If we assume people are doing this in their spare time, then a weekend is the best time to do it: say noon Pacific time, which is 9pm Berlin time. But people might want to be doing something else with their Saturdays or Sundays. If they’re doing it with their weekday evenings, then they just don’t overlap; the best you can probably do is post at 10am Pacific time on (say) a Monday, and let Europe and UK comment first, then the East Coast, and finally the West Coast. Obviously there will be participants in other timezones, but those four will probably cover most participants.
The text of [the parts I’ve read so far of] Superintelligence is really insightful, but I’ll quote Nick in saying that
“Many points in this book are probably wrong”.
He gives many references (84 in Chapter 1 alone), some of which refer to papers and others that resemble continuations of the specific idea in question that don’t fit in directly with the narrative in the book. My suggestion would be to go through each reference as it comes up in the book, analyze and discuss it, then continue. Maybe even forming little discussion groups around each reference in a section (if it’s a paper). It could even happen right here in comment threads.
That way, we can get as close to Bostrom’s original world of information as possible, maybe drawing different conclusions. I think that would be a more consilient understanding of the book.
Katja, you are doing a great job. I realize what a huge time and energy commitment it is to take this on… all the collateral reading and sources you have to monitor, in order to make sure you don’t miss something that would be good to add in to the list of links and thinking points.
We are still in the get aquainted, discovery phase, as a group, and with the book. I am sure it will get more interesting yet as we go along, and some long term intellectual friendships are likely to occurr as a result of the coming weeks of interaction. Thanks for your time and work.… Tom
How would you like this reading group to be different in future weeks?
You could start at a time better suited for Europe.
That’s a tricky problem!
If we assume people are doing this in their spare time, then a weekend is the best time to do it: say noon Pacific time, which is 9pm Berlin time. But people might want to be doing something else with their Saturdays or Sundays. If they’re doing it with their weekday evenings, then they just don’t overlap; the best you can probably do is post at 10am Pacific time on (say) a Monday, and let Europe and UK comment first, then the East Coast, and finally the West Coast. Obviously there will be participants in other timezones, but those four will probably cover most participants.
The text of [the parts I’ve read so far of] Superintelligence is really insightful, but I’ll quote Nick in saying that
He gives many references (84 in Chapter 1 alone), some of which refer to papers and others that resemble continuations of the specific idea in question that don’t fit in directly with the narrative in the book. My suggestion would be to go through each reference as it comes up in the book, analyze and discuss it, then continue. Maybe even forming little discussion groups around each reference in a section (if it’s a paper). It could even happen right here in comment threads.
That way, we can get as close to Bostrom’s original world of information as possible, maybe drawing different conclusions. I think that would be a more consilient understanding of the book.
Katja, you are doing a great job. I realize what a huge time and energy commitment it is to take this on… all the collateral reading and sources you have to monitor, in order to make sure you don’t miss something that would be good to add in to the list of links and thinking points.
We are still in the get aquainted, discovery phase, as a group, and with the book. I am sure it will get more interesting yet as we go along, and some long term intellectual friendships are likely to occurr as a result of the coming weeks of interaction.
Thanks for your time and work.… Tom