A blog focusing on some of the most prominent “-isms” surrounding humanity’s technological future: extropianism, transhumanism, posthumanism, the mouth-filling Singularitarianism, and others in that constellation.
December 31, 2009
In case you missed the hubbub, IBM researchers last month announced the creation of a powerful new brain simulation, which was variously reported as being “cat-scale,” an “accurate brain simulation,” a “simulated cat brain,” capable of “matching a cat’s brainpower,” and even...
December 29, 2009
Fifty years ago today, on December 29, 1959, Richard P. Feynman gave an after-dinner talk in Pasadena at an annual post-Christmas meeting of the American Physical Society. Here is how Ed Regis describes the setting of the lecture in his rollicking book Nano: In the banquet room [at the Huntington-Sheraton hotel in Pasadena], a giddy mood...
December 23, 2009
Blogger Michael Anissimov does not believe in Santa Claus, but he does believe in the possibility, indeed the moral necessity, of overcoming animal predation. To put it another way, he does not believe in telling fantasy stories to children if they will take those stories to be true, but he has no compunctions about telling them to...
December 18, 2009
Beneath Adam’s post “On Lizardman and Liberalism,” commenter Will throws down the gauntlet: “[F]ind one transhumanist who thinks we should be allowed to embed nuclear weapons in our bodies.” I for one am ready concede that I know of no such case. But I’m moved to wonder, why not? Why should a libertarian transhumanist like...
December 15, 2009
[NOTE: From time to time we will invite guests to contribute to Futurisms. Our first guest post, below, comes from Brian J. Boyd, a graduate student at Oxford and a former New Atlantis intern.] Fox has done the world two great injustices in canceling first Joss Whedon’s sublime series Firefly and now his intriguing show Dollhouse....
December 7, 2009
In post called “Getting Used to Hideousness,” Mike Treder makes three points. Each is provocative — and flawed. First, he says, until relatively recently, people “with gross disabilities” or deformities “were expected to stay out of sight of the general public,” a closeting that Mr. Treder attributes to “the Victorian...
December 1, 2009
Congratulations to Nick Bostrom, Jamais Cascio, and Ray Kurzweil for being recognized as three of Foreign Policy magazine’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers.” Once upon a time this kind of notoriety might not have helped the reputation of an Oxford don in the Senior Common Room (do such places still exist?), but even were that still the...
December 1, 2009
Last week, the White House announced the formation of a new Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. It will have a chairman and vice chairman — and at least at first, both will be university administrators: Amy Gutmann, the president of U Penn, and James W. Wagner, the president of Emory. The executive order...
November 29, 2009
Over on his blog Accelerating Future, Michael Anissimov has a few criticisms of our blog. Or at least, a blog sharing our blog’s name; he gets so many things wrong that it seems almost as though he’s describing some other blog. And Mr. Anissimov’s comments beneath his own post range from ill-informed and ill-reasoned to...
November 23, 2009
Over at Gizmodo, Jesus Diaz has called attention to a genuinely lovely animation of Earth’s weather from August 17-26, 2009. He notes in passing, “It also shows how beautiful this planet is, and how insignificant we are.” There is something about pictures of Earth from space that seems to call forth this judgment all the time; it...