Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 23:03:38 -0700 From: Dave Hayes <dave@jetcafe.org> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: Lawrence Sica <lomifeh@earthlink.net>, Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>, Ceri Davies <setantae@submonkey.net>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-ID: <200208280603.g7S63h198402@hokkshideh2.jetcafe.org>
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Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> writes: > Dave Hayes wrote: >> > As for definitions, yours is wrong; the correct definition can be >> > found at: >> > http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/troll.html >> >> Just who decided this is the "correct" definition? I would accept >> "consensual", but not "correct". I define a troll differently >> (and more generally), so perhaps this is the source of our >> differences. ;) > It's the consensus that a consensus defines correctness. 8-). Unfortunately, adherence to this consensus prevents you from seeing anything else that might be there. For example, it was one time known by consensus that the correct viewpoint was that the world was flat... The real question is how useful the definition is to explain something that people might not be seeing. >> > Some parts of human psychology are hard-wired. You point about >> > the ideas is valid, but so is the fact that most people can >> > remove from their consciousness an idea by destroying the source; >> > if you destroy what you fear or do not understand, it is no longer >> > something begging to be understood, nor something to fear. By >> > destroying the source, you destroy the idea, in effigy. >> >> This is something only time and evolution will solve. *shrug* > > I disagree. There are no counter-pressures, unless you make > it evolutionarily disadvantageous to be a troll, by removing > trolls from the gene pool before they have an opportunity to > breed. The stagnation that would occur in that instance will leave us genetically weak as a race and unable to adapt. >> > Rosseau's Theory of the Social Contract permits the state >> > to take such actions as it deems necessary for the common >> > good. >> >> Just why is this Theory more correct than others? > > It's axiomatic in any society that accepts it. That doesn't make it globally correct, or even useful. >> > Thus trolls serve the most oppresive minority of society by >> > triggering measures which can be justified to the majority, >> > but once in place, abused to oppress *any* dissent. >> >> You look at this as a forced action. I look at this as the test for >> the next evolutionary level of community. If the community can >> withstand even the toughest troll and yet refrain from implementing >> such draconian and fascist measures, that community is on a higher >> evolutionary level than it's counterparts. > > And if not, we'll throw them up against the wall and remove > the genes that permit such dissent to arise in the first > place. I didn't say that. You did. The real solution is for individuals to make trolls irrelavent. Until we can do that as a group, we aren't there yet. > In the limit, though, no one in the majority minds a fasciest > state. So deleting the minority is topologically equivalent to > tolerating them, I don't accept that. Deleting them means there are no more tests to tolerance, which means tolerance becomes weak. If another problem were to surface which required strong tolerance, the problem would not be solv-ed. >> Personally, if I can help it, I refrain from participating in >> communities with such measures in place. I find that real information >> is more accurately conveyed in the open arena, with all ranges of >> people (from the "STFU" d00d to the multisyllabic pleonastic >> pontificator) being allowed equal access to the mindshare. > If you like anarchy, you can always go hang out where anarchy > is welcome, instead of where it is not... This was true before you asserted it, and remains true after your attempt to make it a straw man. ;) >> Trolls are a necessary consequence to a community of individuals which >> provide evolutionary pressure that benefits everyone in the long >> run. They are not glorified, they should not also be villified. They >> simply exist. Why waste energy seeing them any other way? > Why punch the guy with the ghetto blaster on the public subway > in the face, and smash the ghetto blaster to bits? Because you haven't learned tolerance? > Some people are members of communities not by choice, but by > necessity, e.g. "The only way from point A to point B is to > go through the middle". There is always a choice. There may not be choices we prefer over others, and some choices may have starkly different returns on investment, but there are always choices. You can also choose to be tolerant. >> > No. You can not tar a positive-sum community with a brush >> > which applies only to zero-sum ideologues. >> >> Heh, I don't think we are arguing sums and results here. >> >> I assert the following. You take any large random group of people, >> some subset of them have common interests. This group forms a >> community. The anti-group is also formed (by implication if you >> must). That's how it works. Members of the anti-group are >> not-in-contact, and trickle into the group as trolls and kooks. > > And the sherrif throws them in jail, and they leave, or the > sherrif throws them in jail, and they learn their lesson, or > the sherrif throws them in jail, and the townfolk show up > that evening, carrying torches, and hang them from the tree > just outside of town as a warning to the next one. Since the genes are till out there, another one shows up and another and another...they keep getting thrown in jail, they get stronger while people on the outside get weaker. A meteor hits the planet, suddenly all the weak "societal" folk die and the people who've been in prison for years have the toughness to survive the coming ice age. > The recent spate of trolls on the FreeBSD mailing lists also > belies your theory: if your theory were correct, they would > have been there all along, and not be a relatively recent > phenomenon. How do you explain that away? Just because they don't post doesn't mean they aren't there. Perhaps they were biding their time? >> > There's a cost for everything, isn't there? The trick is to >> > choose actions which result in outcomes with the highest total >> > sum, even if that leaves you with a lower individual sum in the >> > short term. >> >> In short, "he who dies with the most toys wins"? That I don't buy. > > That's an incorrect paraphrasing of my statement. The highest > total sum is the *net* sum for all members of the society. > An individual is expected to conform to social norms. That is the entire problem with our planet to date. This is not the original purpose of the individual, nor does this game of maximizing sum have any meaning outside of the society it is in. Society expects individuals to conform to a standard that may or may not be appropriate for any particular individual to conform to. This tries to limit the genetic search space of the planet. It's counterproductive to the global algorithm. It also backfires constantly. >> The real "better", if it exists, exists for everyone. > The avowed racist and the cannibal? Them too. > That's like the PETA representative, who, when forced to > address the issue of tigers eating other animals, said "Can't > we just teach them to eat grass?". This flys in the face of: > An individual is expected to conform to social norms. Some individuals aren't here to do what society wants them to. I feel it's dishonorable to expect them to conform. >> This is highly general I'll admit. As applicable to FreeBSD, it's a >> bit easier to define your domain of comparison so that you can see >> what is "better" or "worse"...if you are well studied computer >> experts like most of us. >> >> Still, Microsoft (damn them) has the highest market share...even tho >> they leave much to be desired as a computer software company...people >> -still- buy their products when better free ones exist. We computer >> experts don't understand this, but it illustrates quite nicely that >> there are more dimensions of optima to "better" than we can quantify. > Normatively better free ones *do not* exist. Techincally > better, yes; normatively better, no. In effect you are saying if everyone uses FooOS, there's nothing normatively better. Is that really useful? > I never met a transhumanist I didn't like... ;^). A who? > On a similar note, we have ~1.6 million people in prision, and > another 4.4 million on probation in this country (~2.5% of the > total population). I have no problem with them being forcibly > removed from society for their failure to obey norms of human > behaviour, either. I do. Those are our survival as a race should a real mega-disaster happen. Without them, we don't survive (unless a mega-disaster never happens). > People who can only contribute destruction should be removed > from the gene pool. Nonsense. Creation and destruction are a dance. Both need to exist for either to exist. How would you destroy an old building or find out that a piece of software has security holes without those kind of people? ------ Dave Hayes - Consultant - Altadena CA, USA - dave@jetcafe.org >>> The opinions expressed above are entirely my own <<< "The king has been kind to me," a man was telling Nasrudin. "I planted wheat but the rains came. He heard of my troubles and compensated me for the damage done by the flood." Nasrudin thought for a moment. "Tell me," he asked, "how does one _cause_ a flood?" 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