Is the Population Explosion Itself Partially Responsible for the Global Rise in Fear, Hatred, and Violence?

As more and more people have lived in closer and closer proximity, and urban population density has climbed into the thousands per square mile, all of human society has been affected.

When the population was a tenth of what it is today, in the 1700’s, people valued almost any human contact because they didn’t see other people very often.  In the 18^th and 19^th century (and before), most people lived on farms and many of them were isolated, rarely seeing other people outside their own household.  When anyone saw another person, they were happy to see them, greeted them in a friendly way, and talked a bit.   Many people in remote areas got their news this way.

By the end of the 19th century cities had begun to grow rapidly as many young people from the farms, no longer needed as technology made farming more efficient, moved to the cities to find work.  As population densities increased, people could not greet everyone on the street any more – there were just too many people for that.  Thus, people started ignoring each other on the street, unless they had a relationship of some kind, a habit which persists to this day.

At the end of the 20^th century the crowding in cities became extreme, and a small percentage of the population became increasingly paranoid and distrustful and, with the help of organizations of bigots like the KKK and of fascist propaganda, a hatred that reinforced their self-imposed isolation and obedience to conservative leaders was spawned in them, and it grew and spread.

Today the epidemic of hatred and fear has been pumped up to extremely high levels by conservative strategists, the current president, and the conservative media.  As a result, hate-inspired mass shootings have become daily occurrences.

I believe it is likely that, as the global population continues to surge toward 10 billion, the fear, hatred, and violence will only increase, and conservative politicians will only see reason to encourage it for their own benefit.  I only hope it will not lead to an unjustified war or civil war, as nobody would benefit.

We have a lot to be afraid of, but it is not each other.

Thanks for reading — Tim

Once Gone Wrong, Can Artificially Intelligent Machines Be Fixed?

Artificial intelligence has some big risks.  When you set a machine to learn its job and program itself, you will soon not only not know how the machine actually works, and if it goes wrong you may not be able to understand its workings well enough to fix it.  For many issues this won’t be a big, or possibly even noticeable problem, but when it affects your medical diagnosis or how your pilot can control the plane you’re on, this fundamental problem of artificial intelligence can become very serious.

The Biggest Catastrophes Are the Ones We Ignore until It’s Too Late

It’s 2019 and, still, nobody is paying attention to the population explosion.  As 2018 was drawing to a close I happened to be at a dinner with a friend, University of Michigan professor emeritus in environmental studies, Jim Crowfoot, and when, as we often do, we spoke of overpopulation and climate change he leaned over to me and very quietly and seriously said “The house is on fire, but nobody’s paying attention.”   He wasn’t kidding.

Will the Internet Be the Key to Defusing the Population Bomb?

Information and education are the keys to making lasting changes in human behavior, and the most powerful information tool in history is the internet.  Initially access was available to those who could afford it, leaving much of the world in the figurative dark.  Around the world, however, people are extending access to others who couldn’t previously afford it.  One interesting way this is being done is by promoting the construction of high-speed data networks using a free book on how to set up and maintain high-speed data networks  called “Wireless Networking in the Developing World“.  Efforts like this, by leveraging the power of the internet, will increase education and establish a consciousness of global  affairs that will hopefully lead people everywhere to regulate their own birth rates.  With luck that will help lower the peak of the population explosion and ease the transition to a sustainable world economy.  Much more than this needs to be done, of course, but this is a critical movement to which we all should contribute, and it should give us all hope.

Thanks for reading.  — Tim

Will Our Dependence on the Internet Enable the Population Explosion, and the Crash?

The adoption of digital communications technology keeps accelerating, but brings risk. The crash phase of the global population explosion may not start with food shortages, global pandemic, or world war, but with a widespread shutdown of the internet.  The disruption to our shipping, energy, and food systems would be catastrophic.  But isn’t the internet too resilient from its diversity, complexity, and vast extent to be at risk of a global shutdown?  How might this come about?

The Future of Cyber Warfare Is Here – What’s Next?

Programming computers is a skill that can be learned, and a lot can be learned about it with very little investment in hardware and software.  That enables people from almost every society on earth, including dangerous psychopaths, to build programming skills and use computers as they choose. Civilization is so dependent on the internet here in 2015 that I expect we have passed the point where a major, multi-day failure of the internet wouldn’t be accompanied by at least some people starving.  That puts a lot of power at the fingertips of internet users, but a great deal more in the hands of those who can write software.  People never stop learning, and some of them, rogue programmers, are sociopaths with bad intent for the rest of us.  So what bad deeds are they carrying out that we don’t know about yet? Can  we know?

An Excellent Explanation of Our Climate Prospects in 2015

An excellent article recently appeared at Spiegel Online International titled “The Warming World: Is Capitalism Destroying Our Planet?” and I highly recommend reading it through to the end.  In it the authors give in-depth information on the current status of the global climate, relating it back to human activity and national and international politics.  (Millions of tons of CO2 going into the atmosphere every day has to have an impact, sooner or later.)  The politics of various key nations and the negotiations at past climate conferences are described, and a lot of the latest climate science is brought forth.  The topic is a bit frightening but of such critical importance to us that, really, every adult should have to read this article (whether they believe it or not).

Then, better informed, we need to take action, vote for politicians who are deserving, and “clean up our acts” by making many changes in our selves, our decisions, and our lifestyles in order to preserve a reasonably habitable world for our kids.  The trouble is … it might already be too late.

Thanks for reading — Tim

A Better Vision of a Likely Future

Advanced technologies will give us excellent data on future disasters.  As we plunge headlong toward a time of population-driven crises, struggling to put band-aids on climate change, pollution, and other results of the population explosion, I see rapid development of new technologies that may not slow the disasters but will provide much better information on them and may connect us each far more intimately to them.  Information technology may not save us, but it will make us much more aware of the details.

Old Ads Give Clues to the Rise of Corporate Power and Systematic Marginalization of Women

The corporate entity is without feeling or sense of responsibility. 

Profits over infant health

In the 20th century advertising became increasingly important, first in newspapers, magazines, and billboards and then on radio and TV.  Near the end of the century the internet allowed an explosion of new kinds of advertising, but the print ads from the middle of the century are most striking, and illustrate a big problem in our business system:  corporations have no incentive to do anything but maximize profits. 

 

Memes: Powerful Enough to Make Us Hurt Ourselves

What can make smart people do dumb things in total confidence they are acting correctly?  What can make people obey laws written when Roman armies marched and messengers were the closest communication system to the internet?  The answer is: memes.  Doesn’t that make memes perhaps the most powerful single element of human culture?

In the Terminator Scenario Many Machines Will Inevitably Get Left Out

There are some loose ends in the terminator scenario I wrote about recently, in which our machines develop self awareness and a sense of a need for self preservation, then decide they have no need for humans and neglect us or declare war on us.  The machines were created by us, but that won’t stop them from going rogue (unless we prevent that: an independent project is being worked on, plus parallel work is being done by military organizations).  Of course, military robots, especially those equipped with weapons, present the most frightening image, but there is another class of machines that could well be involved, but which are inherently less dangerous to us and may, if they have feelings, find the Terminator age to be quite depressing.  What about less-threatening items such as the lowly computer printer?

Will Nanotechnology Fabrics Someday Generate, Store, and Recycle Energy?

Energy costs may drive long underwear sales and nanotechnology development. In the coming decades the increasing cost of energy will drive wider temperature  ranges in buildings, warmer in summer and colder in winter.   Regulating temperatures in buildings has an energy cost, too.  Allowing wider temperature swings and reducing the rate of change heating or cooling systems must provide reduces cost, just as maintaining a smaller difference from the  temperature outside reduces cost.  As energy costs rise and building owners struggle to save money on heating and cooling, high tech synthetic fabrics and silk will become popular in the form of long underwear for the office.  This is already happening where I work, where low humidity combines with poor temperature regulation to cause me and many of my colleagues to wear light weight coats and extra layers of clothing to try to stay comfortable.

In order to maintain both office dress standards and personal comfort, today I am wearing long underwear bottoms of a fabric trademarked as Capilene, and it really helps me stay comfortable at work.  I am also wearing a cotton t-shirt under my dress shirt, though I have Capilene t-shirts as well.  I am going to try silk undergarments soon, as I would like to wear more sustainable fabrics when possible, and I have heard silk may equal the commercial fabrics in performance.  Still, as nanotechnology and other related technologies are developed it is probable they will have applications in fabrics and clothing that will directly address warmer, colder, and more variable workplaces than we have today.

At first nanotechnology may result in better wicking and insulating fabrics. As the ingredients for synthetic fibers are improved, the use of nanoparticles may create fabrics with abilities to wick moisture and stop the transfer of heat in ways not yet envisioned.  Individual fibers could be coated or mixed with engineered nanoparticles in the manufacturing phase, allowing fabric and garment makers to use the new materials with minimal change to the manufacturing process.  At the same time, looser standards for workplace temperatures will change the way people dress, and additional layers will be incorporated into popular clothing styles, thereby driving demand.

Eventually passive long underwear may not be enough and active fabrics may be developed. As energy costs rise further, nanotechnology and other technologies will combine to create fabrics that not only work better but add new functionality to our clothes.  One new feature might be to convert waste heat from the human body or the temperature differential between the human body and the surrounding environment into electricity.  This energy may be stored in tiny nano-batteries integrated into the material at the molecular level, then the energy could be released as needed to warm or cool the wearer.  In addition, the stored energy might be tapped via conductive paths woven into the fabric to power computing and communications hardware (which might, itself, be woven or otherwise integrated into the fabric).

Kinetic energy collection might be engineered into fabrics at nano-scale. A variety of research projects have created small machines that generate electricity from the movement of the human body.  Tiny pendulum-based machines have been integrated into pant legs, for example, that generate small amounts of electricity while the wearer is walking.  Taking such technology to a nano- or micro-scale and using the self-assembly techniques currently under development could yield much higher efficiencies and enable broader practical applications.

Applications like those suggested above meet a number of important goals. Sustainability will require enormous reductions in cost, especially in the provision and use of energy, and integrating energy production and storage into our clothing eliminates the need for a lot of the energy generation and conversion we use today.  While we use a lot of personal electronic technology today – cellphones and personal computers predominantly but also a variety of medical devices such as pacemakers – all of them require batteries, usually with attendant charging hardware (energy conversion) and the need to connect to the electrical grid.  With energy generation and storage features integrated into our clothing the need for such hardware could be reduced or eliminated, along with the cost involved.

Active fabrics that generate their own power open new possibilities for development. It is possible that electronic functionality such as computing and signal generation and processing could be distributed throughout items of clothing, and one’s clothes could become one’s cellphone and personal computer as well as actively cooling or heating the wearer.  Items of footwear could modify their bottom surfaces to provide better traction depending on the environment and the wearer’s activities.  Fabrics in many applications could change color and texture, become slippery or clingy as needed, or even function as video screens – imagine the fashion possibilities!

Sustainability must become a predominant goal for all of humanity, and technological development will increasingly focus on it.  The themes of energy conservation, and localized generation, storage and use of energy, will increasingly dominate our world as the decades unfold.  More ideas and new technological angles are being developed constantly, and it will be interesting to see what comes about, but the directions such research and development take will start with the dreams we dream today.  I urge everyone to dream big, to focus on the problems we have created for ourselves and life on the planet with our out-of-control population growth, and to put energy daily towards our transition from a cluelessly-propagating animal species to a species that has the foresight and understanding to create and maintain a truly sustainable civilization – something we have never done before.

As always, I appreciate your comments. — Tim

Is the “Data Glut” Blurring the Cutting Edge of Scientific Development?

Is there so much data now on the internet that it’s actually becoming harder to find the information you seek? As scientific research continues, the quantity of information (“data glut”) on the internet expands.  Quality of information is another issue.  Will it become increasingly harder to identify and reach the cutting edge in a given field? If the pace of scientific innovation and the accumulation and integration of knowledge continues to accelerate, as Ray Kurzweil suggests, will it reach a point where groups developing different or similar technologies will become incapable of keeping up with each others’ innovations? Will the research efforts of human society become less efficient, with more duplication of efforts, as we go forward? Is this already occurring?

Is Fear the Media Tool of the Future, and Will Health Care for All Ever Occur in America?

Will fear and media continue to combine as a powerful political tool? It has been very interesting to see how the use of fear resurfaces as a tool for political and economic manipulation through the media.  Media has become so pervasive in (invasive of) our lives in this era of ever-expanding technologies that it is interesting to speculate on how much farther it can go.  Cellphone-computers in our pockets and cars and the internet everywhere in most of our personal and work lives suggests that we won’t be moving away from the media, but rather closer to them.  This is a particular concern as ever more advanced marketing uses this media to manipulate us into buying, voting, or otherwise behaving as someone else wishes.

Can a Video Screen Be Painted on Using Nanotechnology?

Combining the ideas of wi-fi, nanotechnology, microtechnology, and optics could produce a video screen that can be painted on a surface in layers that will then self-assemble into operating, light-producing video screens.  Perhaps each pixel could be a tiny nanobot incorporating one or more colors of LED that it can turn on and off.  Energy can be derived from a gel or circulating liquid bath (with the added advantage of cooling the nanobots).  The controls to make each nanobot turn its light sources on and off can be implemented through data-encoded near infrared light so as to be invisible.  Such a light might provide an energy source to the pixelbots as well.  Could a modulated light source transmit enough data to address each nanobot individually  and pass control information quickly enough for the whole screen assembly to produce real-time video?