X-Message-Number: 28895
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: Re: Postponing the future (Olaf Henney)
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 17:06:00 -0800

In Cryonet #28879, Olaf Henney writes:

>The fact of the matter is, that scientific and technological developments 
>have been overwhelming during the last half century and are still 
>accelerating

Physicist Jonathan Huebner would take issue with that assertion:

Entering a dark age of innovation
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7616

Jonathan Huebner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Huebner

And, as Brian Wowk pointed out somewhere, "Moore's Law" hasn't done anything 
yet for healthcare and longevity. Faster computer chips and denser computer 
memories so far have just made possible more capable but ultimately futile 
potential grave goods. (Maybe an enterprising funeral home will start to 
offer coffins with pockets in the lining for the deceased's cell phone, 
iPod, laptop and other favorite gadgets, if that hasn't happened already.)

>Indeed the wonders of today's modern life are plenty for the man from the 
>mid-20th Century.

These "wonders" may not make it to 2050, much less the 22nd Century. Already 
allegedly future-thinking and "affluent" Japanese --- not the North Koreans, 
as you'd expect  --- have had to relinquish heating their homes and 
businesses in the winter because they can no longer afford the fossil fuels:

The Land of Rising Conservation


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/business/worldbusiness/06japanfuel.html?ref=science&pagewanted=all

Now, I bet you didn't expect to spend your 21st Century winters wearing 
thermal underwear and a sweater in a tiny, chilly room, surrounded by drying 
laundry you had to wash in your own used bathwater, did you? I suspect more 
and more Americans will have to live that way in coming years, only we'll 
call the practice "the Ownership Society" or something similar to mask one 
of the underlying causes, namely, depletion of fossil fuels.

Mark Plus

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