Hank Pellissier's blog
Women's Equality via Secularism & Wealth?
A bulky research report titled The Global Gender Gap Index has been published annually since 2006 by the World Economic Index. The current 325-page report analyzed the status of women relative to men in 134 nations (out of the world’s 193) in four categories: Health, Education, Economy, and Politics. Every nation was then ranked, from 1-134, in a list of best-to-worst nations for women. What nations were picked in 2010 as the best in the world for women?
Bamboo: the future's favorite plant
What can stop eco-disasters? Advanced technology? Perhaps, but the savior also might be a 40-million-year-old plant… Bamboo is shooting into prominence as a flexible friend of humanity. The skinny stalk with the whispering leaves and white roots is exhibiting a husky talent as a cure for multiple planetary illnesses.
Women Advance As Political Leaders
On November 1, 2010, Dilma Rosseau was elected President of Brazil. The daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant, she was a revolutionary guerilla in the 1970's who was imprisoned for three years and tortured for 22 days with electric shock, but most importantly, today, she's a female leader, one of several political women selected recently to guide Latin American nations.
Israel's Natural Gas Discovery: Five Possible Scenarios
Israel's Natural Gas Discovery: Possible Scenarios
Israel's recent discovery of huge natural gas reservoirs in its territorial waters of the Mediterranean Sea has released a gushing torrent of hyperbolic hopes, ambitious export and alliance-building plans, aggressive threats from envious neighbors, pious religious references to Biblical prophecy, and even some cautious suggestions.
Artificial Islands are Floating in Our Future
Islands are romantic - ideal for lovers, pirates, and vacationers. Surrounded by lapping waves, they've extracted themselves from the sprawling tedium of mainland geography. 18,000 islands currently exist on the planet, but the future will deliver thousands more, in ideal locales. Will volcanic lava and coral growth provide us with this dreamy real estate? No.
Hot & Spicy Food Trend: Who Benefits Internationally?
Breakfast: Chilaquiles and Tolucan Chorizo with Chipotle Sauce.
Lunch: Thai Massaman Curry with Ginger Beer.
Dinner: Korean "Fire Beef" and Kimchi Jjigae with peppery Bloody Mary.
Are you salivating after reading that menu? Want your tongue burned with bold piquant flavors? If "yes" is the answer, you're part of today's flaming addiction for hot & spicy dining.
Six K-12 Education Predictions for the USA
What's in the future for elementary and secondary schools in the United States? American classrooms need extensive reform because they lag far behind Europe and East Asian nations in international testing surveys, such as the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA), conducted every three years by OECD (Organization of Economic and Co-operative Development).
Singularity Questions
When (and if) super-intelligent AI arrives mid-century, will it be Friendly or Unfriendly? Averting a "nerdocalypse" is a primary goal of the Singularity Institute, sponsor of last weekend's (August 14-15) Singularity Summit in San Francisco's Embarcadero Hyatt.
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Essays and comments posted in World Future Society and THE FUTURIST magazine blog portion of this site are the intellectual property of the authors, who retain full responsibility for and rights to their content. For permission to publish, distribute copies, use excerpts, etc., please contact the author. The opinions expressed are those of the author. The World Future Society takes no stand on what the future will or should be like.
About Hank Pellissier
Hank Pellissier is the author of the book Invent Utopia Now: Transhumanist Suggestions for the Pre-Singularity Era and has written dozens of transhumanist / futurist articles for IEET, H+ Magazine, the World Future Society, and other publications and sites, occasionally under his nom de plume, “Hank Hyena.” His e-book entitled Transhuman Conversion: the Pre-Singularity Era 2010-2040 will be available in August 2011. He is also an IEET Affiliate Scholar, and has lectured at the H+ Summit in Harvard on “Global Transhumanism,” co-authored the “Extropist Manifesto.”
Pellissier is the “Local Intelligence” columnist for The New York Times (San Francisco edition) and a frequent contributor to GreatSchools.org. He's Past work includes a daily column for Salon.com (“Naked World”), two columns for SfGate.com (“Urban Animal” and “Odd Barkings”), and a monthly column for SF Metropolitan (“Frisco Utopia”), plus numerous features.
Additionally, he founded The Kids’ Co-op Inc., a non-profit that launched two SF preschools and donated funds, food, and school supplies to ten foreign locales, primarily the Philippines, where seven hectares of agricultural land were purchased to enable a Mangyan village to self-subsist. Academically, he has a BA in History and an MA in Humanities/Religious Studies.
Pellissier enjoys forecasting trends, illustrating scenarios, and propounding solutions, on topics such as shifting demographics, feminism, culture, economics, urban planning, social organization, religion, sexuality, gender, food, and health/longevity issues. His hobbies include traveling and exercising with his triathlete wife and two hyperactive daughters, but mostly, he prefers to just research, write, and "argue online with readers who dispute his contentions. He’s available for freelance writing assignments and speaking engagements."
Learn more at his Web site.
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Blogs
THE FUTURIST Magazine Releases Its Top 10 Forecasts for 2013 and Beyond (With Video)
Each year since 1985, the editors of THE FUTURIST have selected the most thought-provoking ideas and forecasts appearing in the magazine to go into our annual Outlook report. The forecasts are meant as conversation starters, not absolute predictions about the future. We hope that this report--covering developments in business and economics, demography, energy, the environment, health and medicine, resources, society and values, and technology--inspires you to tackle the challenges, and seize the opportunities, of the coming decade. Here are our top ten.
Why the Future Will Almost Certainly Be Better than the Present
Five hundred years ago there was no telephone. No telegraph, for that matter. There was only a postal system that took weeks to deliver a letter. Communication was only possible in any fluent manner between people living in the same neighborhood. And neighborhoods were smaller, too. There were no cars allowing us to travel great distances in the blink of an eye. So the world was a bunch of disjointed groups of individuals who evolved pretty much oblivious to what happened around them.
Headlines at 21st Century Tech for January 11, 2013
Welcome to our second weekly headlines for 2013. This week's stories include:
- A Science Rendezvous to Inspire the Next Generation
- Next Steps for the Mars One Project
- Feeding the Planet Would Be Easier if We Didn't Waste Half of What We Produce
Where is the future?
Like the road you can see ahead of you as you drive on a journey, I suggest the future is embedded in emerging, continuous space-time. Although you’re not there yet, you can see the road in front of you. In the rear-view mirror stretches the landscape of the past, the world you have been through and still remember.
Transparency 2013: Good and bad news about banking, guns, freedom and all that
“Bank secrecy is essentially eroding before our eyes,” says a recent NPR article. ”I think the combination of the fear factor that has kicked in for not only Americans with money offshore, countries that don’t want to be on the wrong side of this issue and the legislative weight of FATCA means that within three to five years it will be exceptionally difficult for any American to hide money in any financial institution.”
The Internet of Things and Smartphones are Breaking the Internet
I have written several articles on network communications on this blog site as well as on other sites, describing its e
BiFi, Biology, Engineering and Artifical Life
BiFi is to biology as WiFi is to computers. It's a technology being pioneered by researchers at Stanford University and other institutions, looking at bioengineering techniques for creating complex biological communities working together to accomplish specific tasks. In a sense every organ and every system of coordinated activity within our bodies runs as a BiFi network.