Exploring Possibilities

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

Do we now live in the post-satire era? Phil and Stephen discuss whether the Onion can stay in business much longer. How do you write spoof headlines in a world that produces real ones like […]

Artificial Intelligence

Robots that Beg for their Lives

Phil and Stephen discuss new research that shows how people respond differently to robots based on what the robots say to them. Is this proof that humans are easily manipulated by robots or does it […]

Business

The Future of Real Estate

Technology is changing every aspect of home purchase and home ownership.What will the suburbs look like when no one owns a car? What will the housing market look like when place no longer matters? Phil […]

Life Extension

Young, Thin, and Healthy

Phil and Stephen discuss medical breakthroughs that promise to help us all stay young, thin, and healthy. The ‘Big Bang’ of Alzheimer’s: Scientists ID genesis of disease, focus efforts on shape-shifting tau Scientists have discovered […]

Exploring Possibilities

Flat Earth — Are People Getting Dumber?

Are more people subscribing to the idea that the Earth is flat? How does flat Earth relate to other conspiracies: 9/11 Lizardoid aliens controlling the earth Mandela Effect Have these all been enabled by the […]

Entertainment

When Everybody Is Super

Thoughts on the Incredibles and the Incredibles 2: do these movies value being “naturally” super over technological advancement? The Incredibles movies have a weird relationship with technology But there’s another, subtler thread running through the […]

Exploring Possibilities

Reopening the Web

Does the Web ned reopening? Let’s start with one more thought from Survival of the Richest: Of course, it wasn’t always this way. There was a brief moment, in the early 1990s, when the digital […]

Exploring Possibilities

Save the Billionaires!

A futurist thinks he’s speaking at a conference only to realize that he’s been asked to advise a secret meeting of billionaires. Survival of the Richest They are looking for ways to pretoct themselves fro […]

Aliens

Aliens and Uncertainty

Here’s a case in point on radical uncertainty. Do we believe this? Are we alone? The question is worthy of serious scientific study Declassified information from covert studies is interesting, but not scientifically helpful. This […]

Exploring Possibilities

The Declaration of WTF

First, or course, comes the Declaration of Independence Then we had the Declaration of Singularity. The came the Declaration of Amazing. But maybe we’ve been doing our Declarations wrong. Are we putting the cart before […]

Exploring Possibilities

Mysteries, Paradoxes, and Uncertainty

Mysteries abound. Why does the word behave the way it does? Social Media — technology that should be making us happier and connecting us is making us miserable and driving us apart. What gives? More […]

Exploring Possibilities

Fiction Becomes Reality

It’s a (semi) Geekout as Phil and Stephen discuss scenarios from fiction (and from non-fictional speculation) that are coming true or that we hope to see come true soon. We begin with this story: Nanobots […]

Accelerating Tech

Infinite Computing or Infinite Hype?

How do we sort amazing new capabilities from eloquent marketing hype? Headline on Facebook: What if We Could Unlock Infinite Computing Power? Headline when you get to the page: What if we could unlock our […]

Accelerating Tech

New Capabilities, New Risks

New technologies bring unintended consequences and often unexpected risks. A new method of treatment introduces a whole new category of risk: Could genome sequencing in healthy persons create “sick patients for life”?  It was also […]

Adjacent Realities

Adjacent Realities: Crossing the Line

We are all realized possibilities. Before you existed, before you became a part of reality, you were a possibility — and a very remote possibility at that. As we have explored in earlier posts and […]

Philosophy

Adjacent Realities: The Big Lie

When talking about the possible, we must from the outset confront the big lie that all too often accompanies it. Unlike many big lies, this one is not always offered with an intent to deceive. […]

Philosophy

Adjacent Realities: The Fourth Wall

Most of us like to think that reality is something that human beings can comprehend. And, more to the point, we tend to think that we personally are among those who have a pretty good […]

Accelerating Tech

Is Social Media Killing Us?

Is social media killing us? If so, how do we fix it? Correlation is not causation, but still there is a huge correlation between rising depression rates and the ascendancy of social media. For example, […]

Accelerating Tech

Closer Than We Think

Are breakthrough technologies progressing faster than we think? Phil and Stephen review three recent news items that indicate they may be. Sucking carbon dioxide from air is cheaper than scientists thought https://go.nature.com/2JhnFLT Siphoning carbon dioxide […]

Accelerating Tech

Frickin’ Lasers! (Save the Universe)

Frickin’ Lasers Save the Universe Lasers Could Make Computers 1 Million Times Faster Phil and Stephen discuss two recent examples of the amazing potential of lasers to change everything. Lasers Could Make Computers 1 Million […]

Energy

Gold From Thin Air

High-quality carbon nanotubes made from carbon dioxide in the air break the manufacturing cost barrier “The most valuable material ever sold” Carbon nanotubes are super-materials that can be stronger than steel and more conductive than […]

Entertainment

Attack of the Fans

It’s a full-on geekout as Phil and Stephen discuss the most critical question of our times: to go see Solo, or not to go see Solo? Are today’s Star Wars fans like the Star Trek […]

Aliens

Aliens Among Us

Is it possible that life here began out there? The Panspermia hypothesis suggests that it did: Panspermia (from Ancient Greek πᾶν (pan), meaning ‘all’, and σπέρμα (sperma), meaning ‘seed’) is the hypothesis that life exists […]

Exploring Possibilities

Yanny, Laurel, and the Mandela Effect

Why would the the Yanny-Laurel phenomenon tell us anything about the Mandela Effect? They have nothing in common! Or do they? Let’s start with a quick recap: Mandela Effect Yanny-Laurel Of course, Yanny-Laurel relates to […]

Artificial Intelligence

Is AI the Biggest Thing Ever?

Google CEO Sundar Pichai certainly seems to think so. Artificial intelligence could be our saviour, according to the CEO of Google AI is probably the most important thing humanity has ever worked on. I think […]