From: naddy@mips.inka.de   
      
   On 2016-12-16, David Mitchell  wrote:   
      
   >> Long-lasting tech would probably be a macroscale one. The Long Now   
   foundation's 10,000 year clock is supposed to be huge, for example. It would   
   also be very simple, most likely preventing ancient phelbotinium devices.   
   >>   
   > I take the opposite view, we can't make it yet; but a machine with   
   > active self-repair should be incredibly long-lasting.   
      
   It's pretty pointless to talk about "long-lasting" without agreeing   
   what order of magnitude timeframe we are talking about.  A century?   
   A billion years?   
      
   Yes, self-repair will probably become a prerequisite at some point.   
   That involves some kind of duplication or reproduction, which   
   introduces the problem of mutations.  Now your spaceship has cancer.   
   Or it evolves into something unrecognizable.   
      
      
   ObSF: Niven's bandersnatchi.  Actually, I don't quite remember what   
         that was about, other than that they were purposely engineered   
         to remain unchanged with a VERY mutation-resistant genome,   
         so they're still much the same after two billion years.  Or   
         something like that.   
   --   
   Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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