The World Transformed

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Who's a Technoprogressive? Jul 12, 2017

Show notes

James Hughes joins Phil and Stephen for a discussion of the meaning of technoprogressivism. How does it differ not only from mainstream porgressivism but also from alternative transhuman philosophies such as technolibertarianism? What are the differences and why do they matter? And what are the similarities and why do THEY matter? Score yourself on the 14-point technoprogressive self-diagnostic to determine how well this political philosophy aligns with your own views. About our Guest: James Hughes is the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He is a bioethicist and sociologist who serves as the Associate Provost for Institutional Research, Assessment and Planning, for the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago, where he also taught bioethics at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. James is author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future, and is working on a second book tentatively titled Cyborg Buddha. He is also a contributor to our book, Visions for a World Transformed. From 1999-2011 he produced the syndicated weekly radio program, Changesurfer Radio. James is a Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of Humanity+, the Neuroethics Society, the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities, and the Working Group on Ethics and Technology at Yale University. He serves on the State of Connecticut Regenerative Medicine Research Advisory Committee. When not doing all that, James speaks on medical ethics, health care policy, and future studies worldwide. WT 324-633

Better All the Time! Best of TWT Jul 11, 2017

Show notes

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D. discuss future-facing news stories that are (almost) too good to be true: Who would have thought that study of a potato virus would lead to a treatment for Alzheimer's Disease? Spock's Chessboard The future is less knowable today than ever. Human creativity is both the cause of this, and how to deal with this. Here is the Sir Ken Robinson TED Talk Anything (gross) can be turned into oil. Tweaking the gene for ear hair can improve hearing for many with hearing loss. Cloud computing -- it no longer matters what Internet-based machine the user is operating. Steam video game service. No more worrying about patches for games because you're games are updated automatically. Cat lost for 9 years is returned to the owner because of a embedded microchip. Success for the Large Hadron Collider worked. [This show first aired September 22, 2008.]

The Virtues Control Panel with James Hughes Jul 10, 2017

Show notes

Can we program ourselves to be better people? Phil and Stephen welcome James Hughes to discuss his concept of a Virtues Control Panel: "What I imagine is a virtues control panel with sliders that determine the balance of moral impulses, cognition and behavior in different situations, governed by a morality operating system. When we are working on tasks that require focus and care we would turn up concentration, conscientiousness and prefrontal control. We could also flag specific behaviors, words or even thoughts to be suppressed, and others to be enhanced. When our metabolic monitor indicates we have reached maximum calories for the day or reached peak inebriation, the sub-routines would tell us we can't eat another bite and that we don't want that next drink. " From: Visions for a World Transformed About our Guest: James Hughes is the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He is a bioethicist and sociologist who serves as the Associate Provost for Institutional Research, Assessment and Planning, for the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago, where he also taught bioethics at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. James is author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future, and is working on a second book tentatively titled Cyborg Buddha. He is also a contributor to our book, Visions for a World Transformed. From 1999-2011 he produced the syndicated weekly radio program, Changesurfer Radio. WT 323-632

Going Full Geek Jul 06, 2017

Show notes

Phil, Stephen, and PJ geek out, big time. Topics: Are science fiction conventions the key to solving all of the world's problems? What surprises await us in PJ's next book? Tune in and find out! (Well, maybe one or two, anyway.) About PJ: PJ Manney is the author of the bestselling and Philip K. Dick Award nominated (R)EVOLUTION, book 1 in the Phoenix Horizon series. She is a former chairperson of Humanity+, the author of "Empathy in the Time of Technology: How Storytelling is the Key to Empathy," and a frequent guest host and guest on podcasts including the World Transformed . She has worked in motion-picture PR at Walt Disney/Touchstone Pictures, story development and production for independent film production companies including such movies as Hook, Universal Soldier, and It Could Happen to You plus she was a writer for two of the coolest TV shows of all time Hercules--The Legendary Journeys Xena: Warrior Princess). PJ is a culture vulture and SF geek, and the daughter and mother of them, too. When not contemplating the future of humanity, she is a mother, wife, and education activist in California. WT 322-631

Whatever Happened to the Future? Jul 04, 2017

Show notes

PJ Manney joins Phil and Stephen for a special Fourth of July edition of the World Transformed. Topics: The Declaration of Singularity PJ's contribution to Visions for a World Transformed, "Only Connect." A History of the 20th Century, with Illustrations Where have optimism and good will and, yes, empathy gone? Tune in and explore! About our guest: PJ Manney is the author of the bestselling and Philip K. Dick Award nominated (R)EVOLUTION, book 1 in the Phoenix Horizon series. She is a former chairperson of Humanity+, the author of "Empathy in the Time of Technology: How Storytelling is the Key to Empathy," and a frequent guest host and guest on podcasts including the World Transformed . She has worked in motion-picture PR at Walt Disney/Touchstone Pictures, story development and production for independent film production companies including such movies as Hook, Universal Soldier, and It Could Happen to You plus she was a writer for two of the coolest TV shows of all time Hercules--The Legendary Journeys Xena: Warrior Princess). PJ is a culture vulture and SF geek, and the daughter and mother of them, too. When not contemplating the future of humanity, she is a mother, wife, and education activist in California. WT 321-630

Our Smart Phones, Our Selves Jun 30, 2017

Show notes

Are our smart phones and other devices about to become even more deeply embedded in our lives? Phil looks at some interesting trends and developments. Amazon’s New Echo Show Is Very Cool And A Little Creepy Long ago, when we imagined the future, we often imagined video calls. And although they’ve been around forever, doing one from a mobile phone, or a desktop computer, never felt quite as futuristic as this pulsing thing in my kitchen that’s always watching me, and always listening, ready to do what I tell it. In 10 Years, Your iPhone Won’t Be a Phone Anymore Siri will be the conductor of a suite of devices, all tracking your interactions and anticipating your next moves How technology-enabled ‘selves-improvement’ will drive the future of personal productivity Instead of simply surrounding knowledge workers with ever-better digital assistants and bots, organizations and their workers will get greater returns investing in “selves improvement.” That is, providing digital tools, techniques and technologies that empower employees to craft high-performance versions of themselves — “selves” that are smarter, bolder, more creative, more persuasive and/or more empathic than one’s “typical” or “average” self. OTHER GEEK Sigourney Weaver in Rakka WT 320-629

How Memes Shape the Future Part 2, Best of TWT Jun 29, 2017

Show notes

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D talk more about memes. What are the memes that need to go away? What are the memes that need to be promoted? Some memes we're better off without: Racism Sexism Theocracy Luddism Slavery Death? Memes that need to be promoted Spock's Cheesboard Creativity as Important as Literacy Something is going to happen...something wonderful [This show first aired September 16, 2008.]

Barely Distinguishable from Magic Jun 28, 2017

Show notes

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke Phil and Stephen review technologies so advanced they border on the magical. Craig Venter’s ‘Digital-to-Biological Converter’ Is Real Right now, it prints proteins. In the far future, it could print human babies on Mars. The tabletop device is called the Digital-to-Biological Converter, or DBC for short, and without a fancy box it looks like a bunch of complicated mechanical crap laid out on a table. The device accepts digital representations of DNA over the internet and reconstructs them on the spot using the chemical building blocks of life—adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. Sound waves direct particles to self-assemble, self-heal An elegantly simple experiment with floating particles self-assembling in response to sound waves has provided a new framework for studying how seemingly lifelike behaviors emerge in response to external forces. The idea of creating a new universe in the lab is no joke In the 1980s, the cosmologist Alex Vilenkin at Tufts University in Massachusetts came up with a mechanism through which the laws of quantum mechanics could have generated an inflating universe from a state in which there was no time, no space and no matter. WT 319-628

Disruptive Technologies: Bringing in the Big Bucks Jun 27, 2017

Show notes

Phil and Stephen review seven big-money disruptive technologies as described in this piece on Singularity Hub. These 7 Disruptive Technologies Could Be Worth Trillions of Dollars 1. Deep Learning Could Be Worth 35 Amazons 2. Fleets of Autonomous Taxis to Overtake Automakers 3. 3D Printing Goes Big With Finished Products at Scale 4. CRISPR Starts With Genetic Therapy, But It Doesn’t End There 5. Mobile Transactions Could Grow 15x by 2020 6. Robotics and Automation to Liberate $12 Trillion by 2035 7. Blockchain and Cryptoassets: Speculatively Spectacular Join us! WT 318-627

All Stars Are Born in Pairs Jun 23, 2017

Show notes

Phil and Stephen review future-facing news on a variety of topics. Johns Hopkins researchers say they've unlocked key to cancer metastasis and how to slow it When the tumor reaches a certain density, the study found, it releases two proteins called Interleukin 6 and Interleukin 8, signaling to cancer cells that things had grown too crowded and it was time to break off and head into other parts of the body. New evidence that all stars are born in pairs We ran a series of statistical models to see if we could account for the relative populations of young single stars and binaries of all separations in the Perseus molecular cloud, and the only model that could reproduce the data was one in which all stars form initially as wide binaries. These systems then either shrink or break apart within a million years." Worm Grows 2 Heads in Space, Surprising Scientists Compared with a group of flatworms that never left Earth, the spacefaring worms showed some unexpected effects from their time off the planet: most notably, the rare sprouting of a second head in an amputated piece of a worm, the researchers documented in a new study. OTHER GEEK Developers Who Use Spaces Make More Money Than Those Who Use Tabs Texas: Geek Vacationer's Paradise WT 317-626

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