Barbara Lamar writes:
> "Overcoming problems by brute force, rather than by using
> imagination and knowledge, will not be acceptable in the future."
>
> In evaluating the various technologies that are currently following
> exponential development paths, it seems a good idea to sort
> out the brute force ones from the elegant ones.
I liked reading your post - it was full of ideas, most of which I do not yet
entirely comprehend.
However, one small thought that occured to me while reading the last quoted
paragraph above:
There is one thing that I think we need to accomplish as soon as possible -
possibly before we start sorting out brute force methods from elegant ones.
That thing is... a backup copy of our civilization. On something like Mars.
The more our technology progresses, the more we risk self-destruction that
no living thing on this planet will be able to escape. I think the only way
we can truly avoid a scenario of total destruction is to populate other
parts of the solar system as soon as possible - and to make them
self-sustainable.
I think this should be *the* top priority of world's major governments; the
danger of inadvertent self-destruction looms more and more each day. It
seems to me that programs like NASA are vastly under-financed - people seem
to think that "we've been there, done that". But I think we haven't even
scratched the surface; we really need to invest to establish a backup
civilization. If I were Mr Bush, I would invest those USD 1.3 trillion
directly into space, not into tax cuts.
Again, just my 2.35 Yen.
- denis
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