Absolutely. We already know that elephants and other endangered but attractive species need protection. Drones are already being deployed to protect them. Because drones can be both inexpensive and reasonably unobtrusive, drones may be both the most affordable and the most efficient tools. In addition to saving the lives of endangered animals,…[Read more]

Kathryn — I’d LOVE to see climate change covered as a “big idea” major topic in a future edition of Hieroglyph.  I think there is no more important topic today, and while it has become one of the backgrounds we often use in our fiction, it is only periodically the subject of our fiction.  Kim Stanley Robinson covered it, of course.

Nancy Kress a…[Read more]

I do a blog series called “Backing into Eden” which gets re-blogged at IEET and the World Future society.  One of the things I came across in that research is no-fishing zones in California.  These zones have  helped to restore the surrounding ecosystems as well (the recovering species wander out of the protected zones).   Here is a  link:  https:/…[Read more]

It’s not science fiction in the sense that it’s happening, but there are time banks operating in our area. I don’t participate but there are some people in town who are really excited about it. https://eastside.tbanks.org.

I’m actually struggling with this in a book I’m working on now. I have a society that includes “Makers” who create new life…[Read more]

This is lovely. Thanks for posting it.

Hi Vandana,

I’ve always thought that way. I think the Dr. Dolittle books may have actually been a catalyst when I was about 5. I’m becoming less and less certain that we’re going to get to anything like re-wilding, at least in a meaningful way, until after we get through the population peak in about 2050 and start down the other side (or get to…[Read more]

Hi Mary,

I watched that a few months ago and was quite astounded by it as well. I posted it to some of my friends and the consensus was that what he is doing is replicable is some ecosystems. I particularly liked it because it was a new way for me to look at things.

Brenda

Hi Geoffrey,

I’d go. I’d love to visit Antarctica and experience true cold and real weather. I think you could do it.

I think you have a point, and I hope we never get to trying to manage it all. I don’t think we’re smart enough for that yet. But I’ve spent all day working on a blog post (that goes up tomorrow) thinking about how to reduce elephant poaching. That is an example of a situation that needs intervention. I’d love to think that we can manage the…[Read more]

I couldn’t agree more. In fact, just this morning I was watching a TED talk about connecting the brains of paralyzed people to exoskeletons that would let them walk by simply thinking about it, and I noticed the speaker actually referring to the project as a “moonshot” sized effort or something very similar. I think SpaceX is planning to go to…[Read more]

Saw your post over at the LifeBoat blog – nice job. For Heiroglyph readers who haven’t seen it, https://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/06/vaccinate-against-b-s-o-d-insure-your-memories

I like the idea of a separate physical network better than a secret one inside the common internet – it’s cooler, and physical separation adds a level of security. A separate commons would have to have a whole separate ecosystem, right? How separate do you think it would need to be? If I had an account for email in the separate network, I…[Read more]

Yes. I actually suspect we have the government versions of these now. Surely our military forces have ways to communicate inside of China without being monitored.

I suspect that instead of laying a separate physical network (although I, too, love he visuals!) that a more likely scenario would be to build the commons in plain site, masquerading…[Read more]

Karl — I must say you always start the most interesting threads.

I was just at the Future in Review (FiRe) conference, which highlights a few startup companies each year. One of them for this year was Graphene Technologies, which has a way to convert Co2 to graphene.

https://www.graphenetechnologies.com.

I was pretty impressed with the…[Read more]

This was actually used in one of my favorite SF novels from last year – Blue Remembered Earth by Alistair Reynolds.  He did a lovely job talking about it. It’s not particularly a spoiler — when this character […]

I think that part of it is the “Playing God” feeling that we get when we mess with biology.  Of course, we do it all the time.  Plant and animal breeding programs, new roses, GMO foods (some bad, many good).  I’ve […]

Neal…First – I love Susan’s book as well.  I’m  more of an extrovert but I manage a blended staff and it helped me greatly to see the power in my introverted staff and some of the mistaken ways we’ve been […]

We’re already seeing innovation happening so fast that we can’t keep up a cogent ethics conversation about it.

I’m more concerned that we are probably regulating some of the wrong things and not regulating some […]