Archive for July, 2010

The Australian microbiologist and éminence grise Frank Fenner claims that humanity will be extinct within 100 years and that the process is impossible to reverse or avoid. Frank Fenner (95) is a professor emeritus microbiology at the National University of Australia and an important member of the Royal Society of London, the prestigious British academy for sciences. His work has won many prices, foremost his research done to extinguish the smallpox virus. He is, to keep it short, an intelligent man.

On what basis does Frank Fenner think humanity will be extinct so soon? What’s his line of logic, what’s the evidence? He claims that humanity as a whole will suffer the same faith as the inhabitants of Easter Island. When that island was discovered back in 1772 the explorers found a small population of people at constant war with each other over a limited number of resources. The island had once been a true civilisation, but had degraded into an eternal war-zone once the resources proved to be insufficient to support everyone.

As humanity keeps on growing and growing and its resources shrink fast its not hard to see where Professor Fenner gets his idea from. He joins a long line of intelligent doomsday thinkers, some of whom I am suspecting of having popularity motives for being such (as is the case with Zizek and his pseudo hip end time phenomenon book) – I don’t think any reasonable person could refuse to admit the chance of this development is high, but let’s for one moment look at the only thing that CAN save us: science. For the last 10000 years we should have learned at least one thing: it is never politics that progresses humanity, it is science, art and culture that do.

Now, we do have a giant resource problem that will quickly worsen. The biggest problem is metals. All those mobile phones, all those laptops, they are all impossible without the use of rare metals and those metals are running out. Forget about the Oil crisis. Don’t even believe all those websites that claim some giant oil crisis is coming for more than 1 nanosecond: the solution to the oil problem has been found. Giant bio-farms with bacteria that produce oil constantly. Its possible and they are working on it. But you cant do that with metals. Those run out. And the ecological system does too. There is one very strange and hopeful development that, if implemented, would save humanity from its bleak future.

Its photosynthesis combined with microbiology. I have seen an interview with a eminent Dutch microbiologist who at this moment is creating fish that can live from sunlight. Yes, its possible and he did succeed in doing so. He claims that within 8 years he will be able to make humans that do not need to eat any more but can simply live from sunlight. The implications of such a development are enormous. Think about it: what resources would we need if no one needs to eat any more?

As to the scientific side, its a question of making the skin of even just the hair have photosynthetic qualities by mingling it with the right plant DNA.

So, ironically, in the future we might all be LITERALLY green. If we want to survive. These are strange times, aren’t they? The risks are enormous, but hopefully with some right decisions we will actually be able to overcome this rather infantile stage of self destruction.

In another new development at what seems to be the latest rage, companies firing employees over tweets or status updates, let me for a moment pontificate about the philosophical consequences of these new developments. If you haven’t heard the person fired in this case was CNN reporter Octavia Nasr and her crime was expressing a condolence for some Muslim cleric that passed away. I wont go into that as to an intelligent reader its already obvious that the whole ‘might is right’ policies regarding these definitions are so absurd that it even becomes kind of unphilosophical to keep talking about them, let us instead ponder about what the consequences of this sort of policy are for humanity in the long term.

A ‘tweet’ or a ‘status update’ is not an official publication. It is a quick thought you pen down to a network of supposed ‘friends’. We have learned now that such ‘quick thoughts’ are enough reason to lose your job. I can think of circumstances where such would even be somewhat justified, but in this case the expressing of condolences seems to me perfectly legal.

But what are the real ramifications here? Isn’t it that companies through these media now have large control over our thoughts? How much time will it take before companies can fire employees not because of what they express but because of what they think? If you think that idea is far away, you are not very up to date about the developments in human-computer interfaces.

It is very well possible to create an interface that directly links the brain to the computer. Such interfaces have already been build. Think about the enormous implications of that, especially if the computer learns to execute commands of the brain. You could simply think of a book and the computer would write it at the speed of your thoughts. You could visualise a website and the computer builds in in 3 nanoseconds.

Think also of the enormous dangers: viruses now do not only destroy your computer but can also directly effect your brain. You could be remotely controlled without even knowing it. And: in a company where everyone is hooked up to such a brain-computer device the employer could simply fire you for thinking something.

We are not far from that point at all if we fire people for a quick thought via a tweet or status update. I am all for responsibility and I don’t think an employee can make official publications that would seriously downgrade his company, but that is not what we are discussing here. We are talking here about giant corporations that think they have the right to determine what you can and cant say in your private life, not about the company but about a political matter. Think about it. That is very serious and very wrong.

The lesson, for now, seems to be mostly not to add your employer to your list of ‘friends’, but unfortunately it isn’t as simple as that. There’s always people who will rat you out, and show your tweet to your employer anyway. No, the solution here, especially in sight of the enormous risks of interface developments, is new legislation about what governments, companies and other institutions can do with our personal lives. There are too many unguarded and unthoughtful and very very risky scientific developments going on at the moment, and without some serious monitoring we will all live to see the day that we regret not having acted now against the dangers these developments imply.

Martijn Benders

Martijn Benders is a philosopher and a member of Novo Universalis, a centralist Think-tank that aims to help humanity evolve.

According to a CNN report a law has now been passed in the Gulf of Mexico that makes it illegal for any media or journalist or blogger to come within a visible distance of any oil-cleaning operation. Is this is potent handling Obama was supposed to be all about? Just ban the media so no one sees whats going on? And what a flimsy excuse for this law: ‘the oil operations are supposed to be hindered by the presence of the media’ – yeah, right, and dictators are hindered by the presence of free media as well. Do these people actually have a brain?

Don’t believe this news? It even made the NY Times: See here

“Journalists struggling to document the impact of the oil rig explosion have repeatedly found themselves turned away from public areas affected by the spill, and not only by BP and its contractors, but by local law enforcement, the Coast Guard and government officials.”

The new law states that journalists, media and bloggers could be fined 40.000 dollars and prosecution for a federal offence if they are caught within a certain radius of an oil cleaning operation.

Absurd, utterly absurd. And a very strong signal that the States are still heading the wrong way, in spite of the more friendly Obama appearance. Its just an appearance, unfortunately. To forbid media access to one of the largest ecological disasters that has ever occurred on this planet is the act of either a lunatic or an evil man.

What is going on here? Why cant these people be honest about what is going on? Are the American people simply accepting this sort of censorship? It’s obvious that Obama is not very happy with the whole disaster but banning journalism seems an oddball way of handling the situation.

Sonette Ehlers, an inventor from South Africa where the rape problem is rather imminent has invented the ‘anti rape condom’ which is used like a tampon would be used: its inserted into the vagina and must be worn at all times. So far, so good. If anyone is insane enough to wear such an ugly device 24 hours a day to prevent a possible rape (and I’m as much against rape as anyone, but how can you seriously suggest someone should wear something like this for 15 years in their vagina just to prevent a possibility?) – look at what this actually implies: the woman must suffer for the potential behaviour of men.

In my opinion this is a criminal device, since the definition of a criminal device is that, wrongly used, it can harm innocent people. Who says this condom wont be used by revengeful lovers, by a wife tired of her husband, by idiots, by drunks, etc. etc.? The potential for abuse is huge, and its therefore a device that should be forbidden.

Instead of forcing women to wear unpleasant devices, why not actually try to educate the male part of the population? And mind you i’m no rose coloured spectacles sort of guy: I am talking a Spartan sort of education here, with serious sexual training for males. Lots of the problems comes from wrong education and wrong cultural traditions. Education is the only weapon we have against such inane traditions. Horror equipment like this wont do any good.

The Russian architect agency Alice.ru plans to build an underground ecological city in an abandoned mine in Siberia. Underground cities might be the cities of the future especially in colder areas. They are much easier to heat and can potentially be heated by the warmth of the earth itself.

Click here for the larger picture

But there are some huge obstacles to the idea. One is the immense effort of the digging and support of the city. Another is water management. A third one is earthquakes, which are even far more dangerous to underground cities than to normal cities. No one wants to be squeezed between two earth platters.

Then there is the problem of fresh air, and the problem of lack of sunlight and thus lack of Vitamin D. To live ones life only in artificial light is not healthy. There’s a challenge: could it be somehow possible to invent a light source that is not artificial but completely mimics the qualities of real sunlight?

I am doubtful about the entire news item now, since I was unable to trace any architecture agency in Russia named ‘Alice’. So it probably a hogwash story. Nice stuff to think about though and nice imagery, wherever it came from!

Or could the Russians really plan to go underground, perhaps as a counter-move to the illustrious ‘rocket shield plan’ of the US which got even more ridiculous by now because they now claim to only install short and middle range rockets – check the fly-path of a missile from Iran to Europe and see if it somehow crosses Poland…

It sounds unlikely, but then again this city is one of the most unlikely places on earth anyway: there’s an official butterfly plague going on in Istanbul. Yesterday I saw to my amazement that there were hundreds if not thousands of butterflies flying through the neighbourhood where I live. My wife told me it was all over the turkish news too. There’s a butterfly plague. I have never even heard of the possibility. What could have caused it?

It must have been that some natural enemy of the butterfly has been wiped out in some ecological disaster. Or could there be another explanation? Who are the natural enemies of butterflies anyway? Wasps perhaps. Haven’t seen a wasp in ages! And wasps are known to feed on butterfly larvae. But as butterflies also do pollination, they might be the solution for a lack of pollination due to bee or wasp starvation which is a huger ecological problem than most other ones. Once plants and flowers cant pollinate any more they are finished and you can say goodbye to crops, fruits and vegetables.

Meanwhile, I cant say this is the worst plague I have witnessed so far. The sight of hundreds of butterflies surrounding my house is a spectacular sight. My stomach feels differently, luckily, for falling in love must be one of the worst things that could happen to a writer. Or to anyone else, really. A writer should be jaded like the butterfly – spreading the golden dust of youth to intoxicate others but hardly touching it himself.