Venter Makes Bold Predictions

Biologist Dr. Craig Venter is known for talking and thinking big, but if he delivers on a substantial portion of his predictions as published in the Daily Mail, then we should put his mug on the one dollar bill, because he will be a hero of civilization.

According to C.V., future generations may derive energy from the living, rather than the dead. Living microorganisms will produce energy that we now get from fossil fuels. Cheaper energy is all that stands between civilization and improved living conditions for all. Energy that does not produce substantial pollution would be a godsend.

Also, science may be able to halt and even reverse global warming. However, that does raise the specter of a new means of warfare. By changing the composition of the atmosphere, a landlocked, mountainous nation could attempt to harm by proxy a nation with developed coastlines. It would be a crime comparable to the very worst in the annals of warfare, but instead of a crime against just humanity, it would be a crime against the planet itself and all living organisms.

Profitability

Profitability has long been a dominant force in the world. Men do what makes money, not necessarily what is good for all.

If a means could be found to harness the power of fusion energy, and energy became so abundant as to be almost free of cost, then the system of commerce might become obsolete. Imagine a world that is fully automated, with all tasks being performed by robots that manufacture and repair themselves. What need would humans then have to sell their labor? Instead, we could each do the work that we love to do, or not as the case may be, without ever a thought of profit. This flies in the face of the assumption made by many, that greed is a necessary component of human nature. Is it?

Save Money on Air Conditioning Costs

In a July 21st, 2009 interview on The Daily Show, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu offered a practical suggestion that people can use today in order to reduce energy costs. Choose white tiles for a roof, instead of black. The cost is nil, while the energy savings amount to at least five per cent, because the white tiles reflect solar energy back into space, saving on air conditioning costs.

Modifying H. Sapiens

Scientists are learning more about the human genome. Here is yet another article on the insights they are gaining into our genetic traits. This is exciting stuff. Oh, to be alive a hundred years from now. I wonder what the world will be like then. Surely much different. Even the human race will be different. Everyone alive today will be regarded as primitive ancestors, much in the same way that we view our distant relatives on the evolutionary tree.

There are many traits in H. Sapiens that beg for alteration. The list is probably endless. The only thing that bothers me is that the technology could be used for evil as well as good, much like any technology, and it is likely that it will be used for evil, given our history. Governments will seek to modify the human genome in order to manufacture passive, conformist workers that never question authority. I see a world with castes, much like India, but entrenched by hard-coded racial attributes.

Psychologists Reject Gay-to-Straight Therapy

This decision by the APA should put the insulting notions behind so-called "reparative therapy" to rest.

While I never engaged in a structured or organized form of "reparative therapy," I was taught that homosexuality was sick, wrong, et cetera, and this caused a great deal of dysfunction and confusion. I kept trying to be something I was not and to play roles that were not well-suited to me.

In high school, bullying was common. Gays received the lion's share of bullying. Nothing provokes a bully more than a boy with the slightest trace of otherness, which is associated with weakness.

The start of a school day inspired terror. The end of a school day, relief if nothing had happened, or else thoughts of suicide if something had. You would expect teachers to put a stop to bullying. I know I did. If a bully was beating the hell out of a smaller kid, then that was considered a good thing, because it was considered the way things ought to be. Reparative therapy, don't you know.

I remember blood on the gymnasium floor. I'll always remember the blood. In PhysEd class, which was a required course. The teacher was a redneck and turned a blind eye to bullies. When he noticed the blood, he compelled the victim to clean it up with a mop and a bucket in front of everyone else. I'll always remember that. The victim was a retarded effeminate black student who spoke with a lisp. Who was his assailant? Another black student. It was an attack based upon perceived sexual orientation.

Coming Soon to a World Near You: Eugenics

In the future, it is likely that governments around the world will ban natural childbirth and institute mandatory sterilization of all males. Test tube babies will be the rule. Couples will select the genetic traits desired in their children. In some countries, the government may choose for them. There are arguments that can be made in favor of efficiency, improvement, and reduction of risk.

The main problem, as I see it, is that we may get things wrong. We may assume that certain traits are beneficial, when they have hidden drawbacks. Every engineer knows that by taking measures to eliminate a problem, sometimes new and unforeseen problems are created.

Let us say for instance that we wish to eliminate vulnerability to AIDS/HIV by tweaking the human immune system. We do so, and experience a few generations of improved resistance to AIDS. This seems all well and good. However, many years down the road, we may find people are developing cancer at an alarming rate. Will it be possible to correct existing human beings, once they've already been born? One cannot rule out the possibility, but it would seem difficult, at best.

Despite such potential problems, I am in favor of engineering a new breed, because by doing so, we can eliminate many pervasive and persistent problems from the world. For instance, no criminals need be born. That, in my opinion, should be the first modification. Every human being should be born with a conscience. Today, some are born without a conscience. Some individuals in Iran, for instance, think it is acceptable to work for a fascist government and brutalize civilians as part of their "job". Either their conscience is malfunctioning or nonexistent. One of the two. We need to create a stronger human conscience to the point where humans feel a great revulsion against harming other humans. This would reduce the chances of stupid wars breaking out, and clowns like Ahmadeinjad could never get started in the first place.

Notice how I've turned the argument against eugenics on its face. In the past, people associated eugenics with the Nazis and racism. However, let us hope that in the future, eugenics will be a tool employed to eliminate nazism, fascism and racism. Of course, things could go either way, couldn't they? If China masters the science behind eugenics before we do, then all bets are off. I would not put it past them. Expect a human race of conformist automatons who live only to serve the State. Art and literature would be devastated.

The United States has been neglecting science in favor of business scams and pointless wars. America needs to change into a society where college students prefer to study science to the exclusion of all other fields, including business. Business is irrelevant. It contributes nothing beyond mindless consumerism. Science is the only way forward. A nation that does not lead in science will be overtaken in more ways than one by a nation that does.

Any future program of eugenics should be voluntary, rather than compulsory, and there should be greater emphasis placed upon morality, such that human beings do not become viruses that prey upon their own kind nor serve a State that is itself a virus, like Iran. Only states like Iran and China would make eugenics compulsory. Iran would manufacture Islamobots, no doubt. We in the West have placed our confidence in diversity, and I think that is the best strategy overall to contend with a diverse planet.

Mix and Match Traits

In the History Channel's "Evolve" series, scientists discuss the possibility that in the future, parents will select the traits they want to see in their test-tube babies. Natural childbirth will be regarded as unconscionable due to the risk of birth defects. This will be a brave new world, indeed. What I've mentioned is only the beginning. Once the human genome is fully cracked and 0wn3d, there will be many among us who opt to abandon the human form altogether in favor of a more perfect outward and inward form. Every one has a different version of what constitutes perfection, however, so expect a world strewn with monsters, gods, and odd things never before imagined. This is a scary technology, and we are probably not ready for it. Nevertheless, it's coming, probably a hundred years down the road.

Questions for the Future

This is a list of questions that I think the human race should answer. To not know is a bit awkward.

• What caused the first primitive life forms to appear on Earth? If it was not God, then what? Why should life arise? At what stage of development does life differ from inanimate objects? Are viruses alive or dead?


• Why should our cells be a host to mitochondria? The human body plays host to bacteria, mites, fungi and other organisms that are unaware of being part of us. Could we be like these small organisms--a particle within a larger organism? Is the Universe conscious? Do we perceive impulses from the collective cosmic consciousness?


• What happened before the Big Bang? How long did the singularity exist--or is time itself relative to such an extent that forever just before the beginning could mean only a second of our time?


• Why should a collection of atoms, arranged in the way our DNA determines, ask questions about itself and about the Universe? What is the purpose of awareness? Is there a purpose? Why must there be a purpose?


• Is DNA like the code underpinning our software applications? Who then was the programmer? Or if there were no author, then why is DNA self-perpetuating? Why do organisms prefer life to non-life and take measures to survive?


• What will be the consequences when humans begin programming in DNA, redesigning future generations to be superior? Will the throwbacks be tolerated? What will the future gods do and where will they go?


• Is life real or is it virtual? If it is virtual, then what is the nature of the host server?


• Could life be designed in such a way that it were virtual rather than real? I believe that human personalities and memories can be stored upon a computer. An application could be written to store a human consciousness. Then will come a time when many people prefer to live in eternal virtual reality. A small tribe of caretakers would remain in the physical world to maintain the machines that store the virtual selves of the future people.

The answers may be a long time in coming, but they are well-worth searching for.

Finished Watching "Universe"

I finished watching the four-dvd set of "Universe," a ten to twelve hour-long documentary about the origins, composition, and nature of the Universe.

Everyone is familiar with the story of Adam and Eve as related in Genesis. It's all wrong, of course, like much else in the Bible. The documentary never quite says so in words, but the implication is there for anyone with a mind to think.

The actual story of the Universe is that everything, including our bodies, originated from a singularity, a single point in space. During the Big Bang, the singularity began expanding like a balloon. The expansion never ended. Today, all matter is accelerating. The Universe is not static, but is increasing in size as it expands. Every object in space-time is in a state of motion. Eventually, the velocity will become too great, and matter itself will disintegrate.

This implies that there was a finite beginning, and will be a finite end, to the Universe as we know it. We do not, however, know what caused the Big Bang, the singularity, or what happened prior to the Big Bang. It may be that the Universe is in a constant state of contraction followed by expansion. This notion appeals to me on an intuitive level because it reminds me of a bullfrog puffing up with air, croaking and then beginning again. It also supplies a neat answer to the ticklish question of what happened before the Big Bang.

Helium was the original element, and during the Big Bang, hydrogen formed and continues to form inside of stars, along with other elements created from helium by the extreme heat and pressure of stars. Apparently, all the elements of the Periodic Table derive from helium, including hydrogen, gold, and oxygen. The substance of the human body derives ultimately from stars; we are stardust, as is much of the planet. Hydrogen is the most common element in the Universe, helium the second-most common.

What bothers me about documentaries like this are the scary implications. One gets a strong sense of the insignificance of humankind, and of planet Earth, when contemplating the vastness of the Universe. I believe I remember hearing that there were 125 billion stars in the Milky Way alone, and our galaxy is just one of many, and our planet is a relatively young one. The implication is that there is probably intelligent life at many other locations around the cosmos. We just have not encountered it yet. Sooner or later, these alien civilizations will receive the radio signals that we began beaming into space in the 1930's. The prospect of a planet as wonderful as ours may be quite tempting. I am sure that any race more advanced than ours would want our planet for their own, and make quick work of us, one way or the other. To them, we would seem about as advanced as ants. The only thing really protecting us, or rather buying us some time, is the vast distance between our world and everywhere else.

Oh, another worrisome thought is that the Andromeda galaxy, twice the size of our own, is on a collision course with the Milky Way. Maybe the Republicans should muster up a "Coalition of the Willing" to fight against the Andromeda galaxy. How much aid should we give to Poland, so that they will send a lab tech over to NASA to help with the counter-measures? And how, exactly, do we stop the Andromeda galaxy?

The footage, in part computer-generated, but with some actual footage from NASA spacecraft, reminded me that everything in the Universe of a substantial size--whether a star, planet, or moon--seems to be round. This is probably due to gravity. For this reason, the perfect symbol for a religion would probably incorporate a circle somewhere. The symbol for Wicca comes to mind, or possibly Taoism.

I don't understand life. Why does life exist? How did it begin? Why should it be necessary? No world religions provide satisfactory answers to this question. Instead, world religions appeal to the selfish ego, telling man what he wants to hear: that he is the central most concern of a loving God who watches over and protects him. A comforting and consoling thought, but false, because dreadful things, as we all know, happen quite easily. And we also know that once a person dies, they stay dead. The dead do not visit us. If they did, we would certainly be busy entertaining them, because there are more dead than living.

From what we know, life is unnecessary in the ordinary running of the cosmos. The cosmos takes care of itself without any help from life. Why should molecules join together and, over the course of evolution, develop a certain brand of self-awareness?

One idea that has occurred to me is that life may create the universe, rather than the other way around. Our thoughts and actions may influence the nature of matter, time, and space, in some way that we don't understand. I've read about similar themes in articles concerning quantum mechanics. But I don't know. This sounds suspiciously New Age to me. But the Universe is not a place where things tend to happen for no reason. Why should life be a thing separate and distinct from non-life? Maybe reality is more like television, and less like reality as we perceive it. The Universe could be unreal. Maybe a virtual reality is closer to the truth--sort of like "The Matrix."

How self-aware are we, anyway? Maybe we are more like robots than like actual thinkers, as we prefer to believe. Much of what we say or do could be predicted, could it not? I have always been of the opinion that human beings are nothing more than elegant computer programs, predictable in every way, shape, and form. Moods can be programmed into a computer. You simply assign values to variables that influence programmatic behavior. Ideas can be programmed into a computer, as can beliefs, opinions, degrees of certainty, and degrees of ambivalence. It's just a matter of time, probably about thirty years, before AI develops a computer that thinks as well as humans do about all subjects. All indications point to a world where computers will be superior to humans. This means all workers will be obsolete and expendable. War will result--the haves versus the have-nots. The very rich will decide that the poor need to die, that the rich will have more space and end the harms caused by pollution to "their" environment. This means me, you, our neighbors and about 99.8% of all humans will be liquidated, because they can be replaced by droid-slaves, which work for free, never complain, and are better than we are.

The future looks like a scary place. I'm kind of glad that I don't have to be there. By the time AI gets good enough to pose a risk, I'll have used up all my time on this world already and be food for worms. But for younger people, they have a future of increasing temperatures, declining wages, increased violence, increased warfare, widespread radioactivity from nuclear war, and severe weather.

In the short term, I would like to know whether there is life on Europa, which orbits Jupiter, or Titan, which orbits Saturn. Of the two, Europa seems the most promising. Although the surface is cold and radioactive, beneath the surface there may be oceans of liquid water. It is very interesting that planet Earth is not the only large body, even in our tiny solar system, with large amounts of water. If water is as widespread a phenomena elsewhere as it is here, then the chances of life improve considerably.