Agree'd. The only thing that the shuttle can do that a traditional rocket can't is fly around in orbit and repair things. The main expense of the shuttle is that it gets beat to hell everytime we go in and out of the earths atmosphere. So we back to rockets to get things in and out of orbit and build a seperate vehicle that stays in orbit, docked to the space station to repair things. We could probably get more done with one of these than with a whole fleet of shuttles, since it's always available for immediate use by the ISS crew. This solution is cheaper, safer, and more functional than what we have now.
Well, there could have been a breach of core in the matter-antimatter reactor, resulting in the total destruction of the entire city. Ever think of that bub?
Sheesh, I bet your one of those people that consider three mile island to be a failure:)
Hi, I just wanted to tell you that I found your post to be the most insightful commentary on open source software I have read in years. Your comment on how the orignal motivation of the author is far less important than the overriding dynamics of the respective systems, especially. It really tied together alot of ideas that have been floating around in my head for a while, but I couldn't seem to nail down. Thank you, I will be saving this post.
These numbers say nothing interesting about effeciency of our cars or plants. All energy paths are inefficent relative to 100%; what matters is their efficency relative to other paths. Gasoline engines are the most efficent way to power a car that we have yet to develop. If you want to talk about inefficent, look at the energy path for an electric (ie fuel cell) car and remember that energy is lost at each step: sunlight -> chemical -> thermal -> mechanical -> electrical -> chemical -> electrical -> mechanical. And before you criticise the efficency of dead plants remember that burning them is still more efficient than our attempts at getting energy from sunlight itself. Oil and gasoline engines are the the most efficent things we have for transportation.
What these numbers do say is that there is a certain natural amount of energy in the earth's ecosystem, and we consume far more than that. Therefore it is foolish to think that natural energy sources can sustain our unnatural consumption. There are two options - we use an unnatural energy source such as nuclear (unnatural to the teran energy cycle at least), or we limit ourselves to a natural amount of energy consumption. Most likely outcome is somewhere in the middle - we use some natural sources, some unnatural, and we don't use quite as much energy because it becomes too expensive.
I wonder what the school's reaction to decenting teachers would be. If I were a teacher I would let them come on in give their talk, and then as soon as they left give a real presentation of copyright law. I'd explain the constitutional purpose of copyright, how it is not property, and how recent technological changes mean that our laws may no longer be fulfilling that purpose in the best way. Then open the class for discussion on possible ways to modify copyright to again best serve the goal of promoting the arts.
As others pointed out, lying to our kids about important issues is the worst thing you can do. They are not stupid and can tell when you are shoveling propoganda at them, so they will ignore everything what you said and likely rebel against it. It like with drug education. There were many things that would have been good to know about drugs a kid, but since the adults were lying to us many kids ignored everything they said about them, even the true parts.
These propoganda sessions will just polarize people between being straitline corporate ninnies and 1337 Fuxor teh Man Kaaza Pirates, neither of which are good, neither or which help the artists, and neither of which improve society.
While sending nuclear waste to the center of the earth is a nice idea, that isn't what subducation would do. It takes to long - it wouldn't be waste anymore by the time it happened. So what you are proposing is really no different from just burying our nuclear waste at the bottom of the ocean.
As others have pointed out, there are better places to bury nuclear waste than a fault line.
I grew up in New Mexico on the Navajo Reservation, where many of the roads have no name. My favorite instructions involved turning left at the big tree with the dead dog under it, among other things:)
My point was that the AI would be more alive, mentally (which is what counts), and it's death a greater objective loss than a non-thinking fetus. Subjectively, emotion comes into play, but I'm a cold-hearted bastard right?
Ah, I read your original post again and realised we have been talking about different things. It really depends on what we mean my AI. My arguments have been about the current status of "AI", vs fetuses, and whether it's possible for an automaton to be sentient. It's not my empathy that makes me think a fetus has more value than a current wannabe AI.
However, supposing you were to create a real sentient living being then yes, that being would have equal value as a human, and a shortly running program would be the same as a fetus due to it's immenant potential. But we would be biased and not concider it to be have the inherent value of life that we do, because our value is more obvious to us than the value of something foreign.
I see what you are saying now, and agree that our ability to empatise with a creature influences how much value we assign to it. What I wonder is how we would tell that an automaton is sentient to begin with - ie what possible objective measure is there that a AI has equal value to us. It is one thing to say that someone is being emotional by declaring that human life has more value, it is another to provide the cold logic that they are wrong. What would that be?
In any case, that being's empathy would consider it's races life to be most valuable, and would not treat human life with respect after enslaving our race:)
That would be the value YOU get of the emotional attachment to the other person, or a pet.
That's definatly part of it but not the whole. If a person grew up appart from society would his life still have value? I would say yes. There are many things that I could point to that give argument for why life has value, but when I was done, there would be other situations where those reasons don't apply, and I would have to explain away those, ad infinitem. This is why I admitted I couldn't give a good justification for that belief - because while I have evidence supporting it, I don't understand it in it's entirely. Hence, a belief:)
Appeal to science as religion. We don't know how it works, but we should assume that everything behaves according to fixed explainable laws.
Now this is a perfectly valid philosophical view, and it may very well be right. But there is *nothing* about science that assumes that it can explain everything. There are good philosophical arguments both ways.
For the record, I am not a religious person, and am not bringing up these facts to justify my beliefs. Quite the opposite, I am bringing it up to defend science. Too many scientist, like this poster, cannot seem to seperate the incredably usefull tool of science from their philosphical belief that everything in the world operates according to fixed laws. Armed with the false idea that this belief is scientific, they then attack anyone who has different beliefs from them, in the name of science. Having some experince with bible-belt high schoolers I know for a fact that this attitude hurts science greatly, and adds to the animosity between groups.
Now, back on topic, I didn't say that we should assume that it is metaphysical - I clearly presented the two possibilities that should be questioned. Since we cannot directly disprove either, and only one can be proven, that is what we should work on. Not because the scientific answer is the only *possible* answer, but because it is the only one that can be found if it even exists.
If the fetus is assured to have a limited mental capacity once it has reached its maximum potential, and if that maximum is the equivalent of a 5 year old child, does that mean its okay to "turn off" the fetus in advance?
No, I don't think it would be a good idea to abort a fetus because we knew it would be mentally disabled. As alluded to in the previous post, I strongly believe that there is more value to human life than intelligence. I believe that there is a inherent value in any human life. If you were to press me to quantify what the value was and where it came from I couldn't give you an answer, although here are some interesting observations. There is the issue that we may have a soul, which I don't have a strong belief in. But more concretely, relationships with unintellegent and disabled people (I have a cousin with down syndrome), can be just as rewarding as relationships with "normal" people. Furthermore, the disabled person himself often enjoys life just as much as a "normal" person.
Just curious as to how your world view handles this very realistic scenario.
I have answered you with my world view, unfortunatly, the argument I used in my previous post was really just an observation, not part of my world view, so this answer probably isn't helpful to you:)
Funny anallogy but there is an important difference. Humans sentiance posesses properties that we cannot explain by what we currently know about the physical operation of our brains. The big question is whether we will ever be able to explain sentiant life in terms of physical laws or not. Maybe we will maybe we won't.
Now likewise, if your printouts demonstrated properties that paper and ink normally do not, then it would be valid to question if a) there is more to these print outs than just being paper and ink, or b) if there is more to paper and ink than we used to think. And yes, in this situation people would be willing to pay large amounts for your printouts, because they *might* be worth millions. However, if they look and act just like normal paper and ink, there is no reason to think they might be worth more.
You mean a developing embryo should be given the same rights as me until someone can conclusively disprove...
No I didn't say that. I said that it should have more rights than an automaton. You are correct in saying that the existance of a soul cannot be proven. In the future we may understand the nature of human life well enough that we could produce an automaton that was indisguisable from humans in everyway - not just intelegence, but sentiance, short term emotions, long term emotion (love, devotion, pregedices), etc. I would consider that to be strong enough evidence that I myself may likely be an automaton - governed soley by physical laws and chance. However, back to today - every attempt at true AI has evaded us thus far, and an understanding of sentiance has not gotten any further that philosophical ponderings.
For the record I don't have strong beliefs about either abortion (except for the effects it has on the pregnant woman) or whether we have a soul. The later issue in particular, I can really see both ways - the more time I spend programming the more I think we must have a soul - the more I spend with people (and myself), the more I think we may be nothing more than a chemical driven machine:) However, in the lack of scientific knowledge, we are stuck in the area of philosophy, and I prefer to be conservative on decisions made without hard facts.
In that case, a sentient AI is more "alive" than a fetus or even a newborn
I would counter that by saying that given time in the correct environment to grow and learn, this fetus will become as intelligent as adult human. The same cannot be said about any artificial intelligence we have today. So a human fetus is more human than an AI.
Furthermore, until we know that a human is nothing more than it's physical brain and body, human life should be treated with more value than that.
Open source software is not unfit for business. It is unfit for being the thing that differentiates your buisiness from everyone else. However in the task of performing you primary business you will find need to do all sorts of tasks that support your business but aren't what makes it special. You will need to maintain payroll, and inventory systems. You will need to provide software, printing services, internet, and shared file locations to your workers so they can be more productive. You will have to have website and may likely have to run a webstore. Free software is wonderfull for theses tasks. And if you cannot find an application that fits your needs exactly you can save a bundle buy having free software modified to fit your needs rather than writing one from scratch or making do with a product that doesn't suit your needs.
Free Software is great for all the tasks that business have in common. It is only foolish to try and use it as the unique thing that makes your company better than any other.
I hole heartedly agree with you on this. But I would make one modification. Given a hard limit on both and someone to race against, miracles occur. I would say that a hard limit on time is the important factor. A hard limit on money is part of the problem with the current NASA situation - because they have little money to work with they become even more concerned with comming up with the best solution, because they don't have many oportunites to fly. This wastes time and in the long-run money, because you don't have the rapid feedback cycle. Although, I do agree that with some up front investment we could develop a cheaper solution than we have now.
Or as the old adage goes Fast, Cheap, Good: choose two I the space race we had Fast and Good. Now that Cheap is mandated we have Slow and Good.
Well, yes he does have the right to tell you to shut up, and you have the right to ignore him. Freedom of speech works both ways, and this certainly does not fit into one of the "exceptions" like harrasment.
I agree. There have been a fair amount of compaints lately about what slashdoters consider to be inappropriate comments by the editors. Now I'm not at all opposed to hearing their opinions, but I think the best place for them would be in the comment section. I would enjoy it if the slashdot staff ocassionally participated in discussions that they cared about. It would make them more part of the community, where as putting comments like this in the article summary comes acrossed with a "you will listen to me because you have to - I am the editor" attitude, even if it wasn't intended to come across that way. This has begun to foster an US vs THEM attitude among some readers, which isn't good. Please Taco, consider letting the staff talk with us not at us (although not too often - lest they become addicted, and don't have time to do the important job of running the site:). I think it would improve slashdot.
Has anyone else played Rescue Rover? That was a bad ass DOS game. It was like "chips" on windows where the world was layed out on a grid, and you had to push boxes an mirrors around to block lazers and get acrossed water etc to make it to the exit for each level.
The coolest part was a couple years latter when I played it again and realized that it was written by John Caramak.
To add to the hundreds of posts that no one will read:
My first computer was a Laser (Apple ][e clone). I learned how to program basic on that using the sample programs in 321 Contact magazine. It is still running. I used it up through 1998 because I prefered Apple Works to Microsoft Works, and my dad still uses it for his grades and fundraising inventory - hasn't found any reason to switch to another program.
Our second computer was a hand-me-down AMD 486 66Mhz machine. I am still using it as a firewall.
I also have one of those cute Mac SE machines that looked lonely at a used computer store. I use it as my diary. It's minimalistic, yet sufficient capabilities minimize distractions and annoyances, making it perfect for that use.
This is a wonderful idea. Our ACM chapter used to have a linux day every year, where we would set up demonstrations of the cool stuff you could do with linux, give out linux CD's and even install linux on the first X people to bring their computer down.
But this would be applicable to all the students on campus, not just the adventurous. Handing out CD's with Mozilla and OpenOffice to incomming freshman would be a great way to get word out about freedomware. In addition, helping people with their computers is a great way to meet cute freshman girls:)
Slashdot Mirror
How many broadcast stations are there? Ive never been able to pick up more than a handfull. That's what cable or satelite is for.
oops, I retract that comment; I was thinking about something different. The OSP is stupid, although not for safety reasons.
Agree'd. The only thing that the shuttle can do that a traditional rocket can't is fly around in orbit and repair things. The main expense of the shuttle is that it gets beat to hell everytime we go in and out of the earths atmosphere. So we back to rockets to get things in and out of orbit and build a seperate vehicle that stays in orbit, docked to the space station to repair things. We could probably get more done with one of these than with a whole fleet of shuttles, since it's always available for immediate use by the ISS crew. This solution is cheaper, safer, and more functional than what we have now.
nah, lets just stop development on a safe space vehicle, thus increasing the amount of time we are dependant on our aging ones.
Well, there could have been a breach of core in the matter-antimatter reactor, resulting in the total destruction of the entire city. Ever think of that bub?
:)
Sheesh, I bet your one of those people that consider three mile island to be a failure
Hi, I just wanted to tell you that I found your post to be the most insightful commentary on open source software I have read in years. Your comment on how the orignal motivation of the author is far less important than the overriding dynamics of the respective systems, especially. It really tied together alot of ideas that have been floating around in my head for a while, but I couldn't seem to nail down. Thank you, I will be saving this post.
These numbers say nothing interesting about effeciency of our cars or plants. All energy paths are inefficent relative to 100%; what matters is their efficency relative to other paths. Gasoline engines are the most efficent way to power a car that we have yet to develop. If you want to talk about inefficent, look at the energy path for an electric (ie fuel cell) car and remember that energy is lost at each step: sunlight -> chemical -> thermal -> mechanical -> electrical -> chemical -> electrical -> mechanical. And before you criticise the efficency of dead plants remember that burning them is still more efficient than our attempts at getting energy from sunlight itself. Oil and gasoline engines are the the most efficent things we have for transportation.
What these numbers do say is that there is a certain natural amount of energy in the earth's ecosystem, and we consume far more than that. Therefore it is foolish to think that natural energy sources can sustain our unnatural consumption. There are two options - we use an unnatural energy source such as nuclear (unnatural to the teran energy cycle at least), or we limit ourselves to a natural amount of energy consumption. Most likely outcome is somewhere in the middle - we use some natural sources, some unnatural, and we don't use quite as much energy because it becomes too expensive.
I wonder what the school's reaction to decenting teachers would be. If I were a teacher I would let them come on in give their talk, and then as soon as they left give a real presentation of copyright law. I'd explain the constitutional purpose of copyright, how it is not property, and how recent technological changes mean that our laws may no longer be fulfilling that purpose in the best way. Then open the class for discussion on possible ways to modify copyright to again best serve the goal of promoting the arts.
As others pointed out, lying to our kids about important issues is the worst thing you can do. They are not stupid and can tell when you are shoveling propoganda at them, so they will ignore everything what you said and likely rebel against it. It like with drug education. There were many things that would have been good to know about drugs a kid, but since the adults were lying to us many kids ignored everything they said about them, even the true parts.
These propoganda sessions will just polarize people between being straitline corporate ninnies and 1337 Fuxor teh Man Kaaza Pirates, neither of which are good, neither or which help the artists, and neither of which improve society.
...about how the Internet has trumped capitalism yet again...
No should be: how the free market internet has enabled capitalism to trump corporate price fixing.
While sending nuclear waste to the center of the earth is a nice idea, that isn't what subducation would do. It takes to long - it wouldn't be waste anymore by the time it happened. So what you are proposing is really no different from just burying our nuclear waste at the bottom of the ocean.
As others have pointed out, there are better places to bury nuclear waste than a fault line.
I grew up in New Mexico on the Navajo Reservation, where many of the roads have no name. My favorite instructions involved turning left at the big tree with the dead dog under it, among other things :)
My point was that the AI would be more alive, mentally (which is what counts), and it's death a greater objective loss than a non-thinking fetus. Subjectively, emotion comes into play, but I'm a cold-hearted bastard right?
:)
Ah, I read your original post again and realised we have been talking about different things. It really depends on what we mean my AI. My arguments have been about the current status of "AI", vs fetuses, and whether it's possible for an automaton to be sentient. It's not my empathy that makes me think a fetus has more value than a current wannabe AI.
However, supposing you were to create a real sentient living being then yes, that being would have equal value as a human, and a shortly running program would be the same as a fetus due to it's immenant potential. But we would be biased and not concider it to be have the inherent value of life that we do, because our value is more obvious to us than the value of something foreign.
I see what you are saying now, and agree that our ability to empatise with a creature influences how much value we assign to it. What I wonder is how we would tell that an automaton is sentient to begin with - ie what possible objective measure is there that a AI has equal value to us. It is one thing to say that someone is being emotional by declaring that human life has more value, it is another to provide the cold logic that they are wrong. What would that be?
In any case, that being's empathy would consider it's races life to be most valuable, and would not treat human life with respect after enslaving our race
That would be the value YOU get of the emotional attachment to the other person, or a pet.
:)
That's definatly part of it but not the whole. If a person grew up appart from society would his life still have value? I would say yes. There are many things that I could point to that give argument for why life has value, but when I was done, there would be other situations where those reasons don't apply, and I would have to explain away those, ad infinitem. This is why I admitted I couldn't give a good justification for that belief - because while I have evidence supporting it, I don't understand it in it's entirely. Hence, a belief
Appeal to science as religion. We don't know how it works, but we should assume that everything behaves according to fixed explainable laws.
Now this is a perfectly valid philosophical view, and it may very well be right. But there is *nothing* about science that assumes that it can explain everything. There are good philosophical arguments both ways.
For the record, I am not a religious person, and am not bringing up these facts to justify my beliefs. Quite the opposite, I am bringing it up to defend science. Too many scientist, like this poster, cannot seem to seperate the incredably usefull tool of science from their philosphical belief that everything in the world operates according to fixed laws. Armed with the false idea that this belief is scientific, they then attack anyone who has different beliefs from them, in the name of science. Having some experince with bible-belt high schoolers I know for a fact that this attitude hurts science greatly, and adds to the animosity between groups.
Now, back on topic, I didn't say that we should assume that it is metaphysical - I clearly presented the two possibilities that should be questioned. Since we cannot directly disprove either, and only one can be proven, that is what we should work on. Not because the scientific answer is the only *possible* answer, but because it is the only one that can be found if it even exists.
If the fetus is assured to have a limited mental capacity once it has reached its maximum potential, and if that maximum is the equivalent of a 5 year old child, does that mean its okay to "turn off" the fetus in advance?
:)
No, I don't think it would be a good idea to abort a fetus because we knew it would be mentally disabled. As alluded to in the previous post, I strongly believe that there is more value to human life than intelligence. I believe that there is a inherent value in any human life. If you were to press me to quantify what the value was and where it came from I couldn't give you an answer, although here are some interesting observations. There is the issue that we may have a soul, which I don't have a strong belief in. But more concretely, relationships with unintellegent and disabled people (I have a cousin with down syndrome), can be just as rewarding as relationships with "normal" people. Furthermore, the disabled person himself often enjoys life just as much as a "normal" person.
Just curious as to how your world view handles this very realistic scenario.
I have answered you with my world view, unfortunatly, the argument I used in my previous post was really just an observation, not part of my world view, so this answer probably isn't helpful to you
Funny anallogy but there is an important difference. Humans sentiance posesses properties that we cannot explain by what we currently know about the physical operation of our brains. The big question is whether we will ever be able to explain sentiant life in terms of physical laws or not. Maybe we will maybe we won't.
Now likewise, if your printouts demonstrated properties that paper and ink normally do not, then it would be valid to question if a) there is more to these print outs than just being paper and ink, or b) if there is more to paper and ink than we used to think. And yes, in this situation people would be willing to pay large amounts for your printouts, because they *might* be worth millions. However, if they look and act just like normal paper and ink, there is no reason to think they might be worth more.
You mean a developing embryo should be given the same rights as me until someone can conclusively disprove ...
No I didn't say that. I said that it should have more rights than an automaton. You are correct in saying that the existance of a soul cannot be proven. In the future we may understand the nature of human life well enough that we could produce an automaton that was indisguisable from humans in everyway - not just intelegence, but sentiance, short term emotions, long term emotion (love, devotion, pregedices), etc. I would consider that to be strong enough evidence that I myself may likely be an automaton - governed soley by physical laws and chance. However, back to today - every attempt at true AI has evaded us thus far, and an understanding of sentiance has not gotten any further that philosophical ponderings.
For the record I don't have strong beliefs about either abortion (except for the effects it has on the pregnant woman) or whether we have a soul. The later issue in particular, I can really see both ways - the more time I spend programming the more I think we must have a soul - the more I spend with people (and myself), the more I think we may be nothing more than a chemical driven machine:) However, in the lack of scientific knowledge, we are stuck in the area of philosophy, and I prefer to be conservative on decisions made without hard facts.
In that case, a sentient AI is more "alive" than a fetus or even a newborn
I would counter that by saying that given time in the correct environment to grow and learn, this fetus will become as intelligent as adult human. The same cannot be said about any artificial intelligence we have today. So a human fetus is more human than an AI.
Furthermore, until we know that a human is nothing more than it's physical brain and body, human life should be treated with more value than that.
Open source software is not unfit for business. It is unfit for being the thing that differentiates your buisiness from everyone else. However in the task of performing you primary business you will find need to do all sorts of tasks that support your business but aren't what makes it special. You will need to maintain payroll, and inventory systems. You will need to provide software, printing services, internet, and shared file locations to your workers so they can be more productive. You will have to have website and may likely have to run a webstore. Free software is wonderfull for theses tasks. And if you cannot find an application that fits your needs exactly you can save a bundle buy having free software modified to fit your needs rather than writing one from scratch or making do with a product that doesn't suit your needs.
Free Software is great for all the tasks that business have in common. It is only foolish to try and use it as the unique thing that makes your company better than any other.
I hole heartedly agree with you on this. But I would make one modification.
Given a hard limit on both and someone to race against, miracles occur.
I would say that a hard limit on time is the important factor. A hard limit on money is part of the problem with the current NASA situation - because they have little money to work with they become even more concerned with comming up with the best solution, because they don't have many oportunites to fly. This wastes time and in the long-run money, because you don't have the rapid feedback cycle. Although, I do agree that with some up front investment we could develop a cheaper solution than we have now.
Or as the old adage goes
Fast, Cheap, Good: choose two
I the space race we had Fast and Good.
Now that Cheap is mandated we have Slow and Good.
Well, yes he does have the right to tell you to shut up, and you have the right to ignore him. Freedom of speech works both ways, and this certainly does not fit into one of the "exceptions" like harrasment.
I agree. There have been a fair amount of compaints lately about what slashdoters consider to be inappropriate comments by the editors. Now I'm not at all opposed to hearing their opinions, but I think the best place for them would be in the comment section. I would enjoy it if the slashdot staff ocassionally participated in discussions that they cared about. It would make them more part of the community, where as putting comments like this in the article summary comes acrossed with a "you will listen to me because you have to - I am the editor" attitude, even if it wasn't intended to come across that way. This has begun to foster an US vs THEM attitude among some readers, which isn't good. Please Taco, consider letting the staff talk with us not at us (although not too often - lest they become addicted, and don't have time to do the important job of running the site :). I think it would improve slashdot.
Has anyone else played Rescue Rover? That was a bad ass DOS game. It was like "chips" on windows where the world was layed out on a grid, and you had to push boxes an mirrors around to block lazers and get acrossed water etc to make it to the exit for each level.
The coolest part was a couple years latter when I played it again and realized that it was written by John Caramak.
To add to the hundreds of posts that no one will read:
My first computer was a Laser (Apple ][e clone). I learned how to program basic on that using the sample programs in 321 Contact magazine. It is still running. I used it up through 1998 because I prefered Apple Works to Microsoft Works, and my dad still uses it for his grades and fundraising inventory - hasn't found any reason to switch to another program.
Our second computer was a hand-me-down AMD 486 66Mhz machine. I am still using it as a firewall.
I also have one of those cute Mac SE machines that looked lonely at a used computer store. I use it as my diary. It's minimalistic, yet sufficient capabilities minimize distractions and annoyances, making it perfect for that use.
This is a wonderful idea. Our ACM chapter used to have a linux day every year, where we would set up demonstrations of the cool stuff you could do with linux, give out linux CD's and even install linux on the first X people to bring their computer down.
:)
But this would be applicable to all the students on campus, not just the adventurous. Handing out CD's with Mozilla and OpenOffice to incomming freshman would be a great way to get word out about freedomware. In addition, helping people with their computers is a great way to meet cute freshman girls