Daily Archives: October 27, 2016

Atlas Shrugged Essay Contest Ayn Rand Novels

Posted: October 27, 2016 at 12:08 pm

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Your Teacher and School Information Name of school Address City Country State/Prov Zip/Postal code United States Canada Afghanistan land Islands Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua And Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia And Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Congo, The Democratic Republic Of The Cook Islands Costa Rica Cte D'Ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island And Mcdonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran, Islamic Republic Of Iraq Ireland Isle Of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Democratic People's Republic Of Korea, Republic Of Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic Of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia, Federated States Of Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Qatar Runion Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Barthlemy Saint Helena Saint Kitts And Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Martin Saint Pierre And Miquelon Saint Vincent And The Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome And Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia And The South Sandwich Islands Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard And Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic Of Thailand Timor-leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad And Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks And Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City State Venezuela Viet Nam Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Wallis And Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Name of the teacher who assigned the essay (if applicable) Your Essay Please select the topic question your essay addresses Topic 1: Francisco d'Anconia says that the "words 'to make money' Topic 2: Atlas Shrugged is both a celebration of business and a defense Topic 3: Ragnar Danneskjld says he loves that which has rarely been loved,

Francisco d'Anconia says that the "words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality." What does he mean? What are today's prevalent moral attitudes toward money? Do you agree with Franciscos view? Explain why or why not.

Atlas Shrugged is both a celebration of business and a defense of it against widespread attacks. Judging from the novel, as well as from Ayn Rand's essay "What Is Capitalism?" and her speech "America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business," why does she think business should be defended and championed? What does she think is a proper defense of business, and why?

Ragnar Danneskjld says he loves that which has rarely been loved, namely, human ability. What do you think this means? How does it relate to the idea: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"? Do you agree or disagree with Ragnar's attitude? Explain.

Have you checked to ensure that all personally identifiable information has been removed from your essay?

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Atlas Shrugged Essay Contest Ayn Rand Novels

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Superintelligence | Guardian Bookshop

Posted: at 12:05 pm

The human brain has some capabilities that the brains of other animals lack. It is to these distinctive capabilities that our species owes its dominant position. Other animals have stronger muscles or sharper claws, but we have cleverer brains. If machine brains one day come to surpass human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become very powerful. As the fate of the gorillas now depends more on us humans than on the gorillas themselves, so the fate of our species then would come to depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence. But we have one advantage: we get to make the first move. Will it be possible to construct a seed AI or otherwise to engineer initial conditions so as to make an intelligence explosion survivable? How could one achieve a controlled detonation? To get closer to an answer to this question, we must make our way through a fascinating landscape of topics and considerations. Read the book and learn about oracles, genies, singletons; about boxing methods, tripwires, and mind crime; about humanity's cosmic endowment and differential technological development; indirect normativity, instrumental convergence, whole brain emulation and technology couplings; Malthusian economics and dystopian evolution; artificial intelligence, and biological cognitive enhancement, and collective intelligence. This profoundly ambitious and original book picks its way carefully through a vast tract of forbiddingly difficult intellectual terrain. Yet the writing is so lucid that it somehow makes it all seem easy. After an utterly engrossing journey that takes us to the frontiers of thinking about the human condition and the future of intelligent life, we find in Nick Bostrom's work nothing less than a reconceptualization of the essential task of our time.

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Superintelligence | Guardian Bookshop

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The Artificial Intelligence Revolution: Part 2 – Wait But Why

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Note: This is Part 2 of a two-part series on AI. Part 1 is here.

PDF: We made a fancy PDF of this post for printing and offline viewing. Buy it here. (Or see a preview.)

___________

We have what may be an extremely difficult problem with an unknown time to solve it, on which quite possibly the entire future of humanity depends. Nick Bostrom

Welcome to Part 2 of the Wait how is this possibly what Im reading I dont get why everyone isnt talking about this series.

Part 1 started innocently enough, as we discussed Artificial Narrow Intelligence, or ANI (AI that specializes in one narrow task like coming up with driving routes or playing chess), and how its all around us in the world today. We then examined why it was such a huge challenge to get from ANI to Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI (AI thats at least as intellectually capable as a human, across the board), and we discussed why the exponential rate of technological advancement weve seen in the past suggests that AGI might not be as far away as it seems. Part 1 ended with me assaulting you with the fact that once our machines reach human-level intelligence, they might immediately do this:

This left us staring at the screen, confronting the intense concept of potentially-in-our-lifetime Artificial Superintelligence, or ASI (AI thats way smarter than any human, across the board), and trying to figure out which emotion we were supposed to have on as we thought about that.11 open these

Before we dive into things, lets remind ourselves what it would mean for a machine to be superintelligent.

A key distinction is the difference between speed superintelligence and quality superintelligence. Often, someones first thought when they imagine a super-smart computer is one thats as intelligent as a human but can think much, much faster2they might picture a machine that thinks like a human, except a million times quicker, which means it could figure out in five minutes what would take a human a decade.

That sounds impressive, and ASI would think much faster than any human couldbut the true separator would be its advantage in intelligence quality, which is something completely different. What makes humans so much more intellectually capable than chimps isnt a difference in thinking speedits that human brains contain a number of sophisticated cognitive modules that enable things like complex linguistic representations or longterm planning or abstract reasoning, that chimps brains do not. Speeding up a chimps brain by thousands of times wouldnt bring him to our leveleven with a decades time, he wouldnt be able to figure out how to use a set of custom tools to assemble an intricate model, something a human could knock out in a few hours. There are worlds of human cognitive function a chimp will simply never be capable of, no matter how much time he spends trying.

But its not just that a chimp cant do what we do, its that his brain is unable to grasp that those worlds even exista chimp can become familiar with what a human is and what a skyscraper is, but hell never be able to understand that the skyscraper was built by humans. In his world, anything that huge is part of nature, period, and not only is it beyond him to build a skyscraper, its beyond him to realize that anyone can build a skyscraper. Thats the result of a small difference in intelligence quality.

And in the scheme of the intelligence range were talking about today, or even the much smaller range among biological creatures, the chimp-to-human quality intelligence gap is tiny. In an earlier post, I depicted the range of biological cognitive capacity using a staircase:3

To absorb how big a deal a superintelligent machine would be, imagine one on the dark green step two steps above humans on that staircase. This machine would be only slightly superintelligent, but its increased cognitive ability over us would be as vast as the chimp-human gap we just described. And like the chimps incapacity to ever absorb that skyscrapers can be built, we will never be able to even comprehend the things a machine on the dark green step can do, even if the machine tried to explain it to uslet alone do it ourselves. And thats only two steps above us. A machine on the second-to-highest step on that staircase would be to us as we are to antsit could try for years to teach us the simplest inkling of what it knows and the endeavor would be hopeless.

But the kind of superintelligence were talking about today is something far beyond anything on this staircase. In an intelligence explosionwhere the smarter a machine gets, the quicker its able to increase its own intelligence, until it begins to soar upwardsa machine might take years to rise from the chimp step to the one above it, but perhaps only hours to jump up a step once its on the dark green step two above us, and by the time its ten steps above us, it might be jumping up in four-step leaps every second that goes by. Which is why we need to realize that its distinctly possible that very shortly after the big news story about the first machine reaching human-level AGI, we might be facing the reality of coexisting on the Earth with something thats here on the staircase (or maybe a million times higher):

And since we just established that its a hopeless activity to try to understand the power of a machine only two steps above us, lets very concretely state once and for all that there is no way to know what ASI will do or what the consequences will be for us.Anyone who pretends otherwise doesnt understand what superintelligence means.

Evolution has advanced the biological brain slowly and gradually over hundreds of millions of years, and in that sense, if humans birth an ASI machine, well be dramatically stomping on evolution. Or maybe this is part of evolutionmaybe the way evolution works is that intelligence creeps up more and more until it hits the level where its capable of creating machine superintelligence, and that level is like a tripwire that triggers a worldwide game-changing explosion that determines a new future for all living things:

And for reasons well discuss later, a huge part of the scientific community believes that its not a matter of whether well hit that tripwire, but when. Kind of a crazy piece of information.

So where does that leave us?

Well no one in the world, especially not I, can tell you what will happen when we hit the tripwire. But Oxford philosopher and lead AI thinker Nick Bostrom believes we can boil down all potential outcomes into two broad categories.

First, looking at history, we can see that life works like this: species pop up, exist for a while, and after some time, inevitably, they fall off the existence balance beam and land on extinction

All species eventually go extinct has been almost as reliable a rule through history as All humans eventually die has been. So far, 99.9% of species have fallen off the balance beam, and it seems pretty clear that if a species keeps wobbling along down the beam, its only a matter of time before some other species, some gust of natures wind, or a sudden beam-shaking asteroid knocks it off. Bostrom calls extinction an attractor statea place species are all teetering on falling into and from which no species ever returns.

And while most scientists Ive come across acknowledge that ASI would have the ability to send humans to extinction, many also believe that used beneficially, ASIs abilities could be used to bring individual humans, and the species as a whole, to a second attractor statespecies immortality. Bostrom believes species immortality is just as much of an attractor state as species extinction, i.e. if we manage to get there, well be impervious to extinction foreverwell have conquered mortality and conquered chance. So even though all species so far have fallen off the balance beam and landed on extinction, Bostrom believes there are two sides to the beam and its just that nothing on Earth has been intelligent enough yet to figure out how to fall off on the other side.

If Bostrom and others are right, and from everything Ive read, it seems like they really might be, we have two pretty shocking facts to absorb:

1) The advent of ASI will, for the first time, open up the possibility for a species to land on the immortality side of the balance beam.

2) The advent of ASI will make such an unimaginably dramatic impact that its likely to knock the human race off the beam, in one direction or the other.

It may very well be that when evolution hits the tripwire, it permanently ends humans relationship with the beam and creates a new world, with or without humans.

Kind of seems like the only question any human should currently be asking is: When are we going to hit the tripwire and which side of the beam will we land on when that happens?

No one in the world knows the answer to either part of that question, but a lot of the very smartest people have put decades of thought into it. Well spend the rest of this post exploring what theyve come up with.

___________

Lets start with the first part of the question: When are we going to hit the tripwire?

i.e. How long until the first machine reaches superintelligence?

Not shockingly, opinions vary wildly and this is a heated debate among scientists and thinkers. Many, like professor Vernor Vinge, scientist Ben Goertzel, Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy, or, most famously, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, agree with machine learning expert Jeremy Howard when he puts up this graph during a TED Talk:

Those people subscribe to the belief that this is happening soonthat exponential growth is at work and machine learning, though only slowly creeping up on us now, will blow right past us within the next few decades.

Others, like Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, research psychologist Gary Marcus, NYU computer scientist Ernest Davis, and tech entrepreneur Mitch Kapor, believe that thinkers like Kurzweil are vastly underestimating the magnitude of the challenge and believe that were not actually that close to the tripwire.

The Kurzweil camp would counter that the only underestimating thats happening is the underappreciation of exponential growth, and theyd compare the doubters to those who looked at the slow-growing seedling of the internet in 1985 and argued that there was no way it would amount to anything impactful in the near future.

The doubters might argue back that the progress needed to make advancements in intelligence also grows exponentially harder with each subsequent step, which will cancel out the typical exponential nature of technological progress. And so on.

A third camp, which includes Nick Bostrom, believes neither group has any ground to feel certain about the timeline and acknowledges both A) that this could absolutely happen in the near future and B) that theres no guarantee about that; it could also take a much longer time.

Still others, like philosopher Hubert Dreyfus, believe all three of these groups are naive for believing that there even is a tripwire, arguing that its more likely that ASI wont actually ever be achieved.

So what do you get when you put all of these opinions together?

In 2013, Vincent C. Mller and Nick Bostrom conducted a survey that asked hundreds of AI experts at a series of conferences the following question: For the purposes of this question, assume that human scientific activity continues without major negative disruption. By what year would you see a (10% / 50% / 90%) probability for such HLMI4 to exist? Itasked them to name an optimistic year (one in which they believe theres a 10% chance well have AGI), a realistic guess (a year they believe theres a 50% chance of AGIi.e. after that year they think its more likely than not that well have AGI), and a safe guess (the earliest year by which they can say with 90% certainty well have AGI). Gathered together as one data set, here were the results:2

Median optimistic year (10% likelihood): 2022Median realistic year (50% likelihood): 2040Median pessimistic year (90% likelihood): 2075

So the median participant thinks its more likely than not that well have AGI 25 years from now. The 90% median answer of 2075 means that if youre a teenager right now, the median respondent, along with over half of the group of AI experts, is almost certain AGI will happen within your lifetime.

A separate study, conducted recently by author James Barrat at Ben Goertzels annual AGI Conference, did away with percentages and simply asked when participants thought AGI would be achievedby 2030, by 2050, by 2100, after 2100, or never. The results:3

By 2030: 42% of respondentsBy 2050: 25% By 2100: 20%After 2100: 10% Never: 2%

Pretty similar to Mller and Bostroms outcomes. In Barrats survey, over two thirds of participants believe AGI will be here by 2050 and a little less than half predict AGI within the next 15 years. Also striking is that only 2% of those surveyed dont think AGI is part of our future.

But AGI isnt the tripwire, ASI is. So when do the experts think well reach ASI?

Mller and Bostrom also asked the experts how likely they think it is that well reach ASI A) within two years of reaching AGI (i.e. an almost-immediate intelligence explosion), and B) within 30 years. The results:4

The median answer put a rapid (2 year) AGI ASI transition at only a 10% likelihood, but a longer transition of 30 years or less at a 75% likelihood.

We dont know from this data the length of this transition the median participant would have put at a 50% likelihood, but for ballpark purposes, based on the two answers above, lets estimate that theyd have said 20 years. So the median opinionthe one right in the center of the world of AI expertsbelieves the most realistic guess for when well hit the ASI tripwire is [the 2040 prediction for AGI + our estimated prediction of a 20-year transition from AGI to ASI] = 2060.

Of course, all of the above statistics are speculative, and theyre only representative of the center opinion of the AI expert community, but it tells us that a large portion of the people who know the most about this topic would agree that 2060 is a very reasonable estimate for the arrival of potentially world-altering ASI. Only 45 years from now.

Okay now how about the second part of the question above: When we hit the tripwire, which side of the beam will we fall to?

Superintelligence will yield tremendous powerthe critical question for us is:

Who or what will be in control of that power, and what will their motivation be?

The answer to this will determine whether ASI is an unbelievably great development, an unfathomably terrible development, or something in between.

Of course, the expert community is again all over the board and in a heated debate about the answer to this question. Mller and Bostroms survey asked participants to assign a probability to the possible impacts AGI would have on humanity and found that the mean response was that there was a 52% chance that the outcome will be either good or extremely good and a 31% chance the outcome will be either bad or extremely bad. For a relatively neutral outcome, the mean probability was only 17%. In other words, the people who know the most about this are pretty sure this will be a huge deal. Its also worth noting that those numbers refer to the advent of AGIif the question were about ASI, I imagine that the neutral percentage would be even lower.

Before we dive much further into this good vs. bad outcome part of the question, lets combine both the when will it happen? and the will it be good or bad? parts of this question into a chart that encompasses the views of most of the relevant experts:

Well talk more about the Main Camp in a minute, but firstwhats your deal? Actually I know what your deal is, because it was my deal too before I started researching this topic. Some reasons most people arent really thinking about this topic:

One of the goals of these two posts is to get you out of the I Like to Think About Other Things Camp and into one of the expert camps, even if youre just standing on the intersection of the two dotted lines in the square above, totally uncertain.

During my research, I came across dozens of varying opinions on this topic, but I quickly noticed that most peoples opinions fell somewhere in what I labeled the Main Camp, and in particular, over three quarters of the experts fell into two Subcamps inside the Main Camp:

Were gonna take a thorough dive into both of these camps. Lets start with the fun one

As I learned about the world of AI, I found a surprisingly large number of people standing here:

The people on Confident Corner are buzzing with excitement. They have their sights set on the fun side of the balance beam and theyre convinced thats where all of us are headed. For them, the future is everything they ever could have hoped for, just in time.

The thing that separates these people from the other thinkers well discuss later isnt their lust for the happy side of the beamits their confidence that thats the side were going to land on.

Where this confidence comes from is up for debate. Critics believe it comes from an excitement so blinding that they simply ignore or deny potential negative outcomes. But the believers say its naive to conjure up doomsday scenarios when on balance, technology has and will likely end up continuing to help us a lot more than it hurts us.

Well cover both sides, and you can form your own opinion about this as you read, but for this section, put your skepticism away and lets take a good hard look at whats over there on the fun side of the balance beamand try to absorb the fact that the things youre reading might really happen. If you had shown a hunter-gatherer our world of indoor comfort, technology, and endless abundance, it would have seemed like fictional magic to himwe have to be humble enough to acknowledge that its possible that an equally inconceivable transformation could be in our future.

Nick Bostrom describes three ways a superintelligent AI system could function:6

These questions and tasks, which seem complicated to us, would sound to a superintelligent system like someone asking you to improve upon the My pencil fell off the table situation, which youd do by picking it up and putting it back on the table.

Eliezer Yudkowsky, a resident of Anxious Avenue in our chart above, said it well:

There are no hard problems, only problems that are hard to a certain level of intelligence. Move the smallest bit upwards [in level of intelligence], and some problems will suddenly move from impossible to obvious. Move a substantial degree upwards, and all of them will become obvious.7

There are a lot of eager scientists, inventors, and entrepreneurs in Confident Cornerbut for a tour of brightest side of the AI horizon, theres only one person we want as our tour guide.

Ray Kurzweil is polarizing. In my reading, I heard everything from godlike worship of him and his ideas to eye-rolling contempt for them. Others were somewhere in the middleauthor Douglas Hofstadter, in discussing the ideas in Kurzweils books, eloquently put forth that it is as if you took a lot of very good food and some dog excrement and blended it all up so that you cant possibly figure out whats good or bad.8

Whether you like his ideas or not, everyone agrees that Kurzweil is impressive. He began inventing things as a teenager and in the following decades, he came up with several breakthrough inventions, including the first flatbed scanner, the first scanner that converted text to speech (allowing the blind to read standard texts), the well-known Kurzweil music synthesizer (the first true electric piano), and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition. Hes the author of five national bestselling books. Hes well-known for his bold predictions and has a pretty good record of having them come trueincluding his prediction in the late 80s, a time when the internet was an obscure thing, that by the early 2000s, it would become a global phenomenon. Kurzweil has been called a restless genius by The Wall Street Journal, the ultimate thinking machine by Forbes, Edisons rightful heir by Inc. Magazine, and the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence by Bill Gates.9 In 2012, Google co-founder Larry Page approached Kurzweil and asked him to be Googles Director of Engineering.5 In 2011, he co-founded Singularity University, which is hosted by NASA and sponsored partially by Google. Not bad for one life.

This biography is important. When Kurzweil articulates his vision of the future, he sounds fully like a crackpot, and the crazy thing is that hes nothes an extremely smart, knowledgeable, relevant man in the world. You may think hes wrong about the future, but hes not a fool. Knowing hes such a legit dude makes me happy, because as Ive learned about his predictions for the future, I badly want him to be right. And you do too. As you hear Kurzweils predictions, many shared by other Confident Corner thinkers like Peter Diamandis and Ben Goertzel, its not hard to see why he has such a large, passionate followingknown as the singularitarians. Heres what he thinks is going to happen:

Timeline

Kurzweil believes computers will reach AGI by 2029 and that by 2045, well have not only ASI, but a full-blown new worlda time he calls the singularity. His AI-related timeline used to be seen as outrageously overzealous, and it still is by many,6 but in the last 15 years, the rapid advances of ANI systems have brought the larger world of AI experts much closer to Kurzweils timeline. His predictions are still a bit more ambitious than the median respondent on Mller and Bostroms survey (AGI by 2040, ASI by 2060), but not by that much.

Kurzweils depiction of the 2045 singularity is brought about by three simultaneous revolutions in biotechnology, nanotechnology, and, most powerfully, AI.

Before we move onnanotechnology comes up in almost everything you read about the future of AI, so come into this blue box for a minute so we can discuss it

Nanotechnology Blue Box

Nanotechnology is our word for technology that deals with the manipulation of matter thats between 1 and 100 nanometers in size. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter, or a millionth of a millimeter, and this 1-100 range encompasses viruses (100 nm across), DNA (10 nm wide), and things as small as large molecules like hemoglobin (5 nm) and medium molecules like glucose (1 nm). If/when we conquer nanotechnology, the next step will be the ability to manipulate individual atoms, which are only one order of magnitude smaller (~.1 nm).7

To understand the challenge of humans trying to manipulate matter in that range, lets take the same thing on a larger scale. The International Space Station is 268 mi (431 km) above the Earth. If humans were giants so large their heads reached up to the ISS, theyd be about 250,000 times bigger than they are now. If you make the 1nm 100nm nanotech range 250,000 times bigger, you get .25mm 2.5cm. So nanotechnology is the equivalent of a human giant as tall as the ISS figuring out how to carefully build intricate objects using materials between the size of a grain of sand and an eyeball. To reach the next levelmanipulating individual atomsthe giant would have to carefully position objects that are 1/40th of a millimeterso small normal-size humans would need a microscope to see them.8

Nanotech was first discussed by Richard Feynman in a 1959 talk, when he explained: The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom. It would be, in principle, possible for a physicist to synthesize any chemical substance that the chemist writes down. How? Put the atoms down where the chemist says, and so you make the substance. Its as simple as that. If you can figure out how to move individual molecules or atoms around, you can make literally anything.

Nanotech became a serious field for the first time in 1986, when engineer Eric Drexler provided its foundations in his seminal book Engines of Creation, but Drexler suggests that those looking to learn about the most modern ideas in nanotechnology would be best off reading his 2013 book, Radical Abundance.

Gray Goo Bluer Box

Were now in a diversion in a diversion. This is very fun.9

Anyway, I brought you here because theres this really unfunny part of nanotechnology lore I need to tell you about. In older versions of nanotech theory, a proposed method of nanoassembly involved the creation of trillions of tiny nanobots that would work in conjunction to build something. One way to create trillions of nanobots would be to make one that could self-replicate and then let the reproduction process turn that one into two, those two then turn into four, four into eight, and in about a day, thered be a few trillion of them ready to go. Thats the power of exponential growth. Clever, right?

Its clever until it causes the grand and complete Earthwide apocalypse by accident. The issue is that the same power of exponential growth that makes it super convenient to quickly create a trillion nanobots makes self-replication a terrifying prospect. Because what if the system glitches, and instead of stopping replication once the total hits a few trillion as expected, they just keep replicating? The nanobots would be designed to consume any carbon-based material in order to feed the replication process, and unpleasantly, all life is carbon-based. The Earths biomass contains about 1045 carbon atoms. A nanobot would consist of about 106 carbon atoms, so 1039 nanobots would consume all life on Earth, which would happen in 130 replications (2130 is about 1039), as oceans of nanobots (thats the gray goo) rolled around the planet. Scientists think a nanobot could replicate in about 100 seconds, meaning this simple mistake would inconveniently end all life on Earth in 3.5 hours.

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The Artificial Intelligence Revolution: Part 2 - Wait But Why

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Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies: Amazon.co.uk …

Posted: at 12:04 pm

Review

I highly recommend this book (Bill Gates)

Nick Bostrom makes a persuasive case that the future impact of AI is perhaps the most important issue the human race has ever faced. Instead of passively drifting, we need to steer a course. Superintelligence charts the submerged rocks of the future with unprecedented detail. It marks the beginning of a new era (Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science, University of California, Berkley)

Those disposed to dismiss an 'AI takeover' as science fiction may think again after reading this original and well-argued book (Martin Rees, Past President, Royal Society)

This superb analysis by one of the worlds clearest thinkers tackles one of humanitys greatest challenges: if future superhuman artificial intelligence becomes the biggest event in human history, then how can we ensure that it doesnt become the last? (Max Tegmark, Professor of Physics, MIT)

Terribly important ... groundbreaking... extraordinary sagacity and clarity, enabling him to combine his wide-ranging knowledge over an impressively broad spectrum of disciplines - engineering, natural sciences, medicine, social sciences and philosophy - into a comprehensible whole... If this book gets the reception that it deserves, it may turn out the most important alarm bell since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring from 1962, or ever (Olle Haggstrom, Professor of Mathematical Statistics)

Valuable. The implications of introducing a second intelligent species onto Earth are far-reaching enough to deserve hard thinking (The Economist)

There is no doubting the force of [Bostroms] arguments the problem is a research challenge worthy of the next generations best mathematical talent. Human civilisation is at stake (Financial Times)

His book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies became an improbable bestseller in 2014 (Alex Massie, Times (Scotland))

Ein Text so nchtern und cool, so angstfrei und dadurch umso erregender, dass danach das, was bisher vor allem Filme durchgespielt haben, auf einmal hchst plausibel erscheint. A text so sober and cool, so fearless and thus all the more exciting that what has until now mostly been acted through in films, all of a sudden appears most plausible afterwards. (translated from German) (Georg Diez, DER SPIEGEL)

Worth reading.... We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes (Elon Musk, Founder of SpaceX and Tesla)

A damn hard read (Sunday Telegraph)

I recommend Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom as an excellent book on this topic (Jolyon Brown, Linux Format)

Every intelligent person should read it. (Nils Nilsson, Artificial Intelligence Pioneer, Stanford University)

Nick Bostrom is Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford University and founding Director of the Future of Humanity Institute and of the Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology within the Oxford Martin School. He is the author of some 200 publications, including Anthropic Bias (Routledge, 2002), Global Catastrophic Risks (ed., OUP, 2008), and Human Enhancement (ed., OUP, 2009). He previously taught at Yale, and he was a Postdoctoral Fellow of the British Academy. Bostrom has a background in physics, computational neuroscience, and mathematical logic as well as philosophy.

N-Trance – Wikipedia

Posted: at 12:04 pm

N-Trance () are a British electronic music group who were formed by Kevin O'Toole and Dale Longworth in 1991.[1] The group has sold over 5 million records worldwide and some of their hit singles include "Set You Free", "Forever", as well as covers of the popular 1970s disco songs "Stayin' Alive", "D.I.S.C.O." and "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?".[1]

Kevin O'Toole and Dale Longworth formed N-Trance, in 1990, after meeting at The Oldham College, where they were both studying sound engineering. Initially, O'Toole and Longworth, along with four or five other students used their college's recording studio for free recording and use of equipment, however they began producing music which they thought was comparable to other rave music in the charts at the time.

Their first demo tape was a dance remix of the theme tune to Roobarb, a children's television show. The next record the group produced was a more credible dance track, consisting mainly of sampled music, called "Back to the Bass". Within days of being recorded, the song had caught the attention of Dead Dead Good Records (owned by the manager of The Charlatans) who had wanted to sign the record, but shortly before signing they were outbid by Pete Waterman's 380 Records (a sub-label of PWL). Following the interest from record labels, the band and their manager decided a new band name was needed. Previously, they had been using a variety of band names such as Quartech, but settled on changing their name and signing their record contract as N-Trance.

However, problems with the sample clearance prevented "Back to the Bass" from ever being released as a single. The band continued to write and record music, joined by vocalist Kelly Llorenna.

Set You Free was recorded at Revolution Studios in Cheadle Hulme in July 1992, and it was pressed to 500 12" vinyl copies on promotional release. However, due to troubles within their record label, this song was not released as a single. N-Trance then chose to buy themselves out of their recording contract with 380 Records, after only one year with the company, and they signed to a new label, All Around the World.

By now, N-Trance had developed their live shows and were gaining some popularity, and on their new label, "Set You Free" was finally released, in 1993, but it failed to enter the Top 40, reaching No. 83 in the charts.

In 1994, "Set You Free" was re-released achieving a higher chart position of No. 39.[1] N-Trance's next single was a eurodance song called "Turn Up the Power" which featured vocals from Rachel McFarlane, of Loveland, and a rap by T-1K. This song was a fairly big hit, getting to No. 23.

After a few years of performing live over the UK, N-Trance's popularity and the reception towards "Set You Free" had increased significantly. The record was in popular demand, and after a third release of the song in 1995, the single became a huge hit, being played by television and radio stations, reaching No. 2 in the charts and being certified Platinum in the UK, after selling over 600,000 copies. The single was also released in other European countries and Australia.

The group recorded their first full-length album, Electronic Pleasure, in November 1995, which featured seven of the group's ever-expanding roster of vocalists (including David Grant), and musicians such as Vinny Burns and Snake Davis. Similarly, N-Trance's musical range expanded, embracing rap, disco and other styles in its scope.

The group's next single, a surprising cover of the Bee Gees hit "Stayin' Alive", was not only a massive international hit, but also featured a vocalist who would help define N-Trance's sound in the future, Ricardo da Force, formerly rapper with The KLF.

Upon its release in the UK it debuted at no. 2, and internationally it became one of the biggest UK exports of 1995, reaching no. 1 in Australia and being top 5 in a number of European charts.

The release of further commercially successful singles, like "Electronic Pleasure", afforded N-Trance the possibility of building their own recording studio, Deep Blue, in 1996. They spent the following year and a half recording their second full-length album, Happy Hour, which was eventually released in 1999.

Hit singles from the album included cover versions of Rod Stewart's "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" and Ottawan's "D.I.S.C.O.", and the hardcore techno clatter of "The Mind of the Machine", which featured the actor Steven Berkoff.

A best of album, entitled The Best of N-Trance 19922002 was released in early 2001, backed by a trance remix of "Set You Free" which reached number 4 in October of that year.

In February 2009, the group released "The Mind of the Machine" as their third album. Two new tracks (Free Running and The Earth Is Dying) were recorded for the album to go with the recordings previously made in 1997. The album was released as digital download only.

Main members

Regular vocalists

Featured vocalists

Dancers

MCs

Other musicians

Featured performers

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23 Best Cyberpunk Books – The Best Sci FI Books

Posted: at 12:04 pm

If any genre of science fiction is actually right about the future, its probably cyberpunk: rule by corporations, high tech and low life, cybernetics, the use of technology in ways its creators never intended, and loners wandering a landscape covered with lenses and screens. Hell, I dont call that science fiction; I call that Tuesday.

by Charles Stross 2005

It is the era of the posthuman. Artificial intelligences have surpassed the limits of human intellect. Biotechnological beings have rendered people all but extinct. Molecular nanotechnology runs rampant, replicating and reprogramming at will. Contact with extraterrestrial life grows more imminent with each new day.

Struggling to survive and thrive in this accelerated world are three generations of the Macx clan: Manfred, an entrepreneur dealing in intelligence amplification technology whose mind is divided between his physical environment and the Internet; his daughter, Amber, on the run from her domineering mother and seeking her fortune in the outer system as an indentured astronaut; and Sirhan, Ambers son, who finds his destiny linked to the fate of all humanity.

About the title: in Italian, accelerando means speeding up and is used as a tempo marking in musical notation. In Strosss novel, it refers to the accelerating rate at which humanity in general, and/or the novels characters, head towards the technological singularity. The term was used earlier in this way by Kim Stanley Robinson in his 1985 novel The Memory of Whiteness and again in his Mars trilogy.

by Richard K. Morgan 2002

Not since Isaac Asimov has anyone combined SF and mystery so well. A very rich man kills himself, and when his backup copy is animated, he hires Takeshi Kovacs to find out why.

Morgan creates a gritty, noir tale that will please Raymond Chandler fans, an impressive accomplishment in any genre.

by Greg Egan 1997

Since the Introdus in the 21st century, humanity has reconfigured itself drastically. Most chose immortality, joining the polises to become conscious software.

Others opted for gleisners: Disposable, renewable robotic bodies that remain in contact with the physical world of force and friction. Many of these have left the Solar System forever in fusion drive starships.

And there are the holdouts. The fleshers left behind in the muck and jungle of Earth some devolved into dream-apes; others cavorting in the seas or the air; while the statics and bridges try to shape out a roughly human destiny.

fans of hard SF that incorporates higher mathematics and provocative hypotheses about future evolution are sure to be fascinated by Egans speculations. -Publishers Weekly

by Bruce Sterling 1998

Its November 2044, an election year, and the state of the Union is a farce. The government is broke, the cities are privately owned, and the military is shaking down citizens in the streets. Washington has become a circus and no one knows that better than Oscar Valparaiso. A political spin doctor, Oscar has always made things look good. Now he wants to make a difference.

Oscar has a single ally: Dr. Greta Penninger, a gifted neurologist at the bleeding edge of the neural revolution. Together theyre out to spread a very dangerous idea whose time has come. And so have their enemies: every technofanatic, government goon, and laptop assassin in America. Oscar and Greta might not survive to change the world, but theyll put a new spin on it.

Sterling once again proves himself the reigning master of near-future political SF. This is a powerful and, at times, very funny novel that should add significantly to Sterlings already considerable reputation. -Publishers Weekly

by Philip K. Dick 1968

When Ridley Scott made the film Blade Runner, he used a lot of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? but he also threw a lot away. Instead of Harrison Fords lonely bounty hunter, Dicks protagonist is a financially strapped municipal employee with bills to pay and a depressed wife.

Theres also a whole subplot that follows John Isidore, a man of sub-par IQ who aids the fugitive androids.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a much more sober and darker meditation of what it means to be human than the film it inspired.

by Cory Doctorow 2003

It takes a special mind to combine Disney and cyberpunk, and author Cory Doctorow apparently has it (in his head, or in a jar, I dont know the specifics).

Jules is a young man barely a century old. Hes lived long enough to see the cure for death and the end of scarcity, to learn ten languages and compose three symphoniesand to realize his boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World.

Disney World! The greatest artistic achievement of the long-ago twentieth century, currently in the keeping of a network of ad-hocs who keep the classic attractions running as they always have, enhanced with only the smallest high-tech touches.

Now, though, the ad hocs are under attack. A new group has taken over the Hall of the Presidents, and is replacing its venerable audioanimatronics with new, immersive direct-to-brain interfaces that give guests the illusion of being Washington, Lincoln, and all the others. For Jules, this is an attack on the artistic purity of Disney World itself.

Worse: it appears this new group has had Jules killed. This upsets him. (Its only his fourth death and revival, after all.) Now its war.

Juless narrative unfolds so smoothly that readers may forget that all this raging passion is over amusement park rides. Then they can ask what that shows about the novels supposedly mature, liberated characters. Doctorow has served up a nicely understated dish: meringue laced with caffeine. -Publishers Weekly

by John Shirley 1999

Eclipse takes place in an alternate history where the Soviet Union never collapsed, and has invaded Western Europe but didnt use its nukes. At least, not its big ones.

Into the chaos steps the Second Alliance, a multinational corporation eager to impose its own kind of New World Order.

In the United States, in FirStep (a vast space colony), and on the artificial island Freezone, the Second Alliance shoulders its way to power, spinning a dark web of media manipulation, propaganda, and infiltration.

Only the New Resistance recognizes the Second Alliance for what it really is: a racist theocracy hiding a cult of eugenics.

Enter Rick Rickenharp, a former rocknroll cult hero: a rock classicistout of place in Europes underground club scene, populated by wiredancers and minimonos but destined to play a Song Called Youth that will shake the world.

the novel offers a thrashy punk riff on science fictions familiar future war scenario. -Publishers Weekly

by Lewis Shiner 1984

Ten years ago the worlds governments collapsed, and now the corporations are in control. Houstons Pulsystems has sent an expedition to the lost Martian colony of Frontera to search for survivors. Reese, aging hero of the US space program, knows better. The colonists are not only alive, they have discovered a secret so devastating that the new rulers of Earth will stop at nothing to own it. Reese is equally desperate to use it for his own very personal agenda. But none of them has reckoned with Kane, a tortured veteran of the corporate wars, whose hallucinatory voices are urging him to complete an ancient cycle of heroism and alter the destiny of the human race.

Lewis Shiners Frontera is an extraordinarily accomplished first novel his pacing is brisk, his scientific extrapolation well-informed and plausible, and his characterization nothing short of outstanding This is realism of a sort seldom found in either commercial or literary fiction; to find it in a first novel makes one eager for more. -Chicago Sun-Times

by Masamune Shirow 1989

Chances are, if youre reading about cyberpunk, youve seen the anime film Ghost in the Shell. If you havent, give it a shot and see what you think. Notice the little details in addition to the wild cyborg violence: a single drop of water hitting the ground, the heaviness with which a tired person collapses on a chair, and more.

Deep into the twenty-first century, the line between man and machine has been inexorably blurred as humans rely on the enhancement of mechanical implants and robots are upgraded with human tissue. In this rapidly converging landscape, cyborg superagent Major Motoko Kusanagi is charged with tracking down the craftiest and most dangerous terrorists and cybercriminals, including ghost hackers who are capable of exploiting the human/machine interface and reprogramming humans to become puppets to carry out the hackers criminal ends. When Major Kusanagi tracks the cybertrail of one such master hacker, the Puppeteer, her quest leads her into a world beyond information and technology where the very nature of consciousness and the human soul are turned upside down.

Masamunes b&w drawings are dynamic and beautifully gestural; he vividly renders the awesome urban landscape of a futuristic, supertechnological Japan.- Publishers Weekly

by Walter Jon Williams 1986

The remnants of a war-ravaged America endure in scattered, heavily armed colonies, while the wealthy Orbital Corporations now control the world. Cowboy, an ex-fighter pilot who has become hardwired via skull sockets connected directly to his lethal electronic hardware, is now a panzerboy, a hi-tech smuggler riding armored hovertanks through the balkanized countryside. He teams up with Sarah, an equally cyborized gun-for-hire, to make a last stab at independence from the rapacious Orbitals. Together, they gather an unlikely gang of misfits for a ride that will take them to the edge of the atmosphere.

[a] heavy-metal adventure buried under an elaborate techno-punk style of the sort William Gibson popularized in Neuromancer. In both cases, it is a pose, a baroque nostalgia for Hemingway and film noir; it only plays at nihilism, terror and despair. The best effect is Williamss future version of a brain-scrambled vet: a dead buddy of Cowboys whose scattered bits and pieces of computer memory now constitute a ragged semblance of a man. -Publishers Weekly

by Harlan Ellison 1967

Pissing off science fiction writers everywhere, Ellison wrote the story I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream in a single night in 1966, making virtually no changes from the first draft. He won a Hugo award for it, too. Bastard.

by Pat Cadigan 1987

Allie Haas only did it for a dare. But putting on the madcap that Jerry Wirerammer has borrowed was a very big mistake. The psychosis itself was quite conventional, a few paranoid delusions, but it didnt go away when she took the madcap off. Jerry did the decent thing and left her at an emergency room for dry-cleaning but then the Brain Police took over. Straightened out by a professional mindplayer, Allie thinks shes left mind games behind for good but then comes the fazer: she can either go to jail as mind criminal or she can train as a mindplayer herself

by William Gibson 1984

Gibson rewrote the first 2/3 of this book (his first novel) twelve times and was worried people would think he stole the feel from Blade Runner, which had come out two years earlier. He was convinced he would be permanently shamed after it was published.

Fortunately for Gibson, Neuromancer won science fictions triple crown (the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick awards) and became the seminal cyberpunk work.

by Melissa Scott 1997

Young Ista Kelly is a foundling, the only survivor of a pirate raid on an asteroid mine. In a future where one cannot live without an official identity, this is the story of Istas harrowing journey back to the asteroid to find her true identity.

Scott here presents a well-developed future rife with cybertechnology, space travel, artificial habitats and asteroid mining. The primary cyber-innovations in this era are hammals, computer programs that function independently, devour each other, reproduce and mutate Scott explores the ramifications of virtual life through the very human eyes of her principals; this is most artful cyberpunk, told with heart. -Publishers Weekly

by China Miville 2000

Perdido Street Station borrows from steampunk, cyberpunk, fantasy, and a few other genres that couldnt run away fast enough.

Beneath the towering bleached ribs of a dead, ancient beast lies New Crobuzon, a squalid city where humans, Re-mades, and arcane races live in perpetual fear of Parliament and its brutal militia. The air and rivers are thick with factory pollutants and the strange effluents of alchemy, and the ghettos contain a vast mix of workers, artists, spies, junkies, and whores. In New Crobuzon, the unsavory deal is stranger to no onenot even to Isaac, a brilliant scientist with a penchant for Crisis Theory.

Mivilles canvas is so breathtakingly broad that the details of individual subplots and characters sometime lose their definition. But it is also generous enough to accommodate large dollops of aesthetics, scientific discussion and quest fantasy in an impressive and ultimately pleasing epic. -Publishers Weekly

by Ernest Cline 2011

In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when hes jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wades devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this worlds digital confinespuzzles that are based on their creators obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.

But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wades going to survive, hell have to winand confront the real world hes always been so desperate to escape.

This adrenaline shot of uncut geekdom, a quest through a virtual world, is loaded with enough 1980s nostalgia to please even the most devoted John Hughes fans sweet, self-deprecating Wade, whose universe is an odd mix of the real past and the virtual present, is the perfect lovable/unlikely hero. -Publishers Weekly (Pick of the Week)

by Neal Stephenson 1992

Stephenson explained the title of the novel as his term for a particular software failure mode on the early Apple Macintosh computer. He wrote about the Macintosh that When the computer crashed and wrote gibberish into the bitmap, the result was something that looked vaguely like static on a broken television seta snow crash.'

In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzos CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse hes a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus thats striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse.

Although Stephenson provides more Sumerian culture than the story strictly needs (alternating intense activity with scholarship breaks), his imaginative juxtaposition of ancient and futuristic detail could make this a cult favorite. -Publishers Weekly

by Jeff Somers 2007

Avery Cates is a very bad man. Some might call him a criminal. He might even be a killerfor the Right Price. But right now, Avery Cates is scared. Hes up against the Monks: cyborgs with human brains, enhanced robotic bodies, and a small arsenal of advanced weaponry. Their mission is to convert anyone and everyone to the Electric Church. But there is just one snag. Conversion means death.

Somerss science fiction thriller has an acerbic wit. -Publishers Weekly

by K.W. Jeter 1985

Despite this books obscurity, it consistently shows up on the majority of best cyberpunk lists out there.

Schuyler is a sprinterone who outruns government particle beam satellites to deliver computer chips to the European black market. He becomes a media celebrity and the icon of a new religious cult.

An endless maze of shadows and reflections, cameras and monitor screens, desert and snow, chrome and glass. Nothing is real and the only way to find this out is to self-destruct. -Justin Farrar, random person on Goodreads

by Alfred Bester 1956

The Stars My Destination anticipated many of the staples of the later cyberpunk movement. For instance, the megacorporations as powerful as governments, and a dark overall vision of the future and the cybernetic enhancement of the body.

Marooned in outer space after an attack on his ship, Nomad, Gulliver Foyle lives to obsessively pursue the crew of a rescue vessel that had intended to leave him to die.

Science fiction has only produced a few works of actual genius, and this is one of them. -Joe Haldeman, author of The Forever War

23 Best Cyberpunk Books - The Best Sci FI Books

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Cf. – Wikipedia

Posted: at 12:03 pm

The abbreviation cf. derives from the Latin verb conferre, to bring together (from which confer is the conjugation of the imperative form), while in English it is commonly read as "compare". The abbreviation advises readers to consult other material, usually for the purpose of drawing a contrast. Many usage guides recommend against the common use of cf. to mean "see also."

Such abbreviations appear most frequently in scholarly contexts, such as in academic articles in humanities, physics, chemistry, geology, open nomenclature biology, theology, philology,[1] or in economic[2][3] or legal writing.[4]

The abbreviation cf. is used in essays,[5]theses,[6]technical books,[7]law review articles,[8]legal opinions,[9] and scientific nomenclature.[10]

This abbreviation's general purpose is to compare the immediately preceding statement with another statement in the same work or, more commonly, a statement in another work.[6] For example, it might appear in legal writing like this:

While cars are required by law to stop at all stop signs (Vehicle Code section 1234 ["Cars must stop at stop signs"]), pedestrians are not (cf. Vehicle Code section 4321 ["Pedestrians need not stop at stop signs"]).

However, while the cf. abbreviation has widespread use as a shorthand for "see", particularly in citations, The Chicago Manual of Style recommends against its use in this sense and prefers instead that cf. be used only to mean "compare" or "see, by way of comparison".[11]

In biological naming conventions, cf. is used in a few ways; commonly it is placed between the generic name and the specific name to describe a specimen that is difficult to identify because of practical difficulties, such as the specimen being poorly preserved. For example, Barbus cf. holotaenia implies that the specimen is believed to be Barbus holotaenia but the actual identification cannot be certain.

The use of cf. in biological nomenclature expresses a possible identity, or at least a significant resemblance, such as between a newly observed specimen and a known species or taxon.[10] Such a usage might suggest a specimen's membership of the same genus or possibly of a shared higher taxon, such as in "Diptera: Tabanidae, cf. Tabanus" where the author is confident of the order Diptera and family Tabanidae, but can offer the genus Tabanus only as a suggestion, and has no information favouring a particular species.[12]

The abbreviation only has a single period placed at the end ("cf.", not "c.f.") because cf. is a shortening of the single word, "confer", not a shortening of two words (cf. "q.v." for "quod vide").

Use of italics for abbreviations of foreign words and phrases has become less common in modern usage, especially for such common abbreviations as cf., e.g., etc., i.e., q.v., and viz.

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Minds Of Power: What Is Personal Empowerment?

Posted: at 12:00 pm

Personal empowerment, what does it mean to you? Achieving it is simply developing your abilities to influence events and people around you.

Taking control of your life or a particular part of your life where you want to make an impact...

Some individuals may have a sense of it more in a community or global arena. This would be organized empowerment, where they take up arms so to speak to influence a community, a local or national government; maybe address a global issue.

Personal empowerment is more intimate; not necessarily organized in the previous examples. It could be something in our lives we want to address, perhaps we think of it more as personal growth.

It might be career driven or even something of a spiritual nature. In the work force you might want to create a new you to feel better about yourself, to reach a new goal. Typically you might embellish your persona and try to play the part.

Personal empowerment is in knowing you are the person you want to be beyond the faade youve created. An example of this might be having a desire to move up into management. Sometimes it is the difference between thinking and knowing something about you.

Individuals seek empowerment resources for any number of reasons. It could be to seek career advancement; work on a failing relationship; become a better parent; or get out of debt. In medical and psychological cases you might be trying to correct a bad habit; or overcome a learning or medical disability.

Whatever your need, the result will transition you to the place you need to be to address these issues...

Personal Empowerment Is A Real Solution Unfortunately it might come off as either egocentric or maybe New Age; however it is actually a crucial element to our being. It enables us to stand up for ourselves and others. Through it we can achieve a sense of responsibility and hold ourselves accountable. It is meant to make us better individuals.

The health profession uses personal empowerment in a number of instances. There is a disability or recovery model used to implement personal empowerment. These models are used for individuals with mental illness or individuals recovering from rape or other traumatic stress.

We might not think of empowerment as being an essential part of our being but if we consider our actions and the actions of others it would be obvious to us that it is a part of all beings. We empower our children and family members; we empower our employees. It is a natural nurturing thing to do.

Labels: brain power, empowerment, Mind Power, Self-Help, Self-Improvement

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Minds Of Power: What Is Personal Empowerment?

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emofree – Gold Standard EFT Tapping Therapy

Posted: at 12:00 pm

The EFT Tapping Home

This is the home for EFT Tapping ... the source ... the place where the integrity of this popular, Universal Healing Aid (in use by millions) is maintained and improved with cutting-edge refinements.

EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques (sometimes called Tapping) and, in essence, it is an emotional version of acupuncture, except we don't use needles. Instead, we stimulate certain meridian points on the body by tapping on them with our fingertips. This has shown repeatedly to reduce the conventional therapy process from months or years down to minutes, hours or a few sessions. Visit The Free Gold Standard (Official) EFT Tapping Tutorial and learn this process from beginner's level on up ... at your own pace ... at whatever level you need. Watch our EFT Intro Video above and then explore some of the options and astonishing successes in the materials below.

This innovative Tapping tool has proven useful in clinical settings for just about any emotional, physical or performance issue you can name. That's a bold statement, I know but check out our free videos as well as thousands of articles written by therapists, physicians and clients on our EFT Tapping website. There you will find EFT and Tapping success stories on everything from fears to trauma ... anger to depression ... bee stings to multiple sclerosis ... back pain to vision issues ... baseball to gymnastics ... singing to golf. Please get the idea that this one innovative tool is so universal that one of our mottos is "Try Tapping on Everything."

The centerpiece of this website is The Free Gold Standard (Official) EFT Tapping Tutorial. Go there. It is the Gold Standard for all things Tapping and will take you from beginner's level as far as you want to go. You can learn the EFT basics from one of our articles and stop there with a useful tool that will serve you for a lifetime. If you wish to go further, just spend time with Parts I and II of the EFT Tutorial. You will be taken step by step through the process at whatever pace works for you. The EFT Tapping Tutorial includes written descriptions and rich videos that that bring EFT Tapping to life.

Don't want to invest time to learn EFT in detail but still want access to the more advanced Tapping benefits? Then just familiarize yourself with the basics and go right to Easy EFT (Borrowing Benefits). This clever process allows you to "tap along" with recorded video sessions that I conduct with others. The benefits are often surprising.

For a look at the options go to our EFT Certification page.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have been in a perpetual state of astonishment since the early 1990s.

Why? Because with one common sense EFT process I have been able to help people with a vast array of emotional, physical and performance problems. All this without any meds, surgeries, radiation or long drawn out therapy processes.

In the beginning I learned that, without any credentials in psychology whatsoever, I could often provide more EFT Tapping benefits in one session than conventionally trained therapists could do in weeks, months or years.

And sometimes I could do this in minutes.

Further, I could teach the EFT Tapping process to others and they would get similar results.

I know this violates decades of ingrained beliefs. Nonetheless, it is true. Thats what happens when you think outside the box.

At first I thought the EFT process would just be useful for phobias as I marveled at how many phobics collapsed their lifelong fears in one short session. Former phobics could look off the top of high buildings with complete calm. They could touch snakes, drive across bridges, dive into water, fly on airplanes, etc. with no trace of their former fear. I was delighted right out of my socks at how I was able to help these people with tapping.

Then I learned that I could use the same EFT Tapping process to help people overcome severe trauma. So I applied EFT to war veterans and rape victims and achieved successes far beyond what conventional therapy was offering. I mean the sting from these knee-wobbling memories would vanish I mean GONE and the people couldn't get upset about the memory if they tried. Many times they even laughed about the issue or talked about it like it was a walk through the park. Eventually, I got so many positive reports from EFT students to easily conclude that the Tapping process was useful for ALL emotional issues.

Then people reported that pains and other physical symptoms improved with the process. Headaches, including severe migraines, faded into nothingness. Back pain, shoulder pain, knee pain and pains of every description often improved or flat out left. Tremors, numbness and mobility would also improve and people would get out of wheelchairs.

I've had reports of recovery from terminal diseases via Tapping and improvements of impossible things that medicine couldn't touch. Im told of surgeries that have been avoided and drugs that are no longer necessary. And the EFT list goes on.

Like I said, I have been perpetually astonished since the early 1990s.

Whats doubly interesting about all this EFT experience is that I have no formal training in the health fields whatsoever. I have no licensing as a psychotherapist and no medical training not even a beginners course in anatomy.

I am, however, a scientist by academic training (Stanford engineering degree, 62) and am quite aware that new discoveries like EFT or Tapping are often advanced by people outside the field. Our advantage, it seems, is that we are not persuaded by the truths that become accepted and thus encase the field in cerebral cement.

Who says psychotherapy has to take months and years to do very little? Only those who believe it to be so and have invested their lifetimes in perpetuating that myth.

Who says that drugs, surgeries, radiation and the like represent the only viable solutions to physical problems? Only those who have not adequately looked outside the box. While the medical approach should certainly be considered for health concerns, it is not the only approach. The emerging field of Mind-Body Medicine, for example, has developed numerous research studies pointing to relief in manners complementary to those of allopathic medicine. Acupuncture has shown similar evidence.

EFT, in its simplest description, combines Mind-Body Medicine with the stimulation of the acupuncture meridians (via fingertip Tapping) to generate a synergistic blend of the two. From my years of EFT observation it is easy to conclude that this blend gives rise to benefits that surpass those provided by the individual parts. Ive also seen it bring relief (including the complete cessation of symptoms) where drugs, surgery and other medical interventions appeared to have failed.

Does this mean that EFT Tapping is better than everything else and that all other methods should be dropped? Of course not!!

Rather, it means that EFT represents a much different approach than other methods and belongs in everyones toolbox. Tapping aims at the balancing of the bodys energy meridians and the resolution of health robbing negative emotions. If ones current healing path is ignoring this possibility then, in my opinion, their pursuit contains a gaping hole.

Along the way there was also some resistance. This is to be expected with something as seemingly different as EFT. We all want our beliefs to be correct and we will often defend them, sometimes with great energy. When our beliefs are radically violated, our systems can even react with hostility.

While many people have greeted EFTs healing benefits with love and gratitude, others have thrown stones at it. Whats interesting is that the stone throwers tend to be scientists that should know better. Rather than embrace this astounding method with intrigue and curiosity, they attack it WITHOUT EVER TAKING THE TIME TO UNDERSTAND OR EXPERIENCE THIS TAPPING PROCESS. It is a fascinating study on how ingrained beliefs can be so hard to overturn (even when they are dead wrong).

So, as the years have gone by, we have gradually presented scientifically controlled studies designed to validate EFTs effectiveness. Little by little the hostility has faded. Its still there to some degree but, in my experience, whats left always resides within people who are outside this palace looking in our window. They have yet to seriously digest EFT and its remarkable benefits. I welcome their industry and their criticism and ask only that the criticism be based on true experience with the Tapping process, not with speculative rhetoric.

e-hugs, Gary

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Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World …

Posted: at 11:59 am

Admirably clear, . . . wise, up-to-the-minute and wide-ranging. . . . Free Speech encourages us to take a breath, look hard at the facts, and see how well-tried liberal principles can be applied and defended in daunting new circumstances.Edmund Fawcett, New York Times Book Review

A major piece of cultural analysis, sane, witty and urgently important.Timothy Garton Ash exemplifies the robust civility he recommends as an antidote to the pervasive unhappiness, nervousness and incoherence around freedom of speech, rightly seeing the basic challenge as how we create a cultural and moral climate in which proper public argument is possible and human dignity affirmed.--Rowan Williams, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and former Archbishop of Canterbury

Timothy Garton Ash aspires to articulate norms that should govern freedom of communication in a transnational world. His work is original and inspiring. Free Speech is an unfailingly eloquent and learned book that delights as well as instructs.--Robert Post, Dean and Sol & Lillian Goldman Professor of Law, Yale Law School

"A thorough and well-argued contribution to the quest for global free speech norms."Kirkus Reviews

"There are still countless people risking their lives to defend free speech and struggling to makelonely voices heard in corners around the world where voices are hard to hear. Let us hope that this book will bring confidence and hope to this world-as-city. I believe it will exert great influence.--Murong Xuecun, author of Leave Me Alone: A Novel of Chengdu

"Garton Ash impresses with fact-filled, ideas-rich discussion that is routinely absorbing and illuminating."Malcolm Forbes, The American Interest

"Particularly timely. . . . Garton Ash argues forcefully that . . . there is an increasing need for freer speech . . . A powerful, comprehensive book."Economist

Timothy Garton Ash rises to the task of directing us how to live civilly in our connected diversity.John Lloyd, Financial Times

Free Speech is a resource, a weapon, an encyclopedia of anecdote, example and exemplum that reaches toward battling restrictions on expression with mountains of data, new ideas, liberating ideas.Diane Roberts, Prospect

Illuminating and thought-provoking. . . . [Garton Ashs] larger project is not merely to defend freedom of expression, but to promote civil, dispassionate discourse, within and across cultures, even about the most divisive and emotive subjects.Faramerz Dabhoiwala, The Guardian

"Timothy Garton Ashs new book Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World is a rare thing: a worthwhile contribution to a debate without two developed sides. Ash does an excellent job laying out the theoretical and practical bases for the western liberal positions on free speech."Malcolm Harris, New Republic

"An informative and bracing defense of free speech liberalism in the Internet age . . . In a world where free speech can never be taken for granted, Garton Ashs free speech liberalism is a good place to start any discussion"David Luban, New York Review of Books

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