| Wednesday,
January 1, 2003
Well wishing with a vengeance....
Subject: Cyborg Lobsters
In Hoffstadter's "The Mind's I", he posed
a gedankenexperiment about the nature of self: Imagine one neuron of your
brain being replaced by a suitably complex computer which modelled it,
with a period of parallel running so there was no "cross-over"
period, but a seamless transition. Now continue for all 10e26 neurons, one
at a time. Would you still be "you" at the end of it?
Well, we may find out: http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/alobster.htm
is the first step. Replacing one of a Spiny Lobster's 14 ganglia with a
silicon replacement. In the short term, this may be the key to curing
gross damage ( ie no more quadriplegia..). In the long term, porting one's
mind to different hardware.
See also http://www.academicpress.com/
inscight/11101999/grapha.htm
Alan Brain, Canberra, Australia mailto:aebrain@webone.com.au
Wow. I want to think about this one a while.
Thanks. We live in interesting times...
I have had considerable
mail about the Department of
Precrime post.
I'm torn about the precriminal. My brother, a
lawyer, says there's legal precedent for deciding he's guilty of
something, but he doesn't defend it.
Elizabeth
And
Dear Dr. Pournelle:
First, I would like to wish you and yours a happy
New Year! In reading the article regarding the conviction for attempted
child rape, it does trouble me that he was charged with a crime for which
there was no victim. I did a quick scan of my state's criminal code and
found that, as I suspected, the law presumes an actual person as a victim.
This case may go the way of the recent case decided by the US Supreme
Court regarding "virtual" child porn, that is where no actual
children are exploited. The Court there basically ruled no exploited child
victim no crime. Frankly, in 18 years of law practice, I have never seen
the State expend serious resources on a case with no clear, real victim
unless someone in the DA's office wants to make a splash. I suspect that
is the case here.
On the other hand, attempt crimes require the
following 1. A person with the desire to commit a crime (sex with a child)
2. Intentionally engages in actions that would constitute a crime if the
circumstances surrounding the conduct were as the person believes them to
be; (talking to the woman about getting the child and going to the home at
the time expecting the child to be there for his "use" and 3. He
acts with the intent to complete the crime under the circumstances
surrounding the conduct as he believes them to be, and the conduct
constitutes a substantial step toward the commission of the offense. This
person's entire course of action has to indicate the intent to commit the
crime. Finally, its no defense that the crime was never actually
committed.
In this case, it appears that he was there ready to
do the crime, which makes it a crime. Not thinking about it, not talking
about it, not planning it-on the premises and ready to have sex with a
child. This is what takes it out of "pre-crime"
Since I tend to think that the best way to deal with
child rapists involves a wall and a firing party and assuming the facts as
reported were true then I hope that the Kansas prison system accords him
the same type of reception that pedophiles get in the Tennessee penal
system.
Rick Cartwright, Esq.
This chap clearly intended to commit a crime (or
a jury believed he did anyway, which is about as good as we can do on
intent), and given that he really meant to do it, getting him off the
streets seems a good idea for protection of society. It's still
disturbing: no victim, no possible victim.
The virtual porn case seems clearer, since no one
is harmed by viewing either viewing or producing electronically generated
pictures of any kind whatever. The notion that to make a kiddie porn movie
required harming an actual kid and thus the existence of the stuff was
evidence of a crime, and viewing it was therefore to make oneself and
accessory -- sort of like possession of ivory or the skin of an endangered
species animal -- was reasonable. If it can be shown that no human was
harmed in the production of this video (although a few billion electrons
were inconvenienced) it doesn't seem reasonable to punish its possession
as a crime.
To continue the analogies, suppose it was
electronic pictures of whale hunting, which is definitely illegal now. Or
lion hunts, or elephant hunts. Hmm. Such pictures exist. Should we
dig up Gregory Peck's body and throw it into the Los Angeles River? He
participated in making the movie, didn't eh?
We can agree there is something disturbing about
people who want to fantasize about having sex with children, or committing
violent rapes, or who like to watch snuff movies; but should they be
prosecuted for thoughtcrimes?
And this is only the beginning of the legal
problems we're going to be facing this Century...
And see below
Hi Jerry,
On Dec 31st one of your items
said:
"The following
is not surprising but potentially serious: Subject: Microsoft Reader
format cracked"
I honestly don't see why. Baen books sells their
e-books in an open format and report very good sales. I also saw
"Fallen Angels" back in the bookstore, and since I couldn't find
my old copy I bought it again, this, inspite of the fact that it's
available in the Baen Free Library and I could have simply downloaded it
for free.
I do have some titles, both e-books that I paid for
from Baen, and some from the free library that I don't have paper copies
of, however they are in a minority since I inevitably want a physical copy
of books that I enjoy reading. While I do not approve of and don't
participate in the downloading of illegal copies of books, I truly do not
believe that this is a major problem. I have yet to see Harlan Ellison et
al actually provide any proof at all that this has hurt book sales,
especially since the books he's complaining about most aren't even
available for sale. (hint for Harlan: Maybe people want to buy them but
can't, maybe he should make a deal to have his back catalogue reprinted
instead of complaining that people want his novels)
Presently I'm reading "The Prince" and
still hoping that I'll see another Janissaries novel in the not too
distant future!
Have a Happy New Year,
John
Harlan actually makes considerable money from his
older books: he bought up all the remaindered copies and sells them at his
lectures, for considerable markup.
But I tend to agree that electronic piracy is, as
yet, not a big problem. My worry is that once the format is good and the
instrument for reading them ubiquitous -- and I think the Tablet PC is
both good enough and destined to be ubiquitous -- then electronic sales
will become important, and digital rights management may be as well. We'll
have to see. I'm not rabid on the subject, but I am concerned.
From Ed Hume:
I know that there are many theories, but this has
the right feel:
December 21, 2002 5:20 p.m. Twinkle, Twinkle
An astronomer says the Star of Bethlehem was Jupiter.
Yes, Virginia, there really was a Star of
Bethlehem.
From http://www.nationalreview.com/miller/miller122102.asp
An interesting theory. Thanks!
Iraq once more:
Hello, Jerry,
The news today -- Saturday -- carried accounts of
President Bush's talks with the press about N. Korea and Iraq.
The Post said: "Bush also offered a new
rationale for a preemptive strike on Iraq, declaring that an attack 'from
Saddam Hussein or a surrogate of Saddam Hussein would cripple our economy.
'This economy cannot afford to stand an attack,' he
said. 'And I'm going to protect the American people.'"
The full story is at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
articles/A60819-2002Dec31.html
This sounds loopy: an insult to the skill and
dedication of the US armed forces, and an insult to the intelligence of
Americans.
(a) Are we supposed to believe that the Iraqi forces
could ride their camels across Syria, around Israel, over the Suez canal,
through Egypt and across North African to the Atlantic, and there hitch
rides...no, enough...I'm being ridiculously sarcastic. (and Iraqis
probably don't ride camels. I confess: possibly occidentalist prejudice
and contempt. Oops.)
Instead, I'll quote from one of my favorite SF
writers: no foreign army will ever drink from the Mississippi without our
say-so.
(b) As preposterous as the thought of Saddam's
forces getting over here, the President's answer damages the ways that
Americans ponder our foreign policy. It assumes that he does not have to
make a sane and rational case for his policy -- that it is enough that he
says "boo", so we should jump.
Political leaders -- not "politicians" but
leaders -- should have the moral core to demand that the President talk
plain truth with America. Every time we accept nonsense from the
President, something, maybe a little bit, but something real dies in what
makes us the US.
I don't like to wave the flag, and boast, "Hey
look! I'm patriotic!" (Some of that is probably linked to having
heard too many sermons from my old pastor, Rev. Owen Osborne, in his
Kentucky baritone, telling us to pray constantly but without showing off.
"Don't say, 'Look how fervent I am...just be fervent.'"
Quietly, fervently, without American-flag leather
jackets, I think this democratic republic lives by honest and open talk.
When the talk, the "discourse", in more trendy terms, is a pack
of blather that covers what the Administration plans, it mean that the
Administration is planning and executing policy without attachment to the
American people. An attachment should go two ways: they speak. We listen
and reply. They listen and reply...Right now, anyone can see that the
Administration does not believe what they're saying to justify their war
in Iraq.
That kills a piece of what America really is.
Yes, the tendency started earlier. I know about
George Creel and the office of war information / propaganda during World
War I. Curiously, this new war has an eerie similarly to Wilson's golden
hopes to make a war to make the world safe for democracy. I read Wilson,
and something appeals to me, something makes my heart beat a little
faster, but that something is not necessarily good.
The point of who started the habit of lying to
America is not important now. The important thing, now, is to recognize
that it's being done; to disentangle our natural eagerness to see the war
and the slippery dishonest talk as only important in the endless baloney
battles between Democrats and Republicans.
I'm one American who does not care. I don't want to
be told to care whether Clinton was worse, or just as bad, or a shining
example of honest discourse. He's not President anymore. It doesn't
matter. Same for whether the Reagan/Bush CIA gave Saddam his nerve gas and
helped him to use it against the Iranians. It no longer matters.
It's time to talk about the real issues with Iraq,
and Pakistan's nuclear missiles, and North Korea's plans.
If those issues are too technical for Americans to
think about, then we've lost what matters in this country.
(No, I'm feeling pessimistic tonight.)
Regards,
John Welch
Well, I am often the pessimist; I think I am less
of one than you tonight. But I agree, to do the right thing for the wrong
reasons is not good even if it is done well; and having the wrong reasons
often mitigates against doing it well.
The bit about no foreign power being able to take
a drink from the Mississippi was itself a quote, from Daniel Webster when
Secretary of State. In the Revolutions of 1848 a Hungarian hero named
Kossuth fled after the Holy Alliance put down the rebellions in Austria. A
US warship picked him up in Trieste just ahead of Austrian Imperial
agents. The Austrians protested, and Webster's defiant reply said in part
that the United States peacefully governed an empire compared to which the
Habsburg dominions were but a patch upon the earth. Lincoln later
said much the same thing. Both used the line about no one being able to
drink from the Mississippi without our let and leave: partly a reference
to the Battle of New Orleans, of course.
Policy discussion
and summary continues.
And we have
Another nail in the coffin of the American airline
industry. Delta, United, all the rest are going to become part of Amtrak,
soon, at this rate.
Comair Pilot Arrested for Carrying Knife in Carryon
Bag: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAW90FREAD.html
The Associated Press Published: Dec 31, 2002
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - A Comair pilot was charged with disorderly conduct
after federal airport screeners found a knife in his carryon bag, police
said. Capt. Rickey L. Mayle initially denied he was carrying a knife,
which was detected Sunday by an X-ray at Harrisburg International Airport
before Mayle was to board a flight to Atlanta, police said. A screener
searched the bag and found the knife with a 3-inch serrated blade. Mayle,
46, later said the knife had been in his bag since September, and he had
forgotten about it, police said. The FBI was investigating the incident,
officials said. The early morning flight was delayed more than 1 1/2 hours
until another pilot could be found, Comair spokesman Nick Miller said.
Mayle was released without bail pending a preliminary hearing, police
said. He did not return a telephone message left at his home Tuesday.
I've really got to begin wondering if the reason for
Homeland Airline Security isn't to get us all conditioned to accepting
police state treatment. It certainly doesn't seem like true security is
the goal. What other reason is there for this nonsense?
Happy New Year to you and yours,
Jim Riticher
That is probably not the intent, exactly,
although a docile population is usually desired by government. It is
certainly the effect.
Rules. Ordnung! Your papers, please.
Americans are not accustomed to this sort of thing. There's no evidence
that it works at any level we'd tolerate -- now. So perhaps the notion is
to get us to where we will tolerate secret police pervasiveness.
But as I say, probably not intentional in the
sense that this is the goal. We are dealing with an ethic of intent:
"WE MEANT WELL!" and so long at they mean well, they don't take
responsibility for their actions. It's pretty common...
On the Star of Bethlehem
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
I have listened to preachers and read commentary on
the Star of Bethlehem and the wise men for years. The wise men brought
three gifts, but there is no mention in the Bible of how many men brought
the gifts. One Baptist preacher I had said the number was given in
literature as anywhere from two to fourteen. http://www.pbs.org has some
commentary on the Star and the wise men. Even they admit it is
speculation, with no verifiable answer.
Another Baptist preacher I had made a study of the
Star in old manuscripts. He said the word translated as "star"
could also mean "glow" or "aura", and it was his
personal belief that what the wise men saw was an aura over the manger.
Everyone commenting on the matter agrees that God could do as he wished,
and it is not our place to tell Him what He can or cannot do. The book of
Job permits us to speculate on what He did and why He did it.
regards,
William L. Jones wljones@dallas.net
Well there are several motives for trying to find
a "natural" explanation of phenomena like the Star. One is
simple debunking by people who don't believe Miracles are possible, and
therefore that none happened. There is another group that's a bit harder
to understand: generally churchgoers who try to explain away miracles by
such means as psycho-somatic illnesses. The proper question for them is,
"How do you explain the Resurrection?" And if that is explained
away by something to do with suspended animation (thus asserting the
incompetence of Roman executioners), the proper answer is "Why
bother?" As St. Paul said, if Christ be not risen, then all our faith
is in vain.
C. S. Lewis did one of his best works on
Miracles. As he shows, most of those who write about them -- believers or
otherwise -- don't seem to know what they are talking about. Miracles
certainly do not contradict the laws of nature: If Nature were not lawful,
miracles would be impossible by definition. If anything can happen, then
nothing is miraculous.
None of this addresses whether certain events
happened as described or not. Either one believes the accounts of
Miracles, or one does not; but refusing to believe because "that's
impossible" or "we know better now" is simply silly. We
know more science now, but no one in Roman Palestine believed that women
had children without having known men, or that men rose from the dead, or
that leprosy spontaneously went away from whole batches of people.
As to the argument that "the Universe is
vast, so much more vast than the ancients suspected, how can you suppose
that the Earth is the Center of it?", no one who thinks about the
matter supposes the Earth is at the center of the Universe or is even very
important in God's plan. We are told that God loves humanity even though
humanity doesn't often act in ways to deserve that; not that there are no
other creatures God loves, or that the universe was created for humanity,
or that humanity plays much part in God's overall Plan. We were told, sort
of, that we get to participate in Creation and even become co-Creators,
but there aren't many specifics on that; nor have we been assured that our
participation is important. Of course we haven't been told that it isn't
important. Machiavelli: "God is not willing to do everything,
and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to
us."
The following letter has been edited: it has
several topics, and I have broken it into separate letters.
To: Jerry Pournelle, Chaos Manor
Re: Google
The architect Frank Lloyd Wright once wrote that he
preferred crooked contractors to incompetent contractors, because he could
police the crooked contractors. I have about 34 search sites listed in my
bookmarks file. Of course, they don't all have independent underlying
search engines, but they are mostly independent economic actors, capable
of switching. This is a stopgap solution, of course. In the long run, the
only viable solution is to incorporate metasearch capabilities into
browsers, together with the ability to manages different querying
languages, etc. Once Google understands that everything it sends will be
automatically rechecked, verified, and cross-referenced, one need not
worry very much about Google's integrity.
In a broadband environment, this would also have the
advantage that much less personal information goes offsite. You write a
specific query; the browser creates a more general one which is a superset
of your query in the search engine's language; and uses it to retrieve
thousands to millions of pages which it then caches. Your full query is
then reapplied to these cached copies, as is the inevitable redirect
query.
Andrew D. Todd
adtodd@mail.wvnet.edu
http://rowboats-sd-ca.com/
-I confess some lack of understanding on how
Google works; I gather that it uses a number of rules that include
references to how often a site was accessed, and such like? It seems
unlikely we can duplicate that on individual systems, but perhaps I have
missed a point? I agree that competition will straighten out the problem. And
see below.
==-
Re: Transportation and the Airlines
Of course, obviously, there are so many things that
the internet can do better than any transportation system, and
transportation should be thought of as a residual category. There are
things you can do to promote internet expansion. For example, the noted
management guru Robert Townsend (_Up the Organization_, Avis Rent-A-Car)
stressed that as many people as possible should be set up as
near-independent businessmen, with the central management as their banker.
This would decrease the emphasis on corporate courtiership, "face
time," etc. Fairly minor changes in the tax codes and SEC regulations
could probably discourage companies from setting up their own internal
socialism. Companies should be encouraged to meet their obligations to
long-standing employees with buy-outs rather than lifetime employment. As
it stands, we have a fairly large class of people who have to turn up
every day and look busy.
Now, as to transportation proper, most airline
routes and schedules are simply not viable once the time sensitive
business travel is stripped away by the internet. Before September 11, the
break-even point for flying versus driving on the basis of speed alone was
about three hundred miles. What with incidental delays, near-shutdowns of
commuter airlines, etc., the figure has probably moved up to a thousand
miles or so. The question is not what to do about the airlines-- they are
about to discover the brutal reverse leverage of network economics. When a
town only has one flight a day, the airline's effective speed can drop
down to some ridiculously low figure, like twenty miles an hour. When you
flew to Comdex, I presume you did so on the assumption that other people
would be there. At that level, all of the airlines are a single network.
As each airline goes bankrupt, other airlines will become exposed, and go
bankrupt in their turn. The experience of the railroads suggests that once
a network-oriented industry starts downsizing in response to the threat of
superior technology, the situation is likely to go out of control.
Tactical retreat turns into uncontrolled panic. All investment is stopped.
Everything gets cannibalized for quick cash without stopping to ask
whether it is valuable in the new dispensation Paradoxically, there is
also often a refusal to make judicious retreats until the last moment,
which is of course when they are most likely to become panics. When the
railroads went through their downsizing, they had to be dragged kicking
and screaming into such basic improvements as unit trains for coal, etc. I
suppose one of the major reasons that oil came to be used as stationary
fuel, before being eliminated in the seventies energy crisis, was that oil
was being delivered in pipelines all the way from Texas to the
northeastern industrial belt, whereas the railroads refused to recognize
that coal was a bulk commodity. Expect the airlines to display similar
mental resistance. The gratuitous stuff like body searches are simply
icing on the cake.
The real question is what is going to replace the
airlines when they simply cease to function. In theory, the railroads can
do so, and if we had railroads like the ones they have in Europe, it would
simply be a case of "in practice." The Chinese are about to open
the first working maglev railroad, between the city center and airport of
Shanghai. I understand that they are already considering the next step, a
line from Shanghai to Beijing.
However, in the case of American railroads, there is
a strange complication which will have to be overcome. American railroads
have been in economic decline since about 1914, and this has produced an
ingrained "declinist" mentality. Railroaders are very, very
phobic about using computers and electronic controls generally. A boxcar
costs at least $100,000 and about all the electronics it has is a passive
identification transponder, working on the same principle as merchandise
anti-shoplifting tags. The situation is even worse in passenger railroads,
what with Amtrak being a government agency.
Andrew D. Todd
adtodd@mail.wvnet.edu
http://rowboats-sd-ca.com/
Sensible
==
Re: Harlan Ellison: and his remainder copies.
I think there may be one minor factor which Ellison
has possibly not taken account of. It's called www.bookfinder.com, and it
stitches thousands of used bookstores together into a more or less
efficient market. I looked him up, and I got the impression that large
numbers of his books were selling at about the minimum figure which would
pay the postage and handling. No one is likely to succeed in cornering the
used paperback market. The author would have to pay several dollars for a
book which only realized twenty cents in royalties in the first place, and
the bookseller would eagerly replenish his supply from the local salvation
army store. When I was reading for doctoral comps, I used bookfinder
extensively to avoid having to practically live in the library. I found
that I could buy my reading list in at about nine dollars a book, and in
the process, I got a pretty good feel for the kinds of people on the other
end. There are a lot of housewives who visit garage sales, buy up all the
books, and then turn around and resell them fast at low prices on the
internet. Someone with a thousand dollars or so of working capital can
make a fairly decent living on a home business that way, at least much
better than working at Wal-mart.
Andrew D. Todd
adtodd@mail.wvnet.edu
http://rowboats-sd-ca.com/
Actually Harlan has bought hardbound remainders
and sells them as signed books after his lectures. Not quite the same
thing, and while I don't do that, that's mainly to avoid the hassle
factor. And Harlan may not be doing this now; he described the process to
me some years ago. Seemed like a good idea, but I don't do lecture tours
as he does.
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