Probably the scariest parts of "Follies of Science" involve glowing testimonials for materials that have turned out to be public health disasters. An advertisement sells Vita Radium Suppositories, a radioactive suppositories intended for daily use that “are absorbed by the walls of the colon” so that “every tissue, every organ of the body is bombarded by its health-giving electric atoms.”I have to ask - is it possible that the trancendent future based on the promise of genetics, nanotechnology and robotics will turn out to the be just as far from reality? Will our ancestors be looking at "The Singularity Is Near" with the same amusement? "Tiny robots in the bloodstream? Hahahaha!" I don't think so. The Singularity is inevitable, unless of course we all die or are enslaved first, in which case nobody will be around to care. - RR
1 comment:
The singularity probably is more complex than "everyone dying or being enslaved." It's the dialectic, man. We won't succumb to robot-genetic-nano domination without a fight, and that's where things get interesting...or depressingly similar to the present!
Imagine a moon base, not as a domed wondertown, but as a trailer park surrounded by trash and kipple.
Imagine sooty fallout of nuclear-chem-biological war, or tiny robots, etc: we'll all wear burkahs, have robot pets as our personal defenders-mentors-sex partners.
We may have a better understanding of the future, as we're possibly a little more self aware of the present, a little more post-modern in our deconstruction of the past...but a hundred years ago they thought the same when they compared to a hundred years earlier.
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