Futurnative

Life is never what you want it to be. It is more often about accepting the crude realities than enjoying the present state of living. In this limited world, science fiction represents the only salvation. It will feed your imagination with endless possibilities built around future realities.

Let your mind escape in those worlds too often and soon you will find yourself depressed and grounded in a society where you don’t belong anymore. It is hard to shake that feeling. To admit that the present is nowhere near what you could have experience would you have been born several centuries later. So how can one fulfil his or her fictional aspirations and stop regretting the future? 

They are two ways. Become a science fiction author or take part in what you believe are the steps separating you from your dream world. Becoming an author would allow parts of you to remain in this transcendent state constantly. Melting your curiosity and imagination together into a delightful, if slightly schizophrenic, state. It would turn the meaning of your existence into the never ending celebration of what modern life could be. Becoming an entrepreneur and “changing the world” is your second option. Create a product/service that will impact humanity profoundly. Find an idea with the potential to shift mentalities and behaviours forever. Only by doing so will you get the chance to experience your imagination.

Yes science fiction can define the meaning of your life. It is a useful substitute for happiness. And by acting upon your new found plenitude, who knows what you will bring to the world’s table? Be it a viral thought…or just another wasted life.

There are geniuses in the world. But even the best of them can’t beat a well designed computer program. There are also other people who, while not being genetically gifted, achieve high levels of intelligence, reasoning and expertise. Until now, the world needed them more than anything else. But infinite storage and exponential processing power has killed that.

Human beings are inherently defensive when it comes to their own nature and ability. With superior capabilities comes greater disdain and arrogance. But at a time when those capabilities are matched or even surpassed by virtual predispositions, what will become of those sudden fools?

Here’s a bet; most will disregard any serious threat to their mind’s superior status and thrive to protect their isolated yet backwards intellect. Really soon, everything about them will be outdated. They will be left behind in a sea of arrogance. 

Just like companies, human beings should disrupt who they are. The human intellect market, so to speak, is shifting. From memory to analytics and curating, the strengths of tomorrow will have nothing to do with today’s conceptions.

So embrace who you are but don’t forget who you will be. Beware of your natural bias towards the present and make sure any arrogance won’t stop you from accepting a future nature of intelligence. Even if that means giving up all that made you proficient in a recent past. It is time for you to build an intellect compatible with the exponential rise of redundancy and the risks of satiety.

We are all fighting for a place in the history books. Our lives can only be meaningful if they are remembered. Future generations carry not only legacy but purpose in hindsight. So fight, dedicate your whole life to impacting the world. Or don’t. Because there is no point.

The issue lies in your time bounded claims. You may dedicate your life to others. You might change the world. Whatever. What you really mean is you will change your world, the one you live in and the people whose lives juxtapose yours. Change gets diluted, direct impact only lasts for so long. If the world’s needs are an extension of yours, then why not just cater yours?

If we are to thrive as individuals, then large civilisation wide goals don’t make sense. They distract you from happiness. Your work will never fulfil you; it has higher aspirations. That is why patriotism is so efficient at focusing a nation. But it has a price: wisdom, self awareness and openness.

At the age where global networks are about to empower the individual like never before, one might see fit to reflect upon the need for both individual and collective goals to collide.

Space is hard. Going to space takes serious work and coordination. But do you know what is hardest? Motivation! Yes, going to space might sound really cool, but the truth is working your whole life on one mission/spacecraft/plan which has a great chance of failure is just too much to ask. Can you get a sense of pride and accomplishment when all you can ever achieve is a successful yet ephemeral bolt design which through numerous evolutions might one day help our civilisation expand into the cosmos?

The answer depends on the kind of person you are and the goals you give to humanity. But one thing is clear, you will never gain any kind of importance. The truth is, our individual lives are too short to care. Our perceptual field cannot accommodate projects which extend beyond the point where our influence fades out. And the more exponential technology becomes, the less relevant our work will be for the next generations. Depressing indeed. 

So how can you give your life a substantial meaning while still contributing to the very long term development of humanity in space? Both aspects should feed from one another. You might decide to content yourself with incremental successes or realise that the journey is more important. But none of those mental tricks will protect you from despairing at your forever starving curiosity once you reach the end of your life.

Is there a solution? One that would revitalise all minds and focus them on more fundamental goals for thousands of years? Yes. The solution will lie in the combination of super artificial intelligence with the extension of human individual longevity. Those two entities could even become one but it is not strictly needed. Imagine. What if you could live for thousands of years? Climate change would instantly become everyone’s very own personal problem; the same would go for space development. Feeling concerned is the most powerful incentive to change the world. Being given even the tiniest chance to witness a future of abundance may motivate people like never before. Huge projects could be undertaken seriously and put us on the right path to achieve true civilisation independence.

People will finally be able to dream big and then live big. Being able to witness the long term impact of our work will fertilise innovation. Great great grandparents and great great grandchildren are nothing but strangers. It is time to stop delegating our ambitions to the next generations and take it upon ourselves to achieve and witness the greatest transformations to the known humanverse.

This blog is all about future alternatives to today’s technology and habits. So what better subject than handwriting? Like for driving, the emotional bond we feel between our body’s action and its practical impact on shaping our world and services is threaten by technology.

And it will happen. One day, handwriting will be gone. In a few years, you  might have to travel half the planet to find an old wise shaman who is willing to teach you his handwriting superpowers.

The first thing to understand is that this is part of an evolutionary trend, not a stable behaviour that needs to survive for it’s on sake. The pen, no matter how deep your relationship is with it, is only one of many technologies. Keyboards represent the latest trend. And engraving tablets (non-digital!) used to be popular in not so distant times.

Statistics are clear, the spread between two handwriting activities is increasing dramatically among adults in developed nations. So get ready to let go of your ink and start typing, or touch-typing. 

Why should you? Well, it all depends on perceptions of course. But one would probably enjoy remaining a civilised and educated being. This means learning to at least read and write…and keep on doing so. The issue is that the very essence of writing is changing. It’s traditional meaning will soon vanish. 

You will no longer know how to write because writing will mean typing, and writing well will mean typing fast. Just like today’s sculptors are not writers, tomorrow’s Inkers won’t be writers.

The pressure is high, but it is high both ways. Will you evolve or will you keep your habits at the risk of becoming tomorrow’s hollows? The train of life has left its departure station and is accelerating…you have three choices. Jump of now, live a stable life. Jump later when it’s too fast and too late, die trying. Or stay on and prepare for the unknown destination, if there is any.

Do you drive? Do you own a car? Those are simple question, for now. Soon, you will be able to buy a self driving car. And then you will start questioning the essence of ownership. Why, you ask?

Let’s say you buy one and start having it drive you everywhere. It will soon feel more like a taxi than your own car. Sure you might have some belongings in it, you might even use it as a mobile storage space or else…but you will slowly detach yourself from it. 

Some people fall in love with their car, but this is only the result of a utility symbiosis. Get rid of the interdependency and, as with everything else, the love goes away.

The next thing you’ll realise is that you can send your car to pick up friends…and some might even monetize their car’s auto transport service.

Sharing cars will become extremely easy, a parked car will become an opportunity cost. Why not just send it around town when you’re working in for a whole day?

And here we go! You don’t really need to own your car anymore if it is best used as a service. The day public self driving cars can be booked for any journey and meet you anywhere within five minutes through a smartphone app for a fixed yearly fee is the day you will sell yours.

And think about it. Different transport markets will need different vehicle configurations. It makes no sense to own just one. Why not enjoy a wide range? A car with a round table could let you eat on the way and another one with beds would let you rest. Just order the right one for you at the right time.

Your customisation, availability, comfort, speed and security need will be in good hands. Just sit back, relax and enjoy the future…freed from any ownership and accompanying maintenance. You will have let go of ego, and replaced control with self sustaining guidance.

Can you imagine a time when all physical books will have disappeared? You may not have to imagine it for long…The advent of digital platforms is slowly killing the old format.

Is it for the good? Of course not. Is it for the bad? Of course not. In fact, the question, as always, is about change itself and how it affects our perception of the world.

When paper turns into a screen, our eyes experience more than just words. They can enjoy interactivity, connectivity and discovery. The idea behind the ink or pixel will always remain, only now its freedom is extended virtually. The virtualisation of ideas, and the abandoning of their old physical selves, is slowly building a new state for the thinking mind.

Let’s not stop here, what is the next step? Why have a screen at all? Surely any communication of thoughts between brains is altered by excessive transcription. The ideas should float freely among those creative muscles. Who will generate the first thought book? The first collection of ideas that can spontaneously affect our minds without any limitations from the senses?

Don’t cry for physical books, just like you don’t cry for engraved tablets. Cry for the smell, the touch, the appearance, the feeling. Cry for the attack on your senses, because those which you thought made you who you were, are really the barrier to the perception of what you will become. Or maybe don’t cry, simply smile at the thought…of that thought.

Your whole life is on the Internet! Yes…and pretty soon algorithms will be able to reconstruct your personality from the artefacts you left before dying. Some people are already working on it. While some people would say this alternative self will never resemble your real complex nature, the emergence of bionic technology as well as constant integrated body monitoring sensors may make those algorithms more elaborate.

Is this the real path to eternity?
We could extend our natural life of course. But they may be a limit. We will probably transition to machine men. This sounds more probable. But the brain, your body’s headquarters, needs to be converted too. We may choose to transfer our personal data to less time sensitive platforms. But we could also just copy it. And that seems to be our short term path.

Our collective memory is growing online. Isaac Asimov himself said he hoped to obtain eternity through the books he wrote. Today’s technology makes it that much easier. You will live on in one way or another, whether you want it or not. And what one day belonged to your family and friends’ minds will be laid out for the world to explore, and resurrect.

It’s probably time to go and build your own afterself, before anyone else does.

Less and less people die on the battlefield. And this trend seems to grow. Until the day nobody will ever die from war anymore. The reason? Robots of course. They can provide us with the necessary physical defense while replacing us completely on the ground.

But what about the even longer term? When a killer robot ends up facing another killer robot? How can we distinguish that from a video game? Will we have neutral island battlefields full of robots and rules to fight them or will we digitalise the battles entirely, get rid of our robot avatars and return to non-violent ritual conflict diffusers?

The robot route may become bloody, and improvements in artificial intelligence means we are not far from pieces of codes fighting each other with no live human input. Just like Wall Street is controlled at the speed of light, where optic cables rule and no single human being can understand what is going on, the robot conflicts of tomorrow will surpass our comprehension capabilities.

This seems like a major danger. Will it lead to us creating a parallel Darwinian path made of silicon and code? Are we about the crate self-sufficient artificial selection? And will it compete with our own DNA based selection process?

The future will tell. Maybe today’s gamers are the real peace makers. Maybe the ritualisation of their art form is the only barrier that protects us against a future where the ruling of men over men has become that of machines over machines.

So smart glasses are on their way already…

Those will boost augmented reality software to no limit. It will soon be possible to wear eye contacts and overlay any kind of digital information onto the world around us. But what about applying constant filters to the light our eyes perceive? Imagine seeing the world as if it had been Instagrammed, all the time.

The quality of old pictures influence our memory and vision from a distant time. This effect, already distorted by the use of filters in everyday pictures, will be transferred to the present. In that case, we should be prepared for a switch in the perception of just about everything we know.

The reality brought upon us by our eyes will be remodeled until it breaks down. Reality will become realities. People might even form new groups based on which filter they decide to view the world through. Beauty will be reshuffled; augmented reality filters are the ultimate makeup.

The result? Global confusion which could lead to more introversion or introspection. But with time, it could become the most powerful tool of all. A tool that would customize and refine our individual world views. A tool that would bring perfection to the eyes of the beholder, at all time.

Why is it that we are still being tested based on memory skills when our pockets can store more gigabytes than our brains? The pointless scoring and ranking of our minds’ ability to retain information shadows its true uniqueness. And as the centralized data centers grow, so does the disparity between our perceived available organic capacity and its usability. 

Reciting and knowing flatters the ego; searching and linking disrupts the status-quo.

What if we lived forever?

Of the many consequences let us consider that of marital relationships. Many people take advantage of their youth to experiment. But as time passes, pressure leads most of us down the family route. Divorce is fine. What you need is to have had a family. Time runs out. 

But what if it didn’t?

Surely the pressure would vanish. You might experiment forever. You might settle for a hundred years and then change partners again. You could even develop a repetitive relationship cycle. “100 years you, then 100 years you; and again”.

Could you be married for 1000 years?

Your personality is sure to change many times over such periods, how could you sustain the love you developed 1000 years ago? Think about all those childhood friends you have lost interest in. You change over 10 years, think about hundreds.

Is there even any point?

Eternity is a long time. Diversity would become key to fulfilling your life. Change would be vital. Living thousands of shorter lives might be the only way to bear eternity. Why confine yourself to one person if all traditional pressures such as family creation are not bounded by time anymore? Eternity means you will always have the chance to go back to that person. She will always be available again at some point. And in the mean time, you will have lived another life. You might be one more step away from going crazy.

Make us live forever. And marriage is over.