superconcepts

Page 9, somewhere in between another problem with public services and the latest celebrity gossip, is usually where I’ll find today’s horrific murder story. A teenager is brutally beaten and then “accidentally” killed when his attackers take it too far. They get a few months inside for man-slaughter; his family gets a lifetime of heartache. Consequently, the world balance between peaceful, loving, value creators and destructive, sadistic losers is shifted yet a little further in favour of idiocy. Yet, taking another sip of coffee, we turn the page. We think to ourselves, “There’s nothing we can do”, and continue with our daily lives. "It doesn't really affect me or anyone I know". We blame "fate", or, most fundamentally, we think "Everyone dies, he was just taken before his time". As a society, we still see death as inevitable. As a result, there is just no respect for human life. This, I believe, is why we have a situation where killing somebody

I'm extremely proud to announce that I've been awarded "Blogger of the week" at FutureBlogger ( Memebox.com ). The articles mentioned were the ones I'm currently most proud of; "Virtual Unreality" and "How to Destroy Humanity", but "Science & Serendipity" has a high ranking there too. Needless to say I'm very pleased to be noticed so early in the blog's life. Now for the difficult part: maintaining the standard...

Imagine, a life fully immersed inside a computer game where our every desire is fulfilled, and the suffering of reality is absent.   One day, we may decide that a virtual existence is a more appealing option than the real world of pain and limitations. Perhaps we could create such an amazing alternative, that reality itself becomes obsolete. Even today, without the "fully immersed" aspect, there are thousands of people who already spend more time in virtual worlds than the real one. As virtual environments improve, this will only increase. Since the early 21st century, the residents of the virtual world Second Life have been working hard to recreate real "life" as accurately as possible. Despite the virtual platform giving occupants the ability to fly and teleport, they still prefer to meticulously create staircases to walk their avatar up and down. At discos, people require the coolest dance animations and best looking clothes. In meetings, virtual charact

Imagine we learn to read human brains down to the most intricate details. Imagine we learn to record, in detail, every action that occurs within the brain, every synapse firing, every cell interaction, every memory. Imagine if all of this data could then be stored on a computer and used to re-engineer a new, identical brain. Imagine this brain could then be put into a new body, thus creating a new version of us when we die. Imagine we knew for a fact that there was nothing after death. Imagine we live forever using this, or some other mind transfer technique. Imagine then we discover another civilisation on another planet, who is still too primitive to save minds, and who still believes that death is natural and essential. Imagine we then engineer a situation, for example we send swarms of microscopic probes to their planet to monitor, transmit via microscopic satellites, and then record their minds on our computers. Imagine we use this data to re-engineer the brains of these p

Nuclear weapons are so 20th century. If you want to bring annihilation to the planet for not conforming to whatever depraved idealism you aspire to, there will soon be many much more interesting ways to do it. Unlike nukes, these technologies won’t be reserved for elite governments.   Nanotechnology Nanotechnology presents many interesting possibilities. How about using self replicating nanoscopic robots to turn everything on the planet into grey goo? This kind of destruction would be so effective that nothing would remain of the present world. Perhaps this kind of disaster has already happened in our history? As there would be no evidence, we would never know! However, for many supervillians or religious fanatics, disassembling us to our core molecules just wouldn’t be fulfilling enough. Fear not, the destructive power of nanotechnology is limited only by our imaginations. What about swarms of predatory nanobots, programmed to hunt down and kill “non-believers” and kill t