An excellent new essay by Patri Friedman, “Beyond Folk Activism,” discusses some fundamental shortcomings of traditional pro-freedom activism and suggests less intuitive but more powerful ways to overcome these shortcomings. As creatures who evolved in small tribes where everyone had the ability to directly speak to and persuade everyone else, we humans still have the intuition that by talking about an issue sufficiently with the people around us, we can effect substantial change. In the highly complex, technological civilization of modernity – with billions of people to persuade rather than tens – this approach does not work. The best kinds of activism are the ones that do not require the participation or even the agreement of the vast majority of people, and Friedman’s Seasteading project attempts to do just that. Generally, a more sophisticated and effective activist needs to focus on creating new kinds of goods – including technologies and capital goods – that advance the cause of liberty in themselves, without requiring the assent of the general society to be brought into existence.
Religions and religious doctrines evolve all the time – and this is a fact that warrants hope. I have long speculated that some future strains of Christianity might come to view the promise of resurrection as one of renewed life in this world – not in some ethereal Platonic world of souls that many Christians today seem to consider Heaven to be.
Robert Ettinger, the founder of the cryonics movement, wrote an excellent short story, “The Penultimate Trump,” in 1948. In this story, the suspended animation of humans enables them to be restored to life and youthfulness hundreds of years later. At that time, they are judged on the basis of their past actions and, if they committed sufficient misdeeds are flown to the penal colony on Mars, which has been renamed Hell. (I recommend everyone to read the full short story, so I will say no more on its contents.) Perhaps the promise of resurrection and judgment will be fulfilled through naturalistic means in this world – and cryonically preserved humans will indeed be judged by their more morally advanced future counterparts upon their revival.
An even more distant future possibility might be the revival of non-preserved humans from even a remoter past, if it ever becomes possible to reconstitute entire bodies and minds from the data included in whatever DNA samples from these persons might have remained. In this case, the “judgment” might consist of deciding whom to revive. We would want Leonardo da Vinci and Benjamin Franklin around, but not Hitler or Tamerlane.
I myself am an atheist, but I welcome any adjustments in the theological views of religious people that would render such persons more comfortable with and supporting of technological progress that will ultimately benefit us all.
Most problems in life are not great clashes of values or principles – either internal or external. Rather, they are technical issues – issues about how in particular to arrange the material world so as to minimize human suffering and maximize possible gain. When the best technical solutions to existing problems are not recognized, this is due more to many people’s stupidity than to their malice.
It is much more intuitive to see the world as composed of grand conflicts of visions – clashes of good versus evil – but the reality is much more tangled and particular. Only by looking at the particular, detailed, and minute – considerations of logistics, technology, communication, and incentives – is it possible to resolve most conflicts so that they do not even get to the “clash of visions” stage – as clashes of visions are simplistic mental shorthand for a large variety of particular technical miscalibrations.
On March 6, 2009, Chuck Grimmett delivered a presentation on the Hillsdale College campus, entitled, “An Introduction to Seasteading.” The presentation was sponsored by the Hillsdale Classical Liberal Organization and the Omicron Delta Epsilon economics honorary. The Power Point slides and Mr. Grimmett’s notes accompanying this presentation are available for free download here. Mr. Grimmett introduced the concept of seasteading – homesteading the high seas in search of greater political autonomy and experimentation with various kinds of social orders. Mr. Grimmett discussed what Seasteading is and some of the work of Patri Friedman and Wayne Gramlich at the Seasteading Institute. He also discussed the reasons for the seasteading approach in particular and how it could be expected to work. His notes and slides provide an excellent detailed introduction to this novel approach toward preserving liberty.
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Chuck Grimmett is a photographer and web designer. His blog, CAG, offers his ideas on economics, politics, liberty, and photography. He is also involved in an extensive photography project, Illum.
A highly laudable new invention will likely soon be adopted by the British military. It is d30, a gel that hardens immediately when it experiences a high-energy impact, such as the one created by a moving bullet. Thomas Harding’s article, “Military to use new gel that stops bullets,” describes this innovative new way of protecting the lives of soldiers in combat. Moreover, this gel is expected to be applied to many sporting goods as well to reduce the likelihood of injury due to an accident in such diverse pursuits as horseback riding, ballet, skiing, and hockey. The d30 gel is yet another triumph of human chemistry knowledge and engineering. It promises to make our lives safer and even to soften some of the devastating impact of wars. Perhaps civilians during wartime could also be outfitted with clothes containing this gel in order to minimize “collateral damage.” Humanitarian organizations could distribute such clothes to areas that are at risk of being subject to armed conflict.
Mike at Coated.com describes an eminently useful new invention developed at Draper Laboratories – a tattoo that enables diabetic patients to monitor their level of blood sugar without undergoing often troublesome blood tests. The tattoo changes color based on the amount of glucose in the bloodstream, so a moment’s glance will tell patients whether they are in the healthy range. Aside from removing the inconvenience and pain of using needles, this tattoo will enable a quicker response should abnormal glucose levels be detected.
The trend of technological progress is to make virtually everything less painful, less invasive, more customized and customizable, and empowering to the individual. This new tattoo will enable more diabetic patients to lead healthier, fuller lives.
Neil Gershenfeld is a professor at MIT, famous for his Fab Lab – of which there are now incarnations throughout the world, including in Ghana, India, and Norway. In this speech given at a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference, Dr. Gershenfeld explains that personal fabrication is already within reach today and can empower seemingly ordinary people all over the world to unleash and exercise their creativity. The new paradigm of personal fabrication will enable people to customize their lives not just by picking items they want from stores (as occurs today), but also by making the items that would improve their lives – in effect creating markets of one person for custom-made goods. Many of the Fab Labs cost less than $20,000 to create. Dr. Gershenfeld mentions a Ghanaian 8-year-old girl who created a product which would take multiple specialists in advanced countries to develop.
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In this speech given at a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference, philosopher Nick Bostrom discusses the three primary big problems affecting all of humankind today. These problems are so big – and they stare us so much in the face – that many of us are oblivious of their very existence, accepting them as inevitable, matter of course, or simply too overarching to focus on in our everyday lives. These problems are human mortality, threats to the survival of the human species, and as yet insufficient possibilities for personal fulfillment. Dr. Bostrom explains how future technologies might assist in overcoming these problems – possibly within our lifetimes.
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Dr. Nick Bostrom is an Oxford philosopher and transhumanist.
I was delighted to find out recently that my essay, “Liberation by Internet,” has been translated into Chinese. You can see the translation here and here. I appreciate the work of the translator, whom I will not mention by name, because I do not wish for the Chinese government’s attention to be drawn to him or her.
Chinese-speaking audiences will benefit from this essay in particular, as it explains how the Internet is a means for colossal, unprecedented individual emancipation from government oversight and control. The Chinese government has made futile attempts to censor Internet content by blocking certain search terms on search engines and monitoring some of its subjects’ Internet use. This, as my essay explains and the existence of its translation shows, is not enough to stop the spread of information to individuals who are interested in pursuing truth and liberty.
“Liberation by Internet” has been quite influential in recent months. It has been referenced in a commentary on the blog This is No Place, and I recently received an extensive e-mail from a long-operating computer entrepreneur who had read it and whose experiences corroborated my thesis.
Google and NASA have contributed funding and support to Singularity University, whose chancellor is to be none other than Dr. Ray Kurzweil, the renowned inventor and futurist who predicts a dramatic acceleration in the rate of technological progress – which will yield unprecedented solutions to many of the greatest problems currently confronting humanity.
According to its mission statement, “Singularity University aims to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity’s grand challenges.“
This institution is likely to contribute significantly to technological and scientific progress, as it will serve as a means of integrating knowledge from a variety of cutting-edge fields and thereby reversing much of the rigid compartmentalization that has occurred in many academic and technical disciplines during the twentieth century.
I look forward to seeing what ideas and innovations come out of Singularity University in the coming years.
