QM #2

Quantum mechanics and relativity affected me deeply - personally. It affected my attitude toward the world. I've always thought of physics as a sort of ivory tower, from which you venture forth into all other human affairs, of all kinds. That's why I became a physicist. I could've earned more money as a lawyer.

I.I. Rabi - The Second Creation

Engineering Cells

By the mid-2030s or 2040s, ideally, we will be able to get human boots on Mars, enabling us to directly see how humans respond to Martian living and how well our “molecular risk mitigation” plans work. Once there, we will be able to test more

Deontogenic Ethics

Deontogenic ethics includes four simple pieces: (1) consciousness must exist to be used; (2) long-term survival depends on plans to extend beyond the solar system in which our species originated; (3) long-term survival depends on the metaspecies, but is not only for the metaspecies; and (4) the needs of the metaspecies and conservation of their responsibilities may supersede individuals' needs or wants.

QM #1

“At first there were very few who believed in the existence of these bodies smaller than atoms. I was even told long afterwards by a distinguished physicist who had been present at my lecture at the Royal Institution that he thought I had been 'pulling their legs.' I was not surprised at this, as I had myself come to this explanation of my experiments with great reluctance, and it was only after I was convinced that the experiment left no escape from it that I published my belief in the existence of bodies smaller than atoms.”

J.J. Thomson – Director of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England, 1897.

pg. 13, The Second Creation

The Next 500 Years #3

To save life, we will need to engineer it. Notably, humans are already accidentally engineering life and directing evolution; now it is time to do it with volition, direction, and purpose.

Christopher E. Mason

The Next 500 Years #2

This [awareness of extinction of all life] gives us an awesome responsibility, power, and opportunity to become the universe's shepherds and guardians of all life-forms – quite literally a duty to the universe – to preserve life. This means we need to prevent the death of not only our species, but of all species on which we depend and any others we may find that are or were threatened –

The Next 500 Years #1

  . . . The fundamental thesis of this book is that the same innate, biological capacities of ingenuity and creation that have enabled humans to build rockets to reach other planets will also be needed for designing and engineering the organisms that will sustainably inhabit those planets.