The latest episode of the Sentient Developments podcast is up.

This week I discuss primal transhumanism and the seemingly contradictory trend towards ancestral health that’s happening in the futurist community. To that end I address the paleo diet, functional fitness, and the importance of sleep. In the second half of the episode I discuss the recent lawsuit launched by PETA in which they accuse SeaWorld of enslaving orca whales. In this suit, PETA claims that the US Constitution backs up their claim as the 13th mention makes no mention of the kinds of persons it’s set up to protect.

iTunes people can subscribe here. Or you can just subscribe to the RSS. You can download the episode directly here (mp3).

I tend to have a love/hate relationship with PETA. The hate part, I’d say, stems from their often outlandish, sensationalistic and highly inappropriate campaigns.Their tactics often hint at a rather underdeveloped and unsophisticated approach to animal welfare. Can it truly be said that PETA has made a difference to animals?

Regardless, every once in a while PETA does something that makes me realize that I can’t stay mad at them for long, and this is one of those times: PETA is accusing SeaWorld of enslaving orca whales—and they’re using the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution to enforce their claim. According to the PETA website:

In the first case of its kind, PETA, three marine-mammal experts, and two former orca trainers are filing a lawsuit asking a federal court to declare that five wild-caught orcas forced to perform at SeaWorld are being held as slaves in violation of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The filing—the first ever seeking to apply the 13th Amendment to nonhuman animals—names the five orcas as plaintiffs and also seeks their release to their natural habitats or seaside sanctuaries.

The suit is based on the plain text of the 13th Amendment, which prohibits the condition of slavery without reference to “person” or any particular class of victim. “Slavery is slavery, and it does not depend on the species of the slave any more than it depends on gender, race, or religion,” says general counsel to PETA, Jeffrey Kerr.

The five wild-captured orca plaintiffs are Tilikum and Katina (both confined at SeaWorld Orlando) and Kasatka, Corky, and Ulises (all three confined at SeaWorld San Diego).

“All five of these orcas were violently seized from the ocean and taken from their families as babies. They are denied freedom and everything else that is natural and important to them while kept in small concrete tanks and reduced to performing stupid tricks,” says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. “The 13th Amendment prohibits slavery, and these orcas are, by definition, slaves.”

This is all sorts of awesome, particularly the language being used—namely the language of nonhuman personhood. I am absolutely on board with this suit. The orca whale, along with other cetaceans, are most certainly persons (see What is a person?). Furthermore, I’d say the same consideration should be given to other nonhuman persons, including elephants and all the great apes (which would have implications for zoos and circuses).

I’m also excited to see that the US Constitution is being interpreted and applied in this way. Because the 13th Amendment makes no mention of human persons per se, it can be assumed that all persons, regardless of species, should be included. Personally, I don’t think this is a trick of language or omission; I believe it’s within the spirit of the law.

And at the heart of the matter, of course, is the issue of animal exploitation—the suggestion that highly sapient and emotional creatures are being used as slaves. As I’ve written before (see Putting an end to dolphin exploitation at aquatic theme parks), these nonhuman animals are capable of exhibiting their discontent and dissatisfaction with their conditions—whether it be through their body language, disobedience, or the expression of sheer emotional defeat. That an animal rights group is working to protect their interests with an existing body of law is exciting. It’s exactly what we’re trying to do at the Rights of Non-Human Persons Program, which is to give these nonhuman persons the same legal protections that humans have.

Now all this said, PETA and company have their work cut out for them. Just because I agree with their interpretation of the Constitution doesn’t mean that the courts will. In fact, the courts will likely err on the side of prejudice and ignorance, and proclaim that PETA’s claim is not within the “spirit” of the Constitution, or some other unimaginative drivel like that.

Indeed, a quick scan of the media’s coverage of PETA’s lawsuit is discouraging. Most outlets are using disparaging language to describe PETA’s efforts and are lumping it in with their other “outrageous stunts” (see TIME’s coverage).

It’s also obvious that the lucrative aquatic theme park industry will not go down without a fight. As highlighted in the documentary, The Cove, this is big business with global reach.

And regrettably, there is already a segment of the population that is taking great offence to this issue. Take the response of David Steinberg, a professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, who called the suit “patently, absolutely frivolous”:

The 13th Amendment abolished the abhorrent, despicable practice of the slavery of human beings. PETA is demeaning the integrity and humanity of people who were owned as slaves. That is outrageous.

Steinberg’s contention, that we shouldn’t recognize nonhuman persons as slaves because it would demean those whose ancestors were once held as slaves, is deeply problematic. It is this exact sentiment that must be addressed, combated, and ultimately destroyed if the supporters of this issue wish to succeed. Nothing is preventing the furthering of animal rights more than this idea—and it’s the same idea that has prevented the broadening of rights throughout human history. It’s the seemingly endless reprise of the situation in which the “in” group, for whatever reason, is reluctant to expand the circle of rights and include the “out” group because it would somehow lessen or threaten what it means to be in the “in” group. What it is is patent nonsense.

Steinberg’s comment is particularly pernicious for three reasons.

First, it’s the seductive and easy response—the one that appeals to most people’s conservative nature and their reluctance to think too deeply about instigating change. Most people don’t like to upset the apple cart.

Second, it represents the exact opposite of what would actually happen. Protecting and broadening the rights of minority groups can only increase the dignity and integrity of both those who grant them and those who would benefit from them. It’s what makes an enlightened and progressive society exactly that—it’s what endows our species with the integrity and humanity that Steinberg claims is under threat.

Third, the claim that some people might feel lessened or demeaned by the suggestion that some nonhuman persons are slaves still doesn’t make it right or invalid. People get offended all the time. We can’t let that stop the correct course of action. Taking offence to something, or feeling “demeaned” by a piece of legislation, is not the fault of the legislation. Rather, it’s the fault of the person allowing themselves to feel that way. It’s a kind of “yuck factor ethics“, which is not really ethics at all. Furthermore, granting rights to nonhuman persons would in no real or tangible way lessen what it means to be human. We’ll retain our humanity and our rights regardless of whether or not we grant them outside the species.

My suspicion is that the fear driving this sentiment is that we’d lose our exalted human place on top of the food chain. Well, to that I say: Too bad. Rights and protections need to be granted to those who both deserve and need them.

Best of luck to PETA as they move to push this law suit forward.

Nice quote from Hanson:

“When machines are really powerful and can do lots of things you only need to own a few machines to be able to own a lot and survive and be prosperous and wealthy. So, once machines are so good that people can’t compete with them we will have a vastly [more] prosperous world where we have all these productive machines and owning some of these machines will be enough. We need to make a smooth transition so that people start to buy capital so that they can own these machines and be productive and wealthy.”

The episode is from the PBS show, “Ideas in Action”, which in this segment features a half hour discussion about information technology — in particular robots/AI — and its impact on the future job market and economy. The show will air on PBS stations beginning this Sunday, but is available online now.

The New York Times has published an article about how robotics, automation and information technologies are increasingly impacting on the dwindling job market. The article was posted in consideration of a new book titled Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. Excerpt from the NYT article:

Technology has always displaced some work and jobs. Over the years, many experts have warned — mistakenly — that machines were gaining the upper hand. In 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes warned of a “new disease” that he termed “technological unemployment,” the inability of the economy to create new jobs faster than jobs were lost to automation.

But Mr. Brynjolfsson and Mr. McAfee argue that the pace of automation has picked up in recent years because of a combination of technologies including robotics, numerically controlled machines, computerized inventory control, voice recognition and online commerce.

Faster, cheaper computers and increasingly clever software, the authors say, are giving machines capabilities that were once thought to be distinctively human, like understanding speech, translating from one language to another and recognizing patterns. So automation is rapidly moving beyond factories to jobs in call centers, marketing and sales — parts of the services sector, which provides most jobs in the economy.

Here’s a description of the book:

Why has median income stopped rising in the US?

Why is the share of population that is working falling so rapidly?

Why are our economy and society are becoming more unequal?

A popular explanation right now is that the root cause underlying these symptoms is technological stagnation– a slowdown in the kinds of ideas and inventions that bring progress and prosperity.

In Race Against the Machine, MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee present a very different explanation. Drawing on research by their team at the Center for Digital Business, they show that there’s been no stagnation in technology — in fact, the digital revolution is accelerating. Recent advances are the stuff of science fiction: computers now drive cars in traffic, translate between human languages effectively, and beat the best human Jeopardy! players.

As these examples show, digital technologies are rapidly encroaching on skills that used to belong to humans alone. This phenomenon is both broad and deep, and has profound economic implications. Many of these implications are positive; digital innovation increases productivity, reduces prices (sometimes to zero), and grows the overall economic pie.

But digital innovation has also changed how the economic pie is distributed, and here the news is not good for the median worker. As technology races ahead, it can leave many people behind. Workers whose skills have been mastered by computers have less to offer the job market, and see their wages and prospects shrink. Entrepreneurial business models, new organizational structures and different institutions are needed to ensure that the average worker is not left behind by cutting-edge machines.

In Race Against the Machine Brynjolfsson and McAfee bring together a range of statistics, examples, and arguments to show that technological progress is accelerating, and that this trend has deep consequences for skills, wages, and jobs. The book makes the case that employment prospects are grim for many today not because there’s been technology has stagnated, but instead because we humans and our organizations aren’t keeping up.

The latest episode of the Sentient Developments podcast has been posted.

This week I discuss bulletproof coffees, my visit to Occupy Toronto, Propaganda 2.0 and the rise of narrative networks, Ray Kurzweil’s response to Paul Allen, and the potential link between ETI’s and time travel.

iTunes people can subscribe here. Or you can just subscribe to the RSS. You can download the episode directly here (mp3).

The Occupy Wall Street chant of, “We are the 99%” got me thinking: Where do I stand in terms of wealth from a global perspective? Thankfully, I found an online calculator, the Global Rich List, that helped me find the answer.

To my surprise, I am firmly placed within the top 1% as far as global salaries go–and chances are you are, too. If you make more than USD$47,500 per year, then you are the top 1%. Going down from there, you are in the top 5% if your annual salary is $35,000, and within the top 10% if it’s at at least $25,000. This is what happens when you have a planet of 6.8 billion people and 80% of them live on less than $10 a day.

So just keep that in mind when you smugly proclaim that you’re one of the have-nots.

Taking a more local perspective, and considering just the United States alone (I unfortunately do not have figures for elsewhere), if your salary is $87,000 you are within the top 10%. You’re in the top 5% if you make at least $120,000. Median salary in the U.S. is around $25,000. Further breakdowns are available here.

DARPA, the Pentagon’s advanced concepts think-tank, is looking to take propaganda to the next level and they’re hoping to do so by controlling the very way their targets perceive and interpret the flow of incoming information. The Pentagon believes that by engaging in ‘narrative control’ they can alter an individual’s grasp on reality and the way in which they evaluate current events. Simply put, DARPA is looking to shape minds with stories.

Now, this isn’t an entirely new concept. The notion of narrative control, or narrative networks, has been bunted around for a few years now.

It’s been said that history books are written by the victors. Well, these days hopeful victors are trying to write current events. State actors are increasingly disclosing information in a way that constructs a kind of story. It’s through the careful construction of desirable narratives that state actors are hoping to control the beliefs and actions of targeted audiences. It’s a classic case of the pen being mightier than the sword — but in this case it’s a pen that digs deep into the very psyche of the individual.

The United States has been engaging in narrative control for quite some time now. Most recently, during the Arab Spring, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton weaved a tale that suggested a certain level of inevitability to the events unfolding in the Middle East. One by one, she contended, authoritarian and fundamentalist nations were being overthrown by angry and forward-looking populaces. It’ll only be a matter of time, Clinton argued, before the entire Middle East goes through a transformation that sees all its countries embrace democracy, secular institutions, and unprecedented freedoms.

Now I’m not suggesting that this isn’t a valid interpretation of events. It very well may be. But what’s important to understand here is that the U.S. is presenting this narrative in a very overt and calculated way. For many of those in the Middle East, the story is most certainly compelling and potentially inspiring. And for those sitting on the fence or considering radical action, this story of apparent inevitability may compel them to join the “winning team.” It’s through this kind of narrative control and reality building that the U.S. hopes to fight terrorism and the spread of radical Islam.

But now DARPA wants to take this further and make it more scientific and systematic. They recently put out a request for research proposals in the areas of:

• Quantitative analysis of narratives
• Understanding the effects narratives have on human psychology and its affiliated neurobiology
• Modeling, simulating, and sensing-especially in stand-off modalities-these narrative influences

DARPA would like to revolutionize the study of narrative influence by “advancing narrative analysis and neuroscience so as to create new narrative influence sensors, doubling status quo capacity to forecast narrative influence.”

This is pretty heavy stuff. They’re asking scientists to “take narratives and make them quantitatively analyzable in a rigorous, transparent and repeatable fashion.” Once such a system is put into place, the Pentagon will be able to detect terrorists or other non-state actors who have been indoctrinated with a particular ideology or worldview, and then respond with a counter-message of its own. As Dawn Lim notes in Wired, “They can also target groups vulnerable to terrorists’ recruiting tactics with their own counter-messaging.”

Lim describes how the project will unfold:

In the first 18-month phase of the program, the Pentagon wants researchers to study how stories infiltrate social networks and alter our brain circuits. One of the stipulated research goals: to “explore the function narratives serve in the process of political radicalization and how they can influence a person or group’s choice of means (such as indiscriminate violence) to achieve political ends.”

Once scientists have perfected the science of how stories affect our neurochemistry, they will develop tools to “detect narrative influence.” These tools will enable “prevention of negative behavioral outcomes … and generation of positive behavioral outcomes, such as building trust.” In other words, the tools will be used to detect who’s been controlled by subversive ideologies, better allowing the military to drown out that message and win people onto their side.

“The government is already trying to control the message, so why not have the science to do it in a systematic way?” said the researcher familiar with the project.

When the project enters into a second 18-month phase, it’ll use the research gathered to build “optimized prototype technologies in the form of documents, software, hardware and devices.” What will these be? Existing technology can carry out micro-facial feature analysis, and measure the dilation of blood vessels and eye pupils. MRI machines can determine which parts of your brain is lighting up when it responds to stories. Darpa wants to do even better.

DARPA is even calling for devices that detect the influence of stories in unseen ways: “Efforts that rely solely on standoff/non-invasive/non-detectable sensors are highly encouraged.”

“Stories are important in security contexts,” DARPA argues, “[stories] change the course of insurgencies, frame negotiations, play a role in political radicalization, influence the methods and goals of violent social movements.” Indeed, they’ve been thinking a lot about this recently, as indicated by their April workshop to discuss the neurobiology of narratives.

When it comes to security, little consideration is given to ethics. Now, while I’m somewhat partial to this approach on account of its bloodlessness, I have to admit that the potential for abuse is astonishing. Once these narrative networks reach full maturity they could be used to indoctrinate not just enemy populations, but more familiar ones as well. The very ways in which domestic affairs are perceived could be colored by a security department hoping to create a docile and abiding population.

That said, the efficacy of narrative networks has yet to be determined. The Internet and other communications networks may serve as a kind of prophylactic against narrow bands of information. Moreover, populations may become primed against such efforts in the same way current societies are (relatively) immune to traditional and obvious methods of propaganda.

As a final word, this topic interests me greatly as it relates to memetics, memetic engineering, and the whole concept of cultural health. In this context, the struggle against religious fundamentalism is a struggle against the onset and dissemination of bad memes. Fundamentalist memeplexes can be interpreted as information viruses that are running amok in the human population. Perhaps it’s not too outrageous to suggest that we should counter bad ideas with good ideas — or at least better ideas that lead to more rational thinking, criticality and independent thought.

The best defense against religious extremism is a mind primed to reject those ideas in the first place.

A new episode was released yesterday and it can be downloaded here (mp3). I talk about the Technological Singularity (in honour of the recently concluded Singularity Summit 2011 in NYC) and the Occupy Wall Street movement.

From the article, “Evolve: A case for modernization as the road to salvation” by Michael Shellenberg and Ted Norhaus:

The question for humanity, then, is not whether humans and our civilizations will survive, but rather what kind of a planet we will inhabit. Would we like a planet with wild primates, old-growth forests, a living ocean, and modest rather than extreme temperature increases? Of course we would—virtually everybody would. Only continued modernization and technological innovation can make such a world possible.


Putting faith in modernization will require a new secular theology consistent with the reality of human creation and life on Earth, not with some imagined dystopia or utopia. It will require a worldview that sees technology as humane and sacred, rather than inhumane and profane. It will require replacing the antiquated notion that human development is antithetical to the preservation of nature with the view that modernization is the key to saving it. Let’s call this “modernization theology.”


Where ecotheology imagines that our ecological problems are the consequence of human violations of a separate “nature,” modernization theology views environmental problems as an inevitable part of life on Earth. Where the last generation of ecologists saw a natural harmony in Creation, the new ecologists see constant change. Where ecotheologians suggest that the unintended consequences of human development might be avoidable, proponents of modernization view them as inevitable, and positive as often as negative. And where the ecological elites see the powers of humankind as the enemy of Creation, the modernists acknowledge them as central to its salvation.


Modernization theology should thus be grounded in a sense of profound gratitude to Creation—human and nonhuman. It should celebrate, not desecrate, the technologies that led our prehuman ancestors to evolve. Our experience of transcendence in the outdoors should translate into the desire for all humans to benefit from the fruits of modernization and be able to experience similar transcendence. Our valorization of creativity should lead us to care for our cocreation of the planet.

Read more of my perspective, Hear that? It’s the Singularity coming.

Read Paul Allen’s post, The Singularity Isn’t Near.

Like many people these days I’ve been thinking about the Occupy Wall Street movement. My mind’s been spinning as I try to figure out what it’s all about and what the movement might actually be capable of achieving. My thinking in these early days is equal parts hopefulness to outright cynicism. As I mentioned in a tweet earlier today, corporatism survived 60 years of communist onslaught; it should have no problem weathering this storm.

Or perhaps I’m overstating the whole thing. Maybe it’s just about applying fixes to a system that’s gone a bit haywire. And if that’s the case, then great. I wish the protesters the best of luck.

But part of my concern is that, aside from some mild reforms that may come out of all this, the overriding and highly globalized capitalist system isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It’s pretty entrenched and not easily rocked. The 99% are going to have to get comfortable with being a part of the disenfranchised majority for some time to come. This isn’t like the situation in the Middle East; there’s not going to be an Arab Spring on this side of the ocean any time soon.

Indeed, while there’s no question that Occupy Wall Street was inspired by the Arab Spring, there’s significant discrepancy in the underlying causes of these two social movements.

The situation in the West stands in stark contrast to recent events in the Middle East in which a number of countries were simply working to overthrow authoritarian regimes and get to democracy in the first place. The Middle East is currently struggling through puberty. It’s a part of the world that’s still coming to grips with modernity and socio-economic globalization. Religious fundamentalism threatens at every corner while Western influences complicate things by working to further their own interests in a region rich with oil.

And that’s another aspect that differs from Occupy Wall Street. New York City protesters are railing against the very forces who helped the Arab Spring along. The success of the Arab Spring was and continues to be driven by the support of NATO and other Western benefactors. The West is diligently working to secure the region and prevent the onset of fundamentalist regimes—and to ensure easy access to oil. All the while claiming that it’s working to instil democracy. It’s no co-incidence that NATO suddenly cared about the situation in Libya while other oil-poor regions of Africa and the Middle East continued to burn. The whole charade is unabashedly obvious.

Without question, AdBusters—the Canadian activist group that kick-started Occupy Wall Street—took inspiration from the events in the Middle East, particularly the Tahir Square protests in Cairo. In copycat manner, AdBusters organized a peaceful occupation of Wall Street to protest the current U.S. political leadership and its failure to prevent or address the global financial crisis. The movement’s auspices have expanded significantly from that starting point and now includes such things as taxing the rich, raising taxes on corporations, ending corporate welfare and personhood status, support for trade unionism, and protecting Medicare and Social Security. Occupy Wall Street, because of its decentralized nature, has become a Rorschach test for lefties who are busily projecting their own hopes and demands onto the movement.

At the most basic level, Occupy Wall Street is a reaction to a whole host of socio-economic problems and the glaringly obvious corruption and indifference of both Wall Street traders and the politicians who back them. At a more conceptual level, however, Occupy Wall Street is a necessary manifestation that has been brought about by two fundamental short-comings of the political system in the United States.

First, the U.S. has no bona fide left wing political presence. It’s a country in which the word socialism is routinely spat out as a pejorative. Contrast that with the political situation in Canada in which the country’s official opposition, the New Democratic Party, is overtly socialist. And that’s not to mention the political climate in Europe and elsewhere in which left wing parties carry much more clout in the political spectrum. Now, I’m not suggesting that left wing parties are the answer to America’s woes; but what I am suggesting is that Americans have no political outlet to express their left-of-center demands and desires. As a result, lefties (and even some libertarians and anarchists) have had no choice but to rally around this protest movement in a sheer act of catharsis.

Second, and very much related to the first, the United States is a two party corporatocracy in which the Democrats and Republicans merely trade-off every four years or so. Democracy in the truest sense only exists in the U.S. at a very micro or local scale, while the overarching political structure (or superstructure to borrow a Marxist term), essentially works to serve and further corporate interests. The alienating effect of this two-party teeter-totter has reached a kind of boiling point, particularly now as America is mired in a seemingly endless recession and as Americans have been inspired by social protest movements overseas.

At the same time, Occupy Wall Street can also been as a mirror of the Tea Party Movement—another political spasm that’s emerged on account of the rigid two party system. The left and right are clearly polarizing in the United States. The only question is whether or not they can pull the Democrats and Republicans along with them. It doesn’t appear that this will be the case.

It’s difficult to predict what consequences, if any, these two movements will have on the political makeup of the U.S. and whether or not they’ll be able to see their demands come to fruition.

Definitely interesting times.

Speakers include futurist Ray Kurzweil, visionary scientist Stephen Wolfram, IBM manager Dan Cerutti, longevity expert Sonia Arrison, author David Brin, neuroscientist Christof Koch, PayPal founder Peter Thiel, MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark, AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky, MIT polymath Alexander Wissner-Gross, DARPA challenge winner Riley Crane, Skype founder Jaan Tallinn, Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings, economist Tyler Cowen, television personalities Jason Silva and Casey Pieretti, and robotics professors James McLurnkin and Robin Murphy.

In his influential 1993 article The Coming Technological Singularity, Vernor Vinge discussed the possibility that future technology could feed on itself, causing an “exponential runaway” in technological progress: “Developments that before were thought might only happen in ‘a million years’ (if ever) will likely happen in the next century.” In his 2005 book, The Singularity is Near, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil used current exponential trends in technology to predict the arrival of this Singularity in the next few decades. The Singularity Summit was founded as an academic forum for discussing the “big picture” questions in industry, economics, and ethics raised by the prospect of such a profound event.

Be sure to register for the event.

The Paleo people are really pretty brainy. I mean, they don’t particularly talk that way or show it off, but from a lot of the talks that I heard, I understood that there was a lot of smart thinking going on, and a lot of scholarship, and a lot of critical thinking where they don’t just accept something because somebody says it.

Check out Roberts’s talk at the Quantified Self Silicon Valley meetup at Stanford’s Calming Technologies lab.

Seth Roberts: QS + Paleo.

Eighteen years ago, Paola Cavalieri and I founded The Great Ape Project, an organisation dedicated to the idea of giving great apes the moral status and legal protection that befits their nature. As the work of Jane Goodall, Diane Fossey, Francine Patterson, Birute Galdikas, H Lyn White Miles, Roger and Deborah Fouts, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and many other remarkable scientists have shown, chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos and orang-utans are self-aware beings, capable of thought, and with rich and deep emotional lives. Our idea is that the great apes, as our closest relatives, could serve as a bridge over the immense gulf we have dug between ourselves and other animals. Once one group of animals is included within the sphere of beings with rights, we hope that the extension of some basic rights to other sentient animals will be that much easier to make.

Fortunately, the idea that great apes should not be treated as tools for research – as opposed to the kind of relationship developed by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh – has made some progress since the time when Nim was sent back to Oklahoma. Experiments on great apes are now either banned or severely restricted in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and throughout the European Union.

In the United States, a bipartisan group of members of Congress is supporting legislation to end the use of chimpanzees in invasive research. Project Nim shows that even when research is not invasive, it can have a devastating psychological impact on an animal. What happened to Nim was wrong, and should never happen again.

More.

I recently returned to Toronto from my first Burning Man experience and I have to say that the trip was as close to science fiction as it gets. It was a world of alien landscapes, extreme conditions, bizarre modes of transport, and a local population right out of Tatooine’s Mos Eisely spaceport. Add to that a dash of Mad Max, Dune and Woodstock, throw in some glow sticks, flamethrowers, and shiny metallic pants, and you get the picture.

More interesting than that, however, was how otherworldly the place felt from a civilizational perspective. For the week that I was at Black Rock City I truly felt like a stranger in a strange land, a foreign visitor to a place far removed from my home-world. Indeed, it didn’t take long for the cogs in my brain to start churning away in reaction to all that I was witnessing. Burning Man is a fascinating event on so many levels, including its sudden emergence from the dust and the rise of an alternative society that exists in virtual isolation from the real world—albeit one that lasts for just a week each year.

Welcome to Black Rock City

Okay, for those who have been hopelessly stuck in a dark hole for the past ten years, Burning Man is an annual counter-cultural festival that takes place in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Yes, that’s right—right smack dab in the middle of nowhere. For some twisted and seemingly inexplicable reason, over 55,000 people from around the world arrive at this place and, quite literally, construct a thriving city from scratch, only to tear and burn it all down a week later.

Once Burning Man gets underway, Black Rock City rises from the desert in the form of a semi-circular patchwork of tents, yurts, RVs, trailers, vans, kitchen sinks and anything else that can be cobbled together to create temporary living conditions in what is truly an unrelenting desert environment. The days are excruciatingly hot, the nights unbearably cold—and it’s all frequented by regular sand storms just to rub it all in.

The festival itself is an intense celebration of sights and sounds in which participants, called Burners, create what is without a doubt the largest party in the world (try to name another party you can see from space!). Everything that happens in the city is a product of un-cordinated individual efforts; aside from a few things (such as the Temple and Center Camp) it’s a completely self-generated event. For a brief one week period, Black Rock City erupts into a spectacular showcase of art displays, elaborate costumes, performance art, dancing, live music, and much, much more (including the racy stuff that happens behind the scenes). The event serves as a platform for Burning Man’s central tenant: radical self-expression. The possibilities are nearly endless given such an open precept.

As a first time Burner, I quickly learned that no images or words could prepare me for the spectacle that is Burning Man. You truly have to experience it yourself to appreciate the scale, context and brilliance of it all. And this includes the organizational and social aspects as well. Black Rock City is a truly remarkable place when viewed through sociological, cultural and anthropological lenses. During my short time there I quickly came up with a hand-full of potential studies that could easily fuel PhD theses. It’s truly a mind-expanding social experiment that’s worthy of academic inquiry.


Emergent and spontaneous order

Burning Man is something every futurist and transhumanist should be aware of. Black Rock City is a model that could serve for the development of entirely novel alternative communities and societies. Indeed, the Burner term for the real world is “default society,” and after a few days at Burning Man one can’t help but gain a growing appreciation for what that actually means.

 Take the sheer numbers for example. Over 55,000 people are packed into an area no more than five square miles (roughly the size of downtown San Francisco). While this is a moderately impressive feat at best, it’s the civility and functionality of the community that is impressive. Despite the fact that many of Black Rock City’s inhabitants are simply there to party, the place remains remarkably well maintained and orderly over the course of the week. I would dare say that it’s probably the safest city of 55,000 people in the world while it lasts.

A central credo of Burning Man is that each Burner is responsible for taking away what they brought in and to “leave no trace.” Consequently, there are absolutely no trash cans in the city. Waste is a personal responsibility (except for bio-waste—the organizers provide porta-potties). Moreover, should any trash hit the playa (a term for the desert floor), it is immediately identified as MOOP (matter out of place) and dealt with. What’s even more astounding is that, in the event that some garbage gets away, there are Burners who, completely unasked, pick it up themselves and deal with it. I met one woman who over the course of one night picked up over 65 cigarette butts without anyone asking her. A friend devised an internal rule in which she picked up an extra piece off MOOP for every piece of her own she dropped. It goes to show that, given a strong enough cultural imperative to keep the place clean, there will be enough people out of the 55,000 who will, of their own volition, deal with it themselves. Call it an emergent effect of having a strong culturally bound population.


The gifting method

Which brings to mind another indelible aspect of Burning Man: it runs on a gift economy. Money is absolutely no good at Burning Man (except at Center Camp where Burners can purchase ice and coffee—pretty funny if you think about it; talk about your basic needs). This doesn’t imply a barter economy. There is no trading at Burning Man. People simply “gift” things to people whenever it is needed. Sure, given that it’s in the middle of the desert and that there’s only so much you can bring in and give away, this practice is fairly limited, but I was astounded at what was being offered in the city: ice cream, freezies, snow cones, alcoholic drinks of all sorts (I even had some Patron tequila at Barbie Death Camp — but that’s another story), hair washing, butt cleaning station (again, you’d have to be there to understand this), and even an inter-city post office, FM radio station, and dating service. And plenty more. Basically, if there was a need for it, someone pretty much prepared for it.

 I also took part in this gift economy. As a member of FutureCamp I gave three presentations as part of my contribution to the larger community.

Gifting, it would seem, can include goods, services, and even the sharing of ideas and expertise.

It would seem that, in a land of extreme scarcity, and where gifting is the only means of exchange, people naturally fill in the gaps. And to say that there is nothing given in exchange for contributions is not entirely fair; human interaction (which is high value at Burning Man) and the satisfaction of helping others is certainly part of the equation. The desolation and harsh environment, along with the extreme scarcity of food, goods, and other creature comforts, is a strangely indelible component of Burning Man. It adds to the alien and otherworldly sense, but it also binds the community together, both in terms of shared hardship and in the increased need to look out for one another.


Maintaining order

One of the neat aesthetics of Burning Man is the seemingly invisible or complete absence of authority. Yes, there are Nevada state troopers patrolling the city, but they’re largely ignored in much the same way that money is (annoying props to remind Burners that the outside world still exists). Burning Man does have a force of Rangers—a group of volunteers who walk around the city providing help and guidance when needed. But they have absolutely no authority. In fact, they won’t even offer an admonition if they see a Burner doing something potentially dangerous. But they’ll stick around in case help is eventually required.

Indeed, excruciatingly simple rules, norms, and an implicit code of conduct seem to be all that’s required to keep it all together. Perhaps it’s the limited population, short timeframe, and harsh conditions that allows for this. Or maybe it’s the strict zoning rules that are put into place (bad apples don’t get to come back). Burners may also comprise a highly filtered group, the demographic nature of which needs to be better determined. These are certainly important variables to consider, including the overarching question as to how far the model can be extended before a kind of critical mass is reached and it all starts to fall apart.

In fact, it does start to fall apart, but not until the last day. Once the Black Rock exodus begins, sign-posts are torn down and the civility that had previously characterized the place all but disappears. It would seem that, among the variables required for long-term sustainability, a finite timeframe is required. I strongly believe that given its current parameters (dwindling food and water supplies notwithstanding) Black Rock City could successfully function for weeks—if not months—but that a specific length of time needs to be clearly defined.

 The question of sustainability

The topic of sustainability is a concern to many Burners. The question as to how long a community like this can be maintained is a pertinent one, particularly when you find yourself in it. A central sentiment that runs through the culture is that it can’t really be sustained and the best that one can do is “bring a bit of Burning Man to the default world.”

I’ve got a different take on the matter. As a futurist who foresees such things as the end of scarcity and the complete automation of production, the idea that we can actually create a viable and permanent vacation world is an intriguing one.

As it stands, Burning Man can’t exist without the resources that are provided by the Burners themselves. Consequently, it’s a leech economy. Black Rock City has virtually no real economy of its own in terms of local production. Everything that exists in Black Rock City comes from the default world, whether it be material goods or even individual skills and talents. The default world, and the efforts of Burners while they’re there, is the engine that drives Burning Man. The trick, therefore, is to decrease the real-world burden on the Burners themselves—and that’s where disruptive technologies like robotics and fabs (desktop molecular assemblers) come in.

Alternative societies—those communities that have essentially no internal production economy and exist in relative isolation from the mainstream world—can only exist across expanded time domains as the time required for its inhabitants to work in the default society decreases.

Advanced technologies that will result in such things as increased automation will serve to enable this. Eventually, an alternative society like Burning Man could exist in perpetuity so long as the means of production in the default world comes at a zero cost. In other words, the inhabitants of alternative worlds will finally be able to stay there only once the real world can sustain it without burden.


Looking forward

There’s a lot more to Burning Man than I’ve let on here. I’ve completely ignored some socio-cultural issues that I’ll expand upon in a subsequent post. But let it be said that Burning Man is an absolute treasure that’s worth preserving, if not expanding upon altogether. Even if the current model of Black Rock City is unscalable, it is certainly possible to create multiple versions that can run in parallel and independent of one another.

I admit that my musings here might seem quaint and even naive. Burning Man could completely collapse in the coming years should “tourists” start to dominate the city instead of actual contributors. It may even open up to corporate interests who will set up shops, a development that would completely undermine the concept. Such a development would truly kill the spirit and point of Burning Man in an instant. Or perhaps the idea of a permanent get-away place is not really a desirable or worthwhile goal. But we won’t know until we try.

In the meantime, as Burning Man continues to fascinate, it’s nice to dream of where it might take us.