I say Giblets, you say Jiblets. Them be fight'n words?
There is never only one true way to pronounce something (how f'n boring - but anal-retentives are like that I guess). Be glad that since your post got +5, that your "jiga" opinion may gain some mindshare in meme-space.
Well then, we'll just have to wait until Spielberg makes the concept into a movie that the masses can easily digest (like "AI" did - hah!).
After seeing, "Nanotech The Movie", there'll be rioting in the streets I tell you!:) I mean the decades-away reality of "free" food/clothes/$anyobject, immortality, space elevators, "smart fog" for levitation, molecular storage/computing, grey goo, etc., on the BIG SCREEN will just be too much of a Future Shock for panicy people.
Maternal instincts nagging you eh? Just adopt and worry about passing on memes rather than genes. Or become a catlady (bad joke, I know).
My position on abortion is simple: I feel nothing for "potentially human" blobs of babygoo, but my emotional empathy for life increases as the baby's brain develops the capacity for sentience late-term. In fact, babies don't recognize themselves in a mirror until around their 18th month.
(I hold the same respect for a lumpy zygote as I do a braindead vegetable teenager being kept "alive" in a hospital by emotionally attached parents...)
I'd also like to have your ideas on how copyright should be handled in the future
IMO, strictly enforcing copyright is impossible technologically, but as long there's some kind of human connection between the producer and 'consumer', it's still possible to socially compel people to pay for the fruits of past/present/future projects. Past work would of course also be 'free' out in the digital wild like today, so it'd be the hardest sell of the bunch unless tied to some other value-add... like a tangibly scarce good, a future discount, the social status of being a benefactor, etc.
Capitalism works well when there's actual scarcity / unlimited wants, but it's a kludge in (potential) economies of abundance...
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Re:Should there be a GNU-Google?
on
Google vs. Evil
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· Score: 1
Bookmarks?
I've lost my bookmarks so many times that I've been conditioned to just forget about that particular browser feature.
Google, my memory, and friends, are my only means of finding quality sites again.:)
(as per your idea of using bookmarks-on-disk via p2p as the measure of link popularity... eh... it's a crippled version of a much larger idea.)
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Prediction: Google won't matter in 5 years
on
Google vs. Evil
·
· Score: 2
There's a chance that, in five years, Google will end up looking like a slightly cleaner version of what Yahoo! has become.
Five years is a lifetime on the net. In that amount of time I would certainly expect P2P to have matured to the point that distributed search would have almost completely displaced Google and the rest of the central SE's. In fact, I'd bet a bundle on it (i.e. good or evil, I'd still short Google if went public (after the initial pump of course)).
Like it or not, decentralized communication will continue to advance and empower the individual, despite corporate and government agendas to keep their centralized economic/power structures in place and the wool over our eyes...
Wouldn't it be great if there were some way to efficiently distribute the load to all users?
I've been hear'n some things about an advanced interweb technology called "P2P" that might make this magic possible! It's amazing to think that I could download from a dynamically updated LOCAL cache some day! wow! (too much sarcasm?)
...thus the solution to reducing the vast bulk of spam isn't in after-the-fact filtering (even bayesian), but in increasing its cost to send; either in the form of a refundable-stamp-if-not-spam and/or in processing time per message and/or in the cost of a digital signature from a trusted 3rd party (too many complaints and the signature is revoked).
Since secure anonymous digital cash is still a fantasy (and a "terrorist" fantasy I'm sure! so track my finances! please! I've got nothing to hide!</end mini-sarcastic-rant>), the better option is to simply callback the sender automatically--if he didn't forge his address like 99.9% of spammers do--and ask him to perform some computationaly expensive operation and return the result for verification. If-not-spam, then whitelist the address/signature so future communication is "free".
Of course filtering is easier as a bandaid solution until people get fed up enough to scrap the old naive protocol & clients..
Yeah, most people like to express their individuality. You might think much of that is just stupid vanity, and peacock BS, and you'd probably be right, but it doesn't change the fact that people have this urge.
Even in games people do this... In Half-Life people care a lot about their custom "spray decals" that others see. In another game called SubSpace people take pride in their tiny 12x8 'banners' and in their 'audio taunts'. And on websites like DeviantArt people actually PAY to have their user icons made professionally.
Seems to focus way too much time on conspiracy stuff and unlikely energy source ideas...
Zero Point Energy may be unlikely, but it's not impossible either. Real science is actually flirting in this area... (but the conspiracy theorists have more fun with it:).
"...it's just overwhelming. I distinctly remember all the hairs on my neck going up..."
Yeah, just like how people feel when they think they've seen a ghost. Except most people don't believe in old-fashioned ghosts and goblins anymore, so the mass delusion has modernized.:-)
(I'm not saying it's definitely a delusion, since there's no hard evidence either way - which is why I'm also religiously agnostic (and consistent.))
Only terrorists would desire to use anonymous digital cash over a communist wireless mesh network via secure channels.
Real Americans (i.e. cowards unaware of history) have nothing to hide from their totally information-aware and benevolent government.
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Re:Stability of online societies
on
Virtual Simerica
·
· Score: 1
I'd choose anarchy over corporate 'oppression' any day, but I don't see why (representative or direct) democracy should be so hard to implement. I mean IRC's got unelected ops to maintain control, and web forums are either anarchic guestbooks, or moderated by appointed "mod nazi's", or user-moderated by mods-on-crack (/. style)...
But as long as a company has complete control over the central game-servers the answer to this question is simple: The company owns and thus gets to control the user experience (for maximum profit). Barring a decentralized game network, it would take a company with brass balls to empower their users to effect THEM.
I think it's just easier for people - who are even aware of the concept - to laugh off the whole idea of a technological Singularity, even though it's an inevitability before this century is out.
Exponential progress is a fact, and we're currently on the knee of that tech curve, but it's simply too hard for many people to accept how fast things are going to change in the near future, since our minds like to extrapolate linearly and futilely resist change...
It's easy to be cynical about the future though, after all, "where's my flying car dammit?!" is a free pass to make fun of any wild prediction, because of famous bad ones.
1. Wait a few decades for exponential progress to give birth to nanotech.
2. Cheaply launch my very own tiny "seed" factory towards a suitable asteroid, where it sets up shop awaiting my specific matter transformation instructions, and defends against "molecular thieves" who might want to jump MY asteroid claim.:)
3. Wait a few more years along the exponential tech curve for "mind uploading" to evolve.
4. Broadcast my "neural blueprint" (with ECC!) off the eggbasket (Earth) to my new asteroid-sized brain; grow and reconfigure to fill available space.
5. Join up with the rest of posthumanity in the newly forming Matrioshka Brain
6. Ponder 42.
7. Simulate new universes for fun... like this one.:)
8. Profit doesn't matter here.
The number of people who even use the NYTimes random login generator, or the partner "hack", is probably orders of magnitude less than the number of people who "steal" from the NYTimes by reading a second-hand copy of the real paper delivered to someone elses doorstep.
Transmutation: Startrek is to blame for people confusing this concept with nanotech. If you want some pretty gold, it's actually quite abundant (like diamonds). Although there is a finite quantity of the element Au on Earth, there's nothing stopping you from extracting it from seawater, or from below your property using nondestructive "mining roots" vs strip mining. Also, in an economy of abundance, I'm pretty sure society won't be as tolerant of needlessly selfish resource hogs as they are now.
DRM for molecular blueprints: That'll work just as well as today's attempts at digital lockdown- as in not at all.
H-Bomb/Grey Goo: To prevent this you don't need total top-down control (ala DRM backed with guns) by some authoritarian world government. The good guys can instead give the planet a democratic immune system. Infest every nook and cranny with a globally linked network of smart nanobots and evil won't have a chance to rear it's ugly head. When Johnny Rebel tries to assemble a nuke in his basement on Hax0r-Replicat0r3.0, the active shield would be the very first defense against a high concentration of uranium.
No, you're not reading me right. (I'm not advocating communism). I'm saying that, today, the world is necessarily dog-eat-dog because there's still a lot of scarcity to be apportioned, so you've got to work (or inherit, or cheat) your ass off to get a "fair" piece of the resource pie. But, depending on a lot of 'unfair circumstances' - like whether you were born in the exploiter or exploited country/caste/gender/etc - the deck is stacked against of lot of resentful... class envious people.
When resources from necessities to luxuries suddenly become extremely abundant, the gap narrows, and people are more content to live their lives. This isn't a commie utopia though. Special privilege must still be earned. society would probably reward people like top artists with that scarce beachfront property:), and 2nd-rate artists would have to make do with a beach on the hundreds of floating ocean cities, and a 3rd-rate artist'd make due with a simulation (until the simulation becomes reality... much later).
Anyway, as someone once said, "Incentives always matter", even in an economy of abundance.
Two words: class envy. It's getting so old and so tired, yet it will probably never ever go away.
Actually, the huge gap between the HAVES and HAVE-NOTS will almost entirely 'go away' in the next few decades as nanotechnology matures. Of course, even in a future where you can rearrange the molecules of garbage into dirtcheap food/clothes/cars/housing/medicine/etc, there will still be a few fundamental scarcities... like beachfront property, true friends, matter, energy, time, intelligence, etc., but the point is that in the absence of real material scarcity like we see today, there's no real justification for such a huge seperation between economic classes.
Slashdot Mirror
There is never only one true way to pronounce something (how f'n boring - but anal-retentives are like that I guess). Be glad that since your post got +5, that your "jiga" opinion may gain some mindshare in meme-space.
--
Those who control the future, control the present;
Those who control the present, control the past."
Only a terrorist would disagree with our Party's righteous motto!
--
When suits commit fraud it's called 'Corporate Malfeance'.
Get with the euphemism program buddy.
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After seeing, "Nanotech The Movie", there'll be rioting in the streets I tell you! :) I mean the decades-away reality of "free" food/clothes/$anyobject, immortality, space elevators, "smart fog" for levitation, molecular storage/computing, grey goo, etc., on the BIG SCREEN will just be too much of a Future Shock for panicy people.
--
My position on abortion is simple: I feel nothing for "potentially human" blobs of babygoo, but my emotional empathy for life increases as the baby's brain develops the capacity for sentience late-term. In fact, babies don't recognize themselves in a mirror until around their 18th month.
(I hold the same respect for a lumpy zygote as I do a braindead vegetable teenager being kept "alive" in a hospital by emotionally attached parents...)
--
Unenforced laws still have chilling effects.
--
IMO, strictly enforcing copyright is impossible technologically, but as long there's some kind of human connection between the producer and 'consumer', it's still possible to socially compel people to pay for the fruits of past/present/future projects. Past work would of course also be 'free' out in the digital wild like today, so it'd be the hardest sell of the bunch unless tied to some other value-add... like a tangibly scarce good, a future discount, the social status of being a benefactor, etc.
Capitalism works well when there's actual scarcity / unlimited wants, but it's a kludge in (potential) economies of abundance...
--
I've lost my bookmarks so many times that I've been conditioned to just forget about that particular browser feature.
Google, my memory, and friends, are my only means of finding quality sites again. :)
(as per your idea of using bookmarks-on-disk via p2p as the measure of link popularity... eh... it's a crippled version of a much larger idea.)
--
Five years is a lifetime on the net. In that amount of time I would certainly expect P2P to have matured to the point that distributed search would have almost completely displaced Google and the rest of the central SE's. In fact, I'd bet a bundle on it (i.e. good or evil, I'd still short Google if went public (after the initial pump of course)).
Like it or not, decentralized communication will continue to advance and empower the individual, despite corporate and government agendas to keep their centralized economic/power structures in place and the wool over our eyes...
--
I've been hear'n some things about an advanced interweb technology called "P2P" that might make this magic possible! It's amazing to think that I could download from a dynamically updated LOCAL cache some day! wow! (too much sarcasm?)
--
Since secure anonymous digital cash is still a fantasy (and a "terrorist" fantasy I'm sure! so track my finances! please! I've got nothing to hide!</end mini-sarcastic-rant>), the better option is to simply callback the sender automatically--if he didn't forge his address like 99.9% of spammers do--and ask him to perform some computationaly expensive operation and return the result for verification. If-not-spam, then whitelist the address/signature so future communication is "free".
Of course filtering is easier as a bandaid solution until people get fed up enough to scrap the old naive protocol & clients..
--
Even in games people do this... In Half-Life people care a lot about their custom "spray decals" that others see. In another game called SubSpace people take pride in their tiny 12x8 'banners' and in their 'audio taunts'. And on websites like DeviantArt people actually PAY to have their user icons made professionally.
--
Zero Point Energy may be unlikely, but it's not impossible either. Real science is actually flirting in this area... (but the conspiracy theorists have more fun with it :).
--
Yeah, just like how people feel when they think they've seen a ghost. Except most people don't believe in old-fashioned ghosts and goblins anymore, so the mass delusion has modernized. :-)
(I'm not saying it's definitely a delusion, since there's no hard evidence either way - which is why I'm also religiously agnostic (and consistent.))
--
"Give me a museum and I'll fill it." - Saeger
--
Real Americans (i.e. cowards unaware of history) have nothing to hide from their totally information-aware and benevolent government.
--
But as long as a company has complete control over the central game-servers the answer to this question is simple: The company owns and thus gets to control the user experience (for maximum profit). Barring a decentralized game network, it would take a company with brass balls to empower their users to effect THEM.
--
Exponential progress is a fact, and we're currently on the knee of that tech curve, but it's simply too hard for many people to accept how fast things are going to change in the near future, since our minds like to extrapolate linearly and futilely resist change...
It's easy to be cynical about the future though, after all, "where's my flying car dammit?!" is a free pass to make fun of any wild prediction, because of famous bad ones.
--
1. Wait a few decades for exponential progress to give birth to nanotech. :) :)
2. Cheaply launch my very own tiny "seed" factory towards a suitable asteroid, where it sets up shop awaiting my specific matter transformation instructions, and defends against "molecular thieves" who might want to jump MY asteroid claim.
3. Wait a few more years along the exponential tech curve for "mind uploading" to evolve.
4. Broadcast my "neural blueprint" (with ECC!) off the eggbasket (Earth) to my new asteroid-sized brain; grow and reconfigure to fill available space.
5. Join up with the rest of posthumanity in the newly forming Matrioshka Brain
6. Ponder 42.
7. Simulate new universes for fun... like this one.
8. Profit doesn't matter here.
--
--
When resources from necessities to luxuries suddenly become extremely abundant, the gap narrows, and people are more content to live their lives. This isn't a commie utopia though. Special privilege must still be earned. society would probably reward people like top artists with that scarce beachfront property :), and 2nd-rate artists would have to make do with a beach on the hundreds of floating ocean cities, and a 3rd-rate artist'd make due with a simulation (until the simulation becomes reality... much later).
Anyway, as someone once said, "Incentives always matter", even in an economy of abundance.
--
Actually, the huge gap between the HAVES and HAVE-NOTS will almost entirely 'go away' in the next few decades as nanotechnology matures. Of course, even in a future where you can rearrange the molecules of garbage into dirtcheap food/clothes/cars/housing/medicine/etc, there will still be a few fundamental scarcities... like beachfront property, true friends, matter, energy, time, intelligence, etc., but the point is that in the absence of real material scarcity like we see today, there's no real justification for such a huge seperation between economic classes.
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Screw it.
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A happy middle ground would be buying a condo instead of a PITA house.
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