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How many years left

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Jochen Fromm-4

How many years left

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2605/26051202.jpg

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Douglas Roberts-2

Re: How many years left

There's that elephant in the room again.

On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 12:36 PM, Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2605/26051202.jpg

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Russ Abbott

Re: How many years left

Yes, but since these are all atomic elements, they are not destroyed. We will have to find better ways to recycle.

Possibly a more interesting question is how much of each substance/person is necessary for ongoing needs. That is, if n grams of a substance is used in a cell phone, and everyone in the world has a cell phone, then we need 6n billion grams just to satisfy ongoing needs.

-- Russ

On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 12:13 PM, Douglas Roberts <[hidden email]> wrote:

There's that elephant in the room again.

On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 12:36 PM, Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2605/26051202.jpg

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Robert Howard-2-3

Re: How many years left

In reply to this post by Jochen Fromm-4

It reminds me of the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past-the-great-horse-manure-crisis-of-1894/

EXCERPTS:

· Writing in the Times of London in 1894, one writer estimated that in 50 years every street in London would be buried under nine feet of manure. Moreover, all these horses had to be stabled, which used up ever-larger areas of increasingly valuable land. And as the number of horses grew, ever-more land had to be devoted to producing hay to feed them (rather than producing food for people), and this had to be brought into cities and distributed—by horse-drawn vehicles. It seemed that urban civilization was doomed.

· Of course, urban civilization was not buried in manure. The great crisis vanished when millions of horses were replaced by motor vehicles.

· No doubt in the Paleolithic era there was panic about the growing exhaustion of flint supplies. Somehow the great flint crisis never came to pass.

· We commonly read or hear reports to the effect that “If trend X continues, the result will be disaster.” The subject can be almost anything, but the pattern of these stories is identical. These reports take a current trend and extrapolate it into the future as the basis for their gloomy prognostications.

· These prophets of doom rely on one thing—that their audience will not check the record of such predictions. In fact, the history of prophecy is one of failure and oversight.

· The fundamental problem with most predictions of this kind, and particularly the gloomy ones, is that they make a critical, false assumption: that things will go on as they are. This assumption in turn comes from overlooking one of the basic insights of economics: that people respond to incentives. In a system of free exchange, people receive all kinds of signals that lead them to solve problems. The prophets of doom come to their despondent conclusions because in their world, nobody has any kind of creativity or independence of thought—except for themselves of course.

Rob

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2009 11:36 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] How many years left

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2605/26051202.jpg

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Steve Smith

Re: How many years left

Robert Howard wrote:

It reminds me of the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past-the-great-horse-manure-crisis-of-1894/

I'll say it so Doug doesn't have to (get to?):

    That sounds like a lot of Horse Shit to me!

Seriously (hah!)
I had the great pleasure of attending one of Geoff West's lectures on Scaling Laws in Biology. It was a good reminder of the main point of the above article: Things don't go on as they did before.   Clearly, by the time Chicken-Little is running about squawking that "the sky is falling!", others with more careful powers of observation and cooler heads have been hard at work finding a "solution" to the problem.

Sigmoidal growth curves start out slow, ramp up as compound growth happens, things begin to saturate and growth becomes more "linear" and then ultimately they "supersaturate" and growth goes flat.   In "innovative" systems like mutation-selection and human-technological, as one system starts to saturate, another system starts to compete, to fill the same ecological/economic/sociological/technological niche. What we end up with is something like a series of piecewise linear growth systems appearing to be a single one with super-linear, accelerating growth.

I'm not convinced that the introduction of Internal Combustion Engines and automobiles to displace the c19 Manure-machines in use for transportation was anything but a deferral and aggravation of the problem.   I believe that we exchanged a relatively obvious, localized, and quickly-recovered-from problem (horse-shit-in-streets) for a much less obvious, less localized, and longer-to-recover-from problem (urban and regional smog).   During the 1970's oil crisis, we doubled the fuel efficiency of the average automobile from 10-20 to 20-40, but by then we were already wallowing in our own smog, so we backed off on the ultra-efficient leaned-out engines that were spewing Nitrous Oxides (but few particulates or unburned hydrocarbons) and lived with automobiles getting 15-30 for the next 30 years. In the 1960's 10,000 miles a year was a lot of miles for the single family automobile. By today, every member of the family of driving age (in the US) has a vehicle that drives at least that much (well, maybe only in the suburban and rural parts of the country). Little did we know (yet we did, but somehow we didn't pay attention), but even the near-perfect system for converting hydrocarbons to useful work, a little waste heat, some C02 and some H20 would be a major part of our global climate crisis!   So the solutions to our regional smog problems (improved combustion) contributed to our *global* climate crisis by enabling us to burn yet-more fossil fuels with (apparent) immunity!

I wonder why we, the apologists and denialists for anthropogenic crises are so quick to take credit for man's great abilities to fill every corner of the world, to dominate every climate, every landscape, yet insist that we could *never* be the cause of major systems imbalances in the world?   In my humble moments, I would like to believe that we have no such ability, but then I look around and realize that maybe we *are* a force to be reckoned with...and I wonder if we will rise to the occasion of our own reckoning?

I don't know if running out of available flint was part of what kicked us from paleolithic stone to neolithic stone, or from neolithic stone to bronze tools, but there is a lot of evidence that *we* *did* knock down the bulk of the megafauna that thrived during the pliestocene and that neolithic (highly improved from paleolithic) tools might have had a lot to do with it.   So even before what we call "early civilization", our cleverness may have had continental, if not global impacts on the biosphere.   Losing a few woolly mammoths and rhinoceri, giant sloths, cave bears, sabertoothed cats, and dire wolves might not really matter in any large sense... but it does seem worth noting that even with the barest of technology, our ancestors might have had such widespread effects.

Humans seem to have a "manifest destiny" that involves the ever-increasing of the stakes.   Those of us who grew up on space-traveling science-fiction might believe that we are somehow going to escape the planet/solar system as it collapses under our weight behind us. Many of us are descendants of those who fled other continents as *they* seemed to be collapsing under *their* own (sociopolitical?) weight.

Of course, Europe and Asia did not collapse and *we* (humans at a global scale) will not collapse either, but rather we will come up with "yet another" clever way to push the consequences of our desire to have more/faster/cheaper off into the future. Entire species, even ecosystems and possibly human subcultures may have to cease to exist to allow for that.

Perhaps the Singularians are correct. Perhaps we can just keep pushing things off into the future faster and faster and faster until the future is an eternal accellerated-pace NOW!

Fortunately I have multiverse theories to escape laterally into/across... I think I'll choose to live in a region of the multiverse where humans *do* recognize their self-destructive habits and develop new systems of awareness that are just this side of catastrophically self-destructive, rather than just "the other side". What good are "basins of attraction" if we can't choose which ones to slide gently into?

- Steve

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Robert Howard-2-3

Re: How many years left

Very cool link! Thanks.

I wonder how much more “efficient” cars have gotten. They have certainly gotten lighter over the years. But are they really getting that much more energy from gasoline?

“I wonder why we, the apologists and denialists for anthropogenic crises are so quick to take credit for man's great abilities to fill every corner of the world, to dominate every climate, every landscape, yet insist that we could *never* be the cause of major systems imbalances in the world”

I suppose the same is true in reverse. There are those that apologize for our greatness and deny that we’ve done wonders yet insist that we could never be the cause of our own destiny. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Sometimes I wonder, if a conservative is someone that resists change, then are those that “save the whales” and fret about “global warming” or “global cooling” also conservative? Did those mammoths died because they didn’t change; that they were too “conservative” of a species and didn’t adapt and evolve? Did they really die or did their genes live on in other species? If we hunted them to death and that’s bad, is it also bad that they supplanted other species during their rise and caused them to go extinct?

“I think I'll choose to live in a region of the multiverse where humans *do* recognize their self-destructive habits”

I don’t think you have a choice. If in this universe we destroy ourselves, our conscious continuity will only live on in those other universe where we don’t destroy ourselves.

Imagine all those other universes where a killer asteroid hit the Earth, or nuclear war, or plague killed everyone. We’ll, here we are and there we’re not!

Rob

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2009 6:16 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] How many years left

Robert Howard wrote:

It reminds me of the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/our-economic-past-the-great-horse-manure-crisis-of-1894/

Steve Smith

Re: How many years left

I wonder how much more “efficient” cars have gotten. They have certainly gotten lighter over the years. But are they really getting that much more energy from gasoline?

My contemporary cars get about twice the fuel mileage that my earlier vehicles did. This is a combination of being lighter, more aerodynamic, having better drive-train efficiencies, improved combustion due to combustion chamber design, fuel management, and spark management. Vehicles with similar weight but (in my case) with 4x4 or AWD get about 50% better gas mileage than their 2WD counterparts from 30-40 years ago. My "economy cars" from the 70's/80's rival even the hybrids. I have to coast a lot, manage my speed carefully, avoid sitting at idle, but yes, they clock in about the same as a Prius or even an Insight, but it takes a lot of care.

“I wonder why we, the apologists and denialists for anthropogenic crises are so quick to take credit for man's great abilities to fill every corner of the world, to dominate every climate, every landscape, yet insist that we could *never* be the cause of major systems imbalances in the world”

I suppose the same is true in reverse. There are those that apologize for our greatness and deny that we’ve done wonders yet insist that we could never be the cause of our own destiny. It’s all a matter of perspective.

I'm usually on your side of the arguement. I'm a human-chauvanist (thanks to Robert Heinlein) and I think we will outlive every other species on the planet, even if we have to escape it, leaving a burnt-out cinder behind. We are wicked-clever, and we *will* find a way.

But what I want to know is why in all of our awesomeness, we don't spend a little of it in introspection. Why don't we look at what we are doing and ask whether we really want to be so exploitative? To hear one side of the debate you think we are on the verge of self-extinction through abuse of the planet, but to listen to the other, you would think we are also on the edge of extinction if we don't exploit every resource to the greatest of our ability.

For the nuclear-buffs, "what if fission was out of our reach?". What if nuclear power simply were not an option? Would we *really* be on the verge of disaster? Sure, it is convenient, but that isn't the same as saying it is necessary.

Sometimes I wonder, if a conservative is someone that resists change, then are those that “save the whales” and fret about “global warming” or “global cooling” also conservative? Did those mammoths died because they didn’t change; that they were too “conservative” of a species and didn’t adapt and evolve? Did they really die or did their genes live on in other species? If we hunted them to death and that’s bad, is it also bad that they supplanted other species during their rise and caused them to go extinct?

The rhetoric of conservative/liberal is mostly duplicitous and argumentative to me. I'm an anarchist. We have some choices that other species do not have, that our ancestors did not have for the most part. We are the smart-ass Hippies who knew it all, who became Yuppies who knew it all, who are now blaming "them" for FFing everything up. To paraphrase the Obama slogan, "we are the ones we've been whining about".

Right now is a *really good time* to take serious stock of our (collective) situation and put down our "childish things" (another Obamaism?) and ask ourselves what is really happening in this world and whether we want to do something different (if we even can). This is environmental, sociological, economic, political. I hope Obama and his inner circle are as smart and aware as they (sometimes) appear to be. I hope his detractors are as wrong as their arrogant self-rightous blustering implies. I hope the rest of us at least take our role in this seriously, err on the thoughtful side, take a chance by asking some of the harder questions (pro and con) and considering what we can and might do about the answers.

Our parents spent their lives trying to avoid/repair the mistakes their parents made (depression, world wars, etc.) and we are doing the same I fear. I hope not to condemn my own children to fighting/repairing from my mistakes while ignoring their own real plight and opportunities.

“I think I'll choose to live in a region of the multiverse where humans *do* recognize their self-destructive habits”

I don’t think you have a choice. If in this universe we destroy ourselves, our conscious continuity will only live on in those other universe where we don’t destroy ourselves.

I think you are right. I was merely being rhetorical. I think multiverse theories are generally moot, no matter how interesting. I have a thin belief (whatever that means) that to be conscious is to be able to span and navigate these possibilities... but I'm not sure I know what that really means.

Imagine all those other universes where a killer asteroid hit the Earth, or nuclear war, or plague killed everyone. We’ll, here we are and there we’re not!

But I'm sure my ur-selves in their uber-competence would have found a clever way to escape the worst of it, to live on and speculate and cogitate and pontificate endlessly.

I think I need to go back to inspecting the lint trapped in my navel now, maybe I can felt it up into a fresh cover for my yurt... the 20-year warranteed plasticized canvas is starting to age.

- Steve

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Robert Howard-2-3

Re: How many years left

“I think we will outlive every other species on the planet, even if we have to escape it, leaving a burnt-out cinder behind. “

The meek shall inherit the Earth. The strong will leave.

“But what I want to know is why in all of our awesomeness, we don't spend a little of it in introspection.”

Well, I never did like the word “we”. Sounds like “Anthem”. You seem introspective. Therefore, the collective whole is more introspective. You’ve done your part. Teach your kids.

“you think we are on the verge of self-extinction”

There’s never been a more conning successful argument than “pay me now and I will deliver later”. Sort of blood for promises! The end is near! Repent for your sins today. Send your checks to… When the theists do this for rewards in the afterlife, they use guilt. When the statists do this for rewards in the future, they use force. We have a constitution that protects us from the former but not the latter. Both are religions. It’s just that the latter doesn’t call it a religion so it doesn’t fall under First Amendment. When the Rapture doesn’t happen on the foretold day, excuses are made and the event is pushed a little bit more into the future but still looming on the horizon mind you. When the Annual Global Warming Convention is snowed out in the biggest cold spell in decades, excuses are made. Neither side will admit the possibility of being wrong. You can’t prove there is not a Hell in the afterlife just as you can’t prove there is not a Hell in the future. We cannot go there now so it cannot be negated. Pascal’s Wager is then invoked along with a false dilemma. The most emotional dramatic speakers win the argument.

“I'm an anarchist.”

That always seems to have a bad connotation doesn’t it? Anarchy means against “archies”, like monarchies, oligarchies, plutocracies, etc. I don’t think it means zero government. It just means minimal government. Supposedly all governments have the same common abstract goal: “to minimize conflict”, which usually results in one entity using force against another. So the government has to use force to intervene, which causes conflict, but just less than no government. So the questions become, “what is the minimum” and “who started the fight?” If you do something that I don’t like, are you allowed to or not? We have Freedom of Speech, but not Freedom of Volume at any place and time. I think the government doesn’t care who started it so long as someone does start it and the government can use that as an excuse to get involved and grow. Sounds like a conflict of interest. What can the government do today to cause the people to hate each other? I know from watching the last few decades of American politics that the two parties in the government seem to be far more united than their voters. We are divided and so we are conquered.

To paraphrase the Obama slogan, "we are the ones we've been whining about".

That’s funny. I have a feeling that the Obama administration is going to look just like the Bush administration but with the tables turned. It’s hilarious. Dems complained about Bush, Reps said, “you need to support our president!”, and Dems said “he’s not our president!” Now Reps are complaining about Obama, and the Dems are saying, “just give him a chance and have hope”, and Reps are saying, “he doesn’t represent me!” Dems accused Bush about the Patriot Act as an invasion of privacy. Now Napolitano releases some paper about suspicious groups that are “on the watch list” and the Reps accuse the same. The final score: PEOPLE 0, GOVERNMENT 2.

I’m very positive about the future because the private sector seems to invent and adapt to new technologies far faster than the government slugs can react. Look at PGP, blogs, cell phone cameras and recorders, and instant cross references. Politicians are still dumbfounded when some YouTube shows them saying two contradictory statements with the same conviction and sincerity to two different voting groups both made in different cities but both in the same week. They’re still fighting the previous war. They also hate it when people pull up recordings of their past (when they were hoping it would be forgotten) and send it out virally.

Politics. You just gotta love it.

“I hope his [Obama’s] detractors are as wrong as their arrogant self-rightous blustering implies.”

Whatever laws your political party passes that benefits you at the expense of the other party becomes precedent for revenge when the tables turn. And those laws linger for a long time.

The best way to make “society” better is to make “yourself” better. Do your part. Set an example.

Rob

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2009 10:09 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] How many years left

I wonder how much more “efficient” cars have gotten. They have certainly gotten lighter over the years. But are they really getting that much more energy from gasoline?

“I think I'll choose to live in a region of the multiverse where humans *do* recognize their self-destructive habits”

I don’t think you have a choice. If in this universe we destroy ourselves, our conscious continuity will only live on in those other universe where we don’t destroy ourselves.

Imagine all those other universes where a killer asteroid hit the Earth, or nuclear war, or plague killed everyone. We’ll, here we are and there we’re not!

Nick Frost

Re: How many years left

On Apr 20, 2009, at 1:37 AM, Robert Howard wrote:

> “I think we will outlive every other species on the planet, even if
> we have to escape it, leaving a burnt-out cinder behind. “
>
> The meek shall inherit the Earth. The strong will leave.

The strong will leave?

While I realize that the Star Trek movie opens on May 8th, I think
we're a long way from Gerard O'Neill's fantasies of mass emigration
into space, which if you recall were being *seriously* debated in the
1970's. IMHO, the idea of extraterrestrial emigration also presumes a
level of cultural, political, economic, and social stability that may
not be present as humanity pushes the limits of increasing population
and diminishing resources (while we try to develop the technology
necessary to move into space). What we have are the ingredients of a
recipe for conflict and not interstellar travel, unless I'm mistaken
(I hope I am!). We might evolve a material culture stable enough to
achieve such technologies (terraforming, intergalactic travel), we
might not. Time will tell. The way things are going now, it seems
pretty far fetched to me, but perhaps I'm mistaken in having an equal
belief in homo sapiens capacity for self-deception and human
creativity. http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/02/29/segments/92437

Taking another perspective, I personally think I (we) ought to learn
to live reasonably on this planet prior to exporting my dysfunction
elsewhere. Do we abandon Earth like a bad marriage after
contaminating it (Wall-E) or face and resolve our problems before
moving out into the galaxy and beyond? One stratagem implies growth
and potential maturity (personal/plural) to me, the other does not.
For me the question is not so much merely "what can we achieve?, where
can we go?" but "what do we become in the process?" Just because we
*can* clone organisms doesn't mean we should. We act, think, and make
decisions that affect all life on this planet, yet the danger of human
solipsistic thinking is that I/we overlook our relationships to the
rest of the planetary biology as we transform habitats and cause
extinctions (Dodo, Thylacine, etc.). Agreeing with some points
outlined in David Abram's book "Spell of the Sensuous", our self-
concept is in part defined by perception, in no small part through
relation to others (human and non-human). It seems to me that to
ignore this might not constitute positive development for the
individual/collective.

The idea of restricting science doesn't appeal to me any more than
censorship, book-burning, fascism, nor totalitarianism.....but then
neither does a world of genetic caste system due to designer babies http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/10/30/designer.babies/index.html
or a world run by people who seem to elevate curiosity above moral
and intellectual sensibility, empathy, and common sense. What I mean
by this is that I fall more in the Jaron Lanier and Bill Joy camp in
terms of us risking a future dystopia (e.g. Joy's article "Why the
Future Doesn't Need Us"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_future_doesn't_need_us)
than believing that the likes of Ray Kurzweil and Hugo de Garis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_de_Garis
) ought to run the world. I have met many people far smarter than
I'll ever be at SFI and elsewhere, but some individuals lack a
corresponding empathy, ethical sensibility, and moral compass to
accompany their intellectual brilliance.

A problem we face is the ability of modern technologies (genomics,
engineered crops, nanotechnology, etc.) to affect entire populations
while such cascading decisions are left to the increasingly few. I'm
not sure this is a healthy thing as we move forward. I'm not clever
enough to claim to have a working model of what sensible regulation of
human technologies would look like, but it's clear to me that there
are some very bright people in the world who I fear don't possess the
ethical makeup to make responsible decisions that are affecting all of
us (Life...not just people).

One of my daily rituals is to silently hope I'm wrong...and that our
future will be a bright one in which technology is applied in healthy,
appropriate ways and we see a reduction in harm and increase in
benefit for the biology of the planet. I hold the picture of a green
world in which success is measured in the health of people,
ecosystems, and the amount of laughter heard in communities (rather
than success being measured in dollars). I would rather not escape
leaving a burned-out cinder behind because the way I see it, if I am
part of that future I may very well lose myself in the process. What
interests me is that we live in a nation which nearly deifies
individualism. I'm all for self-expression that doesn't harm others,
but I also wonder what role self-restraint plays in growth and human
development? There are more materially primitive societies on Earth
where people seem healthier (Ikaria) and happier to me. For 19 years
my professional identity has been that of a technologist, but I'm
highly skeptical of the notions of science and technology as
panaceas. I have often wondered if Bill Mollison's suggestion that we
simply apply our existing knowledge wouldn't yield better results than
our current obsession with marching behind more technology and
convincing ourselves that it represents progress. What is progress?
I return to my hope that the new definition of success will include
biodiversity and a laughter meter in each community, with more
footpaths and bicycles and fewer automobiles and smog.

Lastly, as someone who is well-acquainted with self-doubt...I often
find myself reading threads in this forum with great interest, yet not
responding for fear of the reaction; but I think these are important
questions....and as much questions of individual/collective human
development as intergalactic travel, and I'm interested to know what
more of you think about these issues?

-Nick

----------------------------------------
Nicholas S. Frost
7 Avenida Vista Grande #325
Santa Fe, NM 87508
[hidden email]
----------------------------------------

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Steve Smith

Re: How many years left

In reply to this post by Robert Howard-2-3

Robert Howard wrote:

“I think we will outlive every other species on the planet, even if we have to escape it, leaving a burnt-out cinder behind. “

The meek shall inherit the Earth. The strong will leave.

“But what I want to know is why in all of our awesomeness, we don't spend a little of it in introspection.”

Well, I never did like the word “we”. Sounds like “Anthem”. You seem introspective. Therefore, the collective whole is more introspective. You’ve done your part. Teach your kids.

I think we've gone over entirely into the political/idealogical realm here... I'll pick up the thread offline with you... save the rest of the crowd here the use of their <delete> key.

- Steve

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Robert Howard-2-3

Re: How many years left

In reply to this post by Nick Frost

"A problem we face is the ability of modern technologies (genomics, engineered crops, nanotechnology, etc.) to affect entire populations while such cascading decisions are left to the increasingly few..."

Well spoken!

“I'm not clever enough to claim to have a working model of what sensible regulation of human technologies would look like”

I fear those that do.

“One of my daily rituals is to silently hope I'm wrong”

So long as you don’t use that as a spectator’s excuse to sit by a passively wait. You sound very intelligent. I’m glad you take the time to write.

“I hold the picture of a green world in which success is measured in the health of people, ecosystems, and the amount of laughter heard in communities (rather than success being measured in dollars).”

I have a more warped view. I see pain and suffering as a good sign that we humans are pushing ourselves to our limits. There are starving people in the deserts of Elbonia. If we were NOT really trying, as Sam Kinison said, “THEY’D MOVE TO WHERE THE FOOD IS!” Such thoughts get me in social trouble but I don’t care because I have a sense of humor. It’s just too easy to be a happy sloth in America. We have to fight it! Ignorance truly is bliss. No pain, no gain. Les gens heureux n'ont pas d'histoire! Besides, every time we create a solution to a big problem, it soon gets taken for granted, and the next runner problem eventually evolves to warrant the same emotional level of discontent as the first problem. We never rest content on our laurels. It’s the journey of problem solving that makes us human – not so much the end solutions. Marathon runners like to run. Crossing the finish line is like finishing a chapter in a book.

“I often find myself reading threads in this forum with great interest, yet not responding for fear of the reaction”

Nah, put some skin in the game! The people in this forum are very good people. They are very smart and can be intimidating in their own field. But we’re all human. And outside our comfortable specialized field of study, we’re all bipedal primates with three pound brains searching for answers. Many people writing on this listserv are scientists and critical thinkers, and they respond like scientists, which is typically sincere doubt and devil’s advocates designed to show interest in or emphasize a particular point and gather more information. But it’s so much better than “one-way media”. I wish we had something of FRIAM’s quality in Phoenix. I’m happy I can live here and be a part of it.

A mystic seeks out others who agree. A scientist seeks out others who disagree.

SCIENTIST: So what do you think of my idea?

LISTENER: I totally agree!

SCIENTIST: Oh... well... gotta go, have a nice day. Hey you over there! What do you think of my idea?

Besides, true scientists truly like diversity of thought.

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nick Frost
Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009 4:24 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] How many years left

On Apr 20, 2009, at 1:37 AM, Robert Howard wrote:

> “I think we will outlive every other species on the planet, even if

> we have to escape it, leaving a burnt-out cinder behind. “

> The meek shall inherit the Earth. The strong will leave.

The strong will leave?

While I realize that the Star Trek movie opens on May 8th, I think

we're a long way from Gerard O'Neill's fantasies of mass emigration

into space, which if you recall were being *seriously* debated in the

1970's. IMHO, the idea of extraterrestrial emigration also presumes a

level of cultural, political, economic, and social stability that may

not be present as humanity pushes the limits of increasing population

and diminishing resources (while we try to develop the technology

necessary to move into space). What we have are the ingredients of a

recipe for conflict and not interstellar travel, unless I'm mistaken

(I hope I am!). We might evolve a material culture stable enough to

achieve such technologies (terraforming, intergalactic travel), we

might not. Time will tell. The way things are going now, it seems

pretty far fetched to me, but perhaps I'm mistaken in having an equal

belief in homo sapiens capacity for self-deception and human

creativity. http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/02/29/segments/92437

Taking another perspective, I personally think I (we) ought to learn

to live reasonably on this planet prior to exporting my dysfunction

elsewhere. Do we abandon Earth like a bad marriage after

contaminating it (Wall-E) or face and resolve our problems before

moving out into the galaxy and beyond? One stratagem implies growth

and potential maturity (personal/plural) to me, the other does not.

For me the question is not so much merely "what can we achieve?, where

can we go?" but "what do we become in the process?" Just because we

*can* clone organisms doesn't mean we should. We act, think, and make

decisions that affect all life on this planet, yet the danger of human

solipsistic thinking is that I/we overlook our relationships to the

rest of the planetary biology as we transform habitats and cause

extinctions (Dodo, Thylacine, etc.). Agreeing with some points

outlined in David Abram's book "Spell of the Sensuous", our self-

concept is in part defined by perception, in no small part through

relation to others (human and non-human). It seems to me that to

ignore this might not constitute positive development for the

individual/collective.

The idea of restricting science doesn't appeal to me any more than

censorship, book-burning, fascism, nor totalitarianism.....but then

neither does a world of genetic caste system due to designer babies http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/10/30/designer.babies/index.html

or a world run by people who seem to elevate curiosity above moral

and intellectual sensibility, empathy, and common sense. What I mean

by this is that I fall more in the Jaron Lanier and Bill Joy camp in

terms of us risking a future dystopia (e.g. Joy's article "Why the

Future Doesn't Need Us"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_future_doesn't_need_us)

than believing that the likes of Ray Kurzweil and Hugo de Garis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_de_Garis

) ought to run the world. I have met many people far smarter than

I'll ever be at SFI and elsewhere, but some individuals lack a

corresponding empathy, ethical sensibility, and moral compass to

accompany their intellectual brilliance.

A problem we face is the ability of modern technologies (genomics,

engineered crops, nanotechnology, etc.) to affect entire populations

while such cascading decisions are left to the increasingly few. I'm

not sure this is a healthy thing as we move forward. I'm not clever

enough to claim to have a working model of what sensible regulation of

human technologies would look like, but it's clear to me that there

are some very bright people in the world who I fear don't possess the

ethical makeup to make responsible decisions that are affecting all of

us (Life...not just people).

One of my daily rituals is to silently hope I'm wrong...and that our

future will be a bright one in which technology is applied in healthy,

appropriate ways and we see a reduction in harm and increase in

benefit for the biology of the planet. I hold the picture of a green

world in which success is measured in the health of people,

ecosystems, and the amount of laughter heard in communities (rather

than success being measured in dollars). I would rather not escape

leaving a burned-out cinder behind because the way I see it, if I am

part of that future I may very well lose myself in the process. What

interests me is that we live in a nation which nearly deifies

individualism. I'm all for self-expression that doesn't harm others,

but I also wonder what role self-restraint plays in growth and human

development? There are more materially primitive societies on Earth

where people seem healthier (Ikaria) and happier to me. For 19 years

my professional identity has been that of a technologist, but I'm

highly skeptical of the notions of science and technology as

panaceas. I have often wondered if Bill Mollison's suggestion that we

simply apply our existing knowledge wouldn't yield better results than

our current obsession with marching behind more technology and

convincing ourselves that it represents progress. What is progress?

I return to my hope that the new definition of success will include

biodiversity and a laughter meter in each community, with more

footpaths and bicycles and fewer automobiles and smog.

Lastly, as someone who is well-acquainted with self-doubt...I often

find myself reading threads in this forum with great interest, yet not

responding for fear of the reaction; but I think these are important

questions....and as much questions of individual/collective human

development as intergalactic travel, and I'm interested to know what

more of you think about these issues?

-Nick

----------------------------------------

Nicholas S. Frost

7 Avenida Vista Grande #325

Santa Fe, NM 87508

[hidden email]

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