Brain Canvas

I like to think that our theme this month is, in some ways, getting back to our Brain Canvas roots: the delivery of high quality unadulterated “what if” scenarios. This month’s twist comes in response to a recent announcement made by the U.S. General Services Administration, a federal agency responsible for providing support for the basic functioning of other government agencies like the Department of Agriculture, Department of Education and others. Its mission is, “to use expertise to provide innovative solutions for our customers [i.e. government agencies] in support of their missions and by so doing foster an effective, sustainable, and transparent government for the American people.” The GSA, as its known, will launch an app in July hosted by ChallengePost, an online crowd-sourcing platform, that will ask the public submit their ideas for different challenges that will be posted by different government agencies. In June, Brain Canvas will offer a preview of what this innovative approach from the GSA could look like. Since the app won’t launch until July, we’ll be playing the role of both federal agency and innovative citizen, posting the challenges that we would most like to see address along with our proposed solution. We invite you to leave your own solution in the comments section of each post. The best comment from the month will win a T-shirt with the Brain Canvas logo. Look for the first challenge to be posted next week!

Today’s post is an effort to develop my previous post on advanced robotic prostheses to a new level. Robotic prostheses and other advances in biomedical technology not only improve the quality of life for both disabled persons and the able bodied, but have the potential to extend life itself to the point where aging is a thing of the past. Two of the more interesting speculations on how life could eventually be extended, perhaps indefinitely, are mind uploading and the replacement of limbs and organs with cloned biological or artificial substitutes. The two concepts approach life extension from opposing angles. One the digitizing of human consciousness leading ultimately to a non-corporeal existence. The other the replacement or enhancement of vital human limbs and organs with cloned tissue or artificial mechanical parts as they wear out or contract diseases like cancer. The idea that advances in bio-technology could some day prolong human life indefinitely may be something of a pipe dream. Much of the research is pseudo-scientific at best. It is however undeniable that gradual advances in these fields will provide the technology to increasingly expand the length of human life. In the 20th century the average life span in the United States increased by about 2/3. While the rate of increase has been steadily declining, this would seem to be logical as the increases throughout most of the 20th century would have relied on social improvements (e.g. improved sanitation and nutrition) while the next stage would rely on technical advances taking a much longer period of time to develop and implement widely. Despite the questionable feasibility of indefinite life extension, it is none the less interesting to consider what our societies would look like in a world where natural aging and death from old age and disease has all but been eliminated. Would it be beneficial or detrimental to our society? I believe the positive outcomes outweigh the challenges that an ageless society presents. The burden on social services, the environment and natural resources management would increase dramatically. If you thought social security in the United States was already broken, imagine how it would look if the average person were living hundreds or thousands of years. Ultimately, and perhaps counterintuitively, a world in which aging has been cured could be one which places a much higher value on individual human life and the long term sustainability of our lifestyles. We would care more about needless poverty and death knowing that the victims could have lived thousands of years and contributed countless discoveries and innovations. We would be less inclined to destroy our ecosystems, knowing that the long term effects would not be things we could pass down to faceless nameless descendants, but real world consequences we would have to face in a short matter of a few hundred years. A truly ageless society may ultimately be nothing more than a science fiction fantasy, but increasing lifespans are already a reality. What better time than now to create solutions to the challenges it presents and means of maximizing its benefits?

Given the holiday we in the US celebrate today and the recent tragedy in the Caribbean, I have been torn all weekend whether to write something here today about Martin Luther King, Jr. or Haiti. I’ve decided to forgo the latter until next time, in large part things ot this quotation from King himself which will serve nicely as a springboard into my “What If…” query for this week. From King’s “I have been to the mountaintop” speech. Towards the end of his speech he referenced recent threats against his life saying:

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

He gave this speech on April 3, 1968. The day before he was assassinated. What is interesting to consider about King, and something I think most people today don’t realize, is just how subversive of a figure he truly was. Being now immortalized in a federally sanctioned national holiday, and his life story memorized by children of all colors (at least in America), its easy to forget that he was in life such a socially and politically subversive figure. What is interesting to consider is if such subversive characters still have the ability to make such a huge positive impact on society in today’s world. Somewhat surprisingly (to myself at any rate), I believe the clear and honest answer to this question to be no. If I think about the people over the last 20 years (about a generation) who have changed the world in some way, most of the people who come to my mind are not people who did it by challenging the status quo outside of the system, but rather people who worked within the system to achieve their ends. Perhaps the perfect foil to the example of King is President Obama. I’m not arguing that they have made equal impacts on the world (although both have won Nobel Peace Prizes), but at the very least both have risen to impeccable heights. The important point here is that they have taken drastically different paths to do so. Now for me, the interesting question is, of course, why is this the case? I think its easy, and also probably true to an extent, to point to the society we live in today to be the primary cause of this. Through political change, technological innovation and economic development, more people in the world have access to the opportunities one needs to influence the issues we face than ever before. A greater number of people have been able to join the conversation. Another important thing to consider is whether a subversive approach would be adequate to tackle the problems our world faces today. Protests in Copenhagen at the COP 15 summit probably did very little to bring about its extremely underwhelming conclusion. The problems our world faces today, whether they be climate change, education or terrorism are more complex and may require the resources that one can leverage “inside” the system to be adequately tackled. The heroes and revolutionaries from our time will be the entrepreneurs, politicians and scientists who worked within the system to start the enterprises, build the coalitions and invent the technologies that saved the world.

It’s no secret that U.S. President Barack Obama wants  a nuclear-free world.  Who doesn’t other than the military-industrial complex?

However, destroying the most powerful weapon in human history altogether may be too much.  There are plenty of legends and fantasy stories in which a great weapon thousands of years past has either been lost or destroyed and must be reforged or rediscovered in order to meet a threat the likes of which the world has never seen.

I believe very strongly that weapons generally exist to kill people, not to defend people.  But there are at least two global threats that would warrant an atomic sword like the one we wield now: killer asteroid and hostile extraterrestrial attack.

There are several ways to deflect an asteroid and using a nuclear weapon is not necessarily the most effective one, but it is a useful one.  And as I have mentioned before, I believe that it is more than likely that extraterrestrial life will come in peace, but if for some reason they do not or if they look upon our greedy ecophagic ways with scorn and fear, we may need to do an evil deed to keep ourselves some semblance of alive.

But the people of the world will not be able to live in mutually-agreed peace if one or a few sovereign countries hold their swords high above the heads of those who cannot have it.  Furthermore, those scenarios are ones which go far beyond the problem of national or regional stability – they threaten the existence of all things on Earth, including humans, all of which were around long before the State.  Albert Einstein provides a solution in his letter “Atomic War or Peace” that the wielders of the atomic bomb should give up their use to the United Nations.  In this way, the UN could act as a defender not on earth, but of earth.  The UN would not need to have the thousands of nuclear weapons that currently exist; rather after a satisfactory period of disarmament by the nuclear powers some 10% could be handed over to UN stewardship.

Let us hope though that upon completion of this great beating of swords into plowshares that the great and terrible power of nuclear weapons becomes a hallowed legend in the human chronicle and not a day-to-day living reality.  Otherwise we could inadvertently come to know what it is like to live as they do in the chilling 1984 BBC television play Threads.

Forty years ago today, humans walked on the face of Earth’s Moon. Many believe that the Apollo 11 moon landing and successful return of the crew to Earth was the greatest achievement in human history. The high epic drama of the Space Race has faded since then into an underfunded space program that has managed to produce some useful and inspiring projects like the Hubble Space Telescope and the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, but has largely lost its direction. Commercial firms cooperate with national space agencies to produce satellites that have significantly altered our lives, but the star-hero’s journey has lost its place in our psyche. The International Space Station, the sole destination of most manned flights today, will be decommissioned not long after it is completed, and NASA’s space shuttle program will come to an end in 2010 with no long-term replacement program until 2015 at the earliest. Although those great achievements in the Space Race were between the two superpowers of the Cold War, human advancement into space generally seemed not only peaceful in itself, but also inspired greater hope for peace when new heights were reached. The cultural constructs that were built around a future society that had taken hold of its destiny in space featured a peaceful, unified human civilization. One thousand years in the future, we will likely be spacefarers if we still exist.  It is difficult if not impossible to imagine a stable spacefaring society that exhibits the same political divides we see today on Earth. There are currently about 192 separate political entities on Earth.  Although only a few have a space program, these are also the main countries whose attempts at terrestrial hegemony thwart a great deal of our human potential. The kind of planning, development, cooperation, and stability needed for long-term exploration and colonization of our solar system and beyond is simply not feasible with the damaging encounters that would ensue under divided efforts to reach into outer space. Economic interests on other rocks or gas planets would result in economic conflicts and eventually violent attacks in space, all with heavy repercussions on Earth. Conflicts that develop on Earth would reverberate into extraterrestrial interests. This could result in crew mutinies, international conflict on space bases or the forced abandonment of crews and civilians in space due to a lack of terrestrial resources or the disruption of the programs supporting them. What would happen to people sponsored by national interests who were kept in space for long periods of time? Where political divides already exist, they may gain ideas about their own sovereignty in space and further splinter the brotherhood of man. Consider when man encounters extraterrestrial life. For the sake of simplification, let us suppose that when we do meet another intelligent life form, it will be outside of its home solar system (so it could be in our solar system, assuming it is not from our solar system). When you imagine the situation of that alien life form and its race, do you picture it living in a politically divided situation? Or do you automatically assume that it is a part of a unified civilization, and that it acts in solidarity with the other individuals from its home world? I cannot imagine that an intelligent civilization that has managed to develop enough technology and resources to establish a presence outside its home solar system could have gotten there and maintained political divisions. If their world has a state, it only has one. What would happen if they encountered a fractured race like ours? It is of course impossible to project exactly, but if they sense a threat from our violence or opportunity from our divided weakness, our story as a free species likely ends there. Peace is the path we must pursue – at the expense of conflict and war and hegemony – if we want to continue writing our future among the stars. Leading organizations like NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency, the European Space Agency and the China National Space Administration must cooperate to realize ambitious projects with results that solve problems and inspire people. Those successes can bring together the visions and goals of the countries they represent, and progress in space could become progress on Earth. It is remarkable that the same missiles which carry nuclear warheads can also carry manned orbital vehicles. The heroes of this future are not warriors who spill blood; they are explorers who save blood.

The auto-biography as we know it is gone. It is an artifact from an age when information was only accessable for some and the control over that information was in the hands of just a few. Only at the end of his life would a man (and later, woman) be judged worthy of having their memoir’s published, based on the summation of their life’s work and how many copies a publisher could expect to sell.
Surely, the men and women of the whose auto-biographies we know are are beyond question worthy of the honor – statesmen, freedom fighters, pioneers, great generals, all having achieved something worth remembering. But it is not their great achievements that make the best auto-biographies so well worth reading. Rather it is the story of how they got to be there. The daily triumphs and tragedies of ordinary life that we all experience and help us understand who our hereos really are.
The days of the auto-biography as the privilege of the great and renowned people of the world is coming to an end. In the future, everyone will enjoy the right to document their life, their own daily successes and struggles, and the freedome to share that with all who are willing to listen for as long as our civilization endures.
Not only is this right, but it is practical. The traditional auto-biography is a recollection on ones life after it has been lived. As we age our memory becomes more and more selective, both by choice and by old age. Our memories are clouded by the stories we have invented of ourselves to explain how we arrived at this moment in time from the womb whence we came – a story impossible to remember in its accurate entirety.
Imagine that the greatest scientific mind of the 21st century is born on this day. He or she will have the freedom, from the earliest age, to document the course of their life as it happens, to see as if in real time the evolution of a genius.
This is already happening. As of 2007 50% of people in the world already used cell phones. As the technology becomes less expensive, more of these will be equipped with the digital still and video cameras so many of us already take for granted. Imagine a world in which every single child, from the age they are old enough to read, had the tools at hand to make a video documentary of their life as it happens. The digital media they create can be stored on a piece of plastic the size of a thumb nail and will last for decades, if not longer, preserving their childhood, adolescent and adult lives for posterity.
Imagine! Seeing the world as Gandhi saw it as an eight year old child, how his perception of the world changed as quickly as the world around him. Imagine the depth of clarity it would give generations to come into the great minds of our age. Now imagine the millions of life stories that go by each day without ever being told and the power our society would gain by being able to see an others entire life through their eyes.
Freedom from death, disease and want could be ours to grasp as we realize the potential for this technology to help humanity reach its potential.