Heaven or Hell? It's Your Choice

July 7, 2003 2:54 PM

Heaven or Hell? It's Your Choice
A new shareware E-Book is out, penned by the likes of Captain Crunch and Matthew Smith, that makes the claims:

Don't bother planning your pension, the world is about to change and we can prove it, please just take 2 minutes out of your life to read this page, it may change your life. Artificial intelligence is coming and it may become smarter than any of us. Smart networks using grid technologies could become a threat to us ALL, this is the real Matrix. From Dot.Net to the X-Box, from M-Theory to the Playstation 3 the future is V.R. / A.I. and Nanotech. If you ever wanted to know what the system is and what it has done to you, then this ebook is for you. You left school, you were standardised, you took an exam, you were graded, they made you believe in money, this is the last great social control mechanism. There's more to this, than you can imagine.

...and there you have it. Or do you?
posted by metameme (24 comments total)

yow, scary .exe file

oh well, already installed. hopefully no back orifice like programs installed with that...
posted by badzen at 3:01 PM on July 7, 2003

Freakshows say freakshow things.
posted by xmutex at 3:02 PM on July 7, 2003

fortunately, blogs will save us all.
posted by quonsar at 3:17 PM on July 7, 2003

Smart networks using grid technologies

Grid Technology, huh? Who knew graphing paper could be so menacing?
posted by Nauip at 3:21 PM on July 7, 2003

As I recall, Cap'n Crunch did hold his own against the Crunchberry Beast. Color me convinced.
posted by sharksandwich at 3:27 PM on July 7, 2003

If anyone's silly enough to install that .EXE file, let us know how it goes. If it installs anything other than a .LIT file, also let us know.
posted by FormlessOne at 3:33 PM on July 7, 2003

hmm i'm rather skeptical about this. sounds like a lot of gobbledegook to me.
posted by mokey at 3:34 PM on July 7, 2003

i like how all the text is white on white so i can't read anything.
posted by folktrash at 3:34 PM on July 7, 2003

I read this eBook and have decided to give it all up and to work on a farm.

/a human farm!
posted by hellinskira at 3:50 PM on July 7, 2003

Please download and install this .exe file so that we can show you how a virus-like distributed AI will take over the world!
posted by jeffj at 3:56 PM on July 7, 2003

"Some Limits to Global Ecophagy by Biovorous Nanoreplicators, with Public Policy Recommendations" by Robert A. Freitas, Jr.

In a recent interview Stephen Hawking... said "I believe humans must retain their intelligence lead over A.I. even if it means modifying the human race through genetic engineering or turning humans into cyborgs".

Why should I care what a cosmologist has to say about AI or genetics?
posted by eddydamascene at 4:08 PM on July 7, 2003

African shepherd opinion about the latest IBM modem:
"It is a very good modem, I used it to crack some nuts and nothing happened to it."

[/old joke]
posted by MzB at 4:34 PM on July 7, 2003

Aw, c'mon - we always listen to people with degrees! Who cares if they're not in the field to which the comments refer? Dr. Laura, Dr. Phil, etc., have made a great career out of it - at least Dr. Hawking seems a wee bit less clueless.

Hell, Dr. Dre could probably get a psychobabble radio talk show at this point.
posted by FormlessOne at 4:50 PM on July 7, 2003

Given the choice between an hour of Dr Phil delivering aw-shucks hokum, an hour of Dr Laura offering better-than-you drivel or Dr Dre dropping some mad tracks on up in this mutha...

I'm picking Dre anyday.
posted by grabbingsand at 5:01 PM on July 7, 2003

From the Honda humanoid robot project to Terminator, its just a question of time. So how long do you think it will take?

No comment.
posted by eddydamascene at 5:36 PM on July 7, 2003

Ahem.
posted by wobh at 5:49 PM on July 7, 2003

> Hell, Dr. Dre could probably get a psychobabble radio talk
> show at this point.

*coffee through nose*
posted by jfuller at 6:00 PM on July 7, 2003

This link to the local hard drive on the site does not help....

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/cvdfg/Desktop/THE%20BOOK%20AND%20SITE/html/heaven-or-hell-its-your-choice.com/download-page.htm
posted by RubberHen at 8:32 PM on July 7, 2003

wobh posted the real link Two or three comments up). The main link is derivative chatter.

Vinge said it all.
posted by troutfishing at 8:49 PM on July 7, 2003

ah, seems ok at this point (after installing)

though god knows what the hell i was thinking clicking that sucker. that's what i get for not sleeping last night, i guess
posted by badzen at 8:57 PM on July 7, 2003

Yet another reason I thank God I'm running Macs. I cannot possibly install this text. From the teasers from Crunch and companion, it just looks... well... too crunchy.
posted by boswell at 1:37 AM on July 8, 2003

Hmmm. Well, I could always download it at the local college library when no one's looking....
posted by alumshubby at 3:56 AM on July 8, 2003

From the Honda humanoid robot project to Terminator, its just a question of time. So how long do you think it will take?

Ten years. AI is ten years away. For half a century now, AI has been ten years away, so it must still be ten years.
posted by anewc2 at 9:21 AM on July 8, 2003

We are no closer to AI then in the 1950s .. computers do the same thing just more and faster. Computers are not "aware" or intelligent.
posted by stbalbach at 3:17 PM on July 9, 2003