Don’t Fear The Singularity I don’t think they even understand. They dismiss their opponents as "luddites," but not one of them seems to understand the actual luddite movement: It was not an emotional reaction against scary new tools, nor was it about demanding better working conditions — because before the industrial revolution they controlled their own working conditions and had no need to make "demands." We can’t imagine the autonomy and competence of pre-industrial people who knew how to produce everything they needed with their own hands. We think we have political power because we can cast a vote that fails to decide a sham election between candidates who don’t represent us. We think "freedom" means complaining on the internet and driving cars — surely the most regulated and circumscribed popular activity in history. We are the weakest humans who ever lived, dependent for our every need on giant insane blocks of power in which we have no participation, which is why we’re so stressed out, fearful, and depressed. And it was all made possible by industrial technologies that moved the satisfaction of human needs from living bottom-up human systems to dead top-down mechanical systems. That’s the point the luddites were trying to make.

The Mystery of Consciousness — Printout — TIME As Louis Armstrong said in response to a request to define jazz, "When you got to ask what it is, you never get to know."

Economist’s View: Are You Sure? On Being Certain: Believing You are Right Even When You are Wrong: The day after the 1986 Challenger shuttle accident, psychologist Ulric Neisser asked 106 students to write down exactly where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the explosion. When he interviewed the students two and a half years later, 25 percent of them gave strikingly different accounts. But when confronted with their original journal entries, many students defended their beliefs. One of them answered, “That’s my handwriting, but that’s not what happened.” … Robert A. Burton tries to get to the bottom of the curious sensation he calls the “feeling of knowing”—being certain of a fact despite having no (or even contrary) evidence. Throughout his book, Burton makes the compelling argument that certainty “is neither a conscious choice nor even a thought process.” Instead, he says, that unmistakable sense of certainty “arises out of involuntary brain mechanisms that, like love or anger, function independently of reason.” Burton thinks that just as we perceive our external world through our physical senses, our internal world presents itself in the form of feelings, such as familiar or strange and correct or incorrect. And he shows that these inner perceptions are necessary for us to function properly in everyday life, because our thoughts are subject to constant self-questioning. For example, even though reason may tell us that running up a tree to escape a lion is an excellent strategy, experience shows that great strategies can fail and that there may be better options. Because alternative choices are present in any situation, logical thought alone would be doomed to a perpetual “yes, but” questioning routine. Burton reasons that it is the feeling of knowing that solves this dilemma of how to reach a conclusion. Without this “circuit breaker,” indecision and inaction would rule the day. One of the startling implications of Burton’s thesis is that we ultimately cannot trust ourselves when we believe we know something to be true. “We can’t afford to continue with the outdated claims of a perfectly rational unconscious or knowing when we can trust gut feelings,” he writes. …

Coronation Wall America vs. Russia The Americans and Russians, at the height of the arms race, realized that if they continued in the usual manner they were going to blow up the whole world. One day they sat down and decided to settle the whole dispute with one dog fight. They’d have five years to breed the best fighting dog in the world and whichever side’s dog won would be entitled to dominate the world. The losing side would have to lay down its arms. The Russians found the biggest, meanest Doberman and Rottweiler ——- in the world and bred them with the biggest meanest Siberian wolves. They selected only the biggest and strongest puppy from each litter, killed his siblings, and gave him all the milk. They used steroids and trainers and after five years came up with the biggest meanest dog the world had ever seen. Its cage needed steel bars that were three inches thick and nobody could get near it. When the day came for the fight, the Americans showed up with a strange animal. It was a nine-foot long Dachshund. Everyone felt sorry for the Americans because they knew there was no way that this dog could possibly last ten seconds with the Russian dog. When the cages were opened up, the Dachshund came out and wrapped itself around the outside of the ring. It had the Russian dog almost completely surrounded. When the Russian dog leaned over to bite the Dachshund’s neck, the Dachshund reached out and consumed the Russian dog in one bite. There was nothing left at all of the Russian dog. The Russians came up to the Americans, shaking their heads in disbelief. `We don’t understand how this could have happened. We had our best people working for five years with the meanest Doberman and Rottweiler ——- in the world and the biggest, meanest Siberian wolves." "That’s nothing," an American replied. "We had our best plastic surgeons working for five years to make an alligator look like a Dachshund."

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Für die Wissenschaftssendung "Horizon" der BBC dokumentiert David Sington zum ersten Mal die zerstörerischen Konsequenzen der "globalen Verdunkelung" . Möglicherweise hat dieses Phänomen die Auswirkungen der weltweiten Klimaerwärmung bisher zum Teil verdeckt. Einer Studie von Peter M. Cox zufolge, der im britischen Klimainstitut Centre for Exology & Hydrology in Winfrith arbeitet, dürften sich die Temperaturen in den nächsten 100 Jahren um mindestens zehn Grad Celsius erhöhen, das heißt zwei Mal schneller als zuvor angenommen. Dieser Anstieg würde ausreichen, um Großbritannien in eine Wüste zu verwandeln.

Klimaforscher haben festgestellt, dass die Sonnenstrahlung seit mehreren Jahrzehnten drastisch abnimmt. In den USA beispielsweise um über zehn Prozent, in manchen Gebieten Großbritanniens um 16 Prozent. Diese Entwicklung ist nicht früher ins Auge gefallen, da die globale Erwärmung den Verlust an Sonnenwärme kompensiert hat. Dieses "Global Dimming" - globale Verdunkelung - genannte Phänomen wird von winzigen Ruß-, Asche- und Schwefeldioxidteilchen in der Atmosphäre hervorgerufen, die zu vermehrter Tröpfchenbildung in den Wolken führen. Dadurch wird die Sonnenstrahlung stärker reflektiert.
Mit Global Dimming stehen - so nimmt man heute an - die Dürrekatastrophen der 80er Jahre in Zusammenhang, die Tausende von Menschen in Äthiopien das Leben kosteten. Als Ursache gilt unter anderem die Luftverschmutzung durch Abgase und Kraftwerke. Die Reinigung schadstoffhaltiger Emissionen durch Kraftwerke und die Ausrüstung von Autos mit Katalysatoren könnten die Luftverschmutzung und damit die globale Verdunkelung verringern. Doch diese Gegenmaßnahmen lassen eine intensivere Sonneneinstrahlung zu und könnten dazu führen, die Klimaerwärmung voranzutreiben.
Denn die abkühlende Wirkung der Verdunklung gilt als Indiz dafür, dass die Klimaerwärmung - trotz der schnellen Zunahme der Treibhausgase - bisher relativ moderat blieb. Zwei unterschiedliche Formen von Verschmutzung haben sich gegenseitig aufgehoben: da wären zum einen die in der Atmosphäre schwebenden Partikel, die eine sichtbare Luftverschmutzung hervorrufen, und zum anderen unsichtbare Treibhausgase wie Kohlendioxid. Deswegen wurde die Bedeutung der Klimaerwärmung lange unterschätzt.
Bleiben Gegenmaßnahmen aus, könnte die Temperatur innerhalb von 20 Jahren um zwei Grad steigen. Das würde ausreichen, um Grönlands Gletscher schmelzen zu lassen und britische Städte zu überschwemmen. In 40 Jahren könnte der Temperaturanstieg vier Grad betragen und zu einer Brandgefahr für die tropischen Regenwälder führen. Ohne ein Eingreifen würde das britische Klima Ende des 21. Jahrhunderts dem von Nordafrika ähneln, und das sattgrüne Land in eine Wüste verwandelt sein.