Conflict (combat)

Radical Abundance: How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Mon, 06/30/2014 - 09:03

Eric Drexler introduced the world to nanotechnology in his first book, Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology. In his newest book, Radical Abundance, Drexler presents a range of information, informing the reader of the process of nanoscale manufacturing, current efforts and research (and hurdles), and the benefits to science, society, and the planet once we achieve the reality of nanoscale fabrication.

Drexler presents APM (atomically-precise manufacturing) as the next revolution, the first three being agriculture, industrial, and information. This revolution will be powered once we control "the molecular machinery of life (using) proteins that can fit together to form motors, sensors, structural frameworks, and catalytic devices..." By using natural systems to construct from the atomic level towards larger and more complex products, we can manufacture efficiently, using common chemical substances in place of minerals and metals acquired through ecologically damaging mining, and to create materials we cannot visualize today.

In Drexler's future, APM solves many of the societal issues that create poverty, ecological disasters, and conflict. It's an important work that gives us a future to look forward to when so many visions are broken and dystopian.

Minority Report (2002)

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Fri, 06/27/2014 - 10:14

Based on "The Minority Report," a short story by Philip K. Dick, this film explores the issue of preventing crime before it occurs. The PreCrime division, a special unit set in Washington, D.C., uses three individuals who possess the ability to foresee murders before they occur. When each case is identified, including the victim, the perpetrator, and the time, the PreCrime police use recorded visuals from the "precog's" visions to identify the location and foil the crime before it happens.

While the division has had great success and is considered perfect, the film focuses on what happens if these visions are not 100% reliable. Especially when the perpetrators are arrested and imprisoned when they were not allowed to actually commit the crime.

The Island (2005)

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Thu, 06/19/2014 - 09:51

Clones are big business in the future. Buy your own to supply the parts you require when sickness or injury threaten your life. The Island is a sci-fi action adventure set in the not-too-distant future, told from the viewpoint of two clones as they discover the truth of their existence and work to uncover corporate inhumanity.

Lincoln Six Echo and Jordan Two Delta are clones living in a safe, controlled world among others of their kind. History tells the outside world is too contaminated for life outside the compound, with only one remaining island clean enough to support human life. The clones live their routine hoping to one day win the lottery and move to the island, where they can live out their lives under the sun. But it's all a lie fabricated to keep them controlled and hopeful, two things necessary for the products, their bodies, to remain healthy.

The Escape

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Tue, 05/13/2014 - 12:57

Bring Back Our Girls Abeo heard and felt her phone signaling. Not the ringing of a call or vibration of an update, but the signal of alarm. Around her, the other girls in her school pulled out their phones to read the same message. The conversations of the cafeteria grew raucous, as if quiet was really possible in a school at lunch, and teachers began to usher everyone towards the parking lot.

Buses were being started outside, starters cranking antiquated engines to life. While some technologies had made it to their corner of the world, gas and diesel engines remained the norm for at least a bit longer. Electricity was now everywhere with solar panels costing very little for a day's energy, but vehicles with batteries went to regions with more money to pay for them.

Overhead, small flocks of drones buzzed to the sky taking a quick reconnaissance of everything that moved - even in their part of Africa, nearly anything that moved was tracked in some way. Abeo climbed into the front seat and waited while the bus filled with her peers. She pulled up the pages linked from the warning and, reading between the lines of governmental jargon, discovered that suspected terrorists were blitzing their small city.

Can Technology Help Eradicate Evil?

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Tue, 05/13/2014 - 12:57

Video still of Nigerian school girls taken by Boko Haram The future holds many promises. Within my lifetime, I expect to experience a fully networked world, a life of abundance, and may live keep my health for more than a century. While technocrats and futurists discuss engineering marvels and world-changing API's, what can be done about humanity's dark side?

Song From a Forgotten Hill

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Tue, 05/13/2014 - 10:53

In 1971, Glen Cook, an author known for his gritty fantasy novels, wrote the short story, "Song from a Forgotten Hill." Recently included in a short story collect, Winter's Dreams, "Song" is not your normal science fiction, though it is a dystopian view of a broken American landscape where the country has been through three "fires." The first is from Russian nuclear strikes on major American cities. The second is "when (black) militants burned remnants of Whiteys' cities." The third occurs when the US military's return from the war (presumably with Russia) leads to a civil contest "between whites and blacks."

In the anarchy following nuclear holocaust, Cook depicts the worst of humanity as sides are formed on American soil. Black militants strike at governmental infrastructure and then white rednecks turn back the hands of time to revisit the atrocity of slavery. In the midst of the aftermath, we find a a black protagonist, a veteran of the Vietnam war, attempting to keep his remaining family, "Four kids, the oldest fifteen, and no wife," safe and free in the wilderness: "The war killed most of the good folks. They lived where the bombs fell. The rednecks and the militants seem to be the only survivors. And now the rednecks, who had waited so long for their chance, are 'putting 'em back in their place.' There are very few of us out here in the hills. We're hunted, and running, but free."

The Machine - 2013 film

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Thu, 05/08/2014 - 09:27

A true sci-fi thriller, The Machine presents a future where artificial intelligence is closing in on human-level capabilities and governments race to develop human-like robotic soldiers. After a cold war with China has caused a severe economic depression in the West, research into artificial intelligence is viewed as THE research to win what is considered an unavoidable war. The desired outcome is a superior soldier capable of managing a "three-block war: the battle, the negotiations, and the peace."

While too many recent science fiction films have focused on famous actors and fast scenes, adding layers of action to cross genres, The Machine is a true sci-fi film (there is action, but most of the movie is slow and moody as developments take time). Both dark and gritty, it feels like a better view of the future than the ultra-political Elysium or any film dealing with human-alien strife. Swinging for the fence, Caradog James, writer and director of The Machine, bangs one out of the park.

The Bourne Legacy

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Mon, 04/07/2014 - 12:33

Sometimes a great look at the future shows up in places you weren't looking. The Bourne Legacy, the sequel to the trilogy with Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye in the Avengers) taking the lead role, is a fast-paced look at posthumanism and one of the better futurist films I've watched in some time.

I'd mostly ignored Legacy, figuring it would eventually hit Netflix, but found it in the library on Blu-ray this week and picked it up. Finding some free time today, I started watching and was blown away as the back story came together piece by piece. Sometimes the best views of the future arrive in a medium other than science fiction.

Stop here if you don't want to read spoilers. But this is a great movie and worth checking out.

Ventus

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Fri, 03/28/2014 - 16:02

Ventus is one of those scifi novels that strikes a great balance between plot, characters and new technologies - and a few old ones. One of my favorites and it's free on his website (or you can donate something for a novel that offers both education and entertainment with 4 stars on Amazon and 4.6 on Manybooks) if you're looking for something to occupy your weekend until winter finally sails away.

Is this accurate of our past and, if so, should it define our future?

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Thu, 03/20/2014 - 15:39

Man on trash mountainMan by Steve Cutts is a visceral animation depicting the history of mankind...ahem...bleeding into a possible view of our future. He focuses on our destructive nature, highlighting choices we've made some find cruel and wasteful and leading towards a demise by...well, you can see the ending yourself. Just 3:35 and worth the time.