> CountZero <count_zero@bigfoot.com> wrote:
> I tend to see most of our technological goals as fairly inevitable,
> given no major disasters,
Yep, the key phrase is "given no major disasters".
> In that vein, how many have read the USAF's 2025 scenario report and
> does anyone know how seriously the portions of it that we would find
> most attractive are viewed?
For those who don't know, the URL for this is at: http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/
Just reading the titles of the documents makes me uncomfortable. Of course the interesting thing from my (our?) perspective is that 2025 could well be the post nano-assembler era and therefore a time of risk with regard to grey-goo (when you would presumably want some of the capabilities they discuss -- updated via nanotech of course).
Most important from my perspective, is there careful consideration of planetary defense:
http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/volume3/chap16/v3c16-1.htm
For those of you who don't know, the Air Force is currently way out in front in the effort to discover near-earth crossing objects. (See http://llwww.ll.mit.edu/LINEAR/index.html).
Robert