The Observer is running an article today, based on an interview with British Telecom’s Ian Pearson, head of their futurology unit, suggesting that by the middle of this century, the rich will be able to download their brains into super-computers to ensure their immortality (If you don’t have enough cash, wait another 25 – 30 years until it has become mainstream technology and everyone is doing it). You may also be able to hold a breakfast conversation with your yoghurt before you eat it:
‘If you draw the timelines, realistically by 2050 we would expect to be able to download your mind into a machine, so when you die it’s not a major career problem,’ Pearson told The Observer. ‘If you’re rich enough then by 2050 it’s feasible. If you’re poor you’ll probably have to wait until 2075 or 2080 when it’s routine. We are very serious about it. That’s how fast this technology is moving: 45 years is a hell of a long time in IT.’...The Independent reports that genetically modified corn has now been shown to cause abnormalities in the blood and kidneys of rats, and by implication, that it could cause health problems for humans:
...’We can already use DNA, for example, to make electronic circuits so it’s possible to think of a smart yoghurt some time after 2020 or 2025, where the yoghurt has got a whole stack of electronics in every single bacterium. You could have a conversation with your strawberry yogurt before you eat it.’
Environmentalists will see the findings as vindication of British research seven years ago, which suggested that rats that ate GM potatoes suffered damage to their health. That research, which was roundly denounced by ministers and the British scientific establishment, was halted and Dr Arpad Pusztai, the scientist behind the controversial findings, was forced into retirement amid a huge row over the claim.The report comes from Monsanto, one of the major producers of GM products, so it is likely to be correct.
Since so far, noone has even succeeded in uninventing something after it has been thought of, I think we can safely assume that GM crops are here to stay. So we might well need to download our brains, if our kidneys stop working due to eating too many GM crops.
