Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: economics – Page 211

You may think I’m biased when I say investments in innovation across the space industry are growing, but the proof is all around us.

Growing by nearly 10 percent in just one year, the global space economy has reached a total of $330 billion worldwide, according to a 2015 Space Foundation report. Specifically, commercial space activities grew by 9.7 percent in 2014, while government investments in space saw a combined growth of 7.3 percent. And the part of space that’s most visible to us — rocket launch attempts — also increased from 81 attempts in 2013 to 92 in 2014.

These are promising statistics, and we’re seeing this growth in investment firsthand as we’ve witnessed some pretty incredible accomplishments throughout the industry over the past year.

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Israel must remain on the cutting edge of cyber-defense, –security and –technology in order to maintain the safety and security of the state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote in Globes on Sunday.

In the article, Netanyahu outlined his vision, policies and initiatives aimed at arming the Jewish state with the latest in “cybernetic innovation.” According to the Israeli leader, “Cyber defense is an essential condition for national security and economic growth in the 21st century,” and Israel’s strength in the fields of science and technology is leading the country to be one of the world’s greatest “cyber security power.”

“Five years ago, I set the goal of making Israel one of the five leading global cyber powers. We are already placed very high, and the world regards us as a rising power. Enhancing our capabilities in the cyber field requires continuous effort,” Netanyahu wrote.

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A lot of transhumanism friends have asked me to write about Bernie Sanders, so here are my thoughts:

The transhumanism movement has been dramatically growing in size—and most of that growth is from millennials and youth joining. Transhumanists want to use science and technology to radically improve the human race, and the onslaught of new gear and gadgets to do that—like virtual reality, robots, and chip implants —are giving them plenty of ammunition to do that.

But what has caught many people off guard—including myself who probably best fits into the category: left-leaning Libertarian—is the amount of support transhumanists are giving to Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign. Historically, transhumanism (and its de facto home: Silicon Valley) has been Libertarian-minded —with a hands-off attitude towards the government, religion, and basically any authority trying to tell them what to do or how to innovate. But with the demographics of the transhumanism movement sharply changing from older academics and technologists to young people—especially those in college—the push towards more leftist and progressive-leaning ideas is strong. For many young transhumanists, they believe they have found an ideal in Sanders.

While I like the charisma of Sanders and his long standing devotion to the people—and that is enough for me to say he’d be a good president for change—the reality is capitalism is still a hallmark of the American way. For the next four and maybe even eight years, capitalism won’t be going anywhere. Afterward, though, within 10–25 years, when robots, software, and AI really start dismantling capitalism as we know it (see my latest TechCrunch article and thoughts on a Universal Basic Income), it will be a totally different story.

Like it or not, millennials and youth obsess over this type of economy stuff—especially machines taking jobs. They know future employment statistics better than many 30-year veteran business executives running publicly traded companies. The dangerous truth is many young people know they likely won’t have jobs in the future. And neither will most of the executives for that matter, since they too can (and will) be replaced by super intelligent machines programmed to make sound mathematical business decisions.

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However, Rob Ott, a computer scientist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who did work on the system—Deep Learning Interface for Accounting (DELIA)—notes that it simply held all of the missing money, some $40,120.16, in a “rainy day” account. “I don’t think you can attribute malice,” he says. “I’m sure DELIA was going to give the money back.”

Technologists shocked by program’s ability to set its own priorities—such as getting rich.

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“What is the best way to get from A to B by public transit? Google Maps is answering such queries for over 20,000 cities and towns in over 70 countries around the world, including large metro areas like New York, São Paulo or Moscow, and some complete countries, such as Japan or Great Britain.”

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My new article for TechCrunch on capitalism and the robot revolution:

Economic experts are trying to figure out a question that just two decades ago seemed ridiculous: If 90 percent of human jobs are replaced by robots in the next 50 years — something now considered plausible — is capitalism still the ideal economic system to champion? No one is certain about the answer, but the question is making everyone nervous — and forcing people to dig deep inside themselves to discover the kind of future they want.

After America beat Russia in the Cold War, most of the world generally considered capitalism to be the hands-down best system on which to base economies and democracies. For decades, few doubted capitalism’s merit, which was made stronger by thriving globalization and a skyrocketing world net worth. In 1989 — when the Berlin Wall fell — the world had only 198 billionaires. Now, according to Forbes, there are 1,826 of them in 2016.

Despite growing riches, when banks collapsed in 2007 during the Great Recession, the world stepped back and wondered aloud if a more nuanced approach to economic progress was needed. These doubts of 21st century capitalism helped set the stage for an economic paradigm shift just starting to appear — economists observing jobs not just disappearing to other countries, but disappearing off the face of the Earth. The culprit: robots and software.

At first, the warnings of this weren’t very loud. After all, economies and companies thrive because of modernization, which includes upgrading with new tech to make and save money. But in the last year, a growing chorus of people are beginning to see a tipping point, maybe a decade in the future, where tens of millions of jobs may be lost in as short as a five-year period — which would be many more times the jobs lost during the Great Recession.

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NASA Technology

Building on work he and his companies did with Johnson Space Center’s In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) team, Robert Zubrin has developed and commercialized technologies that could prove revolutionary in their Earth applications, such as a system that could extract millions of barrels of oil from defunct oil wells around the world and another that can harness all the natural gas currently burned off as waste at many oil drilling rigs (Spinoff 2015).

But when he’s not working to change this world or colonize others, the president of Pioneer Astronautics, Pioneer Energy, and the Mars Society enjoys a good microbrew. Now, he’s applied some of that same technology to cut costs for craft breweries that produce anywhere between 3,000 and 300,000 barrels per year.

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The world is shifting to clean and renewable energy to power homes and transportation. Just like electronic devices, all green homes and cars will require Lithium-ion batteries to store energy and power them. LiTHIUM X locates and develops lithium assets with the goal of supplying the increasing demand from global battery giants like Panasonic, AESC, LG, BYD and – soon – utility companies.

LiTHIUM X is a lithium resource explorer and developer with a focus on becoming a low-cost supplier for the burgeoning lithium battery industry. Its Sal de los Angeles project is situated in the prolific “Lithium Triangle” in Salta Province, Argentina. The project is comprised on 8,156 hectares covering the nucleus of Salar de Diablillos with approximately C$19 million having been invested in the property by previous operators, including $16.2 million in work completed at Sal de los Angeles between 2010 to 2015. It contains high grade brine with a historic NI 43–101 resource of 2.8 million tonnes LCE and historic positive project economics.

LiTHIUM X also has the largest land package in Clayton Valley, Nevada covering over 15,040 acres between its Clayton Valley North project and Clayton Valley South extension. Both land packages are contiguous to the only producing lithium operation in North America – Silver Peak, owned and operated by Albemarle, the world’s largest lithium producers.

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Peacefully nestled in the Viluppuram district near Puduchery, Tamil Nadu, is a township like none other. Transcending money, politics and religion, welcome to Auroville, the City of Dawn.

“Auroville is meant to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creed, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity.”

It was founded on 28th February, 1968, by Mirra Alfassa (known as “The Mother”) as a project of the Sri Aurobindo Society. Mirra Alfassa was the spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo, who held the notion that “man is a transitional being”. It was designed by Roger Anger.

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