AncapFTW

I specifically wouldn't program it to preserve other moral agents, as I've seen what that would do based on the whole "3 laws" thing. Also, that would naturally place it apart from other moral agents, as it would be restricted in its actions. Other moral agents would just be naturally higher on its list of "what can I do to this" than everything else, and it would be restricted the most when dealing with them.

There are so many songs about "Heroes". Here's a much better one that also contains the line "I need a Hero." This one's actually about being a hero yourself, though, and helping others instead of "Holding out for a hero." I think it's good that songs like that have changed. It's a sign that the "White Knight" thing is going away.

Yeah! Escape from Terra is an awesome comic.

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2015/03/20/why-i-am-climate-change-skeptic

So, voter ID laws are evil because they suppress the poor and minorities, but making everyone go in and vote when you can't use IDs to verify that it is them is perfectly ok? I'm confused.

I find it interesting how much language can limit our ability to understand concepts. You may have to resort to adding English words to your language, the way Japanese now has a large number of words derived from other languages, especially English. English has adopted many languages from other languages as well.

uh, 42. Did I get it right? I did an online one once and it said 135, but I'm not sure how accurate that is, so don't consider it my real IQ.

Chimps have been known to eat other primates, or other animals.

Simulations can only get you so far, especially it areas like human interaction. In order to simulate human interaction you would have to have an AI capable of acting like a human. True, you could put it in a VR so that it could learn to walk, talk, and do basic functions, but there are some things that it would need to do in the real world. Playing MMORPGs and talking in chat rooms could only let it go so far in human interaction. Complex tasks, like fixing a car, would simply take too much processing power to simulate accurately, especially once the car is running. Also, without human interaction early in its life, it could develop psychosis. So I agree that simulations would help a lot, but they couldn't be the only way to train it. Method 1 would be very useful for this, but there are some things that the internet couldn't teach it.

"If pollution is a violation of the NAP (or UPB), then it would be justifiable to use the necessary level of ethical self-defense in order to prevent it, up to and including the killing of polluters. (Just like rape, theft, murder, and assault.)" "If I find you dumping waste (pouring your used motor oil on my lawn), can I use self-defense to prevent the crime by killing you as if you were raping, or murdering someone else?" Can you explain how those quotes aren't equating pollution to assault or murder? They are both quotes from your posts.

Yes, I read the topic. I also read the part where you suggested that causing a slight harm to a person or an area via pollution was on par with taking someone's life or seriously assaulting them. Killing someone over a slight offense isn't "ethical self-defense", it's violent revenge. Your life, or even property, wasn't put at severe risk by someone dumping used motor oil on your lawn, so, no, it isn't acceptable to kill them over it. That would be the equivalent of killing someone for keying your car. You said that no one could explain how it was a violation of NAP, and in the same post suggest that if it was, you should be able to violate the NAP because of it. Any action can be a violation of NAP if it is purposefully use to harm another person. Rain could be considered a violation of the NAP if Storm from X-men used it to wash away a person's house. Giving someone a ham sandwich could be considered a violation of NAP if you knew they had a religious or health reason to not eat it and didn't tell them what it is. So yes, polluting can be considered a violation of the NAP if you purposely use it to harm another person or their property.

I first had the idea of a learning AI in middle school. It was based on a cartoon, but... My idea was to just make an AI with basic pattern recognician and learning subroutines, give it human like drives, then install it into the body of a baby. Once it gets used to that level of human behavior, put it in a toddler, etc. Eventually, it should learn to behave as a human. Sure, it would take years, but what does that mean in the long run?

Have you heard of a concept called "Proportional response"? If he was dumping stuff down your well to try and poison you, then that might be allowable, but if he's just causing destruction of property with his actions, how can you justify killing him? That's like saying "Hey, you just stole my watch." then blowing his head off with a shotgun. Escalating the violence is the same as initiating violence.

What kind of hardware will you need for it, though? How will you handle concerns about its behavior, and how will you insure it won't turn against humanity, or become a criminal? This issue has a technical side and a political side to it as well. I'd love to talk about the technical aspects of creating an AI with you.

Mostly, old shows have better relationships in them. In modern times, it's considered more interesting to make the relationships dysfunctional.

I figured out what it was. If you aren't logged in then it can't update the time properly.

When I check the forum on my cell phone, some of the "last post" times are off, showing me future times up to four hours away. My phone is automatically setting its time, so it isn't the result of me manually changing it. Also, it only seems to be for ones I haven't looked at yet, not for posts I've read.

The only vitamin I take is a B complex to wake me up. It works far better than Caffeine for me, like a 5-hour energy, but way cheaper.

In my fiction, "magic" is an extension of physics. Everyone's powers are essentially just an organic version of technology, generally with a common cause, like micro-telekinesis,

The synapses in the brain follow the same principles as other electronic devices. It's theoretically possible to create an electronic circuit that mimics the organic brain. I've even considered trying to build one myself, but I can't figure out a way to make it turn off and on individual "synapses", to simulate how the brain learns via its unused cells dieing.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/iq-tests-are-fundamentally-flawed-and-using-them-alone-to-measure-intelligence-is-a-fallacy-study-finds-8425911.html http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb03/intelligent.aspx There's an article and a report on how IQ test are flawed. The second link even specifically talks about mentally handicapped people. -- The way I deal with people/animals/beings is based on their ability to interact with me. If an ape isn't able to understand the concept of "morality" as applied to something, then it can't be considered immoral for them to do it to people or for us to do it to them. I know that there are cases where they have abducted and eaten human children (usually babies), but I'm not sure whether that's because they consider people to be enemies, or if they think we're just another animal, or what. My problem with using them for food is that I'm not sure how they function, or if they are capable of understanding concepts like morality, especially in certain situations, like food. By the same token, raising something as a pet is different than raising it as a food source. I wouldn't mind having one as a pet, and wouldn't have a problem using one to test medicines if you are reasonably certain that it will help more than it hurts.

I think someone's already brought it up, but how were Hiroshima and Nagasaki destroyed during WWII with the accompanying radioactive fallout? Did an enemy country let us place 5+ kilotons of TNT in one of its buildings with radioactive materials, then blow it up so that they could save face when they surrendered? What about all of the radioactive spots in the desert and the island of Bikini Atoll? Were those simply pyrotechnic test sights? It's interesting that technology that doesn't exist could be used within a decade to produce electrical power from a material that was being mass produced to make the no existent weapon.

If they can respond to injury and pain, then yes, they can suffer. And, apparently, you think that IQ, which was likely measure using faulty tests and is a poor measure of mental ability to boot, can determine whether they are "on par" with animals or not. If you'd read my previous posts, though, you'd see that I said that even the most mentally handicapped person's brain functions differently than a cows. I wouldn't eat a great ape, either, as they at least have some ability to reason (extremely minor, but still there). But go ahead, keep saying that a certain race of people are basically animals and that you can do whatever you want with them. And why would anyone want to "change their diet to fruits and nuts" because of any of the "arguments" presented in this thread. So far no evidence has been presented by your side, though a lot of "retarded people are animals" seems to be considered argument by them. ps: As an aside, I can't eat large amounts of nuts because it makes me sick. It might be a minor food allergy, but I don't know. I do love red beans and rice, though.

I read the first two paragraphs and gave up on reading it. The thing read like a stuck up kid lecturing another kid on what "the truth" was. For example: "The price of carbon-based energy is “correct”—it reflects what consumers will pay and what producers can supply—if you leave out the fact that carbon is destroying a livable planet. Markets are not competent to price this problem. Only governments can do that. In formal economics, this anomaly is described by the bloodless word “externality”—meaning costs (or benefits) external to the immediate transaction. Libertarian economists treat externalities as minor exceptions." In other words "I believe Carbon is a major issue, and therefore I think the government, as the great and wise leader we all know it to be, should tell us what is fair. Let's completely forget that if other people thought as I did they would pay extra for clean power, which would shift the market towards producing more clean power. I think we need to use violence to make everyone follow my beliefs." The way they just assume that the free market can't fix a problem, and that, obviously, the government and it's use of force is the only way to fix a problem they see, either means they think they are smarter than most other people, and therefore they should be able to make us do the "smart thing" or that they are so self absorbed that they can't even consider an idea that doesn't fit into their world view. Probably both.

"Show me a central nervous system in a plant. Show me it's brain and how the pain centers light up on emr scan." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?list_uids=16843034&cmd=Retrieve&indexed=google Long story short: They respond to sound, rain, sunlight, injury. Some can respond to other external stimuli like touch in the Venus Fly Trap. They even send electrical signals through their "bodies" and produce Serotonin and Dopamine. Not exactly pain response, but they definitely are just mindless growing things either.