Brian Atkins wrote:
If you don't sign the petition to try and fight for your chunk of the noise spectrum using the only available current means then let's say the bar gets built, your property value goes down, you lose sleep every night or get interrupted during your deep thinking, and in the end the Singularity ends up being delayed by a month. Was your idealistic choice of action worth it?
(end)
It must be cool to have your employer think so highly of you! :) Reading these words did get me thinking though... What other things out there could disturb Eliezer's concentration and thereby delay the onset of the singularity he will bring forth?
I came up with a list of things which those close to him should look into...
1. Is their natural spectrum lighting in the place Eli works? He might not work as efficiently if not!
2. Does Eli sleep on a really comfortable mattress? A good night's sleep is so important to a well-functioning brain.
3. Is he exercising enough each day? I visualize Eli being very sedentary and not getting his heart rate up long enough each day to be aerobically fit. This could impair blood flow to his brain!! I hope Brian takes him out jogging each day or at least gets him a treadmill(with a pc mounted on it of course...).
4. Having a pet could be good for Eli's frame of mind. I'm not sure what type though would be best. Perhaps a big friendly golden retriever would be great for him. But then a habitrail of hamsters which spans his whole apartment would be good too. He can then pretend he is the AI and they are humanity. lol
5. And what about Eli's reading habits? We all laud him for the scholarly tomes he reads but man cannot live on serious scholarship alone. Wait, I forgot that a Buffy the vampire-slayer book series is in production! :)
6. Diet must be taken into consideration too. I wonder what this fellow eats? I sure hope it is not the typical programmer diet of pizza and coke! I would dearly hope the dietary enlightenment of Max and Natasha has rubbed off on him. Brian and Sabine hopefully have him over to eat on a regular basis so he does not starve.
7. The physical safety of Eli is a key concern to all of us! I want him only driving something BIG(or a volvo) so he will have a better chance of surviving a car wreck. We can't lose someone so important to the god of mechanized death. He would be safer simply taking the bus around.
8. To enhance his mental powers Eli should check out alternative methods. He needs some hypno-peripheral audiotapes with the message, "each day you get better and better at programming for seed AI and the onset of the singularity." Sadly, I looked at various catalogs I have for such tapes and could not find that topic anywhere...
9. Eli must be so careful involving romantic entanglements! I cannot warn him enough here! Some eye-catching lass could break his heart and leave him a broken wreck of a man. While his vastly important work neeed to be done all he would be able to do for months is rock back and forth and say, "I thought she loved me!" Be careful young man of those southern belles!
10. Wasting time on email lists could really be a problem for him! Hours that could be used for other things! Watch out! But then it might just be recharging his batteries...
fondly smiling,
John
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:19 MDT