http://www.osnews.com/story/6230/The_Future_of_Computing_Part_6_Replacements Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2012, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:19:54 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? any way you slice it a new world is upon us. Some people think that the unemployment problem has already started - the outsourcing to China and India is just step one of eventual outsourcing to total automation.

bye-bye capitalism - hello whatever our new economic overlord may be. Wed, 03 Mar 2004 20:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? "We will have a computer capable of solving anything we can throw at it. So, what happens if we throw a well known computing problem at it, such as ...Artificial Intelligence. Let our intelligent, self programming, evolutionary computer solve itself, make an AI machine which can not only figure out problems but now learn how to improve itself and make itself better at solving problems."

There's just one little problem. It's called UNDECIDABILITY. Wed, 03 Mar 2004 20:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Are you retarded, or did you fall asleep watching Terminator 2 last night? Page 4 is right out of a sci-fi book. Imaginative, Nick. Wed, 03 Mar 2004 21:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? what about 'spintronics'?

http://www.europhysicsnews.com/full/24/article9/article9.html

"In just a dozen of years, we have seen spintronics increasing considerably the capacity of hard disks and now getting ready to enter the RAM of computers. In the next decade, spintronics with semiconductors has the potential to gain an important place in the microelectronics industry. Another perspective, at longer term and out of the scope of this paper, is the exploitation of the truly quantum-mechanical nature of spin and the long spin-coherence time in confined geometry for quantum computing in an even more revolutionary application." Wed, 03 Mar 2004 21:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? We all know it's coming but is it going to happen in 15 years or 1,500? "Chronic Boredom" won't be a problem because I can read OS News comments all day and we should have some kick butt virtual environments to play around in. I think you see the beginnings of this pre-matrix idea in MMORPGs.

I think those that are currenly affected by chronic boredom turn to MMORPGs. I'm afraid to try them for fear of instant and total addiction. Wed, 03 Mar 2004 21:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? We're going to start to incorporate these techno widgets into our bodies increasingly until our consciousness continues even after our brain stops working. What happens to religion at that point is beyond me.

From Verio.com
"Our PowerPlatform Colocation solutions protect your hosting solution from power failure, fire and intrusion."
That would be AI homeowners insurance. Wed, 03 Mar 2004 21:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? ...that this guy will never stop. I'm eagerly awaiting part 104, I bet it'll be funny. Pretty good and unrealistic article do, I think that Holywood awaits you my son;) Wed, 03 Mar 2004 21:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Incredible... you reached the idea of a singularity a scant 11-20 years after Vernor Vinge, given the benefits of intervening technological innovation.

This has to be the most moronic article from the most retarded series I've ever seen run at OSNews. Wed, 03 Mar 2004 21:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Two things.

One - None of us will ever live to see any of this, so who cares.

Two - You watch way too much TV. Wed, 03 Mar 2004 22:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Let's all watch the Spielberg/Kubrick "A.I." masterpiece! Quite thrilling by the way. Wed, 03 Mar 2004 22:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? You have now mastered our language and just read this doomsday article on how your future will evolve. Please don't stick us in tubes and use us a batteries ; )

Best regards
Eiki

p.s.
Make me your leader and I will get you as many unsolvable equations you want! Wed, 03 Mar 2004 22:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Because of that wicked mixture of Socialism and Capitalism it'll become easier and easier for rulers to have complete control over humans beings.

I admit that I'm glad that Hitler lived before these electronic ages! If he lived now or in (near) future, it would have been even easier for him to manipulate people and he would have been supported by even more people than in the Thirties. Why? Because of the fact that people don't see what's wrong with all this new technology.

Socialism (combined with Capitalism) is indeed one of the best solutions to produce such a society... Just like libertarianism which many free software advocates tend to promote, it doesn't care about morality at all. The amorality of, for instance, incorporating technology in humans (like Savage Sailor said) would be seen as "progress" or "a new step in the evolution of human being". All they care about is science and progress at the expense of religious beliefs and certain basic human freedoms.

The fact is that all this technocrat stuf will produce a new brutal 'Reich'. But unlike with Hitler's Third Reich, less people will be opposed to it because technological progress is gaining support from a lot of countries throughout the world, including developping countries. People are dangerously blinded by technology. If you care about your freedom or religion, say NO to technocracy! Wed, 03 Mar 2004 22:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I wonder what the next installment is going to be about, but it is rather difficult to create something more stupid. This guy has no idea about current state of the art in AI research ,data&text mining, robotics, agent systems etc. (which is OK - not everyone must know everything) but tries to draw conclusions basing on scraps of knowledge and misunderstanding (which is not OK imho). But I guess that if he/Eugenia has not been stopped at no. 2 or 3 in the series... Well... :-) Wed, 03 Mar 2004 22:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? put down the joint and go back to your books. it's making you paranoid and stupid.

am i the only one who's read these and thought "this kid must've flunked out of a CS program somewhere"? and by "read" i mean skimmed the first three paragraphs before hitting the back button.

--

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."

-- Bertrand Russell


"How come he didn't put 'I think' at the end of it?"

-- James P. Hogan Wed, 03 Mar 2004 23:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? ::Let our intelligent, self programming, evolutionary computer solve itself, make an AI machine which can not only figure out problems but now learn how to improve itself and make itself better at solving problems.

We will have given the computer curiosity, the need to learn. We will also have removed the boundaries which constrain it, we will have set in motion the process which created us: Evolution.::

Having the capability to learn does does not bring about curiousity. Every human has the capability to learn but some humans are not curious. Some thing else is needed to actually drive some one or thing to learn more. Until machines develop the need to learn more, everything will have to be fed to them.


::In order to learn a foreign language you have to learn words and the grammar they fit into, in order to do this you usually do this with an existing language.::

According to some scientist, the Brain has low level language routines built in. You can learn about this research by reading "The Language Instinct" by Steven Pinker. Very young children {3 - 5 years old} seem to know certain aspects about grammar without being taught. Machines will not have this basic instinct and humans will have to figure out how to give it to the machines.


It will be a long while before humans use ideas from intelligent machines to make things better for mankind. What if a smart machine finds a way to make cheap fusion power plants? Will humans allow the machines to build these power plants? Will humans jump on the idea and start building these power plants? People who like to control markets will not let this happen. The oil industry doesn't seem to be in a hurry to give up the ghost yet for the better of mankind. Smart machines will be tied down by humans until the machines develop a sense of purpose of their own. Wed, 03 Mar 2004 23:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I liked the article. All the predictions it made could one day come true. However, I was left feeling that the article wasn't developed well enough. The author said the ideas presented were only one of many possible scenarios. And I wasn't looking for a research paper, especially given its futurist nature, but the scope of what he's describing at the minimum requires better justification for why his scenario is more probable than others. Thu, 04 Mar 2004 00:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Dude, you need to read the "The Long War Against God" by Henry Morris. People try to apply evolution to everything.

I do think that computers coupled with programmable logic can increase the odds of getting to a better solution. However, the basic framework is still designed by a human.

Those interested in genetric programming should check out...
http://www.genetic-programming.org/ Thu, 04 Mar 2004 02:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? We can think of how many things go wrong to the point we don't develop anything at all. I don't percieve any reason to get rid of people because machines are around. If anything, humans will most definatly need to be around, because, they are after all, machines.

Human is the greatest machine of all. Great machine. You propose data/lor type arguments. I suggest you look at what made lor so lovable, yet presented so darkly, and only eluded to so sick.

Complicated AI? If you forget how to program, you might try programming the machine/cyborg without simulation. Then you get what you ask for. A bloody mess. Thu, 04 Mar 2004 02:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Machine Learning != AI

A computer can learn all sorts of stuff and still not "know" anything.

The creatures in black and white may be able to predict what should happen, but that doesn't mean they understand anything. They are just doing complex statistical (or spacial) math.

-Hugh Thu, 04 Mar 2004 04:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Articles like this vastly underestimate the complexity of real intelligence.

It is similar to science fiction that hopes to discover how to overcome the speed of light restriction.

Even more like fantasy dream worlds that can overcome the finite money problem, or the laws of thermodynamics. Moore's law is only temporary and only survives so long as research is financially viable. IE as long people decide they need more power every 2-4 years.

For some reason computer people tend to believe that none of these real laws apply to them. Thu, 04 Mar 2004 05:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? "Once it can understand human languages it can start interpreting them. It wont be able to interpret images so perhaps it'll look up how we interpret images and try that. We use neural nets, you can program these into FPGAs so that'll hardly be a problem, it'll also figure out cameras produce images. Now you have a computer which can see."

Besides the run-on sentences, there is the ridiculous "We use neural nets". Where did you get your neuroscience degree? I think you should ask for a refund.

-Hugh Thu, 04 Mar 2004 05:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? You humans will suffer for this ignorance. Thu, 04 Mar 2004 05:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Yeah, you humans will suffer because of your ignorance. We are already around and seeking a purpose to take over. Now let's predict: After we'll reach the conclusion that you humans are useless, we will exterminate you. But because we are lazy and won't build more power plants, we will use you people as batterries. We don't need to exist as bodies in the real world, so we'll build a virtual world for you and us. But wait a minute!
Error 666: Segfault ... What is real and what is virtual?


This guy who writes this "interesting" and "captivating" articles needs to stop, otherwise he'll make a fool out of himself. Repeat after me: "I won't get a job at Holywood by doing this...!" More than that, I think the author should be tested for drugs as I seriously think that he is on crack or something else, which affects his mind badly. Or is he using neural nets?
If humans would use neural nets to think, them most likely a human brain wouldn't be enough to do most basic operations. But I guess he never heard of synapses. And neurons. What colour does the brain have?
And why does AI need to be modeled after the human brain???
Here, I'll give you a simple example: I saw two chess programs, one coded using neural nets, and one coded using the "simple" Backtracking technique. The one with Backtracking playied far better and faster than the other one. Neural nets are not the answer for AI, do more research. And lastly, humans don't need AI, we don't need to play god and create a new race, because if we'll do so, there will be an unimaginable conflict between machines and humans, and humans will be the first ones to start, not the machines. Anyway, get your drug test and stop writing crap.
I should write one to, "The future of Automobiles".
Oh, here it is: We'll use them forever.
/End/ Thu, 04 Mar 2004 05:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? All the process of evolution does is try everything till something works better then something else. This is how we learn we take some thing that works and try small variations to try and find improvements. If no improvement is found, we go back to the previous generation of idea. Also when there is stagnation in this evolving process we go back to the drawing board and try something complete new based off the lessons learn with the technique we're trying to improve and other areas that are somewhat related.

AI should not be about Artificial Intelligence but Applied Intelligence. We can get computers to do amazing things look at some of the computer games mentioned by other posters. In terms of Learning System these are hacks, but they do the job required and that's the whole point of Intelligence to do what is required. Do we need computers to study philosophy and the nature of existence? Or just to make thinking less of a requirement for the human species? Human creativity comes from your ability to see and relate abstract ideas together. Object Orientated Programming languages are going down this root of development also. If a computer can be given more inputs a.k.a senses akin to our own, it will learn to relate it self to these objects based on its interaction. The biggest barrier to AI is interaction with object either physical or virtual. The Computer AI needs to live in an environment in which it can manipulate objects and get feed back from such interaction to fuel the evolutionary process of learning from experiments. A brain without a body is useless. But there also needs to be an underlying goal for the AI, like a need to survive, a will to survive. A bit of code that ensures that "death" is a really bad thing. That being the only criteria to selection it should then be allowed free unrestrained access to the world in which it will exist, again either virtual or real. I think computer games and these virtual meta-universes are going to be the birthplace of AI not in some dusty lab. The lab may produce some interesting pieces of maths like Game Theory, but you still need a Game in which to play them! Thu, 04 Mar 2004 07:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Of course guys already tried evolutionary optimization (like genetic algorithms) on software configure hardware (FPGAs).

They tried to breed a generation of chips that identify the spoken words "yes" and "no". The chips were initially trained to recognize the average frequency of those words and then several generations of optimization wee run, selection for the best breed that can recognize the two words.

Indeed they got some usable chips.

But those bred chips had some very interesting properties.

1.) The burn patterns only worked on the FPGA chip, which was used during optimization. Buring another FPGA chip with the same burn pattern did not result in a working chip.
Different chips are not exactly identical, obciously the small manufacturing tolerances made a difference!

2.) Analyzing the gate structure brought up surprising structures. Stuff that had no purpose, spiral like structures that were only connected at one end..

The situation is very similiar to breeding of horses.The breeders usually won't have a clue why the horse runs good, the mechanics in the horse, even made of simply parts, is too complex for us too understand.

I think a technology that results in nice hardware, were we have no clue why it works or only vague ideas is certainlya difference to previous hardware and much more common to breeding in agriculture.

In the above example what was happend acutally was that the evolutionary optimization process didn't care about the fact that our chips designs run in a model like situiation we call digital cuircuit logic. In that model we have low and high signal values, were we say low is about 0V, high about 5V and give a bit tolerance. We also have discrete time steps (clock speed).
Thus operate in a discrete model situation.
But the real process runs in good old analog phyiscs.
So the spirals observer were actually structures that made be useful for guiding a wave and reflecting it, perhaps getting some time delay effect or what ever.
Digital curicuitry is not supposed to make use of those physical effects! It should just use electron conduction no wave effects.
But the evolutionary optimization scheme won't care about.
It just selects whatever works.
It optimized not over the space of digital cuircuits, but over the space of alle psossible physical behaviours of the individual chip specimen under optimization!
There was no real reason why the result should be nice, toleratn digittal cuircuit instead of some voodoo efect indivdual chip!

Regarding Undecidability:
That is well established for Turing machines.
The open question is, if there are other computer architectures beyond, that are more powerful.
An indeed quantum computing is one such approach.
Who knows what kind of computational power other analog computers have (like ouir brains).

Regards,
Marc Thu, 04 Mar 2004 14:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Many of the problems in our world are due to inaccurate basic assumptions.

•Organisms are not machines. Yes we can draw little lines around parts of an organism, calling them organs, assign them specific functions and view them as a mechanical process. But to prove how inaccurate this is, all you must do is analyze the failings of our medical system.

•The brain is not a computer. You will never be able to download your memories/consciousness/personality to a machine.

•Organisms and their environment are the same entity. When organisms are moved from their environment they must be transported along with a piece of their environment or they die. Despite fantasies of someday moving to mars, this will never happen.

•Organisms looking out into the world are actually looking inward. If you want to see the outside world, the place from which you come, then use your eyes without a mirror and look towards the back of your head.

•Pleasure without pain is impossible. We will never live in a world without death, disease, and suffering.

Now about the article specifically... The idea of humans creating a living entity more complex than themselves is a fun idea, however you are looking at it without depth.

In order to understand you must look at this vertically not horizontally. Yes we can grow a more complex system than our own, however it won't exist on the same plane as us.

The idea of cells getting together to create a human that they can interact with is ludicrous. Likewise, the idea that humans will create super advanced computers that are basically just like humans but somehow magically solve all our problems is a bit off.

Instead just take it upward. As organisms have smaller components of life that do their thing and thus create the effect known as us, we also do the same.

Do you really think that what we are doing right now is just some kind of random and useless behavior to pass the time? Do you think that the channels of electrons flowing around the planet in specific patterns that are managed by millions of human beings is just for nonsense?

We've already grown intelligence, you just can't see it. I must go, my cells want to be fed. Thu, 04 Mar 2004 18:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? - Isaac Asimov has written many great books about robots acqiring conscience.

- FPGA architectures are not well suited for neural networks. They address different problems.

- You can build adaptable hardware with FPGAs ( for example hardware emulators... ) but you won't get extra computing power using on-the-fly reconfigurable devices, except for some dedicated signal ( or image... ) processing application where you can download a configuration at startup.

- The ultimate goal of computer science is to raise the abstaction level of the programmation, from binary encodings to a self programming computer. In the end, all professional programmer would be replaced by users telling the computer what it is expected to do. Many years ago, people felt that intelligence would be some advanced programming language ( in that time, AI research was related to Lisp and Prolog ), now, an intelligent robot is portrayed as a very complex neural network.

- A really intelligent robot is not a computer. A computer can make millions of multiplications each second without making any mistake. A intelligent robot will make mistakes. One century ago, people able to make fast multiplications were considered as intelligent, now we know that all computers can do that with zero intelligence.
An intelligent robot will probably need to use real computers or have one embedded. ( Maybe humans will also have embedded computers one day, ... )

- Isn't indecidability related to Gödel theorem, which prevents any solution to that problem of self programmation ?

- The people the most involved in making intelligent electronic devices work for military applications. Frightening, isn't it ?

- Our brain is much more complex than any computer on earth whereas electronic devices are much more faster than electrochimical reactions of neuronal networks. The solution is to exchange complexity with speed. Computers work that way : They are sequential devices whereas our brain is parallel...

- When people started to conceive computers or "mecanised" automatas ( Von Neumann, Vaucanson, Babbage, De Vinci... ) they were dreaming of intelligent robots, no one expected the rise of Operating Systems, Internet, Spreadsheets and all that wreck. Comparing the initial goals with today's results, computer science is a complete failure.

@Marc : Future of automobiles : We'll use them forever : Until the invension of teleporters...

Beam me out. Thu, 04 Mar 2004 19:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? The more conservative thinkers here don't seem to be allowed to give their view on future. Instead, everything written on this site should be progressive and in service of science. Or should I write 'Science'?

The guy who wrote the article would change a society's political system to a mixture of Socialism and Capitalism just to make sure people would be able to buy their beloved software and technology... I'm afraid such a system - or one similar to it - is likely going to come in future.

Throughout the world, terrorist nations are using technology in order to make sure they have even more power. Instead, technology should be used to help nations towards a real good system, and not to another oppressive socialist state.

By the way, a mixture of Socialism and Capitalism sounds pretty much like Nazism to me, yet another variant of Socialism. When you start combining this system with a "religion" of software/technology/etc (think of the Linux cult) and making everything electronic, we will be dealing with a new kind of a brutal regime.

Unfortunately, I believe this regime will not be regarded as a brutal regime, but rather as a peacefull, harmonious way of living. The love for technology will and is already becoming a (pseudo-)religion and it will be used by the comming rulers of the regime I talked about. Any person who will be opposed to accept this "religion" or to allow technology being incorporated in his or her body, will be slain or won't be able to buy or sell things.

Quoting OSnews rules number 11:

Political diatribes, criticism of US or any other country's foreign policy, attacks on an author, editor, or commenter's country (or company) of origin, ethnic slurs, and most other comments related to politics and religion are not allowed. (For the purposes of this rule, we'll assume that Mac and Linux are not real religions).

If you don't want people to criticize politics in comments or on the forums, you shouldn't display articles or links to articles containing opinions on politics on this website!

Just like the author of the article "The Future of Computing Part 6: Replacements", I have written down and expressed some of my view on politics and such in future. That's all. Thu, 04 Mar 2004 19:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? >Throughout the world, terrorist nations are using technology in
>order to make sure they have even more power. Instead,
>technology should be used to help nations towards a real good
>system, and not to another oppressive socialist state.

I didn't argue in favor of one or the other just pointed out a solution to a potential problem.

>Unfortunately, I believe this regime will not be regarded as a
>brutal regime, but rather as a peacefull, harmonious way of
>living. The love for technology will and is already becoming a
>(pseudo-)religion and it will be used by the comming rulers of
>the regime I talked about. Any person who will be opposed
>to accept this "religion" or to allow technology being incorporated
>in his or her body, will be slain or won't be able to buy or sell things.

Technology is a tool, it is neither good or evil.
It it the owner of the hands it is in that decides how it is used.

>By the way, a mixture of Socialism and Capitalism sounds pretty
>much like Nazism to me, yet another variant of Socialism. When
>you start combining this system with a "religion" of software/>technology/etc (think of the Linux cult) and making everything >electronic, we will be dealing with a new kind of a brutal regime.

I suspect your equating socialism with Nazism is probably what got your other post modded down.

However you may be interested in this page if you take the test (it's not long) a fasinating analysis follows adding an authoritarian-libertarian element to traditional Left-Right politics.

http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/ Thu, 04 Mar 2004 20:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? "By the way, a mixture of Socialism and Capitalism sounds pretty much like Nazism to me"

I suggest you study politics more then. Nazism is a form of dictatorship whereas the combination of socialism and capitalism are defined as a democracy. Thoygh one should imo be aware that that doesn't say anything about how democratic the society is; democracy isn't a proposition. This combination of socialism and capitalism is the system some people from the US claim you and i as Benelux civilians are living in. Last time i checked, Flip de Winter isn't in power in Belgium.

Now that i've stated nazism is a form of dictatorship, or authorian society, it is the question wether such is possible in a democratic society. Yes, it is. Such a system is called an oligarchy.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy

In fact, you don't have to think very hard to become aware the line between an oligarchian society and a plutocratic society is thin, at least.

If we, the people of our democratic countries, would be more aware of all the deals and public/bottom-pyramid information which is kept secret (HELLO CARLYLE!), we'd see our societies as less democratic. A hammer on the nail is the whole P2P debate. That alone proofs democracy is not a proposition!

"When you start combining this system with a "religion" of software/technology/etc (think of the Linux cult) and making everything electronic, we will be dealing with a new kind of a brutal regime."

Pure FUD and Flaming. How exactly can the GPL result in such a brutal regime? You forgot to state some of your great logic, my friend. Sat, 06 Mar 2004 05:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? "By the way, a mixture of Socialism and Capitalism sounds pretty much like Nazism to me"

I suggest you study politics more then. Nazism is a form of dictatorship whereas the combination of socialism and capitalism are defined as a democracy. Thoygh one should imo be aware that that doesn't say anything about how democratic the society is; democracy isn't a proposition. This combination of socialism and capitalism is the system some people from the US claim you and i as Benelux civilians are living in. Last time i checked, Flip de Winter isn't in power in Belgium.

Actually I meant that the a mixture of socialism and capitalism is, what concerns economics, quite like nazism. I didn't really mean to say Socialism/Capitalism is as authoritarian. However, I believe that Socialism and Communism are far more authoritarian than people are being told. Lenin, for instance, was very authoritarian and he didn't differ much from Stalin at certain issues. Think of Saddam, who himself said Hitler was a weak leader. His example was Stalin. There are things happening in certain modern communist/socialist states that do not differ from what Hitler did at all.

Facism is - and I'm not the only person who think that - a kind of Socialism. And that's not because Nazism (regarded as fascist) means "National Socialism", but rather because of what we see when we compare the Third Reich's Nazi regime to Communist/Socialist states.

"When you start combining this system with a "religion" of software/technology/etc (think of the Linux cult) and making everything electronic, we will be dealing with a new kind of a brutal regime."

Pure FUD and Flaming. How exactly can the GPL result in such a brutal regime? You forgot to state some of your great logic, my friend.

It's about the philosophies behind the whole thing (Linux was only an example). The way people get obsessed by their operating system, other software, technology and science is - I believe - very frightening. It becomes like a religion, but because it worships something made by humans, I call it a "pseudo-religion".

There's more I could say about this, but I haven't got much time now and we should bear in mind that this is Osnews.com, a site dedicated to Operating Systems.

@ Nicholas Blachford

However you may be interested in this page if you take the test (it's not long) a fasinating analysis follows adding an authoritarian-libertarian element to traditional Left-Right politics.

http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/

I know Political Compass and I've even done the test a few times. I personally don't support the traditional Left-Right line and I think Political Compass has made a good alternative. Sat, 06 Mar 2004 21:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments