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Dev.SN ♥ developers

posted by LaminatorX on Thursday February 20 2014, @04:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the I'm-so-meta-even-this-acronym dept.

jcd writes:

"I'm rather excited to get going with Soylent and to watch it grow. Nay, help it grow. I have lurked in /. for more than a decade (note: I'm not the same username over there, I know, how sneaky), and always wished I could have been involved with the beginning. So this is a great opportunity, and I joined as soon as I saw what Soylent was doing. Not to mention the fact that I felt right at home with the old style. It's very comfortable.

So here's a question for everyone. Are we going to be the same as slashdot? A clone that focuses as entirely as possible on tech related news? Or will we branch out to other topics? I'm interested to see either way. I posted a comment to this effect in one of our two existing polls, and it may be a community-wide assumption, but I do think it merits a discussion."

 
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  • (Score: 1) by TheLink on Friday February 21 2014, @03:35AM

    by TheLink (332) on Friday February 21 2014, @03:35AM (#4151)
    Yeah. Same goes for the other sciences. A lot of people seem to be doing things just because:
    1) It can be done
    2) They need to publish
    3) They need $$$

    Few seem to consider whether they really should do a particular thing from a longer term point of view.

    For instance - human-animal hybrids or "Really Strong AIs". Is society even ready to decide which hybrids get the same rights and responsibilities as a human? What percent and how do you determine the percentage? It's all very easy to yell "luddite" but many of us have played those "Civ" style games - we have limited resources and time, there are plenty of other "tech trees" (and arguably more helpful tech trees) we could do first till society gets more ready or it becomes irrelevant (we "Ascend" or go extinct due to some other thing).

    One day some bright spark may produce the "Cheap Big Red Button That Does Great Stuff But Kills Almost Everyone If You Press It Wrong" and society might not have reached the point where nobody will ever press it wrong. With Great Power comes Great Responsibility and all that, but giving everyone great power before they can use it responsibly is a recipe for disaster. No such thing? The research into creating dangerous viruses is one.

    Some say "If I don't do it, someone else will", to that I say "if you don't do it now, at least it buys us a bit more time till someone else does", and history has examples where it can sometimes take a few decades before someone else does it and even more till it gets widespread.