REcently you extolled the wonderful ability our science is developing to restore extinct species to this planet. You presented several poignant stories of cute animals that should be brought back because we humans have been careless. Why should we do this? But this is not my question.
You already provided some innuendo as to an answer - we feel guilty at wholesale extermination of 'innocent species',or because we are pruning the genetic diversity of our planet. Or perhaps it is a 'fear argument'. That less scrupulous nations will use this technology for less altruistic purposes (hybridizing chimps, humans and dogs to create a dim witted and willing servant class?).
The proposal to pursue this technology reminds me of humanity's headlong pursuit of atomic research. We needed to develop that technology out of fear- the fear that someone else would have it first and then we might see nuclear Pearl Harbors. But look at how much trouble we have at containing the nuclear genie. One might argue that we are in Afghanistan just to have proximity to the Pakistani nukes so we can get on top of any situation that might develop there. Your rebuttal of course will run along the lines of 'guns dont kill, people do'. And of course you might add that if we do not do this, then some other poorer, more desperate, and equally intelligent nation will develop this tech and leapfrog us. But what if we restore an animal that happens to be an excellent intermediate host to a flu strain and enables it to become a human lethal pandemic producing strain?
This kind of decision will come upon us again and again. More genies will come bursting out of the tech-no-logical bottle.
My question is: Is the only way to control 'dangerous' tech to lead in it? How can we sandbox our research and at the same time encourage it? allow it only to be done on the moon or a different planet? Or perhaps every involved researcher, engineer, student and professor should go online and post their thoughts on twitter, wikipedia and slashdot. These intellects are the agents who are leading us into the maze. Should they be held personally accountable for misuse of their discoveries? Or should the wise old men of science and who direct these efforts and the business men who finance them be held accountable. Aren't they the ones who are angling for financial rewards?
Please forgive these outrageous suggestions. Even when life was easier, when exploration meant getting into a boat and sailing away to find new lands, we still made unknowing mistakes and decimated populations simply by visiting them. If we resurrect the extinct, we might visit upon ourselves an irreversible extinction.
everyone who checks in at a hospital should have their electrical energy harvested! that way we can pay for healthcare. and all the fancy computers, electronic medical records,etc that are needed in hospitals these days. Even though mortality has not been reduced by any of these measures.
since E=h*v, the energy output is amazing- a true death ray - you could fry any missile in flight. what's the name of those russian things the iraqis are shooting at israel? Actually, Edward teller conceived an interesting design for an xray laser. A thermonuclear weapon i space encased by a porcupine shell of tungsten rods. The rods are aimed at their targts an when the thermonuclear weapon is detonated, the gamma rays shoot down the tungsten rods and xrays are generated. presto, goldfinger would be jealous. of course there is the little problem of clean up afterwards...
it's not the frequency stupid, it's the method. aliens are likely to be using the most efficient form of communication. A bandwidth starved society would use packet based digital transmission. Why dont we use hubble hooked up to air snort?
We do not continuously talk, think and listen. We function in quanta. The ideal nearly net device would be a cell phone that would always monitor the signal strength of the network, and when it's adequate, retrieve all voice mail, email, and video messages. Even here in massachusetts, 20 miles from Silicon alley, there are frustrating dropouts in signal strength. Who is to say that as the network ages and components randomly fail, even people in urban areas wont experience frustration with attempting live communication on demand. Burst communications are also more secure.
So as you drive home, your device will ring when it's buuffer is refreshed with new content and you'll be able to respond in a human way. Devices serve people,
At a given level of integration, One can produce smaller simpler chips with higher yields per wafer but at the cost of greater pcb complexity in the final product (more squiggly traces to interconnect more of the simpler chips). This corresponds to swarm intelligence as a result of more numerous but simpler organisms. There is a magic minimum cost that dictates optimum chip size.
Currently, the chip designers and builders can only shrink transistors. Once they begin to shrink the other basic 2 units of electromechanical devices (the sensor and the actuator) each chip will indeed have 'swarming ability'. Imagine swarm complexity doubling every year. This is equivalent to speciation on an annual basis. Even the most rapidly growing biological organism evolves at a glacial pace compared to this. Because it is so fast, such a population has therefore probably already evolved somewhere else in the galaxy. And because the basic unit is so small, Interplanetary travel would be cheap and easy. If such a swarm ever brushed by the earth, Would they be interested in us?
Slashdot Mirror
or did he bolt when he saw the ridiculosity of the questions?
REcently you extolled the wonderful ability our science is developing to restore extinct species to this planet. You presented several poignant stories of cute animals that should be brought back because we humans have been careless. Why should we do this? But this is not my question. You already provided some innuendo as to an answer - we feel guilty at wholesale extermination of 'innocent species',or because we are pruning the genetic diversity of our planet. Or perhaps it is a 'fear argument'. That less scrupulous nations will use this technology for less altruistic purposes (hybridizing chimps, humans and dogs to create a dim witted and willing servant class?). The proposal to pursue this technology reminds me of humanity's headlong pursuit of atomic research. We needed to develop that technology out of fear- the fear that someone else would have it first and then we might see nuclear Pearl Harbors. But look at how much trouble we have at containing the nuclear genie. One might argue that we are in Afghanistan just to have proximity to the Pakistani nukes so we can get on top of any situation that might develop there. Your rebuttal of course will run along the lines of 'guns dont kill, people do'. And of course you might add that if we do not do this, then some other poorer, more desperate, and equally intelligent nation will develop this tech and leapfrog us. But what if we restore an animal that happens to be an excellent intermediate host to a flu strain and enables it to become a human lethal pandemic producing strain? This kind of decision will come upon us again and again. More genies will come bursting out of the tech-no-logical bottle. My question is: Is the only way to control 'dangerous' tech to lead in it? How can we sandbox our research and at the same time encourage it? allow it only to be done on the moon or a different planet? Or perhaps every involved researcher, engineer, student and professor should go online and post their thoughts on twitter, wikipedia and slashdot. These intellects are the agents who are leading us into the maze. Should they be held personally accountable for misuse of their discoveries? Or should the wise old men of science and who direct these efforts and the business men who finance them be held accountable. Aren't they the ones who are angling for financial rewards? Please forgive these outrageous suggestions. Even when life was easier, when exploration meant getting into a boat and sailing away to find new lands, we still made unknowing mistakes and decimated populations simply by visiting them. If we resurrect the extinct, we might visit upon ourselves an irreversible extinction.
everyone who checks in at a hospital should have their electrical energy harvested! that way we can pay for healthcare. and all the fancy computers, electronic medical records,etc that are needed in hospitals these days. Even though mortality has not been reduced by any of these measures.
since E=h*v, the energy output is amazing- a true death ray - you could fry any missile in flight. what's the name of those russian things the iraqis are shooting at israel? Actually, Edward teller conceived an interesting design for an xray laser. A thermonuclear weapon i space encased by a porcupine shell of tungsten rods. The rods are aimed at their targts an when the thermonuclear weapon is detonated, the gamma rays shoot down the tungsten rods and xrays are generated. presto, goldfinger would be jealous. of course there is the little problem of clean up afterwards...
ok, this is getting boring. can we talk about the routers they used in star wars? i think the ton-ton would overheat too much. the ewok was too small.
What does the DNA sequence GATTACA code for?
this is the true value of a backdoor into your code.
it's not the frequency stupid, it's the method. aliens are likely to be using the most efficient form of communication. A bandwidth starved society would use packet based digital transmission. Why dont we use hubble hooked up to air snort?
We do not continuously talk, think and listen. We function in quanta. The ideal nearly net device would be a cell phone that would always monitor the signal strength of the network, and when it's adequate, retrieve all voice mail, email, and video messages. Even here in massachusetts, 20 miles from Silicon alley, there are frustrating dropouts in signal strength. Who is to say that as the network ages and components randomly fail, even people in urban areas wont experience frustration with attempting live communication on demand. Burst communications are also more secure. So as you drive home, your device will ring when it's buuffer is refreshed with new content and you'll be able to respond in a human way. Devices serve people,
At a given level of integration, One can produce smaller simpler chips with higher yields per wafer but at the cost of greater pcb complexity in the final product (more squiggly traces to interconnect more of the simpler chips). This corresponds to swarm intelligence as a result of more numerous but simpler organisms. There is a magic minimum cost that dictates optimum chip size. Currently, the chip designers and builders can only shrink transistors. Once they begin to shrink the other basic 2 units of electromechanical devices (the sensor and the actuator) each chip will indeed have 'swarming ability'. Imagine swarm complexity doubling every year. This is equivalent to speciation on an annual basis. Even the most rapidly growing biological organism evolves at a glacial pace compared to this. Because it is so fast, such a population has therefore probably already evolved somewhere else in the galaxy. And because the basic unit is so small, Interplanetary travel would be cheap and easy. If such a swarm ever brushed by the earth, Would they be interested in us?