Tag Archives: Technology

Responsible for the increase in our standard of living. Will it be our undoing?

Power, Saving the World, Science, Technology

Energy from Thorium

February 12, 2014 admin Leave a comment

Thorium as an energy source, particularly as delivered by the Molten Salt Reactor Technology known as LFTR (Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactor) may be the disruptive technology that is required to jolt us from the status quo. It promises to provide universal cheap safe green electricity and has to potential to deliver a bunch of other benefits, anyone of which would normally be incentive enough to have money thrown at its development.

This solution has been around since the fifties. The problem with promoting a solution that simultaneously solves multiple problems is that for some reason it gains less support than a focused single problem solving solution.

Perhaps, there lies the parallel to Kahatika.

Communication, Fair - Justice, Giving, Love, Money, Saving the World, Technology

The Game of Life

May 17, 2010 admin Leave a comment

I’ve not posted a new Blog for a while because I’ve been playing an online game called UrgentEvoke. I came across it through following a Linkedin group called Social Impact Games. The objective of the Game was to “Save the World” although I note from their latest Home page they are now purporting to only “Change the World”. Never-the-less the essence of the game is to make positive change by crowd-sourcing support for ideas that impact on issues identified through crowd-sourcing. Ultimately the game wants to inspire its participants to act in the real world by taking action based on ideas. It is run by the World Bank and directed by Jane McGonigal who designed the game.

Given that their were prizes of mentorships and seed capital I thought I would give it a go. Another opportunity to further consolidate and document my thoughts about Kahatika.

I have long since realised that the design of Kahatika could be interpreted as a never-ending slow moving game. In today’s real time communication environment you may observe that the attraction of something that moved slowly might have limited appeal. Like only appeal to those that engage in postal chess. Kahatika has elements in it’s design to ensure engagement and to retain interest between rounds of participation.

I have contributed multiple items related and unrelated to Kahatika over the last Month or so to UrgentEvoke, some of which contain circular references back to this blog. My Profile on UrgentEvoke is the access point for all of this content and can be found here.

As I finale of the game and a mechanism to make yourself eligible for prizes there is a process of submitting a final blog to say what you would do if you were successful in attracting seed capital from the World Bank. Combined with a private email to the game administrators my final submission can be found here.

The content I submitted which relates to Kahatika is as follows:-

http://www.urgentevoke.com/forum/topics/challenge-the-network?comme…

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/learning-compassion

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/the-dangers-of-designing-a

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/more-realistic-look-at-money

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/we-need-to-make-practical-use

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/others-also-see-the-need

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/barry-schwartz-on-the-loss-of

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/learn5supply-of-money

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/need-to-open-the-debate-to

http://www.urgentevoke.com/video/act1-shadowing-richard-branson

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/act6-donation-lifespring

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/imagine5-a-new-direction-in

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/act4-philanthropists-need…

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/commitment-four-the-long-…

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/distilling-the-evidence

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/this-social-innovation-game

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/the-little-red-hen-revised

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/the-journey

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/kahatika-1

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/what-motivates-you

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/act1-shadowing-richard-br…

http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/learn1-innovate-on-existing

Business, Fair - Justice, Power, Saving the World, Science, Technology, Tools

Accelerating Innovation

February 19, 2010 admin Leave a comment

The following TED talk delivered by Bill Gates speaks of his one wish to halve the cost of energy while simultaneously reducing carbon output from the production of energy to zero. He speaks of energy miracles and explains his preference for a particular miracle he favours.

I started to wipe the sweat from my brow. I don’t have to do this “Save the World” thing. Someone else is about to do it. Not only that, it’s Bill Gates. He has a track record of performing miracles. He has more resources at his disposal than any other individual on the planet. This will get done.

Then again, if you take note of what Bill has to say 15:20 -> 17:00 into his talk about the 2020 report card. He realises his punt on a miracle may be wrong. To reduce risk, others must also take a punt. We must accelerate innovation in all realms and even he doesn’t have the resources to back all of it.

His releasing fireflies into the audience indicated that we need to think about all ideas as it’s ideas where innovation comes from.

Only a small proportion of the global population regard their individual role as one of Research and Development, yet it’s Research and Development that we hold responsible for innovation. Bill Gates pleads for Government direct investment and incentives for R & D and yet delivery mechanisms will only deliver investment to a small portion of potential innovators. This is conventional wisdom and doesn’t look outside the box.

Perhaps changing the system of innovation to increase individual participation is the way of meeting our new world goals. Not surprisingly, this smacks of Open Source Philosophy and hence not mentioned in his speech. What is mentioned in the Question and Answer session at he end of the Talk with Chris Anderson is Bills inability to share detail due to the conventional wisdom of non-disclosure agreements.

At this point I remember that Kahatika is a way of having your cake and eating it too.

Fair - Justice, Power, Science, Technology, Tools

Conservation will not Save the World

January 13, 2010 admin Leave a comment

When I speak of my “Save the World” goal I don’t mean saving the planet. After all, the known life cycle of the sun dictates the ultimate demise of our planet. Saving the sun is not on the agenda.

So when I say I want to save the world I actually want to save our species, or more correctly I want to save our species long enough for it to evolve into it’s next revision.

In the long term there appears to be only three alternatives for that to happen.

1. God rewrites the physical world laws to reveal a new reality that our species can survive in.

2. A more advanced extra-terrestrial life-form than ourselves takes pity on us and facilitates our escape from our doomed planet.

3. Our science and technology develops sufficiently for us to escape.

Both 1. and 2. I can only hope and/or pray for, and as I really don’t want the responsibility of saving the world, would be really cool alternatives.

Unfortunately in my reality, three is the only alternative that I can take action on.

OK, now that we are all convinced that without science and technology advancements we are eventually doomed. We being us and all our plant and animal friends. We necessarily can only use conservation and sustainability measures as a means to delay premature destruction of our planet long enough for our species to get off it. It seems logical to use science and technology as a means to advance conservation and sustainability to give us that time and as a byproduct keep our hand in; High tech conservation and sustainability techniques are sure to aid our escape.

I guess that means that only some of us will have the luxury of going back to a simpler less technology driven lifestyle, and only then, for a few billion years.

Some of us will need to carry on pushing the envelope of science and technology and converting our new findings into something useful using the change agent of business. This is where Kahatika fits in.

P.S. Yes I know about the “Big Rip” Theory. If it is real I guess I’m working to give us enough time for us to develop technologies that will enable us to pass to another universe. i.e. I’m on the road to the multiverse.

Communication, Love, Saving the World, Technology, Tools

Practical use of the Human Spirit

December 24, 2009 admin Leave a comment

Sherwin Nuland speaks of hope and the indomitable “Human Spirit”. About half way through he makes the statement “The world will not be saved by the internet, it will be saved by the human spirit”. This is as true now as the day the first humans learned to draw, the printing press was invented, and the first telephone conversation took place.

At the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Nikita Khrushchev’s Human Spirit was what “Saved the World”. However, without the technology of Radio, the message that he was ordering the pull out of missiles from Cuba it would never have been delivered fast enough to have had any practical effect.

Without Tesla and Marconi I may not be here to write this blog. This all goes to show that we all have our part to play and communication is the key.

Business, Fear, Giving, Money, Power, Technology

Ok, I’ll bite

December 16, 2009 admin Leave a comment

Thought I’d take a few minutes to answer Seth Godin’s survey to see if I could get more clarity on what I’m doing with Kahatika.

From his latest blog 8 questions and why we get

Who are you trying to please?
- Myself
  Why? – Highest in the hierarchy of needs, Self-actualisation
What are you promising?
- To “Save the World”
  Why? – Seemed like a fun problem to sink my teeth into. Better question; Why not?
How much money are you trying to make?
- Trillions
  Why? – Because money engages peoples interest. Vast amounts of money will have them asking why?
How much freedom are you willing to trade for opportunity?
- Not much now, as I get older more and more
  Why? – Life is a journey not a result and I have a plan that makes a large loss of freedom unnecessary
What are you trying to change?
- Business
  Why? – Because it’s the most powerful card in the deck
What do you want people to say about you?
- He gave it a go
  Why? – Hope that they may emulate
Which people?
- All people
  Why? – Everyone has something to contribute
Do we care about you?
- Probably not yet
  Why? – You, as of yet, don’t have an acceptable, safe way to practice compassion

Business, Fear, Saving the World, Science, Technology

Spreading Dangerous Ideas

December 8, 2009 admin Leave a comment

I’ve just read a blog by Seth Godin about Protecting vs Spreading Ideas. The moral of his blog, as far as I can tell, is; “Get good at what you do”; “Spread your Ideas Freely” they belong to everyone.

I agree with this philosophy but have often agonised over possible exceptions to this rule.

Lets take a hypothetical rewrite of History. Lets say Rutherford split the atom and kept it to himself, he went on to do a few more experiments and discovered in isolation the power that could be obtained from such activity and kept it to himself. Pondered a bit more he decided to try the reverse of splitting the atom and discovered that fusing together atoms was even more powerful than splitting them. He still didn’t tell anyone. Experimented a bit more and came up with a working fusion reactor. This he told. In fact he gave building instructions, that an idiot could follow, to every country in the world.

Japan now had the energy they previously went to war over, no nuclear bomb got dropped, in fact it never got invented because there was no need for it.

Now lets assume instead that anywhere along this time line that Rutherford dies taking his ideas to his grave.

No splitting of the atom, no discovery of fission, again, no bomb.

OK I’m not a science historian. I have no knowledge of how long it would have been before someone else would have discovered the splitting of the atom bringing the world through the sequence of discoveries that have got us to where we today rather than the impossible events that lead to my Utopian scenario. It does however illustrate the possible need for exceptions and why I spend time agonising over it.

Are nanotechnology ideas going to progress or harm humanity’s progress? How about genetic engineering? Biotech?

Was the letter, sent to the American President, which sparked the Manhattan Project, and signed by Albert Einstein, an exception to the rule?

History documents Einstein’s anguish over the decision to send that letter.

Business, Power, Saving the World, Technology

Exercising Wisdom

December 6, 2009 admin Leave a comment

I have found much to my dismay that if I stop exercising my muscles I get weaker and less capable of doing the physical things I used to do.

The opportunity to do physical exercise outside of the time I spend swapping my time for money is getting greater and greater. There are no end of things being invented to make physical exercise more convenient, exciting and fun. With participation undoubtedly they would make me stronger, yet I am less physically fit than I have ever been.

In days gone by I worked on Farms, building, mowing lawns doing all manner of physical activity. I was fit, happy and healthy. I now work in an office in front of a computer getting fatter and less healthy.

My switch from physical work to more sedentary work shows me the value and need of practicing the physical.

I’ve been wondering if the same principle applies to Wisdom.

Are the systems we implement in business and society taking away the necessity to practice wisdom and thereby making us less wise?

Barry Schwartz gives a TED talk where he gives examples of systems creating barriers to the practice of Wisdom.

Perhaps we need to be designing systems which promote the practice of wisdom. With practice, perhaps we can turn the tide on what is seemingly a collective loss in this area.
Along side our fight against obesity, should we be fighting against this loss? If so, what are the new set of tools to help us with this fight. Kahatika?

Update: Barry has released a little more on the subject. Still no definitive answer to how to ensure more practical wisdom. He does touch on changing the system though.
This is what Kahatika does.

Business, Family, Love, Power, Saving the World, Science, Technology, Tools

Symptoms of Love

December 1, 2009 admin 1 Comment

“The world would be saved if we could just love one another.”

An airy fairy statement used by hippies and dreamers?

No matter how true the statement may be, it is hardly a pragmatic plan of attack to “Save the World”.

Defining love is difficult in many ways. It’s association with sexual intimacy, and it’s broad context of use where many contexts are deemed socially unacceptable to even have a hint of that association, make in depth discussion of love uncomfortable for many.

Love your spouse
Love your Children
Love your Parents
Love Trees
Love a Business Idea
Love a good Steak
Love your God

There are so many different contexts where the word Love is used that it is impossible to determine if the world is increasing or decreasing in it’s level of Love.

In science, technology and business, when you have something you wish to measure, which is seemingly unmeasurable, you look for substitute characteristics, or if you are lucky, a substitute characteristic, which correlates strongly. Then you measure that. Interventions can then be trialled and reasonable assumptions on those interventions’ success or failure can be made from the analysis of data. Society moves in some direction or another as a result.

Pretty simple stuff, but what would be a measurable substitute characteristic for Love? I guess we are looking for an indicator or a “Symptom of Love”.

Furthermore perhaps we are looking to build the technology to provide the interventions, measure the results, analyse the data, and rework the interventions where appropriate to maximise the love.

Perhaps if this helped us practice the Symptoms of Love we could and would, over time, generate genuine love.

Use the old “Fake it until you make it” technique of self improvement on a global scale.

Now if I just had such a thing……….I reckon I’d call it Kahatika.

Kahatika