ruskerdax
As for the Star Trek (TNG) interpretation of AGI, I suspect something like this in the real world would give rise to a kind of "oracle" situation, which creates its own dangerous problems. A system which functions as described only by observing and giving input where asked still has the potential to affect the outcome of events simply by being a reliable predictor.
A paper explaining this concept far better than I would be able to in a HN comment is available here: http://www.aleph.se/papers/oracleAI.pdf
Governments allow you to be violated, at the request of the wealthy and currently-powerful. Appealing to governments to solve this issue will not work.
I am well aware this is how laws enforced by governments work. It does not necessarily follow that is how society works, or that it must be so. I'd rather stay on topic than turn this into a criticism of democracy, however.
>You seem to believe you have a fundamental right to copy someone else's works. If the author of those works grants you permission (open source) - then fine.
On the contrary, you seem to believe you have a fundamental right to use violent threats to intimidate me into not copying or modifying code.
>You seem to suggest that people shouldn't profit from their work.
I absolutely do not suggest that. There are ways one can profit from software development (or other creative and technical endeavors) that don't involve threatening people with violent force.
>I just don't think FOSS software alone is tenable.
I understand that. At least acknowledge that you are the fundamentalist here, taking the approach that because you don't believe it is "tenable" for software to be free, you think it is pragmatic and therefor acceptable to use violent force to prevent others from copying or modifying code.
FOSS is the antithesis of this fundamentalism, as it expressly rejects the use of threats to intimidate others into not copying or modifying code. I'm sure there are some people who make sweeping generalizations that may not apply to all proprietary software, but being suspicious of an opposing viewpoint doesn't make one a fundamentalist.
Not sure where you're getting that from. I do not want to "shut it down," quite the opposite.
> Do you believe that nation states exist solely, or primarily, to control currency?
No, but control of currency is a major factor in their sustained existence.
> Currency is the blood of the nation, yes, but nation states form organically, to further interests of groups of people. Whenever you have more than a dozen people in one place, you get hierarchical governance, and the more people you add, the more that hierarchy grows vertically to cope with the load.
Nation states are a symptom of obsolete social organization technology. They result in massive human suffering and hampering of technological growth. Their formation, whether "organically" or not, is irrelevant.
> With millions of people, you arrive at some form of states;
States neither require millions of people, nor are they a necessary result of millions of people existing.
> add couple wars into the mix, and you arrive at modern sovereign nation states.
Is this intended as an indictment?
> Point being, if cryptocurrencies were to break states' control over money - and what I guess you hope for
Yes.
> after lots of blood unnecessarily shed
"Unnecessarily" is a large assumption. And ideally it would happen with as little violence as possible, preferably none. When contrasted with the scale of the crimes of nation states, however, it seems difficult to make a case for their continued existence, even with massive short term casualty.
> the states would be back in some form.
What are you basing this assumption on? I think there is a strong case that social organizing technology is likely to result in nation states being made obsolete over time. The contradicting viewpoint is not substantiated by much, I suspect.
> It's doubtful though, that cryptocurrencies would survive the process. They need computing and Internet to work, and computers&Internet need stable global economy to exist. Break the economy, break the supply chains, and modern technology evaporates.
Computing and networking are not dependent on the existence of nation states. A stable global economy is especially not dependent on them -- in fact, nation states are quite probably the largest cause of global instability, economically and otherwise. Preferably, a transition away from nation states happens using technology itself. Cryptocurrency is likely to play a major role in this.
> Along with 90% of urban population starving to death.
A sudden overnight collapse of nation states might very well lead to large deaths, although probably not at this scale. This is not likely to happen, and certainly not likely to happen as a result of mass cryptocurrency adoption.
> Yes, I'm fearful, because this technology is tuned in with the markets just well enough that it may propagate
I'm glad you've admitted your remarks about cryptocurrency being wasteful and harmful to the environment are motivated by trying to suppress its existence.
> whether governments want it or not
As opposed to free people...
> and grow to the point of burning out most of our non-renewable energy sources
Ridiculous.
> with little to show for it, before someone finally puts a stop to it
Good luck.
> I've painted a bleak worst-case scenario above
You've spread fear-based propaganda based on an issue you clearly have made a lot of seemingly fear-based (as opposed to reasoned) assumptions about.
> I sincerely hope cryptocurrenicies as we know today will fizzle out and be remembered just as another scam
You fear the change that this technology brings, so you hope it is suppressed and remembered for being something you (possibly) understand it is not?
> I'm not against distributed ledgers, distributed consensus, or even new designs for money.
These are the potential benefits of cryptocurrency.
> I'm just against stupidly inefficient solutions exacerbating the biggest problems humanity faces.
Even a grossly less efficient method for mining cryptocurrency would be preferable to the problems caused by the continued existence of nation states, and probably by their control of currency alone, not even factoring in all of their other crimes.
The biggest problem humanity faces is the existence of nation states, and the resulting democide and destruction, as well as potential existential threats of nuclear annihilation or other destruction. In the pursuit of perpetuating themselves, nation states are also likely major limiting factors in technological advance, which is the single greatest factor in preventing human suffering.
Sure. Should we start with the estimated 262 million counts of democide committed last century?
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
Or perhaps you're one of those people who thinks mass murder of humanity is a good thing because it reduces the human impact on the environment?
> If you can't explain it adequately to an audience, then you don't know it well enough to to be stating it as fact.
Absolutely untrue. That requires you to assume the audience is both intellectually capable of understanding a complex proposition, and that it hasn't been sufficiently biased against or indoctrinated against an opposing view. While I'm sure there is some correlation between familiarity with a given subject and one's ability to explain it, you would be making a gigantic leap in assuming this automatically means a given audience is going to adequately understand the argument.
That is also completely aside from the assumption that my comments were intended to make a compelling case on the matter outside of the person I was responding to. I'm not really convinced that wouldn't be a waste of time, but maybe I'll be surprised.
If you can't understand the compound harm to the environment (for starters) of nations states existing and controlling currency, I feel bad for you. If you do understand it, you should know you're rightly fearful of this technology, because it's going to play a major factor in your future demise.
Truly a sad day.
It's subsidy with extra steps.
There are few things more pathetic than someone who has been screeching arrogantly about the demise of cryptocurrency for over half a decade, laughing and taunting when the price decreases or someone gets scammed, and gnashing their teeth and desperately tweeting or posting when it soars, yet again, in response to market demand. If they'd used one PC to mine BTC in their downtime instead of screaming "LOL libertarians" they'd have paid off their house. If they'd put a few hundred dollars into it at literally any time in 2013, they'd be sitting on at least as much.
Please keep doing this stuff. It never gets old to me.
It's not worth trying to reason with collectivists. They see aggressive violence as justified. The only interaction to be had with them involves letting them know that's a bad idea, or violence in kind. This is the core truth of all interaction with statists, including those who support democracy; despite their insistence that it is somehow more enlightened, there is a violent threat behind every supposedly civilized "debate."
It's kinda hard to trust someone that's either sticking a gun to your head, or got to the position they did by having someone else do it for them.
It's not really addressing the whole issue of depending on third party APIs if your API is calling on them, but you are technically correct, which I've heard is the best kind of correct.