The Commonwealth Club of California San Francisco, CA Apr 22nd, 2008
Paul Saffo discusses Embracing Uncertainty: Connecting Policy to Long-Range Forecasting. A movie star as governor? No way! Planes hitting skyscrapers? The stuff of horror films! Forecasters struggle to anticipate an ever-stranger geopolitical reality. In this moment of unprecedented uncertainty and change, says Saffo, it is tempting to conclude that forecasting is as dangerous as it is futile. In fact, connecting short-term policy to long-range forecasting is surprisingly easy - and absolutely crucial to meeting the challenges before us. All it takes is a simple shift in perspective and a few common-sense heuristics. Saffo is a legendary technology forecaster, with over two decades of experience exploring long-term technological change and its impact on business and society - The Commonwealth Club of California
The Long Now Foundation San Francisco, CA Jun 11th, 2004
A Seminar About Long-term Thinking featuring Bruce Sterling examining The Singularity: Your Future as a Black Hole. He treated the subject of hyper-acceleration of technology as a genuine threat worth alleviating and as a fond fantasy worth cruel dismemberment. One reason lots of people don't want to think long term these days is because technology keeps accelerating so rapidly, we assume the world will become unrecognizable in a few years and then move on to unimaginable. Long-term thinking must be either impossible or irrelevant. The commonest shorthand term for the runaway acceleration of technology is "the Singularity" - a concept introduced by science fiction writer Vernor Vinge in 1984. The term has been enthusiastically embraced by technology historians, futurists, extropians, and various trans-humanists and post-humanists, who have generated variants such as "the techno-rapture," "the Spike," etc. - The Long Now Foundation
Professor Ian Morison describes our attempts to detect the presence of other advanced civilizations, explains why we should not be too disheartened by our failure so far and how a giant radio telescope, due for completion in 2020, would give us a realistic chance of searching the whole Galaxy - Gresham College
University of Geneva astronomer, Didier Queloz explains why a recently discovered terrestrial extrasolar planet named Gliese 581 c may be able to sustain life.
Astronomer Debra Fischer describes the "zoo" of extrasolar planets and compares them - their orbits, masses, and potential to sustain life - to the planets of our solar system.
Internationally acclaimed, award winning author Michael Parenti is one of America's most astute and engaging political analysts. Covering a wide range of subjects, Parenti's work has enlightened and enlivened readers for many years. Here is a rich buffet of his deep but lucid writings on real history, political life, empire, wealth, class power, technology, culture, ideology, media, environment, gender, and ethnicity - along with a few choice selections drawn from his own life experiences and political awakening.
Parenti serves on the board of judges for Project Censored, and on numerous advisory boards as well as the advisory editorial boards of New Political Science and Nature, Society and Thought. He is the author of twenty books - Cody's Books
Richard Preston talks about Panic in Level 4: Tales of Intrigue from the World of Science. These dramatic accounts, all updated since appearing in The New Yorker, are true tales, taking readers on a journey to military labs, hospitals, and jungles around the world, revealing frightening forces and constructive discoveries that are reordering our world - Book Passage
NBC News Chief Medical Editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman talks about her book Medical Myths That Can Kill You. In her trademark practical and straightforward way, Dr. Snyderman reveals the truths behind unscientific, undocumented, and dangerous medical myths - Book Passage
American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Washington, D.C. Sep 12th, 2006
Cass Sunstein talks about his book Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge He talks about the possibilities of a human potential to aggregate information by sifting through volumes of unfiltered information without resorting to prejudice and preconceptions. He also talks about developing better approximate mechanisms for decision-making in the public sector. Professors Hanson and Cowen join him in a discussion moderated by Mr. Hahn. After their discussion the participants respond to audience members' questions. Mr. Sunstein has testified before congressional committees on many subjects, and he has been involved in constitution-making and law reform activities in a number of nations, including Ukraine, Poland, China, South Africa, and Russia. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Mr. Sunstein has been Samuel Rubin Visiting Professor of Law at Columbia, visiting professor of law at Harvard, vice-chair of the ABA Committee on Separation of Powers and Governmental Organizations, chair of the Administrative Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools, a member of the ABA Committee on the future of the FTC, and a member of the President's Advisory Committee on the Public Service Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters.
World Affairs Council of Northern California San Francisco, CA Nov 11th, 2006
The Changing Face of Warfare
Acclaimed author and security expert Max Boot explores how innovations in weaponry and tactics have not only transformed how wars are fought and won but also have guided the course of human events, from the formation of the first modern states 500 years ago, to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the coming of al-Qaeda. His new book, War Made New, is a provocative new vision of the rise of the modern world through the lens of warfare. Boot argues that the past five centuries of history have been marked not by gradual change in how we fight but instead by four revolutions in military technology - and that the nations who have successfully mastered these revolutions have gained the power to redraw the map of the world. His book concludes with an examination of what America must do to survive and prevail in the Information Age. The World Affairs Council was founded in 1947 out of the interest generated by the founding of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945. With over 10,000 members, they are the largest international affairs organization on the west coast.
In a follow-up to his now-legendary TED2006 presentation, Hans Rosling demonstrates how developing countries are pulling themselves out of poverty. He shows us the next generation of his Trendalyzer software -- which analyzes and displays data in amazingly accessible ways, allowing people to see patterns previously hidden behind mountains of stats. (Ten days later, he announced a deal with Google to acquire the software.) He also demos Dollar Street, a program that lets you peer in the windows of typical families worldwide living at different income levels. Be sure to watch straight through to the (literally) jaw-dropping finale.
Randolph-Macon Woman's College Lynchburg, VA Oct 23rd, 2006
The God Delusion Richard Dawkins argues that there is no rational or moral reason to believe in God or any other supernatural higher power. He says that because atheists are discriminated against in the United States they tend not to be vocal about their views, even though collectively they could be an influential political and social force. Professor Dawkins also reads selections from his new book, talks about his love for science, and answers questions from the Randolph-Macon audience.
Richard Dawkins is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. He is the author of many books, including The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, and Unweaving the Rainbow.
Each time neuropsychiatrist Restak visits with a new book, we learn more about the exciting findings being made in neurology. In his new book, Restak writes about social neuroscience, the interaction between our brains' hard wiring and our social relationships - Politics and Prose Dr. Richard Restak is a practicing neurologist and neuropsychiatrist and the author of dozens of articles and more than 15 books on the brain, including The Brain, Mysteries of the Mind, and The Longevity Strategy. The Brain, also a companion book to a PBS series, was a national bestseller. Restak has appeared on National Public Radio's Morning Edition and All Things Considered, PBS's McNeil-Lehrer Report, NBC's Today Show, ABC's Good Morning America, and the Discovery Channel. Restak has served on various national advisory councils for brain research and has been a consultant to PBS and to NBC's Today Show. Dr. Restak is a graduate of Georgetown University School of Medicine.
Commonwealth Club of California Mountain View, CA Apr 25th, 2007
Walter Isaacson speaks about his book Einstein: His Life and Universe. Walter Isaacson is the President of the Aspen Institute and author of Einstein His Life and Universe. Isaacson has been the Chairman and CEO of CNN and the Managing Editor of TIME. He is also the author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003) and of Kissinger: A Biography (1992), and is the co-author, with Evan Thomas, of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986).
Long Now Foundation San Francisco, CA Jun 8th, 2007
The New Great Transformation with Paul Hawken speaking at a seminar hosted by The Long Now Foundation. The title of Paul Hawken's talk, "The New Great Transformation," has two referents, he explained. Economist Karl Polanyi's 1944 book, THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION, said that the "market society" and modern nation state emerged together in Europe after 1700 and divided society in ways that have yet to be healed. Karen Armstrong's 2006 book, THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION, explores "the Axial Age" between 800 and 200 BC when the world's great religions and philosophies first took shape. They were all initially social movements, she says, acting on revulsion against the violence and injustice of their times. Both books describe conditions in which "the future is stolen and sold to the present," said Hawken - a situation we are having to deal with yet again - Stewart Brand blog excerpt, The Long Now Foundation
The New York Public Library New York, NY Jun 27th, 2007
The New York Public Library presents The 20th Century on Trial with Gunter Grass. This portion of the event includes Gunter Grass in conversation with Andrew O'Hagan followed by a Q&A session with Gunter Grass and Norman Mailer. Born in the 1920s, Gunter Grass and Norman Mailer went on to become grand men of letters. They witnessed the 20th century at close quarters. At the center of each writer's consciousness is the role of their respective countries in World War II and the legacy of violence and guilt that created the Cold War. Yet as stylists these two novelists appeared to internalize the great forces of their times: the appeal of totalitarianism and the cult of celebrity, the struggle for national definition and the psychology of sex. Mailer and Grass set out to create revolutions in the consciousness of their times, and now might be the moment to ask how the 20th century itself emerges from their work. What was that century? What would they write for its epitaph? Nobel Prize-Winner Gunter Grass's memoir Peeling the Onion takes him back to his wartime childhood and adolescence - it is a searing book that provides evidence on behalf of the self-accusing. Norman Mailer's latest novel, The Castle in the Forest, is his take on Hitler's own youth. These two great writers have come full circle, to the same place and time, and their creativity puts the 20th century itself on trial - The New York Public Library
Michael Shermer discusses his newest book The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics. Psychologist Michael Shermer, the author of nine previous books, including the bestselling Why People Believe Weird Things, is a columnist for Scientific American, the publisher of Skeptic magazine, and the founder and director of the international Skeptics Society - Tattered Cover
Panelists Rashad Ali, Andrew Scott, Fariborz Pooya, and Dolan Cummings discuss religion and radicalism. Alex Hochuli moderates the event. We're told that religion today is radical. Islamic extremists, evangelical fundamentalists, Catholic militants - the threat that faith poses to secular society is an aggressive, assertive and vehement one. But historically, the faithful were slated by humanists for their conservatism - where religion went wrong was its opposition to change, not its advocacy of it. So are the religious now radical - or has secular society simply taken on the conservatism of its God-fearing forebears? - IoI
Meet Karen Armstrong, one of the world's leading writers on religion and the highly acclaimed author of the bestselling "A History of God" introducing a major new work: The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions.
Christopher Hitchens speaks about his new book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Hitchens, an always colorful and sometimes outrageous commentator, now takes aim at God. Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have tried, but that hard-to-hit Fellow keeps popping back up. Worse still are the violent ways of his flock: waging religious warfare, keeping women enslaved, fomenting universal hatreds. Hitchens makes a powerful case for atheism - Politics and Prose
Believing the Unbelievable: The Clash Between Faith and Reason in the Modern World with Sam Harris speaking at the 2007 Aspen Ideas Festival. Some of the most inspired and provocative thinkers, writers, artists, business people, teachers and other leaders drawn from myriad fields and from across the country and around the world all gathered in a single place - to teach, speak, lead, question, and answer at the 2006 Aspen Ideas Festival. Throughout the week, they all interacted with an audience of thoughtful people who stepped back from their day-to-day routines to delve deeply into a world of ideas, thought, and discussion.
The Neuroscience of Consciousness, Perception, and Self with Eric Haseltine and Bob Woodruff speaking at the 2007 Aspen Ideas Festival.
A college degree no longer guarantees middle-class status, since Americans now compete with professionals the world over. How will our next president address this problem?
In this, its third year, Aspen Ideas Festival once again gathers scientists, artists, politicians, historians, educators, activists, and other great thinkers around some of the most important and fascinating ideas of our time. As these thinkers present their provocative ideas, they engage a sophisticated and highly motivated audience.
Charles Fisher talks about Dismantling Discontent: Buddha's Way Through Darwin's World. Charles Fisher offers a view of existential suffering from the viewpoints of Darwin and Buddha, synthesizing their two approaches and offering a new approach. He discusses overcoming the incompatibility of these two very different ways of knowing.
City Arts & Lectures San Francisco, CA Feb 27th, 2008
Karen Armstrong is among the world's foremost commentators on religion. A former nun in the Roman Catholic Society of the Holy Child Jesus, Armstrong now defines herself as a "freelance monotheist," drawing from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The theologian writes about multiple faiths in her bestselling books, including Muhammad, A History of God, Buddha, The Battle for God, and The Great Transformation. In her critical studies and the memoirs Through the Narrow Gate and The Spiral Staircase, Armstrong's perspective is based on compassion instead of reduction. "It doesn't really matter what you believe as long as it leads you to practical compassion," Armstrong has said. Her most recent book is The Bible: A Biography, a brief study of the sacred text and the centuries of biblical interpretation - City Arts & Lectures
Los Angeles Public Library Los Angeles, CA Apr 15th, 2008
Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Science and Sex with Mary Roach in conversation with Beth Lapides.
Few things are as fundamental to human happiness as satisfying sex. America's funniest science writer (Stiff) offers an ode to a fascinating and vital pursuit and a reminder that there is still much to learn - ALOUD LA
This program is part of the Los Angeles Public Library's ALOUD speakers and authors program.
Why is it so difficult to sell a plummeting stock or end a doomed relationship? Why do we listen to advice just because it came from someone "important"? Why are we more likely to fall in love when there's danger involved?
In Sway, renowned organizational thinker Ori Brafman and his brother, psychologist Rom Brafman, answer all these questions and more - Book Passage
New York Public Library New York, NY Nov 7th, 2007
On the 60th anniversary of Orwell's Politics and the English Language, George Orwell described political speech as consisting "largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness." Some six decades later, many symptoms of manipulation and propaganda diagnosed by Orwell persist on the American political landscape, along with new disinformation techniques enabled by modern technology. Historians, scientists, philosophers, linguists, cognitive experts, journalists, image-makers, and public figures will debate in three separate sessions the current state of political discourse - and journalism's response to it - on the dawn of a bitterly contested presidential campaign - NYPL
World Affairs Council of Northern California San Francisco, CA Mar 26th, 2008
How Emerging Markets Are Reshaping the Global Balance of Power with Parag Khanna.How are the forces behind globalization dividing countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and East Asia along political, economic, and cultural lines? As "second world" nations struggle to rise into the first world and avoid falling into the third, how will resources in countries like Azerbaijan, Colombia, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam impact the fate of China, Europe, and the United States? To help us understand the shifting balance of power at this intersection of geopolitics and globalization, Parag Khanna joins the Council to discuss his new book, The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, and how the European Union and China now compete with the U.S. to shape world order - World Affairs Council of Northern California
The Economic Club of Washington Washington, D.C. Jun 9th, 2008
Economist Club of Washington with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google Inc. shares insights about "The Future of the Internet: Engine for Economic Growth" at the June meeting of the Economic Club of Washington - C-SPAN
Eric Schmidt demonstrates the "largest field of view possible in humanity" -- 13 billion years -- with Google Sky and Earth software. Schmidt illustrates the potential sea-rise of global warming in Washington D.C. in the future contrasted with the street-view of American towns in the past.
Long Now Foundation San Francisco, CA May 11th, 2007
The Long Zoom with Steven Johnson speaking at a seminar hosted by The Long Now Foundation. Steven Johnson began his long zoom survey with the "prior art" of Joyce's Stephen Daedalus locating himself in himself, his neighborhood, Dublin, on out to the universe. The value of a long zoom is in identifying and employing every scale between the very large and very small, noticing how they change each other when held in the mind at the same time. Johnson's core story (and current book) concerned London in 1854, when it was the largest city in the world and in history with 2.5 million people. London famously stank. Cess pools filled basements, slaughter houses were anywhere, garbage piled up. Medicine at the time held that disease was caused by "miasma," foul air, noxious vapors. "All smell is disease," declared a Doctor Chadwick. The authorities decided that the way to cure the frequent cholera epidemics in London was to get rid of the bad odor - pump the sewage into the Thames, which people drank. The cholera got worse. Johnson's goal with his book, THE GHOST MAP, was to figure out why the wrong theory of disease lingered so long, and what it took to correct it. The answer, he proposes, is in the perspective of the long zoom - Stewart Brand blog excerpt, The Long Now Foundation
The Long Now Foundation San Francisco, CA Apr 8th, 2005
Stewart Brand addresses The Long Now Foundation on Cities and Time. Cities are humanity's longest-lived organizations (Jericho dates back 10,500 years), but also the most constantly changing. Even in Europe they consume 2-3% of their material fabric a year, which means a wholly new city every 50 years. In the US and the developing world it's much faster. Every week in the world a million new people move to cities. In 2007 50% of our 6.5 billion population will live in cities. In 1800 it was 3% of the total population then. In 1900 it was 14%. In 2030 it's expected to be 61%. This is a tipping point. We're becoming a city planet. One of the effects of globalization is to empower cities more and more. Communications and economic activities bypass national boundaries. With many national governments in the developing world discredited, corporations and NGOs go direct to where the markets, the workers, and the needs are, in the cities. Every city is becoming a "world city." Many elites don't live in one city now, they live "in cities" - The Long Now Foundation
The Long Now Foundation San Francisco, CA Dec 9th, 2005
The View From The End Of The World with Sam Harris. With gentle demeanor and tight argument, Sam Harris carried an overflow audience into the core of one of the crucial issues of our time: What makes some religions lethal? How do they employ aggressive irrationality to justify threatening and controlling non-believers as well as believers? What should be our response? - The Long Now Foundation
The Long Now Foundation San Francisco, CA Aug 17th, 2007
Glut: Mastering Information Though the Ages with Alex Wright speaking at a seminar hosted by The Long Now Foundation. Alex Wright is a writer and information architect who currently works for the New York Times. His first book, "Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages" is an impressive survey on how societies have dealt with information overload through time. As an information architect, Alex has led projects for The New York Times, IBM, Microsoft, Harvard University, our own Rosetta Project, the Internet Archive, Yahoo!, Macromedia and Sun Microsystems, among others - The Long Now Foundation
The Long Now Foundation San Francisco, CA Jan 11th, 2008 As part of The Long Now Foundation's Seminars About Long-term Thinking, technology forecaster and strategist Paul Saffo presents Embracing Uncertainty: The Secret to Effective Forecasting.
The Long Now Foundtion San Francisco, CA Feb 4th, 2008
The Future Has Always Been Crazier Than We Thought with Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Author Nassim Nicholas Taleb discusses his book, The Black Swan in relation to predicting the future, learning from the consequences of the unknown, and the power of randomness.
The Long Now Foundation The Herbst Theater - San Francisco, CA Jan 13th, 2006
The Long Now Foundation presents a discussion between Peter Schwartz and Ralph Cavanagh: Nuclear Power, Climate Change and the Next 10,000 Years It is the threat of "abrupt climate change" that converted him to support new emphasis on nuclear power, Schwartz said. Gradual global warming is clearly now under way, and there is increasing reason to believe that human activity is driving it, mostly through the burning of coal and oil. If warming is all that happens, it will be an enormous problem, but some regions of the Earth would gain (Russia, Canada) while many others would lose. In the event of abrupt climate change, though, everyone loses. The most likely change would be a sudden (in one decade) shift to a much colder, drier, and windier world. The world's carrying capacity for humans would plummet, driving human population from the current 6.5 billion to as low as 2 billion, with most of the losses from war. It would be a civilization-threatening catastrophe. From research Schwartz has led for the Pentagon as well as from his own training in fluid dynamics, he thinks that continuation of the current warming is very likely to trigger the kind of radical climate instability that has been the norm in Earth's past, except for the last 10,000 years of uncharacteristically stable climate. Therefore everything must be done to head off the shift to climate instability. Meanwhile, Schwartz said, world demand for energy will continue to grow for decades, as two billion more people climb out of poverty and developing nations become fully developed economies. China and India alone will double or quadruple their energy use over the next 50 years. We will run out of oil in that period. That leaves coal or nuclear for electricity. Conservation is crucial, but it doesn't generate power. Renewables must grow fast, but they cannot hope to fill the whole need. Nuclear technology has improved its efficiency and safety and can improve a lot more. Reprocessing fuel will add further efficiency - Stewart Brand, The Long Now Foundation
"Host Harry Kreisler welcomes British historian Niall Ferguson for a discussion of the dynamics of money and power in international politics, the British Empire, and the U.S. role in world affairs. Series: 'Conversations with History'"
The Color Of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide featuring author Meizhu Lui. Lui, Executive Director of United for a Fair Economy, a national nonpartisan organization that campaigns against growing income and wealth inequality and inspires action to reduce economic inequality, makes the case that until government policy tackles disparities in wealth, not just income, the country will never have racial or economic justice. Recounting the asset-building histories of Native Americans, Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, and European Americans, The Color of Wealth is a uniquely comprehensive multicultural history of American wealth. This event was co-hosted by United for a Fair Economy, about which John Nichols wrote in The Nation, "United for a Fair Economy is the single most effective group in the country when it comes to publicizing issues of economic injustice and the racial underpinnings of the gap between rich and poor."
Washington, D.C. World Affairs Council of Washington D.C. Sep 27th, 2006
The War of the World: Twentieth Century Conflict and the Descent of the West
Historian Niall Ferguson examines the conflicts of the First World War to the Cold War and how they influenced the twentieth century. He argues that globalization, wealth, and technological breakthroughs led to much of the violence, genocide and fanaticism of the twentieth century. The talk was hosted by the World Affairs Council in Washington, D.C. and includes a question and answer session. Niall Ferguson is the author of several books including Paper and Iron, The Cash Nexus, and The Pity of War. He currently is a history professor at Harvard University, Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, and a contributor to the Financial Times and the New York Times.
The Long Now Foundation San Francisco, CA Apr 28th, 2008 Niall Ferguson and Peter Schwartz present Historian vs. Futurist on Human Progress as part of The Long Now Foundation's Seminars about Long-term Thinking.
