Bill Joy’s warnings appear to be taking root. At the recent International Forum on Globalization’s Teach-In on Technology and Globalization in New York City, 1400 self-declared luddites gathered to form plans to combat developments in genetic engineeering, nanotechnology and computers.

One speaker, Chet Bowers, an adjunct professor in the Environmental Studies Department at the University of Oregon, decried Hans Moravec’s vision of the future in which people could download their consciousnesses into computers.