Posted by Graham_Lister on Fri, 01 Feb 2013 03:40 | #

I take it this was aimed at me.

Yawn.

Whenever I see or read the term ‘singularity’ I straight-away switch off. Americans, of certain sort, seem to like that sort of shite. Frankly, God knows why. That video is 10 minutes or so of my life I’ll never get back (no I didn’t watch it all). But even, and what a big even that is, the singularity crowd are right then so what?

Rather more immediate and pressing issues face Europeans. So I’ll try to focus on the here and now and the very near future, if that’s OK?

Just on ‘hard’ AI the ‘singularity crowd’ might just be speaking bullshit.

Hubert Dreyfus’ views on artificial intelligence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus’_critique_of_artificial_intelligence

And that wiki doesn’t even start to properly or fairly articulate the difficulties that the ‘management studies’ gurus face.

But at this point I really don’t care to indulge this particular nonsense any further. Life really is too short.

Then again Mr. Bowery, if I recall correctly, has suggested at differing times living in space stations or under the seas as a ‘solution’ to present difficulties – but even then I’m sure the Space Jews (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsA1-pS5UGs) would still ‘get’ the Boweryites.

Posted by Rex on Fri, 01 Feb 2013 07:46 | #

The first question from the audience to Robin Hanson at around 25 minutes into the video addresses eusociality. The audience member tells Hanson that he can’t help but think that the scenario and technology Hanson describes will lead to people ceasing to be individuals and becoming a single individual, like a hive of bees, and that the internet is already starting to do this.

Hanson’s response is that we already are more social than most species and have an extensive division of labor and specialization, and that the scenario and technology he discussed would extend this further, affirming the audience member’s suspicion.

As noted in the original post,

From that plausible technical assumption, very mundane economic arguments point down a path that Hanson then ruthlessly, if breathlessly, explores.

Hanson reaches this conclusion by assuming certain plausible technology and through very basic, textbook economic reasoning such as supply and demand, profit motive, etc.

Posted by Leon Haller on Fri, 01 Feb 2013 12:22 | #

The first question of the OP put me in mind of Simmel’s excellent Philosophy of Money, and I thought perhaps a discussion of it (or in its vein) might follow. Er, not quite.

“What would the [economic] world be like if there were whole brain ‘emulations’?”

This rhetorical question from Hanson (after which point I ceased listening) put me in mind only of the classic riposte directed at positivist economists and their ‘models’.

Three men, a physicist, a chemist, and an economist, are washed ashore a barren island. They have no other food but a retrieved case of canned goods, sans manufactured tools. They proceed to compare methods for securing the edibles.

Each proffers suggestions based on his specialized knowledge: of velocities, forces, etc, in the case of the physicist, or of differing reactants, temperatures, etc, in the case of the chemist, the general concern being to break open the tins in the manner best calculated to assure the least spillage or spoilage, respectively.

Finally, after much technical discussion, the two men of science turn their attentions to the third member of their paralian colloquy. What useful advice will issue forth from their learned colleague?

The economist importantly clears his throat, and commences. “Assuming we had a can opener ...”

“From that plausible technical assumption [that]  improvements in full-brain scanning technology combined with improvements in computer technology ... will lead to a very detailed model of a scanned individual’s brain to not only be stored in digital form, but used as the model for a computer simulation of the processes of that particular individual’s brain” ... no doubt a measureless cornucopia of tinned goods shall fill all our futures.

I’d like to secure my can opener first, however.

Posted by Leon Haller on Fri, 01 Feb 2013 12:53 | #

Full disclosure: I actually do have the following book, but have never yet cracked it:

http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Artificial-Intelligence-Oxford-Readings/dp/0198248547/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359722177&sr=1-2&keywords=Oxford+Readings+in+Philosophy+artificial

I also have Kurzweil’s The Age of Spiritual Machines - but haven’t read it, either. I was actually thinking about doing so next summer.

The historical problem with techno-utopian futurology is that, however brilliant its current practitioners, past prognosticators were often quite smart, too, sometimes the geniuses of their day (though usually not). And yet, how very often they were wrong! Futurologists are rather like economists in their discipline’s track record ...

I agree with Graham. We have more pressing problems, and indeed, ones of a different nature. There are no technological solutions to moral confusions and character failings.

Posted by daniels. on Fri, 01 Feb 2013 12:53 | #

I understand that Ben Klassen made his fortune by inventing an electric can opener.

He also devised the non-Christian - “nature’s eternal” - religion of “creativity.”

Not that I am endorsing that particular religion, but while we are inventing can openers, we may as well devise a new religion based on White interests.

Posted by James Bowery on Fri, 01 Feb 2013 15:03 | #

The Leon Haller’s of the world believe corporate man to be human, rather than the artificially dwarfed entities they are, hence Hanson’s assumption of “whole brain emulations” would imply “whole man emulations”.

This is, of course, as ridiculous as it would be to place Bill Gates in a natural duel with a Viking.

The corporation doesn’t need true “whole brain emulations”.  Indeed, it demands “part brain emulations” in the sense that the “whole” must become “part” of the incorporation.

Posted by Firepower on Fri, 01 Feb 2013 16:48 | #

Lately, (esp after witnessing Borlaug’s presentation) I’m suspecting the pervasive decline of the West surrounding all America is the inevitable response of The Nihilism of Everything.

Posted by daniels. on Fri, 01 Feb 2013 17:09 | #

“As money and transactions increase, the value of the individual decreases and everything becomes about what the individual can do instead of who the individual is.” - Simmel

Posted by Euro on Fri, 01 Feb 2013 17:35 | #

I think Jim should challenge Graham to a duel, that’s what I think.

Posted by James Bowery on Fri, 01 Feb 2013 18:10 | #

Daneils, yes, that is a very apt quote and leads one to ask, what does money do with the “know how” vs “know that” distinction as it pertains to authenticity?

Posted by daniels. on Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:19 | #

Perhaps the propositional, pseudo biological status of money, would initiate a quantifying distance between that which is known as authentically one’s own as a part of a natural biological process, co-modifying relationship instead, steadily distancing from and proposing them in lieu of internal, genetic relations - those relations that would match according to careful genetic criteria.

Money might always work to bypass authentic biological process.

I think the assigning or recognition of intrinsic value - as it would correspond with Being, probably based largely on genetics and history - would be one corrective. Though that would not be sufficient to resolve the issue and as I recall, GW might not like that suggestion at all.

Nevertheless, I wonder if the recognition of such value might have similarities to your concept of distributism.

That is some base, intrinsic, value might be recognized; while the manifestation of greater accomplishment and know-how might meet with greater or specific reward, the reward system might not be oblivious to the depth of heritage and needlessly wreck non-manifest resource.

Posted by daniels. on Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:28 | #

Money might at once create an unnatural distance and abbreviation of authentic biological process.

Posted by jamesUK on Sat, 02 Feb 2013 00:14 | #

You have your wish.

The British government is creating anti-Britain adverts to scare away Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHfWzc912UQ

http://popsop.com/60699

Some of the entries

http://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/01/28/britain-shit-entries-drum-and-one-minute-briefs-competition

But are they good enough to scare away Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants?

Posted by Thorn on Sat, 02 Feb 2013 00:35 | #

Sounds to me like James UK is bummed out that Britain is now somewhat resisting the mudification of its native stock. It seems race traitors are a commonality amongst the Brits? Or is it just amongst the elites… as I can only hope.

Posted by jamesUK on Sat, 02 Feb 2013 02:18 | #

@Thorn

Sounds to me like James UK is bummed out that Britain is now somewhat resisting the mudification of its native stock. It seems race traitors are a commonality amongst the Brits? Or is it just amongst the elites… as I can only hope.

Well the anti-Britain immigration initiative plan is targeted at Romania and Bulgaria so don’t worry our new best friends in Libya, Mali, Syria, etc will still be able to enter not so great Britain.

Posted by Marwinsing on Sun, 03 Feb 2013 13:59 | #

“Money As a Shining Beacon of Nihilism”

Stop.

Thank you James.

Those seven words say it all.

That is the guinea pig’s (or sausage dog’s, which ever is your fancy) raison d’être.

Posted by Lord Jacob Rothschild on Tue, 05 Sep 2017 06:18 | #

The Free Thought Project, “Rothschild Just Dumped Massive Amounts of US Assets, Sending an Ominous Signal”, 30 Aug 2017:

In an ominous move, Lord Jacob Rothschild has aggressively moved to limit his exposure to “risky” U.S. capital markets.

In what is a sure signal to oligarchs across the globe, Lord Jacob Rothschild, founder and chairman of RIT Capital Partners, has substantially minimized his exposure to what he views as a risky and unstable U.S. capital market. In the half-yearly financial report for RIT Capital Partners, Rothschild explained the company’s aggressive moves to significantly reduce exposure to U.S. assets.

“We do not believe this is an appropriate time to add to risk. Share prices have in many cases risen to unprecedented levels at a time when economic growth is by no means assured,” Rothschild said in his semi-annual report.

Additionally, Rothschild stated that he believes quantitative easing (QE) programs employed by central banks, such as the Federal Reserve Bank in the U.S. will “come to an end.”

Rothschild was quoted in the report as saying, “The period of monetary accommodation may well be coming to an end.”

Signaling a potential disaster in the making in the United States financial markets, Rothschild reduced the investments RIT Capital Partners has in the U.S. dollar by nearly fifty percent. On December 31, 2016, RIT Capital Partners reported a 62 percent net value asset investment in U.S. dollars. In the latest report released by RIT Capital Partners on June 30, 2017, the company has a 37 percent net value asset investment in U.S. dollars.

Over that same period of time, Rothschild increased RIT’s investment in Sterling and the Euro.

Just last year, the bond manager of what was once the world’s largest bond fund had a dire prediction about how “all of this” will all end. And by “all of this,” he means the propping up of financial markets by central banks.

Janus Henderson U.S. @JHIAdvisorsUS

Gross: Global yields lowest in 500 years of recorded history. $10 trillion of neg. rate bonds. This is a supernova that will explode one

When the U.S. stock market is trading at all-time highs, but Lord Rothschild is divesting RIT from those same markets, the central bank manipulation of market valuations becomes apparent.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that Rothschild’s RIT investment portfolio has returned roughly 2,000% since its formation – so he obviously understands how to position his assets to get big returns on investments, thus these recent moves should be a red flag to every American.

In explaining his recent investment moves, Rothschild, the RIT chairman stated:

“We have a particular interest in investments which will benefit from the impact of new technologies, and Far Eastern markets, influenced by the growing demand from Asian consumers.”

The report also noted that RIT had invested in Social Capital, a tech investment firm based in Silicon Valley, and that Francesco Goedhuis, Chief Executive of J. Rothschild Capital Management, will serve on the company’s advisory board. Social Capital provides seed funding for companies in the education, finance, and health care business sectors.

Rothschild also mentioned the advent of a fourth industrial revolution in the RIT Capital Partners report, noting, “As the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ develops, it becomes increasingly important for your Company to be able to assess investment opportunities in the innovation driven changes which are affecting almost every business sector.”

The fourth industrial revolution will be driven by new technologies that work to integrate the digital, biological, and physical worlds. Rothschild indicated in the report that the fourth industrial revolution was a driving factor in his investment in Social Capital.

Video presentation.