Spend your summer in the Future with Foresight!
TLDR of this update:
> Learn about Experimental Societies and Prototyping Social Structures for the Future with Zarinah Agnew in our latest salon video
> Review some Civilizational Collapse Scenarios, their Prevention and Responses with Dr. David Denkenberger & Jeffrey Ladish
> Watch a series of videos on Biotech Investing in Longevity from our last Life-Extension events series
> Join Nobel chemist Fraser Stoddart on Molecular Machines, Sept. 20-21, 2019, Chicago: apply now to participate.
> Mark your calendars: Vision Weekend is happening November 2nd and 3rd at the Internet Archive and the Laundry in San Francisco
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Whether any technology has positive or negative impact, to some extent depends on the people that create it, and the way that it is used – these are social factors. So we must ask, what kind of social structures, political, economic, cultural, would support the use of technology in ways that we hope for instead of the dystopian outcomes that we fear? Zarinah Agnew gives a presentation on how we might go about designing social structures for the future, followed by a Q&A with the participants.
Dr. Zarinah Agnew, UCSF, Irrational Labs.
Zarinah is a neuroscientist by day, community builder by all other hours. Their academic research focuses on the neural control of complex voluntary movements of the two most dextrous human effectors, the hands and the articulatory system. Their theory of social change and labour of love focuses on the commons, experimenting with collaborative governance and prefigurative politics. Academic science takes place at UCSF, science in the wild through Irrational Labs, rogue science, all day every day.
Website: http://www.zarinahagnew.com/
Publications: http://bit.ly/Z-pubs
@zarinahagnew
We organized a salon on civilizational collapse scenarios, prevention and responses with two fascinating points of view:
Dr. David Denkenberger: Collapse Scenarios & Interventions:
If plan A is preventing the catastrophe, plan B is preventing the loss of civilization if there is a catastrophe.
Dr. David Denkenberger is an assistant professor at University of Alaska Fairbanks in mechanical engineering. He co-founded and directs the ALLiance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED) and donates half his income to it. He received the National Merit Scholarship, the Barry Goldwater Scholarship, the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, is a Penn State distinguished alumnus, and is a registered professional engineer. He has authored or co-authored 95 publications, including the book Feeding Everyone no Matter What: Managing Food Security after Global Catastrophe.
Jeffrey Ladish: Mitigating Uncertainty in Collapse Scenarios:
Jeffrey outlines some of the key uncertainties in global risk models, and explains how these uncertainties could be reduced with directed research and cross-disciplinary collaboration.
Jeffrey Ladish is an independent researcher and security consultant based in San Francisco, California. He has written and spoken about threats from the intersection of emerging technologies and great power conflict. Jeffrey’s current research explores how state conflict is influenced by advances in technology. Jeffrey’s work aims to help answer the question: How can a multipolar world cope with emerging technologies that threaten both to change the state power landscape and empower non-state actors with previously inaccessible destructive power?
These salons are part of the Foresight Institute Salon Series on Strengthening Civilization. Find all previous salons videos here.
If you wonder why “Strengthening Civilization”, watch this uplifting video inspiring the movement towards Existential Hope.
Previous salons topics:
Civilizational Collapse Scenarios & Responses – Dave Denkenberger, Jeffrey Ladish
Decentralized Approaches to AI: Presentations & Panel – Eric Drexler, Mark S. Miller, Robin Hanson
Alternative Web Infrastructures – Ted Nelson
Debunking Social Motives – Robin Hanson
The Hedonistic Imperative – David Pearce
The Fermi Paradox and the Far Future – Anders Sandberg
Civilization: Institutions, Knowledge and the Future – Samo Burja
The trajectory of Civilization: Part 1 – Ethics, Now and Tomorrow and Part 2 – Racing Where? – Robin D. Hanson, Paul Christiano, Christine Peterson, Peter Eckersley, Mark S. Miller, Alyssa Vance
The Future of Human Biology: Part 1 – Roadmap & Part 2 – Ethical Framework – David Eagleman and Arvind Gupta
AI & Human Morality – Allison Duettmann
Creating Counterculture – Joon Yun
Innovative governance – Mark Lutter, Mwiya Musokotwane
Aikora Health and the Foresight Institute joined forces to organize a series of talks on biotech investment and longevity. They gathered a curated group of entrepreneurs, scientists, and investors to discuss exciting projects that seek to extend human healthspan, surveying a diversity of novel approaches, and discussing which ambitious goals are realistically within our reach.
Speakers included:
Mark Katakowski, President and CSO of Forever Labs
Reason, CEO of Repair Biotechnologies
Sergio Ruiz, Managing Director of the Methuselah Fund
Doug Ethell, CEO of Leucadia Therapeutics
Vittorio Sebastiano, Scientific Advisory Board Chairman of Turn Biotechnologies
Aubrey de Grey, CSO of SENS Research Foundation
Sonia Arrison, Author of 100 Plus
Sarah Constantin, Founder and Executive Director of The Longevity Research Institute, Founder of Daphnia Labs
Gordon Lithgow, Professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging
Mike West, CEO of AgeX Therapeutics
Videos from this event below:
Mark Katakowski presents Forever Labs
Forever Labs cryopreserves your adult stem cells to create a reservoir of young stem cells for future use. The decline in the number and viability of stem cells contributes to the decline in health associated with aging. Stem cell replacement experiments in mice suggest that young-to-old transplantation of stem cells can extend healthy lifespan. Mark Katakowski co-founded Forever Labs with the goal to bring autologous stem cell replacement therapy to humans.
First panel of “Biotech Investing in Longevity” Mark Katakowski, Sonia Arrison, Sarah Constantin, in discussion with Allison Duettmann.
Second panel of “Biotech Investing in Longevity”: Aubrey de Grey (CSO, SENS Research Foundation), Gordon Lithgow (Professor, Buck Institute for Research on Aging), Mike West (CEO, AgeX Therapeutics), in discussion with Anastasiya Giarletta.
You can still apply to participate in the interactive technical competition “Contemporary Materials Science: How Can Molecular Machines Help?”, co-chaired by Prof. Fraser Stoddart and Dr. Melissa Dumartin, Northwestern Univ.
The competition will be held Friday and Saturday, September 20-21, 2019 near the Northwestern campus in Evanston, Illinois. In order to produce the best results, your attendance is required for all daytime sessions. The optional Feynman Prize Dinner will be Saturday evening.
Foresight’s annual member gathering, Vision Weekend, is happening November 2nd and 3rd 2019, at The Internet Archive and The Laundry in San Francisco.
Time to renew your Foresight Senior Associate membership, or to become a member!
Watch the video from our last edition of Vision Weekend on Existential Hope Scenarios to get a feel for what you can expect!
Join our movement! Follow our Facebook page, Twitter or connect to our professional network on Linkedin for regular updates, as well as invites to our upcoming events. To get an overview of the different ways to accelerate our mission, we created a one-pager on Getting Involved.
That said, one of the ways that you can most immediately help is to support our mission financially. For a detailed summary of what your donations accomplish, see our Progress Report for 2018: Accomplishments and concrete 2019 plans.
Thank you,
Foresight Institute
