I should be reading Brave Men by Ernie Pyle about the Naval Invasion of Italy by the world’s largest super-fleet but instead I am pouring over the New York Times and reminiscing. I don’t have much left today because I battled hundreds of super-oysters. But I am not as far-out of my head as some of the columnists from the NYT:
DISCLAIMER: Need Times Select Subscription, Yay.
“Imagine that the Gulf Coast was inundated not with water but with a swarm of nanobots. These would be microscopic machines designed to break down substances like cancer cells in a body or pests in a farm field.
But what if scientists accidentally created some superorganism that outcompeted all other life and wiped out everything on the Gulf Coast – then spread like pollen around the world. What if they engineered nanobots that kept replicating and evolving until they broke down the substance of every living thing, leaving the planet covered in gray goo?
This is part of what Joel Garreau calls the Hell scenario in “Radical Evolution,” his book analyzing the new forms of life – including “transhumans” and “posthumans” – coming to your neighborhood soon. A man has already used his thoughts to send e-mail and control a robotic arm. And in three years, there could be memory-enhanced humans who take pills to banish senior moments and raise their SAT scores by 200 points.”
Using thoughts to control a robotic 3rdarm…. thats what I do here at my website. Tierney is talking about my website and he is absolutely correct about everything except the Future and What to Do About it. Paging Tom Friedman.
