A brief history of tomorrow

If you found my class interesting at all, you have to check out this a16z episode, "Brains, Bodies, Minds... And techno-religions":

https://a16z.com/2017/02/23/yuval-harari-from-homo-sapiens-to-homo-deus/

Evolution and technology have allowed our human species to manipulate the physical environment around us — reshaping fields into cities, redirecting rivers to irrigate farms, domesticating wild animals into captive food sources, conquering disease. But now, we’re turning that “innovative gaze” inwards: which means the main products of the 21st century will be bodies, brains, and minds. Or so argues Yuval Harari, author of the bestselling book Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind and of the new book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, in this episode of the a16z Podcast.

What happens when our body parts no longer have to be physically co-located? When Big Brother — whether government or corporation — not only knows everything about us, but can make better decisions for us than we could for ourselves? That’s ridiculous, you say. Sure… until you stop to think about how such decisions already, actually happen. Or realize that an AI-based doctor and teacher will have way more information than their human counterparts because of what can be captured, through biometric sensors, from inside (not just observed outside) us.

So what happens then when illusions collide with reality? As it is, religion itself is “a virtual reality game that provides people with meaning by imposing imaginary rules on an objective reality”. Is Data-ism the new religion? From education, automation, war, energy, and jobs to universal basic income, inequality, human longevity, and climate change, Harari (with a16z’s Sonal Chokshi and Kyle Russell) reflect on what’s possible, probable, pressing — and is mere decades, not centuries, away — when man becomes god… or merges with machine.

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Feltron Variables - Monday 2/1/2015

Do you have your tickets... to the gun show? #flexin #doyouevenliftbro Please complete this to show you did your homework: Loading... So, let's talk about what makes this project hard: actually collecting data. It's not hard, but somehow, doing it every day is hard. It's easy to miss a day... then two... then all the sudden, you have missed a bunch, and it's scary and you don't want to think about it, so you don't do it. So we are going to preempt all that by putting some work in today to make it hard to forget. First, we will make a Google form. I started it for you, all you is copy it and add your 4 variables . Once you have that, you are going to use a cool feature of Google Sheets to have google email you this form every day. The form will be in the email itself, so all you have to do is open the email, fill out the form, and hit enter. Here are the instructions to follow . Don't be intimidated! You just have to copy and paste some cod...

Monday 9/28

9/28/15 Monday Check in: Friday class & Homework Classwork: As long as we’re talking climate change... If someone tells you they don’t believe humans are causing it, you might want to ask them if smoking is bad for you. Why? There is as much evidence that humans are causing global warming as there is evidence that smoking causes cancer (you don’t have to click that link, I just like to put it up). Anyway, here’s a chart: It is entitled “Breakdown of the anthropic greenhouse gas emissions by gas, in billion tons carbon equivalent, in 2004” - it is a breakdown of the greenhouse gases emitted in 2004 that humans are responsible for. What’s the biggest greenhouse gas? What’s all that CO2 doing, and where does it go? A lot of it goes into the ocean, which seems better than the air, and it is... up to a point. The more CO2 in the ocean, the more acidic it gets (And the more acidic it gets, the lower its ph gets). That is fine... until it’s not. At some...

First day links

Review of what we did in class: The survey found in the post below this one. Stay or Switch, the Monty Hall Problem - played with this and became familiar with it. The Monty Hall Problem is from The Monty Hall show (weird, right?). The show is from the 1950's, but the problem and its answer are from 1990. Here is a link to Marilyn Vos Savant's page, and her solution to the problem, that resulted in a bunch of condescending, chauvinist responses from male math professors. Homework: Conditional Probability - For homework, be able to describe - in plain language - what all the sliders do on this. For example, the first slider changes the size of the red platform, so less of the balls hit it. You don't need to write anything, just play around with it and get a feel for it, but don't worry about what it says, it looks complicated and intimidating. You don't have to read it, just play with the interactive animation. Great first class!

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