The Weird Age of “Previvors” Is Coming
http://m.nautil.us/blog/the-weird-age-of...-is-coming
EXCERPT: [...] The ability to speak in those terms generates a new concept, the “previvor.” It’s a word, Mukherjee says, that he finds “very troubling, but also exciting and provocative.” You’re a “previvor,” he says, if you’re “a survivor of a disease that you haven’t yet had. As we move forward in a more and more deeply genetically-annotated era, where individual genomes are going to be scanned and deciphered for future propensities…we will begin to enter a weird age of previvors. That is a destabilizing idea in our culture....”
Civilization Is Built on Code
http://m.nautil.us/blog/civilization-is-built-on-code
EXCERPT: How did we humans manage to build a global civilization on the cusp of colonizing other planets? It seems like such an unlikely outcome. After all, we were prone to cycles of war and famine for millennia, and have a meager capacity for society-wide planning and coordination—among other problems. Maybe it’s our unique capacity for complex language and story-telling, which allow us to learn in groups; or our ability to extend our capabilities through technology; or political and religious institutions we have created. However, perhaps the most significant answer is something else entirely: code. Humanity has survived, and thrived, by developing productive activities that evolve into regular routines and standardized platforms—which is to say we have survived, and thrived, by creating and advancing code....
http://m.nautil.us/blog/the-weird-age-of...-is-coming
EXCERPT: [...] The ability to speak in those terms generates a new concept, the “previvor.” It’s a word, Mukherjee says, that he finds “very troubling, but also exciting and provocative.” You’re a “previvor,” he says, if you’re “a survivor of a disease that you haven’t yet had. As we move forward in a more and more deeply genetically-annotated era, where individual genomes are going to be scanned and deciphered for future propensities…we will begin to enter a weird age of previvors. That is a destabilizing idea in our culture....”
Civilization Is Built on Code
http://m.nautil.us/blog/civilization-is-built-on-code
EXCERPT: How did we humans manage to build a global civilization on the cusp of colonizing other planets? It seems like such an unlikely outcome. After all, we were prone to cycles of war and famine for millennia, and have a meager capacity for society-wide planning and coordination—among other problems. Maybe it’s our unique capacity for complex language and story-telling, which allow us to learn in groups; or our ability to extend our capabilities through technology; or political and religious institutions we have created. However, perhaps the most significant answer is something else entirely: code. Humanity has survived, and thrived, by developing productive activities that evolve into regular routines and standardized platforms—which is to say we have survived, and thrived, by creating and advancing code....