From: Michael S. Lorrey (mike@lorrey.com)
Date: Sat May 01 1999 - 18:27:15 MDT
John Marsh wrote:
>
> On Thu, 29 Apr 1999 21:00:19 Spike Jones wrote:
> >OK Ill take this on.
>
> >Granted this was a sad loss. However...
>
> This is because we have technology.
> >There is no evidence that the ancients had anything we would
> >consider advanced technology.
>
> Please explain to me the discovery of an electrical battery with copper wire found in Iraq and dated to the 8th Century B.C.
Or the disvocery of a carved wooden glider which uses an aerofoil,
vertical stabilizer, and the idea of dihedral for stability. All in an
Egyptian tomb....
Mohammed II used a screw gun type cannon with a 36" bore to take
Constantinople...and his descendants were still using the same guns in
the 18th century to bombard British ships trying to run through the
Dardanelles without paying the tolls...
>
> >the collection at Alexandria was spirited away and hidden, then
> >we found it today, we would find therein no breakthru insights
> >that we have not already independently rediscovered in the
> >intervening years.
>
> Again, this unfounded and it implies that nothing but the hard sciences have absolutely no value to human culture. Who is to say that certain insights that the ancients had would *not* give fresh perspectivea into our current delima's?
The important part of discovering lost info like that is it value to
archaologists in developing a more thorough knowledge of who knew what
when and how.
>
> >Should we charge ahead with the altering of the human genome?
> >
> >Should we unleash nanotechnology, specifically the nanoreplicator,
> >as soon as it is physically possible to create?
> >
> >Should we work towards a singularity, even if it means the passing
> >of the human race as we know it? Should we work to slow it?
We should push ahead as much as possible. Fears of the passing of the
human race are IMHO rather premature and naive. You forget that even
today, there are humans living a near stone age existence, and we have
not exterminated the other ape species either.
Mike Lorrey
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