7 ms·
I'm reminded of this quote, attributed to the Cree Native Americans: "Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last river has been poisoned,
by Arjuna 13y ago
I'm reminded of this quote, attributed to the Cree Native Americans:
"Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last river has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you find that money cannot be eaten."
- narrator 13y agoKurzweil would probably respond that nanobots and the singularity will fix everything.
- schiffern 13y agoI'm all for figuring out how to use the nanobots we have (aka biology). Advantage: they self-replicate royalty free, something the nanobot company would never allow.
- Drakim 13y agoYou just need a DRM server which each nanobot must obtain a proper license key from every cycle.
- Crito 13y ago> "Advantage: they self-replicate royalty free, something the nanobot company would never allow." Such restrictions, or similar, might be a good idea in general. A gray-goo excursion would not be fun. Algae blooms cause enough damage as it is, and at least there are things that eat algae.
- Ygg2 13y agoJust evolve to eat metal. Easy. There. All is fixed.
- TTPrograms 13y agoMonsanto disagrees.
- gaius 13y agoKurzweil believes that being very very small allows you to circumvent the laws of thermodynamics. There's no physics to back this up...
- Crito 13y agoWhat do you mean? I can't find anything about that and Kurzweil on google.
- sourkremlin 13y agoSure there is. The second law of thermodynamics (which I am assuming you are referring to) only applies to an isolated system and describes its tendency toward thermal equilibrium -- it doesn't apply when you are able to add energy to the system. Am I misunderstanding you?
- gaius 13y agoSimply that nanotech can accomplish miracles. You have to power your nanobots somehow, and you have to dump the heat they create by doing work.
- maxerickson 13y agoIf you harvest solar energy you can do a whole lot of work without worrying about any new heat. Harvesting a tiny fraction of the total solar energy available (on Earth) would look an awful lot like a miracle.
- khafra 13y agoHe's not talking about climate change; he's talking about heat sinks so your nanobots don't literally vibrate themselves apart before doing anything useful.
- Crito 13y agoSo why is that a big deal? There are trillions of nano-machines being powered and dumping their waste heat in you right now. Or rather, they are you.
- k-mcgrady 13y agoHow about not fucking things up in the first place? It's stupid to cause an unnecessary problem because one day we might have a solution.
- angersock 13y agoThat was never an option. Why do you hate America?
- VexXtreme 13y agoI know you're being facetious but some people actually do think this way. I witnessed a discussion a few days ago where a person took a positive pro-change position regarding something and people literally started saying things like "Why do you hate freedom? Why do you hate our constitution?". A lot of people aren't willing to stand up for what's right and good and feel that attacking you is an appropriate response when you criticize their feudal overlords. It's really depressing and disheartening.
- unclebucknasty 13y agoIt's a side effect of American Exceptionalism.