Hey, Mebbe he's posting as an AC.. I'm not, and I agree with him... I'm no angel, but I've got no problem with anyone scrutinising my life... As long as they agree to be just as up front an honest about themselves. I've lived in places like the 'good town'.. Small villages, where life _is_ good... And awful friendly.. People use what they know about you to help you better yourself... I've lived in places like the 'bad village'.. Where people are out to see what they can get out of you.. And to date, they have been 'village' sized.. But I agree.. It won't be like that for long..
Thanks for a beautifully written article.. It's always good to see something like that on Slashdot.. There are a few things that maybe we'll have to agree to disagree on though... You say that Linux won't make inroads on the market of the 'average home user' (read gamer/email drone).. I've found that quite a few people who fit into this category who've actually installed Linux, and been happy with it.. A small learning curve (maybe the same as going from win 3.x to win 9.x) and they're there.. I've also had a _lot_ of Win users wandering past my workstation at work (where I set up a Linux box to handle the department's webserver, fileserver etc.), and look in awe at my basic Windowmaker screen with the clip. Everyone wants one, and now, most of the people on the floor who own PCs are running Linux at home, to check out this OS that seems to do so much more than Windows. I'd agree with your points, if you stated that there's a long way to go before Linux makes inroads into those markets... I believe it will.. Not to the dominance of the market that MS have.. But I believe they'll maintain a reasonable presence. Never is a long long time. I still have a nice long list of lots of names back in '94-'95 who were telling me that Linux would never make it mainstream, that it'd never be a commercial viability and you'd never have non-guru users. Some of them I still phone up to laugh at before I ask them out for a beer. They're now the ones asking for my advice on how Linux can be used to increase the reliability of their company's information systems. All that said, it's merely my experience of the situation, so what I write is coloured by my own experience and bias. It'll still be interesting to see what, despite all the FUD that's spread, happens. These are, indeed, interesting times..
Hmm.. I think I'll be brief on this one (sorta)... For those of you familiar with George Orwell's 1984, I think the basic theme is recognisable. A group of people (in the case of 1984, the government) have a thought police. Thinking in any non-approved way buys you a fast ticket to re-orientation... Or death. Here, on this site, you have a small group of people who use tactics of intimidation to attempt to 'police' the thinking of the world at large. And without a doubt, this is what they are doing. I'm afraid that I consider that 'enabling' the violence against people, with possible result in their deaths as nothing less than terrorism. Again, I hear the words 'Free Speech' being bandied around... Probably by the same people who days ago were in arms about the inclusion of a serial number into the PIII chip, as it overrode the 'individual's right to anonymity'. This (the right to privacy), as was universally lauded at the time, was a 'Good Idea'... It lets people function as people.. I allows choice.. It allows freedom... As someone who's seen friends go through abortion (from reasons as varied as pure irresponibility to the aftereffect of rape), I understand what price they pay. And it's not small.. The effects stay with the women for many years (probably a lifetime)... And they suffer.. Yet they make the choice, knowing this, so they wouldn't bring a child into the world, that wouldn't know love and compassion... It's a choice, and a difficult one.. but a choice.. And here is a group of people who say 'You're not allowed a choice, because we're the only ones that know what's right. We've not been in that position, but we know more about it than you do because we're right. Not only are we right, we know where you live.. And we know where your children are, and your spouse...' Currently, I'm on contract to a telecommunications company (one of the big ones). One of their security vids has a section on why the information is protected. In this vid, one of the employees leaks an address from the database of customers to someone 'who's looking for an old girlfriend' he wanted to drop a line to... It turns out this was to settle an old score and the guy was a psycho.. The 'old girlfriend' ended up dead. It underlines the point that data is a weapon. It should be treated responsibly. There is no difference between pulling the trigger of a gun, and supplying the complete details of a target to the gunman looking for them. It's a question of responsibility. It's knows that there are people out there who wish to kill certain targets, and that said people are likely to browse this site. It's therefore the responsibility of these people to guard the information they may have.. And they fail, thus showing themselves to be highly irresponsible... And would you trust the irresponsible to make life or death decisions?? I heard the argument earlier that/. is like this group, in that we don't see eye to eye with the world at large, so we should understand them. Sorry, at this point, it's so laughable to state that, that the only recourse is vulgarity, and I have to say 'Bollocks to that'... Here at/. we have a 'benevolent dictatorship' style. We know the alternatives, we've tried them.. Tested them, and we're pretty much way ahead of the game... So, to spread our viewpoint, we actually _create_... We patiently demonstrate the benefits of our way.. Peaceable... Much like the mindset of Ghandhi... We try to increase the wisdom and wellbeing of the world by peaceful change.. This little group has more in common with the Nazis.. We will change _you_ because we know what's right. You're wrong so you must know terror. There is no other way than ours. We require no proof because we are always right. Comparison ends. It's not a question of morals, or religion. It's, again, a question of responsibility. Let's leave the politics to the politicans (who'll probably roast in everyone's hells for it), and the religion to the religous (who, each having different Gods, will each roast in each other's hells for heresy), and work out how to actually make the best of being on this planet... And if that means growing up, and trying to understand the world, and becoming responsible.. . Then so be it..
Well.. Most of what he writes, I consider destined to happen.. And I've felt that way for a long time (Artificial life was my specialist subject at Uni, and I've followed it since).. The idea of packing transistors onto silicon, yes, I can see that hitting a limit very soon, as has been pointed out.. That's about the time that quantum devices take over. And that's a whole other kettle of fish.. It seems that people here forget about the other computational media available. Optical gateways, Bio-computers using neurons, quantum devices etc... I agree that the law of doubling will fail soon. but I also consider that it'll result in the increasing of power by an order of magnitude. The same effect as leaving a horse and cart for a rocket engine. As for intelligence... Who is really to define it?? It's stumped the greatest philosophers for many centuries now, and I think it'll carry on doing that, albeit more heatedly now, for centuries to come. When you say that machines will take millions of years to evolve, or that they never will become sentient, consider out origins... Small molecules that grouped together in a protein soup... That slowly learned how to replicate themselves, and form copies.. From there, in geological terms, the rise to sentience of the human race was quite fast. And also, how do you rate the intelligence of humanity? We may be 'intelligent' now.. but do you consider cro-magnon man as intelligent?? And before that? Where did we become intelligent?? At what point? Is a Fish intelligent? If so, would a machine that has all the drives and behaviour of a fish be any less intelligent? Machine learning will arise much much faster than did biological intelligence. It's being nurtured carefully by a parent species.. Most of the people who have studied Alife have been surprised by the behaviour of their constructs.. Watching them behave in ways totally unexpected. History is littered with people saying 'It can never happen, you're deluding yourself'... Flight was never possible.. Humans would never travel over 30 miles an hour, as that would prove fatal... The view that no weapon could be more powerful than the bow, as the destructive power would be truly unthinkable... All commonly held beliefs at some points in time.. And relatively recently at that. Currently, we exist in a society that views Alife as a threat; something to deny and deride. It's in a lot of human nature to destroy that which it does not understand. In time, the next generation will grow up in a world where it is becoming commonplace (as is already starting to happen, at a truly basic level), so the concept will be less alien. In the generation afterwards, it'll be accepted as a standard, and they'll laugh at the old views of the primitive society that couldn't comprehend every day life. Much as someon in the late 19th century couldn't comprehend an office worker going to work in the morning, sitting behind a computer, emailing documents halfway round the planet in seconds, and retrieving other information from another country inthe same timescale.. then looking through the 'eyes' of a mechanical construct that sits on another planet, which mankind has put there to gather information. We take this for granted. Two generations ago, this would have been unthinkable.. I'm not sure of the timescales presented in that passage... But I firmly believe that what is proposed in it is not only a possibility, but an inevitability. As for the idea of human/computer cybernesis at the cognisent level restricting your thinking... I'd beg to differ.. Once we obtain that level of understanding of the brain that we can actually bond memories/thought patterns into understandable/transmittable patterns, we get the closest to telepathy/telempathy that is possible.. The sharing of experience and emotion through a 'computer' link. The ability to fast process thought.. Raising intelligence by orders of magnitude. As for the machines deciding to 'dispose of us'.. I find it unlikely... The most optimal survival pattern is co-operation. Time after time, this has been proven, both in theory and test. Humanity, sadly, still clings too hard to it's origins in a simian style.. Rationally, I belive most people understand the true value of co-operation, but psychologically aren't equipped to live life fully in this way.. The hybridising of man with machine is a natural evolutionary step for a tool-using species.. We've used physical tools for all the years we've used physical force to achieve our wonders. Now, we develop tools for the intellect. The industrial revolution for the mind.. We've got as far as we have, because we're able to change.. And we'll make the next steps for exactly the same reason. It's the point where we can become the greatest of our dreams, or the worst of our nightmares. And sooner or later, we'll have to decide which..
An odd thing.. As a few of you'll probably notice, my name comes from a white wolf roleplaying game 'Vampire the Masquerade'... In the clanbook for the clan Malkavian, there's a peculiar critter called 'Word Eater'. Word Eater is generally detested by all that know it, as it lives by eating ideas. Ideas are couched in words, and as Word Eater eats the words, they become lost, and the world become duller, more mundane, and less flexible. This seems to be exactly how AOL (I know this acronym to mean 'Assholes On Line', and it seems with awful good reason right now) is behaving. In the clamour for 'intellectual property', certain companies seem to be hell bent on removing concepts from general use. What they fail to comprehend is that for new ideas to be born, sometimes, older ideas need to be an integral part. Without these new ideas, there will BE nothing new... Sooner or later, these 'Word Eaters' will have nothing new to claim. All that'll be left is the ruin of a once bright and developing place. And they'll be reduced further and further, trying to fight for the scraps that are left. The world in general will probably be set back by about 20 years or so in development. Research will be stymied. The net could very well be a dark and dismal place. I wonder if someone would care to claim the naming of TCP/IP, or 'internet' or 'World Wide Web'... Now, where would AOL be if they mentioned they allowed you to hook up, but couldn't mention 'Internet' or 'World Wide Web' or 'Web'... Or their engineers couldn't write docs that referred to TCP/IP... Language arose for a very good reason; it allowed us to develop a framework in which we could relay concepts to one another, to allow humankind to develop past the pack animal to create many wonders, and, in the hands of the misguided, many atrocities. But each step has allowed us to learn. It seems now, that in the hands of the legal system, the greedy few can persue a method of removing the product of thousands of years of development and refinement by a whole race, and all in the quest for a small amount of money, which'll soon vanish and dry up. The burning of books was only one way to limit the spread of knowledge... One can but hope that the laws protect our most valuable asset... Our words... After all, they're owned by us all (think if language as a business partnership.. We're all responisble for it's development). If one person in a partnership decides to remove an asset from the company and claim it as it's own, it's termed 'embezzlement', or fraud (I'm no legal hotshot.. Quite which applies, I'm not sure).. Maybe it oculd be argued that anybody could countersue as a representative of the 'Public Domain' company for theft of a concept. After all, I'm sure even back in the the days of Ancient Egypt and before, ever since the dawning of writing, some people were saying the very equivalent of 'You've got mail'. And I'm damn sure AOL wasn't around back then. I just find myself baffled at the sheer arrogance, stupidity and short-sightedness of anyone who believes they can claim the creation of any phrase so commonly used... So, as clan Malkavian plans to 'Prank' Word Eater in such a way as to cause it to cease it's practices, so I aim to 'Prank' AOL. And no, I don't mean hack. Every company relies heavily on it's 'Corporate Image'. They spend millions on advertising to make this seem slick and competent. The greatest Prank is to show everyone you can just how utterly inept, incompetent and grabbing they really are. Your words spread to others who learn from you. And in turn, people learn from them, and so on, and so the ripples spread. In the long term, this'll cost AOL more than just the legal costs, as long as the joke lasts.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey,
Mebbe he's posting as an AC.. I'm not, and I agree with him...
I'm no angel, but I've got no problem with anyone scrutinising my life... As long as they agree to be just as up front an honest about themselves.
I've lived in places like the 'good town'.. Small villages, where life _is_ good... And awful friendly.. People use what they know about you to help you better yourself...
I've lived in places like the 'bad village'.. Where people are out to see what they can get out of you..
And to date, they have been 'village' sized..
But I agree.. It won't be like that for long..
Thanks for a beautifully written article.. It's always good to see something like that on Slashdot..
There are a few things that maybe we'll have to agree to disagree on though... You say that Linux won't make inroads on the market of the 'average home user' (read gamer/email drone).. I've found that quite a few people who fit into this category who've actually installed Linux, and been happy with it.. A small learning curve (maybe the same as going from win 3.x to win 9.x) and they're there..
I've also had a _lot_ of Win users wandering past my workstation at work (where I set up a Linux box to handle the department's webserver, fileserver etc.), and look in awe at my basic Windowmaker screen with the clip.
Everyone wants one, and now, most of the people on the floor who own PCs are running Linux at home, to check out this OS that seems to do so much more than Windows.
I'd agree with your points, if you stated that there's a long way to go before Linux makes inroads into those markets...
I believe it will.. Not to the dominance of the market that MS have.. But I believe they'll maintain a reasonable presence.
Never is a long long time.
I still have a nice long list of lots of names back in '94-'95 who were telling me that Linux would never make it mainstream, that it'd never be a commercial viability and you'd never have non-guru users.
Some of them I still phone up to laugh at before I ask them out for a beer.
They're now the ones asking for my advice on how Linux can be used to increase the reliability of their company's information systems.
All that said, it's merely my experience of the situation, so what I write is coloured by my own experience and bias.
It'll still be interesting to see what, despite all the FUD that's spread, happens.
These are, indeed, interesting times..
Malk.
Yup.. Guess I do...
Well observed that man/woman...
Malk.
Hmm.. I think I'll be brief on this one (sorta)... /. is like this group, in that we don't see eye to eye with the world at large, so we should understand them. /. we have a 'benevolent dictatorship' style. We know the alternatives, we've tried them.. Tested them, and we're pretty much way ahead of the game... So, to spread our viewpoint, we actually _create_... We patiently demonstrate the benefits of our way.. Peaceable... Much like the mindset of Ghandhi... We try to increase the wisdom and wellbeing of the world by peaceful change..
For those of you familiar with George Orwell's 1984, I think the basic theme is recognisable.
A group of people (in the case of 1984, the government) have a thought police. Thinking in any non-approved way buys you a fast ticket to re-orientation... Or death.
Here, on this site, you have a small group of people who use tactics of intimidation to attempt to 'police' the thinking of the world at large. And without a doubt, this is what they are doing.
I'm afraid that I consider that 'enabling' the violence against people, with possible result in their deaths as nothing less than terrorism.
Again, I hear the words 'Free Speech' being bandied around...
Probably by the same people who days ago were in arms about the inclusion of a serial number into the PIII chip, as it overrode the 'individual's right to anonymity'.
This (the right to privacy), as was universally lauded at the time, was a 'Good Idea'...
It lets people function as people.. I allows choice.. It allows freedom...
As someone who's seen friends go through abortion (from reasons as varied as pure irresponibility to the aftereffect of rape), I understand what price they pay. And it's not small.. The effects stay with the women for many years (probably a lifetime)... And they suffer.. Yet they make the choice, knowing this, so they wouldn't bring a child into the world, that wouldn't know love and compassion... It's a choice, and a difficult one.. but a choice..
And here is a group of people who say 'You're not allowed a choice, because we're the only ones that know what's right. We've not been in that position, but we know more about it than you do because we're right. Not only are we right, we know where you live.. And we know where your children are, and your spouse...'
Currently, I'm on contract to a telecommunications company (one of the big ones). One of their security vids has a section on why the information is protected.
In this vid, one of the employees leaks an address from the database of customers to someone 'who's looking for an old girlfriend' he wanted to drop a line to... It turns out this was to settle an old score and the guy was a psycho.. The 'old girlfriend' ended up dead.
It underlines the point that data is a weapon. It should be treated responsibly.
There is no difference between pulling the trigger of a gun, and supplying the complete details of a target to the gunman looking for them.
It's a question of responsibility. It's knows that there are people out there who wish to kill certain targets, and that said people are likely to browse this site.
It's therefore the responsibility of these people to guard the information they may have.. And they fail, thus showing themselves to be highly irresponsible... And would you trust the irresponsible to make life or death decisions??
I heard the argument earlier that
Sorry, at this point, it's so laughable to state that, that the only recourse is vulgarity, and I have to say 'Bollocks to that'...
Here at
This little group has more in common with the Nazis.. We will change _you_ because we know what's right. You're wrong so you must know terror. There is no other way than ours. We require no proof because we are always right.
Comparison ends.
It's not a question of morals, or religion. It's, again, a question of responsibility.
Let's leave the politics to the politicans (who'll probably roast in everyone's hells for it), and the religion to the religous (who, each having different Gods, will each roast in each other's hells for heresy), and work out how to actually make the best of being on this planet...
And if that means growing up, and trying to understand the world, and becoming responsible.. .
Then so be it..
Malk.
Well.. Most of what he writes, I consider destined to happen.. And I've felt that way for a long time (Artificial life was my specialist subject at Uni, and I've followed it since)..
The idea of packing transistors onto silicon, yes, I can see that hitting a limit very soon, as has been pointed out.. That's about the time that quantum devices take over. And that's a whole other kettle of fish..
It seems that people here forget about the other computational media available. Optical gateways, Bio-computers using neurons, quantum devices etc...
I agree that the law of doubling will fail soon. but I also consider that it'll result in the increasing of power by an order of magnitude. The same effect as leaving a horse and cart for a rocket engine.
As for intelligence... Who is really to define it?? It's stumped the greatest philosophers for many centuries now, and I think it'll carry on doing that, albeit more heatedly now, for centuries to come.
When you say that machines will take millions of years to evolve, or that they never will become sentient, consider out origins...
Small molecules that grouped together in a protein soup... That slowly learned how to replicate themselves, and form copies..
From there, in geological terms, the rise to sentience of the human race was quite fast.
And also, how do you rate the intelligence of humanity? We may be 'intelligent' now.. but do you consider cro-magnon man as intelligent?? And before that?
Where did we become intelligent?? At what point?
Is a Fish intelligent? If so, would a machine that has all the drives and behaviour of a fish be any less intelligent?
Machine learning will arise much much faster than did biological intelligence.
It's being nurtured carefully by a parent species.. Most of the people who have studied Alife have been surprised by the behaviour of their constructs.. Watching them behave in ways totally unexpected.
History is littered with people saying 'It can never happen, you're deluding yourself'... Flight was never possible.. Humans would never travel over 30 miles an hour, as that would prove fatal... The view that no weapon could be more powerful than the bow, as the destructive power would be truly unthinkable...
All commonly held beliefs at some points in time..
And relatively recently at that.
Currently, we exist in a society that views Alife as a threat; something to deny and deride. It's in a lot of human nature to destroy that which it does not understand.
In time, the next generation will grow up in a world where it is becoming commonplace (as is already starting to happen, at a truly basic level), so the concept will be less alien.
In the generation afterwards, it'll be accepted as a standard, and they'll laugh at the old views of the primitive society that couldn't comprehend every day life. Much as someon in the late 19th century couldn't comprehend an office worker going to work in the morning, sitting behind a computer, emailing documents halfway round the planet in seconds, and retrieving other information from another country inthe same timescale.. then looking through the 'eyes' of a mechanical construct that sits on another planet, which mankind has put there to gather information.
We take this for granted. Two generations ago, this would have been unthinkable..
I'm not sure of the timescales presented in that passage... But I firmly believe that what is proposed in it is not only a possibility, but an inevitability.
As for the idea of human/computer cybernesis at the cognisent level restricting your thinking... I'd beg to differ..
Once we obtain that level of understanding of the brain that we can actually bond memories/thought patterns into understandable/transmittable patterns, we get the closest to telepathy/telempathy that is possible.. The sharing of experience and emotion through a 'computer' link. The ability to fast process thought.. Raising intelligence by orders of magnitude.
As for the machines deciding to 'dispose of us'.. I find it unlikely...
The most optimal survival pattern is co-operation.
Time after time, this has been proven, both in theory and test.
Humanity, sadly, still clings too hard to it's origins in a simian style.. Rationally, I belive most people understand the true value of co-operation, but psychologically aren't equipped to live life fully in this way..
The hybridising of man with machine is a natural evolutionary step for a tool-using species.. We've used physical tools for all the years we've used physical force to achieve our wonders.
Now, we develop tools for the intellect.
The industrial revolution for the mind..
We've got as far as we have, because we're able to change.. And we'll make the next steps for exactly the same reason.
It's the point where we can become the greatest of our dreams, or the worst of our nightmares.
And sooner or later, we'll have to decide which..
Malk
An odd thing.. As a few of you'll probably notice, my name comes from a white wolf roleplaying game 'Vampire the Masquerade'...
In the clanbook for the clan Malkavian, there's a peculiar critter called 'Word Eater'.
Word Eater is generally detested by all that know it, as it lives by eating ideas. Ideas are couched in words, and as Word Eater eats the words, they become lost, and the world become duller, more mundane, and less flexible.
This seems to be exactly how AOL (I know this acronym to mean 'Assholes On Line', and it seems with awful good reason right now) is behaving.
In the clamour for 'intellectual property', certain companies seem to be hell bent on removing concepts from general use. What they fail to comprehend is that for new ideas to be born, sometimes, older ideas need to be an integral part. Without these new ideas, there will BE nothing new...
Sooner or later, these 'Word Eaters' will have nothing new to claim. All that'll be left is the ruin of a once bright and developing place. And they'll be reduced further and further, trying to fight for the scraps that are left.
The world in general will probably be set back by about 20 years or so in development. Research will be stymied. The net could very well be a dark and dismal place.
I wonder if someone would care to claim the naming of TCP/IP, or 'internet' or 'World Wide Web'... Now, where would AOL be if they mentioned they allowed you to hook up, but couldn't mention 'Internet' or 'World Wide Web' or 'Web'... Or their engineers couldn't write docs that referred to TCP/IP...
Language arose for a very good reason; it allowed us to develop a framework in which we could relay concepts to one another, to allow humankind to develop past the pack animal to create many wonders, and, in the hands of the misguided, many atrocities. But each step has allowed us to learn.
It seems now, that in the hands of the legal system, the greedy few can persue a method of removing the product of thousands of years of development and refinement by a whole race, and all in the quest for a small amount of money, which'll soon vanish and dry up.
The burning of books was only one way to limit the spread of knowledge... One can but hope that the laws protect our most valuable asset... Our words... After all, they're owned by us all (think if language as a business partnership.. We're all responisble for it's development). If one person in a partnership decides to remove an asset from the company and claim it as it's own, it's termed 'embezzlement', or fraud (I'm no legal hotshot.. Quite which applies, I'm not sure)..
Maybe it oculd be argued that anybody could countersue as a representative of the 'Public Domain' company for theft of a concept. After all, I'm sure even back in the the days of Ancient Egypt and before, ever since the dawning of writing, some people were saying the very equivalent of 'You've got mail'. And I'm damn sure AOL wasn't around back then.
I just find myself baffled at the sheer arrogance, stupidity and short-sightedness of anyone who believes they can claim the creation of any phrase so commonly used...
So, as clan Malkavian plans to 'Prank' Word Eater in such a way as to cause it to cease it's practices, so I aim to 'Prank' AOL. And no, I don't mean hack.
Every company relies heavily on it's 'Corporate Image'. They spend millions on advertising to make this seem slick and competent.
The greatest Prank is to show everyone you can just how utterly inept, incompetent and grabbing they really are. Your words spread to others who learn from you. And in turn, people learn from them, and so on, and so the ripples spread.
In the long term, this'll cost AOL more than just the legal costs, as long as the joke lasts.
Malk.