Stan wrote:That drought the Anasazi endured was epic. What was fertile and reliable became sand. That right there would make a tribe cranky. It sort of ties in with "Why we don't find any evidence of high intelligence anyplace in the Universe". Society's it seems wipe themselves out long before they colonize other worlds. The Fermi Paradox. You would think that as we look out billions of light years we would have spotted a super race- they made a square shaped star that defies logic,say. But no.
Look- North Korea,Russia's continent killing torpedo..I mean,how can we colonize Mars,when it would take only a single deranged scientist on Mars to kill off everybody? Pull the air plug basically.
Its like this 80f weather in the bay area in February..enjoy it. While we all still can.
Alastair Reynolds, an astrophysicist/sci-fi author has a common theme through much of his future history fiction. And that is that organic intelligences are ultimately destroyed by their own creations. As soon as we develop computers that are programmed to learn and improve without constraint, we've all but signed our own death warrants.
That may not be what happened to the Anasazi and Aztecs though. #toomuchcorn
Agave
"American aloe plant," 1797, from Greek Agaue, proper name in mythology (mother of Pentheus), from agauos "noble," perhaps from agasthai "wonder at".
"Some talk the talk, others walk the walk, but I stalk the stalk"
Stan wrote:That drought the Anasazi endured was epic. What was fertile and reliable became sand. That right there would make a tribe cranky. It sort of ties in with "Why we don't find any evidence of high intelligence anyplace in the Universe". Society's it seems wipe themselves out long before they colonize other worlds. The Fermi Paradox. You would think that as we look out billions of light years we would have spotted a super race- they made a square shaped star that defies logic,say. But no.
Look- North Korea,Russia's continent killing torpedo..I mean,how can we colonize Mars,when it would take only a single deranged scientist on Mars to kill off everybody? Pull the air plug basically.
Its like this 80f weather in the bay area in February..enjoy it. While we all still can.
Alastair Reynolds, an astrophysicist/sci-fi author has a common theme through much of his future history fiction. And that is that organic intelligences are ultimately destroyed by their own creations. As soon as we develop computers that are programmed to learn and improve without constraint, we've all but signed our own death warrants.
That may not be what happened to the Anasazi and Aztecs though. #toomuchcorn
Fun that you mention him! I like Alastair Reynolds' work a lot and yes that is definitely a huge theme in his work.
^ My favorite fiction author. I'm especially enamored by the Revelation Space series (of which there is a new one I just got and have not yet read -- Elysium Fire.
#spacegeek
Agave
"American aloe plant," 1797, from Greek Agaue, proper name in mythology (mother of Pentheus), from agauos "noble," perhaps from agasthai "wonder at".
"Some talk the talk, others walk the walk, but I stalk the stalk"
Revenger was not one of my faves. Glad to see he's going back to his roots. My favorite Reynolds book, without a doubt, is House of Suns.
Don't know Vernor Vinge. I like Reynolds, because there is always a lot of good, hard science in his stories.
Agave
"American aloe plant," 1797, from Greek Agaue, proper name in mythology (mother of Pentheus), from agauos "noble," perhaps from agasthai "wonder at".
"Some talk the talk, others walk the walk, but I stalk the stalk"
I read a few weeks ago an anthropologist say why man overtook the apes and lesser Homo species. He said,that only when we developed a thumb that could be close to make a fist did we break away. The fist was man's first weapon.
Kind of interesting.