IEET Affiliate Scholar John Danaher was IEET’s top writer for 2015. His philosophical articles garnered a total of 209,541 hits.

Other top-producing writers were Managing Editor Hank Pellissier (167,288 hits), Affiliate Scholar John Messerly (163,398 hits), Advisory Board Member Gray Scott (150,453 hits) and Valerie Tarico (127,430 hits).

IEET Fellow David Brin has co-edited (with Matthew Woodring Stover) a book published on November 3, 2015, titled: Star Wars on Trial: The Force Awakens Edition: Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Debate the Most Popular Science Fiction Films of All Time

According to IEET readers, what were the most stimulating stories of 2015? This month we’re answering that question by posting a countdown of the top 30 articles published this year on our blog (out of more than 1,000), based on how many total hits each one received.

The following piece was first published here on February 17, 2015, and is the #27 most viewed of the year.

China recently pledged $60 billion “of assistance and loans for Africa to help with the development of the continent.”  This adds to a previous investment of $200 billion over the last forty years.  China’s leaders regularly visit African nations where they are lavishly praised and it is evident that the two regions are destined for an intertwined future.

There is no doubt that blockchains are a reality-making technology, a mode and means of implementing as many flavors of our own crypto-enlightenments as we can imagine! This includes newer, flatter, more autonomous economic, political, ethical, scientific, and community systems. But not just in the familiar human social constructs like economics and politics, possibly in physical realities too like time. Blocktime’s temporal multiplicity and malleability suggest a reality feature we have never had access to before – making more time.

According to IEET readers, what were the most stimulating stories of 2015? This month we’re answering that question by posting a countdown of the top 30 articles published this year on our blog (out of more than 1,000), based on how many total hits each one received.

The following piece was first published here on March 19, 2015, and is the #28 most viewed of the year.

Fans of Game of Thrones were treated to a big piece of news last week. As audiences know, the fan-favorite character Jon Snow was left to die at the hands of his Night’s Watch Brothers at the end of the previous season.  Yesterday, a poster was revealed showing a bloodied image of the character.

According to IEET readers, what were the most stimulating stories of 2015? This month we’re answering that question by posting a countdown of the top 30 articles published this year on our blog (out of more than 1,000), based on how many total hits each one received.

The following piece was first published here on February 9, 2015, and is the #29 most viewed of the year.

The following dialogue below took place on Star Trek: Enterprise, on episode 18, season 2, titled “The Crossing.” It was between members of the Enterprise crew (Captain Archer, Commander T’Pol, and Lieutenant Reed) and a non-corporeal alien entity known as the Wisp, of which they discuss the Wisp’s past biological existence and how they evolved into a non-corporeal species.

According to IEET readers, what were the most stimulating stories of 2015? This month we’re answering that question by posting a countdown of the top 30 articles published this year on our blog (out of more than 1,000), based on how many total hits each one received.

The following piece was first published here on May 19, 2015, and is the #30 most viewed of the year.

Anyone who’s read any of my previous posts will already know that I am, let us say, technologically challenged. Some twenty years ago I studied towards a PhD in Tibetan Studies and Classical Sanskrit and Tibetan languages. Alas, since then with this knowledge unused it has faded away although I can still say Chandamaharoshana Tantra without bringing on a manic mood swing.

In light of the recent news where the Australian government officially criminalized the mere act of owning blueprints to 3D print a gun, it certainly raises the question of how other countries will handle the future prospect of advanced 3D printed weaponry. The ownership of a gun is already a controversial topic currently being debated here in the United States, and with 3D printed guns now being added into the mix, the controversy is likely to become exacerbated.

Soares (2015) defines the value learning problem as: By what methods could an intelligent machine be constructed to reliably learn what to value and to act as its operators intended?

Achieving what Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has only attempted to do (and failed thus far), Blue Origin, a private space company founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, has officially landed a reusable rocket after a quick trip to and from space.

Singularity University is not about the singularity and is not even a university. It is not about abundance and is not an exponential organization.

Then what is Singularity University about?!

The following dialogue below took place on Star Trek: Voyager, on episode 13, season 7, titled “Repentance.” It was between Seven of Nine (whom is a former Borg drone) and the Doctor (whom is a holographic emergency medical physician), of which they discuss the morality (or lack thereof) behind the act of killing another living being.

As a technoprogressive it’s my desire to see that everyone benefits from emerging technologies with regard the rapidly approaching transhumanist future. To this end I’m trying to do what little I can to further and support technoprogressive aims and ideals. This does however beg the ques-tion: what about me?

I have written a lot about the prospects of widespread technological unemployment; I have also written a lot about the ethics of human enhancement. Are the two topics connected? Yes. At least, that’s what Michele Loi tries to argue in his recent paper “Technological Unemployment and Human Disenhancement”. In this post, I want to analyse his argument and offer some mild criticisms. I do so in a constructive spirit since I share similar views.

Time for a return to the core issue of our time: how shall we best preserve and extend freedom?  Along with freedom’s contingent benefits, like privacy?

In the LA Review of Books, Internet Privacy: Stepping Up Our Self-Defense Game, Evan Selinger reviews a slim book—Obfuscation: A User’s Guide for Privacy and Protest, by Finn Brunton and Helen Nissenbaum.

I would argue that as far as imagining the future is concerned many of us, in the West at least, have had our vision blurred from what amounts to a 2,000 year philosophical hangover called Christianity. But no one ever seems to care about this point. The most common response I’ve gotten from a certain sect of singularitarians and transhumanists upon pointing out that both their goals and predictions seem to have been ripped from a man on the street’s version of Christianity has been- who cares?

Hottest Articles of the Last Month

Why it matters that you realize you’re in a computer simulation by Eliott Edge Nov 14, 2015 (69267) Hits • (14) Comments

The Future Business of Body Shops by B. J. Murphy Nov 15, 2015 (8346) Hits • (0) Comments

Artificial Intelligence is Already Here—Artificial Consciousness is What Eludes Us - See more by Nicole Sallak Anderson Nov 19, 2015 (5010) Hits • (1) Comments

Creating Human-Friendly AGIs and Superintelligences: Two Theses by Ben Goertzel Nov 7, 2015 (4466) Hits • (2) Comments

Is Anyone Competent to Regulate Artificial Intelligence? by John Danaher Nov 21, 2015 (4369) Hits • (1) Comments