I certainly concur with the notion of a loss of genetic diversity... As a species we have such a hard time controlling the relatively simplistic mechanical/digital systems we create, allowing the free run of our grubby hands over the much more delicate gene pool is deeply concerning.
However, with the current economic divisions of wealth in the world, I don't believe that the entire human race would be affected by the apocalyptic disease you described. (this is of course assuming that genetic technology is only used to enhance the species, and not to supress weaker nations. That would be an entirely more dangerous situation...)
Rather, I would imagine natural selection kicks back with a vengence and eliminates the supposedly superiour, but genetically shallow sections of the wealthy societies. The support of such relatively rapid divergence (that genetic technologies aspire to) are unlikely to be rewarded in natural selection.
I guess the only thing that we could start meddling with would be the fabric of space/time:) "I hate temporal mechanics":)
Sure, squabbles are messy, but I'd much rather be aware of whats going on in the community than be getting vague rumours about 'what went down in the boardroom this morning'. You can buy memoirs of prominent valley geeks recounting how closed sniping and political wars trashed large computer companies in the late 80's/early 90s.
Discussing this sort of thing in public means the community can help get rid of any ego-inertia that might be preventing the resolution of a conflict. We shouldn't view this as a 'battle of the boardroom titans'. And at the end of the day, the media will paraphrase to get the predefined - good or bad - quote they want.
I guess we're like brothers - sure, we can fight like cat and dog but at the end of the day we all still sort of 'love' each other (man)... You know what I mean:)
Digital VCR sounds interesting, but people do collect episodes of their favourite programmes on large numbers of Video Cassettes. There might be some consumer resistance if they realise they're limited to a cache of 24/48 hours worth of recorded programmes.
Some form of removable "backup" media would be interesting to allow folks to build up their own digital video collections. Tivo + dvdram backup unit?
If you follow negroponte's ideas of the digital future, backups probably wouldn't need to be done on site and we'd have full media on demand. But hey, we're a long way off from having a T1 in everyones house so, for the short term at least, home backup of favourite programs would be useful.
Of course, there are copyright issues involved in keeping collections of recorded TV shows. Perhaps the unit's modem could be used to implement some kind of fair priced pay per re-view instead of counting the average amount of time people stay tuned to the playboy/girl channel... Oops;)
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Hi
:) "I hate temporal mechanics" :)
I certainly concur with the notion of a loss of genetic diversity... As a species we have such a hard time controlling the relatively simplistic mechanical/digital systems we create, allowing the free run of our grubby hands over the much more delicate gene pool is deeply concerning.
However, with the current economic divisions of wealth in the world, I don't believe that the entire human race would be affected by the apocalyptic disease you described. (this is of course assuming that genetic technology is only used to enhance the species, and not to supress weaker nations. That would be an entirely more dangerous situation...)
Rather, I would imagine natural selection kicks back with a vengence and eliminates the supposedly superiour, but genetically shallow sections of the wealthy societies. The support of such relatively rapid divergence (that genetic technologies aspire to) are unlikely to be rewarded in natural selection.
I guess the only thing that we could start meddling with would be the fabric of space/time
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Hi :)
:)
Sure, squabbles are messy, but I'd much rather be aware of whats going on in the community than be getting vague rumours about 'what went down in the boardroom this morning'. You can buy memoirs of prominent valley geeks recounting how closed sniping and political wars trashed large computer companies in the late 80's/early 90s.
Discussing this sort of thing in public means the community can help get rid of any ego-inertia that might be preventing the resolution of a conflict. We shouldn't view this as a 'battle of the boardroom titans'. And at the end of the day, the media will paraphrase to get the predefined - good or bad - quote they want.
I guess we're like brothers - sure, we can fight like cat and dog but at the end of the day we all still sort of 'love' each other (man)... You know what I mean
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Digital VCR sounds interesting, but people do collect episodes of their favourite programmes on large numbers of Video Cassettes. There might be some consumer resistance if they realise they're limited to a cache of 24/48 hours worth of recorded programmes.
;)
:)
Some form of removable "backup" media would be interesting to allow folks to build up their own digital video collections. Tivo + dvdram backup unit?
If you follow negroponte's ideas of the digital future, backups probably wouldn't need to be done on site and we'd have full media on demand. But hey, we're a long way off from having a T1 in everyones house so, for the short term at least, home backup of favourite programs would be useful.
Of course, there are copyright issues involved in keeping collections of recorded TV shows. Perhaps the unit's modem could be used to implement some kind of fair priced pay per re-view instead of counting the average amount of time people stay tuned to the playboy/girl channel... Oops
-ad