The metaverse, in the most simplest terms is a virtual universe where there are no limits. Metaverse will be a 4-D version of the present internet. It can be thought of as being inside the internet and visualising and experiencing everything the world wide web. It can be thought of as a network of worlds with different things to offer.Virtual reality allows the Metaverse to be whatever we want it to be, with the only limits being our imagination.

What is the Metaverse?

The metaverse will be so much more than video games – digital identifications, remote work, buying and selling property – whatever you can imagine, the metaverse will have it.It is going to be the next milestone of the internet, being a converging point of the physical, augmented and virtual reality in one shared space, online.

The idea of a technological world where anything can be possible was first introduced in the 1992 science fiction novel , “Snow Crash” by Neil Stephenson which described a virtual reality and the term ‘metaverse’ was first coined.

How did Metaverse come around?

The 2011 book, “Ready Player One” further promoted the idea of a virtual world where you can be anyone, do anything and go anywhere irrespective of who you are in the real world.The movie based on the book starring Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke in the lead roles popularized the concept of virtual reality and introduced it as the ‘OASIS’, and gave every young mind watching it a sneak peek into what the metaverse could be like in the future.

“People come to the OASIS for all the things they can do, but they stay for all the things they can be.”

Virtual reality will have (and even has) gadgets lined up for the best experience of the metaverse, where the creators will provide the most optimum experience of the virtual world. <ul><li>Today, head mounted display and hand controllers which influence sight, hearing and a limited amount of touch are a basic to VR.</li><li>From books and movies an idea which sits into our mind is that bodysuits and omnidirectional treadmills will become a VR necessity in the future allowing the body to move about in a virtual space just like one does in the real world.</li></ul>

How can we experience the metaverse?

<ul><li>Advanced forms of VR will most probably make use of neurohaptics and neurotech, which uses signals from the brain to replicate a virtual environment and perform certain actions without any user interface.</li></ul>

The metaverse carries the potential to be one of the biggest and impactful technological development of the future. This virtual reality will allow infinite simulations to create anything we want, be anyone, do anything – whatever the mind desires, it can create.It doesn’t matter what you want, you can do it in this virtual space – buying virtual and real world objects (not to mention buying real world objects in the virtual world) to learning any skill you want, doing real world jobs in your virtual world desk/office and earning metaverse cryptocurrency and even using it in the real world.

Why the metaverse matters

Not only is the metaverse going to be a huge life changer for individuals, businesses and industries will also have mega changes thanks to the metaverse.Companies will be creating products and services based on the consumers in the metaverse and will have entire teams and divisions just for buying/selling and building products in the virtual reality or for the real world to aid the virtual reality.Some specialists even go so far as saying that the metaverse might be more transformative to the industries than the internet and could be the biggest market opportunity of the next few decades.

Metaverse For Companies 

Students of the future will have virtual reality schools and universities and even jobs all dedicated to the metaverse. Kids as young as 14-15 years of age will be building the world and creating new and better faces of the virtual reality.

Metaverse For Next-gen Students 

The metaverse is also very likely to have a big impact on the economy and even the governments of countries across the globe.According to some sources, the metaverse could most probably add close to $3 trillion to the global GDP (with consistent evolution) within a decade.

Metaverse And The Economy 

Virtual reality will also completely change the politics game. As it can be already seen with politicians all around the world promoting their campaigns and reaching out to their people through social networking and some even highlighting important issues and making positive change through it.With the metaverse, this could go one step further. From buying digital merch to show support to candidates to vKirtual embassies and even virtual ministries, the metaverse is sure to bring change and keep many people on their toes when it comes to being efficient and flawless.

Metaverse And Politics 

No. We really can’t expect the metaverse to be a flawless piece of human innovation which will immediately lead us to a perfect world with greatness and happiness.As it has been made clear with all other forms of technology, everything has potential to be good and bad. The sci-fi depiction in Ready Player One does point out that as the virtual world keeps getting bigger and better, the real world also crumbles in some ways.

Is the metaverse really all that good?

The rise of metaverse and virtual reality brings out some concerns which do need to be discussed and thought of, the biggest question being – will we lose touch with reality?As it is very obvious with smartphones – a major part of the population being addicted to screens and losing touch with their friends and family, the idea of having a perfect virtual world at everyone’s fingertips definitely raises some concerns when it comes to managing real world relationships and building healthy lives for the consumers.

The second most asked question, also one to be very concerning is – who will ‘own’ the metaverse and how does that change the lives of the people – in the real world and the virtual world? Let’s accept it, the fight for power is something that has been with us since the beginning of time and the metaverse will not be any different. So how will we know who actually controls the metaverse? Who will be the law makers and protectors? How will our real world identities change with the virtual world? All questions that require answers.

 With the ever consistent change in the world including, and especially technology, its time to set our eyes on the Metaverse and take a closer look at what the future has in store for us. 

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Personal Development

sciencefiction

Science Fiction

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Technology & The Future

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Communication

On The Metaverse (Part 1)

Without the fear of heights, there can be no appreciation for the beauty of high places.

The doctor smiled tolerantly.“Don’t you get it? I’ve given my most profound love to an illusion!”“Are you under the impression that the object of everyone else’s love actually exists?”“Is that even a question?”

Does love actually exist?

“Sure. For the majority of people, what they love exists only in the imagination. The object of their love is not the man or woman of reality, but what he or she is like in their imagination. The person in reality is just a template used for the creation of this dream lover. Eventually, they find out the differences between their dream lover and the template. If they can get used to those differences, then they can be together. If not, they split up. It’s as simple as that. You differ from the majority in one respect: You didn’t need a template.”

What's love about

Time is the one thing that can’t be stopped. Like a sharp blade, it silently cuts through hard and soft, constantly advancing. Nothing is capable of jolting it even the slightest bit, but it changes everything.

How to stop time

Make time for civilization, for civilization won't make time.

The Great Ravine

“There are no homes now. No one has them. Marriage, family, they went away after the Great Ravine. That will be the first thing you’ll have to get used to.”“That first thing is something I won’t be able to get used to.”“Oh, I don’t know. In history class I learned that marriage and family had already begun to disintegrate in your own time. Lots of people didn’t want to be tied down. They wanted free lives.”

Life after the Great Ravine

Soon to be a Netflix Original Series! "Wildly imaginative." —President Barack Obama on The Three-Body Problem trilogy This near-future trilogy is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience this multiple-award-winning phenomenon from Cixin Liu, China's most beloved science fiction author. In The Dark Forest, Earth is reeling from the revelation of a coming alien invasion-in just four centuries' time. The aliens' human collaborators may have been defeated, but the presence of the sophons, the subatomic particles that allow Trisolaris instant access to all human information, means that Earth's defense plans are totally exposed to the enemy. Only the human mind remains a secret. This is the motivation for the Wallfacer Project, a daring plan that grants four men enormous resources to design secret strategies, hidden through deceit and misdirection from Earth and Trisolaris alike. Three of the Wallfacers are influential statesmen and scientists, but the fourth is a total unknown. Luo Ji, an unambitious Chinese astronomer and sociologist, is baffled by his new status. All he knows is that he's the one Wallfacer that Trisolaris wants dead. The Three-Body Problem Series The Three-Body Problem The Dark Forest Death's End Other Books Ball Lightning Supernova Era To Hold Up The Sky (forthcoming) At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

books

Books

Soon to be a Netflix Original Series! "Wildly imaginative." —President Barack Obama on The Three-Body Problem trilogy This near-future trilogy is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience this multiple-award-winning phenomenon from Cixin Liu, China's most beloved science fiction author. In The Dark Forest, Earth is reeling from the revelation of a coming alien invasion-in just four centuries' time. The aliens' human collaborators may have been defeated, but the presence of the sophons, the subatomic particles that allow Trisolaris instant access to all human information, means that Earth's defense plans are totally exposed to the enemy. Only the human mind remains a secret. This is the motivation for the Wallfacer Project, a daring plan that grants four men enormous resources to design secret strategies, hidden through deceit and misdirection from Earth and Trisolaris alike. Three of the Wallfacers are influential statesmen and scientists, but the fourth is a total unknown. Luo Ji, an unambitious Chinese astronomer and sociologist, is baffled by his new status. All he knows is that he's the one Wallfacer that Trisolaris wants dead. The Three-Body Problem Series The Three-Body Problem The Dark Forest Death's End Other Books Ball Lightning Supernova Era To Hold Up The Sky (forthcoming) At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Liu Cixin is a Chinese computer engineer and science fiction writer. He is a nine-time winner of China's Galaxy Award and has also received the 2015 Hugo Award for his novel The Three-Body Problem as well as the 2017 Locus Award for Death's End. He is also a winner of the Chinese Nebula Award.

Cixin Liu

The Dark Forest

The multiverse comes from the idea that beyond the sphere of our observable Universe are other universes, distantly separated from ours. Richard Bower, professor of cosmology theorised four levels of the multiverse.<ol><li>An infinite universe in which “every possibility that could happen would happen”</li><li>Multiverses where the basic laws of physics are the same, but fundamental constants differ.</li><li>The many worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics where every choice causes a split in the Universe, leading to infinite parallel realities.</li><li>Multiverses that have entirely different laws of physics.</li></ol>

The Multiverse is Hypothetical

Are there universes where the laws of physics do not apply, like in the newest Doctor Strange outing?

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Science & Nature

Doctor Strange: Could we really be living in a multiverse? | BBC Science Focus Magazine

"May the 4th be with you." It's the famous Star Wars pun that launched a holiday, and for good reason. It's clever, it's catchy, and everyone loves Star Wars. But just how did that clever turn of phrase turn into a bona fide Star Wars holiday that fans celebrate on the fourth of May?Not all that long ago, in this very galaxy, Star Wars fans found a really good excuse to celebrate their obsession on Star Wars Day, aka May the 4th.

Star Wars Day

<ul><li>The phrase "May the Fourth be with you, Maggie" originated in England's conservative party, the Tories, after Margaret Thatcher won the election to become the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom.</li><li>While the pun stuck and became popular with Star Wars fans, it didn't cross over into mainstream pop culture for another 20 years.</li><li>It wasn't until the early 2000s that fans were using it constantly on social media.</li></ul>

Unlikely Origins Of Star Wars Day

In 2012, Disney bought Lucasfilm and the Star Wars franchise, so it made sense for them to embrace May 4th as a public holiday.It began as an unofficial holiday and was more of an unofficial recognition of the franchise than an official holiday until the California legislature voted in 2019 to officially make it a holiday.

Star Wars Day Is An Actual Holiday

<ul><li>Star Wars parties, themed food, movie marathons, and charity events</li><li>The 501st Legion, Darth Vader and stormtroopers from the 501st make appearances at children’s hospitals</li><li>Merchandise is sold and important to the success of the franchise</li><li>Ask Alexa to use the Force</li></ul>

Everything Star Wars On 4th May

<ul><li>There are a slew of new Star Wars movies and TV shows slated for the very near future, but the only one slated for May 4th this year is the behind-the-scenes special Disney Gallery: The Book of Boba Fett</li><li>Other 2022 highlights include Andor, a Disney+ prequel series to Rogue One that follows rebel spy and future hero Cassian Andor.</li><li>Most of them are TV series or on OTT platforms like Disney+, instead of being theatrical releases.</li></ul>

Future Instalments In The Franchise

How did the phrase “May the 4th be with you” lead to a Star Wars holiday? Find out the surprising answer—and how to celebrate, Jedi style.

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Movies & Shows

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

May the 4th Be with You: All About the Star Wars Holiday

The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him.

If he finds other life another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod—there’s only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It’s the explanation for the Fermi Paradox.

Soviet astrophysicist Nicolai Kardashev once proposed that we can divide civilizations into three types based on the power they can command for communication purposes, let's say.

Dividing civilizations

A Type I civilization can muster an amount of energy equivalent to the total energy output of the Earth. Based on his estimates, the energy output of the Earth is about 10^15 to 10^16 watts.A Type II civilization can marshal the energy equivalent to the output of a typical star - 10^26 watts.A Type III civilization's communication energy can reach 10^36 watts, approximately equal to the energy output of a galaxy. Civilization on Earth is currently about Type 0.7 not even a full Type I.

The Kardashev Scale

And to attain that state, you need to empty yourself.I said, "I'm empty enough. Fame and fortune are nothing to me. Many of the monks in this temple are worldlier than me." The abbot shook his head and said,"No, emptiness is not nothingness. Emptiness is a type of existence. You must use this existential emptiness to fill yourself."His words were very enlightening to me. Later, after I thought about it a bit, I realized that it wasn't Buddhist philosophy at all, but was more akin to some modern physics theories. The abbot also told me he would not discuss Buddhism with me.

Emptiness is not nothingness

Interesting that I’ve found this book as a side note in “The denial of death” by Ernest Becker. Didn’t expect something from it, and for sure didn’t expect it to grab my attention at all. Unquestionably an enthralling book, first of the “Remembrance of Earth’s past” trilogy. I would recommend it to anyone who dares to imagine beyond our existence.

Soon to be a Netflix Original Series! “War of the Worlds for the 21st century.” – Wall Street Journal The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience the Hugo Award-winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin. Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision. The Three-Body Problem Series The Three-Body Problem The Dark Forest Death's End Other Books Ball Lightning Supernova Era To Hold Up The Sky (forthcoming) At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Soon to be a Netflix Original Series! An NPR Best Book of the Decade Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel “War of the Worlds for the 21st century.” – Wall Street Journal The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience the Hugo Award-winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin. Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision. The Three-Body Problem Series The Three-Body Problem The Dark Forest Death's End Other Books Ball Lightning Supernova Era To Hold Up The Sky (forthcoming) At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Three-Body Problem

Are we living in a computer simulation?The question seems absurd. Yet there are plenty of smart people who are convinced that this is not only possible but perhaps likely.Just as Neo in The Matrix finds out that his whole life has been in a computer simulation, and the reality is completely different from everything he knew and experienced his whole existence, a new paper claiming that the entire universe is a computer simulation has shaken the heads of people all over the world.

We May Be Inside A Video Game

In an influential paper that laid out the theory, the Oxford philosopher <a href="https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html">Nick Bostrom</a> showed that at least one of three possibilities is true:1) All human-like civilizations in the universe go extinct before they develop the technological capacity to create simulated realities;2) If any civilizations do reach this phase of technological maturity, none of them will bother to run simulations;3) Advanced civilizations would have the ability to create many, many simulations, and that means there are far more simulated worlds than non-simulated ones.

The Theory

The simulation hypothesis is the modern equivalent of an idea that’s been around for a while. For example, in Hindu culture, the world around us is called Maya, an illusion.A fresh version of the idea is that the physical world that we live in, including the Earth and the rest of the physical universe, is actually part of a computer simulation.

The Simulation Hypothesis

In The Matrix, Keanu Reeves plays the character Neo, who meets a guy named Morpheus, who is aptly named after the Greek god of dreams, and Morpheus gives him a choice of taking the red pill or the blue pill. And if he takes the red pill, he wakes up and realizes that his entire life, including his job, the building he lived in, and everything else, was part of this elaborate video game, and he wakes up in a world outside of the game.

The Matrix

There are lots of mysteries in physics that are better explained by the simulation hypothesis than by what would be a material hypothesis.There’s much we simply don’t understand about our reality. It’s more likely than not that we are in some kind of a simulated universe. Now, it’s a much more sophisticated video game than the games we produce, just like today World of Warcraft and Fortnite is way more sophisticated than Pac-Man or Space Invaders.

This World Being A Software Program

Everything we see as physical is really the result of bits of informationComputers do follow rules, but the fact that the rules always apply doesn't rule in or rule out that we could be part of a computer simulation.If we are conscious beings, we are more likely to be a simulated beings than biological ones because it’s so quick and easy to create them.

The Question Of Us Being Real Or Simulated

There are 10 stages of technology development that civilization would have to go through to get to the simulation point, which is the point at which we can create a hyperrealistic simulation like this. We’re at about stage five, which is around virtual reality and augmented reality. Stage six is about learning to render these things without us having to put on glasses, and the fact that 3D printers now can print 3D pixels of objects shows us that most objects can be broken down as information.

The Simulation Stages

We all may not be real, but just a player in an elaborate video game.

Why this computer scientist thinks we’re probably living in the Matrix.

Are we living in a computer simulation? I don’t know. Probably.

What future do we face? What future do we want? What must we do to get there?These three questions preoccupy us all. We can’t predict the future. We can imagine it and even design it; no outcome is predetermined and, as cognitive human beings, we retain the agency to shape the world we want. Perhaps most critically, we can also prepare for the future, by confronting both the risks that we can mitigate and the things that will surprise us. As the most effective conduits for ideas, narratives have the unique power to help us determine what’s going on, what lies ahead, and what needs to be done.

Read Before you Die

Defined in the simplest possible terms, a narrative is a story about something. Stories are essential to us because as human beings and social animals, we are storytelling creatures. In his 1938 novel Nausea, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, “A man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his life as if he were recounting it.”

What is Narrative

Robert Shiller, the “father” of narrative economics, goes one step further, linking narratives to the decisions we make: “The human brain has always been highly tuned towards narratives, whether factual or not, to justify ongoing actions.”The rich scholarly literature about narratives makes it clear that we think, act, and communicate in terms of narratives, and each interpretation, understanding, or model of how the world operates begins with a story. Narratives provide the context in which the facts we observe can be interpreted, understood, and acted upon.

Narratives & Decisions

In that sense, they equate to much more than the stories we tell, write, or illustrate figuratively; they end up being the truths, or the ideas we accept as truths, that underpin the perceptions that shape our “realities” and in the process form our cultures and societies. Through narratives, we explain how we see things, how these things work, how we make decisions and justify them, how we understand our place in the world and how we try to persuade others to embrace our beliefs and values.

Narratives as Realities

Narratives shape our perceptions, which in turn form our realities and end up influencing our choices and actions. They are how we find meaning in life.Our narratives have carved the paths of history, some down the darkest roads. But our narratives also bring out the best in us. In his book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Harvard professor of psychology Steven Pinker makes the vibrant plea that the main line of history is one of improvement and that today’s world is richer, healthier, and safer than it’s ever been.

The Meaning of Life

This is correct: On most metrics, if we had to choose throughout history the best time to be alive, it would indeed have to be today. And if we had to choose one quality that powers the better angels of our nature? Imagination.Imagination is a glorious attribute. When its infinite possibilities are harnessed, it corresponds to a form of “superpower” from which every human being can benefit, individually or collectively. It’s easy to understand why: Every resolution of a problem begins with a bit of imagination. Conversely, many problems occur because of the failure to imagine that they could.

Imagination

This is correct: On most metrics, if we had to choose throughout history the best time to be alive, it would indeed have to be today. And if we had to choose one quality that powers the better angels of our nature? Imagination.Imagination is a glorious attribute. When its infinite possibilities are harnessed, it corresponds to a form of “superpower” from which every human being can benefit, individually or collectively. It’s easy to understand why: Every resolution of a problem begins with a bit of imagination. Conversely, many problems occur because of the failure to imagine that they could.

Imagination as Superpower

Narratives shape our perceptions, which form our realities and influence our choices. The expression “failure of imagination” captures this by describing the expectation that future opportunities and risks will resemble those of the past. Novelist Graham Greene used it in The Power and the Glory, but the 9/11 Commission made it popular by invoking it as the main reason why intelligence agencies had failed to anticipate the “unimaginable” events of that day.

Narratives & Perceptions

Ever since, the expression has been associated with situations in which strategic thinking and risk management are stuck in unimaginative and reactive thinking. Considering today’s wide and interdependent array of risks, we can’t afford to be unimaginative, even though, as the astrobiologist Caleb Scharf points out, we risk getting imprisoned in a dangerous cognitive lockdown because of the magnitude of the task. “Indeed, we humans do seem to struggle in general when too many new things are thrown at us at once. Especially when those things are outside of our normal purview.

Reactive Thinking

Like, well, weird viruses or new climate patterns,” Scharf writes. “In the face of such things, we can simply go into a state of cognitive lockdown, flipping from one small piece of the problem to another and not quite building a cohesive whole.”Imagination is precisely what is required to escape a state of “cognitive lockdown” and to build a “cohesive whole.” It gives us the capacity to dream up innovative solutions to successfully address the multitude of risks that confront us.

A Cohesive Whole

For decades now, we’ve been destabilizing the world, having failed to imagine the consequences of our actions on our societies and our biosphere, and the way in which they are connected. Now, following this failure and the stark realization of what it has entailed, we need to do just the opposite: rely on the power of imagination to get us out of the holes we’ve dug ourselves into. It is incumbent upon us to imagine the contours of a more equitable and sustainable world. Imagination being boundless, the variety of social, economic, and political solutions is infinite.

Out of the Holes

With respect to the assertion that there are things we don’t imagine to be socially or politically possible, a recent book shows that nothing is preordained. We are in fact only bound by the power of our own imaginations. In The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber and David Wengrow (an anthropologist and an archaeologist) prove this by showing that every imaginable form of social and economic organization has existed from the very beginning of humankind.

"The Dawn of Everything"

Over the past 300,000 years, we’ve pursued knowledge, experimentation, happiness, development, freedom, and other human endeavors in myriad different ways. During these times that preceded our modern world, none of the arrangements that we devised to live together exhibited a single point of origin or an invariant pattern. Early societies were peaceful and violent, authoritarian and democratic, patriarchal and matriarchal, slaveholding and abolitionist, some moving between different types of organizations all the time, others not.

Over the past 300,000 years

Antique industrial cities were flourishing at the heart of empires while others existed in the absence of a sovereign entity.The point is this: Prior to our “modernity” that culminated with the idea of the Enlightenment, there was an incredible variety of social possibilities that most modern people didn’t imagine were possible. Rousseau’s idealism about the “state of nature” in a pre-civilization world or Hobbes’ conviction that life before the state existed was “nasty, brutish and short” look more like a hypothesis than the scientific canon they often incarnate.

 Prior to our “modernity”

If ancient societies did not obey any specific organizational trajectory or evolutionary model, why should it be different in today’s world? What prevents us from imagining different pathways and new forms? What is it that constrains our ability to imagine better ways of dealing with our problems and why can’t we organize ourselves differently? Are we not capable of creating entirely new narratives? The answer is: Yes, we are! The definition of imagination as “the ability to confront and deal with a problem”.

Questions

It involves creativity and an openness to new ways of thinking, plus of course large amounts of disciplined analysis and the prospect of a business or policy application. Otherwise, to paraphrase the Brazilian economist Carlos Braga’s favorite expression, “vision or imagination without implementation is just hallucination.” When its infinite possibilities are harnessed, imagination corresponds to a superpower.

Hallucinations

Today, all sorts of people are engaged in elaborating novel and imaginative ideas, products, and strategies. They do so by developing new ventures, start-ups, economic policies, or mammoth projects and, in so doing, create and shape the future. Their original ideas translate into narratives that produce models which in turn influence behavior and help construct the future. Ultimately, they become instruments of policy and project market power.In the environmental sector, the stakes for our future are the highest. Imaginative nature-based solutions are leading to a bloom of start-ups.

Narratives as Models

It doesn’t take much imagination to realize that nature gives freely. For centuries, not only have we taken this generosity for granted, but we’ve also exploited it to such an extent that we are now on the edge of a precipice.Of course, nature is not “free”; it is priceless, and a degree of imagination is needed to grasp what this means in terms of policy.

For centuries ...

For economists and policymakers, valuing nature and assessing its contribution to our economies and societies is a recent endeavor because, for centuries, we’ve been overlooking the fundamental role nature plays in our lives and underestimating the risks that environmental degradation poses to human welfare and economic growth. Without taking care of the complex ecosystems that ensure that the temperatures remain tolerable, the air breathable and the water drinkable, we cannot function as societies. It follows that nature represents an indispensable input to economic activity. It is an asset.

Nature is an Asset

We need to treat it as such and in the process reconsider our measures of economic prosperity. Recent economic studies conclude that more than half of the world’s GDP depends on nature. It renders services that are obvious and others that are much more difficult to comprehend (like the work of complex ecosystems within the soil that recycle nutrients, purify water, and absorb atmospheric carbon). These are unfamiliar topics for economists and require a lot of imagination and disciplined analysis on their part to properly account for nature’s contributions to economic growth.

 Imagination and Analysis

As stated recently in the Dasgupta Review, “humanity has prospered immensely in recent decades, the ways in which we have achieved such prosperity means that it has come at a devastating cost to nature. Estimates of our total impact on nature suggest that we would require 1.6 Earths to maintain the world’s current living standards.” The idea is far-fetched, but it’s already been picked by hard-nosed investment bankers. Global solutions are going to come from undiscovered shores, and already we see them on the horizon.

Global Solutions

The Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) is a group of 91 central banks and supervisors committed to mobilizing mainstream finance to support the transition toward a sustainable economy. It is investigating many bold financial innovations that could (and most likely will) one day revolutionize the way in which climate-related risks are accounted for in central banking and banking supervision.

91 Central Banks

In short, alongside governments (which have a much broader and more effective range of tools and policies available to prevent and mitigate climate-related risks), central banks will adapt their monetary policy operational frameworks to reflect climate-related risks. This will involve the mitigation of balance sheet risks that stem from climate change and environmental degradation, but also the active support of the transition to a non-carbon, green economy.

Transition

Imagining what form this might take and devising policy tools and instruments to get there is the task of the NGFS, and largely depends on how climate risks will affect the economy and financial system through a range of different transmission channels. The menu of options available is extensive and encompasses changes in all three most important policy fields of a central bank: credit operations, collateral policies, and asset purchases. Some of the options represent a radical departure from standard central bank operational policies. They are the product of central bankers’ imagination.

 The Menu of Options

Some ideas go into uncharted territory, well beyond the scope of what the NGFS is devising in terms of possible policies. Creating “carbon quantitative easing” policies is one of them. It’s a novel, untested, and somewhat outlier narrative that already sounds familiar because it plays a key role in Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel The Ministry for the Future. In the novel, as the climate crisis gets dramatically worse, the world’s top central bankers end up cooperating by collectively abandoning caution to the wind and deciding to create a global “carbon coin” to fund decarbonization.

Decarbonization

Robinson’s inspiration is grounded on some academic papers published less than five years ago, and lately on the work of the NGFS, that doesn’t yet venture into such wild territory. But asserting novelists’ “poetic license,” Robinson’s imagination runs wild:“[The NGFS] suggested that possibly nations, companies and individuals who draw carbon from the atmosphere could be paid for it directly. Possibly petrostates could be compensated for the fossil fuels they keep in the ground.

Possibly oil companies could be paid to suck carbon from the air and then pump it back into the ground; they could also be paid to pump water from under the great glaciers of Antarctica and Greenland, which are currently sliding into the sea on newly melted subterranean water slides. Of course, legislatures and citizens will need to urge their central banks, and ultimately to instruct or order them, to do these things.

Antarctica and Greenland

But the good news is that with these new strategies in hand, even in our current political economy, awkwardly suited at best to the task at hand, we might be able to pay ourselves to do the necessary things, and thus dodge the coming mass- extinction event.”This idea is far-fetched, but it’s already been picked up by some hard-nosed investment bankers. Besides, surely the very purpose of imagination is to venture into unknown territories!

Hard-Nosed Bankers

Klaus Schwab is the founder and executive chairman of the WEF His latest books are The Fourth Industrial Revolution, a worldwide bestseller translated into 30 languages, and Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.Thierry Malleret is the managing partner of Monthly Barometer, a succinct predictive analysis provided to private investors, global CEOs, and opinion and decision-makers. He has written business and academic books and has published four novels. Adapted from The Great Narrative for a Better Future, by Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret. © 2022 World Economic Forum.

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economics

Economics

The Power of Narrative

.... is a method, proposed by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964,  of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is able to use. The Kardashev scale has 3 categories:<ul><li>Type I civilization, also called a planetary civilization, can use and store all of the energy available on its planet.</li><li>Type II civilization, also called a stellar civilization, can use and control energy at the scale of its planetary system.</li><li>Type III civilization, also called a galactic civilization, can control energy at the scale of its entire host galaxy.</li></ul>

The Kardashev scale

The Earth is at 0.7 on the Kardashev scale. While the jump has been significant in the last 200 years the number has been stagnant for the past 50. This is an argument for a great planetary stagnation.We could have been a planetary civilization in terms of energy output if we had embraced and developed nuclear energy. We could have lived the future the Jetsons predicted. But fears of nuclear bombs made nuclear a political debate and we stayed on fosil fuels and renewables.

Energetically, Earth is still in its infancy 

Since energy is on everyone's lips after the invasion of Ukraine, I think it would be useful to think of the energy output as a planetary issue, as Kardashev proposed. 

politics

Politics

Energy & the Kardashev scale

Mechanical Turk then first publically displayed in the France and there he defeated the ambassador of USA in France Benjamin Franklin even including the best chess player of that time Francois-Andre Danican Philidor has claimed to have been given one to the toughest game of his life. Von Kempelen visited whole Europe exhibiting his Turk and returned to its original place and passed in 1804.Then Von Kempelen’s son sold his machine to the man named Johann Nepomuk Malzel for 10,000 Francs and Malzel was a character who stoles other inventions and takes the credits for that. BuB

Mechanical Turk the AI who plays Chess in 1770

And this time the great revolution of machine came in the long scale industries the invention by the Von Kempelen got the huge attention and now people started to fear the machine that it will took over the world like now we fear from AI. In 1819 the person known as the father of computer Charles Babbage faced the Mechanical Turk and off course he loosed his matches against him but by the loss the idea of machine thinking itself strikes in his head and after 2 years he developed his Computing Device usually known as Computer these days so many people were afraid and some were inspired.

So now you probably thinking that this is some sort of time travel mystery or you may link this story to the alien whatever but the reason behind this whole Mechanical Turk was something other than this and Edgar Allan Poe himself discovered the truth behind this machine.

history

History

entertainment

Entertainment

artificialintelligence

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence in 1770 the Mechanical Turk!

Each of us contemplates the long-term future of our species at some point. Will we survive self-destruction? Will we migrate to the stars? Both as individuals and as a society, we typically call on imagination to ponder the big questions. Whether we choose to look 10 or 1,000 years into the future, we often seek the help of the science fiction artists, writers, filmmakers, and TV producers who can help us understand our place within the universe.

Visions of tomorrow inform the present and can inspire progress both socially and technologically. Astronauts like Mae Jemison and aerospace engineers like Bobak Ferdowsi and Elon Musk all speak of science fiction as a guiding influence for their careers. More significantly, science fiction can inspire everyday people to engage in visionary, long-term thinking.

If we are invested in a better future, we will be motivated to adapt and solve the problems we face now. Whether the future is portrayed as bright or dim, science fiction can coax us to think creatively by letting us leapfrog to the distant future where we may glimpse what radical change could look like.

A Different Perspective

These stories often imply that we will survive as a species and overcome our challenges; but there are also many counter narratives warning that even though we may progress as a society, dangers abound. Cautionary tales like The Terminator, Mad Max, or Alien can therefore be as illuminating as more optimistic stories such as Interstellar, E.T., Contact, or Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

A multi-generational perspective that is scaled to encompass interplanetary habitation enlarges our understanding of our context within the universe and discourages shortsighted actions. These kinds of broader views prioritize aspirations like peaceful coexistence and conservation.

The ability to transport people into the distant future also has inspirational value: Even though we currently lack the technical or social capacity to reach our goals, the vision of an eventual breakthrough breeds optimism and builds resolve. In an age of scientific reasoning and logic, people still seek hope and connection.

Connection and Hope

By providing imaginative ways to participate in events beyond our lifetimes, visions of the future can serve as beacons of faith and moral bearings for how we live today. Portrayals of a better tomorrow can also inspire actions that contribute to something greater than ourselves; when we emotionally invest in mythic ideas about the future, we feel empowered to actualize them. That sense of empowerment fuels purpose and fosters global communion with the rest of humanity. By taking a visionary stance, we can help equip our descendants for success.

Anything that helps people conceptualize the future, think beyond the present, and relate to characters with diverse identities is positive. Many classic space adventures aren’t centered around specific references to science, but they still provide imaginative glimpses of possibilities beyond today’s scientific reach. Sagas like Dune, Star Wars, and The Fifth Element portray a vast universe full of diverse worlds and extraterrestrial beings, and therefore offer powerful perspectives on humanity’s evolutionary course.

Moving forward, science fiction should be elevated to an academic level and recognized as more than a hobby or a fantastical escape. Where pure science can be difficult for some people to process, creative projections can make scientific theories more accessible to the general public, especially when communicated visually. In addition to inspiring scientists, engineers, and astronauts—as well as supporting STEM education—science fiction has the capacity to fuel the creative impulses of all kinds of people, including architects, designers, and politicians.

A Tool for Education

Carrying the torch for these visions of progress and sharing them with others can provide a sense of purpose in itself. I may not colonize another planet or develop technology that contributes to the goal, but by helping to cultivate the dream, I increase the possibility that others will find a way to get there eventually. And by this, I don’t just mean technological progress, but a more comprehensive transformation across society, including the abilities to improve environmentally, socially, and politically.

#####Everyone should seek out futuristic narratives in film, TV, and literature, and share them with the folks in their lives—especially young people. In this way, we can collectively shape ideals and concepts for a better tomorrow.

It is imperative for humankind to become increasingly self-aware and strategic on the larger scale of time and space; science fiction may be our most powerful tool for influencing popular thinking in this direction. Diverse visionaries in this field are greatly needed to produce intersectional concepts that push humanity toward a more promising trajectory. Whether we ultimately save ourselves and achieve cosmic migration or not, we can still have fun watching science fiction and participating in the dream of tomorrow, today.#####

Science fiction can inspire everyday people to engage in visionary, long-term thinking.

If you want to change reality, consume more science fiction

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