13 Message 13: From exi@panix.com Tue Jul 27 18:27:14 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA15133; Tue, 27 Jul 93 18:27:12 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: from panix.com by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA29377; Tue, 27 Jul 93 18:26:43 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by panix.com id AA17482 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for more@usc.edu); Tue, 27 Jul 1993 21:24:33 -0400 Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 21:24:33 -0400 Message-Id: <199307280124.AA17482@panix.com> To: Exi@panix.com From: Exi@panix.com Subject: Extropians Digest X-Extropian-Date: July 28, 373 P.N.O. [01:23:28 UTC] Reply-To: extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: R Extropians Digest Wed, 28 Jul 93 Volume 93 : Issue 208 Today's Topics: [1 msgs] AI: Domestic robots [1 msgs] FSF: InfoProp, etc. [1 msgs] FSF: Some Useful Software, No Useful Politics [1 msgs] FSF: Some Useful Software, No Useful Politics [2 msgs] Homosexuality & Genetic Engineering [2 msgs] MEDIA tv in general [1 msgs] MEDIA: Slamming of FSF; more on software & video rental [1 msgs] What's up with the Hawthorne Exchange? [1 msgs] Who is signed up for cryonics [5 msgs] Who is signed up for cryonics [3 msgs] Administrivia: No admin msg. Approximate Size: 51980 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 10:06:34 -0800 From: lefty@apple.com (Lefty) Subject: Who is signed up for cryonics Perry claims: >1) At liquid nitrogen temperatures, you can probably hang out for > 15000 years or more without any significant degradation. Significant degradation of _what_? It doesn't seem that large scale structures are really well-preserved using extreme cold, certainly not with current technology. Freezing and thawing appear to cause massive disruption of structure on a macroscopic scale. You _may_ save the DNA; whether you'll save the neuron pathways is highly questionable. >3) The information needed to reconstruct a functioning brain from > whats frozen seems very likely to all be there. Really? What information would that be, precisely? >I don't accept proof by vigorous assertion. Unless, apparently, it's "proof" of a conclusion to which you happen to subscribe. I have no objections to people signing up for Pascal's Wager. Let's just be clear about what we're doing. -- Lefty (lefty@apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 10:16:05 -0700 From: dkrieger@Synopsys.COM (Dave Krieger) Subject: Homosexuality & Genetic Engineering At 1:00 AM 7/28/93 -0500, X91007@pitvax.xx.rmit.edu.au wrote: >>From _The Age_ 26/7/93: > >Jews to study controversial genetics plan >London, Monday. > >The advisory cabinet of the Chief Rabbi of Britain, Dr. >Jonathan Sacks, will be urged this spring to allow Jews to >undergo voluntary genetic engineering to remove homosexual >tendencies if this becomes scientifically possible. Heh heh heh... this suggests an interesting experiment: I could undergo gene therapy for removal of the gene (presuming I possess it), and then see if I am suddenly no longer homoerotic. Another humorous possibility occurs to me as well: Suppose {there is in fact a second gene for heterosexuality, but it hasn't been discovered yet... most people have both, and end up specializing in one or the other for environmental reasons.} If a gay man gets his homoerotic gene turned off, and it turns out he doesn't have the heterosexuality gene somewhere, he might find himself completely anerotic, unable to enjoy sex with anything. Serves him right for tampering in God's domain :-) :-) :-) dV/dt ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 18:25:48 BST From: jrk@information-systems.east-anglia.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway) Subject: Who is signed up for cryonics I wrote about fingernail-clipping reanimation: >However, if it works, all you get is someone with the same genes, not a >copy of you. I must have been asleep when I wrote that. Aren't fingernails just excreted protein? No DNA. Canning someone's last breath, or their sweat, or some hair trimmings, or keeping a photograph, would be about as useful. As would burying or cremation. I have this sudden vision of a future Church of Extropy, bearing about as much resemblance to the Extropian Principles as the RC church does to the New Testament, requiring its members to keep such samples of their own body in gilded reliquaries, to await the (always-postponed, of course) technorapture in which they will be technomagically reborn into indestructible bodies, and then be absorbed into union with the Omega Point... -- ____ 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. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 10:33:11 PDT From: thamilto@pcocd2.intel.com (Tony Hamilton - FES ERG~) Subject: Who is signed up for cryonics > I have no objections to people signing up for Pascal's Wager. Let's just > be clear about what we're doing. > > -- > Lefty (lefty@apple.com) > C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:. The main problem I have with Alcor (not even knowing much about them), is that they appear to have a virtual monopoly on the service (or am I wrong there?). I am comforted that the do _not_ have a monopoly on the technology, but it would be nice to have some competition with regards to the actual suspension services. Looking at Pascal's wager, its kind of like the difference between resigning to accept God, and having a choice of gods to accept. With a choice, you can decide for yourself which one seems most likely to be the One. No matter what the outcome, you can at least be comfortable with your choice. I think that, were I to sign up for Alcor today, I'd be a bit uncomfortable, not sure if I've spent my money wisely, since I never had options! After all, if you want to live forever, how many ways can you spend your money towards that end? Which reminds me - what's up with the guy in Scottsdale? Did you see him on the news? Teaching that if we just make death unpopular, we'll all live forever. To a point, I like the argument, and it seems pertinent in some less-obvious ways, but what exactly is he pushing? I guess he charges enough for whatever it is... Tony Hamilton thamilto@pcocd2.intel.com HAM on HEX ------------------------------ Date: 27 Jul 93 10:46:53 U From: "Kent Hastings" Subject: FSF: InfoProp, etc. FSF: InfoProp, etc.#000# Elias Israel wrote: > For example, there's nothing wrong with having a patent > on XOR cursors. The trouble is, it should have run out > years ago. Patent law is still using the paradigm of > hardware inventions; software inventions have a completely > different life-cycle. AND ... > FSF has taken this confusion between concept and > implementation one step further; having seen bad > implementations of the defense of intellectual property > rights, they conclude that intellectual property rights > are indefensible. A trust established by Patrick Henry continues to this day. Many land estates homesteaded generations ago are owned by heirs of the same family now. Real "property rights" don't exist or evaporate because of arbitrary statutes. If patents and copyrights aren't bogus legal fictions, why do YOU advocate through your statement "...should have run out years ago" that property rights should expire? I want the title to your house (with 30 year mortgage) to go public domain forever after 10 years. How does that sound? > ... someone invented XOR cursors and deserves a reward > for it, however small. I worked very hard to shovel a ton of elephant dung onto your front yard, and I deserve a reward. Pay up! Perry wrote: > Why not just have them sign a restrictive contract with you? > Why do you need this artificial notion of "intellectual > property"? A pay-per-use mechanism, perhaps using digital cash and other cryptographic protections, might allow a software developer to protect trade secrets by keeping them SECRET. So why waste time running to the centralized statist monopoly for protection? Kent - kent_hastings@qmail2.aero.org. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 10:52:41 -0700 From: dkrieger@Synopsys.COM (Dave Krieger) Subject: Who is signed up for cryonics At 10:33 AM 7/27/93 -0700, Tony Hamilton - FES ERG~ wrote: >> I have no objections to people signing up for Pascal's Wager. Let's just >> be clear about what we're doing. >> Lefty (lefty@apple.com) > >The main problem I have with Alcor (not even knowing much about them), is ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Just as an aside, I wish I did not have to see so many people saying this in so many different threads. If you don't know anything about what's under discussion, where is it carved in stone that you have to post on the topic? **I am not picking on Tony here -- this is just the most recent example of a lamentable trend.** Feel free to lurk for a while, folks; you might learn something. And remember... "It is better to remain silent, and look foolish, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." >that they appear to have a virtual monopoly on the service (or am I wrong >there?). I am comforted that the do _not_ have a monopoly on the technology, >but it would be nice to have some competition with regards to the actual >suspension services. Tell me about it! I wish circumstances were otherwise as well, although I believe that, at present, the small size of the cryonics community makes Alcor's (near-)monopoly a natural one. Since Alcor's growth curve is presently exponential, this may change in the near future... a number of other folks think they can not only compete but compete as for-profit ventures. I wish them all luck, although I am an unreserved Alcor booster. I just hope their growth comes from an increase in the size of the pie, rather than cutting the existing pie into smaller slices. >I think >that, were I to sign up for Alcor today, I'd be a bit uncomfortable, not >sure if I've spent my money wisely, since I never had options! After all, >if you want to live forever, how many ways can you spend your money towards >that end? Sure, you have options! You can choose to decompose in the event of your death (not recommended). You can bet what you would otherwise spend on Alcor on additional nutritional supplements and medical checkups (putting all your eggs in the basket of 20th-century medicine). You can sign up with one of the other cryonics organizations -- their overall suspension preparedness is (debatably, I admit) not as hot as Alcor's, but the addition of your membership fees might make the difference! Or you can put a deposit in Lefty's Toenail Bank. >Which reminds me - what's up with the guy in Scottsdale? Did you see him on >the news? Teaching that if we just make death unpopular, we'll all live >forever. To a point, I like the argument, and it seems pertinent in some >less-obvious ways, but what exactly is he pushing? I guess he charges enough >for whatever it is... >thamilto@pcocd2.intel.com This reference is completely obscure to me; I don't follow mass-media news. dV/dt ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 13:54:01 EDT From: eisrael@suneast.east.sun.com (Elias Israel - SunSelect Engineering) Subject: Homosexuality & Genetic Engineering dV/dt writes: >Serves him right for tampering in God's domain :-) :-) :-) Actually, this is a valid theological point that I'm surprised has been missed by the rabbis involved. According to Jewish theological tradition, more credit accrues to a person who, knowing they can commit a sin, does not, than a person who feels no such desire, and does not. I would think that most Jewish theologians would be against modifications in one's genetic makeup and would encourage people with a "gay gene" to "tough it out" and not sin anyway. (In case it's not clear, the text above should not be interpreted to mean that I personally find homosexuality "sinful." The use of the word "sin" above should be taken as a purely theological statement, and not a normative one. And, I'm an atheist now, so it would be a mistake to assume that Jewish theology holds more than historical and cultural interest for me.) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 14:08:13 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: Who is signed up for cryonics Tony Hamilton - FES ERG~ says: > > I'd say that you haven't looked in to it. > > > > 1) At liquid nitrogen temperatures, you can probably hang out for > > 15000 years or more without any significant degradation. > > 2) There is fairly good evidence that Brain == The Thing That Makes > > You Conscious -- see amputees, artificial heart recipients, > > quadraplegics, people with brain lesions, direct electrical > > stimulation of the brain, etc, for details. > > 3) The information needed to reconstruct a functioning brain from > > whats frozen seems very likely to all be there. > > Apologies for not knowing more about Alcor (I intend to soon enough), so > indulge me if you would be so kind. First, in the latter half of your post > which I deleted, you reference neuropatients (I think that was the word). > Does this mean there are both full-body and brain-only suspensions at > Alcor (not to mean I didn't think it was possible - I just didn't know)? Yes and no. There are whole body patients, and there are neuropatients -- neuropatients are head only rather than brain only, as there is little or no point in removing the brain from the skull, which is an excellent storage medium for it. Removing the brain would only cause wholely unneccessary damage. They also store tissue samples from around the body. > Second, am I to understand that the suspensions are being performed with > the end goal of _reconstruction_ based on the suspended organism? I had > always thought cryonics involved the (not yet successful?) revival of > suspended bodies/brains. If I were a patient, I could handle something on > the order of nano-reconstruction of the existing tissue. Thats the basic idea. I meant "reconstruction" in that sense. > I'm not at all knowledgable about what Alcor patients agree to when > they sign up. Well, there is a very detailed contract -- I'm sure if you wanted a copy before agreeing to signup you could get one. > I imagine it must be a contract full of revival conditions and such > - Perry? Basically, they agree to do best efforts on everything, but you agree that you understand that none of it will necessarily work. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 11:18:52 PDT From: thamilto@pcocd2.intel.com (Tony Hamilton - FES ERG~) Subject: Who is signed up for cryonics > >The main problem I have with Alcor (not even knowing much about them), is > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > Just as an aside, I wish I did not have to see so many people saying this > in so many different threads. If you don't know anything about what's > under discussion, where is it carved in stone that you have to post on the > topic? **I am not picking on Tony here -- this is just the most recent > example of a lamentable trend.** Feel free to lurk for a while, folks; you > might learn something. And remember... "It is better to remain silent, and > look foolish, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." Well, I can accept that you weren't picking on me, but someone has to respond to this. Others, like myself, potentially depend on the nets for information on certain topics. They may interest us, and we may want to become involved in the discussions, but may not have enough time to do anything but get involved during the work or school day. We might have busy lives outside of these places, and may not be able to research these subjects in other places. Why do I say this? Because, with subjects like Alcor, often, the response to questions is "call", or "read the book". Not always, but often enough. I've been "lurking" as you say for 2 years now, posting once every full eclipse or so. I admit, I don't read all the messages, so I may miss some good stuff. But, for the most part, most everything discussed here refers to quotes, reference material, books, and so forth. Occasionally, a single long-winded post tells all there is to tell. But if you've observed this list from afar for a while, you'd realize those are actually hard to pick out. There is a lot of "discussion overhead" on this list. Not necessarily a bad thing, but that's just the way it is. Anyway, I think its fair to allow us lurkers to attempt to learn what we can about a subject from the lists and newsgroups, and post where we feel we can offer a unique perspective on something. And by the way, I never liked that quote. Its a philosophy I do not subscribe to. If I _am_ foolish, then I want to _know_ about it. How else can I figure out if what I think I know is valid or not? Surely you have a point, in that sometimes those who don't know what they are talking about detract from a discussion, but I for one make a focused attempt to pose questions and ideas that I think: 1. Might be unique, and therefore may actually contribute to the discussion 2. Might be on others' minds, and so the answers that result might serve to enlighten more minds than just my own. If any given post of mine doesn't seem to serve any good purpose, people usually say so, and I then realize I've done something stupid (I stopped posting "Yeah, what he said" kind of posts long ago after figuring out how stupid that is), and try not to do it again. Tony Hamilton thamilto@pcocd2.intel.com HAM on HEX ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 14:19:47 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: What's up with the Hawthorne Exchange? Dave Krieger says: > At 8:45 PM 7/26/93 -0700, hfinney@shell.portal.com wrote: > >The thing that really bothers me is this. Some people believe that > >real money works the same way. They think that money only has > >value because people believe it has value. People accept money in > >return for their labor only because they believe that other people > >will accept that money in turn. This mutually reinforcing system > >of delusions apparently manages to hang together, hence one might > >expect HeX to work as well. > > > >But I have a friend who argues persuasively that this view of money is > >wrong. Money is not just a psychological phenomenon. There are objective, > >long-term forces which give money its value. I can accept money for my > >labor knowing with confidence that no whims of shopkeepers and > >service-givers will leave me with valueless pieces of paper. > > Well, what your friend believes would be true for a commodity-backed > currency, but is patently untrue for the "money" we have in the U.S. today. Its also the case with commodity money. One of the great advances of Austrian economic theory was the notion that all value is completely subjective -- its all just what people are willing to pay for it. Saying that "medicine" is more valuable than "videotape" and should sell for more is a subjective, not an objective, judgement. Why should gold be worth more than paper? Because people are willing to pay more for it. All money is psychological. Why should this disturb us? Psychology is not an arbitrary or fickle thing. People value food when they are starving more than business cards for reasons of personal psychology -- but that personal psychology is one shared by most of the race. > Federal Reserve Notes work in exactly the way you describe: only because > people believe in them. Any day now, some whim of the Fed (or, more > likely, when the folks overseas who've been buying T-bills wake up and > smell the deficit) could easily leave you with valueless pieces of paper. Certainly the fact that FRNs are subject to the whim of a few and gold is only subject to the whim of the majority, which is much harder to manipulate, gives one more confidence in gold than in FRNs. However, never forget that gold is also valued purely because of human psychology. > >One of those objective forces is the existance of long-term mortgage > >contracts, contracts which obligate banks to turn over property titles in > >exchange for a sufficient number of dollars. The banks have no flexibility > >to choose not to accept these pieces of paper. They have to do so. In > >principle, even if everyone on earth suddenly became allergic to dollars > >and fervently wished not to receive them, the banks, among some other > >similarly bound organizations, would still have to, and return title > >to real property. Not coincidentally, the total value of all bank > >mortgages in this country is approximately equal to the money supply. This > >real property backs the dollars we earn and spend. > > Um. You might be right; I am not an economist. I strongly disagree with the veracity of this statement, not because I disbelieve the assertion that the value of all mortgages is similar to the value of currency in circulation, but because the notion is present here that existing mortgage contracts somehow "back" the currency. I most emphatically CANNOT trade my FRNs for property -- I can only trade it for *MY* mortgaged property. This is a huge difference. Furthermore, there is not an infinite supply of mortgaged property, and when new FRNs are issued, new mortgaged property does not appear along with it. Technically, FRNs are legal tender for all debts, but anyone who believes that this means that if the Fed started printing them day and night that they wouldn't become worthless hasn't thought about the problem. > But what enforces that > approximate equality when the Federal Reserve has the power to create an > infinite number of "dollars" overnight? Nothing, as you accurately point out. > Paul Wilson's "An Enemy Of The State" that has haunted me since I read it: > "The printing presses are running day and night to combat the currency > shortage." Eventually, the State is going to have to pay up on the > trillions of dollars it has borrowed. When that amount exceeds what the > IRS enforcers are able to extract from the people, then mustn't the State > either default on the debt or inflate the currency like crazy? Well, those do seem like the only two possibilities. I'll point out that my former employer Morgan Stanley & Co. is now advising its pension fund clients to keep no more than about a quarter of their equity holdings in U.S. equities. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 14:27:50 EDT From: Andy Wilson Subject: Who is signed up for cryonics Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 12:27:24 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" [...] So, to argue that neurosuspension isn't viable, you have to refute one of the following three premises 1) That suspension does not stop degradation. 2) That the brain is not the seat of consciousness or 3) That suspension leaves too little information to reconstruct the brain and the surrounding person. What about: 4) That suspension leaves too little information to reconstruct the identity of the person. Cloning produces the equivalent of an identical twin, which is a different person from you. Would reanimation reconstruct the memories of the person? Otherwise I think it's the same as cloning. Losing the accumulated memories which are a big part of the person's identity is somewhat like erasing an uploaded person, no? Another issue: if you only preserve the brain and clone a new body, and replace the brain with the preserved one, aren't you murdering your clone? Perhaps the cloning process could be done so as to produce an atrophied brain, but does that change the situation ethically? Andy (I'll point out that Alcor keeps a wide range of tissue samples from outside the head for neuropatients just in case.) If you care to bring any concrete evidence for any of 1, 2 or 3, I'll happily argue with you. However, I don't accept proof by vigorous assertion. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 14:27:12 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: FSF: Some Useful Software, No Useful Politics E. Dean Tribble says: > Patents are a government enforced monopoly. Copyright, OTOH, can > arise from contract law (if I show you this, you agree not to copy it > without my permissions). The first involoves initiation of force and > ust reduces the extent of the market. The second is an emergent > phenomenon of people cooperating with each other. (Yes, it's all a > little more complicated than that, but that's what it eventually comes > down to). Dean says this much better than I have, and I thank him for it. The key when considering "is feature X likely to be a property of a private legal system" often is "is feature X something that could arise on its own and be enforced in a purely private legal system". Another touchstone I often use is "is feature X so important that I would want it even though adding it would break the capacity of the legal system I want to be run on a purely private basis." As another example, one of the reasons I do not feel it is valuable to extend the "initiation of force" prohibition to fetuses (i.e. why I think abortion should be legal) is that any system that bans abortion and can enforce this ban almost axiomatically requires a coercive state enforcement mechanism. Since I really could care less about the welfare of anyone else's unborn children, and but I do care a lot about what a coercive legal system could do to me, I have long since settled the question of abortion in my own mind. (Frankly, it was settled in my mind a long time ago when I decided I really didn't give a damn about what other people do to their own children, including infanticide, so long as they aren't doing those things to *MY* children, but thats another story.) In any case, I find that the patent system, unlike copyright, is not something likely to arise from contractual obligations, has negative rather than positive results, and requires a coercive state mechanism to enforce. I therefore reject it as something I do not want. Perry Metzger ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 14:34:16 -0400 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: FSF: Some Useful Software, No Useful Politics Tony Hamilton - FES ERG~ says: > > Patents are a government enforced monopoly. Copyright, OTOH, can > > arise from contract law (if I show you this, you agree not to copy it > > without my permissions). The first involoves initiation of force and > > ust reduces the extent of the market. The second is an emergent > > phenomenon of people cooperating with each other. (Yes, it's all a > > little more complicated than that, but that's what it eventually comes > > down to). > > Not at all, not at all. I don't intend to argue one way or another (to > patent or not to patent), but you can have exactly the same kind of > agreement in the place of patents. I'll give you the blueprints to my > invention if you agree to pay me a lump sum, or a percentage of your own > gadget's sales. How is _either_ agreement, whether it relates to something > patentable, or copyrightable, enforcable without the use of force? Either > all parties agree to something and honor that agreement, or they do not. I think you miss the point, Tony. We will consider contract enforcement in a moment. Right now, on the difference between patent and copyright, consider this -- its grossly unlikely that I could come up with the precise text of "The Silicon Man" by accident, but it is very likely that I could come up with the compression algorithm used by "compress". Trade secrets, which are more or less the sort of protection you are mentioning (that is, you agree not to disclose my invention) are a perfectly plausible mechanism. What we are talking about is PATENTS -- that is, a document that gives me the right to restrict your use of an idea, regardless of how you got that idea. Now, on the question of the use of force, the point is that libertarian principles prohibit only the initiation of non-consentual force. If I've signed a contract agreeing that if I fail to obey you can do X to me, well, its not non-consentual any more. A key difference between an operation and being knifed is consent, you know. > Today, there is the semblance of such an agreement, that being the law, but > of course it is enforced by use of force and coercion by the state. The law of our nation is NOT a contract. See Lysander Spooner's "No Treason VI: The Constitution of No Authority" which is available by anonymous FTP from the libernet archive on think.com. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 27 Jun 93 11:32:41 PDT From: "Mark W. McFadden" Subject: MEDIA: Slamming of FSF; more on software & video rental On Mon, 26 Jul 1993 23:29:46 -0600 (MD, Stanton McCandlish wrote: > >How the software industry blinds itself to the most simple, obvious, and >readily observable of economic facts is beyond me. > >-- >Stanton McCandlish * Space Migration * Networking * ChaOrder * NO GOV'T. * I'm reminded of a Trevanian character, a rural French shopkeeper. "The pleasure he felt from making a franc was nowhere near as great as the profound agony of losing a sou" ______________________________________________________________________ Mark W. McFadden | Been there.....done that. mwm@wwtc.timeplex.com | ___________________________________|__________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 20:48:55 +0100 From: Rich Walker Subject: Who is signed up for cryonics Perry: >and people can write letters to you that will be >waiting for you should you ever be revived. "uuurrrggghhh....." "huh, wazzat?" "Mr Metzger? Ah, good. Mr Metzger, I'm afraid you had an accident. Don't worry, you're safe: you're in the Alcor Foundation, and you've been revived. You've been frozen now for approximately 2753 years, so we're going to re-introduce you to the world slowly. Now, I'm just going to give you a light tranquillizer to help prevent shock." "Ah, Mr Metzger, awake again? Erm, sorry, I mean have a nice sleep? Oops, no, erm, er" "Never mind that, where's my mail?" "Oh, right, well Mr Metzger, it seems there's rather a lot of it. You see, the Extropians bought you a lifetime subscription to Reader's Digest as a going-cold present... Apparently, they had problems arguing with the subscription department, but eventually convinced the judge that, since you were not clinically dead when frozen, your lifetime subscription was still valid. Funnily enough, the next day all publishers and organisations everywhere removed the concept of `lifetime' membership and subscription `pending actuarial discussions'... But i am rambling on. Anyway, we've got a few over 33000 Reader's Digests waiting for you to read while you get your strength back... Oh, and there's a pile of postcards from the New York Public Libraries Department about a book you failed to return?" "no, no, no, take me away from all this..." [I'm sorry, it was too tempting an idea] Rich! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 20:48:55 +0100 From: Rich Walker Subject: Who is signed up for cryonics Perry: >and people can write letters to you that will be >waiting for you should you ever be revived. "uuurrrggghhh....." "huh, wazzat?" "Mr Metzger? Ah, good. Mr Metzger, I'm afraid you had an accident. Don't worry, you're safe: you're in the Alcor Foundation, and you've been revived. You've been frozen now for approximately 2753 years, so we're going to re-introduce you to the world slowly. Now, I'm just going to give you a light tranquillizer to help prevent shock." "Ah, Mr Metzger, awake again? Erm, sorry, I mean have a nice sleep? Oops, no, erm, er" "Never mind that, where's my mail?" "Oh, right, well Mr Metzger, it seems there's rather a lot of it. You see, the Extropians bought you a lifetime subscription to Reader's Digest as a going-cold present... Apparently, they had problems arguing with the subscription department, but eventually convinced the judge that, since you were not clinically dead when frozen, your lifetime subscription was still valid. Funnily enough, the next day all publishers and organisations everywhere removed the concept of `lifetime' membership and subscription `pending actuarial discussions'... But i am rambling on. Anyway, we've got a few over 33000 Reader's Digests waiting for you to read while you get your strength back... Oh, and there's a pile of postcards from the New York Public Libraries Department about a book you failed to return?" "no, no, no, take me away from all this..." [I'm sorry, it was too tempting an idea] Rich! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 21:01:17 +0100 From: Rich Walker Subject: AI: Domestic robots Paul Cisek responds to my posting on the Shadow Project. Balance: Yes, this is a sod. Presumably, a statocyst is an organ that gives as outputs errors in balance. We're working on something along these lines; the idea we've got is (almost) that anything we've got that provides a change in output as the machine leans can be used to train a net to balance. Of course, it has to be a sufficiently informative device, and it has to cope with certain other requirements: small, safe, &c. The system we have at the moment will free-stand when all leg muscles are inflated fully (read: tetanic I believe). The next stages are to get it to do so with half-inflated muscles (read: a good muscle tone) in order to let us actually use the muscles to balance. I'd be most interested in the work you've been doing. Face-recognising cart: This one was a kludge. We did it after seeing Aleksander's WIZARD system on things like Tomorrow's World; the camera that was on the little buggy would recognise the face when it was pointed squarely at it and there wasn't much background... But, for the technology, it was pretty impressive. Cup-collecting: This one's amusing. It recognized standard polystyrene cups. It had a cheap baby-alarm camera, with a plausible depth of field and crap resolution; the picture was scaled down to 2048 pixels total, and lobbed into a little neural net, with 7 outputs. These gave: cup forward/left/right, wall forward/left/right, and `there is a cup in front of you and you should grab it'. A cheap control algorithm did probabilistic movement based on these, and when the bump sensors at the front were triggered, it updated the wall detection on the net... And no, I never did look at the values i the net to work out what it was doing, I was just happy it worked. Other stuff: the autonomous-vacuum-cleaner idea is almost exactly the lines we started on; except I think it was proper dish-washing. Problem is, suppose you've got ten intelligent devices. Each of them duplicates a huge amount of work. Or suppose you've got ten or twenty gizmos that do something: most of them go the way of that noodle-press or even the robot-chef: it's too hard to clean, so it never gets used... So, jsut build one machine that does it all... And, there's always `if in doubt, don't' as a maxim for a machine... Thanks for commenting. Rich! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 15:44:14 CDT From: eder@hsvaic.boeing.com (Dani Eder) Subject: MEDIA tv in general Re: The Extropian Channel. Rather than dealing with the hassle of trying to get on traditional mass media, how about underground distribution? Make and sell a few video originals of your documentary, and encourage copying to spread the distribution around. I remember a number of cult films that made the rounds of the science fiction convention community in this fashion. Another distribution medium would be the dealers in video material that sell at conventions (they mostly carry SF movies and related stuff, so their product line and customer base are appropriate). Dani Eder ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 17:06:23 EDT From: eisrael@suneast.east.sun.com (Elias Israel - SunSelect Engineering) Subject: FSF: Some Useful Software, No Useful Politics Perry writes: > I hereby patent the idea of Elias Israel replying to any messages I > post after 11:04 EST, Tuesday July 27 1993. Any use of this extremely > valuable idea without my permission is subject to vigorous prosecution > by my attorneys. I'll charge only a small sum -- $100,000 -- for use > of this valuable patent -- feel free to contact me if you are interested. No method specified and no list of specific claims. I think I'll wait for Perry to send a lawyer. (I'm not holding my breath.) Aside from being a cutesy rhetorical device, Perry's "claim" only serves to drag this discussion away from the real point. I have never disputed that current patent law is flawed. What I have disputed is the claim that ideas cannot be owned. For lack of arguments on this more important question (or lack of interest), Perry continues to drag the conversation back to the first point, and argue with claims that I never made. Elias Israel eisrael@east.sun.com HEx: E ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 #208 ********************************* &