Humans and their machines are doing a fantastic job of making humanity as a whole wealthier through independent initiatives. But what if we deployed, within certain parameters (e.g., concern for the environment), machines focused on a single task: increasing the material well-being of all human beings? Arguably, the arms race between intelligent trading systems is […]
There is good reason to believe that we are heading towards post-scarcity, a new economy in which, basically, anybody can have anything they want. We’ll all be rich: Post-scarcity is a theoretical alternative form of economics or social engineering in which goods, services and information are universally accessible.[1] This would require a sophisticated system of […]
I got to participate in a live online event yesterday talking with Abundance authors Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler. What a treat. I put myself in the queue for questions and asked the authors the following: now that the book has been out for a few weeks, how has it been going dealing with the media? Owing […]
Phil and Stephen welcome presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to FFR to discuss how energy and space policy factor into our national dialog about the future. Plus, we continue our discussion of Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler’s new book, Abundance: The Future Is Better Than Yout Think, which argues that we […]
Over at I Look Forward To, Christian asks Matt Ridley and some dude with an extremely elongated head claiming to be me whether super-abundance might bring an end to war as we know it. Plus: Matt gives his views on why the pessimistic outlook is so cherished. Related articles Matt Ridley at TED (freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.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 […]
Here’s a charmer of a quote from the comments section of the article I linked the other day about how a new catalyst enables highly efficient production of hydrogen from water: Ok why do under developed nations even need power honestly? Can’t they just stay under-developed forever? I’d like to think this is a joke. […]
On last week’s podcast, we touched briefly on the subject of what kind of government / security infrastructure will need to be implemented in a world in which anyone can make, well, anything. I suggested that some kind of powerful enforcement mechanism will have to be put in place, although much of the “policing” might […]
Check this out. The disk isn’t big enough to contain that little, dull picture of it. Back in the day, a file that size was something of an extravagance — too big to fit on a floppy! Now how many hundreds, thousand of files this size do we all have? A more important question — […]
Check this out. The disk isn’t big enough to contain that little, dull picture of it. Back in the day, a file that size was something of an extravagance — too big to fit on a floppy! Now how many hundreds, thousand of files this size do we all have? A more important question — […]