Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 01:21:25 -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: <3D6DD985.81C8AF41@mindspring.com> References: <200208290456.g7T4up108342@hokkshideh2.jetcafe.org>
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Dave Hayes wrote:
> > 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).
>
> So you are disagreeing with most academic evolutionary theory?
Just yours. 8-).
> > 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).
>
> It's not my thesis. There's the first assumption. It's not even a
> paper. Look around you.
Wrong meaning of the word "thesis", but of course, you knew that...
> > I disagree with your preposterous claim that "corruption, inefficiency
> > and politics will derail any -real- ``good''" that could arise from an
> > emergent organization.
>
> You can't provide an example to refute this claim. Go on, try.
Define what you would consider an acceptable proof.
> > 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.
>
> Just where did you get this from?
Dave Hayes wrote: ..."no matter what organization or community forms"...
[ ... the Unibomber ... ]
> So this person was attempting demonstrate the lack of readiness
> by attempting to change society using destruction? Doomed to failure
> he was, not only would the demonstration be lost on most people
> (including you), but naturally society would react, find him, and
> "rehabilitate" him.
>
> How ironic.
I understood his reasons. I disagree with his goals, and further,
I condemn his methods.
As an aside, I have no idea where people keep getting the idea
that prisons are for the benefit of prisoners instead of the
benefit of the societies which build them.
> You consistently seem to put worldviews up on this altar for academic
> sacrifice. If you can get past that need, perhaps you are ready to
> see what I am saying. Until then, I very much doubt you can extract
> your brain from the sea of assumptions it sails upon enough to even
> consider parts of real truth. I'm afraid this must all seem so
> antithetical to your worldview that it's all to be rejected outright
> by you.
Yes. Mostly because ideas can be tested, and refined as a
result of having been tested.
> This is why I disagree that you understand. If you really understood,
> you would have long since removed the argument from the academic arena
> of thesis/proof/experiement, and attempted to interact with it in the
> arena of what you have experienced yourself.
The arena of the personal anecdote?
> Some concepts in truth cannot be expressed in the thesis framework,
> and are yet nevertheless true.
And it is only you who are looking at the cave mounth, instead
of at the shadows cast on the back wall of the cave?
At this point, you are decribing your personal faith, not truth.
[ ... ]
> > 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.
>
> This is no better than slavery.
We prefer the term "speed limit".
[ ... ]
> I recognize it, but normally I render such dishonorable intrusions
> irrelevant. I don't kill people...this isn't because there is some
> law with a penalty preventing me...it's because *I* choose not to
> kill people. And note...you can't make me. Period. There's a lot
> of other things I don't do on the same basis.
The correct term for a person in this state is "amoralist". It
arises from the (often blurred these days) distinction between
morals (imposed from without) and ethics (imposed from within).
This works well if one's ethics happen to coincide with the
morals of the society of which they are a member, and poorly
otherwise.
> As if humans were modellable as a collection of automata with preset
> behavior and reaction to external stimuli. Another reason I don't
> believe you understand.
Why is it that everyone believes that finite state automatons
are the ultimate answer to modelling complex systems? I'm sure
that this was not the intended result of the game of Life, nor
of Sugarscape.
The modelling I'm talking about is based on games theory, not on
automata, and has its basis in mutual security games.
> > Complexity without order is chaos, which has none of the interesting
> > emergent properties.
>
> Hmm, according to a lot of those links you posted, it's the boundary
> between order and chaos that is interesting and has emergent
> properties. ;)
Yes... the order is requisite for the emergent properties; I
said that.
[ ... sociopath, definition of ... ]
> > No, I define it in terms of violent disruption of the established
> > social order.
>
> That explains our disagreement then. |)
The alternative to "sociopath" is "terrorist"; I was giving the
benefit of the doubt.
> > 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.
>
> Ok, I'll bite. Why do you say that?
Your inital posting on the subject was to this mailing list, rather
than to your own mailing list, as were the troll postings which you
were defending so zealously in the posting. It's clear that the
region of the noosphere both would cultivate is inferilte, and so
both set out to try to plan their seeds in someone else's fertile
ground. Perhaps you should be questining your seeds, and not the
earth you inter them in.
[ ... ]
> > It's a good example of behaviour which is intolerably sociopathic,
> > in the larger context.
>
> But it's not real. There simply aren't any cannibals who settle here
> and live very long.
Quit attaching conditions like "and live very long". It implies
social action, and your argument is predicated on the idea that
individuals should be tolerated without social action as recourse
for social misbehaviour (e.g. blocking postings from trolls, etc.).
Either your argument is univerwsally valid, or it's not.
[ ... ]
> It's extreme to the absurd, which suits your
> purposes, but I don't buy absurdum argumenta easily. Consider this
> one: someone invents a perfect mind control drug and then becomes a
> medical doctor who prescribes these to his patients. Eventually
> the entire society is enslaved. Therefore we should not have doctors,
> since they could very well do that.
It's a cost/benefit and risk analysis, which comes out very much
in favor of having doctors. Getting back to the trolls, however,
you have yet to articulate a downside to them not being there.
> > That's false. You apparently believe that to understand it is to
> > agree with it.
>
> Not at all. You can disagree. I merely contend that you don't
> understand what I am mostly pointing at enough TO disagree with it
> meaningfully. You can still disagree, it's your right as a human being...
> at least untill your troll-control advocacy bears it's fruit. ;)
I'm not advocating it at this point; I haven't been driven to
it (yet). If it happens, you will know by the first example of
my advocacy of such an idea would be a draft RFC, and a set of
patches for sendmail, most of the mail clients in -ports, and
plugins for Outlook, Eudora, and perhaps Netscape.
I recognize that this would provide some rather serious capability
for oppression, which could be abused in the future at some point
in time (it would be rather trivial to impose in China, with state
run ISPs and the ability to do port redirection through particualr
server that required it, for example). So I refrain from writing
the code, because my threshold has not (yet) been exceeded. But
make no mistake: it's quite possible to "change the laws of physics"
for email transport for the net to squelch trolls, SPAM, ...and
politically "undesiarble" speech (an unfortunate side effect whose
cost would have to be excceded by my perception of the cost of
trolls).
It's even in keeping with the "end-to-end" philosophy... moreso
that the current SMTP services, which have no end-to-end guarantee
of non-repudiation.
[ ... ]
> > Pick your examples; I will still disagree with the foundations.
>
> Because, deep down, I stand for everything you hate. ;)
Probably not; I hold out hope, however misguided your ideas
about trolls may be.
[ ... ]
> > Personally immune? Or socio-situationally immune ("it can't happen
> > because it not being able to happen is an emergent property of the
> > system")?
>
> Personally immune. The buck stops at you.
So socio-situanal immunity is not permissable?
> > Isn't it kind of hypocritical to elevate immunity, on the one hand,
> > and bemoan a systems immune response, on the other?
>
> You are assuming a systems immune response where none is indicated.
Blocking trolls -- or SPAM -- as a result of the content of the
postings isn't a social immune response?
> > Tell that to the people who invented mailbox quotas.
>
> 4k still doesn't make an appreciable dent in them.
IYHO.
> > I notice you failed to address bandwidth cost related issues.
>
> Mostly because I think that is cheaper. Each post of the mailing list
> incurs the same cost. High membership and high volume means the troll
> is taking a very low percentage of the total cost. High membership and
> low volume lists are usually moderated, so are irrelevant. Low
> membership lists don't get the fan-out to be expensive on a per
> message basis.
I'm not talking about amortized cost, I'm talking individual cost.
You can't dismiss it that easily; in Japan, it costs per packet to
send packets (as one example).
> >> Unsubscribe to the mailing list? ;)
> > And let the troll achive his goal uncontested?
>
> Is that his goal? How would you know? Some trolls like to be heard.
> Others like to engender flamewars. Some are simply trying to get an
> unpopular message out.
Maybe I don't care about the goal, I care about the effect.
How about you come up with a way to de-fang the effect, and
then I can agree with you about trolls being socially
permissable?
[ ... ]
> > 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?
>
> You can't moderate a troll without moderation, and moderation tends to
> stifle creative discussion. (Personally, I can't wait until Freenet has
> the equivalent of USENET.)
Trolls also tend to stifle creative discussion. How can one
be "bad" and the other "good"?
[ ... ]
> > What if it's "the psyche of the community" itself which you value?
>
> Then you are doomed, even without trolls. Psyches change all the
> time. You've often heard someone bemoan change, this will be no
> different.
If I'm doomed, then let me come to that cliff naturally, instead
of having some jerk push me.
> > 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.
>
> Censoring a troll is oppressing that troll's idea, whether from a
> central authority or by a consensual group of bullies.
If the troll is a bully, I will accord his rights the same merit
which he gives to others, which is "none". It is not "bullying"
to act in self defense.
> Did you say you liked freedom?
>
> The true test of liking freedom is had when you encounter someone who
> has the freedom to be sociopathic against you...and you still like
> that freedom.
"Gee, Hal, you're right! We *do* taste like chicken!".
> > 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.
>
> Without that lesson of learning to defeat the bully, you might never
> understand what it is to overcome social adversity.
If social adversity is so good, why overcome it at all, and
just wallow in it for all eternity?
I have to agree with William Tecumpsah Sherman on this one.
> >> >> 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
>
> Ok, wrong word. s/condone/support/go;
I used "condone". You aren't going to get me to use a diametrically
opposed word to "decry" in this context, so you might as well give
up. 8-).
> >> 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.
>
> If I were to spend my time holding forth on each behaviour I see that
> I considered "antisocial" or bad, I'd be holding forth the rest of
> my life 24/7.
And the change from the current status quo would be... ?
> > It's human.
>
> It takes every kind of people.
No, it doesn't.
> Some creative trolls find ways to get past blocks. One more dance for
> people to do in their copious spare time.
If a troll can break a 1024 bit key, then we have larger issues
we need to worry about. 8-).
[ ... ]
> > I disagree with your efficiency claim. It is more efficient for
> > the trolls to not exist.
>
> I'd agree with that, but I disagree that trolls are going away any
> time soon.
Why do you believe that they will have any more choice in the
matter than the people England sent to Australia in the 19th
century?
[ ... ]
> Science is a religion. Like most religions, you see what you want to
> see; usually this is not truth.
Science is a process, not a religion.
[ ... ]
> > My theory of what? Of why the trolls are suddenly raising their
> > pointy heads?
>
> Yes.
They are being paid.
> > Of my model for some Open Source projects?
>
> Good god, hasn't everyone in the world already held forth on this one?
Not in any predictive sense, no. Mostly, it's just been hand
waving.
> > 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.
>
> There are no real points, and you can't usefully orthogonalize the
> world into finite integer divisions to be analyzed separately. The
> subject and the object are one.
You failed statistics and modern physics, didn't you? 8-). There
*are* real points; even if you can't identify them, you can identify
their effects. And the idea that "observer effect" has any validity
above a quantum level is a popular misconception.
[ ... ]
> > 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.
>
> That would not serve the best and highest good. So I won't.
Rather than finding like-minded people and acting in concert,
you would prefer to rage against the wind?
[ ... on racially motivated discord ... ]
> > Stay out of the middle, and let one wipe out the other, if it can?
>
> Basically.
That's appalling.
[ ... ]
> > So CBS is on a Jihad against you, personally, because they deny
> > you air time to vent your views?
>
> Actually, it's FOX that's on the jihad. CBS wants to sign me to
> a three-year contract. ;)
The point is still valid, even if you choose to talk around it:
why is there a "right" to the forum of mailing lists, but not to
access to national media networks?
In the limit, all we are talking about is closed vs. open media,
for this particular argument. If you admit the permissability
of closed media, then I don't see the problem with the method of
closure.
[ ... ]
> > Hardly. The point out the fallacy of arguing from the specific
> > to the general, which is their intended function.
>
> Isn't that what you are doing, taking a specific example and
> attempting to generalize from it?
No. You're arguing a general principle, and I'm applying it to
specific examples to determine whether the general principle is
sound. I am arguing from the general to the specific, which is
a logically valid thing to do.
> >> There are no misfits in a utpoian anarchy, by definition.
> > Nor in a fascist police state...
>
> Misfits will pop up from time to time in a fascist police state,
> but they will soon be hung. In a utopian anarchy, misfits cannot
> even exist.
Because they will be killed when they try to eat the wrong person?
[ ... ]
> In that sense all trolls are paid...some receive
> gratification...others receive hatred...
Motivation is the important part.
> > 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.
>
> I don't agree. I think he's just mad and not gonna take it anymore.
Mad at *what*? Take *what*?
Antisocial behaviour without a list of demands is nothing more than
terrorism. Without identity, there is no way to determine whose
grievances he wants addressed. Without specific grievances, there's
no means for the society being attacked to provide a palliative, in
the form of a reddress of particular grievances.
This is important:
Without stating specific grievances, he's not only "gonna take it",
he's "gonna keep taking it".
I think that I have to believe the troll is rational, and as such,
the desire is not for a reddres of grievances, but for the effects
on the society.
[ ... ]
> > 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.
>
> IF I can find the other venue.
"I'm sorry, Bob, but we've spun the ``big wheel of evolution''
and Mother Nature, unfortunately, didn't pick *you*!"
[ ... ]
> > Criminal art is a subset of criminal activity, not an equivalence
> > set.
>
> I never said they were equivalence.
No, you just defended an instance as art, on the premise that
other instances could be art: "it is a fish; all trout are fish;
it's probably a trout".
[ ... ]
> > 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.
>
> Well make fun of it as you like. That's my viewpoint. Have fun
> doing your superior dance.
It's not a question of being supercillious, it's a question of
asking "and ... ?" and you not having an answer that would make
us accept everything that came before.
[ ... ]
> > 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.
>
> There's nothing you can do about them without granting them the
> implicit power to moderate, so why worry about it?
How do you enforce a "Do Not Enter" sign?
I once saw a comedy routine, where the comedian suggested a
solution to the problem of nuclear waste (paraphrased):
We take all the nuclear waste, and just put it in a
big pile in the desert. Then, at the edge of the safe
distance from this pile of was, put up a fence with a
big "Do Not Cross This Fence Or You Will Die" sign. Of
course, inevitably, some people will cross the fence,
and average human intelligence will go up.
I think it's an elegant solution.
[ ... ]
> Or you, in failing to see new data.
What new data?
-- Terry
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