Exile et al, I wanted you

[Jawge]

guys to take a look at the passge below. If you look beyond the argument of robots and substitute robots with today's emerging economies, you will see the future of nations left behind in the second quater of the info age (please note we are now in the first quarter)


Biological species almost never survive encounters with superior competitors. Ten million years ago, South and North America were separated by a sunken Panama isthmus. South America, like Australia today, was populated by marsupial mammals, including pouched equivalents of rats, deers, and tigers. When the isthmus connecting North and South America rose, it took only a few thousand years for the northern placental species, with slightly more effective metabolisms and reproductive and nervous systems, to displace and eliminate almost all the southern marsupials.
In a completely free marketplace, superior robots would surely affect humans as North American placentals affected South American marsupials (and as humans have affected countless species). Robotic industries would compete vigorously among themselves for matter, energy, and space, incidentally driving their price beyond human reach. Unable to afford the necessities of life, biological humans would be squeezed out of existence.
There is probably some breathing room, because we do not live in a completely free marketplace. Government coerces nonmarket behavior, especially by collecting taxes. Judiciously applied, governmental coercion could support human populations in high style on the fruits of robot labor, perhaps for a long while.

[Jawge]

humans will be those nations left behind in the
info age. Whilst you guys sit baying at the moon and worry about light bulbs this world is slowing melding and discarding the waste of space.

[Willi]

Depends on your definition of superior!

Inspiration and higher thinking is not something machines are known for.

[Willi]

Same foolishness was recently said in the dot.com era.

Dont believe the hype. Homo sapiens is a very cunning and adaptable species, with a highly developed survival instinct.

[Muadib]

Where does Portia and Nightclub fit into the equation.

Yuh have the nerve to talk about baying..

All the while you doing yuh dance performance.. yuh slip showing..

[Jawge]

Willi, can you do some research
before you speak on certain subject matter? The indusrial age is coming to a close, how many nations benefitted from the industrial age? We saw where third world nations emerged (they were on the fringe benefit of the industrial age). Do you seriously believe that all nations will benefit in the
info a age (when it reaches its peak/last quarter)?

Boss the above was a paragraph from Bill Joy's famous essay. Bill Joy is one of the foremost thinkers in computers today. Bill Gates et al listen to this man. To say his words are foolish is akin to saying Richard Feynman doesn't know quantum physics. Whilst Mr. Joy is peering deep into the future; I use the substitution method to apply his intellect to now. If you want to read his essay (why the future doesn't need us) in full, then come to discuss it with me, fine. Please don't jump to subjective conclusions.

Thanks.

[Willi]

I am disagreeing with the CONCLUSIONS.

You might find this paraphrase interesting:

As Brian’s idol, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman stated, “It doesn't make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is - if it disagrees with real-life results, it is wrong. That's all there is to it.”

[Jawge]

When you have the time, try
showing me the relevance of the quote to my paragraph (or even to Joy's essay).

Let me ask you this: Don't you see emerging economies squaring off with the traditionals (w. Europe an US) and they are about to compete at a level that will render islands such as Ja as mere spectators? It's already happening and most of Ja's thinkers feel the best way out is to run to a new master (China) and piggy back. This will not be so in the future beacuse the US is already poised to be the leader (without a doubt) in this looming future. If you can't see all this, let me know.

[Willi]

No, I cant see this.

The US is not poised to be anything. Maybe even at this 11th hour, they could get their SHAITE together and save the Republic, but they have squandered their many advantages. I am tired to show you this in so may ways. THINGS still have to be built and food still has to be eaten. We still live in a physical world and no amount of "virtual" advantages and touting will change that. A mere 10 years ago all the "visionaries" were telling us that physical shops would not exist by now...everything virtual. Things would not be valued based on physical characteristics, but rather by esoteric techniques like "eyeballs" (hits) on web sites. Land phones??? wont exist! we will have mobiles and satellite phones. Every home and every public building in America would be wired up and one could not survive a day without computers.

Dont tell me you have forgotten all these proclamations that may seem far-fetched now, but were taken for granted back in the late 1990s.

Maybe, I am not as impressed as I was using the Mosiac browser back in 1994 and keeping in touch with Jamaica from SPAIN! I was the one to introduce the WWW to my B-School and was on the team creating the first Web site there!

Again I say, never underestimate the Human element. What man can conceive he can find a way to achieve. I am not by any means disagreeing that we should sit idly by and let the world leave us behind, but I believe that we have to be practical and strategic in our approach.

I dont think we need a new (or Old) Master!

[Jawge]

Willi stay with me now:
Where did I say the whole world will be virtual and not physical? Did Bill Joy say this in his essay? return to wher I use Joy's argument to show what's happening in the world today. I am not underestimating the human
element but some will be left back and this time driven out of existence.

I think you should ask the third world countries; where was the human element in the industrial age.

I also don't think we need a old or new master but the best minds in Ja are looking at China right now (a mark of mental laziness; Garvey spoke extensively about this).

For some reason I knew you wouldn't be able to see wher the US is poised to lead.

[Willi]

Willi stay with me now:
Where did I say the whole world will be virtual and not physical? Did Bill Joy say this in his essay? return to wher I use Joy's argument to show what's happening in the world today. I am not underestimating the human
element but some will be left back and this time driven out of existence.

I think you should ask the third world countries; where was the human element in the industrial age.

I also don't think we need a old or new master but the best minds in Ja are looking at China right now (a mark of mental laziness; Garvey spoke extensively about this).

For some reason I knew you wouldn't be able to see wher the US is poised to lead.

Follow the argument nuh.

I SAID same way people were pushing virtual world in the dot.com madness era.

Ask the 3rd wold countries where they were in slavery and colonial days!

[Jawge]

When did the industrial age start?
not the 19th century. Anyway, your point?

[Karl]

Homo sapiens is a very cunning and adaptable species, with a highly developed survival instinct.

Actually you hit it!
Everything we do has behind it the one primary reason - "We do it for ourselves!".

Yes, Jawge we are moving rapidly to an age where the danger is the 'old ways' will be forgotten and machines will run amoke...but, Willi tells it straight up -

Homo sapiens is a very cunning and adaptable species, with a highly developed survival instinct.

..and, if 'terrible things occur' I would bet we would have migrated to another world! Can't stop us!


btw -Specific to Jamaica?
We are poised for take-off!