Any technology you guys are excited about?

[ixfd64]

Cannonlake CPUs!

[kladner]

Originally Posted by retina

Many prisons offer exactly the same services and amenities.

Except the ones where corporate contractors serve food enhanced with maggots, or withhold medical attention, or otherwise maximize shareholder value.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by retina

Many prisons offer exactly the same services and amenities.

I did say analogously, not identically.

One item unfortunately missing from my list was freedom of movement. One item not on my list because it doesn't apply to cats is unrestricted communication with friends and family; cat's are not social animals in the way humans are.

Anyway, you're clearly nitpicking (no bad thing, as it tends to lead to clarification) and I'm sure you understand very well what I meant.

[retina]

Originally Posted by xilman

Anyway, you're clearly nitpicking (no bad thing, as it tends to lead to clarification) and I'm sure you understand very well what I meant.

Beings more intelligent than us could keep up in prisons without us even realising it. Perhaps the Earth is a prison. Currently for us leaving it is not easy. If we were smarter perhaps it would pose no great difficulty to escape.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by retina

Beings more intelligent than us could keep up in prisons without us even realising it. Perhaps the Earth is a prison. Currently for us leaving it is not easy. If we were smarter perhaps it would pose no great difficulty to escape.

Your first two sentences may well be true and we have no way at present of testing the hypothesis. Your third sentence is certainly true. You fourth is, I believe, overwhelmingly likely to be true. We already know how to escape but we do not yet have the economic, social and (perhaps) medical procedures in place to escape in practice.

[LaurV]

You know, reading retina's comments, I was also thinking to this Salusa Secundus scenario.

[jasong]

Originally Posted by retina

Oh, you mean like oxes and horses before the automobile became more common (and still now in many places)? Or like zoo animals today?

Any more intelligent beings/things than us (as a species) would marginalise us and turn us into amusements or beasts of burden. And there would likely be very little we could do about it.

Sorry to come back to this, but I think if a superior form of homo sapiens came about, then normals would then be classed with the handicapped. It would probably be comparable to how we treat people with major learning disabilities, we'd basically be a similar situation to someone with Down Syndrome. Probably have the same capability to truly comprehend our situation.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by jasong

It would probably be comparable to how we treat people with major learning disabilities, we'd basically be a similar situation to someone with Down Syndrome. Probably have the same capability to truly comprehend our situation.

You have already admitted that you are a consumer of good will.

And you are fed, and kept safe and warm, on the backs of others.

Your point?

[xilman]

Originally Posted by jasong

Sorry to come back to this, but I think if a superior form of homo sapiens came about, then normals would then be classed with the handicapped. It would probably be comparable to how we treat people with major learning disabilities, we'd basically be a similar situation to someone with Down Syndrome. Probably have the same capability to truly comprehend our situation.

No need to apologise. It's a topic which engages the interest of a number of individuals, including at least one here.

My suspicion is that your analysis is very close to the truth. As well as Homo sapiens superior, I would personally add other super-human intelligences into the societal mix. Some of them need not be purely or largely inorganic. Consider genetically modified {chimps,bonobos,dolphins,elephants} etc with appropriate prosethetic enhancements.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by chalsall

You have already admitted that you are a consumer of good will.

And you are fed, and kept safe and warm, on the backs of others.

Your point?

My take on his point is that he's provided a scenario which is in accord with the beliefs of many who have thought deeply about this scenario and, probably independently, come up with the same conclusion.