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Category Archives: Futurist
NASA Is Launching an Asteroid-Smashing Spacecraft Today and It’s Powered by an Ion Drive – Futurism
Posted: November 28, 2021 at 9:47 pm
The technology is straight out of a science fiction movie.Asteroid Slam
NASA is launching a spacecraft destined to slam into an asteroid as part of its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission tonight, from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.Its purpose: to test whether were capable of deflecting a killer asteroid before it strikes Earth.
But before it meets its final destination, NASA is using the spacecraft to test out brand new ion drive technology and its straight out of a science fiction movie.
The space agencys Evolutionary Xenon Thruster-Commercial (NEXT-C) uses the spacecrafts solar power to create an electrical field. This field then accelerates a xenon propellant to speeds of up to 90,000 mph, harnessing the resulting stream of thousands of ion jets as propulsion.
Its not exactly a massive step up in power. The thruster generates a measly 236 micro Newtons of thrust, a tiny fraction of a much larger, fuel-based rocket engine.
But NEXT-C is still a major step up in power over previous ion propulsion systems used for other NASA missions.
The goal is to demonstrate that tiny spacecraft like DART are capable of propelling themselves on solar energy and a relatively small amount of xenon fuel alone by firing thrusters continuously for months or even years at a time.
Thanks to the complete lack of resistance, the thruster will be able to slowly accelerate the DART spacecraft up to 15,000 mph before it makes impact with the asteroid.
Its an exciting prospect. Ion drives could one day help make deep space exploration a reality, ending our reliance on using up much of a spacecrafts payload for fuel tanks and deep space probes are the perfect testbed.
READ MORE: NASAs asteroid-slamming mission will test new ion drive system [Space.com]
More on DART: Massive Asteroid That Could Obliterate Earth to Fly By, Case the Joint
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This Moped You’ve Never Heard Of Looks Like Nothing You’ve Ever Seen – Jalopnik
Posted: at 9:47 pm
The world of motorcycles is peppered with unique builds lost to time. Every once in a while, they surface as a reminder the times builders created something like nothing else. This 1965 Express Kavalier 115 is like that and it would be the perfect pairing to that Virtual Steering Monkey from earlier this month.
In 1961, a collaboration of German manufacturers DKW, Express and Victoria called Zweirad Union released a moped that looks more like those concepts that never reach production. But it was real and its striking design earned it the nickname Tin Banana. The name of the little moped depended on the distributor, with the cycle also getting called the Victoria Type 115. The mopeds were all the same, with colors differentiating the distributors.
These mopeds are already rare from the jump, but they were never officially imported to the United States. That makes this 1965 Express Kavalier 115 on Bring a Trailer pretty special.
The Kavalier 115, like its siblings, feature a pressed-steel body. Like Italian scooters of the day, the Kavalier 115 hid the dirty mechanicals under pretty bodywork. Even the drive chain is all covered up.
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I love the amount of work put into making this thing pretty. Even the Zweirad Union 48cc two-stroke single looks like an art piece.
The little fan-cooled engine produces a wee 2 horsepower driving a three-speed transmission and drinking from a 12mm Bing carburetor. A moped engine could be left as-is, but no, Zweirad Union covered it with a chrome shroud.
If this German Wikipedia entry citing a book on the history of DKW motorcycles is true, then maintaining this thing is a lot of work. A spark plug change is said to require a bunch of tools and as pictures from the seller shows, simply getting to the fuel tank requires taking a part off.
That fuel tank in itself is pretty wild because it and the headlight shroud are one single piece.
This Express Kavalier 115 is said to have been owned by the seller for 31 years and its in immaculate condition.
How good is it? It won a best in class at the Boca Raton Concours dElegance in February 2020. The seller says that this paint is original and the moped has only seen a refurbishment before they got it. Over 56 years in this shape is amazing. Part of that is because it hasnt been ridden since the seller got it. Instead, it was displayed sans fluids.
The odometer reads the equivalent of 5,000 miles, but true mileage is unknown.
Its hard to say what the buyer should do with it. On one hand, the little thing hasnt been ridden in over 31 years. On the other, much of its value is going to be tied into the fact that its in such perfect condition. The buyer gets a sales brochure, the original German permit, a signed photo of Jay Leno riding a different Express Kavalier and a bill of sale.
For the current bid of $11,111 on Bring a Trailer with three days to go, its definitely one of the most distinctive things you can own.
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Save Up to 35 Percent on Premium Chargers and More During Anker’s Black Friday Sale – Futurism
Posted: at 9:47 pm
Theres no better time to stock up on chargers and power banks for your smartphone, laptop, or tablet. Anker, one of the best-known names in wireless technology, has some great deals during its Black Friday sale, now through November 28. Save up to 35 percent on chargers, hubs, power cables, generators, and more.
Heres a rundown of some of the best deals:
Charge four devices at the same time with this versatile device. Ankers PowerIQ 3 0-enabled USB-C port provides 45 watts of power to charge any compatible device fast, while three USB-A ports allow you to juice up your mobile devices at the same time. In addition, the charger is made with gallium nitride (GaN) instead of silicone for a sleeker design.
This two-port wall charger and foldable plug uses Ankers signature high-speed technology to charge almost any mobile device. Great for traveling, this charger works with USB-C compatible phones like the iPhone XR, Xs, Max, Plus, and more; the Galaxy S9 and 10; the Pixel 3a, 3, and XL; the iPad Pro, and more.
This easy-to-use wireless charger lets you power up on the go. Just set down your QI-certified phone or wireless earbuds to receive up to 5 watts of power. You can also simultaneously charge another device through one of two USB ports. The package also comes with a USB-A to USB-C cable and a travel pouch.
Turn your MacBook Pro into a media hub with this 7-in-2 USB C adapter, which allows you to expand your capabilities with a Thunderbolt USB-C port, a USB-C data port, two USB-A ports, one HDMI port, 1 SD card slot, and 1 microSD card slot. The hub allows for high-speed data transfer and multi-monitor display for clear streaming.
Be prepared for emergencies or just go camping with this powerful generator that can charge all your devices or power small appliances like a mini fridge. With 200Wh of power, this multi-port generator works with a USB-C car or wall charger, an AC power adapter, and solar power.
For more great holiday gifts, check out the Best Black Friday Deals of 2021.
This post was created by a non-news editorial team at Recurrent Media, Futurisms owner. Futurism may receive a portion of sales on products linked within this post.
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WHERE DEPRIVATION LIES Evolve As Futuristic Killing Machines on Riches to the Conjurer" – Metal Injection.net
Posted: November 17, 2021 at 1:16 pm
Hey there, tech fiends. It's that time of the week again. Before we dive into today's focus, here's the usual reminder that all prior editions of this series can be perusedhere.
The UK tech-death scene has definitely been on a hot streak for a while so I'm glad to help launch a new song today from another band in the region called Where Deprivation Lies. The last time I covered this British quintet was back in 2018 when I listed their EP, Psalms to the Synthetic Divine on my year-end list for this column that year.
For anyone new to the group. it might help to back up a bit, as several members of Where Deprivation Lies cut their teeth live and on studio releases under the name Circle Spectre Haunting for many years prior to this current project getting off the ground. Although I didn't get around to covering that project, the music was damn good and all of their time spent developing as musicians in that project prior to the formation of WDL shows in the quality music that Where Deprivation Lies creates.
I think the best way to cut at the heart of what they do is to think of their music as cutting into two dual tech-death intersections at once, on one front that would be the more Vale of Pnath and The Black Dahlia technical melodic death strains of technical death metal. And, at the other end of their sound, a focus on Soreption and The Zenith Passage inspired ideas, which means groovy, brutal, and progressive death metal-inspired tech-death ideas that do feel sort of cyber-ish for lack of a better qualifier. The end result is still something I've not heard many bands in the tech-death sphere create which is why I'm excited to help launch "Riches to the Conjurer" today. The song comes off the group's debut album, Tempest which will see release on December 4th. Prior to the launch of today's single, you can also check out the debut single, "Valkyrie" which features a ripping guitar solo from Cognizance mastermind Alex Baille.
The band was kind enough to share with us today that "Having released the first single "Valkyrie", today we launch the next blistering track, "Riches to the Conjurer", a crushing barrage of technical death metal journeying through the dystopian hellscape of the cyberpunk world, to create a distinctly intense auditory experience, designed to fire up the synapses and truly immerse the listener."
Although I have not heard all of Tempest in full, I'm fairly certain it'll be worth your time and money based on the two singles available and the sonic groundwork laid on their prior 2018 EP. So be sure to check out "Riches to the Conjurer" below along with "Valkyrie" and Pslams to the Synthetic Divine from 2018 if you haven't heard it yet. Pre-orders should be up sometime today on Bandcamp. You can follow the band over on Facebook and Instagram.
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WHERE DEPRIVATION LIES Evolve As Futuristic Killing Machines on Riches to the Conjurer" - Metal Injection.net
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How Sci-Fi Films Use Asian Characters to Telegraph the Future While Also Dehumanizing Them – Hollywood Reporter
Posted: at 1:16 pm
A new video presentation at Los Angeles Occidental College from Thai-American artist and curator Astria Suparak looks at how Asian characters and cultures are represented in American science fiction cinema.
In the work part of the show Encoding Futures: Critical Imaginaries of AI at the colleges public arts space Oxy Arts Suparaks visual analysis interrogates how Asians are often employed as two-dimensional props whose presence is used to signify a speculative future, while the environment of many of these films leans heavily on a patchwork of Asian cityscapes, symbols, and cultural traditions, creating a gulf between how the future is coded and who gets meaningful character development. The result is a long-standing trend of whitewashed science fiction films where appropriation is excused as a tool for depicting diversity on screen.
Suparaks video essay, titled Asian Futures Without Asians, exists as a database of science-fiction films that incorporate Asian culture as a shorthand to telegraph futurism while failing to develop real storylines and characters for Asian actors within these universes.
I started off as just another viewer of sci-fi and escapist fantasy just to decompress after work, but its impossible, at least for me, to not notice how Asian cultures are used in this genre, Suparak, who grew up in Los Angeles, tells The Hollywood Reporter. When I knew I wanted to work on this project I started by watching the films that I had access to and cataloging the obvious visual markers of Asian-ness that I recognized on first watch.
Suparaks project compiles clips from several films and draws upon research culled from watching several more, like Flash Gordon, Star Trek, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Soylent Green, Logans Run, the Star Wars franchise and Blade Runner, to investigate how future societies are persistently rendered in non-diverse and non-progressive ways in visual media culture.
This whole series of projects under the name Asian Futures Without Asians draws on over 50 years of white-made American futuristic sci-fi, so its absurd that in this realm of sci-fi where you can imagine anything anything is possible that we still have these really old, tired, stale stereotypes of Asian culture and what Asians can be, Suparak says.
Techno-orientalism was first coined in Rutgers University Press 2015 book Techno-Orientalism: Imagining Asia in Speculative Fiction, History, and Media. Edited by David S. Roh, Betsy Huang and Greta A. Niu, it investigates the phenomenon of how Asia and Asians are represented in hypo- or hyper-technological terms, while critically examining the stereotype of Asians as both technologically advanced and intellectually primitive, in dire need of Western consciousness-raising, per the books description.
According to Suparak, theres a prevailing media trope that situates Asian cultures as ancient and static think samurais, plus katana swords and other props from eras long ago while simultaneously being used to suggest technological advancement and the impressive speed of metropolises like Tokyo and Shanghai.
Theyre not only reflecting the biases and stereotypes and prejudices of the culture, but theyre also influencing that culture back, Suparak notes of the big-budget Hollywood movies she references. That includes 2017s Ghost in the Shell, a live-action remake of the Japanese manga of the same name, wherein Scarlett Johansson plays a Japanese cyborg a casting choice that drew major whitewashing criticism upon its release.
Ultimately, Asian Futures Without Asians illuminates the lopsided nature of one Hollywood genre and critiques the way media is concepted to guide audience empathy. Suparaks video essay investigates how artificial intelligence is coded in film, and the ways in which sympathetic robots and cyborgs, who are often white, are designed as who the audience is supposed to root for, Suparak says, adding: The way theyre presented is in stark contrast to how Asian robots are often dehumanized.
Encoding Futures which examines how artificial intelligence molds society, and how algorithms have the power to define the world to come was co-organized by Oxy Arts with Mashinka Firunts Hakopian, Mellon professor of the practice at Occidental, and Meldia Yesayan, director of Oxy Arts. It takes a multidisciplinary approach to looking at representation, both in terms of how the future is presented and who gets to exist there.
Says Hakopian of selecting Suparaks work for the show, Part of the reason why it was so crucial to include this work is because it is a really remarkable media archaeology thats looking at how Hollywood cinema has shaped popular imaginaries of AI. And so, Hollywood has played an outsized role in determining what AI looks like, sounds like, feels like within the popular imaginary. And I think Astrias piece does an incredible job of bringing that to the fore.
Encoding Futures: Critical Imaginaries of AI is up through Nov 19, at Oxy Arts, 4757 York Blvd, Los Angeles, oxy.edu/oxy-arts.
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The largest floating industrial complex on the planet: Saudi Arabia will build the futuristic city of Oxagon, "where ideas can change the…
Posted: at 1:16 pm
Mohamed bin Salmn, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the project to create the futuristic city of Neom, announced the construction of the Oxagon Industrial Center, which will become the largest floating industrial complex in the world, collect local media.
The Oxagon industrial city will be located on the Red Sea near the Suez Canal, in a large territory in the southwest of Neom, and will have an octagonal shape that will minimize the impact on the environment.
It is envisaged that this city can achieve world-class production levels while reducing net carbon emissions to zero.
The official Neom Twitter account highlights that Oxagon will become the place where ideas can change the world.
Oxagon will contribute to redefining the global approach to industrial development in the future, protecting the environment while creating jobs and growth for Neom, said the crown prince in that context. It will contribute to Saudi Arabias regional trade and support the creation of a new focal point for global trade flows, he added.
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Manifesto of Futurism – Wikipedia
Posted: November 15, 2021 at 11:32 pm
Manifesto by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
The Manifesto of Futurism (Italian: Manifesto del Futurismo) is a manifesto written by the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and published in 1909.[1] Marinetti expresses an artistic philosophy called Futurism that was a rejection of the past and a celebration of speed, machinery, violence, youth and industry. It also advocated the modernization and cultural rejuvenation of Italy.
Marinetti wrote the manifesto in the autumn of 1908 and it first appeared as a preface to a volume of his poems, published in Milan in January 1909.[2] It was published in the Italian newspaper Gazzetta dell'Emilia in Bologna on 5 February 1909,[3] then in French as Manifeste du futurisme (Manifesto of Futurism) in the newspaper Le Figaro on 20 February 1909.[4][5][6] Marinetti's Poesia (magazine) had its April 1909 issue focused on the manifesto, the Italian and French version were reprinted together with English version.[7]
The limits of Italian literature at the end of the so-called Ottocento (19th century), its lack of strong contents, its quiet and passive laissez-faire, are fought by futurists (see article 1, 2 and 3) and their reaction includes the use of excesses intended to prove the existence of a dynamic surviving Italian intellectual class.
In this period in which industry is of growing importance in all Europe futurists need to confirm that Italy is present, has an industry, has the power to take part in the new experience and will find the superior essence of progress in its major symbols like the car and its speed (see article 4). Nationalism is never openly declared, but it is evident.
Futurists insist that literature will not be overtaken by progress, rather it will absorb progress in its evolution and will demonstrate that such progress must manifest in this manner because man will use this progress to sincerely let his instinctive nature explode. Man is reacting against the potentially overwhelming strength of progress and shouts out his centrality. Man will use speed, not the opposite (see articles 5 and 6).
Poetry will help man to consent his soul be part of all that (see articles 6 and 7), indicating a new concept of beauty that will refer to the human instinct of aggression.
The sense of history cannot be neglected as this is a special moment, many things are going to change into new forms and new contents, but man will be able to pass through these variations (see article 8), bringing with himself what comes from the beginning of civilization.
In article 9, war is defined as a necessity for the health of human spirit, a purification that allows and benefits idealism. Their explicit glorification of war and its "hygienic" properties influenced the ideology of fascism. Marinetti was very active in fascist politics until he withdrew in protest of the "Roman Grandeur" which had come to dominate fascist aesthetics.
Article 10 states: "We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice".
This manifesto was published well before the occurrence of any of the 20th-century events which are commonly suggested as a potential meaning of this text. Many of them could not even be imagined yet. For example, the Russian Revolutions of 1917 were the first successfully maintained revolution of the sort described by article 11. The series of smaller scale peasant uprisings that had been known as the Russian Revolution previous to the occurrences of 1917 took place in the years immediately before the manifesto's publication and instigated the State Duma's creation of a Russian constitution in 1906.
The effect of the manifesto is even more evident in the Italian version. Not one of the words used is casual; if not the precise form, at least the roots of these words recall those more frequently used during the Middle Ages, particularly during the Rinascimento.[citation needed]
The founding manifesto did not contain a positive artistic programme, which the Futurists attempted to create in their subsequent Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting (1914).[8] This committed them to a "universal dynamism", which was to be directly represented in painting. Objects in reality were not separate from one another or from their surroundings: "The sixteen people around you in a rolling motor bus are in turn and at the same time one, ten four three; they are motionless and they change places. ... The motor bus rushes into the houses which it passes, and in their turn the houses throw themselves upon the motor bus and are blended with it".[9]
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Here’s The Real Reason Why Fortnite Just Abandoned China – Futurism
Posted: at 11:32 pm
Fortnite has officially withdrawn its servers from China, and in doing so has abandoned the worlds largest gaming market.
AsBloomberg News reports, the shutdown comes after Epic Games, the games publisher, spent three years running Fortnite on a trial basis in China without ever making any money on it.
To explain exactly why this uber-popular game was never able to make any money in China, you have to zoom out a little and look at the way tech and video game companies are allowed to operate in China, where the government, as Bloomberg put it, have always sought tight control over the internet and media, and have long displayed hostility toward video games in particular.
Per new Chinese government regulations, companies that want to sell games in the country have to go through a strict approval process.Its similarto the way foreign companies have to get American government approval to sell their wares in the US, but as always, theres deeper cultural and political context.
Like many countries a list which very much includes the United StatesChina has in recent years worked to control the so-called ill effects of video games on its youth. This aim for control has in the past few months come to a head as the country began rolling out new gaming regulations, which includes a micromanaging new rule that caps kids online gaming time at three hoursper week.
The Chinese government has taken a strikingly bold stance in the online gaming wars, claiming in one state media article that gaming is as addictive as opium.
AsBloomberg pointed out, the Chinese governments online gaming crackdown is part President Xi Jinpings campaign to rein in tech companies an endeavor that also mirrors similar inquiries and regulations being pushed in the United States today, though each global power has its own methods.
Epics relationship with the Chinese government is also nuanced.
In an effort to win Chinese approval, Epic joined forces in 2018with the Chinese gaming company Tencent to launch Fortress Night, the Chinese version of Fortnite. After making substantial changes to the game, Epic was allowed to host Fortress Night in China on a trial basis, but in the intervening three years hasnt seen a cent from it due to the nature of its agreement with China.
While its far from the first American media property thats bent to Chinese regulations, the Fortnite example seems egregious. In what other scenario would a giant American company be willing to make absolutely no money in a giant country for three years going on nothing but hope that theyll be able to sell their product properly?
American media, of course, have turned this into a Chinese red scare story. Barrons ran a piece about how Chinas regulation of U.S. companies is likely to hurt the stock market, while Bloomberg even mentioned in passing that in 2015 Chinese psychiatrists reportedly used electroshock therapy on internet gaming addicts without addingthe crucial context that the government vowed to end the practice soon after it was exposed internationally.
But at its heart, this story is about government regulating international companies. Its not exactly business as usual, but it is a bummer accompanied by the Fortnite dance.
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Futurist lays out how to survive rising temperatures and climate change – The National
Posted: at 11:32 pm
Earths climate is changing. This is a foregone conclusion, laid out earlier this year in a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that outlined how it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, oceans and land.
Already each year, 150,000 people die as a result of climate change effects, according to estimates by the World Health Organisation.
Adaptations are now needed in order to survive. Futurist Parag Khanna outlines how to adapt in his new book, Move: The Forces Uprooting Us.
Khanna argues that humans have a knack for moving and this can be our superpower in the uncertain decades to come.
Were really incredibly good at mass migration, which is a funny thing that people often forget, he told The National. Thats how America became America. Its how South America became South America. Its literally mass migrations. Were terrible at ecological conservation. Were terrible at maintaining military stability.
Khanna points to two factors pushing humans to get moving: changing demographics and uninhabitable land.
An image captured by Nasa's Terra satellite on May 2, 2000, shows the North Patagonia Ice Sheet in Chile.A single large glacier covered with crevasses is visible, while a semi-circular terminal moraine indicates that the glacier was once more extensive. Nasa
He agrees with research from the University of Washington and a separate study from the UN that the worlds population will peak this century and then begin to decline. There is some disagreement over the exact timing and count, but peak humanity has major implications for our future.
From that point forward, survival becomes a distribution game, Mr Khanna writes. How will we choose to organise ourselves across the planets 150 million-square kilometres of territory?
As Earth makes its push towards nine, 10 or 11 billion humans before dropping off, there will be a further run on resources food, water, energy that will threaten the stability of our environment. As consumption grows, worldwide waste volumes will continue unabated, increasing another 75 per cent until the middle of the century, according to Swiss bank Julius Baer.
This is clearly something which would put an increasing burden on the environment, but also on society, Carsten Menke, its head of next-generation research, told The National.
In the face of population peak and runaway consumption, Khanna proposes Civilisation 3.0.
Civilisation 1.0 was nomadic and agricultural, when the global human population was relatively small and localised and the environment dictated where we would live. The 2.0 version came with industrialisation, when people flocked to ever-growing urban centres, became sedentary and over time developed a globalised supply chain that exploits nature for profit.
The negative feedback loop between man and nature is killing us both, according to Khanna, and this means we have to again adapt.
Civilisation 3.0 will need to be mobile and sustainable. Khanna suggests that we will move inland towards greater elevation and to the cooler northern reaches of the planet. More people will be nomadic; settlements may be temporary. We will disperse, but we will remain connected, he writes.
Signs of this change are already here. Amid growing labour shortages across North America, Europe and northern Asia, which are set to grow more acute amid an ageing population, Khanna suggests opening the taps of immigration.
Canada is already allowing in as many as 500,000 people a year. Khanna says this is helping Canada diversify its economy into emerging growth sectors and replenish a stalling population a critical piece to maintaining a social safety net as people age.
And there isnt a big political backlash against it, he said. While Canada is not a representative example, Khanna says xenophobic populism will become an increasingly difficult option amid the demographic shift and climate change.
Its perfectly plausible for a country like Hungary or Italy to say we dont want more migrants. But that country can also commit suicide, and that country is not a role model, he said. I think that were already at the point where countries are waking up and saying, wait a minute, what the hell are we doing warding off young people? Were desperate for young people.
Leuser Mountain National Park in Aceh, Indonesia, is listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site. Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Survival and, beyond that, even economic prosperity, will depend on humanitys ability to embrace movement across borders.
As parts of Asia become uninhabitable owing to rising temperatures, Khanna estimates tens of millions more Asians will be forced to relocate permanently across Eurasia to find work. He also predicts a large number of south Asians and Chinese will head north towards southern Russia and Kazakhstan, regions abundant in fertile land and almost wholly lacking in people.
He also predicts some countries wont make it, either due to ecological decay, unstable politics, free-falling economies and brain drain.
Even vacated states, Khanna writes, can be useful.
Wherever their populations go, Central and West African countries have rich deposits of cobalt, iron ore and bauxite that will be mined until there is nothing left, while sub-Saharan African countries such as Namibia, South Africa and Angola hold significant reserves of diamonds, gold, uranium, zinc and other minerals. Bolivia and Afghanistan have giant pits of lithium essential for batteries.
The six million people of Turkmenistan ... may have to migrate into western Kazakhstan or southern Russia, even as their gas reserves and solar power are harnessed for regional markets. There are other roles that vacated states will play in the global division of labour: as dumps for briny refuse from desalination plants and waste from nuclear reactors.
A massive resettlement of planet Earth means a new understanding or even new definitions for borders and sovereignty. Khanna wonders if we might have designated lands best suited for agriculture, forestry, marine life or habitation.
In this spirit, countries could lease critical habitats to international co-operatives for their sustainable cultivation. When spaces are so important that no one country should control them exclusively, we can design mechanisms that balance sustainability with fair access.
This is a solution-oriented approach to something governments have been talking about for at least three decades.
Khanna writes that previous civilisations failed because they did not adapt to the complexity they themselves created. The mission, then, today is to cut down on the complexity of the globalised world and focus on self-sufficient localised hubs.
A world of more compact, even mobile communes could be less risky than one where huge populations are concentrated in coastal megacities vulnerable to sea-level rise and disease, he writes.
Ignoring these complexities and maintaining the status quo is a risk, one that puts millions of lives in danger.
In 1992, most countries joined an international treaty the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to start the work of combatting global warming and to support one another as rising temperatures wrought consequences. But the movement of people as a result of a warming climate has not been addressed, even at the Cop26 meeting currently under way in Glasgow.
The countries of the world will agree on how to colonise the Moon before they will agree that there will be free movement of people on Earth, Khanna said. We will literally never, ever, ever, ever have a global migration accord. Thats a shame. But its a fact.
Updated: November 11th 2021, 9:01 AM
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Futurist lays out how to survive rising temperatures and climate change - The National
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Seeing the past with futuristic eyes – Business Standard
Posted: at 11:32 pm
Images taken remotely by underwater robots or flying drones can be stitched together to create a 360-degree view of an archaeological site with the help of photogrammetry
Topics 3D|BS Opinion|emerging technology
Archaeologists are using futuristic technologies to dig deeper into the past and visual human life and culture. Technologies like satellite mapping and 3D scanning are being supported by algorithms which can read terrestrial images for archaeological findings. Excavation spots are being identified with the help of such technologies.
Later, the findings are analysed and even visualised using a range of augmented and virtual reality tools. The discovery of chariots at an excavation site in Sinauli, about 70 kilometers from New Delhi, created waves across the world of history. The ...
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First Published: Sun, November 14 2021. 22:54 IST
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