Self-Absenteeism
Getting shit done requires focus, and other methods to deke around the bullshit
Tissue Harvest Diminished
I came across this article yesterday and was altogether horrified and vilified at once. It speaks of government imposed restrictions causing scientists to look to overseas suppliers of fetal tissue in order to continue their research.
In a world of IVF, egg harvesting, and artificial wombs, who is to say that fetal tissue can’t be created in the lab? Where supply lags demand, criminal syndicates find a way to exploit the gap. But to what end?
Oh and this quote, “Others may move abroad. Although the U.S. has long had the resources to attract international researchers, several scientists said young post-docs are now looking to move to institutions in the U.K., Europe, or Australia, where the science doesn’t face such obstacles.”
Whoa.
I mean, I did the research, I could see this was coming. But I penned it at 100 years from then, not five.
Caught Looking
I happened past the Edmonton International Airport Indigo Spirit and found a few copies of The Sequence on the shelf. So I signed them! If you’re interested in reading an award winning thriller novel, grab yourself a copy.
Intermittent AI
So if I nailed the last book’s general theme of the future of unethical genomic research, then this next one about repressed Artificial SuperIntelligence should still be relevant, even though it was conceived in November 2020 as my NaNoWriMo project (which I “won” - one wins if they produce 50,000 words in 30 days.)
AI was a quiet topic at the time, something I had been watching as a significant and emergent technology in its infancy. Where will it take us? Will it ever ‘wake up?’ Visions of Blade Runner spin amid a Tool supplied audio track. Life is but a dream. But who is the dreamer? And do they dream of electric sheep? Endless plots fork like lightning from this moment in humanity. The binary nature of what we have known of computing up until today have driven the standard tropes of machine vs human, from Asimov to Wachowski. But in our future we shall have quantum computing. No longer restricted to answers of yes or no, ones or zeroes, we shall have access to all answers between two definable possibilities. Imagine crossing a bridge and seeing every possible outcome concurrently. The bridge fails. Your wife and child fall to their deaths yet you cling to the failed supports, climbing to safety. All three cross without incident. You, in a moment of madness, leap over the side to your inevitable demise, abandoning your newborn and widowing your wife. To see all eventualities at once is to give great power to a single computational device. Something not to be taken lightly by those who desire power over such things.
Creating from Nothing
A recent discussion has reminded me of the importance of writing for my own personal well-being. Rather than as a vain pursuit of self-importance and recognition, the worlds created in my head continue to evolve as does our own, and my need to write them down so that I may share them with you, my reader, becomes much more than just a vain pursuit. This is the closest to mind-melding I shall ever come, inviting you inside my thoughts to see what I have crafted from electrical signals between dendrites and axons into tangible characters with rich histories, living in a world not so different from the one you call home.
You are VERY GOOD AT THIS MY FRIEND!
Always thought provoking ❤️