Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] predicting the future

[Rick <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Mike Miller wrote:
> Yes.  How long until we can create robots that look and act 
> indistinguishable from people?  It won't be happening in the 2020s.
Are you defining a robot as a mechanical person constructed of metal & 
plastic or a person "constructed" by altering the genetic structure. If 
you'll recall, the only way to tell the difference in the movie was 
studying behavior patterns and responses. The replicants were machines 
because they had been engineered, not because they were made from spare 
VW parts.

> History shows that the flying car is always farther off than you think 
> it is.

http://www.moller.com/skycar/

Looks like the car itself is here...now for the hard part, government 
regulation.

> I don't agree.  As soon as someone discovers a cure for cancer, he will 
> start to use it to make money - tons of it.  If he hesitates, someone 
> else will make the discovery and revenues from treatment patents will 
> dry up.

If it were that simple to "make the discovery", someone would have done 
it already. You are, of course, free to disagree with my cynicism, but 
if you think the forces that control our society want everyone to be 
cured of everything with a single shiny pill, then I would have to be 
very shocked at your naiveté's.

It's sizably more profitable to construct a self-renewing revenue stream 
than to charge even exorbitant one time prices. I have not one single 
doubt that if an R&D scientist at Big Time Pharmaceutical Co. discovered 
a cure for cancer, they're very next major project would be how to 
dilute it down so it merely stemmed the progression of the cancer.

> Mike

Rick
--
We simply can't idiot-proof everything. Sometimes the idiots just have 
to suffer and die.
--http://www.overheardintheoffice.com/

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