Tag Archives: futurist

Podcast #47: Technology and The Brain, with Laura Cabrera

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“The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around.”–Thomas Edison

 

Richard Dawkins might disagree with Thomas Edison.  He’d likely say the purpose of our bodies and our brains is to carry around–and perpetuate– our genes.  Increasingly, though, the purpose of body is to carry around our technology and interface it with our brains.  Wearable electronics…VR goggles…smart phones…our devices are becoming more than tools.  They are merging with our being.  Add to this the onrush of emerging BCI (brain-computer interface) technologies and one thing becomes clear.  We are becoming what we build.

The IEEE brain initiative seeks to set standards for, and explore the ethics of, many of these technologies.  Laura Cabrera is a brain researcher working with the initiative.   In this episode of Seeking Delphi™ I talk to her about many issues surrounding the accelerating use of technology to diagnose, treat, and eventually enhance, the brain.

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Laura Cabrera-click image for bio

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode #47: Technology and The Brain with Laura Cabrera

YouTube Slideshow, episode #47

Neuralink

Smartdust

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Podcast #46: The Post-Covid Future, Part 3: The Electrical Grid and Emergency Preparedness, with Shay Bahramirad

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 “Without Electricity, the air would rot.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

What might Ralph Waldo Emerson say if he lived in the age of “shelter-at-home?”   Perhaps he’d opine that without electricity, we all would rot.  At any rate, we’d all be a lot more miserable, if not in far greater danger.  The reliability of electricity has never been more important then it is now.  Can you imagine a major outage from natural disaster or cascading grid failure occurring while the world is still mostly locked down from the pandemic?   You probably don’t want to think about such things–but electric utilities must.  Shay Bahramirad is a vice president at Commonwealth Edison in Chicago.  She joins me to discuss just such scenarios and how they are being prepared for by our power providers.

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Shay Bahramirad–Click image for bio

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Episode #46,  The Post-Covid Future: The Electrical Grid and Emergency Preparedness

(YouTube slideshow episode #46)

The Carrington Event

 

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Podcast #45: The Post Covid-19 Future, Part 2, Economics and Investing with Jim Lee

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“The main purpose of the stock market is to make fools of as many men as possible.”–Bernard Baruch

 

For all the pain, suffering, sickness in death, all we have to look forward to if we survive the pandemic, is the worst global economy since the 1930’s.  Does one need a financial analyst or a psychoanalyst?  Many of us may need both.

I can’t recommend a psychoanalyst, but I can recommend an investment analyst.  Jim Lee stands out from the myriad of talking heads on cable business news channels, because he is also a professional futurist.  He’s a fellow member of the Association of Professional Futurists, and he joins me for episode #45 to take the long and short view of the post-COVID economic future, from next several months through the next several decades.

A reminder that Seeking Delphi is available on iTunes and PlayerFM,  and has a channel on YouTube.  You can also follow us on twitter @Seeking_Delphi and Facebook 

 

Image: shutterstock Click for Worldometer coronavirus stats.

 

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Episode #45: The Post-Covid Future, Economics and Investing, with Jim Lee

YouTube slideshow for Episode #45.

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Podcast #44: The Post Covid-19 Future, Part 1, Urban and Social Issues with Cindy Frewen

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“If a severe pandemic materializes, all of society could pay a heavy price for decades of failing to create a rational system of health care that works for all of us.”–Irwin Redlener

 

Image: shutterstock

There is no doubt about it.  The after-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will be with us for many years into the future.  Healthcare. Economics. Social Interaction. Sports. Politics. Education.  Just about everything will feel the effects for the rest of most of our natural lives.

In this, the first of a series looking at various scenarios for a post-pandemic world, we look at urban and social issues.  Dr. Cindy Frewen is well qualified to discuss both of these areas. She is a fellow member of the Association of Professional Futurists–she served as its board chair for many years.  She is an architect, has a Ph. D. in communication, and teaches social change in the University of Houston’s graduate foresight program.  She also was a columnist for the Kansas City Star for many years.

A reminder that Seeking Delphi is available on iTunes and PlayerFM,  and has a channel on YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook.

 

Cindy Frewen , Phd
Image credit: Kansas City Star

Image: shutterstock Click for Worldometer coronavirus stats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode #44:  Post-Covid19 Urban and Social Issues, with Cindy Frewen

Full unedited Zoom video of episode #44

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Podcast #42: Going to Mars, featuring Moriba Jah

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“I want to die on Mars–just not on impact.”–Elon Musk

“I am convinced that humans need to leave earth.”–Stephen Hawking

Mars One–not as good an idea as some thought.

Elon Musk and the late Stephen Hawking are not alone in their calls for humanity to become a multi-planetary species.  But they certainly are the most  visible advocates for space colonization.  And while the moon might be the most obvious jumping off point to the solar system and beyond, nothing stands out as a potential site for long term settlement more than Mars.

But just how realistic is sending astronauts to the Red Planet anytime soon–let alone colonizing it permanently?  The obstacles are many, and aerospace engineering may well be the least of them.  The human biological, psychological tolls and survival strategies–radiation, low gravity, isolation and the marshalling air, water, and food resources–all stand in the way.   And then there is the economic cost and the political and public will.  In this edition of Seeking Delphi,™ I talk to former NASA Mars mission navigator, Moriba Jah, about the many challenges of leaving of our home planet.

 

A reminder that Seeking Delphi is available on iTunes and PlayerFM,  and has a channel on YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook.

 

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Episode #42:  Going to Mars, with Moriba Jah

  YouTube  slideshow for episode #42

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Podcast #41: After Shock and the Legacy of Alvin Toffler, with Jerome Glenn and Andrew Curry

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“Future shock is a sickness that comes from too much change in too short a time.”–Alvin Toffler

 

The newly released volume, After Shock, features 50 of the world’s most renowned futurists reflecting on the 50-year legacy of Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, and looking ahead to the next 50 years.  In this episode recorded just a few days after the book’s release, two of the contributing essayists, Jerome Glenn and Andrew Curry, discuss with me their views on the legacy of Toffler and Future Shock.   Below are links to the audio podcast as well as to the unedited YouTube video of the original webinar.

The day I read Future Shock, just a couple of years after it came out, was the day that started me on the course to becoming a futurist.  Here’s what I wrote on this blog when Toffler died in July of 2016.

Links to relevant stories appear after the audio file and embedded YouTube video below.  A reminder that Seeking Delphi is available on iTunes and PlayerFM,  and has a channel on YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook.

 

  

Jerome Glenn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

episode #41,  After Shock and the Legacy of Alvin Toffler

 

YouTube vidoe of original, unedited webinar

 

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