I think that in the future medical professional will be amazed at the ignorance of their predecessors, not just on dietary issues, but on their willingness to remove perhaps vital organs at the first sign of trouble. When I was a kid, many of my cohorts had their tonsils and adenoids removed (as did my step brother) almost routinely. I feel fortunate that I’m still whole. I think that the medical community has figured out that these are more useful items than they used to believe, but if this theory is correct, they will have to rethink approaches to appendicitis as well, perhaps even coming up with an artificial one (or regrowing with stem cells?).
…and suicide. This isn’t just a problem for the IT industry — we see it in space as well. Of course, as some have theorized, it’s possible that more people are being born this way, since the Silicon Valley culture over the past decades has allowed more of them to socialize together and mate with each other, opportunities that were more rare in a less mobile era that didn’t concentrate geeks to the same degree. We need to help the Asbergers-afflicted more as a society (no, I don’t mean government programs). As the article points out, many believe (including me) that they have advanced us greatly in not just computer technology, but tech in general, but they often pay a price in being social pariahs.
Slightly related: Charles Krauthammer wonders if we’re alone in the universe. I disagree with him, though, that politics is the driver of human history. Technology plays at least as large a role.
Or should that be backtiers? I think I prefer irises or fingerprints, myself. And of course, if you’re a security specialist, there’s always the danger of getting a little behind in your work.
Michael Shermer may be right, but he certainly doesn’t make the case for it. It just looks like an unsupported assertion to me. And he seems to conflate AI with the Singularity.
A guide to setting it up. Patricia has an iPhone, but I got her an Android tablet, for an eReader and other things. She seems to be doing fine with it so far.