To anybody even approaching a human standard of intelligence it should be clear that Ann Coulter is nothing more than a bigoted lackwit media whore, so why would one even take the trouble to pay her heed, much less write an article defending her? To explain, it is necessary to go back to an interview she gave on Donny Deutsch's CNBC show 'The Big Idea' in which she claimed that it would be better if we were all Christians, and that Christians were 'perfected Jews'.
Rather predictably this caused something of a commotion, and Coulter has since been criticised as being anti-semitic, intolerant, and generally a big meanie. Deutsch himself immediately responded with incredulity, and accused her of being hateful and anti-semitic, and complained that he was personally offended by the remarks. The National Jewish Democratic Council has called for media organisations to stop using her as a commentator.
But this is not the correct response (although it probably is the one that Coulter was hoping for). Coulter's comments were not anti-semitic, and they are perfectly rational, and really quite unremarkable and modest, if your thinking is grounded in Christian dogma.
First, it is clear that she was referring to religious Jews, rather than racial Jews, so it makes no sense at all to say that she was being racist or anti-semitic. Religion is not the same thing as race; a fact that people who accuse critics of Islam of racism would do well to remember. Second, if you believe that the Bible is the word of God, that Jesus died on the cross to save us, and that he was the son of God, then it is perfectly rational to desire all people to convert to Christianity. In fact the Bible commands believers to 'Go therefore and make disciples of all nations'. Apart from that, it is natural to think that the world would be a better place if other people thought more like you do. Coulter also said, in the same interview, that she thought America would be better if all Americans were Republicans, but there has been no righteous condemnation of that comment.
This whole fandango is just another symptom of the taboo over criticising religion. It is clear that nobody would have condemned Coulter for wishing other people to agree with her over political, economic, historical, or scientific opinions. It is hard to imagine the Adam Smith Institute demanding that somebody not be used as a commentator after advocating widespread adoption of Keynesian economics. But when it comes to religion, everybody is immediately indignant. This must change.
Links:
Wednesday, 7 May 2008
Thursday, 1 May 2008
News Words
mis-speak
One of the rules of Orwellian Newspeak is that wherever an antonym can be removed from the language it ought to be removed. For example, since we have the word light, the word dark is redundant, because unlight serves just as well. By eliminating unnecessary opposites, the founding principle of Newspeak - to diminish the vocabulary as much as possible - is served.
Whereas in Oldspeak we might have used the word lie, we can now use the much better word mis-speak. This elimination of redundancy serves the laudable goal of removing heretical words from the language, and therefore also removing their associated concepts from our thought (or rather think). The foundation of all Newspeak is that if a we cannot say something we also cannot think it. Thus if we cannot use the word lie we also cannot think about the concept of lying, since it no longer exists. This has considerable benefits for those forced toaccount for themselves in public life.
bigot
In a rather splenetic piece from the current issue of Human Events, Gary Bauer forms a neat little syllogism concluding that Bill Maher is a bigot. He quotes Merriam Webster's definition of bigot: 'One who regards or treats the members of a group with hatred and intolerance', then Maher: 'I have hated the church way before anyone else', and comes to the inevitable conclusion that Maher is by definition a bigot. And, of course, everybody knows that bigots are evil.
Impeccable logic, Mr Bauer, but sadly false premises. By this reasoning we would have to indict almost everybody in America, to say nothing of the rest of the world, on the charge of bigotry. What clear thinking person does not hate groups like al-Qaeda and the Ku Klux Klan? By Mr Bauer's definition one would have to be positively morally remiss not to be a bigot.
Of course, his error lies with the definition. The Merriam Webster quote was accurate, but not complete; he neglected to include the previous sentence: 'a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices'. The important words being obstinately and prejudices, meaning pre-judgments, or judgments in absence of facts. A better definition comes from Chambers: 'a person blindly and obstinately devoted to a particular set of ideas, creed or political party, and dismissive towards others'.
Since Mr Bauer can plainly read, and since he clearly has a copy of the dictionary, I can only attribute his error to wilful obfuscation of the truth in service of a pre-formed conclusion. Now that's what I call bigotry.
elitist
Does anybody know what this word means? An elite is a group of people who are, in some way, better than other people. It could be that they are better educated, or better able to take on some task, or some other superiority. What, then, could an elitist be? In one sense anti-elitism is at the foundation of the democratic movement. We no longer award positions of leadership and authority based solely on membership of an elite, but through popular elections.
But anti-elitism has come recently, I think, to mean something else. It refers to a belief that in some areas there is no meaningful measure of goodness outside subjective opinion. We ought not to be claiming that Mozart is better than rap, or that a history professor has any greater insight into the causes of World War II than the common man on the street. This sort of elitism is a far more profound rejection of the very concept of superiority. It has infected popular thinking to such an extent - in America at least - that we are now suspicious of anybody who professes superior knowledge or expertise about anything. Political elections in the US have become not so much a contest to convince the public that candidates can better do the job for which they are running, but a race to show people that they are just one of the people. This seems to have had some bad results.
This new concept of elitism has gone unchallenged because it is not understood. The word is used casually without any agreed definition, and therefore serves more to confuse than to enlighten. We would be better off without it.
One of the rules of Orwellian Newspeak is that wherever an antonym can be removed from the language it ought to be removed. For example, since we have the word light, the word dark is redundant, because unlight serves just as well. By eliminating unnecessary opposites, the founding principle of Newspeak - to diminish the vocabulary as much as possible - is served.
Whereas in Oldspeak we might have used the word lie, we can now use the much better word mis-speak. This elimination of redundancy serves the laudable goal of removing heretical words from the language, and therefore also removing their associated concepts from our thought (or rather think). The foundation of all Newspeak is that if a we cannot say something we also cannot think it. Thus if we cannot use the word lie we also cannot think about the concept of lying, since it no longer exists. This has considerable benefits for those forced toaccount for themselves in public life.
bigot
In a rather splenetic piece from the current issue of Human Events, Gary Bauer forms a neat little syllogism concluding that Bill Maher is a bigot. He quotes Merriam Webster's definition of bigot: 'One who regards or treats the members of a group with hatred and intolerance', then Maher: 'I have hated the church way before anyone else', and comes to the inevitable conclusion that Maher is by definition a bigot. And, of course, everybody knows that bigots are evil.
Impeccable logic, Mr Bauer, but sadly false premises. By this reasoning we would have to indict almost everybody in America, to say nothing of the rest of the world, on the charge of bigotry. What clear thinking person does not hate groups like al-Qaeda and the Ku Klux Klan? By Mr Bauer's definition one would have to be positively morally remiss not to be a bigot.
Of course, his error lies with the definition. The Merriam Webster quote was accurate, but not complete; he neglected to include the previous sentence: 'a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices'. The important words being obstinately and prejudices, meaning pre-judgments, or judgments in absence of facts. A better definition comes from Chambers: 'a person blindly and obstinately devoted to a particular set of ideas, creed or political party, and dismissive towards others'.
Since Mr Bauer can plainly read, and since he clearly has a copy of the dictionary, I can only attribute his error to wilful obfuscation of the truth in service of a pre-formed conclusion. Now that's what I call bigotry.
elitist
Does anybody know what this word means? An elite is a group of people who are, in some way, better than other people. It could be that they are better educated, or better able to take on some task, or some other superiority. What, then, could an elitist be? In one sense anti-elitism is at the foundation of the democratic movement. We no longer award positions of leadership and authority based solely on membership of an elite, but through popular elections.
But anti-elitism has come recently, I think, to mean something else. It refers to a belief that in some areas there is no meaningful measure of goodness outside subjective opinion. We ought not to be claiming that Mozart is better than rap, or that a history professor has any greater insight into the causes of World War II than the common man on the street. This sort of elitism is a far more profound rejection of the very concept of superiority. It has infected popular thinking to such an extent - in America at least - that we are now suspicious of anybody who professes superior knowledge or expertise about anything. Political elections in the US have become not so much a contest to convince the public that candidates can better do the job for which they are running, but a race to show people that they are just one of the people. This seems to have had some bad results.
This new concept of elitism has gone unchallenged because it is not understood. The word is used casually without any agreed definition, and therefore serves more to confuse than to enlighten. We would be better off without it.
Monday, 28 April 2008
Treating organisations like the Al-Mahadi Army as legitimate is absurd
The more attentive among you may remember a short conflict in July of 2006 between Israel and the Hezbollah terrorist militia in Lebanon. Although the war lasted only 33 days it inflicted heavy casualties on both the Israeli and Lebanese sides of the border. It has been estimated that more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians died, and that more than 4,000 Israeli civilians were wounded as a direct result of the war.
It all started when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israeli military targets to act as a diversion for the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. The plan was to force Israel to trade a number of Lebanese prisoners for the soldiers. Israel's reaction was to promise a 'very painful and far-reaching response' and to begin to attack targets within Lebanon with artillery and air strikes . In the following days there was considerable confusion about who the main combatant parties in the war were. The Lebanese prime minister vacillated between supporting Hezbollah, and disavowing them. The Israelis began by declaring Hezbollah's aggression 'an act of war' on the part of the Lebanese state, but later changed its mind, stating that 'Israel is not fighting Lebanon but the terrorist element there'.
All this should be taken as a cautionary tale against the power of independent militias operating outside the control of state governments. One does not have to work very hard to think of other examples of the destruction that can result from tolerance of armed partisan groups. Whether they genuinely operate without state influence, or whether they are merely acting as proxies for veiled state aggression - as in the case of Sudan's Janjaweed group - these bodies are always a destabilising influence. That Hezbollah, an organisation with no official government support, was able to engage the Israeli army on equal terms is testament to the power that such rogue groups can attain, and how dangerous they can be.
In the past few days we have been reading reports from Iraq of the ongoing dispute between the Iraqi government and Muqtada al-Sadr's Al-Mahdi Army. al-Sadr - who remains safely hidden within Iran - has claimed that despite his attempts at a cease-fire, the government has been targeting his militia for political reasons. He has now threatened the government with open war in the event that they fail to discontinue military operations against his people. He has also claimed that the attacks against his group are an attempt to eliminate any opposition to the Shi'ite parties in government before the October elections.
There are striking similarities between the Al-Mahadi Army and Hezbollah. Both are non-government groups with strong paramilitary wings. Both claim to engage in humanitarian work as well as military activity. Both are Shi'a Muslim bodies allegedly funded by Iran, and both have the potential to ignite deadly conflicts. Both ought to be disbanded, or at the very least disarmed as soon as possible.
That we even entertain a dialogue between these groups and their host nations as legitimate is revealing of our lack of perspective. If such a militia were to emerge in the US or an EU country it would seem absurd for anybody to defend the group with claims that they also provide health services, or that they are trying to achieve a cease fire and should not be attacked. The very existence of such an organisation in a first world nation would never be tolerated, and we ought to apply the same standards to the middle east.
It is not possible to achieve lasting stability in Iraq, or any nation, unless groups like al-Sadr's are disarmed. It is a fundamental principle of nationhood that the state must have exclusive control over military power, and that such power must be subject to the rule of law.
It is heartening that the Iraqi army, backed by the US and UK forces in the area, is beginning to make inroads against al-Sadr's people in Basra. It is further heartening that the leader himself has retreated to the security of Iran to pursue 'study'. Let us hope that the credibility and strength of this organisation, and others like it, continues to decline.
References
The July War
Al-Mahdi Army and Muqtada al-Sadr
It all started when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israeli military targets to act as a diversion for the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. The plan was to force Israel to trade a number of Lebanese prisoners for the soldiers. Israel's reaction was to promise a 'very painful and far-reaching response' and to begin to attack targets within Lebanon with artillery and air strikes . In the following days there was considerable confusion about who the main combatant parties in the war were. The Lebanese prime minister vacillated between supporting Hezbollah, and disavowing them. The Israelis began by declaring Hezbollah's aggression 'an act of war' on the part of the Lebanese state, but later changed its mind, stating that 'Israel is not fighting Lebanon but the terrorist element there'.
All this should be taken as a cautionary tale against the power of independent militias operating outside the control of state governments. One does not have to work very hard to think of other examples of the destruction that can result from tolerance of armed partisan groups. Whether they genuinely operate without state influence, or whether they are merely acting as proxies for veiled state aggression - as in the case of Sudan's Janjaweed group - these bodies are always a destabilising influence. That Hezbollah, an organisation with no official government support, was able to engage the Israeli army on equal terms is testament to the power that such rogue groups can attain, and how dangerous they can be.
In the past few days we have been reading reports from Iraq of the ongoing dispute between the Iraqi government and Muqtada al-Sadr's Al-Mahdi Army. al-Sadr - who remains safely hidden within Iran - has claimed that despite his attempts at a cease-fire, the government has been targeting his militia for political reasons. He has now threatened the government with open war in the event that they fail to discontinue military operations against his people. He has also claimed that the attacks against his group are an attempt to eliminate any opposition to the Shi'ite parties in government before the October elections.
There are striking similarities between the Al-Mahadi Army and Hezbollah. Both are non-government groups with strong paramilitary wings. Both claim to engage in humanitarian work as well as military activity. Both are Shi'a Muslim bodies allegedly funded by Iran, and both have the potential to ignite deadly conflicts. Both ought to be disbanded, or at the very least disarmed as soon as possible.
That we even entertain a dialogue between these groups and their host nations as legitimate is revealing of our lack of perspective. If such a militia were to emerge in the US or an EU country it would seem absurd for anybody to defend the group with claims that they also provide health services, or that they are trying to achieve a cease fire and should not be attacked. The very existence of such an organisation in a first world nation would never be tolerated, and we ought to apply the same standards to the middle east.
It is not possible to achieve lasting stability in Iraq, or any nation, unless groups like al-Sadr's are disarmed. It is a fundamental principle of nationhood that the state must have exclusive control over military power, and that such power must be subject to the rule of law.
It is heartening that the Iraqi army, backed by the US and UK forces in the area, is beginning to make inroads against al-Sadr's people in Basra. It is further heartening that the leader himself has retreated to the security of Iran to pursue 'study'. Let us hope that the credibility and strength of this organisation, and others like it, continues to decline.
References
The July War
- Timeline of the war
- On Lebanese casualties
- On Israeli casualties
- On the origins of the war
- 'A very painful and far-reaching response'
- Lebanon denying involvement with Hezbollah attacks
- Lebanon supports Hezbollah
- Israel claims actions an 'act of war'
- 'not fighting Lebanon but the terrorist element there'
Al-Mahdi Army and Muqtada al-Sadr
Sunday, 9 March 2008
Why We Shouldn't Be Doing Anything (Much) About Global Warming (Yet)
Re-watching Bjorn Lomborg's talk about the Copenhagen Consensus got me to thinking a bit more about global warming and what we should be doing about it.
The subject of climate change is one of those 'issues' that tends to divide people into two discrete camps. On the one hand there are those who think that global warming is the biggest problem we are facing, and that we should be devoting a sizable chunk of our resources and attention to solving it as soon as possible. On the other hand there are those who either deny that the problem exists at all, or deny that it is going to significantly affect us.
As with so many things, this extreme polarisation of the subject has had a detrimental effect on the debate surrounding it by shutting out any shades of argument in between the two dominant positions.
And that's unfortunate, because climate change is a complicated issue and I believe that the correct approach to it lies in between the polar extremes. Let me explain why.
First of all, there's no reasonable doubt that global warming is both real, and a significant existential problem for our species. If you don't believe me, read the summary of the fourth assessment report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which concludes that 'warming of the climate system is unequivocal', and that the cause of such warming is 'very likely' anthropogenic in nature.
Given this fact, the reasonable response seems to be to take decisive action to avert a global catastrophe. Indeed, this move seems to be assumed by most commentators. Once you have been convinced that the problem is real and serious, advocacy of immediate evasive measures seems to be automatic. This, I think, is a mistake.
Let us examine the various solutions that have been proposed. The most well known is the Kyoto Protocol, which is the agreed result of the Framework Convention on Climate Change. This protocol has the aim of reducing emission of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. As a result of signing up to the protocol thirty-six developed countries are now required to reduce their greenhouse emissions to levels specified in the treaty. Notably, the United States has been the target of considerable criticism for not ratifying the treaty.
Another oft-discussed approach to the problem is a 'carbon tax'. This solution proposes taxing emissions of carbon dioxide in order to encourage reduction in the quantity of greenhouse gas we pump into the atmosphere. Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, and the UK have all imposed some form of carbon taxing.
Finally, there is the increasingly popular notion of 'emissions trading' (sometimes known as 'cap and trade'), which is both an administrative and an economic approach. Under this system the government sets a limit on the amount of CO2 that can be emitted, and issues emissions credits (whose total market value is equal to the governmental limit) to companies that need to pollute. These companies are then able to buy and sell the credits if they need to pollute more, or if they want to trade their credits for cash. The idea is that a market in emissions credits will emerge, thus ensuring that those companies that can most cheaply reduce emissions will do so. This ensures the most economically efficient reduction in CO2 pollution.
These aren't the only proposed solutions, but they are some of the most popular and most discussed. They all fall into a category of solutions that I want to call 'passive'. They are passive in the sense that they all aim to reduce the amount of carbon that we are putting into the atmosphere, rather than trying to actively reverse the process of global warming that is already in motion.
The problem with passive solutions is two fold. First, they are expensive. A number of studies have explored to cost of Kyoto compliance. A meta-study conducted by the US Energy Information Administration put the cost of compliance, in 1996 dollars, at between $102B and $437B a year in 2010 and between $120B and $311B in 2020. Even taking into account the savings that may be possible through carbon trading, offsets and other efficiencies, it seems safe to say that reducing our carbon emissions will have a significant and detrimental impact on the global economy.
The second problem with passive solutions is that the potential upside is relatively small. As Bjorn Lomborg points out in Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming, full compliance with Kyoto for all time would only slow the rate of warming by 5% over the next century. The momentum in the global climate system is already too great for a mere reduction of emissions to have much effect. In other words, the result of spending trillions of dollars would only be to push back a global catastrophe for a few years.
Bu there are alternatives to the passive approaches. By actively seeking to remove carbon from the atmosphere we could have a realistic prospect of not just delaying global warming, but of putting an end to it altogether. A number of techniques have been proposed that might enable artificial sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere. None, though, have as much promise as nanotechnology.
The birth of nanotechnology can be traced to Richard Feynman's famous 'plenty of room at the bottom' speech in 1959, but it was Eric Drexler who was the first to lay out a high-level design for what has become known as a 'molecular assembler'. Sometimes known as a 'Drexler Assembler', this device has the potential to manufacture anything at all that is consistent with the laws of physics and chemistry.
Current exponentially increasing trends in miniaturisation, and the price-performance of computing point to a realisation of these techniques in the 2020s. Once we have harnessed the power of the very small we will have the technology to manipulate the environment at the molecular level, allowing us to re-design the world around us. The implications for global warming are that we will have the means to cheaply, and on a global scale, remove carbon from the atmosphere, thus reversing the current climate trends. Ray Kurzweil notes that we will in fact have to be careful not to go too far in this endeavor, lest we instigate a global cooling trend.
The choice before us is clear. We can either act now, which will cost trillions of dollars and have little impact on the problem, or we can act in 10-15 years' time, which will cost relatively little, and will bring about a complete end to the problem. A simple cost-benefit analysis seems to make the correct choice clear.
And yet we are making the wrong choice. I think there are two reasons for this. The first is that the world is still blighted, as Kurzweil notes, by the historical-linear view of the pace of technology advancement. It is still the case that most of the world does not take into account the exponentially increasing speed of advances in information technologies when planning for the future. Because of this, it is hard for most commentators and decision makers to envisage a near-future with such astonishing technological power, and thus they fail to take such power into account when making plans for the future.
The second reason is that, as a species, we seem to have a predilection for action. Simply by doing something, no matter how ineffective it might be, we feel better. The idea that we should wait, and that the best course of action might be patience, is anathema to most leaders, and indeed strikes many observers as positively immoral. This is a patently self-indulgent attitude.
It will be essential that we shed these prevailing attitudes if we are to avoid damaging the global economy by piling untold burden on the very wealth-creation powerhouses that will drive the coming technological revolutions. As I have noted before on this blog, it is always better to put something off until tomorrow if doing so gives us a better chance of success.
The subject of climate change is one of those 'issues' that tends to divide people into two discrete camps. On the one hand there are those who think that global warming is the biggest problem we are facing, and that we should be devoting a sizable chunk of our resources and attention to solving it as soon as possible. On the other hand there are those who either deny that the problem exists at all, or deny that it is going to significantly affect us.
As with so many things, this extreme polarisation of the subject has had a detrimental effect on the debate surrounding it by shutting out any shades of argument in between the two dominant positions.
And that's unfortunate, because climate change is a complicated issue and I believe that the correct approach to it lies in between the polar extremes. Let me explain why.
First of all, there's no reasonable doubt that global warming is both real, and a significant existential problem for our species. If you don't believe me, read the summary of the fourth assessment report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which concludes that 'warming of the climate system is unequivocal', and that the cause of such warming is 'very likely' anthropogenic in nature.
Given this fact, the reasonable response seems to be to take decisive action to avert a global catastrophe. Indeed, this move seems to be assumed by most commentators. Once you have been convinced that the problem is real and serious, advocacy of immediate evasive measures seems to be automatic. This, I think, is a mistake.
Let us examine the various solutions that have been proposed. The most well known is the Kyoto Protocol, which is the agreed result of the Framework Convention on Climate Change. This protocol has the aim of reducing emission of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. As a result of signing up to the protocol thirty-six developed countries are now required to reduce their greenhouse emissions to levels specified in the treaty. Notably, the United States has been the target of considerable criticism for not ratifying the treaty.
Another oft-discussed approach to the problem is a 'carbon tax'. This solution proposes taxing emissions of carbon dioxide in order to encourage reduction in the quantity of greenhouse gas we pump into the atmosphere. Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, and the UK have all imposed some form of carbon taxing.
Finally, there is the increasingly popular notion of 'emissions trading' (sometimes known as 'cap and trade'), which is both an administrative and an economic approach. Under this system the government sets a limit on the amount of CO2 that can be emitted, and issues emissions credits (whose total market value is equal to the governmental limit) to companies that need to pollute. These companies are then able to buy and sell the credits if they need to pollute more, or if they want to trade their credits for cash. The idea is that a market in emissions credits will emerge, thus ensuring that those companies that can most cheaply reduce emissions will do so. This ensures the most economically efficient reduction in CO2 pollution.
These aren't the only proposed solutions, but they are some of the most popular and most discussed. They all fall into a category of solutions that I want to call 'passive'. They are passive in the sense that they all aim to reduce the amount of carbon that we are putting into the atmosphere, rather than trying to actively reverse the process of global warming that is already in motion.
The problem with passive solutions is two fold. First, they are expensive. A number of studies have explored to cost of Kyoto compliance. A meta-study conducted by the US Energy Information Administration put the cost of compliance, in 1996 dollars, at between $102B and $437B a year in 2010 and between $120B and $311B in 2020. Even taking into account the savings that may be possible through carbon trading, offsets and other efficiencies, it seems safe to say that reducing our carbon emissions will have a significant and detrimental impact on the global economy.
The second problem with passive solutions is that the potential upside is relatively small. As Bjorn Lomborg points out in Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming, full compliance with Kyoto for all time would only slow the rate of warming by 5% over the next century. The momentum in the global climate system is already too great for a mere reduction of emissions to have much effect. In other words, the result of spending trillions of dollars would only be to push back a global catastrophe for a few years.
Bu there are alternatives to the passive approaches. By actively seeking to remove carbon from the atmosphere we could have a realistic prospect of not just delaying global warming, but of putting an end to it altogether. A number of techniques have been proposed that might enable artificial sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere. None, though, have as much promise as nanotechnology.
The birth of nanotechnology can be traced to Richard Feynman's famous 'plenty of room at the bottom' speech in 1959, but it was Eric Drexler who was the first to lay out a high-level design for what has become known as a 'molecular assembler'. Sometimes known as a 'Drexler Assembler', this device has the potential to manufacture anything at all that is consistent with the laws of physics and chemistry.
Current exponentially increasing trends in miniaturisation, and the price-performance of computing point to a realisation of these techniques in the 2020s. Once we have harnessed the power of the very small we will have the technology to manipulate the environment at the molecular level, allowing us to re-design the world around us. The implications for global warming are that we will have the means to cheaply, and on a global scale, remove carbon from the atmosphere, thus reversing the current climate trends. Ray Kurzweil notes that we will in fact have to be careful not to go too far in this endeavor, lest we instigate a global cooling trend.
The choice before us is clear. We can either act now, which will cost trillions of dollars and have little impact on the problem, or we can act in 10-15 years' time, which will cost relatively little, and will bring about a complete end to the problem. A simple cost-benefit analysis seems to make the correct choice clear.
And yet we are making the wrong choice. I think there are two reasons for this. The first is that the world is still blighted, as Kurzweil notes, by the historical-linear view of the pace of technology advancement. It is still the case that most of the world does not take into account the exponentially increasing speed of advances in information technologies when planning for the future. Because of this, it is hard for most commentators and decision makers to envisage a near-future with such astonishing technological power, and thus they fail to take such power into account when making plans for the future.
The second reason is that, as a species, we seem to have a predilection for action. Simply by doing something, no matter how ineffective it might be, we feel better. The idea that we should wait, and that the best course of action might be patience, is anathema to most leaders, and indeed strikes many observers as positively immoral. This is a patently self-indulgent attitude.
It will be essential that we shed these prevailing attitudes if we are to avoid damaging the global economy by piling untold burden on the very wealth-creation powerhouses that will drive the coming technological revolutions. As I have noted before on this blog, it is always better to put something off until tomorrow if doing so gives us a better chance of success.
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
10 Must-See TED Talks - Part II
Sorry for the delay on this folks. The truth is that I just happened upon a little game called Eve Online, which has sucked up a lot of my time. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if you see a blog post about this in the future after I've got a better grip on what it's all about.Anyway, back to the TED list.
6. Craig Venter: A voyage of DNA, genes and the sea
We have mastered the techniques of reading DNA. Craig Venter is now pioneering our efforts to start writing DNA. In this talk Venter describes the astonishing things that are being discovered from his around-the-word expedition to sequence the DNA of ocean-going microbes.
He goes on to address the concerns of those who fear designer viruses, and sets out a roadmap for the creation of engineered life. He predicts that human manufactured bacteria are only a couple of years away. Early this year - about 3 years after he gave this talk - the J. Craig Venter Institute announced that they had manufactured the genome of a bacterium.
He finishes by noting that engineered life has the potential to profoundly change the world by providing abundant food, solving our energy problems, and curing disease.
Watch it
7. Bjorn Lomborg: Our priorities for saving the world
Bjorn Lomborg asks, in a world with limited resources for solving world problems, what should we be addressing first? We must, of course, choose those projects that will do the most amount of good for the least money. In other worlds, the good projects are those that are the most efficient.
Looked at this way, obvious priorities like solving global warming do not seem like such good investments. Lomborg points out that the best case scenario for the Kyoto Protocol - that we push back the catastrophic consequences of global warming by 6 years - is not an efficient way to spend $15o Billion a year. Spending that money on other priorities like curing Aids/HIV and Malaria would have more positive outcomes for much less money.
Lomborg doesn't go into the possible role that nanotechnology will play in solving our climate change problems, but in about 10 - 15 years' time we should have the means to combat global warming for significantly less money than $150 billion dollars a year. Using nanobots we will be able to effectively remove the excess CO2 from our atmosphere. This will bring about a complete end to the climate problem without spending anything like the cost of the Kyoto Protocol. We should not do something today if putting it off until tomorrow will give us a greater chance of success.
Watch it
8. Hod Lipson: Robots that are "self-aware"
Hod Lipson uses a talk based around demonstrations of some of his experimental robots to ask questions about how living creatures learn and evolve, and how we can engineer robots to do the same thing.
Lipson has created robots that create themselves. His robots decide for themselves how they want to walk, develop an understanding of what they look like, and can even construct other robots.
Watch it
9. David Bolinsky: Fantastic voyage inside a cell
David Bolinsky is a medical illustrator. In this talk he presents a 3-minute clip from his project to animate the inside of a cell. This stunningly beautiful animation gives an insight into the true complexity of the internal life of a cell, and shows just how simplistic the traditional line drawings that we are shown in school really are.
Bolinsky's animation illustrates how technology can be used to give educators the tools to really engage their students, and to provide a visual model on which students can hang everything else that they are learning.
Watch it
10. David Deutsch: What is our place in the cosmos?
This final talk is not about any particular piece of science or technology, but rather about our place in the cosmos and what it means for our ability to overcome problems.
Deutsch argues compellingly that due to our unusual position in the universe we have the pre-requisites - matter, energy, and evidence - to accumulate knowledge, and therefore we have the power to solve problems.
Despite our ability to gain knowledge, though, there are some things that we don't know. This means that some things will happen that we cannot predict, and that there will be problems that we have not anticipated. Deutsch argues that in light of these twin truths - that we can solve problems and that there are some problems that we cannot anticipate - the correct stance is not one that seeks to avoid problems, but one that attempts to solve them.
Watch it
Bonus Talk: Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen
This talk doesn't really have anything to do with technology, and so is a bit off-topic for this blog, but I wanted to include it as a bonus because it is one of the best presentations of any kind that I have seen.
Hans Rosling uses statistics, and an ingenious method of presenting them, to deeply explore the phenomenon of poverty in the world, and how it is changing.
Watch it
I hope that this list has opened up the world of TED to you if you weren't previously aware of it. I am almost never let down by these talks, and there are many, many more of them at the TED website. TED 2008 has just finished, so we can look forward to more fascinating presentations in the coming months.
Friday, 29 February 2008
10 Must-See TED Talks - Part I
In case you haven't heard of it, TED (Technology Entertainment Design) is an annual multi-disciplinary conference held in Monterey, California. Its subject matter is wide-ranging, and includes technology, culture, global affairs, design, architecture, art, healthcare and much more. The unifying theme is that TED wants to harness the power of ideas to change the world.For about the last year and a half TED has been putting video of its talks up on the web for public consumption, with the result that I became a TED addict. The talks are almost invariably fascinating, and the speakers are authoritative and inspiring. I have watched a good number of these now, and so I thought it might be a good idea to share with you ten examples that I think everybody should see. In no particular order, they are:
1. Ray Kurzweil: How technology's accelerating power will transform us
Anybody who has been reading this blog recently surely won't be surprised to see Ray Kurzweil's talk in this list. If you haven't yet been introduced to the power of exponential growth to transform our species then you should watch this talk. If you have heard of Kurzweil's ideas before, and thought they sounded rather outlandish, you should give him another chance by watching this brilliant presentation.
Kurzweil explains in detail, and with abundant painstakingly-gathered data, why exponentially accelerating progress in information technology will enable us to re-engineer our biology, re-build the world with nanotechnology, and ultimately fill the universe with hyper-intelligent AI.
If you're trying to understand the future, and how best to plan for it, you owe it to yourself to take the time to properly understand these ideas.
Watch it
2. Aubrey de Grey: Why we age and how we can avoid it
Aubrey de Grey has become something of a celebrity in recent years. His eccentric appearance and bold claims about the aging process have made him the darling of many a science editor looking for an entertaining story. But this Cambridge computer scientist is far from just a curious oddity. His research into biogerontology has proved something of a shock to the conventional wisdom, but de Grey's compelling intelligence and calmly reasoned arguments have garnered him increasing support from the scientific community.
In this presentation de Grey explains that humanity has the potential to extend the lifespan of its members by centuries if we could only approach aging as an engineering problem to be solved. de Grey has identified seven causes of aging and has put together a detailed roadmap to solve each one of them.
Watch it
3. Nick Bostrom: Humanity's biggest problems aren't what you think they are
In this engaging presentation Nick Bostrom argues that sometimes our problems are too familiar or too big for us to notice. He notes, for example, that almost everybody who has ever lived is now dead. This, Bostrom argues, is a big problem, from a humanitarian and an economic perspective. Although we have not conventionally regarded death as a problem, but rather as a natural part of life, Bostrom argues that the time has come for us to recognise this incredibly wasteful phenomenon for what it is.
He goes on to note that a number of thinkers have assigned some worryingly low probabilities to the survival of our species, and that life isn't always as wonderful as it could be. Most of the talk is then given over to a fascinating and penetrating discussion of a number of approaches to solving these problems, and enhancing life.
Nick Bostrom is the best person I know for clarifying, and classifying, the problems that humanity is facing.
Watch it
4. Juan Enriquez: Decoding the future with genomics
Genomics is the intersection of information and biology. Juan Enriquez explains how this revolution will transform our understanding of life from almost nonexistent into a mature information science.
With dry wit, Enriquez goes on to describe the astonishing consequences that our mastery of DNA will bring. From bringing extinct species back to life, to re-programming our bodies, genomics is going to be the key to making life better throughout the next decade.
And we need to understand it.
Watch it
5. Kevin Kelly: How does technology evolve? Like we did
What is technology? What does technology mean in my life? What value does technology have?
What does technology want?
Kevin Kelly addresses all these questions in this talk about the relationship between humans and machines. By approaching this subject from the perspective of evolutionary theory, Kelly makes the case that the same forces that produced the diversity and ubiquity of life on Earth are also the forces that are pushing technology; and with identical results.
He finishes with a moral imperative. Life and the Universe is an infinite game: one that is played not to win but rather to keep playing. Technology wants to keep playing, and so should we.
I have never encountered anybody who thinks more deeply about technology, and its relationship with humanity, than Kevin Kelly.
Watch it
Tune in tomorrow for Part II.
UPDATE: Part II is here.
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