Connections and Infidelity

“We need to connect, to live to survive.”  Esther Perel. 

Humans have needed others to survive for as long as we have been on the Earth.  One can’t simply live by themselves.  We are constantly seeking the attention of others, whether it’s a child seeking comfort from its mother or two people invoking in a more intimate relationship.

We seek stability from one person, to provide us with comfort, security, and safety.  However, when it crumbles…then where are we left?

The term monogamy means to be with one person for the rest of your life.  Nowadays the word has a new meaning…meaning that it is more acceptable to be with more then one person…all at the different times.  People are no longer content with one person, they seek that adventure that comes with having an affair for various reasons.  Having an affair was once considered a blot on anyone’s relationship but now ironically in her TED Talk noted relationship therapist Esther Perel states that “staying is the new shame.”  Our society has shifted from where having an affair was one of shame to where now if a person stays the shame is on them.

In her talk Perel explains why people are eager to cheat and how deep down it is a sense of longing and loss.  Can we as a society take what Perel is saying an apply it to our lives?  Or are we stuck in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions that prevent us from breaking free of our restraints?  

What will the future of relationships be?

Stay tuned for a new video from Galactic Public Archives with Esther Perel on the future of relationships.

Ciao!

Google...Our Parasite or Our Savior

There are so many various search engines, that sometimes I find myself asking what’s the point.  In the modern world of today, if we don’t know something the only way we can think to ask is to take it to the internet.

Or otherwords…let’s Google it.

Now I’m not saying that I find Google or any other search engine bad.  I mean it was bound to happen sooner or later and it is interesting when you look and study the pagerank algorithm, that ranks certain pages for you.  However let’s face it…what is really at stake here is what’s known as congnitive capitalism.  Congnitive capitalism is characterized by digital technologies that are combined with high levels of cognitive and cultural labor.  At the heart of Google’s PageRank, Matteo Pasquinelli states that “there are three main arguments in relation to the ‘Google economy’ by focusing respectively: value production, value accumulation and value re-appropriation.”  First off through the use of a machine, we are able to transform simple smarts into “network value.”  Pasquinelli states that this model of cognitive hegemony is based on exploitation of a mediascape for the collective intelligence that is free and open.  Finally he claims that a response can only be organized by reversing the chain of production. 

Due to the PageRank, Google has become unstoppable.  It’s very interesting to note that Pasquinelli states in his conclusion that “the battle against the accumulation of data operated by PageRank reminds the social struggles against the traditional forms of monopoly and accumulation of capitals.” 

Google started out a small inkblot and it is now slowly becoming an impossible stain to remove, a parasite that continues to thrive and live.  However there are things that Google is partaking in that restore faith in humanity.

When I think of life like limbs I can’t help but think of that scene in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, when Luke Skywalker receives a new robotic hand in place of the one that he lost.  The way it was made, you couldn’t even see that it was really a piece of machine.  It gave off the impression being real. 

With how technology is advancing, it’s plain to see how that can become a reality.  I recently found an article that expresses how Google is doing exactly that…with what is called the Impact Challenge. 

Google has partnered with multiple start up’s and non-profit organizations to research, build and help people with disabilities make their lives better.  World-Wide Hearing, E-Nable, RNIB, Liftware and Mission Arm EXIII to just name a few.

Google Impact Challenge

Google Impact Opportunity

What these scientists and innovators are doing is work that will in the long run, will remain engrained in the hearts and minds of all the people that will be reached. 

Ciao!

Smartphones: a help or a hindrance

Lately I’ve noticed that when people are out and about, they spend a greater part of the time on their phone.  Now I’m not badmouthing, because I know that I do this myself.  However, it might be time for an intervention. 

People are becoming more and more acceptable to having impersonal relationships.  They no longer have a need to have that face-to-face interaction.  However, that comes at a price.  Due to the fact that people are able to disconnect from others, they are able to keep feelings and emotions away and at a distance. I saw a movie once, entitled Sleep Dealers and in this futuristic movie people are able connect on a global network that will join their minds and experiences.  In one scene, the main character’s house is bombed by a drone that is being flown by someone miles away…the futuristic technology allows for the pilot to keep himself at an unfeeling distance.  I couldn't find the specific clip but here's the trailer for the movie:

Thankfully our technology hasn’t involved that far but there’s no telling when we might achieve it at the rate we develop new technology. 

Moving back to how technology is making us become an impersonal world.  I found this interesting blog post on exactly how smartphones is achieving in making us more impersonal, entitled The Depersonalization of Society. 

https://longblogsaboutpracticallyanything.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/the-depersonalisation-of-society/

Smartphones are objects that have the power to control us.  There are good things about smartphones, but there are also things about phones that chain us.  For those who grew up in a technology filled world, you probably don’t think anything of it, but for those who grew up without technology, you probably remember a time when you were actually able to go months without seeing some kind of technology. 

Speaking from experience I don’t remember the last time that I actually sat down and had an actual conversation with someone and not have it interrupted by some alert on my phone.  That being said I’d like to end with a few questions.  Has technology effectively killed off face-to-face communication?  Have humans lost themselves as people to technology?  In the future will technology be more of a help or more of a hindrance? 

Ciao! 

Becoming A Virtual Cyborg

“As the Internet of things advances, the very notion of a clear dividing line between reality and virtual reality becomes blurred, sometimes in creative ways.”

            -Geoff Mulgan

Virtual worlds.  Uploading minds.  In my recent studies it has come out that in time it will be possible for people to upload their minds via technology.  What does this mean in the long run for sustaining human life?  Is it now possible to outlive when our bodies simply melt away? 

Dr. Ken Hayworth works with brain mapping…which should in turn lead to the only logical conclusion: mind uploading.  Now if mind uploading will actually work, has yet to be seen as we’re still in the process of mapping out the actual logistics of becoming only a biological mind. 

This brings to mind the concept of cyborgs.  One cannot think of the possibility of being virtual without thinking about cyborgs.  According to Donna Haraway in A Cyborg Manifesto, “a cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism…” of course with cyborgs then one follows the road to Artificial Intelligence.  Will these machines that we create one day be able to think for themselves? 

In one part of Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto, she gives a chart that she entitles The Informatics of Domination.  This is a chart that she uses to describe how we as a society are moving from “comfortable old hierarchical dominations to the new scary networks called the informatics of domination.” 

A few pairs that stand out are:

Organism: Biotic Component

Mind: Artificial Intelligence

Public/Private: Cyborg Citizenship

It’s these few pairs from the list that remind us of the power of technology, as we move from a natural world to a world that reeks of imitation.   

Here is a link to the complete list…pgs. 10-11.

http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Haraway-CyborgManifesto-1.pdf

You might be thinking how does this relate back to the possibility of becoming virtual?

I like to believe that the concept of the virtual and cyborgs go hand and hand with each other.  Almost like one is an extension of the other, they can stand-alone by themselves but together they make a force that can change the world. 

Ciao!

Jobs and Employability

What is employability?

This term can have several different meanings; the most popular one being that is demonstrates a person’s capability for gaining and maintaining employment depending on a person’s knowledge, skills and the abilities they possess.  However, to innovators and thinkers they believe that it can transcend beyond that meaning.

What does having a job entail?  Does it mean having that feeling of security that comes with the relief that you will go to bed warm?  Does it mean knowing that you will never again be hungry…never again know what it means to sleep in the cold? 

Jobs are important, not because it gives people things to do but because it’s a necessary part of life.  Without a job, a family won’t be able to afford even the simplest of everyday needs such as food or a place to live.  In the future will it be possible that most jobs will be able to be done by robots?  If so…then where does that leave humans?  Nowadays humans are being forced to find new ways to challenge that very way of thinking, in the hopes that when the time comes they will be able to keep a job. 

I4J (Innovation for Jobs) is a non-profit company that works with innovators from around the world to explore the transition into a better working economy.  Partnering with Galactic Public Archives, we have put together a series of videos entitled: New Narratives: Innovation for Jobs.

This series focuses on investigating a behind-the-scenes look that’s headed in the direction that’s towards the future of the human working class.  Each video involves discussions that center around certain items such as education, and the economy.   

Innovation for Jobs

Let us know what you think about the future of jobs...

Ciao! 

Futurist FM-2030 Fact of The Day

Are You Transhuman? 

The Brain and the Future

Question: What is self?

The “self” is considered the subject of one’s own experience of perception, thoughts, and emotions.  What can be seen as the “object” of our self?  What controls our “self”? 

Simple…the brain.

Catherine Malabu in her book, What Should We Do With Our Brains, gives a roadmap of the process that takes place within the brain, coverted to a simple summary from the description that is given by Marc Jeannerod in his book Le Cervau InTime. 

           

“the non conscious neural signaling of an individual organism begets the proto-self, which permits core self and core consciousness, which allow for an autobiographical self, which permits extended consciousness.”

The brain is an integral part of the body system.  It controls not only our outer body, but also controls what goes on in the inside.  Without your brain, your simply…dead. 

Or are you?

There is a movement that is becoming more and more popular known as Transhumanism, which works to transform the human condition using new technology to enhance human intellectual, physical and psychological capacities.  One of the foremost leaders in Transhumanism is FM-2030, died and who placed his body in cryonic suspension, so that he could be revived at a later date.  Below is an interview with FM-2030…

What does this have to do with the brain?

Due to the cryonic suspension the idea that FM-2030 has, is to take his brain and be able to upload it in a way that he will be able to in a sense live again.  Dr. Ken Hayworth discusses where the brain is going in a series of interviews such as being able to virtually upload your brain into a computer. 

Is this the future of the brain?  If so...would you be willing to live your life as a virtual being?  Would you consider the pros/cons that can happen by handing over your life to that of technology?  

Let us know what you think.

Ciao!