Socia 2016, part 1 by plotbot2015

View this thread on: hive.blog | peakd.com | ecency.com

science · @plotbot2015 · Oct 1 '16 (edited)

$50.18

Socia 2016, part 1

<html>
<p>I spent the weekend listening to philosophers talk about life in the universe. Not metaphorical life, but actual physical life that we haven't found yet. It was a conference on <a href="http://kcs098.wixsite.com/socia">Social and Ethical Issues in Astrobiology</a>, formally organized by two philosophers and a NASA engineer, though the Clemson guy, <a href="http://www.clemson.edu/caah/departments/philosophy-religion/people/facultyBio.html?id=542">Kelly Smith</a>, did most of the actual physical work of buying food and finding easels for the student poster session and all that. &nbsp;</p>
<h3>I did not get much sleep while I was there.&nbsp;</h3>
<p>The first night was the first night. <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/why-we-sleep-badly-on-our-first-night-in-a-new-place/479091/">Several</a> studies have shown that people sleep less well in new environments. Totally to be expected. The second night I was obsessively rehearsing (OK, mentally rewriting) my own talk – again, pretty normal. The third night I was up until 1:30 in the morning playing drinking games around a campfire with a half-dozen of the philosophers, which might have been normal <em>twenty-five years ago</em>, but is now distinctly <strong>not</strong>. Then I drove home in the gray daylight and took a nap, and then watched some Disney shorts, and then went to “real” sleep, and then woke screaming from some kind of nightmare that I don't remember, but which scared the crap out of my wife. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<h3>So I am having a strange day.&nbsp;</h3>
<p>I am perched on a stool in the cafe at my wife's bookstore, the B&amp;N at the Friendly Center here in Greensboro, with a big cup of coffee and Sadghuru Jaggi Vasudev's <a href="http://isha.sadhguru.org"><em><strong>Inner Engineering</strong></em></a><em>: A Yogi's Guide to Joy</em>. I can see her ringing up the customers at the font of the store, but mostly I am observing the humans as they move around the store. They are marvelously diverse in their postures and motions. Some of them are fat and some of them are old and all of them are looking at things. The light coming in through the windows is gray, but that's OK. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>At the conference, there was this Japanese researcher named <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Koji_Tachibana2">Koji Tachibana</a> who wanted to use MRI-based neurofeedback to help astronauts stay in a good mood to enhance their cooperation and mission performance. There was an actual astronaut there, an MD named <a href="http://sheynagifford.com">Sheyna Gifford</a>, who was freshly back from a year of simulating <a href="http://livefrommars.life">life on Mars</a> in a grungy little hab on a volcano in Hawaii, and she kind of raised her formidable black eyebrows. But it was the philosophers who seemed much more “concerned” with the spectre of SF-style mind control. I had never before been so struck with the language of “rights” and “duties” and “ethical obligations” that they were throwing around all weekend. We in the West really believe, deep down, that people have to be <strong>forced</strong> to be good. <em>That we have to force </em><em><strong>ourselves</strong></em><em> to be good.</em> I don't know if that's just creepy-ass Thomas Hobbes, &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p><img src="http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/takingliberties/images/55hobbesleviathansmall.jpg" width="362" height="217"/>&nbsp;<a href="http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/takingliberties/images/55hobbesleviathansmall.jpg">[Leviathan frontispiece]</a></p>
<p><img src="http://www.stpeterslist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Leviathan-Zoom-Banner-640x284.jpg" width="640" height="284"/>&nbsp;<a href="http://www.stpeterslist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Leviathan-Zoom-Banner-640x284.jpg">[zoomed]</a></p>
<p>or if it goes all the way back to the Bible. But I want to contrast that with a little quote from this dude Sadghuru (p27): &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote>Why do you need to be pleasant within? The answer is self-evident. When you are in a pleasant inner state, you are naturally pleasant to everyone and everything around you. No scripture or philosophy is need to to instruct you to be good to others. It is a natural outcome when you are feeling good within yourself. Inner pleasantness is a surefire insurance for the making of a peaceful society and a joyful world. &nbsp;&nbsp;</blockquote>
<p>Clearly it's a little more complicated than that. Competition for limited resources is a permanent problem. DS Wilson and others have done at least some of the math to show that every time we hit a <a href="http://evolution.binghamton.edu/dswilson/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/CDPS.pdf">new level of social organization</a>, the problems recur, and we have to invent new methods of solving the new versions of that same basic problem. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>Neither do I want to claim that <strong>East beats West</strong>, or <strong>Buddha is Best and Fuck the Rest</strong>, or anything like that. I do want to suggest that maybe this Japanese researcher, whose written English was better than his spoken English, may not have been thinking in terms of our Western pattern of forcing people to obey the social order, but in more Eastern terms of helping astronauts to transform their emotions so that they want to cooperate. Then neurofeedback would be an electronic version of the cognitive behavioral therapy that Dr. Gifford mentioned astronauts already being trained to do to themselves whenever they feel they need it. &nbsp;&nbsp;Just a thought.&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Like I said, I'm having a strange day. &nbsp;</h3>
</html>

👍 ned, val-b, donkeypong, bue, coinbitgold, alexbeyman, justtryme90, cristi, cryptos, mada, kommienezuspadt, bue-witness, boy, craigwilliamz, lostnuggett, mini, incomemonthly, daniel.pan, bunny, healthcare, robotev, plotbot2015, tokyodude, skeptic, steemswede, doesntmatter, helen.tan, moon, wuyueling, nataly, jlufer, comeup, sanghkaang, thetalvbaath, laurateminges, tukogrilbu, anomaly, populus

`author`	plotbot2015
`permlink`	socia-2016-part-1
`category`	science
`json_metadata`	{"tags":["science","philosophy","space","life","minnowsunite"],"image":["http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/takingliberties/images/55hobbesleviathansmall.jpg","http://www.stpeterslist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Leviathan-Zoom-Banner-640x284.jpg"],"links":["http://kcs098.wixsite.com/socia","http://www.clemson.edu/caah/departments/philosophy-religion/people/facultyBio.html?id=542","http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/why-we-sleep-badly-on-our-first-night-in-a-new-place/479091/","http://isha.sadhguru.org","https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Koji_Tachibana2","http://sheynagifford.com","http://livefrommars.life","http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/takingliberties/images/55hobbesleviathansmall.jpg","http://www.stpeterslist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Leviathan-Zoom-Banner-640x284.jpg","http://evolution.binghamton.edu/dswilson/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/CDPS.pdf"]}
`created`	2016-09-28 00:40:06
`last_update`	2016-10-01 20:19:12
`depth`	0
`children`	6
`last_payout`	2016-10-29 03:16:33
`cashout_time`	1969-12-31 23:59:59
`total_payout_value`	37.738 HBD
`curator_payout_value`	12.437 HBD
`pending_payout_value`	0.000 HBD
`promoted`	0.000 HBD
`body_length`	5,647
`author_reputation`	15,879,930,254,115
`root_title`	"Socia 2016, part 1"
`beneficiaries`	`[]`
`max_accepted_payout`	1,000,000.000 HBD
`percent_hbd`	0
`post_id`	1,380,725
`net_rshares`	33,230,475,280,515
`author_curate_reward`	""

properties (23)vote details (38)

voter	rshares	pct
val-b	15,626,784,675,316	100%
ned	16,141,406,837,537	25%
boy	12,463,543,032	100%
bue-witness	15,138,648,679	100%
bunny	2,689,078,608	100%
bue	225,764,424,555	100%
mini	6,676,439,142	100%
moon	856,743,444	100%
healthcare	2,506,951,990	100%
daniel.pan	3,928,390,538	100%
donkeypong	721,817,272,293	25%
nataly	615,523,772	100%
helen.tan	1,155,819,087	100%
justtryme90	86,312,056,723	100%
coinbitgold	143,623,565,658	100%
doesntmatter	1,237,435,965	100%
steemswede	1,492,061,437	14%
alexbeyman	120,415,787,330	100%
incomemonthly	4,620,788,666	100%
tokyodude	1,722,643,525	100%
lostnuggett	7,839,669,808	100%
cristi	22,559,386,082	100%
cryptos	20,497,577,209	33%
mada	19,721,486,132	100%
wuyueling	790,446,797	100%
craigwilliamz	11,605,240,594	100%
jlufer	364,310,636	100%
kommienezuspadt	19,196,826,192	100%
skeptic	1,619,409,241	100%
plotbot2015	1,826,275,223	100%
anomaly	146,338,486	1%
robotev	2,129,337,765	40%
thetalvbaath	161,176,109	100%
comeup	178,330,725	50%
laurateminges	154,439,760	100%
tukogrilbu	147,948,790	100%
sanghkaang	167,543,845	100%
populus	140,849,824	100%

@alexbeyman · Sep 28 '16

Fascinating thoughts, as expected from you.

properties (22)

`author`	alexbeyman
`permlink`	re-plotbot2015-socia-2016-part-1-20160928t015841371z
`category`	science
`json_metadata`	{"tags":["science"]}
`created`	2016-09-28 01:58:42
`last_update`	2016-09-28 01:58:42
`depth`	1
`children`	1
`last_payout`	2016-10-29 03:16:33
`cashout_time`	1969-12-31 23:59:59
`total_payout_value`	0.000 HBD
`curator_payout_value`	0.000 HBD
`pending_payout_value`	0.000 HBD
`promoted`	0.000 HBD
`body_length`	43
`author_reputation`	335,743,792,474,423
`root_title`	"Socia 2016, part 1"
`beneficiaries`	`[]`
`max_accepted_payout`	1,000,000.000 HBD
`percent_hbd`	10,000
`post_id`	1,381,252
`net_rshares`	0

@plotbot2015 · Sep 29 '16

Thanks, dude.  Sheyna Gifford said that pretty much every member of their team blogged about the Mars sim, if you get to feeling homesick for your own mission.

I also got to meet Dr. Gifford's husband, neuroscience geek and SF writer Ben Philip.
http://www.ot.wustl.edu/about/our-people/faculty/benjamin-philip-478

👍 alexbeyman

`author`	plotbot2015
`permlink`	re-alexbeyman-re-plotbot2015-socia-2016-part-1-20160929t011820329z
`category`	science
`json_metadata`	{"tags":["science"],"links":["http://www.ot.wustl.edu/about/our-people/faculty/benjamin-philip-478"]}
`created`	2016-09-29 01:18:21
`last_update`	2016-09-29 01:18:21
`depth`	2
`children`	0
`last_payout`	2016-10-29 03:16:33
`cashout_time`	1969-12-31 23:59:59
`total_payout_value`	0.000 HBD
`curator_payout_value`	0.000 HBD
`pending_payout_value`	0.000 HBD
`promoted`	0.000 HBD
`body_length`	315
`author_reputation`	15,879,930,254,115
`root_title`	"Socia 2016, part 1"
`beneficiaries`	`[]`
`max_accepted_payout`	1,000,000.000 HBD
`percent_hbd`	10,000
`post_id`	1,390,621
`net_rshares`	118,761,556,922
`author_curate_reward`	""

properties (23)vote details (1)

voter	weight	wgt%	rshares	pct	time
alexbeyman	0 B		118,761,556,922	100%

@doesntmatter · Sep 28 '16

nice, how was your visit to the unusual?
my how you walk among the illusions created to contain you...
seeking the truth on the outside,
never seeking the backdoor within your mind.

properties (22)

`author`	doesntmatter
`permlink`	re-plotbot2015-socia-2016-part-1-20160928t010353720z
`category`	science
`json_metadata`	{"tags":["science"]}
`created`	2016-09-28 01:04:00
`last_update`	2016-09-28 01:04:00
`depth`	1
`children`	1
`last_payout`	2016-10-29 03:16:33
`cashout_time`	1969-12-31 23:59:59
`total_payout_value`	0.000 HBD
`curator_payout_value`	0.000 HBD
`pending_payout_value`	0.000 HBD
`promoted`	0.000 HBD
`body_length`	181
`author_reputation`	33,496,135,154
`root_title`	"Socia 2016, part 1"
`beneficiaries`	`[]`
`max_accepted_payout`	1,000,000.000 HBD
`percent_hbd`	10,000
`post_id`	1,380,915
`net_rshares`	0

@plotbot2015 · Sep 28 '16

Is that a quote?

properties (22)

`author`	plotbot2015
`permlink`	re-doesntmatter-re-plotbot2015-socia-2016-part-1-20160928t013655215z
`category`	science
`json_metadata`	{"tags":["science"]}
`created`	2016-09-28 01:36:54
`last_update`	2016-09-28 01:36:54
`depth`	2
`children`	0
`last_payout`	2016-10-29 03:16:33
`cashout_time`	1969-12-31 23:59:59
`total_payout_value`	0.000 HBD
`curator_payout_value`	0.000 HBD
`pending_payout_value`	0.000 HBD
`promoted`	0.000 HBD
`body_length`	16
`author_reputation`	15,879,930,254,115
`root_title`	"Socia 2016, part 1"
`beneficiaries`	`[]`
`max_accepted_payout`	1,000,000.000 HBD
`percent_hbd`	10,000
`post_id`	1,381,123
`net_rshares`	0

@justtryme90 · Sep 28 '16

I hope you will consider making whole postings about some of the material discussed by people here. The work by Koji Tachibana sounds particularly interesting to me. If you were willing to make a posting summarizing some of his work I think it would be a really fascinating read.

properties (22)

`author`	justtryme90
`permlink`	re-plotbot2015-socia-2016-part-1-20160928t031133211z
`category`	science
`json_metadata`	{"tags":["science"]}
`created`	2016-09-28 03:11:30
`last_update`	2016-09-28 03:11:30
`depth`	1
`children`	1
`last_payout`	2016-10-29 03:16:33
`cashout_time`	1969-12-31 23:59:59
`total_payout_value`	0.000 HBD
`curator_payout_value`	0.000 HBD
`pending_payout_value`	0.000 HBD
`promoted`	0.000 HBD
`body_length`	279
`author_reputation`	140,118,479,939,905
`root_title`	"Socia 2016, part 1"
`beneficiaries`	`[]`
`max_accepted_payout`	1,000,000.000 HBD
`percent_hbd`	10,000
`post_id`	1,381,702
`net_rshares`	0

@plotbot2015 · Sep 29 '16 (edited)

Happy to, though I'm much more comfortable writing about the science than the philosophy.  There was some good stuff there.  Unfortunately, KT's accent was pretty thick, and I had trouble sorting through what he was saying over and above what was written on his slides.  May have to wait for the conference proceedings paper on that one, though if you have a specific question I'll see what I can glean from his published papers.  Or just e-mail him.

properties (22)