Interview: Mac Tonnies
February 29 2008 / by memebox
Category: Space Year: General Rating: 6
This interview was conducted by Venessa Posavec 1/10/08
V: What do you do and how is that related to the future?
Mac: I’ve been blogging about futuristic subjects for five years. I’m interested in how seemingly disparate trends have a way of merging—art, biotech, transportation, “green” technologies, and others. I’ve also written about “paranormal” subjects. My Mars book, for instance, takes on a lot of topics that I consider essentially futurist, although they’re seldom encountered outside of the paranormal community.
V: What, in your words, is a futurist?
Mac: A futurist is someone who can take a look at a stripmall and experience instinctual fear. A futurist’s job is to live in the future, to experience it. That can sometimes make the present a lonely place, but it can also make it exhilarating. Of all the would-be shamans of our time, I think novelist William Gibson understands this most of all.
V: What is a transhumanist?
Mac: Transhumanists view aging as a terminal illness—and who can blame them? From a design perspective, the human frame is woefully lacking and in need of some serious revision. Fortunately we’re rapidly entering an era of genetic engineering. We’re on the cusp of being able to design ourselves in some profoundly meaningful ways.
Needless to say, this sort of power has huge implications for just about every social institution you can imagine, so a big part of transhumanism’s job is envisioning how the human race might change to accommodate future advances.
V: What do you think are some of the most likely medical/technological advances that we’ll see that will bring us that much closer to transhumanism? What time frame?
Mac: Aging is the big one. If we can turn off aging a lot of our other biomedical concerns will begin to look almost petty. Of course, we’ll continue to augment ourselves regardless of how long we live, but I can easily see “negligible senescence” achieved within forty years. Quite possibly less.
V: Can you give us a general landscape of what you think the future will look like?
Mac: The short-term doesn’t look terribly promising. To begin with, we’re up against a disintegrating biosphere and a ravaged global climate. If we can beat that, things start looking more hopeful. We’re already seeing some exciting new thinking about democratized space travel, for example: this could lead to a large-scale colonization of space and, ultimately, the effective end of the nation-state.
As William Burroughs said, “we’re here to go.” I’d personally like to see humanity become a spacefaring species.
V: What is the singularity?
Mac: At some point, presumably in the 21st century, technological growth will accelerate to the point that we might find ourselves dealing with a form of alien intelligence. At least that’s the operative wisdom among the hard-core crowd.
V: When do you think the singularity will occur?
Mac: It might not occur at all. That’s the truly disturbing possibility.
V: When do you think we’ll create the first AI?
Mac: That depends on your definition of “AI.” In some respects we already have it, or at least a limited form of it. Will we achieve sentient machines? Maybe, although I’m inclined to think of that as a relatively long-term prospect. Then again, maybe I’m in for a surprise.
V: Where are all the extra terrestrials?
Mac: It’s politically fashionable to assume we’re not being visited and that the only way we can hope to make contact is through transmitting signals. Of course, that’s assuming they’re out there manning their radio telescopes and not uploaded into hedonistic virtual realities or choking on their own pollution.
On the other hand, there’s evidence to suggest some form of extraterrestrial presence here right now. So we might not be as alone as it seems.
V: What is some of your favorite future fiction?
Mac: Anything by J.G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. More recently I’ve discovered really good stuff by Alastair Reynolds, Jack Womack and Charles Stross. Viva cyberpunk!
V: Overall Future: What trends are you aware of that people should be looking at?
Mac: Species dieback, certainly. Also megascale geo-engineering “quick fixes” for global warming. Both of these subjects are too often ignored for sounding alarmist; it’s always easier to gawk at our cellphones.
V: What are some of the big opportunities that the future holds (more or less specific)?
Mac: Mars exploration. We can go there in the near-future if we want it bad enough. And we should want it bad enough. I’m also excited at the prospect of peering at extrasolar planets and deducing the presence of life.
V: As we move forward in time, what are some potential drawbacks/risks?
Mac: Pandemics, obviously. Nuclear war, water shortages, drowning coastal cities . . . Don’t get me started!
V: List some specific predictions for the year 2008.
Mac: We’ll continue to find exoplanets. And I suspect NASA will announce new and better evidence of present life on Mars.
V: 2008: What disruptive events don’t people see coming?
Mac: Not to sound morbid, but it’s only a matter of time until the next Katrina.
V: Specific predictions for next 5 years, thru 2012.
Mac: I’ll go out on a limb with this one. I predict we’ll find “smoking gun” evidence for life on Mars, discover at least one extrasolar biosphere, and possibly even detect some EM chatter from an ET civilization.
V: Specific or general predictions for next 10 years, thru end of 2017.
Mac: We’ll have created androids that can pass for the real thing, if only briefly. We’ll probably be growing cloned organs in vats. The US will have a base on the Moon and the Chinese will be nipping at our heels. The mean global temperature will be hottest on record. Large chance of regional nuclear conflicts. Duck and cover, kids. It’s about to get really weird.
Comment Thread (1 Response)
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10 year prediction: The US will have a base on the Moon and the Chinese will be nipping at our heels.
LOL. This is why futurists need to get a day job. It’s easy to make predictions (much like Seinfeld said, “It’s easy to take a reservation”). Those who have actually worked in the space industry know what’s involved and why we won’t have a lunar base in the next decade, or possibly even in the next 2-3 decades.
Just because a small (very small) percentage of the population has aspirations of space travel and colonizing outer space, the vast majority doesn’t, and certainly isn’t willing to foot the bill to make it achievable. Suborbital stunts such as SpaceShip One aren’t game changers.
http://spacecynic.wordpress.com
Posted by: SpaceCynic March 01, 2008
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