Jinnetic Engineering by Richard Stallman
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Jinnetic Engineering by Richard Stallman
1–10 of 19 posts
Re: Jinnetic Engineering by Richard Stallman
#2"I can't give you the interview you've been begging for, but at least I can now explain how I was able to change fields and accomplish so much in such a short time."
It's not very often I stop reading HN-submitted article after the first sentence. ;) Do we really need more Stallman here?
Re: Jinnetic Engineering by Richard Stallman
#3"I can't give you the interview you've been begging for, but at least I can now explain how I was able to change fields and accomplish so much in such a short time." It's not very often I stop reading HN-submitted article after the first sentence. ;) Do we really need more Stallman here?
You may want to reconsider.
It is a short story narrated by a character named Ethel. Nothing to do with Richard except that he authored it.
Re: Jinnetic Engineering by Richard Stallman
#4"I can't give you the interview you've been begging for, but at least I can now explain how I was able to change fields and accomplish so much in such a short time." It's not very often I stop reading HN-submitted article after the first sentence. ;) Do we really need more Stallman here?
I think your comment about having read only one line of a story/article is one of the smarter comments about having read only one line of a story/article that I have ever read. Which is why I think it is safe to say that people who have only read the first line should refrain from making comments. You made a perfectly reasonable assumption given the first line, but even perfectly reasonable assumptions can be completely overturned a paragraph or two later. I think if someone is going to take the time to post, they should also take the time to read whatever they're going to post on.
Re: Jinnetic Engineering by Richard Stallman
#5"I can't give you the interview you've been begging for, but at least I can now explain how I was able to change fields and accomplish so much in such a short time." It's not very often I stop reading HN-submitted article after the first sentence. ;) Do we really need more Stallman here?
This is a strange type of comment, which often appears on HN. "I didn't bother to read the article, but here's my meta objection to it anyway". If you didn't read it, you don't know what's in there. If you don't like something, skip or flag it. Please stop posting smug comments about where you stopped reading articles.
Re: Jinnetic Engineering by Richard Stallman
#6Fascinating story.
The story's narrator is supposed to be a woman, but the story has an unmistakably male voice. I can't pinpoint it exactly, but everyone I know who talks like that is male. Part of it may be that there is no discussion of her emotions at all, she sounds like a perfectly rational robot.
Also, considering the impact of voluntary ovulation and superior intelligence on reproductive fitness, I suspect evolution will quickly develop an immunity to the virus, reverting the harmful changes in merely a few generations.
Re: Jinnetic Engineering by Richard Stallman
#7Fascinating story. The story's narrator is supposed to be a woman, but the story has an unmistakably male voice. I can't pinpoint it exactly, but everyone I know who talks like that is male. Part of it may be that there is no discussion of her emotions at all, she sounds like a perfectly rational robot. Also, considering the impact of voluntary ovulation and superior intelligence on reproductive fitness, I suspect ev…
Weak MALE in fact!
http://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.html
:)
Re: Jinnetic Engineering by Richard Stallman
#8I'm not sure the three wishes chosen are the best possible.
Obviously, ``Five more wishes, please.'' Would be nice, but the Jinn obviously would have refused.
Something that would have broken entropy would have been nice, though. A battery that can give infinite current...
A spaceship would also have been a good choice.
Re: Jinnetic Engineering by Richard Stallman
#9The question that this story raises is "Can we solve these hard problems of aging, thinking, and feeling if we had intelligence far greater than we do today?"
Are we meant to read the narrator's idea that they can even solve the problems of aging and diseases and voluntary ovulation through science and intelligence as naive or inevitable?
Just because we can imagine a virus or a team of super smart people solving these problems, doesn't mean in reality it actually is possible to do so given limitations of physics and human nature.
I guess it doesn't really matter if RMS meant this story to be a satire of a technocrat's fantasy or a example of how increased intelligence would solve some of our biggest problems but I think how people read the story will depend a lot on their ideas about what is ultimately achievable and what is not through intelligence.
Re: Jinnetic Engineering by Richard Stallman
#10The question that this story raises is "Can we solve these hard problems of aging, thinking, and feeling if we had intelligence far greater than we do today?" Are we meant to read the narrator's idea that they can even solve the problems of aging and diseases and voluntary ovulation through science and intelligence as naive or inevitable? Just because we can imagine a virus or a team of super smart people solving the…
This discussion between Peter Thiel, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Aubrey de Grey - http://www.vimeo.com/7396024 - has some good thoughts from the top people who are in fact working on those problems.
Couple of important highlights for me were:
Eliezer saying that he has to often remind himself to do not what he has most fun doing, not even what he has talent for but what needs to be done.
The other is Aubrey talking about how appalling it is that the smartest people in science work on the same things instead of working on important but ignored problems.
I highly recommend watching it, it's well worth the 29 minutes.