"Who has the courage to re-imagine that future?"
In the near-past and on the scale of the last 30 or 40 years I give credit to your Chairman, Steve Jobs. The stuff that emerged from Apple was amazing, way too fantastic for me to imagine watching the show unfold in near real-time. Chris From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dr. Ernie Prabhakar Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2011 12:22 PM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: Re: [RC] Forecasts of a Radical Future are (1) most likely to happen & (2) never believed Actually, the futures he talks about are what -I- consider naive linear extrapolations of present trends. I do not dismiss them as too radical, but too sterile. The most interest innovations in the last century have really been about changing how humans relate to each other. Who has the courage to re-imagine that future? E Sent from my iPhone On Sep 5, 2011, at 13:51, [email protected] wrote: from the site : The Technium <http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2011/08/the_futurists_d.php> The Futurist's Dilemma In....1964 [ during ] the BBC Horizon show, Arthur C. Clarke [ made ] a fairly precise prediction, but one that is only half right. "We'll no longer commute in cities," he says, "we'll communicate instead." He also says, "I am perfectly serious when I suggest that you'll be able to call a man and not know where he is, whether he is in Tahiti or Bali or London." He got that part right, with cell phones everywhere, but on average we still do commute in cities. However it is the preamble to his prediction, where he hedges his bets, that I think he is the most insightful. Clarke says that if you find a prediction reasonable, than it is probably wrong, because the future is not reasonable; it is fantastic! But if you could return from the future with the exact truth about what will happen, no one would believe you because the future is too fantastic! By fantastic he means issuing from the realm of fantasy and the imagination -- beyond what we expect. This is the futurist's dilemma: Any believable prediction will be wrong. Any correct prediction will be unbelievable. Either way, a futurist can't win. He is either dismissed or wrong. Except if he hits that razor's edge between the two realms, right on the cusp between plausibility and fantasy, where it is almost true in the improbable future. This is the sweet spot that science fiction authors aim for. Occasionally one hits it. Like Arthur C. Clarke. Getting it right is very, very difficult. Most people, particularly most smart people, even most science fiction authors, will err on the side of not being fantastical enough. Because absolutely no one wants to be dismissed. What's the point of making a prediction if no one is listening? So 99% of future predictions will fall short of the necessary unreasonableness for a correct prediction. <http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2011/08/the_futurists_d.php> 27 August 2011 --------------------------------------------- from the site : Sentient Developments August 19, 2011 On the pernicious de-radicalization of the radical future Over the past several years a good number of "futurists" and all-out naysayers have systematically worked to undermine and dismiss the potential for radical change to occur in the not-too-distant future. While I've always been more a fan of concepts than time-lines, there is little doubt in my mind that a number of disruptive technologies that have been predicted in the past few decades will eventually come to fruition. But it's suddenly become very fashionable to poo-poo or sweep-aside the pending impacts of such things as the looming robotics and manufacturing revolutions, the rise of super artificial intelligence, or the migration of humans to a postbiological form. My best guesses as to why include the arrogance of the now (i.e. "we currently live at the most special of times and things will never change too significantly"), distraction (i.e. "there are other more important issues that require our attention"), fear, denial, weak imaginations, and just plain ignorance. Here's a quick overview of what's coming down the pipe-developments that will forever alter what we currently think of as normalcy and the human condition: * Artificial superintelligence: Recursively self-improving <http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2011/06/hear-that-its-singularity-comin g.html> expert systems endowed with significantly <http://www.nickbostrom.com/superintelligence.html> greater-than-human intelligence, capacity, and reach; the end of human primacy on the planet; an <http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html> extinction <http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer> risk and <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_artificial_intelligence> potential existential paradigm changer. * Molecular nanotechnology: Manufacturing and materials construction at the molecular scale; the complete re-thinking of engineering and manufacturing; the rise of <http://www.molecularassembler.com/> molecular assemblers (i.e. "replicators" or "fabricators") and the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_scarcity> end of scarcity; the advent of <http://www-lmr.usc.edu/~lmr/publications/nanorobotics/> molecular-scale robotics; the threat and promise of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine> self-replication; and a serious existential risk. * Robotics revolution: <http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v18/n1/full/scientificamer ican0208-12sp.html> Hyper-automation and <http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2003/08/59882> massive unemployment; the grim potential for <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_robot> robotic warfare/terrorism and the rise of <http://moralmachines.blogspot.com/> machine ethics; the unpredictable impacts of the convergence of robotics with artificial intelligence; robots that can self-replicate, swarm, assemble, create emergent effects, self-organize, and repair; a potential existential risk. * The ongoing biotechnological revolution: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism> Enhanced and modified humans (i.e. cyborgs, genetically altered humans, postbiological beings), <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indefinite_lifespan> indefinite lifespans; <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_medicine> regenerative medicine; advanced psychopharmaceuticals; the ongoing diminishment of corporeal importance (including possible <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uploaded_consciousness> mind transfers) and extended personhood; <http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/T/TransgenicAnimals. html> transgenics and <http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2011/07/ethics-of-animal-enhancement.ht ml> animal enhancement. * The ongoing communications revolution: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noosphere> Noosphere/ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_brain> global brain (where human minds are interlinked with our communications technology and the internet). * The political and sociological impacts of these disruptive technologies: The demise of privacy and the rise of the surveillance state; <http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2008/12/future-risks-and-challenge-to-d emocracy.html> the further diminishment of civil liberties and the onset of neo-authoritarianism. * Megascale engineering: Assuming humanity will survive this far: The graduation of humanity to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale> Kardashev I and Kardashev II civilizations through the advent of such things as the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere> Dyson Sphere, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_brain#Jupiter_brain> Jupiter Brain and <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrioshka_brain> Matrioshka Brain; the onset of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technogaianism> technogainism, remedial ecology and the reworking of Earth's entire ecosystem (including <http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2010/09/toth-fejel-politics-and-ethics- of.html> weather control); the permanent retiring of Darwinian processes on the planet. So, just keep on thinking that the future is going to be more of the same. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
