Way too much information...
So I blogged each of the PopTech! sessions, pretty much what I've done for the past few years, except typed rather than handwritten. In a database and searchable rather than buried somewhere on a shelf. (Where the hell are those notes? What did that mean?)
I'm hoping my colleagues (or perhaps others who went) will comment and round out my quick sketches.
Let me throw one out there for consideration: (If you want to comment about Aubrey, please comment to the linked post below).
Aubrey de Grey talks about the possibility of stopping the aging process in the near future (20-50 years). After stopping it, there's the possibility of reversing it - given more research.
Sound good? Possible immortality? Kurzweil said it last year - hang on long enough, and you could live forever.
But should we? In an overpopulated world, what is this self-indulgence? Limit or eliminate procreation? A world without children? Where those who hold the power do not leave?
What happens to our notions of death? of marriage (until death do us part...)? our penal system? suicide? war?
Would you want to live forever?
Unrefined notes of the sessions continued.
Other information regarding PopTech!
More links will be added as they're found...I'm sure there are some. Am placing all of these in a new category "PopTech 2003".
The last bit of the conference is Bob Metcalfe's summary of all of the conference sessions. Me writing about that would be like doing the One-Minute Encore of Tom Stoppard's 15-Minute Hamlet. So I stop here.
And a good time was had by all.
Technological change is making it easier for hatred to morph into organized violence.
Increasingly, freedom will be inversely proportional to the amount of hatred in the world.
Scientists look at the impossible, and scientists research in spite of the seemingly impossible. People marshall resources, strengthen resolve, and committment to make scientific and technological progress.
Similarly, we can do that toward the goal of peace.
HOPEFUL.
It is not surprising we are not hope full. That many are hope less. Not surprising in a world of media that shows stories that are sad, pessimistic and scary. These garner attention. These things sell air time and product. Conversely, hopeful stories do not sell. It is not a balanced view.
Admonishment - after each story say, "There is something I can change." "What can I do with that information?"
In response to those who say we've tried, it hasn't worked. We haven't tried. We haven't committed as yet. We haven't believed it was possible.
Me: Scott Hunt speaks earnestly to an attentive audience. He has one visual aid. The word "Hopeful" in white on a black space behind him. He is sincere.
Contrast to the previous talk.
Think globally. Think globally really hard. Think personally, hopefully, harmoniously. Interact with human dignity. The challenge is to allow people to pursue happiness as we pursue our own. Happy people do not start conflicts.
A journey of ten thousand miles begins with a simple step.
Human rights begin when we see one another as one great human family, and each person has the aspect of allah, buddha, and christ.
The most terrible weapons are intangible - greed, and anger. This type of disarmament is much more difficult.
Never give up. No matter what is going on around you. Never give up. We can't wait for our leaders to become enlightened, not the hand of God to intervene.
What lies before and behind us and before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.
-Emerson
Part of the reason the world mobilized against polio rather than measles, is that polio leaves deformed visible behind. Measles is a much larger killer. A non-killer here. Out of sight. Out of mind.
Malnutrition is a basic killer. Food - production of food, basic technology is not getting out to much of the world.
Condoms are a simple and boring technology. It's not getting out there to much of the world.
Filtering water - a basic technology is not getting out to much of the world. (Insert horrifying picture of a guinea worm, parasite eating flesh. Lethal. Horrible. Stoppable with filtered water).
"Think globally : Act locally"
No. Act globally.
There is much of the world that needs basic technologies - that provides opportunity for significant places to act. If some of the things that happened in the third world happened here, there would be revolution.
Public Goods are those which are open to all, that when given do not diminish what is available: sunshine, peace, stable governments...Global public goods have no proponents. (Nations may consider public goods locally, but there is no incentive to think globally). There is a need for cross border actors.
An AIDs vaccine is an example of global public good. It will not do anything for the individual. It will be taken to protect the community. It stops transmission, not healing the individual. It requires a change in the way we think. Thinking about larger communities rather than individual benefit/profit. The individual benefits, but does so within the context of the larger community. (This is the theme).
It is a complicated situation. If we take care of small measures, but do not address the systemic problems (poverty -- which causes ill health, destabilized governments), then we cure/or make better individuals who can then carry diseases to others- see AIDs.
There is some hope. Examples of pharmeceutical companies providing drugs and programs to vaccinate. Bono's work on debt relief for the third world.
We are uniquely positioned to act across borders. Motiviations: health security, moral inequity, or drive for new healthy markets. It doesn't matter.
Think Globally. Act Globally
Me: Discussions the previous night about working on longevity seems trivial in the face of much of the world no making it to thirty because of disease, malnutrition, poverty, political chaos, and ecconomics.
Holy vs. Profane
Sacred vs. Desecrated
We ignore the desecrated and profane. We preserve and revere the sacred.
Our current policy of ecological conservation -- national parks, reserves -- is inadequate to do the job of keeping the sacred. (It really wasn't this preachy, but Rosenzweig set up the metaphor but I'm running with it hard). This partchwork system is local in nature and does not address global warming, nor the impact of technology on the larger system of the world.
When you talk about wilderness, Size Matters.
More area = More Species.
Looking at the presevation model, and the land area devoted to preservation. It's not sufficient. The strategy we need to take is one of sharing. The profane needs to be reclaimed.
Reconciled ecosystems are a possibility. They are a reality. They are the answer.
COMMENT: Why don't we just let man die off?
HECKLER RESPONSE: We're working on it.
COMMENT: What is the first small thing I can do?
ANSWER: Join the Nature Conservancy,...work within the endangered species act, ask local ecologists in your colleges what you can do to encourage the flourishing of certain species in your area.
Me: Co-existing with nature. Interesting...There's something we haven't tried yet.
I wonder it there was some transcription/translation problem in Genesis. Did God really give us domain over all beast and animals, or was it supposed to be stewardship?
The cutting edge submersible is a garage project.
Good stories.
Just trust me.
Now I want to fly through water too.
Aristotle, Gallileo, Hawkes. <--- remember this progression. (He said to remember this).
Our habititat is a thin film on one third of the surface. Two thirds of the surface is underwater, but it is a three-dimensional space.
An ethnocentric view is that we are the center. But the earth is the center. Aristotle.
And this earth is a sphere.
Galileo.
90% of the earth is ocean. Past air, beyond coral reefs, is a tranquil beautiful place that is the primary habit of the planet. It stabilizes the film for us. It is stupidity that causes us to call this planet Earth.
Hawkes.
Brass Band Thing:
To explore the jungle lets lead a blaring brass band. Then we come back and say, "tigers do not exist. We didn't see anything. There are butterflies and flowers, but that's about it."
So we look for the giant squid...
good story.
TransHab is an inflatable spacecraft.
Human Factors engineer. The initial design treated the human inhabitants as an afterthought.
The challenge was to interpret specifications, separate functions, into metrics that the engineers would understand.
The trick was finding numbers that they would understand. 40,000.00/hr. Because of poor design, the astronauts were disoriented each time they entered a new node. It would take an hour to reorient themselves. Nothing is self-evident.
If you canít visualize it, donít build it.
In sketches, the drafters could not bring themselves to draw individuals using a single wall as a floor on both sides. (Astronauts on either side, feet planted on the same plane, one seemingly upside down). If they couldnít draw it, that meant they couldnít map it, which meant neither could the builders, nor the astronauts ñ it wonít work.
The progression fo the sketches, anecdotes of requirements, limitations, specifications and usability were fascinating.
The mantra ñ nothing is self-evident. Basic human needs are not at the forefront of the engineers in the design process ñ at least not historically at NASA, there is a definite need for a user advocate.
Itís designed, prototypedÖWhat next?
Everyone wants the future; no one wants to pay for it.
There is much to be learned about people living in a closed system. What we can learn so much jives with the UN Millennium Development Goals.
http://www.mother-ship.org
http://www.spacearchitect.org
http://www.earth.jsc.nsaa.gov/sseop/efs
Missed this one.
See JoHo the Blog.
The advent of the hydrogen ecconomy will merge transportation and power industries.
Tangent - refering to a slide of various energy systems, among the myriad systems are the words "the next". Caveat, no one can predict accurately what will happen, because there is the next thing is bound to screw everything up...and that's okay. Me: This gives me hope, as I am an optimisitic sort, and assume the next thing will be a better thing.
Fuel Cells explained...
Every major automotive producer is working on fuel cells. But there has been little innovation in fuel cell development. There has been little change in the basic configuration of the fuel cell since the early 90s.
The end goal...
The scenario: your car plugs into a charger in your garage. If the grid goes out, you flip a switch and your car powers your home. Your car powers your lakeside home which is off the grid.
When? The above is 20-50 years away. In the meantime, it needs to be implemented in industry. It needs to drop in price per kiloWatt.
There are direct relationships between energy per capita cost and quality of life and ecconomic development. If 12% of us wreak havoc as we have, and the remaining 88% follow our example, it will spell doom for the earth.
Time to transition to something else.
In between sessions there are small segments.
A beautiful in-between bit was a showing of Bjork's All is Full of Love.
The knowledge economy. (look up linguistic genomics)
Flavors of knowledge (grecian flavors)
edos - the appearance of truth, knowledge of what you can perceive
gnosis - thoughtful contemplation, discerned by a group of individuals
Which knowledge is the basis of our ecconomy?
Lots of examples of corrupt ecconomic transactions. Much gesticulating. It's socio-politcal-fiscal church. Preach, brother, preach. (Not being cynical, it's the revival-like presentation...actually enjoying the rhythm and cadence of the delivery).
"Unless we have gnosis we have no knowledge. Unless we get rid of counterfeit, we have no ecconomy."
I have no words to say what I just saw. Here is an attempt...
House and Garden DNA, talking to aliens, maps, codes, external female genitalia has been absent in our communication attempts with aliens. Communication liklihood is sketchy and unlikely. Asynchronous communication when you're talking light years and centuries is a bitch.
There are pictures in our DNA.
Know thyself.
The riddle of life - becomes code - code becomes DNA - DNA becomes organism - the organism is art (but you really have to be in the know to know it is communicating to you).
Dave Weinberger is also commenting/summarizing the conference.
http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/mtarchive/002101.html
I know this because Liz told me via IM as she reads about us while she attends AOIR in Toronto.
In the 90's we moved from a focus upon the funcional to where design matters.
Asethetics- here- is that which communicates through the senses, non-cognitive effect.
(See Ellen Dissanyake, Homo Aestheticus)
This is Style not Design, because that is not a discussion of function. Design inlcudes universals, and cultural notions of what gives pleasure.
The Substance of STyle:
"I like that."
"I'm like that."
Function and price have become givens. Aesthetics becomes the new axis of focus. It is the means to differentiate products, and this is also becoming a concern of regular consumers (read that as not necessarily those with good taste or artistic sensibilities).
"There's no such thing as an un-designed graphic object anymore, and there used to be." -Michael Beirut, graphic designer
Ford is to mass production : as MacDonalds is to convenience : as Starbucks is to style.
Everyone wants to be Starbucks. Textures, colors, lighting. Ditto in terms of the personal...personal attention, hair coloring, manicures, decoration of self - all on the rise.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY = AESTHETIC TECHNOLOGY
Good design is not about making the one perfect thing any more, but allowing people to make their own choices to make themselves happy.
*Note to self: buy the book. This is just the thing...tie Backs to notions of truth and beauty, aesthetics as being a means of guaging validity.
There are spaces worth caring about, public and private. Buildings designed like DVD players. Car strip mall kmart walmart accomodating cluster fuck. (Wish I had all the words that were in the mini diatribe string.)
Successful places have an active and permeable edge.
How hard can this be? Shops on the bottom that go up to the sidewalk. Other stuff going on above the shops.
The role of green in City Center is formal. Not a cartoon of the north woods. The remedy for mutilated is not green bandaids. The way to fix it is to redesign cities.
Cities became an urban horror. Suburbs were a response. A fake cabin in the woods. We no longer get country living. We get a cartoon of country living, in a cartoon of country life. Our architecture (flat, planed, disinfected), cities and burbs, reflects our fragmented culture. Community is fractured by the spaces we have.
We can't continue. The car culture is finite. We will be fighting over oil with people who don't like us. Communities have to be rescaled. We will have to live closer together. Cities will have to get smaller, we will grow food closer to where we live, travel less. Period.
The response- new urbanism. Human habitat, livable space...it is an ecosystem. An organism.
Kevin Sites had to shut down the blog after war broke out. CNN told him to shut down. After he was captured and released. He resigned from CNN.
He was hired by NBC, but made a rquirement that he be allowed to blog as part of his contract.
He is now stationed in Iraq.
What Xeni is doing is explaining the power of the blog to the unitiated. Kevin, a journalist, has opportunity to speak with his own voice - a voice that is his own rather than the sanctioned voice of the broadcast newscaster.
It's personal. It's human.
Me : I remember how the professor leaves her context. That there is something intimate about looking behind the curtain. That there is value to closing the distance between people and while there are needs for walls, that shared humaness changes the scale of events.
War is a large vista. Hard to understand. Like any narrative, it is through the protagonist that we find a point of view, an entrance into something large foreign and incomprehensible. The writer becomes our eyes. Our filter. Our means of making sense of a world too large.
Weblog ecosystem, Power Laws, Fake Estate and the Media.
Other Shirky links:
Everyone is connected to everyone else. This is a loose conversation. Not all nodes connect to one another, but by hops, one can navigate to all nodes.
Some links have more links than others. These are preferential connectivities. The patterns arise from uncoordinated linkages. Technorati, blogdex scan the weblogs hourly and indicates who is linking to whom.
This is an indication of audience ñ reader distribution.
Distribution is a Power Law curve.
Top 100 ends at 642 inbound links.
The Average is not the median. Most webloggers have below weblog traffic.
The 80/20 rule. Because of the constant left-hand pull. (50/5) Half the readership is taken by the top 5%. Adding more people makes this more unequal. It started unequal and is becoming more so.
Out in the tail, the clusters are tighter. More like friendship than publishing. The interconnections are structured more like dinner conversation, rather than wide publication. Loose conversation gives way to clusters as one goes to the tail.
As one goes to the left, the pattern is more a broadcast pattern. A one way direction. Readers cannot comment to one another. Comments donít scale.
This pattern is applicable to other social environments.
Whoever is most connected is likely to have great social skills and some power.
This says something about media. Media is handled like real estate. Regulatory agencies treat radio and tv tis way.
Weblogs are different in these manners:
Therefore when we look at weblog distribution, what we are seeing are purely social patterns.
Conclusions:
Question: Are all links created equal? Will there be a rise of authorative links?
Answer: The filtering is added after the fact. Google uses a page rank theorem. Those that have a lot of links, are assumed to be authorative, and are therefore weighted more. Google doesnít like blogs because of the web log. But in time, there will be some different means of finding authorictive voice.
Unrefined Notes from PopTech!:
Moderator for the various sessions- Dr. Moira Gunn
The Axial Age
875-0 BC.
Greece: Parmenides, Socrates (469-399), Plato
Middle: East Elijah (875-848) Jeremiah, Jesus (0-33)
China: Lao Tso, Confucious
India: Upanishads, Buddha
Iran Plateau: Zoroaster (628-551)
Pre-Axial age had local gods. It didnít scale well. Forces at work- rapid urbanization, new kinds of market economies, mass movements of people, powerful new technologies.
All the major faiths evolved at this time. The emergence of soma, the individual.
Why? It is the natural order of things. These ideas followed the global trade networks.
Are we living in a second one? What would we expect if we were?
| Pre-Axial Age | Axial Age | Second Axial Age? |
| rural | urban | global |
| tribal | individual | networked |
| group conduct | personal conduct | commnal conduct |
| constant or cyclic time | progressive time | ??? |
| land of the dead | heaven and earth | here and now |
| spiritual mainframe | spiritual client-server | spirtual peer to peer? |
The current ethical scales may not be sufficient for our time.
Traditional systems do not have answers to some of our current issues. How do we respond to the possibility of immortality. Brain stimulation, augmentation. Genetic manipulation. Interspecies embryo.
Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS)
Translations
Senescence - the process that progressively reduces an organisms remaining life expectancy.
The goal is that we are able to treat aging as we do tuberculosis - that it can be treated, even though one is already "suffering" it, and reversed.
"I am different than Michael (see above). But Michael and I are in agreement that we thing aging is barbaric...I am a theoretician. That means I don't have a grant." <--the take away line.
The point is that we have been resigned to the notion that we will get old and die. The presenter suggests we need not believe this. (the prevention/retardation of aging).
He outlined the 7 major causes of degeneration. Each of the 7 major causes havebeen reversed or obviated by specific techniques. (Robust Mouse Rejuvenation).
It's not only mice. The leap to humans is not long.
Prediction - stick around as long as 2020 (perhaps longer) and this could be you. Negligible senescence is essentially stopping the clock. Then after that we can work on reversing the clock.
If you can make it through the next 30 years you may make it indefinitely.
Methuselamouse.org
ìYou may think Iím wrong. My answer is ëSo what?íî
http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens/
(In response to the implications of overpopulation)
ìI wonít waffle about that. There will be a need for draconian measures. Perhaps sterilization. But the right to procreate will never be valued more than a living personís right to live. Not doing this means people will die.î
ìDoes that mean there will be a world without children?î
ìYes, that will mean a world without children.î
(He had me going until thenÖ.)
STEM cells are used in research to make the following...
Cloning is not that big a deal.
The powerful thing is that we can play god. We can make fetuses or people.
The focus of this talk is that cloning can be used for generating specific cells. What are the implications for aging? Senescent cells (cells that no longer regenerate) can be cloned. The cloned cells can regenerate - effectively turning back the clock.
The first uses will be (not making kidneys, or lungs) but blood forming cells. If these are injected into the blood, they find their ways back to the marrow, and behave as young cells. So far this has been done in animals. Humans to follow.
"You are only as old as your arteries." (He says people say this.)
There is evidence by reintroducing some of these young cells, arteries begin to reform. The plumbing is repairing itself.
There is the potential to reverse the clock.
Audience member question : Doesn't death have a function?
Response : We grow old after procreation is done...so it isn't so much a matter of selective process prevention.
(MeÖhow long are we meant to be here? While bodies may eventually have unlimited shelf life, there may be a limit to how much change a mind can handle, how long one may be fit to be on the earth, how long before one should step aside for the next generation).
Check out Golanís work at flong.com.
Golanís work is highly interactive and begs to be played with. Some interactive pieces are not so inviting, not so, these works. Playing with sound, images and causality, Levin invites the viewer to play.
Shadow speakers spout phonemes, rounded or spiky shapes (depending upon the sound made). Another one allows players using special glasses to see 3-D amorphous forms streaming out of their mouths as they speak. Those involved, without self-consciousness play with plosives and mmís, ohís barks, yips ñ to see the forms they can create and shoot out to others across the table.
Too much frickiní fun. I want to play. I want to make more toys like these.
The word is Methane.
Peter listed the myriad ways we could have the end of the world as we know it. (Sing with me nowÖ)
Weíre talking seriously large time scales here, far beyond my tiny human brain can conceive. But kudos to the man for making a few picture worth a thousand word correlations.
For example, itís about location, location, location.
Apparently there is a limited band of good real estate. The outer periphery of our galaxy is too something, but I remember it was bad. The galactic doughnut hole was also bad as there is greater liklihood of supernovas, black holes and rogue comets taking us out. Weíre in a fairly safe backwater.
Getting hit only once with a mondo comet in our earth history is actually a pretty good track record.
Comet. WHAM! 60% of life on earth. Phht.
But that was nothing compared to an earlier catastrophe where huge amounts of methane were released into the atmosphere. There, 90% Phhbbbt.
Why should we be concerned? The earth has been fairly stable for a long time. Swings in temperature in either direction ñ tropical dinosaur-like heat or glacial mastadon-like cold = BAD.
His suggestion? Vote for somebody who cares about the Kyoto Agreement.
First of all...he's every bit as cool as I'd hoped he'd be.
Battery is dying, refined post to come. In the meantime...go to Creative Commons and to his blog.
Update: Lessig presented a compelling argument for free markets. In the 1800ís, Daguerre had made the daguerrotype. It was expensive. Showed graph of acceptance of the technology. Slight slope, slow adoption.
Contrasted with the invention of ìthe Kodakî, George Eastmanís inexpensive camera, and the subsequent graph indicating a steep slope, fast adoption of the camera.
The point was this: at around the time of Eastmanís burgeoning camera endeavor, the question of permission came up. Must one ask permission to take oneís image? (Some did fear that the camera sucked onesí soul.) The courts said ìnoî. No permission necessary.
If permission had been required, what would have happened to the adoption of the camera? Slight slope, slow adoption.
Clear.
Lessig compared that to the notion of copyright. In terms of a bookÖwhen you read a book, you do not make a copy. When you give it to someone else, you are not making a copy. When you sell the book, you are not making a copy. Not even transforming it.
But in digital form, every thing you get from the net, by its nature, is a copy. An image downloaded to your disk is a copy of the image which remains on the server. Copyright law doesnít take into account the nature of the internet and its transfer of intangible bits.
Someone brought up the notion of stealing a CD from Tower RecordsÖwouldnít that be the same as downloading 10 MP3s?
Lessigís answer: The fine for stealing a CD would be about a grand. The RIAA is charging fifteen hundred per MP3, so that would be 150,000.00. So the answer, not even close.
This is a war on piracy.
This is a war against children.
Definitions
1. Anything involving atoms and molecules (a business dumbed down version)
2. (NSF) The essence of nanote is the ability to work at the molecular levelÖto create large structures with fundamentally new molecular organization
3. Nanomachines with atomic precision
Patent process is a challenge. (See Lessig)
ìThe goal is calm clear thinking about abstract complex scary topicsÖdiscuss early so those with short trend attention spans get bored and drop out before decision time.î
http://www.foresight.org/
http://www.nanodot.org/
Nanosystems, Engines of Creation
Genomics is a baby step in the process of unraveling who we are. Baby structures in the sense that they are linear structures.
The distance between discovery of a sequence and medical application is arduousÖbut despite that we are learning the workings of life. In referencing the previous lecture, we are exploring, we are mapping the territory of biology.
Important questions are who is leading the exploration, who is taking control, and what will happen to these new domains.
There are two major directions.
The insertion of this information into into non-living things. Nanotechnology. Hardware. Software.
The genomics revolution. Proteomics. Pharmocomogenoics. (Tailored drugs). Seizing control of our evolutionary future. Life is taking conscious control of itself. Wetware.
How are these two directions related?
It will change what we feel. (mind altering, emotion altering pharmaceuticals)
It will change how we have children.
It will change how long we live.
It will change what it means to be aliveÖto be human.
As we learn our vulnerabilities, we will change from a reactive to proactive medicine.
We are only different by 1/1000 of genetic material. But as competing biological organisms, we are extremely aware of these differences. The differences affect our choice of mate, aging, choice of shortstop. (This is the day after the Yankees won yet again).
A question from the audience: After providing examples of cancer, flesh eating bacteria, asbestos, PCBs. Could be being on the boat be the thing that takes us out? (People who got onto the Titanic also thought it was the boat to be onÖ)
Speaker: Taking a historical perspectiveÖ50 years ago, living to age 45 was a good thing. I am not of the opinion that carcinogens are all man-made.
Alzheimers, Parkinsons disease are now an issue.
(My mental response- these were not an issue before people lived this long).
Speaker: We are talking about dangers that people would have laughed at in the 18th century.
Maps matter.
It is possible to create accurate, clear maps of the current terrain (scientific, geographic, cultural)...and you may still not know where you are, or where it will take you.
The most important map in recent history is that of the human genome.
Code matters.
Codes (images, icons) become codified. You are no longer need to be present to transmit. You can speak over time to people far away over time and space. Alphanumeric systems are extremely efficient. Digital code is even more so. Ones and Oh s are simple. Images, languages, music can all be collapsed into ones and ohs...the digital century.
NOW
The code is biological. Ones and ohs give way to a-t-c-g. Read the code, you figure out the figure out what IT is. Execute the code, you make the thing. Genomes are the source code for things. Oligos are the building blocks of biological things.
If you know the source code and know how to execute it, you can manipulate it...chickens with three wings. If you can do that maybe we can thing about how to regrow human limbs, a new liver, a new heart.
Those that were digitally illiterate became very poor. (Example: France- the internet preceded ours by a decade. They were a closed system. The University of Damascus was THE center of thought, research, science. They "got off the boat". Societies that get so scared of change, give up thought research- the cost? The culture may remain--for a while, but it is also the death knell of progress and power.)
Now. We need to be bilogically literate.