Issie Lapowsky

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“What The Candidates Should Be Focusing On…Are Emerging Technologies”

April 1, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

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Donald Trump wants to make America great again. You remember those halcyon days, right? Girls Gone Wild entrepreneur Joe Francis had not yet been incarcerated, the Bumfight producers hadn’t been sued and the hazards of Purple Drank were not fully appreciated. It was 2011, and it was ours.

Mitt Romney’s biggest moral failing during the last Presidential campaign may have been his dalliance with Birtherism stemming from his partnership with the megalomaniac Trump, but his greatest practical misstep was decrying government investment in alternative energy, going so far as to bury Tesla which had received a loan from the Obama stimulus. Elon Musk’s outfit wasn’t insolvent like Solyndra, paid back the borrowed money early and will be providing thousands of good jobs for Americans in its battery and solar plants in Nevada and New York. That is, of course, not even mentioning the dire need for replacing fossil fuels as we heat and melt even faster than feared.

This stance is but one of the disastrous decisions the GOP has doubled down on in the current egregious election season, with Trump the leader of the ugly mob. No, he didn’t start it, but he boiled the lies down to their purest and most dangerous form, selling the return of yesterday’s manufacturing base when it’s tomorrow’s high-tech positions that must be won.

From Issie Lapowsky’s Wired piece about the blowhard’s bad ideas about Apple and economics:

Still, it stands to reason that Trump would cling to this talking point. His campaign, exit polls show, has been largely buoyed by the populist anger of the so-called white working class, roughly defined as white working adults without a college degree. These are the people who once staffed the factories of the Rust Belt and the mines of coal country, and their opportunities have taken a big hit from the flow of manufacturing jobs overseas, as well as competition from new generations of immigrants and the rise of technology as a more efficient substitute for manual labor.

The number of voters who meet the “white working class” definition is shrinking. In 1980, 65 percent of voters were white and lacked a college education. In 2012, it was just 36 percent. But it’s been a powerful constituency for Trump, nonetheless, one that he’d be far less dominant without.

Which is why, despite the fact that as a businessman Trump is likely all too aware that upending Apple’s supply chain would be unfeasible, he continues to make grand claims about the company. With this promise, Trump is pandering to his base, promising to restore the kinds of jobs that were once a key part of the American Dream.

But Trump’s promises if realized, would actually hurt the very people he’s promising to help, experts say. That’s because today, those once dependable jobs on the assembly line have been reduced to low-wage, low-skill commodity labor. If Trump—or any of the presidential candidates—really want to help the working class, researchers say, they would be wise to focus less on the types of jobs the US has already lost and more on the industries the US is uniquely poised to create.

Forget Apple. Focus on Tesla

Trump isn’t wrong to see the tech industry as a potential creator of manufacturing jobs in America. He’s just looking at the wrong parts of the tech industry. What the candidates should be focusing on instead, says Jared Bernstein, senior fellow at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, are emerging technologies like robotics, electric vehicles, and autonomous aviation.•

 

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“We’re Not A Disneyland Experience. This Is Not Space Camp.”

September 25, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Is there too much venture capital? Yes, there is. Whether it’s traditional firms, angels or crowdsourcing, investors seem to be out there for dreamers of all sized dreams, even during these difficult times. Case in point: Waypoint 2 Space, a start-up which aims to acclimate Earthlings to the final frontier, preparing tourists and long-term tenants physically and psychologically for a mission to Mars or wherever. It took its small steps with Kickstarter and is working on making a giant leap with the help of deeper pockets. It actually will be necessary at some point, but now may or may not be that moment. From Issie Lapowsky at Wired UK:

“The age of commercial spaceflight is finally here. From Richard Branson to Elon Musk, some of the world’s greatest innovators have spent years developing a new kind of space shuttle, with the promise that one day, in the not too distant future, all of us will have a chance to hop on a flight to space.

And Kevin Heath wants to make sure we don’t puke on the way.

Heath is the founder and CEO of Waypoint 2 Space, a space-training startup based at the Houston Technology Center incubator at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Its goal is to prepare potential space tourists for the trip, using similar training methodology and technology that NASA astronauts receive. Waypoint’s staff-many of whom are former NASA trainers-will prepare students not only for maneuvering their bodies in a weightless environment and completing a lunar walk, but for the psychological toll that even a short trip to space can take. ‘We’re not a Disneyland experience. This is not space camp,’ Heath says. ‘We’re literally training people to go to space.’

Heath’s timing is right. Just last week, NASA awarded two contracts to Boeing and SpaceX to develop and deploy their own space shuttles, sending a $6.8 (£4.2) billion cash infusion straight into the heart of the commercial space flight industry. Though the shuttles will only be used to ferry NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station for now, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said that the partnership ‘promises to give more people in America and around the world the wonder and exhilaration of space flight.’

But space tourism is only a fraction of the potential market. A constellation of industries is now popping up around the development of commercial shuttles, from companies like Planetary Resources that want to mine the moon for natural resources, to companies like Virgin Galactic and Bigelow Aerospace, which have plans to open so-called space hotels for wealthy space travellers in the near future.

‘If we’re to see the logical extension of the technological gains of the last 30 years, we need people in space, ways to get them there and training for the trip,’ says Mike Lousteau, a partner at I2BF Global Ventures, which has invested in several space-related startups (though not Waypoint). ‘Whether we’re talking about advanced telecommunications, resource exploration or imaging and Earth observation, a trained human element can provide operation, maintenance and innovation. As these industries and others draw more people to go to and stay in space, the need to train more people will only increase.'”

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