General

Re: I need this thread unlocked

genepool — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:34:27 GMT

Say government reward people for hiring idiots. Say some people keep hiring idiots and his business lost money. Then you said, his business fail not because he hired idiots.

Well, maybe true. Maybe not. My point is it's up to business owners, not up to government.

The same say some women pick poorer man and breed poorer kids. Government reward those women with welfare checks.

You said, no, it's not because parents are poor. That's racists.

Maybe yes, may be no. My point is it's up to the girl, not up to government.

Re: I need this thread unlocked

genepool — Tue, 07 May 2013 11:46:41 GMT

Well, poor people have poorer kids. Maybe it's genetic. Maybe lack of inheritance. I don't know. Who care. They just ended up poorer.

Also that's not even the main point.

Even if it were not true, so what? It's women's right to decide who she wants to mate with. If she prefer $5k per month from Charlie Sheen rather than $0 from Jammie Cuming, who is government to say no.

Currently women cannot give birth to Charlie Sheen's son and demand only $5k per month. Such contract is not enforceable in court.

THe model additional family is actually what the problem is. It's not free market based. Government/religious bigots decides what traditional families should be. Free market solutions would be closer to sugar babies/sugar daddies relationship.

Re: I need this thread unlocked

ToxicAssets — Tue, 07 May 2013 10:38:12 GMT

High fecundity rates among poor people do not increase poverty, because poverty is not a genetic condition. This is a myth, one with racist undertones.

On the contrary, if the average poor children is expected to contribute more wealth to their families in the long run than the wealth she consumed when she was too young too work, having children turns out to be a good investment in human capital.

That's the general rule, and the "malthusian trap" scenario of overpopulation is the exception.

However, as you've pointed out, welfare and other modern institutions are corroding the model of traditional family that has worked for a long time, and the result is the transformation of what would otherwise be stocks of human capital into human liabilities.

Re: I need this thread unlocked

genepool — Tue, 07 May 2013 04:42:41 GMT

Here is the problem:

The fact is, if a welfare parasite breed 17 children, government will encourage that by rewarding that guy with welfare. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2287958/Jamie-Cumming-Feckless-father-17-children-15-different-mothers-facing-life-sentence-guilty-murder.html

If a millionaire breed 17 children, child support will bankcrupt him. Just look at this: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/05/08/look-at-celebrity-child-support-payments409774/.

Now, perhaps eliminating the first case is tough. Once a children is born, many are too squemish to let them starved to death. However, I do not see why the second ones can't be eliminated?

Why not let women decides pre conception what the child support amount should be? Many prefer $5k per month from a billionaire sugar daddy than $1k per month from a husband.

Re: I need this thread unlocked

ToxicAssets — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:34:55 GMT

I would say it does qualitatively in specific departments. Where cpu cycle rate is concerned the limitation is detail resolution. I have a program with a function that takes some market variables, takes some utility variables from a human class and decides how to spend money. That is fairly easy. However, the list of utilities and number of function calls micro-adjusting them need to be limited for performance.

You do realize though that the concept of optimization of an utility function is a very stylized working model for rational decision taking, and not necessarily a hi-fi representation of how humans take their decisions in practice.

Humans do not have utility functions and optimizing algorithms running online in their heads.

They have hardwired response to stimuli and adaptive behaviors, which, after complex interactions with an environment, do sometimes behave as if there were implicit utility functions being optimized, and that's why the model work, to some extent.

But utility function profiles do change with circumstances, and these interactions are very complex and we are still far away from creating dynamic models that capture all these features. (see also my post about rational expectations: http://mises.org/community/forums/p/33439/519582.aspx#519582 )

Visual processing would be like what graphic editing programs do with effect filters. If you have an image representing an object with a resolution of 1024^2 * 1024^2 it will take ages. If it is represented by 1024 * 1024 it will take a tiny fraction of time, but it still essentially does the same thing. There are a few robots with programmed motor skills that can maneuver over terrain with mechanical limbs.

This is more to the point of what I was calling simulating the human brain

The brain process sensorial information and also information from other channels physiological channels beyond those we call "senses".

Once we've understood the micro and macro structure of the brain, and how it grows and adapts to stimuli, it would be possible to envision a complex enough system that respond to these data inputs in a likewise fashion, but running on silicon.

As it is, there is no significant motive to put these pieces together to make such a thing as an android with a "personality", regardless of how fast cpus are. We want specific functions that humans perform, not the whole package. You don't want androgen-modulated social behaviour, for example.

Sure, the concept of creating a simulation of an entire brain is right now of speculative, maybe academic, interest.

For most applications we just need some functionalities, like vision processing and etc.

Those are "simpler" problems that are already hard enough to occupy lots of scientists, and for which applications seem more realistic in a near future.

But once enough knowledge about the parts is in hand, it becomes increasingly interesting to look after the whole thing.

Re: I need this thread unlocked

genepool — Mon, 06 May 2013 04:03:54 GMT

Yea whatever the problem is free market will take care of it.

That being said what you said about broken family is the opposite of what I think is the problem.

In western civilization family means marriage and that means monogamy. That norms tend to prevent women from picking the rich.

The problem is not whether the guys get married or not. The problem is whether guy is rich enough to afford babies or not.

It's very difficult for women to pick rich guys because government control the price. Women cannot, pre conceptionally, decides the amount of child support.

As I said, controlling price is as good as prohibiting. By controlling price, governments effectively prohibits women from picking the rich.

Re: I need this thread unlocked

ToxicAssets — Sun, 05 May 2013 13:52:30 GMT

It's not procreation that causes poverty, successful procreation is actually a sign of affluence and ability to provide.

And having too many kids does not make you poorer either. On the contrary, large close-knit families, on the long run, are very effective ways of getting out of poverty, due to shared network of opportunities.

Within a family structure kids are investments. They provide for their elders in the future, and brothers and cousins generate business opportunities for each other.

Procreation is only a problem when the family structure is broken, with too much illegitimacy, and when male kids are not expected to stick around long enough to provide for their mothers and baby mamas.

And broken families are not the expected condition of poor people, they are a consequence of welfare policies, modern education and legalized/subsidized abortion.

Re: I need this thread unlocked

Caley McKibbin — Sat, 04 May 2013 20:33:25 GMT

This whole "thinks like a human" thing is quite complicated. The brain microstructure has a lot of hardwired circuitry that we still don't understand and that affects how we think.

So even if we can design A.I systems that adapt to data feeds it doesn't mean they are thinking like humans.

I would say it does qualitatively in specific departments. Where cpu cycle rate is concerned the limitation is detail resolution. I have a program with a function that takes some market variables, takes some utility variables from a human class and decides how to spend money. That is fairly easy. However, the list of utilities and number of function calls micro-adjusting them need to be limited for performance. Visual processing would be like what graphic editing programs do with effect filters. If you have an image representing an object with a resolution of 1024^2 * 1024^2 it will take ages. If it is represented by 1024 * 1024 it will take a tiny fraction of time, but it still essentially does the same thing. There are a few robots with programmed motor skills that can maneuver over terrain with mechanical limbs.

As it is, there is no significant motive to put these pieces together to make such a thing as an android with a "personality", regardless of how fast cpus are. We want specific functions that humans perform, not the whole package. You don't want androgen-modulated social behaviour, for example.

Re: I need this thread unlocked

genepool — Sat, 04 May 2013 19:42:14 GMT

My point is

There are many sources of poverty

The BIGGEST one is this:

The poor make more kids than the rich. And this is NOT free market.

Under free market, those who want children more will have children, that means the rich. Just compare abortion rate and fertility spending between the rich and the poor.

Under free market, men that attract more women will have more children, that means the rich.

Under free market, those who can afford more children will have more children, that means the rich.

Under free market the rich will breed more kids than the poor. That's what happen in imperial China.

The reason why the poor breed more kids than the rich is because government intervention.

Government reward the poor for having children with welfare and free schools.

Government ration females to the poor with monogamy and sex trade restriction.

Government preven the rich from having children by setting up exhorbitant child support for the rich.

We got this shit fucked, then welfare and tax will be much lower.

A welfare parasite can have 17 children. Search Jammie Cumming on the net.

Yet Charlie Sheen is forced to pay $50k per month child support.

So guys like Charlie cannot legally breed 17 children. Yet a welfare parasite can.

Re: I need this thread unlocked

Malachi — Sat, 04 May 2013 17:59:38 GMT

But this is too woo-woo and besides the point.

this is how materialists discuss neuroscience. anything they dont want to acknowledge is "woo"

The point is that a human brain as individual piece

see? you suggest that maybe a cloud is an integral part of the function. you get told that a jungian collective unconscious is woo, and we can separate the brain physically, with a scalpel, so we assume that the functions can be replicated and improved.

you wont get very far arguing with these people because its a worldview. of course you can always ask to be taught, but they usually dismiss that idea by claiming they dont have enough time, you dont have the background, read a journal on neoscience, its all in there, etc.

Re: I need this thread unlocked

ToxicAssets — Sat, 04 May 2013 17:39:31 GMT

And this assumes that we're just isolated computers walking around. What if there is a "cloud" that we tap into as well,

Well, human beings function socially, so you can assume there's some kind of social processing of information, like a swarm-mind of sorts, and markets as well as other processes like traditions and institutions are a part of it.

But this is too woo-woo and besides the point.

The point is that a human brain as individual piece, however sophisticated it might be, is still a piece of bio-machinery that can be, at least in principle, broken down and understood, and copied and enhanced.

Re: I need this thread unlocked

Blargg — Sat, 04 May 2013 16:48:53 GMT

And this assumes that we're just isolated computers walking around. What if there is a "cloud" that we tap into as well, where isolated we'd be like a modern cell phone without cell/data service? As for the manifestation of the cloud, there's an enormous of entropy in the positions and velocities of matter all around us, constantly moving around ("heat"). "Oh, but it's all random." is what one would say when examining any modern efficient data communications/storage medium.

Re: I need this thread unlocked

ToxicAssets — Sat, 04 May 2013 12:15:50 GMT

Caley McKibbin:

I mean, the day they can create a computer powerful enough to emulate the human brain.

That depends on how you qualify emulating it. A current computer could run a program that essentially thinks like a human. It's a question of resolution/time.

This whole "thinks like a human" thing is quite complicated. The brain microstructure has a lot of hardwired circuitry that we still don't understand and that affects how we think.

So even if we can design A.I systems that adapt to data feeds it doesn't mean they are thinking like humans.

And the way intelligent machines evolve is not the way our brains evolve, because these machines are used to solve other problems than those problems that shaped the human brain.

But as far as the problem of reverse engineering the human brain goes, there seems to be reason to expect that developments in nanotechnology, imagery and computer architecture following Moore's law of exponential increase in complexity and that this will eventually lead in a near future to a system that showcases the basic same functionalities and behaves much alike (that is, passing the Turing Test).

This of course is a subject of some controversy.

Keep in mind I'm no cognitive scientist, and my experience with AI technology is restricted to a simple neural-network schemes and statistical learning algos I had to implement for a financial data project.

But these outlines are based on the arguments presented in "The age of intelligent machines" and "The age of spiritual machines" by Ray Kurzweil, and also "Mind Children" and "Robot" by Hans Moravec.

Re: I need this thread unlocked

Blargg — Sat, 04 May 2013 02:40:19 GMT

But you agree that it will eventually come a day where a machine will perform exactly the same things a human being can, only faster and better?

I mean, the day they can create a computer powerful enough to emulate the human brain.

No, I was just going along with their scenario where we automate everything humans currently do. I don't think machines will ever replace some human tasks. I also don't think we'll ever make something like us, because I don't think we're merely self-contained bio computers, and I don't think that fate has it in the cards either.

Re: I need this thread unlocked

Malachi — Sat, 04 May 2013 02:31:39 GMT

shut up. no one questions transhumanist dogma. rhe human brain is like a somewhat overly complicated gumbo