The New Ideas Blog

What is the ultimate technology? Let’s start with a definition of technology:

“The specific methods, materials, and devices used to solve practical problems.”

“Practical” is a tricky word though. For example, the “practical” solution to the problem of designing a better weapon could be entirely counterproductive to the “practical” goal of peace on Earth. A practical technology for creating personal wealth may take one further from the goals one imagined that wealth would accomplish. Agricultural technologies can sometimes create more food while making it less healthy for us.

Our technologies are often used to accomplish things that [Read the rest of this entry...]

Most of the time I prefer to stick to the specific niches that I regularly write for, whether that means writing about brainpower research or financial ideas. I don’t often like to give general “self improvement” suggestions. But I just found an old file where I collected some “tips for life,” and I thought they might be useful to others, so here they are…

1. We know how de-motivating it can be to dwell on past mistakes, but it can be a hard habit to break. If there is a specific mistake that you keep thinking about, take time to sit down and make a note of every lesson you learned from that mistake. Then tell yourself that you have learned what you need to, so you can drop the matter. If it pops up again in your mind, remind yourself that you don’t need to think about it any longer, and immediately start concentrating on something more productive.

2. Praise people when they do well. Doing so creates a different atmosphere that not only helps that person feel better about himself, but makes you feel better as well. It also subconsciously motivates you to do praiseworthy things. Look for [Read the rest of this entry...]

Why argue about politics or other matters? In theory we can convince the other person of our viewpoints. It isn’t a common event though, is it? And even if we do win that “victory,” is it possible that we lose something too? Let me explain…

One man says that business needs to be heavily regulated and taxed for the good of society. Another says that this leads to less economic growth and therefore more poverty. They each have their arguments and make them, setting them more firmly in their minds as they do battle. No minds are changed, as is common in such circumstances.

Had each actually allowed for the possibility that the other saw something real, they might have found common ground and new understandings. Perhaps the first knew of massive [Read the rest of this entry...]

At the moment the United States is THE world power, but that will change…

China still has a lot of areas which need to and will be updated to the most modern technology. They will eventually have tractors for all farms, for example. Because of the potential there and the lower base they are starting from (a tractor can instantly double output versus human power), it is virtually inevitable that within a few decades they’ll be at least half as productive as the United States.

Half as productive? That doesn’t sound like much, but it suggests a per capita GDP (gross domestic product) of $23,000 (half of the U.S. per capita GDP in 2008). Multiply that times a population of 1.33 billion people and they’ll have an economy of 30.6 trillion dollars, more than double the size of the United States economy (13.8 trillion as this is written). It is basic math. If each person produces [Read the rest of this entry...]

Do I have political representations? You might think so, since I live in a country in which we vote for our leaders. But what if no congressman I vote for has ever been elected? How am I represented then? This isn’t a hypothetical question. None of my choices have been elected. The problem is that to the extent that I want any of the available options (which is rare), I vote for those who represent political viewpoints, rather than regions.

You see, though these are national elections, meant to elect those who make laws for the whole nation, the representatives are elected to serve regional interests–a big reason we have pork barrel spending and related problems. With the right changes, we could have local officials to handle local issues, state lawmakers look out for the interests of the state, and national legislators serve the whole nation.

As it is now, there can be millions of people who share common political beliefs, yet never have a representative in Washington. This happens if they are neither Republicans nor Democrats, and they are spread across the nation. A candidate outside the two parties could not be elected even if [Read the rest of this entry...]

This post about mental movies will perhaps appear as “self improvement” advice, and who knows–you might learn something useful to apply to your own life. But the purpose is really just to introduce a new idea, and to get you thinking. It ends with several unanswered questions, as many of these posts do…

Suppose a man went almost every day to the same bad movie, even though he did not enjoy it. Some people would laugh at this, or say the man had a mental problem. But many of us revisit our own terrible internal movies again and again.

We justify this, perhaps as “learning from our mistakes so we don’t make them again,” even though this doesn’t seem to be the result. We might feel that by dwelling on our past we can [Read the rest of this entry...]

Will we soon be able to engineer a new human species? Juan Enriquez, a writer, investor, and managing director of Excel Venture Management, thinks so. He wrote the book “As the Future Catches You: How Genomics & Other Forces Are Changing Your Life, Work, Health & Wealth, as well as the more recent, “Homo Evolutis: A Short Tour of Our New Species.” He had this to say in an interview on the website TechnologyReview.com;

“The new human species is one that begins to engineer the evolution of viruses, plants, animals, and itself. As we do that, Darwin’s rules get significantly bent, and sometimes even broken. By taking direct and deliberate control over our evolution, we are living in a world where we are modifying stuff according to our desires.

If you turned off the electricity in the United States, you would see millions of people die quickly, because [Read the rest of this entry...]

Today I have another post that is meant to stimulate thinking on a subject rather than answer the questions raised. This one is on self-image and objective thought.

The tendency to create and defend a ‘self” clearly gets in the way of the most powerful and objective thinking. Consider the fact that we can often predict some people’s behavior better than they can themselves. Sally will be late, though she thinks she’ll be on time. Tom is excited about the new get-rich-quick MLM business he’s in, but his friends all think he’ll be out of it in a year–and they’re right. Their thinking is flawed when it comes to predicting their own behavior.

Of course this applies not just to other people. All of us are [Read the rest of this entry...]

Time once again to round up the latest pages and posts covering creative and interesting new ideas. Here are some of what I have written in the last two weeks:

A Cybernetic Brain -  Some speculation on the technology coming to a brain near you (the one behind your eyes).  (Brain Power News Blog)

Some Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence – How close are we, and what will it mean? (Increase Brainpower Website)

Mind Power Techniques – One specific one explained with an example.  (Brain Power News Blog)

Truly Radical Welfare Reform – This is an idea you probably haven’t heard of. (999 Ideas)

Fast Thinker – Are you a fast thinker? We all are at a level below consciosuness.  (Brain Power News Blog)

The Psychology of Bribery – Why do some cultures have more bribery [Read the rest of this entry...]

We can easily imagine the dangers of technology. Just think of nuclear explosions and video games that suck the time out of life (or is it the life out of time?) But technology is neutral in a moral sense. It can be use for good purposes, bad ones, and everything in-between. The more important questions are perhaps not about the dangers of various technologies, but about how we choose which to use.

It is clear that our minds are very powerful. We are capable of creating amazing things, some of which are very beneficial to humans. But the pursuit of knowledge and the use of that knowledge is not motivated only by a desire to do the most real good, is it? With all the potential motivations operating in the minds of humans, how do we know that we are pursuing actual values?

For example, we can design an economy that [Read the rest of this entry...]