You think me and "my type" idealistic optimists, but really I'm a realist. I understand the implications, while you... you're probably an angry old man who's pissed he didn't get his flying car, so it's pessimism all around.
""any argument for "nuclear power too cheap to meter" had to be absurd even given the knowledge at the time, and our argument isn't.""
...
""People have cried "Wolf!" before about new technologies leading to overwhelming abundance. It was said of nuclear power, and of steam power before it, and perhaps of water wheels, the horse, the plough, and the chipped rock. Molecular manufacturing is different because it is a new way to make almost anything, including more of the equipment needed to do the manufacturing. There has never been anything quite like this before.
The basic argument for low cost production is this: Molecular manufacturing will be able to make almost anything with little labor, land, or maintenance, with high productivity, and with modest requirements for materials and energy. Its products will themselves be extremely productive, as energy producers, as materials collectors, and as manufacturing equipment. There has never been a technology with this combination of characteristics, so historical analogies must be used with care. Perhaps the best analogy is this: Molecular manufacturing will do for matter processing what the computer has done for information processing.
There will always be limiting costs, because resourcesâ"whether energy, matter, or design skillâ"always have some alternative use. Costs will not fall to zero, but it seems that they could fall very low indeed.""
-- http://www.foresight.org/UTF/Unbound_LBW/chapt_7.h tml
Yeah, such a stupid idea molecular manufacturing is, eh? Copying objects atom by atom instead of bit by bit?! That kind of awesome technology must be at least 1,000 years off, so why bother talking about the implications now?
I mean, I could understand the excitement if nanotechnology was only a couple decades away from realization... but come on, this is pure fantasy!
if you can make food out of dirt what do you need money for?
For measuring dick-size, of course. Alpha male assholes don't just disappear overnight.
Even with a (pre-singularity) economy of abundance staring us in the face, us humans will still screw it up because we're still burdened with our selfish "jungle psychology", until we decide to fix it and/or transcend our genes completely.
Off the top of my head: If it starts getting really bad, then just start making anyone who's not on your whitelist (by callerID or other some other auth) jump through a quick hoop that a human can but that a machine can't (yet).
e.g. the first ring is silent, and if the caller is not whitelisted (or in your web of friends' whitelists) then they have to answer a challenge, such as: "If you're not a spamming scumbag, enter the number of the beast to ring through", or, "Press 666 to be added to my whitelist, unless you're selling something, in which base, by pressing 666, you agree to pay me $500."
This isn't acceptable for email because of volume and valid automated emails, but for cell it would be IMO.
Well, oil's a hydrocarbon, and once nanotech matures, we're going to have a huge appetite for Carbon since it's the ideal building block material.
The funny thing is that today we bitch about the high levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, but in a few decades we may be bitching about just the opposite: CO2 depletion.
Eh. Not likely. Anyway, materials science will make the greatest leaps right here on Earth in the next couple decades as nanotech matures. So happens uniform materials are one of the easier first apps.
Either that or we'd better discover a peaceful planet to invade fast, so that we'd stop fighting amongst ourselves.
How 'bout instead we learn how our brains tick, and remove that nasty old bit of evolved jungle psychology? (sadly, killing==GOOD still serves our genes well).
Why does it really matter who makes an important discovery?
Because people are still very tribalistic / nationalistic (same thing really) at genetic & memetic levels.
Us Vs. Them is just part of human nature, and until Them=Aliens it's the rare person who counts the entire human race as his "tribe".
--
Re:It's easy to lose money ...
on
C&W Bails Out
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
I remember the boom years when I only went in on Sunday because that was the only day I could get a parking spot and not have to park across the street.
What was the problem with walking across the street to work? Your legs broken? You weigh 500 pounds? Unbelievably lazy? Too "self-important" to actually walk?... What?
Yes, we have the potential for an economy of digital abundance right in front of us, but the point I was trying to make is that we can't realize its full information-wants-to-be-free potential until we have the same potential in the material world.
Once that's the case, it's the rare person who'll have a reason to bitch about millions of people sharing a perfect digital or physical copy of something they created, because everybody is already living like kings. And those millions of fans equal a lot a goodwill "whuffie" that can buy some great waterfront property.
If we have the ability to assemble objects molecule-by-molecule, we most certainly also have the easier ability to take them apart one-by-one. Reverse engineering an object to record its "molecular blueprint" (no formula needed) would only need to be done once. For most objects, the object *is* the sourcecode (exceptions would be certain complex objects that need special instructions to remain stable during assembly).
When Star Trek style replicators come along, then we'll have this same discussion for physical objects, too.
The discussion will hardly be the same, for the simple fact that molecular manufacturing will let loose an economy of abundance (that the 'information economy' alone couldn't do) which vastly reduces the incentive to be a greedy "intellectual property" fucker.
Imagine just some of the implications of an anything-box that can rearrange the molecules of your garbage into gourmet food, clothing, razors, inkjet cartridges, a new computer, whatever... no more starving artist problem; no more wage-slaves; no more dependance on on fossil fuel if you could fab your own solar cells; open source can extend to the physical world with GnuBurgers, and GnuHDTV's, and GnuDiamond, and GnuArtificialImmuneSystem...
(buy desert realestate now! there's tons of molecules to play with under that sun powered property!:)
I just wanted to thank you... for waking up the few people you've spied on that their email is like a postcard. Hopefully -- after they've been caught being naughty kids -- you recommend encryption to increase their privacy in the future, and to reduce your workload?
...you have at least a hint of an "I am god" complex...
I was going to say the same thing, but his nickname isEvilTwinSkippy, you know? It's probably been part of his job for so long to manually police the network that being a hardass is 2nd nature.
An automated solution for resource management would remove most of the power to be an arrogant network admin.
I've been meaning to read Metamorphasis of Prime Intellect - I hear much of it is sick and twisted. Though, I wonder what's preventing people from effectively killing themselves by "deadheading" (from Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom) for forever minus a day?
It's a sad fact that some slashdotters still think slashdot is one homogenous group where every voice represents the whole. Perhaps its human nature to have risk-seeking-mutants and scoffing, scared-shitless-mutants in the same genepool.
Nothing, depending on how the matrix is implemented. In the movie, the Matrix simulation is supposed to be a prison with body/minds physically chained to it, and so it's obviously "wrong", but it doesn't have to be.
Why is having a false reality presented bad no matter how comfortable it is?
A false reality isn't automatically bad, especially because nobody can know if the reality they're currently living is also false or not. I would CHOOSE to live virtually in another, better, "false" reality, as long as I had at least as much control over my life as I do now (which isn't much).
I don't know how Matrix Revolutions is supposed to end, but I hope it's not a damn luddite ending where the Matrix is shutdown after the people inside are forced to take the blue pill and wake up to a more "real" reality, where most learn that truth is shit, and ignorance is bliss. A better ending would simply be freeing the Matrix from machine control so people can make the choice of what plane they want to live on. And hell, if the freed 20th-century Matrix isn't good enough, just create a few more parallel simulations you can "slide" to so there's a universe for every mind, and/or recurse a few more levels.
Why has it become so fashionable to use MiB's vs MB's recently? Could it be BitTorrents' influence? It being the first popular p2p app to use those units.
As someone above me already mentioned, you could prevent most abuse while still allowing anonymous access by using technical measures such as traffic shaping. Even anonymous p2p has ways of rejecting rogue clients who don't play nice.
And if you're surfing from the park you're still accountable to Big Brother's facial recognition security cameras, right?:)
"We-Know-Where-You-Live!" wireless access won't prevent anonymous access any more than wired ISPs can now.
If you want to be anonymous, it's just as easy to do it from a wireless endpoint as wired: you do it by proxy. Anonymous remailers (for your death threats), and non-logging proxies (for your spam), and anonymous p2p like FreeNet, Hacktivismo, or even AT&T's own Crowds (for everything else.)
(You must be a terrorist to desire anonymity eh? I mean just what are you trying to hide?! Everybody knows that only government has the right to keep secrets without looking suspiciously unpatriotic!:)
I just hope human civilization doesn't collapse before A) we've secured a self-sustaining presence in space, and B) the multi-disciplinary science of the small has given birth to the general purpose molecular assembler.
Quick, somebody call PETA! Those poor poor ants should not have to suffer like that just to satisfy some souless case-modder's vanity!:)
(Actually, I don't think PETA cares about insects, or about any animals which aren't cute enough to pull the empathy-strings that bring in more funds.)
Slashdot Mirror
""any argument for "nuclear power too cheap to meter" had to be absurd even given the knowledge at the time, and our argument isn't.""
""People have cried "Wolf!" before about new technologies leading to overwhelming abundance. It was said of nuclear power, and of steam power before it, and perhaps of water wheels, the horse, the plough, and the chipped rock. Molecular manufacturing is different because it is a new way to make almost anything, including more of the equipment needed to do the manufacturing. There has never been anything quite like this before.
The basic argument for low cost production is this: Molecular manufacturing will be able to make almost anything with little labor, land, or maintenance, with high productivity, and with modest requirements for materials and energy. Its products will themselves be extremely productive, as energy producers, as materials collectors, and as manufacturing equipment. There has never been a technology with this combination of characteristics, so historical analogies must be used with care. Perhaps the best analogy is this: Molecular manufacturing will do for matter processing what the computer has done for information processing.
There will always be limiting costs, because resourcesâ"whether energy, matter, or design skillâ"always have some alternative use. Costs will not fall to zero, but it seems that they could fall very low indeed."" -- http://www.foresight.org/UTF/Unbound_LBW/chapt_7.h tml
--
"I like personalize my car. Check out themes.carzilla.com for exterior/interior designs. The Orbit dash is nice. :)"
--
I mean, I could understand the excitement if nanotechnology was only a couple decades away from realization... but come on, this is pure fantasy!
</sarcasm>
--
As you long as you get paid up front. :)
The Street Performer Protocol is a great idea, really.
--
if you can make food out of dirt what do you need money for?
For measuring dick-size, of course. Alpha male assholes don't just disappear overnight.
Even with a (pre-singularity) economy of abundance staring us in the face, us humans will still screw it up because we're still burdened with our selfish "jungle psychology", until we decide to fix it and/or transcend our genes completely.
--
Off the top of my head: If it starts getting really bad, then just start making anyone who's not on your whitelist (by callerID or other some other auth) jump through a quick hoop that a human can but that a machine can't (yet).
e.g. the first ring is silent, and if the caller is not whitelisted (or in your web of friends' whitelists) then they have to answer a challenge, such as: "If you're not a spamming scumbag, enter the number of the beast to ring through", or, "Press 666 to be added to my whitelist, unless you're selling something, in which base, by pressing 666, you agree to pay me $500."
This isn't acceptable for email because of volume and valid automated emails, but for cell it would be IMO.
--
Well, oil's a hydrocarbon, and once nanotech matures, we're going to have a huge appetite for Carbon since it's the ideal building block material.
The funny thing is that today we bitch about the high levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, but in a few decades we may be bitching about just the opposite: CO2 depletion.
--
Eh. Not likely. Anyway, materials science will make the greatest leaps right here on Earth in the next couple decades as nanotech matures. So happens uniform materials are one of the easier first apps.
Either that or we'd better discover a peaceful planet to invade fast, so that we'd stop fighting amongst ourselves.
How 'bout instead we learn how our brains tick, and remove that nasty old bit of evolved jungle psychology? (sadly, killing==GOOD still serves our genes well).
--
Because people are still very tribalistic / nationalistic (same thing really) at genetic & memetic levels.
Us Vs. Them is just part of human nature, and until Them=Aliens it's the rare person who counts the entire human race as his "tribe".
--
What was the problem with walking across the street to work? Your legs broken? You weigh 500 pounds? Unbelievably lazy? Too "self-important" to actually walk? ... What?
--
FINISHED --23:05:38--
Downloaded: 574,901,822 bytes in 4031 files
Anyway, half a Gig... that probably cost SCO a whole quarter or two!
--
Once that's the case, it's the rare person who'll have a reason to bitch about millions of people sharing a perfect digital or physical copy of something they created, because everybody is already living like kings. And those millions of fans equal a lot a goodwill "whuffie" that can buy some great waterfront property.
--
--
Open source "communism" in the real world? No, no, can't have that.
--
The discussion will hardly be the same, for the simple fact that molecular manufacturing will let loose an economy of abundance (that the 'information economy' alone couldn't do) which vastly reduces the incentive to be a greedy "intellectual property" fucker.
Imagine just some of the implications of an anything-box that can rearrange the molecules of your garbage into gourmet food, clothing, razors, inkjet cartridges, a new computer, whatever ... no more starving artist problem; no more wage-slaves; no more dependance on on fossil fuel if you could fab your own solar cells; open source can extend to the physical world with GnuBurgers, and GnuHDTV's, and GnuDiamond, and GnuArtificialImmuneSystem...
(buy desert realestate now! there's tons of molecules to play with under that sun powered property! :)
--
--
I was going to say the same thing, but his nickname is EvilTwinSkippy, you know? It's probably been part of his job for so long to manually police the network that being a hardass is 2nd nature.
An automated solution for resource management would remove most of the power to be an arrogant network admin.
--
I've been meaning to read Metamorphasis of Prime Intellect - I hear much of it is sick and twisted. Though, I wonder what's preventing people from effectively killing themselves by "deadheading" (from Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom) for forever minus a day?
--
--
Nothing, depending on how the matrix is implemented. In the movie, the Matrix simulation is supposed to be a prison with body/minds physically chained to it, and so it's obviously "wrong", but it doesn't have to be.
Why is having a false reality presented bad no matter how comfortable it is?
A false reality isn't automatically bad, especially because nobody can know if the reality they're currently living is also false or not. I would CHOOSE to live virtually in another, better, "false" reality, as long as I had at least as much control over my life as I do now (which isn't much).
I don't know how Matrix Revolutions is supposed to end, but I hope it's not a damn luddite ending where the Matrix is shutdown after the people inside are forced to take the blue pill and wake up to a more "real" reality, where most learn that truth is shit, and ignorance is bliss. A better ending would simply be freeing the Matrix from machine control so people can make the choice of what plane they want to live on. And hell, if the freed 20th-century Matrix isn't good enough, just create a few more parallel simulations you can "slide" to so there's a universe for every mind, and/or recurse a few more levels.
--
--
And if you're surfing from the park you're still accountable to Big Brother's facial recognition security cameras, right? :)
--
If you want to be anonymous, it's just as easy to do it from a wireless endpoint as wired: you do it by proxy. Anonymous remailers (for your death threats), and non-logging proxies (for your spam), and anonymous p2p like FreeNet, Hacktivismo, or even AT&T's own Crowds (for everything else.)
(You must be a terrorist to desire anonymity eh? I mean just what are you trying to hide?! Everybody knows that only government has the right to keep secrets without looking suspiciously unpatriotic! :)
--
--
(Actually, I don't think PETA cares about insects, or about any animals which aren't cute enough to pull the empathy-strings that bring in more funds.)
--