The Future And You
Ideas and opinion about the future based on verifiable facts of today.
 
The Future And You -- February 29, 2012

George Dvorsky (futurist and ethicist) is our featured guest.

Topics: Is it wise to use our emotions (especially repugnance) as a guide to truth? Giving protective rights to intelligent animals (apes, whales, dolphins, and elephants), and eventually (when the time is right) to artificially intelligent software; augmenting animals to raise their IQ (animal uplifting); the new movie Planet of the Apes; the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey; better ways to conduct the search for extraterrestrials (SETI); Dyson Spheres; the Fermi Paradox; why your host hopes we will forever move to universes of ever increasing dimensionality; as well as artificially created universes and simulated universes.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the February 29, 2012 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 61 minutes]. This is the second third of an interview recorded using Skype on February 17, 2012.

George Dvorsky is a Canadian futurist and ethicist. He has written and spoken extensively about the impacts of cutting-edge science and technology—particularly as they pertain to the improvement of human performance and experience. He is the Chairman of the Board at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and is the program director for the Rights of Non-Human Persons program.

Direct download: TFAY_2012_2_29.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 3:59am EDT

The Future And You -- February 22, 2012

George Dvorsky (futurist and ethicist) is our featured guest.

Topics: the importance of studying history in order to extrapolate the future; how democratic transhumanism differs from other flavours of transhumanism; why he is a technogaian environmentalist and how that relates to Bright Green Environmentalism; the abolition of suffering in all species; political problems of putting a thermostat on the earth; as well as the good and bad of living an engineered blissful existence permanently.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the February 22, 2012 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 62 minutes]. This is the first third of an interview recorded using Skype on February 17, 2012.

George Dvorsky is a Canadian futurist and ethicist. He has written and spoken extensively about the impacts of cutting-edge science and technology—particularly as they pertain to the improvement of human performance and experience. He is the Chairman of the Board at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and is the program director for the Rights of Non-Human Persons program.

News Item: Your host's most transhumanist novel is now available for purchase through Amazon's Kindle program. All the main characters in Plague at Redhook have augmentations which transhumanists look forward to possessing. Computers implanted in their bodies and hardwired into their brains, for example, such that they can share with one another their verbal thoughts, as well as images of what they are currently looking at, or what they remember seeing in the past. These augmentations are not new to them, this is how they live their normal lives. The plot is an action-adventure story combined with a medical-mystery story combined with an exploring-an-alien-world story.

And remember: you don't need a Kindle to purchase and read Kindle books. There is a free app that turns most smart phones into a Kindle reader. And there is a free downloadable program which will turn a PC or a Mac into a Kindle reader as well. So if you have $3.99 to burn, and want to see what your host thinks the future might be like in story form, consider buying a copy of Plague at Redhook.

Direct download: TFAY_2012_2_22.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 1:07am EDT

The Future And You -- February 15, 2012

Wendy S. Delmater(editor, author and safety engineer), Joe Naff(author), and Myself (your host) are our featured guests.

Topic: Future disasters, and what you can do now to prepare for them. (Part 3)

The future will contain many bad events as well as many good. Your individual journey through your personal future will be less painful if you are prepared. Here are dozens of ways to greatly reduce your future suffering.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the February 15, 2012 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 39 minutes]. This is the third and final part of a panel recorded before a live audience on June 4, 2011 in Charlotte NC at the SF&F convention ConCarolinas.

Wendy S. Delmater runs the critically acclaimed zine: Abyss & Apex Magazine of Speculative Fiction, and has a new non-fiction book coming out on Valentines Day, 2012 entitled Better Dating Through Engineering: A system For Finding Lasting Love After 45

Joe Naff is the author of the supernatural thriller: The Gospel of the Font, and the young-adult high-fantasy series: The Chronicles of Shyra.

News Item: A new and very brief update on my TA-65 Evaluation Project.

Direct download: TFAY_2012_2_15.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 1:44am EDT

The Future And You -- February 8, 2012

Jonathan Mugan (author of The Curiosity Cycle, and computer science researcher) is our featured guest.

Topics: Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, online games, learning styles and methods, arguing to agree, errors in our thinking process, and many topics covered in his book The Curiosity Cycle: Preparing Your Child for the Ongoing Technological Explosion. (Part 2)

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the February 8, 2012 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 39 minutes]. This is the second half of an interview recorded on January 21, 2012 using a Skype-to-Skype connection. 

Jonathan Mugan is a computer science researcher specializing in machine learning and Artificial Intelligence. He completed a postdoc at Carnegie Mellon University, and received a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin. His book The Curiosity Cycle: Preparing Your Child for the Ongoing Technological Explosion is available in paperback and Kindle eBook editions.

Direct download: TFAY_2012_2_8.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:52am EDT

The Future And You -- February 1, 2012

Jonathan Mugan (author of The Curiosity Cycle, and computer science researcher) is our featured guest.

Topics: Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, cyber-security, human intelligence, human learning, errors in our thinking process, and many topics covered in his book The Curiosity Cycle: Preparing Your Child for the Ongoing Technological Explosion.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the February 1, 2012 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 41 minutes]. This is the first half of an interview recorded on January 21, 2012 using a Skype-to-Skype connection. 

Jonathan Mugan is a computer science researcher specializing in machine learning and Artificial Intelligence. He completed a postdoc at Carnegie Mellon University, and received a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin. His book The Curiosity Cycle: Preparing Your Child for the Ongoing Technological Explosion is available in paperback and Kindle eBook editions.

Direct download: TFAY_2012_2_1.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:07am EDT