Hot on the heels of last week’s announcement on the Higgs Boson, some of YouTube’s most viewed science communicators burned the midnight oil to explain why this is so exciting. Wrapping up this series of posts on YouTube, I thought I would call out three prominent YouTubers who were at VidCon last week, yet still found the time to pull together a video.
When I go shopping for transhumanist enhancements, these items will be on the top of my list. As more futuristic innovations arrive, I’ll add additional enhancements.
Here’s a list of enhancements I would appreciate having, and I expect they’ll all be available in my lifetime. I begin with my 10th choice, and conclude with the #1 upgrade that I desire the most. What super-enhancement would you like to have? Do you want what I want, or something even more incredible?
Last month a gaggle of science publications reported that researchers had devised a way to harness the light from fireflies using nanotechnology. As a lifelong firefly enthusiast, I simply could not believe that the crepuscular creature of my childhood would now be opening the gateway for bioluminescence in consumer products as well as enhanced, energy-efficient technology.
Last year a court in Southern Nigeria remanded in custody 4 persons for allegedly killing a hunchback woman, Mrs Ifeoma Angela Igwe for ritual purposes. According to the report, the hoodlums went to the woman’s house and kidnapped her. They took her to a nearby bush where they beheaded her, butchered her and removed the hunch. It is believed that the hunch contains ‘magical substance or mercury’ which can make people rich. I do not know how Nigerians came about this erroneous idea.
Naked mole rats basically live 9 times more than “they should.” At an age equivalent to a human age of 92 years, naked mole-rats show unchanged levels of activity and metabolic rate, as well as sustained muscle mass, fat mass, bone density, cardiac health, and neuron number.
Brave is a much richer and more important film than most people realize. Context as they say, is everything. And to understand why Brave matters, we have to look at it within the context of animated films up to this point.
In my last in this series on personhood, I mentioned that in attempting to consider how to value other beings, for my own purposes, I settled long ago on a simple, defining characteristic: For my interactions with other beings, I ask whether they can experience pain. If they can experience pain, I have decided to do my best not to inflict pain upon them.
Will the Singularity arrive in 2045 as Ray Kurzweil predicts? Will it never arrive, due to global catastrophe or technological failure? Will it arrive with apocalyptic horror, as an “UnFriendly AI” annihilates our species? We wonder, we dread, we anticipate nervously. But there’s - at least - one human being who is ecstatically convinced that The Singularity will solve all humanity’s problems and embrace us ever-afterwards in a blissful paradise. This person has renamed herself “Singularity Utopia.”
Having been initiated into the alternative world of teen YouTube culture last year, I am once again being dragged along to VidCon – the Comic-Con of the online video community. This year – the third year for VidCon – promises to be bigger than better than ever with around 6,000 signed up for the extravaganza June 28-30 at the Anaheim Convention Center.
Humanity faces what many see as the most important decision in its history – to move from nonrenewable fossil fuels as the primary source of energy to renewable sources that could, some believe, allow us to achieve higher civilization status.
The merits of literacy are self-evident to the point of no longer being questioned in society. The very concept of reading and writing is a tenet of social compatibility for most cultures, having embedded itself into our social fabric to the degree where even debating whether “we should teach our kids how to read & write” is preposterous. But one doesn’t have to trace far back into our history before encountering an era where literacy was a rare skill for a very distinct minority.
An armed madman, James Holmes, walked into a movie theater armed with weapons that any Islamic terrorist would love to have and killed 12 people. The difference between this madman and an Islamic terrorist is simple: this madman lives in a country in which it is legal to own a gun, and in fact it is encouraged.
Right now, nearly 114,000 people in the United States are waiting for organ transplants to save their lives. Tens of thousands more are in need of tissue, bone and cornea transplants to restore their mobility or sight. Facebook has decided to do something about the constant shortage of donors.
“The Succubus assimilates the hyper-sexualized feminine, and the hyper-empowered predatory state… she’s in high demand, and needs a firm dose of sexual intercourse to sustain herself… Many Succubi fit the niche of solitary hunters.”An interview with Khannea Suntzu, infamous ‘Nymian’ resident in the virtual environment of Second Life.
You enter the wellness center and tell the receptionist avatar that you’re here for an annual restoration, and though your real age is 110, you would like to be restored to the age of a 20-something. A nurse then injects billions of genome-specific ‘bots non-invasively through the skin; you’re now set for another year.
Transhumanism and Transgenderism enjoy a close relationship due to mutual interest in enhancement technology. Multiple transgenders are valuable spokespeople in H+, such as IEET fellow Martine Rothblatt, IEET contributor and KurzweilAI editor Amara Angelica, and the brilliant tech writer for Acceler8or and hplusmagazine that I interviewed for this article: Valkyrie Ice.
I read this recent opinion in the New York Times, entitled “Age and Its Awful Discontents” by Louis Begley, and it resonated with my personal feelings about the topic. The author vividly describes the last years of his mother’s life, who had been a widow for the previous 40 years before her death.
With the Olympic Games fast approaching, in all of its ritualised pomp and ostentation, doping in sport has once again become a hot topic for social commentators and pundits to chew over in regards what is seen as acceptable forms of enhancement and the kind which is seen as warranting public condemnation.
I was 13, and a freshman in high school (that would make it, um, 1979). A local community college, Mt. San Antonio College (“Mount Sac”—funny that I didn’t realize at the time how dirty that sounds), announced a science fiction writing contest, to be judged by special guest Ray Bradbury.
I love lots of things about being alive and being human — but pain isn’t one of them. Put crudely, pain really sucks. It’s just not a pleasant thing. I’d really rather do away with it.
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From Mars to the Multiverse
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