Bill Joy, cofounder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, was cochair of the presidential commission on the future of IT research, and is coauthor of The Java Language Specification. His [...] No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> http://ut.alternativeconservative.com/2009/03/why-the-future-doesnt-need-us-2/feed/ 0 46:23 On todays show I read the first couple of pages from Bill Joy's article (click to read full article) Why the future doesn't need us ... On todays show I read the first couple of pages from Bill Joy's article (click to read full article) Why the future doesn't need us Bill Joy, cofounder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, was cochair of the presidential commission on the future of IT research, and is coauthor of The Java Language Specification. His work on the Jini pervasive computing technology was featured inWired 6.08. One topic covered by Bill Joy is the book The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil. Kruzweil quotes a passage from the Adystropian Scenario written by a well known mathematician: First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better than human beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines might be permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or else human control over the machines might be retained. If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can't make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave. We only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines' decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won't be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide. On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite - just as it is today, but with two differences. Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the elite consists of soft-hearted liberals, they may decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest of the human race. They will see to it that everyone's physical needs are satisfied, that all children are raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become dissatisfied undergoes "treatment" to cure his "problem." Of course, life will be so purposeless that people will have to be biologically or psychologically engineered either to remove their need for the power process or make them "sublimate" their drive for power into some harmless hobby. These engineered human Podcast,,Technology poppymoreno@gmail.com no No http://ut.alternativeconservative.com/2009/01/richard-stallman/ http://ut.alternativeconservative.com/2009/01/richard-stallman/#comments Sat, 31 Jan 2009 05:51:38 +0000 ---- http://ut.alternativeconservative.com/?p=184 for some reason the podcast player is not working for this post you so you will have to go to the player on the right hand side of this page to listen.

On January 31st 2009 I interviewed Richard Stallman founder of the GNU Project, and the Copy Left user license agreement.  Unfortunately I kept [...] No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> http://ut.alternativeconservative.com/2009/01/richard-stallman/feed/ 0 47:40 for some reason the podcast player is not working for this post you so you will have to go to the player on the ... for some reason the podcast player is not working for this post you so you will have to go to the player on the right hand side of this page to listen. On January 31st 2009 I interviewed Richard Stallman founder of the GNU Project, and the Copy Left user license agreement.nbsp; Unfortunately I kept saying copyright when I meant patent so try to overlook that error. GNU Linux is now most commonly known as Linux, but as Richard Stallman points out, that's like naming the car after a guy who made an updated drive train. Richard Stallman wrote nearly every piece of the original GNU is not Unix operating system.nbsp; The name Linux came from Linux Torvalds who wrote the original Linux Kernel. Stallman had some very important information on the security, or lack there of, in the Windows operating system.nbsp; Microsoft can push out a patch, if they haven't already, to allow Microsoft or the government to tunnel into your computer at any time.nbsp; The open source programming community would not allow that to happen. How NSA access was built into Windows Microsoft Updates Windows Without User Permission, Apologizes Mr. Stallman also makes some important points about the electronic voting machines.nbsp; Many people have said electronic voting machines should use open source software, but Mr. Stallman points out, that even open source voting machines aren't safe from tampering.nbsp; The only way to assure the integrity of our voting system in the US is to go integrity paper. One of Richard Stallman's main causes is software freedom.nbsp;nbsp; Open source software is often called "free software," but that is free as in freedom. Even though open source software is generally free, it's always good to make a donation to support the people who are fighting for your freedom.nbsp; I always like to donate at least $5, or more if I can afford it when downloading open source software. An example of why that matters is the MP3 file Format vs. OGG.nbsp;nbsp; The MP3 file format has many patenting issues, and has been a headache for people to license properly in order to use the technology.nbsp;nbsp; OGG is completely open source and therefore gives everyone the freedom to use OGG technology without fear of lawsuit. If you would like to learn more about OGG, please go to www.vorbis.com.nbsp; You can also get OGG players and encoding software from www.vorbis.com. This show is edited using the open source program Audacity.nbsp; Audacity is available for just about any operating system and can export audio files to OGG, MP3 and WAV formats. Mr. Stallman declined to tell the listners what flavor of GNU Linux he uses, but I will state I personally use Ubuntu AKA "GNU Linux for human beings." An excellent alternative to Microsoft Office is OpenOffice.nbsp; OpenOffice can now handle Microsoft Office 2007 file formats.nbsp; Even if fiends and colleagues send you files in the latest Microsoft file formats you will be able to open and edit the files OpenOffice. The latest version of Microsoft Office (2007) is selling on Amazon.com for $379.99.nbsp; That's a lot of money you can save by using OpenOffice.nbsp; I hope you will show your appreciation for their work as I have on several different occasions by donating $5 to $20.nbsp; Just think of how much money they are saving you. No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. Podcast,,Technology poppymoreno@gmail.com no No