Noah Millman amalgamates the discussions TPI and I have had over carbon: tax carbon and divert some of the tax revenue into breakthrough methods to capture and sequester carbon.
TAE likes compromise.
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TAE likes compromise.
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Thursday, 29 July 2010
Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Monday, 26 July 2010
Become What You Are
Posted on 06:32 by hony
Who'd have thought that Nietzsche would have agreed with me?
I promised at the beginning of the year that the blog's focus for 2010 would be the coming revolution in Human-Machine Interface, and as I saw it, the likelihood that the next revolution in technology will be the integration of electronics directly into the human body, or conversely the integration of consciousness into electronics, leaving the body behind.
Nietzsche, who annually wins awards for having the single most irritating name on Earth to try to type correctly, wrote a century ago about the overman, or "Ubermensch", a group of people that would be greater than humans. Just as humans have risen so far from worms, he posited, so too can humans rise that far from the apes we have barely left behind. However Nietzsche was very vague in this explanations of just how we would leave ourselves behind.
The Nazi's especially were known for adopting eugenics as their attempt to adopt the philosophy; clearly this wasn't the intent of Nietzsche. Modern nihilists and Nietzscheans agree: genetic manipulation of humanity was probably not his original intent. In fact he tended to reject biology in his work.
But TAE suggests the following: our method of departure from humanity, or rather our method of achieving the Singularity, of becoming the Overmen of Nietzsche's dreams, is to boost our own faculties via electronic integration. Would war not seem a pathetic and amoral waste of global resources to beings that were all connected together via a wireless, instant network that allowed the sharing of not just data, but also thoughts and feelings? Could we make our brothers suffer if we directly shared in their suffering? Would a post-biology world, filled with living, autotrophic beings all communally sharing the same global consciousness stream not evolve a new, post-Christian value and moral set, exactly as Nietzsche predicted? TAE muses.
Nevertheless, TAE thinks we must begin asking ourselves questions now, rather than later. What will we consider fair sharing of information when we can share anything instantly with anyone? When is it invasion of privacy when a consciousness is stored in cyberspace, and can be accessed or locked out at the whim of authority?
If consciousness leaves biology behind, and at this point I believe it almost certainly will, how will we procreate? And how will a new fledgeling consciousness, born into this world, deal with the ability to access anything, instantly? Will the data input overload its ability to reason, rendering it insane? Will we have to develop restricted flows of information to our electronic children, gradually increasing their ability to surf the global consciousness stream?
These are questions far in the future, however. Nearer term, questions like "once a USB 3.0 - human nervous system port exists and can be implanted, how do we regulate the distribution of such a device? How do we fairly allow fairness and not create a have-have not situation where the "haves" can rapidly and easily amplify their own intellectual power, where the "have nots" become like the epsilons and deltas of Huxley's Brave New World?
And what if it turned out that a device could be implanted in a fetus that would then integrate itself into the nervous system of the baby, so that when it was born it had a "plug" like the characters in the movie "The Matrix"...would you give your fetus that implant?
Which is less ethical: messing with a fetus to give it enhanced cognitive potential, or intentionally denying that same person its own right to thrive when it grows older, surrounded by electronically enhanced friends and enemies? Your poor child has to look things up on a computer, and talk via their vocal chords. Their friends can access the internet instantly directly through their brains, and gossip with one another silently, sending text messages to each other with no one the wiser.
People often complain that science has outpaced ethics. This is doubly true, not only because it has, but also because the pace of scientific discovery has accelerated whilst ethics has ground to a politically-tolerable halt (if not moved backward). And yet, we still haven't cloned Hitler. We still haven't built a black-hole and unleashed it. We still haven't created a supervirus and wiped ourselves out. It almost seems that as science leaves post-modern ethics behind, a true set of morals that humanity cannot escape stays with us, riding Science's slipstream to the finish. Could it be that as science moves us further and further away from biological humanity, the morals and ethics that make it through this revolution will prove just exactly what the hell humanity is?
_
I promised at the beginning of the year that the blog's focus for 2010 would be the coming revolution in Human-Machine Interface, and as I saw it, the likelihood that the next revolution in technology will be the integration of electronics directly into the human body, or conversely the integration of consciousness into electronics, leaving the body behind.
Nietzsche, who annually wins awards for having the single most irritating name on Earth to try to type correctly, wrote a century ago about the overman, or "Ubermensch", a group of people that would be greater than humans. Just as humans have risen so far from worms, he posited, so too can humans rise that far from the apes we have barely left behind. However Nietzsche was very vague in this explanations of just how we would leave ourselves behind.
The Nazi's especially were known for adopting eugenics as their attempt to adopt the philosophy; clearly this wasn't the intent of Nietzsche. Modern nihilists and Nietzscheans agree: genetic manipulation of humanity was probably not his original intent. In fact he tended to reject biology in his work.
But TAE suggests the following: our method of departure from humanity, or rather our method of achieving the Singularity, of becoming the Overmen of Nietzsche's dreams, is to boost our own faculties via electronic integration. Would war not seem a pathetic and amoral waste of global resources to beings that were all connected together via a wireless, instant network that allowed the sharing of not just data, but also thoughts and feelings? Could we make our brothers suffer if we directly shared in their suffering? Would a post-biology world, filled with living, autotrophic beings all communally sharing the same global consciousness stream not evolve a new, post-Christian value and moral set, exactly as Nietzsche predicted? TAE muses.
Nevertheless, TAE thinks we must begin asking ourselves questions now, rather than later. What will we consider fair sharing of information when we can share anything instantly with anyone? When is it invasion of privacy when a consciousness is stored in cyberspace, and can be accessed or locked out at the whim of authority?
If consciousness leaves biology behind, and at this point I believe it almost certainly will, how will we procreate? And how will a new fledgeling consciousness, born into this world, deal with the ability to access anything, instantly? Will the data input overload its ability to reason, rendering it insane? Will we have to develop restricted flows of information to our electronic children, gradually increasing their ability to surf the global consciousness stream?
These are questions far in the future, however. Nearer term, questions like "once a USB 3.0 - human nervous system port exists and can be implanted, how do we regulate the distribution of such a device? How do we fairly allow fairness and not create a have-have not situation where the "haves" can rapidly and easily amplify their own intellectual power, where the "have nots" become like the epsilons and deltas of Huxley's Brave New World?
And what if it turned out that a device could be implanted in a fetus that would then integrate itself into the nervous system of the baby, so that when it was born it had a "plug" like the characters in the movie "The Matrix"...would you give your fetus that implant?
Which is less ethical: messing with a fetus to give it enhanced cognitive potential, or intentionally denying that same person its own right to thrive when it grows older, surrounded by electronically enhanced friends and enemies? Your poor child has to look things up on a computer, and talk via their vocal chords. Their friends can access the internet instantly directly through their brains, and gossip with one another silently, sending text messages to each other with no one the wiser.
People often complain that science has outpaced ethics. This is doubly true, not only because it has, but also because the pace of scientific discovery has accelerated whilst ethics has ground to a politically-tolerable halt (if not moved backward). And yet, we still haven't cloned Hitler. We still haven't built a black-hole and unleashed it. We still haven't created a supervirus and wiped ourselves out. It almost seems that as science leaves post-modern ethics behind, a true set of morals that humanity cannot escape stays with us, riding Science's slipstream to the finish. Could it be that as science moves us further and further away from biological humanity, the morals and ethics that make it through this revolution will prove just exactly what the hell humanity is?
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Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Popularity
Posted on 11:18 by hony
TAE's mind continues to be boggled: This Entry continues to be far and away the most read one I have written, broken links and anti-India substance be damned!
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Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Schadenfreude
Posted on 12:35 by hony
Ran into a kid that bullied me from elementary school all the way up through my junior year of high school. He's really fat now, and drives a Coke truck.
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Parenting
Posted on 10:29 by hony
Back when I was in grad school, I used to take long, long rides on my bike. I had gotten into road biking, had my Levi Leipheimer Edition Team Discovery Jersey, my U.S. Postal jersey, my Team Discovery Edition Trek 1500 road bike, and a helluva lot of free time.
In retrospect, it was incredibly self indulgent. With basically no external control over my schedule, I could pop in to the lab in the morning, do a little work, go to my classes, then have a healthy lunch at my leisure while I read headlines. By 1 pm, I would get bored with my research, drop everything, and go for a ride.
I'd ride and ride, typically 25-40 miles a day. I almost never rode for less than an hour, and almost always rode for about 2 hours. Then I'd go home, eat something, take a shower, and go get a little more lab work done. When convenient for me, I'd go on a date with my future-wife, Mrs. TAE.
At night, I'd lay in bed in a near coma, I was so healthy. My resting heart rate dropped into the mid-30's, and I'd relax and take two breaths a minute, just for fun. I went from 158 pudgy pounds to a lean and mean 145 in semester. Life was good. Or at least, good for my ego and my sense of self-worth.
Then life came along. I got married and had a daughter. You can fill in the rest here. The 13 pounds I lost became 20 pounds put back on. The indulgent, daily, 2-hour afternoon rides became 30 minute crammed workouts in the evening after the baby was asleep...maybe three times a week. Jennifer Senior has an interesting article in the New Yorker about the depressing concept of raising kids, and exactly how parents are coping:
Senior goes on later in this fantastic piece to talk about how kids are "all joy and no fun." But the last page is where the message hits home. Although parents do report less happiness than their childless peers, across the board, they also report a strong sense of reward in what they are doing, which is more or less absent in singles.
And even more importantly, later in life when the kids have grown up and moved away, parents profess a very strong sense of satisfaction with their lives for having made it through parenting. They profess no unhappiness caused by their grandchildren, but instead a strong level of happiness caused by them. That happiness, obviously, is impossible without first putting up with your damn kids.
The point here is that parenting is a long-term investment in your own emotional well-being. A twelve-year-old could find instant happiness playing Xbox. Or they could find a different kind of happiness in the struggles of building a treehouse with Dad. The Xbox controller could not possibly give them splinters, and he won't accidentally hammer their thumb while playing it. But after quitting the Xbox, the happiness fades in seconds, almost like an addiction. The emotional satisfaction of building the treehouse, however, is a lasting one.
In this sense, parenting, like monogamy, is something that you realize you are investing in. Sure kids might have used to be an asset, as Senior suggests. But the concept that they are no longer an asset isn't true. Is your 401k an asset? Do you pour money into it? Money that you could instead spend at the casino, or on a new hot tub for your house? Do you forgo vacations and instead put that cash into your retirement account?
Then, when you have ripened, and retire, do you look back and wish you had spent that money on whimsical wastes? Or do you enjoy the fruit of your labors?
And what's really funny is that parenting has become so hypocritical. We all say "you can't spoil your kids or they'll be unhappy" and child psychologists preach and preach that providing boundaries and limiting the things your kids have actually makes them more responsible, and more happy. But then we bitch when we as parents are given limits. We complain that we are unhappy because we don't get everything we want, right this instant.
Perhaps parenting has not become harder because the pressures of society to raise superkids has increased, but instead parenting has become harder because society is creating people who are rapidly losing the ability to be patient and think long-term. Parenting is much harder if you only think about yourself all the time.
_
In retrospect, it was incredibly self indulgent. With basically no external control over my schedule, I could pop in to the lab in the morning, do a little work, go to my classes, then have a healthy lunch at my leisure while I read headlines. By 1 pm, I would get bored with my research, drop everything, and go for a ride.
I'd ride and ride, typically 25-40 miles a day. I almost never rode for less than an hour, and almost always rode for about 2 hours. Then I'd go home, eat something, take a shower, and go get a little more lab work done. When convenient for me, I'd go on a date with my future-wife, Mrs. TAE.
At night, I'd lay in bed in a near coma, I was so healthy. My resting heart rate dropped into the mid-30's, and I'd relax and take two breaths a minute, just for fun. I went from 158 pudgy pounds to a lean and mean 145 in semester. Life was good. Or at least, good for my ego and my sense of self-worth.
Then life came along. I got married and had a daughter. You can fill in the rest here. The 13 pounds I lost became 20 pounds put back on. The indulgent, daily, 2-hour afternoon rides became 30 minute crammed workouts in the evening after the baby was asleep...maybe three times a week. Jennifer Senior has an interesting article in the New Yorker about the depressing concept of raising kids, and exactly how parents are coping:
I think this is fairly accurate. And having seen Babies myself, I can attest that the Namibian women do seem very calm, happy, and pleased with their kids. But the footage of the Namibian women did not include instances of the baby screaming in pain, sick, angry, tired, or any of the emotions that all children experience. Instead we saw the little Namibian boy exploring, playing, and cuddling with his mama and her peers.
Before urbanization, children were viewed as economic assets to their parents. If you had a farm, they toiled alongside you to maintain its upkeep; if you had a family business, the kids helped mind the store. But all of this dramatically changed with the moral and technological revolutions of modernity. As we gained in prosperity, childhood came increasingly to be viewed as a protected, privileged time, and once college degrees became essential to getting ahead, children became not only a great expense but subjects to be sculpted, stimulated, instructed, groomed. (The Princeton sociologist Viviana Zelizer describes this transformation of a child’s value in five ruthless words: “Economically worthless but emotionally priceless.”) Kids, in short, went from being our staffs to being our bosses.
"Did you see Babies?” asks Lois Nachamie, a couples counselor who for years has run parenting workshops and support groups on the Upper West Side. She’s referring to the recent documentary that compares the lives of four newborns—one in Japan, one in Namibia, one in Mongolia, and one in the United States (San Francisco). “I don’t mean to idealize the lives of the Namibian women,” she says. “But it was hard not to notice how calm they were. They were beading their children’s ankles and decorating them with sienna, clearly enjoying just sitting and playing with them, and we’re here often thinking of all of this stuff as labor.”
Senior goes on later in this fantastic piece to talk about how kids are "all joy and no fun." But the last page is where the message hits home. Although parents do report less happiness than their childless peers, across the board, they also report a strong sense of reward in what they are doing, which is more or less absent in singles.
And even more importantly, later in life when the kids have grown up and moved away, parents profess a very strong sense of satisfaction with their lives for having made it through parenting. They profess no unhappiness caused by their grandchildren, but instead a strong level of happiness caused by them. That happiness, obviously, is impossible without first putting up with your damn kids.
The point here is that parenting is a long-term investment in your own emotional well-being. A twelve-year-old could find instant happiness playing Xbox. Or they could find a different kind of happiness in the struggles of building a treehouse with Dad. The Xbox controller could not possibly give them splinters, and he won't accidentally hammer their thumb while playing it. But after quitting the Xbox, the happiness fades in seconds, almost like an addiction. The emotional satisfaction of building the treehouse, however, is a lasting one.
In this sense, parenting, like monogamy, is something that you realize you are investing in. Sure kids might have used to be an asset, as Senior suggests. But the concept that they are no longer an asset isn't true. Is your 401k an asset? Do you pour money into it? Money that you could instead spend at the casino, or on a new hot tub for your house? Do you forgo vacations and instead put that cash into your retirement account?
Then, when you have ripened, and retire, do you look back and wish you had spent that money on whimsical wastes? Or do you enjoy the fruit of your labors?
And what's really funny is that parenting has become so hypocritical. We all say "you can't spoil your kids or they'll be unhappy" and child psychologists preach and preach that providing boundaries and limiting the things your kids have actually makes them more responsible, and more happy. But then we bitch when we as parents are given limits. We complain that we are unhappy because we don't get everything we want, right this instant.
Perhaps parenting has not become harder because the pressures of society to raise superkids has increased, but instead parenting has become harder because society is creating people who are rapidly losing the ability to be patient and think long-term. Parenting is much harder if you only think about yourself all the time.
_
Monday, 19 July 2010
Trusting Big Brother
Posted on 06:47 by hony
The Washington Post this morning has a massive interactive spread entitled "Top Secret America" in which they "shockingly disclose" information about companies and their relationships with government entities, including the amazing number of people with Top Secret clearance in the United States.
First off, day one of this week long article revealed essentially nothing that wasn't already publicly available. If you are aware of the "awards" section of the FedBizOpps website, then you could easily have protracted this information. Further, many of the relationships between companies and their government clients are not clearly explained. Sure, Northrup-Grumman has 27 government agencies they work with. Okay so what? Sure N-G has X number of employees, but what percentage of them are even aware of the TS-level work being done at the company? And of those, how many work on TS-level projects daily? The WaPo article paints the 800,000+ people affiliated with companies affiliated with TS work as some sort of vast cloud of secret police, all working on dark projects to make you disappear in the night, if some government overlord wished it so.
The truth is, most of the work done at these companies is very mundane. Like reading reports and staring at maps. Turns out almost all government information that involves "location data" is TS-level. Even if the information is simply "gas prices in Kandahar"...because you are using location data, its probably TS-level info...or higher
Also, the WaPo throws out the glaring data point that "an estimated 854,000 people hold TS-level clearance" (No background is given to corroborate this estimate). Well, the government must just give it out like candy then. The truth is, TS clearance is hard to get. Have a brother-in-law that is a felon? You probably will have a tough time getting cleared. A lot of debt? Do you ever gamble? Ever been arrested for anything? Any investments in foreign economies or foreign property? These are all pretty hard barriers to cross for TS clearance. The investigative entities that determine your ability to hold TS clearance search diligently for patterns of behavior that you might have that could be leveraged against you to force information out of you. Have you had an affair? Are you divorced? Gonna make getting clearance tougher, if not impossible. Especially if your ex-spouse gets interviewed and lies about you. Which they might.
TS-level clearance takes time, and interviews, and background checks. The people that have it probably aren't people that the citizens of the United States should fear.
_
First off, day one of this week long article revealed essentially nothing that wasn't already publicly available. If you are aware of the "awards" section of the FedBizOpps website, then you could easily have protracted this information. Further, many of the relationships between companies and their government clients are not clearly explained. Sure, Northrup-Grumman has 27 government agencies they work with. Okay so what? Sure N-G has X number of employees, but what percentage of them are even aware of the TS-level work being done at the company? And of those, how many work on TS-level projects daily? The WaPo article paints the 800,000+ people affiliated with companies affiliated with TS work as some sort of vast cloud of secret police, all working on dark projects to make you disappear in the night, if some government overlord wished it so.
The truth is, most of the work done at these companies is very mundane. Like reading reports and staring at maps. Turns out almost all government information that involves "location data" is TS-level. Even if the information is simply "gas prices in Kandahar"...because you are using location data, its probably TS-level info...or higher
Also, the WaPo throws out the glaring data point that "an estimated 854,000 people hold TS-level clearance" (No background is given to corroborate this estimate). Well, the government must just give it out like candy then. The truth is, TS clearance is hard to get. Have a brother-in-law that is a felon? You probably will have a tough time getting cleared. A lot of debt? Do you ever gamble? Ever been arrested for anything? Any investments in foreign economies or foreign property? These are all pretty hard barriers to cross for TS clearance. The investigative entities that determine your ability to hold TS clearance search diligently for patterns of behavior that you might have that could be leveraged against you to force information out of you. Have you had an affair? Are you divorced? Gonna make getting clearance tougher, if not impossible. Especially if your ex-spouse gets interviewed and lies about you. Which they might.
TS-level clearance takes time, and interviews, and background checks. The people that have it probably aren't people that the citizens of the United States should fear.
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Friday, 16 July 2010
Preserving the Past
Posted on 09:04 by hony
TAE posits that the film adaptation of "Mimsy Were the Borogroves", "The Last Mimzy" is actually a fairly intelligent idea: future humans might need our DNA to save themselves. TAE further posits that we should all be freezing a sample of our cells, now, in case we need them later.
The argument in "Mimzy" is that future humans have mutated, due to some unexplained ecological crisis, into beings lacking viable immune systems. They live in bizarre suits. A scientist sends back in time inanimate objects and a robotic rabbit hoping the rabbit will obtain a DNA sample from a human of the past, while the "toys" are actually the tools necessary to open a wormhole to the future and return the rabbit to the scientist.
Back in reality, TAE has to wonder about the recent gammy ray burst that was so powerful that it blinded several telescopes that monitor x-rays. It was that power - and it was 5 billion light years away. One of Gregg Easterbrook's favorite topics is the fact that a gamma ray burst from a distant star could wipe out life on Earth; there is literally nothing we could do to stop it, and it could already be on its way here.
So TAE wonders: could a gamma ray burst, not strong enough to wipe out life, but strong enough to cause massive radiative DNA damage, be the impetus for needing to preserve human DNA in some form?
Imagine it this way: suddenly we wake up one morning and we're all radiated. Many humans on the side of the planet that was in the direct path of the GRB die within a week or so from radiation poisoning and organ failure. Within the next few years, many millions more of the "dark side survivors" also die from endemic cancers. Women who attempt to get pregnant have such massively damaged eggs (and their male partners such massively damaged sperm) that the eggs either immediately self-abort, or the fetuses do not make it full term. Humanity, it seems, is about to go extinct.
Enter the library of adult human cells. Bucking "ethics", humans could remove the DNA from female egg cells, and replace it with the DNA from the preserved adult cells. The eggs, now apoptic-mutation-free, could be carried to term by the surviving women, who would basically have regenerated the current generation of humans, only this time without the problematic genetic mutations. We could even pay bonuses to women who carried twins or triplets, to help rapidly regenerate the human population.
The parent generation would be a total loss, as they'd die without kids. But they'd basically just try again, as the children they raised. Talk about second life!
In any case, it seems like cryogenic storage of cells is a relatively cheap and easy process, and banking a large and diverse number of adult cells would ensure that a future generation of humans, should the above scenario occur (or a variant), would minimize inbreeding and help restore humanity to its pre-cataclysm glory.
Now, having finished writing this entry, it occurs to me that if I ever run for public office my opponent will use entries like this to play me off as a crackpot. So be it.
_
The argument in "Mimzy" is that future humans have mutated, due to some unexplained ecological crisis, into beings lacking viable immune systems. They live in bizarre suits. A scientist sends back in time inanimate objects and a robotic rabbit hoping the rabbit will obtain a DNA sample from a human of the past, while the "toys" are actually the tools necessary to open a wormhole to the future and return the rabbit to the scientist.
Back in reality, TAE has to wonder about the recent gammy ray burst that was so powerful that it blinded several telescopes that monitor x-rays. It was that power - and it was 5 billion light years away. One of Gregg Easterbrook's favorite topics is the fact that a gamma ray burst from a distant star could wipe out life on Earth; there is literally nothing we could do to stop it, and it could already be on its way here.
So TAE wonders: could a gamma ray burst, not strong enough to wipe out life, but strong enough to cause massive radiative DNA damage, be the impetus for needing to preserve human DNA in some form?
Imagine it this way: suddenly we wake up one morning and we're all radiated. Many humans on the side of the planet that was in the direct path of the GRB die within a week or so from radiation poisoning and organ failure. Within the next few years, many millions more of the "dark side survivors" also die from endemic cancers. Women who attempt to get pregnant have such massively damaged eggs (and their male partners such massively damaged sperm) that the eggs either immediately self-abort, or the fetuses do not make it full term. Humanity, it seems, is about to go extinct.
Enter the library of adult human cells. Bucking "ethics", humans could remove the DNA from female egg cells, and replace it with the DNA from the preserved adult cells. The eggs, now apoptic-mutation-free, could be carried to term by the surviving women, who would basically have regenerated the current generation of humans, only this time without the problematic genetic mutations. We could even pay bonuses to women who carried twins or triplets, to help rapidly regenerate the human population.
The parent generation would be a total loss, as they'd die without kids. But they'd basically just try again, as the children they raised. Talk about second life!
In any case, it seems like cryogenic storage of cells is a relatively cheap and easy process, and banking a large and diverse number of adult cells would ensure that a future generation of humans, should the above scenario occur (or a variant), would minimize inbreeding and help restore humanity to its pre-cataclysm glory.
Now, having finished writing this entry, it occurs to me that if I ever run for public office my opponent will use entries like this to play me off as a crackpot. So be it.
_
Friday Poetry Burst
Posted on 06:15 by hony
The Inventor, by Rudyard Kipling (yes, I do favor Kipling to all other poets)
Time and Space decreed his lot,
But little Man was quick to note:
When Time and Space said Man might not,
Bravely he answered, "Nay! I mote."
I looked on old New England.
Time and Space stood fast.
Men built altars to Distance
At every mile they passed.
Yet sleek with oil, a Force was hid
Making mock of all they did,
Ready at the appointed hour
To yield up to Prometheus
The secular and well-drilled Power
The Gods secreted thus.
And over high Wantastiquet
Emulous my lightnings ran,
Unregarded but afret,
To fall in with my plan.
I beheld two ministries,
One of air and one of earth --
At a thought I married these,
And my New Age came to birth!
For rarely my purpose errs
Though oft it seems to pause,
And rods and cylinders
Obey my planets' laws.
Oil I drew from the well,
And Franklin's spark from its blue;
Time and Distance fell,
And Man went forth anew.
On the prairie and in the street
So long as my chariots roll
I bind wings to Adam's feet,
And, presently, to his soul!
_
Time and Space decreed his lot,
But little Man was quick to note:
When Time and Space said Man might not,
Bravely he answered, "Nay! I mote."
I looked on old New England.
Time and Space stood fast.
Men built altars to Distance
At every mile they passed.
Yet sleek with oil, a Force was hid
Making mock of all they did,
Ready at the appointed hour
To yield up to Prometheus
The secular and well-drilled Power
The Gods secreted thus.
And over high Wantastiquet
Emulous my lightnings ran,
Unregarded but afret,
To fall in with my plan.
I beheld two ministries,
One of air and one of earth --
At a thought I married these,
And my New Age came to birth!
For rarely my purpose errs
Though oft it seems to pause,
And rods and cylinders
Obey my planets' laws.
Oil I drew from the well,
And Franklin's spark from its blue;
Time and Distance fell,
And Man went forth anew.
On the prairie and in the street
So long as my chariots roll
I bind wings to Adam's feet,
And, presently, to his soul!
_
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Posthumous Charity
Posted on 12:06 by hony
TAE's Law of Posthumous Charity: wealthy individuals who only donate the bulk of their riches to charity after their death so that they can continue their rockstar lifestyle up until that point garner no friends in Heaven for their "selflessness."
Paul Allen, has been philanthropic for decades. However, his promise, like Buffett's and Gates', is a posthumous one. TAE remains cynical.
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Paul Allen, has been philanthropic for decades. However, his promise, like Buffett's and Gates', is a posthumous one. TAE remains cynical.
_
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Super Tuna
Posted on 11:25 by hony
As TAE cynically watches the human race destroy itself via environmental disaster, war, and political gridlock, I have to wonder, are we doomed?
One of TAE's grandstand issues is that the human race is raping the oceans as though they were a limitless resource. One example is that having exhausted the world's cod populations, we then turned on the tuna. Now bluefin tuna are extremely threatened, and may very well go extinct. I thought about this yesterday as I was guiltily eating a tuna salad sandwich.
So it seemed providential to me that this New Scientist article came through the pipes later that day, about the emerging field of animal genetic modification. Of course, calling animal genetic modification "emerging" is a bit misguiding; we've been selectively breeding animals for centuries for certain genetic traits. Nevertheless, active, rapid and intentional changes to animal genomes that cause mutations for traits that aren't in line with the natural evolution of a creature is what is emerging as a realistic field. For example pigs with omega 3 fatty acids to promote heart health of the humans that eat the pork, or cattle with antibodies in their milk to aid the human immune system.
So it occurs to me, as we plumb the planet for more and more edible flesh, that if we accept that the environment, and global ecosystem, is totally screwed, courtesy our enormous population, then perhaps we should embrace the idea of GMO, specifically ones that rapidly reproduce and grow.
Part of the bluefin tuna depopulation is because they do not breed until they are at least 5 years old, at which time the are more than large enough to be aggressively fished. Why not modify them to be sexually mature after one year. Or genetically modify them to grow much slower, so that they are sexually mature before they are large enough to be legally caught? Why not genetically modify them to survive in freshwater, so they could be more cheaply farmed? Or genetically modify them to produce five times as many eggs as they currently do? 50 times as many eggs?
There are many potential strategies we could use to positively affect the population of harvested animals in the world, especially ocean species.
We just need to accept it as a necessity, and accept that human population increases and demand increases have made reduced fishing is neither acceptable nor politically feasible.
_
One of TAE's grandstand issues is that the human race is raping the oceans as though they were a limitless resource. One example is that having exhausted the world's cod populations, we then turned on the tuna. Now bluefin tuna are extremely threatened, and may very well go extinct. I thought about this yesterday as I was guiltily eating a tuna salad sandwich.
So it seemed providential to me that this New Scientist article came through the pipes later that day, about the emerging field of animal genetic modification. Of course, calling animal genetic modification "emerging" is a bit misguiding; we've been selectively breeding animals for centuries for certain genetic traits. Nevertheless, active, rapid and intentional changes to animal genomes that cause mutations for traits that aren't in line with the natural evolution of a creature is what is emerging as a realistic field. For example pigs with omega 3 fatty acids to promote heart health of the humans that eat the pork, or cattle with antibodies in their milk to aid the human immune system.
So it occurs to me, as we plumb the planet for more and more edible flesh, that if we accept that the environment, and global ecosystem, is totally screwed, courtesy our enormous population, then perhaps we should embrace the idea of GMO, specifically ones that rapidly reproduce and grow.
Part of the bluefin tuna depopulation is because they do not breed until they are at least 5 years old, at which time the are more than large enough to be aggressively fished. Why not modify them to be sexually mature after one year. Or genetically modify them to grow much slower, so that they are sexually mature before they are large enough to be legally caught? Why not genetically modify them to survive in freshwater, so they could be more cheaply farmed? Or genetically modify them to produce five times as many eggs as they currently do? 50 times as many eggs?
There are many potential strategies we could use to positively affect the population of harvested animals in the world, especially ocean species.
We just need to accept it as a necessity, and accept that human population increases and demand increases have made reduced fishing is neither acceptable nor politically feasible.
_
Monogamy, Ctd.
Posted on 09:22 by hony
Last night my wife and I had a very serious conversation in which she essentially wanted me to act less like a guy and I essentially wanted her to be more like a guy. It was the timeless discussion, had by probably every single heterosexual couple in history: the man is too physically affectionate, and unreceptive to the signals the woman gives that she needs space, meanwhile the man feels like the woman isn't physical enough. A happy medium makes for a happy marriage.
Which brings be back around to Christopher Ryan's belief that humans aren't inherently monogamous (or at least would be happier if they weren't). Now, I realize I am apparently the only person in the entire blogosphere that disagrees, but hear me out.
Ryan has continued his argument that modern humans sexual nature was/is polygamous, and uses things like testosterone surges (leading to lower mortality) in the presence of an unknown woman as evidence that we (men) are hardwired for polygamy. He suggests that a woman's rapid ovulation cycle, and 12 pregnancy opportunities per year suggest women are hardwired to mother children that aren't necessarily those of their cohabitant male, rather the children of the male she happens to be mating with at that point in the year.
Yet, he's not addressing the behavioral compulsions of both pre- and post-agricultural human societies that cause monogamy to be the rule, not the exception. Is it any coincidence that serial monogamist societies are (by and large) the Industrialized nations of this planet? Is it any coincidence that HIV is far less prevalent in heterosexuals that practice monogamy?
When faced with these issues, Ryan retreats to pre-agriculture for defense:
But if we are to assume that humans were built into "widely dispersed, small groups of foragers," wouldn't inbreeding be minimized if monogamy were adopted? It seems that Ryan's model has as few people as possible to breeding outside of their little group, but as many as possible breeding within that group. Small polygamist (and to a lesser extent monogamist) groups cannot escape inbreeding without the regular input of external genetic data; the harmful mutations just continue to escalate. If you have a society with four men and four women, and each woman fathers four children, one from each father, within one generation all the children in the group are half brothers and sisters. If you have four monogamous pairs, it takes three times as long for all the progeny to become at least half-siblings.
And what about the thoroughly modern concept that a man simply might find it less worth his time to spend enormous physical, mental, and fiscal capital raising children that are clearly not his own. In almost every post-agricultural society I can think of, humans have placed a lot of weight, either in financial inheritance or in social standing, on the ability to parent your own progeny. For women this is an inescapable simplicity, but for men, the cultural pressure to father as many children as possible must be counterbalanced with the desire to minimize chances of mistakenly raising someone else's children as your own.
Sure, one could just plumb vaginas with reckless abandon, hoping to spread one's seed as far and wide as possible, and just accept that the children you raise with your cohabitant are likely not all your own...but hey, some other schmuck is stuck with your kids.
But what if you want to guarantee not only that you have as many kids as possible, but also that they are raised in a fashion you find acceptable? Impregnate 20 homeless women gets your genes out there for pennies on the dollar, sure...but what is the chances that those kids are born healthy, or that they survive long enough to procreate too?
Consider that extreme with the extreme of monogamy, where you guarantee your only (and only your) children come from one woman and you raise them as you see fit and provide enormous physical, mental, and financial faculties to those select few kids.
Ryan would probably, faced with this argument, retreat back to pre-history, and argue that small foraging groups had communal children, and that the children were probably all kept in a "day-care" style group overseen by a small number of adults while the remaining adults foraged and hunted. In this way a parent oversaw their own children, as well as other children, all for the combined good of their group.
But Ryan can't retreat to pre-history. His book isn't an argument for pre-historic polygamy; its a treatise on the increased happiness individuals of modern society could achieve via polygamy that he believes was prevalent in pre-agricultural humanity.
But as of yet, from Ryan or from anyone else, I have not heard a single convincing argument that pre-historic humans were largely polygamous. So why should I believe that monogamy is against our nature when it isn't clearly established what our original nature was?
_
Which brings be back around to Christopher Ryan's belief that humans aren't inherently monogamous (or at least would be happier if they weren't). Now, I realize I am apparently the only person in the entire blogosphere that disagrees, but hear me out.
Ryan has continued his argument that modern humans sexual nature was/is polygamous, and uses things like testosterone surges (leading to lower mortality) in the presence of an unknown woman as evidence that we (men) are hardwired for polygamy. He suggests that a woman's rapid ovulation cycle, and 12 pregnancy opportunities per year suggest women are hardwired to mother children that aren't necessarily those of their cohabitant male, rather the children of the male she happens to be mating with at that point in the year.
Yet, he's not addressing the behavioral compulsions of both pre- and post-agricultural human societies that cause monogamy to be the rule, not the exception. Is it any coincidence that serial monogamist societies are (by and large) the Industrialized nations of this planet? Is it any coincidence that HIV is far less prevalent in heterosexuals that practice monogamy?
When faced with these issues, Ryan retreats to pre-agriculture for defense:
While there were no doubt occasional outbreaks of infectious disease in prehistory, it's unlikely they spread far, even with high levels of sexual promiscuity. It would have been nearly impossible for pathogens to take hold in widely dispersed groups of foragers with infrequent contact between groups. The conditions necessary for devastating epidemics or pandemics didn't exist until the agricultural revolution.
But if we are to assume that humans were built into "widely dispersed, small groups of foragers," wouldn't inbreeding be minimized if monogamy were adopted? It seems that Ryan's model has as few people as possible to breeding outside of their little group, but as many as possible breeding within that group. Small polygamist (and to a lesser extent monogamist) groups cannot escape inbreeding without the regular input of external genetic data; the harmful mutations just continue to escalate. If you have a society with four men and four women, and each woman fathers four children, one from each father, within one generation all the children in the group are half brothers and sisters. If you have four monogamous pairs, it takes three times as long for all the progeny to become at least half-siblings.
And what about the thoroughly modern concept that a man simply might find it less worth his time to spend enormous physical, mental, and fiscal capital raising children that are clearly not his own. In almost every post-agricultural society I can think of, humans have placed a lot of weight, either in financial inheritance or in social standing, on the ability to parent your own progeny. For women this is an inescapable simplicity, but for men, the cultural pressure to father as many children as possible must be counterbalanced with the desire to minimize chances of mistakenly raising someone else's children as your own.
Sure, one could just plumb vaginas with reckless abandon, hoping to spread one's seed as far and wide as possible, and just accept that the children you raise with your cohabitant are likely not all your own...but hey, some other schmuck is stuck with your kids.
But what if you want to guarantee not only that you have as many kids as possible, but also that they are raised in a fashion you find acceptable? Impregnate 20 homeless women gets your genes out there for pennies on the dollar, sure...but what is the chances that those kids are born healthy, or that they survive long enough to procreate too?
Consider that extreme with the extreme of monogamy, where you guarantee your only (and only your) children come from one woman and you raise them as you see fit and provide enormous physical, mental, and financial faculties to those select few kids.
Ryan would probably, faced with this argument, retreat back to pre-history, and argue that small foraging groups had communal children, and that the children were probably all kept in a "day-care" style group overseen by a small number of adults while the remaining adults foraged and hunted. In this way a parent oversaw their own children, as well as other children, all for the combined good of their group.
But Ryan can't retreat to pre-history. His book isn't an argument for pre-historic polygamy; its a treatise on the increased happiness individuals of modern society could achieve via polygamy that he believes was prevalent in pre-agricultural humanity.
But as of yet, from Ryan or from anyone else, I have not heard a single convincing argument that pre-historic humans were largely polygamous. So why should I believe that monogamy is against our nature when it isn't clearly established what our original nature was?
_
Friday, 9 July 2010
Friday Poetry Burst
Posted on 07:24 by hony
Invictus, by William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond the place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
_
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond the place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
_
Tesla Motors IPO in freefall?
Posted on 06:33 by hony
Tesla Motors, the electric car venture of Elon Musk (who made a killing off PayPal), launched its IPO last week. The stock has dropped ever since, and is currently trading below the IPO price.
During the storied and successful career of Musk, it is often pointed out that he went to graduate school for only two days. TAE posits the question: should Musk have invested in an MBA?
_
During the storied and successful career of Musk, it is often pointed out that he went to graduate school for only two days. TAE posits the question: should Musk have invested in an MBA?
_
Thursday, 8 July 2010
Creepy Prescience of TAE
Posted on 11:01 by hony
Yesterday I posted this suggesting Darwinian evolution of software was not only possible but potentially extremely useful in developing smarter software.
And then this morning I read this:
I love being right.
_
And then this morning I read this:
Working like natural selection, the [genetic algorithm] takes a population of random waveforms, mutates the "fittest" of them – in this case, those with lowest energy use – and then "interbreeds" the mutated forms to make new "offspring" waveforms. The process is then repeated through several "generations" until the optimal waveform is found.
I love being right.
_
Rivals
Posted on 10:38 by hony
Does Lance remember what it is like to have a rival? It seems to me that he needs to remember the strategies he used to crush Jan Ullrich, year after year: isolate Jan from his team, rely on the Blue Train to hold back the peleton, use teammates as catapults, and wait until Jan burns out and then make a break of his own.
Having a much stronger Radioshack team, but working against a potentially more dangerous rival than Jan, Lance should remember his roots. When they hit the mountains, Lance needs to take Contador with him on break after break, and use his teammates to isolate Contador from his teammates. Take Popyvych with him, let Popyvych drive the three of them up until he pops, then Lance can take over. Do it again, and again, and again, and make intimidating comments at Contador the whole way up. Pretend to gas out, then burst, pretend to give up, then burst. When you are 13 years more experienced at life than someone else, it is really easy to outwit them.
Lance will not beat Contador by 13 seconds by eking them out, stage after stage, second by second, like he did 2004 and 2005. He needs to break Contador's spirit, and outfox him.
If this is really Lance's last Tour, then why hold back anything?
_
Having a much stronger Radioshack team, but working against a potentially more dangerous rival than Jan, Lance should remember his roots. When they hit the mountains, Lance needs to take Contador with him on break after break, and use his teammates to isolate Contador from his teammates. Take Popyvych with him, let Popyvych drive the three of them up until he pops, then Lance can take over. Do it again, and again, and again, and make intimidating comments at Contador the whole way up. Pretend to gas out, then burst, pretend to give up, then burst. When you are 13 years more experienced at life than someone else, it is really easy to outwit them.
Lance will not beat Contador by 13 seconds by eking them out, stage after stage, second by second, like he did 2004 and 2005. He needs to break Contador's spirit, and outfox him.
If this is really Lance's last Tour, then why hold back anything?
_
Post 1000
Posted on 08:12 by hony
Turns out this is the 1,000th post I have done. Blogging here has become a hobby of mine, both a way to vent my frustration at climate-hating politicians and pork-barrel-loving NASA cronies, as well as a place for me to speculate on future technology while analyzing current American scientific policy.
Other people have equally fun hobbies. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate, likes to publish breakthrough works on things ranging from gravity analysis to new microscope techniques. He needs a break too, because doing nothing at all to improve the energy portfolio of the United States while in office is exhausting, to be sure.
_
Other people have equally fun hobbies. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate, likes to publish breakthrough works on things ranging from gravity analysis to new microscope techniques. He needs a break too, because doing nothing at all to improve the energy portfolio of the United States while in office is exhausting, to be sure.
_
TAE's Law of Philanthropy
Posted on 06:11 by hony
If "N" is the maximum number of charities a person can afford to donate to, then there are no less than N + 1 charities that want that person's money.
_
_
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Robot Evolution
Posted on 09:34 by hony
Sometimes my mind wanders over topics I am sure have been discussed at length by experts.
For example today I was wondering if we're going about this all wrong in our attempts to build a computer that mimics the human brain in our quest for artificial intelligence. As Jonah Lehrer harps on an on about on his blog, the human brain is probably the most complex (yet efficient) machine in the Milky Way Galaxy. In fact it's pretty much orders of magnitude more complex than anything else, including the Large Hadron Collider.
If we are really committed to A.I., shouldn't we start at the bottom of the food chain, at the far end of the timeline?
Why not build some super simple software that has a single purpose: it inputs streaming data, changes it, and then outputs it. For example it could input groups of 3D coordinates and output a single centerpoint of the polygon formed by the 3D points.
The amount of data gradually increases, and as it does so, the software will copy itself so that it can continue to handle the data in realtime. However, when the software copies itself it does not necessarily do so perfectly. Furthermore, if the data decreases, the software will terminate itself, starting with the oldest versions first, until the data is being handled by the least number of copies of software possible to maintain realtime.
Studies of Drosophilia (fruit flies) have found that about 70% of random mutations are harmful and kill the creature. The remaining 30% are almost entirely neutral, only a tiny, tiny amount are beneficial.
So I imagine this scenario where by rapidly ramping up and then dropping down the flow of data into the software population, you could rapidly accumulate large numbers of software mutations, and then cause die-offs of the less mutated software.
How long until a software developed a language bug in the "die off when the data stream is cut back" and that software and its progeny replicated out of control...then sat idle if there was no data to process? Voila! Evolution. One can imagine that, at the rate at which computers can work compared to living organisms, that you could evolve highly advanced software in a relatively short amount of time. Of course, you might end up with massive, inefficient software to do a relatively simple job. Just look at the millions of codons of junk DNA filling our cells...useless filler that wastes replication energy every time a cell divides.
Or what if you built a little, plastic robot, that lived in a soup of water and vinyl monomers? It spent its days polymerizing the vinyl out of the water into PVC, which it used to create replicates of its own parts. Once all its parts were replicated it would split in two, and repeat.
But then you added some amide monomer to the slurry. The little plastic bots could, if they somehow developed the ability, polymerize to polyamide instead of polyvinyl chloride. You occasionally would flash the drum with blasts of ultraviolet light, to encourage spontaneous polymerization via energy input.
How long until your plastic robots were nylon robots? Maybe then you add a little alcohol to the mix, and the plastic robots inadvertently turn themselves into glue, while the nylon robots live on. Voila! Evolution.
The point is that the human brain, and the body in which it resides, didn't just come about. It all started with a little disorganized cell, billions of years ago. It seems like the simplest way to build an artificial brain would be to do the same.
_
For example today I was wondering if we're going about this all wrong in our attempts to build a computer that mimics the human brain in our quest for artificial intelligence. As Jonah Lehrer harps on an on about on his blog, the human brain is probably the most complex (yet efficient) machine in the Milky Way Galaxy. In fact it's pretty much orders of magnitude more complex than anything else, including the Large Hadron Collider.
If we are really committed to A.I., shouldn't we start at the bottom of the food chain, at the far end of the timeline?
Why not build some super simple software that has a single purpose: it inputs streaming data, changes it, and then outputs it. For example it could input groups of 3D coordinates and output a single centerpoint of the polygon formed by the 3D points.
The amount of data gradually increases, and as it does so, the software will copy itself so that it can continue to handle the data in realtime. However, when the software copies itself it does not necessarily do so perfectly. Furthermore, if the data decreases, the software will terminate itself, starting with the oldest versions first, until the data is being handled by the least number of copies of software possible to maintain realtime.
Studies of Drosophilia (fruit flies) have found that about 70% of random mutations are harmful and kill the creature. The remaining 30% are almost entirely neutral, only a tiny, tiny amount are beneficial.
So I imagine this scenario where by rapidly ramping up and then dropping down the flow of data into the software population, you could rapidly accumulate large numbers of software mutations, and then cause die-offs of the less mutated software.
How long until a software developed a language bug in the "die off when the data stream is cut back" and that software and its progeny replicated out of control...then sat idle if there was no data to process? Voila! Evolution. One can imagine that, at the rate at which computers can work compared to living organisms, that you could evolve highly advanced software in a relatively short amount of time. Of course, you might end up with massive, inefficient software to do a relatively simple job. Just look at the millions of codons of junk DNA filling our cells...useless filler that wastes replication energy every time a cell divides.
Or what if you built a little, plastic robot, that lived in a soup of water and vinyl monomers? It spent its days polymerizing the vinyl out of the water into PVC, which it used to create replicates of its own parts. Once all its parts were replicated it would split in two, and repeat.
But then you added some amide monomer to the slurry. The little plastic bots could, if they somehow developed the ability, polymerize to polyamide instead of polyvinyl chloride. You occasionally would flash the drum with blasts of ultraviolet light, to encourage spontaneous polymerization via energy input.
How long until your plastic robots were nylon robots? Maybe then you add a little alcohol to the mix, and the plastic robots inadvertently turn themselves into glue, while the nylon robots live on. Voila! Evolution.
The point is that the human brain, and the body in which it resides, didn't just come about. It all started with a little disorganized cell, billions of years ago. It seems like the simplest way to build an artificial brain would be to do the same.
_
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
TAE's International Popularity
Posted on 10:52 by hony
My sitemeter informs me I am extremely popular in India...but virtually unknown to the rest of southeast Asia. If the Chinese government were censoring me...I'd find that extremely flattering.
_
_
Monogamy, Ctd.
Posted on 09:38 by hony
A reader writes:
Civilization, however, has certainly thrown a cog in the evolutionary machine. No longer do geeks like me have to piddle at the bottom of the gene pool, instead we can create elaborate laws, traps, and methods by which to find women we clearly don't deserve if the Alpha Betas still ruled the campus.
So why be monogamous now? First off, I am an engineer, and not a biologist, psychologist, theologian, or even family counselor, so I am not the expert in these things. What I am about to say purely is my opinion based on my experiences and my observations of the world around me, and probably cannot be backed up with scientific fact.
It seems to me that the turning point for our species was when we began to invest nutritional excess into mental, rather than physical, development (yes our brains are a physical organ but go with me here). We began an arms race against other ecologically-similar species as well as amongst ourselves for top predator, and our weapon was the fastest, cleverest brain. And so already complicated things like emotion became much, much more complicated. We began to imagine, create, and best of all develop an oral and eventually written tradition which allowed our species total knowledge to increase exponentially.
The reason polygamy became possible is because we had the free time to do it. An agrarian society, in which a small percentage of producers sells their product to a large percentage of artisans, seems to me to be an opportunity for polygamy not found when everyone is searching for food, all the time.
But here's the flip side of that: civilization has allowed us to pander to our emotions.
So why be monogamous? The long and the short of it, as I see it, is that I create more self-satisfaction from building a relationship with one woman than I would create if I instead cultivated short, meaningless sexual relationships with many women. This is compounded by the fact that I derive happiness from the trust my monogamous spouse has for me, further compounded by the happiness I derive from knowing my children are my own, and further compounded by the fact that I can rely on my spouse for emotional and physical affection whenever I need it. These things would not be possible, or at least not as possible for a polygamous person.
Of course where I am going with this is love. I love my wife. She loves me. If I just slept around I would not love any of those women, and the short-lived bursts of physical pleasure might indeed be nice, but for my emotional well-being I think the slow-building investment is better than a high-risk investment that can go up or down 100% in a day without warning. And that is the advantage of monogamy. I get low-risk, high-yield happiness that requires a long-term investment, but has safe, strong long-term yields.
People could counter-argue that married individuals do not report being much happier than single people. There are two possibilities here: single people are lying, or perhaps after a time they learn to derive happiness from other things. Their emotional well-being, void of long-term relationship-based love, finds other ways to reward the mind. One chronically single friend of mine climbs mountains, and seemingly derives happiness from the burn in her legs as she ascends, or perhaps in the euphoria found upon the summit. Another single friend has immersed himself in indie rock, and spends nearly as much time at shows as I do with my wife. A third has built a small unit of other guy friends - all bachelors - who move almost as a single unit through life, sharing each others experiences.
The bottom line is that civilization has given humanity the opportunity to invest in our emotional well-being. It seems to me that monogamy is a pretty sure bet.
_
"I'm curious to know your current argument for monogamy. I can plainly see the pre-civilization argument for it, but why should it exist in this day and age?"First off, I am pleased that someone finds my arguments for pre-civilization human monogamy compelling. If you just apply the cold logic of evolution, you find the checks and balances rules here and while a male human could easily sneak in on many females, he would increase the risk that none of his children would live, and the females would choose the option of having a sole provider that she could trust for assistance raising her young than the option of letting whomever wished to come impregnate her and then hope that some male would provide her and her offspring nourishment.
Civilization, however, has certainly thrown a cog in the evolutionary machine. No longer do geeks like me have to piddle at the bottom of the gene pool, instead we can create elaborate laws, traps, and methods by which to find women we clearly don't deserve if the Alpha Betas still ruled the campus.
So why be monogamous now? First off, I am an engineer, and not a biologist, psychologist, theologian, or even family counselor, so I am not the expert in these things. What I am about to say purely is my opinion based on my experiences and my observations of the world around me, and probably cannot be backed up with scientific fact.
It seems to me that the turning point for our species was when we began to invest nutritional excess into mental, rather than physical, development (yes our brains are a physical organ but go with me here). We began an arms race against other ecologically-similar species as well as amongst ourselves for top predator, and our weapon was the fastest, cleverest brain. And so already complicated things like emotion became much, much more complicated. We began to imagine, create, and best of all develop an oral and eventually written tradition which allowed our species total knowledge to increase exponentially.
The reason polygamy became possible is because we had the free time to do it. An agrarian society, in which a small percentage of producers sells their product to a large percentage of artisans, seems to me to be an opportunity for polygamy not found when everyone is searching for food, all the time.
But here's the flip side of that: civilization has allowed us to pander to our emotions.
So why be monogamous? The long and the short of it, as I see it, is that I create more self-satisfaction from building a relationship with one woman than I would create if I instead cultivated short, meaningless sexual relationships with many women. This is compounded by the fact that I derive happiness from the trust my monogamous spouse has for me, further compounded by the happiness I derive from knowing my children are my own, and further compounded by the fact that I can rely on my spouse for emotional and physical affection whenever I need it. These things would not be possible, or at least not as possible for a polygamous person.
Of course where I am going with this is love. I love my wife. She loves me. If I just slept around I would not love any of those women, and the short-lived bursts of physical pleasure might indeed be nice, but for my emotional well-being I think the slow-building investment is better than a high-risk investment that can go up or down 100% in a day without warning. And that is the advantage of monogamy. I get low-risk, high-yield happiness that requires a long-term investment, but has safe, strong long-term yields.
People could counter-argue that married individuals do not report being much happier than single people. There are two possibilities here: single people are lying, or perhaps after a time they learn to derive happiness from other things. Their emotional well-being, void of long-term relationship-based love, finds other ways to reward the mind. One chronically single friend of mine climbs mountains, and seemingly derives happiness from the burn in her legs as she ascends, or perhaps in the euphoria found upon the summit. Another single friend has immersed himself in indie rock, and spends nearly as much time at shows as I do with my wife. A third has built a small unit of other guy friends - all bachelors - who move almost as a single unit through life, sharing each others experiences.
The bottom line is that civilization has given humanity the opportunity to invest in our emotional well-being. It seems to me that monogamy is a pretty sure bet.
_
Monogamy
Posted on 06:33 by hony
There's a new book out, called "Sex at Dawn" in which the authors argue that human monogamy is just not natural. I have not read the book yet, because of TAE's Rule of Paperbacks (No book is good enough to justify paying for the hardcover version. Always wait for the paperback version).
The authors, of course, are using their combined years of biology and human evolutionary history...oh wait, neither of them are biologists. This isn't to say they aren't experienced in human sexuality, or that biology and evolution are completely unknown to them, just that a psychologist/author and an M.D./author are probably not the ultimate authorities on human sexual evolution.
But in the spirit of non-experts arguing things, I feel obligated to share my own opinion. The authors suggest that social monogamy but sexual infidelity might actually improve relations amongst couples. Pair this information with the fact that the authors are living together and one has to draw the conclusion that someone is unhappy with his/her sex life!
But in all seriousness, they do make an interesting point: many species of birds that are "monogamous" are only socially so; they parents work together to raise the babies...but the babies may not be the male birds' progeny. This implies that many of the monogamous species in the animal kingdom have built a system based on social monogamy, but sexual polygamy. I have two thoughts on this. The first is that given that birds are essentially long-evolved dinosaurs, you have almost 230 million years of evolution and over 5 million species of creatures without a single species evolving advanced enough intelligence to control fire. Compare that to humans. Second, how exactly are the authors going to convince their audience that raising someone else's children is a good idea? There are, seemingly unbeknownst to the authors, a myriad of peer-reviewed articles suggesting that children with step-parents do not succeed as well as children raised by their biological parents. And what exactly is the job of a parent bird? To bring food back to the nest at a frenetic pace for a few weeks? And then the baby birds climb out of the nest and fly away, having had zero training in life from their parents - its all hard-wired into them. Contrast that to human children, which require at minimum 14-16 years of sustenance, and require extensive post-partum training in order to survive on the planet.
TAE has argued often on this blog that human monogamy makes sense from a pre-civilization sense. Children of humans, which require years of sustenance and training, would do best when both parents are devoted to them. Monogamy assures a male that the protein-rich food he is bringing home is in fact helping his genetic future, while a female can better assure herself that her children will be fed with protein (essential for mental development) if she can guarantee the male human that the children he feeds are his own. If human males knew that their comrades are not sleeping with their mates behind their backs, the could build more trusting relationships and rely on each other in coordinated hunting efforts. They could build friendships and would be more willing to share tool-making techniques and hunting strategies. The intellectual capital would build when males trusted each other and worked together.
People make the mistake, so often, of forgetting that humans evolved before civilization did so. Applying biology to humanity is one thing...applying humanity to biology is another thing altogether.
_
The authors, of course, are using their combined years of biology and human evolutionary history...oh wait, neither of them are biologists. This isn't to say they aren't experienced in human sexuality, or that biology and evolution are completely unknown to them, just that a psychologist/author and an M.D./author are probably not the ultimate authorities on human sexual evolution.
But in the spirit of non-experts arguing things, I feel obligated to share my own opinion. The authors suggest that social monogamy but sexual infidelity might actually improve relations amongst couples. Pair this information with the fact that the authors are living together and one has to draw the conclusion that someone is unhappy with his/her sex life!
But in all seriousness, they do make an interesting point: many species of birds that are "monogamous" are only socially so; they parents work together to raise the babies...but the babies may not be the male birds' progeny. This implies that many of the monogamous species in the animal kingdom have built a system based on social monogamy, but sexual polygamy. I have two thoughts on this. The first is that given that birds are essentially long-evolved dinosaurs, you have almost 230 million years of evolution and over 5 million species of creatures without a single species evolving advanced enough intelligence to control fire. Compare that to humans. Second, how exactly are the authors going to convince their audience that raising someone else's children is a good idea? There are, seemingly unbeknownst to the authors, a myriad of peer-reviewed articles suggesting that children with step-parents do not succeed as well as children raised by their biological parents. And what exactly is the job of a parent bird? To bring food back to the nest at a frenetic pace for a few weeks? And then the baby birds climb out of the nest and fly away, having had zero training in life from their parents - its all hard-wired into them. Contrast that to human children, which require at minimum 14-16 years of sustenance, and require extensive post-partum training in order to survive on the planet.
TAE has argued often on this blog that human monogamy makes sense from a pre-civilization sense. Children of humans, which require years of sustenance and training, would do best when both parents are devoted to them. Monogamy assures a male that the protein-rich food he is bringing home is in fact helping his genetic future, while a female can better assure herself that her children will be fed with protein (essential for mental development) if she can guarantee the male human that the children he feeds are his own. If human males knew that their comrades are not sleeping with their mates behind their backs, the could build more trusting relationships and rely on each other in coordinated hunting efforts. They could build friendships and would be more willing to share tool-making techniques and hunting strategies. The intellectual capital would build when males trusted each other and worked together.
People make the mistake, so often, of forgetting that humans evolved before civilization did so. Applying biology to humanity is one thing...applying humanity to biology is another thing altogether.
_
Friday, 2 July 2010
Genetic Engineering of Athletes
Posted on 10:58 by hony
The easiest and most reasonable method for genetic engineering of an already living person is with custom-built, targeted viruses.
So when I hear news that scientists have identified specific genes in Tibetans that allow them to live and reproduce at 13,000+ feet of altitude, and that these genes evolved quickly in their race and not in any other, it leads me to assume that athletes of endurance sports would love to get their hands on those genes.
Putting ethics aside, that is.
So why not just build custom viruses that contain the aforementioned Tibetan high-altitude genes and serve that up to people who want to be able to zip up the mountains of France on their bikes?
_
So when I hear news that scientists have identified specific genes in Tibetans that allow them to live and reproduce at 13,000+ feet of altitude, and that these genes evolved quickly in their race and not in any other, it leads me to assume that athletes of endurance sports would love to get their hands on those genes.
Putting ethics aside, that is.
So why not just build custom viruses that contain the aforementioned Tibetan high-altitude genes and serve that up to people who want to be able to zip up the mountains of France on their bikes?
_
Inadvertant Great Idea
Posted on 10:05 by hony
The "@" symbol was included on the typewriter in 1885, and remained the least used key on the board until 1971, when Ray Tomlinson used it as the natural divider in a new technology known as "email."
It is now widely used in email, text messaging, computer programming languages, and even modern genetics. None of these were anything close to what the original intended use was, which was for merchants to price items: "3 bananas @ 5 cents."
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It is now widely used in email, text messaging, computer programming languages, and even modern genetics. None of these were anything close to what the original intended use was, which was for merchants to price items: "3 bananas @ 5 cents."
_
Friday Poetry Burst
Posted on 09:08 by hony
Kaa's Hunting, by Rudyard Kipling
"His spots are the joy of the Leopard: his horns are the Buffalo’s pride.
Be clean, for the strength of the hunter is known by the gloss of his hide.
If ye find that the bullock can toss you, or the heavy-browed Sambhur can gore;
Ye need not stop work to inform us: we knew it ten seasons before.
Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them as Sister and Brother,
For though they are little and fubsy, it may be the Bear is their mother.
‘There is none like to me!’ says the Cub in the pride of his earliest kill;
But the jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think and be still."
_
"His spots are the joy of the Leopard: his horns are the Buffalo’s pride.
Be clean, for the strength of the hunter is known by the gloss of his hide.
If ye find that the bullock can toss you, or the heavy-browed Sambhur can gore;
Ye need not stop work to inform us: we knew it ten seasons before.
Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them as Sister and Brother,
For though they are little and fubsy, it may be the Bear is their mother.
‘There is none like to me!’ says the Cub in the pride of his earliest kill;
But the jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think and be still."
_
Quote of the Day
Posted on 08:19 by hony
From my friend (who is tastefully named Alex): "If I were President, I'd immediately end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and spend all that money on education."
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Thursday, 1 July 2010
Reception
Posted on 09:33 by hony
The world is abuzz with the iPhone 4's sketchy call reception. So much so that the new Droid X ad actually calls out the iPhone:
Whether or not the iPhone 4 has reception issues, the fact remains: cell phone reception and call quality are sketchy at best on most phones, be they smartphones or not.
TAE posits the question: why is that? Here's why I am confused: Yesterday I woke up to the alarm on my phone, which automatically (when turned on) stops push notification so I don't get pinged while I am asleep. I then checked the weather on it which first found my location via GPS and then gave me an updated 36-hour forecast. On my way to work, I could have used google maps with voice navigation, which would also utilize GPS. Instead, I used the 3G signal to listen to crystal clear Pandora radio. Before reaching work, I checked my gmail and work email with my phone. I sent a Facebook message and responded to a google chat request. While I am at work, my phone notifies me whenever someone emails or texts me, if someone wants to gchat with me, and is synced to my outlook calendar and therefore can notify me of upcoming meetings and appointments.
And yet call quality is still pretty poor. Reception is sketchy. Touching the wrong part of your phone can actually cause a call to end. Number of bars can change within a space of 10 feet, due to proximity of a window, or whether you are indoors or out. Cars can become a semi-opaque Faraday cage. Line of sight with nearby antennas can matter.
Why does cell phone reception suck so bad??
TAE thinks that the blame lies solely with us. Because as a society we are afraid the radio waves are cooking our brains, or that they might cause cancer, we have established strict FCC guidelines for transmittance power of information. And we choose to keep our cell phone radio power down at a very, very safe level, where call quality suffers, instead of letting our phones glow bright with the heat of 100 dB gain antennas blasting microwaves into the air around us, giving us high-definition sound quality in our ears.
Is there a solution? TAE thinks there always is a solution. In this case, why not drop the FCC regulation to limit broadcast strength and instead institute an FCC regulation that prohibits manufacturers from making phones that you hold up to your ear?
Honestly, the idea of a "phone" as a linear device with a speaker on one end and a microphone on the other is really a carry-over from a century ago when the technology was developed. There is no reason a savvy designer (forced to end hand-held phones) could not create a phone system that integrated a wireless earpiece into the phone design...oh wait they already have, it's called Bluetooth technology. Or a "hands-free attachment". Or a "headset."
I'm serious about this. Why not eliminate (or increase) maximum limits on broadcast strength, thereby increasing call quality and decreasing dropout, and instead institute a law that cellular devices can no longer have the speaker on them for your ear. Keep the speaker used for "speakerphone" mode. Keep the microphone. That would keep the phone away from the head...which is what the paranoid are afraid is killing us all.
_
"It comes with a double antenna design. The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like and use it just about anywhere to make crystal clear calls."
Whether or not the iPhone 4 has reception issues, the fact remains: cell phone reception and call quality are sketchy at best on most phones, be they smartphones or not.
TAE posits the question: why is that? Here's why I am confused: Yesterday I woke up to the alarm on my phone, which automatically (when turned on) stops push notification so I don't get pinged while I am asleep. I then checked the weather on it which first found my location via GPS and then gave me an updated 36-hour forecast. On my way to work, I could have used google maps with voice navigation, which would also utilize GPS. Instead, I used the 3G signal to listen to crystal clear Pandora radio. Before reaching work, I checked my gmail and work email with my phone. I sent a Facebook message and responded to a google chat request. While I am at work, my phone notifies me whenever someone emails or texts me, if someone wants to gchat with me, and is synced to my outlook calendar and therefore can notify me of upcoming meetings and appointments.
And yet call quality is still pretty poor. Reception is sketchy. Touching the wrong part of your phone can actually cause a call to end. Number of bars can change within a space of 10 feet, due to proximity of a window, or whether you are indoors or out. Cars can become a semi-opaque Faraday cage. Line of sight with nearby antennas can matter.
Why does cell phone reception suck so bad??
TAE thinks that the blame lies solely with us. Because as a society we are afraid the radio waves are cooking our brains, or that they might cause cancer, we have established strict FCC guidelines for transmittance power of information. And we choose to keep our cell phone radio power down at a very, very safe level, where call quality suffers, instead of letting our phones glow bright with the heat of 100 dB gain antennas blasting microwaves into the air around us, giving us high-definition sound quality in our ears.
Is there a solution? TAE thinks there always is a solution. In this case, why not drop the FCC regulation to limit broadcast strength and instead institute an FCC regulation that prohibits manufacturers from making phones that you hold up to your ear?
Honestly, the idea of a "phone" as a linear device with a speaker on one end and a microphone on the other is really a carry-over from a century ago when the technology was developed. There is no reason a savvy designer (forced to end hand-held phones) could not create a phone system that integrated a wireless earpiece into the phone design...oh wait they already have, it's called Bluetooth technology. Or a "hands-free attachment". Or a "headset."
I'm serious about this. Why not eliminate (or increase) maximum limits on broadcast strength, thereby increasing call quality and decreasing dropout, and instead institute a law that cellular devices can no longer have the speaker on them for your ear. Keep the speaker used for "speakerphone" mode. Keep the microphone. That would keep the phone away from the head...which is what the paranoid are afraid is killing us all.
_
Politics
Posted on 07:47 by hony
The specific reason TAE stays out of politics as often as possible is because people are unreasonable. Why debate politics with people when their minds are set? Why ask their opinion when it stands a fair chance of being the opposite of my own, and I am forced to get a lecture? Why argue with people who say "wikipedia is filled with left-wing lies" or suggest that I am a Democrat simply because I defend the ARRA stimulus? Why should I let people assume I am a Republican because I support gun rights? Why does my vehement denial of party membership make people label me a libertarian? Why does my insistence that our species needs to supercede nationalistic goals and unify for a common interest make me either a socialist wacko or un-American?
The problem with discussing politics with people is the same problem with discussing religion with people: everyone has an opinion, and no two people agree.
I mean, on the one hand I'm pro-gay rights, pro-abortion rights, anti-defense spending, anti-death penalty, anti-Patriot Act, pro-Church/state separation, pro-universal health care, and anti-Iraq War. That makes me a flaming liberal, and most people would therefore call me a Democrat.
But on the other hand I'm pro-free market, generally anti-bailout, anti-carbon tax, pro gun rights, believe tightening our borders forces mechanization and creates a more efficient economy, feel the United Nations should be abolished, and am against deficit spending of any kind. This makes me a conservative? A Republican?
The point here is that every issue is its own free-standing concept and it makes it hard for me to talk to people who just choose a straight ticket. How can you be pro-life and pro-death penalty? If all life is precious and abortion is murder...how is the death penalty not the same? How can you be for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but also for tax cuts or against deficit spending? Clearly the single most expensive military effort in human history has to be paid for somehow...
That is why TAE stays out of politics, especially on this blog. It's just too messy for an engineer.
_
The problem with discussing politics with people is the same problem with discussing religion with people: everyone has an opinion, and no two people agree.
I mean, on the one hand I'm pro-gay rights, pro-abortion rights, anti-defense spending, anti-death penalty, anti-Patriot Act, pro-Church/state separation, pro-universal health care, and anti-Iraq War. That makes me a flaming liberal, and most people would therefore call me a Democrat.
But on the other hand I'm pro-free market, generally anti-bailout, anti-carbon tax, pro gun rights, believe tightening our borders forces mechanization and creates a more efficient economy, feel the United Nations should be abolished, and am against deficit spending of any kind. This makes me a conservative? A Republican?
The point here is that every issue is its own free-standing concept and it makes it hard for me to talk to people who just choose a straight ticket. How can you be pro-life and pro-death penalty? If all life is precious and abortion is murder...how is the death penalty not the same? How can you be for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but also for tax cuts or against deficit spending? Clearly the single most expensive military effort in human history has to be paid for somehow...
That is why TAE stays out of politics, especially on this blog. It's just too messy for an engineer.
_
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