A Very Human Future, Part 1

Futurist Steve Wells joins Phil and Stephen to discuss his new book, A Very Human Future.

Steve is a global futurist, keynote speaker, and COO of Fast Future, which is a professional foresight firm. He helps clients and event delegates understand the key future factors driving innovation, growth and disruptive change, highlighting the new thinking and business models being enabled by exponential technologies such as AI, immersive technologies like augmented and virtual reality, and hyperconnectivity. He explores the mindset shifts and leadership capabilities required to compete in the emerging future in order to help leaders to make informed choices on the potential impact of emerging technologies. 

 

A VERY HUMAN FUTURE

As society enters the fourth industrial revolution, a major question arises—can we harness intense technological bursts of possibility to bring about a better world? A Very Human Future illustrates how the evolution of society, cities, people, businesses, industries, nations, and governments are being unexpectedly entangled by exponential technological disruption. This is not a book about technology but an exploration of how we make it serve humanity’s highest needs and ambitions. Each chapter looks at how new ideas enabled by emerging technologies are straining the old social fabric, and proposes radical future scenarios, strategies, and actions to safeguard humanity from harm and enhance opportunity for all. This book is a manifesto for a future that is better than the past. 

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Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

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Phil and Stephen celebrate their 800th (!) podcast by making the case for Outrageous Optimism. Now more than ever, we need to be pushing the limits of the possible.

Reduction in Poverty

Will we one day all be rich, or is that just an outrageously optimistic fantasy?

Expansion of Lifespan

Will we soon live much longer (and be disease-free) or is that just an outrageously optimistic fantasy?

Is there anything we can do about diseases as a category?

Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg aim to 'cure, prevent and manage' all disease

Metformin for Protection Against Alzheimer's, Cancer and Heart Disease?

One bold idea -- one outrageously optimistic idea -- may do more to end suffering from disease than anything that’s come before.

From the moon landing to the autonomous car -- the outrageous optimists have been right! Maybe now it's time for all of us to begin embracing their approach to the world.

Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

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What is up with Elon Musk? In this show, recorded right before Musk was fired as Chairman of Tesla, Phil and Stephen work through the timeline of events leading up to his dismissal.

Has Musk lost it? Why is there good reason to hope he can keep it together?

Elon Musk Is Sending a Japanese Billionaire to the Moon, and He’s Taking a Group of Artists With Him

It's Already Too Late, including select quotes from the Joe Rogan interview. 

Full Joe Rogan Show 

Join us.

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The world population is moving into cities. Will we all fit? Phil and Stephen discuss what to do when the land runs out

In Hong Kong, Humankind Moves Back Into Caves

Hong Kong has the most skyscrapers in the world. But going high hasn’t addressed the chronic housing shortage in the city of 7.4 million, which also boasts the world’s priciest housing market. Surrounded almost entirely by the South China Sea, Hong Kong is running out of land. The government has proposed an unusual solution: Create new real estate with help from explosives.

Alternative (probably won’t work for Hong Kong)

Watch How Singapore Builds an Island Made from Trash

Other alternative: (definitely won’t work for Hong Kong.)

Go where the land is!!!

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Waiving the Flag

New Film About Neil Armstrong Omits American Flag From Moon Landing

Hollywood star Ryan Gosling, who portrays Armstrong in the movie, told The Telegraph the flag was omitted from the moon landing because the achievement of humans walking on the moon "transcended countries and borders."

“First Man” omits flag - rather than boycott, Stephen is going to Rocky-Horror-Picture-Show it.

“I hear the film’s otherwise great, so I’m carrying my own flag I’ll wave at the appropriate moment.”

Does it matter whether they show the flag planting?

Would they make a film about Yuri Gagarin and omit to mention the nationalistic importance of his mission?

Gagarin’s accomplishment belongs not to the Soviet Union but to all humanity.

Same is true of Armstrong’s. The planners of the Apollo mission knew this and the plaque reads “We came in peace for all mankind.”

Still, it’s seems a likely reason for leaving the flag out of the Armstrong movie is to appeal to audiences who don’t care for the U. S.

Critical question: Would Neil Armstrong go see this movie? Phil has the answer. 

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Phil and Stephen discuss the signficicance of one man's action (or rather inaction) 35 years ago. Did Stanislav Petrov save the world?

Stanislav Petrov, 'The Man Who Saved The World,' Dies At 77

https://n.pr/2MJ0JXM

Stanislav Petrov was a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Union's Air Defense Forces, and his job was to monitor his country's satellite system, which was looking for any possible nuclear weapons launches by the United States.

He was on the overnight shift in the early morning hours of Sept. 26, 1983, when the computers sounded an alarm, indicating that the U.S. had launched five nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles.

“All I had to do was to reach for the phone; to raise the direct line to our top commanders — but I couldn't move. I felt like I was sitting on a hot frying pan."

After several nerve-jangling minutes, Petrov didn't send the computer warning to his superiors. He checked to see if there had been a computer malfunction.

He had guessed correctly.

"Twenty-three minutes later I realized that nothing had happened…”

This may be the closest we ever came to nuclear war.

Maybe even closer than the Cuban Missile crisis?

Should there be a holiday in honor of Petrov?

How many times did this scenario play out -- on both sides through the course of the Cold War?

Is this proof that we (humans) are a little smarter than we might suspect when it comes to preserving ourselves at the species level?

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Part 2: A World of Abundance

Phil and Stephen wrap up their week with special guest John Palmer with a discussion of where the next big positive changes may be coming from.

John outlines major coming improvements in:

Energy & Transportation

Food and Water

Medicine & Health Care

Artificial Intelligence

Philanthropy

For more on clean energy disruption, see the Tony Seba talk John mentioned. 

About Our Guest

John Palmer is a coach and speaker who is passionate about alternative energy, efficient government, and, more recently, generous listening.  

Together with his wife Doreen, he manages a coaching business which serves the emotional visions of expatriates returning home from overseas assignments.

John’s driving interest is sharing his passion that humans will continue on the path of creating a fabulous future as long as we keep our focus on creating that future, and not on reporting and regurgitating the seemingly overwhelming problems that we see today.

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Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Part 1 Amazing Improvements

What kind of a future are we in for? So-So? Scary? Great? Superfantastic? Phil and Stephen talk with John Palmer about what recent trends tell us about what kind of future we can expect. 

Is the world’s future bleak? There is a lot of worry about:

ClimateTerrorismOverpopulationEconomic CollapseFascism -- the “bad people” are going to win (huge fear of both the left and right)

But maybe we’re getting the future wrong. John outlines the biases and the media practices that encourage us to be afraid of the future. But apparently there is another side to the story. Trends around poverty, life expectancy, standards of living, violence and other areas suggest that a very different future may be on its way.

About Our Guest

John Palmer is a coach and speaker who is passionate about alternative energy, efficient government, and, more recently, generous listening.  

Together with his wife Doreen, he manages a coaching business which serves the emotional visions of expatriates returning home from overseas assignments.

John’s driving interest is sharing his passion that humans will continue on the path of creating a fabulous future as long as we keep our focus on creating that future, and not on reporting and regurgitating the seemingly overwhelming problems that we see today.

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Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Phil and Stephen welcome special guest John Palmer to discuss unexpected solutions to climate change.

John reviews some our-of-the-box ideas related to:

Energy & transportation

Land Use

Materials

Buildings and Cities

Women and Girls

For more on these kinds of approaches, see:

Drawdown, by Paul Hawken.

 

About Our Guest:

John Palmer is a coach and speaker who is passionate about alternative energy, efficient government, and, more recently, generous listening.  

Together with his wife Doreen, he manages a coaching business which serves the emotional visions of expatriates returning home from overseas assignments.

John’s driving interest is sharing his passion that humans will continue on the path of creating a fabulous future as long as we keep our focus on creating that future, and not on reporting and regurgitating the seemingly overwhelming problems that we see today.

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Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth are out. The fourth Star Trek movie in the current franchise appears to be dead in the water. Phil and Stephen take a look at where things have been going wrong for Trek and what might set things right.

First off, check out this video, which gives a good low-down with the current situation. 

Star Trek 4 Loses Pine and Hemsworth - The Rise and Fall of The Kelvin Timeline

What we know of Star Trek 4 sounds interesting. The story potentially involves time travel via the Gateway to Eternity and an attempt to set things that went wrong in the first movie right. 

Interestingly, Paramount canceled a project similar to that  when they fired Roberto Orci and threw away his script in order to make Star Trek Beyond.

Simon Pegg, who wrote Star Trek Beyond, explained that Orci’s story was too "Star Treky."

https://screenrant.com/star-trek-3-beyond-script-orci-simon-pegg/

 That such an objection could even be made speak volumes.

All these studios seem to think they’re going to do something akin to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (Hello, Star Wars?) Hint: not going to happen. What they COULD do is a successful version of what they have, but it needs to be true to the material they’re working with.

In the long run, Star Trek is certain to live long and prosper. But it’s going to be interesting to see what happens next. Time to let Tarantino give it a go? 

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Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.