https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/algorithms-are-making-important-decisions-what-could-possibly-go-wrong/

#ComputationalFuturology

https://www.newyorker.com/news/essay/the-case-for-negotiating-with-russia

#ComputationalFuturology

https://scitechdaily.com/better-cybersecurity-with-a-new-quantum-random-number-generator/

#ComputationalFuturology

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/04/1126680868/putin-raises-the-specter-of-using-nuclear-weapons-in-his-war-with-ukraine

#ComputationalFuturology

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-not-to-estimate-the-likelihood-of-nuclear-war/

#ComputationalFuturology

https://www.newsweek.com/how-can-calculate-nuclear-war-probability-1756967

#ComputationalFuturology

https://www.newsweek.com/society-very-dangerous-place-nobel-scientist-paul-nurse-warns-1820924

#ComputationalFuturology

Juicy

#ComputationalFuturology

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0203958

https://www.axios.com/2023/08/17/ai-speeding-science-new-discoveries

#ComputationalFuturology

@trisweb someone should teach a class about this.

#ComputationalFuturology

@Colarusso will share with students this fall, thank you!

#ComputationalFuturology

The Maui fire is a great example of how people fail to address preventable and predictable disasters. It's a good model for thinking about how we will handle future climate related disasters.

Estimated damages from the fire exceed three billion dollars and 100 people are dead at least. How much could or should have been spent to prevent it? What mitigation strategies might have prevented the fire or mitigated the damage?

Do we really accept the idea that nothing could have been done despite the many publications and analyses showing the opposite? Why?

Which fragile systems could have been repaired and which feedback loops/connections could have been eliminated to prevent the disaster?

How would you convince stakeholders to invest in preventative measures that could have saved billions of dollars and many lives?

#ComputationalFuturology

"Dry conditions and strong winds set the stage for the disastrous wildfires that tore through the historic town of Lahaina and other areas of Hawaii"

Both "dry conditions" and "strong winds" are very predictable and yet nothing was done to prevent the damage and loss of life. Was no mitigation possible? Were predictions ignored?

#ComputationalFuturology

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-caused-mauis-apocalyptic-wildfires/

Looks like I can update my unit on cascading collapse with data from the Maui fires today.

#ComputationalFuturology

Societal collapse isn't a prediction, it's an observation.

#ComputationalFuturology

Really interesting result that shows the importance of considering humans in predictive models

#ComputationalFuturology #climatechange

https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2023/07/research-spoiler-reducing-food-waste-has-unintended-consequences/

Saw a person propose a summer reading list for futures interested people and it is crap.

Futures studies people have an extreme bias about the future being desirable. The whole book list is about this idea. That's not guaranteed at all and it creates a blind spot. Consider possible negative scenarios and bad outcomes for a complete picture of the future.

Read Breaking Together by Jem Bendell and At Work In The Ruins by Dougald Hine, and also see the recent paper in Nature about planetary boundaries (posted earlier today).

These extreme positive near term scenarios are also extremely unlikely now. But if you talk to futures people they are way out in la la land and will react negatively to the idea.

#FuturesStudies #ComputationalFuturology

Crown 88 Computational Futurology 2023 version, now new and improved, with weirder sunglasses.

#ComputationalFuturology

#ComputationalFuturology

https://www.fastcompany.com/90860429/mathematics-of-crowds-patterns-theory

#ComputationalFuturology