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[Loud Whispers]

Well, at least it won't matter me, because I live far away from USA in a completely different country.

Oh it definitely will. American policies have a tendency to move away from America.

[Guardian G.I.]

Well, at least it won't matter me, because I live far away from USA in a completely different country.

Oh it definitely will. American policies have a tendency to move away from America.

I'm not really sure that Mr. Lukashenko will ever censor the Internet in the name of freedom, democracy and copyright. According to our liberal opposition and American human rights organizations, he's too busy censoring the Internet in the name of tyranny, dictatorship and piracy.

[MrBannaner]

I would only ever be technophibic if teleportation was unvented. I would never, NEVER walk into a teleporter.
The reason being this:
Even if there is a full transfer of consiousness, I hate the idea. I die on entry to the teleporter, and am re-assembled on exit. Getting my idea? The person who invents the teleporter will be committing mass genocide. The ethical issues would make the world go mad! It is impossible to not kill someone through the conventional idea of teleportation, all you are doing is killing them and making the live again in a different place.
Imagine this situation:
You are about to enter a teleporter, your first time ever.
"It's safe, go on inside" you hear from a technician.
Not even thinking about the implications, you walk into the teleporter. Whirring starts and your feet begin disappearing. You feel an odd sensation as the device works it way through the rest of your body. It hits the bottom of your lungs and you find it impossible to breath, the air just being transported into oblivion. You begin to panic as it slowly works your way to your heart. The technicians continue to look in in that safe, comforting look they always give. They ignore your fear and continue to disintegrate you. The disintergration reaches your heart, your fears are realised. Your heart stops and you feel yourself blacking out. You look at the techjicians one last time before your eyes and brain are discombobulated, they simply stare at you as they press the buttons. Your vision begins to disappear from the bottom of your eyes. You are going blind, impossible to see. Your thoughts begin to become slower, more fragile. Finally, you lose consiousness, and you never wake up. Somewhere around the world there is an exact replica of you, with the same thoughts, the same mind and the same body. But this is not you, it is just a one time faxsimile.
That is my phobia of teleporters explained.

[Flying Dice]

We've already had a (very) long discussion over continuity of the mind during teleportation/matter transferrance.

Incidentally, my solution would be a permanent dual consciousness with your mind existing both in your body and a computer somewhere, so that when you teleport, your perception simply shifts from your body to the computer. Of course, you'd need perfect wireless transmission and massive amounts of cheap data storage for it to be plausible.


Anyhow. I'd never trust unvented technology. A couple uses before it overheats and explodes? No thanks.

[kaijyuu]

Wouldn't "unvented" be the opposite of "invented," meaning lost technology?

[Aklyon]

I'm afraid these countermeasures won't prevent the corporations from being able to censor the Internet sooner or later. The US Government, being corrupt as it is, will eventually pass such laws.

Nope. Too busy arguing with itself, attacking itself and/or the tea party, and blabbering on about nothing like politicians are good at doing.

[Meansdarling]

I am banking on the fact that we'll be mostly cyborgs by the time I'm "old" anyways. I actually need technology to speed the hell up.

I really want to be a cyborg.
It just seems cool! Like having detachable arms and having different legs for different occasions.

I'd probably volunteer to try out a robot prosthetic if they wanted a healthy person to try it out for free.

[Frumple]

Cyber tentacles, my dear fellow. I've always wanted a prehensile tail, but why stop with that? Dendrites! 40k promises me dendrites! And japan promises even more. Kekeke.

I wouldn't mind having a tiny crane coming out of my shoulder. I'm not sure what I'd do with it, or how I'd reinforce my frame to be able to support it, but I think it'd be neat.

As for volunteering, hell, ask around. They've been doing tests on stuff like that for several years now. Though you might have to actually lose the limb before they could test it. Still... if you're willing to go that far...

[Karnewarrior]

I actually doubt anything too drastically changing to the human consiousness will happen in this generation, technologically. Teleportation seems quite a ways away, computer A.I may happen but it'll be rare and probably be viewed as a morally grey morass of "does it count"s. Should robots have the right to vote?

Socially, however, I can see some big changes. The advent of the internet has allowed nations to become even tighter than before. This will undoubtably spark quite a few wars, possibly even a new world war, but I don't think anything apocalyptic will happen. But now people have friends all over the world.

Like here. We all know eachother, and would likely consider eachother friends if we were in person. So if two of our countries get in a war, what happens? Do we just stop being friends? I doubt that's going to happen often, so I think the net result is a cultural melding, a giant worldwide stage where all sorts of people from different cultures come and speak to eachother, a exchange of ideas on a scale that could never have happened before. If the human race unites, the Internet or it's descendants will be the catalyst. I'm sure of it.

Something awkward is going to happen if we don't unite and start to explore space, though. Lets say that we can now fly at FTL speeds, but all the powers here today are still separate. Using Russia and America as examples, how would earth be viewed? With a planetary scale view of things, how would a planet where each nation has a certain point on the surface function? Would Russia/America simply move their capital elsewhere? Some sort of New Moscow, New Washington? Would they invade Earth on a planetary scale, reducing their own homeworld to dust? How would they explain that to say, Uganda, a nation which has colonized no more than a few asteroids in the asteroid belt?

What the sam hell do you do with Earth?

I move that we declare it official territory of the U.N. and make it neutral, but there are a few countries I think wouldn't quite respect that, especially if it's the early period where only the rich countries have extra-solar colonies.

_ _ _ _ _ _

On a similar but unrelated note, do you think that any bodies in the solar system are really viable for habitableization and not just bubble-colonies and a few shipyards. I could see mars as being used mainly for mining without disturbing the environmentalists, Demios could be a major shipyard, and Luna would probably be best utilized as a sort of jump-point from Earth to elsewhere, maybe with a few colonies to help soften the effects of over-population.

[10ebbor10]

Or you  know, you can go the other way and declare space the neutral area.

Also, the vision of the futue has changed at least a bit, mostly it's much more shiney and looks like an Apple product...

[kaijyuu]

computer A.I may happen but it'll be rare and probably be viewed as a morally grey morass of "does it count"s. Should robots have the right to vote?

On this: I find it doubtful this will be much of an issue.

We've already pretty much come to a general consensus that any "real" AI we make is worthy of moral consideration. Find a sci fi story that preaches the opposite; I dare you. So, we'll probably treat creation of new AIs similar to how we treat creation of new humans: Only do it if you're willing to face the consequences.

We'll make a few AIs, but they'll get the right to vote/etc and any reproduction will be limited. Things that don't need an AI (like your toaster) won't get one, just so we don't have to consider its feelings.

[10ebbor10]

You certain. It seems to me that corporations will try to exploit the barrier between AI and just a really smart program as much as possible.

Besides, I doubt that if we get as far as actual AI's we won't give them  Human interaction modules. They will be intelligent, but not capable of social interaction, or free thinking for that matter.

[Scoops Novel]

Correction: people interested in sci-fi have come to that consensus. If it actually happened in such a way that they could think for themselves, which we wouldn't gun for thanks to a good biut of cultural exposure to a good few apocalyptic scenarios and was exposed to the general public, hopefully/probably the majority in the west will come to that consensus, but you're still going to have fuckloads jumping on the anti A.I bandwagon. To be honest, the main thing that would prevent similar scale opposition to aliens and people wishing to go district 9 on them would be because governments generally have enough of a fuck to not in the slightest offend them in any way. If they were aliens on a more primitive level then us, the same would still apply to smarter individuals but would be rather harder to enforce.

[Karnewarrior]

Yeah, I think that a real AI would create quite a ruckus as everyone jumps online to rewatch the Terminator movies. There'll definitely be a commotion. But in the end, I think, it'll turn out on the good side. Humanity does some horrid things, but there's always a smal faction preaching peace and love that grows constantly. It may start bad, but it usually ends good.

On the subject of less advanced aliens than us, I could see it happening much like the colonization of the Americas. Hopefully there'll be a significant portion of the population though who remembers their history lessons.

[10ebbor10]

I

A: Don't see it happening
B: Assume this is Humanity's reaction: Wait, those things are alive...

Really, the universe being as diverse as it is, nine chances out of ten we won't even recognize alien life.