Showing posts with label prediction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prediction. Show all posts
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What will happen if the world's population go down?

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Lower land prices, higher labor prices, said Pete Alcorn. Surely, it will bring tremendous changes to social system: land reform, democratization and the rise of middle class. Alcorn suggest us to move beyond malthusian economy and pay attention to the tendency of population decrease.

In previous posts we have discussed a little about post-scarcity economics, which is a by-product of Molecular Manufacturing (MM). It may turn out that even without MMworld's population growth may decrease to negative within one century.

The reason for decreasing population may vary. In the past, it can happen because of wars. Now it seems unlikely. So plague -- such as virulent influenza viruses -- could be a scenario. Another scenario would be a relatively successful health and social programs which increases longevity but turned population growth into negative.

See Alcorn's talk here:




 

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Some predictions

Sunday, August 26, 2007









Here's to start your monday, some predictions. Most of the information, we already know. But I like the graphic. Oh, and it predicts that supercomputer will exceed the capability of human brain by 2013, btw. (Created by Karl Fisch)

 

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2007 Legal Predictions: What is HOT?

Thursday, January 4, 2007

No computer as a legal subject, no determining your child using copyright, no international law on online games, we only talk about 2007 not 2030. What's going to be hot? Jennifer Granick wrote in Wired that (i) contract law and (ii) privacy law will be the two hot topics for 2007.:
Free speech and fair use don't mean much if software end user license agreements, or EULAs, or website terms of service, or TOS, can take those rights away. Contract law allows private parties to agree to forgo most rights in exchange for some privilege. Vendors of goods and services take advantage of modern contracting tools, like click-through or shrink-wrap, to impose terms and conditions on using software or websites. These documents purport to limit the user's legal rights.

Two things have changed. First, it's no longer acceptable only to catch criminals during or after a crime has been committed. Counter-terrorism requires identifying and neutralizing threats ahead of time. Second, collecting information about everyone is now much cheaper and easier than it used to be. We spread information about ourselves as we use the internet, shop online, talk on our cell phones, send e-mail or use electricity. These activities leave a digital trail that database and search technology can store and access relatively inexpensively.
Privacy has been quite a debate in 2006, both for lawyers and non lawyers. Futurist such as Brin had invented the concept of "Transparent Society"and Cascio introduced the "Participatory Panopticon". For the lawyers, Posner's books "Uncertain Shield: The U.S. Intelligence System in the Throes of Reform" and Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency both discusses privacy issues as an inevetable aspect of law enforcement. I think these thoughts contributes significantly to the privacy legal debate in 2007.

I agree with her analysis on online contracts. Even lawyers wouldn't bother spending time to study the content of online contracts. Thus, following this, another aspects of law will arise: consumer protection and competition law.

You can read the whole thing here.


 

New Year's predictions

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

There seems to be nothing new:
#8: Weapons of mass destruction will be even easier to obtain over the next 15 years. Terrorists may move from bombs to creating havoc on the cellular level. The weapons of the future—genetic engineering and nanotechnology—require neither large facilities nor mass materials.

#9: The convergence of genetic engineering, nanotechnology and robotics will allow humans to change their bodies in profoundly new ways. In the next 15 years, people may be able to rearrange their genes to change their physical features, extend their lifespan, merge their brains with computers and their bodies with robots, among many other remarkable developments.
I was expecting someone to make a regulatory prediction for nanotechnology. Oh well, maybe I should do it myself. Will keep you posted!