freedom to live where you want, have as many kids as you want, worship who you want?
Maybe your idea of heaven in living in a communal farm, getting up at 5 am to feed the chickens and pigs, saving your yen for a tractor and hoping your state assigned marriage with be a happy one, but I want a little more freedom for my children.
Once the Red China occcupy the moon, they have the strategic highground and can tell America to piss up a rope or suffer orbital bombardment. Then they take over Taiwan, and then they start imposing Chinese Communism on the world.
Will a Sino-Lunar base be our generation's Sputnik? Will this be the alarm clock that waken's America's resolve, and will it ring too late?
Most of the younger/.'ers may not know of Sputnik, but it was a terrifying incident in America's history. While America was recovering from defeating Germany and Japan in WWII and taking a well earned rest, the Russian were forcing their captured German rocket scientists to recreate their work at Peenemunde and make a rocket large enough to put a satellite into orbit, this satellite was Sputnik.
The danger here was that any rocket large enough enough to loft a sattelite was also large enough to place an H-bomb (created with stolen American designs) right in Central Park, or the Pentagon. No longer could America depend on it's flyboys to protect itself against the Red Menace. Russia held a cocked and loaded nuclear pistol to the Free World's head.
Once any schoolboy with a Tandy radio kit could listen to the Commie Sputnik satellite circling the Earth, the need was clear. If America was going to regain the lead in the space race and keep the world free of the Communist menace, we must buckle down. Science became trendy, academics became more important, the nerdier geekier sort who inhabit/. became the new saviours of America. The 1950s and 1960s were the golden age of the American engineer.
And it paid off, America was the only country to put a man on the moon.
But now, the Red Chinese are racing to have the first permanent Moonbase, and if you don't know how dire that is, reread Heinlein's "The Moon is A Harsh Mistress". Do we want to live in a world that's under the constant menace of Commie rocks from the Moon, cracking down on our religion, way of life and democracy? Do you want to live ina world where you can have only one child, and have to worship Confucius? Do you want to have you one child taken away to a creche, and be forced to live on a communal farm? Maybe this can spur more people into the hard sciences, and fewer into business and law.
While namp is a neat hack, before any of you juvenile deliquents think of using it to commit computer hacking felonies, be aware that it is easily fooled.
If you look at the source code, you can see which ports it queries, and which responses it maps against. We used this for great affect at Adequacy, http://www.adequacy.org, editing the registry of our Win 2k box, and the configuration files of the various TCP/IP programs to make it appear as a simple FreeBSD to the casual hacker.
Oh, the laughs were on us when those script children proceeded to attempt to hack us with canned scripts for use against FreeBSD, only to fail. The looks on their pimply, greasy faces were probably priceless, only to be matched when the local law enforcement arrived at their parents house to confiscate their computers.
I've always been a big science fiction fan, and when I heard the buzz about the English author Ian McLeod I though I would check out his work.
Well, I was appalled when I read Cosmonaut Keep. In case you haven't read this sophomoric Marxists drivel, I will give you a one paragraph summary.
Americans bad. Capitalism bad. Socialism good. Drugs good. High technology cool, but the best technology (computers and aerospace) is American. Don't ask us to reconcile that.
I'm glad to see the Nebula voters have voted for right-thinking, American-proud authors like Gaimain, and avoided socialist anti-American clap-trap like McLeod, it's almost enough to make me forgive them for awarding the commie-drug-perversion filled Gravity's Rainbow the best novel in 1974.
Have you read no Niven?
on
Ask Larry Niven
·
· Score: -1, Troll
Have you read none of his Known Space stories? Here's a few, name a religious idea in them:
Protector Nope, the Pak are prisoners of pheronomes.
Ringworld Nope, unless being Lucky counts.
World of Ptaaavs Hmm, an unstoppable beast is running amok, no need to pray there.
Neutron Star Hmm, I'm about to be ripped apart by tidal forces, nothing to do but hold on.
The Handicapped Gosh, what theological ideas a sessile intelligent east might have.
Compare this with the Moties religions, the Russian Orthodox religion and others in Mote, a huge world of difference.
I suspect you are the one with an insufficient grounding in Sci-Fi.
Why is there no religion in Known Space
on
Ask Larry Niven
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I know most SF writers aren't big on religion, but religion occupies a very large space in your collaboration with Pournelle, "The Mote in God's Eye", yet is conspicously lacking in Known Space. Is the religion in "Mote" all Jerry's doing?
an age where Pioneer was a noble term, a term for a rough and rugged man willing to brave terrible hardships and sacrifices to open up the wilderness for the betterment of mankind, and bring light unto the Savages.
In this kinder, gentler, PC world, perhaps the next solar system probe can be named "Differently Advantaged," or "Quotas", or "System of Non-rational Beliefs," or even "White Men are the Cause of all evil".
for while America's fighting men are top notch, having the world's best and largest nuclear arsenal behind them is a great insurance policy.
If the Godless Chinese, or Godless Russians, or heretica Al'Qeada can penetrate Los Alamos and steal vital military secrets, the Pax Americana might be compromised, and the world would become a far harsher place.
This relates to my theory on lawyers, and why they
on
Democracy in the Dark?
·
· Score: 5, Funny
make so much more than IT people. All the lawyers references books are bound in leather and make matching sets, making an expensive, intimidating wall of knowledge buttressing their skills.
In contrast, I look at my bookshelves, and see a hodge podge of O'Reilly books, Dummies books, Various OS Bibles (yeah, heretical, I know), few of which match, and few of which are leather bound.
I'm hoping that once IT stabilizes, O'Reilly can come out with a huge set of matching leather bound tomes that would make an imposing background for my IT work. Then I can charge $100/hour.
Of course, that would cost a lot, raising the barrier of entry, just like Lexus/Nexus does.
for Laid Off WebMasters Who Dropped Out of College With a Passing Knowledge of Front Page to Work For a Dotcom, but then I've always valued a four year degree.
all the Iraqi IT guys don't read Slashdot and Bugtraq.
Let's be real, how is Taco going to feel when he reads about a Chinook full of young Americans that got shot down from a SAM battery that could not be hacked and disabled because Achmed reads Slashdot, and knew enough to patch his OpenBSD 3.0 firewall (yeah, I got caught by that OpenSSH bug, too).
I'm sure it's an unpopular view amongst the freedom of IP at all costs crowd that's common here, but maybe for the duration of the Iraqi conflict, we can stop posting exploit and bug notifications, at least until the US has installed a nascent capitalist, western ideologued democracy in Iraq.
RADAR did play a minor role in WWII
on
Tuxedo Park
·
· Score: 4, Funny
but in the Korean War, he got promoted to Corporal, and could hear incoming medevac helicopters.
This was prominently mentioned in Kim Stanley Robinson's Antartica, which is so much alike in theme and characterization ti his Mars trilogy that it can be referred to as "White Mars".
You may not be aware of the history of FreeBSD, but it was primarily coded in the Socialist Republic of Berkeley, and you can be sure the God-hating Communist ethos pervades every line of code.
So, in essence, FreeBSD will be slow, unreliable, balky and cause it's users and administrators to be damned to the eternal torment of Hell, much like Soviet Russia.
You would be better off using an AT&T branch of SYSV UNIX, at least people in New Jersey believe in God.
electing noted terrorist and torturer Moamar Qaddafi to the UN Human Rights Committee is just more proof of the anti Democratic, anti technology, anti Christian and anti American bias in that agency.
So, when some UN sponsored agency says chip manufacturing uses all these resources and makes all this pollution, I take those figure with a grain of salt, and look for the political movement behind them. I suspect the next report will condemn America and other western nations for their reliance on energy wasting high tech, and suggest we go back to living in drafty huts heated with animal dung (hello tubercolisos and lung disease) common in more PC third world countries like India, Sudan and France, while applauding the slave and child labor and environmental destruction used in the latest fabs in China.
I just ask you to compare the amounts of fossil fuel used to make this Pentium I'm using with the amounts I would need to go to each and every one of you and try to bring you back to the True Church, and ask you what is the better bargain for the world our Creator Above gave us.
and if you had heard some of the horror stories that I have in my local parish support groups, you would too.
Too often, a young wife has come weeping to me. After being talked into posing for salacious photos by her pornography-addicted husband, she has found her husband has sold and traded her sacred views to other, like minded, pornography-addicted husbands.
Can you imagine the shame of having a co-worker, or postal clerk, or supermarket butcher comment on how good you look in a negligee?
If there was an unalterable trail from camera to jpeg, those sick men would not be able to weasel their way out of their villiany, and they would be forced to confront their odious addiction. No longer would they be able to say it was a case of mistaken identity, or some woman who looked like their wife.
Ideally of course, the digital camera would have an AI that would prevent taking pictures of naked women, but until then, DRM may be that only thing saving our marriages.
I think this is a step in the wrong direction, and will lead to more accidents and deaths down the road.
Any biker who's rode more than 10,000 miles will have many tales to tell you of stupid cagers trying to kill them, with only the biker's wits and reflexes to save them. In a way, it's a way of separating men who trust themselves from the great scared masses who can't be trusted with dangerous machines, be they motorcycles, or even handguns.
But with this, the stupid cager masses will think they will be invulnerable on a bike, and take up riding. Soon, the body count will rise, how much will an airbag protect one against being run over by a semi, or high siding into a tree at 80 mph?
It's a lot like sin, the safest way to ride is not to rely on gear, but constant, ceaseless vigiliance, and no matter how much you try to protect yourself and your family from sin and temptation, the best way to prevent the excrutiating pain of eternal Damnation is ceaseless, constant vigilance, and being born Catholic.
So every thing they do is colored by an illogical, irrational belief in God, and a desire to oppress and torture everyone who isn't of their particular Christian sect.
Come on people, this is Slashdot, if it's even remotely associated with organized religion, it's bad!.
organizations that capitalize on the intellectual assets and fervor of their members, rather than throwing money at problems and overengineering them.
If NASA has the attitude that having a space station that was 99% safe, instead of 99.99% safe, and relied on the skill of the residents astronauts to fix any problems, we'd have the dual torus in 2001, instead of a little tin can. Good luck getting that in today's wiffle world.
Any history buff can tell you just how far a few, determined, idealistic men can go in changing history. Someday I may tell you how 13 men took on an Empire, and altared history (for the better), forever, 2000 years ago.
At one time, America had a vision of it's destiny, to continue to grow, spread and become a full fledged country. Sadly, in the last few decades America is becoming an insular, introspective cowardly nation.
If you ever read classic science fiction from the 1950's, you can feel America's pulse, we were going to conquer space, we were going to colonize orbit, the Moon, Mars, we were going to spread humanity through the Solar System, and eventually the galay. Somehow, in the last 30 years this changed.
Nowadays, Americans want comfort and safety, real heroism is lacking. We'll spend millions on designing a better recliner, with built in cat5 ports and a refrigerator. We'll spend millions on keeping people from smoking cigarettes, ignoring the fact that God gave people free will to decide for themselves. And then, because the budget has been spent on frivolous mandates like family-destroying welfare, we'll give up on space.
I, for one, blame the permissive 60's. Too many baby boomers ruined their mind on hallucinogens, and lost the courage and faith of their forefathers. Now, unless they're guaranteed 100 percent safety and comfort, these boomers won't have anything to do with it. Take NASA's money and spend it on Social Security so I can still rock to the Doors and drive my SUV when I'm 80. Greedy bastards.
What can we do to reclaim America's spirit? I don't think it's a coincidence that America's only Catholic president got us to the Moon. Yes, when you're involved in the True Church, you know that despite all your efforts, Death will get you, so it's better to be in orbit and die in a meteor shower, or die of a pressure suit leak on the Moon, than cravenly hiding in a planned retirement home.
America, let's get back to the Moon, let's go to Mars, and let's bring the Jesuits!
I pay my $30 for DSL every month, without ponying anything up to the EFF. I get my DSL through my local RBOC (frontier) and I've been very happy with it, having only one significant outage in the last year and a half.
Of course, I have an old American trick, competition. Time-Warner also competes for broadband in my area with Roadrunner, so we have two competing firms lowering the prices and raising the quality.
Perhaps it's heresy to suggest on a site so filled with such anti-corporation activists that it's nearly the Democratic headquarters, but good old fashioned competition is just about the best remedy there is for monopolies on broadband, OSes and media. I know business, competition and capitalism aren't very in vogue with the anti-globalization digerati (they prefer socialist fiats, sure, drag the competent down to the level of the lazy), but without keen agressive business people, you would all be reading Slashdot as a BBS on 14.4 telephone lines and Soviet copied 386s.
As for Harry Potter, I doubt I will bring the family to see that, as it kind of glosses over just which fate will befall those who practice witchcraft and necromancy. Perhaps the seventh film will tie it all together, Harry Potter and the Abyss of Eternal Torment and Damnation.
Please, Deep Blue is not AI, chess is a limited
on
Behind Deep Blue
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
move game. True, human's can't interpret the billions of possible moves, and only understand basic repeated patterns (try it with you local grandmaster, they can memorize any board of a game in play, but can't memorize a randomly placed board). True, human pattern recognition is far better than machines, but in the end chess is just billions of possible moves, and now that computers can process far enough into the game, they need never lose.
True AI would be a real thinking, feeling machine, and I'm not sure if that's possible. Perhaps the day when we see a computer sit down and ponder it's origins, and even pray, then we can think we've created an AI ( but will it have a soul?).
Aside from Gene Wolfe, and Orson Scott Card, the Mormonist, where are the religious science fiction writers? Don't say they can't exist, there are religious programmers, like Larry Wall.
In the first story mentioned, "Twenty Two Buttons", a Catholic would laugh. Sorry, you can't get a consecrated host over the Net, a priest has to perform the miracle of Transubstiation, and you must get the host in person, after saying the secret Catholic password. So, Catholics would still need face to face meeting, sorry d00d.
The other story "Carthaginian Rose" completely ignores the existence of an immortal soul. You can't transfer a soul into a machine (Tracy Kidder's tome notwithstanding). Sorry, patently absurd.
I wish science fiction writers would think a little bit more about the world in which they inhabit, not everyone one is an introverted self hating geeek.
Slashdot Mirror
freedom to live where you want, have as many kids as you want, worship who you want?
Maybe your idea of heaven in living in a communal farm, getting up at 5 am to feed the chickens and pigs, saving your yen for a tractor and hoping your state assigned marriage with be a happy one, but I want a little more freedom for my children.
Once the Red China occcupy the moon, they have the strategic highground and can tell America to piss up a rope or suffer orbital bombardment. Then they take over Taiwan, and then they start imposing Chinese Communism on the world.
Will a Sino-Lunar base be our generation's Sputnik? Will this be the alarm clock that waken's America's resolve, and will it ring too late?
/.'ers may not know of Sputnik, but it was a terrifying incident in America's history. While America was recovering from defeating Germany and Japan in WWII and taking a well earned rest, the Russian were forcing their captured German rocket scientists to recreate their work at Peenemunde and make a rocket large enough to put a satellite into orbit, this satellite was Sputnik.
/. became the new saviours of America. The 1950s and 1960s were the golden age of the American engineer.
Most of the younger
The danger here was that any rocket large enough enough to loft a sattelite was also large enough to place an H-bomb (created with stolen American designs) right in Central Park, or the Pentagon. No longer could America depend on it's flyboys to protect itself against the Red Menace. Russia held a cocked and loaded nuclear pistol to the Free World's head.
Once any schoolboy with a Tandy radio kit could listen to the Commie Sputnik satellite circling the Earth, the need was clear. If America was going to regain the lead in the space race and keep the world free of the Communist menace, we must buckle down. Science became trendy, academics became more important, the nerdier geekier sort who inhabit
And it paid off, America was the only country to put a man on the moon.
But now, the Red Chinese are racing to have the first permanent Moonbase, and if you don't know how dire that is, reread Heinlein's "The Moon is A Harsh Mistress". Do we want to live in a world that's under the constant menace of Commie rocks from the Moon, cracking down on our religion, way of life and democracy? Do you want to live ina world where you can have only one child, and have to worship Confucius? Do you want to have you one child taken away to a creche, and be forced to live on a communal farm? Maybe this can spur more people into the hard sciences, and fewer into business and law.
While namp is a neat hack, before any of you juvenile deliquents think of using it to commit computer hacking felonies, be aware that it is easily fooled.
If you look at the source code, you can see which ports it queries, and which responses it maps against. We used this for great affect at Adequacy, http://www.adequacy.org, editing the registry of our Win 2k box, and the configuration files of the various TCP/IP programs to make it appear as a simple FreeBSD to the casual hacker.
Oh, the laughs were on us when those script children proceeded to attempt to hack us with canned scripts for use against FreeBSD, only to fail. The looks on their pimply, greasy faces were probably priceless, only to be matched when the local law enforcement arrived at their parents house to confiscate their computers.
I've always been a big science fiction fan, and when I heard the buzz about the English author Ian McLeod I though I would check out his work.
Well, I was appalled when I read Cosmonaut Keep. In case you haven't read this sophomoric Marxists drivel, I will give you a one paragraph summary.
Americans bad. Capitalism bad. Socialism good. Drugs good. High technology cool, but the best technology (computers and aerospace) is American. Don't ask us to reconcile that.
I'm glad to see the Nebula voters have voted for right-thinking, American-proud authors like Gaimain, and avoided socialist anti-American clap-trap like McLeod, it's almost enough to make me forgive them for awarding the commie-drug-perversion filled Gravity's Rainbow the best novel in 1974.
Compare this with the Moties religions, the Russian Orthodox religion and others in Mote, a huge world of difference.
I suspect you are the one with an insufficient grounding in Sci-Fi.
I know most SF writers aren't big on religion, but religion occupies a very large space in your collaboration with Pournelle, "The Mote in God's Eye", yet is conspicously lacking in Known Space. Is the religion in "Mote" all Jerry's doing?
an age where Pioneer was a noble term, a term for a rough and rugged man willing to brave terrible hardships and sacrifices to open up the wilderness for the betterment of mankind, and bring light unto the Savages.
In this kinder, gentler, PC world, perhaps the next solar system probe can be named "Differently Advantaged," or "Quotas", or "System of Non-rational Beliefs," or even "White Men are the Cause of all evil".
for while America's fighting men are top notch, having the world's best and largest nuclear arsenal behind them is a great insurance policy.
If the Godless Chinese, or Godless Russians, or heretica Al'Qeada can penetrate Los Alamos and steal vital military secrets, the Pax Americana might be compromised, and the world would become a far harsher place.
make so much more than IT people. All the lawyers references books are bound in leather and make matching sets, making an expensive, intimidating wall of knowledge buttressing their skills.
In contrast, I look at my bookshelves, and see a hodge podge of O'Reilly books, Dummies books, Various OS Bibles (yeah, heretical, I know), few of which match, and few of which are leather bound.
I'm hoping that once IT stabilizes, O'Reilly can come out with a huge set of matching leather bound tomes that would make an imposing background for my IT work. Then I can charge $100/hour.
Of course, that would cost a lot, raising the barrier of entry, just like Lexus/Nexus does.
Of course, since telemarketers are a tool of Satan, they instantly hang up.
for Laid Off WebMasters Who Dropped Out of College With a Passing Knowledge of Front Page to Work For a Dotcom, but then I've always valued a four year degree.
This books sounds like buzzword fluff.
all the Iraqi IT guys don't read Slashdot and Bugtraq.
Let's be real, how is Taco going to feel when he reads about a Chinook full of young Americans that got shot down from a SAM battery that could not be hacked and disabled because Achmed reads Slashdot, and knew enough to patch his OpenBSD 3.0 firewall (yeah, I got caught by that OpenSSH bug, too).
I'm sure it's an unpopular view amongst the freedom of IP at all costs crowd that's common here, but maybe for the duration of the Iraqi conflict, we can stop posting exploit and bug notifications, at least until the US has installed a nascent capitalist, western ideologued democracy in Iraq.
but in the Korean War, he got promoted to Corporal, and could hear incoming medevac helicopters.
This was prominently mentioned in Kim Stanley Robinson's Antartica, which is so much alike in theme and characterization ti his Mars trilogy that it can be referred to as "White Mars".
You may not be aware of the history of FreeBSD, but it was primarily coded in the Socialist Republic of Berkeley, and you can be sure the God-hating Communist ethos pervades every line of code.
So, in essence, FreeBSD will be slow, unreliable, balky and cause it's users and administrators to be damned to the eternal torment of Hell, much like Soviet Russia.
You would be better off using an AT&T branch of SYSV UNIX, at least people in New Jersey believe in God.
So, when some UN sponsored agency says chip manufacturing uses all these resources and makes all this pollution, I take those figure with a grain of salt, and look for the political movement behind them. I suspect the next report will condemn America and other western nations for their reliance on energy wasting high tech, and suggest we go back to living in drafty huts heated with animal dung (hello tubercolisos and lung disease) common in more PC third world countries like India, Sudan and France, while applauding the slave and child labor and environmental destruction used in the latest fabs in China.
I just ask you to compare the amounts of fossil fuel used to make this Pentium I'm using with the amounts I would need to go to each and every one of you and try to bring you back to the True Church, and ask you what is the better bargain for the world our Creator Above gave us.
Too often, a young wife has come weeping to me. After being talked into posing for salacious photos by her pornography-addicted husband, she has found her husband has sold and traded her sacred views to other, like minded, pornography-addicted husbands.
Can you imagine the shame of having a co-worker, or postal clerk, or supermarket butcher comment on how good you look in a negligee?
If there was an unalterable trail from camera to jpeg, those sick men would not be able to weasel their way out of their villiany, and they would be forced to confront their odious addiction. No longer would they be able to say it was a case of mistaken identity, or some woman who looked like their wife.
Ideally of course, the digital camera would have an AI that would prevent taking pictures of naked women, but until then, DRM may be that only thing saving our marriages.
I think this is a step in the wrong direction, and will lead to more accidents and deaths down the road.
Any biker who's rode more than 10,000 miles will have many tales to tell you of stupid cagers trying to kill them, with only the biker's wits and reflexes to save them. In a way, it's a way of separating men who trust themselves from the great scared masses who can't be trusted with dangerous machines, be they motorcycles, or even handguns.
But with this, the stupid cager masses will think they will be invulnerable on a bike, and take up riding. Soon, the body count will rise, how much will an airbag protect one against being run over by a semi, or high siding into a tree at 80 mph?
It's a lot like sin, the safest way to ride is not to rely on gear, but constant, ceaseless vigiliance, and no matter how much you try to protect yourself and your family from sin and temptation, the best way to prevent the excrutiating pain of eternal Damnation is ceaseless, constant vigilance, and being born Catholic.
Come on people, this is Slashdot, if it's even remotely associated with organized religion, it's bad!.
organizations that capitalize on the intellectual assets and fervor of their members, rather than throwing money at problems and overengineering them.
If NASA has the attitude that having a space station that was 99% safe, instead of 99.99% safe, and relied on the skill of the residents astronauts to fix any problems, we'd have the dual torus in 2001, instead of a little tin can. Good luck getting that in today's wiffle world.
Any history buff can tell you just how far a few, determined, idealistic men can go in changing history. Someday I may tell you how 13 men took on an Empire, and altared history (for the better), forever, 2000 years ago.
If you ever read classic science fiction from the 1950's, you can feel America's pulse, we were going to conquer space, we were going to colonize orbit, the Moon, Mars, we were going to spread humanity through the Solar System, and eventually the galay. Somehow, in the last 30 years this changed.
Nowadays, Americans want comfort and safety, real heroism is lacking. We'll spend millions on designing a better recliner, with built in cat5 ports and a refrigerator. We'll spend millions on keeping people from smoking cigarettes, ignoring the fact that God gave people free will to decide for themselves. And then, because the budget has been spent on frivolous mandates like family-destroying welfare, we'll give up on space.
I, for one, blame the permissive 60's. Too many baby boomers ruined their mind on hallucinogens, and lost the courage and faith of their forefathers. Now, unless they're guaranteed 100 percent safety and comfort, these boomers won't have anything to do with it. Take NASA's money and spend it on Social Security so I can still rock to the Doors and drive my SUV when I'm 80. Greedy bastards.
What can we do to reclaim America's spirit? I don't think it's a coincidence that America's only Catholic president got us to the Moon. Yes, when you're involved in the True Church, you know that despite all your efforts, Death will get you, so it's better to be in orbit and die in a meteor shower, or die of a pressure suit leak on the Moon, than cravenly hiding in a planned retirement home.
America, let's get back to the Moon, let's go to Mars, and let's bring the Jesuits!
Of course, I have an old American trick, competition. Time-Warner also competes for broadband in my area with Roadrunner, so we have two competing firms lowering the prices and raising the quality.
Perhaps it's heresy to suggest on a site so filled with such anti-corporation activists that it's nearly the Democratic headquarters, but good old fashioned competition is just about the best remedy there is for monopolies on broadband, OSes and media. I know business, competition and capitalism aren't very in vogue with the anti-globalization digerati (they prefer socialist fiats, sure, drag the competent down to the level of the lazy), but without keen agressive business people, you would all be reading Slashdot as a BBS on 14.4 telephone lines and Soviet copied 386s.
As for Harry Potter, I doubt I will bring the family to see that, as it kind of glosses over just which fate will befall those who practice witchcraft and necromancy. Perhaps the seventh film will tie it all together, Harry Potter and the Abyss of Eternal Torment and Damnation.
move game. True, human's can't interpret the billions of possible moves, and only understand basic repeated patterns (try it with you local grandmaster, they can memorize any board of a game in play, but can't memorize a randomly placed board). True, human pattern recognition is far better than machines, but in the end chess is just billions of possible moves, and now that computers can process far enough into the game, they need never lose.
True AI would be a real thinking, feeling machine, and I'm not sure if that's possible. Perhaps the day when we see a computer sit down and ponder it's origins, and even pray, then we can think we've created an AI ( but will it have a soul?).
Aside from Gene Wolfe, and Orson Scott Card, the Mormonist, where are the religious science fiction writers? Don't say they can't exist, there are religious programmers, like Larry Wall.
In the first story mentioned, "Twenty Two Buttons", a Catholic would laugh. Sorry, you can't get a consecrated host over the Net, a priest has to perform the miracle of Transubstiation, and you must get the host in person, after saying the secret Catholic password. So, Catholics would still need face to face meeting, sorry d00d.
The other story "Carthaginian Rose" completely ignores the existence of an immortal soul. You can't transfer a soul into a machine (Tracy Kidder's tome notwithstanding). Sorry, patently absurd.
I wish science fiction writers would think a little bit more about the world in which they inhabit, not everyone one is an introverted self hating geeek.