[Heineken]

Technology is a set of increasingly sophisticated, increasingly powerful tools. These tools have provided the means for wholesale destruction of the environment, and ultimately ourselves. They have vastly extended our numbers, our reach, and our impact.

Yes, along the way, technology has provided pleasures and benefits for many individuals. But these advantages come at a terrible long-term cost, the full amount of which is yet to be paid.

Our disease cannot be cured by taking more of the same drug that is killing us.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')oore's Law is the empirical observation made in 1965 that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit for minimum component cost doubles every 24 months.

[JasonHam]

The point is that it will not save us from the woes visited upon us by that vainglorious list of "accomplishments" you've provided. Rather, if it follows the pattern, it will add to them. And it's a very firm pattern.

Technology addresses a problem, a need or a desire. Replacing Oil as an Energy Source will most certainly be a need. Producing Clean Energy will be a need/desire. Researchers/Scientists/Academia are already focusing on these problems.....


The more technology we lard on, the more fucked-up and doomed we become.

So basically we should live like the Native Indian did? You want to be an Indian don't you Heineken? Do you tink the Wheel, which was technology in its time, is fucked up?

Look, we could argue forever about this subject. I don't want to argue. I do find Nano interesting and from what I understand it (very little) it could be the biggest discovery in science....ever. Thats pretty exciting...... I also find it interesting that most people are dismissing as a "Pipe" Dream or that we won't have time to let the science develop before the world crumbles into a dark age. Which by the way, I think might be pretty cool...I loved the Mad Max movies and I've never been pro-establishment anything....

[jbeckton]

People need to have something to blame for all of their problems.

Is it Fords fault that you speed?

Is it Jack Daniels' fault when the sheltered kid drinks too much?

Is it Brittany Spears fault that a teenager dresses like a whore?

Is it Marylin Mansons fault that kids are depressed?

Is it Mcdonalds fault that kids are fat?

Is it the guns fault when a man shoots his wlfe?

Of course not, its your (our) fault.

Addressing any of these issues isn't going to change a damn thing. Human nature is whats fucked up and its never going to change, just use the different tools available to manifest itself.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jbeckton', 'P')eople need to have something to blame for all of their problems.

Is it Fords fault that you speed?

Is it Jack Daniels' fault when the sheltered kid drinks too much?

Is it Brittany Spears fault that a teenager dresses like a whore?

Is it Marylin Mansons fault that kids are depressed?

Is it Mcdonalds fault that kids are fat?

Is it the guns fault when a man shoots his wlfe?

Of course not, its your (our) fault.

Addressing any of these issues isn't going to change a damn thing. Human nature is whats fucked up and its never going to change, just use the different tools available to manifest itself.

[JasonHam]

no we do not want to return to some groovey pastoral place that never existed. We just want to apply our tool-making technologies to appropriate ends.

Well no shit sherlock. It would be nice if we had the ability to anticipate and predict the downside of new discoveries/technologies.That way, we would never make mistakes. The mistake is not acting on the realization that your doing something wrong. The mistake is not acting to correct your problem or original mistake because you think but its difficult or seems "just to impossible or overwhelming" to overcome.

Run to the Hills,
Run for your life.

[Heineken]

Advanced technology, and this argument, will become "academic" b/c the funding and the research establishment needed to support it are going to wither, then die. Did you think they were immune to the effects of economic and environmental collapse?

For that matter, colleges and universities are going bye-bye, along with their 50,000-seat stadiums, Olympic diving pools, and air-conditioned indoor rock-climbing walls.

So we're going back to a world of hammers and rakes and hoes and whether you like it or not, JBecktonHam.

[Cabrone]

Totally agree with priorities, I'm not anti technology but I wish it was better targeted to meet our real needs. We've wasted so much time and effort generating gadgets whilst our primary energy source has slowly depleted.

At this moment humanity is totally dependent on technology. GW is going to mean that in a decade or twos time the whole earth will be reliant on human technology.

This makes me feel deeply uncomfortable.

[jbeckton]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '
')For that matter, colleges and universities are going bye-bye, along with their 50,000-seat stadiums, Olympic diving pools, and air-conditioned indoor rock-climbing walls.

[Heineken]

You miss the whole point, yet in the process help me make mine!

Of course schools could continue to exist, but the massive infusions of cash and other resources necessary to pursue sophisticated bench-level research and its applications just aren't going to be there.

The old-style schools you refer to weren't building cyclotrons and tinkering with atoms etc. on the fat provided by the cheap-oil age. They did reading, writing, thinking, and discussing. Very low-tech stuff, to say the least.

[jbeckton]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '
')For that matter, colleges and universities are going bye-bye.

[jbeckton]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', ' ')You like most clueless Americans do not understand the energy history of the seemingly lightweight, efficient, trival little toys you use and dispose of on a daily basis. You Ipod requires gigawatts of energy to produce.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jbeckton', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '
')For that matter, colleges and universities are going bye-bye.

[TheDude]

Shouldn't the Mods rename these Topics? In this case, perhaps something like "Re: Poke in the Eye ad infinitum!"
Hall of Flames would be a better place for it, too.
I'm all for nanotech and AI divorcing intelligence from its current biological needs/imperatives, our lust to gobble up ecosystems for corporate profit, and to suddenly start taking care with spelling and puncuation when criticized. You know, the stuff that's destroyed the world.
Dunno if it can be done. Kurzweil Vs. Heineken. If it can be done we'll do it, and if it can't we won't, to paraphrase someone's PO Forum signature. It would be nice if intelligence could deal with global warming simply by turning up its cooling fans. Will these things have cooling fans? I'm curious about nano but this topic is just more static.

[JasonHam]

It would be nice if intelligence could deal with global warming simply by turning up its cooling fans. Will these things have cooling fans? I'm curious about nano but this topic is just more static.[b]

That question shows how little you know. Maybe this topic will encourage you to educate yourself about the promise that nano offers. Exactly why I posted it.