To give you an analogy of how this works, I will go over an incidence I just had:
- I put an online character up for auction on Ebay.
- The winner sends me money via PayPal.
- I see the money is in my account, and that the winner is a "verified" PayPal person.
- The winner has a "verified" address, but I do not use it as the goods transfered are virtual (online character of a game).
- I transfer the character.
- The next day, PayPal sends an email saying that the account was hacked, and the transfer was fraudulent. The money that was previously transfered to my PayPal account is now removed.
And that is it. In this situation, there is no way PayPal is going to return the money. What happened is that the PayPal account was hacked by someone (still do not know), and they did alot of Ebay auction wins with just "virtual" transfers. Then within a week, they are gone. The real person who owns the account (whom I talked to) says her account was hacked by someone, and she is really sorry. Her Ebay account is now useless, as it has 15+ sequential "FRAUD ACCOUNT! DO NOT USE!" replies for auction wins.
Human technology development is not a straight line. Take where we were 200 years. Then try to extrapolate back to where the same tech delta occured. My guesstimate is around 2000BC. So with a 20-1 exponential factor, it could be possible we would reach Q state in 200 years (assuming it is 20X our current tech level). Really hard to nail though , but trying to predict the future is a dubious carreer path.
More than likely there is a feedback mechanism, since we survived so far. So what could that be? Our future selfs modifing our present? Aliens? Or just the nature of this universe?
Like alot of intelligent people, bill has some serious concerns with humanity as it progresses towards the future.
Do the math. As technology becomes more advanced, the amount of real damage an individual does to this reality goes up exponentially.
First it starts with a few rocks. Then mixing some simple chemicals together to get a rapidly exploding gas. Then compressing some rare uranium to get a nuclear chain reaction.
At first, it started out as individuals, then progressed so that large groups would be the only ones capable of doing something like a nuke.
But in the future it will start to swing back, so that individuals will be able to achieve the impossible (or what we thought was impossible).
In the future we will all be Q's. And all it takes is one bad apple. And look what 21 did just recently.
I give humanity 200 years. Tops.
Cheers, have a great sunday!;-)
Slashdot Mirror
To give you an analogy of how this works, I will go over an incidence I just had: - I put an online character up for auction on Ebay. - The winner sends me money via PayPal. - I see the money is in my account, and that the winner is a "verified" PayPal person. - The winner has a "verified" address, but I do not use it as the goods transfered are virtual (online character of a game). - I transfer the character. - The next day, PayPal sends an email saying that the account was hacked, and the transfer was fraudulent. The money that was previously transfered to my PayPal account is now removed. And that is it. In this situation, there is no way PayPal is going to return the money. What happened is that the PayPal account was hacked by someone (still do not know), and they did alot of Ebay auction wins with just "virtual" transfers. Then within a week, they are gone. The real person who owns the account (whom I talked to) says her account was hacked by someone, and she is really sorry. Her Ebay account is now useless, as it has 15+ sequential "FRAUD ACCOUNT! DO NOT USE!" replies for auction wins.
Human technology development is not a straight line. Take where we were 200 years. Then try to extrapolate back to where the same tech delta occured. My guesstimate is around 2000BC. So with a 20-1 exponential factor, it could be possible we would reach Q state in 200 years (assuming it is 20X our current tech level). Really hard to nail though , but trying to predict the future is a dubious carreer path.
More than likely there is a feedback mechanism, since we survived so far. So what could that be? Our future selfs modifing our present? Aliens? Or just the nature of this universe?
Like alot of intelligent people, bill has some serious concerns with humanity as it progresses towards the future. Do the math. As technology becomes more advanced, the amount of real damage an individual does to this reality goes up exponentially. First it starts with a few rocks. Then mixing some simple chemicals together to get a rapidly exploding gas. Then compressing some rare uranium to get a nuclear chain reaction. At first, it started out as individuals, then progressed so that large groups would be the only ones capable of doing something like a nuke. But in the future it will start to swing back, so that individuals will be able to achieve the impossible (or what we thought was impossible). In the future we will all be Q's. And all it takes is one bad apple. And look what 21 did just recently. I give humanity 200 years. Tops. Cheers, have a great sunday! ;-)