From extropians-request@extropy.org Wed Dec 8 01:51:27 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA17153; Wed, 8 Dec 93 01:51:24 PST Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: from news.panix.com by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA18777; Wed, 8 Dec 93 01:51:21 PST Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by news.panix.com id AA29227 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for more@usc.edu); Wed, 8 Dec 1993 04:46:04 -0500 Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1993 04:46:04 -0500 Message-Id: <199312080946.AA29227@news.panix.com> To: Extropians@extropy.org From: Extropians@extropy.org Subject: Extropians Digest X-Extropian-Date: December 8, 373 P.N.O. [09:44:37 UTC] Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: RO Extropians Digest Wed, 8 Dec 93 Volume 93 : Issue 341 Today's Topics: AESTHETICS: Spontaneous order [1 msgs] Brave New Extropia? No Thanks. [5 msgs] Brave New Extropia? No Thanks. [2 msgs] Capello makes wonderful points about debating (this is a Me Too)[1 msgs] Claudia Schiffer [1 msgs] Digichecks! [1 msgs] Newton MessagePad Looks Good [1 msgs] Rand, Branden, and "The Seven Bridges of Galt's Gulch" [2 msgs] Random Thoughts [1 msgs] SOC: Gender in Brave New Extropia [1 msgs] Vinge, The Singularity, and Despair [1 msgs] Women in some technical professions: Observations [2 msgs] Administrivia: No admin msg. Approximate Size: 52916 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 15:05:45 -0800 (PST) From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: Newton MessagePad Looks Good Gadget-loving Extropians (and women, too), I've had my Apple Newton for two full days now, and have some initial reactions: 1. OK for entering very short notes, in calendars, notepads, etc. Handwriting recognition is "amazing," but is still not enough to replace a keyboard. (A Newton-Mac connection allows full emulation and transfer on the main Mac, or a Windows machine, and thus is a faster way to download lots of information to a Newton. Of course, lots of info will quickly fill up the relatively small memory of the Newton.) 2. However, the H-P 95/100 family, which _does_ have a keyboard, is not much better. Unless the keyboard can be touch-typed on, not adequate for serious writing. David Friedman has spoken highly of his Psion handheld. I can't comment. I _did_ look at the Casio "Zoomer" and was underwhelmed. It's ridiculously slow (a lowly 8088 microprocessor, compared to the Newton's 20 MHz ARM processor) and the various apps are poorly integrated by comparison to the Newton's new paradigm. For now, I'm content to accept the Newton for what it is and not for what it could be if someone could build a small touch-typable keyboard for it. 3. The Newton has lots of nice features, such as calendars, phone dialers, random access retrieval of notes, and so on. (One system that a lot of people use for meetings and casual notes is this: Use the handwriting recognition to get some key words down, then turn the recognition OFF and use "digital ink" to capture the notes quickly, like a steno pad. The notes can then be filed away someplace and quickly retrieved by key words.) I also looked at a multi-mode calculator program, called "Go-Figure," which provides RPN _or_ algbraic entry on the fly, many statistical modes, and so forth....the whole calculator is reconfigurable, making excellent use of the display screen. These sorts of standalone apps will do well, I think. 4. I can see memory will soon be tight. I bough the Connection Kit to interface the Newton to my PowerBook 170 and/or my Mac IIci--a straight modem cable or a LocalTalk connection. Windows is also supported (with a different kit). Extra memory is gotten by adding a 1 MB static RAM card or a 2 MB flash memory card in the PCMCIA slot. I don't yet have one of these. (Speaking of modems, I skipped getting one for my Newton. Ditto for the pager card. For on-the-run yuppies, might be a good thing. The fax abilities are amazing: you just write or scribble a message, tell it to fax it, it queues up the faxes until you get to a phone, then automatically dials and faxes. I suspect it's send only, for now, but I could be wrong.) 5. I paid $619 at Fry's in Palo Alto. This seemed cheap enough for me to think of the Newton as a "peripheral" for my Macs. Your mileage may vary. 6. So far, I am becoming more and more attached to my Newton. As more of my life goes into it (well, _parts_ of it), I can see its utility growing even more. 7. Should you wait? Rumors of new models, coming in March. More memory, etc. I decided to get _this_ generation and thus be able to skip the _coming_ generation. I'll use it for what it was designed for, plus some of the many public domain programs, and then by the time amazing new applications arrive, I'll be ready for the 1995 generation of machines. Well, this is my initial report. I'll bring it to the January party in San Francisco (if the women present agree to not say "Is that all you guys can talk about?"). Brief reminder: I'll be giving a lecture on "Crypto" and related ideas at Stanford, Wednesday (tomorrow), 4:15 p.m., Skilling Auditorium. I mentioned this to Cypherpunks and ExI-Bay, but I may as well mention it here to anyone who may've missed it. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 15:04:19 PST From: Robert Brooks Subject: Brave New Extropia? No Thanks. > Yes, I think you are dead right here: a major gender differnce is that > men are much more comfortable abstracting. Very few women philosohers > (the only one that comes to my mind is/was Simone de Beauvoir, the > feminist associate/SO of Sartre). Same for political theory, etc. > [Gack, cough] How could you forget _Rand_, Tim? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 18:20:17 EST From: Andy Wilson Subject: Claudia Schiffer Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 12:48:46 -0500 (EST) From: Arthur Hlavaty [...] There are differences, though. The evolutionary male would presumably risk his own life to save his women & children, and no self-respecting sociopath would do that. A real sociopath doesn't worry about his women and children, he can always get more. The evolutionary male's presumed willingness to risk his life is predicated on strict monogamy, which is not the way humans are today. Humans in our culture practice serial monogamy with a smattering of polygamy to spice things up ;-). Real extropians seek to move beyond the gender roles they were forced to either accept or react against. Every human is both male and female psychologically, and rejecting either side is to cripple your personality. In the future you will be able to wear a gender like a suit, changing it it easily, and there will be more than just two genders to choose from. IMHO this crapola about arguments on the list as primitive simian dominance rituals is way entropic! It's no wonder the list is at times such a flame-fest if people feel justified in juvenile behavior patterns. Discussion is not combat! Of course, the first step towards finding a cure is having a problem. Andy Arthur D. Hlavaty hlavaty@panix.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 16:49:08 EST From: fnerd@smds.com (FutureNerd Steve Witham) Subject: SOC: Gender in Brave New Extropia schirado@lab.cc.wmich.edu (Schirado) sez- > fnerd@smds.com (Future Nerd) writes extensively on the idea of Guys > operating on a sense of "fairness", a sort of internal "justice system", > or "due process game". I question whether this is (or should be) an > exclusively male approach. Yah, me too. I meant, the "male" "hierarchy" and ritual, fighting and concentrating on facts rather than emotions is actually trying to get at the truth (because it matters to people) and be unbiased (because that's humble and respectful) and be a step removed (so nobody gets hurt) and yet have fun (because that lets everybody participate) and be fair. So, inside "male dominance rituals" are fairness buttons. I said I find this better (& I meant for everybody) than the placating approach described by Tannen, although getting past Guys' crusts can be a problem. > Every female I have known in my life that I > have liked/respected/admired/loved/whatever -- that I have positively > appreciated -- has dealt with me on these terms. One lady I respect and love didn't appreciate the fighting and logic aspects of the game. I think they're necessary, but we didn't figure out a way that worked for both of us, even though we both wanted to be fair. > (Are you happy, fnerd? I *did* quote you. :) Jjoyy!! -fnerd@smds.com quote me -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a aKxB8nktcBAeQHabQP/d7yhWgpGZBIoIqII8cY9nG55HYHgvtoxiQCVAgUBLMs3K ui6XaCZmKH68fOWYYySKAzPkXyfYKnOlzsIjp2toust1Q5A3/n54PBKrUDN9tHVz 3Ch466q9EKUuDulTU6OLsilzmRvQJn0EJhzd4pht6hanC0R3seYNhUYhoJViCcCG sRjLQs4iVVM= =9wqs -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 15:33:01 -0800 (PST) From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: Rand, Branden, and "The Seven Bridges of Galt's Gulch" (..material for NSA's line-eating wiretap...) Robert Brook opines: > > Yes, I think you are dead right here: a major gender differnce is that > > men are much more comfortable abstracting. Very few women philosohers > > (the only one that comes to my mind is/was Simone de Beauvoir, the > > feminist associate/SO of Sartre). Same for political theory, etc. > > > [Gack, cough] How could you forget _Rand_, Tim? Huh? "Ayn Rand" was the pseudonym of Albert Rosenbloom, a Russian who fled to the U.S. He wanted women to listen to his philosophy, so he adoptd a woman's pen name (though this sometimes backfired, as few Americans knew whether "Ayn" was male or female...most mispronounced the name as "Ann Rand," so his purposes were served. Later on, he carred on a notorious affair with Natalie Brand, who adopted the ersatz name of Nathaniel Branden, to preserve the illusion of normalcy. (Nathaniel comes from "Nathaniel Hawthorne," author of "The Scarlet Letter," wherein the letter "A" figures prominently. Being adulterers both, Albert and Natalie adopted "A is A" as their semiological calling card.) In any case, I consider him to be a polemicist rather than a serious philosopher. His novels influenced me greatly, but so did Heinleins,' and I wouldn't call Heinlein, or Korzbski, a serious philosopher. --Klaus! von Future Prime, Muscle Mystic (If you think I'm joking about Rand, take a look at his picture on the back of his latest novel, "The Seven Bridges of Galt's Gulch.") ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 15:35:35 -0800 From: freeman@maspar.com (Jay R. Freeman) Subject: Brave New Extropia? No Thanks. *** penny for the line-eater *** Arthur D. Hlavaty responds to a question of mine with (in part): > a number of male libertarians [...] think that if women don't think > like male libertarians, that's the women's problem. Fascinating. Sounds like bad politics to me (which is independent of the issue of whether the given statement accurately summarizes a moderately common viewpoint). I am curious whether female Extropians are interested in the group primarily for its libertarian flavor (some would say its anarcho-capitalist flavor) or for other reasons. Any comments from the women here? -- Jay Freeman ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Dec 93 16:05:12 -0800 From: davisd@auburn.ee.washington.edu Subject: Brave New Extropia? No Thanks. > I really don't understand how anyone, especially a woman, could want to > have a baby. Really blows my mind. Pain and suffering, ugh! > > Mike Linksvayer mlinksva@netcom.com Having children has a couple of important benefits which should be of interest to extropians. If you plan on the deep freeze, it will be of extreme benefit to you to have someone outside the freezer who is sincerely interested in thawing you out. You can make as many contracts as you want, but if those deciding the issue in the warm world don't have any personal attachment to you, they will serve their own interests, very likely to the detriment of yours. No guarantee that your children will want to look after your interests, but they most likely would at least supplement any protection you had contractually. Children may serve as blood/organ donors. They are also an opportunity for you to learn about yourself, psychologically and physically. This works the other way around as well. My mother has been interested in vitamin and nutrition for years, and I plan on having the resources to indulge her whims in the area, so that I might have some test info for my later years. (I also hope to keep her around for purely sentimental reasons, softy that I am.) As long as one is going to allow for personal interests in life, it does seem that raising children offers a lot of entertainment. A lot of work, to be sure, but I'm sure most of us have hobbies that require a lot of work. I must also confess to a purely emotional affinity for the idea of a Davis Dynasty. Might not work out as rosy as the ideal I have in mind, but the attachment remains. Finally, of course, I'm male, and so avoid the physical pain and suffering. Does sound like a tremendous hassle for a woman, but were I a woman, the nine months of bodily invasion might still be worth it to me, for the reasons outlined above. Buy Buy -- Dan Davis ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Dec 93 16:16:20 -0800 From: davisd@auburn.ee.washington.edu Subject: Capello makes wonderful points about debating (this is a Me Too) Normally I avoid me tooing, but Peter's points were so well expressed and so on the mark that I can't resist. > From: cappello@cs.ucsb.edu (Peter Cappello) > > Yes, they see my admission of error as their victory: They > misinterpret my behavior. I refuse to be governed by their feelings. > I thus free myself from their attempt to enslave me, to determine the > way in which I explore ideas. By admitting my error publicly, I am > showing them, not that I submit, but that my "throat" is impervious; > unlike them, my self-esteem does not hinge on being correct. They, > likely, will not get it, and think that they have won. Ideally, I > don't care what they think. Indeed, by publicly admitting my error, > in addition to more rapidly exploring the field of ideas, I > simultaneously am rapidly exploring my partner's level of > self-esteem. When, in the future, I wish to play with an idea, I > will know better who to ask to come out and play. People witnessing > the transaction will interpret it differently. Again, I don't care > about the opinions of people who think that I lost. People who are > playful will notice, and will select each other. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 16:27:16 -0800 (PST) From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: Brave New Extropia? No Thanks. Dan Davis writes: > Having children has a couple of important benefits which should be of > interest to extropians. > > If you plan on the deep freeze, it will be of extreme benefit to you > to have someone outside the freezer who is sincerely interested in > thawing you out. You can make as many contracts as you want, but if I'll place my faith in contracts, especially "pay-only-on-my-orders-when-thawed" contracts and escrow agency contracts, rather than on the good will of my children's children's children's children. (Besides, given the birth rate near replacement, and dropping the "tree" that any given person is on is almost certain to vanish after several generations. Then where are you?) And your children's children may in fact be happier with someone they've never met being kept in the meat locker...it reduces those silly claims on their property and whatnot. > Children may serve as blood/organ donors. They are also an A very minor benefit, especially when compared to the high cost of having and rasing them, the much greater chance that _they'll_ be born deformed or will suffer and accident that means you have to donate a kidney or the like to _them_, and so on. > As long as one is going to allow for personal interests in life, it > does seem that raising children offers a lot of entertainment. A lot > of work, to be sure, but I'm sure most of us have hobbies that require Having children because one _wants_ to have children seems like the best reason. I don't know that the reasons one might _want_ to have children hold up, but that's a judgment call. > a lot of work. I must also confess to a purely emotional affinity for > the idea of a Davis Dynasty. Might not work out as rosy as the ideal I > have in mind, but the attachment remains. Wait until the cretin is 15 and has rings through his nose, a hundred dollar a day drug-of-choice habit, and no interest whatsover in your interests or philosophies. > Finally, of course, I'm male, and so avoid the physical pain and > suffering. Does sound like a tremendous hassle for a woman, but were I > a woman, the nine months of bodily invasion might still be worth it to > me, for the reasons outlined above. Don't forget the post-partum depression, the "dish rag" (not my term!) state for the next months--and often permanently, and the probable end of whatever professional career has been started. (I used to see women take a year or two off of engineering work to have a kid. When they returned, the challenges were daunting. First, technology had marched on. Second, they were used to a nurturing world of babies and diapers and naps, not to the cut-throat corporate world. Third. their peers had moved onward and upward and were now managing _them_. Very depressing. Many of them quit a second time to have another kid....this was usually the end of the line for them. Yes, this is not universal. Yes, some women can manage a family and a career. Yes, none of this probably applies to folks like Amara or Nancy or Romana or Betsy or Nan. But it applies to a lot of women, as evidenced by Amara's raising of this excellent discussion topic! Feminists aren't talking (and screaming) about the need for a "Mommy track" for nothing. --Tim May Personally, the advent of at-home consulting, wether crypto-anarchic or conventional, will be liberating for some women (and me) who'll want to stay home and raise children. They'll be paid for what they _produce_ (assuming the "piece work" laws are not invoked, as some localities are trying to do) and they can then freely adjust their schedules. A bright sign. -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 16:58:05 -0800 From: freeman@maspar.com (Jay R. Freeman) Subject: Women in some technical professions: Observations *** penny for the line-eater *** I have followed the thread on few women in this group, and on male / female roles in society. My observations on the proportion of women in technical fields span several disciplines -- astronomy, physics, computer science, lightplane commercial aviation and biology. These include some interesting situations concerning the presence of women. Astronomy has a modest history of having proportionately more women than other physical sciences, back at least to the late 18th century. I'm not sure why -- perhaps it was then thought more ladylike to deal with things you couldn't actually touch, or perhaps shiny brass telescopes were considered more classy than the instrumental paraphernalia of other sciences -- they were certainly less smelly than some. But in graduate school in the 1970s (PhD in physics, thesis in experimental space astronomy, at UC Berkeley), there were noticeably more women doing astronomy than physics -- in any class of a few dozen there was generally more than one woman, and often there were several. And there was no noticeable gender difference in intellectual abilities. Computer science seems to have a higher proportion of males. I have encountered a few exceptional environments, though. An AI [sic] lab I worked in from 1984-1987, Schlumberger Palo Alto Research (SPAR), had a number of highly competent women researchers. And although I lack enough data for good statistics, my experience has been that a disproportionately high fraction of system administrators have been female. My introduction to compilers came when a woman sysadmin at Dalmo Victor handed me Kernighan and Plaugers' _Software_Tools_. Last I heard, she was at Sun, both managing programmers and writing code. (She used to make wisecracks based on gender roles in computer science. Once when I wedged my terminal into a state I couldn't get it out of and asked her to fix it for me, she did so in moments, advising "it takes a woman's touch.") And for most of the time I was at SPAR, the director of system administration was a woman, entirely competent technically and a fine manager. She and her husband were getting a startup going; she has since retired with considerable independent wealth. From about 1968-1978 I was an active lightplane pilot, and was a flight instructor for a while. Women pilots were again a small minority, but here there was a perceived gender difference -- during the first few hundred hours of flight time, women were perceived as substantially better pilots than men. The accepted explanation was that inexperienced male pilots were likely to overreach their abilities in pursuit of macho self-image, and mess up. Men usually learned better after a while -- the perceived difference was negligible at the thousand-hour level. Note that too little confidence is almost as serious a character flaw in a pilot as too much; thus for at least this technical skill, contemporary American women had behavior better optimized to rational reality than did their male counterparts. Recently I have been studying biology part-time at San Jose State. There are moderate numbers of women professors in the department -- let's see, in nine classes four professors were female. They are just as demanding of good science and rigor as the men. Many students are women, even in serious, upper-division courses. Some are preparing for careers teaching high-school science. (They have my admiration and sympathy.) Some head for professional careers -- as in human or veterinary medicine, some want to do outdoor field work. Lots of marine bio students, both men and women, want to be "whale huggers", but that job market is small. Again I don't see noticeable differences in ability, though biology still suffers somewhat from lack of mathematics. (But it's improving -- sidebar sidestepped.) Even in physical science, the gender ratio may be improving. My previous undergraduate work was at CalTech in the 1960s, which then had only male undergraduates, so I cannot make comparisons, but in the "serious" upper-division organic chemistry lecture and lab I took at San Jose State recently, there were several tens of percent women, some among the best students. I have some more speculative comments but I think I will put them in another essay. -- Jay Freeman, the other Jay, the other Freeman ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 20:34:07 -0500 From: ddf2@postoffice.mail.cornell.edu (David Friedman) Subject: Random Thoughts Elizabeth Schwartz asks: >How does multidimensional voting space deal with people who have >"multiple" tastes? Do you add a set of ideal points for each reader? >How does the math deal with that? >If this sort of voting space were set up on this list, for example, I >am sure it would point me to writers like Moravec, and Rheingold, to name >a couple of writers whom I read after hearing about them here. But >if I also threw in my low-brow taste in fiction, would it somehow >cancel out? I think the answer depends on the assumptions made by whomever set up the software. If the software assumed a single ideal point for every reader, then your multiple tastes would make show up as its inability to get a good fit to your reported tastes. Better software would take failure to make a good fit as evidence of more complicated tastes, and try to make a fit with two ideal points, then perhaps three. Or it might turn out that ideal regions worked better. David Friedman Cornell Law School DDF2@Cornell.Edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 17:40:16 -0800 (PST) From: phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu (Aleph marinade) Subject: Women in some technical professions: Observations Jay talks about the proportions of women in some areas. The senior of two sysadmins for the undergrad CS cluster here is female, and two sysadmins for the main computing cluster are female, specifically the VMS one and the senior/network admin for the Sun cluster. Out of 5-7 admins, I think. As for Caltech undergrads, we're cruising at 1/4 to 1/3 of the recent classes. Grads I don't know, although they seem decent. Faculty sucks. Chemistry seems to have more, physics almost none, math one out of a dozen, ditto geology although the latter will probably improve, given the very high number of female grads and undergradsn (one Ge course last year was about 50% female, I think.) The CS department is teeny, 0 out of 6 professors being female. -xx- Damien X-) phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu DRS on HEx Life's little ceremonies leap everlasting, humans spring eternal on hope's breast, and frying pans without fires are often far between. (Words from a hopeless romantic with a cynic's armor) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 21:21:19 -0500 (EST) From: "Mr. Richard Seabrook" Subject: AESTHETICS: Spontaneous order According to Timothy C. May: > > Andy Wilson asks: > > > I for one, being a musician, would welcome discussions of how extropian > > ideas can be applied to the arts. > > Drop music and become a nanotechnologist. > > > --Klaus! > Horse Hockey! Keep the music, its a higher form of communication than speech. Dick S. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 18:26:50 PST From: Robert Brooks Subject: Rand, Branden, and "The Seven Bridges of Galt's Gulch" > > Huh? "Ayn Rand" was the pseudonym of Albert Rosenbloom, a Russian who > fled to the U.S. He wanted women to listen to his philosophy, so he > adoptd a woman's pen name (though this sometimes backfired, as few > Americans knew whether "Ayn" was male or female...most mispronounced > the name as "Ann Rand," so his purposes were served. > > Later on, he carred on a notorious affair with Natalie Brand, who > adopted the ersatz name of Nathaniel Branden, to preserve the > illusion of normalcy. > ...while being married to Francis O'Connor, a non-intellectual type who preferred to tend to home & garden... Really, I do think Rand deserves to be considered a serious philosopher, and is generally not considered such by academia not because she lacked sufficiently "philosophical" ideas, but because she was such a bitch. [Oops, was that Politically Incorrect?] In any case, assuming she really was female :-), she represents quite an extreme counterexample to the stereotype under discussion. Robert [ BTW, do you know when "Seven Bridges" is coming out in paperback? ] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Dec 93 03:18:42 GMT From: price@price.demon.co.uk (Michael Clive Price) Subject: Vinge, The Singularity, and Despair E. Jay O'Connell worries: > Runaway intelligence increase may give us the Jupiter Brains in > our lifetime. Will the Jupiter brains give a rat's ass about > us? If we choose to become Jupiter brains ourselves, to what > degree can we be said to still exist? I don't remember being a > blastula--a blastula wasn't *me.* I don't imagine a Jupiter > Brain that started with my mind as its central core will think > of itself as me, either. The analogy isn't fair. You are judging the extent that the blastula's identity is preserved in terms of concepts (like memory, consciousness etc) that emerged after the development of the blastula. Judged from the blastula's point of view, you retain a great deal of the structure from those early, formative days. You're composed of cells. You have an inside and an outside. What more could a blastula want! Similarly we might expect a Jupiter-sized Brain to preserve everything that we value about our identity today, but to have, in addition, built upon and extended itself (you!) in unimaginable ways. Mike Price price@price.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 07 Dec 93 19:01:02 -0800 From: davisd@auburn.ee.washington.edu Subject: Brave New Extropia? No Thanks. > From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) > > I'll place my faith in contracts, especially > "pay-only-on-my-orders-when-thawed" contracts and escrow agency > contracts, rather than on the good will of my children's children's > children's children. You may so place your hopes, but the frozen have little power, and if your escrow agency decides to lose your paperwork and keep the money, just who do you see stopping them? Who will give a shit? As for the nth degree descendants, I wouldn't have much hope if I had to rely on anyone past grandchildren. > Wait until the cretin is 15 and has rings through his nose, a > hundred dollar a day drug-of-choice habit, and no interest whatsover > in your interests or philosophies. Ha ha, yes, I have considered this possibility. Makes retroactive abortions til eighteen sound like a fine idea. On the lighter side, I don't believe such monstrosities magically appear out of thin air. They are created, and I have enough vanity to believe that I will not create one. Buy Buy -- Dan Davis ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 22:57:39 WET From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: Brave New Extropia? No Thanks. My two cents: I have to agree with a lot of what Tim mentioned. Women, at least those I have encountered, don't seem to possess the male skill of "jumping in" on a debate even if one isn't that experienced with the subject matter or is unsure. This problem manifests itself in the classroom (in math/physics esp) where women don't "call out" answers or comments but wait until they are called on or until they are perfectly sure of their answer. Feminist claim it is institutionalized sexism -- that teachers call on boys more. But in the schools I attended, boys called out answers and comments when they weren't called on. In my case, I will answer questions or question what the teacher has said until he justifies it. Sometimes this leads to arguments (with my ECON professor, who BTW, I found out is a libertarian, but afraid of stating his views in the class) but most of the time it scores points with the professor. This is essential to the quick study technique. If you learn a new field, you have to talk about it to get a feel. If you're wrong, you defend it anyway which sharpens your technical skills in that area. (there have been a few exceptions. A Indian woman in my analysis class would constantly call out answers/comments and answer other people's questions to the teacher, but the m/f ratio in all my classes is still pathetic. 2/3 women out of a class of 20) As an individualist, I think this biological determinism stuff is irrelevent. I'm interested in people who buck the trend and there are women who do. Last night I watched Kathy Thorton standing on the edge of the Space Shuttle arm, 300+ miles above the earth, release a solar panel into the blackness of space. She wouldn't be in that position if she merely wanted money (like a lot of women I see in comp sci, including my sister who has zero interest in computers outside of work), she had to be genuinely interested in what she does. And just remember, technical interest is rare in males too compared to the rest of the population. It's just even more rare in females. Now the interesting question might be, do women interested in science or who pursue other male-oriented fields out of genuine intest, possess more testosterone than other women? I've heard that tests of female lawyers indicated this. -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | politics is the implementation of faith. -- Information doesn't want to be free; it told me that it wants to profit. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 23:05:04 WET From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: Digichecks! Douglas Barnes writes: > As another data point, he was in Dallas to meet with a company that makes > automated road toll collection equipment and smartcards. This company > considers it enough of a win to go to the time and expense to ensure > privacy and security; they believe it enhances the marketability of > their product. Thank God. Whenever I see that AT&T commercial "How would you like to pay a toll without stopping", I think, "How would you like AT&T and the government to know when, where, and how often you drive?" YOU WILL! And the company that'll bring it to ya... -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | politics is the implementation of faith. -- Information doesn't want to be free; it told me that it wants to profit. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Dec 93 20:04:09 -0800 From: graps@clio.arc.nasa.gov (Amara Graps) Subject: Brave New Extropia? No Thanks. ###### Hello Extropi-beings: I'm still reading through the mound of responses on my Sunday post. I'll comment on a bunch of them in this post. From: cman@caffeine.io.com (Douglas Barnes): >course, my (possibly typical male) first reaction was to find the >one glaring factual error... >Re: Women and startups >Although the statistics aren't handy, I've seen numerous reports >in the last year on how far more startups are headed by women than >men. Why? For one reason, because in large companies, talented women >find themselves hitting a glass ceiling, and strike out on their own. Could you dig up those sources? I find this hard to believe, but your explanation makes alot of sense. I'm ultimately planning on heading out on my own after I acquire the experience I need where I'm currently at. (And in the meantime I'm competently satisfying what seems to be a real demand here.) The scientific computing that I do now is needed so bad that I'm locked in solid with one contract after another through next year and enough other jobs are waiting in the sidelines that I'm thinking of subcontracting out some of it. I'd best leave this topic to the "Virt Sem: Start-Ups" thread or Derek's "work" thread because my reasons have to do more with my preferred style of working than any "glass ceiling" that I'm encountering. >Re: Polyamory, etc. >In favor of this in theory, I think some work is going to have be done >in re-engineering whatever it is that makes people jealous. I agree with you here. In addition, I think that relationships between TWO people are challenging enough, I don't think it's a good idea to venture into the realm of more partners until the one relationship you have has a rock-solid base. You'll just end up hurting each other. From: eli@suneast.east.sun.com (Elias Israel - SunSelect Engineering): >I highly recommend Dr. Tannen's book. I *don't* recommend this book. Yes, it points out a number of different conversational styles between men and women that were interesting, but I thought that her explanations for why they were that way was garbage. She had no evidence. Her explanations were completely anecdotal. I wish people who write pop psychology were a little more rigorous. For example, in Chapter 2: "Assymetries: Women and Men Talking at Cross-Purposes", I found a number of glaring stereotypes that I wish she wouldn't propogate. Such as: 1) Woman being OK w/asking for directions, and Man not wanting to, 2) Woman having difficulty w/mechanical things like cars and computers. >Also, I think that many women don't understand the male dominance >hierarchy. Some don't even perceive it at all. And men largely can't I'm dimly aware of it, and usually lump in the general category: "Politics." Politics is something that I have to deal with, but I don't like it and avoid it whenever I can. From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May): >Ditto for the very real, and hence important, differences between men >and women. It's politically incorrect to talk about these _possible_ >(certain, to me) differences. Who the *&%& cares if it's politically incorrect? I don't care and I doubt that many on this list do. If it's important, and an interesting topic, I see no reason not to discuss it. [reference to emotion deleted] >That's another major difference between men and women, of course. ^^^^^^^^^^ >Women always want more emotion. ^^^^^^ "Of course"?? "Always?" Tim, you're engaging in some serious overgeneralization. (Your later statement on the assymetry about touching was interesting, though, and seems accurate to me.) >Much as I like Amara, I can't work up much sympathy for the >interpretation (not her phasing, so bear with me) that because only a >few men commented on her question about egg-freezing that men are >somehow being hostile to or dismissive of women's issues. BZZZT! Wrong on the interpretation, Tim. Please read my original post again. I used the word MISSED and in no way did I mean that I feel that men here are being hostile or dismissive of women's issues. Let me summarize what I intended to convey in my original post. -I think that humanistic extropian issues are worth exploring here. (And I list some. Of course feel free to add your own.) -I think that you might get more female participation and hopefully the men would find it worthwhile too. -These topics might be fodder to recruit more folks- male as well as female. Amara Graps NASA-Ames MS 245-5 Moffett Field, CA 94035 415-604-0779 graps@gal.arc.nasa.gov ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 #341 *********************************