That's the kind of thing that people no longer expect from software developers - tweaking and optimisation. While the PC mentality has long been "just add more RAM", game programmers are no strangers to fine-tuning their engines. There are a lot of corners that could be cut. It is probably possible to make the complete Doom3 experience run on P2 with 64Mb RAM, but the programmers would have to spend so much time coding that the game would sell for 200$.
Of course, more complex equipment is needed, but today there is no question, whether we can design it and send it millions of kilometers away from home - the answer is "yes". The problem is that we are picky now and want to have a whole laboratory there to make every test possible so that one trip is enough to make a conclusive enough result. In 1975 it was ok to get just a couple of pictures (of course, there have been some other results from Venera 13 mission and even these pictures are extremely valuable for science, but anyway), today we want to find life or prove that it is not there. Similarly, 100 years ago it was enough to cross Antarctica, today we aim to solve the mysteries of the Earth climate or find life in the long-abandoned deep lake Vostok. It's not that our capabilities are not growing, it just is that our ambitions grow as fast or even faster.;)
Regarding the pictures, AFAIR, the problem was with slow transmission speed (from the lander to the orbiter), remember, it was the age when 300 baud modems were considered blazinlgy fast. And they didn't use any compression, just raw image transmission. Hopefully, today we can do better, but again, today we become frustrated (I know I do) because we can't get hours-long DVD-quality video from Mars rover.
Regarding the whole thing, one idea that I can think of right now is to get using a disposable probe (or at least a telescopic hand) the samples inside a protected chamber. We will soon have the technology (diamond semicondustors - check the figures) to build electronics capable of working at Venus without cooling or insulation (and without melting). We definitely have the tech today to send the spacecrafts to Venus (logistically Venus is just another Mars, but closer to the Sun).
But since the space race is over, space lost a lot of its coolness and even Venus doesn't look so hot.:) But every day the potential mission to Venus becomes easier and easier. Eventually we will see no more reason to procrastinate and the tech will be there to do it quickly, efficiently, and with invaluable results.
Audio cards are unlikely to ever have fans. They don't have such prospects for explosive growth as video-cards have, so I think a better analogy would be LAN cards or modems. In recent years they shrunk 5+ times in size. Actually, I think that in 10 years we will have onboard (on MB) audio with Dolby whatever and 3D whatever support that would far surpass current Creative models.
The industry is heading exactly where it needs to head and everything is as it should be because we're living in the best of all possible worlds.
It's pretty funny that you are right.:) I completely agree that it's difficult to take a better direction. Anyway, when we have computers powerful enough to run brain simulation in real-time, we will quickly have AIs and they can spend their time optimisng the software.:)
I remember the fun we had in school (10 years ago) with the program that said "Poshel Na Huj" (Russian "fuck you" equivalent) using the PC speaker (together with a men's face animated in the text mode using a font hack). It was a blast.:)
The United Energy System (EES), created in the USSR, was a complex interconnected automated system, not only joining all power stations over the huge territory of Russia, but also connected into the international energy system of COMECON countries. The system provided reliable and uninterrupted electricity supply thanks to the combined capacity of the interconnected subsystems. At the same time, the system was designed for variable seasonal load changes. Because of that large-scale power outwages were literally uknown in Soviet times.
Having lived in USSR for 11 years (until it broke up) I can confirm that this was indeed true. While short local blackouts sometimes happened (a house or a few blocks), anything on the city scale was unheard of. But Americans had to face such crap then (some famous blackouts decades ago) and they still do. Behold the wonders of the capitalist economy!
The best solution, IMO, is to create a binary flag for the profiles - FAKE. Allow people to click on a "This profile is fake" link. Once 10 people does that, it is sent to moderators, who approve the fake status. The fakes are not removed from the database, but everybody can filter them by checking "don't show me the fakes" in his preferences.
If this comment is moderated Flamebait/Offtopic/Troll and it ends up at -1, it won't be removed from Slashdot (so I am happy), but people, who choose to browse at higher threshhold will not have to read it (they are happy).
It's not their personal website, it's a public (in a certain sense) site, that's why they should cater to the visitors (not must, it's just a logical thing to do). Slashdot is privately owned, but it exists for the visitors and only because of the visitors, that's why it's logical to cater to them.
I don't think Friendster would have any value whatsoever without the users. So the position of administration should not prevail over the interests of the majority of the users (I am not sure what the majority thinks there and even whether anybody asked them...).
Curbs are not only used by disabled people, they can be used by people with bikes, people with carts, baby carriages, etc. Often I prefer to use a curb/ramp/etc. instead of stairs and I am perfectly healthy. Curbs are a good design, especially if you think about Segways, upcoming wheeled robots, etc. Wheelchair lifts, on the other hand, might have to go, once iBots are widespread and affordable.
One piece of hardware (made in USSR) was able to do just that and it sent back a picture (more). I think that today we probably can fare even better, with things like aerogel insulators, etc.
First, thanks for the reply. I think we (as in "We, People") don't have enough discussion about the long-term future (more than 5 years ahead) and that really sucks, because our ability to make informed decisions suffers.
While it might look (I hope it doesn't, though) like I don't agree with any of your comments, this is not really so. I believe that we often have to first explore the "opposing" positions to see the issue at hand better and from all directions, and only after we see it well enough are we able to reach the consensus.
As a practical matter, turnover in people is essential to clean out the social arteries.
That's stupid. Just off the top of my head - look at the natural tendency of the labour turnover to increase. People work just for a few years at one place and when they move to another occupation, they bring the fresh blood you are talking about.
...I suspect that many of their attitudes, preferences and opinions will tend to get fixed fairly early in life and remain unchanged unless shaken up...
It's likely that once we achieve certain level of tolerance, there will be much less opposition to change. We have to change our society/morals fast because the means of production change fast. Once we hit posthuman stage, we would quickly adapt to that economic level and then develop in a different direction.
A large population of old, conservative property owners will smother the young
That's stupid. Let's just say that today youngsters can catch up in just a decade and start challenging the elders.
...In a world where professional certifications take 25 years, 200 year mortgages are the norm and newcomers to a field have competitors with several decades or centuries of tacit knowledge and industry contacts how will youngsters catch up in a decade?
We are unlikely to have a competition-driven economy/society for very long. First, it's to a large extent genetic and might be gradually removed in the course of genetic engineering. Second, with nanotech and AI there would simply be much less reason to compete (and much less things to compete for). Third, with brain implants, brain-computer interfaces, uploading and AI it will be much easier to absorb the existing knowledge and experience than to develop new one. Think "Tank, I need a pilot program for a V-212 helicopter. Hurry.":)
Space colonization would be essential.
That's stupid. Obviously, virtual reality and uploading are the way to go.
While a move into space may not be essential, I don't think its a stupid prediction... My wild-ass stab in the dark is that the global human population doubles within 100 years of anti-senescent technologies becoming available before a second demographic shift kicks in which leads to a gradual reduction in population over several centuries as accidents and violence abrade the bulge away...
I am not an expert on space technologies, but I think it is reasonable to say that to have space colonisation (in Solar system, let's be realisic) we would need either space elevators or asteroid mining. Or both. Better (much better) propulsion is a bonus, but it depends on an unforeseen breakthrough and is not on the horison. Both elevator and mining, in my opinion, require advanced nanotech. Advanced nanotech would basically mean a Singularity pretty soon.
I also don't agree at all with the idea of accidents and violence taking many lives. The accident rates have only been decreasing in the past and I see no reason for them to increase again (other than WW3 or barbarity a la Mad Max). Immortality means better resuscitation techniques, which means that most accidents cease to be fatal. I also expect that the world around us will continue to become safer - it would be strange to expect the car
I hate it when people make predictions assuming that only one variable will change in the future. That inevitably leads to such idiotic ideas like the "cities drowned in horse shit" or the parent comment.
First of all, the birthrate would have to be chopped.
That's correct.
As a practical matter, turnover in people is essential to clean out the social arteries.
That's stupid. Just off the top of my head - look at the natural tendency of the labour turnover to increase. People work just for a few years at one place and when they move to another occupation, they bring the fresh blood you are talking about.
A large population of old, conservative property owners will smother the young
That's stupid. Let's just say that today youngsters can catch up in just a decade and start challenging the elders.
Space colonization would be essential.
That's stupid. Obviously, virtual reality and uploading are the way to go.
Wealth inequities will inevitably create a class of wealthy near-immortals in the short term.
That's stupid. With AI, robotisation and nanotech the treatments will drop in price very quickly.
How's memory going to work, when accumulated experience overwhelms the brains ability to cross- reference it all?
That's stupid. Just to think that we can redesign our bodies to last forever and we won't be able to change our brains. Now that's stupid.
How will an immortal make a living?
That's just nonsense. Nanotech, AI and VR will help provide everything we need and more.
Will an immortal ever get any respect from the young?
That's stupid. The aging processes will be stopped and reversed. Old people will look and behave like young (without negative parts).
Change would be very, very slow in coming.
That's ultra stupid. There is a negative correlation between life expectancy and the rate of change. Consider that we developed the fastest in teh 20th century when we also lived the longest. Do you think people today are more conservative than their 13th century counterparts? But this is actually a very common mistake. Old people are conservative not because they are of old age, but because they were raised in the conservative past. Once we make it past certain point, conservatism itself will become a thing of the past.
OTOH, If the oldsters can stay biologically young, how will the "really" young (in years) compete with the infinitely smarter pseudoyoung competition?
That's stupid. Competitiveness will not depend on the age. Everyone will be made as smart and as capable as needed in just a few days of intensive therapy.
Don't badmouth the NYT.:) If you read the discussion here at/. you can see that many people are scared of change just as much. I think that fear of the change is a direct consequence of idiocy. Since about 25% of people are complete morons, you can expect such attitudes everywhere, until we cure stupidity, as James Watson suggests.
Are you stupid or what? The author says that our ability to breed all kinds of dogs in several tens of thousand of years is a good indicator of our future ability to genetically engineer much more diverse human race in much shorter time.
And what if immortality will come in 40 years and eternal youth in 80 years? Does it mean "goodbye, anzha"? Personally, I would agree to suffer for 40 years, because eventually my old age would be cured.
You don't want that, nobody forces you. Even better, you can end it all today, just take a pair of nails and use the electricity from the socket, kindly provided by your utility supplier.
The society is much faster to react. If this to became a problem, we would develop mechanisms to compensate for this in just a few decades. There is simply no way we are going to have "old guard" ruling the science for millenia.
Sure. But downloading child porn does not create a market for it. Only buying child porn does that. A person who pays for said porn, directly or indirectly stimulates creation of new porn. But someone who downloads it for free, does not stimulate and may be even discourages creation of new child porn.
Using a familiar RIAA's argument, piracy leads to less music created, so piracy of child porn should probably reduce the amount of new child porn. Ergo the best way to fight child porn is to download as much of it as possible and distribute it as widely as possible.
Every other nation in the world will be forced to play this game of "I can offer you at least as much protection as they can.
May be some of the countries will be smart and play the opposite game? The one called "We can offer you much more right then they can". Most people don't realise that there is only one country that benefits from stronger IP laws - the US. Being the largest economy AND the leading producer of software, movies and music, the US govt need the laws to protect these industries (or at least the industries can persuade the govt that it's necessary). Portugal will not benefit from stronger laws, because even if they would have large software/movie/music industries, they would have to get most of the revenues from abroad where stronger domestic laws have no effect at all.
Of course, 25% of all people are idiots and there are definitely a lot of idiots in the governments of EU member states and the EU administration.
On a related note, there is a wonderful place in the world where many Hollywood masterpieces, including Bamby, Godfather and Space Odyssey are public domain.
Guess what, Russia. While it certainly has its own share of problems, at least it is currently one of the most free and liberal countries in the world.
Fortunately, not all countries are still in the Middle Ages, like the UK and the US apparently are. Posession (and downloading) of child porn is safe in most countries, as it should be, because punishing something that is so close to thinkcrime sucks.
No harm is done by downloading child porn, therefore the downloader should not be guilty. Creators of child porn should be punished, but not the viewers. Child porn IS free speech. You may find it appalling, but do I need to remind you that some countries find Satanic Verses appalling. If you impose limits on speech, it is no longer free.
P.S. I am happy to live in a country where I no longer have to fear a sudden night visit by the secret police, no matter how many bomb plans, Party criticisms and child porn images I have on my computer. And let me tell you, my British and American friends, it feels really nice.
I think what you should hope for is for the game artists (in most upcoming LOTR games, except may be for the ROTK) to be independent as much as possible. If they all feel like Marc Holmes (and like movie designers thought) and do their own designs based on their own research and ideas, all LOTR products will explore the original world and not the butchered (in a neutral sense) world of the movies.
There have been more than a hundred Romeo and Juliet movies made and probably thousands of stagings and most of them have been very different. R&J being in public domain helped, but there probably is still hope for the LOTR. BTW, in some countries the books are public domain already and everyone can make new movie version (of course, since the US market would be closed for them, commercially it is not very attractive).
I think that even without copyright full-time professional writers (good ones) will have no problem selling their books to the public (see King's Internet experiment), especially if some form of legal protection against large-scale unauthorised commercial distribution remains. Other authors could get a job that would provide them financial support without demanding a lot of time. Tolkien was not a professional writer, he was a university professor, remember? I think that current socio-economical developments make this entirely possible. As we venture further into post-industrial society, people need to work less and less time, making it possible for them to write (or be creative in other ways), while easily supporting themselves through an interesting, but not very time-consuming work. Writers of textbooks and reference books, for example, can easily be employeed at the universities.
You can also look at other countries, for example, at Russia. Only a tiny minority of very popular writers can make a living only through their books. But doesn't stop people from writing and there is a lot of pretty good literature made today. During the Soviet time, writers were also paid peanuts, but again, that didn't stop them from creating many exceptional works. Will Rowling stop writing if she isn't paid hundreds of millions for each book? I guess no, after all when she wrote the first part, she didn't have any particularly high expectations and still managed to do a pretty good job.
As for the movies and turning the characters into something else, I think to some extent this is actually a desirable thing. Hopefully, writers will be rewarded by the movie producers, but even if they won't, it still would be better than to have a corporation like Disney control your favourite stories and characters. And if someone makes an "undesirable" version of the story, like an adult Harry Potter fanfic, some of which are very well-written and enjoyable, this just fulfills the public demand and is therefore good. Even now the characters are often turned into something the authors didn't intend, when the books are turned into films, but at least without copyright, people would have the same or greater degree of control and will be able to decide what is desirable and what is not by themselves.
Because copyright (together with patents) needs to be destroyed. It served it's purpose during the 19th and the 20th century, assisting in the unprecedented technological development of our civilization. But it outlived its usefullness. Out of the ashes of copyright will rise a new order. The spirit of unfettered scientific quest for knowledge will be extended into business and art. Coupled with Internet and later advanced technologies such as nanotech and AI this will bring forth the new Renaissance and propel the humankind into the posthuman era.
Honestly, complaining about piracy is like complaining about workers' unrest in the early 20th century. When the situation produces such serious contradictions, the only way to resolve them is conflict (not necessarily violent, but conflict nevertheless). Our struggle with copyright will continue to escalate until it is finally destroyed. Extending the analogy with early 20th century, it is possible that only one victory will be enough (say, against RIAA) and the MPAA, BSA and book publishers will be able to voluntarily change (like it happened with the US and Europe after the Great October Revolution). May be it will be more difficult, but in the end copyright will die.
Slashdot Mirror
That's the kind of thing that people no longer expect from software developers - tweaking and optimisation. While the PC mentality has long been "just add more RAM", game programmers are no strangers to fine-tuning their engines. There are a lot of corners that could be cut. It is probably possible to make the complete Doom3 experience run on P2 with 64Mb RAM, but the programmers would have to spend so much time coding that the game would sell for 200$.
May be, but Quake 4 monsters will probably be more metallic, kind of like the modified Doom3 pinky. :)
Of course, more complex equipment is needed, but today there is no question, whether we can design it and send it millions of kilometers away from home - the answer is "yes". The problem is that we are picky now and want to have a whole laboratory there to make every test possible so that one trip is enough to make a conclusive enough result. In 1975 it was ok to get just a couple of pictures (of course, there have been some other results from Venera 13 mission and even these pictures are extremely valuable for science, but anyway), today we want to find life or prove that it is not there. Similarly, 100 years ago it was enough to cross Antarctica, today we aim to solve the mysteries of the Earth climate or find life in the long-abandoned deep lake Vostok. It's not that our capabilities are not growing, it just is that our ambitions grow as fast or even faster. ;)
:) But every day the potential mission to Venus becomes easier and easier. Eventually we will see no more reason to procrastinate and the tech will be there to do it quickly, efficiently, and with invaluable results.
Regarding the pictures, AFAIR, the problem was with slow transmission speed (from the lander to the orbiter), remember, it was the age when 300 baud modems were considered blazinlgy fast. And they didn't use any compression, just raw image transmission. Hopefully, today we can do better, but again, today we become frustrated (I know I do) because we can't get hours-long DVD-quality video from Mars rover.
Regarding the whole thing, one idea that I can think of right now is to get using a disposable probe (or at least a telescopic hand) the samples inside a protected chamber. We will soon have the technology (diamond semicondustors - check the figures) to build electronics capable of working at Venus without cooling or insulation (and without melting). We definitely have the tech today to send the spacecrafts to Venus (logistically Venus is just another Mars, but closer to the Sun).
But since the space race is over, space lost a lot of its coolness and even Venus doesn't look so hot.
If you had this on Linux, you could probably use pipes to first replace caps with normal text and then send it to the TTS.
/. as "slash".
BTW, my TTS (Govorilka with L&H TTS3000: Carol British voice) reads CAPS as "kaps", reads TTS as "text to speech", but reads
Audio cards are unlikely to ever have fans. They don't have such prospects for explosive growth as video-cards have, so I think a better analogy would be LAN cards or modems. In recent years they shrunk 5+ times in size. Actually, I think that in 10 years we will have onboard (on MB) audio with Dolby whatever and 3D whatever support that would far surpass current Creative models.
The industry is heading exactly where it needs to head and everything is as it should be because we're living in the best of all possible worlds.
:) I completely agree that it's difficult to take a better direction. Anyway, when we have computers powerful enough to run brain simulation in real-time, we will quickly have AIs and they can spend their time optimisng the software. :)
It's pretty funny that you are right.
I remember the fun we had in school (10 years ago) with the program that said "Poshel Na Huj" (Russian "fuck you" equivalent) using the PC speaker (together with a men's face animated in the text mode using a font hack). It was a blast. :)
The United Energy System (EES), created in the USSR, was a complex interconnected automated system, not only joining all power stations over the huge territory of Russia, but also connected into the international energy system of COMECON countries. The system provided reliable and uninterrupted electricity supply thanks to the combined capacity of the interconnected subsystems. At the same time, the system was designed for variable seasonal load changes. Because of that large-scale power outwages were literally uknown in Soviet times.
(translated from here )
Having lived in USSR for 11 years (until it broke up) I can confirm that this was indeed true. While short local blackouts sometimes happened (a house or a few blocks), anything on the city scale was unheard of. But Americans had to face such crap then (some famous blackouts decades ago) and they still do. Behold the wonders of the capitalist economy!
The best solution, IMO, is to create a binary flag for the profiles - FAKE. Allow people to click on a "This profile is fake" link. Once 10 people does that, it is sent to moderators, who approve the fake status. The fakes are not removed from the database, but everybody can filter them by checking "don't show me the fakes" in his preferences.
If this comment is moderated Flamebait/Offtopic/Troll and it ends up at -1, it won't be removed from Slashdot (so I am happy), but people, who choose to browse at higher threshhold will not have to read it (they are happy).
It's not their personal website, it's a public (in a certain sense) site, that's why they should cater to the visitors (not must, it's just a logical thing to do). Slashdot is privately owned, but it exists for the visitors and only because of the visitors, that's why it's logical to cater to them.
I don't think Friendster would have any value whatsoever without the users. So the position of administration should not prevail over the interests of the majority of the users (I am not sure what the majority thinks there and even whether anybody asked them...).
Curbs are not only used by disabled people, they can be used by people with bikes, people with carts, baby carriages, etc. Often I prefer to use a curb/ramp/etc. instead of stairs and I am perfectly healthy. Curbs are a good design, especially if you think about Segways, upcoming wheeled robots, etc. Wheelchair lifts, on the other hand, might have to go, once iBots are widespread and affordable.
One piece of hardware (made in USSR) was able to do just that and it sent back a picture (more). I think that today we probably can fare even better, with things like aerogel insulators, etc.
P.S. But it does indeed look like Hell .
First, thanks for the reply. I think we (as in "We, People") don't have enough discussion about the long-term future (more than 5 years ahead) and that really sucks, because our ability to make informed decisions suffers.
While it might look (I hope it doesn't, though) like I don't agree with any of your comments, this is not really so. I believe that we often have to first explore the "opposing" positions to see the issue at hand better and from all directions, and only after we see it well enough are we able to reach the consensus.
It's likely that once we achieve certain level of tolerance, there will be much less opposition to change. We have to change our society/morals fast because the means of production change fast. Once we hit posthuman stage, we would quickly adapt to that economic level and then develop in a different direction.
We are unlikely to have a competition-driven economy/society for very long. First, it's to a large extent genetic and might be gradually removed in the course of genetic engineering. Second, with nanotech and AI there would simply be much less reason to compete (and much less things to compete for). Third, with brain implants, brain-computer interfaces, uploading and AI it will be much easier to absorb the existing knowledge and experience than to develop new one. Think "Tank, I need a pilot program for a V-212 helicopter. Hurry." :)
While a move into space may not be essential, I don't think its a stupid prediction... My wild-ass stab in the dark is that the global human population doubles within 100 years of anti-senescent technologies becoming available before a second demographic shift kicks in which leads to a gradual reduction in population over several centuries as accidents and violence abrade the bulge away...
I am not an expert on space technologies, but I think it is reasonable to say that to have space colonisation (in Solar system, let's be realisic) we would need either space elevators or asteroid mining. Or both. Better (much better) propulsion is a bonus, but it depends on an unforeseen breakthrough and is not on the horison. Both elevator and mining, in my opinion, require advanced nanotech. Advanced nanotech would basically mean a Singularity pretty soon.
I also don't agree at all with the idea of accidents and violence taking many lives. The accident rates have only been decreasing in the past and I see no reason for them to increase again (other than WW3 or barbarity a la Mad Max). Immortality means better resuscitation techniques, which means that most accidents cease to be fatal. I also expect that the world around us will continue to become safer - it would be strange to expect the car
I hate it when people make predictions assuming that only one variable will change in the future. That inevitably leads to such idiotic ideas like the "cities drowned in horse shit" or the parent comment.
First of all, the birthrate would have to be chopped.
That's correct.
As a practical matter, turnover in people is essential to clean out the social arteries.
That's stupid. Just off the top of my head - look at the natural tendency of the labour turnover to increase. People work just for a few years at one place and when they move to another occupation, they bring the fresh blood you are talking about.
A large population of old, conservative property owners will smother the young
That's stupid. Let's just say that today youngsters can catch up in just a decade and start challenging the elders.
Space colonization would be essential.
That's stupid. Obviously, virtual reality and uploading are the way to go.
Wealth inequities will inevitably create a class of wealthy near-immortals in the short term.
That's stupid. With AI, robotisation and nanotech the treatments will drop in price very quickly.
How's memory going to work, when accumulated experience overwhelms the brains ability to cross- reference it all?
That's stupid. Just to think that we can redesign our bodies to last forever and we won't be able to change our brains. Now that's stupid.
How will an immortal make a living?
That's just nonsense. Nanotech, AI and VR will help provide everything we need and more.
Will an immortal ever get any respect from the young?
That's stupid. The aging processes will be stopped and reversed. Old people will look and behave like young (without negative parts).
Change would be very, very slow in coming.
That's ultra stupid. There is a negative correlation between life expectancy and the rate of change. Consider that we developed the fastest in teh 20th century when we also lived the longest. Do you think people today are more conservative than their 13th century counterparts? But this is actually a very common mistake. Old people are conservative not because they are of old age, but because they were raised in the conservative past. Once we make it past certain point, conservatism itself will become a thing of the past.
OTOH, If the oldsters can stay biologically young, how will the "really" young (in years) compete with the infinitely smarter pseudoyoung competition?
That's stupid. Competitiveness will not depend on the age. Everyone will be made as smart and as capable as needed in just a few days of intensive therapy.
Hope this helps.
Don't badmouth the NYT. :) If you read the discussion here at /. you can see that many people are scared of change just as much. I think that fear of the change is a direct consequence of idiocy. Since about 25% of people are complete morons, you can expect such attitudes everywhere, until we cure stupidity, as James Watson suggests.
Are you stupid or what? The author says that our ability to breed all kinds of dogs in several tens of thousand of years is a good indicator of our future ability to genetically engineer much more diverse human race in much shorter time.
And what if immortality will come in 40 years and eternal youth in 80 years? Does it mean "goodbye, anzha"? Personally, I would agree to suffer for 40 years, because eventually my old age would be cured.
You don't want that, nobody forces you. Even better, you can end it all today, just take a pair of nails and use the electricity from the socket, kindly provided by your utility supplier.
The society is much faster to react. If this to became a problem, we would develop mechanisms to compensate for this in just a few decades. There is simply no way we are going to have "old guard" ruling the science for millenia.
Sure. But downloading child porn does not create a market for it. Only buying child porn does that. A person who pays for said porn, directly or indirectly stimulates creation of new porn. But someone who downloads it for free, does not stimulate and may be even discourages creation of new child porn.
Using a familiar RIAA's argument, piracy leads to less music created, so piracy of child porn should probably reduce the amount of new child porn. Ergo the best way to fight child porn is to download as much of it as possible and distribute it as widely as possible.
Every other nation in the world will be forced to play this game of "I can offer you at least as much protection as they can.
May be some of the countries will be smart and play the opposite game? The one called "We can offer you much more right then they can". Most people don't realise that there is only one country that benefits from stronger IP laws - the US. Being the largest economy AND the leading producer of software, movies and music, the US govt need the laws to protect these industries (or at least the industries can persuade the govt that it's necessary). Portugal will not benefit from stronger laws, because even if they would have large software/movie/music industries, they would have to get most of the revenues from abroad where stronger domestic laws have no effect at all.
Of course, 25% of all people are idiots and there are definitely a lot of idiots in the governments of EU member states and the EU administration.
On a related note, there is a wonderful place in the world where many Hollywood masterpieces, including Bamby, Godfather and Space Odyssey are public domain.
Guess what, Russia. While it certainly has its own share of problems, at least it is currently one of the most free and liberal countries in the world.
Fortunately, not all countries are still in the Middle Ages, like the UK and the US apparently are. Posession (and downloading) of child porn is safe in most countries, as it should be, because punishing something that is so close to thinkcrime sucks.
No harm is done by downloading child porn, therefore the downloader should not be guilty. Creators of child porn should be punished, but not the viewers. Child porn IS free speech. You may find it appalling, but do I need to remind you that some countries find Satanic Verses appalling. If you impose limits on speech, it is no longer free.
P.S. I am happy to live in a country where I no longer have to fear a sudden night visit by the secret police, no matter how many bomb plans, Party criticisms and child porn images I have on my computer. And let me tell you, my British and American friends, it feels really nice.
I think what you should hope for is for the game artists (in most upcoming LOTR games, except may be for the ROTK) to be independent as much as possible. If they all feel like Marc Holmes (and like movie designers thought) and do their own designs based on their own research and ideas, all LOTR products will explore the original world and not the butchered (in a neutral sense) world of the movies.
There have been more than a hundred Romeo and Juliet movies made and probably thousands of stagings and most of them have been very different. R&J being in public domain helped, but there probably is still hope for the LOTR. BTW, in some countries the books are public domain already and everyone can make new movie version (of course, since the US market would be closed for them, commercially it is not very attractive).
I think that even without copyright full-time professional writers (good ones) will have no problem selling their books to the public (see King's Internet experiment), especially if some form of legal protection against large-scale unauthorised commercial distribution remains. Other authors could get a job that would provide them financial support without demanding a lot of time. Tolkien was not a professional writer, he was a university professor, remember? I think that current socio-economical developments make this entirely possible. As we venture further into post-industrial society, people need to work less and less time, making it possible for them to write (or be creative in other ways), while easily supporting themselves through an interesting, but not very time-consuming work. Writers of textbooks and reference books, for example, can easily be employeed at the universities.
You can also look at other countries, for example, at Russia. Only a tiny minority of very popular writers can make a living only through their books. But doesn't stop people from writing and there is a lot of pretty good literature made today. During the Soviet time, writers were also paid peanuts, but again, that didn't stop them from creating many exceptional works. Will Rowling stop writing if she isn't paid hundreds of millions for each book? I guess no, after all when she wrote the first part, she didn't have any particularly high expectations and still managed to do a pretty good job.
As for the movies and turning the characters into something else, I think to some extent this is actually a desirable thing. Hopefully, writers will be rewarded by the movie producers, but even if they won't, it still would be better than to have a corporation like Disney control your favourite stories and characters. And if someone makes an "undesirable" version of the story, like an adult Harry Potter fanfic, some of which are very well-written and enjoyable, this just fulfills the public demand and is therefore good. Even now the characters are often turned into something the authors didn't intend, when the books are turned into films, but at least without copyright, people would have the same or greater degree of control and will be able to decide what is desirable and what is not by themselves.
Because copyright (together with patents) needs to be destroyed. It served it's purpose during the 19th and the 20th century, assisting in the unprecedented technological development of our civilization. But it outlived its usefullness. Out of the ashes of copyright will rise a new order. The spirit of unfettered scientific quest for knowledge will be extended into business and art. Coupled with Internet and later advanced technologies such as nanotech and AI this will bring forth the new Renaissance and propel the humankind into the posthuman era.
Honestly, complaining about piracy is like complaining about workers' unrest in the early 20th century. When the situation produces such serious contradictions, the only way to resolve them is conflict (not necessarily violent, but conflict nevertheless). Our struggle with copyright will continue to escalate until it is finally destroyed. Extending the analogy with early 20th century, it is possible that only one victory will be enough (say, against RIAA) and the MPAA, BSA and book publishers will be able to voluntarily change (like it happened with the US and Europe after the Great October Revolution). May be it will be more difficult, but in the end copyright will die.