Any time is a good time for some good news. Like right now, for example.
Item 1
Take the BATT Challenge
Reader Mr. Farlops (see comments on linked entry) takes issue with the BATT premise:
Getting better? Getting worse? You can argue both ways. Personally I discard the idea that the world is getting better or worse as too simplistic. All we can really say for certain is the world is getting different. We solve old problems only to create new ones. This seems to be a loop stretches on to infinity. There is no endpoint, no heaven or hell--just difference.
Mr. Farlops raises an excellent point, in that (any way you slice it) "better" is going to turn out to be a pretty subjective idea. Here's a subjective test of whether the world is truly getting better:
Name an era prior to the present in which (given the opportunity to do so) you would go and live for the rest of your life. No short visits just to see what things were like. (Anybody who wouldn't do that is a total buzzkill.) You have to be willing to swap this era for that one.
For simplicity's sake, we'll define an "era" as 100 years. Let's try a few...
1904
Relive the first half of the twentieth century! (Probably not an appealing choice for minorities or career-minded women.)
1804
See Napolean in action. Join Lewis and Clark as they open up the West. Ride horses! (If you want to get anywhere.) Wait months for news from other parts of the world! By the way, your life expectancy wil be somewhere in the late thirties.
1504
See the Renaissance in full flower! Risk injury and illness in an era without antibiotics or anaesthesia. But not to worry...they have leeches.
404 BC
Discuss philosophy with Socrates! If you have time. Because, let's face it, chances are you'll end up a slave. But, hey — it's honest work.
Of course, there's no denying that each of the eras named above would be a fascinating age to experience firsthand. And each of them almost certainly has its own advantages over the present. Even so, we believe it would take a serious history buff to choose any of them over today.
But let's go one step further. Let's suppose that the deal was that you must choose one of these eras and go live there for the rest of your life. Which would you pick?
If you conisder the choice seriously, looking beyond romantic associations many of us may have with each of these eras, you're likely to choose 1904. Of all the eras named, it would be the most familiar. It's the one with (rudimentary) electricity, telephones, automobiles, and airplanes. More importantly, it's an era in which some of our current medical technology exists and more is coming soon. People living in 1904* have more choices about where to go, what to do, and who to be than their ancestors living in previous eras. There are those horrifying world wars on the horizon, but then at least you know they're coming. And if you arrive in 1904 and live long enough to see the end of World War II, you'll probably have survived longer than you would have in any of those other eras.
Preferring the present to the past, and the recent past to the distant past, is not just a bias that favors the familiar. From a rational standpoint, it makes sense to prefer an era in which life is longer, healthier, and richer in terms of the options that it offers. As Mr. Farlops points out, there are strong arguments to be made that the world has grown worse over the past two hundred years. But if the world were really no better, only "different," we would expect a significant number of people taking the challenge to choose the past.
But will they? Would you?
On the other hand, if life is not just changing, but improving, then it only makes sense to conclude that the world really is getting better all the time.
* Obviously, this is written by Americans and it describes progress from an American perspective. Not everyone in 1904 had more choices than they did in 1804 (or 1504, for that matter.) In fact, not everyone living today has more choices than they did in the past. It was said that Afghanistan under the Taliban was transported back to Middle Ages. If the past was merely "different," why was this viewed as such a terrible thing?
Item 2
Antiaging Enzyme Target Found
A drug that flips on longevity switches is a step closer following the discovery of how to activate a key antiaging enzyme.
The good news:
As we reported here yesterday, Sir2 may be the key to achieving the life-extending benefits of caloric restriction without having to take on what most would consider to be a hard-to-maintain dietary lifestyle. Moreover, isolating the enzyme that produces these benefits might well lead to treatments which can extend the anti-aging effect far beyond what caloric restriction alone would have achieved.
The downside:
There's no real downside, but it's probably a good idea to reiterate the note of caution we sounded yesterday:
This is good news, but these are early results.
Anyway...
Ah, to heck with caution. Woo-hoo! We're all going to live to be 500! At least!
Ah...okay. Sorry about that. We return you now to our good-news round-up, already in progress.
Item 3
BioCDs could hit No. 1 on doctors' charts
(via FuturePundit)
While-you-wait medical tests that screen patients for thousands of disease markers could be possible with compact-disk technology patented by Purdue University scientists.
A team led by physicist David D. Nolte has pioneered a method of creating analog CDs that can function as inexpensive diagnostic tools for protein detection.
"This technology could revolutionize medical testing," said Nolte, who is a professor of physics in Purdue's School of Science.
"Each ring of pits, or 'track,' on the CD could be coated with a different protein," he said. "Once the surface of a BioCD has been exposed to a blood serum sample – which would not need to be larger than a single drop – you could read the disk with laser technology similar to what is found in conventional CD players. Instead of seeing digital data, the laser reader would see how concentrated a given protein had become on each track."
The good news:
Ever had this conversation?
"Hi, Doctor. My symptoms are XYZ."
"Hmmm...I'm a little concerned. Let's take a blood sample and see what it shows."
[Assistant takes blood sample.]
"So, what now, Doctor?"
"We'll just send that off to the lab and we'll have your results in a day or two. A week, tops. In the mean time, don't worry."
I think we can all agree that it would be just dandy never to have to have that particular conversation again. With these modified CD drives, doctors will be able to perform the test themselves and provide your results while you wait.
Item 4
Global polio eradication back on track
The bid to banish polio from the world may be back on track, as a state in Nigeria which banned polio immunisation now says it will source the vaccine from Indonesia.
The state of Kano, in northern Nigeria, suspended the polio mass immunisation campaign in October 2003, amid local claims that the vaccine was contaminated with anti-fertility hormones and HIV.
Muslim clerics claimed the vaccine was part of a Western plot to depopulate Africa. Subsequent tests by Nigerian experts gave the vaccine the all-clear and two other states that had opted out resumed the campaign. But Kano did not reinstate the programme.
The good news:
Kano will now obtain "safe," "untainted" polio vaccine from Indonesia. In spite of the paranoid idiocy described above, the children of Kano will be protected from polio. And that, of course, is wonderful news.
The downside:
The clerics who brought about the ban are still in power, and can still bring about untold future mischief.
Anyway...
At least the children are safe from polio. Maybe someday there will be a vaccine to protect them from the "protection" of their religious leaders.
Item 5
Quote of the Day
[T]hings are getting better by a greater absolute amount each year, with the exception of very few remaining parts of the developing world. And improving conditions in the developing world is something we also have more ability to do today than ever before.
This amazing state of affairs is due almost entirely to advances in science and technology, and the profoundly civilizing way that these subjects interact with the half-bald primates that have discovered them and who are now feverishly employing them at every level of human endeavor it on this precious little planet.
-- John Smart
Item 6
First amateur rocket blasts into space
An amateur rocket called GoFast has made history by becoming the first such rocket to reach 100 kilometres altitude - the official edge of space.
The seven-metre-tall rocket was launched from Nevada's Black Rock Desert on Monday carrying a ham radio avionics package which broadcasted position and altitude data during its ascent.
The Civilian Space Exploration Team (CSXT) built the rocket at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars. CSXT claims it is the most powerful amateur rocket ever built.
The good news:
Here's more evidence that the space age has truly begun. Like the contestants in the X Prize competition, CSXT is made up of rocket enthusiasts eager to make history. However, they aren't necessarily looking to usher in an era of commercial space exploitation. They aren't even doing it for the prize money. As the linked story indicates, the only prize this launch was eligible for expired 3 years ago.
No, they did it because they love rockets and they wanted to see how far they could make one go. Robert Goddard would be proud.
Item 7
Adidas Creates Computerized 'Smart Shoe'
Adidas says it has created the world's first "smart shoe" by mating it with a computer chip that adapts its cushioning level to a runner's size and stride.
The good news:
The war between geeks and jocks is over! A new era begins!
What are the chances they'll make a sequel to a Disney family classic, changing the title just ever so slightly: The Tennis Shoes Wore a Computer? Kurt Russel may be available.
Better All The Time is compiled by Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon. Live to see it!
Posted by Phil at May 19, 2004 09:40 PM | TrackBackAddressing one point:
Living forever or even to 500 doesn't sound all that wonderful. Especially given our level of close-quarters living that we're currently - ahem - enjoying.
Do you know what happens to humans and other animals when there are too many occupying one space? Disease, fighting, mayhem, death. That's how nature keeps balance. That's where survival of fittest comes into play.
I'm nowhere near the top of that hierarchy, are you? Be honest.
I don't want to be picked off simply because I'm not in the top 25% of the fittest.
Besides, after year 250 - do we really want to sit around and kvetch with each other for another 250 years? I don't. I want to live while the living's good and can still manage to enjoy food, sex, playing with my children. Hanging out with a bunch of other phlegmy old people just doesn't appeal to me.
Of course, I may come back after my surgery this weekend, doped to the gills, and have a completely different opinion.
Posted by: Da Goddess at May 20, 2004 05:56 PMHey, Goddess
>>I want to live while the living's good and can still manage to enjoy food, sex, playing with my children.
I agree. Round these parts, we're all about making sure that the living stays good. That's at least as important as the idea of life extension itself!
As far as close quarters, well that's why we keep running all those articles about rockets and so forth. We're serious about the space thing!
Posted by: Phil Bowermaster at May 20, 2004 06:12 PMPhil and Stephen,
Sure, life in past eras stinks--"nasty, brutish and short" is the phrase that springs to mind. Nobody, in the middle class, in the post-industrial world, in their right mind, would want to go back to die of gangrene or shock from a bad limb amputation in the 18th century. And it's true that slaves living in the ancient empires and kingdoms might consider the Victorian world a relative paradise, aside from the vicious labor riots, the black lung and mine accidents and the pathologically repressive morality. Sitting here in my nice, warm apartment with 5 computers and the choice of 70 different kinds of soft drink is great! I don't envy some Roman slave destroying his back in some equestrian's field in millenia past.
But it always seems we find something else to complain about.
Environmentalism is example of this. I would argue that we, as a society, didn't really have the luxury to worry about the destruction of the ecosystem until quite recently. Before that we were too worried about death from childbirth (If you were a woman.) and death from disease and infection (If you were a man.) to notice or care. Technology swept all those old problems away. We now have mass literacy. Most children live to see adulthood. Despite drug resistant bugs, we seem to have the mass plagues in hand now. We have a large middle class. Human life in a very real sense is much better than it used to be.
So what happens? We start to worry about something else--justice, distribution of wealth, human rights, the environment, fame and fortune (in the Warholian sense.), alienation, software monopolies, etc. Stuff that didn't even matter centuries ago.
Some of it is very important, like the environment and human rights, but some of it is trivial. Really--liposuction and fad diets are the embarrassing consequence of conquering famine. We have unprecedented mobility but most of our time is irrevocably wasted in finding a place to park or idling in traffic jams. This is trivial stuff but it bugs us nonetheless.
And, as always, terrible new possibilities are revealed by technological advances. The systematic mass death of the twentieth century simply wasn't technologically possible until the nineteenth century--we exchanged death from plague with death from nuclear war. It's almost cliche these days to discuss the disturbing possibilities of nanoweapons but I think it's foolish to dismiss them.
I guess what I am saying is that utopia is sort of like absolute zero or a perfect heat engine or the speed of light. We can get arbitrarily close but we can never reach it. It's a process of diminishing returns.
But look on the bright side. It's also an open ended process and it's a process that allows for jumping outside the system. I don't rule out the possibility that utopia is something like imaginary numbers, not possible in real arithmetic but possible under imaginary arithmetic.
Please understand that I am not saying it's all gloom and doom. I am not saying we haven't destroyed old problems. And we will continue to do so. We can avoid destroying ourselves. Tyranny is unstable in the long run. I am just saying it's always a mixed bag.
If many of us evolve into new lifeforms with artificial biology, we'll be kvetching about the post-human condition, whining about problems we can't even imagine now. But it's possible that these creatures will be better off than we are now.
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Posted by: poker at August 15, 2004 10:17 PM