[ExI] The End of the Future

[Amara D. Angelica]

All sounds trite and obvious. Anything else?

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Giulio Prisco
Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 2:20 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] The End of the Future

Funny to read these words from PT:
"The state can successfully push science; there is no sense denying
it. The Manhattan Project and the Apollo program remind us of this
possibility. Free markets may not fund as much basic research as
needed."

Then he throws a jab:
"Men reached the moon in July 1969, and Woodstock began three weeks
later. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that this was when
the hippies took over the country, and when the true cultural war over
Progress was lost. Today’s aged hippies no longer understand that
there is a difference between the election of a black president and
the creation of cheap solar energy; in their minds, the movement
towards greater civil rights parallels general progress everywhere."

I wonder where he is coming from. I am an aged hippy (like many here),
I support both the election of a black president (if (s)he is better
than other candidates, which was the case with Obama), and the
creation of cheap solar energy, and I understand that there is a
difference. One does not imply the other, but I support both. Thiel is
saying that "A supports B and C" = "A thinks that B = C", which is
logically wrong.


2011/10/4 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>:
> 2011/10/3 spike <spike66 at att.net>
>>
>> So while we rejoice in the development of all these things, keep in mind
>> that this kind of development might be a one-time event.  The next thirty
>> years might not be as much fun as was the last thirty, for computer
geeks.
>
> Or for anybody. And I contend that while "progress" has become more and
more
> "virtual", more and more a mere simulacrum, even in computing the decade
> 1981-1991 or even that 1991-2001 was *much* more fun than 2001-2011. What
is
> Facebook other than a trivial implementation performed by dwarves standing
> on the shoulders of giants?
> Let us not confuse when the Internet was "invented" (the seventies of the
XX
> c) and when it became ubiquitous. The real progress took place with the
> first thing, not the second.
>
> --
> Stefano Vaj
>
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>
>

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