So much of the discussion of schooling misses the deeper point about the horrible legacy of "Prussian Schooling" and the enormous cost of it in diminished psyches. More humane lternatives are possible.
From the first link above: ------- "From Degrading to De-Grading" "You can tell a lot about a teacher's values and personality just by asking how he or she feels about giving grades. Some defend the practice, claiming that grades are necessary to "motivate" students. Many of these teachers actually seem to enjoy keeping intricate records of students' marks. Such teachers periodically warn students that they're "going to have to know this for the test" as a way of compelling them to pay attention or do the assigned readings - and they may even use surprise quizzes for that purpose, keeping their grade books at the ready.
Frankly, we ought to be worried for these teachers' students. In my experience, the most impressive teachers are those who despise the whole process of giving grades. Their aversion, as it turns out, is supported by solid evidence that raises questions about the very idea of traditional grading.... 1. Grades tend to reduce students' interest in the learning itself.... 2. Grades tend to reduce students' preference for challenging tasks.... 3. Grades tend to reduce the quality of students' thinking.... 4. Grades aren't valid, reliable, or objective.... 5. Grades distort the curriculum.... 6. Grades waste a lot of time that could be spent on learning.... 7. Grades encourage cheating.... 8. Grades spoil teachers' relationships with students.... 9. Grades spoil students' relationships with each other....
Most of us are directly acquainted with at least some of these disturbing consequences of grades, yet we continue to reduce students to letters or numbers on a regular basis. Perhaps we've become inured to these effects and take them for granted. This is the way it's always been, we assume, and the way it has to be. It's rather like people who have spent all their lives in a terribly polluted city and have come to assume that this is just the way air looks - and that it's natural to be coughing all the time.
Oddly, when educators are shown that it doesn't have to be this way, some react with suspicion instead of relief. They want to know why you're making trouble, or they assert that you're exaggerating the negative effects of grades (it's really not so bad - cough, cough), or they dismiss proven alternatives to grading on the grounds that our school could never do what others schools have done.
The practical difficulties of abolishing letter grades are real. But the key question is whether those difficulties are seen as problems to be solved or as excuses for perpetuating the status quo. The logical response to the arguments and data summarized here is to say: "Good heavens! If even half of this is true, then it's imperative we do whatever we can, as soon as we can, to phase out traditional grading." Yet many people begin and end with the problems of implementation, responding to all this evidence by saying, in effect, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but we'll never get rid of grades because . ..""
That all may well have some truth. Also, many decades ago, social roles and courtship procedures were more clearly defined (as "manners", and also religious systems). So, it may have been easier back then for Aspies to marry at a younger age with less unstructured social situations to navigate?
Still, another factor could be that vitamin D deficiency may also cause autism, and I wonder if older parents may spend less time outdoors in the sun and so have their young child outdoors less? Older skin also has more trouble making vitamin D. And certainly many Aspies may have intense indoor hobbies and jobs. http://www.vitamindcouncil.org... http://www.psychologytoday.com...
This recent study somewhat questions the link through for mothers and kids though (except they cite the population mean which itself seems to be low, which may confound the study IMHO): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...
Maybe also of interest on the implications of living in a world with so many artificial toxins in the air and food (like lead and artificial colors) -- where a lack of things like vitamin D and iodine make it harder for kids to deal with the toxins: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Anyway, a complex topic, with pros and cons about everything relative to different situations.
So true. But DNA security is more that an issue of privacy. In the near future, understanding the human genome will make possible developing bioweapons targeted at individuals (with collateral damage) as well as bioweapons that could probably kill all humans exposed to the pathogen (like Ebola). We have, up to now, been protected by the obscurity and complexity of the issue. With advanced computers, vast data collection, and improved scientific understanding, creating individual and global bioweapons will become college-level biochemistry. Maybe not this decade, but probably within several decades (my guesstimate). In that sense, the movie GATTACA was a utopian fantasy, because people did not live in fear of apocalypse every day given everyone's DNA was known precisely and used for identification.
For current trends, consider recent US government activities (but other countries might do it too): "U.S. Chases Foreign Leaders' DNA, WikiLeaks Shows" http://www.wired.com/dangerroo... "State Department representatives didn't immediately respond to questions about why diplomats need to acquire DNA and other biometric data on foreigners, what State does with any biometric information it gets, or how long the department retains it."
And also: http://www.theatlantic.com/mag... "The U.S. government is surreptitiously collecting the DNA of world leaders, and is reportedly protecting that of Barack Obama. Decoded, these genetic blueprints could provide compromising information. In the not-too-distant future, they may provide something more as well--the basis for the creation of personalized bioweapons that could take down a president and leave no trace. "
Unlike private encryption keys for a computer system, or a lock and key for your front door, you can't easily change your DNA if someone else gets a sample of it (like from a used drinking glass). In fact, so far, you can't significantly change your DNA at all. And the fact is, probably almost every citizen in the Western world already has taken some kind of medical test where potentially, if archived, their specific DNA would be available. So, we are probably already all compromised..
So, sadly, this trend towards increased genetic understanding may eventually mean the end of human day-to-day living as we know it in the near future (if not actual life). Individually targeted weapons are actually a lesser worry. Imagine a vast plague launched by some genetic-script kiddy showing off how "1eet" they are. Imagine a flu season where just everyone who gets it dies a few weeks after seemingly getting well -- and where everyone gets it. Or imagine perhaps 10 bad flu seasons in a row year after year, each with 30% mortality like the black plague.
Remember, unlike computer viruses, you can't right now just issue a patch for human DNA. And even if you could, the patch itself might be deadly. So avoidance may be the only option if the virus has been specifically designed to target some newly discovered human weakness in all human DNA.
Of course, we face similar risks in theory with nanotechnology, and groups like the Foresight Institute have discussed them. But, nanotechnology in the form of sophisticated mobile nanobots is still theoretical. Biotechnology and disease is a reality of our every day lives.
Preventing this risk of a 100% fatal designer plague would probably mean changing large aspects of how we live. This might include living in air-tight Biosphere-II-like structures and/or space habitats. Could it be that human tribalism and sparring at borders had evolutionary adaptive value to keep tribes mostly isolated to prevent disease transmission? Perhaps things might even go so far as never being in the physical presence of another human being and never receiving a physical object including food from outside your enclosure (
Good point on asking what's the noticeable difference. Although sometimes we don't notice a difference until we go looking for it. That may require imagination first -- or it might involve taking facts previously stumbled upon and ignored and discarded and arranging them in some new way. For example. as mentioned on slashdot recently: http://science.slashdot.org/st... From the article linked in the story: "And here is the rub: the culturally shaped analytic/individualistic mind-sets may partly explain why Western researchers have so dramatically failed to take into account the interplay between culture and cognition. In the end, the goal of boiling down human psychology to hardwiring is not surprising given the type of mind that has been designing the studies. Taking an object (in this case the human mind) out of its context is, after all, what distinguishes the analytic reasoning style prevalent in the West. Similarly, we may have underestimated the impact of culture because the very ideas of being subject to the will of larger historical currents and of unconsciously mimicking the cognition of those around us challenges our Western conception of the self as independent and self-determined. The historical missteps of Western researchers, in other words, have been the predictable consequences of the WEIRD mind doing the thinking."
It turns out that most wildlife biologists for decades recorded their data to fit the assumption of heterosexuality in their studies. How many other times have scientists not seen (or reported) things that violate assumptions or cultural taboos? For example, look what happened with cold fusion. A quarter century ago, scientists funded by hot fusion grants claimed (after very little effort) that they could not replicate "cold fusion" and so it could not exist because it conflicted with current dogma, and the topic became verboten among academics. It could not be seen by most academics. Now, decades later, other MIT scientists teach a course on cold fusion and claim to be able to reliably replicate it. http://www.infinite-energy.com... http://www.e-catworld.com/2014...
When Google takes a long time to return a search result, is it because the Google servers are slow or because the universe simulation is deciding what the answer should be, including inventing a backstory?:-) Who is going to investigate that? And how?:-)
Also, as a counter example, does it really make a difference (in the short term to Earthly affairs) if there is just one galaxy of billions of them? Yet it is still somehow interesting to know and discuss that. Of course, that was based on verifiable observation. But no doubt there was speculation before that... http://amazing-space.stsci.edu... "In the early 1900s, astronomers were debating the makeup of spiral nebulae -- cloudy, spiral-shaped objects found throughout the night sky. Were they gas clouds located within our Milky Way galaxy, or were they vast groups of stars located far beyond our galaxy?
In 1919, American astronomer Edwin Hubble tackled the question. His keen astronomical knowledge was combined with a powerful tool - the Hooker telescope with its 100-inch mirror, on top of Mount Wilson in Cal
Just one universe is vastly beyond human imagination in detail to the point of nonsense (except as an abstraction or seen through analogy to something small like a bubble). So, if we accept that things are immensely larger than our local surroundings (perhaps infinitely so beyond the "observable universe"), why should it really make a difference how big a metaverse is in space, time, and variation or entropy, energy, and information? Anything times infinity is infinity (except maybe zero). It's not like someone is paying a bill for AWS EC2 instances for each simulated universe, is it? Or maybe it is on some level?
See also: http://refspace.com/quotes/Dou... --- "Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Good points, including your other post on Metametatrons (and I appreciate the several comments from others as well). However, consider this poem I wrote a while back, which circles the mystery of consciousness, intelligence, and the universe and also rebuts "nothing-but-ness": http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ---- The circle of knowledge, a poem by Paul D. Fernhout
All philosophy is anthropology;
All anthropology is psychology;
All psychology is biology;
All biology is chemistry;
All chemistry is physics;
All physics is math;
All math is philosophy.:-)
Great point. I was in a PhD program in Ecology and Evolution, and also have written several computers simulations, and I have known about Fredkin's "the universe is a simulation" ideas since the 1980s. As I said before in some Slashdot posts, if you are serious about scientific skepticism, you have to admit is is possible we live in a simulation that has only been running for 6000 (or whatever) simulated years, and was started either from a check pointed version or started from some hand-crafted parameters and data files. Creators of such hand-crafted environments might perhaps be assisted by guided evolutionary processes like used in our PlantStudio 3D software or EvoJazz musical software, where a user picks from a set of variations over and over again to craft something (and originally inspired by Richard Dawkins "Blind Watchmaker" software). Using such tools may muddy the waters of what a "generation" means though, and it also seems likely organisms evolved together to produce their complex interrelationships in ecological webs.
In any case, the universe might be a simulation. It might even just be a game we stepped into for an afternoon, with artificial memories implanted as in some Star Trek Holodeck scenarios. And we may not know until it is over (if then, if our consciousness persists). And even then, how many levels of nesting and branching are they in a multiverse of universes? Maybe C.S. Lewis was right, when characters feel at the end of the Narnia novels that a better heaven even closer to "God" somehow remains "ever inward, ever upward"? Still, does God have a God? And so on? If so, do they all agree on what morality should be in a consistent way? Or is it just turtles some or all the way up and we need to make a morality that promotes life and community? Or is it just exactly the way some specific version of the Christian Bible say, and the fossil record and geological record is a test of faith?
All that said, on a practical basis we can see evolutionary processes happening all around us (like with the flu virus mutating every year or bacteria become antibiotic resistant over time). As I said above, even if the universe was designed and only running for 6000 simulated years, evolutionary processes may have been be part of tools used to help make it. The fossil record may indeed have been placed there as a test of faith, and yet, would such a god be worthy of worship except out of fear? So, on a practical basis, we have to work with a lot of assumptions about a vast universe in age, extent, and complexity where evolutionary processes are important -- while at the same time honoring the mystery of it all, especially the mystery of consciousness we dwell in every second.
The universe might also have been run for a long time up to a check point (like getting Linux set up nicely in VirtualBox) and then might just be run endlessly from that checkpoint. I'm not sure how "old" that would make this current run of the universe simulation then if the run was started only 6000 simulated years ago, but the check pointed version it was started from was let run for 14 billion simulated years before that?
Anyway, just various interesting speculations on the great mystery which probably is way beyond human-brain-sized comprehending. It is the height of hubris to think we really can understand the universe of universes in
How does rift compare to a good novel?
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From: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03... "The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated. Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto (and a published novelist), has proposed that reading produces a vivid simulation of reality, one that âoeruns on minds of readers just as computer simulations run on computers.â Fiction â" with its redolent details, imaginative metaphors and attentive descriptions of people and their actions â" offers an especially rich replica. Indeed, in one respect novels go beyond simulating reality to give readers an experience unavailable off the page: the opportunity to enter fully into other peopleâ(TM)s thoughts and feelings. The novel, of course, is an unequaled medium for the exploration of human social and emotional life. And there is evidence that just as the brain responds to depictions of smells and textures and movements as if they were the real thing, so it treats the interactions among fictional characters as something like real-life social encounters."
I'm not saying choose one or the other. I'm just asking, overall, at its best, and perhaps after the novelty has worn off, how does the level of engagement compare between immerse VR and a good "page turner" novel? Which do you feel better about afterwards?
... also contribute to the burden by making it harder to excrete heavy metals and things like bromine and fluoride. So, with people in the USA spending more time indoors and eating bread with brominated dough conditioners instead of iodine ones (a change from the 1970s).
From: http://www.environmentalhealth... "Vitamin D performs a number of biological functions that are important for neurodevelopment, including promoting cell division and protecting against neurotoxins."
And: http://articles.mercola.com/si... "When you ingest or absorb bromine, it displaces iodine, and this iodine deficiency leads to an increased risk for cancer of the breast, thyroid gland, ovary and prostate -- cancers that we see at alarmingly high rates today. This phenomenon is significant enough to have been given its own name -- the Bromide Dominance Theory. Aside from its effects on your endocrine glands, bromine is toxic in and of itself. Bromide builds up in your central nervous system and results in many problems. It is a central nervous system depressant and can trigger a number of psychological symptoms such as acute paranoia and other psychotic symptoms.... You probably are not aware of this, but nearly every time you eat bread in a restaurant or consume a hamburger or hotdog bun you are consuming bromide, as it is commonly used in flours. The use of potassium bromate as an additive to commercial breads and baked goods has been a huge contributor to bromide overload in Western cultures.... The Japanese consume 89 times more iodine than Americans due to their daily consumption of sea vegetables, and they have reduced rates of many chronic diseases, including the lowest rates of cancer in the world. The RDA for iodine in the U.S. is a meager 150 mcg/day, which pales in comparison with the average daily intake of 13800 mcg/day for the Japanese...."
Very insightful! The Culture series is great for exploring these ides and clashes.
And on your water example, there was an episode in Star Trek: Voyager where Neelix is first introduced and he considers water a rare luxury. There is a a funny scene onboard Voyager where he surrounds himself with glasses of water the way we today might surround ourselves with gold and diamonds and i7 cores. But as you said, Neelix did not then drink himself to death, and he went on to find other useful and interesting things to do with his time. http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik...
See also James P. Hogan's "Voyage From Yesteryear" (VFY) sci-fi novel which has a gift economy in it where people acquire status by being good at something and using it for the public benefit. There is a clash of cultures there (one from old Earth similar to ours today) which includes a scene where some aristrocratic person in the old culture is going on about how fine some new silverware or something is (the old status system in play) when the two people she is trying to impress know such things could be had just for the asking in the new culture (which is powered by fusion energy and automated production lines). I think VFY really addresses the culture shock of the transition, something so brilliant I did not recognize how insightful it was when I first read the novel, thinking instead how silly that the old Earthlings could not get that things have changed and abundance is there for the asking. Sadly, I know see how prescient James P. Hogan was. http://p2pfoundation.net/Voyag... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V... http://www.baenebooks.com/chap...
So I'll quote this here at length: https://web.archive.org/web/20... ----- An Earth set well into the next century is going through one of its periodical crises politically, and it looks as if this time they might really press the button for the Big One. If it happens, the only chance for our species to survive would be by preserving a sliver of itself elsewhere, which in practical terms means another star, since nothing closer is readily habitable. There isn't time to organize a manned expedition of such scope from scratch. However, a robot exploratory vessel is under construction to make the first crossing to the Centauri system, and it with a crash program it would be possible to modify the designs to carry sets of human genetic data coded electronically. Additionally, a complement of incubator/nanny/tutor robots can be included, able to convert the electronic data back into chemistry and raise/educate the ensuing offspring while others prepare surface habitats and supporting infrastructure, when a habitable world is discovered. By the time we meet the "Chironians," their culture is into its fifth generation.
In the meantime, Earth went through a dodgy period, but managed in the end to muddle through. The fun begins when a generation ship housing a population of thousands arrives to "reclaim" the colony on behalf of the repressive, authoritarian regime that emerged following the crisis period. The Mayflower II brings with it all the tried and tested apparatus for bringing a recalcitrant population to heel: authority, with its power structure and symbolism, to impress; commercial institutions with the promise of wealth and possessions, to tempt and ensnare; a religious presence, to awe and instill duty and obedience; and if all else fails, armed military force to compe
Despite what I wrote, one thing that would drive people insane is probably robots that did not allow them to do anything, as in this 1947 sci-fi story I first saw mentioned on Slashdot a year or two ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...
We already see that with various state institutions that take over various functions (including education), and people complain greatly about it (especially US conservatives). Here is John Talylor Gatto talking about "Schooling as a form of adoption": http://www.the-open-boat.com/G...
One other point, most work in our society has already disassociated labor from the product, given all the complexity of modern supply chains and also that so many people now work in "services" which can be pretty abstract.
Anyway, I'm sure there will remain challenges... Even if just to get around the helpful robots... A gilded cage is still a cage, and a bird in a cage can not escape from potentially deadly fumes..
I don't think the lack of challenge will be an issue anytime in the next 50 years, but in 1000s of years to come, depending on how things go, and with very advanced robotics, it might have to be revisited... Although, if most sentient creatures are robots eventually, then it is perhaps their welfare that might be of most interest in absolute terms. So, lots of uncertainties remain depending what paths we choose or drift into.
AC wrote: "A post-scarcity society, where labor becomes decoupled from the product, would result in a society of manically depressed people who are simply to bored to live."
People keep saying variants of this, and there may even be some truth to it for some US Americans whose whole notion of self-esteem has come to be associated with their job or their income. However, in general, being a good parent (or grandparent), a good neighbor, a good friend, a good volunteer, and a good citizen and informed voter can take about as much time as people can put into it. So, I think people who suggest this probably have little experience trying to actively do those sorts of things to any great extent (especially parenting young children).
As another counter-example, young children are able to keep themselves amused with something a s simple as a cardboard box. Also, as yet another counter-example, most people used to have to be farmers (90% 200 years ago), but now that essentially nobody (2%) is a farmer in the US, gardening is the most popular outdoor hobby. Likewise, now what manufacturing jobs are going away (down from about 35% to 15% over the past 50 years), the Maker movement is resurging and people are playing with Arduino and home 3D printers.
Many people can find endless things to do for personal reasons if they want to and are not already beaten down by some oppressive regime (and often even if they were, and have time and support to recuperate). In your own example, you point out older people taking different approaches to free time. If someone is feeling ill and listless amidst abundance and free time, it is more likely due to lack of vitamin D, lack of adequate iodine, lack of Omega 3s, lack of enough fruits and vegetables, lack of enough sleep, lack of enough exercise, lack of enough community, too much junk food, too much of other addictive stuff, etc..
Look at it this way -- as Marshall Sahlin's wrote, hunter/gatherers worked short hours (with little supervision) and were the original "affluent society". So, some of this would just be returning to the better parts of that model. http://www.eco-action.org/dt/a... "Reports on hunters and gatherers of the ethnological present-specifically on those in marginal environments suggest a mean of three to five hours per adult worker per day in food production. Hunters keep banker's hours, notably less than modern industrial workers (unionised), who would surely settle for a 21-35 hour week."
Still, it is true that a nation of schooled individuals, taught always to do what they are told and only what they are told, may have trouble making the transition back to freedom and self-direction. https://www.johntaylorgatto.co... "I'll bring this down to earth. Try to see that an intricately subordinated industrial/commercial system has only limited use for hundreds of millions of self-reliant, resourceful readers and critical thinkers. In an egalitarian, entrepreneurially based economy of confederated families like the one the Amish have or the Mondragon folk in the Basque region of Spain, any number of self-reliant people can be accommodated usefully, but not in a concentrated command-type economy like our own. Where on earth would they fit?"
And it seems true that challenge, mastery, and purpose are essential to true motivation (see Dan Pink's RSA Animate talk on motivation). The question is, in a world of robots than can do everything humans can and more, will humans still find challenge, mastery and purpose? "RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
I suggest they will, at the very least by raising children, learning new skills, being social, and making their own fun. However, even Iain Banks in the Culture Series has to invent a "Special Circumstances" group for people who wanted a big
On your question, I guess there is a big difference between "wants" and "needs". It's true they shade into each other though, so it is not black and white. It also depends on context and culture. http://frugalliving.about.com/...
Also, they could easily give that guy his own star ship on a Holodeck (or via some direct brain stimulation that would be even cheaper), and he may never have noticed unless they told him (as with Moriarity in "Ship in a Bottle"). Of course, if the universe is a simulation, we all may be in that situation already: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik... http://www.simulation-argument...
Qualititative difference from big quantitative one
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To agree with your point to some extent, I think Elysium (the movie set partially in a space habitat) would have been a much better film if Jodi Foster as a villain had made the point that the solar system would be "full" in 1000 years of unchecked growth, and so as a matter of policy, the "unworthy" breeders on Earth had to be kept down and away from Elysium. I'm not saying I'd agree, but it would have provided a justification of her actions on a larger scale -- a justification very similar to that made by many wealthy people today or in years gone by.
"Scientists have created the ultimate GM crop: contraceptive corn.... The company, which says it will not grow the maize near other crops, says it plans to launch clinical trials of the corn in a few months." http://www.theguardian.com/sci...
Or maybe I've just watched too much "Star Gate: SG1"?:-) http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki... "The Aschen's intentions were eventually uncovered when members of SG-1 unearthed the remains of what used to be a thriving urban civilization on the Volian world, learning that the Aschen's Anti-aging vaccine had the effect of sterilizing the entire population, after which they were wiped out."
Robots, Terrafoam, and contraceptives in the water is probably more reliable though, as Marshall Brain envisioned in "Manna": http://marshallbrain.com/manna... "I replied, "We could change it now. Robots are doing all the work. Human beings -- all human beings -- could now be on perpetual vacation. That's what bugs me. If society had been designed for it somehow, we could all be on vacation instead of on welfare. Everyone on the planet could be living in luxury. Instead, they are planning to kill us off. Did you hear that women were trying to drink the water out of the river? Some people think they're putting contraceptives in the water.""
That reflects and aspect of my sig: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity."
It may well be the case that there are always current limits. Perhaps everyone can't have their own private Caribbean island (yet, but maybe someday via SeaSteading or HoloDecks). There may always be some level of competition, including as young men and women struggle to show off for potential mates. But as a society we can shape how those competitive urges are directed to some extent, like James P. Hogan talked about in "Voyage from Yesteryear".
Still, there is a huge difference between people going hungry and being forced to take jobs they do not want versus people who can eat what they want and choose to spend their time how they want (subject to what other people are willing to do together with them). There may be many levels of abundance, but it seems that such a change in people being able to choose how to spend most of their waking hours without a direct need to earn money, such as via basic income, may be the biggest one.
Rethinking the nature of "work" for post-scarcity
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"Our society has become massively automated compared to the middle ages. And we have 25 times the world population now. Yet we still have plenty of jobs; I'd wager that employment as a percentage is much higher today. This seems to contradict the idea that we will ever come to a point that automation will reduce jobs permanently."
See Bob Black: http://www.whywork.org/rethink... "I don't suggest that most work is salvageable in this way. But then most work isn't worth trying to save. Only a small and diminishing fraction of work serves any useful purpose independent of the defense and reproduction of the work-system and its political and legal appendages. Twenty years ago, Paul and Percival Goodman estimated that just five percent of the work then being done -- presumably the figure, if accurate, is lower now -- would satisfy our minimal needs for food, clothing and shelter. Theirs was only an educated guess but the main point is quite clear: directly or indirectly, most work serves the unproductive purposes of commerce or social control. Right off the bat we can liberate tens of millions of salesmen, soldiers, managers, cops, stockbrokers, clergymen, bankers, lawyers, teachers, landlords, security guards, ad-men and everyone who works for them. There is a snowball effect since every time you idle some bigshot you liberate his flunkies and underlings also. Thus the economy implodes."
On the other hand, we all need to do meaningful things. That includes for many people having time to be a good parent, friend, neighbor, volunteer, or citizen -- something ignored by an emphasis on paid labor. There are at least five major types of economic transaction: subsistence, gift, exchange, panned, and theft; the issue is the balance between them for a particular civilization.
See also E.F. Schumacher' essay "Buddhist Economics" for another take on things: http://neweconomy.net/publicat... "The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless. To organise work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence. Equally, to strive for leisure as an alternative to work would be considered a complete misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure."
Consider, for example, this point by an AC in another article from today on why engineers go into management: http://developers.slashdot.org... "Most of us who love engineering, find it impossible to love our work (extreme time pressure, a 600% workload, often having to abandon/throw away things you love... kinda kills any enthusiasm for the next thing management tells you to do). Management comes as a relief, and you can enjoy coding on your free time."
Consider how true motivation for intellectual tasks comes from a combination of challenge, mastery, and purpose, as Dan Pink says: "RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
The thing that makes many jobs unpleasant is lack of control over how they are done, lack of resourc
Hopefully culture can redirect scarcity drives?
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See James P. Hogan's 1982 sci-fi novel Voyage from Yesteryear. Or any of my own numerous postings.
Not enough time right now to respond to all the great things people are discussing here. Glad to see so many posts on this topic. And the original topic by an investor.
After all, when you look at the Earth from space, you see mostly nitrogen, oxygen, and water vapor. It's always a problem to infer the interior of something from what you see on the outside (as in, you can't judge a book by its cover). The proposed LENR (Cold Fusion) physics, perhaps along with some notion of quantum decay of nuclei leading to outgassed hydrogen (my suggestion), could provide a way that a sun (or planet, including the Earth) made of mostly nickel and iron could produce a lot of internal heat from LENR.
What other surprises lay in store for physics? Could it be "hot fusion" that does not exist most places we expect it, considering all the billions of dollars spent over decades that have failed to replicate it?:-)
"Mass surveillance is inevitable to any industrialized country. Which is why all countries with any technological sophistication have it. To think that one can 'fight' it to any real degree is like thinking one can 'fight' indoor plumbing or mass electrification."
Sad, but true. Still, political plays a role in the outcome of all this in terms of what sort of world we want to build together.
The bottom line -- read David Brin's "Transparent Society", read Theodore Sturgeon's 1952 "The Skills of Xanadu" about the meaning of privacy in a mobile networked world, read James P. Hogan's "Voyage from Yesteryear" and think about how we can transcend our society to some new healthier form. There are links to all those in my previous posts. It is so sad that with all this mindbogglingly powerful technology the main use we can think for it at first is to create artificial scarcity and kill each other with it. So sad. That is ultimately a moral issue requiring new ways of thinking, like Albert Einstein suggested after the development of atomic technology: http://www.anwot.org/
We need to accept we have powerful technologies relative to classical human needs and rethink fundamental issues of our society accordingly, such as moving beyond artificial scarcity and moving towards a basic level of abundance for all (which would include more time for voluntary civic participation instead of endless overwork at mostly pointless activities related to preserving a scarcity-based status quo). http://www.whywork.org/rethink... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... http://marshallbrain.com/manna...
Some humor by me on is at the end of this post, a parody of the "bunker scene", where this time Hitler confronts post-scarcity ideas: http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...
Any movement that relies on secrecy to succeed is pretty much a non-starter, even in times of less technology like the 1950s Civil Rights movement. The push for encryption against the government by technologists is similar to the argument that handguns will somehow stop government corruption or fascism. It is not going to work. What will work is broad social change done through democratic processes. "What Social Science Can Tell Us About Social Change" http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...
Or as I've said before: "As I see it, there is a race going on. The race is between two trends. On the one hand, the internet can be used to profile and round up dissenters to the scarcity-based economic status quo (thus legitimate worries about privacy and something like TIA). On the other hand, the internet can be used to change the status quo in various ways (better designs, better science, stronger social networks advocating for things like a basic income, all supported by better structured arguments like with the Genoa II approach) to the point where there is abundance for all and rounding up dissenters to mainstream economics is a non-issue because material abundance is everywhere. So, as Bucky Fuller said, whether is will be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go r
Example, by a priest (Msgr. Charles Pope): http://blog.adw.org/2010/05/th... "The Problem of Privacy: God is Watching... And So Are Many Others!...
There is a second sense however in which I use the the phrase the "Problem of Privacy." In a very important way we must remember that there has never been anything private about our life to God. He sees everything. He is the searcher of minds and hearts. The Book of Hebrews says that to him everything lies naked and exposed (Heb 4:13). No thought, deliberation or action of ours is hidden from God. One of the problems of the modern age is that we are too easily forgetful of the fact that God witnesses everything we do....
So, absolute privacy is an illusion. We may well be able to carve out some privacy from one another and well we should. But we should not seek privacy from God nor can we. There is something increasingly medicinal about practicing the presence of God. The more we experience that God is present and watching the more we accept him on his own terms and do not try to reinvent him, them more we do this the more our behavior can be reformed. A little salutary fear can be medicinal while we wait for the more perfect motive of love to drive out sin.
What I am ultimately saying is that too much demand for privacy can also be a problem. In the end the Lord intends for us to live in community where we are accountable to others. Some degree of accountability and transparency is helpful and necessary for us. It is clear that there are significant problems with the erosion of our privacy today. We ought to continue to insist that proper boundaries should be respected. However we should also remember that some demands for privacy are unrealistic. At some level we simply need to accept that the being online is the same as being in public with your name tag on. That's just the way it is, so behave yourself. You might change your name on-line but guess what, it's really those little numbers that identify you. Mine are: 76.1**.3*.6*5 (I have put asterisks as a form of non-disclosure there are acutal numbers in the place of them). Where-ever I go those little numbers say it's me even if I lie about the fact that its me. Now we may lament this but I think it is better simply to say, when I am on-line I am in public with a name tag on. There is nothing private about Internet or e-mail or texting or anything else that uses the public airways, or communication lines. That's just the way it is and knowing this can be salutary.
Finding the proper balance between our public and private lives can be difficult. Surely privacy is to be insisted upon in many cases. But it is also true that overly expansive assumptions of privacy are neither possible nor always healthy. Being in public will always be a necessary part of our life and being aware when we are in public is important. You are in public right now because you are on-line...."
If you've been raised in any kind of deeply religious household (whether you still believe the dogma as an adult), the above concept of lack of privacy (from God) was ingrained in you from an early age. You were expected to act uprightly at all times -- and, as in Catholicism, regularly confess otherwise. I wonder how much that affects a person's expectations then about privacy on the internet or acceptance of a lack thereof?
Also, if you grow up in a big family, privacy is in practice hard to find (privacy from other family members, even if family members may sometimes protect your "privacy" from outsiders). Same for those living in small towns (including perhaps college towns).
For those who believe our universe is a simulation, there is also effectively no "privacy" -- any more than a simulated sprite in "Driver: San Franciso" or "Minecraft" has privacy relative to the player (including a player with
As I suggest here: http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-d... "Our biggest advantage is that no one takes us seriously.:-)
And our second biggest advantage is that our communications are monitored, which provides a channel by which we can turn enemies into friends.:-)
And our third biggest advantage is we have no assets, and so are not a profitable target and have nothing serious to fight over amongst ourselves.:-)
Let's hope those advantages all hold true for a long time.:-)...
As I see it, there is a race going on. The race is between two trends. On the one hand, the internet can be used to profile and round up dissenters to the scarcity-based economic status quo (thus legitimate worries about privacy and something like TIA). On the other hand, the internet can be used to change the status quo in various ways (better designs, better science, stronger social networks advocating for things like a basic income, all supported by better structured arguments like with the Genoa II approach) to the point where there is abundance for all and rounding up dissenters to mainstream economics is a non-issue because material abundance is everywhere. So, as Bucky Fuller said, whether is will be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race to the very end. While I can't guarantee success at the second option of using the internet for abundance for all, I can guarantee that if we do nothing, the first option of using the internet to round up dissenters (or really, anybody who is different, like was done using IBM computers in WWII Germany) will probably prevail. So, I feel the global public really needs access to these sorts of sensemaking tools in an open source way, and the way to use them is not so much to "fight back" as to "transform and/or transcend the system". As Bucky Fuller said, you never change thing by fighting the old paradigm directly; you change things by inventing a new way that makes the old paradigm obsolete....
As with that notion of "mutual security", the US intelligence community needs to look beyond seeing an intelligence tool as just something proprietary that gives a "friendly" analyst some advantage over an "unfriendly" analyst. Instead, the intelligence community could begin to see the potential for a free and open source intelligence tool as a way to promote "friendship" across the planet by dispelling some of the gloom of "want and ignorance" (see the scene in "A Christmas Carol" with Scrooge and a Christmas Spirit) that we still have all too much of around the planet. So, beyond supporting legitimate US intelligence needs (useful with their own closed sources of data), supporting a free and open source intelligence tool (and related open datasets) could become a strategic part of US (or other nation's) "diplomacy" and constructive outreach."
Communist!:-) "Keith Rankin's Thursday Column - Where communism succeeded and capitalism failed" http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories... "The programme revealed that we - ie humankind - had discovered a superior cure (to antibiotics) for bacterial infections around the same time that penicillin was being discovered. The research programme on bacteriophages (phages for short) began in Stalin's Georgia in the 1930s. To this day, our knowledge of each of the many thousands of phage viruses remains concentrated in a now rundown laboratory in Tbilisi, Georgia. The arrival of capitalism in the Caucuses threatens a repository of knowledge, built up over 50 years, that could prevent the superbug pandemic that threatens us all next century....
Western capitalism has another kind of correctness that can be at least as disabling; a correctness based on profit, and an unwillingness to check the growth of an industry that is too lucrative to too many people. The story of antibiotics is becoming one of those stories....
Another problem is that western capitalism is too much entwined in the English language. The literature on phage remedies was mostly in Russian. It's hard enough to get Anglo-Saxon western scientists to read in French, let alone Russian. After all, "reputable journals" are in English, are they no t?
While there are some genuine reasons why phage treatments of bacterial diseases were overlooked in the 1930s and 1940s, the failure to develop a western research program into bacteriophage treatment in the 1980s and 1990s represents an inexcusable failure of western capitalism. By the 1980s, ther e could be no denial that antibiotic resistance was going to be a major problem in (if not before) the twentyfirst century. Yet, we just didn't want to know about what will probably turn out to be the most important medical breakthrough in the twentieth century; a breakthrough made in communist G eorgia, in Stalin's Soviet Union.
It is embarrassing when western science is out-trumped, especially by the "communists". Usually, when out-trumped, we don't tell anyone. That's what happened here. Not only did we not have the nous to start a western programme in bacteriophage research; we looked the other way when the files of phials threatened to be destroyed following the breakup of the Soviet Union, and during the little reported civil war that engulfed Georgia a few years ago. So much for the knowledge economies of the west. How can such valuable knowledge be so cheap?
It's not too late for western medicine to enter the post-antibiotic bacteriophage era. Our grandchildren will hardly thank us if we persevere with our corporate-profit-motivated conservatism.
The Soviets were able, eventually, to admit that they were wrong to follow Lysenko. Will we in the west be equally able to admit that we were wrong to put all our medical eggs into the one antibiotic basket, in the process ignoring the most basic tenets of the theory of evolution?"
The US focus on organizing an economy more and more around "artificial scarcity" enforced by police, military, and political power is unlikely to end well...
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks. :-) Wish all this stuff did not have to be said though... Yes, I too wish I had known it all sooner.
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teach...
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books...
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com...
http://www.the-open-boat.com/G...
http://www.newciv.org/whole/sc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
So much of the discussion of schooling misses the deeper point about the horrible legacy of "Prussian Schooling" and the enormous cost of it in diminished psyches. More humane lternatives are possible.
From the first link above: ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .""
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"From Degrading to De-Grading"
"You can tell a lot about a teacher's values and personality just by asking how he or she feels about giving grades. Some defend the practice, claiming that grades are necessary to "motivate" students. Many of these teachers actually seem to enjoy keeping intricate records of students' marks. Such teachers periodically warn students that they're "going to have to know this for the test" as a way of compelling them to pay attention or do the assigned readings - and they may even use surprise quizzes for that purpose, keeping their grade books at the ready.
Frankly, we ought to be worried for these teachers' students. In my experience, the most impressive teachers are those who despise the whole process of giving grades. Their aversion, as it turns out, is supported by solid evidence that raises questions about the very idea of traditional grading.
1. Grades tend to reduce students' interest in the learning itself.
2. Grades tend to reduce students' preference for challenging tasks.
3. Grades tend to reduce the quality of students' thinking.
4. Grades aren't valid, reliable, or objective.
5. Grades distort the curriculum.
6. Grades waste a lot of time that could be spent on learning.
7. Grades encourage cheating.
8. Grades spoil teachers' relationships with students.
9. Grades spoil students' relationships with each other.
Most of us are directly acquainted with at least some of these disturbing consequences of grades, yet we continue to reduce students to letters or numbers on a regular basis. Perhaps we've become inured to these effects and take them for granted. This is the way it's always been, we assume, and the way it has to be. It's rather like people who have spent all their lives in a terribly polluted city and have come to assume that this is just the way air looks - and that it's natural to be coughing all the time.
Oddly, when educators are shown that it doesn't have to be this way, some react with suspicion instead of relief. They want to know why you're making trouble, or they assert that you're exaggerating the negative effects of grades (it's really not so bad - cough, cough), or they dismiss proven alternatives to grading on the grounds that our school could never do what others schools have done.
The practical difficulties of abolishing letter grades are real. But the key question is whether those difficulties are seen as problems to be solved or as excuses for perpetuating the status quo. The logical response to the arguments and data summarized here is to say: "Good heavens! If even half of this is true, then it's imperative we do whatever we can, as soon as we can, to phase out traditional grading." Yet many people begin and end with the problems of implementation, responding to all this evidence by saying, in effect, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but we'll never get rid of grades because . .
That all may well have some truth. Also, many decades ago, social roles and courtship procedures were more clearly defined (as "manners", and also religious systems). So, it may have been easier back then for Aspies to marry at a younger age with less unstructured social situations to navigate?
Still, another factor could be that vitamin D deficiency may also cause autism, and I wonder if older parents may spend less time outdoors in the sun and so have their young child outdoors less? Older skin also has more trouble making vitamin D. And certainly many Aspies may have intense indoor hobbies and jobs.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org...
http://www.psychologytoday.com...
This recent study somewhat questions the link through for mothers and kids though (except they cite the population mean which itself seems to be low, which may confound the study IMHO):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...
Contrast with supplements needed to adjust for our indoor lifestyle:
http://www.grassrootshealth.ne...
Maybe also of interest on the implications of living in a world with so many artificial toxins in the air and food (like lead and artificial colors) -- where a lack of things like vitamin D and iodine make it harder for kids to deal with the toxins:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Anyway, a complex topic, with pros and cons about everything relative to different situations.
That's a great distinction; thank you. I'll need to think about that.
So true. But DNA security is more that an issue of privacy. In the near future, understanding the human genome will make possible developing bioweapons targeted at individuals (with collateral damage) as well as bioweapons that could probably kill all humans exposed to the pathogen (like Ebola). We have, up to now, been protected by the obscurity and complexity of the issue. With advanced computers, vast data collection, and improved scientific understanding, creating individual and global bioweapons will become college-level biochemistry. Maybe not this decade, but probably within several decades (my guesstimate). In that sense, the movie GATTACA was a utopian fantasy, because people did not live in fear of apocalypse every day given everyone's DNA was known precisely and used for identification.
For current trends, consider recent US government activities (but other countries might do it too):
"U.S. Chases Foreign Leaders' DNA, WikiLeaks Shows"
http://www.wired.com/dangerroo...
"State Department representatives didn't immediately respond to questions about why diplomats need to acquire DNA and other biometric data on foreigners, what State does with any biometric information it gets, or how long the department retains it."
And also:
http://www.theatlantic.com/mag...
"The U.S. government is surreptitiously collecting the DNA of world leaders, and is reportedly protecting that of Barack Obama. Decoded, these genetic blueprints could provide compromising information. In the not-too-distant future, they may provide something more as well--the basis for the creation of personalized bioweapons that could take down a president and leave no trace. "
Unlike private encryption keys for a computer system, or a lock and key for your front door, you can't easily change your DNA if someone else gets a sample of it (like from a used drinking glass). In fact, so far, you can't significantly change your DNA at all. And the fact is, probably almost every citizen in the Western world already has taken some kind of medical test where potentially, if archived, their specific DNA would be available. So, we are probably already all compromised..
So, sadly, this trend towards increased genetic understanding may eventually mean the end of human day-to-day living as we know it in the near future (if not actual life). Individually targeted weapons are actually a lesser worry. Imagine a vast plague launched by some genetic-script kiddy showing off how "1eet" they are. Imagine a flu season where just everyone who gets it dies a few weeks after seemingly getting well -- and where everyone gets it. Or imagine perhaps 10 bad flu seasons in a row year after year, each with 30% mortality like the black plague.
Remember, unlike computer viruses, you can't right now just issue a patch for human DNA. And even if you could, the patch itself might be deadly. So avoidance may be the only option if the virus has been specifically designed to target some newly discovered human weakness in all human DNA.
Of course, we face similar risks in theory with nanotechnology, and groups like the Foresight Institute have discussed them. But, nanotechnology in the form of sophisticated mobile nanobots is still theoretical. Biotechnology and disease is a reality of our every day lives.
Preventing this risk of a 100% fatal designer plague would probably mean changing large aspects of how we live. This might include living in air-tight Biosphere-II-like structures and/or space habitats. Could it be that human tribalism and sparring at borders had evolutionary adaptive value to keep tribes mostly isolated to prevent disease transmission? Perhaps things might even go so far as never being in the physical presence of another human being and never receiving a physical object including food from outside your enclosure (
Good point on asking what's the noticeable difference. Although sometimes we don't notice a difference until we go looking for it. That may require imagination first -- or it might involve taking facts previously stumbled upon and ignored and discarded and arranging them in some new way. For example. as mentioned on slashdot recently:
http://science.slashdot.org/st...
From the article linked in the story: "And here is the rub: the culturally shaped analytic/individualistic mind-sets may partly explain why Western researchers have so dramatically failed to take into account the interplay between culture and cognition. In the end, the goal of boiling down human psychology to hardwiring is not surprising given the type of mind that has been designing the studies. Taking an object (in this case the human mind) out of its context is, after all, what distinguishes the analytic reasoning style prevalent in the West. Similarly, we may have underestimated the impact of culture because the very ideas of being subject to the will of larger historical currents and of unconsciously mimicking the cognition of those around us challenges our Western conception of the self as independent and self-determined. The historical missteps of Western researchers, in other words, have been the predictable consequences of the WEIRD mind doing the thinking."
Also along those lines, here is a book that discusses the systematic ignoring of observed homosexual behavior in animals by biologists for over a century:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
http://books.google.com/books/...
It turns out that most wildlife biologists for decades recorded their data to fit the assumption of heterosexuality in their studies. How many other times have scientists not seen (or reported) things that violate assumptions or cultural taboos? For example, look what happened with cold fusion. A quarter century ago, scientists funded by hot fusion grants claimed (after very little effort) that they could not replicate "cold fusion" and so it could not exist because it conflicted with current dogma, and the topic became verboten among academics. It could not be seen by most academics. Now, decades later, other MIT scientists teach a course on cold fusion and claim to be able to reliably replicate it.
http://www.infinite-energy.com...
http://www.e-catworld.com/2014...
When Google takes a long time to return a search result, is it because the Google servers are slow or because the universe simulation is deciding what the answer should be, including inventing a backstory? :-) Who is going to investigate that? And how? :-)
Also, as a counter example, does it really make a difference (in the short term to Earthly affairs) if there is just one galaxy of billions of them? Yet it is still somehow interesting to know and discuss that. Of course, that was based on verifiable observation. But no doubt there was speculation before that...
http://amazing-space.stsci.edu...
"In the early 1900s, astronomers were debating the makeup of spiral nebulae -- cloudy, spiral-shaped objects found throughout the night sky. Were they gas clouds located within our Milky Way galaxy, or were they vast groups of stars located far beyond our galaxy?
In 1919, American astronomer Edwin Hubble tackled the question. His keen astronomical knowledge was combined with a powerful tool - the Hooker telescope with its 100-inch mirror, on top of Mount Wilson in Cal
Just one universe is vastly beyond human imagination in detail to the point of nonsense (except as an abstraction or seen through analogy to something small like a bubble). So, if we accept that things are immensely larger than our local surroundings (perhaps infinitely so beyond the "observable universe"), why should it really make a difference how big a metaverse is in space, time, and variation or entropy, energy, and information? Anything times infinity is infinity (except maybe zero). It's not like someone is paying a bill for AWS EC2 instances for each simulated universe, is it? Or maybe it is on some level?
See also: http://refspace.com/quotes/Dou...
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"Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.
Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Good points, including your other post on Metametatrons (and I appreciate the several comments from others as well). However, consider this poem I wrote a while back, which circles the mystery of consciousness, intelligence, and the universe and also rebuts "nothing-but-ness":
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
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The circle of knowledge, a poem by Paul D. Fernhout
All philosophy is anthropology; :-)
All anthropology is psychology;
All psychology is biology;
All biology is chemistry;
All chemistry is physics;
All physics is math;
All math is philosophy.
So maybe only 32 bits are needed? :-) http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik...
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik...
Also great Star Trek on a Holodeck simulation confused with "reality":
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik...
Great point. I was in a PhD program in Ecology and Evolution, and also have written several computers simulations, and I have known about Fredkin's "the universe is a simulation" ideas since the 1980s. As I said before in some Slashdot posts, if you are serious about scientific skepticism, you have to admit is is possible we live in a simulation that has only been running for 6000 (or whatever) simulated years, and was started either from a check pointed version or started from some hand-crafted parameters and data files. Creators of such hand-crafted environments might perhaps be assisted by guided evolutionary processes like used in our PlantStudio 3D software or EvoJazz musical software, where a user picks from a set of variations over and over again to craft something (and originally inspired by Richard Dawkins "Blind Watchmaker" software). Using such tools may muddy the waters of what a "generation" means though, and it also seems likely organisms evolved together to produce their complex interrelationships in ecological webs.
In any case, the universe might be a simulation. It might even just be a game we stepped into for an afternoon, with artificial memories implanted as in some Star Trek Holodeck scenarios. And we may not know until it is over (if then, if our consciousness persists). And even then, how many levels of nesting and branching are they in a multiverse of universes? Maybe C.S. Lewis was right, when characters feel at the end of the Narnia novels that a better heaven even closer to "God" somehow remains "ever inward, ever upward"? Still, does God have a God? And so on? If so, do they all agree on what morality should be in a consistent way? Or is it just turtles some or all the way up and we need to make a morality that promotes life and community? Or is it just exactly the way some specific version of the Christian Bible say, and the fossil record and geological record is a test of faith?
Anyway, I hope considering the universe is a simulation helps more people move beyond a purely materialistic and "scientistic" view of the universe. There are so many interesting questions ignored, denied, or belittled by "materialistic scientism" (to use Charles Tart's phrasing).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
http://www.noetic.org/search/?...
All that said, on a practical basis we can see evolutionary processes happening all around us (like with the flu virus mutating every year or bacteria become antibiotic resistant over time). As I said above, even if the universe was designed and only running for 6000 simulated years, evolutionary processes may have been be part of tools used to help make it. The fossil record may indeed have been placed there as a test of faith, and yet, would such a god be worthy of worship except out of fear? So, on a practical basis, we have to work with a lot of assumptions about a vast universe in age, extent, and complexity where evolutionary processes are important -- while at the same time honoring the mystery of it all, especially the mystery of consciousness we dwell in every second.
The universe might also have been run for a long time up to a check point (like getting Linux set up nicely in VirtualBox) and then might just be run endlessly from that checkpoint. I'm not sure how "old" that would make this current run of the universe simulation then if the run was started only 6000 simulated years ago, but the check pointed version it was started from was let run for 14 billion simulated years before that?
Anyway, just various interesting speculations on the great mystery which probably is way beyond human-brain-sized comprehending. It is the height of hubris to think we really can understand the universe of universes in
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03...
"The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated. Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto (and a published novelist), has proposed that reading produces a vivid simulation of reality, one that âoeruns on minds of readers just as computer simulations run on computers.â Fiction â" with its redolent details, imaginative metaphors and attentive descriptions of people and their actions â" offers an especially rich replica. Indeed, in one respect novels go beyond simulating reality to give readers an experience unavailable off the page: the opportunity to enter fully into other peopleâ(TM)s thoughts and feelings. The novel, of course, is an unequaled medium for the exploration of human social and emotional life. And there is evidence that just as the brain responds to depictions of smells and textures and movements as if they were the real thing, so it treats the interactions among fictional characters as something like real-life social encounters."
Also: http://oedb.org/ilibrarian/you...
I'm not saying choose one or the other. I'm just asking, overall, at its best, and perhaps after the novelty has worn off, how does the level of engagement compare between immerse VR and a good "page turner" novel? Which do you feel better about afterwards?
... also contribute to the burden by making it harder to excrete heavy metals and things like bromine and fluoride. So, with people in the USA spending more time indoors and eating bread with brominated dough conditioners instead of iodine ones (a change from the 1970s).
From: http://www.environmentalhealth...
"Vitamin D performs a number of biological functions that are important for neurodevelopment, including promoting cell division and protecting against neurotoxins."
And: http://articles.mercola.com/si... ... You probably are not aware of this, but nearly every time you eat bread in a restaurant or consume a hamburger or hotdog bun you are consuming bromide, as it is commonly used in flours. The use of potassium bromate as an additive to commercial breads and baked goods has been a huge contributor to bromide overload in Western cultures. ... The Japanese consume 89 times more iodine than Americans due to their daily consumption of sea vegetables, and they have reduced rates of many chronic diseases, including the lowest rates of cancer in the world. The RDA for iodine in the U.S. is a meager 150 mcg/day, which pales in comparison with the average daily intake of 13800 mcg/day for the Japanese. ..."
"When you ingest or absorb bromine, it displaces iodine, and this iodine deficiency leads to an increased risk for cancer of the breast, thyroid gland, ovary and prostate -- cancers that we see at alarmingly high rates today. This phenomenon is significant enough to have been given its own name -- the Bromide Dominance Theory. Aside from its effects on your endocrine glands, bromine is toxic in and of itself. Bromide builds up in your central nervous system and results in many problems. It is a central nervous system depressant and can trigger a number of psychological symptoms such as acute paranoia and other psychotic symptoms.
See also: http://drsircus.com/medicine/i...
So combine higher levels of toxins with a reduction in what the body needs to defend against them and you have a recipe for a health disaster.
Very insightful! The Culture series is great for exploring these ides and clashes.
And on your water example, there was an episode in Star Trek: Voyager where Neelix is first introduced and he considers water a rare luxury. There is a a funny scene onboard Voyager where he surrounds himself with glasses of water the way we today might surround ourselves with gold and diamonds and i7 cores. But as you said, Neelix did not then drink himself to death, and he went on to find other useful and interesting things to do with his time.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik...
See also James P. Hogan's "Voyage From Yesteryear" (VFY) sci-fi novel which has a gift economy in it where people acquire status by being good at something and using it for the public benefit. There is a clash of cultures there (one from old Earth similar to ours today) which includes a scene where some aristrocratic person in the old culture is going on about how fine some new silverware or something is (the old status system in play) when the two people she is trying to impress know such things could be had just for the asking in the new culture (which is powered by fusion energy and automated production lines). I think VFY really addresses the culture shock of the transition, something so brilliant I did not recognize how insightful it was when I first read the novel, thinking instead how silly that the old Earthlings could not get that things have changed and abundance is there for the asking. Sadly, I know see how prescient James P. Hogan was.
http://p2pfoundation.net/Voyag...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V...
http://www.baenebooks.com/chap...
Sadly, the late James P. Hogan's site seems to be down recently:
https://web.archive.org/web/20...
So I'll quote this here at length:
https://web.archive.org/web/20...
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An Earth set well into the next century is going through one of its periodical crises politically, and it looks as if this time they might really press the button for the Big One. If it happens, the only chance for our species to survive would be by preserving a sliver of itself elsewhere, which in practical terms means another star, since nothing closer is readily habitable. There isn't time to organize a manned expedition of such scope from scratch. However, a robot exploratory vessel is under construction to make the first crossing to the Centauri system, and it with a crash program it would be possible to modify the designs to carry sets of human genetic data coded electronically. Additionally, a complement of incubator/nanny/tutor robots can be included, able to convert the electronic data back into chemistry and raise/educate the ensuing offspring while others prepare surface habitats and supporting infrastructure, when a habitable world is discovered. By the time we meet the "Chironians," their culture is into its fifth generation.
In the meantime, Earth went through a dodgy period, but managed in the end to muddle through. The fun begins when a generation ship housing a population of thousands arrives to "reclaim" the colony on behalf of the repressive, authoritarian regime that emerged following the crisis period. The Mayflower II brings with it all the tried and tested apparatus for bringing a recalcitrant population to heel: authority, with its power structure and symbolism, to impress; commercial institutions with the promise of wealth and possessions, to tempt and ensnare; a religious presence, to awe and instill duty and obedience; and if all else fails, armed military force to compe
Despite what I wrote, one thing that would drive people insane is probably robots that did not allow them to do anything, as in this 1947 sci-fi story I first saw mentioned on Slashdot a year or two ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...
We already see that with various state institutions that take over various functions (including education), and people complain greatly about it (especially US conservatives). Here is John Talylor Gatto talking about "Schooling as a form of adoption": http://www.the-open-boat.com/G...
One other point, most work in our society has already disassociated labor from the product, given all the complexity of modern supply chains and also that so many people now work in "services" which can be pretty abstract.
Anyway, I'm sure there will remain challenges... Even if just to get around the helpful robots... A gilded cage is still a cage, and a bird in a cage can not escape from potentially deadly fumes..
I don't think the lack of challenge will be an issue anytime in the next 50 years, but in 1000s of years to come, depending on how things go, and with very advanced robotics, it might have to be revisited... Although, if most sentient creatures are robots eventually, then it is perhaps their welfare that might be of most interest in absolute terms. So, lots of uncertainties remain depending what paths we choose or drift into.
AC wrote: "A post-scarcity society, where labor becomes decoupled from the product, would result in a society of manically depressed people who are simply to bored to live."
People keep saying variants of this, and there may even be some truth to it for some US Americans whose whole notion of self-esteem has come to be associated with their job or their income. However, in general, being a good parent (or grandparent), a good neighbor, a good friend, a good volunteer, and a good citizen and informed voter can take about as much time as people can put into it. So, I think people who suggest this probably have little experience trying to actively do those sorts of things to any great extent (especially parenting young children).
As another counter-example, young children are able to keep themselves amused with something a s simple as a cardboard box. Also, as yet another counter-example, most people used to have to be farmers (90% 200 years ago), but now that essentially nobody (2%) is a farmer in the US, gardening is the most popular outdoor hobby. Likewise, now what manufacturing jobs are going away (down from about 35% to 15% over the past 50 years), the Maker movement is resurging and people are playing with Arduino and home 3D printers.
Many people can find endless things to do for personal reasons if they want to and are not already beaten down by some oppressive regime (and often even if they were, and have time and support to recuperate). In your own example, you point out older people taking different approaches to free time. If someone is feeling ill and listless amidst abundance and free time, it is more likely due to lack of vitamin D, lack of adequate iodine, lack of Omega 3s, lack of enough fruits and vegetables, lack of enough sleep, lack of enough exercise, lack of enough community, too much junk food, too much of other addictive stuff, etc..
Look at it this way -- as Marshall Sahlin's wrote, hunter/gatherers worked short hours (with little supervision) and were the original "affluent society". So, some of this would just be returning to the better parts of that model.
http://www.eco-action.org/dt/a...
"Reports on hunters and gatherers of the ethnological present-specifically on those in marginal environments suggest a mean of three to five hours per adult worker per day in food production. Hunters keep banker's hours, notably less than modern industrial workers (unionised), who would surely settle for a 21-35 hour week."
Still, it is true that a nation of schooled individuals, taught always to do what they are told and only what they are told, may have trouble making the transition back to freedom and self-direction.
https://www.johntaylorgatto.co...
"I'll bring this down to earth. Try to see that an intricately subordinated industrial/commercial system has only limited use for hundreds of millions of self-reliant, resourceful readers and critical thinkers. In an egalitarian, entrepreneurially based economy of confederated families like the one the Amish have or the Mondragon folk in the Basque region of Spain, any number of self-reliant people can be accommodated usefully, but not in a concentrated command-type economy like our own. Where on earth would they fit?"
And it seems true that challenge, mastery, and purpose are essential to true motivation (see Dan Pink's RSA Animate talk on motivation). The question is, in a world of robots than can do everything humans can and more, will humans still find challenge, mastery and purpose?
"RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
I suggest they will, at the very least by raising children, learning new skills, being social, and making their own fun. However, even Iain Banks in the Culture Series has to invent a "Special Circumstances" group for people who wanted a big
First, Star Trek meets circa 2000 Earthlings (YouTube): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
On your question, I guess there is a big difference between "wants" and "needs". It's true they shade into each other though, so it is not black and white. It also depends on context and culture.
http://frugalliving.about.com/...
Also, they could easily give that guy his own star ship on a Holodeck (or via some direct brain stimulation that would be even cheaper), and he may never have noticed unless they told him (as with Moriarity in "Ship in a Bottle"). Of course, if the universe is a simulation, we all may be in that situation already:
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wik...
http://www.simulation-argument...
To agree with your point to some extent, I think Elysium (the movie set partially in a space habitat) would have been a much better film if Jodi Foster as a villain had made the point that the solar system would be "full" in 1000 years of unchecked growth, and so as a matter of policy, the "unworthy" breeders on Earth had to be kept down and away from Elysium. I'm not saying I'd agree, but it would have provided a justification of her actions on a larger scale -- a justification very similar to that made by many wealthy people today or in years gone by.
"Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation"
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.u...
"Scientists have created the ultimate GM crop: contraceptive corn. ... The company, which says it will not grow the maize near other crops, says it plans to launch clinical trials of the corn in a few months."
http://www.theguardian.com/sci...
Seven years later: "New Study Links Genetically Engineered Corn to Infertility"
http://www.organicconsumers.or...
Or maybe I've just watched too much "Star Gate: SG1"? :-)
http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki...
"The Aschen's intentions were eventually uncovered when members of SG-1 unearthed the remains of what used to be a thriving urban civilization on the Volian world, learning that the Aschen's Anti-aging vaccine had the effect of sterilizing the entire population, after which they were wiped out."
Robots, Terrafoam, and contraceptives in the water is probably more reliable though, as Marshall Brain envisioned in "Manna":
http://marshallbrain.com/manna...
"I replied, "We could change it now. Robots are doing all the work. Human beings -- all human beings -- could now be on perpetual vacation. That's what bugs me. If society had been designed for it somehow, we could all be on vacation instead of on welfare. Everyone on the planet could be living in luxury. Instead, they are planning to kill us off. Did you hear that women were trying to drink the water out of the river? Some people think they're putting contraceptives in the water.""
That reflects and aspect of my sig: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those thinking in terms of scarcity."
It may well be the case that there are always current limits. Perhaps everyone can't have their own private Caribbean island (yet, but maybe someday via SeaSteading or HoloDecks). There may always be some level of competition, including as young men and women struggle to show off for potential mates. But as a society we can shape how those competitive urges are directed to some extent, like James P. Hogan talked about in "Voyage from Yesteryear".
Still, there is a huge difference between people going hungry and being forced to take jobs they do not want versus people who can eat what they want and choose to spend their time how they want (subject to what other people are willing to do together with them). There may be many levels of abundance, but it seems that such a change in people being able to choose how to spend most of their waking hours without a direct need to earn money, such as via basic income, may be the biggest one.
And there may be dark sides to it too, like the potential for addiction, alienation, and isolation that can come with a wealth of material objects and personal space. Related items:
http://europepmc.org/articles/...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
https://www.drfuhrman.com/libr...
"Our society has become massively automated compared to the middle ages. And we have 25 times the world population now. Yet we still have plenty of jobs; I'd wager that employment as a percentage is much higher today. This seems to contradict the idea that we will ever come to a point that automation will reduce jobs permanently."
See Bob Black: http://www.whywork.org/rethink...
"I don't suggest that most work is salvageable in this way. But then most work isn't worth trying to save. Only a small and diminishing fraction of work serves any useful purpose independent of the defense and reproduction of the work-system and its political and legal appendages. Twenty years ago, Paul and Percival Goodman estimated that just five percent of the work then being done -- presumably the figure, if accurate, is lower now -- would satisfy our minimal needs for food, clothing and shelter. Theirs was only an educated guess but the main point is quite clear: directly or indirectly, most work serves the unproductive purposes of commerce or social control. Right off the bat we can liberate tens of millions of salesmen, soldiers, managers, cops, stockbrokers, clergymen, bankers, lawyers, teachers, landlords, security guards, ad-men and everyone who works for them. There is a snowball effect since every time you idle some bigshot you liberate his flunkies and underlings also. Thus the economy implodes."
On the other hand, we all need to do meaningful things. That includes for many people having time to be a good parent, friend, neighbor, volunteer, or citizen -- something ignored by an emphasis on paid labor. There are at least five major types of economic transaction: subsistence, gift, exchange, panned, and theft; the issue is the balance between them for a particular civilization.
See also E.F. Schumacher' essay "Buddhist Economics" for another take on things:
http://neweconomy.net/publicat...
"The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless. To organise work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence. Equally, to strive for leisure as an alternative to work would be considered a complete misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure."
Consider, for example, this point by an AC in another article from today on why engineers go into management:
http://developers.slashdot.org...
"Most of us who love engineering, find it impossible to love our work (extreme time pressure, a 600% workload, often having to abandon/throw away things you love... kinda kills any enthusiasm for the next thing management tells you to do). Management comes as a relief, and you can enjoy coding on your free time."
Consider how true motivation for intellectual tasks comes from a combination of challenge, mastery, and purpose, as Dan Pink says:
"RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
The thing that makes many jobs unpleasant is lack of control over how they are done, lack of resourc
See James P. Hogan's 1982 sci-fi novel Voyage from Yesteryear. Or any of my own numerous postings.
Some related ideas by me on moving towards post-scarcity:
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/...
http://www.pdfernhout.net/reco...
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post...
http://www.artificialscarcity....
Not enough time right now to respond to all the great things people are discussing here. Glad to see so many posts on this topic. And the original topic by an investor.
http://www.thesunisiron.com/
After all, when you look at the Earth from space, you see mostly nitrogen, oxygen, and water vapor. It's always a problem to infer the interior of something from what you see on the outside (as in, you can't judge a book by its cover). The proposed LENR (Cold Fusion) physics, perhaps along with some notion of quantum decay of nuclei leading to outgassed hydrogen (my suggestion), could provide a way that a sun (or planet, including the Earth) made of mostly nickel and iron could produce a lot of internal heat from LENR.
BTW, scientists at MIT a quarter century later are now saying they have evidence of cold fusion:
http://cold-fusion.ca/cold-fus...
What other surprises lay in store for physics? Could it be "hot fusion" that does not exist most places we expect it, considering all the billions of dollars spent over decades that have failed to replicate it? :-)
"Mass surveillance is inevitable to any industrialized country. Which is why all countries with any technological sophistication have it. To think that one can 'fight' it to any real degree is like thinking one can 'fight' indoor plumbing or mass electrification."
Sad, but true. Still, political plays a role in the outcome of all this in terms of what sort of world we want to build together.
Recent posts by me to slashdot on that referencing other items:
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
The bottom line -- read David Brin's "Transparent Society", read Theodore Sturgeon's 1952 "The Skills of Xanadu" about the meaning of privacy in a mobile networked world, read James P. Hogan's "Voyage from Yesteryear" and think about how we can transcend our society to some new healthier form. There are links to all those in my previous posts. It is so sad that with all this mindbogglingly powerful technology the main use we can think for it at first is to create artificial scarcity and kill each other with it. So sad. That is ultimately a moral issue requiring new ways of thinking, like Albert Einstein suggested after the development of atomic technology:
http://www.anwot.org/
We need to accept we have powerful technologies relative to classical human needs and rethink fundamental issues of our society accordingly, such as moving beyond artificial scarcity and moving towards a basic level of abundance for all (which would include more time for voluntary civic participation instead of endless overwork at mostly pointless activities related to preserving a scarcity-based status quo).
http://www.whywork.org/rethink...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
http://marshallbrain.com/manna...
Some humor by me on is at the end of this post, a parody of the "bunker scene", where this time Hitler confronts post-scarcity ideas:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...
Any movement that relies on secrecy to succeed is pretty much a non-starter, even in times of less technology like the 1950s Civil Rights movement. The push for encryption against the government by technologists is similar to the argument that handguns will somehow stop government corruption or fascism. It is not going to work. What will work is broad social change done through democratic processes.
"What Social Science Can Tell Us About Social Change"
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa...
Or as I've said before: "As I see it, there is a race going on. The race is between two trends. On the one hand, the internet can be used to profile and round up dissenters to the scarcity-based economic status quo (thus legitimate worries about privacy and something like TIA). On the other hand, the internet can be used to change the status quo in various ways (better designs, better science, stronger social networks advocating for things like a basic income, all supported by better structured arguments like with the Genoa II approach) to the point where there is abundance for all and rounding up dissenters to mainstream economics is a non-issue because material abundance is everywhere. So, as Bucky Fuller said, whether is will be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go r
Example, by a priest (Msgr. Charles Pope): http://blog.adw.org/2010/05/th... ... ... ..."
"The Problem of Privacy: God is Watching... And So Are Many Others!
There is a second sense however in which I use the the phrase the "Problem of Privacy." In a very important way we must remember that there has never been anything private about our life to God. He sees everything. He is the searcher of minds and hearts. The Book of Hebrews says that to him everything lies naked and exposed (Heb 4:13). No thought, deliberation or action of ours is hidden from God. One of the problems of the modern age is that we are too easily forgetful of the fact that God witnesses everything we do.
So, absolute privacy is an illusion. We may well be able to carve out some privacy from one another and well we should. But we should not seek privacy from God nor can we. There is something increasingly medicinal about practicing the presence of God. The more we experience that God is present and watching the more we accept him on his own terms and do not try to reinvent him, them more we do this the more our behavior can be reformed. A little salutary fear can be medicinal while we wait for the more perfect motive of love to drive out sin.
What I am ultimately saying is that too much demand for privacy can also be a problem. In the end the Lord intends for us to live in community where we are accountable to others. Some degree of accountability and transparency is helpful and necessary for us. It is clear that there are significant problems with the erosion of our privacy today. We ought to continue to insist that proper boundaries should be respected. However we should also remember that some demands for privacy are unrealistic. At some level we simply need to accept that the being online is the same as being in public with your name tag on. That's just the way it is, so behave yourself. You might change your name on-line but guess what, it's really those little numbers that identify you. Mine are: 76.1**.3*.6*5 (I have put asterisks as a form of non-disclosure there are acutal numbers in the place of them). Where-ever I go those little numbers say it's me even if I lie about the fact that its me. Now we may lament this but I think it is better simply to say, when I am on-line I am in public with a name tag on. There is nothing private about Internet or e-mail or texting or anything else that uses the public airways, or communication lines. That's just the way it is and knowing this can be salutary.
Finding the proper balance between our public and private lives can be difficult. Surely privacy is to be insisted upon in many cases. But it is also true that overly expansive assumptions of privacy are neither possible nor always healthy. Being in public will always be a necessary part of our life and being aware when we are in public is important. You are in public right now because you are on-line.
If you've been raised in any kind of deeply religious household (whether you still believe the dogma as an adult), the above concept of lack of privacy (from God) was ingrained in you from an early age. You were expected to act uprightly at all times -- and, as in Catholicism, regularly confess otherwise. I wonder how much that affects a person's expectations then about privacy on the internet or acceptance of a lack thereof?
Also, if you grow up in a big family, privacy is in practice hard to find (privacy from other family members, even if family members may sometimes protect your "privacy" from outsiders). Same for those living in small towns (including perhaps college towns).
For those who believe our universe is a simulation, there is also effectively no "privacy" -- any more than a simulated sprite in "Driver: San Franciso" or "Minecraft" has privacy relative to the player (including a player with
As I suggest here: http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-d... :-) :-) :-) :-) ... ...
"Our biggest advantage is that no one takes us seriously.
And our second biggest advantage is that our communications are monitored, which provides a channel by which we can turn enemies into friends.
And our third biggest advantage is we have no assets, and so are not a profitable target and have nothing serious to fight over amongst ourselves.
Let's hope those advantages all hold true for a long time.
As I see it, there is a race going on. The race is between two trends. On the one hand, the internet can be used to profile and round up dissenters to the scarcity-based economic status quo (thus legitimate worries about privacy and something like TIA). On the other hand, the internet can be used to change the status quo in various ways (better designs, better science, stronger social networks advocating for things like a basic income, all supported by better structured arguments like with the Genoa II approach) to the point where there is abundance for all and rounding up dissenters to mainstream economics is a non-issue because material abundance is everywhere. So, as Bucky Fuller said, whether is will be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race to the very end. While I can't guarantee success at the second option of using the internet for abundance for all, I can guarantee that if we do nothing, the first option of using the internet to round up dissenters (or really, anybody who is different, like was done using IBM computers in WWII Germany) will probably prevail. So, I feel the global public really needs access to these sorts of sensemaking tools in an open source way, and the way to use them is not so much to "fight back" as to "transform and/or transcend the system". As Bucky Fuller said, you never change thing by fighting the old paradigm directly; you change things by inventing a new way that makes the old paradigm obsolete.
As with that notion of "mutual security", the US intelligence community needs to look beyond seeing an intelligence tool as just something proprietary that gives a "friendly" analyst some advantage over an "unfriendly" analyst. Instead, the intelligence community could begin to see the potential for a free and open source intelligence tool as a way to promote "friendship" across the planet by dispelling some of the gloom of "want and ignorance" (see the scene in "A Christmas Carol" with Scrooge and a Christmas Spirit) that we still have all too much of around the planet. So, beyond supporting legitimate US intelligence needs (useful with their own closed sources of data), supporting a free and open source intelligence tool (and related open datasets) could become a strategic part of US (or other nation's) "diplomacy" and constructive outreach."
AC wrote: http://schaechter.asmblog.org/...
Communist! :-) ... ...
"Keith Rankin's Thursday Column - Where communism succeeded and capitalism failed"
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories...
"The programme revealed that we - ie humankind - had discovered a superior cure (to antibiotics) for bacterial infections around the same time that penicillin was being discovered. The research programme on bacteriophages (phages for short) began in Stalin's Georgia in the 1930s. To this day, our knowledge of each of the many thousands of phage viruses remains concentrated in a now rundown laboratory in Tbilisi, Georgia. The arrival of capitalism in the Caucuses threatens a repository of knowledge, built up over 50 years, that could prevent the superbug pandemic that threatens us all next century.
Western capitalism has another kind of correctness that can be at least as disabling; a correctness based on profit, and an unwillingness to check the growth of an industry that is too lucrative to too many people. The story of antibiotics is becoming one of those stories.
Another problem is that western capitalism is too much entwined in the English language. The literature on phage remedies was mostly in Russian. It's hard enough to get Anglo-Saxon western scientists to read in French, let alone Russian. After all, "reputable journals" are in English, are they no t?
While there are some genuine reasons why phage treatments of bacterial diseases were overlooked in the 1930s and 1940s, the failure to develop a western research program into bacteriophage treatment in the 1980s and 1990s represents an inexcusable failure of western capitalism. By the 1980s, ther e could be no denial that antibiotic resistance was going to be a major problem in (if not before) the twentyfirst century. Yet, we just didn't want to know about what will probably turn out to be the most important medical breakthrough in the twentieth century; a breakthrough made in communist G eorgia, in Stalin's Soviet Union.
It is embarrassing when western science is out-trumped, especially by the "communists". Usually, when out-trumped, we don't tell anyone. That's what happened here. Not only did we not have the nous to start a western programme in bacteriophage research; we looked the other way when the files of phials threatened to be destroyed following the breakup of the Soviet Union, and during the little reported civil war that engulfed Georgia a few years ago. So much for the knowledge economies of the west. How can such valuable knowledge be so cheap?
It's not too late for western medicine to enter the post-antibiotic bacteriophage era. Our grandchildren will hardly thank us if we persevere with our corporate-profit-motivated conservatism.
The Soviets were able, eventually, to admit that they were wrong to follow Lysenko. Will we in the west be equally able to admit that we were wrong to put all our medical eggs into the one antibiotic basket, in the process ignoring the most basic tenets of the theory of evolution?"
See also Dan Pink on true motivation via challenge, mastery, and purpose: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
The US focus on organizing an economy more and more around "artificial scarcity" enforced by police, military, and political power is unlikely to end well...
My post with distributed ideas: http://hardware.slashdot.org/c...