The link to fybord definition below, was "unplugged", however I found this
excerpt:

"A functional cyborg ( should we call it a fyborg? funorg? fuborg? ) may be
defined as a biological organism functionally supplemented with technological
extensions.  If you do not pay attention, the stream of technological
supplements may turn you into a functional cyborg before you notice it. "

Located on the following link:
http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/articles/Cyborgs.html

So by this definition...Stevie Wonder is extended via keyboard, harmonica and
musical notes, not to mention the record contract that got him in prime time.

Walter Karlos via Moog extending himself with Moog synthesizer & pure sound,
however considering his sex change, er, um..... ,well.... I have my limits!

Then too..Johann Sebastian Bach and Organ, Elie Wiezel extended by  Scripture
and Ethics...but these folk extend knowlege, species, and understanding,
perspective.

The focus you have here with "fyborgs", "Cyborgs", Brain Implants et other
orgasms.. is on "self-ism" and not to extend anything but the vain, purile,
overly self-indulgent species, Mr & Ms. Sapiens a la Homo, and extend probably
not much further than the illegal block implemented by the US soccer team during
the Women's Soccer Playoffs!

Anyhooo this all seems rather silly..fighting over definitions from side-stage
Johnnies..who've never been in an operating room ( from the other side of the
scapel, please!) not to mention trying to get silicon integrated with neurons.

...not to good for the victim being experimented on or the life form declared by
society to be worthy of experimentation on.  We'll get back to that next email.
( Via the experiments done on the Chinese by the Japanese during the 40's and
some Nazi fun in the labs with P.O.W.'s and the modern day Federalization of
Felonies, circa 1997!)

For the front liners,....read the attached entry from the Journal of Biological
Cybernetics (pdf format).
This gives a SOBER look at where we really are with the integration of Silicon
and neurons.

Moreover, has anyone talked to their local Neurosurgeon, lately?  I shamefully
admit, I talked to 3 (and worked for one) at Harvard Medical School 12 years
ago.
Extremely high insurance rates.  Know why?
Cause a good neurosurgeon losses 65%+ of his patients!
Lots leave the field because of these depressing aspects, or so the report went,
back in 1990.

...No, I didn't say Monkeys
...No, I didn't say Snails ( as with the attached article)

Quotation of Willy Loman: Death of a Salesman:
"A man isn't a piece of fruit...you don't squeeze out the juice and throw away
the peel!"

Oh..you say by the future we'll have it down to as safe as Laser Eye Surgery.
Since that last analogy to laser eye surgery...I've found 40 articles on how
unsafe it is and the large number of people who can't see well at night, in fog
,suffer glare blinding vision, headaches, migraines and (giggle) need glasses
after they have the surgery.  So....I'll just say it'll be as safe as all of us
THOUGHT laser eye surgery was....?
http://www.surgicaleyes.com/News.htm
http://www.surgicaleyes.com/ubboard/Forum27/HTML/000122.html
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/wsbtv/health/lasik_improvements.html


As for up-2-date, practical look at interfacing (with the Ethics at least in the
last paragraph), which is better than most....

I cite the same URL mentioned below but truncated up 2 levels:
http://www.eff.org/Net_culture/Cyborg_anthropology/#files
I'd suggest reading:
Cyber_modification.article

identity_privacy_anonymity.faq

modern_primitives.article

Last but not least  has anyone focused on why a lot of Virtual Reality7 training
went down the tube? (Not to mention a certain VR and Computer center that went
outta business in downtown Palo Alto?????

It's called Virtual Reality Sickness:
U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI)
Link below is a report by the
http://www.cyberedge.com/4a7a.html
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/hu/groups/viserg/9604all.htm
http://www.agocg.ac.uk/reports/virtual/37/report37.htm
-============================
I keep having these sardonic visions of walking into a cafe much like the one at
the beginning of  "A Clockwork Orange", we'll call it  Starbucks, for the hell
of it.

Lying around are 45-55 bodies on sensory overload trying to "dry-out" as it
were, cause their implants have bombarded their sensory neurons with more
information than they could handle and neuronal deterioration is setting in. A
sort of Senroy Progeira. Along  with a kind of sensory "slow down" due to a
"plack" type substance building up on neurons and impeding the chemo-electric
flow.

Starbucks in Conjunction with the FDA now serves, for lack of a better word
"downers"..along with the normal caffein fix it serves now to the "Nicofein"
crowd!

Be a goo apparachnik and Peet Meskovich, comrad",
Daludid with the masses and download, etc.
Nastrovia!

Here endeth, j.s.anderson comments...........Mr."I've seen the future and it's
yesterdays mistakes with more SnakeOil & Gullibility,  is done for the
day.............................................................
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

--- Jamais Cascio <cascio@...> wrote:
>>    From: Walter Truett Anderson <waltt@...>
>>Subject: Re: Gregory Stock at Foresight gathering =85
>>
>>Stock must be working with a very limited definition of augmentation.
>>After all, what are eyeglasses and hearing aids?
>>Walt
>
>He does, although I suspect he'd call it "precise" rather than=20
>"limited." For Stock, external modification are an example of what he=20
>calls "fyborgism," as contrasted with internal augmentations (or=20
>"cyborgism"). Fyborg is apparently a term that's been around for=20
>almost a decade (see, for example:
><http://www.eff.org/Net_culture/Cyborg_anthropology/are_you_a_cyborg.articl=
>e>,=20
>which dates to 1995), and refers to biological organisms with=20
>functional upgrades using external devices. Such devices could=20
>include glasses, hearing aids, Palm pilots, pagers -- anything that=20
>extends our natural abilities beyond what our biology alone can=20
>accomplish.
>
>He draws this contrast in order to shoot down the notion that we'll=20
>be plugging chips into our heads or becoming one with computer=20
>systems any time soon (contrary to Ray Kurzweil or Rodney Brooks, who=20
>take very different approaches). He makes the argument that=20
>regardless of how nifty our computers are, we still know so little=20
>about the workings of the brain (or even the nervous system, really)=20
>that the notion that we'll have progressed to the point of brain=20
>implants in the next 20 years is borderline ludicrous.
>
>The example of the remote controlled rat is illustrative. When you=20
>look at how the system works, you find that it's (a) sending a signal=20
>down the whisker receptors to give a directional cue, and (b)=20
>stimulating the pleasure center of the rat's brain when the cue is=20
>followed. Neither of these neurological methods are breakthroughs --=20
>they've both been done for years, probably decades by now. The=20
>difference, in this case, is that the device sending the signal is=20
>now miniaturized sufficiently to be carried on the rat's back,=20
>instead of being at the other end of thick cables. The remote control=20
>rat is interesting, but is not much of an advance over earlier=20
>knowledge of neurophysiology.
>
>I tend to think that this perspective is fairly persuasive, in that=20
>even rapid advances in nanotechnology-based information systems won't=20
>make superhuman cyborgs if we still don't understand the complexity=20
>of brain function. Will we ever? Almost certainly. Will we in the=20
>next decade or two? There would have to be a fairly significant=20
>breakthrough in the field to make that possible.
>
>--jamais
>
>
>
>
>--=20
>Jamais Cascio
>cascio@...
>cascio@...
>http://post-human.org/bio.html
>
>"If you can talk brilliantly enough about a problem, it can create the
>consoling illusion that it has been mastered."
>  Stanley Kubrick
>
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>bafuture-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>=20
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/=
>=20

--- "markfinnern" <markfinnern@...> wrote:
>Gregory Stock at Foresight gathering =85
>
>Hi everyone,=20
>
>So I have been to the Foresight gathering last weekend. (See:=20
>http://www.foresight.org/SrAssoc/spring2002/index.html)=20
>
>And big surprise, one of the speakers was Gregory Stock. May be I was=20
>tired, but to me he's presentation was a bit boring. I am one third=20
>into his book: "Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future"=20
>which we want to talk about at our next Salon and so far it is=20
>interesting and well written.=20
>
>He reiterated that he does not see people getting uploaded (As in our=20
>brain mapped and then recreated within a computer), because our=20
>biology is essential to us. He is also questioning whether people=20
>will augment their body. I guess he has not been to San Francisco=20
>lately. What body manipulations are happening here already is quite=20
>amazing. (see: http://larsplace.com/humor/images_humor/piercing.jpg)=20
>
>One more story from the `Wow bin': Scientist have found a way to=20
>control the movement of rats:=20=20
>http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?
>storyID=3D1843131&thesection=3Dnews&thesubsection=3Dworld=20
>
>See you on the 17th of May, Mark.=20
>
>
>
>
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>bafuture-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>=20
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/=
>=20

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>    From: Walter Truett Anderson <waltt@...>
>Subject: Re: Gregory Stock at Foresight gathering …
>
>Stock must be working with a very limited definition of augmentation.
>After all, what are eyeglasses and hearing aids?
>Walt

He does, although I suspect he'd call it "precise" rather than
"limited." For Stock, external modification are an example of what he
calls "fyborgism," as contrasted with internal augmentations (or
"cyborgism"). Fyborg is apparently a term that's been around for
almost a decade (see, for example:
<http://www.eff.org/Net_culture/Cyborg_anthropology/are_you_a_cyborg.article>,
which dates to 1995), and refers to biological organisms with
functional upgrades using external devices. Such devices could
include glasses, hearing aids, Palm pilots, pagers -- anything that
extends our natural abilities beyond what our biology alone can
accomplish.

He draws this contrast in order to shoot down the notion that we'll
be plugging chips into our heads or becoming one with computer
systems any time soon (contrary to Ray Kurzweil or Rodney Brooks, who
take very different approaches). He makes the argument that
regardless of how nifty our computers are, we still know so little
about the workings of the brain (or even the nervous system, really)
that the notion that we'll have progressed to the point of brain
implants in the next 20 years is borderline ludicrous.

The example of the remote controlled rat is illustrative. When you
look at how the system works, you find that it's (a) sending a signal
down the whisker receptors to give a directional cue, and (b)
stimulating the pleasure center of the rat's brain when the cue is
followed. Neither of these neurological methods are breakthroughs --
they've both been done for years, probably decades by now. The
difference, in this case, is that the device sending the signal is
now miniaturized sufficiently to be carried on the rat's back,
instead of being at the other end of thick cables. The remote control
rat is interesting, but is not much of an advance over earlier
knowledge of neurophysiology.

I tend to think that this perspective is fairly persuasive, in that
even rapid advances in nanotechnology-based information systems won't
make superhuman cyborgs if we still don't understand the complexity
of brain function. Will we ever? Almost certainly. Will we in the
next decade or two? There would have to be a fairly significant
breakthrough in the field to make that possible.

--jamais




--
Jamais Cascio
cascio@...
cascio@...
http://post-human.org/bio.html

"If you can talk brilliantly enough about a problem, it can create the
consoling illusion that it has been mastered."
		 Stanley Kubrick

It's the latter, of course.  But it's an analysis worth exploring.  See
also Merlin Donald, The Making of the Modern Mind.  Or for a
science-fiction treatment of augmentation of cognitive function without
change of the biological brain, see Donald Kingsbury's Psychohistorical
Crisis, or, for that matter, Neuromancer or True Names.
Walt

>Again, this is a matter of framing and definition.  Some >people -- such as
Bruce Mazlish in The Fourth Discontinuity ->-argue that our brains are already
augmented (although not >implanted) by computers.

Did he mean that our ideas were augmented?  To augment the brain's cognitive
architecture requires selection pressure acting on a population for long enough
to create the emergence of a new complex functional adaptation that is a
recurring evolutionary advantage.  Computers do no such thing.  They do,
however, increase the availability of information to the cognitive architecture
which is already there.  But there is a *huge* difference.

Michael

A summary of the debate and links to the audio of the debate is now at
http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/frame.html?main=news_single.html?id%3D939

Ray Kurzweil's debate presentation is at
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0462.html

Ray's other talk to follow...

Again, this is a matter of framing and definition.  Some people -- such
as Bruce Mazlish in The Fourth Discontinuity -- argue that our brains
are already augmented (although not implanted) by computers.
Walt

Hi Walt,

I think this is Gregory’s argument: All these devices
will get so small, that you won’t need and want any
other augmentation, especially no modification to your
brain. Well, how many people do laser eye surgery
every year, although very small contact lenses are
available?

Just a thought, Mark.

--- Walter Truett Anderson <waltt@...> wrote:
> Stock must be working with a very limited definition
> of augmentation.
> After all, what are eyeglasses and hearing aids?
> Walt
>
>


__________________________________________________
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Stock must be working with a very limited definition of augmentation.
After all, what are eyeglasses and hearing aids?
Walt

Gregory Stock at Foresight gathering …

Hi everyone,

So I have been to the Foresight gathering last weekend. (See:
http://www.foresight.org/SrAssoc/spring2002/index.html)

And big surprise, one of the speakers was Gregory Stock. May be I was
tired, but to me he's presentation was a bit boring. I am one third
into his book: "Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future"
which we want to talk about at our next Salon and so far it is
interesting and well written.

He reiterated that he does not see people getting uploaded (As in our
brain mapped and then recreated within a computer), because our
biology is essential to us. He is also questioning whether people
will augment their body. I guess he has not been to San Francisco
lately. What body manipulations are happening here already is quite
amazing. (see: http://larsplace.com/humor/images_humor/piercing.jpg)

One more story from the `Wow bin': Scientist have found a way to
control the movement of rats:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?
storyID=1843131&thesection=news&thesubsection=world

See you on the 17th of May, Mark.

Since nobody else seems to have anything to say, I'll
try posting some news articles I thought were interesting.

Wayne

--

Long polymers light up LEDs (Apr 30)

LEDs made from long-chain polymers should emit more light
than those based on short molecules, according to
physicists in the US and the Netherlands. Valy Vardeny of
the University of Utah and colleagues say they were amazed
to find that the production of light-emitting `excitons' in
these materials depends on the length of the polymer chain.
The discovery could lead to the development of
ultra-efficient polymer LEDs (M Wohlgenannt et al 2002
Phys. Rev. Lett. 88 197401).

http://physicsweb.org/article/news/6/4/22


Light flash restructures carbon nanotubes

In an accidental discovery at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, materials researchers have found that
carbon nanotubes can be restructured using light.

The effect was discovered when a laboratory assistant,
undergraduate Andres de la Guardia, was photographing
a batch of synthesized single-walled carbon nanotubes.
His photo showed the nanotubes igniting.

http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020430S0014


Polymer transistors hint at all-organic displays

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University have built
an active-matrix (AM) LCD that uses polymer transistors
in place of silicon devices. The Penn State team claims
the performance of the display is comparable to those
built using amorphous silicon devices.


Bell Labs breaks through on Moore's Law

Scientists at Bell Labs, the research and development arm
of Lucent Technologies, have found a way to peer deep
inside a semiconductor and create an image of a single
impurity atom in silicon, a development that will
help scientists understand how impurities affect the
properties of microchips.

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-892894.html?tag=cd_mh


Origin of bipedalism seems most closely tied to environmental
changes

The hypothesis they found the most support for regarding
the origin of bipedalism is the one that argues our
ancestors began walking upright largely in response
to environmental changes -- in particular, to the
growing incidence of open spaces and the way that
changed the distribution of food.

http://www.news.uiuc.edu/scitips/02/05bipedal.html


USC Ophthalmologists Announce Launch of Permanent Retinal
Implant Study

http://uscnews.usc.edu/usctoday/action.lasso?-database=USCToday.fmp&-response=De\
tail.html&-logicalOp=and&-recID=35683&-search




__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness
http://health.yahoo.com

Thanks for the info.

It took me about 3 attempts to get signed up for bafuture.
It complained that my email address was unverified or
something like that.

Anyway, the problem I have now is that my name is
Wayne Radinsky, but it insists on using the Yahoo ID
"spodware" for my name, even though I have double-checked
that I filled all the name fields with my actual name,
"Wayne Radinsky". So those of you who I met last Friday,
and remember me, and were wondering who the hell "spodware"
is, now you know.

What is nanoSIG? Actually, nevermind, I'll just go look
at the website.

--- bo varga <bvarga@...> wrote:
> Thank You Joseph
>
> As we are a not-for-profit we need a robust web site -
> which we are setting up with a sponsor.  Our alliances
> include ASME = 100,000 members as well as others, I
> will enjoy trashing yahoo as I can present only the
> facts, no libel.
>
> FYI Yahoo only provides technical support for paying
> customers from 9-5, M-F.  Their customer support
> response (to summarize) is F... Y.. - so if you own
> their stock I don't have a lot of faith in their long
> term future.
>
> What a crock!
>
> Bo Varga
> Chair, Steering Committee, nanoSIG
> --- Joseph Anderson <bigwhiskey@...>
> wrote:
> > a suggested sites:
> > http://www.emailaccount.com
> >
> >
> > --- bo varga <bvarga@...> wrote:
> > >Well, other than the fact it is free, yahoo is
> > totally
> > >uninterested in customer service.
> > >
> > >Our web site was destroyed and the URL deleted
> > >globally by yahoo (who was hosting us, altho not
> > for
> > >much longer)because of a spam complaint which
> > turned
> > >out to be TOTALLY unfounded.
> > >
> > >Yahoo has a zero tolerance policy, so if you get
> > any
> > >unsolicited email from a yahoo account, just
> > complain
> > >to yahoo and they will DELETE THE SITE GLOBALLY -
> > not
> > >block, not investigate, not notify, but DESTROY
> > >WITHOUT NOTIFICATION.
> > >
> > >I am globally networked and plan to trash yahoo for
> > >the balance of my life.
> > >
> > >Good luck, expect nothing from Yahoo
> > >
> > >
> > >Bo Varga
> > >--- spodware <spodware@...> wrote:
> > >> 1.. 2.. 3..
> > >>
> > >> Hi everyone. I've been trying to sign up and
> > Yahoo
> > >> wouldn't let me.
> > >> But I think I got it to work now.
> > >>
> > >> What's going on?
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> > >>
> > >> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> > >> bafuture-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> > >> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> > >>
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> > >bafuture-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> > http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> >
> >
> _____________________________________________________________
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> > Get YOURNAME@...  at
> > http://www.emailaccount.com/
> >
> >
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> > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
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__________________________________________________
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Thank You Joseph

As we are a not-for-profit we need a robust web site -
which we are setting up with a sponsor.  Our alliances
include ASME = 100,000 members as well as others, I
will enjoy trashing yahoo as I can present only the
facts, no libel.

FYI Yahoo only provides technical support for paying
customers from 9-5, M-F.  Their customer support
response (to summarize) is F... Y.. - so if you own
their stock I don't have a lot of faith in their long
term future.

What a crock!

Bo Varga
Chair, Steering Committee, nanoSIG
--- Joseph Anderson <bigwhiskey@...>
wrote:
> a suggested sites:
> http://www.emailaccount.com
>
>
> --- bo varga <bvarga@...> wrote:
> >Well, other than the fact it is free, yahoo is
> totally
> >uninterested in customer service.
> >
> >Our web site was destroyed and the URL deleted
> >globally by yahoo (who was hosting us, altho not
> for
> >much longer)because of a spam complaint which
> turned
> >out to be TOTALLY unfounded.
> >
> >Yahoo has a zero tolerance policy, so if you get
> any
> >unsolicited email from a yahoo account, just
> complain
> >to yahoo and they will DELETE THE SITE GLOBALLY -
> not
> >block, not investigate, not notify, but DESTROY
> >WITHOUT NOTIFICATION.
> >
> >I am globally networked and plan to trash yahoo for
> >the balance of my life.
> >
> >Good luck, expect nothing from Yahoo
> >
> >
> >Bo Varga
> >--- spodware <spodware@...> wrote:
> >> 1.. 2.. 3..
> >>
> >> Hi everyone. I've been trying to sign up and
> Yahoo
> >> wouldn't let me.
> >> But I think I got it to work now.
> >>
> >> What's going on?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> >>
> >> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> >> bafuture-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> >> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> >bafuture-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> >
> >
> >
> >Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
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a suggested sites:
http://www.emailaccount.com


--- bo varga <bvarga@...> wrote:
>Well, other than the fact it is free, yahoo is totally
>uninterested in customer service.
>
>Our web site was destroyed and the URL deleted
>globally by yahoo (who was hosting us, altho not for
>much longer)because of a spam complaint which turned
>out to be TOTALLY unfounded.
>
>Yahoo has a zero tolerance policy, so if you get any
>unsolicited email from a yahoo account, just complain
>to yahoo and they will DELETE THE SITE GLOBALLY - not
>block, not investigate, not notify, but DESTROY
>WITHOUT NOTIFICATION.
>
>I am globally networked and plan to trash yahoo for
>the balance of my life.
>
>Good luck, expect nothing from Yahoo
>
>
>Bo Varga
>--- spodware <spodware@...> wrote:
>> 1.. 2.. 3..
>>
>> Hi everyone. I've been trying to sign up and Yahoo
>> wouldn't let me.
>> But I think I got it to work now.
>>
>> What's going on?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
>>
>> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>> bafuture-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>>
>>
>>
>> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
>> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>>
>>
>
>
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>bafuture-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

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Well, other than the fact it is free, yahoo is totally
uninterested in customer service.

Our web site was destroyed and the URL deleted
globally by yahoo (who was hosting us, altho not for
much longer)because of a spam complaint which turned
out to be TOTALLY unfounded.

Yahoo has a zero tolerance policy, so if you get any
unsolicited email from a yahoo account, just complain
to yahoo and they will DELETE THE SITE GLOBALLY - not
block, not investigate, not notify, but DESTROY
WITHOUT NOTIFICATION.

I am globally networked and plan to trash yahoo for
the balance of my life.

Good luck, expect nothing from Yahoo


Bo Varga
--- spodware <spodware@...> wrote:
> 1.. 2.. 3..
>
> Hi everyone. I've been trying to sign up and Yahoo
> wouldn't let me.
> But I think I got it to work now.
>
> What's going on?
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> bafuture-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
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1.. 2.. 3..

Hi everyone. I've been trying to sign up and Yahoo wouldn't let me.
But I think I got it to work now.

What's going on?

Working on "books" to submit/read
...however I've got more faith in a different kind of periodical.
Books are to make money and can be as wrong as Ophrah Winfre on issues.

..or as disinformatica as a certain person who will remain, nameless!

I"ll send you the list in about a week.

anderson

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----- Original Message -----

From: markfinnern

To: bafuture@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 12:10 AM

Subject: [bafuture] Preferred postings on this board …

Hi B.A.Futurists,

I was in Boston for two days and only now have time to respond to
some of the posts on this board.

You turn around and wupps there is shouting and name calling going on
this list. Please stay on an argumentative level.

What we agreed on at our first meeting was, that people would send me
infos about the books that they have mentioned during our get-
together. I would collect and post them to the mailing list.

So far only Jamais Cascio posted some of his favorite books about our
futurist topic. Thank you.
I am fine with posting these interesting books right away to the
list.

To give feedback to the selection is fine too, but how about
suggesting one book yourself first. Would make your argument
stronger.

After reading some of the posts I am exhausted, the arguments are all
over the place. Please name, preferable link, to your sources and one
strong argument with credible references makes your case so much more
solid.

I am new to this moderation business, but I checked, I have the power
to put individual members on `moderated post', `no post' and I am
sure I can even kick people off this list. I don't like to use that
power, but I will. There used to be 39 members signed up, now there
are only 38 left. I don't want to be the one who switches off the
light.

I am also tired and go to bed now.

Happy postings, Mark.

P.S. Remember: You can set your member profile `Message Delivery
Option' to "Special Notice', if you only want the invitation emails
send by me in my function as moderator.

This email was NOT send as a `Special Notice'.


To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
bafuture-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

Hi B.A.Futurists,

I was in Boston for two days and only now have time to respond to
some of the posts on this board.

You turn around and wupps there is shouting and name calling going on
this list. Please stay on an argumentative level.

What we agreed on at our first meeting was, that people would send me
infos about the books that they have mentioned during our get-
together. I would collect and post them to the mailing list.

So far only Jamais Cascio posted some of his favorite books about our
futurist topic. Thank you.
I am fine with posting these interesting books right away to the
list.

To give feedback to the selection is fine too, but how about
suggesting one book yourself first. Would make your argument
stronger.

After reading some of the posts I am exhausted, the arguments are all
over the place. Please name, preferable link, to your sources and one
strong argument with credible references makes your case so much more
solid.

I am new to this moderation business, but I checked, I have the power
to put individual members on `moderated post', `no post' and I am
sure I can even kick people off this list. I don't like to use that
power, but I will. There used to be 39 members signed up, now there
are only 38 left. I don't want to be the one who switches off the
light.

I am also tired and go to bed now.

Happy postings, Mark.

P.S. Remember: You can set your member profile `Message Delivery
Option' to "Special Notice', if you only want the invitation emails
send by me in my function as moderator.

This email was NOT send as a `Special Notice'.

6 Billion people and a screwball graph that even Ross Perot would have doubts
about. How were these people accounted for...the Florida Election System or
something?

As for 6 billion people......
I don't believe that.

I believe, given the life expectancy of individuals there are 3-4 billion
however 5-7% live in the USA & developed countries that consume and pollute as
much as 6 billion while weilding weird, childish and schizophrenic tales of how
great things are gonna be while ignoring the clear and present dangers of their
last brave new world rhetoric and developments. (Ronald Regan +/- 400000
neurons).

It's equivalent to the folks on California Ave brushing off the table before
sitting down, w/o realizing that it just went to the street level and didn't
disappear at all!  Oops I forgot...out of sight..out of..

You know like the American prison system?  Just put-em away and no more
problems?

A large % of those serving time are now due for release and American never did
do anything about rehab...it just sentenced and censured.







>
>> Case-in-point:  You haven't given ANY consideration as to what happens to the
Macroeconomic system once you have devices (nanotech) like this, have you?
>> Think about it a minute or two...The transition alone will cause massive
bloodshed!
>
>Many of us have given quite a bit of thought to it.  I don't see
>bloodshed.  There will probably be a lot of corporate and legal
>"battles" over intellectual property and protectionism.  But no one has
>died because of Napster.

Wrong Honey..there ain't gonna be no corporations and if so...not for very long.
If ( the two little letters that are the basis of all your arguments) if this
technology can cover the basics of food, heat, energy.
Why do I need food producers when I can produce some nutrient broth myself?

As for Napster...wake up ( get to Starbucks or route 101!!)
The record industry Bastards injunctioned Napster...adapted the technology all
in the name of defending the artists.  Then they went and turned around...junked
the artist so that they only get $03cents out of a major markup charge by the
record industry for downloading a transaction... the remaining veteran artists
like Rod Steward, David Bower, Sean O'Connor etc. were dropped from their
labels.  This list continues to grow.

David Bowie and Rod Stewarts, somewhat weird but a very smart entrepreneurs, are
producing their own and other records as we speak.

Meanwhile the record industry, defended by the DMCA, that the congress so willy
nilly Republican-silly adopted, is suing anything they can to make up lost
revenue on any issue that so much as smells of copywrite infringement.

Oh...there IS blood on them copywrite tracks dude and the comparison is not fair
when juxtaposed to food or nanomachines but the veracity is accurately, on the
money.

Did you know that 3/4 billion CD's sold last year ...outsold by, for the 1st
time BLANK CD's!!! (Financial Times March 02). Extrapolate that to a
nonotechnology that provides, food, heat, energy etc. IF, it can be put in the
hands of , say that Chinese Farmer, Russian Mobster, Sudanese citizen, Watt's
kid...whether they have a vision of its use or not.
It surely won't or there is gonna be a major warfar to prevent it.

No one has died because of Napster? (giggle, choke, gaffaw and get thee to thy
nunery!)

The record industry is on its way, now.
The video industry is seeing the handwriting on the wall and coming out with new
encryptions standards..for as long as they'll last.


No my niave little commrade:  I get a nonomachine to produce food, generate
energy the Coporations are gonna start developing their own little "anti-nano's"
to try to remain in the vanguard of power or a new hierarchy.

Then there are other agendas.  Tribes, sects, politicians, separtist, relgious
zealouts, countries & suzeraines, etc. trying to find out what the new
powerstucture is and assume it.

Wiping out your neighbor of course is the inevitable next step.
___________________________________


>> Think about is as being in American with a substantial income
>
>We'll probably have a lot of artificial limits to nanotech.  We're
>already pretty happy with our lives, and we may not notice if
>corporations lock down nanotech in order to keep themselves in business.
>And we listen too much to the radical changeophobes.  Probably the
>"social democracies" in Europe will make the best use of it (although
>they have their own changeophobes).

Changeophobes?  I though Kurt Vonnegut made up his own words.
No, no, .change all you like , your gender, your mind, our underwear..WindowsXP,
Linux...but in a society where people don't even have control over themselves:
Their emotions, their ability to reason or see clear and present
dangers?????.... the only ineveitable change you have is self-elimination; the
more powerful the toys...the easier it is to do it where lack of forethought is
the only malice!
You I'm citingin particular cause you REFUSE to think these things through
beyond a 5th grade level.

Pied piers, as yourself...refuse to admit the sun is setting. And would be hard
pressed to discuss how any of this technology works in the 1st. and refuse to
look at the history of technology and it's... uses.


"None so blind...as them who...yada yada"

You don't even know if nano's going to work?

If you can't control yourselves...don't rely on Deus et Machina especially
nanoMachina to do it for you!


>
>> Now think about it as a 55 year old in the Sudan
>
>Man or woman?  Sudan is currently Islamic fundamentalist, IMHO one of
>the worst forms of government.  Unless there's a change for the better,
>women probably won't be affected much.  Men will be subject to what the
>local government wants.  Nanotech will likely be outlawed or used only
>for weapons.  So probably not much immediate change.  On the other hand,
>nanotech may provide easier infiltration of charity and exfiltration of
>people, so their lot may improve if they're willing to leave.
>Eventually I hope Western memes will spread and people will demand
>improvement.  At that point, nanotech will allow extremely rapid
>infrastructure and lifestyle improvement.

Wrong...
Correct answer: They'll never know what hit them!
Those who have the technology will use it AGAINST those who don't or scarely
comprehend it and those who truly understand the power of this ( if it even
works!) will know they need to act FAST!

These countries with a minority but massively powerful and rich control group
and  masses of  poor and underprivlege now.  You think nano's gonna change that?
Shit it gives the folks in control a better hammer to weild and prospects of
going against the "superpowers" as they call it.
Hey... a promotion!
Coronel Kaddafy Your stripes are on the way!


>> Now as a Chinese farmer in Nanking...
>
>Much improvement in the short term.  More water and farming technology.
>Medium-term, as traditional farming becomes less economical compared
>with other means of food production, the farmer will find himself in a
>new line of work.
>
>> Now as a Russian mobster in Taganka..
>
>Nanotech will make surveillance a lot easier.  Mobsters and other
>criminals will either be wiped out or become entrenched in a legitimate
>or quasi-legitimate system, depending on the willpower of the
>government.

Wake up Batman... !
Go online and look at the Chinese and the Israeli web sites..
They know about bills coming down in Congress and Senate before WE do.
The Chinese already sold plans for one of our advanced anti-tank missiles to
IRAN 3 years ago.

>> Now as a black child in Watts...
>
>Reduced gang presence and cheap access to the Net gives the child more
>opportunity.  Increased welfare (due to cheaper cost of goods) gives
>him/her less incentive to take advantage of it.  Increased surveillance
>probably causes less jail time (crime really doesn't pay.)  Health
>improves.  Increased rich/poor gap causes increased social resentment.
>Opportunity for high-tech remote employment reduces impact of racism.
>If the kid works for it, his future is quite bright.  If not, his future
>is "hanging on in quiet desperation" on the dole at a standard of living
>better than today's American middle class.


You really need to get out and read some newspaers (Der Spiegel, L'express,
Jeune Afrique, Washington Post, Christian  Science Monitor..cause with writings
like these you haven't a angstom of what's going on in the real world...you live
in your own. That's a shame at your age..but it's a massive problem in the
United States.

The points you missed:
The Chinese Farmer
The Russian Mobster
The Black Child in Watts
The Sudanese

They're all separate worlds,With inhabitants, probably some as myopic as
yourself.
Them that see the technology and have access to the tools will dominate and
easily eliminate the others.
First in application to their current environment....

The 1st part of the game is getting to the tools to make the machines.

the next part is ensuring others don't!

As fiercely as China and Russia fought/fight sepratist, relable them
terrorist..do you think they want this stufff easily accessible?


...and we haven't even discussed the pollution factors of these nasties in the
environment...but...you seem to be in comic book land so.. why bother.



>> How do you take this body and in particularly this brain and establish a
system allowing us to transcend ourselves BEYOND our limitations..not give new
names to them like nanotechnology and singularity.
>
>Why do you assume that we'll be limited to this brain?  We're already
>improving our brains with chemicals without changing the physical size.
>Einstein's brain wasn't especially big.  Despite ethical debates, we are
>likely to have more intelligent "designer babies".  That's one way of
>transcending our limitations.  Mother Theresa was great.  So was
>Einstein.

Have you been smokin' crack?
Oi Gavault!

>But fundamentally your problem is that you want to think nanotechnology
>is merely a "new name" when in fact it is a large set of new
>possibilities.

No you're using it a a metaphor for what society (and you ) can't face in the
present.

I'm surprised you didn't say "live long and prosper!"

  If you won't trust anything you didn't think up for
>yourself, what are you doing on a futurist list?

I thought this was practical extrapolation, not schizophrenia with a touch of
LSD25!!

>
>--
>

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Joseph Anderson wrote:
> Uh...I really don't trust that graph!!!  Do you have a better source?

It seems there's a lot you don't trust.  That graph contains easily
verifiable numbers that match what I've seen elsewhere.  Go out and do
your own research.  Do you seriously doubt that there are six billion
people in the world right now?  If that's not what you meant to say,
then take more time with your next reply.

> Case-in-point:  You haven't given ANY consideration as to what happens to the
Macroeconomic system once you have devices (nanotech) like this, have you?
> Think about it a minute or two...The transition alone will cause massive
bloodshed!

Many of us have given quite a bit of thought to it.  I don't see
bloodshed.  There will probably be a lot of corporate and legal
"battles" over intellectual property and protectionism.  But no one has
died because of Napster.

> Think about is as being in American with a substantial income

We'll probably have a lot of artificial limits to nanotech.  We're
already pretty happy with our lives, and we may not notice if
corporations lock down nanotech in order to keep themselves in business.
And we listen too much to the radical changeophobes.  Probably the
"social democracies" in Europe will make the best use of it (although
they have their own changeophobes).

> Now think about it as a 55 year old in the Sudan

Man or woman?  Sudan is currently Islamic fundamentalist, IMHO one of
the worst forms of government.  Unless there's a change for the better,
women probably won't be affected much.  Men will be subject to what the
local government wants.  Nanotech will likely be outlawed or used only
for weapons.  So probably not much immediate change.  On the other hand,
nanotech may provide easier infiltration of charity and exfiltration of
people, so their lot may improve if they're willing to leave.
Eventually I hope Western memes will spread and people will demand
improvement.  At that point, nanotech will allow extremely rapid
infrastructure and lifestyle improvement.

> Now as a Chinese farmer in Nanking...

Much improvement in the short term.  More water and farming technology.
Medium-term, as traditional farming becomes less economical compared
with other means of food production, the farmer will find himself in a
new line of work.

> Now as a Russian mobster in Taganka..

Nanotech will make surveillance a lot easier.  Mobsters and other
criminals will either be wiped out or become entrenched in a legitimate
or quasi-legitimate system, depending on the willpower of the
government.

> Now as a black child in Watts...

Reduced gang presence and cheap access to the Net gives the child more
opportunity.  Increased welfare (due to cheaper cost of goods) gives
him/her less incentive to take advantage of it.  Increased surveillance
probably causes less jail time (crime really doesn't pay.)  Health
improves.  Increased rich/poor gap causes increased social resentment.
Opportunity for high-tech remote employment reduces impact of racism.
If the kid works for it, his future is quite bright.  If not, his future
is "hanging on in quiet desperation" on the dole at a standard of living
better than today's American middle class.

> How do you take this body and in particularly this brain and establish a
system allowing us to transcend ourselves BEYOND our limitations..not give new
names to them like nanotechnology and singularity.

Why do you assume that we'll be limited to this brain?  We're already
improving our brains with chemicals without changing the physical size.
Einstein's brain wasn't especially big.  Despite ethical debates, we are
likely to have more intelligent "designer babies".  That's one way of
transcending our limitations.  Mother Theresa was great.  So was
Einstein.

But fundamentally your problem is that you want to think nanotechnology
is merely a "new name" when in fact it is a large set of new
possibilities.  If you won't trust anything you didn't think up for
yourself, what are you doing on a futurist list?

Chris

--
Chris Phoenix cphoenix@... http://www.best.com/~cphoenix
Interests: nanotechnology, dyslexia, caving, filk, SF, patent
reform, stained glass, hang gliding

Response...and skepticism from joseph anderson

>>These are just drops in the bucket compared to the exponential >>increase in
population:

Uh...I really don't trust that graph!!!  Do you have a better source?

What's more where are these people distributed?  Africa and India have severe
disease, hunger and wars going on that I"d like to see better data or primary
sources than this. There are large areas of Africa you just can't occupy simply
because of the pestilence..Larger areas in Russia simply because of the
temperature...add Chelyabinsk since the nuclear accident there....I'm sensing
another Malthusian miscalculation ....one as large as elephants!

I think you've got greater danger from the extant and every growing pollution
from those ever present "technological advances" that have catapulted us to an
evironmental nightmare.  Don't believe that...note the colour of the horizon on
sunrise and sunset and note the Coral Reefs and the Black Forests of
Europe...they're in their death throws.

In short the pollution cuts whatever resources and living area you have..and in
that sense you have an overpopulation.

uh...I"ll bet you drive one of them GAZPROM guzzling Mini-Vans!


Deliberate malice is embedded in our strands of DNA and we've NEVER been able to
rid ourselves of it!

>>Yet.  That doesn't mean we won't be able to.  If we had, deliberate malice
would not be an issue, and you would have not written than sentence.<<

We won't live that long as a species.  You seem to have INORDINATE faith in
things you don't understand. q.v. STevie Wonder for details.
What's the difference between this massive faith in machines and gruvelig before
a sacrificed lamb?

"Sacrificial Bonfire!!"  XTC!


O.K... show me evidence (HARD EVIDENCE) not will-o-the-wisp, new age I'm in the
middle or above class American myopia!
I thought Derek Bokism died already!

We can Futurize optomistically, about Brave new worlds and wonders..but until
you factor in Man's (that's man-man and woman's) inescapable propensity to
cheat, steal, lie, murder, rationalize away from the obvious, provicialize..in
short deliberately screw things up..well...

>>Not inescapable.  Technological progress has been steadily, globally
accelerating since its conception, regardless of human nature.  Plus, if human
nature is inherently undesirable, once the technological capability is available
to modify it, then it will be improved.<<

This is Clockwork Orange...look at all the past attempts to do so.
People will use the technology as they always have. Irresponsibly.

The Chinese have drastically reduced the number of female births using
amniocenthesis.  No wonder they're "jumpin' on each other"  (NYTimes 2 weeks
ago..homosexuality in China)

Try to focus on the life of Mother Theresa...what was in her nature or what did
she do to allow her to forgo the banality of life to dedicate herself, sacrifice
herself to help the truly weakest of us all?

Wasn't nanotech, was it?
Wasn't Sheera either, was it?

Remember Thomas Merton?  What was the quality allowing for the change or what
was the insight?


This is just wishful thinking with a side-order of  "Enter Deus et Machina! ",
NONSENSE! NUNDESKA!  to be thrown on the pile of rubbish that said the Earth
would be destroyed when the Shoemaker-Eddy meteorites hit Jupiter, Richard
Nixon's secret end to Vietnam and that Christ was comin' back in
1976...1977...1982...hmmm anybody gotz a raincheck?

What in the present time frame exists that would extrapolate to "our little
nanomachines are gonna save us all" talk.  (Santa Clause is comin'' to town!)

This "sit by" and wait for the miracle...was the same nonsense that had us cut
millions from welfare roles only to now discover that we moved, more correctly
threw people off welfare, some got jobs and they're NO BETTER OFF THAN THEY WERE
BEFORE (Stanford, Yale, Berkeley Study)...moreover the kids of those parents are
doing worse.

These are perspectives  to make the observer feel good about doing something,
even if it was the wrong thing, a tragic thing.  The Iatrogenics I talked about
in the last letter.

The Nobless Oblige of our society needs to be tamed for it is seriously myopic
and deadly for reasons as simple and vain as...I don't want to see poverty so
I'll devise a solution that ends up killing the victim!

Case-in-point:  You haven't given ANY consideration as to what happens to the
Macroeconomic system once you have devices (nanotech) like this, have you?

Think about it a minute or two...The transition alone will cause massive
bloodshed!

Think about is as being in American with a substantial income

Now think about it as a 55 year old in the Sudan
Now as a Chinese farmer in Nanking...
Now as a Russian mobster in Taganka..
Now as a black child in Watts...

<<What is a singularity? >> Anderson question.

Response:
>>What is a search engine?  The Singularity is the radical >>discontinuity in
history produced by the emergence of an intelligence >>with
substantially-greater-than-human capability for self-improvement.

Oh...I know to look it up with search engines...it's just subjects like this...I
don't trust the sources.  There's lots of stuff on the web...however maybe less
than 20% is verifiable or valid!!!!! Like your graph, above!

Anyway you seem to be saying a singularity is, in other words...."The Calvary is
coming over the hill...so I'll just sit and think positively till they get
here!"
"Santa Claus is comin' to town....." again!

Never mind what Carl Sagan said in the book Broca's Brain...and limits of Human
Intelligence...or get yourself a woman with wider hips!

Never mind that intelligence alone is not sufficient...

Try reading Kurt Vonneguts Galapogos....intelligence has nothing much to do with
it all on the positive side.

Meanwhile you're dying of good old, and at one time erradicatd Tuberculosis
cause your technology was short-sighted and short lived.  Iatrogenics lives on,
again!

Deus et Machina is not in nature's script, kiddie!


Now extinction...that's a big number 1 on the hit parade.
Self-extinction seems like a new twist but...hey...it works too.



>>CFAI: Beyond anthropomorphism
This is wasted reading or about as entertaining as American Comic Books. (Not
very.)

The problem you can't/won't address is forget about the machines, technology
yada, yada.

How do you take this body and in particularly this brain and establish a system
allowing us to transcend ourselves BEYOND our limitations..not give new names to
them like nanotechnology and singularity.


"We need someone or something new
something else to get us through, yeah.
But it's gettin HARDER...
To Describe...
Sailors....
..to the underfed"

Jim Morrison/The Doors  "The Soft Parade"






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Responses from Joseph Anderson:

--- darkvegeta26@... wrote:
>>It is true that nanotechnology may not be developed.  But if it is >>not,
>>then a few tons of leaking nuclear waste will be the least of our
>>worries.  All the technology trends are going straight for nanotech
>>within a decade or two.  If technology falters so badly that nanotech
>>doesn't appear within 200 years, then overpopulation wins the race, >>and
>>billions of humans will die prematurely.

Anderson's Response:
Sorry but I'm missing something here.  You're saying nanotech is the "Saviour"
to Malthusian overpopulation? or other societal ills?

Look around you: War, disease, pollution and Society Collapse (Angola, Zaire,
Szrebeniza), lack of proper medical care in the USA, vast "fractional" &
"make-believe" families putting women and children below the poverty line,
political parties trying to "remove" the middle class, USA nationwide voting at
its lowest rate since old Adolph won in pre-WWII Germany.. are doing a FINE job
of dropping the populations.

If nanotech misses the boat...just like broadband, dot.coms (dot.cons),
telecommunications already have...big deal.  If the money's is in the right
place at the right time, you get another world wide depression and "Ta Da" more
death!
Overpopulaton? Ha...that's for tourists!


Regarding the response about why should Futurists worry about nuclear waste?
Simple:  The half-life of most of these luscious items in in the vacinity of
24,000 years!!!!!!!!!
..and when you burry them  (improperly) they..percolate and disperse through the
soil...alas death takes a slow ride to the ground water!
Now..let's not mention the "hot" areas around the USA and the Soviet ex-miltary
journalist, with the help of the Japanese who was sentenced for revealing that
their submarines REGULARLY for 10 years have dump radioative rods and other
waste in the Baltics!!!

What's more, that optimism about "building proper nuclear plants" by one poster
takes yet another backseat.  New York Times, circa 3 mile island days,  ran a
story under the fold, about how the design of nuclear power plants was quite
safe...but due to cost overruns etc.  NOBODY, repeat NOBODY builds them
according to specs!

What? don't believe this...OK...let's look at Lockheed.  They were sending up
satellites for a telecommunications project 4 years ago.  All they had to do was
purchase $600.00 part for the fuel regulator.  Nope, bought the $200.00 one
instead.  At least 2 delivery rockets BLEW UP due to this oversight!!!

Morton-Thiokol....well  let's not go there...Just talk to Sally Ride or look at
the late Dr. Feynman's commentary, shall we say on NASA.

In Stanley Kubrick's 2001...one interesting little paragraph.  If I recall
correctly Dave is trying to get to the central controls after Hal went
murderously indignant and let all the air out of the ship.
One of Dave's thoughts was regarding backup and systems failures.
Said one of the engineers he talked to before the flight: "We can protect
against anything...except deliberate malice!"

Deliberate malice is embedded in our strands of DNA and we've NEVER been able to
rid ourselves of it!

Remember Krupt?
Remember thou most latest accounting fiasco of the 20th century that stretches
from Anderson Consulting to.......well, we're still checking?
Remember The Tuskegee experiment?
Remember the Recent NYTimes study on minorities in USA not getting proper care
due to racism alone!! (Just published 2 weeks ago!)
Remember M-K Ultra Project of the CIA
Remember Operation Cointelpro by the FBI


This is the one reason I can't stand Esther Dyson or for that matter,
former Harvard University President Derek Bok (granted his own professor's
didn't like him either!)  We can Futurize optomistically, about Brave new worlds
and wonders..but until you factor in Man's (that's man-man and woman's)
inescapable propensity to cheat, steal, lie, murder, rationalize away from the
obvious, provicialize..in short deliberately screw things up..well....




What is a singularity?  Outside its definition in nuclear physics?
When was the last one?

Regarding the comment that technology has a pretty good record of cleaning
itself up?

Ha!!!  oh yea...we'll get your water wings on and take a dive into  Baltic. 
Notice anything...radioactive?  Notice any...fish?

..or get over to the Mississippi...take a sample..now brush away the silt and
inject it into a gas chromatograph...eeeeks!..we'll just deal with the pcbs and
other wonderful items that haven't seemed to "Clean themselves up", hmmm maybe
they're on vacation.

...did someone say landmines?  Yes...another form of pollution that still seems
to be...off-duty when it comes to cleaning itself up.


Does anyone remember the Nerve Gas that was dumped off the US coast during the
Carter administration cause it was eating its way through the cement?  Well,
that's too long ago to remember...so that doesn't count.

Anyone been to Los Angelas...I was there in 1997.  You can hear a  plane fly
overhead...you just can't see the damned thing!   In Broad DAylight,
mind-you...must be an old style UFO, eh?

If technology has a good track record of cleaning itself up..only on the desks
of Atomic Energy Commisions, CDC's and politicians who cover it up!

>>Technology has a pretty good record of cleaning
>>up its messes, and is getting cleaner all the time.  (Well-designed
>>nuclear power is arguably much cleaner than coal-fired generation.  And
>>which was worse, Chernobyl or the Exxon Valdez?  (Depends which species
>>you ask.))



This next paragraph is interesting:  "Let's keep ethics in mind when developing
technology"

If we successfully incorporate Ethics into technology and have sentient machines
on an Ethical level...they will deduce a system of Eugenics. Ethically,
eugenically...the machines would have to come to the conclusion that getting rid
of the humans is eugenically favourable since humans are UNETHICAL!
The conclusion would be inescapable.
I give you as e.g.

John Ashcrofts tribunals and detaining citizens w/o cause, reason or
justification such that the Chief Prosecutor in Spain recited chapter and verse
from the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights to him, 2 months
ago!!!!!! ( I'm framing this.)

Look at the History of UN intervention in disputes between countries.  An
excellent example of a country with Higher Technology intervening in counties
that are not...yet..we seem unable to resolve the situation other than
occupation...and for long periods of time ( Greece?)

When the Soviet Union fell and the Azeberjani's and Armenians were free...the
1st thing they did was not celebrate but get to the nearest guns and start
shooting each other!

The fact that in this Future Society..you talk of nanotechnology and computer
power everything BUT.. changing or fixing the problem...mankind.  The will, the
volition is not there!

The program is broken...and for quite some time.

The children of the broken program aren't being raised to know how to fix the
problem and to not even recognize it as such.


..and the extracorporeal...solutions are only iatrogenic...something design to
cure that only makes things worse. (Paul Samuelson, U Chicago!)

Johnathan Schwartz of WNEW radio circa 1978,used to say that the sadest song in
the world was "..and the band played on!"

I"m now understanding why.

j.s.anderson

>This has to do with the immune systems John was talking about: it truly does
>seem that accompanying the accelerating pace of computation/progress are
>mechanisms preserving and facilitating said computation, and while these
>emergent immune systems may be built into the fundamental structure of
>reality, a vital component of their implementation is willful human
>deliberation.  Simply put, let's continuously keep ethics in mind while
>developing new technology.  Maybe the final step for humanity will be to
>encapsulate ethics, intelligence, and technology into a single entity.



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>It is true that nanotechnology may not be developed.  But if it is not,
>then a few tons of leaking nuclear waste will be the least of our
>worries.  All the technology trends are going straight for nanotech
>within a decade or two.  If technology falters so badly that nanotech
>doesn't appear within 200 years, then overpopulation wins the race, and
>billions of humans will die prematurely.

Yup.  Or something else horrible happens.  Barring some existential disaster,
I can't conceive of how nanotechnology won't come to fruition within the next
20 years, max.

>When it comes to developing new technology, it may be less risky to
>think short-term, because long-term thinking simply cannot plan for
>technological advances.

I absolutely agree...let's all keep in the back of our minds that a lot of
serious thinkers have predicted a full-blown Singularity ocurring anywhere
between 2005 and 2050, and something like that wouldn't simply render our
current speculations irrelevant; it would permanently transform the human
ontology forever.

>Technology has a pretty good record of cleaning
>up its messes, and is getting cleaner all the time.  (Well-designed
>nuclear power is arguably much cleaner than coal-fired generation.  And
>which was worse, Chernobyl or the Exxon Valdez?  (Depends which species
>you ask.))

This has to do with the immune systems John was talking about: it truly does
seem that accompanying the accelerating pace of computation/progress are
mechanisms preserving and facilitating said computation, and while these
emergent immune systems may be built into the fundamental structure of
reality, a vital component of their implementation is willful human
deliberation.  Simply put, let's continuously keep ethics in mind while
developing new technology.  Maybe the final step for humanity will be to
encapsulate ethics, intelligence, and technology into a single entity.

>If a technology will save 1000
>lives per year but will kill (on average) one, by what right do we spend
>an extra year evaluating it?

*tick* *tock* *tick*...
http://sysopmind.com/wta/andimaterie.html

Very, very good points in the rest of your mail, Chris.  The potential
applications of technologies with exponentially accelerating returns provoke
decision making that humans have never had to deal with before...where do we
spend our time and money to benefit mankind in the most profound way
possible?  Whatever it is, we will have to reevaluate it continuously.

Oh, by the way, members on this list are invited to view and contribute to
the discussions on BJKlein.com, (a 2 minute registration process is required)
maybe it will help introduce folks to some valuable futurist memes if they
haven't experienced them yet.

Michael Anissimov

Hi Bay Area Futurist,

Our first Salon was a very pleasant surprise to me. Who would have
thought, that 20 people show up. Thanks to everyone who came and
participated. We had quite a lively discussion going.

I am slowly getting more familiar with the functionalities in Yahoo
Groups. One can set his `Message Delivery Option' to `Individual
Emails', `Daily Digest', `Special Notice', or `No Emails'.

`Special Notice' is the setting that you want if you only need the
invitation emails send by me in my function as moderator.

My current thinking is I send out the following as special notice:
- one email a week before the next Salon
- one reminder email two days before it is happening
- one email right after the event announcing the title and author of
the book we want to discuss the next time.

All the people that I have signed up for the Yahoo Groups and that
have not been to our first Salon on Friday I changed the `Message
Delivery Option' to `Special Notice'.

If you would like to have it different, please change your settings
at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bafuture/

Last Friday was a great start for our Salon. I was very happy
afterwards. Can't wait to see you all and then some again on the 17th
of May.

All the best, Mark.

P.S. Here is the information to the two books that we agreed to cover
next month:

Gregory Stock "Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future"
http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?
userid=0GSHML7CLM&mscssid=QQVNMS1GTKLD8NC433H1JLUU4FGC97EA&isbn=061806
026X

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/061806026X/qid=1019458847/sr=8-
1/ref=sr_8_67_1/102-4284609-0832941

Stock's book is the main one. If you only have time for one book then
this is it.


Francis Fukuyama "Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the
Biotechnology Revolution"
http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?
userid=0GSHML7CLM&mscssid=QQVNMS1GTKLD8NC433H1JLUU4FGC97EA&isbn=037423
6437

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374236437/qid=1019459241/sr=2-
1/ref=sr_2_1/102-4284609-0832941

I went to get my car washed and as a thank you they throw in the
Chronicle. I open up the book section and there is a review of
Fukuyama's book:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
f=/chronicle/archive/2002/04/21/RV202795.DTL&type=books
The reviewer writes: ""Our Posthuman Future," … could be the most
important book of the year."  We saw it first :-)

Some more books that were mentioned that cover the same area:
Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us
by Rodney Allen Brooks
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375420797/qid=1019459591/sr=1-
1/ref=sr_1_1/102-4284609-0832941

Remaking Eden : How Genetic Engineering and Cloning Will Transform
the American Family
by Lee M. Silver
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0380792435/qid=1019459798/sr=1-
1/ref=sr_1_1/102-4284609-0832941

Jamais Cascio wrote:
>
> At 3:01 PM -0700 4/20/02, Christopher J. Phoenix wrote:
>
> > Why would any futurist be concerned about nuclear waste facilities?
>
> Because nuclear waste exists, and the future nanotechnologies that
> might make it go away cheaply and easily don't. They might at some
> point in the future, but it's unwise to act as if the future is a
> given.

It is true that nanotechnology may not be developed.  But if it is not,
then a few tons of leaking nuclear waste will be the least of our
worries.  All the technology trends are going straight for nanotech
within a decade or two.  If technology falters so badly that nanotech
doesn't appear within 200 years, then overpopulation wins the race, and
billions of humans will die prematurely.

When it comes to developing new technology, it may be less risky to
think short-term, because long-term thinking simply cannot plan for
technological advances.  Technology has a pretty good record of cleaning
up its messes, and is getting cleaner all the time.  (Well-designed
nuclear power is arguably much cleaner than coal-fired generation.  And
which was worse, Chernobyl or the Exxon Valdez?  (Depends which species
you ask.))

> I'm happy to see that you don't suggest that potential solutions in
> the future mean that we shouldn't be concerned about nuclear waste in
> the present. It's a common failing for many futurists, this easy
> reliance on solutions that might exist to problems that do exist. More
> precisely: I've seen too many good futurists/future-thinkers assume
> that a present-day dilemma is *not* a problem because a cheap/easy
> solution is "just around the corner."

Well, I'd say we should be prepared to store nuclear waste for 100
years, maybe 200 to be safe.  And that is a real problem, and I'm not
claiming it isn't.  But to say that any storage must be absolutely
fail-safe for 10,000 years sounds too much like the precautionary
principle (that we must be absolutely sure a new technology is safe
before we use it).

I completely reject the precautionary principle, because it ignores the
risk of *not* using a new technology.  If a technology will save 1000
lives per year but will kill (on average) one, by what right do we spend
an extra year evaluating it?  (The only exception is if it could
plausibly do damage to all humanity (nuclear waste doesn't qualify)--but
the exception to that exception is if it could plausibly save humanity.)

> And I hope that these technologies are developed. It would certainly
> make some things easier. But there's no shame in thinking about
> solutions to (or, at least, mitigations for) a problem that can be
> started right now.

Thinking about solutions?  You're right, no shame there.  But it's a
small step from thinking to acting on our thoughts.

For example, suppose we decide that there is no way to be absolutely
sure of 10,000 year storage of nuclear waste.  It's easy--and wrong--to
conclude that we must stop generating nuclear waste.  The alternative is
fossil fuel which will probably do far more harm even in the long run.

Or suppose we find that we can cut CO2 emissions by 10% at a cost of
0.1% GWP.  We probably should not do that; it would delay technology.
It might be better to earmark 0.01% of GWP for a crash program to
research carbon sequestration.  And another 0.01% to triple funding for
the National Nanotechnology Initiative.  And another 0.01% as prize
money and other incentives for commercializing fuel cells and solar
power.  We'd probably make up the 10% CO2 overrun in less than a decade.

So I don't fault people for thinking.  But it's usually the case that
when people think, they worry.  And 10,000 year nuclear waste storage
should be pretty far down on our list of things to worry about.  Perhaps
it's above cellular phone towers, but certainly below asteroid impact or
coral reef collapse.

If by this point the reader thinks I'm dangerous, it's likely because
you think it's immoral to do small amounts of preventable damage to
random and distant people or ecosystems.  Do you eat significant
quantities of meat?  Own a car?  Vacation by airplane?  But don't beat
yourself up; these things keep the economy going, without which the
planet would be Easter Island within a generation.

Chris

--
Chris Phoenix cphoenix@... http://www.best.com/~cphoenix
Interests: nanotechnology, dyslexia, caving, filk, SF, patent
reform, stained glass, hang gliding

From: Jamais Cascio <cascio@...>
Reply-To: bafuture@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 14:31:14 -0700
To: bafuture@yahoogroups.com
Cc: "markfinnern" <markfinnern@...>
Subject: [bafuture] Some book suggestions...

Hi folks

At the first meeting last night, I mentioned a number of books on a number of subjects, and I was asked to list them for the group. I'll do that one better -- I'll list some my "You Really Should Read These..." set, with brief comments. Of course, anyone who has read these and wants to tell me I'm full of it, please do! Note that I'm not including on this list any of the books that I saw on the floor last night.

Arguilla, John: THE ORIGINS OF NETWAR

A short book from the RAND corporation, it lays out with remarkably clarity the problems of asymmetric warfare -- how networked movements can have tremendous power vs. hierarchical opponents.

Armesto, Felipe: MILLENNIUM

A world history of the last thousand years. It doesn't focus on people or ideologies so much as recurring historical forces around the globe. It's important for people who think about the future to be well-grounded in what has gone before.

Benford, Gregory: DEEP TIME

A set of essays by the science fiction author/scientist, all focused on very deep futures -- a thousand years or much more. His essay about designing very long-lived warnings for nuclear waste facilities is particularly fascinating.

Brooks, Rodney: CAMBRIAN INTELLIGENCE

Brooks is at MIT, in the robotics department. He came up with a model for robots called "subsumption architecture," in which there is no single all-powerful AI. Instead, multiple task-oriented systems combine to have emergent behavioral effects. This has, by far, been the most successful method of creating free-roaming robots. Pretty technical.

Brooks, Rodney: FLESH AND MACHINE

Covers some of the same ground as CAMBRIAN INTELLIGENCE, but does so for a less technical readership. It's also updated by a couple of years, so it's worth reading, even if you've already read the first one.

Calvin, William: THE CEREBRAL SYMPHONY

Bill Calvin is, hands down, the smartest person I've ever met. A neurophysiologist at the University of Washington, he can write knowledgeably about AI, evolution, ecophysics, and of course cognition. This books is a terrific introduction to recent (if not the most cutting-edge) thinking in how the brain works. He wrote on the concept of a singularity (although I don't think he uses that term) about 10 years ago; you can find the article at:
<gopher://gopher.well.sf.ca.us/00/Publications/authors/Calvin/wer81.asc>

Dennett, Daniel: BRAINCHILDREN

Technical and dense, this is Daniel Dennett's approach to whether and how machines could ever gain self-aware sentience.

Diamond, Jared: GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL

Diamond attempts to answer the question of why Europe won, why the "West" managed to conquer the rest of the world militarily, politically, and (most recently) culturally. This is an excellent examination of the relationship between technological change and cultural adaptation.

Dyson, George: DARWIN AMONG THE MACHINES

This one is all over the map, but it's an interesting read. Its main theme is the competition between artificial and biological life from an evolutionary perspective.

Gladwell, Malcolm: THE TIPPING POINT

Fluff, but interesting fluff. This is a non-technical look at why social changes happen in certain ways, from fashion to technology adoption. If you read this and one of the books on complexity, you'll see many connections.

Kosko, Bart: FUZZY THINKING

Kosko is one of the key thinkers behind fuzzy logic, and this book explains it very nicely *and* ties it in to other kinds of near-term changes, in particular AI.

McCorduck, Pamela: THE FUTURES OF WOMEN

McCorduck, and her writing partner Nancy Ramsey, present four different scenarios of how the next half-century could affect women in the world. These are wonderfully thoughtful, well-constructed scenarios. You won't necessarily agree with them, but they'll make you think.

Moravec, Hans: MIND CHILDREN

Ah, Hans Moravec. The one book on this list guaranteed to make you go "what the HELL is this guy on?!?" Moravec is smart, bold, and willing to make radical proposals. This book is a clear progenitor to the Ray Kurzweil book and, while several years out of date, it's superior in some ways. Moravec doesn't try to talk about the social forces at work, so he doesn't get them as horribly wrong as Kurzweil does.

Norman, Donald: THE DESIGN OF EVERYDAY THINGS

A useful introduction to concepts behind design. Why things work, why they don't, and why we sometimes like to use some things more than others. This is important when you start to think about *new* technologies -- why would people want to use them? What would make people not want to use them?

Silver, Lee: REMAKING EDEN

Published just around the same time Dolly was cloned, REMAKING EDEN is a smart, well-written overview of why people might be inclined to alter human DNA. He talks about the history of human engineering of all sorts. In combination with one of the newer biotech books, this is a good read.

Waldrop, Mitchell: COMPLEXITY

There are a number of books out about complexity theory, but as an introduction for non-mathematicians, it's hard to beat this one. Good for giving the reader a sense of how the world seems to work.

Other suggestions:

Pulver, David: TRANSHUMAN SPACE

Yes, it's a game book. It's also one of the most detailed looks at how the next 100 years might turn out, from a hard-science perspective. It espouses an openly optimistic view, for the most part. Disclaimer: I'm writing a book in this game series, about the less-happy parts of the world in 2100.

Robinson, Kim Stanley: RED MARS, GREEN MARS, BLUE MARS (trilogy)

Incredible series about exploration, colonization, and terraforming of Mars. KSR tells plot better than he creates charactes, but so what -- this is brilliant, especially the sections on developing the politics and constitution of an independent Mars. Fiction.

Stephenson, Neil: THE DIAMOND AGE

So you think you want to live in a world of ubiquitous nanotechnology, do you...? Fiction.

Sterling, Bruce: HOLY FIRE

What does the world look like if people do start to live for very long periods of time. You don't really think that rich older people are going to give up power, do you? Fiction.

--
Jamais Cascio
cascio@...
cascio@...
http://post-human.org/bio.html

"If you can talk brilliantly enough about a problem, it can create the
consoling illusion that it has been mastered."
             Stanley Kubrick

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Well, you didn't ask for additional comments, but I'll give some anyway.

> Benford, Gregory: DEEP TIME
>
>      A set of essays by the science fiction author/scientist, all
>      focused on very deep futures -- a thousand years or much
>      more. His essay about designing very long-lived warnings for
>      nuclear waste facilities is particularly fascinating.

Why would any futurist be concerned about nuclear waste facilities?

Using only the centrifuges described by Freitas in Nanomedicine, we can
sort nuclear waste at an energy cost of a megawatt-hour per ton or
less.  And yes, I took radiation damage to the machinery into account;
it turns out that it's not a big problem at all.  Pure (isotopically
sorted) radioactives are useful, and will easily pay for their own
storage until they're used (besides being much smaller than the current
waste dumps).  And with the aerospace tech we'll have even 100 years
from now, it'll be cheap and safe to store the isotopes we don't want on

the moon.

-- 

Well, you didn't ask for additional comments, but I'll give some anyway.

> Benford, Gregory: DEEP TIME
>
>      A set of essays by the science fiction author/scientist, all
>      focused on very deep futures -- a thousand years or much
>      more. His essay about designing very long-lived warnings for
>      nuclear waste facilities is particularly fascinating.

Why would any futurist be concerned about nuclear waste facilities?
Using only the centrifuges described by Freitas in Nanomedicine, we can
sort nuclear waste at an energy cost of a megawatt-hour per ton or
less.  And yes, I took radiation damage to the machinery into account;
it turns out that it's not a big problem at all.  Pure (isotopically
sorted) radioactives are useful, and will easily pay for their own
storage until they're used (besides being much smaller than the current
waste dumps).  And with the aerospace tech we'll have even 100 years
from now, it'll be cheap and safe to store the isotopes we don't want on
the moon.

> Diamond, Jared: GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL
>
>      Diamond attempts to answer the question of why Europe won,
>      why the "West" managed to conquer the rest of the world
>      militarily, politically, and (most recently) culturally.
>      This is an excellent examination of the relationship between
>      technological change and cultural adaptation.

Haven't read this one, but I read The Third Chimpanzee, and I'm not very
impressed with Diamond.  He does a lot of arguing by assertion, and
frequently ignores plausible alternative explanations for his facts.
He's a good storyteller but don't trust his conclusions.  Also, several
years ago I read a well-informed review of Guns, Germs, and Steel that
ripped it into very small pieces.  I don't remember the details, but
there was something about how he put lots of emphasis on the olive while
completely ignoring some other plant that was just as useful.

> Robinson, Kim Stanley: RED MARS, GREEN MARS, BLUE MARS (trilogy)
>
>      Incredible series about exploration, colonization, and
>      terraforming of Mars. KSR tells plot better than he creates
>      charactes, but so what -- this is brilliant, especially the
>      sections on developing the politics and constitution of an
>      independent Mars. Fiction.

KSR needs to improve his physics.  I find it hard to respect a hard
science fiction book that has scientists designing gizmos that violate
conservation of energy.  No comment on the politics since I didn't
finish the series.

> Stephenson, Neil: THE DIAMOND AGE
>
>      So you think you want to live in a world of ubiquitous
>      nanotechnology, do you...? Fiction.

Even worse.  Stephenson not only violates physics in several places, but
violates his own technology.  Simply doesn't think things through.  (At
one point the computers stop working when they're heated only slightly;
at another point they continue working at combustion heat.)  Don't try
to learn about nanotech from this book, any more than you'd learn
mechanics from Tom Swift.  This isn't a story about nanotech; it's a
human-interest story with nanotech plugged in.  For example, one of the
characters essentially dies of consumption in a garrett, because that's
what the story requires--except that in this story it's a
nanotech-induced condition--which makes no sense because the treatment
would be trivial--but he dies anyway.  He has quite a few cool ideas
scattered through the book, but way too much subtly wrong info about
nanotech for me to recommend it to anyone.

Chris

--
Chris Phoenix cphoenix@... http://www.best.com/~cphoenix
Interests: nanotechnology, dyslexia, caving, filk, SF, patent
reform, stained glass, hang gliding

A short book from the RAND corporation, it lays out with remarkably clarity the problems of asymmetric warfare -- how networked movements can have tremendous power vs. hierarchical opponents.

A world history of the last thousand years. It doesn't focus on people or ideologies so much as recurring historical forces around the globe. It's important for people who think about the future to be well-grounded in what has gone before.

A set of essays by the science fiction author/scientist, all focused on very deep futures -- a thousand years or much more. His essay about designing very long-lived warnings for nuclear waste facilities is particularly fascinating.

Brooks is at MIT, in the robotics department. He came up with a model for robots called "subsumption architecture," in which there is no single all-powerful AI. Instead, multiple task-oriented systems combine to have emergent behavioral effects. This has, by far, been the most successful method of creating free-roaming robots. Pretty technical.

Covers some of the same ground as CAMBRIAN INTELLIGENCE, but does so for a less technical readership. It's also updated by a couple of years, so it's worth reading, even if you've already read the first one.

Bill Calvin is, hands down, the smartest person I've ever met. A neurophysiologist at the University of Washington, he can write knowledgeably about AI, evolution, ecophysics, and of course cognition. This books is a terrific introduction to recent (if not the most cutting-edge) thinking in how the brain works. He wrote on the concept of a singularity (although I don't think he uses that term) about 10 years ago; you can find the article at:

<gopher://gopher.well.sf.ca.us/00/Publications/authors/Calvin/wer81.asc>

Technical and dense, this is Daniel Dennett's approach to whether and how machines could ever gain self-aware sentience.

Diamond attempts to answer the question of why Europe won, why the "West" managed to conquer the rest of the world militarily, politically, and (most recently) culturally. This is an excellent examination of the relationship between technological change and cultural adaptation.

This one is all over the map, but it's an interesting read. Its main theme is the competition between artificial and biological life from an evolutionary perspective.

Fluff, but interesting fluff. This is a non-technical look at why social changes happen in certain ways, from fashion to technology adoption. If you read this and one of the books on complexity, you'll see many connections.

Kosko is one of the key thinkers behind fuzzy logic, and this book explains it very nicely *and* ties it in to other kinds of near-term changes, in particular AI.

McCorduck, and her writing partner Nancy Ramsey, present four different scenarios of how the next half-century could affect women in the world. These are wonderfully thoughtful, well-constructed scenarios. You won't necessarily agree with them, but they'll make you think.

Ah, Hans Moravec. The one book on this list guaranteed to make you go "what the HELL is this guy on?!?" Moravec is smart, bold, and willing to make radical proposals. This book is a clear progenitor to the Ray Kurzweil book and, while several years out of date, it's superior in some ways. Moravec doesn't try to talk about the social forces at work, so he doesn't get them as horribly wrong as Kurzweil does.

A useful introduction to concepts behind design. Why things work, why they don't, and why we sometimes like to use some things more than others. This is important when you start to think about *new* technologies -- why would people want to use them? What would make people not want to use them?

Published just around the same time Dolly was cloned, REMAKING EDEN is a smart, well-written overview of why people might be inclined to alter human DNA. He talks about the history of human engineering of all sorts. In combination with one of the newer biotech books, this is a good read.

There are a number of books out about complexity theory, but as an introduction for non-mathematicians, it's hard to beat this one. Good for giving the reader a sense of how the world seems to work.

Yes, it's a game book. It's also one of the most detailed looks at how the next 100 years might turn out, from a hard-science perspective. It espouses an openly optimistic view, for the most part. Disclaimer: I'm writing a book in this game series, about the less-happy parts of the world in 2100.

Incredible series about exploration, colonization, and terraforming of Mars. KSR tells plot better than he creates charactes, but so what -- this is brilliant, especially the sections on developing the politics and constitution of an independent Mars. Fiction.

So you think you want to live in a world of ubiquitous nanotechnology, do you...? Fiction.

What does the world look like if people do start to live for very long periods of time. You don't really think that rich older people are going to give up power, do you? Fiction.

-- 

It is getting exciting, only two more days :-)

Please join us on Friday the 19th of April 7:00 p.m. at the first Bay
Area Futurists Salon at the Barnes and Noble in San Mateo.
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?
country=US&address=11+West+Hillsdale+Blvd+&city=San+Mateo&state=CA

This Salon is modeled after the very successful reading group "L.A.
Futurists" held by John Smart.
(See: http://singularity.xlogs.net/reading_group.html) We are very
fortunate that John will be in the Bay Area on the 19th to help us
start the group.

General Format: NO READING is required in this salon. Each month we
will start with presenting and discussing recent articles and news
that has caught our attention. An example is this web site: Exploring
emergence. Very simple rules that lead to surprising outcomes and
interesting patterns. (See:
http://el.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects/emergence/index.html)
If you come across something that you would like to share, please
bring it with you.

After the articles one book is introduced and discussed. This month
John will introduce Ray Kurzweil's "The Age of Spiritual Machines:
When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence," 2000, the number one
selling book at Amazon last year in both the science and artificial
intelligence categories.
http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?
userid=0GSHML7CLM&mscssid=NH7ULVPDF37P8GEWW47C0KUAJAST61C2&isbn=014028
2025

Peter F. Drucker once said: "The best way to predict the future is to
create it." To be able to do that, one should check the possibilities
that lay ahead.

Once again, please join us. You don't have to be an expert in
technology or science, just be curious about what the future brings.
It would be great to get diverse viewpoints from different
backgrounds since the interesting stuff happens at the edges.

We are fortunate that some very future-aware people have agreed to co-
moderate a couple of the sessions: Walter Truett Anderson (Evolution
Isn't What it Used to Be, 1997, The Future of the Self, 1998, All
Connected Now, 2001), Peter Russell (The Global Brain Awakens, 1995,
Waking Up in Time, 1998, From Science to God, 2000), and Chris
Phoenix (Foresight Senior Associate, MSCS from Stanford,
Nanotechnology Researcher, and moderator of the sci.nanotech
newsgroup).

The whole gathering at the bookstore will be one and a half to two
hours long. If you have time you are welcome to join us afterwards
for a dinner at Romano's Macaroni Grill which is conveniently located
next door.

We have created a Yahoo Group where you can sign up for the latest
information:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bafuture/ or just reply to this email.

Looking forward to seeing you at the first salon, Mark.

P.S. Please forward this message to everyone who may be interested
too.

P.P.S. Mark you calendar, this event will happen every third Friday
in the month: May 17, Jun 21, Jul 19, Aug 16, Sep 20, Oct 18, Nov 15,
Dec 20.

Here is the address of the Barns and Noble Shop:
Hillsdale
11 West Hillsdale Blvd., Hillsdale Shopping Center
San Mateo, CA 94403
650-341-5560

It's at the Hillsdale Shopping Center just across of the San Mateo
Caltrain Station. Map:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?
country=US&address=11+West+Hillsdale+Blvd+&city=San+Mateo&state=CA