A Celebration Society

Category: Book

Blog posts about the book, A Celebration Society

  • Cassandras and What to Do About Them

    Cassandras and What to Do About Them

    In their recent book Warnings, former US national security advisors Richard Clarke and R.P. Reddy take an evidence-based approach to identifying persons they call Cassandras. Cassandras are credible forecasters, with solid track records in their fields, who warn of coming existential threats, based on irrefutable data. The book combines case histories of previous Cassandras who were ignored, and current Cassandra scenarios.

    A Celebration Society treats many such threats as real and needful of action. Clarke and Reddy argue that governments should spend many additional billions of dollars addressing these threats. However, in today’s world, their proposal may prove sadly unrealistic. If so, what’s to be done?

    Fortunately, in at least some cases, the threats can be reframed from cost sinks to profit centers. There is perhaps no better example than that of climatologist James Hansen. Hansen was the original cassandra who warned us of climate change when most were oblivious to the threat. His warnings have generally proven accurate.

    Now, Hansen is warning us that present forecasts of 21st century sea level rise are far too conservative. His models show an estimated 5+ meter sea level rise, which would devastate low-lying nations. Considering that even among other nations, most population and industrial centers are coastal, this is truly a threat of global proportions.

    The widely hailed Paris Accords have a huge flaw. They lack an enforcement mechanism. Given the budgetary pressures under which nearly all governments operate, it is unlikely that they will spend the money necessary to avert Hansen’s dire forecast, until the threat is literally lapping at their shores.

    By then it may be too late. The cost of curing the problem will be far higher than that of preventing it. Is there another way; one that makes mitigation possible without having unrealistic expectations of governments?

    Yes! We can turn CO2 mitigation from a cost sinkhole into a profit center. We only need one viable way to do so, and then it can proliferate until CO2 levels actually start to fall.

    One such approach is called “Diamonds from the Sky” (or DFTS). According to the American Chemical Society (See: http://bit.ly/2uiVCAw, the process can be deployed worldwide. Says lead researcher Prof. Stuart Licht of George Washington University, ““We calculate that with a physical area less than 10 percent the size of the Sahara Desert, our process could remove enough CO2 to decrease atmospheric levels to those of the pre-industrial revolution within 10 years”.

    To my knowledge, no one has disputed the technical viability of DFTS. Some environmentalists have criticized its “moral hazard”. In their view, by suggesting that a technological fix is possible, we grant license to polluters to continue their ways. I consider such criticism foolish.

    The CO2 problem is getting worse, not better. Decades of cajoling governments, industry, and the public have failed to stop the rise. When the building is on fire, people should do whatever is necessary to put out the fire. Later, there will be time to explore better safety standards.

    Unlike large-scale “geoengineering solutions” such as seeding the oceans with iron particles, this solution carries no side effects except the proliferation of small collector units and increased supplies of carbon fibers. If atmospheric CO2 levels ever drop too precipitously (imagine that!), these units can be dialed down, as required.
    While the researchers speak of covering 1/10 of the Sahara Desert in these collectors, that’s probably not the practical way to implement this. Instead, imagine a successor to the Paris Accords, in which each nation agrees to use DFTS or equivalent technology to fulfill its treaty promises. Units could be deployed on rooftops, the sides of buildings, and alongside roads. Again, these would be profit centers. Many new jobs would be created for fiber collectors, at least until it is automated.

    Carbon-based fuels will stop being burned when the economics no longer justify their burning. That is already starting to happen. (See: “Oil Can’t Compete With Renewables, Says National Bank of Abu Dhabi” http://bit.ly/2sBMh4X)

    DFTS offers a promising and potentially viable way to arrest the damage before countless additional species go extinct. As the world shifts from its present scarcity-based mindset and practices to sustainable abundance, most of the scarcity-based problems will disappear. This should take decades, not centuries. Those who think otherwise fail to appreciate the exponential rate of change now governing almost everything of note on the planet.

    Clarke and Reddy have ingeniously started a $10,000 annual prize to identify Cassandras and create awareness of their envisioned threats. That’s half the challenge. The other half is to identify viable technologies to address those threats. This is a key part of A Celebration Society. The book documents existing solutions to multiple seemingly intractable problems.

  • What’s wrong with a Celebration Society?

    What’s wrong with a Celebration Society?

    In this world, however much we might wish it otherwise, there is no perfection to be found. Every beautiful thing has its limitations or deficiencies. Even mathematics has Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems.

    So, too, must a Celebration Society be imperfect. This is not to say that I regard it as falling short of being utopian, for I actually regard utopian societies as being inferior to a Celebration Society. I have explained in another blog entry why I regard utopian thought as misguided, and why a Celebration Society should never be viewed as utopian. That said, there are further problems that people have identified.

    While some critics say that the technology that comprises the Three Pillars of Abundance is insufficiently mature to be reliable, I do not agree with this assessment. Yes, some of the technologies in the book are decidedly speculative or poorly developed. Nevertheless, as stated in the book, we need only one technology for producing abundant matter; another for abundant energy; and a third for abundant organizing intelligence. Those three already exist, in sufficient maturity to be reliable–given aggressive development–in the next decade or two. No serious research questions about them remain. All of the other technologies that might comprise the three pillars should be viewed as backups.

    However, there are two other concerns that have been mentioned and that are not so easily refuted. The lesser of these is the argument that there will remain certain kinds of goods and services that remain scarce even in a context of overwhelming abundance, causing jealousy and other problems. I have written about this here:

    The greater concern is the discrepancy between the potential rollout of Celebration Societies and the likely arrival of technological unemployment. Researchers at Oxford, B of A, Brookings and Nomura have all projected 40%+ levels of job displacement in advanced countries within 10 – 20 years, with up to 85% losses in poorer countries.

    Even with exponential expansion thanks to “pay it forward” cultures, there is no way that we will have sufficient numbers of Celebration Societies up and running in time to deal with such catastrophic changes. My only response is that, if we have a single such society thriving somewhere on Earth by the mid-2020s, then existing governments will likely seek ways to retrofit themselves based on principles of sustainable abundance, out of desperation if nothing else.

    However, that result is by no means assured, and I would be the first to admit that I have no idea how to effect such retrofits given the gridlock that’s plain to see in America and elsewhere. (Indeed, this is precisely why I have proposed Dogun as a first such society, to be created on relatively uninhabited land: no retrofitting is required.)

    Other and better minds than my own will be needed to address such questions, and any further problems with a Celebration Society yet to be uncovered. All that I know is that when people are sufficiently motivated, and the means to fundamentally reshape existing societies exist and have been proven to be physically viable, then such change will be possible.

    Whether it will happen without catastrophic social disruption is another question entirely. But at least we have the chance of averting such catastrophes if we act now to prepare for humanity at least one bright beacon of evidence-based hope.

  • The Mortality Option (Updated)

    The Mortality Option (Updated)

    I usually won’t make blogs out of updates to the book, preferring to save them in a folder for the second edition. However, today I have decided to make an exception. The reason is a development that affects every one of us, and makes it more prudent for each living person to plan for the possibility of a much longer life than what conventional medicine and officials are telling us.

    I called the relevant section of the book The Mortality Option because, in my view, we humans will soon achieve sufficient control of aging and accidents to eliminate all non-volitional death. That is, of course, one of the most transformative ideas imaginable for society and it may be coming sooner than I had anticipated.

    Two major developments are worth noting. One is a major new study; the other is a major new discovery. The US FDA has for the first time ever approved a major study of a treatment intended to extend healthy life span. This is important for at least two reasons. FDA has never before recognized that the decay processes called aging can be delayed or even reversed. Recognizing those facts was a necessary first step to acknowledging that aging can be treated and managed as a disease.

    Should the study have significant positive results without negative side effects, it will revolutionize views of aging the world over. The reason is that the US FDA basically serves as the world medical community’s primary evaluator of medical treatments (even though its process is often politically compromised, as discussed in the book).

    It is highly likely that the study will have positive results without serious side effects. It is a study of Metformin, an Rx drug that could just as well be classified as a dietary supplement, being an extract of the French lilac. Metformin is routinely prescribed for people with Type 2 diabetic symptoms. It only appears to have dangerous side effects for certain very elderly people (ironically).

    According to Life Extension Foundation, the basis for the FDA study is that Metformin “increases the number of oxygen molecules released into a cell, which appears to boost robustness and longevity.”

    “(Those who proposed the study) hope is that a wide variety of age-related problems, loss of muscle tone, dizziness, falls, dementia, loss of eyesight, all of those things [sic]. That would be something never done before. If you really are doing something to alter aging, the population of interest is everybody. It surely would be revolutionary if they can bring it off.”

    Said Dr. Robert Temple, deputy director at the FDA:

    “You’re talking about developing a therapy for a biological phenomenon which is universal and gives rise to all of these diseases. And if you’ve got a therapy for this thing, these diseases just go away.”

    NOTE: While one could replicate the anti-aging study on a personal basis by taking 1,000 mg. of Metformin daily, I am NOT recommending this as a course of action. I am not a doctor, and I am not giving you medical advice. It is risky for some people. You should only do this under competent medical advice.

    The second major development is a stem cell breakthrough that may—if corroborated through further tests—make all types of damage and decay to all types of human tissues repairable. (Obviously, brain damage would mean irreparable loss of personhood, at least until and unless download is possible.)

    According to a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (one of the most prestigious journals):

    “A stem cell therapy system capable of regenerating any human tissue damaged by injury, disease, or aging could be available within a few years, say University of New South Wales (UNSW Australia) researchers.

    Their new repair system*, similar to the method used by salamanders to regenerate limbs, could be used to repair everything from spinal discs to bone fractures, and could transform current treatment approaches to regenerative medicine. …

    “This technique is a significant advance on many of the current unproven stem cell therapies, which have shown little or no objective evidence they contribute directly to new tissue formation,” Pimanda said. “We have taken bone and fat cells, switched off their memory and converted them into stem cells so they can repair different cell types once they are put back inside the body.”

    “We are currently assessing whether adult human fat cells reprogrammed into iMS cells can safely repair damaged tissue in mice, with human trials expected to begin in late 2017.”

    (source: http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-stem-cell-repair-system-that-can-regenerate-any-kind-of-human-tissue)

  • What Will the World be like in 2053?

    What Will the World be like in 2053?

    (Note: this was originally posted as an invited answer on Quora. However, by writing this I extended my previous thinking in some new ways, so I thought it should also appear here.)

    I’ll turn 100 in that year, so I’m pleased you chose it.

    As I see it, assuming we avoid scenarios in which civilization implodes, we will have a world of universal material abundance. Further, this abundance will be much less physically expressed than in our time because of the universal availability of fully immersive, zero latency VR.

    I expect tomorrow’s VR to be marketed as “Better than Real”. Sight will be at 8K visual levels or better, sound will be full surround, and touch will be as if one were there. All manner of future, past, alternate universe/SF, and even fantasy scenarios will be available, with the option to play any character in the narrative or to invent and insert one’s own character. I imagine that groups of friends will have an endless hobby of joining VR simulations and playing in them together. (Some, the Simulation Theorists, might argue that’s what we’re doing right now.)

    I expect such gaming to be the primary form of recreation circa 2053, Concerns about physical inactivity can be addressed in multiple ways: (1) the VR experience can be designed to include real movement of one’s physical body, (2) biological and nanotech means will likely exist to give the benefits of exercise to one’s body. (There is already genetic treatment that produces massive muscles in mammals. Researchers create “mighty mouse” with gene tweak that doubles muscle strength GHB, used in Europe to treat depression, insomnia and as an aid to childbirth, strongly stimulates growth hormone release.), (3) people can actually spend some time in “real” reality (which I hope we can make so enticing and delightful that this will be a pleasure, and not a duty. If they do so, technologies such as PACE exercise (for aerobic capacity) and the PowerPlate (for muscle strength, flexibility and balance) will allow people to stay fit with little time invested.

    That said, there are basically two ways this abundance can be manifested. Either a small, elite group of owners will enjoy abundance like the space colony dwellers in Elysium and the Tomorrowland residents, with the rest of the people warehoused (still with VR, though), or everyone will enjoy that kind of abundance. I have made a specific proposal for how we can assure the latter outcome.

    Exponential acceleration of technology notwithstanding, I do expect human inertia and irrationality to delay adoption of the above technologies in various parts of the world. However, given the tremendous benefits to those desiring entertainment, education, and tourism, I fully expect an effective black market to develop for VR software that doesn’t comport with the moral codes that will seek to regulate it. (Even though no real people or animals are harmed!)

  • The Importance of Enrollment

    The Importance of Enrollment

    Many think that recruiting people to a vision or cause is a sales process. It isn’t. In this blog, I’ll distinguish sales from something that looks similar but yields different results. That something is enrollment.

    At least two organizations I am familiar with have used enrollment to attract over ½ million people to their programs. Those organizations are Landmark Education and PSI Seminars. In both cases, there is no advertising. Instead, people are approached by friends and colleagues who sincerely believe that the programs will benefit participants. This is a 100% volunteer effort, with structured support to assure that people are skilled at it. The same is generally true of religions, when they aren’t coercing people to join.

    Every time you participate in an internet meme, you’re in an enrollment conversation – first being enrolled by a friend, then enrolling your friends. Memes (infectious ideas) spread virally over the internet. Research shows that such ideas are most likely to spread if:

    • There is a benefit to the person who is spreading the meme
    • The message includes not only benefits but also a minor negative (this adds credibility)
    • The message is easy to understand
    • The message is new
    • There is a clear enrollment action.

    E-mail stands as an outstanding example of enrollment which has now saturated the planet; largely from viral sharing. People enrolled those they already had relationships with because they perceived that it would benefit both of them.

    We need to enroll people and ideally go viral if Celebrationism is to become more than an interesting idea. I have a few ideas in this regard that we can explore together, and welcome yours as well.

    One that I’ve already started: people who don’t have money to buy the book can join the Society (it’s free), write me and I’ll send them a free PDF copy. In return, they promise to read the book and, if they agree with the message, to enroll two other people into joining the Society. That’s a no-lose proposition that makes it easy for them to say yes. When they say yes, they’ve been enrolled into reading the book.

    To better understand enrollment, first consider sales/recruitment. In sales, the seller has something that they want the buyer to acquire. The seller expects to personally benefit from the transaction. At its highest, the seller sincerely believes that the transaction will benefit the buyer. However, in other cases the seller manipulates the buyer, heedless of whether she or he will benefit.

    Sales is, ultimately, a transaction. While many companies now spout the mantra “customers for life”, in reality the more expensive the item is, the more incentive the seller has to view the transaction as a short-term affair.

    Enrollment is not a transaction. It is a process of sharing something that the enroller believes can benefit the enrollee, period. No immediate personal gain is expected from enrollment—though a larger, dearly held vision or purpose may be served. At its most powerful, enrollment is a life-changing conversation that wins allies for change.

    Enrollment starts with the clear understanding that you have some activity, purchase, or vision that you wish to share with a particular person or persons. It then consists of an authentic inquiry into two questions:

    1. What does this person(s) deeply want?
    2. If this person(s) were to become enrolled, would that help them to realize what they deeply want?

    In the enrollment conversation, you are sharing yourself, but selectively. Only offer information about yourself when it creates empathy with the other person. (Good sales people also do this. They say, “My daughter is also in college.” They don’t say, “I think that [hobby of yours] is stupid.”) Ideally, you are vulnerable, willing to be wrong, and willing to admit what you don’t know.

    A friend of mine once said: people buy what they want and need from those whom they like and trust. Since we’re basically social creatures, we want connection. Like and trust come to those who keep their word, who take a sincere interest in the other person’s concerns, and who listen closely.

    As an enroller for a Celebration Society, I encourage you to stay focused on the question: can my vision of what I want to see happen in the world be aligned with the deep wants of the person I’m talking with, so each supports the other?

    There is nothing selfish on your side in the enrollment conversation. There is no hidden agenda; when the person asks questions you either answer forthrightly or tell them that you can’t or don’t feel comfortable answering. (For example, when people ask me about matters of religion, I respond that I don’t care what religion a person professes, nor do I much care what other words they say about their values. I care very much about their actions, because that’s where the truth shows up. I don’t get into my particular beliefs, because that’s unlikely to draw us closer and may needlessly drive us apart.)

    A conversation is an agreement; it is never harassment. Never push a point of view nor allow yourself to be harassed. Even if you believe that a Celebration Society could offer this person their dearest desires, they may not see it that way. Respect that. (A person who feels respected is more likely to respect you and your beliefs.)

    Another saying is, a person persuaded against their will is of the same opinion still. (Or: we decide based on emotion and justify our decisions with logic.) Research is finding that people ignore logic and facts contrary to what they want to be true. So, the only way to persuade a person and have it endure is to show them how the change you are proposing gives them what they WANT more than does the status quo.

    While a Celebration Society offers far more to humanity than a solution to technological unemployment, I have framed it that way because this is an issue of concern to most people. They WANT assurance that they will have an adequate income to meet their needs.

    It doesn’t matter why a person becomes a Celebrationist; only that they do so for reasons that matter deeply to them. Technological unemployment is a hook. While it’s a real and pressing problem, I’ll gladly discuss something else if that matters more to the person I’m enrolling. I’m always looking to see how a Celebration Society can serve them.

    An enrollment conversation concludes with one of the following results:

    (1) You perceive no likelihood that there will be a meeting of wants or visions, and you politely end the conversation or change the subject, or

    (2) You perceive a match, and share with them why you perceive this. You invite their response and, if you are correct, suggest a course of action they can take or you can take together. (Note: In all cases an enrollment conversation should end pleasantly. If not, you have shifted into a different kind of conversation.)

    I have enrolled people into all sorts of things. Probably, so have you. There’s nothing I can imagine that’s more exciting or important than enrolling people into this vision! I hope you feel the same way.

  • Why Is This Book Different?

    Why Is This Book Different?

    This book offers a genuinely new solution to technological unemployment

    More articles and books about the looming crisis are appearing all the time. Many offer clear explanations of the threat and why it is so serious. Where they fall short is in providing a solution that can actually work. Their solutions for first-world nations always seem to be:

    1. Have faith that new types of jobs will rapidly proliferate, preventing mass unemployment
    2. Institute retraining programs for all displaced workers
    3. Provide a guaranteed income for all

    As discussed in A Celebration Society, while potentially helpful, each of these solutions is inadequate to the need of the time.

    New types of jobs will almost certainly proliferate for a while longer. However, there is no certainty of this continuing indefinitely merely because it has been so for centuries. As AI/robot/sensor systems acquire ever more human-equivalent capabilities, employers will continually evaluate the overall cost/benefit ratio of hiring a person vs. a machine. The more that analysis favors the machine, the fewer people will be hired and the more will be fired. Machines are the ultimate form of outsourcing.

    Machines do not require vacations, social security, healthcare or much management. They have little downtime, and do not complain. Already, as discussed in the book, many jobs and professions are being rapidly automated and those who believe that any particular type of work is immune are placing their faith in a “line in the sand” that could suddenly be erased as machine capabilities rapidly rise. This has already happened, and is happening more and more rapidly. Investment management, law, medicine and so-called “new economy” jobs are now being automated.

    Retraining programs require that someone who is making money pay for them. Major corporations have shown great skill at offshoring their taxable activities, and this becomes easier as their assets become more intellectual than physical. In Western nations, small businesses and their employees are already heavily taxed. The greater the percentage of the population that is technologically unemployed, the greater must be the taxes on the employed or their employers to support those unemployed people. At some point, this will break down—and the consequences may be ugly and socially disruptive.

    Also, retraining presumes that people can keep their new jobs for years. Otherwise, they will not invest the resources of time, effort and possibly money that are required—nor should anyone else. However, when an AI/robot/sensor system learns to do something at a human-equivalent competency, other such systems can be quickly programmed with the same competency. The recent development of machine systems that can learn by watching people work, or by simply studying the rules of a system, means that the delay between emergence of a new profession and its automation will continue to shrink.

    Importantly, it is not necessary that automation replace all aspects of a profession, which is unrealistic in the short term. It need only carve out more and more pieces of a profession, each time displacing people who will then seek the remaining jobs in that profession, driving wages down and unemployment up. (This effect will cascade to other professions and jobs as well, as displaced people seek to switch to new types of work.)

    A guaranteed income for all has been proposed by economists across the political spectrum. Like retraining programs, it requires someone to pay the bill. While some have proposed instituting a special tax that captures the savings from automation and using that, this presumes that such savings can be consistently measured and that clever tax specialists won’t be able to find loopholes. It also presumes that the targeted companies won’t simply relocate to tax-friendlier countries, and that companies that do pay the new tax won’t be undercut by foreign competitors who have no such tax to pay.

    If the bill is instead paid by raising existing taxes, it will give major corporations even more incentive to offshore their taxable activities than they already have. So-called “inversions” will accelerate. Keep in mind that every attempt to close loopholes in the byzantine tax systems of first-world nations only results in greater lobbying efforts and new creative solutions from tax specialists. It is a war where the wealthy and the corporations they control have far better resources than the governments seeking to tax them. While some are proposing a worldwide tax treaty to prevent such offshoring, there only need be a handful of non-participating governments to make the treaty ineffective, and the more countries that sign such a treaty, the greater the economic advantage for the remaining nations not to sign it.

    Second and third-world nations typically have no social safety nets. They will not suddenly jump from no safety nets to universal training and a guaranteed minimum wage. In many cases, even if the governments see retraining or a guaranteed minimum wage as good ideas, they will have entrenched cultural resistance, bribery and other barriers preventing rapid adoption. So, even if the above “solutions” are somewhat workable for first-world nations, they offer no help to most of humanity.

    Something truly new is needed. A Celebration Society offers such a system.