IEET Fellow David Brin proposes economic incentives for exploring space. Can space exploration pay for itself? 

Carnegie Mellon University Professor Jesse Schell offers a funny, fast-paced, enlightening presentation on the strange new world of online interactive gaming.

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. 

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.

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.

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)

(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.

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.

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