The Adjacent Possible, V. 3, Issue 13
The mid-August edition of the twice-monthly newsletter that explores science, technology, innovation and more through a science fiction lens.
“Dystopias are created in the interconnected system of our designs.”
Tim Stock, Partner @scenarioDNA & Adjunct Professor @SDSParsons
Welcome to the Adjacent Possible. If you enjoy science fiction and have noticed that it seems increasingly difficult to separate it from real life, then The Adjacent Possible was made for you. Twice a month The AP comes to your inbox filled with stories about science, medicine, space exploration and more, all with a disturbingly science fictional vibe. Sign up here if that sounds like your kind of newsletter.
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Humans will never colonize Mars — A very good, and rather sobering, essay that looks at our chances of colonizing Mars. The difficulties in doing so are nearly insurmountable and foolish efforts by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos frankly border on the criminal. Better they spend their billions fighting climate change here on Earth. Space exploration is important, and there is real value in the idea of exploring the Red Planet and beyond, but the idea of hundreds of thousands of humans living on Mars is closer to the fantasy end of the spectrum, rather than the hard science fiction end. Source: Gizmodo.
Mega-Tsunami on Mars — One of the biggest challenges facing Mars colonization is the lack of water. But this might not always have been the case. Scientists believe Mars may have had water billions of years ago, and a mega-tsunami, with waves as high as a skyscraper, was created by a massive meteor 3.7 billion years ago. Source: New York Times.
Star Escapes Black Hole — The fact that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy with a mass around 4 million times that of our suns is pretty amazing. Now consider that scientists have recently discovered that a star that has escaped from the black hole (hey, I thought you couldn’t do that!) by traveling at a velocity of more than 1,000 miles per second. The article also notes this little nugget — a recent study suggests there to be around 10,000 black holes in hte center of our galaxy. Source: Mother Nature Network.
[medical]
Zoom-in Contact Lens — Scientists at UC San Diego have created a contact lens, controlled by eye movements, that can literally zoom in when you blink twice. The scientists created a soft biomimetic lens that responds directly to electric impulses. One step closer to your cyborg futute. Source: cnet.
[science]
African Smoke Fertilizes Amazon — One thing is for certain: The Earth will continue to find new ways to amaze us. This sounds a bit like a Paolo Bacigalupi story, crossed with Solarpunk. Africa is burning, mostly the result of land clearing, brush fires and industrial combustion emissions, which is a bad thing for Africa. But apparently is a boon to South America. Scientists have found that the smoke ash is an “important source of phosphorus to the Amazon rainforest and Tropic Atlantic and Southern oceans.” Source: Phys.org.
New Yorker on Cli Fi — We’re not colonizing Mars (see above), and we’re not likely to survive here. The stories of Warmer, a cli-fi collection from Amazon, look at our slow descent towards… what? Extinction as a species probably. The stories are available for free, but I recommend that you also read the New Yorker piece by Katy Waldman, it’s a good overview of the collection. Source: New Yorker.
[arts & entertainment]
Bellwether Update — I mentioned Bellwether — the speculative journalism podcast — in a previous issue of The Adjacent Possible. Well, I did a Q&A with the project creator, Sam Greenspan, recently. He’s a smart guy with a great idea that is well worth supporting. If you’re a reader of The Adjacent Possible, you’ll appreciate Bellwether. You can help Sam make it a reality with a contribution of just $1. Source: The Adjacent Possible.
[culture]
Stopping Killer Robots — Good piece on A.I. expert Toby Walsh and his crusade to pre-emptively stop the creation and deployment of autonomous weapons. I’m not a fan of calling them ‘Killer Robots’ as they tends to conjure images of The Terminator or some other B-movie science fiction trope. Autonomous weapons are more likely to be drones, or perhaps remote-controlled vehicles. The implementation of such weapons would have profound implications for the rules of war. Source: The New York Times.
Neural Mirror art installation — An Italian design studio has created an art installation called Neural Mirror, which uses demographic data to create an eerie The Matrix Meets Max Headroom image of a person. The story includes a provocative video that itself seems like a scene out of a modern science fiction film. Worth checking out. Source:Endgadget.
Cyberpunks Dystopian Future — Good piece her on the kerfuffle around CD Projekt Red, the developers of the Cyberpunk 2077 video game. They caught heat for an in-game depiction of transgender character. Perhaps the blowback, especially against a game that allows for a wide range of gender identities, was perhaps unwarranted. A good essay that is willing to go against the media consensus. Source: Arc Digital.
[military]
Undeclared Wars in Cyberspace — A pretty legit overview of what constitutes cyberwarfare, its historical origins, how it’s conducted and what are its targets. Source:Singularity Hub.
Science Fiction and the military — Really good piece that looks at the value of science fiction for the military beyond laser beams and exo-suits. Can be a slightly tough read at times; example sentence: “By drawing on formalist thinking and specifically Brechtian concepts of verfremdung (or estrangement) it is possible to draw directly on aspects of Critical Theory, and its Hegelian and Marxist roots, to make a case for its politico-military value.” Uh, yeah. But push through that for an intelligent look at the value of science fiction as a tool for studying society. Source: The Cormorant’s Nest.
