Okay, this is it.
This weekend I’m upgrading this site as we’ve been discussing for some time. If you come by Saturday or Sunday and things look great — welcome to the new Speculist! If you come by and they look weird, come back Monday. We should be back to normal by then.
…because you can’t shake his hand.
Now here’s a happy guy. He’s young. He’s good looking. He enjoys travel, swimming, golf. Plus he’s got a cool job: motivating and inspiring young people.
We should all be so lucky.
A reader reminds me that I failed to include a link to our new podcast listing on the Kurzweil site as mentioned on Wednesday’s show. Actually, the link is in the show notes, but I certainly don’t mind posting it again:
Big News
FastForward Radio is now listed as a recommended podcast at KurzweilAI. (In fact, we’re at the top of the list!)
Update on Spreading the Word
We started with an update on my project to introduce Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist to 1000 new readers. By the end of day one, we had confirmed eight new readers. 992 to go!
Future of the American Dream?
Two recent Instapundit posts inspired our discussion. Here’s the first:
http://pajamasmedia.com/
Before figuring out whether the American Dream is dead for any individual (or for the whole country) it’s important to define what we mean by the American Dream. Stephen suggested that the American Dream, very simply, is to provide a better life for one’s children or more generally for the next generation. I agreed, and simplified the formula even further to seeking “a better life.”
Image via Wikipedia
Seeking a better life is what brought the pilgrims here, it’s why the settlers moved west, it’s why Ellis Island was so busy year after year, and it’s almost certainly why the young fellow in the linked story went to law school. We call that the American Dream because seeking a better life has been an integral driver of American history. In a sense, it’s the defining American motivation.
But it was not invented here. The American Dream is a subset of what we call the Human Imperative. The founding of our country was uniquely situated to take advantage of major developments in philosophy and political theory which coincided with a collection of big payoffs from the Law of Accelerating Returns that we commonly refer to as The Industrial Revolution. Throw people seeking a better life for themselves into that mix and you get…well, the United States of America.
I remain positive that the American Dream is not over. Of the three primary drivers listed above, two remain in full force. The perceived threat is in the philosophical / political arena. I merely point out that, in spite of disastrous experiments with competing philosophies and political theories throughout the 20th century, humanity came out of that century a lot better off than we started it. Ultimately, we (humanity) and we (the USA) are going to go with what works. And what seems to work is letting people be as free as possible, letting them generate ideas, and letting them create stuff.
That led us to this story:
http://pajamasmedia.com/
No
nation can sustain the economic and cultural strength that has graced
the United States while transferring so much wealth from so few to so
many.
Well then Martin Ford better be wrong, eh? Translation:
“The governing dynamics of 18th – 20th century industrial development
are the immutable laws of the universe. Things can never be all that
different.”
So what if the economy changes and it takes only
a quarter or a tenth as many people to do all the producing. An
alternative approach might be to ask the following question: “If such a
course is inevitable (and of course I’m not saying it is) HOW can the
United States sustain the economic and cultural strength which has
graced us while transferring so much wealth from so few to so many?”
This is why it’s crucial to define our terms. If the American Dream means “getting a high-paying job,” then it truly is threatened by a future in which “employment” as we have known it no longer exists. And that is a very real possibility. No, it’s not inevitable. It’s possible. On the other hand, if the American dream means “seeking a better life,” then we have to start looking at what that means in an entirely new context.
A related story involved how a top-down approach is stifling medical research: http://www.fightaging.org/
We agreed that the best way to get more medical care to more people will involve riding the same wave of progress that has commoditized information technology. Ultimately we want medical care to be as abundant as AOL CDs in the mail back a decade or so ago. In the mean time, we don’t want top-down approaches to slow progress towards the abundance scenario — although I (not speaking for Stephen here) am personally okay with reforms in the interim that truly do make more care available to people who aren’t currently getting it. But it shouldn’t be a zeros-um game in which others (particularly the elderly) start getting less, or lower-quality care.
One story we didn’t get to in our discussion. How is the American Dream working out in other parts of the world? Brian Wang looks at the Middle class in India and China: http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/
Our commenting interface is temporarily down. Follow-ups to bowermaster-at-gmail-dot-com.
As I mentioned on last week’s podcast, I’m currently rolling out a little experiment in memetics.
Earlier this week, I bought four copies of Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist and am sending them to friends who I think…
a) Haven’t already read the book, and
b) Will enjoy it
I’m asking these friends, if they like the book, to share it with a friend or two. Stephen suggested that, between the two of us (and with the help of our listeners) we might get the book into the hands of 100 readers who otherwise wouldn’t have read it.
Stephen is the realistic member of the team, which leaves me to inject that needed dose of “hard to predict, sometimes even hard to imagine” that keeps you lovely folks coming back here day in and day out.* So I’m saying that we ought to help get The Rational Optimist into the hands of 1000 new readers.
Why?
Well, “not that a gift between friends requires any explanation,” I’ve been explaining…
First and foremost, I’m sending it to you because I really enjoyed it and I’m hoping you will enjoy it, too. The author, Matt Ridley is the former science editor of The Economist, and he has written extensively on the subject of evolution, particularly human evolution. In this book, he hones in on social and cultural evolution, and explores how the free exchange of ideas, methods, and stuff has led to vast improvements of the human condition. He presents these ideas in an engaging and readable way, and my guess is that you will find this book as much fun as I did.
Ridley’s assessment of how we got to where we are leads to some fairly surprising predictions as to where we’re going. As you’ve probably guessed from the book’s title, he believes we’re headed in a good direction. That’s kind of a bold stand to take these days, but he makes a compelling case. In fact, so compelling is the case he makes that I wanted to share it with others, which is why I’m sending this book to you and two or three other friends.
So, yeah, I’m pretty impressed with The Rational Optimist. I mean, let’s face it, I don’t do this with every book I read. In fact, out of the hundreds of books I’ve read, I’ve only made myself a direct part of the distribution process once before — with Peter Schwartz’ The Art of the Long View (which I also highly recommend if you’ve never read it.)
Now since this is a gift there are — of course — no strings attached. Read it, ignore it, use it as a doorstop – it’s your book. But I hope you’ll give it a chance. And if it makes the same kind of impression on you as it did on me, I hope you’ll consider passing it on to a friend or two (or three). No, I’m not getting a cut of the book sales! I just think it’s important to get the word out.
So, will this work? Let’s put it this way: we’re now 0.4% of the way to 1000 books. If I have to buy all 1000 myself, so be it — it will just take a while (and a bit more cash outlay than I was originally thinking.) However, one or two of my recipients might like the ideas enough to start sharing them, too. And I think we’ll get some takers on the podcast and amongst those of you reading this.
We’re days away from finishing the site upgrade and having comments back on line, but we’ve been days away for a couple of months now, so If you do decide to take up the challenge, drop me a line — bowermaster-at-gmail-dot-com.
996 to go!
* Not to say that the realism from Stephen doesn’t also keep you coming back. Anyway, it’s all relative. In the Speculist context, the “realistic” person assigns slightly more conservative time frames around when humanity will achieve complete mastery of matter and eliminate all poverty and disease.
Here’s a viral ad that works for me.
I don’t care if you buy a Samsung phone or not, but if this video doesn’t put you in a good mood…what the heck is your problem?
Not Burying the Lead
Huge news: Chocolate Genome Sequenced
Top-Down vs. Bottom-up
Some interesting discussion about top-down vs. bottom-up as an organizing prnciple for society. How should we feel about adult services ads on Craigslist? The argument comes down to free speech versus protecting people from exploitation. Hard to know which is right
And that issue brings the following to mind:
http://gawker.com/5539717/steve-jobs-offers-world-freedom-from-porn
Here the “top” in Top-Down is not the government, but Apple Computer, more specifically Steve Jobs himself. This is a tough call. Jobs argues that he (or Microsoft) can do whatever they want with their platform, and anybody who doesn’t like it can go start their own platform. (Or more realistically use a different platform.)
One clarification on the discussion about Steve Jobs — iPad supports PDF. PDF was mentioned in the linked article, but in a different context. I misread. So my sarcasm was out of line. Mr. Jobs if you’re reading this, I apologize. My bad.
(Having said that, I still found this to be laugh-out-loud funny.)
The real concern in both stories is that our freedoms (or at least our choices) are limited by people offering to help us — in this case, protect us. I think this is one of the most insidious (and effective) ways that top-down counters bottom-up.
Not Burying the Lead 2
(Okay, so everything is a lead story — sue me.)
This is big. Phil announced a new project whereby FFR listeners and Speculist readers are invited to help promote Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist – an essential book for our times. Phil is starting small sending out three copies. Watch this space fo details on how you can be a part.
Image via Wikipedia
If you need to see things in their proper perspective, I recommend this site. (Hat-tip: Michael Darling.)
I’m not up to attempting the math, but I wonder if we’re really positioned right in the middle as shown. I think the small end may be smaller than the big end is big (if that makes any sense.) But seeing as both ends of the scale are pretty much unimaginable I guess it doesn’t matter all that much.
One of the first interviews I ever did for this blog was with Nina Paley, an advocate for the (self-refuting) human extinction movement. Here she is having a conversation with Mike Treder in which she affirms that human extinction would not be a bad thing, would not be something she would object to.
The human extinction movement fails on its most basic premise. Paley’s argument that humanity should go so that all the other species can have a fighting chance misses the fact that humanity is the ONLY species that stands any chance whatsoever (a slim one, but growing) of protecting all the other species from various extinction-level events.
We’re the ones talking about how to deflect killer asteroids, for example. That we know of, ducks are not interested in solving this problem.
Of course we have caused far too many extinctions. Other species cause extinctions, too, but it’s almost certain that we’re the worst offenders. On the other hand, we’re the only species that takes active steps to prevent other species from going extinct and we’re the only species that has any ideas (however shaky at this point) about bringing extinct species back.
The other species don’t really want us gone.
However, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that even some really crazy ideas begin to make sense if you give them enough runway. Someday, there might be a good case for human extinction.
I know, it sounds insane. But work with me.
On the most recent FastForward Radio, I took a controversial stance and came out strongly in favor of existence.
Call me a crackpot, but the way I add things up, it is good to exist.
So when Robin Hanson asks Who Should Exist, I am inclined to answer, “Why, as many of us as possible.”
But somehow that doesn’t quite feel right. Assuming massively expanding but still finite resources, not every being could ever potentially exist is actually going to get to. Some will not make the cut. Who should get left out?
Robin makes a thoroughly economics-driven argument for allowing those who would want to exist and who can “pay their own way,” as he puts it, to exist. Here “pay their own way” means, in more technical economics speak, that a potential being’s “lifespan cost of resources used (including paying for any net externalities) is no more than the value it gives by working for others.”
I don’t know. That seems like a good way to go. I would have probably thought up criteria around how nice the potential beings are, but maybe that’s not so smart. A world where the majority of inhabitants are selected for niceness would probably be a lot more pleasant than one where the majority are selected for economic viability, at least until the infrastructure starts falling apart and the food starts running out because all these nice folks were not selected based on their ability to keep the power runnig or bring the crops in.
Even so, I think there must be criteria other than economic viability. But we’ll leave that discussion for another day.
The most interesting part of this speculation on who should exist has to do with what some of these late-coming, economically viable high-achievers might think of us, and more importantly our right to exist. In a world where new models of intelligent being are being rolled out based on ROI, isn’t it fair to ask what kind of return we’re getting on the older models, or more bluntly what it costs to keep them around?
Another exception to these creature patterns could be due to ancient legacies, of those who held large initial endowments before this competitive regime began. The designs of such ancient creatures, and of new creatures they favored with existence donations, might be unusually far from the peak of factory profitability. Other creatures might question the legitimacy of special creatures who would not exist if not for such legacy assets. They might complain, “Why do such legacies get to be apparent exceptions to the general rule that creatures must pay their way to exist?” Of course if legacy assets were deeply entrenched in social institutions, yet represented only a tiny fraction of wealth, these might remain mere complaints.
Our design i.e., the basic physiology and mental capacity of all human beings alive today, would be one of the “ancient legacies”. But the argument might not be that we, people from this era who have survived into that future, should no longer exist, but that our original design (the MOSH design) should be deprecated.
So who should get to exist? Some day the answer might be “no more humans” (meaning old-model humans.) And that answer might be okay. It might actually make sense.
But that day (if it ever comes) is a long way off. In the mean time, we’re going to need humans around in order to get there.
