Re: An essay I just wrote on the Singularity.

From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Tue Jan 06 2004 - 02:14:00 MST


OK. I'll ask it. What the hell does all this fluff have to do with SL4?

-s

On Sun, 4 Jan 2004 18:36:39 -0800 (PST)
Lawrence Foard <entropy@farviolet.com> wrote:

> On Sun, 4 Jan 2004, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
>
> >
> > Randall Randall <randall@randallsquared.com> writes:
> > > Right, but if no one ever considers their own needs,
> > > others have to guess at what those needs are, and
> > > they will often guess wrong.
> >
> > Luckily, of course, parasitism takes over and very rapidly the
> > altruists die, sucked to death by the others.
>
> Such parasites would not be operating in there own self interest since
> destroying the altruists would destroy themselves as well (or atleast
> end there career as parasites).
>
> > However, it would be amusing to see two true altruists sitting in a
> > desert together with only enough food to keep one of them alive. Both
> > will starve, but unlike the donkey starving to death between two bales
> > of hay because of metastability, the result is not just predictable
> > but necessary. (Solutions like drawing straws will not work, btw --
> > the true altruist will refuse any solution that gives him a chance of
> > surviving when others might do so instead.)
>
> Going to the same degree of absurdity you could make the same claim
> for capitalists, if you assume perfect symmetry. They would both likely
> fatally injure each other fighting over the food. If anything in a
> realistic scenerio the altruists are more likely to have one come out
> alive.
>
> > Rand satirizes this sort of stupidity very effectively, but it is
> > amazing how people who don't grok the economic way of thinking
> > continue proposing it through the ages even though the problems with
> > it are so utterly manifest.
>
> I understand it, and I also see its limits.
>
> > Anyway, Communism has been tried. It doesn't work.
>
> The so called communist countries where hardly a reasonable attempt.
> Thats not to say it would work with humans as presently wired, just that
> you can't point to a drastically flawed attempt and say that its
> universally impossible.
>
> --
> Laughter-Confusion, Pleasure-Pain, Happyness-Sadness, Excitement-Fear,
> Love-Hate, etc. The true primary emotions, a modifier makes each into two.
> This modifier is acceptance/unacceptance. Let go, surrender, accept...
> Be a counter terrorist perpetrate random senseless acts of kindness



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