🚀 go-pugleaf

Chris wrote:
> 
> klaatu wrote:
> >
> > Chris wrote:
> > >
> > > Adam Kippes wrote:
> > > >
> > > > In <36603EED.884DD247@earthlink.net>, Chris <lightpony@earthlink.net>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Was there less poverty when there were fewer people on this earth?
> > > >
> > > > > > > Maybe not...but it was less widespread.
> > > >
> > > > > > What does that mean? Until not so long ago, there were (compared to today)
> > > > > > very few people on earth and virtually all of them were dirt poor.
> > > >
> > > > > It means less people = less of anything - wealth, poverty, cities,
> > > > > roads. You name it.
> > > >
> > > > To put it as politely as possible... you are a fatuous idiot.
> > >
> > > To put it slightly more politely - less still = less. I can see where
> > > getting wasted by such a basic yet elegant principle would cause you
> > > some discomfort. but I'm guessing who or whatever you are channeling
> > > about relative levels of global poverty can consult Ramtha or some other
> > > multiple life deity for a check on absolute levels of poverty by epoch.
> > > The best you're going to get on today's model is that the poor have more
> > > consumer items - but if one measures poverty by lack of domicile or meal
> > > (the only real measures) it becomes evident that less total people =
> > > less poor people. I don't know of any society ( and melissa's ex. of
> > > China was apt) that has bred itself up from poverty on raw numbers. Do
> > > you?
> > >
> > > Now try and put on a happy face - I'm going back to my prayer mat!
> >
> > Enjoy yourself there. Look at the whole thing from the futurist prospective,
> > when in about 20 or 30 years they have finally gotten around to true
> > self-metaprogramming nanotech, it won't _matter_ how many people there are,
> > because the Engines of Creation will be quite capable of converting damned
> > near anything into damned near anything.
> 
> Oh I'm guessing you've heard the nano tech guy on Art Bell....

Heck no. I've been following the issues around nano since it emerged. I've
been a lifelong fan of science-fiction, more heavily into the science than the
fiction. If I could get paid for doing what the best of the hard-SF crew do,
in-essence being something between prophets and educated-guessers pushing the
envelope at the far side of their professions, I guess I'd be a Futurist.
Buckminster Fuller, the visionary, developed the geodesic dome. An allotrope
of carbon bears his name, "buckminster-fullerine" or "bucky-balls". From
buckyballs you can get nanotube. From nanotube, you can build mechanical
devices on the nanometer scale. People have been talking about doing this for
nearly 20 years, but something like five or six years ago, Xerox or IBM or
someone used a scanning-tunnelling electron microscope to etch their corporate
logo on the head of a pin and the race was on. Who could possibly be the first
to carve out a nanoscale gear? wh could be the first to stick two gears
together? who would be the first to create a non-biological electric motor
smaller than the flagellum of _euglena_?

For more links to the fascinating world of nanotech, please see
http://www.clark.net/pub/klaatu/nanotech.html

some links might be a bit outdated but I will be fixing them "real soon".

> 
> > But supposing we don't go that route, and also don't Blow Up The Big One. As
> > automation increases, we would do quite well to bring down the population
> > levels to the point where we needn't totally rape the ecology to provide mere
> > creature-comfort to a world full of drones who are needed (for now) for work
> > that would be better done by robots. The ideal is a very high level of
> > unobstrusive technology that essentially supports itself in steady-state mode
> > while turning out very high-tech products such as medicines and refrigerators
> > and teledata comtech and effective transportation _at sustainable rates with
> > no planned obsolescence_. Unlimited Growth Models are obviously a thing of the
> > past.
> 
> We are Borg - we will please you???
> 
> I kind of like the idea - you been reading my mind then?

Sorry, not a telepath. But then again, I am probably the politician of the
future, I've been thinking, for the last twenty years, "what will the world be
like 20, 30, 50 years from now?" - and I've done my best to study the best
predictions by the best predictors, those who are actually making it happen.
And I look at what was, and what is, and I add a smidgen of good dreams to
take the edge of the looming nightmares... but I'll never let anyone for a
moment forget that when it comes to planning the future, a well-educated and
alert paranoia is the only inoculation against those potential nightmares. But
forestall the possible horrors, add the inevitable progress, and what have you
got? Beauty.


-- 
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