Sciences on Moon

[jtmckinley]

Originally Posted by RogorMortis

That will mark the beginning of the end for humans - that's if the earth hasn't succumbed to pollution and lack of food ect. No death means too many humans = path to total war. And why? Well when the crib is bare the horses bite. And this will happen here unless of course science takes the right course and avoids this but I'm afraid it will be left to the politicians who can't decide on the mustard in a hot dog. So we're doomed in the long run.

Possibly, but I doubt it will lead to our extinction, probably a lot of violence, but probably not extinction of the human species IMHO. But then I'm an optimist when it comes to that kind of thing . It will certainly change everything in the sphere of human existence. The obvious issue of overpopulation, which possibly could be handled by people only being allowed to procreate if somebody in their family dies for whatever reason (tough sell), will certainly have to be dealt with. My guess is there will continue to be death of the folks that can't afford to live forever and population growth of those that can. There will likely be much violence as a result of this, but that's not news for humans. But, perhaps a less obvious issue, if nobody dies in the future, how does the economy function? The haves will go on accumulating wealth and power and if they never die it doesn't ever get passed on to the next generation; that could be a major problem. Immortality will not happen overnight however so hopefully we'll have some time to figure out how to deal with it before depletion of earth's resources becomes too dire. I of course assume we'll have clean (solar or fusion based) energy LONG before we ever achieve immortality, otherwise peak oil is going to cause drastic changes in how we live and possibly greatly slow technological development not to mention great death and destruction from wars and famine.

I imagine that if we ever have the technology to provide immortality it will also provide the means to exist in a non-terrestrial environment and this will be the beginning of the human colonization of space. I think this is essential for the long-term survival of the human race since having all our eggs in one basket so to speak, here on the Earth, we could be wiped out by a singe meteor impact. When people live forever (or even just 1000s of years), and if space vessels can be made comfortable enough and can be made large enough to house thousands or even millions of people, travelling through space for long voyages to other planets will become reasonable to many people, perhaps even desireable. Of course that might lead to interstellar wars down the line, but it's possible that as technology (e.g. advanced molecular nanotechnology) allows humans to exist without having to scratch out a living in the hard earth and there is abundance (assuming some fascists don't take over and try to mete it out as they see fit), human nature will evolve and we won't always be at each other's throats. Obviously there's no guarantee human nature will ever evolve, but I continue to hope.

There was an interesting CSPAN program with Ray Kurzweil 11/5/2006 that discussed some of these topics that Moonfolk might find interesting, it's 3 hours long:

http://www.booktv.org/feature/index....15&schedID=457

[Methem]

Originally Posted by jtmckinley

There was an interesting CSPAN program with Ray Kurzweil 11/5/2006 that discussed some of these topics that Moonfolk might find interesting [...]

Just saw this on the USENET group alt.folklore.computers:

> Imagine the day when someone will be able to reflect back on the
> last 6000 years of composing programs. Will a.f.c still be around
> in some form?

Well, according to Ray Kuzrweil in "The Singularity is Near"
[...] we will still be around in 6000 years (at least those of us who can
survive until the technological utopia arrives around 2040). But - by
then the computers will have been programming themselves for many
millenia. Maybe the computers will have an a.f.h newsgroup
(alt.folklore.humans) where they will reminisce about the distant past
when humans still programmed them. For a laugh they might even dredge
up some 20th century code.

Hmmm.....


-Methem

[VAXman(Admin)]

Originally Posted by Methem

Just saw this on the USENET group alt.folklore.computers:



Hmmm.....


-Methem

Suppose they dredged up Weenoze source code!!! Those computers would be pondering how they ever survived.

[Methem]

Originally Posted by VAXman

Suppose they dredged up Weenoze source code!!!

What a surprise...

Those computers would be pondering how they ever survived.

I wonder what they would do with something like the following:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/...sts/search.tes


-Methem

[VAXman(Admin)]

Originally Posted by Methem

What a surprise...




I wonder what they would do with something like the following:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/...sts/search.tes


-Methem

OMG! How timely! I was writing some TECO (ie. the MUNG SEARCH) code today to replace "0" (zeros) in a file with slashed zeros.

EB{file}$EY$<FS0$216\$;>EX$$

Clear as day, right? FYI, the $ are escapes as show TECO.

[Methem]

Originally Posted by VAXman

OMG! How timely! I was writing some TECO (ie. the MUNG SEARCH) code today to replace "0" (zeros) in a file with slashed zeros.

EB{file}$EY$<FS0$216\$;>EX$$

Clear as day, right? FYI, the $ are escapes as show TECO.

Yes, very clear... Luckily I'm too young to have ever needed to deal with that language. I only know it's pretty cryptic, as can be seen.

The original EMACS editor (on ITS and TOPS-20?) was obviously written in TECO macros; must have been a lot of fun.


-Methem

[VAXman(Admin)]

Originally Posted by Methem

Yes, very clear... Luckily I'm too young to have ever needed to deal with that language. I only know it's pretty cryptic, as can be seen.

The original EMACS editor (on ITS and TOPS-20?) was obviously written in TECO macros; must have been a lot of fun.


-Methem

I have EMACS on my Powerbook configured in EDT mode. I know simple commands in VI but it's really annoying to trip in and out of escape mode.

I've used TECO, SUMSLP, SOS, EDLINE and EDT on VMS. EDT is the most powerful editor. EVE/TPU I use when there's certain needs but mostly, I only use TPU if I need to write a text processing module.

[Roger -Dot- Lee(Admin)]

Originally Posted by VAXman

Suppose they dredged up Weenoze source code!!! Those computers would be pondering how they ever survived.

Here's a scary concept: They're actual descendants of Billy's Best Efforts, and they view it, not as a humorous view into the past (akin to, say, today's view of platform shoes and bell bottoms) but instead as a heroic predecessor, like George Washington, Mustafa Ataturk, etc.

[VAXman(Admin)]

Originally Posted by Roger -Dot- Lee

Here's a scary concept: They're actual descendants of Billy's Best Efforts, and they view it, not as a humorous view into the past (akin to, say, today's view of platform shoes and bell bottoms) but instead as a heroic predecessor, like George Washington, Mustafa Ataturk, etc.

No, they would probably view it more like the aberration of the human experience that was Adolf Hitler.

[Methem]

Originally Posted by VAXman

Suppose they dredged up Weenoze source code!!! Those computers would be pondering how they ever survived.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2...dy-061207.html
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.f...c9f23336ee22ef

---

Dot, will try to reach you on the Deathrow system whenever I'm online there -- not very often these days.


-Methem

[VAXman(Admin)]

Originally Posted by Methem

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2...dy-061207.html
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.f...c9f23336ee22ef

---

Dot, will try to reach you on the Deathrow system whenever I'm online there -- not very often these days.


-Methem

Thanks Methem... I haven't read alt.folklore.computers in eons... maybe I should rekindle the subscription.

FYI, DEATHrow is back on-line. A major system drive failure. The SYSUAF file was restored from a backup months prior so you need to use password from then. Here a podcast with more info... http://www.openvms.org/podcast/OWAU-2006-12-7_1.mp3