Last-minute breakthroughs and remembrances, before the “end of the world”

== Can we predict the future? ==

First, the National Intelligence Council has issued its quadrennial 160 page Global Trends report, this time peering ahead toward the year 2030.  My favorite territory. This set of world forecasts and scenarios appears, at last, ready to break from the transfixing obsessions of the past — vast blocs of supranational ideology or else ideology-driven terrorists.

Instead, the NIC examines deeper drivers that might affect whether Earth Civilization prospers or not, and what role the United States and the West will continue to play, as Pax Americana gradually eases out of its historic mission. Indeed, it looks as if some folks who have attended my Washington talks about the future may have heeded or cribbed-from my report from almost a decade ago, to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency DTRA, about non-state and non-terror threats.

Compare the NIC Global Trends document to those earlier slides attempting to get folks to think more broadly about the future.

Meanwhile, the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk is being co-launched by astronomer royal Lord Rees, one of the world’s leading cosmologists. It will probe the “four greatest threats” to the human species, given as: artificial intelligence, climate change, nuclear war and rogue biotechnology. Lord Rees, who has warned that humanity could wipe itself out by 2100, is launching the centre alongside Cambridge philosophy professor Huw Price, and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn.

Interesting that the four threats they chose happen to be chief topics featured in Existence.

Also of interest: a rebuttal on the Da Vinci Institute site takes on Nassim Taleb, author of the bestseller The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, who ridicules the idea of predicting the future. Instead, he argues that the world is dominated by the impact of rare, unforeseen, random, highly improbable and yet influential events. “These Black Swans, he says, happen abruptly, coming from outside the range of our vision.”

I found the rebuttal interesting- at times on target – yet in the end just as quasi mystical as Taleb’s book.  Because neither of them offer challenging ways to assess and appraise and improve (pragmatically) the process of prediction.

At risk of (typical) self-promotion, I do believe there’s an approach that — if even marginally funded — could help move the whole field forward via means of predictions registries and fora. How I am tempted, after all these years, to try to fund it myself… if college bills weren’t such a big deal .

More efforts at prediction can be found in the annual forecast list of the World Future Society.  The plausible ones seem rather likely… new dust bowls, a rapid rise in commercial space tourism, eyesight-restoration, teaching based in games, deep-geothermal power,   Others, like garbage purifying robot earthworms and lunar colonies, fall more into the sci fi zone and are not as near future as they seem to think. Have a look and join the WFS.  Though… alas… I’d still expect just a few “futurists” to survive long under scrutiny of a registry. Whereupn, the best would learn and adapt!

== Genetic “variability” and our future evolution ==

Recent studies indicate that humanity is now very, very rich in genetic variability, the grist of future evolution. (Exactly opposite to the problem faced by inbred cheetahs, for example.) “Humans today carry a much larger load of deleterious variants than our species carried just prior to its massive expansion just a couple hundred generations ago,” said population geneticist Alon Keinan of Cornell University, whose own work helped link rare variation patterns to the population boom.

From the article: The inverse is also true. Present-day humanity also carries a much larger load of potentially positive variation, not to mention variation with no appreciable consequences at all. These variations, known to scientists as “cryptic,” that might actually be evolution’s hidden fuel. Indeed, the genetic seeds of exceptional traits, such as endurance or strength or innate intelligence, may now be circulating in humanity. “The genetic potential of our population is vastly different than what it was 10,000 years ago,” Akey said. How will humanity evolve in the next few thousand years? It’s impossible to predict but fun to speculate, said Akey.

 A potentially interesting wrinkle to the human story is that, while bottlenecks reduce selection pressure, evolutionary models show that large populations actually increase selection’s effects. 

My own comment: In nature, evolution is based not only upon genetic variability (in which this research suggests we are rich) but also on death, culling some and allowing others to breed.  A crude, brutal method that is inherently un-interested in “fairness” … but time tested by nature. This will change though. We will choose instead to steer the process via culture and technology while continuing to develop our capacity to collaboratively evade death – the old engine of evolution. What replaces death? The article’s authors suggest that widespread use of reproductive technologies like fetal genome sequencing might ease selection pressures, or even make them more intense.  But in his novel Beyond This Horizon, Robert Heinlein showed us how to grab ahold of our variability and use it in a campaign of self-improvement that has none of the creepy aspects of direct genomic meddling.

Ponder that finding… that humans have max’d-out genetic diversity… and nowhere more so than in my California… almost as if we were a flower, getting ready to cast forth seeds…

Meanwhile, there’s an interesting article with huge implications for the future of anthropology. In an essay by George Dvorsky: Over at the Edge there’s a fascinating article by Thomas W. Malone about the work he and others are doing to understand the rise of collective human intelligence — an emergent phenomenon that’s being primarily driven by our information technologies.  Malone, who is the Director at MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence, studies the way people and computers can be connected so that — collectively — they can act more intelligently than any single person, group, or computer. Good stuff, but I’d have liked more attention to the older methods that have leveraged individual intelligence into group intelligence. The positive-sum enlightenment methods of markets, science, democracy etc.

== Wondrous and Puzzling Science ==

NASA’s Cassini orbiter spots river system on Titan … but filled with liquid ethane and methane instead of water. The Titanic Nile shows up on a black-and-white picture from Cassini’s radar imager, which can look through Titan’s thick, smoggy atmosphere to map the surface features beneath.

A U.S. start-up has turned to nature to help bring water to arid areas by drawing moisture from the air.

Ah, progress. Soon anyone with a good home-maker unit will be able to print the parts to make their own firearms. Reminds me of Van Vogt’s The Weapon Shops.  I guess we’ll find out if John W. Campbell was right that “an armed society is a polite society.”  I imagine we’ll all get more polite… after twenty generations of culling.

Speaking of which, a use of such devices that will be both more useful and creepier, illustrated cartoon style! Frankentissue: How to print an organ on your inkjet.

Weird…time reversal research: When a signal travels through the air, its waveforms scatter before an antenna picks it up. Recording the received signal and transmitting it backwards reverses the scatter and sends it back as a focused beam in space and time.

Bothered by negative thoughts? Throw them away.

Large scale melting of Permafrost may be underway.

Some recent studies indicate glucosamine (used by millions for slight joint pain reduction)  was associated with a significant decreased risk of death from cancer and with a large risk reduction for death from respiratory disease.

Late last year, a Russian team drilled through to Lake Vostok, an even larger lake covered by some 4km of ice. But preliminary analyses of lake water that froze on to the drill bit showed scant evidence for the presence of living organisms. Now researchers at the shallower McMurdo lakes have found a diverse community of bugs living in the lake’s dark environment, at temperatures of -13C. Some think this a possible analog for ice-roofed water moons like Europa.

Ten things that will disappear in thirty years.

== Space!!! ==

Know the difference between radioisotope nuclear power for spacecraft and nuclear reactors for spaceflight? The distinction is fascinating. Have a look at DUFF, a new reactor for space travel.

Some parodies are better than the originals! A takeoff of “Dumb Ways to Die” … starring NASA’s Curiosity rover…”Cool Things to Find.” –

Water ice discovered on Mercury. NASA’s Messenger spacecraft has spotted vast deposits of water ice around the shade-protected poles on the planet closest to the sun. Not unexpected, since radar beams from Arecibo in the 1990s had suggested this, confirming a hypothesis made by my doctoral advisor, Dr. James Arnold, that comets would have delivered volatiles to safe dark areas at the poles of both Mercury and our Moon.  Still, Messenger’s neutron spectrometer spotted hydrogen, which is a large component of water ice. But the temperature profile unexpectedly showed that dark, volatile materials – consistent with climes in which organics survive – are mixing in with the ice. And waiting for us?

NASA seeks concepts for two Hubble-sized telescopes. Last year, two big space telescopes, equivalent to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in aperture, but designed to have a much wider field of view, were transferred from one of America’s super secret spy agencies to NASA. ”Because there are two telescopes, there is room for projects that span the gamut of the imagination,” and indeed, NASA is now seeking suggestions what to do with these gifts. (Viewed from another angle, one has to realize and ask: was the Hubble itself primarily a way to provide cover for a program to develop spy devices?  I’m not complaining… or even asking! I wouldn’t be told, despite my clearance.  Still, one wonders. If these are now cast-offs… what do they have now?)

How NASA might build its first warp drive.

== And finally … ==

Late puzzler!  The earliest large life forms (ediacaran) may have appeared on land long before the oceans filled with creatures that swam and crawled and burrowed in the mud.

Finally… followup in the spirit of giving: My friend Lenore Ealey —  a sage in the field of philanthropy theory – kindly wrote about my “proxy power” proposal – that middle class folks can maximize their future impact on the world by joining perhaps a dozen groups/organizations that pool dues and numbers to pursue specific positive goals.  Lenore’s appraisal compares my approach to those of Boulding and Cornuelle with some Baconian philosophical perspective thrown in! Also, she adds a list of favorite NGOs of her own for consideration.  Go Proxy Power.

=====

Late addendum: The Friday 13th tragedy in Connecticut has us all horrified.  If only we could mature enough to have a society that foremost looks to help the troubled to get the help they need. Alas, this will become another frenzy over “gun control” that sheds no light, only heat. I once attempted to offer a non-partisan, off-angle compromise that would satisfy both those wanting sanity and those seeking to preserve a fundamental American right. It is as cogent as ever. See “The Jefferson Rifle.”  

 But at this point, there is something even simpler.  A matter of cause and effect.  Not one mass shooter was ever brought down by an armed bystander, but most were tackled by heroic citizens who were UNARMED, who waited till the SOB had to change clips or magazines, then bravely tackled the guy. That is the window of heroism! Hence, there is no excuse for legally allowing the sale of giant ammo clips. You do not need em for hunting or self-defense. There is no slippery slope, so please check your reflex. See the reason in this.  Join us and don’t make that a fight.  Just give it to us, this one small but crucially pragmatic reform. Now, show us this much flexibility.  For the victims.  Please, just be reasonable this once.

From Religion to Biology: Various Cool and Worrisome Items

Had loads of fun at the recent Singularity Summit 2011. I gave a talk to all those folks who think that technology will soon empower us to construct super-intelligent artificial intelligences, or perfect intelligence enhancing implants, or even cheat death. The title:  “So you want to make gods. Now why would that bother anybody?” Here I present some Singularity-tilted theology. 

And while we are reaching across the Great Divide… Science and Religion Today interviewed me in a brief Q&A re: “Can altruism be addictive?” Riffing off of the new volume Pathological Altruism, in which I have two articles.

For more on observation flaws built into human nature… see a fascinating story about “validity bias” where people routinely misjudge their own competence and procedures, even in the face of evidence. This especially applies to my longstanding call for neutral Predictions Registries. Read this and ponder how hard it is to be a mature person in this modern world.

== Biology!  Biology is Destiny! ==

Family living conditions in childhood are associated with significant effects in DNA that persist well into middle age. Researchers found clear differences in gene methylation between those brought up in families with very high and very low standards of living. More than twice as many methylation differences were associated with the combined effects of  wealth, housing conditions and occupation of parents (that is, early upbringing) than were associated with the current socio-economic circumstances in adulthood.

Now let’s be careful.  This is not Lamarckianism (inheriting of acquired traits by the next generation). Though another science report seems to imply that result in methylization studies, as well! No, what this shows is that the effects of childhood conditions can last for life, beyond mere malnutrition stunting of the brain or general health or psychological damage caused by poverty.  Those latter effects should be enough to convince anybody that society should invest in the children of the poor, even if adults are consigned to libertarian perdition, for their foolish choices.

But the new result reinforces the lesson. I consider myself to be a style of libertarian. But anyone who rejects socialist intervention to help poverty-wracked children is not only evil but also now clearly shown to be batshit crazy. And wrong.

An MORE waw-biology! Fascinating.  You’ve heard of “jumping genes” or retro transposons – that shift from one chromosome to another?  It turns out these events actually take place surprisingly often. According to one recent estimate, they occur in many or most brain cells, perhaps several hundred times within each cell. Each neuron is likely subjected to a unique combination of insertions, leading to a genetic variability within populations of cells.The full significance of this “genomic plasticity” is still not clear, but the authors suggest that it could influence brain development and behavior. It may, for example, partly account for the differences in brain structure and behavior between identical twins, and could even affect thought processes by subtly influencing the changes in nerve cell connections that occur with experience.

“The full significance of this “genomic plasticity” is still not clear, but the authors suggest that it could influence brain development and behavior. It may, for example, partly account for the differences in brain structure and behavior between identical twins, and could even affect thought processes by subtly influencing the changes in nerve cell connections that occur with experience.”

== Interesting Developments ==

This cartoon that distills a point I’d been making for years. Everything we must do re Climate Change are things we ought to do anyway (TWODA). “Ruin the economy?” Who wants that! A strawman. Efficiency is next to godliness.  Use this argument. Pry open skulls… or we’ll get Nehemia Scudder!

While Facebook has earned billions of dollars selling ads next to the content shared by their 800 million members, users haven’t earned a dime from their posts. Now a new site, Chime.in offers to reward its posters. The site, which allows individuals to post photos, links, videos and text in two thousand character “chimes,” will give users 50 percent of the revenue it earns from selling advertising on their profile pages. This may even begin a long-overdue re-evaluation of social media.

On the Transparency front: A critical but neglected transparency law could be updated for the 21st century if a new congressional proposal succeeds. The  (S. 1732), introduced by Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI) on Oct. 18, would update the Privacy Act of 1974 . The Privacy Act governs what actions federal agencies must take when collecting personal information on American citizens and how agencies use and share it.

Artist John Powers writes a fascinating riff, comparing Star Trek to the American dream… and weaving in a number of my own observations about the underlying design of the 200 year American Experiment.

==Science: From the Sea to Space==

From sea-floor… Scientists have discovered a community of 4-inch amoebas living at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest known part of the world’s oceans.

Is sub-sea mining (of metal-rich sulfide muds near old oceanic “smokers”) about to take off? How will it change things?

To space… A Rover’s Eye View: Watch this three minute time-lapse video of Opportunity’s thirteen mile trek across the desolate surface of Mars, from Victoria Crater to Endeavour Crater—a journey spanning three years.

The moon may be a harsh mistress, but Russian scientists say they want to establish a colony below the lunar surface. According to Russian space official Sergei Krikalyov, recently discovered volcanic tunnels could provide natural shelter for the first colonists.

== Brief Political Stuff ==

Sorry, but if we’re to prevent Nehemia Scudder… (Heinlein called 2012 his year!) .. we are all gonna have to get more active.  And some of you must wake up.

Read this. Our civil war is no longer left-vs-right. It is about bewildered American pragmatists and a “side” that’s gone mad. “Mike Lofgren recently retired from a lengthy career as an esteemed Capitol Hill republican staffer a respected, knowledgeable figure. Read  Lofgren wrote for Truth Out, published yesterday with this headline: “Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult.” How I miss Goldwater & Buckley!

Here’s the source.

See a map of which states are the most/least violent.  Even the first impressions are devastating to the big fib of “civility” in Red America. Now take into account that New York and California and Illinois have an excuse… dense cities and lots of immigrants and urban poor and drugs… And even so score way above average. New England does best of all.  So much for the moral superiority of Limbaugh-land.

Ever seen the maps for teen sex, teen pregnancy, infant mortality, divorce, domestic violence, and transmission of STDs?  Same story.  The preachy folk who claim to have a better handle on morality are, well, on average far less moral.  And their man Bush managed to make every measure of national health and middle class economics plummet during his reign. By all means, let’s heed their advice!

Interesting changes in the degree that the international uber-rich can “helvetian-hide” their booty from the tax-men.

Here’s a quotation from one of the world’s top technology pundits, Mark Anderson:

“For me, there is no more poignant example of the Bush 9.11 era, and the need to get beyond it now. Like two slides, I picture, first: an army of soldiers surrounding bin Laden in the mountains of Tora Bora, and then being ordered by Team Bush to wait until the locals can get there and participate, at which point the enemy has escaped.

“I compare that slide to the story of this year: after a year in secret investigation and preparation, Team Obama finds a likely target compound in Pakistan, orders in Seal Team Six via stealth choppers, uses overwhelming force, and shoots to kill. DNA samples are taken to confirm ID, and the body is dumped ignominiously in the ocean, with no propaganda pics for the enemy, and no burial process or site to rally round.” What a difference.  And yet, which man is called a “wimp”?

A vastly detailed and deeply disturbing article in Bloomberg about the Koch brothers. Seriously, read at least the first ten paragraphs or so.

== Oh, If Only… ==

Finally, one prays something like this will happen. From The Onion: Nation Finally Breaks Down and Begs its Smart People to Just Fix Everything!

Alas, look at history.  At the obstinate delusional stupidity that ran every previous civilization and keeps threatening ours.  Shall we bet on this?  Sigh.

My Predictions for 2012! A Nobel for WikiLeaks? On Transparency and Security…

First off… drop in at YouTube for my latest offering… reading aloud a popular passage from my novel Earth. “First came a supernova, dazzling the universe in brief, spendthrift glory, before ebbing into twisty, multi-spectral clouds of new-forged atoms. Swirling eddies spiraled until one of them ignited – a newborn star. The virgin sun wore whirling skirts of dust and electricity. Gas and rocks and bits of this and that fell iinto those pleats, gathering in dim lumps…planets…One tiny worldlet circled at a middle distance…”

My Prediction for 2012

I was asked recently to offer up my forecast for December 21, 2012! All right, here goes! On THAT VERY DAY the sun will appear to undergo REVERSAL in its path across the sky! Not the east-west rising-setting, but in its north-south travels! On that particular day – as foretold by ancient astronomers and many of today’s top scientists (though they aren’t talking about it!), the sun will (to the astonishment of many!) stop appearing to move ever farther south, each day at noon.

From that day forward, and for a period that I predict will last six whole months,each noon will see the sun passing through a point farther north than on the previous day! Arcing ever-higher in the sky of the northern hemisphere, this change of course will bring with it massive waves of weather change all across that hemisphere, causing ice and snow fields to melt and water to come flooding down mountains and valleys to the sea! Moreover, sometimes unbidden or unwanted by man, green growths will start infesting almost every outdoor surface! Insects will appear, individually and even in swarms, accompanied by flocks of noisy birds! In some locales, there will be frogs, or beasts, intermittent periods of darkness, and even outbreaks of vermin! Politicians and cable news folk will proclaim reasons to panic!

And thus winter will finish turning into spring… and spring into…. SUMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whereupon, on June 21, 2013… just in the nick of time… I predict the Earth will be saved when (to the surprise of many) the Sun’s ever-rising noontime passage will reverse. And yes I am daring to be specific and exact in my prophecy! And from that day forth – for a time I am willing to calculate for you – its lifegiving force will seem to ebb away toward the very bottom of the world.

A Nobel Prize for Wikileaks?

“WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may soon have a new accolade to add to his resume — “Nobel Prize winner.” Reuters reports that a Norwegian parliamentarian has nominated WikiLeaks for what is arguably the world’s most prestigious prize. “By disclosing information about corruption, human rights abuses and war crimes, WikiLeaks is a natural contender for the Nobel Peace Prize,” said spokesman Snorre Valen.”

Hm, well, for starters, it is Wikileaks and the principles of transparency that are actually nominated, not Assange. Heck, since the ideas were heavily promulgated by me in EARTH (1989) and in The Transparent Society (1997) ain’t I just as responsible? Seriously, as you’ll learn when I start posting my major analysis of the WikiLeaks Affair, I find Assange individually arrogant. His particular priorities and statements range from cogent to borderline crazy…

…but you cannot always choose your heroes or self-appointed paladins of transparency. Indeed, Assange has “done good” with his leaks in ways that no one would ever have imagined, certainly not him! Most surprisingly, his leaks have had the overall effect of vastly enhancing the credibility and reputation of the United States Government around the world, at a time when it was badly needed – a result that was almost-certainly diametrically opposite to his intent.

In any event, a Nobel for this KIND of activity would be a very important statement of support for the general movement toward world transparency. If the symbol for this movement must be Julian Assange, then so be it.

(Stay tuned, I will soon offer a suggestion that combines an old sci fi idea from Earth with WikiLeaks transparency and events in Egypt, offering a way to both benefit the people of that country and start the whole world down a road that is radically better and more hopeful than ever.)

=== TERRORISM

The Physics of Terror : Mathematicians and physics look for patterns in terrorist campaigns and frequency that might allow prediction of future threats. Terror events follow a power law, similar to earthquakes: more frequent attacks result in fewer deaths, while infrequent, large events kill the most people.

Debunking Theories of a Terrorist Power Grab. A power-system expert at Penn State recently refuted theories that our power infrastructure is highly vulnerable to terrorist attack.

=== PRIVACY & SECURITY

Are your apps spying on you? Your smartphone contains a wealth of personal data about you: your current location, contacts, phone numbers, age, gender, buying habits.  A survey by the WSJ found that 56 out of 101 popular smartphone apps regularly transmitted such personal info without the user’s knowledge or consent, often to tracking companies. As “Mr. Transparency” do I shrug this off? Not! Privacy must change. Not vanish!

Here are some privacy icons that tell you how sites use your personal data — designed by Aza Rashkin for Mozilla.

Five Cyberthreats to watch for in 2011.

In Wired Magazine: 2010: The year the internet went to war.

President Obama is calling for an online privacy bill of rights — to protect consumers and shield personal data from tracking. At this point, it would be voluntary, with sanctions from the FTC. Under discussion: a ‘do-not-track’ option, similar to the do-not-call list to block telemarketers.

Computers that See You and Keep Watch over You describes how facial recognition software is being used in prisons, hospitals, law enforcement, and the workplace. It is also used to sample audience reactions, as well in the front against terrorism.

Ten Ways a digital Big Brother can be good for you, by John D. Sutter, CNN. “These days, Big Brother doesn’t need to do much snooping. We just tell him what we’re up to.” Yet, there are ways that this omniscience has improved our lives: health monitors, disaster response, traffic maps, smart city grids, environmental sensors, monitoring earthquakes…

=== SOCIETY

Facing a crisis in drug abuse, Portugal decriminalized possession of all illicit drugs in 2000, focusing on treating instead of punishing drug addicts. The results: an increase in the number of people who tried drugs — but drug abuse declined, especially among youth. More drug addicts are in treatment. Police now focus on high-level drug traffickers; there’s been an increase in drugs seized. Read the experiment.

This issue shows that different regions have different blind manias. Europeans seem far more ready than Americans to accept calm, modernist, rationalist revisions of old ways. Revising stupid-awful drug prohibition is one of these. If Portugal gains a good track record with this, and other Eurostates follow, the statistics might get so overwhelming that California can follow. (Europeans have their own manias – e.g. that the universe owes them half a lifespan of pure leisure, and that honorable work – potentially one of the greatest parts of human existence – is an inherently evil thing.)

Do artificial beings deserve human rights? by Mike Treder, director of IEET To what degree will we anthropomorphize orbits and artificial intelligence?

Do you distinguish pronunciations for pin vs. pen, cot vs. caught, father vs. bother? How about Bach’s, box & balks? Even after the homogenizing influences of radio, TV, the internet, and the increased mobility of the last few decades, regional distinctions persist across America. This site has a fascinating wealth of information on American dialects, with maps and audio samples of regional speech patterns.

To aid the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service, Chief Counsel to the Chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission Michael Ravnitzky has proposed adding sensor arrays to postal trucks, to turn the fleet into a widespread data collecting operation — collecting real-time data on weather, pollutants, gaps in internet coverage, poor road conditions, as well as detecting chemical or biological threats.

Tidying my pile of miscellaneous items to share:

I gave an interview to “The Eerie Times” – a sci fi site – mostly about my career as a science fiction author.

Renowned author Robert Sawyer offers an interesting essay about how scientists and Sci Fi witers take both similar and very different approaches to dealing with a future that contains plenty of opportunities and dangers.

Telomerase-based rejuvenation? Or a great way to ignite a storm of tumors?

Did I show you this one yet? More than half of the predictions are right on!

Recently leaked: the original draft of the script for _The Empire Strikes Back_ by Leigh Brackett … Quite different from what finally made it to the screen. It seems the credit for this being by far the best SW film falls unto Kasden, not Brackett, after all. In any event, this shows one of my pet peeves. There must be (literally) more than 10,000 scripts kept locked up by various producers and studios, some of them no-doubt trash… but others which may be genuine gems of writing. Why can we not at least read them as literature?

When you cut past all the excuses and rationalizations, it really boils down to “embarrassment insurance”… Suppose one in a hundred revealed but never filmed scripts gain a following and praise from critics, perhaps even letters urging that the screenplay be released for somebody to film. How does the studio benefit? Well, sure, in one percent of THOSE cases, they might get spurred into actually resurrecting a once-dead jewel and benefit enormously! But meanwhile, the ghosts of many past mistakes would be let loose, and even a glorious resurrection would result in recriminations. “What idiot squelched this in the first place!”

No, it is beyond unjustifiable – and a travesty-betrayal of the purpose of “intellectual property” – for them to be locked away forever. But what do you expect, given that Hollywood had become so cowardly that the rare non-sequel is trumpeted automatically as “brave,” what would you expect?

Gates, on the seductive lure of idiotic cynicism (a disease that infests both the left and the right). As John Stuart Mill said in 1828, in a quote from the book that I especially enjoyed: “I have observed that not the man who hopes when others despair, but the man who despairs when others hope, is admired by a large class of persons as a sage.”

The most concise scientific paper ever.

Have a look at my friend Lou Aronica’s new crossover fantasy novel BLUE.

=== More stuff…

Cool! the Bureau of labor statistics lets you calculate in a shot what an amount was worth at any point in the period since 1913.

Tyler Cowan’s new book: The Great Stagnation seems to cover some of the same territory (much more deeply!) as my graphic novel about industrial decline:TINKERERS

See a thought provoking parallel between Egypt in 2011 and tragic Turkey in 1911.

Variant movie listings in TV Guide: It’s a Wonderful Life: “An accused criminal’s descent into madness is interrupted by a visitor from a distant star, who brings about an episode of mass hysteria after a visit to a hellish parallel universe.”

Looking backward — and then toward the future

Before looking onward to the future, let’s take a brief look back: “In any case, the 21st century is undeniably the century (that) science fiction built — if not in utter hands-on reality (though even that proposition is debatable, given the inspiration the genre has provided for influential scientists and geeks), then in the public imagination. Since the birth of genre SF in 1926, and for almost the next 75 years, simply to set a story in the third millennium AD was to signify extravagant extrapolation and a futuristic, far-off milieu when flying cars and food pills would reign — or dystopia would prevail. The year 2010 is automatically one of yesterday’s tomorrows.”writes Paul Di Fillippo, in “Is Science Fiction Dying?”

Aw heck, let’s add one more preening! I’m quoted in this BBC article: Futurology: The tricky art of knowing what will happen next: “In more recent times, author David Brin, in the 1989 novel Earth and in his other works, predicted citizen reporters, personalised web interfaces, and the decline of privacy. “The top method is simply to stay keenly attuned to trends in the laboratories and research centres around the world, taking note of even things that seem impractical or useless,” says Brin. “You then ask yourself: ‘What if they found a way to do that thing ten thousand times as quickly/powerfully/well? What if someone weaponised it? Monopolised it? Or commercialised it, enabling millions of people to do this new thing, routinely? What would society look like, if everybody took this new thing for granted?’”

How do we project ourselves into the future? No matter how hard futurists try, their visions never quite match up to reality. In H+ Magazine, Valkyrie Ice points out the Top Five Errors in Predicting the Future
1. Tunnel Vision: extrapolating future changes, by giving too much weight to one line of technological innovation
2. Ideological slanting: imprinting today’s ethical or moralistic biases on the future
3. Linearism: imagining that technology advances in a linear fashion, rather than exponentially, or along several parallel tracks
4. Static Worldview: a failure to envision how technology will deeply alter society and culture
5. Unrealistic models of human nature: certainly what we view as ‘average’ will shift in the future

Ten predictions for News Media in 2011

Really Inspiring!

Meryl Comer and Chris Mooney make a strong (overwhelming, in fact) case thatinvestments in science and R&D nearly always prove to be the best possible way to advance the economy, to stimulate job growth, advance public health and improve our balance of payments. There are no excuses for not making R&D a top priority.  Which means that the party that sabotaged science in the United States for so long has no conceivable rationalization or eexplanation, other than deliberately sabotaging their own country.

And… Space News

One way to reduce launch costs: manufacture parts in space. A new company, Made in Space, proposes launching 3-D printers into orbit and using them to manufacture parts for spacecraft (satellites or the space station) – which would then be assembled in zero gravity. This would reduce the need to bring spare (plastic) parts. Broken pieces would be recycled as ‘feedstock’ for rapid prototyping. (I did some preliminary work on this in the early eighties!)

Will we be able to grow crops on other planets to sustain human colonies? Scientists analyze soils on the Moon,Mars and Venus for potential agriculture.  Aeroonics is another possibility for soil less agriculture.

Project Icarus is a Tau Zero Foundation (TZF) initiative in collaboration with The British Interplanetary Society (BIS). Daedalus was a BIS project in the late 1970′s conducted over several years, to design an interstellar probe for a flyby mission to Barnards Star. Over three decades has now passed and it is an opportunity to revisit this unique design study.

Earlier this week my son and I stood in our backyard and observed the International Space Station crossing through the night sky  — an inspiring sight. If you want to know when and where to look, check Heavens Above for your geographic position. It tabulates the location of the ISS, and satellites, as well as any visible comets.

And… Science Fiction

The 100 best movie spaceships.

How does Serenity compare to a TIE Interceptor, or Babylon 5 Station to a Klingon Transport vessel?  Starship Dimensions, an online museum of vessels inspired by science fiction, puts it all to scale, contrasting dimensions of starships to real-life vessels.

And…. The Economy

James Fallows comments on “The Chinese Professor” Ad from Citizens Against Government Waste.

Hans Rosling’s 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes – The Joy of Statistics… and the statistics of joy… Important perspective!

About the ever-widening income gap, Frank Rich writes, in a New York Times article: Who will stand up to the super-rich? : “As Winner-Take-All Politics documents, America has been busy building a bridge to the 19th century – that is, to a new Gilded Age. To dislodge the country from this stagnant rut will require all kinds of effort from Americans in and out of politics. That includes some patriotic selflessness from those at the very top who still might emulate Warren Buffett and the few others in the Forbes 400 who  that it’s not in America’s best interests to stack the tax and regulatory decks in their favor.”

Uncle Sam needs you to solve America’s budget crisis: On this interactive site, you can choose which domestic and foreign programs to eliminate, and see how it affects the budget gap forecast for 2015 and 2030. You can choose to close tax loopholes, add a national sales tax, eliminate farm subsidies, cut military spending, or raise the Social Security age, and then share your plan online.

This really fascinating program (based at Northwestern U.) follows dollar bills and makes it possible to map connections among americans.  Interesting and easy to become a participant of “Follow George.”

Then….

The idea that we are entitled a life of happiness is a relatively new one. Past generations were more likely to accept their lot in life – with happiness a function of birth, bestowed by the fates or the gods, the reward for a virtuous life – or even delayed til a glorious afterlife. We who are less patient, believe it is our due, and yet, in the bustle of modern life, few seem to attain it…See A History of Happiness.

And finally...
Here’s hoping that the end of the Naughty Oughts (I named em in 1998) will bring a decline in grouchiness, a return of reasonableness and fizzy can-do, ambitious problem-solving!  And may you and yours have their best decade yet. (Though the worst of those that follow…)