Archive for the 'Books' Category
Genetic Modification of Human Embryos
September 9th, 2015I just read about this in, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom and the implications are very wild and potentially terrifying, especially in terms of social engineering. Via: BBC: It is “essential” that the genetic modification of human embryos is allowed, says a group of scientists, ethicists and policy experts. A Hinxton Group report […]
How Robots & Algorithms Are Taking Over
March 16th, 2015Via: The New York Review of Books: Here is what that future—which is to say now—looks like: banking, logistics, surgery, and medical recordkeeping are just a few of the occupations that have already been given over to machines. Manufacturing, which has long been hospitable to mechanization and automation, is becoming more so as the cost […]
Altered Genes, Twisted Truth: How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public by Steven M. Druker
March 9th, 2015Via: Amazon: This book uncovers the biggest scientific fraud of our age. It tells the fascinating and frequently astounding story of how the massive enterprise to restructure the genetic core of the world’s food supply came into being, how it advanced by consistently violating the protocols of science, and how for more than three decades, […]
The Snowden Avalanche
December 25th, 2014Cryptogon reader Derek Swannson let me know about his new book: The Snowden Avalanche.
Congressman Suggests Moat Around White House
November 21st, 2014I just finished reading, Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle, so I naturally have to suggest that the regime should build a trace italienne for itself. By the way, I only recommend Wolf in White Van for older nerds who also enjoyed The Stranger by Albert Camus. You’ll find yourself internally screaming, “Why!?” If […]
Are the World’s Religions Ready for E.T.?
October 1st, 2014Via: Vanderbilt University: Realization that the nature of the debate about life on other worlds is about to fundamentally change led Vanderbilt Professor of Astronomy David Weintraub to begin thinking seriously about the question of how people will react to the discovery of life on other planets. He realized, as Einstein had observed, that people’s […]
Will Superintelligent Machines Destroy Humanity?
September 13th, 2014My money would be on nukes. How about, superintelligent machines somehow in control of nukes? Via: Reason: In Frank Herbert’s Dune books, humanity has long banned the creation of “thinking machines.” Ten thousand years earlier, their ancestors destroyed all such computers in a movement called the Butlerian Jihad, because they felt the machines controlled them. […]
In Maryland, a Soviet-Style Punishment for a Novelist
September 2nd, 2014Via: The Atlantic: A 23-year-old teacher at a Cambridge, Maryland, middle school has been placed on leave and—in the words of a local news report—”taken in for an emergency medical evaluation” for publishing, under a pseudonym, a novel about a school shooting. The novelist, Patrick McLaw, an eighth-grade language-arts teacher at the Mace’s Lane Middle […]
A Call for a Low-Carb Diet
September 2nd, 2014New York Times, is that really you? Via: New York Times: People who avoid carbohydrates and eat more fat, even saturated fat, lose more body fat and have fewer cardiovascular risks than people who follow the low-fat diet that health authorities have favored for decades, a major new study shows. … By the end of […]
Elon Musk: AI “Potentially More Dangerous Than Nukes”
August 4th, 2014Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom Via: ExtremeTech: Elon Musk, the mastermind behind SpaceX and Tesla, believes that artificial intelligence is “potentially more dangerous than nukes,” imploring all of humankind “to be super careful with AI,” unless we want the ultimate fate of humanity to closely resemble Judgment Day from Terminator. Personally I think […]
