You take two excessively attractive people and you make them even more attractive. Sure, it’s about as close to literally gilding a lily as anything ever comes, but so what? We value these people because of their looks (meaning no offense to their acting ability; I think they both do okay on that front.) Why not take it up a notch? Because it’s going to give us unrealistic expectations?

Um, this is sensitive so I’ll try not to be too harsh: most guys looking for even the un-retouched version of Angelina Jolie are going to be bitterly disappointed. Sad but true. Might as well make her look perfect. If anything, the unreality of the perfection could help some of us to manage expectations a bit.

Read the whole thing.

100 Plus: How the Coming Age of Longevity Will Change Everything,

From Careers and Relationships to Family and Faith.

Is it possible that living to be 100, 150, 200 or even older will soon be the norm in some parts of the world? How will this happen? What are the implications?

Tune in and find out!

 

About Our Guest:

Sonia Arrison is an author and policy analyst who has studied the impact of new technologies on society for more than a decade. A Senior Fellow at the California-based Pacific Research Institute(PRI) and aorld, she is author of two previous books (Western Visions and Digital Dialog) as well as numerous PRI studies on technology issues. A frequent media contributor and guest, her work has appeared in many publications including CBS columnist for TechNewsWorld, she is author of two previous books (Western Visions and Digital Dialog) as well as numerous PRI studies on technology issues. A frequent media contributor and guest, her work has appeared in many publications including CBS MarketWatch, CNN, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall StreetJournal, and USA Today. She was also the host of a radio show called “digital dialogue” on the Voice America network and has been a repeat guest on National Public Radio, Tech TV, and CNN’s Headline News.

Often asked for advice on technology issues, Sonia has given testimony and served as an expert witness for various government committees such as the Congressional Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce and the California Commission on Internet Political Practices. She is an instructor for California’s Command College and serves on the Board of Trustees for Singularity University. MarketWatch, CNN, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. She was also the host of a radio show called “digital dialogue” on the Voice America network and has been a repeat guest on National Public Radio, Tech TV, and CNN’s Headline News.

The question comes from Instapundit, who put it this way:

IF “SMART DRUGS” IMPROVE DOCTORS’ PERFORMANCE, is it malpractice not to take them?

The question is not as facetious as it seems. The linked article describes a study showing that doctors on a performance-enhancing drug called modafinil were able to make better decisions faster than their counterparts who have not taken any “smart” drugs. If smart drug usage becomes a reliable predictor of better outcomes, it’s possible that doctors will feel increasing pressure to take them. It’s even possible that those who do will advertise that fact so that people who want an “enhanced” doctor will know who to look for.

But still, it seems unlikely that it would ever come down to doctors being required to take such drugs. At least it does to us, today. (In a few years the idea might not sound so crazy.) Although it’s not hard to imagine non-performance-enhanced doctors eventually paying higher malpractice insurance premiums.

Requiring performance-enhancing drugs for some occupations might prove a slippery slope. Consider this fascinating development:

Fed-funded research: magic mushrooms create ‘openness’

A single high dose of the hallucinogen psilocybin, the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms,” was enough to bring about a measureable and lasting personality change — “openness” — lasting at least a year in nearly 60 percent of the 51 participants in a new study, say Johns Hopkins researchers.

By “openness,” they mean traits related to imagination, aesthetics, feelings, abstract ideas, and general broad-mindedness, the researchers said. Changes in these traits, measured on a widely used and scientifically validated personality inventory, were larger in magnitude than changes typically observed in healthy adults over decades of life experiences, the scientists say.

As described, “openness” would be a valuable trait for a new hire in any of thousands of different jobs. Maybe the pre-employment screening of the future will be an entirely different kind of drug test — one to make sure that the candidate has eaten hallucinogenic mushrooms at least once in the past year.

(Cross-posted from Transparency Revolution.)

More recently, a computer beat a pair of highly skilled human competitors on the game show Jeopardy! IBM, the company responsible for building both of these remarkable machines, announced that Watson, the computer that won on Jeopardy!, is (in effect) going to medical school. Machine intelligence is evolving rapidly.

The questions this raises are both simple and powerful:

How long until machine intelligence reaches the level of human intelligence?

How long, after that, before human / machine intelligence reaches a level far beyond anything seen or imagined before?

A panel of futurists and AI experts join us to discuss the coming intelligence explosion.

Join Us:

July 27, 2011

7 PM PDT / 10 PM EDT

Our Panelists:

Ben Goertzel

James Hughes

Carl Shulman

Greg “SurfDaddy” Campbell

The World Transformed 2, Part 1

Some of it is evolutionary, some of it is cultural, and a small portion of it is original to us as individuals.

It is our way of thinking.

Our thinking is always subject to scrutiny and inspection, but perhaps never more urgently than now. If profound change truly is upon us…

…what assumptions must we avoid?

…what new ideas must we be ready to embrace?

…what cherished “truths” must we be prepared to put away once and for all?
Our panel will explore the role that education, imagination, and creativity have to play in coming to grips with a world in a state of transformation.

Join us:

Wednesday, June 29, 2011
7 PM PDT / 10 PM EDT

Our Panelists:

Thomas Mccabe

P. J. Manney

David brin

More details at WorldTransformed.com

It seems that that we are at a bit of an impasse. We are all here together at my conference table—yours truly, the Frenchman, the knockout, and the freakazoid.

Oh, and of course the three boxes.

“So what game are you playing?” LeClaire asks Markku. He’s been studying the boxes for the past few seconds. He seems troubled by their presence.

Markku does not respond. Daphne looks on, half-interested, apparently secure in the knowledge that Monsieur LeClaire has things well in hand.

Vanessa has come and gone, leaving fresh hot beverages and a basket of delightful blueberry muffins in her wake. I offer them around, but there are no takers. Daphne smiles sweetly and makes some throwaway comment about watching her weight. LeClaire gives me a polite, if distracted, merci non. He’s only got eyes for the big man. For his part, Markku registers absolutely no interest in my offer.

So, having done my hostly duties, I grab one, drop it on one of the dainty little china plates that Vanessa left for each of us, split it in half, and begin applying a generous helping of butter.

Perhaps the smell of the split muffin catches Markku’s attention—although I thought they smelled pretty good anyway. Good enough to get the old stomach rumbling, anyhow. Or maybe I was buttering too loudly. I don’t know. Anyway, whatever the problem is, Markku whips around and gives me a sneer.

“Do you require food? Now?”

Well, ah, gee…I guess I do, actually. I mean, I’m not sure that I actually require it. All told, I would probably benefit from a somewhat diminished blueberry muffin intake. But dammit, this is my office. And these are my muffins. Just because this mutant bird freak shows up and starts casually talking about how impractical it would be to kill me, does that mean I have to go without eating?

In case I haven’t mentioned it lately, this entire situation sucks.

Jerry positioned himself directly behind the stranger. He crossed his arms and planted his feet firmly in place. I’d seen this pose a few times before — our little roadside diner wasn’t immune to the occasional troublemaker. I knew from past experience that Jerry was prepared to act more quickly and decisively then many would give him credit for. And I’d never seen anyone tangle with him who didn’t regret it almost immediately.

But I wasn’t so sure about this one.

“I think it’s time for you to leave,” said Jerry.

The stranger spun around on his stool.

“No, it is not that time all,” he said. “As I indicated, it is time for a choice to be made. I will select one from three. You will not be the one.”

“Look, Mister, the only choice you have to make is whether you leave under your own power or you get thrown out. Now which is it going to be?”

For a moment it looked as though the stranger was going to say something, but he didn’t. He spun around on his stool and, ignoring both Sybil and myself, began to study the back counter and wall. Apparently seeing what he was looking for, he gave Jerry a dismissive mechanical wave without even glancing his way. Jerry turned and walked back to the far end of the counter. He then stepped behind it, and took a position approximately where the stranger had been looking. He did not look at Sybil. He drew a large carving knife from the rack next to the cutting board and then walked once again out from behind the counter and took a seat across from me at my booth.

He didn’t look at me. His attention was focused solely on the knife. He gripped the handle firmly with both hands—its point was just below his chin, aimed directly at his own throat.

"I see," she said. "The government of the United States believes
that the world is ending. And the two of you share in that belief?"

"Well, yes and no," said Keyes, looking to Sergei. "I mean,
I don’t think we’re either one convinced that it’s really the end
of the world. I shouldn’t have used that phrase. It’s needlessly melodramatic."

"And it lacks precision," Sergei agreed. "Perhaps it is more
accurate to say that world that we know will come to end. But that has happened
before, has it not, Ksenia Ivanova?"

“So you’re saying that all these other versions of me, living in all these parallel dimensions, are in some kind of competition with me? Is that the idea?”

I look down. My coffee cup is nearly empty. For the third time.

Three cups in one sitting is a bit much for me, even when I’m not feeling jittery. And, as I may have mentioned, this Marco Polo whatever the hell his name is makes me more than just a little jittery.

But let’s be accurate. It’s really more like two and half cups of coffee, seeing as I spilled about half of my first cup. And to tell you the truth, I’m not really feeling all that jittery now. Or at least I think it’s fair to say that the jitteriness I am experiencing is almost completely caffeine-induced. Sure, this guy is way beyond creepy. Not just the way he looks and talks, but something about the way he moves and, even worse, the way he just kind of is even when he’s not moving.

The man is not right.

But, hey, that could be said of a lot of people. Why, I could take the elevator down to the ground level, walk out of this building, and within a few blocks find a half dozen people just as delusional as he is.

Some probably even more delusional.

But why bother going all that distance? Right here in this building, certainly among the worker bees down below — but every bit as certainly among the queen bees up here at altitude — the place is crawling with hang-ups, phobias, idiosyncrasies, night terrors, oddities, paranoid delusions, and myriad other conditions both certifiable and un. Even my own dear wife has a kind of crazy side to her. (Albeit lovable. Sort of. Once you get used to it.) But just because somebody is a little off, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily dangerous.

I’ve decided that, owing to the fact that he apparently jumped off the screen from a David Cronenberg movie right here into real life, my guest exudes a kind of sinister air which causes one to mistake him for a dangerous individual — and it doesn’t help when he says things like it wouldn’t have been “practical” to kill me, especially as convincingly as he says it — but, come on, the guy can’t really be a threat.

Not really.

And yet, having come to that conclusion…what? A cup and a half ago? I still have done nothing to remove him from my presence. I still sit here talking to the man as though it were a good use of my time. As though his issues really are important.

As though I really don’t dare say anything about his leaving for fear that he’ll get mad and hurt me.

And so the chat continues. It’s kind of interesting, anyway.

Sybil was surprised when she got up to find breakfast waiting for her. It was
getting late by the time she made her appearance, so I left the two of them
to have their breakfast in the little nook in the back of the kitchen where
we had our family meals. Having already eaten, I went to work preparing the
diner for opening. We still had half an hour, and I could have lingered at the
table for a while if I had chosen to do so. I told myself that I was just giving
Sybil and Jerry some time alone together — which was true as far as it
went — but the reality was that I was avoiding any more discussion of my
dream.

Opening the diner was not a monumental task. I moved a working quantity of
eggs, bacon, and sausage from the main refrigerator to the smaller cooling unit
next to the grill. I left the beef and ham steaks, which tended to be ordered
much less frequently, in the freezer. In a pitcher, I mixed up a batch of pancake
batter and put it with the other food. I turned the toaster on and added a half
stick of butter to the warming bowl beside it, then set a clean brush next to
the bowl. Every slice of bread got brushed with a healthy slathering of butter
before being set on the toaster’s miniature conveyor belt.

With the kitchen finished, I went to work on the counter area. I put a big
paper filter on either side of the coffee machine, scooping grounds of regular
into one of them and decaffeinated into the other. But I wouldn’t press the
brew button until five minutes before I unlocked the double glass front door
and turned on the Open sign. That way, our first few customers would get a fresh
cup. There was no preparation to make for the milk or orange juice dispensers.
I just checked to make sure that there were enough trays of cups and glasses
to get us through the morning.

I noticed that there were six trays of coffee cups, with nine missing from
the top tray for a total of 141. There were four trays of juice glasses, with
eight missing from the top tray for a total of 72. Each cup tray held 25 cups;
each glass tray held 20 glasses.

As I started putting out paper placemats and silverware, I thought about these
numbers. The number of juice glasses, 72, was equal to the combined ages of
my friends at the time I left the home. The eight empty spaces were equal to
my age when I left. The number of coffee cups, 141, was equal to the combined
difference in age in all of us between then and now, 120, added to Sybil’s
age at the time I left, 21. That number, 141, was also the room number of the
hotel where Sybil and I stayed in Las Vegas all those years ago.

But that was only the beginning. I’ve tried to train myself, over the years,
not to notice numbers. At least, not to notice them too much. The numbers
72 and 141 weren’t really significant for any particular reason. The truth is,
we all encounter the same numbers over and over again every day of our lives.
Most people just don’t notice them. I suffer from not only noticing, but
remembering every number I come into contact with. It seems they all
just lie there, the numbers, waiting for the chance to wake up and take me out
of the world for a while.

And I was only getting started with these two.

As the elevator doors slide closed behind me, I round the corner to observe that the office is quiet — perfectly, blissfully quiet — just as it always is.

I love Monday mornings.

The 19th floor of the Hamilton Building is a delightful place, a veritable paradise on earth. The ceiling of the main lobby, or “atrium” as we like to call it, is 25 feet high, except for the dramatic glass cathedral skylight in the center — that reaches some 12 feet higher. In fact, the 19th floor was originally the 19th – 22nd floors. We had to do a substantial amount of structural work to accommodate all the marble we brought in, especially for the fountain. As we made our way up the building over the years (starting with just a single office way down on the second floor), we left our mark at every stage of the ascent. So today we not only have an executive suite that Kublai Khan himself would be proud to call his own, we have very comfortable accommodations all the way down to the first floor. The sniveling, underachieving whiners with whom I swore I would always identify — that lasted about six months — have it better than they can possibly imagine. Whenever any of them has the temerity to complain about anything, I fantasize taking them back to the sixth floor of the old WorldConneX building and letting them cool their heels in one of those cubicles for a few hours.

Of course, that would never work. Even if the setting could be recreated (and it couldn’t; Vision bought out WorldConneX years ago, a move that I had a small hand in — although, come to think of it, that doesn’t necessarily imply an improvement in habitat for the local fauna), the essential angst would be gone. The ingrate in question would know that he or she would be coming back to work for me before long, so the experience would be devoid of that heaviness, that slow, persistent dread, that thought that one must always try to suppress, though one can never fully escape — I’m going to be stuck in this hell-hole for the rest of my life.

Aside from the lobby, the 19th floor houses only the boardroom and two offices, my own and that of my Chief Operating Officer. The Chief Counsel, CFO, and lesser luminaries dwell in somewhat more, shall we say, reserved opulence on the 16th-18th floors. They are a fine bunch, friendly and deferential to me and scared to death of the COO. Just as it should be.

Good Cop is the role I was born to play.