People You May Know: Bill Joy

[Bill Floyd]

We should be thinking about these things:

            --nanotechnology

            --genetic engineering

            --robotics.

Question: Given the opportunity to fine-tune their unborn child--to make them smarter, faster, prettier, more disease-resistant--in short, to provide them with the advantages most parents devote their lives to giving their offspring--how many parents will say no?

He has seen the gleam in someone's eye become the future.  He has fought pandemics and worried that he might be a target of the Unabomber.  

Given the rate of increasing complexity in technological advances, humans as we know them may only be 2-3 generations from becoming as evolutionarily quaint as the Neanderthals seem to us now.

Kurzweil says everything will be cool, but every evangelist needs a skeptic.    

[Angela]

Ugh.  I tried to comment twice and couldn't control myself.  All I can briefly say is that we are so fucked.

[Teresa]

Here's a review of the Twlight Zone's episode 17 of season 5 in 1964:  "Number Twelve Looks Just Like You" --

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734604/reviews

Scary stuff.  Great links to the essay and bio, Bill. 

[Teresa]

I just watched an old Twilight Zone episode the other day.  I think it was titled #11 and it was about choosing a new body at a certain age, a body from a catalogue of  "beautiful", and #11 was the most popular female form.  So everyone looked gorgeous but the same and lived longer, healthier lives.  I'm off to see the links now.  Excellent topic and writing.

[Gita]

First of all, I like it best when you delve into the realm of science for your subjects. Genetics is endlessly fascinating (and yet it is the branch of medicine that meets the most resistance from religion and politics.  "Tampering" it's called.)  Second, I love when you write about a real genius. I would LOVE to spend a few hours with Bill Joy talking the pros and cons of GNR. Can you imagine how fun that would be?   

 

[Bill Floyd]

Read Joy's essential essay on the Singularity here.  It's lengthy, but worthwhile--especially for fiction writers looking for ideas.  

Joy's wiki bio here.