Mental Enhancement Drugs

"The bottom line is that cognitive-enhancing pills are a reality and people are using them. "   That quote came from an article titled The Dope on Mental Enhancement in New Scientist magazine. According to the article, a recent survey showed that 38% of the people responding have already tried various mental enhancement drugs ( well, actually the numbers would have been much higher if they were honest and included caffeine in the list of such drugs).   Such drugs are a reality now, they benefit people and society when properly used, and I'm sure that the mental enhancing drugs in the research pipeline are much more effective than the ones currently available.  Adjusting to this will take some shifts in cultural attitudes though.  

Thoughts on the Evolution of Life on Earth

I recently attended a book discussion of "Ancestor's Tale" by Richard Dawkins.  The book is an excellent discussion of the evolutionary history of life on earth and how different species are related.  As the discussion developed, several people repeated the theme brought up in the book that humankind is NOT in any reasonable sense the "culmination of the evolutionary process". 

Part of the argument for this is that evolution is not directed towards a specific goal.  If you were to replay the tape of evolution starting with just minor changes, it is very unlikely that it would end up producing the human race again.  We are a somewhat random production of evolution.  There is a good argument that evolution would have probably produced some sort of intelligent creatures at some point.  After all, it also produced dolphins, parrots, and squids - three other species that show some signs of developing reasonable intelligence.  Whether it would have produced any species that had the physical ability to grow much larger brains, plus the physical dexterity to manipulate tools easily, and that lived in an ecological niche that was suitable for developing advanced societies similar to humans is an open question.  Perhaps most species that evolve some advanced intelligence end up limited by physical factors from taking that next step of creating advanced technological societies (?)

It occurred to me that we are not the "culmination of the evolutionary process" in a different sense though.  Life has been evolving on Earth for maybe 3.5 billion years.  We are probably only somewhere near the midpoint in the history of life on Earth.  In fact, since evolution appears to be speeding up (both biologically as well as culturally), we are probably still early in the "story of events" in the evolutionary development of life on Earth. 

This is something to think about that perhaps makes you a little more excited and humble at the same time.  It's also an excellent example of what some people refer to as the "feelings of awe and spiritual wonder" produced by a fuller scientific understanding of the universe around us and our place in it.

Living In Ordinary Times?

I attended Catholic Mass while visiting family members this weekend, and I was intrigued by the following statement from the pulpit: “this is the 33rd Sunday in ordinary time”. The phrase ordinary time as used here refers to a particular segment of the church calendar year (i.e. It’s not advent, lent, etc.). But it raised the bigger question about whether we’re living in "ordinary times” in a larger historical sense. Would we classify the last 6 months as an extraordinary time in history, or as more of an unremarkable ordinary time? Have we lived through a temporary lull this summer between recent storms of change, and what will come next? Perhaps. How would you classify the last half of this decade?

The people I discussed this with typically thought we were living in extraordinary times in general, and have been doing so for their entire life. That led to the humorous observation that we often believe an extraordinary period of human history began roughly at the time of our own birth. Such is human nature.

This is characteristic of exponential rates of change. The most recent period of history will always seem to be experiencing much more substantial rates of change than previous times, and will therefore seem to be an extraordinary time. Make no mistake about it; we are living in a time of exponential growth, exponential rates of scientific and technological development, and perhaps exponential rates of social change as well. We are living in an extraordinary time. There is an important aspect of exponential curves that we cannot forget though. If they continue, the rate of change in the coming decades will be even greater than it is today. There is every reason to believe that this in fact will happen. So while we are living in extraordinary times compared to previous history, it is likely that the historical impact of the coming decades will be even more significant than what we’re experiencing now.

Rapid Change in the Auto Industry (of all places)

Change is accelerating. The automobile industry, which generally does not come to mind when you think about rapid change, is suddenly at the forefront of a revolution. In a short Newsweek article last month about the auto industry, it was predicted that “We are on the cusp of a period of technical innovation like the automobile industry has never seen... There will be more change in the next five to 10 years than there was in the last 100.” On the technical front, much of that discussion had to do with the change to an all electric drive chain, with a small gasoline engine just to recharge the battery. The fuel efficiency for such cars can approach 100 mpg. Interestingly, the Prius-style gas/electric hybrid, which is at the cutting edge of technology today, will be nothing more than a temporary phase soon to become obsolete according to this prediction.

This past Monday, another dramatic change rocked the auto world. I don't think most people fully appreciated how significant this event was, unless perhaps you live in the Detroit area. The 100+ year old General Motors company officially went bankrupt. The relatively new dotcom upstart Cisco replaces GM it in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Welcome to the 21st century.

The IBM / Syracuse / NY State Green Data Center, and the Interesting Trends it Illustrates

On May 29th, IBM Syracuse University, and New York State announced an agreement to build a new energy efficient computer center on the Syracuse University Campus. Through an interesting combination of techniques, this center will use about 50% less power than typical computer data centers, making it one of the most efficient computer centers in the world. Some of the key techniques used include:

• On-site electrical co-generation system that will use natural gas-fueled microturbine engines to generate all electricity for the center and provide cooling for the computer servers.
  
• IBM's latest energy-efficient computers
  
• Use of chilled water coolers to directly remove heat from the computers much more efficiently than trying to chill the entire computer data center.
  
• Using waste heat from the electrical generation system to provide heat and cooling for both the data center and nearby buildings.
  

Beyond the technical issues, there are some interesting observations about the future trends that this illustrates.

(1) It is yet another example of the significant improvements in efficiency that are possible in our systems. Typical of such examples, it requires a “systems approach” that focuses on efficiency from the very beginning of the design.

(2) It is yet another example of how innovation is often best produced by a hybrid combination of corporate / educational / government organizations working together. (The original development of the Internet itself is another example of such such an alliance.) Reliance on a complete “free market” approach to innovation is based more on promoting an ideology than examining the actual historical data about what works the best.

(3) This is an interesting result in terms of the benefits of distributed power generation. Power generation systems must be big enough to achieve reasonable economies of scale. Yet they should be local enough so that power distribution losses are minimized, and so that the “waste heat” produced can be utilized for other purposes in the community.

(4) Timing - the announcement was made in May 2009, and the data center is expected to be completed by the end of 2009. This is an interesting result in terms of “right sizing” projects. Very large power generation stations can take many years to complete and bring on line. Nuclear power plants can often take 10-12 years. The ability to bring new technology and techniques on line very quickly is a major reason why modest sized projects are likely to be a major trend. Since technology change is accelerating, the ability to exploit new technology quickly will become an increasingly important factor.

Making Higher Education Sustainable

Among the many things I expect to see undergo a significant change in the next decade or so is higher education. Our universities are actually based on a model that was developed in the middle ages. At that time, any subject being studied would undergo little change during your lifetime. Considering your education "complete" after a few years of intense study was realistic in the middle ages, but it's far from realistic now.

A university education was once considered common only for people from very well off families. Now it's a necessity to achieve even a middle class lifestyle. Yet the costs are often still structured to be unaffordable to all but those students from wealthy families. And the costs continue to rise at an alarming rate.

Something has to change - the current situation is unsustainable. Education must be restructured to be available throughout an adult's life at affordable rates. Like it or not, technology will need to have an impact on the way classes are taught in order to achieve this.

I'm glad to report that this change is actually starting to happen. The Christian Science Monitor has a wonderful article on the movement to OpenCourseWare, universities putting their course content online for free. The movement started in 2003 when MIT put 500 courses online. Now they have over 1800 online courses, all available for free (You still need to pay ~$45,000 a year to get an official MIT degree though). More than 200 colleges and universities have followed suite and offer course contents online. These are early developments that will likely radically change higher education by the time this finishes playing out.

The Singularity on IEEE and Andrew Sullivan

The singularity, to oversimplify it somewhat, is the concept that science and technology are achieving such rapid exponential growth that there will come a time in the next few decades where this growth achieves such runaway speed that very little about what society is like beyond that point can be predicted. I discuss this and related topics in a little more detail in my presentation Sustainability or Apocalypse. Ray Kurzweil is one of the more famous authors to write about this. His most recent book is The Singularity is Near – by which he means around 2045.

The subject of the singularity has long been an esoteric topic of the futurist community, but lately it has been achieving some great public exposure. The IEEE Spectrum magazine, which is well respected for its covering of technology issues, has devoted the entire June 2008 issue to the Singularity. It is available online here. I started reading it recently and will comment on it in the coming days. There are now plans to make Kurzweil’s book The Singularity is Near into a movie. And the most recent appearance of the singularity in the popular press has been on Andrew Sullivan’s blog The Daily Dish, which is one of the most read political blogs on the web.

I have set up “Google Alerts” for both Singularity and Raymond Kurzweil, and there has been a definite increase in the frequency of references to these two topic across the web. By the way, “Google Alerts” are a great way to watch for new developments in any topic of interest. I highly recommend them.

Updated "Sustainability or Apocalypse" Presentation

I had a chance to present an updated version of my Sustainability or Apocalypse talk at the SUNY New Paltz campus to a group of about 30 people Thursday evening. The presentation was followed by an enthusiastic audience comment period. The copy of the new updated and expanded charts is available on the link in the right hand column. The basic premise of the presentation is:

1. The rate of technological and social change this century will be even greater than in the past century, and many of our current social structures are not set up to deal with this.
   
   
2. We will also be facing a “perfect storm” of problems in the next few decades, both nationally and as a global society
   
   
3. These will be the some of the most important decades in the history of humankind, with some very big long term effects from the choices we make
   
   
4. We could usher in a era of sustainability or major turmoil. The outcome is not predetermined, but will depend on preparations we make to handle moments of opportunity and the vision we promote about what is possible and desirable.
   

Take a look and feel free to post your comments below. I am very interested in any feedback on how to improve this presenation.

State of the Planet 08

I recently attended the State of the Planet conference at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. It's a conference put on every other year by Jeff Sachs and the Earth Institute. Videos from this year's presentations are available here.

Two years ago I went to this conference for the fist time. The focus that year was on sustainable development, and I have to say that the overall tone was rather depressing. In terms of achieving anything remotely resembling a sustainable society, the overall conclusion from most presenters was that we weren't even close.

This year's conference was much more optimistic. Here are some of the interesting points that were made:

• "We're in a process of heading towards a new global society. Yet our institutions and mindset is not ready for this. Much of the rest of the world is further along than we are at coming to grips with this."
  
• Greening of the world' infrastructure will become a trillion dollar industry. But timing is important. Business needs to move ahead aggressively on this. There was confidence that the private sector will lead in adaptation in the 21st century, but government has an important role to play as a partner.
  
• Kenya moved from civil war to a negotiated settlement in a few short weeks. There should be a real sense of optimism after seeing that such things are possible.
  
• Big business has much power to effect the world's problems. We need to ask them what they have done with that influence and power?
  
• We also need to ask the churches the same thing. Religions organizations have failed when they took sides based on identity politics. When they talk about "my people", they need to be talking about all of humankind.
  

Other signs of progress - we are actually succeeding when there is political will to change things for the better.

• The Millennium Development Goals call for cutting poverty in half between 2000 and 2015. We are actually likely to reach that goal in all areas except sub-Saharan Africa.
  
• 20 years ago there were 20 million refugees. Now there are 10 million.
  
• In 1989 there were 10 genocides unfolding in the world. Today there are one or two.
  
• There used to be 10 to 20 military coups per year in the world. Now there are typically 3 or 4.
  
• There is 50% less warfare today than in 1989
  

One nagging thought that occurred to me during the conference was that they were literally flying in people from around the world to give 20 minute presentations on environmental responsibility. This problem was also noted by Jeff Sachs at the end. He talked about the possibility that this may be the last of these conferences they hold in this form. The next one in two years may be in the form of a globally connected broadband video conference connecting cities all around the world. Such an approach will obviously take some experimentation before they get it right, but I can't think of a better conference to take such a bold step and start developing the techniques to hold such a conference on a global scale while minimizing the number of miles traveled. I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

Star Wars civilizations ruled by Stone Age emotions

E.O. Wilson is a famous biologist who has been making news for his recent efforts to bring attention to the critical nature of the environmental problems we are currently facing. I recently heard a quote from him that has been getting more attention than I was aware. The line below marked in bold sums up the current state of humankind nicely. I included the surrounding context, which came from a May 2007 article in Vanity Fair by E.O. Wilson titled Problems Without Borders.

...in rising to power, beginning with the invention of agriculture a scant 10 millennia ago, we carried along with us the heavy baggage of ancient primate instincts. Today, as a result, we live in Star Wars civilizations ruled by Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology.

We haven't really figured out yet, as a species, what we are, where we are going, and what we will be when we get there. But at least we have discovered that we are fast ruining the global environment. The scientific evidence for that conclusion is now massive and compelling.... The bottom line is that we have created a real mess. In order to avoid wrecking our planetary home, we have to settle down and together devise the means to achieve sustainable development while preserving our biosphere. The good news is that the same thing that has gotten us into trouble—those brains of ours—can get us out. We're smart. We can do it."

The Future of Technology roundable at the Philoctetes Center

I had the pleasure of attending a roundtable discussion on “The Future of Technology” at the Philoctetes Center in NY City this weekend. It was not a comprehensive overview of technology issues, but there were some thought provoking discussions. Here is a summary of some things I found interesting:

PlayStation-3 is essentially a supercomputer in a box. We will soon have a supercomputer in a packet, coupled with pervasive access to everything from everywhere. We will be able to set up real time video monitors that call for help when an elderly person falls, or when someone in a pool seems to be drowning.

Another development is that everything about you will become more available to everyone. You will become more of a public persona, no longer the private individual the way you used to know it. One of the great urges of culture is to spread your virtual genes around, your name, thoughts, opinions, memes… This is already happening with FaceBook and MySpace. This is not generating a fear of the loss of privacy because the key aspect of these is that people have control over what information about themselves is made available.

Internet culture is a form of an extended childhood for adults. It goes back to the very early childhood phase dominated by fantasy and imagination, before the discovery of limits.

The human social contract was discussed in detail as something that can trump and control the exploitation of new technology. Unfortunately the social contract is not evolving fast enough to always keep up with changing technology. It is often difficult to figure out how to apply social norms (and formal laws) to new technology. They are adopting though. An example was given about a fraud suite pending in court for something that happened in the 2nd Life virtual world. This was viewed as something completely natural and reasonable by the panel. Another example of a development that the social contract will have trouble adjusting to - in 20-30 years it will become standard to know your genome and understand much about it.

Some aspects of technology use bring out the good and bad in people. Blog comments tend to bring out the worse in many people, for example. 50% of them seem to be just cruel personal attacks. The important thing in controlling poor behavior, and in judging the value of content, is the idea of “reputation”. We need a better way to establish and communicate online reputations. Anything with anonymous sources tends to be problematic.

While many of the poor behavior discussed has its roots outside of the online technology, the internet has lowered the barrier to creating fraud and deception on a massive scale.

Our physical metabolism craves sugar and fats, but you can get sick when you have an unlimited supply available and you don’t learn to restrict yourself. In the same way, our mental metabolism seems to have certain cravings that can be supplied in unlimited amounts online or in electronic games, and we can become psychologically sick when we don’t restrict our consumption of these. Additionally, the fact that you can tailor you online world to feed your phobias and prejudices is creating additional problems.

George Mitchell's Report and Denial About Professional Sports

So George Mitchell’s report on steroid use came out a few days ago. Is anyone really surprised that it concluded that steroid use was fairly pervasive in professional baseball? Some people were calling this report a major step forward in the effort to end the problem of steroid use. I think these people are living in denial. The report also stated that hundreds of thousands of high school athletes are now using steroids. There’s no way that we’re on the road to ending the problems with drug enhanced athletics, nor do I think we ever can be. If you somehow eliminate steroids, the race will be on to find a better replacement. Indeed, such efforts have been ongoing for years already. It’s an arms race where the offense (new drug manufactures) will always have the major advantage.

This is an example of a much large issue – advancements in technology tend to make old business models obsolete. The old businesses struggle to maintain their old way of making profits by increase rules and regulations. The music recording industry is a fine example of this. Technology has made their business model of the $15 music CD obsolete. In a recent legal argument, the recording industry made the incredible claim that taking a CD that you bought and own, and making a backup copy of it on your computer was an illegal act of theft. They can apparently do just fine by selling recordings of songs online for 99 cents, but their struggle to maintain their old business model has reached the level of absurdity now.

So getting back to sports. Any professional sport where strength, speed, or endurance plays a dominant factor is facing an increasingly obsolete business model due to the increasing dominance of performance enhancing drugs. Sorry to say it, but the days of professional sports as we knew them are coming to a close.

There were many people expressing strong emotional disappointment at the number of players listed in Mitchell’s report as having used performance enhancing drugs. “People looked up to these athletes as heroes and role models”. Actually, that is perhaps the much bigger problem that we have to come to grips with. The unhealthy obsession with professional sports in our society is leaving people in denial about the true nature of the business and the people engaged in it.

The Rise of Large Private Armies - Part 2

I intended to post more optimistic views, but I received some comments on my previous post on the rise of large private armies and first wanted to follow up on that. We should all be aware that the legal rules have been set in place to establish marshal law when then next major terrorist attack or natural disaster occurs (are you living in denial about this?). If you want to know what marshal law would be like, just consider the situation where our normal civil liberties already don't apply and security is considered paramount. I'm talking about customs at large airports. A growing number of reports have documented almost unbelievably harsh treatment from the security personal hired to do this work. For example, consider the case of some big-name Finnish musicians traveling to Minnesota for a music tour. One is allegedly the "Bruce Springsteen" of Finland. They've done nothing wrong. But this is what they get at the airport according to a report posted by Andrew Sullivan:

Immigration agents at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport subjected them to more than two hours of interrogation that the musicians considered so harsh and demeaning that they filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki.

"It was almost three hours of screaming, door-slamming and accusations, according to the report I received," said Marianne Wargelin, honorary Finnish consul for the Dakotas and most of Minnesota, which has the second largest Finnish-American population in the nation...

"They threatened us with severe punishments if we talk to each other," according to the complaint signed by musicians Ninni Poijärvi and Mika Kuokkanen, "Through the walls, I can hear officers yelling, screaming. They ask about the purpose of our trip -- except we are only allowed to give yes-or-no answers. I try to talk about our plans to meet with Finnish-American folk musicians. Nobody listens. They interrupt me constantly and they yell, 'You are a liar!"'

It's no wonder that American has earned the reputation of one of the most unfriendly places to visit by foreign travelers. Tourist and business travel are down sharply, as Fareed Zakaria discussed in a recent Newsweek article. This should be very disturbing and somewhat scary. This is not the America I grew up in! But Americans have a long history for not putting up with this type of outrageous behavior for long. I thank both Andrew Sullivan and Fareed Zakaria for publicising this matter while it's still easy to do something about it before it spreads during moments of fear.

The Rise of Large Private Armies

I recently listened to a very disturbing discussion on NPR radio about the growth of the private security forces being used in Iraq. The interview was with Jeremy Scahill, author of the book Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. This is partly a story about Blackwater, but it goes well beyond that.

There are now over 40,000 private security forces in Iraq, over 180,000 if you include people hired by the U.S. to do non-security work (cooking, cleaning...). That's more than the total number of military troops we have there. Blackwater is providing security for all our diplomats and top military officials. Even General Petraeus has become dependent on Blackwater to provide his own personal security. But Iraq is just the beginning. There are plans to pay these private security forces in the "drug wars" in South America, and Blackwater is lobbying to get the contract to guard the boarder with Mexico. The amount of money they stand to receive from these contracts is substantially more than the billions they're currently getting paid for the work in Iraq.

Blackwater, the largest and most infamous of these private security forces, has been in the news recently for its excessive use of force and careless killing of civilians in Iraq. It has really become a private "army for hire", with enough capability to take on the militaries of some small countries already. And they're growing considerably in size, fire power, intelligence gathering capabilities, and influence. . While they are currently being hired mainly by the U.S. government, in principle they could be hired by any government or corporation with enough money and the motivation. These companies have no oversight by the U.S. military or apparently any other U.S. laws when operating overseas. Unlike the U.S. military, they're not subject to control by an elected official, international treaties (such as the Geneva Conventions), or often even by a board of directors. Blackwater is a privately-held company and does not publish much information about internal affairs.

But the most troubling possibility is that they can become an "army for hire" for use within the U.S. boarders. There are many legal restrictions about deploying the U.S. military again U.S. citizens on American soil. These restrictions do not apply for private security firms. Black water was already hired to provide security in several states after hurricane Katrina - a dry run for future projects. Imagine a future president that decided to hire Blackwater to provide security for all Federal property during a major protest demonstration in Washington D.C. that over 100,000 people were expected to attend. Imagine if these security operations included gathering intelligence on all the groups that were potentially involved. And imagine if the orders were given to break up the demonstration because of some perceived danger after it started? If this doesn't frighten you, then you probably don't fully appreciate what could happen. (Of course people who consider "obedience and respect for authority" to be among their most valued moral principles may find this scenario appealing.)

You may think that we can control and rein in such private security firms if they get too out of control at some point, so why worry now? But this may be next to impossible once they get too large with too much political influence and the money to buy even more, plus more extensive intelligence capabilities to collect damaging info on any perceived opponent, and once they start to be considered indispensable because of the security they are providing for top government officials. They are already considered indispensable to our oversees military and diplomatic operations.

An economic market has some great features, but there are some situations where it does not work at all. One of these is privatizing our military and intelligence operations. A key component of any sovereign government is a monopoly on the use of force and violence within its boarders, and for very good reasons. If private individuals or companies are able to assemble (or hire) their own military and intelligence forces with enough capabilities to rival those of small countries, we will enter a dangerous new era that will undoubtedly have many painful lessons to teach us. This is one dark side of future possibilities that is not getting nearly the attention it deserves.

The Demise of Professional Sports

Some people have predicted that professional sports as we know them have at most a decade left to exist. It turns out that they may have been too optimistic.

The reason behind this prediction is that the use of performance enhancing drugs will become more and more widespread. Already new designer drugs are appearing faster than they can devise tests for them. And within a decade genetic engineering will produce dramatic athletic improvements while being essentially impossible to detect.

If you look at the news today from the Tour de France, I currently count three teams that have pulled out due to illegal drug use, and the current leader, Michael Rasmussen was just disqualified. The race is becoming a contest of who has the best chemist, with the chances of winning without the aid of performance enhancing drugs growing dimmer each year. The Tour de France, as we knew it, is just about over.

And in baseball, Barry Bonds is about to break the all time home run record with what clearly seems to be the aid of performance enhancing drugs, rendering that record almost meaningless. Before long it will become routine for someone to hit over 100 home runs in a year.

Try to imagine football with 300 pound quarterbacks and linemen routine exceeding 500 pounds. Where is this all going?

Perhaps the basic contradiction at the heart of professional (something done for money) sport (something done solely for fun) will reach a point where it cannot be overcome or hidden behind a fantasy any longer.

Did You Know? - the video

There is a great little video making the rounds about the exponential rate of change we are living through titled "Did you know?" http://www.scottmcleod.org/didyouknow.wmv

It was based on a presentation about the future of education created by Karl Fisch, a high school teacher in Colorado. It contains some of the predictions about future computer power that were made by Ray Kurzweil in his book "The Singularity is Near", as well as some comments about the growth of China and India. Besides a lot of intriguing facts, it is accompanied by a wonderful instrumental musical selection that becomes strangely haunting after listening for a while.

You can find our more information about this video and Karl Fisch on his blog at http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2006/08/did-you-know.html
He's an interesting character, and his blog contains a lot of good commentary on our educational system.

The Prospect for Change in the Coming Century

The 20th century started with no automobile or air travel to speak of, or without at theory of atoms. Teddy Roosevelt had not yet started pushing the modern conservation movement and building out our national park system. The 20th century ended with supercomputers communicating over the internet, genetic engineering, nuclear power, space shuttles flights, studies of planets in other solar systems, and extensive studies of the changes to Earth’s climate that we were causing.

Will that be the greatest century of change in the history of humanity? Is the path that civilization is on represented by what is called an “S curve” that looks like the curve below?


Remarkable as this century of change is, all indications are that the coming century will introduce even greater changes. And more surprisingly, this amount of change could take place in just the first 50 or 60 years of the 21st century. In other words, the rate of change is actually accelerating, and the path of civilization will look more like the exponential curve here.

An Introduction to an Interesting Journey

Let me introduce myself and this blog. I work at a major computer firm projecting the future direction of technology developments. My interest in studies of the future dates back to at least my college years when I took a senior seminar on the topic. Lately I have been convinced that we are entering a fascinating period of significant change in both our technological capabilities and social structures. The consequences of which can be very beneficial, or very disruptive (or both), but they will likely be profound. This blog is an attempt to summarize the thoughts of others and myself on some of the more interesting and provocative outlooks for the next 10 to 50 years, and to explore some of the ways that we can help determine which of multiple paths humankind will follow. It promises to be a very interesting journey.