[ExI] farmville, was RE: RPGs and transhumanism

[Richard Loosemore]

spike wrote:
> Would anyone here speculate about the wildly popular Farmville increasing
> the demand for actual farmland?  My guess is that for every thousand people
> who spend time playing simulated farmer, there would be one or more who
> would like to try her hand at the real dirt and sweat version.  If for no
> other reason, it would give the player street cred with the others, and
> perhaps lead to improvements in the simulation.

LOL.  If they *do* try the real dirt and sweat version, they're gonna be 
some unhappy campers.  ;-)

And incidentally, one of my goals for my AGI work is to develop 
inexpensive systems to help turn land husbandry into something that is 
less smelly, brutish and boring.

Organic, self-sufficient, High Farming types of farm can be exquisitely 
elegant systems.  With the availability of abundant but cheap robot 
intelligence, that kind of land husbandry can be done with very little 
energy input, and produce more food than it does now.  And by the way 
save the environment.



Richard Loosemore