GeekSpeak – Breaking news: Time Travel is theoretically possible. Join the discussion Saturday, March 18th at 12pm SLT

Time travel (but only to the future) is possible soon.  Come and join us at GeekSpeak on Saturday at noon SLT to discuss how we can travel ahead in time and why we would want to do so.Would you like to travel into the future?  Will you jump ahead 10 or 100 or maybe 1000 years? Or will you stay in the here and now?Jumping ahead would satisfy your curiosity might make you rich if you have invested wisely, and might mean finding...

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GeekSpeak – The City of 2050! What will it be like? Join the discussion Saturday Jan 28th at 12pm SLT

 What will the cities of the future look like?  Flying drones everywhere?  Tunnels underground?  A dome over every city?Will the cities of 2050 be filled with green plants and open spaces?  Or will they be made of tightly packed cubicles?Will the streets be full of rubbish, or will bots clean it all up?  Will there still be cars on the streets?  Or will we see moving walkways everywhere?  Will...

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GeekSpeak - 2023! Where will it take us? Join the discussion Saturday, December 31st at 12pm SLT

 What are your predictions, hopes, and fears, for 2023 and beyond?Will we see asteroid mining, a moon base, people on Mars?  Worldwide democracy, an end to war?  A cure for cancer?Or will we see World War 3?  And the collapse of civilisation? And new pandemics from artificial viruses?Where do you see Europe, USA, Iran, China, Russia going in 2023? Tell us what you fear and hope for, for the world or personally....

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GeekSpeak subject for Saturday 26th November at noon SLT: What will you take with you to Mars?

 What will the future Mars settlers need to take with them?  Will they have to take all the oxygen, water and food they need for 2 years?  And materials and tools for building a base?Or will human settlers need to take nothing with them because robots will have prepared everything before they arrive?  Will the settlers simply step into a luxury base with all the food and oxygen already available?What is needed for a human to survive...

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GeekSpeak subject for 12th November at noon SLT: How will YOU live in the near future?

 What will your life be like in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years?  Will you own a car or use a robotaxi?  Will you live in a car because it is cheaper than a house and technology will make it very comfortable?  Or maybe in a house that can transform into a car?  10 years ago no one would think of owning more than one computer.  10 years from now, will you own several robots?  Will you have a robot pet that will double...

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GeekSpeak subject for Saturday 12th February at noon SLT: What will be the most profound technology in the next 10 years?

 As a species, we are facing a future with huge changes.  AI, new materials, abundant energy, biotech, gen therapy, abundant internet, underpopulation, mass unemployment, all these, and many more will make big differences in the next 10 years.How will we deal with all this? Is Universal Basic Income the answer?If not, will we see a ‘digital divide’ with an elite and a lot of people in the useless masses?And what is on the other side?Come...

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GeekSpeak subject for Saturday December 4th at noon SLT: What will Synthetic Biology lead to?

 One of the big drivers of the future will be synthetic biology, the art of using DNA to program bacteria or yeast cells so that they will produce something useful.  There are plenty of examples.  DNA can be used to make fertiliser, to change the taste of food, to resurrect the scent of extinct flowers.  And this is just the beginning.  As we learn more about nature’s code the only limits to what can be achieved may be...

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GeekSpeak subject for Saturday 31st July at noon SLT: The Future of War!

What will we kill ourselves and our enemies about in the future?  If we don’t fight over oil what will we fight over?  Land on other planets, water, sunlight, air?  New religions? And how will we fight?  We won’t send millions of soldiers to the trenches anymore.  Maybe we will send robotic poisonous mosquitoes.  Or swarms of drones.  Maybe all fighting will be done by robots on other planets.  Or maybe our...

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GeekSpeak subject for Saturday 13th February at noon SLT: Where are we going?

 Where are the moon bases that were so confidently predicted in 1969?  Where is the socialist utopia?  Every time humanity has plans for the future something else happens.  What makes our history jump about like a butterfly?  Is it because we depend on ‘black swan’ events that cannot be predicted?  How can we control our future?  Can we invent something really new or do we have to build on earlier inventions? Could...

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GeekSpeak subject for Saturday 19th December at noon SLT: The future of Transport!

 Self-driving cars will be with us very soon.  And in Las Vegas, there is a very exciting tunnel project that will mean we can all travel underground and take hardly any time.  Hyperloop!!  What if you can step into a taxi that is cheaper than a train?  What will happen to trains once electric trucks, with or without AI, are cheaper?  Will you want to use balloons, or teleportation, or what?How will goods be transported...

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Geekspeak: COVID 19 GLOBAL CRISIS. WHAT CHANGES WILL WE SEE IN OUR FUTURE? Join the discussion Saturday April 11th at 12pm SLT

Soon we will have overcome the current crisis.  But we will be left with a world where millions of people are jobless and where we are all scared of the future.  So how do we rebuild?  What permanent changes will we see? More virtual worlds?  The invention of the holodeck?  A society where education and business conferences all take place online?  Where more people work from...

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GeekSpeak – How will autonomous driving change our cities? Join the discussion Oct. 19th at 12pm SLT

In a few years from now self-driving electric cars will be a reality.  What will our cities be like?  Will there be more cars or fewer?  Will the possession of a car become a small business since cars can be robotaxis when they are not being used by the owner?  Will cities become much pleasanter places to live?  Fewer cars, and maybe most of those driving in underground tunnels, less pollution, quiet...

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SL GeekSpeak – Do you look at the future with Fear or with Hope? Join the discussion September 21st at 12pm SLT

On the one hand, we are all healthier than we were and living longer.  The number of people in severe poverty decreases all the time.  Technology improves all the time.  We now accept our responsibility to protect the natural world.  And we will soon be moving out into space and founding colonies on other planets. On the other hand, there is always the danger of a third World War, government agencies...

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GeekSpeak – will humans have extra senses in the future? Join the discussion Saturday 6th July at 12pm SLT

Are we approaching a transhumanist future where we will have new senses?  Given DNA modification and technology, will we sense radiation, UV light, magnetic fields, the gravity of the moon?  Will our ordinary senses be enhanced so that we can navigate by means of sonar, slow down time so we can hear the songs of birds, smell as well as dogs?A connection with AI will give us extra information.  At what point does the extra information...

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GeekSpeak – what if we had to restart civilisation?

Imagine being one of a hundred people suddenly stranded in a forest, maybe on a strange planet, while all the rest of humanity has disappeared along with all technology.Would your small group be able to restart a civilization?  How long would it be before you could use electricity again?  How long before you had metal? Would a lot of knowledge just get lost over the generations before it could be used?What would be the first technology...

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GeekSpeak – are we heading for big trouble in the western world?

This month we have seen massive protests in European countries and in the USA.  Why are people so angry?  Could it escalate into something even bigger?Which should be more afraid, the people or the governments?  What sort of obedience do we owe to our governments and what do they owe to us?If the protesters succeed what difference will it make?  Will it just mean some other guy in office?  Or could the entire system be...

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GeekSpeak – what was the best invention ever?

Let’s vote on what was the best invention ever, the cleverest, the most productive of other inventions, the invention that caused the most happiness or the most health or maybe the invention that was the most beautiful and unexpected.  Was it politics, the toilet, cooking, writing, the use of fire, beer, antibiotics, contraceptives?And what is the worst invention ever?  Are there inventions that should never have been invented?  Nuclear...

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GeekSpeak – will we understand the future? Join the discussion July 7th at 12pm SLT

Imagine it is the year 2050.  Humans have never done anything for 20 years.  If you want food it is there in a second, created, served, pre-chewed.  Actors have left the stage, teachers have left the schools, everything is CGI.  Roads, cities, buildings, all are controlled by AI.Will the few humans who can understand the new world be like a new species that the rest of us cannot even talk to?  And what will happen to the...

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GeekSpeak – the end of cities? Join the discussion April 21st at 12pm SLT

Will the future see people moving out of cities?  If there are self-driving electric cars on call all the time, goods are delivered by drones, schools are available on youtube and you can work in a virtual world why live in a city?  Will you need to be near a hospital if your house robot can be a heart surgeon?  And wouldn’t it be good to escape the pollution?What do cities have to offer?  It may be that they will be the last...

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Future Imperfect: The Art Of Gem Preiz - Persia Bravin Reporting...

Image by Gem Preiz On board a spaceship circling a far distant planet, the Captain stares out of the window of the craft at the unfamiliar landscape beneath him. Soaring watchtowers hewn from jagged rocks thrust high into the alien atmosphere overlooking abandoned landing platforms and bathed by the light of the ships solar panels, he pensively writes into a logbook. The opening page reveals that the year is 2115 and he has blasted away...

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