Posts Tagged ‘futorology’
Can we stop the Cybernetic Revolution?
Introduction
Jaron Lanier, a pioneer in virtual reality, musician, and currently the lead scientist for the National Tele-Immersion Initiative, worries about the future of human culture more than the gadgets. In his “Half a Manifesto” he...
April 12th, 2010 | Science & Technology | Read More
THE MACHINE STOPS
Anybody who uses the Internet should read E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops. It is a chilling, short story masterpiece about the role of technology in our lives. Written in 1909, it’s as relevant today as the day it was published. Forster has several prescient notions including instant messages...
March 22nd, 2010 | Arts | Read More
The Future of War
Cyber-war – the way of the future?
Governments are increasingly preparing themselves for an internet-based attack on their essential service infrastructure, say security experts
Jonathan Richards from the Times Online
The prospect of inter-governmental cyber-war was something for which...
March 18th, 2010 | Science & Technology | Read More
Obama says “Fuck It”
Obama is doing his best to make positive changes in America and the world, but all that he’s getting for it is abuse and loss of popularitry. Where has all the faith gone? The first inspirational leader in at least a generation and everyone’s bored already…
March 11th, 2010 | Social Insight | Read More
BREAKPOINT: terrorists vs. transhumanists
Former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke’s BREAKPOINT novel, set in the year 2012, is based on emerging technologies. “Globegrid,” a high-speed global network, links supercomputers worldwide. Combined with advanced AI software, it promises to reverse-engineer the brain, revolutionize...
February 17th, 2010 | Big Ideas | Read More
The Men Who Really Stare At Goats
Three years in the making, Jon Ronson’s “Crazy Rulers of the World” explores the apparent madness at the heart of US military intelligence. With first-hand access to the leading players in the story, Jon Ronson examines the extraordinary and plain bizarre national secrets at the core...
February 11th, 2010 | Social Insight | Read More
ADVENTURES IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION
THE TIME MACHINE AND THE BIRTH OF CINEMA
In October 1895, the twenty-nine year old H.G.Wells was in the first flush of his fame and success. The Time Machine, serialised the previous year, had appeared in book form over the summer, and was heading for the Christmas bestseller lists on the back of reviews...
February 11th, 2010 | Arts | Read More
Writing the Unthinkable: Narrative, the Bomb and Nuclear Holocaust
In Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker, Riddley enters ‘the woom of Cambry’, the epicentre of the nuclear blast that reduced England to a neolithic state over two thousand years earlier. Walking through the crypt of the devastated cathedral, he experiences a numinous revelation of the power that was...
January 3rd, 2010 | Arts | Read More
The Predator War – What are the risks of using Drones?
What are the risks of the C.I.A.’s covert drone program?
On August 5th, officials at the Central Intelligence Agency, in Langley, Virginia, watched a live video feed relaying closeup footage of one of the most wanted terrorists in Pakistan. Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Taliban in...
December 22nd, 2009 | Social Insight | Read More
Second Lives – What attracts so many to live Virtual Lives?
You can live there, have a job, get married, get paid, go shopping…
In fact the only difference between Second Life and your nine-to-five existence is that it all goes on in a virtual world, run on computers and accessed via the internet.For a staggering 26 million people virtual worlds are...
December 17th, 2009 | Social Insight | Read More







