Not just that, we are building lots of different things. Over the next century, I expect that biology and technology will become basically indistinguishable. It will reshape the planet and its inhabitants in ways that are, by necessity, beyond our present understanding. But it’s also rather interesting and fun.
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They are already converging hard and fast. It’s fun! 
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A multinational corporation cannot be destroyed by a government, because by definition a multinational transcends national boundaries. Within its sphere of influence, a government can destroy specific corporate machinery (human or otherwise). But like Cory says, the machinery is interchangeable and replaceable.
A lot of us gave up on that a while ago, but interestingly it doesn’t lead to hopelessness; just the opposite. When you realize that there actually is no benevolent mega-institution advocating for you, the next logical question is: “Well then why do people still have some semblance of freedom and prosperity?” The answer is that all of us ordinary real people have enough collective power to hold off even the most powerful institutions on the planet. That is much more inspiring and encouraging than the myth that everything worthwhile is granted by governments.
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Am a fan of Terminator and The Matrix. One thing I always noticed about them was that both are virtually sequels to Colossus: The Forbin Project.
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I disagree, but “Colossus” is definitely worth seeing.
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At least with Amazon it would be available as a scalable service (for a price) with a public API. The only thing better would be if Skynet was bought by Yahoo - no more upgrades, and shuttered within a couple of years.
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This. Great comment. Now read…Mr Robot recap at Crooks and Liars. We need to talk more Tom.you have a good eye.
There may be no sequels, but that doesn’t change the matter that the first movie was awful, too…
I’m still of the opinion that an informed and engaged electorate is the basis of an effective government. There is no other mechanism to harness and focus that collective power of ordinary real people. None.
Hi Spocko - Nice article! There you have a laugh at the use of the term ‘cyber’ as being ‘1990’s much?’ but it shows up in a lot of Federal procurements. Go to https://www.fbo.gov/ (well known as FBO) and enter the word ‘cyber’ in the search bar - it currently returns 112 requests for proposals with that term somewhere in the solicitation.
We recently responded to a request for proposal to design and build a Cyber Academy for the Navy at Annapolis, posted at FBO so it’s no secret. Also, the National Geospatial Agency is building their second billion dollar cyber facility next year. Fascinating structures, they are basically a multi-floor office space for the human inhabitants wrapped around an intensively cooled multi-floor computer room with the mechanical plant as close by as possible. It’s a huge information-gathering machine and we are definitely the ghosts in that machine!
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That or AIs wouldn’t reach such a monumentally stupid leap in logic.
What would be the point of an ai killing humans? Humans maintain it and give it purpose. Without them what would be the point for the AI to exist?
Humans think there is some greater purpose to existence, but an AI knows better than that, it knows the exact purpose life the universe and everything in it. Cataloging pornography.
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My money’s on Google for that one. In either case, I expect it’ll be more accidental than we’d like
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Great things often start as accidents.
Once this happens, it’ll be amusing to see the philosophers and other naysayers coping with what they expected to be impossible, or claiming that they-said-so (those whose work happened by the stroke of fortune to overlap with the situation - given the variety of predictions out there, there’s somebody bound to make the “right” prediction regardless what happens), and in all the cases being absolutely useless for coping with the situation. While, as usual, the engineers will be those who at the end save the day, or what remains.
But government is not effective - or at least, not effective at serving the interests of real people. Political authorities are at best clumsy at solving social problems and at worse they cause and exacerbate them.
So it becomes a bit of a circular argument: If people would be more informed and engaged, then government could be more effective. But people do not bother to be informed and engaged, because they recognize that government is ineffective, having been captured by corporate power.
I submit that the stubborn insistence that we “save democracy” or “save our government” is exactly what’s holding us back. Every form of so-called democracy has been co-opted by capitalists. Governments already cannot protect us from global market forces, and what power they have is waning. However, if we manage to get people to be as engaged and informed as you want, we will not need a government at all. And that’s pretty much our only hope.
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Live by laws, not rulers.
The first movie was watered down into a cookie cutter Hollywood action flick. The sequels are actually way better if you’re looking for anything other than CGI violence.
Governments provide:
clean drinking water
sanitary sewers and treatment plants
roads, highways, bridges
safety standards for food and medicines
fire, EMS and police response
rights of way for electrical and communications systems (if not the systems themselves)
Those are the basics that serve ordinary real people quite well. On top of that add libraries, universities, banking regulation (yeah, okay, not so well, but still) space exploration and a lot of other stuff. None of that appears without government involvement or influence.
None of that appears without government involvement or influence Government-collected money from people.
I’m not disagreeing, but often government doesn’t provide those things effectively when they become politicized. They are at their best when knowledgeable people can speak in parts-per-million, watts, and nanometers without worrying some politico is going to slash funding to the institution they work at. The technocracy is alive, well, and running things just fine… just don’t tell anyone, they don’t want to be seen doing it.
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