Almost a year ago, we were told by our governments and healthcare professionals that a two-week shutdown of the economy would “flatten the curve.”
The Chinese Coronavirus (COVID-19) hit American shores — officially, anyway, there is significant evidence that it arrived earlier — in late January 2020. The American public was then told that a two-week shutdown of the economy would “flatten the curve,” relieving the pressure on hospital intensive care units and saving lives in the long run.
The average American, including conservatives, being people of good faith, complied, thinking that this was a common-sense measure that would save lives in the wake of a new and mysterious pandemic.
But two things quickly happened: First, the goalposts moved. No longer was it enough to “flatten the curve.” Now we were to be locked down until there was a cure.
On Januray 25th, we will discuss different aspects of longtermism — a concept of effective altruism. To decide which ist the best action to take we usually consider the effects of our actions on the short-or medium-term future — whether we save someone’s life, or mitigate sexism or racism in the next generation. According to longtermism that is wildly mistaken. The value of our actions is determined almost exclusively by their effects on the future in the very long-run — the next millions and billions of years. Their effects on the next 100 or even 1000 years are just about irrelevant. Our everyday thinking is radically short-sighted, and common evaluations perhaps dramatically wrong. In this online meetup, we will look at a compelling justification for longtermism, at its historical roots, and some of its practical implications — e.g. concerning existential risks, or the idea that our time might be the most important in the history of humanity. Free discord session on 9:30 — 11:30 AM PST 11:30 — 13:30 AM DST.
What is the best action we can take? According to longtermism we should consider the effects on the future in the very long run — the next millions and billions of years — to answer this question.
Stuck at home with time on their hands, millions of amateurs around the world are gathering information on everything from birds to plants to Covid-19 at the request of institutional researchers. And while quarantine is mostly a nightmare for us, it’s been a great accelerant for science.
From backyard astronomy to birding, amateurs have been busy collecting data — and making real discoveries.
Review: Meat Planet (2019) by Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft
In the words of the book’s author, Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft, Meat Planet: Artificial Flesh and the Future of Food (2019) is “not an attempt at prediction but rather a study of cultured meat as a special case of speculation on the future of food, and as a lens through which to view the predictions we make about how technology changes the world.” While not serving as some crystal ball to tell us the future of food, Wurgaft’s book certainly does serve as a kind of lens.
Our very appetites are questioned quite a bit in the book. Wondering about the ever-changing history of food, the author asks, “Will it be an effort to reproduce the industrial meat forms we know, albeit on a novel, and more ethical and sustainable, foundation?” Questioning why hamburgers are automatically the default goal, he points out cultured meat advocates should carefully consider “the question of which human appetite for meat, in historical terms, they wish to satisfy.”
The idea of slowing down the ageing process and living healthier, more productive lives is hugely appealing. It’s led to a growing trend for people looking to take control of their own biology, optimising their bodies and minds through ‘biohacking’. But how safe and ethical is this pursuit of longevity? And are there more natural ways of expanding your healthy lifespan? Video by Dan John Animation by Adam Proctor.
By capsule, helicopter, boat, plane, and car, space station science experiments are about to make a first of a kind journey back to researchers on Earth.
For mathematicians and computer scientists, 2020 was full of discipline-spanning discoveries and celebrations of creativity. We’d like to take a moment to recognize some of these achievements.
1. A landmark proof simply titled MIP = RE” establishes that quantum computers calculating with entangled qubits can theoretically verify the answers to an enormous set of problems. Along the way, the five computer scientists who authored the proof also answered two other major questions: Tsirelson’s problem in physics, about models of particle entanglement, and a problem in pure mathematics called the Connes embedding conjecture.
2. In February, graduate student Lisa Piccirillo dusted off some long-known but little-utilized mathematical tools to answer a decades-old question about knots. A particular knot named after the legendary mathematician John Conway had long evaded mathematical classification in terms of a higher-dimensional property known as sliceness. But by developing a version of the knot that yielded to traditional knot analysis, Piccirillo finally determined that the Conway knot is not slice.
3. For decades, mathematicians have used computer programs known as proof assistants to help them write proofs — but the humans have always guided the process, choosing the proof’s overall strategy and approach. That may soon change. Many mathematicians are excited about a proof assistant called Lean, an efficient and addictive proof assistant that could one day help tackle major problems. First, though, mathematicians must digitize thousands of years of mathematical knowledge, much of it unwritten, into a form Lean can process. Researchers have already encoded some of the most complicated mathematical ideas, proving in theory that the software can handle the hard stuff. Now it’s just a question of filling in the rest.
