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Technoprogressive? BioConservative? Huh?
Quick overview of biopolitical points of view


whats new at ieet
Where Next for the Space Program?

History is Contingent, Built on Flukes, Accidents, and Surprises

Compassion

What Would You Say?

Teaching Theories

Geoengineering: Global Salvation or Ruin?

George Grant and Transhumanism

What’s Wrong With Transhumanism?

Welcome to 2030

Natasha Vita-More @ SXSW 2010


comments

Marshall Barnes on 'IEET Readers See China as Future Power' (Mar 17, 2010)

postfuturist on 'IEET Readers See China as Future Power' (Mar 17, 2010)

Tom Huffman on 'The Uncertain Future of Transhumanism' (Mar 17, 2010)

postfuturist on 'IEET Readers See China as Future Power' (Mar 17, 2010)

veronica on 'Compassion' (Mar 17, 2010)







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Where Next for the Space Program?

Contrary Brin

IEET Fellow David Brin speculates on the future of the space program. Where should we be going? Brin suggests caching supplies ahead of sending a manned mission. 

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Mike Treder

History is Contingent, Built on Flukes, Accidents, and Surprises

by Mike Treder

Yesterday in Shanghai, a woman miscarried. The child that wasn’t born would have led a unified China to attack and defeat India, Russia, and finally Europe, resulting in a Chinese empire that ruled the world from 2050 to 2100. Instead, China wilted under internal political strife caused by economic and environmental pressures, and became a second-rate power in the 21st century.

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Ben Goertzel

Compassion

by Ben Goertzel

We tend think about compassion on the level of individual selves and minds: Bob feels compassionate toward Jim because Jim lost his wife, or his wallet, etc. Bob sympathizes with Jim because he can internally, to a certain extent, “feel what Jim feels.”

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Rocky Rawstern

What Would You Say?

by Rocky Rawstern

After a yearlong hiatus, I thought it was about time that I got back on the nano-horse and giddy-upped into some new thoughts and understandings regarding that tiny little thing we call “nanotechnology.”

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Teaching Theories

image

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Geoengineering: Global Salvation or Ruin?

Commonwealth Club of California

On February 23, 2010 the Commonwealth Club of California hosted a panel of Ken Caldeira, Greg Dalton, Albert Lin and David Whelan to discuss geoengineering. What is technically feasible? How could new tactics be tested? Does the mere possibility of geoengineering diminish efforts to reduce carbon pollution? Our speakers share their distinct perspectives on this passionate environmental topic.


Bios

Ken Caldeira - Ken Caldeira is an atmospheric scientist who works at the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Department of Global Ecology. He researches ocean acidification, climate effects of trees, intentional climate modification, and interactions in the global carbon/climate system. He also works as a staff scientist for Intellectual Ventures, a Seattle-based invention and patent company headed up by Nathan Myhrvold. Caldeira’s work was featured in a November 2006 article in The New Yorker, entitled “The Darkening Sea.” In 2007, he contributed two op-ed pieces on the subject of global warming to The New York Times. He was named a “Hero Scientist of 2008” by New Scientist magazine.

Greg Dalton - Gregory Dalton is chief operating officer at the Commonwealth Club of California and Director of The Club’s Climate 1 Initiative. He previously was international editor at The Industry Standard magazine, an editor for the Associated Press in New York, and a correspondent in China and Canada for the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper. Proficient in both Mandarin and Cantonese, he is a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Albert Lin - Albert Lin is Professor of Law at UC Davis School of Law. His special interests include environmental law, natural resources, and evidence.

David Whelan - Dr. David Whelan is the Boeing Integrated Defense Systems Chief Scientist and Vice President—General Manager, Deputy to the President of IDS Advanced Systems. Whelan has responsibility to create, seek out and explore new technology and business growth vectors for the Boeing Company. Boeing’s technology and systems span a wide range of government missions ranging from space systems to airborne systems to ground systems to undersea system. Both manned and unmanned systems have been developed to solve Boeing’s customer challenges. Leveraging his in-depth knowledge of science, technology, systems and future customer requirements Whelan enables Boeing to find new solutions to world’s most challenging problems.

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George Grant and Transhumanism

Changesurfer Radio

Dr. J. chats with Janna Rosales about her 2009 doctoral dissertation for the University of Toronto, When the “Twilight of Justice” Meets the “Dawn of Nanotechnology”: A Critique of Transhumanism and the Technological Imperative in the Light of George Grant’s Moral Philosophy.

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What’s Wrong With Transhumanism?

Science Saturday

IEET Managing Director Mike Treder and CUNY Professor Massimo Pigliucci debate the pros and cons of the transhumanist agenda.


Is transhumanism fatally optimistic? (06:10)
Massimo’s ethical qualms with life extension (12:21)
The dangers of rapid technological advance (03:21)
Massimo vs. Mike on whether it’s possible to upload your mind (10:44)
Is the Turing Test a behaviorist blunder? (15:44)
Pesky limitations imposed by human biology (07:15)

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Welcome to 2030

Colin McEnroe Show

(Featuring Dr. J. and Jamais Cascio.) This is the one conversation we’re going to have today that will be held in 2010. The concept for today’s show came out of one of the dangerous meetings we have where we try to think of ideas we can’t easily do. We decided to assemble a show that takes place in the year 2030. At first, this seemed like a funny idea, mainly, but this being WNPR, we started talking to actual futurists, the people who try to figure out, decade by decade, what the real drivers for change are and what they’re most likely to do our collective reality. Global warming. The rise of China. The fall of China. The Rise of India, Brazil, Indonesia. The effects of total, ubiquitous connectivity, gene tweaking, crop changes, human migrations, transhumanism ...the people you hear on the show today are the real futurists of 2010.

But we invited them to go time traveling with us. See you in 20 years.

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David Brin

A Long, Lonely Road

by David Brin

Some informal advice to new authors…

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No Handlebars

Fight with Tools

The Flobots are from Denver, Colorado, formed in 2000 by lead MC Jonny 5, aka Jamie Laurie. Their 2008 hit “Handlebars” is off their 2007 album Fight with Tools. Also check out their political activism site flobots.org, and their webcomic series Rise of the Flobots: Architects of Change featuring SF-ish stories inspired by fans and the music of the Flobots.

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Jamais Cascio

Fifteen Minutes into the Future

by Jamais Cascio

One of the hardest things to grapple with as a futurist is the sheer banality of tomorrow.

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Linda MacDonald Glenn

Love’s Labour Lost: An act of desperation leads to a bad law

by Linda MacDonald Glenn

There is a saying in the law that “hard cases make bad law.” This tragic story is one of those hard cases.

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Mike Treder

Health Care Good, System Bad

by Mike Treder

You can make an argument that the quality of health care in the United States is as good as anywhere in the world (if you can afford it)—but the system we use to allocate and pay for that care is obviously broken and needs to be fixed.

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A Note About Our Comments Policy

Most comments get approved, but some don’t. Here’s why.

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Russell Blackford

Do Secularists Contribute to Social Divisiveness?

by Russell Blackford

My colleague Taner Edis, who contributed a fine essay to 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Atheists , has, alas, written a new essay over on the Secular Outpost blog, in which he takes me to task for my recent criticism of Gary Bouma.

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Andrew Maynard

Why We Need Technology Ratchets

by Andrew Maynard

A lot of things keep me up at night – everything from the trivial (“did I remember to brush my teeth?”) to the to the profound (“does it matter?”). But recently, I’ve been plagued more than usual in the wee small hours by the challenge of developing sustainable and resilient technologies.

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Jamais Cascio

Pushing Back Against the Methane Tipping Point

by Jamais Cascio

A piece in the latest issue of Science shows that there’s a considerable amount of methane (CH4) coming from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, where it had been trapped under the permafrost. There’s as much coming out from one small section of the Arctic ocean as from all the rest of the oceans combined. This is officially Not Good.

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Mike Treder

What “Irrelevance” Means and What It Doesn’t

by Mike Treder

I have proposed that a scenario of slower-than-disruptive tech development over the next 15-20 years combined with weak or reduced opposition to human enhancement could result in “increasing irrelevance” for transhumanists. But what exactly does that mean?

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Andrea Kuszewski

Are atheists and liberals more “intelligent”?

by Andrea Kuszewski

Better check your definitions…

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No Consensus on Future of Nation-State

We asked IEET readers what new paradigm might emerge in the 21st century to replace the nation-state, and the situation is clearly murky.

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Mike Treder

The Uncertain Future of Transhumanism

by Mike Treder

Let’s consider four distinct scenarios of technological development and transhumanist assimilation that might take place over the next 15 to 20 years.

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Andrew Maynard

Nanotechnology and Cancer Treatment

by Andrew Maynard

Do we need a reality check?

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Giulio Prisco

Future Evolution of Virtual Worlds as Communication Environments

by Giulio Prisco

Virtual worlds are persistent online computer-generated environments where people can interact, whether for work or play, in a manner comparable to the real world. The most popular current example is World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer online game with eleven million subscribers. However, other virtual worlds, notably Second Life, are not games at all but Internet-based collaboration contexts in which people can create virtual objects, simulated architecture, and working groups.

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Occult America

Changesurfer Radio

Dr. J. chats with Mitch Horowitz, author of Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation. They talk about the Freemasons, theosophy, Gandhi, Edgar Cayce, the Third Reich and the New Deal, and the eventual occultification of contemporary Christianity. MP3

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The Science of Earthquakes

Science Saturday

IEET Managing Director Mike Treder interviews Arizona State University Professor Ramon Arrowsmith about the what, why, and how of earthquakes.

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Ben Goertzel

Joy and Pain

by Ben Goertzel

Joy and pain as Firsts are, like all Firsts, raw and unanalyzable. They simply are what they are.

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Jamais Cascio

Augmented (Fashion) Reality

by Jamais Cascio

Earthquakes, global warming, patent lawsuits… it’s all a bit much, sometimes. Even a sober-minded “moral guide to the future” needs a break. So today, we talk about fashion.

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Ben Goertzel

Patterns All the Way Down!

by Ben Goertzel

You’ve probably heard the story…

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Kyle Munkittrick

Why Do We Accept Aging?

by Kyle Munkittrick

When I was in undergrad, a professor asked our whole class a strange question. The question was strange because it seemed totally out of context, but I think he had a point, so I present it here as a worthy thought experiment.

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