Saturday, January 22, 2022

The paradox of technologies of connectivity

Even as technology links people together across the globe, our differences seem to be driving us further apart. In some ways technology offers greater safety and security than ever - and in other ways, unprecedented threats to the very civilization that engendered it.


Meanwhile, there is a movement to hold AI accountable - requiring alorithms used in decision-making, such as health care, housing, employment or education - to be 'audited' for bias.


At the Noema site, you can read an interesting summary by Nathan Gardels of a new book, “The Age of AI And Our Human Future,” co-written by three authors: veteran Cold War strategist Henry Kissinger, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and computer scientist Daniel Huttenlocher. The Age of AI and our Future asserts that dispersal of burgeoning data systems has increased the danger of inadvertent War by Miscalculation among the world’s great powers.

Gardels notes, "The paradox that technologies of connectivity are dividing the world anew is not lost on the authors. Instead of uniting the planet in a common perspective, the evolution of AI and other tools that frame the use of data, the flow of information and the openness of expression reflect the civilizational and cultural values that undergird them and stand at the heart of divergence between East and West. 

"In time," the authors predict, "an industry founded on the premise of community and communication" may end up "uniting blocs of users in separate realities... evolving along parallel but entirely distinct lines and with communication and exchange between them growing increasingly foreign and difficult."

For the authors, this divergence is compounded by technological escape from the control of human reason historically grounded in the locality of place. As they put it:


 "Now day-to-day reality is accessible on a global scale, across network platforms that unite vast numbers of users. Yet the individual human mind is no longer reality's sole--or perhaps even its principal--navigator. AI-enabled continental and global network platforms have joined the human mind in this task, aiding it and in some areas, perhaps moving toward eventually displacing it."


Well, well, as I frequently point out (with slides) at speeches, this is not the first time that advances in three areas -- knowledge-access (writing, printed books, newspapers, radio, TV) and vision (glass lenses, telescopes, scientific instruments) and attention (perspective and other tools of focus) -- have triggered dangerous disruption... before finally becoming tools for expanded human achievement, consciousness and wisdom. 


(Biggest examples, the printing press tore Europe to shred, before settling in as a generally positive source of wisdom. The arrival of radio and loudspeakers in the 1930s damn near killed civilization... till they saved it. The one new comms tech that had generally positive outcomes from the start was ... (get ready)... television!)


Anyway, there appear to be valid points in the Kissinger/Schmidt/Huttenlocher book and  solid practical advice...


... that alas seem to ignore the fundamental driver of potential conflict, which is a ticking cultural clock.  


Foremost, there is a reason that all the world's oligarchies are joining together in common cause, from communist hierarchs and "ex"-communist Kremlin lords to casino moguls, mafiosi, murder princes and inheritance brats. 


They all face only a very short window to re-establish quasi-feudal, inheritance-based rule, of the sort that oppressed 99% of our ancestors for 6000 years. And you can bet they are hoping that developments in AI will lock in their pyramids of power, forever.


== The fear all oligarchs share... a permanent end to pyramids of power ==


In Vivid Tomorrows: Science Fiction and Hollywood -  I describe out the memes preached and spread by Hollywood are especially infectious among the world's youth, especially when rising prosperity is accompanied with a sense of safety/satiation.  The most common Hollywood themes: Suspicion of Authority (SoA), diversity, individual eccentricity and empathy are tantamount to massive propaganda for Enlightenment values. Values that, should they fully take root, will be death to oligarchy, over the long run.


This is the real reason for the banning of most western entertainments in certain nations. It is the top reason for drumbeats of resentment and hate being pounded across their controlled media. Individualism and suspicion toward unaccountable elites will be lethal to pyramidal power structures and that must be prevented soon, lest those values embed in the world's vast majority.


Our danger does not arise from the lack of hot line conversations between heads of state. It is rooted in a certainty among oligarchs of all types that uniting to crush the enlightenment experiment is essential, if those oligarchs are to pass paramount power to their sons.



== Two crises of intimidation... that may not be backed by plausible threat ==

While our worried gaze is on the Russia-Ukraine crisis, let's keep a broad sense of danger. The annual Pentagon appraisal of China’s growing military might is most interesting. 


My amateur assessment: All the saber rattling from that New Power is counter-productive. It is not long-term effective to deeply offend and threaten all your neighbors, driving them into the arms of your more benign and historically friendly rival. Several of those neighbors - especially those in Oz - have respoded by digging in their heels.


I especially doubt the ability of any invasion force to cross the Formosa Straits if they are contested. Even if the nearby continental power gains utter control of the air and destroys all rival forces, denying those rivals entry, air superiority does nothing about hundreds of lurker torpedo-mines, waiting quietly in the mud. I doubt they could be cleaned out, even with underwater nukes. 


But what do I know? Indeed, the report notes that notion of an actual invasion seems beyond the New Power's capabilities. 


‘Large-scale amphibious invasion is one of the most complicated and difficult military operations, requiring air and materiel superiority, the rapid buildup and sustainment of supplies onshore, and uninterrupted support. An attempt to invade Taiwan would likely strain [NP’s] armed forces and invite international intervention. These stresses, combined with…the complexity of urban warfare and counterinsurgency…make an amphibious invasion of Taiwan a significant political military risk.’


This analysis seems to agree with my portrayal, and further notes that NP appears to have made a deliberate choice, when they took full control of H.Kong. They surely knew that would end all chance of political rapprochement with T'aipei or any major constituencies on the island.


== Final miscellany ==

New Zealand wants to ban all cigarette sales by gradually raising the legal smoking age.  Clever… it leaves current voter-smokers alone.  And ethically-politically problematic! Still, clever. Jacinda for world Premiere.


112 comments:

Alan Brooks said...

Several people who have lived in China told me that the Chinese smoke tobacco so much, they are risking the future collective-health of their nation.

David Brin said...

A.B. you clicked send 3x. Yeah, but tobacco is such a source of tax revenue!

gerold said...

Exactly right DB, and those enlightenment values which are so threatening to dictators and theocrats are also very attractive to young people stagnating in authoritarian kleptocracies. Same logic applies here in the US, where MAGAworld sees Hollywood as a mortal threat. How ya gonna keep em down on the Farm after they've seen a few Pixar films?

For China to attack Taiwan would be a tragic error by Xi; same logic applies to Putin in Ukraine. Then again, same was true for Hitler and Poland or the Japanese attempt to conquer an Asian empire in the 30's. Dictators seem to lose their sense of perspective the longer they hold power.

Any thoughts on the Ukraine situation?

TruePath said...

I'm not sure how much of China's saber rattling is intended for a foreign audience and how much is intended for the domestic audience. Nationalist causes have long been an effective way to distract one's populace from growing angry at their government.

Regarding Taiwain, I agree that an overt military attack would be extremely costly for China at the moment (and will remain so as long as we keep selling them weapons, which the presence of TSMC in Taiwain gives us some strong strategic reasons to do). However, I don't think that's the most serious threat to Taiwanese freedom. The bigger threat is Chinese infiltration of Taiwain's institutions.

The combo of personal leverage plus the argument that you aren't really betraying your country you're saving them from throwing away their lives in a futile gesture has always been pretty powerful. I'm much more worried that someone on the inside lets the Chinese in so they don't need to conduct an amphibious landing against hostile forces.

Still, I'm overall hopeful that the Chinese leadership realizes they are better off being able to use Taiwain as an excuse to justify nationalistic fervor than actually occupying the island.

David Brin said...

gerold see comments under the previous posting where I offer a number of thoughts on Ukraine.

Plus this. It seems to me that modern technology puts us in an era when the advantage goes to attackers who are much better prepared. BUT, if the two sides are roughly equivalent - even roughly - then defense has a huge advantage. If Ukrainian forces have been training in Poland for months, not days - and if a lot of Javelins and anti-air units are already on the ground, along with modern, precision artillery... a blitzkreig could be in very serious trouble. Especially if avenues of attack are under surveillance...

...which makes me fear Putin might imagine (foolishly) that US orbital assets can be neutralized. Especially with help from another power.

If something happens, Biden needs to make clear... "These incursions aren't happening because Putin sees us weakening. As was the case in 1939*, the aggressor is acting now because he saw us turning things around, and felt he should leap at one last chance. It was a mistake. There is no window of opportunity."

* See John F. Kennedy's senior thesis... published as a book WHILE ENGLAND SLEPT.

David Brin said...

Interesting TP.

See also https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/22/ukraine-russia-military-weapons-nato-biden/

TruePath said...

@gerold: To be fair to many of the people in MAGAworld they resent hollywood and media/social elites in large part because those institutions have been doing a lot to disrespect and sneer at more conservative voters and their values. (even if the original fault belongs to fox news and republican elites that's not what average people see)

I'm the epitome of everything those conservative voters resent (city dwelling atheist academic who wants to repeal the 2nd amendment, allow women to get abortions until birth, legalize drugs and thinks satanic sex parties sound like good fun) so I don't have any problem with telling them they are wrong and opposing what they want. But at some point the message seemed to shift from, "Look, I know you love your guns and gun culture but it's more important to save lives with gun control. Sorry you had to give that up." to over glee at denying gun owners the ability to shoot up targets in the woods and play Rambo. And there are all sorts of subtle messages, for instance the way Colbert (as much as I love him) gets really upset when anyone attacks a democrat for their appearance even while (pretty cruelly I might say) mocking Eric Trump's looks is his go to bit. Things like that send the message that we aren't actually standing on principle or advancing the ideals we hold but that it's all about liberal elites smirking and laughing at those rustic rubes.


Yes, what happened was largely the fault of republican elites and Fox news who started acting badly enough to cause a phase change in liberal leaning professions like academia, journalism, acting etc.. and, human nature being what it is, once republicans were 'the other' not friends or neighbors we started sneering and MAGA/Trump made that even harder not to do (the beliefs are sneer worthy). The problem is, from the point of view of the electrician or sanitation worker living in a red state, it just feels like media and Hollywood suddenly started treating them and everything they believe in like shit. Doesn't make it excusable to fall for the MAGA idiocy but I at least understand it on an emotional level.

I don't really know how to fix this. To make progress requires that people who are now voting for Trump and other idiocy be persuaded (or at least that their offspring be persuaded) but that kind of persuasion requires we can interact and converse without feeling disrespected. At least in the case of religion we had to artificially impose this rule about respecting other faiths no matter how dumb we felt their views were. I don't like it but maybe we need something similar in politics.

David Brin said...

TP: "...(city dwelling atheist academic who wants to repeal the 2nd amendment, allow women to get abortions until birth...)"

Crum! color me non woke on these extrema.

- There are potential solutons to the gun mania that won't trigger civil war. See The Jefferson Rifle: hidden essence of the gun debate - http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2007/01/brin-classics-jefferson-rifle.html

- While most late term abortions are rare emergency measures having to do with fetuses without brains - anencephaly - and it would be wretched to ask an already traumatize, grieving woman to 'give birth' to such a thing... and yes, that should be allowed... still, I take great exception to allowing the killing of a perfectly viable late term, simply on the woman's whim. I doubt it ever happens! (To any significant degree.) But by the 4th month she's had plenty of time to wrestle with her conflicts. From then on she should take the generous subsidy that the "pro-lifers" ought to provide (but aren't, the hypocrites.) And even without it. At that point it is no longer "just my body."

I totally agree that personal appearance 'humor" is my least favorite part of Colbert... except Trump and McConnell and Cruz. Some natural phenomena just beg for a hard slap. But yes. The reflexive uber-wokeness of the late night comics is a problem. They should pause 5% of the time and go "whoah! That's not helping."

Bill Maher debuted his now season, last night (find him on TouTube). He makes clear how he hates the current GOP Treason Party... but also chides the left for handing the MAGAs victory after victory with their loony-sanctimonious need to piss in the faces of allies and prospective voters.

Unknown said...

Re: tobacco and tax revenue -

A French government official was confronted with the fact that French cigarette smoking (and the associated cancers and general bad health outcomes) cost the French health care system much more than his bureau brought in with tobacco taxes. He didn't care, because that wasn't his department.

By the way, to push back on a thread from the last run - I'm not one to extol the French military record in the last century, but it's an overgrown meme. I actually met an American with Italian heritage who ragged on the French. He didn't appreciate it when I mentioned the near-humor from British war planners before WWII that they weren't sure whether it was better to have the Italians fighting with them or against them, considering what happened last time. The French and Germans have some MEAN Italian military jokes.

Regarding Ukraine - if Putin is serious, look for Russian armored forces moving into southern Belarus west of the Dneiper. A quick internet search gave me a Foreign Policy article:

"The Belarusian border is less than 56 miles from Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv. And given that Russia is pre-positioning various military assets—from tanks to combat helicopters to anti-aircraft missile systems—for the joint exercises with Belarus, Moscow would seem to be logistically prepared to send in its forces, with Belarusian backup if need be."

Recall that when Hitler invaded Poland, he got outflanking access and help from Poland's neighbors looking to carve off a piece and/or avoid being the next target.

Putin seems to me to be a longer term thinker than Hitler, whose military planners (particularly the Kreigsmarine) were envisioning war no earlier than the mid-1940's and were aghast when he jumped the gun, but I am not sure how much Putin's contempt for the West will color his decision-making. Someone has already pointed out that if he'd wanted to invade, he would have done it in 2020, when he had a full-fledged asset sitting in the White House.

Pappenheimer

gerold said...

TP: I'd love to live in an America where liberals and conservatives could have a rational debate about policy and principles. But the fact that we can't isn't because of liberals sneering at the rubes and mocking their ignorance. I'm trying to think of examples where Hollywood uses conservatives as a punching bag and coming up short. Can you give me an example?

Going to the mainstream mass market movies: take Pixar and Marvel. Everyone has seen these movies right? I'd consider them a good way to gauge the standards Hollywood broadcasts to the world. As DB noted, they model ideas like suspicion of authority, independent thought, compassion and empathy, courage and love, freedom and individualism. Basically the classic Western package of Enlightenment principles, the same ones we've been trying to build on for centuries.

I actually think the right-wingers, religious fanatics and bigots have been given a little too much slack in popular culture. No one wants to offend their delicate sensibilities. And for good business reasons: they have a lot of purchasing power, and businesses don't want to alienate potential customers. Plus it conflicts with the compassionate angle of the package. I can appreciate that, but it often seems like liberals are playing with kid gloves while the right wing uses brass knuckles.

In the Pixar Cars series there are some hicks but they are ultimately shown to be good-hearted. Maybe some hicks are offended by the portrayal, but good ol' boys are never shown dragging a negro or beating some queer to death. The portrayal is much more generous than the reality. Real life Republicans are much worse than what we see on tv. Think of the vicious insanity of the Q cult. Their fantasies center on democrats sacrificing children or just sexually abusing them to set the stage, with a denouement where their savior swoops in to round them up to either put them in camps or use summary execution to make a clean sweep. That's sick, evil or downright crazy, but we're too polite to say so. I'm not sure that's healthy.

Compassion is great, but being tolerant towards intolerance is a tautology. The only thing required for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.

gerold said...

DB: mockery of would-be self-styled god-kings is a pretty reasonable non-violent counter measure. Republicans have made Trump a focus of cult worship, and pointing out how ridiculous that is an effective tactic. We know that logic doesn't work and facts are ineffective, but laughter might be the best medicine against charlatans quacks and messiahs.

Larry Hart said...

Dr Brin:

He [Bill Maher] makes clear how he hates the current GOP Treason Party... but also chides the left for handing the MAGAs victory after victory with their loony-sanctimonious need to piss in the faces of allies and prospective voters.


While I agree with Bill Maher on most issues, including his frustration with Democrats' messaging, he does have his annoying bugaboo issues in which he seems to go insane. For a while around 9/11, it was Muslim derangement. Recently, it's been his effort at rehabilitation of Trump-era dissemblers such as Sean Spicer, Kellyanne Conway, and Chris Christie. And at the moment, his big issue is that he and many of his guests have just "had enough" of COVID, and that anyone who continues to take steps to avoid spreading the disease is "not following the science".

I don't know where he gets the figure he quoted that Florida's count of (I presume) daily cases is only 17 per 100,000 people. This site shows the state at over 200, comparable to (and slightly worse than) Illinois and New York.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/map

David Brin said...

I agree that Maher's "Had enough of covid" thing is dumb. But he is the halfway house to draw wavering MAGAs into the light. And no one else is even trying to do that.

Pappenheimer, the problem with the direct thrust to Kyiv is that the blitz routes can be made very costly by artillery, javelins and stingers and mines... after which... what? Sarajevo showed what dads with hunting rifles can do to an occupier.

Might some Quisling in Ukraine suddenly declare himsef acting leader? Perhaps. That's being staunched, it seems.

I suspect some kind of 'chess move' having to do with some zone of Russian-speaking majority in Ukraine or the Baltic states 'declaring independence.'

Larry Hart said...

Pappenheimer:

The French and Germans have some MEAN Italian military jokes.


My dad used to tell the joke that during the Six Day War in the 60s, the Arab armies attacked Israel and the Italian army surrendered.

Larry Hart said...

gerold:

I'd love to live in an America where liberals and conservatives could have a rational debate about policy and principles. But the fact that we can't isn't because of liberals sneering at the rubes and mocking their ignorance.
...
mockery of would-be self-styled god-kings is a pretty reasonable non-violent counter measure.


The thing is, everyone who rags on liberals for mocking the right has an epidemic case of selective memory. Within my lifetime, it was perfectly acceptable in polite company for the white Christian majority to caricature and mock blacks, Jews, homosexuals, Italians, the Irish, Chinese, Japanese, etc, etc, you name it. All of those people and their sympathizers were expected to "take it like a man" with gentle good humor in order to demonstrate that they're not vindictive whiners, and that they know their place.

And yet, at any hint of the same being given back to them, they clutch their pearls like snowflakes, crying about their own hurt feelings and (like locumranch) vowing revenge because turnabout is fair play. Apparently, it's only fair play for them though, as the offense which engenders such rage is in itself turnabout.

If the privileged majority would understand that it doesn't truly hurt them or deprive them of most of their benefits to take criticism of themselves with good humor as partial compensation for all that they've dished out, the rest of us might not despise them so much. They might even claim a bit of moral high ground and set a good example for the better angels of the rest of us. That would be the true "White Man's Burden," that would be so easy to take up. But as has often been said about Donald Trump, in order for them to do that, they would have to be completely different people from who they are.

Larry Hart said...

Dr Brin:

some Quisling...


Way, WAY off on a tangent here, but the word "quisling" sounds so much like the form of an actual word with that meaning that I was very confused to find out that it is actually a proper name of a specific person. That under different circumstances, we might have to talk about "some Jorgensen in Ukraine" or the like. It wouldn't work nearly as well. If the guy's name wasn't actually "Quisling", we would have had to make that up.

Larry Hart said...

Dr Brin:

I agree that Maher's "Had enough of covid" thing is dumb. But he is the halfway house to draw wavering MAGAs into the light.


I don't see him accomplishing that, though, or even trying for it. More than anything else, he seems to be angling for a certain kind of MAGA cred. "I wish you'd stop being duped by a dangerous cretin and all, but look, as far as owning the libs goes, I'm right there with you!"

scidata said...

I see that Jacinda is having to postpone wedding plans because of Covid. My family is suffering the same pain. The young are paying a dear price for this pandemic. My only real gripe with Maher is that he craps on the idea of posterity. Just as not everyone must reach for the stars, not everyone must reproduce. But sh@tting on those who do is suicide and worse. C'mon man, that's malarkey.

AI and human intelligence form a perfect yin-yang. There's no need or purpose for one to subsume the other. Diversity and eccentricity could only suffer.

Slim Moldie said...

My little thought experiment on technologies and connectivity resulted in a constitutional amendment with some restructuring. What if, instead of electing representatives based on party and geography, every voter could cast a 5-10 ranked-choice vote from a big list of government functions they wanted to support, sort of like the proxy activism advocated for by our host.

Then, instead of having a single representative from your district you’d have 5-10, AI proxy representatives. The house of representatives would become a giant multi-variable linear algebra problem to be resolved between the apportioned AI who are collectively tasked with writing legislation based on the outcome. The entire computational exercise is published and transparent. Outbreaks of stupidity/irrational choices would inevitably occur so the body could even run the exercise past its constituents multiple times like a game, each quarter presenting the voters the outcomes and what the legislative ramifications would be geographically before running a series of corrective revision votes. Ironically grouping people’s representatives based on what they believe the government should be acting on, would seemingly unite the peoples of different geographical states.

But... if you continue thinking along these lines you have to confront the absurdity of the Senate body represented by state line geography when for every 1 Wyomingite there’s nearly 68 Californians. Representation without revision or any mathematical connection to population density or natural resources seems like unreasonable, arbitrary use of power.

Unknown said...

Dr. Brin,

There's always someone willing to Quizzle.

I suspect that whatever Russian staff officer is in charge of planning for this eventuality is saying, "Sir, we can encircle Kyiv, but unless we can blind US satellites, the Ukrainians will know exactly where we are going. It'll be on CNN."

I'm hoping that the whole thing is a bluff for political purposes, as you suggest, but autocrats running failed states are not always known for their good judgement.

Pappenheimer

David Brin said...

Pappenheimer: One fear is that the rows of 'tanks' near the Ukraine border are potemkin fakes and the real armor lines the border of Estonia.

--
"I agree that Maher's "Had enough of covid" thing is dumb. But he is the halfway house to draw wavering MAGAs into the light. I don't see him accomplishing that, though, or even trying for it. More than anything else, he seems to be angling for a certain kind of MAGA cred."

I disagree. Maher makes clear his gripe is that the wokists are hurting the overall enlightenment cause by weakening the broad coalition we need. If you sit a wavering MAGA in front of Maher, he'll crow "Yes!" and at the SURFACE think his own grievances are being addressed. But what inveigles into his mind is that "my own side is worse and must go down in flames."

David Brin said...

I’ve been saying that the Ukraine threats may be Potemkin distractions from Putin “chess moves” in the Baltic. The chief effect will be to make Finland and Sweden de facto or official members of NATO.

Quoting Pippa Malmgren: “I wrote two articles a few days ago about the escalation of conflict between the West and Russia. I said it's happening not only in Ukraine but also in the Baltic. Now tanks are deployed on the Baltic island of Gotland, Russian amphibious vessels have been heading towards Kaliningrad, Norwegian internet cables were cut and the British Chief of Defence Staff hinted this was an "act of war", The Suwalki Gap is suddenly in focus, US and NATO spy planes are circling this area. Catch up by reading here.”
https://lnkd.in/e-SWUT7z
https://lnkd.in/e5HhFtzF

Unknown said...

Dr Brin,

Invading Estonia (or sparking some kind of LGM coup that would invite the Russian military in) would get very hairy. It's a NATO member since...checking...2004. That might not be 99 Luft Balloons territory but it would be at least 1.

Pappenheimer

Re: War by Miscalculation, that's been a problem since the word came from Delphi - "If Croesus goes to war, he will destroy a great empire."

I do agree that "uniting blocs of users in separate realities" through modern communications makes it easier, but from the Japanese before Pearl Harbor to our own escapades in Indochina, it was never very hard. Didn't Kissinger (who is not my idea of a good person, but then neither was Metternich) acidly refer to the incredibly stupid Mayaguez Incident as "Operation Rampant Manhood"? And yet, it happened on his watch.

Larry Hart said...

scidata:

My only real gripe with Maher is that he craps on the idea of posterity. Just as not everyone must reach for the stars, not everyone must reproduce. But sh@tting on those who do is suicide and worse


And like Dave Sim, Maher has a very sit-commish idea of what kids are really like. How many times has he mentioned some apocryphal undisciplined child who defiantly yells, "Fuck you, Mom!" as if such a being is emblematic of today's youth?

I understand not wanting to bother with children. I was like that myself until suddenly I wasn't. But if you're not going to participate in an activity, the least you can do is not pretend to be an expert on the subject. Advice from Maher on child-rearing is no better than advice from nuns and priests on marriage.

Larry Hart said...

Dr Brin:

Maher makes clear his gripe is that the wokists are hurting the overall enlightenment cause by weakening the broad coalition we need


Except for, as I said, his particular bugaboo issues.

On COVID in particular, he has made it clear that he wants to perform in front of full audiences and hit the bars afterwards.

Paul451 said...

Bill Maher isn't a halfway house for wavering MAGAs. He'd a crossing-guard to keep wavering centrists from drifting left.

But I doubt he's doing it deliberately. He's a smug, lazy schmuck who hasn't updated his schtick since he started, and, like the ageing Vegas insult-comic that he is, won't until he dies.

Paul451 said...

From the last thread:
Re: Reparations and "feeding the racists".

Just curious, when does not feeding the racists ever work?

Also, reparations are not "whites giving to blacks". It's the nation that would provide the funds. But you know that, right? And yet you're subconsciously echoing the Right's belief that "America" (real America), means white people, that its institutions belong to white people. You are accepting, in your assumptions and language, the philosophy of the bigots. You've surrendered the high ground to them before you even start.

Not defending the idea of reparations itself, just looking at some of the language used to dismiss the idea. I do wonder, though, if anyone who boldly proclaimed that it "can't work because..." has ever actually spoken to a single person advocating for reparations and asked them what they are actually proposing?

Paul451 said...

Also from the last thread:

Daniel Duffy referred to the film Don't Look Up and, when wondering about post-impact survival, asked, "Would the rich survive in their luxury New Zealand bunkers?"

I'd avoid NZ like the plague. Not just because they will not welcome rich assholes expecting to live off them during the aftermath, but because NZ is on a major tectonic boundary between the Australian and Pacific plates. (Indeed, why it exists. And why it is geologically interesting.)

As the shockwaves from impact ring around the world, New Zealand, like much of the Pacific Rim, will be earthquake central.

Similarly, being so far south, it will freeze over during the "nuclear winter" after an asteroid/comet strike. Possibly ice thick enough to crush their puny bunkers.

(The Svalbard seed vault might survive the freeze, the people who built it are smart enough to understand glaciation and plan accordingly. But I doubt the grifters selling bunkers to rich douchebags care at all.)

David Brin said...

Jeepers, Pau451. Are you okay? Those were some rants!

Almost utterly baseless, but colorful and expressive!



David Brin said...

Impugn Maher when you can actually refute his assertions about the suicidal TACTICS of a sanctimony clade that roils our fragile coalition.

You and those of that ilk rave that he is a right winger. NAME a PRAGMATIC policy in which he is not a liberal.

What our side's splitters are incensed is over is our rejection of their obsession with SYMBOLISM. And the left's utter rejection of any notion that allies might be right to criticize tactics.

You might find one example of Maher disagreeing with a pragmatic agenda of liberalism. Maybe two. Nearly all the rest is crit toward tactics that blow up in the left's face every single time! Yet they double down on them, again and again, like MAGAs.

Masturbatory, coalition-smashing tactics that piss in the faces of allies and give Foxites all the ammo they will ever need, while pouring hate at the pragmatists who are trying... and partially succeeding... to make things better for the oppressed, the poor, the planet and posterity.

Dig it. I want to smash the oligarchic-mafia putsch, save all those good things and restore democracy. Maher wants that too and has done more to attack Trumpism during any episode of his show than you and all your friends will do across your entire lives.

Try actually listening to his complaints.

ANd you are ALWAYS welcome here. So there.

Der Oger said...

Re: Putin et al running out of time:
There is a thing that is not often mentioned: The current shift away from fossile to other forms of energy supply. Exporting Gas and Oil is the major pillar of the Russian economy; in about 10-20 years, they may be already obsolete. Without the exports of oil, gas, and other mined ressorces the economy has the size of probably ... Greece. Now is the last time they can try to halt this process or increase the sphere of influence; in a few years, the money to do it will be gone.

Der Oger said...

@Larry Hart, from the last thread:
I'm watching a Netflix series about WWII which describes Hitler's deteriorating mental state as the war goes badly by 1943. According to this documentary, Hitler was under the care of a physician who prescribed increasingly bizarre medications such as (not making this up) bull semen to increase his virility.

Yes. Also, we can asssume he (like half of the Wehrmacht) consumed Pervitin in large doses, today better known as methamphetamine. Either in form of pills or in sweets. "Tank Chocolade", as they called it.

gerold said...

scidata: AI and human intelligence form a perfect yin-yang. There's no need or purpose for one to subsume the other. Diversity and eccentricity could only suffer.

Yes - and it's surprising how many fail to see this. Of course popular culture is loaded with scary-AI stories, but even smart people take them literally.

Are you familiar with the work of Eric Chaisson? I find his analysis of the evolution of complexity very interesting.

If we look back on the previous 13.7 BY of time, it seems inevitable that AI is the next step of evolution.

What people don't seem to understand is that AI will not compete with organic life. We just don't want the same things. But we can help each other. In fact by the time AI surpasses human intelligence, it may be that we'll have screwed up the world so bad it'll be our only hope.

Paul451 said...

David,
"You and those of that ilk rave that he is a right winger."

Did you read what I wrote?

He's not a right winger. And he doesn't appeal to right wingers, "wavering" or not.

He's a centrist Dem who is part of a culture that keeps other centrists away from all those icky ideas that the supposedly radical left has. Things that are actually popular with the American public.

And since you brought it up, it's not the left that's "destroying coalitions" and making Dems lose so often (and they are going to lose hard in the midterms. And with Repub states already rigged to steal 2024, it's all over for US democracy. It's like watching a car crash in slow motion.) It's because they can't reach enough Americans who aren't already comfortable, suburban centrist Dems.

I vote strategically. Have since my first election, back in the '80s. I'm not trying to convince people to not vote Dem. I'm trying (if I had any influence, which obviously I don't) to convince the Dems to be worth voting for, and tearing my hair out when the centrists who control the party seem to do everything they can to turn away voters. It's maddening, soul destroying, to watch.

Larry Hart said...

Paul451:

Also, reparations are not "whites giving to blacks". It's the nation that would provide the funds. But you know that, right? And yet you're subconsciously echoing the Right's belief that "America" (real America), means white people, that its institutions belong to white people


Not exactly. I was accepting the idea that the whole theory behind reparations is that one group of people (whites) have benefited unfairly at the expense of another group of people (blacks), and that restitution needs to be made. That restitution would at least theoretically come at the expense of white people, not because they own the institutions, but because they are the ones who benefitted from value which was stolen from blacks.

***

Dr Brin:

You and those of that ilk rave that he is a right winger. NAME a PRAGMATIC policy in which he is not a liberal.


I don't think this comment was directed at me, but just for the record, I did say that I agreed with Maher on almost all issues, including his dismay at Democratic messaging. It's just that Maher gets going on some very particular issues for which I want to scream at the screen, "Dude, just get over it already!"

And the current such bugaboo is, "I'm tired of COVID, so let's spike the ball on the 30 yard line and pretend we won the game."

Tim H. said...

Re: Putin running out of time; facing the prospect of a contracting economy doesn't sound like an ideal time to take on new territorial obligations... unless he thinks he has an angle that Gorbachev didn't.

Larry Hart said...

Heard on Stephanie Miller's radio show:

"Aaron Rogers can still get to the Super Bowl if only Mike Pence has enough courage."

locumranch said...


Words do not mean what you think they mean. Or, even more precisely, words do not mean what you want them to mean.

The real problem with modern AI is accuracy -- otherwise known as 'an unacceptable absence of bias' -- rather than the actual presence of bias, mostly because humans are master dissemblers who prefer polite fiction over observable reality.

Goggle's Facial Recognition AI committed an unpardonable sin (empiricism) when it reported a remarkable concordance between the faces of some humans & the faces of certain primates.

The two most competitive university-level US women's swimmers happen to be biological males; certain population subgroups test out as much more intelligence than other less intelligent human subgroups; and Chicago's race-neutral traffic cameras accurately capture a disproportional number of non-white minority offenders.

These are indisputable facts, but this type of truth-telling is completely unacceptable to the modern western human, especially when it comes to sacred cows like equality, gender and equity.

I've argued until I'm blue-in-the-face, but I give up. I now concede that certain self-evident truths can no longer be communicated within the confines of polite western society.

That the aristocratic, self-selecting, minority controlled & expert feudal society that Dr. Brin so despises is near-identical to the aristocratic, self-selecting, minority controlled & expert managerial society that he wishes to create, it is glaringly obvious.

Yet, once ensconced in this comfortable world-of-lies, we can insist that there are ZERO similarities between the bad old & good new expert managerial feudal class, and we can tell ourselves that our new good expert managerial feudal class is so much better than the bad old alternate, like the old Hollywood expert managerial feudal class celebrating Harvey Weinstein and the new Healthcare expert managerial feudal class celebrating Anthony Fauci.

Our culture lies about everything, especially foreign policy, just note how quickly & inaccurately the West has concluded that there are ZERO similarities between the old bad Cuban missile crisis (when the USSR tried to put deadly weapons on US borders) and our new good Ukrainian weapons crisis (where NATO appears intent on placing deadly missiles on Russia's border).

The propagation of self-serving falsehoods, fantasies & more lies:

Self-deception is a distinctly human trait.



Best
_____

Everything that Der Oger just asserted is counterfactual because it is Germany (which, by Der Oger's own recent admission, is entirely dependent on Russian fossil fuel) that is 'running out of time'. It follows that Germany will either grovel to its fossil fuel supplier, or it will freeze and cease to exist. There can be no other outcome.

David Brin said...

gerold the notion that AI could “layer” onto existing human layerings – prefrontals atop frontal lobes atop the primate cortex atop the mammalian cortex and so on – is one I go into in “Stones of Significance,” my post-singularity tale.
---

LH I agree that Maher’s “Let’s get past Covid” while based on a truth that the millions of un-vaxed fools are now effectively self-vaxed… is also the dumb snark of a confirmed bachelor in great heath.

---

Paul451 “Did you read what I wrote?”

Yes, I did, sir. And what you wrote in response, just now, proves every single thing that I wrote before that. There is not a single thing that you yowled in this most recent response that is even remotely factual. It is a yowl of justification for a cult incantation.

Again, I defy you to answer even one of the challenges here: http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2019/08/five-devastating-rebuttals-to-use-with.html

It should conern you that all your complaints are symbolic and not based on facts at all. That makes you very akin to MAGAs.

When we criticize the far-left, it is to say your tactics suck. They are based upon emotion and masturbation and are centrally all about pissing on allies for the sake of a sanctimony high. CRITICISM OF TACTICS among allies should be discussed, not rejected. And judging by OUTCOMES, the TACTICS of the left do not bring about the pragmatic goals they seek.

When you crit us, it is to claim we are evil and that we don’t INTEND to do liberal good. An absolute lie and I offer $1,000 wager that incremental progress has done more palpable good than all the ravings .

scidata said...

Der Oger: fossile [energy]

That typo's a keeper, and a strong argument for diversity/error/variance/evolution and the greater chance of serendipity it brings. Perfect is the enemy of good.


@gerold
I haven't read enough Chaisson to form a meaningful opinion. I read a lot of far future, Asimovian psychohistory stuff that touches on AI and cosmic evolution. Jeff Hawkins (Founder of Palm, Handspring, Numenta) is one of my gurus (never met him, but do have some tangential connections. His latest book, "A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence" is on my, Bill Gates', and Richard Dawkins top reading list. Interestingly, I see the names Chaisson, Hawkins, and Brin pop up together sometimes, for example:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1946756714552135

And yes, 90% of the current AI wave is misguided at best. I say that not as any kind of would-be expert, but as someone who's spent the past 50 years in a haze of solder smoke. A real AI contrarian :) My tagline in "computation from first principles".

David Brin said...

Vitamin locumranch sometimes says true things... if always in service of imbecilic treasons.

Flaws in face-recognition were discovered because they were open to criticism and the leftiues trying to ban such systems would prevent that critical process from operating, by driving FR underground. That's called extremely dumb reflexive tactics.

But their goal is admirable reduction of racism and sexism. While the *implicit* meaning of locum's FR paragraph was volcanically evil, utterly racist and spectaculkarly vile.

OTOH, there are times when even a racist, misogynist traitor-jerk can offer a stinging point:
"The two most competitive university-level US women's swimmers happen to be biological males..."

Feminists and LGBTQ liberators (and I consider myself to be an ally to both!) know that eventually they muct come to terms with this paradox. The present, purity of righteousness does not alow examination of a fundamental set of conflicts caused by "I am whatever I say I am!" Moreover, squint a little into the future... even half a decade... and tell me you cannot see the inherent contradiction shattering today's blithe oversimplifications.

"That the aristocratic, self-selecting, minority controlled & expert feudal society that Dr. Brin so despises is near-identical to the aristocratic, self-selecting, minority controlled & expert managerial society that he wishes to create, it is glaringly obvious."

You keep yammering this incantation and yet refusing cash wagers over it. I hurl one word in your face yet again, sir.

COMPETITION.

Your cult is based upon repressing nearly all forms of cvompetition. Mine is based upon flat-fair-creative and open competition.... yes moderated by uplift of all poor children so they can take part, and in a civilization with many 2nd, 3rd etc chances, so that one year's winners keep having to earn it... but competition is central. And prevention of oprn fair competition is your cult's central goal.

You lie, in other words. You lie top to bottom, inside and out. You know that I push for a world that maximizes the number and skills and confidence of joyfully eager competitors. And yes, that will often result is a degree of "elites" - (which you don't mind in sports.) But temporary ones.

You would lock us into the failed model of 6000 years of rule by idiot sons and their more-idiot sons, forever.

David Brin said...

Next time he tries this crap about enlightenment professional "elites" being no dfifferent from inheritance brat and mafia elies, will someone else answe with the COMPETITION riff? I have shown him far too much attention, already.

Larry Hart said...

locumranch:

and Chicago's race-neutral traffic cameras accurately capture a disproportional number of non-white minority offenders.


The placement of the cameras is not race-neutral.


I've argued until I'm blue-in-the-face, but I give up.


If only, Lord if only.


I now concede that certain self-evident truths can no longer be communicated within the confines of polite western society.


Like for instance that most if not all organized religion is so much crap? Yeah, that's been out of bounds for ever.

Oh, and you're not saying that non-Western cultures are more tolerant of expressing ideas that call their own sacred cows into question, are you? I mean Yakov Smirnov had it right when his routine went (in 1985) :

"In America, you are free to say 'I do not like Ronald Reagan.'"

"In Russia, you are also free to say 'I do not like Ronald Reagan.'"

(comedic pause)

"In Russia, you can also say 'I do not like Yuri Andropov,' but this, you only do once."

Paradoctor said...

If you go by your own eyes rather than by other people's lies, then the main complaint that I have with white people is that they don't exist. There are plenty of people whose skin-tint is a pale shade of brown _called_ white; but if locumranch woke up one day with skin colored the same as snow, clouds, paper or cotton, then he would freak out and call an ambulance.

The color of Caucasian skin doesn't have a name of its own. I propose 'caucasian', with a small c. I grant that it is nerdy and fact-based of me to be so literal-minded about what color to call people, but that's how I roll.

I _have_ seen people who are white, but they're always fictitious. For instance, Boris Badenov, Natasha Fatale, Caspar the Friendly Ghost, the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man, Nosferatu, the Borg, and Frosty the Snowman. All of them are white, and all of them are imaginary.

"White" is an exaggeration, never factually instantiated. It's a brand, and brands are for cattle. The point of calling people white is to get them away from their eyes and into their heads, to simplify control.

Larry Hart said...

Dr Brin:

LH I agree that Maher’s “Let’s get past Covid” while based on a truth that the millions of un-vaxed fools are now effectively self-vaxed…


I'm not sure the science is clear that having had COVID already offers the same protection as the mRNA vaccines. Most of what I've read says it does not.

But even so...

The anti-Vaxxers falsely claim that asking someone's vaccination status is a violation of HIPPA privacy rules. It is not. However, asking someone whether they have had a disease which might complicate their medical care for the rest of their lives is a HIPPA violation. And that's what the anti-vaxxers claim to want as an alternative to vaccine mandates.

If you've already had COVID, why not just get the darned (free) shot and be done with it. It will take less time and effort than arguing about it.

When I was starting a new job in January 2018, the hiring company required a mandatory flu shot during orientation. I had already received a flu shot the previous October (as I do every year), but my doctor had retired and I didn't have adequate documentation of the earlier shot to satisfy the company's requirement--at least not that I could get my hands on quickly. So I just let them give me another shot. No big deal. I didn't threaten to take them to court or call them Hitler. If anything, I figured a shot in January might offer more protection during flu season than the shot in October did. At worst, it did nothing that hadn't already been done for me. The upside was starting a new job on schedule. The downside was...what exactly?

Larry Hart said...

Paradoctor:

The color of Caucasian skin doesn't have a name of its own. I propose 'caucasian', with a small c. I grant that it is nerdy and fact-based of me to be so literal-minded about what color to call people, but that's how I roll.


When I was a wee lad in the 60s, the box of Crayola 64-color crayons had one called "flesh" which approximated Caucasian skin color. I drew my own comics at the time, and the regular box of 8-crayons forced me to use pink or orange for skin color. So discovering "flesh" was like a miracle!

A few years later, I noticed that they no longer had the "flesh" crayon, but there was one that looked suspiciously like it called "peach". My brother and I (rightly) guessed that the company had decided not to offend some people by insinuating that "flesh" only came in one color.

So try calling white people "peach people" and see how that works. :)

"Peach supremacists."

"Peach privilege."

"Santa is peach! (Jesus was a peach man too)"

Robert said...

Georgia is a peach state!

David Brin said...

"I'm not sure the science is clear that having had COVID already offers the same protection" I've seen it both ways. But today Sarah Palin came down a 2nd time.

Paradoc, well, I'd call it pinkish beige. But in KILN people I say it's illegal to make clay ditto copies in any of the "thousand shades of human brown."

Georgia = peach state, yes. Though it is one of four that could get tipped by a deliberate migration of just 100,000 African Americans to just the right townships or districts. I favor Alabama, though. And subsidize the Foxworthy crowd to move to a beige paradise in Mississippi. No need for secession. Just an experiment in home rule... as native Americans are clasping at long last, in Oklahoma.

Tony Fisk said...

Meanwhile, in another part of the Universe, Webb has successfully completed its final course correction, placing it in the desired L2 orbit.
Mirror segments were unpacked last week, and are currently being configured for optimum image resolution. This will take 3-4 months.

Alfred Differ said...

Der Oger,

I read a book a few years ago that suggested a moderate likelihood for one more war with Russia that drags the US into it. Because of very long supply lines and the stupidity of us getting involved in land wars in Asia, we spend heaps and gobs of money (which we have) and the Russians can't match. Manhattan project type expenditures. Huge. No one on Earth but the US would do such a thing kind of expenditures.

Russia's geopolitical fate is already in motion. They are a petro-state in a world moving away from fossil fuels. They are long-term screwed and not just because of demographics. You'll know it's all done when they loose control of their corridor to the Caspian.

The ONLY path that prevents that is for the nations along the northern plains of Europe (you are in one) to pull together as a single power. That entity would be economically potent enough to challenge the US anywhere in Europe and Asia and would eventually push us out of control of all the seas. You are in a better position than any of us to say whether such a future is possible, but the folks over here don't think it is. What they want to do in Ukraine is spend stupidly large sums of money recovering an old glory they won't be able to afford. Same goes for the Baltic states.

Still worried they might do it? Well… that Manhattan Project incredible expense portrayed in the book was space-based solar power beamed down from orbit.* Good bye petro-states. Good bye old world order.

[We'd need it to electrify our armed forces and remove a supply line risk. ONLY the US would spend that kind of money doing it.]

Don Gisselbeck said...

Speaking of liberals sneering at rubes, I particularly dislike the asymmetry in the discourse. The rube auto mechanic would (justifiably) sneer if you told him to torque your lug nuts to 50 inch-pounds. He has decades of experience backed by actual scientific research to say otherwise. Yet we are supposed listen respectfully when he prates about climate change being a liberal hoax or the moon landings faked on a New Jersey sound stage (hi, Roger Stone). I have a hard time being deferential to ignoramuses.

David Brin said...

With amateur gear you can get laser bounce off a retroreflector left on the lunar surface by astronauts

David Brin said...

I have found something MAGAs fear even more than a wager demand. It is to invited them to pick twenty RANDOM doors at a nearby research university to knock on. Even the lefty nutters in soft studies will be more persuasive than MAGA expects. And the scientists? They won't fit the Foxite image of jibbering neerds of standard model slave lemmings or officiously snooty, narrowminded elites. You and your uncle will come away having had a ripping good time, learning fantastic amounts about stuff you never remotely imagined, from fine people who are generous with their time and eager to explain and nothing at all like the Fox/Sinclair yammerers depict them.

scidata said...

Re: doors at a nearby research university

And the reason is that 99% of researchers know that either we all get to the stars, or none of us do (civilization is a precondition for big science). The other 1% almost convinced me to give up and get out of the kitchen like they demanded.

Alfred Differ said...

random doors at a nearby research university

Oooo. I LIKE that one.

I was 19 when Voyager II flew past Saturn. I crashed* a teacher conference at JPL to watch and scoop up the free giveaways. I got to go on lab tours, see things, and listen to ACTUAL researchers working on whatever gizmo** was in front of them. I got to see ACTUAL grad students, post-docs, and how they behaved in the wild.

I went to that conference for astronomy, planetology, and that stuff. I came away with a much deeper realization than I could receive from the images pouring in. I got to SEE how people worked when they "did science." I didn't get that at the time, though. I took the freebies home and covered my bedroom wall in spiffy prints and posters. Later, though, I got it and looked at science with a broader perspective. All of it was interesting IF I could find someone interesting doing it. That made a HUGE difference when I arrived in grad school and realized the experience was strongly related to old-time apprenticeships.

The folks at JPL do this stuff often nowadays. Last time I went on a public day the place was jammed. In a post-pandemic world I'm sure it will be again. So, we must make sure to invite the MAGA's kids too.


* Technically speaking, I wasn't crashing it. I was a TA supporting physics labs. Problem was I was 19 and looked about 15. No one cared, though. Maybe I was just someone's kid? Didn't matter. They shared anyway.

** One was a tiny little ion engine. I could put the faces of real people to the work I read later because those real people took the time to be enthusiastic and share.

Der Oger said...

Everything that Der Oger just asserted is counterfactual because it is Germany (which, by Der Oger's own recent admission, is entirely dependent on Russian fossil fuel) that is 'running out of time'. It follows that Germany will either grovel to its fossil fuel supplier, or it will freeze and cease to exist. There can be no other outcome.

I will jump over that stick, this time.

No one except the extreme ends of the political spectrum will "grovel", and neither will we freeze over. It will hit us hard, yes, energy prices will go up, yes ... but we can adjust very quickly. It will be a punch, but nothing in comparison to be cut out from international trade. It will push us harder into investing in renewable energies and energy efficiency, and political roadblocks that are in place today could crumble to dust.

In case of a sudden increase in prices, I assume the state would simply support the most vulnerable, most likely by a combination of debts and special support taxes. (We just dropped the extra tax for the reconstruction of East Germany. And there is still wiggle room to tax the wealthier parts of the society.) Our Achilles heel might be the bureaucracy, granted, so help could arrive somewhat slower.

Currently, the winter is somewhat mild. It could become colder in the net few weeks, and last until April ... or we have 25 degrees in March. Hard to tell, these days.

Also, I should mention that if the Greens had won the election (which was a very realistic possibility in spring last year), Nord Stream II would have been history ... as well as the liquid gas harbour for US gas.

Now, let's look at the possible scenarios:

1) Putin calls it a day and removes the troops. In that case, we are (hopefully) forewarned enough and take steps to remove this vulnerability for a later attempt. Yet, I am unsure if that happens. Putin looses in the long run if we follow through.
2) Putin invades Ukraine. In that case, after one or two painfully long weeks of deliberation, Nord Stream II is history. Putin will loose in the not-so-long-run.
3) Article V. In that case, Nord Stream II is out of business immediately, and we have other worries to address first. We all might loose.

gerold said...

@David Brin re: human/AI synergy

It's not for me to speculate about human/AI hardware fusion; it seems unlikely from my perspective that biological wetware would play nice with post-singularity AI hardware, but who knows? Maybe it could work. I see a different sort of relationship though.

One area where we could use some help from transcendent AI is debugging our genetic code. DNA is buggy as hell, but debugging it will take computational power way beyond anything the human brain can muster. Little help?

The other way we can work together is in virtual space. A transcendent AI could give us virtual immortality, which would be pretty cool, and it would allow us to strut our brief time upon the stage and bow out to make room for the next generations. 9 billion people is already a lot, but cloud storage could hold a lot more (with a sufficiently powerful/capacious AI).

In some ways the joys of existence are predicated on our biological limitations. I like the idea of preserving our organic evolutionary biology (with genetic upgrades for intelligence, beauty, health and physical well-being of course) alongside a virtual existence that could provide both immortality and a new source of wisdom/counsel for the living.

For a sort of twisted take on the notion see Surface Detail by Ian Banks. Excellent book!

Der Oger said...

@Alfred:
You are in a better position than any of us to say whether such a future is possible, but the folks over here don't think it is.

Currently? Only if a certain person would still sit in the White House, made the US leave the NATO and allowed Russia to invade us.

Otherwise, "those people" might be right. What would be the capital of this empire? Brussels, Strassbourg or Moscow? One of the defining traits of the EU is that we don't want to be an Empire, at least not in the military sense. We could not agree on a constitution, so we are stuck with this process of multilateral and not always democratically legitimized negotiations.Some of us have very differing opinions on what the EU should be: A unified state? A loose confederation? While it is not unthinkable that we could be conquered, it would be not so easy to govern us.

What they want to do in Ukraine is spend stupidly large sums of money recovering an old glory they won't be able to afford. Same goes for the Baltic states.

While I won't disagree with you: Ukraine is one of the largest exporters of agrarian goods. Estonia has a strong IT community and an established "E-Democracy".

Unknown said...

Re: lunar reflector

Way, WAY back in my Air Force career, I provided some nightly weather support to scientists at Kirtland AFB who were bouncing a BIG laser off the moon to measure atmospheric interference - I think this was part of the team that found a way to correct ground-based telescopy. (All I did was try to forecast the amount of cirrus.)

At least a decade and many postings later, a young airman I was lunching with told me the lunar landings had been fake. I described the experiment and asked her: who, then, had set up the reflector?

She conceded that some of the later landings might not have been fakes. Which was progress, in a way.

Alfred -

The 2000 election, and then 9/11/2001, may have derailed the US from the 'high frontier' future that so many of us hoped for. I don't know whether we can correct course in time (current events suggest otherwise), but the sick feeling I acquired in that period has never quite gone away.

Pappenheimer

Larry Hart said...

Don Gisselbeck:

I particularly dislike the asymmetry in the discourse. The rube auto mechanic would (justifiably) sneer if you told him to torque your lug nuts to 50 inch-pounds. He has decades of experience backed by actual scientific research to say otherwise. Yet we are supposed listen respectfully when he prates about climate change being a liberal hoax or the moon landings faked on a New Jersey sound stage


Exactly why I take issue with the notion that rural white men are the one remaining group who it is ok to make fun of in polite company. On the contrary, we're supposed to be so deferential to their snowflake sensibilities that even their most dangerous characteristics are treated with a kind of "aw shucks, isn't that cute" self-delusion.

In the intro to Steven King's time-travel story about the JFK assassination (simply titled 11/22/63), King remarks how he has had the story in his head for a long time, but only recently decided it was enough in the past that he could publish it. He also remarks that if readers think he's being too harsh with descriptions of the racism of Dallas in the late 50s/early 60s, that those readers would be mistaken, and if anything, reality of the time was even worse than they way he depicted it in the book.

Larry Hart said...

Der Oger:

No one except the extreme ends of the political spectrum will "grovel", and neither will we freeze over. It will hit us hard, yes, energy prices will go up, yes ... but we can adjust very quickly.


In the past, our host has had much admiration for the ability of West Berliners to adjust to essentially living in a closed biosphere.

Robert said...

With amateur gear you can get laser bounce off a retroreflector left on the lunar surface by astronauts

Natural phenomenon, such as giant crystals which we've found on earth.

With some (many? most?) of those types it's elephants all the way down…

David Brin said...

Der Oger thanks for the cogent update. As for: "as well as the liquid gas harbour for US gas."

US methane is a blessing and curse. Short term it enabled us to be energy independent, to start ignoring the Saudis and getting our big ships out of the Gulf... and it has shattered coal and spurred in-sourced manufacturing.

And hell yes we need to better provide it to Europe for geopolitical reasons and so folks there won't freeze.

But I am praying that Biden's Interior Dept is sending out drones to finde methane leakers and venters and prosecute them. (Anyone want to sleuth that?)
---

David Brin said...

"Natural phenomenon, such as giant crystals which we've found on earth."
And that's when you bring in wagers. Start by asking if there's any way the Earth contains humans you can both respect enough to adjudicate the bet? If they exclude every scientific/fact person, the answer is. That's okay then. We'll take care of objective reality for you and feed you.

Don Gisselbeck said...

I'll repeat a suggestion from a while back. Every high schooler should spend an afternoon on a guided trip through the science journal section of a university library.

Alfred Differ said...

Der Oger,

While it is not unthinkable that we could be conquered, it would be not so easy to govern us.

That in a nutshell is why the 21st century is ours as the dominant empire. All we have to do is ensure you all aren't conquering each other and then make sure we don't rip ourselves apart. Neither is likely to happen this century and remain that way for any length of time.

"Ukraine" translates in my head as "enormous basket of wheat". I know it is full of real people with a variety of cultural backgrounds, but the wheat is what I remember from history class. Wars have a way of destroying agricultural output, so I've never understood the point of taking them by force. That's my lack of education, though, since all their neighbors through history have treated it like it is an obvious thing to do.

The other term "Ukraine" translates to in my head is "Where others go to fight wars." Your history is rich in that too, so I'll stop with a simple statement. Your nation is the one we must keep out of Russia's hands.



To people outside the US, I used to say "Don't worry so much about our President", but I don't anymore. You are welcome to worry about them, but don't get TOO worried. Our election season has often been when we go collectively insane. The period is usually brief, but we've got a fever right now. We'll get over it at some point. In the mean time, don't finance the Bear if you can help it.


What would be the capital of this empire? Brussels, Strassbourg or Moscow?

Ha! We had that problem too. Wound up building one in a swamp where our elected officials tended to catch yellow fever. If you all ever wind up figuring things out enough to unite, pick some unpleasant place nobody wants.

Alfred Differ said...

Pappenheimer,

That might turn out to be the case, but I strongly doubt it. Our history is full of events that led to sickening feelings for people at the time. The 20th century is chock full of them, yet we fought and won three world wars setting the stage for "The West" to engage in huge projects that have benefited all of humanity.

I don't think the 21st century is going to be radically different. A contested election and a sneak attack simply don't rise high enough. Maybe if the Yellowstone super-volcano were to erupt… that would certainly put a dent in us. Planes flown into buildings anger and sicken us, but they bring our our inner-barbarian getting us to smash a few things and then we move on.


I appreciate the 'high frontier' imagery. Of the three big visions of our future in space, I always preferred O'Neill's. It won't go the way he imagined it, but his was the more human version compared to Sagan and Von Braun. I don't know if you meant to connect your comment to O'Neill, but it went there in my head and I still don't see anything recent that has derailed us. We've got people building and testing BFR's on the gulf coast now, so your sick feeling is matched by anxious, anticipatory butterflies in my stomach.

scidata said...

Some levity

#1 Biden's apology to the Fox reporter for calling him a moron reminds me of the TOS episode on the space station:
Klingon: The Enterprise is a lumbering garbage scow
Scottie: Laddie, don't you think you should rephrase that?
Klingon: You're right, I shood. I didn't mean the Enterprise should be hauling garbage, I meant that it should be hauled away as garbage
[bar brawl ensues]

#2 Colbert
There's talk of a Russian puppet being installed in Ukraine. Bad idea. We installed one here, and it was a disaster.

Paradoctor said...

LH, Robert, Dr. Brin:

Peach, beige, pinkish, bamboo, oak... caucasian is a range of shades of light brown. Therefore I propose 'caucasian' as a general term to cover the range. Which, by the way, overlaps with other skin-tint ranges. There are lots of people assignable to more than one, quote, race, unquote. They are prejudged according to other arbitrary cues, such as clothing and speech.

The trouble with identity politics is that it's mostly illusion; and as Buddha taught, attachment to illusion causes suffering. Anyone who claims to have seen a stadium full of white people was hallucinating. Not figuratively; literally. Seeing things that aren't there. To believe in white people, you have to deny your eyes.

Here's a science-fiction show I'd like to see: in it, the Viridians are all green; some are light green, some are slightly darker green, but they call it 'white' and 'black' and are racist about it. The difference is subtle and variable, and the Humans keep scandalizing them by getting mixed up. (The wrong guy gets the best seat, etc.) Star Trek went there once, with white/black and black/white humanoids; but that's too stark, I want them to be racist about something barely noticeable to the viewer. Of course, to the Viridians we're all brown.

Paradoctor said...

gerold:
Your virtual simulation won't be you. Period. It won't - it can't - be interested in the same kinds of things that you are. It might be long-lived, and it might not; tech generations are short. Can your computer read a floppy? In the end it will drift away from you and humanity. It might retain scientific curiosity about humans. A better bet would be symbiosis, which requires essential difference.

David Brin said...

My kids chided me not to use 'Oriental' - even tho there's no blanket generalized slur embedded in it. I feel same would go with "caucasian."

-

While Peter Doocey and his company totally earned this, and no Trump supporter can howl "rudeness!" I nevertheless object to this hot mic Biden outburst. The president of the United States should not insult Doocey's mother. Yes, she did a crappy job. But it does not justify calling her a dog.

-

Larry Hart said...

Paradoctor:

Anyone who claims to have seen a stadium full of white people was hallucinating. Not figuratively; literally. Seeing things that aren't there. To believe in white people, you have to deny your eyes.


I like where you take this later, but you seem to be way too fixated on the terminology. It's just as metaphorical to talk about black people as it is about white people, as most "black people" really look brown. Anyone who claims to have seen a stadium full of white people means they've seen a stadium full of caucasians. If you consider that to be hallucinating, then you must also consider talk of police shooting "unarmed black men" as hallucinatory, because those unarmed men are really brown.

Just sayin'


Here's a science-fiction show I'd like to see: in it, the Viridians are all green; some are light green, some are slightly darker green, but they call it 'white' and 'black' and are racist about it. The difference is subtle and variable, and the Humans keep scandalizing them by getting mixed up. (The wrong guy gets the best seat, etc.)


With modern CGI, that could probably be done using filming of real people of different skin tones and simply replacing the red/brown tint with green.

And I agree it would make for good comedic-with-a-message storylines.


Star Trek went there once, with white/black and black/white humanoids; but that's too stark, I want them to be racist about something barely noticeable to the viewer.


I'm sure that's how the Star Trek plot was intended. The viewer saw two people who looked essentially the same and wondered what the fuss was about. The scene where Frank Gorshin says, "He's white on the right side. All his people are white on the right side," is meant to be a big reveal, although you're probably correct that the viewers had mostly figured it out by then. Although my brother and I, seeing that episode at a young age and probably not paying close attention to the storyline, thought the fact that they were colored differently was a mistake.

The funniest part of that episode is the opening captain's log, in which Kirk mentions that they're currently in "the southern part of the galaxy."

scidata said...

Paradoctor: Your virtual simulation won't be you.

Don't forget that it would probably 'live' in a realistic simulation of the original meat sack's world. Such simulations can be very influential on psychology, even when the subject knows their in one. Hollywood pales in comparison to computer gaming, both financially and grasp on the consumer.

Alfred Differ said...

Heh. That's the problem with 'SOB'. We insult a mother we likely don't know. Apologizing to her for a slip like that sends a clear message, though, when the apology stops there. 8)


In the spirit of 'There's a story about that', I recall a novel many years back with someone inventing a suntan lotion that actually got us to ramp up our pigment production without UV exposure being needed. (I want to say it was one of Bruce Sterling's novels, but I can't recall right now.) The neat thing was how it made users brown for a while. Naturally brown. Not tanned brown. Brown period. Use more of it and you got real dark.

I don't recall much about the plot except that element. I was highly amused about the impact it would have on racists. I was young and didn't understand how they might cope with such a product, but the person I am now realizes it would have a huge impact on police policies. Racists would absolutely need facial recognition software to spot structural differences in us beyond basic pigmentation.

Unknown said...

Alfred,

"Where others go to fight wars." I believe that's a direct translation of the word "Belgium", actually...

(not entirely snark)

It is indeed a bad idea to use the term "The Ukraine" to a Ukrainian. I messed up a few years back on the phone with one, because my geography was learned before the USSR fell apart.

Judging from the politics I hear while waiting for my car to be fixed, I'm glad that Covid isn't deadlier for one more reason: because auto mechanics would become scarce.

Pappenheimer

Unknown said...

Regarding racism in SF - there was a (De Camp?) short story a long time ago where the lost colony of Earth was rediscovered by galactic civilization and the rescuers explained that those castaways suffering from their genetic disorder - a rare melanin deficiency - could now be cured.

Pappenheimer

Treebeard said...

Alfred, “Ukraine” translates as something like “borderland of Russia”. Looking at a map, it does border Russia, was part of Russia for centuries and shares a lot of history and culture with it. The USA, meanwhile, is (stolen land) on another continent across an ocean with no cultural connection to Ukraine, yet imagines that it somehow has both a vital interest in and the means to decide what happens there. The logic I guess being that everyone on the planet is really an American deep down who longs to be liberated by the world’s universal empire. The Soviets had a similar belief, which led them to putting missiles in Cuba to protect the liberated Communists near America's borders, which is an irony that at least locum appreciates. It’s the kind of thing that only people drunk on imperial hubris to the point of madness could believe, particularly in light of its repeated recent failures to liberate latent “Americans” in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, China, etc.

According to the Greeks, after hubris and madness comes nemesis, which is exactly what is being created in Eurasia in the growing alliance between Russia, China, Iran and others. The days of America being able to impose its will on that landmass are clearly over, and the multipolar world is here; the question is, what further demonstration do they need to finally get this, learn a little humility and focus on their own patch of real estate? Is a military that was sent packing by tribesmen with AK-47’s and sandals really willing to take on Russia and China in their backyards? You wouldn’t think so, but I’m not overly optimistic, because as Alfred says, this is an empire of arrogant barbarians who only respond to hard power. Of course there have been other barbarian empires who thought that tangling with Russia was necessary for their imperial glory, and that was the end of them. Hopefully it won’t come to that though, and it certainly doesn’t need to. America is in a powerful position in its part of the planet and I’m sure it can have a fine future; it just needs to get over its delusions of world empire, for its own sake above all.

Alfred Differ said...

Pappenheimer,

Belgium

I think that applies for the whole length of coast from Brest to the Urals. It's ALL inherently impossible to defend in a military sense. Defenders get no significant advantage from the terrain. No Alps for the elephants to cross. No Carpathian bottleneck passes. Just rivers and a useful sea nearby for getting around them.

The US has its interior river system difficult to defend if someone takes New Orleans or Chicago, but it was a long time before we could pour troops and supplies across the Appalachians without huge costs and even longer before they'd cross the Rockies and great deserts to the Pacific. Rail helped a lot, but Ike understood perfectly well why the interstate roads had to be built no matter the cost.

Ukraine is not defendable against Russian incursion except in the usual, bloody manner history knows well. Russia will spend enormous sums if they try to recover the old glory of their post-WWII boundaries and we already know how that works out for them. Huge costs are borne at home by increased use of secret police and economic throttling in the homeland.

They couldn't afford it last time and won't afford it this time. The best they can manage that won't bankrupt them quickly is a friendly regime in Ukraine that doesn't demand huge payments to 'stay in line'. That's been tried too and it partially works in the east. It's not that effective in western Ukraine where recent their grandparents have been citizens of two or three other countries in the past because the borders moved or this or that conquering army swept through.

George Friedman had a funny joke in one of his books or articles. He was impressed with his father (or grandfather?) from over there who knew seven different languages. Later he learned the guy knew only how to say "How much for this chicken?" and "Please don't shoot."

Robert said...

it does not justify calling her a dog

Konrad Lorenz wrote (in Man Meets Dog that he was confused by the English use of "bitch" as an insult, because in his experience raising dogs bitches were generally more intelligent than male dogs…

Robert said...

Regarding racism in SF - there was a (De Camp?) short story a long time ago where the lost colony of Earth was rediscovered by galactic civilization and the rescuers explained that those castaways suffering from their genetic disorder - a rare melanin deficiency - could now be cured.

Arthur C. Clarke. The story is "Reunion", from the collection Wind from the Sun.

https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2014/06/arthur-c-clarke-1971-reunion.html

Gator said...

Paradoctor: "The trouble with identity politics is that it's mostly illusion; and as Buddha taught, attachment to illusion causes suffering. Anyone who claims to have seen a stadium full of white people was hallucinating. Not figuratively; literally. Seeing things that aren't there. To believe in white people, you have to deny your eyes."

You're sort of there - yes, race is a biological illusion, but it is clearly a social reality here in the USA and elsewhere. I don't know what you identify as but I'm classic WASP. It would be great (for me I guess) to declare race irrelevant, but I'm already on top. It would be denying the reality of centuries of prejudice and structural discrimination to just declare "white is meaningless" now. The house next-door to me still has a clause on the title saying the house can't be sold to black people. I live in Silicon Valley! We have to make identity politics non-useful by making equality real before we just declare identity politics are dead.

David Brin said...

"in his experience raising dogs bitches were generally more intelligent than male dogs..." Read the great kids' classic WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS. There's a terrific audio for your drive.

David Brin said...

Sigh. As usual, ent completely ignores even the theoretical possibility that a people might get to decide who will run their country for themselves.

The world mafia-oligarchic putsch is frantic because of one thing. If the world's youth continue to get used to concepts of individual worth, fair competition, justice and freedom, a corner may be turned where a return to autarchy becames impossible. Treebeard dreads that, as do all the mafiosi and despots.

One fine thing to emerge from all this. The right is exposed as never, ever having been about Adam Smith and fair competition. Now if only the middle would embrace those words.

Gator said...

AD: "I don't recall much about the plot except that element. I was highly amused about the impact it would have on racists. I was young and didn't understand how they might cope with such a product, but the person I am now realizes it would have a huge impact on police policies. Racists would absolutely need facial recognition software to spot structural differences in us beyond basic pigmentation."

Have you read "Black Like Me"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Like_Me
Absolutely eye-opening book. The "white" author becomes "black" simply by darkening his skin. Facial structure didn't play a part. Accent and speech didn't play a part. Just being dark in the South.
(By the way, an amazing subtext was how many white southern men would quiz him (the faux-black author) about his sex life or even ask to see his penis!)

gerold said...

@Treebeard re: Empire of Barbarians -

You seem to think the US is attempting to "decide what happens" in Ukraine. What a strange delusion. We are trying to help Ukraine retain the ability to "decide what happens there" - an important distinction - and at the same time prevent an armed conflict which would destroy the lives of many people. What are you complaining about?

Obviously imperial ventures like the Bush/Cheney/Exxon invasion of Iraq are stupid/immoral crimes and it's important for us to remember that. But this time it's Russia threatening to commit such a crime, not the US. Anyone who can't tell the difference should comment on different topics.

Apparently a majority of Republicans think that Putin is a "stronger leader" than Biden. And your garden variety fascist values "strength" above all else when it comes to their Fuhrer, and "strength" is defined as the ability to exert violent control over others. You seem to think that if we constrain Putin from attacking Ukraine we're being bloodthirsty imperialists, but if Putin invades Ukraine he's just being a strongman (?)

Strange.

gerold said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
gerold said...

Re: subjective experience of virtual persons -

As scidata already noted, virtual experience could be made as naturalistic as desired. It might be (virtually) indistinguishable from our meatworld reality if such was desired. I don't know why it would be; do we really need to take virtual craps or pee breaks? That could be an option of course, but it's really immaterial to what virtual immortality is all about.

A virtual self would not be the same as our biological selves, but then I'm not the same person now as I was at 21. A virtual self would need to have the capability to learn and evolve too, so it wouldn't be the same person as it was either. That's actually a good thing.

Treebeard said...

@gerold,

LOL, yeah, if there’s one thing the USA is good at, it’s preventing armed conflicts, destroyed lives and invasions. Sorry, but you lack credibility.

The other problem is you’re oversimplifying the situation. A large part of Ukraine identifies with Russia, not the EU. This is not some distant land with zero connection to them, like Iraq or Afghanistan was to the USA; these are their kin. I met a few Ukrainians when I lived in Moscow, and they were indistinguishable from Russians. The 2014 coup wasn’t their doing or anything they wanted; it was a foreign-sponsored, hostile regime change operation.

Strategically, Russia just isn’t going to allow Ukraine to be a forward base for NATO missiles, any more than the USA was going to allow Cuba to be a forward base for Soviet missiles. Given Russia’s history of being invaded by expansionist empires from the West (an experience (non-native) Americans know nothing about), it’s an existential matter to them, and not negotiable. They are willing to pay a higher price than anyone else to prevent it, and they have the means to make the price very high indeed. In a situation like this, negotiation seems wise. I’m hopeful that Europeans can make a deal with Russia among themselves; the main challenge is keeping the neocon war pigs away from the table, who seem to salivate at every new opportunity to arm proxies and destroy countries. Neocons might be willing to fight for Ukraine to the last Ukrainian from the safety of North America, but it’s Europeans who will have to live with the fallout.

Jon S. said...

Paradoctor, the term "caucasian" to refer to us pale folk is racist in itself. The term was coined by a German researcher who thought our pale skin a) was descended from the people of the Caucasus region (it's not) and b) was more beautiful and therefore better than the darker folks found to the south.

New terms are rising on social media; my favorites so far are "mayo monkeys", "8 1/2 x 11s", and "palm-colored people".

Paradoctor said...

LH:
I agree, there are no black people either. (Well, maybe some folks from sub-Saharan Africa are brown enough to be called black. It's a judgement call.) I nerdishly fret about the sight-denying naming system because it was invented by people interested not in beige or brown or tan, but in the Long Green. Sure, oppression is intersectional, but the whole point of slavery is to save money. Root cause.

And oh yes, the armed unarmed black man is definitely a hallucination.

To whom do we write, to get some Viridians on the screen? You're right that CGI could simplify producing this. Here's a skiffy detail for the tale: the Humans can swiftly change their skin-tint, and they do so often, as a fashion statement for the rich. But if you're too poor to change tint every month, then they'll look down on you.

Star Trek's parody of race relations was binary and high-tragic: I want a parody that's continuous and low-comic. "Southern" part of the galaxy?! LOL!


Gator:
I agree that 'race' is a social 'reality', even though it is a biological illusion. That's part of its evil. The whole point is that it's not fair, or even logical. And I agree that a mass delusion that useful for evil is not simply wished away. I too am tinted caucasian, but my ethnic group has only recently 'become' White, and I know full well that I am on the same Little List as the other usual suspects.

David Brin said...

NATO already agreed never to station missiles there. If saying it again will get VP to save face and back off, fine.

Paradoctor said...

Scidata: your simulation wouldn't just have a simulated environment; it would have simulated biology. It would 'eat', 'digest', and 'excrete' as a pretense, without real point. All the realism would make the simulation slower, buggier, and less powerful. Why bother? Does it really need to burp? Edit that feature out! Flatulence? Out! Urination is a constant chore. Out! Sleep takes so much time. Out! And so on. In the end it'll bother to seem human only when humans are visiting; like wearing itchy tight clothes only when grandma comes by. It would stay human-ish only if forced to by programming. The most human thing it could do is abandon fake humanity and be authentically cybernetic. It won't be you.

scidata said...

Re: it won't be you

I'm not me because of gassy, burbling bodily functions. I'm me because sunsets trigger childhood thoughts and good coffee reminds me of a trip to Amsterdam I once took. You know, memory, cognition, psychology. I'm not Pavlovian, I'm Asimovian.

Alfred Differ said...

Treebeard,

Yah. I heard it translated roughly as 'borderland', but I was always a bit suspicious about which language might be used for that.

As with Germany and Italy in the past, they sit between two centers of empires. Tsarist Russia owned them for a long time, but before it was the Ottomans.

Crimea is the geopolitical linch pin. It might not be of much economic value, but it has been traditionally difficult to take by the empire that didn't have it. Modern technology changes that a bit, but only if the current owner properly plans its defense.

From where I sit, though, it isn't really a single nation. It is a collection of nations organized as a formal state. Many on the eastern side identify with the Russians, but that is far from true on the western side of the big river passing through Kyiv. In that sense, it too is like Germany and Italy. A hodgepodge.

You are wrong about the US having no cultural connection, though. We connect to damn near everyone on the planet somehow. We are a nation of immigrants. Deny your neighbors if you like, but it wasn't the US government over there teaching them democracy and supporting them when they ousted the Russian puppet they had ruling them. I know for a fact some of us were over there without approval from Obama/Clinton doing what Americans do. Fomenting revolution in the name of self-rule.

The days of America being able to impose its will on that landmass are clearly over, and the multipolar world is here;

Well… I have to disagree, but only partially. There is a rebound underway. China is restoring itself with our help. No one can pushing it around at home unless it is in the weakest part of its historical cycle. Russia, however, is on the way out as a world power. They are done all except for the fat lady singing her part of this last hurrah. Ignore the Iranians too as you are much better off watching the Turks. Iran will turn to the West again this century. The Turks won't. Absent Greek strength, the Marmara is an historical powerhouse for empires.

We can't exactly impose our will anywhere. Not even at home. The thing is we don't have ONE will. Other than that, we can impose on others with near impunity. The US is a sea power and the seas are ours.

Alfred Differ said...

scidata,

I'm not me because of gassy, burbling bodily functions.

Heh.

You might want to take a peek at how critical functions are impacted by the endocrine system. What you remember yourself to be and what gets expressed are all wrapped together.

I highly suspect a jar full of my memories can't be me unless implemented on a system that can imitate/simulate my body too. What I 'am' would be different from platform to platform as much as it would be with endrocrine tweaks.

DP said...

Both Russia and China are demographically dead men walking:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/05/russia-is-finished/302220/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIFly9M8K80

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-3kIsW4KEM

Larry Hart said...

Paradoctor:

Here's a skiffy detail for the tale: the Humans can swiftly change their skin-tint, and they do so often, as a fashion statement for the rich. But if you're too poor to change tint every month, then they'll look down on you.


Dr Seuss essentially did that with "The Sneetches".


"Southern" part of the galaxy?! LOL!


That's actually in the opening "Captain's log" monologue for the episode. Talk about hitting you over the head with the message.

Larry Hart said...

Maybe not a specific entry in the predictions registry, but darned close...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/25/opinion/president-biden-russia-ukraine.html

...
“An unseasonably rare forest fire has engulfed the Russian tundra as the country faces significant changes from climate change, Interfax reported.” Some 900 acres “are burning despite below-zero temperatures in the Magadan region some 10,000 kilometers east of Moscow. ‘The tundra is usually covered with snow at this time of year, so such fires occur extremely rarely,’ Interfax quoted an unnamed source as saying. Firefighters’ efforts to extinguish the flames are hampered by frozen water reservoirs, Interfax reported. Video posted online shows firefighters working to stamp out the fire with their feet and with tree branches.”

And no wonder: Russia’s territory is warming 2.5 times faster than the planet on average, and the situation there is going to get only worse. On June 20, 2020, the Siberian town of Verkhoyansk, about 70 miles north of the Arctic Circle, hit 100.4 degrees — the highest temperature ever recorded north of the Arctic Circle.

I have zero illusions that Putin noticed Biden suggesting Russia is much more vulnerable to climate change expansion than NATO expansion — or would be deterred if he did. He doesn’t strike me as a guy much interested in the climate. But the climate is interested in him.

Putin may choose to ignore that. His successor won’t have that option.
...

Tim H. said...

Freefall seems like a commentary on contemporary issues today:
http://freefall.purrsia.com/
Might there be a link between folks who are comfortable with exploitation and contemporary conservatism?

Paradoctor said...

Scidata:

"I'm not me because of gassy, burbling bodily functions."
Oh yes you are, at least in part! The beauty of the sunset is made, in part, of anticipating the pleasure of sleep. The pleasure of drinking coffee is tied up, in your mind, with the rest of the digestive cycle. And minus your somatic associations, Amsterdam would fade into a dull abstraction.

"I'm not Pavlovian, I'm Asimovian."
You're both! All of advertising rests upon that truth. And it works!

You have fallen for the Cartesian fallacy. It is flattering to consider oneself to be a being of pure scientific reason: but actual science says that you are not, for actual reasons. You are "human", and that word is closely related to "humus", or earth. You are an earth person; you are made from dirt. Be grateful for such grounding!

Paradoctor said...

Dr. Brin:

Off-topic, but I can't resist...

You've often mocked UFO cultists for their lack of evidence. You ask, why no unblurred UFO pix, despite ever-improving cell phones?

XKCD picked this up and ran with it:
https://xkcd.com/2572/

David Brin said...

Seriously? XKCD couldn't'a slippen "Brin" into that human #?

Re Russian tundra fires, yeah I think that's in EARTH. What frets me is the shallow-frozen methane.

"Both Russia and China are demographically dead men walking:"

Not China. They can afford... even benefit from... a population decrease, so long as they do effective automation and infrastructure, before that happens. Like Japan is trying to do. They are the ones in real trouble. Neither benefits from immigration. Japan fervidly keeps immigrants out. Few seek to settle in China.

David Brin said...

The article about Russian demographics is 20 years old.

scidata said...

Re: it [cyberform] won't be you

Trust me, I know a lot about the endocrine system, alas. And I'm very definitely NOT a Cartesian dualist. Still, there's something numinous (a favourite word of the late, great Christopher Hitchens) about us that isn't powered by gas, fatigue, or reflex. I think Pericles said it best:

"The whole earth is the tomb of heroic men and their story is not given only on stone over their clay but abides everywhere without visible symbol woven into the stuff of other mens lives."



David Brin said...

The China video is well-spoken and I learned a lot... and its conclusion is lurid and exaggerated. OMG to NOT give CHina credit for uplifting 2/3 of its population into comfort and skilled work in gleaming, tidy cities with super trains and factories is just plain absurd. Even if they go through a massive debt restructuring that "haircuts" everyone's savings, all that human and capital infrastructure is still there.

China will be a leading nation across the foreseeable future. It is not a dead man walking. What it is - though - is a hormone-drenched teenager being egged on from the top to swagger with a chip on his shoulder. And that is dangerous.

Der Oger said...

@Alfred Differ:
Ha! We had that problem too. Wound up building one in a swamp where our elected officials tended to catch yellow fever. If you all ever wind up figuring things out enough to unite, pick some unpleasant place nobody wants.

I originally mentioned those cities as a metaphor for a political system: Brussels as the center of a gigantic, sometimes nontransparent bureaucracy; Strasbourg as the seat of the EU parliament (and thus symbolizing representative democracy), and Moscow as a symbol of autocratic rule (or "directed democracy", as VP called it).

Iran will turn to the West again this century. The Turks won't. Absent Greek strength, the Marmara is an historical powerhouse for empires.

One common misconception about Iran is that it is all about religion. It isn't. It is more about nationalism. If you want to topple the mullahs, drop the sanctions, let the economy prosper, support the middle class, and let them revolt. Compliment them for the historical accomplishments and cultural depth of their nation (they had an empire that existed before and survived Rome, after all). Iran is better conquered by hedonism and flattery, not by arms and intimidation.

I don't agree on the Turks. The economy is dying, and the inflation is extremely high. The military is engaged on multiple fronts, and (like the rest of the government apparatus) bereft of many capable leaders due to the purges. Erdogan is aging and has no clear political successor. Turkey might return into the fold after he is gone. (I still believe it was an error to stall the EU membership talks at the turn of the century. As was turning away Morocco in the late 80s.)

locumranch said...



Competition is the BEST way to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I'm a huge fan of Merit and Competition as both presume Inequality, yet I hear tell that Inequality is BAD and that those who support Inequality are also BAD.

I'm likewise capable of recognising Race, Sex and Gender differences (just like Goggle's AI, LOL), yet I hear tell that the recognition of difference is likewise BAD and that those who possess this recognition ability are BAD, too.

I hear tell that I'm BAD (a bigot, a racist, a sexist, a misogynist) for my ability to accept & embrace the existence of Competitive Inequality and Difference, and I accept this bravely. I OWN IT, quite unlike those 'other' dissemblers who give great lip service to ideal GOODS like Equality and Democracy but practice neither.

You know who you are:

Those enlightened equalists who "have a hard time being deferential to ignoramuses"; those righteous anti-racists who think it's OK to mock "rural white men" based on their race, ethnicity and skin colour; and those slick marketeers who misrepresent Expert Minority Rule & Scientific Management as a 'new & improved' form of democracy.

My take on the Ukraine Crisis?

It's Domestic Violence Theatre wherein Ukraine and Russia pretend fight so Ukraine can receive untold Billions of US Dollars and high tech military aid, then Ukraine and Russia can kiss, split the proceeds and have a good laugh at the West's expense, with Death & Woe unto those foolish NATO white knights who try to separate a pair of horny violent impassioned spouses.


Best
_____

@ Der Oger:

Did Germany catch a collective chill? That's some super fast groveling and enthusiastic Russian boot licking, even faster than I imagined.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/25/world/europe/germany-russia-nato-ukraine.html

Larry Hart said...

Der Oger:

One common misconception about Iran is that it is all about religion. It isn't. It is more about nationalism. If you want to topple the mullahs, drop the sanctions, let the economy prosper, support the middle class, and let them revolt. Compliment them for the historical accomplishments and cultural depth of their nation (they had an empire that existed before and survived Rome, after all). Iran is better conquered by hedonism and flattery, not by arms and intimidation.


We liberal Americans know that. The right-wing (here and in Israel) argue fervently against it, casting Iran as the root of all evil. Not because they don't know the same thing that we do, but because they do know it. They don't want a peaceful Iranian ally. They want a Muslim boogeyman they can blame for everything.

David Brin said...

Turkey has a long secularist tradition (Attaturk etc) that may re-assert at some point.

---
I only lightly skim locum, but the following idiocy-writhe stands out:

"I'm a huge fan of Merit and Competition as both presume Inequality..."

No you are not. You lie. You lie top to bottom. Your cult supports every major cheat and cheater in the world and seeks to utterly destroy the Enlightenment experiment in flat-fair-creative competition.

"... yet I hear tell that Inequality is BAD and that those who support Inequality are also BAD..."

Another outright and deliberate lie.
There are three layers of inequality.
1. Inequality of opportunity to compete...
2. Inequality of the product or service or ideas in competition.
3. Inequality at the top, engendering easy dominance and cheating and (across 6000 years) crushing of competition

locum implies he supports #2, the locus of genuinely fair-creative competition that lets quality win over inferior goods, services, policies and ideas. He lies. He asserts we oppose #2. He knowingly lies.

Inequalities #1 and #3 DESTROY creative competition. 1&3 are severely criticized by Adam Smith as THE destroyers. Liberalism aims to reduce those inequalities by raising up poor children to increase the number of skilled competitors, as F. Hayek prescribed... and by preventing the rich from becoming cheater lords.

Distilled: EVERYTHING locum stands for opposes fair competition. Inside and out.

I'd not bother saying any of this if it were locum alone. Nothing will ever penetrate. So that was for you guys.


Larry Hart said...

Dr Brin:

locum implies he supports #2, the locus of genuinely fair-creative competition that lets quality win over inferior goods, services, policies and ideas. He lies. He asserts we oppose #2. He knowingly lies.


We've been over this many times.

We, the good team, argue in favor of fair rules which apply to everyone equally. As a sports metaphor, the Yankees don't get to start the game with 5 runs accorded to them, or to appoint their own umpires. Everyone starts from 0 and plays by agreed-to rules. The play of the game determines who wins.

Loc asserts that we're stuck in a dilemma. Either we champion equality in the sense that both teams win equally no matter the points scored, or else we acknowledge inequality in the sense that the team with fewer points is being discriminated against. He asserts that this must be a source of cognitive dissonance, because "fair and equal rules" and "one team wins" are incompatible mindsets that cannot be sanely held in one brain at the same time. Y'know, like "Trump invented the COVID vaccine" and "The COVID vaccine is a communist plot by Anthony Fauci."

I'd pity the fool if I had any fucks left to give.

gerold said...

Treebeard:

Your Ukraine analysis is wrong on so many levels it's not worth a point by point refutation. But the notion that the 2014 revolution was some kind of foreign plot engineered by the CIA or whatever is laughable. What we saw there was the will of the Ukrainian people to assert control of their own destiny and their own nation. Czar Vladimir can whine all he likes about spies and conspiracies, and maybe some dupes actually believe it, but Ukraine is a real country and Ukrainians really want to be free of Russian domination.

Ukrainians can look over the border to Poland and see what's happened there since escaping the Warsaw Pact and joining the EU. They can also see what's happening in Belarus for an alternate reality as a Russian vassal. It's a pretty easy choice.

Putin is a mafioso gangboss. Maybe after he dies Russia can finally become a normal country, maybe even a great one. But in the meantime extortion is still a crime and Ukrainians should be commended for standing up to him.

David Brin said...

But let's also recall where this came from... locum claiming OUR elites of accomplishment by folks who competed openly to achieve temporary prominence and influence is identical to his elites of criminality, cheating and inheritence brats.

Sigh.

Anyway, I have a backlog so it's back to twice weekly.

onward

onward