10 Futurist Phrases And Terms That Are Complete Bullshit

Posted on by

S

Last month we told you about 20 terms every self-respecting futurist should know, but now it's time to turn our attention to the opposite. Here are 10 pseudofuturist catchphrases and concepts that need to be eliminated from your vocabulary.

Top image: Screen grab from Elysium.

S

Some futurists toss this word around in a way that's not too far removed from its religious roots. The hope is that our technologies can help us experience our existence beyond normal or physical bounds. Now, it very well may be true that we'll eventually learn how to emulate brains in a computer, but it's an open question as to whether or not we'll be able to transfer consciousness itself. In other words, the future may not for us it'll be for our copies. So it's doubtful any biological being will ever literally experience the process of transcension (just the illusion of it).

What's more, life in a "transcendent" digitized realm, while full of incredible potential, will be no walk in the park; full release, or transcendence, is not likely an achievable goal. Emulated minds, or ems, will be prone to hacking, deletion, unauthorized copying, and subsistence wages. Indeed, a so-called uploaded mind may be free from its corporeal form, but it won't be free from economic and physical realities, including the safety and reliability of the supercomputer running the ems, and the costs involved in procuring sufficient processing power and storage space.

Vernor Vinge co-opted this term from cosmology as a way to describe a blind spot in our predictive thinking, or more specifically our inability to predict what will happen after the advent of greater-than-human machine intelligence. But since that time, the Technological Singularity has degenerated to a term void of any true meaning.

In addition to its quasi-religious connotations, it has become a veritable Rorschach Test for futurists. The Singularity has been used to describe accelerating change or a future time when progress in technology occurs almost instantly. It has also be used to describe humanity's transition into a posthuman condition, mind uploads, and the advent of a utopian era. Because of all the baggage this term has accumulated, and because the peril that awaits us coming clearer into focus (e.g. the Intelligence Explosion), it's a term that needs to be put to bed, replaced by more substantive and unambiguous hypotheses.

S

I wholeheartedly agree that we should use technology to build the kind of future we want for ourselves and our descendants. Absolutely. But it's important for us to acknowledge the challenges we're sure to face in trying to do so and the unintended consequences of our efforts.

Read more:

10 Futurist Phrases And Terms That Are Complete Bullshit

Tax Freedom Day arrives in Connecticut on May 9

Posted on by

Connecticuts Tax Freedom Day, the day on which Connecticuts residents have collectively earned enough income to pay off their total federal, state, and local tax bill, will arrive on May 9 this year, making it the last state to reach Tax Freedom Day. According to the annual report released this morning by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, national Tax Freedom Day falls on April 21, three days later than last year.

The states with the earliest Tax Freedom Days are Louisiana (March 30), Mississippi (April 2), and South Dakota (April 4). The latest dates fall in New Jersey (May 9), Connecticut (May 9), and New York (May 4).

The studys key findings include:

The national Tax Freedom Day is three days later than last year due mainly to the continuing economic recovery, which will boost federal tax revenue collected through the corporate, payroll, and individual income tax.

Americans will spend more on taxes in 2014 than they will on food, clothing, and housing combined.

Americans will spend 42 days working to pay off income taxes, 15 days for excise taxes, and 11 days for property taxes. Click here for a full breakdown.

Americans will pay $3 trillion in federal taxes and $1.5 trillion in state and local taxes, for a total bill of more than $4.5 trillion, or 30.2% of the nations income.

If you include annual federal borrowing, which represents future taxes owed, Tax Freedom Day would occur on May 6, 15 days later.

Tax Freedom Day is a significant date for taxpayers and lawmakers because it represents how long Americans as a whole have to work in order to pay the nations tax burden.

Arguments can be made for why the collective tax bill is too high or too low, but in order to have an honest discussion, its important to understand where we stand, said Tax Foundation Economist Kyle Pomerleau. Tax Freedom Day gives us a vivid representation of how much we pay for the goods and services provided by governments at all levels.

Read this article:

Tax Freedom Day arrives in Connecticut on May 9