I don't think it's condescending at all to discuss the natural limitations of the human mind. I posted elsewhere, but to sum up I just don't think we've evolved the necessity of making an awful lot of choices. Speaking in generalizations, people are resistant to change and they have demonstrated a lower degree of happiness when presented with too many choices.
Raw survival in the wild simply didn't require us to be wired up to make lots of choices. Our capability to do so is merely a side-effect of the extreme complexity of the minds we've evolved. We can definitely *learn* to make choices and I'm not advocating despotism or that we're happier like that. I'm saying after a certain level of survival needs are met (including freedom - not even a dog likes being chained up forever) - we just don't have a deep seeded need to make choices. Especially regarding something as unrelated to our survival as our free time.
Remember that too much choice paradoxically makes people unhappy!
I suppose it does when they are suddenly confronted with large amounts of it for the first time. The truth is that life is full of choices and always has been. It's just that many behaviors become so ingrained that we no longer understand they are choices.
This definitely is a chicken/egg problem, though, and I don't think it's all that clear.
Did humans evolve in a state that had a lot of choice? Has recent socialization caused our "choice mechanism" to atrophy? Definitely not cut and dry and I think when cast in the light of millions of years of evolution I have to fall on the side that too much choice/freedom for most people can cause unhappiness.
Granted these are all generalizations, but working under the assumption that self-introspection (needed to make choices of convenience) arose as a side-effect of a more complex brain aiding in survival - it's not "natural" to make use of that introspection for survival. For the purposes of survival what kinds of true choices really need to be made by our evolving ancestors on a higher conscious level? No choices your dog can make since that's all about raw survival. Even more complicated things like making tools tie back to raw survival - just at a higher complexity - hence the side effect of self-introspection and the capability of more complex choices like picking one television show over another. As near as I can tell throw a modern human into the wild where life is on the line and no real choices of convenience need to be made at all.
Therefore I'd propose that self-introspection and the ability to chose is much more a learned behavior and our natural state is to make choices only when necessary. Look at all the passivity in the world and how much resistance to change there is as additional proof of this.
It's funny to tie this all back to something as mundane as television watching, but I think that's precisely the point. If people are uncomfortable making choices for important things they'll certainly be more than happy allowing an algorithm to spoon feed them their entertainment.
Isn't the issue with whether acupuncture is legit or not have a lot to do with what you're claiming acupuncture can treat? Same with chiropractic medicine. Some chiropractors claim they can cure asthma while others claim they can help you with some joint and muscle pain after a car accident.
> Assume that our uber-bloodsucker takes down a few million and buys a yacht.
Yes, let's assume that the very wealthy generally spend their money mainly on exclusive items like high end sports cars and yachts. Is that really stimulating the economy when you buy something that is valued so highly that it is made in limited quantities?
It's not like they're going out and buying 10,000 televisions with that money. Or 5,000 Hondas.
I'm not sure the money they spend in consumption really goes into the economy. In fact, one of the main reasons that the very wealthy *stay* wealthy is because they buy things like expensive art work - things that generally don't lose value as quickly as say a dishwasher or television would.
If the wealthy are stimulating the economy it's via investments and making new companies - it's not from consumption.
This kind of inductive reasoning to reach conclusions probabilistically is probably key to achieving the holy grail of artificial intelligence. Using a metaphor for a minute - turning the active camera to point at the output screen creates some self-awareness issues that I can imagine absolutely require imperfect inductive reasoning for the intelligence to function.
Otherwise it could get stuck in an endless recursive loop in any number of ways - not the least of which could be "Why am I here?"
At least - this is how I justify why so many people insist there must be a God in charge of things.
Could the calories burned by the (assumed) increased brain activity also play a part in this? I know the brain is a big energy user, but to think that it could burn enough calories to make a weight difference does seem improbable.
The snacking explanation is probably the best one, but it is nice to think that you're probably burning more calories too even if it is minor.
Besides, what makes people think they might not relax some of the usual security requirements in order to actively recruit young, brilliant, budding Black Hats straight out of fifth period?
Scene: Retirement party for first five AFCC retiring commanders
Airman 1: Hey! Congratulations on being our first retiring crew from the AFCC Airman 2: It's been a great 25 years, hasn't it? Airman 1: The country owes you a debt of gratitude for being on the front lines during the first cyberwar with China. Keeping Google and Amazon running was so key to allowing our economy to continue. Airman 2: Now why don't you gentlemen allow us to escort you over to our final exit interview and physical? The equipment may seem a bit weird, but it's completely painless.
Five older retiring airmen are led out of the room...
How come no one is talking about the possibility of a third solution? With USB drives exploding in size and all the efforts out there to create Linux bootable thumb drives how long will it be before someone can carry everything they need on a thumb drive in their pocket - including the OS.
I'd like to see a hardware manufacturer start installing empty hardware with USB - I could walk up to it boot up with my drive, do my work, and walk away with it.
Aside from the need to backing up and the possibility of dropping the drive down a storm drain, I think this is a nice third choice between the Google/MS wars.
Do you think the Founding Fathers could have understood the implications of "Free Speech" when it comes to marketing? The level of manipulation and subtle but powerful influence that we have learned to achieve over our fellow man really does take away a certain amount of freedom from those not aware that they are being manipulated in the first place.
When they were writing position papers they knew they were trying to influence thoughts, but they tried to accomplish it through the use of reason, logic, or straightforward emotional appeal. There wasn't any of this "impression" bullshit or low level psychological manipulation - none of it was even understood.
I wonder if they would have a slightly different opinion today.
So after reading your description - and assuming it's a pretty accurate example of the use for this new technology (which I think it is)...
It sounds like you described a small fraction of the complexity of how a bat's radar works. Could it be possible that this could be used in highly complex, high speed radar systems that could guide little robot-like bats?
I happen to think that these large power outages are a pretty weird coincidence as well - particularly since I've been searching for a reported cause and haven't found one yet.
It's thought that the hijacking of the flight originating in India and ending up in Kabul (remember that guys, back in 1998 or 99?) was a dress rehersal for 9/11. Those terrorists used box cutters, etc, and were never caught - escaping into Afghanistan.
Here's my paranoid scenario:
These terrorists have time on their hands - they are in no rush. For months after the 9/11 attacks everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop and they still are. The fact of the matter is that these guys aren't stupid, they're going to strike when everyone is least expecting it and it's going to be very well planned.
It seems to me that causing a few major blackouts gives them a good idea of response times, a mapping of the grids, public response, etc... They also get to see how communications work under such a scenario.
While it may be on the paranoid side, I think these blackouts are a prelude and the terrorists are fine tuning their attack plan based on what happened during the blackouts. When the real attack comes it will be some kind of terrorist attack combined with blackouts in various parts of the world. My guess is that it's probably 9-12 months away.
Who knows how much damage or life could be lost - the real victory will be the fear that they'll be able to strike into everyone by cutting the average person off from decent communication outlets. Imagine if at the same time a major blackout occurs in your city rumors start flying around that there has been some kind of gas or biological attack, too? On top of that what little news you are able to get confirms the report of the attack, but not much more than that. How quickly do you think the thin veneer of our civilized social hierarchy would vaporize? At least for a little while.
I could be just being paranoid and I know it does sound rather doomsday like, but so did 9/11 before 9/11. And if this is just paranoid doomsday ranting where is the root cause analysis of these blackouts?
You get out of life what you put into it. If you want to go around thinking that hard work never gets rewarded that's your business. The bottom line is that you don't find lazy people at the top regardless of color or gender. Is there discrimination, of course. It is unfairly harder for some over others - but it's not impossible.
I recently found out that my homeowners' insurance (Traveller's) for $25 / year will insure me up to $25k.
It's not meant for covering illegal purchases - that's taken care of (usually) by the credit card companies. This is meant for lost wages and lawyer fees - costs you incur while fighting for your identity back.
That sounded like a great idea and I bet you'll start to see more insurance companies offering it.
every other prediction that came before promising total upending of the world as we know it.
I think he's exapolating one instance of a *slight* change of how fast food service works and turning that into a wild, far out, prediction.
The Burger King in my home town tried "sit down" dining for a short while. You place your order with a human cashier and take a number to sit down. Then your food is brought out to you. They stopped doing this after a short while.
My bet is this won't take off for whatever reason the sit down venue didn't seem to take hold. Of course, I claim ignorance as to just why it didn't take hold - my guess is that people just didn't see the need for it.
Plus, if you look at the ROI for installing these kiosks - what could it really amount to? You basically still need the person who ordinarily would be taking the order because that person is now going to have to bring your food to you. Who else is it going to be? Not the preparers of the food - they're too busy preparing the next meal.
I vote no - I don't think this is going to catch on.
That's right, it is just a move/counter-move game with no end in sight. Isn't all this talk about music sharing really just the tip of the iceberg?
With the boiling down of information into simply ones and zeros and the birth of the 'Net, intellectual property is going to be a debate of the next twenty years.
How do you properly compensate the creators of anything that can be boiled down to just a unique series of ones and zeros that can be easily copied to millions of people with the push of a button?
It seems to me that all these guys like the RIAA, the MPAA, and others should be concentrating on coming up with a brand new paradigm that fits this problem rather than focusing on their little corner of the world. One quick look at the big picture shows that everyone dealing in information is in the same boat. We really haven't seen the start of the MPAA entering the controversy because movie sharing hasn't quite gotten to be a real major threat, but it will be with more computers in your entertainment center. And don't forget about books - once decent digital books with removable media in the binder become common place you'll see people trading novels, college texts, whatever, over the same P2P networks.
The real solution is a complete paradigm shift towards something that benefits everyone. In fact, someone should come up with that new business process and patent it and... uh... wait, forget everything I just said.
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I don't think it's condescending at all to discuss the natural limitations of the human mind. I posted elsewhere, but to sum up I just don't think we've evolved the necessity of making an awful lot of choices. Speaking in generalizations, people are resistant to change and they have demonstrated a lower degree of happiness when presented with too many choices.
Raw survival in the wild simply didn't require us to be wired up to make lots of choices. Our capability to do so is merely a side-effect of the extreme complexity of the minds we've evolved. We can definitely *learn* to make choices and I'm not advocating despotism or that we're happier like that. I'm saying after a certain level of survival needs are met (including freedom - not even a dog likes being chained up forever) - we just don't have a deep seeded need to make choices. Especially regarding something as unrelated to our survival as our free time.
I suppose it does when they are suddenly confronted with large amounts of it for the first time. The truth is that life is full of choices and always has been. It's just that many behaviors become so ingrained that we no longer understand they are choices.
This definitely is a chicken/egg problem, though, and I don't think it's all that clear.
Did humans evolve in a state that had a lot of choice? Has recent socialization caused our "choice mechanism" to atrophy? Definitely not cut and dry and I think when cast in the light of millions of years of evolution I have to fall on the side that too much choice/freedom for most people can cause unhappiness.
Granted these are all generalizations, but working under the assumption that self-introspection (needed to make choices of convenience) arose as a side-effect of a more complex brain aiding in survival - it's not "natural" to make use of that introspection for survival. For the purposes of survival what kinds of true choices really need to be made by our evolving ancestors on a higher conscious level? No choices your dog can make since that's all about raw survival. Even more complicated things like making tools tie back to raw survival - just at a higher complexity - hence the side effect of self-introspection and the capability of more complex choices like picking one television show over another. As near as I can tell throw a modern human into the wild where life is on the line and no real choices of convenience need to be made at all.
Therefore I'd propose that self-introspection and the ability to chose is much more a learned behavior and our natural state is to make choices only when necessary. Look at all the passivity in the world and how much resistance to change there is as additional proof of this.
It's funny to tie this all back to something as mundane as television watching, but I think that's precisely the point. If people are uncomfortable making choices for important things they'll certainly be more than happy allowing an algorithm to spoon feed them their entertainment.
Isn't the issue with whether acupuncture is legit or not have a lot to do with what you're claiming acupuncture can treat? Same with chiropractic medicine. Some chiropractors claim they can cure asthma while others claim they can help you with some joint and muscle pain after a car accident.
Isn't that the same with acupuncture too?
> Assume that our uber-bloodsucker takes down a few million and buys a yacht.
Yes, let's assume that the very wealthy generally spend their money mainly on exclusive items like high end sports cars and yachts. Is that really stimulating the economy when you buy something that is valued so highly that it is made in limited quantities?
It's not like they're going out and buying 10,000 televisions with that money. Or 5,000 Hondas.
I'm not sure the money they spend in consumption really goes into the economy. In fact, one of the main reasons that the very wealthy *stay* wealthy is because they buy things like expensive art work - things that generally don't lose value as quickly as say a dishwasher or television would.
If the wealthy are stimulating the economy it's via investments and making new companies - it's not from consumption.
This kind of inductive reasoning to reach conclusions probabilistically is probably key to achieving the holy grail of artificial intelligence. Using a metaphor for a minute - turning the active camera to point at the output screen creates some self-awareness issues that I can imagine absolutely require imperfect inductive reasoning for the intelligence to function.
Otherwise it could get stuck in an endless recursive loop in any number of ways - not the least of which could be "Why am I here?"
At least - this is how I justify why so many people insist there must be a God in charge of things.
Could the calories burned by the (assumed) increased brain activity also play a part in this? I know the brain is a big energy user, but to think that it could burn enough calories to make a weight difference does seem improbable.
The snacking explanation is probably the best one, but it is nice to think that you're probably burning more calories too even if it is minor.
Agreed with an important difference. Cars weren't being touted as the guardians of freedoms and expression.
So I guess he's not just dividing 22 by 7?
Too bad this isn't set up as a voting method. I vote for Password Safe as well. Doing a search on here seems to yield a lot of those.
I'm being half-serious because I've always wondered how money is being made selling ads. No one I've asked has ever clicked an ad.
Besides, what makes people think they might not relax some of the usual security requirements in order to actively recruit young, brilliant, budding Black Hats straight out of fifth period?
What? Too B-movie hacker-style to be believable?
A surreptitious lobotomy after retiring?
Scene: Retirement party for first five AFCC retiring commanders
Airman 1: Hey! Congratulations on being our first retiring crew from the AFCC
Airman 2: It's been a great 25 years, hasn't it?
Airman 1: The country owes you a debt of gratitude for being on the front lines during the first cyberwar with China. Keeping Google and Amazon running was so key to allowing our economy to continue.
Airman 2: Now why don't you gentlemen allow us to escort you over to our final exit interview and physical? The equipment may seem a bit weird, but it's completely painless.
Five older retiring airmen are led out of the room...
How come no one is talking about the possibility of a third solution? With USB drives exploding in size and all the efforts out there to create Linux bootable thumb drives how long will it be before someone can carry everything they need on a thumb drive in their pocket - including the OS.
I'd like to see a hardware manufacturer start installing empty hardware with USB - I could walk up to it boot up with my drive, do my work, and walk away with it.
Aside from the need to backing up and the possibility of dropping the drive down a storm drain, I think this is a nice third choice between the Google/MS wars.
Isn't that how warp speed works?
Do you think the Founding Fathers could have understood the implications of "Free Speech" when it comes to marketing? The level of manipulation and subtle but powerful influence that we have learned to achieve over our fellow man really does take away a certain amount of freedom from those not aware that they are being manipulated in the first place.
When they were writing position papers they knew they were trying to influence thoughts, but they tried to accomplish it through the use of reason, logic, or straightforward emotional appeal. There wasn't any of this "impression" bullshit or low level psychological manipulation - none of it was even understood.
I wonder if they would have a slightly different opinion today.
So after reading your description - and assuming it's a pretty accurate example of the use for this new technology (which I think it is)...
It sounds like you described a small fraction of the complexity of how a bat's radar works. Could it be possible that this could be used in highly complex, high speed radar systems that could guide little robot-like bats?
I happen to think that these large power outages are a pretty weird coincidence as well - particularly since I've been searching for a reported cause and haven't found one yet.
It's thought that the hijacking of the flight originating in India and ending up in Kabul (remember that guys, back in 1998 or 99?) was a dress rehersal for 9/11. Those terrorists used box cutters, etc, and were never caught - escaping into Afghanistan.
Here's my paranoid scenario:
These terrorists have time on their hands - they are in no rush. For months after the 9/11 attacks everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop and they still are. The fact of the matter is that these guys aren't stupid, they're going to strike when everyone is least expecting it and it's going to be very well planned.
It seems to me that causing a few major blackouts gives them a good idea of response times, a mapping of the grids, public response, etc... They also get to see how communications work under such a scenario.
While it may be on the paranoid side, I think these blackouts are a prelude and the terrorists are fine tuning their attack plan based on what happened during the blackouts. When the real attack comes it will be some kind of terrorist attack combined with blackouts in various parts of the world. My guess is that it's probably 9-12 months away.
Who knows how much damage or life could be lost - the real victory will be the fear that they'll be able to strike into everyone by cutting the average person off from decent communication outlets. Imagine if at the same time a major blackout occurs in your city rumors start flying around that there has been some kind of gas or biological attack, too? On top of that what little news you are able to get confirms the report of the attack, but not much more than that. How quickly do you think the thin veneer of our civilized social hierarchy would vaporize? At least for a little while.
I could be just being paranoid and I know it does sound rather doomsday like, but so did 9/11 before 9/11. And if this is just paranoid doomsday ranting where is the root cause analysis of these blackouts?
Are you sure you have that date right? According to the Unix gods, I thought that was 2038...
You get out of life what you put into it. If you want to go around thinking that hard work never gets rewarded that's your business. The bottom line is that you don't find lazy people at the top regardless of color or gender. Is there discrimination, of course. It is unfairly harder for some over others - but it's not impossible.
There is no equality when you start from an immensely unbalanced power structure.
Can we say, "Colin Powell"?
Right! Good strategy. Make sure all potential fatalities occur after you win the money!
Nah - Learjets don't really cost that much. They just are market-based priced that way to keep from everyone from owning one.
I recently found out that my homeowners' insurance (Traveller's) for $25 / year will insure me up to $25k.
It's not meant for covering illegal purchases - that's taken care of (usually) by the credit card companies. This is meant for lost wages and lawyer fees - costs you incur while fighting for your identity back.
That sounded like a great idea and I bet you'll start to see more insurance companies offering it.
every other prediction that came before promising total upending of the world as we know it.
I think he's exapolating one instance of a *slight* change of how fast food service works and turning that into a wild, far out, prediction.
The Burger King in my home town tried "sit down" dining for a short while. You place your order with a human cashier and take a number to sit down. Then your food is brought out to you. They stopped doing this after a short while.
My bet is this won't take off for whatever reason the sit down venue didn't seem to take hold. Of course, I claim ignorance as to just why it didn't take hold - my guess is that people just didn't see the need for it.
Plus, if you look at the ROI for installing these kiosks - what could it really amount to? You basically still need the person who ordinarily would be taking the order because that person is now going to have to bring your food to you. Who else is it going to be? Not the preparers of the food - they're too busy preparing the next meal.
I vote no - I don't think this is going to catch on.
That's right, it is just a move/counter-move game with no end in sight. Isn't all this talk about music sharing really just the tip of the iceberg?
With the boiling down of information into simply ones and zeros and the birth of the 'Net, intellectual property is going to be a debate of the next twenty years.
How do you properly compensate the creators of anything that can be boiled down to just a unique series of ones and zeros that can be easily copied to millions of people with the push of a button?
It seems to me that all these guys like the RIAA, the MPAA, and others should be concentrating on coming up with a brand new paradigm that fits this problem rather than focusing on their little corner of the world. One quick look at the big picture shows that everyone dealing in information is in the same boat. We really haven't seen the start of the MPAA entering the controversy because movie sharing hasn't quite gotten to be a real major threat, but it will be with more computers in your entertainment center. And don't forget about books - once decent digital books with removable media in the binder become common place you'll see people trading novels, college texts, whatever, over the same P2P networks.
The real solution is a complete paradigm shift towards something that benefits everyone. In fact, someone should come up with that new business process and patent it and... uh... wait, forget everything I just said.