tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post2402271900864140018..comments2024-03-29T00:39:31.629-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: It is the dawning of the age of….David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger113125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-77867475939853682092015-01-06T14:23:28.803-08:002015-01-06T14:23:28.803-08:00Want to bet telescreens are not mandated in a few ...Want to bet telescreens are not mandated in a few years? The internet of things seems to be the hot item this year. All it would take is mandating a webcam on everything, your fridge the thermostat etc. Of course all of it will be hackable. I'm almost surprised that windows does not already have a backdoor /rootkit built in. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46073289880900071182015-01-02T18:40:48.387-08:002015-01-02T18:40:48.387-08:00onwardonwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-22329075184362907752015-01-02T18:01:17.881-08:002015-01-02T18:01:17.881-08:00Alfred... that is where I am militant.Alfred... that is where I am militant.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-27920228584304733222015-01-02T16:33:25.501-08:002015-01-02T16:33:25.501-08:00Giving up our privacy isn't going to get the p...Giving up our privacy isn't going to get the potential overlords to give up theirs. We are going to have to take it and that means occasionally overstep reasonable bounds. I can live with people spying on the police and other officials for awhile as we learn and adapt.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-51059776726134947252015-01-02T14:40:15.311-08:002015-01-02T14:40:15.311-08:00Jerry the low-hanging fruit argument means that we...Jerry the low-hanging fruit argument means that we have already done all the longevity things that were available by stumbling into them via mutation, including turning OFF any programmed-in senescence. That means any new improvements will entail deliberate meddling in ways that random mutation could never have taken us. This excludes (obviously) all mere diet or magic-substance panaceas. I have bets about those and am raking it in.<br /><br />Yes, of course there are NEW possibilities. It will be more than just telomeres, but I watch with interest. It’s just that It will be hard.<br /><br />And again Alex, I pay attention when a mouse analog seems to offer ways to fix some particular failure mode. I do not believe I have ever seen a persuasive reason to believe that a mouse-experiment re senescence has ever has squat to do with human beings.<br /><br />Madtom. All of that is fine. I will continue to listen to your criticisms. I just cannot promise whether to deem them change-worthy… or simplistic. Thrive, either way and keep poking away.<br /><br />Jumper, you’ll recall I cite that same poem in TWO different novels!<br /><br />Anon, that’s a tasty metaphor! Though I still ask, which method gave you the freedom and tools to share it with us? <br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-90613508269878948332015-01-02T08:58:57.303-08:002015-01-02T08:58:57.303-08:00That's reciprocal accountability in action as ...<br />That's reciprocal accountability in action as applied to privacy. Wish in one hand, excrete in the other, see which hand fills first.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-15343679149794467862015-01-02T08:51:47.174-08:002015-01-02T08:51:47.174-08:00I am willing to give up my privacy, as a (high) co...I am willing to give up my privacy, as a (high) cost of having our rulers (who are nominally our employees), giving up their privacy.<br /><br />They need to be accountable.Howard Brazeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08837948125432719131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-33035175182462275012015-01-02T06:07:52.227-08:002015-01-02T06:07:52.227-08:00You don't often get the whole story..
Ha! wha...You don't often get the whole story..<br /><br />Ha! whaur ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie? <br />Your impudence protects you sairly; <br />I canna say but ye strunt rarely, <br />Owre gauze and lace; <br />Tho', faith! I fear ye dine but sparely <br />On sic a place. <br /><br />Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner, <br />Detested, shunn'd by saunt an' sinner, <br />How daur ye set your fit upon her - <br />Sae fine a lady? <br />Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner <br />On some poor body. <br /><br />Swith! in some beggar's haffet squattle; <br />There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle, <br />Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle, <br />In shoals and nations; <br />Whaur horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle <br />Your thick plantations. <br /><br />Now haud you there, ye're out o' sight, <br />Below the fatt'rels, snug and tight; <br />Na, faith ye yet! ye'll no be right, <br />Till ye've got on it - <br />The verra tapmost, tow'rin height <br />O' Miss' bonnet. <br /><br /><br /><br />My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out, <br />As plump an' grey as ony groset: <br />O for some rank, mercurial rozet, <br />Or fell, red smeddum, <br />I'd gie you sic a hearty dose o't, <br />Wad dress your droddum. <br /><br />I wad na been surpris'd to spy <br />You on an auld wife's flainen toy; <br />Or aiblins some bit dubbie boy, <br />On's wyliecoat; <br />But Miss' fine Lunardi! fye! <br />How daur ye do't? <br /><br />O Jenny, dinna toss your head, <br />An' set your beauties a' abread! <br />Ye little ken what cursed speed <br />The blastie's makin: <br />Thae winks an' finger-ends, I dread, <br />Are notice takin. <br /><br />O wad some Power the giftie gie us <br />To see oursels as ithers see us! <br />It wad frae mony a blunder free us, <br />An' foolish notion: <br />What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, <br />An' ev'n devotion!Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-64575581903884380632015-01-01T23:53:48.654-08:002015-01-01T23:53:48.654-08:00Well, Dr. Brin, you flatter me with "Grasshop...Well, Dr. Brin, you flatter me with "Grasshopper" as I'm sure I don't rate even that rank, having always been an undisciplined student. And I've had plenty of "aha" moments, but mostly they involved discovering how wrong I was the last time I had such a moment. The next one can wait.<br /><br />Fortunately, I'm a great fan of the old story about the Chinese farmer whose horse runs away and who accepts that and a series of downstream events phlegmatically, responding to neighbors' alternately pleased and sympathetic responses alike with "Good luck, bad luck - who can tell?"<br /><br />Similarly when other events do not go as we might wish. Labeled by others as great or small, hero or traitor, we can only do our best.madtomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09584394367265677892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-66123615186401943052015-01-01T20:07:28.663-08:002015-01-01T20:07:28.663-08:00Re: Aging
This year's finding that giving tra...Re: Aging<br /><br />This year's finding that giving transfusions from young mice to old ones rejuvenates their bodies may be significant. At this point the likely proteins involved have been identified and there are human trials to be done.<br /><br />At this point we don't know if it will extend longevity, or just make us healthier before we die. However if we find compounds that will increase expression of those proteins, we may just be on the cusp of finding out the answer within a generation.Alex Tolleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01556422553154817988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-56472141836924332982015-01-01T18:36:31.197-08:002015-01-01T18:36:31.197-08:00David, I'm pretty sure that I understand your ...David, I'm pretty sure that I understand your "low hanging fruit" argument. I agree with it with respect to our human past. I just don't understand how it would apply to modern genetic engineering techniques.<br /><br />Maximum human lifespan seems to be limited by telomere length in humans; but telomere length is clearly entirely irrelevant in rats and mice (which have much longer telomeres, but much shorter lifespans). Rats and mice age because they have relatively poor DNA repair mechanisms.<br /><br />As Rob H. implied, though, the most important anti-aging technologies involve not increasing maximum lifespan, but increasing health, strength, coordination and mobility throughout the entire lifespan that we do have.<br /><br />Jerry Emanuelsonhttp://www.futurescience.com/je.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46855424754151403912015-01-01T17:56:34.431-08:002015-01-01T17:56:34.431-08:00Robert, nothing you offer up suggests a moving of ...Robert, nothing you offer up suggests a moving of the “wall.” Sure, the wall is fuzzy and it does SEEM to be shifting a bit from late seventies to maybe ninety… but that is largely a function of millions of people hitting wall territory in tremendously better shape that they ever did, before. The existence of a wall, though is very clear.<br /><br />Jerry, I think you misunderstand the low hanging fruit argument. Humanity NEEDED to become the mammalian methuselahs, because of our method of creating AI … our brainier selves … meant very extended childhood. Hence, whatever systems cause ageing in mice etc we found ways to turn OFF. We were under intense genetic pressure to live as long as possible… and we did that, in all the ways that we could stumble into easily.<br /><br />Madtom backs off from his insulting characterization of me with charming alacrity. Still, much better and more politely parsed, he persists:<br /><br />“So finding blind spots becomes a search for what makes us most uncomfortable, since that is what we’re most likely to blind ourselves to, or to contrive false explanations for.”<br /><br />I have always confessed to being human. Indeed, I suffer from observer bias and flattery temptation and all those vices. But I am also protected by deep scientific training and by a core philosophy of contingency, reciprocal accountability, improvement-via-criticism and… above all… a very wide ideological stance that prevent me from investing too much of my ego into any one set of incantations.<br /><br />All of which comes into the category of a newbie accountability preacher like you trying to “teach his grandmother to suck eggs.” You are SO far from being a guru in an area (reciprocal accountability) where I know vastly more than you, that your chidings are not effective, they merely look ridiculous.<br /><br />All of which is proved by: “So that blind-spot search is *very* unlikely to be undertaken without strong and specific motivation.”<br /><br />Thus you prove that you simply haven’t a clue. You truly do not have even an inkling how reciprocal accountability works. But indeed, keep at it, Grasshopper. You’ll have your aha moment. I have faith in you.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-56586216880413020822015-01-01T17:17:34.705-08:002015-01-01T17:17:34.705-08:00David, I saw your interview in Variety, and genera...David, I saw your interview in Variety, and generally appreciated what you had to say, but I was disappointed that (at least as presented) you seemed to accept the "North Korea" attribution, given that the evidence for it seems extremely tenuous. (<a href="http://gawker.com/a-lot-of-smart-people-think-north-korea-didnt-hack-sony-1672899940" rel="nofollow">Gawker</a> has a good rundown of some of the doubts.)greg byshenknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-33276957427970063272015-01-01T16:26:25.695-08:002015-01-01T16:26:25.695-08:00Thanks for your response, Dr. Brin, and I’m sorry ...Thanks for your response, Dr. Brin, and I’m sorry my attempt at brevity misled you into thinking I was skim-reading or ignoring important parts of what you said. I was trying to focus on key points and focused too sharply.<br /><br />I’m well aware of your honest dedication to your values (which I share), and which shines through your books and talks (or I wouldn’t be spending time here, myself!). I’ve also long noted the lists of checkers’ names in your books, which I read because I sometimes recognize one of the more prominent ones, and wonder which of the others I *should* recognize. <br /><br />You *know* that nobody ever wrote a perfect book, have no trouble dealing with the fact that you’re human too, and you don’t want to be like Steven Pinker, who recently confused ‘principal’ and ‘principle’ in his essay on Why Academics’ Writing Stinks. Fine.<br />http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Academics-Writing-Stinks/148989/<br /><br />You also understand as well as anyone ever did, just how important independent replicability and checkablity are in distinguishing real effects from errors and statistical flukes. <br /><br />But to find and verify realities, we first need to look for them, and/or at least be capable of registering the event if we encounter a particular reality.<br /><br />To a first approximation, I’d say our capacity for self-deception is 50% the “capacity to ignore”, to simply fail to allow into consciousness or memory what is clear to others but which makes us uncomfortable (denial). The other 50% is the “capacity to fantasize” to create more emotionally acceptable (but unreal) explanatory scenarios for observations whose reality makes us uncomfortable once they arrive in conscious awareness.<br /><br />So finding blind spots becomes a search for what makes us most uncomfortable, since that is what we’re most likely to blind ourselves to, or to contrive false explanations for. <br /><br />Naturally, not many people would embark on that search when life has so many greater urgencies and so much fun to enjoy.<br /><br />And that search is usually not an exercise in finding real-world facts, but in finding emotional responses because they can *lead* us to facts about ourselves. That is, facts we might *want* to blind ourselves to. I can envision (uncomfortably) a scenario in which a subject is strapped into a chair and enmeshed in a web of detectors while being exposed to a thousand or so short videos that might objectively determine those areas of maximum discomfort. But I’d rather not.<br /><br />So that blind-spot search is *very* unlikely to be undertaken without strong and specific motivation. How to provide motivation for someone to dwell on what makes him uncomfortable, perhaps by contradicting deep-held beliefs, without simply driving him away or making him an enemy? How would you write that into a plot? I seem to recall a pair of friendly-enemy ambassadors (one with antennae for emotions, and a quirky sense of humor, the other a reputation for blunt rational materialism) who faced a somewhat similar challenge while trekking through the wilderness day after day when their ship crashed instead of getting them offplanet.<br /><br />My own confession, before I go: Though a citizen here for 20+ years, I’m an expat native Californian, born in San Francisco, who grew up with enough nuclear war nightmares to have his eye on places like New Zealand for a very long time, waiting for an opportunity. And you’d be welcome here any time. Coincidentally(?), my older daughter (who lives in the real city of Auckland, not just the artificial Greater Auckland Supercity, which now extends to the next ridge to the south of me), and who calls this country retreat “back of beyond”, shared her list of interesting people to follow on G+ with me at our Christmas celebrations up here, and your name was on the list! (Which I've been far too busy to action yet, since summer is here and the azolla is growing)madtomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09584394367265677892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-28914525683291108082015-01-01T14:53:05.210-08:002015-01-01T14:53:05.210-08:00(hands cupped either side of mouth) Heloooooo down...(hands cupped either side of mouth) Heloooooo down there, Duncan! Actually, I like to think that my position on the conventional political spectrum is fractal, because I don't see enough logic, decency and consistency to identify with most locations there. FWIW, I enthusiastically voted Internet/Mana and I thought the Moment of Truth was the most exciting thing I had seen on a screen since Watergate.madtomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09584394367265677892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-78557062627751457872015-01-01T14:43:19.393-08:002015-01-01T14:43:19.393-08:00Rob H.: We may be getting very close to having th...Rob H.: We may be getting very close to having those medical nanorobots. See:<br /><br /><a href="http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/12/ido-bachelet-announces-2015-human-trial.html" rel="nofollow">http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/12/ido-bachelet-announces-2015-human-trial.html</a><br /><br />Human testing is planned for this year. These medical robots do not quite qualify as Drexler's atomically precise manufacturing, but they are getting very close.<br /><br />One thing that David ignores in his "low hanging fruit" argument is the great variety of ways that genes may be transferred from one species to another. This is something that humans can do, but that seldom occurs in nature (except in certain viral infections).<br /><br />Scientists have already made "mighty mice" by transferring parts of the genes of other species into mice. For example see:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.jbc.org/content/282/45/32844.full" rel="nofollow">http://www.jbc.org/content/282/45/32844.full</a><br /><br />The most interesting thing about these experiments is how the mice maintained their great physical strength into old age. They also lived significantly longer.<br /><br />The World Anti-Doping Agency is already scared to death that a human athlete will use very similar genetic engineering techniques.<br /><br />Actually, a "Steroids League" is needed in baseball where individuals can use any kind of hormonal or genetic enhancement that they want in order to improve their performance. Players would simply have to divulge what they are doing, and submit themselves to a reasonable amount of scientific study.<br /><br />This would provide a huge amount of scientific information that would be useful in helping older people to maintain full health, muscular strength and coordination into extreme old age. (And a "Steroids League" could make a lot of money with people coming out to see players often hitting 700-foot home runs and pitching 150 mile-per-hour fast balls.)Jerry Emanuelsonhttp://www.futurescience.com/je.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-90459764777030481432015-01-01T13:19:18.616-08:002015-01-01T13:19:18.616-08:00Madtom is an hour north of Auckland and I'm 40...Madtom is an hour north of Auckland and I'm 40 minutes from Invercargill so we cover almost the entire country between us!<br /><br />I suspect we also cover most of the political spectrum as well<br /><br />I will try and be more polite to Locum - but he does stretch my patience at times<br /><br />Anyway - Happy New Year everybody<br />Now I've got to get some grass cut - its growing like crazy out there<br /> Duncan Cairncrossnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-71342482226631179072015-01-01T12:42:23.352-08:002015-01-01T12:42:23.352-08:00One of the biggest problems there is arrogance. Wh...One of the biggest problems there is arrogance. When you have no doubts, when you are absolutely certain that you are absolutely right about absolutely everything, you throw yourself into one of those feedback loops. The ego balloons beyond normal proportions and both common sense and common decency go right out the window. Humility isn't just a virtue, it's a survival tool. The fools who think being "tough" makes them survivors are delusional.<br /><br />I once met a man whose teen-aged daughter had been murdered in a news-gathering way. She was an employee at a Chuck E. Cheese franchise in Denver, when a recently fired employee returned with a gun and the absolute conviction that his lack of employment was anyone else's fault but his own. The father was quite struck by the boy's arrogance and complete lack of remorse for the the people he killed, and even seemed to feel that being on death row made him a hero of his ethnicity. The father argued for the death penalty, not because he was a believer in it, but because an inmate on death row gets locked into a much smaller cage than the average inmate and gets to watch less TV. He did not have much confidence that the system would actually execute the thug, but his life would be more miserable on death row than if he just got life.<br /><br />I don't know if the scumbag is still in jail - I don't like to dwell on such things - but he does make a good example of where arrogance leads.Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-32443343012422921702015-01-01T12:40:25.238-08:002015-01-01T12:40:25.238-08:00Actually, Dr. Brin, that is the question, isn'...Actually, Dr. Brin, that is the question, isn't it? Look at the people who reach and exceed 100 years of age. How many of them are of poor health? And I'm not talking someone in a vegetative state.<br /><br />If you improve the physical health of people and their biological capability to retain that health, how long will they live?<br /><br />How many completely healthy people, without some accident involved, just die before reaching 90? Most often people die because of an illness. Many times, dying in your sleep is the result of the body giving out after an illness that may not necessarily have been known. <br /><br />So then, by ensuring that people are able to retain the hormones and enzymes needed for healthy living, more people will reach 90 and beyond. More people may very well be in a position to utilize their health at that older age. And I say this watching my mother, who is 70, having mobility issues from her back and knee... and wishing someone would get one of those medical nanorobots set up so it could fix what's wrong. (Selfish of me, I know. I freely admit to being selfish, though.)<br /><br />If we as a species get to the point in science that we can repair damage to the body on a small scale, can ensure the body doesn't start producing fewer and fewer of the enzymes and hormones that ensure healthy living, and are able to find a way of dealing with cancers and other diseases, we may find that we can continue to live well into our 100s... and not as some frail shell but instead someone who may not be what we were when we were young adults, but that allows us to live life and explore our world, those around it, and eventually the stars themselves.<br /><br />Rob H., who freely admits to being a starry-eyed dreamerAcacia H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07678539067303911329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-48836263509787461442015-01-01T12:16:28.057-08:002015-01-01T12:16:28.057-08:00@Paul Shen-Brown
Re: Peak Brain. Here is one pap...@Paul Shen-Brown<br /><br />Re: Peak Brain. <a href="http://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.5604.pdf" rel="nofollow">Here is one paper</a> that discusses this. Note that the issue of brain/body size is addressed. (Author John Hawks)<br /><br />extract: "<i>The decline of human endocranial volume during the last 10,000 years is paralleled most obviously by the reductions of brain size in<br />domesticated animal species, including dogs, cattle and sheep, compared to their wild progenitors. Nutritional, developmental, and functional issues are all possible explanations for these parallel cases of brain size reduction. Humans are different in many ways from these domesticated species, but exhibit other parallel trends such as decreased skeletal robusticity.</i>"<br /><br />It is just one paper.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v56/n12/full/1601646a.html" rel="nofollow">A brief review of the archaeological evidence for Palaeolithic and Neolithic subsistence</a> looks at diet and is more in line with your view about agriculture's impact on nutrition.<br /><br /><a href="http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-brain-shrinking" rel="nofollow">Discover Magazine article</a> talking about Hawks' work and trying to put it into context. <br /><br />I think the data is a little thin to be definitive, but it is an interesting finding on which to hang various hypotheses.Alex Tolleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01556422553154817988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-4207115750795304992015-01-01T11:05:11.685-08:002015-01-01T11:05:11.685-08:00Kaczynski's core, distilled essence was, as Pa...Kaczynski's core, distilled essence was, as Paul points out, simply this:<br /><br />"I am so much smarter than than all you fools!" Sheeple indeed. That is why his diatribes appeal to fellows with the same desperate need. The possibility of being part of a positive-sum civilization that solves the very problems in his jeremiads? The possibility never occurred to him.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-24303018100681957562015-01-01T11:01:37.312-08:002015-01-01T11:01:37.312-08:00
Robert your reply to “low hanging” boils down to ...<br />Robert your reply to “low hanging” boils down to more methods to increase the % of humans who reach the wall, hale and healthy. I see nothing (so far) that moves the wall itself.<br /><br />Mind you, I would love to be proved wrong! David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-63581896653857949632015-01-01T10:57:45.667-08:002015-01-01T10:57:45.667-08:00The Unabomber described over-socialization as ende...The Unabomber described over-socialization as endemic among upper middle class intellectuals, who “cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality,"<br /><br />And therein lies Kaczinski's lunacy. Everyone feels these feelings, all the time. The limbic system screams at us every minute. Steal this! Kill that! Molest anything with a pulse! and above all, Eat! Eat! Eat! (good subject for the holidays, right?) There's a reason the accepted morality is accepted - because we are humans, not lizards. As MadTom pointed out, even chimpanzees suppress their limbic impulses to live in a social context. We all learn better ways to express those impulses without losing all our friends or getting killed at a young age. The Unabomber merely wanted to give in to those impulses in inappropriate ways, and thought that his own mental laziness made a political platform.<br /><br />However, he makes for a good example of how our minds work in feedback loops. As soon as he decided that his "political philosophy" made him superior to all the sheeple around him, he isolated himself more and more. By isolating himself he reduced his own oxytocin levels (not serotonin - that's the one that responds to sunlight, and why the highest suicide rates are mostly in the cloudiest countries). Oxytocin is what makes people care about each other. Not getting oxytocin is what makes people in solitary confinement go mad (and what makes kids in classrooms never want to shut up - but I could go on forever about all the ways our school system fails us). So old Ted drove himself to his own madness. He probably thought that giving in to his "animal" impulses made him more "honest" than the rest of us, but as rationalizations go, it's pretty sloppy thinking.<br /><br />This is the same kind of feedback loop you see in hypochondria. I had a friend who was a hypochondriac, and so far she is the only one of my friends who has died (I'm not yet of that age where mortality starts to take all your friends away). You feel sick, but the pain of physical illness is mediated by exactly the same neurotransmitter that mediates emotional pain (called very simply Substance P). You lie in bed feeling bad, and if you give in to the little voice that says that it will never get better, you start releasing stress hormones that, among other things, suppress anandamide, beta endorphin, oxytocin and a host of others that would normally counteract those bad feelings and allow us the mentally recover. The more bad feelings you feel, the more they self-perpetuate. Likewise anger, resulting in all those indignation junkies on talk radio (and at the polls). They do it to themselves without realizing it. This is why I can't over emphasize the need for understanding your own mind. <br /><br />Thinking happy thoughts won't stop bullets, lower your taxes, or bring world peace. However, it has been shown to buoy up your immune system, not exactly curing illness but helping, and explaining the mechanism for the Placebo Effect. Unfortunately I didn't know any of this when my friend was alive.<br /><br />So cheers for the new year. Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-80728765740534563912015-01-01T10:46:57.196-08:002015-01-01T10:46:57.196-08:00Madtom: “But seeing the back of your head in a mir...Madtom: “But seeing the back of your head in a mirror is best achieved with a second, opposing mirror, not by staring extra hard into one mirror or trying to spin around really, really fast”<br /><br />You insist, as does locum, upon your strawman of me and anything I say to disprove it just glides past your observer bias. My entire life and philosophy revolve around using multiple, contingent and critical sources of reciprocal accountability, to find or deal with delusional errors. A process that no individual or group can be trusted to control, and hence the need for processes of UNAVOIDABLE crit.<br /><br />Yet you insist upon lecturing me about that exact lesson, as if you invented it.<br /><br />“"Blind to your own blind spot", is my suspicion…” No, it is your strawman rationalization and attempt to declare that I do not grasp the essence of the very core of the enlightenment that I keep writing about. <br /><br />Note the irony… that it never occurs to YOU that your few, tendentious skimmings here — as you as skimming these words, right now — led you to leap to an unjustified but deeply personally satisfying conclusion. Okay then, here’s the challenge: when you find me ONE other writer today who explores the notion of reciprocal accountability more intensely or from more directions and angles than I do… how about THEN you lecture me about the topic.<br /><br /> Openness to crit means I must LISTEN to crit. It does not mean I can’t say “bullshit” to fools.<br /><br />for example: “In this blog and your own writings at least, and likely in your own life, I say that you ARE King and do have courtiers…” <br /><br />I respond at one level Bullshit! This community is one of the oldest and most mature on the web. And there’s not a sycophant among these guys.<br /><br />At another, you willfully misunderstood what I said, cherrypicking a single sentence and ignoring ALL of those who came before. Kinda intellectually dishonest, yknow.<br /><br />But you are a Kiwi! And hence we all need to be nice to you, lest you blackball any of us when we flee in your direction, from whatever it is, someday.<br /><br />(There’s stuff an hour NORTH of Auckland?)David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-55744502095218553922015-01-01T08:45:06.226-08:002015-01-01T08:45:06.226-08:00Tony Fisk:
Many seem to be regarding 2014 as some...Tony Fisk:<br /><i><br />Many seem to be regarding 2014 as some sort of slough of despond. I have to confess it wasn't my best year either, but it wasn't *that* bad, was it?<br /></i><br /><br />Well, everyone in my household had medical issues, including the 16-year-old cat with throat cancer. My daughter, who was knocked out with the flu her entire Thanksgiving break, fared the <b>best</b> of us all.<br /><br />So yeah, I'm ready for hope and change.<br /><br />(For me, the November elections were also a cause for suckitude, but even that pales in comparison to the other thing)LarryHartnoreply@blogger.com