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Extropia Dance Party

In David Brin’s science fiction book Kiln People, people make copies of themselves to aide with multi-tasking. Something we’d all like the power to do at times. Time isn’t money, it’s much more precious.

Extropia

Saturday night, unable to physically travel a hundred-plus miles to hang out at one of the parties celebrating space flight, I decided to go virtual and attend a party in Second Life hosted by Extropia a community of Transhumanists–an international intellectual and cultural movement that seeks to use science and technology to ameliorate human suffering and shortcomings.

Extropia Dance Party

However, I was also very busy that night. So while I was at the party, I set my avatar to dance automatically, while I caught up on some writing. It was awesome! I got to dance with hot cyborg ladies in one window, while keeping up on research in the next.

Extropia Dance Party

I had a great time, and just like real life parties, I don’t remember much of it. Unlike real life parties, I didn’t get behind on my homework.

Extropia Dance Party

Also unlike real life parties, I’m an excellent dancer in virtual reality… after downloading the appropriate dance moves that is. : )

More photos here.

Two short sets this week, two big sets coming over the next two weeks.

Mountain Cove Forest

Inside the NCMoNS is one great big recreation of a forest, filled with taxidermied animals. The Mountain Cove Forest was the last of these. I prefer live animals to dead ones, but this was definately one of the better presentations I’ve seen.

Luna Moth

Complete flickr set here.

Tropical Connections

Lots of cool live animals in this display, and one set of taxidermied animals I didn’t mind: a collection of hummingbirds. A great demonstration of biological variance and adaptation.

Sword-Billed Humingbird

Complete flickr set here.

Monument to Yuri Gagarin in Moscow Courtesy Wikipedia

“Outer space is eternal and extends indefinitely far out. There is enough room for everyone there.” - Yuri Gagarin

Can’t make one of the parties tonight? Go virtual and attend COLAB’s Yuri’s Night party in Second Life. It begins 11AM PDT and runs until 11PM PDT, with live virtual music performances scheduled all throughout the day. I’ll be wearing my virtual Yuri t-shirt, if I can find it.

Extropia in Second Life also has events planned all day. David Brin will be giving a speech at 1PM PDT.

Religion has FREE FOOD:

Free Food at the New Life Church

One of the local Elizabeth City churches gives out free dinners every night of the week. This is a fantastic community service, crucial for our impoverished small town. This isn’t just good works, it’s good business.

Of course, it was science that refined the agriculture, making it productive enough to feed our planet’s population explosion. It’s science that makes sure the food is safe to eat. It’s science that built the complex technological infrastructure to deliver the food hundreds of miles at incredibly low cost.

When I explained this to a religious member of the local community, she replied, “I am grateful for science, and I am grateful for god making science.”

Science needs to open a soup kitchen.

Alien… Weird… Foreign… Alterity… Strange… Xeno… Other.

Scientists and philosophers have had a field day with the issues raised by communicating with aliens. Consider the Problems of Interplanetary and Interstellar Trade. When we finally do meet the aliens, at least we can rest assured that they’ll speak geek.

Nothing compares to the otherness found in science fiction. Even when artists take existing structures found on Earth, and simply add another layer of complexity to them, the result is remarkable, as we can see in these two videos by 1stAveMachine, where insects and jungle plants are made alien by simply adding additional organs to them:

And another:

Wayne Barlowe creates some of the most alien creatures of all, and makes them all the more real with hard SF details. There is some concept art that was used in making the CGI speculative documentary Alien Planet, about robot probes visiting a distant planet called Darwin IV, where life is detected in the future. Barlowe also has several great books collecting aliens from SF literature, which could make for interesting coffee-table books.

I covered America’s sanctioned prejudice against non-believers awhile back, but noted that there were some notable improvements in tolerance toward people of no faith in more recent years.

Then Representative Monique M. Davis (D-Ill.) let loose a horrible attack on Rob Sherman, an atheist testifying against the state government’s plan to give $1 million to rebuild a Baptist church. Sherman was not allowed to respond to Davis’ deplorable, intolerance, where she raged he “had no right to be here” and that “It’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists.”

Listen as she flies completely off the handle at him:

She says she’s “trying to understand the philosophy.” What philosophy would that be? The philosophy of religious tolerance, even of non-religion? The separation of church and state, which allows people to live without religious tyranny, like being shouted down and forbidden from speaking in a public forum by a sick sick woman abusing her power?

This woman has turned her back on Thomas Paine, father of the American Revolution. John Locke, who inspired so many of the Founding Fathers. She is completely ignorant of the philosophies of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington. She is even ignorant of her own government:

no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
U.S Constitution (Article 6, Section 3)

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”
Article 11 of the U.S. Treaty of Tripoli

When Monique M. Davis fears the philosophy of atheism, she oppresses tolerance, free-thinking, inquiry, rationality, and egalitarianism. Monique M. Davis is incapable of upholding American principles and must resign.

This Saturday Night! Be there! BE THERE!! BE THERE!!!

Head out to Yuri’s Night World Space Party, a series of parties being held across the world to celebrate the 50^th Anniversary of Human Space Flight, and Yuri Gagarin

Find a party in your area, attend, and then tell me about how cool it was… since there aren’t any parties within 150 miles of where I live.

Bees Forsake Their Own Reproduction for the Benefit of the Hive Photo by Todd Huffman

Humans are funny animals. We cooperate at a level of sophistication seen nowhere else on planet Earth. Teachers, food servicers, law enforcement, medical workers, farmers, entertainers, engineers, truck drivers, and a bazillion other specialized laborers make our survival in its present convenience possible. The majority of us would die in a few weeks without our worldwide social support network.

Homo Sapiens behave altruistically toward one another. Human altruism is so strong that it even goes beyond our own gene pool. We are so nurturing that we adopt and care for members of other species like cats, dogs, houseplants, ant farms, hamsters, snakes, lizards, and other pets. We undergo Herculean efforts to save beached, stranded, or wounded whales.

Homo Sapiens care a lot.

We aren’t alone in this regard. In nature, we see cooperation and self-sacrifice everywhere. Primates like Chimpanzees and Gorillas work in cooperative altruistic fashion, as do pack animals. My two pet cats will often spend quality time grooming one another’s fur on the couch, taking turns licking those hard to reach places like on top of the head and chin. Another cat was documented mothering orphaned skunks. It’s obviously natural for members of a species to care for one another, and sometimes even outside their species.

Drone bees work tirelessly to feed their hives, even though they have no hope of reproducing themselves. Their queen, however, shares their genes, and if she survives to reproduce, the drone’s genes will survive as well. Lacking higher brain functions, the altruistic behavior in bees must be instinctual, carried within their DNA. The success of bees is living proof of the success of altruistic genes.

British evolutionary biologist W.D. Hamilton figured out that when an animal’s genetic relatedness to another (r) multiplied by how much altruism would benefit the recipient’s survival chances (B) was greater than the personal cost to survival of the altruistic animal (C), then the genes for altruism would propagate. Expressed mathematically as rB>C, it is known as “Hamilton’s Rule,” and some consider it the E=mc² of biology.

Hamilton’s Rule

The science of Game Theory provides an example of altruism’s strength in numbers. In each round of a game called the “Prisoner’s Dilemma,” two players have the option to either act altruistically or betray the other player. If they cooperate, they both get three points. If they betray one another, they only get one point each. If one betrays and the other acts altruistically, the betrayer gets five points and the altruistic player gets zero.

Scientists have devised all sorts of strategies for winning this game, and those strategies put into algorithms and put into competition on computers. Of all the strategies put into this virtual world, the “Tit-for-Tat” (TFT) comes out on top. This strategy’s first action is altruistic and after that it simply does what the other player did on the previous round, rewarding altruism with altruism and betrayal with betrayal. When TFTs exist in the community, the other more altruistic strategies succeed with them, forming a cooperative community.

Between the success of TFT’s and mounting support for Hamilton’s Rule, we are finding that being good to one another not only makes moral sense, but logical and mathematical sense as well.

Dawkins, Richard, The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, 1976.

See also my previous post Nice Guys Finish First exploring the math behind the Prisoner’s Dilema in further detail.

Last night I did my regular routine of working the stationary bike to get my three aerobic exercise sessions in for the week (I do weight training the other three times). For one hour I kept my RPMs above 85, managing over 20 miles in one hour. I lost two pounds of water weight from sweating in that time, and I burned a little over 500 calories.

That hour of intense effort barely made up for the Hostess Zingers I ate after lunch (470 Calories). When I add in the Caramel Machiato coffee I got from Starbucks that morning (340 Calories), my dieting outlook gets bleaker. If I were to add just one signature burger, fries, and milkshake from McDonalds to this picture (1,500 Calories), I’d bust my limit on a 2,000 calorie daily diet by 300 calories, and there’s still a whole meal, or two, we need to fit into this food schedule.

If 3,500 calories translates to one pound of fat, then such a diet would doom me to obesity very quickly, just as it brings down so many others in today’s society.

Dieting is complicated. So be sure to keep up on the math involved.

My personal Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is 2040 ((weight X 10) + (weight X 2)). Take a moment to figure yours out, then take some simple mental notes using the nutritional facts listed on food containers and the numerous calorie-counters available online. Just that much education could convince you to give up that visit to the snack machine, or choose peanuts instead of straight sugar.