X-Message-Number: 9311
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 11:05:58 +0100
From: John de Rivaz <>
Subject: Re: Speedups

I read Mike Perry's bit on speedups with great interest, as this is a lot 
like time control. Most people have seen how "Q" in Star Trek can control 
time and make a lot happen in a short time, creating a sort of tributory to 
the line of time in the main plot.

HG Wells wrote short story called "The New Accelerator" which expressed 
similar ideas, using a drug to make people move and think faster.

The Internet itself gives a bit of time control into interactions, compared 
to a normal conversation. You can compose your reply in your own time, 
taking as long or as short as you like, and when you mail it you add it to 
the main timeline. The problem is that if you spend a hour answering email 
and you answer messages on cryonet, then you may be missing or neglecting to 
answer messages on say sci.life-extension. You could go back to 
sci-life-extension in your internet hour the next day on and answer messages 
there (now a day old) you may miss the current cryonet and so on until you 
gradullay become completly behind everything that is going on.

Now if you could also link your bain directly to the computer, and also make 
you brain run fast, then you can interact with far more mailing lists and 
newsgroups.

This is fine until everyone is doing it. That is probably one of the 
arguments against using dugs in competetive sport - there is no real 
purpose, because if everyone does it then nothing is achieved for the risks 
involved.

No doubt accelerators will emerge, and people will think faster and faster 
as new technology emerges. Ultimately when physical limits are reached, the 
final limit will be clarity of thought. Those entities that have developed 
*ways of thinking* to get to results fastest will rise to the top, just as 
now those people whose brains run fastest on an electrochemical basis are at 
the top of the tree.  

-- 
               *****************************************
Sincerely,     *          Longevity Report             *
               * http://www.longevb.demon.co.uk/lr.htm *
John de Rivaz  *           Fractal Report              *
               * http://www.longevb.demon.co.uk/fr.htm *
               *       Music I like - see homepage     *
               *****************************************
    In the information age, sharing can increase world
    wealth enormously, because giving information does
              not decrease your information.
     http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JohndeR                       
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