|
Edge 315 — March 19, 2010 EAT ME BEFORE I EAT YOU! A NEW FOE FOR BAD BUGS 3 Quarks Daily, The Straits Times (Singapore), Wired, Sabah (Turkey), Huffington Post, Shadowland Journal, Il Giornale, BoingBoing, Why Evolution Is True, Chosun.com, Il Recensore.com, Il Corriere Della Sera, Reason, Giornale di Sicilia, Assicurazione.it, Computing.co.uk, Carta |
EAT ME BEFORE I EAT YOU! A NEW FOE FOR BAD BUGS |
![]() |
3 QUARKS DAILY WHAT THE INTERNET WILL MEAN FOR JOURNALISM AND JOURNALISTS: INSIGHTS FROM THE EDGE I am embarrassed to say that before this weekend I had never visited Edge.org. I was first directed to the site on Friday by a post on 3QD, and I have remained there ever since, devouring responses to the 2010 Edge Annual Question, “How is the internet changing the way you think?” There are many wonderful ideas to glean from this incredible collection of essays, but I was especially interested in what the replies suggested for the future of journalism and – perhaps a separate issue – the future of journalists. ... |
Each week, we publish an extract from a book that is topical or of general interest. This Will Change Everything: Ideas That Will Shape The Future Edited by John Brockman Harper Perennial (2010) What would your reply be to this question about change: 'What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?' John Brockman, publisher and editor of an online scientific website, Edge, puts forward this hypothetical question to a group of scientists, thinkers, intellectuals and artists. The result? A collection of short essays where imagination, ideas and propositions know no bounds. |
BEYOND THE BEYOND http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge313.html Algorithmic Culture Those of us involved in communicating ideas need to re-think the Internet. Here at Edge, we are not immune to such considerations. We have to ask if we're kidding ourselves by publishing 10,000+ word pieces to be read by people who are limiting themselves to 3" ideas, i.e. the width of the screen of their iPhones and Blackberries.(((And if they're kidding THEMSELVES, what do you suppose they're doing to all those guys with the handsets?))) Many of the people that desperately need to know, don't even know that they don't know. Book publishers, confronted by the innovation of technology companies, are in a state of panic. Instead of embracing the new digital reading devices as an exciting opportunity, the default response is to disadvantage authors. Television and cable networks are dumbfounded by the move of younger people to watch TV on their computers or cell-phones. Newspapers and magazine publishers continue to see their advertising model crumble and have no response other than buyouts. Take a look at the photos from the recent Edge annual dinner and you will find the people who are re-writing global culture, and also changing your business, and, your head. What do Evan Williams (Twitter), Larry Page (Google), Tim Berners-Lee (World Wide Web Consortium), Sergey Brin (Google), Bill Joy (Sun), Salar Kamangar (Google), Keith Coleman (Google Gmail), Marissa Mayer (Google), Lori Park (Google), W. Daniel Hillis (Applied Minds), Nathan Myhrvold (Intellectual Ventures), Dave Morin (formerly Facebook), Michael Tchao (Apple iPad), Tony Fadell (Apple/iPod), Jeff Skoll (formerly eBay), Chad Hurley (YouTube), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Jeff Bezos (Amazon) have in common? All are software engineers or scientists. (((So… if we can just round up and liquidate these EDGE conspirators, then us authors are out of the woods, right? I mean, that would seem to be a clear implication.))) So what's the point? It's a culture. Call it the algorithmic culture. (((Even if we rounded 'em up, I guess we'd still have to fret about those ALGORITHMS they built. Did you ever meet an algorithm with a single spark of common sense or humane mercy? I for one welcome our algorithmic overlords.))) ... |
THE OIL DRUM: AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND From Counterculture To Cyberculture: The Life And Times Of Stewart Brand [ED. NOTE: A serious reprise of the work and influence of Stewart Brand over the past 40-odd years...JB] This post was prompted by my reading Fred Turner's book "From Counterculture To Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network and the Rise of Digital Utopianism", which looks at the influence Bucky Fuller had on a range of people, in particular Stewart Brand, who helped create first the hippie counterculture and the back to the land movement of the sixties and seventies, then later the cyberculture that grew up around the San Francisco bay area. ... Turner has some great excerpts from his book at "EDGE" magazine — STEWART BRAND MEETS THE CYBERNETIC COUNTERCULTURE. ... ...Brand maintained that given access to the information we need, humanity can make the world a better place. The Whole Earth Catalog magazine he founded was promoted as a "compendium of tools, texts and information" which sought to "catalyze the emergence of a realm of personal power" by making technology available to people eager to create sustainable communities. Brand eventually achieved his goal of persuading NASA to release the first photo of the Earth from space (wandering around for some time wearing a badge saying "Why Haven't We Seen A Picture of the Whole Earth?") and the photo became the cover for the Catalog. ... ...Whole Earth (and later Wired) editor Kevin Kelly has noted that style of the Whole Earth Catalog preceded the modern internet / blogosphere, and was eventually made redundant by it. ... ...Brand discusses "Whole Earth Discipline" in this talk at EDGE....
Further Reading on Edge: STEWART BRAND MEETS THE CYBERNETIC COUNTERCULTURE; |
Discussion of the meaning of dangerous ideas: Turkey is changing! Starting from a book the other day, our readers "What is your most dangerous idea," he asked. "most dangerous" What is your opinion? ...I've had an interesting collection in a bookstore Mumbai: "What is Your Dangerous Idea?" Almost got it. Where the "dangerous ideas" and implied "murder, massacres, rape, robbery, such as" criminal actions in almost every period, and their planning is not sure. |
My Senate Armed Services Testimony: A Bottom-Up Approach to Extremist De-Radicalization By Scott Atran |
SHADOWLAND JOURNAL by Christopher Dickey March 11, 2010: Anthropologist Scott Atran's statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 10 is one of the most consistently surprising — and smartest — rundowns on the nature of terrorist organizations and the best ways to figh.lkt them that I have seen anywhere. It should be read carefully by anyone concerned with these issues. |
La Scienza sperimenta l'ottimismo Financial crises to global warming, disease, terrorism: eminent physicists, biologists, psychologists and anthropologists explain why the future of man is not black like some prophesies ...In principle, scientists are incurable optimists, looking to the future, some in my heart to have the right ideas to put in place two or three things that do not or who do not yet know. The Assayer in bookstores these days brings 153 reasons to be optimistic (pp. 424, euro 21) edited by John Brockman. A group of scientists responding to the same question: "What makes you optimistic?". Among them there are many well-known characters, such as Jared Diamond, Richard Dawkins, Lisa Randall, Ray Kurzweil, Gino Segre, Brian Eno, Daniel C. Dennett, Lawrence M. Krauss. Here is a la carte menu with recipes for solving energy problems, to democratize the global economy, increase government transparency, eradicate religious disputes, reduce hunger, improve our intelligence, to defeat the disease, progress in morals, improve the concept of friendship transcend our Darwinian roots, to understand the fundamental law of the universe, to unify all knowledge, reduce terrorism, colonize Mars. The book, besides being fun, it is also serious. In the deck of the answers, there is one with a highly scientific (even if it seems at first sight) and Humanities. Maybe it will be the most compelling, is certainly the most touching. Alison Gopnik, a professor of psychology at Berkeley, the question "Why are you optimistic?" Replied: "Why do new born children." Who spend time to invent a better future if there were new children? But imagine preferable alternative to the actual world to bequeath to those who come after us "is the greatest gift evolutionary inscribed in our DNA." |
Fight terrorism with science: Scott Atran "We are fixated on technology and technological success, and we have no sustained or systematic approach to field-based social understanding of our adversaries' motivation, intent, will, and the dreams that drive their strategic vision, however strange those dreams and vision may seem to us."—Anthropologist Scott Atran, who believes the quest to end violent political extremism needs more science. (edge.org) |
Rod Dreher and the Templeton "bribe" In a beliefnet column posted last week, Dreher decried the coming "Age of Wonder" touted by physicist Freeman Dyson, in which science may play an increasingly important role in our life:
|
|
IL RECENSORE.COM At the Press Club of Milan, on 22 February, the scientist Edoardo Boncinelli presented "I remembered" (Longanesi, 2010), assisted by prof. Julius Giorello and the philosopher and epistemologist Armando Massarenti. |
BOOKS & STORIES The title of the book "153 reasons to be optimistic" (Il Saggiatore) attracts at a time like ours dotted with gloomy news of any kind. But even more intriguing if one also reads the subtitle: "The challenge of the great research. What promises? You wonder. The reasons are the answers gathered by John Brockman curator 's work, by many scientists working on the frontiers of science more extreme. I identify what the reason, from their point of view and work, it is right to look positively at the future. A scientist must be an optimist by definition driven by 'enthusiasm to conquer something new. And the prospect to which he devoted his life is destined to bring the news that improve the lives of us all. The round-up of short answers, but the content is impressive because he hears from the genome mapper Craig Venter (pictured) to Marvin Minsky that deals with immortality, by physicist Lee Smolin and Martin Rees on the energy challenge, by Freeman Dyson at Nobel George Smoot. Many issues relate to general culture and society. All agree on one point: to show that the reason for optimism is absolutely true. |
...Now if you're interested in seeing how science and religion "illuminate" one another, what's the first thing you think of? How about this: is there any empirical truth in the claims of faith? After all, if you're trying to "reconcile" two areas of thought, and look at their interactions, surely you'd be interested if there's any empirical truth in them. After all, why 'reconcile' two areas if one of them might be only baseless superstition? Is the evidence for God as strong as it is for evolution? Does the 'fine-tuning' of physical constants prove Jesus? Was the evolution of humans inevitable, thereby showing that we were part of God's plan? It's not that there's nothing to say about this. After all, one of the speakers in the Fellows' symposia is Simon Conway Morris, who has written a popular-science book claiming that biology proves that the evolution of human-like creatures was inevitable. It's just that the Templeton Foundation doesn't want to promote, or have its Fellows write about, the other side, the Dark Side that feels that no reconciliation is possible between science and faith. John Horgan, who was once a Journalism Fellow, talks about his experience: ... |
Bill Gates, the Chauncey Gardiner of the Great Decession? Michael Shermer, the libertarian-leaning skeptic and critical thinker who is as formidable and illustrious as he is implacable and indefatigable, lets his hair down in a paean to Bill Gates that is so fulsome I suspect it's a joke. Describing a TED-related dinner organized last week in Long Beach by John Brockman, Shermer describes how the multibillionaire Microsoft founder wowed everybody at his table. (Imagine a man so brilliant he makes John Cusack seem like a minor league penseur by comparison.) ... |
GIORNALE DI SICILIA ...Perhaps the most are the same, for ignorance, mental laziness or just to absolve from mistakes, continue to define "luck." But the future has a direction for each of us? Not ask wizards, witches or 'oroscopari, but scientists. He did it Max Brockman, a literary agent in charge of popular science: it has invited 18 young scientists to write as many essays that have now been collected into a book, Science: The Next Generation. These young scholars are trying to give answers to questions like these: what direction we want to give the future?, What he is trying to tell us the universe? How to improve human beings? How important is the imagination?, Homo sapiens is destined to die ', and so on. The answers take into account the data and scientific knowledge, trying to interpret the broad outlines of science that will come. ... |
Farewell to the scientist with his head in the clouds, now prefer to surf: the science has become pop ...If you venture between the conference video of TED, a real brain trust of innovation, if you dip into that inexhaustible source of ideas that have multiple and choral books edited by John Brockman (particularly Science: The Next Generation) will not have no doubt: the science has not only taken possession of the philosophical debate, but is rewriting the map of our imagination. There is a force in science communication and energy that does not want more to do with being inside the old borders and the old categories. In this modern age, biology, genetics, chemistry, physics, are now spreading in all directions, in a lush variety of new knowledge, and this is the clearest sign that the science is experiencing a very expansive and evolutionary. More specialists without self, without mediation, scientific research is developing the center of herself and our sensitivity to the question of human existence. Our life is not just highlighting the limits — as do all Epress conventional systems of thought — but above all the resources, power. There will be plenty to have fun, believe me. |
COMPUTING.CO.UK Having spent many a column espousing the wonders of the internet, my final column will sound a warning on the dangers. ... The online forum edge.org recently tackled this problem. It asked leading scientists, technologists and thinkers: How is the internet changing the way you think? A number of people, including American writer Nicholas Carr and science historian George Dyson, outlined fears that the web is at risk of reducing serious thought rather than promoting it. One argument posits that a more democratic approach — with everything posted online attributed an equal weight, whether right or wrong — encourages a cavalier attitude to the truth. Another is that collecting information online reduces our attention span. We will scan a Wikipedia article on a subject, rather than read a book about it. Furthermore, it is harder to distinguish between the relative value of sources online. Whereas in real life we would trust a professor more than a eight-year-old, online those boundaries are blurred by a lack of clear distinction between sources — both people would be able to type a comment on a site, and we have no way of knowing who they are, other than their words. The "trust distinguishers" we use in the physical world are easier to fake online. Whereas a professor offline could be examined for reliability by his age, manner of speaking and so on, these things are easier to disguise on the web. In many ways the internet represents many of the same problems as a democracy. By giving an equal voice to all, it empowers many of those who are disenfranchised economically or socially and who would not otherwise be heard. ... |
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: the new central organ of the Nerds? Now comes the "binary-turn"? A Nerdisierung clues to the FAZ. Some time ago I had — known more as a joke — the venerable Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in a couple of tweets as "nerd-central". This was occasioned by Frank Schirrmacher full-page defense of nerds just before the election, the publication offensive around the iPad-disclosure or the opening of the FAZ as a platform for self-confessed nerds, such as in the article by Frank Rieger (Chaos Computer Club). Once the word was taken up by the "central" every now and then, I've been thinking about it again a bit and listed a few thoughts on the "binary turn" the FAZ. In substance the swing — will take away the least a little of the gene to welcome bio-and nano-technology debates of recent years — absolutely, because in fact the public discourse in Germany on issues of digitization and its significant social impact backlog. Gets a special twist this Nerdisierung but by every now and then breaking through arrogance and rejection of online culture — shows itself in many different parts of the leaf, are currently fighting in which at least schlagseitigen position in the event Hegemann. |
THE EDGE ANNUAL QUESTION BOOK SERIES "An intellectual treasure trove"
NOW IN BOOKSTORES AND ONLINE! Contributors include: RICHARD DAWKINS on cross-species breeding; IAN McEWAN on the remote frontiers of solar energy; FREEMAN DYSON on radiotelepathy; STEVEN PINKER on the perils and potential of direct-to-consumer genomics; SAM HARRIS on mind-reading technology; NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB on the end of precise knowledge; CHRIS ANDERSON on how the Internet will revolutionize education; IRENE PEPPERBERG on unlocking the secrets of the brain; LISA RANDALL on the power of instantaneous information; BRIAN ENO on the battle between hope and fear; J. CRAIG VENTER on rewriting DNA; FRANK WILCZEK on mastering matter through quantum physics. "11 books you must read — Curl up with these reads on days when you just don't want to do anything else: 5. John Brockman's This Will Change Everything: Ideas That Will Shape the Future" (Forbes India) "Full of ideas wild (neurocosmetics, "resizing ourselves," "intuit[ing] in six dimensions") and more close-to-home ("Basketball and Science Camps," solar technology"), this volume offers dozens of ingenious ways to think about progress" (Publishers Weekly — Starred Review) "A stellar cast of intellectuals ... a stunning array of responses...Perfect for: anyone who wants to know what the big thinkers will be chewing on in 2010. " (New Scientist) "Pouring over these pages is like attending a dinner party where every guest is brilliant and captivating and only wants to speak with you—overwhelming, but an experience to savor." (Seed) |
|||||
Edge Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit private operating foundation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
1