[sl4] greetings

From: Luke (wlgriffiths@gmail.com)
Date: Sun Oct 11 2009 - 21:10:39 MDT


Hello all. I have recently entered a new stage of my life, and I intend to
start participating in the discussions here as I now have the time and
sources of inspiration which I will likely wish to share.
As a newcomer, I recognize that I may not fully grasp the conventional
subject matter and syntax here. If any of my messages, such as the
following one, are unfit for this forum please alert me to this fact and
please, if you can, identify why it's off-topic.

end-intro, begin-message:

I just read a great sci-fi story about the future. It examines a world
which is technologically advanced (slightly) and culturally/politically
different than our current one (slightly). What I particularly like about
it is that it gives a beautiful description of the human experience of one
living in this (slightly) different world. Enjoy:
http://www.davidbrin.com/aficionado.htm

Well looky there, my font changed. I do most of my typing in monospace so I
haven't the slightest idea how to get it back the way it was.

I've been reading the recent marathon discussion of constraining robots to
be our friends. All I have to add is this: conversation can serve more
functions than the defense of two mega-points. The assumption of a
bilateral split between "what I'm saying" and "what you're saying" is
basically completely erroneous. In buddhism this error is known as getting
caught up in "I", which does not in reality exist. In logic, it borders on
ad-hominem reasoning, in a slightly varied form, essentially saying "if I
can get you on one point, I've got you on all of them." Our American
situation with the two parties and how any issue has to have a Party_A
response which must be different than the Party_B response has unfortunately
trained us all to habitually lump ALL of a person's points into "that
person's argument", and hence get caught in devoting too much time to
belaboring tiny points, just to have the satisfaction of putting a chink
somewhere, anywhere, in their armor.

Create good filtering processes, and the rest is gravy.

Peace
 - Luke



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