Sayonara

The point of that movie was that humans had little or no control of their creation, their lack of accountability and foresight being personified in David.

This thread is going a little off-topic.

I wasn't going to say it first. As much as I'm glad justice finally hit an idiot publically, I feel deep sympathy for his parents who will no doubt find dozens of silly ways to blame themselves.

The RAF air base at Flyingdales, Yorkshire, is to receive radar software and hardware upgrades to bring it up to spec with the rest of the "Son of Star Wars" system, it was announced yesterday. The UK has now formally - and controversially - agreed to host the system on behalf of the US as part of a missile detection screen designed to give the USA an early warning of incoming attacks from the East. Read the full article here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2729029.stm That thing is up the road from me

/bangs head on wall That's my own fault for using the word "inevitable" where I should have said "all SkyNet has accomplished is making its own creation occur earlier on in time." I am not saying that travel to the past is pointless because the future is set and destiny inevitable. That's not provable, and anything you claim to know about the dynamics of the future is pure speculation. What can be logically modelled however is that SkyNet was originally designed in a timeline where there was no technology from the future (IE - "before" SkyNet sent the T800 back), and that the intrusion of future technology into the present served only to move the date of construction, and not to allow for the possibility of SkyNet's existence as the script suggests. In case that's too oblique... the upshot of this is "SkyNet is not inevitable, but can affect its own origins in any timeline where it exists".

Brandon Vedas, 21, died online trying to impress his IRC buddies in a 'shroom channel by consuming a cocktail of various drugs that was far beyond lethal doses. Users in the channel egged him on, encouraging him to take different drugs for the webcam, while watching the 'show' on his website. BBC article is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2724819.stm IRC logs from the channel are here: http://pages.sbcglobal.net/oea/logs.html Update (fafalone):And here, the page originally linked to was shut down; I recovered the partial log from google caches, but if anyone has the complete thing that was originally posted, send it to me or post an address.

Hermits live in caves, not ignorant people. Ignorant people are everywhere and look just like me and you. Well, you anyway

"lol you're gay lol lol" Bet your mothers are proud of you two. And you wonder why people chose to live apart from society. :lame:

I haven't had to say that for ages.

Go to Google: International treaties sale nuclear arms vetoed countries non-proliferation treaty

Well as far as gratitude goes, that doesn't apply to me. In fact on behalf of Great Britain I demand you hand back our country immediately. You can have Iraq, since Saddam is going somewhere hotter.

It's in the post Ummm... Pogo, I don't think Clinton had any say in Iraq's trade with non-US countries. I think we (UK) probably sold them weapons too. Mind you, the US assisted Saddam's regime with weapons and funds, then had to give Iran weapons in order to secure the release of American hostages. So there is a balance of sorts there, ho ho ho.

RTFQ.

A shiny new button for the first person who can tell me which Government backed the installation of Saddam's regime?

You should be, right? You'll probaby need them at some point.

Pay attention to your class you naughty slacker. :nono:

You should watch it again Pogo (you have come off my ignore list because you aren't annoying me any more )

Did you two even read what I put in that post? The idea for the chip had to come from somewhere. Even if in the currently existing timeline, SkyNet is developed from the chip and the arm that were present in our time due to SkyNet's interference from the future, all SkyNet has accomplished is making the inevitible occur earlier on in time. The chip still had to be designed in a more fundamental timeline. Therefore destroying the chip and the arm that came from the future, before they are sufficiently studied in the present, would not prevent SkyNet's construction. All it would do is delay it.

Although Pogo is still on my ignore list, I just had to peek at his post. I have to ask... Have you even seen the Matrix? Agent Smith said that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect world for everybody, and that it failed miserably - which it no doubt would. After his disconnection Neo nearly drowned when he landed in the service tunnel, had to have reconstructive surgery on his atrophied muscles, and was nearly blinded by faint light.

It will be interesting to see Zion in the next film, especially with regards to the population it supports. As far as I can see from the trailers and promo material for Reloaded, Zion is basically caves. But the resistance must have technology for producing food, software, maintaining their ships and computers, producing power, defending against (or hiding from) the HKs, etc. I very much doubt Zion could support refugees from the Matrix, even for a short (well, a few hundred years) period while the Earth is terraformed. I'm not even sure the 'Martian model' terraforming idea would work, as there is already a thick and violent atmosphere in place...?

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH.

Other than Morpheus's ethic, I agree. He must realise that he will win and die, or die trying. On a side note I don't think he is the leader of the resistance - he is just a ship captain who happens to believe in The One quite a lot. The reaction of most people would be to fight back, others would not wish to take the risk/face the outside. However Morpheus does make the point that most people in the Matrix will not be ready to be unplugged, that they might fight for their artificial world. This suggests that there is some plan as to how people might be removed from the Matrix, but not that anyone has any clue what to do with everybody afterwards. I'm sure a lot of people would initially want to rebel against the machines, but given some time to adjust to the idea most would probably choose the Matrix freely. It's not like the machines are taking anything away from them - in fact they are giving them 'normal lives'. Okay so they might not have any free will they can exercise in the real world, but what would that free will let them do? As far as they are concerned, in the Matrix they are free to live their lives as they please. It all comes down to the individual view of reality, which is subjective at best. The whole "The One" thing probably started off as an AI calculation as to the probability of minds in the neural network which could manipulate the program. This could have 'bled out' into the network itself, emerging as a kind of prophetic myth.... or some such pseudobabble I know it's just a story, but it's fun to speculate and analyse.

Actually... I'm not sure the enforced loss of freedom would be that much of an issue. Certainly you'd be a bit miffed to find that your existence was a simulation and your body was actually in a tube somewhere powering a machine, but the flipside of this is that had humanity actually won the war, and the AI had not developed the Matrix, we'd have probably died out due to the massive devastation both sides caused to the planet. The machines' way didn't just save them, it saved us too. Perhaps you could conceivably argue that by this token our freedom was theirs to take? Or perhaps not so strongly worded - 'the least we can do in return for them saving the species, is to help continue theirs' would have been better.

Exactly. I'm starting to think Cypher had the right idea. Which is nicer to eat? Simulated steak, or rocks á la dust?

I already posted this here but I wanted to know what you guys thought too. When we left the first film, the majority of the human population is locked into a vast system that keeps their bodies alive and their minds active. As far as the occupants of the Matrix are concerned, they are all leading perfectly normal lives. So are they actually losing anything? The machines are not parasitising the humans, as the inference in the film suggests. The relationship is actually a mutualism, a kind of give-give symbiosis. The fact that this has been enforced for the humans is not relevant as it does not affect the trophisms of the system. Had humanity not started the war, it is entirely conceivable that a similar mutualism might have arisen quite naturally between the AI and the humans - such a system would be ideal for those suffering from crippling disabilities or terminal illness. What's the alternative to being in the Matrix? Well we've seen the Earth. It's a barren wasteland with no sunlight, ion storms in the thick toxic atmosphere, and no visible water, plants or animal life. There is little or no chance that it would sustain a population of millions of humans who just popped up one day looking for food. Therefore anyone trying to get people out of the Matrix is a baddie. Especially Morpheus. "Discuss"