From extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Fri Jun 4 09:28:25 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA21289; Fri, 4 Jun 93 09:28:22 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: from wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA12216; Fri, 4 Jun 93 09:28:18 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu (5.65/4.0) id ; Fri, 4 Jun 93 12:23:31 -0400 Message-Id: <9306041623.AA15235@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: ExI-Daily@gnu.ai.mit.edu Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 12:23:05 -0400 X-Original-Message-Id: <9306041623.AA15220@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu> X-Original-To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu From: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: Extropians Digest V93 #0298 X-Extropian-Date: Remailed on June 4, 373 P.N.O. [16:23:31 UTC] Reply-To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: OR Extropians Digest Fri, 4 Jun 93 Volume 93 : Issue 0298 Today's Topics: AUCTION: "There ain't no rules in a knife fight..." [3 msgs] BIOL: bits into long term memory [1 msgs] COSMO: Holographic Universe Theory anyone? [1 msgs] Contrapositive Crows [2 msgs] Dollar Auction [2 msgs] ECON/FERMI: Already sold! [1 msgs] EXTROPRENEUR: Request for Comments [1 msgs] FWD: To destroy an anarchy (fwd) [1 msgs] Fermi Paradox Resolved! [1 msgs] HUMOUR: Fermi & the xenozoics [1 msgs] NetGovernment [1 msgs] PERSONAL: Lost mail. [1 msgs] SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. [2 msgs] SPACE: Fermi, etc, and Selfish Gene [3 msgs] Solar System Seizure Trial Balloon? [1 msgs] TECH: Source for shortwave w/ cassette recorder [1 msgs] The 'README' meme [1 msgs] white house e-mail funnies (fwd) [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: 51194 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 21:31:18 WET DST From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: The 'README' meme Lefty writes: > We've considered changing the name to "Don't Read Me". How about "Do not read this file under any circumstances!" or "Nude Women Pictures" -- 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: Thu, 3 Jun 93 21:25:25 WET DST From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: Dollar Auction Some folks have mentioned the idea of participating in a real dollar auction. This might be a great idea for Max to use to raise money for ExI. Have ExI put up $50 for the auction. It might not work too well in this ``biased'' group because a lot of us know what happens in dollar auctions and consequently stay out of them. But it gets more interesting. If Max puts up $50, you can assume that most game-theoretic knowledgable people will stay out of the auction, and therefore bid 1 cent winning $49.99. However, knowing that others know this, you choose to stay out of it. But, others will also follow this reasoning so you think about entering the auction. However, ... A dollar auction on this list would be interesting. Would superrational extropians stay out of the auction or would someone defect and start a bidding war. Who's curious enough to put up $50 to answer this question? -- 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: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 23:07:28 -0400 (EDT) From: Harry Shapiro Subject: Dollar Auction a conscious being, Ray wrote: > A dollar auction on this list would be interesting. Would superrational > extropians stay out of the auction or would someone defect and start a > bidding war. Who's curious enough to put up $50 to answer this question? I will put up $25.00 -- Harry Shapiro habs@panix.com List Administrator of the Extropy Institute Mailing List Private Communication for the Extropian Community since 1991 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 22:06:16 CDT From: ddfr@midway.uchicago.edu Subject: Contrapositive Crows Robin gives a lengthy analysis of the probabilities. My view is that the paradox is correct--in a sense. Suppose we are in a world with a finite number of objects. If I check every not-black object and observe that it is not a crow, I have indeed demonstrated that all crows are black. The more non-black things there are, the less evidence you get for the proposition "all non-black things are not-crows" from looking at one non-black thing and observing that it is not a crow. There are a lot of non-black things. My intuition is that as the number of non-black things goes to infinity, the change in the probability due to observing that one of them is not a crow goes to zero, but I have not tried to write down a formal proof, and I think it would require some specific assumptions about priors. Some time after I first heard the puzzle, I told it to Betty Cook, who I was then dating. Her instant reply to the conclusion that a sheet of white paper was evidence that all crows are black was "yes, but not much evidence." We are now happily married with two children. David Friedman University of Chicago Law School ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 04 Jun 93 03:02:51 GMT From: price@price.demon.co.uk (Michael Clive Price) Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. Mark W. McFadden: > Why would each and every race inevitably decide that > interstellar colonization was a better idea than harnessing > the resources of their own solar system for a nice comfy > Dyson sphere? Dare I say it, but you seem to be missing the central point. Each and every race does not inevitably decide anything. It only requires _one_ member of _one_ race to create a self-replicating space probe and, like a germ in a petri dish, the future of the universe is irreversibly altered. Speculation about nature parks and police zones etc that some others are suggesting all seem implausible to me. The US can't patrol a 1- dimensional border of a thousand or so miles and stop slow moving poor immigrants. How can the space police patrol a 2-d border of the order of 10^27 miles^2 against relativistic probes? > Why do all these nanotechnology/wormhole using races all seem > to breed like bunnies? Why to bunnies breed? Bugs? Flies? Why does every species breed? Darwin. Some. of course, may go the way of the dodo, but then we don't care about them. It the ones that don't that nuke us. > Mark W. McFadden Mike Price price@price.demon.co.uk AS member (21/3/93) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 03 Jun 93 19:19:10 PDT From: Bruce.Baugh@p23.f40.n105.z1.fidonet.org (Bruce Baugh) Subject: Fermi Paradox Resolved! U > From: Brian.Hawthorne@East.Sun.COM (Brian Holt Hawthorne - SunSelect U > Engineering) U > Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 18:54:32 EDT U > U > In other words, by the time a species is advanced enough to contact U > others, they are either no longer interested in doing so, or we would U > be incapable of recognizing such contact. Worse yet...what if they're just interested in mutilating cattle and scaring hicks? -- uucp: uunet!m2xenix!puddle!40.23!Bruce.Baugh Internet: Bruce.Baugh@p23.f40.n105.z1.fidonet.org ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 23:05:23 -0600 (MDT) From: rcarter@nyx.cs.du.edu (Ron Carter) Subject: TECH: Source for shortwave w/ cassette recorder For all those looking for a shortwave receiver that could record at a certain time; from the latest DAK catalog: Catalog item #5769 $79.90 + $6 P&H 800-DAK (325)-0800 Anytime Dual stereo cassettes (1 records, both play) 530-1630kHz (AM) Programmable timer 3200-7300kHz (Shortwave1) 20 presets for tuner 9500-21750khz (Shortwave2) etc. 87.5-107.9MHz (FM/Stereo) I can post more info if there is interest... Ron | rcarter@nyx.cs.du.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 93 22:17:21 PDT From: hal@alumni.cco.caltech.edu (Hal Finney) Subject: AUCTION: "There ain't no rules in a knife fight..." From: Harry Shapiro > I will put up $25.00 So, what are the terms? Based on Tim's description, and considering this as a fundraiser for ExI, my suggestions: 1) All bidders must pay their highest bid amount, whether they win or not. 2) Highest bidder receives $25.00 from Harry. 3) Bids are made by publically posting messages. Prefix: BID. 4) Auction finishes after, say, 1 day with no higher bids? (Things move pretty fast on this list) 5) Harry gives the proceeds to ExI? (Up to him, I suppose, but I'd be more willing to play if he did.) 6) Bids in increment of $1.00? (Don't nickel-and-dime us to death.) 7) Any bid for an amount which is less than or equal to a bid from an earlier message number doesn't count, and never happened. (This is needed because of the time lag in message posting; in a real auction people have to bid higher than the current price.) If Harry will endorse these rules or offer his own, I'd like to see the games begin! Hal ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 03 Jun 93 22:34:04 -0700 From: davisd@pierce.ee.washington.edu Subject: Contrapositive Crows David Friedman writes: My proof that a sheet of white paper is evidence that all crows are black seems to survive under the sort of priors we actually have. In general, I find it a decent heuristic to say that if all the crows I have seen have been black, and I see another black crow, then my confidence that all crows are black will go up. We need to be careful about applying this out of such a context. First, what does it mean to say that all crows are black? Well, you've created some category called "crow", and you're predicting that you won't come upon some bird which you'd call a crow that will be some color other than black. Notice that you could just be a hard ass and say that by definition of your category, all crows are black. If you don't take that route, however, what do you mean? I hope we can agree that crows don't come with some god given label which we can check to settle if something is "really" a crow. The reasonable interpretation of "all crows are black" should be something like "There isn't anything which is just like all the crows I've seen so far, except with a different color."* So, having seen a lot of crows, and looking at another thing which looks pretty much like all the previous ones, and is black, it is reasonable to take that as confirmation of your belief *. I doubt the white paper proof can be smushed so easily into this context. Note also that if we allow white paper logic, we can also say that a white piece of paper provides evidence that crows are white. Crows are smaller than buicks. A piece of paper is smaller than a buick. If I see this white piece of paper that is smaller than a buick, then that should increase my belief that all things smaller than a buick are white. Therefore, my belief that all crows are white should increase. Or maybe that all crows are blue, another non white color. The logic works equally no matter what color we pick. It appears that we have an increased belief for each and every color of crow. I no longer have David's original post on contrapositive crows, so I can't pin down where in the argument we create these problems. It looks like induction should not play by the rules of deduction. Buy Buy -- Dan Davis ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 01:37:01 -0400 From: Alexander Chislenko Subject: PERSONAL: Lost mail. Could somebody please send me the extropian mail for yesterday (June, 6) between 3 a.m. and 4 p.m. ? Alex. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 04 Jun 93 04:15:03 GMT From: price@price.demon.co.uk (Michael Clive Price) Subject: BIOL: bits into long term memory Paul Cisek: > Thanks for posting this review Michael. I'm glad some one read it. Thanks! > [...] my problem with it is not the answer he gives, but the > question he asks. I don't understand. If: > Landauer asks a question like `What is the bandwidth of the system > that transmits memories from the past to the future?' was a inappropriate question (I thought your restatement quite excellent) then he wouldn't have got such a clear answer: that the bandwidth = < 2 bit/sec, under a wide range of conditions. Criticisms of any research along the lines "I feel the researcher is making many niave assumptions, using incorrect metaphors blah blah" (such as James Donald would do) miss the point completely. The criticism must address the question of _why_, if the metaphor is so completely off-beam, did such clear results emerge? If the question was stupid, no clear answer should have emerged. But it did, therefore it _was_ a sensible question to ask. Your assertion: > I realise that almost everyone (at least on this list), feels > that these are very reasonable assumptions, and would never think to > question them. seems completely untrue. Just look at the arguments we have. :-) Seems to me people (and in particular James Donald) are too ready to make assumptions about what assumptions others accept and not enough time examining the arguments and evidence. > (The title of this thread starts with "BIOL" - is that supposed to > stand for "biology"?) Yup. > -Paul Mike Price price@price.demon.co.uk AS member (21/3/93) AS member (21/3/93) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 1:59:51 WET DST From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: AUCTION: "There ain't no rules in a knife fight..." Hal Finney writes: > > From: Harry Shapiro > > > I will put up $25.00 > > So, what are the terms? Based on Tim's description, and considering this > as a fundraiser for ExI, my suggestions: > > 1) All bidders must pay their highest bid amount, whether they win or not. I like the system described in Poundstone's book. The second highest bidder pays along with the highest, everyone else pays nothing. -- 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: Fri, 4 Jun 93 8:44:16 GMT From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu Subject: Solar System Seizure Trial Balloon? Is a trial balloon being floated about having the UN enact a treaty to seize the Solar System as its monopoly? Just joking, Robin! BTW, the disanalogy between this and the dollar auction or C-Fednote auction is that no one possesses the Solar System, whereas someone does possess the item up for bid in the other scenarios. My analogy, 3 people washing up on a desert island, is better. Anyone declaring herself the sole owner will become a target for the other two to cooperate against. Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! Assistant Editor: Freedom Network News, the newsletter of ISIL, The International Society for Individual Liberty, 1800 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 864-0952; FAX: (415) 864-7506; 71034.2711@compuserve.com Think Universally, Act Selfishly - starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 03:49:47 -0600 (MDT) From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: HUMOUR: Fermi & the xenozoics > U > In other words, by the time a species is advanced enough to contact > U > others, they are either no longer interested in doing so, or we would > U > be incapable of recognizing such contact. > > Worse yet...what if they're just interested in mutilating > cattle and scaring hicks? Or the "Trelayne" scenario: the only ones that bother with galactic bugs like us are the kids, and treat us much the same way as a kid sticking firecrackers down an anthill and pulling the wings off of butterflies. Would explain the mutilations and abductions and anal sadism, etc. >;) -- When marriage is outlawed only outlaws will be inlaws! Stanton McCandlish, SysOp: Noise in the Void DataCenter Library BBS Internet anton@hydra.unm.edu IndraNet: 369:1/1 FidoNet: 1:301/2 Snail: 1811-B Coal Pl. SE, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108 USA Data phone: +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400 v32bis, N-8-1) Vox phone: +1-505-247-3402 (bps rate varies, depends on if you woke me up...:) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 03:59:44 -0600 (MDT) From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: SPACE: Fermi, etc, and Selfish Gene I was just pondering the selfish gene concept, after a long debate with a friend tonight. It has been explained to me how Von Neuman machines work, and how even WE can be considered Von Neuman machines of a sort. Could not DNA also be considered such a thing? SO what if the "seeding" idea is not too far off the mark, but rather than seeding earth and other planets with people, "they" seeded the universe with some sort of DNA dropper... If what's been said about the time difference between 2 intelligent life forms' evolution being even billions of years, then well I think you can see the implications. No flames please, I don't BELIEVE this, but I'd be interested in hearing why this is an interesting idea or is malarkey, just out of curiousity. (Sorry if it's already been covered before/elsewhere; I've not done much research into alien theories, etc. heretofore, but I'm finding this more interesting all the time. Part of the problem is that the readily found material is UFOlogist junk, and not too rational or inspiring. Never caught my eye much before this.) -- When marriage is outlawed only outlaws will be inlaws! Stanton McCandlish, SysOp: Noise in the Void DataCenter Library BBS Internet anton@hydra.unm.edu IndraNet: 369:1/1 FidoNet: 1:301/2 Snail: 1811-B Coal Pl. SE, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108 USA Data phone: +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400 v32bis, N-8-1) Vox phone: +1-505-247-3402 (bps rate varies, depends on if you woke me up...:) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 04:41:11 -0600 (MDT) From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: COSMO: Holographic Universe Theory anyone? Has anyone "here" ready anything on (or remotely related to) Holographic Universe Theory? I have. I find it QUITE interesting, though (imagine that!) I remain unconvinced. If anyone has any comments on its merits or lack there of, response is welcome. "It's stupid" with no explantion for WHY, is NOT welcome. If this is an inappropriate topic for the list, feel free to discuss it by pvt. email. -- When marriage is outlawed only outlaws will be inlaws! Stanton McCandlish, SysOp: Noise in the Void DataCenter Library BBS Internet anton@hydra.unm.edu IndraNet: 369:1/1 FidoNet: 1:301/2 Snail: 1811-B Coal Pl. SE, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108 USA Data phone: +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400 v32bis, N-8-1) Vox phone: +1-505-247-3402 (bps rate varies, depends on if you woke me up...:) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 09:17:41 -0400 (EDT) From: Harry Shapiro Subject: AUCTION: "There ain't no rules in a knife fight..." Hal writes below. 1) All money goes to ExI. I will send $25 to the winner. 2) Ray has to set the rules or agree to them. I am just providing the money. 3) Maybe others will also contribute to the "pool" or after the first auction step in and put up money for round 2, 3, etc. a conscious being, Hal Finney wrote: > From: Harry Shapiro > > I will put up $25.00 > So, what are the terms? Based on Tim's description, and considering this > as a fundraiser for ExI, my suggestions: > 5) Harry gives the proceeds to ExI? (Up to him, I suppose, but I'd be > more willing to play if he did.) > 6) Bids in increment of $1.00? (Don't nickel-and-dime us to death.) > If Harry will endorse these rules or offer his own, I'd like to see the > games begin! > Hal > > -- Harry Shapiro habs@panix.com List Administrator of the Extropy Institute Mailing List Private Communication for the Extropian Community since 1991 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 09:22:28 -0400 From: pcm@cs.brown.edu (Peter C. McCluskey) Subject: SPACE: Fermi paradox, etc. X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute freely mwm@wwtc.timeplex.com ("Mark W. McFadden") writes: > Look, the space migration meme has been bouncing around in our society for >quite some time. Let's assume that all the best/brightest/most-genetically- >fit all fervently believe in space migration as the inevitable Thing To Do. >They have to convince all those other poor unenlightened slobs that Perry >so blithely dismisses to _pay_ for it. Look at our technology and resources >, now look at our space program. "Our" space program? If your space program is failing because it depends on unenlightened slobs, then I suggest you switch programs, rather than trying to coerce those slobs into supporting your goals. How about investing in Orbital Sciences Corp.? I suspect that Bill Gates is wealthy enough that if he decided to retire to the asteroid belt he could almost do it without convincing anyone else that it is desirable. In order to conclude that most civilizations won't achieve space colonization, you have to assume that the maximum wealth that an individual can attain in that civilization is not much more than his wealth (i.e. that economic progress normally halts at a level no higher than we have achieved). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter McCluskey >> Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, pcm@cs.brown.edu >> even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 8:59:31 CDT From: lists@alan.b30.ingr.com (Alan Barksdale (lists)) Subject: white house e-mail funnies (fwd) Here's a translation of the standard email reply from the White House that an anarchist gave me: > > Thank you for sending in your thoughts and comments to the President > > via electronic mail. We are pleased to introduce this new form of > > communication into the White House for the first time in history. I > > welcome your response and participation. > > "Thanks for giving me yet ANOTHER Travelgate letter to process, asshole." > > > As we work to reinvent government > > "Now that the Star Chamber has assumed full control," > > > and streamline our processes, this > > electronic mail experiment will help put us on the leading edge of > > progress. > > "We're so damn hip we can't stand it!" > > > Please remember, though, this is still very much an experiment. > > "Can you tell me where the 'any' key is?" > > > Your message has been read, and we are keeping careful track of all > > the mail we are receiving electronically. > > "This will be immediately added to your file over at the FBI." > > > We will be trying out a number > > of reponse-based systems shortly, > > "The Secret Service hasn't yet received that CD-ROM containing every > residential address in the country yet," > > > and I ask for your patience as we move > > forward to integrate electronic mail from the public into the White House. > > "so don't expect a real reply. Ever." > > > Again, on behalf of the President, thank you for your message and for > > taking part in the White House electronic mail project. > > "On behalf of all of us in the email office, thanks for letting your tax > dollars be used to pay for all these great new patronage jobs we've got!" > > > Sincerely, > > "Bite me," > > > Marsha Scott, Deputy Assistant > > to the President and Director > > of Correspondence > > "Hillary's fourth-cousin twice-removed, who once spent three days visiting > Oxford in 1982." ______________________________________________________________________________ | Taxation is to sharing as rape is to making love. | | Alan Barksdale -- uunet!ingr.com!b30!alan!alan -- alan@alan.b30.ingr.com | | -- ingr.com!b30!alan!alan@uunet.UU.NET -- afbarksd@infonode.ingr.com -- | ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 10:10:14 EDT From: Andrew S Hall Subject: ECON/FERMI: Already sold! What if our talks about an auction are a moot point? Perhaps a race (or several races) of alien beings has already held their own auction and we missed it. They recognized our property rights to this little solar system out to the Oort clouds, but all the rest is gone! OK, the Fermi paradox would seem to indicate that they haven't settled it yet. Still, what if after a hardy group of ex-cryonite Extropians have just settled a nice piece of property in the Horsehead Nebula and a group of ex-cryonite Extropian Betelgeusians appear w/ verified time stamp, digitally signed documents indicating prior ownership on the basis of an auction that is occuring as we write? It is kind of amusing to think that out there groups of Extropian aliens are arguing this same thing about auctioning off the universe. A. Techno-Anarchy.Neophilia.Economic Freedom.Cryptography.Anti-Statism.Personal Liberty.Laissez-Faire.Privacy Protection.Libertarianism.No Taxes.No Bullshit. ********** Liberty BBS 1-614-798-9537 ********** ********** Dedicated to Freedom. Yours. ********** ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 07:17:37 -0700 (PDT) From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) Subject: SPACE: Fermi, etc, and Selfish Gene Stanton McClandish: > It has been explained to me how Von Neuman machines work, and how even WE > can be considered Von Neuman machines of a sort. Could not DNA also be > considered such a thing? The nucleic/amino acid system is weak, however, in terms of the variety of material it can process into its own form per unit time, and in terms of most engineering benchmarks (materials strength, sunlight to energy conversion efficiency, speed, etc.). It took billions of years of searching the design space to get there. Human industry, by contrast, has appeared in a few centuries and far surpasses life in nearly all respects save two (self-replication and complete intelligence). In industry's defense on the last two points it should be noted that self-rep and human-mimicking AI are are both a large editing distance in the design space away from currently economical engineering goals. If we find some quite valuable resources in outer space that could change. If some well-motivated engineers spent a few $billion, I think they could today build a self-replicating macrofactory. It would, however, be uneconomical on earth -- too energy and materials inefficient, too polluting, etc. Recall my post last year on combining the Fanuc (robots assemble parts into robots) and Manzac (mills parts for own mills) plants, 3d printers, etc. into a single largely self-replicating factory. Since human industry is millions of years primitive to our hypothetical wide variety of aliens, at least some of said aliens must have built machines that are both self-replicating and greatly superior to amino/nucleic acid life in engineering terms. Operating in space they could consume most of the comets and asteroids in our solar system, and certainly their parts could be found in fallen meteors. A preliminary outline of one such possible line of engineering can be found in Drexler's _Nanosystems_. One argument in your favor is the mysteriously short time (<300 million years) between the final bombardment and the appearance of full-fledged cyanobacteria 3.5 billion years ago. How could the greater part of life's chemical complexity, the 1000's of enzymes that form the basic metabolisms of all life forms, have evolved in such a short period of time? See my earlier post "Drexler Assemblers & The Origin Of Life" for a possible non-alien explanation. Another observation suggests that the galaxy is in fact teeming with advanced Von Neumann machines. Tiny diamond particles in the size range 10-1,000 nm, eerily reminiscent of Drexler's nanodiamondoid parts, can be found in surprising abundance (>10%) in some interstellar clouds, and also in some meteors. I assume that we've looked at the meteor nanodiamonds in enough detail to rule out them being Drexlerian artifacts, but the STM was invented only recently and perhaps somebody should take a second look to be sure. (And don't anybody tell Richard Hoagland about this! :-) Nick Szabo szabo@techbook.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 07:41:29 -0700 (PDT) From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) Subject: FWD: To destroy an anarchy (fwd) There must be a government, or government will be imposed. So says the net.wisdom on aleph & FutureC. Since few people in the world have ever seen a culture without government in the 20th century, this could become a very popular meme... any ideas for a counter-petition to keep "The Net" an anarchy? Forwarded message: >From: Meng Weng Wong Subject: NetGovernment happy zamboni quotes me: FreeSide says [about netgovernment], "well, I think that some kind of government/ideology is definitely needed; if one doesn't appear in the next few years, the Fascists will try to crack down on us, and apply THEIR rules to US; and we don't want that to happen, because they're used to being in control, and will want to retain that control out of habit." FreeSide says [about eff], "turquoise - yeah, the net is international -- that's why the only real compromise between all the world's governments, will be to come up with a net.constitution of our own. the bottom line in this constitution will, IMHO, still leave space open for anarchists, so they can't complain :)" FreeSide says [about netgovernment], "the moral minority must be considered in a net.constitution -- the constitution must have a little "whereas ..." clause that recognizes the "right" to anarchy." ... he then continues: | | Has there ever been any thought given to actually writing such a | "constitution"? No, I'm not saying "writing a body of laws and such | to govern the net", but rather, to codify in one document, the rights | and priviledges and duties that we actually enjoy right now? An | emphasis on decentrallization, an emphasis on the community taking | care of itself, actually putting all these concepts in one single | text... Seem like if it was well written, passed around...well, can | you imagine multiple-thousands of copies, from different people | begin forwarded to president@whitehouse.gov, wired.com, eff@eff.org, | etc..etc..(insert disseminator/source of info of your choice here.. | hell, even the the folks at Sassy...:> ). During the conference, I said that netiquette *is* a proto-constitution; however, it simply advises you on what you should and should not do. I'd like to point out that Usenet already has a number of documents pertaining to proper use, such as the following, from news.announce.newusers: List of Moderators for Usenet How to Get Information about Networks How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists Introduction to news.announce Rules for posting to Usenet What is Usenet? A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community List of Active Newsgroups, Part I List of Active Newsgroups, Part II Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Usenet USENET Software: History and Sources Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette Hints on writing style for Usenet Let's look at how the Internet would be governed. Traditional government has three branches, judicial, executive, and legislative. The Internet has two main areas of concern: there is the technical side, and there social side. On the technical side, standards groups put out RFC's, which are then abided by; this is equivalent to net.legislation. Since each host is under the control of only a handful of sysadmins at the very most, there doesn't seem to be much of a judicial system; decisions are final, and authority is absolute. This goes for MUDs and IRC, too. Also, sysadmins (or anyone empowered within a certain environment) work to "build" the environment which users work themselves in. They also punish offenders by denial of privileges; this is net.execution. Socially, however -- this place is an anarchy! There aren't any real rules, because they vary from site to site. Thus, no legislation. Judication and execution too depend on local factors. This situation can't go on, especially with traffic occurring between sites; we ourselves move from host to host. Where are the rules? | I get this vague feeling that they | all feel that they will be inventing something new, rather than | participating in something existing. It just seems like it would | be a good thing to express to the world - "Hey. We're here, and | these are the rights we have and would like to continue to have. | IT WORKS." Seems like some people, on the outside looking in, | don't have a grasp on that... exactly my point when I said that we, the denizens of cyberspace, should come together and collectively forge a constitution governing inter-site communication. It would be a default set of rules, to be used when two sites that haven't met before, interact -- individual sites could then alter the rules as they see fit. FreeSide says [about accountability], "we, the users of cyberspace, are as diverse as any RL group; but we are more well-informed than the feds, than most people who wield power in rl." I'm not making much sense, because this is all off the top of my head. Feel free to criticize. | Lemme throw out some ideas for starters: | | 1)The net is decentrallized. No one central authority owns, controls, | or dictates the actions of the whole net. | -The rights of each net.citizen are dictated by the site that they | orginate from, and the rules of any site that they may "visit". | -The net is inherently multi-national. During the conference, FreeSide says [about accountability], "back to the original point about RL mapping into cyberspace, yes -- I agree that the underlying principles should be the same, but implementation is, obviously, vastly different. Your rights and freedoms can be rigorously coded into software, in the form of permission bits." FreeSide says [about accountability], "the net was built to be decentralized; that's why an ideology should be built into every level of the net, so that even if no absolute authority exists, the way the net is coded, makes responsibility and accountability as well as freedom, an inherent concept at every level." | Call it a "virtual petition", instead of a constitution, if that | sounds more appropriate.... ... I'd like to see some feedback from the various places around the net interested in this issue; perhaps posting on the WELL, on MindVox, and in the Computer Underground Digest would spark discussion. | Any more ideas? | Opinions on this? Am I way off in left-field somewhere? freeside joining you out in left-field ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 9:55:24 CDT From: derek@cs.wisc.edu (Derek Zahn) Subject: EXTROPRENEUR: Request for Comments Greetings; the response to my posts about extropreneurship in speech recognition was so good, that I've decided to impose upon your indulgence and reveal that there is An Alternative I have been considering. I have been teetering between S.R. and the alternative (described below) for too long; I am leaning toward S.R. which is why I posted that... but a final choice has not been made. Because (1) your comments are always so insightful, (2) I'm not particularly paranoid about discussing product possibilities in this forum, and (3) if this is annoying, you can just delete it -- I ask for any so-inclined Extropians to make comments or give advice on whether speech recognition for the PC or the following is more likely to allow a small (very small) startup to rake in the dough: The Alternative: Sophisticated "scanned-document" processing (DP): the kind of thing where it would be easy to build special "applications" on top of underlying document recognition stuff -- for example, to recognize and index classified ads; or interface a portable scanner to a stock market database; or scan in and index bar codes and nutrition information off of food packages; or (more mundane), search out authors, titles, and abstracts given a page from a technical journal; or (even more mundane) process business letters, automatically feeding them to a database indexed by date sent, from who, etc, and updating an address book; or being able to process incoming bills (just feed 'em into the scanner) and interface with, say, Quicken; or scan newspaper ads for prices of products, to interface with shopping lists and automatically search for the best deal; etc, etc, etc, including obvious things like recognizing pictures and processing them as such... The key, as I see it, is to make it both inexpensive (the decent more primitive OCR programs are unreasonably expensive, in my opinion) and reasonably easy for just about anybody to integrate it into their idiosyncratic personal projects. Unfortunately, I am having difficulty defining an interface that is both powerful enough to do sophisticated processing operations like those above and yet be configurable by a user who isn't a programmer. I had considered the possibility of including LOTS of "template" recognition-organizing modules and specialty processes along with some kind of "visual programming language"-type way of linking them together into applications, but still it seems too complicated. Besides the core recognition modules, which aren't really all that difficult, the major challenges are this powerful, flexible, easy programmability (or customization, if you like) and the variety of interfaces to existing software that would be required. Target retail price: about $199 -- depending on lots of things like the costs of support, about which I know nothing. I do NOT want this to turn into a vertical-market kind of thing where I charge a fortune to go in and customize the system for different customers. I DO want it to be the kind of thing where the owner of a used book store could set it up to scan title pages of incoming books and have it automatically add the books to an inventory database, WITHOUT my help. It's not clear to me whether that's unreasonable. I don't think so. So, between these two options I consider the difficulty (read: time-to- market) to be essentially equal. The S.R. has a larger market, is "cleaner" in the sense that its functionality is clear, and will be more portable from platform to platform. The D.P. doesn't have to compete with huge research projects and doesn't really rely on my ability to come up with some clever breakthrough algorithms. Comments requested, and appreciated. privately, derek ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 15:54:27 BST From: jrk@information-systems.east-anglia.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway) Subject: SPACE: Fermi, etc, and Selfish Gene Nick Szabo writes: >One argument in your favor is the mysteriously short time (<300 million >years) between the final bombardment and the appearance of full-fledged >cyanobacteria 3.5 billion years ago. How could the greater part of >life's chemical complexity, the 1000's of enzymes that form the basic >metabolisms of all life forms, have evolved in such a short period >of time? Isn't the question, rather, why did it (relatively speaking) stop after only 300 million years? What would life look like now if that rate of change had continued for the next 3.5by? -- ____ Richard Kennaway __\_ / School of Information Systems Internet: jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk \ X/ University of East Anglia uucp: ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk \/ Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K. ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 Issue #0298 ****************************************