Unfortunately there is a difference between CD-R's and pressed CD's. The best Idea would probably be to keep the data redundant on multiple CD-R's (from different manufacturers) and other media like USB sticks (as some already mentioned). If you can, check for integrity every 5 years or so even if that kind of destroys that "time capsule" -idea.

Try to review what you think you know about "free will" and "punishment", I had some misconceptions about that too. There is no reason to believe that something like "free will" exists - it really is more of a religious thing but somehow many non-religious people cling to it. Of course I have the impression that all of my actions originate in me, but that's how consciousness works. Anyone who believes in free will is implying that his brain doesn't obey causality and that is one claim that can't just stand there, unproven... (And don't start with quantum mechanics at this point if you are not a physicist)
What's important to understand is that something being deterministic doesn't mean it doesn't look random to someone who does not have all the data. So your thoughts will continue to look like free will, even if you know that it doesn't exist. Also something like "so now we have to let all the criminals go because they had no choice?" is a completely false implication. But there's the other misconception: law/justice should have nothing to do with punishment or revenge. It is supposed to be a solution to a problem. If you have a violent criminal then you'll want to put him away so he can't attack normal people. If someone stole something, you'll want to make him give it back and maybe add some incentive to not do it again (what you may call punishment - but it only works on rational-minded people). So what about psychopaths, child abusers and so on? You can 1) put them away (doesn't really solve the problem, just the symptoms), 2) kill them (barbaric, innocent people will die as well, also not really a solution), or when it's available 3) correct what's physically wrong with them.
So if your justice system is based on revenge rather than problem-solving, then I hope these advances will affect it. As for society I guess the effect will be a lot of misunderstandings, fear and knee-jerk reactions. As usual.

I guess so, it does sound less geeky!

no, no... you'll have a genuine advantage, just like with that amazing tool from microsoft

I guess that could happen, but by the time there are (working, independent) androids humans will have altered themselves so much that the differences become harder and harder to see. That president might just be a former biological human who replaced his body (including the brain) with an artificial one.

...this does sound a bit like Futurama, doesn't it?

Absolutely... If you look at the source of these concerns, it usually boils down to fiction. Fiction that was written to be entertaining, and that usually means there has to be some villain that threatens the good guys. Most of these stories carry the same message: "Technology is good to some point (usually the point where we are at the moment), everything beyond that is extremely dangerous and morally wrong. Embrace what you have instead.". Sounds nice, doesn't it? Yet there is absolutely no rational reason for that.

There is so much wrong with AIs as presented in movies and books that I can't even begin to describe it (Actually, I can: 1. If an AI develops emotions, they were probably programmed in, not just magically "there". 2. It's unlikely that the programmer loses control over an AI, or doesn't understand how it works. Even if it is grown by some overly complex evolutionary algorithm, you still know what it can and cannot do - unless it runs windows or something. ...). Mostly it's just uninformed garbage dreamed up by people with a very shallow grasp of science who think their story needs a "realistic" doom scenario and some kind of moral message.

Artificial Intelligence has become a punching bag for bad science fiction authors. You really need to differentiate between what's a real danger and what comes entirely from fiction. And since there has never been a human-level AI, ALL concerns have to do with fiction and most the people who do have the knowledge to make accurate predictions have better things to do.

But maybe this will escalate, with all the Luddites going to anti-AI-conventions, selling robot-repellents and passing stupid laws. At least they'll get their very own "Bullshit!"-Episode.

That's still better than in Germany, where they dub ALL the movies and tv shows. It sounds awful, and many things get lost in translation, including acting, jokes and meaning. The best you can hope for are DVDs where you can switch to original audio and use subtitles if you don't speak the original language.

Games are even worse. When they are dubbed they get even more horrible voice actors. We use a lot of english words for recently developed things, but those tend to get translated as well, making the whole thing look really weird. And like that's not enough, games are considered to be the root of all evil over here and either get censored or banned. So if you want to experience a game like the developers intended (and endanger your fragile little mind), you need to buy it somewhere else, like the UK.

I really envy all countries where there is no dubbing (The polish idea of dubbing is a little different, but it doesn't suck any less). Imagine all B+-list-actors each had like one of three different voices. Just that nobody seems to care, since everybody grew up with it.

The pragmatist just takes probability of success and return on investment into consideration. The purist - I don't know, has OCD or something?

Also, I'm not sure what purists have to do with progress.
You'd need a very broad definition of that word to describe what the Amish are doing, yet I'd consider them purists...

And here's your webcomic reference: PhD Comics

I don't think anti-hate speech laws (or hate crime laws in the USA... a crime is a crime!) are a good thing, but I do understand where they come from. Using your example: Gay people are a minority facing a lot of violence and hate coming from (mostly) religious people for no good reason. And a government needs to protect minorities from harm (In my opinion that's only violence and discrimination, not being offended), so that's probably the best they could think of. In Ireland, it might be a misguided attempt to lower religious violence - although its very non-secular constitution might suggest other reasons.

Semantically that's true, but "The sun is revolving around the earth" or "1+1=3" are beliefs too. Thinking that a statement is true (believing it) does not mean that there isn't strong evidence or proof to the contrary. Especially for homosexuality there are studies that show that it is neither voluntary or changeable (at the moment) and as for the "bad for society/humanity" issue - as long as we use statements we both agree on, we could find a definite answer for that. But I think the burden of proof is on your side. If it wasn't, I could say something like "shoes are responsible for 10% of all deaths" and then go around yelling at all people who wear shoes, urging them to prove me wrong.

So, personally I find the logical errors (and their consequences) made by religious people frightening, annoying, upsetting, infuriating, morally bad and bad for society. But other than "bad for society" that's all just emotional, irrelevant stuff that has nothing to do with law. But I'm inclined to agree with you that blasphemy laws and hate laws are equally unfair, just based on the notions that free speech is desirable and that there will always be some group that will not receive the same protection.

I guess now it's up to the religious leaders to redefine what "blasphemy" means. We'll see what they come up with...

So when a religious person and an atheist meet and say something like "I find your views completely ridiculous" at the same time to each other then the religious person can sue the atheist but not vice versa?
Reminds me of this

Remember how germany outlawed "hacker tools"? I guess these anti-sec-terrorists can relate to that. Thinking that banning something easily available will help anyone but criminals is very similar to thinking that bullying people into shutting up will stop hackers from finding security holes.

Well-meaning but technologically ignorant politicians are one thing (personally I think they are the biggest threat to science and progress), jerks like this are another. I'm sure they are a bunch (if there is more than one) of angry young men who feel like they know exactly what's best for the world and who are almost religiously passionate about imposing their will on others.

I'm sure many of us have felt something similar at some point of our lives, but the origin of that emotion is a need to feel powerful - not solving some problem or anything altruistic at all. If you resort to terrorizing people so they act the way you want them to, then you are nothing but a power-hungry terrorist. No matter how pure you think your reasons are.

1 2 3 4, I declare an edit war! (5 6 7 8, log in while it's not too late!)

wait... damn... I fail at recursion :D

Frequent users of this site usually know more acronyms than proper words. Some posts would simply be too long if you actually wrote things like "do it yourself", "unmanned aerial vehicle", or "GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GNU's GN