From extropians-request@extropy.org Fri Dec 9 16:02:29 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 QAA00382 for ; Fri, 9 Dec 1994 16:02:23 -0800 Received: from news.panix.com by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA01305; Fri, 9 Dec 94 15:59:19 PST Received: (from exi@localhost) by news.panix.com (8.6.9/8.6.9) id SAA16154; Fri, 9 Dec 1994 18:02:58 -0500 Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 18:02:58 -0500 Message-Id: <199412092302.SAA16154@news.panix.com> To: Extropians@extropy.org From: Extropians@extropy.org Subject: Extropians Digest #94-12-365 - #94-12-375 X-Extropian-Date: December 9, 374 P.N.O. [18:01:24 UTC] Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org X-Mailer: MailWeir 1.0 Status: O Extropians Digest Fri, 9 Dec 94 Volume 94 : Issue 342 Today's Topics: Another view on spotted owls (was wilderness strategies) [2 msgs] CRYPTO: IRS smartcards (was: the Inevitability of Friedman) [1 msgs] Extropian (?) Fiction [1 msgs] SING: Are we still evolving? [1 msgs] Summary: Old-Growth Forestry [1 msgs] the Inevitability of Friedman [2 msgs] UNRELATED: Weird characters in posts? [2 msgs] upgrading [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: 32569 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: sullivan@blaze.cs.jhu.edu (Gregory Sullivan) Date: Fri, 09 Dec 94 08:22:38 EST Subject: [#94-12-365] Another view on spotted owls (was wilderness strategies) Phil goetz@cs.buffalo.edu >When people wanted to set aside 7.7 million acres in Washington and Oregon, >ostensibly to save the spotted owl, the economic value over the next 50 >years of that land for timber was estimated as $27 billion >(_The Final Forest_, p. 78). > >I expect someone will reply and say, "You don't need 7.7 million acres!" >Let me pre-emptively give the same response people sometimes give me: >Don't barge in if you don't know the literature. One spotted owl needs >from 1500 to 10,000 acres, depending on latitude. 7.7 million acres is >about 110 by 110 miles, 7.3% of the combined area of Oregon and Washington. >That's enough to save about 3000 owls. But the owls aren't really the >issue; they stand for many other species that need old-growth forest. A powerful expose article about spotted owls appeared in the New Republic. Basically it claims that environmental groups puposefully and/or through ignorance have been massively distorting the facts about spotted owls. For example, spotted owls do not need old growth forest for survival the article states. Below is an excerpt from the beginning of the article which is available in its entirety at the electronic newsstand. Read the complete version for a new perspective on spotted owls and the tactics of some environmental organizations. Magazine: The New Republic Issue: March 28, 1994 Title: THE BIRDS Author: Gregg Easterbrook The spotted owl: an environmental parable. THE BIRDS By Gregg Easterbrook Recently, I rather casually did something that according to contemporary environmental orthodoxy is inconceivable: I took a hike through the woods and saw lots of spotted owls. Spotted owls are said to be so rare that even an experienced forester spends weeks trying to glimpse one. I saw four in a few hours. The owls were living wild in a habitat where it is presumed impossible for them to exist: a young woodland, not an old-growth forest. And they were living in a place, California, where environmental doctrine holds spotted owls to be rare birds indeed. In the evolution of political issues there often comes a sequence that runs like this: A new concern arises. For a while the system attempts to deny the claim's validity, but eventually some action is taken. By then advocates have become an interest group, fighting as much for the preservation of their cause as anything else. The fight takes on a life of its own; the specifics of the original issue are discarded. Today this sequence may be repeating in the matter of the spotted owl. A decade ago researchers warned that the bird was declining toward extinction. Legal gears were set spinning. In 1991 a federal judge suspended most Northwest logging, resulting in the loss of thousands of high-wage jobs. This month the Clinton administration is set to file court documents that make most of those losses permanent. The Clinton owl plan has become a standard Washington lobbying jangle in which business and environmental constituencies drop sixteen-ton weights on each others' heads. The original question of whether the owl is endangered has been discarded. At the White House level, that isn't even discussed anymore. Political and legal maneuvers continue on the assumption that 1980s studies hypothesizing an owl extinction were correct. They may not be. Research is beginning to suggest that the spotted owl exists in numbers far greater than was assumed when the extinction alarm sounded. Whereas a headline-making 1986 Audubon Society report said that 1,500 spotted owl pairs throughout the United States was the number necessary to prevent extinction, it now seems that as many as 10,000 pairs may exist. "It appears the spotted owl population is not in as bad a shape as imagined ten years ago, or even five years ago," says David Wilcove, a biodiversity expert for the Environmental Defense Fund. Thus Clinton's plan to shut down most Washington and Oregon logging may not only be unnecessary; it may be resting on an illusion. End of excerpt Author Gregg Easterbrook is a contributing editor at Newsweek. This article is based on material from A Moment on the Earth, which will be published next year by Viking. ------------------------------ From: Mark Grant Date: Fri, 9 Dec 94 14:21:03 GMT Subject: [#94-12-366] CRYPTO: IRS smartcards (was: the Inevitability of Friedman) jbaker@halcyon.com (James Baker) said : > The program couldn't send off my secrets because > I control the communication from my card. Really ? Wouldn't it be sending an encrypted message to irs.gov which you couldn't read and could contain all sorts of secret information about you ? Even if it's not encrypted, it could hide plenty of information in 'random' numbers, e.g. storing some details of large transactions in 'random' padding of the signature block, or even just setting a bit somewhere in there if your spending patterns matched some 'suspicious' profile. Mark ------------------------------ From: "Peter C. McCluskey" Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 07:34:17 -0800 Subject: [#94-12-367] upgrading nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu (nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu) writes in X-Message-Number: #94-12-325: >That's an interesting one, though I wonder if part of the problem >with evaluating improbable risks is a healthy doubt about the >official numbers for them. The studies in question involve simple things like whether buying a lottery ticket is rational, and they compare 2 different explanations of equivalent situations. People are consistently more risk averse when choosing between alternatives described as gains than when the same alternatives are described as avoiding losses. -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Peter McCluskey | pcm@rahul.net | vivivi - the editor finger for PGP key | pcm@world.std.com | of the beast! ------------------------------ From: vincek@intergalact.com (Vince Kerchner) Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 08:41:52 -0800 Subject: [#94-12-368] UNRELATED: Weird characters in posts? Can anyone tell me why I'm sometimes getting weird characters in my posts? At first, it looked like just the equal sign and other "special" characters were coming out weird, but lately some of the standard alphas have been showing up garbled. I'm using Eudora 2.0.3 (dialin) and Apple Modem Tool 1.5.3 on a Mac with System, 7.1. Testing "special" characters: Top row caps: ~!@#$%^&*()_+ Top row lower: `1234567890-=3D Other punct caps: {}|:"<>? Other punct lower: []\;',./ Mac extended (option): =82=BE=84*=A9=81 Thanks, --Vince * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Copyright Vince Kerchner, 1994. "We want information." Intergalactic Reality "You won't get it." vincek@intergalact.com "By hook, or by crook, we will." * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ------------------------------ From: lefty@apple.com (Lefty) Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 08:57:01 -0800 Subject: [#94-12-369] UNRELATED: Weird characters in posts? >Can anyone tell me why I'm sometimes getting weird characters in my posts? I believe it's Eudora MIME-encoding the special characters. -- Lefty [gYon-Pa] C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:. ------------------------------ From: Bo Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 09:22:08 -0700 (MST) Subject: [#94-12-370] the Inevitability of Friedman On Fri, 9 Dec 1994 nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu wrote: > James Baker wrote: > > > >As an example my smart card could have an agent program supplied by the > >IRS. It would watch all my transactions throughout the year then on April > >15th it would create a short message with a dollar figure and it's own > >digital signature. I would transfer the money and the signature to the IRS. > >That would be all the info they get from me. (After all it is their program > >that figured the amount.) The program couldn't send off my secrets because > >I control the communication from my card. > > > >My purpose here is to illustrate that anonymous digital cash doesn't > >necessarily imply the end of taxes. > > > I can easily believe that a government would invent something like > that, but why would anyone want to use it? > > Nancy Lebovitz Why would anyone want to use the Clipper...? ...and yet it will be mandated. Bo the Bohemian..... *****************************[ ****************%%%%Bo@bohemia.metronet.org%%%%********************** ------------------------------ From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu Date: Fri, 9 Dec 94 17:11:08 GMT Subject: [#94-12-371] the Inevitability of Friedman Bo wrote: > >On Fri, 9 Dec 1994 nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu wrote: > >> James Baker wrote: >> > >> >As an example my smart card could have an agent program supplied by the >> >IRS. It would watch all my transactions throughout the year then on April >> >15th it would create a short message with a dollar figure and it's own >> >digital signature. I would transfer the money and the signature to the IRS. >> >That would be all the info they get from me. (After all it is their program >> >that figured the amount.) The program couldn't send off my secrets because >> >I control the communication from my card. >> > >> >My purpose here is to illustrate that anonymous digital cash doesn't >> >necessarily imply the end of taxes. >> > >> I can easily believe that a government would invent something like >> that, but why would anyone want to use it? >> >> Nancy Lebovitz > >Why would anyone want to use the Clipper...? >...and yet it will be mandated. > Part of the assumption is that, once cryptocash exists, it will become increasingly hard for governments to enforce anything.....They could mandate IRS smart cards, but they can't make you use them. It's pleasant to think of the govt. turning into a voluntary charity, and *asking* people to use its credit cards. Nancy Lebovitz ------------------------------ From: Phil Goetz Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 12:34:58 -0500 Subject: [#94-12-372] Another view on spotted owls (was wilderness strategies) >Magazine: The New Republic >Issue: March 28, 1994 >Title: THE BIRDS >Author: Gregg Easterbrook > >Recently, I rather casually did something that according to contemporary >environmental orthodoxy is inconceivable: I took a hike through the woods and >saw lots of spotted owls. Spotted owls are said to be so rare that even an >experienced forester spends weeks trying to glimpse one. I saw four in a few >hours. The owls were living wild in a habitat where it is presumed impossible >for them to exist: a young woodland, not an old-growth forest. And they were >living in a place, California, where environmental doctrine holds spotted owls >to be rare birds indeed. I would like to know more: 1. Did the author choose a random woods, or had he heard there were owls there? 2. Did the owls come from a nearby old-growth forest that had just been cut down? 3. Is Gregg Easterbrook qualified to tell a spotted owl from any other kind of owl, esp. if it is 100 feet up a tree? But, in any case, the spotted owl is just one species. Destroying the dominant habitat of a region will be bad for many species. Phil goetz@cs.buffalo.edu ------------------------------ From: Bo Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 10:00:48 -0700 (MST) Subject: [#94-12-373] Extropian (?) Fiction On Thu, 8 Dec 1994, Webb_S wrote: > (stuff deleted) > On a related note, I've been wondering lately whether were one's willingness > to embrace an anarcho-capitalist future (which look rather scary to me) has > anything to do with where one's from. A recent _Technology Review_ article > attempted to explain the success of Silicon Valley compared to computer > companies in the East as (in part, anyway) the result of West Coast > flexibility vs. New England's desire for stability. It seems to me that a > disproportionate number of 'Tropes are from the West Coast. Is there a > parallel here? Are bay area folks more risk-seeking and adaptable than New > Yorkers such as myself? Personally, I still dream of living in the little > house in the suburbs with a wife, 2.3 children, and picket fence (with my > own quantum-optical desktop supercomputer and nanofactory in the den, of > course :-) Does this dream seem laughable to the Silicon Valley computer > crowd? > > Steven Webb > webbs@oplc.psb.bls.gov > "I'm a 21st century digital boy / I don't know how to live, but I've got a > lot of toys" Everyone knows the best nuts come from California.....! Bo the Bohemian.....(longtime Cal resident, now ex.) *****************************[ ****************%%%%Bo@bohemia.metronet.org%%%%********************** ------------------------------ From: pavel@PARK.bu.edu (Paul Cisek) Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 12:25:18 -0500 Subject: [#94-12-374] SING: Are we still evolving? >From: vincek@intergalact.com (Vince Kerchner) >X-Message-Number: #94-12-361 > >It is interesting to note that there is still quite a bit of "room" for >human evolution, genetically speaking. There are 4 different DNA bases >used to encode genetic sequences, and these bases are used in groups of 3 >to encode each amino acid in a protein. This gives a possible 4 x 4 x 4, >or 64, combinations for different amino acid sequences. However, proteins >are built from a set of only 20 basic amino acids. This gives a genetic >"headroom" of 44 / 20, or 220%, potentially new amino acids for use in >protein construction. I have no idea what these new compounds would be, or >how they would work, but I am confident that they will eventually occur, >given time. I'm not so sure about this. The 20 amino acid code has remain unchanged at least since the development of the cell-membrane - all organisms, including the very distant archaeobacteria use the same code (though I seem to recall hearing about viruses that use a slightly different code). In any case, for the last two billion years or so the codon->amino acid code has stayed the same, despite the staggering amount of evolution that happened since (including the invention of sexual reproduction, aerobic respiration, photosynthesis, etc.) There's a great deal of theoretical work on the development of the genetic code. One theory I've heard suggests that the code itself was a "frozen accident", i.e. that RNA strands which folded into tRNA that facilitated translation to amino acids were selected for, and dominated early prebiotic evolution even though their particular code did not have any stability advantages. Originally, a three nucleotide codon was natural for reasons of symmetry, but only the second base pair was used to specify an amino acid. Thus, the original code only included 4 amino acids (glycine, alanine, valine, and aspartic acid seem like likely candidates). Afterward, this code differentiated toward specificity of the first bp position, and then toward that of the third. We still see a great deal of redundancy at the third position, but it's not likely that it will ever be utilized. It seems that the code we have today was present before the radiation of even the most distant lineages, and probably has been "frozen" since the invention of cell membranes (and possibly because of it). But there's still plenty of headroom for evolution to operate with. The space of all possible proteins in about as close to infinite as anything you can think of: 4^1000000000 is a big number and the length of DNA can still be expanded... The more important issue is the selection pressures that exist, as Vince correctly stresses. Survival pressures may have been relaxed, but sexual selection still continues and genetic drift is still operating. Paul ------------------------------ From: Phil Goetz Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 12:22:35 -0500 Subject: [#94-12-375] Summary: Old-Growth Forestry We've heard many false statements about ancient forests here, some of them my own. I've done some library research and summarized what I think are the relevant facts. 1. WHAT IS AN OLD-GROWTH FOREST? When land that can support a forest is cleared, it harbors a succession of different species that replace each other in waves: for example, first quick-growing jack pine, then fast-growing broadleafs like beech and birch, then oak and maple, which may eventually be displaced by white pines. (*) The final stable state is called a climax, primary, or old-growth forest. ("Stable" is a relative term; take it to mean a forest that will not change much in tree species composition for 2000 years if the rest of the environment does not change much.) The first saplings of the trees that will dominate the climax forest might not appear until 100 years after logging. (My home state of Michigan was logged over 100 years ago, yet the original white pine are not very common at present.) The time it takes for a secondary forest to be succeeded by a climax forest is variable, and speculative, since we don't have many records of forest management more than 200 years old. 500-1000 years is my guess. Papworth Forest in Cambridgeshire is still considered secondary forest, though it is over 700 years old (Peterken p. 180). 2. WHY ARE THEY IMPORTANT? Old-growth forests provide an ecosystem distinct from secondary forests, and support both more species and a higher population density. Tropical climax forests are the most diverse environments in the world. They support more plants and more animals than the secondary tropical forests that replace them when logged (Norman Myers [uh-oh ;) ], _The Primary Source_, chapters 3, 4, and 9, esp. p. 172). US west coast old-growth forests harbor more species than managed forests. >From "Mammals of the Ancient Forests", by Martain Raphael of the US Forestry Science Lab, in _Ancient Forests of the Pacific Northwest_, p. 96-98: >Forest managers define successional stages that describe the natural >sequence of forest regeneration following fire or logging. ... >Using Appendix 8 in E. Reade Brown's compendium (1985) I summarized the >association of mammals in each of 6 seral stages in each forest type in >western Oregon and Washington. ... > >Young closed forest, the stage that dominates managed forest landscapes, >is primary breeding and feeding habitat for the fewest species. > >Field studies of mammals and their habitat associations show similar trends. >I sampled 55 species in 166 stands representing 6 seral stages of >Douglas-fir forest in northwestern CA. Mean numbers of species sampled >per stand were greatest in mature and old-growth stages and lowest in >the pole-sawtimber stage. > >Small mammal density follows a more or less U-shaped curve along >successional gradients, much like curves for bird diversity, herb and >shrub biomass, and quantity of coarse woody debris. [Meaning it is >greatest in fields and old-growth forest.] I don't know if this holds for white pine forest (the only type of old-growth forest I've ever seen). They had so little undergrowth that you could ride a horse through the forest at full gallop. Perhaps if I went there in the summer it would be different. Or perhaps the forest floor was kept "clean" for tourists -- Hartwick Pines is a tourist attraction. GF Peterken, a British forester, argues that ancient forests are the most valuable (Peterken, p. 200-202). I give a brief extract: >It seems to me that past-natural conditions and therefore primary >woodlands are more important [than secondary forests], because >they can provide first-hand insights into the nature of primaeval, >original-natural woodland in which man had only insignificant influence, >and they are the nearest approach we have to control ecosystems (in the >scientific sense) through which we can measure and appreciate the >extent and nature of man's long-term impact on the environment. >In addition to these intrinsic values there is the practical fact that >primary woodland cannot be re-created once it has been destroyed. p. 232: >Ancient, semi-natural woods are the most valuable. Their value extends >to all components -- tree and shrub layers, ground flora, undisturbed soil >profiles -- individually and in combination. Eric Forsman, the biologist who started the spotted owl affair, said >I recognize that most old growth stands contain a high incidence of >decayed and often diseased trees, but this is exactly the factor which >attracts the spotted owl. Old growth trees provide an abundance of >nest cavities for owls, squirrels, bats, woodpeckers, tree-mice, >woodrats, Vaux's swifts, etc., etc. Old decaying deadfalls which >litter the forest floor in old growth stands provide habitat for >innumerable rodents, insects, and reptiles. (Dietrich, p. 76) The spotted owl lives only in old-growth forests. The owl stands for all the other species that are adapted to old-growth forests; the owl is easier to study than other species because it is not afraid of humans and will come if you call. It's biologically sensible to hypothesize that many other species of wildlife would be unique to old-growth forests, because they were the dominant forest type for millenia. (Dietrich, p. 84-85) 3. HOW CAN WE MANAGE THEM? Despite the insistence of Tim Starr, primary forests do not need our management. They were the dominant forests for a long time before humans came along. SHOULD WE SELECTIVELY LOG OLD-GROWTH FORESTS? Peterken says it is possible in Europe to mix old-growth trees with young trees. I don't know if this would work in the US, where the old-growth trees (Douglas fir, CA redwood, white pine) are enormous. They would shade youngsters. If you leave a gap between old trees to insert young trees, the old trees will accumulate more snow on the gap side, and may fall down. If you leave a gap on both sides, the old trees will blow down. (Old-growth forests on the edge of clearcuts get blown down.) Also, pine trees drop needles that acidify the soil and harm other trees. Some people said that secondary forests preserve a greater number of tree species. This is not true in the tropics. It may be true in the US, but logging companies typically replant only one or 2 species of tree (some fast-growing pine, possibly with a slower-growing hardwood). The big question is whether species that are adapted to old-growth forests can adapt to mixed forests. Peterken says, >Natural woodland was possibly less diverse than managed woodland, >so... there may be some conflict between the aspiration of [tree] species >and [animal] habitat conservation. Diversity is certainly good, but it >must be encouraged with discretion. (p. 273) and >Minimising the rates of habitat change [selective logging] ... tends to >maintain the [survival] of extinction-prone species in any wood. (p. 270) Bottom line: The further removed the forest is from a natural climax forest, the less hospitable it will be to the many species adapted to climax forest. BUT THEY'RE GOING TO BURN DOWN ANYWAY! Several people said old woods were destined to burn anyway, implying that we might as well cut them down, or that old growth is unnatural, "too old", and unstable without human management. The facts say otherwise: climax forests were everywhere before men cut them down. The impact of a fire is not the same as the impact of clearcutting. Large trees can survive fire. The giant sequoia Tim mentioned is particularly fire-adapted. It has pitchless, poor-burning bark up to 1 foot thick, and can send out new branches from all along its trunk if its branches are burned off. (It can reproduce without fire, but not as well.) (Harvey et. al., p. 64-68) Climax forests can benefit from fire management, to avoid large fires like the Chinese Black Dragon fire of 1987 or the Yellowstone fires of 1988, but this could be done by creating firebreaks. "Management" (meaning logging) is not fire management. I found no evidence that selective logging reduces the risk of fire. Perhaps a selective logging program aimed at minimizing fire risk could be developed. If it preserved a habitat similar to old-growth forest, I would be in favor of it. I wish such a scheme could compete economically with other logging schemes, but that seems unlikely. (*) This sequence is conjecture from trees native to Michigan; I don't know if the oak and maple will ever be replaced by white pine. Sources: William Dietrich (1992), _The Final Forest_ Harvey, Shellhammer, and Stecker (1980), _Giant Sequoia Ecology_ Norman Myers (1984, 1992), _The Primary Source_ Elliot Norse, ed. (1990), _Ancient Forests of the Pacific Northwest_ GF Peterken (1981), _Woodland Conservation and Management_ Phil goetz@cs.buffalo.edu, first Extropian eco-Nazi ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V94 #342 *********************************