Survival Arts

Aubrey de Grey: "Prospects for extending healthy life - a lot"

Aubrey de Grey gave a Tech Talk at Google's Mountain View campus this week, and I was privileged to attend. I've seen him give a longer, earlier version of this presentation before - at Stanford in June 2005 - and was impressed more than ever. Enjoy:

ABSTRACT

It may seem premature to be discussing approaches to the effective elimination of human ... all » aging as a cause of death at a time when essentially no progress has yet been made in even postponing it. However, two aspects of human aging combine to undermine this assessment. The first is that aging is happening to us throughout our lives but only results in appreciable functional decline after four or more decades of life: this shows that we can postpone the functional decline caused by aging arbitrarily well without knowing how to prevent aging completely, but instead by increasingly thorough molecular and cellular repair. The second is that the typical rate of refinement of dramatic technological breakthroughs is rather reliable (so long as public enthusiasm for them is abundant) and is fast enough to change such technologies (be they in medicine, transport, or computing) almost beyond recognition within a natural human lifespan. In this talk I will explain, first, why (presuming adequate funding for the initial preclinical work) therapies that can add 30 healthy years to the remaining lifespan of healthy 55-year-olds may arrive within the next few decades, and, second, why those who benefit from those therapies will very probably continue to benefit from progressively improved therapies indefinitely and thus avoid debilitation or death from age-related causes at any age.

Telomolecular Nanotechnologies

What a day! Just as I'm getting ready to attend Aubrey de Grey's talk at Google, I find out that a martial arts training buddy of mine, Dr. Pete Lohstroh, recently left his research position at UC Davis to take a senior scientist position at Telomolecular Nanotechnologies, specializing in the application of nanocircles to telomere extension therapy (one of several approaches they're taking). Congratulations Pete!

"Nanomedicine opens the way for nerve cell regeneration"

Nanomedicine opens the way for nerve cell regeneration

"The ability to regenerate nerve cells in the body could reduce the effects of trauma and disease in a dramatic way. In two presentations at the NSTI Nanotech 2007 Conference, researchers describe the use of nanotechnology to enhance the regeneration of nerve cells. In the first method, developed at the University of Miami, researchers show how magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) may be used to create mechanical tension that stimulates the growth and elongation of axons of the central nervous system neurons. The second method from the University of California, Berkeley uses aligned nanofibers containing one or more growth factors to provide a bioactive matrix where nerve cells can regrow..."

Nanoparticles Delivery of 'Suicide DNA' Kills Prostate Tumors

Nanoparticles Delivery of 'Suicide DNA' Kills Prostate Tumors

"...using nanoparticles developed by members of the Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer, a team of investigators at the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research, in Philadelphia, has developed a DNA-based therapeutic agent that has the potential to treat both enlarged prostates and localized prostate tumors. When tested in mice, this new agent specifically targeted prostate tissue, producing no toxic effects in surrounding tissues..."

"Lifespans soon to be decades longer" by Tom Burroughes

I'm about a month late in actually publishing a mention of my friend (and Reuters reporter) Tom Burroughes' interview with Cambridge University gerontologist Aubrey De Grey, "Lifespans soon to be decades longer", which, interestingly, seems to have been syndicated on the Indian version of Yahoo! News.

"Cancer Regression in Patients After Transfer of Genetically Engineered Lymphocytes"

Forwarded to me by Perry Metzger, and independently brought to my attention by Tom Burroughes, published in Science as "Cancer Regression in Patients After Transfer of Genetically Engineered Lymphocytes":

Using adoptive transfer of lymphocytes given after host immunodepletion it is possible to mediate objective cancer regression in patients with metastatic melanoma. However, the generation of tumor-specific T cells in this mode of immunotherapy is often limiting. Using a retrovirus encoding a T cell receptor, we report here the ability to specifically confer tumor recognition by autologous lymphocytes from peripheral blood. Adoptive transfer of these transduced cells in fifteen patients resulted in durable engraftment at levels exceeding ten percent of peripheral blood lymphocytes for at least two months post infusion. We observed high sustained levels of circulating, engineered cells at one year post-infusion in two patients, that both demonstrated objective regression of metastatic melanoma lesions. This study suggests the therapeutic potential of genetically engineered cells for the biologic therapy of cancer.

I have the full paper, forwarded to me by a friend, which I'm reading slowly.

Quote of the Day

Libertarians should not be denying scientific fact. We should instead spend our time combatting the religious impulse of people to think the modern world is evil and that we must repent for our sins by living cruddy lives and waiting for (in their minds) our inevitable and justified doom at the hands of a wronged Gaia.

Perry E. Metzger

Quote of the Day

Property "rights" are basically an epiphenomenon arising from respect for voluntary agreements. As such, if a society doesn't respect voluntary agreements, private property doesn't last long. You can't even decide who owns something unless voluntary agreements are respected.

Perry Metzger, by permission, from a private mailing list

Quote of the Day (from a private mailing list I run, with permission)

Frank Bieser writes:
> Perry E. Metzger wrote:
>> Without enough people working on the problem, we won't finish in
>> time. Right now, I'd say smart people are the biggest missing resource.
>
> And why might that be? Where did all the smart people go?

They didn't "go" anywhere. They've never been in the field.

How many smart people were working on orbital rocketry in 1920? A half
dozen, perhaps. Lots of people claimed the whole idea was bunk, too,
including the New York Times. Later on, lots of people joined up.

Today, not many people are working on Drexler's vision. That doesn't
mean it isn't worthwhile -- it just means that the field is young and
lots of people are still skeptical about it. I suspect that the number
of people actively working on it numbers less than 20, and possibly
less than 10.

There is enough work for thousands of people to push on this for many
years to come. At some point, we'll get IA or AI and the pace will be
able to pick up, but that point still seems pretty distant. Meanwhile,
direct molecular manipulation and molecular manufacturing pose a very
hard set of problems -- possibly the hardest engineering problem yet
faced by mankind -- and we need more minds to make progress. On the
flip side, MNT will also bring the biggest revolution in civilization
yet experienced, dwarfing everything that came before, so I see it as
a worthwhile problem to attack.

Still, we lack enough smart people working on it. As any good VC can
tell you, money is something of a commodity, but smart people are
rare. More smart people are needed.

Perry

Audioblog.com announces unmetered bandwidth plans

I occasionally attend some rather memorable lectures on topics of extropian interest, such as Aubrey de Grey's lectures at Stanford last summer. I've gotten permission to post some of the recordings I've taken with my iPod/iTalk combination, but have not yet aggregated those recordings for public consumption. With yesterday's announcement by audioblog.com concerning their "unmetered bandwidth" plan, I just may have found my venue. Stay tuned.

"See Earthrise from lunar orbit"

A week ago, I caught a short segment of Fox News' business anchor Neil Cavuto interviewing Eric Anderson, president and CEO of Space Adventures, who was promoting his company's Deep Space DSE-Alpha program, a privately-funded Soyuz-based circumlunar expedition. I noticed, not for the first time, a surprising skepticism about private space travel from the normally highly pro-free enterprise Cavuto, who seems to be nurturing a serious blind spot on the matter, a dangerous case of NASA-romanticization.

Me, I'm sanguine about the DSE-Alpha, and hope to see Anderson's enterprise succeed. In the meantime, someone needs to buy Neil Cavuto a copy of Victor Koman's "Kings of the High Frontier." Abolish NASA, get the government out of the space business, and let people like Anderson do their thing without subsidy or interference.

Dendrimers to improve chemotherapeutic delivery

An interesting blog article about the use of dendrimers in targetted drug delivery systems, sent me by Tom Burroughes in London.

University of Michigan scientists have created the nanotechnology equivalent of a Trojan horse to smuggle a powerful chemotherapeutic drug inside tumor cells – increasing the drug's cancer-killing activity and reducing its toxic side effects.

Previous studies in cell cultures have suggested that attaching anticancer drugs to nanoparticles for targeted delivery to tumor cells could increase the therapeutic response. Now, U-M scientists have shown that this nanotechnology-based treatment is effective in living animals.

"I want to send you money" for Accelerando...

...the digital (PDF) version I'm reading now, but Charlie Stross tells his readers not to do so. I will, however, be buying several copies from Amazon as gifts to friends. Damn it's good!

Quote of the Day

I would much rather see transhumanists delve into real research or produce real results rather than just recruiting "believers". I [would] rather have fewer people working on the right things than a much larger number who believe in mistaken ideas.

...sadly, the transhumanists themselves will be a large part of the faulty advertising that lead humanity astray with outrageous claims, false beliefs, and preferring quantity over quality. I see nothing in most of our PR efforts that will actually help us attain our goals. Having a couple of hundred people join a science fan club worldwide will have little to no effect on progress.

Harvey Newstrom

Biogenontologist Aubrey de Grey, Stanford University, 8 June 2005

Cambridge biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey will be speaking next week at Stanford University, on "Why the prospect of dramatic life extension matters now." Talk will occur Wednesday evening 7:00-8:30 PM, 8 June 2005, at the Clark Center Auditorium. Thanks to Tyler Emerson for forwarding this to me; I do plan to attend.

Quote of the Day

Cops are armed when civilians can't be, often with weapons civilians can't have. I can't tell you how sick I get of seeing notations in catalogs like Brigade Quartermaster that certain items are for cops only.

Cops live and operate within a strict hierarchy, usually with titles like "sergeant", "lieutenant", "captain", and so forth. Most of them wear military-style uniforms, and an argument can be made that so-called "plainclothes" operations ought to be outlawed. Increasingly, they wear military battledress and carry military weapons.

Cops form a culture all to themselves, like professional soldiers, and usually have little to do with those who are not cops. They do call us "civilians". I never heard this term "little people" before. They also call us "assholes" and say that the public just consists of criminals who haven't been caught yet. I know because I was there at one time.

Yeah, I understand the theory that they're civilians, too. I repeat that it's bullshit. What they are, in fact, is an occupying military force, with strategic bases in every hamlet in the nation -- which is why they and their hangers-on lie to us and possibly to themselves about being civilians, too.

They are the very standing army that the Founding Fathers were afraid of.

And for good reason.

L. Neil Smith
In response last night to a post I made on a mailing list about how cops refer to non-cops as "civilians" when they, too, are in fact "civilians."

Quote of the Day

Indeed, I am opposed even to free market supplied "police" in the conventional sense. The potential - indeed, universal reality - of armed agencies abusing their power is such that I believe that it is foolish for individuals to delegate their use of just force and to rely on third parties. We need an armed citizenry, the "hue and cry", and the use of specialist/expert "martials" for arrest only in restricted cases.

Dr. Chris R. Tame
Excerpted with permission from a recent private correspondance

"Layered Communism" in Poland

I just got back from a meeting of an organization of which I'm a member, and was talking with a Polish acquaintance at the potluck which followed. We were discussing the until-recent history of Russian occupation of his country, and he told me that some Poles he knew had during that time advocated "Layered Communism":

"Layer of Communists, layer of sand, layer of Communists, layer of sand..."

Quote of the Day

Capitalism is the only moral social system because it allows each man to work for his own profit and because under a capitalistic system men only have to work with each other through voluntary action for mutual benefit. Capitalism maximizes wealth, prosperity and happiness.

Valara Forsythe

"Rapid Gene Synthesizer Will Enable Custom Microbe Construction"

Thanks to Perry for bringing this to my attention: "Rapid Gene Synthesizer Will Enable Custom Microbe Construction."

Just because I can.

Today after work I headed up for Thursday night Bujinkan training (the weekly outdoor session, which I'd been missing until recently due to school), and had a great time tonight. Before heading to San Francisco, I did a quick search for late night coffee shops with free wireless internet access, located within a reasonable drive of the training park, and found the Samovar Tea Lounge in the Castro/Mission district.

I'm sitting there right now, having "Russian High Tea" way too late in the day. Service includes all-you-can drink high-octane self-serve tea from - you guessed it - a samovar: "dilute to taste" is the operative term. This place is genuinely cool, and I highly recommend it.

About the "just because I can" thing: an acquaintance of mine, Marc Stiegler, once wrote in one of his novels that it's vitally important to maintain a childlike sense of wonder about the world. Here I am, sitting in a friendly place, an oasis of light in the darkness, warmth against the wind, music from the walls, and good food I would never have thought of making myself, talking to people in other cities on a 4-pound device that I use to bring me money... life is a good thing.

"The Anglosphere Challenge" by Jim Bennett

This just in from my distant friend James Bennett: his announcement today of the website supporting his new book "The Anglosphere Challenge." This seems like a very enticing book, and I plan to read it during winter school break.

"Getting Into The Launch Business: The Amroc Story"

Most of us are familiar with the events marking the Ansari X Prize winning flights of SpaceDev's SpaceShip One recently. Far fewer, however, know of the story of the American Rocket Company (AMROC), the pioneering company whose intellectual property lives on in that prize-winning ship: the revolutionary hybrid rocket engine that sent it to the edge of space, twice. Read on...

Cosmetic Neurology?

Here's a term I'd not expected to hear: "cosmetic neurology" (via John Venlet).

Anton Sherwood's blog revamped

Anton Sherwood has moved his musings to a blogging system with a commenting facility and much friendlier navigation. No trivial feat, given that he's been blogging (in one place) since February 2002... this meant converting over 1400 postings! Take a look.

Quote of the Day

You might want to take note of the interconnection between purpose and action in the minimal State. The minimal State does not, for instance, build art museums, because it does not exist to promote art but to enforce agreements and provide mutual defense. In order to build an art museum, the State would need to acquire the resources with which to build it. If people are willing to donate those resources freely, there is no need for the State to build the museum — it could be built privately. If people are not willing to donate the resources freely, then the act of forcibly taking the needed resources turns the purpose of the minimal State on its head — instead of enforcing the decision by the participants to respect each other's lives and property so that their own lives and property will be respected, the State then becomes an agent for some to abscond with the property of others. I may think it is a good idea to build a home for orphans, but if I take your resources against your will to do it, whether I'm an official of the State or a private citizen, I have violated the truce. To obey the truce, I must convince you to voluntarily provide resources for my goals, whether by trading with you or appealing to your charitable instincts.

In short, if the justification of the minimal State is that it exists, at the behest of a collection of sovereign individuals, to enforce a mutually beneficial truce among those who choose to participate in it, and to organize mutual defense against those who choose not to participate by violating the truce, then that justification does not reasonably permit the expropriation of resources for the purpose of projects that are merely laudable.

Note that this view of the minimal State cannot provide a justification for initiating warfare in distant lands which are not a threat its citizens' safety, regardless of how laudable it might be to re-arrange the social structures of those foreign places to suit enlightened tastes. However, by the same token, neither position prevents individuals from engaging in such activities on their own, at their own risk and with their own resources.

Perry Metzger, in "What is the Role of the State?" today

"New Jaw Grown on Patient's Back"

Perry Metzger reports a fantastic bit of news about the reconstruction of a man's jaw using a fusion of prosthesis and a novel bone re-growth technique.

Prakash Chandrashekhar reviews "The Probability Broach"

Prakash Chandrashekhar, a libertarian blogger in India, recommends L. Neil Smith's "The Probability Broach" on AnarCapLib.

"Scientists Identify Compounds That Mimic Calorie Restriction"

Thanks to Chris Tame for passing along this article: "Scientists Identify Compounds That Mimic Calorie Restriction."

Monica White on "Science Friction"

I really enjoy this woman's writing: "Science Friction," by Monica White.

Relatedly, Monica has informed me that she's working on an extended, adapted version of her Firefly review (of course she loves it too) for The Atlasphere, which I'll pass along when she tells me it's been published.

My visit to the Quent Cordair Gallery on Saturday

About three weeks ago, I wrote that my friend Monica White had indirectly informed me (through her blogroll) of the existence of the Quent Cordair Fine Art Gallery in Burlingame, California, about a mile from San Francisco International Airport.

Well, on Saturday - on a whim - I suggested to Peggy that we head up to the gallery for the short remainder of the afternoon. We arrived about two hours before closing... and left about an hour after closing.

I'd called ahead to confirm that the gallery was, as indicated on their website, indeed open for the afternoon. When we arrived, a friendly lady greeted us and, upon hearing my voice, recognized me from my call-ahead. When I mentioned my name, she remarked that it sounded familiar, and that she'd actually - somehow - come across my blog recently and had even recommended that a friend of hers named "Carter" (whose contact I welcome) contact me about gun-related issues! I was happily astounded. I quickly found out that this friendly - and sharp - lady is Linda Zimmerman, the director of the gallery.

Linda spent the better part of three hours talking with me about the purpose of the gallery, the only one of its kind in the world, specializing strictly in high-quality painting and sculpture of the Romantic Realist variety (see Ayn Rand's "Romantic Manifesto" for an in-depth introduction to the genre.) I was deeply impressed at the operation, the selection, and the director. The storefront has had 8 years of profitable operation, but its recent years of online operation alone keep it sufficiently profitable that it can continue in business, without diluting its collection with low-quality pieces which would otherwise meet "school of art" requirements or with technically high-quality pieces which are outside those stated requirements.

The gallery itself has on display about one-third its total collection, the other two-thirds of which is in storage, but pieces of which can be viewed by the seriously interested. The walls are arrayed with paintings, as would be expected, and a number of bronzes are also on display. Linda encourages a healthy, tactile approach to the sculptures: touch them. At one point in our long, animated chat, she took my right hand and placed it on the hip of this statue, "Gratitude" by Danielle Anjou:

This is a lovely piece, and was strangely reminincent of the 1987 Boris Vallejo cover art for the Robert A. Heinlein novel "To Sail Beyond the Sunset," itself a triumphalist riff on Sandro Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus." I love it, probably as much as Monica White loves Bill Mack's alto-relief sculpture "Forever," which was not on display the day I visited... but which I hope Monica can eventually acquire.

Linda and I talked each other's ears off, happily, while Peggy enjoyed one of the overstuffed leather couches near the front of the gallery. We talked about the business of art, and the multifarious ways the gallery has connected Romantic Realist artists, including the recently immigrated Chinese master Han Wu Shen, with deeply appreciative customers, including passionate-but-temporarily-impecunious college students who've arranged payment plans for their "must have" pieces. We talked about a great many other things, with most of the conversation led by Linda cheerily educating me in the business of her gallery, and with me responding with semi-articulate "Wows!" and "Cool!"

I do plan to spend quite a bit more time in the gallery, and may even hold a party of friends there in the near future. Yes, I did say "party"... anyone interested? It would be a great excuse to gather a few dozen of my closest friends and acquaintances in a fantastic setting near the near San Francisco. This is a very real possibility, since Linda did say that the gallery encourages people to hold their parties there. I'm thinking sometime in September, when my good friend Tom Burroughes is in town visiting from London with his girlfriend: first a morning sailing on the Bay (Tom's a qualified yachtsman), then shooting at the range, then a catered affair that night - after cleaning up - at the Quent Cordair Fine Art gallery... sounds like good living to me.

Quote of the Day

This is not to say that I believe all religious people are readily capable of murder. Rather, I claim that once you structure your life around ideas that you are not permitted to test, but which you accept as beyond testing (that is, on "faith"), you've abandoned your most important survival tool, namely reason.

Introduce a bad axiom into a mathematical formal system, you can prove anything. Similarly, if you abandon reason for "faith", you lose your only tool with which to distinguish the truth. This could leave you helpless to escape the idea that "God" demands that you kill, and from there it is a short step to shooting abortion doctors or flying planes into skyscrapers.

Perry Metzger

Quote of the Day

The concept of luck is also an insult to those who have truly earned what they have. It's an easy way for others to write off hard work and perseverance as merely a kiss on the forehead from the fates.

You see, I find it invariably true that 'luck' strikes those that are well prepared to receive its bounty. By preparedness I mean that they have educated themselves, unerringly pointed themselves in the direction of choice and put themselves forward again and again as a person who desires the chosen end result. I'm as unsurprised by these kinds of people being struck by ‘luck’ as I am by the tallest grounded antenna being struck by lightning.

Monica White

Extropianism and revisionist history

A few weeks ago, on a mailing list I run, it was reported to me by a good friend that the present management of the Extropy Institute disavows free-market libertarianism as its politico-economic root. As a matter of fact, we're told, extropianism was never about liberty and its deepest ramifications. To those people, I have a large number of examples from the early history of the extropian movement which contradict that claim, such as this reprint of a short declaration by law professor Tom Bell, writing in 1988 as "T.O. Morrow," a piece called "Economics and Politics" (words in brackets below added by me for clarification):

As information processing systems, good economic and political systems must meet the same standards that apply to any of their kind; they must achieve their ends efficiently. Researchers such as Friedrich Hayek have demonstrated that the most efficient economic and political systems are those that exert a minimum of control, allowing spontaneous orders to flourish. Economic and political systems must furthermore advance (trans)human ends. Extropy [magazine] takes the [editorial] point of view that these two qualifications are entirely compatible; the most efficient economic and political systems are those that maximize human liberty. Thus the best economic systems are free market, and the best political systems libertarian. (Libertarians assert that the state, if one is neccessary, should permit all acts except assault, theft and fraud.) Extropy [magazine] will pursue such free market and libertarian analyses of economic and political systems, working toward the day when economic and political systems serve us, rather than we them.

(T.0. Morrow, '88-'98. All Rights Reserved. Please attach this paragraph to all copies. Fully attributed noncommercial use of this document hereby permitted.)

This was, as mentioned, published in the paper version of Extropy magazine (a copy of which I own), and is notated "online version, edited Nov. '96." I plan to publish many more such examples as I run across them, at my convenience. Why? Well, while I do acknowledge that the term "extropian" has been diluted to the extent it's indistinguishable from standard socialist transhumanism - and this is a tragic thing - I will not stand for the historical revisionism being pushed by some of those in the existing "extropian" movement... especially since I've been around that movement from the very beginning, and will not drink the Kool-Aid.

"Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun" by Eric Raymond

An excellent essay by Eric Raymond, "Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun: What Bearing Weapons Teaches About the Good Life." (Thanks to Steve Pegram.)

To believe one is incompetent to bear arms is... to live in corroding and almost always needless fear of the self — in fact, to affirm oneself a moral coward. A state further from the dignity of a free man would be rather hard to imagine. It is as a way of exorcising this demon, of reclaiming for ourselves the dignity and courage and ethical self-confidence of free (wo)men that the bearing of personal arms, is, ultimately, most important.

This is the final ethical lesson of bearing arms: that right choices are possible, and the ordinary judgement of ordinary (wo)men is sufficient to make them.

A quick comment on "I, Robot"

I'd mentioned yesterday I'd be seeing this film, and I did. I also mentioned in a short comment followup that I'd seen a few old friends leaving the cinema, who confirmed my suspicions that the film was very loosely based on Asimov's work of the same name, so I went into the cinema not expecting a film realization of the original story.

There were tips of the hat all over the film to Asimov's original work, mostly in the naming of characters (Sonny, Dr. Susan Calvin) and in partial buzzword compliance (e.g. "positronic"), but as the credits honestly acknowledged, it's "based on a work of" Isaac Asimov. With that in mind, I determined to enjoy the film on its own merits, and was not disappointed. I was particularly impressed with Alan Tudyk's portrayal of Sonny (as an aside, I hope whatever name recognition this earns him - as a greenscreen actor - helps in the success of the forthcoming Firefly movie "Serenity".)

It's interesting to see that the movie treated Asimov's 3 Laws as sacrosanct, considering that Asimov himself later saw flaws in that approach to robot safety, working in a hack he called the "Zeroth Law." See this interesting commentary for a summary of the Laws... which might have prevented the disaster dramatized in the movie (that's the closest I'll come to a spoiler), or might not, given the rationalizations employed by the villain, which were the same as almost every tinpot dictator of the 20th century or before.

Here's a related amusement: the Singularity Institute apparently saw fit to ride the wave of the movie's popularity by launching a website called "3 Laws Unsafe".

"Diminished Capacity": Perry Metzger has a blog now

My old friend Perry Metzger gave in today and finally started a blog. Now to convince him to add a comment mechanism...

Quote of the Day

First, we see that "public goods" are rare things. There's a great collection of essays by economists called "The Theory of Market Failure" edited by Tyler Cowan, which includes descriptions of the way private organizations historically built lighthouses, and the market for honeybee pollination (lighthouses and pollination are both classic examples of public goods in econ texts which are in the real world not public goods.)

Second, even if we are confronted with a public good, given the general incompetence of a non-market signaled monopoly organization with an unchecked budget at accomplishing anything, why would we imagine the organization would be able to figure out the "true" demand for the public good and supply it at the economically efficient level? Also, why do we imagine that the extraction of funds from all sorts of weird tax sources in any way properly reflects the "true" consumption of the good by the populace? "Solving" the public goods problem with government is like searching for your car keys under a street light 500m away from where you dropped them because the light is better there. Sure, it makes you feel as though you are doing something, but does it actually get you any nearer to your goal?

Perry Metzger

Quote of the Day

...the first highways were in fact privately funded, and, it can be argued that Xerox's networking protocols were better than TCP/IP at the time, but that's all another story. The general point is, sure the government does some good sometimes, just as even that crazy neighbor who no one suspected would go off and kill 50 peoples always seemed so quiet and did great things for the community playground project. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. I can
point at dozens of things the government has done reasonably well, but there is no feedback mechanism that rewards the bureaucrats who did the good things and punishes the idiots who run the DMV for doing bad things, so there is no likelihood those seeds will sprout into oaks.

Meanwhile, though, dumb companies that piss off customers go under all the time, and good ones make people rich. It isn't that the same sort of idiots who run government agencies can't get their hands on companies for a while -- it is that they can't keep running things that way for long before the well runs dry.

Perry Metzger

Quote of the Day

This is very much like the arguments I've been having with those who believe only government is capable of "real" science, of "pure" research. Yes, indeed it did take 43 years for private efforts to repeat the sub-orbital flight of [Alan] Shepherd.

But Rutan['s ship] returned to earth with everything he left with except his fuel, a feat that Government has never achieved.

Curt Howland

Bizarre Science

Recommended by Monica White: the blog "Bizarre Science."

ANARQUÍA: An Alternate History of the Spanish Civil War

Anders Monsen informs us of the publication by Brad Linaweaver and J. Kent Hastings of "ANARQUÍA: An Alternate History of the Spanish Civil War," which sounds like a great deal of fun in the vein of L. Neil Smith's "The Probability Broach." I'm a fan of Linaweaver's work, such as his excellent "Moon of Ice," which comes to market far too rarely.

Progress toward growing replacement teeth from stem cells

The New Scientist reported yesterday that experimental progress in growing replacement teeth in situ has been made... yet another reason to pressure the federal government into repealing all its vile, stupid laws against stem cell research.

BATF forcing rocket amateurs out of the field

This is nasty and upsetting news from Steve Pegram: "Rocket Hobbyists Dropping Hobby" due to hamfisted, jackbooted regulation by the goons of the BATF. Just when we're seeing the spirit of innovation in rocketry and space travel rekindled, the government is working to snuff that spirit. This crap needs to be fought... which seems to be happening by default, since many rocket hobbyists have chosen to ignore F-Troop anyway.

Michael Badnarik's blog

Libertarian Party presidential candidate Michael Badnarik has a blog.

Yet more: tour bus to space?

This is getting even more interesting: Eric Pavao sends along yet another piece (Popular Science) on the SpaceShipOne flight, this one intimating that Burt Rutan has a lot more up his sleeve:

After winning the X-Prize, Rutan will quickly move on to other challenges. During press conferences leading up to Monday's flights, he dropped hints about "going to orbit sooner than you think," an apparent allusion to the Tier 3 orbital space-vehicle program that he is reportedly involved in. The SpaceShipOne program is known as Tier 1, and Tier 2 would probably be a tour-bus-like version of the same concept, a vehicle capable of carrying up to 10 passengers on suborbital space flights. Under his contract with Allen, Rutan is required to deliver data on how much such a vehicle would cost to build and fly. Mojave Aerospace--a new company jointly owned by Allen and Rutan and disclosed this week--will own the rights to SpaceShipOne technology and would oversee future franchising and commercialization efforts for the system. Details will remain secret, said the cagey Rutan, "until we're ready to push something out of the door."

More video coverage of SpaceShipOne flight

Bill St. Clair passes along this SpaceShipOne flight coverage with video (you'll need to enable pop-ups in your browser).

Quote of the Day

The success of SpaceShipOne feels like a reward for my faith. I can’t say I’m terribly surprised – relief is more the word. If I were anywhere near the Mojave desert instead of freezing through a London summer, I would have travelled myself to witness it.

It’s a shining example of what like-minded people would say is the ultimate freedom – the freedom to create, to produce, to take risk, to try and also to fail. The freedom that can only fully be realized where our money (our very lives) isn’t taxed away for a variety of hare-brained political schemes and our lives aren’t regulated to the point of absurdity.

Most Americans reading this would have paid for NASA through their taxes – where’s your return on investment? I’m willing to bet that the VCs who stumped up for SpaceShipOne are looking forward to some long term return on their money.

I hope that those who advocate the big-government nanny state for various reasons sit up and take notice this week. This is what we humans are capable of – without the interference, guidance or regulation of beaurocracy.

Monica White

"SpaceShipOne, Government Zero"

This is the in-flight face of the first non-government, privately-financed test pilot to earn American astronaut's wings:

Space history to be made in less than 7 hours

The world's first privately funded manned spaceflight will occur in less than 7 hours from now, with the takeoff of the carrier ship and spaceship from Mojave Airport at 0630 California time.

Quote of the Day

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

Ronald Reagan

Quote of the Day

"Feelings" of a supreme being prove nothing since feelings are biochemical states. Feelings no more prove god's existence than seeing pink elephants when withdrawing from alcohol prove theirs. Science demands external evidence that is reproducible. This is how the West has risen from the swamp of mysticism and ignorance to antibiotics, computers, space travel, the internal combustion engine, etc.

Mysticism starts out as an apparently harmless, individual subjective experience. It ends up with a whip in its hand and an explosives belt around its waist, tyrannizing everyone who doesn't share that private experience.

Jim Mark

Quote of the Day

It is a shame that the precautionary principle is not applied to government regulation: in the absence of any overwhelming proof that it will work, such regulation ought to be prohibited.

Antoine Clarke

1st private manned space flight happens June 21st!

Eric Pavao passes on this fantastic news: SpaceShipOne will be making its first historic flight from Mojave in less than 3 weeks:

Mojave, CA: A privately-developed rocket plane will launch into history on June 21 on a mission to become the world's first commercial manned space vehicle. Investor and philanthropist Paul G. Allen and aviation legend Burt Rutan have teamed to create the program, which will attempt the first non-governmental flight to leave the earth's atmosphere.

Paul G. Allen and aviation legend Burt Rutan have teamed to create a manned space program, which will attempt the first non-governmental flight to leave the earth's atmosphere. SpaceShipOne will rocket to 100 kilometers (62 miles) into sub-orbital space above the Mojave Civilian Aerospace Test Center, a commercial airport in the California desert. If successful, it will demonstrate that the space frontier is finally open to private enterprise. This event could be the breakthrough that will enable space access for future generations.

Quote of the Day

This is my favorite Atheist quote:

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

That sums it up as good as anything, really. Atheism is merely a position regarding the existence of gods-there is no context outside of that. The beliefs we do generally share, we share with every other sane person on earth. And we are less rare than you think - most Atheists don't make their presence known, because there is no reason to. We don't advertise.

Dwayne Stephenson

C-SPAN archive coverage of the Libertarian Party national convention

I found out from posters to the smith2004-discuss list this morning that C-SPAN keeps video archives of recent shows available for downloading. A search for "libertarian" on their website yields all the video coverage of the recent Libertarian Party nominating convention in Atlanta along with a follow-up interview (which I'm playing now) with the newly nominated presidential candidate Michael Badnarik.

A warm welcome to Yazad Jal

One of the benefits of being myself - being open about my passions and not worrying overmuch about getting along with everyone - is that occasionally, someone I've never heard from introduces himself or herself and extends a hand in friendship, knowing who I am and what I stand for.

This happened again today, this time from somewhere I'd least expected: India, in the form of an articulate fellow named Yazad Jal, a thoroughgoing and studious anarchocapitalist, who'd taken note of me from a couple of running battles I'd been having with a few people on the Atheists community on Orkut.

After taking a quick look at Yazad's Orkut profile, and seeing immediately that he didn't seem like a flake (believe me, I've met a couple of crazies in the last year), I checked out Yazad's blog. I'm impressed: he's a very solid, intelligent, articulate and funny individual who's been writing fairly regularly for a couple of years, and has some interesting things to say about the political and economic problems of India. Visit his blog and make friends. If you're a fellow Orkuteer, introduce yourself to him and make friends there.

Ralph Merkle's "Nanotechnology and Medicine"

Here's an interesting short article by Ralph Merkle written when he was working for Zyvex (before he moved on to Georgia Tech): "Nanotechnology and Medicine".

Quote of the Day

...choose your friends more carefully, be ruthless with your time and seek out the best people you can find. As you improve yourself, you'll find that better and better people will naturally gravitate towards you. I think you'll be surprised at just how much excellence is out there.

Monica White

Interesting meme making its rounds

I just saw the word "creationist" alternately spelled "cretinist", on a list I frequent. I find, upon Googling, that it's a widespread meme.

Some more respirocyte information

Another source of concise information on the respirocyte concept.

Lecture: "The Artificial Synapse Chip: Towards an Electronic Prosthetic Retina"

My thanks to my longtime friend (I avoid the term "old friend" for such a young woman) Kennita Watson for alerting me to this lecture at Stanford on 23 June 2004: "The Artificial Synapse Chip: Towards an Electronic Prosthetic Retina" by Harvey A. Fishman, M.D., Ph.D, Stanford University School of Medicine, the Director of Ophthalmic Tissue Engineering and Chief Ophthalmology Resident in the department of Ophthalmology.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common form of severe and irreversible blindness in the U.S. Our research program consists of a highly interdisciplinary effort between physicians, engineers, and scientists to develop a neural interface that will connect the output from a digital camera to individual retinal cells in patients with AMD, thus bypassing injured cells.

By the way, this sounds like a skillset for the type of research physician I find really interesting:

Dr. Fishman's area of expertise is translational research that uses a multidisciplinary approach to develop novel therapies for blinding diseases in the eye – in particular, Age-Related Macular Degeneration. His research bridges the gaps between tissue engineering, surface science, nanofabrication, chemistry, neuroscience and retinal transplantation biology in Ophthalmology. His background in new technologies and medical science is diverse including bioMEMS, chip-based microfluidics and confocal and time-lapse microscopy, neuroscience/nerve cell regeneration and macular diseases in Ophthalmology. He has made contributions in the fields of microfluidics, laser-induced fluorescence detection, separation science, and biosensors.

Quote of the Day

I imagine respirocytes as minuscule objects consisting of roughly 18 billion atoms arranged in small balls about a thousandth of a millimeter in diameter. Each respirocyte is a tiny pressurized gas tank equipped with small pumps. Respirocytes are nanobots that move with the blood. In the body's periphery, they release oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide. In the lungs, they do the opposite, recharging themselves with oxygen. The exchange of gases is regulated by minute sensors. Though the respirocytes are modeled on red blood corpuscles, they transport oxygen two hundred times more efficiently than the natural item. A small syringe-full of respirocytes could carry as much oxygen as your entire bloodstream.

Robert A. Freitas Jr
28 July 2000

Kronos Optimal Health Centre: "Worth every penny"

An old friend of mine, whose judgment I strongly respect, recently stated that the services he received at Kronos Optimal Health Centre were "...worth every penny!" Eventually, I plan to avail myself of those services too.

Quote of the Day

Space travel becomes easier when the sky has fallen.

Brad Templeton
16 May 2004

Having a wonderful time, wish you were here

I crashed late last night, and woke early this morning, and am ready to do it all again today: the Foresight SAG continues.

Busy for the next 3 days

I'm at the Foresight SAG today through Sunday, so postings will be light.

Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan

Michael Reed strongly recommends to me in email Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan as "an absolutely knock-out sci-fi novel", so I've put it in my queue. I've not read it yet, so I'd welcome opinions.

I don't generally read science fiction nowadays, having gotten increasingly picky as time goes by (and science fact often holds more fascination for me the better educated I become). I did however take a weekend recently to relax with Ken Macleod's Dark Light and Engine City, which were a mixture of disappointment and amusement for me. I've read all his work so far, and will continue to do so, but the man seems to be afflicted recently with the problem Heinlein had during the late period of his life when he was stricken with a cerebral arterial blockage: at some point near the end of each story, he seems to simply get tired, and tries to wrap up the story abruptly.

My bedside reading the last couple of days: Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics: A Citizens Guide to the Economy, Revised and Expanded, a fantastic book I very highly recommend.

Tom Burroughes recommends the Firefly series

[Occasional blog contributor and fulltime friend Tom Burroughes returns to us with his own endorsement of the Firefly series - Russell]

I have watched a lot of science fiction in my time, and although many films and television shows have hit great heights of drama and special effects wizardry, such as Babylon 5, very few have ever really engaged me emotionally and in humorous ways to the extent achieved by the Firefly series, now available in Britain on a DVD format.

I bought the whole set last week and it is one of the best investments I have made in a long time. I think it is a notch above B5 (high praise indeed), and I love the way it weaves in the culture of the old West with the format of a science fiction adventure. The cast are excellent, particularly the lead actor playing the ship's captain, who has a sense of humour so dry it sounds like Clint Eastwood at his best. The women are great -- frequently more than a match for the men, and ahem, very easy on the eye indeed.

The core of Firefly, as Russell has already noted, is its unmistakably libertarian sense. These adventurers, smugglers and desperadoes are up against a totalitarian world government; they are unabashed traders and entrepreneurs, fun-lovers, individualists, not to mention serious partygoers when required. Think of a series containing elements of Robert A. Heinlein, L. Neil Smith and Eastwood's finest Western, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and you will get what I mean. Oh, and throw in some superb country backing music for good measure.

I find it very distressing that as yet, Joss Whedon's creation has only made it to one full series. Back here in Britain, where our domestic TV drama is a swamp of tragic soap opera crud and the occasional historical re-reun, Firefly is like a shot of brandy to a half-drowned man. What a great series. More, more!

Quote of the Day

They'll [Christians] start a moral debate, and just as you begin to win it, they'll start to sputter, and then get creepily calm. Then they'll give you a patronizing smile and say “Well, you can't understand how I'm right because you don't believe in anything higher than yourself.” They'll bring it in as their final trump card into any issue, and you can't argue with it because they'll put their fingers in their ears and hum. If you bring up contradictions, then they'll say: “Well that's not my faith!” and you try to get them to explain their faith and they start to, but when you point out a single contradiction, they'll pretend they never said it. Or, they'll pretend they have “Powers” that you cannot possibly understand. And that you are not morally worthy of learning them, as you are a *snort* atheist.

Diane Duncan

Foresight Senior Associates Gathering 14-16 May 2004, Palo Alto CA

I'll be attending all 3 days of the 14-16 May 2004 Foresight Senior Associates Gathering in Palo Alto, California. I very highly recommend this event to anyone interested in molecular nanotechnology. If you're not intimately familiar with nanotechnology, but want to learn, I enthusiastically recommend the 8-hour "Fundamentals of Nanotechnology" tutorial session on Friday: I'll be attending myself to dust off and deepen my own understanding.

Quote of the Day

The mind likes a strange idea as little as the body likes a strange protein and resists it with similar energy. It would not perhaps be too fanciful to say that a new idea is the most quickly acting antigen known to science. If we watch ourselves honestly we shall often find that we have begun to argue against a new idea even before it has been completely stated.

Wilfred Batten Lewis Trotter, English surgeon (1872-1939)

"Century City" cancelled after 3 weeks / 4 episodes

Just found out today that CBS has cancelled their law drama "Century City" after only 3 weeks' run of 4 episodes. That's too bad. The show, employing a mix of inspired and insipid storyline, dealt with issues extropians have been mooting for over 15 years. The show had promise, if the two episodes I saw were any indication of promise. I do share Virginia Postrel's opinion of the series:

Real lawyers in the future would take for granted legal, cultural, and technological developments that strike us as strange. It's the background, not the cutting-edge issues, that makes the present feel different from the past. A 1978 show about 2004 might have featured a plotline on cloning. It wouldn't have routinely shown 40-year-old new parents of twins or business people walking down the street talking to no one, with wires hanging out of their ears. It wouldn't have Starbucks, or Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, or rock-and-roll megachurches.

It was an interesting try.

Quote of the Day

The textures of life that so fascinate dynamists are full of such historical surprises. Consider a strange fact about doughnut shops in California: More than 80 percent are owned by Cambodian immigrants. Doughnuts are not a Cambodian food; indeed, Cambodians don't even like them that much. But when Ted Ngoy fled to southern California in the 1970s and got a job in a doughnut store, he realized the possibilities. Here was a niche that matched his skills (or lack thereof) and had potential to grow. The business required hard work but little start-up capital and little English. Ngoy soon owned several doughnut shops. He hired and trained many other refugees, who then started their own stores, hiring and training still more immigrants. Over time, the community developed special expertise and suppliers, making it much easier for a Cambodian immigrant to California to get started in the doughnut business than in other ventures. By 1995, Cambodians ran almost 2,500 of the doughnut stores in California. They also expanded the market, giving Los Angeles one doughnut shop for every 7,000 residents—ten times the concentration in Phoenix.

The doughnut story is surprising, but not a random accident. It represents a complex order of selection and feedback: A perceptive entrepreneur discovers an opportunity. His knowledge spreads through communal networks, which develop specialized product, labor, and capital sources. More and more Cambodians learn how to make doughnuts, and how to make them well. Competition among shops improves doughnut quality, and the mere presence of so many stores reminds potential buyers of their product, leading to more sales. This legacy, an example of what economists call "path dependence," does not keep non-Cambodians from owning doughnut stores or block Cambodian immigrants from other businesses. It was not predetermined, nor does it guarantee any particular future. But it makes some choices more likely than others.

Virginia Postrel
The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress, pp49-50

Quote of the Day

To hate is sometimes necessary as is to love or to be indifferent.

No, I haven't turned into a psychobabbling Counsellor Troi, I'm simply stating that a psychologically healthy human constantly judges things according to his value system.

From choosing one ice-cream flavour over another to choosing one job or lover or mode of dress from an array of options - we are constantly making choices.

So far, my examples have been of choices where the person strives to choose the item of highest value, the thing that will aid their life the most. These things we say are 'better' or 'excellent' and our reactions are to 'like', to 'prefer' and to 'love' them.

Conversely, there are things that harm us as humans. Things like dictatorial governments, religions with tenets stating that infidels should be killed or laws in democratic governments that encroach on civil liberties. Any intelligent human being with a valid moral system will avoid these as much as possible, will choose not to live in a society with these kinds of negatives or will fight them if they see them springing up in their own society. These things are 'worse', 'harmful' and 'evil' - these are the things that we 'hate'.

So, I do hate Christianity - when it infiltrates government, when it is thrust at me, when I am forced in some way to use its false tenets to interact with reality. When it's simply a false belief system held by certain members of society, I really couldn't care less - although it's rather an enjoyable target for humor.

Monica White

Quote of the Day

In order to slay Jesus, I agree you’d need at least a +5 weapon, possibly a messiah-bane weapon. I don’t know if the weapon should be blessed, as it’s kind of hard to guess what Jesus’ alignment is from the bible. Probably chaotic, as on one page he’s telling us that God loves us, and on another he’s telling us that God will cast us into a lake of fire, and he came to earth to break up families. Good or evil? I can’t say, as he does heal the blind, and try to help the cripples, but he does it only for the glory of God (Lawful Evil, if I ever I’ve seen one.) So my verdict is definitely Chaotic, and probably Neutral. Anybody else have a better suggestion for Jesus’ alignment?

My real strategy for surviving the final trump, is to befriend at least one person in good standing of every major religion. That way, when the end comes, no matter who’s right, I’ll have someone to say: “No, really, she’s cool. You can let her in.”

Unless Christianity turns out to be the right one. Then I will take my chances with Satan as he seems to be the most stable and fair deity in the Christian religion. Nope. I’m not bitter. Not me. Not at all. I’ll be right behind Monica with my +5 messiah-bane throwing axes, hoping to get a good shot in.

Diane Duncan

Quote of the Day

Science is when you think of questions and then look for the answers.

Religion is when you think of answers and then look for the questions.

NightHiker

Update on the attempt to outlaw cryonics in Arizona

Here's an update from Alcor re: yesterday's legislative alert:

MARCH 11, 11:40 AM MST UPDATE

Alcor sincerely thanks its members for doing a great job contacting the Representatives of Arizona in opposition to HB2637. Apparently, as a result of our collective deluge, we have overwhelmed the system. Our numbers maybe small, but we have clearly made a statement to the Representatives of Arizona. At this point, we ask you to discontinue making phone calls or sending email and faxes, unless you hear otherwise from Alcor.

Thank you for your support,

Alcor Foundation

Can't wait to see the outcome of the vote...

Arizona legislator trying to sneak anti-cryonics law through in the morning!

I got voicemail from Alcor alerting me to this a few minutes ago:

In spite of our conciliatory actions and assumption of good intentions on the part of Representative Stump, he has decided to move forward with a House vote on his bill TOMORROW (Thursday) without allowing the affected parties to complete negotiations. Apparently, it doesn’t matter to him that the primary parties impacted by this legislation agree that passing new law is unnecessary when an administrative solution can easily be achieved. Nor does it seem to matter to him that his bill is also strongly opposed by other organ donation groups, including the local Science Care, the Organ Donation Network, Life Legacy, and others. Furthermore, the University of Arizona, Midwestern University, and other academic organizations will be negatively impacted by this hasty legislation.

I first got wind of this about 3 weeks ago. I'll be writing a protest letter tonight, ASAP. I urge you to do the same.

The Heinlein Olympics, or, a new "Survivor"?

A week ago, I referenced a famous, widely disseminated Heinlein quote, since I think it deserves even wider dissemination. My friend James sent me this note yesterday, which I reprint here with permission:

Hi Russell,

How are you doing? So I read this oft-quoted quote from Heinlein on your website (yes, I do drop in semi-regularly):

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

I was thinking about it while sitting in traffic on the way to work and I had a vaguely entertaining idea:

It sounds like the basis for something kind of like a "Heinlein Olympics". Imagine a three-day event, a polymath decathalon of sorts, where one competes in a series of wildly divergent pursuits (like the quote suggests). The person with the highest aggregate score across all the challenges wins.

If done right, I would be willing to bet it could be a both popular and highly entertaining event, and because it would nominally cover such a broad range of tasks would have something for just about anyone who cared to try.

Just a thought, feel free to use or abuse as you see fit.

j. andrew rogers

Interesting idea. I ran this by the members of the smith2004-discuss list, one of who made the observation that this would make for a vastly superior "Survivor" style television series. I concur with a couple of list members that the above list would be a good start... with the exception of the last list item.

Vermont town votes to secede & join New Hampshire

I'm not making this up. I heard this on Fox News a couple of days ago, the day on which the affluent ski resort town of Killington, Vermont voted to leave Vermont and join New Hampshire, 25 miles east, under which it was originally chartered in 1761. They're doing this in protest of outrageous Vermont property taxes... $20 goes out, $1 returns.

The Fox News online article summarizing the event contains mention of a significant factor that was missing from the broadcast version: the active participation of members of the Free State Project at the historic vote! Read and see. Also check out the TV ads the FSP used to help incite the vote.

Good luck to them: they've got a hard fight to undertake in the Vermont legislature, which will not want to lose one of their primary cash cows.

Quote of the Day

Where, then, are the dissatisfied consumers? Where are the unhappy Alcor members? Where are the family members that wanted cryonics for a loved one, but were let down by it? There appear to be none. There are only people who don't understand cryonics, people who don't want cryonics, and people who don't like what they read in newspapers about cryonics. That is not sufficient justification for a majority to use government force to assume control of a technology desired by a minority with beliefs different from theirs.

Brian Wowk