Also, I think that your superiors are incompetent and shouldn't work in anything related to IT. I hope some more knowledgeable people replace them in their jobs.
Thank you for taking time and explaining this all:) I wouldn't have gone to such a great length if you were as clear in your original post as you are in the one I am replying to.
Anyway, good luck, and I hope you get a permanent residence permit!
The day the computers can read what we're looking at and know us well enough to offer an even remotely successful guess at what comes next will be the day the computer decides it doesn't need us anymore. And I think we all know what happens when the computers decide they don't need us anymore. No.
Don't apply your intuition concerning human beings to other intelligent systems. A true AI may or may not decide it doesn't need us, depending on how it's programmed.
You ignore the fact that stand-alone sentience has little to do with our evolution-dictated habits (e.g. getting rid of competing group/species/whatever). You assume that all the evolution-dictated behaviour and thinking patterns embedded in human brain will somehow automagically manifest themselves in a true strong-AI machine, a view with which I disagree.
Your original post seemed like drawing a picture of the police bursting in your computer lab and taking away your computer, because you were a terror suspect. Btw, who confiscated your computer - your boss's boss, or something?
After what you have additionally said about the situation, it sounds like there was some misunderstanding which was exacerbated by you not having a perfect command of German language and not having a clue about what is going on because of that. It also sounds like you have arrived to Western country just recently, are being stressed and afraid of everything, because it's new and different.
Overall, you made the situation sound like some evil Nazi German government takes away peoples' computers because they download open-source software using BitTorrent.
I am a tax-paying, working and studying man, and I think Finland totally rocks. But then again I am also a man of knowledge and learning. I am not an adventure seeker, nor someone who worships money.
Most of the people who dislike the Nordics are either: 1)dissatisfied with the climate 2)want their life to be fraught with risk and danger 3)money worshipers 4)can't blend into Nordic societies for cultural reasons (people here are pretty reserved, so hot-blooded people might feel out of place and lonely).
Overall, there are very good reasons why the Nordic countries consistently show to be among the top places to live on this planet in various polls and studies. Most of my friends, both Finnish and foreign, like Finland very much. Some of them have their private business, some are studying, and some are working hard.
Me and my friends seem to be in the majority, and we all have above-average intelligence and character. So I'd love to see some detailed reasons why "Sweden and Finland" suck so much.
Surprised? Well, yeah, I am. I live in a Nordic country, retarded infringements on one's rights to be a free human being don't happen here too often. I mean, our society is based on efficiency, comfort and trust. I guess it's different elsewhere.
Please enlighten me, dear sir/madame, how is it off-topic to point out that a post that attempts to be "on-topic" doesn't provide any meaningful justification for its claim?
Leave your language-nazi-hate for language-nazis. For all other posts, try to understand what they are trying to say first. I did try to understand what the GP was saying, yet I failed. Too many emotions, too little facts.
If you are indeed working at a top-secret mission-critical nuclear weapons facility, which is the only explanation for security people wanting to check on your computer, then your admin should be fired for not making the network secure enough.
My problem with your post was that you started to say how "bad" the system is, without giving us any of the context. If you are under NDA - don't talk about it at all. Me nor many other people, I am sure, don't want to read accusations of very serious crimes against democracy, unless you are capable to provide us with facts. I am sorry, if I came off as rude.
I just have trouble understanding why would German authorities care if someone was using BitTorrent, for whatever purpose. Whatever "bomb-making-civilian-assassinating" tools you can get from BitTorrent you can also get off HTTP/FTP. I might be naive, but I thought things like described in GPs post only happened in US and UK. If indeed Germany has fallen so low, well, that would make me quite sad.
Reading his Sig might help, not everyone speaks can speak/write perfect English/American. I am not a native speaker either.
Low language proficiency does not excuse inability to structure one's comments. His post was extremly sloppy and not thought through. Yes I know, this is Slashdot, so I am really barking up the wrong tree <grin>.
Dude, your post doesn't make any sense. Who confiscated your machine?, why (apart from the BS about using BitTorrent)?, where do you work?, etc. These are crucial pieces of information that you didn't care to provide. Downloading stuff using BitTorrent is hardly illegal or "evil", as long as it's not warez. So my conclusion is that you have no clue about what you are talking about, you are trolling (most likely) OR need to take some classes on communicating with other human beings.
Lucky I'd just swallowed or my keyboard would be dripping with vodka and cherryade... The "vodka and cherryade" part was quite a bit of an anticlimax for that rather promising sentence...
There was nothing sick about GP's comment. It was just plain funny. As for yourself - sounds like you are not a sick bastard at all, in fact wimpy dork is the term that comes to mind.
Excellent and thought-provoking post! Despite not making any real conclusions, you bring some fresh breeze of unencumbered thought into the discussion. It's a pity so many people here stick to overused templates, in fact this discussion almost feels like some junior-high debating-club, where everyone is showing off their non-existent skills, with emotions clouding the reason in both of the camps.
Anything that you think is "you," is actually just a component of the universe. My point exactly. Your consciousness is an attribute of the component of the universe, not a fundamental property of the greater universe. Consciousness is a local property of the cluster of atoms currently constituting your being. Same way as the "whisker" property of cat's whiskers isn't property of the entire cat. If part of the universe has desires doesn't mean that the universe proper has desires; and if the tree is green doesn't mean that the universe is green.
From what evidence do you conclude that, despite this, increasing consciousness was selected to aid in survivability on reproduction? There does seem to exist an ever present drive for increasing complexity in nature. However, I think that complex life forms can be explained by the theory of evolution alone. Bigger and more robust organism won't be limited to the specific environment suited for the bacteria, it will have more options present, etc. Also, when you are an underdog organism, you basically have two choices develop "outside of the box" e.g. become multicellular, crawl out of the water, etc, or die. Growth of complexity seems to be inevitable, because some simple organisms just "aren't too good at being simple", they fare much better with extra features.
And out of the complex organisms the organism that can contemplate, extrapolate and abstract will necessarily be the most successful one, since ability to think outside of the box provides one with the tools to defy seemingly overwhelming odds of survival by innovating.
As for your doubt whether ability to think about philosophy contributes in any way to survival, I have a twofold answer. To begin with, once the intelligence reaches a certain threshold it seems to become universal - capable of analyzing any given problem, so in a sense, ability to think about "useless" math is a spillover from our ability to build better crocodile traps and brew superior rat poison. The second part of my answer is that once you have a superior mind you need superior methods for keeping it healthy, alert and interested. Advanced forms of thought all contribute to the intellectual wellbeing of society by playing a role of both thinking exercises as well as paths to additional knowledge leading to better economic systems, weapons and ways to store prepackaged food.
If you truly believe that our consciousness is just a property of the laws of the universe, then our consciousness is the universe's consciousness, and our agenda is the universe's agenda, and the universe therefore does have a value system. Can you prove that a property of the part of the system automatically becomes the property of the system as the whole? It's like saying that a white object is red, just because there is a red speck on it. Having said that, I still think that you raise some interesting issues in that paragraph.
I think people tend to have an innate knowledge to the contrary, that the universe, the natural world, is in itself inanimate -- even though life can manifest itself within it. And therefore, from the very first people capable of thought, we have always tended (correctly, I believe) to understand consciousness to be supernatural. The conclusion in your second paragraph is wrong. Your premise seems to be that the innate logic that we have has 100% correlation with physical reality. However, our brains evolved with our innate logic to have a bigger chance of survival, not a better grasp on metaphysics. Raw truth has very little evolutionary value if it doesn't help you fend of that tiger or build that hut. Your statement that our innate logic somehow proves that consciousness is supernatural is therefore based on a false or at best extremely shaky premise. In fact it sounds like something coming straight out of Intelligent Design camp.
Benefit and detriment are human categories. By even considering that something can "benefit" or "detriment" the universe you are essentially anthropomorphizing it. I mean, that if you can "benefit" the universe, it has some agenda which can be fulfilled more efficiently with certain factors present/absent. This doesn't make any sense.
Another thing which I find silly, is the tendency to view ourselves distinct and separate from the universe no matter what. Of course it's good to abstract the rest of the world as separate from us when going about your everyday business. However, when dealing with universal notions, such as humanity's relationship to the universe, we should acknowledge that humanity is just a property of the universe, a physical manifestation of the laws governing the cosmos.
The universe cannot care whether we colonize the space or not. On the other hand - space colonization is the obvious thing for us to do, due to our very nature. Expanding and filling all the available space and exploring the unknown is what we have always done, no reason to stop now.
And what makes you think that evolution of intelligence and culture on other planets would have taken a different and counterintuitive course producing tame, contemplative techno-zen races, that never ravished in violence? Of course eventually we will probably reach the aforementioned state of enlightened calm too, but I highly doubt that it's possible for the intelligent species to mature without going through some rough times.
You would get his point, if you would actually stop and think about it. Try to learn something about other countries first. Northern Europe has huge governments that don't interfere with peoples' privacy, let the businesses run smoothly, keep the cities clean of crime and trash, and make sure people are not becoming bums against their will. US has a weak government that only goes to war and limits individual freedoms. See the difference?
And people are not all the same. Some people are ignorant fools who need a shepherd, while others are free individuals willing and able to cooperate for the common good, while upholding their own private interests.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, I think that your superiors are incompetent and shouldn't work in anything related to IT. I hope some more knowledgeable people replace them in their jobs.
Thank you for taking time and explaining this all :) I wouldn't have gone to such a great length if you were as clear in your original post as you are in the one I am replying to.
Anyway, good luck, and I hope you get a permanent residence permit!
Don't apply your intuition concerning human beings to other intelligent systems. A true AI may or may not decide it doesn't need us, depending on how it's programmed.
You ignore the fact that stand-alone sentience has little to do with our evolution-dictated habits (e.g. getting rid of competing group/species/whatever). You assume that all the evolution-dictated behaviour and thinking patterns embedded in human brain will somehow automagically manifest themselves in a true strong-AI machine, a view with which I disagree.
Your original post seemed like drawing a picture of the police bursting in your computer lab and taking away your computer, because you were a terror suspect. Btw, who confiscated your computer - your boss's boss, or something?
After what you have additionally said about the situation, it sounds like there was some misunderstanding which was exacerbated by you not having a perfect command of German language and not having a clue about what is going on because of that. It also sounds like you have arrived to Western country just recently, are being stressed and afraid of everything, because it's new and different.
Overall, you made the situation sound like some evil Nazi German government takes away peoples' computers because they download open-source software using BitTorrent.
As taught by my economics prof., I map "effort required" to Y axis, and "progress made" to X axis.
I am a tax-paying, working and studying man, and I think Finland totally rocks. But then again I am also a man of knowledge and learning. I am not an adventure seeker, nor someone who worships money.
Most of the people who dislike the Nordics are either:
1)dissatisfied with the climate
2)want their life to be fraught with risk and danger
3)money worshipers
4)can't blend into Nordic societies for cultural reasons (people here are pretty reserved, so hot-blooded people might feel out of place and lonely).
Overall, there are very good reasons why the Nordic countries consistently show to be among the top places to live on this planet in various polls and studies. Most of my friends, both Finnish and foreign, like Finland very much. Some of them have their private business, some are studying, and some are working hard.
Me and my friends seem to be in the majority, and we all have above-average intelligence and character. So I'd love to see some detailed reasons why "Sweden and Finland" suck so much.
Once you become proficient in using Linux you are having a better understanding of OS and network internals than your Windows-using peers.
And, you have a point there about using +1 modifier, I will try to be more prudent when using it in the future.
Please enlighten me, dear sir/madame, how is it off-topic to point out that a post that attempts to be "on-topic" doesn't provide any meaningful justification for its claim?
Leave your language-nazi-hate for language-nazis. For all other posts, try to understand what they are trying to say first. I did try to understand what the GP was saying, yet I failed. Too many emotions, too little facts.
If you are indeed working at a top-secret mission-critical nuclear weapons facility, which is the only explanation for security people wanting to check on your computer, then your admin should be fired for not making the network secure enough.
My problem with your post was that you started to say how "bad" the system is, without giving us any of the context. If you are under NDA - don't talk about it at all. Me nor many other people, I am sure, don't want to read accusations of very serious crimes against democracy, unless you are capable to provide us with facts. I am sorry, if I came off as rude.
I just have trouble understanding why would German authorities care if someone was using BitTorrent, for whatever purpose. Whatever "bomb-making-civilian-assassinating" tools you can get from BitTorrent you can also get off HTTP/FTP. I might be naive, but I thought things like described in GPs post only happened in US and UK. If indeed Germany has fallen so low, well, that would make me quite sad.
Low language proficiency does not excuse inability to structure one's comments. His post was extremly sloppy and not thought through. Yes I know, this is Slashdot, so I am really barking up the wrong tree <grin>.
Dude, your post doesn't make any sense. Who confiscated your machine?, why (apart from the BS about using BitTorrent)?, where do you work?, etc. These are crucial pieces of information that you didn't care to provide. Downloading stuff using BitTorrent is hardly illegal or "evil", as long as it's not warez. So my conclusion is that you have no clue about what you are talking about, you are trolling (most likely) OR need to take some classes on communicating with other human beings.
There was nothing sick about GP's comment. It was just plain funny. As for yourself - sounds like you are not a sick bastard at all, in fact wimpy dork is the term that comes to mind.
Excellent and thought-provoking post! Despite not making any real conclusions, you bring some fresh breeze of unencumbered thought into the discussion. It's a pity so many people here stick to overused templates, in fact this discussion almost feels like some junior-high debating-club, where everyone is showing off their non-existent skills, with emotions clouding the reason in both of the camps.
If cat has whiskers doesn't mean that cat is a whisker.
And out of the complex organisms the organism that can contemplate, extrapolate and abstract will necessarily be the most successful one, since ability to think outside of the box provides one with the tools to defy seemingly overwhelming odds of survival by innovating.
As for your doubt whether ability to think about philosophy contributes in any way to survival, I have a twofold answer. To begin with, once the intelligence reaches a certain threshold it seems to become universal - capable of analyzing any given problem, so in a sense, ability to think about "useless" math is a spillover from our ability to build better crocodile traps and brew superior rat poison. The second part of my answer is that once you have a superior mind you need superior methods for keeping it healthy, alert and interested. Advanced forms of thought all contribute to the intellectual wellbeing of society by playing a role of both thinking exercises as well as paths to additional knowledge leading to better economic systems, weapons and ways to store prepackaged food.
Benefit and detriment are human categories. By even considering that something can "benefit" or "detriment" the universe you are essentially anthropomorphizing it. I mean, that if you can "benefit" the universe, it has some agenda which can be fulfilled more efficiently with certain factors present/absent. This doesn't make any sense.
Another thing which I find silly, is the tendency to view ourselves distinct and separate from the universe no matter what. Of course it's good to abstract the rest of the world as separate from us when going about your everyday business. However, when dealing with universal notions, such as humanity's relationship to the universe, we should acknowledge that humanity is just a property of the universe, a physical manifestation of the laws governing the cosmos.
The universe cannot care whether we colonize the space or not. On the other hand - space colonization is the obvious thing for us to do, due to our very nature. Expanding and filling all the available space and exploring the unknown is what we have always done, no reason to stop now.
I guess you really meant to reply to the gp, since you pretty much echoed my ideas.
And what makes you think that evolution of intelligence and culture on other planets would have taken a different and counterintuitive course producing tame, contemplative techno-zen races, that never ravished in violence? Of course eventually we will probably reach the aforementioned state of enlightened calm too, but I highly doubt that it's possible for the intelligent species to mature without going through some rough times.
You would get his point, if you would actually stop and think about it. Try to learn something about other countries first. Northern Europe has huge governments that don't interfere with peoples' privacy, let the businesses run smoothly, keep the cities clean of crime and trash, and make sure people are not becoming bums against their will. US has a weak government that only goes to war and limits individual freedoms. See the difference?
And people are not all the same. Some people are ignorant fools who need a shepherd, while others are free individuals willing and able to cooperate for the common good, while upholding their own private interests.