Reed, thanks for the nutshell version of "Why Things Bite Back:
Technology and the Revenge of Unintended
Consequences" by Edward Tenner.
You mentioned you thought unnecessary surjury should be outlawed. If
David Brin is right, we're going to be seeing alot more of that kind of
surjury. Brin thinks education will be cheap and highly effective in the
matured digital age, and as a result, professions which used to be
considered very highly trained, will be far more commonplace. In Brin's
near future, you won't have to have Michael Jackson's bank account to
"pull a Mickael Jackson" causmetically. Causmetic surgury will most
likely become increasingly routine in many peoples lives.
If the concerns you have relayed to us are well-founded, this could be
trouble. Me; I'm a tecno-utopian. The wave is running higher and faster
everyday. I think nanotech will change the would so fast that we can't
possibly predict what things will be like in twenty years. Still, it's
important to think about such things and extrapolate on current trends.
When nanotechnology and artificial inteligence do arrive on the scene, we
may be easily able to sove a persistent problem which we'd been thinking
about when we might have had far more trouble with a problem about which
we hadn't been thinking.
Wow, this thread has strayed from sexuality and monogamy, hasn't it?
Take care, all. -KMO