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I will be there.
If it's OK for the religious to discriminate against people, it ought also to be OK for people to discriminate against the religious.
For example, quite recently, several respected geneticists declared that there was no such thing as race - an idea that not even the dimmest kid I knew back in Detroit would have fallen for.
That struck me as a stunning nonsequitur. The kid in Detroit has no possible way of knowing how much of what they see is genetic versus environmental - unless they go online and read the scientific literature. Offering that sort of surface observation as evidence is on the level of "any kid in Detroit can see the Earth is flat".
The kid in Detroit has no possible way of knowing how much of what they see is genetic versus environmental
Surely they could very easily observe that people with dark skin typically have parents with dark skin.
A topical real-life example of this is the DDoS attacks that Anonymous are making against various companies that pursue/sue people for alleged illegal file sharing.
I make no comment on the morality of this, but it seems to be effective in practise, at least some of the time, for example it may lead to the demise of the law firm ACS:law.
Here is an interesting comment related to this idea:
What I find a continuing source of amazement is that there is a subculture of people half of whom believe that AI will lead to the solving of all mankind's problems (which me might call Kurzweilian S^) and the other half of which is more or less certain (75% certain) that it will lead to annihilation. Lets call the latter the SIAI S^.
Yet you SIAI S^ invite these proponents of global suicide by AI, K-type S^, to your conferences and give them standing ovations.
And instead of waging desperate politico-military struggle to stop all this suicidal AI research you cheerlead for it, and focus your efforts on risk mitigation on discussions of how a friendly god-like AI could save us from annihilation.
You are a deeply schizophrenic little culture, which for a sociologist like me is just fascinating.
But as someone deeply concerned about these issues I find the irrationality of the S^ approach to a-life and AI threats deeply troubling. -- James J. Hughes (existential.ieet.org mailing list, 2010-07-11)
Also reminds me of this:
It is impossible for a rational person to both believe in imminent rise of sea levels and purchase ocean-front property.
It is reported that former Vice President Al Gore just purchased a villa in Montecito, California for $8.875 million. The exact address is not revealed, but Montecito is a relatively narrow strip bordering the Pacific Ocean. So its minimum elevation above sea level is 0 feet, while its overall elevation is variously reported at 50ft and 180ft. At the same time, Mr. Gore prominently sponsors a campaign and award-winning movie that warns that, due to Global Warming, we can expect to see nearby ocean-front locations, such as San Francisco, largely under water. The elevation of San Francisco is variously reported at 52ft up to high of 925ft.
I've highlighted the same idea before by the way:
Ask yourself, wouldn't you fly a plane into a tower if that was the only way to disable Skynet? The difference between religion and the risk of uFAI makes it even more dangerous. This crowd is actually highly intelligent and their incentive based on more than fairy tales told by goatherders. And if dumb people are already able to commit large-scale atrocities based on such nonsense, what are a bunch of highly-intelligent and devoted geeks who see a tangible danger able and willing to do? More so as in this case the very same people who believe it are the ones who think they must act themselves because their God doesn't even exist yet.
Yet you SIAI S^ invite these proponents of global suicide by AI, K-type S^, to your conferences and give them standing ovations.
This seems to me a good strategy for SIAI people to persuade K-type people to join them.
In response to
Politics as Charity
Bush did not kill 10 billion current people (at $1,000 per life) and he massively increased health-oriented foreign aid to Africa
Bush wasn't a candidate in the 2008 presidential election, so it itself it's irrelevant what he did or didn't do. (Of course, you could make the meta argument that a Republican president is likely to behave similarly to another Republican president).
Can you elaborate? Making this a closed, secret community throws a lot of red flags to me for "potentially evil". It seems like we'd only want to keep it secret if we had a specific agenda (e.g. brainwash and enslave the masses).
I can see why if we accidentally did develop a method to brainwash and enslave people, we wouldn't want it to get out, but that's not the goal and doesn't seem like a likely outcome. What's so wrong with an open-source program to help people become "Less Awkward"?
What's so wrong with an open-source program to help people become "Less Awkward"?
Learning new stuff often involves making mistakes until one gets it right. I imagine that if this community was created, many posts would be of the form "I did X recently and it went wrong; what could I have done better?"
Making mistakes in social situations is something that many find embarrassing, so they might want any such field reports not to become public knowledge. Hence, confidentiality may be necessary for people to talk openly.
One word: Sex.
A high status male would have access to more females. Remember, the point of evolution is not to survive for as long as possible, it is to f**k as much as possible (for a male).
Remember, the point of evolution is not to survive for as long as possible, it is to f**k as much as possible (for a male).
No, and it's not even to have as many offspring as possible. It's to have as many copies of his genes in future members of the species.
Consider to male proto-humans, Adam and Bob. Adam has sex with his sister, they have 6 children, but all die without reproducing.
Bob never has sex, but is a good uncle to his brothers' and sisters' kids, 4 more of which survive to reproduce than would have done without his interventions.
Which one was more effective at passing on his genes?
We will cut together a little bigger piece of karma cake for us.
So it IS zero, since there is less cake for everybody else.
Helen Parr (to her son): "Everyone's special, Dash." Dash: "Which is another way of saying no one is." -- the Incredibles
"Everyone's special, Dash." Dash: "Which is another way of saying no one is."
Exactly. A person can only be high status by being higher-status than someone else; so one person's high status must lead to another person's low status. So status must be zero-sum.
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Egypt and Israel were at peace the way the US and the Soviet Union were at peace, if that, and now they are at peace rather less than that.
And if you find Egypt unconvincing as a US funded and sponsored enemy of Israel, consider Israel's long and bitter complaint about the Arab states maintaining the Palestinians and the PLO as permanent multi generational refugees.
But arguably it was the "international community" rather than the Arab states that maintained the Palestinians and the PLO as permanent multi generational refugees.Certainly it was the "international community" that funded this, and one does not have to be unreasonably conspiracy minded to consider that the "International community" is the State Department in drag. The NGOs look mighty like Harvard on a generous expense account mingling with the CIA on a slightly less generous expense account.
From what you've said earlier you apparently believe that the USSR was a client state of the USA.
So I can only conclude that you believe either (1) that Israel is a client state of Egypt or (2) that Egypt is a client state of Israel. I regard either of these two interpretations as bizarre, but no more bizarre than thnings you've said on this thread.
Frankly I at a loss to understand you.