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Human Contact - a hard SF roleplaying game about humans

"Foundation For the Future launches its fifteenth year of operation with exciting plans for an extension of emphasis on the study of the relationship between the human genome and society. Our mission of increasing and diffusing knowledge will also mean sponsoring lecturers to bring to the public, free-of-charge, direct access to expert information on topics that impact humanity. And a "Humanity 3000" seminar will again bring together a roster of leading thinkers from multiple disciplines to discuss the critical issues that have emerged in recent years for our species and Planet Earth."

"The Future of Humanity Institute is a multidisciplinary research institute at the University of Oxford. It enables a select set of leading intellects to bring careful thinking to bear on big-picture questions about humanity and its prospects. The Institute belongs to the Faculty of Philosophy and the Oxford Martin School."

The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies was formed to study and debate vital questions such as: Which technologies, especially new ones, are likely to have the greatest impact on human beings and human societies in the 21st century? What ethical issues do those technologies and their applications raise for humans, our civilization, and our world? How much can we extrapolate from the past and how much accelerating change should we anticipate? What sort of policy positions can be recommended to promote the best possible outcomes for individuals and societies?

Thought leaders in the field - including Bruce Sterling, Jamais Cascio, Bill McKibben, Witold Rybczynski and Jay Oglivy - will kick-start the launch by blogging about what "prevailing" means to them. Readers will be encouraged to become authors and help direct the discussion in groups devoted to everything from "Creating Stronger, Faster Communities" and "Human Enhancement" to "Revolutionizing Learning" and "Foresight - How Can We Think Critically About the Future?" "Prevailproject.org will be a place for everybody from my mother to technologists inventing the future to grapple with some of the most pressing questions of our time: How are the genetics, robotics, information and nano revolutions changing human nature, and how can we shape our own futures, toward our own ends, rather than being the pawns of these explosively powerful technologies?" said Joel Garreau, the Lincoln Professor of Law, Culture and Values at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, and director of The Prevail Project: Wise Governance for Challenging Futures.

"The Human Race to the Future: What Could Happen - and What to Do, by Dr. Daniel Berleant (388 pages), the first book published by the Lifeboat Foundation, is available free (Kindle version) to KurzweilAI readers on July 8 as a one-day promo. A non-fiction book verging on science fiction, its imaginative future scenarios include colonizing the planet Mercury (it has water at the poles), GPS-enabled clocks replace daylight savings time, mind-reading replaces keyboards, cheap genomes, smart pills, the Asteroid Apocalypse, global warming vs. Big Ice, and live anywhere, work anywhere - an hour's work yields a week's (radically genetically engineered) food. "Mandatory reading for anyone trying to grasp where civilization is heading" - Zoltan Istvan, author, The Transhumanist Wager."

Modern futurism began at the dawn of the 20th century with a series of essays by H.G. Wells, which he called "Anticipations." Wells proposed that serious thinkers should write soberly, factually and objectively about the great "mechanical and scientific progress" transforming human affairs. But if the goal of futurism is to shed enlightenment over the dark forces of historical change, then we must recall that history is one of the humanities, not a hard science. Tomorrow obeys a futurist the way lightning obeys a weatherman.

looks like a pretty cool futures project, good to have this as background knowledge. "Societies are developing and investing in technological and scientific innovations that have ever longer-term consequences for human and non-human life. Current future-producing practices include biotechnologies, nanotechnologies, and nuclear technologies. Such developments unleash futures that we cannot predict, and set in motion processes that will affect untold generations to come. "

This is a very cool trailer that depicts many of the challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. It is highly significant because the Communication of Foresight s one of the pre-eminent challenges we face today as societies. The dangers of climate change have been well developed by generations of climate scientists. But what about engaging various publics in the issue, garnering interest and energy for change through instigating new debates. How many other areas are like climate change - genetics, human consciousness, the list goes on. This trailer is a good example of aestheticizing the future in ways that CAN garner interest.

Report Being Human ; Human-computer interaction in the year 2020

Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today-perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system-in prison, on probation, or on parole-than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under "correctional supervision" in America-more than six million-than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States.

It's hard to think of a more attention-grabbing title than Robots, Men, and Sex Tourism - especially in the academic world. Written by researchers from New Zealand's University of Wellington and published recently in the journal Futures, the paper predicts that in the decades to come, humans will patronise robot-staffed brothels, freeing them from the guilt associated with visiting a flesh-and-blood prostitute.

"Because of the grand nature of this expedition, not only the launch and landing will draw large audiences. In 2013, Mars One will start the selection of the first crews that will train to be able to go to Mars. Unlike the astronaut selection processes at the space agencies, Mars One will open up this procedure for everyone to see. And not only to watch: after Mars One experts have eliminated unsuitable candidates, the audience will have a say in who will be the first humans on Mars. Mars One will make the selection of the first ambassadors to another planet a democratic process!"

"THOUSANDS of wannabe Martians from Australia have put their hand up for the biggest relocation of a lifetime - from Earth to the Red Planet. More than 2500 Australians have applied for the one-way trip to Mars, which will double as a reality TV show. The Mars One project, which aims to create the first human settlement on the Solar System's second-smallest planet, has received 165,000 applications from astronaut hopefuls from 140 different countries. "We now have a large group of applicants from where we can start our search," Mars One chief medical officer Dr Norbert Kraft said. "Finding the best crews of qualified and compatible individuals is crucial to the success of our mission." Successful applicants will have to say goodbye to Earth forever, with the first crew of four people expected to launch into space for their seven months journey to Mars in 2022."

"Bertolt Meyer is used to being viewed as not fully human. Born with a stump where his left hand should have been, he spent his childhood wearing a hook connected to an elaborate pulley and harness. "To open the hook and grasp things I had to flex my shoulders like this," he says, striking a he-man pose. "The harness was very uncomfortable. To stop it chafing my skin, I had to wear a shirt underneath it at all times. I was always sweating.""

It's an idea that most of us would rather not face -- that within the next century, life as we know it could come to an end. Our civilization could crumble, leaving only traces of modern human existence behind. It seems outlandish, extreme -- even impossible. But according to cutting edge scientific research, it is a very real possibility. And unless we make drastic changes now, it could very well happen. Experts have a stark warning: that unless we change course, the "perfect storm" of population growth, dwindling resources and climate change has the potential to converge in the next century with catastrophic results.

" LDCs: Least Developed, Most to Gain. Least Developed Countries (LDCs) rank among the world's poorest, exhibiting low health and education indicators and high economic vulnerability. LDCs also make up more than half of the world's countries - the majority of which are in Africa, followed by Asia - comprising over 800 million people. The United Nations describes the Least Developed Countries as "the poorest and the most vulnerable segment of humanity at the very epicentre of the developmental emergency", but with only a few countries "graduated" from LDC status in the last decade, the plight of the Least Developed Countries is as pressing as ever."

"The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards the Singularity."

" Verbalizing visceral feelings about technology, whether attraction or repulsion, Kelly explores the "technium," his term for the globalized, interconnected stage of technological development. Arguing that the processes creating the technium are akin to those of biological evolution, Kelly devotes the opening sections of his exposition to that analogy, maintaining that the technium exhibits a similar tendency toward self-organizing complexity. Having defined the technium, Kelly addresses its discontents, as expressed by the Unabomber (although Kelly admits to trepidation in taking seriously the antitechnology screeds of a murderer) and then as lived by the allegedly technophobic Amish. From his observations and discussions with some Amish people, Kelly extracts some precepts of their attitudes toward gadgets, suggesting folk in the secular world can benefit from the Amish approach of treating tools as servants of self and society rather than as out-of-control masters. Exploring ramifications of technology on human welfare and achievement, Kelly arrives at an optimistic outlook that will interest many, coming, as it does, from the former editor of Wired magazine. --Gilbert Taylor "