Author: Art Skolnik
       
   
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Where is humanity headed?Are we creating our successors? Do we understand how quickly technology is modifying our lives and doing the things we did ourselves, with no end in sight?
Should we slow down, halt or just embrace this phenomena as being a product of our creativity, flexibility, adaptability knowing that there is no accountability, ethics or willingness to understand where this will end up? This progressive movement could ultimately replace us and end the biological human era of intelligence evolution, to be replaced by a non-biological technological population? I am concerned and fearful!!! For the past 10 years, I have been educating myself as to what's happening, what's about to happen and finally, what can be done to better understand what choices we have in directing our future. I have taken to promoting this topic in lectures, discussion groups, and individual chats in the hope of raising awareness.This blog is an attempt to expand those actions. I named my blog "Exponential Governing" because it most directly addresses the accelerating rate of change with which we are to adjust our lives, and the need for Government, whose responsibility it is to protect our Health, Safety and Welfare, to take immediate action to help us fend off these major private sector advances, which are perpetuating this seemingly unstoppable evolution of dehumanizing technological innovations.... pitting Technology against Humanity. Please feel free to review the information I have gathered daily and comment on anything you feel is appropriate to this subject. I may respond if it is within my scope of knowledge. Every day, I read or skim over 150 publications on pertinent and related topics. I select articles that do not promote a single business, corporation or product which represent a certain bias. I concentrate on topics that impartially illustrate current trends in areas of science, democratic thinking, and evidence of leadership or creativity that address humanity and technology in our near future. I also have a wide angle view of topics that contribute to understanding how we got to where we are. From my readings, I look to prehistoric and historic events from the Big Bang to today's conditions. I have also become knowledgeable of the NEAR FUTURE which I define as the time we can accurately see the future and impacts on humanity. With exponential change, one can only project accurately so far out. This kind of peripheral vision is definitely required to fully appreciate the content of this Blog. If you read the articles I have presented, you too will develop a peripheral view of our past, present and near future. And if you are committed to continue on this path, I would really like you to get in touch with me so we can have an ongoing dialog about anything and everything covered in this blog. I am willing to consider personal interactions, lectures and discussion groups on an individual or group basis. Just post a comment that requests my interaction and I will respond. Thank you for being part of this discussion. This blog is run as my own non-profit service. I try to distribute the knowledge contained within to anyone who has an interest in spreading my concern about our NEAR FUTURE. My reading list is full of books that I have read and recommend them to anyone who is in pursuit of knowledge that addresses my focused topics. I do not receive any compensation for putting these books on my list. Lastly, please feel free to pass this Blog on to anyone who you believe would appreciate and benefit from it. Hopefully this referral would stimulate more discussions within your community. Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy! Arthur M. Skolnik FAIA |
About the Author |
I am an architect, urban/city planner, historic preservationist and recent near-futurist who has, for over a half a century, studied the global history of human evolution and settlement throughout the ages going back to our hunter-gather ancestors and the birth of tool-making. I have studied the various phases and plateaus in human development, along the way, leading up to our contemporary times. And, in the past 10 years, I have focused on the new and provocative phenomena popularly referred to as Exponential Change. This is in contrast to the Linear Change pattern that has been the basis of all technical evolution prior to the Agricultural Revolution through the post WWII period. Now, we have entered a unique, unprecedented and possibly short-lived period of Human History!
I am interested in expanding and sharing my knowledge and gaining other's insights into the increased understanding of our NEAR FUTURE. In particular, I am concerned with how our governments will protect our rights, freedoms, ethics, privacy, health and safety from the side effects of exponential growth in Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Climate Change/Sea Level Rise, Environmental degradation, Robotics, Nanotechnology as well as the explosion in Information Gathering and Data Storage. This is a multifaceted subject with lots of room to speculate and demonstrate the real and/or perceived impacts on the human species within this century. It is possible that the 21st century will witness the end of the Human Era or at least see the creation of our eventual successors. Already, we are seeing the displacement and reduction of work as we have known it, jobs being replaced by automation that does what we do, only better, faster and cheaper. The challenging task at hand is to try to think exponentially, to plan exponentially, and to create the required reorganizations of our governments, legislative actions and policy creation that keep up with the ever-expanding number of issues that we will need in governing ourselves, the private sector and the technological world we are and will be living in. Without this emphasis, on governing exponentially, we will fall fatally behind and be at the mercy of unchecked and inhumane decision-making by those who are promoting this technological evolution throughout the world for profit, control and power. So, let us attempt to do this together. Join me in an expanded dialog that may perhaps create real solutions and implementation strategies that help our societies turn this technological corner and greatly improve the chances of our continued existence on our planet. It is imperative that we do this NOW! The train has left the station. Get on board!, Arthur M. Skolnik FAIA |