From extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Mon Mar 8 01:22:02 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA15400; Mon, 8 Mar 93 01:21:59 PST Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: from geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA21165; Mon, 8 Mar 93 01:21:56 PST Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (5.65/4.0) id ; Mon, 8 Mar 93 04:12:30 -0500 Message-Id: <9303080912.AA29425@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: ExI-Daily@gnu.ai.mit.edu Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 04:11:58 -0500 X-Original-Message-Id: <9303080911.AA29419@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu> X-Original-To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu From: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: Extropians Digest V93 #0111 X-Extropian-Date: Remailed on March 8, 373 P.N.O. [09:12:29 UTC] Reply-To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: OR Extropians Digest Mon, 8 Mar 93 Volume 93 : Issue 0111 Today's Topics: Abundance is a Myth, or, The Wealth of Ghettos [1 msgs] BET: Living for another 50 years [1 msgs] ECON/NANO/PHIL Defending Post-Scarcity [2 msgs] ECON/NANO: Post Scarcity [1 msgs] Ex-Incorrectness! [1 msgs] FEDS: The Feds are in (NOT) [1 msgs] MISC:Milquetoasts [1 msgs] Meta: LIBERTY.Echo or Armed Standoff in Texas [1 msgs] PHIL: Is Slavery possible under Natural Rights? [1 msgs] PHIL: Reincarnationists Not Deathists [4 msgs] POLI: Nazi-ficaiton [2 msgs] POLI: The Libertarian as Conservative [3 msgs] QUESTION: Is writing more satisfying than conversation? [1 msgs] SCI: (was unsubscribe) [1 msgs] WORK: Abolition thereof [1 msgs] Administrivia: This is the digested version of the Extropian mailing list. Please remember that this list is private; messages must not be forwarded without their author's permission. To send mail to the list/digest, address your posts to: extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu To send add/drop requests for this digest, address your post to: exi-daily-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu To make a formal complaint or an administrative request, address your posts to: extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu If your mail reader is operating correctly, replies to this message will be automatically addressed to the entire list [extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu] - please avoid long quotes! The Extropian mailing list is brought to you by the Extropy Institute, through hardware, generously provided, by the Free Software Foundation - neither is responsible for its content. Forward, Onward, Outward - Harry Shapiro (habs) List Administrator. Approximate Size: 53668 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 00:29:37 -0500 (EST) From: Carol Moore Subject: PHIL: Is Slavery possible under Natural Rights? When ever this topic came up in the past when Murray Rothbard honored libertarians by associating with them he would say-- Even if you made a contract to be a slave it is not a contract that any libertarian should make therefore you should be free to break it. (or something like that). In other words, he made the point that not all contracts are sacrosant and sometimes breaking them is the higher morality. Just thought I'd throw that in. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Mar 93 21:59:54 -0800 From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: Meta: LIBERTY.Echo or Armed Standoff in Texas Carol Moore writes: >I looked to see if anyone else was posting Tim's message >and what it seems to me I saw was just Tim posting his >message to both extropians and libernet (which is different >from liberty). But he should be able to explain. My name is Tim, one of several on this list (Starr, Freeman, Lang, Graf, Craig, and me, last time I checked). Perhaps Carol means me. Except I don't get Libernet and have never posted to it. Harry Shapiro's message of a few days ago said some of my stuff from this list was on Libernet. I didn't put it there. Hope this clarifies things, but somehow I doubt it does. -Tim May -- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: MailSafe and PGP available. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1993 23:13:47 -0500 (EST) From: Carol Moore Subject: POLI: Nazi-ficaiton Below In Mr. Hall's message is the second reference I've seen to the phrase "Feminazi" used here (perhaps also by Mr. Hall.) I've also seen this on Libernet andd will reply here as I do there-- Just because some feminists call for a variety of unpleasant laws is no reason to use the phrase feminazis--unless one carefuly describes the class of feminists to which it is applied. I have known at least 5 self-styled libertarians who either used to be fans of Hitler (as strategist, if not content) or who hung with big Hitler fans, talking about "freedom of speech". And let's not forget that David Duke calls himslef a libertairan. But I don't want to see other people thereby calling all libertarians "libernazis". Nor would I call libertarians who want to out law abortion "libernazis" though they want to turn half the human race into sex slaves. If we are going to call those who advocate laws we don't like Nazis, then let us append the pharse to all statist isms -- Democratnazis, Republicanazis, NRA-Nazis (the ones who want to lock up drug users), pot legalization-nazis (the ones who want to lock up, say, libertarians who won't pay pot taxes after its legal) ETC ETC ETC. THANKS!! On Sat, 6 Mar 1993, Andrew S Hall wrote: > > This is a quote from Michael Sheehan, spokeslackey in the Operation > Longarm raid. > > " The thing thats troubling about this high-tech porn is that it can > endlessly duplicated, endlessly sold, and the child is endlessly > victimized." > > Assuming that merely viewing a sample of kiddie porn victimizes > the child (which seems like total bullshit to me), does this mean > that I could use some top line image processors and modify kiddie > porn such that it was no longer a specific child, but an "ideal" > combination of many children and this would legal? Wanna bet that > the Feds would allow this? > > If I had the luxury of time and money, it would most interesting > to see how the Feds and the Christian/Feminazi thought police deal > with this, In the future one could create custom porno that > represents the consumer's ideal fantasy. One could even create figures > that have no determined sex and cause them to be horribly abused, even > snuffed. I am sure that they would also consider this a crime. > > Andrew Hall ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 00:18:06 -0500 (EST) From: Carol Moore Subject: PHIL: Reincarnationists Not Deathists You should have started off your comment with IMHO since that is what it is. The idea that consciousness passing from body to body **automatically** **Implies** that this life of less value incorrect. I and many others believe one tends to become wiser from life to life. Even is **SOME** reincarnationists hold that it means life has less value does not mean all do. Also, why is it wrong to hold that once the body is falling apart and of no use it is wrong/deathist to want to leave it, rest in a between life state, and then go on to a new life. In that case, death of the body is a blessing. So to throw "deathist" at someone like the greatest of all sins may be a flawed negative evaluation. Perahps there is is still that tendency to find an "ism" to hate from your upbringing in communist Poland- many of us still desire to find an enemy ism. to me, of course, the prime one (besides ignorance-ism) is sexism! ;-) On 7 Mar 1993 KMOSTA01@ULKYVX.LOUISVILLE.EDU wrote: > > Carol asks if extropianism can include reincarnationists? > > Let me just comment that any belief in any form of after-life, or life > beyond the one we have, implies decrease in value of this life, thus > easier justification for deathism, and human sacrifice. This, IMHO, is > the reason that such beliefs when combined with government force > tend to result in genocidal terror. > IMHO, marxism is yet another example of such a combination. > Krzys' ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Mar 93 14:25:09 EST From: pmetzger@shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger) Subject: WORK: Abolition thereof > From: drw@bourbaki.mit.edu > > Actually, one really doesn't have to work in this society, *if* one is > willing to live at the level of material wealth that the Kalahari San > (whom Bob Black thinks are so ideal). > > Think of it -- if you are willing to do without: > cars > telephones > televisions > VCRs > indoor plumbing > houses > central heating (the Kalahari is reasonably warm) > doctors > it really doesn't take much money. You can probably suck up enough > money from welfare, or charity, or panhandling, or something. More significantly, Bob Black doesn't understand economics. Of course, if you are willing to live a 19th century lifestyle, you can probably get away with only a couple hours of work a week. People work the hours they do to maintain a 20th century lifestyle. In the next century, it will be possible to maintain a 20th century lifestyle with only a few hours of work a week or even less, but people won't be terribly happy doing it. Eventually, after strong nanotech, people will be able to afford quite luxurious lifestyles without work -- but those of us who work will look like gods, resource-wise. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Mar 93 14:21:05 EST From: pmetzger@shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger) Subject: BET: Living for another 50 years > From: hal@alumni.cco.caltech.edu (Hal Finney) > > Many people have noticed that there has been a lot of name-calling > in the cryonics community for the past several months. These stem > from a political battle involving the leadership of Alcor, the largest > cryonics organization. > > But this is an aberration, IMO. It is a temporary glitch in the long-term > growth of the organization. Alcor management has changed, and at least > on Cryonet there has been a noticeable degree of calming. More significantly, in some sense it does not matter. This is not to say that I would not like a stable Alcor, but to say that given the lack of an alternative signing up still makes sense. Pascal's wager is a bad idea when we are talking about belief in god because from a game theoretic standpoint it fails to take into account costs as well as benefits. The very large cost of becoming religious is not properly weighed against the infinitesimal chance of there being a god. On the other hand, the cryonics variation on Pascal's wager is pretty good. The costs of signing up for cryonics are very low for someone like myself -- a year's cryonics dues are less than my typical monthly dining-out budget. On the other hand, the benefits can be extremely high, and the odds of success, while not good, are not infinitesimal. Since the cost is low, I see no reason not to go with it. Tim May's not signing up for cryonics seems a little irrational. Even if he doesn't believe that it will necessarily work, the only alternative he has is rotting in the ground, which will most certainly NOT work. The mere fact that Alcor might be unstable isn't the point -- I readily admit that the odds of it working are low, but there is no alternative and the cost is negligible for someone of Tim's financial means. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Mar 93 14:38:31 EST From: pmetzger@shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger) Subject: FEDS: The Feds are in (NOT) > From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) > * A few years ago, NetNews was around 5 MB a day. I assume by now it's much > higher. Just as a bit of information, it is now an order of magnitude larger, and seems to be doubling almost yearly. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Mar 93 16:05:03 EST From: pmetzger@shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger) Subject: PHIL: Reincarnationists Not Deathists > From: KMOSTA01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu > > Carol asks if extropianism can include reincarnationists? > > Let me just comment that any belief in any form of after-life, or life > beyond the one we have, implies decrease in value of this life, thus > easier justification for deathism, and human sacrifice. This, IMHO, is > the reason that such beliefs when combined with government force > tend to result in genocidal terror. > IMHO, marxism is yet another example of such a combination. I could care less if it lowered the value of the current life or what have you -- what I care about is "what is true". The implication that we would deny the truth if it conflicted with what would seem most expedient is disturbing. Ignoring this question, however, I will note that so far as I can tell there is no credible evidence whatsoever for reincarnation as conventionally described. Indeed, as conventionally described, the notion is not merely unproven but non-falsifyable, and I therefore consider the hypothesis ignorable. In other words, so far as I can tell, there is no rational reason to believe in reincarnation and a rational individual would, given current evidence, discount the possibility. Perry u until I am presented with However, in this case, So far as I can tell, there is no t ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Mar 93 16:10:15 EST From: pmetzger@shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger) Subject: POLI: The Libertarian as Conservative > From: sulko-m@acsu.buffalo.edu (Mark A. Sulkowski) > > I have never understood the anti-work anarchists. As if > people could somehow exist without some kind of productive work. Something else that disturbs me about the whole idea is this -- nature tends to favor laziness in the sense that creatures that spend energy needlessly are selected against. Nature selects for the most efficient lifestyles possible. A creature that uses a great deal of energy getting its food (relatively speaking) will not have as much success as one that can get its food without much effort. We would expect that if lifestyles that did not involve much work were just as good, all other things being equal, that given the number of seperate cultures that have evolved on earth the ones that spent the least effort for the same gain would be the most successful. Now, in some sense this has happened -- the industrialized cultures where small efforts yield great results are starting to dominate. However, were the likes of Mr. Black right, and the lifestyles of kalihari bushmen optimal, we would wonder why it was that we would be encroaching on the bushmen and not vice versa. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 1:54:35 WET From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: PHIL: Reincarnationists Not Deathists Carol Moore writes: > > I didn't remember my past lives either until I tried > a very simple hypnotic trance and suggestion technique. > (Of course I'd had a lot of meditiation experience so > it was easy.) > > Saw myself as American soldier who went to Europe to > fight the Nazis because "American must save the world" > and hung out as a spy along the barges of the canals > of Holland/Netherlands and was blown up in a barge. [rest elided] I personally believe that with very high probability you have actually experienced what you describe. (I would say that only a small amount of people conciously lie about such things). I have real problems when it comes to discerning the difference between dreams/hallucinations and reality. I usually dream with very high resolution and detail about such things. Years after seeing the TV movie _V_ (about aliens coming to earth to take its water and to abduct humans for food) I had dreams about being abducted. These dreams were so real and frightening that I jumped out of bed, heart pounding, labored breathing, adrenalin pumping. I've also dreamed myself back to the 1920s, and beyond. The subconcious is the greatest fiction writer I know of. I could never write stories as good as those I dream. Given that the brain has the capability to "fill in" details. How can you tell the difference between true memories, and those that are merely hallucinations? This is a serious issue, especially when it comes to childhood sexual abuse. There have been several cases of people creating false memories and pressing sexual abuse charges. Even polygraphic tests don't work. One could argue, "I've never read any history about the Battle of the Bulge, so how could my memories correspond to actual history if they aren't real?". First, I don't think anyone can really take into everything they've experienced. A comment made about a WWII battle by a friend, or a TV movie could have supplied your subconcious with the neccessary facts to recreate the battle. Secondly, there haven't been any real studies with control groups to test reincarnation. It's really hard to construct a control group of people who've never been influenced, even indirectly, by history. Then again, maybe extropians are reincarnated citizens of anarchocapitalist Iceland. We have come through time to meet together at the "gathering" (extropians list) to search for the "Prize", real free-market capitalism. There can be only one! ;-) -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- EE/Math Student | politics is the implementation of faith. -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | - Zetetic Commentaries -- ------------------------------ Date: 8 Mar 93 02:08:00 EST From: "Thomas D Burns" Subject: Abundance is a Myth, or, The Wealth of Ghettos Timothy C. May writes: >Yes, some goods will be much more "abundant" than now, but it will be >the ersatz abundance of the dole, of the housing projects, and of >multigenerational dependence on government. [plus a lot of elided stuff about people who aren't smart being useless after Nanoday] There have always been people at the bottom of the heap, but there has not always been an underclass, a community with no communityness. Walter Williams talks about what it was like growing up poor in Baltimore - there was still a (Xycommunity. If that could be revived, then the dole becomes unnecessary. Not that they will then all become famous economists, but that they will be able to survive, even prosper, on the margins of society. How do we revive community? Perhaps I'm being simplistic (or boundlessly optimistic?) but it seems to me that people would do it on their own if the State wasn't stopping them. Maybe it won't be so easy, but surely not impossible? To me, the ghetto seems like a supersaturated social solution, poised to precipitate. Communities are self-organizing, self-reconstructing, like viruses. The State, by monopolizing the functions that PPL would fill, parasitizes community. Maybe a resistant strain will result. Maybe we can be part of the process. Seems like an entrepreneurial opportunity to me. If only I wasn't just an armchair reformer! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Dave Burns tburns@gmuvax.gmu.edu 10310 Main Street #116, Fairfax, VA 22030 (703) 993-1142 Breakfast:IMPOSSIBLE ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1993 23:07:11 -0800 From: D Anton Sherwood Subject: ECON/NANO: Post Scarcity Scott Delancey asks: > Imagine > a situation in which there was little or nothing which you needed to > own in order to ensure your access to whatever material support you > might want? What would be the role of private property in such a > context? Assuming a history of property institutions, I think the right to property would still be recognized even though in particular cases it were waived (even for a majority of the mass/energy in circulation). A couple of examples of such waivers come to mind. I waive my property rights in the sewage I generate, but no one denies that it is mine if I choose to keep it (and manage it without disturbing the neighbors). Indeed, with nanotech sewage is likely to be an important resource. Wide sidewalks downtown usually have a little plaque saying "Right to pass over by permission and subject to control of owner" -- meaning that the owner of the land has found it convenient to waive the right to restrict your freedom to trespass, but may assert it at any time. When an advertiser distributes leaflets with a "take one" sign in a public place, property in the leaflets is waived. - - - Hal Finney says: > Of course, nanotech will have even more impact. Free or "shared" > software may be useful and helpful, but once that same freedom is > available for food, clothing, and shelter we can expect fundamental > changes in our lives. People will no longer have to work to survive. > Even the poorest of the poor can have their material needs satisfied. It takes finite effort for me to make my software available to you. Distribution of software (including software for nano-factories) will still be a service, probably charged for in some way. Anton Sherwood dasher@well.sf.ca.us +1 415 267 0685 1800 Market St #207, San Francisco 94102 USA "Don't forget, your mind only *simulates* logic." -- Glen C. Perkins ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1993 23:07:45 -0800 From: D Anton Sherwood Subject: Ex-Incorrectness! Someone wrote: > Guns are the ultimate equalizer. Ultimate? You can't conceive that there would ever be a better equalizer? Entropian! Neophobe! Nattering negativist! Anton Sherwood dasher@well.sf.ca.us +1 415 267 0685 1800 Market St #207, San Francisco 94102 USA "Don't forget, your mind only *simulates* logic." -- Glen C. Perkins ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1993 23:10:12 -0800 From: D Anton Sherwood Subject: MISC:Milquetoasts David Friedman, author of a Dawkins-esque essay about the optimum amount of dishonesty (was it in "Liberty"?), says: > Tim May raises the question of why he does not simply keep a low > profile vis a vis the state. . . . There are lots of situations where it > is in your interest to be known to be the sort of person who would do > X in situation Y, even though when situation Y arrives it is in your > interest not to do X. . . . > If we are not perfect liars (and we are not, for reason I think > explainable), then one strategy for appearing to be such a person is > to be such a person. There's another (or related) reason for openness: If Tim keeps his views secret, it is harder for him to find people who agree with him, and he may lose opportunities. (Harry Browne brings this up.) I saw his .signature in some newsgroup, and would have invited him to the list, but someone had beat me to it by a few weeks. I once heard someone mention, in a room crowded with Extropians most of whom he had never met before, that his livelihood is illegal. (Artificially so, of course.) He took a risk, but a much smaller risk than with a similar number of random people. He may well profit by having "come out". In "Icehenge", the diarist Emma Weil finds herself in a spaceship hijacked by revolutionaries, some of her close friends among them. She asks herself: Why didn't they know I was with them? Couldn't they see I was insincere in pretending to be a loyal communist? And she answers herself: How should they see what I hid from the Political Officer? Anton Sherwood dasher@well.sf.ca.us +1 415 267 0685 1800 Market St #207, San Francisco 94102 USA "Don't forget, your mind only *simulates* logic." -- Glen C. Perkins ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1993 23:03:12 -0800 (PST) From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) Subject: PHIL: Reincarnationists Not Deathists Carol Moore: > ...IMHO... OK, IMHO. (I take that back! When I say something it's _everybody's_ opinion! Or at least it should be! :-) > Also, why is it wrong to hold that once the body is > falling apart and of no use it is wrong/deathist > to want to leave it, rest in a between life state, > and then go on to a new life. In that case, > death of the body is a blessing. To desire death, for whatever reason, is deathist. I don't see how it can be otherwise, without the word "deathist" losing its meaning. The extropian principles specifically eschew both deathism and the belief in unverifiable phenomenon like reincarnation (or do you have evidence?), so directly from this I wouldn't be surprised if most list members, as well as myself, consider your beliefs to be wrong. I'll hedge just enough to say I'm agnostic, I don't think unverifiable beliefs are _a priori_ wrong, but find no more reason to believe in reincarnation than in the afterlife worlds of the quaint theophagic (not merely cannibalistic!) cult I was raised in. I tend to spend my time learning fruitful, verified or verifiable things, which means mostly things that can be explained scientifically. (This doesn't mean I don't study things like religion; just that I tend to approach them from a functional consequences/memetic approach, not from a beliefs right vs. wrong approach). I'm interested in how Carol's belief system deals with the possibility of cryonics. What happens to the "consciousness" during cryonic suspension? Does it become reborn in another body? If not, how does it "know" that the old body will be reanimated? If so, what happens if the old body is reanimated? Friendly :-), Nick Szabo szabo@techbook.com ------------------------------ Date: 8 Mar 93 02:13:00 EST From: "Thomas D Burns" Subject: POLI: The Libertarian as Conservative Mark A. Sulkowski writes: I have never understood the anti-work anarchists. Your definition of 'work' and Black's differ. I'm not sure I can explain his view, since I don't think it makes much sense. Work for him is only mindless, unchallenging work that the worker doesn't care about other than to make a buck. If you care about your work, or enjoy it, or take pride in it, the to Black it isn't work. He would probably claim that this non-work (call it work') can only be found by not having a boss, or a set schedule, etc. Small non-heirachical organizations might be okay, but best is some craftsman doing his own thing. I think he's wrong because if work had none of the characteristics of work', then nobody would get anything done. Contemporary society may not have reach the optimum of management techniques, but we're far from the theoretical minimum. Good employee morale is good for profits. That doesn't mean, of course, that no company will survive that is a crappy place to work. But it's getting harder for them every day. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Dave Burns tburns@gmuvax.gmu.edu 10310 Main Street #116, Fairfax, VA 22030 (703) 993-1142 Breakfast:IMPOSSIBLE ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1993 23:09:09 -0800 From: D Anton Sherwood Subject: POLI: The Libertarian as Conservative Bob Black says: > . . . This is not to say that the > state isn't just as unsavory as the libertarians say it is. > But it does suggest that the state is important, not so much > for the direct duress it inflicts on convicts and > conscripts, for instance, as for its indirect back-up of > employers who regiment employees, shopkeepers who arrest > shoplifters, and parents who paternalize children. Black is the sort who takes disagreement as proof that he has hit home, but he's not listening so I'll say this anyway: If I don't work, the state isn't going to come punish me; I just won't get paid. Few libertarians will object if Black never works a lick, so long as he doesn't expect us to feed him. If I don't pay rent, the state isn't going to come punish me (in San Francisco, it will defend me); I just won't find anyone willing to provide me shelter. (I suppose Black considers it coercive to hold that if I stop paying rent, my right to the space ends.) If merchants were forbidden to discourage shoplifters, open shelves would disappear. As for children, couldn't he find another word than "paternalize"?? Anton Sherwood dasher@well.sf.ca.us +1 415 267 0685 1800 Market St #207, San Francisco 94102 USA "Don't forget, your mind only *simulates* logic." -- Glen C. Perkins ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1993 23:35:17 -0800 (PST) From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) Subject: POLI: Nazi-ficaiton Carol Moore: > I have known at least 5 self-styled libertarians who > either used to be fans of Hitler (as strategist, if > not content) or who hung with big Hitler fans, talking > about "freedom of speech". Hitler strategy fans? Come on. Any sufficiently military-minded male is impressed with the early successes of WWII German blitzkreig, the most successful, efficient military campaigns of this century. But this was an accomplishment of Prussian Army discipline and generals like Guderian and Rommel, not of Hitler. Hitler's disgusting politics and crimes aside, look at what he did -- drove out or killed the talented Jewish scientists who went on to build the a-bomb, and called it "eugenics" (!), delayed the first jet fighter Me-262 by several years, stopped the German advance at Dunkirk that could have surrounded the British Army, made the really stupid decision to invade the Soviet Union before making peace with Britain or attacking taking their possesions in the Middle East, etc. Hitler was consumately and digustingly successful as a statist politician until he pushed his country into war; a master strategist he was not. As a result of the power Hitler _could_ have had, I've seen many boys & men play-act "what if I was Hitler", but it's because they were impressed by his potential power, not by what he actually accomplished or what he beleived. Well, I guess I can't speak for every Hitler "fan" but that's my observation of the "fans" I know. BTW, "feminazi" originated with call-in show host Rush Limbaugh, who specifically says he refers to a small group of people (the feminist leaders: Ireland, Steinem, Faludi, etc.) not to feminists in general. The popularity of this meme is not too surprising; Limbaugh is a master at creating them, even if he does come off as the stereotypical conservative jerk. Nick Szabo szabo@techbook.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 2:47:39 WET From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: ECON/NANO/PHIL Defending Post-Scarcity I wonder. How could anything ever be "post scarce"? If individuals are allowed to make/build _ANYTHING_ they want, then by literal interpretation of scarcity and attention to the laws of conservation, space, energy, and matter will become scarce. (i.e. there is only one sun in this solar system. If I decided to build a dyson sphere, others are prevented from doing so or using the sun's energy unless I sell them some energy.) On the other hand, if you pass a law saying that each individual is entitled to only X matter, Y energy, and Z m^3 at space-time coordinates (x,y,z,t) _you_ are imposing artificial scarcity on the whole of human society. It doesn't matter if 51% of the population is satisfied with X,Y,Z matter/energy/space, some people will be forced to endure "scarcity". Remember, subjective scarcity is in the eye of the beholder. Westerners might feel their lifestyle is scarce, but they consume 20 times more than Third-Worlders, and probably 200 times more than Bushmen. If Bushmen wrote sci-fi, they'd probably imagine a society like the West. Read Vernor Vinge's _Marooned in real-time_ for the scerario I described. In it, one of characters purchases the rights to mine anti-matter in the solar wind close to the sun. They didn't need just a little anti-matter, they needed as much as they could get because they wanted to implode a brown dwarf to create a Tipler time-machine. Now what would happen if another company wanted to do the same thing to yet another brown dwarf? If the whole output of Sol is needed to do just one Tipler cylinder, scarcity rears its head. Faster-than-light travel didn't exist in _Marooned_ so it isn't feasible to get it from another star. Post-scarcity is a pipe dream. As the scale of human engineering increases (as it will if nanotech arises), even MORE matter and energy will be needed per person, not less. There will always be the need to allocate resources, and the only system that works reliably is a market, preferably a free one. -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- EE/Math Student | politics is the implementation of faith. -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | - Zetetic Commentaries -- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 08 Mar 93 07:34:35 GMT From: Michael Clive Price Subject: SCI: (was unsubscribe) Eric S. Raymond asks: >> bin. As for QM/Schrodinger's Cat - there are a number of >> interpretations (and different categorisations possible): >> - hidden variables (Bohm) >> - many-worlds (Everett) >> - sum-over-histories (Feynman) >> - participatory model (Wheeler) >> - Copenhagenism (Bohr plus others) >> - complementarity (Bohr) > > OK, maybe you can tell me which formal model of the Schrodinger's Cat > paradox (SCP) my analysis fits with..[analysis deleted for brevity] You described the Copenhagen Interpretation (aka 'standard' interpretation), which views the observer as collapsing the wavefunction. As you say, paraphrasing, reductionism blows Copenhagen out of the water, since the 'observer' is incapable of objective definition. > Farewell SCP, and with is untold tons of pop-science blather. Agreed! But the question is, what interpretation do you replace Copenhagen with? I go for many-worlds with a dash of sum-over-histories thrown in for good measure. In many-worlds the wavefunction is viewed as a real entity which never collapses (since the collapse violates relativity and reductionsim). Mike Price (price@price.demon.co.uk) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 00:27:36 -0800 (PST) From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) Subject: ECON/NANO/PHIL Defending Post-Scarcity Jay: > Paraphrase of Post Scarcity Scoffer: "Slowed population growth? No > thanks. I'll take boundless expansion." But is this anything more than abstract belief? Is there any motivation behind this belief that would cause it to be acted upon? > Boundless expansion is fun. Until you drown in your own excrement. Boundless expansion does not seem to be fun, even (especially?) when one is wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of the previous generation. It is much more fun to spend the kid's inheritence, to paraphrase the bumper sticker, funner yet to not be bothered by kids at all. This is regardless of whether one believes in boundless expansion or not, in the abstract sense. Anybody who really wants to expand, rather than just talk about it, needs to reengineer their basic emotions away from the built-in genetic ones, which have already been obsoleted by technology, and towards emotions that in fact result in expanding behavior. > My fear is we almost get to Post Scarcity, and the whole > Industrial Machine conks out/dissolves into entropy from Ecocrash. This is silly. Paul Dietz & I have posted extensively on this in sci.environment; too bad I don't have the stuff on-line to go over again. For now I'll just point out that there is no resource, mineral or biological, running out that cannot be substituted by expending a tiny fraction of world GDP. Neither ozone depletion or global warming in the worst-case scenarios pose any serious threat to human expansion. A mass extinction from destroying the rain forests would have very little effect on civilization. That's not to say it's desirable; just to say that it's more like the local zoo animals escaping than it's like our life support systems being shut down. The children might cry for a while, but they'll grow up and forget about it. (Indeed, that seems to be the major mode of replication of the ecofascist memes, is to tell scary stories to children. Usually other people's children.) Meanwhile, check out authors Julian Simon and Herman Kahn (I believe the former's book is listed in the list welcome message). > I believe in a human compulsion to have sex--and nothing else. > There's no drive to reproduce, because throughout evolutionary > history we didn't *need* one; the desire for sex was enough. Alas, here I must agree with you. I think we differ on the desirability of the consequences. For those who want a halt in the near term, and don't care much about the implosion of our own cultures as a side effect, or the long-term consequences for civilization in general, the severing of sex from reproduction is good news. For those like me who want expansion now and in the future, and are not into reactionary denial about the consequences of technology, this is a serious problem. The fundamental problem, the lack of extropian motivation (as opposed to mere extropian belief), does not go away even with uploading, although uploading does provide a wide range of possibilities for reengineering one's basic motivations (in fact the necessity, since trying to eat, sleep, have sex, etc. in "normal" ways would be silly). > Homosexuality might have arisen as a natural population curber for > H+G tribes- Here I must recommend Richard Dawkin's _The Selfish Gene_ to dispel notions that behaviors arise "for the good of the species". Genes are selected by a very simple algorithm, and their "goal" is quite the opposite of limiting their own population, any way you slice it. >-if a homosexual helps in the successful raising of > nieces/nephews sharing his genes, then he 'reproduces' without > reproducing... If so, population has now _increased_. Anyway, homosexuality may not have made much difference in traditional societies with marraige and without effective birth control; all ya had to do was get it up long enough a few times in the one or two months between pregnancy/lactation. In modern cities there is probably selection pressure against, since in fact their nieces and nephews raise no more children than anybody else. The jury is not in on any of these issues. Homosexuality seems to be about 50-70% genetic, about the same range as for IQ. There may be selective side effects that outweigh the direct effects of these genes, they are multifactorial and probably recessive, etc. "Post-scarcity" remains fallacious whether the population is 10 or 10 quintillion, unless you totally reengineer motivations so that nobody has any ambitions at all. Nick Szabo szabo@techbook.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Mar 93 00:18:06 -0800 From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: QUESTION: Is writing more satisfying than conversation? Is the electronic discourse of this sort of list more satisfying to people than ordinary verbal discourse? What do I mean by this? Consider first some miscellaneous points, from my own recent experiences: * Data Point: After Anton Sherwood and I had exchanged various e-mail messages on this list for several weeks, we looked forward to meeting in person--at a Keith Henson party. Lo and behold, we both recognized each other. We had perhaps even chatted at parties the way strangers often do--if so, I don't remember anything said. But in e-mail, real stuff got exchanged. As Anton's own message of this evening points out, it was my .sig that caught his interest. Understand that I've held my crypto anarchist views for several years, but in a person-to-person conversation, they probably wouldn't come up, so Anton didn't know my views (nor did I suspect his depth of arcane knowledge about all sorts of things, as I now do from his postings). * Data Point: A month or so ago, I looked forward with great anticipation to meeting with Max More and Hal Finney, down in L.A. Jay Skleer (Jay Prime Positive) also showed up later. I got to Max's house at around 4 and stayed 'til around 10. I can't speak for Max and Hal, but I felt somewhat of a letdown. Not with _them_, you understand, but with the kind of aimlessness and general "sitting-around" that resulted. None of us really got fired up and into a lecturing, discoursive mode (though I'm sure we're all capable of it...sometimes I do this at parties, though less often lately). So the in-person gathering seemed to me to be relatively low-energy compared to what I was expecting. (On the other hand, the party in SF sponsored by Harry Shapiro really "clicked" for some reason. Lots of energy, lots of ideas going around. Perhaps it was just the circumstances, or the size of the crowd. Or perhaps face-to-face encounters can be like threads on lists: some are really hot, some are cool, and some are just best avoided altogether. Perhaps I'm already answering my own question....) * Data Point: Saturday afternoon I stopped off at Robin Hanson's house to pick up the "Physics and Computation" Proceedings he had so kindly gotten for some of us. We talked for about 30 minutes or so about the conference, about crypto protocols, about the information theory thread, and about a few other things. But, speaking again only for myself, it seemed a bit strained, a bit low-energy. As if we each had things to write little essays about, to develop theories about, but could not efficiently get them across in the typical American style of conversational repartee. We both even talked about how less information seems to be gotten across in direct encounters than in electronic encounters. (If true, this goes against most of the comments about higher bandwidth in personal encounters. Whatever is gained by higher bandwidth may be partly taken away by the imposed conversational patterns.) Europeans allow longer conversational blocks, more "speechifying," than Americans are used to. Perhaps the thrust of this post is that I'm getting more and more uncomfortable with the banalities of typical repartee. * Data Point: Even in the so-called "physical Cypherpunks" meetings, where we meet monthly for an entire Saturday afternoon, something similar happens. Weg et bogged down in bad puns, in backtracking explanations of basic ideas, and in other things which slow things down. * Data Point: I was just reading in misc.writing that writers find other writers incredibly boring in person, though exciting in print. A typical comment is that at gatherings of writers, all the writers--even famed intellects--want to talk about is the latest word processor, the current prices being paid, etc. This seems similar to the points I'm making. Putting these various data points together, a few reasons seem likely: 1. In e-mail, as in published writings of other kinds, we are forced to develop an argument, to present evidence (without interruption!), and basically to "make a statement." Conversations are much different. 2. Our written statements succinctly "advertise" our positions. And by dint of being broadcast to hundreds (or more) readers at the same time, those interested in our ideas can find out immediately that we have something of interest to them. Conversation remains the same "linear diffusion" process that it was a century ago (though conversation as a result of "computerized intellectual dating" (a new term?) may be increasingly important in the future). 3. Perhaps we (I?) have come to expect too much in face to face conversations. No longer content to talk about old staples like music, no longer content to just sit around and ponder things in vague terms, it may not be surprising that conversations seem to have a kind of "flat" quality to them. (As an aside, at Max's house we _did_ end up talking about the musical group "The Shamen," as Max had a couple of their CDs on.) 4. Conversations involve people with different interests, different agendas. Others are unlikely to be up on the same areas as one's self, so a kind of dampening effect occurs. The lowest common denominator--music, sports, the weather, politics, etc.--then takes over. (The same is true in writing, but writer generally assumes the "ideal reader," that is, his target audience is assumed to be well-informed, interested, etc. A rapt audience, even if not true in fact. This makes for a much more stimulating motivation, as it were.) Maybe I'm just losing my patience, or my ability to converse in normal ways. It does seem strange that in many conversational situations, I find myself anxious to have them end so I can get back to writing! I am curious if others are seeing anything like this effect. -Tim, just wondering -- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: MailSafe and PGP available. ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 Issue #0111 ****************************************