We need to love competence!
Next weekend I will post one of my major Resource Blogs -- a list of online sites that deal with the future. From iO9 and the Long Now all the way to the CIA... places where you can reassure yourself that at least some members of your species have prefrontal lobes and are using those "lamps on the brow" to peer ahead. At least a little. You are invited to suggest your own contributions to the list, below, under comments.
Today, our first item is simple kvelling over what might be a highlight this autumn. The new trailer for "The Martian..." I'm actually starting to believe (more hope) that Hollywood didn't screw this up. Indeed, is there a market for "competence porn"? Or stories that let folks get high off imagining someone doing cool stuff right? Rather than just your standard faire -- revenge epics against absurd villains?
== Existential Risks ==
Next weekend I will post one of my major Resource Blogs -- a list of online sites that deal with the future. From iO9 and the Long Now all the way to the CIA... places where you can reassure yourself that at least some members of your species have prefrontal lobes and are using those "lamps on the brow" to peer ahead. At least a little. You are invited to suggest your own contributions to the list, below, under comments.
Today, our first item is simple kvelling over what might be a highlight this autumn. The new trailer for "The Martian..." I'm actually starting to believe (more hope) that Hollywood didn't screw this up. Indeed, is there a market for "competence porn"? Or stories that let folks get high off imagining someone doing cool stuff right? Rather than just your standard faire -- revenge epics against absurd villains?
== Existential Risks ==
Wow! An Ebola vaccine has shown 100% efficacy in individuals, according to results from an interim analysis. The aim is to “enclose” any new cases by vaccinating those who have contacted a victim plus the rings of contact surrounding them, and so on.
Will machines get too smart? See The Real Reason Elon Musk Is Worried About Killer Robots. An interesting article
laying out the rationale for what the Future of Life Institutes call for a
moratorium on “offensive autonomous weapons beyond
meaningful human control.” Supported by Elon and Stephen Hawking and others,
the summons to serious discussion merits sober and direct consideration. The Future of Life Institute will explore possible failure modes re Artificial Intelligence. (Indeed, I believe I have the cogent and persuasive argument that can get any truly advanced AI system to back off from any simplistic "kill all humans" or turn-everything-into-intelligent goo scenarios.) But again, yay Elon. We need a society that looks ahead.
In fact I have some very unusual takes on AI... for another time.
In fact I have some very unusual takes on AI... for another time.
While we’re discussing existential threats … See an interesting look back at one of the first-ever widely televised debates, and one that transfixed the U.S. with matters of science, as Edward Teller and Linus Pauling confronted each other over war, peace, and atmospheric nuclear testing.
It just goes on and on. The denialist cult covering their eyes and ears as "Science Confirms 2014 Was Hottest Yet Recorded, On Land And Sea." But nothing compared to what's predicted for next year's "Godzilla El Nino." And those who (like Fox and Ted Cruz) use the previous record shattering year - 1998 - as a convenient baseline are cheaters. Yes, you... no, that liar to your left over there. Yes, you know who I mean.
Meanwhile, XPrize maven and friend-of-brin Peter Diamandis awarded a prize money of 2 million dollars from the Ocean Health Xprize to a team from Montana which discovered a way to reliably measure the pH (power of Hydrogen, meaning the measure of acidic or basic level in a substance) of the sea in a cost-efficient manner. Though it is already the most-blatant effect of atmospheric carbon pollution.
Oh, but they shout "squirrel!" pointing elsewhere whenever you mention Ocean Acidification, blatantly caused by human generated CO2. But we had it wrong, boys 'n girls. The war on science was not waged in order to delay serious negotiations over climate change. No. Climate denialism was concocted as an excuse to wage war on science.
== Seeking solutions ==
Three Ways the World's Power Mix is About to Change: I told you so. Over
and over again: “Big changes are afoot for the energy sector in the next 25
years. Coal and gas are headed out and solar and wind are rushing to take their
place on a multi-trillion dollar investment bonanza, according to a new report from
Bloomberg New Energy Finance that scopes out the power generating landscape
through 2040. The main reason for the big shift in power generation is not likely to be because of a grand climate agreement, national polices or carbon pricing scheme,
though. Instead, it comes down to cold, hard cash with renewables offering more
power-generating bang for the buck than fossil fuels," reports this article in Scientific American.
“Solar
power project costs have fallen a whopping 59 percent since
2009 while onshore wind costs have fallen 11.5 percent over that time.”
And curses be upon
those who deliberately (and successfully) delayed this inevitable shift. It
could have been a decade earlier, but for the coal and petro lords using
Goebbels-level propaganda to rile up fools against science and joint action
that might benefit our children. We will
all pay the price. And those of you who
fell for that self-serving propaganda-racket, shame on you. Come back to the light.
Looking ahead... How did the CIA do in its year 2000 forecast for 2015? Pretty good, in fact. By coincidence, I am consulting and writing for Microsoft’s major effort to develop new prediction methodologies.
== An Innovation Deficit? ==
Is a New Industrial Revolution Coming...a so-called "Industrial Internet, Industry 4.0 or the Industrial Internet of Things," driven by rapid advances in remote sensors, robotics, additive manufacturing, big data, smart grids, smart cities, and automated transportation?
Will we continue to see exponential changes in technology? Here's Ray Kurzweil on the "Law of Accelerating Returns," which states that "fundamental measures of information technology follow predictable and exponential trajectories." And the bible of that optimistic clade... Peter Diamandis's Abundance.
But it won't happen by itself. For smooth sailing into the future....we need investment in ambitious technologies. Even as overseas competitors are increasing their investment in basic research, the U.S. federal government research investment is declining — from just under 10 percent in 1968 to less than 4 percent in 2015 — in critical fields such as cybersecurity, infectious disease, plant biology, and Alzheimer’s are threatening an “innovation deficit.”
Let there be no doubt. Those who have done this, as part of their War on Science, are bona fide traitors and enemies of America and of the Great Experiment. There is no way that anyone can even call that an exaggeration.
A key element is our speed of communication. See this global compilation of broadband download speeds worldwide -- where the U.S. ranks below Iceland, Latvia, Denmark, Bulgaria and Belgium.
Looking ahead... How did the CIA do in its year 2000 forecast for 2015? Pretty good, in fact. By coincidence, I am consulting and writing for Microsoft’s major effort to develop new prediction methodologies.
== An Innovation Deficit? ==
Is a New Industrial Revolution Coming...a so-called "Industrial Internet, Industry 4.0 or the Industrial Internet of Things," driven by rapid advances in remote sensors, robotics, additive manufacturing, big data, smart grids, smart cities, and automated transportation?
Will we continue to see exponential changes in technology? Here's Ray Kurzweil on the "Law of Accelerating Returns," which states that "fundamental measures of information technology follow predictable and exponential trajectories." And the bible of that optimistic clade... Peter Diamandis's Abundance.
But it won't happen by itself. For smooth sailing into the future....we need investment in ambitious technologies. Even as overseas competitors are increasing their investment in basic research, the U.S. federal government research investment is declining — from just under 10 percent in 1968 to less than 4 percent in 2015 — in critical fields such as cybersecurity, infectious disease, plant biology, and Alzheimer’s are threatening an “innovation deficit.”
Let there be no doubt. Those who have done this, as part of their War on Science, are bona fide traitors and enemies of America and of the Great Experiment. There is no way that anyone can even call that an exaggeration.
== Increasing Data Speeds ==
A key element is our speed of communication. See this global compilation of broadband download speeds worldwide -- where the U.S. ranks below Iceland, Latvia, Denmark, Bulgaria and Belgium.
Will we be able to boost bandwidth tenfold? Experts say that recent advances in LED technology have made it possible to modulate the LED light more rapidly, opening the possibility of using light for wireless transmission in a “free space” optical communication system. The technology could be integrated with existing WiFi systems to reduce bandwidth problems in crowded locations, such as airport terminals or coffee shops.
IBM claims a major advance in quantum computing that could soon lead to cracking all old encryptions. (Um, I told you so. Twenty years ago, even before The Transparent Society. But you cypher-transcendentalist-mystic guys pay… no… attention... to... reality.)
Italian researchers have created a microscopic device that can supposedly fit onto a silicon chip and produce entangled photons. The researchers paired a silicon wafer with what’s known as a ring resonator — a closed loop that photons enter on one side via a laser beam. They emerge entangled on the other side, where they are captured, opening the possibility of making entangled pairs a normal part of our existing electronic systems.
Italian researchers have created a microscopic device that can supposedly fit onto a silicon chip and produce entangled photons. The researchers paired a silicon wafer with what’s known as a ring resonator — a closed loop that photons enter on one side via a laser beam. They emerge entangled on the other side, where they are captured, opening the possibility of making entangled pairs a normal part of our existing electronic systems.
Another way to increase data speeds: Polarization – (I was once an expert, publishing papers on the theory) – appears to come in“shapes” that go beyond the distribution-sets of linear or circular polarization sorting. Not only that, but these shapes can be imposed upon a coherent beam and used to expand the amount of information it can carry. “Vector modes are spatial modes that have spatially inhomogeneous states of polarization, such as radial and azimuthal polarization. In this work, the spatially inhomogeneous states of polarization of vector modes are used to increase the transmission data rate of free-space optical communication via mode division multiplexing.” Ow! I understood all that... but now my head hurts! Wow.
Old fashioned life-saving... Blood donors in Sweden get a text message whenever their blood saves someone's life. Not that I needed that -- after my 80th donation. (I just received my commemorative Ten Gallon hat from the blood bank!) Still it might be nice if they did that here.
Finally, in the age-old argument among Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau... at a Skeptics conference, Dawkins spoke of humans’ anomalous “lust to be nice.” I agree sort of. But it is conditional and contingent. See my speech on otherness at the Smithsonian.
Old fashioned life-saving... Blood donors in Sweden get a text message whenever their blood saves someone's life. Not that I needed that -- after my 80th donation. (I just received my commemorative Ten Gallon hat from the blood bank!) Still it might be nice if they did that here.
Finally, in the age-old argument among Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau... at a Skeptics conference, Dawkins spoke of humans’ anomalous “lust to be nice.” I agree sort of. But it is conditional and contingent. See my speech on otherness at the Smithsonian.