Some Topics To Ponder About

We live during interesting times. The way I see it and I certainly borrow my set of philosophies from the sources of influence that I have sought. But the way, I see it, the rate at which the rate of change is occuring, that mechanism itself itself is going to pick up pace.

And so, as it relates to our collective evolution, the pace of change of innovation may not have changed as much from ancient Sumeria all the way to the era of the Egyptian empire. But certain innovations diffuse more quickly throughout society. Including but not limited to: - The rate of literacy going up substantially all across Europe with the invention of the printing press. If I recall from memory, I think something like 40% of the adult population went from no reading or writing skills to beginner to moderate form of literacy in a span of 2 decades. Literacy would continue to spread throughout Europe for the next 200 years and also beyond Europe. - Post Newtonian world. My uneducated guess is that Newton fundamentally put our species on a very different path. I guess the same could be said about most major discoveries. From Galileo, to Babbage, to Turing, to some of the present day geneticist of our times. (This is a long list, overall). But Newton actually codified a set of mechanisms that were going to serve civilizaton for an extended time period. It’s unreal how much of our progress today, depends directly upon the foundations that Newton architected. This also enabled a reality, whereby the pace of innovation was going to invariably increase. Life was going to be moving a bit faster. - Fast forward to the previous century and there is the pre-internet world and then post.

Going back to what I started with in this blogpost, my intuitive and uneducated guess is that the future is going to be interesting in it’s own peculiar ways. The following is space-themed and maybe I should do a more broad-based list. But, at some point, I started drafting a list of the areas that, I think are either going to be possible and/or are going to contribute to growth in a massive way. And/or subjects and topics that are just super interesting to think about and ponder. Here is a short list that I came up with. I hope you enjoy and also figure out some kind of a way to get back to me regarding this. (Since we do not have a comments feature on this blog).

• Making life interplanetary appears to be the right approach in order to ensure that there is a continuation for life that originated on earth. Keeping into consideration that life on earth may have been seeded from somewhere else in the galaxy/universe (Panspermia theory)
• Enabling access to other celestial bodies, as well placing structures in orbit will lead to resource abundance. This will alter the design of our economic systems and will free up intelligent life from repetitive work that ought to be categorized as pure senseless toil/drudgery.
• Enabling access to outer space and the subsequent resource abundance that will follow. How this reality will have a calming and peaceful effect for relations here on earth and eventually across the solar system.
• Enabling discovery and wonder. Bringing back images, video (and content enriched with synthethic/replicated smells e.t.c) from the surface of the various planetary bodies. In time, rovers and drones and a variety of autonomous robotics exploring the many different terrains and under-water surfaces across the solar system.
• Prospect of finding life outside of earth. (Europa, maybe titan and elsewhere). Would be really cool to see non-microbial life!
• Exploring the solar system on a mid-term timescale.
• Exploring the prospect of terraforming entire planets (particularly Mars and Venus) on a shortened timescale. With functional nano-tech, steps to AGI and further breakthroughs in the world of material science. Provided no life has been discovered/found on these rocks (anywhere: Caves, polar ice caps of Mars, underground e.t.c)
• Longer term: Exploring exoplanets in the nearby solar systems. Getting data back. Maybe we can will send robotic probes that will have synthethic neurons on their attachments. And then we can sync up our mind-files/brains with the feelings and sensations that these probes would experience.
• Power global and soon solar system wide security in a co-operative manner. (Would have to rethink privacy, specially outside of our homes)
• Prospect of coming in contact with intelligent alien life. Where would this alien life-form sit on a gradient (how to even define this gradient). How will contact change us, with regards to where the alien species sit on the gradient.
• Ideal real-estate in our universe (Knowing what little we know about our universe to date)
• Ideal real-estate in our solar system, anicipating how and when certain technologies will mature.
• Prospect of technological singularities interacting with each other.
• Drake’s equation (I’d need to refresh my memory on this subject. I made a video once where I broke down the equation from Wikipedia. Just to wrap my mind around it. Nothing fancy)
• Fermi’s paradox.
• Transcension hypothesis.
• Prospect of extra dimensions. (I am not very conversant with string theory. But it’s interesting to ponder how reality may be structured. To build testable structures. Only to find out that there is so much more to discover, beyond a certain scale.)
• Mindfiles and psychological continuity.
• Ethics involving the safeguarding of mind-files. The rights of mind-files.
• Ethics involving cloning.
• Ethics involving biological recapitulation.
• Future of genetics, synthetic biology, biotech (I can hypothesize. But, I am not very conversant with the basics of these subjects.)
• Humans, cyborgs and post-humans.
• Augmented humans: Mind and body. (Exploring cyborgian realms)
• Future of governance in an interplanetary sense (brainstorming)
• DARPA’s 100yss project. https://100yss.org/
• Generation ships
• Genetic arks (For seeding life and the conditions under which something like this may be feasible/necessary).
• Reversing aging.
• Ethics involving indefinite life extension.
• Potential pros and cons of a one world government. (Would need some time to think about this as well) I think we have a duplicate here, as I categorize governance above.
• Steps to safe AGI (Broad and multi-faceted topic. Ethics, safety, how to make it safe, how to make it inclusive).
• Mega projects that will be required in a non-terrestrial sense in our solar system. And also in a terrestrial sense.
• Prospect of finding graviton and the technologies that could be powered (Will need some time to think about this).
• Prospect of enabling superconductors at room temperature. (More of a thought vs an entire subject that needs to be unpacked)
• Gravity potentially leaking from one universe to another. Could signals be embedded in gravitational waves? (I haven’t thought about this much)
• What if there is already a galactic federation of intelligent species and humans are not part of it as of yet? What would contact look like in this scenario. Will it be like ‘Childhood’s end’ (Clarke) or will it be more akin to the ‘Hedonistic Imperative’ via David Pearce.
• How to enable the younger generation to think big and bold dreams and make wealth/create an impact. In a Peter Diamandis sense.
• Future models : Innovation.
• Massive crowdsourced systems targeting complex problems. Crunching down the timescales.
• Role that private corporations can play in making life interplanetary.
• How best should the wealth generated from space based resources be re-distributed/re-invested. Specifically, to continually enrich the culture. In a multiple value system world.
• How must amendments be made to the outer space based treaty? (Would need some time to prepare)
• I will gladly add to this list. If you and I can think of any other interesting topics!

Thanks for reading.