Re: [OT] Plato\'s Pub and Philosophical Society
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually, the energy component is relatively short-term, about 20 min or so. It is during these 20 min that the looping energy pattern that will be memory acts as a template for the growth of dendritic spines on the neurons. Further stimulation (through dreams) can tead to growth of actual dendritic branches. Once the growth is finished you have yourself a new memory. Also, the more that memory is activated, the more the dendrites grow, and so the easier it is to access that memory.

Why do we structurally store memories? Because the energy Version is too damn fragile. One good bump and it's gone. That is why those who have had head trauma, electric shock, etc. have memory loss (usually of the preceeding 20 min).

Also, realize that energy is not transmitted within our brains through electrons. It is done through chemical ions (calcium, potassium, etc.). That is one of the reasons that computers are so fast. They operate through much faster electrons. Ironicly, this may be a strike against them ever becoming conscious. Cousciousness is very much a temporal event. In fact it only emerges with specific timing (20 msec) and complexity. Computers just might be too fast to gain cousciousness.

Thinking of the brain as some kind of crude anchor to which the energy of ou mind is tied is somewhat baseless. The structure of our brain is our mind.

Re: [OT] Plato\'s Pub and Philosophical Society
 

Hmm, can you explain this a bit more? I didn't quite understand how faster speed can prevent consciousness... If the computer is fast, wouldn't it just have thoughts that happen faster?

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That's an interesting statement... Where did you get that from?

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Suicide Junkie:
It was something that was discussed in my neuro-science class Last semester. To get much more specific I would have to dig through my notes to find the relevant data (perhaps I'll get around to doing that later, if I have time).

Kamog:
One way to put it is that consciousness is something that has to have the time to consider itself. If a complex task is performed too quickly it doesn't have enough time to displat the emergent property of consciousness. It may be that computers are finishing their tasks before they have a chance to be more than their task. A lot of our consciousness is a result of the lingering effects (often self-perpetuated) of a stimulus rather than specifically due to any given stimulus. Sort of like with the example I gave of how we encode memory. A stimulus sets up a feedback loop that stimulates the growth of memory. This is further reinforced by dreaming to consolidate the memory. It is from this entire process (and many others) that we derive consciousness. A computer can store data and be done with it, no further actvity needed.

This isn't to say that an actual AI is impossible though. Merely that it would be qualitatively different from ours, if possible at all.

Interesting fact: the brain works in binary. Don't believe me? Ok. Each neuron transmits info through pulses down its axon. At any point on the axon there two possibilities, that it is "spiking" (passing an ion charge) or that it is not. The refractory period of the axon (the minimum time a point takes to "reset" after a burst) is 1 msec. Therefore in 5 msec there are 2^5 possible combinations of 1 and 0. In one sec there are 2^1000. And that is only for a single axon. Multiply that by the number of neurons in the brain and you get and idea of its actual computational power.

The latest generation of computer processors is getting up there. In fact, the tendency of pentiums and higher to randomly(?) take and odd action , or otherwise show the odd unexplainable bug, may be a precursor to something like an AI awakening.

I have often wondered at how (if) humans and AI's would be able to understand each other. It seems as if we would reach consciousness from opposite ends of the spectrum. Our brains (organic animals) developed as a capacity for action and then eventually evolved memory. AI's would have started as pure memory and then developed the capacity for action. What differences would there be between the products of such different origins? Would we be able to reconcile such differences? Sometimes such questions keep me up at night.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think there is a line somewhere, albeit a very fuzzy one. It all comes down to the complexity of the brain. Chimps, elephants, dolphins, dogs, cats... these animals and others have a lot more 'human' qualities than are generally ascribed to them. For example, I think some animals definitely have a sense of humour and capacity for human-like emotion. I also thnk that complexity isn't enough- brain complexity is only potential intelligence/ free-will/ sentience/ self awareness/ whatever we're calling it. You need to fill that complexity with experience and memory for it to become self aware. For that reason I don't think all dogs are necessarily sentient- just the ones which have had sufficient mental stimulation and interaction to become self-aware. Likewise a new-born baby is not a sentient creature- it's just a potentially sentient one. (That doesn't mean I value babies any less than anyone else does, though.) At some point in their development they cross the barrier and become self-aware.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think we will see AIs in our lifetimes. I agree with Quarian in that they will have to operate in vastly different ways to us. The difficulty will not be building the "brain" - the potential intelligence - but in filling that brain with useful experience and interaction. Until we can build a viable robotic body for an AI, it will exist inside some static mainframe-box and will have to get all its experiences second hand (through encyclopedia, the web, media, conversation with humans etc) or via virtual simulations. Either way, it will be very difficult for the emergent AI to relate to humans, because their store of experiences will be so different to ours. Also, early AI will not have any need for motivation and so will not be given any- this will make them even more alien to creatures like us that are driven by biological and societal motivations. Later AIs, especially more mobile ones, will be given desires and drives- self preservation, empathy, the desire to achieve, to learn etc.

This will eventually make them easier for us to accept, but the first few years of human/ AI relations will be very difficult. People will fear AIs as a threat, (I can see the "Frankenstein" headlines in parts of the Brtitish press now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif ) and their initial alien-ness will mean people either refuse to accept their intelligence and treat them as dumb machines (effectively consigning them to slavery) or block further development in AI tech, or both.

I would like to see human rights organisations pre-empt AI technology by defining NOW what constitutes an artificial intelligence for the purposes of assigning it certain rights and protections. Unfortunately I don't think this is likely to happen, and AIs will be used as cheap labour, no doubt programmed to obey (like in asimov's second law of robotics: "A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.")

Once we are able to put AIs in human-like bodies, they will be able to gather their experiences in much the same way that we do, they will be much easier for us to relate to and (some) humans will be able to accept their status and sympathise with them. Then the struggle for AI rights will begin, with economic interests trying to keep them in chains. However I doubt this will manifest itself in the kind of terminator2-style apocolypse postulated by the likes of blatant self-publicist Kevin Warwick, because AIs will be fundamentally safe: Although Aasimov's positronic brain and three laws are really pure technobabble, I'm sure human fears will make sure some kind of coded inhibition against anti-social behaviour will is implemented.

Which brings us back around to free will...

[ March 24, 2003, 11:35: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It sounds to me like the speed is not the problem here. Doing it faster means more time left over. The problem would be the narrow-mindedness, where the computer immediately stops thinking about all of the information it just processed in order to concentrate 100% on the next problem. Even if that problem is just watching the clock and waiting for input.

I'm not sure how you'd go about coding it to think about what it's doing... some set of parallel processors inspecting the incoming codes, perhaps an evolutionary programming system where it takes the majority decision of the currently top-ranked algorithms. (Ranked via various needs sensors, and perhaps a pair of "good bot"/"bad bot" social buttons on the front)

Re: [OT] Plato\'s Pub and Philosophical Society
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Here's an interesting note on self-awareness. Self-awareness seems to be tied to longevity. People who are mentally challenged tend to score very low on scales of self-awareness. This seems to be tied to a lack of fourth and fifth order dendritic arborization (dendrite branches growing on branches, growing on branches, growing on branches, etc.). The interesting correlate here is that they tend to have shortened lifespans, typically dying in their late forties or fifties.

This is interestingly mirrored in the case of feral children (those raised by animals). Ferals tend to show a similar deficiency in self-awareness and lack of fourth and fifth order dendrite growth, even after extensive cultural assimilation and education. And guess what? Ferals tend to die in their forties and fifties as well.

Interesting is it not?

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It sounds to me like the speed is not the problem here. Doing it faster means more time left over. The problem would be the narrow-mindedness, where the computer immediately stops thinking about all of the information it just processed in order to concentrate 100% on the next problem. Even if that problem is just watching the clock and waiting for input.

I'm not sure how you'd go about coding it to think about what it's doing... some set of parallel processors inspecting the incoming codes, perhaps an evolutionary programming system where it takes the majority decision of the currently top-ranked algorithms. (Ranked via various needs sensors, and perhaps a pair of "good bot"/"bad bot" social buttons on the front)</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think it has a lot to do with the way in which we each encode information (humans and computers). Humans don't just store information, we store our interpretation of information. That filtering process is part of what gives us cousciousness. Computers can just store data whole cloth, no need for interpretation. I don't think that finding a way for computers to mimic our encoding process is the answrer to creating an AI. For AI's an entirely different process would have to be discovered, one taking into account such fundamental differences.

As for the 20 msec time frame, we have processes within us that happen both faster and slower, but it is only those that occur at @20 msec that produce/are a part/define consciousness. If computers can achieve consciousness it will most likely be in a very different timeframe. Perhaps one in which we will be unable to recognize their awakening.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">ROFLOL! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

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Has anyone ever read the hyperion series by Dan Simmons? It has an interesting account of the development of AI's, especially in the Last two books (Endymion and Rise of Endymion). It sees them basically as viruses that gained sentience through parasitic consumption of their bretheren. This had some interesting implications on their group psychology and in their interaction with humans.

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I realize this is going back one topic, but if everything we think and do is pre-determined, there is no legality or illegality. No one is responsible for their actions, and thus, any attempt to punish or reward behavior is immoral. Of course, one could also say that people try to promote behavior similar to their own, and that such "persuasion" is also pre-determined. Then, one's own behaviors are not merely the result of which set of chemical signals in one's head is strongest, but which set of outside behaviors triggers the strongest response in oneself.

Re: [OT] Plato\'s Pub and Philosophical Society
 

"No one is responsible for their actions, and thus, any attempt to punish or reward behavior is immoral"

If everything is pre-determined there is -no such thing- as immoral.

Phoenix-D

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Okay, so I'm redefining immoral without saying so. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Perhaps I should just say that attempting to regulate human behavior would be to deny pre-determined human behavior...except that then said denial would be pre-determined behavior. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I don't see how one can have both the legitimate rule of law and predeterminism.

I guess it would be like taking agnosticism one step further: "Nothing can ever be known...including what 'nothing' means." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You couldn't have anything else, beacuse it is determined that we will have...

Seriously, the problem isn't with determinism but with the atheistic universe that determinism relies on. Whether physics allow only one future or many, I still believe we are all just little pockets of order emerging from infinite chaos.

I'm an atheist (but not a determinist) and as such I believe in a universe where morality is nothing more than a human concept- the result of our sociable monkey heritage fine-tuned by several thousand years of applied philosophy. When we do finally meet intelligent alien life, we are going to have to open whole new universities just to cope with the new branches of philosophy introduced by their non-monkey ancestry.

As a human concept though, I still believe morality has value, because we made it and we place value upon it and it holds our society together (or pretends it does. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif )

[ March 26, 2003, 09:47: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ah yes, the pragmatic position. I agree with you on this one.

In any orderly society (or perhaps I should say functioning society) there needs to be some set of rules by which people live (or strive to live, anyway). In some societies there have been more religious moralities, and in some more civic or secular (and the whole continuum in between). That is why the whole question of universal morality and universal truth is so problematic. Essentially it's just cultural hegemony: the imposition of one peoples' set of values/morals over another's.

[ March 26, 2003, 13:23: Message edited by: Chronon ]

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Does it really?
1) God creates universe (including past, present and future from out point of view)
2) He likes his finished masterpiece, frames it and hangs it on his wall.

Re: [OT] Plato\'s Pub and Philosophical Society
 

It's a valid point S_J, except that I don't know of any theistic belief systems where that happens. They all seem to have God(s) mucking about in human affairs one way or another.

But yeah, it would make quite a cool religion. Maybe I'll start me a cult...

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Looking at free-will vs. the illusion of free-will, can anyone tell me the difference? Is there a practical difference between free-will and the illusion?

When I say "illusion of free-will" I mean that in the sense of determinism, not in the "I am autnomous free agent, unaffected by my environment", obviously false, sense.

If our fates are predetermined, why are we allowed to see things otherwise? If we see things as a product of free-will how is that different from such things being a product of free-will. I it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

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I imagine it is very much the same as the aged creation type stuff we saw come up a while ago in this very thread.

No way to tell for sure, and in this case the logical answer is to live your life as if you have free will.
If you don't and you think you do, no big deal, it was bound to happen.
If you do and think you don't, well then you've got a problem.

Doesn't stop us from posting interesting theories, though, and its a much friendlier topic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

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I think some people are confusing determinism with predestination. The two are wholely unrelated concepts.

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Determinism is a materialistic view that says everything in the universe is the direct result of the (admittedly complex) interactions of matter, energy, and natural forces. Predestination is the theological view that one's eternal state was decided before creation and is unalterable.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">For our purposes there is no real difference or the distinction just doesn't apply. Determinism says that our actions are preordained by the laws of the universe, while predesedination maintains that our actions are set by god (at least one interpretation does anyway). You say pot-AY-to, I say pot-AH-to. The only real difference is that determinism stops at death (on the personal level, that is) while predestination keeps dictating your afterlife. If predestination is taken to mean that only the afterlife is set then there is no real comparisson at all.

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My dictionary has the following:

Determinism: The philosophical doctrine that every event, act, and decision is the inevitable consequence of antecedents, such as physical, psychological, or environmental conditions, that are independent of the human will.

Predestinate: 1. To destine or determine in advance: foreordain.

So, there is a philosophical difference between the two: predestination happened before the event, and determinism happens at the time of the event. And, theologically speaking, at least according to Calvinism, the only thing predestined is one's salvation. One's decisions in this life may reflect one's grace (or not http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ), but they are still one's own decisions.

In any case, I'm still not buying either one. No chemical process compelled me to write this post denouncing my enslavement to chemical processes! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

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Well, even if predestination happened before the event and determinism happens at the time of the event, it seems that under both philosophies, there can only be one way in which the future can turn out. So if future events are deterministic, they might as well be predestined, because they can't be changed and can only happen one way.

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Predestination only determines your fate in the after life. It does nothing else. This is why it and determinism have nothing to do with each other.

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If our consciousness comes from chemicals in the brain, then there can be no afterlife. Once the brain stops, that's the end.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Not necessarily. The chemical processes of the brain could merely be the interface through the soul interacts with physical reality.

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Not that this discussion of determinism isn't fascinating - which it is - but I was inspired by Dogscoff's futuristic vision thread to think about my race creation in SEIV in terms of what kind of society I would like to live in (let's leave aside the question of what the future will actually look like - that's for the other thread).

So, what kind of future society would you like to live in if you could choose? The Galactic Empire of Star Wars? The Federation of Planets? The Galactic Empire of Dune? A warrior culture? An emotionless scientific culture?

Personally, I'd go for a peaceful, cosmopolitan culture, with heavy emphasis on science and knowledge (no deeply religious trait for me!), perhaps with a touch of maintenance expertise, and organic technology (or at least eco-friendly).

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I would prefer to live in a Federation of Planets type of society. Technology, science, and medicine are advanced, space exploration and colonization are rapidly progressing, and the society values peace, cooperation, fairness, and freedom. It seems like a pretty much ideal future society. One thing I don't understand, though, is how economics is supposed to work. Supposedly, they don't have money anymore? Or do they?

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When you have a replicator, money means nothing. You can replicate anything you need.

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Given power and time, of course.

The first things you should replicate are some power plants, and some type of refinery to gather the fuel you need.
A hawking reactor would probably be cheapest, assuming you can get your hands on a really small black hole (borrow one from a romulan ship).
Random matter in, energy out, E=MC^2. Much more unsafe than a Fed style matter-antimatter reactor, but much cheaper to run.
You'd just need to set up camp in an asteroid field, or a trek-density nebula, and you'll be set for life.

[ April 01, 2003, 16:24: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

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For me the best sci-fi universe to live in would be the one from Iain M Banks' Culture novels: Incredibly advanced technology means that lifespans are incredibly long and comfortable and economy/ currency is pretty much irrelevant at the personal level. There is no such thing as government, you can mod your body into absolutely anything you like and there is a proven afterlife at the end of it all. Furthermore, the whole society is maintained and kept stable by these benign Super-AI "Gods" called Minds, and there are a zillion wierd and wonderful places and things to see and do.

Yep, that'd do me...

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I wonder if we will ever get to the point where people don't have to work for a living. Even if we have replicators and unlimited energy, we will probably still need to work. The advancement of technology has not reduced our work hours. Computers and automation have made our industries more efficient but we still don't have a 3-day work week like some people thought we will have. We can get things done faster with technology, but we have to do more each day now. In fact, it seems like people are working longer and longer hours and working more and more. 50 years ago, one person in the family was able to work and comfortably support a spouse and kids and be able to buy a house, car, and other items. Now it seems that in most families, both parents have to work just to get by. The trend seems to be more work, not less.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You're right, but the thing to remember is that while working people are at the office longer and longer hours, more and more people are unemployed.

Basically, it comes down to the way in which the time-saving benefits of labour saving technology are used to benefit the upper levels of an organisation rather than the lower levels: If a company employs 2 ppl doing the same job, and then a gizmo is invented that means the job can be done in half the time, does the company halve both their hours or lay one of them off?

In France they've passed a law where you're not allowed to work more than X hours a week. I think X is about 35 or 40. This is a cool idea- it caused some problems while people adapted but hopefully it will reduce unemployment and improve standards of living. I think the whole world should be heading this way.

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[quote]Originally posted by dogscoff:

Quote:

Basically, it comes down to the way in which the time-saving benefits of labour saving technology are used to benefit the upper levels of an organisation rather than the lower levels: If a company employs 2 ppl doing the same job, and then a gizmo is invented that means the job can be done in half the time, does the company halve both their hours or lay one of them off? In France they've passed a law where you're not allowed to work more than X hours a week. I think X is about 35 or 40. This is a cool idea- it caused some problems while people adapted but hopefully it will reduce unemployment and improve standards of living. I think the whole world should be heading this way.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Yes, and France thereby gets the worst of both possible worlds - high unemployment and declining productivity. If you're going to have a massive welfare state, you must have a large pool of labor and capital to support all those who don't/cant work. And if your workers are limited by law as to how long they can work, you are capping potential production (and thereby potential new jobs and tax revenue) by default. The French model just isn't working. But they've had it so long that when they try to scale it back, they get strikes (even "strikes" by college students - college students).

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Surely you agree though that in a world where many/ most people in employment are over-worked and work-related stress is reaching epidemic proportions, it makes sense to relieve that pressure by sharing the workload with the unemployed? Two birds with one stone...

The French model may not be working yet, but given time employers will adjust to the fact that they need to take on extra staff to bring productivity back up to previous levels. This might be tough on them, but the economy will gradually change shape to fit the new dynamics and wage structures. Maybe a more gradual approach should have been implemented...

If nothing else, it's certainly a brave concept and attempt.

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I think the trend towards more work is a very complex one. Certainly the materialistic/economic/status ambitions of some Americans (I don't want to generalize about Europe, because the culture is different) is a contributing factor. But I also think there are some fundamental economic changes going on that perpetuate this trend.

Back in the days of Father works, Mom stays home with the kids, and everyone lives comfortably in a one-family house (or at least this was the ideal anyway), the mainstay of the economy was large-scale manufacturing (steel, automobiles, capital equipment, etc.). The American economy produced over 40% of the Gross World Product because the rest of the world (Europe especially) was still recovering from WWII. Most American factories were running at close to maximum production in this time period. The unions were strong, CEO's only made about 12-15 times what the average worker made, housing and education was cheap, and the amount of stuff necessary for "comfort" was less. A small three bedroom house, one car, a single TV (or not, depending on the decade), a radio, a stove, a refrigerator, and simple furnishings were all that were necessary.

Now we have a global economy where the US contribution to GWP is about half of what it was (percentage wise), mostly because the rest of the industrialized world has fully recovered from WWII and caught up economically. Manufacturing has moved to the developing world, and the information economy is the driving force of the mature economies in Europe, Japan, and North America. Education (in the US) is no longer cheap, the unions are dying (mostly because the manufacting economy is dying), the average CEO is making over 40 times what the average worker is making (more at Enron and Worldcom...), and the amount of stuff that one needs for "comfort" is much greater. Now we need a large four-bedroom house, a mini-van and an SUV, about 4 TV's with cable programming, at least one computer, a modern kitchen (with stove, refrigerator, microwave, mixer, and dishwashing machine), a rack of home theater audio equipment (receiver, dvd player, vcr, and surround speakers), a snow-blower for the winter, a tractor-mower for the grass in the summer, plus a wide range of small appliances (Palm Pilot, cell phone, laptop, kitchen gadgets, etc.). It's no wonder that everyone is working longer hours.

And, for those not connected to the global economy, there are always minimum wage jobs at McDonalds. One has to work ridiculous hours just to get above the poverty level at minimum wage, and those are the jobs that are expanding the quickest.

So, I think the French have a good idea, but the real test is going to be how many people can be connected to the global economy (which requires a high leve of education), and how many people are going to be shunted into service jobs. If the current trend of separation between the upper classes (economically speaking) and the working classes continues, we're in for a lot more social unrest. Revolutions are made out of these kind of social disparities...

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">And that situation itself was the result of massive economic change. The "dad works outside the home, mom stays at home" model is itself an offshoot of the industrial revolution. Before that, *everybody* worked at home, either in agriculture or crafts, and there was more overlap between housekeeping and job-related labor.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">What happened to the Rockefellers and the Carnegies? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Necessary? All that is necessary is a clean living space, access to clean water, and a place to cook and store food. Everything you list here is, from the standpoint of the condition of most humans in history, mind-boggling luxury. Even the "poor" here in America, for the most part, have it so good in comparison to the rest of the world. I think our perspectives in this matter are horrifically skewed.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Which again makes my point about how culturally relative all this is. The educational system is indeed a mess, but I will pass on commenting there as I am no expert in that field. But about that ratio of CEO-to-lineworker salary - again, let me state that culture has a lot to do with what the impact of that is. In America (ideally), competence, education, and effort can move you up the ladder. Plus, the difference between that CEO and the assembly line worker in social, real economic, and political terms is not nearly as much as the difference was between a Soviet assembly line worker and the apparatchik who ran the factory. There is less of a "great gulf fixed" between the two in our society than in societies that were more influenced by strict class systems.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'll stick my rabbit's foot in my mouth and wildly speculate that, perhaps, the overloading of the educational system might have something to do with that. IOW, the glut of collegate education widens the gulf between basic labor and "skilled" labor. In my dad's day, a high-school diploma could at least get you a decent job in industry. Now, as you say, it just gets you "You want to super-size that?"

But I might be wrong. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">As I insinuated in my reply to Dogscoff, it's a beautiful idea, in theory. But when you try to apply that idea from the top-down without consideration of the forces that actually drive human behavior, politics, and economics, you get what the French have now, at best; and you get the wasteland of the ex-Soviet empire at worst.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Unless the disparities are softened by other cultural and economic factors, as I have stated above.

Good grief, and I originally came here just to download shipsets... :-}

Re: [OT] Plato\'s Pub and Philosophical Society
 

Were the Forums down Last night, or was it just my service provider? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, I want people to either die of overwork or starvation, and decrease the surplus population. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Unemployment and overwork are bad. Agreed. But, I have a philosophical problem with the idea that effective solutions to such problems can be "socially engineered" by government. And at least in America, a lot of the overwork (mind you, being in govt, I don't see a lot of it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) is out of personal or cultural expectation. "I want the corner office. I want a big raise. I want the fancy title stenciled on my door..." Ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Like it is in France? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Wasn't it Orwell who said that socialism was a beautiful idea killed by ugly facts?

Re: [OT] Plato\'s Pub and Philosophical Society
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Physically, all you need is a supply of oxygen at the right pressure and temperature, and an IV drip.

And of course a lack of dangerous critters and events.

Re: [OT] Plato\'s Pub and Philosophical Society
 

General Woundwort, Do you have the original pic that you made your avatar from? I was taking a closer look at it and it really got smudged in the reduction process not to mention what the jpeg file format did to it.

I'd like to have a go at reducing the original and framing it for you. you can send it to me by e-mail (it's in my profile) or post it here if you wish! (Or better yet post it in my avatar thread! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

Cheers!

[ April 05, 2003, 10:50: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]

Re: [OT] Plato\'s Pub and Philosophical Society
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You mean an SEIV drip? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ April 05, 2003, 20:43: Message edited by: General Woundwort ]