true, and there are candidates that aren't even following the same path that we did... my money is on the cephalopods: they seems to be quite intelligent and have a dexterity we could only dream of.

yeah, mankind will never go back, not in this era of civilization anyway.

we have become to trite and petty, we much rather kill each other off or maybe just watch american idle that achieve anything that might be beneficial to mankind as a whole.

hell, we even stopped curing our ailments when we realized that treatments could be more profitable that cures.

but take heart, hopefully we've left enough record that mankind's successors to this planet will have a chance to learn from our failure.

My spleen just doesn't matter
Don't really care about my bladder
But I don't leave home without
My pancreas

lol, no offense taken, I'll be sure to use the sarcasm tags in the future.

yeah apparently Japanese scientists have a different definition of visible than I do. I always had that stupid "if I can see it then it is visible, if I can't see it then it isn't visible".

I bet it is just like with cellular mitosis: audibly noisy when my cells divide, just so quiet that I can't personally hear it.

yes, I did mean for the greater good of the economy. Although I'd say there are precious few cases were a business that uses legal or political means to stay afloat manages to fully recover.

They are far more likely to fall into a regular bailout cycle - see Chrysler for an example.

yeah. The real problem is the assumption that a company should expect to run in perpetuity.

Do your thing. Provide value. When someone better comes along either innovate and compete or say "hey, we had a good run", close up shop, and go try something new.

Both are good solutions.
Soliciting protection from the government, bankruptcy, and fighting to your last breath aren't very productive solutions.

Coincidentally, I recently watched episode of Futurama, "The Devils Hands are Idle Play Things", which does a nice job of distinguishing the difference between coincidence and irony.

Unless you didn't expect that I had seen that episode, in which case it would ironic.

All valid points, but... 2.5% would be a huge hit - you're talking about taking down like 600,000 of America's 25 million businesses. Of course some are more important than others but when we get down to small segments that are higher value, we can get by without those for a day or two while either the computers are repaired or the work is process manually. I'm not saying it wouldn't be a big deal or that it might not be painful. But when we talk about day to day dependencies, then we're talking about survival. I am still unconvinced that I need a computers to survive.

where can I sign up?

I'll believe men have landed on the moon when it's me standing there!

I prefer to think of it as Indulgence. Like buying a pardon from the Catholic Church for your sins against God, Carbon Offsets are forgiveness from the Church of Al Gore for your sins against Gaia.

Not that the money *can't* be used for good, but it is rather hard to trace.

Really? I personally don't. Can you cite examples? Most of the systems that I rely on predate the computer and network infrastructure by decades. I have enough food and water around the house to last a week of normal consumption (i.e. without rationing). I'm pretty sure that I don't need a computer for my toilet to flush (I'll admit I could be wrong about that). Other than that, I rely on roads, but I don't *need* the traffic signals to work. Power is a nice to have, but again not required. what else? TV? slashdot? reddit? the IRS? the military? I'm pretty sure I can manage for quite a while without any of those.

this. I don't fear anyone anywhere in the world. I do, however, fear the government and its agents.

I'm still surprised the were selling that movie on amazon a while back...