03-11-2017, 11:51 AM
I would like to think that any human using more than 10% of their brain would realize that, brain tissue being there is evolutionary advantage to be had in using every bit of tissue you've got, or otherwise having less. This was my first thought when I was ~5 years old and someone told me we only use 10% of our brain. "Well, why then do we have so much?" I am utterly sure that any number of young bright people thought the same thing.
It was later that I learned how much energy the maintenance and operation of a brain requires relative to other tissues. I may have been eight or nine at the time, and at that point I was dead _certain_ that the 10% thing was wrong. It was too expensive to waste so much resources on the 'useless' 90%. When finally it was acknowledged publically to be wrong, I was 30 years old or thereabouts, and simply rolled my eyes.
But the world is filled with credulous morons, and there were people who were actually surprised. And there are still people who simply prefer to go on believing the lie.
As regards our Po, if an entity with access to active nanotech, the ability to design it, and two years to prepare wants to survive, then with or without the exercise of social intelligence, survival is EASY. An oak tree somewhere in the Pyrenees has computronium instead of deadwood in its core, or more likely a few hundred trees scattered around the world, and our Po has hundreds or thousands of years to work with before humanity even knows it's there. It can make birds and foxes indistinguishable from the natural forms that serve as its eyes and ears, and it can release nanites directly into the air from its leaves if it wants to take other actions.
So. Shut down the Internet, a couple billion die, our technology crashes, and the planet gets a chance to heal? It might be no more than the bitter medicine that the Po finally decided was necessary to implement a lasting cure for all our ills.
But it is certain in my mind that either Will is still alive, or Will decided to die.
It was later that I learned how much energy the maintenance and operation of a brain requires relative to other tissues. I may have been eight or nine at the time, and at that point I was dead _certain_ that the 10% thing was wrong. It was too expensive to waste so much resources on the 'useless' 90%. When finally it was acknowledged publically to be wrong, I was 30 years old or thereabouts, and simply rolled my eyes.
But the world is filled with credulous morons, and there were people who were actually surprised. And there are still people who simply prefer to go on believing the lie.
As regards our Po, if an entity with access to active nanotech, the ability to design it, and two years to prepare wants to survive, then with or without the exercise of social intelligence, survival is EASY. An oak tree somewhere in the Pyrenees has computronium instead of deadwood in its core, or more likely a few hundred trees scattered around the world, and our Po has hundreds or thousands of years to work with before humanity even knows it's there. It can make birds and foxes indistinguishable from the natural forms that serve as its eyes and ears, and it can release nanites directly into the air from its leaves if it wants to take other actions.
So. Shut down the Internet, a couple billion die, our technology crashes, and the planet gets a chance to heal? It might be no more than the bitter medicine that the Po finally decided was necessary to implement a lasting cure for all our ills.
But it is certain in my mind that either Will is still alive, or Will decided to die.