Steven Lyle Jordan's Blog, page 16

Consciousness and “The Transporter Paradox”

[image error]Perhaps you’ve heard of “The Transporter Paradox:” It refers to the assumption that, if we could build a Star Trek-type transporter, aka a Quantum Teleportation Device, it would work by cataloging your every atom and function in order to transmit and reassemble that pattern in another location. Unfortunately in order to do that, it would have to annihilate the original body and essentially build a brand new one from new quantum elements in the second location (something they cannily neglected to mention on Star Trek).  That means, in order to appear in the second location, you will be killed in the first location; the “you” in the second location isn’t really you, even if it thinks it is… the original you is dead.

In order to deal with this paradox, you’d need to be able to solve the existential question of who, or what, is “you”—a unique and singular consciousness—or a unique and singular body.  And humans have a very hard time separating their sense of self from their bodies, even though the human body is never the same from instant to instant… it is constantly exchanging molecules with the outside world in that ongoing ballet we call life.

[image error]This has become a serious question, not because we’re on the verge of building working transporters, but because we are on the verge of being able to build sophisticated computers in which some hope to be able to “upload” our consciousness… perhaps even allowing us to live forever in robot bodies or traverse the stars in miniaturized ships that don’t require the complexities of biological life support systems.

Though the idea is often used in science fiction, the ramifications of it are either ignored or glossed over (like in Star Trek) or it’s assumed that people just did it, no big deal.  Sometimes a story (like Old Man’s War) admits that a character was just killed to give life to another body, and everyone just accepts that the deed was done and moves quickly on.  But the issue is rarely given the incredible philosophical weight it is due.

The question is, if we upload our consciousnesses into a robot body or space ship, will we really feel as if it is ourselves in the robot or ship… or will the real us be consigning ourselves to certain death, fully aware that while we rot in our graves or drift on the wind, a digital copy is exploring the stars claiming to be the real us?

A human being has a unique sense of what it considers “itself,” a sum totality of the body that it sees as a unit known as “me.” Though it acts as if all parts of itself count holistically as “me,” it is capable of assuming that a lost limb or organ, or even the skin cells that slough off the body at all times, does not diminish the sense of “me” at all.  The pieces may all be connected… but they’re not all important to the sense of “me.”

[image error]Mostly, it’s the brain that encompasses our sense of “me”; we can lose virtually everything on our body, but as long as we still have a functioning brain, we still have “me.”  Our brains contain the cognitive functions that govern us, as well as an overlaid consciousness, an awareness of what we are doing and why, that creates our “sense of self.”  It’s the transferring of the “sense of self,” the consciousness, from one vessel to another, that must be seamlessly accomplished; otherwise, the sense of self will know, and have to deal existentially with the fact, that the real you has been left behind, maybe killed, and that it is essentially a duplicate you, a copy, not the real thing.

The only potential loser in this equation is the body left behind, and the consciousness within it; because hey, dead is dead.  Is there really a way to transfer that sense of self to another vessel without leaving a sense of a live body and consciousness behind?  Maybe it could be accomplished during sleep, when your sense of self is essentially switched off (or, at least, paused) during unconsciousness; if it could be restarted in another vessel, and you saw your old body lying next to you in state, maybe if would be easier to accept the idea that your consciousness has indeed “moved” to another vessel, and it’s okay to discard (yes, kill) the old one.

Or maybe the new “you” would not see the leaving behind or killing off of your original body as any more significant than your brushing off and discarding the dandruff from your head; after all, it was all part of you once, but losing it didn’t make you less “you.”  Even with a mechanical “body” and completely different functions, the persistence of self might be enough to override all sense of different and accept itself as the real you.

[image error]Or maybe it’s much ado about nothing.  After all, a human body is more than a flake of dandruff; but cosmically speaking, not by much.  Maybe we’re just allowing our meat-based prejudices to get in the way of real progress and inevitable evolution; we need to rid ourselves of the notion that there’s something particularly special or valuable about ourselves, or that a well-enough-constructed duplicate of our consciousness isn’t just as good as the original.  We also need to accept the fact that, sooner or later, we all die; but this is a way to send an aspect of us further into the future, extending the life of what we consider the essential “us.”

This is a question which will need to be solved by equal parts science, ingenuity, philosophy, humility and practicality.  It may never be solved to everyone’s satisfaction, any more than the public is all in agreement over the euthanization of the sick, the elderly, or their pets.  But we as a species may not develop much further if we don’t come to grips with this paradox and find a way to live with it.

 

 

Motorcycles: Practical vehicles, not “toys”

[image error]I just recently was able to add a new motorcycle to my garage, a Honda CTX700 DCT ABS, which I will use to commute to work year-round.  For the layman, I will quickly point out the trailing acronyms that make this bike exceptional: DCT means Dual-Clutch Transmission, a Honda way of saying this bike has an automatic transmission (no clutch means no bursitis caused by stop-and-stop traffic); and most of you are familiar with ABS, Anti-Lock Brake System.  The engine is the same as that in a Honda Fit, and it has all the clean-running and low-emission tech as any Honda auto.  It’s got a great low cruiser stance, making it very stable in commuter traffic, and it’s not loud or rough.  As opposed to Honda’s CTX1300, which looks like Toothless the (How to Train Your) Dragon, the full-fairing 700 looks more like Beetle from Kubo and the Two Strings… but I’ve already dubbed it Serenity.  No highway in the ‘Verse…

I’ve ridden motorcycles to work before, when public transportation hasn’t been very convenient for me, three bikes before this one; as well, riding the motorcycle has advantages over driving a car to work that are very attractive to me—it has better visibility than my car (both notice-ability by other drivers and my ability to see my surroundings), it is more maneuverable in traffic due to its smaller size, greater acceleration and smaller turning radius, I can park it anywhere generally for free, and it is allowed on both HOV and HOT lanes, both of which figure into my commute.  Oh, and it gets better mileage than my hybrid Prius.  Mic drop.

Despite these advantages, and my wife’s advance approval to buy the bike, she regularly refers to my bike as a “toy.”  This, frankly, amazes me, as I’m not exactly renowned for blowing thousands of dollars for toys.  Further, I’ve explained the various advantages of riding listed above, and she doesn’t exactly argue the points.  But she—like most people in the US—see motorcycles as leisure devices, not true transportation.

[image error]Bad boy. BAD BOY!

Motorcycles aren’t the only vehicles so considered: in this car-centric country, bicycles are also looked at as “not real transportation,” and both vehicles are usually overlooked when it comes to traffic planning (bikes more than motorcycles, but still).  Non-riders assume only the worst about 2-wheeled vehicles: Not as stable or protective as cars, not weather-agnostic like cars, not as utilitarian as cars.  They also generally see either leather-clad bikers on big, loud cruisers or shirt-sleeved maniacs on crotch-rockets, either vibrating your car as they pass in loud pipes, or setting your teeth on edge as they swerve by you between the lanes.

This is where I usually point out that: I ride to work, following the traffic laws as much as any car and making less of a racket than many, in everything except icy roads; I never lane-split, I use the lanes as marked; I carry my briefcase in a case attached to the back of my bike; that same case carries protective (rain) gear and tools that can help me out of a jam; and as far as stability, cars and trucks are not impervious to skidding or rolling, but sufficient attention behind the wheel (or the handlebars) is usually enough to prevent getting into those situations… and something about being on a bike tends to heighten your attention to the road around you.

Regarding safety: Yeah, things can happen.  So you need to be ultra-aware of your surroundings, not just the road itself but the other vehicles on it, what they are doing and how they might endanger you.  When I ride, I LOOK for the people who are paying more attention to their cellphones than their driving, and I make every effort to steer as clear from them as possible.  I add reflective elements and a second set of brake lights to my bike to make sure I’m visible to other drivers, and that nothing I do will take them by surprise (you do that, by the way, by following traffic laws).  So I minimize the likelihood that I will be hit by any car, or that any driver has the excuse to say “I didn’t see him.”

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Then I point out that, in many other countries, bikes and motorcycles are much more common and accepted forms of transportation; and in fact, with their in-between cousins the scooters, often outnumber autos and trucks in cities.  America doesn’t have the last word on transportation, and many international cities have discovered that the simpler vehicles are often the best.  I’m not solo-driving a vehicle made for 4 passengers, burning as much gas, or taking up as much space on the roads or in the parking lots, and my vehicle cost roughly half the cost of the cheapest new car you’ll find in the states.

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For the record, I am still connected on a bike, and I have access to GPS and maps to direct me.  I often listen to music from my phone while I ride, which sounds great through my bluetooth-enabled earbuds (bluetooth is a wonderful thing), and I can take phone calls and hear texts.  Oh, and I enjoy just riding, even if I’m not doing 20-30 miles above the speed limit or weaving through traffic like a deranged lunatic on Red Bull.

Sure, you can have plenty of (safe) fun on a motorcycle… just like you can have fun in a car. That doesn’t change the fact that motorcycles are serious motorized vehicles, intended to get you from point A to point B, but with less cost and overhead than is required by a car, and are much more efficient. They are great alternatives to automobiles and up, for those who maybe can’t afford the cost of car ownership and overhead.  They are the offspring of the car and the bicycle, an in-between vehicle with the best qualities of both.

So, I see lots of practical advantages to motorcycle riding, few practical disadvantages, few areas where the bike doesn’t measure up to driving a car, few times when I can’t ride the bike, significant savings over driving a car… and riding enjoyment as well.  Face it: If you still see motorcycles as toys, then you only have yourself to blame for not enjoying one yourself.

Tiny Homes and Universal Basic Income: Made for each other

[image error]I spent Saturday attending a Tiny House exhibition, and was very impressed by what I saw. Between homes built by professionals and those built by amateurs, and in all kinds of configurations, it was clear to me that tiny homes could be viable, attractive and affordable housing alternatives for many Americans for whom owning a full-size home (2500 square feet and waaay up is standard in an American home, versus 250-400 square feet for a tiny home) is too pricey or limiting.

[image error]In fact, the concept of tiny houses goes great with another new concept: The growing movement for Universal Basic Income.  UBI, as promoted by advocates like Scott Santens, is a proposal to pay all citizens a monthly minimum income sufficient to live at a level above the national poverty level, leaving it up to them whether they will live on that or choose to work for a higher income.  Various countries in Europe are already experimenting with UBI, and in the US the state of Alaska has developed a version of it.  As job opportunities shrink in the US, UBI would allow citizens to live comfortably, even without a job, and would cost less than welfare and other existing poverty assistance programs.

Housing is a major element that can dictate its success, and the average American home may prove too expensive for those living on a UBI income.  Fortunately, tiny homes can be bought for less money than most cars; and if you’re tool-handy and able to get some breaks on materials, you may even be able to build one yourself for $10,000 or less.  Organizations are already taking advantage of this more manageable price level to build tiny homes for groups that need help, like veterans and the homeless.  Millennials are also driving the developing tiny house industry, as they decide to live on less, avoid accumulating as much stuff, make mobility an option and have more discretionary income.

[image error]Those are strategies tailor-made for the idea of a Universal Basic Income nation.  One of the biggest concerns the public has about UBI is whether it will truly be possible to live comfortably on a basic income.  If minimally-expensive homes are readily available, the idea of UBI will be much more acceptable to the public.  Presently there are few tiny houses available to buy… and many jurisdictions haven’t yet developed policies or regulations for tiny houses.  But as the idea gains more traction (and, frankly, hopefully, loses its stigma as “trailer homes” for the poor), zoning regulations should change and opportunities to build tiny house communities should grow.

[image error]Projects like Second Wind Cottages, Quixote Village, OM Village and Community First! Village are proving the point.  These tiny home villages are providing shelter to formerly homeless men, women and families, at an average cost of $10,000 a home… affordable even for those on low fixed incomes for whom full-sized homes and even rental properties were often out of the question.  Residents in full-sized homes have been welcoming of their new neighbors, even where zoning efforts have initially resisted their arrival.  Most importantly, having tiny homes gives the residents a sense of belonging, a measure of pride and greater safety than living on the street.

So, hopefully the Tiny House movement and the Universal Basic Income movement will see their common cause and the value of cross-promoting each other.  I think the concept of UBI must be our country’s future: it makes financial sense, and it provides a workable future for the post-employment society that we are inevitably approaching.  More manageable tiny homes would be a significant part of that future.  That makes tiny homes and UBI a match made in heaven.

 

Wonder Woman: Attractive anachronism awaiting advancement

As usual, I’m  just a bit behind on my movie watching: In the weekend that Wonder Woman is just coming to theaters, I just got out to see Guardians of the Galaxy.  I haven’t seen every superhero movie in the theaters—and there are a few I haven’t seen at all—but I plan to see Wonder Woman, and I hope I enjoy it, despite my conflicting feelings for the character.

Wonder Woman is an odd character by my measure, owing to the many odd circumstances surrounding its creation.  Most important to be clear about is that WW was created, not as the female idea of a superhero, but as a male idea of a female superhero.  On one hand, she is all about truth and justice; but as the character has evolved, she’s become a badass warrior, an ultimate dominatrix.  Where she used to be wise, now she’s as often depicted as being ignorant of the ways of the world, which sometimes makes her a bully (or, again, a dominatrix) that muscles through the crap to get her way.  And she’s supposed to be a princess; so, possessor of an anarchic title that isn’t supposed to mean anything in America; and often displays the air of superiority that Americans assume always goes with the title.

[image error]And, of course, she’s a beautiful woman.  This, alone, isn’t something to criticize, especially in the superhero world where very few heroes have ever been shown to be ugly.  But where male heroes tend to be covered neck to toe in costumes, armor or leather, Wonder Woman traditionally wore a bathing suit that accentuates her bust and bares her arms and legs (it originally sported a star-spangled skirt, but that was replaced years later with the skimpiest of briefs).  The only male hero in the DC comics roster to wear such a revealing and non-protective costume was the original Robin (coincidentally, known as the Boy Wonder!), and his outfit was mostly considered a joke by comics fans.  Wonder Woman wears no mask, because who wants to cover up a pretty face?  And for a girl supposedly from a Greek island, her tradtional outfit is clearly based on the American flag with a golden eagle on top.

(And must we mention the stars below the waist?  Particularly the one that exactly marks that spot most men love to stare at?  Yes, I know you looked… so I’m afraid we must.)

Most of this can be clearly attributed to the fact that Wonder Woman was conceived of by a man, William Marston, and not a woman.  And Marston had his own unique ideas about things: For instance, that bondage was a healthy play activity.  He also shared that typically male conceit that, at heart, men are all aggressive and basically assholes, and that all women embody strength, intelligence, reasoning and nurturing traits.  And Wonder Woman was created for comic books, written by adult males, for a mostly young male audience.

But though her early adventures were about proving the power of Woman to overcome all obstacles, generally through disarming means, in recent years the Amazon warrior has become dominant; she is more likely to be literally disarming an opponent using a sword than using her ubiquitous lasso now… and considering she’s supposed to be about as powerful as Superman, the need for such a deadly weapon is questionable at best.  As other characters either stay the same or modernize, Wonder Woman is somehow devolving into the turn-of-the-millennium centurion and fish-out-of-water depicted in the latest movie.

A while back I lamented the loss of Marvel Comics’ Ultimates line, an attempt to bring their heroes into the 21st century that did not turn out to be popular, sales-wise, as the traditional (20th century) versions of their heroes.  Just as I thought updating the Marvel heroes was a good idea, I’ve always thought the concept of Wonder Woman needed a healthy update to bring it in line with 21st century heroes.

Starting with the origin of the character: Altering her origin from a mythical island of Greek demigods, having her come from a private settlement of intelligent women who, using SCIENCE, created a superbeing to take their message of peace to the world.  Have her be wise to the ways and history of all the world again, including understanding men.  Give her a uniform that doesn’t look like she’s sunning on a beach instead of fighting bad guys… a uniform that covers her body.  If she’s supposed to be an ambassador to the world, lose the color schemes that suggest the United States, or any other nation for that matter.  And lose the sword: We’re not barbarians, and if you’re that powerful, you hardly need it.

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In fact, there’s a character that looks like a 21st century Wonder Woman should look, more or less: Jakita Wagner, from the comic Planetary.  In many ways Jakita is a Wonder Woman analogue, encompassing great strength and a warrior’s passion, ready to act as a protector to those who need her.  Her character was born to a super-advanced society, and raised in Europe by kindly parents who taught her the ways of the world.  If I was going to update the Wonder Woman mythos, this is the direction I’d be pointing.

(For comic books, anyway.  For movies, I’d probably expect her to look more like the oft-catsuited Emma Peel of The Avengers fame, but… 6 of 1.)

I also wouldn’t have this character’s attitudes and behaviors revolving so tightly around the differences between men and women. I’d like to see a modern character who was more interested in stemming conflict and reasoning with people to avoid violence; but when she has to, she should be able to fight anyone to a standstill in unarmed conflict.  And if she comes from a super-scientific world, she should have some unique tools that help her in her mission to bring peace to the world; the modern equivalent of a “magic lasso,” say, a universal translator, a portable (or maybe innate) lie detector, and something that doesn’t deflect bullets, but neutralizes firearms…

Well, anyway.  Yes, I see Wonder Woman as the embodiment of many of the twentieth century icons and attitudes of the USA, and its reflections in the genre of superheroes.  But I would love to see those attitudes and icons evolve and join us in the present century.  It’s especially important, because if we want our youth to be able to deal with today and tomorrow’s problems, we ought to be giving them better role models than those who dealt with the world of the last century.

 

Thanks, Star Wars… for everything else

40 years ago today, Star Wars hit the nation’s theaters, and—let’s not mince words, here—transformed science fiction cinema as we know it.  Star Wars‘ popularity caused an industry-wide resurgence in interest in sci-fi, causing languishing projects to be green-lit and new projects to be financed with grade-A budgets.  The resulting flood of science fiction in theaters became the still-standing hallmark for summer blockbusters and genre adventure.

So, as the world celebrates (or at least lauds) the 40-year anniversary of Star Wars, I raise a glass to it as well, for… everything else we got.

[image error]Star Wars was great fun for me, when it came out… and I was just exiting high school.  Being that I had been a big fan of SF special effects in movies and TV for years before 1977, Star Wars was a fireworks display of awesome, utilizing about every kind of movie effect in the box. Star Wars put a lot of good special effects people to work, from multiple genres, and brought a new generation of artists into the special effects business; it gave us Industrial Light and Magic, one of the premier SFX houses in the industry.  ILM further inspired other studios to build comparable SFX teams where they could, or spend big bucks on the guys who’d been around for years, resulting in better effects products across the board.

Star Wars‘ epic score by John Williams also inspired big scores by other artists, such as Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner and many others, successfully toppling the minimalist synthesizer scoring that had become de rigeur in SF, despite having rarely lived up to its hype.  The big, themed scores helped to cement the name space opera to big SF productions.

[image error]All of that, when applied by the right people, served to give us some incredible science fiction movies, and a few television shows, over the years.  Unfortunately, the one downside of Star Wars—the plain-vanilla kid’s story about good and evil stereotypes—also became a major element in many future SF productions.  Innocent but gifted kids, cackling bad guys, flashy-but-impossible battles with space-fighters or laser weapons, medieval-inspired territorial and ruling disputes, aliens straight from 2nd grade doodles or artists’ nightmare fantasies… all to save the day and get the girl.  Most movie studios had a hard time imaging science fiction stories as anything else, despite the years of stories like Metropolis, Things to Come, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Silent Running, Solaris, Planet of the Apes, and so many others.  The dumbing-down of SF movies was also a thing, bringing a temporary end, at least, to the period when SF was considered an intelligent subject; and for years afterward it was considered by many an embarrassment to admit you enjoyed the genre at all.

[image error]Older versions of science fiction cinema were reanimated to follow this trend, like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers; but after being dumbed-down and reduced to eye-candy, they suffered spectacularly at the hands of modern studios.  Even one of the penultimate science fiction television series, Star Trek, was brought to the big screen courtesy of the success of Star Wars… but it was also rebranded as a Star Wars sibling by Paramount, pointedly dismissing its more intelligent aspects of exploration, diversity and challenging the mind instead of the fist, and turning it instead into space battles with 2-D villains and ugly aliens.  These dumbed-down science fiction productions overshadowed years of quality SF through box office domination, until the public (and even SF fans) are hard-put to remember the intelligent, high quality SF that has come since.

But I remember.  Movies like Blade Runner, Brainstorm, Alien, Akira, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Gattaca, Sunshine, 12 Monkeys, The Thirteenth Floor, Jurassic Park, The Adjustment Bureau, Minority Report, Moon, Children of Men, Cowboy Bebop, Paprika, Her, Dark City, Vanilla Sky, Solaris, Cloud Atlas and Interstellar all stand as shining examples of movies that weren’t brought down to Star Wars‘ juvenile story level.  And the best part is, we probably wouldn’t have gotten many of these movies, if not the the initial success of Star Wars.

So, again, I raise my glass… not for the incredible achievement of Star Wars itself… but for all it made possible afterward. Salud.

 

Backing off from flying

Thanks to a man who packed a laptop with explosives and used it to blow a hole in the side of his plane, US authorities have become even more nervous about flight risks than they’ve ever been.  A recent ban on laptops and tablets in the cabin on flights from certain Muslim-dominated countries may soon lead to similar action on European flights to the US.  And if that happens, it’s only a matter of time before no one on a foreign flight to the US will be able to carry on electronics.  And eventually, they might even be blocked on domestic flights.

[image error]This is taking paranoia to an extreme, to be sure… but when terrorists are putting makeshift bombs in anything imaginable, including their clothing, the paranoia is spreading.  How long will it take before all travelers in the US will be surrendering their clothing at the airport and donning, essentially, prison uniforms for the flight?  Will we be forbidden to work on any electronic devices, told to carry cash if we want in-flight food or beverages, and be under surveillance while in the lavatory?  Will schedules be scrambled to confuse terrorists?  Will flight times and routes change at random?  Will we have to send our luggage ahead via UPS?

So, fine: Flying is getting crazy, paranoid and annoying as well as being expensive.  Maybe we should be taking the hint: We need to make other plans.  Like… not flying.

[image error]In a world of connectivity, we have more options for long-distance meeting, telecommuting and VR conferencing than ever before.  We’re on the cusp of being able to do it in 3-D.  Simply put, we really don’t need to be in Houston to attend that conference.  We don’t need to go to Salt Lake City to deliver a contract, iron out details, and return signed copies to the boss.  Hell, most of us don’t even need to leave our house to do our desk jobs.  Business flying is rapidly becoming an unneeded, overpriced, unreliable luxury.  Businesses should be first to realize this, and severely curtail flying as a clear waste of business time.

Outside of business, flying the regular airlines is a clear experience of being turned into cattle.  Passengers have no control over the process of flying: Airlines tell you in no uncertain terms how much your flight will cost, and deny you refunds if plans change; they tell you when to board, where to sit or not sit, and if they see fit, they can tell you to get off the plane (so someone with more money can take your place at the last minute).  The whole process takes so much time that you can drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco in the same time it would take you to fly there.

[image error]So why not drive?  Well, the airlines like to brag that air travel is statistically the safest way to get from place to place.  But those statistics are changing rapidly, between unseemly activities on the planes, to the growing safety of automobiles… soon to grow even faster, thanks to self-driving cars that are even safer.  And as hybrids become electrics, the cost of long-distance driving is falling rapidly.  If you think about flying, and say to yourself: “I’m not in that much of a rush,” then driving may just be for you.  Sure, there’s still the issue of traffic in many city areas; but traveling at non-rush-roar periods, or on less-traveled roads, can still be very pleasant.  And if the family’s along, it’s still one of the best ways to see the country as you travel (not to mention being able to pull over when you want).

[image error]And there are further alternatives.  We still have bus and train lines that criss-cross the US.  Both of these alternatives have seen hard times of late, and the US has been downright embarrassed by the improvements in rail lines in other countries.  But there have been constant efforts to improve long-distance buses and trains for more comfort, efficiency, connectivity and reliability, even in the US, and hopefully more improvements will come.  America’s Amtrak train line offers a trip the most similar to flight, but with more comfortable seating, and for significantly less money… as long as you can slow down and take a little longer to get where you want to go.

[image error]On my last trip to Orlando, I drove instead of flying, and was much happier doing it than flying.  Maybe my next trip down will be on a train.  Or maybe my next trip to New York, or Nashville, or Raleigh, will be on a Greyhound bus.  Bottom line is, in the US, it’s worth considering alternatives to pricey, annoying, unreliable cattle-car airlines.

The hotel walls have even more ears

Maybe you’ve heard that Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri are waging war over the hotel room: It seems the makers of those home informational devices want to place them in your hotel room, where you can ask it questions or possibly order room service.

[image error]I guess only part of me is surprised at this news… the part that knows how many people are still uncomfortable around these devices, and the security risks they pose.  For instance, the world is still not fully convinced that these devices (along with the Google Home), which listen for commands whenever they are plugged in, can’t be hacked to record all the sounds in a room and send them to another location.  In fact, people aren’t convinced that Apple, Amazon and Google aren’t storing all that data already.  And since hotels aren’t exactly renowned for their high security or advanced networking capabilities, it seems like hotel visitors will be very wary around the devices.  Will they be listening in while I discuss important business dealings?  Or while my wife and I have sex?  Or while you have sex with someone you just met in a bar?

The devices will supposedly allow you to do things like order food, or an Uber, or ask directions to local places.  Will it actually connect to your account… or to a hotel server that offers limited services… or will your account be granted access to the hotel servers?  That has yet to be determined at this point; but I know how wary I’d be if my Google account was suddenly accessible by the hotel servers, which would be designed to push products you’d like.  Imagine sitting in your room, when the device suddenly announces: “Steve, we make a great mojito at the Sandy Side Bar… and low-fat desserts, too!”  Yeah, thanks loads, Siri…

[image error]Another thing we all know is that any of that data the devices process will be added to the data being stored about the visitor, and certainly sold by the hotels to aggregate services.  So your universe of personal stored data can now include how many drinks you took from the mini-bar, which X-rated movies you watched at midnight, which bags of chips you bought at the first floor vending machine, etc, etc.

All of this adds up to one more level of tracking, invasion of privacy and risk of data theft… for those who care about such things.  In my opinion, that level of tracking is already higher than most of us realize; and most of us have opted-in to most of that tracking willingly, so that we could buy discounted tickets, get access to HOT lanes and pay tolls without having to stop, shop online without having to remember pesky passwords, etc.  Data theft is almost assured for most of us, because we don’t use secure passwords or verification systems.  And privacy?  Well, my phone and my tablet have microphones on them.  Who knows what they’re already hearing?

So, will the hotel industry benefit from the informational devices, or will customers balk and want them unplugged or removed?  Will the hotels have to offer some incentives to leave it alone, like discounted shopping in the hotel gift shop, or voice control of your room’s TV?  Will they end up with specially-designed devices, bolted down and hardwired to the room, with no off switch?  Will hotels, concerned about liability when people misbehave in their rooms, decide it’s best to record and store everything the devices hear?  Or will these devices be ubiquitous and accepted hotel appliances in a few years?  Only time will tell.

Nature vs. nurture: Orphan Black

The final season of the award-winning SF series Orphan Black will soon be upon us.  And beyond the exemplary performances by star Tatiana Maslany and the rest of the cast, beyond the top-notch production and effects that made this series so incredible to watch, we should stop and consider the real science behind the series concept.

We all know the show is built around the concept of cloned humans: In 1984, an private organization used in-vitro fertilization on a number of women to have them bear cloned boys and girls.  The clones were then monitored through their lives, many of them secretly monitored as they lived normal lives, to see how they would develop.  Sarah Manning is a clone who was spirited out of the system by an underground group as a child, and doesn’t know about her clone status until adulthood when she sees one of her clone sisters, just before the clone kills herself.  Sarah slowly learns more about her clone identity when she encounters more clone sisters, and later brothers, and the conspiracy surrounding them.

The greatest aspect about Orphan Black‘s backstory is that none of this is theoretically impossible; The first successful birth of a child after IVF treatment, Louise Brown, occurred in 1978 (from Wikipedia), and experiments in artificial cloning of organisms has been going on since the 1920s.  Further verisimilitude is provided by the fact that the clones are not all perfect: Many of them have a genetic disorder that, so far, has proven fatal to all who carry it.  Also, the cloned girls are all supposed to be sterile, yet Sarah has given birth to a natural child.  And at least one cloned sister was born transgender.

[image error]But most obvious about the series is its essential premise: The conflict between nature and nurture, whether your life and personality is governed more by your genetics or by your environment.  So far the series has sided with most reputable science, and has mostly shown us that when it comes to clones, nurture triumphs over nature.  Throughout the series we are presented with Sarah’s clones, and each of them (and, as is suggested by the series, the many more Sarah never meets) are all very different people, directly as a result of how or where they were raised.  Where Sarah is mostly a con artist, her sister Cosima is a brilliant biologist, sister Alison is a suburbanite with adopted children, Beth (the suicide) was a crack police officer, Helena is a trained assassin, Krystal is a slightly-dim beautician, Rachel is a no-nonsense businesswoman, etc.  The cloned boys showed similar differences, though most of them were raised inside a military organization.

The series has also shown that individual human nature asserts itself eventually; for nothing about Sarah’s upbringing by a loving and no-nonsense foster mom would have driven Sarah to becoming a con artist… Sarah’s own choices did that.  The show suggests that the clones who were raised outside of the system took various turns based on their own decisions, as well as upbringing… a clear indication of nurture over nature.

[image error]Tatiana Maslany dancing with Tatiana Maslany, Tatiana Maslany, Tatiana Maslany and Jordan Gavaris. They even dance differently!

When you get past the decades-long conspiracies, the 1984-style surveillance, the secret corporate and government programs, the illegal medical experiments and the colorful characters, you get a TV show that believes in science and its very real potential to society and the world.  The characters are also what science would have you believe: Individuals with their own unique reactions to the evidence that they were not born like others, but created in a lab and monitored like mice in a cage.  And most heartening is the fact that most of the clones are, by and large, able to overcome that dark past and live their own lives.  Like Pinocchio, they may have been born as puppets… but ultimately, no one holds their strings.

Deploy the drones!

Over the years that NASA’s had to struggle with grand exploration and science missions and minuscule budgets, they have found a way to satisfy those missions by developing compact, flexible and ingenious robotic probes and satellites.  Those robots are, as we speak, studying the surface of Mars, providing (permanent and temporary) data on many of the planets and moons of our solar system, and helping us to understand the Environment outside of Oasis Earth.

[image error]Today, many people want to expand on those missions and put humans on other planets and moons.  Though it’s a grand enough mission, it’s not time to retire the robots yet.  Before we actually send humans back to the Moon, to Mars or any other place in space, we should be giving our robots one more mission: To build the habitats we’ll be living inside of on those planets and moons.

It’s one thing to reach a planet or moon… it’s another to stay there, long-term or indefinitely.  We learned a lot during the Apollo missions to the Moon; but in every case, we returned after a few days.  There was no time to build a long-term habitat on the Moon, for we had to bring our supplies with us, and all that processing and construction equipment, plus the required life support capacity to allow our astronauts to run them for weeks, months or years, just wasn’t available to us.

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Today organizations are studying the possibility of human astronauts arriving at a destination, then building their habitats for long-term occupancy.  That’s a lot like asking a group of condo dwellers with varying skills to build their own condos, while living in them. (Or maybe in flimsy tents next to the construction site.)  But if those non-builders have a serious problem, they may be stuck there with it… if it’s serious, it may even kill them before they can evacuate, and they may not have adequate facilities to evacuate to.  It makes much more sense to have those condos built by specialized professionals and certified safe for occupancy by the condo dwellers before they move in.

Today, we have the capacity to start flying robotic drones to the Moon… drones that could start working semi-autonomously on the task of preparing sites, processing ores, and assembling construction materials flown up from Earth.  We have learned enough about robotics to be able to develop drones that can do the work on their own, with little human guidance; a necessary trait, when said guidance is so far away that humans on this planet can’t monitor things instantaneously on other planets, and so cannot control the drones “by wire.”

[image error]Some of these drones would resemble many of today’s construction machines, redesigned to function in different gravities, less (or no) atmosphere and differing terrains.  Some drones would be tasked with doing the more delicate work that humans usually do, and so would be more refined and exacting in their tasks… they would not look like humanoid robots, as TV and movies might have us believe, but they would be as capable as a human in doing finer work.  Some of the drones would be sophisticated 3-D printers, creating more complex products to use in construction, to minimize the amount of sophisticated products that need to be flown up from Earth.

[image error]These drones will be able to work without breaks, and won’t need to worry about the limits of human operators, such as exposure to hazardous environments, radiation, varying levels of gravity, access to food, water and other life support elements.  If they do break down, other drones can repair them and get them back to work.  In this way, they’ll be able to quickly complete a move-in-ready habitat that does provide protection and life support for astronauts, as soon as they arrive.

So, as we prepare for future manned missions off Earth, we should:

Use our existing and future probes to study everything they can about those planets and moons—not just basic science, but data needed to derive engineering requirements for autonomous construction.
Design the habitats that will be needed, so engineers can design and build the drones required to build those habitats.
Send the drones to their destination, doing most of their work autonomously.  Humans supervise their build from Earth to make sure they are all performing properly.  The drones can test the finished habitats to make sure they are ready… if needed, additional drones can be sent if the existing drones can’t fix any problems that come up.
When the habitat is certified inhabitable and safe, the humans follow.  Some construction drones will be repurposed, or set to the task of building new habitats.  Others will remain to maintain the first habitat.  If some unforeseen problem arises, making the habitat uninhabitable, at least no humans were lost in the process.

This will ensure the safest possible process of setting up habitation off Earth, and making sure human explorers have turn-key habitats when they arrive.

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If we first test this process on the Moon, where we will be much closer to the habitat to monitor and test its veracity, then we can take what we learn and move on to a habitat on Mars.  We can use robots to build structures in Earth orbit, or at Earth’s Lagrange points.  As we refine our techniques, we can move to other planets and moons, or out to the asteroid belt, or even prepare ships for long-range travel to other stars.

Our robots are the perfect trailblazers to start the process of moving off-Earth and establishing new temporary or permanent homes for humanity: They can work more efficiently, in more hazardous environments, thereby providing added protection and safety for the humans that will follow.  If we’re going to pursue an off-Earth agenda, we should be smart about it, and send out the robots first.

No, we don’t need DNA alteration to explore the stars

[image error]I suppose you can blame movies like Gattaca and Jurassic Park, technological advances with CRISPR and the fervent hopes of the entire medical industry on the fact that we’ve lately been seeing a lot of papers and articles from reputed and not-so-reputed authorities, claiming that the only way Mankind will be able to leave earth and explore the stars will be in genetically-augmented bodies.  It’s become de rigueur to assume we’ll soon be able to alter our physiologies the way we change suits, and go walking hand in hand on the surface of Mars in shorts and flip-flops.

A recent paper by cognitive scientist Konrad Szocik, from the University of Information Technology and Management in Poland, suggests that these genetic augmentations will be required for humans to live on other planets like Mars, where the environment is hazardous to us (for at least as long as it takes for us to learn how to terraform other planets).

But the idea of creating genetically-specialized humans is wrong-headed.  It not only ignores centuries of unfortunate human behavior, it ignores the single greatest accomplishment by Man to make sure we don’t need specialized bodies to survive in harsh conditions.

[image error]First, let’s think about man’s predilection towards dividing each other into “us” and “them” along absolutely any physical or social differences they can think of.  Genetically altering humans to satisfy a new climate will mean a new type of human… one more group, minority, class, other guys, another division to fight over.  Mankind really doesn’t need another one of those.  It makes infinitely more sense to find a way to make sure anyone can go to another planet, while avoiding new classes of people.

It also makes more sense to make sure people stay the same, so they won’t be altered and thereby handed a life sentence on their new planet, moon or space environment.  Shows like The Expanse present us with people who are so acclimated to living in the asteroid belt, for instance, that their bodies can’t stand exposure to Earth’s gravity well and microbial biosphere.  This only serves to divide populations between Earth, Mars and the Belt, sowing rifts between them.  Given our historical reactions to Others, creating more reasons to divide humans is ridiculous… and in this case, totally unnecessary.

And that’s where Mankind’s greatest accomplishment comes in.  Thousands of years ago, Man found a way to accomplish great things.  Those accomplishments were all the more special because they could be accomplished by many people, regardless of their physical differences.  Those accomplishments could be repeated, on that day or years later, because the knowledge of the accomplishment could be passed down to others and taken to other regions.  It could be applied to one person or many, regardless of genetic, social or physical differences.  It’s the single thing that sets humans apart from all other animals.

It’s called Engineering.  And the same engineering that has allowed Mankind to live in any environment on Earth is capable of creating structures that will allow Mankind to live on another planet, or in the Environments outside of Oasis Earth.

[image error]It might help by going over what feats needs to be accomplished, and what has already been accomplished.  We’ve already demonstrated a limited ability to live in orbit, and on the Moon, for instance.  Creating airtight environments turned out to be easy, but engineers are still working on methods to maintain a healthy combination of other insects, microbes and bacteria in that sealed environment.  We continue to experiment and refine this, in studies on the ISS and in surface experiments, such as in the Biosphere2 experiments.  It’s a difficult task, but we have made some progress, and no one believes it’s insurmountable.  Creating stable but controllable biospheres may turn out to be our most vital future accomplishment.

[image error]Gravity has been tricky, as well.  So far, we’ve accepted whatever local gravity there was (if any), and dealt with it; but we know that human bodies don’t function at their best when subjected to long periods at less than 1 standard (Earth) gravity.  Fortunately, we also know how to create an artificial gravity using centripetal force.  Soon we should be testing this concept in orbit or open space, where a rotating drum could provide a fraction of or full level of gravity for the occupants—remember the spaceship Discovery in 2001: A Space Odyssey (right)?  Then, in environments that already have a fraction of a terrestrial gravity, we can augment that with a carousel construction that combines gravity with centrifugal force to simulate a 1-gee environment (more on the carousel system is provided in the post, A solution for long-term living on low-gravity planets).  Alternatively, as one Facebook poster pointed out to me, inhabitants could simply wear clothing with weights sewn into it to bring their local weight up to their full weight on Earth.  We can bring any place that has less than a terrestrial gravity to a full 1-gee when we’re ready to do so.

Radiation is also a major concern off-Earth, as we’ve been bred in an environment that shields most of that radiation from us.  In space, or on planets devoid of that natural radiation shielding, we’ll need to protect ourselves.  Geneticists suggest re-engineering our DNA to better rebuild itself after radiation damage, but organisms cannot fight the most severe radiation, and there’s nothing wrong with providing better shielding to prevent humans’ being damaged in the first place.

[image error]Engineers already know that simple water is a great radiation blocker, and spaceship designs that take advantage of a layer of water in the outer hull have been proposed.  Engineers are also discovering new properties about existing elements, and new compound elements, many based on adding forms of carbon fullerenes to existing compounds to create new and better properties.  So incredible is the potential of new elements engineers could come up with, that they’ve recently created an element, “transparent aluminum,” something that was used as a throwaway gag in a Star Trek movie, but is actually clear and strong as armor plate!  There may be ways to take advantage of the microgravity and hard vacuum of space to manufacture new compounds with incredible new properties, providing us new materials to use in orbital or planetary habitats much more efficient than what we have now.  It should be only a matter of time before engineers can provide a lightweight but robust radiation shielding for spacecraft, habitats, and even space suits, removing the need for genetic manipulation for radiation protection.

[image error]We’ve learned a lot about robotics and remote operation, thanks to our various robotic probes on Mars.  We’re also learning a lot about robotic construction equipment here on Earth.  Soon we’ll be able to combine them and send robots ahead of us, to actually build our future structures in space and on other planets and moons, test them and certify them ready for human habitation, before humans have even left Earth.  Presently we need to improve our robots’ independence and cognitive skills, so they can do the work, deal with any construction-related problems on their own and avoid wasting time waiting on remote human operators to diagnose every problem and tell them what to do.

We should be making solid plans to do that right now: Deciding on what we will need to shelter us (based on studies carried on by robot probes, as we are doing right now); designing the habitats, then designing the robots that will build those habitats (and repair each other as needed); and sending them into orbit, out to the Moon or Mars, and wherever else we want to go.  In fact, those robots should be able to provide enough of our maintenance and repair needs after the habitats are constructed to limit the number of people we need to send into space for production, manufacturing and repair jobs in exposed and hazardous areas, keeping more people safe.

Finally, many people (including Szocik) worry that living in sealed life support environments all of the time will turn out to be an experience humans cannot handle.  But considering the extreme environments that humans have learned to live on for extended periods—including the harsh regions of the Arctic… Antarctica, about as extreme as life on Earth gets… in submarine environments for months at a time… and on the International Space Station for as long as a year-long assignment—I can’t see that as a serious obstacle.  Scientists, psychologists and physiologists have been studying humans in sealed, cramped spaces for long periods, and are learning tricks and mental disciplines to help people deal with the isolation and sealed spaces.  (And remember: Those people won’t be totally isolated; they’ll be part of a team of people, doing their part of a shared job, having companionship.  That’s a big difference from being totally alone.)

We’ve accomplished a lot through engineering.  We’ll accomplish a lot more in the future.  Those accomplishments will allow any man or woman to visit space, spend time on mars or the Moon or some other planet or moon in the solar system.  And best of all, it will allow them to return to earth if they want to… or visit some other planet or moon… and still be the same human being when they return.  There’s no need to tailor someone’s physiology to one planet, thereby guaranteeing they will never be able to leave it.  Engineering will get us to the stars… and assure us we can always come back if we want to.