The Shape of Shit to Come

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Steve Lowe. The Shape of Shit to Come

THE SHAPE OF SHIT TO COME. STEVE LOWE AND. ALAN McARTHUR

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1: GENES. The mouse that did not roar, but instead made another surprising animal noise

What can we learn from the really weird animals?

We want to help you overcome your genes

Is all this genetics just eugenics under another name?

Transhuman express

Attack of the cloned neanderthals

CHAPTER 2: ROBOTS. Does not include batteries

The robots are not coming! The robots are not coming! The robots are already here

Robots in the house

You’re so rubbery, you’re so rubbery

War robots: what are they good for?

They’re independent, are you?

Becoming a bit robot

Where will it end? Apart from with the robots tearing us limb from limb, obviously?

CHAPTER 3: ENERGY. Ambassador, you are despoiling us

More energy than you can shake a stick at

Wind farms kill your kids and have it off with your wife

We have ignition! (or at least we expect to have ignition within a few decades, given adequate funding and other certain provisos)

Sometimes the craziest ideas are actually the sanest … (and sometimes they are not)

CHAPTER 4: THE INTERNET. World wide web

More real than real

More internet than you could shake a stick at

When you search the internet, does the internet not also search you?

Oh what a glorious thing to be: a healthy, grown-up, busy, busy bee

CHAPTER 5: NANOTECHNOLOGY. I believe in miracle materials

What is nanotechnology and what the hell does it think it’s doing?

Really, really tiny robots

There’s plenty of room for the bottom up

The goo will out

The endless possbilities are limitless

CHAPTER 6: FOOD. Jelly(fish) and ice cream

The indestructible sandwich (and other stories)

It were all vertical fields round here

To the sea, to the sea

The challenge of meat

Foodageddon

CHAPTER 7: COMPUTERS. My laptop can read the future

The games people play

Strong AI vs weak AI: which is the strongest?

Conscious of consciousness

Forwards to the cosmic infogasm?

We have already made a man

CHAPTER 8: SPACE. Space, the final fronter – for privatisation

Whither the state space programmes

But we went to space last year!

You want the moon on a stick, you do

It’s life, pretty much as we know it

You will fuck space up and you know you will

CONCLUSION

Footnotes

By the same authors

Copyright

About the Publisher

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Table of Contents

Title Page

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I mean, he’s right in a way: who does want idiots, imbeciles, paupers and criminals? Not me. Not after last time. But most would now agree that fascistically stopping people breeding is not really helping anyone and the USA for one has a far more enlightened attitude to imbeciles – sometimes even making them president.

But trying not to slip into being a teeny bit fascist remains a big issue with genetics. Most are pretty careful to avoid muddying the waters, though this cannot really be said for James Watson, the American genetics legend who, with Francis Crick, discovered DNA in a Cambridge pub in 1952 and now runs one of America’s leading scientific research institutions. In 2004, pondering genetic engineering’s potential uses, this figurehead wondered if there was any harm in breeding ‘pretty girls’ (he really likes pretty girls).

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