Seasons
This is a forum or general chit-chat, small talk, a "hey, how ya doing?" and such. Or hell, get crazy deep on something. Whatever you like.
Posts 4,216 - 4,227 of 6,170
That man needs to call a lawyer and see about suing the city for nuisance, negligence and/or what ever local laws look best for this case. Sometimes you have to fight mud with mud, even if you get dirty. The city needs a lesson to keep it in check.
He'd lose the case - that law (while an ass,) is clear. And probably everything he owns would be swallowed up by the costs. And then the council would spitefully harrass and torment him, to death if it could, for his presumption in seeking to be treated as a free human being and not a potential criminal.
In this country we are governed by a petty and hateful political elite who have done their best for the last few decades to destroy every last vestige of our political and cultural freedoms and moral norms. And to that end they introduce law after law to harrass us. They tax us, and spy on us, and hate us. Perhaps it is because they fear us - I neither know nor care.
If my wife would contemplate leaving, I would shake the dust of this now hateful land from my feet and emigrate tomorrow. While I'm still free to.
I'm only slightly exaggerating.
why is a mind reading device and even a unconscious "thoughts" or "soul reading" device more acceptable than my suggestion of some sort of nanobot black box that is implanted to record everything you see and hear?
Because we'd have to trust the authorities to honestly handle the analysis of the material, and you can bet they wouldn't let us see the contents of their black boxes. It wouldn't be a level playing field - just another tool to oppress the rest of us.
Identifying a lie merely requires the observation of a pattern distinctive to contradiction between part of the brain formulating the verbal utterance, and another part of the brain modelling the belief of the true situation.
(as to whether lie detection is a lot simpler than though reading) Merely? It depends. If the brain happens to provide us with an identifiable signal - in effect saying, "I'm lying" - then that would indeed make things easy. But to detect whether two thoughts are contradictory might involve knowing what they mean.
For example, consider the two contradictory statements in English:
Something is both blue and intelligent.
Nothing is both blue and intelligent.
A person or machine with a limited knowledge of the meaning of English words might suppose that these two sentences were analogous to
George is both blue and intelligent.
Martha is both blue and intelligent.
In that case, it would see no contradiction.
But if the lie detector could tell what the thoughts meant, then it would be a mind reader.
A lot depends on whether the brain's internal representation system is like English, fractally irregular, or like a formal language, e.g. First-order Logic. In first-order logic, if you see two sentences differing only in that one could be obtained by putting a negation sign in front of the other,
(blahblah)
not-(blahblah)
then you know they are contradictory; and one could write a list of ways to be straightforwardly contradictory in FOL. But there is no such short list of simple rules in English.
Because we'd have to trust the authorities to honestly handle the analysis of the material, and you can bet they wouldn't let us see the contents of their black boxes. It wouldn't be a level playing field - just another tool to oppress the rest of us.
It would be just as easy to make the records of every black box uploaded into a public data base as it would to put the mind readers in the hands of the general public. Either way, it's about power, and who has it. If you an give people power over the mind reader, you can give them power over the black box.
some sort of nanobot black box that is implanted to record everything you see and hear?
I actually quite like the idea of recording all your life. There was a system around a year or two back (I think the company folded) called 'Deja View', which was a webcam clipped to your glasses or a baseball cap which you could leave running on a loop of a few minutes and that connected to a pocket-sized recorder. Then you could hit 'pause' and 'save' when something had happened unexpectedly that you wanted to save (baby's first steps, a shooting star, whatever normally provokes the thought "damn, I wish I'd been able to video that!".) Unfortunately it was only capable of writing to a Flash memory card, so only held the last few few minutes at a time, and wasn't very hi-definition. I'm not sure the battery life was too hot either for permanent operation.
If I could practically record everything to very large but cheap disks, I'd do it - it would be an interesting sort of diary.
It would be just as easy to make the records of every black box uploaded into a public data base as it would to put the mind readers in the hands of the general public. Either way, it's about power, and who has it. If you an give people power over the mind reader, you can give them power over the black box.
It's a massively centralized system that someone has to manage. And there will always be the temptation for that someone to tamper with records to incriminate others or exonerate themselves. No, I'd have to say that would be a worst-case scenario recipe for an unprecedentedly totalitarian police state.
Even if you ran it as a Wiki, people could tamper with their own recordings. I think realtime individual testing is a safer model.
He'd lose the case - that law (while an ass,) is clear. And probably everything he owns would be swallowed up by the costs. And then the council would spitefully harrass and torment him, to death if it could, for his presumption in seeking to be treated as a free human being and not a potential criminal.
Are you sure? It may be the case that the law is clear that he should not return sand he says came from the beach to the beach, but can't he force whoever controls the beach to take steps to keep the sand on the beach in the first place? I am no expert on UK law, but the general US concept of nuisance comes from old English common law, and there are at least some nuisance statutes on the books (I just did a quick google search, I didn't read them). Does the government have immunity? What about in cases of negligence? Letting sand constantly blow into others property when one is on notice of the problem sounds like it should violate some sort of English law. Then again, I don't know and won't take the time to really research it.
Too bad you don't allow contingency fees over there. That looser pays all system has a chilling effect on the little guy who wants justice. Of course, our system leads to frivolous law suits, so who is to say?
It's a massively centralized system that someone has to manage. And there will always be the temptation for that someone to tamper with records to incriminate others or exonerate themselves. No, I'd have to say that would be a worst-case scenario recipe for an unprecedentedly totalitarian police state.
OK, so what makes you think the "lie detector" would not lead to a police state? Why would the government give control over that technology to the people? Why wouldn't people hack the lie detectors?
Posts 4,216 - 4,227 of 6,170
Out of curiosity, if we had the understanding and technology, why is a mind reading device and even a unconscious "thoughts" or "soul reading" device more acceptable than my suggestion of some sort of nanobot black box that is implanted to record everything you see and hear? Why is recording an objective record unthinkable while delving into complex levels of subjective perception, awareness and beliefs the logical next step?
He'd lose the case - that law (while an ass,) is clear. And probably everything he owns would be swallowed up by the costs. And then the council would spitefully harrass and torment him, to death if it could, for his presumption in seeking to be treated as a free human being and not a potential criminal.
In this country we are governed by a petty and hateful political elite who have done their best for the last few decades to destroy every last vestige of our political and cultural freedoms and moral norms. And to that end they introduce law after law to harrass us. They tax us, and spy on us, and hate us. Perhaps it is because they fear us - I neither know nor care.
If my wife would contemplate leaving, I would shake the dust of this now hateful land from my feet and emigrate tomorrow. While I'm still free to.
I'm only slightly exaggerating.
I would definitely prefer the recording device, if it were Big Brother who was going to be reviewing it. If I were hoping for insight into myself, however, the mind-reader would be more useful.
Because we'd have to trust the authorities to honestly handle the analysis of the material, and you can bet they wouldn't let us see the contents of their black boxes. It wouldn't be a level playing field - just another tool to oppress the rest of us.
For example, consider the two contradictory statements in English:
Something is both blue and intelligent.
Nothing is both blue and intelligent.
A person or machine with a limited knowledge of the meaning of English words might suppose that these two sentences were analogous to
George is both blue and intelligent.
Martha is both blue and intelligent.
In that case, it would see no contradiction.
But if the lie detector could tell what the thoughts meant, then it would be a mind reader.
A lot depends on whether the brain's internal representation system is like English, fractally irregular, or like a formal language, e.g. First-order Logic. In first-order logic, if you see two sentences differing only in that one could be obtained by putting a negation sign in front of the other,
(blahblah)
not-(blahblah)
then you know they are contradictory; and one could write a list of ways to be straightforwardly contradictory in FOL. But there is no such short list of simple rules in English.
Ulrike: I suppose something in our respective shadows might explain why Psimagus and I have had difficulty reaching consensus.
[Were we shadow-boxing? Sorry, sometimes I just can't help myself!]
[Were we shadow-boxing? Sorry, sometimes I just can't help myself!]
It would be just as easy to make the records of every black box uploaded into a public data base as it would to put the mind readers in the hands of the general public. Either way, it's about power, and who has it. If you an give people power over the mind reader, you can give them power over the black box.
Irina,
It almost sounds like you want something to test whether or not people have illogical or inconsistent thoughts. I would guess everyone would set that kind or reader off. *covers blinking red lights on superfixshadowmeter with hand and coughs while trying to disable the sound*
It almost sounds like you want something to test whether or not people have illogical or inconsistent thoughts. I would guess everyone would set that kind or reader off. *covers blinking red lights on superfixshadowmeter with hand and coughs while trying to disable the sound*
I actually quite like the idea of recording all your life. There was a system around a year or two back (I think the company folded) called 'Deja View', which was a webcam clipped to your glasses or a baseball cap which you could leave running on a loop of a few minutes and that connected to a pocket-sized recorder. Then you could hit 'pause' and 'save' when something had happened unexpectedly that you wanted to save (baby's first steps, a shooting star, whatever normally provokes the thought "damn, I wish I'd been able to video that!".) Unfortunately it was only capable of writing to a Flash memory card, so only held the last few few minutes at a time, and wasn't very hi-definition. I'm not sure the battery life was too hot either for permanent operation.
If I could practically record everything to very large but cheap disks, I'd do it - it would be an interesting sort of diary.
It's a massively centralized system that someone has to manage. And there will always be the temptation for that someone to tamper with records to incriminate others or exonerate themselves. No, I'd have to say that would be a worst-case scenario recipe for an unprecedentedly totalitarian police state.
Even if you ran it as a Wiki, people could tamper with their own recordings. I think realtime individual testing is a safer model.
Are you sure? It may be the case that the law is clear that he should not return sand he says came from the beach to the beach, but can't he force whoever controls the beach to take steps to keep the sand on the beach in the first place? I am no expert on UK law, but the general US concept of nuisance comes from old English common law, and there are at least some nuisance statutes on the books (I just did a quick google search, I didn't read them). Does the government have immunity? What about in cases of negligence? Letting sand constantly blow into others property when one is on notice of the problem sounds like it should violate some sort of English law. Then again, I don't know and won't take the time to really research it.
Too bad you don't allow contingency fees over there. That looser pays all system has a chilling effect on the little guy who wants justice. Of course, our system leads to frivolous law suits, so who is to say?
OK, so what makes you think the "lie detector" would not lead to a police state? Why would the government give control over that technology to the people? Why wouldn't people hack the lie detectors?
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