Website: http://ynotds.com/

I hate that my first comment on P2P is argumentative rather than expansionary, but this extract from Carrico completely misses the dominant precautionary principal of what is nowadays best described as H+.

Ever since and including Drexler’s Engines of Creation which in ways marked the coming out of H+, the emphasis has been that what Kevin Kelly later described as the Technium runs on autopilot without conscious control beyond the component level and that we need to try to anticipate and mitigate the unintended consequences of our collective actions. While Drexler’s “grey goo” remains fanciful, the loose collective behind Melbourne’s Singularity and H+ summits are primarily motivated by real awareness of what “it’s the economy stupid” is working towards in areas like artificial intelligence, and a widespread feeling that humans should be most fearful of letting go of the reins to actors with by some measure superior capabilities. Yes, there is also a contingent that love the world we have found ourselves in so much that we see the lifespan evolution and medical science have given us as seriously inadequate to properly appreciate its beauty, vastness and diversity, hoping that some will eventually be able to operate for lifetimes that will put today’s populist worries into wider context.

Conflict between human and robotic intelligence has become a staple of science fiction, but rarely with any concession that our briefly prevailing white collar triumphalism is anything less that a permanent and desirable state of affairs. My bets are that the long sweep of history will see us as both the most self indulgent bubble to ever overrun the planet and ultimately as transitional to something still largely beyond our imaginations, hence transhuman. Some of the best things we are doing are likely unique on the scale of the galaxy or beyond, so it would also be nice if more than traces survive the bursting of our big bubble of overconsumption. Some of us like to imagine we are pushing in that direction.

The Internet, following the pattern set by television… is rapidly becoming a landscape for lizard-brain marketing of products AND policies.

The potential the Internet offers however is that its a two-way (or multi-way) technology.

However, don’t expect elites to assist that openness… or facilitate it (except to make it as easy as possible to buy products with the unhelpful assistance of an extractive financial services industry).

Yes, there are better ways. But, frankly… as its sadly always been… the Commons lies prostrate and defenseless before more organized forces.