[FRIAM] nice quote
steve smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Sat Oct 5 18:33:09 EDT 2024
> Wasn't a paper linked to here that said that the only solution to the
> existential problem of climate change is to reduce the population of
> the earth to 1 billion from 8 billion?
"OK team, count off: /1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, /*/8/ !*"
"everyone whose number is a prime not in the /Fibonacci sequence/
step forward ... you get to live. Those who don't know which
you are stay firm, doctor Kavorkian's troops will be around to see
you in a moment with the others."
I personally kind of like the "Downsizing" (2017 Matt Damon)
alternative. At 5" tall and cube-root scaling of volume/mass our
consumption would go down by roughly 3 orders of magnitude... We'd be
more like a plague of locusts as we go back to an R0 of order 1.02 with
a doubling factor of 33 years. 16/32 bn oversized locusts with
"godlike technology" by the end of the century? For you doubters,
there are dozens of literary or popular fiction references so it *must*
be true? (Gulliver, Babes in Toyland, Fantastic Voyage, Honey I Shrunk
the Kids!, et cet.)
Mary and I have four grandchildren between us... we agree that if we
want any of them to reproduce we should probably step aside gracefully
ourselves no matter what Kurzweil and other wild life-extensionists
offer us.
Neither of us has a strong attachment to a genetic legacy, so it is more
about wishing for them the opportunity should they see it as such. Or
someone else's children. My sister's progeny are expected not to
reproduce and Mary's siblings have mostly gone for the 3 children with 3
grandchildren per route. R0 > 1.
The Black Plague lasted roughly four years and took out roughly 50% of
the population of 14c Europe? Seems like the antiVaxxers were right
(if in fact wrong-headed)... we missed our chance to halve in an
equally short time? 2 more halvings and we will have our 1bn?
Anecdotally the Renaissance is partially attributed to this massive and
abrupt die-off, concentrating material wealth, increasing the value of
personal labor and thus undermining feudalism, etc. ad n. I'm sure
someone will debunk all this, but it is a "romantic story" in it's own
twisted way?
Maybe the Millenials will quit whining when they all inherit 3.5 houses
and 7 cars and 7 laptops and 7 notepad computers and 7 mobile devices
and a crushing national debt? I'm still trying to gift away my
father's huge stash of vintage tools 15 years later!
Elno and Bozos (and Thiel and Andreeson and Page and Buterin and ...)
each have made the point that "we need more people" (to inhabit their
Mars/L5-O'Niell space colonies?).
Bah, humbug!
- Steve
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Sat, Oct 5, 2024, 2:36 PM Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
> Our science illuminates global warming.
>
> Our political institutions are incapable of crafting solutions
> absent so many loopholes as the make the exercise near pointless.
>
> Individuals operating in those institutions are driven by greed,
> power lust, ego, and all manner of what the Buddha called
> "attachments."
>
> davew
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 5, 2024, at 12:26 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>> So in what sense and for what purposes is this pithy aphorism
>> useful? What exactly is the pith?
>>
>> If a metaphor, what is truth in the metaphor, the positive
>> analog. Nobody ever said that all metaphors are /entirely/ wrong.
>>
>> and yes, I am being pissy.
>>
>> n
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Oct 5, 2024 at 11:04 AM steve smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>>
>> All /Pithy Aphorisms/ are wrong, some are useful?
>>
>> On 10/5/24 9:06 AM, Prof David West wrote:
>>> my affection for the quote derives from a metaphorical
>>> reading, not a literal one. Something akin to Steve's
>>> differential rates of evolution. I also would have eschewed
>>> 'god like' in favor of 'magical' ala Clarke's dictum about
>>> any sufficiently advanced technology.
>>>
>>> davew
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Oct 4, 2024, at 8:46 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>>>> I think that this way of talking about emotions precludes
>>>> careful thought. First of all, neurologizing emotions is
>>>> just to hide the pea under the wrong thimble. I don't think
>>>> paleolithologizig helps much more. Glen is correct that,
>>>> whatever an emotion is, its inputs and outputs are
>>>> ontogenetically and culturally determined. So, fear, for
>>>> instance, is a relation between something that we take to
>>>> be threatening and something that we hope will be
>>>> avoidance. Inputs and outputs are everything. The rest is
>>>> just arousal.
>>>>
>>>> N
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Oct 4, 2024 at 7:01 PM steve smith
>>>> <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Emotions/Limbic systems evolve at genetic rates,
>>>> institutions evolve at
>>>> social/cultural rates (maybe the fastest significant
>>>> change can
>>>> happen/resolve is in multiple lifetimes?) but
>>>> technology is advancing at
>>>> must faster rates?
>>>>
>>>> Or is this wrong(headed) also?
>>>>
>>>> On 10/4/24 3:43 PM, glen wrote:
>>>> > None of that is true, however romantic it might
>>>> sound. Depending on
>>>> > how one defines "emotion", that smells the most true.
>>>> But the
>>>> > mechanisms of emotion are as coupled to current
>>>> reality as is every
>>>> > part of our bodies. To suggest that, say, the Space
>>>> Force or methods
>>>> > like quantitative easing are medieval is just
>>>> nonsense. Technology is
>>>> > more democratized than it has ever been. Granted, it
>>>> takes (a lot) of
>>>> > work to familiarize oneself with something like how
>>>> GPS works or how
>>>> > to NOT click on that phishing email. But to suggest
>>>> that it's
>>>> > "godlike" says more about the person than it does
>>>> about the state of
>>>> > technology.
>>>> >
>>>> > On 10/4/24 11:16, Prof David West wrote:
>>>> >> /"The real problem of humanity is the following: we
>>>> have Paleolithic
>>>> >> emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike
>>>> technology. And it is
>>>> >> terrifically dangerous."/ Edward O. Wilson.
>>>> >>
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
>>>> Clark University
>>>> nthompson at clarku.edu
>>>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
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>> --
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
>> Clark University
>> nthompson at clarku.edu
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
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