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From: sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Thinking Machines
Message-ID: <1990Dec05.072022.15170@kithrup.COM>
Date: 5 Dec 90 07:20:22 GMT
References: <9^}^-!+@rpi.edu> <1990Nov30.145228.21484@abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov> <574426895DN5.41B@testsys.uucp>
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Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd.
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In article <574426895DN5.41B@testsys.uucp>  writes:
>In article <1990Nov30.145228.21484@abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov> (John Burton) writes: 
>The highly organized and mechanized food industry extends
>our ability to obtain nourishment. Later, people deprived of a
>super-market can no longer feed themselves from the land - they have
>lost the ability to recognize edible plants and trap edible animals.

Bull.  This is like saying that an Australian Aborigine has lost the ability
to recognize edible plants in Siberia.  The supermarket is part of our
environment, and humans are not born with "the ability to recognize edible
plants and trap edible animals":  it's learned.  Said Aborigine would not be
able to survive in certain parts of *our* environment.

Your other points are somewhat well taken, but you need to be careful with
how far you extend your analogies.

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "I made the universe, but please don't blame me for it;
sef@kithrup.COM  |  I had a bellyache at the time."
-----------------+           -- The Turtle (Stephen King, _It_)
Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.


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