Stop Future Disasters

Here is a great example of both learning about the future and having fun at the same time!

The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction group has teamed up with the UK game design studio Playerthree to create the Flash-based “Stop Disasters” game. The goal of the game is to reduce the harmful results of catastrophic natural events — the disaster that gets stopped isn’t the event itself, but its impact on human life.

And here's h ow it works:

The player chooses what kind of disaster is to be faced (earthquake, hurricane, tsunami, wildfire or flood), then has a limited amount of time to prepare for the inevitable. The player can build new buildings, retrofit or demolish old ones, install appropriate defensive infrastructure (such as mangroves along tsunami-prone shorelines or firebreaks around water towers), institute preparedness training, install sirens and evacuation signs, and so forth — all with a limited budget, and with ancillary goals that must be met for success, such as building schools and hospitals for community development, or bringing in hotels for local economic support.

Once the money is spent (or the time runs out), the preordained disaster strikes, and the player gets to see whether his or her choices were the right ones. At the easy level, there’s generally enough money to protect the small map and limited population; at the harder levels, the player must make difficult choices about who and what to save.

Its like playing SimCity yet you can be involved from a few minutes to 25 minutes... and for all ages, believe me!

Again, the link: “Stop Disasters” game

Military Mind Scanning

They never stop, do they? The future is increasingly going to be fought in the area of neurotechnology.

Consciousness is the ultimate 'high ground' from which to gain control over human behaviour and evolution; it is the realm where the changes are really occuring. And now the U.S. military is working on computers than can scan your mind and adapt to what you're thinking. In this article in Wired called 'Pentagon Preps Mind Fields for Smarter War Stations' it writes that:

Since 2000, Darpa, the Pentagon's blue-sky research arm, has spearheaded a far-flung, nearly $70 million effort to build prototype cockpits, missile control stations and infantry trainers that can sense what's occupying their operators' attention, and adjust how they present information, accordingly. Similar technologies are being employed to help intelligence analysts find targets easier by tapping their unconscious reactions. It's all part of a broader Darpa effort to radically boost the performance of American troops.

"Computers today, you have to learn how they work," says Navy Commander Dylan Schmorrow, who served as Darpa's first program manager for this Augmented Cognition project. He now works for the Office of Naval Research. "We want the computer to learn you, adapt to you."

Go to the article link above to read more...

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GURDJIEFF - Fourth Way

I have to confess that I am an old Gurdjeffian - G.'s ideas shaped much of my formative thinking...where would I be if I had never picked up and read Ouspensky's 'In Search of the Miraculous'?? I wonder...

So above is a 3 minute intro to the man himself...albeit brief...

Predictions of the Future

Freeman Dyson once said - 'Insight requires Imagination'.

The future is too important not to be imagined now... and for those imaginations to be turned into Insight...

SIR ARTHUR PREDICTS THE FUTURE

Here are Sir Arthur C. Clarke's predictions for 2001 to 2100.


2001 Jan. 1 The next millennium and century begin.

- Cassini spaceprobe (launched October 1997; arrives Saturn July
2000) begins exploration of the planet's moons and rings.

- Galileo probe (launched October 1989) continues surveying Jupiter
and its moons. Life beneath the ice-covered oceans of Europa
appears increasingly likely.

2002 The first commercial device producing clean, safe power by
low-temperature nuclear reactions goes on the market, heralding
the end of the Fossil-Fuel Age. Economic and geopolitical
earthquakes follow, and, for their discovery of so-called "Cold
Fusion" in 1989, Pons and Fleischmann receive the Nobel Prize for
Physics.

2003 The motor industry is given five years to replace all fuel-burning
engines by the new energy device.

- NASA's robot Mars Surveyor (carrying Lander and Rover) is
launched.

2004 The first (publicly admitted) human clone.

2005 The first sample launched back to Earth by Mars Surveyor.

- The Dalai Lama returns to Tibet.

2006 The world's last coal mine closed in India.

2007 NASA's Next Generation Space Telescope (successor to the Hubble)
launched.

- President Chandrika Kumaratunga gets the Nobel Prize for
restoring peace to Sri Lanka.

2008 On what would have been his 80th birthday, July 26, the film
director Stanley Kubrick, who made 2001: A Space Odyssey,
posthumously receives a special Oscar for Lifetime Achievement.

2009 A city in North Korea is devastated by the accidental explosion
of an A-bomb. After a brief debate in the U.N., all nuclear
weapons are destroyed.

2010 The first Quantum Generators (tapping space energy) are
developed. Available in portable and household units from a few
kilowatts upward, they can produce electricity indefinitely.
Central power stations close down; the age of pylons ends as grid
systems are dismantled.

- In spite of protests against "Big Brother" government, electronic
monitoring virtually removes professional criminals from society.

2011 Largest living animal filmed: a 75-meter octopus in the Mariana
Trench. By a curious coincidence, later that same year even
larger marine creatures are discovered when the first robot
probes drill through the ice of Europa, and an entire new biota
is revealed.

2012 Aerospace-planes enter service. The history of space travel has
repeated that of aeronautics, although more slowly, because the
technical problems are so much greater. From Yuri Gagarin to
commercial space flight has taken twice as long as from the
Wright Brothers to the DC-3.

2013 On a flight sponsored by Bandar Seri Begawan, a Brunei prince
becomes the first member of a royal family to fly in space.

2014 Construction of Hilton Orbiter Hotel begins, by assembling and
converting the giant Shuttle tanks which had previously been
allowed to fall back to Earth.

2015 An inevitable byproduct of the Quantum Generator is complete
control of matter at the atomic level. Thus the old dream of
alchemy is realized on a commercial scale, often with surprising
results. Within a few years, since they are more useful, lead and
copper cost twice as much as gold.

2016 All existing currencies are abolished. The megawatt-hour becomes
the unit of exchange.

2017 December 16. On his 100th birthday, Sir Arthur Clarke is one of
the first guests in the Hilton Orbiter.

- China holds the first nationwide popular elections to its
parliament.

2019 A major meteor impact occurs on the North Polar icecap. There is
no loss of human life, but the resulting tsunamis cause
considerable damage along the coasts of Greenland and Canada. The
long-discussed Project Spaceguard, to identify and deflect any
potentially dangerous comets or asteroids, is finally activated

2020 Artificial Intelligence (AI) reaches the human level. From now
onward there are two intelligent species on Planet Earth, one
evolving far more rapidly than biology would ever permit.
Interstellar probes carrying AIs are launched toward the nearer
stars.

2021 The first humans land on Mars, and have some unpleasant
surprises.

2023 Dinosaur facsimiles are cloned from computer-generated DNA.
Disney's Triassic Zoo opens in Florida. Despite some unfortunate
initial accidents, mini-raptors start replacing guard dogs.

2024 Infra-red signals are detected coming from the center of the
Milky Way Galaxy. They are obviously the product of a
technologically advanced civilization, but all attempts to
decipher them fail.

2025 Neurological research finally leads to an understanding of all
the senses, and direct inputs become possible, bypassing eyes,
ears, skin, etc. The inevitable result is the metal "Braincap" of
which the 20th century's Walkman was a primitive precursor.
Anyone wearing this helmet, fitting tightly over the skull, can
enter a whole universe of experience real or imaginary - and even
merge in real-time with other minds. Apart from its use for
entertainment and vicarious adventure, the Braincap is a boon to
doctors, who can now experience their patients symptoms (suitably
attenuated). It also revolutionizes the legal profession;
deliberate lying is impossible. As the Braincap can only function
properly on a completely bald head, wig-making becomes a major
industry.

2026 Singapore becomes the world's first country to enforce Truth in
Advertising.

2036 China overtakes the U.S. in gross national product to become the
world's largest economy.

2040 The "Universal Replicator," based on nano-technology, is
perfected: any object, however complex, can be created - given
the necessary raw material and the appropriate information
matrix. Diamonds or gourmet meals can, literally, be made from
dirt. As a result, agriculture and industry are phased out,
ending that recent invention in human history - work! There is an
explosion in arts, entertainment and education. Hunter-gathering
societies are deliberately recreated; huge areas of the planet,
no longer needed for food production, are allowed to revert to
their original state. Young people can now discharge their
aggressive instincts by using cross-bows to stalk big game, which
is robotic and frequently dangerous.

2045 The totally self-contained, recycling, mobile home (envisaged
almost a century earlier by Buckminster Fuller) is perfected. Any
additional carbon needed for food synthesis is obtained by
extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

2047 Hong Kong celebrates its 50th year as an SAR by completely
eliminating border controls and barriers between itself and the
rest of China.

2050 "Escape from Utopia." Bored by life in this peaceful and
unexciting era, millions decided to use cryonic suspension to
emigrate into the future in search of adventure. Vast
"hibernacula" are established in the Antarctic and in the regions
of perpetual night at the lunar poles.

2051 Ground is broken on the moon for self-sustaining, robotized
colonies, where the elderly will survive longer, thanks to the
low lunar gravity.

2057 October 4. Centennial of Sputnik 1. The dawn of the space age is
celebrated by humans not only on Earth, but on the Moon, Mars,
Europa, Ganymede and Titan - and in orbit round Venus, Neptune
and Pluto.

2061 The return of Halley's Comet; first landing on nucleus by humans.
The sensational discovery of both dormant and active lifeforms
vindicates Hoyle and Wickramasinghe's century-old hypothesis that
life is omnipresent throughout space.

2090 Large-scale burning of fossil fuels is resumed to replace the
carbon dioxide "mined" from the air and postpone the next Ice Age
by promoting global warming.

2095 The development of a true "space drive" - a propulsion system
reacting against the structure of space time - makes the rocket
obsolete and permits velocities close to that of light. The first
human explorers set off to nearby star systems that robot probes
have already found promising.

2100 History begins...


Copyright Arthur C. Clarke 1999

Magnetic Vortex

This video was recorded on Jan. 12, 2007 by Japan's Hinode spacecraft: A magnetic vortex almost as big as Earth twisting, turning, finally erupting in a powerful solar flare. Watch from this link:

NASA's Magnetic Vortex

Asteroid Impact

This video really does deserve watching - it is a Japanese simulation of what a large meteorite collision would look like... Enjoy, somewhat...

The Psychology of Security

Bruce Schneier is one of the most educated authorities on Internet and digital securities - so I cannot pass up this chance to mention his recent essay on 'The Psychology of Security' where he makes good discussion on 'Risk Heuristics':

The first, and most common, area that can cause the feeling of security to diverge from the reality of security is the perception of risk. Security is a trade-off, and if we get the severity of the risk wrong, we're going to get the trade-off wrong. We can do this both ways, of course. We can underestimate some risks, like the risk of automobile accidents. Or we can overestimate some risks, like the risk of a stranger sneaking into our home at night and kidnapping our child. How we get the risk wrong--when we overestimate and when we underestimate--is governed by a few specific brain heuristics.

Animation of Surveillance State and Trusted Computing

This is a video worth watching - a 4 minute animation on increasing surveillance strategies... wonderfully animated:



Via CeMoRe

Toward Homo Noeticus

John White refers to himself as a 'consciousness researcher' and he considers that humanity and the earth have the makings of a promising future together. He feels that the form of human being that will be here to participate is a primate of a very different order than the human as we know it today. He calls it Homo noeticus —the next step in human evolution:

So yes, we face various crises, but my recent research and my personal experience tell me that we will make it through those crises. That is part of the grand design of creation. That is part of the intelligent purpose behind the universe. God didn't bring us forth through five million years of human evolution to snuff us out just like that. We have the means; we have the potential to deal with crises in an intelligent way, which is aligned with the teleological drive that we have for self-transcendence.

But it's not absolutely certain, as far as I can see. We could OD as a planet, so to speak. I don't think we will. We have weathered many, many crises in our long history, and I see all sorts of hopeful signs telling me that we will weather these too. In fact, as a friend of mine said, "Hope is an acronym for Help Our Planet Evolve." And I am ever hopeful.

Read the full interview with John White here

Alien Volcano

A beautiful picture, taken on Feb. 28th by the New Horizons spacecraft: A volcanic eruption on Io.

Read the NASA link here

Militainment

I thought the concept of 'Militainment' was a useful idea to take a look at, especially since there is a worthwhile video that examines this - University of Georgia professor Roger Stahl has his Militainment site that links to his video titled Militainment, Inc:

Militainment, Inc. is a nine-part critical investigation of the militarization of popular culture. The pieces of the puzzle - from video games to reality TV - combine to form a larger picture of the integration of entertainment and military affairs. The film asks: How has war taken its place as an entertainment spectacle? and What does this mean for the ability of our democracy to consider this most destructive of human activities?

This well-constructed video can be downloaded from Stahl's own site above or in easy 10 minute clips on YouTube here

European Star Wars

The Ballistic Missile Early Warning Radar System (BMEWS) at Fylingdales, U.K.

The ongoing debate on the proposed missile defense shield in Europe is heating up. Poland and the Czech Republic are among the possible sites and the UK is now showing interest in supporting the missile shield.

According to recent commentary: 'Fears over the destabilising effects of such a shield was confirmed by a Russian general who said that they would target the system' -

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, said America would trigger an “inevitable arms race” if it deployed interceptors in Europe to knock ballistic missiles out of the sky. A senior Russian general rumbled that Russian missiles would target any interceptors in eastern Europe. Poland’s prime minister told his people that Russia was trying to “scare” them. The Czech foreign minister (a prince with a splendid moustache) complained of Russian “blackmail”.

“The aim is to break ground on a European site in 2008, and for its interceptors to become operational in 2012. This week the Polish and Czech prime ministers said they were keen on hosting the missile-defence sites. That is a change: talks with the Poles have dragged on for years, thanks to elaborate Polish demands for things such as extra missile defences for their own country. Yet both Mr Blair and his Polish rivals face objections from three sources: from Russia, from many of their own voters and from fellow European leaders.”

Source: “Missile-defence systems: Expect Fireworks”, Economist.

“In 2003, the U.K. agreed to allow the U.S. to upgrade radar stations at the Fylingdales Royal Air Force Base in northern England, one of the steps to allowing the missile shield. At the time, then-Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said the U.K. would keep its options open about Britain taking the U.S. missile shield.”

Source: “Blair Wants Part of U.S. Missile Shield Based in U.K.”, Bloomberg.

Read more about the RAF Fylingdales base from Wikipedia

Roadmap of the 21st Century

ON 30th December 2006 the "Detailed Roadmap of the 21st Century" compilation was initially released. It consists of a year by year bullet point list of notable advances expected to happen in the 21st century, from 2006 onwards:

The motivation for creating such a compilation is to allow us to evaluate predictions in context of other predictions; evaluate their credibility in view of the big picture; and finally, to enable us to better plan and prepare for the coming years. Since the goal is to provide an overview of predictions, the list contains no original research or predictions: all listed advances are marked with their sources. When time ranges are given in the original sources, the most pessimistic (ie. latest) predictions are used. While the compilation aims to be comprehensive, it does not aim to be coherent: it is up to the reader to resolve conflicting predictions by trusting one (or none) of the sources.

Above is the eye-opening video of some of the events... whilst the text-based scenario - with quotes - can be read here.

The future may indeed last a long time...yet it speeding up ever faster...

Our Beautiful Earth

Blue Beauty: Our Beautiful Earth is a PowerPoint presentation that shows satellite images of the Earth, and shows the movement of day & night over different regions of the Earth.

Give a click, take the trip...

AI AND SCI-FI

Let it be said that I'm sceptical about Artificial Intelligence (AI), yet I'm slightly convinced about the increased complexity --> awareness argument (I didn't say consciousness here!).

Yet I've just read a fairly good piece on this subject from known sci-fi author Robert J. Sawyer called 'AI AND SCI-FI: MY, OH, MY!' which is posted over at the Lifeboat Foundation. And I consider this worth a mention... and perhaps a read too, with a cup of coffee or a glass of red wine?

Raymond Bernard

Raymond Bernard, once Head of the Rosicrucian Order AMORC, retells an interesting series of 'strange encounters' during his life where he met with representatives of certain knowledge. He says of his writings on this:

The fundamental purpose of this manuscript is to transmit knowledge of certain subjects of the mystical tradition, which now-a-days, particularly in France, continues to exercise a strong attraction upon those interested in the great questions beyond the limits of those nonsensical items recorded in the popular press. To be convinced of this, notice the considerable success of the books dealing with these subjects among the general public. Most of these books do not rest upon any foundation. They do not have any basis of TRUTH for meditation and reflection, and they lead their readers towards false and even dangerous conclusions.

And so Bernard's narrative of his strange encounters start here

The Greenbaum Speech

I just thought I'd make mention and link to the now famous lecture given by D. C. Hammond at the Fourth Annual Eastern Regional Conference on Abuse and Multiple Personality, Thursday June 25, 1992. It's original title is "Hypnosis in MPD: Ritual Abuse," yet it's now usually known as the "Greenbaum Speech" - very revealing, especially from a 'sober' academic - read the Greenbaum Speech here. This gives a good background to the subject, from its earlier days as described in the occult The Malleus Maleficarum

Also of related interest: a lecture given by Dr. Alan Scheflin called 'The History of Mind Control:What we can prove and what we can't'

Last link here: for those interested in the work of Jose Delgado, here is a site where you can download most of the complete chapters on Delgado's "Physical Control of the Mind"

In all of this, remember that knowledge and awareness is the greatest tool. Compassion our energy...

Reading People's Intentions

Yes - socio-technics are moving from social conditioning via behavourism to pre-cognition of a person's intentions: eerily echoing both Orwell's Thought Police and Dick's Pre-Cogs. This Guardian article - The brain scan that can read people's intentions -

A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful technique that allows them to look deep inside a person's brain and read their intentions before they act.

The research breaks controversial new ground in scientists' ability to probe people's minds and eavesdrop on their thoughts, and raises serious ethical issues over how brain-reading technology may be used in the future

This research is a later development from the work of Dr José Manuel Rodriguez Delgado who stated that "brain transmitters can remain in a person's head for life. The energy to activate the brain transmitter is transmitted by way of radio frequencies."

I would recommend a look at Delgado's work in:

- Jose M.R. Delgado. "The Physical Control of the Mind" (PDF).

- John Horgan (October 2005). "The Forgotten Era of Brain Chips". Scientific American 293 (4): 66-73

Also worth reading is this new report on tiny cameras the size of a fingernail linked to specialist computers will be used to monitor the behaviour of airline passengers as part of the war on terrorism - read more on this from New Mobilities

Spirituality & Technology

The relationship between spirituality and technology has been a focus, interest, and concern of mine over the years... how can they be intertwined? Should they be? Technology is a tool for both development and torture, a Damocles Sword hanging by a thread...

I have done much reading on the Global Brain concept, including much on evolutionary theories.

The Internet has been an agora - a meeting place - for evolutionary debates, ranging from Teilhard de Chardin to Hans Moravec... from Aurobindo's collective super-intelligence to Transhumanist's uploading...

Anyway, a brief yet readable overview on this subject has been written as an article by Michel Bauwens - published in First Monday as 'Spirituality & Technology: Exploring the Relationship'; and on the alternative Buddhist journal CyberSangha as 'Electric Gaia: Technology and Spirituality'

Also worth considering is dipping into these pages on:

- Introduction to Technopaganism and Technoshamanism

- TECHNOSHAMANISM

- Technology Meets Spirituality


- And links from Fusion Anomaly

Just thought I'd mention them...!

The New Apollo Program

Brian O'Leary was a NASA scientist-astronaut, assistant professor of astronomy at Cornell University alongside Carl Sagan, and has also taught Physics for Poets and Princeton University (see bio) who over the past twenty years has researched, lectured and written extensively about new paradigms of science and global transformation.

His most recent book Re-Inheriting the Earth describes how we can lift out of ourselves out of our current path of global destruction. Much of his work is based on extensive international travels to some of the best and brightest researchers of new science, new medicine and "free" energy.

He goes on to say:

I asked, "How can the scientific method be applied to studying experiences such as psychic healing, transcendental consciousness, survival after death, communication with nonhuman intelligence, crop circles, and many other things that demand unbiased examination?" I was at first surprised to discover that these fields were scientifically further developed than I had imagined, but none of them had yet been integrated into the mainstream. Some of them had, in fact, been suppressed...

...My current passion is to release our enormous human potential to balance the Earth's environment. This massive task needn't neccessarily force us to immediately adopt radical new technologies before they are thoroughly researched and debated. Free energy is a dramatic example of what could be done to transcend our polluting ways, but we will need to learn to use this resource wisely. Just in case this is abused by military interests, I would go for low technology solutions as backup, for example, hemp biomass, solar, and wind power.

Read more here.

Brian O'Leary has also written on Re-Inheriting the Earth: The Narrowing of the Energy Policy Debate and How We Must Transcend it - importantly he is also a co-director of the New Energy Movement whose mission is to:

The New Energy Movement acts to promote the rapid widespread deployment of advanced, clean, and sustainable energy sources across our imperiled planet. This transformation in the way our civilization generates and uses energy provides the best physical means to protect the biosphere, remediate ecological damage, and enhance the health and well-being of the global human family.

The New Energy Movement's major priority is to educate the public, policymakers, and investors about the need to support research, development, and use of zero-point energy, magnetic generators, advanced hydrogen processes, and other little-known powerful energy technologies now emerging from inventors and scientists all over the world.

So many people playing so many parts...