Clipmarks | Futurism Clips

US war on the Future: From Alvin Toffler to Sarah Palin

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 03:22:48 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: This is a must read commentary by Adam Greenfield.

"What you get when you swallow too much change too quickly isn’t a mass outbreak of twitching, hebephrenic breakdown, nor some neo-Amish wave of technological renunciation. You wanna know what it looks like? A hockey mom and former beauty queen with an upswept ‘do and a pregnant daughter in high school. Sarah Palin is future shock personified."

Clip Source: speedbird.wordpress.com

I think we actually had two paperback copies of Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock floating around the house when I was a kid

Most of it sailed over my head at that age. What I do remember sticking with me was the notion of accelerating change, an idea which did then and still does make the hairs at the back of my neck tingle.

to suffer from future shock was simply to be paralyzed by “too much change experienced in too short a period of time

Mainstream Americans, by contrast, where they were once called to dream and to believe that their best days as a community still lay ahead, are now at war with the future. And this is one war situation that is definitely not developing necessarily to their advantage.

among fully-developed nations, the US stands out as having generally rejected “futuristic” interventions in everyday urban life, to the point that what I’m bound to present as innovative to US audiences is almost laughably banal elsewhere.

Tags: futurism, us politics

The Evolving AI Ecosystem

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:13:38 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: He takes his theory further, all the way in to the tubes of the internet. In collaboration with Professor Tim Berners-Lee – the co-inventor of the World Wide Web – the pair have been investigating the next generation Web. “What is emerging now is a digital ecosystem,’ says Professor Shadbolt, ‘involving lots of simple systems which connect millions of complex ones – humans!”

And there begins to be a certain amount of logic and a lessening of the fear I feel for the day when I am some robots whipping boy. We see such developments already in websites such as Facebook and Flickr, and programs such as Google Earth and World of Warcraft. We are being linked together, ever so slowly by a collective consciousness.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

One of the greatest fears of many is the underlying knowledge that of all the wonderful advances of technology, the internet and robotics is simply bringing us closer to being subservient to our robotic overlords.

However British Computer Society President and ECS Professor of Artificial Intelligence Nigel Shadbolt, believes differently.

Shadbolt believes that the future of artificial intelligence will be much different, though no less exciting, than previously expected.

Instead of intelligence that is a “brain in a box”, we are seeing intelligence that is assistive, adaptive and flexible.

In other words, instead of an intelligence that is “…agonizing about their existence or whether we are about to switch them off” we are seeing the growth of intelligence that, in years to come, will immerse us and center around humans, rather than feel the need to enslave humans.

There will be micro-intelligences all around us – systems that are very good and adaptive at particular tasks

Tags: ai, the web, futurism, man machine interface

Singularity by 2045 - incredible life in a tamed world

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:07:54 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Other possible advancements from 2050 to 2100 could include colonies on Moon, Mars and beyond, finding and harnessing wormholes that break “light speed” barriers in extraterrestrial travel, and whisking information through time to meet ourselves at an earlier age, or go forward and see what the future has in store for us. It may even become possible to gather scanned minds from lost loved ones before their death enabling them to continue living in our time. How wild would that be?

Clip Source: memebox.com

Imagine living in an ageless, disease-free body with youthful looks, superhuman strength and a brain that can out-think computers. Now further imagine an affluent, happy, crime-free population residing in a world terraformed for comfort without dangerous storms, tsunamis, or unbearable weather.

This is the vision many forward-thinkers believe humanity can achieve during this century.

Author James John Bell, in his Exploring the Singularity article in The Futurist says, “We won’t just experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century – it will be more like 20,000 years

Forward-thinkers believe by 2050, explosive information growth created by the Singularity could thrust our world into what astronomer Nikolai Kardashev describes as a “Type 1” civilization – 150 years earlier than some have predicted – giving us abilities to terraform our planet making it free from earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis and dangerous weather.

Tags: singularity, futurism, utopia

New You By 2018

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:53:24 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Therapeutic: Cloning for tissue replacement is already happening, as stem cells have successfully grown new heart tissues in patients. Researchers believe replacing muscle, bone, skin; even neurons, teeth, eyes, and other organs could be in beginning stages by 2018.

Augmentation: Procedures expected to be in place by as early as 2015 include improved memory recall, simultaneous language translation, long range and microscopic vision on demand, wide spectrum hearing, distinctive voice projection, and stronger muscles. And by mid-to-late-2020s, “nanobots” monitoring each of our cells could keep us ageless and forever healthy.

Designed Evolution: These could include memory, intelligence, speed, agility, and other behavioral and physical attributes. Eliminating undesired genes that might pre-dispose a child to cancer, heart disease or alcoholism could be possible by about 2015.

Clip Source: aftermathnews.wordpress.com

Clip Source: www.positivefuturist.com

In just ten short years, you may be looking into the mirror and wondering, “Who is that gorgeous creature?” Your reflection would reveal a much younger and healthier you; with natural hair color, youthful skin, perfect vision, real teeth, a spring in your step, and an incredibly sharp mind and memory.

Welcome to tomorrow’s futuristic world of biotech enhancements, which forward thinkers believe will be widely available and affordable by 2018.

The Institute for Global Future’s Dr. James Canton believes a trillion dollar health enhancement market will evolve in the next decade.

Enhancements fall into three categories: Therapeutic, Augmentation, and Designed Evolution.

Therapeutic refers to restoring normal capabilities to disabled or dysfunctional patients.

Augmentation means enhancing performance levels beyond the norm.

Designed Evolution refers to modifying our children prior to conception and after birth

thoughts of improving humans beyond what some consider “natural” will evoke controversy

Tags: futurism, augmentation, future medicine, singularity

LucyandBart- Future human shapes

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:21:12 GMT

clipped by: shunyax
clipper's remarks: Suggest check also :
http://www.lucyandbart.com/

Clip Source: www.preik.no

'LucyandBart is a collaboration between Lucy McRae and Bart Hess described as an instinctual stalking of fashion, architecture, performance and the body. They share a fascination with genetic manipulation and beauty expression. Unconsciously their work touches upon these themes, however it is not their intention to communicate this. They work in a primitive and limitless way creating future human shapes, blindly discovering low – tech prosthetic ways for human enhancement.'

Clip Source: shapeandcolour.wordpress.com

Tags: art, futurism

Robots will surpass human intelligence by 2030, scientists say

Wed, 28 May 2008 00:16:13 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Immortal silicon bodies? I am taking one (or two) and off to the stars !!

Clip Source: memebox.com

Personal robots have been a long time coming, but scientists now say we can expect revolutionary machines that surpass human physical and intellectual abilities within 22 years.

Today’s robots are mostly industrial types found in factories. An example would be an arm that inserts a product into a box and places it on a conveyor belt.

Robo-pets like Sony’s Aibo and NEC’s PaPeRo, priced from $2,000 to $5,000, are pleasing children and providing companionship for handicapped and elderly people around the globe.

Available soon in the $10,000 to $30,000 range will be human-like robots such as Sony Qrio, Honda Asimo, and Toyota Personal Robot.

These realistic marvels can speak and understand crude language, recognize family members by sight, and perform many butler, chef, and maid services.

Could we evolve into a human-cyber being? Absolutely, say futurists. By mid-2030s, we could be swapping frail biological bodies for powerful, immortal silicon versions.

Tags: robotics, futurism

'Banality of tomorrow' its the future,now

Thu, 22 May 2008 21:00:10 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: The future spreads, almost like an infection. The distribution of the future is less an endeavor of conscious advancement than it is an epidemiological process -- a pandemic of tomorrows, if you will.

Clip Source: www.openthefuture.com

One of the hardest things to grapple with as a futurist is the sheer banality of tomorrow.

We live our lives, dealing with everyday issues and minor problems. Changes rarely shock; more often, they startle or titillate, and very quickly get folded into the existing cultural momentum. Even when big events happen, even in the worst of moments, we cope, and adapt. This is, in many ways, a quiet strength of the human mind, and a reason for hope when facing the dismal prospects ahead of us.

But futurism, at least as it's currently presented, is rarely about the everyday. More often, futurists tell stories about how some new technology (or political event, or environmental/resource crisis, etc.) will Change Your Life Forever. From the telescopic perspective of looking at the future in the distance, they're right. There's no doubt that if you were to jump from 2008 to 2028, your experience of the future would be jarring and disruptive.

Tags: banality, tomorow, future

2063 A.D.

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:43:57 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.paleofuture.com

Due to popular demand, I have uploaded a free PDF of the book 2063 A.D. in its entirety. To purchase a print copy of the book you can find it at my Lulu storefront.

For those just joining us, 2063 A.D. was a book published in 1963 by General Dynamics Astronautics. The book asked politicians, military commanders and scientists to speculate as to where humanity would be, a hundred years hence, in the great push towards space.

A copy of the limited print book (only 200 are believed to have been produced) was included in the time capsule at General Dynamics Astronautics headquarters in San Diego. The building was torn down in the late 1990s and the time capsule is believed to have perished. The book gives some great insight into the general sense of optimism that so typifies 1960s futurism. Space colonies? Sure! Martian life? Why not! Teleportation? Easier than commercial space flight!

Brain-Computer Interfaces for Manipulating Dreams

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 14:46:55 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: worthwhile reading the whole article

Clip Source: www.acceleratingfuture.com

A first-generation commercial brain-computer interface (BCI) is being released by Emotiv Systems later this year. What does the future hold for BCI?

By 2050, and likely sooner, you will be able to buy a BCI device that records all your dreams in their entirety. This will be done in one of two ways. One method would be to use distributed nanobots less than a micrometer in diameter to spread throughout the brain and monitor the activation patterns of neurons. By this point, cognitive science will have advanced enough to know which neural activation patterns correspond to which sensory experiences. This has already been done with cats (using electrodes, not nanobots), where researchers led by scientist Garrett Stanley were able to extrapolate what a cat was seeing merely by monitoring the neurons of its visual cortex. Here are some images they obtained:

Tags: dreams, nanotechnology, futurism

Rehearsing The Future

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:59:22 GMT

clipped by: Fast T friend
clipper's remarks: Futuring causes us to question assumptions we make about life.

Clip Source: www.context.org

While many of us will become students of history to help interpret and understand world developments, some of us will have to become students of the future

We can rehearse the future in the present so that we can correct our mistakes before we make them. Rehearsing the future in the present will allow us to ask critical questions and make us more skilled at long-range planning. Rehearsing the future broadens our consciousness to ideas that we otherwise might never consider.

We can no longer relegate this task of futuring solely to professionals. Futuring, like other activities, has been compartmentalized from our daily lives. But there is no monopoly on futurism. Every person has the childlike ability to spontaneously create. To bring it forth we must let down our collective guard and allow ourselves to think creatively about the future, about the kind of world we want for ourselves and our children.

Tags: future

Remember Personal Hovercraft by 2000?

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 15:38:21 GMT

clipped by: AtlLiberal
clipper's remarks: How great would this be! Unfortunately I don't think I'll ever see it happen. As my title to this clip laments, I'm still waiting for my own personal hover craft that was promised over 50 years ago and still isn't here. Ah, but there's always hope.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Robotic cars could take pressure off nation's highways

Engineers say driverless vehicles they are developing may be the way of the future.

In Sebastian Thrun's vision of the future, freeways will be blissful havens from the everyday stresses of life. We will unwind during swift, smooth commutes free of aggressive lane changes, defensive brake-tapping and road rage. The SigAlert will be a distant memory.

What will make this utopian autobahn possible? Robots. Robots don't get mad; they don't flip you the bird; they don't cut you off out of spite; and they definitely don't crash into one another. At least they're not supposed to.

"There is no other way out of the current disaster that happens on U.S. highways," says Thrun, an associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University and leader of the Stanford Racing Team. "There are so many aspects of society you could change if you just make cars drive themselves."

Tags: science, futurism

The future is here right now, if you can read the signs

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 08:28:58 GMT

clipped by: shunyax

Clip Source: www.theage.com.au

Mr Hammond, a European author and futurologist

I use Google a metaphor for an emerging intelligence. Every single day that I use Google, and I use it constantly, I notice that it's getting a little bit more capable at understanding what I mean when I don't say precisely what I mean.

"Now, if brainpower in the computer is doubling every 12 months and Google is gathering every single minute of every day the intentions of all the humans in the planet, imagine where that might lead in 10 years. And if we accept that Moore's law (that the number of transistors on a chip should double every 18 months to two years) will continue, somewhere between the years 2020 to 2035, artificial intelligence will equal human intelligence and by definition, it will then double it."

Tags: futurism

The Problem with Atheism

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:51:34 GMT

clipped by: edgewalker
clipper's remarks: How true! religions are such a huge problem but atheism is not the appropriate counter strategy, Up-wing Transhumanism can fill in very well. it is the nature of Homo Sapiens that most individuals are always susceptible to magical thinking and always need to believe in a cosmic caretaker -n punisher- and the post-scarcity utopia called heaven in the afterlife.

Transhumanism, Futurism and Evolutionary Spirituality equip us with just the right weapons to tame the beast. It is essentially Humanistic and promises a bountiful scarcity-free future right here, in this universe!

All religions are based on One basic assumption, "Humans are the ultimate creation", whereas in futurist circles humans are long been viewed as only intellectual primates.

Accepting Evolutionary Spirituality opens the doors for wondering about the future and working forward to make it happen. Its a really paradigm shifting realization that we are not the end result of evolution, the process is still on...

Clip Source: newsweek.washingtonpost.com

Sam Harris

The Problem with Atheism

“On Faith” panelist Sam Harris is the author of the best-selling books Letter to a Christian Nation (2006) and The End of Faith (2005), which won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction and has been translated into many foreign languages.

To begin, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge just how strange it is that a meeting like this is even necessary. The year is 2007, and we have all taken time out of our busy lives, and many of us have traveled considerable distance, so that we can strategize about how best to live in a world in which most people believe in an imaginary God. America is now a nation of 300 million people, wielding more influence than any people in human history, and yet this influence is being steadily corrupted, and is surely waning, because 240 million of these people apparently believe that Jesus will return someday and orchestrate the end of the world with his magic powers.

Tags: religiosity, freethought

A History of Intellectual Discussion of 'Accelerating Change'

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 03:38:48 GMT

clipped by: edgewalker
clipper's remarks: Accelerating information and communication technologies have today become the most dynamic systems in modern society. Faced with the daunting prospect of further acceleration in their capacity, most people presently either deny the possibility, or ignore the phenomenon entirely. Futurists and Transhumanists believe that the evidence is strongly against the first response, and that the second response is unwise.

Learning about accelerating change and grasping the concept from a broad and multidisciplinary perspective is the most pressing challenge of today. Here's an excellent article from http://www.accelerationwatch.com/history_brief.html that accumulates some of the most incisive thoughts on these topics from a range of careful future thinkers, and to provide a number of synthetic interpretations, including one, the developmental Singularity hypothesis

Clip Source: www.scribd.com

A History of Intellectual Discussion of 'Accelerating Change'

What our universal, species, and technological history of accelerating change may mean for the future and larger purpose of humanity?

It takes educational privilege, curiosity, insight, courage, and mental freedom to engage in this investigation. Almost all of today's religous, philosophical, political, and even our scientific texts are curiously silent on the existence and implications of our record of ever faster emergence of physical-computational systems in universal history. Given our current knowledge of the laws of physics and chemistry, and our record of accelerating performance gains in miniaturizing electronic systems, it presently appears that this accelerating trend will continue as far as we can see into our extraordinary future.

Tags: futurism, singularity

The Ray Kurzweil Reader

Thu, 31 May 2007 20:38:59 GMT

clipped by: edgewalker
clipper's remarks: One of the best of the best futurism resources on net. anyone wanna know the future? read Kurzweil!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil

Clip Source: www.kurzweilai.net

The Ray Kurzweil Reader

by	Ray Kurzweil

The Ray Kurzweil Reader is a collection of essays by Ray Kurzweil on virtual reality, artificial intelligence, radical life extension, conscious machines, the promise and peril of technology, and other aspects of our future world. These essays, all published on KurzweilAI.net from 2001 to 2003, are now available as a PDF document for convenient downloading and offline reading. The 30 essays, organized in seven memes (such as "How to Build a Brain"), cover subjects ranging from a review of Matrix Reloaded to "The Coming Merging of Mind and Machine" and "Human Body Version 2.0."

Click here to download The Ray Kurzweil Reader (Acrobat Reader 5.0 or later required; PDF file, 4.4 MB).

Clip Source: www.kurzweilai.net

Tags: books, futurism