2010

[stilltrucking]

The year I believed in the future

[mtmynd]

it's time to check out a more distant future. seems as if this one is going thru some heavy birth pains which may very well continue longer than the experts originally thought.

[stilltrucking]

My drivers license expires in 2010. I was ten years old in 1950, I remember thinking that I would live to see the year 2000. But I would be so old. I sure would like to renew my drivers license one more time.

I just looked at my license again. Expires 12/07/11
Oh well nevermind

But speaking of predicting the future.

I like this article
Hard going for me but I think I read most of it.

<center>
Existential Risks
Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards

Nick Bostrom, PhD
Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University
www.nickbostrom.com
[Published in the Journal of Evolution and Technology, Vol. 9, March 2002. First version: 2001]

ABSTRACT</center>

Because of accelerating technological progress, humankind may be rapidly approaching a critical phase in its career. In addition to well-known threats such as nuclear holocaust, the prospects of radically transforming technologies like nanotech systems and machine intelligence present us with unprecedented opportunities and risks. Our future, and whether we will have a future at all, may well be determined by how we deal with these challenges. In the case of radically transforming technologies, a better understanding of the transition dynamics from a human to a “posthuman” society is needed. Of particular importance is to know where the pitfalls are: the ways in which things could go terminally wrong. While we have had long exposure to various personal, local, and endurable global hazards, this paper analyzes a recently emerging category: that of existential risks. These are threats that could cause our extinction or destroy the potential of Earth-originating intelligent life. Some of these threats are relatively well known while others, including some of the gravest, have gone almost unrecognized. Existential risks have a cluster of features that make ordinary risk management ineffective. A final section of this paper discusses several ethical and policy implications. A clearer understanding of the threat picture will enable us to formulate better strategies.

http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html

As always I appreciate your taking the time compadre. Thanks