From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Mon Sep 02 2002 - 18:15:05 MDT
Minor rant mode on.
The purpose of this message is to get some of you folks
TO ENGAGE YOUR JUSTIFICATION FILTER BEFORE YOU ENGAGE YOUR FINGERS.
Yes its "nice" to use the Extropian list to debate theories or
topics that will have a significant impact on humanity about
the time that hell freezes over. Yes, its "nice" to get the
benefit of the informed collective intelligence of a few dozen
very-well-informed individuals (but perhaps *not* at the expense
of a few hundred semi-well-informed individuals). Yes its "nice"
to engage in very witty, informed debate on esoteric concepts but
I don't see many people asking themselves *DOES IT REALLY MATTER*!
Lets start with a topic *not* discussed very much: SPAM
e.g. "You've got spam, and more spam"
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-955842.html?tag=cd_mh
Costing businesses (and government taxes proportionately --
something to think about if you are in a deficit spending mode)
$13 million/10,000 employees -- *TODAY*. And projected to
increase to *half* of all internet traffic (costing you and
I our time presumably due to network delays) by the end of
*THIS* year. Real problem -- Real costs -- Needs real solution.
Worse yet -- the SPAMers might develop the first "real" AIs to deal
with the barriers being developed against them -- do you want that
kind of adaptive technology in the hands of people with the moral
values of SPAMers? What have *you* done in the last 3 months to
bring the attention of the problem of SPAM to your legislators
(or have contributed to open source (or even closed source)
solutions to this problem)!
Another topic not much discussed -- the public availability of
scientific results to the people who paid for much of it (i.e.
governments funded by taxpayers). Witness:
"Research rebel gets word out Biochemist rallies colleagues to publish
results on the Web -- not in high-priced journals"
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/09/02/MN97506.DTL&type=science
Previous efforts to create a "Public Library of Science"
(http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org/plosFAQ.htm)
do not seem to have been successful in spite of over 30,000
scientists signing the petition to encourage this. Why?
Because the corporate & scientists self-interests seem to
be too enmeshed in supporting each other to produce effective
change. One fix: *NO* government funds unless you publish the results
in an open source journal (simple, easy and costless to the public).
I'd like to see someone attempt to make the case that scientific
progress would be accelerated by forcing all research into private
enterprise where the corporate executives and board are judged
by the profits of the next quarter. As Max pointed out DARPA is
one of the few organizations around that is attempting to place
long term bets.
Finally, could we please stop using the list as a personal messaging
system? I have no problem with Natasha asking the question of some
feedback on sprinkler systems or Brett raising prime number progress
or Alex raising questions about random numbers. *BUT* could people
*PLEASE* ask themselves how an extended discussion of this topic
on the list, potentially consuming hundreds of minutes of subscriber's
time (see SPAM above) is going to make list conversations maximally
extropic!?! While I think its *great* that we have a new fancy
prime number determination algorithm -- *thats* all I want to know
about it. Take the rest of the discussion off to ExI-Math or
your own personal mailing list of people you think are interested.
What I'd prefer to see on the extropian list is a discussion about
whether there will be any realistic progress from the current
world summit with respect to HIV probably sentencing 40-60 million
people to death and turning much of Africa into a land of orphans.
Or any other topics where many actual lives are at stake. From
where I sit the relevance factor of Doug's Drosophila experiments
has a much higher impact that most of what is discussed. (That's
primarily because most of what is discussed is theoretical talk-talk
and not something that produces a real world, concrete, impactiful
result.)
Could we please get our priorities straight people!
Esoteric discussions of more or less government rights, various
economic systems to select from, etc. really DO NOT MATTER.
The current inertia that is built into the system overwhelms
all of the couldas, wouldas, shouldas. When nanotech or AI's
free us from the current inertial vector, *then* it will matter.
Until then you should focus your time searching (*AND* implementing)
something that will disrupt current vectors (nuclear bomb blasts
in major cities, asteroid impacts and GRB come to mind, *OR* anything
to accelerate nanotech or AIs come to mind). Sniping, discussion or
even "informed" debate on the Extropian List (of most topics I've
seen recently) *isn't* going to make it happen.
When we have the means to change the vectors, Spike will live in
an enclave where everyone discusses prime numbers, Mike will live
in one where everyone packs, others will live in one where nobody
does. Dan and a host of others will live in an enclave where there
is no government, a bunch of others live in where there is one. In
mine most of the taxes will go to pay for progressive scientific
research. In Greg's most of them will go to pay for informed
debate of history and law.
I think most of the people on the list don't get this -- you will
almost *never* get people to change their minds about what their
experience dictates is something "cool" or "desirable". So why
waste the bandwidth?
> God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change:
> the courage to change the things I can:
> and the wisdom to know the difference.
> God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change,
> courage to change the one I can
> and the wisdom to know that one is me
Minor rant mode off.
Robert
P.S. I plead guilty to having consumed an excessive amount of list
bandwidth on the topics of MBrains and SETI in the past and can
only attribute it to a personal need to avoid more serious topics
that had cost me a great deal personally. For that I apologize.
It would have been better if I had solicited in advance a group
of people interested in those topics.
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