Goodbye Ruby - Hello Earth

Ruby
81

Eleanor McHugh wrote:

minimise the environmental impact of humanity their best bet would be

http://slides.games-with-brains.net

raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds_to? :reason

Free market idealism…ah, yes. In the USA, and, as a consequence, in
world in general, we are presently enjoying the rewards of market left
entirely TOO free. Wild pigs with the social morality of your average
two year old took over, uprooted a lot of the garden and many of the
fruit trees, and as a result many of us are more than a bit worried
about how we’re going to feed ourselves in the coming months.

I’m sad, Eleanor, since this is the first time anything you’ve posted
has evidenced anything but keen intelligence. Ever study
economics…with an emphasis on data, rather than mere theory? I suggest
the investment of some time in that endeavor. Free market idealism is a
lovely thing, but the real world is considerably more complex than such
a simplistic representation as that. I’m puzzled that you missed this.

I would have thought that your superb knowledge of both software design
concepts and the messiness of the working out of those concepts in the
real world might have given you a large hint about all this.

Longing for the sea gets no boats built at all. Grounding that longing
in cooperative effort, governed by a measured degree of altruism, just
might.

“In a free market economy, technology will serve whatever is needed,
when it’s needed.”

Not if the technology needed requires massive investment with hope of
rapid profit. For that sort of thing, history tends to show government
gets the job far quicker and better. The free market didn’t defeat the
Nazis, or invent nuclear technology, and a great deal of the launch of
modern cybernetics was also government sponsored.

Time to come out of orbit and get to work. Fairy tales are for children.

t.

–

Tom C., MS MA, LMHC - Private practice Psychotherapist
Bellingham, Washington, U.S.A: (360) 920-1226
<< [email protected] >> (email)
<< TomCloyd.com >> (website)
<< sleightmind.wordpress.com >> (mental health weblog)
82

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 6:23 PM, Chad P. [email protected]
wrote:

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 05:58:21AM +0900, Tom C. wrote:

Free market idealism…ah, yes. In the USA, and, as a consequence, in
world in general, we are presently enjoying the rewards of market left
entirely TOO free. Wild pigs with the social morality of your average
two year old took over, uprooted a lot of the garden and many of the
fruit trees, and as a result many of us are more than a bit worried
about how we’re going to feed ourselves in the coming months.

I’ve been avoiding this thread, but what the heck…

A so-called “free” market economy, I’m sorry to say, is not the utopia
you think it would be. You can worship Mr. Smith all you want, but
people simply aren’t pawns in a giant chess game. What I mean is that
Adam (and other likewise economists) makes some severe logical leaps;
some terribly skewed assumptions about human behavior.

You will continue to have, and indeed must have, some semblance of
intervention at the ruling party level. It’s simply a check against
what you think would be a balance.

Todd

83

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 05:58:21AM +0900, Tom C. wrote:

Free market idealism…ah, yes. In the USA, and, as a consequence, in
world in general, we are presently enjoying the rewards of market left
entirely TOO free. Wild pigs with the social morality of your average
two year old took over, uprooted a lot of the garden and many of the
fruit trees, and as a result many of us are more than a bit worried
about how we’re going to feed ourselves in the coming months.

I believe the technical term for the notion that “the free market” is to
blame for the current economic train wreck is “poppycock”. Only
left-wingnuts, corrupt corporate lobbyists, and politicians that have
been bought and paid for by corrupt corporate lobbyists can claim this
is
a “free” market with a straight face.

Well, them . . . and people who believe the crap they sling because they
don’t know anything about economics.

The people to blame are the partisan corporate representatives who
lobbied governmental representatives for special favors, and the
governmental representatives who provided those favors. None of these
people are interested in a “free” market: they want one in which small
businesses are kept from growing enough to become competitive; in which
laws are passed granting them monopolistic control of their industries;
and in which government regulation essentially forces people go pay for
their services (such as insurance) or products (such as compact corn
based sweeteners).

You’ve effectively described the people who are, to a significant
degree,
to blame for this mess. You just mislabel them when you grant them the
term “free”. They want control, not freedom.

I’m sad, Eleanor, since this is the first time anything you’ve posted
has evidenced anything but keen intelligence. Ever study
economics…with an emphasis on data, rather than mere theory? I suggest
the investment of some time in that endeavor. Free market idealism is a
lovely thing, but the real world is considerably more complex than such
a simplistic representation as that. I’m puzzled that you missed this.

Please make arguments based on reason, logic, and evidence, rather than
accusations of ignorance, especially since implying that anyone who
believes a free market is better than one controlled by special
interests
must be stupid and know nothing about economics is a great way to look
like you have no idea what you’re talking about. I suppose Nobel prize
winning economists of the Austrian school must be idiots in your view,
with low IQs and no knowledge of economics at all.

I would have thought that your superb knowledge of both software design
concepts and the messiness of the working out of those concepts in the
real world might have given you a large hint about all this.

Maybe it does. Maybe you’re the one that hasn’t thought things through
clearly – especially since you haven’t said anything that convinces me
you have any “evidence” of anything other than your own biases.

“In a free market economy, technology will serve whatever is needed,
when it’s needed.”

Not if the technology needed requires massive investment with hope of
rapid profit. For that sort of thing, history tends to show government
gets the job far quicker and better. The free market didn’t defeat the
Nazis, or invent nuclear technology, and a great deal of the launch of
modern cybernetics was also government sponsored.

I think it’s time to invoke Godwin’s law, and its first corollary: you
mentioned Nazis, so the argument is over and you lose.

Let’s move on.

84

Christophe M. wrote:

what can i say, my entire worldview shifted drastically in a fairly
short amount of time, i was emotional, sorry.

It’s happened to me too - I just wake up in the morning and discover I’m
Lisa Simpson…

(Obligatory winkie: :wink:

85

Free market wants cheap transaction cost, which is partly information
cost.
Data processing cat help with that, but won’t magically. It is one of
the
ironies of our era that the fastest way to get a free market and keep it
is to
eliminate large corporations, establish rules requiring 100% worker
ownership,
establish Georgist land and tax reforms, and generally set everyone at
close to
the same level of income, all things best done by government. Without
people
working at similar levels of scale and in a fair system, you just won’t
get
there anyway, so just opt for real democratic socialism, which at least
mitigates the greatest excesses of totalitarianism of any stripe and
allows some
market workings which really help. All the crap from the Reaganites was
just
bate and switch, and they have conned us to the tune of tens of
trillians of
dollars with it.

I think Ruby will help cheapen information, but the real problem isn’t
with
ruby, but with the rules of ownership and the legacy of power owned from
spoils
rather than merit activity. Money is a poor reflection of merit,
especially
nowadays, and the biggest resource wasters are not those raising taxes,
but
those who cut them so they could waste more resources personally. The
greenest
among us are the homeless people, so it makes most sense that others
should be
massively taxed to subsidize the homeless people to do some real
savings.

All that is beyond the intent of this group and I think the discussion
should
therefore be taken elsewhere. I hope ruby wins and merit wins and that
I can
now go back to using this list as a ruby technical resource.

Sincerely, Xeno

86

Chad P. wrote:

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 05:58:21AM +0900, Tom C. wrote:

Free market idealism…ah, yes. In the USA, and, as a consequence, in
world in general, we are presently enjoying the rewards of market left
entirely TOO free. Wild pigs with the social morality of your average
two year old took over, uprooted a lot of the garden and many of the
fruit trees, and as a result many of us are more than a bit worried
about how we’re going to feed ourselves in the coming months.

I believe the technical term for the notion that “the free market” is to
blame for the current economic train wreck is “poppycock”. Only
left-wingnuts, corrupt corporate lobbyists, and politicians that have
been bought and paid for by corrupt corporate lobbyists can claim this
is
a “free” market with a straight face.

So what country does have this “free market” you describe ?
Let me guess: none.

If we remove the (cause of all evils, the bad bad) government, what
would change ?
Let me guess: nothing, the multinationals would still rule the world.

…but lets suppose we start all over again, lets suppose we have all the
people with the same resources and the same opportunities, then we apply
“free market” what happens ?
people get together and start their small companies, some do better than
others, the ones that did better buy another company, and then
another…and ooooppss, what we have: monopolistic control over
resources ? corrupt corporate lobbyists ? nahhhhhh the forces of “free
market” suddenly appear and destroy the bad guys and wipe corruption
from the face of the earth.

…that souns familiar, yes I think I saw that somewhere…oh yes, I
now remember, I was eating popcorn…

87

I honestly do not care about the market model. It is irrelevant(1),
what is relevant are the values a society respects or fails to
respect.

In pure capitalism, ecological behavior is possible, if ecological
values are introduced. In pure communism likewise.
Of course there are other values which would need much more respect,
like freedom and human rights, but I am not going further on this as
this would be OT even for this thread.

Cheers
Robert

(1) and resistance is futile, BTW I like the conclusion of ST Voyager
particularly because it shows the vulnerability of a centralized
system and that holds for Star fleet HQ as well as for the Queen of
Borg. Permaculture can definitely help here :slight_smile:

88

.but lets suppose we start all over again, lets suppose we have all the
people with the same resources and the same opportunities, then we apply
“free market” what happens ?
people get together and start their small companies, some do better than
others, the ones that did better buy another company, and then
another…and ooooppss, what we have: monopolistic control over
resources ? corrupt corporate lobbyists ? nahhhhhh the forces of “free
market” suddenly appear and destroy the bad guys and wipe corruption
from the face of the earth.

A “free market” is a math curiosity that works in the presense of a
perfectly level playing field, incorruptable rule of law, pure
democracy,
and business standards all perfectly tuned to foster competion. My HMO
will
never sentence me to death because I can easily switch HMOs and force
them
to compete. By magic.

In the real world, there is no law that can withstand the corruption of
power, hence we need to over-regulate the rich, and sometime vote
against
them. The “peasant uprising” can either be built into the system, or it
can
be bloody.

The countries in the world that got this balance right - specifically
the
Pacific Rim countries whose silicon I am now typing on - they all have
in
common just a little governmental extra control over their financial
systems.

Go figure…

89

No need to save the Planet. It should function well in the next 30-100
years.
The Singularity will come earlier (~30). It will solve all problems.
We will get abilities to got new bodies, new mind, and new souls.
There will be no need to stay in the body of monkey anymore, we’ll get
ability to exist in any form, humanoid, virtual-mind, distributed
systems (like skynet), pure energy, … There will be no limits.

So, come back, don’t be afraid to love Ruby. :wink: The sooner Singularity
comes the better, for all(also for Earth).

90

I honestly do not care about the market model. It is irrelevant(1),
what is relevant are the values a society respects or fails to
respect.

i believe that is thinking along the right lines.
but maybe our models are hopelessly outdated:

91

Alexey P. wrote:

The Singularity will come earlier (~30).

Thirty years? Note that only 40 years ago, futurists predicted we’d have
flying cars, moonbases, and brain transplants by now…

The S is a staple of science fiction. Confer Vernor Vinge, for example.
Its
projection is not grounded in facts.

The plot of scientific knowledge over time is a simple ramp up, but the
plot
of the corresponding technology follows an S-curve:

On the lower left end of that curve, humans are too busy hunting and
scavenging to bother with advanced research.

We are above the middle these days, where each scientific advance
rapidly
yields a technology boost.

The closer we get to the upper right, the less valuable each scientific
advance becomes. Eventually, a billion dollars of research will not
yield a
million dollars of profit from new gizmos.

We have already seen this effect in many of our advances. Nuclear power
works great on paper, but if the only thing we can do with the spent
fuel is
dump it on Iraq or Somalia then those guys might actually achieve the
moral
high ground in the court of global public opinion and shut us down.

Similarly, string theory is an awesome idea, but I have heard that
nobody
can think of an experiment that would prove, adjust, or bust it. The
experiments themselves create the new technology, but as our microscopes
and
telescopes get smaller and bigger, they will only show us wonders that
lead
to no practical applications.

“This one a long time have I watched. Never his mind on where he was.
Hmm?
What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh! Excitement. Heh! A Jedi craves
not
these things.” --Yoda

92

And besides, who are we kidding thinking that the planet needs us?
It’s been around for a long time before we were here and can do
without us fine**x, where x is a Bignum.

Who will move it to a safe orbit as the Sun goes off the Main Sequence?

Mother Nature works in mysterious ways. Including sometimes via Epic
Fail.

93

2009/4/18 Alexey P. [email protected]:

–
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

And besides, who are we kidding thinking that the planet needs us?
It’s been around for a long time before we were here and can do
without us fine**x, where x is a Bignum.

–
John M.
07739 171 531
MSc (DIC)

Timezone: GMT

94

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 10:55 PM, Philip R. [email protected]
wrote:

We won’t have to wait for the Sun to do us in - we are causing our own mass
extinction event (the first time one has been caused by an individual
species as opposed to some other, external, physical phenomena) . .

Well look on the bright side, when we’re all extinct, then this thread
will be dead too. How about everyone who wants to continue this
particular discussion find a better place for it?

Here’s a few suggestions:
http://www.environmentalpages.org/

http://www.theenvironmentsite.org/forum/

I’d imaging any of those forums would love to have this conversation-
unlike the majority of people here on ruby-talk who would like to talk
programming.

95

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 7:10 AM, Phlip [email protected] wrote:

And besides, who are we kidding thinking that the planet needs us?
It’s been around for a long time before we were here and can do
without us fine**x, where x is a Bignum.

Who will move it to a safe orbit as the Sun goes off the Main Sequence?
Hmm I was very recently thinking that we are really worried about the
wrong thing. 10**9 years is a long time to be hit by a big enough
meteorite to really worry about. That is where research and argggg
weapon like devices are needed to prevent aehems, …

Mother Nature works in mysterious ways. Including sometimes via Epic Fail.
Oh she does and extinction might happen despite all our efforts, even
“tomorrow” and without our doings. I however think we should still
deploy our efforts, don’t you?

And now for something completely different, the more I follow the
links Christophe provides the less I feel that this thread is OT.
Those models seem maybe utopic to you? Well I would have liked to have
your prognosis about the Open Source movement when it started to
evolve, would you have thaught it might come so far and lead to
strange languages like err “Ruby” :).

Cheers
Robert

96

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 5:33 PM, Aaron T. [email protected]
wrote:

Here’s a few suggestions:
http://www.environmentalpages.org/
http://discuss.greenoptions.com/
http://www.theenvironmentsite.org/forum/

I’d imaging any of those forums would love to have this conversation-
unlike the majority of people here on ruby-talk who would like to talk
programming.
Well maybe we should, prise to you for the nice and constructive way
you asked Aaron.
R.

97

People,

Phlip wrote:

And besides, who are we kidding thinking that the planet needs us?
It’s been around for a long time before we were here and can do
without us fine**x, where x is a Bignum.

Who will move it to a safe orbit as the Sun goes off the Main Sequence?

Mother Nature works in mysterious ways. Including sometimes via Epic Fail.

We won’t have to wait for the Sun to do us in - we are causing our own
mass extinction event (the first time one has been caused by an
individual species as opposed to some other, external, physical
phenomena) . .

Phil.

Philip R.

GPO Box 3411
Sydney NSW 2001
Australia
E-mail: [email protected]

98

Christophe M. wrote:

We are presently losing 200 species a day on this planet. That rate is
as high as during the greatest species die offs in the earth’s natural
history, during disasters, like eruptions of super-volcanoes and meteor
impacts. Ecological diversity is of course what keeps us alive.

It was at this point that I rolled my eyes. Question: where did you get
this statistic? A quick Google shows that there is a lot of disagreement
on it - so why did you choose this number to quote as if it were an
established fact.

You then went on to state that there is a scientific consensus on
man-made climate change. Again even a cursory google shows that there is
anything but. Indeed, over 31,000 scientists have gone on record in
disagreeing with this. While Al Gore likes to claim the consensus as
true - but stating a lie repeatedly doesn’t make it a truism.

A recent NASA study (I first saw it in December - but it has been
referenced in quite a few news stories since) shows that the earth’s
temperature - which was slowly rising up to 1998 - hasn’t changed since
then. Some scientists (and I don’t give them much credence, either - I’m
an equal opportunity skeptic) are beginning to claim that the earth is
entering a cooling phase.

Now, do I believe the earth’s climate is changing? Absolutely. It has
been in a state of flux since the beginning of time - why should it stop
now? Do I think man is the reason? The jury is out on that one. I’ll
agree we’re part of the ecosystem - therefore have contribution. How
much is another question.

I do believe we should do what we can to clean up the planet, however. A
clean environment is a good thing! We should be doing it for its own
sake, however, not because some alarmists who are afraid to look at all
data on an issue are screaming the sky is falling.

99

Robert D. wrote:

Who will move it to a safe orbit as the Sun goes off the Main Sequence?

Hmm I was very recently thinking that we are really worried about the
wrong thing. 10**9 years is a long time to be hit by a big enough
meteorite to really worry about. That is where research and argggg
weapon like devices are needed to prevent aehems, …

And the systems to prevent terr’ists from using said weapons to aim a
rock
AT the Earth will be…

…uh, programmed in Ruby! Yeah, that’s the ticket!!

Mother Nature works in mysterious ways. Including sometimes via Epic
Fail.

Oh she does and extinction might happen despite all our efforts, even
“tomorrow” and without our doings. I however think we should still
deploy our efforts, don’t you?

Only MN is allowed to extinct things. Not us.

100

On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 10:08 AM, Alexey P. [email protected]
wrote:

No need to save the Planet. It should function well in the next 30-100
years.
The Singularity will come earlier (~30). It will solve all problems.
We will get abilities to got new bodies, new mind, and new souls.
There will be no need to stay in the body of monkey anymore, we’ll get
ability to exist in any form, humanoid, virtual-mind, distributed
systems (like skynet), pure energy, … There will be no limits.

If Accelerando is to be believed, computing power will then become the
new scarce resource.

martin