IEET Looking for Some Thoughtful Short Fiction (Dec 22, 2011)The IEET will begin publishing short science fiction pieces that reflect on the social, moral, political, economic or philosophical consequences of future technologies, in particular pieces that touch on the IEET’s core issues - the ethics and policy dimensions of life extension, human enhancement, moral enhancement, non-human personhood, structural unemployment and catastrophic risks.
IEET Readers Show Strong Support for Morality Separated from Religion (Dec 20, 2011)
What were the IEET’s most stimulating articles of 2011? (Dec 20, 2011)
Big Changes Afoot for the IEET in 2012 (Dec 16, 2011)
Seven Positive Trends Amidst the Doom and Gloom
by Sohail Inayatullah
Jan 6, 2012 • (0) Comments • PermalinkWhile there is a great deal of bad, indeed, horrendous, news in the world - global warming, terrorism, the global financial crisis, water shortages, worsening inequity - there are also signs of positive change.
Synthetic Biology: Key Field of the Future
by Melanie Swan
Jan 6, 2012 • (1) Comments • PermalinkSynthetic biology is a field of science that has been emerging in the last few years and could have a significant future impact with the potential to pro-actively manage biology and reshape many industrial sectors.
Specifically, synthetic biology or bioengineering is the creation of living systems from nonliving chemicals designed on a computer; the design and construction of new biological entities such as enzymes, genetic circuits, and cells, or the redesign of existing biological systems.
Researchers, Ahoy! Should Futurist Science Move… Offshore?
by Nikki Olson
Jan 5, 2012 • (1) Comments • PermalinkWhat is the likelihood of seeing research vessels devoted to scientific research outside the bounds of national jurisdiction?
The idea of relocating for the sake of circumventing law, in particular the notion of establishing new nations in international waters, is an idea typically initiated with liberty in mind.
Afrofuturism: An Aesthetic and Exploration of Identity
by Ytasha L. Womack
Jan 4, 2012 • (12) Comments • PermalinkThe world of science fiction is known for its absence of cultural diversity. While history texts are still recovering from the conspicuous absence of the contributions of non-European cultures across the world and in America, there’s an equal need to claim the future as well.
Why Don’t We Have Professional Jurors?
by Peg Tittle
Jan 3, 2012 • (19) Comments • PermalinkWhen I received a summons to appear for jury selection, I dutifully drove to the courthouse on the day in question ready to establish my fitness to serve.
No, that’s not true. I drove to the courthouse on the day in question ready to answer their questions – and curious as to whether one or both of the lawyers would decide they’d rather not have me on the jury.
Did the Universe evolve the “Blue Brain Project” to become aware of itself ?
by Joern Pallensen
Jan 2, 2012 • (55) Comments • Permalink“Humans are the stuff of the cosmos examining itself”
Carl Sagan
Report: Chimps ‘largely unessential as research subjects’
by George Dvorsky
Dec 31, 2011 • (0) Comments • PermalinkA recently released report by the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council in the United States suggests that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) should dramatically curtail the use of chimpanzees as research subjects. According to the committee who put together the report, chimps should be used as subjects in biomedical research only under stringent conditions, including the absence of any other suitable model and inability to ethically perform the research on people.
#1: Increase Your Intelligence: Five ways to maximize your cognitive potential
by Andrea Kuszewski
Dec 31, 2011 • (3) Comments • PermalinkIntelligence is being able to approach a new problem, recognize its important components, and solve it—then take that knowledge gained and put it towards solving the next, more complex problem. It’s about innovation and imagination, and about being able to put that to use to make the world a better place.
#2: Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so high?
by Hank Pellissier
Dec 30, 2011 • (25) Comments • PermalinkAshkenazi Jews are smart. Shockingly brilliant, in general. Impressively greater in brain power than the bulk of the human population. How did they get that way?
#3: Methuselah in the Machine
by Steve Burgess
Dec 29, 2011 • (0) Comments • PermalinkImagine an artificial being, granted the rights of humans but without a limited lifespan, that would have the ability to gather resources to itself indefinitely.
Notable Death of the Year: RIP Austerity Economics, 1921-2011
by Richard Eskow
Dec 28, 2011 • (8) Comments • PermalinkThe name of the deceased was “Austerity Economics,” and it was first glimpsed in a 1921 paper by conservative economist Frank Wright. Austerity died of natural causes brought on by prolonged exposure to reality. But in the nation’s capital, dead things still rule the night.
Transcendent Engineering
by Giulio Prisco
Dec 28, 2011 • (42) Comments • PermalinkIn “Engineering Transcendence” I argued that science may someday develop the capability to resurrect the dead and build (and/or become) God(s), and proposed to base a “transhumanist religion” on this idea.
Should scientists create deadly viruses?
by Arthur Caplan
Dec 28, 2011 • (0) Comments • PermalinkOne of the predictable consequences of science’s rapidly growing knowledge of genetics is that the knowledge can be put to use to kill, harm or terrorize.
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