In article <Pine.SOL.3.91.950214212319.18448A-100000 at corona>,
Patrick O'Neil <patrick at corona> wrote:
>>>On Tue, 14 Feb 1995, Peter Merel wrote:
>>> If you gentlemen would like to read Eric Drexler's books, "Engines of
>> Creation" and "Unbounding the Future" then you might start to bring
>> your speculations into the nineties. Drexler's no snake-oil merchant;
>> he's a professor at MIT and the instigator and leading light of the
>> Nanotechnology movement.
>>>> Drexler's ideas suggest a future of boundless wealth, opportunity and
>> adventure, not for a few billion, but for trillions. Drexler's science
>>I know of his fantasies....
Translation: 'I don't want what he wants.'
>In any case, forget about futurist babble. In the 20s and 30s, it was
>predicted, quite seriously, that by the 70s EVERYBODY would have their own
>airplane or some version of an aircar. Futurists are notorious for being
>bad shots. OK, give us the nanomachines, with limits, but keep your
>trillions in Drexler's own fevered imagination. Note: being the spawn of
>MIT doesn't prevent one from being a fool nor a fruitcake....
Yeah, and in 1971 when I wanted to take 'Introductory Computer Science'
CS 104, my college advisor told me to forget it, I was an accounting
major and I'd never touch a computer in my entire life.
What kind of technical people are US universities turning out today
anyway?
--
rha
