From jasonresch at gmail.com Sat Apr 1 00:08:12 2017 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2017 20:08:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> Message-ID: I know better than to argue with you, but I want to note that your have not presented experimental data but a somewhat cherry-picked observation. Which at best can be used to develop a hypothesis, and design an experiment, but not to reach any conclusion. Using observational data rather than experimental data often leads to incorrect conclusions, because there are infinite possible correlated variables at play, and only controlled experiments can separate them. This is what led to 40 years of questionable nutritional advice regarding fat. Now thoroughly debunked with experiments, and in my opinion, largely to blame for the country's deteriorating health. As Feynman reminds us, the easiest person to full is ourself. Scientists need to try as hard as possible to disprove their own theories. Here are some other possible explanations of life expectancy differences: - Different diets - Poor that are worse off - More stressful lives (less safety net) - Less access to higher education - Less paid vacation and maternal leave - Higher homicide rates - Higher accident rates (we drive more) - Different racial make ups - More incarceration - Subsidized and cheap junk foods - Opiod over prescription - Drug war - Less healthcare as a result of not being single payer Now given all the possible causes I listed, how do you conclude single payer is the only or most significant factor in determining life expectancy? Switzerland has a similar model to the US, how does their life expectancy compare to the rest of Europe? While correlations can't prove causation, counter examples can disprove causal relations. If the Swiss pay less and live longer than other countries, there might be a flaw in your conclusion. I agree that the US would likely be better off with single payer, but I disagree with using your single statistic as the basis of reaching such a conclusion. Jason On Friday, March 31, 2017, John Clark wrote: > On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 4:40 PM, Dan TheBookMan > wrote: > > ?> >>> ?>? >>> Factoid?? We're talking about the results of a experiment that lasted >>> ? ? >>> decades involved about a billion people and cost trillions of dollars, >>> ? ? >>> and the results are clear as a bell; like it or not single payer >>> ? ? >>> countries get more bang for their buck, they live longer and spend >>> ? ? >>> less, a lot less. As a libertarian I wish the facts could have produced >>> ? ? >>> a different conclusion but reality doesn't give a damn what I prefer. >> >> >> ?> ? >> Whoa! The strict libertarian position is >> ? [...]? >> > > ?Irrelevant. The USA system does not conform with the ? > strict libertarian position > ? > > ?and ?n > either does the single payer system of the 30 countries that beat the hell > out of the USA system ?in both cost and quality. However the USA is closer > to the > strict libertarian position > ? than the single payer plan. As a libertarian I wish I could say it was > the other way around but I can not because I value the truth even more than > I value libertarianism. ? > > ?>> ? >>> ?I don't know which question of yours I've sidestepped, >> >> >> ?> ? >> Well, I've only posted them twice on March 28, so here goes for a third >> time (rewording them slightly in hopes this helps you to answer them): >> >> 1. What are the historical rates of life expectancy for all nations? >> > > ?In all the 31 nations I mentioned, including the USA, both the life > expectancy and the percentage of GNP spent on healthcare have increased, > some much more than others, and it is by examining those differential > increases we can learn things. ? > > 2. Are there any nations with single payer systems that have shorter than >> the US life expectancy? >> > > ?I honestly don't know. I would guess the answer is yes but I don't know > for certain. I'm sure you could find out in a hour or two with a little > help from Google, I could too but I'm not going to because the answer > doesn't interest me. If there is such a country you can be certain they > spend dramatically less on healthcare than the USA, every country does, so > there would be no surprise and nothing to learn if their citizens have > shorter lives. ?We can learn from the 30 countries that spend less and get > more not from the countries that spend less and get less. > > ?> >>> ?>? >>> ?but I know of a question of mine that you have sidestepped: if >>> ? ? >>> the 30 single payer countries I mentioned spent twice as much >>> ? ? >>> on healthcare as the USA and yet their citizens had shorter >>> ? ? >>> lives than the USA would you be complaining about sampling >>> ? ? >>> errors and experimental bias? >> >> > ?> ? >> No, I didn't sidestep your question. >> > > ?Well it sure seemed that way to me because I looked and looked but I > couldn't find a "yes" or a "no" anywhere. > > >> ?> ? >> it would be still be the correct thing to ask these questions about the >> data and not merely accept a single piece of data as the decisive element >> in our policy choices. >> > > ?This is not a ? > single piece of data > ?!! This is the result of a experiment lasting decades involving a billion > people and trillions of dollars and no matter how you try to spin it the > less libertarian side won. I really and truly wish it had gone the other > way but unlike Trump I refuse to wage war on reality. > > John K Clark ? > > >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Sat Apr 1 00:22:12 2017 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2017 20:22:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] non-physician heal thyself Message-ID: > On Mar 31, 2017, at 2:10 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > > On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 9:15 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: >> Mike Dougherty wrote: Right. I expect our civilization will be very different by the time molecular assembly is something we can do at home. >> ?-------- >> >> I will be very interested to hear what is going to cause big changes in our society, in your opinion, and what they will be. (Or maybe you meant that such a change would be very far in our future?). >> > > I was thinking the technology for average joe & jane (aka 'proles') to have a magical countertop maker that's able to produce any molecules you want by pushing a button is far off. This is what I had in mind: https://www.ted.com/talks/lee_cronin_print_your_own_medicine?language=en https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/08/11/why-it-matters-that-the-fda-just-approved-the-first-3d-printed-drug/ -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Sat Apr 1 00:27:11 2017 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2017 20:27:11 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> Message-ID: I looked it up, the Swiss have the highest life expectancy in Europe: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_life_expectancy And one of the lowest percentages of GDP spent on health care. https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2011/04/29/why-switzerland-has-the-worlds-best-health-care-system/ The Swiss model is not single payer but is consumer driven, with individuals purchasing insurance directly. Clearly their model is cheaper than ours, since they also spend a much smaller fraction of their GDP than the US. But the US also subsidizes medical research for the rest of the world and tolerates monopolistic price fixing which leads to much greater costs. Jason On Friday, March 31, 2017, Jason Resch wrote: > I know better than to argue with you, but I want to note that your have > not presented experimental data but a somewhat cherry-picked observation. > Which at best can be used to develop a hypothesis, and design an > experiment, but not to reach any conclusion. > > Using observational data rather than experimental data often leads to > incorrect conclusions, because there are infinite possible correlated > variables at play, and only controlled experiments can separate them. This > is what led to 40 years of questionable nutritional advice regarding fat. > Now thoroughly debunked with experiments, and in my opinion, largely to > blame for the country's deteriorating health. > > As Feynman reminds us, the easiest person to full is ourself. Scientists > need to try as hard as possible to disprove their own theories. > > Here are some other possible explanations of life expectancy differences: > > - Different diets > - Poor that are worse off > - More stressful lives (less safety net) > - Less access to higher education > - Less paid vacation and maternal leave > - Higher homicide rates > - Higher accident rates (we drive more) > - Different racial make ups > - More incarceration > - Subsidized and cheap junk foods > - Opiod over prescription > - Drug war > - Less healthcare as a result of not being single payer > > Now given all the possible causes I listed, how do you conclude single > payer is the only or most significant factor in determining life expectancy? > > Switzerland has a similar model to the US, how does their life expectancy > compare to the rest of Europe? > > While correlations can't prove causation, counter examples can disprove > causal relations. If the Swiss pay less and live longer than other > countries, there might be a flaw in your conclusion. > > I agree that the US would likely be better off with single payer, but I > disagree with using your single statistic as the basis of reaching such a > conclusion. > > Jason > > > On Friday, March 31, 2017, John Clark > wrote: > >> On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 4:40 PM, Dan TheBookMan >> wrote: >> >> ?> >>>> ?>? >>>> Factoid?? We're talking about the results of a experiment that lasted >>>> ? ? >>>> decades involved about a billion people and cost trillions of dollars, >>>> ? ? >>>> and the results are clear as a bell; like it or not single payer >>>> ? ? >>>> countries get more bang for their buck, they live longer and spend >>>> ? ? >>>> less, a lot less. As a libertarian I wish the facts could have produced >>>> ? ? >>>> a different conclusion but reality doesn't give a damn what I prefer. >>> >>> >>> ?> ? >>> Whoa! The strict libertarian position is >>> ? [...]? >>> >> >> ?Irrelevant. The USA system does not conform with the ? >> strict libertarian position >> ? >> >> ?and ?n >> either does the single payer system of the 30 countries that beat the >> hell out of the USA system ?in both cost and quality. However the USA is >> closer to the >> strict libertarian position >> ? than the single payer plan. As a libertarian I wish I could say it was >> the other way around but I can not because I value the truth even more than >> I value libertarianism. ? >> >> ?>> ? >>>> ?I don't know which question of yours I've sidestepped, >>> >>> >>> ?> ? >>> Well, I've only posted them twice on March 28, so here goes for a third >>> time (rewording them slightly in hopes this helps you to answer them): >>> >>> 1. What are the historical rates of life expectancy for all nations? >>> >> >> ?In all the 31 nations I mentioned, including the USA, both the life >> expectancy and the percentage of GNP spent on healthcare have increased, >> some much more than others, and it is by examining those differential >> increases we can learn things. ? >> >> 2. Are there any nations with single payer systems that have shorter than >>> the US life expectancy? >>> >> >> ?I honestly don't know. I would guess the answer is yes but I don't know >> for certain. I'm sure you could find out in a hour or two with a little >> help from Google, I could too but I'm not going to because the answer >> doesn't interest me. If there is such a country you can be certain they >> spend dramatically less on healthcare than the USA, every country does, so >> there would be no surprise and nothing to learn if their citizens have >> shorter lives. ?We can learn from the 30 countries that spend less and get >> more not from the countries that spend less and get less. >> >> ?> >>>> ?>? >>>> ?but I know of a question of mine that you have sidestepped: if >>>> ? ? >>>> the 30 single payer countries I mentioned spent twice as much >>>> ? ? >>>> on healthcare as the USA and yet their citizens had shorter >>>> ? ? >>>> lives than the USA would you be complaining about sampling >>>> ? ? >>>> errors and experimental bias? >>> >>> >> ?> ? >>> No, I didn't sidestep your question. >>> >> >> ?Well it sure seemed that way to me because I looked and looked but I >> couldn't find a "yes" or a "no" anywhere. >> >> >>> ?> ? >>> it would be still be the correct thing to ask these questions about the >>> data and not merely accept a single piece of data as the decisive element >>> in our policy choices. >>> >> >> ?This is not a ? >> single piece of data >> ?!! This is the result of a experiment lasting decades involving a >> billion people and trillions of dollars and no matter how you try to spin >> it the less libertarian side won. I really and truly wish it had gone the >> other way but unlike Trump I refuse to wage war on reality. >> >> John K Clark ? >> >> >>> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 1 00:44:51 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2017 17:44:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> Message-ID: <01b001d2aa81$2d31d7b0$87958710$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Jason Resch ubject: Re: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare >?I agree that the US would likely be better off with single payer, but I disagree with using your single statistic as the basis of reaching such a conclusion. Jason All such suggestions should be accompanied by a conjecture on what happens if the US sets up a single payer system then the single payer cannot pay. What then? It is worth considering, since the US can?t pay now: it can?t balance its budget. ?The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people?s money.? Margaret Thatcher, 1976 ?If it acts like socialism, capitalism eventually run out of other people?s money.? spike Jones, 2017. So then what? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 1 00:53:05 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2017 17:53:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> Message-ID: <01c301d2aa82$53497880$f9dc6980$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Jason Resch >?The Swiss model is not single payer but is consumer driven, with individuals purchasing insurance directly. >?Clearly their model is cheaper than ours, since they also spend a much smaller fraction of their GDP than the US. >?But the US also subsidizes medical research for the rest of the world and tolerates monopolistic price fixing which leads to much greater costs. >?Jason Cost comparisons between US doctors and most of the rest of the world are invalid unless we agree on how to compare doctors who go to medical school right out of high school vs how we do it here: Americans usually need a college degree before they can get into medical school. Those undergraduate degrees take a big investment in time and money; of course US-trained doctors will cost more, a lot more. It might make them better doctors, but we don?t really know for sure, ja? Alternative: make Health Science a college major, where the graduates come out of a three year or four year training course knowing a lot about what you can do with over the counter meds, how to recognize the common stuff, stop claiming they are practicing medicine without a license, make them immune from lawsuit if they screw up and so forth. Their services should be affordable, guessing about a quarter the price for half the effectiveness. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 1 01:03:16 2017 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 03:03:16 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> <021e01d2a834$4b30a290$e191e7b0$@att.net> <027701d2a846$cd5b3750$6811a5f0$@att.net> Message-ID: <8265e89f-4662-2521-68c3-d71ed81c0133@libero.it> Il 29/03/2017 11:32, BillK ha scritto: > No, Spike. It's not bad music that is causing the increase in US white > middle-aged suicides. It is the Federal reserve policy of low interests rates killing their savings. In the past, funds would have generated 7% return yearly, to pay lavish retirements checks. Today, with ~0% interest rate for the banks (but not for the normal people) people is unable to pay their house, maintain it, pay their college debts, pay their cars and have a family. You can not fix with healthcare the fact people is unable to buy a decent house; people is forced to work long hours to get enough money to just survive. What could be the average lifespan for a people with a mean 1500$ in their bank accounts. They live hand to mouth and the healthcare can not fix that. The ACA just made the system untenable for the majority of people, imposing even more inefficiencies. > The cause is that the part of the US outside the cities has seen their > lives steadily get worse for eight years and they are in despair. > > > -- Mirco Romanato -- Mirco Romanato From interzone at gmail.com Sat Apr 1 01:36:04 2017 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2017 21:36:04 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: <8265e89f-4662-2521-68c3-d71ed81c0133@libero.it> References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> <021e01d2a834$4b30a290$e191e7b0$@att.net> <027701d2a846$cd5b3750$6811a5f0$@att.net> <8265e89f-4662-2521-68c3-d71ed81c0133@libero.it> Message-ID: I'm speaking of the US here, but much of it has been applicable in many other parts of the world. There has been an absolutely spectacular opportunity to own US equities since the financial crisis, and there has never been a time to do so in such a cheap manner using low commissions and index fund ETFs with close to zero fees. There have also been plenty of high quality companies yielding upwards of 4% in dividends alone throughout this time period. Bonds have also returned tremendous amounts of appreciation over most of this time period (I'm not talking about buying treasuries to hold until maturity, I'm speaking to capital appreciation in them). Robofirms like Betterment combine extremely low management fees with fully automated investing and tax harvesting using low cost ETFs. They remove the excuse of claiming ignorance of how to invest. A new account can be opened in 5 minutes, funded, and put on autopilot. There has been a ton of opportunity (which I believe will continue barring an unforeseen 5 sigma event) to build up a cushion over time using equities. People who refuse to invest in appreciating assets are always going to be behind the eight ball. Ridiculously low interest rates have been available to consumers to purchase or refinance homes. Credit has still been easily available in the credit card space at very low rates especially for balance transfers. The stock market is at new highs, and most economic indicators in the US are still quite strong/positive. The stagnation of wages has been a much larger problem for a very long time for many working class American families, and many of them don't trust the stock market after the last financial crisis. I'm not saying all of them have the cash to spare to invest, but even putting some in on a regular basis will grow it significantly. If/when wages pick up, that is one of the first things they should be doing with the difference. Sorry, this was a bit of an aside, but I don't believe interest rates were an unavoidable problem for anyone outside of insurance companies and others like them that depend on investing policy premiums. Not putting money into equities and leaving some of it there regardless of age is one of the quickest ways to the poor house. Appreciating assets are key to long term financial survival. On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 9:03 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 29/03/2017 11:32, BillK ha scritto: > > > No, Spike. It's not bad music that is causing the increase in US white > > middle-aged suicides. > > It is the Federal reserve policy of low interests rates killing their > savings. > In the past, funds would have generated 7% return yearly, to pay lavish > retirements checks. > Today, with ~0% interest rate for the banks (but not for the normal > people) people is unable to pay their house, maintain it, pay their > college debts, pay their cars and have a family. > > You can not fix with healthcare the fact people is unable to buy a > decent house; people is forced to work long hours to get enough money to > just survive. > > What could be the average lifespan for a people with a mean 1500$ in > their bank accounts. They live hand to mouth and the healthcare can not > fix that. > > The ACA just made the system untenable for the majority of people, > imposing even more inefficiencies. > > > > > > > > The cause is that the part of the US outside the cities has seen their > > lives steadily get worse for eight years and they are in despair. > > > > despair-white-working-class-americans-are-dying> > > > > -- > Mirco Romanato > > -- > Mirco Romanato > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sat Apr 1 01:37:07 2017 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2017 18:37:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] GOV _ TRUMP In-Reply-To: <011a01d2aa60$3ebe58d0$bc3b0a70$@att.net> References: <1015251837.1441192.1490991227558.ref@mail.yahoo.com> <39DEE98B-873C-47C3-B181-76716B7E7E15@gmail.com> <011a01d2aa60$3ebe58d0$bc3b0a70$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mar 31, 2017, at 1:49 PM, spike wrote: > From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan > > >?Heck, for years after its fall, some not so stupid people were argue it was just a ruse, that it was rise again? > > Dan > > > They were partly right: it rose again. In a sense. It isn?t the complete Soviet Union, but it managed to overthrow communism and its people aren?t starving now. It made the difficult transition away from communism. They?re tricky bahstids I tells ya, gotta watch em. They will lure us into complacency, then mess with our elections. If you want to consider the current Russian state as merely the latest mutation of former ones, consider this. The Russian Empire was quite large, though it reacted its greatest extent probably during WW1.* The Soviet Union lost a big chunk of that territory -- first through its treaty with the Central Powers and then in the aftermath of the Paris Treaty. It gained a little back after the Russian Civil War ended. After that, there was WW2. Initially, the Soviets really expanded (into Europe and in Asia), then were pushed back (in Europe by the Nazi invasion in 01941). The expansion was then fairly swift after WW2 and only curbed or set back in a few areas. I reckon we can set the invasion of Afghanistan as the high water mark for the Soviet empire, along with its interventions in Central America. After that, came rapid collapse. By 01989, the Soviets lost the Eastern European empire they'd gained just after WW2. Then the Soviet Union itself broke up. The Russian Federation today seems to be expanding, but its expansion is mostly confined to areas that were part of Soviet Union in 01941 and even then not most of those areas. It seems unlikely to get the Baltic States back. It's taken a piece of Ukraine. It still has been mostly ejected from the Caucasus and from Central Asia. Sure, the Russian elites, like any elites including our elites, are not to be trusted and surely would love a chance to extend their reach. And there's no Iron Law of history that says a fallen empire can't rebound. But it's a stretch to compare Russia today with the Soviet Union of, say, 01960 or 01980. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst * One scholar argues the Russian government caused WW1. He makes an interesting case, but I'm no scholar of WW1. See: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674072336 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulioprisco at protonmail.ch Sat Apr 1 06:37:01 2017 From: giulioprisco at protonmail.ch (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2017 02:37:01 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Shadows and the concept of self In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi John. When Richard and I wrote this essay in 2005, Everett's was my favorite interpretation of quantum mechanics. Now I'm not so sure. However, today I wouldn't change much of what I wrote. In particular, I still think that "while Everett?s Relative State formulation of quantum mechanics makes a lot of sense, its popular interpretation as ?Many Worlds? (MWI) should be taken only as a simple pictorial device useful for a first understanding of the theory... perhaps since reality is One Big World too complex for our minds to process efficiently, we use a simplified representation as Many (small) Worlds for our processing." In other words, thinking of splitting and recombining worlds is a simplified way to describe a reality that is much more complex than our concept of "world." Many Minds comes closer, but it's still a simplification - I think the many minds are shadows of One Mind. Having now studied Everett's original papers and those of DeWitt, Wheeler's etc., I suspect Everett himself wouldn't disagree. Decoherence seems to explain why we don't see [alive + dead] superpositions of cats, but it doesn't provide a mechanism for the selection of [alive] or [dead]. In fact, decoherence pioneers like Zeh and Zurek seem to support Everett's views. I am writing a new essay with thoughts on my interpretation of Everett's interpretations, with plenty of links. In the meantime, I recommend reading Peter Byrne's biography: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-many-worlds-of-hugh-everett-iii-9780199552276 -- Giulio Prisco https://giulioprisco.com/ giulioprisco at protonmail.ch -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [ExI] Shadows and the concept of self Local Time: March 31, 2017 10:53 PM UTC Time: March 31, 2017 8:53 PM From: johnkclark at gmail.com To: ExI chat list On Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 10:59 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: https://turingchurch.net/shadows-and-the-concept-of-self-d01ff65ce9f9 I do take issue with one thing you said: " The MWI says that after the act of observation (measurement) the universe is split in two branches where the first has [cat dead] and [observer who remembers having seen the cat dead], " There is only one reason I'm a fan of the MWI, unlike the other quantum interpretations it doesn't have to explain what a measurement or a observation is because they have nothing to do with it. MWI says everything that can happen does happen, and both a dead and live cat can happen. When the universe splits you split right along with everything else, and one Giulio sees a living cat and another equally real Giulio sees a dead cat. When the universe splits they stay split unless the 2 universes somehow become identical again; that's not going to happen if the change is made in a large macroscopic object like a cat, but if the only difference between 2 universes is which slit one photon went through then it is possible to arrange things so the 2 universes become identical again, and then the universes would merge back together into one. That's why we see weird quantum effects in the 2 slit experiment but not in large things like cats. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Apr 1 17:01:46 2017 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 13:01:46 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: <58D43FCE.3040506@yahoo.com> <6bc137e7-9da4-3908-f488-85ac3310cd6a@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 3:49 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: ? >> ?>> ? >> I think it is a brute fact that consciousness is the way data feels when >> it is being processed.? >> > > > > ?> ? > define 'feel'. > ?No.? Definitions are for losers, examples are for winners. > ?> ? > If you are conscious you can feel it; you can feel it if you're > conscious. Round and round. > ? Yes, but that's not just true of the words feeling and conscious, it's true for any definition. All definitions in the dictionary are made of words, and those words are also in the dictionary and ? ? are also made of words which are also in the dictionary.... and round ?and round we go. The only thing that can get us off that infinite loop and the only reason language is ? ? not meaningless is ? ? because of ? ? examples, a connection between the ASCII sequence "feel" and something outside of the dictionary in the physical world. For example: When you put your hand on a red hot stove you "feel" something. > ?> ? > Data processing can be verified objectively for man and machine. > ? Yes and that means Evolution can verify it too, but Evolution can NOT verify consciousness and yet I know for a fact Evolution produced consciousness at least once on this small planet, ? ? and I might not be the only conscious being in the world, perhaps many billions of other people are conscious too. How can that be? The only explanation I can come up with is consciousness is an unavoidable byproduct of data processing. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Apr 1 20:16:38 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 15:16:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: <58D43FCE.3040506@yahoo.com> <6bc137e7-9da4-3908-f488-85ac3310cd6a@gmail.com> Message-ID: John wrote: ?No.? Definitions are for losers, examples are for winners. --------- I can only go by the way I learned it: if you want to be scientific you have to define your terms. The term I learned is 'operational definition' - you define your terms, ego, atom, anything you want to study by the scientific method, by the way you measure it - the operations you perform. I have chided people in my field for using the word 'instinct' without defining it, leaving it vague and nebulous and unrestricted, undelimited. If you cannot do that, you cannot claim to have produced a scientific fact with your experiments. Countless psychologists have failed this test, along with millions of others in many fields, many not claiming to be scientific. I only object to your use of a circular definition. I think we basically agree in that you argue that an 'example' is what justifies the use of the word 'science'. As long as that example meets the test of being operational, objective, reliable, accepted by others as scientific, or at least as scientific as one can be at the stage of knowledge in that area as on can be, then we agree. People outside of science are puzzled by such definitions as 'intelligence is what intelligence tests measure'. But this is perfectly operational and useful. bill w On Sat, Apr 1, 2017 at 12:01 PM, John Clark wrote: > On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 3:49 PM, William Flynn Wallace < > foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote: > > ? >>> ?>> ? >>> I think it is a brute fact that consciousness is the way data feels when >>> it is being processed.? >>> >> >> >> >> ?> ? >> define 'feel'. >> > > ?No.? Definitions are for losers, examples are for winners. > > >> ?> ? >> If you are conscious you can feel it; you can feel it if you're >> conscious. Round and round. >> > > ? > Yes, but that's not just true of the words feeling and conscious, it's > true for any definition. All definitions in the dictionary are made of > words, and those words are also in the dictionary and > ? ? > are also made of words which are also in the dictionary.... and round > ?and round > we go. The only thing that can get us off that infinite loop and the only > reason language is > ? ? > not meaningless is > ? ? > because of > ? ? > examples, a connection between the ASCII sequence "feel" and something > outside of the dictionary in the physical world. For example: When you put > your hand on a red hot stove you "feel" something. > > >> ?> ? >> Data processing can be verified objectively for man and machine. >> > > ? > Yes and that means Evolution can verify it too, but Evolution can NOT > verify consciousness and yet I know for a fact Evolution produced > consciousness at least once on this small planet, > ? ? > and I might not be the only conscious being in the world, perhaps many > billions of other people are conscious too. How can that be? The only > explanation I can come up with is consciousness is an unavoidable byproduct > of data processing. > > John K Clark > > > > >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Apr 1 21:06:25 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 16:06:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] bees Message-ID: Apparently the second most common cause of the problems with bee decline is the use of neonicotinoids. I have Googled this, of course, but have not found the answers I seek: just what companies, such as Walmart, etc. use this insecticide on the flowers they sell? Thanks! bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Apr 1 21:27:26 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 22:27:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] bees In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 1 April 2017 at 22:06, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Apparently the second most common cause of the problems with bee decline is > the use of neonicotinoids. > > I have Googled this, of course, but have not found the answers I seek: just > what companies, such as Walmart, etc. use this insecticide on the flowers > they sell? > I don't think companies like Walmart use neonicotinoids. It is the growers that spray insecticides. i.e farmers and home gardens. It would help if home users didn't use that type of insecticide, but farmers are the big sprayers. BillK From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 1 21:32:46 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 14:32:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] bees In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00d801d2ab2f$8241ab00$86c50100$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Sent: Saturday, April 01, 2017 2:06 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] bees Apparently the second most common cause of the problems with bee decline is the use of neonicotinoids. I have Googled this, of course, but have not found the answers I seek: just what companies, such as Walmart, etc. use this insecticide on the flowers they sell? Thanks! bill w If only it were that simple BillW. The neonicotinoids are a huge class of chemicals generally agreed to be a bad thing for bugs, but? even that isn?t simple. Just as its famous predecessor in the nicotine debate, it turned out the answer was not nearly as simple as it appeared as one study after another showed a clear link between smoking at lung cancer. After all the debate died away, we discovered long after the fact that nicotine was innocent! Well sorta. The cancer was being caused by other stuff in tobacco. The nicotine merely caused an addiction, which arranged for the other chemicals in tobacco to slay proles. The punchline is that now after all the skerjillions spent on research, nicotine not only doesn?t cause cancer, it is the only medication even vaguely effective against Alzheimers. If given in patch form, the stuff isn?t even addictive. But plenty of patients refuse it because they associate it with lung cancer. Sigh. The research on smoking/cancer was hopelessly mired in politics, with the tobacco companies funding studies, the government funding studies, this and that special interest funding studies, so many of which produced conflicting results (well, imagine that.) Now we are seeing all that same chaos with neonicotinoids and bees, perhaps worse this time. We have pesticide companies funding this and that, we have crusader politicians trying to make a name for themselves without a trace of the scientific background to even know what is the right thing, we have intentional obscuration, we have it all, but do let me insert this one thing which is my unique perspective please. If one goes around with beehives taking them place to place to devour the local pollen, there is a time of year when so little is blooming, one must take one?s bees where the climate is mild and find blooms if possible. Mexico is the best bet for that, and the Mexicans welcome the American bee guy, for their crops need cross-polinating as much as ours do. So plenty of commercial beekeepers spend December and January in Mexico before returning to California for the February clover blooms and the fruit trees shortly thereafter (my trees are a riot of color now.) OK then, if one is making one?s living at beekeeping, she can make more money hauling one load of grass from Mexico to the states, just one load, than she can in a lifetime of back-breaking labor. So it is easy enough to imagine a flatbed truck with the middle hives removed and replaced with dope. When one travels, the beehive opening faces inboard (to minimize bee loss) so all those bees spend the trip crawling all over that dope and picking up whatever that stuff was sprayed with (any guesses (there are zero point nada restrictions on it (hell it?s already illegal (so how could it be controlled (even if the Mexican government had any interest in controlling what Trump?s citizens are smoking?)))) Conclusion: plenty of beekeepers do succumb to the temptation to haul a load of dope north at some point, knowing the chances of getting caught are very low (the border agent doesn?t have a bee suit (and doesn?t want to mess with billions of flying stingers (imagine that.))) The bees get into whatever Jose and Maria sprayed on their dope. We have no way of even figuring out what it is. Bees get weakened, catch Varroa mites, things go badly but the beekeeper already made more money on that one load than a lifetime of beekeeping would have paid, so? here we are. The neonicotinoids are probably bad, but we are eager to find any easy solution to bee death, and that one is certainly easy: just ban neonics. But? how do we stop the Mexican dope growers from using it? And DDT? And anything else they want, imported from Africa or who knows where? And if so, how can we be sure the neonics were a major cause of the problem? Moral of the story: lets keep our hopes up, but if banning neonics is a failure, let us not be shocked, and let us not give up. In the meantime, here?s what you can do: DON?T BUY HONEY, jump at ever opportunity to not devour it even in a restaurant, because bees have a hard enough time without the additional hive stress of extraction. Don?t eat it, encourage friends to not eat it, do your part in reducing the market so that beekeepers will focus on renting their bees to nut and fruit growers. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Apr 1 22:03:27 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 23:03:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] bees In-Reply-To: <00d801d2ab2f$8241ab00$86c50100$@att.net> References: <00d801d2ab2f$8241ab00$86c50100$@att.net> Message-ID: On 1 April 2017 at 22:32, spike wrote: > > Now we are seeing all that same chaos with neonicotinoids and bees, perhaps > worse this time. We have pesticide companies funding this and that, we have > crusader politicians trying to make a name for themselves without a trace of > the scientific background to even know what is the right thing, we have > intentional obscuration, we have it all, but do let me insert this one thing > which is my unique perspective please. > > > The neonicotinoids are probably bad, but we are eager to find any easy > solution to bee death, and that one is certainly easy: just ban neonics. > But? how do we stop the Mexican dope growers from using it? And DDT? And > anything else they want, imported from Africa or who knows where? And if > so, how can we be sure the neonics were a major cause of the problem? > > Moral of the story: lets keep our hopes up, but if banning neonics is a > failure, let us not be shocked, and let us not give up. In the meantime, > here?s what you can do: DON?T BUY HONEY, jump at ever opportunity to not > devour it even in a restaurant, because bees have a hard enough time without > the additional hive stress of extraction. Don?t eat it, encourage friends > to not eat it, do your part in reducing the market so that beekeepers will > focus on renting their bees to nut and fruit growers. > Neonics is a worldwide problem, not just a USA/Mexico cross-border problem. I agree that there are probably other factors damaging the bees, but getting rid of neonics would be a good start. It might strengthen the bees enough that they could fight off the other problems. BillK From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 1 22:10:44 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 15:10:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] bees In-Reply-To: References: <00d801d2ab2f$8241ab00$86c50100$@att.net> Message-ID: <00f201d2ab34$cfd2bf30$6f783d90$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] bees On 1 April 2017 at 22:32, spike wrote: .. > >>... Moral of the story: lets keep our hopes up, but if banning neonics is > a failure, let us not be shocked, and let us not give up... > >...Neonics is a worldwide problem, not just a USA/Mexico cross-border problem. I agree that there are probably other factors damaging the bees, but getting rid of neonics would be a good start. It might strengthen the bees enough that they could fight off the other problems...BillK _______________________________________________ Ja I am hoping for some reliable data coming out of the European experiments with banning neonics. I don't know the details, but the EU led out on the ban. Slightly complicating the picture is a difference (difficult to quantify in itself) in resistance of European honeybees to the ravages of Varroa mites. The US was quick to import Australian queens which are known to be highly resistant to Varroas, possibly at the expense of lowered resistance to tracheal mites (whooda thunk, there are bugs that live inside the trachea of a bee?) spike From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Apr 1 23:12:12 2017 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 19:12:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 8:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote: ?> ? > I know better than to argue with you, but I want to note that your have > not presented experimental data but a somewhat cherry-picked observation. ?Jason, my heart is with libertarianism, if I was in the cherry picking business I'd pick statistics it cast it in a favorable light, but I value my brain and the scientific method more than I value any political system, even libertarianism. ? ?> ? > I agree that the US would likely be better off with single payer, but I > disagree with using your single statistic as the basis of reaching such a > conclusion. > ?It's not a single statistic!!! It's comparing the results of a multi trillion dollar healthcare policy in 31 countries involving a billion people over a period of decades, and the more libertarian policy did NOT come out on top. That is not an opinion and it's not a alternative fact, it's just a fact supported by a mountain of data. As a libertarian I wish the data had told us something else but as a rational man I refuse to argue with reality; after all intelligence means adapting to changing information. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Sat Apr 1 23:45:20 2017 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 19:45:20 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 1, 2017 at 7:12 PM, John Clark wrote: > On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 8:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > > ?> ? >> I know better than to argue with you, but I want to note that your have >> not presented experimental data but a somewhat cherry-picked observation. > > > ?Jason, my heart is with libertarianism, if I was in the cherry picking > business I'd pick statistics it cast it in a favorable light, but I value > my brain and the scientific method more than I value any political system, > even libertarianism. ? > I meant it is cherry-picked data in the way it is framed: It picks the 30 countries that have higher life expectancies than the US. This frames the argument in a particular way, and ignores the majority of the available data: the 145 other countries that have lower health expectancies than the US. Imagine if I offered a similar statistic: "Of the top 17 countries with the highest GDP per capita , the US is dead last, in the 17th spot. Of these 17 countries, the US is the only one with a constitutional republic form of government. All of the top 5 countries, and 80% of the top 10 countries are monarchies. Monarchies are clearly the best form of government for maximizing GDP per capita. If we switch our system of government to a monarchy our GDP per capita will surely rise." Do you see any problems with this reasoning? > > ?> ? >> I agree that the US would likely be better off with single payer, but I >> disagree with using your single statistic as the basis of reaching such a >> conclusion. >> > > ?It's not a single statistic!!! It's comparing the results of a multi > trillion dollar healthcare policy in 31 countries involving a billion > people over a period of decades, and the more libertarian policy did NOT > come out on top. > Should it? Are there not other factors at play, such as the ones I mentioned. > That is not an opinion and it's not a alternative fact, it's just a fact > supported by a mountain of data. As a libertarian I wish the data had told > us something else but as a rational man I refuse to argue with reality; > after all intelligence means adapting to changing information. > > A fact, yes, but one that offers very little about what should be done. The fact you present is that the US is 31st out of 196 countries in life expectancy. There are many observations one could make about this fact. You draw our attention to an observation that the US has a different health system from the other countries, but actually, nearly every country has a unique health system from all the others. Thus study, names many determinants of health: http://phprimer.afmc.ca/Part1-TheoryThinkingAboutHealth/Chapter2DeterminantsOfHealthAndHealthInequities/DeterminantsofHealth Should we ignore the other determinants? If so why? Should we not do the scientific thing, and examine past experiments or conduct new ones to test your theory? Jason -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 00:10:54 2017 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 20:10:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: <58D43FCE.3040506@yahoo.com> <6bc137e7-9da4-3908-f488-85ac3310cd6a@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 1, 2017 William Flynn Wallace wrote: > ?> ? > The term I learned is 'operational definition' - you define your terms, > ego, atom, anything you want to study by the scientific method, by the way > you measure it > ?I ?know of no way to measure consciousness or use the scientific method to study it unless a assumption is made that has never been proven and will never be proven, that there is a relationship between intelligent behavior and consciousness. From Godel we know there are a infinite number of true statements that can not be proven, not because the proof is hard to find but because the proof does not exist. > ?> ? > If you cannot do that, you cannot claim to have produced a scientific fact > with your experiments. ?And there are no scientific facts about consciousness, that's why consciousness theories are so easy to dream up, there are no facts they must fit, one works as well as another unless certain axioms are assumed to be true. ? ?> ? > I only object to your use of a circular definition. ? Without examples all definitions are circular if you plumb them to their depth, and all correct mathematical equations are tautologies > ?> > I think we basically agree in that you argue that an 'example' is what > justifies the use of the word 'science'. > It's not just science, examples of how people use words is how lexicographers got the information to figure out how to write the definitions in their dictionary. Examples begat definitions not the other way around. > > ?> ? > People outside of science are puzzled by such definitions as > 'intelligence is what intelligence tests measure'. > ?That works, but its a example not a definition, so is intelligence is the sort of behavior Einstein engaged in when he worked on physics. John K Clark ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 00:19:55 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 19:19:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: <58D43FCE.3040506@yahoo.com> <6bc137e7-9da4-3908-f488-85ac3310cd6a@gmail.com> Message-ID: And there are no scientific facts about consciousness, John wrote -- It seems to me that quite a few EEG type studies have been done trying to locate the center of consciousness. There are studies of subliminal perception also, which involve influencing the person while bypassing consciousness. Are these not scientific? I do acknowledge that there are tons of junk around about this subject, mostly from philosophers. bill w On Sat, Apr 1, 2017 at 7:10 PM, John Clark wrote: > On Sat, Apr 1, 2017 William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > >> ?> ? >> The term I learned is 'operational definition' - you define your terms, >> ego, atom, anything you want to study by the scientific method, by the way >> you measure it >> > > ?I ?know of no way to measure consciousness or use the scientific method > to study it unless a assumption is made that has never been proven and will > never be proven, that there is a relationship between intelligent behavior > and consciousness. From Godel we know there are a infinite number of true > statements that can not be proven, not because the proof is hard to find > but because the proof does not exist. > > > >> ?> ? >> If you cannot do that, you cannot claim to have produced a scientific >> fact with your experiments. > > > ?And there are no scientific facts about consciousness, that's why > consciousness theories are so easy to dream up, there are no facts they > must fit, one works as well as another unless certain axioms are assumed to > be true. ? > > > ?> ? >> I only object to your use of a circular definition. > > > ? > Without examples all definitions are circular if you plumb them to their > depth, and all correct mathematical equations are tautologies > > >> ?> >> I think we basically agree in that you argue that an 'example' is what >> justifies the use of the word 'science'. >> > > It's not just science, examples of how people use words is how > lexicographers got the information to figure out how to write the > definitions in their dictionary. Examples begat definitions not the other > way around. > >> >> ?> ? >> People outside of science are puzzled by such definitions as >> 'intelligence is what intelligence tests measure'. >> > > ?That works, but its a example not a definition, so is intelligence is > the sort of behavior Einstein engaged in when he worked on physics. > > John K Clark > > > ? > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 00:24:20 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 19:24:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] bees In-Reply-To: <00f201d2ab34$cfd2bf30$6f783d90$@att.net> References: <00d801d2ab2f$8241ab00$86c50100$@att.net> <00f201d2ab34$cfd2bf30$6f783d90$@att.net> Message-ID: spike wrote: (whooda thunk, there are bugs that live inside the trachea of a bee?) --- Also in your trachea, but not in your lungs (immune system gets them there or you are seriousl ill) - also in volcano vents at the bottom of the ocean featuring temps of over 230 F = also some living inside other bacteria -- just read an amazing book about them bill w On Sat, Apr 1, 2017 at 5:10 PM, spike wrote: > > >... On Behalf Of BillK > Subject: Re: [ExI] bees > > On 1 April 2017 at 22:32, spike wrote: > > .. > > > >>... Moral of the story: lets keep our hopes up, but if banning neonics is > > a failure, let us not be shocked, and let us not give up... > > > > >...Neonics is a worldwide problem, not just a USA/Mexico cross-border > problem. > I agree that there are probably other factors damaging the bees, but > getting rid of neonics would be a good start. It might strengthen the bees > enough that they could fight off the other problems...BillK > > _______________________________________________ > > Ja I am hoping for some reliable data coming out of the European > experiments with banning neonics. I don't know the details, but the EU led > out on the ban. Slightly complicating the picture is a difference > (difficult to quantify in itself) in resistance of European honeybees to > the ravages of Varroa mites. The US was quick to import Australian queens > which are known to be highly resistant to Varroas, possibly at the expense > of lowered resistance to tracheal mites (whooda thunk, there are bugs that > live inside the trachea of a bee?) > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 00:46:21 2017 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 20:46:21 -0400 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 3:46 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > i am going back to aspirin - i take naproxen and it's in the same class - > nsaids > ### Or better, don't take anything. Mind over matter. Grin and bear it. ZFG. I had a lumbar discetomy for a large herniated disc which happened during some over-enthusiastic skiing in did in February. For a few days before the surgery I had pain which occasionally made it difficult to breathe but I didn't take any medications. Ten hours after the surgery I went to work and hobbled around the hospital very pale. But after a few days the pain resolved and now I am back to baseline. NSAIDS are bad for you. Take only 81 mg aspirin daily for life extension, don't take anything else, even acetaminophen (Tylenol). If you are in pain, you know you are alive. If it's not cancer pain, live with it. It beats the side effects of pain meds. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 01:00:45 2017 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 21:00:45 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Orbital skyscraper proposal In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Mar 26, 2017 at 2:52 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > > > I will be surprised if anyone *ever* pulls off an earth to GEO > elevator. Carbon nanotubes are about the best we have. When you put > a stress on a nanotube that's needed for elevators, the 6 member rings > become unstable to 5 and 7 member rings and it unzips like a run in a > stocking. ### Wouldn't it be better to build a combined system with a GEO elevator ending somewhere in lower orbit, way out of the atmosphere, have intermediate size non-geosynchronous elevators with the lowest one reaching almost to the atmosphere, and more conventional systems to reach the lowest elevator? This system would not need unobtainium to build, would have more redundancy, failure of an intermediate stage elevator would not destroy the whole system, and the benefits of full-length GEO elevator would be still there. Sure, there would be some chicanery involved in jumping from one elevator to another but it shouldn't be a showstopper. Actually, all this won't matter once we have self-replicating technology, which might happen in the next 50 years but that's another story. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 01:10:34 2017 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2017 01:10:34 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: <01c301d2aa82$53497880$f9dc6980$@att.net> References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> <01c301d2aa82$53497880$f9dc6980$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 1 Apr 2017 at 12:08 pm, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *Jason Resch > > > > *>?*The Swiss model is not single payer but is consumer driven, with > individuals purchasing insurance directly. > > > > >?Clearly their model is cheaper than ours, since they also spend a much > smaller fraction of their GDP than the US. > > > > >?But the US also subsidizes medical research for the rest of the world > and tolerates monopolistic price fixing which leads to much greater costs. > > > > >?Jason > > > > > > > > Cost comparisons between US doctors and most of the rest of the world are > invalid unless we agree on how to compare doctors who go to medical school > right out of high school vs how we do it here: Americans usually need a > college degree before they can get into medical school. Those > undergraduate degrees take a big investment in time and money; of course > US-trained doctors will cost more, a lot more. It might make them better > doctors, but we don?t really know for sure, ja? > The straight-out-of-school medical courses are long, usually 6 years with an extra year of internship and then another 4-5 years in order to specialise. Alternative: make Health Science a college major, where the graduates come > out of a three year or four year training course knowing a lot about what > you can do with over the counter meds, how to recognize the common stuff, > stop claiming they are practicing medicine without a license, make them > immune from lawsuit if they screw up and so forth. Their services should > be affordable, guessing about a quarter the price for half the > effectiveness. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 01:28:32 2017 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 21:28:32 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 1, 2017 at 7:45 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > ?> ? > I meant it is cherry-picked data in the way it is framed: It picks the 30 > countries that have higher life expectancies than the US. ?Obviously. If you assume you don't know everything and can learn how to improve your performance on some task then you look to people who are good at that task not people who are bad at it. > ?> ? > This frames the argument in a particular way, and ignores the majority of > the available data: the 145 other countries that have lower health > expectancies than the US. ?Every single one of those 145 countries spends dramatically less on healthcare than the USA, so it's not a surprise they have shorter lives than those in the USA. The less surprising something is the less information it has. But 30 countries spend much less on health than the USA but live longer. Now that is surprising and thus has lots of information we can use. ? ?>> ? >> ?It's not a single statistic!!! It's comparing the results of a multi >> trillion dollar healthcare policy in 31 countries involving a billion >> people over a period of decades, and the more libertarian policy did NOT >> come out on top. >> > > ?> ? > Should it? > ?That depends on your goal, if it's to have the citizens of your country live longer and pay less then yes, it should. But it doesn't. ? ?>> ? >> That is not an opinion and it's not a alternative fact, it's just a fact >> supported by a mountain of data. As a libertarian I wish the data had told >> us something else but as a rational man I refuse to argue with reality; >> after all intelligence means adapting to changing information. >> > > ?> ? > A fact, yes, but one that offers very little about what should be done. > ?Oh come on Jason, ?I like libertarianism too but you don't want to be a apologist for it like Sean Spicer ? is for Trump.? ?> ? > Should we not do the scientific thing, and examine past experiments or > conduct new ones to test your theory? > ?Good God! A test has already been done and it involved a billion people trillions of dollars and several decades, but you need a even bigger even longer test before you're convinced libertarian dogma might need some modification as we approach the singularity. John K Clark > > Jason > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 01:31:08 2017 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 21:31:08 -0400 Subject: [ExI] GOV _ TRUMP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 5:41 PM, Dylan Distasio wrote: > I think someone on this list has lost their reason. Hyperbole much on the > Nuremberg comment? > > And I still haven't heard a suggestion from you on how to alleviate that > wealth gap that doesn't involve forced redistribution (I include taxation > under this umbrella since it is conducted at the barrel of a gun). > > Globalism has attempted to destroy the fabric and importance of sovereign > nation states. This cycle that began with Brexit, followed by Trump, and > possibly Le Pen is the blowback. > ### Compared to market participants the state is controlled by relatively weak, imprecise and slow feedback loops aggregating conflicting control inputs and noisy data. Poor control means poor correlation between control inputs and system outputs, i.e. people getting screwed over. And the more levels there are in the system, the poorer are the feedback controls. Globalism in this context refers (or should refer) to the system of transnational bureaucracies that are not subject to the usual feedback loops found in nation-states, i.e. elections, economic/market feedback and threats of revolt or war. Such globalist bureaucracies (UN, EU, the elements of the US government that collaborate with the UN, various NGOs) are almost out of control, treading their own path away from and independently of what normal humans want and need, with only a smidgen of control exerted by narrow groups. No surprise then that the powerless are the first to suffer from the fallout of globalist policies so defined and they are the first to object, in a mostly blind and ineffective way. BTW, I am a globalist but defined much differently - I support free trade and free association between individuals throughout the world. Maybe we should invent a new word to describe this kind of globalism. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 01:39:52 2017 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 21:39:52 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: <58D43FCE.3040506@yahoo.com> <6bc137e7-9da4-3908-f488-85ac3310cd6a@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 1, 2017 William Flynn Wallace wrote: > It seems to me that quite a few EEG type studies have been done trying > to locate the center of consciousness. ?How on ?earth are they ever going to do that unless they first make the assumption that there is a link between behavior and consciousness? ?John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 01:48:28 2017 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 21:48:28 -0400 Subject: [ExI] GOV _ TRUMP In-Reply-To: References: <20170304192512.4196350257B@mail.openmailbox.org> <2F84D03B-2943-4555-8F46-24FE7BBECC13@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 10:54 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > > Another issue: there is no such thing as a one size fits all philosophy. > If we have not learned anything from the past few years, it's that adhering > strictly to one position, like the tea party, is destructive of normal > compromise and give and take. Radical anything is not going to work. > > ### It does work if you can destroy your enemy. An our enemies think they can destroy us, which is why they are implacable in their attacks, seeking no "give" only "take". You read "Rules for Radicals", no? Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 02:03:34 2017 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 22:03:34 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 10:56 AM, Dylan Distasio wrote: > Apologies for the lack of a detailed reply, but I do not think it is a > fact that single payer healthcare systems "work great." They are currently > functioning and providing universal coverage. Working great is another > story. I'll reiterate that I think the current US system is incredibly > problematic. I think you are heavily discounting the rationing effect > that is part and parcel of any single payer plan. Do you think that the > UK's single payer system is working great? If so, what dispassionate > metrics are you basing this on? > ### For me support for single-payer medical care is a discussion-stopper: It takes complete ignorance of the issue or ulterior motives to come to this position, and don't like spending time with the ignorant. But it's good to see somebody fighting the good fight. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 02:07:01 2017 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 22:07:01 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 11:35 AM, Dylan Distasio wrote: > Since you seem to be hung up on the longevity metric, I would remind you > that correlation does not imply causation, and that one stat you're > bandying about does not tell the whole picture. The issue is more > complicated than that. As I mentioned, they are also profiting from the US > subsidizing their drugs. There is also the question of how outcomes > compare for individual diseases across these nations, and what treatments > are covered. > > It is not as simple as saying the AVERAGE citizen lives longer and on the > surface it costs less, so it is an open and shut case, single payer wins > and is the reason they are living longer. If you truly believe that, I > guess I don't have much else to say on the topic. > ### Most single-payers never heard about the Rand experiment, which showed no effect of free medical care on longevity. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 02:15:07 2017 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 22:15:07 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 5:38 PM, John Clark wrote: > > > ?Be honest Dan, if the 30 single payer countries I mentioned spent twice > as much on healthcare as the USA and yet their citizens had shorted lives > than the USA would you be complaining about > sampling errors > ? and? > ? ? > experimental > ? > ? bias? We both know you wouldn't. ? > ### John, you keep repeating this stuff as if it mattered. Here is a conundrum for you: People often die in the hospital or right after discharge. So, wouldn't it make sense to just close all hospitals in order to keep people living longer? If you can think your way through this puzzle, you will be on your way to noticing the irrelevance of that statistic of yours. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 05:18:09 2017 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2017 05:18:09 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: <58D43FCE.3040506@yahoo.com> <6bc137e7-9da4-3908-f488-85ac3310cd6a@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 2 Apr 2017 at 10:23 am, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > And there are no scientific facts about consciousness, John wrote > > -- > It seems to me that quite a few EEG type studies have been done trying to > locate the center of consciousness. > > There are studies of subliminal perception also, which involve influencing > the person while bypassing consciousness. > > Are these not scientific? I do acknowledge that there are tons of junk > around about this subject, mostly from philosophers. > The studies try to find a correlation between awareness or awareness and patterns in the brain. They do not demonstrate consciousness. This is why for a long time scientists thought consciousness was bullshit - you couldn't study it scientifically. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 2 05:15:48 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 22:15:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> Message-ID: <013401d2ab70$317454c0$945cfe40$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Jason Resch ? >?I meant it is cherry-picked data in the way it is framed: It picks the 30 countries that have higher life expectancies than the US. This frames the argument in a particular way, and ignores the majority of the available data: the 145 other countries that have lower health expectancies than the US?Jason Ja. I don?t know how the statistics deal with the well-known phenom where if one has something really seriously wrong, something likely to be fatal in any country where medical care is free, the best bet is to get oneself to the states where healthcare is very expensive but might save one?s ass. Chances are better anyway. Most USians know of Canadians who have done hail Mary plays down here. That means we get a lot of really sick people who spend a buttload of money on something that may or may not work. How does it figure in? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 13:27:32 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 08:27:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 3:46 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > i am going back to aspirin - i take naproxen and it's in the same class - > nsaids > Update - I tried two aspirin at bedtime and woke up the next morning with a lot of pain, so I am going back to naproxen - I don't experience any side effects. Life is too short to live with pain like that. If it will shorten my life a bit, it's a fair trade-off. bill w On Sat, Apr 1, 2017 at 7:46 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > > > On Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 3:46 PM, William Flynn Wallace < > foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> i am going back to aspirin - i take naproxen and it's in the same class - >> nsaids >> > > ### Or better, don't take anything. Mind over matter. Grin and bear it. > ZFG. > > I had a lumbar discetomy for a large herniated disc which happened during > some over-enthusiastic skiing in did in February. For a few days before the > surgery I had pain which occasionally made it difficult to breathe but I > didn't take any medications. Ten hours after the surgery I went to work and > hobbled around the hospital very pale. But after a few days the pain > resolved and now I am back to baseline. > > NSAIDS are bad for you. Take only 81 mg aspirin daily for life extension, > don't take anything else, even acetaminophen (Tylenol). > > If you are in pain, you know you are alive. If it's not cancer pain, live > with it. It beats the side effects of pain meds. > > Rafal > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 13:34:38 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 08:34:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: <58D43FCE.3040506@yahoo.com> <6bc137e7-9da4-3908-f488-85ac3310cd6a@gmail.com> Message-ID: Stathis wrote: The studies try to find a correlation between awareness or awareness and patterns in the brain. They do not demonstrate consciousness. ----- Is there a difference between awareness and consciousness? I would equate them. bill w ?How on ?earth are they ever going to do that unless they first make the assumption that there is a link between behavior and consciousness? ?John K Clark? You poke someone who is asleep and get no behavior. You poke them when awake and they might poke you back. Clear link between behavior and consciousness/awareness/ alertness/pick your term. You don't need assumptions when you have clear correlations between stages of consciousness and behavior. bill w On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 12:18 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > On Sun, 2 Apr 2017 at 10:23 am, William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > >> And there are no scientific facts about consciousness, John wrote >> >> -- >> It seems to me that quite a few EEG type studies have been done trying to >> locate the center of consciousness. >> >> There are studies of subliminal perception also, which involve >> influencing the person while bypassing consciousness. >> >> Are these not scientific? I do acknowledge that there are tons of junk >> around about this subject, mostly from philosophers. >> > > The studies try to find a correlation between awareness or awareness and > patterns in the brain. They do not demonstrate consciousness. This is why > for a long time scientists thought consciousness was bullshit - you > couldn't study it scientifically. > >> -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 14:02:55 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 09:02:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] bees Message-ID: Here is something a friend found: If you do go to a big box kind of nursery (Home Depot or Lowes), just check the stick that has the information about sun, watering, temperature, etc. In the smallest lettering is the information saying that neonicotinoids were used. I have no idea if this is universal among big box stores. bill w > > >> >>... Moral of the story: lets keep our hopes up, but if banning neonics >> is >> > a failure, let us not be shocked, and let us not give up... >> > >> >> >...Neonics is a worldwide problem, not just a USA/Mexico cross-border >> problem. >> I agree that there are probably other factors damaging the bees, but >> getting rid of neonics would be a good start. It might strengthen the bees >> enough that they could fight off the other problems...BillK >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> Ja I am hoping for some reliable data coming out of the European >> experiments with banning neonics. I don't know the details, but the EU led >> out on the ban. Slightly complicating the picture is a difference >> (difficult to quantify in itself) in resistance of European honeybees to >> the ravages of Varroa mites. The US was quick to import Australian queens >> which are known to be highly resistant to Varroas, possibly at the expense >> of lowered resistance to tracheal mites (whooda thunk, there are bugs that >> live inside the trachea of a bee?) >> >> 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 johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 14:10:31 2017 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 10:10:31 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 1, 2017 at 10:15 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki < rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> ? >> ?>> ? >> Be honest Dan, if the 30 single payer countries I mentioned spent twice >> as much on healthcare as the USA and yet their citizens had shorted lives >> than the USA would you be complaining about >> sampling errors >> ? and? >> ? ? >> experimental >> ? >> ? bias? We both know you wouldn't. ? >> > > ?> ? > ### John, you keep repeating this stuff as if it mattered. > ?Silly me, I thought people living longer and paying less mattered. What could I have been thinking? ?> ? > Here is a conundrum for you: People often die in the hospital or right > after discharge. So, wouldn't it make sense to just close all hospitals in > order to keep people living longer? > ? > If you can think your way through this puzzle, > ?I'm sorry, that was supposed to ?be a puzzle? > ?> ? > you will be on your way to noticing the irrelevance of that statistic of > yours. > Yes, I ? ? foolishly thought a statistic on how long people lived and how much that cost might have some relevance to ? ? how long people lived and how much that cost. ?> ? > For me support for single-payer medical care is a discussion-stopper: It > takes complete ignorance of the issue or ulterior motives to come to this > position, Rafal ?, I think I already know the answer to this question but I'm going to ask it anyway: Which is more important to you, libertarianism or the scientific method? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 14:18:58 2017 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 10:18:58 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: <013401d2ab70$317454c0$945cfe40$@att.net> References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> <013401d2ab70$317454c0$945cfe40$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 1:15 AM, spike wrote: > ?> ? > Most USians know of Canadians who have done hail Mary plays down here. > That means we get a lot of really sick people who spend a buttload of money > on something that may or may not work. How does it figure in? ?I'm a ?USian and I don't know anybody like that, but I do know of some who go to Canada to buy drugs because they are much cheaper. And I know how that figures in. John K Clark > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 2 15:03:03 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 08:03:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> <013401d2ab70$317454c0$945cfe40$@att.net> Message-ID: <027501d2abc2$3af8e180$b0eaa480$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2017 7:19 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 1:15 AM, spike > wrote: ?> ?>?Most USians know of Canadians who have done hail Mary plays down here. That means we get a lot of really sick people who spend a buttload of money on something that may or may not work. How does it figure in? ?>?I'm a ?USian and I don't know anybody like that, but I do know of some who go to Canada to buy drugs because they are much cheaper. And I know how that figures in. John K Clark Clarification: when I lived in Washington state, we had Canadians who came to the US for cancer treatment in particular. When one gets cancer, the speed and competence of treatment is everything. In the Canadian system if a patent gets cancer and needs aggressive treatment, they are treated in a particular order with that order decided somehow (how?) Canadian triage takes into account age, chances of recovery, general state of health and so forth. The US system does not. The Canadian comes to the US, where the order and extent of treatment is determined by what the patient can afford. When one is going to die, one can afford a lot of things once thought too expensive. John how did you think they distribute medical care in countries where the government pays? You should get to know some Canadians, particularly ones who have come to the USA for medical treatments. Regarding going to Canada to buy drugs: they are much cheaper there. Canada doesn?t really need a system like we have to determine the safety and efficacy of a drug. That process of FDA approval costs over a billion dollars, a billion *real* US dollars. Since Canada (and everywhere else) can just use US FDA approved drugs without that enormous expense, they can sell the drugs much cheaper, with the cost of production a tiny fraction the cost of FDA approval. USians pick up the tab for the FDA. When I lived in Washington I knew plenty of USians who did exactly that: took a day trip to Canada to load up on medications. Well, that doesn?t seem quite right, so let?s do this: US-ians can use drugs that are approved by another country?s version of the FDA, some place with a very high tax rate. How about? Burundi. If Burundi?s FDA approves a medical treatment program, we just use theirs, free. We can disband our FDA, don?t need them. If Burundi?s standard treatment for cancer is a feathered bone-thru-the-nose guy dancing around casting out evil spirits, well that shouldn?t cost much, doesn?t require any particular medical equipment (depending on how you count the nose bone (those aren?t cheap you know.)) This approach leaves still a number of imponderables, such as: do the witch doctors employ witch nurses? And after the procedure is there a recovery facility, and if so, is it called a witch nursing home? What are their medical review boards like? Bet that?s a hoot. Do the medical students need an undergrad degree in Burundi? And what if the witch doctor is incompetent, the surgery goes wrong and she accidentally casts out a good spirit, causing the patient to get worse? Are witch doctors required to carry malpractice insurance? And what if we discover a witch doctor isn?t really a doctor but is an actual literal witch, who falsified medical or spiritual credentials? What if she is in practice with someone who is a doctor but isn?t a witch? If the two work together can they qualify? Which witch is guilty of malpractice? We know US style medicine is expensive the way we do it. The US is subsidizing drug development for the whole world. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jasonresch at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 15:21:56 2017 From: jasonresch at gmail.com (Jason Resch) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 11:21:56 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 27, 2017 at 10:06 PM, John Clark wrote: > The USA spends FAR more on healthcare than any other country on the planet > and has done so for many decades, yet it doesn't seem to be getting much > bang for the buck. In 2016 the USA spends $9451 per-person per-year on > healthcare but is only #31 on the list of countries with the longest lived > citizens; Japan is #1 on the longevity list and spend only $4150 per person > per year, Australia is # 4 and spends $4420, and at #31 is the USA which > spends $9451. Every one of the top 30 longevity countries have 2 things in > common: > > 1) They all spend far less on healthcare than the USA does. > 2) Unlike the USA they all have Single Payer Healthcare. > Are you sure about point 2? A cursory look revealed the top 3 countries by life expectancy are Japan, Switzerland, and Singapore. It seems none of these countries have a single-payer system. In Japan, the consumer pays 30% of the cost. In Switzerland, they have a mandatory private insurance system. In Singapore, all medical services are required to have patient-paid fees. Jason > > We are extropians and thus are believers in the scientific method, that > means if a theory doesn't fit the facts it must be abandoned no matter how > beloved it may be, and that includes political theories. So as a extropian > do you think maybe those top 30 longevity countries can teach us something? > > > John K Clark > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sun Apr 2 16:26:19 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 09:26:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: <027501d2abc2$3af8e180$b0eaa480$@att.net> References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> <013401d2ab70$317454c0$945cfe40$@att.net> <027501d2abc2$3af8e180$b0eaa480$@att.net> Message-ID: <02b601d2abcd$dcd3d040$967b70c0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike >?Well, that doesn?t seem quite right, so let?s do this: US-ians can use drugs that are approved by another country?s version of the FDA, some place with a very high tax rate. How about? Burundi. If Burundi?s FDA approves a medical treatment program, we just use theirs, free. We can disband our FDA, don?t need them?We know US style medicine is expensive the way we do it. The US is subsidizing drug development for the whole world. Spike And what if? the US patterns its medical system after Burundi and the Fed pays everything. Some form of rationing is needed still. You can go to any doctor, but only once, since she is busy and needs to see other patients. The doctor dances, utters incantations, calls upon the gods, casts out the evil demons making you sick. Government pays for everything, but only one doctor, one visit, once. If so, would that be called a single-prayer medical system? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 17:15:18 2017 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 13:15:18 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: <58D43FCE.3040506@yahoo.com> <6bc137e7-9da4-3908-f488-85ac3310cd6a@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 9:34 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: You poke someone who is asleep and get no behavior. You poke them when > awake and they might poke you back. Clear link between behavior and > consciousness/awareness/ alertness/pick your term. You don't need > assumptions You don't need assumptions ? ? to know that people in the awake state behave differently than people in the sleep state, but so what, we're talking about consciousness ? ? not behavior. The assumption is so deeply ingrained we seldom even think about it, ? ? but it's there. Most people believe a sleeping person or a rock or a tree or a human cadaver is not conscious because ? ? they ? ? implicitly or explicitly ? ? assume there is a link between intelligent behavior and consciousness. Perhaps they're assumption is correct, I have a hunch they might be on the right track and thus I may not be the only conscious being in the universe ? after all? , but neither they nor I will ever be able to prove it. ? John K Clark? ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 18:05:01 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 13:05:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: <58D43FCE.3040506@yahoo.com> <6bc137e7-9da4-3908-f488-85ac3310cd6a@gmail.com> Message-ID: I have a hunch they might be on the right track and thus I may not be the only conscious being in the universe ? after all? , but neither they nor I will ever be able to prove it. ? John K Clark? Here's the thing: I want to get you to agree that study of alertness, or whatever you want to call it, is or can be scientific. It is clearly a variable within and between people, it seems to account for a lot of what we see coming or no coming out of a person (coma, for ex.), and thus it needs a name and I don't care what that is. It all comes down to definitions, or examples if you want, and whether you or I are anyone is conscious is dependent on what examples or definitions we choose, and thus we can clearly say that someone is or isn't conscious depending on those examples or definitions. If I poke you while asleep and while awake I will get very similar behavior to what others will show, and thus this is a test, or proof, of whatever you choose to name the variable in question. If this is not a test of consciousness according to the examples you would like to use, then I'd like to know what you would use. If you think that no one will ever prove that others are conscious then poking will not suffice as an example in your opinion. Every abstract variable, as I am sure I don't have to tell you, is always and forever in an 'as if' context. It is 'as if' they have a big ego, or high intelligence, or low sociability, or poor use of language. So as with consciousness: it is 'as if' they are conscious if they respond in certain ways in certain conditions. Thus consciousness is not a fact of life; it is a theoretical construct explaining certain facts. It thus can never 'be' a fact. bill w On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 12:15 PM, John Clark wrote: > > > On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 9:34 AM, William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > > You poke someone who is asleep and get no behavior. You poke them when >> awake and they might poke you back. Clear link between behavior and >> consciousness/awareness/ alertness/pick your term. You don't need >> assumptions > > > > You don't need assumptions > ? ? > to know that people in the awake state behave differently than people in > the sleep state, but so what, we're talking about consciousness > ? ? > not behavior. The assumption is so deeply ingrained we seldom even think > about it, > ? ? > but it's there. Most people believe a sleeping person or a rock or a tree > or a human cadaver is not conscious because > ? ? > they > ? ? > implicitly or explicitly > ? ? > assume there is a link between intelligent behavior and consciousness. > Perhaps they're assumption is correct, I have a hunch they might be on the > right track and thus I may not be the only conscious being in the universe > ? after all? > , but neither they nor I will ever be able to prove it. > > ? John K Clark? > > > > ? > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 19:35:38 2017 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2017 19:35:38 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: <027501d2abc2$3af8e180$b0eaa480$@att.net> References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> <013401d2ab70$317454c0$945cfe40$@att.net> <027501d2abc2$3af8e180$b0eaa480$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 3 Apr 2017 at 1:19 am, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *John Clark > *Sent:* Sunday, April 02, 2017 7:19 AM > > > *To:* ExI chat list > > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare > > > > On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 1:15 AM, spike wrote: > > > > > > ?> ?>?Most USians know of Canadians who have done hail Mary plays down > here. That means we get a lot of really sick people who spend a buttload > of money on something that may or may not work. How does it figure in? > > > > ?>?I'm a ?USian and I don't know anybody like that, but I do know of some > who go to Canada to buy drugs because they are much cheaper. And I know how > that figures in. > > > > John K Clark > > > > > > Clarification: when I lived in Washington state, we had Canadians who came > to the US for cancer treatment in particular. When one gets cancer, the > speed and competence of treatment is everything. In the Canadian system if > a patent gets cancer and needs aggressive treatment, they are treated in a > particular order with that order decided somehow (how?) > > > > Canadian triage takes into account age, chances of recovery, general state > of health and so forth. The US system does not. The Canadian comes to the > US, where the order and extent of treatment is determined by what the > patient can afford. When one is going to die, one can afford a lot of > things once thought too expensive. > > > > John how did you think they distribute medical care in countries where the > government pays? You should get to know some Canadians, particularly ones > who have come to the USA for medical treatments. > > > > Regarding going to Canada to buy drugs: they are much cheaper there. > Canada doesn?t really need a system like we have to determine the safety > and efficacy of a drug. That process of FDA approval costs over a billion > dollars, a billion **real** US dollars. Since Canada (and everywhere > else) can just use US FDA approved drugs without that enormous expense, > they can sell the drugs much cheaper, with the cost of production a tiny > fraction the cost of FDA approval. USians pick up the tab for the FDA. > When I lived in Washington I knew plenty of USians who did exactly that: > took a day trip to Canada to load up on medications. > > > > Well, that doesn?t seem quite right, so let?s do this: US-ians can use > drugs that are approved by another country?s version of the FDA, some place > with a very high tax rate. How about? Burundi. If Burundi?s FDA approves > a medical treatment program, we just use theirs, free. We can disband our > FDA, don?t need them. If Burundi?s standard treatment for cancer is a > feathered bone-thru-the-nose guy dancing around casting out evil spirits, > well that shouldn?t cost much, doesn?t require any particular medical > equipment (depending on how you count the nose bone (those aren?t cheap you > know.)) > > > > This approach leaves still a number of imponderables, such as: do the > witch doctors employ witch nurses? And after the procedure is there a > recovery facility, and if so, is it called a witch nursing home? What are > their medical review boards like? Bet that?s a hoot. Do the medical > students need an undergrad degree in Burundi? And what if the witch doctor > is incompetent, the surgery goes wrong and she accidentally casts out a > good spirit, causing the patient to get worse? Are witch doctors required > to carry malpractice insurance? And what if we discover a witch doctor > isn?t really a doctor but is an actual literal witch, who falsified medical > or spiritual credentials? What if she is in practice with someone who is a > doctor but isn?t a witch? If the two work together can they qualify? > Which witch is guilty of malpractice? > > > > We know US style medicine is expensive the way we do it. The US is > subsidizing drug development for the whole world. > I'm not sure about Canada but in Australia there is a parallel private health system which anyone can access if they have private insurance or pay cash. The main advantage to this is that some elective procedures such as joint replacements are faster in the private system; you may only have to wait two weeks rather than two months. But complex and life-threatening conditions are often treated in public hospitals by choice even for the privately insured, because public hospitals have the best facilities and expertise. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 19:43:07 2017 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2017 19:43:07 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: <58D43FCE.3040506@yahoo.com> <6bc137e7-9da4-3908-f488-85ac3310cd6a@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 2 Apr 2017 at 11:44 pm, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Stathis wrote: The studies try to find a correlation between awareness or > awareness and patterns in the brain. They do not demonstrate consciousness. > > > ----- > Is there a difference between awareness and consciousness? I would equate > them. bill w > A robot may be aware of its surroundings, demonstrated by the fact that it can walk around, look for objects, pick them up and so on. But is it conscious? What experiment would you do to find out? > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 20:17:19 2017 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 16:17:19 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 11:21 AM, Jason Resch wrote: ?>> ? >> Every one of the top 30 longevity countries have 2 things in common: >> >> 1) They all spend far less on healthcare than the USA does. >> 2) Unlike the USA they all have Single Payer Healthcare. >> > > ?> ? > Are you sure about point 2? A cursory look revealed the top 3 countries > by life expectancy > are > Japan, Switzerland, and Singapore. > It seems none of these countries have a single-payer system. > ?From Wikipedia ?:? ?" ? ?[in Japan] *?* *Payment for personal medical services is offered ? ?by a universal health care insurance system that provides relative equality of access, with fees set by a government committee.* *?*"? *?"?Healthcare in Switzerland is universal and is regulated by the? ?Swiss Federal Law on Health Insurance. There are no free state-provided health services, but private health insurance is compulsory for all persons residing in Switzerland?"? * ?*"?* *Healthcare in Singapore is mainly under the responsibility of the Singapore Government's Ministry of Health. Singapore generally has an efficient and widespread system of healthcare. Singapore was ranked 6th in the World Health Organisation's ranking of the world's health systems in the year 2000. Bloomberg ranked Singapore?s healthcare system the most efficient in the world in 2014.?"?* ?All these systems are less libertarian than the US system, but they cost less and keep more people alive.? ?> ? In Japan, the consumer pays 30% of the cost. And in the USA before Obamacare ? 41 million people payed 100% of the cost, that number has shrunk to 28.5 million today but if the repeal and replace bill had passed the number would have increased to 52.5 million. Repeal and replace would have been even worse than just a straight repeal. John K Clark > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 21:13:10 2017 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 17:13:10 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Single Payer Healthcare In-Reply-To: <027501d2abc2$3af8e180$b0eaa480$@att.net> References: <74C02845-D558-44F0-83D5-6CB506A2BA8B@gmail.com> <013401d2ab70$317454c0$945cfe40$@att.net> <027501d2abc2$3af8e180$b0eaa480$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 11:03 AM, spike wrote: > ?> ? > when I lived in Washington state, we had Canadians who came to the US for > cancer treatment in particular. > > ?I think you're grasping at straws. Canada has a population of 35 million, the USA has a population of 320 million, I don't see how the tiny ?percentage of Canadians that come to the USA for health could have any significant effect on the mortality statistics of either country. ?> ? > John how did you think they distribute medical care in countries where the > government pays? ?Well.... I think they distribute medical care ? better than the way the USA does because the end result is they pay less and live longer. ? > ?> > You should get to know some Canadians, particularly ones who have come to > the USA for medical treatments. > > ? That would not be easy to do because they are pretty rare, in 2014 only 52,000 Canadians came to the USA for treatment, ? ? and ? nearly all of them were for non-critical ?? non-life threatening issues ?, and there is a waiting list for things like that. So yes, if you have lots of money and want a nose job ?s you'd be better off in the USA, but I know in the 1990s 60,000 people who claimed to be Canadians and got free healthcare as a result were later found to be from the USA; I'll bet the number is larger today. That's illegal but medical tourism is not and lots of people travel to New Zealand because surgical procedures there only cost 15% to 20% what the same thing does in the USA. John K Clark > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 21:23:06 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 16:23:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: <58D43FCE.3040506@yahoo.com> <6bc137e7-9da4-3908-f488-85ac3310cd6a@gmail.com> Message-ID: A robot may be aware of its surroundings, demonstrated by the fact that it can walk around, look for objects, pick them up and so on. But is it conscious? What experiment would you do to find out? Stathis Papaioannou The robot is no more and no less aware than a self-driving car. I would not call the robot aware. What frustrates me is that some posters seem to equate awareness and consciousness and some don't, like you. The robot and the car are S-R creatures. They receive stimuli and react to them according to their programming. People are S-O-R, meaning that above the stimuli that are being processed, there are meta functions checking the S-R behaviors and seeing if that's really what they want to do, and changing the program on the fly if not. If robots have meta functions, and I know just about nothing about robots and AI, then I am wrong, and the robots and AI are functionally equivalent to a person. John doesn't like definitions, but I do, so what's the difference between awareness and consciousness explicit in your question? bill w On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 2:43 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > On Sun, 2 Apr 2017 at 11:44 pm, William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > >> Stathis wrote: The studies try to find a correlation between awareness >> or awareness and patterns in the brain. They do not demonstrate >> consciousness. >> >> ----- >> Is there a difference between awareness and consciousness? I would >> equate them. bill w >> > > A robot may be aware of its surroundings, demonstrated by the fact that it > can walk around, look for objects, pick them up and so on. But is it > conscious? What experiment would you do to find out? > >> -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 22:49:28 2017 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 18:49:28 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Shadows and the concept of self In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 1, 2017 at 2:37 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: > ?> ? > thinking of splitting and recombining worlds is a simplified way to > describe a reality that is much more complex > ?Splitting is much easier than recombining. Worlds split when they change, they recombine when they become identical again, if the change is small then they might become the same again but if the change is large they're never going to recombine, that's why we see weird stuff at the sub atomic level but not at the macroscopic level. Or at least that's the reason if the MWI is correct. ? > ?> ? > Many Minds comes closer, but it's still a simplification - I think the > many minds are shadows of One Mind. Having now studied Everett's original > papers and those of DeWitt, Wheeler's etc., I suspect Everett himself > wouldn't disagree. > ?I think Everett would disagree. ?The entire advantage of Many Worlds is it doesn't need to open a can of worms like mind or consciousness or measurement or observation. There is nothing special about a observer, when things change he splits just like everything else ?> ? > I am writing a new essay with thoughts on my interpretation of Everett's > interpretations, with plenty of links. In the meantime, I recommend reading > Peter Byrne's biography: > https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-many-worlds-of-h > ugh-everett-iii-9780199552276 > ?I wrote a review of Byrne's book for the list back in 2010, I'll repeat it here:? ?I? 've just finished this book and its one of the most enjoyable things I've read in ? a long time. Being a staple of science fiction and the only interpretation of quantum ? mechanics to enter the popular imagination it's a little surprising that "The Many ? Worlds of Hugh Everett" by Peter Byrne is the first biography of the originator of that amazing idea. Everett certainly had an interesting life, he was a libertarian and a libertine, became a cold warrior who with his top secret clearance was comfortable with the idea of megadeath, became wealthy by started one of the first successful software companies until alcoholism drove him and his company into the ?g? round. ? ? Everett died of heart failure in 1982 at the age of 51, he was legally drunk at the time. He requested that his body be cremated and his ashes thrown into the garbage. And so he was. Byrne had an advantage other potential biographers did not, the cooperation of his son Mark, a successful rock musician and composer whose music has been featured in such big budget movies as American Beauty, Hellboy, Yes Man, all three of the Shrek movies and many others. Mark gave Byrne full access to his garage which was full of his father's papers that nobody had looked at in decades. Everett was an atheist all his life, after his death Paul Davies, who got 1,000,000 pounds for winning the Templeton religion prize, said that if true Many Worlds destroyed the anthropic argument for the existence of God. Everett would have been delighted. Nevertheless Everett ended up going to Catholic University of America near Washington DC. Although Byrne doesn't tell us exactly what was in it, Everett as a freshman devised a logical proof against the existence of God. Apparently it was good enough that one of his pious professors became very upset and depressed with "ontological horror" when he read it. Everett liked the professor and felt so guilty he decided not to use it on a person of faith again. This story is very atypical of the man, most of the time Everett seems to care little for the feelings of others and although quite brilliant wasn't exactly lovable. Everett wasn't the only one dissatisfied with the Copenhagen Interpretation which insisted the measuring device had to be outside the wave function, but he was unlike other dissidents such as Bohm or Cramer in that Everett saw no need to add new terms to Schrodinger's Equation and thought the equation meant exactly what it said. The only reason those extra terms were added was to try to rescue the single universe idea, and there was no experimental justification for that. Everett was unique in thinking that quantum mechanics gave a description of nature that was literally true. John Wheeler, Everett's thesis advisor, made him cut out about half the stuff in his original 137 page thesis and tone down the language so it didn't sound like he thought all those other universes were equally real when in fact he did. For example, Wheeler didn't like the word "split" and was especially uncomfortable with talk of conscious observers splitting, most seriously he made him remove the entire chapter on information and probability which today many consider the best part of the work. His long thesis was not published until 1973, if that version had been published in 1957 instead of the truncated Bowdlerized version things would have been different; plenty of people would still have disagreed but he would not have been ignored for as long as he was. Byrne writes of Everett's views: "the splitting of observers share an identity because they stem from a common ancestor, but they also embark on different fates in different universes. They experience different lifespans, dissimilar events (such as a nuclear war perhaps) and at some point are no longer the same person, even though they share certain memory records." Everett says that when a observer splits it is meaningless to ask "which of the final observers corresponds to the initial one since each possess the total memory of the first" he says it is as foolish as asking which amoeba is the original after it splits into two. Wheeler made him remove all such talk of ?amoebas? ? from his published short thesis. Byrne says Everett did not think there were just an astronomically large number of other universes but rather an infinite number of them, not only that he thought there were a non-denumerable infinite number of other worlds. This means that the number of them was larger than the infinite set of integers, but Byrne does not make it clear if this means they are as numerous as the number of points on a line, or as numerous as an even larger infinite set like ?the set of all possible curves. Neill Graham tried to reformulate the theory so you'd only need a countably infinite number of branches and Everett at first liked the idea but later rejected it and concluded you couldn't derive probability by counting universes. Eventually even Graham seems to have agreed and abandoned the idea that the number of universes was so small you could count them. Taken as a whole Everett's multiverse, where all things happen, probability is not a useful concept and everything is deterministic. However for observers like us trapped in a single branch of the multiverse, observers who do not have access to the entire wave function and all the information it contains but only a small sliver of it, probability is the best we can do. That probability we see is not part of the thing itself but is just a subjective measure of our ignorance. Infinity can cause problems in figuring out probability ?,? but Everett said his theory could calculate what the probability ? ? any event could be observed in any branch of the multiverse ? is? , and it turns out to be the Born Rule (discovered by Max Born, grandfather of Olivia Newton John) which means the probability of finding a particle at a point is the squaring of the amplitude of the Schrodinger Wave function at that point. The Born Rule has been shown experimentally to be true but the Copenhagen Interpretation just postulates it, Everett said he could derive it from his theory it "emerges naturally as a measure of probability for observers confined to a single branch (like our branch)". He proved the mathematical consistency of this idea by adding up all the probabilities in all the branches of the event happening and getting exactly 100%. Dieter Zeh said Everett may not have rigorously derived the Born Rule but did justify it and showed it "as being the only reasonable choice for a probability measure if objective reality is represented by the universal wave function [Schrodinger's wave equation]". Rigorous proof or not that's more than any other quantum interpretation has managed to do. Everett wrote to his friend Max Jammer: "None of these physicists had grasped what I consider to be the major accomplishment of the theory- the "rigorous" deduction of the probability interpretation of Quantum Mechanics from wave mechanics alone. This deduction is just as "rigorous" as any deductions of classical statistical mechanics. [...] What is unique about the choice of measure and why it is forced upon one is that in both cases it is the only measure that satisfies the law of conservation of probability through the equations of motion. Thus logically in both classical statistical mechanics and in quantum mechanics, the only possible statistical statements depend upon the existence of a unique measure which obeys this conservation principle." Nevertheless some complained that Everett did not use enough rigor in his derivation. David Deutsch has helped close that rigor gap. He showed that the number of ? ? Everett-worlds after a branching is proportional to the conventional probability density. He then used Game Theory to show that all these are all equally likely to be observed. Everett would likely have been delighted as he used Game Theory extensively in his other life as a cold warrior. Professor Deutsch gave one of the best quotations in the entire book, talking about many worlds as a interpretation of Quantum Mechanics "is like talking about dinosaurs as an interpretation of the fossil record". Everett was disappointed at the poor reception his doctoral dissertation received and never published anything on quantum mechanics again for the rest of his life; instead he became a Dr. Strangelove type character making computer nuclear war games and doing grim operational research for the pentagon about Armageddon. He was one of the first to point out that any defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles would be ineffectual and building an anti-ballistic missile system could not be justified except for "political or psychological grounds". Byrne makes the case that ? ? Everett was the first one to convince high military leaders through mathematics and no nonsense non sentimental reasoning that a nuclear war could not be won, "after an attack by either superpower on the other, the majority of the attacked population that survived the initial blasts would be sterilized and gradually succumb to leukemia. Livestock would die quickly and survivors would be forced to rely on eating grains potatoes and vegetables. Unfortunately the produce would be seething with radioactive Strontium 90 which seeps into human bone marrow and causes cancer". Linus Pauling credited Evert by name and quoted from his pessimistic report in his Nobel acceptance speech for receiving the 1962 Nobel Peace prize. Despite his knowledge of the horrors of a nuclear war Everett, like most of his fellow cold warrior colleagues in the 50's and 60's, thought the probability of it happening was very high and would probably happen very soon. Byrne speculates in a footnote that Everett may have privately used anthropic reasoning and thought that the fact we live in a world where such a war has not happened (at least not yet) was more confirmation that his Many Worlds idea was right. Incidentally this is one of those rare books where the footnotes are almost as much fun to read as the main text. Hugh's daughter Liz Everett killed herself a few years after her father's death, in her suicide note she said "Funeral requests: I prefer no church stuff. Please burn be and DON'T FILE ME. Please sprinkle me in some nice body of water or the garbage, maybe that way I'll end up in the correct parallel universe to meet up with Daddy". And so she was. ?John K Clark? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 23:38:43 2017 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 09:38:43 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: <58D43FCE.3040506@yahoo.com> <6bc137e7-9da4-3908-f488-85ac3310cd6a@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 3 April 2017 at 07:23, William Flynn Wallace wrote: A robot may be aware of its surroundings, demonstrated by the fact that it > can walk around, look for objects, pick them up and so on. But is it > conscious? What experiment would you do to find out? > Stathis Papaioannou > > The robot is no more and no less aware than a self-driving car. I would > not call the robot aware. What frustrates me is that some posters seem to > equate awareness and consciousness and some don't, like you. > > The robot and the car are S-R creatures. They receive stimuli and react > to them according to their programming. People are S-O-R, meaning that > above the stimuli that are being processed, there are meta functions > checking the S-R behaviors and seeing if that's really what they want to > do, and changing the program on the fly if not. If robots have meta > functions, and I know just about nothing about robots and AI, then I am > wrong, and the robots and AI are functionally equivalent to a person. John > doesn't like definitions, but I do, so what's the difference between > awareness and consciousness explicit in your question? > Some would say that a robot that behaves just like a human is conscious and others that it lacks (or at least may lack) the ineffable internal thing that we call "experiences" or "qualia", even though it seems to have awareness. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Apr 2 23:43:54 2017 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 19:43:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: <58D43FCE.3040506@yahoo.com> <6bc137e7-9da4-3908-f488-85ac3310cd6a@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > Here's the thing: I want to get you to agree that study of alertness, or > whatever you want to call it, is or can be scientific. > ? It's hard for me to agree or disagree because there are contradictory definitions of the word "alert". One is ?"? a state of vigilance readiness or caution ?"? and I'd agree you can scientifically study that. ?But another definition? ?of the same word is " fully aware ?", and there is no way to scientifically study that unless unproven assumptions are made.? > ?> ? > If this is not a test of consciousness according to the examples you would > like to use, then I'd like to know what you would use. ?My ?test for consciousness is intelligent behavior, I can't prove it's the correct test but I use it anyway. So maybe I'm wrong but I can live with a little uncertainty because if I am wrong you'll never be able to prove me wrong. > ?>? > If you think that no one will ever prove that others are conscious then > poking will not suffice as an example in your opinion. ?I'm ?fine with the poking test because like everybody else I long ago accepted the axiom that intelligent behavior and consciousness are linked. And the reason I accepted that axiom is that like everybody else I could not function if I really believed I was the only conscious being in the universe. > ?> ? > Every abstract variable, as I am sure I don't have to tell you, is always > and forever in an 'as if' context. It is 'as if' they have a big ego, or > high intelligence, or low sociability, or poor use of language. So as with > consciousness: it is 'as if' they are conscious ?I don't think that works. I can say that many member of this list are intelligent and I don't need assumptions or axioms to make that statement, but the only consciousness I have first hand experience with is my own, and many members of this list do not behave "as if" they were conscious like me; if they did I wouldn't have anybody to argue with, they'd always agree with everything I said. John K Clark ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Apr 3 01:15:39 2017 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 21:15:39 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: <58D43FCE.3040506@yahoo.com> <6bc137e7-9da4-3908-f488-85ac3310cd6a@gmail.com> Message-ID: Consciousness isn't the way information being processed feels. Information is the byproduct of consciousness processing itself. Feels is the substrate. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From col.hales at gmail.com Mon Apr 3 01:48:47 2017 From: col.hales at gmail.com (Colin Hales) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 11:48:47 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 11:15 AM, Will Steinberg wrote: > Consciousness isn't the way information being processed feels. > > Information is the byproduct of consciousness processing itself. Feels is > the substrate. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > Well done Will, You get it. So few do. This is a symptom of 'the great map/territory' confusion that has possessed this area since the beginning of AI. It lies in the difference between 'nature as computation' and 'computation about nature', confused on a generational basis by entire science disciplines or at least whole cohorts of key participants in the area of AGI. Real AGI waits patiently for it to resolve and for the science to become a proper science again after 60 years. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Apr 3 02:11:57 2017 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 22:11:57 -0400 Subject: [ExI] the truth about neonicotinoids Message-ID: http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/neonicotinoids-and-bees/ Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Apr 3 02:44:33 2017 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 12:44:33 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 11:15 AM, Will Steinberg wrote: > Consciousness isn't the way information being processed feels. > > Information is the byproduct of consciousness processing itself. Feels is > the substrate. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > On 3 April 2017 at 11:48, Colin Hales wrote: > On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 11:15 AM, Will Steinberg > wrote: > >> Consciousness isn't the way information being processed feels. >> >> Information is the byproduct of consciousness processing itself. Feels >> is the substrate. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > Well done Will, > > You get it. So few do. > > This is a symptom of 'the great map/territory' confusion that has > possessed this area since the beginning of AI. It lies in the difference > between 'nature as computation' and 'computation about nature', confused on > a generational basis by entire science disciplines or at least whole > cohorts of key participants in the area of AGI. > > Real AGI waits patiently for it to resolve and for the science to become a > proper science again after 60 years. > It is not obvious that a computation about nature can be conscious, but neither is it obvious that it cannot. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Apr 3 04:17:34 2017 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 00:17:34 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Apr 2, 2017 22:46, "Stathis Papaioannou" wrote: It is not obvious that a computation about nature can be conscious, but neither is it obvious that it cannot. -- Stathis Papaioannou _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat All the 'computations about nature' that have ever been and will ever be discussed in this list were *designed by conscious beings*, also known as consciousness. You're making the same mistake as the Chinese Room, which is neglecting the fact that someone had to build the room itself. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Apr 3 05:46:03 2017 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 15:46:03 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Apr 2, 2017 22:46, "Stathis Papaioannou" wrote: It is not obvious that a computation about nature can be conscious, but neither is it obvious that it cannot. -- Stathis Papaioannou _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat On 3 April 2017 at 14:17, Will Steinberg wrote: > On Apr 2, 2017 22:46, "Stathis Papaioannou" wrote: > > > > > It is not obvious that a computation about nature can be conscious, but > neither is it obvious that it cannot. > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > All the 'computations about nature' that have ever been and will ever be > discussed in this list were *designed by conscious beings*, also known as > consciousness. > > You're making the same mistake as the Chinese Room, which is neglecting > the fact that someone had to build the room itself. > Are you implying that it would make a difference how the entity whose consciousness was in question was made? For example, consider three identical robots, one made by humans, the second by weird aliens, the third thrown together from spare parts by a tornado: would you expect that they would have different consciousnesses? -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulioprisco at protonmail.ch Mon Apr 3 07:06:58 2017 From: giulioprisco at protonmail.ch (Giulio Prisco) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2017 03:06:58 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Shadows and the concept of self In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I sent this only to John my mistake, resending to the list. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [ExI] Shadows and the concept of self Local Time: April 3, 2017 7:56 AM UTC Time: April 3, 2017 5:56 AM From: giulioprisco at protonmail.ch To: John Clark Thanks John for the great review of Byrne's book, I had missed it at the time. Byrne is not a physicist himself but he took the time to talk to top physicists and understand / explain Everett's theory well. I found also interesting the juicy account of Everett's personal life - great scientists put their pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us, screw like us, and screw up like us. I wrote about Everett in 2004 (in Spanish): http://www.tendencias21.net/La-realidad-ultima-es-una-superposicion-de-estados-de-complejidad-inimaginable_a265.html See also comments here: http://www.tendencias21.net/Los-procesos-de-organizacion-de-la-mente-y-de-la-materia-son-homologos_a42573.html Re "I think Everett would disagree. The entire advantage of Many Worlds is it doesn't need to open a can of worms like mind or consciousness or measurement or observation. There is nothing special about a observer, when things change he splits just like everything else ": But Many Minds (in my own interpretation) doesn't open this can of worms. It's a theory of how out type of consciousness processes information, not a theory of consciousness determining reality. Many Minds agrees with "There is nothing special about a observer" but relegates branching to the observer's consciousness and remembered history. The cat is dead and alive in a Big World in a way that our single-branch mind isn't equipped to visualize, so we split our awareness to be able to process information efficiently, and only see small worlds with cats alive or dead, but not both. The version of me who remembers having seen the cat dead will only interact with the version of you that remembers having seen the cat dead. Byrne doesn't like Many Minds though, he agrees with you. My hypothesis is that my (and your) Self in the Big World is a sentient being Himself, with an inconceivably complex mentality - so complex, in fact, that His projections (shadows) onto small worlds (such as you and I) are conscious observers themselves. -- Giulio Prisco https://giulioprisco.com/ giulioprisco at protonmail.ch -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [ExI] Shadows and the concept of self Local Time: April 3, 2017 12:49 AM UTC Time: April 2, 2017 10:49 PM From: johnkclark at gmail.com To: Giulio Prisco , ExI chat list On Sat, Apr 1, 2017 at 2:37 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: > thinking of splitting and recombining worlds is a simplified way to describe a reality that is much more complex Splitting is much easier than recombining. Worlds split when they change, they recombine when they become identical again, if the change is small then they might become the same again but if the change is large they're never going to recombine, that's why we see weird stuff at the sub atomic level but not at the macroscopic level. Or at least that's the reason if the MWI is correct. > Many Minds comes closer, but it's still a simplification - I think the many minds are shadows of One Mind. Having now studied Everett's original papers and those of DeWitt, Wheeler's etc., I suspect Everett himself wouldn't disagree. I think Everett would disagree. The entire advantage of Many Worlds is it doesn't need to open a can of worms like mind or consciousness or measurement or observation. There is nothing special about a observer, when things change he splits just like everything else > I am writing a new essay with thoughts on my interpretation of Everett's interpretations, with plenty of links. In the meantime, I recommend reading Peter Byrne's biography: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-many-worlds-of-hugh-everett-iii-9780199552276 I wrote a review of Byrne's book for the list back in 2010, I'll repeat it here: I 've just finished this book and its one of the most enjoyable things I've read in a long time. Being a staple of science fiction and the only interpretation of quantum mechanics to enter the popular imagination it's a little surprising that "The Many Worlds of Hugh Everett" by Peter Byrne is the first biography of the originator of that amazing idea. Everett certainly had an interesting life, he was a libertarian and a libertine, became a cold warrior who with his top secret clearance was comfortable with the idea of megadeath, became wealthy by started one of the first successful software companies until alcoholism drove him and his company into the g round. Everett died of heart failure in 1982 at the age of 51, he was legally drunk at the time. He requested that his body be cremated and his ashes thrown into the garbage. And so he was. Byrne had an advantage other potential biographers did not, the cooperation of his son Mark, a successful rock musician and composer whose music has been featured in such big budget movies as American Beauty, Hellboy, Yes Man, all three of the Shrek movies and many others. Mark gave Byrne full access to his garage which was full of his father's papers that nobody had looked at in decades. Everett was an atheist all his life, after his death Paul Davies, who got 1,000,000 pounds for winning the Templeton religion prize, said that if true Many Worlds destroyed the anthropic argument for the existence of God. Everett would have been delighted. Nevertheless Everett ended up going to Catholic University of America near Washington DC. Although Byrne doesn't tell us exactly what was in it, Everett as a freshman devised a logical proof against the existence of God. Apparently it was good enough that one of his pious professors became very upset and depressed with "ontological horror" when he read it. Everett liked the professor and felt so guilty he decided not to use it on a person of faith again. This story is very atypical of the man, most of the time Everett seems to care little for the feelings of others and although quite brilliant wasn't exactly lovable. Everett wasn't the only one dissatisfied with the Copenhagen Interpretation which insisted the measuring device had to be outside the wave function, but he was unlike other dissidents such as Bohm or Cramer in that Everett saw no need to add new terms to Schrodinger's Equation and thought the equation meant exactly what it said. The only reason those extra terms were added was to try to rescue the single universe idea, and there was no experimental justification for that. Everett was unique in thinking that quantum mechanics gave a description of nature that was literally true. John Wheeler, Everett's thesis advisor, made him cut out about half the stuff in his original 137 page thesis and tone down the language so it didn't sound like he thought all those other universes were equally real when in fact he did. For example, Wheeler didn't like the word "split" and was especially uncomfortable with talk of conscious observers splitting, most seriously he made him remove the entire chapter on information and probability which today many consider the best part of the work. His long thesis was not published until 1973, if that version had been published in 1957 instead of the truncated Bowdlerized version things would have been different; plenty of people would still have disagreed but he would not have been ignored for as long as he was. Byrne writes of Everett's views: "the splitting of observers share an identity because they stem from a common ancestor, but they also embark on different fates in different universes. They experience different lifespans, dissimilar events (such as a nuclear war perhaps) and at some point are no longer the same person, even though they share certain memory records." Everett says that when a observer splits it is meaningless to ask "which of the final observers corresponds to the initial one since each possess the total memory of the first" he says it is as foolish as asking which amoeba is the original after it splits into two. Wheeler made him remove all such talk of amoebas from his published short thesis. Byrne says Everett did not think there were just an astronomically large number of other universes but rather an infinite number of them, not only that he thought there were a non-denumerable infinite number of other worlds. This means that the number of them was larger than the infinite set of integers, but Byrne does not make it clear if this means they are as numerous as the number of points on a line, or as numerous as an even larger infinite set like the set of all possible curves. Neill Graham tried to reformulate the theory so you'd only need a countably infinite number of branches and Everett at first liked the idea but later rejected it and concluded you couldn't derive probability by counting universes. Eventually even Graham seems to have agreed and abandoned the idea that the number of universes was so small you could count them. Taken as a whole Everett's multiverse, where all things happen, probability is not a useful concept and everything is deterministic. However for observers like us trapped in a single branch of the multiverse, observers who do not have access to the entire wave function and all the information it contains but only a small sliver of it, probability is the best we can do. That probability we see is not part of the thing itself but is just a subjective measure of our ignorance. Infinity can cause problems in figuring out probability , but Everett said his theory could calculate what the probability any event could be observed in any branch of the multiverse is , and it turns out to be the Born Rule (discovered by Max Born, grandfather of Olivia Newton John) which means the probability of finding a particle at a point is the squaring of the amplitude of the Schrodinger Wave function at that point. The Born Rule has been shown experimentally to be true but the Copenhagen Interpretation just postulates it, Everett said he could derive it from his theory it "emerges naturally as a measure of probability for observers confined to a single branch (like our branch)". He proved the mathematical consistency of this idea by adding up all the probabilities in all the branches of the event happening and getting exactly 100%. Dieter Zeh said Everett may not have rigorously derived the Born Rule but did justify it and showed it "as being the only reasonable choice for a probability measure if objective reality is represented by the universal wave function [Schrodinger's wave equation]". Rigorous proof or not that's more than any other quantum interpretation has managed to do. Everett wrote to his friend Max Jammer: "None of these physicists had grasped what I consider to be the major accomplishment of the theory- the "rigorous" deduction of the probability interpretation of Quantum Mechanics from wave mechanics alone. This deduction is just as "rigorous" as any deductions of classical statistical mechanics. [...] What is unique about the choice of measure and why it is forced upon one is that in both cases it is the only measure that satisfies the law of conservation of probability through the equations of motion. Thus logically in both classical statistical mechanics and in quantum mechanics, the only possible statistical statements depend upon the existence of a unique measure which obeys this conservation principle." Nevertheless some complained that Everett did not use enough rigor in his derivation. David Deutsch has helped close that rigor gap. He showed that the number of Everett-worlds after a branching is proportional to the conventional probability density. He then used Game Theory to show that all these are all equally likely to be observed. Everett would likely have been delighted as he used Game Theory extensively in his other life as a cold warrior. Professor Deutsch gave one of the best quotations in the entire book, talking about many worlds as a interpretation of Quantum Mechanics "is like talking about dinosaurs as an interpretation of the fossil record". Everett was disappointed at the poor reception his doctoral dissertation received and never published anything on quantum mechanics again for the rest of his life; instead he became a Dr. Strangelove type character making computer nuclear war games and doing grim operational research for the pentagon about Armageddon. He was one of the first to point out that any defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles would be ineffectual and building an anti-ballistic missile system could not be justified except for "political or psychological grounds". Byrne makes the case that Everett was the first one to convince high military leaders through mathematics and no nonsense non sentimental reasoning that a nuclear war could not be won, "after an attack by either superpower on the other, the majority of the attacked population that survived the initial blasts would be sterilized and gradually succumb to leukemia. Livestock would die quickly and survivors would be forced to rely on eating grains potatoes and vegetables. Unfortunately the produce would be seething with radioactive Strontium 90 which seeps into human bone marrow and causes cancer". Linus Pauling credited Evert by name and quoted from his pessimistic report in his Nobel acceptance speech for receiving the 1962 Nobel Peace prize. Despite his knowledge of the horrors of a nuclear war Everett, like most of his fellow cold warrior colleagues in the 50's and 60's, thought the probability of it happening was very high and would probably happen very soon. Byrne speculates in a footnote that Everett may have privately used anthropic reasoning and thought that the fact we live in a world where such a war has not happened (at least not yet) was more confirmation that his Many Worlds idea was right. Incidentally this is one of those rare books where the footnotes are almost as much fun to read as the main text. Hugh's daughter Liz Everett killed herself a few years after her father's death, in her suicide note she said "Funeral requests: I prefer no church stuff. Please burn be and DON'T FILE ME. Please sprinkle me in some nice body of water or the garbage, maybe that way I'll end up in the correct parallel universe to meet up with Daddy". And so she was. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Mon Apr 3 04:50:58 2017 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 2 Apr 2017 21:50:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] QM Interpretations was Re: Shadows and the concept of self Message-ID: <526332b38b91a970d154663a9b395c45.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Giulio wrote: > Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2017 16:59:22 +0200 > From: Giulio Prisco > The chaotic path of my quest to better understand fundamental quantum > physics has taken me back to the ?many worlds? ideas of Hugh Everett & co. > I?m republishing this related article that author Richard L. Miller and > I > wrote in 2005, with minor edits to fix typos... > > https://turingchurch.net/shadows-and-the-concept-of-self-d01ff65ce9f9 Interesting read, Guilio. I am still agnostic about MWI. While I agree that Copenhagen is dead, there are a lot of other good interpretations out there. Perhaps even a new one that I will call the "computational intepretation" of quantum mechanics which I could succinctly explain by pointing out that a perfect simulation of a cat, whilst stored on a flash drive in someones pocket is neither alive nor dead. In other words perhaps, Schrodinger's cat is in superposition until you observe it, because the universal machine does not call/process/execute the object.cat.alive() property code until an observer opens the box. Just like how in MMORPGs certain NPCs or events won't occur until they are triggered by some action by the player. So wave-function collapse could be synonymous with code execution in the "Great Simulation" regardless of whether or not there is a simulator. Could just be the way the universe works. But I am skeptical of the Simulation Argument because of the experimentally meausred smoothness of space-time. Of course there is also de Broglie-Bohm Pilot Wave theory which is another real contender as is Kramer's Transactional Intepretation. So I am agnostic of the various interpretation of QM even if you narrow it down to just those which call for an objectively real wave function. Stuart LaForge "Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish - too much handling will spoil it." -Lao Tzu From giulioprisco at protonmail.ch Mon Apr 3 08:48:54 2017 From: giulioprisco at protonmail.ch (Giulio Prisco) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2017 04:48:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] QM Interpretations was Re: Shadows and the concept of self In-Reply-To: <526332b38b91a970d154663a9b395c45.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <526332b38b91a970d154663a9b395c45.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: Thanks Stuart, your "computational interpretation is interesting." Pasting from a Medium comment thread about my essay: "reminds me of Wheeler?s participatory universe hypothesis, where things become real ?Just-in-Time? when somebody asks. Videogames provide an interesting analogy???it doesn?t make sense to waste resources to compute things that nobody can see or needs to know, so in modern videogames some features like mobs and NPCs are left in a limbo of possibilities and instantiated only when a player comes close. In this sense, I agree with you: I think quantum physics lends plausibility to the simulation hypothesis." I tend to think that ALL currently discussed interpretation of QM are probably "wrong" and going to be superseded by future advances, but many current theories including Everett, De Broglie-Bohm, Cramer etc. point to actual aspects of "The Thing Itself" (Ding an Sich), whatever that is/ -- Giulio Prisco https://giulioprisco.com/ giulioprisco at protonmail.ch -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [ExI] QM Interpretations was Re: Shadows and the concept of self Local Time: April 3, 2017 6:50 AM UTC Time: April 3, 2017 4:50 AM From: avant at sollegro.com To: Exi Chat Giulio wrote: > Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2017 16:59:22 +0200 > From: Giulio Prisco > The chaotic path of my quest to better understand fundamental quantum > physics has taken me back to the ?many worlds? ideas of Hugh Everett & co. > I?m republishing this related article that author Richard L. Miller and > I > wrote in 2005, with minor edits to fix typos... > > https://turingchurch.net/shadows-and-the-concept-of-self-d01ff65ce9f9 Interesting read, Guilio. I am still agnostic about MWI. While I agree that Copenhagen is dead, there are a lot of other good interpretations out there. Perhaps even a new one that I will call the "computational intepretation" of quantum mechanics which I could succinctly explain by pointing out that a perfect simulation of a cat, whilst stored on a flash drive in someones pocket is neither alive nor dead. In other words perhaps, Schrodinger's cat is in superposition until you observe it, because the universal machine does not call/process/execute the object.cat.alive() property code until an observer opens the box. Just like how in MMORPGs certain NPCs or events won't occur until they are triggered by some action by the player. So wave-function collapse could be synonymous with code execution in the "Great Simulation" regardless of whether or not there is a simulator. Could just be the way the universe works. But I am skeptical of the Simulation Argument because of the experimentally meausred smoothness of space-time. Of course there is also de Broglie-Bohm Pilot Wave theory which is another real contender as is Kramer's Transactional Intepretation. So I am agnostic of the various interpretation of QM even if you narrow it down to just those which call for an objectively real wave function. Stuart LaForge "Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish - too much handling will spoil it." -Lao Tzu _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Apr 3 15:51:37 2017 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 11:51:37 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No, because they're all made by consciousness. Though the tornado one is a bit ridiculous. Just saying the Chinese Room knows Chinese because the guy who built it knew Chinese. If you started talking about what if the Chinese Room was built by a fucking tornado I'd say you were dodging the question. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Apr 3 16:02:23 2017 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 09:02:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Numbers not part of default settings for humans? Message-ID: <44CCE187-0880-4E78-A62B-EA7CB8D5070C@gmail.com> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-humans-invented-numbersand-how-numbers-reshaped-our-world-180962485/ Jesse Walker posted this on his Twitter feed. I'm a little skeptical, but I haven't read the book yet. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Apr 3 17:23:42 2017 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 13:23:42 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 11:51 AM, Will Steinberg wrote: ?> ? > No, because they're all made by consciousness. > ?I think it's irrelevant who made the Chinese room. ? > ?> ? > Though the tornado one is a bit ridiculous. > ?If Everett is right about Many Worlds then in one of those many worlds a tornado DID make the Chinese room, and in another world a tornado went through a junkyard and assembled a? ?fully functional 747 ready to fly. ?But in most worlds stuff like that doesn't happen and that's why the second law of thermodynamics usually works, there are just more ways to be disorganized than organized. ?> ? > Just saying the Chinese Room knows Chinese because the guy who built it > knew Chinese. > ?I agree the important thing is if ?the Chinese Room knows Chinese, it doesn't matter if the little man in the room knows Chinese or not, the man is just a small cog in a much much larger system. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Apr 3 17:33:09 2017 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 13:33:09 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If a tornado make the Chinese Room, "Chinese" would cease to have any meaning! There's nobody to understand the Chinese. You need 'The Chinese Language' to exist in order for the Chinese Room to have any context. Otherwise you're talking about a tornado making meaningless arrangements of matter. Say the tornado not only made the Chinese Room, but also created the Chinese language. Well, it would also have to create something to understand the language, let's say humanity. So in order for the Chinese Room to be the *Chinese Room*, the tornado must create an intelligent species and that species must develop Chinese. And that's the same thing I have been talking about. You're imagining the 'Chinese Room' being magically developed by a tornado in some pocket universe, devoid of any other information. But you're forgetting--it's YOU calling it the Chinese Room! If you take John K Clark out of the equation, the Chinese Room is suddenly meaningless. A "fully functional" "747" ready to "fly" means NOTHING without an observer who understands these criteria. It may as well be a lump of degenerate matter. Once you put a John K Clark there to assay the matter and correctly call it a 747, like some aeronautical Adam, you've connected the 747 to the entire conscious history of humanity and the universe--and THAT is how it obtains its meaning. Not by some god damn fucking tornado, lmao. I really don't understand how so many of you don't understand that you're making the huge assumption that the creator of these thought experiments is around to assign meaning to their contents. Meaning comes from consciousness, which comes from the beginning of the universe. All meaning ever created will stem from that chain. It's so simple. I wish I could tag Colin Hales here. You guys have it completely and utterly incorrect. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Apr 3 19:11:14 2017 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2017 19:11:14 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Apr 2017 at 1:53 am, Will Steinberg wrote: > No, because they're all made by consciousness. Though the tornado one is > a bit ridiculous. > One robot made by humans, one robot made by aliens, one robot made by a tornado - you seem to agree they would have the same consciousness (how could they not?), yet they are made by differently conscious or non-conscious processes. So how something is made is irrelevant to its consciousness. Just saying the Chinese Room knows Chinese because the guy who built it > knew Chinese. > > If you started talking about what if the Chinese Room was built by a > fucking tornado I'd say you were dodging the question. > A Chinese-speaking human is not built to be so by a Chinese-speaking god. He has evolved through random processes and natural selection. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Mon Apr 3 22:37:29 2017 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 18:37:29 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A robot can't be built by a tornado. Natural selection on earth is not comparable to a tornado. Consciousness breeds consciousness. So I would say that any tornado that builds consciousness it conscious. IMHO, every tornado is conscious anyway, but not sapient which I feel like people here and everywhere routinely swap with sentience as they see fit. Regarding the Chinese Room, now you're just talking about who believes in a god and who doesn't. I happen to be a pantheist/panentheist. I believe that the conscious godhead splits itself into pieces (originally two, at least in the case of our universe) and those pieces lose the infinite knowledge of that god, so they seek each other out through dialectical materialism. I still think you are missing the point. Thought experiments are flawed because they are created by conscious beings. You're leaving out the important fact that we humans on this list are affecting the ontology of your thought experiment. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Apr 3 19:32:26 2017 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2017 19:32:26 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Apr 2017 at 3:35 am, Will Steinberg wrote: If a tornado make the Chinese Room, "Chinese" would cease to have any meaning! There's nobody to understand the Chinese. You need 'The Chinese Language' to exist in order for the Chinese Room to have any context. But how the room, Chinese language and Chinese people came about is not relevant to their knowledge of Chinese. Otherwise you're talking about a tornado making meaningless arrangements of matter. Say the tornado not only made the Chinese Room, but also created the Chinese language. Well, it would also have to create something to understand the language, let's say humanity. So in order for the Chinese Room to be the *Chinese Room*, the tornado must create an intelligent species and that species must develop Chinese. And that's the same thing I have been talking about. You're imagining the 'Chinese Room' being magically developed by a tornado in some pocket universe, devoid of any other information. But you're forgetting--it's YOU calling it the Chinese Room! If you take John K Clark out of the equation, the Chinese Room is suddenly meaningless. A "fully functional" "747" ready to "fly" means NOTHING without an observer who understands these criteria. It may as well be a lump of degenerate matter. Once you put a John K Clark there to assay the matter and correctly call it a 747, like some aeronautical Adam, you've connected the 747 to the entire conscious history of humanity and the universe--and THAT is how it obtains its meaning. Not by some god damn fucking tornado, lmao. The point is that *how* the thing is made is irrelevant. The only relevant thing is the arrangement of matter. The arrangement of matter may then have meaning to another entity, but it again doesn't matter how that entity came about. I really don't understand how so many of you don't understand that you're making the huge assumption that the creator of these thought experiments is around to assign meaning to their contents. Meaning comes from consciousness, which comes from the beginning of the universe. All meaning ever created will stem from that chain. It's so simple. I wish I could tag Colin Hales here. You guys have it completely and utterly incorrect. A conscious entity is different in that it creates its own meaning because it is its own observer. You would still be conscious if everyone else died. A conscious computation would also be conscious regardless of who was around to appreciate it, otherwise it wouldn't be a conscious computation. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 00:27:44 2017 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2017 00:27:44 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Apr 2017 at 9:39 am, Will Steinberg wrote: > A robot can't be built by a tornado. Natural selection on earth is not > comparable to a tornado. Consciousness breeds consciousness. > Natural selection built consciousness and natural selection is not conscious. It is a slow and stupid process and that is why it took billions of years to do it. Doing it all at once by a random process would take zillions of years, but there is no logical reason why it couldn't happen, and in fact arguably given enough time it must happen. So I would say that any tornado that builds consciousness it conscious. > IMHO, every tornado is conscious anyway, but not sapient which I feel like > people here and everywhere routinely swap with sentience as they see fit. > > Regarding the Chinese Room, now you're just talking about who believes in > a god and who doesn't. I happen to be a pantheist/panentheist. I believe > that the conscious godhead splits itself into pieces (originally two, at > least in the case of our universe) and those pieces lose the infinite > knowledge of that god, so they seek each other out through dialectical > materialism. > > I still think you are missing the point. Thought experiments are flawed > because they are created by conscious beings. You're leaving out the > important fact that we humans on this list are affecting the ontology of > your thought experiment. > I don't see what that has to do with it. Either a non-conscious process or a conscious process can make consciousness. You haven't explained why you disagree, if in fact I understand you and you do disagree. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 01:06:22 2017 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 21:06:22 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If a tornado assembled matter in a remote corner of the universe that took a conformation identical to a book I have of the play Hamlet, the former conformation would NOT be "Hamlet." I think we do disagree there. Consciousness is like...an ant colony. Or a developing fetal brain. Tunnels digging, seeking each other. Each with its own viewpoint. Except the tunnels are fuzzylogical. A 4D phase space where the vectors of different entities weave helically around each other to become new entities. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 01:01:05 2017 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 21:01:05 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Let's use English instead of Chinese. If a tornado happened to, in some remote corner of the universe, assemble a series of molecules into a conformation that is identical to a book I have containing the text of the play Hamlet--the former arrangement of matter would NOT BE HAMLET. I think we disagree on this. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 00:18:24 2017 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2017 20:18:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 Will Steinberg wrote: ?> ? > If a tornado make the Chinese Room, "Chinese" would cease to have any > meaning! > Yes, ?I think ? the Chinese Room ? should get a award for the most meaningless thought experiment in the history of the world. ? ?> ? > You need 'The Chinese Language' to exist in order for the Chinese Room to > have any context. The Chinese Language ? already exists so all the tornado needs to do is make Chinese room. But as I said before I don't see ?how the room was built or by who changes the relevance of the experiment, the room proves nothing regardless of how it was built. > ?> ? > There's nobody to understand the Chinese. > ?There would be a easy test to tell if that is true, ask the Chinese room questions in Chinese, if the answers make sense to you then the room understands Chinese. You could also use the exact same test to determine if one of your your fellow humans understands Chinese. ? ?> ? > You're imagining the 'Chinese Room' being magically developed by a tornado > in some pocket universe, > ?It's not a pocket universe, it's as real as this one, and ?It's not magic it's just statistics. Even very very rare events will happen if the sample size is large enough. A astronomically large number ?raised ? to a astronomically large ?power? is still finite, so if the number of worlds involved is infinite ?then ? the conclusion is obvious. A "fully functional" "747" ready to "fly" means NOTHING without an observer > who understands these criteria. > ?You are a observer, and there is a low but nonzero probability that tomorrow morning YOU will will observe a tornado enter a junkyard and assemble a fully functional ? ? 747 ?from the junk ?that is ready to fly ?. And if Everett is right about Many Worlds there is a 100% chance that tomorrow morning ? Will Steinberg ? will see exactly that, and it will be the ? Will Steinberg ? who remembers reading this very post the previous night. ?> ? > I really don't understand how so many of you don't understand that you're > making the huge assumption that the creator of these thought experiments is > around to assign meaning to their contents. > ?The creator of the Chinese room thought experiment was ? John Searle ?, he thought it had meaning, he thought he was doing something clever, but he was wrong.? ?> ? > Meaning comes from consciousness, > ?That's because intelligent conscious beings are in the meaning conferring business, but not everything that exists has a meaning or needs one. ? ?John K Clark ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 14:15:15 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 09:15:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] toxins - was the truth about neonicotinoids Message-ID: Here is a real poser for libertarians: the toxin most damaging to our health is tobacco. As nonsmokers we are paying a lot of our taxes for the health care of smokers and that just chaps my ass! Second is alcohol. Third is whatever is making people fat. The rest of the toxins are very minor players indeed compared to those above. That we know of. What is a libertarian to do? He doesn't want to dictate on other people's choices, but other people are infringing on his wallet! ?b?ill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 14:33:34 2017 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 10:33:34 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I thought I'd replied to this on mobile but it didn't seem to send, hmm. What I said was, if a tornado a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away assembled a conformation of matter identical to a copy of a book of the play 'Hamlet' I own, the former conformation would "not be" Hamlet while the copy I have "would be" Hamlet. To quote "Blowjob" Bill Clinton, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." And therein lies our disagreement. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 14:34:22 2017 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 10:34:22 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Oh god I've been multi sending this to a new thread? Where is this thread even On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 10:33 AM, Will Steinberg wrote: > I thought I'd replied to this on mobile but it didn't seem to send, hmm. > > What I said was, if a tornado a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away > assembled a conformation of matter identical to a copy of a book of the > play 'Hamlet' I own, the former conformation would "not be" Hamlet while > the copy I have "would be" Hamlet. > > To quote "Blowjob" Bill Clinton, "It depends on what the meaning of the > word 'is' is." And therein lies our disagreement. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 14:36:12 2017 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 10:36:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Oh I found it sorry false alarm everyone, sure glad Spike made replying to your own thread not illegal. It's always embarrassing to multi post and have people see the tiny alterations you made to the post you didn't think sent. Though I like that I added the Bill Clinton part. Anyway everything is one giant consciousness which provides the basis for existence. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 14:51:56 2017 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 07:51:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] toxins In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <11F842AB-CE18-4779-9D6B-F749B3B0AC1A@gmail.com> On Apr 4, 2017, at 7:15 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Here is a real poser for libertarians: the toxin most damaging to our health is tobacco. As nonsmokers we are paying a lot of our taxes for the health care of smokers and that just chaps my ass! > > Second is alcohol. Third is whatever is making people fat. > > The rest of the toxins are very minor players indeed compared to those above. That we know of. > > What is a libertarian to do? He doesn't want to dictate on other people's choices, but other people are infringing on his wallet! This is a libertarianism 101 problem. The usual solution offered is to not have anyone pay taxes period. Then no one is forced to pay for other people's health choices -- like smoking, drinking, overeating, skydiving, and the like. (Of course, libertarianism 201 would also consider things like government interventions in healthcare, imports, insurance, etc. that also restrict people's choice -- often making embrace riskier choices.) This is the general answer too: don't force people to subsidize something others do -- an obvious diminution of their freedom -- and then argue that those others' freedom must be restricted because the first group has to pay. In fact, the kind of justification you're hinting at is similar to have conservatives argue about recreational drugs or open immigration. In the former case, they'll argue they have to pay for the health consequences of recreational drug use -- so they should be able to restrict or prohibit such use. And they argue that they have to pay for whatever government services immigrants use -- so they should be able to restrict or prohibit immigration. In both cases they accept a restriction of freedom as a justification for restricting more freedom. This post reminds me of Bill's bringing up libertarian paternalism. I expect a similar reaction should he decide to read my reply. Later! Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 16:32:58 2017 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 12:32:58 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 10:33 AM, Will Steinberg wrote: > ?> ? > if a tornado a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away assembled a > conformation of matter identical to a copy of a book of the play 'Hamlet' I > own, the former conformation would "not be" Hamlet while the copy I have > "would be" Hamlet. > ?Both books are made of atoms, mostly hydrogen carbon and oxygen, and science can not tell the difference between one atom of the same element and another. So if in the middle of the night I exchanged your book with one from a galaxy far far ?away how could you do what science can not and detect a difference the next morning? John K Clark > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 16:48:20 2017 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 12:48:20 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Apr 4, 2017 12:34, "John Clark" wrote: On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 10:33 AM, Will Steinberg wrote: > ?> ? > if a tornado a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away assembled a > conformation of matter identical to a copy of a book of the play 'Hamlet' I > own, the former conformation would "not be" Hamlet while the copy I have > "would be" Hamlet. > ?Both books are made of atoms, mostly hydrogen carbon and oxygen, and science can not tell the difference between one atom of the same element and another. So if in the middle of the night I exchanged your book with one from a galaxy far far ?away how could you do what science can not and detect a difference the next morning? John K Clark > > _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat Then the book I have becomes Hamlet, and the book I used to have is still Hamlet. As long as it's ever been observed as Hamlet, it retains that meaning. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 4 16:42:15 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 09:42:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] google bike and dutch weather control Message-ID: <00c101d2ad62$6b2ce3f0$4186abd0$@att.net> A few days late, but good anyway: Introducing GoogleBike: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSZPNwZex9s Those clever Dutch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAwL0O5nXe0 spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 16:56:48 2017 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 12:56:48 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: But I'd give the caveat that the book I receive from the universe is assigned its meaning differently. The original one already had its meaning stemming from Shakespeare when I bought it, carried along in parallel, and I receive that parallel meaning packet and assign it to the book. If someone was selling it as "Tetris", i would assign it the meaning of Tetris. The one I receive from the pocket universe receives that same meaning through ME--in the first case, I'm not part of the consciousness chain. And that's only for me. So I could think it's Tetris, and another person could receive it as Hamlet afterwards. Meaning is only...meaningful--through CONJUNCTION. So the book isn't Hamlet unless it has a dual. However, say I memorize Hamlet. I have created my own copy dual, and then i could burn the book. Self consciousness stems from the ability to create duals within. I think of books and all human created objects as prosthetics. So if an iron rod formed in a star fell out of the sky and i used it to beat someone up, it would gain the meaning from the long human chain of weaponized prostheses, through me. If I buy the same iron rod at a store as a weapon, it already has that meaning, but I still have to assign it my own personal meaning because it's clearly not the same everywhere (that's unscientific). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 4 16:46:34 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 09:46:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00c601d2ad63$06128410$12378c30$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Will Steinberg Sent: Tuesday, April 04, 2017 7:36 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering >?Oh I found it sorry false alarm everyone, sure glad Spike made replying to your own thread not illegal. It's always embarrassing to multi post and have people see the tiny alterations you made to the post you didn't think sent. Though I like that I added the Bill Clinton part? Will JA! Before when you posted some goofy notion, you had to wait for someone to reply before you could post further more, even if you came up with a still more goofy idea related to the first. But what if it was a boring thread and nobody replied? All that perfectly good subsequent silliness would go to waste! We suffered such hardships under that regime. Now, we are free to post serial silliness. Life is goooood. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 17:08:40 2017 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 13:08:40 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: <00c601d2ad63$06128410$12378c30$@att.net> References: <00c601d2ad63$06128410$12378c30$@att.net> Message-ID: Spike for president -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 17:21:03 2017 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 13:21:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] toxins - was the truth about neonicotinoids In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 10:15 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Here is a real poser for libertarians: the toxin most damaging to our > health is tobacco. > Tobacco is a plant, not a toxin. Tobacco smoke has thousands of compounds, some of which are carcinogens. > As nonsmokers we are paying a lot of our taxes for the health care of > smokers and that just chaps my ass! > Yeah, it'd be nice to just pay for health insurance based on our own habits. I'm not really heartless enough to sit by and watch people die because they had bad habits and/or poor judgment. I know it's not libertarian but I'd be OK with supporting a minimal level of universal health care--definitely less than the kind of plan I have through my employer. The cost of such a plan could easily be paid for by shrinking defense spending accordingly. Second is alcohol. > I drink but not enough to have seriously increased risk. I'd be OK with paying appropriately more for insurance. > Third is whatever is making people fat. > Mostly carbs, I think, due to the govt's anti-fat hysteria. The rest of the toxins are very minor players indeed compared to those > above. That we know of. > > What is a libertarian to do? He doesn't want to dictate on other people's > choices, but other people are infringing on his wallet! > -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 17:33:14 2017 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 19:33:14 +0200 Subject: [ExI] toxins - was the truth about neonicotinoids In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6299C6BE-51D9-455B-A2C3-7513D65541D9@gmail.com> Be very careful with this argument. It could be used to criminalize all sorts of lifestyles that could conceivably damage health, including action sports and sexual promiscuity. Better live-and-let-live if you ask me. I leave you in peace and you leave me in peace. By the way, Adolf Hitler was very much against smokers, drinkers and fat people. > On Apr 4, 2017, at 4:15 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > Here is a real poser for libertarians: the toxin most damaging to our health is tobacco. As nonsmokers we are paying a lot of our taxes for the health care of smokers and that just chaps my ass! > > Second is alcohol. Third is whatever is making people fat. > > The rest of the toxins are very minor players indeed compared to those above. That we know of. > > What is a libertarian to do? He doesn't want to dictate on other people's choices, but other people are infringing on his wallet! > > ?b?ill w > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 19:10:00 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 14:10:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] another modest proposal Message-ID: First, we aim for getting legislation passed in all states allowing assisted suicide. Second, depending on the status of their illnesses, we offer each suicide a sum, say $50,000, if they will suicide. Given how much money is spent on health care in the last few months of life, this could save billions. It would attract those who are broke, would break their family's finances if they stayed alive all the way to a natural death, and want to leave something behind for their families. What if they are not ill? So what? It's their life. However,only small amounts would be paid to them since they are not saving health care costs, at least not right away. After they suicide, we feed them to the poor. Wait. First we have to establish that eating people is a mandatory form of a new religion, which, like L Ron Hubbard, we will invent. I'll leave it to Spike to find a good name for them. Only one of these ideas is tongue-in-cheek. Guess. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 4 19:56:07 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 12:56:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: <00c601d2ad63$06128410$12378c30$@att.net> Message-ID: <019601d2ad7d$80bb1ff0$82315fd0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Will Steinberg Subject: Re: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering >?Spike for president No way Jose. I am already president of me. I don?t want any higher office. It?s the problem with libertarians: we don?t want authority, so we don?t run for anything. When you think about it, Washington didn?t ever run for office. He was asked to do it. Being the person he was, he accepted. That he willingly gave up power after two terms set a tradition that prevented our young republic from becoming yet another monarchy. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From col.hales at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 21:46:04 2017 From: col.hales at gmail.com (Colin Hales) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2017 07:46:04 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 3:46 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > On Apr 2, 2017 22:46, "Stathis Papaioannou" wrote: > > > > > It is not obvious that a computation about nature can be conscious, but > neither is it obvious that it cannot. > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > On 3 April 2017 at 14:17, Will Steinberg wrote: > >> On Apr 2, 2017 22:46, "Stathis Papaioannou" wrote: >> >> >> >> >> It is not obvious that a computation about nature can be conscious, but >> neither is it obvious that it cannot. >> >> >> -- >> Stathis Papaioannou >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> >> All the 'computations about nature' that have ever been and will ever be >> discussed in this list were *designed by conscious beings*, also known as >> consciousness. >> >> You're making the same mistake as the Chinese Room, which is neglecting >> the fact that someone had to build the room itself. >> > > > Are you implying that it would make a difference how the entity whose > consciousness was in question was made? For example, consider three > identical robots, one made by humans, the second by weird aliens, the third > thrown together from spare parts by a tornado: would you expect that they > would have different consciousnesses? > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > No. Of course, in identically constructed robots, each consciousness would have different contents and individuate each robot. But the robots would have their consciousness originate in the same kind of physics (the same kind of matter arranged and behaving in the same kinds of ways). It's the essential kind of physics of it that matters. In 'being' that, and only that kind, arranged in the same way, that makes it 'like something' to be that matter. In my case, as you probably know, that physics is the EM field system. Dorian Aur would have it originate only from ions in a cellular context. I would have it originate using electrons in an inorganic context. ... And the quantum mechanics comes along for the ride. An EM field account of consciousness is also a quantum mechanical account of consciousness. But ... I digress. Colin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 23:26:02 2017 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2017 23:26:02 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Apr 2017 at 12:35 am, Will Steinberg wrote: > I thought I'd replied to this on mobile but it didn't seem to send, hmm. > > What I said was, if a tornado a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away > assembled a conformation of matter identical to a copy of a book of the > play 'Hamlet' I own, the former conformation would "not be" Hamlet while > the copy I have "would be" Hamlet. > > To quote "Blowjob" Bill Clinton, "It depends on what the meaning of the > word 'is' is." And therein lies our disagreement. > With a static object such as a book there is the question of the intention of the author. It could be that the "Hamlet" book from the Andromeda Galaxy is actually written in an alien language and if you had the mapping, or translation, from that language to English you would see that it was in fact the story of Othello rather than Hamlet. Alternatively, the book might be full of randomly made marks, and if you had a mapping from these marks to the text of "Hamlet" you could interpret the book as such. The information would then not be contained in the book but in the mapping. These considerations are different for a dynamic entity, a machine or conscious being, which interacts with its environment. It doesn't matter how it was made or what the intention of the makers was, and it isn't possible to arbitrarily map a meaning onto it as in the case of the book. Its meaning is determined by interacting with it. It gets more interesting, and more weird, if you consider computations. A computation can be implemented in any substrate: like the book full of random markings, any complex system can be mapped to a Turing machine running any program. Generally this is a trivial observation because such a system can't be used for useful computation. If the leaves of a tree waving in the wind can be mapped to a computation of pi, you must already know the computation and the result in order to determine the mapping. However, there is a special case to consider: computations which give rise to consciousness and which do not interact with the external environment. An example of this would be the computation of a self-contained virtual world with conscious inhabitants. In this case, it doesn't make any difference to the conscious inhabitants that they can't interact with the substrate in which they are implemented; they are still conscious. So all around us, there are countless computations - all possible computations - giving rise to conscious beings with which we can never interact. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Apr 4 23:59:35 2017 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 19:59:35 -0400 Subject: [ExI] another modest proposal In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Apr 4, 2017 3:12 PM, "William Flynn Wallace" wrote: After they suicide, we feed them to the poor. Wait. First we have to establish that eating people is a mandatory form of a new religion, which, like L Ron Hubbard, we will invent. I'll leave it to Spike to find a good name for them. Only one of these ideas is tongue-in-cheek. Guess. You refer to cannibalism, then suggest it's tongue-in-cheek? That takes a lot of nerve... or gall... :) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Wed Apr 5 00:16:16 2017 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 20:16:16 -0400 Subject: [ExI] another modest proposal In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Or a strong stomach no doubt... On Apr 4, 2017 8:00 PM, "Mike Dougherty" wrote: > On Apr 4, 2017 3:12 PM, "William Flynn Wallace" > wrote: > > > After they suicide, we feed them to the poor. Wait. First we have to > establish that eating people is a mandatory form of a new religion, which, > like L Ron Hubbard, we will invent. I'll leave it to Spike to find a good > name for them. > > Only one of these ideas is tongue-in-cheek. Guess. > > > You refer to cannibalism, then suggest it's tongue-in-cheek? That takes a > lot of nerve... or gall... > > :) > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Apr 5 00:28:56 2017 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 17:28:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] another modest proposal In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <230744A4-5158-47A9-A105-013B22529923@gmail.com> On Apr 4, 2017, at 4:59 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Apr 4, 2017 3:12 PM, "William Flynn Wallace" wrote: > > After they suicide, we feed them to the poor. Wait. First we have to establish that eating people is a mandatory form of a new religion, which, like L Ron Hubbard, we will invent. I'll leave it to Spike to find a good name for them. > > Only one of these ideas is tongue-in-cheek. Guess. > > You refer to cannibalism, then suggest it's tongue-in-cheek? That takes a lot of nerve... or gall... > > :) I think it was only funny when Swift did it. ;) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From col.hales at gmail.com Wed Apr 5 01:19:09 2017 From: col.hales at gmail.com (Colin Hales) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2017 11:19:09 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is so messed up. It's turned into a strategic first-entrant advantage for me. And I can scream my answers from rooftops: My IP is rendered safe by the self-misdirection of several generations of entire science disciplines. Thomas Kuhn describe these cuspy eras in science. Time after time in science. Phlogiston. Earth centric universe etc etc etc. What he didn't convey was what it was like to be inside one. Dammit I'm so over it. This one is a result of a mistake that could only be made when computers were invented! It's the big one. It has shut down a whole era in science. It has literally broken empirical science practice. It's amazing. It's like a cult that none of you know you're in. You're all absolutely convinced of something that can only be conclusively proved by assuming it is false, not using computers and testing --- .... which is science practice none of you have never done because it's your job to use computers! You think it's empirical science when it isn't. Not sure who I'm ranting at any more. Forget it. On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 9:26 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > On Wed, 5 Apr 2017 at 12:35 am, Will Steinberg > wrote: > >> I thought I'd replied to this on mobile but it didn't seem to send, hmm. >> >> What I said was, if a tornado a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away >> assembled a conformation of matter identical to a copy of a book of the >> play 'Hamlet' I own, the former conformation would "not be" Hamlet while >> the copy I have "would be" Hamlet. >> >> To quote "Blowjob" Bill Clinton, "It depends on what the meaning of the >> word 'is' is." And therein lies our disagreement. >> > > With a static object such as a book there is the question of the intention > of the author. It could be that the "Hamlet" book from the Andromeda Galaxy > is actually written in an alien language and if you had the mapping, or > translation, from that language to English you would see that it was in > fact the story of Othello rather than Hamlet. Alternatively, the book might > be full of randomly made marks, and if you had a mapping from these marks > to the text of "Hamlet" you could interpret the book as such. The > information would then not be contained in the book but in the mapping. > > These considerations are different for a dynamic entity, a machine or > conscious being, which interacts with its environment. It doesn't matter > how it was made or what the intention of the makers was, and it isn't > possible to arbitrarily map a meaning onto it as in the case of the book. > Its meaning is determined by interacting with it. > > It gets more interesting, and more weird, if you consider computations. A > computation can be implemented in any substrate: like the book full of > random markings, any complex system can be mapped to a Turing machine > running any program. Generally this is a trivial observation because such a > system can't be used for useful computation. If the leaves of a tree waving > in the wind can be mapped to a computation of pi, you must already know the > computation and the result in order to determine the mapping. > > However, there is a special case to consider: computations which give rise > to consciousness and which do not interact with the external environment. > An example of this would be the computation of a self-contained virtual > world with conscious inhabitants. In this case, it doesn't make any > difference to the conscious inhabitants that they can't interact with the > substrate in which they are implemented; they are still conscious. So all > around us, there are countless computations - all possible computations - > giving rise to conscious beings with which we can never interact. > > > > > > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Apr 5 01:56:47 2017 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 18:56:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] toxins - was the truth about neonicotinoids References: <2111337446.1060760.1491357216589.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tuesday, April 4, 2017 10:39 AM Giulio Prisco wrote: > Be very careful with this argument. It could be used to criminalize > all sorts of lifestyles that could conceivably damage health, > including action sports and sexual promiscuity. Better live-and > -let-live if you ask me. I leave you in peace and you leave me in peace. Yes, the knee-jerk libertarian response to this should always be the people shouldn't be forced to pay for other people's life choices in the first place -- and not to curtail life choices. Again, that approach -- arguing we pay for people's healthcare so we should then dictate their life choices -- is not libertarian. It's authoritarian. > By the way, Adolf Hitler was very much against smokers, drinkers > and fat people. I don't want to stoop to using an argumentum ad hitlerum, but I recall flipping through a book on the Nazi war on cancer around 02000. I've never bought a copy of it, but see: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6573.html If you don't want to read the book, see this more recent article in _The Atlantic_: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/the-nazis-forgotten-anti-smoking-campaign/373766/ Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Wed Apr 5 02:33:07 2017 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 19:33:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] another modest proposal In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Or, you offer them $80,000, which gets them a neurocryopreservation by Alcor at a pre-arranged time (given your conditions). Saves a huge amount of money AND LIVES. Not going to happen anytime soon, but maybe one day... On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 12:10 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > First, we aim for getting legislation passed in all states allowing > assisted suicide. > > Second, depending on the status of their illnesses, we offer each suicide > a sum, say $50,000, if they will suicide. Given how much money is spent on > health care in the last few months of life, this could save billions. > > It would attract those who are broke, would break their family's finances > if they stayed alive all the way to a natural death, and want to leave > something behind for their families. > > What if they are not ill? So what? It's their life. However,only small > amounts would be paid to them since they are not saving health care costs, > at least not right away. > > After they suicide, we feed them to the poor. Wait. First we have to > establish that eating people is a mandatory form of a new religion, which, > like L Ron Hubbard, we will invent. I'll leave it to Spike to find a good > name for them. > > Only one of these ideas is tongue-in-cheek. Guess. > > bill w > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Wed Apr 5 05:21:02 2017 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2017 07:21:02 +0200 Subject: [ExI] toxins - was the truth about neonicotinoids In-Reply-To: References: <2111337446.1060760.1491357216589.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Well said Dan. But even in a context where everyone pays for everyone, the argument remains dangerous. Every lifestyle has potentially dangerous elements and can become a health risk when taken to extreme. So everyone could start refusing to pay for those whose lifestyle he disapproves. Example. I am a smoker. Say you like mountain climbing, which could lead to accidents and the need for costly therapies. As things are now, I have no problem to pay for your mountain climbing risk, because I know you are paying for my smoking risk. But if you refuse to pay, then I refuse to pay... On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 3:56 AM, Dan TheBookMan wrote: > On Tuesday, April 4, 2017 10:39 AM Giulio Prisco wrote: > > Be very careful with this argument. It could be used to criminalize > > all sorts of lifestyles that could conceivably damage health, > > including action sports and sexual promiscuity. Better live-and > > -let-live if you ask me. I leave you in peace and you leave me in peace. > > > Yes, the knee-jerk libertarian response to this should always be the people > shouldn't be forced to pay for other people's life choices in the first > place -- and not to curtail life choices. Again, that approach -- arguing we > pay for people's healthcare so we should then dictate their life choices -- > is not libertarian. It's authoritarian. > > By the way, Adolf Hitler was very much against smokers, drinkers > > and fat people. > > > I don't want to stoop to using an argumentum ad hitlerum, but I recall > flipping through a book on the Nazi war on cancer around 02000. I've never > bought a copy of it, but see: > > http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6573.html > > If you don't want to read the book, see this more recent article in _The > Atlantic_: > > https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/the-nazis-forgotten-anti-smoking-campaign/373766/ > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books via: > http://author.to/DanUst > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Apr 5 05:24:20 2017 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2017 05:24:20 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 5 Apr 2017 at 7:47 am, Colin Hales wrote: > > > On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 3:46 PM, Stathis Papaioannou > wrote: > > On Apr 2, 2017 22:46, "Stathis Papaioannou" wrote: > > > > > It is not obvious that a computation about nature can be conscious, but > neither is it obvious that it cannot. > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > On 3 April 2017 at 14:17, Will Steinberg wrote: > > On Apr 2, 2017 22:46, "Stathis Papaioannou" wrote: > > > > > It is not obvious that a computation about nature can be conscious, but > neither is it obvious that it cannot. > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > All the 'computations about nature' that have ever been and will ever be > discussed in this list were *designed by conscious beings*, also known as > consciousness. > > You're making the same mistake as the Chinese Room, which is neglecting > the fact that someone had to build the room itself. > > > > Are you implying that it would make a difference how the entity whose > consciousness was in question was made? For example, consider three > identical robots, one made by humans, the second by weird aliens, the third > thrown together from spare parts by a tornado: would you expect that they > would have different consciousnesses? > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > > No. Of course, in identically constructed robots, each consciousness would > have different contents and individuate each robot. But the robots would > have their consciousness originate in the same kind of physics (the same > kind of matter arranged and behaving in the same kinds of ways). It's the > essential kind of physics of it that matters. In 'being' that, and only > that kind, arranged in the same way, that makes it 'like something' to be > that matter. In my case, as you probably know, that physics is the EM field > system. Dorian Aur would have it originate only from ions in a cellular > context. I would have it originate using electrons in an inorganic context. > ... And the quantum mechanics comes along for the ride. An EM field account > of consciousness is also a quantum mechanical account of consciousness. But > ... I digress. > I see the way you think, but if consciousness is dependent on a particular substrate or process, it would lead to the problems pointed out in Chalmers' "Fading Qualia" argument: decoupling of consciousness from brain activity and behaviour. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 06:46:09 2017 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 23:46:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With the Rationality Community Message-ID: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2017/04/whats_wrong_wit_22.html Kind of a fragment of a discussion, but I think folks here will get it. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Apr 5 06:47:13 2017 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2017 23:47:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Russia now interested in reusable rockets Message-ID: https://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2017/04/after-spacex-launch-russia-now-says-it-is-interested-in-reusable-rockets/ Nothing like success to spur adoption. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 5 09:32:36 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2017 10:32:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What's Wrong With the Rationality Community In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 5 April 2017 at 07:46, Dan Ust wrote: > http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2017/04/whats_wrong_wit_22.html > > Kind of a fragment of a discussion, but I think folks here will get it. > The difficulty in criticising the 'Less Wrong' type groups is that it is like the question - 'When did you stop beating your wife?' If you criticise the followers of 'Rationality', then that implies you are not-rational, so obviously not as clever as they are. Therefore logically your criticism can be ignored. :) BillK From steinberg.will at gmail.com Wed Apr 5 11:55:01 2017 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2017 07:55:01 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I think the EM field is part of a subset of what I would call 'yang' which is consciousness, and which enervates a substrate of yin. Sort of like time and space. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Apr 6 15:59:55 2017 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2017 08:59:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Gut microbes of young killifish can extend the lifespans of older ones... Message-ID: http://www.nature.com/news/young-poo-makes-aged-fish-live-longer-1.21770 I wonder if it's more about what's present than what's absent here. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Apr 7 01:13:15 2017 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2017 11:13:15 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I think the EM field is part of a subset of what I would call 'yang' which is consciousness, and which enervates a substrate of yin. Sort of like time and space. On 5 April 2017 at 21:55, Will Steinberg wrote: > I think the EM field is part of a subset of what I would call 'yang' which is consciousness, and which enervates a substrate of yin. Sort of like time and space. Is this a serious comment? -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Apr 7 13:57:54 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2017 08:57:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] pesticide Message-ID: https://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2017/04/06/will-boys-mature-faster-when-exposed-to-pesticide/?utm_source=The+People%27s+Pharmacy+Newsletter&utm_campaign=ba82e97278-Health-Headlines-Email+4%2F7%2F17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_7300006d3c-ba82e97278-214968749&ct=t(Health_Headlines_4_7_17)&mc_cid=ba82e97278&mc_eid=b9c6f5005a Pyrethrin is a mainstay of organic gardeners. It has been thought to be natural and safe for many, many years. Now we find out differently. But there is no surprise here, is there? What was lacking all along was research, which should have been done long ago. I am sure it is very frustrating to farmers. So many chemicals, natural and synthetic, are used and then banned. Insects develop resistance, just like microbes. Maybe we can move towards testing them before ever releasing them, though how you could get that through a human research committee is problematical if not impossible. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Fri Apr 7 14:18:11 2017 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2017 10:18:11 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Uh On Apr 6, 2017 21:15, "Stathis Papaioannou" wrote: Is this a serious comment? Um, yes? Duality is a basic principle that underlies fundamental aspects of reality, as noted and observed by science. Charge is positive and negative. There is matter and antimatter, and supersymmetry. Spin is dual. Each orthogonal directional dimension consists of a line going to infinity in the positive and negative direction. The right hand rule produces action in one of two linear directions based on one of two angular directions. There is angular and linear momentum, laminar and turbulent flow, solids and fluids, electricity and magnetism, bosons and fermions, leptons and hadrons, two rows of quarks of different charges, electrons/muons/taus and their corresponding neutrinos, inertial and gravitational mass. Rational and irrational numbers, complex and non-complex numbers, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, powers an radicals, exponentiation and logarithms, sine and cosine. Travelling outwards from a point or inwards towards a point--attraction and repulsion. Duality is very, very, very clearly a more prime principle than, for example, electric charge. Triplicity is also important, but shows up less (quark colors, fermion generations, spatial dimensions, &c.) I'm not the silly one for believing duality is essential to the composition of the universe. You are for not understanding this incredibly basic and obvious statement. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Apr 7 14:25:39 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2017 09:25:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: will wrote: Duality is a basic principle that underlies fundamental aspects of reality, as noted and observed by science. --------- Just keep in mind that things we categorize into two things often masks a more complete understanding. For instance, rational and irrational. These are far from neat categories. I suggest a continuum for rationality as for man psychological things. Few, if any, of these things are discrete categories. In physics, perhaps so. bill w On Fri, Apr 7, 2017 at 9:18 AM, Will Steinberg wrote: > Uh > > > On Apr 6, 2017 21:15, "Stathis Papaioannou" wrote: > > > Is this a serious comment? > > > Um, yes? > > Duality is a basic principle that underlies fundamental aspects of > reality, as noted and observed by science. > > Charge is positive and negative. There is matter and antimatter, and > supersymmetry. Spin is dual. Each orthogonal directional dimension > consists of a line going to infinity in the positive and negative > direction. The right hand rule produces action in one of two linear > directions based on one of two angular directions. There is angular and > linear momentum, laminar and turbulent flow, solids and fluids, electricity > and magnetism, bosons and fermions, leptons and hadrons, two rows of quarks > of different charges, electrons/muons/taus and their corresponding > neutrinos, inertial and gravitational mass. Rational and irrational > numbers, complex and non-complex numbers, addition and subtraction, > multiplication and division, powers an radicals, exponentiation and > logarithms, sine and cosine. Travelling outwards from a point or inwards > towards a point--attraction and repulsion. > > Duality is very, very, very clearly a more prime principle than, for > example, electric charge. Triplicity is also important, but shows up less > (quark colors, fermion generations, spatial dimensions, &c.) > > I'm not the silly one for believing duality is essential to the > composition of the universe. You are for not understanding this incredibly > basic and obvious statement. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Fri Apr 7 14:29:47 2017 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2017 10:29:47 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Apr 7, 2017 10:27, "William Flynn Wallace" wrote: Few, if any, of these things are discrete categories. In physics, perhaps so. bill w To be fair, physics IS what we're talking about. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Apr 7 14:37:20 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2017 09:37:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Well, you did include rationality and irrationality. Hardly physics (at least for a long time) bill w On Fri, Apr 7, 2017 at 9:29 AM, Will Steinberg wrote: > On Apr 7, 2017 10:27, "William Flynn Wallace" wrote: > > > Few, if any, of these things are discrete categories. In physics, > perhaps so. > > bill w > > > To be fair, physics IS what we're talking about. > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Fri Apr 7 21:00:32 2017 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben) Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2017 22:00:32 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Quantum consciousness, quantum mysticism, and transhumanist engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <58E7FDF0.5030901@yahoo.com> Nice try, by recent posters to revive the entertainment value of this thread, but for me, it's just no fun anymore since Brent gave up on it. Ben Zaiboc From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Apr 8 09:20:31 2017 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2017 05:20:31 -0400 Subject: [ExI] another modest proposal In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 7:59 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > > > You refer to cannibalism, then suggest it's tongue-in-cheek? That takes a > lot of nerve... or gall... > > ### At some point in the proceedings, bits of the tongue may indeed touch the inside of the cannibal's cheek. Rafal -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Apr 11 14:01:30 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2017 15:01:30 +0100 Subject: [ExI] MUSIC: Omega band Message-ID: I was doing some Hungarian searching (a really strange language!) when I came across a reference to a Hungarian band called Omega. I followed the link to YouTube and found a video of a live concert. After a few minutes, I thought 'Hey, these guys are good', found my headphones and turned up the volume. The 2012 concert in Budapest has a full orchestra on stage with them, playing to a huge audience. It was a magnificent performance. I ended up listening for hours. Apparently they are internationally famous, though I've never heard of them. They started in the 1970s, so they are getting older now. Their music reminds me of Pink Floyd, with a bit of Hungarian weirdness, so if you like that sort of rock music, you'll like Omega. :) 50 minutes Search YouTube for 'Omega live Hungary' for more of their music. BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Apr 11 18:26:08 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2017 13:26:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] MUSIC: Omega band In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 9:01 AM, BillK wrote: > I was doing some Hungarian searching (a really strange language!) when > I came across a reference to a Hungarian band called Omega. I followed > the link to YouTube and found a video of a live concert. > > BillK > ?Enjoyed the orchestral intro a lot. Wish it had continued. When the band came on stage it seemed to just get really ordinary. But then I am a classical fan. Rock is fine is I can dance to it, but not for listening. That T shirt that says 'If it's too loud you're too old!' Yeah, that's me. (Unless it's Rachmaninoff or 1812 Overture) In Hungarian all words are accented on the first syllable. Daily trivia. bill w ? > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Apr 11 19:43:26 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2017 14:43:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] annoying, unsolicited advice Message-ID: I had a friend, a Jew, a brilliant mathematician, an obsessive compulsive neurotic, a collector of baseball trivia, among other things, one of which was teacher of undergraduate math - exactly where he should not have been. He was dating one of his students (again) and was tutoring her in math. As he reported to me, he told her that it was so simple that he was astonished that she didn't get it right away, and more along that line. So basically he was humiliating her, completely unintentionally, even after I repeatedly told him what he was doing, which was the same as what he did in his classes. He was a super sensitive person and would have nearly killed himself if he had known just how badly he made his students feel. He obsessed over this very poor teacher evaluations. He just didn't get it. He was a failure at teaching. He didn't have to be. One does not have to be called a teacher to be one. I have been taught on this list several times and appreciated that no one talked down to me even though his level of understanding was apparently way above mine. Owners of businesses, managers of anything at any level, are all basically teachers and should realize the effect they have on their employees when they put them down over and over. And they wonder why managers are among the most hated professions of all. It's really simple, isn't it? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Apr 11 20:01:15 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2017 21:01:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Genealogy free lectures Message-ID: Legacy Family Tree are opening their webinar library to free access this Easter weekend, Friday to Sunday. Nearly 500 webinars to choose from, including 26 on how to use DNA results in genealogy. Just visit and browse or search for any topic. e.g. (But be prepared that the site might be slow if thousands of people join in!) :) BillK From pharos at gmail.com Tue Apr 11 20:39:27 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2017 21:39:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] MUSIC: Omega band In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 11 April 2017 at 19:26, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Enjoyed the orchestral intro a lot. Wish it had continued. When the band > came on stage it seemed to just get really ordinary. > > But then I am a classical fan. Rock is fine is I can dance to it, but not > for listening. > > That T shirt that says 'If it's too loud you're too old!' Yeah, that's me. > (Unless it's Rachmaninoff or 1812 Overture) > > In Hungarian all words are accented on the first syllable. Daily trivia. Yes, Pink Floyd style rock music is not really 'dance to' music. :) Some of the songs seemed to be very emotional, though. The huge audience was singing along with the band (in Hungarian). I thought some of them were near to tears at times. BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Apr 11 21:29:41 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2017 16:29:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] MUSIC: Omega band In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 3:39 PM, BillK wrote: > > Yes, Pink Floyd style rock music is not really 'dance to' music. :) > Some of the songs seemed to be very emotional, though. > The huge audience was singing along with the band (in Hungarian). > I thought some of them were near to tears at times. > > BillK > ?I lost one middle ear at age six, and since then have had extreme trouble deciphering words in music, so I just don't even try. (Being in Hungarian doesn't really help either!) I treat the voice as just another instrument. I am sure I am missing most of the experience the songs provide. In any case those songs, to me, just don't work as instrumentals. Too much alike. Aside from the blatant vulgarity present in rap, have the lyrics to popular songs changed much over the years? I would be the last to know. bill w ? > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mlatorra at gmail.com Tue Apr 11 21:30:02 2017 From: mlatorra at gmail.com (Michael LaTorra) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2017 17:30:02 -0400 Subject: [ExI] annoying, unsolicited advice In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It does seem to be simple. But people who lack the knack for teaching apparently find it very hard to grasp. I taught undergraduates for many years. I told them that they could ask any question, and should never feel embarassed. "There is no such thing as a stupid student question in this class" I said. "There can be stupid answers from the teacher, however. So only I get to be stupid." Mike LaTorra On Apr 11, 2017 3:45 PM, "William Flynn Wallace" wrote: > I had a friend, a Jew, a brilliant mathematician, an obsessive compulsive > neurotic, a collector of baseball trivia, among other things, one of which > was teacher of undergraduate math - exactly where he should not have been. > > He was dating one of his students (again) and was tutoring her in math. > As he reported to me, he told her that it was so simple that he was > astonished that she didn't get it right away, and more along that line. > > So basically he was humiliating her, completely unintentionally, even > after I repeatedly told him what he was doing, which was the same as what > he did in his classes. He was a super sensitive person and would have > nearly killed himself if he had known just how badly he made his students > feel. > > He obsessed over this very poor teacher evaluations. He just didn't get > it. He was a failure at teaching. He didn't have to be. > > One does not have to be called a teacher to be one. I have been taught on > this list several times and appreciated that no one talked down to me even > though his level of understanding was apparently way above mine. > > Owners of businesses, managers of anything at any level, are all basically > teachers and should realize the effect they have on their employees when > they put them down over and over. And they wonder why managers are among > the most hated professions of all. > > It's really simple, isn't it? > > bill w > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Apr 11 22:24:57 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2017 17:24:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] annoying, unsolicited advice In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 4:30 PM, Michael LaTorra wrote: > It does seem to be simple. But people who lack the knack for teaching > apparently find it very hard to grasp. > > I taught undergraduates for many years. I told them that they could ask > any question, and should never feel embarassed. "There is no such thing as > a stupid student question in this class" I said. "There can be stupid > answers from the teacher, however. So only I get to be stupid." > > Mike LaTorra > ?Good to meet a fellow teacher. Thanks for responding. I just don't know if anyone can teach teaching. Maybe most of it is in the personality. True teachers never burn out, never get tired of teaching the same old thing because it's always to a new audience. I loved nearly every minute of it. bill w? > > On Apr 11, 2017 3:45 PM, "William Flynn Wallace" > wrote: > >> I had a friend, a Jew, a brilliant mathematician, an obsessive compulsive >> neurotic, a collector of baseball trivia, among other things, one of which >> was teacher of undergraduate math - exactly where he should not have been. >> >> He was dating one of his students (again) and was tutoring her in math. >> As he reported to me, he told her that it was so simple that he was >> astonished that she didn't get it right away, and more along that line. >> >> So basically he was humiliating her, completely unintentionally, even >> after I repeatedly told him what he was doing, which was the same as what >> he did in his classes. He was a super sensitive person and would have >> nearly killed himself if he had known just how badly he made his students >> feel. >> >> He obsessed over this very poor teacher evaluations. He just didn't get >> it. He was a failure at teaching. He didn't have to be. >> >> One does not have to be called a teacher to be one. I have been taught >> on this list several times and appreciated that no one talked down to me >> even though his level of understanding was apparently way above mine. >> >> Owners of businesses, managers of anything at any level, are all >> basically teachers and should realize the effect they have on their >> employees when they put them down over and over. And they wonder why >> managers are among the most hated professions of all. >> >> It's really simple, isn't it? >> >> bill w >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 11 22:41:55 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike66) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2017 15:41:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] MUSIC: Omega band Message-ID: <357501.51710.bm@smtp117.sbc.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone -------- Original message --------From: William Flynn Wallace Date: 4/11/17 2:29 PM (GMT-08:00) To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] MUSIC: Omega band On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 3:39 PM, BillK wrote: ?I lost one middle ear at age six, and since then have had extreme trouble deciphering words in music, so I just don't even try.... Aside from the blatant vulgarity present in rap, have the lyrics to popular songs changed much over the years?? I would be the last to know. bill w ?? No bills you would be second to last to know. ?I have never been able to understand what they are rapping about. ?I will pose this query. ?Joe is it that an f bomb is still an f bomb but somehow if one appends mother as a prefix then it is acceptable at a major political party rally? ?Can anyone please explain in terms a not hip hipster can grok? ?Spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Apr 12 00:04:41 2017 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2017 17:04:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] annoying, unsolicited advice In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Apr 11, 2017 3:27 PM, "William Flynn Wallace" wrote: I just don't know if anyone can teach teaching. Teaching, like any skill, can be taught. (Although, also like any skill, some will already - by random chance - have learned the basic concepts and/or have an easier time than most picking them up, and for some others - like the friend you mention - the opposite is true.) It is perhaps not taught nearly as often, or as well, as it should be, but this does not mean it can not be. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Apr 12 00:54:51 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2017 19:54:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] annoying, unsolicited advice In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 7:04 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Apr 11, 2017 3:27 PM, "William Flynn Wallace" > wrote: > > I just don't know if anyone can teach teaching. > > > Teaching, like any skill, can be taught. (Although, also like any skill, > some will already - by random chance - have learned the basic concepts > and/or have an easier time than most picking them up, and for some others - > like the friend you mention - the opposite is true.) > > It is perhaps not taught nearly as often, or as well, as it should be, but > this does not mean it can not be. > ?--------------------------- >From what I know of the education dept. and its classes on teaching el-hi, it's mainly about being organized, using visual aids, discipline, and a lot more along those lines. All not too much trouble for a robot to learn. Nothing about relating to the students as people, with all their individual differences There was quite a bit of interest in learning styles, but that turned out to be rather irrelevant. ?I suppose you are right - I would love to teach some teachers about teaching actual people. bill w > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulioprisco at protonmail.ch Wed Apr 12 15:52:27 2017 From: giulioprisco at protonmail.ch (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2017 11:52:27 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous space agency Message-ID: Following up on my previous post: I created a working group to develop a solid, sustainable design for Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous space agency. You are invited to participate. The idea is to leverage recent developments in crypto to bootstrap a global, distributed, decentralized, P2P space agency of the people, by the people, for the people. Space Decentral will be a Decentralized Autonomous Corporation (DAC) focused on world-changing space projects... https://giulioprisco.com/space-decentral-a-decentralized-autonomous-space-agency-6d3895720bd9 I am writing a series of posts on Crypto Insider to analyze the challenges. This is the first: [DAOs and DACs in the Real Physical World: Open Questions](https://cryptoinsider.com/daos-dacs-real-physical-world-open-questions/) I asked economists and people familiar with the subject matter to comment and participate, and I hope to report their insights soon. -- Giulio Prisco https://giulioprisco.com/ giulioprisco at protonmail.ch -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Apr 12 19:30:15 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2017 14:30:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Discover magazine, May 2017 Message-ID: Absolutely stunning article on plants. Would you believe not only memory, but epigenetic memory (not what they went through, but what their parents went through affects the genes)?! Communication, detection of relatives versus strangers, ability to count, learning and memory - are these plants intelligent? Conscious? Also good bios of famous and forgotten scientists, lucid article on quantum theory, and computers with morals. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Apr 13 04:47:03 2017 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2017 21:47:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous space agency In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I notice you still haven't presented any way to actually link your DAC to anything space-related. Though you do seem to be starting to realize one of the biggest inherent problems: almost everything of value is, as you put it, off-chain. As such, the blockchain would seem to be worthless here. (One could imagine ownership of physical assets to be governed by the blockchain. Unfortunately, that requires outside partners - those you buy things from, and those you do business with - to accept the blockchain, and almost all vendors & customers will not. I'm not sure, for instance, if there is a single provider of non-amateur rocket engines who will accept bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, at least without it first being converted to dollars or other off-chain, backed-by-a-United-Nations-recognized-country currency.) On Wed, Apr 12, 2017 at 8:52 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: > Following up on my previous post: I created a working group to develop a > solid, sustainable design for Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous > space agency. You are invited to participate. > The idea is to leverage recent developments in crypto to bootstrap a global, > distributed, decentralized, P2P space agency of the people, by the people, > for the people. Space Decentral will be a Decentralized Autonomous > Corporation (DAC) focused on world-changing space projects... > > https://giulioprisco.com/space-decentral-a-decentralized-autonomous-space-agency-6d3895720bd9 > > I am writing a series of posts on Crypto Insider to analyze the challenges. > This is the first: > DAOs and DACs in the Real Physical World: Open Questions > > I asked economists and people familiar with the subject matter to comment > and participate, and I hope to report their insights soon. > > -- > Giulio Prisco > https://giulioprisco.com/ > giulioprisco at protonmail.ch > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From cryptaxe at gmail.com Thu Apr 13 05:03:30 2017 From: cryptaxe at gmail.com (CryptAxe) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2017 22:03:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous space agency In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: You might be interested in reading this: https://www.americanbanker.com/opinion/the-wisdom-or-lack-thereof-of-the-dao On Apr 12, 2017 9:20 AM, "Giulio Prisco" wrote: Following up on my previous post: I created a working group to develop a solid, sustainable design for Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous space agency. You are invited to participate. The idea is to leverage recent developments in crypto to bootstrap a global, distributed, decentralized, P2P space agency of the people, by the people, for the people. Space Decentral will be a Decentralized Autonomous Corporation (DAC) focused on world-changing space projects... https://giulioprisco.com/space-decentral-a-decentralized-autonomous- space-agency-6d3895720bd9 I am writing a series of posts on Crypto Insider to analyze the challenges. This is the first: DAOs and DACs in the Real Physical World: Open Questions I asked economists and people familiar with the subject matter to comment and participate, and I hope to report their insights soon. -- Giulio Prisco https://giulioprisco.com/ giulioprisco at protonmail.ch _______________________________________________ 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 giulioprisco at protonmail.ch Thu Apr 13 05:54:01 2017 From: giulioprisco at protonmail.ch (Giulio Prisco) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2017 01:54:01 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous space agency In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks for the link CryptAxe. Kyle is a clear headed writer, I have worked with him at several crypto magazines and always found his analysis spot on. Now that I think of it, I'll ask him to participate in the discussion. This article was written before the hacking and fall of The DAO, which adds one more issue to Kyle's point. I'll share more thoughts later when I reply to Adrian's post. -- Giulio Prisco https://giulioprisco.com/ giulioprisco at protonmail.ch -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [ExI] Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous space agency Local Time: April 13, 2017 7:03 AM UTC Time: April 13, 2017 5:03 AM From: cryptaxe at gmail.com To: Giulio Prisco , ExI chat list You might be interested in reading this: https://www.americanbanker.com/opinion/the-wisdom-or-lack-thereof-of-the-dao On Apr 12, 2017 9:20 AM, "Giulio Prisco" wrote: Following up on my previous post: I created a working group to develop a solid, sustainable design for Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous space agency. You are invited to participate. The idea is to leverage recent developments in crypto to bootstrap a global, distributed, decentralized, P2P space agency of the people, by the people, for the people. Space Decentral will be a Decentralized Autonomous Corporation (DAC) focused on world-changing space projects... https://giulioprisco.com/space-decentral-a-decentralized-autonomous-space-agency-6d3895720bd9 I am writing a series of posts on Crypto Insider to analyze the challenges. This is the first: [DAOs and DACs in the Real Physical World: Open Questions](https://cryptoinsider.com/daos-dacs-real-physical-world-open-questions/) I asked economists and people familiar with the subject matter to comment and participate, and I hope to report their insights soon. -- Giulio Prisco https://giulioprisco.com/ giulioprisco at protonmail.ch _______________________________________________ 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 giulio at gmail.com Thu Apr 13 07:41:29 2017 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2017 09:41:29 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous space agency In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks for the link CryptAxe. Kyle is a clear headed writer, I have worked with him at several crypto magazines and always found his analysis spot on. Now that I think of it, I'll ask him to participate in the discussion. This article was written before the hacking and fall of The DAO, which adds one more issue to Kyle's point. I'll share more thoughts later when I reply to Adrian's post. PS I sent this from ProtonMail first but it ended up in Spam again, so I am giving up (again) on ProtonMail for list mail. Sorry if you received this twice. On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 7:03 AM, CryptAxe wrote: > You might be interested in reading this: > > https://www.americanbanker.com/opinion/the-wisdom-or-lack-thereof-of-the-dao > > On Apr 12, 2017 9:20 AM, "Giulio Prisco" wrote: > > Following up on my previous post: I created a working group to develop a > solid, sustainable design for Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous > space agency. You are invited to participate. > The idea is to leverage recent developments in crypto to bootstrap a global, > distributed, decentralized, P2P space agency of the people, by the people, > for the people. Space Decentral will be a Decentralized Autonomous > Corporation (DAC) focused on world-changing space projects... > > https://giulioprisco.com/space-decentral-a-decentralized-autonomous-space-agency-6d3895720bd9 > > I am writing a series of posts on Crypto Insider to analyze the challenges. > This is the first: > DAOs and DACs in the Real Physical World: Open Questions > > I asked economists and people familiar with the subject matter to comment > and participate, and I hope to report their insights soon. > > -- > Giulio Prisco > https://giulioprisco.com/ > giulioprisco at protonmail.ch > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 pharos at gmail.com Thu Apr 13 08:06:55 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2017 09:06:55 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous space agency In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 13 April 2017 at 08:41, Giulio Prisco wrote: > PS I sent this from ProtonMail first but it ended up in Spam again, so > I am giving up (again) on ProtonMail for list mail. Sorry if you > received this twice. > It didn't go to my Spam folder. Gmail users need to set up a filter: Matches: list:"extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org" Do this: Skip Inbox, Apply label "Extropy", Never send it to Spam This filter also catches all other email systems that Google disapproves of, like yahoo mail. BillK From giulio at gmail.com Thu Apr 13 14:42:11 2017 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2017 16:42:11 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous space agency In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks Adrian. Some advantages of blockchain-based DACs, from the perspective of participants / shareholders and compared to traditional shares, are: - Possibility to buy shares and participate anonymously. - Self-enforced right to easily participate in all decisions. - Possibility to offer services to the DAC as independent contractor (work 2.0). - More protection against fraud. Concerning your point about payments, paying a contractor in dollars is not the problem. In a DAC this could work as follows. Suppose you are a contractor who doesn't want to have anything to do with cryptocurrency and I am a DAC member who interfaces with you.: - You submit a deliverable to me and invoice $100,000. - I request authorization to pay you $100,000. - The members vote on accepting the deliverable. - If the vote is positive a smart contract sends crypto funds to an exchange where the crypto is converted to dollars and the dollars are delivered to me. - I pay you. The problem is: what if I don't pay you and steal the money instead? Smart contracts protect internal transactions against fraud, but not external transactions like this. This use case becomes easier if you accept to be minimally involved in the process. For example you could have an account on the exchange and receive the payment (in dollars) directly. In general, the issues are at the interface between DAC and the external world. There is no pure DAC solution: I think a DAC that wants to operate as a real-world business needs a legal identity, a front company in a favorable jurisdiction with named individuals in charge, a bank account, ability to hold property etc. One of the articles that I listed has examples of how things could be set up in a specific jurisdiction (UK). On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 6:47 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > I notice you still haven't presented any way to actually link your DAC > to anything space-related. Though you do seem to be starting to > realize one of the biggest inherent problems: almost everything of > value is, as you put it, off-chain. As such, the blockchain would > seem to be worthless here. > > (One could imagine ownership of physical assets to be governed by the > blockchain. Unfortunately, that requires outside partners - those you > buy things from, and those you do business with - to accept the > blockchain, and almost all vendors & customers will not. I'm not > sure, for instance, if there is a single provider of non-amateur > rocket engines who will accept bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, at > least without it first being converted to dollars or other off-chain, > backed-by-a-United-Nations-recognized-country currency.) > > On Wed, Apr 12, 2017 at 8:52 AM, Giulio Prisco > wrote: >> Following up on my previous post: I created a working group to develop a >> solid, sustainable design for Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous >> space agency. You are invited to participate. >> The idea is to leverage recent developments in crypto to bootstrap a global, >> distributed, decentralized, P2P space agency of the people, by the people, >> for the people. Space Decentral will be a Decentralized Autonomous >> Corporation (DAC) focused on world-changing space projects... >> >> https://giulioprisco.com/space-decentral-a-decentralized-autonomous-space-agency-6d3895720bd9 >> >> I am writing a series of posts on Crypto Insider to analyze the challenges. >> This is the first: >> DAOs and DACs in the Real Physical World: Open Questions >> >> I asked economists and people familiar with the subject matter to comment >> and participate, and I hope to report their insights soon. >> >> -- >> Giulio Prisco >> https://giulioprisco.com/ >> giulioprisco at protonmail.ch >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 giulio at gmail.com Thu Apr 13 14:49:23 2017 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2017 16:49:23 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous space agency In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Re "I notice you still haven't presented any way to actually link your DAC to anything space-related." This is a feature, not a bug. I want to find a solid operational model first, generally applicable to real-world industries. Then we can go to the stars ;-) On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 6:47 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > I notice you still haven't presented any way to actually link your DAC > to anything space-related. Though you do seem to be starting to > realize one of the biggest inherent problems: almost everything of > value is, as you put it, off-chain. As such, the blockchain would > seem to be worthless here. > > (One could imagine ownership of physical assets to be governed by the > blockchain. Unfortunately, that requires outside partners - those you > buy things from, and those you do business with - to accept the > blockchain, and almost all vendors & customers will not. I'm not > sure, for instance, if there is a single provider of non-amateur > rocket engines who will accept bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency, at > least without it first being converted to dollars or other off-chain, > backed-by-a-United-Nations-recognized-country currency.) > > On Wed, Apr 12, 2017 at 8:52 AM, Giulio Prisco > wrote: >> Following up on my previous post: I created a working group to develop a >> solid, sustainable design for Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous >> space agency. You are invited to participate. >> The idea is to leverage recent developments in crypto to bootstrap a global, >> distributed, decentralized, P2P space agency of the people, by the people, >> for the people. Space Decentral will be a Decentralized Autonomous >> Corporation (DAC) focused on world-changing space projects... >> >> https://giulioprisco.com/space-decentral-a-decentralized-autonomous-space-agency-6d3895720bd9 >> >> I am writing a series of posts on Crypto Insider to analyze the challenges. >> This is the first: >> DAOs and DACs in the Real Physical World: Open Questions >> >> I asked economists and people familiar with the subject matter to comment >> and participate, and I hope to report their insights soon. >> >> -- >> Giulio Prisco >> https://giulioprisco.com/ >> giulioprisco at protonmail.ch >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 pharos at gmail.com Thu Apr 13 18:42:35 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2017 19:42:35 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Termite-hunting ants rescue injured comrades Message-ID: New research finds that Matabele ants routinely carry injured nestmates back to the nest to recover Quotes: Research published today in Science Advances reveals that specialist termite predator the African Matabele ant (Megaponera analis) operates a medevac service for its soldiers during raids on termites. The finding, by a team led by Erik Frank from the University of W?rzburg's Biocentre, is highly unusual. Ants ? along with termites and some types of bees and wasps ? are eusocial species, which demonstrate a level of colony organisation and collective action that render individual lives unimportant. Matabele ants, however, are different. Two to four times a day they descend on termite feeding grounds, killing their prey and dragging them back to the nest. Their opponents, however, are not exactly defenceless, and many of the ants are slaughtered or maimed by soldier termites, equipped with massive pincers. Frank and his team observed that a wounded ant releases a specific chemical compound that serves to trigger a rescue response in other ants nearby. These then pick up the damaged insect and carry it back to home territory, where any attacking termites still attached are forcibly removed. Those ants not too badly wounded eventually recover and return to active duty. The number that do so must be great enough for the unprecedented strategy to pay a survival dividend for the colony. ?We have observed helping behaviour vis-?-vis injured animals for the first time in invertebrates,? say Frank. -------------------- BillK From atymes at gmail.com Thu Apr 13 18:49:52 2017 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2017 11:49:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous space agency In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Apr 13, 2017 7:44 AM, "Giulio Prisco" wrote: Thanks Adrian. Some advantages of blockchain-based DACs, from the perspective of participants / shareholders and compared to traditional shares, are: - Possibility to buy shares and participate anonymously. Investors with serious money rarely care for anonymous participation - and those that do, already have means to (proxies, for example). - Self-enforced right to easily participate in all decisions. With much money, and thus much shares, they get outvoted if their proposals run counter to the interests of - or they just can't convince - a majority, just like in normal corporations. - Possibility to offer services to the DAC as independent contractor (work 2.0). They have this even without buying a single share: the DAC can work with anyone it collectively decides to. - More protection against fraud. Less, actually, by trying to work around and shun so many of the protections in law. Concerning your point about payments, paying a contractor in dollars is not the problem. In a DAC this could work as follows. Suppose you are a contractor who doesn't want to have anything to do with cryptocurrency and I am a DAC member who interfaces with you.: - You submit a deliverable to me and invoice $100,000. - I request authorization to pay you $100,000. - The members vote on accepting the deliverable. - If the vote is positive a smart contract sends crypto funds to an exchange where the crypto is converted to dollars and the dollars are delivered to me. - I pay you. Ha ha ha ha ha... Yeah right. If I am a contractor who is competent*, I am going to insist up front on a contract that guarantees payment on delivery. The DAC does not get to vote on whether to accept, save that the DAC votes yes. If the DAC votes no, the DAC can expect to be sued and lose quickly, with damages. (There are exceptions, such as work so shoddy that the judge would agree it is shoddy. But good luck proving that, and you would likely get a lawsuit anyway.) * I say this having been a contractor in kind of that situation. I still have the court order for payment somewhere in my paper files. The corp that tried this dissolved, and the one responsible fled the state and possibly the country rather than pay me. A space DAC would be routinely dealing with contracts for much, much higher amounts than the few thousand dollars in my case. The problem is: what if I don't pay you and steal the money instead? Smart contracts protect internal transactions against fraud, but not external transactions like this. This use case becomes easier if you accept to be minimally involved in the process. For example you could have an account on the exchange and receive the payment (in dollars) directly. And most contractors competent to provide hardware for space stuff won't. They prefer the law, which is not subject to the hacking or other vulnerabilities that the DAO demonstrated. In general, the issues are at the interface between DAC and the external world. There is no pure DAC solution: I think a DAC that wants to operate as a real-world business needs a legal identity, a front company in a favorable jurisdiction with named individuals in charge, a bank account, ability to hold property etc. One of the articles that I listed has examples of how things could be set up in a specific jurisdiction (UK). So your problem reduces to, what advantages does a DAC have over a traditional corporation, given that most elements of significant financial value will refuse to engage with blockchain et al instead of traditional means (such as the law & courts, seeing blockchain et al as less effective at protecting their interests), thus negating any benefits for their transactions that a DAC might have? You can't just think of benefits to the DAC. Blockchain benefits the DAC but disadvantages outside parties: despite what you say, it does - or at least outside parties will believe it does, which is enough to prevent them from using it. So how do you overcome that? Merely claiming benefits to the cryptosavvy & anonymity-preferring (which the outside parties you are likely to work with on a space venture are generally not) won't cut it, especially if you ignore the proven disadvantages. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Apr 13 18:58:30 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2017 13:58:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Termite-hunting ants rescue injured comrades In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ?We have observed helping behaviour vis-?-vis injured animals for the first time in invertebrates,? say Frank. BillK The plant article I posted from Discover magazine cited trees and other plants informing their neighbors of infections and molds, and dangerous insects maybe coming their way. Also, plants can signal neighbors of dry conditions, which cause their neighbors to partially close their stomas so as to minimize water loss. That counts as helping behavior, no? What's next? Helpful rocks? bill w On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 1:42 PM, BillK wrote: > New research finds that Matabele ants routinely carry injured > nestmates back to the nest to recover > > hunting-ants-rescue-injured-comrades> > > Quotes: > Research published today in Science Advances reveals that specialist > termite predator the African Matabele ant (Megaponera analis) operates > a medevac service for its soldiers during raids on termites. > > The finding, by a team led by Erik Frank from the University of > W?rzburg's Biocentre, is highly unusual. Ants ? along with termites > and some types of bees and wasps ? are eusocial species, which > demonstrate a level of colony organisation and collective action that > render individual lives unimportant. > > Matabele ants, however, are different. Two to four times a day they > descend on termite feeding grounds, killing their prey and dragging > them back to the nest. Their opponents, however, are not exactly > defenceless, and many of the ants are slaughtered or maimed by soldier > termites, equipped with massive pincers. > > Frank and his team observed that a wounded ant releases a specific > chemical compound that serves to trigger a rescue response in other > ants nearby. These then pick up the damaged insect and carry it back > to home territory, where any attacking termites still attached are > forcibly removed. > > Those ants not too badly wounded eventually recover and return to > active duty. The number that do so must be great enough for the > unprecedented strategy to pay a survival dividend for the colony. > > ?We have observed helping behaviour vis-?-vis injured animals for the > first time in invertebrates,? say Frank. > > -------------------- > > > 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 spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 13 20:46:02 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2017 13:46:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Termite-hunting ants rescue injured comrades In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <016401d2b496$f7759ce0$e660d6a0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2017 11:43 AM To: Extropy Chat Subject: [ExI] Termite-hunting ants rescue injured comrades New research finds that Matabele ants routinely carry injured nestmates back to the nest to recover Quotes: Research published today in Science Advances reveals that specialist termite predator the African Matabele ant (Megaponera analis) operates a medevac service for its soldiers during raids on termites. ... ?We have observed helping behaviour vis-?-vis injured animals for the first time in invertebrates,? say Frank. -------------------- BillK _______________________________________________ Hi BillK, thanks for this. What I would like to learn is if this is a carnivorous ant species, and if so, do we know for sure they aren't taking the wounded ants back in order to devour their fallen comrades. I have been thinking of setting up a camera suited to photographing ants in order to determine if they ever do anything like this. I fear they do, at least some species. It is entirely plausible that they are taking the injured ants back to a hospital but I want to see if I can record the event. For the amateur entomologist, these tiny cell phone cameras are a gift: they are cheap, they can make video of tiny things. I want this camera to study an intriguing theory regarding how to explain why Australian bees seem to be more resistant to Varroa mites. Perhaps the Australian bees have better allogrooming, the term for bees plucking mites off of each other in the hive. The notion is that the Australian bees crush or otherwise damage the mites with their mandibles, whereas more susceptible bee subspecies remove the mite and subsequently drop the undamaged beast, which then falls upon the allogroomer's sister, infecting her. A commercial beehive is a wooden box with hanging frames, a bit the old-time hanging folders in a "filing cabinet." Ask your grandparents if you have never seen one of those. In a commercial hive, all the honeycombs are built on vertical surfaces, which means any varroa mite plucked from any bee would be dropped upon another bee. So what if... a subspecies with only a slightly more powerful mandible did crush the mites? The lower bees would be pummeled by severely damaged mites, which would resumably be harmless. Those colonies with the mite-crushers would soon be selected differentially for survival, which could explain the Australian bees greater resistance. Ja? OK so we have commercial hives designed for ease of inspection and extraction of honey (don't eat it, dammit!) but they don't need to be made that way. They were designed for ease of manufacturing back in the days with things were built by hammering wood together. But now we have all these alternatives, such as... plastic hemispherical dome beehives. We could make these things cheaply. Then the bees make their honeycombs on a hemispherical surface hanging upside down, allogrooming, the mites don't fall upon the ladies below, they fall to the bottom of the hive, where a beekeeper could arrange a sticky surface where the parasitic bastards would perish. Before you blow off this idea, keep in mind that a commercial hive costs about 60 bucks to build typically. But we could make plastic hemisphere hives very cheaply, perhaps with a reflective outer surface to keep the temperature down, with the option of a hemispherical black cover in the winter to hold in some heat. We could make these for less than 60 bucks, and they would be easier to control mites. Ja? It would be bigger than a basketball but smaller than about a meter diameter. Any plastics manufacturing hipsters please who could estimate the cost of making something like that in quantity? It wouldn't be any good for extracting honey, or for loading on a truck in order to smuggle dope, but we don't need to be doing either of those things anyway. It would be for keeping bees on one's own property. We could come up with a cutesy name for them: Beegloo? Beodesic dome? Beekminster Fuller hive? spike From pharos at gmail.com Thu Apr 13 21:30:40 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2017 22:30:40 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Termite-hunting ants rescue injured comrades In-Reply-To: <016401d2b496$f7759ce0$e660d6a0$@att.net> References: <016401d2b496$f7759ce0$e660d6a0$@att.net> Message-ID: On 13 April 2017 at 21:46, spike wrote: > What I would like to learn is if this is a carnivorous ant species, and if so, do we know for sure they aren't taking the wounded ants back in order to devour their fallen comrades. I have been thinking of setting up a camera suited to photographing ants in order to determine if they ever do anything like this. I fear they do, at least some species. It is entirely plausible that they are taking the injured ants back to a hospital but I want to see if I can record the event. > You can read the full research article here: This species of ant is carnivorous, but they attack and eat termites. They leave dead ants on the battlefield, but carry dead termites back for food. The wounded ants were marked and seen to return later in another raid. Re hives, Have you seen the Warre Hive? The cost is about one-third to one-fourth the cost of one standard ten frame Langstroth hive. BillK > For the amateur entomologist, these tiny cell phone cameras are a gift: they are cheap, they can make video of tiny things. I want this camera to study an intriguing theory regarding how to explain why Australian bees seem to be more resistant to Varroa mites. Perhaps the Australian bees have better allogrooming, the term for bees plucking mites off of each other in the hive. The notion is that the Australian bees crush or otherwise damage the mites with their mandibles, whereas more susceptible bee subspecies remove the mite and subsequently drop the undamaged beast, which then falls upon the allogroomer's sister, infecting her. > > A commercial beehive is a wooden box with hanging frames, a bit the old-time hanging folders in a "filing cabinet." Ask your grandparents if you have never seen one of those. In a commercial hive, all the honeycombs are built on vertical surfaces, which means any varroa mite plucked from any bee would be dropped upon another bee. So what if... a subspecies with only a slightly more powerful mandible did crush the mites? The lower bees would be pummeled by severely damaged mites, which would resumably be harmless. Those colonies with the mite-crushers would soon be selected differentially for survival, which could explain the Australian bees greater resistance. Ja? > > OK so we have commercial hives designed for ease of inspection and extraction of honey (don't eat it, dammit!) but they don't need to be made that way. They were designed for ease of manufacturing back in the days with things were built by hammering wood together. But now we have all these alternatives, such as... plastic hemispherical dome beehives. We could make these things cheaply. Then the bees make their honeycombs on a hemispherical surface hanging upside down, allogrooming, the mites don't fall upon the ladies below, they fall to the bottom of the hive, where a beekeeper could arrange a sticky surface where the parasitic bastards would perish. > > Before you blow off this idea, keep in mind that a commercial hive costs about 60 bucks to build typically. But we could make plastic hemisphere hives very cheaply, perhaps with a reflective outer surface to keep the temperature down, with the option of a hemispherical black cover in the winter to hold in some heat. We could make these for less than 60 bucks, and they would be easier to control mites. Ja? It would be bigger than a basketball but smaller than about a meter diameter. Any plastics manufacturing hipsters please who could estimate the cost of making something like that in quantity? It wouldn't be any good for extracting honey, or for loading on a truck in order to smuggle dope, but we don't need to be doing either of those things anyway. It would be for keeping bees on one's own property. > > We could come up with a cutesy name for them: Beegloo? Beodesic dome? Beekminster Fuller hive? > From sjv2006 at gmail.com Thu Apr 13 22:44:01 2017 From: sjv2006 at gmail.com (Stephen Van Sickle) Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2017 15:44:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] annoying, unsolicited advice In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Apr 11, 2017 14:31, "Michael LaTorra" wrote: It does seem to be simple. But people who lack the knack for teaching apparently find it very hard to grasp. I taught undergraduates for many years. I told them that they could ask any question, and should never feel embarassed. I always told my students that there there are no stupid questions, only stupid people. Perhaps I am one of those teachers who doesn't quite get it.... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Fri Apr 14 04:57:52 2017 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2017 06:57:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous space agency In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Adrian, payment is always depending on client acceptance of the deliverables as conform to the specs in the contract. If the contract says nuclear power plant (with a long list of specs) and you give me a toaster, that's no good and I don't pay you. Large contracts are split in parts and each part works like that. You get a downpayment at the beginning, but that's all you get if your work is no good. I have signed many contracts, small and big, from both sides of the table. Some times I have refused to pay because the deliverables were no good (as defined in the contract). We always reached an agreement: the contractors fixed this and that, and then they were were paid. Twice I haven't been paid. The first time I had my lawyer send a muscular letter to the client, who paid the same day. The second time my client wasn't paid by their client, so they didn't pay me, so I didn't pay my subcontractors, all because the cost of the project had been underestimated (my fault). My client went out of business. In a DAC, it's the members (or a subset of members involved in a specific project) who decide to accept a deliverable or not. Realistically, some members will be charged to do acceptance testing and the rest will vote based on their recommendation. Re "They have this even without buying a single share: the DAC can work with anyone it collectively decides to." - Members can participate in discussions, vote smartly on other projects, gain followers and build a reputation that helps them win contracts. Think social media and open source communities. Re "Investors with serious money rarely care for anonymous participation - and those that do, already have means to (proxies, for example)." - Sure, but this is not for investors with serious money. It is for the rest of us. It is for the little guy who wants to invest a few hundred bucks in a new project or company. Put one million of them little guys together and you have enough funding for a space project. In general, I think you are too skeptical of the acceptance of blockchain tech by large corporations and governments. Perhaps you haven't kept up with the news. Today Microsoft, IBM, Intel and other tech giants have their own blockchain projects, Japan just passed a law to regulate crypto money as legal means of payment, Russia and China plan to do the same, the Bank of England is launching its own blockchain-based crypto money, and there are news of that kind every day. Sometime soon some form of crypto money, interoperable with others, could become legal tender in one or another country and integrated with the local banking system. Then the country would pass laws to give a legal status to companies that operate as front companies for a DAC. Won't happen tomorrow or next week, but this is a long term project. On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 8:49 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Apr 13, 2017 7:44 AM, "Giulio Prisco" wrote: > > Thanks Adrian. Some advantages of blockchain-based DACs, from the > perspective of participants / shareholders and compared to traditional > shares, are: > - Possibility to buy shares and participate anonymously. > > > Investors with serious money rarely care for anonymous participation - and > those that do, already have means to (proxies, for example). > > - Self-enforced right to easily participate in all decisions. > > > With much money, and thus much shares, they get outvoted if their proposals > run counter to the interests of - or they just can't convince - a majority, > just like in normal corporations. > > - Possibility to offer services to the DAC as independent contractor (work > 2.0). > > > They have this even without buying a single share: the DAC can work with > anyone it collectively decides to. > > - More protection against fraud. > > > Less, actually, by trying to work around and shun so many of the protections > in law. > > Concerning your point about payments, paying a contractor in dollars > is not the problem. In a DAC this could work as follows. Suppose you > are a contractor who doesn't want to have anything to do with > cryptocurrency and I am a DAC member who interfaces with you.: > - You submit a deliverable to me and invoice $100,000. > - I request authorization to pay you $100,000. > - The members vote on accepting the deliverable. > - If the vote is positive a smart contract sends crypto funds to an > exchange where the crypto is converted to dollars and the dollars are > delivered to me. > - I pay you. > > > Ha ha ha ha ha... > > Yeah right. If I am a contractor who is competent*, I am going to insist up > front on a contract that guarantees payment on delivery. The DAC does not > get to vote on whether to accept, save that the DAC votes yes. If the DAC > votes no, the DAC can expect to be sued and lose quickly, with damages. > > (There are exceptions, such as work so shoddy that the judge would agree it > is shoddy. But good luck proving that, and you would likely get a lawsuit > anyway.) > > * I say this having been a contractor in kind of that situation. I still > have the court order for payment somewhere in my paper files. The corp that > tried this dissolved, and the one responsible fled the state and possibly > the country rather than pay me. A space DAC would be routinely dealing with > contracts for much, much higher amounts than the few thousand dollars in my > case. > > The problem is: what if I don't pay you and steal the money instead? > Smart contracts protect internal transactions against fraud, but not > external transactions like this. > > This use case becomes easier if you accept to be minimally involved in > the process. For example you could have an account on the exchange and > receive the payment (in dollars) directly. > > > And most contractors competent to provide hardware for space stuff won't. > They prefer the law, which is not subject to the hacking or other > vulnerabilities that the DAO demonstrated. > > In general, the issues are at the interface between DAC and the > external world. There is no pure DAC solution: I think a DAC that > wants to operate as a real-world business needs a legal identity, a > front company in a favorable jurisdiction with named individuals in > charge, a bank account, ability to hold property etc. One of the > articles that I listed has examples of how things could be set up in a > specific jurisdiction (UK). > > > So your problem reduces to, what advantages does a DAC have over a > traditional corporation, given that most elements of significant financial > value will refuse to engage with blockchain et al instead of traditional > means (such as the law & courts, seeing blockchain et al as less effective > at protecting their interests), thus negating any benefits for their > transactions that a DAC might have? > > You can't just think of benefits to the DAC. Blockchain benefits the DAC > but disadvantages outside parties: despite what you say, it does - or at > least outside parties will believe it does, which is enough to prevent them > from using it. So how do you overcome that? Merely claiming benefits to > the cryptosavvy & anonymity-preferring (which the outside parties you are > likely to work with on a space venture are generally not) won't cut it, > especially if you ignore the proven disadvantages. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Apr 14 18:37:59 2017 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2017 14:37:59 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Strange Beasts Message-ID: This is a rather good 5 minute movie about augmented reality with a surprise ending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds05TpGOY_w John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rkz at hyperlogos.net Fri Apr 14 12:27:31 2017 From: rkz at hyperlogos.net (Radoslaw Zasiadczuk) Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2017 14:27:31 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous space agency In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20170414142731.bcfeca7c60926669b17789c1@hyperlogos.net> On Thu, 13 Apr 2017 11:49:52 -0700 Adrian Tymes wrote: Hello everyone! If I may add my $0.03... > So your problem reduces to, what advantages does a DAC have over a > traditional corporation, given that most elements of significant financial > value will refuse to engage with blockchain et al instead of traditional > means (such as the law & courts, seeing blockchain et al as less effective > at protecting their interests), thus negating any benefits for their > transactions that a DAC might have? There are, probably, about 3 general levels of of a DAC/DAO. The highest is a DAC being ruled by its internal AI, making decisions, signing contracts, having a "person" or "legal person" status like normal corporation. That's not going to happen next week and for now it's irelevant. The second level is perhaps the most confusing - a DAC without intelligence, but acting as corporation in a world where DACs are not yet "a thing". This brings all the questions - who is going to sign contracts? How decisions are made? Enforced? Investors, how do we attract them, what exactly is their role? Etc. They are perfectly valid questions of course, but probably they can't be answered without going through the basic level of DAO. The third, basic level (and this is just my understanding, don't quote) seems to be a DAO that is nothing more than company or organisation using blockchain technology for... and here comes the explanation of everything ;) What is blockchain used for? What can it do? I am aware that everything a blockchain can do in theory can be achieved used non-blockchain technologies. Especially when we consider technologies constituting informational background of a company. Flow of information, decisions, knowledge, etc. But having said that it is all perfectly achievable using non-silicon technologies, like pen and paper. So what curretn blockchain does best? Provide transparency and real-time, accurate, proven information about everything that goes on in the company, with reduced need for human input. It can speed up flow of information, decisions, knowledge in a company in safe and secure manner, and all that requires less infrastructure and maintenance than more traditional means of "computing". But this is in case of traditional companies. Let's expand slightly the model to a core corporation using a lot of 3rd parties, contractors, advisers. Keeping track of everything that is going on, remembering that the core company sets general direction, and makes the important decisions, but each big decision is followed by countless small decisions on all levels of organization.. Blockchain - extremely useful for all that. Pen and paper would not be sufficient. And then the core company leaves itself legal presence and brand, and dissolves hierachy (that already was a mesh more than a tree), so it officially becomes just a node in decentralized, autonomous organization, which by that time moves by itself... and by that statement I mean something similar to open source software projects. They surely are decentralized, to some might appear chaotic, but there is inherent order built in, facilitated by source control software and communication, that needs no traditional hierarchy, no explicit pecking order, and gets things done on scale that suprises people believeng that without strict, imposed order nothing would ever get done. And here pen and paper would not be merely insufficient, probability of succeding on such a low technology is near-zero. Traditional computing methods can get things done, but they in turn start looking insufficient. Blockchain (I think - we're at the very early stages still), can bring the power of decentralization to physical world. It's been done before using more traditional methods, like for example in Gore-Tex, (please correct me if I'm wrong), but blockchain is an idea that can scale the beyond small and medium sized companies, Now, BC is just technology, not to be mistaken for complete solution. In a DAO the people are obviously the very top, software and hardware they use are just tools, and blockchain glues it all together. That's the short answer.. ;) best regards, Radoslaw Zasiadczuk From giulio at gmail.com Sat Apr 15 06:24:57 2017 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2017 08:24:57 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous space agency In-Reply-To: <20170414142731.bcfeca7c60926669b17789c1@hyperlogos.net> References: <20170414142731.bcfeca7c60926669b17789c1@hyperlogos.net> Message-ID: Thanks for your $0.03! In general, everything that can be done one way can also be done another way. I totally agree with "BC is just technology, not to be mistaken for complete solution. In a DAO the people are obviously the very top, software and hardware they use are just tools, and blockchain glues it all together." I don't especially care for your highest level of DAC/DAO. Pasting from a KurzweilAI thread: A DAC automates the low level aspects of project management, which usually take a lot of time. Tracking, recording, verifying, voting, knowing who is doing what, who is responsible for what, what has been paid to whom, what must be paid to whom, what has been received... all that is taken care of by smart contracts. I am NOT in favor of outsourcing to machines what people do well (creativity, high level decision making...) but I am all for outsourcing to machines what humans do poorly, or is too boring to motivate humans. Concerning your third level ("DAO that is nothing more than company or organisation using blockchain technology for... and here comes the explanation of everything.") A DAO is something more than a company because blockchain tech permits doing easily things that are not done easily in a company, but also something LESS than a company because it doesn't come with a legal status that permits working effectively in the real business world. That has to be added on at this moment. Re "What is blockchain used for? What can it do?" - some thoughts here: http://www.kurzweilai.net/forums/topic/space-decentral-a-decentralized-autonomous-space-agency Concerning your second level ("[A DAC] acting as corporation in a world where DACs are not yet "a thing". This brings all the questions - who is going to sign contracts? How decisions are made? Enforced? Investors, how do we attract them, what exactly is their role?") Smart contracts take care of how decisions are made AND enforced. There are tentative answers to the other questions applicable to specific legal jurisdictions, Link at the end of https://cryptoinsider.com/daos-dacs-real-physical-world-open-questions/ I like the rest of your analysis, keep more cents coming! On Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 2:27 PM, Radoslaw Zasiadczuk wrote: > On Thu, 13 Apr 2017 11:49:52 -0700 > Adrian Tymes wrote: > > Hello everyone! If I may add my $0.03... > > > So your problem reduces to, what advantages does a DAC have over a > > traditional corporation, given that most elements of significant > financial > > value will refuse to engage with blockchain et al instead of traditional > > means (such as the law & courts, seeing blockchain et al as less > effective > > at protecting their interests), thus negating any benefits for their > > transactions that a DAC might have? > > There are, probably, about 3 general levels of of a DAC/DAO. > The highest is a DAC being ruled by its internal AI, making decisions, > signing contracts, having a "person" or "legal person" status like > normal corporation. That's not going to happen next week and for > now it's irelevant. > The second level is perhaps the most confusing - a DAC without > intelligence, but acting as corporation in a world where DACs > are not yet "a thing". This brings all the questions - who is going > to sign contracts? How decisions are made? Enforced? Investors, > how do we attract them, what exactly is their role? Etc. They are > perfectly valid questions of course, but probably they can't be answered > without going through the basic level of DAO. > The third, basic level (and this is just my understanding, don't quote) > seems to be a DAO that is nothing more than company or organisation > using blockchain technology for... and here comes the explanation > of everything ;) What is blockchain used for? What can it do? > > > I am aware that everything a blockchain can do in theory can be > achieved used non-blockchain technologies. Especially when > we consider technologies constituting informational background > of a company. Flow of information, decisions, knowledge, etc. > But having said that it is all perfectly achievable using non-silicon > technologies, like pen and paper. > > > So what curretn blockchain does best? Provide transparency > and real-time, accurate, proven information about everything > that goes on in the company, with reduced need for human > input. It can speed up flow of information, decisions, knowledge > in a company in safe and secure manner, and all that requires > less infrastructure and maintenance than more traditional > means of "computing". > But this is in case of traditional companies. Let's expand slightly > the model to a core corporation using a lot of 3rd parties, > contractors, advisers. Keeping track of everything that is going on, > remembering that the core company sets general direction, > and makes the important decisions, but each big decision > is followed by countless small decisions on all levels of organization.. > Blockchain - extremely useful for all that. Pen and paper would > not be sufficient. > And then the core company leaves itself legal presence and brand, > and dissolves hierachy (that already was a mesh more than a tree), > so it officially becomes just a node in decentralized, autonomous > organization, which by that time moves by itself... and by that statement > I mean something similar to open source software projects. They surely > are decentralized, to some might appear chaotic, but there is inherent > order built in, facilitated by source control software and communication, > that needs no traditional hierarchy, no explicit pecking order, and gets > things done on scale that suprises people believeng that without > strict, imposed order nothing would ever get done. And here pen > and paper would not be merely insufficient, probability of succeding > on such a low technology is near-zero. Traditional computing methods > can get things done, but they in turn start looking insufficient. > > Blockchain (I think - we're at the very early stages still), can bring > the power of decentralization to physical world. It's been done before > using more traditional methods, like for example in Gore-Tex, > (please correct me if I'm wrong), but blockchain is an idea that > can scale the beyond small and medium sized companies, > Now, BC is just technology, not to be mistaken for complete solution. > In a DAO the people are obviously the very top, software and hardware > they use are just tools, and blockchain glues it all together. > That's the short answer.. ;) > > best regards, > Radoslaw Zasiadczuk > _______________________________________________ > 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 Apr 15 13:59:18 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2017 14:59:18 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Space Decentral: A decentralized autonomous space agency In-Reply-To: References: <20170414142731.bcfeca7c60926669b17789c1@hyperlogos.net> Message-ID: On 15 April 2017 at 07:24, Giulio Prisco wrote: > Thanks for your $0.03! > > In general, everything that can be done one way can also be done another > way. I totally agree with "BC is just technology, not to be mistaken for > complete solution. In a DAO the people are obviously the very top, software > and hardware they use are just tools, and blockchain glues it all together." > This may be relevant. Blockchain usage seems to be spreading. Quote: Blockchain 2.0 ? using the blockchain for purposes other than simply register the movement of funds. The purpose of Creativechain is to allow digital creative works to be registered one time and become indelible ? permanently the property of their creator or owner, in a provable way. From a financial standpoint, there are several possible utilities here, chief among them allowing creators to get paid regardless of who or where their content appears. ---------------- Now, if they can only make sure Bitcoin wallets cannot be hacked........ Quote: The Large Bitcoin Collider Is Generating Trillions of Keys and Breaking Into Wallets Apr 13 2017, 10:22pm The LBC has been working for just under a year. So far, Rico claims, the project has generated over 3,000 trillion private keys and checked them against existing bitcoin addresses to see if they work, and has found three that do and contain bitcoin. ---------- BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Apr 16 17:18:18 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2017 12:18:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] math's beauty and ugliness Message-ID: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/15/opinion/sunday/the-worlds-most-beautiful-mathematical-equation.html bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 16 23:31:46 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2017 16:31:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] math's beauty and ugliness In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005e01d2b709$9dfae560$d9f0b020$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2017 10:18 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] math's beauty and ugliness https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/15/opinion/sunday/the-worlds-most-beautiful-mathematical-equation.html bill w BillW I would have nominated Euler?s equation too. That one is a mind-blower. It would have been a blast to be with Euler when he discovered it. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Wed Apr 19 14:51:18 2017 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2017 16:51:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Holy Ghost in the Cloud: Christian transhumanism and simulation theology Message-ID: Holy Ghost in the Cloud: Christian transhumanism and simulation theology Christian transhumanism???the fusion of Christianity and transhumanism spearheaded by the Christian Transhumanism Association???is not very popular???yet. But that could begin to change soon. A story by Meghan O?Gieblyn published yesterday in The Guardian, titled ?God in the machine: my strange journey into transhumanism,? could bring Christian trahshumanism to the masses... https://turingchurch.net/holy-ghost-in-the-cloud-christian-transhumanism-and-simulation-theology-695e83fa1c7b From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Apr 22 08:54:07 2017 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2017 01:54:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Anyone here taking part in a March for Science? Message-ID: I am going to take part in my local area... "The March for Science is a celebration of our passion for science and a call to support and safeguard the scientific community. Recent policy changes have caused heightened worry among scientists, and the incredible and immediate outpouring of support has made clear that these concerns are also shared by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Mischaracterization of science as a partisan issue, which has given policymakers permission to reject overwhelming evidence, is a critical and urgent matter. It is time for people who support scientific research and evidence-based policies to take a public stand and be counted." http://phxmarchforscience.com/ John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 22 13:37:55 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2017 06:37:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Anyone here taking part in a March for Science? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00e901d2bb6d$a68a0c20$f39e2460$@att.net> John Grigg! Man we were wondering what happened to you, my brother. How have you been? Welcome back. Cool thanks for the march for science notice. spike From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Grigg Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2017 1:54 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] Anyone here taking part in a March for Science? I am going to take part in my local area... "The March for Science is a celebration of our passion for science and a call to support and safeguard the scientific community. Recent policy changes have caused heightened worry among scientists, and the incredible and immediate outpouring of support has made clear that these concerns are also shared by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Mischaracterization of science as a partisan issue, which has given policymakers permission to reject overwhelming evidence, is a critical and urgent matter. It is time for people who support scientific research and evidence-based policies to take a public stand and be counted." http://phxmarchforscience.com/ John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Apr 23 22:20:04 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2017 23:20:04 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Eternime aims to keep a digital version of you alive Message-ID: Eternime wants you to live forever as a digital ghost An upcoming service aims to keep a digital version of you alive for your loved ones after you die. April 21, 2017 Quotes: Give Eternime access to your social media profiles and the startup's algorithms will scrape your posts and interactions to build a profile. It will see the photo of the muffin you posted to Facebook and the article on retirement finances you shared on LinkedIn. The algorithms will study your memories and mannerisms. They'll learn how to be "you." The result: a digital copy of you. "The idea is not original," Urasche says of his zeroes-and-ones reproductions, which he calls "immortal avatars." The avatars, he says, will eventually interact with your loved ones via Eternime's mobile apps. "For us it is really important to emphasize that we do not want to preserve the banalities of the life of a person," Ursache said. Rather, he and his team "would much more like to create a digital legacy that allows your great-grandchildren to interact with their great-grandfather -- and beyond." ------------- This is not mind uploading, but it could be a bit like a recording of some of your best comments. Maybe it could develop, in conjunction with AI, to be a creative version of yourself that grows and develops from the original basic copy BillK From spike66 at att.net Mon Apr 24 00:17:58 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2017 17:17:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Eternime aims to keep a digital version of you alive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <013301d2bc90$3af198b0$b0d4ca10$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK Sent: Sunday, April 23, 2017 3:20 PM To: Extropy Chat Subject: [ExI] Eternime aims to keep a digital version of you alive Eternime wants you to live forever as a digital ghost An upcoming service aims to keep a digital version of you alive for your loved ones after you die. April 21, 2017 Quotes: Give Eternime access to your social media profiles and the startup's algorithms will scrape your posts and interactions to build a profile.... that allows your great-grandchildren to interact with their great-grandfather -- and beyond." ------------- >...This is not mind uploading, but it could be a bit like a recording of some of your best comments. Maybe it could develop, in conjunction with AI, to be a creative version of yourself that grows and develops from the original basic copy BillK _______________________________________________ Oy vey, I don't like who I wrote. In person I am much more socially refined, suave, interesting, gentlemanly, charming, and I don't suck. But online, sheesh. Clumsy, socially unacceptable, ill mannered, I even dress weird online. spike From spike66 at att.net Mon Apr 24 15:35:51 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2017 08:35:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] science vs engineering Message-ID: <01c601d2bd10$74e24d00$5ea6e700$@att.net> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 45049 bytes Desc: not available URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Mon Apr 24 20:41:19 2017 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2017 16:41:19 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Eternime aims to keep a digital version of you alive In-Reply-To: <013301d2bc90$3af198b0$b0d4ca10$@att.net> References: <013301d2bc90$3af198b0$b0d4ca10$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 23, 2017 at 8:17 PM, spike wrote: > > Oy vey, I don't like who I wrote. In person I am much more socially > refined, suave, interesting, gentlemanly, charming, and I don't suck. But > online, sheesh. Clumsy, socially unacceptable, ill mannered, I even dress > weird online. > > That's ok. We're really only the deltas from subjective normal. I've never met any of you in-person and likely wouldn't recognize you if I did. Well, if I'm ever at a dirt-bot race and I overhear someone saying what fun this experience is for "proles" I'll definitely ask if his name is spike. :) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Apr 25 09:47:37 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2017 10:47:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Eternime aims to keep a digital version of you alive In-Reply-To: <013301d2bc90$3af198b0$b0d4ca10$@att.net> References: <013301d2bc90$3af198b0$b0d4ca10$@att.net> Message-ID: On 24 April 2017 at 01:17, spike wrote: > Oy vey, I don't like who I wrote. In person I am much more socially > refined, suave, interesting, gentlemanly, charming, and I don't suck. But > online, sheesh. Clumsy, socially unacceptable, ill mannered, I even dress > weird online. > Sounds like you don't use popular social media very much. Facebook, Twitter, etc. are propaganda channels to demonstrate how wonderful your life is and what a wonderful human being you are. That's why research finds that the more people use these social mediums, then the more unhappy they get. Everyone seems to be happier and better than they are. You have to get really good at spin and disinformation to be successful there. Of course this implies that personality recordings based on that data will create a very idealized version of that individual. Not many warts or faults to be seen. Much like historical heroes. No mention of bad breath, wife-beating, poor personal hygiene, bullying of associates, etc. But it might be helpful for memories of a loved one where you only want the good memories. BillK From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 25 13:38:08 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2017 06:38:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Eternime aims to keep a digital version of you alive In-Reply-To: References: <013301d2bc90$3af198b0$b0d4ca10$@att.net> Message-ID: <009001d2bdc9$2dbb6e20$89324a60$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] Eternime aims to keep a digital version of you alive On 24 April 2017 at 01:17, spike wrote: >>... Oy vey, I don't like who I wrote. In person I am much more socially > refined, suave, interesting, gentlemanly, charming, and I don't suck. > But online, sheesh. Clumsy, socially unacceptable, ill mannered, I > even dress weird online. > >...Sounds like you don't use popular social media very much... Ja, not at all, none of it. I don't see it as an effective medium to have meaningful analytical interchanges, the way we are doing now. Facebook in particular seems to be filled with such airy fluff, I wonder where are the products of their thinking? I do not have, nor do I want a huge following. The whole notion creeps out me. Imagine you were Jesus for instance, the one who did miracles, not the one who trims the hedges by natural means. Goes around healing the sick, making the blind see and so forth. OK so miracles, but you still need to take a dump, so you try to find some privacy, and yahoos are all around begging you to lay hand upon them, cast out the evil spirits, and oh wait, can you wash your hands first, oy vey gross. And such as that. I wouldn't want it. >...Facebook, Twitter, etc. are propaganda channels to demonstrate how wonderful your life is and what a wonderful human being you are... Ja, I don't need that. I am a legend in my own mind. >...Of course this implies that personality recordings based on that data will create a very idealized version of that individual. Not many warts or faults to be seen. Much like historical heroes. No mention of bad breath, wife-beating, poor personal hygiene, bullying of associates, etc... I have found an elegant solution to part of that: get a wife who is bigger and tougher than I am. Were I to try anything out of line, she would beat me beyond recognition. The rest of it I don't care much about. >...But it might be helpful for memories of a loved one where you only want the good memories. >...BillK _______________________________________________ Ja, I think it is kind of a cool idea really, and one with potential. I have long concerned myself about having my memories consisting of all the goofy stuff I have posted on ExI for the past more than 20 years, but oh well, there is little I can do about that now. On the bright side: not many will care. I have only one offspring. If my son holds to the same schedule in life that I did, I will get exactly one grandchild, at the age of 91. Granted he might read the stuff and conclude that a quarter of his genes came from a really weird guy. Or he might find it somewhat entertaining, ya never know. spike From pharos at gmail.com Tue Apr 25 14:39:29 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2017 15:39:29 +0100 Subject: [ExI] HUMOR: Today is World Penguin Day! Message-ID: 25 April is World Penguin Day. Celebrate!! 1.5 mins. BillK From pharos at gmail.com Tue Apr 25 19:49:07 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2017 20:49:07 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Legally bypass paywalls to get full-text research papers Message-ID: A New Browser Plug-In Lets You Access Millions of Scientific Papers for Free Quotes: Unpaywall is a web browser plug-in that brings free information to those who seek facts. The open-source service is disrupting traditional publishing by giving users access to peer-reviewed journal articles for free, and it's all totally legal. Unlike similar services that rely on means like automated web scraping, Unpaywall?s method of getting full-text access to scientific journals is totally legal. It scans a database of more than 90 million digital object identifiers (DOIs) for copies of papers that the researchers themselves have uploaded, whether on some pre-press servers or university websites. Unpaywall is also completely secure, as it doesn?t ask you for any personal information. Best of all, to use the service, you just need to install the plug-in on your Chrome or Firefox desktop browser. A little lock symbol will appear every time you visit a journal article?s landing page. If the lock is green, you have access to a full-text copy of the article. A gold lock means an article already has open license access from the publisher. ----------- After you install the plugin, they provide an example where you can read a Nature article, then bypass the paywall to get the full-text paper. Looks useful! BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Apr 26 00:00:20 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2017 19:00:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] selling data Message-ID: http://lifehacker.com/unroll-me-the-email-unsubscription-service-has-been-c-1794593445?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits It doesn't bother me. If I unsubscribe from something, then if that decision is sold, I may then get fewer ads etc. concerning that content. But you may object to having your privacy violated. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 26 23:05:31 2017 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2017 16:05:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Speed of light Message-ID: I have commented on this topic before and wrote an article for H+ magazine on the problem. It is now turning up in other places https://theoutline.com/post/1424/hawaii-s-online-gaming-curse Doctors doing remote surgery are also mentioned. A mind spread out to 100 ms is going to think 20 times slower than a human. Keith From pharos at gmail.com Thu Apr 27 11:15:26 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 12:15:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Speed of light In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 27 April 2017 at 00:05, Keith Henson wrote: > I have commented on this topic before and wrote an article for H+ > magazine on the problem. It is now turning up in other places > > https://theoutline.com/post/1424/hawaii-s-online-gaming-curse > > Doctors doing remote surgery are also mentioned. > A mind spread out to 100 ms is going to think 20 times slower than a human. > Surely that depends on the design of the 18,000 mile wide brain? If the entire structure has to be communicated with in order to reach a decision, then yes, it would have a slow reaction time. But, like humans, some automatic reactions could be incredibly quick. The edge intelligences would deal instantly with 'simpler' problems (still complex by human standards) while passing data into the giant central processors for more thorough processing. A brain the size of a planet should be able to optimize itself so as to not cripple its thinking processes. BillK From pharos at gmail.com Thu Apr 27 11:41:46 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 12:41:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Eternime aims to keep a digital version of you alive In-Reply-To: References: <013301d2bc90$3af198b0$b0d4ca10$@att.net> Message-ID: On 25 April 2017 at 10:47, BillK wrote: > Sounds like you don't use popular social media very much. > Facebook, Twitter, etc. are propaganda channels to demonstrate how > wonderful your life is and what a wonderful human being you are. > That's why research finds that the more people use these social > mediums, then the more unhappy they get. Everyone seems to be happier > and better than they are. You have to get really good at spin and > disinformation to be successful there. > Quote: A social media user is winning the game of life through regular online status updates. Charlotte White, 26, has been providing copious evidence of a vastly superior lifestyle, destroying all competition in the process. Her Facebook statistics are exemplary including a 93% like-to-friend ratio, zero negative comments and an average of 25 ?love? emoticons per post. ?I can?t keep up,? said friend Claire Smith. ?It?s just an avalanche of high-quality life experiences encompassing travel, relationships, work, sport and profound cultural insight. She shares inspirational quotes too, which really get me thinking. Last weekend, she climbed Mount Kinabalu, whereas I drank wine in my pyjamas all day until I passed out. Bitch.? ---------- I'm not on Facebook, but if I was.......... :) BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Apr 28 13:45:10 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2017 08:45:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] saturated fats safe Message-ID: In case you missed this the last time I sent something similar: Three cardiologists have broken ranks with many of their colleagues in an editorial published in the *British Journal of Sports Medicine* (April 25, 2017) . These are not just any old cardiologists. One is Rita Redberg, MD, MSc. She is Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and Director of the UCSF Women?s Cardiovascular Center. She is editor of one of the world?s pre-eminent medical journals, *JAMA Internal Medicine*. Pascal Meier, MD, is an interventional cardiologist at University Hospital Geneva and The Heart Hospital, University College London Hospitals. He is Editor-In-Chief of *Open Heart* (*BMJ*), associate editor of the *BMJ* (*British Medical Journal*) and associate editor of the Cochrane Heart Group. Lead author, Aseem Malhotra, MD, is consultant cardiologist at London?s Lister hospital and at the Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust. He has emphasized an anti-inflammatory diet, exercise and stress management in helping control heart disease. ?Coronary artery disease pathogenesis and treatment urgently requires a paradigm shift. Despite popular belief among doctors and the public, the conceptual model of dietary saturated fat clogging a pipe is just plain wrong. A landmark systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies showed no association between saturated fat consumption and (1) all-cause mortality, (2) coronary heart disease (CHD), (3) CHD mortality, (4) ischaemic stroke or (5) type 2 diabetes in healthy adults. Similarly in the secondary prevention of CHD there is no benefit from reduced fat, including saturated fat, on myocardial infarction, cardiovascular or all-cause mortality. It is instructive to note that in an angiographic study of postmenopausal women with CHD, greater intake of saturated fat was associated with less progression of atherosclerosis whereas carbohydrate and polyunsaturated fat intake were associated with greater progression.? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Apr 28 14:49:25 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2017 07:49:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] saturated fats safe In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <009a01d2c02e$a5595750$f00c05f0$@att.net> I hope this is right BillW. I have long believed a high-fat low-calorie diet is the best thing. spike From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace In case you missed this the last time I sent something similar: Three cardiologists have broken ranks with many of their colleagues in an editorial published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (April 25, 2017). These are not just any old cardiologists. ?. ?Coronary artery disease pathogenesis and treatment urgently requires a paradigm shift. Despite popular belief among doctors and the public, the conceptual model of dietary saturated fat clogging a pipe is just plain wrong. A landmark systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies showed no association between saturated fat consumption and (1) all-cause mortality, (2) coronary heart disease (CHD), (3) CHD mortality, (4) ischaemic stroke or (5) type 2 diabetes in healthy adults. ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Apr 28 15:17:14 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2017 16:17:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] saturated fats safe In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 28 April 2017 at 14:45, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > In case you missed this the last time I sent something similar: > > Three cardiologists have broken ranks with many of their colleagues in an > editorial published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (April 25, > 2017). These are not just any old cardiologists. They have broken ranks because they are a tiny minority opinion with funding from the meat industry and drug companies. Debunked in many places. Here's one - Quote: Overall, experts dubbed the editorial, like the ones before it, misleading and confusing. ?The Mediterranean diet and daily exercise can help reduce heart disease risk,? said Mike Knapton, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation. ?But I?m afraid the claims about saturated fat made in this opinion piece are unhelpful and misleading.? As before, health experts recommend keeping saturated fats, added sugars, and sodium in check, while loading up on fruits, vegetables, lean meats and protein sources, low-fat dairy, and oils. But overall, people should focus on healthy eating patterns rather than individual foods or meals. In other words, there's no such thing as "good" or "bad" foods, just healthy or unhealthy diets. And everyone agrees that exercise is beneficial to health. ------------- Saturated fats are not 'poison', of course, and a small amount as part of a generally healthy diet won't do much harm. BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Apr 28 15:47:36 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2017 10:47:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] saturated fats safe In-Reply-To: <009a01d2c02e$a5595750$f00c05f0$@att.net> References: <009a01d2c02e$a5595750$f00c05f0$@att.net> Message-ID: I hope this is right BillW. I have long believed a high-fat low-calorie diet is the best thing. spike This is not the only article I've seen. The Big Fat Surprise (b00k), which I may have mentioned earlier, tells the tale of the lying Harvard Medicos, hired by the sugar industry and maybe the American Heart ASsociation (which has yet to acknowledge the scam or change its mind about fat - I think it will be forced to). Doctors wrong !!!!! A hard pill for them to swallow. I routinely skip meals - intermittent fasting. I eat next to nothing anyway. Synthroid kills my appetite. Today I will have an English muffin and a salad with catfish. Oh yea, and dessert!! Several of them! (sugar replaced alcohol on my addiction list - no it's not good at all, but damn it, I don't want to live forever anyhow) bill w On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 9:49 AM, spike wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > I hope this is right BillW. I have long believed a high-fat low-calorie > diet is the best thing. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace > > > > In case you missed this the last time I sent something similar: > > > > Three cardiologists have broken ranks with many of their colleagues in an > editorial published in the *British Journal of Sports Medicine** (April > 25, 2017)* > . > These are not just any old cardiologists. > > ?. > > > > ?Coronary artery disease pathogenesis and treatment urgently requires a > paradigm shift. Despite popular belief among doctors and the public, the > conceptual model of dietary saturated fat clogging a pipe is just plain > wrong. A landmark systematic review and meta-analysis of observational > studies showed no association between saturated fat consumption and (1) > all-cause mortality, (2) coronary heart disease (CHD), (3) CHD mortality, > (4) ischaemic stroke or (5) type 2 diabetes in healthy adults. ? > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Apr 28 16:27:42 2017 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2017 09:27:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ice Age site show evidence of humans in N. America 130K years ago? Message-ID: <199E7705-7F3B-4E4A-9CC5-4568A1C3F08D@gmail.com> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170426143033.htm After reading _Strangers in a New Land: The First Americans_, I was willing to give credence to modern humans in the Americas around 30,000 years ago... that book does go over controversial funds like Pendejo Cave and Old Crow. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Apr 28 16:47:10 2017 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2017 09:47:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] saturated fats safe In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <087EE752-C3CD-476F-9F34-8B75749C81FA@gmail.com> On Apr 28, 2017, at 8:17 AM, BillK wrote: > They have broken ranks because they are a tiny minority opinion with > funding from the meat industry and drug companies. > > Debunked in many places. Here's one - > > > Quote: > > Overall, experts dubbed the editorial, like the ones before it, > misleading and confusing. > > ?The Mediterranean diet and daily exercise can help reduce heart > disease risk,? said Mike Knapton, associate medical director at the > British Heart Foundation. ?But I?m afraid the claims about saturated > fat made in this opinion piece are unhelpful and misleading.? > > As before, health experts recommend keeping saturated fats, added > sugars, and sodium in check, while loading up on fruits, vegetables, > lean meats and protein sources, low-fat dairy, and oils. But overall, > people should focus on healthy eating patterns rather than individual > foods or meals. In other words, there's no such thing as "good" or > "bad" foods, just healthy or unhealthy diets. And everyone agrees that > exercise is beneficial to health. > ------------- > > Saturated fats are not 'poison', of course, and a small amount as part > of a generally healthy diet won't do much harm. I think the reason the "stay away from X" approach happens here is that it's easier for to implement. And, yeah, a generally healthy person indulging occasionally is probably not going to get heart disease or diabetes from that, but I reckon people vary on what they mean by occasionally. Is that every weekend, once a month, just on holidays? I know many people who pig out all weekend starting on Friday, then Monday morning they're back to "healthy" diet. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Apr 28 16:48:07 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2017 09:48:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ai doesn't write this Message-ID: <001001d2c03f$50667410$f1335c30$@att.net> If you hear hype about an AI having written this script, read carefully what is being claimed. If you view it you know immediately an AI didn't write this. An AI was used to generate some of the dialog, but it is perfectly clear a human wrote it: https://youtu.be/5qPgG98_CQ8 Question: why is it so clear a human wrote this? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Apr 28 17:23:29 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2017 18:23:29 +0100 Subject: [ExI] ai doesn't write this In-Reply-To: <001001d2c03f$50667410$f1335c30$@att.net> References: <001001d2c03f$50667410$f1335c30$@att.net> Message-ID: On 28 April 2017 at 17:48, spike wrote: > > If you hear hype about an AI having written this script, read carefully what > is being claimed. If you view it you know immediately an AI didn?t write > this. An AI was used to generate some of the dialog, but it is perfectly > clear a human wrote it: > > https://youtu.be/5qPgG98_CQ8 > > Question: why is it so clear a human wrote this? > Depends on how you define 'written'. :) The AI didn't start with just a dictionary. The long description of how it was done is here. -- Quotes: Like its predecessor Sunspring, It's No Game was made as part of the 48 Hour Film Challenge at the Sci-Fi London Film Festival. Put simply, the algorithm learns to create long sentences based on learning rules from a corpus of writing. In this case, the corpuses were comprised of dialogue taken from several collections of films and television series. One of the models, called the Soliloquizer, was also used in Sunspring to generate the final, ultra-strange speech; it was trained on the Cornell Movie Dialogues Corpus. The other models were based on David Hasselhoff shows Knight Rider and Baywatch ("Hoffbot"), Shakespeare ("Robobard"), Golden Age Hollywood ("GoldenAge-O-Matic"), and Aaron Sorkin ("Sorkinator"). -------- So the AI re-assembled sentences from show and film scripts. I suppose you could say it was a combination of human and AI. BillK From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Fri Apr 28 19:54:05 2017 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (J.R. Jones) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2017 19:54:05 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Ice Age site show evidence of humans in N. America 130K years ago? In-Reply-To: <199E7705-7F3B-4E4A-9CC5-4568A1C3F08D@gmail.com> References: <199E7705-7F3B-4E4A-9CC5-4568A1C3F08D@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 12:29 PM Dan TheBookMan wrote: > https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170426143033.htm > > After reading _Strangers in a New Land: The First Americans_, I was > willing to give credence to modern humans in the Americas around 30,000 > years ago... that book does go over controversial funds like Pendejo Cave > and Old Crow. > Regards, > > Dan > > Will they be able to test the DNA of a sample this old? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sat Apr 29 07:25:39 2017 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2017 00:25:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ice Age site show evidence of humans in N. America 130K years ago? In-Reply-To: References: <199E7705-7F3B-4E4A-9CC5-4568A1C3F08D@gmail.com> Message-ID: > On Apr 28, 2017, at 12:54 PM, J.R. Jones wrote: >> On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 12:29 PM Dan TheBookMan wrote: >> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170426143033.htm >> >> After reading _Strangers in a New Land: The First Americans_, I was willing to give credence to modern humans in the Americas around 30,000 years ago... that book does go over controversial funds like >> Pendejo Cave and Old Crow. > > Will they be able to test the DNA of a sample this old? I don't believe current techniques can recover DNA under those conditions. There are old samples they've been recovered, but they were frozen. Remember, too, the finding is of mastodon bones. Maybe humans working them left some of their DNA behind, but that's a long shot. (Coprolites might be a better bet.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Sat Apr 29 07:22:52 2017 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2017 00:22:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ice Age site show evidence of humans in N. America 130K years ago? In-Reply-To: References: <199E7705-7F3B-4E4A-9CC5-4568A1C3F08D@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Apr 28, 2017, at 12:54 PM, J.R. Jones wrote: >> On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 12:29 PM Dan TheBookMan wrote: >> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170426143033.htm >> >> After reading _Strangers in a New Land: The First Americans_, I was willing to give credence to modern humans in the Americas around 30,000 years ago... that book does go over controversial funds like >> Pendejo Cave and Old Crow. > > Will they be able to test the DNA of a sample this old? I don't believe current techniques can recover DNA under those conditions. There are old samples they've been recovered, but they were frozen. Remember, too, the finding is of mastodon bones. Maybe humans working them left some of their DNA behind, but that's a long shot. (Coprolites might be a better bet.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Sat Apr 29 10:14:18 2017 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (J.R. Jones) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2017 10:14:18 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Ice Age site show evidence of humans in N. America 130K years ago? In-Reply-To: References: <199E7705-7F3B-4E4A-9CC5-4568A1C3F08D@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 29, 2017, 03:38 Dan Ust wrote: > On Apr 28, 2017, at 12:54 PM, J.R. Jones wrote: > > On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 12:29 PM Dan TheBookMan > wrote: > >> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170426143033.htm >> >> After reading _Strangers in a New Land: The First Americans_, I was >> willing to give credence to modern humans in the Americas around 30,000 >> years ago... that book does go over controversial funds like Pendejo >> Cave and Old Crow. >> > > Will they be able to test the DNA of a sample this old? > > I don't believe current techniques can recover DNA under those conditions. > There are old samples they've been recovered, but they were frozen. > Remember, too, the finding is of mastodon bones. Maybe humans working them > left some of their DNA behind, but that's a long shot. (Coprolites might be > a better bet.) > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books via: > http://author.to/DanUst > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat DNA of extinct humans found in caves http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39747326 "We know that several components of sediments can bind DNA," said lead researcher Matthias Meyer of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Maybe something like this could be used? > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tara at taramayastales.com Fri Apr 28 22:11:49 2017 From: tara at taramayastales.com (Tara Maya) Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2017 15:11:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ai doesn't write this In-Reply-To: <001001d2c03f$50667410$f1335c30$@att.net> References: <001001d2c03f$50667410$f1335c30$@att.net> Message-ID: I?d be surprised as hell if an AI had the political motivation to mock the Hollywood writer?s strike. > On Apr 28, 2017, at 9:48 AM, spike wrote: > > > If you hear hype about an AI having written this script, read carefully what is being claimed. If you view it you know immediately an AI didn?t write this. An AI was used to generate some of the dialog, but it is perfectly clear a human wrote it: > > https://youtu.be/5qPgG98_CQ8 > > Question: why is it so clear a human wrote this? > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat Tara Maya Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Amazon | Goodreads -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 29 14:45:55 2017 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2017 07:45:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ai doesn't write this In-Reply-To: References: <001001d2c03f$50667410$f1335c30$@att.net> Message-ID: <007501d2c0f7$4f2a6800$ed7f3800$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Tara Maya Subject: Re: [ExI] ai doesn't write this https://youtu.be/5qPgG98_CQ8 >>?Question: why is it so clear a human wrote this? >>spike >?I?d be surprised as hell if an AI had the political motivation to mock the Hollywood writer?s strike. Tara Maya Ja. I thought of a reason to clue us that an AI doesn?t write this way: the script was laugh out loud funny. I don?t think we are anywhere near the point where a computer could write something that would do that. Good comedy is subtle, multilayered, self contradictory. The word-spew derived from 1970s the TV show was fun, amusing. But the whole idea of AI crushing the Hollywood writers strike was a huge harhar. The bit about AIs writing to entertain other AIs was cool. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Apr 29 16:35:07 2017 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2017 12:35:07 -0400 Subject: [ExI] ai doesn't write this In-Reply-To: References: <001001d2c03f$50667410$f1335c30$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 6:11 PM, Tara Maya wrote: ?> ? > I?d be surprised > *?Why are you "be surprised"?? * > ?> ? > as hell if > *?"Hell" is the key.? * > ?> ? > an AI had the > *?"Had" is the key?.* ?> ? > political motivation to mock > *?You could be right about that.? * > ?> ? > the Hollywood writer?s strike. > *?Why are you * *"the Hollwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww* *Stop 0xC0?4EB9?21A STATUS_SYSTEM_PROCESS_TERMINATED * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Sun Apr 30 15:44:00 2017 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2017 08:44:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ice Age site show evidence of humans in N. America 130K years ago? In-Reply-To: References: <199E7705-7F3B-4E4A-9CC5-4568A1C3F08D@gmail.com> Message-ID: <0F71428B-0719-41F5-95E5-748EA01C913D@gmail.com> On Apr 29, 2017, at 3:14 AM, J.R. Jones wrote: >> On Sat, Apr 29, 2017, 03:38 Dan Ust wrote: >> I don't believe current techniques can recover DNA under those conditions. There are old samples they've been recovered, but they were frozen. Remember, too, the finding is of mastodon bones. Maybe humans working them left some of their DNA behind, but that's a long shot. (Coprolites might be a better bet.) >> > > DNA of extinct humans found in caves > http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39747326 > > "We know that several components of sediments can bind DNA," said lead researcher Matthias Meyer of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. > > Maybe something like this could be used? I'm sure they've seen that story too. My guess is it's going to be a bit harder given overall conditions at the site. They don't seem good ones for preserving prehistoric human DNA that current techniques will find. But perhaps we should take that as a challenge. ;) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Apr 30 17:34:16 2017 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2017 12:34:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] sex - was Re: The smart-stupid dimension Message-ID: (found this in my Drafts folder - sorry it wasn't sent at a more appropriate time) pornography - the writings of prostitutes should be - pornopia, since most of it is visual OK, libertarians, see if you can swallow this: Humans have turned sex into something dirty and obscene. How did we allow that? (all right, probably telling children to scare them and warn them away) No telling how much psychological damage that has done over the millennia. People having sex or people nude. Why isn't that just fun? Exciting? It does provoke sexual behavior. So what? We have The Pill. We have preventions for disease. In underage children it's totally safe (well, some disease from older children maybe). So anyway, why do we buy the idea that pornopia is obscene? Why do we hide the human body from children? Why put fig leaves over what we know is there? Sex ed by parents is nearly extinct, if it ever really lived at all. College students in my classrooms were woefully ignorant and held numerous superstitions their society had thrust on them (probably mostly peers and kids a few years older). "Not my mother!" seemed to be the theme. (Mother as Madonna figure? Sexless?). Isn't this outrageous? The USA, according to studies done worldwide, is a moderately repressive society, as I have mentioned before. A nation gripped by sexual anxiety of all kinds. We caution against masturbation when we should be openly recommending it. This was said to be Onan's sin, but I think it was disobedience. And tons more. What do evolutionary theorists say about the origins of this? What can we do to make people free and easy about sex? (I am NOT suggesting any notion of sex with everyone or the like, though I cannot find any moral reasons against it. Many, like me, will prefer monogamy). bill w On Sat, Jul 16, 2016 at 12:33 PM, John Clark wrote: > Libertarians on the stupid side of the smart-stupid dimension think it > would be nice if the ENORMOUS and rapidly increasing gap between the rich > and the poor that has occurred in every part of the world in the last few > years will never cause them any problems and therefore it never will, > libertarians on the smart side of that dimension think it's only a matter > of time before it does cause problems and it doesn't matter if that would > be nice or not. > > Liberals on the stupid side of the smart-stupid dimension think there > would be more justice in society if intelligence has nothing to do with > genetics and sexual preference has nothing to do with anything *except* > genetics, so that is the way things must be. Liberals on the smart side of > that dimension think genes are the way genes are and social justice has > nothing to do with it. > > Conservatives on the stupid side of the smart-stupid dimension think it > would be nice if homosexuality and pornography caused earthquakes floods > and hurricanes and therefore they must, conservatives on the smart side of > that dimension think the cause and effect relationship has not yet been > proven. > > John K Clark > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sun Apr 30 19:56:17 2017 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2017 12:56:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Exi List Archives? Message-ID: <8fc799bb9c6f09fe208f1f2d2803e2f1.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Does anyone know the url for a good archive of old Exi List posts? Postbiota.org ends in 2007 and a google search brings back lots of noise. Thanks, Stuart LaForge From pharos at gmail.com Sun Apr 30 22:28:30 2017 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2017 23:28:30 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Exi List Archives? In-Reply-To: <8fc799bb9c6f09fe208f1f2d2803e2f1.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <8fc799bb9c6f09fe208f1f2d2803e2f1.squirrel@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On 30 April 2017 at 20:56, Stuart LaForge wrote: > Does anyone know the url for a good archive of old Exi List posts? > Postbiota.org ends in 2007 and a google search brings back lots of noise. > covers from now back to 2003. Useful for checking whether your new post has gone through to the list. I don't think there are any records prior to Oct 2003, except in individuals personal files. BillK