User talk:"alyosha"

hi

Intro / newbie note re my (user)name
When i fell in love with wikipedia, i made a few minor edits w/o an account. Then i created one, but my legal name and common username alyosha was unavailable, so i went to ALYOHSA, and made a few edits under that. Then that started to feel like shouting, so now i've settled on "alyosha". I checked and apparently it's different enough not to be confused with whoever Alyosha is (who btw doesn't seem to have ever had an active wikipresence). So here i am -- welcome.

Welcome
Hello, welcome, bienvenido to Wikipedia. [opentask removed by "alyosha"]

You might find these links helpful in creating new pages or helping with the above tasks: How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Naming conventions, Manual of Style. You should read our policies at some point too.

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. If you made any edits before you got an account, you might be interested in assigning those to your username. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

Again, welcome! --Jondel 07:28, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I used to use the username Alyosha online all the time. "Alyosha the Pot" is a favorite short story by Tolstoy and I have always identified with the Karamazov brother Alyosha for his innocent wisdom. Nice to meet you. --Kenneth M Burke 02:29, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Nostalghia
Hi alyosha- thanks for your interest in the Nostalghia article. I put the images up there (and at Forced perspective) and honestly never even considered that it might need a spoiler tag. I've only seen the film once, but I'm still not sure what exactly that shot is meant to represent (although the interpretation in your comments is a good one, I think). To call it a spoiler is a bit of a stretch in my opinion, since the shot doesn't really "reveal plot or ending details", at least not in the usual sense.

But we'll let it stand and see how folks like it (although these aren't really high-traffic pages). See you around- Staecker 03:16, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Anti-SIAI Singularitarians
You asked on my talk page for examples of Singularitarians who have opposed the Singularity Institute. There's a handful on the SL4 mailing list. Russel Wallace wrote a proposal for an alternative to Yudkowsky's Friendliness model called Domain Protection. Over the next couple of months, he became increasingly critical and wrote that implementing Collective Volition "would be arguably worse than just blowing up the planet". In another post: "If CV is ever on the point of being implemented, I strongly recommend having fast, thorough means of suicide ready to hand [...]". I'm sure there are others, with varying degrees of opposition. Last I've heard, Ben Goertzel is making his own Seed AI and doesn't think Friendliness is as important as SIAI claims, but doesn't have any opposition to SIAI's success I'm aware of. I'm sure you could find more examples by looking through the SL4 archives. And sorry in advance if I've misrepresented Wallace's or Goertzel's views here, as they may have changed recently. -- Schaefer 11:21, 31 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Russel Wallace sent me an e-mail with the following clarification of what I wrote about him above:
 * "I did indeed say the things you quote me as saying on your Wiki page, but I'm not quite as critical of the SIAI as those two lines taken in isolation might suggest! :) 'Have fast, thorough means of suicide available' was for the imaginary scenario where an AI implementing CV is in the process of taking over the world; I used this scenario to emphasize why I think CV is a bad idea, not because I think it's realistic. I'm hoping the SIAI will change their minds eventually as they have done on a previous occasion; in the meantime I think they're doing valuable work on the issues associated with Friendly AI - something only a very few teams are doing at all. So while I'm certainly anti-CV, I wouldn't call myself anti-SIAI; perhaps you could add some sort of note to that effect?"
 * -- Schaefer 21:25, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Response to SL4 questions

 * ["alyosha"s ms on Schaefer's talk, for reference:]


 * Wow, i'm sorry i've let so much time pass without getting back to you. Thank you for the very helpful resp to my request above. I kept thinking i was going to write back soon...and then you know how it goes. And now, only if you feel like it, i have another question and a half. The half is that i'm still gradually trying to get a sense of the range of opinion re Singularity, incl not only beyond SIAI but also beyond SL4. But i'm finding a good amt of that -- tho if you had any faves to pass along i'd love to see them. But where you could really help me is by recommending places presumably on SL4 where the premises of the SIAI/SL4 discussion are debated (besides the Hibbard stuff). Eg, the ease/hardware requirements of seed AI (such that SIAI could get it before the government/military/corporate/university complex), the speed of progress (quick leap vs a gradual approach thru mouse-level, dog-level, etc), and so on. In a little bit of looking, i haven't found this in SL4; and what i find in Yudkowsky's writings (eg AI-box) isn't what i mean by real critique/debate. Make sense? If this is a bother, then don't bother; but in any case thx again. "alyosha" (talk) 04:02, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Some of the things you requested on my talk:


 * "But where you could really help me is by recommending places presumably on SL4 where the premises of the SIAI/SL4 discussion are debated (besides the Hibbard stuff). Eg, the ease/hardware requirements of seed AI (such that SIAI could get it before the government/military/corporate/university complex), [...]"

This came up recently actually. See the original question and Yudkowsky's very thorough reply. Click thread view to see the other replies more clearly.


 * "[...] the speed of progress (quick leap vs a gradual approach thru mouse-level, dog-level, etc), and so on."

I can't find any prior discussions on this at the moment, but suggesting an AI will go through anything identifiable as "mouse-level" or "dog-level" seems implausible to me. Computers already outperform humans at certain tasks, so in order for AI to ever reach "mouse-level" wouldn't just require leaps forward in some areas (image recognition, motor controls) but leaps backward on others.

Using a linear scale of intelligence (usually) works well for humans, but not for AI. A lot of what the brain does is done by highly specific adaptations. We aren't "smart enough" to figure out how to parse the 2d images our eyes give us and deduce that they represent an external 3d world full of solid objects on our own from the principles of Bayesian induction. If the bits of our mental architecture that did that now were removed, we couldn't modify ourselves to build a new visual cortex, and even if we could, we wouldn't know how. This is true of a lot of the mind: we call ourselves intelligent because we can do things with pieces of our brain that we have no understanding of whatsoever. There's a profound difference between having a machine that understands language (which we have) and being smart enough to build such a machine from scratch when you need one.

Virtually all evolution of the brain is the compounding and refining of mental tools that the organism utilizing them could never understand or design on its own. Creating true AGI means creating the little mental add-on unique to humans that allows us to think symbolically and abstractly. If you ever end up with a "mouse-level" AI from that, then you have an AI capable of designing a mouse brain, which humans can't do right now. And if your AI can design mouse brains, which is a very foreign and arbitrary thing from the perspective of something that grew up in a world of math and computer code, your AI might be even more proficient at designing better AGI (which is a human-doable task if the AGI exists in the first place), at designing nanotech weapons, at breaking out of boxes, and at thinking of all the little loopholes that we never thought of because we just weren't as smart. Hence the danger of AGI.

Let me try putting it this way, too: Evolution has no particular interest in creating intelligence. It just looks that way to us because we're the most intelligent species in the history of planet, so our ancestors look like they were evolving toward us, when really they were just following the carrot-on-a-stick of reproduction and natural selection. Evolution created mice and dogs and chickens because they were, at one time, somewhere, what happened to survive in their evolutionary niche. They aren't "prototypes" of humans or of intelligent minds. It feels intuitive that if you created something stupid and then made it smarter and smarter, it would look like it was climbing up the chain of intelligent animals and ending with humans. Really, no such chain exists, since modern animals (including all the non-human apes) are not our ancestors, just our distant cousins. Even the real chain of ancestry that leads from us backwards in time is a highly arbitrary chain: it's the story of how a process that has zero intelligence managed to build an intelligent, sentient mind in only three billion years. Our AI creations have intelligent designers, and we don't have three billion years to get the job done. How intelligence rose here says little about how intelligence must rise in the general case, especially when we've changed the process so fundamentally already.

I hope this answers your question somewhat. -- Schaefer 17:08, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * [Note: this is a quick wrap-up of the draft that was laying around when the other stuff happened. My resp to that is in the appropriate section below.]


 * Well, thx yet again. Much of what you said was familiar to me from biology/AI/etc; but much also clarified your view of things. The SL4 references you offered confirmed that, while i feel closer to eg Ben Goertzel than others, i'm just not very SL4-ish in my approach to these matters. Some of why will be brought out below. (Also note that i'm focusing on the specific topic at hand, not all the interesting stuff on the list.)


 * Re "dog-level", etc: the main thing to say is that, with apologies for my hasty self-editing, i was only waving my hand in the direction of "premises of the SIAI/SL4 discussion", specifically "speed of progress", not trying to describe those premises, or my own views (of either evolution or AI). My words did come from ideas i'd recently read in Moravec's _Robot_ (see also Kurzweil, etc), using biological cases to exemplify degrees of "personhood" (my word, = ability to sense and interpret one's environment; possessing internal goals and means of evaluation of internal and external states; various modes of reasoning; world-models incl the past and future, both of oneself and the world incl other agents; etc). Suffice it to say that such shorthand doesn't imply that those exemplars evolved in a linear or teleological fashion. But our increasing success at a chosen goal does create linear progress different from the spreading bush of evolution.


 * In any case, my point was just to ask about the SIAI/SL4 premises, which i'll now categorize more clearly: 1] How close are we to seed AI, and how accidentally could we do it?, which incl 2] What hardware/etc resources will be needed? And what knowledge of various fields? 3] How advanced must seed AI be in AGI? And what else would it need? 4] How much self-improvement is possible within given hardware and other constraints? 5] How gradually will/could we approach seed AI? (that's all i really meant by the "level" talk) -- which is different from 6] How soft/hard will the takeoff be? 7] What kinds of pre-seed precautions could work? 8] What kinds of post-seed containment? 9] What could an escaped super-AI do (in a given world, such as our very near future), incl w/o broad human cooperation, incl re increasing it's scientific knowledge and technological abilities? Then there are background issues such as 10] How MNT will work out, plus 11] All the aspects of how to program safe/friendly AI, and finally 12] Evaluations of other approaches to ensuring friendly AI, such as political action.


 * As far as i can tell, the answers to these need to be in specific ranges for the SIAI approach to be the best way to go. I know i don't know about all these things, but we're writing because i'm researching it, and i have to live by what i see in the meanwhile; and my sense of maybe all the above areas doesn't fit SIAI/SL4, so far as i can tell. Since i agree about how important this issue is, and i'm eager to learn from those who've worked on it so much more than i have, i wrote you looking for critical discussion of these premises within the SIAI/Y's essays/SL4. I now feel confirmed that there isn't much -- not that satisfies me, anyway. I'll keep on looking into it, and i'll be interested in anything else you may want to send my way.


 * Thx again; hope this answers some things in turn, "alyosha" (talk) 00:59, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

My suggestion
alyosha, please take a look at this.--◀Pucktalk▶ 04:48, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Re: Talk:Transtopianism
You're doing a great job of riding herd on this one.--◀Pucktalk▶ 12:31, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Calorie restriction
Thanks very much for organizing the criticism areas a while back. I saw the need and division but it was honestly so offputting that I procrastinated :) You got guts and patience! Tyciol 09:26, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Precautionary Principle
Note: I inserted the link to the actual full decision, so people can read it, if they want to make the effort of finding it. Even though my blog was fictional, as you pointed out, the specific article was the actual transcript of her dissent, which I think makes it more valuable, but I won't argue the point. Hope the extra line, which is a brief summary of her precaution is O.K. in your opinion.

I also just discovered Wikipedia, and think it is amazing. You are my first human interaction, and first removal, so be gentle in your comments to me. I'm a sensitive guy!

Arodb 22:48, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[ms moved from user page:]

From beginner Arodb who is a real person Al Rodbell Alrodbell@yahoo.com

I'm really not as fragile as I made out, but more like awed that this is working as well as it does. Most of what you see on the internet, and really in the world at large, is a devolving. Messages are reduced to clear symbols with universal impact. There is no force that drives the general dialog of public life to more explicit language or conceptualizations. So, I expected that this would be the pattern in a medium that was open to anyone.

I think the explanation may be the particular audience, who happen also to be the contributors. We are the ones who actually enjoyed school. It was this amazing opportunity to "learn" to understand new things and new ways of looking at them.

I am a retiree, who just went on Medicare, but Wikipedia has made me feel like I'm back in school. But not the schools that actually existed, including Columbia Graduate School in Psychology, where the intellectual level was nil, but the academe of my fantasy, where people loved share and explore.

Regards

Al  BTW.. Is conversations such as this appropriate. Sort of like chatting around the water cooler, eh

Removal of name
Hi alyosha. The Wikimedia Foundation has had a letter of complaint about the comments above. I removed the name to remove the problem, it seems a small thing to solve this difficulty. I would ask that you don't replace it. I personally am not convinced that it will cause us legal problems (although IANAL) but I certainly think this is the courteous thing to do. Thanks for your understanding -- sannse (talk) 00:26, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Although policy is not the be all and end all of actions on Wikipedia, I would say the key one here is civility. It's courteous to Schaefer to allow him to withdraw a comment he is no longer comfortable with, and courteous to the complainant to remove a name (or the entire comment) when he is offended.  Of course, there are situations where we can't do this - when there is a complaint about a valid part of an article for example - but where it is a comment like this on a talk page it's often the right thing to do.  If you need the comment, why not copy it to an offline storage space?  Or simply use the page history when you want to remind yourself of it?


 * Beyond all this are the possible legal implications. While I think it unlikely that there is a risk here, that's just my non-lawyer opinion.  But the risk is to the Wikimedia Foundation, and there is no point in taking that risk for such a minor point -- sannse (talk) 09:53, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Hello again; thx for your resp. I do strive to be civil and courteous, and have tried to be so in this case (see User_talk:Schaefer for the latest there), and am always open to feedback. I also, as i've said, have lots to learn about Wikipedia policies/norms/etc, and welcome help on that.


 * So i'm fine with leaving the info off my page, mostly for the other editor. And oc i don't want to cause trouble for the Foundation (i've only edited to try to be a support), tho i must say i don't understand the risk in publically verifiable information, most of which (eg what you removed) is not even critical of the person in question. And i have so little energy for Wikipedia nowadays...


 * So while i agree to the removal, i just want to register my confusion (=newbieness?) and concern about the lack of freedom of information/expression that i'm getting from your resp to all this. I'm not feeling all righteous and aggrieved, or that it's the end of the world, and i know i don't know much about things like user talk page norms (tho i have asked...). But at the level of principle, i don't think admin-deletion of well-intentioned factual conversation on user talk pages is a "minor point" or a matter of "courtesy". There's also the precedent of admin stepping in on the side that threatens a frivolous lawsuit, which might not be a good road for the Foundation in the longer run. I could go on, but since i don't want to make a big issue of it -- and because, judging from wiki- and cyberculture, i'd think plenty of more-informed people would raise similar concerns, only better put -- i'll leave it with just this note. I do thank you for all your help with WP/WMF, "alyosha" (talk) 00:56, 3 March 2006 (UTC)


 * On talk page norms. There is a level of "ownership" on user pages and user talk pages, although those of us that have been around a long time dislike this trend and prefer to emphasise the wiki nature of all pages.  But you will find that people will tend to ask your permission before editing your user page in any significant way.  Some, like me, have a permanent permission notice up to try to offset this ownership idea.


 * Talk pages are slightly different though, because there is also a level of "ownership" over signed comments. It's considered very rude to change someone else's comment without making it clear that you are doing so, why you are doing so, and what you have removed (as you and I both did on your talk page).  In most situations, we just don't change other's comments.  So although Schaefer's original change was to your talk page, it was to his comment.


 * In both cases, there are things that you could put in your comments or on your user page that are likely to get them refactored or deleted. So it's not a total freedom in what you say and how you have your personal pages.  As always, there is a level of compromise and cooperation with other Wikipedians and what they think should be visible.  And policies are not the be all and end all round here - community norms and reputation count too (although this is currently a hot issue).


 * Where it comes to legal issues, it is a mater of judgement. And those of us answering the mail have to make that first judgement.  And what we have to judge is the consequences to the encyclopaedia.   If we are asked to remove a vital name from an article, we are very likely to refuse (this has gone as far as the first stages of a court case in Germany).  As I said above, in this case I felt it was low risk, but I also felt it was low cost.  You could easily save the comment, it was causing someone upset for it to be there, it's even still accessible in the page history - so to stop that upset, and remove all risk, I felt it right to remove the name.


 * I hope this all explains my thinking some more. -- sannse (talk) 18:46, 3 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Thx very much. I still have lots to learn, but now just a little bit less... [smile] "alyosha" (talk) 21:56, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Transtopianism
The article got deleted well quickly - before i could improve it. What happened? I reckon its a subject worthy of an article - even if mine wasnt great. Transtopianism is different from all other transhumanist orgs - mainly due to its rejection of morality. It is smaller than all the other transhumanist orgs, but still i reckon big enough to merit an article (has yahoo group of over 900). Just to point out, I wasnt advertising - im quite interested in transhumanism, was reading about it and found the transtopianism site. I was suprised i had not found this particular philosophy when reading about transhumanism on wikipedia - so i created an article. I didnt do it all in one go, and i guess not very well -but i think the subject merits an article. Also - here is some of the anti siai singularitarians you were looking for. Crippled Sloth 22:28, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Transtopianism"


 * I apologize for not seeing this and resping sooner -- i've dropped off a lot in wikiactivity, but i don't know how i missed the notice for this new ms.


 * A]


 * You'll pardon me for being both weary and wary of transtopianism: its hidden white supremacism, its attempts to pass itself off as a part of transhumanism either conceptually or as a significant (sub-)movement, and the ways the article keeps getting restarted and argued for. So maybe you're a part of all that, or maybe you just innocently stumbled into it all. Just in case it's the latter, here, out of all i could say and that has been said, are a few most salient resps:


 * 1] In spearheading the 2nd of the 3 (so far) deletions of this article, i did extensive research on it (it was my first deletion and i thought the std should be high). Incl in this, i visited the lists associated with the term, and found that the topics of discussion *were not transtopianism* -- so there was no evidence that the list membership could be counted as membership in that philosophy/group. If that situation has changed, i'd like to know.


 * In general, no evidence was found of any membership whatsoever beyond creative promotion of the site/idea by possibly only one person. There was no resp to my email to the transtopianism site re membership, and no resp by the admitted webmaster to discussion of this issue in the article talk page, even tho that person was actively editing the article. This i take as a stong confirmation that there is no significant membership.


 * 2] Transhumanism, as fringe as it may be, has a many-year history, thousands of adherents, formal organizations and offline events, and many publications incl statements and debates of belief/common ground/etc. The meaning of the term is thus fuzzy (like almost all terms) but well-established, and white supremacism disqualifies a philosophy/group from fitting within transhumanism.


 * Each person is free to combine ideas any way they want, and label them likewise. One could theoretically combine ideas from the labor movement with the idea that all jews should be killed -- but that would not make it accurate to say one's new philosophy of "labortopianism" was part of the labor movement. Nor would this one-or-few-person view, however promoted, qualify for a wikipedia article, esp one describing it as a branch of the labor movement.


 * 3] The issue of what merits a wp article is complex. Leaving aside the issues of original research, self-promotion, etc on the assumption that that's not what you're doing, my own view / way of explaining notability (which i feel confident is within at least the broader mainstream) is this. That even tho wp is not paper, granting article status to extremely unpopular topics creates an unencyclopedic misimpression of significance, esp when the article is linked to/from broader articles. Eg, say that i'm an environmentalist, and i -- or even a few of my friends -- think i'm interesting enough to merit an article. If i don't have objectively greater significance than thousands and thousands of other environmentalists (notable publications, major media coverage, a sizable following, etc), then an article on me will create an inaccurate impression of my significance. Looked at from a different angle, wp is huge but is still an encyclopedia, which means that the articles meet some criterion of general interest, even if by fewer people than for paper encyclopedias. Finally, all this will be made worse by linking the article on me to/from "Environmentalism" and describing me as an example of it; that article should be linked only to people widely associated with that movement. Even a list article of environmentalists, tho incl more names, should be limited to notable people -- otherwise the non-notables would both overwhelm the notables and be seen as too similar, making notable environmentalists hard to find and thus defeating the purpose of a general reference work.


 * B]


 * Finally, you mentioned but did not incl references to "anti siai singularitarians".


 * Hope this helps, "alyosha" (talk) 19:24, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: User name
You posted a question a while back about your username, that's I've just responded to here, if you're still interested. Though if you've gone this long without any problems, and given the comments on your user page, it may not be relevant anymore. Anyway, it's there if you want to look. =).  B. Mearns * , KSC 18:01, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Alyosha
Please remove the part about Alyosha and his wikipresence, because you do not know.


 * I searched and found no userpage or contributions by user:alyosha, so as far as i can tell the comment in question was accurate when it was written, and remains accurate. Please share any info to the contrary. Or maybe i'm not understanding you -- could explain your complaint? "alyosha" (talk) 17:02, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It's possible that he is under a username, not his real name.--Mac Lover Talk 18:02, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * You seem to have misunderstood. The statement you objected to was only about the username, not one of the many people with that name. "alyosha" (talk) 19:45, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * To explain further, just in case it helps: i put the "Intro / newbie note re my (user)name" at the top of my user and usertalk pages to clarify my username and the process of arriving at it, incl making sure that my settled username _"alyosha"_ not be confused with _Alyosha_. And to make that more clear, to show that i wasn't trying to impersonate and that i didn't see grounds for confusion, i pointed out that username _Alyosha_ was not and seemed never to have been active; so there was no active user _Alyosha_ that i could be confused with. That's all it was about. Make sense? "alyosha" (talk) 20:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, it does. Thank you for your time.--Mac Lover Talk 02:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

User Page Postings
Dearest alyosha:

You perhaps know this already, but you dont need to post incomplete articles in the main wikipedia space and would do well to post them off your own user page [User:alyosha/Transtopianism for example] you could then do a full mock up and even ask others in the wikipedia community to look at it (tho i dont actually know how this is done other than going to your discussion page).

i would also suggest that you do what some users (including myself) have done and keep track of the articles that you have authored and made significant contributions to. See the "My contributions" section of User:Paxuscalta

also one downside fo your new user name is that you can not browse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:alyosha

because wikipedia (i believe it is wikipedia, i can't imagine it is my browser) annoyingly converts the "a" in alyosha to a capital and then directs you to the wrong place.

thx for the edits to my entry. Paxuscalta 13:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * [Please explain]


 * Hi back!...but i have no idea why you wrote:


 * You perhaps know this already, but you dont need to post incomplete articles in the main wikipedia space and would do well to post them off your own user page [User:alyosha/Transtopianism for example] you could then do a full mock up and even ask others in the wikipedia community to look at it (tho i dont actually know how this is done other than going to your discussion page).


 * To my knowledge i have posted no such articles; please direct me to wherever it looks like i have! I'm curious why you used t'topianism as a suggestion: i got that one *deleted*. And tho i don't know what you're talking about, i'll add that it's often good WP practice to create a stub for an article you can't complete on your own.


 * The other input is appreciated, but i'm satisfied for the forseeable with all those issues. Actually (and it makes me smile and shake my head at the changes the years have wrought, that in any of this i might have a computer-related suggestion for you), i have no problem browsing my name: the "s are part of it and that's clear to the WP-experienced. And user names matching "real" names are not the norm; and in any case my realest name was taken. Also, WP converts the "s to wikicode, even from external searches; so even tho the page is really User:%22alyosha%22, just now my userpage was the 1st return from google for ``"alyosha" wikipedia``, and for ``alyosha user wikipedia``. I'm not sure i understand you, but i hope this helps.


 * And oc you're welcome for the edit. :^) Oh, and thx for the update -- please keep me on the list, even tho i have to plead insufficient time to resp, to that and many other things. But all the best on your (plural) decisions. (Hmm; multi-entendre.) A bit revised when less tired: "alyosha" (talk) 19:11, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

wta-talk
Support to you in keeping...hmm...what i'll call a protective but non-ownership even keel thru all this. "alyosha" (talk) 17:41, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you. :) --Loremaster (talk) 23:50, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Biased editing of Technological Utopianism by Loremaster.
Biased editing of Technological Utopianism by Loremaster.

Due to your past contribution to Singularitarianism, you may want to help editing the Technological utopianism article because currently only one editor is contributing to the article. The Singularitarianism Article could also benefit from your help.

I feel Loremaster is editing Singularitarianism and Technological utopianism in a biased manner in accordance with his Save The Earth propaganda. Loremasters's ideology seems to verge towards Neo-Luddism. Here are the damming facts Loremaster has stated in discussion:


 * Loremaster says he is:


 * Loremaster wants people to:


 * Loremaster sees his editing as a 'fight' and he states:

86.174.64.123 (talk) 12:58, 18 December 2010 (UTC)?

--Loremaster (talk) 13:13, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
 * LOL
 * 1) Despite the fact that I openly admit to being a technorealist who is critical of techno-utopianism in all its forms, I have let never this point of view influence any of my edits or reverts of the Technological utopianism article. On the contrary, I am the person most responsible for expanding this article with content some would argue is “pro-techno-utopian” (i.e. passages from James Hughes' book Citizen Cyborg).
 * 2) I find it disgusting that User:86.174.64.123 would take comments I made out of context to falsely make it seem I see my editing of any article as part of my fight for the environment.
 * 3) In light of this outrageous act of bad faith, I will do everything in my power to get this jerk banned from Wikipedia.

[spam removed, rant left -- "alyosha"]
Reason: --No response since Nov 2010--
 * Update as of 09/02/2012**

Seeing as you have not responded or taken any action whatsoever; I will be putting my original crappy MSpaint diagram back up as no one else has ever bothered to criticize it. I will concede that it - can - be improved and I certainly did my best to help you do just that. However, since there has been no effort on your part, let alone any response, I am going to ask you to not modify that page (or perhaps any others) until you learn to become a contributor and not a willfully ignorant detractor.

If there is something you don't understand I welcome you questions and comments.

Good Day.

So I see that you removed my graphical representation on the signalling page (which I created some years ago):

User talk:DmacGFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search I removed your Signalling diagram: no labels and nothing about it in the text -- useless for an intro article. But please put it back with an explanation! "alyosha" (talk) 22:37, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Just a little note to let you know - I created this page I had done the diligent research and felt I could contribute I referenced the original authors of the theory I drew the graph in MS paint so it is not fancy but it is elegant AND I did my masters thesis on a type of signalling model That graph had been up for many years with no complaints ever

Signalling theory, is, at first, hard to visualize for most. Conceptually it is somewhat simple to grasp. At it's very core (and it pains me to write something so oversimplified)

I have a gold star on my head, you don't, therefore I am perceived as better

Mahematical application is much more complex and when using 'real world' data sets it requires great attention to detail; otherwise one can quickly generate specious results. That is one of the main reasons I made the illustration myself. To minimize complexity and maximize informational value), and of course no copyright issues.

A very stern professor taught me that (obtaining my degree in computer science) true elegance (in code or logic...) is a work of art; just as beautiful as a Picasso or a live orchestra performing. And he was right! Sadly, very few people on this earth will ever be able to see it. If you want to get an idea what I am trying to explain take a look at: Binary sorting -> bubble sorting -> library sorting. It is very comparable to the experience of reading sheet music and then, for the first time ever, hearing it played on a piano.

I am not trying to insult you here at all, just trying to help you understand. -Afterall, isn't that what Wikipedia is all about?

I don't know your education but the following are requirements for this graph: (I feel like I'm writing a recipe)

Advanced / Intermediate knowledge of these areas of mathematics: Calculus (at least up to Integrals) Algebra (which I'm sure you know already)

It will help if you do these three in this order: Logic (proofs) Set Theory (Logic theory Graph Theory (Graph theory) Micro and Macro Economics (applied optimization) Statistics - Econometrics would be even better (a brief understanding of B.L.U.E. should do) and anything I left out (mens reae)- from your posts I sense a drive for intelligence so I assume you have a solid understanding of a variety of subjects.

I know it's a lot to take in but if you put the time in you will be amazed at how aPplicable this knowledge is in daily life. *(and you'll win every time someone tries to debate with you!) Oh Socrites, so sad you had to be executed before I could meet you.

Now: The diagram is explained in length in the body of the article. The article itself is a somewhat advanced area of economics and requires a certain knowledge level to fully understand it. It is harder to grasp visually unless you have a solid understanding of, well, a lot of stuff (as you see from above). When dealing with advances concepts, good graphical illustration is usually difficult to produce because you have to do something akin to say - using a notepad to explain seeing the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. So in my tiny graph I strive for elegance. I do not attempt to illustrate the whole work of art (the math and science part) because it is simply not possible. There is no 1:1 relationship.

So my rule is - as long as each axis is lablelled (and if possible give direct graphical examples) and it gives the clearest possible illustration (see necessecary vs sufficient) of the concept - it is complete. Elegance is always my goal but I am no super genius so I can only try my best; and I fail from time to time.

Long response, sorry, but I was angry when I saw what you did and wrote an initial response that was simply rude; deeming it useless was offencive. That is not my way - but you see, I failed. So I wanted to write you a proper response and it is up to you if you want to read it, expand your knowledge, understand my position whether you agree or disagree. And then you can decide what to do - put it back up - make a better one yourself - or nothing at all (which I think would be a shame).

DmacG (talk) 21:44, 24 November 2011 (UTC)DmacG

Haydn Symphony Dates
Glad to hear someone has taken an interest in Haydn's symphonies. One thing that might help you with the dates is a table on pages 29-32 of Peter Brown's Symphonic Repertoire Vol 2. see here. There are several reasons for descrepancies. First, some cite a "composed by" date based on the earliest extant copy while others try to pin down the composition date. Second, Landon is a towering figure in Haydn scholarship and many just cite dates from his 1950s volumes on Haydn without checking to anything has been learned since then (including by Landon himself). Also dating of some of the pieces where no autograph exists is an inexact science. There's room for some disagreement on the precise composition date of many of these pieces. Brown's table may provide other books/papers to research. DavidRF (talk) 01:23, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

A reply to an old question at voice type
Alyosha, you asked a question way back in 2009 at Talk:Voice type, which I honestly never noticed until I started archiving the talk page. Your question intrigued me since I've always loved singing Tallis in church and had never seen or heard of MAATB voicing before (and I am choir director). It took me about 45 minutes to find several references to the term, and I crafted a somewhat lengthy response to your question. I hope you still find the topic of interest. Best.4meter4 (talk) 21:49, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:38, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

A kitten for you!
get well soon.

Ozar77 17:11, 18 July 2019 (UTC) 