39 Message 39: From extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Tue Aug 3 05:22:31 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA03904; Tue, 3 Aug 93 05:22:23 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 AA11019; Tue, 3 Aug 93 05:22:07 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by panix.com id AA10804 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for more@usc.edu); Tue, 3 Aug 1993 08:18:37 -0400 Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1993 08:18:37 -0400 Message-Id: <199308031218.AA10804@panix.com> To: Exi@panix.com From: Exi@panix.com Subject: Extropians Digest X-Extropian-Date: August 3, 373 P.N.O. [12:18:33 UTC] Reply-To: extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: RO Extropians Digest Tue, 3 Aug 93 Volume 93 : Issue 214 Today's Topics: Beginner needs help files! [1 msgs] FSF: Some Useful Software, No Useful Politics [1 msgs] Nightly Market Report [1 msgs] Objectivists and physics [1 msgs] TAXES: IRS ROBS NEBBISH [1 msgs] TECH: encrypted computer? [1 msgs] The Age of Robots [1 msgs] The Evil of Searle [1 msgs] The Searle Argument [1 msgs] Wage Competition (LONG) [1 msgs] investing [1 msgs] software rental surprise [1 msgs] software rental surprisey [1 msgs] Administrivia: No admin msg. Approximate Size: 51959 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 14:34:53 EDT From: Brian.Hawthorne@east.sun.com (Brian Holt Hawthorne - SunSelect Engineering) Subject: software rental surprise > When have people tried that? Renting software is illegal. Yes it went on > in the Old Days, but that was long before the current market explosion. I've seen this assertion numerous times on this list, and am unwilling to accept it without a reference. I can rent Nintendo software at the Blockbuster Video store down the street today. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 15:36:52 PDT From: Robin Hanson Subject: The Age of Robots Steve Witham writes: >I suppose people who are slowing down relative to the majority >can have their money accumulate interest for them at savings account >rates as opposed to smart-investor rates. I would advise dumb investors with long term goals to invest in mutual funds that track broad market indicies, approximating a "market asset" of owning a fixed percentage of everything one could own. >Are there statistics about long-term investment histories (trusts, for >example) and their growth vs. crash-proofness? The big risk has always been that the trust you have managing your investments will go bust, embessle your money, or be required by law to hand it over to some government-designated beneficiary. But before uploads, I expect to see pay-to-bearer shares in long-stable near market-asset mutual funds. >The thing I wonder about property is, will it remain a necessary part >of reputation maintenance to keep (subjectively) age-old contracts >with slow folk, or will it start to seem like keeping a promise to a >gigantically rich frozen dog with no owner? Why do we all keep our contracts with billionares now? Surely they haven't the physical strength to defend their wealth. It requires a high degree of coordination for all of "us" to agree to no longer meet our expected obligations to all of "them". Sometimes such "revolutions" have been possible, especially when all of us live in one place and all of them in another, and has happened across the rich/poor and slave/free divides. Morevac's earth/space divide would seem to provide the maximal chance of such a scenario. But when us and them are all mixed up this is much less likely. Robin Hanson ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 18:13:07 CST From: "" Subject: investing On Mon, 2 Aug 93 9:56:39 PDT, Tony Hamilton - FES ERG~ wrote: >> Are there statistics about long-term investment histories (trusts, >> for example) and their growth vs. crash-proofness? In the shorter >> term, do actual smart investors do better than mutual funds? Do >> mutual funds do better than dartboards? > >Well, most books I've read on the topic of _stockbrokers_ show that >they are no better than dartboards. Most of what I've read says that stockbrokers usually do _worse_ than dartboards. Dan Goodman dsg@staff.tc.umn.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Aug 93 01:00:29 GMT From: price@price.demon.co.uk (Michael Clive Price) Subject: The Searle Argument Tim Starr: > Mind seems to lack an essential characteristic of machine: extension. [...] > My understanding of post-Cartesian physics is that its objects of > study are things with extension. Have I got this right? By post-Cartesian physics I presume you refer to Newtonian physics? (In the words of Voltaire, whom I think Tim* is keen on, on the Newtonian revolution: "In London, very few people read Descartes, whose works have become quite useless" [although he went on to wryly observe "neither do many read Newton because one must be very learned to understand him" :-)]: Newton certainly believed in rigid objects with extension, interacting via direct contact or action-at-a-distance. Generally speaking, extended objects were seen as better than point particles (ie objects with no extension). But Einstein killed of the idea of extended rigid objects, of any size. All objects were composed of point particles that interacted via intermediate fields of influence that particles surrounded themselves with, like the electric field around a charged particle. In the more recent quantum field theories the particle and the field have merged together, so the fundamental entities have some attributes of both, but they are still point particles at heart in that when you construct the Feynman diagrams all interactions occur at points. (see Ray's post for more details) Super-strings don't alter the picture with respect to extension, since they'ren't rigid but can be deformed. So, in summary. Newton allows extended fundamental objects. Einstein forbids it. The only extended objects in modern physics are _composite_ objects (like protons, chairs, tables, brains etc). > If so, then how can physics study non-extended mind? Extension is not a property of mind, because the mind is not an object. It's like asking what colour is a cat's foot-fall or the smell of an strange quark. It's inappropriate. Having a mind is a property of an object (the brain), not the object itself. The brain, as a composite object, has extension. Does the colour red have extension? No. Can science study the colour red? Yes. > Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! Mike Price price@price.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 16:59:15 -0500 From: extr@jido.b30.ingr.com (Craig Presson) Subject: Objectivists and physics In <9308010851.AA28090@netcom3.netcom.com>, D. Anton Sherwood writes: |> > In the case of the remark about E = mc^2, Peikoff did |> > say something to the effect that the equation may be "numerically |> > true" but was "philosophically false." |> |> He might mean that while the two quantities are proportional, it is meaningless |> to say they are the same thing. What does it mean to say (e.g.) that force is |> *equal* to mass x acceleration (or, more generally, dp/dt)? Is it necessary? |> No; it is only convenient to measure force in units such that the equality |> holds. If there's no other way to measure force, this distinction can |> be ignored. If all equations had to represent "identities" in that sense (A is A), we would stop bothering to write them down. I'm trying to see clearly what semantic issues keep us from easily understanding each other here. One is the context drop that results when we cite a familiar law like F = ma or E = mc^2 bare-faced. This leads to the possibility of thinking that 'F' stands for the _concept_ "Force" rather than the specific Force vector in a given kinetic situation. Your use of the phrase "[to be] the same thing" is suspect, since neither side of the equation is a "thing" in the sense of "specific and measurable space-time object". I don't want to get, so to speak, metaphysical here, but "Force", "mass", "Energy" and so on are relationships and properties, and carry an extensive baggage with them, namely the history of their measurement and use. Since they are superficially more abstract nouns than, say, "chair" (although see the history of AI knowledge rep. systems for an example of how hard it is to pin down "chairness") but are still nouns, we are tempted to forget the subtleties when we discuss them. Besides, if you dwell on those subtleties, you will not get your Physics homework done :-) Anyway, judging by the rest of the comments by Peikoff, I don't think he meant what you said. I believe that your comment reflects intellectual honesty, and could lead to more insights about the nature of physical law, whereas Peikoff is putting up a smokescreen behind which he plans to defend his little world of "A"-think. It's interesting that that's exactly what RAW accuses Rothbard of in _Natural Law: or, don't put a rubber on your willy_ (NLODPAROYW). (Yes, I bought the book and read half ot it at lunchtime). |> Story goes that someone at a physics lecture asked, "Professor, what is mass?" |> The professor said, "Well, I don't know what it is, but I can tell you what |> it does." The questioner: "That's not science, that's engineering." The student was playing the smartass (probably a sophomore). The professor's statement means to me that "mass" is primitive in physical theory, so the Platonic demand for some description of its "essence" has no answer better than that already given. Viz. the debates of a few years ago about whether mass in inertial context (like F = ma) was the same as mass in the gravitational equations. I know a genial crackpot who thinks he can get to the Grand Theory of Everything by throwing out concepts -- "get rid of mass, we know how to make that from energy", etc. In disguise, he's hunting for the Ideal again. |> But it's all we've got, unless we can get out and access the design specs |> for this cosmos. Aha, you think this mess has specs? I think G*d coded for six straight days and nights and then ran out of Mountain Dew and Jolt Cola and went into a coma. Or, he left his workstation for just a nanosecond and the whole thing blew up. ^ / ------/---- extropy@jido.b30.ingr.com (Freeman Craig Presson) /AS 5/20/373 PNO /ExI 4/373 PNO ** E' and E-choice spoken here ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 22:12:05 -0400 (EDT) From: Carol Moore Subject: TAXES: IRS ROBS NEBBISH Standing in bank today waiting to cash a hundred I noticed a very woody allen nebbishish guy debating with the teller and getting nervous and more woody allenish. Then he went to bank teller and I heard the following conversation. "I'm sorry, the reason you don't have any money in your account (checking orsavings, I don't know) is because the IRS seized your account." "What! They seized my account! But don't they have to send you a notice or something? I didn't even know I owed anymoney." He tried to standup but was shaking so hard he had to sit down. I was trying not to laugh. (Part of me was convinced he was a "resister" who got caught and didn't want to admit it to bank manager. Plus he was being so woody allen.) I would have gone and commiserated with him if he hadn't followed the manager off somewhere. I've had them grab money from me 6 or 7 times so I'm used to it. But it's always a shock the first time they STEAL your money... (-: cmoore@cap.gwu.edu :-) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 20:56:31 PDT From: hfinney@shell.portal.com Subject: The Evil of Searle I can see two general sorts of arguments in opposition to the notion of mechanically synthesized mine: In the first, one might claim that there is more to consciousness than simple mechanically operating parts, whether neurons or electronic circuits. In this picture, when we try to synthesize intelligent computers, we simply fail. Attempts to simulate brains through exhaustive modelling of neurons fail as well. Neurons turn out to have non-deterministic properties which are necessary to allow consciousness and intelligence, and our simulations can never capture this non-determinism. There is no evidence of such effects, of course, but we can't totally rule them out now. Neurons are pretty complicated, despite the pretty and over- simplified pictures we sometimes see, and conceivably there could be strange effects like these happening. Penrose's arguments in "The Emperor's New Mind" were of this flavor, where he postulated mysterious quantum gravitational effects that would be necessary for consciousness to work. It wasn't clear whether his effects could be designed into a special machine or not. The other general type of argument states that simulations of brains would work, in that they would behave just like real brains, but that they would not be conscious. We would literally have what are known in the philosophical literature as "zombies" - beings who walk and talk just like us but who are not conscious (despite the fact that they claim to be, just as we do). Dennett, in Consciousness Explained, discusses zombies somewhat, and I gather that there is a considerable philosophical literature on them. >From what I understand of Searle's argument, this is the direction he is taking. He is saying that a brain can be successfully simulated, but that it would not be conscious. His argument is not just that "maybe" simulated brains wouldn't be conscious - he is asserting very strongly that a particular type of simulation (namely, one which can be run on a computer) would not be conscious. He is saying that the simulated person would be a zombie. I obviously can't begin to address here the whole body of philosophical thought on zombies and whether they can exist. To me, the notion is incoherent and even morally objectionable (lending itself to xenophobia; justifying the persecution of those different enough that they might lack our form of consciousness). In particular, I imagine a future debate in a Searle- dominated world between an AI who eloquently pleads the argument that he is a conscious, thinking, feeling person, and an oppressive society which ignores his argument - since they have a PROOF that he is not. Searle provides just such a proof, and I think much future wickedness could come of it. Hal Finney hfinney@shell.portal.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 22:01:14 -0600 (MDT) From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: FSF: Some Useful Software, No Useful Politics Quoth Ray, verily I say unto thee: -=> Stanton, you don't know what you are talking about. You sound like -=>your only computer was a PC or Mac. I can assure you that copy -=>protection is alive and well, and that everything I described went on -=>on platforms such as the Amiga, Atari, Commodore 64, Spectrum, etc. Copy protection is readily broken. What you are talking about is OLD HISTORY. It does not reflect the state of piracy today. Few people even use these machines anymore. I also have a similar history (though I did not write intros for cracked games, and did not do it for money (not saying you did; you didn't specify.) -=>protection and disk based copyprotection. I know quite a bit about how -=>most copy protection works and I even wrote some myself including a -=>cryptographic "scrambler" to prevent other groups from removing our -=>"intro", putting their intro on it, and announcing that they had released -=>it first. (a sort of "crackers property") The pirate world is very -=>competitive. A very interesting look at the good ole days of piracy, but irrelevant to today's market. Few pirate boards, except those that are stupid, identify the source. And the most people want wares with the original registration numbers, so a search of their machine looks legitimate, and yields nothing suspicious. -=> Your assertion that new cracks are spread by users is erroneous. The -=>structure of each pirate group is made up roughly as follows: Your assumption that only crackers do piracy is erroneous, based on the assumption that copy protection is a regular "feature" of wares today, which it is not. It IS common in games, but "real applications" rarely have any copy protection, other than a requirement to input the serial number the first time you run the application. -=>Thus, they only care if opposing groups see their cracks so they can brag that -=>they released it first. The purpose of cracking wasn't to use the software -=>but to gain fame and boost your ego. There are two lurkers on the list who can -=>confirm this if they wish to reveal themselves. I don't doubt that's what it was like in the mid to late 80s. I remember it. Such bragging is also what caused most of the "hacker" busts, too. People are smarter than that now. Last pirate board in this area, which had pretty much every thing you'd find on any large pirate board in CA (he had 2 gigs of disk space) was a "regular" public BBS to all eyes. Pirate access was gained by referral. Most of the wares came from DLing files from other pirate boards, and from users ULing new stuff with the serial number included in a text file. Everything from the latest game, to almost every Autodesk product for DOS that there is. But no bragging whatsoever is involved. Bragging causes rivalry, and rivalries lead to ratting. -=>a big pirate, but now I am anti-pirate. I have an excuse though, I was -=>a young and ignorant teenager then. No excuse! -=> I can tell you from experience that there is a trickle down effect -- -=>significant delay between the original release and the time everyone -=>else gets it. It may be different on the PC where most software is -=>not copyprotected (or manual protected) and thus copyable from the time -=>you buy it. Just so. This is due to basic market forces, too. People didn't like CP, and would buy non-CP stuff over CP stuff, just for the decrease in hassle. Companies had to go along with it, piracy or no. -=> Elite users don't have credit. I had infinite credit on every bbs I was -=>on and I detested the job of "spreading", but in some cases I had to -=>do it because uploading it to an official spreader would take too long. Sure. Were my fave warez board still up, I could leach a gigabyte consectively if I could handle the phone bill. I'm talking about "semi-elites" - that is J. Random User with access to the pirate wares. I find it interesting that you didn't like spreading. When I was into this (not very long ago, less than a year), anytime we got something new, we immediately uploaded it to all takers. Sort of a goodwill thing. I guess the Then vs. Now difference is one of attitude: Then it was a matter of challenge, pride, rivalry, etc. Today it's a matter of "I need CorelDraw, and want Harvard Graphics. Who can I trade with?" I did not mean to imply in my previous vitriol that piracy as it is now is all it ever was. I know this is not so, having taken part in some of that (mostly as a Jr. High school wannabe-hacker, back in 83 or so). Games were trivial to crack then, so we could play too. :) BUT piracy as it lives and breathes on BBSs today, over 90% of which are DOSboxes, is a very different animal that what you describe. It's more a market for goods, that for reputations, if you see what I mean. -=> The #1 feature of competition in the Elite BBS world is simply how -=>fast they get new releases. Nothing else matters. Not the bbs software, -=>not the message areas, nothing. Most Commodore 64 elite pirate boards ran -=>a system called "Ivory BBS" which amounted to little more than a directory -=>command, and upload/download. I've seen it . None of the 3 Commie boards here use it though. In the pirate scene now, the BBS either has to be kept VERY secret, or it has to have a veneer of "normalcy" so the coppers don't come knocking. 3 BBSs in Albuquerque have already been investigated, just this year alone. Hairy stuff...somehow US Air Force Intelligence was involved in one of the investigation. [!?!?!?] -=>(two other things back then mattered slightly. If the bbs didn't have a 1200 -=>baud modem, forget it. And it had to have atleast 1meg of storage) [chuckle] These days it 14,400bps and 1GB! -=>> I think you've been a victim of some "investigative journalism" or -=>> something. What I've told you up there is based on personal experience -=>> and observation of these people. -=> -=> Nope. I was quite a pirate for a while, and I was in 5 different -=>groups before I quit, two of which were #1. I was also acknowledged -=>as "one of the best" pirate programmers (on the Commodore 64) -=>in the US at one time. Apologies! If often hard to tell the experienced from the weenies, because the weenies immitate the jargon, and talk like they Know All. -=> You assume, that, as default, new sites will be allowed credit. If your -=>theory is true, then how does the banking industry work, huh? What -=>prevents me from making up an alias, waltzing into a bank, and getting -=>a loan? I assume that based on experience. IF the net evolves into somethin like the banking system, you will have a good point. I for one hope it doesn't. Part of the usefulness of the net is its openness, and the ability to be anonymous when you need to. I see this trend INcreasing, not DEcreasing. Not long ago there was not such thing as an anonymous remailer. But anyway, given that sort of structure, yes, my idea would not work. -=>I also dislike the need to bring "Nazis" into the discussion. -=>What ever happened to "freedom of association"? Are the Extropians -=>Nazi's if they boot pagans out? There is a saying on the net: -=>Whenever the Nazis or Hitler are mentioned in an argument, the argument -=>is over. There's another called Godwin's Law. To paraphrase: as the intensity of an online debate increases, the likelihood of one debator comparing the other's position to Hitler or Nazis approaches 100% certainty. I was kidding, anyway. Still, the net you seem to expect to evolve will be very restrictive, and hardly libertarian. -=>> just another part of the software industry, like CDs, all of which will be -=>> melding before long; witness CD-ROMs, video/audio disks, and floppies -=>> accompanying or even comprising, releases by major artists like Front 242, -=>> Peter Gabiel, and Billy Idol.), and based their income on royalties, -=>> initial sales to rental businesses, and sales of things that are far more -=>> difficult to pirate: manuals, tech support, upgrades keyed to specific -=>> people's IDs (probably cryptographic in coming times), etc. This mess you -=>> envision would be completly avoided by a shift such as this, and in my -=>> optimist view almost certainly will be. -=> -=> I debunked this theory before. CD-distribution succeeds because -=>it has a natural copy protection, the fact that CDs are hard to master and -=>current networks make uploading prohibitive. If you call crippling DATs, and ruining an entire sub-industry, "natural copy-protection", ok fine. CDs can be quite readily copied, I do it all the time. Not perfect quality copies, sure, but for something to listen to in the cassette player of a noisy car, who cares? Ever seen the new mini-disks? They are read-write. Ever seen a Japanese or European DAT? Uncrippled. Getting such stuff is not much of a chore. Anyway, pointing out that CDs are hard to duplicate at CD quality, without uncrippled machines, hardly "debunked this theory" that the various software industries will meld, and that current business methods will need to change (in my opinion, to a rental/support/upgrade scheme). -=> When large, writable, random access disks hit the market Unless 1GB+ is not "large", they already have. I'm getting a pretty speedy read-write Maxoptics (Maxtor) Tahiti II optical drive, which holds about a gig on the big cartridges, in a month or so. $1200. Can't beat that, even in HD prices (well you CAN but not by much, and it will likely be refurbished.) , and faster -=>networks get here, say goodbye to this "hide the cost in the media price" -=>scheme. An hour of CD music takes rougly 300-400MB of data to store. A T3 -=>line will transfer this in about minute. Your scheme would cause media -=>prices to soar so high that no one could afford them. Care to elaborate? [probably should CC: it to me, any day now my Extropians feed will be cut. Not sure what the delay is, but while I'm here might as well keep on keeping on...] If my theory has a demonstrable hole in it, I'd like to know, though I will defend it of course. -=> I didn't say the net wouldn't be viable, I just said it wouldn't have any -=>commercial companies online selling software over the network. So you'll -=>have a net like you have now, one where commercial activity is effectively -=>banned. Gotcha, misinterpreted you. Well, I for one would love a network like that. I'm all for "personal" capitalism, but I detest corporations, since they are statist in nature. I DO love networks like that, it's why I run one, and participate in many others. Anyway, such companies probably, as you say, would not be selling software on there, but if they make tech support a business opportunity instead of a money pit, they would likely offer techsupport-for-pay via such networks, because they'd have to. Same reason Quarterdeck has DV/QEMM support conferences on both FidoNet and UseNet, with employed representatives of the company answering questions. There's no reason that they have to do this for free, given the kind of marketplace I've outlined, especially if your expectation of highly-commercialized networks comes true. -=>> Why is only physical force to be objected to? This strikes me as a -=>> particularly capital-L Libertarian hypocrisy. In today's world, and -=>> especially in the one we envision on the way, physical threats will have -=>> far less importance than economic and social threats; Threatening my -=>> food/money source, net access, etc are just as much a threat to me as -=>> telling me you'll kick me in the balls, and to me, more so. It's still -=>> statist (or corporate, statist-emulating) coercion. Free market my rosy butt. -=> -=> And therefore we need socialism right? Guaranteed work, affirmative action, -=>free net access for all,etc etc. Looks like this conversation is over. -=>The Nazi comment triggered a warning sign but this takes the cake. Hmm now lets look at this logic. Nazis were socialists. I use them as an example of what's BAD, therefore I am a socialist. Puh-leez. You totally misinterpreted what I am saying. I'm all for capitalism, and I don't like socialist institutions (I can't think of one I like, really). But I don't delude myself that capitalism is somehow Perfection Incarnate. It's a ruthless system that stomps on people just like any other system does. I see myself doing better in a capitalist system, so that's what I go with. Also, I will point out what I thought was obvious: I am not referring to the ideal anarcho-capitalist free market, but the current pseudo-free market, when I say "free market my rosy butt." -=>If you -=>would have told me you were a socialist in the beginning, I wouldn't have -=>tried to argue with you. I thought I was arguing with someone who -=>thought that property rights are useful and ethical. Give me a break. This is very weak. You know damned well I am not a socialist. -=> You talk of threatening someone's food/money source, but pirating -=>software does exactly that. I've already driven this argument into the ground, repeatedly. Software piracy has helped the market place, since most people pirate stuff they would never buy in the first place, try it out, like it, and will buy utilities, newer version, books, etc when they can't get them free, because they "need" them now. I know about a dozen peole that pirated Stacker 2.00.02. Out of those, about half of them use disk compression still, because they found the extra space worth the slowdown. Of THOSE, most if not all have DOS6.0, and all of them but one are willing to PURCHASE Stacker 3.x, because DOS's DoubleSpace sucks, and they need Stacker 3 to work right with DOS6, and need the documentation (all it takes is one Stacker Nightmare to convince you that running it w/o reading the docs is highly hazardous unless you make daily backups.) NONE, in all likelihood, of these people would have ever bought Stacker outright, but would have lived with DoubleSpace, if not for testing it out first, by pirating it. Those that won't upgrade, didn't cost Stac Electronics anything, since they quit using it, and those that will, will just make moeny for Stac that they would never have gotten otherwise. Ditto for every other commercial software package I can think of, from Fractal Design Painter and AutoCAD, to MS-Works and Word for Windows. All this "lost money" that the software giants cry about is entirely fictional. It's based on the assumption that all people using a program would have willingly paid for it. This is just afactual. If they would not have, then no money is lost, since duplication of the program passes on no expense to anyone but the pirate that bought the disks. If they would pay for it, then they will sooner or later, when they can't find the new version on a pirate board, need docs, feel guilty or scared, whatever. -=>The reverse is not true. Witholding new software -=>or _private_ net access from someone does not threaten their food source -=>anymore than with holding access to the extropians list does. Sure it does, if they happen to do much of their business, research, contact-making, etc via networking; this is not all that common today, but will be very common in the future. You can bet on it. You take away the ability to conduct business, you take away money, and thus food and other necessities, and wants. It's coercion. This is like saying that refusing drivers licenses does not keep people from being employed. Sure it does, if they happen to need to commute, or their job is in pizza delivery or trucking. You seem willing to put up with any sort of coercion as long as Uncle Scam didn't do it. -- 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, 03 Aug 93 00:10:03 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: Tue Aug 3 00:10:02 EDT 1993 Newly Registered Reputations: CHAITN withdrawn from market. ANTO withdrawn from market. New Share Issues: (None) Share Splits: (None) --------------------------------------------------------------- Market Summary as of: Tue Aug 3 00:00:02 EDT 1993 Total Shares Symbol Bid Ask Last Issued Outstanding Market Value 1000 .10 .20 .10 10000 2000 200.00 110 .01 .10 - 10000 - - 150 .01 .10 - 10000 - - 1E6 .02 .10 - 10000 - - 1E9 .01 .10 - 10000 - - 200 .10 .20 .10 10000 2000 200.00 80 .01 .10 - 10000 - - 90 .01 .20 .10 10000 2000 200.00 ACS - .15 .50 10000 1124 562.00 AI .01 .50 .20 10000 1000 200.00 ALCOR 2.00 3.80 2.00 10000 3031 6062.00 ALTINST - .15 .15 10000 2500 375.00 ANTON - 1.00 - 10000 - - ARKU - - - - - - BIOPR .01 .20 .10 10000 1500 150.00 BLAIR .01 30.00 50.00 10000 25 1250.00 CYPHP .15 .17 .17 10000 100 17.00 DEREK - .42 1.00 100000 8220 8220.00 DRXLR 1.00 2.00 2.00 10000 2246 4492.00 DVDT .75 1.55 1.63 10000 9900 16137.00 E .58 .70 .60 10000 5487 3292.20 ESR - - - - - - EXI 1.00 3.00 1.30 10000 3025 3932.50 FAB - - - - - - FCP - 1.00 - 80000 4320 - GHG .01 .30 .01 10000 6755 67.55 GOBEL .01 .30 1.00 10000 767 767.00 GOD .10 .20 .10 10000 1000 100.00 H .76 .76 - 30000 18750 - HAM .01 .40 .20 10000 5000 1000.00 HEINLN .01 .25 - 10000 - - HEX 100.00 125.00 100.00 10000 3368 336800.00 HFINN 2.00 10.00 .75 10000 1005 753.75 IMMFR .25 .80 .49 10000 1401 686.49 JFREE .01 .15 .10 10000 3000 300.00 JPP .25 .26 .25 10000 2510 627.50 LEARY .01 .20 .20 10000 100 20.00 LEF .01 .15 .30 10000 1526 457.80 LEFTY .01 .45 .30 10000 3051 915.30 LIST .40 .75 .50 10000 5000 2500.00 LP .01 .09 - 10000 - - LSOFT .58 .60 .58 10000 7050 4089.00 LURKR - .08 - 100000 - - MARCR - - - - - - MED21 .01 .08 - 10000 - - MLINK - .09 .02 1000000 2602 52.04 MMORE - .10 - 10000 - - MORE .75 1.25 .75 10000 3000 2250.00 MWM .15 .15 1.50 10000 1260 1890.00 N 20.00 25.00 25.00 10000 98 2450.00 NEWTON - .20 - 10000 - - NSS .01 .05 - 10000 - - OCEAN .11 .12 .10 10000 1500 150.00 P 20.00 25.00 25.00 1000000 66 1650.00 PETER - .01 1.00 10000000 600 600.00 PLANET .01 .10 .05 10000 1500 75.00 PPL .11 .25 .10 10000 400 40.00 PRICE - 4.00 2.00 10000000 1410 2820.00 R .49 2.80 .99 10000 5100 5049.00 RAND - .06 - 10000 - - RJC 1.00 999.00 .60 10000 5100 3060.00 ROMA - - - - - - RWHIT - - - - - - SGP - - - - - - SHAWN .01 1.00 - 10000 - - SSI - .05 - 10000 - - TCMAY .40 .63 .75 10000 4000 3000.00 TIM 1.00 2.00 1.00 10000 100 100.00 TRANS .01 .05 .40 10000 1511 604.40 VINGE .20 .50 .20 10000 1000 200.00 WILKEN 1.00 10.00 10.00 10000 101 1010.00 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total 419374.53 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 21:32:05 -0700 (PDT) From: Seth Ceteras Subject: Beginner needs help files! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 19:35:49 EDT From: fnerd@smds.com (FutureNerd Steve Witham) Subject: Wage Competition (LONG) Perry sez- > "Enslaved" intelligences are nothing new -- arguably large parts of > your brain are in fact "enslaved" intelligences. I agree. I just think they're too hard for us to design in the time we have. My suggestive-only reason is that the whole idea of intelligence is to get around obstacles and promote itself. > I don't see why humans might not survive past the advent of true AI. > Certainly roaches survived the advent of humans -- and it is commonly > believed we are smarter than them. Roaches haven't suffered as a > result of the rise of humans, either. I think our problem will be harder than the roaches'. What if AIs are smarter, faster, more energy-efficient and *smaller* than us? Would roach-size speedy people tolerate roaches? > I'll agree that it will be not necessarily be possible to lead an > exciting life in the post AI world if you don't do something in the > way of self transformation like uploading yourself, but then again, > its hard to lead an exciting life in the modern world if you refuse to > use any gadgets invented since 1900. Yeah. My concern is not having enough time for the uploading/ enhancing technology to come out before they kick me out. I've calmed down some. -fnerd quote me ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 23:03:36 -0600 (MDT) From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: software rental surprisey -=> What happens when someone rents a copy for $8 and puts it up on -=>compuserve/internet? Depends on the law of the time. -=>to online/tv selling away from in-store selling. With a data super-highway -=>in place, why bother with buying manuals or renting? I simply -=>go online, Archie/WAIS/Gopher to a Microsoft software site, and download -=>everything. The manual will be in PS/Dvi form so I simply print it out. -=>Support available in any newsgroup or user group. Great if you are a netsurfer, lousy if you are a personell manager for a company, or a kid or mom or whatever with no net access, etc etc, that just wants a damn word processor. -=> An $8 rental would have to cover the cost of running the store, marketing, -=>plus packaging, and Microsoft's pay back. Let's say Microsoft employs -=>4000 people at $50k/yr. That means $50000*4000/$8=25 million copies must -=>be sold just to keep microsoft staff employed. Hardly unrealistic, especially considering the coming growth as the kiddos now using computers every day in elementary school come of age. Apply the above calcuations to the video industry. Costs a lot more to make a move than make Microsoft Works for Windows. Granted there are more consumers for videos than for software. The numbers will change radically in coming years though, barring some major social upheaval like a war that destroys the economy or somthing. Also your argument would seem to imply that MS has only one product. Using your numbers, lets assume that microsoft has 25 products (of course they have far more, but lets keep is simple so I don't have to get out the calcuator!) That's only an average of 1 million copies of each to be rented out. It also does not include money made from other sources, such as the initial sales of the products to the rental stores, massive site licenses, govt. contracts, a continuous stream of upgrade and utility purchases, and tech support. -=>With this "tech support" -=>fairy tale that people are bandying around here, let's assume another -=>30,000 support people employed at $20k/yr (30,000 is typical for a -=>large company like IBM). That yields 60 MILLION support calls at $10 each -=>to finance the whole thing. Add in a 10% profit margin and we have -=>a ridiculous number of people renting and paying for support, not supported -=>by current rates or even the wildest estimates. Nonsense. Why should ONE source of income, tech support by phone, be expected to make a profit and at the same time, pay for 30,000 people, 99.9%+ of whom are in other departments? I don't think so. How many phone techs would be needed, plus supervisors? 1000 all told? Probably less than that. From my calls to MS, and the fact that I've gotten the same guy twice in a row, I strongly suspect that at the US techsupport offices they have just a handful of people. -=>> number of music stores that will let you "preview" CDs before buying them. -=> -=> Because you can't pirate CDs. Give me DAT or a mini-disk recorder. -=> I don't why any of this would be true. Given a data superhighway, -=>people would much rather just download the thing off the net. Much -=>easier than going to a store and renting. Who says they'll be given a data superhighway? There's an awful lot of folks that oppose Gore's plot. If you mean an efficient, widely accessible net in general, this is very true. This can be part of the strategy also, but for NOW it's not an option. With a little effort on the part of the software companies, legalization of, and profit-making from, software rentals and the other strategies I outlined, can happen very soon. -=>> Right now, they make enough to not need to lose any face. Yet. This will -=>> change. As development costs skyrocket, no one will be able to afford the -=>> software they need (and I do say NEED. Right now, for my chosen -=>> occupations, I NEED certain software, or I have nothing to work with, -=>> nothing to stay competive with, and it's Burger King for me.) People will -=> -=> And when you get software for free, it's Burger King for programmers. -=>How nice. You get to live off of their products, and they get the shaft. -=>You may need certain software, but you don't have a right to it. Ditto -=>for health care. You aren't paying attention to a word I'm saying. All you see is "programmers get the shaft", like a mantra. In the rental/upgrade/support scheme I outlined (obviously it is not perfect, and would need much polishing before implemented), programmers DON'T get the shaft; they get paid better than they are now, because the dough is rolling in, from a customer base that is orders of magnitute larger than the one we have now, and soon. Anyway, this is getting rather circular..."yes it will!" "No it won't!" -- 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, 2 Aug 93 22:35:09 -0700 From: tribble@netcom.com (E. Dean Tribble) Subject: TECH: encrypted computer? If more commerical software sold for $40 and came with a nice printed manual, there would be less piracy. If more software were free, there would be even less. 'Course fewer people would bother making it at that point... dean ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 #214 ********************************* &