Jaron comes across as afraid of the future. His thesis seems to be that there are many possible horrible futures, and he imagines them to be more likely than "good" outcomes. And it doesn't read like he has any tools to reason about either one or the other. Hence the fear.
Bill Joy went through a similar phase with his infamous grey goo manifesto. I think he has come back somewhat from the brink on that.
I can appreciate the fear aspect of it. Greg Benford's TimeScape [1] scared the crap out me.
coherent, but not sensible. seemed like not much more than far-fetched idealism.
i simply cannot envision a kind of society where information would not be free and in a "protected" or isolated sort of state as he wishes. i have not dug into his philosophy deeply, however, i cannot comprehend how you would prevent information "looting".
I came to the comments to check just that right after reading "ideas that are making us collectively poorer instead of richer, or at least less richer than we could be". There's something seriously wrong with considering these two concepts as being semantically equivalent.
