Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: economics

The United States remains the only nation to have landed humans on the Moon and returned them safely to Earth. It is among the greatest achievements in human history, and it has significantly contributed to America’s leadership on the world stage. As a young man I had the opportunity of working on the Apollo program as an inspector with McDonnell Douglas. It was an exciting experience, and I am both grateful and humbled to have been a part of it.

The success of the Apollo Missions led to other significant accomplishments like building reusable Space Shuttles to test the limits of human space flight, prolonged robotic exploration of Mars, deploying a space-based telescope that can see far beyond our solar system, and conducting scientific research on the International Space Station. In more recent years we’ve seen an explosion in commercial space activity which has culminated in private companies conducting successful human space launches. This too is a significant milestone.

Our investment in space is critical to our national security, scientific discovery, technological advancement, and economic competitiveness. So much of our modern-day life is dependent on space making a bank transaction, for example, or even a phone call, these days requires using some type of space-faring technology. And while NASA’s leadership of our space efforts will continue to be indispensable, the U.S. commercial space industry’s role in space exploration will grow larger and more critical. American companies must continue to lead the way.

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The story of a young science-writer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, who risked everything by blowing the whistle on a massive cover-up involving a promising cancer therapy.

Cover-Up Of Promising Cancer Treatment (2014)
Director: Eric Merola.
Writers: Eric Merola.
Stars: Robert Good, Ben Moss, Martha Moss.
Genre: Documentary, Biography, Drama.
Country: United States.
Language: English.
Also Known As: Second Opinion — The Lie of America’s War on Cancer.
Release Date: March 1, 2014 (United States)

Reviews:
“This movie hits home since my dad died of cancer when I was 13 and it upsets me tremendously to think that our overall health care system has been corrupted due to the profit system. The Hippocratic oath seems to be more focused on maintaining the status quo of profit versus curing medical problems.

The Movie: An insider’s account from the 70’s at a well known NYC cancer research hospital exposing the truth (using the hospital’s own records) behind how the profit system has corrupted the search for finding a “cure” for cancer. A promising treatment was swept under the rug and the scientist who found it (co-founder of chemotherapy) was forced to lie about his treatment. The treatment was not the “cure”, but it worked remarkably well and very cheap. The problem was it was “very cheap”. Even though the movie is centered around 1 character and it’s almost entirely a narrative, the topic and the evidence is so damning, it’s exciting. It’s a knock-out punch guilty as charged for the hospital. Definitely recommended to all.”

Continue reading “Cover-Up Of Promising Cancer Treatment | Cancer Research | Documentary” | >

Here’s my new Opinion essay at Newsweek. It’s about the need to use our nation’s massive natural resources to pay for a bipartisan tax free universal basic income, called the Federal Land Dividend. I hope you will read and share it!

In 2018, I began lecturing about the Federal Land Dividend, a bipartisan tax-free Universal Basic Income (UBI) based on monetizing the 640 million acres of mostly unused federally owned land. Due to the lasting effects of the coronavirus pandemic, which include a struggling U.S. economy, there is increasing interest in implementing basic income plans. The Federal Land Dividend is the only method that is both bipartisan and tax free.

An estimated 50 percent of the 11 most western states are mostly empty land that belong to the government. Estimates say this land and its resources are worth approximately $100 to $200 trillion. If we divide the middle— $150 trillion —by America’s population of 333 million, every person would have approximately $450,000 in equity. That’s much higher than the median net worth in America of $122,000.

The Federal Land Dividend aims to lease out land and natural resources to big business that agree, in exchange, to pay a monthly income to all Americans. It’s estimated that if just 60 percent of America’s unused federal land was leased out at fair rates, a $1,000 monthly check could be sent to all Americans—regardless of age—for decades if not centuries. Because land and raw materials often move in tandem with inflation, payouts could increase with inflation. Furthermore, this plan does not touch any national parks whatsoever. Much of this land is in places that few humans ever visit or see.

Continue reading “It’s Time to Consider the Federal Land Dividend” | >

ChatGPT decreased the time it took workers to complete certain writing tasks by 40 percent and increased output quality by 18 percent.

A new MIT study has found that access to the assistive chatbot ChatGPT decreased the time it took workers to complete certain writing tasks by 40 percent and increased output quality by 18 percent.

This is according to a press release by the institution published on Friday.

“What we can say for sure is generative AI is going to have a big effect on white collar work,” said Shakked Noy, a PhD student in MIT’s Department of Economics, who co-authored the paper with fellow PhD student Whitney Zhang ’21.

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Japanese scientists have discovered a compound, ethylammonium lead iodide, which can store and release ammonia safely and efficiently. This finding holds potential for ammonia’s role as a carbon-free hydrogen carrier, contributing to the transition towards a decarbonized society.

Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) in Japan have discovered a compound that uses a chemical reaction to store ammonia, potentially offering a safer and easier way to store this important chemical. This discovery, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on July 10, makes it possible not only to safely and conveniently store ammonia, but also the important hydrogen is carries. This finding should help lead the way to a decarbonized society with a practical hydrogen economy.

For society to make the switch from carbon-based to hydrogen-based energy, we need a safe way to store and transport hydrogen, which by itself is highly combustible. One way to do this is to store it as part of another molecule and extract it as needed. Ammonia, chemically written as NH3, makes a good hydrogen carrier because three hydrogen atoms are packed into each molecule, with almost 20% of ammonia being hydrogen by weight.

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Entrepreneur and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen is among the many people speaking out about the opportunities and risks of artificial intelligence and the growth of ChatGPT. The comments from Andreessen come as valuations have risen for artificial intelligence stocks.

What Happened: Fresh off his report called “Why AI will save the world,” Andreessen shared more details on the opportunities for artificial intelligence during a recent podcast appearance.

Andreessen argued that AI could save the world, a bold claim that includes looking at the religion of sorts of the AI movement.

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All of us are at the beginning of a journey to understand generative AI’s power, reach, and capabilities. This research is the latest in our efforts to assess the impact of this new era of AI. It suggests that generative AI is poised to transform roles and boost performance across functions such as sales and marketing, customer operations, and software development. In the process, it could unlock trillions of dollars in value across sectors from banking to life sciences. The following sections share our initial findings.

For the full version of this report, download the PDF.

Generative AI’s impact on productivity could add trillions of dollars in value to the global economy. Our latest research estimates that generative AI could add the equivalent of $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion annually across the 63 use cases we analyzed—by comparison, the United Kingdom’s entire GDP in 2021 was $3.1 trillion. This would increase the impact of all artificial intelligence by 15 to 40 percent. This estimate would roughly double if we include the impact of embedding generative AI into software that is currently used for other tasks beyond those use cases.

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Generative AI’s potential to unleash creativity, accelerate discovery, and enhance efficiency could add trillions to Asian economies.

When it comes to the ability to generate, arrange, and analyze content, generative AI is a gamechanger—one with transformative social and economic potential.

As a technology that is democratized—one that doesn’t simply exist in a faraway lab or tech community in Silicon Valley, for instance—generative AI lowers the barriers to participation. In the age of generative AI, anyone can be a creator. But this also entails a profound workforce shift, changing the processes of production within the economy and, in turn, the types of tasks that are undertaken and the… More.

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