171–180 of 363 posts
Terrible news. If you're not familiar with Iain's work you owe it to yourself to drop everything and start reading the Culture series[1] right now. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series
I just ordered the first three books. Will start off with Player of Games. Sad news indeed.
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They don't! If someone could freeze at least a small insect brain after it "learned something", unfreeze it and prove that it retained what it learned, I might have at least a grain of faith in this. Even getting an insect ganglia out on a feeder plate with electrodes, training it to respond in a way to a certain sequence of input electrical impulses and proving that after thawing and reanimation it still preserves t…
So your argument is that until it's "proven" that we can cryopreserve and then restore brains, the probability of success is zero? If you agree that the probability is non-zero, then you agree with the cryopreservation advocates. In addition, if you agree that it's non-zero, you must agree that it's better than doing nothing (which clearly has a zero chance of revival). Cryopreservation advocates do not claim that th…
I'm just emphasizing that this technology is not a realistic solution to anything, just as a lottery ticket is not a solution for one's financial problems. I may choose to buy a lottery ticket myself, same as I may choose to have my head frozen, but I'm not going to consider this as a real solution to any problem - just like a lottery ticket, it may have more "entertainment" value than real value (though the "entertainment" value may be enough for me to buy it).
My only point is that we should always see the difference between "lottery tickets" and real solutions, and always see the former as what they are: hope growing "entertainment" forms... I know, most people don't like this way of looking at things and label it "dark and gloomy", but it's how I see it :)
This is sad news, and there is really nothing to add to his own words. I just want to highlight two things, firstly his support for the NHS, which despite every newspaper and politician gunning for it still usually manages to deliver top quality care. Secondly, can we leave off the cryogenic stuff ? The guy is dying, and pretending it will just be a pause is insulting all round. This was a touching and accepting note…
http://timidheathen.tumblr.com/post/7043004518/jk-rowling-on...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So your argument is that until it's "proven" that we can cryopreserve and then restore brains, the probability of success is zero? If you agree that the probability is non-zero, then you agree with the cryopreservation advocates. In addition, if you agree that it's non-zero, you must agree that it's better than doing nothing (which clearly has a zero chance of revival). Cryopreservation advocates do not claim that th…
Yes, I agree it's non-zero. It's a (1. benefit) x (2. probability of benefit) / (3. cost) type of reasoning, and both (1) and (3) are subjective, so everyone can choose for himself whether "it's worth it" or whether you want it. I'm just emphasizing that this technology is not a realistic solution to anything, just as a lottery ticket is not a solution for one's financial problems. I may choose to buy a lottery ticke…
As we're using analogies: we know that machine-flight is possible. But how many people broke their legs after gluing feathers to wings strapped to their arms and jumping off a barn, flapping wildly, before Kitty Hawk flew?
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More money is not what is needed here--we already pour tons of money into cancer research. What's needed are new ideas. If you really want to fight cancer, skip the startup and go to graduate school. Computational and mathematical approaches to understanding and fighting cancer are still in their infancy. There is a lot of scope for smart, motivated people to do good.
No, more money is needed. 41% of deaths are due to cancer. It really is one of the biggest problems we have as a species and we should spend more effort on it rather than the things we do spend effort on. But I wholeheartedly agree that rather than trying to be a billg and earn money to fund philanthropy, the world needs more researchers.
The first sentence and the next two aren't at all related. It's possible that the amount of money we're collectively spending right now is all that can be used effectively, and more money will yield at best highly diminishing returns.
This is sad news, and there is really nothing to add to his own words. I just want to highlight two things, firstly his support for the NHS, which despite every newspaper and politician gunning for it still usually manages to deliver top quality care. Secondly, can we leave off the cryogenic stuff ? The guy is dying, and pretending it will just be a pause is insulting all round. This was a touching and accepting note…
Which is meaningless; an anecdotal impression is not data.
> Secondly, can we leave off the cryogenic stuff ? The guy is dying, and pretending it will just be a pause is insulting all round.
Some people think that cryogenics is a better chance of resurrection than burying a body in dirt. The case isn't settled, but it's not a stupid or crazy belief. Even if the chance is only 0.1%, it's worth talking about. The chance of my house burning down is only 0.1% or so, and I still buy fire insurance.
(And, no, I'm not a big believer in cryogenics; I merely want to argue that discussion about it is reasonable.)
This is sad news, and there is really nothing to add to his own words. I just want to highlight two things, firstly his support for the NHS, which despite every newspaper and politician gunning for it still usually manages to deliver top quality care. Secondly, can we leave off the cryogenic stuff ? The guy is dying, and pretending it will just be a pause is insulting all round. This was a touching and accepting note…
On the subject of Scottish authors and the UK welfare state - my opinion of JK Rowling went up quite a bit when I learned of her attitude towards paying taxes (and I'm sure Iain would approve): http://timidheathen.tumblr.com/post/7043004518/jk-rowling-on...
This is horrible news. We are all poorer today, all of us. Banks is an inspiration to all who read him - of what could be, what can be, what is to be. Cancer has claimed a terrible toll in my life. Three in my immediate family and counting, the countdown very fast for one of them. And now it seems to have turned its unwelcome gaze to my intellectual treasures. I hate this disease, I despise it so much it's hard to ex…
More money is not what is needed here--we already pour tons of money into cancer research. What's needed are new ideas. If you really want to fight cancer, skip the startup and go to graduate school. Computational and mathematical approaches to understanding and fighting cancer are still in their infancy. There is a lot of scope for smart, motivated people to do good.
There are a zillion[0] talented young programmers who have figured out that the VC-istan game is rigged (I like to believe that I helped with that) and who would readily work on machine learning for cancer research at a market salary.
[0] Zillion probably means "tens of thousands", but that's a lot. A good programmer costs $125k to hire and is worth $1-2M to the economy. Thousands of programmers = major muscle. Tap that piece of A! (A meaning "awesomeness potential".)
$100-150k, machine learning, saving lives? Shit, you'll be turning people away.
If it's government-funded it doesn't have to be in a high-COL area where 100-150k, while respectable, isn't raise-a-family money. But you could do this out in a place like Minneapolis where people can raise a family on that and (bear with me, here) therefore actually find programmers with more than 10 years (!) of technical experience who want to stay on real work (!!) instead of becoming useless executives (like VC-istan's VeePees of BizDevolution) because they can actually raise kids on what they make (!!!).
It's about the people. But the nature of the real world is that it takes money to hire people. So, indirectly, it is about the money. We should spend less money on pointless, illegal wars and more on the disease that's actually (if we don't fucking do something) going to kill a large portion of the people reading this.
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Getting rich and improving the economy is almost certainly the best thing you can do to combat disease, pollution, poverty, etc.
Or by doing the actual medical research that will fix these problems. Seriously, not everything is solved by money - most is fixed by smart people figuring stuff out. If all the smart people spend their time trying to make money, who is going to do the research?
Another person that might be cryopreserved [1], but probably won't be, much like the 150,000 who passed in the last day or so [2]. Many sorts of terminal case can actually lead to better quality cryopreservation under present legal restrictions [3], in comparison to the drawn out and uncertain end of aging, precisely because they are more rapid and certain in time. (Or might be plastinated [4] in the alternate histor…
The deathism of this thread, on a site read by technically-oriented people, where problably many agree with the computational theory of mind really makes me lose hope in the human kind.
It's not thinking that cryonics is not worth it. That's a reasonable position. I'm undecided myself. It's that response, that fighting death is somehow unethical or naive. That Death is Good, Part of the Cosmos, Don't You Dare, whatever.
Man, talk about Stockholm syndrome. Well, fuck it:
>>> DEATH IS BAD. Yes it is. We die because we don't know how to avoid it, not because is good, natural, right or proper. Our bodies are machines that we don't know how to repair. That's all. We may invent lies to make ourselves feel better and maybe that's a natural strategy to cope with the HORROR that is death, but we are still fooling ourselves, and most likely keeping the problem from being solved.