From avant at sollegro.com Fri Feb 1 18:25:43 2019 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2019 10:25:43 -0800 Subject: [ExI] SETI reviews the Drake equation Message-ID: Quoting BillK quoting Seth Shostak quoting Francis Drake: > Quote: > > And in any case, Drake argues that deliberate colonization might be uncommon. > > ?The spreading of intelligent life from one star system to another > would probably not appeal to truly intelligent creatures,? he says, > ?once they calculate that, even travelling at, say, only one-tenth the > speed of light, it takes more than a million times more energy to > establish a colony around another star than required to establish one > of the same size near their own. There is plenty of material available > in the satellites and asteroids of stellar environments, assuming they > resemble ours, to create a multitude of habitable, planet-like abodes > right at home.? Drake seems to imply here that the Great Filter is simple laziness. That is that, we don't see interstellar civilizations because they don't want to expend the energy to travel to other star systems. Of course, such civilizations would be brittle as they would not be able to survive the death of their own stars. It does fit the observation of the Great Silence but it doesn't sound as "truly intelligent" as he suggests. Especially if building a large collection of local colonies uses up all the energy that would otherwise be available to spread to other star systems. Being overly dependent on a single star still counts as "putting all of ones eggs in the same basket" IMO. Also, it is far preferable to be the colonizers than the colonized. So why risk another civilization out there being less than "truly intelligent"? > As for panspermia, he notes that ?it would be far more efficient to > send by radio the data to replicate the creature's DNA, to clone > duplicates of themselves.? This is also unlikely to be effective because like any other form of information, the meaning of DNA sequences are context dependent. Assuming that the radio message could be recognized by ET as a DNA sequence at all, it is not at all certain that extraterrestrial life would use the same "genetic code" as earth life. To a certain extent, the tRNA codons that allow our DNA to be translated into proteins are arbitrary and completely dependent on the common ancestry of all terrestrial life. So in other words, beaming DNA sequences across the galaxy by means of radio waves would only be a feasible alternative to panspermia if panspermia were actually the true origin of life on earth and all life in the galaxy had a common ancestor. Of course, if panspermia were true, then what's the point of an alternative that is dependent on the charity of intelligent aliens to reconstitute an unknown organism based entirely on its DNA sequence? I mean would we try to clone an DNA sequence we received by radio from an ET civilization? That is the premise of the movie "Species" which was science fiction - horror after all. Stuart LaForge From pharos at gmail.com Sat Feb 2 00:12:44 2019 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2019 00:12:44 +0000 Subject: [ExI] SETI reviews the Drake equation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 1 Feb 2019 at 19:39, Stuart LaForge wrote: > > Drake seems to imply here that the Great Filter is simple laziness. > That is that, we don't see interstellar civilizations because they > don't want to expend the energy to travel to other star systems. Of > course, such civilizations would be brittle as they would not be able > to survive the death of their own stars. It does fit the observation > of the Great Silence but it doesn't sound as "truly intelligent" as he > suggests. Especially if building a large collection of local colonies > uses up all the energy that would otherwise be available to spread to > other star systems. Being overly dependent on a single star still > counts as "putting all of ones eggs in the same basket" IMO. > > Also, it is far preferable to be the colonizers than the colonized. So > why risk another civilization out there being less than "truly > intelligent"? > > This is also unlikely to be effective because like any other form of > information, the meaning of DNA sequences are context dependent. > Assuming that the radio message could be recognized by ET as a DNA > sequence at all, it is not at all certain that extraterrestrial life > would use the same "genetic code" as earth life. To a certain extent, > the tRNA codons that allow our DNA to be translated into proteins are > arbitrary and completely dependent on the common ancestry of all > terrestrial life. > > So in other words, beaming DNA sequences across the galaxy by means of > radio waves would only be a feasible alternative to panspermia if > panspermia were actually the true origin of life on earth and all life > in the galaxy had a common ancestor. Of course, if panspermia were > true, then what's the point of an alternative that is dependent on the > charity of intelligent aliens to reconstitute an unknown organism > based entirely on its DNA sequence? > > I mean would we try to clone an DNA sequence we received by radio from > an ET civilization? That is the premise of the movie "Species" which > was science fiction - horror after all. > > Stuart LaForge > Our sun is approximately middle-aged and should remain fairly stable for about another 5 billion years. So I think we can safely put dealing with the problem of the sun dying fairly far down on our 'To-Do' list. Our species should change drastically way before then and we may not even still be DNA based life forms. I agree that beaming DNA data out to nearby star systems seems pointless to me also. Radio is the fastest method of transmission we know of, so if AI scout ships are sent out at one-tenth of light speed it would seem sensible to keep them updated and receive transmissions back from them. But I do agree with Drake that there is a plenty of development potential within our own goldilocks zone to keep us busy protecting earth and expanding into other local space habitats so that humanity is not solely based on earth. The risk of asteroid strikes, pandemics, etc. needs dealing with first. Interstellar travel is really expensive unless we discover unlimited power resources. Though unlimited resources plus exponential change should make far future speculation pretty much an 'anything is possible' type discussion. :) BillK From avant at sollegro.com Sat Feb 2 08:19:46 2019 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2019 00:19:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] SETI reviews the Drake equation In-Reply-To: <646066088.1797408.1549091149989@mail.yahoo.com> References: <646066088.1797408.1549091149989@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20190202001946.Horde.jtyzw-I8yz5Rl9JJDLf_oH3@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting BillK: > Our sun is approximately middle-aged and should remain fairly stable > for about another 5 billion years. So I think we can safely put > dealing with the problem of the sun dying fairly far down on our > 'To-Do' list. Our species should change drastically way before then > and we may not even still be DNA based life forms. Fair enough. Still it would be pretty sad if we survived for 5 billion years and then went extinct because we waited until the last minute and couldn't get our shit together in time. :-P Plus there are other existential threats capable of affecting our entire solar system at once. Gamma ray bursts and things of those nature. For example, according to the below linked article and study, we are supposedly directly in the path of the relativistic jet of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) our galaxy's super-massive black hole: https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/01/radio-jet-from-massive-black-hole-is-pointed-almost-directly-at-earth/ https://arxiv.org/pdf/1901.06226.pdf Right now everything is copacetic because according to wikipedia, the last thing Sgr A* ate was G2 a 3 earth-mass gas cloud. But if it ever gets a hold of something more substantial like a big star and goes full quasar on us, we are toast. Incidentally, the sheer improbability that the super-massive black hole (SMBH) in the center of the galaxy has its rotational axis and radio jet pointed directly at us while we are in the plane of the galactic disk is such that if this result is true, then this is the best evidence yet for the Simulation Argument. It's as if you are looking off your balcony with a telescope in New York City and see a cannon on a remote rooftop pointed directly at you. It is disturbing even if the rifle is unloaded at the time. And if we do live in a simulation, then an interstellar civilization would probably be far more entertaining to any Simulators than a sedentary one. > But I do agree with Drake that there is a plenty of development > potential within our own goldilocks zone to keep us busy protecting > earth and expanding into other local space habitats so that humanity > is not solely based on earth. The risk of asteroid strikes, pandemics, > etc. needs dealing with first. Don't get me wrong, I am all for colonizing the solar system and developing the goldilocks zone. I just don't think it alone is enough. > Interstellar travel is really expensive unless we discover unlimited > power resources. Though unlimited resources plus exponential change > should make far future speculation pretty much an 'anything is > possible' type discussion.? :) There is no such thing as unlimited resources, which means you have to constantly move around, exploring, and hunting for new resources. Stuart LaForge From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Feb 2 17:09:28 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2019 12:09:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] SETI reviews the Drake equation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 30, 2019 at 2:28 PM BillK wrote: By Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer > > *> even travelling at, say, only one-tenth the speed of light, it takes > more than a million times more energy to establish a colony around another > star than required to establish one of the same size near their own.* At one-tenth the speed of light it would take about 500,000 years to send a Von Neumann probe to the most distant sun in the Milky Way from the Earth, but no need to go that fast, at 1/1000 of light speed, not much faster than what we can do right now, it would only take 50 million years and that is a trivial amount of time by cosmological standards. Also, the energy required to do that depends not only on the speed of the probe but also on its mass, and a Von Neumann probe could have less mass than a grain of sand. If ET had actually sent such a probe into our galaxy or into any other it would be obvious, but we see no hint of it and all we hear is a great silence. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Feb 2 19:40:38 2019 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2019 11:40:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The causality analysis of climate change and large-scale human crisis Message-ID: One of the authors of this paper also wrote the one on wars in China due to weather fluctuations. Abstract Recent studies have shown strong temporal correlations between past climate changes and societal crises. However, the specific causal mechanisms underlying this relation have not been addressed. We explored quantitative responses of 14 fine-grained agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic variables to climate fluctuations from A.D. 1500 to 1800 in Europe. Results show that cooling from A.D. 1560?1660 caused successive agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic catastrophes, leading to the General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century. We identified a set of causal linkages between climate change and human crisis. Using temperature data and cli- mate-driven economic variables, we simulated the alternation of defined ?golden? and ?dark? ages in Europe and the Northern Hemi- sphere during the past millennium. Our findings indicate that climate change was the ultimate cause, and climate-driven economic downturn was the direct cause, of large-scale human crises in pre- industrial Europe and the Northern Hemisphere. https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2011/09/29/1104268108.full.pdf It is amazing what we have learned about the past. >From our viewpoint, the problem is that wars in response to bad weather for the crops are about as inevitable as water flowing downhill. Bad weather straight to wars via famine. Keith From avant at sollegro.com Sat Feb 2 20:30:59 2019 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2019 12:30:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] SETI reviews the Drake equation Message-ID: <20190202123059.Horde.QjELJTD9K5z_H-c6M6CcHwm@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> At the risk of being like Spike (there are worse fates actually) and quoting myself: > Incidentally, the sheer improbability that the super-massive black > hole (SMBH) in the center of the galaxy has its rotational axis and > radio jet pointed directly at us while we are in the plane of the > galactic disk is such that if this result is true, then this is the > best evidence yet for the Simulation Argument. It's as if you are > looking off your balcony with a telescope in New York City and see a > cannon on a remote rooftop pointed directly at you. It is disturbing > even if the [cannon] is unloaded at the time. Upon further reflection, this crazy coincidence might explain two big mysteries in science at once: the Great Silence and the Asymmetric Chirality of Biological Molecules. Allow me to explain. Our attempts on earth of recreating abiogenesis in the laboratory are usually hindered by the fact that all physical processes that we have replicated thus far in the lab create racemic mixtures of whatever biomolecules we are synthesizing be they sugars, amino acids, whatever. In laymen's terms that means we can find all kinds of chemical reactions to generate molecules important for life but we inevitably also create molecules that are the mirror image of the first molecule with a roughly 50% mixture of the two forms. And it costs us a lot of energy to sort them out. Yet when we examine living organisms, whether they be humans or the lowliest bacterium, their biomolecules are always just one of the mirror images and not both. For example all glucose recovered from living cells has left-handed chirality and all amino acids from cells are right-handed. So the source of this uniformly asymmetric chirality of life has stumped biologists since Pasteur. There is however one known physical process that can be used to generate asymmetric quantities of chiral molecules and that is to shoot unsaturated precursor molecules with circularly-polarized lasers of the correct frequency, usually UV. Since circularly polarized laser light is generally not commonly found in nature, ergo the mystery. And this is where Sgr A*, the 4 million solar-mass black hole at the center of our galaxy comes into play: At some point in our galaxy's evolution, two black holes collided in the center of our galaxy, in such a way that by complete random chance the resultant super-massive black hole (SMBH) Sgr A* was tilted on it's side like the planet Uranus, precessing like a gyroscope with its radio-jet, which is essentially a gigantic circularly-polarized broad-spectrum laser/maser in just such a fashion to track our sun's orbit around the disk. In other words, the monster black hole in the center of our galaxy catalyzed abiogenesis on earth and almost nowhere else. Other galaxies don't have life because it is so rare for a SMBH to be tilted on its side relative its galactic disk. Perhaps Sgr's occasional quasar flare-ups cause cycles of mass extinctions followed by rapid mutation and adaptive radiation i.e. punctuated equilibrium as demonstrated in the fossil record on planet earth. Planet earth therefore being the cradle of life in our causal cell due to the unlikely astrophysics of a tilted SMBH and the anthropic principle. > And if we do live in a simulation, then an interstellar civilization > would probably be far more entertaining to any Simulators than a > sedentary one. Actually I like my secular explanation better. I still don't think humanity would fare well if we are still here when SgrA* next goes quasar. On the other hand, if we can colonize systems outside of the quasar beam path, then we would have a pristine galaxy all to ourselves for quite some time. We could be the seed crystals for a galaxy-wide phase change or we could be another failed natural experiment. The choice might be ours to make. > There is no such thing as unlimited resources, which means you have to > constantly move around, exploring, and hunting for new resources. Still good advice, even if we are living in the base reality. Especially if we are in the path of a quasar beam. Stuart LaForge From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Feb 2 21:52:37 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2019 15:52:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The causality analysis of climate change and large-scale human crisis In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Trivia: the cold weather in the 17th century is said to have affected the trees from which violins and other instruments were made by Guerneri, Amati, Stradivarius and others. The wood was more dense and so gives a different tone (clearly preferred by most musicians) compared to instruments made later. This may be why no one can duplicate those old master violins and cellos. bill w On Sat, Feb 2, 2019 at 1:45 PM Keith Henson wrote: > One of the authors of this paper also wrote the one on wars in China > due to weather fluctuations. > > Abstract > > Recent studies have shown strong temporal correlations between > past climate changes and societal crises. However, the specific causal > mechanisms underlying this relation have not been addressed. We > explored quantitative responses of 14 fine-grained agro-ecological, > socioeconomic, and demographic variables to climate > fluctuations from A.D. 1500 to 1800 in Europe. Results show that > cooling from A.D. > 1560?1660 caused successive agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and > demographic catastrophes, leading to the General Crisis of the Seventeenth > Century. We identified a set of causal linkages between > climate change and human crisis. Using temperature data and cli- > mate-driven economic variables, we simulated the alternation of > defined ?golden? and ?dark? ages in Europe and the Northern Hemi- > sphere during the past millennium. Our > findings indicate that climate change was the ultimate cause, and > climate-driven economic > downturn was the direct cause, of large-scale human crises in pre- > industrial Europe and the Northern Hemisphere. > > https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2011/09/29/1104268108.full.pdf > > It is amazing what we have learned about the past. > > From our viewpoint, the problem is that wars in response to bad > weather for the crops are about as inevitable as water flowing > downhill. > > Bad weather straight to wars via famine. > > Keith > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Mon Feb 4 17:45:28 2019 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2019 09:45:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] SETI reviews the Drake equation In-Reply-To: <1368214753.2719940.1549298686539@mail.yahoo.com> References: <20190202123059.Horde.QjELJTD9K5z_H-c6M6CcHwm@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <1368214753.2719940.1549298686539@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20190204094528.Horde.SI99Ab4KqBr0251ytIwpYnu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting myself (again): > Yet when we examine living organisms, whether they be humans or the? > lowliest bacterium, their biomolecules are always just one of the? > mirror images and not both. For example all glucose recovered from? > living cells has left-handed chirality and all amino acids from cells? > are right-handed. Quick correction, I have these exactly reversed biologically-active glucose is right handed and biological amino acids are left-handed. > And this is where Sgr A*, the 4 million solar-mass black hole at the? > center of our galaxy comes into play: At some point in our galaxy's? > evolution, two black holes collided in the center of our galaxy, in? > such a way that by complete random chance the resultant super-massive? > black hole (SMBH) Sgr A* was tilted on it's side like the planet? > Uranus, precessing like a gyroscope with its radio-jet, which is? > essentially a gigantic circularly-polarized broad-spectrum laser/maser? > in just such a fashion to track our sun's orbit around the disk. The math on this doesn't seem to be working out. Namely I don't know where the torque would come from to cause SgrA* to precess like that. So being in the path of the black hole's radio jet might just be a rare occurrence that happens twice every 230 million years when the sun's orbit crosses the radio jet's path and we just happened to be crossing the beam path when we looked at it. That still would have given SgrA* plenty of opportunities to kick start abiogenenesis on earth, but make it a lot less of an existential threat going forward. Stuart LaForge From pharos at gmail.com Tue Feb 5 00:22:23 2019 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2019 00:22:23 +0000 Subject: [ExI] SETI reviews the Drake equation In-Reply-To: <20190204094528.Horde.SI99Ab4KqBr0251ytIwpYnu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20190202123059.Horde.QjELJTD9K5z_H-c6M6CcHwm@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <1368214753.2719940.1549298686539@mail.yahoo.com> <20190204094528.Horde.SI99Ab4KqBr0251ytIwpYnu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 4 Feb 2019 at 17:52, Stuart LaForge wrote: > > Quoting myself (again): > > > Yet when we examine living organisms, whether they be humans or the > > lowliest bacterium, their biomolecules are always just one of the > > mirror images and not both. For example all glucose recovered from > > living cells has left-handed chirality and all amino acids from cells > > are right-handed. > > Quick correction, I have these exactly reversed biologically-active > glucose is right handed and biological amino acids are left-handed. > > > And this is where Sgr A*, the 4 million solar-mass black hole at the > > center of our galaxy comes into play: At some point in our galaxy's > > evolution, two black holes collided in the center of our galaxy, in > > such a way that by complete random chance the resultant super-massive > > black hole (SMBH) Sgr A* was tilted on it's side like the planet > > Uranus, precessing like a gyroscope with its radio-jet, which is > > essentially a gigantic circularly-polarized broad-spectrum laser/maser > > in just such a fashion to track our sun's orbit around the disk. > > The math on this doesn't seem to be working out. Namely I don't know > where the torque would come from to cause SgrA* to precess like that. > So being in the path of the black hole's radio jet might just be a > rare occurrence that happens twice every 230 million years when the > sun's orbit crosses the radio jet's path and we just happened to be > crossing the beam path when we looked at it. > > That still would have given SgrA* plenty of opportunities to kick > start abiogenenesis on earth, but make it a lot less of an existential > threat going forward. > > Stuart LaForge > Yes, I wondered about the likelihood of the radio jet remaining constantly pointed at the Earth. Also it isn't a gamma ray burst. It's only a radio jet from 26,000 light years away with a lot of interstellar dust and gas between. So much dust that we can't see the source in the optical band. Doesn't that mean the radio jet would have little effect on the Earth? BillK From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Feb 5 00:29:58 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2019 19:29:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] SETI reviews the Drake equation In-Reply-To: <20190204094528.Horde.SI99Ab4KqBr0251ytIwpYnu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20190202123059.Horde.QjELJTD9K5z_H-c6M6CcHwm@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <1368214753.2719940.1549298686539@mail.yahoo.com> <20190204094528.Horde.SI99Ab4KqBr0251ytIwpYnu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Feb 4, 2019 at 12:51 PM Stuart LaForge wrote: > And this is where Sgr A*, the 4 million solar-mass black hole at the > center of our galaxy comes into play: The Milky Way may be an oddball for a spiral galaxy of its size, the Andromeda spiral galaxy is only about twice the size of ours but it has not one but two black holes at its center; the smaller one is of 40 million solar masses, ten times the mass of our galaxy's black hole and the larger one is between 110 and 230 million solar masses. And it's a elliptical galaxy not a spiral like ours but M-87 has a 3.5 billion solar mass black hole at its center. We don't seem to to be living in a typical solar system as it has no hot Jupiter or a super Earth in it and they are 2 of the most common type of planets; perhaps we don't even live in a typical galaxy. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lubkin at unreasonable.com Tue Feb 5 01:45:26 2019 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2019 20:45:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] SETI reviews the Drake equation In-Reply-To: <20190204094528.Horde.SI99Ab4KqBr0251ytIwpYnu@secure199.inm otionhosting.com> References: <20190202123059.Horde.QjELJTD9K5z_H-c6M6CcHwm@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <1368214753.2719940.1549298686539@mail.yahoo.com> <20190204094528.Horde.SI99Ab4KqBr0251ytIwpYnu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <201902050145.x151jduD017119@hlin.zia.io> Stuart LaForge wrote: >The math on this doesn't seem to be working out. Let us imagine that it does eventually. Will there come a time in our Kardashev rise when we can intentionally engineer such a galactic life catalyst? Are there any advantages to creating life that way over engineering it from orbit or surface? How about if we could make a galactic life-bringing beam steerable? -- David. From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Feb 5 18:10:20 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2019 12:10:20 -0600 Subject: [ExI] completely disgusting Message-ID: In a poll taken on subscribers of Nature, presumably rather science-oriented: - only 5% would allow studies linking genes to violence - only 6% would allow studies on sex and genes - only 8% would approve of studies linking genes to intelligence And I thought that only the general public was this opposed to un-PC science, assuming that un-PC was the reason in the subscribers' minds. Or were they the reason The Blank Slate was written? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Feb 5 18:12:46 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2019 12:12:46 -0600 Subject: [ExI] book and inventions Message-ID: "They All Laughed" Ira Flatow History of a few major inventions. I learned something every page. One thing I learned was the inventors were by no means marketers. The inventor of the first video game saw his invention used by hundreds of people and more waiting in line to play the game, which was even simpler than Pong. He saw no use for it and did not get a patent (and was a government worker who could not make royalties). One of the several inventors of the telephone thought of it as a toy and did not realize that most people would want one. Now some of these people may be thought by many to be geniuses. Clearly they had little idea of what the average person might think. How can this be? Some people would call it absentmindedness. Some would call it lack of common sense. Maybe the inventors just spent their mental hours thinking of the technology and had no use for the practical side of things and did not think a lot about practical use. Coincidence? Lack of marketing skills and presence of high level creativity? How can anyone think that no one would want to talk to another person over a line? This is just stunning to me. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Feb 5 18:57:37 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2019 10:57:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] book and inventions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <017401d4bd84$a9ddb8c0$fd992a40$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Sent: Tuesday, February 5, 2019 10:13 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] book and inventions "They All Laughed" Ira Flatow History of a few major inventions?. Coincidence? Lack of marketing skills and presence of high level creativity? How can anyone think that no one would want to talk to another person over a line? This is just stunning to me. bill w Cool this book sounds orders of magnitude more interesting than books on? cod. It has long been known that inventors seldom successfully market their own inventions. I have a good one for you that Flatow might have mentioned. John Harvey Kellogg was a doctor in the old days, a vegetarian, who recognized that the typical American breakfast table had little redeeming quality. So he invented corn flakes (along with a pile of other health foods) and started a cereal company. Kellogg was an all-around genius, but he was stubborn in his way. He was convinced that sugar was terrible, so he didn?t sweeten his corn flakes. So? they weren?t palatable. One of his patients, CW Post, realized that if he would just add sweetener, this stuff would sell like nobody?s business. He was right. Meanwhile John Kellogg?s brother William realized that it would ruin Kellogg?s if they didn?t act, so he proposed adding sweetener, which his brother refused. So William Kellogg started a third company called Kelloggs. In those days they had brand name law, but couldn?t stop a guy from starting a new company with his own name. So there were two Kelloggs companies and Post Cereals. Inventor John Kellogg soon lost out to his brother?s more palatable concoction. Now we have Post vs Kelloggs to this day. The original inventor of corn flakes has his own name on neither of the companies. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Feb 5 19:53:12 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2019 13:53:12 -0600 Subject: [ExI] book and inventions In-Reply-To: <017401d4bd84$a9ddb8c0$fd992a40$@rainier66.com> References: <017401d4bd84$a9ddb8c0$fd992a40$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Yes, I enjoyed that book all the way through, and thanks for the Kellogg bit. I read a book called Adventures of a Curious Man, about Clarence Birdseye, a terrific inventor. Great reading. He invented many things but is best known for frozen food processing and his name lives on on those products. Highly recommended. bill w On Tue, Feb 5, 2019 at 1:01 PM wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *William Flynn Wallace > *Sent:* Tuesday, February 5, 2019 10:13 AM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Subject:* [ExI] book and inventions > > > > "They All Laughed" Ira Flatow > > > > History of a few major inventions?. > > > > Coincidence? Lack of marketing skills and presence of high level > creativity? How can anyone think that no one would want to talk to another > person over > > a line? This is just stunning to me. > > > > bill w > > > > > > > > > > Cool this book sounds orders of magnitude more interesting than books on? > cod. > > > > It has long been known that inventors seldom successfully market their own > inventions. I have a good one for you that Flatow might have mentioned. > > > > John Harvey Kellogg was a doctor in the old days, a vegetarian, who > recognized that the typical American breakfast table had little redeeming > quality. So he invented corn flakes (along with a pile of other health > foods) and started a cereal company. Kellogg was an all-around genius, but > he was stubborn in his way. He was convinced that sugar was terrible, so > he didn?t sweeten his corn flakes. So? they weren?t palatable. > > > > One of his patients, CW Post, realized that if he would just add > sweetener, this stuff would sell like nobody?s business. He was right. > > > > Meanwhile John Kellogg?s brother William realized that it would ruin > Kellogg?s if they didn?t act, so he proposed adding sweetener, which his > brother refused. So William Kellogg started a third company called > Kelloggs. In those days they had brand name law, but couldn?t stop a guy > from starting a new company with his own name. So there were two Kelloggs > companies and Post Cereals. Inventor John Kellogg soon lost out to his > brother?s more palatable concoction. Now we have Post vs Kelloggs to this > day. The original inventor of corn flakes has his own name on neither of > the companies. > > > > 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 avant at sollegro.com Wed Feb 6 05:42:54 2019 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2019 21:42:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] SETI reviews the Drake equation In-Reply-To: <1816083921.3581090.1549403779226@mail.yahoo.com> References: <20190202123059.Horde.QjELJTD9K5z_H-c6M6CcHwm@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <1368214753.2719940.1549298686539@mail.yahoo.com> <20190204094528.Horde.SI99Ab4KqBr0251ytIwpYnu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <1816083921.3581090.1549403779226@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20190205214254.Horde.V6EquMSZKsln6mAfLXlsoKX@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting BillK: > Yes, I wondered about the likelihood of the radio jet remaining > constantly pointed at the Earth. At this point I highly doubt that it would always be pointed at the Earth. If it were, that would either be very strong evidence that we live in a simulation or some crazy new physics that we just don't understand. > Also it isn't a gamma ray burst. It's only a radio jet from > 26,000 light years away with a lot of interstellar dust and gas > between. So much dust that we can't see the source in the optical > band. Doesn't that mean the radio jet would have little effect on the > Earth? You are right it isn't a gamma ray burst. Gamma ray bursts are very short lasting less than a minute and are believed to be caused when stellar mass black holes form during hypernovas. On the other hand, a quasar/blazar beam is formed by a super massive black hole within an active galactic nucleus. When a quasar gets its beam going, the resultant gamma rays, x rays, and so forth can last for years. https://astroquizzical.com/astroquizzical/how-are-gamma-ray-jets-being-generated-from-black https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.04714 The wimpy radio jet we are seeing now is because our galactic nucleus is not active. The black hole in the center does not have that big of an accretion disc to fuel its jet. The more gas swirling around the black hole, the more ions are produced in the friction heated gas as it swirls down into the black hole. These ions are forced to travel in a smaller and smaller spiral path as they get pulled down into the black hole like the vortex in your tub when you pull the drain plug. These electrically charged particles being accelerated into circular paths produce a helical magnetic field approximately perpendicular to the disk and parallel to the axis of the black hole's rotation. This is called the synchrotron mechanism of x ray formation by quasars. According to Maxwell, the strength of the magnetic field is proportional the current or the number of ions and free electrons zipping around in the spiral path in a given time. The more gas, the stronger the magnetic field. As these ions get whipped around in these ever narrowing circular paths, they radiate electromagnetic waves similar to a free-electron laser with a frequency dependent on the radius of the ions' circular path around the black hole. A competing theory suggests x rays from quasars are formed by Compton scattering of the radio beam off of CMB photons. I am less clear how that mechanism is supposed to work but this might be a jumping off point for those who are curious: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/510452/fulltext/ In any case, active galactic nuclei or super massive black holes with large dense accretion disks radiate collimated beams of electromagnetic radiation with a wide frequency range from radio waves and microwaves all the way up to x rays and gamma rays like a gigantic wide-spectrum laser. The magnetic fields extending from the poles of the black hole also accelerate some of the ions into gigantic particle jets that move at almost the speed of light and can stretch for hundreds of thousands of light years for the biggest most powerful quasars. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/510452/fulltext/ So yes, right now Sagittarius A* does not have enough fuel for its radio jet to affect the Earth from that distance. But let the black hole start siphoning gas off of one of the supergiant stars found orbiting it in the galactic core and we are bound to see some fireworks. The question of the dust that obscures the galactic core from our optical telescopes is a good one. I don't know how effective the dust would be in shielding us from the quasar beam if Sagittarius A* starts feeding again. The beam is likely to cause one hell of a particle wind that could end up blowing all dust right out of the galaxy. Stuart LaForge From avant at sollegro.com Wed Feb 6 16:34:20 2019 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2019 08:34:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] SETI reviews the Drake equation In-Reply-To: <1331448110.4027500.1549469423998@mail.yahoo.com> References: <20190202123059.Horde.QjELJTD9K5z_H-c6M6CcHwm@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <1368214753.2719940.1549298686539@mail.yahoo.com> <20190204094528.Horde.SI99Ab4KqBr0251ytIwpYnu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <20190204094528.Horde.SI99Ab4KqBr0251ytIwpYnu@secure199.inm otionhosting.com> <201902050145.x151jduD017119@hlin.zia.io> <1331448110.4027500.1549469423998@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20190206083420.Horde.uBsJNDcCsdmfuEi6NOxoQQk@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting David Lubkin: > Stuart LaForge wrote: > >> The math on this doesn't seem to be working out. > > Let us imagine that it does eventually. Will there come a time in our > Kardashev rise when we can intentionally engineer such a galactic > life catalyst? If we succeed in becoming a type III civilization, such a feat would be possible. To harness the entire energy of a galaxy would entail being able to control and manipulate the supermassive black hole(s) in the galactic nucleus. I have no idea how such a civilization could do so but maybe if we get a working theory of quantum gravity a solution would become apparent. > Are there any advantages to creating life that way over engineering > it from orbit or surface? How about if we could make a galactic > life-bringing beam steerable? Being able to aim the radio jets of super massive black hole might allow a civilization to spark life on other worlds if liquid water and organic compounds are already present. But using the black hole's radio/EM beam would be inefficient energy-wise if most planets in the galaxy are incapable of supporting life. In such a case seeding life from orbit around a planet or other more targeted methods would likely lead to better, more predictable results. The black hole's beam would likely be better suited to drive light sails to allow high speed colonization and travel to other galaxies provided the beam was steerable. Stuart LaForge From avant at sollegro.com Wed Feb 6 17:43:49 2019 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2019 09:43:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: <2102795217.1489535.1549040900386@mail.yahoo.com> References: <000601d4b655$325d07a0$971716e0$@rainier66.com> <2102795217.1489535.1549040900386@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20190206094349.Horde.vKJdwR2P4PUV6WOn67K6pWv@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting John Clark: > That's true, and yet we know for a fact that the entire recipe for > building a human being is less than 750 meg long even though its > written in convoluted spaghetti code with massive amounts of > redundancy. That figure of 750 MB is more the maximally-compressed information content of the haploid genome and not so much the recipe. Much of the redundancy in DNA is functional and so the code would likely have to be decompressed to be executable. For example, there might be little difference in the Shannon information content of the sequence TTAGGG repeated thousands of times or just once, but the information content does not consider that the purpose of repeating (TTAGGG)n telomeric sequence is to give the ends of chromosomes the flexibility to fold over themselves repeatedly to hide the tip of the chromosome in the center of a complicated knot where DNA-degrading enzymes called exonucleases can't access and digest them. > I want to consider a very small amount of that 750 meg, the part > involving the brain hardware and even more important the part that > encodes the general learning algorithm that enabled Einstein to go > from learning which way is up on the day he was born to learning how > General Relativity works 36 years later. > [. . .] I think that this recent development in AI is relevant to your point: https://interestingengineering.com/new-self-aware-robotic-arm-can-recognize-and-repair-itself https://mindmatters.ai/2019/02/that-robot-is-not-self-aware/ http://robotics.sciencemag.org/content/4/26/eaau9354 "Abstract: A robot modeled itself without prior knowledge of physics or its shape and used the self-model to perform tasks and detect self-damage." > All this makes me think the era of true AI may be much closer than > many people think, I wouldn't be surprised if the master learning > algorithm in its most efficient form is less than a meg in size; > with such a program and time to learn from the external world maybe > a human level AI could exist on a iPhone. AI seems capable of most cognitive tasks these days except for logical inference perhaps. Then again aside from humano-centric prejudice, it may already be here: https://www.businessinsider.com/this-robot-passed-a-self-awareness-test-that-only-humans-could-handle-until-now-2015-7 Stuart LaForge From avant at sollegro.com Wed Feb 6 18:04:02 2019 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2019 10:04:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] completely disgusting In-Reply-To: <1396439497.4090485.1549475187335@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1396439497.4090485.1549475187335@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20190206100402.Horde.ZFnFbPOK4jKAV8d37gBsw2g@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting Bill Wallace: > In a poll taken on subscribers of Nature, presumably rather > science-oriented: > - only 5% would allow studies linking genes to violence- only 6% > would allow studies on sex and genes- only 8% would approve of > studies linking genes to intelligence > And I thought that only the general public was this opposed to un-PC > science, assuming that un-PC was the reason in the subscribers' > minds.? Or were they the reason The Blank Slate was written? Yes, I agree. If the wording of the survey question were changed so that these genetic studies were conducted on rats, dogs, or dolphins, nobody would care. In its unsubstantiated almost faith-like belief in human exceptionalism, the philosophy of humanism is nearly as bad as religion. The idea that the gender of mice is controlled by their sex chromosomes but that people can, by virtue of their humanity, just choose their gender without the appropriate medical procedures is somewhat delusional. But I suppose if religion is any indication, people are entitled to their delusions. Pinker's "The Blank Slate" sounds interesting. Does he reach a similar conclusion? Stuart LaForge From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Feb 6 23:02:02 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2019 17:02:02 -0600 Subject: [ExI] completely disgusting In-Reply-To: <20190206100402.Horde.ZFnFbPOK4jKAV8d37gBsw2g@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <1396439497.4090485.1549475187335@mail.yahoo.com> <20190206100402.Horde.ZFnFbPOK4jKAV8d37gBsw2g@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: Oh please, you have to read The Blank Slate. It should have, but didn't, leave a person on this planet who believed in such a thing. Humans - can believe things that are unbelievably false and deny things that are extremely provable. bill w On Wed, Feb 6, 2019 at 12:08 PM Stuart LaForge wrote: > > Quoting Bill Wallace: > > > In a poll taken on subscribers of Nature, presumably rather > > science-oriented: > > - only 5% would allow studies linking genes to violence- only 6% > > would allow studies on sex and genes- only 8% would approve of > > studies linking genes to intelligence > > And I thought that only the general public was this opposed to un-PC > > science, assuming that un-PC was the reason in the subscribers' > > minds. Or were they the reason The Blank Slate was written? > > Yes, I agree. If the wording of the survey question were changed so > that these genetic studies were conducted on rats, dogs, or dolphins, > nobody would care. In its unsubstantiated almost faith-like belief in > human exceptionalism, the philosophy of humanism is nearly as bad as > religion. The idea that the gender of mice is controlled by their sex > chromosomes but that people can, by virtue of their humanity, just > choose their gender without the appropriate medical procedures is > somewhat delusional. But I suppose if religion is any indication, > people are entitled to their delusions. > > Pinker's "The Blank Slate" sounds interesting. Does he reach a similar > conclusion? > > Stuart LaForge > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lubkin at unreasonable.com Thu Feb 7 15:40:11 2019 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2019 10:40:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] completely disgusting In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201902071540.x17FeN2J019148@hlin.zia.io> William Flynn Wallace wrote: >In a poll taken on subscribers of Nature, presumably rather science-oriented: > >- only 5% would allow studies linking genes to violence >- only 6% would allow studies on sex and genes >- only 8% would approve of studies linking genes to intelligence I am not surprised that most people who call themselves scientists don't actually practice science. I'm surprised the fraction is that high. -- David. From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Feb 7 16:38:34 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2019 10:38:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] completely disgusting In-Reply-To: <201902071540.x17FeN2J019148@hlin.zia.io> References: <201902071540.x17FeN2J019148@hlin.zia.io> Message-ID: On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 9:45 AM David Lubkin wrote: > > I am not surprised that most people who call themselves scientists > don't actually practice science. I'm surprised the fraction is that high. > > I should not be surprised either. Having stated an opinion, which is the equivalent of voting for one party or another, is a powerful force. One then has to fend off contrary opinions and stick to what one has said or voted for. Things purporting to be facts that are contrary are dismissed, even by scientists, who are voting their political opinions and not their scientific attitudes. As I said: disgusting. bill w > > -- David. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Feb 7 17:40:56 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2019 12:40:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: <20190206094349.Horde.vKJdwR2P4PUV6WOn67K6pWv@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <000601d4b655$325d07a0$971716e0$@rainier66.com> <2102795217.1489535.1549040900386@mail.yahoo.com> <20190206094349.Horde.vKJdwR2P4PUV6WOn67K6pWv@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Feb 6, 2019 at 12:49 PM Stuart LaForge wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > * > That figure of 750 MB is more the maximally-compressed information > content of the haploid genome and not so much the recipe. Much of the > redundancy in DNA is functional and so the code would likely have to be > decompressed to be executable. For example, there might be little > difference in the Shannon information content of the sequence TTAGGG > repeated thousands of times or just once, but the information content does > not consider that the purpose of repeating (TTAGGG)n telomeric sequence is > to give the ends of chromosomes the flexibility to fold over themselves > repeatedly to hide the tip of the chromosome in the center of a > complicated knot where DNA-degrading enzymes called exonucleases can't > access and digest them.* > True, but there is reason to think much of the genome really is nothing but parasitical junk at least from our point of view; after all the entire point of Evolution is to get genes duplicated and our phenotype, aka our bodies, are just a means to that end. And the fact that some very commonplace looking creatures can have a huge genome gives support to the idea that there must be a lot of junk in genomes. The human genome has about 3 billion base pairs but a Mexican salamander called a Axolotl has 32 billion base pairs, the marbled lungfish has 130 billion base pairs, and a humdrum looking Japanese flowering plant called Paris japonica has 150 base pairs, 50 times the size of the human genome. It's hard to believe that little bush or the body of a lungfish is inherently more complex than a human even if its genome is. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Feb 7 19:00:51 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2019 13:00:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: References: <000601d4b655$325d07a0$971716e0$@rainier66.com> <2102795217.1489535.1549040900386@mail.yahoo.com> <20190206094349.Horde.vKJdwR2P4PUV6WOn67K6pWv@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: but there is reason to think much of the genome really is nothing but parasitical junk at least from our point of view john Do we suppose that all that junk consists of efforts by DNA to accomplish something that ultimately failed and were replaced by other efforts? bill w On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 11:46 AM John Clark wrote: > On Wed, Feb 6, 2019 at 12:49 PM Stuart LaForge wrote: > >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> * > That figure of 750 MB is more the maximally-compressed information >> content of the haploid genome and not so much the recipe. Much of the >> redundancy in DNA is functional and so the code would likely have to be >> decompressed to be executable. For example, there might be little >> difference in the Shannon information content of the sequence TTAGGG >> repeated thousands of times or just once, but the information content does >> not consider that the purpose of repeating (TTAGGG)n telomeric sequence is >> to give the ends of chromosomes the flexibility to fold over themselves >> repeatedly to hide the tip of the chromosome in the center of a >> complicated knot where DNA-degrading enzymes called exonucleases can't >> access and digest them.* >> > > True, but there is reason to think much of the genome really is nothing > but parasitical junk at least from our point of view; after all the entire > point of Evolution is to get genes duplicated and our phenotype, aka our > bodies, are just a means to that end. And the fact that some very > commonplace looking creatures can have a huge genome gives support to the > idea that there must be a lot of junk in genomes. The human genome has > about 3 billion base pairs but a Mexican salamander called a Axolotl has 32 > billion base pairs, the marbled lungfish has 130 billion base pairs, and a > humdrum looking Japanese flowering plant called Paris japonica has 150 base > pairs, 50 times the size of the human genome. It's hard to believe that > little bush or the body of a lungfish is inherently more complex than a > human even if its genome is. > > 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 robot at ultimax.com Thu Feb 7 19:30:59 2019 From: robot at ultimax.com (robot at ultimax.com) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2019 14:30:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] book and inventions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2d6f5b599f1403afc7a34a4b78f2850a@ultimax.com> I've read that Alexander Graham Bell thought the principal application for his invention would be to transmit live concerts to a single central gathering place in small towns that were too poor to afford a local orchestra, thus raising their level of culture. Essentially what we today call cable radio (but with the added "last mile" and without the culture). Perhaps that's in the book already. RGK3 On Tue, 5 Feb 2019 12:12:46 -0600, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > "They All Laughed" Ira Flatow [snip] > Coincidence? Lack of marketing skills and presence of high level > creativity? How can anyone think that no one would want to talk to > another > person over a line? This is just stunning to me. From lubkin at unreasonable.com Thu Feb 7 20:09:29 2019 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2019 15:09:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: References: <000601d4b655$325d07a0$971716e0$@rainier66.com> <2102795217.1489535.1549040900386@mail.yahoo.com> <20190206094349.Horde.vKJdwR2P4PUV6WOn67K6pWv@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <201902072009.x17K9cxo005672@hlin.zia.io> >>but there is reason to think much of the genome really is nothing >>but parasitical junk at least from our point of view john >Do we suppose that all that junk consists of efforts by DNA to >accomplish something that ultimately failed and were replaced by other efforts? The extra base pairs are an ASCII scan of Spock holding a model of the Enterprise, Pac-Man, and assorted MS-DOS and CP/M games. -- David. From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Feb 7 22:17:56 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2019 17:17:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: References: <000601d4b655$325d07a0$971716e0$@rainier66.com> <2102795217.1489535.1549040900386@mail.yahoo.com> <20190206094349.Horde.vKJdwR2P4PUV6WOn67K6pWv@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 2:06 PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: >> but there is reason to think much of the genome really is nothing but >> parasitical junk at least from our point of view john > > > *> Do we suppose that all that junk consists of efforts by DNA to > accomplish something that ultimately failed and were replaced by other > efforts? bill w* > The only thing DNA wants to accomplish is to get into the next generation, one way to do that would be to convey some sort of survival advantage to the phenotype but another way would be to have no effect on the phenotype and just hitchhike through the generations as a do nothing freeloader. The junk could have originally come from RNA retroviruses that use the Reverse Transcriptase enzyme to insert part of their RNA genome into the host's DNA genome. Another possibility is the junk may have once done something useful to the phenotype but over time Evolution found that trait no longer conveyed any survival benefit so it was switched off but not removed. It's as if you kept rewriting a book but never erased anything and just put the 99 older versions in brackets, so when your book was finally published on page 1 you told the reader to ignore everything that was inside the brackets and just read the last version that was outside the brackets. A intelligent human editor would object to this skeme because your book would end up being 10 to 100 times thicker than it needed to be, but Evolution doesn't object because Evolution is not intelligent. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 13:15:07 2019 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2019 08:15:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: References: <000601d4b655$325d07a0$971716e0$@rainier66.com> <2102795217.1489535.1549040900386@mail.yahoo.com> <20190206094349.Horde.vKJdwR2P4PUV6WOn67K6pWv@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 5:23 PM John Clark wrote: > > The only thing DNA wants to accomplish is ... > No, DNA doesn't want anything. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 13:23:38 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2019 08:23:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: References: <000601d4b655$325d07a0$971716e0$@rainier66.com> <2102795217.1489535.1549040900386@mail.yahoo.com> <20190206094349.Horde.vKJdwR2P4PUV6WOn67K6pWv@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 8:21 AM Dave Sill wrote: On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 5:23 PM John Clark wrote: > >> >> The only thing DNA wants to accomplish is ... >> > > *>No, DNA doesn't want anything.* > *Thanks for that news flash!* John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 15:31:35 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2019 09:31:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] statins again Message-ID: Fun and games with statistics - note 25% versus 1.3% below. Also note - only those with diagnosed heart disease got any help from statins, and that was not very much. Yet the interpretation by many was that everyone elderly should be on a statin. Sad. bill w https://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2019/02/07/statins-for-older-people-a-new-study-is-wildly-misinterpreted/?utm_source=The+People%27s+Pharmacy+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4fc829ed41-MC_D_2019-02-08%26subscriber%3D1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_7300006d3c-4fc829ed41-214968749&goal=0_7300006d3c-4fc829ed41-214968749&mc_cid=4fc829ed41&mc_eid=b9c6f5005a -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Fri Feb 8 17:25:50 2019 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2019 09:25:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: <833807195.104745.1549586846497@mail.yahoo.com> References: <000601d4b655$325d07a0$971716e0$@rainier66.com> <2102795217.1489535.1549040900386@mail.yahoo.com> <20190206094349.Horde.vKJdwR2P4PUV6WOn67K6pWv@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <833807195.104745.1549586846497@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20190208092550.Horde.rd2KEwFHFycxrFNdLhaFEtj@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting John Clark: > True, but there is reason to think much of the genome really is > nothing but parasitical junk at least from our point of view; after > all the entire point of Evolution is to get genes duplicated and our > phenotype, aka our bodies, are just a means to that end. And the > fact that some very commonplace looking creatures can have a huge > genome gives support to the idea that there must be a lot of junk in > genomes. > The human genome has about 3 billion base pairs but a > Mexican salamander called a Axolotl has 32 billion base pairs, the > marbled lungfish has 130 billion base pairs, and a humdrum looking > Japanese flowering plant called Paris japonica has 150 base pairs, > 50 times the size of the human genome. It's hard to believe that > little bush or the body of a ?lungfish is inherently more complex > than a human even if its genome is. Yes, the C-value enigma still does not have a widely accepted solution. Even two related species in the same genus can differ wildly in the amount of DNA they have. Much of the controversy stems from the nuances of what constitutes "function" in biology. If you look at what percentage of the human genome is conserved across different individuals, then it is only 20% of the genome. One can safely assume that that 20% encodes vital functions that have been selected for as being necessary for survival and the other 80%, aside from the tiny fraction which accounts for phenotypic differences between individuals, could be thought of as parasitical junk. On the other hand, studies like the ENCODE project have found that if one defines function as binding to proteins found in the nucleus or being chemically modified, then 80% is functional and only 20% completely lacks a function. So much depends on how you define function but in the end, one does have a lot of extra DNA lying around in eukaryotic cells. Some important caveats however to the notion of junk DNA is that redundancy and mutation are the engines of evolutionary adaptation. The so called junk DNA varies widely between individuals because there is no selective pressure to conserve those sequences and so those sequences are free to silently mutate. Similarly if you have a redundant copy of a necessary gene, you can safely modify the copy without disrupting the function of the original. So perhaps junk DNA is what a programmer would call a "sandbox" where nature is free to experiment and innovate without disrupting crucial functions. I guess I am ok with the term junk DNA as long as one distinguishes between junk and trash. Trash is stuff you throw out while junk is stuff you keep because you hope to find a use for it someday. Stuart LaForge From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 17:50:22 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2019 11:50:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: <20190208092550.Horde.rd2KEwFHFycxrFNdLhaFEtj@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <000601d4b655$325d07a0$971716e0$@rainier66.com> <2102795217.1489535.1549040900386@mail.yahoo.com> <20190206094349.Horde.vKJdwR2P4PUV6WOn67K6pWv@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <833807195.104745.1549586846497@mail.yahoo.com> <20190208092550.Horde.rd2KEwFHFycxrFNdLhaFEtj@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: 'DNA doesn't '"want" anything' - somebody said. All random, eh? Well, just why doesn't DNA produce things like one ear smaller or some other thing that will not help or hurt survival? No, it has a plan. It tries to produce better parts than what it has got, and sometimes new parts to fit older systems, like its experiment with the appendix. I think DNA is smart. I would not say aware or planning - that's teleological. But I just can't see it doing things randomly. bill w On Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 11:30 AM Stuart LaForge wrote: > > Quoting John Clark: > > > True, but there is reason to think much of the genome really is > > nothing but parasitical junk at least from our point of view; after > > all the entire point of Evolution is to get genes duplicated and our > > phenotype, aka our bodies, are just a means to that end. And the > > fact that some very commonplace looking creatures can have a huge > > genome gives support to the idea that there must be a lot of junk in > > genomes. > > The human genome has about 3 billion base pairs but a > > Mexican salamander called a Axolotl has 32 billion base pairs, the > > marbled lungfish has 130 billion base pairs, and a humdrum looking > > Japanese flowering plant called Paris japonica has 150 base pairs, > > 50 times the size of the human genome. It's hard to believe that > > little bush or the body of a lungfish is inherently more complex > > than a human even if its genome is. > > Yes, the C-value enigma still does not have a widely accepted > solution. Even two related species in the same genus can differ wildly > in the amount of DNA they have. Much of the controversy stems from the > nuances of what constitutes "function" in biology. > > If you look at what percentage of the human genome is conserved across > different individuals, then it is only 20% of the genome. One can > safely assume that that 20% encodes vital functions that have been > selected for as being necessary for survival and the other 80%, aside > from the tiny fraction which accounts for phenotypic differences > between individuals, could be thought of as parasitical junk. > > On the other hand, studies like the ENCODE project have found that if > one defines function as binding to proteins found in the nucleus or > being chemically modified, then 80% is functional and only 20% > completely lacks a function. > > So much depends on how you define function but in the end, one does > have a lot of extra DNA lying around in eukaryotic cells. Some > important caveats however to the notion of junk DNA is that redundancy > and mutation are the engines of evolutionary adaptation. The so called > junk DNA varies widely between individuals because there is no > selective pressure to conserve those sequences and so those sequences > are free to silently mutate. Similarly if you have a redundant copy of > a necessary gene, you can safely modify the copy without disrupting > the function of the original. > > So perhaps junk DNA is what a programmer would call a "sandbox" where > nature is free to experiment and innovate without disrupting crucial > functions. I guess I am ok with the term junk DNA as long as one > distinguishes between junk and trash. Trash is stuff you throw out > while junk is stuff you keep because you hope to find a use for it > someday. > > Stuart LaForge > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Fri Feb 8 18:36:22 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2019 13:36:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: <20190208092550.Horde.rd2KEwFHFycxrFNdLhaFEtj@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <000601d4b655$325d07a0$971716e0$@rainier66.com> <2102795217.1489535.1549040900386@mail.yahoo.com> <20190206094349.Horde.vKJdwR2P4PUV6WOn67K6pWv@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <833807195.104745.1549586846497@mail.yahoo.com> <20190208092550.Horde.rd2KEwFHFycxrFNdLhaFEtj@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 12:31 PM Stuart LaForge wrote: > > * > If you look at what percentage of the human genome is conserved > across different individuals, then it is only 20% of the genome.* I don't know where you got that figure, with the exception of the cheetah there is very little genetic diversity among humans compared with other mammals, "*All human beings are 99.9 percent identical in their genetic makeup*": https://www.genome.gov/19016904/faq-about-genetic-and-genomic-science/ And "*about 60 percent of genes are conserved between fruit flies and humans*" https://www.genome.gov/11509542/comparative-genomics-fact-sheet/ But of course only about 1.5% of our genome encodes for genes, that is to say encodes for proteins. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/09/05/encode-the-rough-guide-to-the-human-genome/#.XF3Ey89KjUI > > > > > *> Some important caveats however to the notion of junk DNA is that > redundancy and mutation are the engines of evolutionary adaptation. The so > called junk DNA varies widely between individuals because there is no > selective pressure to conserve those sequences and so those sequences are > free to silently mutate.* If there is no selective pressure then they can't have a function, and if they're full of mutations (and they are) then they would be very poor backups. > > > > > *I guess I am ok with the term junk DNA as long as one distinguishes > between junk and trash. Trash is stuff you throw out while junk is stuff > you keep because you hope to find a use for it someday.* If can think of any experimental evidence or theoretical consideration that would lead me to conclude that very large parts of out genome is utterly worthless pure trash or even in some circumstances detrimental. Doctors want to transplant pig organs into humans but there is a problem, in 25 different places in a pig's genome there are places where retroviruses have inserted their genome into the pigs genome, and that could be dangerous if a organs like that were inside a human. But about a year ago scientists used CRISPER gene editing to get rid of those viral DNA segments and produced healthy pigs: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/crispr-slices-virus-genes-out-pigs-will-it-make-organ-transplants-humans-safer?r3f_986=https://www.google.com/ John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 18:46:51 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2019 10:46:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: References: <000601d4b655$325d07a0$971716e0$@rainier66.com> <2102795217.1489535.1549040900386@mail.yahoo.com> <20190206094349.Horde.vKJdwR2P4PUV6WOn67K6pWv@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <833807195.104745.1549586846497@mail.yahoo.com> <20190208092550.Horde.rd2KEwFHFycxrFNdLhaFEtj@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: Does an ice cube in a warm room want to melt? Is it?s melting purely random? Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Feb 8, 2019, at 9:50 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > 'DNA doesn't '"want" anything' - somebody said. > > All random, eh? Well, just why doesn't DNA produce things like one ear smaller or some other thing that will not help or hurt survival? No, it has a plan. It tries to produce better parts than what it has got, and sometimes new parts to fit older systems, like its experiment with the appendix. > > I think DNA is smart. I would not say aware or planning - that's teleological. But I just can't see it doing things randomly. > > bill w > >> On Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 11:30 AM Stuart LaForge wrote: >> >> Quoting John Clark: >> >> > True, but there is reason to think much of the genome really is >> > nothing but parasitical junk at least from our point of view; after >> > all the entire point of Evolution is to get genes duplicated and our >> > phenotype, aka our bodies, are just a means to that end. And the >> > fact that some very commonplace looking creatures can have a huge >> > genome gives support to the idea that there must be a lot of junk in >> > genomes. >> > The human genome has about 3 billion base pairs but a >> > Mexican salamander called a Axolotl has 32 billion base pairs, the >> > marbled lungfish has 130 billion base pairs, and a humdrum looking >> > Japanese flowering plant called Paris japonica has 150 base pairs, >> > 50 times the size of the human genome. It's hard to believe that >> > little bush or the body of a lungfish is inherently more complex >> > than a human even if its genome is. >> >> Yes, the C-value enigma still does not have a widely accepted >> solution. Even two related species in the same genus can differ wildly >> in the amount of DNA they have. Much of the controversy stems from the >> nuances of what constitutes "function" in biology. >> >> If you look at what percentage of the human genome is conserved across >> different individuals, then it is only 20% of the genome. One can >> safely assume that that 20% encodes vital functions that have been >> selected for as being necessary for survival and the other 80%, aside >> from the tiny fraction which accounts for phenotypic differences >> between individuals, could be thought of as parasitical junk. >> >> On the other hand, studies like the ENCODE project have found that if >> one defines function as binding to proteins found in the nucleus or >> being chemically modified, then 80% is functional and only 20% >> completely lacks a function. >> >> So much depends on how you define function but in the end, one does >> have a lot of extra DNA lying around in eukaryotic cells. Some >> important caveats however to the notion of junk DNA is that redundancy >> and mutation are the engines of evolutionary adaptation. The so called >> junk DNA varies widely between individuals because there is no >> selective pressure to conserve those sequences and so those sequences >> are free to silently mutate. Similarly if you have a redundant copy of >> a necessary gene, you can safely modify the copy without disrupting >> the function of the original. >> >> So perhaps junk DNA is what a programmer would call a "sandbox" where >> nature is free to experiment and innovate without disrupting crucial >> functions. I guess I am ok with the term junk DNA as long as one >> distinguishes between junk and trash. Trash is stuff you throw out >> while junk is stuff you keep because you hope to find a use for it >> someday. >> >> Stuart LaForge >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 sparge at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 18:54:15 2019 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2019 13:54:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: References: <000601d4b655$325d07a0$971716e0$@rainier66.com> <2102795217.1489535.1549040900386@mail.yahoo.com> <20190206094349.Horde.vKJdwR2P4PUV6WOn67K6pWv@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <833807195.104745.1549586846497@mail.yahoo.com> <20190208092550.Horde.rd2KEwFHFycxrFNdLhaFEtj@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 12:55 PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > 'DNA doesn't '"want" anything' - somebody said. > (waves hand) All random, eh? > Well, those aren't the only two possibilities, but yes, it's primarily random. > Well, just why doesn't DNA produce things like one ear smaller or some > other thing that will not help or hurt survival? > That happens all the time. > No, it has a plan. It tries to produce better parts than what it has > got, and sometimes new parts to fit older systems, like its experiment with > the appendix. > No, DNA has no intent and no desire to "improve" or even change. I think DNA is smart. I would not say aware or planning - that's > teleological. But I just can't see it doing things randomly. > DNA changes via mutation, which is mostly random and is never done by the DNA itself. Sometimes mutations have an obvious benefit and natural selection results in their propagation. Sometimes they cause an obvious detriment and natural selection makes them "go away". Sometimes they don't affect the organism in any notable way, and their propagation is random. And sometimes these "useless" mutations turn out to have latent costs/benefits that cause natural selection to kick into action. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 18:59:13 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2019 13:59:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: References: <000601d4b655$325d07a0$971716e0$@rainier66.com> <2102795217.1489535.1549040900386@mail.yahoo.com> <20190206094349.Horde.vKJdwR2P4PUV6WOn67K6pWv@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <833807195.104745.1549586846497@mail.yahoo.com> <20190208092550.Horde.rd2KEwFHFycxrFNdLhaFEtj@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 12:56 PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > just why doesn't DNA produce things like one ear smaller or some other > thing that will not help or hurt survival? > You've forgotten sexual selection. A lack of ear symmetry WOULD hurt the genes survival prospects because a lopsided ear gene would make it far more difficult for the phenotype resulting from that gene to find a mate. > I think DNA is smart. I would not say aware or planning - that's > teleological. But I just can't see it doing things randomly. > I strongly suggest you read Richard Dawkins "The Selfish Gene", an absolutely wonderful book that shows how something as apparently simple as random mutation and natural selection can produce incredible mind bending complexity. It was Dawkins first book and I read it back in the 70s, recently he updated it and I bought the audiobook so I could listen to it on my long commute to work. And it's better than ever! John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Fri Feb 8 20:41:32 2019 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2019 12:41:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: <961332289.544541.1549651867448@mail.yahoo.com> References: <000601d4b655$325d07a0$971716e0$@rainier66.com> <2102795217.1489535.1549040900386@mail.yahoo.com> <20190206094349.Horde.vKJdwR2P4PUV6WOn67K6pWv@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <833807195.104745.1549586846497@mail.yahoo.com> <20190208092550.Horde.rd2KEwFHFycxrFNdLhaFEtj@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <961332289.544541.1549651867448@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20190208124132.Horde.msMsDmOaqHFe4B91pAp9dfx@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting John Clark: > On Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 12:31 PM Stuart LaForge wrote: >> If you look at what percentage of the human genome is conserved across? >> different individuals, then it is only 20% of the genome. > > I don't know where you got that figure, with the exception of the > cheetah there is very little genetic diversity among humans compared > with other mammals, "All human beings are 99.9 percent identical in > their genetic makeup": > https://www.genome.gov/19016904/faq-about-genetic-and-genomic-science/ Right, that conserved 20% is 99.9% identical between individuals. That is what "conserved" means in this context. When I was in grad school, it was generally accepted that 80% was junk and 20% was conserved. I got 20% because 100% - 80% = 20%. The point is that the differences in the DNA between any two random randomly chosen individuals is likely to reside almost entirely in the junk portion of their DNA. > And "about 60 percent of genes are conserved between fruit flies and humans" > https://www.genome.gov/11509542/comparative-genomics-fact-sheet/ > But of?course only about 1.5% of our genome encodes for genes, that > is to say encodes for proteins.? Right again. 60% of the 1.5% of the human genome that encodes genes is identical to the whatever percentage of the fly genome encodes for genes. What are we disagreeing on here? > http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/09/05/encode-the-rough-guide-to-the-human-genome/#.XF3Ey89KjUI?? This reference that you linked to upgrades my 20% figure to 25% based on the ENCODE project that I mentioned earlier. Although the original ENCODE study listed it as much higher at 80% being functional and only 20% being junk. Since then several papers were written contesting the ENCODE study's claim. Why are you quibbling over percentages with me when the people actually doing the research can't agree? Every few months somebody comes up with a slightly different percentage based on their definition of "functional". >> Some?important caveats however to the notion of junk DNA is that redundancy? >> and mutation are the engines of evolutionary adaptation. The so called? >> junk DNA varies widely between individuals because there is no? >> selective pressure to conserve those sequences and so those sequences? >> are free to silently mutate. > > If there is no?selective pressure then they can't have a function, > and if they're full of mutations (and they are) then they would be > very poor backups. They are not backups; they are more like scratch-paper to explore DNA sequence-space without penalty. Or you could think of them as a mutational buffer that absorbs mutations that would be otherwise harmful i.e. places where it is safe for the genetic recombination machinery to cut and paste DNA without damaging functional regions. >> I guess I am ok with the term junk DNA as long as one? >> distinguishes between junk and trash. Trash is stuff you throw out? >> while junk is stuff you keep because you hope to find a use for it? >> someday. > >> If can think of any experimental evidence or theoretical >> consideration that would lead me to conclude that very large parts >> of out genome is utterly worthless pure trash or even in some >> circumstances detrimental. If there is no selective pressure, then they can't be "detrimental". They are neutral and DNA replication (as long as it is regulated) is relatively cheap. At worst they are like spandrels. > Doctors want to transplant pig organs into humans but there is a > problem, in 25 different places in a pig's genome there are places > where retroviruses have inserted their genome into the pigs genome, > and that could be dangerous if ?a organs like that were inside a > human. But about a year ago scientists used CRISPER gene editing to > get rid of those viral DNA segments and produced healthy pigs: > https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/crispr-slices-virus-genes-out-pigs-will-it-make-organ-transplants-humans-safer?r3f_986=https://www.google.com/?? The pig endogenous retroviruses weren't harming the pig. As long as they do not harm their hosts, retroviruses and transposons can be agents of evolutionary change through horizontal gene transfer. If their presence aids survival, then they are selected for and if they are harmful, then they are selected against. If neither, then they are simply carried forward into the next generation with the rest of the genome, no harm no foul. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141218141057.htm Stuart LaForge From avant at sollegro.com Fri Feb 8 21:40:16 2019 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2019 13:40:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: <20190208124132.Horde.msMsDmOaqHFe4B91pAp9dfx@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <000601d4b655$325d07a0$971716e0$@rainier66.com> <2102795217.1489535.1549040900386@mail.yahoo.com> <20190206094349.Horde.vKJdwR2P4PUV6WOn67K6pWv@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <833807195.104745.1549586846497@mail.yahoo.com> <20190208092550.Horde.rd2KEwFHFycxrFNdLhaFEtj@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <961332289.544541.1549651867448@mail.yahoo.com> <20190208124132.Horde.msMsDmOaqHFe4B91pAp9dfx@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <20190208134016.Horde.VYBYl-OiSjKYzBAJ5Rc8aov@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting Stuart LaForge : > Quoting John Clark: > >> On Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 12:31 PM Stuart LaForge wrote: >>> If you look at what percentage of the human genome is conserved across? >>> different individuals, then it is only 20% of the genome. >> >> I don't know where you got that figure, with the exception of the >> cheetah there is very little genetic diversity among humans >> compared with other mammals, "All human beings are 99.9 percent >> identical in their genetic makeup": >> https://www.genome.gov/19016904/faq-about-genetic-and-genomic-science/ > > Right, that conserved 20% is 99.9% identical between individuals. > That is what "conserved" means in this context. When I was in grad > school, it was generally accepted that 80% was junk and 20% was > conserved. I got 20% because 100% - 80% = 20%. The point is that the > differences in the DNA between any two random randomly chosen > individuals is likely to reside almost entirely in the junk portion > of their DNA. Actually I am wrong here and John is right. Biologists throw around these percentages all the time without elucidating their contexts and it can get annoying. Also my memory is not what it used to be. :-( Stuart LaForge From avant at sollegro.com Sat Feb 9 04:03:06 2019 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2019 20:03:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Abiogenesis In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20190208200306.Horde.kwP0V2RVjPmU3RkS2Jp1KXp@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> In an earlier thread I hypothesized that the super massive black hole SgrA* in the center of the galaxy might have kick-started life on Earth with its polarized radio jet on account of it being tilted on its side relative to the sun's orbit around it. The polarized beam could have been much stronger at the time and provided the chiral assymetry that characterizes life. I just now did some calculations and found an interesting coincidence: 1. The period of the sun's orbit around the black hole is 23o million years. 2. We are currently directly in the radio jet's beam path. http://www.astronomy.com/news/2019/01/radio-jets-from-the-milky-ways-black-hole-could-be-pointing-right-at-earth 3. Exactly 16 orbits and 3.68 billion years ago, we were in this same position with the radio beam pointed straight at us. 4. The closest quasar that we have ever found is Mrk 231 which is 600 million light years away meaning that quasars were still happening in the universe 3.68 billion years ago. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/hubble-finds-that-the-nearest-quasar-is-powered-by-a-double-black-hole 5. According to Wikipedia LUCA, the last universal common ancestor of all life on Earth lived between 3.5 and 3.8 billion years ago. My figure of 3.68 billion years ago falls well within that range. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_universal_common_ancestor So this seems to be circumstantial evidence for my theory at the least no? Stuart LaForge From avant at sollegro.com Sat Feb 9 07:48:03 2019 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2019 23:48:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Abiogenesis Message-ID: <20190208234803.Horde.lf1-N9dNYK2rrN3veC5xhwp@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Here is more evidence that Sagittarius A*'s radio jet seeded life on Earth. This time it's like a smoking gun. They have found complex chiral organic compounds in the center of the galaxy. They even have the suspect SgrA* in their picture! Only they think meteorites brought the chiral molecules to Earth. That's a long trip. Lol. https://public.nrao.edu/news/2016-chiral-gbt/ Excerpt: ---------------------- "A team of scientists using highly sensitive radio telescopes has discovered the first complex organic chiral molecule in interstellar space. The molecule, propylene oxide (CH3CHOCH2), was found near the center of our Galaxy in an enormous star-forming cloud of dust and gas known as Sagittarius B2 (Sgr B2). The research was undertaken primarily with the National Science Foundation?s Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia as part of the Prebiotic Interstellar Molecular Survey. Additional supporting observations were taken with the Parkes radio telescope in Australia. ?This is the first molecule detected in interstellar space that has the property of chirality, making it a pioneering leap forward in our understanding of how prebiotic molecules are made in the Universe and the effects they may have on the origins of life,? said Brett McGuire, a chemist and Jansky Postdoctoral Fellow with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Charlottesville, Virginia. ?Propylene oxide is among the most complex and structurally intricate molecules detected so far in space,? said Brandon Carroll, a chemistry graduate student at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. ?Detecting this molecule opens the door for further experiments determining how and where molecular handedness emerges and why one form may be slightly more abundant than the other.? McGuire and Carroll share first authorship on a paper published today in the journal Science. They also are presenting their results at the American Astronomical Society meeting in San Diego, California." ---------------------- Stuart LaForge From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Feb 9 23:15:51 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2019 18:15:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Abiogenesis In-Reply-To: <20190208234803.Horde.lf1-N9dNYK2rrN3veC5xhwp@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20190208234803.Horde.lf1-N9dNYK2rrN3veC5xhwp@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: Stuart LaForge wrote: > *They have found complex chiral organic compounds in the center of the > galaxy* They found the chiral molecule Propylene oxide, but as far as I know they did not find more of the right handed version than the left handed version. *> they think meteorites brought the chiral molecules to Earth.* I'm sure that true, with the exception of glycine the simplest amino acid all of them are chiral and 52 have been found in meteorites, but 33 of those are not among the 20 amino acids that life uses. And life only uses left handed amino acids (and right handed sugars) and most meteorites don't have more left handed amino acids than right, but one was found that did and it's hard to think how that could be without polarized light: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/life-turned-left.html However such a asymmetrical meteorite is rare and it shouldn't be if the light came from the galactic center, so I think it's more likely the polarized light came from something local and much smaller than the galactic center, a nearby neutron star perhaps. Or maybe astronomy is not needed at all to explanation the lopsidedness in the chemistry of the biosphere; as far as we know right handed molecules would work as well as left so maybe LUCA, the last universal common ancestor, just happened to use left handed amino acids and once such a standard had been established there was no reason to change it. Speaking of the galactic center, all galaxies have black holes at their centers and on average they have about .1% of the mass of the galaxy they're in. our Milky Way galaxy has the mass of 700 billion Suns so you'd think its central Black Hole should have a mass of about 700 million suns, but in fact it's only 4 million. So for some reason Sagittarius A is freakishly small and that may be a good thing because if a galactic center where to turn into a full power quasar it sterilize the entire galaxy it was in. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Sun Feb 10 11:44:08 2019 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2019 11:44:08 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5C600E88.6060209@zaiboc.net> William Flynn Wallace wrote: "'DNA doesn't '"want" anything' - somebody said. All random, eh? Well, just why doesn't DNA produce things like one ear smaller or some other thing that will not help or hurt survival? No, it has a plan. It tries to produce better parts than what it has got, and sometimes new parts to fit older systems, like its experiment with the appendix. I think DNA is smart. I would not say aware or planning - that's teleological. But I just can't see it doing things randomly." I shouldn't think anyone here really thinks evolution can 'want' anything, but it's a bit of a misleading term, anyway. Maybe better to talk about what it achieves, which is nothing other than getting genes, or sets of genes, into the next generation. One thing that evolution does not do, is inevitably result in more complexity, or any other kind of advancement, in either the phenotype or the genotype. Neither is what it does, random. It makes use of randomness (and can vary the degree of randomness used), of course, but the process itself is far from random. Just because a process doesn't 'want' something, doesn't mean it must be random. I think it's important to realise that evolution doesn't have some kind of trajectory, or some inevitable end-point. It's just a mechanism, that does what it does, blindly and without any higher purpose. Whether or not you can call that 'smart' is debatable, but I don't think it makes sense to say that DNA has a plan, other than the basic recipe for evolution: Variation, Replication, Selection, repeated endlessly (OK, repeated until entropy takes over). Ben Zaiboc From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Feb 10 14:36:30 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2019 09:36:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: <5C600E88.6060209@zaiboc.net> References: <5C600E88.6060209@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 10, 2019 at 6:49 AM Ben Zaiboc wrote: > * > I shouldn't think anyone here really thinks evolution can 'want' > anything, but it's a bit of a misleading term, anyway.* > If nobody thinks the word was to be taken literally then how was it misleading? > > > > * > One thing that evolution does not do, is inevitably result in more > complexity, or any other kind of advancement, in either the phenotype or > the genotype.* Stephen J Gould said that in all his books, but I don't think it's true and neither does Richard Dawkins; he agreed that you could say Evolution drives more toward diversification if you don't want to say it drives for more complexity, but he also found : *"a tendency for lineages to improve cumulatively their adaptive fit to their particular way of life, by increasing the numbers of features which combine together in adaptive complexes. ... By this definition, adaptive evolution is not just incidentally progressive, it is deeply, dyed-in-the-wool, indispensably progressive.**"* Dawkins even thinks the ability of an animal to evolve can itself evolve, one example would be segmentation, once Evolution came up with that it allowed for much faster Evolution. Another example would be the eye, if the ability to detect light is on Evolution's toolbelt (and no I don't think Evolution literally has a belt full of tools) it opens up a huge range of possibilities. The Evolution of evolvability It's true Evolution doesn't always produce more complexity, the ancestors of parasites had more complexity not less, but in any era the most complex species was almost always more complex than the most complex specie of an earlier age. We have no way of comparing the the genotype but compare the most complex phenotype that existed a billion years ago, a one celled animal, to a worm that existed 600 million years ago, and then compare the worm to Quetzalcoatlus, a flying creature with a 35 foot wingspread that existed 66 million years ago. Or just compare the brain of a human to the brain of a dinosaur > > > *Neither is what it does, random. It makes use of randomness (and can vary > the degree of randomness used), of course, but the process itself is far > from random.* Mutation is random but Natural selection is not, it's the only way information about the environment can get into the genome. And you need both for Evolution. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Feb 10 16:08:28 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2019 08:08:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: References: <5C600E88.6060209@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: <000e01d4c15a$dcf1f990$96d5ecb0$@rainier66.com> >?to Quetzalcoatlus, a flying creature with a 35 foot wingspread that existed 66 million years ago? John Clark This one blows my mind. Flight has so many square/cube law relationships, I have never been able to get my head around the idea that anything with triple the wingspan of our modern birds could ever fly, or even glide. If you look at the sketches of Quetzacoatlus, one can easily tell they were drawn by dinosaur people rather than flight people. I don?t see that we have even started to work out the details on how such a beast could safely land, never mind take off. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Feb 10 16:37:08 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2019 11:37:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: <000e01d4c15a$dcf1f990$96d5ecb0$@rainier66.com> References: <5C600E88.6060209@zaiboc.net> <000e01d4c15a$dcf1f990$96d5ecb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 10, 2019 at 11:14 AM wrote: *> If you look at the sketches of Quetzacoatlus, one can easily tell they > were drawn by dinosaur people rather than flight people. * > And that's how it should be, paleontologists have vastly greater knowledge about how ancient bones should be put together than flight people, if aerodynamicists can't figure out how it could fly that's a shame but every area has its mysteries and facts are facts, they're just going to have to think harder. By the way, that 35 foot figure was conservative, some say the wingspan was 40 feet. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Sun Feb 10 17:24:39 2019 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2019 09:24:39 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Abiogenesis In-Reply-To: <1276752637.1100737.1549781185168@mail.yahoo.com> References: <20190208234803.Horde.lf1-N9dNYK2rrN3veC5xhwp@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <1276752637.1100737.1549781185168@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20190210092439.Horde.vf5rGiFTlQBOAfV6CqgYor6@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting John Clark: > ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: John Clark > To: ExI chat list > Sent: Saturday, February 9, 2019, > 3:17:08 PM PSTSubject: Re: [ExI] Abiogenesis > ?Stuart LaForge wrote: > > >> They have found complex?chiral organic compounds in the center of the galaxy > > They found the chiral molecule Propylene oxide, but as far as I know > they did not find more of the right handed version than the left > handed version. Thanks for catching that. I somehow missed that since they only mention it toward the end and the rest of the article made it sound like they had detected asymmetric molecules. >> they think meteorites brought?the chiral molecules to Earth. > > I'm sure that true, with the exception of glycine the simplest amino > acid all of them are chiral and 52 have been found in meteorites, > but 33 of those are not among the 20 amino acids that life uses. And > life only uses left handed amino acids (and right handed sugars) and > most meteorites don't have more left handed amino acids than right, > but one was found that did and it's hard to think how that could be > without polarized light: My hypothesis isn't about how amino acids got here but about how only one of two stereoisomers became so predominate. > > https://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/life-turned-left.html > > However such a asymmetrical meteorite is rare and it shouldn't be if > the light came from the galactic center, so I think it's more likely > the polarized light came from something local and much smaller than > the galactic center, a nearby neutron star perhaps. Maybe but there are over a billion neutron stars in our galaxy so I would not call them rare. If they can enrich for homochiral molecules at interstellar distances, then life should be far more common than it seems to be. Whereas the galactic center would have only have affected a narrow swath of stars in the disk where the flux density was just right. Too far and not enough effect, too close and you photolyze both stereoisomers. > Or maybe astronomy is not needed at all to explanation the > lopsidedness in the?chemistry?of the biosphere; as far as we know > right handed molecules?would work as well as left so maybe LUCA, the > last universal common ancestor, just happened to use?left handed > amino acids and once such a standard had been established there was > no reason to change it. Once life got up and running, then I could see an enzymatic-type chemical process selecting for homochiral molecules from a mixed pool. But I don't see how life could have gotten up and running in the first place in a 50-50 equilibrium environment. It is neither entropically or enthalpically favored so it would require something like Maxwell's demon. Astronomical sources would have the energy to enthalpically force such a reaction. > Speaking of the galactic center, all galaxies have black holes at > their centers and on average they have about .1% of the mass of > the?galaxy they're in. our Milky Way galaxy has the mass of?700 > billion Suns so you'd think its central Black Hole should have a > mass of about 700 million suns, but in fact it's only 4 million. So > for some reason Sagittarius A is freakishly small and that may be a > good thing because if a galactic center where to turn into a full > power quasar it sterilize the entire galaxy it was in. You know, I remember thinking the same thing when I first compared our galaxy to Andromeda. I think you were right earlier when you said something to the effect that our galaxy is weird. If quasars tend to sterilize their galaxies, then things are liable to get a bit hectic in about 4 billion years when the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies collide. Galaxy collisions tend to provide the black holes of both galaxies with new fuel until they settle down and collide themselves. In any case, I agree that the galaxy going quasar on us is an existential risk. Stuart LaForge From avant at sollegro.com Sun Feb 10 17:28:04 2019 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2019 09:28:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Honey bees can do math Message-ID: <20190210092804.Horde.o_ASMyFcfY8VS_bAMHgQElb@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> This one is for you, Spike, since you like both bees and math. Now they are together for the first time, like peanut butter and chocolate. ;-) As if bees weren't amazing enough already, it turns out that they can do math with their tiny little brains and even understand the concept of zero. https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2019/feb/bees-brains-maths http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/2/eaav0961 "When a bee flew into the entrance of the maze they would see a set of elements, between 1 to 5 shapes. The shapes were either blue, which meant the bee had to add, or yellow, which meant the bee had to subtract. After viewing the initial number, the bee would fly through a hole into a decision chamber where it could choose to fly to the left or right side of the maze. One side had an incorrect solution to the problem and the other side had the correct solution of either plus or minus one. The correct answer was changed randomly throughout the experiment to avoid bees learning to visit just one side of the maze. At the beginning of the experiment, bees made random choices until they could work out how to solve the problem. Eventually, over 100 learning trials that took 4 to 7 hours, bees learned that blue meant +1, while yellow meant -1. The bees could then apply the rules to new numbers." Here are the links describing how researchers learned that bees understand the number zero. https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2018/jun/honeybees-zero-in-on-nothing http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6393/1124 Stuart LaForge From spike at rainier66.com Sun Feb 10 18:12:38 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2019 10:12:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Honey bees can do math In-Reply-To: <20190210092804.Horde.o_ASMyFcfY8VS_bAMHgQElb@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20190210092804.Horde.o_ASMyFcfY8VS_bAMHgQElb@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <003301d4c16c$35251b40$9f6f51c0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2019 9:28 AM To: ExI Chat Subject: [ExI] Honey bees can do math >...This one is for you, Spike, since you like both bees and math. Now they are together for the first time, like peanut butter and chocolate. ;-) >...As if bees weren't amazing enough already, it turns out that they can do math with their tiny little brains and even understand the concept of zero. https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2019/feb/bees-brains-maths http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/2/eaav0961 "When a bee flew into the entrance of the maze they would see a set of elements, between 1 to 5 shapes. The shapes were either blue, which meant the bee had to add, or yellow, which meant the bee had to subtract. >... https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2018/jun/honeybees-zero-in-on-nothing http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6393/1124 Stuart LaForge _______________________________________________ Thanks for that Stuart. I don't know how the hell bees do the things they do. There are aspects to collective intelligence vs individual intelligence that has defied explanation. Here's a fun one for you. Young scientists and amateur experimenters have a difficult time working with any living beast. To control experiments one must contain them somehow and feed them, both of which present a problem for amateurs and young students. But bees are really easy to work with. You don't really need to contain them (and can't very practically.) Feeding them is easy. Creating the instruments to determine how the bees are performing is easy with Arduinos and Raspberry Pi and such. So now we have armies of amateur scientists doing Science Fair projects like this one. spike From col.hales at gmail.com Sun Feb 10 21:27:59 2019 From: col.hales at gmail.com (Colin Hales) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2019 08:27:59 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Honey bees can do math In-Reply-To: <20190210092804.Horde.o_ASMyFcfY8VS_bAMHgQElb@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20190210092804.Horde.o_ASMyFcfY8VS_bAMHgQElb@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: This is very cool. Bees. My favourite candidate for the very first robotic AGI. They just keep getting better and better! On Mon., 11 Feb. 2019, 4:46 am Stuart LaForge This one is for you, Spike, since you like both bees and math. Now > they are together for the first time, like peanut butter and > chocolate. ;-) > > As if bees weren't amazing enough already, it turns out that they can > do math with their tiny little brains and even understand the concept > of zero. > > https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2019/feb/bees-brains-maths > http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/2/eaav0961 > > "When a bee flew into the entrance of the maze they would see a set of > elements, between 1 to 5 shapes. The shapes were either blue, which > meant the bee had to add, or yellow, which meant the bee had to > subtract. > > After viewing the initial number, the bee would fly through a hole > into a decision chamber where it could choose to fly to the left or > right side of the maze. > One side had an incorrect solution to the problem and the other side > had the correct solution of either plus or minus one. The correct > answer was changed randomly throughout the experiment to avoid bees > learning to visit just one side of the maze. > At the beginning of the experiment, bees made random choices until > they could work out how to solve the problem. Eventually, over 100 > learning trials that took 4 to 7 hours, bees learned that blue meant > +1, while yellow meant -1. The bees could then apply the rules to new > numbers." > > Here are the links describing how researchers learned that bees > understand the number zero. > > https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2018/jun/honeybees-zero-in-on-nothing > http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6393/1124 > > > Stuart LaForge > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Feb 10 21:47:19 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2019 15:47:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: References: <5C600E88.6060209@zaiboc.net> <000e01d4c15a$dcf1f990$96d5ecb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Mutation is random but Natural selection is not John Let me jump back in for a sec - I will have more later, but for the nonce - just how do we know John's statement is true? I'll grant that mutation by radiation is random. bill w On Sun, Feb 10, 2019 at 10:42 AM John Clark wrote: > On Sun, Feb 10, 2019 at 11:14 AM wrote: > > *> If you look at the sketches of Quetzacoatlus, one can easily tell they >> were drawn by dinosaur people rather than flight people. * >> > > And that's how it should be, paleontologists have vastly greater knowledge > about how ancient bones should be put together than flight people, if > aerodynamicists can't figure out how it could fly that's a shame but every > area has its mysteries and facts are facts, they're just going to have to > think harder. By the way, that 35 foot figure was conservative, some say > the wingspan was 40 feet. > > 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 johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Feb 10 22:27:55 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:27:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: References: <5C600E88.6060209@zaiboc.net> <000e01d4c15a$dcf1f990$96d5ecb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 10, 2019 at 4:52 PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: >> Mutation is random but Natural selection is not John > > > *> Let me jump back in for a sec - I will have more later, but for the > nonce - just how do we know John's statement is true? I'll grant that > mutation by radiation is random. bill w* > Well.... there is some evidence that the mutation rate increases when a cell is undergoing stress, and not just stress caused by radiation; but just like all mutations they are far more likely to make things worse not better. And some places on chromosomes are more fragile than other and are thus more prone to mutation, but aging that almost always leads to bad things. Given all that I still think to a first approximation it would be correct to say mutation is random. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Feb 11 00:47:03 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2019 18:47:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: References: <5C600E88.6060209@zaiboc.net> <000e01d4c15a$dcf1f990$96d5ecb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Thanks. You know that I don't mind making a fool of myself if I learn something along the way. Here's another: the CRISPR book I read said something about RNA(?) that went up and down the DNA making changes (sorry - can't remember more) - maybe a sort of editing? bill w On Sun, Feb 10, 2019 at 4:33 PM John Clark wrote: > > On Sun, Feb 10, 2019 at 4:52 PM William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > > >> Mutation is random but Natural selection is not John >> >> >> *> Let me jump back in for a sec - I will have more later, but for the >> nonce - just how do we know John's statement is true? I'll grant that >> mutation by radiation is random. bill w* >> > > Well.... there is some evidence that the mutation rate increases when a > cell is undergoing stress, and not just stress caused by radiation; but > just like all mutations they are far more likely to make things worse not > better. And some places on chromosomes are more fragile than other and are > thus more prone to mutation, but aging that almost always leads to bad > things. Given all that I still think to a first approximation it would be > correct to say mutation is random. > > 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 johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Feb 11 02:41:27 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2019 21:41:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: References: <5C600E88.6060209@zaiboc.net> <000e01d4c15a$dcf1f990$96d5ecb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 10, 2019 at 7:52 PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > * the CRISPR book I read said something about RNA(?) that went up and > down the DNA making changes (sorry - can't remember more) - maybe a sort of > editing?* You're correct, the full name is CRISPR/Cas9. CRISPR part is a short sequence of RNA that is complementary to the place on the DNA that you want to edit. The Cas9 is a protein enzyme that cuts DNA with a slight overlap rendering the ends sticky so its easy to insert a gene there. The RNA positions the Cas9 with great precision so the cut is make just where you want it to. It's much easier to use and makes fewer errors than previous gene editing techniques. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Feb 11 18:19:22 2019 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2019 18:19:22 +0000 Subject: [ExI] SETI reviews the Drake equation In-Reply-To: <20190205214254.Horde.V6EquMSZKsln6mAfLXlsoKX@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20190202123059.Horde.QjELJTD9K5z_H-c6M6CcHwm@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <1368214753.2719940.1549298686539@mail.yahoo.com> <20190204094528.Horde.SI99Ab4KqBr0251ytIwpYnu@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <1816083921.3581090.1549403779226@mail.yahoo.com> <20190205214254.Horde.V6EquMSZKsln6mAfLXlsoKX@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 6 Feb 2019 at 05:48, Stuart LaForge wrote: > > > So yes, right now Sagittarius A* does not have enough fuel for its > radio jet to affect the Earth from that distance. But let the black > hole start siphoning gas off of one of the supergiant stars found > orbiting it in the galactic core and we are bound to see some > fireworks. The question of the dust that obscures the galactic core > from our optical telescopes is a good one. I don't know how effective > the dust would be in shielding us from the quasar beam if Sagittarius > A* starts feeding again. The beam is likely to cause one hell of a > particle wind that could end up blowing all dust right out of the > galaxy. > There are now suggestions that a nearby supernova in the early solar system might have had an effect on the creation of our earth. Quote: Earth's solid surface and moderate climate may be due, in part, to a massive star in the birth environment of the Sun, according to new computer simulations of planet formation. Without the star's radioactive elements injected into the early solar system, our home planet could be a hostile ocean world covered in global ice sheets. ------ BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Feb 11 18:26:24 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2019 12:26:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: References: <5C600E88.6060209@zaiboc.net> <000e01d4c15a$dcf1f990$96d5ecb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Sorry - I did not make myself clear: I was thinking of something the DNA did to itself, not what is done with CRISPR (but like it in that changes were made in the DNA). If this does occur, the DNA changing itself, then it has some sort of plan as to what is supposed to be like - to do. bill w On Sun, Feb 10, 2019 at 8:46 PM John Clark wrote: > On Sun, Feb 10, 2019 at 7:52 PM William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > > > * the CRISPR book I read said something about RNA(?) that went up and >> down the DNA making changes (sorry - can't remember more) - maybe a sort of >> editing?* > > > > You're correct, the full name is CRISPR/Cas9. CRISPR part is a short > sequence of RNA that is complementary to the place on the DNA that you want > to edit. The Cas9 is a protein enzyme that cuts DNA with a slight overlap > rendering the ends sticky so its easy to insert a gene there. The RNA > positions the Cas9 with great precision so the cut is make just where you > want it to. It's much easier to use and makes fewer errors than previous > gene editing techniques. > > 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 danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Feb 11 23:13:02 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2019 15:13:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] More on human self-domestication References: Message-ID: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/how-humans-tamed-themselves/580447/ I read Wrangham earlier book _Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human_ about a decade ago. I thought he made a good case for cooking?s decisive impact on human evolution, but I?ve not read much in the way of criticism of that idea. Anyhow, I?m looking forward to _The Goodness Paradox_. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 13:59:19 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2019 08:59:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Tim May and DNA In-Reply-To: References: <5C600E88.6060209@zaiboc.net> <000e01d4c15a$dcf1f990$96d5ecb0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 1:37 PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Sorry - I did not make myself clear: I was thinking of something the DNA > did to itself, not what is done with CRISPR (but like it in that changes > were made in the DNA). If this does occur, the DNA changing itself, then > it has some sort of plan as to what is supposed to be like - to do. bill w > The closest thing I can think of to what you're talking about would be the sexual reshuffling of DNA that came from two individuals to make a third, but there is no plan in the shuffling. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 14:11:13 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2019 09:11:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Airbus_=E2=80=8Bwill_spot_making_the_A380?= Message-ID: A few decades ago Europe stopped making the world's fastest airliner and now Europe has stopped producing the world's largest airliner after making less than a quarter as many as they needed to produce a profit. It turned out people would rather fly non stop to their destination on smaller fuel efficient aircraft rather than first go to a hub airport on a huge jet and then change airplanes to a smaller jet. Who would have thought? Airbus to Halt Production of A380 as Orders Dry Up John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Feb 14 15:03:05 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2019 07:03:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Airbus_=E2=80=8Bwill_spot_making_the_A380?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <004701d4c476$63f0fdb0$2bd2f910$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark Subject: [ExI] Airbus ?will spot making the A380 >?A few decades ago Europe stopped making the world's fastest airliner and now Europe has stopped producing the world's largest airliner after making less than a quarter as many as they needed to produce a profit. It turned out people would rather fly non stop to their destination on smaller fuel efficient aircraft rather than first go to a hub airport on a huge jet and then change airplanes to a smaller jet. Who would have thought? Airbus to Halt Production of A380 as Orders Dry Up John K Clark I woulda thought. The A380 presents a cherry red target for terrorists. That?s most of it but not all. As soon as the Boeing 777 managed to get a ETOPS certification to cross the Pacific with two engines, it was clear enough that the 4 engine rigs could only decline. Those enormous fans on the 777 make it inherently more efficient. After 2004 I bought Boeing stock rather than Airbus stock for that reason: in the long run, Boeing was going to eat their lunch. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Feb 18 12:38:12 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2019 07:38:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Advanced LIGO Message-ID: LIGO should get back online and start detecting gravitational waves again in about a month after being upgraded, and now they're talking about the upgrades that will come after that. By 2022 they expect to be able to detect one Black Hole merger a month and by 2025 one per hour. The quality of the observations will go up too, they'll be able to tell how fast the holes were spinning even before they merged. LIGO to spot one black-hole merger per hour John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Feb 18 14:40:46 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2019 08:40:46 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Advanced LIGO In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Do these detections have anything to do with a theory? If not, what are they good for? bill w On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 6:43 AM John Clark wrote: > LIGO should get back online and start detecting gravitational waves again > in about a month after being upgraded, and now they're talking about the > upgrades that will come after that. By 2022 they expect to be able to > detect one Black Hole merger a month and by 2025 one per hour. The quality > of the observations will go up too, they'll be able to tell how fast the > holes were spinning even before they merged. > > LIGO to spot one black-hole merger per hour > > > > 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 lubkin at unreasonable.com Mon Feb 18 15:58:39 2019 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2019 10:58:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] China SPS by 2025 Message-ID: <201902181558.x1IFwocf021141@hlin.zia.io> http://fortune.com/2019/02/18/china-space-power-station/ China Aiming to Establish a Power Station in Space by 2025 >Initially, they plan to develop a smaller power station in the >stratosphere between 2021 and 2025, a 1 megawatt-level solar >facility in space by 2030, and eventually larger generators, >according to the state-backed Science and Technology Daily. -- David. From spike at rainier66.com Mon Feb 18 16:02:13 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2019 08:02:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Advanced LIGO In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001801d4c7a3$509c3c40$f1d4b4c0$@rainier66.com> LIGO to spot one black-hole merger per hour John K Clark From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Subject: Re: [ExI] Advanced LIGO >?Do these detections have anything to do with a theory? If not, what are they good for? bill w The observations so far have sure blown the hell outta my theory on how it all works. I am astonished at how many of these things there are. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Feb 18 16:03:59 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2019 11:03:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Advanced LIGO In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 9:46 AM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Do these detections have anything to do with a theory? > 1) LIGO has given us by far the best experimental evidence that Einstein's General Relativity is correct. 2) It tells us that 20 to 80 solar mass Black Holes are far more common than had been previously thought and nobody is quite sure how they formed. 3) We now know that the very heaviest elements like Gold Mercury Thorium and Uranium were formed by the collision of 2 Neutron Stars. Just a few months ago massive amounts of these elements were found in the debris from a Neutron Star Collision detected by both gravitational wave and optical (and radio) astronomers. 4) Optical and Gravitational Wave astronomy are complementary, with LIGO it's easy to tell the distance to a gravitational wave source but hard to tell its position in the sky, with conventional telescopes it's easy to tell the position in the sky of a optical source but hard to tell its distance. Neutron Star-Black Hole mergers and 2 Neutron Stars colliding produce both a optical and a gravitational signal, and after we've found about a dozen of those we should be able to determine the ultimate fate of the universe and give us a hint in solving the greatest mystery in physics, Dark Energy. By determining the distance to these Neutron Star events much more accurately than ever before it will let us figure out if the acceleration of the universe is itself accelerating and thus if we're heading for the Big Rip. You asked what all this is good for and I suppose it would be good to know what things will be like in the far future. The Big Rip John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lubkin at unreasonable.com Mon Feb 18 16:09:16 2019 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2019 11:09:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] China SPS by 2025 In-Reply-To: <7.1.0.9.2.20190218105701.10f47c58@unreasonable.com> References: <7.1.0.9.2.20190218105701.10f47c58@unreasonable.com> Message-ID: <201902181609.x1IG9R8e020275@hlin.zia.io> I wrote: >>Initially, they plan to develop a smaller power station in the >>stratosphere between 2021 and 2025, a 1 megawatt-level solar >>facility in space by 2030, and eventually larger generators, >>according to the state-backed Science and Technology Daily. I still have my copies of the GAO reports studying Solar Power Satellites from forty years ago. I'm glad to see someone doing this; perhaps it will finally motivate the free world to develop this too. (I do not regard the PRC as free, although it is freer than its worst.) If they meet the 2030 goal, how soon before they can field a gigawatt facility? -- David. From spike at rainier66.com Mon Feb 18 16:23:08 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2019 08:23:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Advanced LIGO In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <004b01d4c7a6$3c50e4e0$b4f2aea0$@rainier66.com> >?the holes were spinning even before they merged. LIGO to spot one black-hole merger per hour John K Clark If I had read the first line of the Nature article 5 years ago, I would have concluded that the editorial staff of Nature had gone completely bonkers: Spotting gravitational waves is due to become an almost hourly event in the next decade. Starting around 2023, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) will undergo its most significant upgrade since 2015, UK and US funding agencies announced on 14 February. LIGO has astonished me so many times since 2016, I will no longer second-guess the experiment. Just writing the comment above, I remember well the date: 24 May 2016, up at Stanford?s linear accelerator. The astronomy geek crowd had been buzzing for some time, but the LIGO people were going to present their data. That meeting is burned into my memory: they moved it to the main auditorium because the crowd had swelled. My friend and I got there early enough to get a seat in the Panofsky, which has about 400 seats, but plenty of people were milling around outside the packed building or listening in on CCTV in another auditorium nearby. That was the coolest scientific meeting I have ever attended. I can only imagine what that would feel like to be able to present that, what it would feel like to be Brian Lantz. He gave a lecture on the data they collected, went thru the evidence from the two detectors, then explained that if you convert the gravity wave to a sound wave, it would sound like this: bwiip. What would it be like to stand up there and look at a sea of stunned faces of people like us? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Feb 18 16:59:41 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2019 10:59:41 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Advanced LIGO In-Reply-To: <004b01d4c7a6$3c50e4e0$b4f2aea0$@rainier66.com> References: <004b01d4c7a6$3c50e4e0$b4f2aea0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Thanks Spike and John bill w On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 10:50 AM wrote: > > > > > > > >?the holes were spinning even before they merged. > > > > LIGO to spot one black-hole merger per hour > > > > > > John K Clark > > > > > > If I had read the first line of the Nature article 5 years ago, I would > have concluded that the editorial staff of Nature had gone completely > bonkers: > > > > Spotting gravitational waves is due to become an almost hourly event in > the next decade. Starting around 2023, the Laser Interferometer > Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) will undergo its most significant > upgrade since 2015, UK and US funding agencies announced on 14 February. > > > > > > LIGO has astonished me so many times since 2016, I will no longer > second-guess the experiment. > > > > Just writing the comment above, I remember well the date: 24 May 2016, up > at Stanford?s linear accelerator. The astronomy geek crowd had been > buzzing for some time, but the LIGO people were going to present their > data. That meeting is burned into my memory: they moved it to the main > auditorium because the crowd had swelled. My friend and I got there early > enough to get a seat in the Panofsky, which has about 400 seats, but plenty > of people were milling around outside the packed building or listening in > on CCTV in another auditorium nearby. > > > > That was the coolest scientific meeting I have ever attended. I can only > imagine what that would feel like to be able to present that, what it would > feel like to be Brian Lantz. He gave a lecture on the data they collected, > went thru the evidence from the two detectors, then explained that if you > convert the gravity wave to a sound wave, it would sound like this: bwiip. > > > > What would it be like to stand up there and look at a sea of stunned faces > of people like us? > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Feb 18 18:25:22 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2019 12:25:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] teleportation, anyone? Message-ID: Just finished the book I have been trying to find since years ago: Evolving Ourselves, by Enriquez and Gullans. Held my interest all the way. DNA printers we could send to Mars and beam the code of bacteria which holds our DNA. Grow people there rather than send them. But a lot more about changing plants, bacteria, ourselves. A great read. Maybe a bit optimistic about when these things will happen, but gives updates on what's happening now. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Feb 18 18:45:35 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2019 10:45:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] teleportation, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000f01d4c7ba$22d86b00$68894100$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Subject: [ExI] teleportation, anyone? >? DNA printers we could send to Mars and beam the code of bacteria which holds our DNA. Grow people there rather than send them. ? bill w BillW, there is no need to wait for DNA printers. We can send our DNA directly to Mars now. We could do better than that: we could send semen. Better still, a frozen embryo. OK so? we have our frozen embryo on Mars. Now what? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Feb 18 19:09:42 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2019 13:09:42 -0600 Subject: [ExI] teleportation, anyone? In-Reply-To: <000f01d4c7ba$22d86b00$68894100$@rainier66.com> References: <000f01d4c7ba$22d86b00$68894100$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Now what? That wasn't clear. Maybe at that point there exists a mechanical womb that could 'process' the fertilized egg. And robots to raise it, etc. Or maybe we could send a couple of people there to do all of that, probably donating their lives to the job from radiation damage etc. The idea of a DNA printer just floored me, as was the idea that a guy had created totally new life with 6 rather than four codes like we have now. Anyway, it was just full of ideas and I feel really good about our future of evolving ourselves. They give lots of answer to the questions I have been trying to get answers to since I joined this group: what do we want to be next? What improvements? bill w On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 12:50 PM wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *William Flynn Wallace > *Subject:* [ExI] teleportation, anyone? > > > > >? DNA printers we could send to Mars and beam the code of bacteria which > holds our DNA. Grow people there rather than send them. ? > > > > bill w > > > > > > BillW, there is no need to wait for DNA printers. We can send our DNA > directly to Mars now. We could do better than that: we could send semen. > Better still, a frozen embryo. OK so? we have our frozen embryo on Mars. > Now what? > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Feb 18 20:07:03 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2019 12:07:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] teleportation, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <000f01d4c7ba$22d86b00$68894100$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004c01d4c7c5$84774240$8d65c6c0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Sent: Monday, February 18, 2019 11:10 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] teleportation, anyone? Now what? That wasn't clear. Maybe at that point there exists a mechanical womb that could 'process' the fertilized egg. And robots to raise it, etc. Or maybe we could send a couple of people there to do all of that, probably donating their lives to the job from radiation damage etc. The idea of a DNA printer just floored me, as was the idea that a guy had created totally new life with 6 rather than four codes like we have now. Anyway, it was just full of ideas and I feel really good about our future of evolving ourselves. They give lots of answer to the questions I have been trying to get answers to since I joined this group: what do we want to be next? What improvements? bill w Ja we have definitely thought about sending humans to Mars to seed a race, but it only requires one, not two. We send one with frozen embryos. As the newly bankrupt Mars One effort pointed out, we would have plenty of qualified volunteers to become the Mother Of The Race. It need not even be sacrificial exactly. The MOTR can get far enough underground to deal with the radiation and even the low temperatures. The trip would be one-way, as we have known for decades. The challenge would be in figuring out how to grow food there, which is a really difficult technical problem. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Feb 18 20:12:34 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2019 12:12:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] teleportation, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <000f01d4c7ba$22d86b00$68894100$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <45FEC309-5ACD-47F9-9429-305620428E08@gmail.com> On Feb 18, 2019, at 11:09 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > Now what? That wasn't clear. Maybe at that point there exists a mechanical womb that could 'process' the fertilized egg. And robots to raise it, etc. Or maybe we could send a couple of people there to do all of that, probably donating their lives to the job from radiation damage etc. The idea of a DNA printer just floored me, as was the idea that a guy had created totally new life with 6 rather than four codes like we have now. > > Anyway, it was just full of ideas and I feel really good about our future of evolving ourselves. They give lots of answer to the questions I have been trying to get answers to since I joined this group: what do we want to be next? What improvements? Strictly speaking, though, this isn?t teleportation ? no more than, say, someone sending you blueprints through postal mail (or maybe publishing a book that you then borrow from the library;) to build a car or house and you building it to spec is teleportating that car or house to your location. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Feb 19 22:05:40 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2019 14:05:40 -0800 Subject: [ExI] leela chess zero Message-ID: <001701d4c89f$4114bb60$c33e3220$@rainier66.com> Alpha Zero has created a chess program they claim has taught itself chess from only the rules. In one year it is now playing the reigning software champion Stockfish. After 79 games, it is ahead by one point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leela_Chess_Zero Most of the rounds are draws (as it is in top level human play.) Stockfish won games 7 and 10 Leela won games 11 and 13 to tie the score. Stockfish won 16 Leela won 17 to tie. Stockfish won 20, 21 and 22. Leela won 25, 27 and 29 to tie. Buncha draws, then? Leela won 49 to pull ahead. Perhaps Stockfish was getting cocky. She won 53 to pull 2 points ahead. Stockfish won 58. Leela won 63. Stockfish won game 66, so he is one point behind her for the last 13 games, all drawn. Stockfish is holding a slight advantage in their current 80th game, so he might tie the Superfinal today, unless he gets tired and makes mistakes. Even with the advantage, the position is looking a bit drawish to my carbon-based eye, but I ain?t no computer. There aren?t enough open files to say which software has the upper processor. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Feb 20 16:08:55 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2019 10:08:55 -0600 Subject: [ExI] socialism Message-ID: I could not have said it better myself. In The Week's latest issue: ..."the Left actually wants a market economy, but with extreme hardship limited by a strong social safety net and extreme inequality limited by progressive taxation. ....a social democracy like Denmark or Norway, not a Marxist autocracy like Venezuela. . DEmocrats are proposing Medicare For All programs that are certainly liberal, probably radical, possibly unwise (me - way too much money for most of these, sadly, esp. free education), But socialism? Hardly." bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Feb 20 16:32:19 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2019 11:32:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Justice_Thomas_=E2=80=8Bwants_the_presadent_to_b?= =?utf-8?q?e_able_to_sue_for_Libel?= Message-ID: The USA takes yet another step toward totalitarianism, Trump must be smiling: *?I?m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. We?re going to open up those libel laws. So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they?re totally protected.?* Justice Thomas wants the presadent to be able to sue for Libel John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Feb 20 16:48:22 2019 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2019 08:48:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Justice_Thomas_=E2=80=8Bwants_the_presadent_to_b?= =?utf-8?q?e_able_to_sue_for_Libel?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Does he intend to make truth no longer an absolute defense? Not that everything bad that's written about Trump is true. Just most of it. On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 8:36 AM John Clark wrote: > > The USA takes yet another step toward totalitarianism, Trump must be smiling: > > ?I?m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. We?re going to open up those libel laws. So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they?re totally protected.? > > Justice Thomas wants the presadent to be able to sue for Libel > > John K Clark > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From spike at rainier66.com Wed Feb 20 17:01:43 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2019 09:01:43 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Justice_Thomas_=E2=80=8Bwants_the_presadent_to_b?= =?utf-8?q?e_able_to_sue_for_Libel?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002901d4c93d$f5a81b50$e0f851f0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Subject: Re: [ExI] Justice Thomas ?wants the presadent to be able to sue for Libel Does he intend to make truth no longer an absolute defense? Not that everything bad that's written about Trump is true. Just most of it. On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 8:36 AM John Clark wrote: > > The USA takes yet another step toward totalitarianism, Trump must be smiling: > > ?I?m going to open up our libel laws ... > > John K Clark Fortunately, US presidents do not make laws. US Supreme Court justices don't either. Aren't you glad we have a constitution? spike From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Feb 20 17:09:09 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2019 12:09:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Justice_Thomas_=E2=80=8Bwants_the_presadent_to_b?= =?utf-8?q?e_able_to_sue_for_Libel?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 11:53 AM Adrian Tymes wrote: > > *Does he intend to make truth no longer an absolute defense?Not that > everything bad that's written about Trump is true. Just most of it.* > I don't care if it's true or not, no politician (and certainly not the presadent!!!) should be able to sue for libel. If they don't like that then they shouldn't get into politics. In fact I'm very uncomfortable with the very idea of anybody suing for libel. Yes sometimes a injustice will occur because of something false that somebody said, but if government tries to correct that by getting into the truth determining business it would create far more problems than it would solve. Perfect justice is the enemy of good justice. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Feb 20 17:26:52 2019 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2019 12:26:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Justice_Thomas_=E2=80=8Bwants_the_presadent_to_b?= =?utf-8?q?e_able_to_sue_for_Libel?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >From Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation: "There are several things a person must prove to establish that libel has taken place. In the United States, a person must prove that 1) the statement was false, 2) caused harm, and 3) was made without adequate research into the truthfulness of the statement. These steps are for an ordinary citizen. For a celebrity or public official, a person must prove the first three steps, and that the statement was made with the intent to do harm or with reckless disregard for the truth,[15] which is usually specifically referred to as "actual malice".[16]" It's not solely based on the truth. -Dave On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 12:18 PM John Clark wrote: > > > On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 11:53 AM Adrian Tymes wrote: > > > >> *Does he intend to make truth no longer an absolute defense?Not that >> everything bad that's written about Trump is true. Just most of it.* >> > > I don't care if it's true or not, no politician (and certainly not the > presadent!!!) should be able to sue for libel. If they don't like that then > they shouldn't get into politics. In fact I'm very uncomfortable with the > very idea of anybody suing for libel. Yes sometimes a injustice will occur > because of something false that somebody said, but if government tries to > correct that by getting into the truth determining business it would create > far more problems than it would solve. Perfect justice is the enemy of good > justice. > > 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 atymes at gmail.com Wed Feb 20 17:27:24 2019 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2019 09:27:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Justice_Thomas_=E2=80=8Bwants_the_presadent_to_b?= =?utf-8?q?e_able_to_sue_for_Libel?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 9:16 AM John Clark wrote: > On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 11:53 AM Adrian Tymes wrote: >> Does he intend to make truth no longer an absolute defense? >> Not that everything bad that's written about Trump is true. Just most of it. > > I don't care if it's true or not, no politician (and certainly not the presadent!!!) should be able to sue for libel. If they don't like that then they shouldn't get into politics. In fact I'm very uncomfortable with the very idea of anybody suing for libel. Yes sometimes a injustice will occur because of something false that somebody said, but if government tries to correct that by getting into the truth determining business it would create far more problems than it would solve. Perfect justice is the enemy of good justice. Eh...keep in mind the purpose. There have been blatantly false allegations of specific politicians doing specific criminal activity which have resulted in demonstrable harm. Pizzagate, for example, though Trump has alleged enough false things that it is at least considerable that he should be sued for libel and given a court order to stop lying about things material to government policy - but that may be an order he is psychologically incapable of complying with. That said, Trump (along with everybody else) should not be able to successfully sue for libel over things that were true when they were said. From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Feb 20 17:30:44 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2019 12:30:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Justice_Thomas_=E2=80=8Bwants_the_presadent_to_b?= =?utf-8?q?e_able_to_sue_for_Libel?= In-Reply-To: <002901d4c93d$f5a81b50$e0f851f0$@rainier66.com> References: <002901d4c93d$f5a81b50$e0f851f0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 12:07 PM wrote: > * > Fortunately, US presidents do not make laws. US Supreme Court > justices don't either. Aren't you glad we have a constitution?* > I think you place too much trust in the power of an old piece of paper. The constitution means what the Supreme Court says it means, and unfortunatly Clarence Thomas is a Justice of the Supreme Court. By the way I wish to make a prediction. If Trump's popularity continues to drop in the polls he will start talking more and more about how the 2020 election is likely to be "very unfair". And if that doesn't send a chill down somebody's spine then they just don't understand the situation. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at zaiboc.net Wed Feb 20 19:11:56 2019 From: ben at zaiboc.net (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2019 19:11:56 +0000 Subject: [ExI] teleportation, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5C6DA67C.3090401@zaiboc.net> Sounds very biology-centric, to me. I really don't see the point in trying to get biological organisms to survive in an environment that is extremely hostile to them, when non-biological machines would be much easier to make and adapt to the environment. Once we've cracked uploading, biology will become much less important to us, if not irrelevant altogether. The 'teleportation' idea would really take off then. Biology will be a quaint side-show, with about as much relevance for most people as flint knapping has for us now. Greg Egan has a good take on this concept, with his stories set in a galactic civilisation where people can travel around the galaxy at the speed of light, as software packages transmitted by laser. Setting up the infrastructure would be slow of course, but once in place, anyone could circumnavigate the galaxy in a few tens of thousands of years real-time, with each 'jump' taking zero subjective time. Ben Zaiboc From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Feb 20 19:24:37 2019 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2019 11:24:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] China SPS by 2025 Message-ID: David Lubkin wrote: snip > I still have my copies of the GAO reports studying Solar Power Satellites from forty years ago snip > If they meet the 2030 goal, how soon before they can field a gigawatt facility? Some things have not changed in 40 years or more. Between the atmospheric window for microwaves and the physics (diffraction optics), the minimum practical size is still around 5 GW Neither is likely to change, though you do see some people proposing the rectenna to be put on a StratoSolar type platform at 20 km. The interest in China is driven by the reductions in cost to LEO that reusable rockets allow. For a given target power cost, the capital investment is about 80,000 times as much. So, 3 cent power would require an investment of no more than $2400/kW. The rectenna is estimated to cost $200/kW, the parts around $900/kW. The lift cost is dependant on the specific power. The best estimate for that is currently 6.5 kg/kW. Given the investment limit, that sets $200/kg (to GEO) or, if you can build in LEO and selt-power them up, $100/kg to LEO. Power satellites have never been technically hard to do. They are very hard to make them work economically. I spent the last ten years working on the economics. It depends on progress by Reaction Engines and SpaceX. Keith From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Feb 20 22:23:58 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2019 16:23:58 -0600 Subject: [ExI] teleportation, anyone? In-Reply-To: <5C6DA67C.3090401@zaiboc.net> References: <5C6DA67C.3090401@zaiboc.net> Message-ID: Greg Egan has a good take on this concept, with his stories set in a galactic civilisation where people can travel around the galaxy at the speed of light, as software packages transmitted by laser. Setting up the infrastructure would be slow of course, but once in place, anyone could circumnavigate the galaxy in a few tens of thousands of years real-time, with each 'jump' taking zero subjective time. I hope that there is a lot of bandwidth and storage, because everyone will want to go! bill w On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 1:16 PM Ben Zaiboc wrote: > > Sounds very biology-centric, to me. I really don't see the point in > trying to get biological organisms to survive in an environment that is > extremely hostile to them, when non-biological machines would be much > easier to make and adapt to the environment. Once we've cracked > uploading, biology will become much less important to us, if not > irrelevant altogether. The 'teleportation' idea would really take off > then. Biology will be a quaint side-show, with about as much relevance > for most people as flint knapping has for us now. > > Greg Egan has a good take on this concept, with his stories set in a > galactic civilisation where people can travel around the galaxy at the > speed of light, as software packages transmitted by laser. Setting up > the infrastructure would be slow of course, but once in place, anyone > could circumnavigate the galaxy in a few tens of thousands of years > real-time, with each 'jump' taking zero subjective time. > > Ben Zaiboc > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Feb 21 00:53:27 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2019 16:53:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] we knew this was coming: weaponization of ai Message-ID: <003801d4c97f$db782260$92686720$@rainier66.com> SUMMARY OF THE 2018 DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE STRATEGY Harnessing AI to Advance Our Security and Prosperity https://media.defense.gov/2019/Feb/12/2002088963/-1/-1/1/SUMMARY-OF-DOD-AI-S TRATEGY.PDF If nothing else it offers a possible explanation to Fermi's paradox. spike From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Feb 21 01:43:20 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2019 20:43:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Justice_Thomas_=E2=80=8Bwants_the_presadent_to_b?= =?utf-8?q?e_able_to_sue_for_Libel?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 12:42 PM Adrian Tymes wrote: > > > > *There have been blatantly false allegations of specific politicians doing > specific criminal activity which have resulted in demonstrable harm. > Pizzagate, for example,* I agree that was a grave injustice to Hillary Clinton, but I don't see how a libel trial would have helped her. Anyone dumb enough to believe in Pizzagate is unlikely to be convinced in her innocence by anything as trivial as the truth. And besides putting somebody in jail because they bad mouthed a presidential candidate would set a very bad example because next time a sensational accusation against a candidate might turn out to be true. And I've got to say a pee pee tape (or something equally bad) is looking more and more probable to me; otherwise it's very hard to understand Trump's obsequence toward Putin that doesn't stop even when such groveling causes him obvious political trouble. > > * > though Trump has alleged enough false things that it is at least > considerable that he should be sued for libel* For a politician who lies with the incredible frequency that Trump does a impeachment trial would be far more effective for remedying that situation than a libel trial. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Feb 21 02:40:22 2019 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2019 18:40:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Justice_Thomas_=E2=80=8Bwants_the_presadent_to_b?= =?utf-8?q?e_able_to_sue_for_Libel?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 5:47 PM John Clark wrote: > On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 12:42 PM Adrian Tymes wrote: >> There have been blatantly false >> allegations of specific politicians doing specific criminal activity >> which have resulted in demonstrable harm. Pizzagate, for example, > > > I agree that was a grave injustice to Hillary Clinton, but I don't see how a libel trial would have helped her. Anyone dumb enough to believe in Pizzagate is unlikely to be convinced in her innocence by anything as trivial as the truth. True, but if certain actors engaged in a consistent pattern of lying to this end, they could at least be stopped and new lies put an end to. This would be used to stop things like Pizzagate from becoming normal, at least. > And besides putting somebody in jail because they bad mouthed a presidential candidate would set a very bad example because next time a sensational accusation against a candidate might turn out to be true. The truth is an absolute defense against libel charges. For now. That, specifically, is what I'm wondering if Thomas wishes to overturn, as it would need to be overturned in order to come anywhere close to Trump successfully suing for libel most of those it is indicated he wishes to so sue. >> though Trump has alleged enough false things that it is at least >> considerable that he should be sued for libel > > > For a politician who lies with the incredible frequency that Trump does a impeachment trial would be far more effective for remedying that situation than a libel trial. True, but with the Republicans in the Senate refusing to consider such measures, which one is more likely to happen: an impeachment trial or a libel trial? From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Feb 21 13:49:13 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2019 07:49:13 -0600 Subject: [ExI] a good test Message-ID: Yesterday I read in The Week that a Fox news host had said that he never washed his hands. He said that he could not see germs, therefore they did not exist. How do you interpret this statement? bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Thu Feb 21 14:53:13 2019 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2019 09:53:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] a good test In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Feb 21, 2019 at 8:54 AM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Yesterday I read in The Week that a Fox news host had said that he never > washed his hands. He said that he could not see germs, therefore they did > not exist. > > How do you interpret this statement? > If he means it, he's an idiot. If he's being sarcastic maybe he's a believer in the hygiene hypothesis (Wikipedia has a page). We do tend to go a little overboard with antiseptic soap and hand sanitizer. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tech101 at gmail.com Thu Feb 21 22:21:55 2019 From: tech101 at gmail.com (Adam A. Ford) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2019 09:21:55 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Robust Mouse Rejuvenation within the next 3 or so years? Message-ID: For all those who love life, this should come as a pleasant reminder that there is good chance we will have a lot more life to love in the future - in an interview conducted a couple of days ago Aubrey there was a lot of good news - one of them being is that Aubrey now sees that there is a 50/50 change of achieving Robust Mouse Rejuvenation within 3 years from now (note that in my interview last year his guess was that there would be a 50/50 chance that RBR would be 5-6 years away, and for a while before that he had stuck to 10 years away) - all of this was based on adequate funding of course. RBR is a significant milestone in that if achieved, would demonstrate to the wider scientific community that achieving longer healthy lives is not a pipe dream! If scientists are convinced, then it ought to be much easier to convince the wider pubic - then the wider public will likely put pressure on politicians to make rejuvenation therapy research a major priority! Aubrey de Grey - Update on Anti-Aging Research Kind regards, Adam A. Ford AU Mobile +61 421 979977 Chair - Science, Technology & the Future * Science, Technology & the Future * (Meetup / Facebook / YouTube / Instagram ) SciFuture | H+ Australia | Singularity Summit Australia | Twitter | YouTube "A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels." ("Atomic Education Urged by Albert Einstein", New York Times, 25 May 1946) Please consider the environment before printing this email -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrd1415 at gmail.com Fri Feb 22 14:50:36 2019 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2019 07:50:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The hits just keep on coming Message-ID: China?s CRISPR twins might have had their brains inadvertently enhanced https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612997/the-crispr-twins-had-their-brains-altered/?utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=70158838&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_MRl9O2Mmx10ZWTlnW5QtZGFRcohotQndhvO_s6k-5oF1M3OLJMtr1b5kBJ3c9yIA4iLyBmpPZSFlmCyjtf3nN3KmWog&_hsmi=70158838 Stem Cells That Will Not Be Rejected Will Bring Mass Produced Stem Cell Treatments https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-019-0016-3 Are we havin' fun yet? Best, Jeff Davis -- "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Fri Feb 22 15:12:47 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2019 07:12:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The hits just keep on coming In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000b01d4cac1$124fde30$36ef9a90$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Jeff Davis Subject: [ExI] The hits just keep on coming China?s CRISPR twins might have had their brains inadvertently enhanced https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612997/the-crispr-twins-had-their-brains-altered/?utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement &utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=70158838&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_MRl9O2Mmx10ZWTlnW5QtZGFRcohotQndhvO_s6k-5oF1M3OLJMtr1b5kBJ3c9yIA4iLyBmpPZSFlmCyjtf3nN3KmWog&_hsmi=70158838 Best, Jeff Davis Jeff, I have commented that the first nation or group or person who creates a practical AI owns the planet. This article points out a second path to world ownership. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Feb 22 16:33:13 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2019 10:33:13 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The hits just keep on coming In-Reply-To: <000b01d4cac1$124fde30$36ef9a90$@rainier66.com> References: <000b01d4cac1$124fde30$36ef9a90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Everybody, well all the big guys, steal from one another, so I can't see world dominance based on knowledge of any kind. bill w On Fri, Feb 22, 2019 at 9:17 AM wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Jeff Davis > *Subject:* [ExI] The hits just keep on coming > > > China?s CRISPR twins might have had their brains inadvertently enhanced > > > https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612997/the-crispr-twins-had-their-brains-altered/?utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=70158838&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_MRl9O2Mmx10ZWTlnW5QtZGFRcohotQndhvO_s6k-5oF1M3OLJMtr1b5kBJ3c9yIA4iLyBmpPZSFlmCyjtf3nN3KmWog&_hsmi=70158838 > > > > > > Best, Jeff Davis > > > > > > > Jeff, I have commented that the first nation or group or person who > creates a practical AI owns the planet. This article points out a second > path to world ownership. > > > > 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 Fri Feb 22 19:13:55 2019 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2019 11:13:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The hits just keep on coming In-Reply-To: <000b01d4cac1$124fde30$36ef9a90$@rainier66.com> References: <000b01d4cac1$124fde30$36ef9a90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Feb 22, 2019 at 7:16 AM wrote: > Jeff, I have commented that the first nation or group or person who creates a practical AI owns the planet. This article points out a second path to world ownership. Not so much. Any bio-Singularity would take 20 years to come into effect, more than enough time for others to verify and copy what works. From pharos at gmail.com Sat Feb 23 13:57:34 2019 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2019 13:57:34 +0000 Subject: [ExI] USA Census Projections and consequences Message-ID: Census Bureau, Treasury, Energy Information Administration (EIA) Detail American Insolvency Friday, February 22, 2019 Some Quotes: According to the latest 2017 Census projection, the Census expects a near halving of population growth...or 50 million fewer Americans than it expected just 8 years earlier. But critically, nearly all the projected declines are among the under 45 year old population while the 65+ year old population growth is still on track to swell. But which age segments were reduced should send shivers down Americans spines when considering economic growth, unfunded liabilities, and debt service/repayment. Growth among the 0-17 year old population has been slashed by 84%, the 15 to 44 year old child bearing population reduced by 60%, the post child bearing 45-64 year old population over a 20% reduction, but the 65+ year old elderly have only been reduced by 7%. Conclusion: The US Treasury is telling you that between the federal debt and unfunded liabilities, the US is $75 trillion in the hole and despite rising tax receipts, record stock and real estate valuations...the US is bankrupt. Of course, the US can never "technically" go bankrupt as it will issue new debt at an accelerating rate to pay the old debt...but this has been the "end times" for every empire. Debasement (or Modern Monetary Theory, as it is currently being rebranded) is the functional equivalent of national bankruptcy, the only means to pay the bills is creation of new debt at an accelerating rate. The US situation and reaction is not unlike most of the developed and developing nations of the world, as I detailed recently HERE. ------------------- The problem with creating life extension is that we need to also create some method of supporting a large non-childbearing population. There will need to be a big reinvention of our economic systems. Some might call it a Singularity.......... BillK From atymes at gmail.com Sat Feb 23 18:02:40 2019 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2019 10:02:40 -0800 Subject: [ExI] USA Census Projections and consequences In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Feb 23, 2019 at 6:02 AM BillK wrote: > The problem with creating life extension is that we need to also > create some method of supporting a large non-childbearing population. > There will need to be a big reinvention of our economic systems. > Some might call it a Singularity.......... ...and some might call it simply the end of acceptance of age-related infirmity and senescence, and the mental winding-down commonly associated with retirement. From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Feb 23 20:04:40 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2019 14:04:40 -0600 Subject: [ExI] USA Census Projections and consequences In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: the mental winding-down commonly associated with retirement. Hey, ain't no such a thang happning to me! bill w On Sat, Feb 23, 2019 at 12:07 PM Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Sat, Feb 23, 2019 at 6:02 AM BillK wrote: > > The problem with creating life extension is that we need to also > > create some method of supporting a large non-childbearing population. > > There will need to be a big reinvention of our economic systems. > > Some might call it a Singularity.......... > > ...and some might call it simply the end of acceptance of age-related > infirmity and senescence, and the mental winding-down commonly > associated with retirement. > _______________________________________________ > 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 Feb 24 17:02:28 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 12:02:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] USA Census Projections and consequences In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Feb 23, 2019 at 9:04 AM BillK wrote: > > *> The problem with creating life extension is that we need to alsocreate > some method of supporting a large non-childbearing population.* I think the problem with life extension is it doesn't yet exist. You're implying that only the young can produce wealth (aka productivity) but the facts don't support that claim; the average age of the population of the USA has increased but so has the production of wealth. Take a look at this graph: Productivity Graph >From 1973 to 2013 the productivity of the USA has increased by 151% but the real wages have increased by only 19%. So where did all that new money go? It didn't go to the rich or even to the very rich, it went to the ultra super crazy rich. Forget the top 1% and even forget the top .1% because although they did a lot better than average the wealth gains were not astronomical, you had to be in the top .01% to really make out like a bandit. Richest of the rich Advances in technology will continue to increase the productivity rate but Trump's recent changes in the tax laws ensures that more and more of that newly generated wealth will go to a tiny minority. I think ultra rich people like the Koch brothers who are spending lavishly to lobby for even more legislation to accelerate the growth of the wealth gap are absolutely out of their mind because sooner or later one way or the other that gap will slam shut and if they keep going as they have they're going to get crushed when it does. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Feb 24 17:20:26 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 09:20:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] USA Census Projections and consequences In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000b01d4cc65$3c25cb20$b4716160$@rainier66.com> John you were doing so well, right up until this line: >?Advances in technology will continue to increase the productivity rate but Trump's recent changes in the tax laws? John K Clark Presidents don?t make tax law, congress does. If you are interested in who is making all that crazy rich money, wait until someone somewhere makes a big breakthrough in AI, such that software can do most customer support tasks without the customers being aware they are speaking to software. Then millions of support jobs that currently cost companies 6 to 8 bucks an hour can be supplied for pennies, and whoever develops that software will become the richest person on the planet by an order of magnitude. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Feb 24 17:57:59 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 12:57:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 11:14 AM William Flynn Wallace wrote: *> DEmocrats are proposing Medicare For All programs that are certainly > liberal, probably radical, possibly unwise (me - way too much money for > most of these,* Medicare For All wouldn't be too expensive if the USA didn't have the most inefficient health system on planet Earth, it spends FAR more money on health then anybody else but the people are quite simply not getting their money's worth. Japan has the longest lived population in the world and it spends on average $4150 per person per year on health, Australia is #4 on the longest lived list and it spends $4420; as for the USA it's way down to #31 on the long lived list and yet it spends $9451 per-person per-year on healthcare and that is far more than anybody else. Something is obviously wrong with a health care system and it certainly isn't the Japanese. Every one of the top 30 countries that beat the USA in longevity have 2 things in common: 1) They all spend FAR less on healthcare than the USA does. 2) Unlike the USA they all have something very much like Medicare For All. The data just doesn't support the claim made by the right that an advanced industrial country in the 21'th century can't afford to give medical care to its population. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Feb 24 18:08:29 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 12:08:29 -0600 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The data just doesn't support the claim made by the right that an advanced industrial country in the 21'th century can't afford to give medical care to its population. John K Clark Congress won't even let Medicare negotiate drug prices, and so those are much cheaper in Canada and elsewhere. No doubt other health companies are getting sweet deals too. And read books by Atul Gawande on inexplicable price differences between hospitals, etc. bill w On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 12:03 PM John Clark wrote: > On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 11:14 AM William Flynn Wallace < > foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote: > > *> DEmocrats are proposing Medicare For All programs that are certainly >> liberal, probably radical, possibly unwise (me - way too much money for >> most of these,* > > > Medicare For All wouldn't be too expensive if the USA didn't have the most > inefficient health system on planet Earth, it spends FAR more money on > health then anybody else but the people are quite simply not getting their money's > worth. Japan has the longest lived population in the world and it spends > on average $4150 per person per year on health, Australia is #4 on the > longest lived list and it spends $4420; as for the USA it's way down to > #31 on the long lived list and yet it spends $9451 per-person per-year on > healthcare and that is far more than anybody else. Something is obviously > wrong with a health care system and it certainly isn't the Japanese. > > Every one of the top 30 countries that beat the USA in longevity have 2 > things in common: > > 1) They all spend FAR less on healthcare than the USA does. > 2) Unlike the USA they all have something very much like Medicare For All. > > The data just doesn't support the claim made by the right that an advanced > industrial country in the 21'th century can't afford to give medical care > to its population. > > 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 johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Feb 24 18:26:36 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 13:26:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] USA Census Projections and consequences In-Reply-To: <000b01d4cc65$3c25cb20$b4716160$@rainier66.com> References: <000b01d4cc65$3c25cb20$b4716160$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 12:25 PM wrote: > *> Presidents don?t make tax law, congress does*. > Presidents do threaten and bribe congress to pass tax legislation they want and presidents do sign them; and I can think of one very rich and very stupid presadent that did both even though it's going to end up biting him and his ultra mega rich friends in the ass. > *> If you are interested in who is making all that crazy rich money, wait > until someone somewhere makes a big breakthrough in AI, such that software > can do most customer support tasks without the customers being aware they > are speaking to software. Then millions of support jobs that currently > cost companies 6 to 8 bucks an hour can be supplied for pennies, and > whoever develops that software will become the richest person on the planet > by an order of magnitude.* > When that happens unless you want a bloody revolution you'd better have a very elaborate safety net in place to catch all those millions of people when they fall and lose their jobs because although they may end up starving to death they will not die immediately and they will NOT go peacefully. And by the way, it's only a matter of time, and not very much time either, before the guy who invented that revolutionary new AI software needs that safety net too because the AI can do his job better than he can. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Feb 24 18:35:31 2019 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 05:35:31 +1100 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 25 Feb 2019 at 5:01 am, John Clark wrote: > On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 11:14 AM William Flynn Wallace < > foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote: > > *> DEmocrats are proposing Medicare For All programs that are certainly >> liberal, probably radical, possibly unwise (me - way too much money for >> most of these,* > > > Medicare For All wouldn't be too expensive if the USA didn't have the most > inefficient health system on planet Earth, it spends FAR more money on > health then anybody else but the people are quite simply not getting their money's > worth. Japan has the longest lived population in the world and it spends > on average $4150 per person per year on health, Australia is #4 on the > longest lived list and it spends $4420; as for the USA it's way down to > #31 on the long lived list and yet it spends $9451 per-person per-year on > healthcare and that is far more than anybody else. Something is obviously > wrong with a health care system and it certainly isn't the Japanese. > > Every one of the top 30 countries that beat the USA in longevity have 2 > things in common: > > 1) They all spend FAR less on healthcare than the USA does. > 2) Unlike the USA they all have something very much like Medicare For All. > > The data just doesn't support the claim made by the right that an advanced > industrial country in the 21'th century can't afford to give medical care > to its population. > It?s even more striking given that for other goods and services, the US is significantly cheaper than most comparable countries. > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Sun Feb 24 19:07:13 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 11:07:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] USA Census Projections and consequences In-Reply-To: References: <000b01d4cc65$3c25cb20$b4716160$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005c01d4cc74$273a1ea0$75ae5be0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark >> ? Then millions of support jobs that currently cost companies 6 to 8 bucks an hour can be supplied for pennies, and whoever develops that software will become the richest person on the planet by an order of magnitude. ?.When that happens unless you want a bloody revolution you'd better have a very elaborate safety net in place to catch all those millions of people when they fall and lose their jobs because although they may end up starving to death they will not die immediately and they will NOT go peacefully? What?s different about this one is that it wouldn?t be clear who the revolutionaries would slay. The current rich aren?t the ones who are supplying this mysteriously efficient resource. No one would know who has it. They know some faceless company somewhere in the world seems to undercut the tech support contractors in price and offer a superior product, the companies hiring external tech support would know that their customers love working with software that understands the problems, can understand their quirky speech and can fix the problems. But the revolutionaries (in the streets? (why the streets? (what streets?))) would not know who or what was to blame for their misery. The enraged mob would be all torches and pitchforks, with no castle to storm. All pitchforks and no castle: in a sense, we are already there. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 01:07:22 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 17:07:22 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 24, 2019, at 10:35 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > It?s even more striking given that for other goods and services, the US is significantly cheaper than most comparable countries. Not as surprising when you consider that governments in the US spend more on healthcare. This raises demand and hence prices, which then feeds the call for more subsidies. (And historically this has been the case for decades now; so it long precedes ObamaCare and the like.) In a similar fashion, US government spending on higher education has resulted in huge surges in the price of higher education. (And, if Bryan Caplan is correct, most of this has gone into costly signaling rather than improving life or productivity.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst From spike at rainier66.com Mon Feb 25 01:25:24 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 17:25:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <004e01d4cca8$fe9819e0$fbc84da0$@rainier66.com> On Feb 24, 2019, at 10:35 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > It?s even more striking given that for other goods and services, the US is significantly cheaper than most comparable countries... It isn't clear that there is a direct comparison. In Europe, a student can get a bachelors degree in medicine. In the US, a student must have a bachelor's degree, usually in a scientific field, just to apply for medical school. The US medical schools take only the top qualified candidates of those who already hold a bachelor's degree. Where is that comparison taken into account? We should compare European countries with other European countries, and compare the US to other countries which also require bachelors degrees for medical school admissions. spike From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 01:50:49 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 17:50:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <004e01d4cca8$fe9819e0$fbc84da0$@rainier66.com> References: <004e01d4cca8$fe9819e0$fbc84da0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Feb 24, 2019, at 5:25 PM, wrote: > >> On Feb 24, 2019, at 10:35 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> It?s even more striking given that for other goods and services, the US is significantly cheaper than most comparable countries... > > It isn't clear that there is a direct comparison. In Europe, a student can get a bachelors degree in medicine. In the US, a student must have a bachelor's degree, usually in a scientific field, just to apply for medical school. The US medical schools take only the top qualified candidates of those who already hold a bachelor's degree. > > Where is that comparison taken into account? > > We should compare European countries with other European countries, and compare the US to other countries which also require bachelors degrees for medical school admissions. I don?t think any given European nation is necessarily more comparable with any other European nation. (Is Iceland really comparable to France in many significant ways?) All these comparisons can involve confounding factors. One simply has to be aware of the limits and underscore them... But one comparison with many other nations ? especially Western Europe and Japan ? is that the US has more public spending in total and per person in healthcare than other nations. That huge amount of money pouring into the healthcare sector should be something any reasonable person should expect to have some impact (on prices). (Of course, one could blame it on US-Americans being less healthy, but the US governments spends even more than nations with the same or worse healthy people.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst From spike at rainier66.com Mon Feb 25 02:12:30 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 18:12:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <004e01d4cca8$fe9819e0$fbc84da0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005101d4ccaf$905e9dd0$b11bd970$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan >... > > Where is that comparison taken into account? > > We should compare European countries with other European countries, and compare the US to other countries which also require bachelors degrees for medical school admissions. >...I don?t think any given European nation is necessarily more comparable with any other European nation... (Of course, one could blame it on US-Americans being less healthy, but the US governments spends even more than nations with the same or worse healthy people.) Regards, Dan I would like to know how to take into account factors that really aren't directly a factor of the effectiveness of the medical system, such as the impact of all these new forms of synthetic dope, creating addicts and (probably) early death. An experience about 4 yrs ago causes me to wonder: my bride had to be taken to the ER in the middle of the night with throat swelling. By the time we got in there, she was already doing better, but we saw a doctor anyway. Two docs, total facetime with both was less than an hour. Bill: 14 thousand dollars. While there I noticed most of the ER beds were being occupied by dopers sleeping it off. It was pretty clear they weren't going to pay any medical bills. So the occasional insured patient pays the bill for everyone there. How is that taken into account? If we are using the ER as a homeless doper sleep station, why should that be comparable to other nations' medical costs? Can anyone tell me what happens in South American nations when they find some unconscious stoner? Do they rush him to the ER and pour him into a bed to see if he wakes up, then bill the occasional insurance holder for all of it? I have long suspected plenty of what we are calling medical expenses are really the cost of prosperity. A rich society won't just hurl an inert doper into a jail cell, nor let him freeze to death in the night, which is what I suspect happens in less prosperous nations. spike From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 02:27:52 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 21:27:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <004e01d4cca8$fe9819e0$fbc84da0$@rainier66.com> References: <004e01d4cca8$fe9819e0$fbc84da0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 8:30 PM wrote: > * >It isn't clear that there is a direct comparison. In Europe, a student > can get a bachelors degree in medicine. In the US, a student must have a > bachelor's degree, usually in a scientific field, just to apply for medical > school. The US medical schools take only the top qualified candidates of > those who already hold a bachelor's degree.* I don't think anyone who didn't very much want to be convinced would find that argument convincing. Take a look what it takes to become a doctor in Germany: How to get a medical degree in Germany That works out to about a decade of study and then you have to pass a nationwide examination. And it's not just every country in Europe, people in Japan, Australia, Singapore, South Korea, Canada, New Zealand and even Costa Rica also live longer than those in the USA and they all pay *dramatically* less for health care. If one if looking at the situation with a disinterested logical eye there is just no explaining away the obvious fact that the USA has the most inefficient health care system in the world, I mean... I value libertarian ideology but I value the scientific method even more and facts are facts. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 02:41:29 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 21:41:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 8:13 PM Dan TheBookMan wrote: * > Not as surprising when you consider that governments in the US spend > more on healthcare. This raises demand and hence prices, which then feeds > the call for more subsidies.* So if the reason health care is so expensive in the USA is too much socialism then I take it you would not object to switching over to a far cheaper less socialized system that has been proven to work better, for example like the one in Denmark or Canada. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Feb 25 02:43:59 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 18:43:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <004e01d4cca8$fe9819e0$fbc84da0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001601d4ccb3$f6567320$e3035960$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark >?the USA has the most inefficient health care system in the world? John K Clark Are we still counting things as medical expenses which really aren?t medical expenses? Consider that example I gave of very expensive ER beds filled with unconscious addicts. What does a place such as Singapore do when they find an inert addict on the street? Is that really a medical expense or is it a law enforcement cost? Wouldn?t it cost a lot less to just haul them down to the station and put them in a cell for a couple weeks? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 02:54:21 2019 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 13:54:21 +1100 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <004e01d4cca8$fe9819e0$fbc84da0$@rainier66.com> References: <004e01d4cca8$fe9819e0$fbc84da0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 25 Feb 2019 at 12:28 pm, wrote: > > > On Feb 24, 2019, at 10:35 AM, Stathis Papaioannou > wrote: > > It?s even more striking given that for other goods and services, the US > is significantly cheaper than most comparable countries... > > > > It isn't clear that there is a direct comparison. In Europe, a student > can get a bachelors degree in medicine. In the US, a student must have a > bachelor's degree, usually in a scientific field, just to apply for medical > school. The US medical schools take only the top qualified candidates of > those who already hold a bachelor's degree. > > Where is that comparison taken into account? > > We should compare European countries with other European countries, and > compare the US to other countries which also require bachelors degrees for > medical school admissions. In Australia the bachelor?s degree in Medicine comprises three years in preclinical studies and three years in clinical studies, followed by a year as an intern, so seven years to qualify as a doctor before you can undertake specialist studies. The undergraduate degree is extremely competitive, and only the students with the best secondary school scores get in. Some universities have recently changed to the US system, with a four year postgraduate degree requiring an undergraduate degree as a prerequisite. The content of the postgraduate course is about the same as the content of the clinical part of the old undergraduate course. There is no difference in registration, employment, perception or salary between graduates of the two types of course. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Feb 25 02:55:46 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 18:55:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark >?So if the reason health care is so expensive in the USA is too much socialism then I take it you would not object to switching over to a far cheaper less socialized system that has been proven to work better, for example like the one in Denmark or Canada. John K Clark Socialism starts like Denmark, but ends like Venezuela. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 03:07:36 2019 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 14:07:36 +1100 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <001601d4ccb3$f6567320$e3035960$@rainier66.com> References: <004e01d4cca8$fe9819e0$fbc84da0$@rainier66.com> <001601d4ccb3$f6567320$e3035960$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 25 Feb 2019 at 13:56, wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *John Clark > > > > *>?*the USA has the most inefficient health care system in the world? John > K Clark > > > > > > Are we still counting things as medical expenses which really aren?t > medical expenses? Consider that example I gave of very expensive ER beds > filled with unconscious addicts. What does a place such as Singapore do > when they find an inert addict on the street? Is that really a medical > expense or is it a law enforcement cost? Wouldn?t it cost a lot less to > just haul them down to the station and put them in a cell for a couple > weeks? > Inappropriate use of ER is indeed one reason why medical care costs more in the US, because hospital emergency departments do not turn away people who have no money. These patients would be better off going to their local doctor, but they can't afford it; so they end up in the ER because they don't have to pay and because, due to the cost, they neglect their health until their illness is at a more advanced, and more expensive to treat, stage. -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 03:19:58 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 22:19:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <001601d4ccb3$f6567320$e3035960$@rainier66.com> References: <004e01d4cca8$fe9819e0$fbc84da0$@rainier66.com> <001601d4ccb3$f6567320$e3035960$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 9:58 PM wrote: *>> ?*the USA has the most inefficient health care system in the world? John >> K Clark > > > > > > > *Are we still counting things as medical expenses which really aren?t > medical expenses? Consider that example I gave of very expensive ER beds > filled with unconscious addicts. * > Sorry that excuse doesn't hold water either, although I wish it did. Both the United Kingdom and France have a worse drug problem than the USA and yet their population live longer and they pay *MUCH* less for healthcare. I don't think the evidence could be any clearer, like it or not the facts are that sometimes socialism works and the USA could learn something from 30 countries all over the world that manage health care much better. It gives me no joy to say this because I like the theory that libertarianism is always better too, but when a theory does't fit the facts it must be abandoned regardless of emotional attachment. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 03:41:14 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 19:41:14 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0166BA92-BE57-498B-AC4D-E64D76E0721A@gmail.com> On Feb 24, 2019, at 6:41 PM, John Clark wrote: > >> On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 8:13 PM Dan TheBookMan wrote: >> >> > Not as surprising when you consider that governments in the US spend more on healthcare. This raises demand and hence prices, which then feeds the call for more subsidies. > > So if the reason health care is so expensive in the USA is too much socialism then I take it you would not object to switching over to a far cheaper less socialized system that has been proven to work better, for example like the one in Denmark or Canada. What I object to is coercion (both public and private) ? as should be clear by now. That?s a radical libertarian view which both you and Spike seem immune to. However, I was responding to the view that the US has an inefficient for lack of government involvement. Or it seemed like that was the implication here. (I?m also guessing that in the run up to the 02020 election, you?re shilling for the view the Democrat candidate seems like to support. So, again my guess, is this is less about the healthcare system than defeating you know who. Again, the radical position here would be: abolish the presidency along with the rest of the state ? and all states included not just here but across the globe and not to argue over what color the drapes should be on the Titanic.;) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Mon Feb 25 04:18:00 2019 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 20:18:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism Message-ID: <20190224201800.Horde.d-AvEwPdu41VecnWY_a1RM5@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> It is my observation that neither capitalism nor socialism is capable of managing the markets of the 21st century. As people have pointed out in the past, pure socialism is unproductive and inevitably runs out of other people's wealth to redistribute. And as the wealth gap increases, pure unregulated capitalism will likely run out of consumers able to afford the goods and services that the market has to offer. Simply put, this is because while robots make great workers, they make very poor customers. So in accumulating wealth and denying social spending in the process of ensuring that that they are the last to starve, the rich have nonetheless ensured that they will eventually starve. Now more than ever in our history, capitalists and socialists need to sit down with each other and stitch together the best welfare state that a robust healthy market economy can afford. And by welfare, I mean welfare for everybody and not just subsidies for factory farmers and oil companies. Unfortunately, these days capitalists and socialists and more likely to punch each other at Trump rallies than have a meaningful conversation with one another. But ultimately no matter how passionate the proponents, both of their ideologies are obsolete. Both socialism and capitalism are outdated socioeconomic pardigms because we are in uncharted technological territory right now. Economists like von Mises and Marx that died over a century ago have very little to say that is relevant regarding the effect of the Internet, robotics, AI, life-extension and other H plus tech on the economy. So we as a society need to shelve those outdated ideas and come up with a sustainable economic model that fits the modern reality we find ourselves living in because we are running out of time and the political divisiveness threatens to kill us all. Stuart LaForge From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 05:38:49 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 21:38:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <20190224201800.Horde.d-AvEwPdu41VecnWY_a1RM5@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20190224201800.Horde.d-AvEwPdu41VecnWY_a1RM5@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: On Feb 24, 2019, at 8:18 PM, Stuart LaForge wrote: > > It is my observation that neither capitalism nor socialism is capable of managing the markets of the 21st century. As people have pointed out in the past, pure socialism is unproductive and inevitably runs out of other people's wealth to redistribute. And as the wealth gap increases, pure unregulated capitalism will likely run out of consumers able to afford the goods and services that the market has to offer. > > Simply put, this is because while robots make great workers, they make very poor customers. So in accumulating wealth and denying social spending in the process of ensuring that that they are the last to starve, the rich have nonetheless ensured that they will eventually starve. > > Now more than ever in our history, capitalists and socialists need to sit down with each other and stitch together the best welfare state that a robust healthy market economy can afford. And by welfare, I mean welfare for everybody and not just subsidies for factory farmers and oil companies. > > Unfortunately, these days capitalists and socialists and more likely to punch each other at Trump rallies than have a meaningful conversation with one another. Folks at Trump rallies are not champions of free markets. I think it should be painfully obviously from Trump?s campaign rhetoric and from his actual policies that Trump is not and has never been a proponent of free markets. (Of course, to be fair, his positions tend to shift depending on caprice, but the one thing he tends to always stand against is free markets. One need only look at his trade policy. Or his immigration policy. And look at his business career too: never one to not look for some government help via eminent domain or subsidies. Never one also to disrespect others? property rights when it served his financial success.) > But ultimately no matter how passionate the proponents, both of their ideologies are obsolete. Both socialism and capitalism are outdated socioeconomic pardigms because we are in uncharted technological territory right now. > > Economists like von Mises and Marx that died over a century ago have very little to say that is relevant regarding the effect of the Internet, robotics, AI, life-extension and other H plus tech on the economy. So we as a society need to shelve those outdated ideas and come up with a sustainable economic model that fits the modern reality we find ourselves living in because we are running out of time and the political divisiveness threatens to kill us all. I disagree. Now more than ever I would hope for others here to see its promoting individual freedom and autonomy for everyone that should be the focus. The divisiveness you?re seeing is mostly different cliques of statism fighting it out. And, to be sure, I actually don?t think most people in the US even understand philosophical or ideological differences. My perception is most people tend to line up with various teams (red or blue?) and at best take a laundry list approach... And one must be fearful of unity simply to avoid disagreements. That can lead to suppression of all rival views. That?s surely not the future you?re aiming at, is it? Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst From spike at rainier66.com Mon Feb 25 06:48:10 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2019 22:48:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <20190224201800.Horde.d-AvEwPdu41VecnWY_a1RM5@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> References: <20190224201800.Horde.d-AvEwPdu41VecnWY_a1RM5@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Message-ID: <001701d4ccd6$12db3310$38919930$@rainier66.com> WOW that post is insanely... sane. spike -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2019 8:18 PM To: ExI Chat Subject: Re: [ExI] socialism It is my observation that neither capitalism nor socialism is capable of managing the markets of the 21st century. As people have pointed out in the past, pure socialism is unproductive and inevitably runs out of other people's wealth to redistribute. And as the wealth gap increases, pure unregulated capitalism will likely run out of consumers able to afford the goods and services that the market has to offer. Simply put, this is because while robots make great workers, they make very poor customers. So in accumulating wealth and denying social spending in the process of ensuring that that they are the last to starve, the rich have nonetheless ensured that they will eventually starve. Now more than ever in our history, capitalists and socialists need to sit down with each other and stitch together the best welfare state that a robust healthy market economy can afford. And by welfare, I mean welfare for everybody and not just subsidies for factory farmers and oil companies. Unfortunately, these days capitalists and socialists and more likely to punch each other at Trump rallies than have a meaningful conversation with one another. But ultimately no matter how passionate the proponents, both of their ideologies are obsolete. Both socialism and capitalism are outdated socioeconomic pardigms because we are in uncharted technological territory right now. Economists like von Mises and Marx that died over a century ago have very little to say that is relevant regarding the effect of the Internet, robotics, AI, life-extension and other H plus tech on the economy. So we as a society need to shelve those outdated ideas and come up with a sustainable economic model that fits the modern reality we find ourselves living in because we are running out of time and the political divisiveness threatens to kill us all. Stuart LaForge _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 12:52:24 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 07:52:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 10:28 PM wrote: > > *Socialism starts like Denmark, but ends like Venezuela.* What evidence do you have for that assertion? Socialism has existed in Denmark for a lot longer than it has in Venezuela and there is still no signs that it is becoming malignant. John K Clark > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 13:49:12 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 08:49:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <0166BA92-BE57-498B-AC4D-E64D76E0721A@gmail.com> References: <0166BA92-BE57-498B-AC4D-E64D76E0721A@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 10:46 PM Dan TheBookMan wrote: > *> What I object to is coercion (both public and private) ? as should be > clear by now. That?s a radical libertarian view which both you and Spike > seem immune to.* > I still take the radical libertarian view when it comes to freedom of the press and most social issues (abortion, drugs, sexual stuff, euthanasia etc) but when you try to extend that to money matters it leads to a very unstable society that simply doesn't work. And advances in technology will only make it worse. You can't live a libertarian life if all your neighbors hate your guts, wants to kill you, and has the means to do so. > *However, I was responding to the view that the US has an inefficient for > lack of government involvement.* > I would maintain it is not a view it is a fact that there are 30 governments in countries all over the world that involve themselves more in healthcare than the USA does and yet they pay less than half as much and they live longer. I want to ask you a very important question, do you think the scientific method is even more important than libertarian ideology? If you don't then I'm wasting my time giving examples in support of my position. > *> Or it seemed like that was the implication here. (I?m also guessing > that in the run up to the 02020 election, you?re shilling for the view the > Democrat candidate seems like to support. * > If the Democrats have any brains they certainly should support that idea but in all honesty when I look at the only alternative I admit I intend to vote for any functional adult that the Democrats care to nominate and will do so with great enthusiasm. > *> So, again my guess, is this is less about the healthcare system than > defeating you know who.* > Dearie me I can't imagine what gentleman you could be referring to. > * > Again, the radical position here would be: abolish the presidency > along with the rest of the state ? and all states included not just here > but across the globe* > For a long time I thought abolishing all government everywhere would be a good idea too but then I came to the conclusion I was being silly. I still think if we were starting from year zero when the human race first learned to tame fire that would be the way to go but we are NOT starting from year zero and, unless there is a total thermonuclear war, states around the world are simply NOT going to be abolished before the 2020 election or even much before the technological singularity so it's just silly to talk about it as if it were an option. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 14:24:22 2019 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 09:24:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <004e01d4cca8$fe9819e0$fbc84da0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 9:33 PM John Clark wrote: > That works out to about a decade of study and then you have to pass a > nationwide examination. And it's not just every country in Europe, people > in Japan, Australia, Singapore, South Korea, Canada, New Zealand and even > Costa Rica also live longer than those in the USA and they all pay > *dramatically* less for health care. If one if looking at the situation > with a disinterested logical eye there is just no explaining away the > obvious fact that the USA has the most inefficient health care system in > the world, I mean... I value libertarian ideology but I value the > scientific method even more and facts are facts. > You seem to think that the goal of health care is longer life but longevity is more about healthy living than it is about medical treatments. I think medicine in the US is expensive because medical insurers, medical corporations, and congress have, probably intentionally, worked together to make it a profit center. Drug makers don't benefit from cures, they benefit from keeping people on expensive prescriptions. Doctors get kickbacks for prescribing them. Congressmen no doubt get legal and illegal kickbacks, too. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Feb 25 14:58:02 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 06:58:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark Subject: Re: [ExI] socialism On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 10:28 PM > wrote: >> Socialism starts like Denmark, but ends like Venezuela. >?What evidence do you have for that assertion? Socialism has existed in Denmark for a lot longer than it has in Venezuela and there is still no signs that it is becoming malignant. ?John K Clark Don?t worry John. You and I will live long enough to see Denmark crumble for all the same reasons the other socialist countries will: if an adequate safety net exists such that landing there is insufficiently scary, people will jump into it until it fails. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Feb 25 15:04:50 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 07:04:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <004e01d4cca8$fe9819e0$fbc84da0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <004701d4cd1b$75342630$5f9c7290$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dave Sill Subject: Re: [ExI] socialism On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 9:33 PM John Clark > wrote: >>?That works out to about a decade of study and then you have to pass a nationwide examination. And it's not just every country in Europe, people in Japan, Australia, Singapore, South Korea, Canada, New Zealand and even Costa Rica also live longer than those in the USA and they all pay dramatically less for health care. If one if looking at the situation with a disinterested logical eye there is just no explaining away the obvious fact that the USA has the most inefficient health care system in the world, I mean... I value libertarian ideology but I value the scientific method even more and facts are facts. >?You seem to think that the goal of health care is longer life but longevity is more about healthy living than it is about medical treatments. I think medicine in the US is expensive because medical insurers, medical corporations, and congress have, probably intentionally, worked together to make it a profit center. Drug makers don't benefit from cures, they benefit from keeping people on expensive prescriptions. Doctors get kickbacks for prescribing them. Congressmen no doubt get legal and illegal kickbacks, too. Dave I don?t see where they take cosmetic surgery into account either. Americans spent more money on that than life extension. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 15:19:19 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 10:19:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <004e01d4cca8$fe9819e0$fbc84da0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 9:30 AM Dave Sill wrote: > *You seem to think that the goal of health care is longer life* > It's not the only goal but it most certainly is a goal and it makes for a good metric to evaluate the quality of healthcare in various countries because you can put a precise number on the quantity of life but you can't do that with the quality of life. *> but longevity is more about healthy living than it is about medical > treatments.* The single most unhealthy thing you can do is smoke, it's more deadly than being overweight or exercising too little or drinking too much or driving without a seatbelt, and people in Canada, France, Finland, Denmark, Spain, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg and the Netherlands all smoke more than people in the USA do, and yet they live longer and pay less. I don't see how the evidence could get any clearer when it's screaming at you in the face, they do some things better than we do. > *I think medicine in the US is expensive because medical insurers, > medical corporations, and congress have, probably intentionally, worked > together to make it a profit center. Drug makers don't benefit from cures, > they benefit from keeping people on expensive prescriptions. Doctors get > kickbacks for prescribing them. Congressmen no doubt get legal and illegal > kickbacks, too.* > I'm sure that what you say above is also true of the 30 countries that pay less for healthcare and yet live longer so there must else that they do that the USA doesn't, and we both know what that is. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 15:34:20 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 10:34:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <004701d4cd1b$75342630$5f9c7290$@rainier66.com> References: <004e01d4cca8$fe9819e0$fbc84da0$@rainier66.com> <004701d4cd1b$75342630$5f9c7290$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 10:16 AM wrote: > *> I don?t see where they take cosmetic surgery into account either. > Americans spent more money on that than life extension.* > The top 3 countries with the most cosmetic surgeries are South Korea, Greece and Italy and they all live longer and pay less than Americans which is #6 on the list. Countries with the Most Cosmetic Surgeries It's interesting that even Greece has a better healthcare system than the USA and they have been undergoing considerable economic turmoil in recent years. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 15:38:02 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 10:38:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 10:04 AM wrote: > > *Don?t worry John. You and I will live long enough to see Denmark > crumble* > I think the signs of political instability are far clearer in the USA than in Denmark. John K Clark > for all the same reasons the other socialist countries will: if an > adequate safety net exists such that landing there is insufficiently scary, > people will jump into it until it fails. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.otaku at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 15:57:09 2019 From: sen.otaku at gmail.com (SR Ballard) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 09:57:09 -0600 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I think it?s interesting that ?eventually Denmark will crumble!? is a thing we are talking about. Inherently, every nation, feudal, mercantile, capitalist, socialist, barter or what-have-you, will eventual crumble into distant memory. Some countries have hidden this fact by maintaining their names and historical myths, but honestly they don?t have good continuity. England, anyone? Deposition of monarchs through rebellion, then constitutional monarchy, etc... And it?s cute to think of historical examples as well. How long did Rome exist? I don?t think we can really call the Republic and the Empire the same ?country? even if there was a form of continuity between them. SR Ballard > On Feb 25, 2019, at 9:38 AM, John Clark wrote: > > > >> On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 10:04 AM wrote: >> >> > Don?t worry John. You and I will live long enough to see Denmark crumble > > I think the signs of political instability are far clearer in the USA than in Denmark. > > John K Clark > > > > > >> for all the same reasons the other socialist countries will: if an adequate safety net exists such that landing there is insufficiently scary, people will jump into it until it fails. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Feb 25 16:03:02 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 08:03:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Monday, February 25, 2019 7:38 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] socialism On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 10:04 AM > wrote: >> Don?t worry John. You and I will live long enough to see Denmark crumble >?I think the signs of political instability are far clearer in the USA than in Denmark. John K Clark But most of those signs are fake. Desperate caravans are struggling to get from socialist countries into a capitalist country. Few want to go the other way. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 16:09:47 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 10:09:47 -0600 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Am I wrong? I think the Scandanavian countries are democratic socialism and Venezuela et alia are autocratic socialisms. Further, that only in the latter does the federal gov. run the economy. bill w On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 10:02 AM SR Ballard wrote: > I think it?s interesting that ?eventually Denmark will crumble!? is a > thing we are talking about. > > Inherently, every nation, feudal, mercantile, capitalist, socialist, > barter or what-have-you, will eventual crumble into distant memory. > > Some countries have hidden this fact by maintaining their names and > historical myths, but honestly they don?t have good continuity. England, > anyone? Deposition of monarchs through rebellion, then constitutional > monarchy, etc... > > And it?s cute to think of historical examples as well. How long did Rome > exist? I don?t think we can really call the Republic and the Empire the > same ?country? even if there was a form of continuity between them. > > SR Ballard > > On Feb 25, 2019, at 9:38 AM, John Clark wrote: > > > > On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 10:04 AM wrote: > > >> > *Don?t worry John. You and I will live long enough to see Denmark >> crumble* >> > > I think the signs of political instability are far clearer in the USA than > in Denmark. > > John K Clark > > > > > > >> for all the same reasons the other socialist countries will: if an >> adequate safety net exists such that landing there is insufficiently scary, >> people will jump into it until it fails. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 16:17:06 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 10:17:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: But most of those signs are fake. Desperate caravans are struggling to get from socialist countries into a capitalist country. Few want to go the other way. spike Is there any better deal for the elite politicians than socialism of the autocratic kind? Fox in charge of the henhouse, eh? bill On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 10:14 AM wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *John Clark > *Sent:* Monday, February 25, 2019 7:38 AM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] socialism > > > > > > > > On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 10:04 AM wrote: > > > > >> *Don?t worry John. You and I will live long enough to see Denmark > crumble* > > > > >?I think the signs of political instability are far clearer in the USA > than in Denmark. John K Clark > > > > > > But most of those signs are fake. Desperate caravans are struggling to > get from socialist countries into a capitalist country. Few want to go the > other way. > > > > 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 Mon Feb 25 16:21:40 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 11:21:40 -0500 Subject: [ExI] USA Census Projections and consequences In-Reply-To: <005c01d4cc74$273a1ea0$75ae5be0$@rainier66.com> References: <000b01d4cc65$3c25cb20$b4716160$@rainier66.com> <005c01d4cc74$273a1ea0$75ae5be0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 2:12 PM wrote: > >> ?.When that happens unless you want a bloody revolution you'd better >> have a very elaborate safety net in place to catch all those millions of >> people when they fall and lose their jobs because although they may end up >> starving to death they will not die immediately and they will NOT go >> peacefully? > > > > *> What?s different about this one is that it wouldn?t be clear who the > revolutionaries would slay. * > And that would make things even more dangerous, when people become angry they start doing irrationally counterproductive things like voting for Trump. And if you want to know why people are angry take a look at this graph that was just published today in the New York Times, it won't take you long to realize something is seriously wrong and if we don't make a 180 degree turn pretty damn quick we're headed for trouble: The upper upper upper class John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 16:47:42 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 08:47:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Scandinavian countries are market societies with extensive welfare states. They?re not socialist. The means of production is mostly privately owned. See: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2018/07/08/sorry-bernie-bros-but-nordic-countries-are-not-socialist/ Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Feb 25, 2019, at 8:09 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > Am I wrong? I think the Scandanavian countries are democratic socialism and Venezuela et alia are autocratic socialisms. Further, that only in the latter does the federal gov. run the economy. > > bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 16:54:15 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 08:54:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <12366684-05EC-4CC9-8E19-CC166AF0633C@gmail.com> Yes, there?s a better and more likely deal for the ruling class: continue with the kind of corporatist system that?s been the model in the US since the late Nineteenth Century. They?ll fine tune the details with secondary regulation, but in the main the economy is run for corporate and political elites. Every now and then, they?ll be crises ? ones that aren?t manufactured ? but the burden will mainly fall on everyone else, both domestic and foreign. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Feb 25, 2019, at 8:17 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Is there any better deal for the elite politicians than socialism of the autocratic kind? Fox in charge of the henhouse, eh? > > > > bill > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Feb 25 16:58:16 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 08:58:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005c01d4cd2b$4ddec580$e99c5080$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Sent: Monday, February 25, 2019 8:17 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] socialism >>?But most of those signs are fake. Desperate caravans are struggling to get from socialist countries into a capitalist country. Few want to go the other way. spike >?Is there any better deal for the elite politicians than socialism of the autocratic kind? Fox in charge of the henhouse, eh? bill BillW, we know the pattern well. If any society anywhere creates an adequate safety net such that falling into it is not terrifying, the masses will come running from all corners of the globe to leap into it. This process continues until that net fails. The Scandinavian countries are appalled witnesses of the process playing out in real time. No matter what the details of who runs what, this is an absolutely universal truth. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From avant at sollegro.com Mon Feb 25 17:55:53 2019 From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 09:55:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <2127724555.4657051.1551078453703@mail.yahoo.com> References: <20190224201800.Horde.d-AvEwPdu41VecnWY_a1RM5@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> <2127724555.4657051.1551078453703@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20190225095553.Horde.PTB7GjwaBCBTypVIMgrKQaM@secure199.inmotionhosting.com> Quoting Dan the Book Man: > I disagree. Now more than ever I would hope for others here to see > its promoting individual freedom and autonomy for everyone that > should be the focus. Part of the problem is that as the means of production in our economy become more autonomous, we, the people, become less so. Do not kid yourself, people struggling to meet the first couple of tiers of Maslowe's hierarchy of needs are not free to do anything but continue the struggle. Why should the freedom of the rich outweigh the freedom of all others in society? Without options and opportunities, freedom is a fairy tale. > The divisiveness you?re seeing is mostly different cliques of > statism fighting it out. The old libertarian canard of statism aside, the government is a necessary compromise between absolute freedom and the rule of law. I don't see how modern society could function without a state. For example, without a state, how could you prevent me or whoever from selling pirated copies of your Kindle books online without paying you any royalties? Would it be practical for you to come knocking on my door with a firearm to demand that I cease and desist? What if I have more and bigger guns? If statism was inherently bad or irrational, then Somalia would be utopia. News flash: It is nowhere close. Copyright, police, military, courts, and roads -- all these things have value and they are all provided by the government. > And, to be sure, I actually don?t think most people in the US even > understand philosophical or ideological differences. My perception > is most people tend to line up with various teams (red or blue?) and > at best take a laundry list approach... Yes, and because of this both mainstream parties have become little more than a loose collection of hot button issues with no guiding principles. Because the guiding principles they once espoused, no longer apply to the modern world. Now it is all just emotional reaction. The "red and blue" comment made me think of how in the waning days of the Byzantine Empire, chariot racing teams in the hippodrome were named after colors such as the blues, the reds, the greens etc. The various colored teams each had their own fan-base of racing hooligans who, when they were not rioting, became the de facto political parties of the Eastern Roman Empire. > And one must be fearful of unity simply to avoid disagreements. That > can lead to suppression of all rival views. That?s surely not the > future you?re aiming at, is it? Dissension and rival view points are fine as long as the underlying infrastructure is functioning properly. My point is that a conversation would be more fruitful than a winner-take-all political fight. Stuart LaForge From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 18:04:41 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 13:04:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 11:15 AM wrote: > > > >?I think the signs of political instability are far clearer in the USA >> than in Denmark. John K Clark > > > > > *>But most of those signs are fake. * > A third of Americans still think Trump is a pretty good leader, and such a sign of irrationality is not fake and is a sign of instability. > * >Desperate caravans are struggling to get from socialist countries into > a capitalist country. * > The people of Venezuela are struggling to get away from a country that is: 1) Socialistic 2) Totalitarian 3) Corrupt 4) Lawless 5) So ineptly run that the people are starting to starve to death Denmark has only one of those 5 characteristics and I do not believe that is the one the people are running away from, it's certainly not because they think healthcare in Venezuela was too good. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 18:21:14 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 13:21:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <005c01d4cd2b$4ddec580$e99c5080$@rainier66.com> References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> <005c01d4cd2b$4ddec580$e99c5080$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 12:33 PM wrote: *> If any society anywhere creates an adequate safety net such that falling > into it is not terrifying, the masses will come running from all corners of > the globe to leap into it. * > That argument had a lot more power a few decades ago than it does now. I always knew someday radical libertarianism would have to be modified when it comes to economic issues but figured it was too far in the future to be relevant in a discussion of current events, but AI is advancing faster than I thought it would and the day has come. In the next 5 years millions of jobs will permanently go extinct and it's not realistic to retrain all truck drivers to become computer programmers, and even if you could it's only a matter of time before that job goes extinct too. And it's not just truck drivers, one day you and I and everyone else is going to need that safety net. The times are changing and we need to change with the times. John K Clark > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Feb 25 18:24:24 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 10:24:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <00ff01d4cd37$5676ab20$03640160$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark >>Desperate caravans are struggling to get from socialist countries into a capitalist country. >?The people of Venezuela are struggling to get away from a country that is:?John K Clark Ja, John I wasn?t referring to Venezuela. Desperate caravans are in Mexico, where the government told them they can stay, if they go to the southern border rather than pile up on the northern border. They struggle to get into a capitalist nation, at any cost. That tells a story. My prediction is that one social safety net after another will fail. It starts with Venezuela, but eventually the others will fail too, for all the same reasons. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 18:27:26 2019 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 13:27:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> <005c01d4cd2b$4ddec580$e99c5080$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: That argument STILL has a lot of power. Denmark which you mentioned is one of the countries now dealing with the effects of it (along with any other small European nation that has ingested very large amounts of immigrants from trouble spots in a very short amount of time): https://www.thelocal.dk/20181128/population-of-people-with-non-danish-ethnic-backgrounds-to-exceed-800000-by-2060-report This is already having a very large impact on what were functioning welfare states in the Scandinavian countries. On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 1:23 PM John Clark wrote: > On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 12:33 PM wrote: > > *> If any society anywhere creates an adequate safety net such that >> falling into it is not terrifying, the masses will come running from all >> corners of the globe to leap into it. * >> > > That argument had a lot more power a few decades ago than it does now. I > always knew someday radical libertarianism would have to be modified when > it comes to economic issues but figured it was too far in the future to be > relevant in a discussion of current events, but AI is advancing faster than > I thought it would and the day has come. In the next 5 years millions of > jobs will permanently go extinct and it's not realistic to retrain all > truck drivers to become computer programmers, and even if you could it's > only a matter of time before that job goes extinct too. And it's not just > truck drivers, one day you and I and everyone else is going to need that > safety net. The times are changing and we need to change with the times. > > 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 danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 18:38:03 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 10:38:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Feb 25, 2019, at 10:04 AM, John Clark wrote: >> >Desperate caravans are struggling to get from socialist countries into a capitalist country. >> Spike, if you?re talking about the caravans from Central America, they?re not fleeing socialism as such, but violence and repression. For instance, post-election violence in Honduras led to people fleeing there... And guess what major world power meddled in Honduran politics? (Not that that?s ?irregular?: US meddling in Latin America is the norm, sadly.) > The people of Venezuela are struggling to get away from a country that is: > > 1) Socialistic > 2) Totalitarian > 3) Corrupt > 4) Lawless > 5) So ineptly run that the people are starting to starve to death > > Denmark has only one of those 5 characteristics and I do not believe that is the one the people are running away from, it's certainly not because they think healthcare in Venezuela was too good. Again: Denmark isn?t socialist. It?s basically a market economy with an extensive welfare state. Later! Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Feb 25 18:49:20 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 10:49:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> <005c01d4cd2b$4ddec580$e99c5080$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001801d4cd3a$d2095050$761bf0f0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Monday, February 25, 2019 10:21 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] socialism On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 12:33 PM > wrote: >> If any society anywhere creates an adequate safety net such that falling into it is not terrifying, the masses will come running from all corners of the globe to leap into it. >?That argument had a lot more power a few decades ago than it does now. I always knew someday radical libertarianism would have to be modified when it comes to economic issues?The times are changing and we need to change with the times?John K Clark I am all for changing with the times. Let us look at the question from an evolutionary psychology point of view, to see if that discipline has any guidance for us. Imagine the first species to control fire. That may have been a precursor to all other technologies (if otherwise do correct me.) Early protohuman/chimpanzees likely figured out how to control fire first, along with technology to carry water and chip stone to an edge, that kinda thing. Sound right? OK so now we can imagine early protohuman/chimps which can build rudimentary shelters along with relying on a few natural shelters, figuring out how to control fire, so now their shelter is relatively comfortable, compared to those beasts which do not control fire. They still need to go out and get food, but think of it this way: if they didn?t face immediate hunger, they could choose to stay in their nice warm safe shelter. For sub-Saharan proto-humans, that staying warm business was not so critical, but with fire, proto-humanity could wander outside the range of their closely related non-fire controlling proto-chimpanzee species, so off they went. Especially for those early humans who radiated south and north away from the sub-Saharan region, that drive to get out of that nice warm safe shelter and do something had to become an ever stronger factor. This species was well outside of the range where it could survive without technology (sound familiar?) so they did what they needed to do: hunger drove them, and hunger drove the evolution of technology, to deal with ever more challenging environments as they radiated ever farther from their natural habitat. The whole notion of humans being driven by hunger is so deep within us, there is no changing it. In far too much of modern humanity, without hunger, there is no drive. Many moderns believe we can get people to move out of their warm safe shelters, even without the threat of hunger. I suspect we cannot. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Mon Feb 25 19:30:36 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 11:30:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001c01d4cd40$9570ddb0$c0529910$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan Subject: Re: [ExI] socialism On Feb 25, 2019, at 10:04 AM, John Clark > wrote: >>?Desperate caravans are struggling to get from socialist countries into a capitalist country. >?Spike, if you?re talking about the caravans from Central America, they?re not fleeing socialism as such, but violence and repression. For instance, post-election violence in Honduras led to people fleeing there... And guess what major world power meddled in Honduran politics? (Not that that?s ?irregular?: US meddling in Latin America is the norm, sadly.) Dan If so, why do they not wish to stay in Mexico? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 20:05:29 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 12:05:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <001c01d4cd40$9570ddb0$c0529910$@rainier66.com> References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> <001c01d4cd40$9570ddb0$c0529910$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <98FF0E85-BC0B-4D2C-9C18-CBD2C1C2EE33@gmail.com> On Feb 25, 2019, at 11:30 AM, wrote: > > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan > Subject: Re: [ExI] socialism > > On Feb 25, 2019, at 10:04 AM, John Clark wrote: > > >>?Desperate caravans are struggling to get from socialist countries into a capitalist country. > > >?Spike, if you?re talking about the caravans from Central America, they?re not fleeing socialism as such, but violence and repression. For instance, post-election violence in Honduras led to people fleeing there... And guess what major world power meddled in Honduran politics? (Not that that?s ?irregular?: US meddling in Latin America is the norm, sadly.) Dan > > > If so, why do they not wish to stay in Mexico? Haven?t you been following the news? The Mexican government won?t allow them to stay. In fact, the Mexican government has tried to stop them from entering Mexico and has a cumbersome process for refugee status ? most likely to prevent any refugees from entering and staying in Mexico. My guess is if the Mexican would allow them to stay, many if not all would stay there ? predicated that they aren?t persecuted in Mexico. And what?s wrong with them coming to the US? Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 20:36:28 2019 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 12:36:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] USA Census Projections and consequences Message-ID: John Clark wrote: snip > And that would make things even more dangerous, when people become angry they start doing irrationally counterproductive things like voting for Trump. As most of you know, I can't consider problems with humans without recourse to evolutionary psychology. Irrational is exactly the right word, but it is not obvious where it comes from since irrational acts very often get you killed and your gene line ended. The only way this makes sense is looking at the situation from the viewpoint of genes. Oddly enough, it turns out that sometimes rational for genes and humans diverges. The origin is in the human practice of taking the young women of a defeated group as booty. As wives or secondary wives, the genes of the defeated and killed warriors march on through their female children. So when the future starts to look bleak, our "shaped in the stone age" psychological traits jump into action. Among the things they do is make irrational leaders attractive. Keith From spike at rainier66.com Mon Feb 25 20:39:36 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 12:39:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <98FF0E85-BC0B-4D2C-9C18-CBD2C1C2EE33@gmail.com> References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> <001c01d4cd40$9570ddb0$c0529910$@rainier66.com> <98FF0E85-BC0B-4D2C-9C18-CBD2C1C2EE33@gmail.com> Message-ID: <008401d4cd4a$39188810$ab499830$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan Subject: Re: [ExI] socialism >?If so, why do they not wish to stay in Mexico? >?Haven?t you been following the news? The Mexican government won?t allow them to stay? Is this story not true? https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/migrant-caravan-members-reject-offer-stay-mexico-n925171 >?And what?s wrong with them coming to the US? Regards, Dan They haven?t been granted refugee status in the US. They have in Mexico. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 21:03:07 2019 From: henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com (Henrik Ohrstrom) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 22:03:07 +0100 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: I have been trying to find something useful to add to the discussion. As living in Sweden and well informed about the rest of Scandinavia I must really say that socialistic is not a good description of Sweden. Liberal welfare state yes, socialistic, no. Healthcare is paid for by taxes. It is governed state actors, landsting, which is very autonomous units that from the beginning fulfilled the same function as the different states in the US. The landsting even has some kind of governor equivalent. It is very much not a socialist system, basically all parts of the healthcare system is up for competitive bidding. It is quite difficult to get into some parts of it though. Ie good luck trying to take over the university hospitals.... But there's nothing that stops you from starting your own apart from economic realities. It is hard to compete with the landstings owned hospitals for lossy things like university/emergency/etc stuff. Nevertheless there are plenty of private healthcare that do work for the landstings but they are paid by the landsting to do specific stuff up to and including one general hospital including emergency room. (One general hospital St G?ran in Stockholm) Private healthcare insurance exist but are quite pointless and is rather uncommon. It's more expensive and don't get you any better than the general system. Mainly people have it to get VIP treatment. Healthcare in Sweden otherwise treat everyone equally bad..... Or well, depending on your expectations. The strange combination of liberalism and strong welfare is traditional, and is in my opinion due to the fact that having everyone in the same insurance keeps all kinds of costs down. And there are a question of ethics too. The way it's done in countries with a strong emphasis on individual insurance reeks of religion to me, I have forgotten the English name for it, it's if god loves me I will be healthy rich and happy. If god doesn't, I won't. And then since God hates me the rest of you don't have to take care of me since if god bullies me why should you do something else? And since most of us want to stay above that level in ethics, anyone who is at least mostly legal is taken care of. The rest of society is quite market competitive too, private schoolcompanies selling education to the kommuns (counties) compete directly with the kommuns own schools for pupils and money. Other parts can be bidded for too. I am a member of an hunting club that rents hunting grounds close to the city from the city and the hunting club made a bid for the handling of traffic wounded animals and pest control in the city and won the bid so now our club does official animal handling for the city and get paid for it. In a couple of years the contract is up for negotiation again and someone else could make a better bid and take over the hunting for the city. Etc etc buses, schools, garbage collection, etc most official functions are possible to contract out to a private actor. Paid by the state/landsting/kommun and most of the time rather aggressively audited for compliance with the terms of contract. So socialist country? Nah, not in any way that socialists like it. /Henrik Den m?n 25 feb. 2019 18:10Dan TheBookMan skrev: > Scandinavian countries are market societies with extensive welfare states. > They?re not socialist. The means of production is mostly privately owned. > See: > > > https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2018/07/08/sorry-bernie-bros-but-nordic-countries-are-not-socialist/ > > Regards, > > Dan > Sample my Kindle books at: > > http://author.to/DanUst > > On Feb 25, 2019, at 8:09 AM, William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > > Am I wrong? I think the Scandanavian countries are democratic socialism > and Venezuela et alia are autocratic socialisms. Further, that only in the > latter does the federal gov. run the economy. > > 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 johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 21:08:07 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 16:08:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> <005c01d4cd2b$4ddec580$e99c5080$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 1:50 PM Dylan Distasio wrote: *> That argument STILL has a lot of power. Denmark which you mentioned is > one of the countries now dealing with the effects of it (along with any > other small European nation that has ingested very large amounts of > immigrants from trouble spots in a very short amount of time):* > > > https://www.thelocal.dk/20181128/population-of-people-with-non-danish-ethnic-backgrounds-to-exceed-800000-by-2060-report > I have 3 comments: 1) 800,000 people of non ethnic Danish background living in Denmark by 2060 doesn't sound like the end of the world to me. 2) I would be willing to bet that the people that made that prediction did not take into account technological progress and imagined that the world of 2060 would be just like this one except perhaps with slightly better iPhons. 3) I agree that if you make living conditions for everybody within a country so unpleasant nobody would want to live there (by providing crappy health care among other things) then it would have the effect of curbing illegal immigration, but I can't help but think there must be a better way. It's rather like burning down your house to make sure a burglar can't break in. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 21:55:52 2019 From: henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com (Henrik Ohrstrom) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 22:55:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> <005c01d4cd2b$4ddec580$e99c5080$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Sweden has received even more refugees than Denmark. Hence some "all is wrong " statements from the US lately. I see a bunch of high performers with skills and ambition that infuse the nation with new blood, otherwise nativity in Sweden is way down like the US, Italy, japan et al. Problems are as always caused by criminals, some, (but no more than proportional to social status, income, education etc ) are immigrants or children to immigrants. Terrorists or wannabees, as always get way more attention than they deserve. We could probably ingest even more immigrants without that much more problems. our criminal shootings are caused by criminals not by immigrants. Most criminals are born in Sweden and a stop for refugees/immigrants would not change much there. Den m?n 25 feb. 2019 kl 22:20 skrev John Clark : > > > On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 1:50 PM Dylan Distasio > wrote: > > *> That argument STILL has a lot of power. Denmark which you mentioned is >> one of the countries now dealing with the effects of it (along with any >> other small European nation that has ingested very large amounts of >> immigrants from trouble spots in a very short amount of time):* >> >> >> https://www.thelocal.dk/20181128/population-of-people-with-non-danish-ethnic-backgrounds-to-exceed-800000-by-2060-report >> > > I have 3 comments: > > 1) 800,000 people of non ethnic Danish background living in Denmark by > 2060 doesn't sound like the end of the world to me. > > 2) I would be willing to bet that the people that made that prediction did > not take into account technological progress and imagined that the world of > 2060 would be just like this one except perhaps with slightly better iPhons. > > 3) I agree that if you make living conditions for everybody within a > country so unpleasant nobody would want to live there (by providing crappy > health care among other things) then it would have the effect of curbing > illegal immigration, but I can't help but think there must be a better way. > It's rather like burning down your house to make sure a burglar can't break > in. > > 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 johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 22:05:11 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 17:05:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] USA Census Projections and consequences In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 3:42 PM Keith Henson wrote: > > And that would make things even more dangerous, when people become angry they >> start doing irrationally counterproductive things like voting for Trump. > > > > > > * > As most of you know, I can't consider problems with humans without > recourse to evolutionary psychology. Irrational is exactly the right word, > but it is not obvious where it comes from since irrational acts very often > get you killed and your gene line ended.* > I think the opposite of hate is not love but fear, both emotions are along the same dimension. When an animal encounters a predator it must make a very quick decision to fight or flee and have the accompanying emotions. That's why both hate and fear can strike more quickly that other emotions. And that's fine if you encounter a leopard in the bushes because a mediocre decision made right now on how to deal with that situation is better than a perfect decision that takes a hour to figure out. But if you're considering a more complex modern issue issue, like who would make a better president, more time for consideration is needed but intense hate or fear may not allow it. i don't think there is anything special in human evolutionary history that causes this, it must be true for all animals, its just that it doesn't cause them much of a problem because they are not capable of long concentrated thought on the same subject anyway. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 22:14:20 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 14:14:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> <005c01d4cd2b$4ddec580$e99c5080$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <387E164D-86DB-491F-8BF5-F59FA2580C9C@gmail.com> On Feb 25, 2019, at 1:55 PM, Henrik Ohrstrom wrote: > > Sweden has received even more refugees than Denmark. Hence some "all is wrong " statements from the US lately. > I see a bunch of high performers with skills and ambition that infuse the nation with new blood, otherwise nativity in Sweden is way down like the US, Italy, japan et al. > Problems are as always caused by criminals, some, (but no more than proportional to social status, income, education etc ) are immigrants or children to immigrants. Terrorists or wannabees, as always get way more attention than they deserve. > We could probably ingest even more immigrants without that much more problems. our criminal shootings are caused by criminals not by immigrants. Most criminals are born in Sweden and a stop for refugees/immigrants would not change much there. Much the same here in the US: natives (I mean people born here who are citizens) having the highest rates of crime. Legal immigrants have lower rates. And illegal immigrants have the lowest rates. (The last kind of makes sense since the last thing an undocumented person would want to do is call attention to their status, especially by the police or courts.) Also, there have been several studies showing increased migration rates lead to higher levels of growth. See https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.25.3.83 and works cited therein. N.B.: Clemens believes this might double global GDP. (Sure we can argue that AI and the Singularity will make that look minuscule, but this doubling happens without any need for radical technological change. Why not at least give moral support to this ? even if one?s main focus is on radical technological change?) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 23:45:19 2019 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 18:45:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <387E164D-86DB-491F-8BF5-F59FA2580C9C@gmail.com> References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> <005c01d4cd2b$4ddec580$e99c5080$@rainier66.com> <387E164D-86DB-491F-8BF5-F59FA2580C9C@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 5:25 PM Dan TheBookMan wrote: > Much the same here in the US: natives (I mean people born here who are > citizens) having the highest rates of crime. Legal immigrants have lower > rates. And illegal immigrants have the lowest rates. (The last kind of > makes sense since the last thing an undocumented person would want to do is > call attention to their status, especially by the police or courts.) > Of course *all* illegal immigrants are criminals because they entered the country illegally. Which, IMO, is begging the question. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 23:56:33 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 15:56:33 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> <005c01d4cd2b$4ddec580$e99c5080$@rainier66.com> <387E164D-86DB-491F-8BF5-F59FA2580C9C@gmail.com> Message-ID: <94B04712-827A-4640-BFD8-1D1D39109B8C@gmail.com> Only if you mean any law-breaking of any law is criminal. Are traffic rules violators criminals? Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst > On Feb 25, 2019, at 3:45 PM, Dave Sill wrote: > >> On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 5:25 PM Dan TheBookMan wrote: > >> Much the same here in the US: natives (I mean people born here who are citizens) having the highest rates of crime. Legal immigrants have lower rates. And illegal immigrants have the lowest rates. (The last kind of makes sense since the last thing an undocumented person would want to do is call attention to their status, especially by the police or courts.) > > Of course *all* illegal immigrants are criminals because they entered the country illegally. > > Which, IMO, is begging the question. > > -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Feb 26 02:11:37 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 18:11:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] stockfish beat leeza In-Reply-To: <002701d4cd78$3bbc41f0$b334c5d0$@rainier66.com> References: <002701d4cd78$3bbc41f0$b334c5d0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003801d4cd78$9b776610$d2663230$@rainier66.com> Software world chess champion Stockfish squeaked out a win against a program they claim taught itself chess starting with only the rules. Final score in the 100 game match was 50.5 - 49.5 spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 03:29:48 2019 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 19:29:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Drexler again Message-ID: https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/reframing/ The link from that page takes you to a 210-page report. It's dense. Unless you have some background in AI, it's probably not for you. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 04:15:38 2019 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2019 20:15:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: CD38 and NAD+ In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is really interesting from an anti-aging standpoint. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5088772/ Keith From danust2012 at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 16:05:24 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2019 08:05:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <008401d4cd4a$39188810$ab499830$@rainier66.com> References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> <001c01d4cd40$9570ddb0$c0529910$@rainier66.com> <98FF0E85-BC0B-4D2C-9C18-CBD2C1C2EE33@gmail.com> <008401d4cd4a$39188810$ab499830$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Feb 25, 2019, at 12:39 PM, wrote: > > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan > Subject: Re: [ExI] socialism > M > >?If so, why do they not wish to stay in Mexico? > > >?Haven?t you been following the news? The Mexican government won?t allow them to stay? > > Is this story not true? > > https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/migrant-caravan-members-reject-offer-stay-mexico-n925171 My bad. Initially, they were rejected at Mexico?s southern border and harassed along the way. Then the offer was made late last year. And the story is true in so far as an offer has publicly been made and rejected by many, but you have to ask yourself why they would reject such an offer. Most applications for asylum (in Mexico) are turned down and then the applicant is likely to be returned to the place they were fleeing from in the first place. Accepting the offer would likely mean deportation back to Central America. Add to this, Mexico is not exactly a safe haven in the first place ? regardless of the Mexican government offer. > >?And what?s wrong with them coming to the US? Regards, Dan > > They haven?t been granted refugee status in the US. They have in Mexico. See above. Let me put this another way: What is _morally_ wrong with them coming to the US? Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 16:30:15 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2019 08:30:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The hits just keep on coming In-Reply-To: References: <000b01d4cac1$124fde30$36ef9a90$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <62C04122-D80D-4E25-82DD-F5BA6F75AC4D@gmail.com> On Feb 22, 2019, at 11:13 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> On Fri, Feb 22, 2019 at 7:16 AM wrote: >> Jeff, I have commented that the first nation or group or person who creates a practical AI owns the planet. This article points out a second path to world ownership. > > Not so much. Any bio-Singularity would take 20 years to come into > effect, more than enough time for others to verify and copy what > works. That depends on the bio-Singularity scenario. With altering CCR5 before birth, my guess is you?re right. But what about altering it and genes afterwards? For instance, let?s say said genes really did boost intelligence or other factors (self-control, for instance) to such a large degree as to make huge numbers of people cognitively superior (to their non-altered contemporaries or in the universal case to their former selves) within the span of a few years or a few months. (Pure speculation on my part. I don?t know how quickly altering genes in children or adults would lead to markedly improved cognitive outcomes.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst From spike at rainier66.com Tue Feb 26 16:49:34 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2019 08:49:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> <001c01d4cd40$9570ddb0$c0529910$@rainier66.com> <98FF0E85-BC0B-4D2C-9C18-CBD2C1C2EE33@gmail.com> <008401d4cd4a$39188810$ab499830$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003d01d4cdf3$40f322d0$c2d96870$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan Subject: Re: [ExI] socialism They haven?t been granted refugee status in the US. They have in Mexico. See above. Let me put this another way: What is _morally_ wrong with them coming to the US? Regards, Dan Dan, the real problem is that if the US takes in all the caravanners, the Central and South American governments can put their prisoners in with the others. These governments will share the information with Mexico (so the felons among the caravanners will not apply for asylum in Mexico (knowing that they will be found out there (for the southern nations do not wish to damage relations with their neighbors (who would react by stopping all immigration from the south (and mean it))))) but not share the same information with the US customs. This would enable nations to empty their expensive prisons into someone else?s country. This cannot end well. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 17:37:48 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2019 09:37:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: <003d01d4cdf3$40f322d0$c2d96870$@rainier66.com> References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> <001c01d4cd40$9570ddb0$c0529910$@rainier66.com> <98FF0E85-BC0B-4D2C-9C18-CBD2C1C2EE33@gmail.com> <008401d4cd4a$39188810$ab499830$@rainier66.com> <003d01d4cdf3$40f322d0$c2d96870$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Feb 26, 2019, at 8:49 AM, wrote: > > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan > > Subject: Re: [ExI] socialism > > > They haven?t been granted refugee status in the US. They have in Mexico. > > See above. Let me put this another way: What is _morally_ wrong with them coming to the US? > > Regards, > > > Dan > > > Dan, the real problem is that if the US takes in all the caravanners, the Central and South American governments can put their prisoners in with the others. These governments will share the information with Mexico (so the felons among the caravanners will not apply for asylum in Mexico (knowing that they will be found out there (for the southern nations do not wish to damage relations with their neighbors (who would react by stopping all immigration from the south (and mean it))))) but not share the same information with the US customs. This would enable nations to empty their expensive prisons into someone else?s country. This cannot end well. Do you have any evidence that this is likely to happen? These caravans seem very unlike the Mariel boatlift of 1980. (They?re also much smaller in size ? two orders of magnitude smaller, I think ? though you could argue were a more open policy adopted they might become larger.) Also, the Central American nations they're fleeing from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador... The former two are US client states. I doubt they?re doing anything where the US government doesn?t have some influence. Recall the US involvement in the civil war in Guatemala. Honduras has been a longtime US ally too. I doubt they?d both cozy up to Mexico more than to the big global power which has steadfastly supported their elites. Of course, in international affairs alliances can change, but the scenario you paint seems not to be the case. (And I?m not even bringing up that Mexico is also more or less a US client state. As someone once point out, the US empire thrives on amnesia.) Let me put the question another way: Do you have any moral issues with peaceful people peacefully crossing national borders? Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Tue Feb 26 18:25:42 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2019 10:25:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] socialism In-Reply-To: References: <003001d4ccb5$9c01fd70$d405f850$@rainier66.com> <003801d4cd1a$821efe20$865cfa60$@rainier66.com> <001901d4cd23$966025e0$c32071a0$@rainier66.com> <001c01d4cd40$9570ddb0$c0529910$@rainier66.com> <98FF0E85-BC0B-4D2C-9C18-CBD2C1C2EE33@gmail.com> <008401d4cd4a$39188810$ab499830$@rainier66.com> <003d01d4cdf3$40f322d0$c2d96870$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <001201d4ce00$aecc1840$0c6448c0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan Subject: Re: [ExI] socialism On Feb 26, 2019, at 8:49 AM, > > wrote: From: extropy-chat > On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan >?Let me put the question another way: Do you have any moral issues with peaceful people peacefully crossing national borders?Regards, Dan None at all Dan. Those are the kind we want, because our own people are not that way. The peaceful non-criminals would help dilute our non-peaceful criminals. The problem is we have no way to verify their non-peaceful criminals aren?t getting mixed in there somehow somewhere along the route, disguising themselves as peaceful non-criminals. There is something I am watching however. We are getting to the point were universal face recognition and other automated biometric recognition systems are becoming practical. There are new ones coming, ones that would work even if a bad guy had her face masked. We know nature invented such systems, for your dog knows who you are with one sniff. It doesn?t matter if you have been out working in the hot sun all day and smell like sweat and manure, you come in when it is completely dark and say nothing to him, your dog takes one sniff and knows whether to leap about for joy or tear your damn leg off. They never miss (ya gotta love dogs (such marvelous beasts they are.)) So if dogs can do it, we can do it. We could figure out the identity of a bad guy from her smell, from her gait, her dimensions, her voice, all in combination. Bad guy pulls off a crime, we already know who it is before she even gets in her car to flee, where she lives, everything, constables waiting when she gets home. With all that in place, we can accept the world?s bad guys, if they still really want to come here. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 18:40:21 2019 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2019 10:40:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The hits just keep on coming In-Reply-To: <62C04122-D80D-4E25-82DD-F5BA6F75AC4D@gmail.com> References: <000b01d4cac1$124fde30$36ef9a90$@rainier66.com> <62C04122-D80D-4E25-82DD-F5BA6F75AC4D@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Feb 26, 2019 at 8:34 AM Dan TheBookMan wrote: > On Feb 22, 2019, at 11:13 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > Any bio-Singularity would take 20 years to come into > > effect, more than enough time for others to verify and copy what > > works. > > That depends on the bio-Singularity scenario. With altering CCR5 before birth, my guess is you?re right. But what about altering it and genes afterwards? For instance, let?s say said genes really did boost intelligence or other factors (self-control, for instance) to such a large degree as to make huge numbers of people cognitively superior (to their non-altered contemporaries or in the universal case to their former selves) within the span of a few years or a few months. (Pure speculation on my part. I don?t know how quickly altering genes in children or adults would lead to markedly improved cognitive outcomes.) As someone who has studied this... ;) The short and only mostly accurate version is, most genes matter when you are growing up, and mostly stop mattering by the time your body (brain included) has been constructed - that is, reached its adult form. Past that, they get passed to kids to inform their bodies how to assemble themselves. What genes still matter when you are an adult tend to have more to do with maintaining the body (preventing or enabling the decay associated with old age, for instance) than building it. Which means tweaking your kids' genes (or yours, for the sole purpose of making kids with said tweaked genes) is possible, but changing yourself by genetic therapy, not so much. There are exceptions, but radical enhancements are relatively unlikely. Altering existing adult humans is far more easily done through surgery (and adjustments of chemicals, such as hormones). There are many ways to accomplish said surgery (such as nanotech), but genetic alteration is generally not one of them. From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 19:02:58 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2019 13:02:58 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The hits just keep on coming In-Reply-To: References: <000b01d4cac1$124fde30$36ef9a90$@rainier66.com> <62C04122-D80D-4E25-82DD-F5BA6F75AC4D@gmail.com> Message-ID: Adrian wrote: but radical enhancements are relatively unlikely. Altering existing adult humans is far more easily done through surgery (and adjustments of chemicals, such as hormones). There are many ways to accomplish said surgery (such as nanotech), but genetic alteration is generally not one of them. But with the coming of Crispr, we can turn off bad genes (yes, I know, you were talking about enhancements - but not dying could certainly be looked at as an enhancement) - I read that 10K (seemingly an impossibly high number) single genes cause disorders. Plenty of time for some to get detected and dealt with long before they would occur - such as Huntingdon's Chorea and some cancers. bill On Tue, Feb 26, 2019 at 12:45 PM Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Tue, Feb 26, 2019 at 8:34 AM Dan TheBookMan > wrote: > > On Feb 22, 2019, at 11:13 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > > Any bio-Singularity would take 20 years to come into > > > effect, more than enough time for others to verify and copy what > > > works. > > > > That depends on the bio-Singularity scenario. With altering CCR5 before > birth, my guess is you?re right. But what about altering it and genes > afterwards? For instance, let?s say said genes really did boost > intelligence or other factors (self-control, for instance) to such a large > degree as to make huge numbers of people cognitively superior (to their > non-altered contemporaries or in the universal case to their former selves) > within the span of a few years or a few months. (Pure speculation on my > part. I don?t know how quickly altering genes in children or adults would > lead to markedly improved cognitive outcomes.) > > As someone who has studied this... ;) > > The short and only mostly accurate version is, most genes matter when > you are growing up, and mostly stop mattering by the time your body > (brain included) has been constructed - that is, reached its adult > form. Past that, they get passed to kids to inform their bodies how > to assemble themselves. What genes still matter when you are an adult > tend to have more to do with maintaining the body (preventing or > enabling the decay associated with old age, for instance) than > building it. > > Which means tweaking your kids' genes (or yours, for the sole purpose > of making kids with said tweaked genes) is possible, but changing > yourself by genetic therapy, not so much. There are exceptions, but > radical enhancements are relatively unlikely. Altering existing adult > humans is far more easily done through surgery (and adjustments of > chemicals, such as hormones). There are many ways to accomplish said > surgery (such as nanotech), but genetic alteration is generally not > one of them. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 19:14:18 2019 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2019 11:14:18 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The hits just keep on coming In-Reply-To: References: <000b01d4cac1$124fde30$36ef9a90$@rainier66.com> <62C04122-D80D-4E25-82DD-F5BA6F75AC4D@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Feb 26, 2019 at 11:07 AM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > But with the coming of Crispr, we can turn off bad genes (yes, I know, you were talking about enhancements - but not dying could certainly be looked at as an enhancement) - I read that 10K (seemingly an impossibly high number) single genes cause disorders. Plenty of time for some to get detected and dealt with long before they would occur - such as Huntingdon's Chorea and some cancers. And? This is mostly irrelevant to what I was replying to. From danust2012 at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 20:27:55 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2019 12:27:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The hits just keep on coming In-Reply-To: References: <000b01d4cac1$124fde30$36ef9a90$@rainier66.com> <62C04122-D80D-4E25-82DD-F5BA6F75AC4D@gmail.com> Message-ID: <5F38AC0A-591B-494E-81B9-0E7E3F4A2C6E@gmail.com> On Feb 26, 2019, at 10:40 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> On Tue, Feb 26, 2019 at 8:34 AM Dan TheBookMan wrote: >>> On Feb 22, 2019, at 11:13 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >>> Any bio-Singularity would take 20 years to come into >>> effect, more than enough time for others to verify and copy what >>> works. >> >> That depends on the bio-Singularity scenario. With altering CCR5 before birth, my guess is you?re right. But what about altering it and genes afterwards? For instance, let?s say said genes really did boost intelligence or other factors (self-control, for instance) to such a large degree as to make huge numbers of people cognitively superior (to their non-altered contemporaries or in the universal case to their former selves) within the span of a few years or a few months. (Pure speculation on my part. I don?t know how quickly altering genes in children or adults would lead to markedly improved cognitive outcomes.) > > As someone who has studied this... ;) > > The short and only mostly accurate version is, most genes matter when > you are growing up, and mostly stop mattering by the time your body > (brain included) has been constructed - that is, reached its adult > form. Past that, they get passed to kids to inform their bodies how > to assemble themselves. What genes still matter when you are an adult > tend to have more to do with maintaining the body (preventing or > enabling the decay associated with old age, for instance) than > building it. > > Which means tweaking your kids' genes (or yours, for the sole purpose > of making kids with said tweaked genes) is possible, but changing > yourself by genetic therapy, not so much. There are exceptions, but > radical enhancements are relatively unlikely. Altering existing adult > humans is far more easily done through surgery (and adjustments of > chemicals, such as hormones). There are many ways to accomplish said > surgery (such as nanotech), but genetic alteration is generally not > one of them. Naturally, I meant genes that aren?t solely limited to development here. If Wikipedia is to be trusted here*, it seems like CCR5 is active after development, so there?s that. Even if it?s not, then there others, surely, that might tweaked. And, if that?s so and these can have a big impact in short order, then there?s room for some sort of bio-Singularity. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCR5 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 21:13:55 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2019 15:13:55 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The hits just keep on coming In-Reply-To: References: <000b01d4cac1$124fde30$36ef9a90$@rainier66.com> <62C04122-D80D-4E25-82DD-F5BA6F75AC4D@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Feb 26, 2019 at 1:20 PM Adrian Tymes wrote: > And? This is mostly irrelevant to what I was replying to. > > I did not mean to annoy you. Just wanted to say that there were things in > the very near future that could greatly enhance our lives. It also touched > on a topic I thought about posting: just what enhancements should we do > first? And the answer will come back: a better and much larger memory, so > I didn't post it. And we have no means to do that now and maybe not for a > long time. 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 atymes at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 22:02:08 2019 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2019 14:02:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What bioenhancements should we do first? In-Reply-To: References: <000b01d4cac1$124fde30$36ef9a90$@rainier66.com> <62C04122-D80D-4E25-82DD-F5BA6F75AC4D@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Feb 26, 2019 at 1:18 PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > On Tue, Feb 26, 2019 at 1:20 PM Adrian Tymes wrote: >> >> And? This is mostly irrelevant to what I was replying to. > > I did not mean to annoy you. Just wanted to say that there were things in the very near future that could greatly enhance our lives. It also touched on a topic I thought about posting: just what enhancements should we do first? The way to ask that is with a new subject, and phrasing it as a separate discussion (not saying "but" which implies you're still talking about the prior thing), like so. ;) > And the answer will come back: a better and much larger memory, so I didn't post it. And we have no means to do that now and maybe not for a long time. There are ways to interface neurons to electronics now. Have been for about a couple decades. But...how do we use that to wire electronics into the brain's memory, such that we could then take advantage of Moore's Law to install ever-greater memory capability into human beings? Or is that truly the best such enhancement to pursue first? Might a more real-time interface - some sixth sense (any data that a computer might have and a human would benefit from intimate awareness of), wired into the sensory cortices - be easier to develop first, proving out the technologies needed in a way that can benefit humanity faster? From atymes at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 22:04:36 2019 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2019 14:04:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The hits just keep on coming In-Reply-To: <5F38AC0A-591B-494E-81B9-0E7E3F4A2C6E@gmail.com> References: <000b01d4cac1$124fde30$36ef9a90$@rainier66.com> <62C04122-D80D-4E25-82DD-F5BA6F75AC4D@gmail.com> <5F38AC0A-591B-494E-81B9-0E7E3F4A2C6E@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Feb 26, 2019 at 12:31 PM Dan TheBookMan wrote: > Naturally, I meant genes that aren?t solely limited to development here. If Wikipedia is to be trusted here*, it seems like CCR5 is active after development, so there?s that. Even if it?s not, then there others, surely, that might tweaked. And, if that?s so and these can have a big impact in short order, then there?s room for some sort of bio-Singularity. That's a gene involved in maintenance. To have a bio-Singularity of the type you describe, you'd need a gene involved in building the brain - but by the time you're an adult, your brain is mostly already built, and the things that influence it from then on either aren't genetic at all, or are the result of genes that have largely already done their jobs. From danust2012 at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 22:38:50 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2019 14:38:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The hits just keep on coming In-Reply-To: References: <000b01d4cac1$124fde30$36ef9a90$@rainier66.com> <62C04122-D80D-4E25-82DD-F5BA6F75AC4D@gmail.com> <5F38AC0A-591B-494E-81B9-0E7E3F4A2C6E@gmail.com> Message-ID: <0DE7F8D1-6CCB-4893-A038-62E138D753D2@gmail.com> On Feb 26, 2019, at 2:04 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> On Tue, Feb 26, 2019 at 12:31 PM Dan TheBookMan wrote: >> Naturally, I meant genes that aren?t solely limited to development here. If Wikipedia is to be trusted here*, it seems like CCR5 is active after development, so there?s that. Even if it?s not, then there others, surely, that might tweaked. And, if that?s so and these can have a big impact in short order, then there?s room for some sort of bio-Singularity. > > That's a gene involved in maintenance. To have a bio-Singularity of > the type you describe, you'd need a gene involved in building the > brain - but by the time you're an adult, your brain is mostly already > built, and the things that influence it from then on either aren't > genetic at all, or are the result of genes that have largely already > done their jobs. I?m aware of where you?re going with this. Again, I?m talking about stuff outside of development ? stuff involved in the initial ?building [of the] brain.? Try this on for size: aren?t some genes involved in regeneration or in shutting down or starting up post-development processes. Anything here that might feed into altering or improving cognition (or related things; which is why I brought up self-control: if one could increase self-control across a large population this might make for immediate gains though probably not the kind of exponential laddering up of other Singularities) might lead to some sort of bio-Singularity. I?m also not saying here that this is the path I?d take. Gene expression... Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Feb 27 10:29:11 2019 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2019 10:29:11 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Surveillance Message-ID: On Tue, 26 Feb 2019 at 18:31, spike wrote: > > We could figure out the identity of a bad guy from her smell, > from her gait, her dimensions, her voice, all in combination. > Bad guy pulls off a crime, we already know who it is before > she even gets in her car to flee, where she lives, everything, > constables waiting when she gets home. > Hmmmn. Sounds like you don't appreciate just how much of this tyrannical surveillance is already in place. Everything we do electronically is already recorded and analysed. Initially mostly for advertising and social manipulation purposes. Surely you don't think these crazy hate spasms about social media, politicians, celebs etc. happen just by accident? These records are permanently stored. If anyone comes to the attention of Big Brother then the records are searched to highlight their contacts, where they went, what they bought, content of phone calls, emails, posts, messages etc. There are plenty of laws that can be used to make anyone into a target of law enforcement. Even if none of the charges stick your life will be ruined while investigations continue. Dystopia rapidly approaches. BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Feb 27 14:42:48 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2019 08:42:48 -0600 Subject: [ExI] two kinds of socialism Message-ID: I repeat, we are using the word 'socialism' in two ways. The Americans like SAnders who are calling themselves Democratic Socialists are not advocating following Venuzuela's lead and nationalizing industry (that would be very suicidal)- and V is autocratic, not democratic. And then we have: Socialism starts like Denmark, but ends like Venezuela. spike But Denmark isn't socialistic. It's just in favor of a lot of social programs. Just how are we going to get over this definition problem? I suggest Socialism, capitalized (note pun) as a gov. that runs the economy. And socialism, small s, for SCandanavia and for those, including us, who have big social programs like Medicare. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Feb 27 23:00:13 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2019 18:00:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= Message-ID: Michael Cohen, who knows Trump better than anyone, just said something that I've been saying since he won the 2016 election: *"I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power. And this is why I agreed to appear before you today,"* John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Wed Feb 27 23:21:09 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2019 15:21:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> John, many of the posters and readers here are not US based and don?t care about the details of American politics. spike From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2019 3:00 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] Michael Cohen? Michael Cohen, who knows Trump better than anyone, just said something that I've been saying since he won the 2016 election: "I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power. And this is why I agreed to appear before you today," John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Feb 27 23:29:57 2019 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 10:29:57 +1100 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 28 Feb 2019 at 10:24, wrote: > John, many of the posters and readers here are not US based and don?t care > about the details of American politics. > > > > spike > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *John Clark > *Sent:* Wednesday, February 27, 2019 3:00 PM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Subject:* [ExI] Michael Cohen > > > > Michael Cohen, who knows Trump better than anyone, just said something > that I've been saying since he won the 2016 election: > > *"I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a > peaceful transition of power. And this is why I agreed to appear before you > today,"* > > > > John K Clark > But it would concern the whole world if something like Trump refusing to leave office if he were voted out occurred. -- Stathis Papaioannou Virus-free. www.avast.com <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Feb 27 23:46:25 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2019 17:46:25 -0600 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: But it would concern the whole world if something like Trump refusing to leave office if he were voted out occurred. But he is not liked at all by most Republicans in Congress and the White House, and once he has no legal standing, he could embarrass himself by getting arrested and carried out, but I think he will go, if not peacefully. The key is: no legal standing. No Marines or whoever to order around. If he resisted before the Jan. 20 date where the new prez gets in office, he could cause some trouble, all right. Other than lying and exaggerating every time he opens his mouth, just what outrageous things has he done to hurt our country (other than the embarrassment we feel when he disses other countries.) bill w On Wed, Feb 27, 2019 at 5:37 PM Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > On Thu, 28 Feb 2019 at 10:24, wrote: > >> John, many of the posters and readers here are not US based and don?t >> care about the details of American politics. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> >> *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf >> Of *John Clark >> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 27, 2019 3:00 PM >> *To:* ExI chat list >> *Subject:* [ExI] Michael Cohen >> >> >> >> Michael Cohen, who knows Trump better than anyone, just said something >> that I've been saying since he won the 2016 election: >> >> *"I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be >> a peaceful transition of power. And this is why I agreed to appear before >> you today,"* >> >> >> >> John K Clark >> > > But it would concern the whole world if something like Trump refusing to > leave office if he were voted out occurred. > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > > Virus-free. > www.avast.com > > <#m_-7720280508912510362_DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Feb 28 01:02:36 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2019 17:02:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2019 3:30 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Michael Cohen? On Thu, 28 Feb 2019 at 10:24, > wrote: John, many of the posters and readers here are not US based and don?t care about the details of American politics. spike But it would concern the whole world if something like Trump refusing to leave office if he were voted out occurred. -- Stathis Papaioannou Stathis, we have witnessed a nuclear-armed government at war with itself for at least two years. Nothing bad comes of having the US government at war with itself. Nukes are not more likely to fly; they are less likely. Adversaries are not more likely to attack. We have seen great progress in weakening the office that desperately needed weakening, in such a way that the previous level of power will take a long time (if ever) to return to that office. I am ready to argue that it is a good thing when the federal government is at war with itself. It prevents accumulation of power. Regarding the concern that the current POTUS (whose name I cannot recall at the moment) will refuse to leave office, the framers of the US constitution thought of that, for they wrote that document with fresh memories of having sacrificed and struggled to deal with autocrats and tyrants. So they created a system where the current POTUS does not have the authority to stop an election and has neither the legal authority nor the illegal means to hold the office if he loses. The Supreme Court meets just the same, they swear in the guy they believe won the election, top military brass are present at the swearing in and the new guy takes command of the military, even if some delusional yahoo protests and refuses to leave the office. They have a duplicate nuclear football, they transfer functionality to the new one, then it doesn?t matter what the old guy does. There is no civil war in such a case. What does concern me a lot more than that is the remaining electronic voting machines and the new threat I see in California, where they instituted a new law that allows anyone, including political operatives, to collect ballots. That bodes ill. But it is an example of local and state level politics which shouldn?t concern many of those who post to and read ExI. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 02:02:23 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2019 20:02:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: spike wrote We have seen great progress in weakening the office that desperately needed weakening, in such a way that the previous level of power will take a long time (if ever) to return to that office. The thing that has always concerned me is the war-making of the President. Congress should have that say and I dunno why they can't take that to court. bill w On Wed, Feb 27, 2019 at 7:07 PM wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat *On Behalf > Of *Stathis Papaioannou > *Sent:* Wednesday, February 27, 2019 3:30 PM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Michael Cohen? > > > > > > > > On Thu, 28 Feb 2019 at 10:24, wrote: > > John, many of the posters and readers here are not US based and don?t care > about the details of American politics. > > spike > > > > But it would concern the whole world if something like Trump refusing to > leave office if he were voted out occurred. > > > > -- > > Stathis Papaioannou > > > > > > > > Stathis, we have witnessed a nuclear-armed government at war with itself > for at least two years. Nothing bad comes of having the US government at > war with itself. Nukes are not more likely to fly; they are less likely. > Adversaries are not more likely to attack. We have seen great progress in > weakening the office that desperately needed weakening, in such a way that > the previous level of power will take a long time (if ever) to return to > that office. I am ready to argue that it is a good thing when the federal > government is at war with itself. It prevents accumulation of power. > > > > Regarding the concern that the current POTUS (whose name I cannot recall > at the moment) will refuse to leave office, the framers of the US > constitution thought of that, for they wrote that document with fresh > memories of having sacrificed and struggled to deal with autocrats and > tyrants. So they created a system where the current POTUS does not have > the authority to stop an election and has neither the legal authority nor > the illegal means to hold the office if he loses. The Supreme Court meets > just the same, they swear in the guy they believe won the election, top > military brass are present at the swearing in and the new guy takes command > of the military, even if some delusional yahoo protests and refuses to > leave the office. They have a duplicate nuclear football, they transfer > functionality to the new one, then it doesn?t matter what the old guy > does. There is no civil war in such a case. > > > > What does concern me a lot more than that is the remaining electronic > voting machines and the new threat I see in California, where they > instituted a new law that allows anyone, including political operatives, to > collect ballots. That bodes ill. But it is an example of local and state > level politics which shouldn?t concern many of those who post to and read > ExI. > > > > spike > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 02:38:02 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2019 18:38:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <50E138BA-6B75-4AE8-9CE7-BD0D4C3A499D@gmail.com> On Feb 27, 2019, at 6:02 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > spike wrote > > We have seen great progress in weakening the office that desperately needed weakening, in such a way that the previous level of power will take a long time (if ever) to return to that office. Spike: Have you seen any substantial weakening of the presidency? I haven?t. True, Trump now has to face a House that?s controlled by the opposing party, but other than that I haven?t seen a diminution in presidential power. Rather, he?s simply facing the same kind of opposition Clinton faced after 1994 and Bush after 2006. It remains to be seen if any laws will be passed and enforced that limit the actual scope and power of the president. > The thing that has always concerned me is the war-making of the President. Congress should have that say and I dunno why they can't take that to court. Congress has backed away from since the Truman administration. And not that presidents before then were much disinclined to meddle (in places like Asia and Latin America), but I believe the scale and frequency increased after WW2. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 03:19:15 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2019 22:19:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: <50E138BA-6B75-4AE8-9CE7-BD0D4C3A499D@gmail.com> References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> <50E138BA-6B75-4AE8-9CE7-BD0D4C3A499D@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Feb 27, 2019 at 9:43 PM Dan TheBookMan wrote: > Spike: Have you seen any substantial weakening of the presidency? I > haven?t. > I haven't either. And I'm scared. > > *True, Trump now has to face a House that?s controlled by the opposing > party, but other than that I haven?t seen a diminution in presidential > power.* > The House doesn't matter anymore. In the olden days (like a month ago) the House had the power of the purse but not anymore. The President has just decreed with his emergency proclamation that he now has that power not the House and the Constitution be dammed. John K Clark . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Feb 28 05:57:29 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2019 21:57:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Subject: Re: [ExI] Michael Cohen? spike wrote We have seen great progress in weakening the office that desperately needed weakening, in such a way that the previous level of power will take a long time (if ever) to return to that office. The thing that has always concerned me is the war-making of the President. Congress should have that say and I dunno why they can't take that to court. bill w It has always required congress to declare war. If the office of the presidency is weakened, they are less likely to command troops into a police action or whatever lame excuse term they want to use for war. Having a US government at war with itself is perfectly acceptable to me. The economy roars right on along, technology advances, all is well in my world. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 06:43:48 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2019 22:43:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: > On Feb 27, 2019, at 9:57 PM, wrote: > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace > Subject: Re: [ExI] Michael Cohen? > > spike wrote > > We have seen great progress in weakening the office that desperately needed weakening, in such a way that the previous level of power will take a long time (if ever) to return to that office. > > The thing that has always concerned me is the war-making of the President. Congress should have that say and I dunno why they can't take that to court. > > bill w > > > It has always required congress to declare war. This hasn?t mattered as, especially since WW2, the president has been able to get the US into wars that were never declared by Congress, including major long term ones like the Korean War, Vietnam, the first Persian Gulf War, Afghanistan, And the second Persian Gulf War. It?s merely another glaring example of how constitutional constraints can be easily gotten around. And before WW2, there are other examples like Quasi-War (1798-1800; nite this is soon after the present Constitution was ratified; already a president managed to successfully set aside the constraint), First Barbary War (1805), Algerian War (1815), First Sumatran Expedition (1832), Second Opium War (1856), Paraguay Expedition (1859), Formosa Expedition (1867), the Korean Expedition (1871), participating in the Boxer Rebellion (1900), Nicaraguan Campaign (1912), involvement in the Mexican Revolution (1914), Occupation of Haiti (1915), and the Occupation of Dominican Republic (1916). These happened at a time that Constitutionalists tend to look back on fondly ? as if every president tried his hardest to work within the constraints and the courts and Congress jealousy guarded against overreach. A more radical critique of the Constitution can be found in the book cited here: https://c4ss.org/content/44465 > If the office of the presidency is weakened, they are less likely to command troops into a police action or whatever lame excuse term they want to use for war. See above. It?s not impossible to weaken the presidency, but my guess it won?t happen. And if were to happen, it would probably require a much more radical change than we?re likely to see now. One reason is that both major parties have definitely been on board with expanding executive power. They are only against it when the other party is in power, but then their criticisms disappear when they?re in power. (The same goes for antiwar stuff: G. W. Bush talked about a humble foreign policy until he was elected. Obama ran as the peace candidate and expanded the Bush wars.) > Having a US government at war with itself is perfectly acceptable to me. The economy roars right on along, technology advances, all is well in my world. There?s a problem there. Why would War be acceptable to you simply because it followed, say, the Constitution?s declaration process? I can see a reasonable person saying that process would be better than what happens now, but simply following the process doesn?t mean no unacceptable wars (unless you equate acceptable with that outcome of the process). It would simply that a bunch people elected to office all agreed to go to war, whether it was good idea or not. (In the same, I hope you?d be against, say, a genocide policy or a reinstatement of slavery even if either passed constitutional muster.) Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Feb 28 15:51:55 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 07:51:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003401d4cf7d$87ebdbb0$97c39310$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2019 10:44 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Michael Cohen? On Feb 27, 2019, at 9:57 PM, > > wrote: ? >>?Having a US government at war with itself is perfectly acceptable to me. The economy roars right on along, technology advances, all is well in my world. >?There?s a problem there. Why would War be acceptable to you simply because it followed, say, the Constitution?s declaration process? Ja. If the US government forces itself into the strict confines of the constitution, this is the best way. Reasoning: >? It would simply that a bunch people elected to office all agreed to go to war? They never do. In our system, that never happens. Especially in our times, our congress and much of the rest of government is focused on how to oppose POTUS rather than anything else. They won?t all agree to anything, not even on damaging the current POTUS. Many will, but not 2/3. Even if 2/3 do agree to damage POTUS, they will disagree on how to do it. Result: the government is consumed with its own urgent business, and business can focus on its own urgent business. Result: the continued growth and prosperity we have seen since the US government went to war with itself. Second result: government checks its own power. Third result: free (and valuable) education in civics to the proletariat. >? I hope you?d be against, say, a genocide policy? Of course. I know they won?t do that. >?or a reinstatement of slavery even if either passed constitutional muster? Dan Funny you should ask, since we have a charismatic young representative who is promoting slavery. She calls it a 70% marginal tax bracket starting at 10 million bucks a year, but we know that trick. Establish a 70% tax bracket that only applies to 2000 Americans, hurray! Then why do we even bother, since it doesn?t raise much of anything? Because the government can dilute its own currency. So next year it applies to 20k Americans, and the year after that 200k, then 2 million, then pretty soon that 70% applies to anyone willing to work, and slavery is back and standing tall. So yes, I oppose that. But a deeply divided government at war with itself will not agree to do that, or anything else. They will continue to flap around in a useless attempt to impeach the current POTUS until he is gone in either two or six years. Until then they are too preoccupied to cause as much harm as if they focused their attention on creation of law. A divided government is OK. Business charges right along without their ?help.? When congress does things like focusing on removing a POTUS, it reinforces the notion that the Federal government already gets too much tax revenue. Why should we pay all this money for their silly Quixotic quests which are sound and fury, signifying nothing? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Thu Feb 28 16:35:43 2019 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 11:35:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: <003401d4cf7d$87ebdbb0$97c39310$@rainier66.com> References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> <003401d4cf7d$87ebdbb0$97c39310$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <9FED5724-BC09-4400-94E1-0B00F2491E96@alumni.virginia.edu> Spike, please. This seems hardly plausible. You sound paranoid. And comparing it to slavery? That comes off as pretty insensitive to the brutality that slavey was. I?m reminded that Warren Buffett, who is estimated to be worth more than $47 billion, called on Congress to commit to "shared sacrifice" and raise taxes on people earning more than $1 million. So there is even support for this among the filthy rich who realize they can maintain extravagant lifestyles even with larger tax rates on them. Progressive taxation minimally makes sense to a lot of people, even wealthier folks. I?m pretty sure your libertarian perspective supports no taxation, so this delineation between some taxation vs higher rates may not even make a difference to you I?d surmise. Respectfully, Henry > On Feb 28, 2019, at 10:51 AM, wrote: > > Then why do we even bother, since it doesn?t raise much of anything? Because the government can dilute its own currency. So next year it applies to 20k Americans, and the year after that 200k, then 2 million, then pretty soon that 70% applies to anyone willing to work, and slavery is back and standing tall. From interzone at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 17:04:08 2019 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 12:04:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: <9FED5724-BC09-4400-94E1-0B00F2491E96@alumni.virginia.edu> References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> <003401d4cf7d$87ebdbb0$97c39310$@rainier66.com> <9FED5724-BC09-4400-94E1-0B00F2491E96@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: I don't find it implausible. If we're talking about federal income tax in the US, the top 50% of earners already shoulder almost all of the burden. Someone is going to have to pay for all of these new "socialist" initiatives, and considering ALL taxation is expropriation facing down the barrel of a gun, it is indentured servitude if not slavery depending on degree. I'm not in favor of looking for additional people to soak with it or create new ways to squeeze blood from a stone. Since when does Warren Buffet or anyone else get to speak for what I would like to do with my own money? You may want to also look into the ways Buffet conveniently legally evades taxes at a higher level with the way his insurance business is structured. He has found a way to avoid taxes there for years, and is a hypocrite. There are plenty of taxes to go around on anyone who is successfully generating income in the US right now; we certainly don't need more of them imposed on any income class. On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 11:37 AM Henry Rivera wrote: > Spike, please. This seems hardly plausible. You sound paranoid. And > comparing it to slavery? That comes off as pretty insensitive to the > brutality that slavey was. > > I?m reminded that Warren Buffett, who is estimated to be worth more than > $47 billion, called on Congress to commit to "shared sacrifice" and raise > taxes on people earning more than $1 million. So there is even support for > this among the filthy rich who realize they can maintain extravagant > lifestyles even with larger tax rates on them. Progressive taxation > minimally makes sense to a lot of people, even wealthier folks. I?m pretty > sure your libertarian perspective supports no taxation, so this delineation > between some taxation vs higher rates may not even make a difference to you > I?d surmise. > Respectfully, > Henry > > > On Feb 28, 2019, at 10:51 AM, > wrote: > > > > Then why do we even bother, since it doesn?t raise much of anything? > Because the government can dilute its own currency. So next year it > applies to 20k Americans, and the year after that 200k, then 2 million, > then pretty soon that 70% applies to anyone willing to work, and slavery is > back and standing tall. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Feb 28 17:53:42 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 09:53:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: <9FED5724-BC09-4400-94E1-0B00F2491E96@alumni.virginia.edu> References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> <003401d4cf7d$87ebdbb0$97c39310$@rainier66.com> <9FED5724-BC09-4400-94E1-0B00F2491E96@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: <001401d4cf8e$8ba30790$a2e916b0$@rainier66.com> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Henry Rivera Subject: Re: [ExI] Michael Cohen? >...Spike, please. This seems hardly plausible. You sound paranoid. And comparing it to slavery? That comes off as pretty insensitive to the brutality that slavey was... On the contrary Henry. If this government or any government makes arrangements for a 70% progressive tax bracket that is enveloping more and more people, most capital investments no longer make sense. Capital goes elsewhere. Fewer people have jobs. Government revenue goes down as collective need goes up. You have never seen brutality until you have seen the result of such a thing. >...I?m reminded that Warren Buffett, who is estimated to be worth more than $47 billion, called on Congress to commit to "shared sacrifice" and raise taxes on people earning more than $1 million... Sure of course, because Warren Buffett is among those few who will not share that sacrifice. Bigtime investors don't really have much taxable income. They build wealth in a way that isn't taxable through income tax. They occupy themselves by increasing the value of their holdings. The US government can only tax income. They have no way of knowing what you already own, and have no business knowing that. Your net worth isn't on a tax return, and doesn't need to be: that isn't taxable. Warren Buffett isn't suggesting any tax that will cost hm much of anything. Beware the advice of highly successful people, for they do not want your company. >...So there is even support for this among the filthy rich who realize they can maintain extravagant lifestyles even with larger tax rates on them... Notice you always hear this kind of thing from people who have already made their fortunes. They are all for higher taxes on those who are coming up behind them. But consider for a moment, what if... what if the system were changed to some kind of wealth tax. How would the government calculate your tax bill? They can do it when you sell a property which has appreciated by treating that as income, but what about your holdings you don't reveal such as physical gold and bitcoin for instance? If you hold that stuff, you better not tell people you have it. Reasoning: if you have physical gold, criminals will break into your house and kill you if you don't hand it over. If you hold bitcoin or cash, criminals will steal your children and kill them if you don't hand it over. Result: if the US federal government even starts seriously talking about a wealth tax, or any tax on that which you already own, the value of property goes way down and the value of gold, cash and bitcoin goes thru the roof. With that in mind, how difficult would it be to get at least a third of the senators to just say no? It would be the easiest election in history: vote for me, and I will prevent compelling criminals to steal and murder your children. spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 18:09:59 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 12:09:59 -0600 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: <001401d4cf8e$8ba30790$a2e916b0$@rainier66.com> References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> <003401d4cf7d$87ebdbb0$97c39310$@rainier66.com> <9FED5724-BC09-4400-94E1-0B00F2491E96@alumni.virginia.edu> <001401d4cf8e$8ba30790$a2e916b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: Buffet conveniently legally evades taxes at a higher level with the way his insurance business is structured. He has found a way to avoid taxes there for years, and is a hypocrite. Buffett gives away many bucks to charities and that he and Bill Gates and some others have set up. Maybe he figures that he has a better idea of what to do with his money than the feds do. I don't know what he is supporting but I very likely agree with him. bill w On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 11:58 AM wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of > Henry Rivera > Subject: Re: [ExI] Michael Cohen? > > > > >...Spike, please. This seems hardly plausible. You sound paranoid. And > comparing it to slavery? That comes off as pretty insensitive to the > brutality that slavey was... > > On the contrary Henry. > > If this government or any government makes arrangements for a 70% > progressive tax bracket that is enveloping more and more people, most > capital investments no longer make sense. Capital goes elsewhere. Fewer > people have jobs. Government revenue goes down as collective need goes > up. You have never seen brutality until you have seen the result of such a > thing. > > > >...I?m reminded that Warren Buffett, who is estimated to be worth more > than $47 billion, called on Congress to commit to "shared sacrifice" and > raise taxes on people earning more than $1 million... > > Sure of course, because Warren Buffett is among those few who will not > share that sacrifice. Bigtime investors don't really have much taxable > income. They build wealth in a way that isn't taxable through income tax. > They occupy themselves by increasing the value of their holdings. The US > government can only tax income. They have no way of knowing what you > already own, and have no business knowing that. Your net worth isn't on a > tax return, and doesn't need to be: that isn't taxable. Warren Buffett > isn't suggesting any tax that will cost hm much of anything. > > Beware the advice of highly successful people, for they do not want your > company. > > > >...So there is even support for this among the filthy rich who realize > they can maintain extravagant lifestyles even with larger tax rates on > them... > > Notice you always hear this kind of thing from people who have already > made their fortunes. They are all for higher taxes on those who are coming > up behind them. > > But consider for a moment, what if... what if the system were changed to > some kind of wealth tax. How would the government calculate your tax > bill? They can do it when you sell a property which has appreciated by > treating that as income, but what about your holdings you don't reveal such > as physical gold and bitcoin for instance? If you hold that stuff, you > better not tell people you have it. Reasoning: if you have physical gold, > criminals will break into your house and kill you if you don't hand it > over. If you hold bitcoin or cash, criminals will steal your children and > kill them if you don't hand it over. > > Result: if the US federal government even starts seriously talking about a > wealth tax, or any tax on that which you already own, the value of property > goes way down and the value of gold, cash and bitcoin goes thru the roof. > > With that in mind, how difficult would it be to get at least a third of > the senators to just say no? It would be the easiest election in history: > vote for me, and I will prevent compelling criminals to steal and murder > your children. > > spike > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Feb 28 18:26:13 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 10:26:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> <003401d4cf7d$87ebdbb0$97c39310$@rainier66.com> <9FED5724-BC09-4400-94E1-0B00F2491E96@alumni.virginia.edu> <001401d4cf8e$8ba30790$a2e916b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <003401d4cf93$185039c0$48f0ad40$@rainier66.com> >>?Buffet conveniently legally evades taxes at a higher level with the way his insurance business is structured. He has found a way to avoid taxes there for years, and is a hypocrite. >?Buffett gives away many bucks to charities and that he and Bill Gates and some others have set up. Maybe he figures that he has a better idea of what to do with his money than the feds do. I don't know what he is supporting but I very likely agree with him. bill w Sure, but the original statement contains a self-contradiction. Tax evasion is illegal by definition. If it is legal use of tax law, one is exercising tax reduction. Tax reduction is what you do when you visit the local CPA, fair game, highly advisable. Tax evasion is what you do if you are cheating on your taxes, and the IRS will soon come calling. Two different (and legally opposite) things, similar outcome. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 18:32:00 2019 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 13:32:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> <003401d4cf7d$87ebdbb0$97c39310$@rainier66.com> <9FED5724-BC09-4400-94E1-0B00F2491E96@alumni.virginia.edu> <001401d4cf8e$8ba30790$a2e916b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: That wasn't my point. I'm all for charity, and I'm all for everyone having a better idea to do with their money than the feds to. Buffet is happy to expound on how all of the people earning income above a certain level should be paying even more in income taxes talking out one side of his mouth, while simultaneously ensuring he himself pays as little tax as possible. I have zero issue with him legally avoiding as much tax as possible. If he was so concerned that he's not paying his fair share of taxes as he states in the puff pieces around this pressing need to further tax high income earners, he is more than welcome to write the IRS a large check voluntarily. His comments are a bait and switch. On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 1:12 PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Buffet conveniently legally evades taxes at a higher level with the way > his insurance business is structured. He has found a way to avoid taxes > there for years, and is a hypocrite. > > Buffett gives away many bucks to charities and that he and Bill Gates and > some others have set up. Maybe he figures that he has a better idea of > what to do with his money than the feds do. I don't know what he is > supporting but I very likely agree with him. bill w > > On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 11:58 AM wrote: > >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of >> Henry Rivera >> Subject: Re: [ExI] Michael Cohen? >> >> >> >> >...Spike, please. This seems hardly plausible. You sound paranoid. And >> comparing it to slavery? That comes off as pretty insensitive to the >> brutality that slavey was... >> >> On the contrary Henry. >> >> If this government or any government makes arrangements for a 70% >> progressive tax bracket that is enveloping more and more people, most >> capital investments no longer make sense. Capital goes elsewhere. Fewer >> people have jobs. Government revenue goes down as collective need goes >> up. You have never seen brutality until you have seen the result of such a >> thing. >> >> >> >...I?m reminded that Warren Buffett, who is estimated to be worth more >> than $47 billion, called on Congress to commit to "shared sacrifice" and >> raise taxes on people earning more than $1 million... >> >> Sure of course, because Warren Buffett is among those few who will not >> share that sacrifice. Bigtime investors don't really have much taxable >> income. They build wealth in a way that isn't taxable through income tax. >> They occupy themselves by increasing the value of their holdings. The US >> government can only tax income. They have no way of knowing what you >> already own, and have no business knowing that. Your net worth isn't on a >> tax return, and doesn't need to be: that isn't taxable. Warren Buffett >> isn't suggesting any tax that will cost hm much of anything. >> >> Beware the advice of highly successful people, for they do not want your >> company. >> >> >> >...So there is even support for this among the filthy rich who realize >> they can maintain extravagant lifestyles even with larger tax rates on >> them... >> >> Notice you always hear this kind of thing from people who have already >> made their fortunes. They are all for higher taxes on those who are coming >> up behind them. >> >> But consider for a moment, what if... what if the system were changed to >> some kind of wealth tax. How would the government calculate your tax >> bill? They can do it when you sell a property which has appreciated by >> treating that as income, but what about your holdings you don't reveal such >> as physical gold and bitcoin for instance? If you hold that stuff, you >> better not tell people you have it. Reasoning: if you have physical gold, >> criminals will break into your house and kill you if you don't hand it >> over. If you hold bitcoin or cash, criminals will steal your children and >> kill them if you don't hand it over. >> >> Result: if the US federal government even starts seriously talking about >> a wealth tax, or any tax on that which you already own, the value of >> property goes way down and the value of gold, cash and bitcoin goes thru >> the roof. >> >> With that in mind, how difficult would it be to get at least a third of >> the senators to just say no? It would be the easiest election in history: >> vote for me, and I will prevent compelling criminals to steal and murder >> your children. >> >> spike >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Feb 28 19:12:01 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 11:12:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> <003401d4cf7d$87ebdbb0$97c39310$@rainier66.com> <9FED5724-BC09-4400-94E1-0B00F2491E96@alumni.virginia.edu> <001401d4cf8e$8ba30790$a2e916b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: <005a01d4cf99$7c64e540$752eafc0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio Subject: Re: [ExI] Michael Cohen? >?That wasn't my point. I'm all for charity, and I'm all for everyone having a better idea to do with their money than the feds to. >?Buffet is happy to expound on how all of the people earning income above a certain level should be paying even more in income taxes talking out one side of his mouth, while simultaneously ensuring he himself pays as little tax as possible. I have zero issue with him legally avoiding as much tax as possible. If he was so concerned that he's not paying his fair share of taxes as he states in the puff pieces around this pressing need to further tax high income earners, he is more than welcome to write the IRS a large check voluntarily. His comments are a bait and switch? Oh ja, I agree. Warren Buffett and plenty of the other biggies are all for taxes that they will not need to pay. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 20:02:31 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 15:02:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: <001401d4cf8e$8ba30790$a2e916b0$@rainier66.com> References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> <003401d4cf7d$87ebdbb0$97c39310$@rainier66.com> <9FED5724-BC09-4400-94E1-0B00F2491E96@alumni.virginia.edu> <001401d4cf8e$8ba30790$a2e916b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 12:59 PM wrote: > *If this government or any government makes arrangements for a 70% > progressive tax bracket that is enveloping more and more people, most > capital investments no longer make sense. * A theory must fit the facts and that one doesn't. During World War 2 the top tax bracket in the USA was 94%, and during all 8 years of the Eisenhower administration it was 91%; and both periods were times of very strong economic expansion. Today the top bracket is 37% (reduced by Trump from 39.6%) and the wealth gap between rich and poor is enormous, growing, and accelerating. And the gap between the rich and the super rich is accelerating at an even greater rate. And the gap between the super rich and the super ultra crazy rich is accelerating most of all. We seem to be headed toward a Economic Big Rip which will be just about as conducive to life as the cosmic Big Rip will be. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 20:09:58 2019 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 15:09:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> <003401d4cf7d$87ebdbb0$97c39310$@rainier66.com> <9FED5724-BC09-4400-94E1-0B00F2491E96@alumni.virginia.edu> <001401d4cf8e$8ba30790$a2e916b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: The situation in the 50s was a lot more complicated than what the Berners use as talking points in terms of effective tax rates: https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/ On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 3:05 PM John Clark wrote: > On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 12:59 PM wrote: > > > *If this government or any government makes arrangements for a 70% >> progressive tax bracket that is enveloping more and more people, most >> capital investments no longer make sense. * > > > A theory must fit the facts and that one doesn't. During World War 2 the > top tax bracket in the USA was 94%, and during all 8 years of the > Eisenhower administration it was 91%; and both periods were times of very > strong economic expansion. Today the top bracket is 37% (reduced by Trump > from 39.6%) and the wealth gap between rich and poor is enormous, > growing, and accelerating. And the gap between the rich and the super > rich is accelerating at an even greater rate. And the gap between the > super rich and the super ultra crazy rich is accelerating most of all. We > seem to be headed toward a Economic Big Rip which will be just about as > conducive to life as the cosmic Big Rip will be. > > John K Clark > > >> _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Feb 28 20:32:05 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 12:32:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] economic big rip Message-ID: <002b01d4cfa4$abe89680$03b9c380$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of John Clark Subject: Re: [ExI] Michael Cohen? On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 12:59 PM > wrote: >>? If this government or any government makes arrangements for a 70% progressive tax bracket that is enveloping more and more people, most capital investments no longer make sense. >?A theory must fit the facts and that one doesn't. During World War 2 the top tax bracket in the USA was 94%, and during all 8 years of the Eisenhower administration it was 91%; and both periods were times of very strong economic expansion. Today the top bracket is 37% (reduced by Trump from 39.6%) and the wealth gap between rich and poor is enormous, growing, and accelerating. And the gap between the rich and the super rich is accelerating at an even greater rate. And the gap between the super rich and the super ultra crazy rich is accelerating most of all. We seem to be headed toward a Economic Big Rip which will be just about as conducive to life as the cosmic Big Rip will be. John K Clark John so I hear. But it doesn?t seem to be like that. In my area are many software skerjillionaires. Palo Alto is a favorite hangout for them. There is another adjacent town called East Palo Alto where poor people live. We have this guy over there, I think he owns FaceBook. Zuckerberg is his name I think. Owning many billions, he wants to buy up a street in Palo Alto and create a monster house and compound, but they won?t let him, regardless of how much money he has. Palo Alto is populated by people who have a ton money. Everyone who lives there starts out as millionehhhs. There are billionehhhs there, but you need to be at least a millionehhh to even look at living there. Nearly East Palo Alto on the other side of the freeway is filled with paupers and vagabonds. This same FaceBook billionehhh could buy up a street in East Palo Alto. Those who hold that rental property would be most happy to let that go, no problem. Hell it?s only a coupla miles away. They love Zuckerberg there. The poor love the guy. They don?t resent him a bit. But the Palo Alto mere millionehhhs hate him. They wish he would go somewhere else. They don?t like being super rich and living the greatest place on the planet, only to have a crazy rich guy with 100 times as much money come park next to them. The poor don?t mind bit. They would roll out the welcome mat, and his presence would make their town waaaay safer, bring in actual city services, all based on the local taxes that one guy would pay. They love him! But Palo Alto already has everything it wants. They hate him. How does that observation figure into the economic big rip theory? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 20:34:49 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 15:34:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> <003401d4cf7d$87ebdbb0$97c39310$@rainier66.com> <9FED5724-BC09-4400-94E1-0B00F2491E96@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 12:10 PM Dylan Distasio wrote: *> Since when does Warren Buffet or anyone else get to speak for what I > would like to do with my own money?* I would maintain any argument in the form "X can't do Y because X doesn't have the right to do Y" is rendered invalid if X needs to do Y for civilization to continue. I can see no reason why technological progress won't accelerate the acceleration of the wealth gap, so unless you have another way of counteracting this trend I'd say X does indeed have a right to impose a progressive tax on Y especially if Y is super ultra crazy rich. I mean think about it, do you really expect things to just continue accelerating like this forever without not just blood but radioactive particles in the streets? Let's at least try to become the one intelligent species that beats the Fermi Paradox. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Feb 28 20:45:41 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 12:45:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] long game ventures Message-ID: <004a01d4cfa6$925ce7f0$b716b7d0$@rainier66.com> From: extropy-chat On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2019 12:10 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Michael Cohen? >?The situation in the 50s was a lot more complicated than what the Berners use as talking points in terms of effective tax rates: https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/ That?s part of it Dylan, but the easily grasped part is this: super high marginal tax rates up top make too many long-game investments unattractive. Unlike the 1950s, we have such long-game investments as bringing a promising new drug into the market. That is one of the most expensive, risky, high-payoff investments available today. Last I heard it costs half a billion dollars to get a new drug thru the FDA, and even it does, that is no guarantee of not getting sued to the cufflinks if the FDA misses something and it turns out to cause something else. In that case, the FDA is not liable, the drug manufacturer is liable. And even if it gets thru the FDA and doesn?t screw up something else, there is no guarantee some other competitor isn?t developing the same drug. And even if some other competitor isn?t, there is no guarantee the new drug will sell. And even if it does, the company can only clean up for 20 yrs, at which time the generics come calling, and your obscene profit is now seldom-seen. Result: a new drug is a crazy-high risk venture at a crazy high price. So the winners need to be rewarded to make those long-game ventures attractive. Most won?t make sense. Those which still do need to jack up the price to cover those taxes, which increase the risk the new drug will not sell, which increases the risk that no investor with a lick of sense will even bother to try. Result: no new drugs or therapies. Result: we die, just like the old days. Lesson: keep government?s grubby paws off the biggie investors? obscene profits. The chance to make obscene profit is what compels the super rich to play those long-game ventures. That?s why we still occasionally get new drugs and therapies, and why they cost so much when we do. Biggie investors are our friends. Their investments save lives. They are angel investors, these millionehhhs and billionehhhs. They are the good guys. I don?t care if they are motivated by greed or the chance to get obscene profit. They help us all. We should be making long-game ventures more attractive, not less. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From interzone at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 20:59:20 2019 From: interzone at gmail.com (Dylan Distasio) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 15:59:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> <003401d4cf7d$87ebdbb0$97c39310$@rainier66.com> <9FED5724-BC09-4400-94E1-0B00F2491E96@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: John- These same types of arguments are used in the New Green Deal to justify redistributing vast amounts of wealth to supposedly address climate change, and ensure social justice. I'm not interested in equality of outcome at the expense of all else. Actual equality of outcome is not possible due to human nature in any case. We can either do our best to ensure equality of opportunity or go down this road where all animals will be equal, but some will inevitably be more equal than others. I know you find it hard to believe how some supposed libertarians support some of the name which will not be spoken's policies, but I am equally perplexed how someone who was supposedly libertarian is willingly lobbying for forced wealth redistribution at the hands of a government entity. On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 3:45 PM John Clark wrote: > On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 12:10 PM Dylan Distasio > wrote: > > *> Since when does Warren Buffet or anyone else get to speak for what I >> would like to do with my own money?* > > > I would maintain any argument in the form "X can't do Y because X doesn't > have the right to do Y" is rendered invalid if X needs to do Y for > civilization to continue. I can see no reason why technological progress > won't accelerate the acceleration of the wealth gap, so unless you have > another way of counteracting this trend I'd say X does indeed have a right > to impose a progressive tax on Y especially if Y is super ultra crazy rich. > I mean think about it, do you really expect things to just continue > accelerating like this forever without not just blood but radioactive > particles in the streets? Let's at least try to become the one intelligent > species that beats the Fermi Paradox. > > 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 johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 21:26:01 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 16:26:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> <003401d4cf7d$87ebdbb0$97c39310$@rainier66.com> <9FED5724-BC09-4400-94E1-0B00F2491E96@alumni.virginia.edu> <001401d4cf8e$8ba30790$a2e916b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 3:20 PM Dylan Distasio wrote: > *The situation in the 50s was a lot more complicated than what the > Berners use as talking points in terms of effective tax rates:* > > https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/ > I grant you that in the 50s there were even more tax doges than there are now but let's look at Norway. Today with not just income taxes but value added taxes 54.8% of Norway's GDP goes to taxes verses only 26% for the USA; Government revenue as a percent of GDP And yet Norwegians are nearly twice as rich as Americans, the Gross National Income per person in Norway is $103,630 but in the USA it's only $55,200. Norwegians live longer and are much richer than Americans despite (or perhaps because of) being taxed higher. Gross National income per person And it's not just Norway, similar situations exist in Denmark Sweden Luxembourg and Australia. John K Clark > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 21:59:19 2019 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 15:59:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Norway et alia In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> <003401d4cf7d$87ebdbb0$97c39310$@rainier66.com> <9FED5724-BC09-4400-94E1-0B00F2491E96@alumni.virginia.edu> <001401d4cf8e$8ba30790$a2e916b0$@rainier66.com> Message-ID: https://brainstats.com/average-iq-in-norway.html Norway ranks 7th worldwide in average IQ, so they don't have as many low IQ people to drag the economy down. I'll bet that there are some countries where the difference between the arithmetic average and the median is significant. For example, I would strongly suspect that the curve in many African countries is positively skewed. Some surprises, like Israel. I do wonder what it would look like if we overlaid a chart of the average level of education - high correlation, I presume. bill w On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 3:31 PM John Clark wrote: > On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 3:20 PM Dylan Distasio > wrote: > > > *The situation in the 50s was a lot more complicated than what the >> Berners use as talking points in terms of effective tax rates:* >> >> https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/ >> > > I grant you that in the 50s there were even more tax doges than there are > now but let's look at Norway. Today with not just income taxes but value > added taxes 54.8% of Norway's GDP goes to taxes verses only 26% for the USA; > > Government revenue as a percent of GDP > > > And yet Norwegians are nearly twice as rich as Americans, the Gross > National Income per person in Norway is $103,630 but in the USA it's only > $55,200. Norwegians live longer and are much richer than Americans despite > (or perhaps because of) being taxed higher. > > Gross National income per person > > > And it's not just Norway, similar situations exist in Denmark Sweden > Luxembourg and Australia. > > 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 johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 22:11:23 2019 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 17:11:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Michael_Cohen=E2=80=8B?= In-Reply-To: References: <004d01d4cef3$1fb6b770$5f242650$@rainier66.com> <009701d4cf01$4ba63e10$e2f2ba30$@rainier66.com> <007401d4cf2a$7da9e7d0$78fdb770$@rainier66.com> <003401d4cf7d$87ebdbb0$97c39310$@rainier66.com> <9FED5724-BC09-4400-94E1-0B00F2491E96@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 4:10 PM Dylan Distasio wrote: > > *I'm not interested in equality of outcome at the expense of all > else. * > I never said outcomes have to be equal but don't you think it might lead to a more peaceful civilization if the wealth gap were to stop growing or at least stop accelerating? > *Actual equality of outcome is not possible due to human nature in any > case. * > With improvements in technology and AI in particular human nature will have less and less to do with it. Whatever you do for a living it's only a matter of time before a machine can do it better than you can, and when that day arrives I have a hunch strict libertarian economic ideas will look less appealing to you than they do now. > *I know you find it hard to believe how some supposed libertarians > support some of the name which will not be spoken's policies,* > Yes I find that quite bewildering! From the day He Who Shall Not Be Named announced his candidacy I've been begging my Libertarian friends to explain it to me but without success. > *but I am equally perplexed how someone who was supposedly libertarian is > willingly lobbying for forced wealth redistribution at the hands of a > government entity.* > After the Libertarian Party's disgraceful performance in 2016 I hesitate to call myself a libertarian anymore, and certainly not with a capital L. My views on social issues haven't changed much but they have on money matters because the evidence is clear that strict conformance to libertarian ideology on economic issues will lead to civilization ending disasters. It's just unrealistic to expect that the wealth gap can continue to accelerate like this indefinitely without billions of people becoming murderously enraged. I have a strong emotional attachment to libertarianism but for me the scientific method outranks it, I asked before if the same was true for you but received no answer. John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike at rainier66.com Thu Feb 28 22:56:46 2019 From: spike at rainier66.com (spike at rainier66.com) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 14:56:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] playing possum didn't help... Message-ID: <00bc01d4cfb8$e200c3a0$a6024ae0$@rainier66.com> ?because the spider wasn?t fooled: https://www.newsweek.com/watch-tarantula-opossum-amazon-rainforest-1347597 I read this article, and on they go about how ?horrifying? it is to see a giant spider devouring a mammal. Now I have a question please: Why is this particular beast any more horrifying than any other damn thing that devours opossums? If a bald eagle swooped down, nabbed the toothy bastard and hauled it away, what difference does it make from the possum?s point of view? Why would care if he is to become shit either way, whether it comes outta the ass of an eagle or the abdomen of an arthropod? I am figuring it was already dead when the spider found him, pretty likely from natural causes, for if a mammal with aaaallll thoooose teeeeth loses a fight against a cold-blooded slow moving BUG, then he deserves to be devoured for such a poor showing, sheesh. He would be dead anyway, from embarrassment! It would be like that guy in Hitchcock?s The Birds, with his marvelous opposable thumbs, losing a fight to a damn flock of beaks. Beaks! Shaaaameful. Think about it: a giant spider isn?t particularly dangerous. Tarantulas are actually rather gentle beasts. You can let them walk on your hands or bare skin, they don?t bite. They never figure out they are walking on a big hunk of meat, never try to reach down and tear out a piece of you. They can never get bigger than this dude, regardless of what you do (Hulk-inducing gamma rays?) because spiders don?t have lungs. The square-cube law catches them at this point. They can?t really even move fast at this size. Watch tarantulas in the wild: no hustle at all. There is NO EXCUSE for a possum to lose to one, a rat, a mouse, anything warm blooded should be able to easily kick his abdomen. In any case, the whole episode makes me realize this is an opportunity to make a buttload of money. I didn?t even know such things existed over in the rainforest. I can?t imagine where Bezos has been hiding them. I know it rains a lot in the Seattle area, but I never knew Amazon had their own rainforest. So I learn something new this day. In any case? you know that some people like to keep scary dangerous pets. Usually it?s just rattlesnakes and bulldogs and boring stuff like that, but now we can supply some really fun nightmarey stuff like this. We sneak over there, you distract the guards over at Amazon, I grab a coupla these things, a good healthy-looking mating pair, breed em, sell em, oh man, we could be rich and famous. You can cover famous, I?ll do rich. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 23:34:38 2019 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan TheBookMan) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 15:34:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] OT: The Dialectics of Liberty Message-ID: For those interested in cutting edge libertarian theory (as opposed to folks who believe libertarianism is just a lukewarm pro-business stance): https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/notablog/archives/002612.html Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books at: http://author.to/DanUst -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: