113 karma · joined March 28, 2017
https://machineperson.org/existence.html#self-awareness
I have spent some time to answer my own questions. But I have neither the motivation nor the time and maybe not even the intelligence to learn and to understand the ideas most philosophers.
> Philosophy is what academics who work in philosophy departments do.
IMO this is too restrictive. You reduce philosophy to a job title or diploma title. I guess, many philosophers would not agree with this definition.
> I make a strong counterclaim: all progress in philosophy comes from progress in the hard sciences.
I agree that new knowledge and new abilities lead to new ideas and questions and concerns. But philosophy is not limited to physics or chemistry; IMO the only hard sciences.
Physics and chemistry are hard sections within an open ended spectrum:
- The begin (1D view) or lower level layer (3D view) are unknown. Is string theory correct ? What are strings made of ? Is mental conscious the lower layer ? Is all a simulation ?
- The end (1D view) or upper layer (3D view) are soft science. Like biology, sociology, psychology, economics.
Regarding economics: Yanis Varoufakis: Live at Politics and Prose https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H38tZhPying&t=377
- First thinking what could lead to progress.
- Then progress in the form of 2 lists that answer the question if women should be allowed for the highest political office.
This is my opinion:
From the article: Yes (with qualification) and yes. Already in Republic (Plato again!) we have an argument—a clear and compelling rational argument—that even the highest political office should be open to women. The argument? List what it takes to be a good leader of the state, then note the conditions that distinguish the sexes. There just is zero overlap between the two lists.
IMO there is not much of interest in philosophy regarding AI (except for the thinking and imagination of AI engineers). AI is still just computations as far as we know.
From the article: Almost all believe in consciousness and most don’t have a clue how to explain it, which is wisdom.
Second: Fortunately only few people need to introduce or enforce change to make big changes for all. Modern societies would have never happened if change was not imposed by a few on all.
Unfortunately climate change is a bad problem because it is also a political problem because appropriate technology might not be available and imposed soon enough. Politics are determined by the stupid ignorant democratic majority. Even in dictatorships like China because a dictatorship must be tolerated by the democratic majority.
Fortunately, the stupid ignorant democratic majority could die and leave the surviving elite (not a money based elite of billionaires) with a better society. Natural evolution.
IMO, relatively few humans will die because of climate change but many more other species will die out.
https://theconversation.com/capitalism-is-killing-the-worlds...
> One tweet, posted in response to the WWF publication, retorted that “we are a virus with shoes”, an attitude that hints at growing public apathy.
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/google-deepmind-founder...
> "Either we need an exponential improvement in human behavior — less selfishness, less short-termism, more collaboration, more generosity — or we need an exponential improvement in technology."
> "If you look at current geopolitics, I don't think we're going to be getting an exponential improvement in human behavior any time soon."
> "That's why we need a quantum leap in technology like AI."
> We are in grave danger of dying out;
I do not think so and there is no reason at all to think so.
Again: https://xkcd.com/
Again: I welcome a reduction of farm animals by 50% or 75%.
> because of lack resources
What resources of and on Earth are scarce in your opinion ?
Depending on skills and technology, they are not scarce for a world population of 10 billion humans or they are scarce with a world population of 1 human.
> and because of our mind-boggling stupidity, sheer arrogance and our inability to deal with our tribal instincts.
Yes, most societies worldwide are very insane. Obvious proofs: Wars and military and poverty in 2018. All elected and re-elected US presidents being evil mass murdering war criminals.
IMO, humanity is not so insane that humanity will die out. If people became vegan and current morality and practices and technology improved we could live in a biological paradise even with 10 billion people.
Improvements like cooperation instead of competition, waste treatment, recycling, no fossil fuel, no insane individual commuting every day because of flexibility, no insane transport of products, less waste of time and energy for needless production,...
I live in Belgium.
Do Belgians need butter from Ireland ? No.
Do Belgians need milk products transported around Europe ? No.
I studied agriculture at university so I know a little more than the average arrogant angry downvoter.
And I am in favor of transhumanism (e.g. machine body parts) in case somebody might read my previous comment in the future.
If we can not rescue Earth, a biological paradise, we have no hope to make it on Mars, a biological hell.
Loss of 50% of species is really bad. Population growth and climate change will only accelerate the loss.
While I would welcome a decrease of the population of farm animals by 50% or 75%.
Besides, humans will never die out because of lack of "resources".
Instead:
- either the sun kills all intelligent life on Earth maybe in 600 million years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth
- or ET or AI kill us.
- or some huge object from outer space collides with Earth.
IMO transhumanism will end the biological evolution of humans. Maybe as soon as this century.
I do not contribute to the OpenJDK project or to the JVM either.
There are standard packages in the Java world: JRE (users) and JDK (java programmers).
The JDK is a standard set of tools and libraries related to using Java as program language. It is not a Linux distro or JDK distro specific set of libraries.
But as a Java developer I know and I care about the terms JRE and JDK that are used officially and on Windows and many Linux systems and MacOS. I was not aware of the Fedora package conventions.
And as I already wrote, I had most likely installed jdk-devel because, I guess, it is listed in yum and DNF-dragora. Maybe it was a bug in some Fedora related package tool. DNF-dragora had double entries for Java. Unfortunately I do not remember anymore the details.
Someone replied this to me: "This is a fairly trivial problem to work around, although maybe this should be one of those "sane default" kind of things. Set the environment variable JAVA_HOME=/etc/alternatives/jre or point it at the specific OpenJDK version you want. That's what /etc/alternatives is for."
I guess that is way I tried "alternatives --config java" at the time.
I am no system admin and the -dev or -devel convention suits the Unix and C world but maybe not the JVM or .net or nodejs worlds with their own standards and package managers.
I have been using Windows and other Linux distributions including Arch Linux for years and never had problems with the JDK.
Still, according to experts and many anecdotes on reddit, psychedelics are very risky (unwanted bad effects) and not safe drugs and not miracle drugs.
The risk of bad short term and long term effects depends highly on the dosage and the personal mindset and the current environment. Nobody knows in advance how your brain will react.
It is important to know what is done and where the GMO is used: In some container or open air or open water.
It might work to get out of a rut but, IMO, the risks (what dosage?) are not worth it. Certainly not without professional assistance (not a shaman). The new rut might be much worse than the old rut.
Also: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/charting-the-depths/...
IMO no problem is solved by psychedelics. Unless you sell them to solve your money problem.
Psychedelics are not magic. They typically trigger serotonin receptors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_drug
This might be useful for interventions by medical experts. Like narcotics are useful for surgical interventions or antibiotics are useful against bacteria infections.
https://www.livescience.com/16287-mushrooms-alter-personalit...
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/the-ps...
DO NOT use psychedelics to solve your problems or when you are in a bad mood. You risk a bad trip causing PTSD and panic disorder or worse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_trip
https://www.reddit.com/r/Drugs/comments/36gj2h/can_ptsd_be_c...
https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Set_and_setting#Mental_State
An idea can be called genius. Often it requires knowledge and experience and coincidence for a genius idea (innovative idea, wise idea, disruptive idea).
Often it requires many years of efforts to create or to discover something new or great or genius.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genius:
A genius is a person who displays exceptional intellectual ability, creative productivity, universality in genres or originality, typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of new advances in a domain of knowledge. Despite the presence of scholars in many subjects throughout history, many geniuses have shown high achievements in only a single kind of activity.[1]
But maybe GDPR gives a false sense of safety and security and control:
- What is technically possible ? When I cite you, must my posts be deleted as well ?
- Who controls what companies do outside of the EU or even within the EU ?
- National police and secret services in the USA and EU might be more interested in the data than some US company. They have no moral problem with installing spyware on your computer.
- Banks and maybe even insurance companies have already the right to know much about you.
- https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/refo...
- https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/refo...
IMO, you can only trust that the EU and the rest of the world does not give you control when it really matters.
Another example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGeevtdp1WQ&t=1
Most people click on the option that gives quick access to the content.
If it creates more than 2 seconds of distraction, I might even close the page.
There is no reason to trust the EU legislature regarding the internet after something like this:
https://juliareda.eu/2018/08/censorship-machines-gonna-censo...
I believe in the benefits of technology.
The reason for current misery is not only lack of knowledge (scientific) and technology (e.g. in psychology and psychiatry) but also lack of knowledge (economic) and bad morality as proven by the kind of societies and elected governments in 2018.
Unfortunately it is true and I fully agree with this judgement.
We have already so much technology and yet there is still much poverty and misery in every country and NO (elected) government respects even the human rights.
http://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/human-rights/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/25/ex-un-chief-...
Besides, how many millions or billions of people will die until scientists have solved the aging problem ?
The lack of morality to vote for decent politicians. Why do US citizens claim to want medicare for all but vote for Democrats or Republicans who do not want medicare for all ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX5GSClA8z4&t=207
The lack of morality that private property should be spent to help other persons in need.
The lack of morality that allows an insane military budget and immoral lies and crimes and murder in other countries by political and military and economic warfare.
https://chomsky.info/1990____-2/
https://www.globalresearch.ca/america-has-been-at-war-93-of-...
Despite the recovery of the "lost" or invested 1.8 billion, the story gives no good impression of Larry Summers.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=40313
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/11/29/how-larry-s...
IMO poverty and austerity and military and wars imposed or tolerated because of greed and lack of empathy and foolish voters are the main reasons for needless misery.
The kind words for John McCain were shocking and disgusting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO4wXQesThA&t=356s