Responsabilidad

No suelo ser muy optimista. Quienes me conocen lo saben. Es más, mi pesimismo crónico me ayudó a predecir la crisis inmobiliario/financiera y ayudó a algunos de mis amigos a ahorrarse un buen dinero en la compra de su casa.

Sin embargo, y a pesar de este pesimismo, comienzo a ser optimista con la situación económica, por primera vez en tres años de crisis empiezo a ver que existe la posibilidad de que estemos saliendo de esta situación en la que nos metimos por ser unos capullos egoístas y unos vagos ambiciosos.

Eso no significa que crea que ya está todo hecho, y que pronto saldremos de la crisis, pero sí que veo una posibilidad de que sea así.

¿Cómo se debe afianzar esa recuperación?

Permitidme dar una idea. Responsabilidad.

Si algo he visto estos días es una enorme muestra de casos contrapuestos de gente totalmente irresponsable y gente absolutamente responsable.

Gente que intenta hacer las cosas bien, y gente que intenta seguir aprovechándose de los demás, creyendo que pueden seguir viviendo del cuento como hicieron en sus días de bazofia.

Según se asiente una tendencia o la otra, según la gente sea mayoritariamente responsable y trabajadora, o estúpida y egoísta, veremos la economía hundirse de nuevo o salir de esta crisis que dura ya tres años, y que ya va siendo hora de dejar atrás.

Así que recordad, los vagos, los canallas, los aprovechados, los irresponsables son quienes pueden llevar a la buena gente de nuevo al hoyo. Ya lo hicieron una vez, no deberíamos dejarles que lo hagan de nuevo ¿verdad?

Misterio en el metro

Los vagones de tren han amanecido hoy cubiertos de un extraño polvo
blanco.

Mi legado

Ayer hablaba sobre el legado que dejan algunas personas y hoy quiero comentados cual querría que fuese el mío.

Como podréis comprobar en este blog mis intereses y aficiones son muchos, pero si tuviese que elegir un puñado de cosas que dejar al mundo elegiría estas.

Naturaleza: un medio ambiente restaurado, una naturaleza a salvo y un respeto global hacia todos los seres vivos.

Singularidad: querría colaborar con los que traerán la Singularidad Tecnologica a nuestro mundo.

Colonización espacial: uno de mis sueños más antiguos, poder llevar el hombre al espacio.

Fantasía: el futuro de la economía pasa por el ocio. Me gustaría poder decir que he ayudado a enriquecer los mundos fantásticos que está creando el hombre.

Portada de la Revista Redes - Agosto de 2010

El legado

El mundo no recuerda a los que vivieron, sino a los que dejaron un legado.

Esta frase me viene a la mente cada vez que alguien me dice que hay que vivir la vida, carpe diem y todas esas cosas. en general suelo estar de acuerdo, pero sólo con la condición de que quien lo haga no olvide la otra parte de la vida: el Legado que vas a dejar.

El mundo te recordara o te olvidará por tu legado, y te recordará bien o te odiará en función de éste.

Es así de simple.

He visto hombres construir una familia, un negocio, una obra artística, dar su vida a los demás, crear ONG´s, proteger el medio ambiente, y he pensado que esos hombres serán los que den forma al futuro.

También he visto a personas vivir sus vidas sin preocuparse de nada más que de sus necesidades, sin construir nada, y les he visto arrepentirse a medida que la edad les alcanzaba.

He visto también el caso contrario. Hombres que habiendo creado una empresa importante, un patrimonio, una familia, con la llegada de los años han dejado de lado sus creencias personales y han dilapidado este legado, poniéndose a la familia en contra, rompiendo la baraja y arrojando décadas de trabajo, esfuerzo y logros a la basura.

La pregunta es.

¿Quieres vivir ignorante o hacer algo que marque una diferencia?

KurzweilAI.net Daily Newsletter

Tuesday July 20, 2010 Daily edition News and Blog Headlines Autism has unique vocal signature, new technology reveals Polymer synthesis could aid future electronics Artificial gut frees sewage-eating robot from humans Top Secret America Reprogrammed Stem Cells Remember Their Past Artificial cells communicate and cooperate like biological cells, ants H+ Magazine relaunches, published by Humanity+ Latest News Autism has unique vocal signature, new technology reveals July 20, 2010      LENA (Language Environment Analysis), a new automated vocal analysis technology, could fundamentally change the study of language development as well as the screening for autism spectrum disorders and language delay, reports a study in the July 19 online Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The LENA (Language Environment Analysis) system automatically labeled infant and child vocalizations from recordings and thereafter an automatic acoustic analysis designed by the researchers showed that pre-verbal vocalizations of very young children with autism are distinctly different from those of typically developing children with 86 percent accuracy. The most important of these parameters proved to be the ones targeting syllabification, the ability of children to produce well-formed syllables with rapid movements of the jaw and tongue during vocalization. The autistic sample showed little evidence… more Polymer synthesis could aid future electronics July 20, 2010      In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers from Canada and the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. and two Canadian universities outlined their success in growing highly structured short chains of polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene), or PEDOT. Synthesis of a conjugated organic polymer–widely used as a conductive material in devices like light-emitting diodes, televisions and solar cells–could mean more efficient, cheaper electronics. Because of its role as conductive material in organic light-emitting diodes, PEDOT is found in many electronic devices such as televisions and computer monitors, as well as many solar panel cells. Improving and controlling the molecular order of a nanostructured PEDOT material is critical to the polymer's performance in… more Artificial gut frees sewage-eating robot from humans July 20, 2010      Source Link: New Scientist Tech The Bristol Robotics Lab in the UK has developed the self-sustaining Ecobot III robot. It has an artificial gut and digestive tract, allowing it can survive for up to seven days, feeding and "watering" itself unaided. It uses a recycling system that relies on a gravity-fed peristaltic pump which, like the human colon, applies waves of pressure to squeeze unwanted matter out of a tube. The robot feeds a nutrient-rich solution of partially processed sewage pumped into its "mouth," where it is distributed into 48 separate microbial fuel cells (MFCs) — bio-electrochemical devices that enlist cultures of bacteria to break down food to generate power.This fluid is a concoction of minerals, salts, yeast extracts and other nutrients. Top Secret America July 20, 2010      The Washington Post has released its interactive "Top Secret America" website, describing the huge national security buildup in the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The series of articles and an online database at topsecretamerica.com depict the scope and complexity of the government's national security program through interactive maps and other graphics. More than a dozen Washington Post journalists spent two years developing the database and website. Reprogrammed Stem Cells Remember Their Past July 20, 2010      Source Link: Technology Review Harvard Medical School scientists and associates have discovered that reprogrammed stem cells–those derived from fully differentiated adult cells–preserve a memory of where they came from. That memory appears to influence the cells' development; reprogrammed stem cells are more easily converted back to their original identity, according to a study released online today in Nature. The findings could affect research into the two main uses for reprogrammed stem cells: growing efforts to study disease in cells derived from patients with those diseases, and the development of replacement cell therapies. Artificial cells communicate and cooperate like biological cells, ants July 20, 2010      Inspired by the social interactions of ants and slime molds, University of Pittsburgh engineers have designed computational models of artificial cells capable of self-organizing into independent groups that can communicate and cooperate to transport chemicals and drugs. The Pitt group's microcapsules interact by secreting nanoparticles in a way similar to how biological cells signal to communicate and assemble into groups. And with a nod to ants, the cells leave chemical trails as they travel, prompting fellow microcapsules to follow. The "signaling" cell secretes nanoparticles known as agonists that prompt the second "target" microcapsule to emit nanoparticles known as antagonists. As the signaling cell (right) emits the agonist nanoparticles (blue), the target cell (left) responds with antagonists (red) that stop the first cell from secreting. Once the… more H+ Magazine relaunches, published by Humanity+ July 20, 2010      H+ Magazine will relaunch Tuesday July 20, now published by the nonprofit organization Humanity+ (formerly the World Transhumanist Association), KurzweilAI.net has learned. H+ Magazine, which covers technological, social and cultural trends that change humans in fundamental ways, began publishing in 2008, and went on hiatus June 1. R.U. Sirius, a.k.a. Ken Goffman, will remain as the magazine's editor. "It's very exciting to be able to continue working on this publication that covers so many extraordinary and exciting potentials and possibilities for our species at this critical moment in human history," he said. "We look forward to expanding into various formats that will emerge during the coming months and years.  And you can bet that in addition to informing and enlightening, we intend to keep our… more New Events Biomass '10: Renewable Power, Fuels, and Chemicals Workshop Dates: Jul 20 — 21, 2010 Location: Grand Forks, North Dakota more... 2010 IEEE Conference on Innovative Technologies for an Efficient and Reliable Electricity Supply Dates: Sep 27 — 29, 2010 Location: Waltham, Massachusetts more... World Energy Engineering Conference Dates: Dec 8 — 10, 2010 Location: Washington, D.C. more... IEEE Energy Conference and Exhibition Dates: Dec 18 — 22, 2010 Location: Manama, Bahrain more... International Joint Conference on Advances in Engineering and Technology Dates: Dec 20 — 23, 2010 Location: Trivandrum, India more...

KurzweilAI.net Daily Newsletter

Monday July 19, 2010 Daily edition News and Blog Headlines Vibration-powered Generators Replace AA, AAA Batteries Bye-Bye Batteries: Radio Waves as a Low-Power Source Thought-Controlled Prosthetic Limb System to be Tested by Humans Embedded Technologies: Power From the People REX robotic exoskeleton gets wheelchair users back on their feet Google Buys Metaweb, the One Company That Could Revolutionize Google Search How to Prevent a Global Aging Crisis Latest News Vibration-powered Generators Replace AA, AAA Batteries July 19, 2010      Source Link: Tech-On Brother Industries Ltd. has developed small vibration-powered generators that can replace AA and AAA batteries in devices that do not always consume electricity and have a power consumption of about 100mW (a maximum for a normal remote). The battery-shaped case includes an electromagnetic induction generator and a 500mF double-layer capacitor. The average output of the AA-size generator is 10 to 180mW (frequency: 4-8Hz). Bye-Bye Batteries: Radio Waves as a Low-Power Source July 19, 2010      Source Link: New York Times Devices and systems are being developed that consume so little power that it can be drawn from ambient radio waves from radio and television stations, WiFi systems and other sources, reducing or even eliminating the need for batteries. Joshua R. Smith, a principal engineer at Intel's research center in Seattle has developed a device that collects enough power from ambient radio-frequency (RF) signals to produce about 50 microwatts of DC power — enough for many sensing and computing jobs. The power consumption of a typical solar-powered calculator, for example, is only about 5 microwatts, he said, and that of a typical digital thermometer with a liquid crystal display is one microwatt. A second device developed by Smith, powered by radio waves, collects… more Thought-Controlled Prosthetic Limb System to be Tested by Humans July 19, 2010      The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded a contract for up to $34.5 million to The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., to manage the development and testing of the Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) system on human subjects, using a brain-controlled interface. The MPL offers  22 degrees of motion, including independent movement of each finger, in a package that weighs about nine pounds (the weight of a natural limb). Providing nearly as much dexterity as a natural limb, the MPL is capable of unprecedented mechanical agility and is designed to respond to a user's thoughts. "We've developed the enabling technologies to create upper-extremity prosthetics that are more natural in appearance and use, a truly revolutionary advancement in prosthetics,"… more Embedded Technologies: Power From the People July 19, 2010      Source Link: Smithsonian Under a DARPA grant, MIT scientists are harnessing the body's movements to generate electrical power for bionic devices, using piezoelectric materials, which produce an electric current when subjected to mechanical pressure. Steven Feiner, professor of computer science at Columbia University, says by 2050 embedded devices will allow us to immerse ourselves in a sea of not just visual data, but also computer-generated sounds and sensations. REX robotic exoskeleton gets wheelchair users back on their feet July 19, 2010      Source Link: Gizmodo A robotic exoskeleton called REX puts wheelchair users back on their feet, enabling a person to stand, walk and go up and down stairs and slopes, controlling it with a joystick. REX users can stand up, walk, move sideways, turn around, go up and down steps, as well as walk on flat, hard surfaces including ramps and slopes. Sales are expected to commence in New Zealand by the end of 2010 and elsewhere by the middle of 2011. It is expected to cost about US$150,000. Google Buys Metaweb, the One Company That Could Revolutionize Google Search July 19, 2010      Source Link: Fast Company Google has acquired Metaweb, which maintains a database ("Freebase") of 12 million "entities" (persons, places, or things), and all the different ways they relate and you might refer to them. According to The Official Google Blog, Metaweb will allow Google to "improve search and make the web richer and more meaningful for everyone." Metaweb was founded by legendary computer scientist Danny Hillis. Metaweb's video (below) does a good job of explaining the concept. New Blog posts How to Prevent a Global Aging Crisis July 17, 2010 by David Despain A handful of forward-thinking biogerontologists has joined together to offer a new direction for aging intervention. Their commentary, published July 14 in Science Translational Medicine, presents the case for preventing what the scientists call an "unprecedented global aging crisis"—a sharp rise in the numbers of retired elderly in developing and industrialized nations across the world. From both a humane and economic standpoint, a world with too many sick elderly has grim consequences and outrageous costs. It's time to fund research for prevention, slowing, or even reversal of the biological damage caused by simply living, which manifests as age-related diseases such as Alzheimer's, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Currently, senescence research receives only a slim morsel of the researching-funding pie. Of the entire National Institutes of Health $28 billion… more New Events BIOFAB 2010 Community Meeting Dates: Jul 19 — 20, 2010 Location: Emeryville, CA more... 2010 Stanford Media X Summer Institute 21st Century Conversations Dates: Jul 20 — 22, 2010 Location: Stanford, Califonia more... International Brain Research Organization Conference Dates: Jul 24 — 29, 2010 Location: Abuja, Nigeria more... Learning and The Brain: Summer Institute Dates: Aug 3 — 6, 2010 Location: Santa Barbara, California more... 2010 Cognitive Modeling Conference USA Dates: Aug 5 — 8, 2010 Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania more... CogSci 2010 – 32nd Annual Cognitive Science Conference Dates: Aug 11 — 14, 2010 Location: Portland, Oregon more... International Conference on SPATIAL COGNITION 2010 Dates: Aug 15 — 19, 2010 Location: Portland, Oregon more... ASIM 2010 Conference Dates: Aug 16 — 17, 2010 Location: San Francisco, California more... The Neurosciences in East Africa Conference Dates: Sep 7 — 10, 2010 Location: Nairobi, Kenya more... Transhumanism and Spirituality Conference 2010 Dates: Oct 1 — 1, 2010 Location: Salt Lake City, Utah more... New Books Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual (Human-Computer Interaction Series) author William Sims Bainbridge Amazon | 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. This book brings together an international team of highly accomplished authors to examine the phenomena of virtual worlds, using a range of theories and methodologies to discover the principles that are making virtual worlds increasingly popular, and which are establishing them as a major sector of human-centred computing. Last Flesh: Life in the Transhuman Era author Christopher Dewdney Media Studies | Last Flesh has a decidedly optimistic tone, reminiscent of McLuhan's catholic embrace of human creativity and ingenuity. Like McLuhan, Dewdney harbours the poet's desire for sublime transcendence, and the evolution of human capacity.  As a poet, Dewdney has always been at home in the material world of science; in fact, much of his poetry attempts to integrate the documentary impulses of the sciences with the imaginative and transformative power of the poetic vision. He is thus concerned that we are entering a period of "growing scientific illiteracy, an age of superstition and dangerous credulity". He cites as an example a 1996 Gallop survey which "found that 49 percent of Canadians believe that antibiotics would be effective against viral illnesses such as colds and flu".… more The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? author David Brin Amazon | Science fiction writer Brin (The Uplift War) departs from technological fantasy to focus on the social and political ramifications of our information age. While addressing the technology-vs.-privacy debate, he offers an informed overview of the issues and a useful historical account of how current policies evolved. Also beneficial are his descriptions of the different viewpoints on encryption software, online anonymity, the Clipper Chip and techno-jargon. But when Brin opines on these topics, the book suffers from superficiality. 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We are entering the fourth era of medicine, he observes, one in which science is working on solving the riddle of aging. He leads readers through a tautological compendium of the mechanics of cellular life and death. Why do certain… more Forever For All: Moral Philosophy, Cryonics, and the Scientific Prospects for Immortality author R. Michael Perry Amazon | This book considers the problems of death and the hereafter and how these ages-old problems ought to be addressed in light of our continuing progress. A materialistic viewpoint of reality is assumed, denying the likelihood of supernatural or other superhuman assistance. Death, however, is not seen as inevitable or even irreversible; it is maintained that the problem can and should be addressed scientifically in all of its aspects. The book thus follows recent, immortalist thinking that places hopes in future advances in our understanding and technology. A functionalist, reductionist argument is developed for the possibility of resurrecting the dead through the eventual creation of replicas and related constructs. Meanwhile, it is urged, medical advances leading to the conquest of biological death should be pursued, along… more A Constitution of Direct Democracy : Pure Democracy and the Governance of the Future ~ Locally and Globally ~ author Michael Noah Mautner Amazon | In the coming decades, humanity faces profound decisions: democracy or totalitarianism; mass weapons or disarmament; religious freedom or fundamentalism; genetic modification, robots, space colonies, population growth and even biological immortality. Our decisions will control the future of humanity, even the future of all Life. How can we assure that these developments assure our survival and serve the human interest? 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Much of his argument depends closely on the application of Gödel's Undecidability Theorem to Turing machines–deep waters for laypeople, although the fundamentals of his argument are accessible to readers without sophisticated mathematical training. Having disposed of the central tenets of current AI research, Penrose then turns to an even more fundamental question: the actual foundations in modern physics (i.e., relativity and quantum theory) of… more Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence author Hans Moravec Erin Rhodes | What happens to memory and experience when it becomes a commodity? Can the mind really be freed from the physicality of the brain – and of the body? Wouldn't multiple versions or copies of ourselves, and the prospect of immortality, cheapen the uniqueness of being human? Are consciousness, emotion, and intelligence particular only to humans (and perhaps other living things), or can they be instilled into a machine? Are these even relevant questions to be asking? Transmigration of the human mind into a machine is only one of many fantastical predictions Hans Moravec, a roboticist at Carnegie-Mellon University, makes in his book Mind Children. Moravec speculates that the end product of transmigration, where our "postbiological" evolution will ultimately lead us, is "a supercivilization,… more Great Mambo Chicken And The Transhuman Condition: Science Slightly Over The Edge author Ed Regis Amazon | Author of the delightful Who Got Einstein's Office?, Regis here presents a hilarious but nevertheless sympathetic look at practitioners of "fin-de-siecle hubristic mania." These are the scientific visionaries who are plotting "post-biological man," scheming to build giant space colony/stations to orbit around the Earth, use microscopic robots (nanotechnology) to resurrect humans frozen in liquid nitrogen, raise chickens in higher gravity fields and project human minds via energy beams to distant galaxies. Readers learn about artificial life, bioinfomatic bumblebees, human minds instilled in "bush robots" and how to enclose the Sun within a man-made sphere. In the future everything will be possible and humans will be able to redesign themselves and the universe to meet higher technical standards than mere nature has achieved. This is a… more Turning the Future Into Revenue: What Business and Individuals Need to Know to Shape Their Futures author Glen Hiemstra Amazon | In Turning the Future into Revenue, Glen Hiemstra, founder of Futurist.com and noted expert on emerging business opportunities, explores how our changing world will transform private enterprise and public policy. From shifting demographics to global warming to new energy policies, change is coming. Turning the Future into Revenue shows how these new realities can be turned into profitable new ventures. Some of the topics Hiemstra discusses include: - Five long-term trends you should be prepared for - Global warming and the urgent need for green business - Profiting from technology and energy trends - Predicting the future of your business or career - Hedging your bets on future business - Ten key practices of the future-oriented enterprise… more Technology's Promise: Expert Knowledge on the Transformation of Business and Society author William E. Halal Amazon | With the onset of a knowledge economy, modern nations are hard at work using ever more sophisticated information systems to power a "technology revolution" that is transforming our lives. This book is based on the work of the TechCast Project, conducted over the past decade at the George Washington University. Pooling the knowledge of 100 high-tech CEOs, scientists, engineers, academics, consultants, futurists, and other experts from around the world, the resulting book is the best forecast data ever assembled, covering the entire span of scientific and technological innovation. Masterminds: Genius, DNA, and the Quest to Rewrite Life author David Ewing Duncan Amazon | James Watson, J. Craig Venter, Francis Collins, Cynthia Kenyon . . . you may not know them, but you should. They are the masterminds of genetics and biotechnology who want you to live to be 150 years old, to regenerate your heart and brain, to create synthetic life. For better or worse, they are about to alter life on earth forever. Award-winning journalist David Ewing Duncan tells the remarkable stories of cutting-edge bioscientists, revealing their quirky, uniquely fascinating, sometimes vaguely unsettling personas as a means to understand their science and the astonishing implications of their work. This book seamlessly combines myth, biography, scholarship, and wit that poses the all-important question: Can we actually trust these masterminds? The Next Big Thing Is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business author Jack Uldrich Amazon | Ever heard of self-cleaning floor tiles and windows? Or mirrors that won't fog up in the shower? What about army uniforms that can "monitor a soldier's health, detect and detoxify chemical agents, heat and cool the soldier… and independently generate power so the soldier can remain in constant communication with headquarters"? According to Uldrich, director of the Minnesota Office of Strategic and Long-Range Planning, and nuclear physicist and business consultant Newberry, if you haven't heard of these innovations already, you will – and soon. They're just a few products in development that were made possible by rapid advances in the field of nanotechnology. The authors explain, "Nanotechnology is, broadly speaking, the art and science of manipulating and rearranging individual atoms and molecules to create useful… more The Future of Everything: The Science of Prediction author David Orrell Amazon | In the spirit of Freakonomics and A Short History of Progress, The Future of Everything is a compelling, elegantly written history of our future. For centuries, scientists have strived to predict the future. But to what extent have they succeeded? Can past events–Hurricane Katrina, the Internet stock bubble, the SARS outbreak–help us understand what will happen next? Will scientists ever really be able to forecast catastrophes, or will we always be at the mercy of Mother Nature, waiting for the next storm, epidemic, or economic crash to thunder through our lives? In The Future of Everything, David Orrell looks back at the history of forecasting, from the time of the oracle at Delphi to the rise of astrology to the advent of the… more The Long Tomorrow: How Advances in Evolutionary Biology Can Help Us Postpone Aging author Michael R. Rose Amazon | Rose, an authority on gerontology, uses evolutionary biology to frame the problem of aging, contrasting the drive to reproduce in youth with the ability to survive into old age. In short, according to his research, the Victorians were right: sex is death. The evolutionary pressure of reproducing at an early age seems to have the side effect of causing early aging. Rose's explanation of his theory is so clear, it seems ridiculous that anyone could have conceived of another explanation. But whether this theory will ever be used to slow down human aging is unclear. Rose relates the progress of aging research in an autobiographical format. So, interspersed with experiments on long-lived fruit flies, there are almost voyeuristic glimpses into Rose's own life: the suicide… more More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement author Ramez Naam Amazon | Imagine a person severely disabled by a stroke who, with electrodes implanted in his brain, can type on a computer just by thinking of the letters. Or a man, blind for 20 years, driving a car around a parking lot via a camera hard-wired into his brain. Plots for science fiction? No, it's already happened, according to future technologies expert Naam. In an excellent and comprehensive survey, Naam investigates a wide swath of cutting-edge techniques that in a few years may be as common as plastic surgery. Genetic therapy for weight control isn't that far off–it's already being done with animals. Countless people who are blind, deaf or paralyzed will acquire the abilities that most people take for granted through advances in computer technology and… more Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age author Bill McKibben Amazon | In 1989, McKibben published The End of Nature, a gorgeously written and galvanizing book about the true cost of global warming, the destruction of the ozone layer and other man-made ills-the loss of wild nature and with it the priceless aspect of our humanity that evolved to listen to and heed it. Now McKibben applies the same passion, scholarship and free-ranging thought to a subject that even committed environmentalists have avoided. Here he tackles what it means to be human. Reporting from the frontiers of genetic research, nanotechnology and robotics, he explores that subtle moral and spiritual boundary that he calls the "enough point." Presenting an overview of what is or may soon be possible, McKibben contends that there is no boundary to human ambition… more Soft Machines: Nanotechnology and Life author Richard A. L. Jones Amazon | Enthusiasts look forward to a time when tiny machines reassemble matter and process information with unparalleled power and precision. But is their vision realistic? Where is the science heading? As nanotechnology (a new technology that many believe will transform society in the next on hundred years) rises higher in the news agenda and popular consciousness, there is a real need for a book which discusses clearly the science on which this technology will be based. While it is most easy to simply imagine these tiny machines as scaled-down versions of the macroscopic machines we are all familiar with, the way things behave on small scales is quite different to the way they behave on large scales. Engineering on the nanoscale will use very different principles… more Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future author James Hughes Amazon | In the next fifty years, life spans will extend well beyond a century. Our senses and cognition will be enhanced. We will have greater control over our emotions and memory. Our bodies and brains will be surrounded by and merged with computer power. The limits of the human body will be transcended as technologies such as artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and genetic engineering converge and accelerate. With them, we will redesign ourselves and our children into varieties of posthumanity. This prospect is understandably terrifying to many. A loose coalition of groups-including religious conservatives, disability rights and environmental activists-has emerged to oppose the use of genetics to enhance human beings. And with the appointment of conservative philosopher Leon Kass, an opponent of in-vitro fertilization, stem cell… more Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution author Francis Fukuyama Amazon | Fukuyama (The End of History and the Last Man; Trust) is no stranger to controversial theses, and here he advances two: that there are sound nonreligious reasons to put limits on biotechnology, and that such limits can be enforced. Fukuyama argues that "the most significant threat" from biotechnology is "the possibility that it will alter human nature and thereby move us into a 'posthuman' stage of history." The most obvious way that might happen is through the achievement of genetically engineered "designer babies," but he presents other, imminent routes as well: research on the genetic basis of behavior; neuropharmacology, which has already begun to reshape human behavior through drugs like Prozac and Ritalin; and the prolongation of life, to the extent that society might come… more Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution author Ronald Bailey Amazon | A positive, optimistic, and convincing case that the biotechnology revolution will improve our lives and the future of our children. The 21st century will undoubtedly witness unprecedented advances in understanding the mechanisms of the human body and in developing biotechnology. With the mapping of the human genome, the pace of discovery is now on the fast track. By the middle of the century we can expect that the rapid progress in biology and biotechnology will utterly transform human life. What was once the stuff of science fiction may now be within reach in the not-too-distant future: 20-to-40-year leaps in average life spans, enhanced human bodies, drugs and therapies to boost memory and speed up mental processing, and a genetic science that allows parents to ensure… more Annihilation from Within: The Ultimate Threat to Nations author Fred Charles Iklé Powells | In this eloquent and impassioned book, defense expert Fred Iklé predicts a revolution in national security that few strategists have grasped; fewer still are mindful of its historic roots. We are preoccupied with suicide bombers, jihadist terrorists, and rogue nations producing nuclear weapons, but these menaces are merely distant thunder that foretells the gathering storm. It is the dark side of technological progress that explains this emerging crisis. Globalization guarantees the spread of new technologies, whether beneficial or destructive, and this proliferation reaches beyond North Korea, Iran, and other rogue states. Our greatest threat is a cunning tyrant gaining possession of a few weapons of mass destruction. His purpose would not be to destroy landmarks, hijack airplanes, or attack railroad stations. He would annihilate… more Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind author Hans Moravec Amazon | Here come the free-roaming robot vacuum cleaners, self-driving cars, robot chess champions, robots that fly and swim. If these machine intelligences already tooling around or on the drawing boards leave you blasé, consider this: Robotics pioneer Moravec predicts that if the present exponential growth rate of computing power continues, super-robots that perceive, intuit, adapt, think and even simulate feelings much like human beings will be buildable before 2050. Mixing broad speculations and practical suggestions for speeding up robotics research and development, Moravec, a founder of Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, picks up where he left off in Mind Children (in which he suggested the uploading of human minds to software). In this new mind-bending futurist scenario, he predicts that advanced robots will perform all essential… more The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed By Rapidly Advancing Technologies author Damien Broderick Amazon | Is technological change advancing so rapidly that we can no longer chart its progress? Are we careening ever closer to the point that scientists have dubbed "the singularity," the moment when the pace of innovation will lead to changes so profound that attempting to envision the future becomes an impossible dream? According to Broderick (The Last Mortal Generation; Theory and Its Discontents), the answer is a resounding and enthusiastic yes. As he points out, the rate of scientific change has increased ("spiked") with exponential rapidity over the past 500 years; everyday machines such as personal computers already have microprocessing capacities that far surpass anything originally predicted when they were first invented. Virtual reality applications are routinely used in the operating room, while cloning has entered… more