Category Archives: Society

Europe in The Now: A Hopeful Fiction

Here’s a future news story we may read someday:
The awakening of consciousness has a new ally, Rick Steves. The entertaining and eloquent host of the show “Rick Steves’ Europe” is teaming up with Eckhart Tolle and Oprah Winfrey to create a show called “Europe in The Now”.

Rick Steves

Rick Steves

Steves who describes himself as “fanatically positive and militantly optimistic” already embodies many of the personality traits associated with living consciously and mindfully. As an author, TV & radio host, business owner and NORML board member, he has a large following of individuals attracted to his positive energy. “Rick can reach a particularly receptive audience to these messages”, said one producer.

The new show retraces some of Ricks travels through Europe with an emphasis on lessons learned from history about living in a more conscious way. Eckhart Tolle, Oprah Winfrey and others will join Rick for dinners and discussions about the evolution of consciousness in a historical context at locations around Europe. Parts of the show will be filmed in front of audiences and double as helpful seminars on mindful living. “Europe in The Now” will air on most PBS stations and Oprahs’ networks.

 

More Inventions We Would Like to See

Who knows what the future will bring. But here are a few more inventions that I wouldn’t mind seeing.

Grow Your Own Home
Archer Daniels Midland is getting into the housing market. Utilizing expertise gained from genetic engineering in the farming industry, they’ve come up with fully organic homes. Fruits and vegetables grow inside on the walls. And in a pinch, yes, the walls are edible too.

organic-house

The house feeds on sunlight, compost, your waste and CO2. The roof grows over time to maximize solar intake and rain water capture. It even heals when cracked or broken. The electricity captured by the modified chlorophyll gets converted to usable voltage via cells grown from electric eel DNA.  Plumbing is taken care of by a series of “bladders” and “stomachs”. The bladders hold water and the stomachs purify used water and waste into pure H20 which is then pumped back into a bladder. Housing extensions or extra rooms will be grown on farms, made to order. Attachment is easy because the organic walls grow together when in contact with one another

All you will need is a plot of land, some water, and a seed. A typical seed takes 5 years to grow into a standard 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath house. If you want to spend extra, you can purchase fertilizer that quadruples the growth rate.

 

The Google Presidential B.S. Meter
With the presidential election in full swing, it is only fitting that Google would release its latest breakthrough. It’s called the Fact Finding Heuristic Algorithm. Also known as, the Presidential B.S Meter.

_89592907_composite

Here is how it works: It scans every instance of a candidate speaking, their posted writings and what other people say about the candidate. The algorithm then determines how many times the candidate had conflicting statements and gives you details. Utilizing facial microexpression technology, the system also gives you extensive statistics on every speech and interview telling you how many times it detected the candidate lying.

 

Tuneable Magnets
Scientists have figured out a way to make magnets that they can tune to attract/repel nearly any substance. Most people are familiar with magnets attracting metal. But now, magnets can be tuned to attract or repel plastic, glass, air and organic materials. The number of applications are astounding.

Tuneable Magnet Repels Ground

Tuneable Magnet Repels Ground

Those long sought after hovercrafts could soon be a reality. Attaching magnets to the bottom of any vehicle and setting them to repel the ground provides lift. Or imagine you need to hang something on your wall. No need to make a hole, no need for adhesive that will eventually fail. Simply tune the magnet to bind to your wall and you are done. Companies such as Waste Management will be able to integrate these magnets into their sorting facilities. Thereby, eliminating the need for recyclable materials to be separated by consumers before disposal. A magnet that attracts plastic could also be helpful in removing the large amounts of plastic in our oceans.

 

What Mental Operating System Do You Use? Eckhart Tolle 101

When talking about the future many of us concentrate on technology. The most profound breakthroughs will probably come from innovations to how we manage our internal mind states. If you think about it, everything in our modern world is a result of the thoughts that led to actions in the minds of people. We create the world around us. That world reflects the inner state of the collective consciousness which itself is a collection of individual mind states.

Just as literacy was quite uncommon centuries ago, so too are ways of managing your internal mind state. Otherwise known as your Mental Operating System. It’s a loose analogy to a computer operating system that manages files on your hard drive. Some operating systems are more efficient than others. Some operating systems are more user-friendly…and so on.  Our brains/minds are more complex than the most sophisticated super computers. Yet, very few of us have any training on how to manage this complexity. Fortunately, the knowledge exists and has existed for thousands of years. Like the spread of literacy, is it reaching the masses. It’s know by many names: a new consciousness, awakening, enlightenment, spiritualism…..a new “mental operating system” for us techies. Imagine something like a factory reset button for your mind where you remember the knowledge but let go of all the useless files, junk mail, spam, recycle bin contents, pain etc. What you are left with is a clean, efficient, more benevolent to yourself and others, internal mind state.

At the forefront of this is Eckhart Tolle. Oprah Winfrey has called him a “rock star” of sorts. Progressive companies such as Google have had him as a special guest speaker for their employees. See the talk below.

There are more in depth talks by Eckhart Tolle available on Youtube and on his site

Happier people being kind to one another and progressing in a way with very little conflict does not make for a good scifi action movie. However, it would amount to one of mankind’s greatest achievements.

 

Inventions We Would Like to See

I’d like to make the disclaimer that the inventions mentioned here are purely fictional.

The New Apple Transformix: The Last Device You’ll Ever Need

This Summer, Apple releases it’s new device called the Transformix. It’s an adaptable and transformable device that can become any object of roughly the same mass. It will come in 3 sizes (tablet size, big screen tv size and car size). In its raw form it only has a voice interface.

Tablet Sized Transformix

Tablet Sized Transformix

At their latest demonstration, Apple showed the tablet sized Transformix change from a cell phone, to a tablet, to a rock, to a glass, to a furry Pokemon doll. In other demonstrations, the car sized Transformix was able to mimic the exterior of several different cars including a Ford Mustang, Mercedes E Class, a Corvette and a pickup truck. Before you get too excited, the engine is sold separately. The Transformix is due to hit select stores in late July.

 

Car Cameras to Catch People Texting and Driving

Texting while driving, or distracted drivers cause 100s of accidents every year. Despite an expensive and far reaching ad campaign meant to stop people from texting and driving, it still remains an issue. In response to this, car manufacturers will be installing a multitude of outward facing cameras in all vehicles starting next year.

Car_camera_front_usageCar_camera_side_usage

The system is set up so that when you press a button on your steering wheel, the surrounding 30 seconds (15 seconds before you pressed the button and 15 seconds after you pressed the button) of video from all cameras is saved.  When you get home you can choose to review and upload the video to authorities.

 

New Facebook App Measures the Diversity of Your Network

How ethnically diverse is your circle of friends?  And how does it compare to the diversity of other peoples groups? If you are a Facebook user, you will soon have the answer. Facebook plans to roll out a new feature that will identify different ethnic groups in your photos and among your list of friends.

Exactly how the algorithm works is a secret. What we do know is that it works pretty well. In test after test the app was able to calculate a diversity score of profiles and guess which friends were mere acquaintances and which friends were close confidants. It could also accurately guess the ethnicity of the people in the photos about 95% of the time.

 

The Big Business of Dating Gets Even Bigger

The latest players to get into the match making arena make for strange bedfellows. Comcast, Google, Microsoft and Apple have joined forces to create the ultimate predictor of romantic success. At first glance it would seem that these huge corporations would be the last to know anything about romance, let alone give advice. But as it turns out, these 4 companies know more about most people than the people know about themselves. Online habits, mood fluctuations, food preferences, political beliefs, communication styles and habits, vocabulary, movie preferences…you get the picture…they know a lot. In recent beta testing over the course of 2 years, the algorithm did some pretty amazing things. Follow up interviews verified many of its predictions.

matching

Seemingly unlikely matches were sometimes made. There were even several subjects who were matched with someone of the same gender even though they had never been in a homosexual relationship. When asked about the results they reported having had those longings but never acting on them.  “It’s not as easy as pairing people who like the same things, together.” Says Ike Sterling, head of the new dating initiative. “Differing tastes and preferences sometimes interact in a complimentary way that you could not predict unless you see the data.”

Apple Island and The United Google Federation

Corporations and private entities may create their own countries some day. It’s called Seasteading. What is Seasteading? The Wikipedia definition says it best “Seasteading is the concept of creating permanent dwellings at sea, called seasteads, outside the territory claimed by any government. Most proposed seasteads have been modified cruising vessels. Other proposed structures have included a refitted oil platform, a decommissioned anti-aircraft platform, and custom-built floating islands.”

The technology for creating self sufficient dwellings at sea is already here. Electricity can be provided by solar. Food can be grown with hydroponics. Sea water is convertible to drinking water via desalinization. Communication with the outside world is just a satellite away.  And of course, there is plenty of marine life on which to feed. Influential people are already working on this idea, The Seasteading Institute.

Seastead by corporations

Apple Island?

What happens when multiple seasteads are created and new and autonomous societies can develop? The United States is one semi recent example of a conventional societal evolution. When creating our government, this former English colony took pieces of the old ways and improved upon them in many areas. This could happen with seasteads too. Imagine multiple seasteads experimenting with new types of governance and economic structures. All of them competing for inhabitants. Survival of the fittest. It could accelerate the slow evolutionary process of government and potentially move it in a totally different direction.

Humanity’s potential is tightly interwoven with the type of society it finds itself within. Think of the GDP/Power/Wealth of ancient Rome compared to the United States. The two populations, for the most part, are the same from a biological perspective. The difference in accomplishment is solely due to the difference in the technology and how they are organized (culture, government, economy etc). The next step in the evolution of how we organize ourselves could lead to a new Renaissance.