Goodbye Ruby - Hello Earth

Ruby
141

I wish you well with your endeavours as I’m sure on a personal level
that permaculture is rewarding (at least based on my experiences of
growing my own vegetables and brewing my own alcohol)

i’m glad you enjoyed it. gardening by the way produces about 5 times the
output of food per unit of land than petro-ag. when you also start to do
ecological design and move away from annuals towards primarily
perennials then you can cut out most of the work involved as it is done
by the system for you. the agricultural component of permaculture is
basically that, smart gardening, but it can be scaled up to much larger
systems, like self-sustaining food forests.

142

With the starting conditions and the correct model a chaotic system
can be predicted because it is fundamentally deterministic.
With the starting conditions and a set of experimental data the model
is derivable from observation, given sufficient observations.
Without the starting conditions, all bets are off.

The solution to Zeno’s Paradox is the “infinitesmals” concept. Your
paragraph misunderstands the Butterfly Effect. The Effect means that the
deterministic prediction is always impossible because the starting
conditions are always infinitesmal.

Put another way, the only “correct model” is the entire universe, and we
are
within it, so we can’t use a model, and must look at trends.

143

A lot of people said some interesting things were thrown out. Maybe
some contributors are concerned about a problem that doesn’t relate to
the issue. Eleanor is pretty close, as far as I can tell, to
demonstrating that we, as a species, “are” a product of some kind of
evolution, and that we don’t have to be scared of it. We just may
well run a race faster than Earth. I agree with that. I agree with
Phlip, too. I also agree with many things Chad and Robert said.

I disagree with the interpretation of chaos theory, and also of
basically non-linear subjects at all that have been mentioned here.

For humans, as a species, to really – as a whole – think we have
control over cosmological events is not only pompous, but a severe
look at what we have become.

The first time I heard the Malthusian argument in school, I wrote a
paper about it. I got an F because I disagreed with it.

I’m a bit tired of the “We are creating our own disaster type thing.”
It’s a vicious circle that almost creates itself.

One thing I’ve learned during my short time on Earth is that people
will always feel the doomsday coming. Just look at history.

I, for one, am looking to see something like vertical farms.

With that said, I’m also a fan of people doing some permaculture as a
benefit, and not as a stance of how we should live with some sort of
absolution.

Todd

144

I’m not entirely sure how that conflicts with “all phenomena can be
reduced to a simplistic representation, if they can be reduced at all”
but would be happy to hear your thoughts on alternative approaches.

i found the above to be quite a treasure trove, if you poke down through
the links a bit.

145

ok, lets look at history. history is positively strewn with the
shipwrecks of failed civilizations.

I’m getting in the habit of reading down to the first misappropriation
of
sophistry and replying…

For every civilization that failed, it grew at a sustainable rate until
it
created a positive population effluence. For example, in the Sacred
Valley
region of the Andes, you can count rows of stones - protypical terraces
for
farming - going all the way from some valley floors to the peaks of
their
mountains. At one time, those valleys were entirely farmed from bottom
to
top.

And every one of those failures happened because of a change in the
climate.
Rome collapsed not because of overpopulation or high taxes or
Christianity
or any historical revisionism like that; it collapsed because a volcano
in
the India Ocean created a series of long winters. The global
agricultural
bases collapsed.

Historically, civilizations did not collapse because they despoiled
their
environments. That’s a relatively new phenomenon.

Oh, and the Inka civilization in the Andes collapsed from a smallpox
plague…

146

One thing I’ve learned during my short time on Earth is that people
will always feel the doomsday coming. Just look at history.

ok, lets look at history. history is positively strewn with the
shipwrecks of failed civilizations. if you want to talk about humility
then why should we assume that we are immune to the same forces they
were subject to, but only this time on a much greater scale and with a
much weakened biosphere.

on the other hand, never in history has there been a time when the
majority of scientists in multiple fields of study were telling
everybody else that we are in deep doodoo for one reason or another.
that is a completely new phenomenon.

With that said, I’m also a fan of people doing some permaculture as a
benefit, and not as a stance of how we should live with some sort of
absolution.

i am glad to hear that. i agree that doom & gloom in and of itself is
counterproductive, but to honestly face the situation and act upon it is
not. if you do not tell it like it is, then how on earth are you going
to act upon it?

i think that if you take the science seriously, just picking any one of
the problems we are facing, because surely you cannot deny all of them,
and any one of them are quite enough to sink us, then you cannot in good
conscience believe that we are living the right way.

it is not my or anybody else’s place to say what the right way is,
that’s a job for all of us to decide upon, and there are plenty of
avenues now open for positive/creative action.

147

On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 4:52 AM, Eleanor McHugh
[email protected] wrote:

anything by Immanuel Velikovsky

Now you’re just trolling :slight_smile:

martin

148

On 23 Apr 2009, at 00:10, Phlip wrote:

Valley
Rome collapsed not because of overpopulation or high taxes or

Oh, and the Inka civilization in the Andes collapsed from a smallpox
plague…

As an aside I can highly recommend both “Guns, Germs and Steel” and
“Collapse” by Jared Diamond, “The Physics of Immortality” by Frank
Tipler, “Evolution from Space” by Fred Hoyle and “The Millennial
Project” by Marshal T. Savage - all kind of relevant to this thread
but none of them relevant to Ruby. Also David Keys’ “Catastrophe” and
anything by Immanuel Velikovsky (although especially “Earth in
Upheaval”) are interesting explorations of the possible effect of
global catastrophes on the course of civilisation.

Oh, and remember to take all of the above with a pinch of salt :wink:

Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net

raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds_to? :reason

149

“Eleanor McHugh” wrote:

Most scientists are not impartial and the further one moves from
empirical study into model-driven simulation, the less credence one
should give to any theory.

Exactly. That’s one of the problem with species extinction models.
Where’s the empirical data?
First they take Darlington’s rule as a model basis and create a
theoritical
inversion of it. If I find a thousand
species of critters in hundred acres of land and I clear that land for
agriculture, afterwords I can only
find 400 species of critters, they maintain 800 species have gone
extinct.
I simplify, but not by much.
The model itself is idealized to maximize extinction rates. The model’s
assumption that simple clearing
of land is akin to asphalting the rain forest, when the practical real
world
model of historical agricultural
practices in the eastern US doesn’t even come even remotely close to
their
extinction model. They cannot
even get to within a magnitude of consensus on how many species exist;
bad
data. And lastly
cannot even substatiate the extinctions; more bad data, or lack of it.
Look
I’m a conservationist, a bird
watcher, and a nature lover as well. I’m not a nature worshipper!
Sorry,
but this is junk science based
on some sort of morality. A good example is documented toad extinctions
in
Ceylon. Supposedly a
half dozen of the several dozen toads categorized in Ceylon have become
extinct. They succumbed to
a fungus. No problem. But wait, this fungus spread is blamed on
man-made
global warming.
Got an agenda? Welcome to the state of eco-science.

150

The model itself is idealized to maximize extinction rates.

I agree.

Got an agenda? Welcome to the state of eco-science.

It depends. Aside from this media brain-washed attitude, the whole field
of ecology does list problems without inflated models. Think about
glaciers for example. It may not be a big problem that they are
shrinking, however the fact THAT there is a change should be noted down
accurately by scientific research.

I was never a fan of science which tries to shock or otherwise scare
people as part of a strategy, but changes in environment can often lead
to unexpected problems cropping up. One that comes to my mind are new
animals which are brought to an endemic population (i.e. cats on an
island, eating eggs of turtles). Another problem is the huge amount of
fishing in oceans in general, which changes the whole ecosystem
drastically.

151

On 23 Apr 2009, at 00:27, Martin DeMello wrote:

On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 4:52 AM, Eleanor McHugh
[email protected] wrote:

anything by Immanuel Velikovsky

Now you’re just trolling :slight_smile:

;p

Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net

raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds_to? :reason

152

On 23 Apr 2009, at 12:50, Marc H. wrote:

shrinking, however the fact THAT there is a change should be noted
down
accurately by scientific research.

Agreed. Good science always starts with an hypothesis but what defines
it as science is the impartial collection of data to determine whether
or not that hypothesis is credible and the rigourous mathematical
interpretation of the data. It also has to be based upon repeatable
effects and testable predictions otherwise we aren’t discussing
science at all but metaphysics.

It’s also essential that science be conducted in a sceptical
environment and that those performing investigations actively distance
themselves from those who would use the results for political or
social purposes.

Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net

raise ArgumentError unless @reality.responds_to? :reason

153

ok, somebody got pretty peeved at me and listed my IP with spambag.org
which is a pretty funny name for an RBL, however i am not a spambag, and
consider that to be fairly low blow (although harmless as i can easily
change my IP), when i am hardly the only poster on this very lively
thread, and had no warning. btw one person in private correspondence has
indicated to me a major change in the direction of their lives, so it
may not be as OT as is assumed. in any case this is 100% the last
message from me on this thread, i promise. so if you argue further you
will just be aggravating an itch i won’t be able to scratch :slight_smile:

Phlip wrote

For every civilization that failed, it grew at a sustainable rate until
it created a positive population effluence.

so you are saying that population is a problem? if so then we are in
agreement.

And every one of those failures happened because of a change in the
climate.

again, climate is one of the forces i was talking about. but that misses
the point. it is not change in climate that kills off civilizations, it
is how resilient their agricultural systems are when the climate happens
to
change. deforestation & monoculture lead to salinity, poor water
retention, localized draught, desertification, soil erosion, ecological
poverty, etc…

Rome collapsed not because of overpopulation or high taxes or
Christianity
or any historical revisionism like that; it collapsed because a volcano
in
the India Ocean created a series of long winters. The global
agricultural
bases collapsed.

of course rome collapsed over a long period of time, hundreds of years
in fact, there were volcanic eruptions, barbarian invasions, etc…
it did not do so within the course of a few bad winters, that’s just bad
history.

in fact soil erosion and infertile land was one of the major forces in
the demise of rome. at the start of the empire farming was respected and
even noblemen were proud to be farmers. farms were small about 2-5 acres
and proper
husbandry was taken seriously. even with small scale careful farming
practices however erosion was already a problem sometimes even causing
outbreaks of diseases due to clogged waterways.

by the end of the empire as it descended into decadence, the farms had
become huge slave labour driven monstrosities which tried to squeeze
every last drop of cash out of the land disregarding proper husbandry
and soil fertility was severely affected. small scale farmers were
driven off their land and a few city-dwelling fat cats made all the
profits at the expense of everyone else and the health of the land
(sounds familiar). rome had lost her main source of energy, her
agriculture, and hence her resilience against the volcanoes, the
droughts, etc…

if you want to truly understand what you are talking about i suggest
reading the book ‘dirt, the erosion of civilizations’.

Historically, civilizations did not collapse because they despoiled
their
environments. That’s a relatively new phenomenon.

nonsense. soil erosion due to agriculture has been a major detriment
to the health of civilizations since the bronze ages. soil erosion from
bronze age agriculture was even correctly identified by aristotle,
almost 3000 years after the fact, and of course 2000+ years ago.

an example of deforestation as recorded in ancient literature can be
found in the epic of gilgamesh where he cuts down wood from the cedar
forests of iraq.
that story is almost 5000 years old. when’s the last time you saw cedar
forests in iraq?

Oh, and the Inka civilization in the Andes collapsed from a smallpox
plague…

yes the incas were destroyed by european diseases amongst other causes
largely brought on by europe. europe was of course plundering away in
the search for resources.

Jon A. Lambert wrote

… find 400 species of critters, they maintain 800 species have gone
extinct. I simplify, but not by much.

the problem is that all the land is being cleared. so in you opinion,
where did the critters run, mars?

Look I’m a conservationist, a bird watcher, and a nature lover as well.

right, well in my brainwashed state, call it misguided humility if you
will, i’ll go with the majority opinion of biologists and their
collective junk science, thanks, and if i want to build a nuclear
missile i’ll speak to some PHDs in physics, not my local model rocket
club.

154

Christophe M. wrote:

Phlip wrote
You picked ME to end the thread on? Thanks a lot!!

There is only one possible way to retaliate…

For every civilization that failed, it grew at a sustainable rate until
it created a positive population effluence.

so you are saying that population is a problem? if so then we are in
agreement.

155

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 09:59:10PM +0900, Eleanor McHugh wrote:

The whole point of Joint Stock Companies in the first place was to
create and maintain legal trade monopolies, and as we see at every
turn any market system which places undue reliance upon them as the
foundation of a “free” market becomes heavily distorted. However even
large corporations are bounded by the laws of thermodynamics and will
eventually fail, which of course is what a bubble crash such as the
current one is supposed to achieve. Unfortunately governments insist
on bailing out failing corporations when they’re sufficiently
politically influential and that exacerbates matters in the long term:
just look at the disastrous history of nationalised industries in the
UK…

. . . or Venezuela, the Middle East, et cetera.

156

On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 03:32:25AM +0900, Eleanor McHugh wrote:

We are not OT here, the same lifeform has created a biological virtual
machine for Ruby, completely by chance!!!
Can you believe it?

I’m willing to believe that if a Dyson sphere evolved naturally that
it would be Ruby compatible :slight_smile:

Hm. Combine those ideas, and you get an intelligent Dyson cloud that
communicates via an extended Ruby compatible language.

157

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 10:27:58PM +0900, Eleanor McHugh wrote:

Although as anyone who’s read Utopia will know, Moore was making a
mockery of the notion that all things could be directed with the
perfection of clockwork. He was the Orwell of the sixteenth century :wink:

Yeah – that was kinda my point in using the term “utopian”.

158

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 09:40:07PM +0900, Eleanor McHugh wrote:

in the UK. And because the market wasn’t free, but a pro-monopoly
model based upon the Chicago School belief that price is the
determinant of market efficiency (it isn’t) and that lowest price can
be delivered only where there is a strong market monopoly (which is
patently absurd), we’re seeing another bubble go pop.

Nicely summarized.

I’m sad, Eleanor, since this is the first time anything you’ve
posted has evidenced anything but keen intelligence.

Well I guess that blows the conceit that I’m largely invisible on
here :slight_smile:

I think invisibility is my job (most of the time) in these parts.

be reduced at all. That’s a fundamental tenet of the scientific method
which I apply to both the development of software and to analysis of
everything else.

My take is more that all phenomena are informed by interactions of a
simple set of fundamental principles, though the emergent properties of
those interactions can be quite complex indeed. Err, I guess that means
we agree in substance, if not in the particulars of how to express it.

I also make no assumptions regarding the good will or rationality of
any participant in a physical system, and that already puts me one
step ahead of those economic theorists who insist on including the
implicate calculus of human motivation into their models.

That strikes me as a critically important insight. Never trust people
in
the general case to have altruistic motivations. This includes:

  1. people in government

  2. people using the software you write (in Ruby! Hah! On-topic!)

  3. people selling you software

It is in part for reasons like this that I have free market and open
source development sympathies.

True, the free market didn’t defeat the Nazis. Except of course that
the economies which funded the defeat of the Nazis were all built on
free market models. The USSR would not have triumphed in the war were
it not for the huge investment of US resources and the war wouldn’t
even have lasted long enough for that to happen if it hadn’t been for
the huge investment of British resources. Of course that investment
required political will as well, largely generated as a result of the
incredible marketing skills of Winston Churchill.

Probably the biggest factor in the Soviet Union’s “victory” over Germany
on the Eastern Front was weather, anyway. It sure as hell wasn’t the
Soviet economy, which pretty much utterly failed to help the Soviet war
effort in World War II.

Likewise if there was a perceived need for cybernetics you can bet
that the money would appear to fund it. Look at the truly remarkable
medical achievement of our era, the mapping of the human genome. The
vast majority of that work was funded by private donation to the
Sanger Institute which is a charitable trust. The Welcome Trust
(another charity) is the largest conductor of medical research in the
world.

I think that greater private investment in cybernetics research will
come
about in the near future in large part as a result of advancing medical
technologies, anyway.

159

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 10:04:01PM +0900, Rimantas L. wrote:

Well, getting another degree in sociology or psychology should fix that.
There are no spherical cows. I have degree in physics myself, but
all attempts to remove human factor from equation seem laughable to me.

I don’t remember anyone saying anything about removing the human factor.

160

On Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 07:17:53AM +0900, Christophe M. wrote:

on the other hand, never in history has there been a time when the
majority of scientists in multiple fields of study were telling
everybody else that we are in deep doodoo for one reason or another.
that is a completely new phenomenon.

I still haven’t seen any credible numbers on that.

it is not my or anybody else’s place to say what the right way is,
that’s a job for all of us to decide upon, and there are plenty of
avenues now open for positive/creative action.

Please tell Congress that at your earliest opportunity. They aren’t
paying attention.