Category: Future

Future, Globalization, History, Philosophy, PoliticsLeave a comment

The Clash Of Civilizations Is The Politics Of The End of History

Fernando Kaskais

Mia Angioy for Noema Magazine Reflections by the philosopher Slavoj Žižek on universality and “worldless places.” BY NATHAN GARDELS – Nathan Gardels is the editor-in-chief of Noema Magazine. For decades, Sam Huntington’s famous thesis of a “clash of civilizations” has been regarded as the opposite of “the end of history” idea posited by Francis Fukuyama. In reality, it turns out that the two go together: One is a condition of the other. As the philosopher Slavoj Žižek insightfully puts it in a paper prepared for an upcoming colloquium of the Berggruen Institute Europe at the Casa dei Tre Oci in Venice, “the … Continue reading The Clash Of Civilizations Is The Politics Of The End of History

Future, Politics, Russia, WarLeave a comment

A Putin collapse? The dangers of wishful thinking

Fernando Kaskais

Some say that like the USSR, the current Russian presidency is brittle. But they are overlooking a lot By  PETER RUTLAND The Carnegie Center’s Maksim Samorukov recently published an article in Foreign Affairs entitled “Putin’s brittle regime. Like the Soviet one that preceded it, his system is always on the brink of collapse.” The argument is driven by a straightforward historical analogy. The Soviet system appeared strong and immutable, and virtually no one predicted its collapse. But collapse it did. Likewise, the Putin system appears strong and resilient, and few people can imagine its collapse. But collapse it will. One can understand why … Continue reading A Putin collapse? The dangers of wishful thinking

AI, Future, Living, Philosophy, ScienceLeave a comment

Philosopher Nick Bostrom’s predictions on life in an AI utopia

Fernando Kaskais

Big Think recently spoke with Nick Bostrom about how humans might find fulfillment in a post-scarcity world. KEY TAKEAWAYS By Jonny Thomson In 1954, psychologist Muzafer Sherif engineered a tribal war between two groups of 11-year-old boys in two camps inside Robbers Cave State Park, Oklahoma. They were given tasks, rewards, and objectives — the kind of thing that would be prime-time reality TV these days. Before long, the two camps had established tribal identities. They had their own culture, norms, and behavioral standards. They were The Eagles and The Rattlers. And, other than a few insults and scowls, the … Continue reading Philosopher Nick Bostrom’s predictions on life in an AI utopia

Curiositys, Freak U.S.A, Future, USA, WarLeave a comment

Most Americans Believe US Will Be in World War Within Next Decade

Fernando Kaskais

by Kyle Anzalone – Mar 2024 The majority of Americans believe it is likely that the US will be involved in a world war during the coming decade. Under President Joe Biden, the US is preparing for great power wars with Russia and China, engaged in multiple Middle East conflicts, and posturing for a confrontation with Iran and North Korea.  According to a new YouGov poll, 61% of Americans responded that it is very or somewhat likely that a world war would break out in the next five to ten years. About two-thirds of people responding to the poll said they believe the war will … Continue reading Most Americans Believe US Will Be in World War Within Next Decade

AI, Future, Health, Science, TechnologyLeave a comment

A Digital Twin Might Just Save Your Life

Fernando Kaskais

Luis López (Mallet) for Noema Magazine Digital twins offer humankind the ability to command virtual replicas of forests, oil fields, cities, supply chains — and even, maybe one day, our very bodies. BY JOE ZADEH, a writer based in Newcastle. On the morning of June 24, 1993, Yale University Professor David Gelernter arrived at his office on the fifth floor of the computer science department. He had just returned from vacation and was carrying a large stack of unopened mail. One book-shaped package was in a plastic ziploc — he thought it looked like a PhD dissertation. As he unzipped it, … Continue reading A Digital Twin Might Just Save Your Life

Future, History, Military, Nuclear, WarLeave a comment

Prehistory in the atomic age

Fernando Kaskais

A tunnel to an underground bunker housing the launch control centre for nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles at the US Air Force’s Quebec-01 Missile Alert Facility north of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Built in 1962, the facility was deactivated in 2006. Photo by Alan Rogers/The Casper Star-Tribune via AP To understand the terrifying futures unleashed by nuclear weapons, we urgently need to return to the deep past Maria Stavrinaki is Professeure Associée at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Her books include Dada Presentism: An Essay on Art and History (2016) and Transfixed by Prehistory: An Inquiry into Modern Art and Time (2022). On the morning of 16 July … Continue reading Prehistory in the atomic age

AI, Future, Military, Science, TechnologyLeave a comment

Imagine killer AI robots in Gaza, in the Donbas

Fernando Kaskais

Drone swarms are only the beginning. What happens when they’re truly autonomous and communicate with each other? By MICHAEL T. KLARE Yes, it’s already time to be worried — very worried. As the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have shown, the earliest drone equivalents of “killer robots” have made it onto the battlefield and proved to be devastating weapons. But at least they remain largely under human control. Imagine, for a moment, a world of war in which those aerial drones (or their ground and sea equivalents) controlled us, rather than vice-versa. Then we would be on a destructively different planet in a fashion that might … Continue reading Imagine killer AI robots in Gaza, in the Donbas

AI, Freak Religion, Future, Philosophy, ScienceLeave a comment

Untangling Religion From Our AI Debates

Fernando Kaskais

Is it inevitable that we infuse our AI debates with religious rhetoric? BY THOMAS MOYNIHAN – Thomas Moynihan is a writer and a visiting researcher at Cambridge University’s Center for the Study of Existential Risk. On a crisp night on the cusp of 1918, a young man watches the moon rise above the trenches somewhere in war-torn France. Scribbling in his diary, he records how, “gliding through the barbed wire,” it floodlit no-man’s-land. Fulfilling duties as a stretcher-bearer, that man was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Watching the “hesitant crescent,” he experienced an epiphany: about evolution, intelligence and extinction. Teilhard went on over … Continue reading Untangling Religion From Our AI Debates

Curiositys, Future, Matrix, Media&CultureLeave a comment

Are fictional dystopias blocking us from better futures?

Fernando Kaskais

Do grim sci-fi scenarios crush our hopes for real-world growth? Author Michael Harris looks elsewhere to unblock the road to a better future. KEY TAKEAWAYS By Michael Harris An anti-anti-progress movement is on the march. In October 2023, Marc Andreessen, one of the founders and a general partner at famed Silicon Valley venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz, published his call-to-arms The Techno-Optimist Manifesto. “We are told to be angry, bitter, and resentful about technology,” Andreessen writes, by a “demoralization campaign” that has been ongoing for six decades and has encompassed the media, governments, think tanks, nonprofits, activists, politicians, and even corporate … Continue reading Are fictional dystopias blocking us from better futures?

AI, Future, Science, TechnologyLeave a comment

AI Could Actually Help Rebuild The Middle Class

Fernando Kaskais

SERIFA for Noema Magazine AI doesn’t have to be a job destroyer. It offers us the opportunity to extend expertise to a larger set of workers. BY DAVID AUTOR David Autor is a renowned labor economist and professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies how technological change and globalization affect workers. He is also co-director of the MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative and the National Bureau of Economic Research Labor Studies Program. In a recent interview with U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Elon Musk proclaimed artificial intelligence to be “the most disruptive force in history,” and noted … Continue reading AI Could Actually Help Rebuild The Middle Class