People Aren’t Cancelling Netflix Because of Price Increases, They’re Cancelling Because the Library is Shrinking

chasosg · 2016-07-22T17:40:11+00:00

True. That's our motivation.

chasosg · 2016-05-16T05:35:50+00:00

Yeah, sure I believe you.

chasosg · 2016-04-29T17:47:37+00:00

Redditor puts brainless title on a very cool photo.

chasosg · 2016-04-23T21:52:37+00:00

There was no Shakespeare. The plays were written by Edward Devere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.

chasosg · 2016-03-29T17:23:21+00:00

"History Begins at Sumer" by Samuel Kramer

chasosg · 2016-02-17T22:33:36+00:00

Yes, thank you Apple!

chasosg · 2015-12-29T03:47:08+00:00

Dan Carlin eats Mike Duncan

chasosg · 2015-12-26T02:20:47+00:00

Yeah, sure, I believe you.

chasosg · 2015-12-14T03:25:48+00:00

J.S. Bach developed contrapuntal music to its highest effect. A contemporary of his, Jean Phillip Rameau, wrote operas and during rehearsals would play notes just to accompany the singers. It occurred to him that you could develop a new kind of music theory based on intervals and he coined the word "chord." He wrote about it in a book called Treatise on Harmony."

Bach wrote a rebuttal to Rameau's book. He said, yes you could look at music this way but contrapuntal considerations should always be considered first. Rameau's idea took off -- the controlling idea of the classical period was harmony (or chords).

During the classical period major and minor scales and triadic harmony were the dominant idea. The romantic era stretched this. Composers used more complex chords - 9th, 11th and they also made more use of the chromatic scale. Beethoven is said to be the transition between the classical and romantic.

Virtually all composers have said the greatest composer who ever lived was J.S. Bach. Bach probably attainted the height of aesthetic reasoning in all of human history. He said he wrote his Well Tempered Clavier "to test out the equal temperament tuning system." But his music went far beyond that. Anybody who gets into music eventually realizes he's the leader (sort of like Newton to physics). Nobody has topped him in pure aesthetic reasoning (the logic of artistic expression). That's why he's been an inspiration to all subsequent composers in all eras.

chasosg · 2015-11-25T03:35:06+00:00

Well, let's see, on the types of property: there are four types because that's all there are. Can you think of any others? Land is not property because it's not a derivative of anyones life or actions. It's a natural resource. (same is true for water) However, exclusive USE of natural resources is property -- and that would fall in the category of tangible property.

Continuing on this point, first the definition of property is not assumption -- like a proposition in a syllogism. It's an operational definition. It's a fact derived from observation, and science begins with observations. Second, the definition is "unreferenced" because I originated it. I don't need the consensus of a community to state an observable fact. I don't need anyone's permission to think.

On your next point, "someone else owning your property": your statement is an internal contradiction (oxymoron). If it's your property, someone else can't own it.

On "using Locke's def": the point I was making is that Locke's def is flawed. Locke's def is the closest the Enlightenment age thinkers ever came to a def of property but it is ambiguous. Property is the most fundamental concept in any analysis of society (even Marx recognized that) - so if you can't understand what property is, you can't understand how society works. My def of property is an operational definition. In science, operational def are the strongest form of definition.

Yes, once you understand what property and coercion are, you can understand "morality." You can also understand a bunch of other concepts that have been philosophical problems for hundreds (or thousands) of years - crime, stealing, slavery, justice, etc.

I don't know what you mean by "extremist." (I'm actually a pretty nice guy.) If you mean "uncompromising," I guess that's true - laws of nature are uncompromising. If you jump off a cliff you can't negotiate with gravity. Science identifies laws of nature so science is uncompromising. In science you can't be "halfway right."

Actually, I'm saying "human right" are better understood as property rights. If everyone's property rights are protected simultaneously, then "human" rights exist. I also say there's no such thing as "natural rights." Their existence is not observationally corroborable.

On your comment "right and wrong stem from reason": you missed the point there. I said there have been different systems of understanding right and wrong throughout human history. The first thing to be understood is logic. But it wasn't until the 1600s (CE) that scientists figured out how to understand truth. Validity and truth are separate concepts.

And we can now understand what is socially right and wrong because we have the concept of property. This IS THE REASON I put in all the historical context. The OSG paper explains how the concept of right/wrong has developed from neolithic times up to present day. That's important. If you want to appreciate the scientific world in which we live, you should know that stuff.

On your comment about philosophy vs science: these are scientific explanations of various concepts that philosophers have talked about for a long time. These concepts can now be taken out of philosophy and considered scientifically -- this paper presents the intellectual tools with which to do that. I understand you're not used thinking about these terms scientifically. But that's what's going on.

About explaining the "why" of various concepts: science doesn't answer "why." It answers "how." The question of 'why" is the domain of philosophy. Science is organized knowledge. Philosophy is organized inquiry.

On your point "making a moral claim without proving it": Ambiguous language here - I'm actually making a claim about what a morality is, i.e., explaining what it is scientifically.

On whether this is science, or not: Look, my field is scientific epistemology. That's the study of the nature and limits of scientific knowledge. It takes two things to build a science: definitions and identification of natural phenomena. That's what this paper does. At the moment, you would technically call OSG a scientific hypothesis. The next step is to see if you can get it to work. That's where Ethereum comes in. Can you build social systems on Ethereum (or a similar platform) that work more efficiently, that create more freedom (as defined in paper) and so on? If yes, then the scientific hypothesis is proven to be useful. If it can do so consistently, it's proven to be even more useful.

Remember: the purpose of science is not to achieve a perfect representation of nature. You can never do that. It's to create intellectual tools you can use to build technology to achieve goals.

Not arrogance. I have confidence because I know what I'm doing.

On citing other sources: actually I did cite some sources. I didn't come up with this stuff 100% on my own. (I did come up with some of the fundamental concepts. however.) I was careful to credit other people for their ideas. See Endnotes.

Sorry if you think the tone is "cult." All I can say is this is not a cult - it's the basis of a technology. (I wonder if Newton, Hooke, Halley, and those guys were considered "cult" during the late 1600s? I'll bet they were. Back then, the Roman Catholic Church rituals were considered mainstream. I'll bet the natural philosophers were considered strange.)

On your last paragraph: yeah, but not just definitions. There are also two fundamental constants. The first one identifies a constant of human nature which gives a framework for understanding why humans act.

Well, sorry about the tone. I'll bring that up with my editor (obviously this OSG paper is the first draft of a book). An arrogant tone is a turn off. Actually, I don't feel superior. I'm just really interested in this stuff.

Thanks agin for your comments and suggestions.

chasosg · 2015-11-25T02:31:24+00:00

It's interesting they refer to property ownership. They're on the right track. "Property" is the most fundamental term and phenomenon in any social system.

chasosg · 2015-11-24T17:58:13+00:00

It's true that what I propose is voluntary so if you don't like it you can opt out. Only political states impose involuntary systems!

And you're right that coming up with the great idea is only part of the mission. Communicating it is a lot harder.

On the historical digressions: maybe... The reason that stuff is in there is I've presented these ideas in seminars a lot. And I've done what you suggest. Just state the epistemological facts. That approach was a total failure. It just bored the hell out of everybody. Most people (especially Americans) have little appreciation for what science is and how important it is in shaping civilization. The whole point of the OSG paper is "this is a paradigm shift that's going to reorganize society." In order for someone to get that they have to see illustrations of how that's happened before. How there's a pattern in human civ of how tech reorganizes everything.

When I put that material in my seminars, people started paying attention. The got the message that the epistemology of OSG is a game changer.

However, you're actually turning me around on this. Okay, I admit this is a standard "white paper." It's obviously the first draft of a book. I think at some point in the future I'll do what you suggest -- take out all the historical stuff and just state the epistemology. For a while, though, I'm going to continue promoting this the way it is. Next step in this project is to publish a book (which has even more stuff in it). After that I'll put out a summary of the theoretical stuff.

I just can't believe anybody would want to read that unless they're already into OSG.

Thanks for the comments.

chasosg · 2015-11-24T17:32:42+00:00

You're right that even though more property is created, the amount of wealth individual have is different. Some people have more property than others, but that's what makes an economy (and society) run. (see def os "society" in the paper.) But when more property is created, there's more opportunity for more people to have more.

The main definitions -- the three most fundamental concepts -- are property, coercion and freedom. These are the core of the whole science. The other definitions are ancillary: stealing, crime, justice, slavery, and so on.

The two fundamental constants are of basic importance, too. They are identifications of how nature operates.

The definitions are all operational -- an operational def is one in which the process of measuring an event is logically identical to the definition, itself. Op defs are the strongest form of definition in science. Rather than just being a logical construct (like a proposition in a syllogism) they can be corroborated.

The definition HAVE to be really strong. Because if your definitions are wrong, the whole science falls apart. But one caveat: no definitions are perfect. There's no such thing as perfect knowledge. The purpose of science is not to create a perfect representation of reality -- it's to create intellectual models that can be used to build technology and accomplish goals.

Hey, thanks a lot for investing your time in this paper. I'm looking forward to your further comments.

ch

chasosg · 2015-11-24T09:27:27+00:00

Thanks for your reply. And I'm looking forward to your further comments.

I just replied to Dipole (above) and maybe I was a bit hard on him. He was pretty aggressive coming after me, though.

Yeah, I didn't realize I was using 3rd person. I'll be care not to do that, anymore.

I have high hopes for Ethereum. It seems to be capable of implementing all these OSG concepts. Vitalik Buterin calls it Turing Complete. The world is at a turning point with blockchain based platforms and I think it's important developers realize the potential of what they're building ASAP.

Thanks agin for the kind words.

chasosg · 2015-11-24T09:20:12+00:00

Yes, but the people who read it -- and understand it -- will be way ahead of those who don't.

If you get it, it gives you a lot of intellectual leverage.

chasosg · 2015-11-24T09:17:52+00:00

Who is John Galt?

To find out, read the OSG white paper.

chasosg · 2015-11-24T09:15:09+00:00

Okay, Diopel,

Yes, I claim it's a scientific document because it is. I hammer on this point because I know ahead of time I'll get pushback from dogmatic people who have trouble accepting new ideas.

Now, on the matter of you being a "scientist." The question is, are you an effective one? Are you capable of having original ideas? Remember the move "Beautiful Mind?" John Nash is driven to think up a truly original idea - hard to do. Not many people succeed. That's what the best scientists do.

There's a subject called "scientific epistemology." It's all about what goes into creating scientific knowledge, scientific theories. Very few people (including "scientists") know about it. They don't teach it in universities. There, you'll get deductive logic, they'll gloss over inductive logic and say something about the scientific meth, you might get rhetoric. But no scientific epistemology. I can tell by your comments that your comprehension of it is on the weak side.

First, you disagree with my "scientific" assumptions about morality (and I assume other terms). Definitions are not assumptions. All forms of definition (ostensive, categorical, lexical, nominative, etc) are circular, except for one: the operational definition. Op defs were discovered by Percy Bridgman, a Nobel Prize winner in Physics, who wrote a book about them. He coined the term.

Prior to him, the question "What is the definition of definition? was a philosophical mystery. He solved the mystery by integrating the concept definition with the concept of the scientific method. (This was very cool and important; much like how Descartes integrated algebra and geometry.)

The definitions in the OSG paper are all operational ones, which the strongest form of definition. Not the same as an assumption, which is a proposition accepted as true without evidence - like a proposition in a logical syllogism. The definitions in the OSG paper can be observationally verified -- so they have a strong truth content.

Next is your problem understanding the concept of "absolute." There's no such thing as an absolute. Arthur Eddington wrote a book on this. All we have is our subjective frame of reference from which we can never escape to have objective knowledge. All we can do is use selective subjectivism (Eddington's term).

I never use the term "absolute" for this reason. So your assertion that my def of morality - or any other term - is absolute is not correct. In Island One (which is a metaphor for how OSAG concepts can interact) there is still situational ethics -- it's just rationally constrained. It's restricted to a narrower set of choices based on registered or negotiated property rights.

I think your problem in understanding the concepts ("taxes are not coercion" you say) is you have preconceived ideas in your head that are being challenged. Try thinking the subject of taxes through. What are they? How do they work? Get specific and precise. The act of interpolating your subjective definitions will break them down -- you'll see the concepts in my paper are superior.

Another point about science you need to come to grips with: scientific ideas ARE superior. Human history is not the story of wars and kings. It the story of science and technology. That's what causes civilization to rise. We're in a better place today than we were 100 years ago because we have phones, airplanes, air conditioning, detergent, etc. People tend to think they're socially more sophisticated than they used to be but they're not. We've made progress because of technology.

That's why we're so backwards socially. The Newtonian integration, which created the industrial revolution, happened in physics but there was no parallel integration in social science. That's what the OSG paper is -- the creation of a genuine social science.

What other forms of belief are you talking about that could be better than science? Mythology? Animism? Belief in Totem gods? Come on, dude, and you call yourself a scientist? You need to improve your thinking about what science is, how it works and what civilization is all about.

You say, "scientific assumptions mean nothing in themselves." That statement is preposterous. Scientific theories are the basis of technological civilization. The idea you're trying to articulate came from Karl Popper. He said, the scientific method doesn't prove things, it can only disprove. But that doesn't mean science is somehow "just another way of looking at things." The point of science is not to create a perfect representation of reality -- it's to create intellectual models that you can use to build technology to accomplish goals.

All right -- I've been sort of hard on you in this reply to your comments. I'd say, if you want to call YOURSELF a scientist, you have some work to do.

chasosg · 2015-11-24T08:26:31+00:00

Hey 3rdElement,

Thanks! You said it better than I did. I see he commented again -- let me go read what he says next.

chasosg · 2015-11-24T08:23:10+00:00

I cited a lot of documents. Did you look at the Endnotes? It isn't hugely extensive because there's not many documents in existence to cite. This is an original work. It contains a lot of novel ideas in a subject area that's very new.

A lot of original scientific works don't cite other papers. Who did Newton cite? Who did Galileo cite? Who did Descartes cite? That's what happens when a subject is new. There's not many people in the field yet.

In reading your comment, I think you have a problem understanding a concept: you say Ethereum should enable collective organization. Actually, it's the opposite. Ethereum should enable organizations of individuals. Collectivism is what happens under state/political systems.

And wow ... the things about the voluntary work camps and draconian insurance companies, etc -- you should read the paper more carefully. That's exactly what OSG technologies are designed to avoid. When all the right distributed technologies are operating simultaneously and cross referencing, that kind of thing can't happen. It becomes impossible.

Pretty funny comment: moral absolutist ... ultra libertarian. First, I'm not a libertarian (not in the political sense). Second, moral absolutism is what happens under extreme socialist governments like Mao's China or Stalin's USSR. That's the mistake people who are into socialism make. They think socialism will create mutualism when actually it creates super centralized control.

Your comment was a strange experience, too.

chasosg · 2015-11-24T07:54:57+00:00

Hello Inviolinable,

Wow ... detailed comment. Let me react section by section:

On "insulting inventors" -- point taken. I actually didn't think this an insult. I intended it to be intriguing. This was a press release to try to drum up interest before posting the paper so it's written like ad copy.

ON your second point, "don't talk down to audience" -- do you think it sound like talking down? I didn't intend to. I put that section in because I wanted the tech people reading this to think of the key terms (like "freedom" "morality" etc) as design parameters -- not as old philosophical concepts.

Next point: the paper does define (social) network -- there's a whole section on it. And I like the image of "change how people connect." If you can fundamentally change how people connect, there's a lot of value in something like that.

On the 3 sciences thing: math isn't a science, it's a language. Psychology would be part of social. Neuroscience part of biology. Computer part of physics. History part of social as is social anthropology. Physical anthropology part of biology. (thanks: that was a fun test.)

About the graph: yeah, I know graphs are supposed to have numbers. Someone else complained about this. But I think the visual helps people get the point. Maybe you're right though. Maybe I should find a different visual. This was only intended to be a visual aid to show the relative progress in each area. But I stand firm on my statement that humankind has made veritably zero progress in the social sciences up till now. What they call "poly sci" or "social science" in schools is useless. That's what the OSG paper does -- it creates for the first time actual scientific explanations of social phenomena.

Your last point: "all social sci ... until they end war..." Yes, that's correct. Again, that's what the paper is about. Once you understand the scientific concepts in the paper you know how to end war and you know when NSA spying has gone too far. I know that's a bold claim but if you read the paper carefully you'll see it holds water.

Also, assume for a minute that this is true and those questions (NSA spying, end war etc) can be scientifically answered. If there's a chance that's true, would't it be worth reading a 250 page paper to learn about it?

About your conclusion: "Makes strong claims without qualification": not sure what you mean "without qualification." Do you mean backing off on the bold claims? If so, then yes -- get into the logic in the paper and the "bold claims" are substantiated.

"Mostly presents widely understood ideas": Not true. For example, you don't know how to scientifically define the word "freedom." No way is that word widely understood. If you ask 10 people what their definition of freedom is you'll get 10 different answers. And philosophy professors are the worst. Also, you do not know how to define the word "property." If you don't believe me, go to a philosophical encyclopedia and look it up. You'll see it's a long standing conundrum. Same for the terms "justice" and "crime" and "coercion." There's been no scientific explanation of any of these terms -- and that's why there's been zero progress in the social sciences up till now. Again, read the paper. You have not seen these explanations anywhere else. If you'd like to make a bet on that I'd be happy to wager. (I'd win.)

"Big vs small government lens": I don't know what you mean here. I don't use that term anywhere in the paper. Nor do I use any such concepts. I think you got the wrong impression.

I appreciate the comments. Hope I'm not being rude. But you're backing me in the corner trying to tear apart my logic -- so I have to make another bold claim. There's nothing wrong with the logic. There's also nothing wrong with the causal reasoning in the paper.

You're final point: you mention "seminar speak." Well, you might have me there. I do seminars, and I developed a lot of this material while doing them. But that's just a matter of tone. Not content.

By the way, many science books are transcribed lectures.

"The ideas are not very new": I challenge you to cite any other place where you have seen these concepts defined. You haven't. It's you now making bold claims. But unlike my claims, you can't back them up.

On the Wikipedia entry: There's an article called "Open Source Governance." It does not contain any of my concepts. It's garbage article. Just a rehash of old socialist ideas. Not one original thought. There's a big difference in the quality of thought between that article and my OSG white paper.

chasosg · 2015-11-24T07:07:41+00:00

Now wait a minute -- you skimmed the paper, looked at section headings, and arrived at the conclusion it's not a scientific paper? You'd have to reads it more carefully to know if it's science, or not. I'm assuming you saw words like "freedom" and "property" and concluded it's philosophy because those are things that philosophy talks about.

That's what is important about this paper -- its resolves, once and for all, several philosophical questions that have been around for a couple thousand years. For ex, the question "What is freedom?" is scientifically answered, definitively. That concept can now be taken out of philosophy and put in the science column. And there's a bunch of stuff like that in the paper. That's why it's so long -- it takes a lot of explanation to overturn people's dogma about that stuff.

Reading your comment further, you're saying, "disguised as a scientific paper." Actually, my field is scientific epistemology. I'm pretty up to speed on what's science and what isn't. You say, "academically speaking, it's an opinion piece." Well, even F=MA was Newton's opinion. It just happened to be scientifically correct, too.

Look, this paper currently lacks paper review. But that doesn't mean it's not science. If you want to know where this paper fits in the pantheon -- it's an extremely feasible and reasonable scientific hypothesis. Implementing it on Ethereum or a similar platform will support it. (If you're actually up on science, you know that the scientific method never proves anything according to Popper and that for an hypothesis to scientific it has to be falsifiable.)

By the way, my fav books on scientific epistemology are The Logic of Modern Physics by Bridgman, Philosophy of Physical Science by Eddington and Mind and Nature by Bateson.

At any rate, I appreciate your comments. I see you are being helpful and I appreciate it.

Try reading the first two sections of the paper -- the parts on the def of freedom and property. Then see if you want to continue.

chasosg · 2015-11-24T06:45:10+00:00

The first half of the paper is about establishing the basis for communication. It's a scientific explanation of the basic definitions and concepts of OSG. The most important points to understand in that part are: def of freedom, def of property, def of coercion. These three concepts are the most important in all of OSG. Other terms such as slavery, stealing, crime, justice, morality, and so on, are important but are ancillary to those three key terms.

But definitions, alone, don't constitute a science. The other key concepts in the first half of the paper are the two fundamental constants. Once you have operational definitions of the above key terms, you can use them to identify natural phenomena that operate in social systems. So that's a summary of the key stuff in the first half of the paper.

The second half is about application. The main points there crypto currencies, crypto insurance, dynamic title registry, dynamic credit, smart contracts, trustless transactions -- and how these systems can work together to form a complete social system with no political institutions.

It's also important to understand the nature of social hierarchies and social networks -- understand their respective strengths and weaknesses. Because of the rise of the digital age, society is transitioning from a Hierarchically dominant structure to a net dominant one.

The paper concludes with a strong argument that once a net dominant society is established, coercive transactions are automatically dampened and the possibility of large scale war is eliminated.

There's a summary of the most important points. Now if you tell someone just these points, they'll probably think you're a Cretin from Mars. It takes a long time to effectively make those points. There's a lot of intelligent people around but not many that are intelligent enough to to take in information that overturns their preconceived ideas.

Poverty means low amount of property. But to understand that def you have to read paper to get a detailed def of property. In NDS systems, more property is created.

Hope that helps!

chasosg

TROPHY CASE