are expected to have the > same progress and teachers are punished when they don't perform. This is > just nuts. And legislators have bought into the idea of everyone > graduating from high school. Even people with IQs of 70? > My daughter, who's IQ is 65ish graduated from High School. It is nuts. She doesn't know enough to be walking around with a meaningless degree like that. > Just nuts. Half or more of the students should be in some kind of trade > school beginning 9th or 10 grade. They don't need American Literature or > algebra or advanced history classes. > She is in a job skills training thing now. They teach her to refold cloth, straighten shelves, hang shirts on hangers, things she can do. She likes it. It is fulfilling for her. But they wasted a lot of time getting her there. The world would have been better off if her mother had never had 8 children. They are all very low IQ, high volatility, will most likely end up in jail or in today's version of an asylum, the group home. > How many people use algebra in their careers? Very very few. Are there > any people in science/technology with IQs below 100? Very doubtful. Why > try to educate those below 100 with stuff they can't understand or use? > They do need to be educated to the point that they don't vote for Democrats. Oh, that's the point of the educational system, my bad. Sorry. Move on, nothing to see here. > Education (sociology is worse) believes in the "You can be anything you > want to be" myth. Genetics, IQ, anything not totally environmental > is NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT!! That just has to change. > I would be happier if it did. > One system in effect (if they haven't changed it) is the Russia one, where > you have to pass tests to get into junior high school, then another for > high school, then college, then grad school. Effect? They waste very few > able students and don't waste time and money on those who can't cut it. > Extreme? Subject to false positives and false negatives? Of course - any > time you test and select you have those. > Does Russia have a social net like welfare or the like? I'm asking, I am unsure of their system. > I have no ideas on how things should be taught, just what, when and to > whom. > And having no idea, shouldn't we try the widest variety of things? Ideas are a multi-dimensional landscape of infinite size. But you can only expand into the proximate possible. The more directions we go, the more things are in the proximate possible. The common core directs everyone in the direction of only one subset of possible idea spaces of the future. We need more creativity and freedom to explore the memespace. Not less. Putting everyone through the same educational system worked all right in the British Empire, but it is wholley counter productive today. I like art, because it teaches how to make things with materials. Even if they are useless things by and large. It's the idea that I can take an idea and make something tangible. I like science because it is the basis for how we understand the world. I like reading and writing because that allows us to communicate with each other. (English grammar to a slightly lesser extent.) I like math because that is another language of literacy that everyone needs. Though I do agree with Arthur Benjamin that the pinnacle of mathematics in a democratic republic should be statistics combined with an understanding of VERY large numbers, rather than calculus. Statistics makes good voters, Calculus does not. A little history is a good thing. A bit of financial literacy would serve. Typing. A little of a few other things is a good thing. Aside from that, I'd say every student and teacher should be pretty much on their own. They are all individuals and too many students just HATE school. That is the first thing that really needs to change. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 22 21:39:57 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 13:39:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> Message-ID: <009a01cf17ba$7fb1fa40$7f15eec0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson >.I am sad that I didn't do auto mechanics and welding in high school. That would have served me much better than a lot of stuff I did take.-Kelly I get ya Kelly, but in general I disagree with the notion. There is so little classroom time available, I would advise young people to look around for worthwhile practical electives: typing, networking, IT, Microsloth apps, perhaps home repair or craft shop, but not auto, not home economics, not welding. Reasoning: there are better ways to learn that stuff, especially now. When we were younger, the way to learn that was to get a junky old car for practically nothing, then fix it. Plenty of old guys around will help you or explain to you what you need to do. I see that as one of the most effective male bonding rituals left. It isn't dangerous, isn't particularly costly, and it has a ready reward: fix the junkpile, you ride. Otherwise, we call you pedestrian, and do it with an understated derision, the kind that motivates young men to pick up the wrenches and get to work. Welding: never waste classroom time with that, unless you intend to become a professional welder. Otherwise, get a welder and some rods (they aren't expensive), watch the YouTubes, read the basics book you can get online or at the public library, all of which can be done in about an hour or two. Then just practice your way to success. Make a weld, break it, look at the break, figure out what they mean by penetration and why your first welds don't have it, try again, etc. I would tell the young people: Learn it by doing it, in both auto and welding. Put away the dope and the beer, you don't have time for those things now. You have the opportunity to pick up skills that will help you the rest of your life. Grab as many of them as you can. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 22:02:58 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 15:02:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: <76F86E33-D98E-44C5-9597-112786E2D535@yahoo.com> References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <76F86E33-D98E-44C5-9597-112786E2D535@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 11:22 AM, Dan Ust wrote: > Smith a few decades ago on education: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uyXGYM6XGA > Wow, that's some powerful stuff!!! Scary even. Thanks Dan. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 22:10:59 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 15:10:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: <009a01cf17ba$7fb1fa40$7f15eec0$@att.net> References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <009a01cf17ba$7fb1fa40$7f15eec0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 2:39 PM, spike wrote: > *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto: > extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *Kelly Anderson > > > *>?*I am sad that I didn't do auto mechanics and welding in high school. > That would have served me much better than a lot of stuff I did take? > -Kelly > > > > > > I get ya Kelly, but in general I disagree with the notion. There is so > little classroom time available, I would advise young people to look around > for worthwhile practical electives: typing, networking, IT, Microsloth > apps, perhaps home repair or craft shop, but not auto, not home economics, > not welding. Reasoning: there are better ways to learn that stuff, > especially now. > Well, we're talking about 1980 in my case. I was very lucky indeed to be able to use my study hall period to sneak into the audio visual CLOSET to use one of two Apple II computers to TEACH MYSELF how to use a computer. The things I did take were things like sewing, home economics, organic chemistry, history, english, lots of math and the like. Now, had I taken welding instead of home economics, I would be better off today. Yes, I can still learn welding, and it is on my VERY short list of things I want to learn to do, there have been hundreds of things I wanted to weld over the years, and very very little that I wanted to sew. > When we were younger, the way to learn that was to get a junky old car for > practically nothing, then fix it. Plenty of old guys around will help you > or explain to you what you need to do. I see that as one of the most > effective male bonding rituals left. It isn?t dangerous, isn?t > particularly costly, and it has a ready reward: fix the junkpile, you > ride. Otherwise, we call you pedestrian, and do it with an understated > derision, the kind that motivates young men to pick up the wrenches and get > to work. > Yeah, I was never impressed with that argument when younger. But I wish I had been. I guess my parents giving me a car was less than helpful. > Welding: never waste classroom time with that, unless you intend to become > a professional welder. Otherwise, get a welder and some rods (they aren?t > expensive), watch the YouTubes, read the basics book you can get online or > at the public library, all of which can be done in about an hour or two. > Then just practice your way to success. Make a weld, break it, look at the > break, figure out what they mean by penetration and why your first welds > don?t have it, try again, etc. > That's what I intend to do as soon as I have access to welding equipment. Hopefully this will happen at the local maker space soon. > I would tell the young people: Learn it by doing it, in both auto and > welding. Put away the dope and the beer, you don?t have time for those > things now. You have the opportunity to pick up skills that will help you > the rest of your life. Grab as many of them as you can. > While I think dope should be legal (along with a LOT of other better stuff), I don't advocate actually using the stuff. It's stupid. The only thing dumber than drugs is outlawing them and fighting against people's right to use them. I agree with the sentiment wholeheartedly! -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 22:32:29 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 15:32:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Extreme chemistry In-Reply-To: <201401220232.s0M2WU3h006727@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201401220232.s0M2WU3h006727@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 6:29 PM, David Lubkin wrote: > > SBU Team Discovers New Compounds that Challenge the Foundation of Chemistry > > Fascinating possibilities for reality and for hard sf. This is bigger than > fullerenes. Perhaps on par with the discovery of semiconductors in its > potential ramifications. > "Systems with two-dimensional electrical conductivity have attracted a lot of interest." I bet they do! -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 22:37:33 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 16:37:33 -0600 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <009a01cf17ba$7fb1fa40$7f15eec0$@att.net> Message-ID: Forwarding something about health may be against your rules, but I read this book and was immensely impressed. Another, Deep Nutrition, featured a microbiologist/physician who eats a diet of 70% fat. Also included was a very negative rant about statins causing cognitive decline. This link will give you the gist of the first book (Grain Brain). http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/819232?src=wnl_edit_specol&uac=217359DY On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 4:10 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 2:39 PM, spike wrote: > >> *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto: >> extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *Kelly Anderson >> >> >> *>?*I am sad that I didn't do auto mechanics and welding in high school. >> That would have served me much better than a lot of stuff I did take? >> -Kelly >> >> >> >> >> >> I get ya Kelly, but in general I disagree with the notion. There is so >> little classroom time available, I would advise young people to look around >> for worthwhile practical electives: typing, networking, IT, Microsloth >> apps, perhaps home repair or craft shop, but not auto, not home economics, >> not welding. Reasoning: there are better ways to learn that stuff, >> especially now. >> > > Well, we're talking about 1980 in my case. I was very lucky indeed to be > able to use my study hall period to sneak into the audio visual CLOSET to > use one of two Apple II computers to TEACH MYSELF how to use a computer. > > The things I did take were things like sewing, home economics, organic > chemistry, history, english, lots of math and the like. Now, had I taken > welding instead of home economics, I would be better off today. Yes, I can > still learn welding, and it is on my VERY short list of things I want to > learn to do, there have been hundreds of things I wanted to weld over the > years, and very very little that I wanted to sew. > > >> When we were younger, the way to learn that was to get a junky old car >> for practically nothing, then fix it. Plenty of old guys around will help >> you or explain to you what you need to do. I see that as one of the most >> effective male bonding rituals left. It isn?t dangerous, isn?t >> particularly costly, and it has a ready reward: fix the junkpile, you >> ride. Otherwise, we call you pedestrian, and do it with an understated >> derision, the kind that motivates young men to pick up the wrenches and get >> to work. >> > > Yeah, I was never impressed with that argument when younger. But I wish I > had been. I guess my parents giving me a car was less than helpful. > > >> Welding: never waste classroom time with that, unless you intend to >> become a professional welder. Otherwise, get a welder and some rods (they >> aren?t expensive), watch the YouTubes, read the basics book you can get >> online or at the public library, all of which can be done in about an hour >> or two. Then just practice your way to success. Make a weld, break it, >> look at the break, figure out what they mean by penetration and why your >> first welds don?t have it, try again, etc. >> > > That's what I intend to do as soon as I have access to welding equipment. > Hopefully this will happen at the local maker space soon. > > >> I would tell the young people: Learn it by doing it, in both auto and >> welding. Put away the dope and the beer, you don?t have time for those >> things now. You have the opportunity to pick up skills that will help you >> the rest of your life. Grab as many of them as you can. >> > > While I think dope should be legal (along with a LOT of other better > stuff), I don't advocate actually using the stuff. It's stupid. The only > thing dumber than drugs is outlawing them and fighting against people's > right to use them. > > I agree with the sentiment wholeheartedly! > > -Kelly > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 23 00:25:44 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 16:25:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <009a01cf17ba$7fb1fa40$7f15eec0$@att.net> Message-ID: <024801cf17d1$a88313c0$f9893b40$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2014 2:38 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future Forwarding something about health may be against your rules, but I read this book and was immensely impressed. Another, Deep Nutrition, featured a microbiologist/physician who eats a diet of 70% fat. Also included was a very negative rant about statins causing cognitive decline. This link will give you the gist of the first book (Grain Brain). http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/819232?src=wnl_edit_specol &uac=217359DY Forwarding health stuff isn't against the rules, on the contrary. If it looks credible and especially if you have credentials, do feel free. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mbb386 at main.nc.us Thu Jan 23 01:11:50 2014 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 20:11:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: <024801cf17d1$a88313c0$f9893b40$@att.net> References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <009a01cf17ba$7fb1fa40$7f15eec0$@att.net> <024801cf17d1$a88313c0$f9893b40$@att.net> Message-ID: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/819232?src=wnl_edit_specol Unfortunataely this appears to be a gated site. Regards, MB From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Jan 23 02:21:00 2014 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 19:21:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] EVENT: BioHackers New York City "The Future of Human Enhancement" Message-ID: <002a01cf17e1$c3b938d0$4b2baa70$@natasha.cc> I'll be speaking at the BioHackers event in NYC tomorrow evening, which will be filmed by BBC's Click TV station. I realized some of you might be in NYC and want to attend. Sorry for not sending info sooner! http://www.meetup.com/Biohackers-NYC/events/155212212/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.png Type: image/png Size: 98550 bytes Desc: not available URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 02:37:08 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 18:37:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bee dieoff cause found? Message-ID: Mainly posting this for Spike, since he has an interest: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/us/bee-deaths-may-stem-from-virus-study-says.html?_r=0 But if this is the case, then might there be a way to vaccinate bees against this? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 02:37:42 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 18:37:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <009a01cf17ba$7fb1fa40$7f15eec0$@att.net> <024801cf17d1$a88313c0$f9893b40$@att.net> Message-ID: Could you post a relevant excerpt? On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 5:11 PM, MB wrote: > > > http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/819232?src=wnl_edit_specol > > > Unfortunataely this appears to be a gated site. > > Regards, > MB > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rhanson at gmu.edu Wed Jan 22 22:41:47 2014 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 22:41:47 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <009a01cf17ba$7fb1fa40$7f15eec0$@att.net> Message-ID: <77CD1920-1B77-4D7A-9130-4208575F55DE@gmu.edu> Howdy everyone. I've been away from this list for many years, but thought I might try it again. I've been lurking for a few days to get a feel, but not sure it has told me that much. So let me start out by asking a question. There is an academic specialty of futurism. That is, there are professors, journals, and even some departments which specialize in that topic. Do people here often read or cite such folks? It seems not, but then the question is why not. What is the problem with academic futurists such that people on a future oriented list like this aren't much interested in them? Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ. Assoc. Professor, George Mason University Chief Scientist, Consensus Point MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 23 03:34:05 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 19:34:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bee dieoff cause found? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <03d401cf17eb$f8ad15c0$ea074140$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2014 6:37 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] Bee dieoff cause found? Mainly posting this for Spike, since he has an interest: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/us/bee-deaths-may-stem-from-virus-study-sa ys.html?_r=0 But if this is the case, then might there be a way to vaccinate bees against this? Genetic engineering that makes antibodies in the venom, then causes the little bastards to sting each other? Somehow make a specific antibody, then genetically modify mosquitoes to take up the medication, then go bite the bees? In any case, it is possible that the whole notion of creating artificial beehives in supers stacked four high and 16 to a pallet might provide a fertile breeding ground which inherently causes viruses and other pathogens to evolve and attack. It might be how we are using the bees is causing evolution to find a way to devour the ecosystem we have created by beekeeping. Nature doesn't present us with enormous beehives that size. Nature doesn't create situations where 16 hives with different queens all cohabitate within a meter of each other. It might be that any strategy we try is at best a temporary solution: RNA viruses might be able to evolve around anything we throw at them. Damn. Thanks for the link Adrian. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 04:21:31 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 21:21:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bee dieoff cause found? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 7:37 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > Mainly posting this for Spike, since he has an interest: > > > http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/us/bee-deaths-may-stem-from-virus-study-says.html?_r=0 > > But if this is the case, then might there be a way to vaccinate bees > against this? > Has anyone else heard of a virus (RNA or otherwise) jumping from a plant to an animal? Very cool every time they think they've found something contributing to this apparently very complex problem. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 23 04:19:30 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 20:19:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <77CD1920-1B77-4D7A-9130-4208575F55DE@gmu.edu> References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <009a01cf17ba$7fb1fa40$7f15eec0$@att.net> <77C D1920-1B77-4D7A-9130-4208575F55DE@gmu.edu> Message-ID: <043701cf17f2$50de1590$f29a40b0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Robin D Hanson Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? >.Howdy everyone. I've been away from this list for many years, but thought I might try it again. I've been lurking for a few days to get a feel, but not sure it has told me that much. So let me start out by asking a question. >.There is an academic specialty of futurism. That is, there are professors, journals, and even some departments which specialize in that topic. Do people here often read or cite such folks? It seems not, but then the question is why not. What is the problem with academic futurists such that people on a future oriented list like this aren't much interested in them? Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu Welcome back Robin. I see references to academic futurists, such as the local Singularity Institute, which is Ray Kurzweil's group. You're right, there seems to be fewer references to futurism than there once was, but the traffic here is a lot lower than it was in the 90s as well. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 04:34:45 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 20:34:45 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bee dieoff cause found? In-Reply-To: <03d401cf17eb$f8ad15c0$ea074140$@att.net> References: <03d401cf17eb$f8ad15c0$ea074140$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 7:34 PM, spike wrote: > Genetic engineering that makes antibodies in the venom, then causes the > little bastards to sting each other? > > > > Somehow make a specific antibody, then genetically modify mosquitoes to > take up the medication, then go bite the bees? > Or a virus to seek out and destroy this other virus. > It might be that any strategy we try is at best a temporary solution > Well yeah. Sun ain't going to be around forever. Eventually we may wish to make micro-g-adapted bees, at which point genetically engineering the bees is likely to be necessary anyway. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 23 05:07:18 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 21:07:18 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bee dieoff cause found? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <04cb01cf17f8$fe6369d0$fb2a3d70$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Subject: Re: [ExI] Bee dieoff cause found? On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 7:37 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >>.Mainly posting this for Spike, since he has an interest: >>.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/us/bee-deaths-may-stem-from-virus-study -says.html?_r=0 >.Has anyone else heard of a virus (RNA or otherwise) jumping from a plant to an animal? Very cool every time they think they've found something contributing to this apparently very complex problem. -Kelly Kelly consider what we have done with the European honeybee. We built hives for commercial pollination. We invented methods of taking the bees and putting them on trucks, hauling them around to chase whatever crop is in bloom. We brought bees together, offering bee diseases an opportunity to spread all over. Think about it: the European honeybee has been around for millions of years, but only in the past 100 or so have we loaded them on trucks and hauled them all over. Bees have specialties. One job a bee can do is work as a robber. Robber bees go into other hives and devour honey. This offers yet another vector for bee diseases and pathogens when all these hives are collected on a truck. Consider the bees that are used as a means of smuggling dope or people. These hives are fed with sugar water or corn syrup, but never leave the truck. What happens then? We provide RNA viruses with a static population to completely infect, as well as a means of travelling around to agricultural centers, where the smuggled dope and alien workers are delivered. We have no justification for believing that a radical change in the way bees are used will not result in a change in the balance of bee pathogens to bee immune systems. We can see how the bee's natural defenses can be overwhelmed by all the new opportunities for attack by viruses and pathogens. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jan 23 05:43:09 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 21:43:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] TRANSHUMAN VISIONS Conference - MARCH 1ST In-Reply-To: <003001cf17b0$40e70a80$c2b51f80$@natasha.cc> References: <003001cf17b0$40e70a80$c2b51f80$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: <04df01cf17fe$00254bd0$006fe370$@att.net> Natasha thanks for the notice on those early-bird ticket sales for Transhuman Visions. I don't think they will available at that price after today however. It looked like their timer was set to expire at 1100 this evening. They might have more tomorrow at that price. But in any case, even the later tickets are affordable, which is encouraging. Excellent this sounds like a wicked cool conference. spike From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of natasha at natasha.cc Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2014 12:27 PM To: ExI chat list; singularity at listbox.com; hplusmembers at yahoogroups.com Subject: [ExI] TRANSHUMAN VISIONS Conference - MARCH 1ST Importance: High TRANSHUMAN VISIONS 2.0 - East Bay offers $25 tickets for the next 2 days. The event is on March 1, at Piedmont Veterans Hall, in the San Francisco East Bay. Speakers include Natasha Vita-More, Max More, John Smart, Brian Wang, Linda M. Glenn, Nikola Danaylov, Zoltan Istvan, and many others. Humanity+ is a technical sponsor of this event! And, other sponsors include NaturalStacks, SingularityWeblog, SeriousWonder, Life Extension Foundation, and Estancia Beef. Tickets are selling briskly, at a will-sell-out-in-advance pace. The previous event TRANSHUMAN VISIONS in San Francisco on February 1, sold out 25 days in advance. To get your ticket, via EventBrite, you can find the link below: http://brighterbrains.org/articles/entry/transhuman-visions-east-bay-march-1 -2014 Natasha Vita-More, PhD Faculty, University of Advancing Technology Chair, Humanity+ Fellow, Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies Founder: H+Lab / H+TV _______________________________________ New Book at Amazon! cover email -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: application/octet-stream Size: 93488 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.png Type: application/octet-stream Size: 10577 bytes Desc: not available URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 06:20:38 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 23:20:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <77CD1920-1B77-4D7A-9130-4208575F55DE@gmu.edu> References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <009a01cf17ba$7fb1fa40$7f15eec0$@att.net> <77CD1920-1B77-4D7A-9130-4208575F55DE@gmu.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 3:41 PM, Robin D Hanson wrote: > Howdy everyone. I've been away from this list for many years, but > thought I might try it again. I've been lurking for a few days to get a > feel, but not sure it has told me that much. So let me start out by asking > a question. > > There is an academic specialty of futurism. That is, there are > professors, journals, and even some departments which specialize in that > topic. Do people here often read or cite such folks? It seems not, but then > the question is why not. What is the problem with academic futurists such > that people on a future oriented list like this aren't much interested in > them? > I sure pay attention to what Anders has to say. Might be a little close to home for you, as a prophet has no honor in his home town. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 06:28:15 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 23:28:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bee dieoff cause found? In-Reply-To: <04cb01cf17f8$fe6369d0$fb2a3d70$@att.net> References: <04cb01cf17f8$fe6369d0$fb2a3d70$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 10:07 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *>?* *On Behalf Of *Kelly Anderson > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Bee dieoff cause found? > > > > On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 7:37 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > >>?Mainly posting this for Spike, since he has an interest: > > >>? > http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/22/us/bee-deaths-may-stem-from-virus-study-says.html?_r=0 > > > > >?Has anyone else heard of a virus (RNA or otherwise) jumping from a > plant to an animal? Very cool every time they think they've found something > contributing to this apparently very complex problem. ?Kelly > > > > > > > > Kelly consider what we have done with the European honeybee. We built > hives for commercial pollination. We invented methods of taking the bees > and putting them on trucks, hauling them around to chase whatever crop is > in bloom. We brought bees together, offering bee diseases an opportunity > to spread all over. Think about it: the European honeybee has been around > for millions of years, but only in the past 100 or so have we loaded them > on trucks and hauled them all over. > > > > Bees have specialties. One job a bee can do is work as a robber. Robber > bees go into other hives and devour honey. This offers yet another vector > for bee diseases and pathogens when all these hives are collected on a > truck. > > > > Consider the bees that are used as a means of smuggling dope or people. > These hives are fed with sugar water or corn syrup, but never leave the > truck. What happens then? We provide RNA viruses with a static population > to completely infect, as well as a means of travelling around to > agricultural centers, where the smuggled dope and alien workers are > delivered. > > > > We have no justification for believing that a radical change in the way > bees are used will not result in a change in the balance of bee pathogens > to bee immune systems. We can see how the bee?s natural defenses can be > overwhelmed by all the new opportunities for attack by viruses and > pathogens. > Good observations all, but still my question remains. Viruses tend to be EXTREMELY specialized in what they attack. They can jump between close relations, such as us and pigs, but to jump from a plant to an animal is unprecedented in my limited experience. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rhanson at gmu.edu Thu Jan 23 15:24:46 2014 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 15:24:46 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <043701cf17f2$50de1590$f29a40b0$@att.net> References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <009a01cf17ba$7fb1fa40$7f15eec0$@att.net> <"77C D1920-1B77-4D7A-9130-4208575F55DE"@gmu.edu> <043701cf17f2$50de1590$f29a40b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <73619026-87C8-4D6D-8C00-A7F8115468B4@gmu.edu> On Jan 22, 2014, at 11:19 PM, spike wrote: >?There is an academic specialty of futurism. That is, there are professors, journals, and even some departments which specialize in that topic. Do people here often read or cite such folks? It seems not, but then the question is why not. What is the problem with academic futurists such that people on a future oriented list like this aren't much interested in them? I see references to academic futurists, such as the local Singularity Institute, which is Ray Kurzweil?s group. You?re right, there seems to be fewer references to futurism than there once was, but the traffic here is a lot lower than it was in the 90s as well. I'm talking about the kind of futurists mentioned here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_studies The kind that publish in the journals listed there. The Singularity Institute isn't part of that. I sure pay attention to what Anders has to say. Might be a little close to home for you, as a prophet has no honor in his home town. I don't think Anders Sandberg publishes there much either. Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ. Assoc. Professor, George Mason University Chief Scientist, Consensus Point MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Thu Jan 23 17:56:54 2014 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 17:56:54 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52E157E6.6060902@yahoo.com> Kelly Anderson wrote: >if you fork your life experience to do two things at once, then every time you >remerge those threads, one of the forks is gonna die... Jusy saying. Sorry, I don't understand this. How is one fork dying? And which one? Ben Zaiboc From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Jan 23 19:04:53 2014 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 20:04:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> Message-ID: <52E167D5.30709@libero.it> Il 21/01/2014 00:46, Adrian Tymes ha scritto: > But is Congress passing a law here? No. Is it illegal to teach > non-CC? No. You might not get funding from the feds if you do not, but > nothing in the US Constitution requires the feds to fund any particular > educational model; it just says they may promote this sort of thing (so > long as, for example, they maintain separation of church and state - and > no, not just any worldview can be called "church" in that sense). I would see the utility of a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting the federal government to give any money to state or local government. Who own the gold make the rules. Who pay the piper choose the tune. If the Federal Government was prevented from giving money to the states (always with strings attached) it would have problems to Rule Them All as now. Mirco From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 20:26:24 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 12:26:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: <52E167D5.30709@libero.it> References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <52E167D5.30709@libero.it> Message-ID: On Jan 23, 2014 11:19 AM, "Mirco Romanato" wrote: > I would see the utility of a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting the > federal government to give any money to state or local government. > > Who own the gold make the rules. > Who pay the piper choose the tune. > > If the Federal Government was prevented from giving money to the states > (always with strings attached) it would have problems to Rule Them All > as now. Nice idea, but two large problems: First, define "give money". The relaxation of requirements to spend can be a gift as much as actual money (sometimes more so since you don't even have to cash a check), as can doing things in a way that just happens to profit a state or local government. They have long and deep expertise in finding and exploiting these loopholes. Second, good luck getting state support (required for a constitutional amendment) for something forbidding someone else from giving them stuff. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 20:59:42 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 13:59:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: <52E157E6.6060902@yahoo.com> References: <52E157E6.6060902@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 10:56 AM, Ben wrote: > Kelly Anderson wrote: > > >if you fork your life experience to do two things at once, then every > time you > >remerge those threads, one of the forks is gonna die... Jusy saying. > > Sorry, I don't understand this. How is one fork dying? And which one? > I'm using fork in the Linux or Unix sense. That is, I create a copy of myself (usually in VR) and have it go learn something, or have some experience, or do some work, then I merge that copy's experiences into my primary memory. At that point, the purpose of the copy is finished, and its' execution can be terminated. This is essentially killing a copy of yourself. Does that make slightly more sense? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 21:02:36 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 14:02:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: <52E167D5.30709@libero.it> References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <52E167D5.30709@libero.it> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 12:04 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 21/01/2014 00:46, Adrian Tymes ha scritto: > > > But is Congress passing a law here? No. Is it illegal to teach > > non-CC? No. You might not get funding from the feds if you do not, but > > nothing in the US Constitution requires the feds to fund any particular > > educational model; it just says they may promote this sort of thing (so > > long as, for example, they maintain separation of church and state - and > > no, not just any worldview can be called "church" in that sense). > > I would see the utility of a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting the > federal government to give any money to state or local government. > Ooh, I like that one. Then states would have to collect what they need from the local citizenry, instead of Texas paying for the excesses of California. The only problem would be how to get a super majority of states to ratify it when a lot of states probably get more out than they put in? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 21:32:04 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 13:32:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: References: <52E157E6.6060902@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Jan 23, 2014 1:05 PM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > I'm using fork in the Linux or Unix sense. > > That is, I create a copy of myself (usually in VR) and have it go learn something, or have some experience, or do some work, then I merge that copy's experiences into my primary memory. At that point, the purpose of the copy is finished, and its' execution can be terminated. This is essentially killing a copy of yourself. Is it? "Kill" in the UNIX sense is not quite identical to the living being or sentient mind senses, especially when the one remaining copy will have the memories (and other learned adjustments) of both. Keep in mind that you today do not consist primarily of the atoms you were born with, and indeed you have lost most of them by now - but losing them did not kill you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 21:39:36 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 13:39:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <52E167D5.30709@libero.it> Message-ID: On Jan 23, 2014 1:03 PM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > The only problem would be how to get a super majority of states to ratify it when a lot of states probably get more out than they put in? Not "probably". Google "federal spending by state" to find many studies showing just how much each state does or does not get. Notice the political party affiliation, lack of urbanization, and other attributes of most of the takers. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From iambrianmuhia at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 21:01:38 2014 From: iambrianmuhia at gmail.com (Brian Njenga) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 00:01:38 +0300 Subject: [ExI] Future Bodies In-Reply-To: References: <52E157E6.6060902@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <52E18332.2040208@gmail.com> On 01/23/2014 11:59 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 10:56 AM, Ben wrote: > >> Kelly Anderson wrote: >> >>> if you fork your life experience to do two things at once, then every >> time you >>> remerge those threads, one of the forks is gonna die... Jusy saying. >> Sorry, I don't understand this. How is one fork dying? And which one? >> > I'm using fork in the Linux or Unix sense. > > That is, I create a copy of myself (usually in VR) and have it go learn > something, or have some experience, or do some work, then I merge that > copy's experiences into my primary memory. At that point, the purpose of > the copy is finished, and its' execution can be terminated. This is > essentially killing a copy of yourself. > > Does that make slightly more sense? > > -Kelly > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat Have you read Greg Egan's Quarantine? It doesn't matter if you're "killing" a copy of yourself, since all of those experiences are assimilated into a single mind that retains a certain perspective in its perceptions and memories... It all adds up to normality. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Jan 24 15:30:06 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 07:30:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] cool! liquid nitrogen cool Message-ID: <009301cf1919$294e0710$7bea1530$@att.net> http://io9.com/whoa-this-leech-survived-after-being-in-liquid-nitroge-1507557643/@georgedvorsky Scientists have learned that a common parasite of sea turtles is capable of surviving ridiculously cold temperatures ? a finding that could lead to the development of advanced cryopreservation techniques. Okay, gotta say, this thing's really weird. Most organisms cannot survive exposure to temperatures below 0?C, let alone temperatures as low as liquid nitrogen. Once you get below the freezing point the water in the cells cause way too much damage, typically resulting in cell death. What's even weirder is that this leech, Ozobranchus jantseanus, parasitizes sea turtles that swim in waters no colder than ?2 to ?4?C, and for more longer than 11 days. "It is likely," write the researchers in their study, "that this cryotolerant ability has arisen in response to some as yet unclarified adaptation." And an extreme adaptation is it. The leech can survive exposure to super-low temperatures by storage in liquid nitrogen (?196?C) for 24 hours, as well as long-term storage at temperatures as low as ?90?C for up to 32 months. The leech is also capable of enduring repeated freeze-thaw cycles in the temperature range 20?C to ?100?C and then back to 20?C? Now THAT?s cool. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Jan 24 18:03:22 2014 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 10:03:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 4:00 AM, Robin D Hanson wrote: > I'm talking about the kind of futurists mentioned here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_studies > The kind that publish in the journals listed there. The Singularity Institute isn't part of that. The list is a really mixed bag, and, among other things, it is missing Eric Drexler. I might fix that and include Charles Stross as well. Who else should go on that list? A list that includes Ray Kurzweill and the Club of Rome would be hard to exceed in discordant views of the future. I find it hard to take futurists seriously who are not on the bleeding edge of technology, but even those can be blind to the obvious. Or as Yogi Berra, said "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Keith From zyttyz at yahoo.com Fri Jan 24 19:11:16 2014 From: zyttyz at yahoo.com (paul michael) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 11:11:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1390590676.20042.YahooMailNeo@web141604.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Here are some names: Paul Saffo Malcom Gladwell (The Tipping Point) Steven D. Levitt & Stephan J. Dubner (Freakonomics) Wil McCarthy (Hacking Matter) and the ever esteemed Damien Broderick Linda On Friday, January 24, 2014 10:08 AM, Keith Henson wrote: On Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 4:00 AM,? Robin D Hanson wrote: > I'm talking about the kind of futurists mentioned here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_studies > The kind that publish in the journals listed there. The Singularity Institute isn't part of that. The list is a really mixed bag, and, among other things, it is missing Eric Drexler.? I might fix that and include Charles Stross as well. Who else should go on that list? A list that includes Ray Kurzweill and the Club of Rome would be hard to exceed in discordant views of the future. I find it hard to take futurists seriously who are not on the bleeding edge of technology, but even those can be blind to the obvious. Or as Yogi Berra, said "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Keith _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Jan 25 00:47:01 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 17:47:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? Message-ID: Dan and I were chatting off list, and I thought it would be good to get a wider viewpoint on a topic that came up. This is a synthesis of where we are. Every few years someone comes up with a new excuse for why technology or the newest fad is destroying humanity. It should come as no surprise that MTV, Twitter, and now vine video have all been blamed in turn for decreasing our attention spans. But have attention spans actually decreased? I mean I've only been distracted three times writing this email already... LOL... Ok, five times, but seriously, there are some studies that show changes, such as this one: http://www.statisticbrain.com/attention-span-statistics/ Source: National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, The Associated Press Research Date: 1.1.2014 Attention span is the amount of concentrated time on a task without becoming distracted. Most educators and psychologists agree that the ability to focus attention on a task is crucial for the achievement of one?s goals. It?s no surprise attention spans have been decreasing over the past decade with the increase in external stimulation. Their study shows the following "average" attention span for some "normalized" task. 2000 - 12 seconds average 2013 - 8 seconds average Now, if that is real, it's a real issue. Only really deep thinking can solve our biggest problems. If people can't focus on one thing for more than a few seconds, then what hope do we have of people solving the problems of the world? So what do you think? Do you think your attention span has decreased over time? Do you think the attention spans of your associates and family members has gone down? And mostly, does it matter? Is this another thing like doing math in your brain that doesn't matter any more? Or is there some advantage from having a shorter attention span? Or is it just part of some vast conspiracy to prepare us to be harvested for our organs? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Sat Jan 25 01:11:02 2014 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 17:11:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <325F5C04-F0FA-41D0-A59E-A841DB8F4349@yahoo.com> I would like to point to another seeming phenomenon that might be related. This is if memorization. I've read oral cultures -- meaning ones that are preliterate -- have members whose members are better at memorizing things like stories, speeches, and epic poetry. Granted, there seems to be some exaggeration here -- meaning it might be that the memorization here is not verbatim though it's still impressive. In literate cultures, this seems to decline and the explanation trotted out is literate people lose the ability because they can rely on texts. Let's say this is true. (My reason to doubt this is that most people in preliterate societies were not bards charged with reciting epics and most people in literate societies are not bookworms. And the overlap -- those thousands of years between the invention of the text until today -- seems wide and varied. (Most people today don't read many books -- even in highly literate societies. The usual factoid -- again, I'm skeptical even of this -- is the average person doesn't seem to do much reading after school, especially if it's not job-related.) Now, allowing it's true -- there's a decline in memorization as cultures become more literate, so? Why is this a problem, especially given the technology of writing to store information? It's similar to changes in digestion once a species learns to cook. Sure, it loses something but the gain might be equal or greater than the loss -- depending on one's vantage post. And it hardly seems right to default to privileging one point in this evolution -- say, preliterate era for its supposed feats of memory or the pre-fire era for fears of digestive robustness or the pre-Twitter age for supposedly everyone have incredible attention spans. (On the last, what was everyone a decade or two ago able to encompass all of Proust in mind -- until the web, etc. took off and made us all poster children for ADHD? Regards, Dan My latest story is available at: http://www.amazon.com/Medeas-Gift-Dan-Ust-ebook/dp/B00GHX2M1O/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 25 02:46:55 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 18:46:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? >.So what do you think? Do you think your attention span has decreased over time? Do you think the attention spans of your associates and family members has gone down? Kelly There is no doubt we are seeing decreased attention spans everywhere. Before I get to that, this commentary postulates a related ability we have gained as we have lost the ability to focus for long periods: the ability to filter irrelevant info at a remarkable speed and effectiveness. Evidence is abundant. Consider such late 50s early 60s TV examples as Perry Mason, which can now be viewed free: http://www.tv.com/shows/perry-mason/watch/the-case-of-the-final-fadeout-7964 0/ Note the long stretches between commercial breaks. If you had the patience to sit through these marvelous masterpieces to get to the courtroom arguments, you will notice that it is difficult for us to follow: you need to concentrate on what they are saying. I loved this show as a 7 yr old child. Now I have a hard time sitting still long enough. These shows were once called dramas. Now they wouldn't be called that; no helicopter chases, no nothing, just heads talking. Note Scientific American articles from the same era, compare with Scientific American today. Compare the general pace of movies from the 1940s with any movie made today, the length of the scenes, the general depth of thought required. Consider my favorite scientific writing, the seventh chapter of Darwin's Origin of Species. Think about what that man had to do in order to write that chapter. He had to sit quietly and watch, for hour after hour, ponder what he was seeing, watch some more. I am astonished by Darwin's observational skills, beyond what is seen in scientists today. We are accustomed to things happening at a much faster pace. This leads to the second conjecture: the internet and video games have made us much more skilled at dealing with floods of data, figuring out how to filter it and get just what we need. I have a friend who is in his 70s, a doctor (the one who introduced me to Dr. Christine Lajuenesse who was the young lady who was shot by a crazy bastard and we sent the get-well wishes.) This doctor had a very busy practice until a couple years ago, so he didn't have much time for twiddling away the hours on the "internets" until very recently. I became his advisor and got him going after his semi-retirement. He experienced the whole head rush most of us here experienced in the 90s with all that free information now available right in our own homes. There is a skill most of us developed twenty or more years ago as we learned what a large fraction of all that information on the internet is bullshit. Free and worth every penny. We learned to figure out quickly what was nonsense, what was speculation, what was solid fact, what was cool, etc. We have gotten good at it. My son's generation started right out knowing they could find anything they wanted to know on the internet, but that much of the info was wrong. But I saw something else cool: they seem to be really good at filtering out peripheral info and focusing down on the critical stuff. They go right to the heart of the matter. The evidence I found is in watching how the kids play Mario Brothers. I saw college students who orated at length on how good they were at this Mario game or that. Then when my second-grader son and his friends wanted to play, they smote the astonished and appalled college students, who went away with an entirely new and humble attitude, thinking perhaps they weren't quite as good as they had previously thought. I have an alternative explanation: as we grow older, we start to take in more information and process more information. The children focus right down on the critical core. To them, old people appear slow. Not necessarily stupid, just slower. Reason: we are dealing with a lot more information, and seeing a lot more alternatives simultaneously. This theory explains why kids are effective programmers but that their software isn't necessarily well designed. If you are still reading down this far, I speculate that you are one of the older guys here, one who doesn't give up after the second paragraph, tossing it aside with a casual TLDR. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 25 03:13:59 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 19:13:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] excellent! a nearby 1a has been found, before peak brightness! Message-ID: <007101cf197b$7e9f88d0$7bde9a70$@att.net> An exploding star had been sighted in M82, one of the nearest big galaxies. The "supernova" a "Type Ia" -- the kind that led to the Nobel-worthy discovery of dark energy.. http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/24/opinion/urry-exploding-supernova/index.html?hp t=hp_c3 Ooooooh my, is this a time to be living or what? Life. is. goooooooood. {8-] spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 25 05:54:29 2014 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 00:54:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? In-Reply-To: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> References: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 9:46 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *>?* *On Behalf Of *Kelly Anderson > *Subject:* [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? > > > > >?So what do you think? Do you think your attention span has decreased > over time? Do you think the attention spans of your associates and family > members has gone down? Kelly > > > > There is no doubt we are seeing decreased attention spans everywhere. > Before I get to that, this commentary postulates a related ability we have > gained as we have lost the ability to focus for long periods: the ability > to filter irrelevant info at a remarkable speed and effectiveness. > ### I recently read "The World until Yesterday" by Jared Diamond - he mentions that bilingual and multilingual persons tend to score better on some measures of executive function, especially at conflict tasks (the ones that require managing conflicting information, switching between contexts, and, not surprisingly, switching between languages). It is clear that our informational environment, even within the "normal" range (no extreme environmental deprivation), can have significant differentiating effects on our minds. It is likely that dealing with information the internet way molds our minds, especially our executive function, in a different direction from the traditional way. I wonder if we become more hunter-gatherer-like: not focused on anything in particular but paying attention to a lot of clues, rather than farmer-like, ploddingly but thoroughly tilling the same small plot. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 25 06:37:34 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 22:37:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? In-Reply-To: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> References: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> Message-ID: <00b101cf1997$efe1ea30$cfa5be90$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of spike Subject: Re: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? Such is the nature of my decreasing attention span that I set up everything and forgot to make my point. I wrote: >.This leads to the second conjecture: the internet and video games have made us much more skilled at dealing with floods of data, figuring out how to filter it and get just what we need. I have a friend who is in his 70s, a doctor.This doctor had a very busy practice until a couple years ago, so he didn't have much time for twiddling away the hours on the "internets" until very recently. I became his advisor and got him going after his semi-retirement. He experienced the whole head rush most of us here experienced in the 90s with all that free information now available right in our own homes.spike Here we have an informative case of a highly intelligent older recent internet user. He doesn't have a highly developed bullshit detector. Super smart guy, but he falls for obvious gags and errors. He sends me stuff from the Onion for instance, which someone sent him as a gag. He thought it was the real thing, and was asking for clarification of some outrageous silliness. With all his skill in finding answers, he seems to be swamped with data, confused by the sheer volume. I had an idea, which Rafal or Bill might comment on. Doctors can go thru their whole careers using data that was pre-filtered. They have their medical textbooks, the JAMA, mostly credible and careful medical journals, etc, all high quality reliable information. They knew to disregard or heavily discount material supplied by advertisers and vendors, but pay close attention to some select sources and studies. They knew how to get everything pre-filtered at least up to the plausible level before they even invest valuable time to read it. Now they (and we) just have mountains of stuff we need to filter ourselves. It takes hours of digging through porn just to get to the good stuff. SCIENCE rather, I meant hours of digging through all the bogus SCIENCE papers, to get to the good science, that's what I meant. Moving right along. So with our decreasing attention spans, we have gotten better at figuring out how to cut thru and find what we need, better at detecting bogosity. We get better at following perhaps a dozen or more different areas of interest, something we just couldn't do before the internet. That part is really fun. But it has a price. This is something James Gleick really missed in his book Faster: the Acceleration of Just About Everything. My earlier comment regarding Perry Mason episodes: great stories. But I will not go back and watch them now. I think Anders pointed out before: the opportunity cost of viewing old TV shows from one's childhood has increased dramatically, because one misses out on all the cool stuff one could have learned. Just this evening, I went over a whole pile of material online explaining why all 1a supernovae have the same absolute brightness, and what a wonderful time it was in my own misspent youth, reading about Rayleigh-Taylor instability and all that cool stuff. Then Saul Perlmutter and his guys using that to figure out the inflationary universe, oh it has been a terrific last couple decades to be into astronomy. Any time spent listening to old Perry Mason episodes is time not spent reading about supernovae. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jan 25 07:21:23 2014 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 02:21:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? In-Reply-To: <00b101cf1997$efe1ea30$cfa5be90$@att.net> References: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> <00b101cf1997$efe1ea30$cfa5be90$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 1:37 AM, spike wrote: > > > > I had an idea, which Rafal or Bill might comment on. Doctors can go thru > their whole careers using data that was pre-filtered. They have their > medical textbooks, the JAMA, mostly credible and careful medical journals, > etc, all high quality reliable information. They knew to disregard or > heavily discount material supplied by advertisers and vendors, but pay > close attention to some select sources and studies. They knew how to get > everything pre-filtered at least up to the plausible level before they even > invest valuable time to read it. > ### The key is finding the right venue. For me it's UpToDate (paywalled), Medscape/eMedicine, RxList, and Pubmed searches. I hardly ever go outside of these sources, which should not be surprising since Pubmed encompasses essentially all of peer-reviewed medical literature. You have to always think about the "standard of care" part ... I have never been sued, I sincerely hope this lucky streak continues and I try to help my luck by being nice to patients and periodically checking the guidelines even on basics, like stroke or Parkinson's. Today I did a marathon session on Pubmed at my science job - it's so much different from my MD-PhD days 20 years ago. Frantically searching through hundreds of articles I know nothing about trying to assess the plausibility of a biological mechanism for a drug we invented, in order to choose a reagent to buy from among thousands of possible avenues of research. Made me dizzy, literally. There is a new, lazy way of doing science coming to town - shotgun sequencing DNA, RNA, proteins, completely characterizing all molecular entities in a sample, generating upwards of 10 GB data per sample, and letting a bioinformatics package make guesses at mechanisms. Soon those who own the relevant hardware will be retired (earning a rent), those who don't will be fired. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Sat Jan 25 08:06:35 2014 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 09:06:35 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <77CD1920-1B77-4D7A-9130-4208575F55DE@gmu.edu> References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <009a01cf17ba$7fb1fa40$7f15eec0$@att.net> <77CD1920-1B77-4D7A-9130-4208575F55DE@gmu.edu> Message-ID: Hi Robin, welcome back. This list is still alive with occasional bursts of activity, but it is not what it used to be in the 90s. We should do something to revive the list. Concerning academic futurism, I have the highest respect for the many great people who practice it, but I am not very much interested myself. I am more interested in inspiring, highly imaginative ideas than in trying to predict detailed outcomes. Some of what we imagine here will come true, or things even more wonderful. On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 11:41 PM, Robin D Hanson wrote: > Howdy everyone. I've been away from this list for many years, but thought I > might try it again. I've been lurking for a few days to get a feel, but not > sure it has told me that much. So let me start out by asking a question. > > There is an academic specialty of futurism. That is, there are professors, > journals, and even some departments which specialize in that topic. Do > people here often read or cite such folks? It seems not, but then the > question is why not. What is the problem with academic futurists such that > people on a future oriented list like this aren't much interested in them? > > Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu > Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ. > Assoc. Professor, George Mason University > Chief Scientist, Consensus Point > MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030 > 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Jan 25 09:01:31 2014 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 02:01:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? In-Reply-To: References: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> <00b101cf1997$efe1ea30$cfa5be90$@att.net> Message-ID: I want to give everyone here a big virtual hug. : ) I have deeply enjoyed the learning and insights I have gotten from this list over the years. And as for bogosity filters, I still need to work on mine. I have sensed my own ability to focus for long periods and not get antsy, to really have gone down over the past decade or so. Oh, and speaking of videogames, watch out for side-scrolling Starbound! lol It superficially looks like an old SuperNintendo game, but on steroids, due to it's modern pc depth and variety. You explore & colonize a galaxy of planets with coal burning starships..., yep. My girlfriend is thoroughly addicted to it! lol And yet I am not. I do love the animation sequences after my characters die, showing a mind/body clone generation. But of course it's not *really* my original character, but a copy. Hee... John : ) On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 12:21 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki < rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: > > > > On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 1:37 AM, spike wrote: >> >> >> >> I had an idea, which Rafal or Bill might comment on. Doctors can go thru >> their whole careers using data that was pre-filtered. They have their >> medical textbooks, the JAMA, mostly credible and careful medical journals, >> etc, all high quality reliable information. They knew to disregard or >> heavily discount material supplied by advertisers and vendors, but pay >> close attention to some select sources and studies. They knew how to get >> everything pre-filtered at least up to the plausible level before they even >> invest valuable time to read it. >> > > ### The key is finding the right venue. For me it's UpToDate (paywalled), > Medscape/eMedicine, RxList, and Pubmed searches. I hardly ever go outside > of these sources, which should not be surprising since Pubmed encompasses > essentially all of peer-reviewed medical literature. You have to always > think about the "standard of care" part ... I have never been sued, I > sincerely hope this lucky streak continues and I try to help my luck by > being nice to patients and periodically checking the guidelines even on > basics, like stroke or Parkinson's. > > Today I did a marathon session on Pubmed at my science job - it's so much > different from my MD-PhD days 20 years ago. Frantically searching through > hundreds of articles I know nothing about trying to assess the plausibility > of a biological mechanism for a drug we invented, in order to choose a > reagent to buy from among thousands of possible avenues of research. Made > me dizzy, literally. > > There is a new, lazy way of doing science coming to town - shotgun > sequencing DNA, RNA, proteins, completely characterizing all molecular > entities in a sample, generating upwards of 10 GB data per sample, and > letting a bioinformatics package make guesses at mechanisms. > > Soon those who own the relevant hardware will be retired (earning a rent), > those who don't will be fired. > > Rafal > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jan 25 11:14:30 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 11:14:30 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? In-Reply-To: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> References: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 2:46 AM, spike wrote: > I have an alternative explanation: as we grow older, we start to take in > more information and process more information. The children focus right > down on the critical core. To them, old people appear slow. Not > necessarily stupid, just slower. Reason: we are dealing with a lot more > information, and seeing a lot more alternatives simultaneously. > > Confirmed by recent research and paper: Quote: The Myth of Cognitive Decline: Non-Linear Dynamics of Lifelong Learning As adults age, their performance on many psychometric tests changes systematically, a finding that is widely taken to reveal that cognitive information-processing capacities decline across adulthood. Contrary to this, we suggest that older adults'; changing performance reflects memory search demands, which escalate as experience grows. A series of simulations show how the performance patterns observed across adulthood emerge naturally in learning models as they acquire knowledge. Our results indicate that older adults'; performance on cognitive tests reflects the predictable consequences of learning on information-processing, and not cognitive decline. We consider the implications of this for our scientific and cultural understanding of aging. ------------ I don't know if it is mentioned in the paper, but I would add that because of their senior status, old people have a greater fear of making a mistake, or getting the wrong answer. So they check and recheck their results before answering. BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jan 25 15:51:44 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 09:51:44 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? In-Reply-To: References: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> Message-ID: OK Spike, Bill will comment: I recently was asked by a neighbor who knew of my academic background (Ph. D. exp. psych) and a hobby, gardening, and brought a bug over for me to identify. When I went to get my bug book he said that he was devastated that I did not know right away. After all I was so smart, right? Point: why memorize something, spending all that time and energy when all you need is to know is where that information is and how to interpret it when you find it. On a visit to a physician he got out a big book and looked up something in it. Rather than being insulted that he was some kind of incompetent, I was favorably impressed. No one can put all of that in his head. And if he did, could he get it out? Superficial evidence of memory decline is often the result of conflicting memories, and the more you have in memory the more you have the possibility for conflict - meaning that you just cannot get it out at least temporarily. In working my crossword puzzles I often think of a word that would do as it is similar to what I was searching my brain for, but it is wrong and somehow blocks my search for the right one (aka interference theory). The idea that video games or anything else has dulled our brains is just silly. The games cause our brains to work in certain ways and not others. Studies show that gamers do better than nongamers on some nongame mental tasks - not surprising. Nor have we devolved. Anyone who has taken Psych 101 knows a bit a how memory works. How about attention? Listening is a learned skill and not at all easy to learn. Then you have to get it into memory and that is also a learned skill, not automatic in any way except in some people who cannot help but memorize every license plate ahead of them. I did not forget some things in the novel I read last week, as I did not put them into memory in the first place. Generally speaking one has to try and sometimes try hard to get something into memory and if it ain't there you can't find it! Nowadays we talk about teaching how to think critically and creatively but I haven't seen much evidence that it is done right. Just like religion: you can't just teach honor and virtue etc., you have to tell people what not to do as well. Does anyone know of classes at any level that teach all the cognitive errors I mention so often (search Wikipedia for 'cognitive errors')? Do economics or finance classes teach how to avoid scams? Why not? The most effective people at drug addicts' facilities are former addicts, who know all the wrong kind of thinking. There is more bullshit surrounding psychology than any other field I know. So, Spike, we have to be doubly alert and set our BS detector on high. The problem is keeping an open mind to new things that will pan out. Unfortunately most of them in my field won't (bet we are slowly getting better though we won't catch up with physics and chemistry for hundreds of years, I think. Duke Ellington: "If it sounds good it is good." May work for music. It works all too well for the snake oil salesmen of the world. Oh excuse me, snake oil vendors, I meant to say politicians. On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 5:14 AM, BillK wrote: > On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 2:46 AM, spike wrote: > > > I have an alternative explanation: as we grow older, we start to take in > > more information and process more information. The children focus right > > down on the critical core. To them, old people appear slow. Not > > necessarily stupid, just slower. Reason: we are dealing with a lot more > > information, and seeing a lot more alternatives simultaneously. > > > > > > Confirmed by recent research and paper: > > > Quote: > > The Myth of Cognitive Decline: Non-Linear Dynamics of Lifelong Learning > As adults age, their performance on many psychometric tests changes > systematically, a finding that is widely taken to reveal that > cognitive information-processing capacities decline across adulthood. > Contrary to this, we suggest that older adults'; changing performance > reflects memory search demands, which escalate as experience grows. A > series of simulations show how the performance patterns observed > across adulthood emerge naturally in learning models as they acquire > knowledge. > Our results indicate that older adults'; performance on cognitive > tests reflects the predictable consequences of learning on > information-processing, and not cognitive decline. We consider the > implications of this for our scientific and cultural understanding of > aging. > ------------ > > I don't know if it is mentioned in the paper, but I would add that > because of their senior status, old people have a greater fear of > making a mistake, or getting the wrong answer. So they check and > recheck their results before answering. > > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Jan 25 18:01:35 2014 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 13:01:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] excellent! a nearby 1a has been found, before peak brightness! In-Reply-To: <007101cf197b$7e9f88d0$7bde9a70$@att.net> References: <007101cf197b$7e9f88d0$7bde9a70$@att.net> Message-ID: That is cool. Even cooler would be when Betelgeuse goes supernova, and that could happen tomorrow or in a million years and it's only 643 light years away verses 11,400,000 for this one. Of course Betelgeuse wouldn't be a Type 1a supernova but a core collapse Type 2. Cooler still will be when Eta Carinea blows up, it's 7500 light years away but when it blows it will probably be a photon pair instability style Hypernova. That would really be something to see! John K Clark On Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 10:13 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > An exploding star had been sighted in M82, one of the nearest big > galaxies. The "supernova" a "Type Ia" -- the kind that led to the > Nobel-worthy discovery of dark energy?. > > > > > http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/24/opinion/urry-exploding-supernova/index.html?hpt=hp_c3 > > > > > > Ooooooh my, is this a time to be living or what? > > > > Life? is? goooooooood? > > > > {8-] > > > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Jan 25 22:14:30 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 14:14:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] excellent! a nearby 1a has been found, before peak brightness! In-Reply-To: References: <007101cf197b$7e9f88d0$7bde9a70$@att.net> Message-ID: <019301cf1a1a$d2db6820$78923860$@att.net> An exploding star had been sighted in M82, one of the nearest big galaxies. The "supernova" a "Type Ia" -- the kind that led to the Nobel-worthy discovery of dark energy.. http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/24/opinion/urry-exploding-supernova/index.html?hp t=hp_c3 From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2014 10:02 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] excellent! a nearby 1a has been found, before peak brightness! That is cool. Even cooler would be when Betelgeuse goes supernova, and that could happen tomorrow or in a million years and it's only 643 light years away verses 11,400,000 for this one. Of course Betelgeuse wouldn't be a Type 1a supernova but a core collapse Type 2. Cooler still will be when Eta Carinea blows up, it's 7500 light years away but when it blows it will probably be a photon pair instability style Hypernova. That would really be something to see! John K Clark John, this is all giving me some very pleasant nostalgia from when I was less than half the age I am now. It caused me to marvel at how much things have changed since then. What were you doing in 1987? What was the big event of that year? Do you have specific memories? I sure do. We had a close-by type II irregular, in late February 1987. It was the biiiiig deeeealll that year for those of us who were into that sort of thing, but some things were very different back then. I remember specifics about it: my astronomy buddy called me with a breathless report of a nearby biggie, and we were going to have a meeting of the astronomy club at the usual place over at the public library. My young friends, back in those benighted times, a chat group had to literally "travel" to a common geographical "location." Chat required use of physical "vocal cords" and face-to-meat-face contact. It was horrifying. Actually it wasn't that bad. We enjoyed each other's physical presence. We met. The usual suspects at those meeting were about a couple dozen guys, but that evening we had about 50, and our meeting room wasn't big enough, so the librarian came by and opened the main library for us. It was too cold and windy, but guys were milling about in the parking lot, talking supernovae. So fun! We went about reviewing the mechanisms behind the various types of SNe. For several weeks I scrounged around for everything I could find, magazines, books, anything we could get our hands on. Tuesday evening I hear of the type 1a, discovered well before peak brightness. I marvel at hooooowwww muuuuch stuuuuufff has been discovered since 1987, and how easy it is to get to it. We know waaaay more now than we did then. In 1987, we treated the carbon/oxygen interface as a sphere, but since then, 3D turbulence modelling has explained why the 1a seems to detonate slightly before it reaches the Chandrasekhar Limit, by about 1%, and why the explosions usually appear asymmetrical. All this stuff we can now find online, all of it free, such good high quality information, oh my. Is this a great time, or what? All this has a point beyond the pleasant memories of an exciting time 27 yrs ago. Using these flighty information-browsing techniques most of us have developed, I was able to review and find more and absorb more and better information in two exciting evenings than I did in several weeks back in 1987. We had to go get scholarly articles, collect books (most of which were outdated or written incompetently), we brought in a physics lecturer from Cal-Tech (Murray Gell-Mann came out to remote little Ridgecrest California! Oh that was cool. What a guy!) But it was all so slow. I think I was studying for about a month, learning the details on the various types of supernovae. Now we can do it all so quickly. Other examples of contrast between now and pre-internet please? What does this mean for the future of humanity? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jan 25 22:47:26 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 22:47:26 +0000 Subject: [ExI] excellent! a nearby 1a has been found, before peak brightness! In-Reply-To: <019301cf1a1a$d2db6820$78923860$@att.net> References: <007101cf197b$7e9f88d0$7bde9a70$@att.net> <019301cf1a1a$d2db6820$78923860$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 10:14 PM, spike wrote: > Tuesday evening I hear of the type 1a, discovered well before peak > brightness. I marvel at hooooowwww muuuuch stuuuuufff has been discovered > since 1987, and how easy it is to get to it. We know waaaay more now than > we did then. In 1987, we treated the carbon/oxygen interface as a sphere, > but since then, 3D turbulence modelling has explained why the 1a seems to > detonate slightly before it reaches the Chandrasekhar Limit, by about 1%, > and why the explosions usually appear asymmetrical. All this stuff we can > now find online, all of it free, such good high quality information, oh my. > Is this a great time, or what? > You will probably enjoy - The most important supernova of the new millennium How the closest supernova in a generation???soon to be visible to skywatchers almost everywhere???is about to help us better understand the entire Universe. ----------- BillK From rhanson at gmu.edu Sat Jan 25 23:06:55 2014 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 23:06:55 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73937DFB-F29E-46EC-92F2-ABA25398BF16@gmu.edu> On Jan 24, 2014, at 1:03 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> I'm talking about the kind of futurists mentioned here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_studies >> The kind that publish in the journals listed there. The Singularity Institute isn't part of that. > > The list is a really mixed bag, and, among other things, it is missing > Eric Drexler. I might fix that and include Charles Stross as well. > Who else should go on that list? It isn't intended to be a list of all futurists. It is a list of a particular kind of futurist. > A list that includes Ray Kurzweill and the Club of Rome would be hard > to exceed in discordant views of the future. > > I find it hard to take futurists seriously who are not on the bleeding > edge of technology, but even those can be blind to the obvious. To the contrary, I find it hard to take seriously futurists who seem to spend all their time focused on the latest tech press releases. At most that helps you see short term fluctuations. Futurists interested in the long term should focus on long term trends and not so much short term fluctuations. Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ. Assoc. Professor, George Mason University Chief Scientist, Consensus Point MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From rhanson at gmu.edu Sat Jan 25 23:09:05 2014 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 23:09:05 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <009a01cf17ba$7fb1fa40$7f15eec0$@att.net> <77CD1920-1B77-4D7A-9130-4208575F55DE@gmu.edu> Message-ID: <4C3B8D97-8A63-437E-8341-E238D8C51019@gmu.edu> I'm most interested in what the actual future will be like. Much less interested in inspiring imaginative stories and scenarios one could paint. The real people I'd want to help will live in the real future, not in inspiring imaginative scenarios. On Jan 25, 2014, at 3:06 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: > Concerning academic futurism, I have the highest respect for the many > great people who practice it, but I am not very much interested > myself. I am more interested in inspiring, highly imaginative ideas > than in trying to predict detailed outcomes. Some of what we imagine > here will come true, or things even more wonderful. > > On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 11:41 PM, Robin D Hanson wrote: >> >> There is an academic specialty of futurism. That is, there are professors, >> journals, and even some departments which specialize in that topic. Do >> people here often read or cite such folks? It seems not, but then the >> question is why not. What is the problem with academic futurists such that >> people on a future oriented list like this aren't much interested in them? Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ. Assoc. Professor, George Mason University Chief Scientist, Consensus Point MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Jan 25 23:34:12 2014 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 16:34:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <77CD1920-1B77-4D7A-9130-4208575F55DE@gmu.edu> References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <009a01cf17ba$7fb1fa40$7f15eec0$@att.net> <77C D1920-1B77-4D7A-9130-4208575F55DE@gmu.edu> Message-ID: <002901cf1a25$f50fcfc0$df2f6f40$@natasha.cc> Hi Robin! Great to see you on the list. You asked: "There is an academic specialty of futurism. That is, there are professors, journals, and even some departments which specialize in that topic. Do people here often read or cite such folks? It seems not, but then the question is why not. What is the problem with academic futurists such that people on a future oriented list like this aren't much interested in them?" I have a MSc in this area. The most known academic master's degree in this area is at the University of Houston http://www.uh.edu/technology/programs/graduate/foresight/ (which changed its degree from Future Studies to Foresight) and University of Hawaii http://www.futures.hawaii.edu/academic-offerings.html Here is a podcast I created many years ago (before apps, etc.) http://www.natasha.cc/futurists.htm Jim Dator runs the Futures program in Hawaii, Wendy Schultz is at Cambridge (or was), and the others were independents back then. Journals: not really. The World Future Society tries to do this, but not successfully and it is not an impressive group. Many individuals have their own types of journals/zines, but again nothing really at your level. There is a group, Association of Professional Futurists. I was a member for a couple of years and left because it ended up being a tool to support one particular set of people and not everyone http://www.profuturists.org/ . A smart person who is a friend of mine exemplifies what most futurists do once they get a master's degree from Houston or Hawaii; http://www.alsekresearch.com/joanfoltz.html Criticism of futurists: from my experience, many people think futurists are riding on the coat-tails of innovators/entrepreneurs. The great futurists I am grateful to have known and/or worked with are Alvin Toffler, John Naisbitt, Buckminster Fuller and FM-2030. They were true visionaries. The academic futurists, again from my experience, are not visionary (more conservative types) and want to get paid by DARPA, IBM, etc. to forecast possible futures. The techniques and models are quite good, but again it is more a matter of statistics, mathematics, and formula strategy, which is fine and I value. I teach a couple of courses (undergraduate and graduate) where I use some of these methods/tools for my student's assignments. STEEP, Environmental Scanning, SWOT, Strategy Canvas, Backcasting, etc. are all useful and I value them. Best to you and your family! Natasha Natasha Vita-More, PhD Faculty, University of Advancing Technology Chair, Humanity+ Fellow, Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies Founder: H+Lab / H+TV _______________________________________ New Book at Amazon! cover email From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Robin D Hanson Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2014 3:42 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? Howdy everyone. I've been away from this list for many years, but thought I might try it again. I've been lurking for a few days to get a feel, but not sure it has told me that much. So let me start out by asking a question. There is an academic specialty of futurism. That is, there are professors, journals, and even some departments which specialize in that topic. Do people here often read or cite such folks? It seems not, but then the question is why not. What is the problem with academic futurists such that people on a future oriented list like this aren't much interested in them? Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ. Assoc. Professor, George Mason University Chief Scientist, Consensus Point MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 10577 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rhanson at gmu.edu Sun Jan 26 00:15:12 2014 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 00:15:12 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <002901cf1a25$f50fcfc0$df2f6f40$@natasha.cc> References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <009a01cf17ba$7fb1fa40$7f15eec0$@att.net> <"77C D1920-1B77-4D7A-9130-4208575F55DE"@gmu.edu> <002901cf1a25$f50fcfc0$df2f6f40$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: I asked: >What is the problem with academic futurists such that people on a future oriented list like this aren't much interested in them? Natasha responded: I have a MSc in this area. ... That should make your opinions on the subject well informed. There is a group, Association of Professional Futurists. I was a member for a couple of years and left because it ended up being a tool to support one particular set of people and not everyone http://www.profuturists.org/ . ... Criticism of futurists: from my experience, many people think futurists are riding on the coat-tails of innovators/entrepreneurs. The great futurists I am grateful to have known and/or worked with are Alvin Toffler, John Naisbitt, Buckminster Fuller and FM-2030. They were true visionaries. The academic futurists, again from my experience, are not visionary (more conservative types) and want to get paid by DARPA, IBM, etc. to forecast possible futures. The techniques and models are quite good, but again it is more a matter of statistics, mathematics, and formula strategy, which is fine and I value. I teach a couple of courses (undergraduate and graduate) where I use some of these methods/tools for my student?s assignments. STEEP, Environmental Scanning, SWOT, Strategy Canvas, Backcasting, etc. are all useful and I value them. These are the kind of issues I wanted to get people to talk about. If we want accurate estimates of the future, why wouldn't people who want to get paid by large organizations be a good source? Why would people who use stat, math, and formula be unreliable estimators, relative to people who are visionary and innovator/entrepreneurs? Does data on past predictions support this choice? Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ. Assoc. Professor, George Mason University Chief Scientist, Consensus Point MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rhanson at gmu.edu Sun Jan 26 01:09:01 2014 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 01:09:01 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <009a01cf17ba$7fb1fa40$7f15eec0$@att.net> <"77C D1920-1B77-4D7A-9130-4208575F55DE"@gmu.edu> <002901cf1a25$f50fcfc0$df2f6f40$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: <1BCE6610-12EA-450F-B5CD-CDACC7C94948@gmu.edu> I said: If we want accurate estimates of the future, why wouldn't people who want to get paid by large organizations be a good source? Why would people who use stat, math, and formula be unreliable estimators, relative to people who are visionary and innovator/entrepreneurs? Does data on past predictions support this choice? To elaborate, take the example of medicine. Medical innovators might be the folks who know best what seem to be the most promising new treatments. But if you want to instead predict the general nature of medicine and its social position in a half century, I'd think you'd rather listen to people who study long term trends in medicine and their causes. Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ. Assoc. Professor, George Mason University Chief Scientist, Consensus Point MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Jan 26 04:02:04 2014 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 21:02:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] H+ Magazine Article on Mike Perry Message-ID: <000301cf1a4b$607da4b0$2178ee10$@natasha.cc> Mike Perry is a composer with an amazing talent. Please read my brief interview with him! http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/01/24/the-forever-and-ever-new-melodies-of-r-m ichael-perry/ Cheers! Natasha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Jan 26 04:28:50 2014 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 20:28:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 5:43 PM, Robin D Hanson wrote: > On Jan 24, 2014, at 1:03 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> I find it hard to take futurists seriously who are not on the bleeding >> edge of technology, but even those can be blind to the obvious. > > To the contrary, I find it hard to take seriously futurists who seem to spend > all their time focused on the latest tech press releases. Sorry, my error. I meant _working_ on the bleeding edge, not just reading about it. So I take Eric Drexler seriously on his projections of radical abundance. I take Ralph Merkle seriously on such topics. Though with the caveat that we get to the nanotech era without major resource disruptions, particularly with respect to energy. > At most that helps you > see short term fluctuations. Futurists interested in the long term should focus > on long term trends and not so much short term fluctuations. Far as I know, none of the futurists projected the rise of cell phones or smart phones before it happened, though the SF writers did better. Far as I know, none of them predicted the financial meltdown of 2008. snip to reply to Natasha > These are the kind of issues I wanted to get people to talk about. If we want accurate estimates of the future, why wouldn't people who want to get paid by large organizations be a good source? Why would people who use stat, math, and formula be unreliable estimators, relative to people who are visionary and innovator/entrepreneurs? Does data on past predictions support this choice? If you have not read it, I suggest "The Black Swan." To quote the Wikipedia article, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain: 1 The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology 2 The non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities) 3 The psychological biases that make people individually and collectively blind to uncertainty and unaware of the massive role of the rare event in historical affairs ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I work on power satellites, particularly the aspect of how to construct them at a cost where they make economic sense. I cannot predict that they will happen. But the consequence of not solving the energy problem some way (such as LENR, StratoSolar or nanotech PV paint) are a collapse in the world population. That could happen anyway as anyone who read "Spillover" knows. Heck, it's worse than that, as was just reported here this week, a _plant_ virus crossed into an animal (bees) that has as long a genetic separation from plants as we do. Bad enough we should get viruses from chimps or bats, but soybeans? How do you model a future that may or may not see a huge population drop from crop failures or disease or both? How about wars waged with propulsion lasers? I have thought about the future for a long time and have no confidence in people's ability to predict it. Best they can do is project the consequences of certain things, but even there . . . . Keith From rhanson at gmu.edu Sun Jan 26 15:37:38 2014 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 15:37:38 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 25, 2014, at 11:28 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> At most that helps you >> see short term fluctuations. Futurists interested in the long term should focus >> on long term trends and not so much short term fluctuations. > > Far as I know, none of the futurists projected the rise of cell phones > or smart phones before it happened, though the SF writers did better. > Far as I know, none of them predicted the financial meltdown of 2008. Well you'd also want to look at all the things SF writers forecast that *didn't* happen. A careful analysis of which kinds of futurists did better at predicting certain kinds of outcomes would be interesting. The fact that you aren't aware of some kinds making certain kinds of predictions isn't interesting unless you went out of your way to look for them. Since we all mostly only hear what celebrities say, judging forecasts on the basis of things that happened and who we remember forecasting them would lead us to think celebrities are the best forecasters. >> These are the kind of issues I wanted to get people to talk about. If we want accurate estimates of the future, why wouldn't people who want to get paid by large organizations be a good source? Why would people who use stat, math, and formula be unreliable estimators, relative to people who are visionary and innovator/entrepreneurs? Does data on past predictions support this choice? > > If you have not read it, I suggest "The Black Swan." ... > 1 The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and > rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in > history, science, finance, and technology The fact that some things are hard to foresee doesn't tell us who does better at foreseeing them. > So I take Eric Drexler seriously on his projections of radical > abundance. I take Ralph Merkle seriously on such topics. ... > I work on power satellites, particularly the aspect of how to > construct them at a cost where they make economic sense. I cannot > predict that they will happen. ... > I have thought about the future for a long time and have no confidence > in people's ability to predict it. Best they can do is project the > consequences of certain things, but even there . . . . If you have no confidence in "people's" ability to predict, I don't see how that can be the basis for preferring some people's ability over others. Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ. Assoc. Professor, George Mason University Chief Scientist, Consensus Point MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 26 16:55:55 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 08:55:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <036401cf1ab7$7b8ae030$72a0a090$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Robin D Hanson ... >...If you have no confidence in "people's" ability to predict, I don't see how that can be the basis for preferring some people's ability over others...Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu Robin, there is a field of professional forecasters a bit like what you are describing, but we have no access to their work because it is classified secret. Even more than big corporations, the military has great interest in forecasting, since it has such long product cycles. We think of battleships, but it applies to airplanes as well. Example, the modern trash-hauler the C-130 airlifter, had the General Operating Requirement issued in 1951, and is still in production as it approaches its 60th anniversary since entry into service. The USAF top brass are arguing over whether to continue production of the plane into the 2020s, as a new airlifter GOR has still not been published. The military has detailed plans (that actually work) going out 25 years. They also peer down the road a century, but that one is anyone's guess. They talk about AI, singularity, all the stuff we discuss here. I wouldn't be surprised a bit if some of the graduates of the Singularity University end up working for DARPA. The military has a specific branch of service with a specialized calculus designed to deal with an astonishing array of variables in the field of futurism. When guys retire from this discipline, they are highly prized by industry for that ability. Like a related discipline, feedback control systems, their mathematical models have ways of dealing with disruptive technologies such as the internet and cell phones, in a way similar to how control system aviation technology deals with unexpected large inputs such as an concussive explosion near the aircraft. I recommend you search for a retiree from the forecasting discipline who is willing to share what those guys do. That might be hard to find. I was friends with one for years before I had any idea he was a professional forecaster. I knew he had one of the spooky clearances, but I assumed incorrectly what he was using it for. I knew he was an interesting guy who found me because of my posts on ExI, but he never posted here. They watch and listen but don't talk. spike From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jan 26 17:19:34 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 09:19:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? In-Reply-To: References: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> <00b101cf1997$efe1ea30$cfa5be90$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 1:01 AM, John Grigg wrote: > Oh, and speaking of videogames, watch out for side-scrolling Starbound! > lol It superficially looks like an old SuperNintendo game, but on > steroids, due to it's modern pc depth and variety. You explore & colonize > a galaxy of planets with coal burning starships..., yep. My girlfriend is > thoroughly addicted to it! lol And yet I am not. I do love the animation > sequences after my characters die, showing a mind/body clone generation. > > But of course it's not *really* my original character, but a copy. Hee... > > If she wants, http://steamcommunity.com/groups/rpdom is a group of friends/acquaintances of mine that are going to set up a private Starbound server once they do the final beta wipe of characters. More importantly, though, is the "build a world" aspect from other games such as Minecraft and Terraria. This is becoming one of the more well known ways youths learn to build stuff - or specifically, that they can change things. I almost wonder if a mod to teach basic CAD skills would work well, given the wide audience. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rhanson at gmu.edu Sun Jan 26 17:39:31 2014 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 17:39:31 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <036401cf1ab7$7b8ae030$72a0a090$@att.net> References: <036401cf1ab7$7b8ae030$72a0a090$@att.net> Message-ID: On Jan 26, 2014, at 11:55 AM, spike wrote >> If you have no confidence in "people's" ability to predict, I don't see >> how that can be the basis for preferring some people's ability over >> others...Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu > > Robin, there is a field of professional forecasters a bit like what you are > describing, but we have no access to their work because it is classified > secret. ... > The military has a specific branch of service with a specialized calculus > designed to deal with an astonishing array of variables in the field of > futurism. When guys retire from this discipline, they are highly prized by > industry for that ability. There are obviously many reasons why folks with military experience might be prized by industry. So while there may be a secret cadre of unusually accurate military futurists, I don't see how the rest of us can tell. I've given talks to military futurist groups before, FYI. Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ. Assoc. Professor, George Mason University Chief Scientist, Consensus Point MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jan 26 17:51:48 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 17:51:48 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <036401cf1ab7$7b8ae030$72a0a090$@att.net> References: <036401cf1ab7$7b8ae030$72a0a090$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 4:55 PM, spike wrote: > The military has a specific branch of service with a specialized calculus > designed to deal with an astonishing array of variables in the field of > futurism. When guys retire from this discipline, they are highly prized by > industry for that ability. Like a related discipline, feedback control > systems, their mathematical models have ways of dealing with disruptive > technologies such as the internet and cell phones, in a way similar to how > control system aviation technology deals with unexpected large inputs such > as an concussive explosion near the aircraft. > > One big advantage the military has (or must have) is the ability to stop innovations that conflict with their objectives (as specified by corporate and political leaders). The difficulty that futurists have is trying to detect which branches of the future spreading tree of possibilities will flourish and which will stop. Being able to prune disliked branches makes your own future plans more predictable. BillK From spike66 at att.net Sun Jan 26 17:45:43 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 09:45:43 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: <036401cf1ab7$7b8ae030$72a0a090$@att.net> Message-ID: <038901cf1abe$70554aa0$50ffdfe0$@att.net> Subject: Re: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? On Jan 26, 2014, at 11:55 AM, spike wrote >> ... When guys retire from this discipline, they are highly prized by industry for that ability. >...There are obviously many reasons why folks with military experience might be prized by industry. So while there may be a secret cadre of unusually accurate military futurists, I don't see how the rest of us can tell. >...I've given talks to military futurist groups before, FYI...Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu Ja, Robin you made my point better in three sentences than I did in three paragraphs: the military futurists are studying our writings, but we cannot study theirs. spike From frankmac at ripco.com Sat Jan 25 18:27:42 2014 From: frankmac at ripco.com (frank mcelligott) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 11:27:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] But Goog instead of bitcions Message-ID: It's sunday morning catching up on my reading and found this gem. Can transhumanism being going main stream? http://seekingalpha.com/article/1968001-googling-the-future-of-humanity-from-glass-to-transhumanism?source=email_investing_ideas_lon_ide_0_0&ifp=0 Frank -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Jan 26 21:30:04 2014 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 14:30:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] TRANSHUMAN VISIONS MARCH 1ST, 2014 - BAY AREA Message-ID: <008e01cf1add$c8311c30$58935490$@natasha.cc> Hi! I hope to rev-u-up to get your ticket and come to the Transhuman Visions Event because it is going to be great! WHEN: March 1, 2014 WHERE: San Francisco area - East Bay ARTICLE: http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/01/22/transhuman-visions-2-0-east-bay-conferen ce-humanity-speakers-and-co-sponsorship/ TICKETS: ONLY $35.00. A 21-st Century smart price! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/transhuman-visions-20-east-bay-tickets-10068935 457 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.png Type: image/png Size: 264269 bytes Desc: not available URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Jan 26 22:36:32 2014 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 15:36:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: <036401cf1ab7$7b8ae030$72a0a090$@att.net> Message-ID: <00a001cf1ae7$1138b3d0$33aa1b70$@natasha.cc> Yes, I have too. I worked as a contractor through IBM researching non-invasive human enhancement technologies for the military. On another note, there is a distinct difference between futurists who make predictions and those who forecast. The former (predictions) is an expected outcome of an event or set of influencers on a and a forecast specifically proposes one or more possible futures (usually with a backcasting technique). Whether a self-proclaimed futurist who has a gut-instinct (which I think has enormous credibility because not everyone is in-tune to the same data and someone could be more insightful because of her/his level of understanding of people, trends, etc.) or one that employs strategic methods and means and calls him/herself a forecaster, no one really can say 100% with scientific certainty that one future will outperform another future. Because of this, futurists invite observations that give them some rope: wild cards, unforeseen influencers, unintended consequences, tipping points, Black Swan, etc. What is cool is to experiments with Stella and other software to test drive influences of variables in a forecasting scenario. Natasha -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Robin D Hanson Sent: Sunday, January 26, 2014 10:40 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? On Jan 26, 2014, at 11:55 AM, spike wrote >> If you have no confidence in "people's" ability to predict, I don't >> see how that can be the basis for preferring some people's ability >> over others...Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu > > Robin, there is a field of professional forecasters a bit like what > you are describing, but we have no access to their work because it is > classified secret. ... > The military has a specific branch of service with a specialized > calculus designed to deal with an astonishing array of variables in > the field of futurism. When guys retire from this discipline, they > are highly prized by industry for that ability. There are obviously many reasons why folks with military experience might be prized by industry. So while there may be a secret cadre of unusually accurate military futurists, I don't see how the rest of us can tell. I've given talks to military futurist groups before, FYI. Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ. Assoc. Professor, George Mason University Chief Scientist, Consensus Point MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Jan 27 01:18:31 2014 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 17:18:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 1:59 PM, Robin D Hanson wrote: > On Jan 25, 2014, at 11:28 PM, Keith Henson wrote: snip >> If you have not read it, I suggest "The Black Swan." ... >> 1 The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and >> rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in >> history, science, finance, and technology > > The fact that some things are hard to foresee doesn't tell us who does > better at foreseeing them. On theoretical grounds I claim there are no such people. That not to say that you could not find them in the data, just as you can find a string of heads in a long series of coin flips. The guy who wrote The Black Swan made note of the people who made money as infallible stock pickers were just lucky, not systematically prescient. His experimental data is that the ones with a long track record do no better than new ones in the next year. >> So I take Eric Drexler seriously on his projections of radical >> abundance. I take Ralph Merkle seriously on such topics. ... > >> I work on power satellites, particularly the aspect of how to >> construct them at a cost where they make economic sense. I cannot >> predict that they will happen. ... >> I have thought about the future for a long time and have no confidence >> in people's ability to predict it. Best they can do is project the >> consequences of certain things, but even there . . . . > > If you have no confidence in "people's" ability to predict, I don't see how > that can be the basis for preferring some people's ability over others. I think I said I took them seriously, over people who have not done any work. Their predictions tend to be plausible, not accurate. > From: "spike" snip > > The military has detailed plans (that actually work) going out 25 years. > They also peer down the road a century, but that one is anyone's guess. > They talk about AI, singularity, all the stuff we discuss here. I wouldn't > be surprised a bit if some of the graduates of the Singularity University > end up working for DARPA. Maybe. I have been less than impressed by some of the SU grads. It's not like a couple of months turns you into a god. > From: BillK > One big advantage the military has (or must have) is the ability to > stop innovations that conflict with their objectives (as specified by > corporate and political leaders). > > The difficulty that futurists have is trying to detect which branches > of the future spreading tree of possibilities will flourish and which > will stop. > > Being able to prune disliked branches makes your own future plans more > predictable. Sorry, I can't buy this. Keith From spike66 at att.net Mon Jan 27 06:07:53 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 22:07:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] how far can she go? Message-ID: <001101cf1b26$1e65d0d0$5b317270$@att.net> It was a time joke, on me. In an offline discussion I was relating a story that happened to me 35 years ago, and I just now got it. It was an IQ test question, not multiple choice, it was administered by a live psychologist. A hiker walks north 4 km, turns and walks east 3 km. How far is the hiker from the starting point? Simple question, answered instantly, 5 km. But then I realized, the hiker could start 4+3/2pi km from the north pole. Then she could turn east, walk a full circle always walking east for 3 km and end up right where she turned east, 4 km from where she started. As far as I know, there is no way on flat ground she could end up any closer than 4 km. So here's the really cool question: assuming the north pole trick, what is the farthest she could end up from the start? It's a crazy difficult answer to what looks like an easy question. All this time, a cool calculation was waiting for me to discover it. If you give up, I found the answer. If I did it right, it isn't an integer or an integer multiple of pi. Try it first before you ask what I got, good luck. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jan 27 10:24:49 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 10:24:49 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 1:18 AM, Keith Henson wrote: >> From: BillK >> One big advantage the military has (or must have) is the ability to >> stop innovations that conflict with their objectives (as specified by >> corporate and political leaders). >> Being able to prune disliked branches makes your own future plans more >> predictable. > > Sorry, I can't buy this. > > There are two ways the military / political system directs future innovation. The first, is to provide huge funding for things that they want. e.g. DARPA projects, university research funding, etc. This funding attracts most researchers. Many civilian innovations are spin-offs from military projects, going right back to radar, jet planes, computers, emergency medical repairs, etc. The second, (which is probably the point you object to) is stopping innovations they don't like. This is more difficult to evaluate, as obviously, the things stopped are not generally available. However I can speculate a bit. The public would probably like to buy lightweight military spec body armour, laser guided combat weaponry, drone weapons for assassination, and so on. The latest very powerful explosives are strictly controlled. Civilian police forces around the world are increasingly using military equipment and effectively becoming militarized, using the theory of overwhelming force to deal with incidents. Civilians are allowed to play with toys like phones, music players, tablets to watch videos, new cars, bicycles, etc. Innovation in this area is permitted. But just try developing something in the forbidden areas and see what happens. BillK From rhanson at gmu.edu Mon Jan 27 13:04:46 2014 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 13:04:46 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 26, 2014, at 8:18 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> If you have no confidence in "people's" ability to predict, I don't see how >> that can be the basis for preferring some people's ability over others. > > I think I said I took them seriously, over people who have not done > any work. Their predictions tend to be plausible, not accurate. I can't see the point of plausibility that doesn't lead to more accuracy. Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ. Assoc. Professor, George Mason University Chief Scientist, Consensus Point MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Jan 27 16:39:14 2014 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 09:39:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005f01cf1b7e$5134d580$f39e8080$@natasha.cc> Keith wrote: snip (Spike) > > The military has detailed plans (that actually work) going out 25 years. > They also peer down the road a century, but that one is anyone's guess. > They talk about AI, singularity, all the stuff we discuss here. I > wouldn't be surprised a bit if some of the graduates of the > Singularity University end up working for DARPA. "Maybe. I have been less than impressed by some of the SU grads. It's not like a couple of months turns you into a god." Right. Most SU grads are making connections through SU's TED-like gusto for entrepreneurs by unaccredited training rather than academic scholastics. Natasha From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Jan 27 17:32:36 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 10:32:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <1BCE6610-12EA-450F-B5CD-CDACC7C94948@gmu.edu> References: <019601cf13ee$84099b40$8c1cd1c0$@att.net> <02ca01cf14a6$f3937e50$daba7af0$@att.net> <00e401cf14d9$1ec74bb0$5c55e310$@att.net> <009a01cf17ba$7fb1fa40$7f15eec0$@att.net> <002901cf1a25$f50fcfc0$df2f6f40$@natasha.cc> <1BCE6610-12EA-450F-B5CD-CDACC7C94948@gmu.edu> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 6:09 PM, Robin D Hanson wrote: > I said: > > If we want accurate estimates of the future, why wouldn't people who want > to get paid by large organizations be a good source? Why would people who > use stat, math, and formula be unreliable estimators, relative to people > who are visionary and innovator/entrepreneurs? Does data on past > predictions support this choice? > > > To elaborate, take the example of medicine. Medical innovators might be > the folks who know best what seem to be the most promising new treatments. > But if you want to instead predict the general nature of medicine and its > social position in a half century, I'd think you'd rather listen to people > who study long term trends in medicine and their causes. > If I were thinking about long term trends in medicine, I would be interested in what nonmedical people would have to say as well. For example, if I asked you what the most important tool in medicine would be in 2010 in 1960, would you have answered "The Computer"? I don't think it is overstating the matter to suggest that the computer IS the most important tool in medicine today, and it is becoming ever more so. It could well be that the answer in 2060 will be nanotechnology, but who knows for sure. It could be some entirely different off shoot of information technology. It is hard for me to believe that people heads-down in the current state of the art of pharmacology and surgery to address cancer concerns would be at all interested in nanotech, but I would not be surprised if it is the primary way to address cancer in 2060. I would be surprised if medicine in 2060 were still so focused on pharmaceuticals and surgery, though targeted pharmaceuticals likely will still have an important purpose. Surgery will likely not involve breaks in the patient's skin for the most part by then. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Jan 27 17:37:59 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 10:37:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: <036401cf1ab7$7b8ae030$72a0a090$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 10:39 AM, Robin D Hanson wrote: > > I've given talks to military futurist groups before, FYI. > If the military has an accurate view of the future, they sure don't seem to be sharing that information with the rest of government. Sad that. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Jan 27 17:45:10 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 10:45:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 3:24 AM, BillK wrote: > Civilians are allowed to play with toys like phones, music players, > tablets to watch videos, new cars, bicycles, etc. Innovation in this > area is permitted. But just try developing something in the forbidden > areas and see what happens. > Today's toys would have been yesterday's critical military advantage. Also, developing today's toys creates infrastructure that tomorrow's military will build upon. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 05:15:13 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 22:15:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] how far can she go? In-Reply-To: <001101cf1b26$1e65d0d0$5b317270$@att.net> References: <001101cf1b26$1e65d0d0$5b317270$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 11:07 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > It was a time joke, on me. In an offline discussion I was relating a > story that happened to me 35 years ago, and I just now got it. It was an > IQ test question, not multiple choice, it was administered by a live > psychologist. > > > > A hiker walks north 4 km, turns and walks east 3 km. How far is the hiker > from the starting point? > > > > Simple question, answered instantly, 5 km. But then I realized, the hiker > could start 4+3/2pi km from the north pole. Then she could turn east, walk > a full circle always walking east for 3 km and end up right where she > turned east, 4 km from where she started. As far as I know, there is no > way on flat ground she could end up any closer than 4 km. > > > > So here?s the really cool question: assuming the north pole trick, what is > the farthest she could end up from the start? > > > > It?s a crazy difficult answer to what looks like an easy question. All > this time, a cool calculation was waiting for me to discover it. > > > > If you give up, I found the answer. If I did it right, it isn?t an > integer or an integer multiple of pi. Try it first before you ask what I > got, good luck. > > The furthest distance I can figure is 4+(6/pi). -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 28 05:29:20 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 21:29:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] how far can she go? In-Reply-To: References: <001101cf1b26$1e65d0d0$5b317270$@att.net> Message-ID: <040c01cf1be9$e658e870$b30ab950$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly >>.A hiker walks north 4 km, turns and walks east 3 km. . assuming the north pole trick, what is the farthest she could end up from the start? spike >.The furthest distance I can figure is 4+(6/pi). -Kelly Kelly, that is the solution you get if you allow her to go pi radians around the pole. 4+6/pi = ~ 5.9, but let her go pi/2 radians around the pole, and you get about 6.07 km. But pi/2 is still not the optimal solution. I will settle for a wimpy numerical solution if your calculus is rusty. I managed to derive the function and even take the derivative, but setting it equal to zero and solving turned out to be crazy complicated. The answer is between 115 and 116 degrees. She can end up more than 6.25 km from start. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 28 06:37:31 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 22:37:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] how far can she go? In-Reply-To: <040c01cf1be9$e658e870$b30ab950$@att.net> References: <001101cf1b26$1e65d0d0$5b317270$@att.net> <040c01cf1be9$e658e870$b30ab950$@att.net> Message-ID: <042f01cf1bf3$6cfb11b0$46f13510$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike >.I will settle for a wimpy numerical solution if your calculus is rusty.spike OK I should have stated it parametrically to start with, instead of that N=4, E=3. I tried to solve it by letting N=E, and still didn't get a clean closed form solution, or haven't yet. I will try again tomorrow when I am rested. This is so crazy! The arctic runaway girl problem should be so easy, but it isn't! A simple-sounding differential maximization problem has whooped my ass! {8-[ I can restate it even simpler: hiker wants to maximize the distance from home by going 1 km north and 1 km east. Assuming the north pole trick, how can she maximize the distance from home? We expect a nice gentle clean closed-form kind-hearted solution, but I can find only solutions that are as messy as the war on drugs. I must be doing something wrong. {8-[ Help us, O.D.E. wan Kenobi, you're our only hope. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: application/octet-stream Size: 75256 bytes Desc: not available URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 08:16:35 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 01:16:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? In-Reply-To: References: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 4:14 AM, BillK wrote: > > I don't know if it is mentioned in the paper, but I would add that > because of their senior status, old people have a greater fear of > making a mistake, or getting the wrong answer. So they check and > recheck their results before answering. > I know I'm much less likely to guess at something now than I did when I was younger. I remember the days when I KNEW so much... that was so wrong... starting with the knowledge that some kid dug up and translated gold plates in upstate New York in the early 1800s... Sigh. Now, I've become so skeptical and jaded that I don't even know if we really have a good answer to the original question of this thread. Some say attention span has shrunk, but what proof do we really have? I believe it, it fits anecdotal information and what I believe about our changing world but I can't really prove it yet. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 08:22:57 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 01:22:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] But Goog instead of bitcions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This link a couple of jumps from the article below is VERY interesting: http://googlepress.blogspot.com/2013/09/calico-announcement.html Calico is apparently Google's entry into the radically extended life business. Seems we should be discussing this here, but maybe I just missed the memo. -Kelly On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 11:27 AM, frank mcelligott wrote: > It's sunday morning catching up on my reading and found this gem. Can > transhumanism being going main stream? > > > http://seekingalpha.com/article/1968001-googling-the-future-of-humanity-from-glass-to-transhumanism?source=email_investing_ideas_lon_ide_0_0&ifp=0 > > Frank > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Jan 28 09:53:09 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 10:53:09 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3627767570-22251@secure.ericade.net> Kelly Anderson??, 27/1/2014 6:41 PM: On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 10:39 AM, Robin D Hanson??wrote: I've given talks to military futurist groups before, FYI. If the military has an accurate view of the future, they sure don't seem to be sharing that information with the rest of government. Sad that. Governments typically don't have a good way of sharing information with themselves. Some of it is just normal administrative inefficiency and malfunctions. But some of it is by design: you do not want the military to tell the law-makers what policies to set. And to some extent having accurate futures (or rather,being believed to be accurate) is setting policy.? In practice, I have the distinct impression from my dealings with the military futures world that they are pretty open with most of their analysis. Forecasting trouble spots is generically useful, and they like to tell anybody in government who wants to listen about their findings. In practice of course plenty of people who ought to listen have other priorities. Also, I have not seen any hints of methodology over there that looks much better than good futures study methods elsewhere: saying smart stuff about the future is *hard*.? (I like to mention UK Foresight, which does some really good broad looks at different topics,?http://www.bis.gov.uk/foresight/publications/reports - but while they do a great job most politicians do not have the time to read them, and most civil servants only do it if the report is apparently about their domain.) Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Jan 28 10:11:27 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 11:11:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <77CD1920-1B77-4D7A-9130-4208575F55DE@gmu.edu> Message-ID: <3628510402-12128@secure.ericade.net> Robin D Hanson??, 23/1/2014 4:20 AM: There is an academic specialty of futurism. That is, there are professors, journals, and even some departments which specialize in that topic. Do people here often read or cite such folks? It seems not, but then the question is why not. What is the problem with academic futurists such that people on a future oriented list like this aren't much interested in them? Well, being more or less an academic futurist, I might of course be biased. I think future oriented people can be oriented towards it in different ways.? At the simplest there is the entertainment/escapism aspect: the future is gonna be cool/horrifying, and talking about that is fun. From this perspective the academics are too boring.? Then there is the future-oriented community: it is nice to be around others interested in similar things, so we flock together. But this social function works best when everybody can participate - and there is a threshold of entry to any more academic topic. Hence the emphasis of recent popularizations of the future.? Then there is the informative aspect: we take the future seriously, we might want information that help us make better decisions. This is where good academic insights might be helpful. Except of course that most academic stuff is not directly useful: besides Sturegon's law and the problem of judging quality if you are an outsider, thresholds of entry problems (whether academic jargon, math or gated journals), a lot of the research is focused (for various internal reasons) on less actionable or low-priority issues. These factors are multiplicative: individually not too strong, but together they make a pretty big filtering effect. This is where the "wrong" of the academics is located, but it is also about the interface to academia. And of course, the style of discourse in any community is shaped by people partially mimicking what they see. So if nobody mentions that great paper from Futures or Journal of Technological Forecasting, others will be less likely to do it. You deliberately created a thread more interesting to you partially because you in a sense feel some "ownership" of this list historically due to your long history with it, but most list members at any time are less likely to try to push the discussion boundaries for all the usual sociological reasons. Still, as I calculated for list lulls ( http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2013/07/summer_silence.html ) being "that guy" can be pretty rewarding for improving the list quality. ? Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Jan 28 09:41:36 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 10:41:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] But Goog instead of bitcions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3627207572-14927@secure.ericade.net> Kelly Anderson??, 28/1/2014 9:26 AM: This link a couple of jumps from the article below is VERY interesting:http://googlepress.blogspot.com/2013/09/calico-announcement.htmlCalico is apparently Google's entry into the radically extended life business. Seems we should be discussing this here, but maybe I just missed the memo. And then they bought up DeepMind:http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/26/google-deepmind/https://www.theinformation.com/google-beat-facebook-for-deepmind-creates-ethics-board That was a piece of news that got us at FHI to sit up. We do not know what Google wants the company for, but DeepMind has done some of the IMHO most awesome/potentially dangerous AI stuff (just check out?http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.5602 ). They also were thinking about the ethics and safety, unlike everybody else.? OK, I think I better try to buy a share of the singularity. (Sorry for being quiet, some unusual mail client problems) Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Jan 28 10:21:41 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 11:21:41 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <73619026-87C8-4D6D-8C00-A7F8115468B4@gmu.edu> Message-ID: <3629601209-22249@secure.ericade.net> Robin D Hanson??, 23/1/2014 7:05 PM: I'm talking about the kind of futurists mentioned here:?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_studiesThe kind that publish in the journals listed there. The Singularity Institute isn't part of that. I sure pay attention to what Anders has to say. Might be a little close to home for you, as a prophet has no honor in his home town. I don't think Anders Sandberg publishes there much either.? I have not yet published in these journals, usually because I find journals that are more directed to the speciality (risk, SETI, enhancement) I am talking about. But I have considered it for a few papers, it is just that I never got around to refine my singularity taxonomy paper for Journal of Technological Forecasting (I think) before getting it in The Transhumanist Reader. Future studies journal IMHO come in two flavours: generalists talking about object level futures (with varying levels of sophistication) or specialists talking more about how to do futures. Generalist ones are fun to read, but often not that high status (why? perhaps because of the variance, but also the lack of specialisation). Specialist ones requires being in the right topic and maybe also in the right inside community, and are less fun to read.? I think FHI and SI (now MIRI) generally deliberately aims for academic credibility, and does this by publishing weird ideas in as mainstream journals as possible. It would be too easy to get our stuff into Futures. Of course, plenty that could have been published also ends up on LessWrong or as technical reports. Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 13:29:21 2014 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 05:29:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 27, 2014 at 10:51 PM, Robin D Hanson wrote: > > On Jan 26, 2014, at 8:18 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >>> If you have no confidence in "people's" ability to predict, I don't see how >>> that can be the basis for preferring some people's ability over others. >> >> I think I said I took them seriously, over people who have not done >> any work. Their predictions tend to be plausible, not accurate. > > I can't see the point of plausibility that doesn't lead to more accuracy. Let's take my own work as an example. I think it is plausible that humans will solve the energy, carbon, climate, and economic problems stemming from limited fossil fuels, particularly oil with solar power from space. The only way I can see space based solar power taking over the market is with a cheap transportation scheme. Laser propulsion would do that, but so would a space elevator if we got strong enough materials. Dose that mean it will happen? I can't say so with confidence because the energy market could collapse from an epidemic that wiped out most of the race. Or PV paint and cheap storage could take over the market. Or some version of cold fusion could be rapidly fitted to existing coal facilities. As Yogi said. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 15:18:48 2014 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 07:18:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 4:00 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: snip > Forecasting trouble spots is generically useful, That's something which was discussed almost 5 years ago on this list. I wrote a paper on the subject that is available here: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/17/194059/296 and was picked up by an journal here: http://www.mankindquarterly.org/summer2006_henson.html It was based on previous work here: http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/cults.html and extended on extropy chat into an model of how genes for the psychological mechanisms leading to wars under certain conditions were selected over genes to starve in place. http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2009-July/052083.html Other people, particularly military writers, have noticed the correlation between economic stress and internal civil disruptions or external wars. The _Pentagon's New Map_ by Thomas P. M. Barnett is just one that comes to hand off my bookshelves. The studied association between bad weather impacting harvest and subsequent wars in China gives strong empirical support. > and they like to tell anybody in government who wants to listen about their findings. In practice of course plenty of people who ought to listen have other priorities. To a considerable extent they don't _want_ to hear about it. It has this underlying theme that learning why other people make war may explain why _you_ are making war. I make a case that people have an evolved blindness to looking into their own mental workings. You start understanding why the "Arab Spring" happened and you begin understand why the US got into wars such as the one in Iraq. As you might recall, I was lambasted from the bench by a federal judge (Whyte) over talking about the human motivation for seeking status (and applying it to myself). Of course the judge himself was a first class example of how much humans seek status at great economic cost. The human motivation of seeking status is more accepted today, but back in the late '90s it was a hot button. > Also, I have not seen any hints of methodology over there that looks much better than good futures study methods elsewhere: saying smart stuff about the future is *hard*. If people really want to do this, they need good models of how humans react in tribal scale numbers and larger. That comes out of evolutionary psychology and while it will give a kind of situational awareness, it still isn't going to give detailed predictions. Keith From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 16:00:17 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 10:00:17 -0600 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 'I make a case that people have an evolved blindness to looking into their own mental workings.' I cannot agree with that. Neurotics, who form some 30% of the population (depending on who you are quoting) dig and pick at themselves, cannot get enough of questioning their motives, and worry worry worry. You can make a case that it is very difficult to get an objective view of oneself, given all the self-deception that we do. And then there is the unconscious, hard to get to by definition. (These are parts of Freud which will never die.) Of course there are people who shun any and all inward looks (mostly extroverts), who often are the very ones who need to. bill On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 9:18 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 4:00 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > > snip > > > Forecasting trouble spots is generically useful, > > That's something which was discussed almost 5 years ago on this list. > I wrote a paper on the subject that is available here: > http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/17/194059/296 and was picked up > by an journal here: > http://www.mankindquarterly.org/summer2006_henson.html > > It was based on previous work here: > http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/cults.html and extended on extropy > chat into an model of how genes for the psychological mechanisms > leading to wars under certain conditions were selected over genes to > starve in place. > http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2009-July/052083.html > > Other people, particularly military writers, have noticed the > correlation between economic stress and internal civil disruptions or > external wars. The _Pentagon's New Map_ by Thomas P. M. Barnett is > just one that comes to hand off my bookshelves. The studied > association between bad weather impacting harvest and subsequent wars > in China gives strong empirical support. > > > and they like to tell anybody in government who wants to listen about > their findings. In practice of course plenty of people who ought to listen > have other priorities. > > To a considerable extent they don't _want_ to hear about it. It has > this underlying theme that learning why other people make war may > explain why _you_ are making war. I make a case that people have an > evolved blindness to looking into their own mental workings. You start > understanding why the "Arab Spring" happened and you begin understand > why the US got into wars such as the one in Iraq. > > As you might recall, I was lambasted from the bench by a federal judge > (Whyte) over talking about the human motivation for seeking status > (and applying it to myself). Of course the judge himself was a first > class example of how much humans seek status at great economic cost. > > The human motivation of seeking status is more accepted today, but > back in the late '90s it was a hot button. > > > Also, I have not seen any hints of methodology over there that looks > much better than good futures study methods elsewhere: saying smart stuff > about the future is *hard*. > > If people really want to do this, they need good models of how humans > react in tribal scale numbers and larger. That comes out of > evolutionary psychology and while it will give a kind of situational > awareness, it still isn't going to give detailed predictions. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Jan 28 15:51:54 2014 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 08:51:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <3629601209-22249@secure.ericade.net> References: <73619026-87C8-4D6D-8C00-A7F8115468B4@gmu.edu> <3629601209-22249@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: <00bd01cf1c40$df3a5360$9daefa20$@natasha.cc> Anders, thanks for the nod to The Transhumanist Reader! New Book at Amazon! cover email From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2014 3:22 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? Robin D Hanson , 23/1/2014 7:05 PM: I'm talking about the kind of futurists mentioned here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_studies The kind that publish in the journals listed there. The Singularity Institute isn't part of that. I sure pay attention to what Anders has to say. Might be a little close to home for you, as a prophet has no honor in his home town. I don't think Anders Sandberg publishes there much either. I have not yet published in these journals, usually because I find journals that are more directed to the speciality (risk, SETI, enhancement) I am talking about. But I have considered it for a few papers, it is just that I never got around to refine my singularity taxonomy paper for Journal of Technological Forecasting (I think) before getting it in The Transhumanist Reader. Future studies journal IMHO come in two flavours: generalists talking about object level futures (with varying levels of sophistication) or specialists talking more about how to do futures. Generalist ones are fun to read, but often not that high status (why? perhaps because of the variance, but also the lack of specialisation). Specialist ones requires being in the right topic and maybe also in the right inside community, and are less fun to read. I think FHI and SI (now MIRI) generally deliberately aims for academic credibility, and does this by publishing weird ideas in as mainstream journals as possible. It would be too easy to get our stuff into Futures. Of course, plenty that could have been published also ends up on LessWrong or as technical reports. Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 10577 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rhanson at gmu.edu Tue Jan 28 16:11:39 2014 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 16:11:39 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <76798716-B995-4DD4-BBA5-921BF0605C27@gmu.edu> On Jan 28, 2014, at 8:29 AM, Keith Henson wrote: >>>> If you have no confidence in "people's" ability to predict, I don't see how >>>> that can be the basis for preferring some people's ability over others. >>> >>> I think I said I took them seriously, over people who have not done >>> any work. Their predictions tend to be plausible, not accurate. >> >> I can't see the point of plausibility that doesn't lead to more accuracy. > > Let's take my own work as an example. I think it is plausible that > humans will solve the energy, carbon, climate, and economic problems > stemming from limited fossil fuels, particularly oil with solar power > from space. ... > Dose that mean it will happen? I can't say so with confidence because > the energy market could collapse from an epidemic that wiped out most > of the race. Or PV paint and cheap storage could take over the market. > Or some version of cold fusion could be rapidly fitted to existing > coal facilities. You seem to think that only predictions made with confidence are relevant. If you had assigned a 5% chance to the event that happened, while others assigned a 1% chance, then your prediction was more accurate, even if it was far from confident. One can also score a pool of conditional predictions for accuracy. So even if you only have opinions on what might happen if some other things happen, we can still talk about the general accuracy of your predictions. Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ. Assoc. Professor, George Mason University Chief Scientist, Consensus Point MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 28 16:37:34 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 08:37:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <3627767570-22251@secure.ericade.net> References: <3627767570-22251@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: <05e101cf1c47$403a1dc0$c0ae5940$@att.net> >? On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg ? Kelly Anderson , 27/1/2014 6:41 PM: On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 10:39 AM, Robin D Hanson wrote: >>?I've given talks to military futurist groups before, FYI. >?If the military has an accurate view of the future, they sure don't seem to be sharing that information with the rest of government. Sad that?Anders Sandberg? Anders the military has a particular type of view of the future which is more specific than the general view or technological view that is of interest to guys like us. They cannot share the info, for that would negate a lot of what they are trying to do, and interfere with their responsibility. For instance, a military futurist writes about a potential hotspot in a poverty-stricken South American nation where his country has a mineral processing facility. The futurist often has a staff and a means of finding out things you and I cannot access. She can look around at a nearby anthracite mine for instance, and know what happens in that area when a coal mine gives out: the workers riot and attack nearby foreign-owned mines, where things are going fine. The futurist can issue command ?Lieutenant, please find me figures on the output of that coal mine, along with an estimate of the number of workers employed, then use that to create a model for predicted time to exhaustion of the resource.? The military futurist has no greater insight that we do on unexpected disruptive technologies, but she has a great deal of insight on how to deal with it for her specific task: security. Regarding their not sharing with the rest of the government, most of what they do must be kept secret in order to maintain its value for security purposes. Most in the government do not have clearances, and even if they do, leaks occur anyway. So if you have a report, as in the previous example, which suggests an anthracite mine will give out in four years and the idled workers may riot, increasing the risk they will attack your facility, it is clear why that must be kept secret: you get your defenses in place ahead of time. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 28 16:50:58 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 08:50:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <3629601209-22249@secure.ericade.net> References: <73619026-87C8-4D6D-8C00-A7F8115468B4@gmu.edu> <3629601209-22249@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: <060701cf1c49$1f5e2e50$5e1a8af0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg I sure pay attention to what Anders has to say?as a prophet has no honor in his home town. A prophet has no honor in his home town, but profit is honored everywhere, especially in his home town. It?s all in the spelling. If one is a prophet who makes profit by uttering profitcies, that person will have plenty of honor. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 17:08:30 2014 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 18:08:30 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <3628510402-12128@secure.ericade.net> References: <77CD1920-1B77-4D7A-9130-4208575F55DE@gmu.edu> <3628510402-12128@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: re "the future is gonna be cool/horrifying, and talking about that is fun. From this perspective the academics are too boring." Thing is, academics _are_ too boring ;-) ;-) On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 11:11 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Robin D Hanson , 23/1/2014 4:20 AM: > > > There is an academic specialty of futurism. That is, there are professors, > journals, and even some departments which specialize in that topic. Do > people here often read or cite such folks? It seems not, but then the > question is why not. What is the problem with academic futurists such that > people on a future oriented list like this aren't much interested in them? > > > Well, being more or less an academic futurist, I might of course be biased. > > I think future oriented people can be oriented towards it in different ways. > > At the simplest there is the entertainment/escapism aspect: the future is > gonna be cool/horrifying, and talking about that is fun. From this > perspective the academics are too boring. > > Then there is the future-oriented community: it is nice to be around others > interested in similar things, so we flock together. But this social function > works best when everybody can participate - and there is a threshold of > entry to any more academic topic. Hence the emphasis of recent > popularizations of the future. > > Then there is the informative aspect: we take the future seriously, we might > want information that help us make better decisions. This is where good > academic insights might be helpful. Except of course that most academic > stuff is not directly useful: besides Sturegon's law and the problem of > judging quality if you are an outsider, thresholds of entry problems > (whether academic jargon, math or gated journals), a lot of the research is > focused (for various internal reasons) on less actionable or low-priority > issues. These factors are multiplicative: individually not too strong, but > together they make a pretty big filtering effect. This is where the "wrong" > of the academics is located, but it is also about the interface to academia. > > And of course, the style of discourse in any community is shaped by people > partially mimicking what they see. So if nobody mentions that great paper > from Futures or Journal of Technological Forecasting, others will be less > likely to do it. You deliberately created a thread more interesting to you > partially because you in a sense feel some "ownership" of this list > historically due to your long history with it, but most list members at any > time are less likely to try to push the discussion boundaries for all the > usual sociological reasons. Still, as I calculated for list lulls ( > http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2013/07/summer_silence.html ) being > "that guy" can be pretty rewarding for improving the list quality. > > > Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford > University > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From rhanson at gmu.edu Tue Jan 28 15:58:55 2014 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 15:58:55 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <3629601209-22249@secure.ericade.net> References: <3629601209-22249@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: I had asked: There is an academic specialty of futurism. That is, there are professors, journals, and even some departments which specialize in that topic. Do people here often read or cite such folks? It seems not, but then the question is why not. Anders responded: I think future oriented people can be oriented towards it in different ways. At the simplest there is the entertainment/escapism aspect: the future is gonna be cool/horrifying, and talking about that is fun. From this perspective the academics are too boring. Then there is the future-oriented community: it is nice to be around others interested in similar things, so we flock together. But this social function works best when everybody can participate - and there is a threshold of entry to any more academic topic. Hence the emphasis of recent popularizations of the future. Then there is the informative aspect: we take the future seriously, we might want information that help us make better decisions. This is where good academic insights might be helpful. Except of course that most academic stuff is not directly useful: besides Sturegon's law and the problem of judging quality if you are an outsider, thresholds of entry problems (whether academic jargon, math or gated journals), a lot of the research is focused (for various internal reasons) on less actionable or low-priority issues. These factors are multiplicative: individually not too strong, but together they make a pretty big filtering effect. This is where the "wrong" of the academics is located, but it is also about the interface to academia. So, folks here don't talk about academic futurism much because such academics use jargon and math, are mostly low quality and neglect the high priority actionable issues, and don't present the future as cool or horrifying? But lots of other academic work gets mentioned here, also stuff that uses jargon and math, and those are in fields where most work is also low quality. If those factors don't explain it, I'd guess it comes down to a disagreement about what are actionable priorities, and their refusal to overplay things as cool or horrifying? Another possible explanation comes from your other message, where you said you didn't publish in academic futurism journals because: It would be too easy to get our stuff into Futures. That is, that field has lower academic prestige than the other academic fields that people do talk about here. This would be my guess - people here mainly don't talk about academic futurism because it is lower status. Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ. Assoc. Professor, George Mason University Chief Scientist, Consensus Point MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 28 17:41:09 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 09:41:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <76798716-B995-4DD4-BBA5-921BF0605C27@gmu.edu> References: <76798716-B995-4DD4-BBA5-921BF0605C27@gmu.edu> Message-ID: <06dd01cf1c50$21f8d230$65ea7690$@att.net> Futurism comes in many different flavors, but there is a subject all need to consider in order to be taken seriously: energy futures. We have an enormous challenge dead ahead: how to transition our energy usage to renewable or at least long-term sources. Regardless of our attitudes towards global warming theory and how it has been used (and misused), nearly everyone will agree we cannot really dig up and burn all the coal that exists on this planet (it's too dirty.) We know that oil and natural gas are short term solutions. Coal will be with us for at least the near term, being difficult to replace, nuclear and fracking will help us in the transition phase, but they still aren't renewable resources. In the long run, most of us can see we need effective use of solar power, probably both space based and ground based. Our immediate challenge is to figure out how to build that infrastructure and how to use the power generated. If we screw up that effort, none of the rest of the things we talk about here in the area of futurism will make much difference. spike From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 19:19:26 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 12:19:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? In-Reply-To: References: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 8:51 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > OK Spike, Bill will comment: > > I recently was asked by a neighbor who knew of my academic background (Ph. > D. exp. psych) and a hobby, gardening, and brought a bug over for me to > identify. When I went to get my bug book he said that he was devastated > that I did not know right away. After all I was so smart, right? > Having already read the rest of this post, and numerous others, I'd have to agree that you're plenty smart. I also agree that if something doesn't naturally stick, you do have to put effort into learning it enough to pull it out at a moment's notice. As I interview for various computer jobs, I notice that they want someone who has all the relevant skillset memorized, which is different for every job. It's frustrating because there are so many different skillsets in computer science. My skillset is to know how to solve problems, I don't need to memorize every keyword in PHP to do that. I can learn PHP in a few days enough to solve any problem I need to. But people don't trust that. It's silly, but I digress. Point: why memorize something, spending all that time and energy when all > you need is to know is where that information is and how to interpret it > when you find it. On a visit to a physician he got out a big book and > looked up something in it. > Rather than being insulted that he was some kind of incompetent, I was > favorably impressed. No one can put all of that in his head. > I will be even more impressed when a physician asks Watson something in front of me. There is a certain kind of intellectual humility in doing something like that. > And if he did, could he get it out? Superficial evidence of memory > decline is often the result of conflicting memories, and the more you have > in memory the more you have the possibility for conflict - meaning that you > just cannot get it out at least temporarily. > There is also a shortage of people who TRAIN their memory these days. This TED talk does a far better job than I could at explaining what that means. http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_can_do.html In working my crossword puzzles I often think of a word that would do as it > is similar to what I was searching my brain for, but it is wrong and > somehow blocks my search for the right one (aka interference theory). > Yeah, that happens to me all the time. I used to be better at doing my own Thesaurus activities, but with that function built into Word and better available online so easily, maybe that function has degraded in my mind as well. > The idea that video games or anything else has dulled our brains is just > silly. The games cause our brains to work in certain ways and not others. > Studies show that gamers do better than nongamers on some nongame mental > tasks - not surprising. > Brains are obviously quite adaptive, malleable and reactive. If I take time to learn one skill to a greater degree, then it is obvious that I'm not spending time developing other skills. So if I spend 10,000 hours getting good at playing video games, or watching TV, or searching for the VERY best porn, then clearly I can not have spent that 10,000 hours becoming highly skilled in some other area. It isn't what it does to our brain, it's what it does to our knowledge base and skill set. > Nor have we devolved. Anyone who has taken Psych 101 knows a bit a how > memory works. How about attention? Listening is a learned skill and not > at all easy to learn. Then you have to get it into memory and that is also > a learned skill, not automatic in any way except in some people who cannot > help but memorize every license plate ahead of them. I did not forget some > things in the novel I read last week, as I did not put them into memory in > the first place. Generally speaking one has to try and sometimes try hard > to get something into memory and if it ain't there you can't find it! > I find that I remember certain kinds of things without much effort. The sorts of things I learn reading this list, for example, stick very well with me. Other things, like people's names, I find very difficult, even when I apply the memory palace games that are supposed to make it easier. It just takes a lot of time and repetition to remember names for me. > Nowadays we talk about teaching how to think critically and creatively but > I haven't seen much evidence that it is done right. > Does anyone know if common core is trying to address this? Or just make math confusing. I want to hear good things about common core if they are there too. > Just like religion: you can't just teach honor and virtue etc., you have > to tell people what not to do as well. > Not sure I get your point here, but it sounds interesting. Please elaborate? > Does anyone know of classes at any level that teach all the cognitive > errors I mention so often (search Wikipedia for 'cognitive errors')? > http://www.randi.org and other skeptics organizations try hard to teach these. Not sure that's a class though. > Do economics or finance classes teach how to avoid scams? Why not? > Seems that avoiding scams ought to be part of any course on how to handle money. Great thought. > The most effective people at drug addicts' facilities are former addicts, > who know all the wrong kind of thinking. > No doubt. > There is more bullshit surrounding psychology than any other field I > know. > I dunno, I think politics and religion both have it beat. :-) > So, Spike, we have to be doubly alert and set our BS detector on high. > The problem is keeping an open mind to new things that will pan out. > Unfortunately most of them in my field won't (bet we are slowly getting > better though we won't catch up with physics and chemistry for hundreds of > years, I think. > > Duke Ellington: "If it sounds good it is good." May work for music. It > works all too well for the snake oil salesmen of the world. Oh excuse me, > snake oil vendors, I meant to say politicians. > > Thanks for a really well thought out post! Much appreciated. My brain feels stimulated! -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 19:21:05 2014 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 12:21:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? In-Reply-To: References: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> <00b101cf1997$efe1ea30$cfa5be90$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 26, 2014 at 10:19 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > More importantly, though, is the "build a world" aspect from other games > such as Minecraft and Terraria. This is becoming one of the more well > known ways youths learn to build stuff - or specifically, that they can > change things. I almost wonder if a mod to teach basic CAD skills would > work well, given the wide audience. > At my local maker space, we have a group that has come in and set up a 3D printer allowing children to print what they create in Minecraft. So yes, a lot of people are really interested in this basic CAD approach for kids. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 19:32:02 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 19:32:02 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <06dd01cf1c50$21f8d230$65ea7690$@att.net> References: <76798716-B995-4DD4-BBA5-921BF0605C27@gmu.edu> <06dd01cf1c50$21f8d230$65ea7690$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 5:41 PM, spike wrote: > In the long run, most of us can see we need effective use of solar power, > probably both space based and ground based. Our immediate challenge is to > figure out how to build that infrastructure and how to use the power > generated. If we screw up that effort, none of the rest of the things we > talk about here in the area of futurism will make much difference. > > And who's leading the charge? Farmers! Quote: "It's a huge buzz now throughout the agriculture industry," said Todd Miller, sales director for CB Solar in Ankeny, Iowa. In Washington County, Iowa, for example, farmers with access to an unusual and lucrative combination of federal, state and utility incentives were anticipating payback periods of as little as two years, according to Ed Raber, director of the county's economic development corporation. Consequently, he said, "There are more solar panels in Washington County than in any other county in Iowa." ------------- BillK From atymes at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 19:51:54 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 11:51:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? In-Reply-To: References: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> Message-ID: On Jan 28, 2014 11:20 AM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > As I interview for various computer jobs, I notice that they want someone who has all the relevant skillset memorized, which is different for every job. It's frustrating because there are so many different skillsets in computer science. My skillset is to know how to solve problems, I don't need to memorize every keyword in PHP to do that. I can learn PHP in a few days enough to solve any problem I need to. But people don't trust that. It's silly, but I digress. Quite silly, and most of the best material for how to interview for programming jobs points out "drill on memorization of keywords" as something not to do. Problem is, most interviewers never get training on how to interview, so they have to guess - and this is a common example of something that seems on first glance to be helpful in assessing, but in fact is not. I've found that it helps to redirect the interviewer's expectations before they get to this point. Say up front that you don't have the language memorized, so you can do basic programming w/out looking up functions but you make a habit of looking up complex stuff (because, while on the job, you are never without an Internet connection unless something has gone Very Wrong, of the type that sysadmins and facilities folks are called in for, not programmers). But do be prepared to do some programming (in the language the job advertised) on the spot: it is also recommended that interviewers have the candidate code at least a little, since there are many who speak convincingly but can not actually code. Which means, if applying for a PHP job, spend those few days to learn the basics before the interview. Demonstrate that you can learn that fast: to people like you and me, it's nothing, but there are a lot of poorly trained (in many ways) folks for whom it would be a major hurdle. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 28 19:52:57 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 11:52:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? In-Reply-To: References: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> Message-ID: <078901cf1c62$8b84c260$a28e4720$@att.net> Subject: Re: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 8:51 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: >.I recently was asked by a neighbor who knew of my academic background (Ph. D. exp. psych) and a hobby, gardening, and brought a bug over for me to identify. When I went to get my bug book he said that he was devastated that I did not know right away. After all I was so smart, right? Bill Entomology is far too vast to even attempt memorization of anything other than a few score of the more common species. The field of buggery is just too big to get our heads around it. What I want is to carry all my bug books with me by some means. I think some derivative of Google glass is the answer. I don't need to carry it on my head. My tablet already has a camera good for close-up applications, or rather adaptable for that purpose. It has a standard-spectrum light source, so the internal camera can get color, it has a big enough memory to do practical image matching. I want an app (coder jockeys among us, note my consumer wishes) which would let me go out and take a picture or video of a bug or beast, then have it figure out what I am seeing and tell me some cool interesting things about that bug or beast. Having casually observed insects for decades, I am astonished at how often I find new interesting insect behaviors and species I don't recall having seen before. I want my entire entomology library right there with me. I can't even hoist my paper version of that library, and even if I had it right there in a shopping cart, I could never find the relevant info in a reasonable time. Bugs are too big and too numerous for that (kewalllll.) In physics we talk about parallel universes. We have a parallel universe right under our feet: bugs and humans coexist with each taking little notice of the other except in a very few special cases, such as ants in the house. Under the feet of the bugs exists yet another universe parallel to theirs, with life forms too small for the bugs to see or notice or care about. I want a special instrument that I can carry, a digital microscope, where I can observe that parallel universe, then have that instrument Bluetooth the image to my tablet, and have my tablet look it up and teach me things, right there in realtime. When doing that kind of observation, there is no need to travel far; there are vast stretches of unexplored territory in your own backyard. If you are a high-rise condo dweller with no backyard, a vast parallel universe of unexplored territory, teeming with life waiting to be discovered, can be found in the flowerpot on your balcony. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jan 28 19:59:26 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 11:59:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: <76798716-B995-4DD4-BBA5-921BF0605C27@gmu.edu> <06dd01cf1c50$21f8d230$65ea7690$@att.net> Message-ID: <079701cf1c63$733c85c0$59b59140$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 5:41 PM, spike wrote: > In the long run, most of us can see we need effective use of solar > power, probably both space based and ground based... > And who's leading the charge? Farmers! Quote: "It's a huge buzz now throughout the agriculture industry," said Todd Miller, sales director for CB Solar in Ankeny, Iowa...Consequently, he said, "There are more solar panels in Washington County than in any other county in Iowa." ------------- BillK _______________________________________________ Ja, unfortunately the existence of tax incentives causes the solar panels to end up in all the wrong places, with your article providing a poster-child example. Iowa has sufficient rainfall, topsoil and flat arable farmland to make it too valuable for ground based solar. The vast American west is drier, more sunny, more useless for anything else besides collecting sunlight. Those less-densely populated areas cannot provide the tax incentives, so they must wait for market forces to make them economically attractive. That's the bad news. The good news is we are almost there. With PV prices where they are now and where they likely will be in the short term, non-tax-incentivized solar facilities are experiencing a gradual take-off. We are accustomed to everything happening fast. This one will happen, but likely will not explode like the electronics revolution and the personal computer revolution. spike From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 20:30:56 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 20:30:56 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <079701cf1c63$733c85c0$59b59140$@att.net> References: <76798716-B995-4DD4-BBA5-921BF0605C27@gmu.edu> <06dd01cf1c50$21f8d230$65ea7690$@att.net> <079701cf1c63$733c85c0$59b59140$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 7:59 PM, spike wrote: > Ja, unfortunately the existence of tax incentives causes the solar panels to > end up in all the wrong places, with your article providing a poster-child > example. Iowa has sufficient rainfall, topsoil and flat arable farmland to > make it too valuable for ground based solar. The vast American west is > drier, more sunny, more useless for anything else besides collecting > sunlight. Those less-densely populated areas cannot provide the tax > incentives, so they must wait for market forces to make them economically > attractive. > > That's the bad news. The good news is we are almost there. With PV prices > where they are now and where they likely will be in the short term, > non-tax-incentivized solar facilities are experiencing a gradual take-off. > We are accustomed to everything happening fast. This one will happen, but > likely will not explode like the electronics revolution and the personal > computer revolution. > > >From the article it doesn't sound as though these farmers think their solar panels are in the wrong place. They are seeing big reductions in their large electric bills, and some are almost self-sufficient. In my experience, farmers are very careful with money - they have to be! And they think long-term. Farms have plenty of barn and shed roofs available for solar panels. And even if they use a field, sheep will happily graze below panel arrays. News rapidly spreads through the farming community. You might be surprised at how quick they change over. BillK From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 22:24:01 2014 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 14:24:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 11:19 AM, Robin D Hanson wrote: snip hkh comments > You seem to think that only predictions made with confidence are relevant. > If you had assigned a 5% chance to the event that happened, while others > assigned a 1% chance, then your prediction was more accurate, even if it > was far from confident. I see what you are getting at, for example, Dr. Shen's approach, spectral optimal averaging method for estimating uncertainty in climate change. "Rather than presenting their findings as absolutes, the IPCC provides estimates of certainty for their findings in an effort to provide to the public an indirect measure of confidence in their conclusions." It may be useful to climate professionals, but I am not sure how useful this is to the public. My suspicion is between not very useful and not useful at all. Climate is not like predicting eclipses, at least not yet. You also have an infinite regression problem of how confident are you in your estimation of uncertainty. (Not that I am a denier, I just don't think it matters. The solution to the more serious energy crisis also takes care of climate to *whatever* extent CO2 affects climate.) But climate prediction is relatively easy compared to the class of future affecting disruptions such as AI, nanotech, or some unknown and unpredicted wild card that trashes our common baseline assumptions about the future. Not that I have not tried, "The Clinic Seed" being my attempt to project a gentle, if still species ending, interaction of AIs with humans. And you know of my concerns about some of us experiencing 50 million subjective years before the end of this calendar century. > One can also score a pool of conditional predictions for accuracy. So even if > you only have opinions on what might happen if some other things happen, > we can still talk about the general accuracy of your predictions. You completely lost me here. If you make a prediction for ten years out, the only way I can see to rate it for accuracy is to wait ten years and see what has happened. If you have another idea, I would be really interested in it. Keith From rhanson at gmu.edu Tue Jan 28 22:41:41 2014 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 22:41:41 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 28, 2014, at 5:24 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> One can also score a pool of conditional predictions for accuracy. So even if >> you only have opinions on what might happen if some other things happen, >> we can still talk about the general accuracy of your predictions. > > You completely lost me here. If you make a prediction for ten years > out, the only way I can see to rate it for accuracy is to wait ten > years and see what has happened. If you have another idea, I would be > really interested in it. To score a set of conditional forecasts, you just score the subset of them where the conditions turned out to be true. Robin Hanson http://hanson.gmu.edu Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ. Assoc. Professor, George Mason University Chief Scientist, Consensus Point MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 23:40:45 2014 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 18:40:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? In-Reply-To: References: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 2:51 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Jan 28, 2014 11:20 AM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > > As I interview for various computer jobs, I notice that they want > someone who has all the relevant skillset memorized, which is different for > every job. It's frustrating because there are so many different skillsets > in computer science. My skillset is to know how to solve problems, I don't > need to memorize every keyword in PHP to do that. I can learn PHP in a few > days enough to solve any problem I need to. But people don't trust that. > It's silly, but I digress. > > Quite silly, and most of the best material for how to interview for > programming jobs points out "drill on memorization of keywords" as > something not to do. Problem is, most interviewers never get training on > how to interview, so they have to guess - and this is a common example of > something that seems on first glance to be helpful in assessing, but in > fact is not. > > I suggested the following test to my (now former-) employer: Give the candidate a room with a whiteboard, a bucket of Lego bricks, and 5 minutes to produce "a plan to build a house." After 5 minutes, come into the room and discuss the plan. Then give another 5 minutes to "build that plan." After 5 minutes, assess the lego-house for similarity to the proposal. Invite the candidate to explain how/why the physical model didn't end up matching the proposal. If he or she can plan the work, work the plan, and explain any disconnect: hire. Depending on the organization, even mediocre skills in either planning or working can be compensated by a team/support. * for extra twist, set an expectation of 10 minutes but return in 5 (or vice-versa) - see what happens :) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 01:19:59 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 19:19:59 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? In-Reply-To: References: <005701cf1977$b63a2420$22ae6c60$@att.net> Message-ID: Thanks! The most important thing we get out of school is learning how to learn. The next time I am faced with 10 shelf feet of manuals for some giant computer program I will know better what to do, after having done it. Know what you need to know, know what you don't need to know right now, and know what to ignore completely. I don't know what you do or how you do it, but if you are learning some kind of language, I'll bet you have done it a few times, eh? I can't recall how many word processing languages I've learned since 1980 but each time it was easier. Religion and politics: certainly you can find all the wackos you need there. I was talking with a physicist and remarked that in my field I thought that at least 75% of the articles published were junk - either non repeatable, or just trivial. He said that in physics it was probably 25%, which astounded me - that high? If you teach something a few times you know what kind of errors from, say, students, that you are going to get. Then you warn the next students about avoiding those. Negative reinforcement and negative correlation come to mind. With those I start out with what not to do or think before I teach them. The percentage of students who get those wrong right away is very high. But I am reminded of an industrial psych study. The expert spent a couple of weeks trying to figure out what kinds of accidents would take place in a certain setting, and then proceeded to teach those to the workers. Accidents went up. Myth? A car mechanic found a Coke bottle in a door of a new car that was causing the rattle. In it was a message: You found this one - now find the rest! Some disgruntled (who ever is described as gruntled?) worker stuck that in there as a joke and I'll bet that other workers hearing that story then started to think of their own sabotage. Should older and wiser workers tell the new kids what to do or avoid? Hmmmmm.........I am not sure what that depends on. How to memorize names. But first, why we don't. In meeting a new person we check them out on all levels (digression: I have this feeling that men stare at women's chests to assure themselves that they are female. I do not think it is a sexual thing. It's primitive.) We study body language, voice, clothing and so we are distracted. Maybe we are thinking about what we are going to say rather than really listening to them. When we hear the name we gear up to talk and announce ours. If we talk for more than about 30 seconds it is likely that their name has cycled through our working memory and is no longer in there and has not gotten into permanent memory. So, what to do? Apologize and ask their name again. Silently say their name over and over to yourself. If you can find any characteristic of their name that is similar to something you notice about them - something simple like John Bass has a low voice - you will give meaning to it. I watched Johnny Carson one night when a memory expert was on. Before the show he had the audience stand and say their name and then sit. About 150 of them. Then during the show he went into the audience and named them all but one, which I think was just a little acting. He then described what he did, which was what I described above. Just a few repetitions and a link can work. Also , there was this guy who took an IQ test and was miffed that he could not remember more than 7 random numbers. So he started practicing with a random numbers table. He said that after a few weeks he had gotten up to 80 and quit. All memory experts I have read (three or four) all claim to special intelligence and say they had a normal memory before they started working on it. I have to ask: are you being interviewed by some human resource person or a person in your field? My inclination when asked if I know something is to say yes, and then spend the next week learning it! Maybe not totally ethically sound, however. I'd just put up a front. I (Kelly) am a guy who deals with high level stuff and I learn the low level stuff when I need to. So just toss off any ignorance of some program language. Did I answer all of your concerns? On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 5:40 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 2:51 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> On Jan 28, 2014 11:20 AM, "Kelly Anderson" >> wrote: >> > As I interview for various computer jobs, I notice that they want >> someone who has all the relevant skillset memorized, which is different for >> every job. It's frustrating because there are so many different skillsets >> in computer science. My skillset is to know how to solve problems, I don't >> need to memorize every keyword in PHP to do that. I can learn PHP in a few >> days enough to solve any problem I need to. But people don't trust that. >> It's silly, but I digress. >> >> Quite silly, and most of the best material for how to interview for >> programming jobs points out "drill on memorization of keywords" as >> something not to do. Problem is, most interviewers never get training on >> how to interview, so they have to guess - and this is a common example of >> something that seems on first glance to be helpful in assessing, but in >> fact is not. >> >> > I suggested the following test to my (now former-) employer: > > Give the candidate a room with a whiteboard, a bucket of Lego bricks, and > 5 minutes to produce "a plan to build a house." After 5 minutes, come into > the room and discuss the plan. Then give another 5 minutes to "build that > plan." > After 5 minutes, assess the lego-house for similarity to the proposal. > Invite the candidate to explain how/why the physical model didn't end up > matching the proposal. > > If he or she can plan the work, work the plan, and explain any > disconnect: hire. > > Depending on the organization, even mediocre skills in either planning or > working can be compensated by a team/support. > > * for extra twist, set an expectation of 10 minutes but return in 5 (or > vice-versa) - see what happens :) > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Jan 29 02:24:36 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 03:24:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing? In-Reply-To: <078901cf1c62$8b84c260$a28e4720$@att.net> Message-ID: <3687441359-25011@secure.ericade.net> spike??, 28/1/2014 9:09 PM: Entomology is far too vast to even attempt memorization of anything other than a few score of the more common species.? The field of buggery is just too big to get our heads around it. Amen to that.? I can't even list all the major subgroups of beetles, despite collecting them. Let alone identify a random species.? ? What I want is to carry all my bug books with me by some means.? I think some derivative of Google glass is the answer.? I don?t need to carry it on my head.? My tablet already has a camera good for close-up applications, or rather adaptable for that purpose.? It has a standard-spectrum light source, so the internal camera can get color, it has a big enough memory to do practical image matching.? The challenge is getting good pictures of the detail features. Telling carabid beetles apart depends on the texture of the elytra (requires a good light reflection to be visible on blackish species) and often exactly on which segment there are setae. Getting these picture when the little bugger is going about its business or trying to escape is hard even with good cameras; the guide might need to act as a decision tree asking you to try to image the next relevant feature. The electronic bug identifier is going to be a real challenge to build... but I wouldn't be surprised if one could use some big data approaches to circumvent the oftentimes brittle identification routines used in entomology.? In 20 years time we will just get a DNA fingerprint instead.? In physics we talk about parallel universes.? We have a parallel universe right under our feet: bugs and humans coexist with each taking little notice of the other except in a very few special cases, such as ants in the house.? Under the feet of the bugs exists yet another universe parallel to theirs, with life forms too small for the bugs to see or notice or care about.? I want a special instrument that I can carry, a digital microscope, where I can observe that parallel universe, then have that instrument Bluetooth the image to my tablet, and have my tablet look it up and teach me things, right there in realtime. Maybe a little telepresence bugbot? Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 29 02:37:54 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 18:37:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: <76798716-B995-4DD4-BBA5-921BF0605C27@gmu.edu> <06dd01cf1c50$21f8d230$65ea7690$@att.net> <079701cf1c63$733c85c0$59b59140$@att.net> Message-ID: <092801cf1c9b$1d91b270$58b51750$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 7:59 PM, spike wrote: >>... Ja, unfortunately the existence of tax incentives causes the solar > panels to end up in all the wrong places, with your article providing > a poster-child example. Iowa has sufficient rainfall, topsoil and > flat arable farmland to make it too valuable for ground based solar. > The vast American west is drier, more sunny, more useless for anything > else besides collecting sunlight... >...From the article it doesn't sound as though these farmers think their solar panels are in the wrong place. They are seeing big reductions in their large electric bills, and some are almost self-sufficient. In my experience, farmers are very careful with money - they have to be! And they think long-term... Ja, the farmers are getting tax incentives for making solar energy. I agree with those incentives and the kind of money big farmers on good land can make, solar panels are a good bet. >...Farms have plenty of barn and shed roofs available for solar panels... For the scale of energy farms use, all rooftops on everything combined make for a nearly negligible area. Farms can and do offer a profitable use of solar energy, but they need to take up some ground to do it. >...And even if they use a field, sheep will happily graze below panel arrays... On the contrary sir. The grass will not grow without sufficient sunlight. Farmland sacrificed to ground based solar cannot be effectively double-purposed. You could have wind farms with GB solar below. However, the cost effective solar support structures physically rest on the ground, rather than raise them in any case. So if you did something kinda weird like feed your sheep on grain in the same field as your PV panels, those two uses still don't play well together, unfortunately. >...News rapidly spreads through the farming community. You might be surprised at how quick they change over...BillK _______________________________________________ Currently cost-effective GB solar depends on taking advantage of an oversupply of relatively low-efficiency Chinese manufactured PVs. If that pays, I see no problem with using the low-end panels, but here's where I am going with it. Imagine you are a Martian, observing Earth. Your Earthian probes have let you study the life forms on the blue planet, the soil and rainfall, the kinds of plants that grow and that beasts eat the plants, and you understand the humans are the ones building things. You can't understand their language or their ways, you know nothing about taxes and nations, but you do get some things, such as solar power. You have that back on the home planet Mars, and you know that Earth is even better for that. What you find puzzling is that the humans seem to be placing their solar panels in all the wrong places, way up in the northern hemisphere at latitudes and climates where they are so limited, all while ignoring some excellent places for PVs. You see that solar panels are going in on top of excellent farmland, while unpopulated sunny wasteland is untouched. You and your fellow Martians conclude that humans are apparently smart and stupid at the same time. spike From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 09:32:58 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 09:32:58 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <092801cf1c9b$1d91b270$58b51750$@att.net> References: <76798716-B995-4DD4-BBA5-921BF0605C27@gmu.edu> <06dd01cf1c50$21f8d230$65ea7690$@att.net> <079701cf1c63$733c85c0$59b59140$@att.net> <092801cf1c9b$1d91b270$58b51750$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 2:37 AM, spike wrote: > On the contrary sir. The grass will not grow without sufficient sunlight. > Farmland sacrificed to ground based solar cannot be effectively > double-purposed. You could have wind farms with GB solar below. However, > the cost effective solar support structures physically rest on the ground, > rather than raise them in any case. So if you did something kinda weird > like feed your sheep on grain in the same field as your PV panels, those two > uses still don't play well together, unfortunately. > This system probably doesn't apply to desert areas where grass won't grow anyway, without constant watering, but in more green countryside, see: Quote: Grazing sheep are a practical means of controlling weeds and grasses that otherwise would block the sun from ground-level solar arrays. The practice, begun in Europe, may well become a world standard, and has already spread to America. > > What you find puzzling is that the humans seem to be placing their solar > panels in all the wrong places, way up in the northern hemisphere at > latitudes and climates where they are so limited, all while ignoring some > excellent places for PVs. You see that solar panels are going in on top of > excellent farmland, while unpopulated sunny wasteland is untouched. > > You and your fellow Martians conclude that humans are apparently smart and > stupid at the same time. > > Unfortunately this applies to other things as well. In general, the sunny parts of the world are poor, third world countries with little money to invest in projects that they sorely need. As an idea, the Gates foundation which is currently concentrating on World Health Care, might move on to providing every village with a solar power energy system. BillK From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 29 16:35:32 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 08:35:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: References: <76798716-B995-4DD4-BBA5-921BF0605C27@gmu.edu> <06dd01cf1c50$21f8d230$65ea7690$@att.net> <079701cf1c63$733c85c0$59b59140$@att.net> <092801cf1c9b$1d91b270$58b51750$@att.net> Message-ID: <006d01cf1d10$2163e1f0$642ba5d0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 2:37 AM, spike wrote: >>... On the contrary sir. The grass will not grow without sufficient sunlight... >...This system probably doesn't apply to desert areas where grass won't grow anyway, without constant watering, but in more green countryside, see: Well, I'll be damn. Clearly they are double purposing there. Thanks for the link BillK. > >>... What you find puzzling is that the humans seem to be placing their > solar panels in all the wrong places...You ... conclude that humans are apparently smart > and stupid at the same time. > > >...Unfortunately this applies to other things as well. In general, the sunny parts of the world are poor, third world countries with little money to invest in projects that they sorely need... As an idea, the Gates foundation which is currently concentrating on World Health Care, might move on to providing every village with a solar power energy system. BillK Ja. Lack of money is the root of all evil. Poor parts of the world need to stop screwing around and get rich. They could start by selling the land to someone with enough money to develop infrastructure. Can a totalitarian dictator sell his country? Why not? Didn't Russia sell us Alaska? Didn't France sell us Louisiana? The jillionaire who owned a vast stretch of otherwise useless land could put it to work. As you pointed out, most of those areas are very sunny and aren't growing anything. Amazon biggie Jeff Bezos owns 300 thousand acres of Texas for his rocket ranch, so we need to get him interested in ground based solar? Ted Turner owns a couple million acres of Wyoming, great spot for an enormous solar farm. I don't see why a kickstarter with a lotta cash couldn't apply to the UN or somebody to buy a big stretch of territory and become a new nation, a kingdom we might suppose. Find a sunny dry place with not many people, make them your employees, and let's get building. They could become a country, owned by the jillionaire who bought them, perhaps sell naming rights: Gatestanbul? Billgaria? Madagatescar? Microsofnesia? Billarus? United Gates of America? Billivia? I could go on and on. Oh wait, I already did, never mind. spike _______________________________________________ From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jan 29 19:29:23 2014 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 11:29:23 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Observation of Dirac monopoles in a synthetic magnetic field Message-ID: <1D8BECC1-3BC4-47B8-9390-BF0B760B2958@yahoo.com> http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7485/full/nature12954.html Regards, Dan My latest story is available at: http://www.amazon.com/Medeas-Gift-Dan-Ust-ebook/dp/B00GHX2M1O/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jan 29 19:32:14 2014 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 11:32:14 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? In-Reply-To: <006d01cf1d10$2163e1f0$642ba5d0$@att.net> References: <76798716-B995-4DD4-BBA5-921BF0605C27@gmu.edu> <06dd01cf1c50$21f8d230$65ea7690$@att.net> <079701cf1c63$733c85c0$59b59140$@att.net> <092801cf1c9b$1d91b270$58b51750$@att.net> <006d01cf1d10$2163e1f0$642ba5d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <002701cf1d28$d118e240$734aa6c0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike >...Amazon biggie Jeff Bezos owns 300 thousand acres of Texas for his rocket ranch, so we need to get him interested in ground based solar? Ted Turner owns a couple million acres of Wyoming, great spot for an enormous solar farm... spike Ooops, never mind, Turner is already there: http://www.tedturner.com/renewable-energy/ This is a good test case for ground based solar: an environmental consdrvation-minded guy with a ton of money. If it can just break even, Turner will likely start putting them down there. See there, concentrated wealth is a good thing, even if it isn't necessarily concentrated in our own pockets. Rich people are our friends. Turner has the cash to build a PV factory here in the states, which might be worth doing if the labor costs can be held down sufficiently. Failing that, China is still producing way more PVs than the market will currently bear, so we can start soaking up some of those. I see so much potential, I have a hard time being pessimistic. Sure energy prices will go up. We can deal. Depending on how we define we. spike From mlatorra at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 19:51:59 2014 From: mlatorra at gmail.com (Michael LaTorra) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 12:51:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Observation of Dirac monopoles in a synthetic magnetic field In-Reply-To: <1D8BECC1-3BC4-47B8-9390-BF0B760B2958@yahoo.com> References: <1D8BECC1-3BC4-47B8-9390-BF0B760B2958@yahoo.com> Message-ID: Wow, thanks for posting this link Dan. Observational evidence of magnetic monopoles is huge. Today the observation. Tomorrow the tech using monopoles. So many possibilities! Mike On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 12:29 PM, Dan Ust wrote: > http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7485/full/nature12954.html > > Regards, > > Dan > My latest story is available at: > http://www.amazon.com/Medeas-Gift-Dan-Ust-ebook/dp/B00GHX2M1O/ > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 20:39:15 2014 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 12:39:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists? Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 4:00 AM, Robin D Hanson wrote: > > On Jan 28, 2014, at 5:24 PM, Keith Henson wrote: (Robin) >>> One can also score a pool of conditional predictions for accuracy. So even if >>> you only have opinions on what might happen if some other things happen, >>> we can still talk about the general accuracy of your predictions. >> >> You completely lost me here. If you make a prediction for ten years >> out, the only way I can see to rate it for accuracy is to wait ten >> years and see what has happened. If you have another idea, I would be >> really interested in it. > > To score a set of conditional forecasts, you just score the subset of them where > the conditions turned out to be true. I am sure you know what you are talking about, but I still don't see the utility. If there is a major drought, then there will be a famine. Or taking it further, if there is a drought and famine, then we are likely to have a war or civil disruption. Is that the kind of predictions you are talking about? Keitj From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 22:35:14 2014 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 22:35:14 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Observation of Dirac monopoles in a synthetic magnetic field In-Reply-To: References: <1D8BECC1-3BC4-47B8-9390-BF0B760B2958@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 7:51 PM, Michael LaTorra wrote: > Wow, thanks for posting this link Dan. Observational evidence of magnetic > monopoles is huge. Today the observation. Tomorrow the tech using monopoles. > So many possibilities! > > Nature has an explanatory article here: BillK From mlatorra at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 23:54:02 2014 From: mlatorra at gmail.com (Michael LaTorra) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 16:54:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Observation of Dirac monopoles in a synthetic magnetic field In-Reply-To: References: <1D8BECC1-3BC4-47B8-9390-BF0B760B2958@yahoo.com> Message-ID: Oh shucks. Analogues are not particles. No super-tech without real particles. On Jan 29, 2014 3:36 PM, "BillK" wrote: > On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 7:51 PM, Michael LaTorra wrote: > > Wow, thanks for posting this link Dan. Observational evidence of magnetic > > monopoles is huge. Today the observation. Tomorrow the tech using > monopoles. > > So many possibilities! > > > > > > Nature has an explanatory article here: > < > http://www.nature.com/news/quantum-cloud-simulates-magnetic-monopole-1.14612 > > > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Thu Jan 30 00:28:52 2014 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 19:28:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Stem cell breakthrough Message-ID: <98FAC052-C6B5-42F6-ACEF-F4655906534A@alumni.virginia.edu> Have you heard about this?http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25917270 If we are able to mass produce stem cells, and there is no religious opposition about embryos at play, shouldn't we be able to replace/refresh all our organs including our skin indefinitely? Is this the soon-to-come viable route to longevity if not immortality?! Someone here has thought about this before, I'm sure. School me please. Thanks in advance. -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 18:27:46 2014 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 10:27:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Stem cell breakthrough In-Reply-To: <98FAC052-C6B5-42F6-ACEF-F4655906534A@alumni.virginia.edu> References: <98FAC052-C6B5-42F6-ACEF-F4655906534A@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: You could replace organs if you knew how to make them, which may rule out replacing the brain...at first, anyway. And then there are issues which do not narrow down to single organ replacement, such as cancer or most diseases. But the big issue is going to be making it affordable. Health care already has major problems there. On Jan 30, 2014 3:10 AM, "Henry Rivera" wrote: > Have you heard about this?http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25917270 > > If we are able to mass produce stem cells, and there is no religious > opposition about embryos at play, shouldn't we be able to replace/refresh > all our organs including our skin indefinitely? Is this the soon-to-come > viable route to longevity if not immortality?! Someone here has thought > about this before, I'm sure. School me please. Thanks in advance. > -Henry > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 19:17:28 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:17:28 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Stem cell breakthrough In-Reply-To: References: <98FAC052-C6B5-42F6-ACEF-F4655906534A@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: What stem cells will eventually do is to replace defective cells in our organs so we can keep them and not have to replace them. We will have an all new heart that was created inside our own body, not grown in a lab. As for cancers, we will create bacteria and viruses in the lab that will go everywhere our blood goes and kill cancer cells. (That is, until we can redesign the immune system to do this automatically.) bill On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 12:27 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > You could replace organs if you knew how to make them, which may rule out > replacing the brain...at first, anyway. > > And then there are issues which do not narrow down to single organ > replacement, such as cancer or most diseases. > > But the big issue is going to be making it affordable. Health care > already has major problems there. > On Jan 30, 2014 3:10 AM, "Henry Rivera" > wrote: > >> Have you heard about this?http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25917270 >> >> If we are able to mass produce stem cells, and there is no religious >> opposition about embryos at play, shouldn't we be able to replace/refresh >> all our organs including our skin indefinitely? Is this the soon-to-come >> viable route to longevity if not immortality?! Someone here has thought >> about this before, I'm sure. School me please. Thanks in advance. >> -Henry >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Fri Jan 31 00:13:43 2014 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 01:13:43 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Stem cell breakthrough In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3852325592-5687@secure.ericade.net> While stem cells and regenerative medicine are promising, it is important not to oversell them as a panacea. Translational science is a valley of death for promising ideas: remember when interferon was going to cure cancer? Growing new organs are not that easy, and if you need surgery to connect them to the body you are going to do risky cutting and anaesthesia. Killing cancer cells with bacteria and viruses requires you to master the immune system (guess why phage therapy is not widely used?)? Bodies are messy, complex environments that rarely are modular enough to allow magic bullets or neat replacement. Health is worth the effort, but the stretch between "awesome in the lab" to "in a clinic near you" is very long. Just saying.? Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University William Flynn Wallace , 30/1/2014 8:20 PM: What stem cells will eventually do is to replace defective cells in our organs so we can keep them and not have to replace them.? We will have an all new heart that was created inside our own body, not grown in a lab. As for cancers, we will create bacteria and viruses in the lab that will go everywhere our blood goes and kill cancer cells.? (That is, until we can redesign the immune system to do this automatically.)? bill On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 12:27 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: You could replace organs if you knew how to make them, which may rule out replacing the brain...at first, anyway. And then there are issues which do not narrow down to single organ replacement, such as cancer or most diseases. But the big issue is going to be making it affordable.? Health care already has major problems there. On Jan 30, 2014 3:10 AM, "Henry Rivera" wrote: Have you heard about this?http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25917270 If we are able to mass produce stem cells, and there is no religious opposition about embryos at play, shouldn't we be able to replace/refresh all our organs including our skin indefinitely? Is this the soon-to-come viable route to longevity if not immortality?! Someone here has thought about this before, I'm sure. School me please. Thanks in advance.? -Henry _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jan 31 13:46:10 2014 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 07:46:10 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Stem cell breakthrough In-Reply-To: <3852325592-5687@secure.ericade.net> References: <3852325592-5687@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: Agreed - but it's all theoretically possible now. My view of engineers and other tech people is that is they know it can be done they will eventually find a way. I don't have to tell this crowd that human beings are tinkers, endlessly worrying at something until they get what they want. And has there ever been a scientific theory that has not been turned over in one way or another by this tinkering? Or at least altered, like Newton's? On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 6:13 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > While stem cells and regenerative medicine are promising, it is important > not to oversell them as a panacea. Translational science is a valley of > death for promising ideas: remember when interferon was going to cure > cancer? Growing new organs are not that easy, and if you need surgery to > connect them to the body you are going to do risky cutting and anaesthesia. > Killing cancer cells with bacteria and viruses requires you to master the > immune system (guess why phage therapy is not widely used?) > > Bodies are messy, complex environments that rarely are modular enough to > allow magic bullets or neat replacement. Health is worth the effort, but > the stretch between "awesome in the lab" to "in a clinic near you" is very > long. Just saying. > > > Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford > University > > > William Flynn Wallace , 30/1/2014 8:20 PM: > > What stem cells will eventually do is to replace defective cells in our > organs so we can keep them and not have to replace them. We will have an > all new heart that was created inside our own body, not grown in a lab. As > for cancers, we will create bacteria and viruses in the lab that will go > everywhere our blood goes and kill cancer cells. (That is, until we can > redesign the immune system to do this automatically.) bill > > > On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 12:27 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > You could replace organs if you knew how to make them, which may rule out > replacing the brain...at first, anyway. > > And then there are issues which do not narrow down to single organ > replacement, such as cancer or most diseases. > > But the big issue is going to be making it affordable. Health care > already has major problems there. > On Jan 30, 2014 3:10 AM, "Henry Rivera" > wrote: > > Have you heard about this?http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25917270 > > If we are able to mass produce stem cells, and there is no religious > opposition about embryos at play, shouldn't we be able to replace/refresh > all our organs including our skin indefinitely? Is this the soon-to-come > viable route to longevity if not immortality?! Someone here has thought > about this before, I'm sure. School me please. Thanks in advance. > -Henry > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Jan 31 15:03:30 2014 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 07:03:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Phil K. Dick, virtual reality, and bitcoin Message-ID: <1391180610.72403.YahooMailNeo@web164604.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> "Dick's work addresses all kinds of topics, but it asks different versions of the same question over and over again: How do we know what's real and what's not? As our world becomes increasingly virtual, the 'real' can be easily threatened by the 'not-real.' Imaginary Bitcoins have people questioning their physical dollars. Daily communication happens in ones and zeroes via email rather than through physical letters by pen and paper. This same type of tension proliferated Dick's work and life." Philip K. Dick's Paranoid Science Fiction Has Largely Become Our Everyday Reality http://www.businessinsider.com/philip-k-dick-predictions-2014-1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: