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News Briefs 18-02-2009

By Grail-seekeron

It’s all happening…

Thanks Greg.

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Brian Eno

Grail-seeker
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7 Comments

  1. Strict Warrior Code for Robots?!
    Oh yeah, that will work. Right until someone realizes his robot will win if it doesn’t have a “strict” code. This roughly means we have only such time as it will take to figure out how to power up one of these terminators for more than a few hours.

    1. How about…
      How about instead of obsessing ourselves with gruesome ethical scenarios for killer bots, we rather end with the need for wars in the first place, while they’re still fought by humans?

      I find utterly depressing that our best minds think it’s much more likely that we’ll have an AI sentient being capable of taking tough life-death judgment calls in the not-so-distant future, than to think there will be a time when global peace would be finally achieved. Way to go, Homo Sapiens :-/

      —–
      It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
      It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

      Red Pill Junkie

      1. Well,
        Now see, there’s where I respectfully disagree. The concept of peace is just that: concept. No one’s ever seen it. It simply doesn’t exist. People infer that peace exists because there have been intervals between wars. But having intervals between wars isn’t peace. It’s just a respite.

        Humans are bred by nature to be warriors. We have always been that way, and we always will be that way. It’s in our genes. It’s how we got to be top of the food chain.

        Civilization is simply our way of trying to mitigate our own behaviour. We have developed morals, laws, and ideals in order to help support the better angels of our natures, but in the end, we are all about competition, all about the win. Those who aren’t? They die, left behind or killed off as the race moves forward.

        Think I’m kidding? How about the Olympics, then. Our finest hour, some say. Athletes getting together to compete. But wait, what are sports? Preparations for war. The original games were held to show off the city-state’s best warriors. Running, jumping, javelin, swimming, wrestling, discus, shot put, hurdles, etc. All are tools of war, skills required to fight and win.

        We like to think we aren’t like other animals, but we are the same, except for one difference. We are aware of what we are and try to mitigate our own natures. Other animals simply don’t care.

        I don’t want to live in a world without arms or conflict or competition. Those who inhabit such worlds become weak, complacent, and eventually die off or are overtaken by other species who either enslave them, or kill them off. Competition, warfare, makes us better. It weeds out the weak and rewards the strong, whether in mind or body. It is how we evolve. It is how we survive as a species. Survival of the fittest, through strength, intelligence, cunning, wile, whatever.

        It is nature at work. I embrace it, and so should you. Chasing after the chimera of peace is a fool’s errand, and will lead to sorrow every time.

        Respects,
        Gwedd

        1. That’s pretty bleak.
          Yes, concepts are mental constructs until someone actually manages to make something tangible out of it. That’s how we got to the moon.

          Yes, humans are inherently predators. Perhaps there’s no way intelligence can evolve from non-predatorial species, like herbivores or autotroph organisms (i.e. plants). However, once intelligence is involved is not only a matter of ‘survival of the fittest’, as it was often used and abused in past decades to justify some of the most horrible acts (like the Holocaust or the sterilization of the poor & the mentally week). I hardly doubt Darwin meant for his theory to be taken as prescriptive as well as descriptive.

          So I believe a truly intelligent species can therefore find a way to sublimate its primal urges that helped it so well to survive during its initial phase of development. You mention the Olympics and sports, and that’s a very good example of how to re-route or re-direct our violent instincts. Football players treat their opponents pretty roughly, but they don’t actually intend to kill them, do they?

          So, out of basic biological instincts there can appear truly remarkable features, like art or philantropic acts. Compassion for your neighbors is a very good evolutive strategy too.

          How about instead of expecting the worst of people we view men as inherently good-natured? How about we try to eliminate the need of conflict for limited resources by trying to increase those resources instead of wasting them to maintain a pyramidal society where a small elite control most of the wealth of the world? How about we understand the manner in which our ‘selfish genes’ control our behavior and metabolism to perfect our bodies & our societies as a by-product?

          Maybe the need for deterrents will never be expunged from society, but we could at least try to come up with more efficient non-lethal weapons that help subdue the most uncontrollable of our members.

          As for competition, we shouldn’t really worry about that. There will always be something to compete for. Our ignorance for instance; or the stars, that remain so inviting and yet tragically so out of our reach.

          Men have used their intelligence mainly for war. Maybe it’s time we used it to better ourselves; otherwise our big brains will remain as nothing but the substitute for bigger claws or larger fangs. We should strive to be more.

          —–
          It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
          It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

          Red Pill Junkie

        2. War! What is it good for?
          [quote=Gwedd]Humans are bred by nature to be warriors. We have always been that way, and we always will be that way. It’s in our genes. It’s how we got to be top of the food chain. [/quote]

          No it’s not. We are not warriors, we are predators. Pretty badly equipped predators too, apart from opposable thumbs and a big brain. We got to the top of the food chain through logical thought and the ability to plan, not by being warrior princes. Take that away, put us in the African savannah without any tools, and you have a very tasty mammal.

          [quote]I don’t want to live in a world without arms or conflict or competition. Those who inhabit such worlds become weak, complacent, and eventually die off or are overtaken by other species who either enslave them, or kill them off. Competition, warfare, makes us better. It weeds out the weak and rewards the strong, whether in mind or body. It is how we evolve. It is how we survive as a species. Survival of the fittest, through strength, intelligence, cunning, wile, whatever.[/quote]

          You’re padding your argument by conflating competition and warfare – but one is not indelibly tied to the other. I can beat most people at most sports, and I love the thrill of the competition. I have absolutely no desire to kill or wish harm on my opponent(s), or to invade small oil-rich countries. Yes, competition helps us to advance, sometimes in amazing ways (e.g. the space race). Warfare is not a necessary consequence of that however, and has no basis in modern times for enhancing survival of the fittest. Modern warfare is won by the side (filled with persons of various genetic backgrounds) with the best technology – often not developed by their own genetic stock/intelligence – and sometimes through the element of luck (as in winning a key battle).

          I consider evolution as pushing us not simply towards better physical capacity, but towards higher consciousness. The urge to warfare is therefore, to me, a relic of the vestigial human brain, and should be outgrown at the earliest opportunity. I find it abhorrent.

          Of course, that’s my opinion after much thought and contemplation. There are other days where I wonder whether I’ll die and wake up in the halls of Valhalla, and they’ll ask me why I haven’t been cutting loose on the battlefield as the gods intended…
          😉

          Kind regards,
          Greg
          ——————————————-
          You monkeys only think you’re running things

          1. War
            [quote]The urge to warfare is therefore, to me, a relic of the vestigial human brain, and should be outgrown at the earliest opportunity. I find it abhorrent.[/quote]

            War: It is the appendix of the human psyche 😉

            Great comments, skipper.

            —–
            It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
            It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

            Red Pill Junkie

          2. agression and wars
            War is nothing other than aggressive behaviour in groups. It does not really require physical violence – preventing the other group from eating serves just as well.

            War is also not a human invention, animals do it.

            I think it is not quite accurate to make a strict decision between groups and individuals here. Cities, countries, fans of the wrong football team have all made war. So have trade unions.

            I don’t see how sports competition promotes peace. It doesn’t even substitute for war, except between the professionals. The professionals will happily break the bones of the opposition, but they don’t hate them.

            But then professional soldiers do not tend to hate each other either.

            Without difficult goals and serious motivation (fear usually) people and societies get comfortable and lazy. Unfortunately we are pretty far away from making progress out of the goodness of our hearts.

            —-
            It is not how fast you go
            it is when you get there.

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