From: Avatar Polymorph (avatarpolymorph@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Jul 31 2002 - 22:01:46 MDT
Spudboy100@aol.com wrote:
"Future Shock would only occur, if a fully developed technology, came
springing, as Athena did, from the head of Zeus, to a neighborhood or a
drive-in, near you.
Toffler greatly underestimated the capacity of the humans to adjust to
change."
I think world governments and societies are in "freeze/head in the sand"
mode at the moment. I agree humans individually adjust to change. I hope the
transition period will be as smooth as possible. I believe the more
outspoken transhumanists and extropians are and the more direct they are the
smoother the transition period will be. I believe fully developed
technologies will spring up "overnight" in current normal-human timeframes.
There is also the possibility or probability that eventual contact with ET
civilization will bring instand technology. It may also be that the concept
of "technology" will become less meaningful once the ability to mould the
environment consciously reaches its full local potential.
Harvey Newstrom:
I am a believer in a hard take off Singularity, with youthful appearance for
humans in 2015, self-replicating nanotech in 2020 (including "instant", i.e.
in months solar exploration/colonization as forecast by Drexler, partially
reliant on Drexlerian engineering-problem-solving molecular supercomputers)
and a hard Singularity mid-period in 2027. For some of my thoughts on these
check out "Riding the Spikerail" at
http://www.bjklein.com/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=&TOPIC_ID=536
I think it is very difficult for us to envisage what it was like for humans
like ourselves to deal with an unchanging technological world with limited
lifespan for millenia. For example, South American native populations from
50,000 BC to the Amerindian invasian around the first aeon BC, or Egyptian
living around the flint mines from 37,000 BC to 5,000 BC and the Saharan
influx. These are tribal peoples experiencing periods of time far longer
than that of all agrarian civilizations combined, and there is little doubt
that they were like you and me in terms of inherent capacity (whereas there
is some doubt about stone-tool users certainly prior to 250,000 BC).
One form of Future Shock is that already experienced by some transhumanists,
that of anticipatory shock... i.e. they are already adjusted to future
changes and feel shock when reconfronting persons who know little about the
issues and do not believe in either the Singularity or the possibilities of
superscience... this shock can be augmented by the often expressed strong
upset at having to endure limitation for several more years, especially
because of Government and industry inaction in obvious areas which should be
developed.
--- Harvey Newstrom: Re NASA and nanotech terraforming of Mars: Sorry, you're right, NASA was not involved, the relevant references follow: see http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/9601-news.html (middle section of the webpage) and also "MMSG Appears on NASA's Radar At the NASA's Advanced Technologies Office in Washington, DC, John L. Anderson, Manager of the Technology Frontier Studies group is organizing a workshop on applying molecular nanotechnology to space applications. He saw a xerox of the Ad Astra article and wants to use our paper (and our officers) to inspire NASA and aerospace managers to do some innovative thinking. Specifically, Anderson is planning a workshop on February 27-29 at Disney World employing his Horizon Mission Methodology (see the January/ February '95 issue of Ad Astra). The starting premise is the existence of a Lunar Territory fifty years in the future, and the task of the workshop is to back-track and identify the technologies necessary to make it happen. Our thanks to David Brant for steering him our way! Meanwhile, the NASA educational web page on nanotechnology (http://www.nas.nasa.gov/NAS/Education/nanotech/nanotech.html) has a pointer to the NSS Position Paper that MMSG members worked so hard to bring to completion. NASA employees Al Globus and Creon Levit are responsible for including a link called "Nanotech in Space Essay", which points to Iowa State University's Brad Hein's directory (http://www.public.iastate.edu/~bhein/txt/mmsg.txt) In addition to the Nanothink page (http://www.nanothinc.com/NanoWorld/NanoSpace/nspace.html), to which Paul Green added the Ad Astra version including the flexible lunar crawler image, and our own MMSG web page ( http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/), maintained by Dale Amon), and the NSS copy (http://www.global.org/bfreed/nss/papers/molenano.html [Note: This site has since closed]) that means that the NSS position paper has four copies on the World Wide Web" This is from the main webpage quoted above... "The Drexlerian Terraformation of Mars: A New Ark for Humanity by Robert J. Coppinger Twenty years, within a life time, within a generation, a second biosphere for humanity, where as other periods for terraformation given are in the order of 300 years. Twenty years and there could be an atmosphere which will last for thousands of years. The Valles that exist on Mars could eventually be filled with water and the canals that Lowell saw would be a reality. By 2055 a habitable Mars could exist and the author will only be 84 years of age. But the only intelligent life there will be human life. A Martian Gaia will come alive, it will be, life from lifelessness, literally, Genesis. The author acknowledges the aid of Chris McKay (NASA Ames), Dr. Jackson (University of Birmingham, UK) and the support of the Molecular Manufacturing ShortCut Group. Editor's note: A significantly revised and greatly expanded version of this article will be published as a chapter in "Tools for the Next Millenium: The Promise of Molecular Nanotechnology", Lance Chambers, Ed." _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
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