There have been significant developments recently in Quantum Mechanics. Einstein was talking about this field of science when he said "God doesn't play dice". Quantum Mechanics is seriously weird and counter-intuitive.

Quantum Computing

This recent Wired story reports the demonstration of the D-Wave Systems 16-qubit, specific-purpose quantum computer and includes an interview with the father of quantum computing, Oxford University theoretical physicist David Deutsch, who "...invented the idea of the quantum computer in the 1970s as a way to experimentally test the "Many Universes Theory" of quantum physics -- the idea that when a particle changes, it changes into all possible forms, across multiple universes."

Quantum Cryptography

Quantum Crypto is more developed that Quantum Computing and has been commercially implemented on optical networks by MagiQ Technologies. This technology employs Heisenberg's Uncertaintly Principle to achieve a highly secure crypto solution.

Interestingly, Quantum Computing has the potential to make current mathematical approaches to cryptography redundant, as the massive parallel computing power available will render current algorithms vulnerable to brute force attacks. However, Quantum Crypto is not beleived to be vulnerable to this type of attack.

While these are both transformational technologies, Quantum Computing is possibly a boot-strapping technology. It appears to promise solutions to several currently intractable computational problems and to dramatically increase computer modelling capacity. Applying Quantum Computing to scientifc problems such as global climate modelling, carbon management, nanotechnology and nuclear fusion could lead to the exponential leap of scientific and technical capacity known as the Singularity.

Such a quantum leap in human intelligence augmentation will hopefully develop in time to be applied to the climate emergency. We, and our computers, will need to be as smart as possible to deal with this.

This may sound like the title of a post-modern computer generated monster classic. Godzilla versus Mothra zapped through a Predator versus Alien filter!

But seriously, this may be the most important dichotomy of our blighted age.

I recently read two fantastic sci-fi novels, Fifty Degrees Below by Kim Stanley Robinson and Accelerando by Charles Stross, which pose interesting scenarios of the Bottleneck and the Singularity, respectively.

Both novels suggest that humans (and posthumans) don't transcend natural (Darwinian) behaviour. This rings true and provides a great literary device, the tragic flaw, which lubricates the narratives.

Both authors are familiar with Sociobiology. The main character in Fifty Degrees Below, edits a sociobiology journal and exhibits, in his introspection, a growing awareness of the grip that hardwired routines have on his own and everyone's behaviour. Another scientist in this novel conducts an intriguing experiment in scientific democracy.

In Accelerando, "godlike" artificial intelligences, descended from corporations, behave like plague locusts and convert most of the solar system into Computronium.

This led me this think about our global predicament. The problem is timing. If we reach the bottleneck first, then the singularity won't happen in time to help. If we reach or approach the singularity before the bottleneck then perhaps we can survive it by applying powerful new technology (artificial intelligence, nanotech, 3D printers and so on). I guess, this is vaguely what we all hope will happen. Technology to the rescue.

But didn't technology cause the problem in the first place?

Technology is not the problem. The problem is human behaviour. While our wise men and women tell us that our survival is at stake, our leaders are obsessed by distracting territorial and ideological disputes. The resources of the final flowering of the post industrial economy are being squandered on the war machine.

Don't we all wonder from time to time why we are in this horrible predicament in the first place, and why we don't seem to be able to fix it?
 
The problem is human behaviour, which is stalled in prehistory. We are not adapted to the technosphere we have created. We are still running ancient war games, when we need to be running blue sky scenarios.

More than anything else we need to develop the ability to manage our own global behaviour.

I came across an interesting blog called The End Of Money.... written by Dr Chris Martenson.

If you are wondering whether the US economy is headed (and that also means the macro global economy - the world of money is totally interdependant), it is worth a read.

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