Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 20:13:04 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Dave Hayes <dave@jetcafe.org> 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: <3D6D9140.1366128B@mindspring.com> References: <200208290126.g7T1QC106932@hokkshideh2.jetcafe.org>
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Dave Hayes wrote:
> > This is patently false. You can commit to comply with consensus,
> > while still dissenting.
>
> If you are dissenting or complying, you are still acknowledging that
> consensus still exists and has meaning. If you do neither, consensus
> stops having meaning, and then you are open to different perceptions.
As long as a group of people can get together and kill you and/or
otherwise deny you access to nominally public resources, consensus
has meaning.
> That's not effective either. Those who think congress really runs
> America are enjoying a most delicious delusion.
My black helicopter is in the shop.
[ ... ]
> I don't -want- it[anarchy]. It's there to be, if possible. Anything I want
> is in the way of what I truly need. But that's another 10 message
> interchange.
Hardly. In any case, anarchy is the emergent property of the system
you describe, so in wanting the system, you want anarchy.
> >> You see, people that talk about revolutions, people who hate this or
> >> that government...they are all misguided. I believe "The Who" said it
> >> best: "Meet the new boss, he's the same as the old boss". Mankind's
> >> evolutionary state is such that no matter what organization or
> >> community forms, corruption, inefficiency and politics will derail any
> >> -real- "good" that said organization can do.
> >
> > So work on human evolution, instead of pissing in people's
> > campfires because they aren't building fusion powered heaters
> > fast enough for you.
>
> Who's pissing in people's campfires now? Did you even read what I said
> with intent to understand, or are you just looking for a good time in
> argument?
I *understand*, I *disagree*.
I disagree with your claims that adversity is a positive evolutionary
pressure (anything which is not potentially fatal prior to reporduction
is not an evolutionary pressure, positive or otherwise).
I disagree with your thesis about mankinds "current evolutionary state"
(which has so many assumptions in it that it's hard to know where to
start picking it apart).
I disagree with your preposterous claim that "corruption, inefficiency
and politics will derail any -real- ``good''" that could arise from an
emergent organization.
Oh yeah: I also disagree that organizations and communities are always
self-assembled, and can not be the result of a conscious design -- a
thesis upon which a lot of your faith is apparently based.
> >> This is not a bad or good thing, it simply indicates the current level
> >> of human evolution. Humans are not ready for the next level at the
> >> moment.
> > Says you and Ted Kaczynski.
>
> Who?
The Unibomber. A Luddite, who believes that humans were not, by
nature, prepared for the rate of technological advance that is
already upon them, and believed that he could sabotoge that advance
through mail bombs delivered to people he considered to be key
intellectuals contributing to the change.
Whether or not his thesis (or yours) was/is correct is irrelevent
to the fact that it's about 150 years too late to put that genie
back into the bottle in any case, even if we were stupid enough to
want to.
[ ... allowing people to follow their internal codes of conduct, to the
potential detriment of the larger society, is probematic ... ]
> For you, maybe. I find, once I remove the consensual pressure to
> conform, that it's rather impossible to violate your own internal
> codes. Remember that you can't say anything about another's
> violations, just your own.
It remains that there are people who act as they do, not out of
an intrinsic rightousness, but out of a fear of the penalty. If
you are such an advocate of unbounded evolution, surely you must
recognize the rule of law as an evolutionary pressure imposed by
a socitey on its members. The intent of socially imposed penalties
for transgressions is to close the feedback circuit, so that the
society can achieve homeostasis. Complexity without order is chaos,
which has none of the interesting emergent properties.
[ ... non-conformance for the sake of disruption, rather than the
sake of non-conformance itself ... ]
> If you define sociopath as "one who refuses to conform to consensual
> standards just because they are consensual standards", I'd agree,
No, I define it in terms of violent disruption of the established
social order. The interesting thing is that you seem to believe that
the noosphere is somehow just as limited and constrained as physical
geography, for some reason, and that, as a result, it's important for
your ideas to colonize someone else's established space, rather than
creating your own. I guess it sucks to be the pied piper of Hamlin,
if you build a shiny new city, and no rats appear for lack of an
inadequate public sanitation system.
> > You forgot about people who eat people.
>
> I always forget them, they aren't real to me. I've never seen one.
> Even if I had seen one, I wouldn't focus on that one extrema as
> my shining example of why sociopathy is wrong and you must conform.
It's a good example of behaviour which is intolerably sociopathic,
in the larger context. If you want to pick another example for me,
then all we will be arguing about is level of tolerability, which
is subjective. It's unreasonable to expect everyone else to adopt
your thresholds.
> > You seem to believe that I disagree with your psotion because I
> > don't understand it,
>
> If you understood it, you wouldn't be saying what you have been
> saying, nor presenting the examples you have been presenting.
That's false. You apparently believe that to understand it is to
agree with it. Pick your examples; I will still disagree with the
foundations.
[ ... humans are machines which can malfunction, and certain malfunctions
are not tolerable in *any* society ... ]
> My "position", as you call it, takes this into account. You have to be
> immune (somehow) to the high sigma endpoints of the bell curve or you
> need to evolve more.
Personally immune? Or socio-situationally immune ("it can't happen
because it not being able to happen is an emergent property of the
system")? Isn't it kind of hypocritical to elevate immunity, on
the one hand, and bemoan a systems immune response, on the other?
> > If it's "to each. according to his need", well, then, all that's
> > really necessary is to manufacture "need".
>
> "Need" has to be moved to "want" or even "desire" before what I was
> talking about can unfold. Put another way, no one will need or want to
> abuse the system, because it won't occur to them and because there
> really will be no system to abuse. You dont need a system if everyone
> is enlightened and aware.
Simon Bar Sinister had little blinking control lights that he
would attach to the tops of people's heads, in order to make
them behave the way he wanted them to behave. I was just as
happy when Underdog opened the secret compartment of his ring
to reveal his "Underdog Super Energy Pill", and sent the bugger
packing.
> > None of these work to avoid costing me storage space or time to
> > download, or per packet charges to download, etc..
>
> Well. Let's see just how much your averagea 4K message will cost you
> to store. I'll even give you a SCSI disk (more expensive). Current
> prices of 36GB scsi disks are $220-$250. We'll use $250 to give you
> even more leeway. This is just under 7 $/GB. A 4K message works out
> to costing you .00267 of a cent. Even if this person sent out 100
> messages, that's .267 of a cent.
>
> I recognize some people are penny pinchers but...come on! ;)
Tell that to the people who invented mailbox quotas. I notice you
failed to address bandwidth cost related issues.
[ ... ]
> Unsubscribe to the mailing list? ;)
And let the troll achive his goal uncontested? Go somewhere else?
Only to have the troll follow, because, with everyone unsubscribed
to freebsd-hackers and subscribed to freebsd-hacker instead, there
is no one to piss on?
That moves the problem, but it hardly solves it, does it?
> > The easiest one I can think of is requiring sender certificates.
>
> Sorry. You are acting like one troll is a huge cost. It isn't. Let me
> assure you in my vast experience with trolls and message group
> communities, even 100 messages from 10 trolls only hurts the psyche of
> the community. Storage and transport costs are too cheap to care about
> what one person can do short of scripting floods.
What if it's "the psyche of the community" itself which you value?
> > The troll. I can make the brick stop any time I want.
>
> I find it hard to believe that you can stop a brick in mid flight
> to your brain, and yet you can't stop one troll from affecting your
> world with the flick of a single key.
The brick was self-inflicted in the example. Dropping the brick
is an action. Blocking the troll is an action.
> >> > What you are describing is an overly simplistic version of a
> >> > mutual security game.
[ ... ]
> While these are some excellent academic links, not a one of them has
> anything even remotely resembling what I was describing.
I told you that it was overly simplistic. 8-).
> >> Actually, the important part is our disagreement as to where to hang
> >> out.
> > ???
>
> I hang out in many places, generally preferring the anarchistic to the
> overly fascist. You seemed to assert you only like fascist places.
No, I like freedom, both from oppression of the free exchange of
ideas by a central authority, and oppression of the free echange
of ideas by individual bullies.
Defeating the neghborhood bully doesn't of necessity breed another
neighborhood bully, particularly if word gets around that bullies
have "accidents" in that particular neighborhood.
> >> Accomodation and toleration are a bit different, don't you think?
> >
> > No. If you tolerate a behaviour, you implicitly condone that
> > behaviour.
>
> Oh please. Not this tired old argument. Again, you are violating your
> "excluded middle" paradoxia. It's possible to neither condone nor
> decry a behavior, don't you think?
Condone: to pardon or overlook voluntarily; especially : to treat
as if trivial, harmless, or of no importance
> Additionally, what kind of egotistical concept is it where you
> have to render forth on each behavior you see?
On each behaviour you see that you find antisocial, you mean.
It's human.
[ ... ]
> Yes, some lists will rigorously block trolls and others will not. That
> doesn't mean the trolls don't exist or will not emerge.
It means they will have to go elsewhere to find their voice; and
since the desire is for them to go elsewhere, the reason that
happens is pretty irrelevent.
> -I- think that troll access should not be blocked. -You- can do
> whatever you want, but I would recommend that you learn to filter
> trolls out at your brain since it's demonstrably the most efficient
> way to do so.
I disagree with your efficiency claim. It is more efficient for
the trolls to not exist.
> I never agreed with Occam's Razor. Sometimes it's not accurate.
Science works.
> > Of course, I have a theory on why they have arrived, and what
> > their actual goals are (they are not the goals or purpose you
> > state for trolls, in general, because they are not the emergent
> > environmental trolls you claim are the only possible trolls),
>
> Man, are you good at reading things into what I said that aren't
> there or what? Do I have to forumlate a set of theorems so you can
> dispute each one separately?
Depends; do you want to have your ideas taken seriously, or do
you want to lump a whole bunch of them together, so that if a
person swallows 70% of them, they get 30% of them "for free"?
> > and I could even give them pointers, since they probably have
> > not bothered to mathematically model the project that they are
> > attempting to disrupt (they are probably incapable of doing the
> > necessary math, actually).
>
> Ok, so what is your theory?
My theory of what? Of why the trolls are suddenly raising their
pointy heads? Of my model for some Open Source projects? Of the
several buttons which, if pressed, would cause the whole machine
to fall apart?
> > It's an intentional tit-for-tat.
>
> Of course, oh superior one. Tell me what else I should know? =)
You are talking in subtexts, refusing to address real points, or
permit them divisibility from a cloud of issues, so I have responded
in kind.
[ ... ]
> > My failure to agree with you is not a failure of you to properly
> > communicate what you feel is the worth of your thesis, it's a
> > result of my disagreement with that thesis.
>
> I don't think we've reached a point where you -can- agree or disagree.
> I think you are still not understanding the thesis, and being a
> subjugate to Occam, you take the simplest road which is to disagree.
>
> I also think it will take more than email to communicate the principia
> of that thesis. I might have to try back in 20 years.
Alternately, you can post your thesis on a web site somewhere,
and post the URL, rather than continually alluding to it, but
never saying it.
> > What about your putative "troll" of "the wrong race" who chooses
> > as his means moving in next door to the racist who is actually
> > in the process of attempting to "live among his own kind"?
>
> Why is it society's job to prevent each from learning their own
> lesson? Let them fight each other and learn, eh? Neither is trying
> to destroy "society" per se, they are just trying to destroy each
> other's race.
Stay out of the middle, and let one wipe out the other, if it can?
[ ... ]
> What about him? Eventually, someone he tries to eat will kill him.
And that's an acceptable outcome?
> Of course you can define a situation that supports your position,
> just like I can define one to support mine. The key debating point
> is, my position is self directed, yours is others directed. Which is
> more efficient? I assert self directed self improvement, rather than
> other's directed jihadic purging, takes the least energy and is more
> productive in the long run.
So CBS is on a Jihad against you, personally, because they deny
you air time to vent your views?
[ ... ]
> Ad absurdum arguments are seductive, but they don't produce workable
> realities...only absurd ones.
Hardly. The point out the fallacy of arguing from the specific
to the general, which is their intended function.
[ ... ]
> There are no misfits in a utpoian anarchy, by definition.
Nor in a fascist police state...
> What is your definition of a "troll that is not a minor misfit"?
One who trolls because he is paid to troll, rather than from
a sense of heart-felt convictions, whatever the coin in which
he is paid.
A troll who trolls from heart-felt convictions will either leave
or achieve accomodation within the group. The other has no
interest in achieving accommodation, or even permtting any form
of coexistance. He is a sociopath.
[ ... ]
> > On the flip side, you keep portraying sender blocking as if it
> > were some form of capital punishment, inviting extreme comparisons.
>
> It is to me. It's lost information. I learn just as much from the
> detractors as I do from the supporters. Block the detractors and
> that's a lot of information lost.
It's not lost; it is merely forced to see alternate venue. You
are free to go to the other venue and learn from the detractors
there.
> >> It's not working.
> > That's because trolling is not "art", any more than any other
> > criminal activity is "art".
>
> Bah. Did you see the latest troll (message ID
> 20020828155003.37CC33960@sitemail.everyone.net) towards you?
>
> A masterpiece, I tell you! Brilliantly executed to make you seem like
> the good guy. And trolling about trolls, man that is exquisite. I'm
> surprised a man of your apparent culture level cannot appreciate this
> art form. ;)
Hardly. It's like appreciating Thomas Harris' Jamie Gumb's
sewing skills, or a sausage factory: very hard to appreciate
the art, once you know the raw materials.
> Criminal activity can be art. Ever see some of the graffiti artists
> in central LA? My god these people are talented with a spray paint
> can. Some of the stuff is so eye catching, it's hard to drive through
> the area without risking an accident. I can send you some photos if
> you don't frequent these kinds of areas.
>
> Just because the results and/or actions are illegal doesn't mean they
> aren't artistic.
Criminal art is a subset of criminal activity, not an equivalence
set.
> > "42".
>
> Yes, Douglas Adams almost had it right. Still, the real trick is to
> find the question.
Yes. That's what I was making fun of: you see it as a big
computation of something, but you don't know what, yet you
still see value in the act of computation... the means justify
the ends.
[ ... ]
> > I don't think it's possible for individuals to assert any
> > important amount of control over more than a few people,
> > either. But it's demonstrably true that society can, and
> > does, exert such control. Where you seem to differ from me
> > is that I think it *should*.
>
> Society doesn't do a very good job of it, and that is part of the
> reason I think it shouldn't. The other part is that I think
> it's dishonorable to control others, I don't care who you are.
Name one person who has been assessed the death penalty who has
subsequently repeated their crime. 8-).
[ ... design problem ... ]
> Good luck. This is extremely difficult to do without stifling
> communication from those you want to hear from (who aren't trolls).
I see this as a result of having trolls: an consequence of their
actions is general oppression.
> > I understand that you're claiming trolls are not sociopaths, they
> > are merely people with the email equivalent of Tourette's Syndrome.
> > Understand me, when I say I won't hire these people to work the
> > mailing lists, any more than I'd hire myself as a spotter.
>
> I dunno, I think a troll would be a perfect moderator. Trolls truly
> understand the impact of specific communications, more than most
> people anyway. And you'd have one less troll. |)
This is the Theo de Raddt argument. The fallacy there is that the
people who "take their ball and go home", and the people who follow
them, will always be the most volatile segment of any society.
[ ... ]
> In picking a specific case such that you can fail to see the general
> paradigm, who's really losing here?
You, in failing to communicate your view of the general paradigm
effectively?
[ ... ]
> Which creates script kiddies and exploiters and contributes to the
> wonderous dance of opposites. ;)
Script kiddies and exploiters create themselves.
-- Terry
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