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Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

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Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#101

Post by reflexive »

dredmorbius wrote: post #99
reflexive wrote: post #32

> You are beautiful, intelligent, and charismatic, as are your friends, co-workers, lovers. Aren't all of these qualities measured relative to our neighbors? I.e., each of us is a genius compared to our ape forebearers, but if everyone around you is beautiful, intelligent, and charming, then no one is. > You feel no hunger, no cold, no heat, no pain. Again, isn't discomfort relative to what one is prepared for? Under…

Oh, you and your pesky "wait, but value isn't absolute" observations. https://archive.org/stream/lectureonnotiono00lloy#page/34/mo...

Failure to understand the relativity of value is perhaps the primary logical fallacy I see every day. There was an article on this site recently about someone doing their part to "promote equality" by helping someone receive an "elite education" (who otherwise couldn't have had one). Yet isn't the concept of an elite education - by definition - something that can only exist when some people are denied the opportunity to have one?

In reality, patting oneself on the back for helping one person to succeed is exactly equivalent to hoping another person fails. The human instinct for hierarchy is deep and generally unacknowledged.

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#102

Post by snowwrestler »

yourapostasy wrote: post #56
philipkglass wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was involved with a research effort to predict certain cell biology features via molecular dynamics simulations between 2003 and 2006. It's what I wrote my thesis on. After school was done and my research group's grant ran out I started writing software for a living instead of looking for another research position. I still keep up with molecular and biological simulation research efforts because it's intrinsically…

This brings to my mind an interesting line of thought that I ran across via Peter Watts writing about it in Blindsight [1]. In that link, page down to the "Sentience/Intelligence" header, and read that section for a concise introduction to this line of thought: sentience is separate from intelligence. Looking at what computer science research and industry has accomplished thus far, I'm very open-minded about the idea…

I think this is right on. People use rational thought to evaluate decisions, but they use emotions to make decisions. If you take away a person's ability to feel emotions, they become paralyzed with indecision. There are at least a few real-world examples that have been studied.

There's a strong argument that our rational intelligence evolved to serve the drive to survive--and that emotions are the signals of that drive. It's becoming more clear that even though most animals aren't capable of symbolic reasoning and language, they do experience emotions and make decisions accordingly.

Who is programming a computer to feel emotions? I'm not aware of any significant work in the direction. (If anyone is, please link it!)

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#103

Post by CydeWeys »

rabidrat wrote: post #73
CydeWeys wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can though. Using today's technology we can easily go to Mars and live in underground habitats and be subject to only a moderate increase in health risks from radiation absorbed during the trip. Said health risks would be less than what a decent number of current Earth-bound professions face, and those people don't even get to go to Mars.

> easily What we are currently doing on Mars remotely is absolutely incredible and at the upper limit of our present capabilities. Don't think for a second that having "today's technology" does not still require a herculean effort, if we even have a 5% chance of pulling it off before funding (which would be in the trillions) is cut.

I was specifically refuting the claim that the radiation problem is a blocker, when in fact it is just a minor nuisance. Storms posed more of a danger to the first ships exploring the new world than radiation will to Mars colonists, and that didn't stop anyone.

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#104

Post by dredmorbius »

reflexive wrote: post #101
dredmorbius wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, you and your pesky "wait, but value isn't absolute" observations. https://archive.org/stream/lectureonnotiono00lloy#page/34/mo...

Failure to understand the relativity of value is perhaps the primary logical fallacy I see every day. There was an article on this site recently about someone doing their part to "promote equality" by helping someone receive an "elite education" (who otherwise couldn't have had one). Yet isn't the concept of an elite education - by definition - something that can only exist when some people are denied the opportunity…

Quite. One of only a very large class of such failures of understanding and comprehension.

There's something to be said for seeing, say, that everyone capable of benefitting from a high-quality education gets same. But that excludes consideration of those who wouldn't benefit (at least educationally) from the opportunity.

... there being other modes of benefitting from education, including networking, contacts, and exposure to the inner sanctum.

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#105

Post by dxg732f »

I like the main point he is trying to make (which I see summed up by the cliche "think outside the box") but most of the ideas in this article are such stereotypical notions of turning everything on it's head: Aliens? AI taking over? Robots taking over? Us living in a simulation? Challenging the concept of rape? Can we stop pretending these are cutting edge and out there? Can we stop pretending these ideas don't have very old precedents? He has come up with unique ideas on these themes, but no he is not "ahead of his time" I would argue in many ways he is stuck in the past.

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#106

Post by dxg732f »

emblem21 wrote: post #63

I once wrote a book in 2005 about the inevitable fusion of central banking theory, economic psychology, and "good-enough" artificial intelligence. Whole brain emulations weren't required. Instead, mass expansion of mobile devices and the consolidation of civil behavior into those devices (purchasing, voting, socialization, documentation, research, institution interactions, welfare benefits, etc) allows a sufficiently…

That sounds really interesting. I have also thought about how "good-enough" AI could get a lot more done than many predict. I also like the idea of a Rube Goldberg equivalent of investment schemes and options to achieve certain objectives. Write a fun versions of it first, then do the business proposal. Good luck :)

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#107

Post by sjg007 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #103
rabidrat wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> easily What we are currently doing on Mars remotely is absolutely incredible and at the upper limit of our present capabilities. Don't think for a second that having "today's technology" does not still require a herculean effort, if we even have a 5% chance of pulling it off before funding (which would be in the trillions) is cut.

I was specifically refuting the claim that the radiation problem is a blocker, when in fact it is just a minor nuisance. Storms posed more of a danger to the first ships exploring the new world than radiation will to Mars colonists, and that didn't stop anyone.

You are mistaken.

https://oig.nasa.gov/audits/reports/FY16/IG-16-003.pdf

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#108

Post by Shorel »

the_duke wrote: post #14
mentos wrote: post #3

Anyone that hasn't yet, check out Black Mirror on Netflix. It has a lot of ideas in it that I am surprised to see in a show in 2016. I love Elon Musk but I think he is solving the wrong problem when it comes to making human beings a space faring species. The fragility of human flesh is the barrier to colonizing space. You can try to solve this problem by wrapping it in a contained atmosphere or wait a thousand years…

I recently discovered Black Mirror. It's a great and fascinating series. Finally something other then the mind numbing pabulum that is most TV. I especially loved season 1 / episode 2. --- The way our brain works, all experience, self consciousness and awareness is intricately linked to physical perception. If we were to go the 'brain in a petri dish' route, we would have to fake all those signals a body would send t…

What you describe is the central idea in 'I of the vortex: from neurons to self' by neuroscientist Rodolfo Llinás.

Self consciousness and awareness is linked both to physical perception and to the prediction and anticipation of said perception.

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#109

Post by inimino »

philipkglass wrote: post #20

The book’s premise is that in about a century, it will be possible to scan human brains at "fine enough spatial and chemical resolution," and to combine that with good-enough models of signal-processing functions of brain cells, "to create a cell-by-cell dynamically executable model of the full brain in artificial hardware, a model whose signal input-output behavior is usefully close to that of the original brain." L…

If you extrapolate from the last hundred years of progress to the next hundred, it's plausible that there will be at least as much technological progress as these ideas would require.

The problem with such prognostication isn't so much that these things can't happen. It is that unexpected events that will happen first turn the future in a different direction.

Re: Is This Economist Too Far Ahead of His Time?

#110

Post by inimino »

ryuker16 wrote: post #69
yourapostasy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This brings to my mind an interesting line of thought that I ran across via Peter Watts writing about it in Blindsight [1]. In that link, page down to the "Sentience/Intelligence" header, and read that section for a concise introduction to this line of thought: sentience is separate from intelligence. Looking at what computer science research and industry has accomplished thus far, I'm very open-minded about the idea…

Too be fair, labor for those tasks is so cheap to make robots uncompetitive price wise. The money is in putting that lawyer out of work nor hector, the immigrant strawberry picker

I'm not sure what you are responding to, but general-purpose humanoid robots that could be shown how to do things like picking strawberries (rather than a purpose-built strawberry picker) would literally be the world's biggest industry by staggering margins overnight.
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