Posted in lifeboat, science, transhumanism
FM 2030 was at various points in his life, an Iranian Olympic basketball player, a diplomat, a university teacher, and a corporate consultant. He developed his views on transhumanism in the 1960s and evolved them over the next thirty-something years. He was placed in cryonic suspension July 8th, 2000.
By Steven Kotler — SingularityHUB
2015—that just sounds like the future, right. But does it look like the future? Because, that’s the thing, right—we all know technology is advancing at exponential rates. We are making soaring progress in a host of whiz-bang fields. But other than Tokyo, Times Square and, sometimes, Las Vegas from the right angle, the future doesn’t yet look like we thought the future would look.
But that is starting to change. Over the past few months, we’ve started to get clearer and clearer looks at the world that’s coming. Here are five of my favorites sights of tomorrow already here today:
You need a pocket mirror, a laser pointer and a counter. Then measure both the up-down time (or distance) and the down-up time (or distance). The two are different.
This means, taking light-radar as a reliable measuring device, that the two measured heights are different. As far as I know, the experiment has never been done in spite of its simplicity.
Why is it worth doing? This “V-Lambda” experiment can also be called “WM” experiment, with the two letters printed on top of each other. You then get XXXX. Very regularly, no shifts. That is, upper and lower time intervals interlock even though being different.
You can do the same experiment between earth and a neutron star (provided a mirror can be deposited on its surface). Then the two time intervals that interlock differ by a factor of about 2.
So while the tip of the Eiffel tower is only minimally closer to the bottom (upwards distance shorter than downwards distance), the distance of earth from a neutron star is half as large as the distance of the neutron star from earth.
I find that cute.
By Singularity University
Learn about the Singularity University Labs Startup Accelerator here, and submit your application by January 23rd. Selected teams will be notified of their participation by February 14th. The inaugural class will convene March 23rd.
To change the world, it helps to have a good idea—but good ideas are a dime a dozen. The hard part is sharpening your idea and executing on it. It’s a long road from idea to execution, but how much time the trip takes depends on your speed.
This March, Singularity University Labs is launching the first accelerator program for startups tackling the world’s grand challenges with exponential technology.
Motherboard
“We’re descending toward Hill Valley, California, at 4:29 PM, on Wednesday, October 21st, 2015,” Doc Brown announces in the opening scenes of Back to the Future II.
“2015? You mean we’re in the future?” exclaims Marty, apparently having forgotten that madcap time-distorting adventures are hardly out of character for the Doc.
What follows is one of the most influential depictions of the future ever conceived, in which flying cars, automated clothes, hydrated pizzas, and hoverboards are all entrenched staples. Since the arrival of the new year, a lot of people have expressed excitement that we have finally reached this benchmark age in science fiction. And it’s well-deserved press, because Back to the Future II is not only the most famous depiction of 2015, it’s also among the most widely known portrayals of the 21st century full stop.
by — Spaceflight Now
There were more successful space launches in 2014 than in any year since 1992, with Russia, the United States and China responsible for more than 80 percent of global launch activity.
Russia had the most liftoffs with 36 orbital launch attempts — 34 were deemed complete successes — and the United States came in second with 23 space launches, with all but one reaching its intended target.
Chinese rockets were 16-for-16 in satellite launches last year.
There were 92 space launches worldwide in 2014, and 90 of the missions at least reached orbit. One of those flights — a Russian-made Soyuz rocket launched from French Guiana — failed to put its payload in the correct orbit.
That figure marks the highest number of launch attempts since 1994, when there were 93 launches with spacecraft passengers heading for Earth orbit or beyond.
SynBiology
So if I asked what you think will fuel the growth of today’s technology giants in the next 15 years, what would your answer be? You might say familiar or trendy terms, such as user growth or the Internet of Things. Or perhaps that the companies with the most innovative products and services will reign king in tomorrow’s tech markets. And while those are likely partially correct answers, there’s a tremendous amount of growth to be had from a rather unlikely source.
It might be difficult to believe that companies that have traditionally relied on silicon chips, mobile apps, and lines of software code could profit from something as seemingly disconnected as making biological engineering as predictable as traditional engineering fields, but a closer look into research and development spending hints that it may not be that far-fetched after all. Why are Autodesk (NASDAQ: ADSK) , Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) , and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) quietly investing in synthetic biology, and what could it mean for investors?
By Rhett Allain — Wired
I didn’t invent the word “robotification.” It already exists. But here is my version of the definition.
Robotification: The process by which tasks normally performed by humans are replaced with machines of some kind. These machines could be mechanical or electronic. Past tense: robotified.
You might think robotification is something that will happen in the future. Nope. It’s already started. Scholars might debate the exact beginning of the robotification of Earth, but we should all agree that it has already started. Just take a moment and look around you. How many things do you interact with that were once done by humans but are now performed by machines?
Here are some examples.
Quote: ” Internet of Coins strives to create a decentralized, self-sustaining economy by implementing intersystemic connectivity sustained by a hybrid P2P meta-network. The system will help to leverage each of its participant’s strength in numbers hence supporting both the stability of alt coins and the cryptocurrency community as a whole. Internet of Coins had an official Whitepaper launch party on the 3rd of January at the Bitcoin Embassy Amsterdam. The Whitepaper is available for download on http://internetofcoins.org. Internet of Coins has partnered-up with security oriented cryptoexchange and service provider Bitalo since November of last year for continuous development and funding of the project. The open source system will soon be released for non-commercial purposes and be easily accessible to the public; supporting continuous decentralization and empowering the cryptocurrency ecosystem to evolve.”
Read the article here > http://www.baystreet.ca/viewarticle.aspx?id=424703
One of the major aspects that can make or break a creative person according to FM-2030 is the environment. In his book “Are You A Transhuman?”, he asks the reader to grade their own surroundings: “Does your home environment stimulate innovation — cross fertilization — initiative?”
We bet you can see where this is going.
The answers are, once more, “Often, Sometimes, or Hardly Ever”, with “Often being the answer choice that gives you the most points — another 2 to tally up to your score if you’re already proving to be more transhumanist that you thought. It might seem obvious, but it’s true — environment can play a major role in the stimulation of creativity. FM says that “It is difficult to be precise about creativity — how much of it is inherited and how much is learned.” If an environment is one that “encourages free unrestricted thinking… encourages people to take initiatives… open and ever-changing”, it is a dynamic environment that can stimulate creativity in an individual.
People who work with telecommunications are susceptible to views that are far different than their own, and the sciences, though structured, force a person to think creatively to find answers. By the same token, people who have a good balance of leisure time and work are also cultivating a greater internal environment to stimulate creativity. And in case you were forgetting the reason creativity is important to FM-2030, perhaps take a look at his quote that sums up the chapter perfectly, below.
By Singularity University