Re: How Robots Will Steal Your Job

[Richard Heathfield]

Airy R Bean <[email protected]> scribbled the following




Airy! You bottom posted!

Actually, that isn't a great term for it. Airy correctly put his replies
after the relevant portions of the text to which they were replies. (This
is less obvious in this reply, since I've snipped a bit for brevity.)

Surely this is against all your
principles and dogmas? Are you going to punish yourself for this
heinous sin by flogging yourself in the back or something?

Um, perhaps he's just realised that it makes sense. If so, maybe we should
encourage him rather than wind him up?

 

[Richard Heathfield]

I really don't think religion is the primary cause of [...something...]
IMO ignorance and arrogance are the more prevalent
causes.

Um. I'm unclear on the distinction you're making here...

A religion is a faith system. It is perfectly possible to espouse a faith
system without being either ignorant or arrogant. It is also possible to be
ignorant, arrogant, or both, without espousing a faith system.

The distinction is very clear, even though it is possible for people to be
ignorant, arrogant, /and/ religious. Alas, this is all too common, but
nevertheless there is no a priori relationship between these disparate
qualities.

I stepped out of this thread for a while because I thought it was getting a
little crowded, but I do think it's important not to mix prejudices about
religion into this discussion.

I find nothing in, say, the Christian faith that specifically excludes the
possibility that animals are conscious, intelligent, or self-aware.

I am also keenly aware that many people in this thread seem to confuse
absence of evidence with evidence of absence.

 

[Gary Labowitz]

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[Roedy Green]

I find nothing in, say, the Christian faith that specifically excludes the
possibility that animals are conscious, intelligent, or self-aware.

There is the species chauvinism in genesis: 1:26

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and
let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of
the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

This is quite a different attitude that say taught by north American
religions. It leads to concepts such as "conquering nature", and the
use of human financial goals as the sole decision concern.

This is the source of the belief man is has a right to determine the
fate of all other species only considering himself. Other species are
man's chattels in this view.

The was the whole notion of soul in 19th century used to justify
slavery and the mistreatment of horses. There was no need to be kind.
They had no souls. I am not totally sure of this, but I gather they
felt horses and slaves were like machine. They could appear to
suffer, but since their was no soul inside, there was nothing to
actually suffer.

If the human soul animated the human body, I don't know what they
imagined animated the slave or horse, and why those too went through a
transformation at death when they gave up the ghost.

 

[Richard Heathfield]

There is the species chauvinism in genesis: 1:26

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and
let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of
the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

(In the NIV, the words "rule over" are used, rather than "have dominion
over", but the sense is approximately the same.)

Note that the Prime Minister of the UK, and (I guess) the President of the
USA, "have dominion" over their respective nations, but that doesn't mean
that the populations of those nations are not conscious, intelligent, or
self-aware.

This is quite a different attitude that say taught by north American
religions. It leads to concepts such as "conquering nature", and the
use of human financial goals as the sole decision concern.

That's a very self-serving view of the passage (self-serving for mankind,
that is). A more responsible view would be that, being "in charge" of
nature, it's our job to look after it, in much the same way that a
babysitter is expected to take charge of one's children, and yet somehow
avoid beating them, stealing their toys, or murdering them.

This is the source of the belief man is has a right to determine the
fate of all other species only considering himself. Other species are
man's chattels in this view.

It is an erroneous interpretation, IMHO.

The was the whole notion of soul in 19th century used to justify
slavery and the mistreatment of horses. There was no need to be kind.
They had no souls. I am not totally sure of this, but I gather they
felt horses and slaves were like machine. They could appear to
suffer, but since their was no soul inside, there was nothing to
actually suffer.

It is my view that anyone incapable of understanding that animals are
conscious and, to a greater or lesser degree, self-aware, is about as
soulless as it is possible to get.

 

[Roedy Green]

A more responsible view would be that, being "in charge" of
nature, it's our job to look after it, in much the same way that a
babysitter is expected to take charge of one's children, and yet somehow
avoid beating them, stealing their toys, or murdering them.

The concept of stewardship is how the progressive churches are viewing
this, but old attitudes are burned into our culture.

Some people imagine for example that earth would function just fine
even if every other animal species were eliminated. I have heard many
people suggest that is a desirable and inevitable solution to the
world food shortage.

We laugh at the medieval church locking up Galileo, but the church as
recently as 1884 burned all of Georg Mendel's papers on genetics.

Even after the religious motivations for an attitude are discredited,
the attitude itself can live on for another century or so.

 

[Corey Murtagh]

There is the species chauvinism in genesis: 1:26

Yes, but is it the root cause of species chauvinism? I don't believe
that it is. Also, since the bible is such a mutable thing, and is
interpreted differently by each sect of the Judaeo-Christian group of
religions, I'd hesitate to use it as a 'proof' for anything.

 

[Corey Murtagh]

My post said that X wrote or quoted it. He DID. He quoted me. He
found that interesting to continue discussion.

When you stick someone's name at the top of a response, the indication
is that the person in some way agreed with the quoted material. It's
misleading at best, and damned annoying.

 

[Roedy Green]

Yes, but is it the root cause of species chauvinism?

Talk to a Christian and say a Kalahari desert tribesman. Their
religions give them quite a different view toward other animal
species.

We are steeped in Judeo Christian culture here in North America, so we
don't realize we even have an attitude.

 

[Roedy Green]

When you stick someone's name at the top of a response, the indication
is that the person in some way agreed with the quoted material. It's
misleading at best, and damned annoying.

For my solution to the problem of attributions, please see
http://mindprod.com/projmailreadernewseader.html

I find this fussing over attributions rather silly when in an internet
debate you are talking to faceless anonymous beings. What counts it
what is said, not who said it.

Some people debate as a sort of sporting contest where the way you win
is to take something someone says, twist it, then convince everyone he
meant what you said rather that what he originally said which makes
him look like a idiot.

I find that childish.

 

[Corey Murtagh]

Talk to a Christian and say a Kalahari desert tribesman. Their
religions give them quite a different view toward other animal
species.

As I see it, there /is/ a cause and effect relationship between religion
and species chauvinism. In my opinion though it's reversed to how you
appear to view it. Religion is a very maleable thing. It changes to
suit the views of the time.

 

[Corey Murtagh]

For my solution to the problem of attributions, please see
http://mindprod.com/projmailreadernewseader.html

I would, except that the link is invalid. Perhaps you could take a
moment to explain yourself clearly - which would be /such/ a nice change
- in this forum.

I find this fussing over attributions rather silly when in an internet
debate you are talking to faceless anonymous beings. What counts it
what is said, not who said it.

I find your attitude equally silly. When a group of people is
discussing an issue, especially in a free-form manner such as this, it
/is/ important that attributions remain clear.

Some people debate as a sort of sporting contest where the way you win
is to take something someone says, twist it, then convince everyone he
meant what you said rather that what he originally said which makes
him look like a idiot.

I presume you are referring to our earlier confrontation elsethread in
regards to sloppy use of language. I wasn't trying to make you look
like an idiot, since you were succeeding quite well without my
assistance. Nor was I twisting your words as you claim. I was trying
to establish whether you were engaging in sophistry deliberately, or
were simply incompetent in the use of the language.

Rebuttal is the soul of debate. Rebut away

I find that childish.

Possibly as childish as I find your resistance to reasonable
attributions. Is it really a dfficult thing for you to do? No. Your
actions therefore seem indicative of laziness, which is not an accepted
trait of maturity.

 

[Roedy Green]

Sorry about that: missed the r.
http://mindprod.com//projmailreadernewsreader.html

 

[Roedy Green]

I wasn't trying to make you look
like an idiot, since you were succeeding quite well without my
assistance.

I grew up on BIX where the moderator deleted any messages containing
ad hominems. I can't quite get used to unmoderated newsgroups. On BIX
people still insulted each other, but they had to do it indirectly and
with great finesse. Even the insultee could enjoy the humor and
intelligence of the barb. The banter was much lighter and wittier.

 

[Richard Heathfield]

Talk to a Christian and say a Kalahari desert tribesman. Their
religions give them quite a different view toward other animal
species.

Talk to a Christian and say another Christian. Their religions give them
quite a different view toward other animal species.

There is no such thing as a Christian "party line" on the intelligence of
animal species.

We are steeped in Judeo Christian culture here in North America,

North America is only "here" for people in North America.

so we
don't realize we even have an attitude.

No, you don't, do you? For example, you seem to think that Judaeo-Christian
culture is homogenous. It isn't.

 

[Richard Heathfield]

[Someone's]
actions therefore seem indicative of laziness, which is not an accepted
trait of maturity.

I really must disagree. Yes, I really must disag...

No, it's no use; I can't be bothered.

Instead, I'll just point out that laziness is an admirable trait in a
programmer, and the lazier the better.

An ordinarily lazy programmer, for example, re-uses code because he can't be
bothered to type all that stuff in again; but for the truly expert lazer,
even copy/paste is too much trouble, so he creates and then uses a library
instead.

Plenty more examples where that one came from, but I really can't be
bothered to think them up.

 

[Corey Murtagh]

Sorry about that: missed the r.
http://mindprod.com//projmailreadernewsreader.html

Ok, so I read the relevant section. You have "Confusion in ascribing
quotes" listed as one of the problems of news/mail clients, yet
ironically you do nothing to /prevent/ such confusion in your posts.

Since there /are/ limitations to the way mail and news are implemented,
it behooves us as users to minimize the impact of those limitations.
Unless and until a new system is widely accepted, we can do little else.

Incidentally, I do like some of the ideas you presented. I think the
implementation ideas need a little work though. For example, the
challenge-response phase could easily be implemented with an SSL
connection wrapper, message identifiers need to be used rather than
timestamping, etc. Some good thoughts though.

BTW: for message ident, the id should be globally unique across mail
servers. I'd suggest using a 4-byte timestamp (seconds offset from some
useful base date) plus 4 bytes hashed from the user and server
addresses. This reduces the collision space significantly, since even
if two user+server hashes coincide, the odds of them posting
simultaneously is laughably small... and 8 bytes is still compact enough.

Just a thought

 

[Roedy Green]

ironically you do nothing to /prevent/ such confusion in your posts.

What I do is use the phrase "wrote or quoted" to indicate I don't want
to be bothered separating all the attributions out manually. When
people quote N levels deep it would be a silly waste of time.

The process should be automated. The main purpose of attributions is
an excuse for a cat fight if someone screws them up.

 

[Roedy Green]

http://mindprod.com//projmailreadernewsreader.html

In my opinion people quote far too much. You really should just quote
a line to remind people what you were talking about. If they want the
details they can got back and read the original.

The most irritating habit people have is quoting over a page of
material I have already read several times before they get to the
point.

I have seen many petty battles over top vs bottom posting and
misattributions.

I figure with a tighter newsgroup protocol those problems could be
solved. The reader would choose the format, the degree of quoting,
and the attributions would be automatically sorted out.

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

On Sat, 30 Aug 2003 14:33:05 +0200, Hans-Georg Michna

However, I must be getting near the mark or you would not say
"apparently suffers". There is a difference between going through the
emotions and actually suffering.

Roedy,

would you say that the robot in my example above should be
protected from unnecessary suffering?

Hans-Georg