Constitutional Amendment proposal gathering steam

[TDPerk]

So you get your mindset from science fiction authors? I prefer mine to be based in reality.

Hogan's views regarding the Holocaust and other things are interesting so I won't bother finding out if his book has any merit.

These are works of philosophy, they make no pretensions to being other than fiction. They are, in fact, far more based on relevant reality than, say, Rousseau or Marx. Or Zinn.

As for Hogan's views on the Holocaust, I have no idea what they are. They are not evident in this piece of fiction or the other, I've read two.

I for one, would not fail to pick up a diamond from hell anymore than Churchill would fail to give Beelzebub a favorable mention in the Commons, should Hitler have invaded there--which, in point of fact he did--he invaded Soviet Russia.

I suppose I've thrown pearls before swine.

[ladajo]

You recall incorrectly. You're also recalling the experiment incorrectly.

The children are shown a plate with a single cookie (marshmallow in the original experiment actually). They are told that if they can wait 5 minutes, they will be given two marshmallows. The adult leaves.

Many children are able to resist temptation for 5 minutes. Many are not. Some of it depends on age, but that's largely a function of brain development. The brain of a child of 3 (I'm pulling numbers out of the air here) is physically unable to delay gratification while a child of 5 can do so.

These results are interesting in their own right, but what's more interesting is when you go back and look at those children 20 years later. Those who were able to delay gratification do better in life across the board. Better grades, higher paying jobs, less incarceration time, etc. The real knowledge gained from the experiment shows that the ability to delay gratification early translates to better a better decision making ability throughout life.

Yes I now recall the developmental aspects of the experiment as well. The age breaks were higher for some behavioral aspects. There was another experiment where children of various ages were arrayed around a table with a model of a mountain. They were asked to draw what the kid opposite them sees. This one brought out significant breaks in brain development.

Your comments do not change my point, they provide further support. Ask yourself what became of those "kids" that were not able to control themselves...
Thanks for the assist.

[TDPerk]

in any case the significance of the Starchild novel is that if any artificial intelligence is conceptually enough like us to replace any one of us then it is not distinct enough from us for it to be of any advantage to any entity in it's doing so.
It would just be another participant in the market.

[TDPerk]

A question for Necoras.
Do you think intelligence can be designed or must it not be evolved towards and then grown.
Without consciousness artificial intelligence is meaningless In terms of competition with humanity. And I suspect it is an emergent behavior which we have yet to begin to have the mathematics to describe.

[Stubby]

So you get your mindset from science fiction authors? I prefer mine to be based in reality.

Hogan's views regarding the Holocaust and other things are interesting so I won't bother finding out if his book has any merit.

These are works of philosophy, they make no pretensions to being other than fiction. They are, in fact, far more based on relevant reality than, say, Rousseau or Marx. Or Zinn.

As for Hogan's views on the Holocaust, I have no idea what they are. They are not evident in this piece of fiction or the other, I've read two.

I for one, would not fail to pick up a diamond from hell anymore than Churchill would fail to give Beelzebub a favorable mention in the Commons, should Hitler have invaded there--which, in point of fact he did--he invaded Soviet Russia.

I suppose I've thrown pearls before swine.

You ascribe to someone's so-called philosophy of their writings and not investigate the man himself? Really?

man another person to look up, first Rousseau and now Zinn. Howard Zinn?

[hanelyp]

...

I suppose I've thrown pearls before swine.

Yes you have. Unable to address (maybe unable to comprehend) the argument, he attacks the source.

[necoras]

Do you think intelligence can be designed or must it not be evolved towards and then grown.

It can absolutely be designed; look at Deep Blue. But I assume you mean a human like intelligence; that is a general, non siloed intelligence. In that case yes I believe that it can be designed, but it will be much much more efficient to design a base system and then through machine learning teach it how to think. Watson is the popular example of this. Google's search algorithm is another. Neither of these systems are conscious (so far as we know), but they're undoubtedly intelligent.

I don't particularly agree with your assertion that an adversary needs to be conscious to be in competition with us. Bacteria are out evolving our best drugs constantly. We're constantly in competition with insects and fungi for control over our fields. Rats are less susceptible to rat poison than they were a century ago. None of these have anything approaching a human level of consciousness or intelligence, but they prove to be a nuisance nonetheless. I imagine any self respectable Von Neumann machine would offer quite effective competition with humanity. I hope nobody's stupid enough to build one.

But I don't think we'll end up in competition with machines. Rather I believe we'll cooperate with them. They'll eventually provide for all of our basic needs. We'll take them as much for granted as we do our cars, food availability at a grocery store, or electricity. It's just that they'll eventually be designed and upgraded by other machines rather than human engineers.

[necoras]

Why will Moore's law only have an effect on the pay side? Why will the cost of providing food, shelter, clean water, energy, medicine, etc. not go down for the same reasons and at roughly the same rate?

Of course it will. The cost of production will go (again, as I said asymptotically) to zero. That means prices go (asymptotically) to zero. I said this before, "everything becomes free."

You bring up the concept of a 1 hour work week. Why would productivity increases stop at a 1 hour work week? Surely they would increase to the point where you won't even need to do that much to maintain your same standard of living. Decades ago we enshrined into law and societal thought the concept of a 40 hour work week. Anything over that 40 hours was deemed extra, and compensated accordingly (although a congressman from my state is currently doing his best to reverse that concept). But productivity has increased by several orders of magnitude over those decades.

As for why I believe it's possible for a vanishingly small percentage of the population to legally control more and more of the accumulated wealth of humanity, consider this. In America we've taken that increased productivity and turned it into profit for those who own the companies. In Europe they took that increased productivity and turned it into a shorter work week for the workers. You can certainly argue that some countries went too far in that direction too quickly (nobody wants to be Greece right now), but it does present a question for the rest of us going forward. Will we funnel increased productivity to a few, or spread it out amongst us all? I vote for the second, but it has to be done intelligently. It'd be nice to have technocrats in place when it's time to make the big decisions, but we tend to vote them out at best, and jail them at worst.

Largely unrelated to the above, I believe that you could feed your family on an acre, but I fail to see why you'd do so if you can have better food delivered on demand via a flying robot for free (you can technologically already do all of that today with the exception of the free part). Running a farm is back breaking work. I don't believe you could design and build a comfortable place to live today for $12k, but then I'm from Texas where to live without an A/C system is impossible. I suppose you could build a small concrete structure for that , but I'd hardly call it comfortable. I suspect that once you include indoor plumbing, electric, heat/cooling (active or passive, both have their own associated costs), appliances, etc. you'd end up with a total of at least double that. I could be wrong, but that's where my back of the envelope calculations wind up.

[TDPerk]

"I said this before, "everything becomes free." "

Well no, it cannot.

If nothing else, there is an energy cost to acquiring and processing material, many materials are simply not occurring in abundance, and an opportunity cost in simply spending the time to decide what to get even if it is "free", which it won't be.

" That means prices go (asymptotically) to zero."

Well no, they don't. In fact the curl and initial slope of that curve can't even be predicted, but is likely to be quite linear from a human perspective.

" Why would productivity increases stop at a 1 hour work week?"

They absolutely will not, my point is that it may take 200 years to get to a 1 hour work week and then decline linearly still from there.

" Surely they would increase to the point where you won't even need to do that much to maintain your same standard of living. "

Over what time frame? Ten years is out of the question, 100 years is plausible and 100% speculative--it could well be 500. Moore's law is not the issue.

"In America we've taken that increased productivity and turned it into profit for those who own the companies."

Which companies are primarily owned by investment funds which, for example, have my and your retirement in them. Yeah, profit!

Actually, the accumulation of capital you are talking about is how the current VA dem gubernatorial candidate turns $100,000 into tens of millions in a failed firm which got millions of government money, and no one is in prison despite the fraud. You are complaining about the result of government being too powerful. This kleptocracy continues only as long as the electorate permits it.

" I vote for the second,"

So you are a Democrat voting for theft. You are reasonably likely to be shot dead with the rest of the thieves if you've any prominence, though I expect like most you'll be denying before the cock crows twice, let alone thrice. The trouble with socialists is, you don't really think you can run out of other people's and lately, borrowed money. It's never worked yet and still won't. You won't like the cake you're baking.

" Running a farm is back breaking work."

I know, I like automating factories better, that's what I do. It also gives me a wonderful perspective on the idiocy of your claims. I know what PAC's, PLC's, PID, Smith predictors, and Fuzzy Logic, et al, can do. We are nowhere near what you are claiming. We haven't even begun what you are claiming, and don't know how to start. In point of fact, I follow the TED crap, and the MIT crap, and I do it assiduously, and they aren't claiming what you are claiming.

"It can absolutely be designed; look at Deep Blue."

You think I haven't?! Deep Blue is nothing! A highly structured dedicated purpose state machine which can be defined mathematically in it's every detail. This is a glorified version of checkers.

It doesn't mean anything towards what you are claiming.

You may have heard of the fence painting incident occurring between the late Tom Sawyer and his friends. Consider for a moment what would have to go on, as a bare minimum skeletal sketch of it, for an AI to do anything like it. It has to have had a perceived need for a fence, built the fence, and observe it needs repainting, and other AI's coming along would have to observe the feigned enjoyment and want to get in on it. We cannot conceive of the mathematics which can even produce the will to want a fence to restrict/demarcate access to physical resources of any kind from anything. We don't know where to start the task of replicating it as an algorithm.

We aren't even at square one. We don't know where square zero is.

Moore's law will always be constrained in it's effect by the need for a human to will something, and then constrained by the energy cost and material cost of what is to be done and the opportunity cost of considering options as to what is to be done, until and unless we have actual AI's not distinguishable from people, and Star Trek replicators and fairly high ratio over unity perpetual motion machines to power them, none of what you conjecture will happen in the manner you've described. None of those last two are even on the horizon as possible. Electricity can drop to and through 0.1 cent / kWhr and it does not affect the essential problems which oppose your conjectured reality from being realized.

" Neither of these systems are conscious (so far as we know), but they're undoubtedly intelligent."

Boy are they ever not intelligent, they are carefully designed to maximize ad revenue while staying tolerable to users for bringing up useless paid for links.

"I don't particularly agree with your assertion that an adversary needs to be conscious to be in competition with us."

None of your examples are in competition with us at all. Nice bait and switch, none of them are able to displace humanity or replace us economically as producing/deciding/designing individuals in the market, or in lowering the cost of goods--not in relation to Moore's law or in any other way. For that matter, if a bacteria is used to, as an example, remediate the pollution at a waste site, it's because a human has made the judgements producing that circumstance.

" I imagine any self respectable Von Neumann machine would offer quite effective competition with humanity."

I think it would likely last only until a nuke hit it, or for that matter, depending on size and construction, a wildfire. Possibly a badger could do it in. Nasty things badgers.

" Rather I believe we'll cooperate with them.'

I rather think we'll augment our own intelligence with by artificial means, and never be superceded in any discontinuous fashion.

"Rather I believe we'll cooperate with them. They'll eventually provide for all of our basic needs."

If they are able replace us economically, I have to wonder why they should be subject supinely to such slavery.

[TDPerk]

You ascribe to someone's so-called philosophy of their writings and not investigate the man himself?

It was the outlook of the specific book I suggested which I was specifically suggesting. Star Child is a title which may well have been in use by many people, I named the author to be s-p-e-c-i-f-i-c, not to endorse everything that man ever said. But keep beating your straw man up, it's entertaining and shows your mental poverty.

And frankly he's not a Holocaust denier, he insisted it could not have happened as described for purely logistical reasons. I think he's wrong in that. The first opponent in this view I came across decided James P. Hogan was truly terrible person, not because of his views on the Holocaust, but because Hogan denied the inevitability that humanity was causing catastrophic climate change....
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I am frankly convince by this, Hogan must have a clearer clue than the average bear, at least in some things.

"man another person to look up, first Rousseau and now Zinn. Howard Zinn?"

Yes, that Zinn, the author of "A People's History of the United States" which is every bit the revisionist socialist claptrap it sounds like. Deception by deliberately misplaced emphasis and omission. And you don't need to read them, whether by happenstance or intention you are dyed in the wool with their idiocy...

...Or you wouldn't propose destroying the 1st amendment, which is what this thread is about.

Fortunately, like a one lung hit and miss with a hole in the cylinder, this amendment is not picking up steam, but is having all the success the idea deserves, and God willing, it'll lose the flywheel before long.

[rj40]

We curtail free speech with respect to lying about someone, or causing a panic (Fire! in a crowded theater). And that without changing the constitution.

But I can see that forcing political donors to reveal their identities might curtail who donates to who/m. I think this has been demonstrated in police states, but cannot find the reference. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, and what seems reasonable now may not be in the future.

Still, I find the 'let it all hang out' argument compelling. I would think many voters would like to know if their favorite candidate is getting money from someone or some entity on "the other side." Especially in a tight race. It could change votes. I can see Chris Christie and Hilary Clinton running. Christie is not well liked by many people I know. In a tight primary, if he was found to be getting money from pro-choice donors or the anti-oil folks, that could swing things to someone else or end his bid. Even if the donors where not primarily known for those things. Or just tangentially related to those things.

I never understood the need for allowing big companies to donate money. The people who work for them and their customers can. And I suppose they could always lobby their employees and customers for to vote the way they want them to. Since it IS allowed, I think the least we can do is make sure everyone can easily know about it.

I wonder if things will be changed and how long it could take?

[rj40]

Not sure what to think about technology and Super AI's taking over everything. But the lead up to that could be interesting. We know someone who's very creative kid couldn't find work. Smart, but bad at math and not interested in science. He is now starting to make money designing album covers. Uses computer tech to do it and transmit the output via the Internet. Technology has allowed him to exploit his art and creativity to make money. Very nice. Doesn't society often see new jobs open as old ones disappear due to tech? But what about the mechanical engineer whose job is outsourced to India? All that training and work - now unemployed. But math and design can be done in India just the same as it can in the US and the designs e-mailed to a factory (maybe not in the US). And often for less cost. Or change that to country A and country B. If you have lost your job, it may not matter as much where you are. Well, unless your country has other job opportunities and maybe some decent jobless benefits vs not.

So then what happens when or if AI's get so good they can replace everyone? Or, maybe, just 80% of everyone?

I sure hope I end up on top of that heap. I will walk around dressed as the Monopoly game guy carrying bags with dollar signs painted on them and berating all the lazy engineers who lacked the foresight to do what I did. Engineering?! Fools! You should have seen that coming, and now you are paying the terrible price for NOT BEING ME! You need to take personal responsibility for your actions. OK, just kidding, I would never do that. I would actually be dressed as the Mr. Peanut guy.

[TDPerk]

"I never understood the need for allowing big companies to donate money."

Because it's their money to donate.

[rj40]

Indeed it is their money. Legally. But we curtail what others can do with their own money all the time. Still, I see your point. That is one reason why I want donations to be in the open. No hidden or anonymous donations at all. Not the best answer, but I want to know who is giving what.

[TDPerk]

But we curtail what others can do with their own money all the time.

But not constitutionally or justly if we are "curtailing" political speech.

What just goal or means, praytell, does prohibiting anonymous speech facilitate? What ill means or goal does prohibiting anonymous speech impair?

There is nothing about compelling the connection of the identity of the speaker with the speech which changes the "qui bono" of what is said.

Prohibiting anonymous speech, and prohibiting anonymous donations of funds given to amplifying or enabling political speech, can only facilitate actions of reprisal against the speaker, donor, and recipient. These are the only things it can accomplish, anonymity can change nothing of what is said or it's valence.

I choose to speak, and never anonymously, because I do not fear reprisal or judgement by men; rather, I prepare for them.

There is a reason I once referred to "Roger" here as an asymptote of the sinister, and it wasn't just the fact I enjoyed the word play of "left" and "sinister".

It's because I see through him and his like to their core.

There is no distinction but opportunity and faintness of heart between the worst jackboot thug and every leftist.

Rousseau's error has not been improved on in the 9 quarter centuries or so since it's commission. Since the Enlightenment was abandoned for yet more Edarkenment.

Rousseau's error always leads to the Tribunal, to the Gulag, to "Arbeit Macht Frei"; minor progress towards which is exactly what that idiot Stubby is excited about.

You can't get from here--the human reality--and progress to the Rousseauan "common will" implemented in the real world, without a hell of a lot of ignoring actual human rights and the laws and practices which protect them. You can't get there without murder, theft and deceit.

I will not give up the ballot box, the jury box, or the soapbox to them. Neither as MSimon seems to, will I concentrate all efforts on one narrow aspect of liberty to the exclusion or detriment of all the rest...which is exactly what MSimon endorses by playing footsie with Democrats. The Republicans have their issues, but the Democrats are inherently opposed to liberty, and have been in one way or another since Jefferson founded them to preserve the slave holding planter class's position of preeminence.

And so help me God, if the ballot, jury, and soapbaox are all denied me, I must look to the cartridge box.

Which 3D printing makes the more available regardless of other circumstances, and thankfully so.

I did not pick my signature idly.

And if I haven't happened to have mentioned it here fully, my name is Thomas David Perkins, and if there is still opportunity for confusion I was born on April 28th, 1971.