The Bewilderness

Humanity + UK: some thoughts

I was at the Humanity + conference organised by Extrobritannia (actual name: the illimitable David Wood to whom much applause for organisation): a whole day of talks and discussions on H+ subjects. Just when you think that we involved are all jaded by the same suite of ideas and predictions (God! not another round of "what is the Singularity?"); we need to bring ourselves together into one place with a whole group of interesting speakers, to remind ourselves that there is a lot of stuff going on. If I was jaded, it was because I was  not digging deep enough.

To critique particular talks would leave me in unfriendly mode, not carping, but disagreeing as is my wont. The balance of the subject matter was good, with some talented diversions into meditation and existentialism. I will keep an eye on Peter Bonte for example.

To my eyes, the debates of the earlier years have deepened and enriched, due to a combination of new interest and reflection on the part of the pioneers. Most gratifying is the expansion of the subculture from any particular set of traditions: extropian, libertarian, socialist and so on. Even more rewarding is the sense of interdisciplinary work used for popularising the values: extending into the arts (though less of the humanities). Yet one is still haunted here by a chasm of artists quoting cultural studies and H+ activists speaking in the tongues of science and IT: that chasm in discourse can be bridged. 

Mubarak blinks....

Put enough people on the streets and any network's grip on power will be challenged. How would one describe the ruling elite of Egypt: a veneer of a clan resting upon the longstanding hollowed out pillars of a one party state using sham democracy. The key point for the protestors was that their counterparts in Tunisia proved successful. That filled their counterparts within Egypy with hope, and the cycle of thuggish repression proves to be a battle of will for each individual who enters that street. Their motivation and their political goals are no doubt diverse and contradictory, but opposition to the police and the Mubaraks unites them.

Steve Coll, in the New Yorker, harks back to Tiananmen Square. There, protestors were scourged and defeated by the indiscriminate violence of the People's Liberation Army, whose soldiers obeyed orders. Armies are strange animals during times of turmoil. They can prove to be the tool of the state: tearing away the mannered excuses to show why the state wields a monopoly of force. In this instance: the death toll mounts rapidly, emigration soars and liberalism dies. Or the generals pull levers but the footsoldiers decide they have other ideas. If that happens, the regime is dead.

And we just learn that Mubarak has blinked: sacking his government and bowing to calls for reform. Mirage? If not, he could soon follow, as teh army coudl not be relied upon to back him.

The 'Day of Wrath'

Unsettling disturbances are rocking the Egyptian capital tonight as disaffection spreads to another fragile police state. Youth unemployment is fuelling the protests that are now unbaring the repressive violence that the ruling party excels at. A critical mass has taken over Tahrir Square and a popular uprising may prove too large for the authorities to handle.

A 'Day of Wrath' at one end of the Arab world is met by Hezbollah taking control of the government in Lebanon. Power and stability tempering extremism or proxy Iran destabilising the Eastern Mediterranean. We shall see.

It may be a few years too late, but we may be seeing the painful thrust of a new generation and a new set of powers in the Middle East.

A potential quantum leap in software

A timely reminder that improvements of a radical nature depend upon the next breakthrough. Especially if the roadmap is marked out by teleologies like Moore's Law. For some years, quantum computing has been touted as the saviour once contemporary technologies run their course.

Work on certain algorithms has the theoretical potential for equalling quantum computing's speed in certain areas, if the software can capitalise on this advance.

The underpinnings of innovation: liberty and scepticism

Steven Johnson, author of "Where Good Ideas Come From: A Natural History of Innovation" did a recent talk on US NPR and discussed his theories for tracking and mapping innovation. Clearl, his definition is wider than the organisational focus of management science, where innovation hits the bottom line and arises out of entrepreneurs or firms. (Sometimes, innovation is merely a descriptive backchannel for discussing entrepreneurial activity without offending economists).

Johnson is a more interesting writer. He views innovation as a consequence of open systems and sets out why limits on what is possible at any one time can lead to notions of simultaneous discovery: his concept of the 'adjacent possible'. Yet to read the book, but the linked transcript does not pay many dues to a whiggish interpretation. Any book on innovation runs the danger of a teleogical quicksand.

Yeah. I think one of the problems we have - and I think maybe this is true in the U.S. more than other places - that we have this assumption that the primary driver of innovation is the kind of competitive forces of the market.

This is a statement with some problems involved: since a political economy of research funding, co-operation and competition all inform the development of innovative cultures. A fairer statement would be that countries without competitive markets are far less open and far less innovative: liberty stands at the centre of creativity and discovery. Yet that is a liberty in thought, not drowned by rules or hierarchy. It does not need a state, only a structure steeped in privilege to ossify and punish free thought. It is that ability to challenge received ideas and authority that underpins all innovation. Even something seemingly as trivial as the built environment can prove critical:

You know, one of the environments that I talk about is this legendary building at MIT called Building 20, which I wouldn't be surprised if you've talked about it on the show in the past. And Building 20 was a building designed as a temporary structure in World War II at MIT to house all the work that was going to happen around the war effort. And they built it - it's, you know, the ugliest building you've ever seen, had no architectural value, whatsoever. And it was designed to be torn down after five years, or whatever. And it ended up lasting about 50 years. And the reason was that it basically out-innovated all the other buildings on the MIT campus.....

And the argument - and Stewart Brand talks about this in his wonderful book, "How Buildings Learn." The argument is that because the building was temporary, it - the people who are in it were free to kind of adapt it to whatever, kind of, the shape that their ideas required. So they'd - you know, their group would expand. And so they'd tear down a wall or they'd punch a hole in the ceiling or they'd drill something into the side of the wall, because nobody cared about the space.

 

We will lose control of spending, it's like the weather

Sir Nicholas Macpherson, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, appeared before the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee and divulged that a number of departments "lost control" of spending under the previous government. The admission was immediately taken up by Coalition attack dogs and refuted by the Opposition who denounced any deviation from the policies of the previous government as "waste".

Macpherson retreated to impartiality by stating that this tended to happen under all governments, every decade, and was not really a problem. I would beg to differ.

Macpherson insisted that over any 10-year period in the past century there were financial problems in Whitehall on the same scale and Treasury sources said his comments did not amount to a judgment on the last government's record. 

The scale of the deficit and the underlying miscalculation on tax revenues is unprecedented. That the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury can admit that systemic control of public finances is so poor that it is lost every decade amounts to an admission of failure. The actions necessary to cut back on spending must be radical and prolonged. Macpherson either does not recognise this or is complacent (with a nothing to see here utterance).

Tolerance of fiscal incontinence is clearly embedded within Whitehall. Root and branch abolition of state activities is required to drive this monster back, or the bond markets will do it for us. Then, Mr Macpherson will be very unhappy.

A positive aspect for 2012

The tests for SpaceShipTwo, the Virgin Galactic suborbital prototype, are exceeding expectations. The commercial enterprise is on schedule for 2012.

Stalinist central planners respond to inflation

The Bank of England increased the money supply at the behest of the government, overestimated the supply gap and indulged in whimsical thinking about imported supply shocks. Now they have eroded their credibility and will have to move towards the normalisation of economic expectations.

Why is this a bad thing? It isn't. We may still have to deal with the incessant crises of a fiat currency, but the balance sheet recessions are rendered cyclical, rather than the debt deflation of Europe or the 'extend and pretend' conversion to Nippon of the US Fed. Working through the debt will take a prolonged period of slow growth, but interest rates that reflect the real price of money will begin to align debt, savings and demand.

When we hear about the rebalancing of the economy, we misunderstand what is required. The rebalancing is away from consumption now towards savings later: lower living standards today for jam tomorrow. An upturn in interest rates begins to benefit rather than punish thrift. About time.

The Brain gives up its proteins

Science is always wondrous, because it represents an advance in what we know, allowing greater knowledge of ourselves and our world. Better minds than I have described the scientific frontier, mixing aesthetics and moral progress. Humility, awe and excitement are three common terms inscribed in their descriptions.

Sometimes, a surprising result will occur. Recently, Scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute discovered greater commonalities between diverse neural illnesses through the phenomenon called postsynaptic density. This phenomenon is now considered to play a role in 130 diseases and could form one of the unifying features of neural structure.

So important is this new discovery that a new proteomic roadmap for charting diseases of the brain and their treatment could have been opened up. Even more hopeful is the role that these proteins play in cognitive behaviour; the mutation of which may lie at the basis of many behavioural disorders.

"The conservation of the structure of these proteins suggests that the behaviours governed by the PSD and the diseases associated with them have not changed much over many millions of years," said Grant. "It also shows that synapses in rodents are much more similar to humans than we expected showing that mice and rats are suitable models for studying human brain disease."

Another positive milestone on unravelling the roadmap of our brains.

Coming this side of 2020: the $1,000 scanner

Scanning technology holds a particular interest for me: as the intersection of medicine, computing power and innovation. The improvements in scanning technology have boosted surgical accuracy, preventative medicine and saved lives: all at a cost that is going down rather than up.

The latest crossover is the technology underpinning 3D imagery. This is now being applied to diagnostic imagery.

From CT to MRI and PET, new medical imaging devices are using three-dimensional technology, robotics, and color imagery to quickly and painlessly diagnose possible life-threatening conditions. 

With the continuous improvement in radiation exposure, we can expect scannersto become more portable, accessible, perhaps even ubiquitous in the coming decade. Can someone offer a prize for a $1,000 scanner, suitable for Africa or South Asia.