Discover Top Posts Tagged with #exponentiality

“In 2012, solar panels were producing 0.5% of the world’s energy supply. Some people dismissed it, saying, ‘It’s a nice thing to do, but at a half percent, it’s a fringe player. That’s not going to solve the problem,’” Kurzweil said. “They were ignoring the exponential growth just as they ignored the exponential growth of the Internet and genome project. Half a percent is only eight doublings away from 100%. “Now it is four years later, [and solar] has doubled twice again. Now solar panels produce 2% of the world’s energy, right on schedule. People dismiss it, ‘2%. Nice, but a fringe player.’ That ignores the exponential growth, which means it is only six doublings or [12] years from 100%.” Two years ago Kurzweil presented this to the Prime Minister of Israel, he said, who had attended his class at the MIT Sloan School in the 1970s. Kurzweil said the prime minster asked him a question. “Ray, do we have enough sunlight to do this with a doubling seven more times?’” Kurzweil recalled. He said he replied, “’Yes. After we double seven more times, and meeting 100% of the world’s energy needs, we’ll still be using only one part in 10,000 of the sunlight that we have.’” “It’s not true we’re running out of energy,” Kurzweil said before moving on to another topic. “We’re only running out of resources if we stick with 19th century technologies.”

Futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts solar industry dominance in 12 years

#solar #energy #exponentiality #exponential #growth #technology

The Contradiction Of Ethics: One Man's Rights As Another Man's Injustices

Ethics. Morals. Beliefs. I, along with probably most other people living in First World countries, find my value systems and integrity in each respect being challenged daily by life’s circumstances, as well as the conundrum of attempting to uphold my own while coexisting in a world inhabited by 7 billion other people and their own set of ethics, morals and beliefs. It is quite honestly an additional struggle in one’s personal pursuit of maturation and self-actualization. I thrive off of the concept of expressing individuality without threatening communal equality. Being the person I feel most comfortable being while still being accepting and understanding of those who do not particularly look like me, do things I do, believe in things I necessarily don’t.

It is that ideology that lead to my work as a campaign fundraiser. My job entailed raising money for progressive non-profit organizations. The organization I was working for focused their current efforts on LGBT rights, specifically against legislation drafted that gave religious individuals or businesses the right to legally discriminate against people solely because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. It was a cause I could easily get behind and relate to.

As a Black American I can empathize with any group of people being denied service or employment, and having that discrimination be justified with religious context, even with coming from a religious background myself. Growing up in the baptist church, one recurring theme I always spiritually relled against was the intolerance and shunning of the gay community. Even if homosexuality is perceived as sinful, there are plenty other more abstract sins that I believe are deserving of more critical chastisement.

However in the last couple of weeks of my job there, I noticed a slight unsettling of my beliefs. As a a smiling couple with a young child walked passed, I asked if they supported gay rights. What happened next was completely unexpected and unnerving. While the man gave a simple and polite ‘no’, the woman covered the child’s ear and screeched “Stop harassing us! I don’t support sin, I support Christian rights”. I should’ve felt pity for the angry woman, and called her names like “unreasonable” and or “illogical” as my coworkers did- I couldn’t- I actually felt as if I truly offended this woman and her family, and it is not my nature to stir up such ill emotion.

That occurrence led me to question my own beliefs about equality for a about a week when a lady approached me and brought a valid point to my mind. She inquired something along the lines of ‘What if you were this religious person, and you felt or were raised to believe that if you served a gay person a wedding cake, you could possibly be placing yourself on the waiting list for Hell. Would you still serve that cake? And if you firmly believed these things wouldn’t it be wrong for the government to pressure you to go against your convictions?”. I was stumped. In all rationality, the lady was absolutely right in the sense that by giving one group of people their perceptively equal rights, you’re threatening and/or removing the rights of others. As much as a gay person deserves the right to be served in a restaurant-equally speaking- that restaurant should have the authority to deny that gay person a meal, or else equality becomes biased. It makes me refer back to the law of exponentiality. A western philosophy usually denotes the growth of populations and how it correlates to the limiting of resources. I believe the concept can easily be applied to the paradox of equal rights. The more diverse a community becomes, along with the expansion of subcultures, equality becomes more grey than black and white. If a demographic of tall people believe that the height of all public door knobs should be raised to accommodate their needs, it’s going to conflict with the needs of short people. A silly parable to ponder upon, but a valid parable nonetheless.

Today’s lawmakers have their work cut out for them. How can you create laws and policies that protect and defend the rights of each and every demographic while still promoting the growth and progression of the nation as a whole? In turn, individualism versus assimilation becomes capitalism versus communism. I would love to be able to trust that our government would be willing to work to correct this problem, but then again, our’s doesn’t set much of an example, being split into dangerously lax liberals and unhealthily constricted conservatives. I believe the solution lies primarily in the people. In the people’s willingness to accept and understand the differences of other individuals and cultures, and balance of equality being scaled harmoniously. I doubt I’ll see it come to fruition in this life though. In the meantime, I took my fundraising talents to an organization that saves and improves the lives of children. Everyone likes kids.

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The Contradiction Of Ethics: One Man’s Rights As Another Man’s Injustices was originally published on Collective Lifestyle

#Civil #contradictions #ethics #exponentiality #gay #Morality #Rights

exponentiality

lanterns swinging in the bright and early morning warning of the red sky that's dawning i take a picture of you lining up under the moon still out in the day

your dress is spilling at the sides not staining though it's all white you were thinking of yesterday while you were lying in the bed i daydreamt of what could come ahead i take your hand.

we travel the world, though we only come to see each other you are the constant in all my variance, so stay with me, let's go for exponentiality.

#spilled ink #poetry #staygolden #lyrics #exponentiality #wip

Ano 2025... chip com a capacidade do cérebro humano

"em dez anos os processadores deverão atingir a capacidade de processamento de 1016 ciclos por segundo, que é a mesma capacidade do cérebro humano."

Matéria completa: http://canaltech.com.br/noticia/ciencia/Vivemos-no-melhor-momento-da-historia-diz-fundador-da-Singularity-University/#ixzz3DrmaiqWa

“Mas isso não para por aí: 26 anos depois, o computador padrão de mil dólares vai ter a capacidade de processamento de toda a raça humana” ;-)

#exponentiality

To give a visualization of this, if I were to take 30 linear steps, it would be one, two, three, four, five. After 30 linear steps I’d end up 30 paces or 30 meters away and all of us could pretty much point to where 30 paces away would be. But if I said to you take 30 exponential steps, one, two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two and said where would you end up? Very few people would say a billion meters away, which is twenty-six times around the planet.

The Difference Between Linear and Exponential Thinking | In Their Own Words | Big Think

#diamantis #exponentiality