Category Archives: Futurism

Fifty years after they flew by car into the homes of millions, The Jetsons remain in the minds of a many a nostalgic flight back to Saturday mornings on the sofa. They were The Flintstones in space, grappling with the modern family, a dynamic that never gets old because, in their case, it was 2062. So we watched those original 24 episodes on repeat for decades.

To one man, however, The Jetsons were not just a childhood diversion, but one of the most important subjects in a field of history of which he is the founding student.

From his home in Los Angeles, and via his blog, Paleofuture, Matt Novak digs up the past to find predictions for the future, chipping away to reveal visions that reflect as much about our time, hopes and fears as the eternal search for a jetpack.

"It's easy for some people to dismiss The Jetsons as just a TV show, and a lowly cartoon at that," he writes in the introduction to his ongoing series, 50 Years of The Jetsons. "But this little show has had a profound impact on the way that Americans think and talk about the future."

He goes on to call The Jetsons "one of most important pieces of futurism of the 20th century".

The animated sitcom, made by Hanna-Barbera, was one of the first ever colour TV series when it launched in September 1962. It introduced the titular family: George, whose job requires him to push a button for only a few hours a week; his gadget-loving wife, Jane, who stays at home to care for children, Judy and Elroy, their robot maid, Rosie, and Astro, a talking dog.

For Novak, who is too young at 29 to remember if he grew up watching repeats of the 1960s original, or the forgettable 1980s revival (or both), part of the show's appeal and the broader appeal of his work is assessing what predictions of a future world have and have not come to pass. We have flatscreen TVs, robot vacuum cleaners, video-conferencing, moving walkways and tanning beds. Flying cars and 10-hour working weeks? Not quite, but then we still have 50 years to achieve that utopia.

Predictions beyond technology in The Jetsons are less progressive. When George introduces Jane in the title sequence, it's while handing her dollar bills as she heads off shopping while he goes to work (she takes the whole wallet, incidentally). "There are no black people in The Jetsons," Novak adds. "It was a projection of the mid-20th century typical white family into the future. But it wasn't just The Jetsons much of the futurism I look at never challenges social norms."

This is where The Jetsons' legacy reaches beyond the gadgets it imagines (all of which, incidentally, had been imagined elsewhere). Future-gazers, be they animators, novelists or doomsayers, are driven by fear as much as hope or intrigue about the time ahead. By the early Sixties, the rise and promise of post-war consumer culture had collided with Cold War anxiety. The result was the jetpack, the symbol of what Novak calls the golden age of futurism of the mid-20th century.

The makers of The Jetsons (who were, inevitably, middle-class and white) added comedy and parody to create the reassuring yet escapist vision of an "ideal" American family changed only by technology. As Novak says of their automated world, "the largest concern of the middle class was getting 'push-button finger'."

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Back to the future: Why The Jetsons is the most influential TV show of the 20th century

Summary: The future of personal computing is one that is cloud-centric, and utilizes inexpensive, power-efficient and disposable mobile, desktop and set-top devices.

In early 2009 I wrote an article called "I've seen the future of computing: It's a screen." It was a an almost Sci-Fi sort of peice, projecting what I thought the personal computing experience might resemble ten years into the future, in 2019, based on the latest industry trends at the time. It was the second of such pieces, the first of which I wrote in 2008.

In May of 2011 I also wrote another speculative piece about what I thought personal computers would be likein the year 2019.

Late last year, I imagined another speculative and futuristic scene, portraying the shift towards ecommerce and the fall of brick and mortar retail shopping.

Futurist thought exercises such as these are always fun, but inevitably, with any sort of long-range predictions of the future, there are things which are very easy to miss and get so wrong that you fall flat on your face. Futurism never gets everything right, but sometimes it can also be dead-on and flat out uncanny in its accuracy.

Excellent examples of these complete miss and "holy crap, were they right!" type of predictions can be found in classic Sci-Fi movies like Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey(1968) and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982).

In 2001, Kubrick is way ahead of his time in his depictions of manned and commercial space travel and the colonization of the moon, as well as true artificial intelligence, things which are probably at least several decades away. Still, the technologies to accomplish such feats are definitely within our reach if the world's governments can cooperate and establish clear goals to achieve them.

But in 2001, Kubrick also shows working tablet computers as well as personal video conferencing, technologies which have only recently become more commonplace. In 1968, when the film was first released, the forerunner to the Internet, ARPANET was still being developed at the US Department of Defense, so the concept of a world wide connected computer network that was accessible to the average Joe, let alone the military or academia was not yet a part of the common Sci-Fi vernacular.

Scott's Blade Runner,like Kubrick's 2001, is also very much ahead of its time. Dystopian Futurism is one of the huge themes of the film, depicting flying cars, giant overpopulated and polluted cities with towering 100 story buildings, and genetic engineering gone out of control. 30 years after the film's release, it is still considered to be a SF masterpiece.

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Computing's low-cost, Cloud-centric future is not Science Fiction

SOME 25 art and design enthusiasts converged on the George Town World Heritage Incorporated (GTWHI) office in Lebuh Acheh, Penang, for a delightful experience learning about Modernism and the Modern Movement through Art and Design.

The session conducted by an art historian and senior lecturer from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Dr Sarena Abdullah, lasted more than an hour at the office recently.

The talk attracted locals and foreigners alike as they listened attentively on how modernism has influenced art and design.

Dr Sarena explained various significant movements such as Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism and Futurism to draw the audiences attention while some were busily jotting down notes.

Those who missed the talk can join the next session titled Malabar to Malaya through the Eyes of SK Potekkatt: The Malayalis of Malaya which will be conducted by J. Devika from the Centre for Development Studies in Kerala, India.

The talk will be held tomorrow at GTWHI office from 5.30pm. Admission is free.

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Enlightening talk on art and design

A$AP Rocky, Schoolboy Q, Danny Brown

The Egyptian Room at Old National Centre

Wednesday, October 10

The pungent smell of weed smoke and Black & Milds wafted down the stairs as I waited in line for my tickets to the LongLiveA$AP tour at the Egyptian Room at Old National Centre. It was a night of post-racial celebration and generational kinship under the guise of military imagery, odes to marijuana and good ol' fashioned hip-hop hedonism. In the words of A$AP himself "It's two thousand twelve, two thousand thirteen. Race doesn't matter. We're not black or white, but we're all purple."

I missed the bulk of opener Danny Brown's short set but luckily caught the last few songs dealing mostly with ingesting various prescription pills and smoking "blunt after blunt after blunt after blunt." Like the rest of the performers on the LongLiveA$AP tour, Brown is an artist who simply couldn't have existed in the hip-hop sphere ten years ago. He pounced around in skinny jeans and a long, slim-fitting V-neck and an asymmetrical haircut, and delivered rhymes like a strangled B-Real after raiding his grandmother's medicine cabinet -- a nasal yap hinting at a special brand of insanity. Brown seems to be a descendent in a long line of hip-hop weirdos -- Kool Keith immediately comes to mind -- and his presence set a precedent for the night i.e. it was a show that refused to fully submit to hip-hop's traditionally heteronormative values.

Schoolboy Q followed Brown and by comparison seemed ludicrously normal. He arrived on the stage in a hoodie and sunglasses, muscling through a spirited set peppered with personal anecdotes about his personal struggles and love affair with marijuana. Green smoke plumes scattered through the air during his set (and frankly, pretty much the whole night) rendering the stage's smoke machines redundant. Q is a dynamic performer though - seeming sensitive, tough and personable simultaneously. His amped set prepared the crowd for the bizarre spectacle that was A$AP Rocky.

As the interim music played on full blast, a giant banner depicting soldiers raising an upside down American flag on Iwo Jima against a beating red sun was unveiled. The DJ table was clothed in camouflage mesh and two upside down American flags flanked the stage. After a spoken-word intro complete with helicopter and gunshot sounds, A$AP arrived on the stage donned in all black and wrapped in the stars and stripes. His set was marked by hits from his debut mixtape LiveLoveA$AP, the somewhat underwhelming appearance of the A$AP Mob and a few more spoken word interludes, including an especially haunting one that paired a washed out recording of The Mamas and the Papas "California Dreaming" with graphic war sounds. It was almost a theatrical production - one that used a war aesthetic to symbolize what he called a "struggle against being misunderstood."

A$AP Rocky seems like he lives inside the pop culture zeitgeist. He's a Harlem native whose sound seems more rooted in futurism and hazy, mid-tempo Houston hip-hop than anything found in New York. He preached a post-racial message that resounded with the diverse crowd. Amidst a financial recession and global anxiety, he told the crowd that, much like him, we could do whatever we wanted to. And that night, it all seemed possible.

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Review: A$AP Rocky at the Egyptian Room at Old National Centre

Last weekend I was at the Singularity Summit for a few days. There were interesting speakers, but the reality is that quite often a talk given at a conference has been given elsewhere, and there isnt going to be much value-add in the Q & A, which is often limited and constrained. No, the point of the conference is to meet interesting people, and there were some conference goers who didnt go to any talks at all, but simply milled around the lobby, talking to whoever they chanced upon.

I spent a lot of the conference talking about genomics, and answering questions about genomics, if I thought could give a precise, accurate, and competent answer (e.g., I dodged any microbiome related questions because I dont know much about that). Perhaps more curiously, in the course of talking about personal genomics issues relating to my daughters genotype came to the fore, and I would ask if my interlocutorhad seen the lion. By the end of the conference a substantial proportion of the attendees had seen the lion.

This included a polite Estonian physicist. I spent about 20 minutes talking to him and his wife about personal genomics (since he was a physicist he grokked abstract and complex explanations rather quickly), and eventually I had to show him the lion. But during the course of the whole conference he was the only one who had a counter-response: he pulled up a photo of his 5 children! Touch! Only as I was leaving did I realize that Id been talking the ear off of Jaan Tallinn, the founder of Skype . For much of the conference Tallinn stood like an impassive Nordic sentinel, engaging in discussions with half a dozen individuals in a circle (often his wife was at his side, though she often engaged people by herself). Some extremely successful and wealthy people manifest a certain reticence, rightly suspicious that others may attempt to cultivate them for personal advantage. Tallinn seems to be immune to this syndrome. His manner and affect resemble that of a graduate student. He was there to learn, listen, and was exceedingly patient even with the sort of monomaniacal personality which dominated conference attendees (I plead guilty!).

At the conference I had a press pass, but generally I just introduced myself by name. But because of the demographic I knew that many people would know me from this weblog, and that was the case (multiple times Id talk to someone for 5 minutes, and theyd finally ask if I had a blog, nervous that theyd gone false positive). An interesting encounter was with a 22 year old young man who explained that he stumbled onto my weblog while searching for content on the singularity. This surprised me, because this is primarily a weblog devoted to genetics, and my curiosity about futurism and technological change is marginal. Nevertheless, it did make me reconsider the relative paucity of information on the singularity out there on the web (or, perhaps websites discussing the singularity dont have a high Pagerank, I dont know).

I also had an interesting interaction with an individual who was at his first conference. A few times he spoke of Ray, and expressed disappointment that Ray Kurzweil had not heard of Bitcoin, which was part of his business. Though I didnt say it explicitly, I had to break it to this individual that Ray Kurzweil is not god. In fact, I told him to watch for the exits when Kurzweils time to talk came up. He would notice that many Summit volunteers and other V.I.P. types would head for the lobby. And thats exactly what happened.

There are two classes of reasons why this occurs. First, Kurzweil gives the same talks many times, and people dont want to waste their time listening to him repeat himself. Second, Kurzweils ideas are not universally accepted within the community which is most closely associated with Singularity Institute. In fact, I dont recall ever meeting a 100-proof Kurzweilian. So why is the singularity so closely associated with Ray Kurzweil in the public mind? Why not Vernor Vinge? Ultimately, its because Ray Kurzweil is not just a thinker, hes a marketer and businessman. Kurzweils personal empire is substantial, and hes a wealthy man from his previous ventures. He doesnt need the singularity movement, he has his own means of propagation and communication. People interested in the concept of the singularity may come in through Kurzweils books, articles, and talks, but if they become embedded in the hyper-rational community which has grown out of acceptance of the possibility of the singularity theyll come to understand that Kurzweil is no god or Ayn Rand, and that pluralism of opinion and assessment is the norm. I feel rather ridiculous even writing this, because Ive known people associated with the singularity movement for so many years (e.g., Michael Vassar) that I take all this as a given. But after talking to enough people, and even some of the more naive summit attendees, I thought it would be useful to lay it all out there.

As for the talks, many of them, such as Steven Pinkers, would be familiar to readers of this weblog. Others, perhaps less so. Linda Avey and John Wilbanksgave complementary talks about personalized data and bringing healthcare into the 21st century. To make a long story short it seems that Aveys new firm aims to make the quantified self into a retail & wholesale business. Wilbanks made the case for grassroots and open source data sharing, both genetic and phenotypic. In fact, Avey explicitly suggested her new firm aims to be to phenotypes what her old firm, 23andMe, is to genotypes. Im a biased audience, obviously I disagree very little with any of the arguments which Avey and Wilbanks deployed (I also appreciated Linda Aveys emphasis on the fact that you own your own information). But Im also now more optimistic about the promise of this enterprise after getting a more fleshed out case. Nevertheless, I see change in this space to be a ten year project. We wont see much difference in the next few I suspect.

The two above talks seem only tangentially related to the singularity in all its cosmic significance. Other talks also exhibited the same distance, such as Pinkers talk on violence. But let me highlight two individuals who spoke more to the spirit of the Summit at its emotional heart. Laura Deming is a young woman whose passion for research really impressed me, and made me hopeful for the future of the human race. This the quest for science at its purest. No careerism, no politics, just straight up assault on an insurmountable problem. If I had to bet money, I dont think shell succeed. But at least this isnt a person who is going to expend their talents on making money on Wall Street. Im hopeful that significant successes will come out of her battles in the course of a war I suspect shell lose.

The second talk which grabbed my attention was the aforementioned Jaan Tallinns. Jaans talk was about the metaphysics of the singularity, and it was presented in a congenial cartoon form. Being a physicist it was larded with some of the basic presuppositions of modern cosmology (e.g., multi-verse), but also extended the logic in a singularitariandirection. And yet Tallinn ended his talk with a very humanistic message. I dont even know what to think of some of his propositions, but he certainly has me thinking even now. Sometimes its easy to get fixated on your own personal obsessions, and lose track of the cosmic scale.

Which goes back to the whole point of a face-to-face conference. You can ponder grand theories in the pages of a book. For that to become human you have to meet, talk, engage, eat, and drink. A conference which at its heart is about transcending humanity as we understand is interestingly very much a reflection of ancient human urges to be social, and part of a broader community.

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Singularity Summit 2012: the lion doesn’t sleep tonight | Gene Expression

Conceptual clocks were set every which way, calendars were meaningless, and the durable Rush trio was right on time for the first of its two shows at the Air Canada Centre on Sunday. The semi-legendary band is touring its latest album, Clockwork Angels, a thematic record inspired by H.G. Wells/Jules Verne-styled retro-futurism yesterdays imagined tomorrow land of steam-powered gadgets, adapted to flavour the bands accessible brand of Byzantine rock.

A three-hour concert saw furnace blasts of fire and belches of steam, literally and figuratively. There were old songs and new, and three drum solos at least. It all ended with a strong exit of parts of 2112, a forecasting album made 36 years ago and now a century ahead of its time.

On a stage of whimsical props and steam-punk gadgetry, the non-misfiring night began with Subdivisions, a thing of grandiose eighties synthesizer rock and tumbling drum fills that concerns urban planning, conformity and the restless dreams of youth. The Big Money followed, set to big-screen imagery of commercialism and cash registers, and cheered by audience members who had paid $70 to $160 to hear bassist-keyboardist Geddy Lee in high vocal shrill.

Lee, in shaded granny glasses, hippie hair and Chuck Taylor sneakers, is rather avuncular at the age of 59. Guitarist Alex Lifeson, also 59, used his collection of Gibson products to produce squealing solos and quick-fingered, high-fretboard note-hitting jumbo-screen close-ups of which enabled us to count the carats of his wedding ring. Drummer Neil Peart, who continues to morph into a sad-faced Buster Keaton look-alike at the age of 60, wore an African prayer cap and sat within an outstanding drum kit that had more chrome to it than a sixties Chrysler factory.

After that, things settled a bit, with a set list that disregarded well-known material and, after a short intermission, settled into the songs of Clockwork Angels, presented with a string ensemble. The crowd was politely appreciative of (though hardly wound up over) offerings strong in synchronized musicianship and a graceful sort of fury. What I would call a heavy, loud sereneness prevailed.

Rush makes serious music; the Peart-penned lyrics of Clockwork Angels were influenced by Voltaires Candide and John Barths The Sot-Weed Factor. It all distills into a vision, as Peart has explained, of one of many possible worlds, driven by steam, alchemy and intricate clockworks.

And yet part of Rushs charisma is its lack of self-seriousness. Some of the concert experience involved Monty Python-like animations on the big screen behind the band, as well as quirky high-budget vignettes starring actor Jay Baruchel and, as jokester gnomes, the members of the band.

The Clockwork Angels set had begun with the busy, shifting music of Caravan, with the line, In a world where I feel so small, I cant stop thinking big. That kind of thinking is a theme of the bands career a three-piece outfit of high-minded misfits, a group with no time or concern for expectations and naysayers. The train continues, powered by untraditional imagination and weird ticking.

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The future according to Rush runs like clockwork