{Read} {PDF EPUB} ~download Tomorrowland Our Staggering Journey from Science Fiction to Science Fact by Steven Kotler Tomorrowland: Our Journey From Science Fiction To Science Fact. For the past 25 years, my beat as a journalist has been covering those moments in time when science fiction became science fact. As a result, and on a good number of occasions—like when the first artificial vision implant was turned on or when the first private spaceship was launched—I was lucky enough to be in the room when history happened. These moments are also the subject of my next book: Tomorrowland: Our Journey From Science Fiction to Science Fact, which hits stores in early May. As the title suggests, this book is an investigation into those transformational sci-fi to sci-fact moments and—more specifically—the incredibly disruptive impact they have on culture. Yesterday, I released the trailer for Tomorrowland—seriously, it’s awesome, which takes a longer look at this impact, but to understand the quick and dirty version it helps to start with our religious traditions. Consider their awesome influence and impact, both positive and negative. The wars waged and blood spilled and ceaseless argument; the lives saved and morality preserved and deep bonds. Now, think about what’s coming. How many of these traditions use the threat of the hereafter to steer morality and shape behavior? Yet, in labs today, we’re already poking at the possibility of downloadable consciousness, of permanently storing our selves on silicon. So what happens to theological morality in the face of technological immortality? This question—and so many like it—are no longer idle concerns. To put this in different terms, think about the religious riot that has broken out over evolutionary theory. But this debate is simply about a fundamental belief. Today, science and technology have crossed an even greater line. No longer are we simply eroding fundamental beliefs; now we’re starting to destabilize the very facts those beliefs are built upon. Take synthetic biology, for another example. This tech allows us to write genetic code like we treat computer code. Right now, this means new foods and fuels and medicines. But biotechnology, which includes synthetic biology, is now advancing at five times the speed of Moore’s law— doubling in power every four months. So we’re not long from being able to create organisms from scratch. Quite literally, figments of our imagination are about to take up residence in reality. So yeah, now we’re cheating death and jump-starting life and if you don’t think this will fundamentally rearrange our culture and forever alter our belief systems then you’re not thinking at all. Years ago, I got to know Dr. William Dobelle, creator of the aforementioned artificial vision implant. Dobelle had a serious dislike of talking to the press. For maverick inventors, this isn’t too unusual. But, typically, this is about protecting intellectual property. That wasn’t Dobelle’s concern. “Jesus cured blindness,” he said. “It’s my experience that people don’t like it when mortals perform miracles.” Well, one thing most certain, he’s not wrong. So strap in, hang on and sit tight, because we’re in for a seriously bumpy of a ride. Tomorrowland : Our Journey from Science Fiction to Science Fact. Follow your Weird: "Tomorrowland: Our Journey from Science Fiction to Science Fact" by Steven Kotler Disclaimer: I received an advance reader's copy (ARC - Uncorrected Manuscript Proof) of this book . Читать весь отзыв. TOMORROWLAND: Our Journey from Science Fiction to Science Fact. An examination of the scientific and technologic developments that have transformed fantasy into reality. It's not quite the age of flying cars and space colonies, but we are not that far off either . Читать весь отзыв. Мир завтра [Tomorrowland: Our Journey from Science Fiction to Science Fact] We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method. Publisher's Summary. Известный писатель и журналист Стивен Котлер уже не раз рассказывал нам о тех поворотных моментах в истории, когда научная фантастика становится научным фактом и полностью переворачивает наш мир. Здесь собраны лучшие его статьи, знакомящие читателя с новейшими достижениями науки и техники и их влиянием на нашу дальнейшую жизнь. Как утверждает сам Котлер, научно-технический прогресс есть не что иное, как обещание более легкого будущего. «Технологии дарят надежду, а можно ли сопротивляться надежде?» Книга позволяет каждому из нас отправиться в удивительное путешествие в завтрашний день и невероятную возможность уже сейчас увидеть наше ближайшее будущее. [ New York Times, Wired, Atlantic Monthly, and Discover best-selling author Steven Kotler has written extensively about those pivotal moments when science fiction became science fact. and fundamentally reshaped the world. Now he gathers the best of his best, updated and expanded upon, to guide listeners on a mind-bending tour of the far frontier, and how these advances are radically transforming our lives. From the ways science and technology are fundamentally altering our bodies and our world (the world's first bionic soldier, the future of evolution) to those explosive collisions between science and culture (life extension and bioweapons), we're crossing moral and ethical lines we've never faced before.] We're So Close to Having the Flying Car. But Will We Ever Drive One? It's said the fear of death motivates people more than anything, what compels them to tinker away for years at building a better tomorrow. The "awful knowledge of our own mortality," as New York Times bestselling author and journalist Steven Kotler explains in Tomorrowland , his new book out this month, drives us to push farther, work harder, dream bigger. It's what compels us to build an electronic star, to track motion through sound, to cure cancer. "It's the promise of hope," writes Kotler. "And how do you stop hope?" Here in this book excerpt, Kotler delves into the dreamiest of science fiction dreams, the arrival of flying cars, and what this brave new technology means for the world. — The Editors. 1 .The Calfee Design Factory is 10,000 square feet, a few stories high, and perched on the edge of a lonely bluff in La Selva Beach, California. Below the bluff, the Pacific rumbles and moans. Above it, in the factory, on most days, they build bicycles—technically some of the very best in the world. Today is not most days. Today is October 20, 2005. An afternoon of dark skies and light rain. A man named Dezso (pronounced Dezh-ur) Molnar is braving the elements, pushing a strange, three-wheeled contraption out of the warehouse and onto a 2,000-foot runway. A few years back, when Molnar started hunting for a place to build this contraption, he had three key needs. The first was isolation. What he wanted to build in his skunk works was the kind of project that attracted all sorts of unwanted attention. Calfee's warehouse fit the bill. It sits on 379 acres of private land and sees few visitors. His second need was expertise. Molnar's contraption had to be light—very light. Calfee's bicycles are made from carbon fiber. They weigh about 12 lbs. The engineers who work here understand light. Molnar's last requirement was a straight stretch of pavement. It didn't have to be a runway, but —considering the true nature of Molnar's invention—it was a fitting touch. The true nature of Molnar's invention is hard to discern at a glance. The machine looks like some Mad Max version of a recumbent bicycle, only with training wheels, a giant steel roll cage, and a 68-inch, three-bladed propeller strapped to the back end. Today is the very first day Molnar is going to fire up that propeller and see if it can push his machine down the road. He's hoping for speeds about fifty mph—because, at least according to Molnar's calculations, that's about what it should take to get his flying motorcycle off the ground. "The machine looks like some Mad Max version of a recumbent bicycle, only with training wheels." 2 . The flying car, the flying motorcycle, the stuff of dreams—of very old dreams. Aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss invented the first flying car back in 1917: a forty-foot-long tri-winged beast made from aluminum. The beast never did fly, but it did manage to hop. That hop was enough, inspiring almost a century of innovation. Next came Waldo Waterman's 1937 winged Studebaker—dead because of lack of funding. A bad crash destroyed the 1947 ConvAirCar. The Aerocar, perhaps the most famous of all road-able aircraft, went through six iterations before the oil crisis of the 1970s killed off production plans. Since then, there have been dozens of other attempts; a few have flown, most have not. Today, the two most widely known versions are Paul Moller's M400 Skycar and the Terrafugia Transition. Both of these vehicles are currently for sale; neither of them have actually been delivered to a customer. And that's really the issue. Out of the 104 road-able aircraft (80 of which have patents on file), none have seen mass production. There are, of course, good reasons for this. While the upside of a flying car is easy to imagine—no traffic jams, shorter commutes, another excuse to quote Blade Runner —the downsides are considerable. Cost and noise, for starters (at $196,000, the Terrafugia has already been branded a rich man's toy, to say nothing of Moller's $3.5 million reserve price).