Re: Asimov Site

["**** ****" <***@***.com>]

Matt Jenkins wrote in message <39a9d4ad@naylor.cs.rmit.edu.au>...
>I would have thought that someone with an interest in information
>technology would be a little more open minded.
>
>Throughout history, people have claimed future inventions to be silly,
>impossible or whatever. Surely it has happened enough by now that you can
>realise the foolishness of such claims..
>
>Cheers,
>
>Matt


Matt,
    The problem is, he'd have to concede that my IQ is more than the 10-12
he claims it is now (rutabagas and other assorted garden vegetables commonly
test at 14+). If he were in a friendly conversation with say, an attourney
specializing in IP law, he'd be more than happy to speculate on future
technology, maybe even mentioning nanotechnology. One possible scenario....

Roy: "Hey, you know, I just read how IBM has managed to build these
transistors that are only 1/100th the size of those in the pentium 3..."

Lawyer: "Oh yeh, that and those single molecule memory units, and we might
actually see those nanobots Star Trek has been having on the shows lately."

Roy: "Yeh, the team at IBM spoke at great length about that, and how we
might actually live to see the things built. Amazing world we live in."

Lawyer: "Yeh, and I can tell you, the person who manages to get the
royalties for those will make Bill G look like a pauper."

Roy: "Sad though. Those awful comp.sys.apple2 pirates will finally be able
to pirate actual //c's and 2e's."

Lawyer: "Don't you worry about that at all. I've been talking to a group out
at Ford, and they sure as hell don't want to lose the consumer's dependence
on them. Word has it, they are already buying enough senator's to get the
new Physicals Shapes and Forms IP law passed in Congress. Basically it will
scrap patent, but can you say 'Job Security' ? I can. *grin*"

Roy: "Wow. For once, my tax dollars are finally getting me something. Can't
believe they're on the ball! I have just a bit more hope for the future.
*smile*"

Lawyer then puts on satanic headdress, and dances around a pentagram tiled
into law office floor, to the beat of drums and flickering black candle
light.

Lawyer: "Ia! Ia! Hastur! Ugh! Ugh! Ia Hastur cf'ayak ' vulgtmm, vugtlagln
vulgtmm! Ai! Shub-Niggurath!... Hastur--Hastur cf'tagn! Ia! Ia! Hastur! ..."

Ok. So I got a little carried away with the dramatic fictionalization. Point
is, he doesn't deny that this will happen out of hand, he is just either
ignoring it until some corporate lawyer is clever and cunning enough to see
to it that laws 'protect' this also, or he is doing the standard thing: That
is waiting until technology outruns wisdom and/or law, and the come up with
a halfassed solution after the fact. If your philosophy doesn't apply well
to the future, why are you adhering to it now?