Author Archives: Phil Bowermaster

Fast Forward Radio — Possible Futures

When considering the future, the possibilities are (almost) endless. Will we see

The dawn of teleportation?

The triumph of machines over human beings in the workforce?

The privatization of space exploration?

The introduction of brain backup technology?
The discovery of life on other worlds?

Phil and Stephen discussed these and other possible futures — some of which may be happening right now.

Phil noted that his schedule will probably not permit him to attend the world premier of The Singularity Is Near at the Breckenridge Film Festival.This led to an interesting debate about whether the “discussion with Ray Kurzweil” that follows the screening will feature the flesh-and-blood Ray or a digital avatar. If Ray’s talk at the H+ Summit is on Sunday, he can pull off two live appearances. If both talks are on Saturday, one of the Kurzweil’s will be a digitally transmitted version.

Meanwhile, as sally notes in the comments, we all have the opportunity to virtually attend the H+ Summit. Don’t miss it!

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Closing music this week was “Feels Like Rock and Roll” by Jeff Ronay.

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Follow Stephen on Twitter: @stephentgo.

FastForward Radio — Future Grab bag

Phil and Stephen provide a fresh and positive look at the future.

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Among other topics, this grab-bag edition includes:

The case for rational optimism

Faster, Please or Live to See It?

World War II vets and the future

Quadro-Copter

Heart Transplant Patient returns Home

…and others

Here’s the Matt Ridley video that Phil mentioned:




And here’s the video of a baby’s first moment hearing with a cochlear implant:

The music this week was “Popsicle Summer” from Viola. Hear it in stereo at Music Alley.

Lights in the Tunnel — Coming True?

Martin Ford — who joined us on FastForward Radio not long ago — directs us to this story about HP planning to cut 9000 jobs via automation. This development looks like more support for Martin’s thesis, outlined in his book The Lights in the Tunnel, that automation is advancing at a rate that makes the displacement of most human beings from the workforce inevitable (and sooner than you would think.)

It’s a thesis that I’m philosophically disinclined to agree with, but I found Martin’s arguments more persuasive than I expected. If you’re interested in reading the book and judging for yourself, it is now available for free download.

Survivors

Nowhere is the cliche that life is short more true than on the battlefield. On Memorial Day, we honor the memory of those who died in service to their country. And while some of those who have given their lives have done so at a shockingly young age, I think it’s fair to say that all who are killed in combat have, in an important sense, died before their time.

Then there are the survivors. Some of them hang in for a remarkably long time, living as long a life as any of their contemporaries can hope for. By the time I was born, the last of the Civil War veterans had died. Apparently there were veterans of the Spanish American War among us until the early 90′s, although this group has never received the kind of attention bestowed on the veterans of the bigger wars.

When I was a kid, the term “veteran” applied to three groups: Korean War veterans, who were guys about the same age as my dad; World war II veterans who were a bit older than my Dad, and therefore old; and World War I veterans who were a bit older than my grandfather, and therefore unimaginably old. (Vietnam vets started emerging as a distinct class in my early teen years.)

Today the remaining World War I veterans really are quite old, even by my vastly adjusted definition of the term. There are only six left, according to the linked article, and two of those have not met the documentation requirements to be confirmed as bona fide World War I vets, although I will personally take their word for it. The youngest members of that group are 106 years old. Sadly, it’s clear that the Memorial Day is coming very soon when there will be no more surviving World War I veterans.

I heard not long ago that we are currently losing World War II veterans at a rate of 1000 a day. That estimate seems high to me, well over a quarter of a million a year, but it is possible. I wonder how that rate compares to the death rate during the war years? Has the death rate caught up? It’s very sad that we would regard a death rate of 1000 per day during wartime as a tragic necessity — with equal emphasis on the “tragic” and “necessity” parts — but today we view the same rate of loss as unremarkable as it is unavoidable.

In 25 years, the remaining World War II veterans will be abut the same age as the remaining World War I vets are today. There will be many more of them, in part a testament to improvements in medical technology, and in part a reflection of the difference in scale between the two wars. However, there may be another important difference between the two groups. Perhaps some of those surviving World War II vets in 2035 will have something that I wish the World War I vets could have, but I think very unlikely at this point — an open-ended life expectancy.

If so, that means that Memorial Day 50 years from now, or even 125 years from now, we may still have World War II survivors among us. To them, and to all of us, I offer my Memorial Day wish:

Live to see it.

Predicting the Present: Answers

The real ones have links; the fakes ones don’t.

 

Newly Discovered “Monster Planet” Rewrites Rules for Gas Giants, Rocky Worlds
Soviet Moon Lander Discovered Water on The Moon in 1976
SpaceX capsule has ‘new car’ smell, astronauts say

Face-reading software to judge the mood of the masses
Modified Nintendo Wii System Provides Oil Rig Management Interface
Mind-controlled video games become reality

Avengers Inspires Real-Life “Iron Man”
New adhesive device could let humans walk on walls
Teenager finds solution to 350 year old math and physics problem

New stem cell technique promises abundance of key heart cells
Electronic Implants Restore, Enhance Sense of Smell
Nanomedicines on their way through the body

3D blood vessels could aid artificial organs
Robotic jellyfish could one day patrol oceans, clean oil spills, and detect pollutants
Linux could soon replace Mac OS on select laptop models

Jeremy Irons Is a Nitwit

I realize the headline violates our rule against personal attacks. But I just have to make an exception in the case of Mr. Irons, who has achieved a level of asininity rare even for a movie star making comments on global issues.

Before we delve into the really asinine stuff, let me highlight one area of agreement:

In a film on the website 1billionhungry.org, Irons declares: “People around the world suffer hunger — 1 billion. Now that’s bad, worse than bad, that’s crazy! We’ve got to get mad. I want you to get mad. I want you to get up right now, stick your head out of the window and yell, ‘I’m mad as hell’.”

Okay, setting aside the very tired reference to a 35-year-old movie (that he wasn’t even in), I agree that we should be appalled about the number of hungry people in the world. And I am completely behind programs aimed at getting food to the hungry, or better yet, putting food-production capability into the hands of the hungry. Then we get this:

Irons, who owns seven houses, including a pink castle in Co Cork, Ireland, believes a new economic vision is needed in the wake of the global financial crisis. “We are facing an economic revolution,” he said. “I don’t think things can ever be the same again. The next generation will have to think laterally and find ways to cope with this.”

Here’s some lateral thinking. Jeremy, I will listen to what you have to say about the need for an economic revolution after you go sell six of your seven houses and give the proceeds to feed the hungry. That would prove that you’re serious about revolution, and not just some reeking hypocrite who thinks it’s okay to personally benefit from a system that you condemn because you’re an “artist.”

But it gets much worse.

“One always returns to the fact that there are just too many of us, the population continues to rise and it’s unsustainable,” he said in an interview with The Sunday Times. “I think we have to find ways where we’re not having to scrap our effluent junk and are a really sustainable planet.”

Natural systems of selfregulation may stop population growth, he said: “I suspect there’ll be a very big outbreak of something because the world always takes care of itself.”

The 61-year-old actor went on to speculate that either disease or war, “probably disease”, could become nature’s way of halving the population.

Have you ever noticed how the people who call for there to be “less of us” never seem to think that they are part of the problem? If there are too many people on the planet, what are you doing here still taking up space and using resources?

Anyhow, it seems that Irons is worried that a billion people are hungry, but he nods approvingly at scenarios wherein more than three billion people get wiped out by disease or natural disaster. Anyone who thinks that having half the population of the planet die is a “solution” to anything is a moral cretin of unspeakable proportions. However, I doubt that he actually believes this. He just hasn’t thought through what he’s saying.

So I’ll stick with with my initial diagnosis: nitwit.