From extropians-request@extropy.org Sun Jan 30 15:16:24 1994 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA23633; Sun, 30 Jan 94 15:16:15 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 AA13727; Sun, 30 Jan 94 15:16:02 PST Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by news.panix.com id AA13060 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for more@usc.edu); Sun, 30 Jan 1994 18:00:41 -0500 Date: Sun, 30 Jan 1994 18:00:41 -0500 Message-Id: <199401302300.AA13060@news.panix.com> To: Extropians@extropy.org From: Extropians@extropy.org Subject: Extropians Digest #94-1-698 - #94-1-721 X-Extropian-Date: January 30, 374 P.N.O. [18:00:14 UTC] Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: RO Extropians Digest Sun, 30 Jan 94 Volume 94 : Issue 29 Today's Topics: [1 msgs] Babylon 5 premises [1 msgs] Cars and cities [1 msgs] chip prices [1 msgs] EARTH: How closed a system? [1 msgs] ECON: Solar Panels [1 msgs] ECON: Solar Panels (was Earth, Optimism, and...) [1 msgs] HUMOR (?): Neo-Tech man extracts money at will [1 msgs] Just so everyone knows... [1 msgs] LEGAL: Proposal to encourage PPL participation [2 msgs] Magic [2 msgs] META: A Modest Proposal [1 msgs] META: Oh, fudge [1 msgs] Paradigm shifts [1 msgs] PHIL/POL/TECH: nanarchy [1 msgs] Product Contest (radio talk shows) [1 msgs] Safe Cars [1 msgs] SCI: Lasers/Fusion [1 msgs] SEMANTICS: Faith [1 msgs] Small Transit Solutions [1 msgs] The Go-Go Future [2 msgs] Administrivia: Note: I have increased the frequency of the digests to four times a day. The digests used to be processed at 5am and 5pm, but this was too infrequent for the current bandwidth. Now digests are sent every six hours: Midnight, 6am, 12pm, and 6pm. If you experience delays in getting digests, try setting your digest size smaller such as 20k. You can do this by addressing a message to extropians@extropy.org with the body of the message as ::digest size 20 -Ray Approximate Size: 54174 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: extropians-request@extropy.org (Extropians Mailing List) Date: Subject: [#94-1-698] Extropians List Statistics 1/24 Weekly List Statistics for 1/24 to 1/30 Total Number of Messages Posted: 245 Total Size of Messages Posted : 688800 bytes Average Total Size per Day : 98400 bytes Average # of Messages per Day : 35 Average Message Size : 2811 bytes Number of Posters Participating: 65 Top Ten Posters by Frequency 1. extropy@price.demon.co.uk (33 total, 4.7/day, 13.5% of total) 2. rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (23 total, 3.3/day, 9.4% of total) 3. habs@sun.panix.com (10 total, 1.4/day, 4.1% of total) 4. starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (9 total, 1.3/day, 3.7% of total) 5. peb@procase.com (9 total, 1.3/day, 3.7% of total) 6. nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu (9 total, 1.3/day, 3.7% of total) 7. plaz@netcom.com (8 total, 1.1/day, 3.3% of total) 8. hnewstrom@hnewstrom.ess.harris.com (7 total, 1.0/day, 2.9% of total) 9. jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk (6 total, 0.9/day, 2.4% of total) 10. levy%lenny@venus.ycc.yale.edu (6 total, 0.9/day, 2.4% of total) Top Ten Posters by Volume 1. rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (88.0kbytes, 12867 bytes/day, 13.1% of total) 2. extropy@price.demon.co.uk (59.9kbytes, 8761 bytes/day, 8.9% of total) 3. grigsby@agames.com (52.7kbytes, 7704 bytes/day, 7.8% of total) 4. setzerkl@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (42.0kbytes, 6149 bytes/day, 6.2% of total) 5. starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (34.8kbytes, 5093 bytes/day, 5.2% of total) 6. plaz@netcom.com (24.0kbytes, 3506 bytes/day, 3.6% of total) 7. mech@eff.org (23.2kbytes, 3399 bytes/day, 3.5% of total) 8. eder@blkbox.com (19.5kbytes, 2851 bytes/day, 2.9% of total) 9. xtr@liberty.demon.co.uk (18.3kbytes, 2681 bytes/day, 2.7% of total) 10. johnkc@well.sf.ca.us (16.3kbytes, 2381 bytes/day, 2.4% of total) Histogram of the week by number of messages +------------------------------------+ Mon |36 | +------------------------------------+ +-------------------------------------+ Tue |37 | +-------------------------------------+ +--------------------------------------------+ Wed |44 | +--------------------------------------------+ +-------------------------------------------+ Thu |43 | +-------------------------------------------+ +----------------------------------------------------------+ Fri |58 | +----------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------+ Sat |24 | +------------------------+ +---+ Sun |3 | +---+ Histogram of the week by daily volume +-------------------------+ Mon | |102959 +-------------------------+ +----------------------+ Tue | |93682 +----------------------+ +---------------------------+ Wed | |113109 +---------------------------+ +---------------------------------+ Thu | |136069 +---------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------+ Fri | |170861 +-----------------------------------------+ +----------------+ Sat | |66544 +----------------+ +-+ Sun | |5576 +-+ ------------------------------ From: Michael Clive Price Date: Sun, 30 Jan 94 12:30:11 GMT Subject: [#94-1-699] ECON: Solar Panels (was Earth, Optimism, and...) Ray sez: > Solar power currently doesn't work for other reasons. > > 1) inefficient. both solar dynamic and photovoltaics don't have the > efficiency or energy density needed for commercial success at the > moment My understanding is the the efficiency of solar cells is rising and the costs are dropping because a lot of the technology is a spin-off from the semi-conductor industry. For instance I have two solar powered calculators, same model. One is 10 years old. The other about five. The newer one operates in about half the light levels. Later models still have smaller cells. So the future looks bright . (Or is the power consumption for the chip dropping as well?) > 2) lifetime. Most solar panels produce less power over their > lifetime than the energy put into their construction. But presumably the value of the energy produced exceeds the cost of costruction. In short, solar cells are economical or else they wouldn't be commercially available (like on my calculator). Or perhaps they're not available commercially, I don't really know, and my calculator is just a gimmick. > 3) pollution. From what I've heard, the production of solar panels > produces chemical waste. Sorry, no free lunch. Again, wouldn't the cost of the pollution be factored into the product price? > 4) subject to variations in weather There are no clouds in space :-) Mike Price price@price.demon.co.uk AnarchyPPL client ------------------------------ From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu Date: Sun, 30 Jan 94 14:14:42 GMT Subject: [#94-1-700] The Go-Go Future Tim Starr wrote: Nancy Lebovitz wrote: >> >>It does make sense for people to be able to email their restaurant orders >>directly to the kitchen--or for that matter, to phone them in. Phoning >>has the advantage of allowing illiterates to order, > >No, no, that's why God invented icons! It works for Apple, it'll work for >Mickey D's, too :-). Reasonable point, especially if you throw in whatever talking software blind people use. Besides, there are some people who _hate_ icons. > >>and also might be >>handier for discussing such topics as what's especially good that day, >>or finding out whether a particular dish has ingrediants that one is >>allergic to. > >What I'd expect is a filtering system where those that knew what they wanted >(and perhaps had their orders pre-programmed on personal digital assistants >or powerbooks) could simply e-mail in theirs, or phone them in, and if they >needed an actual human to talk to about more specific stuff, then they'd >always have that option. This sounds good, though it's important for the system to be well-enough designed so that customers who want to talk to a human can do so easily.... people who get a run-around from a machine get *furious* and presumably wouldn't come back. > >>(On the other hand, email would make it easier and faster >>for the kitchen staff to get orders right--ideally, the restaurant would >>offer both phone and email.) > >Actually, what I'd expect is a sort of menu-driven BBS operating within the >restaurant, from which you could select options that are regularly listed on >the menu, and perhaps hit a "customize" option for each dish in which you >could either list a description or get a human to interface with. It's not as sophisticated, but I've seen restaurants that take orders by fax. >As for the waitperson-pager idea Ray mentioned, I've heard there's a police >chief who's pioneered the practice of having beat cops with pagers whose >numbers are distributed to the residents of their neighborhood. He's also >directed drug enforcement to restrict itself to dealing on the street, which >seems a relatively less draconian measure compared to, or, say, Darryl Gates >or Bill Bennett (who's unfortunately who I'd bet will be the next veep of >the American Empire). Police with pagers sounds like a good idea. As for whether Gates or Bennett might be the next veep, I wouldn't presume to predict what the Big Issue will be three years from now. The idea of drug legalization is gradually getting more respectable, so I see some hope there. >BTW, I just saw the first episode of Babylon 5, and one of the things I found >most implausible about it was the absence of such communications gear as >cellular phones. 'Twas silly for that ambassador to actually have had to >physically run down the other one to confront him about the attack on the >agricultural colony the first time. When he wanted to kill him, yes, but >just to cuss him out? Silly! He should have just been able to call out >his name, which would've been interpreted by his phone as a pre-programmed >dialing code, then he would've gotten a holo display to bitch at. It's a lot harder to hang up on someone in person, so that might be a reason for tracking someone down to be nasty to them. Nancy Lebovitz ------------------------------ From: Harvey Newstrom Date: Sun, 30 Jan 94 09:23:45 EST Subject: [#94-1-701] LEGAL: Proposal to encourage PPL participation In #94-1-662 Mike Price says: >Forcing dispersal sounds rather un-EC to me. Asking people to choose their legal system instead of having their default legal system assigned to them by the governing body seems more-EC to me. >A thought that occurs to me is that they will be very easy to create. >Copy an existing PPL's charter, replacing the current named PPL Head with >your own and submit it to ExI. Not necessarily. When I announced PPL-newstrom which agreed to follow all List Rules, I was told that my PPL was not approved on two grounds. First, following List Rules duplicated PPL-1 and was therefore superfluous and unnecessary. Second, even if my charter was approved, I was not approved to be a PPL head. (Instead of seeking approval, I joined PPL-A.) >> I also would like some way to differentiate those who choose PPL-1 >> as their personal standards of law, and those that just don't care. >Why? You don't even need to know what PPL someone is in to bring >charges, since the respective PPL-Heads handle the passing of interPPL >charges. It is the totals that would be interesting. During some of the early PPL discussion it was claimed that the large numbers in PPL-1 showed almost universal support for its policies. >> (I also would prefer a scheme for letting people choose a new PPL >> when theirs goes defunct, instead of moving them back into a PPL that >> they chose to leave.) >Hardly sounds worth the effort. If people don't want to be reabsorbed >into PPL1 it's up to them to do the walking. When Tim May left I requested to be moved to PPL-A. I was informed that I had already reverted to PPL-1 and been brought up on charges for breaking its rules and therefore could not change PPLs just then! This was quickly resolved to everyone's satisfaction, but a better system needs to be worked out. (At least a person could be informed that they were moved to PPL-1 and should start obeying its rules or move to another PPL.) __ Harvey Newstrom (hnewstrom@hnewstrom.ess.harris.com) ------------------------------ From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu Date: Sun, 30 Jan 94 14:42:34 GMT Subject: [#94-1-702] SEMANTICS: Faith Here's a story I saw in _Inside Kung Fu_ about a man who wanted to get really good at a martial art without messing with all that mysticism stuff. He decided that the reason martial arts masters could do extraordinary feats was that they moved within the natural periods of their bodies considered as systems of pendulems. However, he discovered that he couldn't move like that without one-pointed meditation. (I don't know whether he ever became a martial arts master.) Nancy Lebovitz ------------------------------ From: Dani Eder Date: Sun, 30 Jan 1994 09:28:08 -0600 (CST) Subject: [#94-1-703] Babylon 5 premises > >> > >BTW, I just saw the first episode of Babylon 5, and one of the things I found > >most implausible about it was the absence of such communications gear as > >cellular phones. 'Twas silly for that ambassador to actually have had to > >physically run down the other one to confront him about the attack on the > >agricultural colony the first time. When he wanted to kill him, yes, but > >just to cuss him out? Silly! He should have just been able to call out > >his name, which would've been interpreted by his phone as a pre-programmed > >dialing code, then he would've gotten a holo display to bitch at. > I had problems with the episode, but different ones. Remember - the whole point of the Babylon-5 station is face-to-face meetings of races, sort of like a space version of the UN. If they had wanted to talk by electronic means, they would just have well stayed on their home worlds. It was evident from the station commander's conversation with his Earth boss that there is realtime interstellar communications. A good reason for face-to-face meetings is the ease of spoofing with advanced technology. At least with a face-toface meeting you know that there is a physical being there, not a computer generated image of race A created by race B. There is my problem - the video 'confession' of the head of the mining colony should not have swayed the Council, since things like that could easily be faked. Even face-to-face meetings are not necessarily secure - this was the point of the series pilot last year. There a shapeshifter impersonated a variety of different people. Dani Eder ------------------------------ From: price@price.demon.co.uk (Michael Clive Price) Date: Sun, 30 Jan 94 13:06:22 GMT Subject: [#94-1-704] META: A Modest Proposal I agree with John K Clark when he says that we should talk more about: > ... science, philosophy, cryptography, anarchy, capitalism, ^^^^^^^ > nanotechnology, computers, uploading and immortality. The only way anarchocapitalism will work is if spontaneous order creates PPLs to structure anarchy. If we can't get PPLs to work on the List, amongst highly intelligent committed extropians, then we an forget about it _ever_ working in the real-world, populated with socialist, authoritarian morons and kiss goodbye to Extropia. I thank John for reminding us of this. :-) Mike Price price@price.demon.co.uk AnarchyPPL client ------------------------------ From: Dani Eder Date: Sun, 30 Jan 1994 10:43:03 -0600 (CST) Subject: [#94-1-705] ECON: Solar Panels I will use data from a current (Mid-Winter) Northern Tool catalog. The first thing to notice is that solar panels are being offered for sale in such a catalog. Having followed photovoltaics since the 70's, I can remember when they were only available retail from Edmund Scientific (science hobbyist), then in the 80's when they were available from Real Goods (alternative energy). Now in the 90's this catalog is aimed at the rural handyman - they sell small gas engines in the same catalog. So market penetration is occuring. OK. The panel they are selling is 51 Watt peak output. Surface area is 0.44 square meters. 12 year warranty. Price $380. > > Ray sez: > > Solar power currently doesn't work for other reasons. > > > > 1) inefficient. both solar dynamic and photovoltaics don't have the > > efficiency or energy density needed for commercial success at the > > moment Land around here, in suburban Houston, runs about $5000 per acre. There is in fact a fossil fuel power plant about 2 miles from here, so I will use this as an example. There are 4047 square meters in an acre. So land cost is $1.24 per square meter locally. Let us assume that 50% of your land area is effectively covered with array area. Using the panel above, we get 116 W/sq meter of panel, or 58 W/sq meter. So land cost would be $0.02 per watt. Since commercial power plants are built for $1-2 per watt, I would say that efficiency per se is not a determinant for success. Looking at cost effectiveness, the panel being sold puts out 51W peak, times 1000 hr equivalent per year, or 51 KWh per year. On this month's electric bill, the charge is $0.102/kWh locally, so the array would produce $5.20 worth of power per yer. Since the panel costs $380, that is only a 1.4% return on investment, which is pretty measly. At wholesale prices of $4 per watt, the panel would run $204, and yield 2.5% return, which is still pretty low rate of return. You can see that prices need to drop by a factor of 3 or so to get to a decent return on investment, which is how you get the $1-2 per peak watt numbers that are quoted for large scale commercial competitiveness. Note that total PV manufacturing today runs about 50MW per year. If it was being used for power plant construction, you would be making perhaps 100x as much. Since most commercial processes have a history of 15% cost reduction per doubling of production, you would expect costs to drop by a factor of 3 when you scaled up, which is just what you need to be commercially successful. The big question is whether there are enough intermediate products to get you down the cost curve and volume scale up. PV competes today whenever you are far enough from an existing power source - calculators, backwoods, boats, etc. > > 2) lifetime. Most solar panels produce less power over their > > lifetime than the energy put into their construction. The panel above is 7 kg in mass, mostly in aluminum and glass for the frame. Since aluminum and glass and polycrysalline silicon are all made in processes that require molten baths for their creation, let us be conservative and say that all the processes are only 2% energy efficient. Thus we need 50x the melting temperature in energy input, or 50,000K times a specific heat of 1.2 Joules/gram. So the total energy input to make the panel would be estimated at 420 MJ. The panel puts out 51W peak times 1000 hours per year effective output (factors in night, clouds, and sun elevation), or 183 MJ/year. Thus the panel makes back it's energy input in 2.5 years. Since they put a 12 year warranty on it, I assume they expect it to last longer than this. > > 3) pollution. From what I've heard, the production of solar panels > > produces chemical waste. Sorry, no free lunch. You'll have to give us a citation - hearsay is not admissible evidence. You would have to show that PV produces more waste than other power generation sources do. > > > 4) subject to variations in weather > If you put the array on top of one of my 10 km towers, you win on several counts. First of all, the solar flux is about 30% higher up there. You are not affected by clouds, and you can track the sun much lower in the sky before the atmospheric thickness drops power levels too low. Also, solar cells have a temperature dependence on their efficiency (about 0.3%/K, so the cells would be about 20% more efficient up there. So overall, you would get 3-4 times as much power from each cell. Current panels wholesale for about $4 per peak watt. On top of the tower the output would be higher, so it comes to $2.50 per peak watt. If made of graphite epoxy, the tower will mass 1/6 of the array mass. At $100/kg for aerospace grade construction, we have $17/kg of array in tower structure, or $1.50 per peak watt. So right now, the tower is a push in peak watt cost, but it wins in terms of hours per day of output from the array, and better predictability due to less cloud effects. Also, no one has tried to build large 'construction grade' graphite epoxy structures, so there is room for cost reduction. So, tower-based solar power plants are another alternative to ground and space based that is at least in the ballpark worthy of consideration. Note also that it is much easier to get power to the ground going down 10 km of tower than by microwave relay. Dani Eder ------------------------------ From: jamie@netcom.com (Jamie Dinkelacker) Date: Sun, 30 Jan 1994 08:52:20 -0800 Subject: [#94-1-706] Product Contest (radio talk shows) Nancy Lebovitz: >I'm not sure that this is a software problem, but I've noticed that >radio call-in programs don't have reliable connections to their >callers--they keep announcing that they have someone, and then >losing the connection. Presumably there would be a market for >systems that work better. I'm a former radio talk show host; here are some reactions. The part of the system that doesn't work are the callers. They queue up and don't want to wait so they hang up, but often after they're already been entered into the caller-log software. So the host may think someone is there who has already exited. Also, (not infrequently) when callers get on their air their call starts to feedback from their loud radio and they go to shut it off, leaving the line. For others, as soon as they get through they start calling their kids or spouse to come into the room listen. Or the caller is arguing with a spouse, calling a pet, barking at the moon, or whatever. They're just not online and in real time. The show must go on and the station can't wait for the dunderhead to figure out reality so they're dumped for the next in queue. ................................ Jamie Dinkelacker Palo Alto CA Jamie@netcom.com 415.941.4782 ................................ ------------------------------ From: Dani Eder Date: Sun, 30 Jan 1994 10:55:59 -0600 (CST) Subject: [#94-1-707] Paradigm shifts > > he thinks there is an all-too-frequent problem when excessive skepticism > lasts far longer than appears necessary. Scientific paradigm shifts seem > sadly to occur not because the old guard is converted, but because it is > composted. "Death before cognitive dissonance!" seems to be the default > behavior for all but a very few. If this isn't fixed, then all those > uploaded Jupiter-sized brains are going to be Jovian-sized stodgy codgers. > > -- Jay Freeman, First Extropian Squirrel My working hypothesis is that the current situation is based on a formerly evolutionarily successful strategy: The young members of the tribe are receptive to ideas so they can learn the accumulated wisdom of the tribe, and the old members of the tribe hold on to ideas they have learned so that they can pass them on to the later generations. And somewhere in there is the propensity towards telling stories about past experiences. These features seem to work well when you don't have writing, have tribal knowledge to pass on (you use this type of tree to make bows from, and you shape them like this, these plants are good to eat and those are not), and the pace of change is slow. Today, when change is much more rapid, this would be counterproductive, but I assume we are stuck with the evolved strategies for now. Therefore I don't waste my time trying to convert older folks who are fixed in their ways. Instead I do things like give talks at science fiction conventions, that are primarily younger people who are open to new ideas. Dani Eder ------------------------------ From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu Date: Sun, 30 Jan 94 17:03:00 GMT Subject: [#94-1-708] Small Transit Solutions Here are a couple of things that would help cut back on car use without government mass transit... Make competing mass transit legal--there is absolutely no reason why people should need to get permission to run jitneys or taxis. This one's harder because it's a social change, but why not view hitchhikers or people picking up hitchhikers who attack each other as committing an especially revolting betrayal of trust instead of blaming the victim for being such a fool as to trust a stranger? Nancy Lebovitz ------------------------------ From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu Date: Sun, 30 Jan 94 17:06:31 GMT Subject: [#94-1-709] Cars and cities Dani, thanks for the detailed description of city structure, but I wonder how much of people moving to the suburbs was the result of a natural desire to do so, and how much was the (imho, disasterous) government policy of encouraging people to own their own homes? Nancy Lebovitz ------------------------------ From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu Date: Sun, 30 Jan 94 17:25:20 GMT Subject: [#94-1-710] Safe Cars I wonder if the evil side effects are a result of seat belts being required rather than available. My guess is that if the belts were merely available, practically the only people who'd use them would be those who are naturally cautious. Only the most dedicated automotive rampagers would bother with the belts. I notice that the shoulder harnesses seem more dangerous than the lap belts in the stories you recounted. I stopped using them a while ago when I heard that children were getting their necks broken. I'm quite short (4' 11'), and the damned things go too close to my throat. On the other hand, I've heard from EMT's that they don't need to unstrap people to get them out of wrecked cars (presumably, getting trapped in a burning car happens, but is rare), so I still use the lap belt. I liked the concept of people driving more carefully if there was a spear in the middle of the steering wheel pointing at their chest. Nancy Lebovitz ------------------------------ From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu Date: Sun, 30 Jan 94 17:31:58 GMT Subject: [#94-1-711] Magic The Squirrel writes: > > > he thinks there is an all-too-frequent problem when excessive skepticism > lasts far longer than appears necessary. Scientific paradigm shifts seem > sadly to occur not because the old guard is converted, but because it is > composted. "Death before cognitive dissonance!" seems to be the default > behavior for all but a very few. If this isn't fixed, then all those > uploaded Jupiter-sized brains are going to be Jovian-sized stodgy codgers. > What happens if mental rigidity is a side effect of aging and goes away when aging is reversed? What if it isn't and the world is infested with high status young codgers who don't die off? I think that the later would be a considerable incentive for younger people to get out into space just to have a chance to occupy more interesting social niches. Nancy Lebovitz ------------------------------ From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu Date: Sun, 30 Jan 94 17:34:26 GMT Subject: [#94-1-712] PHIL/POL/TECH: nanarchy I hate the idea of nanarchy because I don't trust any device to work right the first time, and nanarchy is designed to be impossible to turn off. If we're lucky, that part won't work either. I'm still thinking about whether it would be bad even if it did work. Nancy Lebovitz ------------------------------ From: Reilly Jones <70544.1227@CompuServe.COM> Date: 30 Jan 94 13:40:47 EST Subject: [#94-1-713] EARTH: How closed a system? Mike Price wrote: This is the standard presentation of the Ontological Proof of the universe as a closed system. I would just say that the universe has no "outside" nor inside. It cannot be represented as a system, a set or a number; all of which require an external reference point. The universe has no external reference point and is not amenable to definition. This is what makes cosmology so difficult, it is a playground for neo-Gnostics to cavort in. The best we can do is describe our region of the universe based on evidence. As far as we will ever be concerned, we will never reach a boundary of the universe, any region we will ever find ourselves in will be open to energy from regions adjacent to us. Mike: At least in the consensual reality of mathematics but there is no evidence for this in the objective reality of physical, concrete space-time particles. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Reilly Jones | Philosophy of Technology: 70544.1227@CompuServe.COM | The rational and moral foundations | of our creative drive ------------------------------ From: Craig Presson Date: Sun, 30 Jan 1994 12:50:06 -0600 (CST) Subject: [#94-1-714] Just so everyone knows... > I got a couple of queries in recent weeks to the effect of "are you > still reading the list?" With a subtext of "... and how sick is it making you if you are?" no doubt. > The answers is no. > > You can only hang out at a cocktail party so long. At first it might > be exciting, but if you try to keep it up too long it stops being fun. > > I did an ::exclude all a while back. Someday I might return. > Meanwhile, I've found that working on starting a business has been a > far more rewarding use of my time. Bra-fuckin'-vo, PM. As you can see from my last line, I'm doing the small bidnessman shtick also, and hence not making the top 10 on posters by frequency on Extropians or anywhere else. Let me know if you need a security guy who's handy with small arms ... -- fcp@nuance.com (Freeman Craig Presson) 72430.1422@compuserve.com (Freeman P. Craig) LP of AL, NRA, ExI, PPL-A, ISGS, Clan Gordon President & Principal, T4 Computer Security ------------------------------ From: Craig Presson Date: Sun, 30 Jan 1994 12:53:59 -0600 (CST) Subject: [#94-1-715] META: Oh, fudge [Perry sez /usr/tmp/goodbye] > Perry > Well, looks like I let that one slip out to the list. Nothing damaging in it, but I can see my habit of remembering ::private has decayed through disuse. Fudge. Darn. Dad-gum it. Shoot. -- fcp@nuance.com (Freeman Craig Presson) 72430.1422@compuserve.com (Freeman P. Craig) LP of AL, NRA, ExI, PPL-A, ISGS, Clan Gordon President & Principal, T4 Computer Security ------------------------------ From: dasher@netcom.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Sun, 30 Jan 1994 10:58:19 -0800 Subject: [#94-1-716] Magic Nancy asks: > What happens if mental rigidity is a side effect of aging and goes > away when aging is reversed? Plausible. It need not be a physical effect: the elders may think "If I risk my reputation, I may have to start all over, and I haven't got the time or the energy." See Mises THE ANTI-CAPITALISTIC MENTALITY for a parallel. > What if it isn't and the world is infested > with high status young codgers who don't die off? Then institutions that don't give too much weight to age will prosper at the expense of ossified ones. I hope. Anton Sherwood *\\* +1 415 267 0685 *\\* DASher@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: kwatson@netcom.com (Kennita Watson) Date: Sun, 30 Jan 1994 11:03:33 -0800 Subject: [#94-1-717] SCI: Lasers/Fusion Feel free to explain to me why this won't work, or even why it shows an utter lack of understanding of the principles involved. Pardon my layman's terms -- most of the physics I remember, I got from Discover magazine. I read recently about how we can "cool" (lower the energy of) an atom down to very near absolute zero (a fractional degree Kelvin, I think) by holding it still using opposing lasers -- whenever it tries to move in a direction, the appropriate one of the lasers nudges it the other way. I seem to recall they could do it with two lasers, but it seemed to me that they would need six (not the main topic, but if you can explain why two would work, I'd appreciate that, too). Anyhow, I was wondering if we could use the same laser arrangement to "heat up" (raise the energy of) the same atom to an arbitrary fixed level (bounded, I would imagine, by the energy of the lasers -- or maybe of each laser independently) (maybe there's a resonant frequency?). Beyond that, I was wondering if two ever-so-slightly offset sets of lasers could be used to heat up two atoms to the same level, but 180 degrees out of phase, and at some point let them go so they slam into each other and fuse. I also wonder if I've missed the boat and somebody has already tried this and either done it or proven it won't work. It seems to me that the hardest part would be aiming, since I presume that what the lasers go by when doing the nudging is the electron shell, and the nucleus is a tiny thing inside. With that in mind, is it possible to get a second try? If the nuclei miss each other, will they necessarily sail into oblivion (whole or as ions?), or might they cross, somehow sort out their electron shells, and continue in approximately the same direction to be caught by the opposite laser? The physicists on the list will kindly stop laughing now, wipe their eyes, and please help. Thanks, Kennita Kennita Watson | To keep an ever-open door is wisdom's true advancer; kwatson@netcom.com | So they are fools who don't ask more HEx KNNTA | Than ten wise men can answer. -- Piet Hein, _Grooks 2_ ------------------------------ From: dasher@netcom.com (Anton Sherwood) Date: Sun, 30 Jan 1994 11:49:07 -0800 Subject: [#94-1-718] chip prices Does anyone follow memory prices? Has the industry recovered from the resin factory disaster? Anton Sherwood *\\* +1 415 267 0685 *\\* DASher@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: price@price.demon.co.uk (Michael Clive Price) Date: Sun, 30 Jan 94 17:47:18 GMT Subject: [#94-1-719] LEGAL: Proposal to encourage PPL participation Harvey Newstrom: > In #94-1-662 Mike Price says: >> Forcing dispersal sounds rather un-EC to me. > > Asking people to choose their legal system instead of having their > default legal system assigned to them by the governing body seems > more-EC to me. Good point. I agree. How about there is _no_ default PPL. New subscribers are not in _any_ PPL. They are Outlaws, liable to be shot on sight until they become clued up enough to sign up with a protection agency/PPL. That way any hyperactive newbie can be shot down until a PPL takes them in, which if they're a real pain in the butt, no PPL may. >> A thought that occurs to me is that they will be very easy to create. >> Copy an existing PPL's charter, replacing the current named PPL Head >> with your own and submit it to ExI. > > Not necessarily. When I announced PPL-newstrom which agreed to follow > all List Rules, I was told that my PPL was not approved on two > grounds. First, following List Rules duplicated PPL-1 and was > therefore superfluous and unnecessary. Second, even if my charter was > approved, I was not approved to be a PPL head. If you were not acceptable as PPL head then neither should your charter be, since it specified you as head. Sounds like the sort of thing that happens without a written constitution (the InterPPL Charter). You never know where you stand. Of course, even with an InterPPL charter, ExI may still decide they don't like you and not recognise your PPL. :-) > It is the totals that would be interesting. During some of the early > PPL discussion it was claimed that the large numbers in PPL-1 showed > almost universal support for its policies. As we've seen, what counts is the distribution of active posters across PPLs. Even so, that sounds a suspicious argument. >> ... If people don't want to be reabsorbed into PPL1 it's up to them >> to do the walking. > [disagree] You're right. If your PPL is wound up you become an Outlaw, unless you're also a member of another PPL. Mike Price price@price.demon.co.uk AnarchyPPL client ------------------------------ From: kwatson@netcom.com (Kennita Watson) Date: Sun, 30 Jan 1994 13:07:43 -0800 Subject: [#94-1-720] The Go-Go Future Tim Starr writes: >>BTW, I just saw the first episode of Babylon 5.... 'Twas silly for that >>ambassador to actually have had to >>physically run down the other one to confront him about the attack on the >>agricultural colony the first time. When he wanted to kill him, yes, but >>just to cuss him out? Silly! He should have just been able to call out >>his name, which would've been interpreted by his phone as a pre-programmed >>dialing code, then he would've gotten a holo display to bitch at. Maybe the other ambassador had him ::excluded. Kennita Kennita Watson | To keep an ever-open door is wisdom's true advancer; kwatson@netcom.com | So they are fools who don't ask more HEx KNNTA | Than ten wise men can answer. -- Piet Hein, _Grooks 2_ ------------------------------ From: more@chaph.usc.edu (Max More) Date: Sun, 30 Jan 1994 13:18:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [#94-1-721] HUMOR (?): Neo-Tech man extracts money at will In the spirit of the dogma thread, and because some posters have recently mentioned "Neo-Tech" (now known, I think, as "Zon Power"), I thought I'd post the text of a Neo-Tech ad I came across in a TWA in- flight magazine. I found it hilarious. [For those not in the know: Neo-Tech was strongly influenced by Ayn Rand's Objectivism. It espouses entirely reasonable ideas such as free markets, physical immortality, and reason, but does so in an entirely unreasonable, hucksterish manner. Judge for yourself...) THE MOST IMPORTANT MONEY/POWER/ROMANTIC LOVE DISCOVERY SINCE THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION Receive Free -- The valuable, 8,000-word Neo-Tech Information Package [Funny-looking photo of Wallace with the text: No one can spot the Neo-Tech man. The constant invisible advantages obtained by Neo- Tech appear completely natural, yet are unbeatable. Neo-Tech puts one in the ultimate catbird seat.] An entire new field of knowledge has been discovered by Dr. Frank R. Wallace, a former Senior Research Chemist for E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. For over a decade, Dr. Wallace researched Psychuous Advantages to uncover a powerful array of new knowledge called Neo- Tech. That knowledge allows any person to prosper monetarily, personally, romantically, and financially anywhere in the world, even during personal or financial hard times, inflation, boom times, recession, depression, war. Neo-Tech is a new, scientific method for capturing major financial and personal advantages everywhere. Neo-Tech is a new knowledge that has nothing to do with positive thinking, religion, or anything mystical. Once a person is exposed to Neo-Tech, he can quietly profit from anyone -- anywhere, anytime. He can prosper almost anywhere on earth and succeed under almost any economic or political condition. Combined with Psychuous Advantages, Neo-Tech applies to all money and power-gathering techniques -- to all situations involving the transfer of money, power, or love. Neo-Tech has its roots in the constant financial pressures and incentives to develop the easiest, most profitable methods of gaining advantages. Over the decades, all successful salesmen, businessmen, politicians, writers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, investors, speculators, gamers and Casanovas have secretly searched for shortcuts that require little skill yet contain the invisible effectiveness of the most advanced techniques. Dr. Wallace identified those shortcuts and honed them into practical formats called Neo-Tech. Those never-before-known formats transfer money, power, and prestige from the uninformed to the informed. Those informed can automatically take control of most situations involving money and power. WHO IS THE NEO-TECH MAN? He is a man of quiet power -- a man who cannot lose. He can extract money at will. He can control anyone unknowledgeable about Neo-Tech -- man or woman. The Neo-Tech man has the power to render others helpless, even wipe them out, but he wisely chooses to use just enough of his power to give himself unbeatable casino-like advantages in all his endeavors for maximum long-range profits. His Neo-Tech maneuvers are so subtle that they can be executed with casual confidence. His hidden techniques let him win consistently and comfortably -- year after year, decade after decade. Eventually, Neo-Tech men and women will quietly rule everywhere. The Neo-Tech man can easily and safely beat any opponent. He can impoverish anyone he chooses. He can immediately and consistently acquires large amounts of money. He has the power to make more money in a week than most people without Neo-Tech make in a full year. He commands business deals and emotional situations to acquire money and power... and command love. He can regain lost love. He can subjugate a business or personal adversary. He wins any lover at will. He can predict stick prices -- even gold and silver prices. He quietly rules all. Within a week an ordinary person can become a professional Neo-Tech practitioner. As people gain this knowledge, they will immediately begin using its techniques because they are irresistibly easy and overwhelmingly potent. Within days of gaining this knowledge, a person can safely bankrupt opponents -- or slowly profit from them, week after week. He can benefit from business and investment endeavors -- from dealing with the boss to the biggest oil deal. He can also benefit from any relationship -- from gaining the respect of peers to inducing love from a partner or regaining lost love from an ex-partner. He will gain easy money and power in business, investments, the professions, politics, and personal life. Indeed, with Neo-Tech, a person not only captures unbeatable advantages over others, but commands shortcuts to profits, power, and romance. The ordinary person can quickly become a Clark Kent -- a quiet superman -- taking command of all. He can financially and emotionally control whomever he deals with. He becomes the man-on- the-hill, now. He is armed with an unbeatable weapon. All will yield to the Neo-Tech man, the no-limit man. ..All except the Neo-Tech man will die unfulfilled... without ever knowing wealth, power, and romantic love. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- All hail the Neo-Tech man!! Max More more@usc.edu ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V94 #29 ********************************