From extropians-request@extropy.org Fri May 20 21:01:55 1994 Return-Path: extropians-request@extropy.org Received: from usc.edu (usc.edu [128.125.253.136]) by chaph.usc.edu (8.6.8.1/8.6.4) with SMTP id VAA10810 for ; Fri, 20 May 1994 21:01:54 -0700 Received: from news.panix.com by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA05709; Fri, 20 May 94 21:01:44 PDT Received: by news.panix.com id AA11702 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for more@usc.edu); Sat, 21 May 1994 00:01:36 -0400 Date: Sat, 21 May 1994 00:01:36 -0400 Message-Id: <199405210401.AA11702@news.panix.com> To: Extropians@extropy.org From: Extropians@extropy.org Subject: Extropians Digest #94-5-240 - #94-5-254 X-Extropian-Date: May 21, 374 P.N.O. [00:01:17 UTC] Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org X-Mailer: MailWeir 1.0 Status: RO Extropians Digest Sat, 21 May 94 Volume 94 : Issue 140 Today's Topics: [1 msgs] EXTRO: Proposed date for 1995 conference. [1 msgs] insurance, risk-pools, freedom [1 msgs] Orangutangs on the net? Why not? [1 msgs] Party: Monday Aug 1st [1 msgs] Rights of Orangutangs [7 msgs] Visit to England [2 msgs] Visit to England [1 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: 26413 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ian Douglas Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 05:54:03 +0200 (GMT+0200) Subject: [#94-5-240] Rights of Orangutangs > > Ian Douglas wrote: > >> The question of whether Y has rights then becomes: can Y communicate > >> a breach-of-contract complaint to society? > > > >And if X kills Y, Y cannot communicate anything... > >Or if Y is 3 day old human baby? > >Or Y is a blind, deaf and dumb human adult? > > > >What rights does a lion grant to a deer? > > This interesting justaposition brought to you by > Nancy Lebovitz > Who says I can't argue both sides at once? :-) I was trying to force a more critical examination of rights, and the differences between humans and other animals, and why we have rights but the lunchtime steak did not :-) MAybe it all boils down to the law of the jungle.. A lion does not grant a human any rights, why should a human grant a lion any rights? }:-> Cheers, Ian ------------------------------ From: anna yamada Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 11:13:05 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [#94-5-241] Signoff extropians Unsubscribe rosaphil@phantom.com UNSUB EXTROPIANS SIGNOFF EXTROPIANS rosaphil@phantom.com ------------------------------ From: "Harry S. Hawk" Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 11:23:55 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [#94-5-242] Party: Monday Aug 1st Hi, I am planning on attending the MacWorld Expo in Boston in Aug 2nd - Aug 5th. I will be arriving on Aug 1st, and am planning on hosting a get together that evening in my room. In the past I have also organized a dinner, I don't have time to do that this trip, but someone else is welcome to set that up. My room as always will be at the Copley Plaza Hotel, under my name Harry Hawk. Since I will not be able to know my room number in advance you will have to ask for me at front Desk. Let's get together from 8pm to 11pm....Monday Aug 1st. /hawk -- Harry S. Hawk habs@extropy.org Electronic Communications Officer, Extropy Institute Inc. The Extropians Mailing List, Since 1991 ------------------------------ From: "R. David Murray" Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 13:04:58 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [#94-5-243] Rights of Orangutangs On Thu, 19 May 1994, Jay Reynolds Freeman wrote: > that non-human-animal rights are legitimate, not by persuading human animals > tht other animals "ought" to have rights, but rather by learning about the > behavior and communicative skills of non-human animals, and using that > knowledge to convince humans that complaints are being made. Bingo. Did you see the story about the zoo that has set up an area for the Orangutangs to play with computers and things for the amusment of the visitors? I suggest Jay work on getting the 'rangs their own personal Net connection! --David PS: although this message may sound like sarcasm or something, I'm deadly serious. I'd love to see someone find a way to communicate well enough with the 'rangs to allow them (the 'rangs) make money by engaging in some sort of Net commerce. On the Net, advertising that you are a 'rang is good business . . . ------------------------------ From: "R. David Murray" Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 13:23:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [#94-5-244] insurance, risk-pools, freedom On Thu, 19 May 1994, Stephen J. Whitrow wrote: > Third party insurance is another issue, and I do think that everyone > should be liable for the consequences of their actions. If folk failed > to insure themselves and consequently were unable to compensate their > victims, they should be forced to work to pay off the debt, even if it > meant 50 years' hard labor. In this instance the force is retaliatory > rather than initiatory. I see no reason to use retalitory force. In a fully free society the person with no insurance and no money to pay off the debt adjudicated by a mutually agreed upon arbitration board has two choices: work to pay off that debt, or abrogate that contract. A person who abrogates such a contract (the contract here is between them, the arbitration board, and the other party to the dispute) is going to be in a very poor position in a free society, a society that of necessity depends heavily on reputation. Cases of abrogation will happen. Likewise cases of refusal to arbitrate will happen. Some injured parties will be left with no recourse when damaged by a party with no insurance. That's why you buy things like "uninsured moterist insurance". But such cases will be the exception rather than the rule, IMO, and worth putting up with so as to avoid having to use force. You see, using force to compell compensitory labor would be very expensive: all those enforcement costs; plus, someone forced to labor is, I believe, not going to make as much money as someone who labors freely. So I'm predicting that a free market in PPL will tend toward a system where this kind of retalitory force ("50 years hard labor if necessary") will dissapear. --David (PPL: Privately Produced Law) ------------------------------ From: "R. David Murray" Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 13:53:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [#94-5-245] Visit to England I'm going to be on a trip to England between July 20th and August 6th. (We leave Boston on the 20th and get back to it on the 6th). The event is a dance tour with Yankee Ingenuity and Tony Parks. We'll be starting the tour just south of London, working our way across the south of England dancing at community dances most evenings while Yankee Ingenuity plays and Tony calls, and winding up at the Sidmouth Folk Festival. My wife and I arrive at Heathrow at 6:55 AM on Thursday July 21st, and we have that whole day and the morning of the next free before the tour proper starts. If any Extropians from that side of the pond would like to get together with us then, or even later in the tour if we can work out the logistics, we'd love to hear from you. We'd also love some advice about a hotel for Thursday night, since that isn't included in our tour package. --David PS: Sorry I'll miss your Boston visit, Harry! PPS: Anyone know what the chances are of my being able to get Net access occasionally during the tour? I can bring a PC and modem, but I'm well aware that that is the smallest of the logistical problems . . . ------------------------------ From: Harvey Newstrom Date: Fri, 20 May 94 14:35:38 EST Subject: [#94-5-246] Rights of Orangutangs In message #94-5-243, the human "R. David Murray" wrote: >sort of Net commerce. On the Net, advertising that you are a 'rang is >good business . . . I am not an orangutang, but many of my friends are. Please use the proper term orangutang, and not the slang 'range. I am not an orangutang, but it would be OK if I were. How do you know that there aren't already orangutangs on the network? Can you tell by looking at a post whether it was posted by a human or not? It is such species-centric views that cause many nonhumans to stay in the closet or to try to pass as human. I am not an orangutang, so I have no incentive to stick up for them. Statistically, over 10% of primates are non-human primates. It is only the religious right or the bible-thumpers who act like only humans have made any important contributions throughtout history. Many famous primates have been orangutangs. I am not an orangutang, but I don't fear being called an orangutang, though I'm not. So please be careful with your human-istic assumptions, and try to help make this a kinder, gentler jungle^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hworld for us all. __ Harvey Newstrom (hnewstrom@hnewstrom.ess.harris.com) P.S. I am not an orangutang. ------------------------------ From: derek@cs.wisc.edu (Derek Zahn) Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 14:05:27 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [#94-5-247] Rights of Orangutangs David: > I suggest Jay work on getting the 'rangs their own personal Net > connection! Isn't that what aol.com was created for? derek (I hear that soon the opossum node, Prodigy, will be connected too!) ------------------------------ From: "Stephens, Marc R." Date: 20 May 1994 15:23:20 -0400 Subject: [#94-5-248] Rights of Orangutangs >Bingo. Did you see the story about the zoo that has set up an area for >the Orangutangs to play with computers and things for the amusment of the >visitors? I suggest Jay work on getting the 'rangs their own personal Net >connection! We might even manage more intelligent communication on Usenet with them around! Remember, on the 'net no one knows you're an orangutang. Pax, Catnip -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Marc Stephens, KSC marque@umich.edu -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ------------------------------ From: Elizabeth Schwartz Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 15:34:29 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [#94-5-249] Visit to England Doesn't England have 220Volt, 50 cycle current? It's not enough to convert the voltage; electronic equipment also wants 60Hz power. (some high-end laptops are designed to operate overseas but most are not.) There are also different standards for modems, but I don't know about that. 1200 or 2400 requires changing a carrier tone , and I've seen some low-end modems do this (I've used a US modem to *phone* England, but not recently.) I'd hope that higher speeds are more compatible, does anyone know? [Also in more socialist countries there are laws about plugging stuff into the phone system without paying $$$ to the governments...this is true in at least Germany and the Netherlands] ------------------------------ From: James Daugherty Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 16:50:32 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [#94-5-250] Rights of Orangutangs Prodigy already is connected! ||||||||||||||||||||||||||| James H. Daugherty, e-mail "Postmaster" for A-albionic Research, PO Box 20273, Ferndale, MI 48220, a ruling class/conspiracy research resource for the entire political-ideological spectrum. Fax 1-313-885-1181; e-mail jhdaugh@garnet.msen.com Free "info packs" available upon request. Snail mail "info packs" are the largest! My opinions are mine alone and definitely not endorsed by A-albionic Research though I often draw on their wide range of research sources and annotated book catalogs. On Fri, 20 May 1994, Derek Zahn wrote: > David: > > > I suggest Jay work on getting the 'rangs their own personal Net > > connection! > > Isn't that what aol.com was created for? > > derek > (I hear that soon the opossum node, Prodigy, will be connected too!) > > ------------------------------ From: Sunah Cherwin Date: Fri, 20 May 94 14:23:00 -0700 Subject: [#94-5-251] Visit to England I'm going to England, so I called 1-800-SOS-APPL to ask about the specs for all my equipment, what needed a converter and what diddidn't and what kind of conversion was called for. If you have another brand of equipment I'm sure they will tell you this info. ------------------------------ From: Alexander Chislenko Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 17:46:45 -0400 Subject: [#94-5-252] Orangutangs on the net? Why not? Suppose I buy a house connected with the net by *video*links, and a bunch of orangutang slaves. I give them 10% of what they earn on the net, in the form of of food, trips to the jungle, etc. You are a researcher who is interested in studying orangutangs' intelligence. Your face appears on a large touch-sensitive screen in the orangutang's room, together with the objects you want the orangutang to manipulate; a small window contains the reward promised for solving the puzzle (a piece of food, a cute female orangutang, etc. - of course - I get 9 times the number of prizes behind the screen ;-) ) There are very good chances the animals can learn such interface, and login when they feel like earning something else. They would also be smart enough to negotiate a reward (just won't work for a tiny piece of food unless they are really starving). This is about using the net as a medium. I believe the animals would also use the services. Facing a choice of sitting in the same room with a blank screen, or pushing a big button to watch other orangutangs having sex, or look at their relatives who are now far away, our friend may well opt for the service, even if s/he has to work a little to earn it. Maybe, when the net becomes so easy to access, some people I know will sign up too... Sasha. Also, a dog may be trained to bark or otherwise activate an alarm when it sees an intruder or anything else. Put it in front of a bunch of CCTV monitors, and you get a very efficient image-recognition system. ------------------------------ From: Max More Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 18:49:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [#94-5-253] EXTRO: Proposed date for 1995 conference. In order to plan further ahead for the next EXTRO conference, I want to set a date for EXTRO 2 within the next couple of weeks, so I can get serious about inviting speakers. I propose holding EXTRO 2 June 9-11 1995. On Friday we would hold a hike in the afternoon and a party (perhaps with dancing) in the evening, then sessions all day Saturday and most of Sunday. Can anyone suggest a good reason for *not* holding the event that weekend? A good reason would include things like competing events likely to appeal to potential EXTRO attendees. This year we conflicted with a nanotech conference in Colorado, but I've checked with organizers to ensure that won't happen next year. Anyone know when the LP national convention will be? EXTRO 2 will probably be held in Southern California, in Santa Monica. We will do our best to arrange accommodation for those coming from far away. Extropians think ahead! Max More more@extropy.org more@usc.edu President Extropy Institute (ExI) ------------------------------ From: freeman@netcom.com (Jay Reynolds Freeman) Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 20:21:19 -0700 Subject: [#94-5-254] Rights of Orangutangs R. David Murray says: > Did you see the story about the zoo that has set up an area for > the Orangutangs to play with computers and things for the amusment of the > visitors? I suggest Jay work on getting the 'rangs their own personal Net > connection! [...] > I'd love to see someone find a way to communicate well enough > with the 'rangs to allow [...] David's suggestion for the Squirrel has in part already been implemented for another non-human species. See... Clark, Mike, Tom Ferrara, Dave Jones, Ann Marion, Kim Rose and Larry Yaeger, 1990. Koko's Mac II: A Preliminary Report, in _The_Art_of_Human-Computer_ _Interface_Design_, Brenda Laurel (ed.), 1990, pp 95-102. As they say "... the computer for the rest of us... *all* the rest of us." The First Extropian Squirrel himself uses a Mac II, though the effort required to squirrel-proof it is not nearly so great as that required to gorilla-proof Koko's. > On the Net, advertising that you are a 'rang is good business . . . Advertising that I am a squirrel seems not to have done very much for *my* business... -- Jay Freeman, First Extropian Squirrel ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V94 #140 *********************************