On being a “Conservative Futurist”

In a recent Twitter conversation with Justin Pickard, I referred to myself as a “conservative futurist.” He said he would be interested in what that means and I promised to write a blog post about it. This is my attempt to do so.

Looking back over my social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter, blog) you can see that I am a Christian, and nominally a libertarian. Those two alone put me at odds with many of the futurists I read, and especially with many Transhumanists who seem to believe that anyone who believes in God is opposed to them and trying to hold back humanity.

That’s not a debate I want to get into because it’s too polarized and neither side is going to change its mind no matter how well the other side argues. Instead, I want to touch on a few issues that commonly come up in Futurist conversations and describe where I might be positioned on them.

First, and probably most controversial, I am a global warming skeptic. Note that I did NOT say denier, which is a derogatory term used by those who are convinced. Does global climate change happen? Absolutely, and in cycles through time. Are we causing global warming? I’m not so sure. I’ve seen evidence that contradicts it, and seen good arguments against it. Enough so that I’m not convinced. It will be interesting to see if many of the scenarios used for planning that assume global warming will be useful after all.

Second is artificial intelligence. Ray Kurzweil (link to Kurzweil) and others believe that within forty years we’ll have created computers that will be super-smart and capable of thinking – that will, for all intents and purposes, be alive. I am, again, skeptical. First, I think it’s a long way from creating a computer program that evolves to one that can think for itself. Even Watson cannot do much without tweaking it’s program – which is done by human programmers, not by itself. Second, (oops, here come my religious beliefs) I don’t believe that it’s alive unless it has a soul. Does this mean I think all research should stop? Of course not – the smarter we can make them, the more help they’ll be. I just don’t believe that any computer (or robot) will ever be truly alive.

Third is life extension. I’ve read quite a bit on this, (links to books) and pay special attention to the blog of Sonia Arrison. I’ll be honest though: I believe that there’s a limit set in the Bible for us. As a matter of fact, a recent article notes an average of 114 years. I believe we can extend the healthy part of our lives up until then, but remain unconvinced that we can extend it much beyond that – and I don’t believe immortality is a possibility in any way, including “uploading.”  Especially at our current state of technology, but even beyond, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to use a silicon-based matrix to represent the human brain. (I would love to be proven wrong, of course!)

That’s just several areas where my beliefs affect my view of the future. What about you? Do you lean more toward a transhumanist view of the future or more towards a “conservative” view of the future? If you believe in some sort of supernatural diety, how does that affect your view?

My Books Read in the Last Year

I read quite a bit last year, with an emphasis on linguistics, Counterinsurgency, complexity, and mathematics.  Fiction, as always was scattered throughout the year.  Lots of good links below; I encourage you to check them out, along with the reviews I did of several of them…

January
1) Your Child’s Growing Mind: A Guide to Learning and Brain Development from Birth to Adolescence – Jane M. Healey, Ph.D
2) Simplexity: Why Simple Things Become Complex (and How Complex Things Can Be Made Simple) – Jeffrey Kluger
3) The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
4) A New Kind of Science – Stephen Wolfram
5) Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power – Robert D. Kaplan
6) The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity – Richard Florida (My review here)
7) Language: The Big Picture – Peter Sharpe (my review here)
8) Understanding Physics: Volume 1: Motion, Sound, and Heat (Understanding Physics) – Isaac Asimov
9) Seven Firefights in Vietnam – John A. Cash, et al.  (My review here)

February
10) Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages – Guy Deutscher (My review here)
11) Chaos Theory Tamed – Garnett P. Williams
12) Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity – John Gribbin (My review here)
13) The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa: With E. D. Swinton’s “The Defence of Duffer’s Drift” – Michael Burgoyne and Albert Marckwardt (My review here)
14) The Age of the Unthinkable , Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It – Joshua Cooper Ramo
15) The Quiet American (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) – Graham Greene
16) Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq – Patrick Cockburn
17) Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life – Len Fisher
18) Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language – Seth Lerer (My review here)
19) Migration: Species Imperative #2 – Julie Czerneda
20) Euler’s Gem: The Polyhedron Formula and the Birth of Topology – David S. Richeson
21) Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means – Albert-Laszlo Barabasi (My review here)
22) Chicago Blues – Edited by Libby Fischer Hellmann

March
23) Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us – Dan Pink
24) The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…and Why – Richard E. Nisbett
25) Pink Boots and a Machete: My Journey From NFL Cheerleader to National Geographic Explorer – Mireya Mayor (My review here)
26) A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines – Anthony Bourdain
27) Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World – Liaquat Ahamed (My review here)
28) Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions – Lisa Randall
29) The Mother Tongue – English And How It Got That Way – Bill Bryson
30) Raising Musical Kids: A Guide for Parents – Robert A. Cutietta

April
31) Thought Contagion – Aaron Lynch (My review here)
32) Prince Caspian (Chronicles of Narnia 2) – C.S. Lewis
33) Memories of My Melancholy Whores – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
34) Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age (Open Market Edition) – Duncan J. Watts
35) The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind’s Greatest Invention – Guy Deutscher
36) Hardwired – Walter Jon Williams
37) The Next Decade: Where We’ve Been . . . and Where We’re Going – George Friedman

May
38) Almost Human: Making Robots Think – Lee Gutkind
39) Understanding Physics: Volume 2: Light, Magnetism and Electricity – Isaac Asimov
40) Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials) – Robert B. Cialdini
41) Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do – Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
42) The Secret Servant (Gabriel Allon) – Daniel Silva
43) Pittsburgh Noir (Akashic Noir) – Edited by Kathleen George
44) Freedom (TM) – Daniel Suarez
45) Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Building Robots – Gareth Branwyn
46) The Traveler (Fourth Realm Trilogy, Book 1) – John Twelve Hawks
47) Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back – Douglas Rushkoff
48) Running Out of Water: The Looming Crisis and Solutions to Conserve Our Most Precious Resource – Peter Rogers and Susan Leal
49) Monk Habits for Everyday People: Benedictine Spirituality for Protestants – Dennis Okholm

June
50) Counterinsurgency – David Kilcullen
51) Hunter’s Run – George R. R. Martin, Gardner Dozois, Daniel Abraham
52) The Killing Ground (Sean Dillon) – Jack Higgins
53) One Shot (Jack Reacher, No. 9) – Lee Child
54) The Hard Way (Jack Reacher, No. 10) – Lee Child
55) Why Things Break: Understanding the World By the Way It Comes Apart – Mark E. Eberhart

July
56) Earth Strike: Star Carrier: Book One – Ian Douglas
57) Mediterranean Winter: The Pleasures of History and Landscape in Tunisia, Sicily, Dalmatia, and the Peloponnese – Robert D. Kaplan
58) The Post-American World: Release 2.0 – Fareed Zakaria
59) Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer – Novella Carpenter
60) The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization – Bryan Ward-Perkins
61) The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century – Thomas X. Hammes
62) Four Colors Suffice: How the Map Problem Was Solved – Robin Wilson
63) How to Build Your Own Spaceship: The Science of Personal Space Travel – Piers Bizony
64) The X in Sex: How the X Chromosome Controls Our Lives – David Bainbridge
65) The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World – Peter Schwartz

August
66) The Language of Life: DNA and the Revolution in Personalized Medicine – Francis S. Collins
67) The Scar – China Mieville
68) The Profession: A Thriller – Steven Pressfield (My review here)
69) Symmetry: A Journey into the Patterns of Nature – Marcus du Sautoy
70) The Five Chinese Brothers (Paperstar) – Claire Hutchet Bishop and Kurt Wiese
71) Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America – Matt Taibbi
72) How to Talk to Your Child About Sex: It’s Best to Start Early, but It’s Never Too Late — A Step-by-Step Guide for Parents – Linda and Richard Eyre
73) The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris – David McCullough
74) Havoc – Jack DuBrul
75) Sundiver (The Uplift Saga, Book 1) – David Brin
76) Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy – Steven Metz

September
77) The Rest of the Robots – Isaac Asimov
78) Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things – William McDonough and Michael Braungart
79) 7th Sigma – Steven Gould
80) 50 Mathematical Ideas You Really Need to Know – Tony Crilly
81) The Future of Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style and Your Life – Thomas W. Malone
82) Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier – Edward Glaeser
83) Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself – Dan Pink

October
84) The Future of Management – Gary Hamel with Bill Breen
85) 100 Plus: How the Coming Age of Longevity Will Change Everything, From Careers and Relationships to Family and Faith – Sonia Arrison
86) The Riemann Hypothesis: The Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics – Karl Sabbagh
87) Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity (Great Discoveries) – David Foster Wallace
88) The Final Warning (Maximum Ride, Book 4) – James Patterson
89) Re-read Where Eagles Dare – Alistair MacLean
90) The Caryatids – Bruce Sterling

November
91) Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality – Jonathan Weiner
92) Mathematical Mysteries: The Beauty and Magic of Numbers (Helix Books) – Calvin C. Clawson
93) The Mystery of the Aleph: Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity – Amir D. Aczel
94) Spousonomics: Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage, and Dirty Dishes – Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson
95) Reamde: A Novel – Neal Stephenson
96) The Poincare Conjecture: In Search of the Shape of the Universe – Donal O’Shea

December
97) Euclid’s Window : The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace – Leonard Mlodinow
98) Millennium Problems – Keith Devlin
99) The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
100) Godel’s Proof (Revised Edition) – Ernest Nagel and James R. Newman
101) Moscow Rules (Gabriel Allon #8) – Daniel Silva
102) The Bourne Legacy – Eric van Lustbader
103) Beautiful Outlaw: Experiencing the Playful, Disruptive, Extravagant Personality of Jesus – John Eldredge
104) Count Down: The Race for Beautiful Solutions at the International Mathematical Olympiad – Steve Olson
105) The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets – Alan Boss

Beating Procrastination: Thoughts

Recently I discovered this blog by Meg Hyatt, whose father is president of Thomas Nelson publishing.  I ran into her dad’s blog via Getting Things Done, and through twitter I discovered his daughter.

Her post is on running in the heat and humidity and I encourage you to read it.  It was one of the comments that caught my attention, and I’m excerpting it here because I think it’s really good:

 6  Bridget  on June 8, 2008 at 8:01 pm

A Few Observations

* The more we make excuses, the more we buy into them, the easier it is to make additional excuses to support our mind-created beliefs. These beliefs become our story, and our excuses become our reality.
* Delaying is addictive. Even if your intention is to put it off “just this one time”. The act of putting it off sets a chain of reactions that will make it easier to delay this task again. In fact, it becomes more likely that the task will be postponed again.
* What we repeat in our mind actually exaggerates the scale of the task involved. It snowballs larger and larger, until the task becomes so big that you will never get it done.
* Constantly thinking about doing something but avoiding the actual act of doing it takes energy. You end up spending more energy pondering about it and making excuses for it than just getting it done. You’ll actually save time and attention energy by just doing it.
* We can only move on with our lives when we can get past our internal conflict between our story of procrastination and our desire to get it done. You really start to be productive when you can change your attitude.
* When you break the cycle and start, you’ll be surprised at how quick and easy the task actually takes. You’ll be wondering why you didn’t just get it done in the first place.

What are your excuses?  How do you beat procrastination?

Scott

Goals, Strategy and Rules for Renegades

Tim Ferris did a post that inspired me to buy Rules for Renegades by Christine Comaford-Lynch.

I’ve been going through a paradigm shift lately.  Hate to use such a clichéd term, but there it is.  All my reading, all my thinking, it’s all hammering home the same lesson:  I have to create the life I want.  No one is going to give it to me, and it’s not out there already waiting for me to find it.  It doesn’t exist yet, and it’s up to me to make it happen.

 

Some telling things:  What is my ideal lifestyle?  If I had all the money I ever needed in the bank, what would I do day to day?  I do not have answers to those questions right now.  And that is a serious freaking problem.

 

I’m pondering becoming a futurist, getting a degree in Strategic Foresight. 

 

From Christine Comaford-Lynch’s book, a couple of things:

 

1.)  Supreme Confidence, gigantic, absolute, quiet confidence has to come from within and it cannot be validated by others because it’s there no matter what others think.  How many times do I have to learn this lesson?

 

2.)  She talks about business plans.  So often, she says, people have this plan:

 

            a) Develop widget

            b) ?

            c) Make millions

 

     Where b is undefined but basically tells how you are going to pull this off and get from A to C.

     For me, in the past, it’s been like this:

 

            a) Get degree

            b) ?

            c) Go to Mars, become successful in business, become a pastor, or I dare say, a futurist.

 

Well, what’s B?  It was never defined.  And that’s why I’ve been in a series of jobs I don’t care about, why I’ve never gotten to do the things I want to do.  My plans are never complete.  I get a harebrained idea, launch into it with a big cool goal and never figure out what goes in between.  It’s like playing chess and moving your first pawn to D4 and ignoring the rest of the moves to checkmate.  Usually, you’re the one that gets checkmated as you react tactically to the other players moves.

 

In other words, strategy counts.  Where are you going, and how are you going to get there?  This doesn’t mean having a rigid plan.  Instead, you need to have options.  If this doesn’t work, what will you do?  If you end up here, how will you get to there?  Once you get the degree, then what?  What options do you have?  How will you act on those options?  More importantly, are you sure that those options will give you the lifestyle you want?  Is it possible that starting this path will lead you to something else you haven’t thought of, good or bad?

 

A lot to think about.  But key and critical to making the right decision for a change.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Christian and I believe in praying about it.  But two things:  First, God gave us a brain so we could use it, and with that brain came free will.  We can choose, whether it’s a good choice or poor choice, He lets us make it.  He’ll work out His plans no matter what we do.  Second, my track record on praying before has not worked that way – usually it’s after I make the decision and commit that I have an idea that I did the right or wrong thing.

 

Like I said, a lot to think about.

 

Scott

How to be a Man, Introduction

Many years ago, before I married my wife, I had a problem.

I had no idea how to be a man.  I always thought that when I grew up I’d be mature, confident, in control.  But I wasn’t, and most of the time I was just muddling through.   I wasn’t doing well with women, so I joined a Christian dating group, and at one event, I asked a girl out.  She said no, she didn’t date, and said it was because of a book by Josh Harris called I Kissed dating Goodbye.

Naturally, I (and many others interested in the same girl) went out and bought the book.

To be honest, I didn’t think much of his philosophy.  Your mileage, of course, may vary.  But what did impress me is the last part of the book where he talked about making yourself ready for your wife.  Improving your character, getting right with God, useful skills, that sort of thing.

I took a good long look at myself and I wasn’t happy with what I saw.   So I started to read, prolifically, and work on my social life.   Then I got married and had a kid.  Now I’m working on my career.

I won’t lie and say I have it all figured out – I’m not sure anyone ever really does.  But I’d like to share my learnings in an occasional series of posts.  My next post will mention some of the books I started with, and some of the lessons I learned from them.

Stick around.  I think you’ll find it interesting!

Scott

My 2007 Reading List for Personal Development

I read a lot of books – generally 1 every couple of weeks. Worse yet, I buy books a lot because I see something interesting. And I get books out of the library on top of that!

The end result is that I have piles of books laying around begging to be read – and with a full time job, a wife, a child, and various other activities, not much time to read!

At the beginning of this year I sat down and made a list of the books I definitely want to read this year. So far, I’ve read three other books that aren’t even on the list, so I’m posting the list in hopes that it will add accountability. As in, at the end of the year I’ll post a follow-up stating which ones I read. I’ll also post reviews as I go.

Here it is:

The Innovator’s Dilemma, by Clayton Christensen

Becoming a Person of Influence, by John Maxwell and Jim Dornan

25 Ways to Win With People, by John Maxwell and Les Parrott

People Skills

The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene

The 33 Strategies of War, by Robert Greene

Christ Plays in 10,000 Places, by Eugene H. Peterson

The E-Myth Revisited, by Michael Gerber

A Whole New Mind, by Daniel Pink

The Renaissance Soul, by Margaret Lobenstein

You: The Owner’s Manual, by Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz

The End of the Barbary Terror, by Frederick C. Leiner

The Golden Ratio, by Mario Livio

The Little Book That Beats The Market, by Joel Greenblatt

The Bogleheads Guide to Investing, by Taylor Larimore et al

Your Money or Your Life, by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin

I’ve also read the following books:

The Eight, by Katherine Neville

The Immortal Game: A History of Chess, by David Shenk

The Wealthy Barber, by David Chilton (Reviewed by me here)

I’m currently reading:

The Places in Between, by Rory Stewart

Musings On How to Pray

One of my Goals for this year is to pray at least five minutes per day.

I suppose, if you add up all the “quickie” prayers I say throughout the day, I’ve done that.  But that wasn’t what I had in mind.  I wanted to get on my knees and pray for five minutes straight.  Part of my failure is not taking the time to do it.

But part of it is that prayer is hard!  I’ve read books on how to pray, gone to Bible studies, heard sermons, and even been involved in Bible studies on the project.  I’ve done the follow the Lord’s Prayer thing (Praise God, thank Him for things, confess sins,  submit requests).  I mean, I’ve been praying for over thirty years.  You’d think I’d have it figured out by now.

But still, sometimes I just don’t know where to begin.  A lot of times my prayers degenerate into wish lists – and mostly just for myself, and then mostly for myself to change for the better.  When I praise Him, at first it was a case of what to say, then as I memorized a few Psalms, I got more poetic, but then it was a question of whether those were my words or if I was just parroting them.

Giving thanks was for the same things every day, and it seems like the list of sins was the same too.  Occasionally I remembered to pray for others.

But what about just listening for answers?  What about contemplative prayer?  So many kvestions!  I suppose, in the end, learning how to pray is like anything else – it’s a process.

So I’m still struggling with it.  But it’s an important part of my life so I’ll keep working on it!

Scott

Merry Christmas to all!

Lessee, Today is December 22, and my last post was…

Oops.  Sorry for the lack of posting but the holidays have been nuts.  I’ll resume regular posting after the new year, but what I’ve been working on is trying to establish more of a theme for my blog as opposed to randomly doing one subject after another mixed with family posts…

In the meantime, let’s all remember the real reason for Christmas – Jesus’s birthday.  While that’s most likely not the day He was actually born, it is when we celebrate it.

And if you’re not a Christian, well, just lift a glass to peace and goodwill towards all!

A timely quote

“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
  —  Thomas Jefferson

Spirituality and Wisdom

I’m a Christian by faith, and (attempt to, anyway) read my Bible every day. A few years back, I found the “48 ways to Wisdom” on a Jewish site.

On Winds of Change, another blog, they have a series on Sufi wisdom (the Sufis were a branch of Islam distinctly different from Wahabbism), which makes for interesting reading.

And of course, there are the ancient traditions from Asia and India.

So, here’s my question. Where do you stand on wisdom from sources other than your own religion? I ask, because there seems to be three main schools of thought in Christianity :

1.) Anything outside the Bible is not useful (Fundamentalist, extremely conservative, etc)
2.) The Bible was written by man, so any source is good (Liberal, atheist/agnostic, etc)

3.) All sources are inspired by God, the Bible was written by God, so as long as it doesn’t contradict Scripture, it’s useful. (conservative, Berean, etc)

I tend to fall into the 3rd camp. How about you?