10 technologies that deserve to die (Go at it)

MSN/Technology Review ^ | 24 Oct 03 | Bruce Sterling

[Paul C. Jesup]

On number 10, it is not DVDs that are the problem, it is the MPAA, RIAA, DRM, DMCA and extented copyrights to the point where they never end that you set your sights on destroying.

[brianl703]

I would also invite Mr. Sterling to stick his head in a plastic bag and see if that kills him just as dead as the internal combustion engine in a closed garage.

[luckystarmom]

Electronic toys like the poochis, wuv-luvs, etc. They don't shut up, and then they run out of batteries and the kids fuss/cry about it when their toys die. I hates stuff like that, and my kids love them.

I have a love/hate relationship with the playstations, gameboys, etc. They are great on a long trip, but I hate them when you have a kid that is clued to the stupid games.

[Teacher317]

Inside the "mind" of this "author":
Oh, please, please, pretty please can we have another Dark Ages?

Appalling and galling that his vote cancels out mine.

[AntiGuv]

1) Nukes: He's right, of course, except that he discounts the psychology of nukes. Until an improved method of mass annihilation is discovered, nukes will stick around. Whenever everyone can finally obliterate everone else, then nukes will be superfluous. Of course, the days of human civilization will probably be numbered at that point, but whatever!

2) Coal: He's right again, except there's no available alternative. I'm rather confident we'll just bebop along much as we have until something like fusion or whatever comes along. Then, coal power will be history.

3) Engines: Hmmm.. Well, he's right again, except that there's also no reasonable alternative to this either. It's only a matter of time, though, but it may well be a very long time. I'd give this one at least a half century (along with coal).

4) Light Bulbs: All they need to do is create an alternative bulb with a more aesthetic wavelength, and incandescents will be gone. Of course, he said as much.

5) Land Mines: Whenever the NK regime collapses these will be obsolete (at least for us). Until then, deal..

6) Manned SpaceFlight: Yeah, it's romantic but we aren't automatons. We do all sorts of things for nothing more than the 'romance' of it all. This one's here to stay.

7) Prisons: Hmmm.. All we need to do is decriminalize 'consensual' behaviors that are arbitrarily (and unconstitutionally) illegal and the greatest prison system problems will vanish. The alternatives aren't cost-effective. Economics is here to stay as well..

8) Bio Implants: Yep, give it 15-20 years.

9) Lie Detectors: Hmmm.. The days of the polygraph are numbered. No point in bothering with this until its replacement is known. Proper privacy statutes are the correct solution, however.

10) DVDs: Uh, get real. This is the best thing since sliced bread...... ;^)

What needs to become obsolete is anything less than a custom programmable 42" widescreen flat-panel multi-image HDTV plasma display with Dolby™ surround sound, all at a reasonable price...... :-)

[Calvin Locke]

Also complete idiot.

Ah, now I remember an earlier article by this guy. Thanks for putting him in context.
(Actually, the scif "writer" based in Austin was the key. He should just say he's a writer of fiction.)

[Grit]

[Light Bulbs] they produce nine times more raw heat than they do illumination.

I did not realize that heat and illumination were measured in the same units.

[StriperSniper]

VeriChip

[Sofa King]

They can both be reduced to energy (or power).

[AngryJawa]

I'm really suprised that the eeevil HANDGUN didn't make the list.

[Grit]

You are sofa king smart, arent you?

So, they are inefficient. Seems like an odd way to say it.

[WoofDog123]

"100% of all US critics of Hiroshima were not in uniform in the Pacific in 1945"

I will add that nuking Nagasaki and Hiroshima, forcing an early surrender, saved countless thousands of japanese lives. The death tolls from those bombs weren't too far from normal bombing death tolls of major japanese cities, and there would have been a lot more of that, not to mention the horrid casualties they would have suffered from full american invasion. If the russians had actually helped outside of china, (I am not sure if this would have been likely) they might have ended up with either austria or germany-style division.

This without counting the untold casualties the US would have suffered invading mainland japan.

[Sofa King]

Just answering your question.

[KellyAdmirer]

Liberals hate the internal combustion engine. Of course, without it, they'd be living in cottages having to plow their own fields in order to get by, or living in mansions waiting for the next French Revolution to break out, so it seems kind of ungrateful for them to get down on basic technology.

The unreality of the guy is illustrated by his take on prisons. Naturally, there are no uncontrollable homicidal maniacs in this guy's experience. No, everyone is polite and tries to ride an airplane and - oops! - denied, go take a seat in the corner. Perhaps ankle bracelets won't stop a Charlie Manson, eh, professor

Manned spaceflight, well, that's a hot one. If we don't do it, does the good professor honestly think the Chinese and others won't? Despite the huge cost, does he really think that having humans in space gives us absolutely no enhanced capabilities? We have made a huge investment in manned spaceflight, but guys like this are like, "Oh well, computers are good now, just let them do it." That is pretty similar to a German Admiral saying that submarines are pretty good now, so no need for the surface navy any more.

I sat through a class in college on energy policy once. The professor was high on solar energy in individual houses replacing the grid. He asked for questions. I asked him, "But what do you do if your batteries run down and you have no heat or electricity for a long period of time?" He said, "Well, you can go stay with your neighbor." I immediately responded, "But what if your neighbor doesn't like you?" He looked stunned, turned to his associate professor sitting next to him in the seminar with a mystified look, and goes, "That's a good question...."

Until you come up with something better, prof, don't bite the technologies that feed you.

[irish guard]

Look, I can take the coal fired power thing.....I can live with no more nukes....but no more cosmetic implants?

I have to put my foot down somewhere!!!

[whereasandsoforth]

And the EVIL running water. Old tech stuff. Should be replaced. This guy's brain barcode is faded and wrinkled and will never be readable again.

[_Jim]

10 technologies that deserve to die (Go at it)

Liberalism - it's kind of a 'technology' isn't it (it is, after all, a means to an end)?

[.cnI redruM]

1. NUCLEAR WEAPONS

>>>>>>ONE CAN make some sound arguments for nuclear power-medical radioisotopes are quite handy, while far-traveling spacecraft can barely function on anything less-but there is no reason for us to go on pretending that we need to fry entire chunks of continents. Not only are nuclear weapons technically clumsy, but they betray a blatant death wish better suited to al-Qaeda than a civilization....

Noone's disagreeing with him. THe problem is getting your enemies to put their nuclear weapons down next to your's. Also problematic is preventing Al-Quaida from reading a whole bunch of physics textbooks, stealing a lot of really cool stuff and just building their own versions.

Russia and the US are actually doing precisely what the author advocates. It just takes time, diplomacy and lots of money.

2. COAL-BASED POWER

I'm not really a fan of power rationing and $5/ gallon gasoline. The author should try this again with his mental faculties fully engaged.

3. THE INTERNAL-COMBUSTION ENGINE

I live 15 miles from work. I don't enjoy riding bicycles and my feet would soon become tired and sore. Thanks, but no thanks. Come back with a car that runs on mental rhythms and power plant that autogenerates electricity. The perpetual motion motor would actually make this possible. It has a drawback though, it's physically impossible.

4. INCANDESCENT LIGHT BULBS

>>>IN REALITY, these sad devices are "heat bulbs." Supposedly a lighting technology, they produce nine times more raw heat than they do illumination. The light they do give, admittedly, is still prettier than the eerie glow of compact fluorescents and light- emitting diodes. But it's still a far cry from the glories of natural daylight.

Plus there's the cost of light bulbs, their fragility, the replacement overhead, the vast waste of energy, glass, and tungsten, the goofy hassle of running air conditioners to do battle with the blazing heat of all these round little glass stoves...let's face it, these gizmos deserve to vanish.

They will be replaced by a superior technology, something cheap, cool, and precisely engineered, that emits visible wavelengths genuinely suited to a consumer's human eyeball. Our descendants will stare at those vacuum-shrouded wires as if they were whale-oil lanterns.

Sure, good point.

5. LAND MINES

His assessment makes sense in a world where the US has a 10 division army and the Chinese and Russians do likewise. Instead, the US has a 10 division army, the Russians have at least 120 divisions and the Chinese keep 27 million soldiers under arms full time.

Tell the US Infantry to attempt warfare without, mines, hand grenades and mortars and they will quickly become QUakers and claim conscientious objecter status. They'll object vehemently to having their a---- stomped.

6. MANNED SPACEFLIGHT

>>>>ONE HATES to see this dazzling technology go, but when one resolutely sets the romance aside, there's not a lot left.

WIlla Cather now upchucks in her grave. Manned spaceflight is integral to the future of mankind. We are explorers by nature. Not whining, negative defeatists.

7. PRISONS

>>>>>>IT'S RATHER out of style to suggest that people who transgress might be rehabilitated if treated decently.

This man has never seen the recidivism rate statistics for pedophiles or rapists.

>>>>>>>>Lose your American internal visa (formerly known as a "driver's license") and you soon find that merchants won't take your credit, that aircraft won't transport you,

I was not aware that either our retail or airline industries had received a beneficial IQ transplant. If it's true, it's excellent news.

8. COSMETIC IMPLANTS

Tell that to someone who just had their face ripped off in a motorcycle wreck. I used to think the same about cosmetic dentistry until a dentist doing a rotation in an emergency room described the importance of cosmetic dentistry to the psychiatry of badly mangled car wreck victims.


9. LIE DETECTORS

>>>>>THEY JUST plain don't work.

This, I'll buy into. Drugs and self-hypnotic techniques can defeat them.

10. DVDs

>>>>> Plus, just like CDs, DVDs as physical objects will prove to warp and delaminate.

Oh, so you can't just use them beer coasters. Damn!!

>>>>The Content Scrambling System copy protection scheme doesn't work,

Niether did the radar detection system being tested at Pearl Harbor in 1941. This fortunately did not get used as a reason to reprogram the funds for radar in the US Air Force.

[Slainte]

The trick here is to combine as many of these obsolete technoligies as possible into clever new consumer goods.

Well, I'm off to work on coal fired, incandescent cosmetic implants. The lie detecting nuclear DVD is also showing some promise.

[Old Professer]

Nevertheless, if you stand inside a closed garage with any internal-combustion engine, it will kill you.

If you stand inside a closed garage with only your own combustion gases long enough it will kill you.