The US military is very, very interested in information warfare. They would love not only to block enemy communications, but issue false orders. The ultimate "cyberwar" trick would be to take control of the head of state's communications channels and send false orders to the troops (or better yet, manipulate public opinion to bring a hostile country to a grinding halt or prevent a dangerous leader from being elected). I'm sure they're really bummed out that they're not allowed to do so.
Basically, I think they got together a group of experts in international law and asked them "How much can we get away with?" After all, they need to know what they can admit to in public...
IMHO, slashdot is full of people who are bright but very egotistical. They give two minutes' thought to complex issues they don't know any background on, then post their views.
There's a lot of garbage to sift because posters don't worry about being wrong.
Heh heh, you sound like a Heinlein character. Remember the way the teacher spoke in Starship Troopers? I love it, you can't get deeper indoctrination than convincing people that you've derived "should" from "is." (logical notation my left buttock!)
..."Identify which advanced features listed above are needed to solve each problem, and explain how those features would work together." implies to you that the answer should include why you would do the thing in the question.
If he asked about the ethics of the actions, or how the use of these "advanced features" could affect society it might have been an interesting exam.
BTW, don't be so hopelessly naive. People go to university to get a piece of paper that makes corporations believe they know something. It is a required first step onto the corporate ladder, and few people would go to university if degrees were not required (in many cases by law!) for most decent jobs. Learning to think critically and to learn are things you do on your own; IMHO, most technical people picked these things up before high school and take them for granted, while people who choose to take these flakey courses have no grasp of such things and only come to think they have them when they've learned to regurgitate the products of more fertile minds.
Maybe I misread it a bit, thinking "If you can answer all these questions, you probably know why thousands of new laws are not the right way to make the Web 'safe'." was in the text of the exam. But given that little header, it seems pretty obvious what kind of answer he's looking for.
The questions themselves assume that use of certain of those "advanced features" can solve the problems.
Several are of the form: you want to break the law, how do you do it? Or: some bad information hurt you somehow and you want to get back at the people who spread it (or at least stop them from spreading it), how do you do it?
Some of them, to me at least, demand legal action (ex. false advertising killed your aunt; both criminal charges and civil suits would be appropriate). Others can be answered with "you'd be breaking the law, don't do that." However, these kinds of answers are clearly not allowed, as the form of the question demands a technological solution.
The fact that you aren't allowed to suggest laws to pass (or suggest removing the laws that are the obstacles) means that to obey the form of the exam (clearly the only way to pass) you must do your utmost to support his view that laws are the wrong way to deal with these problems.
Hmmm... If you write answers supporting my political agenda, you pass the course.
Geez, I would have gone berzerk if one of my professors tried to force his views down my throat in this manner.
Not that I don't agree that new laws aren't the answer...
Umm, wasn't Netscape _that_ evil corporation?
on
Everything Microsoft
·
· Score: 2
It was Netscape that killed off the browser market. HTML was a nice, simple standard that Netscape Embraced and Extended to death. Netscape made no attempt to conform to standards; once they got out front they smothered competition because the lavaflow functionality of Netscape is nearly impossible to reproduce and the web designers were lazy enough to just make things work with the most popular browser. Only MS was sufficiently powerful and evil to outdo them at their own game.
You still can only view some websites properly with Netscape.
Have no sympathy for a lesser demon even if Satan himself stomped him.
Let's face it: MS does not have and never had a monopoly on operating systems. The very idea of such a monopoly is ridiculous. They don't have a monopoly on operating systems for Intel computers. They don't even have a monopoly on Windows binary-compatible operating systems (OS/2 ran old windows stuff just fine, and with OS/2-win32 (Odin) has been running win32 stuff usably for a while; never mind WINE).
What they have is just a very popular OS. An unstable, fragmented, crappy OS that has risen to popularity at least in part due to aggressive bundling strategies, but still merely very successfully sold.
I hate MS as much as anyone. I think they use unfair business practices that hurt the consumer and the industry. But there is no monopoly.
You have to ask yourself, do you really want a justice system that is willing to ignore the truth to get the results it wants? Is it okay as long as it's to destroy someone you hate?
If I remember correctly, they were seeking uniquely impure diamonds. Essentially, they wanted diamonds that were pre-doped with a certain element that turned them blue and made them a good substrate for circuits.
1) How fast can a computation happen (in a physical system) in theory? A: The answer depends on the physical system. There is no hard theoretical limit on computation speed (only unreliable estimates based on current and developing technologies).
2) How fast could molecular gates and molecular bits effect a computation? A: The answer depends on the way these gates work. Who knows? Maybe they will use quantum tunneling to have a gate delay shorter than the time it would take light to pass through the space the gate occupies.
3) How do you estimate these numbers would translate into Teraflops? A: Teraflops are meaningless out of context, and they are highly dependent on design. There is no limit to the teraflop rating of something made with current technology if you allow SMP.
Everybody has heard the idea of single-molecule memory before, and this story gives no details whatsoever. It doesn't say how the memory would be accessed, it doesn't say anything about the molecular structure. It says that it's been demonstrated, but not the manner in which it has been demonstrated. Have they somehow hooked up little wires? Are they using an AFM or STM? Data has been stored and retrieved chemically before (aside from DNA, changing chemicals to a different colour with light, for example), this would only be interesting if they really are working with single molecules (in a fashion that lends itself to fast access to large arrays; no STM, no complex laser or electronic rig for each molecule, et c.), which the story doesn't establish.
It seems to suggest to me that the memory in question is, in fact, a type of ROM: "...all [it] now needs is a reversible single molecular switch" (my emphasis), making the comparison of molecular stability to refresh cycles in DRAM even more inane. I don't really believe this is the case, but the story is so weak I can't be sure.
IMHO, stories with no meat should not make it to slashdot.
Scientific peer review says "this is right" or "this is wrong."
Slashdot moderation says "this is worth reading" or "this is not worth reading."
You can ignore/. moderation, but if a paper doesn't pass peer review it doesn't even get published. There is no section in the back of scientific journals for "crackpots" (unlike the bottom of the/. page).
That quote was taken out of context. I was referring to "the coercive redistribution of wealth without regard to your contribution."
There's nothing the GPL that says you can't sell what you write, but selling a GPL'd product is not a viable source of income. Selling support might be, but not selling that which can be copied freely.
We do not depend on fuel oil, it is merely used because it is the cheapest thing for the job right now. Things like biodiesel and plant-derived alchohols could easily take up the slack, if need be (never mind solar power, fission power, or the just-out-of-reach fusion power; any of which could provide all of our energy needs if necessary).
Don't be too sure we'll run out of oil any time soon either. I remember how when the oil prices went up, they started a huge project to extract oil from the north american tar sands, which hold more oil than the middle east (and I think more oil than has already been pumped out of the ground through history). The project died when oil prices went back down again, but only because they couldn't compete with prices from where people can just suck crude oil right out of the ground.
Energy needs don't worry me. What worries me is a crowded planet full of nukes. I want off this crazy rock!
Guess 1: In rich countries, children are very expensive to raise. You can't make them work and you need to provide huge amounts of money for education and the expected status symbols. Since birth control is easily available, it's easier just to have one or two kids. In poor countries, children often earn more than their keep.
Guess 2: People breed under pressure. If you don't have a reasonable guarantee that one kid will make it to adulthood, you have six. As the survival pressure goes, so goes the reproductive pressure.
Guess 3: People in rich countries are completely disconnected from their biological roots. While not working insane hours for status symbols, they drift from entertainment to entertainment which keeps them happy and distracted. Kids are only a hassle.
Probably each of these has a grain of truth. Now, what did I leave out?
If you think the FSF isn't a political movement, you haven't read much of what RMS has written. Go down to the FSF homepage and really read about how he would prefer a world in which programmers are barely scraping by, like street musicians, since money ruined everything.
The core of communism is the coercive redistribution of wealth without regard to your contribution. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. If that doesn't sum up GPL'd software, I don't know what does.
The GPL applies the coercive force of the government (specifically, threat of legal action) to prevent anyone from reusing GPL'd source in anything except other GPL'd software. Thus GPL development is a closed system in which all contribute what they can, all share equally in the product (regardless of contribution), and none can hold back his own work for profit.
BTW, I'm not a fascist, my views are closer to libertarianism and anarchism. I'm not against sharing, I'm against coercively and deceptively leveraging others' work to further your political ideals against their own best interests. I'm against newspeak where "free" means "you have to give your work away, too."
Not another effort to equate RMS with the rise of free software!
IMHO, the only significant difference between the real world and a parallel universe in which RMS was never born is the GPL (Emacs not withstanding; VI rules!). IMNSHO, the GPL is evil. It was deliberately designed to be incompatible with everything else and is a huge pain in the butt for many people. One world, one licence, one messiah, eh?
Public domain software has been around as long as computers have. Linux could have made it as public domain software, the same people who gave their work away to make it work would still have done so, even if perhaps some horribly evil corporation might have made the terrible sin of improving their own products with chunks of Linux-related code (I know, I know, none of us could have slept knowing that MS used Linux code to make a better Windows and the Linux community's work improved the lives of most users years ago, instead of just the cherished hacker elite; after all, it's not about helping people, it's about rebellion and communism and programmers making as little as street musicians).
BTW, how did this completely off-topic post get moderated to the top of this discussion? Not a single mention of "if I had to pay for Linux" or "if I couldn't get the source", just an apparently random tribute to a prominent figure in the world of free software.
...then the population will grow and you'll need to send more food, and more food, until there's really not enough food.
The cold hard reality is that people need to be starving at the bottom because people will always be breeding at the bottom. If some people are not inclined to breed, the next generation will be mostly composed of people who are inclined to breed. The only other option is enforced population control, which IMHO isn't any better.
Like most liberals (excuse me for labelling you, but your post is classic liberalism, so I'll respond to your state of mind when you posted it), you think everyone should be feeding the poor, but you won't apply it to yourself. As a wealthy citizen of a rich country, you have an enormous power to help those in poorer countries. If you eliminated luxuries from your life, you could feed hundreds who will starve. Every time you buy a candy bar, you could have provided a family with a sack of grain. Every time you upgrade your computer, you could have dug a well and prevented several fatal infections. Your monthly internet bill could keep a small village alive through a bad time.
Perhaps you are generous, perhaps if everyone gave as much as you, there would be no problems with starvation (at least right now). But you would rather have the government coerce everyone to give as you do rather than give up your precious luxuries and act privately.
These things are your choice, as plainly as if you faced a child's head on a chopping block and a vending machine with a dollar in your pocket and had to choose between delaying the child's death for a week or buying a snack.
I know these things about my own life, and I accept them. Morality is enlightened self-interest. I obey the law, at least in serious matters. I am loyal to my friends, kind to those near me, even generous at times. I deal honestly, so that everyone involved profits, and preferably so does the local community and the society. I do not concern myself with the problems of those who are far away, unless it threatens to affect me. People profit by association with me, and so those I could profit from choose to associate with me. I do not support those who do not threaten me and my offspring, but might grow to do so with my support.
Am I moral in an absolute sense? I don't care. I am as moral as I want to be, and my actions are no less moral than the average. If my awareness makes me immoral, so be it, but if others are unaware it is because they are blocking the line of thought, rationalizing; the evidence is clear.
I'm not an idiot, I'm not talking about putting a traditional IC on a nanobot, I'm speaking relatively. A lone microscopic nanobot's computer will not compare in processing power or memory to a network of billions.
As for tech solving all problems, having no problems is a problem in itself. The less people are challenged to survive, the higher the suicide rate goes up. Life becomes pointless when you have nothing to fight for.
IMHO, immortality will create a population explosion that will create new problems. Population can expand exponentially, and access to matter and energy can only expand cubically as we rush away from the earth at the speed of light, eventually the average person won't be able to afford the mass of a natural body, and will struggle to produce something, anything of value merely to support the trickle of energy that supports their own brain. Those who can't make it will replace their lower brain functions with lighter, cheaper artificial replacements, a bit at a time until there is nothing left but a ghost that acts like them but is not, which will slowly fade away as it consumes itself. The few very powerful, OTOH, may have whole planets in natural states for their amusement, complete with populations of pet humans with natural bodies. Eventually humanity will consume the universe and leave a cold husk devoid of the possibility of life. C'est la vie.
Slashdot Mirror
The US military is very, very interested in information warfare. They would love not only to block enemy communications, but issue false orders. The ultimate "cyberwar" trick would be to take control of the head of state's communications channels and send false orders to the troops (or better yet, manipulate public opinion to bring a hostile country to a grinding halt or prevent a dangerous leader from being elected). I'm sure they're really bummed out that they're not allowed to do so.
Basically, I think they got together a group of experts in international law and asked them "How much can we get away with?" After all, they need to know what they can admit to in public...
Using a computer to impersonate a head of state to relay false messages could be a war crime. So what?
This is simply recognition of a potential use of computer image manipulation. They aren't saying in any way that "morphing" in general is a war crime.
You could probably commit a war crime with turnips, too.
IMHO, slashdot is full of people who are bright but very egotistical. They give two minutes' thought to complex issues they don't know any background on, then post their views.
There's a lot of garbage to sift because posters don't worry about being wrong.
Heh heh, you sound like a Heinlein character. Remember the way the teacher spoke in Starship Troopers? I love it, you can't get deeper indoctrination than convincing people that you've derived "should" from "is." (logical notation my left buttock!)
..."Identify which advanced features listed above are needed to solve each problem, and explain how those features would work together." implies to you that the answer should include why you would do the thing in the question.
If he asked about the ethics of the actions, or how the use of these "advanced features" could affect society it might have been an interesting exam.
BTW, don't be so hopelessly naive. People go to university to get a piece of paper that makes corporations believe they know something. It is a required first step onto the corporate ladder, and few people would go to university if degrees were not required (in many cases by law!) for most decent jobs. Learning to think critically and to learn are things you do on your own; IMHO, most technical people picked these things up before high school and take them for granted, while people who choose to take these flakey courses have no grasp of such things and only come to think they have them when they've learned to regurgitate the products of more fertile minds.
Maybe I misread it a bit, thinking "If you can answer all these questions, you probably know why thousands of new laws are not the right way to make the Web 'safe'." was in the text of the exam. But given that little header, it seems pretty obvious what kind of answer he's looking for.
The questions themselves assume that use of certain of those "advanced features" can solve the problems.
Several are of the form: you want to break the law, how do you do it? Or: some bad information hurt you somehow and you want to get back at the people who spread it (or at least stop them from spreading it), how do you do it?
Some of them, to me at least, demand legal action (ex. false advertising killed your aunt; both criminal charges and civil suits would be appropriate). Others can be answered with "you'd be breaking the law, don't do that." However, these kinds of answers are clearly not allowed, as the form of the question demands a technological solution.
The fact that you aren't allowed to suggest laws to pass (or suggest removing the laws that are the obstacles) means that to obey the form of the exam (clearly the only way to pass) you must do your utmost to support his view that laws are the wrong way to deal with these problems.
Hmmm... If you write answers supporting my political agenda, you pass the course.
Geez, I would have gone berzerk if one of my professors tried to force his views down my throat in this manner.
Not that I don't agree that new laws aren't the answer...
It was Netscape that killed off the browser market. HTML was a nice, simple standard that Netscape Embraced and Extended to death. Netscape made no attempt to conform to standards; once they got out front they smothered competition because the lavaflow functionality of Netscape is nearly impossible to reproduce and the web designers were lazy enough to just make things work with the most popular browser. Only MS was sufficiently powerful and evil to outdo them at their own game.
You still can only view some websites properly with Netscape.
Have no sympathy for a lesser demon even if Satan himself stomped him.
Let's face it: MS does not have and never had a monopoly on operating systems. The very idea of such a monopoly is ridiculous. They don't have a monopoly on operating systems for Intel computers. They don't even have a monopoly on Windows binary-compatible operating systems (OS/2 ran old windows stuff just fine, and with OS/2-win32 (Odin) has been running win32 stuff usably for a while; never mind WINE).
What they have is just a very popular OS. An unstable, fragmented, crappy OS that has risen to popularity at least in part due to aggressive bundling strategies, but still merely very successfully sold.
I hate MS as much as anyone. I think they use unfair business practices that hurt the consumer and the industry. But there is no monopoly.
You have to ask yourself, do you really want a justice system that is willing to ignore the truth to get the results it wants? Is it okay as long as it's to destroy someone you hate?
I love to hear about researchers willing to be their own subjects. I think nothing does more to speed the pace of technological development.
If I remember correctly, they were seeking uniquely impure diamonds. Essentially, they wanted diamonds that were pre-doped with a certain element that turned them blue and made them a good substrate for circuits.
...if these guys do what they say they will.
1) How fast can a computation happen (in a physical system) in theory?
A: The answer depends on the physical system. There is no hard theoretical limit on computation speed (only unreliable estimates based on current and developing technologies).
2) How fast could molecular gates and molecular bits effect a computation?
A: The answer depends on the way these gates work. Who knows? Maybe they will use quantum tunneling to have a gate delay shorter than the time it would take light to pass through the space the gate occupies.
3) How do you estimate these numbers would translate into Teraflops?
A: Teraflops are meaningless out of context, and they are highly dependent on design. There is no limit to the teraflop rating of something made with current technology if you allow SMP.
Sorry, but the questions are just not answerable.
Everybody has heard the idea of single-molecule memory before, and this story gives no details whatsoever. It doesn't say how the memory would be accessed, it doesn't say anything about the molecular structure. It says that it's been demonstrated, but not the manner in which it has been demonstrated. Have they somehow hooked up little wires? Are they using an AFM or STM? Data has been stored and retrieved chemically before (aside from DNA, changing chemicals to a different colour with light, for example), this would only be interesting if they really are working with single molecules (in a fashion that lends itself to fast access to large arrays; no STM, no complex laser or electronic rig for each molecule, et c.), which the story doesn't establish.
It seems to suggest to me that the memory in question is, in fact, a type of ROM: "...all [it] now needs is a reversible single molecular switch" (my emphasis), making the comparison of molecular stability to refresh cycles in DRAM even more inane. I don't really believe this is the case, but the story is so weak I can't be sure.
IMHO, stories with no meat should not make it to slashdot.
...is that it is used. If it was the same stuff that came out of the ground, you wouldn't need to replace it.
Used motor oil is full of metal particles and other various crud. It's pretty nasty toxic waste, as well as a lousy lubricant.
I'm not sure the value of recycled oil is as high as the cost of processing it.
Scientific peer review says "this is right" or "this is wrong."
/. moderation, but if a paper doesn't pass peer review it doesn't even get published. There is no section in the back of scientific journals for "crackpots" (unlike the bottom of the /. page).
Slashdot moderation says "this is worth reading" or "this is not worth reading."
You can ignore
Wasn't oil supposed to have been produced by the long-term decomposition of diatoms? (as opposed to coal, which came from multicellular plant matter)
That quote was taken out of context. I was referring to "the coercive redistribution of wealth without regard to your contribution."
There's nothing the GPL that says you can't sell what you write, but selling a GPL'd product is not a viable source of income. Selling support might be, but not selling that which can be copied freely.
We do not depend on fuel oil, it is merely used because it is the cheapest thing for the job right now. Things like biodiesel and plant-derived alchohols could easily take up the slack, if need be (never mind solar power, fission power, or the just-out-of-reach fusion power; any of which could provide all of our energy needs if necessary).
Don't be too sure we'll run out of oil any time soon either. I remember how when the oil prices went up, they started a huge project to extract oil from the north american tar sands, which hold more oil than the middle east (and I think more oil than has already been pumped out of the ground through history). The project died when oil prices went back down again, but only because they couldn't compete with prices from where people can just suck crude oil right out of the ground.
Energy needs don't worry me. What worries me is a crowded planet full of nukes. I want off this crazy rock!
When virtual reality becomes cheaper than dating, the human race is doomed.
Guess 1: In rich countries, children are very expensive to raise. You can't make them work and you need to provide huge amounts of money for education and the expected status symbols. Since birth control is easily available, it's easier just to have one or two kids. In poor countries, children often earn more than their keep.
Guess 2: People breed under pressure. If you don't have a reasonable guarantee that one kid will make it to adulthood, you have six. As the survival pressure goes, so goes the reproductive pressure.
Guess 3: People in rich countries are completely disconnected from their biological roots. While not working insane hours for status symbols, they drift from entertainment to entertainment which keeps them happy and distracted. Kids are only a hassle.
Probably each of these has a grain of truth. Now, what did I leave out?
If you think the FSF isn't a political movement, you haven't read much of what RMS has written. Go down to the FSF homepage and really read about how he would prefer a world in which programmers are barely scraping by, like street musicians, since money ruined everything.
The core of communism is the coercive redistribution of wealth without regard to your contribution. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. If that doesn't sum up GPL'd software, I don't know what does.
The GPL applies the coercive force of the government (specifically, threat of legal action) to prevent anyone from reusing GPL'd source in anything except other GPL'd software. Thus GPL development is a closed system in which all contribute what they can, all share equally in the product (regardless of contribution), and none can hold back his own work for profit.
BTW, I'm not a fascist, my views are closer to libertarianism and anarchism. I'm not against sharing, I'm against coercively and deceptively leveraging others' work to further your political ideals against their own best interests. I'm against newspeak where "free" means "you have to give your work away, too."
My gifts don't come with strings attached.
Not another effort to equate RMS with the rise of free software!
IMHO, the only significant difference between the real world and a parallel universe in which RMS was never born is the GPL (Emacs not withstanding; VI rules!). IMNSHO, the GPL is evil. It was deliberately designed to be incompatible with everything else and is a huge pain in the butt for many people. One world, one licence, one messiah, eh?
Public domain software has been around as long as computers have. Linux could have made it as public domain software, the same people who gave their work away to make it work would still have done so, even if perhaps some horribly evil corporation might have made the terrible sin of improving their own products with chunks of Linux-related code (I know, I know, none of us could have slept knowing that MS used Linux code to make a better Windows and the Linux community's work improved the lives of most users years ago, instead of just the cherished hacker elite; after all, it's not about helping people, it's about rebellion and communism and programmers making as little as street musicians).
BTW, how did this completely off-topic post get moderated to the top of this discussion? Not a single mention of "if I had to pay for Linux" or "if I couldn't get the source", just an apparently random tribute to a prominent figure in the world of free software.
...then the population will grow and you'll need to send more food, and more food, until there's really not enough food.
The cold hard reality is that people need to be starving at the bottom because people will always be breeding at the bottom. If some people are not inclined to breed, the next generation will be mostly composed of people who are inclined to breed. The only other option is enforced population control, which IMHO isn't any better.
Like most liberals (excuse me for labelling you, but your post is classic liberalism, so I'll respond to your state of mind when you posted it), you think everyone should be feeding the poor, but you won't apply it to yourself. As a wealthy citizen of a rich country, you have an enormous power to help those in poorer countries. If you eliminated luxuries from your life, you could feed hundreds who will starve. Every time you buy a candy bar, you could have provided a family with a sack of grain. Every time you upgrade your computer, you could have dug a well and prevented several fatal infections. Your monthly internet bill could keep a small village alive through a bad time.
Perhaps you are generous, perhaps if everyone gave as much as you, there would be no problems with starvation (at least right now). But you would rather have the government coerce everyone to give as you do rather than give up your precious luxuries and act privately.
These things are your choice, as plainly as if you faced a child's head on a chopping block and a vending machine with a dollar in your pocket and had to choose between delaying the child's death for a week or buying a snack.
I know these things about my own life, and I accept them. Morality is enlightened self-interest. I obey the law, at least in serious matters. I am loyal to my friends, kind to those near me, even generous at times. I deal honestly, so that everyone involved profits, and preferably so does the local community and the society. I do not concern myself with the problems of those who are far away, unless it threatens to affect me. People profit by association with me, and so those I could profit from choose to associate with me. I do not support those who do not threaten me and my offspring, but might grow to do so with my support.
Am I moral in an absolute sense? I don't care. I am as moral as I want to be, and my actions are no less moral than the average. If my awareness makes me immoral, so be it, but if others are unaware it is because they are blocking the line of thought, rationalizing; the evidence is clear.
I'm not an idiot, I'm not talking about putting a traditional IC on a nanobot, I'm speaking relatively. A lone microscopic nanobot's computer will not compare in processing power or memory to a network of billions.
As for tech solving all problems, having no problems is a problem in itself. The less people are challenged to survive, the higher the suicide rate goes up. Life becomes pointless when you have nothing to fight for.
IMHO, immortality will create a population explosion that will create new problems. Population can expand exponentially, and access to matter and energy can only expand cubically as we rush away from the earth at the speed of light, eventually the average person won't be able to afford the mass of a natural body, and will struggle to produce something, anything of value merely to support the trickle of energy that supports their own brain. Those who can't make it will replace their lower brain functions with lighter, cheaper artificial replacements, a bit at a time until there is nothing left but a ghost that acts like them but is not, which will slowly fade away as it consumes itself. The few very powerful, OTOH, may have whole planets in natural states for their amusement, complete with populations of pet humans with natural bodies. Eventually humanity will consume the universe and leave a cold husk devoid of the possibility of life. C'est la vie.