Re: ISIS The Start of World War III?
On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: Even Peter Theil, the Paypal guy doesn't see the advantage of free enterprise capitalism, and e identifies as a Libertarian. Money changes everything. Theil might not be as radical as some libertarians in that he doesn't advocate the complete elimination of government but to say he doesn't see the advantage of free market capitalism would be going much too far, and Theil has said some things that I like a lot, such as: “I don’t think we can solve any of our problems without technological progress . That is, in my mind, the single most important issue. It’s one that’s not particularly high on the political agenda of any of our leaders in Washington, most of whom are fairly scientifically illiterate and uninterested or hostile to technology.” “I always find it odd that people are as complacent as they are about things. One out of three people at age 85 has dementia and this is not even cause for general alarm.” “I believe it’s generally an issue of stagnation. I believe if we have 4 percent a year of GDP growth, all these problems would get solved,” John K Clark Technological advancement, Thiel believes, is the key to solving many of our most pressing concerns, and his most radical solutions seem to lie outside government. For instance, he’s funded http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/18/peter-thiel-seasteading_n_930595.html both a floating island-city free of government regulation and a program that encourages http://%20-worth-it-theyre-just-wrong/ entrepreneurial high schoolers go into the startup world instead of the Ivy League. But calling him a “libertarian” may be a bit of misnomer. He seems brazenly ambivalent about the very concept of liberty—the “leave me alone” philosophy that has gripped the grassroots insurgence within the Republican Party. I’m not dogmatic about government having to have a small role, but it depends on how well the government works,” he says. “If you had a government as effective as the New Deal government or say the Kennedy administration in the ’60s, you could have a much larger role for government.” Thiel is unfazed by typical liberal policies like minimum wage and coercive regulation, which trigger the *1984* alarm bells among the hyper anti-government wing of conservatives. When I asked him about how Silicon Valley could help solve some of the vicious inequality that technology has created, his normally nuanced answers became terse. He almost seemed bored. “I would be supportive of higher minimum wage laws,” he says, but it he’s worried about welfare policies that discourage work and let skills “atrophy.” It’s not that Thiel doesn’t care about the poor, but that he seems to see redistribution as a kind of Band-Aid placed on an ax wound. “I believe it’s generally an issue of stagnation. I believe if we have 4 percent a year of GDP growth, all these problems would get solved,” he argued confidently, in a much more lively tone. Perhaps the best way to understand Thiel’s ethos (and, perhaps the tech elite’s) is that they care more about progress than they do about our current crises. Political skirmishes over inequality are to him the historical equivalent of fighting over how doctors should be distributing leeches to the poor. Speaking about technology’s role in solving big issues like cancer and mental illness, he noted, “I always find it odd that people are as complacent as they are about things. One out of three people at age 85 has dementia and this is not even cause for general alarm.” Much of Thiel’s startup-advice book makes the case that capitalism is a game of Monopoly. He advises young entrepreneurs that the entire goal of any good businessman is to completely own their market. Google, he claims, is a “good monopoly” because it keeps pumping out fresh ideas. But were it to sit idle, and prevent a new crop of entrepreneurs from innovating, it would be acceptable for the government to step in and break it up. From this vantage point, government is not so much the harbinger of evil as an ineffective nuisance, only to be invoked when businesses lose their way in advancing society. Indeed, to give you an idea of just how little faith Thiel has in the government, I asked him what he would do as president. For a man who invests in cures for aging http://www.businessinsider.com/ellison-thiel-also-trying-to-cure-death-2013-9, his answer was surprisingly unambitious. “There’s always questions as to what you could do within the limits of the possible in our political system,” he mulls. “I think there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit in our government and we need to ask how the government can do more with less.” Instead, ever the optimist, Thiel wants us all to set our eye on the prize: “I think it would be good for us to realize that we live in an very imperfect world and to never give up the dream of perfecting it.” I am
Re: A curious puzzle - teaching a computer to understand infinity
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 12:42 AM, Pierz pier...@gmail.com wrote: Don't you think there's a difference between not thinking and thinking of nothing? No, I don't think there is a difference and you gave the reason why thinking of nothing is equivalent to not thinking when you said: Nothing has no referent, so it is impossible to think of it itself Also, very big is not continuous with everything Maybe maybe not, it all depends on if space-time is infinite or not. and very small is not continuous with nothing. Maybe maybe not, it all depends on if space-time is quantized or not; if it's not then the Real Numbers are a mathematical fiction. Maybe that's why physicists have had so much trouble finding a quantum theory of gravity, there isn't one to find. Or maybe they will find it tomorrow, nobody knows. infinitesimal is not equal to nothing. Calculus rests on that distinction. Yes but the difference between those two things is arbitrarily small; name any number and the difference is smaller than that no matter how many zeros you put to the right of the decal point. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: A curious puzzle - teaching a computer to understand infinity
Some bozo by the name of John K Clark wrote: it all depends on if space-time is quantized or not; if it's not then the Real Numbers are a mathematical fiction But the truth is if space-time* IS* quantized then the Real Numbers are a mathematical fiction . John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: A riddle for John Clark
On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 1:03 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: I said it before I'll say it again, when talking about the future in a world with people duplicating machines there is no such thing as *THE* first person experience , there is only *A* first person experience; Wordplay. There is a synonym for wordplay, it's called logic; perhaps you've heard of it. For P(W xor M) you need only to mention the experience of seeing one city And if he means a being who remembers being a man in Helsinki, and Bruno Marchal has said more than once that is what is meant, then the probability of he experiencing one and only one city is *zero*. If Bruno Marchal finds that conclusion distasteful then Bruno Marchal is going to need to change the meaning of he, there is simply no other logical alternative. both experiences (in M and W) deserves to be qualified as the continuing experience, when we handle the 1p experiences content. OK fine, then he (that is to say the man in Helsinki) can expect to experience M *and* W *from the 1p*; not that expectations, correct ones or incorrect, have anything to do with consciousness or the unique feeling of self. know hundreds of people who get the step 3. I know only 4 people who claimed to not get it In general dumb people outnumber smart people, although that statistical fact can be inverted in certain small populations, such as National Academy of Science members or Noble Prize winners. How many members of those groups get step 3? Bruno, have you ever considered the possibility that maybe just maybe you are the one who is confused? Well, give me your prediction, then. I predict that Bruno will continue to chant his mantra you confuse the 1p and the 3p as if that can solve all logical problems, and despite Bruno's obvious love for homemade acronyms will for some reason not use the timesaving YCT1PAT3P. N ot that predictions , correct ones or incorrect, have anything to do with consciousness or the unique feeling of self. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Re: Vast Methane releases in Arctic Ocean
On 16 Jul 2015, at 17:40, smitra wrote: There are only a finite number of things we can experience. The brain can only be found in a finite number of physically distinguishable states, and only a small fraction of these states can be considered to represent the conscious experience of some given person. So this eternal Garden or eternal Fire can only refer to a finite number of experiences. All numbers are finite, but there is an infinite of them. Brain can (even in the small arithmetical platonia) grow indefinitely, which is necessary in Hell to sustain a never ending pain in some genuine sense, if that exists. The experience can be said finite, but there is an infinity of them. Bruno Saibal On 16-07-2015 07:20, Samiya Illias wrote: On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 1:40 AM, spudboy100 via Everything List everything-list@googlegroups.com wrote: I am guessing that if this comes to pass, you believe that this Allah's punishment for human, likely Qfar, misbehavior? The heating of the seas is a Quranic prediction for the future. The world as we know it is a trial for all humans, whether believers (muminoon) or rejecters (kuffaar). While alive, we all have the choice to choose whether we acknowledge, believe in and submit in gratitude to the One and Only, Almighty God or reject God's existence and/or obedience. This world will eventually end, irrespective of our faith and deeds. Those who believed in God and the Day of Reckoning, and accordingly strove to work for their eternal future, so that their balance is heavy with good deeds done with piety, will find themselves appreciated and accepted in God's mercy and grace, and will be admitted to the blissful, eternal Gardens as their inheritance. Those who chose to reject God and refuse to acknowledge and appreciate His countless blessings in this life, their deeds have been likened to a mirage, and their state compared to the depths of darkness of the ocean, such that a person can hardly see his own hand. On the Day of Reckoning, God will not bless them nor shower His grace upon them, and they will spend an eternal life in the Fire, neither living nor dying, removed from God's mercy. Or as God wills. Samiya -Original Message- From: Samiya Illias samiyaill...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Jul 15, 2015 1:42 am Subject: Vast Methane releases in Arctic Ocean Arctic melt and its implications: http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2015/07/arctic-sea-ice-collapse-threatens.html [1] http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi.html [2] -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list [3]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout [4]. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list [3]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout [4]. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list [3]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout [4]. Links: -- [1] http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2015/07/arctic-sea-ice-collapse-threatens.html [2] http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi.html [3] http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list [4] https://groups.google.com/d/optout -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more
