Detail from The Fountain of Youth (1546) by Lucas Cranach the Elder. Courtesy Wikipedia
Immortality has gone secular. Unhooked from the realm of gods and angels, it’s now the subject of serious investment – both intellectual and financial – by philosophers, scientists and the Silicon Valley set. Several hundred people have already chosen to be ‘cryopreserved’ in preference to simply dying, as they wait for science to catch up and give them a second shot at life. But if we treat death as a problem, what are the ethical implications of the highly speculative ‘solutions’ being mooted?
Of course, we don’t currently have the means of achieving human immortality, nor is it clear that we ever will. But two hypothetical options have so far attracted the most interest and attention: rejuvenation technology, and mind uploading.
Maybe not in our hearts, but certainly in our brains. Plus, they can make you love the indoors far too much—which is why there’s now a full-fledged, woodsy rehab center for joystick addicts who need a soothing pathway back to a normal life.
Joining game in progress.
You materialize at a sprawling ranch near a snowcapped mountain covered with freshly powdered pines. Three horses graze nearby behind a purplish wooden fence.
To open the gate, click the lock.
A jet-black mare wearing a striped blanket approaches, its hooves sinking into the slush and white puffs blooming from her nostrils.
Let’s assume that people learned how to breathe in space without special equipment and we found a way to reach any planet in the solar system. Despite the fact that this information is not likely to be practical in the near future, let’s have a look at how a person would feel on the different planets of our solar system without any protective devices. And looking at big ambitious plans from Elon Musk, who knows, we may start space-traveling sooner than we expect.
We think that the world around us is so fascinating and can’t wait to share some facts about it with our readers.
I recently left the corporate world. After working roughly 20 years in mega-large companies with revenues in the billions I am now a company of one. It’s me and only me.
I do all my own stunts, too. Whether it’s booking travel or sending invoices or writing reports, there is no one to lean on, no one to manage. If I’m being truthful, I’m really enjoying life in my company of one.
Which brings me to Paul Jarvis, author of the fantastic book, Company of One.
The premise is simple. Keeping your business small—versus growing it at all costs—brings you a level of sanity and independence. Growth is not the objective; building something slowly and methodically that is “remarkable and resilient” over the long-term is the name of the game.
In summary, staying small is the next big thing for business.
I spent the last three days talking to dozens of people about pooping.
The ease with which I can discuss the act of defecation is somewhat of a paradox — because I am exceedingly bathroom shy. Silent office restrooms with stall doors that end a foot and a half off the ground are my worst enemy, while the best workspace toilet experience I’ve ever had was, oddly, at a WeWork, where the barriers were floor to ceiling, there was always music playing, and each stall came equipped with its own bottle of air freshener spray.
Yet such restrooms are rare. In the United States, at least, we’re far more likely to encounter cramped, quiet bathrooms with terrible two-ply toilet paper and dribble on the seat. Even at home, where our bathrooms are typically more comfortable than what you’ll find at the mall or an office building, we’re limited to a basic setup: a plain porcelain bowl, with maybe two flush settings, beside a roll of whatever toilet paper you’re willing to invest in. God help you if you run out.
“Imagine a world where you only need to wipe once”
But it doesn’t have to be this way! All over the world, restrooms are blessed with more humane configurations. In some places, they come equipped with hoses so the user can more easily cleanse themselves after use. In others, such as France, bathrooms have bidets which perform the same function as the hose, only hands-free. And in some regions of Asia, most notably Japan, high-tech toilets with sound effects, heated seats, several bidet functions, and air dryers are as ubiquitous as automatic faucets, as Jane, a New York-based freelance calligrapher who lived in the Kagawa region of Japan for four years and requested that only her first name be used, told me.
As artificial intelligence is increasingly introduced into business, an expert panel – hosted by the Guardian – forecast how it will change our working live
Workplaces should use automation technologies to enhance employees’ jobs rather than to replace humans, according to speakers at an event held by the Guardian on 11 July. However, they saw problems in the introduction of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robots, the latter including software as well as physical machines.
Will robots replace us?
“Humans should not worry too much about replacement, but need to find new ways to work together with AI,” said Chelsea Chen, co-founder of Emotech, a company which makes a voice-operated device called Olly that aims to recognise users’ emotions as well the content of speech.
Much of the discussion around the future of work focuses on what is already disappearing: jobs in factories, on farms, and in restaurants.
But coming automation-fueled job losses and changes will reverberate far beyond — and eventually reach seemingly safe workers in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street.
And those in-demand workers may not be prepared for what’s coming, as the bulk of government and company reskilling efforts are targeted toward the lower end.
In case Amazon’s surveillance capabilities weren’t extensive enough with its Echo, Ring, and Key products, not to mention all the data Amazon routinely collects on its customers, the company recently received a US patent to provide “surveillance as a service.”
The patent is for an “unmanned aerial vehicle”—the technical term for a drone—that “may perform a surveillance action at a property of an authorized party” and could “image the property to generate surveillance images.” Amazon suggests in its patent, filed June 12, 2015, and granted June 4 of this year, that drone-based surveillance would be superior to traditional video-camera installations that have limited range, are liable to miss things, and can be manipulated or damaged by an intruder.
Artificial Intelligence hype is only going to increase.
We know what blue collar jobs are, but what are “new collar” jobs? We are in the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and artificial intelligence, analytics and automation is radically changing jobs.
A sci-fi novelist on what he learned writing a trilogy of speculative novels that extrapolate how feeds shape our lives, politics, and future
Feeds shape our world. Google uses hundreds of variables to determine the search results you see. A complex statistical engine produces your personalized Netflix queue. Facebook uses everything it knows about you and your friends to build your timeline. Your credit score is compiled from third-party data brokers. Taylor Swift uses facial recognition software to identify stalkers at concerts. Even these Herculean efforts are dwarfed in scale by the Chinese social credit system that will integrate data from many disparate public and private sources.
Feeds are inevitable to the extent that they are useful. Every minute of every day, 156 million emails are sent, 400 hours of video are uploaded to Youtube, and there are 600 new page edits to Wikipedia. There is so much more information than we can possibly digest, and feeds are the imperfect filters that we use to try to distill what we want from all that’s out there. But their imperfections generate horrendous side effects, like unjust parole decisions made on the basis of racially biased data. And even more fundamentally, the sheer scale of feeds, and their incomprehensibility to most users, give their masters enormous hidden power.
The 2018 Best For The World honorees include (clockwise from top left):
Sunrise Banks, Animal Experience International, Mascoma Bank, and CORE Kitchen.
21st century business leaders see assets everywhere and in everyone. They create value and competitive advantage by competing not just to be best in the world, but best for the world.
As consumers, talent and investors increasingly seek values-aligned businesses to buy from, work for and invest in, entrepreneurs are seeking to create the greatest positive impact not just to be nice, but to be more successful. The supporting evidence is mounting and clear.
