mungojelly › Comments

"Everybody's into Graham's number these days! I've started thinking sometimes lately about Graham's number times two-- it's *twice* as big! Take that, Graham's number. :P" - mungojelly

"I've been astounded by what I've heard about reversible computing and optical computing lately. Maybe they don't have to convert the light from their stars into anything, maybe they can just carefully *direct* it, trap it into crystals or whatever and use it for computation just as it is." - mungojelly

"I've pondered it a bit and I think you're right, there would have to be acceleration and deceleration. How much does that slow it down? A billion light-years across would mean they've expanded just half a billion each way from their origin. We have more than a dozen billion years since the big bang-- for some length of time at the beginning the universe was probably too hot to sustain life, but that still could leave a few billion years since their origin, right? It occurs to me that they could turn their home system into a fantastic number of starseeds. I don't know how large the smallest effective starseed would be, but my guess is that it would be a grain of sand at largest. So they don't need to expand by a series of small hops; each system that explodes can send seeds towards a huge number of systems at all different distances. At most we have to account for two hops, because by then there's surely enough mass in the systems at the perimeter to send a seed towards every..." - mungojelly

"Hmm. Completing the transmutation of a solar system might take a while, but I'd think the time from encountering a nugget, as you evocatively put it :), to transforming some of it into starseed and starting to send that on in the most expansive directions would be minimal." - mungojelly

"Well, yes, that does seem plausible. I'm not sure how the competing infinities work out in terms of the "probability" of what kind of world we're in, or if that question even makes sense, but it's surely quite possible. I tend to act as though we're in a primary universe regardless, since our theoretical simulator overlords seem to be trying to make a realistic looking universe full of sentients that believe in its primacy, so it seems polite to play along. Might be best for our health to give them the show they're looking for, right? ;)" - mungojelly

"Well, yes, that does seem plausible. I'm not sure how the competing infinities work out in terms of the "probability" of what kind of world we're in, or if that question even makes sense, but it's surely quite possible. I tend to act as though we're in a primary universe regardless, since our theoretical simulator overlords seem to be trying to make a realistic looking universe full of... more... - mungojelly

"Well, "as long as they don't bother each other", sure. The rub is, there are some ways that neighboring anarcho-capitalist and anarcho-communist enclaves probably *would* bother each other, even just with their internal politics. For instance, at the anarcho-capitalist enclave, one person or group of people could come to be in possession of a disproportionate amount of property-- and in particular of the means of production-- and begin to exploit and amplify that distortion. The next door anarcho-communists would find it hard to sit idly by while one by one their neighbors were systematically dispossessed and became wage slaves. Conversely, if there came to be a concentration of wealth at the anarcho-communist enclave, it would immediately be redistributed, without necessarily getting the consent of its owner or even providing compensation. The next door anarcho-capitalists would find it hard to sit idly by while their neighbors were continually committing what they would view as..." - mungojelly

"LOL!" - mungojelly

"The animosity is less about the philosophy of anarcho-capitalism itself, and more about stealing our name. :) There are lots of people with philosophies that left anarchists disagree with, but disagreeing with us in such fundamental ways while using the same label as us, that's a little irritating. (People were confused enough about what "anarchism" meant already!) Let me try to explain the difference a little. As a left anarchist, I don't oppose the voluntary exchange of property. However, many of the things which are considered "property" in modern society are not things that I believe should be under individual ownership and control, just as selling a slave is wrong not because it is wrong to sell one's property, but because it is wrong in the first instance to allow that a human should be owned. For instance, the ownership by a restricted set of individuals of a large enough proportion of the arable land can give those owners a de facto power of life and death over the rest of the..." - mungojelly

"Injustice can be prevented by the direct, organized, collective action of the people, without being mediated through any authority. It is absolutely true that in a naively anarchic population feudal states can emerge, and in fact that is our history-- such states emerged. From there we formed democracies, in order to at least exert some popular control over our leaders. The next step is to disintermediate that popular self-rule, so that the people themselves decide what collective actions to take, instead of just who will direct their collective action." - mungojelly

"Why does that seem planned? Congress wrangles over bills all the time. And they hardly need a present threat to pass a reauthorization of an existing law that normal people don't care about. (I happen to agree that the Patriot Act is an awful piece of legislation, but I assure you that most people don't care one bit.) There ARE conspiracies in the world, but they do not consist of occasional, conveniently coincident events, or of bizarre domino-style set-ups. They are slow, silent progressions, hidden in plain sight." - mungojelly

"That's not suspicious at all. That's clearly coincidence. It's a bundle of random events. If you find yourself having those thoughts often, seek mental help." - mungojelly

"Yeah, that's the sad version of the story, an expanding cloud locked statically into some very simple goal system, with no internal shape or meaning. :( Let's not become one of those! Complicated and diverse goals FTW! :) Of course it could be an expanding *seemingly* boring goo which is actually computronium simulating something interesting. I consider that a likely, and probably desirable, outcome." - mungojelly

"Why is that implausible? I haven't really run the numbers, the size of this hole vs the age of the universe, is that what you mean? But I would expect a Type III to expand at a rate very near the speed of light, wouldn't you?" - mungojelly

"We're talking about a post-singularity civilization, so I'd assume that they wouldn't be playing any silly games with their energy like illuminating things. My guess is that they live in a virtual space, and that absolutely everything they can get their (metaphorical) hands on is being converted, at the greatest possible efficiency, into computation." - mungojelly

"Sure, you might be right, I don't really know, I'm not that good at physics. But why? I would think it would be possible to capture and use all of the energy of any kind in their expanding territory." - mungojelly

holy shit. - mungojelly

"I like to continue senseless combos, even though I know it annoys everyone. Sorry." - mungojelly

"I always wonder why no one proposes what seems to me an obvious theory about this sort of anomaly: A civilization that's at Type III on the Kardashev scale. Isn't that what a Type III would look like, a dark space, since they'd capture 100% of the energy from the stars they control?" - mungojelly

"I'm from the metametanet. Of course I know that you know that they know this kind of stuff." - mungojelly

Do you still consider yourself a "blogger"? It seems like most of the digerati have decided that there's no longer a meaningful distinction between "blogger" and "internet user." - mungojelly

Blogger? Sure, I think of myself as a blogger, vlogger, social, and more. - Joe Mescher from email

"Right. Detecting light reflected off objects is how you see objects. You detect the object indirectly, by detecting the light. That is called "seeing" an object." - mungojelly

"The Superintendent of the Commack School District is one Dr. James A. Feltman, whose email is jfeltman@commack.k12.ny.us according to http://www.commack.k12.ny.us/DO... Won't you all join me in telling him what we think of this? Here's the letter I've just sent: > Peppermint oil is not an "over-the-counter drug." This is not the > time for rationalization. Your institution has made a terrible > error, which has now been publicly exposed. It's time to admit > very loudly that you were wrong, if you wish to bring your shame > to a quick end. The internet does not tolerate injustice. > > Sincerely, > Brett Williams" - mungojelly

"Depends. There's also glycol extractions. I bet the product in question is the alcohol-free kind, or they would surely have dwelt on the alcohol content in their flimsy attempt at rationalization." - mungojelly

"No, but I have a problem with statements that attempt to negate one valid perspective on a situation merely by asserting another, compatible perspective." - mungojelly

"I expect post haste we'll see an interface from Google that starts giving you a full page of results as soon as you start typing. They're obsessed now by what they're calling "Time-To-Result", and obviously immediate feedback is going to be a part of that. I would expect it to be a lot smoother and more predictive than this attempt, though. If I've typed "mushr" I should already be seeing results for "mushroom", not seeing the bizarre results for "mushr" itself. Google can't do anything chaotic like that with their interface, it has to be butter. If you pay attention you're already getting some immediate results in the auto-complete dropdown, for instance by the time you've typed "redd" you already get an instant link to reddit.com with a description. I'd be surprised indeed if they don't rapidly expand the number of queries it feels that confident about. Not that I don't think that this keyboardr is cool! It's just that Google's own implementation of that basic concept is going to be..." - mungojelly

"Huh. Isn't that a bit like saying "you don't really see objects themselves, you only see the light reflected off of them"?" - mungojelly

wow, i often use google as a dictionary, so this will have a big effect on me! i think i approve!? - mungojelly

"perhaps the closest you could get to that would be sousveillance, like an uninterrupted video recording of all of his actions that day" - mungojelly

"It's difficult to judge. Many of them joined because they believe that most or all of our military actions are self-defense. But then, since that belief is, of course, terribly terribly wrong, are they not guilty of ignorance and stupidity, even if they are innocent of malice? Clearly they are dramatically less culpable than those who delude them with false histories and knowingly march them in the defense of Empire under false pretenses. But I have trouble assigning zero blame to those who actually look through their sights at citizens of a country they are occupying and actually pull the trigger and actually watch them die. I may forgive our troops, but I cannot see their souls as untrodden snow." - mungojelly

"I don't think "pray for our troops" is necessarily pro-war in theory, but I do think it almost always is in practice. After all, troops don't need nearly as much prayer to survive when they're not deployed to a war zone. And there's a reason it never says "pray for our troops, and the Iraqi troops, and the people of Iraq, too."" - mungojelly