IEET Life News

Guillotine Simulator

2013-05-25T20:07:00+00:00

Playing the rather fantastic Disunion with the Oculus Rift on the Free To Play game expo in Designcenter De Winkelhaak in Antwerp. This raises some questions about how people experience simulations. The woman in the video clearly had a reaction when the fake Guillotine dropped. Is this gruesome simulation a way to learn anything, or is it just for the adrenaline rush? What other kinds of simulations can we either learn from or have “see through the eyes of others”?

Jønathan Lyons Abolition is Imperative in Kurzweil’s Sixth Epoch Scenario

2013-05-25T16:51:00+00:00

Consider the Abolition Society, the Abolitionists Against Suffering group on facebook, and the philosophy of Dr. David Pearce, who is "a British utilitarian philosopher and transhumanist, who promotes the idea that there exists a strong ethical imperative for humans to work towards the abolition of suffering in all sentient life.

P. Tittle Political Science – A Costly Misnomer

2013-05-25T10:58:00+00:00

Science is the pursuit of knowledge according to the scientific method: hypotheses must be testable, and results must be verifiable by replication. Obviously, the more quantifiable something is, the more accurate and precise its measurement can be, and the more accurate and precise something is, the more testable and verifiable it is – it’s hard to test and then verify an uncertain or vague something-or-other.

Dick Pelletier End of Eating Food

2013-05-25T10:38:00+00:00

Eating food could be replaced by nanorobot nutrient delivery system.

To See The Future Of Technology, Look At The People Using It For Crime

2013-05-25T02:40:00+00:00

In this video from our Futurist Forum, Jamais Cascio, IEET Fellow, says that the people hacking a tech to make it serve more shady purposes (or to help them have sex) might be the best window into how it works.

Valerie Tarico How the Catholic Bishops Outsmarted Washington Voters

2013-05-24T17:26:00+00:00

When it comes to matters of individual conscience, Washington State voters have a don’t-mess-with-us attitude that makes Texans look like cattle—and it goes way back. In 2012 Washington voters flexed their muscle by legalizing recreational marijuana use and marriage for same-sex couples.

Richard Eskow Apple Pie May Be American, But Apple Computer Isn’t - Not Anymore

2013-05-24T16:39:00+00:00

Did you know that Apple Computer was a foreign entity? Did you know that it’s more Irish than anything else, at least as far as taxes are concerned? Or that it pays very little in income tax, even though its products wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for projects funded by U.S. taxes?

Brenda Cooper Backing into Eden: Chapter 1 &2 – We are Responsible / The Beasts of the Field

2013-05-23T15:50:00+00:00

When I drive from home to work, none of the land I pass is wild. It’s lawns, or parks, or part of the city. On my drive in, I can see the Olympic Mountains as I crest the hill and head down toward the Kirkland waterfront. They are a mash up of native lands, national parks, and beach cities. Forks, the city of the Twilight books, is over there. The Olympics are largely wild, but they are managed carefully. I suspect there is no land in the whole mountain range that is not owned. Someone – a person, a government, a tribe, a company – someone manages everything I can see.

Futurist Jamais Cascio envisions a sustainable, resilient world

2013-05-23T15:39:00+00:00

Internationally renowned futurist Jamais Cascio, and IEET Fellow, explores the potential course of planet Earth over the next 50 years, painting a picture of what a sustainable, resilient world could look like. He says the choices we make today will shape the decades to come. This podcast took place on May 22, 2013 for MPR News.

What’s the Rational Choice? Risk, Values and the Politics of Geoengineering

2013-05-23T05:16:00+00:00

Engineering a Cooler Earth: Can we do it? Shouold we try? Judy Layzer of MIT talks about the politics of geoengineering.