[FoRK] And then it dawned on me...

[Jeff Bone]

On Dec 4, 2007, at 3:57 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote:

> Markets are not panacea. You don't need a lot of stupid agents
> to ruin it for everybody.
>
>> notwithstanding.  Those mechanisms aren't additive;  they merely
>> nullify the subtractive effects of the baseline stupidity.  The
>> result of even those mechanisms isn't merely the best that we've
>> achieved so far, it's the best that *can be* achieved by any form of
>> non-coercive preference aggregation.
>
> I'm too stupid to get that.

Hmm, there's a weighty gestalt lurking in there, but perhaps  
delivering it embedded in this pile of dung wasn't the best idea. ;-)

More later on that.

>> I'm a technocrat!  We'd be better off under the benevolent
>> dictatorship of an enlightened, principled, motivated, selfless few,
>> or one.  In fact, if Eli's whole "friendliness" concept wasn't an
>
> Aargh. If anyone genuinely tries that, I'd be the first guy to
> drop a cluster of nukes on him.

Yeah, me too.

>> almost-impenetrably dense (by design!) self-referential piece of
>> brain damage --- if it was actually something that made sense and
>> could be achieved --- I'd be all for it.  Machines of loving grace
>> and all that.
>
> Trivial, and you'd get the halting problem solved in for free.

Hey, all we need are time-traveling computers, ala Moravec, and we're  
totally *set!*

>> Practically, though, little changes.  It appears that under all known
>> mechanisms of allocating authority, those who get it shouldn't have
>> it, and those who should have it do not get it.  So given this, less
>> government's inherently better.  So pragmatically, status quo.
>>
>> But damn, people are stupid.  Damn.
>
> Let's say we make four-digit IQ and EQ a contagious disease, with
> an incubation time in a hour, or so.
>
> If I could, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Sign me up.

jb