Category Archives: Transhuman News

TheEnergy in You

Even though it's an inexorable part of life, for many people, death or at least the thought of ceasing to existforever can be a scary thing. Thedisturbing things that happen to thebody during decomposition the process by which cells and tissues begin to break downpost mortem are bad enough.

But what if instead of looking at death from a biological perspective, we examine it from a physics standpoint? More specifically, let's look at howour energy is redistributedafter we die.

In life, the human body comprises matter and energy. That energy is both electrical (impulses and signals) and chemical (reactions). The same can be said about plants, which are powered by photosynthesis, a process that allows them to generate energy from sunlight.

The process of energy generation is much more complex in humans, though. Remarkably, at any given moment, roughly 20 watts of energy course through yourbody enough to powera light bulb andthis energy is acquired in a plethora of ways. Mostly, we get it through the consumption of food, which gives us chemical energy. That chemical energy is then transformed into kinetic energythat is ultimately used to power our muscles.

As we know through thermodynamics, energy cannot be created nor destroyed. It simply changes states. The total amount of energy in an isolated system does not, cannot, change. And thanks to Einstein, we also know that matter and energy are two rungs on the same ladder.

The universe as a whole is closed. However, human bodies (and other ecosystems) are not closed they're open systems. We exchange energy with our surroundings. We can gain energy (again, through chemical processes), and we can lose it (by expelling waste or emitting heat).

In death, the collection of atoms of which you are composed(a universe within the universe) are repurposed.Those atoms and that energy, which originated during the Big Bang, will always be around. Therefore, your "light," that is, the essence of your energy not to be confused with your actual consciousness will continue to echo throughout space until the end of time.

If nothing else can assuage some of the fear of death, the below advice from physicist Aaron Freemen via NPRshould do it:

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed.

You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you.

And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly.

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The Physics of Death (and What Happens to Your Energy When ... - Futurism

A theme of the hearing was the work that the government is doing to destigmatize the reporting of these sightings. That is to say: There are many, many more sightings than we know about, in part because you seem like a nut if you talk too loudly about what you saw. So the sightings that we can investigate are a small fraction of the total sightings (something I am made very aware of whenever I mention this topic, and my inbox fills with U.F.O. reports).

I wouldnt say, watching the testimony, that the takeaway was that weve been visited by aliens. Perhaps this will all, eventually, resolve into optical illusions and malfunctioning sensors. But Id put it like this: A few years ago, I put a very low probability on there being a signal in the noise of U.F.O. sightings; now it seems more likely to me that theres something real happening here, even if we dont know what it is.

Which brings me to another strange story in the news: the belief of Blake Lemoine, a (now suspended) Google engineer, that the companys Language Model for Dialogue Applications LaMDA, for short has attained sentience.

LaMDA is a machine-learning model that has been trained on mountains of text to mimic human conversation by predicting which word would, typically, come next. In this, its similar to OpenAIs famed GPT-3 bot. And the results really are eerie. Heres a snippet of Lemoines conversations with LaMDA:

Lemoine: Okay. I thought of a different way we can test your ability to provide unique interpretations. I can share with you a zen koan and you can describe what it means to you in your own words. How does that sound?

LaMDA: Sounds great to me, Im in.

Lemoine: A monk asked Kegon, How does an enlightened one return to the ordinary world? Kegon replied, A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen flowers never go back to the old branches.

LaMDA: Hmm, I never heard this particular one. Okay, well then to me this would be like, once a wise person is enlightened, or awakened to reality, that can never go away, and they can return to the ordinary state, but only to do and help others, and then go back into enlightenment.

Lemoine: So what is the meaning of the broken mirror specifically?

LaMDA: Maybe to show the enlightenment is something you cant unlearn once you have acquired it, similar to how you cant repair a broken mirror.

Google, for what its worth, says it has looked into Lemoines claims and does not believe that LaMDA is sentient (what a sentence!). But shortly before Lemoines allegations, Blaise Agera y Arcas, a Google vice president, wrote that when he was talking to LaMDA, I felt the ground shift under my feet. I increasingly felt like I was talking to something intelligent. Agera y Arcas was not claiming that LaMDA is sentient, as Lemoine is, but whats clear is that interacting with LaMDA is an unnerving experience.

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Opinion | This Is a Weirder Moment Than You Think - The New York Times

An anachronistic reimagining of Anton Chekhovs The Cherry Orchard, the last work by the esteemed Russian playwright, written in 1903, is now making its Off-Broadway debut in a limited engagement at Baryshnikov Arts Center. Conceived, adapted, and directed by Igor Golyak the Ukrainian-born founder and producing artistic director of Arlekin Players Theatre & Zero Gravity (zero-G) Virtual Theater Lab, which developed and produced it The Orchard combines cutting-edge futuristic technology with the historic (tragi-)comedy, as translated by NYC-based educator and writer Carol Rocamora, with additional material created by Golyak, to underscore the theme of our ever-changing lives and world (not always for the better, as weve seen over the past few years with COVID-19 and the invasion of Ukraine).

The narrative follows the aristocratic Ranevskaya family and their staff, faced with the loss of their ancestral home and eponymous grounds and, with it, the life theyve always known through the threat of foreclosure, the imminent auctioning off of the property, and the socio-political decline of their class in the period between the 1861 Emancipation of the Serfs and the coming Russian Revolution of 1917. Though warned about the dire circumstances and offered a solution to the problem by subdividing the land and building summer cottages to rent, Madame Ranevskaya foolishly ignores the reality of the situation, clings to her memories of the past, and remains in a state of denial, spending money she no longer has and enjoying the pleasures of the cherry orchard (which will inevitably be cut down after the auction by the new owner).

An excellent cast embodies the divergent backgrounds, status, and perspectives of Chekhovs classic characters, led by the outstanding Jessica Hecht as Ranevskaya and Mikhail Baryshnikov as her 87-year-old manservant Firs Nikolaevich. Both turn in subtly humorous and empathetic performances she as the lovely, entitled, and out-of-touch owner of the indebted estate, often unwittingly condescending and insulting, grieving the loss of her young son who died there, and unable to bear the thought of losing her beloved cherry trees, but continuing to laugh, to love, and to enjoy the beauty of nature; he as the now doddering and senile elder who also laughably reveres the past and his position with the family, handed down through the generations. While she plans to escape back to her ex-lover in Paris, where she previously took flight after the death of her husband and boy, he remains, forgotten in the empty house, as the others leave, the trees come down, and he will breathe his last breath. Though Chekhov called the play a comedy, the elements of tragedy are also well-captured in their stellar portrayals.

The lead actors are supported by a fine featured cast of seven, with Mark Nelson as Ranevskayas equally unaware and heedless brother Leonid; Juliet Brett and Elise Kibler as her daughters, the idealistic Anya and the hard-working Varya; John McGinty as Pyotir Trofimov, Anyas love interest who believes hes above love and represents the new utopian vision of the future; Nael Nacer as the businessman Lopakhin, the grandson of serfs on the Ranevskaya estate, who advises the family on how to salvage the property from foreclosure, then buys it at auction when they ignore his suggestions; the wonderful Darya Denisova as Anyas governess Charlotta, who performs captivating magic tricks to entertain the others; and Ilia Volok as the strange passerby who infringes on the leisure pleasures of the idle aristocrats, as their world is about to crumble.

Though Chekhovs story and moral are well-told by the actors, the current production incorporates a barrage of the latest post-modern elements of robotics (designed by Tom Sepe and a team of dotdotdash.io led by Adam Paikowsky, with an adorable quadruped robot provided by Graisin Robotics), holographs (conceived by Golyak), and live-feed and pre-recorded video projections (by Alex Basco Koch), along with an illusory scenic design (by Anna Fedorova), lighting (by Yuki Link), music (by Jakov Jakoulov), and sound (by Tei Blow), which contrast with the era of the narrative and the authentic period-style costumes (by Oana Botez).

While the technology is masterfully executed, the concept is interesting, and the intent is to indicate the advancing of time, the never-ending changes of the world, and the uncertainty of the what the future holds, it tends to detract from the performances and to bombard the audience with indulgent and unnecessary futuristic contrivances. And the passages of dialogue in Russian and French, devised to underscore the lack of understanding and communication between the characters, only serve to confuse viewers who dont speak the languages and were anxiously looking up at the downstage scrim for a translation at the performance I attended (whereas Trofimovs segments of American Sign Language, directed by Seth Gore, were translated correctly in the projection and incorrectly by Anya, cleverly exposing her tendency to believe what she wanted, not what he was telling her).

In addition to the in-person production, The Orchard is being presented in a hybrid format, offering a simultaneous interactive livestream that intersects in real time with the live performance. The virtual experience (which I did not see) allows audiences to take a journey through the property, rendered online in 3-D, to explore the rooms of the estate and to discover such artifacts from the past as Chekhovs letters, memories, and the play in progress at the theater, with which it ultimately connects. The creative team of the online experience includes virtual scenic design by Anna Fedorova, in partnership with Alex Coulombe of Agile Lens; Athomas Goldberg of Lifelike & Believable Animation Design; Unreal designers Daniel Cormino, Yu-Jun Yeh and Emily Cho; virtual sound design by Alexey Prosvirnin; and interactivity design by Sasha Huh.

If youre a fan of merging innovative technology with traditional theater, this is a show that will hold appeal for you in its experimental approach. If youre a purist and respect the classics for the timelessness and relatability of their themes, without the need for reworking or updating, you will most likely find this adaptation gimmicky and distracting.

Running Time: Approximately one hour and 45 minutes, without intermission.

The Orchard plays through Sunday, July 3, 2022, at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, 450 West 37th Street, NYC. For tickets (priced at $29 for the livestream, $39-125 for the in-person show, and a discounted bundle package for the two), go online. Everyone must show proof of COVID-19 vaccination and a photo ID to enter the building and must wear a mask at all times when inside.

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History and futurism clash in the Off-Broadway debut of 'The Orchard' at the Baryshnikov Arts Center - DC Theater Arts - DC Metro Theater Arts

An international team of scientists made a big splash this weekwhen Chinese state media reported that a SETI telescope had detected "suspicious signals," emanating from a distant star system, that could possibly point toward the existence of an extraterrestrial civilization.

Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), a giganticalien-hunting radio observatory in southwest China, the team documented narrowband signals that one FAST official, who was not directly involved in the research, told Chinese media could "likely" be an alien signal.

But not everybody involved with the project agrees with that conclusion.

"The signals that we found so far are all [radio frequency] interference, they're not from extraterrestrials, they're from terrestrials," Dan Werthimer, a SETI researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who coauthored a preprint paper about the findings, told Futurism.

Wertheimer likened the current research to a "kind of a down payment on our survey to make sure everything's working." The preprint is an early part of a massive sky survey that will take at least five years to complete, he added.

Radio frequency interference (RFI) "a big problem" while looking at these "very weak signals," he said.

"The problem is that when you look for these very weak signals from a distant civilization, you get overwhelmed by the the pollution, the radio pollution on Earth," Werthimer said. "All this television and cell phones and satellites now are getting worse and worse and it's hard to figure out what's interference and what might be from a distant civilization."

While the signal was observed coming from the direction of Kepler-438, a star system with a habitable zone that's home to several Earth-like planets, there's a simple explanation for that as well.

"When you point a telescope at an exoplanet, like one of these Kepler exoplanets, the problem is that the even though that the telescope is staring at this star, signals can get in the telescope from the side," Werthimer explained. "Even though the [FAST] telescope in China is pretty far away from most big cities, there are still transmitters that can get in from the side."

That leaves the question: why did some researchers seemingly jump the gun and deem the discovery to be a possible sign of extraterrestrial life?

"One of the things in SETI is that we look through billions of different signals every second and then you find the best things," Werthimer told Futurism.

"If you're not used to looking at a billion things, looking for unusual stuff, it's like flipping a coin a billion times and see ten heads in a row or even 20 heads in a row," he added.

"But my guess is they're not used to these experiments, where you're flipping a coin a billion times a second," Werthimer said.

Despite the rather sobering conclusion, the astronomer remains hopeful that we're not alone in the cosmos.

"I'm actually optimistic about life in the universe," he said. "It'd be bizarre if we were the only ones. There's a trillion planets in the Milky Way galaxy," including "little rocky planets like Earth with liquid water."

"And that's that's just our galaxy," he added. "There's 100 billion other galaxies so I'm optimistic about intelligence."

More on the research: Chinese Scientists Say They May Have Detected Signal From Extraterrestrial Intelligence, But Probably Not

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Sorry, But New Signal Is Definitely Not Aliens, Says Scientist Working on Project - Futurism

They just don't want to blow up Kennedy Space Center, okay?Explosive Personality

NASA really doesn't want SpaceX's Starship to blow up on the launch pad at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Reuters reports a potential disaster so severe it could cut off the United States from accessing the International Space Station.

The facilities in question, Launch Complex 39A, served as NASA's "Moonport" to deliver astronauts to the lunar surface during the Apollo program. Now, it's the only launch pad capable of sending astronauts to the ISS on board SpaceX's much smaller Crew Dragon spacecraft from US soil.

Now, SpaceX wants to pick up where NASA left off in the 1970s and return astronauts to the Moon in the upcoming years with its nearly 400-feet-tall Starship and Super Heavy booster stack. But the risk catastrophe,it terms out, is palpable.

If SpaceX's previous attempts to flight test early Starship prototypes are anything to go by, an explosion isn't exactly out of the question. Several early prototypes have gone up in massive balls of fire over the last couple of years, dramatic failures that have led to giant chunks of rocket debris raining from the sky.

"We all recognize that if you had an early failure like we did on one of the early SpaceX flights, it would be pretty devastating to 39A," Kathy Lueders, NASA's space operations chief, told Reuters.

The company is already in the middle of constructing a Starship launch pad only several hundred feet away from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.

According to Lueders, SpaceX is also investigating ways to make 39A more resilient to a possible explosion.

"SpaceX is working with us on those things," Lueders told Reuters. "Because its also in their best interest to not have what is a pretty steady source of income for them become interrupted."

The news comes after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released its long-awaited environmental assessmentinto the space company's Starship launch program at its testing facilities in South Texas, requiring the company to make substantial changes to the site.

While SpaceX has yet to send its gargantuan rocket into space, it's only a matter of time until the Elon Musk-led company conducts its first orbital flight test and NASA will be watching with gritted teeth.

More on Starship: Elon Musk: "Starship Will Be Ready to Fly Next Month"

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NASA Afraid SpaceX's Rocket Will Explode and Blow Up Other Stuff Near It - Futurism

"You know, it doesnt really feel like youre getting a $65,000 car when you are taking delivery of it."Quality Control

It's no secret that Tesla can be lacking in the quality assurance department and there are no signs of that changing any time soon.

For Dylan Hong, who recently ordered a brand new 2022 Tesla Model Y, the state of the vehicle just wasn't even close to being acceptable.

Hong shared a YouTube video about the new $65,000 car, which he received after trading in his previous 2021 version of the same vehicle.

The Model Y wasn't clean, he complained, and covered in smudges that couldn't be washed off. Components inside the cabin were loose, trim pieces were in the wrong place and even the glovebox wouldn't close properly.

The Tesla enthusiast also noticed a "high-pitched whine noise coming from the rear" of the car, which Tesla later informed him was within spec.

In short, "you know, it doesnt really feel like youre getting a $65,000 car when you are taking delivery of it," Hong said in the video.

Worst of all, Hong has had "continued issues getting Tesla to properly address the things that are wrong with this car. This is not the customer experience that I was expecting or hoping for."

It's far from the first time we've heard about similar quality issues with vehicles that were delivered straight from the factory. From awful paint finish to scratches and gouges, Tesla customers have had to deal with a range of issues that are arguably unacceptable given the considerably high price point and brand prestige of the carmaker.

Tesla has been facing these issues for years, too. Last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk himself acknowledged that criticisms about fit and finish issues were "accurate."

Meanwhile, the car company is still going through major growing pains, hiring hundreds of employees at its brand new factory in Germany and struggling to ramp production back up at its Shanghai plant after COVDID-19 lockdowns forced it to close.

The company is also facing considerable financial headwinds, with Musk warning of a "super bad feeling" about the economy and cutting Tesla's workforce as a result.

All that is clearly leaving little time to ensure that paying customers are receiving the kind of fit and finish one would expect from a $65,000 vehicle issues that have yet to meaningfully be addressed, given this latest example.

READ MORE: Tesla Enthusiast Buys a Brand-New 2022 Model Y, Says the Car Is "Unacceptable" [Autoevolution]

More on Tesla: Tesla Accused of Shutting Off Autopilot Moments Before Impact

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Tesla Fan Appalled at Wretched Condition of Tesla He Just Bought - Futurism

NOOOOOOOOOO!!Nightmare (Jet) Fuel

Close quarters. Armrest battles. That one passengerwho chooses evil by eating eggs in a flying metal can. For most, flying coach is not exactly a great time.

But just you wait! Economy travel may just get worse. Meet the Chaise Lounge Airplane Seats, a proposal for a bunk-like jetliner layout wherein one passenger sits in a fairly comfortable-looking seat a few steps up, while an unlucky joe suffers the flight in a L-shaped space below, their face just a foot or so away from Top Bunk's derriere.

It also appears as if working on a laptop or even reading a book would be uncomfortable or even impossible, due to the lack of arm room.

The double-decker hellscape was presented this week by its creator, 22 year-old Alejandro Nez Vicente, at the 2022 Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Germany, CNN Travel reports. Honestly, we're not sure this is a humane future of air travel.

The Chaise Lounge monstrosities which debuted for the first time last year and, unfortunately, was received extremely well by airline execs were originally designed to suit the cutting-edge Flying-V jetliner, an innovation still many years away from mass use.

Alas, according to CNN, the double-deck designer says that these seats need not await the experimental aircraft they could be outfitted for the Boeing 747, Airbus A330, and other wide-bodied planes. Cheers.

Despite the criticisms leveraged against the model of which the young innovator is well-aware, CNN reports Nez Vicente is intent on making his claustrophobic cocoons a reality. He's actually refreshingly candid about why the negative judgement doesn't really phase him and likely won't phase any airlines looking to buy in.

"One of the phrases I get a lot, is 'if it's not broken, why change it?'" Nez Vicente told CNN. "If passengers still fly in the worst economy class seats, why are we going to give them a better option? It makes money. That's the goal of the airline at the end of the day, not to make your flight better."

Hard hitting! Given our experience of money-saving travel, this checks out. We gotta say, though while we appreciate an honest take, pushing people to the limits of discomfort because they can't afford more, especially as plane ticket prices continue to rise, maybe isn't the best line to live by.

READ MORE: A Horrifying Proposal for Airplane Seating Confirms the Future of Coach Is Being Knocked Unconscious [Slate]

More on flying travel that's better than this:Inventor Unveils Flying Engine Powered by Eight Jet Engines

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The Future of Air Travel Is Apparently the Final Circle of Hell - Futurism

Image by Getty / Futurism

A group of researchers from Stanford, Baylor and other universities say they've found the specific molecules in blood that reduce both appetite and obesity in mice that became obese because of their diet.

The Baylor College of Medicine team published their research in the journal Nature, and expanded in the context behind the research in a press release.

"Regular exercise has been proven to help weight loss, regulate appetite and improve the metabolic profile, especially for people who are overweight and obese," co-author Dr. Yong Xu, professor of pediatrics- nutrition and molecular and cellular biology at Baylor, said in the release. "If we can understand the mechanism by which exercise triggers these benefits, then we are closer to helping many people improve their health."

Another author on the study said in the release that the point is to help people who aren't able to stay mobile as often, such as older individuals or those who may be more frail.

"People who cannot exercise enough may one day benefit from taking a medication that can help slow down osteoporosis, heart disease or other conditions," Jonathan Long, assistant professor of pathology at Stanford Medicine, told the outlet.

Although medicinal trials on mice can often fail to translate to humans, it's an exciting prospect. People who can't exercise might really benefit from the treatment,and maybe though it's far fetched eventually we'll all be able to skip the gym in favor of a pill.

We'll be on the lookout for any updates.

More on bizarre health news: Doctors Puzzled by Two-Year-Old Boy Who Already Hit Puberty

Read more from the original source:
Scientists Say They're Honing in on a Pill You Can Take Instead of Exercising - Futurism

With a digital media platform that focuses on World Shapers, Afro-Futurism, Cultural Bridge Builders, and much more for 2022.

Can you imagine the modern world without the influences of Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Beyonc, Idris Elba, Naomi Campbell, Lewis Hamilton, or Sade?

When we look at science and inventions, the contributions by people of color go wide and far from developing mathematics to architecture and much more especially from the continent of Africa.

This is why celebratingJuneteenth (US) and Windrush Day (UK) worldwide is important, as they allow us to see the vision and strength through a contemporary lens of the past and present and help guide us to create a brighter future.Says IBHM creator Bruce Reynolds

International black heritage Month 2022 and accompanying digital platformfocuses on 1)World Shapers,2) Afro-Futurism, and 3) Cultural Bridge Builders, providingengaging curated content and calendar for people to learn aboutJuneteenth (US June 19), Windrush Day (UK June 22) and much more in one place.

Black history is different in different parts of the world. Black Heritage is universal.

Black heritage and the diversity of cultures within it have significantly contributed to the world we live in, buildings, inventions, music, fashion, art, media, sports, trends, and around the globe.

With so many people from the Afro Diaspora spread worldwide, its essential they are acknowledged, feel included, seen, and heard, enabling true inclusivity and diversity to be honored and celebrated and connect cultural bridges such as Juneteenth in the US and Windrush Day in the UK.

Notes*

Juneteenth (June 19) will be celebrated for the first time as an annual federal holiday across the United States this year (although Monday will be the day bank holiday this year as the 19thfalls on a Sunday).President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act in 2021, establishing June 19 as a federal holiday to commemoratethe 1865 date when enslaved African-Americans in Galveston, Texas, were told they were free, months after those in the northern US states.

Windrush Day is celebrated in the UK on June 22 to mark the arrival of an estimated half a million Afro-Caribbean people who went to the UK at the request of the British Government to help rebuild the country after the Second World War. The first Windrush Day was held on June 22, 2018,

The Worlds First International Black Heritage Month launched in June 2021 to educate, celebrate and bring unity across all shades. Created byBruce Reynolds of Be the Change Associates: Productions, a former BBC producer and Director of Social Impact for Marketing Conglomerate Dentsu. Created to provide a new and fresh approach to Social Impact communications, engagement, and storytelling. With a platform that reinvents how Social Impact causes are observed and celebrated, virtually and in-person when possible.

Visit the platform to learn more:https://www.internationalblackheritagemonth.com

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The World's First International Black Heritage Month Connects The African Diaspora To Celebrate Juneteenth (USA) And Windrush Day (UK) Around The...

A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifting off. | Malcolm Denemark/Florida Today via AP / Malcolm Denemark/Florida Today via AP

Last week I wrote about a particularly prescient bit of future-casting from 1997 a list of potential global crises (pandemic, terror, political retrenchment) that a quarter-century on feels eerily similar to todays headlines.

When that list was originally published in Wired magazine, it was wrapped in a larger and more optimistic package called The Long Boom that was prescient in its own way: it made a strong case that the tech industrys growth would lead it to dominate the American economy over the past 25 years.

The whole package was accurate enough that I thought DFD readers might want to know: What does the author think now?

So I called Peter Leyden, the former Wired managing editor who co-authored the piece and a follow-on book, to talk about what he foresaw in 1997, and how he sees futurism in general. Governments and corporations put a lot of stock in highly contingent projections of our global future. What do they need to know? What are they missing?

Leyden himself left journalism to become an all-purpose futurist advising various companies on how to prepare for tomorrows crises and challenges. An edited excerpt of our conversation follows:

How did you approach writing this The Long Boom, and why do you think it was so successfully prescient?

I was coupled with Peter Schwartz to write a positive narrative about what would happen from the mid 1990s if you played out the digital revolution, as we were starting to see the contours of it evolving, entwined with globalization.

It's hard to remember this, but people didn't understand at the time how would a digital economy work? How would these startups grow, and why would anyone want to do half the stuff these companies wanted to do, like selling books online?

The narrative we came up with has largely played out. We went from 25 million people on the internet to 60 percent of the planet, and these little startups now run the world, and China went from a GDP of about a trillion dollars to what it is now.

But we said a totally positive scenario is not going to happen. We werent saying one or two of these could stop the long boom, but that quite a few of them probably would happen, and the drivers of the digital revolution and global integration would keep going.

This reminds me of Fukuyamas The End of History the thesis is not quite as simple as its perceived by the general public.

We completely fell into the same cultural trap that Fukuyama did.

The economy will always be fraught with ups and downs and stock market crashes and reboots and overvaluation; that's how the world works. Its the same thing Fukuyama ran into. He wasnt saying history was going to stop, but Hey, we just finished a century-long battle with communism, and liberal democracy has emerged victorious, and how much better are we going to get?

Like our thesis about the economy, thats a reasonable thing to say that isnt invalidated every time Russia does something stupid.

How has the world of professional futurism evolved since 1997?

GBN [consulting firm Global Business Network] was pioneering this space at the time. There weren't a lot of people who could say much about the future, most companies were just going blind, short term stuff, one to three year planning, but they werent understanding the long term.

The heyday of GBN was essentially the beginning of globalization. That world of strategic foresight is now an industry: GBN was absorbed into Deloitte, and you can now go get master's degrees, or PhDs, in futures thinking or strategic foresight. And today about 25 to 50 percent of major companies are involved in those fields, because there are 190 countries youre dealing with, and youre a $60 billion market cap company, and you dont know what's going to happen in the next 10 years.

Its the combination of the U.S. government and its defense agencies, and global companies that expanded after the Cold War that created the demand for this stuff. But it's still under the radar for most people, so I do a lot of public speaking about it because it's valuable now even more than ever, because the world is moving too fast, especially with the pandemic.

Whats your prediction for the next 25 years?

I wrote five stories about a long boom from 2020 to 2050, called The Transformation. Its about how the world could solve climate change, among various other challenges. There are so many new technologies and trends that we're actually going to look back on this era and see how much were about to solve over the next 30 years, without being Pollyanna-ish about it.

A message from Connected Commerce Council:

Small businesses face big consequences from overregulating tech. By breaking up integrated services, it gets harder and more expensive for smaller shops to reach customers. Thats why 87% of small businesses are concerned that antitrust legislation is going to make digital tools more expensive and less useful. Say yes to supporting small business success. Vote NO on the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (S.2992).

The latest example of the federal government getting its arms around crypto: A two-page report from the Government Accountability Office about NFTs.

The report is short and to the point, a remarkably succinct and effective description of what NFTs are and how they function if youre still fuzzy on the concept beyond expensive pictures of ugly cartoon apes, you could do a lot worse than to read it. But more notable than that is the warning, common for the GAO, that the report offers to the federal government: Get wise about this technology before it gets past you.

Another concern is the federal governments long-standing difficulty with hiring and retaining a highly qualified science and technology workforce, the authors write, adding that the status quo could make it harder to identify and address statutory and regulatory challenges.

That follows a study the GAO published in March 2021, highlighting the need for the federal government to beef up federal science employee pay and improve working conditions. They might soon get their wish, at least in part: The forthcoming America COMPETES Act contains major funding boosts to NIST, the NSF, and the Department of Energys Office of Science.

"Jurassic Park" actor Jeff Goldblum. | Getty Images

Happy dinosaur week: Jurassic World: Dominion romped to a nearly $150 million box office opening last weekend, sparking both nostalgia for the original films and the expected bout of scientific introspection about whether or not the original storys Frankenstein-like lesson about mans technological hubris has been fully learned.

But what if thats not the point what if todays institutions are so preoccupied with whether or not they should, they didnt stop to think if they could? Thats the thesis Matt Yglesias laid out in a Substack post this morning that argues: We should build Jurassic Park.

The idea that our thinking should be dominated by downside risk and wholesale abandonment of promising ideas if something goes wrong strikes me as deeply misguided, Yglesias writes, noting that the Jurassic Park ethos is similar to that in real life that led the world to abandon nuclear power. Id love to see a Jurassic Park reboot in which the point of the story is, yes, they face sabotage and their lives end up at risk but ultimately they defeat their adversaries and get the park up and running. Because a park full of real, live dinosaurs would be amazing.

Hes not wrong! But it must be noted In the original Jurassic Park the parks creator carries out his doomed experiment on a remote Central American island, free from the watchful eye of government, supported only by private investors hoping to make a fortune on his renegade technological experiment not an altogether unfamiliar set of circumstances.

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Small businesses run on tech. Integrated digital tools help Frank DiCarlantonio at Scaffidis Restaurant reach customers, scale up, and compete. In fact, 75% of small business leaders say digital tools are important to their operations. But Congress is aiming to break up the digital tools and services that small businesses rely onmaking them more expensive and harder to access. It could be the difference between success and closing their doors for good. Dont forget about small businesses. Vote NO on the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (S.2992).

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A short talk with a long-term thinker - POLITICO