Clipmarks | Futurism Clips

Teaching futurism to children and teens

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:10:07 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.depressedmetabolism.com

Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.” Plato (BC 427-BC 347) Greek philosopher.

For the most part the education systems of the industrialized nations are functional in that they cover the basics: reading, writing, science, and arithmetic. There is systematic guidance in the form of counselors in schools once a child becomes an adolescent and help is given for the child to develop into their adult career.

What is a futurist to do to inspire the next generation?

A futurist can share sci-fi books such as Stephen Hawking’s new book for children “George’s Secret Key to the Universe”, or a transhumanist adventure based on what is seen as possible by scientists now –like my book “21st Century Kids”,

but they still must encourage the child’s own loves, even if they are radically different.

Tags: teaching, learning, open mind, future

The Lifeboat Foundation

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:22:16 GMT

clipped by: skwirlinator

Clip Source: lifeboat.com

The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards a technological singularity.

Lifeboat Foundation is pursuing a variety of options, including helping to accelerate the development of technologies to defend humanity, including new methods to combat viruses (such as RNA interference and new vaccine methods), effective nanotechnological defensive strategies, and even self-sustaining space colonies in case the other defensive strategies fail.

We invite you to join our cause!

Tags: lifeboat foundation, technology, accountability, futurism

the future in probabilites

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 08:08:04 GMT

clipped by: zadoz
clipper's remarks: visionary at work

Clip Source: www.flickr.com

USS - a portfolio of probabilities _11

Sometimes students are good for a big surprise - as in this case. Having read one of my shorter posts (actually this one: www.hs-augsburg.de/~mstoll/?p=411 ) on a website about retro-futurism, Dennis Bille one day came around with a quite large set of folders and unpacked these wonderfull illustrations. Obviously they once were give-a-ways from "United States Steel International" to show, how the future might look like - from a early 60s perspective. Dennis Bille got these folders from a retired designer as a gift for helping to close down his office. what a symbolic story!

Tags: future

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!

How to live forever

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:05:24 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: This is the Economist ! The idea goes mainstream so it seems.

Clip Source: www.economist.com

“IN THE long run,” as John Maynard Keynes observed, “we are all dead.” True. But can the short run be elongated in a way that makes the long run longer? And if so, how, and at what cost? People have dreamt of immortality since time immemorial. They have sought it since the first alchemist put an elixir of life on the same shopping list as a way to turn lead into gold. They have written about it in fiction, from Rider Haggard's “She” to Frank Herbert's “Dune”. And now, with the growth of biological knowledge that has marked the past few decades, a few researchers believe it might be within reach.

It looks unlikely that medical science will abolish the process of ageing. But it no longer looks impossible

Tags: life extension, biology, futurism, health

5 Urban Design Proposals for 3D City Farms

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:15:41 GMT

clipped by: alanocu
clipper's remarks: Sustainable, Ecological and Agricultural Skyscrapers - One man’s vision has sparked a series of designs leading closer and closer to what will be the first real-life vertical urban farm in Las Vegas, Nevada of all places. Here are five of these remarkable architectural designs for sustainable (and stylish) urban farm towers that may revolutionize agriculture as we know it. In the long run such structures may not only provide food for hundreds of thousands of people per building but they will also relieve much of the burden on other flat landscapes where fewer and fewer usable growing spaces exist.

Clip Source: weburbanist.com

Imagine the world in 2050 with almost 80% of the planet’s population living in urban centers and our fruit, vegetables and even animals are grown in … skyscrapers?

One of the first designs of its kind, the compelling vertical farm project above was undertaken by Chris Jacobs in cooperation with the grandfather of skyscraper farm concepts

Architect Pierre Sartoux of Atelier SOA has gone a step further and put some serious design talent behind his proposal for a vertical farming skyscraper.

Given that most urban cores are already densely built, one designer has proposed an auxiliary series of structures to be attached to existing structures in downtown areas.

The Pacific Northwest regional architecture firm Mithun developed a compelling vertical farm building design to incorporate various green building strategies in a mixed-use residential and commercial complex

Architect Gordon Graff may succeed in the more green and progressive city of Toronto

Las Vegas

has a lot of potential

Tags: futurism, architecture, agriculture, farming

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

The Keys to the Universe

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 04:28:16 GMT

clipped by: skwirlinator
clipper's remarks: Careful what you wish for...

Clip Source: www.fairpoint.net

Here are some of the keys to the universe... and be careful what you wish for!

Technology of Change

Changing Ourselves

Changing the Universe

Education and Public awareness
New ways to visualize data (Knowledge Management)
Alternate Computing interfaces
Enhanced reality displays
Music and Art as intellectual exploration
Molecular Nanotechnology
Principia Mathematica III
Fractal Predictions
Genetic Algorithms
Artificial Intelligence
Distributed Computing
Frontier organizations

Enhanced Intelligence
Enhanced Biology
Sociological change
Aesthetic Body Modification
Functional Body Modification
Genetic Manipulation
Nano Engineered Body systems
Transhumanism
Posthumanity

Tags: keys to the universe, technology, futurism, science, scifi, transhumanist

Technological advances in the next 25 year

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 08:42:43 GMT

clipped by: rj3sp
clipper's remarks: PC World predictions about technological advances in the next 25 years, including devices that deliver information and entertainment to our homes and our pockets, sensors that monitor our environment and chips that deliver augment reality inside our bodies.

Clip Source: www.pcworld.com

Five Sci-Fi Scenarios That Will Come True

In the next 25 years, these technological advances, made famous in movies and on TV, will become reality. How accurate are our prognostications? Check back with us in 2033.

Clip Source: www.pcworld.com

Biometric Security (predicted mainstream date: 2010)

Clip Source: www.pcworld.com

Space Tourism (predicted mainstream date: 2013)

Clip Source: www.pcworld.com

The Holodeck (predicted mainstream date: 2016)

Clip Source: www.pcworld.com

Self-Aware Computers (predicted mainstream date: 2019)

Clip Source: www.pcworld.com

Domestic Robots (predicted mainstream date: 2020)

Tags: 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

Mechanical Man of the Future (1928)

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:55:54 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: paleo-future.blogspot.com

On December 9, 1928 The Ogden Standard-Examiner (Ogden City, Utah), along with many other papers, ran a syndicated story about the mechanical man of the future. Much like the insistence that giant robots would soon fight our wars, this article clearly must be taken with a grain of salt.

The mechanical man, brazen-lunged creature of dreadful portent is among us! A few years from now you may rub elbows with him in the subway, turn out in the street to let him pass upon his ruthless way, or even, if you are a malefactor, find yourself pinioned in his grip of cold steel and compelled with unreasoning inflexibility toward a place of confinement.

What can the mechanical man do? Plenty! He can walk, and he can talk. He can stand, sit, bow, and otherwise comport himself after the fashion of a human being. But he can do more than that. He can shake hands and breathe, telephone, operate practically any electrical device, and perform any number of duties advantageous to mankind

Tags: robotics, future, futurism, history, technology

10 Reasons to Marry a Robot

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 02:26:48 GMT

clipped by: seaj11
clipper's remarks: Buffybot, anyone?

Clip Source: www.wired.com

Artificial-intelligence expert David Levy's new book, Love + Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships, makes a compelling case for the development of real human-robot partnerships -- by 2050.

A robot partner can measure my respiration, heart rate, skin temperature and more using its biofeedback sensors. It knows exactly when I'm turned on, when I'm withdrawing, when I'm approaching climax; it knows my body better than I do. I don't have to make any effort to communicate my needs or to figure out my partner's -- what a relief to set that burden down! A robot also knows when to leave me alone, so I don't have to risk hurting its feelings by declining its advances. In fact, in this relationship, the robot does all the work, learning by trial and error, taking all the risks and adapting to my moods and whims. Sounds like a match made in heaven ... or by Honda.

A robot spouse could be perfect. Too perfect.

they should run the robots on Windows.

Tags: robots, robotics, technology, futurism, sex, sexuality