The Speculist

FastForward to Accelerating Change

We live in an age of rapid and dramatic change. Society is changing. Technology is changing. People are changing. What does it all mean? Where is it all leading? The FastForward Posse attempts to shed some light.

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Ask the Experts (I)

John Smart is President of the Institute for Accelerating Change (IAC). If you want to plunge headfirst into the topic of rapid change, one of the best places to go is the IAC website. This group is dedicated to helping the world prepare for the Technological Singularity, the ultimate outcome of accelerating change.

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Get Grounded

Contrarily, we should consider what won't change. It's an analogy to mathematical "invariants", objects that don't change under transformation. For example, assume that humanity (or others) won't bypass physical law as currently known. This becomes an "invariant" that constrains our speculation of the future. A mistake here is particular interesting!

Karl Hallowell

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Study the Lines

We can track the course of change in history and in our own lives. By familiarizing ourselves with these lines through time, we can better understand what to expect next, and even begin to play a hand in bringing about changes we want.

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Study the Cycles

History can repeat itself in more than one way. Sometimes it seems that events are recurring; sometimes it seems as the an entire era is being replayed. It's possible that history cycles through these epochs periodically, and that the period is decreasing as histories spirals into the next phase. What's going to happen next?

Well, what happened next the last time?

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Embrace Change; Embrace the Strange (I)

You probably don't realize what a strange world you live in. Suppose you had a phone that could place a call back in time. Let's call someone 50 years ago, in the year 1953. Okay? You've got a parent or grandparent on the line, somebody who would be interested in knowing about you and your life. Let's see how that conversation might go:

Try explaining your job.

Turn on the TV and describe the programming. Maybe you'll get really lucky and Temptation Island or South Park or Queer Eye for the Straight Guy will be on. Do you have a satellite dish? Tivo? Go ahead. Explain. Maybe you can't get on the TV because your child is playing one of those driving games based on The Simpsons. That should be pretty easy to explain.

Tell them about your daughter's tattoos and pierced eyebrow.

They're interested in politics? Tell them about the former governor of Minnesota and the new governor of California. Hell, tell them about the governor of California who became President.

They're interested in religion? Tell them about that new Episcopal bishop. You can fill them on on the Massachusetts ruling on gay marriage while you're at it.

Tell them about PETA.

Tell them about microwave popcorn.

Explain to them about 9/11 and the War on Terrorism. Be sure to background them with the Cold War and how it ended.

Fill them in on stem cell research and the human cloning ban. Oh, and the big news about mapping the human genome.

Tell them that we went to the moon, but now it's been so long ago that a lot of people don't believe it ever happened.

Try to explain Bill Gates to them. Or the browser wars. Or the dot-com bubble. Or the Y2K bug.

Tell them about NAMBLA.

Tell them about your wireless phone. Don't forget to mention how you play games on it.

At what point do you think they would have hung up? Pretty early on, I'd venture to guess.

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Maybe We're Imagining It

Changes themselves do *not* accelerate. But thanks to the distortion of memory, you remember the good old days as slow and peaceful, which of course they were not. Our society and economy depends on ongoing change. But the aging of the population may well put a stop to that. With that in mind, one can only encourage 'staying young'.

R. Klaver

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As the Experts (II)

Maybe we're not imagining it. Check out Ray Kurzweil's Chronology of Change. After you've had a chance to digest it, read where he thinks these developments are leading us.

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Embrace Change; Embrace the Strange (II)

Forget fifty years ago. Use the phone to call yourself ten years ago. Tell all about how you're tracking several interesting memes in your favorite blogs.

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Do the Math

If e is "the black jewel of the calculus" (David Berlinski -- A Tour of the Calculus), and only an expert (x=pe^rt) can understand compound interest and thereby understand the true effect of a fixed rate of change, then only a true Speculist, gazing upon the "Black Diamond of Hope", may see what is to be expected (exp [e^ctr]t) when the rate of change itself is changing.

NOTE: See this week's Speculist University entry (coming soon) for enlightenment. WARNING! Contains more Scary Mathematical Symbols™. May not be suitable for the faint-hearted.

Mike Sargent

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Embrace Change; Embrace the Strange (III)

Forget the past. Living here in the present, we really aren't prepared for how strange the world has become. Posse member Joanie points us to a website that captures a little of this strangeness: RealityCarnival. Enjoy the arts? Spend some time looking at Pseudo Miros or Lego Eschers. Ready to have some fun? Try out recreational activities like Google Grokking or Amazon Whacking. Or while away the afternoon dissecting Britney Spears. Look around this site. If change is accelerating, weirdness is growing exponentially. I doubt most of us could explain these things to ourselves, much less somebody from the past.

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Where Will it End?

Maybe we'll learn that all reality is encoded in Pi (similar to an idea we'll be seeing later in Stillness, by the way). Maybe we'll take steps and prevent being enslaved by machines. Maybe we'll get really lucky, and end up as plants or housepets.

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That's it for now. Thanks to all the Posse members who participated. This was a fun one!

Posted by Phil at November 21, 2003 12:54 PM | TrackBack