Totally OT, but frustrated.....

[Bill Girnius]

It's not entirely out of the question, after all, how many of you have the 
knowledge of metalurgy to make any metal tool from say... the Bronze age, or 
Iron, or make gun powder, sure you know what's in it, but can you obtain the 
raw materials, and build the contraption that they used to make it?

My point is, the more complicated any system gets, the root origins of it's 
discovery become lost relying upon others to specialize and obtain it for 
you.

We are a special case, we have seen it's origins and were present for the 
begining of the Bronze age equivilant of computers, the next generation 
won't even know what assembly is, they've been taught it's all binary. 
That's how they would start if all came to an end and then machine language 
would have to be reborn again, and would be, but at the cost of 
"re-inventing the wheel"


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Foust" <jfoust at threedee.com>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2005 8:10 AM
Subject: Re: Totally OT, but frustrated.....


> At 12:38 AM 3/26/2005, Eric Smith wrote:
>>I'm not sure I buy that either.  Hundreds of years from now (or after
>>the singularity), when most machines are designed by other machines with
>>no human intervention other than stating the requirements, will there be
>>anyone who understands the lowest level of how they work?
>
> Sure.  Sellam's and Tony's heads will be preserved in jars
> and still talking.  I saw it on TV in a show about the future.
>
> - John
>