Oddities and Items: From Biotech to LaserTech

Let's take a break from dour murmurs of geopolitical danger. How about the sort of breakthroughs that will save the day!

Like in what ways will technology shape the workplace of the future? Fast Company takes a look at: What Work Will Look Like in 2025. 

Tech advances will depend on our ability to mine efficiently... All right so the Chinese used clever market ploys and environmental-health carelessness to corner the market on rare earth elements, needed for high function magnets in a myriad modern devices.  Well, markets react...  “Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory have created a new magnetic alloy that is an alternative to traditional rare-earth permanent magnets.” See elsewhere my posting about how other companies are getting licenses to mine manganese nodules under the sea, for their own heaps of rare earth metals.

Of course, in the long run Planetary Resources and its ilk will transform it all, by giving us access to riches from space.

 == Updates in Physics ==

This is actually pretty … cool.  A graphene film with thermal conductivity capacity that is four times that of copper may help remove heat from electronics, easing a real problem.  

A cogent and clear run-down on the current industrial situation regarding graphene, the miraculous – and highly-hyped – wonder material.  And now...physicists announce graphene's cousin, stanene -- a 2D layer of Sn -- tin atoms. And "black phosphorus."

Amazing electrically conducting fibers that can be reversibly stretched to more than 14 times their initial length and whose electrical conductivity increases 200-fold when stretched.

Some excellent physics videos!  This one introduces Quantum Mechanics!

Cracking the Nutshell: This delightful site dissects some very, very deep concepts of free will and quantum mechanics.

In a new study, researchers demonstrated that they could slice up and entangle each photon pair into multiple dimensions using quantum properties such as the photons’ energy and spin. This method, called hyperentanglement, allows each photon pair to carry much more data than was possible with previous methods. Quantum entanglement could allow users to send data through a network and know immediately whether that data had made it to its destination without being intercepted or altered.

While we're all tangled -up in quantum knots.... See me discuss entanglement, multiverses and the Physics of Free Will with two other astrophysicists - Brian Keating (UCSD) and Andrew Friedman (MIT) - in this fun shared lecture a couple of weeks ago at UCSD's Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination.

== Transportation and Energy  ==

NASA has announced the successful completion of testing for its morphing airplane wing design. Known as Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge (ACTE) flight control surfaces, they replace a plane's conventional, rigid flaps with a flexible composite material.  Watch it flex and lift heavy weights!  

Based on the X-51 Waverider prototype tested in 2013, the U.S. Air Force is planning to build an airplane that travels at five times the speed of sound (about 3800 miles per hour), or Mach 5, going from New York to Los Angeles in just 30 minutes.  A system for machines, not us. Sorry.

You’ve watched astronauts create balls of water that hold together with surface tension, till the astronaut gulps it down? Well you can do that on Earth!  It takes a little kitchen chemistry.  Edible water bottles and the strange chemistry of spherification!  

Lightweight composite metal foams are effective at blocking X-rays, gamma rays, and neutron radiation, and are capable of absorbing the energy of high-impact collisions. The finding holds promise for use in nuclear power plants and space exploration. 

Construction on the new lane of Egypt’s Suez Canal, which runs alongside part of the existing canal, started less than a year ago but is now complete.  Huh.  

A Japanese research laser is 100 meter long and it’s firing a beam as powerful as 2 petawatts. However, the powerful laser was only able to run for two seconds.  

Boeing's new Compact Laser Weapon System (LWS) is capable of generating an energy beam of up to 10 kilowatts that can, depending on the power level, be used to acquire, track, and identify a target -- or even destroy it -- at ranges of at least 22 miles. The weapon is designed specifically to track and attack moving aerial targets such as incoming artillery rounds, and low-flying aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles.  Combine this with the new radars’ ability to track-back shells to pinpoint their origin, and we may be witnessing the end of Napoleon’s dictum that artillery is Queen of the Battlefield.  Of course the ones paying closest attention to all this?  Not Boeing’s customers or potential adversaries…. But sci fi authors.  

== Updates in Biotech ==

Phototonic PCR: UC Berkeley bioengineers develop an ultra-fast method to copy DNA using LED light: this may enable on-site DNA testing of smaller samples, such as blood left at a crime scene.

Pocket sized spectrometer Scio can analyze chemical composition of anything.. with data sent to your smart phone.

Smartphones are so smart...they can now test your vision!

Sites illustrating coolness in Biology!  Explore OneZoom: Tree of Life Explorer: Starting with browsable phylogenetics portrayed as a kind of fractal-branching tree. Lots of surprises.

A Chinese surgeon has carried out more than 1,000 head transplants on mice and is now looking to test out the procedure on monkeys. After receiving its new head in a ten hour procedure – or would it be more accurate to say “its new body? -- the mouse could open its eyes and move around – but it died shortly after. Meanwhile… Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero gears up to make an announcement on what he believes will be the world's first human head transplant. Eep. Makes the Chinese guy look responsible. 

Telemeres are the end caps on chromosomes that act as decay buffers, protecting the genes. Some believe they are timing-clocks that wear down then cause aging. “Earlier this year, scientists were able to successfully lengthen telomeres for the first time by using artificial RNA to encode a telomere-extending protein. This was celebrated as a revolutionary step in “turning back the internal clock” of human cells.”  But I said it was not going to be that simple. Sure enough. Scientists have linked long telomere length with lung cancer. Psigh.

Dentists will be able to use 3D printing to create anatomically correct teeth, crowns and veneers.  Oh, the aggravation our kids will never know.  The wonders they will take for granted.

== Computers and Gadgets ==

Intel and Micron have announced XPoint, a brand new memory technology that is up to 1000x faster and 1000x longer lasting than conventional flash memory.  This could change things.  

When Microsoft's new Internet Explorer replacement, officially dubbed Edge, arrives with Windows 10, it will offer users some new features, including the ability to annotate webpages and share notes. "Baked-in annotation features could be one area that sets Edge apart, considering most Web browsers can't handle them without third-party plug-ins or extensions. In fact, it's somewhat unbelievable that this hasn't become a standard feature in Web browsers yet." Windows 10 users can keep track of what is and isn’t useful within each webpage or document without extra steps. They can underline, place arrows and circle specific parts directly on webpages as they browse. 

iFixit has a lot of great videos and PDF guides for repairing many different kinds of electronic gadgets.

== Miscellaneous items of interest ==

Chinese billionaire Li Jinyuan decided to take 6,400 of his top distributors on an all-expenses-paid trip to France, hoping to  generate a wave of publicity to help offset the $14.5 million he shelled out for chartered jets, 30,000 hotel stays and a private tour of the Louvre. With the number of Chinese taking trips overseas exploding -- they made more than 107 million trips outside the mainland last year, up almost 20% over 2013-- and with more Chinese going abroad, their nation has become deeply self-conscious about the image its travelers leave behind. And this is where *I* cash in! Tony Fisk, does this count as a class A 100% spot on prediction from EARTH?  To the registry-wiki!

While in the Central Kingdom… a study of nearly 500,000 Chinese people over seven years found that those who ate spicy food three times a week cut their risk of dying by 14 per cent compared with people who abstained.

Richmond, California police have been inundated with calls for help from people who feel under attack from space-based weaponry because of a City Council resolution passed last month, in support of a 2001 bill introduced by then-U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, in an effort to ensure that Richmond residents would not be targets of space-based weaponry. Versions of it referred to alleged technologies including chemtrails, particle beams, electromagnetic radiation, plasmas, extremely low-frequency or ultra high-frequency energy radiation and mind control technology. 

“My Virtual Dream: Collective Neuro-feedback in an Immersive Art Environment” – was part experiment and part demo-art in Toronto.  More than 500 adults aged 18 and older wore wireless electroencephalography (EEG) headbands and participate in a brief collective neurofeedback experience in groups of 20 inside a 60-foot geodesic dome, along with spontaneous musical interpretation by live musicians on stage.

== Was that cool enough for you? ==

Lots of amazing stuff happening.  And it's tip of the iceberg. And those of you still wallowing in gloom?  How about this hypothesis.  That it's more your personality than our prospects, that determines your mood.

We face immense challenges.  Now join the immensely talented men and women who have a very real chance of solving them.

International Tensions: Russia, China and Putin!

== Russia rattling sabers. ==

Talk of war? Major war in Europe? This long and very detailed article examines the ways that Russia’s contretemps with NATO and the US and the West could spiral out of control, via many of the same psychological  and strategic miscalculations that tumbled the planet – 100 years ago – into the First World War.  

Take some examples of alarming signs. In recent months, NATO reported unusually large movements of Russian fighter jets looping around Europe, including several airspace violations in the Baltics. This month, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Russia planned to increase bomber flights in the Gulf of Mexico. And Sweden conducted an extensive search for a submarine in its waters that local media said was believed to be Russian. 

Another report: “Russia is provoking Finland, repeatedly guiding military planes into Finnish airspace and deploying submarines and helicopters to chase after Finnish research vessels in international waters. The incidents are part of a pattern of aggressive Russian behavior that has radiated across Europe but that has been especially unnerving for countries such as Finland that live outside the protective bubble of NATO.”

“In May, Finland's defense ministry sent letters to 900,000 citizens — one-sixth of the population — telling them to prepare for conscription in case of a "crisis situation." Lithuania has reinstituted military conscription. Poland, in June, appointed a general who would take over as military commander in case of war. Though Western publics remain blissfully unaware, and Western leaders divided, many of the people tasked with securing Europe are treating conflict as more likely. In late April, NATO and other Western officials gathered in Estonia, a former Soviet republic and NATO member on Russia's border that Western analysts most worry could become ground zero for a major war with Russia.”

And… ‘Repeated Russian warnings that it would go to war to defend its perceived interests in Ukraine, potentially even nuclear war, are dismissed in most Western capitals as bluffing, mere rhetoric. Western leaders view these threats through Western eyes, in which impoverished Ukraine would never be worth risking a major war. In Russian eyes, Ukraine looks much more important: an extension of Russian heritage that is sacrosanct and, as the final remaining component of the empire, a strategic loss that would unacceptably weaken Russian strength and thus Russian security.’

== The Putin Fixation ==

And there you see the crux. While Fox News and the Murdochians engage in their cult of Putin adulation, calling the Russian President a strong alpha male and brilliant chess player, in fact, our worrisome possibility is the diametric opposite, the kind of miscalculation that comes from steep decline, as every aspect of Russian life, from the economy to birthrates to the ruble to lifespans to the braindrain, spirals ever-downward.

(Though as an aside, at these exchange rates, this might be a good time for that tourism jaunt to the Hermitage.)

One factor that the authors of this fascinating piece left out is China, which has begun to bankroll Moscow in order to gradually counter-balance western influence and power.  The creation of a Great Eurasia is now discussed widely, as Russian military technology combines with Chinese industrial and economic strength. On paper, this may seem a great deal for two powers who share an antipathy toward western notions of democratic pluralism and law, under a unipolar American Pax.  But there are aspects seldom mentioned –

-- such as the small matter of the largest territory on Earth, Siberia.  Claimed and owned by Russia, but resource rich and tantalizingly close to more than a billion cramped Han Chinese.  Who are already investing in that region, big time, and slipping tens of thousands of workers and businessmen and innocent professionals across the border, every year – whose presence someday might offer exactly the expatriate population “to be protected” that Putin now uses as an excuse to bully Estonia. 

To which one has to wonder.  Has Vladimir Putin already sold Siberia, either secretly or implicitly, to Beijing?  Or is he truly so focused westward that he has no thoughts of the east? 

But perspective is never seen on cable news… or any news, for that matter. What about Putin's "master chess player" moves in Crimea, the Donbas and Georgia? Please? These consist entirely of nibbles-back of crusts -- where Russian speakers predominate -- from the biggest geopolitical setback any Russian leader has overseen since the Mongol invasions ... the complete loss from the Russian sphere of influence of Ukraine.

He might have hoped that (perhaps with some subtle help) the Ukrainian economy would tank and Ukrainians might elect another Yanukovich.  Now? They would fight and shiver and freeze before they'll ever again kowtow to Moscow.  The breach is permanent… or will last generations. Ukrainians are guaranteed never, ever again to allow a Russian-loving Yanukovich back into power. So much for subtle chess.

== Then why does Fox News adore Putin? ==

Look, I will give Vladimir Putin his due.  He reduced the chaos of the Yeltsin years (though not street or organized crime.) I was impressed by his maneuver, a few years back, to have his protege, Medvedev, serve one term as president, in order that Putin could obey the constitutional ban on three consecutive terms… an obstacle that most strongmen would solve by simply command-amending the Constitution.  Indeed, that piece of political theater may have done the notion of Russian civil society some long-term symbolic (if potemkin) good.  Though the destruction of non-governmental media and conversion of provincial governorships from elected to appointed status showed Putin’s true intentions.

None of this matters to the Fox-Limbaugh-Beck spin machine over here, though. “Sure he’s a tyrant,” they all admit. “But if only our own leaders were as savvy, dynamic and strong!” The Russian president is portrayed as a latter-day Peter the Great, out-maneuvering our politicians with a brilliant combination of forceful determination, agility and macho ruthlessness. As with all-things-Fox, I have to scratch my head and ask — “are there viewers who actually nod their heads and swallow this stuff?”

That kind of admiration would be disturbing enough, on so many levels.  For one thing, it reflects the Confederacy’s 200 year love affair with authoritarian oligarchy, stretching back to when the British Crown got most of its tory support in the 1770s South. The same theme continued through the Gone-With-The-Wind era of slave lords like “Marse Robert” E. Lee, all the way to Citizens United and the way today’s right-wing spin machine pours adulation on the “job creator” caste — who create no jobs.

And the caudillo-yearning propaganda for Caesar figures, spun out in every single tale by Orson Scott Card. Adulation of feudalism just seems to be part of confederate DNA, helping to explain the endless recurrence of America’s ongoing Civil War. 

In fact, we do not need strongmen or lords.  We need the thing that’s ridiculed and downplayed every night by Fox (and also by some radicals on the very extreme left.)  We need calm-negotiation. We need politics. And respect for facts and science. We need citizenship.

== And yet, I suspect Putin may have depths… even a plan… after all ==

Oh, it’s not the "plan" that Fox-fools credit to him. The truth is exposed starkly via this article in MONEY. “Things in Russia are going from bad to worse.”

Across the last two decades, almost no effort has been made to reform the underlying Russian economy so that it might leverage high technology startups out of its highly educated populace. Putting aside the lucrative business of skuyllduggerous internet activity, that economy relies almost solely on an obsolescing fossil fuel industry. Capital flight has reached the level of an arterial gusher. Any trace of entrepreneurialism is pounced upon and gobbled up by oligarchs, backed by organized crime.

What the article in Money leaves out is far more disturbing. Russian men are drinking themselves to death and Russian women have stopped having babies with them. (Russia’s population has declined by almost 7 million in the last 19 years, to 142 million. UN estimates are that it may shrink by about a third in the next 40 years.) The brain drain is almost a tsunami as smart people are fleeing the country as fast as they can.  Russia had to buy its aircraft carriers from France. (A deal canceled after Crimea.) It has lost every spaceprobe it sent to Mars and has not innovated in space in decades.

And yet…

And yet I look at him. It’s blatant to everyone how fiercely intelligent the man is.

 Now add in the fact that he has stated openly that the collapse of the old Soviet Union – that gave him his big break and chance for power - was the “greatest tragedy” for Russians, for slavs… and possibly for humanity. The greatest tragedy ever.

Consider that he saw how George H.W. Bush (senior) – easily the worst U.S. president of the 20^th Century, connived with Boris Yeltsin to hand the entire Russian economy over to crooks and oligarchs, cheating the people of everything.  Ponder how this consolidated all economic power and all state enterprises into the hands of just a few.

Now (and here’s a test of your education) put all that into the context of Marxist theory … if any of you have ever read any, which I doubt. But it was what Putin suckled as a youth.

Now add one science fiction level theory.  No… hypothesis.  No, not even that. A what-if.

What if – I wonder – what-if Vladimir Putin is what he has always been? 
The same thing that he started out as? 
What if he is utterly… sincere?

I have laid the pieces to the puzzle before you.  They are there. All of them. Enough of them. Any of you could figure it out. You are smart enough.

Just very badly educated and ill-read.

Lessig for President? Let's struggle free of cheating, dogmatism and bought elections.

First, I am proud to know Harvard Law professor Larry Lessig, who has been the most successful opponent of big money in politics, gaining a following and some real traction in his campaign to raise public awareness.  Now Lessig  says that if he can crowdsource $1 million by Labor Day, he'll leave Harvard and enter the Democratic primaries. "He'd be a single-issue candidate, campaigning for a legislative package that would undo restrictive voting laws, make Election Day a national holiday, bar the gerrymandering of congressional districts, and finance elections through public matching funds or vouchers for small donors." 

Lessig's running mate would in-effect be the Real Candidate, because Larry intends to resign office the day after signing such a bill into law. A law that would then free up the political process to deal with all our other major issues, on a basis of negotiation on their merits, and not who has purchased the most politicians.  Secretly, many Senators and Congressfolk want this too, as it would eliminate the endless tedium of fundraising that now takes more of their time than legislating.

(Note: I just signed up for one of Larry's crowdfunding donations. I hope some of you will, as well. You only pay if he reaches his million dollar threshold.  Say I sent you!) See his book: Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress -- and a Plan to Stop It.

Yes!  This is exactly the sort of role I envision also for two other admirables who don't really want to serve -- Jerry Brown and Jon Stewart. Dive in guys! And show us what an idea fest the demo-party debates could be, as opposed to the 16 dwarves and Trump on the other side, mostly parroting whatever Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes tell them to... or else making Fox the issue, without shedding any real light.

== Trumpapalooza ==

The staying power of Donald Trump will not last, but it remains transfixing, the way you cannot tear your eyes away from a catastrophe.  This Salon article -- Donald Trump is the last whimper of the angry white man: What's really behind his stubborn lead -- plumbs some fascinating explanations:  "Two facts about all this deserve special notice. The first is that the tenor of Trump’s rhetoric has been directly related to the trend in his poll numbers — the wilder and harsher the former, the higher he has climbed in the latter. The second is the desperate (and largely futile) struggle of our political media to make some sense of the first fact."

Some attribute the pyrotechnic rage of lower-middle-class white males to an inchoate sense that the nation's demographics are removing their sense of entitled paramountcy. Others ascribe it blatantly to Rupert Murdoch's relentless -- Saudi funded -- assault on trust in any and all American institutions or loci of expertise (hence the "War on Science" actually includes all Smartypants Elites, from teachers and civil servants to economists and law professionals).  Or is it exactly and precisely the same syndrome that plantation lords used, to get a million poor whites to fight and die for them in one of the earlier phases of our ongoing civil war?

Can this demographic really forget that their fathers -- the soldiers and workers of the Greatest Generation -- adored one living human above all others -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt? (Whom Rupert's shills portray as Satan Incarnate)? Maybe, at a deep level, they remember this, and perhaps the favorite thing Trump is doing is spurning all the GOP's bribing fat cats (he can afford to) and finally casting doubt on the Cult of Fox?

There you have my advice for Donald Trump. Make Rupert Murdoch a core issue! Divert from the Fox pretty faces. Congratulate Megyn Kelly for her well-earned bonus. But Rupert has no loyal following. He has painted himself into a corner.  He and Roger Ailes are sitting ducks for a hunter who does not need their network or their money.

(Late word... now a few pundits are reversing themselves and wondering -- Might Donald Trump be the new Reagan? Yipe!)

== How ideology shapes our views ==

“One of the key trends in public opinion over the past few decades has been a growing divide among Republicans and Democrats into ideologically uniform “silos.” A larger share of the American public expresses issue positions that are either consistently liberal or conservative today than did so two decades ago, and there is more alignment between ideological orientation and party leanings.” -- Americans, Politics, and Science Issues, from the Pew Research Center.

When it comes to science, the results are mixed:  “Americans’ political leanings are a strong factor in their views about issues such as climate change and energy policy and whether government should finance research, but much less of a factor when it comes to issues such as food safety, space travel and biomedicine. At the same time, there are factors other than political party and ideology that shape the public’s often-complex views on science matters. For instance there are notable issues on which racial and generational differences are pronounced, separate and apart from politics.”

Again and again, I point out that we are navigating between a political Scylla and polemical Charybdis. And while the current version of (hijacked) American conservatism has gone flat-out loco… there are also some loonies on the other extreme who do less harm, but only quantitatively. Qualitatively – crazy is still crazy.

This invariably leads to mail, decrying that my attempts at “balance” break up what must be a uniform dogma, to oppose the right’s current madness. That breaking ranks hurts the good “side.” How ironic!  Since I do believe there is a level where war is a correct metaphor. And in this phase of the recurring American Civil War, it is imperative that the re-igniting Confederacy not prevail.

And yet, I have seen the wretched effects of left-wing insipidities. If it were only by serving as examples of PC-police bullying, for Beck and Hannity to point at while rallying their troops, that would be plenty.  But that isn’t the worst crime that leftists regularly commit.  The most harmful one is preaching endless gloom and despair.

I urge you all to read this eloquent and heartfelt and passionately intelligent essay - A letter to my dismal allies on the U.S. left - by one of the finest journalists in the world, Rebecca Solnit, who is definitely to the left of me. And yet, who shares my belief that our lefty allies regularly seek the sanctimony high of righteous gloom, and thus help demolish the very pragmatic, incremental reforms that can save and improve the world.  That have done so much to make life better for millions and billions, across the last several generations.  

“O rancid sector of the far left, please stop your grousing! Compared to you, Eeyore sounds like a Teletubby. If I gave you a pony, you would not only be furious that not everyone has a pony, but you would pick on the pony for not being radical enough until it wept big, sad, hot pony tears. Because what we're talking about here is not an analysis, a strategy, or a cosmology, but an attitude, and one that is poisoning us. Not just me, but you, us, and our possibilities.”

She goes on: “An undocumented immigrant writes me: "The Democratic party is not our friend: it is the only party we can negotiate with." Or as a Nevada activist friend put it: "Oh my God, go be sanctimonious in California and don't vote or whatever, but those bitching radicals are basically suppressing the vote in states where it matters."  And:  “People who told me back in 2000 that there was no difference between Bush and Gore never got back to me afterward.”

Do read this essay!  Pass the link around and keep it in your pocket to read aloud to these flakes, in fall of 2016. 

Nevertheless, I have a way to say it all more fiercely and penetratingly, with just five words:  

“It’s the Supreme Court, stupid.”

Our entire civilization teeters around getting those reforms of Larry Lessig passed, and especially getting Citizens United reversed, so that we do not descend into some kind of cyberpunk version of feudalism.  One party wants that to happen.  The other does not. And you prima donnas out there who think there is any justification for “they’re all the same”?  You are stupid-crazy people.

== What would a sincere conservatism try to do? ==

Back when conservatism still contained some cogent-sane elements, Barry Goldwater asked a significant question.  (Paraphrasing.)

“Let’s assume that the liberals see some genuine problems – poverty, tainted food, bad drugs, false advertising, unsafe factories, inadequate access to education and health care – but we on the right disdain paternalistic “solutions” that come via government’s alphabet soup.  Welfare, the FDA, FTC, OSHA, Medicare, and so on.

“Instead of denying problems exist… or vaguely arm-waving faith that blind markets will solve all things… shall we examine HOW markets  actually solve some problems?  And look at ways to enhance that process?”

It struck Barry G like a blow. Insurance. For those who can afford it, insurance creates a betting market that causes people to seriously re-assess their risk factors. Making it marginally less necessary for paternalistic government to do the same thing for you.  

Goldwater looked around and found one area wherein insurance companies were truly doing their jobs, actively working with clients to reduce risk exposure, and thus eliminating much government oversight. Industrial fire prevention. Through a number of very involved institutes, like Underwiters’ Labs… and by requiring meddlesome company inspections… the insurance industry had reduced bureaucratic supervision from Washington. The theory actually worked! 

So why hadn’t the same effect happened in other realms of insurance?  Why didn’t companies demand to see their clients’ refrigerators and medicine cabinets?  Might that cause the FDA to “wither away,” the way OSHA stopped bothering much with industrial fire prevention?  It sounded good, in theory!  Goldwater proposed to fund studies of how the insurance biz might be encouraged to move in this direction…

… and he got no support at all.  Not from democrats, who like their alphabet soup solutions… and none at all from republican colleagues, who got money from insurance executives who like things just as they are, with civil servants doing all the hard, regulatory work. Most surprisingly, Barry got no backing from libertarians!  Why, after all, try to tweak capitalism’s rules so that markets solve problems, when the far more satisfying incantation is to just screech at evil government, 24-7, and never admit that there are bona fide problems that need solving, one way or another.

Goldwater gave up.  And late in life he denounced the hijacking of his beloved conservatism by genuine monsters.

But let’s get back to insurance.  Have a look at this item:  “Rarely does a document prepared by an insurance group read like an apocalyptic screenplay. But it does happen. In this case, Lloyds, a storied insurance market put out a report outlining the potential global meltdown that could occur if parts of the food supply chain failed.

“So why do insurance companies care? Because they're the ones that are betting against disaster. If something goes wrong, they're the ones that have to pay out claims.”

Transparency and Freedom

First a trio of announcements:

1) An expanded version of my essay "Black Lives Matter, So Demand Tech!" was featured in The Global Post and picked up widely by aggregators like Google News.  I suggest that cameras or all kinds -- copcams, dashcams, cellcams and so on -- are bringing real change on our streets, and in citizens' relationship with power.  "Give us more tech!" should be an additional rallying cry. (More on this, below.)

2) WIll you be in or near the Hudson River valley this October? I'll be speaking at a Conference on Privacy at Bard College, October 15-16. It is said that Edward Snowden will be skyping in. (I'll be lingering a while at Bard, and possibly also speaking at West point.)

3) Meanwhile -- August 16 will be Worldwide Wave Back at Surveillance Day. An ad-hoc and as-yet wannabe “event.” But hey, keeping with my ethos in The Transparent Society, let them (the elites who watch) know that we know they are watching. That we are unafraid. It's a step. “Waving” is just the beginning of our determination to look back via “sousveillance.” And if they are nice, innocent little elites? Why then, they have nothing to hide from us!

Wave back at the cameras! Let them know we know what they know... and we intend to know even better.

As usual, Tom Tomorrow is spot on.  If privacy truly is zero-sum, then we are bound for revolution and it won't be pretty.  On the other hand, it can be positive sum.  But it requires that light flow in all directions.

And now... our status report on Transparency and Freedom.

== Will Tyrannies take our Liberty? ==

Eye in the Skynet: How Regimes Can Quell Social Movements Before they Begin: In Foreign Affairs, Gregory Maus describes a series of algorithmic systems that empower states to data-mine the location, statements and activities of citizens.  In the hands of an authoritarian regime… or indeed, if skullduggerously used by giga-corporations… these methods, some of them verging on AI, could lead to cyberpunk futures or even Big Brother.

An important article, well worth reading… though alas, typical of most modern jeremiads, this one is devoid of anything even remotely like a suggestion as to what can be done about it.  On the rare occasion when a pundit – e.g. Bruce Schneier – does make a recommendation, it almost always boils down to “everybody hide!”

It is apparently beyond psychological reach to imagine that the same processes that gave us the wild and woolly freedom of the Internet might be applied yet again, to keep the renaissance going. Those processes were bold, but effective, stymieing tyrants for three decades. All right, so now they think they have sussed ways around to turn our info-meshes into systems of control. Might we then learn from freedom’s past tool kit?

1) The early nineties saw state actions that showed politicians aren’t always the enemy, e.g. Al Gore’s far-seeing bill that unleashed an unregulated Internet upon the world. New laws might make it incumbent upon our trading partners to loosen their grip, or face market disincentives.

2) Providing multiple paths of access. Modems gave way to ISPs, but when those came under state control, it became incumbent upon us to widen the field again. New satellite systems may give people all over the world access points their own governments cannot control.  We need to make this a matter of top concern, right now, and not let that opportunity be squelched.

3) Reciprocal accountability can only be applied through sousveillance, using light.  Cowering and hiding from elites has never worked and cannot work. As shown in The Transparent Society, light can be used even in despotisms, if clever combinations of courage and technology expose corrupt officials, for example.

These are the methods that gave us our renaissance.  So tyrants are adapting?  That is only to be expected, and not an occasion for hand-wringing or chicken-little cries.

An Example: Ian Bremmer, author of the book Superpower: Three Choices for America's Role in the World, said in a recent newsletter: “I’d be remiss not to mention the Chinese government conducting research into implementing a single nationwide identification system that would tie the online/virtual identity of citizens to their physical identity. it's a serious effort, being driven by the ministry of science and technology, the national development and reform commission and the ministry of public security. Chinese media is reporting that the legislature will pass a new national security law, a draft form of which called for "cyberspace sovereignty:

“Ultimately a free and open internet is incompatible with authoritarianism and state capitalism. there’s every sense the Chinese government understands this and wants to build the technology to create an alternative system. problematic for western multinationals hoping to operate in the chinese space? I’d say so.”

== Secretive Stingray Systems ==

Secretive use of “stingray” systems – fake cell phone towers, set up by authorities to tap or track calls made by suspects, and others loosely related to a case – have begun to backfire on law enforcement, “with states beginning to pass laws that require police to obtain a warrant before they can set up a fake cell phone tower for surveillance. Virginia, Minnesota, Utah and Washington State now have laws regulating stingray use, with California and Texas considering similar measures. Proposed federal legislation to prevent the government from tracking people’s cell phone or GPS location without a warrant could also include stingray technology.”

One document recently revealed that the Baltimore Police Department has used a cell site simulator 4,300 times since 2007 and signed a nondisclosure agreement with the FBI that instructed prosecutors to drop cases rather than reveal the department’s use of the stingray.

The key point here is not the one pushed by law enforcement or by its civil libertarian opponents, both of whom suffer from technological myopia and “tradeoff disease” – a mental ailment that causes sincere people to make statements like “we must sacrifice a little privacy for public safety” or – alternatively – “we must be brave enough to endure some danger in order to preserve freedom.”  

Let us be clear that such people -- even "pundits" with large followings -- are in fact mentally ill. I mean that, with no exaggeration.  They spread the noxious notion of the zero-sum game. That we must choose between freedom and safety for our children.  A choice that I absolutely refuse to make - and neither should you - between two absolutely necessary things that make life worth living. It is a dichotomy and "choice" put forward by simplistic morons.

Proof: No people in all of human history have ever been safer than we are right now… and no people have ever been as free. The two rise and fall together. And if you are not demanding ways to get both, you are more the fool.

The tech-myopia part comes in when federal agents act as if methods like Stingray can be kept secret over an extended period.  My Gosh, what kind of society do they think they are living in?  All they accomplish with blanket and frantic gag orders is to increase the frisson of suspicion aimed toward them by citizens who know that we must be aware of what civil servants are doing, lest freedom vanish.

Temporary and tactical secrecy are useful tools for the Professional Protector Caste (PPC).  But technology and society keep moving forward and gag orders will not prevent it. 

== The Big Corollary ==

Steve Mann called it “Brin’s Corrollary to Moore’s Law”… that cameras will keep getting smaller, cheaper, faster, better and more mobile faster than Moore’s Law.  And hence, our only option for preventing Big Brother is to use them (to look back at power), not to hide from them. 

Now comes Go-Pro , the sports camera maker, with its smallest unit yet. 40% lighter than last year’s best model, easier to use and less expensive. And waterproof. 

And please, all you Jeremiahs preaching safety-by-obscurity? We’re still waiting to see your plan – other than holding out your arms toward a tsunami inevitable light, screaming “stop!”

And finally, getting back to cop-cams...

The official government data on killings by police is so bad that it's all but useless: The last official estimate from the FBI was that 400 people per year are killed by police. The Guardian maintains its own count of people killed by the police in the United States -- which has reached 711 so far this year. Again, sure, be activist and march and chant. But the thing making a real difference is tech.  Demand more. 

Good news for the planet? And are "ecomodernists" part of the solution?

As most of you might guess from my novel Earth, I am a firm believer that we owe our mother-planet fealty and care, if for no other reason then for the sake of our grandchildren. This is one of many reasons why I despair over the lobotomizing effects of the so called "political axis."

The left shares my concerns, but is all-too often so rigid in reflex that it does more harm than good.  The right is vastly worse, attempting relentlessly to squirm out of even thinking about posterity or planetary destiny.

Striving to evade this silly dichotomy -- this dogmatic Scylla and Charybdis -- is a movement called "ecomodernism," which starts with the clear truth that the left is correct in its concerns... but that its reflex-hostility toward technology is utterly unhelpful. 

If we are going to get across the minefield, a large share of our solution methods must be technological, moving forward, not lamenting a nostalgic-romantic past.

== What is Ecomodernism?" ==

First, just to be clear, I do not like "movements." They are generally easy to hijack. And I will show you below some examples of how such attempts are being made on ecomodernism.  Still, in a case of respect-by-association, if Stewart Brand is for something, I will certainly give it a close look.

Elder statesman “techno-hippie” Stewart Brand has joined a dozen other luminaries to publish a deeply thoughtful and moving declaration of principles that they call the “Ecomodernist Manifesto.” It starts out with one fundamental -- accepting as utter fact global climate change as a major crisis for humanity and the planet.  Only then questioning the reflex that puritanism is the sole acceptable solution.

"Meaningful climate mitigation is fundamentally a technological challenge. By this we mean that even dramatic limits to per capita global consumption would be insufficient to achieve significant climate mitigation. Absent profound technological change there is no credible path to meaningful climate mitigation. While advocates differ in the particular mix of technologies they favor, we are aware of no quantified climate mitigation scenario in which technological change is not responsible for the vast majority of emissions cuts."

Later: "Transitioning to a world powered by zero-carbon energy sources will require energy technologies that are power dense and capable of scaling to many tens of terawatts to power a growing human economy. Most forms of renewable energy are, unfortunately, incapable of doing so." The exception being large scale use of solar.

And yes, that means these guys are in favor of ramping up the much-better designs that have been emerging for nuclear fission power, since that could end the reign of King Coal far sooner and help bridge us for thirty years, till the great era of full sustainables arrives.

If you disagree and want to gather facts to argue over priorities, great! 

But if your reflex is to dismiss such folks as enemies, then you are the problem here. And I know how you'll react to the following!

== Welcome (partial) good news! ==

Here is an important talk by Jesse Ausubel at the Long Now Foundation, describing how: “Nature is Rebounding: Land- and Ocean-sparing through Concentrating Human Activities.” 

Introduced by my old "Architechs" co-star, Alexander Rose, and by Stewart Brand, Ausubel's presentation is long, but worthwhile and fascinating, demonstrating how much good news there is, brightening our outlooks for a planet that might — just might — survive the transition era we are in.

Alas, only about a third or less of those who watch Ausubel will draw the right conclusion. 

Some will reflexively react with outrage at any sign of good news, fearing it is a trick, aimed at reducing our passion for world-saving — an absolutely crazy notion that I dissect elsewhere. 

The response of the loony Entire Right will be even worse — to prove the leftists’ fears correct!  Members of the mutant cult that has taken over American conservatism will watch Ausubel’s charts and declare that world-saving does not need our ardent, zealous attention and coordinated intervention, guided by science, augmented with firm action by individuals, groups, governments, nations and our maturing species.

Two versions of insanity, hemming us in with their crazy trips (albeit one worse than the other, at present). 

Fortunately, a few of you will watch this video and draw the correct conclusion… one promoted by Stewart and the Long Now Foundation and their penumbra of can-do techno-liberals and cyber-hippies. 

Yes!  There is some great news!  In fact, Ausubel shows good reason to believe that — if we get our acts together and negotiate sensibly and innovate like crazy and invest in new science and tools -- and try for much better consumption habits -- we may be able to bridge the minefield – saving this world for our posterity!  And possibly even limit the Anthropocene shift so that it will only be one of the planet’s medium scale extinction events, instead of an epic wave of death.  The sort of scenario that I described in Earth (1989.)

We can do that. The statistics are clear, so watch this video (or see his article, The Return of Nature: How Technology Liberates the Environment) — knowing that it is not a lullaby for complacency, but the strongest clarion call for vigorous — if calm and adult — action.

Criticism welcome!  Did I sit and rub my hands with smug glee while watching this video?  Of course not.  I spent half the time shaking my head muttering "Yes... but!" murmuring quibbles and exceptions and problems.

 For example, as much as half of the reforestation that Ausubel talks about is in the form of tree farming of monoculture pines. Better than nothing... but we need legislation forcing such agricultural forests to include stripes of hardwoods and creature-friendly diversity. And we will have to reduce water use by a whole lot more before we stop dangerously drawing down exhausted aquifers that it took nature millennia to fill. In other words, every positive step will prove to need tweaking and improvement. Skeptics and critics are welcome. 

You can help in that department! I offer an easy, even lazy method to be part of the solution-set, by joining the NGOs that amplify your proxy power! They are a bit part of the reason for some tentative good news and they are the chief paladins fighting against the bad. DO this!  Join at least half a dozen of these groups, or know you are part of the problem.

But also you can help by soothing our neighbors of the Far-Left and the Entire-Right, whose towering rages and rigid dogmas do our children and our planet no good, whatsoever. Preach that we must save the world... and that some mixed-good news suggests that the job - while hard - is actually... possible.

 == Ecomodernism: National Review backpedals...
                         while maintaining the Big Lie ==

Alas, the right's reaction to ecomodernism has proved that, if anything, I understated the plummet into lunacy.

William F. Buckley’s National Review always styled itself as the most intellectual wing of the conservative movement.  There was a time when, perhaps, that meant something. Today, it signifies only one thing: how many three or four syllable words you’ll find strung together.  

For example, take this piece - The Environmentalists' Civil War - all about the “the growing schism within American environmentalism. On one side are the pro-energy, pro-density humanists. They call themselves ecomodernists and are led by the Breakthrough Institute, a centrist, Oakland-based environmental group.”

The NR reporter waxes on about B.I.’s “ecomodernist manifesto,” which asserts that economic development is essential for environmental protection. He contrasts this to the “opposite side” of the schism — anti-energy, pro-sprawl absolutists like the students protesting for “climate justice” by demanding universities divest their portfolios of fossil fuel interests. NR: “They believe that the threat of climate change trumps all other concerns, including the welfare of people living in energy poverty.”

Rightwing propagandists have glommed onto the ecomodernists in order to portray them as brave rebels against a troglodytic community of dogmatic Standard Environmentalists.  Indeed, there is a gulf. But ecomodernists like Stewart Brand have far more in common with standard environmentalists (SE) than they do with Murdochian hypocrite-shills like this one. For one thing, they admit scientists are smart and are right more often than not, and that human generated climate change is a severe crisis that merits desperate action to reduce fossil fuel use.  Funny how the shills praising ecomodernists as enemies of Greenpeace never mention those traits!

What stunning hypocrites and liars! Ignored is the fact that the liberal side has always had a huge proportion that favored scientific advancement, technological RandD and market-driven innovation as paths toward solving many modern problems.  Science budgets always do better with democratic Congresses and/or presidents… as, indeed, do all other metrics of U.S. national health. This does not just reflect a corporatist sell-out (as some fringe lefties assert), but genuine zeal to move forward, past filthy and inefficient Intermediate techs, a belief fostered especially by folks like Jerry Brown, Al Gore and so on.

Take this paragraph from the Ecomodernist Manifesto:  "Accelerated technological progress will require the active, assertive, and aggressive participation of private sector entrepreneurs, markets, civil society, and the state. While we reject the planning fallacy of the 1950s, we continue to embrace a strong public role in addressing environmental problems and accelerating technological innovation, including research to develop better technologies, subsidies, and other measures to help bring them to market, and regulations to mitigate environmental hazards. And international collaboration on technological innovation and technology transfer is essential in the areas of agriculture and energy."

In fact, a burden of proof falls upon propagandists -- like this National Review liar -- who spread the calumny that “shiver in the dark” has ever been anything more than the mantra of a small, loony fringe, far outnumbered by the throng of Fox reporters pointing at Earth-Firsters, screaming “See?”

== The other side's  polemics... ==

Shall I swivel and remind you the Left - while currently less dangerously insane - does have its loopies? Have a look at reviews and comments on Naomi Klein's book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, to see how the intellectual traps and silliness of that side -- while nowhere near as bad as the right's -- are crippling and foolish.  

For example: the stunning insipidity of conflating competitive market capitalism with monopolistic-oligarchic cronyism and proto-feudalism, displays a level of smug stupidity almost comparable to National Review... which tellingly makes the same conflation! Only the right wingers call this good.

In fact, (Adam) Smithian capitalism is open, flat, fair, transparent and benefits from very close regulation of the competitive playing field... as do all other competitive arenas... from courts and democracy to science and sports. The left demonizes the word "competition" and the right demonizes the "regulation" without which competitive arenas always fail and collapse into cheating.

In fact, flat-open-fair competitive markets are as the right contends, the most vastly effective solution finding systems ever known, and they only started taking off when the western enlightenment started regulating them carefully to eliminate inevitable oligarchic cheating. Flat-open-fair competitive capitalism is the first and greatest VICTIM of today's ongoing oligarchic cheater putsch.

And if you are so unable to liberate yourself from a lobotomizing metaphor than you cannot rise above the hoary "left-right axis," then you will never comprehend the five paragraphs in this section, no matter how many times you read them. 

== Examples of the need... and the ingenuity ==

The present El Nino event may become the most powerful on record. Tell us about it!  We just had an inch of rain in SoCal… in July!  I am already clearing my drains and preparing for winter flooding. And yes, both this and the drought are evidence we are gathering, for when it comes time for slapping a great big tort lawsuit on you denialist cultists.  Do not think there will be no consequences for your deliberate obstruction of even the mildest precautions, just in case the smartest people on the planet (scientists) turn out to be right, after all.

And yet, good possibilities keep arising. For example, the Indian government plans cover the more than 19,000 kilometers of canals in Gujarat with solar panels, both generating power and reducing evaporation.  Keep an eye on this California, and especially Arizona!

Can Technology Heal What We Harm?  An article by Ron Bell on Aeon Ideas offers up a sampling of bold yet practical technologies that might help us bridge the next few decades and cross the danger zone to a better world, if only we find the gumption. Though it will take one major step, admitting that a few carbon lords are raking it in, off our children's' future:

"Every day 85 million barrels of oil are used world-wide. This is the equivalent of 3.57 billion gallons of oil every 24 hours, 365 days per year. If all the water flowing over Niagara Falls were oil, this daily amount of oil consumption would equal 6.6 hours, a little over 25%, of Niagara’s daily flow. The world’s annual oil usage equals 55 days of crude oil  continually flowing nonstop over Niagara Falls, rather than water. It’s a stunning amount of natural resources, all of which are destined to be burned and, in turn, channeled via fumes and smoke back into the atmosphere."

No, we are NOT out of the woods.  It is a time fraught with dangers and greedy mistakes that may have wrecked ecosystems and hope on a myriad other worlds, helping to explain the Fermi Paradox.

So?  In that case, let's be the first to cross the minefield. Let's earn our name as the wisest of the wise apes.