[ba-unrev-talk] John McCarthy on Sustainability
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/index.html (01)
"Humanity has progressed over hundreds of thousands of years, but until
about the seventeenth century, progress was a rare event. There were
novelties but a person would not expect a whole sequence of improvements in
his lifetime. Since then scientific progress has been continual, and in the
advanced parts of the world, there has also been continued technological
progress. Therefore, people no longer expect the world to remain the same
as it is. [Very likely, the greatest rate of progress for the average
person occurred around the end of the 19th century when safe water
supplies, telephones, automobiles, electric lighting, and home
refrigeration came in short order.] (02)
This page and its satellites will contain references to articles, my own
and by others, explaining how humanity is likely to advance in the near
future. In particular, we argue that the whole world can reach and maintain
American standards of living with a population of even 15 billion. We also
argue that maintaining material progress is the highest priority and the
best way to ensure that population eventually stabilizes at a sustainable
level with a standard of living above the present American level and
continues to improve thereafter. " (03)
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XML Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web.
Addison-Wesley. Jack Park, Editor. Sam Hunting, Technical Editor (04)
Build smarter kids globally to reduce the need for smarter bombs. (05)