I'd love this to be true, but it seems unlikely from the point of view of the Gaia hypothesis. Life tends to transform its surroundings, hence the Earth's oxygen atmosphere that we depend on. This is why James Lovelock predicted, back in the '70s, that the Mars probes would not find life there: if Mars had life, we'd be able to see unambiguous evidence of it from here. The fluctuating methane levels on Mars are intriguing, but given the billions of years that Mars (and Titan) have been around, it seems like any life would have had plenty of time to evolve and make an unmistakable impact.

Did Bush’s Broadband Deregulation Upend His Own NSA Wiretapping? Now that the regulations have changed, the situation is different.

I predict that all of you net neutrality supporters are in for a nasty surprise. Your hatred of Comcast and fear of what it might do has lead to the biggest restrictions on freedom since the Patriot Act, which at least had the excuse of 3,000 dead people.

But what’s the excuse here? Ooh, Comcast might charge Netflix more money? There might be “fast lanes” that cost more? Do you think George Soros spent $196 million on NN because he’s worried about Netflix? Of course not. You don’t need 300+ pages of regulations for just that. This whole thing is a Trojan Horse so that the government can get it’s fingers deeper into the internet. As soon as the regulations are available, search them for terms like “hate speech” and "disparate impact." This will be a mass of restrictions, requirements, taxes, subsidies, and pay-offs to favored groups. I'm sure trial lawyers will be happy, because there will no doubt be lots of new things they can sue about. I’m sure the FCC will administer this with all the fairness that the IRS has brought to regulating political advocacy non-profits.

And now that the regulations have changed, the NSA will have a freer hand with wiretaps.

Get ready for a shitstorm once Silicon Valley finds out what’s really in this.

Nonsense. Look at the history of most monopolies: they got that way due to deals with government bodies that prevented competition. See the Bell System, railroads in the 19th century, municipal cable franchises, etc. There are cases of monopolies achieved through purely technological means: for years Alcoa had a monopoly on the only cost-effective means of producing aluminum, but even then they were kept in check because manufacturers could often substitute other materials.

The creative destruction of capitalism makes it hard for even giant players to stay on top. Remember 15 years ago, when Microsoft was king? For years now, Apple has made more from iPhones alone than Microsoft makes from everything. 50 years ago people worried that GM and US Steel would grow too big.

Finally, regulation has downsides, and is often used by big players to squelch small ones. See regulatory capture.

I always love it when defenders of Cuba portray the US boycott as a negative for Cuba. Have you forgotten that you are the one claiming that capitalism exploits people, and that communism is more efficient and fair? So what if we're not exploiting Cuba with our evil capitalist free trade? That should be a good thing for them, according to leftist economic theory, and allow them to become richer, right? But the fact is, in the 1950s, Cuba had the highest per capita income in Latin America. Now it has the lowest. If you want to blame that on the fact that we aren't practicing capitalism with Cuba, go right ahead!

As for their supposedly wonderful health care and education systems, according to what? Cuban government statistics? LOL.

Don't worry about that. The "unibodies" of MacBooks (both Pro and Air) are CNC machined out of solid billets of aluminum. They are quite robust, despite their thickness.

Where I complain about excessive thinness is in cellphones. I wish Apple would stop making iPhones thinner, and just use any extra space for the battery.

That should be "Avoided Tax." There's a crucial legal difference between evading taxes (which means breaking the law to avoid paying) and avoiding taxes (which means any legal means to avoid paying).

Oh right, I'm "morally bankrupt " because I don't take people seriously when they froth at the mouth and throw terms like "fascist" and "racist" and "sexist" at anyone they disagree with. On the other hand, I'm not an Anonymous Coward making absurd and unsubstantiated charges. Anyone who reads just the linked interviews should be able to see that you don't know what you're talking about. I doubt if anyone who knows R.U. thinks he's any of those things. I don't know what your problem is, but in this discussion you're just a troll. If you don't like transhumanism, fine, lots of people don't. There's even a section of the book called "Criticisms of Transhumanism," which is online here. I doubt you can cite anything in the book that any sane person would call "fascist" or "racist" or "sexist."

AFAIK this is completely untrue. R.U. is an acquaintance of mine, I've read some of his work, and this is simply false. He actually leans to the left. Of course, any editor who covers wide-ranging topics is going to mention and even publish people they don't entirely agree with. That's how magazine publishing and "encyclopedias" work. But you are spewing bullshit when you say he's an "ardent supporter" of any of that. [Citation needed], dude.

Maybe it's just me, but whenever I hear anyone or anything called "fascist," sexist," and "racist" all at once, I think it tells me more about the person using those words than it does about whatever they are talking about.

Wow, that's quite a rant, dude.

OK, I just read the two linked interviews, and I'm just not seeing this. At all. Neither of the authors seem to be cheerleading for evil and dehumanization. They both seem to be fairly positive about transhumanism, but mention flaws and potential downsides. I am acquainted with R.U., and he's not at all a "technocrat," and that comes through in those two interviews.

That doesn't look like it was the point of the book. It looks like an overview of the field, not a how-to guide.

I don't think that's fair. According to Amazon, the book covers 90+ topics in 288 pages. I don't see how they could be in-depth about any of them.

The Cosmism entry is on page 52.

Note that due to patent royalties, Microsoft already makes $5-$15 from every Android device. That adds up to more than they make from Windows Phone.

A MacBook Air would make a great snow shovel. Have you seen the front edge? You could slice cheese with it.