Essays reveal Stephen Hawking predicted race of 'superhumans'
The late physicist and author Prof Stephen Hawking has caused controversy by suggesting a new race of superhumans could develop from wealthy people choosing to edit their and their children's DNA. Hawking, the author of A Brief History of Time, who died in March, made the predictions in a collection of articles and essays.
[...] In Brief Answers to the Big Questions, Hawking's final thoughts on the universe, the physicist suggested wealthy people would soon be able to choose to edit genetic makeup to create superhumans with enhanced memory, disease resistance, intelligence and longevity. Hawking raised the prospect that breakthroughs in genetics will make it attractive for people to try to improve themselves, with implications for "unimproved humans". "Once such superhumans appear, there will be significant political problems with unimproved humans, who won't be able to compete," he wrote. "Presumably, they will die out, or become unimportant. Instead, there will be a race of self-designing beings who are improving at an ever-increasing rate."
Stephen Hawking's last paper on black holes is now online
Stephen Hawking never stopped trying to unravel the mysteries surrounding black holes -- in fact, he was still working to solve one of them shortly before his death. Now, his last research paper on the subject is finally available online through pre-publication website arXiv, thanks to his co-authors from Cambridge and Harvard. It's entitled Black Hole Entropy and Soft Hair, and it tackles the black hole paradox. According to Hawking's co-author Malcolm Perry, the paradox "is perhaps the most puzzling problem in fundamental theoretical physics today" and was the center of the late physicist's life for decades.
Black Holes and Soft Hair: why Stephen Hawking's Final Work is Important:
[Black holes] have a temperature and produce thermal radiation. The formula for this temperature, universally known as the Hawking temperature, is inscribed on the memorial to Stephen's life in Westminster Abbey. Any object that has a temperature also has an entropy. The entropy is a measure of how many different ways an object could be made from its microscopic ingredients and still look the same. So, for a particular piece of red hot metal, it would be the number of ways the atoms that make it up could be arranged so as to look like the lump of metal you were observing. Stephen's formula for the temperature of a black hole allowed him to find the entropy of a black hole.
The problem then was: how did this entropy arise? Since all black holes appear to be the same, the origin of the entropy was at the centre of the information paradox.
What we have done recently is to discover a gap in the mathematics that led to the idea that black holes are totally bald. In 2016, Stephen, Andy and I found that black holes have an infinite collection of what we call "soft hair". This discovery allows us to question the idea that black holes lead to a breakdown in the laws of physics.
Stephen kept working with us up to the end of his life, and we have now published a paper that describes our current thoughts on the matter. In this paper, we describe a way of calculating the entropy of black holes. The entropy is basically a quantitative measure of what one knows about a black hole apart from its mass or spin.
So if black holes have soft hair, is it possible to give them a hair cut?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @01:33AM (4 children)
Massively higher IQ Finns are the exact same species as nomadic Africans and aliens visiting the planet would scientifically conclude the same. Galapagos finches have slightly different beaks, though, so they're completely different species. Science deniers like those against climate change are so ignorant!
Must be great to be an NPC capable of such doublethink. Gene editing itself implies that certain traits, and yes, certain species are BETTER than others (because some go extinct), and what is natural selection but gene editing over time?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @04:42AM (1 child)
"Troll"? Repost!
---------
The true struggle is not between the oppressed and the oppressor; rather it is between these 2 groups:
Here is the alternative to Hawking's feared self-improvement:
HARRISON BERGERON by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. [tnellen.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 18 2018, @03:07AM
You know what's interesting? There are people out there who have a good career, go to the office a couple of days a week, work out, hang out with other interesting successful people. They all look much more attractive than you, have a calm life they enjoy, travel, just go through a peaceful day. They don't worry about things, they have funny jokes they make - they never worry about something to say so they never say stuff that's weird or retarded. This is most normal people. You have never experienced and never will, the calm pleasure of a regular happy life. Your own brain is your worst enemy, and you will never escape it. It's like being sentenced to a living hell from birth - and you'll never know you're living it.
enjoy your life chump.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @06:11AM
"Troll"? Repost!
---------
The true struggle is not between the oppressed and the oppressor; rather it is between these 2 groups:
Here is the alternative to Hawking's feared self-improvement:
HARRISON BERGERON by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. [tnellen.com]
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @07:05AM
Censorship? Repost!
---------
The true struggle is not between the oppressed and the oppressor; rather it is between these 2 groups:
Here is the alternative to Hawking's feared self-improvement:
HARRISON BERGERON by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. [tnellen.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @01:34AM (5 children)
The true struggle is not between the oppressed and the oppressor; rather it is between these 2 groups:
Here is the alternative to Hawking's feared self-improvement:
HARRISON BERGERON by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. [tnellen.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @01:57AM
Thanks for posting that Vonnegut story. Vonnegut's prescience is all the more striking in light of the climate of politically correct garbage-think that is so pervasive
these days.
Jordan Peterson has railed against forced "quality" for a while now, and his arguments are well-reasoned and quite solid. People who attempt to argue against Peterson invariably come off looking like fools, which of course they are, and Peterson exposes their true nature.
Anyone who is capable of thinking for himself understands that the notion that all humans are equally capable is utter bullshit. It is a form of intellectual poison. Don't allow yourself to be sucked into such wrongheaded ideas.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @04:06AM (3 children)
you mean "capitalist want others to build for them whilst not paying what the builders work is worth"?
very few capitalist want to build for IMPROVEMENT. rather it is for profit and for growth ... not sustainabilty.
ofc the following debate on what IS sustainable and its non-decidability, is a cornerstone of capitalism.
in the end a hard cold number colloquially refered to as "profit" wins out.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @04:44AM (2 children)
You have to test it in the real world; you have to grow your solution through evolution by variation and selection.
That's the only way, and that's why socialism will NEVER work: Central Planning is inherently impossible.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by acid andy on Wednesday October 17 2018, @09:13AM (1 child)
A corporation can and does do that, certainly. We just have a problem with it when the only selective pressure is for maximum profitability. There will never be much pressure from the market to be sustainable to the same degree that there's a pressure to be competitive and profitable. This is why we need regulation and for regulations to be consistent, the simplest system we know of is one that is centralized.
Heaven forbid that there might be a third option! Something like--I don't know--a compromise between those two extremes? To dismiss everyone that wants some checks and balances to be instilled on capitalism as the most extreme kind of socialist is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If you don't like central planning then show us a decentralized economy when corporations pay directly for all environmental damage and ethical harms they cause.
"rancid randy has a dialogue with herself[...] Somebody help him!" -- Anonymous Coward.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @05:51PM
Your reasoning makes no sense, because it depends on the "regulators" being men of finer clay. They are not; in fact, I bet they're coarser.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 17 2018, @01:56AM (12 children)
The word is eugenics. It has been around for quite a long while now. Margaret Sanger and Adolph Hitler were fans of eugenics, not to mention, fans of each other. The entire western world, if not the entire world, took a dim view of eugenics after Hitler's perverse actions against the Jews, the insane, Gypsies, gays, and political opponents.
It seems we have forgotten that history now. Eugenics is alive and well.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @02:00AM (3 children)
"The word is eugenics."
-
God damn, you are one stupid and simple-minded motherfucker.
Genetic modification does not equate to eugenics.
Tell me, does your knee hurt from all the knee-jerking you subject yourself to, son ?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 17 2018, @02:18AM (2 children)
You are clearly illiterate. WTF do you think eugenics is? WTF do you think genetic modification is all about? WTF do you think "superhumans" means? If I'm stupid and simple-minded, then what of Hawking? Maybe you think he's just another crippled moron?
Go get an education, alright? Come back when you are literate, and capable of discussing an issue.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @07:14AM (1 child)
you can have gene editing without eugenics.
my understanding is that eugenics refers to "select for breeding only those with desirable properties".
gene editing could simply mean "some people get to select the desirable offspring (i.e. choose the best egg-sperm combination)".
my interpretation of the summary is that Hawking predicts rich people will use gene editing, while the rest of humanity continues as usual; if the offspring of rich people continue with gene editing, then it is simply a matter of a social group choosing to breed within itself. I think this is mostly true now, as well, except that if they have gene editing capabilities then separation into a subspecies and then a different species is likely to occur faster.
it's not eugenics until regular people are forbidden to breed.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 17 2018, @03:08PM
Don't know who modded you flamebait - I think that was unfair. I think that you are being obtuse, but that doesn't rate a flamebait.
Now, let us think a moment. The filthy rich don't really need a lot of physical ability. Sure, they'll select for looks, or maybe for smarts, but they can BUY all of the physical ability they'll ever need. In fact, being a muscular rich man could be unattractive to other rich people. Why have muscle, when you can buy it so cheaply?
So, who, and what get's modified, to be stronger, faster, more enduring? Those who are just outside of the ruling class. And, maybe some middle class. There are your ubermensch. More muscle, less flab, no disease. Put them up on the auction block, let's have a look at their teeth, that little bitch has no hips, she can't be bred . . .
We had a discussion about that universal income business just the other day. Gotta keep the livestock fed, right? If the wealthy are feeding them and housing them, the wealthy can use them however they like. You too, YES YOU!! can have the finest gene editing for your children. Just sign these papers, signing over your child's first 40 years in bond servitude, and we'll fix your baby up.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by deimtee on Wednesday October 17 2018, @02:59AM (4 children)
Eugenics is now a swear-word.
Really it just means directed evolution. Select good traits, eliminate bad ones, we practice it all the time on farm animals. Doing it at the level of genes* rather than individuals simply speeds up the process and is morally better, as it reduces the pain/suffering/waste associated with normal evolution/breeding.
The real moral problem comes in defining good and bad with respect to people.
Some is easy, usually the bad stuff. Any gene that causes a disease, you are probably better off without.
Selecting for 'good' traits in people though, is a much harder problem and that is where all the controversy comes in.
*I'm not saying we yet have the technical ability to do this properly, but if we did it would be better.
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday October 17 2018, @04:52AM (3 children)
If you think "good traits for farm animals" means those animals are prepared to better survive the environment, I have bridge to sell you.
Maybe you should ponder a bit who would you like to have a herd master: it's very likely you will belong to the herd rather than the masters.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday October 17 2018, @10:11AM (2 children)
Define environment. Certainly the traits we select for on the farm would in many cases be counterproductive in the wild, but which animals do you think get selected for breeding, as opposed to ending up on the farmer's table. The fact that the environment and selection pressures are applied by humans does not mean that it is not evolution.
When I said better, I was referring to the difference between selecting in one generation all the traits you want, versus many generations of directed breeding and ruthless culling to get to the same point. Why do you like inflicting suffering?
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday October 17 2018, @10:38AM (1 child)
Here's the thing with that bridge, sweety, if you have the money for it...
I don't particularly like it, but I'm happy to serve you with if that's your desire.
It will be much cheaper than the treatment to create the super-humans in one generation, a thing you likely cannot afford. And once it will happen, it will be heaps of pain for the progeny you bred and their descendants, competing with the improved individuals who were having until now "only" the wealth as their advantage.
Because there's a clear cut dichotomy, there's no other alternative, right? Imperfect humans do need to get culled, no?
The non-genetically and phenotypically perfect bring no advantage to humanity, to hell with that Hawkins cripple with his radiation and hairy black holes, ain't it?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday October 18 2018, @01:12AM
Genetic hacking is a very hot topic in certain communities and people are modifying themselves right now. They are children of folks who hacked phones or did encryption at home. This is inevitable and coming fast. My bet is on penis enlargement or a drug in the bloodstream on will. Once somebody in Brooklyn lab achieves it, the whole flood will drown any resistance.
He is right - fasten your seat-belts.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1) by Mainframe Bloke on Wednesday October 17 2018, @03:20AM
May I recommend the current series of Boyer Lectures? They are on the very subject of genetics.
The first of the four is on the topic of eugenics, and it's quite a bit more than just that espoused by Hitler et al. I wouldn't necessarily say it's "alive and well" but of course it depends on what is meant by "eugenics", which the lecture explores in detail.
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/boyerlectures/back-to-the-future-of-eugenics/10338816 [abc.net.au]
The whole set of four is here: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/boyerlectures/ [abc.net.au]
cheers,
MB
(Score: 3, Informative) by jelizondo on Wednesday October 17 2018, @05:23AM
Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus.
Yesterday's rose endures in its name; we hold empty names. See here [umbertoeco.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @09:40AM
When you turn off natural selection, your species becomes a living fossil in an ever changing world. Less and less adapted as the time goes on. Somewhere along the way, the costs of compensating for the, multiplying, inherent deficiencies will become unsupportable; and unadapted beings will go the natural way of all things, with their civilization crumbling around them.
You cannot win against the nature by sheer obstinacy.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @02:23AM (9 children)
This is a perfect example of why expertise in one field, in his case Astrophysics, does not translate to expertise in another field, specifically biology and genetics.
I'm going to sound like a troll, I'm going to sound racist. I am neither.
So before anyone gets triggered, consider this from a purely "objectively moral" standpoint.
By objectively moral, I mean "doing that which you believe is best for the success of your own offspring" because in the end this is the only true objective morality.
We already "edit our genes", but the process is random.
Visit any country where people are predominately brown, such as Mexico and ask what they think of "marrying into whiteness".
This is in fact racist, but it is also a fact is that skin color is a trait, one which is easily modified by a few generations of selective breeding and one which partners do select for in their offspring by way of choosing a mate. The mate selection process is how we edit our children's genome, otherwise they would all be clones of us.
Women seeking to reproduce, tend to favor men who are the same color, thereby ensuring the offspring will fit in well with her desired caste, whereas men tend to favor mates who appear "exotic", in order to ensure the health of their offspring by reducing the odds of a recessive trait manifested due to inbreeding in close knit communities.
There are exceptions of course, but the general rule tends to hold except in countries where your skin color translates into job opportunities and perception of wealth.
At that point there is a conscious effort to bring offspring as far away from "bad skin color", just like we naturally reject a mate with other bad skin such as severe acne or warts or cancer.
Skin color here is as relevant as other signs of ability or disability we select for in mates where consciously or unconsciously.
There is no difference between editing after the fact and editing before the fact, either way you've had your genes edited you're no longer pure.
Does it matter if it's a cure for MD in old age, or a cure for Spinal Bifida or Cystic Fibrosis or even diabetes in youth?
For that matter does it matter that it was your genes which were edited?
How is it different that my genes are edited vs getting a nose job, or laser surgery on my eyes?
I've been edited, you've been edited none of us are pure anymore.
All doing it at a genetic level does is to ensure the maltrait does not appear in our offspring.
The argument that the rich will have it and exclude the poor is as valid as the rich have reproductive and other opportunities that are denied to the poor.
The poor are already denied many opportunities for reproduction, for example poor girls who are trying to climb socially will generally reject poor boys with little or no prospects. Yet inspite of that, the poor vastly outnumber the wealthy and their birthrates are much higher. Wouldn't you prefer these offspring be able to be productive members of society rather than collect disability their entire lives?
If we can control it, sure it will go to the wealthiest first, but the fact is this information is out there in the open and anyone with the right tools and training (and at the moment, lack of ethics), can take advantage of it.
Yes superhumans will rise, yes the current crop of humans are destined to die out.
However allow me to point you to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal [wikipedia.org] and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denisovan, [wikipedia.org] both of whom lived with modern humans until recently, and interbred with us, neither of which are around today, but their DNA lives on in at least some of us.
I would like to posit an alternative narrative to "superhumans are bad".
How about, "if you have the ability to bred superhuman offspring and you fail to do so, then you are objectively a bad person".
Denying your child necessary medical attention and or correction for a malformity hoping it will "build character", is borderline child abuse from where I stand.
Why condemn your child to a life of struggle, when for less than the cost of a new home you have them edited to completely remove their infirmities and to increase the chances of their success and their offspring's success ad infinitum?
Just imagine the amount of money we would save simply by editing out undesirable traits as soon as they are detected, and splicing in newer and better traits.
There is of course the moral counter argument of "unforseen side effects", but the counter, counter is that once the side effect is known, you edit it again.
I say make a certain level of editing, mandatory for poor and rich alike.
Really do we want to breed troglodytes? Do we want the troglodytes to breed?
We need to fix it, just like we need to solve other aspects of poverty, but we don't do so by denying opportunity to those who can afford it first.
Here is where programmers are in my mind superior to all others in morality.
You've written a program before haven't you?
The first version was buggy as hell wasn't it?
Over time you fix the bugs and then you fix the bugs that the bug fixes introduced.
Years later you still cringe when you look at the first 1.0 version, despite the nostalgia.
If you're doing it right you maintain strong source control via a revision control system, i.e. you have backups in case you make a mistake.
Your body is just a machine, running a program that makes you believe you're not just a cloud of atoms.
Every cell in your body is a computer and DNA is nothing but code.
Release the best programs you can write and maintain strict version control so you can fix bugs later, but damnit let's have fun with genomics.
Imagine being able to download an app to your body as easily as you download an app to your phone?
10% increase to fat burning, 20% increase to muscle mass. Ooops that increased caloric intake by 70%, and now my heart is overworked, let's uninstall!
Today I want blue eyes, tomorrow let's go with brown, oh cool this app changes my eye color to match my mood and this one changes my skin color to match my eye color.
The future is limitless as long as the troglodytes don't keep us living in caves cowering in fear at the shadows cast on the wall.
We have the opportunity to make the future as superior to what we have now, as we are from those people died out because they couldn't compete with modern humans.
I want to survive, I want my genome to improve and propagate until the last star burns out in the sky so sign me up!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @05:32AM
You won't. You don't have enough money and your level of intelligence shows nothing remarkable.
As a result: your genome will stay unimproved and is destined to become soylent green in a few generation.
(Score: 1, Funny) by aristarchus on Wednesday October 17 2018, @05:48AM
Ohhh! That sounds so much more sophisticated than "I'm not a racist, but. . . ".
Nice one, you inferior racist, misogynist, alt-right-sympathizing, neo-nazi, neo-confederate, neo-liberal, oathkeeping, proud boy, Fox-News watcher, eugeneticist!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @07:31AM (2 children)
You had a nice start, but
> I say make a certain level of editing, mandatory for poor and rich alike.
And which traits are gonna be undesirable to the party in power? Think a little bit about it.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Wednesday October 17 2018, @12:06PM (1 child)
You seem to have inserted "Traits" where most conversation about editing has been about "Diseases".
Are you concerned that 2 superwealthy people will choose to modify the ethnicity of their offspring? Or that once a society hits a level where it is capable of rolling out compulsory gene modifying to every member of the population, they'll do it first to make them ethnically homogenous? Walk me through the timeline here. Do you think if suddenly, overnight the US government had the ability to do this, that it would be able to decree and enforce a mandatory whitening/blackening/insert colour here of all the populace?
This is such a common mistake of badly thought out SCI-FI. They think that a society capable of these amazing feats still has hang ups over something they MUST have grown out of before they reach those levels. A society that understands genetic to such an extent that they can selectively remove negative traits will have along the way come up with absolute proof that ethnicity, no matter which, is not a negative trait.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 18 2018, @11:05AM
Have you never heard of bait-and-switch or even just scope creep if you wish to give them the benefit of doubt... And where did you get ethnicity into the discussion?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @11:49AM
That's as far as I bothered reading.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday October 17 2018, @06:05PM
By objectively moral, I mean "doing that which you believe is best for the success of your own offspring" because in the end this is the only true objective morality.
Not in a communal species it isn't.
That huge brain on your offspring requires a 9-month gestation period making the individual's survival more risky. By your definition the very adaptation that makes our (communal) species successful is objectively immoral.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday October 17 2018, @11:27PM (1 child)
That is patently false because it's your own offspring and hence, is a highly subjective morality. What happens when there is a conflict between the interests of your offspring and those of someone else's? We end up with two different "moral" answers depending on which point of view one chooses to acknowledge. Having said that, an objective morality would acknowledge that conflict exists and seek a resolution that is invariant (by definition of objectivity) of point of view.
Here, there isn't much of a conflict. You might have some competitive disadvantage due to the in group effect of "superhumans" looking out for each other. But not enough to ban genetic modification.
As to the discussion of DNA as code, sure you can revert and such. But lot's of harm from bad changes can't be so reverted. For example, if a tweak results in people born with permanent brain damage, reverting their DNA isn't going to help with that.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 18 2018, @03:22AM
!!! KHAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Spock: "Curious, his maneuvers suggest 2-dimensional thinking."
(Translation: arrogant genetically modified super human not too bright. Word to the wise.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @03:16AM (1 child)
Black Holes have no hair, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-hair_theorem [wikipedia.org]
Yet the paper posits that they might actually have hair, as a way of escaping the information paradox.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox [wikipedia.org]
We already know that blackholes encode their information on their surface, there is no volume to speak of, only area.
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Bekenstein-Hawking_entropy [scholarpedia.org]
So maybe the paradox is a false one.
Wouldn't it be simpler to say that the past is as uncertain as the future, i.e. multiple past states existed and came together and are still coming together.
Thus information is not lost as long as you were the observer watching it go in, yet it is destroyed from the perspective that if you watched the blackhole decay then you'd have no way of knowing which photon that escapes, mapped to which photon that went in.
This is so easy to think about that I struggle to understand why it's such a debate, perhaps I'm just looking at the view from Mt Stupid, but...
We already know that blackholes are 4 dimensional curves in space and time. That is to say that inside the event horizon, spacetime twists until it loops in on itself, it is a closed time like curve, therefore it stands to reason that once you cross the event horizon, time must be repeating and is likely moving at a different rate relative to your internal clock.
This means that anything that enters a black hole is going to be smeared across the surface as local time in that hole repeats itself.
I think of this like a CD stuck on repeat, getting damage from normal physical stresses, i.e. a real CD in a real player, not an idealized one..
Let's call the blackhole collapse point T0.
From the outside observer looking in (outside the CTC but inside the event horizon), time cycles itself playing the same selection of frames from 0.0000000001 to 0.999999999 over and over again like a CD on repeat. Each time the replay starts over, T is incremented by 1, so T0 is the first pass, T1 is the second pass etc.
Now scratch the surface of the CD or CTC at some point during T10.
This scratch is equivalent to new information, it has altered the surface and from now on it is a permanent part of the surface.
The scratch will be seen and heard by anyone listening to the thing play after T10, but no one who wasn't present during T10 would have any idea where the scratch came from.
Eventually the CD begins to fatigue and wear out, this is from mechanical and heating stresses, but in the case of a black hole it's from 4D gravitational and time stress, i.e. entropy in the black hole is increasing each T cycle and this entropy or noise carries over, similar to a CD collecting dust and scratches.
The bits being destroyed on the surface are dissipated as heat or entropy, i.e. hawking radiation.
Eventually the CD no longer has enough information to play.
Eventually the CTC inside the black hole no longer has enough information to repeat.
In the beginning the CD has 50 tracks, near the end of it's life only a handful of tracks are remaining.
In the beginning the CTC has 50 solar masses, near the end if it's life only a handful of solar masses are remaining.
They both cease to function when they no longer contain enough information to play.
In the case of the CD you have a useless platter where the information encoded on it is now long gone, replaced with a maximally entropic state.
In the case of the black hole, it explodes with the surface being released as photons in a maximally entropic state.
Yet if you were an observer watching things happen and could somehow see the things falling in, then you would have memory of those events, the information isn't truly lost because it is encoded in the memory of the observer. For non-observed information it also is not lost per se, it is maximally entropic. The stuff is still there, but it's scrambled beyond any ability to unscramble it without the aide of information obtained from an external observer.
In the case of a black hole though, the entire universe IS an external observer as things cross the horizon and this seems to be the key that is missed in all these attempts to solve the information paradox.
Furthermore, if the Universe is evolving towards a multiverse, it stands to reason that a neigh infinite number of multiversal realities also observed the events. Those observers are closer in terms of their quantum states than observers who did not share observations, thus in this case it is a collapse of the entanglement of multiversal observers with the object being observed, that truly preserves the information.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @05:35AM
Yeah... a blackhole that is not observed is gonna live forever, but as soon as an observer shows up, it will start decaying until it explodes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @04:12AM
it seems one of these blackhole hairs extended towards earth last week and had a brush with wall street...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Subsentient on Wednesday October 17 2018, @04:40AM (11 children)
The hyper-conservatives don't realize they're pushing for this future.
Every time you give tax breaks to the rich, oppose minimum wage laws, loosen corporate regulations, you're giving the type of people who will *use this to enslave us* a bit more power and bringing them closer.
I'll be honest. I hate the super rich. I hate them, not because of their money, that while undeserved and often irritatingly unfair (inheritance, never will have to work a day in their lives) doesn't say anything about their character in and of itself, and I can otherwise honestly overlook. I hate them because they behave like monsters with no concern for anyone else. There's studies that show the rich tip delivery drivers and waiters much less than the poor. I tip because I know these people are trying to survive. The super rich don't care.
At the end of the day, we're already too late. Technology has advanced too far and the masses have wisened too little to put a stop to this before it becomes reality.
Corporatocratic police state awaits us, and after that, dystopian genocide of the masses. We won't be enslaved, they'll have robots to do the work.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday October 17 2018, @06:24AM (1 child)
"I See Pitchforks" [warplife.com].
That I stated that Hitler was "a gifted writer" is due to my only having read his introduction to "Mein Kampf". Those that have read the whole book pointed out to me that Hitler's writing quality proceeds steeply downhill from there.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Subsentient on Thursday October 18 2018, @03:44AM
I read the beginning of Mein Kampf, I hated it. I hated his entire ideology and world view. My dad would not be pleased at my reaction.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Wednesday October 17 2018, @09:48AM (2 children)
> There's studies that show the rich tip delivery drivers and waiters much less than the poor. I tip because I know these people are trying to survive. The super rich don't care.
A rich man once told me, "Nobody ever got rich by spending money". While succinct, it is the truth, although it is a bit more nuanced.
Half the battle to becoming well off is to earn the money, but the other half is to not let it slip out of your fingers afterwards. Some of the most miserly people I have ever met were rich, while some of the most generous were poor.
The rich would rather invest the money then spending it. The difference is an investment offers a return to the investor. Most rich people I know would rarely spend their earnings, rather they would invest their earnings, and then spend the returns from that investment. For example, they would take their earnings, and buy property, then rent it out. They would spend the rent money, because that is being earned by someone else (the renters, who pay the rent). The ownership of the asset stays with the person who bought it, and if they sell it they will get their earnings back, all the while getting an income for little to no work.
While most people would just spend the money they earned directly. When they see rich people not wanting to spend their money, those rich people get called greedy, miserly, etc...
> Corporatocratic police state awaits us, and after that, dystopian genocide of the masses. We won't be enslaved, they'll have robots to do the work.
I am not so sure, those who are psychopaths/sociopaths and who are in positions of extreme wealth and power, those who like to lord over others, need underlings. If all the peasants are wiped out, who will they be able to lord over? Robots are not quite the same.
I don't know what the future will hold, to be honest, if robots and basic AI become ubiquitous, they would inevitably be used for warfare. I can imagine that future rich people would have their own personal "Droid armies", and in many ways become as powerful as nation states. I guess a return to the old days of small kingdoms ruled by their families would ensue.
On the flip side, we might finally be able to unlock space resources with robots and AI. It is much easier to send semi-disposable automatons into space to do mining, especially if we can design them to survive in the space environment for extended periods of time.
Either way, the future would be a very interesting place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @10:17AM
... and unless things turn around, pretty soon, Lunch.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @12:40PM
So, Trump got rich by his daddy giving him all the money while it was slipping pretty fast through Donnie's fingers.... how does that work again? You avoid paying taxes on the first billion and then you write off the next 5 while rolling the capitals gains?? Like that??
Maybe the most important part of getting rich is fucking the right cock? Just ask Melania. Oh, the truth maybe a little brutal, but seems to have the same recipe for the last thousands of years.
https://toomuchonline.org/the-self-made-myth-our-hallucinating-rich/ [toomuchonline.org]
Oer 60% of rich inherited it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @11:52AM (1 child)
If the super rich can devise a method of genetic engineering that results in they themselves producing children who are worth pissing out when on fire, then I'm actually all for it.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday October 17 2018, @12:18PM
Evacuation of a stream of worthy children from ones bladder when on fire?
Quite some "el sueño de la razón" imagery here. Certainly beats being able to fly, agile as a monkey and a totally hot chick magnet [tvtropes.org]
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 18 2018, @01:53AM (3 children)
Except of course, for the many, many times that doesn't happen. I oppose tax breaks for the rich, but the other two you mention are desperately needed through large parts of the developed world.
And I don't hate the "super rich" because that's just a pretty bit of fiction.
Let us note that there are studies [foxnews.com] that reach different conclusions on tipping behavior.
Moving on:
Put a stop to the biggest improvement of the human condition ever [soylentnews.org]? Why would we want to?
Did you run that by the NSA before you posted it? Remember the governments of the world also tend to be the biggest corporations of the world with the most secure revenue streams!
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Thursday October 18 2018, @03:29AM (2 children)
>studies
>posts link to Faux News
lol
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:33AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday October 18 2018, @08:57AM
Yes. Fullstop. Or it was completely fabricated. Fairly unbalanced. Why are you such a naif, khallow? Consider the source! (Does your dictionary have "faux" in it? I know it's a French word, but apropos in this case for the entrepreneurs that the French do not even have a word for. [wordpress.com] )
(Score: 5, Interesting) by nobu_the_bard on Wednesday October 17 2018, @11:58AM (3 children)
Steven Hawking was incredibly intelligent but he was a physicist. He was not a social scientist, any form of medical expert, or any such thing. You've got to take anything he says outside his field of expertise with a grain of salt.
Similar stuff has surrounded many famous scientists over the decades making crazy predictions and proclamations outside their field of expertise. This isn't a new phenomenon.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 17 2018, @08:33PM (1 child)
He's had 50 years of sitting in a wheelchair with his body suffering atrophy to ponder what it means to be on the wrong side of the genetic lottery, and he's had intimate experience in what it means to live and be treated in a "normal" society while being in that condition. I don't know how much outside his field of expertise he is, and I will put a LOT more weight in his opinions and predictions in those areas than I would if he was trying to sell me on the wonders of vitamin C and longevity.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 18 2018, @01:58AM
Still doesn't make him an expert on the subject.
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday October 18 2018, @01:05AM
Social scientist and medical expert are both oxymorons.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.