From extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Tue Mar 9 21:16:42 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA19519; Tue, 9 Mar 93 21:16:41 PST Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: from churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA17700; Tue, 9 Mar 93 21:16:28 PST Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu (5.65/4.0) id ; Wed, 10 Mar 93 00:05:27 -0500 Message-Id: <9303100505.AA01003@churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: ExI-Daily@gnu.ai.mit.edu Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 00:05:01 -0500 X-Original-Message-Id: <9303100505.AA00995@churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu> X-Original-To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu From: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: Extropians Digest V93 #0119 X-Extropian-Date: Remailed on March 10, 373 P.N.O. [05:05:26 UTC] Reply-To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: OR Extropians Digest Wed, 10 Mar 93 Volume 93 : Issue 0119 Today's Topics: Abundance is a Myth, or, The Wealth of Ghettos [1 msgs] ECON/ALIEN: Invasion of the Self-Owned Organizations [2 msgs] ECON/NANO/PHIL: Drive to reproduce [1 msgs] ECON: Winners and Losers in Technology [1 msgs] FYI/META/CONF/POLI/LIST/CHANGE/PREFIXES: No More Prefixes! [1 msgs] FYI/META/CONF/POLI/LIST/CHANGE/PREFIXES: No More Prefixes!! [4 msgs] FYI/Meta: - Prefixes (NO ":" no prefix) [1 msgs] HUMOR: Fast; cheap; correct. . . . [1 msgs] MATH: Dale Worley's useful facts [1 msgs] MEDIA: (non) Deathist Bias in (some) Popular Cultures(s) [1 msgs] META: More on the Prefix Probem [1 msgs] META: No More Prefixes! [1 msgs] META: Responding to Ancient Messages [1 msgs] Meta/Prefix: Future List Features [1 msgs] No More Prefixes!! [1 msgs] OLDIE: Abundance is a Myth [1 msgs] PHIL: Reincarnation [1 msgs] PPLs:extracting compensation [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: 53359 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 17:19:22 EST From: Brian.Hawthorne@East.Sun.COM (Brian Holt Hawthorne - SunSelect Engineering) Subject: ECON/ALIEN: Invasion of the Self-Owned Organizations > Though you probably could get away with self-ownership if you had > several corporations owning each other circularly, since nobody would > ever notice the loop. I suspect you would notice the loop, unless the corporations were in different countries. If they were all US corporations, they would have to claim as an asset on their books the corporation which they owned. If A owned B owned C owned A, then the assets of A would be B plus other assets. Thus A > B > C > A. I'm sure that some government auditor would notice the discrepency immediately and confiscate the whole lot. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 18:07:14 EST From: david@WAL6000B.UDC.UPENN.EDU (R. David Murray) Subject: PPLs:extracting compensation E. Dean Tribble writes: > There's a simple conseuqence of this: don't invest in anonymous > businesses. If you can't see how you'll get your money back, or where > the accountability for failure is, you would be a fool to invest. > > There are much more complicated scenarios, but in general, this is not > a problem. I think you misunderstood me. I was not bringing this up as a problem, but as a /solution/ . The problem is: how to enable the creation of businesses while limiting the risk to the investors/proprietors. If such limitations cannot be acheived, there are some relatively risky businesses that will not emerge in the market. One way to create limited liability is to sign contracts with the investors to that effect. I agree with you, this seems the most likely way in a fully developed PPL society (nb: that was a market prediction ). But suppose the transition to PPL is Tim's crypto-anarchy path? During the transition, we can create otherwise illegal information based businesses completely anonymously. Assuming digital cash, investment in such businesses can be profitable. It would be sensible to invest crypts in an anonymous business if it had a solid reputation and a superior ROI. Getting that solid reputation is the hard part, of course. But if things changed, and it went bankrupt, the people behind the business would have automatic limited liability: only cyphs actually invested under the business name would be lost, not whatever personal cyphs the proprietors might have. And only the business reputation would be lost, not the reputation of the individuals. Yes, investing in an anyonymous business is risky, but high risk /can/ also mean high profits, yes? And if this is the path to PPL, I can imagine limited liability through anonymous ids remaining the /customary/ way limited liability is acheived. Further, if you think about it, the reputation problem for a physical being is really not that much different, in a large market, from the reputation problem for a virtual (anonymous) being. I can even conceive of the distinction between the two fading over time. In fact, at my present level of knowledge I won't take either side of that bet. I suspect the answer emerges from the question of relative transaction costs . . . -- david david@staff.udc.upenn.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 20:08:31 WET From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: FYI/META/CONF/POLI/LIST/CHANGE/PREFIXES: No More Prefixes!! Timothy C. May writes: > Folks, this prefix system is a poor substitute for a keyword line. If we > want keywords, let's put 'em where they belong. Meanwhile, carefully chosen > _titles_ are the commonly accepted way to capture the interest of a reader. I can't see keywords in elm without reading the message first, I can't delete by keyword easily without accidently deleting other messages. I definately sort and read mymail by prefix, so it is very useful for me, and prefixes are a planned part of our ongoing mailing software development. We aren't going to force anyone to use prefixes, we simply encourage their use. If there is demand, I will talk with harry about including a suggested prefixed list in the welcome message. So far, most of the frequent posters have shown restraint (Most messages from hal, perry, robin, max, etc. Have contained what I consider appropriate prefixes, like ECON, SCI, LAW, NANO, SELF, PHIL etc) > I find the prefix of almost no use in deciding how to sort a message into > folders (and I read _all_ messages, or skim them, so I never use a simple > prefix in deciding which to read and which to discard). I look for the > content of the title. And since the prefixes are getting longer and more > bizarre and are eating into space better left for a nice, descriptive > title, I consider the whole prefix system a step backward. I agree, and I am against super long prefixes. One or two fields should be appropriate (ECON/PHIL:, etc). If your message covers so many fields that you must create a prefix like ECON/PHIL/LAW/SCI/NANO/AI/SELF: then perhaps you should consider sending it to the essay list as well. > As an experiment, this will be my last use of prefixes, except for the ones > required by law. Would a standardized set up prefixes change your mind? Prefixes seem to be sweeping the net. sci.virtual-worlds, alt.sex.stories, cypherpunks, etc. > -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. > > -- 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: Wed, 10 Mar 93 01:25:04 GMT From: sjw@liberty.demon.co.uk (Stephen J. Whitrow) Subject: MEDIA: (non) Deathist Bias in (some) Popular Cultures(s) > From: drw@bourbaki.mit.edu > In Western culture, non-decay of your corpse is considered a sign of > holiness. (Traditionally, it's one of the signs needed to qualify as > a Catholic saint.) My advice to anyone would be to act in their own best interests rather than take the test to see whether they (were) holy. But wait a minute -- perhaps cryonicists really are more saintly than the average person! Steve Whitrow sjw@liberty.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 17:34:42 -0800 From: lefty@apple.com (Lefty) Subject: FYI/Meta: - Prefixes (NO ":" no prefix) Ray Cromwell writes: > > Thus, a prefix might look like > >SCI/CRYPT: New Number Theory Result cracks RSA! >SELF/MIND: Techniques for self-transformation, shedding the geek appearance! >POLI/PPL: Competitive Child Porn under Christian Protection Agencies! >INFO/NET: New internet archive contains tax evasion info! >ECON/GAME THEORY: Prisoner's Dilemma could land you in jail! >PHIL/RELIG: Yoga's fly around the world in 2 days! >SOCI/WHINE: Feed the Children! >POLI/LAW: HR.2453 revokes first amendment! I note, with some amusement, that in none of these cases does the prefix add an iota of information beyond what's contained in the title of the thread. I'm with Tim: I'll use the required ones, but that's it... -- Lefty (lefty@apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 20:42:52 -0500 (EST) From: Harry Shapiro Subject: Meta/Prefix: Future List Features I don't think it a big secret that we hope to allow messages to be subscribed to, etc. by prefix. That is why we would like people to use them, etc. -- Harry Shapiro habs@panix.com List Administrator of the Extropy Institute Mailing List Private Communication for the Extropian Community since 1991 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 20:42:29 EST From: drw@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU Subject: ECON: Winners and Losers in Technology From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) It's always very easy in retrospect to declare a failed product to be a "bogus" idea. As someone who lost money in several failed or moribund companies (Symbolics, Zycad, etc.), I can tell you the ideas did not _then_ look bogus. And the companies I made the most money on, Intel, Apple, and Sun, were the ones with the most straightforward extropolations of technology. I would hazard that the difference is whether the ideas are evaluated for technical bogosity or market bogosity. Great technological ideas that failed in the market are legion. Mediocre technological ideas that succeeded in the market are also. Perhaps, like businesses, we should start evaluating possible futures not on their technical feasibility, but rather on their market feasibility. Dale Dale Worley Dept. of Math., MIT drw@math.mit.edu -- I asked people in Mexico why it was so underdeveloped, despite its natural advantages. The only answer I got that made any sense at all was from a bartender who said, "The United States stole the part of Mexico that has all the paved roads." -- P. J. O'Rourke ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 20:39:48 EST From: drw@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU Subject: ECON/ALIEN: Invasion of the Self-Owned Organizations From: Brian.Hawthorne@east.sun.com (Brian Holt Hawthorne - SunSelect Engineering) I suspect you would notice the loop, unless the corporations were in different countries. If they were all US corporations, they would have to claim as an asset on their books the corporation which they owned. If A owned B owned C owned A, then the assets of A would be B plus other assets. Thus A > B > C > A. I'm sure that some government auditor would notice the discrepency immediately and confiscate the whole lot. I think not, because there aren't government auditors. If a corporation is publically held, you have to have an auditing firm check your books, but if it is privately held, the government filing regulations are quite light. For instance, you don't have to deal with the SEC at all. (That's one reason that it's generally a bad idea to hold a minority position in a privately-held corporation.) Dale Dale Worley Dept. of Math., MIT drw@math.mit.edu -- So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. -- Bertrand Russell ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 17:42:55 -0800 From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: META: More on the Prefix Probem Ray Cromwell takes a stab at some recommended prefixes and shows us what they might look like: SCI/CRYPT: New Number Theory Result cracks RSA! SELF/MIND: Techniques for self-transformation, shedding the geek appearance! POLI/PPL: Competitive Child Porn under Christian Protection Agencies! INFO/NET: New internet archive contains tax evasion info! ECON/GAME THEORY: Prisoner's Dilemma could land you in jail! PHIL/RELIG: Yoga's fly around the world in 2 days! SOCI/WHINE: Feed the Children! POLI/LAW: HR.2453 revokes first amendment! Now here's what they look like without the prefixes: New Number Theory Result cracks RSA! Techniques for self-transformation, shedding the geek appearance! Competitive Child Porn under Christian Protection Agencies! New internet archive contains tax evasion info! Prisoner's Dilemma could land you in jail! Yoga's fly around the world in 2 days! Feed the Children! HR.2453 revokes first amendment! Is any real information lost by dropping the prefixes? I say the second set of titles is actually _easier_ to read and comprehend. And this is without any fine-tuning of the titles, which would likely happen without the prefixes as crutches. The original proposal for prefixes included only "META:," "POLL:" and "PLEDGE," and these were picked for reasons Harry S. has outlined several times. Expanding the prefixes to include "ECON:", "NANO," and so on seemed reasonable at the time Yanek Martinson (I believe) proposed it. But chaos soon reigned. If a prefix is ever used, at least don't "compound" the problem by using compound prefixes. It is true that most items transcend simple categories, but attempting to put all keywords in to the prefix results in the situation shown above in Ray's example--just too damn confusing! And of course requiring the use of even the "Schelling point" prefixes--the natural ones, so to speak--will turn us all into hair-splitters and librarians, debating whether this or that post deserves to be under "ECON:" or "POLI:" -Tim May P.S. Ironically, I used the prefix "META:" in this post so as not to violate the list rules. It gets overused as well, and could just as usefully be dropped. -- 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: Tue, 9 Mar 93 17:49:59 PST From: Eli Brandt Subject: FYI/META/CONF/POLI/LIST/CHANGE/PREFIXES: No More Prefixes!! Tim said: > As an experiment, this will be my last use of prefixes, except for the ones > required by law. Before I go the same route: does anybody get any use out of prefixes? What do you do with them, specifically, and how does this benefit you? The only use I can see is if you want to automatically do something based on message topic -- delete all "ECON", perhaps. Are such practices actually popular? Eli ebrandt@jarthur.claremont.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 20:52:40 EST From: drw@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU Subject: Abundance is a Myth, or, The Wealth of Ghettos From: elrod@pro-cynosure.cts.com (Sean Carton) 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. One problem is that it is easier for community-oriented people to join a community by simply leaving the ghetto. Of course, that's not easy either, but it's much easier to join an ongoing organization of any type than to start one, particularly if the people involved aren't willing to do much work. One problem with the modern-day ghetto is that it is just hard enough to get out of that unmotivated people are trapped in it, but motivated people can get out. Thus, they are composed precisely of those people who don't have the energy, skills, or whatever needed to escape. Harlem in the 1920's was a black ghetto, but it was one of the cultural centers of the US. Now, it is a wasteland, because talented blacks can escape to suburbia. Drug dealing is the most popular entrepreneurial (sp???) activity in the ghettos because it is the one that requires the least training. To start an ordinary business in the US requires that you have mastered a lot of social skills -- how to convince the landlord you are trustworthy, some minimal skills at dealing with bureaucracies, some idea of how to deal with paperwork. Assembling the skills necessary is difficult even for middle-class white people, because the formal and informal education systems don't give that sort of training -- a lot of people trying to start businesses have no idea how to handle all these little problems, or even understand what they are. (What fraction of the population understands that prices are not set arbitrarily by merchants?) Drug dealing is pretty easy to understand. Dale Dale Worley Dept. of Math., MIT drw@math.mit.edu -- "My people have a saying: A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken." "Life expectancy must be fairly short among your people." -- Cally and Avon ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 18:16:23 PST From: Eli Brandt Subject: OLDIE: Abundance is a Myth Thanks for the repost; I wasn't on over most of the summer. Your post, being the better part of a year old, didn't directly address some of Jay's points -- back to yogi school for remedial precognitive training, I guess. His central point, as I saw it, was that a market "which nobody *needs* to participate in to survive" is a new and benign thing. But "need" is a more slippery thing that it may at first appear. Your average suit probably doesn't *need* his day job to survive. He could panhandle, scrounge food, and sleep in random places, and probably maintain bodily integrity. It's a mean life, a degrading life -- but those are value judgements based on our present expectations. Your average welfare recipient would probably not be willing to change places with a prosperous Roman artisan circa 100 C.E., let alone a Roman dole recipient. You can survive without participating in the market. Does this make the U.S. a post-scarcity society? To eliminate scarcity would require not just the release of a liveable "freeware" environment, but the rewiring of the human psyche, such that "jealousy", or "peer group comparison" if you prefer, would no longer exist. What consequences this would have I don't know, but it hardly seems practical, particularly trying to do it non-coercively. Good read, though, Jay. PGP 2 key by finger or e-mail Eli ebrandt@jarthur.claremont.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 20:20:12 CST From: twb3@midway.uchicago.edu (Tom Morrow) Subject: ECON/NANO/PHIL: Drive to reproduce >> I believe that many humans have an inborn desire to nurture >> infants. > >This is not the same thing as a desire to _have_ an infant -- not >even close. . . . Yeah, I know; that's why I said (in comments you have elided) that the desires to have sex and to nuture only "tend" to result in people reproducing. I figure it works like this: the inborn sex drive creates the kid, then the inborn nuture drive helps it to survive. I actually doubt that people want to give birth. There is no need to have such an inborn drive, given the drive for sex and the processes that automatically follow when it is satisfied. Nature is economical. Sex and nuturing are the only basic drives that humans need to reproduce, and are thus probably the only ones that evolution has bestowed upon us. >But you don't have to believe me; just study the demographics. >Look at cultures with effective birth control vs. those without. . . . . . . But your points only go to showing that people don't necessarily have an inborn drive to reproduce. I never intended to imply the contrary. I would be more interested in reports of a culture where humans display no drive to have sex or to nurture helpless infants. It would also be interesting to hear of a culture of people who voluntarily stopped reproducing altogether. (I suppose the Shakers might qualify.) But keep in mind that these exceptions do not prove the rule; most inborn drives are only dispositions, and may be overcome by acculturation. >[Sex and baby] are the two of the most common words in rock music, but the >"baby" >does not refer to infants, not even close. Musicians crooning >about how much they want infants should be quite common according to >your theory, but it's been a long time since I've heard one. > >Nick Szabo That's an interesting observation. I have no concise explanation, but I will note that rock tends not to explicitly recognize many inborn drives: the drive to eat, the drive to breath, the drive to defecate, . . . In fact, rock seems to focus on sex almost exclusively. Why is that? I don't know. But I do know that evidence of the drive to nuture appears in other cultural forms. Consider the pervasive presence of critters with diproportionately large eyes and heads in kitch and cartoons. These are clearly designed to elicit "aw, it's soooo cute!" responses. They do so by mimicing the features of newborn humans. A reasonable conclusion: many humans have an inborn desire to nuture human infants (and things that look a lot like human infants). T.O. Morrow -- twb3@midway.uchicago.edu Law & Politics Editor: EXTROPY -- Journal of Transhumanist Thought Associate Executive Director: ExI -- The Extropy Institute ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 21:34:11 WET From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: FYI/META/CONF/POLI/LIST/CHANGE/PREFIXES: No More Prefixes!! Eli Brandt writes: > > Tim said: > > > As an experiment, this will be my last use of prefixes, except for the ones > > required by law. > > Before I go the same route: does anybody get any use out of prefixes? > What do you do with them, specifically, and how does this benefit > you? The only use I can see is if you want to automatically do > something based on message topic -- delete all "ECON", perhaps. Are > such practices actually popular? This is exactly what I use them for. If I don't wish to read a particular thread, I delete all econ. The problem with deleting by just subject or by content of the article is that people have an annoying habit of constantly changing the subject so a delete by subject doesn't handle most cases, and secondly, deleting by content of article is dangerous because you can delete messages you don't want. I would be happy with people using Keywords: header, but most mailer software doesn't allow editing of that line without a hassle. Just as with the infamous Reply-to: case, people are also lazy when it comes to editing something that isn't prompted for automatically by the mailer software. This list is getting too big, and merits several newsgroups, but that would bring too many flames and destroy the privacy of the list. Keywords or Prefixes are the only way of separating mail right now and I doubt most people would use keywords. I am open to constructive criticism though. > Eli ebrandt@jarthur.claremont.edu > -- 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: Wed, 10 Mar 93 00:54:13 GMT From: sjw@liberty.demon.co.uk (Stephen J. Whitrow) Subject: MATH: Dale Worley's useful facts > [...] others elided > 1 nanocentury = pi seconds Useful to remember as an approximation. But at around 3.1557 seconds, I don't think any deep philosophic secrets of the cosmos have been unveiled. :-) Steve Whitrow sjw@liberty.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Mar 93 18:00:16 -0800 From: Joseph Truitt Subject: META: Responding to Ancient Messages Tim: It makes perfect sense to me to fully exploit the asynchronous, time-delayed nature of e-mail and news. If a good thought comes to you much later, it's still a good thought. Trends are often not evident for months, or it may take one that long to articulate his/her observations and feelings. I don't see any problem with quoting reasonable portions of old messages, so long as the date is present (to be clear what is happening), and a reference message id (so readers can search their archives for the entire original message, if they so choose). -- Joseph Truitt * BioCAD Corporation * joseph@biocad.com * 415/903-3923 "Fast; cheap; correct. Pick two." --John Opalko ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 21:44:27 CST From: derek@cs.wisc.edu (Derek Zahn) Subject: FYI/META/CONF/POLI/LIST/CHANGE/PREFIXES: No More Prefixes!! Eli writes: > Before I go the same route: does anybody get any use out of prefixes? I look for clever prefix inventions, which are all too rare... how about H%*F&: for discussions of cryptography? Also, a prefix can alter the mindset I have when I begin reading a message; if a message has an ECON: prefix, I know to only skim it since I have no money, etc. I suppose the idea is to have a hierarchical set of levels of description: prefix, subject, article. But, I wonder if we shouldn't include a paragraph summary level for longer posts, or at least an index. I propose the following prefixes for people to use for standard posts: RTFP: (Read the, um, Five Principles): We don't like yogis. Go away. Has the added benefit of making the subject line and message body redundant WEST: Designed to spare the feelings of midwesterners like me when discussing get-togethers at cool places (also EAST:) BITCH: Various complaints about list policy, posters, volume, prefixes, ... BAIT: Non-extropian whining that we should just ignore but don't (see RTFP:) FACTOID: Unconnected tidbits of interesting info PREFIX: Content-free meta-messages discussing which prefixes to use, if any (making BITCH/PREFIX: a particular delicacy) EXESION: The slow superficial destruction of organic tissues, especially bone, by the action of abscesses and other agencies DEREK: ------------------------------ Date: 09 Mar 1993 23:00:23 -0500 (EST) From: KMOSTA01@ULKYVX.LOUISVILLE.EDU Subject: PHIL: Reincarnation Mark Venture says: "What proof do yogis have that their 'memories' are not also produced by some imaginative portion of their brains?" I think you miss the point, Mark. "Proof" is a reactionary, uncaring, and devoit of feelings concept. How dare you offend such subtle ideas by demanding something as primitive as a proof? You prove things like mathematics or engineering, lowly concepts that is. Krzys' ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 22:09:07 CST From: twb3@midway.uchicago.edu (Tom Morrow) Subject: HUMOR: Fast; cheap; correct. . . . Joseph Truitt has in his sig: >"Fast; cheap; correct. Pick two." --John Opalko I understood this very quickly, and got the message at low cost. Should I thus assume it is not correct? But if it's not correct, then does that mean I can pick three? That would mean it *is* correct. But if it's correct, then it's not correct. . . . T.O. Morrow -- twb3@midway.uchicago.edu Law & Politics Editor: EXTROPY -- Journal of Transhumanist Thought Associate Executive Director: ExI -- The Extropy Institute ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Mar 93 20:03:59 -0800 From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: No More Prefixes!! [This version needs no prefix, as it is intended for those who look at the title of a message, and perhasp glance at the content, before deciding whether to discard it.] [I am posting this message under several prefixes, because I suspect some folks are now using *automatic filters* in their mail readers to screen out classes of messages. Just as we see with newsgroups, it will become necessary to post to all possibly relevant prefixes to ensure messages get through. I regret that this has become necessary. For those of you who "subscribe" to more than one of the prefixes used, I'm sorry you are receiving multiple messages.] Eli Brandt asks, and then Ray Cromwell answers: >> Before I go the same route: does anybody get any use out of prefixes? >> What do you do with them, specifically, and how does this benefit >> you? The only use I can see is if you want to automatically do >> something based on message topic -- delete all "ECON", perhaps. Are >> such practices actually popular? > > This is exactly what I use them for. If I don't wish to read a particular >thread, I delete all econ. The problem with deleting by just >subject or by content of the article is that people have an annoying habit >of constantly changing the subject so a delete by subject doesn't >handle most cases, and secondly, deleting by content of article is dangerous >because you can delete messages you don't want. Somehow I doubt Ray is saving much time by, for example, deleting all "ECON:" postings. Only a fraction of all messages use any one prefix, anyway, so the savings is in proportion to the percentage using that prefix. And of course it takes some nonzero time to respond to determine which prefixes to delete, which to read, etc. (All I'm saying is that if "ECON:," for example, accounts for 10% of all messages, then Ray only saves a small amount on time--less than 10% because he wouldn't likely read in detail a message of no interest to him.) Personally, I favor at least a quick glance at _all_ messages. I can look at a message, the author, the main points, and decide whether to flush it or read it in detail in less than 10 seconds. This is a better "screening filter" than anything I can imagine, and serves for Extropian list volumes of up to a few hundred a day (200 messages x 10 seconds to preview each one = 2000 seconds = 33 minutes, for the quick initial look. Even if one can automatically mark for deletion all of the "XYZ" and "ABC" prefixes, perhaps 30% of the total, one only saves about 10 minutes.) Besides, the automatic marking and deleting of entire categories of messages is fraught with problems. The problems come up every time newsgroups or mailing lists are split up. * messages will be "misprefixed," resulting in lost messages. (I don't really care if people discard messages, but I don't want them later asking the list to repost something, to tell them what someone else is talking about, etc.) * points missed by a reader because he deleted an entire class of messages may get brought up again, and again. ("Ray, we just discussed this in the "ECON:" thread.") * as writers suspect automatic filtering is killing the topics they post under (e.g., "ECON:"), they may be tempted to try more creative, more interesting prefixes, like "TAXES:" and "CLINTON:" This proliferates prefixes and defeat's Ray's attempt to screen messages. (Remember, Ray has to first read enough of "TAXES:" to know he wants to delete the entire group.) [I suspect the reason we're seeing so many new prefixes is that people get quickly bored with "ECON:" and "LAW:" as categories, that they suspect people are skipping over their "LAW:" posts, for example, and hence they want sexy, new titles. A very human motivation.] * a complicated set of prefixes will continue to confuse people. What's wrong with plain old-fashioned *clear titles*? And I'm confused about something Harry Shapiro said: "I don't think it a big secret that we hope to allow messages to be subscribed to, etc. by prefix. That is why we would like people to use them, etc." Huh? Are prefixes, with all their flakinesses (discussed by many), to be a kind of ersatz newsgroup? What will happen as people change the prefixes, as they so often do? This will have the effect of teleporting the thread (or followups, at least) to other "newsgroups." (Granted, this can be done with newsgroups, by editing the "followups to" line, but this is harder to do than simply changing "ECON:" to something else. And we all know the problems seen in changing the followups-to line. I'll say this in praise of the new proposed system: at least any changes to the followups-to will now be much more apparent!) I'd appreciate hearing more from Harry or Ray about these plans. They have both done us all a great service over the months or years, but I feel their are important things now brewing which we are not being kept informed of. Keep up the good work, but get some inputs from us! -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: Tue, 9 Mar 93 20:04:10 -0800 From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: FYI/META/CONF/POLI/LIST/CHANGE/PREFIXES: No More Prefixes! ["FYI/META/CONF/POLI/LIST/CHANGE/PREFIXES:" version, intended for the subscribers of the "FYI/META/CONF/POLI/LIST/CHANGE/PREFIXES:" prefixed messages.] [I am posting this message under several prefixes, because I suspect some folks are now using automatic filters in their mail readers to screen out classes of messages. Just as we see with newsgroups, it will become necessary to post to all possibly relevant prefixes to ensure messages get through. I regret that this has become necessary.] Eli Brandt asks, and then Ray Cromwell answers: >> Before I go the same route: does anybody get any use out of prefixes? >> What do you do with them, specifically, and how does this benefit >> you? The only use I can see is if you want to automatically do >> something based on message topic -- delete all "ECON", perhaps. Are >> such practices actually popular? > > This is exactly what I use them for. If I don't wish to read a particular >thread, I delete all econ. The problem with deleting by just >subject or by content of the article is that people have an annoying habit >of constantly changing the subject so a delete by subject doesn't >handle most cases, and secondly, deleting by content of article is dangerous >because you can delete messages you don't want. Somehow I doubt Ray is saving much time by, for example, deleting all "ECON:" postings. Only a fraction of all messages use any one prefix, anyway, so the savings is in proportion to the percentage using that prefix. And of course it takes some nonzero time to respond to determine which prefixes to delete, which to read, etc. (All I'm saying is that if "ECON:," for example, accounts for 10% of all messages, then Ray only saves a small amount on time--less than 10% because he wouldn't likely read in detail a message of no interest to him.) Personally, I favor at least a quick glance at _all_ messages. I can look at a message, the author, the main points, and decide whether to flush it or read it in detail in less than 10 seconds. This is a better "screening filter" than anything I can imagine, and serves for Extropian list volumes of up to a few hundred a day (200 messages x 10 seconds to preview each one = 2000 seconds = 33 minutes, for the quick initial look. Even if one can automatically mark for deletion all of the "XYZ" and "ABC" prefixes, perhaps 30% of the total, one only saves about 10 minutes.) Besides, the automatic marking and deleting of entire categories of messages is fraught with problems. The problems come up every time newsgroups or mailing lists are split up. * messages will be "misprefixed," resulting in lost messages. (I don't really care if people discard messages, but I don't want them later asking the list to repost something, to tell them what someone else is talking about, etc.) * points missed by a reader because he deleted an entire class of messages may get brought up again, and again. ("Ray, we just discussed this in the "ECON:" thread.") * as writers suspect automatic filtering is killing the topics they post under (e.g., "ECON:"), they may be tempted to try more creative, more interesting prefixes, like "TAXES:" and "CLINTON:" This proliferates prefixes and defeat's Ray's attempt to screen messages. (Remember, Ray has to first read enough of "TAXES:" to know he wants to delete the entire group.) [I suspect the reason we're seeing so many new prefixes is that people get quickly bored with "ECON:" and "LAW:" as categories, that they suspect people are skipping over their "LAW:" posts, for example, and hence they want sexy, new titles. A very human motivation.] * a complicated set of prefixes will continue to confuse people. What's wrong with plain old-fashioned *clear titles*? And I'm confused about something Harry Shapiro said: "I don't think it a big secret that we hope to allow messages to be subscribed to, etc. by prefix. That is why we would like people to use them, etc." Huh? Are prefixes, with all their flakinesses (discussed by many), to be a kind of ersatz newsgroup? What will happen as people change the prefixes, as they so often do? This will have the effect of teleporting the thread (or followups, at least) to other "newsgroups." (Granted, this can be done with newsgroups, by editing the "followups to" line, but this is harder to do than simply changing "ECON:" to something else. And we all know the problems seen in changing the followups-to line. I'll say this in praise of the new proposed system: at least any changes to the followups-to will now be much more apparent!) I'd appreciate hearing more from Harry or Ray about these plans. They have both done us all a great service over the months or years, but I feel their are important things now brewing which we are not being kept informed of. Keep up the good work, but get some inputs from us! -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: Tue, 9 Mar 93 20:04:21 -0800 From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: META: No More Prefixes! ["META:" version, intended for subscribers to the "META:" prefix messages] [I am posting this message under several prefixes, because I suspect some folks are now using automatic filters in their mail readers to screen out classes of messages. Just as we see with newsgroups, it will become necessary to post to all possibly relevant prefixes to ensure messages get through. I regret that this has become necessary.] Eli Brandt asks, and then Ray Cromwell answers: >> Before I go the same route: does anybody get any use out of prefixes? >> What do you do with them, specifically, and how does this benefit >> you? The only use I can see is if you want to automatically do >> something based on message topic -- delete all "ECON", perhaps. Are >> such practices actually popular? > > This is exactly what I use them for. If I don't wish to read a particular >thread, I delete all econ. The problem with deleting by just >subject or by content of the article is that people have an annoying habit >of constantly changing the subject so a delete by subject doesn't >handle most cases, and secondly, deleting by content of article is dangerous >because you can delete messages you don't want. Somehow I doubt Ray is saving much time by, for example, deleting all "ECON:" postings. Only a fraction of all messages use any one prefix, anyway, so the savings is in proportion to the percentage using that prefix. And of course it takes some nonzero time to respond to determine which prefixes to delete, which to read, etc. (All I'm saying is that if "ECON:," for example, accounts for 10% of all messages, then Ray only saves a small amount on time--less than 10% because he wouldn't likely read in detail a message of no interest to him.) Personally, I favor at least a quick glance at _all_ messages. I can look at a message, the author, the main points, and decide whether to flush it or read it in detail in less than 10 seconds. This is a better "screening filter" than anything I can imagine, and serves for Extropian list volumes of up to a few hundred a day (200 messages x 10 seconds to preview each one = 2000 seconds = 33 minutes, for the quick initial look. Even if one can automatically mark for deletion all of the "XYZ" and "ABC" prefixes, perhaps 30% of the total, one only saves about 10 minutes.) Besides, the automatic marking and deleting of entire categories of messages is fraught with problems. The problems come up every time newsgroups or mailing lists are split up. * messages will be "misprefixed," resulting in lost messages. (I don't really care if people discard messages, but I don't want them later asking the list to repost something, to tell them what someone else is talking about, etc.) * points missed by a reader because he deleted an entire class of messages may get brought up again, and again. ("Ray, we just discussed this in the "ECON:" thread.") * as writers suspect automatic filtering is killing the topics they post under (e.g., "ECON:"), they may be tempted to try more creative, more interesting prefixes, like "TAXES:" and "CLINTON:" This proliferates prefixes and defeat's Ray's attempt to screen messages. (Remember, Ray has to first read enough of "TAXES:" to know he wants to delete the entire group.) [I suspect the reason we're seeing so many new prefixes is that people get quickly bored with "ECON:" and "LAW:" as categories, that they suspect people are skipping over their "LAW:" posts, for example, and hence they want sexy, new titles. A very human motivation.] * a complicated set of prefixes will continue to confuse people. What's wrong with plain old-fashioned *clear titles*? And I'm confused about something Harry Shapiro said: "I don't think it a big secret that we hope to allow messages to be subscribed to, etc. by prefix. That is why we would like people to use them, etc." Huh? Are prefixes, with all their flakinesses (discussed by many), to be a kind of ersatz newsgroup? What will happen as people change the prefixes, as they so often do? This will have the effect of teleporting the thread (or followups, at least) to other "newsgroups." (Granted, this can be done with newsgroups, by editing the "followups to" line, but this is harder to do than simply changing "ECON:" to something else. And we all know the problems seen in changing the followups-to line. I'll say this in praise of the new proposed system: at least any changes to the followups-to will now be much more apparent!) I'd appreciate hearing more from Harry or Ray about these plans. They have both done us all a great service over the months or years, but I feel their are important things now brewing which we are not being kept informed of. Keep up the good work, but get some inputs from us! -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. ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 Issue #0119 ****************************************