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Archive for the ‘futurism’ tag: Page 2

Sep 4, 2018

Bioquark Inc. — 2bAhead Conference Video — Ira S. Pastor

Posted by in categories: aging, bioengineering, biological, biotech/medical, DNA, evolution, futurism, health, life extension, transhumanism

https://speaker.future.consulting/en/home/search/video/video…re-cancer/

Mar 16, 2018

The Transhumanist Test of Faith

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, ethics, human trajectories, moore's law, singularity, transhumanism

This piece originally appeared at the Institute for Emerging and Evolutionary Technologies website. It is dedicated to Leon Festinger.

Transhumanism is more often regarded as a faith by its detractors than its supporters. For my own part, I have long argued that the signature themes of transhumanism – especially the preoccupation with intellectual immortality and physical resurrection – bear the marks of Abrahamic theology. Indeed, without that theological backdrop, transhumanism’s zeal for mind uploading and cryonics looks simply bizarre. However, in this context, transhumanists can reasonably argue that they are scientifically delivering on those original theological promissory notes. Nevertheless, there remains the potentially pejorative sense of ‘faith’ lurking in what might be called transhumanism’s sense of eschatology – that is, its account of when, how and to whom those promissory notes will be delivered.

History shows that any humanly conceived idea is eventually realized in some form. Most of these ideas are realized fairly shortly after conception and in more or less the manner intended by their conceiver. However, many of the most important ideas – the ones that profoundly alter humanity’s self-understanding — are only realized much later and typically in a context quite alien to those who originally conceived them. Norbert Wiener famously observed that the possibility of an artificial intelligence was first raised in Talmudic discussions of the Biblical Golem. One of the goals of medieval alchemy was the creation of life from non-living materials. As for space travel and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, they became staples of speculative thought starting with the European Renaissance’s unprecedented confidence in the power of human ingenuity. But in all these cases, the ideas have taken 500‑2000 years to be realized – and many have yet to fully satisfy the ambitions of their conceivers.

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Sep 14, 2017

Unexpected Futurist: Mark Twain, Tesla, and a Worldwide Visual Telephone System

Posted by in categories: education, entertainment, fun, futurism, internet, media & arts, mobile phones, rants

When one thinks of Mark Twain, one thinks of folksy wit, Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer and the Mississippi River. Twain’s work immortalized the rapidly changing United States of the 1800s. But in his personal life, Twain often preferred the future to nostalgia, supporting women’s suffrage and civil rights, and frequently being contemptuous of what he considered to be the absurd and corrupt values of the past. He harbored a long running fascination with technology and new gadgets, and frequently invested in the latter — albeit with spotty success, at best. But Twain cemented his becoming an honorary futurist via his long friendship with inventor and Mad-scientist archetype Nikola Tesla.

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Sep 7, 2017

Should We be Cautious about Envisioning Dystopias?

Posted by in categories: entertainment, ethics, existential risks, futurism, human trajectories, media & arts, philosophy, transhumanism

How will our relationship to technology evolve in the future? Will we regard it as something apart from ourselves, part of ourselves, or as a new area of evolution? In this new video from the Galactic Public Archives, Futurist Gray Scott explains that we are a part of a technological cosmos. Do you agree with Scott that technology is built into the universe, waiting to be discovered?

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Sep 7, 2017

Unexpected Futurist: Ben Franklin envisions 2776 — and Cryonics

Posted by in categories: aging, cryonics, education, entertainment, futurism, health, human trajectories, innovation, media & arts, science, time travel

In Unexpected Futurist, we profile the lesser known futurist side of influential individuals. This episode’s unexpected time-traveler: Benjamin Franklin. Ben Franklin was an inventor, observer, electricity pioneer, and serial experimenter, so it’s not entirely surprising he looked to the future. But it turns out he was looking to the far, far future. In 1780 he wrote a letter to a friend in which he lamented that he was born during the dawn of science.

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Aug 23, 2017

Climate change to be a crisis for the 1%?

Posted by in category: futurism

Point discussed at 1:31 in the video: https://youtu.be/VJ_qtKf64Is?t=1m3s

From the conference text at: https://www.academia.edu/34323947/Mont_Order_July_2017_Conference_Text

  • “Climate change not likely to be stopped, likely to result in a crisis. No resources may be left for next generation.“
    • “Crises occurred in the past, and the 1% lost the most. The 99% are likely to survive climate change by struggling through anything (droughts, resource shortages, food shortages, economic crashes etc.) whereas the 1% could lose everything.”
    • “If the elite crack under pressure as Donald Trump does, this supports the above. The future of the 1% during a climate change crisis could be a larger scale version of the insanity that grips people who suffer a financial loss and become homeless after a relatively normal life.”
    • “As above, the Great Depression did not impact average person, but drove stockbrokers and other wealthy people to ruin or suicide.”

Aug 10, 2017

Futurist Gray Scott: We Can’t Ignore Our Psychological Future

Posted by in categories: computing, disruptive technology, education, ethics, futurism, innovation, internet, media & arts, mobile phones, nanotechnology, philosophy, robotics/AI, software, transhumanism, virtual reality

Why are we often so wrong about how the future and future technology will reshape society and our personal lives? In this new video from the Galactic Public Archives, Futurist Gray Scott tells us why he thinks it is important to look at all aspects of the future.

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Jul 25, 2017

Unleashing the true potential of AI

Posted by in categories: automation, disruptive technology, economics, ethics, robotics/AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents both the biggest opportunity and potentially the greatest threat to the legal profession in history.

This is part of a bigger global revolution – where society, business and government are likely to experience more change in the next 20–30 years than in the last 500.

This large-scale disruption is being driven by the combined effects of AI and other disruptive technologies whose speed, power and capability are growing exponentially – or faster.

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Jun 5, 2017

FM-2030: Are You Transhuman?

Posted by in categories: philosophy, science, singularity, transhumanism

This film was compiled from audio of a discussion futurist FM-2030 held at the University of California on February 6th, 1994. In this discussion 2030 laid out an overview of his ‘transhuman’ philosophy and held a back and forth with other people present in the discussion. Discussion and debate included items such as the value of researching ‘indefinite lifespan’ technologies directly as opposed to (or in addition to) more traditional approaches, such as researching cures for specific diseases.
The excerpts in this archive file present a sort of thesis of FM 2030’s transhuman ideas.

About FM 2030: 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. For more information about FM 2030, view the GPA Archive File: ‘Introduction to FM 2030′ or visit some of the following links:

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Sep 10, 2016

The Familiarity of the Future: A Look Back from 1999

Posted by in categories: counterterrorism, disruptive technology, futurism, governance, hacking, innovation, internet, law, policy

In preparation for writing a review of the Unabomber’s new book, I have gone through my files to find all the things I and others had said about this iconic figure when he struck terror in the hearts of technophiles in the 1990s. Along the way, I found this letter written to a UK Channel 4 producer on 26 November 1999 by way of providing material for a television show in which I participated called ‘The Trial of the 21st Century’, which aired on 2 January 2000. I was part of the team which said things were going to get worse in the 21st century.

What is interesting about this letter is just how similar ‘The Future’ still looks, even though the examples and perhaps some of the wording are now dated. It suggests that there is a way of living in the present that is indeed ‘future-forward’ in the sense of amplifying certain aspects of today’s world beyond the significance normally given to them. In this respect, the science fiction writer William Gibson quipped that the future is already here, only unevenly distributed. Indeed, it seems to have been here for quite a while.

Dear Matt,

Here are the sum of my ideas for the Trial of the 21st Century programme, stressing the downbeat:

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