When I was a contractor at IBM Research in the speech group a little over a decade ago, I built a voice-operated display wall from used IBM ThinkPads (It looked a bit like the multi-unit display screen from "Jeopardy" with big borders). My supervisor was a bit shocked when he came back from a two week vacation (when I built it), but he got over it thankfully and fortunately I was not in the room to hear the swearing when he saw it for the first time.:-) It was only possible with the help and cooperation of a few other staff at IBM who shall remain nameless, but have my thanks. I suggested with a little bit of engineering, ThinkPads could be redesigned to snap together and that might be a new selling point for their future usefulness. I still think it is a great idea (if for no other reason than to avoid sending beautiful laptops to "the crusher"), but it was not picked up on much then. I suggested a Watson-like system to go with it, so you could interactively use the display wall via voice to create new inventions and better designs while walking around in front of the display wall, although what I actually implemented back then as far as voice was more like "show slashdot on screen number 5".
One problem with NASA is it is focused almost entirely on exploration and not on development -- in part because efforts towards building space habitats in the 1970s were give the "Gold Fleece" award and NASA did not stand up to that. We need initiatives again to build space habitats on the moon and using asteroids. What could be more useful than figuring out how to support quadrillions of human lives and untold Earth's worth of other plants, animals, and bacteria etc. in the solar system like Gerry O'Neill (and others like J.D. Bernal and Freeman Dyson) proposed?
"In defense of childhood: protecting kids' inner wildness" http://www.chrismercogliano.com/childhood.htm "As codirector of the Albany Free School, Chris Mercogliano has had remarkable success in helping a diverse population of youngsters find their way in the world. He regrets, however, that most kids' lives are subject to some form of control from dawn until dusk. Lamenting risk-averse parents, overstructured school days, and a lack of playtime and solitude, Mercogliano argues that we are robbing our young people of "that precious, irreplaceable period in their lives that nature has set aside for exploration and innocent discovery," leaving them ill-equipped to face adulthood. The "domestication of childhood" squeezes the adventure out of kids' lives and threatens to smother the spark that animates each child with talents, dreams, and inclinations."
"Last Child in the Woods" http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/ "In this influential work about the staggering divide between children and the outdoors, child advocacy expert Richard Louv directly links the lack of nature in the lives of today's wired generation--he calls it nature-deficit--to some of the most disturbing childhood trends, such as the rises in obesity, attention disorders, and depression."
"Underground History of American Education" http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm "A huge price had to be paid for business and government efficiency, a price we still pay in the quality of our existence. Part of what kids gave up was the prospect of being able to read very well, a historic part of the American genius. Instead, school had to train them for their role in the new overarching social system. But spare yourself the agony of thinking of this as a conspiracy. It was and is a fully rational transaction, the very epitome of rationalization engendered by a group of honorable men, all honorable men -- but with decisive help from ordinary citizens, from almost all of us as we gradually lost touch with the fact that being followers instead of leaders, becoming consumers in place of producers, rendered us incompletely human. It was a naturally occurring conspiracy, one which required no criminal genius. The real conspirators were ourselves. When we sold our liberty for the promise of automatic security, we became like children in a conspiracy against growing up, sad children who conspire against their own children, consigning them over and over to the denaturing vats of compulsory state factory schooling."
We've taught our kid early on to use a sharp knife to cut up vegetables and fruits, in part because US emergency medicine to deal with knife injuries is far better than US medicine to deal with chronic health problems that come from not eating enough vegetables and fruits. Related: http://www.drfuhrman.com/children/default.aspx http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffJAePZFg90
I was referring there more to the suggestion in the middle (on H-bomb at the sun's surface) but you are right about the possibility for the spark analogy for the first half of what the original poster wrote.
Still, if you do a different back of the envelope calculation, I'd guess you might perhaps see that a largish asteroid crashing into a Brown Dwarf even at slow relative speeds is probably going to release many times the energy of what an atomic bomb produces. And one might expect such events happen to Brown Dwarfs. It is still not identical, but it is suggestive about what the outcome might be.
Ultimately, reality will "cull" the bad ideas. Knowledge (and back of the envelope calculations like I suggested) just helps you do that faster. Eventually, for example, reality will probably cull the imaginative fancy of "trickle down economics" one way or another. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics http://www.capitalismhitsthefan.com/
Knowledge is also a more slippery thing than most imagine, since how much of our "knowledge" is wrong? Space is empty, right? Everyone knows that. Until suddenly it is full of "Ultracool brown dwarfs"...
But sure, the most effective people tend to have a lot of imagination and a lot of knowledge and a lot of some other things, too (self-management, a sense of values and purpose, etc.).
Stuff by Einstein about science and religion/values, btw: http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm "One can have the clearest and most complete knowledge of what is, and yet not be able to deduct from that what should be the goal of our human aspirations.... And if one asks whence derives the authority of such fundamental ends, since they cannot be stated and justified merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy society as powerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and judgments of the individuals; they are there, that is, as something living, without its being necessary to find justification for their existence."
Thanks for mentioning James P. Hogan. I like his books (including the one you mentioned). I met him once in person and corresponded a bit with him (I was sad to hear about his death a while back). I especially like his "Voyage from Yesteryear" novel, which really gets at the heart of scarcity vs. abundance world views, linked to our view of the universe and thoughts on the availability of energy and matter. This Brown Dwarf issue is related -- that there may be a lot more matter out there in the "void" of space than we may often assume.
I mention Hogan's book you referenec here: http://www.pdfernhout.net/to-james-randi-on-skepticism-about-mainstream-science.html "Should we not think or talk about the socioeconomics of a world of cheap energy in advance of it being discovered? But, would that not be discussing the "paranormal" in a way, or even encouraging it? Anyway, one may rightly point out that mainstream economist have deluded themselves for decades, as was said in the NYTimes article. I'd agree. But, why should that be entirely less true about supposedly "rational" mainstream physical scientists in some specific other ways, like denigrating Halton Arp's Electric Universe model (mentioned on the supressedscience site)? Or ignoring the possibility of cold fusion? Or dismissing the possibility that the mind could sometimes interface with deeper not-well-understood-conventionally aspects of a simulated universe? I'm not saying any of these are true, just that it's hard for them to get a fair hearing. Where do we draw the line? James P. Hogan wrote a non-fiction book about this:..."
By the way, GE's head of research is predicting solar PV energy will be cheaper than fossil fuels and nuclear by around 2015 (without subsidies and, of course, without considering the negative externalities of pollution, disease, war, and risk that come from fossil fuels and conventional nuclear). Yet, how much of US politics is still centered around whether to drill for more oil, or build more conventional nuclear plants, or whether to destroy ground water through "fracking" for natural gas, or whether to spend trillions for a military to defend middle east oil supplies?
Another point James P. Hogan made, and your comments reflect, is that there is a big difference between science and engineering, even as they are interwoven. And so often "science" takes the credit for what "engineering" does.
Thanks for the speculations, and I'd encourage you to try some back on an envelope order-of-magnitude calculations to see which might make sense. For example, get a figure for the energy of an atomic bomb in some unit, and then find out the energy the sun puts out in one second in the same unit, and compare them.
Also, what may seem to make sense with today's physics might seem ludicrous with tomorrow's physics.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand. (Albert Einstein)"
Hope you keep imagining things. And think about ballpark calculations. And still hold on to your "roots" in humanity and day-to-day things like sunshine, vegetables, and laughter even when having imaginative "wings".
And further, maybe someday we'll also be able to tap zero-point energy and create matter and energy in the middle of apparently empty space. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy
I can wonder if planets and asteroid orbiting brown dwarfs far away from the turmoil of the galaxy and other stars might be and ideal place for life, same as there is a lot of variety of life in the rarely disturbed deep ocean. The closer you live to a galactic core, the bigger the chance for periodic supernovas and superwaves and whatever else that may wipe out all life in some area.
We'll probably have suspended animation and "mind children" and lots of other approaches to galactic panspermia someday, too. Still, I feel we should clean up our act on Earth first, so we don't take a lot of stupid and ironic problems with us to the stars.
They were essentially similar to early USB: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transputer#Links "The basic design of the transputer included serial links that allowed it to communicate with up to four other transputers, each at 5, 10 or 20 Mbit/s -- which was very fast for the 1980s. Any number of transputers could be connected together over even longish links (tens of metres) to form a single computing "farm"."
For a time in the 1980s, with five transputers (four borrowed), using a link endpoint to drive a robot, I had the fastest (or maybe second fastest) computer (cluster) on Princeton's University's campus (in a robotics lab I managed). But it was awkward to program it in Occam. And eventually I had to return the borrowed transputers.
What the transputers could have become... Sad they ended up in the dustbin of history...
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html "Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land? "
Maybe ironic humor is our last, best hope against the war machines?
From 2007:
"GE Engineer Sees Competitive Photovoltaics In Under 10 Years" http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/004702.html "A high ranking engineer at General Electric says in some parts of the United States photovoltaics will become cost competitive by 2015."
And: http://gweedopig.com/index.php/2011/04/08/ge-bets-600-million-on-2015-solar-plant/ "General Electric Co made a big push in solar power, saying it will invest $600 million to build a new factory as it pursues what it thinks could be an up to $3 billion business by 2015. The largest U.S. conglomerate, which over the last decade has made itself a leader in renewable energy, said it has designed a thin-film solar panel that converts sunlight to electricity more efficiently than rival products today. The move is likely to ramp up already intense price competition, particularly for First Solar Inc, which uses the same thin-film technology as GE has focused on."
It is happening... Not the same as printing, but that will come too most likely...
The fundamental problem with the space shuttle concept is that mass in orbit is worth more than its weight in gold, so it is pointless to bring that mass back to Earth in the form of a space shuttle. A minimal return capsule like with Apollo for crew makes more sense. Even now, the best place for the shuttles to be kept is probably in space, docked to the space station, where they could be used as living space or raw materials for future projects. The whole idea was stupid energetically. Also, as anyone who watches "This Old House" knows, new construction is generally cheaper than renovations, and so it would have been much cheaper to keep churning out new rocket than to renovate the space shuttle after every trip. While people hoped for more with reuseable space shuttles, these two basic problems made the whole concept problematical.
With that said, I can still be sad about the ending of an era, and for the people who will lose their jobs and the work communities they belonged to.
Ideally, the retirement of the shuttle may free up funds for new innovative projects, I hope. But with the US budget such a mess, it's hard to know that for sure.
Technology is an amplifier, so what is happening in music will eventually happen in many other paid professions as technology (including robotics, AI, and evolutionary design tools) allows fewer people to do more and more.
I'm not sure I agree 100% with what you said, but you make a lot of great points (I especially liked the analogy about France and the American Revolution), thanks.
The mismatch of tribal cultures interacting with bureaucracies is a factor.
There also may be larger factors like the way money for things like natural gas pipeline corrupts governance.
When you start deeply analyzing all this, like you are doing, there are many interwoven historical factors to why any place is the way it is, with lots of blame to go around.
Well, technically, even though people tend to say:
"They hated us because we were free", the truth seems to be closer to:
"They hated us because we supported their oppressors", so, ironically, just the reverse of what many people try suggest about what has been going on.
If by "way of life" you meant "democracy at home, imperialism abroad", then, yes, I guess there would be a lot of truth to that.
According to a long ago New Yorker article, almost all the hijackers were Saudi males who were disenchanted with the Saudi regime the USA helps keep in power (to keep oil profits flowing to the right people).
Related:
"Bush Admits 'Majority' of 9/11 Hijackers Were Saudis" http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/01/16/bush-admits-majority-of-911-hijackers-were-saudis/ "The breakdown was 15 Saudis, one Egyptian, one Lebanese and two from the Union of Arab Emirates (UAE). None were from Iraq. Despite this fact -- and the fact that Saddam Hussein was a secular despot who was despised by Osama bin Laden, a right-wing religious fanatic -- a poll two years after the attacks, and six months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, 70 percent of Americans believed Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks."
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Center_for_Democracy_and_Human_Rights_in_Saudi_Arabia "The Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (CDHR) is a (501)(c)3 non-profit organization established to promote timely and irreversible transformation of the existing Saudi autocratic institutions to a system whereby all Saudi citizens are empowered to chart a peaceful, prosperous, tolerant and safe future for themselves and for their religiously and economically influential country. CDHR was founded by Dr. Ali Alyami, executive director, in May 2004.[1] [2]"
I'm not saying the hijackers were for democracy; I'm just saying they were unhappy about their prospects in that society. You can ask how people like that get radicalized, and an oppressive environment (one the USA helped sustain) contributes to that.
I agree what is going on in airports is degrading security theater. Here is how we can create real security: http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html "We the people need to redefine security in a sustainable and resilient way. Much current US military doctrine is based around unilateral security ("I'm safe because you are nervous") and extrinsic security ("I'm safe despite long supply lines because I have a bunch of soldiers to defend them"), which both lead to expensive arms races. We need as a society to move to other paradigms like Morton Deutsch's mutual security ("We're all looking out for each other's safety") and Amory Lovin's intrinsic security ("Our redundant decentralized local systems can take a lot of pounding whether from storm, earthquake, or bombs and would still would keep working"). "
Humans are also just not adapted to eating so few vegetables.
See also, for how to retune your taste buds:
"How to escape The Pleasure Trap! By Douglas Lisle, Ph.D. and Alan Goldhamer , D.C., Authors of The Pleasure Trap: Mastering the Hidden Force that Undermines Health and Happiness" http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
Huge nutritional and psychological breakthroughs are happening, but it seems people don't want to pay attention because of lifestyle issues related to fears about dietary changes. Last year I tried to give a copy of Dr. Fuhrman's "Eat for Health" to a couple, but they refused it saying they had a lot of "cookbooks" already. Recently, one of them had a painful medical procedure (angioplasty/stenting) costing at great expense (presumably covered by insurance) but avoidable with aggressive nutritional intervention (which would have been free and mostly painless after a taste adjustment period of a few weeks).
See:
"Scientific Studies Show Angioplasty and Stent Placement is Essentially Worthless" http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx "In the most recent study investigators reviewed 61 trials, involving 25,388 patients, in a meta-analysis comparing angioplasty and stent placement with no treatment or medications alone. A meta-analysis pools numerous studies on the same subject. The findings indicated that there was no evidence that angioplasty and stent placement for coronary artery disease resulted in fewer heart attacks or deaths when compared to patients with the same level of disease who were not treated in this manner.
Trikalinos TA, Alsheikh-Ali AA, Tatsioni A, et al. Percutaneous coronary interventions for non-acute coronary artery disease: a quantitative 20-year synopsis and a network meta-analysis. Lancet 2009; 373(9667):911-918.
Interventional cardiology and cardiovascular surgery is basically a scam based on a misunderstanding of the nature of heart disease. Searching for and treating obstructive plaque does not address the areas of the coronary vascular tree most likely to rupture and cause heart attacks. If there was never another CABG or angioplasty performed or stent placed, patients with heart disease would be better off. Doctors would be forced to educate our citizens that their heart disease risk is determined by what they place on their forks. Millions of lives would be dramatically extended. To abandon the theory of stretching and cutting out areas with plaque would shut down interventional cardiology, ne
I hope you can build further on those ideas in your own way, like I built on the ideas of many others. I have a long (but still incomplete) list of inspirations (as well as more text related to that presentation) on my site here: http://www.pdfernhout.net/ "The following is informed by insights from people like Marshall Brain, James Albus, Martin Ford, Jane Jacobs, Charles Fourier, Richard Wolff, Richard Stallman, Albert Einstein, Morton Deutsch, Alfie Kohn, John Holt, Joan Roeloffs, John Taylor Gatto, Steven Slaby, Ursula K. Le Guin, James P. Hogan, Elizabeth Warren, Amelia Tyagi, Ivan Illich, Michael Mahoney, Freeman Dyson, Ted Taylor, Douglas Lisle, David Goodstein, Michel Bauwens, Eric Hunting, Kevin Carson, P.M. Lawrence, Iain Banks, Harvey Cox, G. William Domhoff, E.F. Schumacher, Jacque Fresco, Stewart Brand, Buckminster Fuller, Dee Hock, Michael Phillips, Amory Lovins, Hunter Lovins, John Todd, Nancy Jack Todd, Manuel De Landa, Kenneth Rogoff, Carmen Reinhart, Gerard K. O'Neill, Frances Moore Lappe, David Brin, K. Eric Drexler, Hans Moravec, Victor Serebriakoff, Noam Chomsky, Herbert Simon, Robert Steele, Julian Simon, Larry Slobodkin, Patrick Grim, Philip Zimbardo, Slavoj Zizek, Dan Pink, Alan Kay, George A. Miller, Lev R. Ginzburg, Norman Spinrad, Gene Roddenberry, Alvin Toffler, James R. Beniger, James T. Liu, Alain Kornhauser, Jennifer Morgan, Juliet B. Schor, Marshall Sahlins, Suniya S. Luthar, as well as all the authors of the 1964 Triple Revolution Memorandum, and many, many others. If I can see so far, it is from "standing on the shoulders of giants", none of whom should be blamed for any errors in the following that are solely my own."
I just found some new interesting reading, including by economist Brad DeLong, by googling on: "slouching towards post-scarcity".
Thanks, quite an interesting rant, even if I only half-understand it so far.:-)
Your first point on assuming fidelity in surveillance reflects a major plot point in Vernor Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky".
As for middle part, I can only strain my limited brain cells to think maybe in other words, perhaps what you said boils down to "people who live in fun house palaces made of glass mirrors should not throw stones because they have no idea what they would really be aiming at"?
Or "analysis paralysis"?
Unless of course the point was to bring down all the mirrors? Still, obviously, mirrors are useful for lots of things.
As to the last point, it would seem yes, that seems likely. People have trouble designing systems to deal with issues that would change the designers if they understood them, such as I mention here:
"The Lion Memo (with apologies to C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters)" http://www.pdfernhout.net/the-lion-memo.html "Regarding your recent inquiries, it is true we have not yet been able to determine why the Butterfly can be so successful using so few resources, since the means the Butterfly employs are incomprehensible to us. While easy to watch and catalog, the Butterfly's means are completely unexpected in the effects they cause and this continues to puzzle us greatly. Those who champion non-violence by definition must be weaker than those who champion violence. By all Deep Magic, the means employed by the Butterfly should never work! But nonetheless, the Research & Destruction department continues to explore this conundrum, and I do hope one day we will understand the processes by which the Butterfly operates sufficiently to lead to the Butterfly's universal defeat. It is possible that the symbol on the Butterfly's wings you reported may have something to do with its unexpected success; if this so called "Peace" symbol can be properly analyzed, the labs may be able to determine a way to destroy "Peace" entirely or at least turn it to our ends (although my mind recoils at that thought so deeply I know that to be impossible). The latest report from the labs is that the Butterfly's unexpected success has something to do with "playing to play" as opposed to "playing to win" -- but we all know that is obviously nonsense, since the only reason to play must be to win! And regardless of what you may have heard through the rumor mill, we have not yet lost a single soul through exposure to Butterfly inspired writings, because there is no power in the pen, only in the sword -- but stay away from such writings nonetheless -- is that clear? Our best minds think they could be contaminated with some sort of toxin. We have started analyzing them word by word, with each word handled by a different lab group, and lab groups never meeting, in order to reduce potential exposure to any potential toxic residue or chain reaction effects. And to answer your implied question, the high turnover in the R&D center before we instituted such procedures has been purely due to an unexpectedly high rate of promotions among the junior staff."
In any case, succinctness is a rare thing for me, except for my perennial sig, so thanks for noticing.:-)
Thanks for asking. I ported part of it to Python (to try on the OLPC, which was slow), and part of the overall framework to Java (mostly for StoryHarp), but there has not been a new version in a long time, sorry. It still works under Windows emulators; use the zipped version as the later versions of Windows don't like the installer. A free registration code is on the site.
Here is a 12 minute YouTube video I recently made that talks about a balance between five interwoven economies that shifts with cultural change and technological change:
"Five Interwoven Economies: Subsistence, Gift, Exchange, Planned, and Theft" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY
So, I help provide evolutionary tools that will change the value of most paid human labor, but I also provide ideas about how to upgrade our society to accomodate that.
But so many people just make the tools and don't think about the human consequences yet. I hope more and more people start thinking about all this. My writings are just a place to start...
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html "Our biggest advantage is that no one takes us seriously.:-)
And our second biggest advantage is that our communications are monitored, which provides a channel by which we can turn enemies into friends.:-)
And our third biggest advantage is we have no assets, and so are not a profitable target and have nothing serious to fight over amongst ourselves.:-)"
Let's hope those advantages all hold true for a long time.:-) "
Slashdot Mirror
When I was a contractor at IBM Research in the speech group a little over a decade ago, I built a voice-operated display wall from used IBM ThinkPads (It looked a bit like the multi-unit display screen from "Jeopardy" with big borders). My supervisor was a bit shocked when he came back from a two week vacation (when I built it), but he got over it thankfully and fortunately I was not in the room to hear the swearing when he saw it for the first time. :-) It was only possible with the help and cooperation of a few other staff at IBM who shall remain nameless, but have my thanks. I suggested with a little bit of engineering, ThinkPads could be redesigned to snap together and that might be a new selling point for their future usefulness. I still think it is a great idea (if for no other reason than to avoid sending beautiful laptops to "the crusher"), but it was not picked up on much then. I suggested a Watson-like system to go with it, so you could interactively use the display wall via voice to create new inventions and better designs while walking around in front of the display wall, although what I actually implemented back then as far as voice was more like "show slashdot on screen number 5".
One problem with NASA is it is focused almost entirely on exploration and not on development -- in part because efforts towards building space habitats in the 1970s were give the "Gold Fleece" award and NASA did not stand up to that. We need initiatives again to build space habitats on the moon and using asteroids. What could be more useful than figuring out how to support quadrillions of human lives and untold Earth's worth of other plants, animals, and bacteria etc. in the solar system like Gerry O'Neill (and others like J.D. Bernal and Freeman Dyson) proposed?
Some books related to your excellent points:
"In defense of childhood: protecting kids' inner wildness"
http://www.chrismercogliano.com/childhood.htm
"As codirector of the Albany Free School, Chris Mercogliano has had remarkable success in helping a diverse population of youngsters find their way in the world. He regrets, however, that most kids' lives are subject to some form of control from dawn until dusk. Lamenting risk-averse parents, overstructured school days, and a lack of playtime and solitude, Mercogliano argues that we are robbing our young people of "that precious, irreplaceable period in their lives that nature has set aside for exploration and innocent discovery," leaving them ill-equipped to face adulthood. The "domestication of childhood" squeezes the adventure out of kids' lives and threatens to smother the spark that animates each child with talents, dreams, and inclinations."
"Last Child in the Woods"
http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/
"In this influential work about the staggering divide between children and the outdoors, child advocacy expert Richard Louv directly links the lack of nature in the lives of today's wired generation--he calls it nature-deficit--to some of the most disturbing childhood trends, such as the rises in obesity, attention disorders, and depression."
"Underground History of American Education"
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"A huge price had to be paid for business and government efficiency, a price we still pay in the quality of our existence. Part of what kids gave up was the prospect of being able to read very well, a historic part of the American genius. Instead, school had to train them for their role in the new overarching social system. But spare yourself the agony of thinking of this as a conspiracy. It was and is a fully rational transaction, the very epitome of rationalization engendered by a group of honorable men, all honorable men -- but with decisive help from ordinary citizens, from almost all of us as we gradually lost touch with the fact that being followers instead of leaders, becoming consumers in place of producers, rendered us incompletely human. It was a naturally occurring conspiracy, one which required no criminal genius. The real conspirators were ourselves. When we sold our liberty for the promise of automatic security, we became like children in a conspiracy against growing up, sad children who conspire against their own children, consigning them over and over to the denaturing vats of compulsory state factory schooling."
And a TED Talk:
"Gever Tulley on 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do"
http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_for_kids.html
We've taught our kid early on to use a sharp knife to cut up vegetables and fruits, in part because US emergency medicine to deal with knife injuries is far better than US medicine to deal with chronic health problems that come from not eating enough vegetables and fruits. Related:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/children/default.aspx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffJAePZFg90
Unfortunately, we listened to advice from doctors to "protect" our kid (and ourselves) from the sun and ended up with vitamin D deficiency and related health issues.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions//kids_fall_short_on_vitamin_D.aspx
We're slowly learning. There is a l
I was referring there more to the suggestion in the middle (on H-bomb at the sun's surface) but you are right about the possibility for the spark analogy for the first half of what the original poster wrote.
Still, if you do a different back of the envelope calculation, I'd guess you might perhaps see that a largish asteroid crashing into a Brown Dwarf even at slow relative speeds is probably going to release many times the energy of what an atomic bomb produces. And one might expect such events happen to Brown Dwarfs. It is still not identical, but it is suggestive about what the outcome might be.
Ultimately, reality will "cull" the bad ideas. Knowledge (and back of the envelope calculations like I suggested) just helps you do that faster. Eventually, for example, reality will probably cull the imaginative fancy of "trickle down economics" one way or another.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics
http://www.capitalismhitsthefan.com/
Knowledge is also a more slippery thing than most imagine, since how much of our "knowledge" is wrong? Space is empty, right? Everyone knows that. Until suddenly it is full of "Ultracool brown dwarfs"...
But sure, the most effective people tend to have a lot of imagination and a lot of knowledge and a lot of some other things, too (self-management, a sense of values and purpose, etc.).
Stuff by Einstein about science and religion/values, btw: ... And if one asks whence derives the authority of such fundamental ends, since they cannot be stated and justified merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy society as powerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and judgments of the individuals; they are there, that is, as something living, without its being necessary to find justification for their existence."
http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm
"One can have the clearest and most complete knowledge of what is, and yet not be able to deduct from that what should be the goal of our human aspirations.
Thanks for mentioning James P. Hogan. I like his books (including the one you mentioned). I met him once in person and corresponded a bit with him (I was sad to hear about his death a while back). I especially like his "Voyage from Yesteryear" novel, which really gets at the heart of scarcity vs. abundance world views, linked to our view of the universe and thoughts on the availability of energy and matter. This Brown Dwarf issue is related -- that there may be a lot more matter out there in the "void" of space than we may often assume.
I mention Hogan's book you referenec here: ..."
http://www.pdfernhout.net/to-james-randi-on-skepticism-about-mainstream-science.html
"Should we not think or talk about the socioeconomics of a world of cheap energy in advance of it being discovered? But, would that not be discussing the "paranormal" in a way, or even encouraging it? Anyway, one may rightly point out that mainstream economist have deluded themselves for decades, as was said in the NYTimes article. I'd agree. But, why should that be entirely less true about supposedly "rational" mainstream physical scientists in some specific other ways, like denigrating Halton Arp's Electric Universe model (mentioned on the supressedscience site)? Or ignoring the possibility of cold fusion? Or dismissing the possibility that the mind could sometimes interface with deeper not-well-understood-conventionally aspects of a simulated universe? I'm not saying any of these are true, just that it's hard for them to get a fair hearing. Where do we draw the line? James P. Hogan wrote a non-fiction book about this:
By the way, GE's head of research is predicting solar PV energy will be cheaper than fossil fuels and nuclear by around 2015 (without subsidies and, of course, without considering the negative externalities of pollution, disease, war, and risk that come from fossil fuels and conventional nuclear). Yet, how much of US politics is still centered around whether to drill for more oil, or build more conventional nuclear plants, or whether to destroy ground water through "fracking" for natural gas, or whether to spend trillions for a military to defend middle east oil supplies?
Another point James P. Hogan made, and your comments reflect, is that there is a big difference between science and engineering, even as they are interwoven. And so often "science" takes the credit for what "engineering" does.
Thanks for the speculations, and I'd encourage you to try some back on an envelope order-of-magnitude calculations to see which might make sense. For example, get a figure for the energy of an atomic bomb in some unit, and then find out the energy the sun puts out in one second in the same unit, and compare them.
Also, what may seem to make sense with today's physics might seem ludicrous with tomorrow's physics.
Maybe the sun is indeed a ball of iron.
http://www.thesunisiron.com/
Or maybe cold fusion takes place at the Earth's core at the edge of a nickel-iron core?
http://aleklett.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/the-sun-rossi%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Denergy-catalyzer%E2%80%9D-and-the-%E2%80%9Cneutron-barometer%E2%80%9D/#comment-5891
Or maybe we will tap zero-point energy reliably one day?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy
Or the universe is mostly shaped by electrostatics?
http://www.electricuniverse.info/Electric_Sun_theory
Or the universe is a simulation:
http://www.simulation-argument.com/
And so on.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand. (Albert Einstein)"
Hope you keep imagining things. And think about ballpark calculations. And still hold on to your "roots" in humanity and day-to-day things like sunshine, vegetables, and laughter even when having imaginative "wings".
And further, maybe someday we'll also be able to tap zero-point energy and create matter and energy in the middle of apparently empty space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy
I can wonder if planets and asteroid orbiting brown dwarfs far away from the turmoil of the galaxy and other stars might be and ideal place for life, same as there is a lot of variety of life in the rarely disturbed deep ocean. The closer you live to a galactic core, the bigger the chance for periodic supernovas and superwaves and whatever else that may wipe out all life in some area.
We'll probably have suspended animation and "mind children" and lots of other approaches to galactic panspermia someday, too. Still, I feel we should clean up our act on Earth first, so we don't take a lot of stupid and ironic problems with us to the stars.
... an unfortunate business model for the 21st century and all our tools of abundance... http://www.artificialscarcity.com/
They were essentially similar to early USB:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transputer#Links
"The basic design of the transputer included serial links that allowed it to communicate with up to four other transputers, each at 5, 10 or 20 Mbit/s -- which was very fast for the 1980s. Any number of transputers could be connected together over even longish links (tens of metres) to form a single computing "farm"."
For a time in the 1980s, with five transputers (four borrowed), using a link endpoint to drive a robot, I had the fastest (or maybe second fastest) computer (cluster) on Princeton's University's campus (in a robotics lab I managed). But it was awkward to program it in Occam. And eventually I had to return the borrowed transputers.
What the transputers could have become... Sad they ended up in the dustbin of history...
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land? "
Maybe ironic humor is our last, best hope against the war machines?
From 2007:
"GE Engineer Sees Competitive Photovoltaics In Under 10 Years"
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/004702.html
"A high ranking engineer at General Electric says in some parts of the United States photovoltaics will become cost competitive by 2015."
From this year (2011):
"Report: GE says fossil fuels, nuclear soon costlier than solar power"
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/report-ge-says-fossil-fuels-nuclear-soon-costlier-than-solar-power/6686
And:
http://gweedopig.com/index.php/2011/04/08/ge-bets-600-million-on-2015-solar-plant/
"General Electric Co made a big push in solar power, saying it will invest $600 million to build a new factory as it pursues what it thinks could be an up to $3 billion business by 2015. The largest U.S. conglomerate, which over the last decade has made itself a leader in renewable energy, said it has designed a thin-film solar panel that converts sunlight to electricity more efficiently than rival products today. The move is likely to ramp up already intense price competition, particularly for First Solar Inc, which uses the same thin-film technology as GE has focused on."
It is happening... Not the same as printing, but that will come too most likely...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p14bAe6AzhA
Also related by me on the economics of robotics and other advanced technology: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY
Thanks for the feedback. Here is a link to the text as a pdf file:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/media/FiveInterwovenEconomies.pdf
More details are on my site:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
The fundamental problem with the space shuttle concept is that mass in orbit is worth more than its weight in gold, so it is pointless to bring that mass back to Earth in the form of a space shuttle. A minimal return capsule like with Apollo for crew makes more sense. Even now, the best place for the shuttles to be kept is probably in space, docked to the space station, where they could be used as living space or raw materials for future projects. The whole idea was stupid energetically. Also, as anyone who watches "This Old House" knows, new construction is generally cheaper than renovations, and so it would have been much cheaper to keep churning out new rocket than to renovate the space shuttle after every trip. While people hoped for more with reuseable space shuttles, these two basic problems made the whole concept problematical.
With that said, I can still be sad about the ending of an era, and for the people who will lose their jobs and the work communities they belonged to.
Ideally, the retirement of the shuttle may free up funds for new innovative projects, I hope. But with the US budget such a mess, it's hard to know that for sure.
Technology is an amplifier, so what is happening in music will eventually happen in many other paid professions as technology (including robotics, AI, and evolutionary design tools) allows fewer people to do more and more.
My thoughts on how our economy might change:
"Five Interwoven Economies: Subsistence, Gift, Exchange, Planned, and Theft "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY
I'm not sure I agree 100% with what you said, but you make a lot of great points (I especially liked the analogy about France and the American Revolution), thanks.
The mismatch of tribal cultures interacting with bureaucracies is a factor.
There also may be larger factors like the way money for things like natural gas pipeline corrupts governance.
There are probably other roots going back a lot further with colonial interventions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Afghanistan#British_invasion_and_Barakzai_dynasty
When you start deeply analyzing all this, like you are doing, there are many interwoven historical factors to why any place is the way it is, with lots of blame to go around.
"They hated us for our way of life"
Well, technically, even though people tend to say:
"They hated us because we were free",
the truth seems to be closer to:
"They hated us because we supported their oppressors",
so, ironically, just the reverse of what many people try suggest about what has been going on.
If by "way of life" you meant "democracy at home, imperialism abroad", then, yes, I guess there would be a lot of truth to that.
According to a long ago New Yorker article, almost all the hijackers were Saudi males who were disenchanted with the Saudi regime the USA helps keep in power (to keep oil profits flowing to the right people).
Related:
"Bush Admits 'Majority' of 9/11 Hijackers Were Saudis"
http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/01/16/bush-admits-majority-of-911-hijackers-were-saudis/
"The breakdown was 15 Saudis, one Egyptian, one Lebanese and two from the Union of Arab Emirates (UAE).
None were from Iraq. Despite this fact -- and the fact that Saddam Hussein was a secular despot who was despised by Osama bin Laden, a right-wing religious fanatic -- a poll two years after the attacks, and six months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, 70 percent of Americans believed Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks."
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Center_for_Democracy_and_Human_Rights_in_Saudi_Arabia
"The Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (CDHR) is a (501)(c)3 non-profit organization established to promote timely and irreversible transformation of the existing Saudi autocratic institutions to a system whereby all Saudi citizens are empowered to chart a peaceful, prosperous, tolerant and safe future for themselves and for their religiously and economically influential country. CDHR was founded by Dr. Ali Alyami, executive director, in May 2004.[1] [2]"
I'm not saying the hijackers were for democracy; I'm just saying they were unhappy about their prospects in that society. You can ask how people like that get radicalized, and an oppressive environment (one the USA helped sustain) contributes to that.
See also:
"Blowback, Second Edition: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire"
http://www.amazon.com/Blowback-Second-Consequences-American-Empire/dp/0805075593
And:
"War is a Racket" by by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient, Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC, Retired
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
I agree what is going on in airports is degrading security theater. Here is how we can create real security:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"We the people need to redefine security in a sustainable and resilient way. Much current US military doctrine is based around unilateral security ("I'm safe because you are nervous") and extrinsic security ("I'm safe despite long supply lines because I have a bunch of soldiers to defend them"), which both lead to expensive arms races. We need as a society to move to other paradigms like Morton Deutsch's mutual security ("We're all looking out for each other's safety") and Amory Lovin's intrinsic security ("Our redundant decentralized local systems can take a lot of pounding whether from storm, earthquake, or bombs and would still would keep working"). "
While what you say is true in general, vitamin D specifically is a much bigger deal than that. One example of recent research:
"Vitamin D 'triggers and arms' the immune system: Vitamin D is crucial to the fending off of infections, claims new research."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7379094/Vitamin-D-triggers-and-arms-the-immune-system.html
That is about infection, but related processes may be at work related to dealing with cancer. Humans are just not adapted to spending all day in a cave and then moving from cave to cave in enclosed boxes. But that is pretty much how most people now live in the 21st century in industrialized countries most of the time. Other things like autism may be related to vitamin D deficiency (in part), too:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/neurological-conditions/autism/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html
Humans are also just not adapted to eating so few vegetables.
See also, for how to retune your taste buds:
"How to escape The Pleasure Trap! By Douglas Lisle, Ph.D. and Alan Goldhamer , D.C., Authors of The Pleasure Trap: Mastering the Hidden Force that Undermines Health and Happiness"
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
Huge nutritional and psychological breakthroughs are happening, but it seems people don't want to pay attention because of lifestyle issues related to fears about dietary changes. Last year I tried to give a copy of Dr. Fuhrman's "Eat for Health" to a couple, but they refused it saying they had a lot of "cookbooks" already. Recently, one of them had a painful medical procedure (angioplasty/stenting) costing at great expense (presumably covered by insurance) but avoidable with aggressive nutritional intervention (which would have been free and mostly painless after a taste adjustment period of a few weeks).
See:
"Scientific Studies Show Angioplasty and Stent Placement is Essentially Worthless"
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx
"In the most recent study investigators reviewed 61 trials, involving 25,388 patients, in a meta-analysis comparing angioplasty and stent placement with no treatment or medications alone. A meta-analysis pools numerous studies on the same subject. The findings indicated that there was no evidence that angioplasty and stent placement for coronary artery disease resulted in fewer heart attacks or deaths when compared to patients with the same level of disease who were not treated in this manner.
Trikalinos TA, Alsheikh-Ali AA, Tatsioni A, et al. Percutaneous coronary interventions for non-acute coronary artery disease: a quantitative 20-year synopsis and a network meta-analysis. Lancet 2009; 373(9667):911-918.
Interventional cardiology and cardiovascular surgery is basically a scam based on a misunderstanding of the nature of heart disease. Searching for and treating obstructive plaque does not address the areas of the coronary vascular tree most likely to rupture and cause heart attacks. If there was never another CABG or angioplasty performed or stent placed, patients with heart disease would be better off. Doctors would be forced to educate our citizens that their heart disease risk is determined by what they place on their forks. Millions of lives would be dramatically extended. To abandon the theory of stretching and cutting out areas with plaque would shut down interventional cardiology, ne
Thanks for the kind words. Here is a PDF file with the presentation on "Five Interwoven Economies: Subsistence, Gift, Exchange, Planned, and Theft".
http://www.pdfernhout.net/media/FiveInterwovenEconomies.pdf
I hope you can build further on those ideas in your own way, like I built on the ideas of many others. I have a long (but still incomplete) list of inspirations (as well as more text related to that presentation) on my site here:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
"The following is informed by insights from people like Marshall Brain, James Albus, Martin Ford, Jane Jacobs, Charles Fourier, Richard Wolff, Richard Stallman, Albert Einstein, Morton Deutsch, Alfie Kohn, John Holt, Joan Roeloffs, John Taylor Gatto, Steven Slaby, Ursula K. Le Guin, James P. Hogan, Elizabeth Warren, Amelia Tyagi, Ivan Illich, Michael Mahoney, Freeman Dyson, Ted Taylor, Douglas Lisle, David Goodstein, Michel Bauwens, Eric Hunting, Kevin Carson, P.M. Lawrence, Iain Banks, Harvey Cox, G. William Domhoff, E.F. Schumacher, Jacque Fresco, Stewart Brand, Buckminster Fuller, Dee Hock, Michael Phillips, Amory Lovins, Hunter Lovins, John Todd, Nancy Jack Todd, Manuel De Landa, Kenneth Rogoff, Carmen Reinhart, Gerard K. O'Neill, Frances Moore Lappe, David Brin, K. Eric Drexler, Hans Moravec, Victor Serebriakoff, Noam Chomsky, Herbert Simon, Robert Steele, Julian Simon, Larry Slobodkin, Patrick Grim, Philip Zimbardo, Slavoj Zizek, Dan Pink, Alan Kay, George A. Miller, Lev R. Ginzburg, Norman Spinrad, Gene Roddenberry, Alvin Toffler, James R. Beniger, James T. Liu, Alain Kornhauser, Jennifer Morgan, Juliet B. Schor, Marshall Sahlins, Suniya S. Luthar, as well as all the authors of the 1964 Triple Revolution Memorandum, and many, many others. If I can see so far, it is from "standing on the shoulders of giants", none of whom should be blamed for any errors in the following that are solely my own."
I just found some new interesting reading, including by economist Brad DeLong, by googling on: "slouching towards post-scarcity".
Thanks, quite an interesting rant, even if I only half-understand it so far. :-)
Your first point on assuming fidelity in surveillance reflects a major plot point in Vernor Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky".
As for middle part, I can only strain my limited brain cells to think maybe in other words, perhaps what you said boils down to "people who live in fun house palaces made of glass mirrors should not throw stones because they have no idea what they would really be aiming at"?
Or "analysis paralysis"?
Unless of course the point was to bring down all the mirrors? Still, obviously, mirrors are useful for lots of things.
As to the last point, it would seem yes, that seems likely. People have trouble designing systems to deal with issues that would change the designers if they understood them, such as I mention here:
"The Lion Memo (with apologies to C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters)"
http://www.pdfernhout.net/the-lion-memo.html
"Regarding your recent inquiries, it is true we have not yet been able to determine why the Butterfly can be so successful using so few resources, since the means the Butterfly employs are incomprehensible to us. While easy to watch and catalog, the Butterfly's means are completely unexpected in the effects they cause and this continues to puzzle us greatly. Those who champion non-violence by definition must be weaker than those who champion violence. By all Deep Magic, the means employed by the Butterfly should never work! But nonetheless, the Research & Destruction department continues to explore this conundrum, and I do hope one day we will understand the processes by which the Butterfly operates sufficiently to lead to the Butterfly's universal defeat. It is possible that the symbol on the Butterfly's wings you reported may have something to do with its unexpected success; if this so called "Peace" symbol can be properly analyzed, the labs may be able to determine a way to destroy "Peace" entirely or at least turn it to our ends (although my mind recoils at that thought so deeply I know that to be impossible). The latest report from the labs is that the Butterfly's unexpected success has something to do with "playing to play" as opposed to "playing to win" -- but we all know that is obviously nonsense, since the only reason to play must be to win! And regardless of what you may have heard through the rumor mill, we have not yet lost a single soul through exposure to Butterfly inspired writings, because there is no power in the pen, only in the sword -- but stay away from such writings nonetheless -- is that clear? Our best minds think they could be contaminated with some sort of toxin. We have started analyzing them word by word, with each word handled by a different lab group, and lab groups never meeting, in order to reduce potential exposure to any potential toxic residue or chain reaction effects. And to answer your implied question, the high turnover in the R&D center before we instituted such procedures has been purely due to an unexpectedly high rate of promotions among the junior staff."
In any case, succinctness is a rare thing for me, except for my perennial sig, so thanks for noticing. :-)
Yes. :-)
Thanks for asking. I ported part of it to Python (to try on the OLPC, which was slow), and part of the overall framework to Java (mostly for StoryHarp), but there has not been a new version in a long time, sorry. It still works under Windows emulators; use the zipped version as the later versions of Windows don't like the installer. A free registration code is on the site.
(I worked on) Music: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.evojazz
3D plants: http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/PlantStudio/
Ultimately, what kind of effect will this have on employment as robotics and AI get more and more creative? See:
http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/04/enter_adam_the_robot_scientist.php
Here is a 12 minute YouTube video I recently made that talks about a balance between five interwoven economies that shifts with cultural change and technological change:
"Five Interwoven Economies: Subsistence, Gift, Exchange, Planned, and Theft"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY
So, I help provide evolutionary tools that will change the value of most paid human labor, but I also provide ideas about how to upgrade our society to accomodate that.
But so many people just make the tools and don't think about the human consequences yet. I hope more and more people start thinking about all this. My writings are just a place to start...
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html :-) :-) :-)" :-) "
"Our biggest advantage is that no one takes us seriously.
And our second biggest advantage is that our communications are monitored, which provides a channel by which we can turn enemies into friends.
And our third biggest advantage is we have no assets, and so are not a profitable target and have nothing serious to fight over amongst ourselves.
Let's hope those advantages all hold true for a long time.