[unrev-II] Slashdot: Discussion on Asteroid Mining

From: Paul Fernhout (pdfernhout@kurtz-fernhout.com)
Date: Wed Nov 22 2000 - 20:34:24 PST

  • Next message: Paul Fernhout: "[unrev-II] Themes: OHS / DKR vs. Design Science"

    A discussion from today on Slashdot on asteroid mining.

    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/22/1327224&mode=thread&threshold=1

    It was prompted by this article from Feed Magazine:

    http://www.feedmag.com/essay/es425_master.html

    I've been nudging these space things a bit lately because we to an
    extent have lost a bit of the second part of the UnRevII focus. The
    issue is what are the global problems of humanity and how should we go
    about resolving them? (Of course, using Augmenting systems to help us.)

    My perspective on this is that there are issues and challenges facing
    us, but they are not what may be expected. Many are related primarily to
    the implications of Moore's law applied over the next four decades (i.e.
    computers a million to a trillion times faster than today's desktop for
    the same price). Others are related to similar exponential growth curves
    in biotechnology, nanotechnology, communications technology,
    manufacturing technology, power technology, materials technology,
    robotics, and collaborative technology (IT and/or social). Compared to
    those challenges, running out of oil in a century or two is a
    non-problem.

    Of course, obviously there are current issues as well (millions of
    starving people due to not distributing existing food supplies for
    political reasons,
      http://www.thehungersite.com/ the continuance of ignorance and extreme
    poverty for similar reasons, the proliferation of weapons of
    mass-destruction, etc.). Once can hope that more for everyone will mean
    more for the disadvantaged and less strife. Whether that would be true
    is itself a question to examine.

    -Paul Fernhout
    Kurtz-Fernhout Software
    =========================================================
    Developers of custom software and educational simulations
    Creators of the Garden with Insight(TM) garden simulator
    http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com

    -------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~>
    eLerts
    It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free!
    http://click.egroups.com/1/9699/2/_/444287/_/974957217/
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------_->

    Community email addresses:
      Post message: unrev-II@onelist.com
      Subscribe: unrev-II-subscribe@onelist.com
      Unsubscribe: unrev-II-unsubscribe@onelist.com
      List owner: unrev-II-owner@onelist.com

    Shortcut URL to this page:
      http://www.onelist.com/community/unrev-II



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 22 2000 - 21:37:12 PST