On 16 December 2013 21:52, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > > On 15 Dec 2013, at 21:43, LizR wrote: > > On 16 December 2013 06:46, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > >> >> Perhaps "politician" should not be a profession. We would vote for >> programs and ideas, and let them implemented by a random sample of the >> population through some social services, or by well sworn robots or the >> net. We must find ways of keeping well the separation of the powers. >> > > That sounds like an excellent idea - though who will administer it? We > really need open source AIs in charge! > > > Good idea, but even this will concentrate some power in the hand of a > category of people (like "Linux nerds"). Nothing is simple. > > Then again, have your read Ira Levin's "This Perfect Day" ? > > It seems I remember having read a long time ago some books by Ira Levin, > but I don't really remember. You can sum up the punch line, if you have the > time. > > The world is run by a computer system (called "Uni" (!)) which has scanners and terminals everywhere, and which monitors everyone's behaviour and administers drugs to keep them happy and "team players". But as you might expect, the world isn't really being controlled by Uni, there is a group of people behind it - the "programmers", or (I guess) the descendants of the original programmers. So basically it's what you were saying above :)
(Ira Levin also wrote "Rosemary's baby", "The Stepford Wives" and "The boys from Brazil". "This Perfect Day" is, I think, his only novel *not* to have been made into a film). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
