From extropians-request@extropy.org Fri Dec 10 14:46:29 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA08120; Fri, 10 Dec 93 14:46:25 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 AA14129; Fri, 10 Dec 93 14:46:14 PST Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by news.panix.com id AA10424 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for more@usc.edu); Fri, 10 Dec 1993 17:34:57 -0500 Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 17:34:57 -0500 Message-Id: <199312102234.AA10424@news.panix.com> To: Extropians@extropy.org From: Extropians@extropy.org Subject: Extropians Digest X-Extropian-Date: December 10, 373 P.N.O. [22:32:54 UTC] Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: RO Extropians Digest Fri, 10 Dec 93 Volume 93 : Issue 343 Today's Topics: Re: The Importance of Reading [1 msgs] Extropian children [1 msgs] Extropian children [1 msgs] Holsters (Was: Brave New Extropia? No Thanks.) [1 msgs] LOGO/LEGO [1 msgs] NET: Internet in a box [3 msgs] POLITICS: Polly Klaas and the Long Island train... [2 msgs] Tesseracts [1 msgs] The Importance of Doing [1 msgs] The Importance of Reading [5 msgs] Women Carrying Guns in their Purses [2 msgs] work and slavery [3 msgs] Administrivia: No admin msg. Approximate Size: 52898 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 10:08:23 -0800 (PST) From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: The Importance of Reading Nancy Lebovitz writes: > OK--that's where the disagreement is--you've got illiterate, innumerate, > and uncaring packaged as one concept, and I don't. I don't know about > the typical illiterate person, but I've heard of an illiterate man > who has his own company--he found that he couldn't get any farther ... > I've met a man who simply never read after he got out of school because > reading gave him horrible headaches--it doesn't seem to me that he > was some sort of intrinsically inferior person. Oh, come on, Nancy! These are anecdotal reports of people who are rare exceptions. The four sigma folks. Most illiterates don't have companies, and most smart people don't remain illiterate. That there are _some_ of these folks means little. (Extropians list postings can only be so long. Not every post can be qualiifed with as many gotchas and caveats as some woul like. Exceptions can always be found to nearly any statement.) > I'm certainly not arguing that most illiterate people are thirsting > for knowledge, but then, most literate people don't seem to be, > either, and I'd rather see such smart illiterates as exist have > access to knowledge. Oh, I don't propose to _deny_ them access to knowledge. I just don't think there's much chance it'll have the effect you hope for. I mean for _most_ of these illiterate and ignorant folks, not for the rare cases you cited above. > I actually don't know how many people remain homeless permanently-- > does anyone have any information or numbers? The recent surge in so-called homeless, at least here in the People's Republic, is not promising. Most of them have been "homeless" (bums, winos, living in homeless shelters, sleeping under bridges) for only a few years, but show no signs of wanting to clean themselves up. Ironically, the local fast food places are looking to hire, but the bums won't bite. Easier to make the same amount of bucks tax-free for a few hours of pan-handling and putting "the bite" on merchants (they appear before a store, dressed in their smelly rags, and set up camp. The mearchants have to bribe them to "move on" or face the loss of some customers.) > In any case, at that point, we're not just talking about people who > can't read--those bums may be able to read, anyway. We're talking > about people who are probably alcoholics or crazy, which is a > whole additional difficulty on top of lack of literacy. True, and it goes back to cultural values. When, for example, was the last time you saw many Asian bums? (Yes, I am sure such persons exist. But compare the percentages to the overall percentages, to avoid the "anecdotal effect." Here in the Bay Area, perhaps one out of six or eight is Asia, and yet fewer than one out of 50 or 100 or even more is a homeless bum.) > Furthermore, now you've gone from considering mere illiteracy to > problems with lack of initiative and inability to connect information > to one's goals. They are strongly correlated. In this day and age, anyone who cannot read likely suffers from lack of initiative and inability to connect information to one's goals. ...stuff elided... > I was using it casually, too. What I meant was a world where learning > becomes easy and enjoyable enough that a lot of the ill-effects of > conventional schooling get eliminated, and where there's enough > intelligence increase to make things *really* entertaining. We've been in that world for as long as there have been books available. Books, novels, short stories, comic strips, etc. are *really* entertaining. While I agree that future technologies will bring more marvels, I don't see this grabbing the proles any more than books did. In fact, an "easier life," with new food and manufacturing techniques, will make for a nation of nonintellectual bums on the dole. (In countries with "doles," look to see how many of these blue-collar dole recipients are teaching themselves to become scholars and amateur scientists in their copious spare time. See "A Clockwork Orange" for a refresher course in what's coming.) --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: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 13:19:01 -0500 From: "W. Scott Meeks" Subject: Tesseracts >Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 11:53:39 -0800 >From: Brian D Williams > Speaking of tesseracts, a copuple of years ago I saw a computer on a TV >program running a very basic program of a tesseract. The inner cube would >move out through one of the faces, then it would expand. The other cube >would shrink then move through the other cube. It looked sort of like a worm >crawling along....I thought it was great! Does anyone have a copy of that? I used to have a program that did this on my Mac way many years ago. If I still have it, it's probably on a 400K disk at the bottom of a shoebox somewhere. (And probably doesn't run on a Performa 450!) It was actually real cool because it also had a mode where it produced a stereogram. You could either take a card and stick your nose up to the screen to separate the image for each eye, or if you have the talent, you could just set back and fuse the image by crossing your eyes. It was more enlightening to be able to see the 3-d projection directly rather than trying to interpret the 2-d projection of the 3-d projection. Scott ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 10:29:41 -0800 From: jamie@netcom.com (Jamie Dinkelacker) Subject: NET: Internet in a box >In <9312101524.AA16622@sea.East.Sun.COM>, Brian Hawthorne - SunSelect >Strategic Marketing writes: >|> > Everybody's gone surfin', surfin' World-Wide Web! >|> >|> For those who don't have it yet, but have a direct connection >|> to the Internet (or through a firewall machine), I highly >|> recommend Mosaic. In fact, this is the first app that actually >|> makes the Internet worth something other than a transport for >|> email. You paid for it with your tax dollars (National Center >|> for Super-computer Applications), so get your copy now! > uhm...excuse the somewhat commercial plug....(Bay Area Extros likey know my indirect financial interest in this...).... PacBell provides ISDN service for about $28 a month, $.04 for the first minute and $.01 per B channel ($75 startup fee). With an appropriate concentrator/reseller, this gives great, relatively fast Internet access from home or office. Mosiac is neat stuff, so is the World Wide Web, and for a truly fun time, spend some cycles learning HTML (hypertext mark up language). It's not too complicated, although it is tedious. (Hollerin' down several T1s) -- ................................ Jamie Dinkelacker Palo Alto CA Jamie@netcom.com 415.941.4782 ................................ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 10:31:37 -0800 (PST) From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: Women Carrying Guns in their Purses > If I had a small handgun in my purse, it would sink to the bottom > and be hard to get at quickly. Do pocketbook holsters exist? > > > Nancy Lebovitz Yes, and they even make "fanny packs" and purses that are essentially holsters. Some are even fashionable, that is, blessed by the Gay Fashion Gods in New York (:-}). Consult nearly any gun magazine, available in non-PC bookstores and supermarkets, for many ads featuring such things. Or visit a gun store and ask. The greatest danger, I think, for a woman carrying a gun in her purse is that it'll be seen by coworkers, by store clerks, or will be detected somehow by metal detectors. (Ordinary store security devices are generally not "metal detectors," so one should be safe there.) In a hoplophobic (gun-fearing) culture such as ours, anyone spotting such a gun is possibly going to scream "She's got a GUN!" or to press the silent alarm under the counter. (I'm just speculating here, as I've seen no evidence of this.) Be especially carrying a gun into large corporations with security guards, inspection of handbags, etc. So, don't get caught carrying. Thus, one wants a relatvively small gun. I used to advise .38 revolvers, but now I lean toward .380 automatics. Several people here have mentioned to me that they agree with my recommendation of the Walther PPK/S and its variants. SIG makes a comparable model, and several direct knock-offs of the PPK/S from Hungary, France, etc. exist. Expect to pay around $250 for the knock-offs and as much as $450-500 for the "real thing." A good load to carry is the Winchester Silvertip. (I'll soon be trying some "Cor-Bon" ultra-hot loads in my PPK/S...I'll let you know the results.) --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: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 12:34:32 -0600 From: cpresson@ingr.com (Craig Presson) Subject: Holsters (Was: Brave New Extropia? No Thanks.) In <9312101658.aa16861@genie.genie.slhs.udel.edu>, nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu writes: [...] |> If I had a small handgun in my purse, it would sink to the bottom |> and be hard to get at quickly. Do pocketbook holsters exist? Yes, and there are purses designed for concealed carry, where the purse divider has a handy-sized pocket so the gun is never mixed up with purse sludge. You can carry the purse with your hand in the pocket unobtrusively, and even fire through the purse if you don't have time to draw. There's an ad in this month's American Rifleman, I'll send you more on it next time I see the magazine. -- cP ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 13:31:45 -0500 (EST) From: Arthur Hlavaty Subject: POLITICS: Polly Klaas and the Long Island train... Arthur D. Hlavaty hlavaty@panix.com "The Mason's face is ajar."--Firesign Theater On Fri, 10 Dec 1993, Richard Kennaway wrote: > Arthur Hlavaty writes: > >On Thu, 9 Dec 1993 nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu wrote: > >> RAWilson said something to the effect that the ease of terrorism > >> meant that we need to live in a society where no one feels utterly > >> desperate.... > ... > >This would appear to mean a society where the government (or somebody) > >insures that no one is economically disadvantaged or mentally ill. That's > >scary. > > Why bring in the government? I don't know the context of the RAW quote, > but given his opinions about government, I would not have expected him to > be likely to call on government to solve the problem he sees. > What we're talking about is a situation where *NO ONE* feels desperate, not where very few people do, not where it's easy not to feel desperate, but where no one feels desperate (reasonably, since we're discussing a situation where almost any individual can do a whole bunch of harm). That seems beyond the power of a free market (and probably even beyond the power of a government, though a government would be less likely to admit it). ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 10:43:56 -0800 (PST) From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: work and slavery Edgar Swank has suggested I forego my modesty (huh?) and explain how I retired after 12 years of working. Well, not on your life! At least I won't talk about actual levels of income, net worth, etc. Some things are too personal. Besides, the walls have ears. Ears hooked up to to the computers in Martinsburg, West Virginia. All I'll say, and have alluded to before, is that I save a lot of my pay while I was Intel, I bought stock in Intel, Apple, Sun, etc., when they were young companies, and I had a generous stock option. That Intel stock has gone up perhaps a factor of 50 in real terms since I started buying it in 1974 should provide the necessary clues. Dani Eder writes: > The other approach is to simply live cheap while working > a good job. For example, my current job pays about > 50K/yr. Because I'm on a work assignment in Houston, I'm > temporarily in a one bedroom apartment with minimial furniture > (concrete block & 2x10s for a bookcase and couch). Yet, > for my tastes, it is sufficient for me to live for 6 months. > Give me another room for my library, and I could stand it > for a couple of years. Utilities, rent, food, etc. runs about > $1000/mo, so in theory (If I was single, didn't have other > real estate, etc.) I could save about $2000/mo after taxes. Yes, this is a good strategy. Save as much as you can. > Assuming a real return of 8% after tax & inflation, you would > need 12.5x your spending to be work-independant. At the low- > budget standard of living, you would be free in 5 1/2 years or so. > Thereafter, any work you did could go to improving your > standard of living, with the ability to stop and hold at any > point by not working. I think a "real return" of 8% after tax and inflation is wildly optimistic. Historical studies show a 3-4% real rate is more plausible. Of course, one can play games with risk-reward to get higher rates of return, for higher risks. Plus, you want a "safety buffer" in case your estimates go awry. It gets harder to re-enter the work force as time goes by (a variety of reasons, some of them in common with the bums and homeless--but not all of the same reasons!), so one does not want to run out of money at age 45 and have to try to find a job. --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: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 13:53:43 -0500 (EST) From: Harry Shapiro Subject: LOGO/LEGO See my previous post. Lego Lego is alive an well at MIT and other places... /hawk a conscious being, nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu wrote: > It's probably been close to a decade since I first heard of LOGO/LEGO, > and it seems to have fallen into a black hole. Does > anyone know if it got picked up anywhere? > > Nancy Lebovitz > -- Harry S. Hawk habs@extropy.org Electronic Communications Officer, Extropy Institute Inc. The Extropians Mailing List, Since 1991 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 12:53:07 -0600 From: cpresson@ingr.com (Craig Presson) Subject: The Importance of Reading Who's afraid of the big bad line-eater, the big bad line-eater, the big bad line-eater? Who's afraid of the big bad line-eater, the big bad line-eater, the big bad line-eater? Who's afraid of the big bad line-eater, the big bad line-eater, the big bad line-eater? In <01H6BD5YVHTU8Y572P@VENUS.CIS.YALE.EDU>, LEVY%BESSIE@venus.cis.yale.edu writes: |> Right... that's why I get infuriated at people like Nicholas Negroponte, |> who boasts that he never reads the newspaper. Was it Marvin Minsky who wrote in |> _Wired_ about the obsolecense of literacy? Grrrrr.... I put these folks in the |> same class as people who predicted the "paperless society" several years ago. |> Computers generate MORE paper, because they give skilled people the ability to do |> things like desktop publishing. Similarly, I now find that I spend much MORE of |> my time reading (e-mail, ftp'd documents) than I ever have in the past. Would I |> want a voice-mail/multimedia replacement? NO!!! [...] I love this (annual Extropians list) topic. Like you, I don't do "bulk" reading online, but why is that? Here are a few reasons: 1. I read more slowly on a display screen than on paper; 2. Distant retrievals are often quite slow; 3. Printing one document while fetching the next optimizes my time (suggesting a "read summaries online and full texts on paper" strategy); 4. Printed documents are easily portable, I can read away from the computer. I don't see barriers to medium-term technical solutions to all of these. |> Hypertext, si! |> Multimedia, no! I want my hypertext illustrated! Of course I don't want my book of the future to act like a jazzy sales presentation "... here at Gizmonic World Headquarters (uptempo music swells as we fly into the building and drop to a gentle landing in the lobby) state of the art frammises combine with innovative blah blah blah" and the droid drones on. ^ / ------/---- cpresson@ingr.com (Freeman Craig PressOn) /AS 5/20/373 PNO; ISGS 9/373; ExI 4/373, NRA 5/373, etc. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 12:59:21 -0600 From: cpresson@ingr.com (Craig Presson) Subject: NET: Internet in a box In <199312101829.KAA16652@mail.netcom.com>, Jamie Dinkelacker writes: [...] |> Mosiac is neat stuff, so is the World Wide Web, and for a truly fun time, |> spend some cycles learning HTML (hypertext mark up language). It's not too |> complicated, although it is tedious. It's on my list to do. I certainly don't want to be read-only forever. I'd like to set up my own infosystem and then link in URLs as needed. |> (Hollerin' down several T1s) . Our NOC folks are looking at an upgrade to T1. Internally, we're quite fast (lots of fiber on-campus) but start sucking down lots of Internet Soup and watch out ... -- cP ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 13:54:47 -0500 (EST) From: Arthur Hlavaty Subject: The Importance of Reading Arthur D. Hlavaty hlavaty@panix.com "The Mason's face is ajar."--Firesign Theater On Fri, 10 Dec 1993, Richard Kennaway wrote: > Arthur Hlavaty writes: > >This is obviously happening, with picture signs, GUIs, etc., but I > >question the _quality_ of information that can be transmitted without words. > > Much of the information you use to perform even the simplest task, such as > walking, is non-verbal. Would you prefer your car's dashboard to have a > textual interface? > > What is this _quality_ you speak of? > This discussion began with Nancy Lebovitz asking about the possibility of complete information sources available to illiterates. I was answering that at least some of the information would be too complex to transmit nonverbally. (I did not conisder the question of auditory transmission. That closes the gap somewhat, but not, I think, entirely. See Walter J. Ong's ORALITY AND LITERACY on the question of how much information can be stored and transmitted without literacy.) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 14:07:02 -0500 (EST) From: Harry Shapiro Subject: NET: Internet in a box > . Our NOC folks are looking at an upgrade to T1. > Internally, we're quite fast (lots of fiber on-campus) but start > sucking down lots of Internet Soup and watch out ... I am waiting for my 10 mbps connection via Cable TV :) /hawk ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 11:10:07 -0800 From: freeman@maspar.com (Jay R. Freeman) Subject: The Importance of Reading *** is the line-eater still around? *** Tim May comments: > Oh, for the smart there will be many such toys and gadgets to further > increase their advantages. I just don't think the dumb and the > ignorant will gain proportionately. Tim is probably right, but there is weasel room to continue the thread. For even if the dumb and the ignorant don't gain proportionately, surely even moderate gains might benefit both them and those who have to cope with them. Furthermore, if we can manage to sidestep a potentially voluminous discussion about the degrees to which "intelligence" is influenced by heredity and environment, I find it plausible that there are environmental effects on how much "intelligence" one ends up with, and therefore suggest that creation of better interfaces for transmitting information, including automated ones, might result in a net increase in smart people. I said in another posting that I had learned to read before kindergarden in consequence of badgering my parents to read comic books to me. What if they hadn't had time or inclination to do so? Could something like my proposed "Book of Faustus" be created for use by youngsters? > P.S. For you Newton bashers, it actually got the phrase right---even > "Singularity," which I'd already entered as a special word. Great, Tim, but what did it reply? -- Jay Freeman ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 13:09:53 -0600 From: cpresson@ingr.com (Craig Presson) Subject: Women Carrying Guns in their Purses In <199312101831.KAA25203@mail.netcom.com>, Timothy C. May writes: [...] |> Thus, one wants a relatvively small gun. I used to advise .38 |> revolvers, but now I lean toward .380 automatics. Several people here |> have mentioned to me that they agree with my recommendation of the |> Walther PPK/S and its variants. SIG makes a comparable model, and |> several direct knock-offs of the PPK/S from Hungary, France, etc. |> exist. |> |> Expect to pay around $250 for the knock-offs and as much as $450-500 |> for the "real thing." That matches prices here in Owlabama, too. I paid $249 for a KBI SMC-380, and the PPK/S was $450. |> A good load to carry is the Winchester Silvertip. (I'll soon be trying |> some "Cor-Bon" ultra-hot loads in my PPK/S...I'll let you know the |> results.) Still tracking -- I'm loaded with Silvertips as we speak, and they fed and fired quite well when I tested them. I will eventually shoot a box of Cor-Bon, and probably carry that if it performs well and I can still hit the 10-ring with it. I'm not spending the bux on Glasers, though. My certified-instructor friend who has the high-tech purse carries a revolver (.357 Mag) on purpose, because if she ever has to fire from the hand-tucked-in position, there will be no place for ejecta to go. But most women are not going to be quite so edgy. ^ / ------/---- cpresson@ingr.com (Freeman Craig PressOn) /AS 5/20/373 PNO; ISGS 9/373; ExI 4/373, NRA 5/373, etc. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 11:23:43 -0800 From: jamie@netcom.com (Jamie Dinkelacker) Subject: The Importance of Doing * Extropians, "Reading" is only part of the puzzle. It's just as important to execute, i.e., the importance of doing. While reading is important to learning ABOUT music, music is learned by doing -- same for coding, graphics, painting, writing, cooking, .... (From one who finds more pleasure in action than in reflection...) -- ................................ Jamie Dinkelacker Palo Alto CA Jamie@netcom.com 415.941.4782 ................................ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 19:29:29 GMT From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu Subject: Re: The Importance of Reading Simon! D. Levy wrote: >In fact, I'd like to see the English-speaking world adopt a consistent >spelling system (see "Logical Languages: A Path to Posthuman Rationality?" >in the next _Extropy_), so that people can more quickly and easily learn >to read English. It's an interesting thought, though I'm not sure that countries with phonetic spelling (Spain, Italy, others?) show a huge advantage from it. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if the rules for English spelling and grammar get loosened as more people do casual writing on the nets. >Hypertext, si! >Multimedia, no! Why not hyper-linked multimedia? That's what *I* want! Nancy Lebovitz ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 14:49:19 -0500 (EST) From: "Mr. Richard Seabrook" Subject: POLITICS: Polly Klaas and the Long Island train... According to nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu: > > > So, what might be possible? Voluntary mutual aid? Teaching people > to recognize that slide into obsessive hatred so that they have > more chances to stop it? > I believe it is organized religion that has traditionally deterred the poor from murdering the rich (somebody else's words) the longest -- in short, people have to not want to, people who may not be capable of either reading or understanding the abstract relationship between their acts and society's general direction... Remember the Ghost of Christmas Present? He said "Here are ignorance and want -- ignore them at your peril." -- Dickens Dick S. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 93 14:03:27 CST From: eder@hsvaic.hv.boeing.com (Dani Eder) Subject: work and slavery In response to Mr. May's response to my previous post: Please give me a reference for your claim of a 3-4% historical return on investments. I will give you some data on the rental house I just sold. It is located in Seattle. Rent was $7500 per year. Assuming no mortgage, net would be 6000/yr after prop. tax & insurance. Value (sale price) is 85,000, so yield is 7%. The value of the property can be expected to keep up with inflation, less 1% per year in the long term for obsolescence. So bewfore tax you have 6%. If you are in a low bracket, you will pay little or no income tax. This is a conservative solution. After inflation interest rates are around 4 1/2 %. So if the property is half mortgaged, you will earn 6% on the half you earn, and 1.5% on the mortgaged half, giving a 7.5% yield on your equity. A conservative approach is to have your residence free and clear, plus 2-3 additional houses with low mortgage balances to provide for other living expenses. Now, I gave an example in my previous post of how long it might take to reach 'work independance'. This is one of several independance measures I refer to. An easier one is 'job independance' which is when you have enough assets to support your living standard while working a minimum wage, ie any, job. At this point you can choose any job you like to work at. A higher point is work independance plus 50%, which I refer to as 'dynamic independance'. On average, the net worth of the wealthy has been increasing by 4% per year. If you assume you can earn 8% long term, then this net worth allows you to 'keep up with the joneses' over the long term. Note that I don't really think that you could coast 'forever' without working, but you could probably keep your work for money time to a small fraction of your total time over the long haul. Dani Eder ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 13:21:12 -0800 (PST) From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: work and slavery Dani Eder writes: > In response to Mr. May's response to my previous post: Please, Dani, call me "Tim," unless you are trying to make a point with the "Mr. May" business. > Please give me a reference for your claim of a 3-4% historical return > on investments. I will give you some data on the rental house > I just sold. It is located in Seattle. Rent was $7500 per year. > Assuming no mortgage, net would be 6000/yr after prop. tax & > insurance. Value (sale price) is 85,000, so yield is 7%. The > value of the property can be expected to keep up with inflation, > less 1% per year in the long term for obsolescence. So bewfore > tax you have 6%. If you are in a low bracket, you will pay > little or no income tax. This is a conservative solution. OK, we can play that game: * Purchase price of my house (in 1986): $145,000 * Estimated sale price today: $225,000 -250,000 (maybe...prices are soft) * Estimated rent I could collect on it: $1200 - $1400, with full occupancy * More realistic estimated rent (counting vacant periods, maintenance): $900-$1100 * Property taxes: $2000 a year, $170 a month (I won't calculate either depreciation tax benefits _or_ the taxes owed on the rent) * Estimated Cash Flow: $1000 - $170 = $830 a month. Or about $10,000 per year. This is approximately just making my mortgage payments, and is not making the mortgage payments I would have to make on a similar house bought today at current prices. (Obviously I am not calculating my rate of return on the original purchase price. I can explain why if anybody doesn't know why.) Put another way, sans mortgage calculations, $10,000/$235,000 = 4.3 % rate of return, before taxes. Even with full occupancy and about the highest rent I've seen 3-bedroom places go for, this yields $15,000/$235,000 = 6.4%, before taxes. (But few rentals are fully occupied, and the non-occupancy times are typically a few months at a time, at least here. When the students go home, a 3-month summer vacancy often results. Your mileage may vary.) Here in Santa Cruz, rental properties are a lousy way to make money. And this is true of many areas, where the risk of prices falling below purchase price must of course also be figured into the yield. I have not done so here. The situation in Seattle may be different. But be careful not to take particular instances. A better estimate is to see what a diverse and liquid market in mortgages is yielding, e.g., Fannie Mae, Sallie Mae, and all those "mortgage" funds. The behavior of prices in any given market is not the issue here when discussing the _average_ return. (Where is Perry when we really need him?) Most are yielding around 6-8%, with inflation and taxes subtracting around 3-4%. "Most" investments yield around 3-4% over the rate of inflation. If one class of investments is yielding much more than the others, when risk and other factors are taken into account, then money will flow into those higher-return investments and their price will rise, thus reducing the disparity to nearly zero. --Tim May > > After inflation interest rates are around 4 1/2 %. So if the > property is half mortgaged, you will earn 6% on the half you > earn, and 1.5% on the mortgaged half, giving a 7.5% yield > on your equity. A conservative approach is to have your > residence free and clear, plus 2-3 additional houses > with low mortgage balances to provide for other living > expenses. > > Now, I gave an example in my previous post of how long > it might take to reach 'work independance'. This is one > of several independance measures I refer to. An easier > one is 'job independance' which is when you have enough > assets to support your living standard while working a minimum > wage, ie any, job. At this point > you can choose any job you like to work at. > > A higher point is work independance plus 50%, which I refer to > as 'dynamic independance'. On average, the net worth of the > wealthy has been increasing by 4% per year. If you assume > you can earn 8% long term, then this net worth allows you > to 'keep up with the joneses' over the long term. > > Note that I don't really think that you could coast 'forever' > without working, but you could probably keep your work > for money time to a small fraction of your total time over > the long haul. > > Dani Eder > -- .......................................................................... 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: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 16:32:42 -0500 From: Duncan Frissell Subject: Extropian children S >99% of families give in to the cultural pressure to let their kids fly S >in the memetic winds, in which cases I agree with the though others S >have expressed; it wasn't in their best interests to have children in S >the first place. But with some forethought, a good channel blocker, S >home schooling, and the like it need not be that way. Ask the S >Hutterites world champions both in fertility and memetic isolation, by S >no means coincidentally. It is a modern conceit that children cannot be raised into a way of life (such as freedom and self-reliance). This seems a strange philosophy to be held by Moderns who otherwise place great faith in nurture over nature. What *is* true is that you can't fight something (gangs, chemicals, Moonies, political science professors, etc.) with nothing. Of course, strong views have never been a problem for extropians. It should be noted that protecting your kids from bad philosophies and from the lack of philosophy which is the worst of all, is as appropriate an activity for parents as putting a safety gate at the top of the stairs. You know that they'll go through the gate some day but you want them to be able to walk before they do. This is not totalitarianism. It cannot be slavery to teach someone how to be free. Unless you think like my political science perseffor who actually said, "After their victory in securing the repeal of the Corn Laws in England in the 1840s, the Liberal Party imposed laissez-faire." All you have to do is have firm notions of right and wrong and read a lot. I also suggest parents start reading to their children upon proof of pregnancy. Maybe the best mix is Reactionary Extropianism. Back to the Future. After all optimism is held to be a reactionary idea these days by the terminal pessimists who rule popular culture. Duncan Frissell Who was raised right by Barbara and Tom. You want proof: Date: Circa 1979 Place: Bus stop in front of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, SF. Waiting for the 10 Monterey. Recruiters: Two females. Con: The Badger Game (cons which use sex as a lure) Pitch: "Are you visiting San Francisco? We live in this house on Nob Hill with some other people. It's sort of a commune. Would you like to come to dinner tonight"? My Response: "No thanks. I'm not interested in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon." --- WinQwk 2.0b#1165 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 12:43:21 -0800 (PST) From: Oliver Seiler Subject: The Importance of Reading Since everybody seems to be jumping in and telling everyone when they started to read, I'll jump in too... I actually don't recall when I started to read. My parents could probably tell me but they aren't here to ask... I do know that in grade one I was the best reader in my class, which put me in the unforunate position of having to read to the class... :P I was probably reading quite early on though. I didn't talk for quite a long time though. My parents suspected I might be autistic or something (since when I was in the crib I would always lie on the same side of my head, which gave the back of my head a definite unsymmetric look, which lasts to this day (and makes it hard to lie on my back and relax since my head always tilts to the side). When I did start to talk, they were much relieved... I just am fairly quiet... Other things of note: I played chess in Kindergarten to something like grade 2 or 3 with the vice-principal of the school... (I don't know if I beat him at it, but it was fun) -Oliver | Oliver Seiler + Erisian Development Group + Amiga Developer + | oseiler@unixg.ubc.ca +-------------Reality by the Slice--------------+ | oseiler@nyx.cs.du.edu | Phone: (604) 683-5364 Fax: (604) 683-6142 | | ollie@BIX.com | POB 3547, MPO, Vancouver, BC, CANADA V6B 3Y6 | ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1993 14:09:12 -0800 (PST) From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: Extropian children (I know I'm gonna get in trouble for _this_ one!) Duncan Frissell writes: > Who was raised right by Barbara and Tom. You want proof: > > Date: Circa 1979 > Place: Bus stop in front of the California Academy of Sciences in > Golden Gate Park, SF. Waiting for the 10 Monterey. > Recruiters: Two females. > Con: The Badger Game (cons which use sex as a lure) > Pitch: "Are you visiting San Francisco? We live in this house on > Nob Hill with some other people. It's sort of a commune. > Would you like to come to dinner tonight"? > > My Response: "No thanks. I'm not interested in the Reverend Sun Myung > Moon." And the modern version: Date: Circa 1993 Place: Fry's Electronics, Sunnyvale Recruiters: Male, and female dressed in black leather Pitch: "Are you visiting Silicon Valley? We live in this house called "Nexus Lite" with some other people. It's sort of a high-tech commune. Would you like to come play poker tonight?" Response: "No thanks. I just unsubscribed from the List." --Klaus! von Future Prime ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 #343 *********************************