Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] predicting the future

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Mon, 1 May 2006, Rick wrote:

> 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.

But they were created as adults with "memories" intact, right?  That's 
really way out there.


> > 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.

Sure, but we had a self-propulsion jet back (or whatever it was called) 
back in the 1960s.  We have government regulations, but they don't allow 
you to just fly things wherever you please.  It will take a long long time 
before we allow people to just buzz around cities in anything.  Besides, I 
really wonder how safe these Moller flying cars are.


> > 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.

It's not simple to discover a cure for cancer, but I never said it was 
simple.  It is simple to make money once you have discovered a cure for 
cancer.  And it is not simple to sell palliative treatments once a cure is 
available.


> 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 just that they don't have a choice.  If a shiny pill comes into 
being, they will sell it.  Do you think these people don't want money?! 
It has been said that "a rich man will sell you the rope you're going to 
use to hang him if he thinks he can make a buck off of it!"


> 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.

This is impossible for several reasons.  One is that our government 
wouldn't allow it.  Everyone gets cancer, even Senators and their 
families.  Yes, it would put some people out of business, but it would 
make a massive business for the patent holder and s/he would promote it.

Mike

_______________________________________________
discussion mailing list
EMAIL:PROTECTED
http://mlug.missouri.edu/mailman/listinfo/discussion