Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> Mike Lorrey wrote:
>
> > No, but we are pretty good at calculating risk. I calculated that Bush
> > was a lesser evil than Gore and voted with that in mind. While his
> > positions on stem cell and cloning research are certainly not
> > contributing much to progress, his positions on other areas are highly
> > contributory to a future beneficial to free individuals. IMHO Gore would
> > have led us further down the path to borganism. I would prefer the
> > future to remain more like today than to become something Borg or
> > Matrix-like. I'm very picky about what future I want.
>
> Hey, no picking on the Borg! :-)
>
> Seriously, at least Gore had some small understanding of and
> appreciation for the Internet and technology generally.
Emphasis on the 'small'. That is generally a plus in Gore's favor, but I
do have to recall that it was his wife that started the whole
entertainment censorship thing. He's no libertarian, by any means.
> Too
> many of the Bush clan believe it is the instrument of Satan and
> should be severely controlled.
Maybe not satan, but certainly santa. ;)
The saving grace is the things they want to control and the ways they
want to control them are generally issues where the Supreme Court is
pretty good about protecting individual rights.
> Call me paranoid, but does it
> strike anyone else as interesting that the combination of
> legislation, enforcement, and the technology market being
> slammed along with investment capital in general has precisely
> the effect of slowing and curtailing the freedom and speed of
> technological innovation especially concerning the Net? It also
> slows down progress toward Singularity. Does anyone think this
> just might be on purpose, at least in part?
I wonder what sort of insights you can draw of a person's motivations by
the sort of conspiracy theories they will buy into.
I don't think the slowdown was caused as you fear, more a factor of
people suffering, again, from irrational exuberance overextending
themselves, combined with others unfamiliar with forging new terrain
economically putting the brakes on prematurely. We are all just feeling
around in the dark here.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:23 MDT