For 50 years people have been pining for a future presented in The Jetsons.
That future is here, moving with such force that it feels like rock and dirt are liquifying under our feet from a unending earthquake.
Hold on to your door jamb, steady those nerves.
Take a deep breath. Hold it. Then let it out slowly.
Feudal states gave way to kingdoms, which turned to empires, that coalesced into nation states after two world wars.
Horsepower lost to coal and steam power. Next, oil and gas greased the global economy.
AI will force a breakthrough in abundant energy, then abundant everything. First, expanding AI will consume more and more energy, so solar and fission will need to be tapped to fill the tank.
When AI becomes embodied within the next 5 years, compact, rapid energy demands will force fusion energy solutions to emerge.
When our ability to make energy becomes essentially infinite and immediate (no lag to mine, pump, and process fossil fuels), embodied AI proliferation magnifies, as does the level of intelligence itself.
There will be breakthroughs in physics (after a long dry spell) and materials science and medicine.
AI will soon help us double our lifespan, maybe even reverse effects of aging.
This shaking reality feels unsafe. Truthfully, it is for those of us alive today who experience it. But the fears being peddled in the news, right or left, are a distraction. Don't be fooled.
The challenge of our time is not Us versus Them. It's not Rich versus Poor. It's not Left versus Right. It's not Good versus Evil.
The challenge that's coming is complex and very well may be chaotic.
As we transition from scarcity and competition to abundance and cooperation, we will need a new, grand vision for the future of humanity.
The Good Book says, "Without vision, the people will perish." I'm not particularly religious, but I'll take wisdom where it resides. We need a massively transformative purpose for the human race, all of us, that will take us boldly into our next stage of evolution.
Elon Musk has stated that he wants to make us a multi-planetary species. He wants to colonize Mars. People call him crazy. There are countless people homeless in the richest country in the world, so why would we spend all those resources on a fool's errand?
When the founding fathers of the United States drafted their vision for a new society, some people called them crazy, too.
I think the dreams of science fiction authors like Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Iain M. Banks, and Arthur C. Clarke could guide us toward a grand vision.
How amazing it is to be alive at this very time when the history of life on earth could give birth to the history of life in our galaxy.
You single out Biden and Fauci, and with good reason according to the level of scale and funding during their tenure. It would also be worth divulging how many of these labs operated during previous administrations going all the way back to Clinton. I wouldn’t be surprised if several of the 30 labs have continuously operated under US direction and funding for decades.
@JanJekielek Regular schools practicing unlicensed psychiatry for the teachers’ ease as they ineptly teach is another black mark on American exceptionalism. When you make everyone the same, your baseline citizen becomes an entitled automaton.
I love how you ignore the tide of technological change that’s been growing for four decades and has finally flowered and begun to bear fruit. But no, it’s Trump croneyism.
You are such a charlatan.
Go do some actual work, then you can begin to talk like a working American who’s struggling.
But regulators and NIMBYS are the saviors of every town. Who needs newly built housing when it causes the seas to rise? When data centers are so big that they buckle the earth’s crust and cause earthquakes and volcanos? When new housing causes an inter dimensional rift that allows aliens to steal our babies to cause ever lasting trauma so that when arriving by ship two decades from now we have no will or cohesion to defend ourselves from becoming slaves?
You Elon haters all use the same malformed logic; stock value rising is not “wages”, nor is it income. Why? Because of the risk. Stocks go up and go down. Cash in the bank stays the same (though its value is less over time from inflation and debasement).
But you know this. You are pandering and virtue signaling to an electorate you see as financially illiterate.