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Mortyman
Mr. Morton
Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Toronto
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Nov-24-2005 08:51
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Sean Cassidy
WIKKID! WIKKID! WIKKID!
Registered: Jan 2005
Location: TORONTO
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Nov-24-2005 09:30
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Sean Cassidy
WIKKID! WIKKID! WIKKID!
Registered: Jan 2005
Location: TORONTO
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Nov-24-2005 09:32
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Sean Cassidy
WIKKID! WIKKID! WIKKID!
Registered: Jan 2005
Location: TORONTO
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Nov-24-2005 09:35
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Sean Cassidy
WIKKID! WIKKID! WIKKID!
Registered: Jan 2005
Location: TORONTO
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Nov-24-2005 09:37
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Sean Cassidy
WIKKID! WIKKID! WIKKID!
Registered: Jan 2005
Location: TORONTO
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Nov-24-2005 09:38
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Sean Cassidy
WIKKID! WIKKID! WIKKID!
Registered: Jan 2005
Location: TORONTO
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At the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, a cadre of dedicated scientists sifts through radio static in search of a telltale signal from an alien civilization. So far, nothing. Now suppose the long-sought message arrives. Not only do the aliens exist, they are about to stop by for a visit. And then . . . any science-fiction devotee can tell you what could go wrong. But the history of human exploration and exploitation suggests the most likely danger is not direct conflict. Aliens might want resources from our solar system (Earth's oceans, perhaps, full of hydrogen for refilling a fusion-powered spacecraft) and swat us aside if we get in the way, as we might dismiss mosquitoes or beetles stirred up by the logging of a rain forest. Aliens might unwittingly import pests with a taste for human flesh, much as Dutch colonists reaching Mauritius brought cats, rats, and pigs that quickly did away with the dodo. Or aliens might accidentally upset our planet or solar system while carrying out some grandiose interstellar construction project. The late physicist Gerard O'Neill speculated that contact with extraterrestrial visitors could also be socially disastrous. "Advanced western civilization has had a destructive effect on all primitive civilizations it has come in contact with, even in those cases where every attempt was made to protect and guard the primitive civilization," he said in a 1979 interview. "I don't see any reason why the same thing would not happen to us."
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IF YOU GOT TRANCE IN YOUR PANTS WHIP IT OUT!!! IF NOT JUST WHIP IT OUT ANYWAY!!!
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Nov-24-2005 09:39
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Sean Cassidy
WIKKID! WIKKID! WIKKID!
Registered: Jan 2005
Location: TORONTO
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Nov-24-2005 09:40
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Sean Cassidy
WIKKID! WIKKID! WIKKID!
Registered: Jan 2005
Location: TORONTO
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People create smart robots, which turn against us and take over the world. Yawn. We've seen this in movies, TV, and comic books for decades. After all these years, look around and still— no smart robots. Yet Hans Moravec, one of the founders of the robotics department of Carnegie Mellon University, remains a believer. By 2040, he predicts, machines will match human intelligence, and perhaps human consciousness. Then they'll get even better. He envisions an eventual symbiotic relationship between human and machine, with the two merging into "postbiologicals" capable of vastly expanding their intellectual power. Marvin Minsky, an artificial-intelligence expert at MIT, foresees a similar future: People will download their brains into computer-enhanced mechanical surrogates and log into nearly boundless files of information and experience. Whether this counts as the end of humanity or the next stage in evolution depends on your point of view. Minsky's vision might sound vaguely familiar. After the first virtual-reality machines hit the marketplace around 1989, feverish journalists hailed them as electronic LSD, trippy illusion machines that might entice the user in and then never let him out. Sociologists fretted that our culture, maybe even our species, would whither away. When the actual experience of virtual reality turned out to be more like trying to play Pac-Man with a bowling ball taped to your head, the talk died down. To his credit, Minsky recognizes that the merger of human and machine lies quite a few years away
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IF YOU GOT TRANCE IN YOUR PANTS WHIP IT OUT!!! IF NOT JUST WHIP IT OUT ANYWAY!!!
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Nov-24-2005 09:41
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