200 terabyte drives will cost little more than the value of the raw materials used to build the thing.
For that to be the case would require molecular manufacturing, and we sure as hell won't still be storing data on spinning platters once have the ability to manipulate atoms like bits.
You'll change your mind after some guy breaks into your house and ties you to a chair, while you watch in tears as he violently rapes then murders your wife. You'll probably go a buy a gun the next day so you can shoot yourself in the head.
You're on my foe list. A gun is a legitimate tool for which the user is responsible. Only a government (or you, apparently) would be so arrogant as to take it away.
Everyone is somehow dependent on the federal government for one thing or another, and it's hard to give up the one program...
Reminds me of one of Harry Browne's talking points, which went something like, "Name one government program you can't live without", to which most people couldn't respond.
Seriously, most people KNOW that our government is mostly dead weight piled upon pork upon inefficiency. Most people are Libertarian at heart, or at least with the Republican party's original platform (of small gov't, etc).
I go into convulsions (no, not really) when every other time I tune to the SCIFI channel I find that fuck'n "Crossing Over with Kohn Artest" psychic crap on.
I look at the audience of the show and just see a mass of sheep caught in headlights. I think to myself, "Poor saps... but at least they've got a cult leader to look up to in order to fill their empty lives and empty heads."
Some time later I discovered that that same annoying show was on CBS. The stupidity is contageous!!! Advertisers REALLY want to target that audience.
Wow. You guys must be the ancestors I hear about in legends.
I bow to your seniority. I fear your smoked filled good ol boy club. I'm humbled by your innate wisdom. I'm envious of your low (#) rank. I respect your early adoption foresight. I... ok, that's enough fake asskissing of the powerless.:)
Social Status is a boring game (especially in the context of/. id's:)
Yes, I realize that opportunity costs don't evaporate... but they do drop as wealth increases. And nanotech will make everyone very (materially) wealthy indeed.
Imagine a future where we've sent a seedling factory to a large asteroid and converted the entire thing in a GIANT solar collector (catching maybe 0.01% of solar output), to be safely microwaved back to Earth to replace all other power generation thousands of times over. Now imagine all it takes is a small team of programmers here on Earth to tell an army of micromachines how to "grow" the earthside collectors, a new global powergrid, and other infrastructure. Now imagine that those programmers love their job. Now imagine that those programmers use this power in the process that reassembles the molecules in their garbage into a juicy steak. I'll stop here.:)
Rent's still gotta be paid though... unless we do something about them squatting landlords (no! I'm libertarian!), else we move offplanet.
Thought you'd like to know that I've added you to my shitlist. Why? Well, I don't get along with people who think that certain words should be left unspoken, and you even went so far as to suggest that you would suppress "potty mouths" even in the case of the parent post where it's used tastefully and correctly.
Fucking-A man... Grow up. (In this case, 'Fucking-A' is colorful but neutral, and "Grow up" is the actual insult.)
Buying $100,000 worth of solar cells just so you can get $10,000 worth of energy per year isn't free
I don't think you get it. Molecular manufacturing drastically reduces costs and democratizes the means of production at the same time. I don't have to buy those solar cells (or that Ferrari) from Monopoly-R-Us when I can "grow" my own (bootstrapping the process) using abundant resources. (I could then convert to hydrogen storage myself if I wanted.)
Allow me to quote Drexler, since he explains it better than I can:
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.
I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to the day that I can download "molecular scans" of physical objects, like that Ferrari, so that I can then make a perfect copy for free(*). And if I can do that, the company that makes the Ferrari's can to, which means orders of magnitude less production cost.
(*) what's free is the energy (sunlight), labor, and material cost, but the development costs (like with software) will remain.... until AI makes design intelligence less scarce.:)
As an aside, I once did a calculation that showed that if every person on the planet wanted to 'own' the mass equivelent of a modern aircraft carrier, it would require, IIRC, 1/100,000th of one percent of the Earths mass. And atoms dont wear out.
Real estate is looking like a better investment every day... it's truly a scarce resource and can only get more scarce.
No-one has yet actually done this, the middlemen are all too busy resisting the inevitable reduction in their revenue stream.
Well, I suppose if you've got the power, it makes perfect sense to spend that power on gouging people for the maximum profit you're used to for as long as possible. Why adapt to a new business model before you absolutely have to? To be fair and progressive so that the history books remember your grand foresight?:)
If Congress (hopefully) denies these dinosaurs their life extension laws, things will get interesting much quicker - and even quicker in the unlikelier case that copyright is reformed (instead of extended again and again and again...).
we should look into why kids used to learn better with good old paper
Maybe because kids weren't as spoiled as they are today, so they figured an education was a smart ticket out of the poorhouse. And maybe because dimwit parents pressure schools to just give their dumfuck kids a pass regardless of actual performance.
I also find it interesting that american kids overestimate their abilities in comparison to other countries kids (like South Koreans) who usually sell themselves short, but actually perform BETTER. Koreans study ALL DAY, with no summer break - the competition is crazy in that country.
There's a "great" side effect of redtape raising the bar so that only large organizations can afford to compete: individual cogs (people) get to transfer their personal responsibility to the secure system. Hurray! Maybe people feel that bureaucracies are worth the inflated price for the added insulation of unaccountability? And that small business (for example) is too "risky", so they don't mind if the barrier to entry is tough.
Slashdot Mirror
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For that to be the case would require molecular manufacturing, and we sure as hell won't still be storing data on spinning platters once have the ability to manipulate atoms like bits.
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You're on my foe list. A gun is a legitimate tool for which the user is responsible. Only a government (or you, apparently) would be so arrogant as to take it away.
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"Unfortunately it's too late to change the system, and too early to just shoot the bastards." -- unknown
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Reminds me of one of Harry Browne's talking points, which went something like, "Name one government program you can't live without", to which most people couldn't respond.
Seriously, most people KNOW that our government is mostly dead weight piled upon pork upon inefficiency. Most people are Libertarian at heart, or at least with the Republican party's original platform (of small gov't, etc).
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Yeah, you want citizens, not mere civilians. :)
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(here's a bucket)
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I look at the audience of the show and just see a mass of sheep caught in headlights. I think to myself, "Poor saps... but at least they've got a cult leader to look up to in order to fill their empty lives and empty heads."
Some time later I discovered that that same annoying show was on CBS. The stupidity is contageous!!! Advertisers REALLY want to target that audience.
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I bow to your seniority. ... ok, that's enough fake asskissing of the powerless. :)
I fear your smoked filled good ol boy club.
I'm humbled by your innate wisdom.
I'm envious of your low (#) rank.
I respect your early adoption foresight.
I
Social Status is a boring game (especially in the context of /. id's :)
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Imagine a future where we've sent a seedling factory to a large asteroid and converted the entire thing in a GIANT solar collector (catching maybe 0.01% of solar output), to be safely microwaved back to Earth to replace all other power generation thousands of times over. Now imagine all it takes is a small team of programmers here on Earth to tell an army of micromachines how to "grow" the earthside collectors, a new global powergrid, and other infrastructure. Now imagine that those programmers love their job. Now imagine that those programmers use this power in the process that reassembles the molecules in their garbage into a juicy steak. I'll stop here. :)
Rent's still gotta be paid though... unless we do something about them squatting landlords (no! I'm libertarian!), else we move offplanet.
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He did say it, and yes, I did overreact to the trigger. That was the point of my impulsive short reply... why would I put a lot of thought into it?
That's a bit feminine if you ask me. Heh.
Riiiight, just like all the other one-liner retorts on slashdot. (Glad you got your insult in too).
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As fer bitch'n - the post was impulsuve, and I expected to be buried and forgotten as usually happens with old threads (I'm catch'n up).
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Well, that's what a pet peeve will do to you, won't it.
And there's many flavors of shallow fucks; I'm sure I'm one of them.
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Thought you'd like to know that I've added you to my shitlist. Why? Well, I don't get along with people who think that certain words should be left unspoken, and you even went so far as to suggest that you would suppress "potty mouths" even in the case of the parent post where it's used tastefully and correctly.
Fucking-A man... Grow up. (In this case, 'Fucking-A' is colorful but neutral, and "Grow up" is the actual insult.)
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It's just a pet peeve of mine - move along now 'Anonvmous Coward', nothing to see here.
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I don't think you get it. Molecular manufacturing drastically reduces costs and democratizes the means of production at the same time. I don't have to buy those solar cells (or that Ferrari) from Monopoly-R-Us when I can "grow" my own (bootstrapping the process) using abundant resources. (I could then convert to hydrogen storage myself if I wanted.)
Allow me to quote Drexler, since he explains it better than I can:
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(*) what's free is the energy (sunlight), labor, and material cost, but the development costs (like with software) will remain.... until AI makes design intelligence less scarce. :)
As an aside, I once did a calculation that showed that if every person on the planet wanted to 'own' the mass equivelent of a modern aircraft carrier, it would require, IIRC, 1/100,000th of one percent of the Earths mass. And atoms dont wear out.
Real estate is looking like a better investment every day... it's truly a scarce resource and can only get more scarce.
first post
Well, I suppose if you've got the power, it makes perfect sense to spend that power on gouging people for the maximum profit you're used to for as long as possible. Why adapt to a new business model before you absolutely have to? To be fair and progressive so that the history books remember your grand foresight? :)
If Congress (hopefully) denies these dinosaurs their life extension laws, things will get interesting much quicker - and even quicker in the unlikelier case that copyright is reformed (instead of extended again and again and again...).
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Maybe because kids weren't as spoiled as they are today, so they figured an education was a smart ticket out of the poorhouse. And maybe because dimwit parents pressure schools to just give their dumfuck kids a pass regardless of actual performance.
I also find it interesting that american kids overestimate their abilities in comparison to other countries kids (like South Koreans) who usually sell themselves short, but actually perform BETTER. Koreans study ALL DAY, with no summer break - the competition is crazy in that country.
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