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Mindborg

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Everything posted by Mindborg

  1. There are substantial difficulties and a lot of engineering that's needed to make it work, especially on deep waters. Today I cannot buy a platform off the shelf for 100 000 dollars and just go to the deep sea. So I must disagree with you I think there will be developed technologies that will drop the cost dramatically. I hope to be a part of that, but at a later stage. A lot here I disagree with, but it will will take probably several years before you will be proven wrong.
  2. After working on Mindshore for some time, I’ve come to the realization that it might be difficult to go the direct route. Some of the more complicated issues that we came up against were the following:* How to create solid jobs on Mindshore in the short term. People want to build careers for the long term, and with the level of uncertainty that a startup has, what we can provide is not solid enough at this stage.* How to get the right people to travel to Tahiti in small, then large numbers. For what we’re trying to achieve with Mindshore, this one would be extremely difficult. Adding up the probabilities for the different required events to take place, we’re looking at 1:100 chance of success, maybe less. Life is short, and these odds are too low. * We’ll be taking a different route to the same destination, a route that looks like a much higher probability. Does it mean it’s time to give up? Not even close. Sam Altman says that the time to give up is when things are not working and you’re out of ideas. I firmly believe that Seasteading is going to work, it’s just some more issues that needs to be resolved first. In the case of Mindshore, it’s still a car without an engine. We need to build an engine first, and then we can continue assembling the other systems. The engine that is going to drive Mindshore will have to be creation of jobs, and a full economy. So we’ll have to design a system for doing this first, then we can get back to building Mindshore. Hopefully The Seasteading Institute will succeed with their efforts, and they can push the technology forward while we’re building the engine needed for Mindshore. So for some time, probably several years, there should be less activity on Mindshore, and then hopefully we’ll be able to pick it up again later. I think Mindshore or a project like it will be very strongly needed in the world, because the amount of irrationality in the world is on a constant rise.
  3. I very strongly agree. It's so rare to see a sci-fi that is not full of just war, killing and a celebration of death. And because I want to start a new society and am an engineer, I found it to be just totally awesome movie. The flaws in the physics were there of course, but they were tiny compared to the artistic beauty. Most beautiful movie in a very long time.
  4. A lot of good stuff in there. I respect Paul Graham, even though like so many in the valley he's into many of the practical aspects of objectivism, but not so much the theoretical. I don't believe much in schools anymore, and the popularity contest is just another reminder of that. I think it's a huge waste of time. People should learn real skills instead. Do they learn about cash flow in shcools? Balance sheets? Income statements? No. How to evaluate the value of a business? No. How to build a business? No. How to do accounting? No. Do they learn what attributes to look for in a potential spouse? What are the attributes that suggest that a person will be successful later? How can you make yourself an attractive partner? No. How to set life-goals and achieve them? No. How to make yourself happy and successful? No. I talked with one kid. He was learning how the trees were procreating. Others are learning about religions. He didn't learn how he could succeed genetically, but how the trees were doing it. Maybe the whole school system is dated. It was invented hundreds of years ago, and have now come to dominate childhood for most people all over the world. I know I regret wasting so many years doing something so useless. The best years of learning and fun wasted.
  5. What you say is accurate, but I think the benefits of saying sorry are much bigger than what's being mentioned here. I find that when I say sorry on a frequent basis (and I make mistakes every single day), it inspires courage. I'm not afraid of being wrong, because I can trust myself to correct my mistakes. Because I know I'll make mistakes and can correct them, I can steam ahead and crash into walls and have the resiliency to get up very fast. I'm also not very worried about hurting people, because many times after I've hurt them and say sorry, the relationship to that person is actually improved. In other words, it's better to hurt them, acknowledge the mistake and fix it, then not taking any action at all. Saying sorry has so many benefits. Another is that the internal fear of being "discovered" goes away. "What if someone finds out" becomes a though of the past, and instead there comes the pride of "yes, I did this, and I stand by it, because I've corrected my mistake". So I'd say; make heaps of mistakes, learn from it, apologize, and go full throttle. Life is short, make the most of it. You cannot drive a formula 1 car with a lot of weights hanging behind it. Fix errors and move on.
  6. OK, we all know that there's a lot in the world we don't like. But what are some reasons that keep you going, things that you're optimistic about? I can start: * I'm thankful there's so many smart people in today's world. Jeff Bezos is working on space, and so is Elon Musk. * There's greater opportunity than ever before to design our lives as we wish. * There are a lot of smart people working on crypto currencies, and they are going to dramatically change the power of governments. * There are more books than ever. Almost any subject I can just search for it, then I can learn from world experts on the subject. * There is less violence in the world than ever before. * The project Mindshore is inspiring me very much, what if it works, and what if we can build something unimaginably beautiful? * International air tickets are cheap, making travel more accessible than ever. * Software is impacting more and more areas of life, making things more convenient and faster. What are things you're grateful for?
  7. Return on investment Have you experienced that many times there is no correlation between how much effort something is, and how much money you make?(Hint; if you have not yet gotten into the investing game, I suggest getting started with just a few dollars. Get in to learn at first, not to make money.)As an investor I’ve experienced the lack of correlation between effort and how much I make multiple times. I’ve put in a lot of effort into an investment, only to have negative results. No payoff at all. Other times I’ve put in a little effort, and have very good results. Other times I put in a lot of effort and had very good payoff.What are the properties of the winning investments?Sometimes the upside is dependent on my efforts, other times not. But usually the winners have a large potential upside and a limited downside. That’s what Mindshore has. It has a huge upside, and very limited downside.What if it works to build a community first, then a society, then a nation at sea? What if we long term can start a new country? Instead of changing existing structures, where you’ll have almost 0 payoff if you win, and you’ll probably lose, your effort can go into a project with a decent chance of success and a massive payoff if it works; a new country based on rational values.
  8. I've heard one way of putting it, that emotions are the outwards expression, and the feelings are the internals (endorphins, adrenaline etc.) What do you think of that? Is that along the lines of what you're saying?
  9. Yeah, you're right. Thank you for correcting me. I thought of it after I wrote it, that I should focus on the probability of success, not the chance of failure. I think capitalism and individualism is going to win, one way or the other. There are so many projects these days that are focused on freedom, all we need is for one to succeed. Most projects are more libertarian in nature, and not so much objectivist. While libertarian is quite awesome I think, they miss quite a few components, including the importance of self-esteem and ambitions. I think objectivism adds so much to the conversation and way of life. Still, if it's a choice between where I'm living now and a libertarian society, I'll take the libertarian every day.
  10. My time. My money. And it will probably be wasted. But I have to try.
  11. I'm not saying it is. I'm saying that's my job, and I will probably fail.
  12. Maybe not. I would love to be proven wrong. I love the idea of home-schooling. How many years do you guys need to change the US to become a society of rational individualism? Another 5? 10 perhaps? I really do hope that the US changes course. But I tend to think that the momentum that the US has is going to continue. The US at this stage is a planet moving through space. Someone firing a rocket here and there is not going to change the trajectory of that planet.
  13. OK. I hope I'm wrong here, but what I see is "dumbing down" of more and more people. I have changed a few people in a significant way towards rational thinking, capitalism etc. It took me literally years. The huge downside with Objectivism and all forms of individualism is that we're asking people to take responsibility for their own life. If a loser is going to accept this philosophy, they also have to accept that they are failures, and that it's their own fault that life sucks so bad. That hurts. Is there a way? I think so. Technology can change people faster than anything. But aside from new technology not yet built I doubt it. I agree with that. I'm all for peace and prosperity in all ways possible. That said, you remember when Dagny Taggart is in the valley and is about to leave, and Dagny says ~"They still want to live, and that gives us a bond". Hugh Akston tells her to check that premise? I've checked it. The fact is that many people don't want to live. They don't enjoy it, they don't find it fun. They just suffer. They don't even have the desire to improve. If people don't even want to live, how can you possibly on a large scale improve their lives? I don't think it's impossible. I think it can be done. But I think moving to Tahiti gives me more bang for the buck over the next couple of years, as well as the long term. And what if it works, and we can start from fresh, a blank big paper where we can draw whatever cool things that has never existed before. That's the problem. Don't the government own the children for 15 years? Government schools? You think the teachers unions are going to give that up? 15 years of wreaking the brain. Most people never recover from that.
  14. Imagine a society where nobody is expecting anyone to live altruistically. That's what I've done, and now I cannot get it off my mind. I think it's possible, and it's worth spending time and money on. I don't think I can convince 10 million people. Most people cannot reason for themselves, and then I have nothing to convince them with. Arguments only work with people who think for themselves. But maybe I can convince 10 people? Then we can see if we can get something small working, then we might grow from there? I'd rather have a few good friends with whom I can improve my life, than a hundred "friends" who try to live at my expense and who are envious of my every success and achievement. Imagine a society where the payment for the government is not based on your income, but just a fixed monthly bill, perhaps 100 dollars. That's it, just another bill like the utilities. Then all the income you earn is yours and yours alone. Imagine a society where the whole culture is one of rational individualism; where nobody expects a free lunch, but where each person takes responsibility for their own lives. I know it might sound silly, but I don't care, I'm just on fire for the idea. I think of it day and night. I think Galt's Gulch in some form is possible, and I think it might be built into something so awesome we cannot imagine it today. Ayn Rand was optimistic for America. I'm not, I think there's less than 1:1000 chance that America will swing towards complete individualistic freedom in the near term. So I'm working on Mindshore. Edit: sorry for changing the topic.
  15. You bring up a lot of points, and you might be right in many of them. I realize I have not seen much science on this subject, so I cannot have a strong opinion on this. I am very far from being an expert on this topic too, so again I cannot say. As for interacting with children I treat them as fully functional humans with a mind, their own desires, their own feelings and as worthy of respect, though they are lacking in physical strength and in knowledge. I find this very useful, and kids seem to like it too. Once I see data or reasoning suggesting my current behavior is not the best for achieving self-esteem and independence in kids, I'll change my behavior. My guess is that it starts very early, long before birth. I'd think it starts even before the brain develops, as I think feelings are more important to primitive life-forms than brains are. I don't know exactly when the amygdala develops in a fetus, but when it does, it deals with feelings. Because it's a much more primitive part of the brain, it's logical that it's more important in early stages. The amygdala can release chemicals that makes you feel angry, afraid etc., and these are extremely useful feelings in the struggle for survival. I'd guess that in some decades we'll have very good information on what the fetus is feeling while still inside the mother, and I think computer learning will be very useful here. I'd also guess that the fetus is starting to have feelings after perhaps just a couple of months.
  16. Do we need a government? If we need a government, how should it be structured? How could a well-functioning individualistic society be organized? So many people have strong opinions about this, but they are all wrong, including you. The only correct answer to these questions is “I don’t know”. If you think you know, it’s probably because you have not yet started building and implementing this thing. My huge advantage is that I have applied the scientific method in many areas of my life, and any half-good scientist loses arrogance very fast. I have assumptions that I might think have a fair chance of working. I often even assign probabilities to the different outcomes. But I only know something after I have run an experiment, and even then I am open for the possibility that I might have made an error. I know that the only way to find out is by experimenting. But how many experiments do you need? In software we’re used to feedback cycles of seconds, minutes, hours, days and weeks at most. In software we know that the possible things you can build are infinite, and for this reason you need to be sure to get feedback very rapidly to avoid getting off course. Customers decide what should be built. When was the last experiment in governance? How frequent are the experiments run; once per decade or century? How can anyone with a serious face claim to know what works in governance when all you have seen is a few hundred experiments? When did your government last ask you “what do you think of our service? Do you see any room for improvements?” It never happened. The internet is awesome because there have been perhaps millions of experiments, and most didn’t work out. A few become great systems that are working well. The fact is, you don’t know what will work in governance, and neither do I. Let's be honest and say so. Then we can experiment and find out. Let’s use science and reason to build an English speaking society of rational individualism, not faith and force. What do you think? Is there a way to use science to finding these things out, or should we crawl and use blind faith? Original blog post found here: http://mindshore.weebly.com/blog/do-we-need-a-government
  17. I might be missing your point yes, and I'm quite sure we're addressing different things. As for having a modern state which in principle separated economics and state; I completely agree with you. What I'm addressing though, is the claim that capitalism has never existed. I think it has on a very small scale, if as small as between two people on a desert island a thousand years ago where there were no involvement from any third party. Never is a very strong word to me, it means never in the existence of the universe as we know it. I see Eioul also reacted to the use of the word "never" in an earlier post. That sounds plausible. I think people think of bribing as bad because they expect the government officials to be altruistic. The whole society is built around this altruistic morality, and then people are surprised when people are acting according to self-interest instead.
  18. I've seen a few newborns. Yes, they have very strong emotions. Very strong. A search online will suggest that the amount of adrenaline in the body of a baby when crying is going to be very high. https://www.askdrsears.com/topics/health-concerns/fussy-baby/science-excessive-crying-harmful http://www.health24.com/Medical/childhood-diseases/Experts/Question/adrenaline-and-crying-20100508 http://www.theparentvortex.com/wordpress/new-research-on-cortisol-crying-infant-brain-development-and-the-morality-of-babies/
  19. OK, that might be what Eioul meant. Yeah I agree there's not any ideas in the DNA. I could even go so far as to say there's very little information in the DNA itself, it's just a bunch of atoms on a long string. It just so happens that when this long molecule interacts with certain other systems, like the cell surrounding it, the it has these strange effects on the cell, and the cell then acts in a certain way. My claim is that it's plausible that because of the DNA certain neuron-pathways might become very strong, and that this pattern in the brain is so useful that the kid is born with it, and that pattern might conceivably correspond to a concept in reality. I could be wrong, and studies will probably verify or falsify this in the future.
  20. Yeah, he's written quite a bit about it. Very good books, especially Antifragile.
  21. After giving it some though, my answer is: I don't know. I would have to see an experiment to verify of falsify this. I don't know how this experiment would be set up, but I do know that neuroscience have come quite far these days, and will go much further in the future. I know that in computers there is no hard distinction between software and hardware. Almost anything done with one can be done with the other, with the difference that hardware is more expensive but faster. I would not be surprised if it's possible for nature to do the same with us, that certain ideas and even concepts are so extremely useful that they actually become part of the hardware. I would actually be surprised if it's not like this. As for concept formation in neo-cortex; I'm not an expert on these things, but I do know that I've been surprised by being wrong very many times. I'd love to see a study on it.
  22. I agree, it's a feature. But it's still a mess. No intelligent designer would make it like it is, it's a bunch of local optimums with no regard to global optimum. Isn't this why we're all pro free market too? Let the messy individuals do as they please in trade, and the sum total of all this mess is a highly organized society? And when the government is trying to force everyone to act in a certain manner, then the outcome becomes very unreliable. Many of these principles that govern one part of reality is also applicable to things that seem unrelated. This is why it's so beneficial to think in terms of principles.
  23. You definitely make me think here. Thank you for bringing it up, I'll need some time to think more.
  24. After spending some hundreds of hours (not thousands, so I'm not an expert) studying biology and evolution, I think it's very safe to say that humans are not born 100% tabula rasa. Evolution, in order to make us live at a young age, had to write into the hardware how we should act and feel at a young age. It's not a conscious choice made by the neo-cortex to take the first breath and to scream. The neo-cortex has hardly been developed. The same goes for later stages, I'd say 100% of the value judgement in a kid is handed down from the genes. And it is value judgement, the young person is judging if something is of benefit or is harmful. While it might sound academic and nice to say that rational judgement precedes emotions, I think it's very safe to say that in reality it's a complete tangled mess. For programmers; it's the worst spaghetti code you can imagine. Reality is messy, very messy, and so are the internal workings of humans. Evolution didn't intelligently design us, it just took small steps here and there to improve us. As a kid grows, and I'm sure you can see from your own life, the kid take more and more responsibility for thoughts and actions. When this is done, value judgement becomes more of an issue, and the model that Rand is suggesting is becoming more and more accurate. Evolution, to make us live, had to instill the desire to live, the desire to struggle and win, and it comes long before we're born. This is not a function of the intellect, you see it in all living beings. It's a function of life itself and comes down to how the DNA works with it's copying mechanism. In general, I feel that many objectivists have not spent adequate time on evolution, DNA, biology, reproduction etc. Very many things in objectivism will come into a different light with knowledge of these things. tldr; There are innate ideas, patterns in the brain and our nervous system, as well as values. These have been handed down by evolution to help us fight for our lives. Babies cry because they need assistance from parents if he or she shall have a chance to live.
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