Re: High Technology of the Past

From: Emlyn (emlyn@one.net.au)
Date: Thu Dec 28 2000 - 05:30:03 MST


----- Original Message -----
From: "Anders Sandberg" <asa@nada.kth.se>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2000 7:23 PM
Subject: Re: High Technology of the Past

> "Emlyn" <emlyn@one.net.au> writes:
>
> > > Of course, a hypothetical future wearable and nanoassembler-equipped
> > > hunter-gatherer (wanderer-assembler?) might be able to have all the
> > > above without being tied to a single location, but it wouldn't change
> > > the fact that he or she would likely be part of such a civilisation
> > > network.
> >
> > What a very cool vision! It's kind of plausible, too, if you buy
> > into the nano-santa stuff. After all, this talk about levels of tech
> > and work required to support person on a certain area of land is
> > really about how much tech & work you need to put it, to cope with a
> > given level of resources. The tech and work help you make more of
> > less. Given a super duper general assembler kit (probably built into
> > your body), you don't really need many raw resources to do very well
> > indeed! It's questionable how much work you'd need to do; not heaps,
> > I'd think. That fits with the hunter-gatherer
> > idea. Original-affluence++, excellent.
>
> It sounds nice, yes. Although I wonder how much economic sense it
> makes. Robin had a very good criticism of our "dreams of autonomy" in
> a paper with the same name a while back.
>
> The issue is what to do with all those Taj Mahal and French castles
> littering the countryside...
>
Expand... there's the rub, ey?

Emlyn



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