GeekSpeak – Energy from Volcanoes! Join the discussion Saturday August 26th at 12pm SLT

Yellowstone Park in America is a supervolcano and it may be ready to erupt.  A vast pool of magma lies under a thin crust.  If it erupts it could cause a worldwide winter that would last for many decades and would threaten all life on earth.

Scientists are thinking of drilling down into the magma to lessen the danger and also to get lots and lots of free energy.  What will happen if they do?  Could the drilling set off an eruption?  Could it destroy Earth’s magnetic field?  What would it mean for the oil industry if Yellowstone produces an enormous amount of cheap geothermal energy?

Do you think we should take such risks?  Or should we leave Nature to manage on its own?  Are we facing the destruction of life or centuries of cheap, safe energy?

Join us at GeekSpeak for our hottest discussion ever.

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GeekSpeak – drugs: legalise them! Or not? Join the discussion Saturday August 5th at 12pm SLT

This week we will talk about drugs.  Some countries allow them, some countries fight them.  Some impose the death penalty for dealing in them.

Should some drugs be made legal?  Are there some that should always remain illegal?  Maybe you think there are some drugs that are now legal but should become illegal.

Would society be better or worse if drugs were legalised?  Is it even possible to keep drugs illegal if enough people want them?  Prohibition was a disaster in America and simply led to a huge increase in crime and more drinking.  Would legal drugs lead to everyone becoming addicted?  Or would drugs fade away because they were not cool anymore?

Should we keep drugs illegal for the sake of everyone’s health?  Then again, are there drugs that should be legalised for medical reasons?

Smoke that spliff and join us to talk on a high level.

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GeekSpeak SL – Computers as Artists. Join the discussion on July 22nd at 12pm SLT

Can a computer make a work of art?  The Deep Dream program produces beautiful pictures in collaboration with human artists.  Could AI ever produce art on its own?  If it did, would you call it art?  Or is art, by definition, something that only humans can produce?

Maybe a computer could make a work of art but could it make an intellectual shift in art to produce something completely new and unique, a new style, maybe a new form of art?  Of course, not many humans can do that.

Will art, the ‘last bastion of humanity’, be taken over by computers?  Or is there a domain that will always be the realm of humans only?  If computers can be artists what will we do to feel human?  What will we need to do to achieve greatness in 2050?  What will be the point of having humans on Earth?

Get ready for AI artists in GeekSpeak.

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GeekSpeak – Venus Project, future paradise or total fantasy? Join the Discussion Saturday July 15th at 12pm SLT

Does the Venus Project have any merit?  Is a resource based economy possible?  Jacque Fresco dreamed of a world in which all goods and services would be available to everyone who needed them, a world without money or credit.

Some say that if our current system collapses Fresco’s dream is the only alternative.  Do you agree?  Can you see other alternatives?

Is it possible for a resource based economy to be maintained without a dictatorship?  Is it a recipe for an Orwellian nightmare world?  Is human nature compatible with such a system or will humans, if free, naturally rebel against it?  Is a resource based economy even possible?  How would it work?

Join us in GeekSpeak if you want to know if your future job will pay you in dollars or gold or chewing gum or if you will find yourself working for nothing.

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GeekSpeak – what food would be served at a restaurant in space? Join the discussion Saturday July 1st at 12pm SLT

If you were to open a space restaurant what food would you serve?  On a heavy gravity planet you could only serve pizza.  A restaurant in a black hole would have to serve spaghetti.  Ice cream on Pluto, red meat on Mars?  Smashed meteorite flavoured with methane on a space station?  Primordial soup on a planet where life is beginning?

This week we will use the GeekSpeak hour to have a good laugh about dishes in space.  But if you have serious ideas about how our diet will change when we move into space please bring those along with you too.

You choose the menu and we will cook it for you.  Bring a fork.

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GeekSpeak – the future of money Join the discussion Saturday June 3rd at 12pm SLT

Has money any future?  Will the time come when it does not exist?  How would the world work without money?

This week in GeekSpeak we will be discussing whether it would be possible to live without money and what form money will take, if we do still have it.

Will you get paid by the hour, carry your hard earned paper to a place where it is digitised and loses value every year?  Or can you imagine getting paid by the minute and by the time you need your credit it has gained in value because you asked it to?

Will there be central bureaucracies that control all money transactions?  Computers that warn insurance companies when you buy a burger?  Will we be taxed on every transaction?

Will there still be a place for coins and notes in the future?  Will cash mean freedom in a world where all transactions are monitored?

Rich or poor, we all have an interest in money.  So come and discuss its future.

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GeekSpeak – factories in space? Join the discussion May 13th at 12pm SLT

Last week a company announced a plan to build a factory in space, a factory that would be run entirely by robots.  If you were in charge of such a factory what would you make?  Or what do you think others would make?  Medicine?  Machine parts?  Weapons?  Illegal drugs?  Spaceships?  Parachutes?  Would you run pig farms up there?

There are advantages to working in space factories.  Cold welding of metals is possible in a vacuum. Without gravity huge spaceships that could never leave a planet can be built and launched (although they would never be able to land).

On the other hand, low temperatures, radiation and lack of oxygen might cause problems.

Bring your spacesuit and a hard hat to GeekSpeak and tell us all your plans.

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GeekSpeak – will we lose all our online privacy? Join the Discussion Saturday April 8th at 12pm SLT

What does ‘Born in the USA!’ mean to you? Right now being American means that you have less online privacy than the people of North Korea.  Your ISP now has the right to store and to sell all your online activity, every little thing.  If you look for erotica online will you get ads for it?  If you don’t log in for a week can you expect a visit from burglars?

Probably the rest of the world will follow America.  So what will it mean when every detail of your online life can be sold, mixed, data-mined and resold on a whim?  Perhaps you think it is a good thing.  Perhaps it will stop illegal activity from being planned online.  Or perhaps you are terrified but have no idea how to fight back.  Maybe we can give you some tips.  Or maybe we should all just run for the hills.

Come and join us in GeekSpeak.  Remember though that nothing we say is private.

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GeekSpeak – Time, what does it mean to us? And how should we measure it? Join the discussion Saturday April 1 at 12pm SLT

This week we are discussing what ‘time’ is in all its shapes and forms.  Would a universal time for the whole planet be possible?  Should we make time zones larger?  Or give them up?  What will happen when we colonise other planets with their own days and years?  Could there be a standard day and year?  Will we adopt a ‘stardate’, maybe so many years ABB (after the big bang) or AI (after the internet)?

How will we deal with personal time and ageing when we travel through space and we all age at different rates?  And what happens when we discover how to travel through time?

What is time anyway?  Does time move or is it fixed while we move along it? In a universe where time has a different rate depending on where you are or how quickly you are moving, a universe of ‘time crystals’ and the grandfather paradox, what problems do you see with time?  Bring your timepiece to GeekSpeak and tell us how you feel about time.

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GeekSpeak – The Future of National Borders Join the discussion March 25th at 12pm slt

How will the lines and colours of the world map change in the next 100 years?  Will Europe still exist?  If it falls apart will there be more European nations than before?   Will England, Scotland and Wales separate?  Will Catalonia leave Spain?  Will China fall apart?  Will California split from the USA?

Or will all borders disappear in the next century?  If that happens will it be because great empires become established?  Or because we will all want to join hands and sing together?

In 1977 President Carter sent a message into space that said “We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization.”  Is that still true?  Was it true then?  Was President Carter insane?

100 years is a long time.  Come and tell us what you think will happen in that time.  And what you hope will happen.

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GeekSpeak – transport in the future. Saturday March 11 at 12pm SLT

Last week Elon Musk started digging a tunnel for his hyperloop project.  Will we travel by means of superfast, magnetic pods in the future?  Will goods be transported by drones?  Will there be suborbital planes?

What will the transport infrastructure look like?  Will we have smart roads that store energy from cars, produce light, warn us about ice or fog?  Will there be drone hubs where goods will be handed from one drone to another?  Will we need fixed sky lanes for the use of drones, with drone police to keep them in order?

What will cities look like when we do not need them to store goods?  Will they be full of self-driving cars?  Will the skies be empty of birds because they have been taken over by drones?  Will we see vast shopping centres connected by hyperloop tunnels?

Or do you think these are all unreal dreams, destined to go the way of Concorde?

Bring your helmet and speedometer to GeekSpeak.

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GeekSpeak – the future of the internet. Join the Discussion Saturday Feb. 25th at 12pm SLT

GeekSpeak – the future of the internet.

The structure and the function of the internet are changing.  Join us to discuss those changes and what they will mean for the lives of ordinary people, for our lives.

Imagine earning an income by watching You Tube or being on Facebook.  Imagine sources of data that cannot be censored.  Imagine the emergence of a true global brain.  Will the internet become God?

Come and discuss net neutrality, streaming money and the next digital revolution.  Tell us if you find the new ideas exciting or frightening (or both).

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GeekSpeak SL – what will happen after the technological singularity? Join the discussion Jan 28th at 12pm SLT

What will become of humans in a world run by superintelligent AI?  What will the average person do if everything he or she wants is provided instantly?  Will we still make works of art?  Study history, do scientific research, compose music?  What will we do with our time?  Will we lose the ability to do the simplest things?  Will we eventually die out because there is nothing for us to do?

Will humans trust AI to do all their thinking for them?  Will we be able to think critically at all?  If AI provides us with all our information, all the news that is ‘guaranteed’ not to be fake, will there still be room for that one person who sees with their own eyes and thinks with their own brain?  Will anyone listen to such a person, or will they let AI do all the thinking?

Are we building a golden cage for ourselves, a cage from which there is no escape?  Does it matter if we are?

Come and do some critical thinking about our digital friends.

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GeekSpeak – back to the moon, finally! January 21 @ 12pm SLT

This year five teams are competing to get to the moon before the end of December 2017 to claim the Google prize of 25 million US dollars.  USA, India, Israel, Hungary and an international team are all going for the prize.  What will this mean?  Do you look forward to high definition video from the moon?  Will there be webcams on the moon?  Will you watch them?

What should the teams bring back from the moon?  Will they set up separate bases or will they join together to form one large base?  When will people start living on the moon?

Will several countries lay claim to parts of the moon?   Will there be wars on the moon?  Or will the people of the moon declare themselves independent of Earth, citizens of their own lunar country?

And who will get there first?  Make sure you have plenty of popcorn for the next ten months and glue yourself to the internet.  Start by joining us at GeekSpeak.  To the moon!!

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GeekSpeak SL – black swan events. Saturday January 14th at 12pm SLT

For thousands of years people thought that all swans were white.  Then that was changed forever when the first black swan was observed.

Black swan events are unpredicted and unexpected yet have an enormous impact on the world.  Is the history of the world and human society determined mainly by the ordinary and the predictable or is it determined by the outliers, the random and unpredictable events, the black swans.

Wars, the rise of religions, human inventions, changes in human thought; all can be seen as a succession of black swans.  What black swans do you see in history?  And what black swans do you expect in the future?

Does it frighten you to think that the future is unknown and uncontrolled?  Or do you see the theory of black swans as a good explanation for what happens in the world?
Come and predict the unpredictable at GeekSpeak.

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SL GeekSpeak – what would you do if you were suddenly ruler of a horrible country? Join the discussion Dec. 17th 12pm SLT

This week we are asking you to use your imagination and your knowledge of people.  Let’s suppose an alien with a sense of humour picks you up one night and drops you off as the leader of a country like Sierra Leone (one of the most corrupt in the world) or North Korea or Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia.  What would you do? What would be needed to get a country like that back on the world stage?  Is democracy essential?  What compromises would you accept?

How fast can a country change?  It took East Germany only 10 years but some countries never seem to improve.  Are they beyond hope?

Do you feel sure you would succeed in saving your country?  Or do you think your country might corrupt you?

Become a dictator for an hour at GeekSpeak.

IM Kathen Ohtobide if you need a teleport.
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GeekSpeak – cyber wars: Join the discussion Saturday December 10th at 12pm SLT

In this day and age, we are all connected in ways that we cannot measure or understand.  We have created a new cyber habitat but the old war and violence has followed us there.  We are not as safe as we thought we would be.  The lions have returned to the Savannah.

Last month’s attack on the USA showed us how easy cyber attacks can be.  Wars between states can be carried out online.  A few years ago, there was a virus roaming on the internet that was written to shut down a nuclear plant in Iran.  This is just one example that went public; there are many more predators out there that we do not know about.  Tomorrow someone could stop all traffic or close all factories.

What will happen if someone, an individual or a state, invents a super-virus?  Or if all important computers get infected with ransomware?

How much damage could a cyber war do?  How can we protect ourselves?  How threatened do you feel?  Bring your firewall to GeekSpeak and talk to us about it.

Some people have had problems teleporting to GeekSpeak.  Please contact Kathen Ohtobide if you cannot find us.
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GeekSpeak SL – are humans becoming less intelligent? Join the discussion Saturday December 3rd at 12pm slt

Were the people in old civilizations like ancient Athens more intelligent than us?  If so, what has happened to us?  How far will the deterioration go?  And how long ago did it start?  Our brains are smaller now than the brains of Cro-Magnon people.  Were the Cro-Magnons more intelligent than we are?

What will happen in the future?  How realistic is the movie ‘Idiocracy’?  Will the human species in the future become really stupid, as happened in that movie?  How can we turn the tide?

Perhaps you think that we are not becoming less intelligent.  Or perhaps you think that we are developing different modes of thought that may be more valuable than the logical thought of the past?  Or perhaps you think it might be a good idea to be a bit stupider.  We might be happier that way.

Come and join us to talk about brainpower over the ages.  IM Kathen Ohtobide if you have any trouble finding us.

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GeekSpeak - what new prize would you award? Join the Discussion Saturday November 26th at 12pm SLT

There are six Nobel prizes awarded every year to people throughout the world and of course various other prizes are awarded nationally.  Can you think of any other prize category?  What would you like to honour people for?  A prize for the most inventive idea?  The oddest theory?  The most progress towards extra-terrestrial colonies?  A prize for music, not just literature?  A prize for the best virtual world?

Or do you think any system of prizes is absurd and unfair?  Should we stop honouring individuals?  “What’s honour?  Who hath it?  He that died o’Wednesday.”  Is that how you feel?

Come to GeekSpeak to talk about prizes and honour.  Please contact Kathen Ohtobide if you have any difficulty in finding us.

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GeekSpeak – how do we make sure that artificial intelligence can be trusted? Join the discussion Saturday Nov 19th at 12pm slt

Is it possible to make sure that no AI could ever harm humans, start a war or crash the economy? If they did any of those things could they be prosecuted?

Are we in danger?  Should we be thinking of how to protect ourselves?  Or do you think AIs will be safer than humans, more likely to check facts and think rationally and less likely to become angry or be swayed by propaganda?

Is it possible for us to trust AIs completely?  Will the uncanny valley always make us dislike them?  Or will we (or they) get past that?  Will Asimov’s three laws of robotics protect us?  Or are those laws impossible to program into a real AI?

Will they be our servants, our friends, our masters or will they get rid of us altogether?  Come and talk about AI.  But leave your calculator at home; it could be working for THEM.

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