🚀 go-pugleaf

sulkom@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Mark Sulkowski) writes:
>dreamer@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Andrew Trapp) writes...
>>(Getting off the transhumanist subject for a moment, there's another scene
>>later in the movie where the monolith begins to eat up Jupiter, replicating
>>exponentially.  Could Clarke have foreseen gray goo? ....)
>
>	That is an interesting question.  Did the idea of grey goo come
>before or after "2010"?

Hard to say.  "2010" (the movie) came out in 1984.  Could be that Clarke &
Drexler simply came up with the idea independently of each other.  For all
of Drexler's genius, Clarke ain't too bad of a visionary either.

>>"Star Trek:  The Next Generation" has become a sci-fi hit on TV, likely
>>because there aren't too many substitutes.  :-)
>
>	Just wait for Babylon-5 in January!  :-)

I saw the pilot movie about a month ago.  It definitely has potential.  I
was happy to see that the anthropomorphism wasn't nearly as rampant as in
Star Trek.  It should be interesting to see how B5 turns out.

>	I love japanime, and it does have a lot of transhumanism, though
>everyone should be warned that it also has a lot of anti-tech themes.
>Nausicaa comes to mind.  I actually like Nausicaa, but it really pushes
>some radical environmentalist anti-tech ideas which I find repulsive.

Maybe their society was just REALLY, REALLY EFFICIENT.  :-)  I hardly
noticed the environmentalism, and it didn't really bother me that much.
At least they made an effort to be subtle about it, unlike, say, Captain
Planet.  *retch*

>	Wow!  Sounds promising.  I read _Contact_ several years ago
>and I don't recall how it was transhumanist.  What elements of that were
>there?  (All I remember was his silly, IMHO, idea that aliens would be
>searching for a message from God in the value pi, i.e. 3.14216...)

I recall that part as being that they were searching for some higher symmetry,
and found it; after some bazillion decimal places, in an odd base (11?), were
a bunch of 0's & 1's that spelled out a perfect circle.

What I remember as being (somewhat) transhumanist was the main character's
ability to rise up above the religious, anti-science objections to the 
construction of the wormhole device.  Though it was a long time ago that I
read the book, I remember being impressed with Sagan's treatment of the
religion-vs.-science matter.  (Being atheist, I also got a kick out of his
reference to the Bible as "half fairy-tale, half barbarian history." :-)
--
Andrew Trapp				dreamer@uiuc.edu

Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.

P.S. To Ricardo Mendez:  I'll try to send you more details thru private
email.  What was the error you received as to why you couldn't reach me?
In the meantime, try my account at atrapp@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu or if that
fails, post to rec.arts.anime.marketplace.