More blasts from the past, this time from various interviews over the years.
Rand Simberg on why 2001 wasn’t like 2001:
It was based on a lot of false assumptions, foremost being that the government was going to make it happen. We believed the rhetoric about “not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard,” and the new frontier, and thought that the government actually cared about this stuff. But even the myth that a visionary president can lead us to the stars, exemplified by the Kennedy worshipers, has been shown to be false — he never gave a damn about space.
The irony is that if we hadn’t been derailed by Apollo, which had much more to do with waging the Cold War on a peaceful front, and industrializing the south, than space, we’d probably be a lot closer to the vision of 2001 today. The Air Force was flying into space with the X-15, and it’s possible that we would have continued along that path, a much more natural one, and that might have spun off into the private sector. But instead, in our hurry to get to the moon, we chose the most expensive way to do it, and established it as the fundamental paradigm for spaceflight that haunts us to this day.
Michael Anissimov on what a person ought to be doing if he or she plans to live forever:
First, read up on issues relevant to the future of humanity. Most of these issues are technological rather than political. Nanotechnology, biotechnology, and Artificial Intelligence. If any one of these technologies were to go wrong, it wouldn’t matter how far along we were in traditional anti-aging research – all of humanity could be wiped out anyway. Second, get involved in the organizations promoting life extension and related futurist issues. For example, there is the Foresight Institute, and the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. One of the biggest flaws in the common conception of the future is that the future is something that happens to us, not something we create. Laypeople of all sorts can have a positive impact on the course of the future by cooperating with like-minded individuals. Third, be ethical and moral. Immortalism is a subset of transhumanism, or the philosophy that humanity deserves the right to improve itself technologically and transhumanism originally derives from humanism. All human beings are equally valuable and special. The right to die is just as important as the right to live. Immortalism should be about expanding choices, not forcing a philosophical view onto others. Fourth, if you’re over 50, you might want to look into getting a cryonics contract. Lastly, eat right and exercise! If you’re someone who respects life in general, you should be concerned with the health of your own body.
Adrian Bowyer on what rapid replication means for the future of manufacturing:
A manufacturing machine that can copy itself can create goods like no other technology we have – it is the only way to do so with exponential growth, for example. But by that very fact, both the machine and those goods have a value that, as the technology spreads, asymptotically approaches the value of the raw materials used. If you like to put it this way, the technology kills the idea of added value in material goods. Information is another matter.
Aubrey de Grey on the real reason he wants to eliminate aging:
Well, first of all I have a lot of catching up to do — all the films I haven’t seen, books I haven’t read, etc.— while I’ve been spending every spare minute in the fight against aging. But in addition, there are masses of things that I enjoy doing and will always enjoy — spending time with my wife and friends, taking a punt out on the river Cam, playing a game of Othello, etc.— and I reckon I’ll just carry on doing those things forever.
At root, the reason I’m not in favor of aging is because I like life as I know it.
And finally, Ramona, taking a stab at dream interpretation:
Well, according to my amateur Freudian interpretation, I’d have to say that you’re not getting out enough.
Other favorite interviews would have to include the podcasts with Christine Peterson and James C. Bennett.