World Futures Fall 2021

"The public hearings showed sharp differences of opinion about SpaceX's plans to conduct orbital launches from Boca Chica. Many attendees were strong advocates for the company and the proposed launch site, calling it critical to the nation's future in space. They also played down the environmental impact, often comparing it to the launch sites at Cape Canaveral in Florida, which are embedded within a wildlife refuge." This hit resonates because it hits on lots of areas - environmental, political, technological, geopolitical, demography... There will always be people for and people against. I feels like Space X did a nice job of stacking the room in their favor.

Musk believes government should merely act as "referees" to establish the rules of the game and ensure the right rules are properly enforced. "That's an important rule for government to ensure that the rules are correct and that the incentives are what we actually want them to be for," Elon wants the government out of his way but he is no so wealthy and visible it will be very interesting to watch. He relies on government contracts and relies on NASA to do the work he doesn't want to do.

The article talks about religon in the next 30 years. Most all major religons will grow. There will also be growth in the number of people who don't idenitfy with any religon. Islam seems to be the religon with fastest growth, while Christianity will see the highest concenrtration outside of the US where we see most christians today.

I mean, It's a fair question.

The current problems at the sea ports warrants an even closer look at what's happeining. An article from the Sierra club identifies how ports harm the environment with diesel freighters and equipment. The article is a call to address these matters sooner than later. It also mentions that the port communities are suffering due to exposure to the emissions from operations and that often these communities are lower income families.

The USDA released a study highlighting barriers that SNAP participants face when trying to eat a healthy diet. Nearly 90% percent identified barriers, with 66% stating that healthy food is not affordable. Additionally, SNAP participants' responses around preparing and storing food were identified as barriers related to food insecurity.

NPR discussion on behavioral economist's, Sendhil Mullainathan, book - Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, co-authored with Princeton psychologist Eldar Shafir. " Poverty, they find, is like a parasite, consuming mental energy that could be put to more beneficial use. "Put simply, being poor is like having just pulled an all-nighter," Mullainathan once told NPR. And that, he says, hurts their ability to escape poverty. As Washington debates sending checks to Americans and increasing the minimum wage, a new study offers evidence for how such policies could help eliminate poverty. Obviously, giving more money to people without much money helps them with money problems. But the study adds to a growing body of research that says that money really does help workers earn more money."

The gap between the richest and the poorest U.S. households is now the largest it's been in the past 50 years - despite the median U.S. income hitting a new record in 2018, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

3D printing technology, using heat-resistant metal alloys, is revolutionizing trial-and-error rocket development. Whole structures that would have previously required hundreds of distinct components can now be printed in a matter of days. The key to fast engine development is to reduce the number of parts, which reduces the time it takes to assemble the engine and the disruption caused by supply chain delays. The easiest way to do this is to change manufacturing processes. Space companies are now moving away from subtractive manufacturing processes-which remove material to shape a part-to additive manufacturing processes that build up a part by adding material to it bit by bit.

Stronger, lighter and more flexible than graphene, borophene has the potential to revolutionize batteries, electronics, sensors, solar cells and quantum computing. And if growing one layer was difficult, growing multiple layers of atomically flat borophene seemed impossible. Because bulk boron is not layered like graphite, growing boron beyond single atomic layers leads to clustering rather than planar films.