Lifeboat Foundation

I’m curious if readers of this blog, futurists or otherwise, were as surprised as I was to see the Pew Research Center report last month about how, to the average American, some of the biggest digital economy companies and concepts are still relatively unknown. A few highlights:

• 61% of Americans have never heard of the term “crowdfunding.”
• 73% are not familiar with the term “sharing economy.”
• 89% are not familiar with the term “gig economy.”

This was a reminder to me that the digital economy is still far from mainstream, and I think we need to keep that in mind when we analyze new technologies. But there’s another reason the report caught my eye, which is that it I think it’s another good example of a human ecosystem, in this case the digital economy, exhibiting signs of Postnormal Times (PNT). The digital economy is famous for making our lives easier, cutting out various middlemen and red tape to get what the consumer actually wants: a bed, not a grand lobby, a ride, not a car. This seems very normal in terms of the evolution of consumer needs.

But according to Sardar and Sweeney, “many ‘normal’ systems will not continue to operate ‘normally’ in PNT—sooner or later, the 3Cs will have a direct or indirect impact on them.” It may sound somewhat doomsday, but it’s not. PNT is nothing to fear, but a way of observing the world; evidence of the 3Cs are just indicators that a system is evolving and changing, and lets us know that our responses need to change in kind.

One of those Cs stands for “contradictions.” Though contradiction is of course ‘normal,’ the contradiction between the relatively small slice of consumers being served by Uber and AirBNB doesn’t mesh with the massive values (AirBNB worth $30Billion) associated with such startups. This is where my PNT radar goes off.

Continue reading “The Digital Economy: Postnormal?” »

Human civilization has always been a virtual reality. At the onset of culture, which was propagated through the proto-media of cave painting, the talking drum, music, fetish art making, oral tradition and the like, Homo sapiens began a march into cultural virtual realities, a march that would span the entirety of the human enterprise. We don’t often think of cultures as virtual realities, but there is no more apt descriptor for our widely diverse sociological organizations and interpretations than the metaphor of the “virtual reality.” Indeed, the virtual reality metaphor encompasses the complete human project.

Virtual Reality researchers, Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson, write in their book Infinite Reality; “[Cave art] is likely the first animation technology”, where it provided an early means of what they refer to as “virtual travel”. You are in the cave, but the media in that cave, the dynamic-drawn, fire-illuminated art, represents the plains and animals outside—a completely different environment, one facing entirely the opposite direction, beyond the mouth of the cave. When surrounded by cave art, alive with movement from flickering torches, you are at once inside the cave itself whilst the media experience surrounding you encourages you to indulge in fantasy, and to mentally simulate an entirely different environment. Blascovich and Bailenson suggest that in terms of the evolution of media technology, this was the very first immersive VR. Both the room and helmet-sized VRs used in the present day are but a sophistication of this original form of media VR tech.

Read entire essay here

Its painful to bear views that make many think I’m an imbicile and dislike me. So please, if anybody has a rational argument why any of this is wrong, I beg to be enlightened. I’ve set up a diagram for the purpose that will support you to add your criticism exactly where it is pertinent. https://tssciencecollaboration.com/graphtree/Are%20Vaccines%20Safe/406/4083

(1) The National Academy’s Reviews Of Vaccine Safety
The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies has provided several multi-hundred page surveys studying the safety of vaccines, but rather than reassuring, these itemize some iatrogenic conditions being caused, and pronounce the scientific literature inadequate to say whether most others are. The 2011 Institute of Medicine (IOM) Review[1] looked at 146 vaccine-condition pairs for causality, reporting:

• 14 for which the evidence is said to convincingly support causality, the vaccine is causing the condition.
• 4 where the evidence is said to favor acceptance.
• 5 where the evidence is said to favor rejection, including MMR causing autism.
• 123 where the evidence is said insufficient to evaluate.

The 2003 IOM Review on multiple vaccines said[2]:
“The committee was unable to address the concern that repeated exposure of a susceptible child to multiple immunizations over the developmental period may also produce atypical or non-specific immune or nervous system injury that could lead to severe disability or death (Fisher, 2001). There are no epidemiological studies that address this.”
and:
“the committee concludes that the epidemiological and clinical evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between multiple immunization and an increased risk of allergic disease, particularly asthma.”

• None of the IOM Safety Reviews[1][2][3][4] addressed the aluminum (for example whether the aluminum is causing autism), or mentioned contaminants, or discussed animal models although they had concluded as just quoted there is generally no epidemiological or clinical data worth preferring.

(2) The Aluminum.
Alum was added to vaccines back in the 1920’s, with no test of parenteral toxicity until recently[5], because it prods the immature immune system out of its normal operating range.[6] Maybe they figured aluminum is common in the environment, but injection bypasses half a dozen evolved sequential filters that normally keep it out of circulatory flow during development. Vaccines put hundreds of times as much aluminum into infants’ blood as they would otherwise get, and in an unnatural form that is hard for the body to remove.[7][8 (cfsec 4.2)][9]. The published empirical results indicate its highly toxic.

Continue reading “The Top Ten Reasons I Believe Vaccine Safety Is an Epic Mass Delusion” »

Superhuman reflexes.

It is good to see production costs v. value add return comparisons with drugs as part of an ongoing drive to create drugs cheaper and making them cheaper to patients. However, lets do not sacrifice quality (especially in areas like cancer, MS, etc.) for costs of development/ cost savings. Value of life is priceless.

Defining the value of a drug in relation to its cost and benefit is an emerging theme in cancer care but remains untested.

A new UK study has identified a gene signature that predicts poor survival from ovarian cancer. The study also identified genes which help the cancer develop resistance to chemotherapy — offering a new route to help tackle the disease.

The study, published in the International Journal of Cancer, examined the role of HOX genes in ovarian cancer resistance and whether a drug known as HXR9 which targets HOX, could help prevent the resistance from developing.

The HOX gene family enables the remarkably rapid cell division seen in growing embryos. Most of these genes are switched off in adults, but previous research has shown that in several cancers, including ovarian cancer, HOX genes are switched back on, helping the cancer cells to proliferate and survive.

BMI technology is like anything else; you have an evolution process to finally reach a level of maturity. The good news is that at least at this point of time BMI is at least in that cycle where we are no longer crawling and trying to stand up. We’re in that stage of the cycle where we are standing up and taking a couple of steps at a time. In the next 3 to 5 years, things should be extremely interesting in the BMI space especially as we begin to introduce more sophisticated technology to our connected infrastructure.

Will future soldiers be able to use a direct brain interface to control their hardware?

Imagine if the brain could tell a machine what to do without having to type, speak or use other standard interfaces. That’s the aim of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which has committed US$60 million to a Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) project to do just that.

Continue reading “Futures: Interfacing with DARPA’s cyborg soldiers” »

Glad they are doing something on this because my biggest concern on biometrics and systems storing other people’s DNA/ bio information is criminals hacking in and collecting bio information on people and reselling it on the Dark Web. With this type of information; criminals can do many interesting things especially if they have access to a gene editing kit, or 3D printers, etc. We have seen how easy it is to create gene editing kits and selling them on the net for $129 each. And, how 3D printers can replicate synthetic skin, contacts mimicking eye structures, etc. So, criminals can do some amazing things once they have access to anyone’s biometrics information.

A biometric system to verify travelers exiting the country could be in effect as soon as 2018.

By Kayla Nick-Kearney.

Excellent start in using GPU for mapping and predictive analysis on brain functioning and reactions; definitely should prove interesting to medical & tech researchers and engineers across the board should find this interesting.

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