Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Superlativity Critique Arrives on Kuro5hin

A very interesting post today over on Kuro5hin references some of the debates taking place here on Amor Mundi and seems likely to provoke some contentious debate (Aunt Pittypat, my smelling salts!).

As one commentor has already pithily put the point, "You're really going after Transhumanists which I'm glad to see more people are doing. Expect to get attacked like you wouldn't believe." Ain't that the truth?

While I wouldn't want to create the impression that I agree with literally every claim being made here (I don't), nor that she (or he) would agree with everything I say hereabouts, I'll admit I really am pleased to see more of these debates happening and am pleased to think I have contributed to them in some measure.

Here are a few choice bits, but I recommend people read the whole piece and follow the discussion at the source.
The real problem with Transhumanism is… that nearly all Transhumanists are either Neocons and Neocon influenced….

[I would say that neoliberals probably outnumber neocons among the transhumanists these days, but if one opposes corporate-militarism on principle this difference is rather toMAYto toMAHto in the final analysis.]
I know that I will be accused of being a luddite for pointing out what's wrong with Transhumanism. I'm not a luddite. I'm a Technoprogressive. As a technoprogressive, I understand that the issue isn't technology. The issue is the (Neocon capitalist controlled) political system…. The reason why [people] can't get proper dental care isn't technological. It's because the Neocon capitalist government of America has decided to spend its money on imperialist wars of aggression and not universal health care for its citizens. This problem does not get better with more technology. If anything it will get worse as more technology reinforces the Neocon capitalist regime.

Since 99.5% of Transhumanists are white males, they don't care about any of these issues. A good example of this is Aubrey De Grey arguing that extending lives and saving lives is the same thing. Technically, he is correct. However, his statement hides the fact that "extending lives" primarily benefits rich and middle class white males, whereas the rest of us still die. If Aubrey De Grey really wants to save lives, why doesn't he help put an end to the war in Iraq, help make sure everyone on this planet has clean drinking water and enough food to eat, help agitate to reduce the power of the US/British military, and fight for a basic income guarantee. Being a (Neocon influenced) white male he sees no benefit to things that actually save lives so he just dicks around with "immortality."

[I'm not sure this is precisely fair to de Grey in particular, but the general critique has real force and deserves an extensive response from the "Technological Immortalists" in my view.]

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

"[I'm not sure this is precisely fair to de Grey in particular, but the general critique has real force and deserves an extensive response from the "Technological Immortalists" in my view.]"
This reminds me of a class of argument that commonly occurs between nationalist/ethnocentric and cosmopolitan 'liberals' (I'm not sure to what extent the first group actually merits the title, but let's set that aside for the moment). Programs like Social Security and Medicare that make large transfers to the elderly of the American middle class (who are very wealthy by world standards) offer far inferior benefits per dollar relative to programs targeted at low-income or otherwise disadvantaged Americans, and are utterly abysmal when compared to the funding research into vaccines for developing world diseases or other interventions targeted at the world's poorest.

Parochialists argue that these things are not in tension with one another, or that investing the scarce energies of activists in welfare for relatively rich Americans will create such momentum for progressive causes that eventually they will get around to foreign aid. There is a grain of truth to this, but claiming that advocacy for redistribution to the median American has such massive positive externalities that it beats direct advocacy for foreign aid seems to be the equivalent of supply-siders claiming that tax cuts will pay for themselves in terms of government revenue over the short or medium terms (excepting extremely high personal marginal income tax rates and corporate taxes or other taxes on highly mobile factors of production). It also reminds me of this: (http://www.theonion.com/content/video/in_the_know_are_americas_rich)

The best counter-arguments would seem to be based around widely varying costs in terms of altruistic effort, and the furious rate of economic growth outside of sub-Saharan Africa. Redistribution to the politically powerful American middle class requires less effort from altruists because there are already powerful forces supporting such redistribution (on the other hand one can also argue that real altruists should look where ethnocentrists and parochialists are not looking). An altruistic push on basic research into conditions affecting developed country citizens (Alzheimer's, cancers, other diseases of aging) can simply serve to trigger parochial patient groups (as people donate to cure the disease that happened to strike them or one of their loved ones) to mobilize public funding, and companies to develop profitable therapies. In contrast, support for foreign aid requires sustained expenditures of altruists' energy.

There are a lot of people in developed countries, and if high rates of growth in Asia (and reasonable growth in Latin America) continue there will be a lot more people who can afford treatments for the diseases of aging (especially given pressures for differential pricing, as with HIV drugs today) in the future, as those treatments are developed. Given that most deaths are aging-related, the fact that developed countries are much better at distributing cures once they are developed, and these bandwagon effects, it might well be that the total number of QALYs saved with a $10 million investment in activism to increase funding for aging research would be higher than for a comparable investment in activism on malaria research and treatment.

These calculations would change depending on estimates for the rate of advance for aging research. If one expects major extensions in healthspan in the near future without intervention, then at the margin resources should be shifted to preventing malaria deaths (as the people saved would gain more expected years of life with the chance to benefit from further therapeutic advances). If the rate of advance in aging research appears to be very slow, then one should invest relatively more in it at the expense of foreign aid because one won't be able to add more than a few decades of healthspan per person with treatments of infectious diseases.

[Of course, this analysis assumes that one values the welfare of different individuals equally, rather than intrinsically prioritizing the worst-off, so Rawlsians and egalitarians may come to different conclusions.]

jimf said...

> If the rate of advance in aging research appears to
> be very slow, then one should invest relatively more
> in it at the expense of foreign aid because one won't
> be able to add more than a few decades of healthspan
> per person with treatments of infectious diseases.

Or not.

"Unluckily, it is difficult for a certain type of mind to grasp
the concept of insolubility. Thousands... keep pegging away at
perpetual motion. The number of persons so afflicted is far
greater than the records of the Patent Office show, for beyond the
circle of frankly insane enterprise there lie circles of more and
more plausible enterprise, until finally we come to a circle which
embraces the great majority of human beings.... The fact is that
some of the things that men and women have desired most ardently
for thousands of years are not nearer realization than they were
in the time of Rameses, and that there is not the slightest reason
for believing that they will lose their coyness on any near
to-morrow. Plans for hurrying them on have been tried since the
beginnning; plans for forcing them overnight are in copious and
antagonistic operation to-day; and yet they continue to hold off
and elude us, and the chances are that they will keep on holding
off and eluding us until the angels get tired of the show, and the
whole earth is set off like a gigantic bomb, or drowned, like a
sick cat, between two buckets."

-- H. L. Mencken, "The Cult of Hope"

jimf said...

Dale wrote:

> As one commentor has already pithily put the point,
> "You're really going after Transhumanists which I'm glad
> to see more people are doing. Expect to get attacked
> like you wouldn't believe."
>
> Ain't **that** the truth?


http://www.google.com/groups?selm=20030306034551.21488.00000098%40mb-md.aol.com
---------------------------------
From: JoatSimeon (joatsimeon@aol.com) [S. M. Stirling]
Subject: Re: Is science fiction possible?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Date: 2003-03-06 00:46:49 PST

> From: Malcolm McMahon malcolm@pigsty.demon.co.uk
>
> To my mind the singularity is just the apocalypse for atheists.
> There's the same sense of the "end times" which a significant
> minority of the human race always have believed they were living
> in. It's an essentially religious sentiment.

-- Yup. But you can expect them to get reeeeeeallly shirty
when you tell 'em that. Cries of "Blasphemer"! generally follow.
---------------------------------

jimf said...

Oh, and speaking of "end times":

"Bill Moyers reminds us that fundamentalist theology began affecting
U.S. policy, domestic and foreign, with the Reagan administration.
Moyers recalls that 'James G. Watt told the U.S. Congress that
protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent
return of Jesus Christ.' Watt, Reagan's Secretary of the Interior
and a fundamentalist Christian, claimed that there is no need to
support treaties, protocols, and agreements intended to protect
the air, the seas, wildlife, and forest preserves because 'we don't
know how much time we have before Jesus returns.' In public
testimony, he said, 'After the last tree is felled, Christ will
come back.'"

-- Mel White, _Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right_,
Chapter 7, "Fascism: The Politics of Fundamentalism", p. 218

Anonymous said...

James,

I said 'at the margin' and 'relatively more,' both of which are compatible with substantial uncertainty as to whether the relevant problems are human-soluble, and more relevantly whether investing in aging research now will actually noticeably speed development.

"There's the same sense of the "end times" which a significant
> minority of the human race always have believed they were living
> in."
Definitely some functional and practical similarities, e.g. the effects on deciding whether to store radioactive waste in a way that will only be secure for 10,000 years.

On the other hand, there are relevant differences when we compare recent centuries with 99+% of human history, when technology stayed pretty steady through each human lifetime. People in the 20th century, with massive nuclear arsenals on hair-trigger alert, had better reason than medieval peasants to expect a civilization-smashing catastrophe (although events like the fall of Rome and the Black Death complicate the picture a bit). Surely you would agree that it's reasonable to put a rather higher probability on a dramatic catastrophe or transformation of human life by 2050 in the year 2007 than one would have put on such outcomes by 1050 if pondering in 1007?

Also, what's with the incredible quantity of block quotes from books? Do you have a massive word file stored up (if so, you should post it somewhere)? E-books? Google Books? Or are you typing or scanning them all for each comment?

jimf said...

> I said 'at the margin' and 'relatively more,' both of which
> are compatible with substantial uncertainty as to whether
> the relevant problems are human-soluble, and more relevantly
> whether investing in aging research now will actually noticeably
> speed development.

How can you possibly think that giving money now to somebody
or some outfit **specifically** advertising as being in the "aging
research" business is a better investment than, say,
investing in the communications infrastructure of China,
which might tip the likelihood of a few more folks there
getting degrees in molecular biology, some of whom might
eventually contribute to a better treatment for, oh I dunno,
Alzheimer's disease?

Why do you imagine the folks on the >Hist bandwagon itself are
the shortest route to the outcomes you profess to desire?

My own experience of the world leads me to believe otherwise.

Of course, maybe as more Scientologists climb to higher
Operating Thetan levels, their combined psychokinetic powers
will manifest themselves in the spontaneous reversal of
aging. Maybe that's where you should be putting your money.

> Also, what's with the incredible quantity of block quotes
> from books?

Yeah, what about 'em? You think they're irrelevant?
An unfair appeal to authority? Sign of an impoverished
intellect? Or are they just TL;DR for you?

> Do you have a massive word file stored up?

I have an e-mail archive, yes. There's also this thing
called "Google". It's pretty cool, actually.

> Or are you typing or scanning them all for each comment?

I'm a fast typist, yes.

jimf said...

Utilitarian -- just think what your money could help buy:


http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/la90/la90-1f.html
------------------------------------------------------------
Scientology is determined that the words of L. Ron Hubbard
shall live forever.

Using state-of-the art technology, the movement has spent more
than $15 million to protect Hubbard's original writings, tape-recorded
lectures and filmed treatises from natural and man-made calamities,
including nuclear holocaust.

The effort illustrates two fundamental truths about the Scientology
movement: It believes in its future and it never does anything
halfheartedly.

. . .

According to Church of Spiritual Technology documents, the New Mexico
site has a 670-foot tunnel with two deep vaults at the end. The tunnel
is protected with thick concrete and has four doors with "maintenance-free
lives of 1,000 years."

Three of the doors purportedly will be "nuclear blast resistant."

All this to house mere copies of the original works, which include
500,000 pages of Hubbard writings, 6,500 reels of tape and 42 films.
The originals themselves are being kept under tight security on a
sprawling Scientology complex near Lake Arrowhead.

While details of the facility are sketchy, a San Bernardino County sheriff's
deputy, who requested anonymity, said the group has burrowed a huge tunnel
into a mountainside.

At the Arrowhead repository, sophisticated methods are being used to
prepare Hubbard's works for the bomb-proof vaults. Here, according to
Scientology officials and documents, is the process:

First, the original writings are chemically treated to rid the paper of
acid that causes deterioration. Next, they are placed in plastic envelopes
that church officials say will last 1,000 years.

From there, they are packaged in titanium "time capsules" filled with
argon gas to further aid preservation.

Hubbard's writings also are being etched onto stainless steel plates with
a strong acid. Scientology officials said the plates are so durable that
they can be sprayed with salt water for 1,000 years and not deteriorate.

As for Hubbard's taped lectures, they are being re-recorded onto special
"pure gold" compact discs encased in glass that, according to Scientology
archvists, are "designed to last at least 1,000 years with no deterioration
of sound quality."
------------------------------------------------------------

Anonymous said...

"How can you possibly think that giving money now to somebody
or some outfit **specifically** advertising as being in the "aging
research" business is a better investment than, say,
investing in the communications infrastructure of China,
which might tip the likelihood of a few more folks there
getting degrees in molecular biology, some of whom might
eventually contribute to a better treatment for, oh I dunno,
Alzheimer's disease?"

Costs, diminishing marginal returns, positive feedback, alternatives. A general improvement in communications infrastructure would be quite expensive, and the benefits would be diluted across numerous fields (I'm not interested in increasing the number of Chinese hedge fund managers, weapons designers, and lawyers). If I was going to invest in Chinese talent over the long-term I would actually work on creating a high-powered Chinese version of the Gates Scholarships or of this: http://www.ditd.org/

Research successes and new companies pave the way for new researchers to enter a field, and for public and private financing to be attracted to the research. The resurgence in vaccine research in recent years is noteworthy in my view: advance commitments from governments and the Gates foundation to purchase the vaccines, basic research funding, and a few commercial successes to inspire pharma companies to re-enter the field. Likewise for treatment of developing world diseases.

"Why do you imagine the folks on the >Hist bandwagon itself are
the shortest route to the outcomes you profess to desire?"
I generally don't. Almost none of the most competent people are transhumanist in the sense of being involved with the social network of transhumanist identified people (although an enormous number of very capable people share core values and some expectation of serious change from biotech, computer technology, etc). Members of the 'transhumanist community' have come up with new insights primarily where no one else is looking. But Peter Diamandis' X-Prize Foundation and its genomics X-Prize are notable contributions, as is de Grey's M-Prize. Nick Bostrom has come up with some important arguments and ideas, as has Robin Hanson (e.g. prediction markets). My aim is to create incentives for people with high ability (measured by conventional indicators) to evaluate areas currently considered mostly by transhumanists, distinguishing between more feasible approaches and dross, and to act appropriately on that evaluation.

For instance, if I were actively working to advance current aging research (which I generally am not) I would not rely on personal commitments to "Ending Aging" among researchers in deciding which grant proposals to fund (de Grey gets no bonus over Harvard or Case Western or Johns Hopkins aging labs), but I would prefer to use a selection rule to balance risk and reward that values expected QALYs from a project linearly, without diminishing returns.

The companies producing memory-enhancing drugs for Alzheimers or concentration-enhancing stimulants are advancing cognitive enhancement more than transhumanist enthusiasts. I would use peer review among conventionally credentialed (top credentials) biologists to identify pre-commercial basic research opportunities to lay the groundwork for cognitive enhancement drugs, or seek out venture capital opportunities to invest in translational research and commercialization.

"Yeah, what about 'em?"
Curiosity, it's a very distinctive commenting style.

"There's also this thing
called "Google"."
No mystery to Steve Stirling's online postings, just wondering about the paper books.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for linking to my diary at K5. I do use Neocon as shorthand for what you call corporate-militarist. I know there is supposed to be a difference between Neocons and Neolibs, but I can't find a meaningful one. Most transhumanists would be best described as what I call Clinton style Neocons (as opposed to Bush style Neocons).

I think my criticism of De Grey is fair since if you watch any interview with him he projects a persona of being passionate about "saving lives" (as in saving people from death). If De Grey wants to save lives so badly there is a million things he can do with current technology right now that will save many lives (some of which I listed). Anything De Grey does by his own admission will take at least 25 years. It could be much longer, if it works at all. What lives get saved then? If it works it ends up being rich and middle class white males. De Grey doesn't seem to have a problem with this.

Other "technological immortalists" are just as bad. They don't do the "saving lives" bit as much, but claim that death is a "crisis" that needs to be attacked with all efforts. The same question applies as it does to De Grey. If "technological immortalists" believe death is such a "crisis" then why aren't they doing things to prevent the deaths of people around them using technology that already exists.

Anonymous said...

"Anything De Grey does by his own admission will take at least 25 years."
Do deaths 25 years from now matter less morally than those happening today? If so, what is your discount rate for future deaths? What do you think of the Stern report and global warming?

"If it works it ends up being rich and middle class white males."
And the white females don't get it? That's just silly. And do you really think that Medicare and universal healthcare in other advanced countries wouldn't cover such therapies? The political pressure would be absolutely enormous (although one can't get universal access to therapies until they have actually been developed). Moreover, by that time China and India may be wealthy enough to afford broad access, along with a number of other currently poor countries.

Anne Corwin said...

Jim F. said: How can you possibly think that giving money now to somebody or some outfit **specifically** advertising as being in the "aging research" business is a better investment than, say, investing in the communications infrastructure of China, which might tip the likelihood of a few more folks there getting degrees in molecular biology, some of whom might eventually contribute to a better treatment for, oh I dunno, Alzheimer's disease?

I personally have no idea how anyone else would decide what to invest in. But I do think there's more than enough money in the world to do both -- that is, invest in "aging research" and invest in the communications infrastructure of China. Feel free to call me ignorant on this; I very well might be.

Different people are always going to have different interests and "causes", so while it's definitely worth critiquing particular causes where their preferred language is (as Dale suggests) "deranging", it does not stand that we're looking at a zero-sum game between specifically funding aging research and funding infrastructure development.

If you think people are spending too much money on frivolous things at the expense of more worthy causes, how does aging research (of all things) end up on the "frivolous" list, over and above things like, say, Hello Kitty-themed mansions and/or professional sports salaries?

Or, do you just have some historical precedence for suggesting that "targeted" initiatives (e.g., any research programs intended to address a specific area of medical interest, as opposed to more general universal infrastructure development), tend to fail more often than succeed? (Or to succeed for a few, to the detriment of many?)

Why do you imagine the folks on the >Hist bandwagon itself are the shortest route to the outcomes you profess to desire?

I don't really know anymore how to tell who is and isn't on the ">Hist bandwagon" -- from where I sit right now, transhumanism is beginning to look like an impressionist painting (the kind that looks coherent only from a distance -- the closer you get, the more definition starts to fail). But you do bring up a good point here.

And my answer is, basically, that (at least in my opinion) whatever folks you are considering to be on the "bandwagon" are not necessarily the shortest route to desired outcomes (that is, the outcomes in which more lives are saved). These folks are just one possible route to those outcomes.

It's not like mainstream medicine is completely ignoring the health of the elderly, after all -- we do have biogerontologists who have likely never come across the word "transhumanism" in their work.

And for all I know, it might be those folks who end up contributing more toward longevity medicine in the long run. Who can say at this point? I certainly can't. But I'm still going to advocate for longevity research because I see it as a means to improve the treatment of a particular marginalized population (the elderly).

And this doesn't JUST mean funding biogerontology research, but paying attention to problems like institutional abuse, incomplete studies of drug effectiveness in the elderly, inequalities in medical care distribution, untreated depression in the elderly (which can be mistaken for a "normal reaction to being old"), insurance problems, etc.

In fact, I don't think biogerontology is going to get much further unless great strides are made socially to affirm the value of older people and not push them to the corners, marginalize, or warehouse them by default.

jimf said...

> "Anything De Grey does by his own admission will take at least 25 years."
>
> Do deaths 25 years from now matter less morally than those happening today?
> If so, what is your discount rate for future deaths?

It's perhaps more a matter of the "discount rate" for such
long-term project deadlines.


Nasruddin and the Shah's ass:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1992Feb21.192207.9035%40husc3.harvard.edu
------------------------------
There once was a Shah who developed a special fondness for his ass, and
expressed a desire that the animal be taught human speech. Nasruddin came
forth, declaring that he could do the job in twenty-five years, for 25
thousand gold pieces. The shah agreed, and Nasruddin led away the ass
loaded with a fortune in gold. Upon hearing about the bargain, Nasruddin's
friends came to his house, expressing great concern. "Surely, -- they
said, -- you will fail to teach the ass to speak, and spend the gold, and
then the Shah will order his royal executioner to cut off your head."
"Don't worry, -- replied Nasruddin, -- in twenty-five years the Shah will
die, or the ass will die, or I myself will die."
------------------------------

Anonymous said...

Anne wrote:
"I personally have no idea how anyone else would decide what to invest in. But I do think there's more than enough money in the world to do both -- that is, invest in "aging research" and invest in the communications infrastructure of China. Feel free to call me ignorant on this; I very well might be."
If people want to donate their effort and funds to arbitrary causes for reasons other than efficacy in helping people, there's only so much that can be done to persuade them. But people trying to allocate their efforts in a consequentialist fashion with quite limited resources can't reasonably agree to disagree about what cause to give to while viewing each other as honest truth-seekers.

If I have about a million dollars in charitable contributions to make over a 7 year period I'm not going to hit the point of severe diminishing returns on communications infrastructure or on cancer research. I personally can't fully fund both, so I have to make a choice (diversification has a lower expected value). One option has a better expected value (they are sufficiently different that a tie is unlikely), and I'm committed (along with other utilitarian associates) to doing my best to figure out which is which and channelling all my resources to the better cause.

This is why I disagree with and am irritated by occasional appeals by Michael Anissimov and other avowed would-be consequentialists to 'let transhumanism be.' If you purport to be a consequentialist you can't justify directing your charitable efforts on the basis of personal affinities or anything except efficacy. If investing in SIAI is less beneficial at the margin than giving to the Nuclear Threat Initiative then SIAI should get nothing until the marginal benefits equalize. If one still faces excessive uncertainty as to the effectiveness of different options, then one should invest in information on the alternatives until the expected benefit of doing so is exceeded by the cost.

Anonymous said...

"> "Anything De Grey does by his own admission will take at least 25 years."
>
> Do deaths 25 years from now matter less morally than those happening today?
> If so, what is your discount rate for future deaths?

It's perhaps more a matter of the "discount rate" for such
long-term project deadlines."
The Shah story (I've usually heard it with a horse rather than an ass) is an important point, but 'Social Democrat's' language doesn't suggest that was his or her meaning to me.

jimf said...

Anne Corwin wrote:

> I don't think biogerontology is going to get much further
> **unless** great strides are made socially to affirm the
> value of older people and not push them to the corners,
> marginalize, or warehouse them by default.

If that's true, **if** that's true, then I'm afraid you
aren't going to be able to count on many >Hists to
accomplish those "social strides". Not if I'm right about
what kinds of people are attracted to >Hism (and **especially**
cryonics) in the first place.

As Mike Darwin wrote in 1997:
( http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=7510 )

"In my personal experience, somewhere around 50% of the cryonicists
I've met meet the DSM classification for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. . .

Such people are tiresome, unforgiving and often vicious. And yes, the world has
plenty of them who are most decidedly not cryonicists. Not all the
characteristics listed above are in every person with NPD. But enough are.

I have met a lot of 'nice people' in my life. No, they are not Mother Teresa.
They are just people who you feel you can turn your back on without finding an
arrow in it. They have an easygoing sense about them that makes the NPD-type
look like a wound up clock spring. They can laugh at themselves and they are
genuinely interested in others -- and not just because their survival is at
stake. I recently received a multipage diatribe about how horrible the
situation was for the person who wrote it because the person they wrote it about
did not share their values and as a result, might genuinely threaten their
survival. Typical NPD. The kind of person I like to be around doesn't try to
remake you into them or something like them, nor do they assume you think and
feel as they do -- and if you don't then something is desperately wrong -- with
you!

. . .

So, you don't score points as a nice person by saving the whales. Every NPD
movie star in Hollywod (and most of them DEFINE NPD) has a 'cause' to make them
look like caring human beings. Some people are nice just because it feel good.
Real mystery, huh?"
-----------------------------------------------

Mark Plus updated this observation on his blog recently
(and while he considers himself an ex-Extropian, he apparently
still has some hope for cryonics):

"C.S. Lewis, of all people, said something reasonably intelligent when
he described hell as a place 'where everyone is perpetually concerned
about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance,
and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy,
self-importance, and resentment.' While that sounds like the behavior
you'd expect in, say, a high-powered law firm, such foolishness would
tend to get in the way of a company out to solve a hard technological
problem. Though from my observation of the cryonics scene, Lewis's
description of 'hell' comes closer to describing people's behavior
in cryonics organizations than most cryonicists would feel comfortable
acknowledging."
-----------------------------------------------

"Grandiosity Deconstructed"
"I believe that I will live forever... It is a cellular
certainty, almost biological, it flows with my blood
and permeates every niche of my being. I can do
anything I choose to do and excel in it. What I
do, what I excel at, what I achieve depends only
on my volition. There is no other determinant."
http://samvak.tripod.com/journal9.html

But,

I hate and despise weak people (and, by implication,
the very old and the very young). I do not tolerate
stupidity, disease and dependence. . .
http://samvak.tripod.com/journal3.html

jimf said...

> [H]ell [is] a place 'where everyone is perpetually concerned
> about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance,
> and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy,
> self-importance, and resentment.'

Come to think, it's not too surprising that folks like that
should look to some kind of iron-clad **contract** to
"guarantee" the Friendliness of an AI.

As if the future could be encompassed in some sort of
pre-nuptial agreement.

Well, good luck to them. I suspect that any such attempt
is about as likely to succeed as a marriage in which
one of the partners thought a prenup would be prudent
in the first place.

BTW -- I know it's not considered kosher these days for
proper Singularitarians (who aren't even supposed to
call themselves Singularitarians anymore -- well,
"Thingularitarians", then) to talk about science-fictional
scenarios (even though their fearless leader **once**
said that the two paths to enlightment were reading
SF and programming computers), but one AI novel I read
when it came out in the 80s struck me then and still
strikes me as containing some interesting insights
into the possible relations between humans and an
enhanced intelligence. The book is _An XT Called Stanley_
by "Robert Trebor" (a pseudonym, apparently for somebody
who's somebody in some field or other, and whose
true identity was never discovered). In this story,
the AI is a paint-by-numbers job the instructions for
which come in over a radio telescope (as in _Contact_).

From the point of view of the reader (and the author,
presumably) it seems pretty clear that Stanley (as the
extraterrestrial AI calls itself in one of its personae --
it has several, of both sexes, in the end) is really a nice guy.
But it's also clear that the paranoid views as to
Stanley's ultimate motives held by the project director who
wants Stanley destroyed could never be answered in a
logically watertight fashion. (The military types
involved simply want to pump Stanley for ultra-tech
information, and threaten him with destruction if he
won't cooperate, but he steadfastly, if good-humoredly,
refuses to accede to their demands).

Stanley's human "friends" (one of whom, the early-education
specialist who figures out how to get him to talk in the
first place, is a nun) come to love him as a person,
but they're written off as having been "brainwashed"
by a "dangerous alien mind" in the final official
report.

_An XT Called Stanley_ is basically a feel-good novel.
For a much darker take on the same themes, check out
George Turner's _Brain Child_.

Anonymous said...

"
Come to think, it's not too surprising that folks like that
should look to some kind of iron-clad **contract** to
"guarantee" the Friendliness of an AI.

As if the future could be encompassed in some sort of
pre-nuptial agreement."

This seems like a straw man. Who wants to do this? Yudkowsky wants to make an AI that will understand and care about the sources of our moral sentiments precisely so as to avoid the necessity of specifying in exact detail a 'contract' for every contingency. Kurzweil wants to build AI mimicking the human brain with humanlike empathy. Bostrom worries about the inevitable incompleteness of a 'contract' or pre-specified formal morality too. Hall bets on empathy, transparency, and game theory. Hanson thinks uploads are more likely to be developed before AI than vice versa.

jimf said...

"Utilitarian" wrote:

> This seems like a straw man.

I would dance and be merry
Life would be a ding-a-derry
If I only had a brain!

> Who wants to do this? Yudkowsky wants to make an AI
> that will understand and care about the sources of
> our moral sentiments precisely so as to avoid the necessity
> of specifying in exact detail a 'contract' for every contingency.

Does he now? One of us hasn't been paying attention,
then (or one of us is being completely disingenuous).

> Yudkowsky wants. . . Kurzweil wants. . .
> Bostrom worries. . . Hall bets. . . Hanson thinks. . .

Well, only one of these has founded a church, um, excuse me,
a 501(c)(3) charity. And only one is passing the collection
plate.

> . . .thinks uploads are more likely to be developed
> before AI than vice versa.

Well, **I** think that the Cassiopeans are going to arrive
from the Sixth Density and rescue the human race from the
Scientologists before Tom Cruise achieves OT 15. I can't
be sure, but I think it's likely.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Subject: The initials 'HMCS' refer to:

A. Hydrophilic Molecular Catalytic Sequencer
B. Hyper-Modulated Conjugate Sideband
C. Hyperdimensional Matrix Control System
D. Hypnotherapeutic-Meditative Calming Soliloquy
E. Hybrid Monostable Collimated Spin
F. All of the above
G. None of the above


http://www.montalk.net/alien
--------------------------
Every individual in an STS (service-to-self) hierarchy
is both predator and prey. Predator to those below,
prey to those above. Likewise, anyone who is predator
or prey participates in the STS hierarchy
Humans of strong STS orientation incarnate to heighten
their negative polarity and carry out missions and agenda.
They are of low spiritual frequency and tend to be
born into positions of power. These form the elite of
the world, who are ultimately directed by the alien
powers heading the STS hierarchy.
They incarnate primarily into associated bloodlines
because DNA and soul tend to correspond. So tracing
bloodlines can show potentiality of destiny. Bloodlines
like these arise via genetic modification by alien
factions, or by mutation in response to the soul frequency
of ancestors who made negative soul pacts with
higher dark powers. These bloodlines have a physical
and spiritual symbiotic relationship with their alien
counterparts. Their function is power and conquest,
and right now we are in the final phase of their conquest.
Negative hyperdimensional forces want total control
over mankind. Their influence upon mankind at large
can be termed the Hyperdimensional Matrix Control System.
--------------------------


The party at the end of time (will Shirley Maclaine,
L. Ron, Ayn, and Tom Cruise be there?)

http://glossary.cassiopaea.com/glossary.php?id=79
--------------------------
The Cassiopaeans repeatedly use the term 'you in the future'
when speaking of themselves. This can be understood as
referring to at least one possible future where Laura Knight-Jadczyk,
the channel, and maybe some fellow travelers have become
the C's. However, there can be futures where this is not
the case as well as possible pasts where no such channeling
took place to begin with. The process of contact then is
a link pulling certain lines of past towards certain
lines of futures. The 6D experience may be akin to
guiding this from a bird's eye view. Still, in a sense,
the Cassiopaeans are creating themselves by guiding their
'past' selves. Yet all such metaphors are incomplete
because their very language assumes linear causality
which most likely does not apply in the 6D perspective.
--------------------------


Don't be grabity:

http://glossary.cassiopaea.com/glossary.php?id=883
-------------------
The concepts of service to others (STO) and
service to self (STS) are the central cornerstone
of the teaching of first Ra and then Cassiopaea. . .
Creation is multiplicity of forms, entropy is
sameness or homogeneity. STS preoccupation with
control is in the end entropic. . .
According to the Cassiopaeans, gravity is the
fabric that ties all existence together,
across all densities. Dispersing gravity
corresponds to STO, collecting grabity [sic] to STS.
-------------------


Choosing sides:

-------------------
Good / evil - In human ethical terms, what
is generally considered evil most often corresponds
to STS. The terms are however laden with a baggage
of subjectivity and what is good for one can be
bad for another, thus these are easily misleading.
The polarization to either STO/STS cannot be
reduced to an external code of ethics only.

From a cosmic standpoint, both polarities are
necessary. This does not however mean that these
can be effectively reconciled at the human level.
Thus the cosmic call on the human is to choose
one or the other.
-------------------


Disappearing up your own a**:

http://glossary.cassiopaea.com/glossary.php?id=79
-------------------
A very far advanced STS entity acquires a sort of
spiritual mass that causes it to fold up on itself,
a bit like a black hole in the material world.
If the entity let go of its defining preoccupation
with control, it could become objective but then
it would no longer be an STS entity.
-------------------


The matrix controllers:

http://glossary.cassiopaea.com/glossary.php?id=859
-------------------
4th Density STS Beings

This term is used in this work to refer
to beings existing at a level superior to the
human level and manipulating humanity and other
similar lifeforms for their own ends. . .

These are the architects and ultimate controllers
of the 'matrix,' . . . Most of the UFO phenomenon
originates with these forces.

Different biological types of beings have been
reported in this context. Most reports concern
the so-called Gray alien, a somewhat humanoid 4
foot tall creature with large black eyes and a
bulb shaped head. Another form is an 8 foot tall
upright alligator, sometimes called a lizzie.
Yet another is a Nordic looking human form.
Still other forms such as insects are sometimes
reported. To what degree these are physical
forms and to what degree these are interpretations
of the observers from something else is unclear.
-------------------


Accommodating Ayn Rand:

http://glossary.cassiopaea.com/glossary.php?id=883
-------------------
This is why the terms are sometimes defined as
service to self through serving others (STO)
or serving others through serving the self (STS).
Or as Ra puts it, worshiping God in self or
worshiping God in creation, all service is thus
of the One in the end.
-------------------


Singularity, The :-0

http://glossary.cassiopaea.com/glossary.php?id=11&lsel=
-------------------
Wave, The

In the Cassiopaea material this is a cyclic cosmic
event, slated to next take place on Earth and its
environment between now and 2012. This is variously
referred to as the transition to 4th density,
shift of the ages, harvest and by many other terms
in many bodies of material.

The idea of a cosmic event taking place in the
early 21st century has been seeping into increasingly
general circulation ever since the late 19th century.
Gurdjieff for instance makes veiled references to
such a thing when speaking of a time allotted for
certain preparation to take place on Earth.
Theosophists and Steiner also allude to such a thing.
-------------------


She's certainly eclectic. And not stupid, by a damn sight.

Anonymous said...

"> Who wants to do this? Yudkowsky wants to make an AI
> that will understand and care about the sources of
> our moral sentiments precisely so as to avoid the necessity
> of specifying in exact detail a 'contract' for every contingency.

Does he now? One of us hasn't been paying attention,
then (or one of us is being completely disingenuous)."

Yudkowsky has frequently written or spoken about the importance of allowing for moral progress, for the likelihood that we will ultimately reject some moral views that are widely held today, and parts of any particular person's ethical system would be rejected. I would not want to see a powerful pure Kantian or utilitarian or contractarian without the capacity to change its mind if we would ultimately reject the implications of those stances.

He certainly advocates trying to get very strong evidence that an AI design would correct our mistakes before going forward with it, but rejects trying to feed it a final precisely specified morality as such (he approached this more closely, but not very closely, with his disturbing libertarian 'sysop scenario' idea in past years).

"Well, **I** think that...[unnecessarily massive more or less tangentially related page-cluttering quotes about UFOs, or Scientology, or Randroids, or gurus, or whatever, just in case I forgot that funding research into genetic variations common among centenarians or successfully finding lipofuscin-degrading enzymes in bacteria has the same chance of benefiting humanity as building a compound to store the writings of L. Ron Hubbard and needed a tiresomely repetitive reminder.]"
Well, I'm glad I've now learned about the details of UFOs with varying pseudoscientific 'densities,' that was really relevant, informative, and responsive. Oy vey. Of course it's your right to write using whatever devices you like, but I reserve the right to be bored to tears by them.

jimf said...

"Utilitarian" wrote:

> . . .unnecessarily massive more or less tangentially related
> page-cluttering quotes about UFOs, or Scientology, or Randroids,
> or gurus, or whatever, just in case I. . . needed a tiresomely
> repetitive reminder."

People do seem to have trouble making obvious connections,
sometimes. Well, I'm here to help! ;->

> . . .just in case I forgot that funding research into
> genetic variations common among centenarians or successfully
> finding lipofuscin-degrading enzymes in bacteria has the same
> chance of benefiting humanity as building a compound to
> store the writings of L. Ron Hubbard. . .

**Now** who's stuffing the straw man?

I've never seen anybody on this blog objecting to looking for
"genetic variations common among centenarians" or
"lipofuscin-degrading enzymes in bacteria". Is **that**
what ImmInst is doing?

> Of course it's your right to write using whatever devices you
> like, but I reserve the right to be bored to tears by them.

Indeed you do. You also have a perfect right to spend that
trust fund on whatever foolishness tickles your fancy, if
that's what you're looking to do. I wouldn't dream of trying
to talk you out of it.

Anonymous said...

"**Now** who's stuffing the straw man?

I've never seen anybody on this blog objecting to looking for
"genetic variations common among centenarians" or
"lipofuscin-degrading enzymes in bacteria". Is **that**
what ImmInst is doing?"

ImmInst is a talk shop obsessed with supplements. The lipofuscin work is one of the more interesting and innovative parts of de Grey's SENS research, which has garnered some significant scientific support and some early successes (they have rapidly identified a bacterium that produces a lipofuscin-degrading enzyme). The study of genetic variations among centenarians is being conducted at a lab in New York by a researcher who states that he hopes that the work leads to therapies to treat/delay aging. You yourself were just criticizing the idea of funding basic science aging research relative to Chinese communications infrastructure. You then directly compared the idea of trying to influence the development of 'Superlative Technologies' to the Scientology archive.

"You also have a perfect right to spend that
trust fund on whatever foolishness tickles your fancy"
I don't have a trust fund, just a high-paying professional career I will be starting upon completion of my graduate degree and from which I plan to contribute to beneficial endeavours (not necessarily 501(c)(3)s, as there may be good uses for non-tax-deductible spending on politics, investments, or other areas where charitable contributions can't be applied).

As I mentioned earlier, I don't reserve the right to spend on foolishness if I am able to identify it as such by actively seeking out information. Indeed, the primary reason I patronize Dale's blog is to find good new arguments identifying (or purporting to identify) foolish elements in transhumanist thinking so that I can discount or discard them. I have found some valuable novel information and ideas, which is why I continue to read and engage, but I wouldn't put the nth overwrought Scientology metaphor in that class.

Dale Carrico said...

I don't really know anymore how to tell who is and isn't on the ">Hist bandwagon" -- from where I sit right now, transhumanism is beginning to look like an impressionist painting (the kind that looks coherent only from a distance -- the closer you get, the more definition starts to fail).

This may mean that where you are sitting right now is too close to transhumanism! One can delineate pernicious structural effects of a discourse or a social formation, but it will always remain true that many (probably most) of the individual people influenced by and disseminating that discourse, or making recourse to and maintaining that organization will not themselves be pernicious as people.

Perfectly intelligent people can nonetheless make false or invalid arguments, and exposing this falsity and invalidity can be seen as an expression of respect for that intelligence (even if in the heat of the exposure it will often feel quite to the contrary). So too perfectly nice, well-meaning, conscientious people can invigorate or symptomize pernicious discourses and exposing these symptomatic expressions and effects can be seen as an expression of respect for their capacity for critical reflection and good judgment (even if in the heat of the exposure it will often feel quite to the contrary).

Every discourse, every social formation, every organization is an impressionist painting in this sense. This is a resource for profound hope because it reminds us that pernicious forms that demand reformation but seem utterly intractable are sustained by individuals more complex and open than the forms they invigorate. But this can also function as a ruse that blunts one's capacity to focus at the proper level of generality at which problematic and pernicious features are actually visible in the first place.

I don't think biogerontology is going to get much further unless great strides are made socially to affirm the value of older people and not push them to the corners, marginalize, or warehouse them by default.

I see your point, and of course I agree with your concerns about addressing the needs of all aging people, especially those neglected because of their poverty or marginality otherwise.

However, it is key to realize here that while you speak of a general need to affirm the value of older people it is also true that some older people are certainly already valued enormously, and since many of them tend to be the wealthiest and most powerful people the world their needs will continue to drive advances in biogerontology come what may, and so you can be sure that the real political barrier to a genuinely progressive and emancipatory address of the unnecessary suffering, indignities, and diminishments of aging in general is far from some broad "Deathist" or "Ageist" prejudice per se (especially not the former), so much as the very familiar barrier of the precarity and abjection of the poor.

As Jameson has put the point: Longevity Is Class Struggle.

jimf said...

"Utilitarian" wrote:

> You yourself were just criticizing the idea of
> funding basic science aging research relative to
> Chinese communications infrastructure.

Nope, there's a subtle difference here, but an important
one. I was **not** criticizing the idea of "funding
basic science. . ." I **was** criticizing the idea
of funding an organization or person who claims to
be working (independently of, or outside, or even "above")
the scientific establishment, and who advertises the
work in terms of "superlative" claims that mainstream
researchers would be skeptical of.

Here's another tiresome example:

("Laura and Ark" are Laura Knight-Jadczyk and her
husband, the Polish physicist Arkadiusz Jadczyk.)

http://www.vincentbridges.com/acac.html
--------------------------
They also told me directly that a rich Finnish businessman
was coming to visit and they wanted their publisher there
to give them an extra dollop of credibility. The idea was
to get the Finn to donate a large chunk of money for
anti-gravity and time travel research based on the
Cassiopaean information. . .

I listened for many hours to Laura and Ark as they
tried to convince a legitimate businessman to give
them several million dollars to build an anti-gravity
device as suggested by the Cassiopaeans. It came across
as a direct and naïve attempt at a con job. After
the Finnish businessman had gratefully escaped, I
tried to have my conversation about publishing,
money and the dubious morality of running anti-gravity
scams.
--------------------------

> You then directly compared the idea of trying to influence the
> development of 'Superlative Technologies' to the Scientology
> archive.

Yep, and I'll stick to that one.

Anonymous said...

"Here's another tiresome example:"
Actually, I have to admit that one was kind of hilarious.

jimf said...

"Utilitarian" wrote:

> ImmInst is a talk shop obsessed with supplements. . .

This doesn't surprise me.

Hey, I forked over for a hardcover of Durk Pearson &
Sandy Shaw's _Life Extension_ back in '82, and I'll bet
a heck of a lot of >Hist identified folks of a similar age
did too. Max and Natasha probably even know them personally.

jimf said...

Oh dear, the stench has reached the nostrils of the Extropians.

Giulio Prisco sez: "Try to leave comments."
http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2007-November/038405.html