So asr, would you say violence is generally stupid or intelligent?
We have gone to a great deal of trouble, in modern society, to make violence a bad option, so today in our society often violence is committed by the impulsive, mentally ill, or short-sighted. But that’s not an inevitable property of violence and hasn’t always been true. You would have gotten a different answer before the 20th century. I don’t know what answer you’ll get in the 22nd century.
People often equate mindlessness with violence thus the phrase mindless violence is reasonably common but I have never encountered the phrase intelligent violence, is intelligent violence an oxymoron? Surely intelligent people can resolve conflict via non-violent methods?
The word we usually use for intelligent violence is “ruthless” or “cunning”—and many people are described that way. Stalin, for instance, was apparently capable of long hours of hard work, had an excellent attention to detail, and otherwise appears to have been a smart guy. Just also willing to have millions of people murdered.
Does the army prohibit intelligent people from joining?
No. Many smart capable people go to West Point or Annapolis. A high fraction of successful American engineers in the 19th century were West Point alums.
You keep jumping from correlation to causation, in a domain when there are obvious alternate effects going on. I don’t know if there is a correlation, but even if there were, it wouldn’t be very strong evidence. Being a good scientist requires both intelligence and the right kind of personality. You are asserting that any correlation is solely due to the intelligence part of the equation. This strikes me as a very problematic assumption. Very few scientists are also successful lawyers. It does not follow that lawyers are stupid.
I am not presenting a scientific thesis. This is only a debate, and a reasonably informal one? I am thinking openly. I am asking specific questions likely to elicit specific responses. I am speculating.
asr, you wrote:
The word we usually use for intelligent violence is “ruthless” or “cunning”—and many people are described that way. Stalin, for instance, was apparently capable of long hours of hard work, had an excellent attention to detail, and otherwise appears to have been a smart guy. Just also willing to have millions of people murdered.
My point regarding mindless violence verses ruthlessness or cunning is that ruthlessness or cunning do not specifically define intelligence or violence in the blatant way which the phrase “mindless violence” does. Saddam and Gaddafi were cunning in a similar way to Stalin but the deaths of Saddam and Gaddafi indicate their cunning was not intelligent, in fact it is very stupid to die so close to Singularitarian immortality.
I am not asserting this proves all violence is mindless thus violence decreases with greater intelligence. I am simply offering food for thought. It is not a scientific thesis I am presenting. I am merely throwing some ideas out there to see how people respond.
If Stalin was truly intelligent then I assume he opted for Cryonic preservation?
″...Stalin was injected with poison by the guard Khrustalev, under the orders of his master, KGB chief Lavrenty Beria. And what was the reason Stalin was killed?”
If Stalin was truly intelligent then I assume he opted for Cryonic preservation?
Almost no one, regardless of intelligence opts for cryonics. Moreover, cryonics was first proposed in 1962 by Robert Ettinger, 9 years after Stalin was dead. It is a bit difficult to opt for cryonics when it doesn’t exist yet.
Saddam and Gaddafi were cunning in a similar way to Stalin but the deaths of Saddam and Gaddafi indicate their cunning was not intelligent, in fact it is very stupid to die so close to Singularitarian immortality.
It seems that you are using “intelligent” to mean something like “would make the same decisions SingularityUtopia would make in that context”. This may explain why you are so convinced that “intelligent” individuals won’t engage in violence. It may help to think carefully about what you mean by intelligent.
It seems that you are using “intelligent” to mean something like “would make the same decisions SingularityUtopia would make in that context”.
No, “intelligence” is an issue of survival, it is intelligent to survive. Survival is a key aspect of intelligence. I do want to survive but the intelligent course of action of not merely what I would do. The sensibleness, the intelligence of survival, is something beyond myself, it is applicable to other beings, but people do disagree regarding the definition of intelligence. Some people think it is intelligent to die.
Almost no one, regardless of intelligence opts for cryonics. Moreover, cryonics was first proposed in 1962 by Robert Ettinger, 9 years after Stalin was dead. It is a bit difficult to opt for cryonics when it doesn’t exist yet.
And intelligent person would realise freezing a body could preserve life even if nobody had ever considered the possibility.
Quickly browsing the net I found this:
“In 1940, pioneer biologist Basil Luyet published a work titled “Life and Death at Low Temperatures”″
1940 was before Stalin’s death, but truly intelligent people would not need other thinkers to inspire their thinking. The decay limiting factor of freezing has long been known. Futhermore Amazon sems to state Luyet’s work “Life and Death at Low Temperatures” was published pre-1923: http://www.amazon.com/Life-death-at-low-temperatures/dp/1178934128
According to Wikipedia many works of fiction dealt with the cryonics issue well before Stalin’s death:
Lydia Maria Child’s short story “Hilda Silfverling, A Fantasy” (1886),[81] Jack London’s first published work “A Thousand Deaths” (1899), V. Mayakovsky’s “Klop” (1928),[82] H.P. Lovecraft’s “Cool Air” (1928), and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “The Resurrection of Jimber-Jaw” (1937). Many of the subjects in these stories are unwilling ones, although a 1931 short story by Neil R. Jones called “The Jameson Satellite”,[83].....…
No, “intelligence” is an issue of survival, it is intelligent to survive. Survival is a key aspect of intelligence. I do want to survive but the intelligent course of action of not merely what I would do. The sensibleness, the intelligence of survival, is something beyond myself, it is applicable to other beings, but people do disagree regarding the definition of intelligence. Some people think it is intelligent to die.
You need to be more precise about what you mean by “intelligent” then, since your usage is either confused or is being communicated very poorly. Possibly consider tabooing the term intelligent.
You seemed elsewhere in this thread to consider Einstein intelligent, but if self-preservation matters for intelligence, then this doesn’t make much sense. Any argument of the form “Stalin wasn’t intelligent since he didn’t use cryonics” is just as much of a problem for Einstein, Bohr, Turing, Hilbert, etc.
truly intelligent people would not need other thinkers to inspire their thinking
Yeah, see this isn’t how humans work. We get a lot of different ideas from other humans, we develop them, and we use them to improve our own ideas by combining them. This is precisely why the human discoveries that have the most impact on society are often those which are connected to the ability to record and transmit information.
It seems that what you are doing here is engaging in the illusion of transparency where because you know of an idea, you consider the idea to be obvious or easy.
Intelligence can have various levels and stupid people can do intelligent things just as intelligent people can do stupid things. Einstein can be more intelligent than Stalin but Einstein can still be stupid.
No I am not engaging in the illusion of transparency, don’t be absurd. My meaning of intelligence is not confused but there is an inevitable poverty regarding communication of any idea, which I communicate, because people need things spelling out in the most simplistic of terms because they cannot comprehend anything vaguely complex or unusual, but the real kicker is that when you spell things out, people look at you with a gormless expression, and they ask for more detail, or they disagree regarding the most irrefutable points. It’s so painful communicating with people but I don’t expect you to understand. I shall wait until advanced AIs have been created and then there will be someone who understands.
Tabooing the word intelligent… hhmmmm… how about “everything ever written by Singularity Utopia”?
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We have gone to a great deal of trouble, in modern society, to make violence a bad option, so today in our society often violence is committed by the impulsive, mentally ill, or short-sighted. But that’s not an inevitable property of violence and hasn’t always been true. You would have gotten a different answer before the 20th century. I don’t know what answer you’ll get in the 22nd century.
The word we usually use for intelligent violence is “ruthless” or “cunning”—and many people are described that way. Stalin, for instance, was apparently capable of long hours of hard work, had an excellent attention to detail, and otherwise appears to have been a smart guy. Just also willing to have millions of people murdered.
No. Many smart capable people go to West Point or Annapolis. A high fraction of successful American engineers in the 19th century were West Point alums.
You keep jumping from correlation to causation, in a domain when there are obvious alternate effects going on. I don’t know if there is a correlation, but even if there were, it wouldn’t be very strong evidence. Being a good scientist requires both intelligence and the right kind of personality. You are asserting that any correlation is solely due to the intelligence part of the equation. This strikes me as a very problematic assumption. Very few scientists are also successful lawyers. It does not follow that lawyers are stupid.
I am not presenting a scientific thesis. This is only a debate, and a reasonably informal one? I am thinking openly. I am asking specific questions likely to elicit specific responses. I am speculating.
asr, you wrote:
My point regarding mindless violence verses ruthlessness or cunning is that ruthlessness or cunning do not specifically define intelligence or violence in the blatant way which the phrase “mindless violence” does. Saddam and Gaddafi were cunning in a similar way to Stalin but the deaths of Saddam and Gaddafi indicate their cunning was not intelligent, in fact it is very stupid to die so close to Singularitarian immortality.
I am not asserting this proves all violence is mindless thus violence decreases with greater intelligence. I am simply offering food for thought. It is not a scientific thesis I am presenting. I am merely throwing some ideas out there to see how people respond.
If Stalin was truly intelligent then I assume he opted for Cryonic preservation?
″...Stalin was injected with poison by the guard Khrustalev, under the orders of his master, KGB chief Lavrenty Beria. And what was the reason Stalin was killed?”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2793501.stm
Regarding stupidity and the armed forces I have addressed this elsewhere: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ajm/ai_risk_and_opportunity_a_strategic_analysis/5zgl
Almost no one, regardless of intelligence opts for cryonics. Moreover, cryonics was first proposed in 1962 by Robert Ettinger, 9 years after Stalin was dead. It is a bit difficult to opt for cryonics when it doesn’t exist yet.
It seems that you are using “intelligent” to mean something like “would make the same decisions SingularityUtopia would make in that context”. This may explain why you are so convinced that “intelligent” individuals won’t engage in violence. It may help to think carefully about what you mean by intelligent.
No, “intelligence” is an issue of survival, it is intelligent to survive. Survival is a key aspect of intelligence. I do want to survive but the intelligent course of action of not merely what I would do. The sensibleness, the intelligence of survival, is something beyond myself, it is applicable to other beings, but people do disagree regarding the definition of intelligence. Some people think it is intelligent to die.
And intelligent person would realise freezing a body could preserve life even if nobody had ever considered the possibility.
Quickly browsing the net I found this:
http://www.cryocare.org/index.cgi?subdir=&url=history.txt
1940 was before Stalin’s death, but truly intelligent people would not need other thinkers to inspire their thinking. The decay limiting factor of freezing has long been known. Futhermore Amazon sems to state Luyet’s work “Life and Death at Low Temperatures” was published pre-1923: http://www.amazon.com/Life-death-at-low-temperatures/dp/1178934128
According to Wikipedia many works of fiction dealt with the cryonics issue well before Stalin’s death:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics#Cryonics_in_popular_culture
You need to be more precise about what you mean by “intelligent” then, since your usage is either confused or is being communicated very poorly. Possibly consider tabooing the term intelligent.
You seemed elsewhere in this thread to consider Einstein intelligent, but if self-preservation matters for intelligence, then this doesn’t make much sense. Any argument of the form “Stalin wasn’t intelligent since he didn’t use cryonics” is just as much of a problem for Einstein, Bohr, Turing, Hilbert, etc.
Yeah, see this isn’t how humans work. We get a lot of different ideas from other humans, we develop them, and we use them to improve our own ideas by combining them. This is precisely why the human discoveries that have the most impact on society are often those which are connected to the ability to record and transmit information.
It seems that what you are doing here is engaging in the illusion of transparency where because you know of an idea, you consider the idea to be obvious or easy.
Intelligence can have various levels and stupid people can do intelligent things just as intelligent people can do stupid things. Einstein can be more intelligent than Stalin but Einstein can still be stupid.
No I am not engaging in the illusion of transparency, don’t be absurd. My meaning of intelligence is not confused but there is an inevitable poverty regarding communication of any idea, which I communicate, because people need things spelling out in the most simplistic of terms because they cannot comprehend anything vaguely complex or unusual, but the real kicker is that when you spell things out, people look at you with a gormless expression, and they ask for more detail, or they disagree regarding the most irrefutable points. It’s so painful communicating with people but I don’t expect you to understand. I shall wait until advanced AIs have been created and then there will be someone who understands.
Tabooing the word intelligent… hhmmmm… how about “everything ever written by Singularity Utopia”?
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