OT: Sci-fi (was RE: Ultra-portable terminals)

[John Esak]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: filepro-list-bounces+john=valar.com at lists.celestial.com
> [mailto:filepro-list-bounces+john=valar.com at lists.celestial.com]On
> Behalf Of Brian K. White
> Sent: Friday, July 28, 2006 1:01 AM
> To: filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> Subject: Re: OT: Sci-fi (was RE: Ultra-portable terminals)
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Esak" <john at valar.com>
> To: "Fplist (E-mail)" <filepro-list at seaslug.org>
> Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 8:21 PM
> Subject: RE: OT: Sci-fi (was RE: Ultra-portable terminals)
>
>
> >> There was a show on the Discovery Channel a few months ago called
> >> "How William Shatner changed the world", and was basically how
> >> things from Star Trek ended up inspiring some of the people who
> >> are responsible for much of today's technology.  (Like the guy
> >> who is credited with inventing the cell phone, who got the idea
> >> from the Star Trek communicators.)
> >>
> >> --
> >> KenBrody at BestWeb dot net        spamtrap:
> <g8ymh8uf001 at sneakemail.com>
> >
> > How funny. Do you remember the filePro Conference "keynote" I did some
> > time
> > back where I used clips from the Gary 7 episode (Destination Earth??). I
> > showed how the girl was so freaked out by the fact that the
> typewriter was
> > automatically typing everything she said. My comment was to the effect
> > that
> > this show aired in 1967, and it was only 30 years since then and we had
> > Naturally Speaking working better than that silly typewriter... and Star
> > Trek of that period was supposedly in the 22nd (or was it 23d century.
> > The
> > geometric development of technology had caused a roughly 10 to 1 time
> > dilation  with regard to our perception of the future. What
> will the next
> > 30
> > years bring. 100 to 1? ... assuming we don't blow ourselves up
> before we
> > get
> > there.
>
> I think that geometric or logorithmic rate of progress will lead
> to a Vinge
> singularity.
> Except I don't think it will be as perfect and mysterious as the one
> described in bobble or marooned in real time where anyone who missed the
> boat will be left utterly clueless truely left behind.
> It will be sudden from the outside, but gradual from the inside,
> due to the
> hyper rate of thought and interaction and progress going on
> inside, and so
> even though it will be sudden from the outside, they will still
> figure out
> some way to leave info, directions, help, etc behind. Goodbye's
> if nothing
> else.
> Because I don't think in all that progress we will shed our
> vanity. We will
> care what others think (be they strangers/travellers, left behind humans,
> new races that appear after we're gone etc) and so we will leave
> behind _at
> least_ some sort of message, more likely a lot more than a mere message
> unless you count a very meaningful message like galaxies of knowledge and
> wisdom as just a message.
> I can only explain the Vinge universe by a collosal accident or loss of a
> war or virus etc...
>
> As for the not thinking way out enough, well sure I've thought of all
> different time scales before. it's all old hat.
> This conversation was about the very near future.
> Thinking a little further ahead my money is on clouds and other masses of
> nano-goo that you think at and does whatever you are smart enough
> to design.
> And of course by then the very same stuff will be augmenting your smarts.
> We'll be little primitive kernels of human descision making at the center
> driving cascading or fractal branching layers or levels of tools that are
> impossible to call either software or hardware as they are both
> at the same
> time.
> We'll each be like "vger" from star trek.
>
> Then way later comes the singularity. We need to use the magick
> putty for a
> while by turning jupiter into a computer and the photosphere into a
> telescope and play with tools like that for a while first.
>
> Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/

Ah, now that's more like what I expected... :-)