Extropians Digest Tue, 22 Jun 93 Volume 93 : Issue 0346 Today's Topics: AIT VirtSem: Setting up the Virtual Seminar [1 msgs] BOOK REVIEW: Weinberg's "Final Theory". [1 msgs] Chaitin, Mathematica, and "Jurassic Park" [1 msgs] DIET: Homo Sapiens--Vegetarian Predators? [9 msgs] Dino Shooting [2 msgs] E-PRIME: Atlantic Monthly article [4 msgs] EVOLUTION/DIET: What proto-hominids ate [1 msgs] FWD: Book Review [1 msgs] MEDIA: _Intertek_ magazine [1 msgs] RANT: _Assemblers of Infinity_: cream of the sewage pit [1 msgs] SOC/CHAT: Appearances [2 msgs] Tabloid Extropy #1 [1 msgs] The Extropian meme [1 msgs] dino shooting [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. 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Approximate Size: 54583 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 12:37:09 -0700 From: Brian D Williams Subject: The Extropian meme I was infected with the Extropian meme some 25 years ago, the source was Arthur C Clarkes "2001 a space odyssey", particularly chapter 37-experiment. For those who haven't read the book I'll include a few brief quotes from this 2 page chapter, if anyone has an internet address for Clarke, I'd like to get his permission to include those two pages. " Those who had begun that experiment, so long ago, had not been men-or even remotely human. But they were flesh and blood, and when they looked out across the deeps of space, they had felt awe, and wonder, and loneliness. As soon as they possessed the power, they set forth for the stars." sounds like us gang....... " And now, out among the stars, evolution was driving toward new goals. The first explorers of Earth had long since come to the limits of flesh and blood; as soon as their machines were better than their bodies, it was time to move. First their brains, and then their thoughts alone, they transferred into shining new homes of metal and of plastic." "In these, they roamed among the stars. They no longer built spaceships. They WERE spaceships." where do I sign up? " But the age of the Machine-entities swiftly passed. In their ceaseless experimenting, they had learned to store knowledge in the structure of space itself, and to preserve their thoughts for eternity in frozen lattices of light. they could become creatures of radiation, free at last from the tyranny of matter." "Into pure energy, therefore, they presently transformed themselves; and on a thousand worlds, the empty shells they had discarded twitched for a while in a mindless dance of death, then crumbled into rust." "Now they were lords of the galaxy, and beyond the reach of time. They could rove at will among the stars, and sink like a subtle mist through the very interstices of space. But despite their godlike powers, they had not wholly forgotten their origin, in the warm slime of a vanished sea." " And they still watched over the experiments their ancestors had started, so long ago." Well, we got some work to do.......Monolith building anyone? Brian Williams Extropian Cypherpatriot monolith builder? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 12:39:02 -0700 From: Brian D Williams Subject: dino shooting The eskimo's were known to hunt polar bears with a .22 cal! The technique as described in the ethnobiography "Hunters of the northern ice" is as follows; The bears would head immediately toward the hunter (man being little more than fresh meat to a polar bear) when the bear had closed to about twenty yards, the hunter would shoot them in one of the rear haunches, the bear would turn and bite at the wound, and the hunter would fire his next shot into the brain thru the ear! As to t-rex and veloceraptor I believe they were both sight hunters, so the best target would be the eyes....... Brian Williams Extropian Cypherpatriot ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 13:13:08 -0800 From: lefty@apple.com (Lefty) Subject: DIET: Homo Sapiens--Vegetarian Predators? Jay Freeman writes in his "_Velociraptor_ intelligence:: >(2) They were bipedal with reasonable overlap of fields of view of the > two eyes. Which brings up something I've been wondering about vis a vis the Vegetarian thread. I believe Perry mentioned the length of the human intestine as evidence that humans were naturally vegetarian. How does this gibe, I wonder, with the placement of human eyes? My understanding was that binocular vision was a certain sign of a predator. Comments? -- Lefty (lefty@apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 15:47:08 -0500 From: nobody@rosebud.ee.uh.edu Subject: Tabloid Extropy #1 Timothy C. May wrote: >One obvious filter to install is a provision that only subscribed >members can post to the list, > >Individuals not wishing to get anonymous posts can also screen the >standard names ("nobody," "anonymous," etc.) once the new software by >Ray is installed. The first seems too stringent to me, since I frequently post from another person's account, yet use both and don't want a double subscription to extropians. The second seems more friendly. Perhaps a standard/suggested list of names to filter should be part of the (already too big) introductory mailout for new members? The Bandit (Not Even!) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 13:46:31 -0700 From: freeman@MasPar.COM (Jay R. Freeman) Subject: DIET: Homo Sapiens--Vegetarian Predators? Lefty@Apple.COM writes: > My understanding was that binocular vision was a certain sign of > a predator. I believe it is more likely a sign that you need to judge distances to nearby objects accurately. That might be because you are about to pounce on something. It might also be because if you miss the branch you are trying to leap to, it's a long drop to the ground. Mammals that go leaping and bounding through the treetops tend to have good binocular vision, and certainly not all such mammals are predators. -- Jay Freeman ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 14:40:57 -0800 From: lefty@apple.com (Lefty) Subject: Dino Shooting Tim May suggests: > >It was clear to me that Spielberg was unfamiliar with the >Rambo-Terminator-Alien genre and its armaments. This is probably no truer than suggesting that John Carpenter doesn't know any better than to wander around in a pitch-black house in which your friends have been mysteriously vanishing, opening doors at random. Better armaments would have injected a plot element in conflict with the general direction of the story line. -- Lefty (lefty@apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 14:23:42 -0800 From: lefty@apple.com (Lefty) Subject: DIET: Homo Sapiens--Vegetarian Predators? >> My understanding was that binocular vision was a certain sign of >> a predator. > >I believe it is more likely a sign that you need to judge distances >to nearby objects accurately. That might be because you are about to >pounce on something. It might also be because if you miss the branch >you are trying to leap to, it's a long drop to the ground. Why then don't squirrels have binocular vision? -- Lefty (lefty@apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 15:17:39 PDT From: "Mark W. McFadden" Subject: DIET: Homo Sapiens--Vegetarian Predators? On Mon, 21 Jun 1993 13:13:08 -0800, Lefty wrote: I believe Perry mentioned the length of the human >intestine as evidence that humans were naturally vegetarian. >How does this gibe, I wonder, with the placement of human eyes? My >understanding was that binocular vision was a certain sign of a predator. >Comments? >-- >Lefty (lefty@apple.com) >C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:. Not disagreeing (cuz I think we started as omniverous predators), but gorillas have binocular vision, as do all of the other primates. And predatory birds don't seem to need binocular vision. Just trying to cloud the issue. ______________________________________________________________________ | Mark W. McFadden | Been there.....done that. mwm@wwtc.timeplex.com | | ___________________________________|__________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 15:30:07 -0800 From: lefty@apple.com (Lefty) Subject: SOC/CHAT: Appearances Perry postulates: >You are on the subway, alone, at night. A man in an obviously >expensive conservative suit, carrying a briefcase, enters. > >You are on the subway, alone, at night. A man wearing gang colors and >"homeboy" fashion enters. > >In which of the two situations do you think it is more likely that you >will be mugged by the person entering? I believe that the answer that >most people give is actually 100% reasonable. Just out of curiousity, Perry. As a resident of New York, how dangerous do you feel Central Park is? -- Lefty (lefty@apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 17:37:23 CDT From: derek@cs.wisc.edu (Derek Zahn) Subject: Chaitin, Mathematica, and "Jurassic Park" Patrick Wilken writes: > If it isn't too stupid a question could > you please explain to me how to define complexity? Heh. I'm afraid that defining complexity is one of our tasks. There's lots of different ways people have come up with to define complexity -- none of them are satisfactory for general use (and it's likely to me that the intuitive sense of 'complexity' is one of Lakoff's highly-structured categories and we're unlikely to come up with a grand unification). Systems theorists talk in terms of parts and interactions, information theorists talk in terms of compressibility (and Bennett includes running time, which brings things closer to the physical world and "complex objects"), theoretical CS types think even more strongly in terms of computing time ("complex problems"). I guess that in a way the fractal dimension of a physical object is a measure of its complexity. For the tasks at hand -- say, applying algorithmic information theory to genetic programming (e.g. under what conditions does the program evolution lead to programs whose outputs have greater logical depth?) and the obvious parallels in biology and perhaps nanotechnology -- we'll have to wield the term Complexity like a sword: however it cuts deepest. I expect we'll spend some time on this! derek ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 16:45:11 -0700 From: freeman@MasPar.COM (Jay R. Freeman) Subject: DIET: Homo Sapiens--Vegetarian Predators? Lefty@Apple.COM writes: > Why then don't squirrels have binocular vision? Beats me. Actually, I believe squirrels have modest overlap of the visual fields of the two eyes. There is clearly a tradeoff between good binocular vision (e.g., for judging leaps) and as wide a visual field as possible, for scanning for predators. Many squirrels are not entirely arboreal, and some not at all so, and they are popular carnivore- kibble, so perhaps they have "chosen" to make the optimization differently from primates. -- Jay Freeman ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 19:15:22 -0400 (EDT) From: esr@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) Subject: DIET: Homo Sapiens--Vegetarian Predators? > Not disagreeing (cuz I think we started as omniverous predators), but > gorillas have binocular vision, as do all of the other primates. And > predatory birds don't seem to need binocular vision. Just trying to cloud > the issue. Quite. I don't think binocular vision establishes much of anything. The explanation for it in primates that I *do* believe is that it's an adaptation for arboreality --- early tree-dwelling primates developed stereopsis in order to be able to judge 3-D distances. -- Eric S. Raymond ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 18:00:58 -0700 (PDT) From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) Subject: E-PRIME: Atlantic Monthly article I'm inspired to write an E-Prime style-checking script in perl. The first version should be very simple, a context grep on the following: * forms of the verb "to be" * absolutist words (always, never, etc.) Follwoup versions might include: * not flagging OK uses of the verb "to be" such as auxiliary verbs * detecting other patterns indicating flaming, obvious lack of fit from map to territory, etc. * your ideas go here This script might be used for the following: * create "semantic rankings" for e-mail and news articles which can be used in filters * double-check one's own work before posting * style-checker for pre-editing contributions to _Extropy_ * your ideas go here Nick Szabo szabo@techbook.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 21:20:17 WET DST From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: E-PRIME: Atlantic Monthly article Nick Szabo writes: > > > I'm inspired to write an E-Prime style-checking script in perl. > The first version should be very simple, a context grep on the > following: > * forms of the verb "to be" > * absolutist words (always, never, etc.) [...] How about creating an automatic daemon which scans messages and annoys posters who use "to be", "always", and "*ization"? It would be great! Opps!, let me rephrase that. I feel that the potential implementation of such a daemon would engender the development of a global state of greatness. -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- EE/Math Student | politics is the implementation of faith. -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | - Zetetic Commentaries -- Damn, my sig is in violation. -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering seems like the implementation of science; -- -- EE/Math Student| politics seems like the implementation of faith. -- -- rjc@gnu | - Zetetic Commentaries, E-prime -- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 20:58:22 WET DST From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: FWD: Book Review Path: mojo.eng.umd.edu!darwin.sura.net!math.ohio-state.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!waikato.ac.nz!canterbury.ac.nz!math!wft Newsgroups: sci.math Subject: BOOK REVIEW: Weinberg's "Final Theory". Message-ID: From: wft@math.canterbury.ac.nz (Bill Taylor) Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 06:41:43 GMT Organization: Department of Mathematics, University of Canterbury Nntp-Posting-Host: sss330.canterbury.ac.nz Lines: 175 "DREAMS OF A FINAL THEORY" Steven Weinberg. Pantheon, N.Y. ISBN 0679419233 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This review should perhaps really appear on sci.physics (or a general science or philosophy group). I guess it will already have been discussed there, whereas I've not seen it mentioned in sci.math. I'm sure it will be of interest here. I heartily recommend this book to all those with any interest in the goals of modern physics, the relationship between physics and math, or the philosophy of science in general. It is an entertaining but scholarly account, both personal and wide-ranging, of the topics mentioned above. Chapter 1: Prologue. Weinberg looks at the general progress of science, from Greek times and their failures, (in which he disparages the common but silly view that e.g. Democritus was "right" merely because he was an atomist), to modern, where he also astutely observes that there is considerable scientific snobbery, (at least), (e.g. biologists would rather look at genes than bunions). Chapter 2: On a Piece of Chalk. The title harks back to a famous public lecture of Huxley's, and he takes up the opportunity to explore what scientific explanation really "is"; what it means to explain one thing in turns of another, and that in terms of another, and so on, in response to child-like continuing questions of why- why- why. He maintains a ruthless objectivism, thoroughly eschewing not only any absurd ideas of vitalism etc, but also the somewhat more common subjectivism of Copenhagen QM. Very satisfyingly, IMHO. There is an interesting snippet here for the math historian - apparently Ernst Zermelo was one of the last hold-outs against the reality of atoms and molecules, preferring the more mathematical "pure thermodynamics". An interesting note, in view of Zermelo's fabulous success in elucidating the "molecules" of modern math - i.e. sets. At the end of this chapter, Weinberg also convincingly denounces (as if it were needed), the notion that astrology, creationism or other crank theories even need be looked at, much less taken seriously. The book is worth reading for this little section alone. Chapter 3: Two Cheers for Reductionism. Extends the ideas of chapter 2; satisfyingly defending the general methodology of scientific reductionism from attacks by other scientists. (Though perhaps here is one of his blind spots - he rather degrades the importance of modern math/C.S. ideas of "structure", and its coprimacy with physical foundations.) Chapter 4: Quantum Mechanics and Its Discontents. Attempts an explanation of basic QM for the non-physicist. Quite a good job of it, in my utterly nonexpert opinion. Includes a diversionary but interesting division of the most successful physicists into "magicians" and "sages". Chapter 5: Tales of Theory and Experiment. Points out that theories are often "accepted" even though the experimental evidence is slim, provided they are plausible or "beautiful" enough. General Relativity, for 50 years, was the classic case. This is compared with QED - an almost exact opposite. Also conatains an account of the electroweak theory, with many interesting personal tales. He points out that retrodiction can be as reliable as prediction in many ways - a well-argued non-Popperian view. Chapter 6: Beautiful Theories. This is an extension of the ideas of chapter 5; and the perhaps the chapter of most interest from a strictly math viewpoint. Gives an account of how thoroughly modern physics is based on the purely mathematical idea of SYMMETRIES; both external and internal; another excellent account of a difficult subject for the layman. Has some intersesting comparisons of the "beauty" of math/science with the altogether different beauty of the arts. For the mathematician there are some fascinating remarks about Gauss, Kepler, Hardy and many others; and another personal anecdote about how he found Hardy's self-proclaimedly "useless" number theory to be of the greatest use! And many more remarks about the famous "unreasonable effectiveness" of math in physics. Perhaps the last paragraph can bear quoting in full - "Although we do not yet have a sure sense of where in our work we should rely on our sense of beauty, still in elementary particle physics aesthetic judgments seem to be working increasingly well. I take this as evidence that we are moving in the right direction, and perhaps not so far from our goal." Chapter 7: Against Philosophy. Another very satisfying chapter for me. Though he stops short of saying philosophy is actually useless, he points out how increasingly irrelevant it is. It often seems to me that philosophy can never *lead* in science (or math), only follow (and stumble) in the wake of technical achievement. I think Weinberg takes this view too, for the most part. He points out that perhaps the nearest recent episode to a counterexample is the case of Einstein following Mach; or the effects of positivism generally. But he also observes that Einstein had second thoughts about positivism, and that on the whole it has done more harm than good. He elaborates with a good account of JJ Thomson, and observes that positivism has been quite discarded with the entry to the quark world. Chapter 8: Twentieth Century Blues. An account of what might be considered failures (if temporary) in modern physics. Chapter 9: The Shape of a Final Theory. An account of strings, the cosmological constant, and other matters. Contains a satisfying disparagement of the "anthropic principle", at least in its general form, (where it is close to complete mysticism). Chapter 10: Facing Finality. Compares the conflicting views: that science will always be able to explain things only by further things, endlessly; or that science will one day find an "ultimate" explanation of everything. Comes down firmly for the second, while noting that this would still by no means mean the end of scientific endeavor. Admits that scientists have often underestimated the distance to be travelled, but points out that they have never (in this century, or even in the infamous last) really maintained the view that science was nearly complete. For myself, I can't decide how I feel about his two "alternatives" above, but I can't help feeling he is rather too optimistic himself, about how close the final answer is, (if there is one). He finishes the chapter with a note on the possible social benefits of achieving a final theory. In that while scientists disagree about fundamentals, the layman can rather ignore science, but that if awareness of a complete solution were to percolate the public mind, it might be very helpful in combatting astrology and similar superstitious looniness. Again, too optimistic, IMHO. Chapter 11: What About God ? A satisfyingly trenchant dismissal of the nonsense of religion; particularly with respect to education, and funds for science. He is equally disparaging of the fuzzy sludgy thinking of the religious liberal, and the dangerous political influence of the religious conservative. He makes a good case that religion cannot be so easily separated from its horrifying past excesses. He observes that almost all scientists (with the notable exception of physicists), will never even discuss religious matters, reacting with surprised amusement if the quaint matter is even brought up:- he comes closest here to a sypathetic account of religion, though what his main point is, is not really clear. (It seems obvious to me that scientists are less likely to allow their rational ideas to be overwhelmed by mere emotional wishful thinking.) Along these lines he remarks wryly how much trouble he has had from an unguarded comment of his in "The First 3 Minutes"; that "the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless". He closes the chapter with this mournful but courageous plaint - "It is an almost irresistable temptation to believe with Bede and Edwin that there must be something for us outside the banqueting hall. The honor of resisting this temptation is only a thin substitute for the consolations of religion, but it is not entirely without satisfactions of its own." Chapter 12: Down in Ellis County. A somewhat anticimactic coda concerning the proposed supercollider. ----- There is also a very nice collection of footnotes arranged in a format I've not seen before, but which is quite pleasant, and avoids the distracting irritation of footnote numbers throughout the main text. Well then; I hope I have written enough to encourage further readership. My own personal prejudices will show through my review, I'm sure, so those with similar views can be sure of getting "a good read"; but even those who disagree with me should find plenty in Weinberg's book to keep them interested. Please give it a try. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bill Taylor wft@math.canterbury.ac.nz ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _____________________________________ ______| |______ \ | Two cheers for reductionism ! | / > |_____________________________________| < /______\| |/______\ -- 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, 21 Jun 93 19:19:03 PDT From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: E-PRIME: Atlantic Monthly article > How about creating an automatic daemon which scans messages and > annoys posters who use "to be", "always", and "*ization"? It would be > great! Opps!, let me rephrase that. I feel that the potential > implementation of such a daemon would engender the development of a > global state of greatness. > > -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- This is nonsense. In fact, it is the final realization of the infatuation with language as the manifestation of reality. Mistakes have been made. General semanticists always make this mistake. The world is what it is. (Sorry. "It could not be helped.") Tim, the Half-Dane ("to be or not to be"...pick one) -- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 22:11:44 -0400 (EDT) From: esr@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) Subject: E-PRIME: Atlantic Monthly article > I'm inspired to write an E-Prime style-checking script in perl. Good idea. I'd use it. -- Eric S. Raymond ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 22:50:00 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: Dino Shooting X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission "Mark W. McFadden" says: > Well hell, the subject is already here, I'll keep it going for awhile. > Instead of the .50 caliber etc etc, how efficient would a smaller (say > 9mm) Glaser Safety Slug be? Would a , ohhh Uzi(?) firing those have the > stopping power of the larger calibers? No. Glasers are junk, and I recommend against using them for self defense against humans, let alone big game. If you have questions on this score, I suggest a quick check on rec.guns where there will be plenty of explanations. > I think I'd want the option of a big clip and high rate of fire when > dealing with multiple 'raptors. No, you don't, and not really with humans either. If you can aim, your first shot should stop your target. If you can't aim, forget it. Give me a bolt action in a heavy big game caliber over a submachine gun in 9mm parabellum any day when going against large and mean animals. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 20:02:42 -0700 (PDT) From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) Subject: RANT: _Assemblers of Infinity_: cream of the sewage pit I forced myself to read this when it came out in Analog. *Boring*. _Engines of Creation_ is far more exciting. Even _Nanosystems_ is more fun, for the pictures. And going beyond the pictures you will learn far, far more about theoretically possible technology than from _Assemblers_. I haven't read _Unbounding the Future_ so I can't comment on that comparison. (Is there anything important in _Unbounding_ that's not in _Engines_ or _Nanosystems_?) I've got tons of fiction as at least as good as _Assemblers_ (but most of it only half-finished :-) sitting on my hard disk -- great settings, so-so characters and plot. But at least I know when my characters and plots are boring, and I de-emphasize them in favor of the settings and poetical scenes involving the settings. And now to my more general rants on the current dismal state of hard SF: * The lack of any sort of believable charactaters beside research scientists. If I read another research-scientist-discovers-cool- science-thing "story" I'm gonna puke. I read _Science_ to catch the real-life stories, which don't suffer anything in excitement for being true. What happened to stories about the movers & shakers of the future? What ever happened to D. D. Harriman? * The lack of interesting characters besides the cliched "cyberpunk warrior" (eg Hiro Protagonist in _Snow Crash_). * _Analog_ stories with scientists solving some obscure pure-science problems that most of the rest of society couldn't give a flying f*ck about, and whining indignantly when society "cuts the budget". I read enough of this crap from the parasitical pork whiners in sci.space. * Ignorance of economics and engineering and plain common sense. I'm sick and tired of SF authors "getting the science right" by doing some clever calculation and then showing complete stupidity about how the setting got there (eg who payed for it and why, how it was built and how difficult that was, etc.) Too may authors get orbital mechanics right to the sixth decimal place (something my computer can easily do) and fall back on the most grossly ignorant cliches and idiocies when it comes to non-trivial issues in economics and engineering, which will drive the shape of future society far more than trivial-to-compute physics. When I want to learn about orbital mechanics I'll read _Astrodynamics_ by Bate, White, & Mueller, and the papers from JPL & Goddard gravity-slingshot gururs. I read SF to learn about the future of things far more complex and important than orbits! * I'm sick and tired of SF authors using cliched settings like NASA-style lunar bases, O'Neill colonies, ad nauseum instead of creating visions of their own. Bruce Sterling is one of the few authors these days who gets the engineering and economics right (too bad his characters and prose style sucks). I highly recommend, above any and all other SF-ish stuff being published today, Bruce Sterling's science-fact articles in F&SF. (He alternates with Gregory Benford, whose articles are also good but not extraordinary like Sterling's). Damn it, if _Assembers_ is considered good I'd better get back to writing. Anybody have some good plots or characters they'd like to swap for good settings? Would Extropians buy SF that is rich in prose and setting and keeps characterization and plot to brief "quality time", instead of wasting forests full of trees and thousands of hapless reader*lifetimes "developing" cardboard characters and cliched plots? Thankfully, I'm done now. :-) Nick Szabo szabo@techbook.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 23:03:16 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: DIET: Homo Sapiens--Vegetarian Predators? X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission Lefty says: > Jay Freeman writes in his "_Velociraptor_ intelligence:: > >(2) They were bipedal with reasonable overlap of fields of view of the > > two eyes. > > Which brings up something I've been wondering about vis a vis the > Vegetarian thread. I believe Perry mentioned the length of the human > intestine as evidence that humans were naturally vegetarian. > > How does this gibe, I wonder, with the placement of human eyes? My > understanding was that binocular vision was a certain sign of a predator. > Comments? All the great apes have binocular vision. None but man eat meat regularly, although Chimps eat it on a rare basis. I do not, by the way, contend that man is a herbivore -- we can digest meat, we just aren't built to do it too often. For myself, I find that its easiest to do away with it entirely since unlike my ancestors I don't need every food source I can get my hands on. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 23:10:07 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: SOC/CHAT: Appearances X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission Lefty says: > Just out of curiousity, Perry. > > As a resident of New York, how dangerous do you feel Central Park is? Fairly, but it has a low crime rate because few people are willing to go through it at night alone. It isn't dangerous compared to several other spots I can mention. I'll walk through it at night in a reasonable group. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 21:14:52 -0600 (MDT) From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: MEDIA: _Intertek_ magazine The person quoted in the first line (hhuang, by permission) thought this might be of interest to all so here ya go: > > Is 2600 good? How is Intertek? If they are good, I will subscribe. > > 2600 is a true hackers' magazine. If you can't keep up with the tech > details, you won't get anything out of it. Intertek is HIGHLY > recommended, very extropian. They cover such things as: > > "Electropolis: Communicaton and Community on Internet Relay Chat" [IRC] > (this one's been released to the net in textfile format, on lots of > FTP sites) > > "Social Organization of the Computer Underground" > > "Real World Kerberos: Authentication and Privacy on a Physically Insecure > Network" (also net-released) > > "MUDding: Social Phenomena in Text-Based Virtual Realities" > > "Bury UseNet" (w/responses by Mitch Kapor of EFF, Bruce Sterling, John S. > Quarterman of EFF-Austin, etc.) > > Interviews and articles with/by: Sterling, Dorothy Denning, John Gilmore, > Gail Thackeray, Cliff Stoll, etc. > > "3D Graphics: Texture Maps" > > "Uploading: Wetware to Hardware" > > "Reasearch in Japan" > > "FOIA on BBS Monitoring" > > and so on. > > Authors from the 2 issues I have (besides those already mentioned): Mike > Perry, Kevin Q. Brown, Dr. David Kahaner, Stacy Steinberg, Steve > Steinberg, Elizabeth M. Reed, Gordon R. Meyer, Ken Duda, Pavel Curtis. > > It comes out only a couple times a year, and I haven't seen one in a while. > I have issues 3.2 and 3.3 > > Contacts: > Intertek > 325 Ellwood Beach, #3 > Goleta, CA 93117 > +1-805-685-6557 > > Subs: $14/2yrs (4 issues), $4 single issue. There was an email address, but it doesn't seem to be valid anymore. -- Stanton McCandlish * Space Migration * Networking * ChaOrder * NO GOV'T. * anton@hydra.unm.edu * Intelligence Increase * Nano * Crypto * NO RELIGION * FidoNet: 1:301/2 * Life Extension * Ethics * VR * Now! * NO MORE LIES! * Noise in the Void BBS * +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400, v32bis, N-8-1) * ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 21:49:48 -0700 From: freeman@MasPar.COM (Jay R. Freeman) Subject: DIET: Homo Sapiens--Vegetarian Predators? Perry Metzger says: > All the great apes have binocular vision. None but man eat meat > regularly [...] For that matter, the koala bear has quite good binocular vision, but is not generally considered a terrifying render and hewer of tissue, except perhaps by eucalyptus leaves ... :-) -- Jay Freeman ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 93 22:35:09 PDT From: hal@alumni.cco.caltech.edu (Hal Finney) Subject: AIT VirtSem: Setting up the Virtual Seminar I like Tim's idea for trying out a virtual seminar. Lately I haven't been able to get on the list much so a slower pace sounds very attractive to me. I've read, or at least skimmed, a couple of Chaitin's books, as well as the ALife I and II proceedings. There is another Santa Fe Institute proceeding volume that's good, but I forget the title. Most of these books I get at the UCSB library so I don't have the information right at hand but I can usually look it up. Hal ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 23:37:16 -0600 (MDT) From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: DIET: Homo Sapiens--Vegetarian Predators? Quoth Jay R. Freeman, verily I say unto thee: > > For that matter, the koala bear has quite good binocular vision, but ^^^^ ??!?!? Romana, I think he needs a spanking... > is not generally considered a terrifying render and hewer of tissue, > except perhaps by eucalyptus leaves ... :-) Yeah, but despite their cuteness, they do give nasty bites. Not real friendly things. -- Stanton McCandlish * Space Migration * Networking * ChaOrder * NO GOV'T. * anton@hydra.unm.edu * Intelligence Increase * Nano * Crypto * NO RELIGION * FidoNet: 1:301/2 * Life Extension * Ethics * VR * Now! * NO MORE LIES! * Noise in the Void BBS * +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400, v32bis, N-8-1) * ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 01:01:32 -0400 (EDT) From: esr@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) Subject: EVOLUTION/DIET: What proto-hominids ate There's been considerable discussion of what hominids and early humans ate on the list recently. Herewith a few facts and their standard interpretations. Early proto-hominids (Ramapithecus, Dryopithecus) certainly resembled monkeys anatomically and probably resembled them behaviorally as well. Thus, they were probably opportunistic omnivores (like, say, chimpanzees), with a diet that included plants, insects, eggs, snakes, lizards, carrion, and occasional small game. (If there actually was an aquatic-ape phase, it probably happened between Ramapithecus and Australopithecus. There's room; the fossil record is spottier here than it is for the later hominids.) (BTW, the hominid innovation of no fixed estrus may go back this far. Year- round mating is characteristic of aquatic mammals, not generally of land mammals.) The relationships between the various Australopithecus fossils are still controversial. However: it's thought that the larger forms (robustus) had dentition more like a herbivore's, with very powerful jaws and large flat grinding molars for dealing with seed cases and vegetable fiber. A. Gracilis had smaller teeth and jaws, which many paleoanthropologists believe indicate a less specialized diet. Homo Erectus probably evolved from A. Gracilis. Erectus used tools and fire and ate meat. Quite likely he had a diet typical of human hunter-gatherers; monkey food, plus the occasional game kill. Interestingly, one of the clearest changes from Erectus through early modern and modern humans is continuing diminution in teeth and jaw size. This almost certainly indicates a decreasing proportion of vegetable matter in the diet. Contrary to what one might expect, it takes larger, more powerful jaws and teeth to be a vegetarian than it does to be an omnivore --- to see this in contemporary primates, compare the herbivorous gorilla with the omnivorous chimp. So what was Erectus eating more of? Eggs, carrion, and the young of other animals are possibilities too often overlooked (this is "passive" game that doesn't fight or run away). It used to be thought that pack-hunting was a late (human) development, but it turns out that chimpanzees routinely hunt small game cooperatively in the wild. Nevertheless, we don't see hominid fossils in association with large-game kills before the Neanderthals and early modern humans. William Calvin has suggested (very plausibly to my mind) that early hominids specialized in potting small game with thrown rocks. It is a fact that humans have instinctive throwing ability *far* better than any other primate. It's easy to imagine this ability developing incrementally in a primate with opposable thumbs and stereoptic binocular vision --- in fact, the success of this strategy may have driven the evolution of bipedalism *and* explosive encephalization. Calvin argues persuasively (and with supporting neurological evidence) that the human capacity to handle language, music, and mathematics probably evolved from the machinery needed to control projectile-throwing accurately. Not only is trajectory-calculation in 3D difficult (though the hominid line got a leg up on it from their arboreal ancestors), but throwing requires muscular control finer than an `unbuffered' brain-to-hand interface can do (the control loop has to be tighter than the .1-second spinal reflex arc). Thus, humans had to develop the ability to buffer throwing routines --- and that ability (Calvin argues) underlies much of our planning and contingency-handling ability. But there's more to the story than that. As hominids got better at being bipedal, they became cursorial hunters. Humans are not particularly fast sprinters, but few animals can top us at endurance running. A man in good condition can catch a horse or almost any game animal, eventually, by jogging after it. The !Kung bushmen still hunt this way. Adaptations for hunting behavior were probably strongly selected for during the Ice Ages. There were no vegans (before central heating) in sub-arctic climates, because the combination of year-round low temperatures and vegetarianism kills relatively quickly. The combination of good missile-throwing, cursorial hunting, and pack coordination is well attested by the classic Ice Age mammoth-kill sites in southern France. It put us at the top of the food chain to stay, and probably wiped out the Pleistocene megafauna in the Americas. One could see this pattern in operation, essentially unaltered, as late as the 1800s among Plains Indians. If the standard picture of hominid evolution is anywhere near correct, most of the signature traits of H. Sapiens developed to make him (sorry, ladies, in this case `him' is appropriate) a more effective hunter. Evidence of meat- eating and large-game kills becomes more and more strongly associated with hominid remains the later one goes in the fossil record. Today, human dietary patterns range from pure vegan (Jains) through omnivore to carnivore (Inuit). The most common pattern in pre-industrial societies is centered on a staple starch (rice, rye, wheat, maize) and uses meat and vegetables as relishes. Hunter-gatherer cultures eat more meat, agriculturalists less. Contrary to what current nutritional fashion predicts, hunter-gatherers average considerably healthier than agriculturalists for it. -- >>eric>> ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 Issue #0346 ****************************************