I’ve just assumed the role of Book Editor at TheBestSchools.org for its imprint TBS Press:
The press already has some interesting titles — check it out!
–Bill
Ray Manzarek’s 1973 album
I was a big fan of the Doors in high school and, after Jim Morrison’s death, kept my eyes open to what his fellow band mates were doing. I remember buying Ray Manzarek’s 1973 album THE GOLDEN SCARAB and enjoying his song “The Purpose of Existence Is?” The vinyl of that album has long since been lost and it’s been over 35 years since I last heard that song. It was fun listening to it again today. Here are the lyrics:
Do you think the purpose of existence is to pass out of existence
Is the purpose of existence
Do you think the reason for your being is to give up all your being
Is the reason for your being
Then why are you living, what did you come here for?
You must have wanted something, here you are back for more
Life and its treasures, love sweet pleasure
Don’t let it end, try it again, over and over again
Birth and death, full circle and another incarnation
Life is sweet and oh so neat, the greatest of temptations
Is your world so empty that you want off this cosmic wheel
Is your soul so weary that you think the life you feel is illusion and pain
Ha! You’re just lazy and afraid of life and its danger
To love you’re a stranger.
A connection between vaccines and autism
ABSTRACT: Vaccinations have prevented millions of infectious illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths among U.S. children, yet the long-term health outcomes of the vaccination schedule remain uncertain. Studies have been recommended by the U.S. Institute of Medicine to address this question. This study aimed 1) to compare vaccinated and unvaccinated children on a broad range of health outcomes, and 2) to determine whether an association found between vaccination and neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD), if any, remained significant after adjustment for other measured factors. A cross-sectional study of mothers of children educated at home was carried out in collaboration with homeschool organizations in four U.S. states: Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oregon. Mothers were asked to complete an anonymous online questionnaire on their 6- to 12-year-old biological children with respect to pregnancy-related factors, birth history, vaccinations, physician-diagnosed illnesses, medications used, and health services. NDD, a derived diagnostic measure, was defined as having one or more of the following three closely-related diagnoses: a learning disability, Attention Deficient Hyperactivity Disorder, and Autism Spectrum Disorder. A convenience sample of 666 children was obtained, of which 261 (39%) were unvaccinated. The vaccinated were less likely than the unvaccinated to have been diagnosed with chickenpox and pertussis, but more likely to have been diagnosed with pneumonia, otitis media, allergies and NDD. After adjustment, vaccination, male gender, and preterm birth remained significantly associated with NDD. However, in a final adjusted model with interaction, vaccination but not preterm birth remained associated with NDD, while the interaction of preterm birth and vaccination was associated with a 6.6-fold increased odds of NDD (95% CI: 2.8, 15.5). In conclusion, vaccinated homeschool children were found to have a higher rate of allergies and NDD than unvaccinated homeschool children. While vaccination remained significantly associated with NDD after controlling for other factors, preterm birth coupled with vaccination was associated with an apparent synergistic increase in the odds of NDD. Further research involving larger, independent samples and stronger research designs is needed to verify and understand these unexpected findings in order to optimize the impact of vaccines on children’s health.
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ABSTRACT: From about 8% to 27% of extremely preterm infants develop symptoms of autism spectrum disorder, but the causes are not well understood. Preterm infants receive the same doses of the recommended vaccines and on the same schedule as term infants. The possible role of vaccination in neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) among premature infants is unknown, in part because pre-licensure clinical trials of pediatric vaccines have excluded ex-preterm infants. This paper explores the association between preterm birth, vaccination and NDD, based on a secondary analysis of data from an anonymous survey of mothers, comparing the birth history and health outcomes of vaccinated and unvaccinated homeschool children 6 to 12 years of age. A convenience sample of 666 children was obtained, of which 261 (39%) were unvaccinated, 7.5% had an NDD (defined as a learning disability, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and/or Autism Spectrum Disorder), and 7.7% were born preterm. No association was found between preterm birth and NDD in the absence of vaccination, but vaccination was significantly associated with NDD in children born at term (OR 2.7, 95% CI: 1.2, 6.0). However, vaccination coupled with preterm birth was associated with increasing odds of NDD, ranging from 5.4 (95% CI: 2.5, 11.9) compared to vaccinated but non-preterm children, to 14.5 (95% CI: 5.4, 38.7) compared to children who were neither preterm nor vaccinated. The results of this pilot study suggest clues to the epidemiology and causation of NDD but question the safety of current vaccination practices for preterm infants. Further research is needed to validate and investigate these associations in order to optimize the impact of vaccines on children’s health.
The Future of Meaningful Work
Here’s an article I just published at TheBestSchools.org on the challenge of artificial intelligence to meaningful human work:
The Rise of Machine Intelligence and the Future of Human Work
… Threats to jobs from technology have been with us since the Industrial Revolution. But in reading the White House paper, one gets the sense “this time is different.” An extended box on page 20 titled “The End of Work?” (the question mark is especially troubling) raises the possibility of AI not just phasing out some jobs but instead phasing out all human work period, rendering human work passé because, if the promise of AI comes true, everything that we can do machines will eventually do better. But even leaving aside such a grand dystopian vision (which these days is promoted with a smile by singularity and transhumanist enthusiasts), the paper argues convincingly that many jobs as we know them now won’t be around much longer. The case study it presents about AVs (automated vehicles) and the human drivers soon to be displaced is hard to discount.
Here at TBS Magazine, technology editor Erik Larson has written a series of insightful articles questioning the more extreme view of AI, which sees AI as superseding human intelligence and rendering humans (and thus human work) obsolete (cf. his general critique of AI as well as his history of computer chess and account of IBM Watson’s computer Jeopardy! player). Against this “strong AI” view, he shows that AI (especially its machine- and deep-learning offspring) have not only failed to prove themselves a match for human intelligence but also seem intrinsically incapable of matching human intelligence (human intelligence considered broadly and not just for narrow tasks, such as playing chess or Jeopardy!).
AI advocates tend to treat expressions of such skepticism as lame attempts by technological unsophisticates to preserve a humanistic vision of the world that is destined to founder against the onslaught of technological advance. But Larson’s argument, and a similar one that I’ve been advancing for over 25 years, is motivated not by a desperate need to preserve human exceptionalism over machines but rather by a sober assessment of the nature of computation and its limitations …
Some cool videos re design
PUFFER FISH:
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BIOVISIONS:
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UNLOCKING THE MYSTERY OF LIFE:
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PRIVILEGED PLANET:
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CONSERVATION OF INFORMATION:
The Peerless Monetary Framework — A New Cryptocurrency Proposal
Peerless: A Radically Decentralized Digital Monetary Framework
Bill Dembski | 2016.11.01 | revised 2016.11.19
bill@peerless.money | www.peerless.money
Abstract: Decentralized digital currency that for its creation, value, and transmission depends intrinsically on more than one individual is not truly decentralized. Instead, a group consisting of multiple individuals ends up constituting a problematic monetary authority, however well-intentioned and however small in relation to the state. A radically decentralized digital currency would depend solely on the lone individual for its creation and transmission. Moreover, it would depend for its value on the individual (intrinsic value) or on an assignation of value by a trusted third party (extrinsic value) or on some combination of the two. Peerless is a monetary framework that enables the single individual to create and transmit money. The framework uses well understood cryptographic tools and can accommodate numerous types of value. Peerless is therefore not a currency per se, but a family of currencies based on different values capable of being encapsulated by them. The currencies within the Peerless framework all operate in the same way and can be organized into tranches capable of being combined, teased apart, and exchanged. Peerless is not merely a system of credit and clearing based on an arbitrary unit of account. It provides an actual store of value. Though purely digital and though issuing from a single individual, Peerless encapsulated currency operates according to precisely defined protocols by which it is able to exhibit the standard features we associate with money: scarcity, durability, divisibility, verifiability, portability, fungibility, and immunity to double-spending. But Peerless also exhibits additional desiderata: frictionlessness, globality (indeed omnipresence), complete privacy/anonymity, robust and expandable security, complex ownership relations (conjunctive as well as disjunctive), and automaticity (smart contracts). For Peerless to be able to achieve these results requires hashing, public key cryptography, digital signing, a publicly accessible digital space with permanent storage, and reliable timestamping. Peerless is in fact more than money: it is a cryptographic technology for claiming and transferring ownership of information, money being a key type of information that requires ownership.
SOURCE: www.peerless.money