Luhmanniac

There was an article by a German physicist in the Zeit recently, talking about the probability of the German nuclear program and so on. The sources we have prove that their ideas about fission were flawed and that they did not know how to calculate the critical mass properly and never even tried.

It says that many of the historical accounts were misinterpreted and that actually the Nazi regime could have hindered the engineers and scientists from coming forward with any ideas about a bomb because if they did they would fear for their lives (a) being constantly pressured and under surveillance so they would achieve it and b) imprisonment or execution if they failed to deliver)

Here's the link: http://www.zeit.de/wissen/geschichte/2016-12/ns-zeit-adolf-hitler-atombombe-entwicklung-werner-heisenberg-kernphysik

Sadly it's in German and I don't know if there's an English version around

Greetings Mr. Muehlhauser (as a person speaking German I like the way you phoneticized your name :) ) and thank you for doing this. 2 questions:

• What do you think of posthumanist thinkers like Moravec, Minsky and Kurzweil who believe it will be possible to transfer the human mind into a computer, thereby suggesting an intimate connection between human cognition and artificially created intelligence? Will it ever be possible for AI to have qualities deemed essentially human such as empathy, self-reflexion, intenional deceit, emotionality?

• Do you think it is possible to reach a 100 % guarantee for AI being friendly? Hypothetically, couldn't the AI evolve and learn to override its inherent limitations and protocols? Feel free to tell me that I'm influenced by too many dystopian sf movies if that's the case, I'm really quite the layman when it comes to these topics.

Do you think enough is (or was) done to bring the mafia down and stop their influence and power from spreading?

Surely you were in close contact with the police, was there anything you found peculiar about the way they chose to handle the kidnapping? Did you feel they know what they're doing?

Thanks for the reply.

Did they teach you the meditation techniques there or did you acquire that on your own?

Did you hate being around people you do not trust before, or did this emerge after you were discharged?

Were you "okay" with being discharged at the time, or did it come as a shock to you? What were your plans back then (as in how long were you intending on being enlisted originally)?

Sorry to hear about that accident. Don't lose heart !

I just finished watching American Sniper the other day, and I was intrigued by the scenes in that film that alluded to PTSD.

Have you tried to get into self-help groups or any sort of therapy involving a trained psychoanalyst/psychiatrist? If so, do you feel it is helpful at all?

Also, I have read numerous times that veterans that were part of the military for a long time have trouble reintegrating into society even without PTSD, as a result of being accustomed to having their day more or less planned out for them and not having to take care of many of the usual every day chores/duties of a civilian. Would you say that has been a problem for you as well, and what would you propose one can do to counteract it?