Rachel Nuwer

You are currently browsing articles tagged Rachel Nuwer.

“Just How Close Are We To Reaching The Point Of No Return?”

April 21, 2017 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

In an excellent BBC Future piece, Rachel Nuwer attempts to weigh how close the West is to societal collapse, an implosion that would occur, if it does, not because of scarcity but due to our system, plagued by wealth inequality, failing at distribution.

Climate change may also play an important role, with a potential refugee crisis that will dwarf Syria’s tragedy, the relatively “dry” states overwhelmed by the inundation. Or perhaps the luckier lands will meet with disaster by trying to build a wall to keep the future out. Either reality is fraught.

The writer relies in part on the computer models of systems scientists to gauge if ecological strain and economic stratification will topple us, some of which suggest the latter factor could do us in entirely on its own, though the more likely scenario would be a confluence of unfortunate circumstances.

Of course, models have long predicted that great societies, actual or virtual, would soon be ghost towns. In 2014, two young Princeton academics applied epidemiology to social networks to make a prognostication I’m sure they’d like wiped from the Internet: By 2017, Facebook would lose 80% of its users. Missed by that much.

Still, sooner or later, entropy will leave a bruise.

The opening:

The political economist Benjamin Friedman once compared modern Western society to a stable bicycle whose wheels are kept spinning by economic growth. Should that forward-propelling motion slow or cease, the pillars that define our society – democracy, individual liberties, social tolerance and more – would begin to teeter. Our world would become an increasingly ugly place, one defined by a scramble over limited resources and a rejection of anyone outside of our immediate group. Should we find no way to get the wheels back in motion, we’d eventually face total societal collapse.

Such collapses have occurred many times in human history, and no civilisation, no matter how seemingly great, is immune to the vulnerabilities that may lead a society to its end. Regardless of how well things are going in the present moment, the situation can always change. Putting aside species-ending events like an asteroid strike, nuclear winter or deadly pandemic, history tells us that it’s usually a plethora of factors that contribute to collapse. What are they, and which, if any, have already begun to surface? It should come as no surprise that humanity is currently on an unsustainable and uncertain path – but just how close are we to reaching the point of no return?•

Tags:

“The Novel Was Already Dying At An Alarming Rate Without My Assistance”

January 27, 2016 in Books, Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

bookomatvending

There’s never been greater access to books than there is right now, but all progress comes with a price. If print fiction and histories and such should disappear or become merely a luxury item, digital media would change the act of reading in unexpected ways over time.

Some see screen reading promoting a decline in analytical skills, but the human brain sure seems able to adapt to new forms once it becomes acclimated. Even as someone raised on paper books, I’m not worried that what’s lost in translation will be greater than what’s gained. Of course, I say that while still primarily using dead-tree volumes.

In a smart BBC Future article, Rachel Nuwer traces the fuzzy history of e-books and considers the future of reading. Some experts she interviews hope for a “bi-literate” society that values both the paperback and the Kindle. That would be a great outcome, but I don’t know how realistic a scenario it is. The opening:

When Peter James published his novel Host on two floppy disks in 1993, he was ill-prepared for the “venomous backlash” that would follow. Journalists and fellow writers berated and condemned him; one reporter even dragged a PC and a generator out to the beach to demonstrate the ridiculousness of this new form of reading. “I was front-page news of many newspapers around the world, accused of killing the novel,”James told pop.edit.lit. “[But] I pointed out that the novel was already dying at an alarming rate without my assistance.”

Shortly after Host’s debut, James also issued a prediction: that e-books would spike in popularity once they became as easy and enjoyable to read as printed books. What was a novelty in the 90s, in other words, would eventually mature to the point that it threatened traditional books with extinction. Two decades later, James’ vision is well on its way to being realised.

That e-books have surged in popularity in recent years is not news, but where they are headed – and what effect this will ultimately have on the printed word – is unknown. Are printed books destined to eventually join the ranks of clay tablets, scrolls and typewritten pages, to be displayed in collectors’ glass cases with other curious items of the distant past?

And if all of this is so, should we be concerned?•

Tags: ,

“Countless Pit Stops Along Well-Worn Trucking Routes Could Become Ghost Towns”

August 7, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The passage below from Rachel Nuwer’s BBC report about technological unemployment speaks to why I largely disagree with Jerry Kaplan that robotics will be far worse for male workers than female. There probably will be a difference, but if the machines come en masse in a compressed period of time, they come for most of us.

Oxford’s Carl Frey tells Nuwer that “overall, people should be happy that a lot of these jobs have actually disappeared,” when speaking of drudgery that’s heretofore been vanished by electrical gadgets, but the new reality may mean a tremendous aggregate improvement enjoyed by relatively few. In the long-term, that may all work itself out, but we better be ready with solutions in the short- and medium-term.

The excerpt:

Self-driving trucks wouldn’t be good news for everyone, however. Critics point out that, should this breakthrough be realised, there will be a significant knock-on effect for employment. In the US, up to 3.5 million drivers and 5.2 million additional personnel who work directly within the industry would be out of a job. Additionally, countless pit stops along well-worn trucking routes could become ghost towns. Self-driving trucks, in other words, might wreck millions of lives and bring disaster to a significant sector of the economy.

Dire warnings such as these are frequently issued, not only for the trucking industry, but for the world’s workforce at large. As machines, software and robots become more sophisticated, some fear that we stand to lose millions of jobs. According to one unpublished study, the coming wave of technological breakthroughs endangers up to 47% of total employment in the US.

But is there any truth to such projections, and if so, how concerned should we be? Will the robots take over, rendering us all professional couch potatoes, as imagined in the film Wall-E, or will technological innovation give us the freedom to pursue more creative, rewarding endeavours?•

Tags: ,

“I Don’t Think We’ve Seen The End Of Dictatorship Any More Than We’ve Seen The End Of War”

June 2, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

According to the NGO Freedom House, even though the number of dictatorships has dwindled, there remain 106 in the world. At BBC Future, Rachel Nuwer examines the personality traits and political conditions that allow such authoritarian governments to exist and wonders if we’ll ever live in a dictator-less world. An excerpt:

The causative factors that give rise to dictatorships in the first place have not changed much over the centuries. Some of the first were established in Classical Rome in times of emergencies. “A single individual like Julius Caesar was given a lot of power to help society cope with a crisis, after which that power was supposed to be relinquished,” says Richard Overy, a historian at the University of Exeter. “But usually, he wasn’t so keen to relinquish it.” Many modern and recent dictatorships – those of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, for instance – were also established in times of turmoil, and future ones likely will be, too. “Over the next century, there will be acute points of crisis,” Overy says. “I don’t think we’ve seen the end of dictatorship any more than we’ve seen the end of war.”  

But just as violence on a whole has declined across history, so, too, has the number of dictatorships, especially since the 1970s, as regimes across Latin America and Eastern Europe fell. There are slight undulations; the crumbling of the Soviet Union was accompanied by a steep decline in dictatorships, but now many of those countries are creeping back toward that former mode of governance. Overall, though, dictatorships are scarcer now than they were in the past. “It’s harder for people to justify dictatorships today, partly because the whole globe is in the eye of the media,” Overy says. “Getting away with things is more difficult than it used to be.”   

Consequently, days might be numbered on at least some remaining dictatorships – particularly if their oppressive rule is contributing to home-grown economic problems. “When you’re operating in an economy that’s perpetuating your collapse, your backers become nervous that you won’t be able to help them, so they start to shop around,” [NYU professor Bruce] Bueno de Mesquita says. Such situations sometimes result in military coups, he adds, which tend to push countries in a more positive direction for citizen wellbeing, at least based on past examples.

Some dictatorships, however, show no signs of cracking.•

Tags: , ,

“Capitalism, Access To Technology And Education Also Seems To Correlate With A Corrosion Of Religiosity In Some Populations”

December 23, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I would guess that as long as there is fear and pain and suffering, there will be religion of some sort, but perhaps it will take a less-amorphous shape? As Jaron Lanier crystallized in a recent Edge essay, religious fervor can be repurposed in a more algorithmic age. With faith in traditional gods on the decline globally. Rachel Nuwer of the BBC wonders whether the withering will lead to death. The opening:

“A growing number of people, millions worldwide, say they believe that life definitively ends at death – that there is no God, no afterlife and no divine plan. And it’s an outlook that could be gaining momentum – despite its lack of cheer. In some countries, openly acknowledged atheism has never been more popular.

‘There’s absolutely more atheists around today than ever before, both in sheer numbers and as a percentage of humanity,’ says Phil Zuckerman, a professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, California, and author of Living the Secular Life. According to a Gallup International survey of more than 50,000 people in 57 countries, the number of individuals claiming to be religious fell from 77% to 68% between 2005 and 2011, while those who self-identified as atheist rose by 3% – bringing the world’s estimated proportion of adamant non-believers to 13%.

While atheists certainly are not the majority, could it be that these figures are a harbinger of things to come? Assuming global trends continue might religion someday disappear entirely?

It’s impossible to predict the future, but examining what we know about religion – including why it evolved in the first place, and why some people chose to believe in it and others abandon it – can hint at how our relationship with the divine might play out in decades or centuries to come. 

Scholars are still trying to tease out the complex factors that drive an individual or a nation toward atheism, but there are a few commonalities. Part of religion’s appeal is that it offers security in an uncertain world. So not surprisingly, nations that report the highest rates of atheism tend to be those that provide their citizens with relatively high economic, political and existential stability. ‘Security in society seems to diminish religious belief,’ Zuckerman says. Capitalism, access to technology and education also seems to correlate with a corrosion of religiosity in some populations, he adds.”

Tags: , ,

“Technology Already Exists To Create Underwater Colonies”

September 30, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Prediction: I will never live in an undersea colony nor a space one. Not unless the only other option is living in Bay Ridge. Then, sure. But if you care to not reside on solid ground, underwater habitats are already feasible. From Rachel Nuwer at the BBC:

“According to [Ian] Koblick, the technology already exists to create underwater colonies supporting up to 100 people – the few bunker-like habitats in operation today providing a blueprint. ‘There are no technological hurdles,’ Koblick says. ‘If you had the money and the need, you could do it today.’ Beyond that number, technological advances would be needed to deal with emergency evacuation systems, and environmental controls of air supply and humidity.

With safety being paramount, operators assure underwater habitats are running smoothly by monitoring life support systems – air composition, temperature and humidity – from the surface. Above the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Aquarius Reef Base, the third of the three existing facilities (which accommodates up to six aquanauts at a time), a bright yellow circular disc tethered to the undersea lab 60ft (18m) below collects data from a variety of sensors and sends it to shore via a special wireless internet connection. Future habitats could use satellites to communicate this important information. For now, energy independence is still a challenge. Sustainable future options might include harnessing wave action or placing solar panels on the surface.

Making larger habitats with multiple modules made of steel, glass and special cement used underwater would be simpler than trying to create one giant bubble. These smaller structures could be added or taken away to create living space for as many people as desired. Most likely, we wouldn’t want to build any deeper than 1,000ft (300m), because the pressures at such depths would require very thick walls and excessive periods of decompression for those returning to the surface. Koblick and his colleagues did not experience any ill effects from living below the surface for around 60 days, and he thinks stints up to six months would be feasible.”

Tags: ,