It’s not a great feeling to know that you scared your doctors. Unfortunately for a man in the UK, he recently did so: he displayed a case of gonorrhea that so dramatically resisted treatment that it chilled his physicians.
That’s partially because gonorrhea isn’t the best thing to leave untreated. But another reason: this case is a harbinger of a looming crisis.
Gonorrhea is an infection caused by a bacteria. Usually antibiotics can kill it.
I was on a panel at a recent conference when the moderator asked audience and panel members what they thought of UBI. The overwhelming consensus of the 500 or so people in the room appeared to be “we’re skeptical, but should experiment.” UBI sounds like a good or not-so-good idea to different constituents because we have so little understanding of either how we would do it, or how people would react. None of us really knows what we’re talking about when it comes to UBI, akin to being in a drunken bar argument before there were smartphones and Wikipedia. But there are a few basic principles and pieces of research that can help.
Liberals and conservatives alike love—and fear—the idea of giving free money to everyone. But we have to try it anyway.
Author: Joi Ito BY
A lot of people worry about overpopulation, but maybe it’s population decline we should worry about instead?
- Norwegian version: Menneskeheten kan risikere å dø ut hvis vi ikke utvikler livsforlengende teknologier
In earlier times, population growth was limited by the fact that the majority of children died before they were old enough to have children themselves. Illness and lack of resources has probably contributed greatly to the high childhood mortality. Today our technology is better, and so we are able to utilize the Earth’s resources more efficiently, and now, luckily, most people survive childhood. This has led to a population explosion. The greater number of people has led to faster technological progress, which is making room for still more people, and so on — a virtuous circle that helps to give human beings a better standard of living.
But as we have gotten better standards of living, the number of children we get has declined. Just during the last 50 years, the number of children born per woman (fertility rate) has more than halved from 4.9 to less than 2.4 worldwide:
Yes, aging is the world’s biggest problem!
In this article I’ve compared aging to other potential world problems in terms of how many years of life each problem takes away from an average person.
Aging takes away about 1000 years of life per person in developed countries, so, obviously, no other problem comes close to that.
I wrote this two years ago, so should be 28 years now smile
“So considering how far we’ve come already and how fast technology is improving and can be expected to improve in the future, I don’t think there’s any doubt that we’ll have the aging process under control in less than 30 years. Maybe 30 years is too cautious an estimate, even. Ray Kurzweil has said that already by 2030, life expectancy will increase by one year per year, and I actually won’t be very surprised if he’s right. But everyone in the world won’t get access to the technology as early as Kurzweil estimates, which is why nearly 30 years might still be closer to the truth for most people?”
- Norwegian version: Hvis du lever om 30 år, er det gode sjanser for at du også kan leve om 1000 år
Sounds unlikely? It’s not — it’s actually quite likely.
DARPA’s OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics (OFFSET) program envisions future small-unit infantry forces using small unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) and/or small unmanned ground systems (UGSs) in swarms of 250 robots or more to accomplish diverse missions in complex urban environments. By leveraging and combining emerging technologies in swarm autonomy and human-swarm teaming, the program seeks to enable rapid development and deployment of breakthrough swarm capabilities.
To continue the rapid pace and further advance the technology development of OFFSET, DARPA is soliciting proposals for the second “swarm sprint.” Each of the five core “sprints” focuses on one of the key thrust areas: Swarm Tactics, Swarm Autonomy, Human-Swarm Team, Virtual Environment, and Physical Testbed. This second group of “Swarm Sprinters” will have the opportunity to work with one or both of the OFFSET Swarm Systems Integrator teams to develop and assess tactics as well as algorithms to enhance autonomy.
