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I didn't lose too much money in bitcoin but lets just say it was money that I was saving up for braces. That was the deal I made with myself. I'm still angry that I lost, there's no point in lying, emotions will be emotions. But the way I see it, I didn't lose the money in bitcoin, I invested it in some really good "real world economics" classes at a good collage somewhere...

Bitcoin is still the best investment I ever made. That's because I realized that I can't beat the market.

5) "This time is different!" is bullshit.

There are times when it is indeed different. When Columbus landed, it was genuinely different. (Especially for the natives.) When general artificial intelligence arrives, it will also be genuinely different. (Especially for us.)

I'm not sure if you just implicitly suggested that we (humans) will be mistreated by the general AI (and its offsprings) just like the natives were mistreated by people who followed after Columbus.

Or on the flip side, we might treat the AI's worse due to being so scared of them, as in the situation in Neuromancer where all the AI's legally have to be built with a kill switch.

How is that bad treatment? I for one would welcome an instant, painless death.

But would you welcome living in fear of being killed at any moment ?

...that's what it is to be a slave

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS0Rc45tj60

Our lives may well be significantly better. Almost certainly, they will be significantly different.

This post has great timing, as we are going in to the corporate Earnings Release season.

Each new generation brings the same humanistic flaws of the last generation. Doomed to repeat itself forever and ever. Humans will be humans the same way sharks will be sharks. We are cursed with a primitive instinct

My comment has nothing to do with Bitcoin. Just want to point out that I am very tired of this old bromide. People do make mistakes, misjudgements, etc. However, humans do not have instincts (which are automatic pre-programmed behaviors). Moreover, humans individually and, particularly, as a society, can learn from past mistakes. Thus, there is just no valid comparison to, for example, a shark.

You're basically just repeating a secular version of "Original Sin" and it's no more valid than the religious version.

"However, humans do not have instincts (which are automatic pre-programmed behaviors)"

Wow. You just insulted over 100 years of psycological, biological study, observation, & evidence. Not to mention you're completely ignoring the fact that we are wired for sex from birth and all the evidence and research that has gone into that. The first instinct a human has is to start sucking as soon as something touches its mouth. Without this vital automatic pre-programmed behavoir we would not exist because children could not be breast fed. I'm not sure why you see instincts as something bad or what you're trying to protect by denying something so obvious and so well studied but I worry about your education.

If anything here's a start. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct

Wow. You just insulted over 100 years of psycological, biological study, observation, & evidence.

Not really, because there is no observation of or evidence for humans having instincts. :D

Not to mention you're completely ignoring the fact that we are wired for sex from birth and all the evidence and research that has gone into that.

That is precisely my point. Think about it. We do not have an instinct to have sex. We choose who to have sex with, and when. And our sexual desires are mediated by our preferences (which, in healthy well-functioning people, are chosen, although some people may not rise to that task). Sex is not an "automatic" behavior. Contrast this with the sexual behavior of, for example, sharks. There is a humongous difference there.

Now, in certain Muslim societies, it is considered a woman's fault if she is raped when she exposed some skin, because they believe that men do not have a choice about sex and cannot control themselves. That is abhorrent and wrong. But when you insist on humans having instincts, you are taking that side of this intellectual argument.

The first instinct a human has is to start sucking as soon as something touches its mouth.

It may be that pre-conceptual humans--that is, babies--have instincts. Since a lot of people use "instinct" sloppily, I'd have to think about it before I came down on either side. But when we talk about "humans," we really mean (at least primarily) "adult humans." So I would not say that babies having an instinct to suckle negates my point in the least.

I suspect it is more an "automatized reaction." Calling it an instinct just doesn't seem right to me.

but I worry about your education.

Haha :D. Well, I would say I've demonstrated a lot of rational, independent thinking here. So, for that reson, I am not worried about my education. (As a sidenote, I am very highly educated in the formal sense... but that is not as important as being able to think an a rational, independent way.)