ethics

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15. April 2008

Discussion about the semantic web

Posted by naught101 under ethics, open source, philosophy, semantic web, society, software
[2] Comments 

The following is a discussion from #swig on irc.freenode.org - the Semantic Web Interest Group. It’s logged here if you don’t believe me: http://chatlogs.planetrdf.com/swig/2008-04-15#T10-32-11. Edited slightly for clarity.

I think the semantic web is an extremely useful tool, but as I mention down the bottom, I probably would have agreed with Francis Bacon that cutting up animals in the name of science was a good thing at the time. For the record, I don’t believe this.

Reading the comment first might help.

naught101: check http://www.semanticfocus.com/blog/entry/title/5-problems-of-the-semantic-web/

naught101: my comment down the bottom, would love feedback from anyone here

bengee: simplification is a feature, not really a problem

bengee: URIs and triples reduce the complexity to a level that computers can do useful things with it

bengee: e.g. <#product> :rating “***”; :rating “****”; :rating “**”. what might seem contradictory to you may be very useful to an app

naught101: na, I wasn’t talking about that kind of information bengee

naught101: Say philosophy for instance… let me find a nice quote

naught101: Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money.

naught101: * Cree Indian Proverb

naught101: Obviously a computer could use this sentence, but would it be able to use it a a way useful to humans?

naught101: Obviously it’s not TRUE, as most of us already know we can’t eat money

bengee: <#only1> a :CreeIndianProverb; rdf:value “Only when…” .

bengee: that triple could be useful for programs that list proverbs

naught101: yeah, sure, but that’s triplification ABOUT the proverb, not about the information contained within the proverb

bengee: well, then you have to increase the granularity if your app wants to provide richer functionality

naught101: how do you mean?

bengee: extract more triples from the human-readable text

naught101: but what triples could you extract from a one-sentance text that has no quantitative truth, but which holds more qualitative truth than many many paragraphs of, say, a science text book?

bengee: exactly

naught101: huh?

bengee: you may misunderstand what the semweb is mainly for

naught101: sure, that’s a true sentence :)

bengee: it’s not for implementing automated philosophers, or compete with humans with respect to intelligence

bengee: well, OWL folks might disagree with me here ;)

bengee: the more rewarding approach (IMHO) is to think about use cases that semweb tech *can* enable/simplify, not to think hard about things that are near-impossible for computers in general

naught101: I agree. but I’m not talking about what the semantic web should be

naught101: I’m talking about possible problems with what it currently is

naught101: I mean, I don’t want bite-sized chunks of information taking over the world of ideas

naught101: I think the philospohy or the public is degraded enough without chopping it into bits even more

bengee: oh, semweb tech can clearly improve the distribution and discovery of ideas

bengee: just like the web did

naught101: but it could also hide them

naught101: I don’t think the ‘web did, neccesarily

bengee: you just google’d WRT, no?

naught101: correct

naught101: I don’t think finding an accronym compares to finding meaning in life.

naught101: (if I sound like I’m attacking the semantic web, I’m not, I’m just exploring ideas)

bengee: yeah, don’t think I can contribute too much here, sorry.

naught101: no worries :)

naught101: I see it something like baconian/descartian science. it’s useful for finding out the little bits of information, but it’s not particularly useful for figuring out the interrelationships, or looking at the information holistically

naught101: I mean, for example, the semantic web can take information from a wikipedia article, but it couldn’t write a wikipedia article

kjetilkWork: right

kjetilkWork: I don’t think it is a very significant goal of the semweb to produce that kind of information

kjetilkWork: we have a billion people out there that can do that much better

bengee: the semweb can be a great aid in helping you write the article, though

naught101: sure, but thinking of the possibility the semantic web a large part of the web should probably include thinking about what it can’t do, and how to not impede that work

kjetilkWork: rather than the AI world of natural language analysis to reason and infere relation, I think the semweb is much more about using the collective intelligence of all its users, i.e. real intelligence

naught101: bengee: yes, it could. it could also be a hinderance (information overload)

naught101: kjetilkWork: good. I like that. I just hope we’re collectively intelligent, and not collectively stupid :)

kjetilkWork: well, that’s what it means to me, at least

kjetilkWork: hehe, yeah

kjetilkWork: I think semweb can help us be collectively intelligent rather than stupid, though… :-)

naught101: I haven’t got that far yet

naught101: :)

 

24. March 2008

Dear Mr. Quinn

Posted by naught101 under Daniel Quinn, ecology, economics, environment, ethics, future, social justice, society
1 Comment 

Daniel,

You argue that the major defining factor of population size is food limits. Australia (to give an example), currently has a birthrate less than 2 births per woman. We have an overall annual immigration, so our population is growing, but if we had no immigration, our population would be decreasing. Australia is a fairly affluent country: plenty of food, people are educated, well supported with social services, and generally feel secure. They don’t need the added security of a large family (I don’t claim that this is causal, but believe it may have some impact). This seems proof that it is at least possible to disconnect population growth from food supply (and then be able to decrease food supply due to decreased demand). You answered this in response to Q&A 122: “the country has traversed the “demographic trap” and gotten through the growth phase of the population dynamics”.

Obviously, as you have pointed out, there’s plenty of food in the world, and if it were (able to be) shared out equitably, then no-one would starve. This being so, wouldn’t the best course of action be, after figuring out the relevant system dynamics, to attempt to give those in the highest population growth areas the same security we in the affluent, and low-population growth, minority world have? This might include immediate food aid for a period or, preferably, some kind of “food asylum”, which might lead to an immediate population spike, but a combined approach of social support services and education, seems like a population growth control method that is more than equitable, just might work, and doesn’t seem like a “sci-fi fantasy”, as you label other birth control schemes.

As an aside, what do you think of permaculture? Seems like a way of at least starting to break the food lockup, and something that doesn’t rely on some kind of fascist revolution.

(This was originally posted on the Ishmael.org guestbook)

 

19. July 2007

Greens pro-cops, anti-Green

Posted by naught101 under censorship, ethics, human values, police state, ranting, the Greens, the neo con
No Comments 

We didn’t hear much about it on the east coast, but the Greens just became the New Labour. No, they haven’t sold out on Uranium yet, but they’re on their way! One of WA Senator Rachel Siewert’s staffer’s went to a protest at Julie Bishop (Lib/Nat Minister for Science), and the protest got violent. That is, the cops whacked people with battons, and pepper sprayed them, and a protester threw a rock. And the Greens dutifully stood up for the oppressed and apologised to the cops, and sacked the staffer who went to the protest. News.com.au’s WA branch has a piece on the article, but I don’t want to promote that shit. The West Australian had a reasonable front page piece on it on Saturday that I’ve just seen, unfortunately it’s not on their website.

Not only did Siewert sack her staffer, but Bob Brown stepped in, and fucking agreed with her. COME ON you fools! Protesters, being the front line of a diverse movement, pushing the boundaries of issues that you agree with, and get beaten up by a bunch of thugs that have been completely bought out by the establishment and are intent on defending, with violence, the worst parts of the capitalist system - the bits you want to change (I know you’ve always been too soft to actually tackle capitalism head on). These thugs are actually allowed to be violent - they carry deadly weapons at all times, for fuck’s sake. And you take it out on the protesters. Way to support the movement. I think I just lost all respect for Bob Brown, it’s unfortunate that such a misguided fool is the face of the Greens.

 

15. March 2007

We need value changes, not technofixes: the Aswan Dam as a metaphor for climate change.

Posted by naught101 under climate change, climate solutions, economics, environment, ethics, human values, politics, ranting, solutions, technofix, the neo con, values, waste society
No Comments 

I had a very interesting lecture today, on thermodynamics, ecosystems, and human values relating to technology (lecture 4, Technology and Human Values, PHIL3910 at the University of Newcastle. I recommend it). It didn’t give me a lot of information that I hadn’t heard before, but Yin Gao’s presentation definitely cemented a lot of that information in place for me.

One thing that did strike me, was Yin’s case study: the Aswan Dam. I’ve heard of it before of course, but never paid a lot of attention. Almost as soon as she mentioned it, I saw the link with climate change. As she went on, the similarities blew me away. let me explain: (more…)

 

5. March 2007

Rising sea levels: Brought to you by mining

Posted by naught101 under AUSFTA, activism, censorship, climate, climate change, climate denial, copyright, ethics, free trade, global warming, lies, media, politics, the neo con, theft
1 Comment 

it’s true, this website told me so:
http://www.miningnsw.com.au

not that I didn’t take part in making that website. but that’s not the best bit. The best bit is that this website is actually a parody of a site set up by the NSW Minerals Council, as part of their “Life: brought to you by mining” re-education campaign (http://www.nswmining.com.au). And the NSW minerals council have already taken the site down twice in the last two weeks.

yep. the NSW Minerals Council is having us silenced. who’d have thunk it? surely the Minerals Council is a free-thinking, facts-only information dispenser! who would imagine that they’d stoop to propaganda, and THEN… then try to silence criticism by the community? surely they are friends with the community?

apparently not.

anyway, check out the site, and check the indymedia page, as it has all the details on the background and all that I can’t be bothered writing again:
http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/node/50223 (this is a copy of the RT press release)
The original is ofcourse, at the risingt tide website: http://www.risingtide.org.au/node/401 (also on the front page at the moment)

the SMH has covered it:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/
industry-closes-anticoal-website/2007/03/04/1172943275688.html

let me know what you think. I did all the design work, with some help for a couple of the images. tell me if you think I’ve imitated too closely the original site’s layout etc. I don’t think so. Infact, I’m quite offended that those the NSWMC is claiming MY work, which I easily spent over 30 hours on, as theirs. in fact it really pisses me off.

we’re looking for a barrister, who mightbe able to do the case pro bono if it gets to court (we’d love to pay,but all we can afford is costs/accomodation, that kind of thing). if you know anyone who’d been keen and has some experience in this field,
please let us know.

if you want to help us get this story out there, digg it: http://digg.com/environment/Mining_Lobby_Silencing_Community_Comment

cheers
ned

Notes:

this case deals with legislation brought in to comply with the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement. Remember when all those small-media people were up in arms about the FTA? well this is just one reason why.
The actual amendment is available here:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/num_reg/car200412004n405376/index.html
(check out the schedule)

Fair Dealing Parody Information:
Fair Dealing Parody Fact Sheet (Attorney General’s Department)

this page is constantly being updated with new sites. nothing will be removed, but I apologise if it makes any comments seem illegitimate.

Happy Valley:

the same shit is happening in NZ, where the big state-owned mining company, Solid Energy, is sueing the Save Happy Valley mob, because they put out a political parody report claiming to be from Solid Energy. check it out!

Other media on this story:

– Mass Media:

– Law blogs:

– Other blogs:

– Other media:

– Crossposts:

 

6. February 2007

an economic policy

Posted by naught101 under activism, environmentalism, ethics, politics, ranting, the neo con, theft, waste, waste society
No Comments 

I think I’ve finally realised a complete ethical foundation on which I can base all my economic decisions. It’s been a while in the making, and although I like it in its current state, it’s possible it will change in the future. we’ll see.

basically, it consists of two rules (guideline), in order of importance:

1. Do not Waste.

2. Do not Steal.

considering that they are in order of importance, what the second rule really means is “do not Steal unless not to do so would cause Waste”.

I think that covers everything. the rational is below. (more…)