From extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Mon Jul 19 04:25:23 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA13394; Mon, 19 Jul 93 04:25:21 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: from ude.tim.ia.ung.gnu.ai.mit.ed (ude.tim.ia.ung.gnu.ai.mit.edu) by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA29442; Mon, 19 Jul 93 04:25:15 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by ude.tim.ia.ung.gnu.ai.mit.edu id AA19122; Mon, 19 Jul 93 07:15:07 EDT Message-Id: <9307191115.AA19122@ude.tim.ia.ung.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: ExI-Daily@gnu.ai.mit.edu Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 07:13:19 EDT X-Original-Message-Id: <9307191113.AA19115@ude.tim.ia.ung.gnu.ai.mit.edu> X-Original-To: Extropians@ude.tim.ia.ung.gnu.ai.mit.edu From: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: Extropians Digest V93 #0396 X-Extropian-Date: Remailed on July 19, 373 P.N.O. [11:14:57 UTC] Reply-To: Extropians@ude.tim.ia.ung.gnu.ai.mit.edu Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: OR Extropians Digest Mon, 19 Jul 93 Volume 93 : Issue 0396 Today's Topics: AIT: Configuration space changes under evolution [1 msgs] An Interesting Topic [1 msgs] Another Worry [1 msgs] Bananas as brain-food... [1 msgs] Big Macs. [3 msgs] Extropy? is that in the dictionary yet? [1 msgs] NANO: A TM-5 the size of a red blood cell? [1 msgs] NANO: Processing power [1 msgs] Nightly Market Report [2 msgs] Review: Three Men of the Beagle [1 msgs] Third Millenium group? [1 msgs] Tribble test [1 msgs] What are big upcoming problems? [2 msgs] parallel minds [1 msgs] unemployment [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: 50158 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 17 Jul 93 23:59:38 EDT From: The Hawthorne Exchange Subject: Nightly Market Report The Hawthorne Exchange - HEx Nightly Market Report For more information on HEx, send email to HEx@sea.east.sun.com with the Subject info. --------------------------------------------------------------- News Summary as of: Sat Jul 17 23:59:00 EDT 1993 Newly Registered Reputations: (None) New Share Issues: (None) Share Splits: (None) --------------------------------------------------------------- Market Summary as of: Sat Jul 17 23:59:01 EDT 1993 Total Shares Symbol Bid Ask Last Issued Outstanding Market Value ACS 28.00 29.00 29.00 10000 106 3074.00 ALCOR 10.00 14.00 14.00 10000 411 5754.00 ANTO - - - - - - BLAIR 15.00 30.00 50.00 10000 25 1250.00 CHAITN - - - - - - DEREK 2.00 3.00 3.00 100000 1120 3360.00 DRXLR 10.00 14.00 14.00 10000 1031 14434.00 DVDT 20.00 50.00 - 10000 - - E 15.00 25.00 100.00 10000 36 3600.00 ESR - - - - - - EXI - - - - - - FCP 9.00 9.00 9.00 10000 1200 10800.00 GHG - 6.00 15.00 10000 905 13575.00 GOBEL - 15.00 22.00 10000 757 16654.00 H - - - - - - HEX 100.00 105.00 100.00 10000 3328 332800.00 HFINN 9.00 10.00 10.00 10000 455 4550.00 IMMFR 15.00 - - 10000 - - JFREE 1.00 50.00 1.00 10000 250 250.00 JPP 5.00 4.00 1.00 10000 10 10.00 LEF 20.00 29.00 100.00 10000 1 100.00 LEFTY 4.00 25.00 25.00 10000 1 25.00 LIST - - - - - - LURKR .50 45.00 - 100000 - - MARCR - - - - - - MLINK - .10 1.00 1000000 2601 2601.00 MWM 1.00 20.00 20.00 10000 10 200.00 N 50.00 125.00 50.00 10000 33 1650.00 P 15.00 25.00 24.00 1000000 380 9120.00 PETER .01 1.00 2.00 10000000 1100 2200.00 PRICE 1.00 4.00 2.00 10000000 1410 2820.00 R - 3.95 1.00 10000 751 751.00 ROMA - - - - - - SGP - - - - - - TIM 10.00 - - 10000 - - TRADE 15.00 20.00 - 1000000 - - TRANS 20.00 25.00 25.00 10000 1 25.00 WILKEN 9.00 10.00 10.00 10000 101 1010.00 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total 430613.00 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 08:47:25 GMT From: price@price.demon.co.uk (Michael Clive Price) Subject: AIT: Configuration space changes under evolution I completely agree with Nick Szabo when he says: > [..] the argument "function A took billions of > years to evolve, therefore it's logically deep, therefore it's > to hard for humans to build anytime soon" is bogus. Indeed, if it were true then the wheel would have to be regarded as logically 4 billion years deep, clearly an absurd notion. Mike Price price@price.demon.co.uk AS member ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 07:54:25 -0700 From: dasher@netcom.com (D. Anton Sherwood) Subject: unemployment Edward J O'Connell writes: > People are protean; they work to > live; they figure out what to do in an environment and survive. The > minority that can't aren't worth worrying about... (is this what you > guys think? Its the best I can paraphrase, anyway...) > > I on the other hand, think that there will be massive problems with an > unemployed/unemployable underclass that swamps the abilities of even > the most dedicated prison building programs. . . . Workers don't have to be protean, because employers make up the difference. If there is any way for Joe Bloggs to be productive, even without any re-training, sooner or later someone is going to find it and make a buck by hiring Joe Bloggs. (If people are inflexible, who will write the all-prescient program to protect us from the woes that follow from inflexibility?) (By the way, I have some thoughts toward an essay on the danger of confusing theory with methodology, and how each is or is not relevant to ethics. Possible title: "Which Individualism?".) Anton Sherwood dasher@netcom.com +1 415 267 0685 1800 Market St #207, San Francisco 94102 USA ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 07:57:48 -0700 From: dasher@netcom.com (D. Anton Sherwood) Subject: parallel minds Edward J O'Connell writes: > How about a process that squeezes a lot of parallel > identities into a single organism with a longer internal memory. (all > life experiences are stacked side by side; instead of being a thousand > copies of me, I'm one copy, with the memory of a thousand lifetimes...) I've had a somewhat similar thought about sorting out multiple personalities in a single brain. Currently the standard treatment is (I guess) to pick a winner and cause each of the other personalities to assimilate into it. But what if we could give each of them a body? We could save money on hardware by giving a body only to a maximal compatible set (assuming we can tell which are compatible). But then we might have to decide between overlapping sets. What's worse, the overlap might be cyclic -- i.e. we must choose whether to give three bodies to AB CD EF or to BC DE FA. But if cost and pain are no object, the power set approach can claim the virtue of thoroughness: for N personalities, create 2^N-2 subsets, and see which are healthy. (The empty set is excluded as uninteresting, and the parent set by hypothesis -- if it were healthy we wouldn't be meddling.) Anton Sherwood dasher@netcom.com +1 415 267 0685 1800 Market St #207, San Francisco 94102 USA ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 15:46 GMT0BST-1 From: Martyn Fogg Subject: Big Macs. I just heard that Tyrannosaurus Rex could have eaten 650 Big Macs at one sitting! Fact or hype? Martyn J. Fogg (mfogg@cix.compulink.co.uk) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 16:26:30 +0100 From: Rich Walker Subject: Big Macs. >I just heard that Tyrannosaurus Rex could have eaten 650 Big Macs at >one sitting! Fact or hype? Surely even T.Rex would have _slightly_ more taste? Rich! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 10:27:02 GMT From: price@price.demon.co.uk (Michael Clive Price) Subject: NANO: A TM-5 the size of a red blood cell? Elias Israel: > (I say that it "processes the same number of instructions" rather > than "does the same amount of work" because the former is more > precise than the latter, I prefer to quantify processing power in terms of bits/sec because it is less arbitrary than instructions/sec, (how complex is an "instruction"?) and also easier to relate to thermodynamics, limits of computation, etc where a bit has precise, machine independent, definition. One of the surprises I had recently was someone taking umbrage at my quantifying processing power in bits rather than instructions.... :-( Nick Szabo, responding to Elias: > Good for you! I'm tired of bogus pseudo-physics like "computing > power", "powerful theories", "social forces", etc. (Not that > phrases like "information" don't get abused as well...) These > are channel markers indicating the writer/speaker has reached either > his limit of understanding or ability to communicate. Absolutely! It always make me suspect that they're not quite sure what they're talking about. Going back to Elias' original question of how: > are we going to adapt to computers too powerful to comprehend and > too numerous to count? The question is partially answered by the phrase "too powerful to comprehend". Ergo we can't, from our vantage point, comprehend how they will operate and alter our lives. Like microbes trying to speculate on the nature of a microbiologist we will always fail. The closest we can come to understanding is to regard them as gods, as in _A Fire Upon the Deep_. Vinge resorted to the artifice (?) of the Slow Zone and the Beyond to reduce the complexity of the plot to human- comprehension. More likely the future lies in Transcend where gods and demons play, powers beyond our ken hold sway. Mike Price, price@price.demon.co.uk a worm that dreams of being a god ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1993 12:30:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Harry Shapiro Subject: Review: Three Men of the Beagle Review: Three Men of The Beagle by Richard Lee Marks Published by Avon Books, NY Oct 1992. ISBN: 0-380-71838-3 _____________________________________________________ This is a very interesting tale/story that should be of interest to most Extropians. It details parts of the lives of three men who sailed on The HMS Beagle. Capt. Robert FitzRoy, Extropian Hero Charles Darwin and Yahgan Indian "Jemmy Button." It is a tale of great discovery, a tale of a primitive society which had NO Word for GOD, No word for King, or Leader. A society which reacted to outsiders in a manner in which most Extropians might approve. A society that seems to be only a few steps from the Bonobos Chimps we recently discussed. A society that had property right but only for very limited things like their boats... This is the tale of how Capt. FitzRoy traveled to Tierra del Fuego, brought an Indian from their to England and then returned him to there. It is a story of Darwin's relationship with FitzRoy and the Indian, Jemmy Button. I couldn't put it down.. /hawk -- Harry S. Hawk habs@panix.com Electronic Communications Officer, Extropy Institute Inc. List Administrator of the Extropy Institute Mailing List Private Communication for the Extropian Community since 1991 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 16:11:45 EDT From: Brian.Hawthorne@east.sun.com (Brian Holt Hawthorne - SunSelect Engineering) Subject: Bananas as brain-food... Spending a lazy Sunday catching up on reading, and happened to notice in Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking" the claim that the banana synthesizes and stores in the peel serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. No footnote, and the bibliography for the chapter lists two dozen primary sources with titles that could be the source. He mentions this as the source of the 60's fad of smoking banana peels. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1993 16:34:08 -0400 (EDT) From: Carol Moore Subject: Third Millenium group? I was a bit confused about Dave's comment's below... On Sat, 17 Jul 1993, Dave Krieger wrote: > C-SPAN2 has devoted about an hour this morning to a press conference on > Wednesday by some group calling itself "Third Millenium" which claims to > speak for twentysomething Americans and thinks it's the next big thing in > politics. They talk a lot about "post-partisan" politics and "the sinking > ship"... They use the metaphor of "the sinking ship" and say that > "environmental catastrophe" calls for desperate collectivist measures: > "It's silly for a Democrat and a Republican to argue on the deck of a > sinking ship." A direct quote: "Our environment is in a shambles." They > also talk a lot about deficit and debt reduction, and they sure as hell > don't plan to cut spending. > > (Hmm... however they are talking now about reducing entitlement payments > like Social Security. "That generation [the AARP generation] is the one > that taught America about sacrifice, and we need them to show us the way > again." That's a direct quote, which I take to mean "Grandma is used to > it, let's screw her again.") stuff deleted....> > > I definitely think Extropy Institute could gain some prominence and free > publicity by responding to the Third Millenium platform and pointing out 1) > they don't speak for all of "our generation"; 2) the ship is not sinking. > If we avoid referring to the more far-out scientific and technical aspects > of Extropian thinking, we could get a lot of positive exposure for our > political views. My confusion is: since libertarians and a-capitalists support abolition of social security and know that there are many well-off older people also receiving social security, I'm surprised that you are assuming their first targets are POOR old people. Also, the ship of state IS sinking deficit-debt wise. Which is both inevitable and welcome (except to the extent we are all impoverished by it.) Why I assume that you are criticizing the statist and no-growth environmentalist views they seem to have, that is not clear. I hope that you will make it more clear in anything you write. I know that these people do have friends with Lead or Leave which has done some neat stuff like picket AARP headquarters. Though they aren't any kinds of libertarians either. End of my comments. cmoore@cap.gwu.edu > > Does anyone know more about this organization? Their mailing address was > given at the end of the program; it's "Third Millenium, P.O. Box 20866, New > York, NY 10023." > dV/dt > ============================================================================ > dkrieger@netcom.com == Dave Krieger == David Victor de Transend == dV/dt > TC1.12:T(6,7)C3L5w h()+d--a--c-yef+t++(1,4)k++sm1m2+q- > Brought to you by -- Confidence in the System. > In easy-to-swallow Propaganda form > or new, fast-acting Thought Control, > Confidence in the System will keep Them in power > longer, longer, longer, and tend to calm and obscure > the miseries of disillusionment and despair, > so get some -- today. > [The Firesign Theatre] > ============================================================================ > ------------------------------ Date: Saturday, 17 July 1993 19:14:43 PST8 From: "James A. Donald" Subject: An Interesting Topic In <9307170828.AA16672@ude.tim.ia.ung.gnu.ai.mit.edu>, starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu wrote: > I've come up with a good worry: that the State will do to computer networks > what it did to radio. (Discussion of how state power destroyed private property rights to the frequency spectrum deleted) > Look to see the private computer networks driven out > by a public "data highway," or incorporated into it, and to see access to it > for computer service providers like programmers controlled by something like > licensure. The internet is too big, too messy, and most important of all, too international, to be easily controlled by the state. The internet started off state controlled, and has rapidly become less controlled. Billary's data highway proposal is an attempt to regain control by bribery and persuasion, rather than by physical violence. Physical violence will be threatened eventually, and sometimes used, but it will not prove effective. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves and our James A. Donald | property, because of the kind of animals that we | are. True law derives from this right, not from jamesdon@infoserv.com | the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 16:06:12 MDT From: bryce wilcox Subject: Extropy? is that in the dictionary yet? I would like to be linked to your network of active brains. Thank you. Bryce Wilcox bwilcox@mesa2.mesa.colorado.edu Not A Member of Anything ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 18:16:24 CST From: "" New Ways. An in-process directory of Internet/Bitnet discussion lists which may be useful for people interested in new ways of thinking, living, etc. Dan Goodman, PO Box 580009, MPLS MN 55458. Internet: dsg@staff.tc.umn.edu. Further distribution is permitted and encouraged. I'd appreciate suggested additions. If your judgement of a list mentioned here differs from mine, or you spot an inaccuracy, let me know. (All such messages will be considered okay to publish, unless the sender plainly says otherwise.) I. These are fully open to all points of view: Alternative Institutions RECOMMENDED Contact: AltInst-request@cs.cmu.edu (Robin Hanson) "AltInst is solely for proposing and critiquing alternative institutions for various walks of life. Alternative ways to run conversations, countries, households, markets, offices, romances, schools, etc. are all fair game. "AltInst is open to folks from any political persuasion, but general political flaming/discussion is forbidden. Skip the theory and just tell us your vision of how something could be different, and how that would work. Many of us are truly excited to hear about creative well-considered suggestions, no matter what the source, but quickly bored by both ideological is-too-is-not flaming, and partisan rah-rahs for anything 'politically correct' in some camp." BELIEF-L Personal Ideologies Discussion List "This list is designed to be a forum where personal ideologies can be discussed, examined, and analyzed. Topics for the list can range from 'what is good' to 'what happens after death' to 'is there a god'. "This list is designed to be open to members of ALL religious and political faiths or non-faiths; we do not discriminate based on religion, race, gender, sexual preference, handicap, et cetera. "To subscribe to this list, send the command: SUBSCRIBE BELIEF-L your_name to LISTSERV@BROWNVM. Internet subscribers should go DIRECTLY to LISTSERV@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU." ++++++++++ --David O'Donnell List Owner, Belief-L; ActNow-L; SoftRevu; GLB-News Dan, The entry for Belief-L seems fine to me. My correct address, however, is EL406006, not EL407006; you may wish to correct your records. ++++++++++ The following is based on the list as it was a few months ago. Plus: BELIEF-L is certainly diverse. It includes Fundamentalist Protestants, gay activists, Neo-Pagans, atheists, nihilists,.... Minus: Many contributors seem ignorant of their own beliefs. Christians who don't know that there's more than one translation of the Bible into English; Neo-Pagans who accept as validly researched rituals from the work of fantasy writers notorious for not caring about accuracy. Transformation Stories List [Warning -- bibliography, not discussion list] Bibliography of fiction whose theme is transformation. This can include lycanthropy, robots becoming gods, humans becoming universes, gender change, etc. Additions eagerly sought. Two ways to get it. 1) Anonymous FTP to halcyon.com; directory /local. 2) Email from Mark Phaedrus (phaedrus@halcyon.halcyon.com.) II. These are for people who already know they share certain basic assumptions with those on the list. To make sure a list is genuinely open within those constraints, try asking kneejerk questions. If you get mostly kneejerk answers, move on. (Assuming you aren't looking for the Church of Marx, Scientist or the Cathedral of St. Ayn.) Clothing Optional +++++ Date: Wed, 14 Jul 1993 18:19:35 -0500 I received some mail from you with a listing for the CLTHOPT list. It is no longer in service. There is a private e-mail service that is substituting for it, and I can pass on that information to whoever is interested in it. If you need further information, please contact me. John Hendry hendry@etsuadmn.etsu.edu ++++++++ "CLTHOPT is an online discussion list for clothing optional living. This is open to discussing skinny-dipping, visiting nude beaches, or resorts, and topfree issues for women. This is not a sexual discussion list. If anything, we hope to dispell the myth that nudity is always equated with sex." COHOUSING-L on listserv@uci.com "This is a list for discussion of Cohousing, the name of a type of collaborative housing that has been developed primarily in Denmark since 1972 where it is known as bofoellesskaber (English approximation). "Cohousing is housing designed to foster community and cooperation while preserving independence. Private residences are clustered near shared facilities. The members design and manage all aspects of their community. "Automated subscription: Send email message to listserv@uci.com with the following command in the message body (no subject): SUBSCRIBE COHOUSING-L (In response an informative introduction will be sent) "Email to fholson@uci.com for more information" +++++ Your entry on COHOUSING-L is correct. The list is alive and well tho not too active. ( A bunch of messages and new subs while I was gone tho ... maybe I should do it more often :) ) [Fred Olson] ++++ Conlang: Constructed Languages. Includes Esperanto and the many others designed as world languages; languages intended to promote clearer thinking; languages which demonstrate different ways of thinking. Also includes languages invented by Tolkien (who knew what he was doing) and other writers (some of who knew what they were doing.) Listserv@odin.diku.dk Suggested kneejerk question: Is it possible to think without language? Extropians If you're interested in personal freedom, life extension, spaceflight, mind expansion, and related topics, this may be for you. (If it's not obvious to you that they go together, it may not be.) Contributors tend to be wordy; most seem to be libertarians. extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu FutureC "cyberculture/new-edge/technoculture, etc... "Requests to join the FutureCulture E-list should be directed as follows: "to subscribe, mail to: listserv@uafsysb (bitnet) listserv@uafsysb.uark.edu (internet) "Maintainer of this list is: Patrick McKee pmckee@uafhp.uark.edu" Their FAQsheet contains extensive leads to other sources. Suggested kneejerk question: Can you recommend any music that isn't so loud? home-ed@think.com "Purpose: This mailing list is for the discussion of all aspects and methods of home education. These include the "unschooling" approach, curricula-based home- schooling, and others. The list is currently unmoderated and welcomes everyone interested in educating their children at home, whatever the reasons. "Contact: home-ed-request@think.com (David Mankins)" "Coordinator: David Mankins (dm@think.com.)" Leri@pyramid.com "Or, Commodore Leri's Metaprogramming Mail Service. Discussions range widely over such topics as metaprogramming a la Wilson/Leary/Lilly, the nature of consciousness and how the brain works, the possibility of an Attractor/ Singularity a la Terence McKenna, quantum theory, the psychedelic experience, mystical experiences/alingual phenomena (ie the tremendum), Internet theory, memetics, art, poetry, science fiction, music, and occasionally politics. This is an extremely high volume list, guaranteed to crash lesser mailers. Available in realtime or Daily Compilation format. "Contact: leri-request@pyramid.com "Leri-FAQ available via anonymous ftp at penguin.gatech.edu, /pub/leri, along with various articles, essays, and short stories pertaining to Leri-L." LIBERNET@DARTMOUTH.EDU "An electronic mailing list/discussion group/magazine for libertarians, classical liberals, objectivists, and anybody else interested in a free market/social tolerance approach to political issues. "LIBERNET-D: Users interested in a more opinion and idea-oriented forum may wish to subscribe to Libernet-d (the 'd' stands for discussion and debate). Libernet-d is intended for the interactive discussion of the more philosophical issues related to a free society, such as political strategy, ideology, and intellectual analysis of libertarian positions. There is no coupling between Libernet and Libernet-d; readers may subscribe to either one or both. "All requests to be added to or deleted from this list should be sent to LIBERNET-REQUEST@DARTMOUTH.EDU." Suggested kneejerk questions: Would you cross a union picket line? Would you vote for a Democrat? PJML on LISTSERV@UTXVM.BITNET or LISTSERV@UTXVM.CC.UTEXAS.EDU "PJML is an educational forum -- a place for sharing information on a variety of Jewish concerns -- aimed at inspiring us to move forward and build a better world. PJML connects activist Jews and our allies across the globe. We come from many traditions but identify ourselves as 'progressive'; if we have differences, let us discuss them openly and respectfully. Let us continue in the tradition of _tikkun olam_, the just repair of the world. "PJML is unmoderated, and subscribers are asked to use their best judgment when submitting items that deal with especially emotional issues, such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The list owners reserve the right to take appropriate steps in keeping these discussions constructive and focused. "To subscribe to PJML, send the following message to either LISTSERV@UTXVM.CC.UTEXAS.EDU (Internet) or LISTSERV@UTXVM (Bitnet): SUB PJML " Suggested kneejerk questions: Would you cross a union picket line? Would you vote for a Republican? III. The following I'm dubious about. ++++++ Aleph. Contact: aleph-request@pyramid.com A spin-off of the Leri list. More serious and constructive discussion and less social chat than Leri. The participants are involved in a number of projects relating to memetics, Timewave Zero, and other things I haven't a clue about. I've been on Aleph since it started, and still understand almost nothing of what goes on there, but it seems to belong on your New Ways list. Some archives and related files are available by anon ftp from slopoke.mlb.semi.harris.com in directory /pub/incoming/aleph. Richard Kennaway Internet: jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk uucp: ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk +++++ Sounds like it's less for people trying out new paths than for those who already know they want to head down that particular road at 90 miles an hour. FNORD-L listserv@ubvm.bitnet I sampled this one. Contributors seemed mostly interested in adopting literary personas. PAGAN@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU PAGAN@DRYCAS (BitNet) "Mailing list created as an offshoot of PSI-L to discuss the religions, philosophy, etc., of Paganism. "Requests to be added to or deleted from the list, problems, questions, etc., should be sent to PAGAN-REQUEST@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU (Internet) or PAGAN-REQUEST@DRYCAS (BitNet). +++++++++ I tried this one for a while. Definitely a forum for Wiccans and those who consider themselves witches. Filled with goofy material. I was interested in alternative religions, not this stuff, so I UNSUBbed after about two weeks. I think most of the list, comprised of folks referring to themselves as "Selena Blackheart", "True Bear" etc., is youngsters. Their concept of "Neo-Paganism" is what they can glean out the latest "How To Cast Spells" book selling at B. Daltons. +++++++++++ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 18:49:15 CST From: "" Subject: What are big upcoming problems? On Fri, 16 Jul 1993 18:33:32 -0700, Dave Krieger wrote: >At 5:01 PM 7/16/93 -0400, Edward J OConnell wrote: >>As an aside, I find it amusing that I spend most >>of my time struggling to break into the SF market, writing like a >>demon, to be cast down and filtered by the marketplace; while most >>Extropians write for the simple joy of expression in this digital >>commons. I send my stories only to places that pay. I shun the pay in >>copies markets, and the APAs. 1) Some professional writers in that market write occasionally for no pay. For example, Larry Niven sometimes contributes to at least one APA. 2) Cordwainer Smith's professional career in sf started in a nonpaying publication. The story had been rejected by all the paying markets; but someone saw it there, asked if he had any more, and.... >What a lot of folks forget is that, in a free market, sellers are slaves to >consumers, not the other way around. You have to cater to the most >insignificant whims of the people who buy from you, or they'll take their >business elsewhere. But Ed isn't selling directly to the consumers; and the market may not be entirely free. He's selling to editors, who are choosing what they _think_ will appeal to their readers. The editors are also sometimes constrained by what their publishers think will go over with the readers. Dan Goodman dsg@staff.tc.umn.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 18:20:07 PDT From: hfinney@shell.portal.com Subject: What are big upcoming problems? It seems like several of these scenarios have a common theme: that although the future will be richer than today, it will be somehow more competitive, so that the disparity between rich and poor will be greater than today. We may even have a situation where a person with the same talents and desire for work that an average person has today would find himself actually poorer in the future than he is today, despite the great riches that are available for those with more talent or willing to work harder. The generally suggested way this could happen would be for (some) people to be replaced by more efficient workers - either machines, as in the robot or CAD system scenarios, or perhaps by uploaded humans, in scenarios such as those proposed by Robin and Nick. Not everyone may have the skills and abilities needed to be competitive in such an economy. Others have pointed out that although similar predictions could have been and were made in the past, they have not generally come true. Jobs have been eliminated through automation for the last two hundred years. The John Henrys of the past couldn't compete with their mechanical replacements. But so far, at least, the supply of labor freed by these advances has found plenty of work to do, work which has in fact generally paid better than the simple manual labor of the past. The question is whether this will always happen. Will each person always be able to find a job he can do better than a machine? It seems obvious that as the range of things that machines can do increases, this will eventually stop being true. Whether it is machines which sweep floors and mow lawns, or ones which (as Nick describes) design space stations, once many people are shut out from all means of employment we are going to have problems. Hal Finney hfinney@shell.portal.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 18:20:06 PDT From: hfinney@shell.portal.com Subject: NANO: Processing power Elias Israel: > (I say that it "processes the same number of instructions" rather > than "does the same amount of work" because the former is more > precise than the latter, This is reasonable, but keep in mind that Drexler's nanocomputers attain their great processing power through massive parallelism. There are limits to the kinds of problems that can be addressed efficiently with parallel architectures. Generally, for a fixed problem size, there is a relation called Amdahl's law which basically assumes that a certain percentage of the problem is "parallelizable" and a certain percentage is not. As you add more processors, eventually you reach a point where the serial portion (the part which can't be split up) is the limiting factor. Your efficiency then falls off as you increase the number of processors involved. So, there's a difference between having a trillion 1-MIPS computers, and having one computer which can do a trillion MIPS. Measuring computer power purely by the number of instructions per second can be a little misleading. Hal ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 23:59:38 EDT From: The Hawthorne Exchange Subject: Nightly Market Report The Hawthorne Exchange - HEx Nightly Market Report For more information on HEx, send email to HEx@sea.east.sun.com with the Subject info. --------------------------------------------------------------- News Summary as of: Sun Jul 18 23:59:01 EDT 1993 Newly Registered Reputations: RJC Ray Cromwell New Share Issues: (None) Share Splits: (None) --------------------------------------------------------------- Market Summary as of: Sun Jul 18 23:59:02 EDT 1993 Total Shares Symbol Bid Ask Last Issued Outstanding Market Value ACS 2.00 2.40 8.00 10000 126 1008.00 ALCOR 2.00 2.99 10.00 10000 421 4210.00 ANTO - - - - - - BLAIR 5.00 30.00 50.00 10000 25 1250.00 CHAITN - - - - - - DEREK 2.00 3.00 3.00 100000 6120 18360.00 DRXLR 7.00 8.99 10.00 10000 1076 10760.00 DVDT 20.00 50.00 - 10000 - - E 15.00 25.00 100.00 10000 36 3600.00 ESR - - - - - - EXI - - - - - - FCP 9.00 9.00 9.00 10000 1200 10800.00 GHG 1.00 7.00 6.00 10000 955 5730.00 GOBEL 1.00 15.00 15.00 10000 767 11505.00 H - - - - - - HEX 100.00 150.00 100.00 10000 3218 321800.00 HFINN 15.00 20.00 10.00 10000 905 9050.00 IMMFR 1.00 3.00 3.00 10000 1 3.00 JFREE 1.10 50.00 1.00 10000 250 250.00 JPP 4.00 5.00 5.00 10000 10 50.00 LEF 2.00 2.99 2.99 10000 26 77.74 LEFTY 4.00 25.00 25.00 10000 1 25.00 LIST - - - - - - LURKR .50 3.00 - 100000 - - MARCR - - - - - - MLINK - .05 1.00 1000000 2601 2601.00 MWM 1.50 20.00 20.00 10000 10 200.00 N 20.00 25.00 40.00 10000 48 1920.00 P 20.00 25.00 24.00 1000000 380 9120.00 PETER .01 1.00 2.00 10000000 1100 2200.00 PRICE 1.00 4.00 2.00 10000000 1410 2820.00 R .70 3.95 .70 10000 2651 1855.70 RJC - - - - - - ROMA - - - - - - SGP - - - - - - TIM 10.00 - - 10000 - - TRADE 8.00 9.00 - 1000000 - - TRANS 1.00 1.50 8.00 10000 11 88.00 WILKEN 9.00 10.00 10.00 10000 101 1010.00 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total 420293.44 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 23:21:16 -0700 From: freeman@maspar.com (Jay R. Freeman) Subject: Big Macs. Martyn J. Fogg writes: > I just heard that Tyrannosaurus Rex could have eaten 650 Big Macs at > one sitting! Fact or hype? The book, "The Complete _T._rex_", by Horner and Lessem, which I reviewed here a few days ago, suggests that _T._rex_ could "rip off and swallow five hundred pounds of meat in a single bite and gulp" (p. 206). I am not sure how much a Big Mac weighs, so perhaps it might take as much as two bites. -- Jay Freeman ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 03:23:13 EDT From: "stuff available list" available on request--just ask for it! Subject: Tribble test > ::help So, what is The Trouble With Tribble? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 10:27:37 GMT From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu Subject: Another Worry I've come up with another worry in answer to Robin Hanson's query. This one involves economic argumentation, so David will be able to shoot me down in the saddle again (BTW, I think he missed when it came to my argument against tax-support of nanotech as a public good). Basically, my worry is that the problem with all the "proofs" that free markets optimize utility is refuted by the fact that many people get disutility from inequality of condition. Thus, since (or if) markets tend to increase inequality of condition, they will actually tend to decrease the utility of those who get disutility from it. I know, I know: the postulate that people get disutility from inequality seems unfalsifiable; yet so does any other utility postulate. Many people seem to dislike inequality in and of itself, seemingly without regard to how or why it has come about. They don't care if it is because of biology, economics, public policy, etc. They just don't like it. If my postulate that inequality can be disliked is true, then it would seem that in order to argue for free markets, we'd have to either abandon appeals to utility, or get people to change their preferences. As a data point, a few days back it was reported that a speaker polled an audience of members of the American Federation of Teachers on whether they'd rather have 25% GNP growth in the USA and 75% in Japan, or much more equal growth in both. A majority took the latter option. This would seem to indicate that they dislike inequality of economic growth (but, then it could also mean that they dislike economic growth at all; the more equal rates were about 8%, much lower than the first option). Fire away! 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 ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 Issue #0396 ****************************************