| How Smart Will Humans Be in 2020?Some background and a list of some powerful trends and technologies (some broad, some specific, many related to information and communication) that forward-thinkers might consider when developing scenarios for how human culture and social cognition will change as we approach 2020. |
| When Unusually Rapid Improvement Becomes UsualIf one tracks the amazing rate of progress in biotechnology, genomics, stem cell research and nanotechnology; it is hard – barring a devastating calamity that kills thousands or millions of people – to envision how life expectancy will do anything but continue to increase at an accelerating rate. |
| The Singularity FrankensteinWhile the bastardization of the Singularity meme may help spread it in the short term, it could hurt Singularity studies in the longer term. |
| John Naisbitt Hates the "Change" Meme"He supports this sentiment/analysis by arguing that “we human beings use the internet to do what we’ve always done” and that the underlying market forces driving human behavior have not fundamentally changed in at least 40 years that only “superficial” changes are occurring. I find Naisbitt’s argument that the change seen in the last 40 years, the change we’re experiencing, and the change we’ll see in the near-future is nothing but trivial, a bit naive and curmudgeonly." |
| Lab wants to capture minds... Literally!The mega-billion dollar Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) recently developed a new state-of-the-art facility to learn how brain cells store and process information. HHMI researchers plan to develop non-invasive techniques that will scan the brain’s neuronal pattern and retrieve each memory, emotional feeling, and thought process stored in that brain – which, conceivably, could then be transferred onto a chip. |
| The Mamas and the PapaInteresting short piece on the latest developments in genetic manipulation and assisted reproductive technology and its effects on the evolving meaning of parenthood. |
| Personal nanofactories promise an end to poverty, warIn the future, a small Star Trek-like replicator called a “personal nanofactory” (PN) will sit on your kitchen counter enabling you to create nearly anything your heart desires at little or no cost. -- Read how Dick Pelletier describes the potential implications of these technologies. |
| iPlant philosophy: a model of the singularity?What happens when neruoscience dissolves the distinction between mind and body? What happens when the intimate, subjective and irrational human mind is fully integrated into the logic of science, and a stable, effective and lucid, yet decidedly neuroscientific model (M1) of the mind is realized? |
| Video Interview: Jamais Cascio on Global Problems, Convergent SolutionsCascio, "All of these [problems] are intrinsically connected. If you are to succeed in any one of them, you have to deal with the others…everything is connected. Fortunately, the solutions are connected as well…As these concepts become more commonplace, what happens is they disappear into the woodwork. They really become expectations." |
|
|