🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 02:19:28PM +0000, Dhu on Gate wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 15:55:29 -0500, Uncle Steve wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 08:34:25PM +0000, Dhu on Gate wrote:
> >> On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 11:28:59 -0800, Fidem Turbare, the non-existent
> >> atheist goddess wrote:
> >> 
> >> > On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 19:03:10 GMT
> >> > Dhu on Gate <campbell@neotext.ca> wrote:
> >> >> On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:15:59 -0500, Uncle Steve wrote:
> >> >> 
> >> >> > God is creating a militarized police state run by ignorant
> >> >> > right-tard fascists because he is Testing your children?
> >> >> > 
> >> >> > 
> >> >> > Regards,
> >> >> > 
> >> >> > Uncle Steve
> >> >> 
> >> >> I would think there's rather more free will involved than most people
> >> >> want to contemplate regardless of the (non)extance of God.  Works
> >> >> done in good faith are transferable, with suitable semantic mods,
> >> >> across frames of reference, which leads me to believe that our
> >> >> evolution still has some ways to go.
> >> >> 
> >> >> Dhu
> >> > 
> >> > The evolution of the human species has not come to an end.  We're
> >> > already seeing people born without wisdom teeth, and a million years
> >> > from now the human species as we know it now could be very different in
> >> > many ways.
> >> 
> >> A ?million years?   A million years ago we were beach apes that had 
> >> moved up to setting fires and eating road-kill.  
> > 
> > A thousand years from now, and perhaps much sooner, we'll be existing
> > instantiated in a computational substrate with vastly enhanced
> > cognitive capabilities.  Unless, of course, suicidal religious
> 
> Bug Life, eh?  I've got a Samsung S2 with what looks to be a fungal
> pr bacterial infection spreading across the OLED substrate, so I wouldn't
> think we'll want to entirely abandon physical existence so quick...  if at all.

The thing about consumer gear is that it is built cheaply so they can
screw you harder in your wallet.  Quorum sensing, high-availability
fault-tolerant systems are what's required, not to mention better
software.  That Samsung S2 is designed to spy on you, not to be
reliable and rugged.
 
> > fanatics manage to perpetrate some sort of grotesque global tragedy --
> > and I'm not talking about Muslims.
> 
> Ah, you mean the *Robot Wars*?  There will certainly be some questions
> about what it is to be human in fairly short order.  The ReichWinge push 
> for a genetic definition of a "human" proceeds not merely from the desire 
> to constrain the Liberty of women but also out of a great fear of machines... Luddites.

Not necessarily.  The Terminator scenario assumes that a meaningful
fraction of autonomous robotics control systems will be subject to
subversion with malware, which is rather unlikely unless the chip fabs
get in on the game.  Biological warfare would be easier.  Perhaps the
Taliban take over, get rid of all the scientists and engineers and
then dictate primitive living arrangements for whomever is left over.
If you don't like the Taliban, substitute "Military" and "police".

I am amused to read grandiose space operas such as the Dread Empire
series by Walter Jon Williams where millenia from now, the human race
has spread through the Galaxy, but yet still age and die in the
traditional fashion.  The characters are invariably oblivious to this
glaring technological obscenity.  The Star Wars saga is similarly
marred.  Perhaps some writers have difficulty facing their own
mortality and are unable to write about advanced medicine with the
same ease with which they write of advanced weapons of war.


Regards,

Uncle Steve

-- 
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it
flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.
  -- Friedrich Neitzsche