>From: Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se>
>I disagree. Distinguishing between dangerous and safe objects is
>impossible in general, and I know of no mechanism in the immune
>system that makes such a choice. Rather, the T-cells get "trained"
>in the thymus to not signal against surfaces found in the body,
>but to search for other surfaces. It seems that we have low
>numbers of antibodies against nearly every possible epitope,
>including antigen surfaces we have so far not encountered.
Yes, we exhibit immune system reaction even to manmade chemicals
which do not naturally exist in nature.
But there are numerous organisms which do live in out bodies
without provoking immune system reactions, many have evolved "non-
threatening" chemical coatings. Without trying to carry the
metaphor too far I was simply saying that our bodies don't reject
all foreign objects and of course neither should our society.
>Mites and gut bacteria are normally not in contact with the immune
>system.
Actually I thought the skin itself had some immune functions, guess
it's back to the books.
>> Does freedom of information mean freedom of instantaneous
>> information?
>An interesting question. I think I would come down on the yes
>side. I can imagine the use of embargoing information for a while,
>but who gets to decide on for how long? If that decision is not
>possible to appeal, then it becomes possible for in
>information-embargoing groups to control information just as if
>they were doing actual censorship, simply by putting an extremely
>long embargo on the information. Once you start circumscribing
>freedom of information - even in the best interest of
>many people - you allow further, just as reasonable, decreases in
>freedom of information. Banning certain media can limit the flow
>of information tremendously, and if new media are not
>automatically given freedom then the effective freedom of
>information might decrease - in many countries you may have the
>right to write what you want on paper or in letters, but if it at
>any point becomes digital it is suddenly not free.
I think we have to draw a distinction between freedom of
information and mass media. Mass media outlets in this country are
rarely even remotely fair, prefering to bias a story to their own
views. This is the problem associated with out attempts and the
networks out of Quatar.
I oppose giving the media access during specific phases of military
operations as an example.
>http://www.well.com/user/jaron/topspintx.html
>http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier/lanier_index.html
Thanx
Brian
Member:
Extropy Institute, www.extropy.org
National Rifle Association, www.nra.org, 1.800.672.3888
SBC/Ameritech Data Center Chicago, IL, Local 134 I.B.E.W
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:12 MDT