I know about Moore's law, and I am aware that memory density is also following something like an exponential curve.
And harddisk size, and backbone bandwidth, and the number of internet nodes, and the cost/performance of tech, etc. Any evolutionary process progresses at an exponential rate if you just observe history. (Take the evolution of transportation as yet another example - with its 'Singularity' being the speed of light (or FTL, if possible)).
If replication is so easy, why hasn't a replicator been built at the macro scale?
Maybe for the same reason that nature didn't come up with a macroscale Von-Neumann organism: it's not efficient. matter on the atomic scale is 'programmable' and doesn't 'break', but bulk parts and bulk processes do easily.
Define "near term." Advances in the evolution of all kinds of technology will continue to progress at an exponential pace; so the long-term is closer to the near-term than you would think.
but really, if it can be made to work you aren't going to need a lot of other new, new ideas.
Dell said standards benefit users, while proprietary hardware benefits only the company selling it.
Mr. Greedy Bastard replied by saying, "I have no incentive to create a standard unless I get to benefit the most. Giving and getting back from the community doesn't build vacation homes, or improve my chances of catching a trophy wife by having MORE than the next guy!"
It's hard not to notice how in the 3rd season of Enterprise, they have ramped up the sexual inuendo, and tightened T'Pols bodysuit, in order to capture more eyeballs for the advertisers.
In the latest episode of Enterprise (3x3), the mutant Captain Archer had T'Pol up against a rock and hard place and said, "I need to find 'Hertwat'!"... or was it 'Ertwat'? or 'Erquat'? You just know they had to do several takes before they stopped laughing.:)
Yeah, you can say what you about Newt, but at least he was much more of an intellectual that most politicians. He thought long term, and counted the futurist and "liberal" Alvin Toffler among his influences.
I wish more politicians would grasp just how fast the rate of change is going to increase in the coming decades. Then again, maybe they have? Maybe key governments have taken some "Harry Seldon"-type advisor seriously, but their scared-shitless plan of action was to consolidate their power before they inevitably lose it? (Nah. Too out there.)
Not one mention of "nanotechnology" anywhere on that site (of yours?), even though it'll do the most to eliminate material scarcity. "Desktop molecular manufacturing" will mean an end to global trade, the end of resource-based wars, the end of wage-slave jobs, and the end of the need (for some people) for artificial scarcity to pay for what used to be scarce (food, clothes, etc).
Oh come on, grow a backbone and wear the damn shirt. Your silence only helps to sustain the climate of fear, when instead you could be helping to 'disarm' it (pun intended) with laughter.
Hey, I just want to "fight the weather" long enough to make it to a different kind of cliff which makes the nation-state irrelevant anyway.
I've pretty much accepted that the world will get much worse before it gets much, much better. The pendulum still hasn't started swinging back toward freedom...
I knew Hydra sounded familiar. Once in a blue moon I have a need for a collaborative network text editor (hydra is at the top), but nothing ever really fit the bill and "just worked" (besides those dead-simple java whiteboards). A lot of what I find is just research papers on this subject. Demand mustn't be too high for this kind of groupware.
Now, just over twenty years later, we already have brought bits of the idea into practice - that is stunningly fast, compared with history.
No, it's not.
All evolutionary progress, including technology, has always increased exponentially. Once you understand this -- and I mean really understand -- then the naturally increasing rate of change is no longer so shocking.
I never understood people who think talking on a cell phone in a restaurant is rude.
Funny. I remember reading an article (linked from/.) that explained the real reason why people hate cellphone chat so much more than regular chat.
The conclusion was that one-sided conversations in public are much more distracting because of social conditioning that it's bad form to leave someone hanging. You shout one-way into the phone something like: "When are you going to get here?", and when no response is heard (even subconsciously) by those around you, the flow is broken and heads turn. It's annoying.
I'm sorry if this is a weasal-worded and too verbose non-answer to a straight forward question; if I had more time, I'd have written with more brevity (and that's a paraphrase -- or a rip off -- also, from some scientist, I've forgetten whom).
I know the quote you're talking about, and spent a couple mins searching Google to no avail. Oh well.
But the reason I replied was to point out that plagiarism is far worse than copyright infringement. Even "pirates" recognize this "moral right" of attribution. And at some point in the future when severe artificial scarcity is no longer necessary to put food on the table (because material-need/want is also no longer scarce), it'll be your good reputation that "buys you" the actual remaining scarcity (like beachfront realestate).
Hmm. You seem to know a little too much about nuke-u-lar bombmaking... I'm going to have to report you to General Asscroft for suspicious anti-idiot behavour.
The difference between the United States and other countries like, oh, I don't know, say The United Kingdom, France, or even Roam, is that when we had a chance to conquer the world, we didn't.
The U.S. doesn't need to conquer the world the old fashioned way (and couldn't really get away with such blatant hypocrisy anyway), when financial imperialism works just as well and is more subtle.
If you can't live nicely on $2G/month you've got bigger problems.
Also, one final optimistic note: In 20 to 30 years, advanced technology will have completely changed the socio/political/economic climate - beyond recognition.
So, in an exchange economy where my knowledge is valuable, but all I have to exchange is my knowledge, how do I put rice in my bowl ( and ideally a roof over it) without charging for it?
Basically: artificial scarcity will be a useful crutch (for some) for as long as there's a lot of real scarcity to be traded for. But when "putting rice in your bowl" doesn't require you to exchange anything (the "pie in the sky" part you refered to), and it's possible to live in a luxurious, (illegal?) self-sustaining home on antartic realestate (or in orbit, or under the ocean, etc.), the social contract will have to be rewritten.
Please don't pretend not to understand the "mass attraction IM has". You know full well why most people like to communicate with each other, so stop bragging about your antisocial nature and/or "old-school" preference for email. sheesh.
When nobody in society has any respect for even the concept of IP, then what will happen as the children of such a generation grow up and some of them get into politics?
The shocking conclusion I've come to is that by the time our kids grow up, I expect that another technology will have come along to make the issue of IP mostly moot. The information age gave us digital plenty, but we don't have the other side of the coin yet. Namely: nanotechnology, which will usher in the age of material plenty that removes much of the incentive for wanting an artificial monopoly in the first place. Who needs enforced artificial scarcity to "put food on the table" when the food and the table it's sitting on can be "copied" from infinitely recyclable molecules almost as easily and cheaply as an mp3?
However, even in the face of this economy of abundance there will still be quite a few mutants with very greedy genes (as they've served us well in the past), but it will be their loss since most of society will have naturally shifted to a meritocracy - rewarding the valuable givers (like scientists!:), instead of the hoarders.
Slashdot Mirror
Neiman Marcus?
Nabisco?
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And harddisk size, and backbone bandwidth, and the number of internet nodes, and the cost/performance of tech, etc. Any evolutionary process progresses at an exponential rate if you just observe history. (Take the evolution of transportation as yet another example - with its 'Singularity' being the speed of light (or FTL, if possible)).
If replication is so easy, why hasn't a replicator been built at the macro scale?
Maybe for the same reason that nature didn't come up with a macroscale Von-Neumann organism: it's not efficient. matter on the atomic scale is 'programmable' and doesn't 'break', but bulk parts and bulk processes do easily.
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Define "near term." Advances in the evolution of all kinds of technology will continue to progress at an exponential pace; so the long-term is closer to the near-term than you would think.
but really, if it can be made to work you aren't going to need a lot of other new, new ideas.
What do you mean "if it can be made to work?" Nature already does it, and "The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom." artificially.
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Mr. Greedy Bastard replied by saying, "I have no incentive to create a standard unless I get to benefit the most. Giving and getting back from the community doesn't build vacation homes, or improve my chances of catching a trophy wife by having MORE than the next guy!"
--
--
In the latest episode of Enterprise (3x3), the mutant Captain Archer had T'Pol up against a rock and hard place and said, "I need to find 'Hertwat'!" ... or was it 'Ertwat'? or 'Erquat'? You just know they had to do several takes before they stopped laughing. :)
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I wish more politicians would grasp just how fast the rate of change is going to increase in the coming decades. Then again, maybe they have? Maybe key governments have taken some "Harry Seldon"-type advisor seriously, but their scared-shitless plan of action was to consolidate their power before they inevitably lose it? (Nah. Too out there.)
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I prefer the term Meritocracy though.
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Hey, I just want to "fight the weather" long enough to make it to a different kind of cliff which makes the nation-state irrelevant anyway.
I've pretty much accepted that the world will get much worse before it gets much, much better. The pendulum still hasn't started swinging back toward freedom...
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NO! -- if you don't like it, fix it!
What kind of patriot turns tail and runs? I can't stand it when flag-hugging idiots spout that shitty "love it or leave it" copout.
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The "idiots" are being idealists; that's all. Blind allegiance to "The Letter of The (wrong) Law" makes a lot of people feel dirty.
Have to remind these idealists to hate the game (i.e. patent/legal system), and not the player (redhat).
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No, it's not.
All evolutionary progress, including technology, has always increased exponentially. Once you understand this -- and I mean really understand -- then the naturally increasing rate of change is no longer so shocking.
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--
Funny. I remember reading an article (linked from /.) that explained the real reason why people hate cellphone chat so much more than regular chat.
The conclusion was that one-sided conversations in public are much more distracting because of social conditioning that it's bad form to leave someone hanging. You shout one-way into the phone something like: "When are you going to get here?", and when no response is heard (even subconsciously) by those around you, the flow is broken and heads turn. It's annoying.
(sorry, couldn't find the article)
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I know the quote you're talking about, and spent a couple mins searching Google to no avail. Oh well.
But the reason I replied was to point out that plagiarism is far worse than copyright infringement. Even "pirates" recognize this "moral right" of attribution. And at some point in the future when severe artificial scarcity is no longer necessary to put food on the table (because material-need/want is also no longer scarce), it'll be your good reputation that "buys you" the actual remaining scarcity (like beachfront realestate).
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Ignorance is strength! Go USA! Woo woo woo.
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The U.S. doesn't need to conquer the world the old fashioned way (and couldn't really get away with such blatant hypocrisy anyway), when financial imperialism works just as well and is more subtle.
--
Also, one final optimistic note: In 20 to 30 years, advanced technology will have completely changed the socio/political/economic climate - beyond recognition.
--
I answered that same question last night.
Basically: artificial scarcity will be a useful crutch (for some) for as long as there's a lot of real scarcity to be traded for. But when "putting rice in your bowl" doesn't require you to exchange anything (the "pie in the sky" part you refered to), and it's possible to live in a luxurious, (illegal?) self-sustaining home on antartic realestate (or in orbit, or under the ocean, etc.), the social contract will have to be rewritten.
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Steal This Book
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feigning ignorance of human nature is pathetic.
(sorry, you stuck a nerve)
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The shocking conclusion I've come to is that by the time our kids grow up, I expect that another technology will have come along to make the issue of IP mostly moot. The information age gave us digital plenty, but we don't have the other side of the coin yet. Namely: nanotechnology, which will usher in the age of material plenty that removes much of the incentive for wanting an artificial monopoly in the first place. Who needs enforced artificial scarcity to "put food on the table" when the food and the table it's sitting on can be "copied" from infinitely recyclable molecules almost as easily and cheaply as an mp3?
However, even in the face of this economy of abundance there will still be quite a few mutants with very greedy genes (as they've served us well in the past), but it will be their loss since most of society will have naturally shifted to a meritocracy - rewarding the valuable givers (like scientists! :), instead of the hoarders.
--