[FRIAM] off-label technologies, exaptatiion and exponential technological growth.
Steve Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Sat Aug 7 14:58:21 EDT 2021
> Sorry. I meant no particular enthusiasm for a living wage as an
> ultimate goal. The goal is, of course, to create a system that allows
> a maximum number of people to do what they want. So each freedom for
> one person is judged against restrictions it imposes on others.
>
>
>
> You could read the article … hint… hint.
>
NST -
If you refer to your article in The Environmentalist you linked
recently, you may appreciate that I slipped it in near the top of my
stack of other writings on early "Environment v. Development"
perspectives and look forward to quaffing it in a single sitting.
I appreciate that *few* who promote a "living wage" consider it an
ultimate goal, maybe just a "good start" or "the least we can do". I
tip well and shop local somewhat independent of quality of service (up
to certain absurd thresholds) in this spirit.
I figured out a few decades ago that it does ME no good to have others
suffer unnecessarily, and that much of what is often dismissed as "not
my problem" is really just a lack of attention to the web of
implications in my life.
Maybe Marcus' post-humans will have much better network-depth analysis
built in, and will in fact "do the right thing" even when the
first-order consequences seem to be against self-interest. Or maybe not.
-SAS
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Marcus Daniels
> *Sent:* Saturday, August 7, 2021 1:41 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
> <friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] off-label technologies, exaptatiion and
> exponential technological growth.
>
>
>
> The pushback on everything from low wattage lighting to mask mandates
> leaves me thinking that there is really only one thing that motivates
> certain people: That they can do whatever the hell they want and,
> crucially, that other people cannot. A living wage infringes on that
> ranking and so must be terrible. What if there were physical space
> for everyone, food for everyone, and many optional ways to invest
> one’s time? What if one didn’t need a wage at all? What if you had
> to decide for yourself what was worth doing? Heck, what if one (some
> post-human) didn’t even need food and didn’t need to reproduce?
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com
> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> *On Behalf Of *Steve Smith
> *Sent:* Saturday, August 7, 2021 10:24 AM
> *To:* friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] off-label technologies, exaptatiion and
> exponential technological growth.
>
>
>
> NST -
>
> until Musk started being convincing (to me) that he might get a
> modest number of humans TO Mars in his (and my?) lifetime.
>
>
>
> Rocket rich guys to Mars, fight a war against… (North Korea, Iran,
> Russia, even China), ANYTHING to avoid paying a living wage on
> earth.
>
> And what about "paying a living wage" does not simply continue an
> oppressive system of "wage slavery"?
>
> There are stories that suggest the people who built the pyramids (the
> ones who cut/hauled/placed the stones) were not literally slaves
> (chains, whips, severe privation, chattel, threat of death, etc) but
> rather a "fully utilized skilled labor class with sufficient resources
> provided for a comfortable happy life". But it is not like they had
> any upward mobility or alternative livelihood (Exodus notwithstanding).
>
> Anyone who has ever survived a "company town" knows that even if most
> have modest houses, new vehicles, large screen TVs, and lots of tasty
> food and drink and the hope of a gold watch and an RV to snowbird in
> at retirement, that such dreams either are false utopias or at least
> come to an end for the next generation or so.
>
> I don't endorse Mars Colonization nor continued/enhanced wage-slavery
> at-poverty-level, and as a minimal "good start" I do endorse "living
> wage". But I don't believe it does anything more than nudge the
> boundaries of poverty far enough to keep those previously below the
> poverty line from "eating the rich" (which *most* if not all of us
> actually represent here)... some of us are more well marbled than others.
>
> Whether I like it or not, I'm pretty sure that Musk, the royalty of
> the Emirates, China and gawdess knows who else will continue to angle
> to colonize Mars. For me, it makes for a good enough opportunity for
> the thought experiments around what it means to start fresh with a few
> lessons learned. Of course, we may soon use up the earthlike planets
> in our solar system and have to wait a few generations to start
> Amurika-forming similar planets in other systems (assuming we don't
> extinguish ourselves/one-another first).
>
> Or alternatively: "It's Complicated..."
>
> SAS
>
>
>
> N
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com>
> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
> *Sent:* Saturday, August 7, 2021 9:49 AM
> *To:* friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] off-label technologies, exaptatiion and
> exponential technological growth.
>
>
>
> Highly recommend John Brunner's /The Sheep Look Up/ for fans of
> ecological disaster.
>
>
>
> davew
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 6, 2021, at 8:28 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
>
> ... unbending the psychonaut thread
>
> And something will have to power the artificial
> magnetosphere after the teraforming..
>
> ... as I understand it, Mars lost it's magnetosphere a (long)
> while back and nobody knows why (with the atmosphere and
> liquid water following, blown off into space by the solar
> wind).
>
> I think we should just wait another millisecond in our
> exponential technological growth curve and build a Stapledon
> Sphere <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_Stapledon> (more
> commonly referenced as a Dyson Sphere) instead. Stapledon's
> Golden Age era /_First and Last Men_/ presaged both
> terraforming and genetic engineering .
>
> Jack Williamson (whose horn I toot here often), another Golden
> Age author, wrote (in modernish times - 2001) the novel
> Terraforming Earth (he died at 98 in 2006). A good friend of
> mine (who introduced us) met Jack when he (my friend) was a
> pre-teen and kept in touch for the next 50+ years, gave him
> the title "Terraforming Terra" which Jack really liked but
> they both were ultimately overruled by his publisher.
> /Terraforming Terra /is much more poetic than /Terraforming
> Earth/, no?
>
> (speaking of Terraforming... Mars) I held off reading Kim
> Stanley Robinson's Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy (ca early 90s)
> until Musk started being convincing (to me) that he might get
> a modest number of humans TO Mars in his (and my?) lifetime.
> I'm still an ffFFFing luddite about these things, but I also
> see an inevitable arc here. Robinson did a good job (I
> thought) of characterizing the sociopoliticalspiritual
> implications of all this. I forget how he solved the
> magnetosphere problem (or powered it).
>
> For anyone who thinks there are endogenous existential threats
> afoot (e.g. climate change) and also appreciates speculative
> fiction, I highly recommend Robinson's Ministry-for-the-Future
> <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50998056-the-ministry-for-the-future>
> written/published before COVID but not by much. While it
> doesn't exhaustively discuss every
> sociopoliticaleconomictechnical response to a tumbled gyro of
> our noo-bio-cryo-sphere of a planet, it covers a lot very
> convincingly. I don't suggest any of his maunderings will
> come true or even have more than passing resemblance to the
> future we are stumbling into in the next few decades, but it
> was satisfying to read someone who has clearly researched the
> hell out of the stuff coming at us like a swarm of bugs
> hitting our windshield (while we proudly outdrive our headlights).
>
>
>
> On Aug 6, 2021, at 4:52 PM, Steve Smith
> <sasmyth at swcp.com> <mailto:sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Marcus Daniels wrote:
>
>
>
> Don't forget about Mars!
>
>
>
> LANL physicist Steve Howe was a proponent of
> plowsharing Rover
> <https://www.lanl.gov/science/NSS/issue1_2011/story4full.shtml>
> into a nuclear rocket for Mars with the argument that
> the radiation exposure to astronauts by the drive was
> less than the extra time spent outside the earth's
> magnetic field (charged-particle shield) in the
> cosmic/solar radiation flux.
>
> He went on to promoting antimatter (anti-protons) instead:
>
>
> https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2020/06/steven-howe-breakthroughs-for-antimatter-production-and-storage.html
> <https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2020/06/steven-howe-breakthroughs-for-antimatter-production-and-storage.html>
>
> Oh yeh, and he's the first person I know to have
> self-published (science) fiction through Amazon
> (before Doug Roberts even).
>
> He used to carry a briefcase full of copies on his
> work-travels to sell on the plane and/or restock the
> rack at the ABQ Sunport. I Just checked his Amazon
> page and it seems he's continued to riff:
>
> Steven-Howe
> <https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B005L9MAL2?_encoding=UTF8&node=283155&offset=0&pageSize=12&searchAlias=stripbooks&sort=author-sidecar-rank&page=1&langFilter=default#formatSelectorHeader>
>
> His first book exposes his techno-libertarian
> tendencies. I just learned of the sequel(s).
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
>
> Sent: Friday, August 6, 2021 8:24 AM
>
> To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com> <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] for our psychonauts
>
>
>
> Reminds me of that period in which people were desperately looking for something to do with nuclear explosives other than kill one another. Like: "Let's blow a new hole in the Isthmus of Panama!" Project Plowshares, it was called.
>
>
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
>
> Sent: Friday, August 6, 2021 10:57 AM
>
> To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com> <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
>
> Subject: [FRIAM] for our psychonauts
>
>
>
>
>
> What Should We Make Of Sasha Chapin's Claim That Taking LSD Restored His Sense Of Smell After COVID?
>
> https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/what-should-we-make-of-sasha-chapins <https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/what-should-we-make-of-sasha-chapins>
>
>
>
> I haven't read it, yet. I'm hoping posting it here will remind me to actually read it.
>
>
>
> --
>
> ☤>$ uǝlƃ
>
>
>
> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
>
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com>
>
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/>
>
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/>
>
>
>
>
>
> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
>
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com>
>
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/>
>
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/>
>
> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
>
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
>
> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com>
>
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/>
>
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/>
>
>
>
>
>
> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
>
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
>
> un/subscribe
> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com>
>
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
> <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/>
>
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/>
>
>
>
> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
>
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
>
> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com>
>
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/>
>
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/>
>
>
>
> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
>
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
> <http://bit.ly/virtualfriam>
>
> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com>
>
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
> <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/>
>
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
>
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
>
> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com>
>
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/>
>
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/>
>
>
> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20210807/553f3549/attachment.html>
More information about the Friam
mailing list