Selling Fundamental Futurism

(From Pioneer Press). Entrepreneur and futurist Ray Kurzweil continues to do a good job in selling the commonsense fundamentals of futurism to the public: "Biological processes are essentially programming processes. We'll be able to reprogram biology and overcome major diseases in 15 years. ... In 10 to 15 years, we'll have this fantastic technology to slow down cancer and heart disease." Great gains in support for healthy life extension and other important goals can be attained by guiding people through the disconnect between what they know is true - rapid progress today, in other words - and what they have trouble visualizing: the consequent potential of exponential progress towards radical change and improvement within our lifetimes. I believe Kurzweil's timelines are optimistic - for reasons relating to human organizational inertia - but not by more than a couple of decades, absent bad scenarios.

Link: http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/15016735.htm

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