Lifeboat Foundation

At Quora.com, I respond to quetions on Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency. Today, a reader asked “Will we all be using a blockchain-based currency some day?”.

This is an easy question to answer, but not for usual Geeky reasons: A capped supply, redundant bookkeeping, privacy & liberty or blind passion. No, these are all tangential reasons. But first, let’s be clear about the answer:

Yes, Virginia. We are all destined to move,
eventually, to a blockchain based currency.

I am confident of this because of one enormous benefit that trumps all other considerations. Also, because of flawed arguments behind perceived negatives.

Continue reading “Will we all be using a blockchain currency some day?” »

The Mars Society is holding a special contest called The Mars Colony Prize for designing the best plan for a Mars colony of 1000 people. There will be a prize of $10,000 for first place, $5,000 for second and $2500 for third. In addition, the best 20 papers will be published in a book — “Mars Colonies: Plans for Settling the Red Planet.”

The Mars colony should be self-supporting to the maximum extent possible – i.e. relying on a minimum mass of imports from Earth. In order to make all the things that people need on Earth takes a lot more than 1000 people, so you will need to augment both the amount and diversity of available labor power through the use of robots and artificial intelligence. You will need to be able to both produce essential bulk materials like food, fabrics, steel, glass, and plastics on Mars, and fabricate them into useful structures, so 3D printing and other advanced fabrication technologies will be essential. The goal is to have the colony be able to produce all the food, clothing, shelter, power, common consumer products, vehicles, and machines for 1000 people, with only the minimum number of key components, such as advanced electronics needing to be imported from Earth.

As noted, imports will always be necessary, so you will need to think of useful exports – of either material or intellectual products that the colony could produce and transport or transit back to Earth to pay for them. In the future, it can be expected that the cost of shipping goods from Earth to Mars will be $500/kg and the cost of shipping goods from Mars to Earth will be $200/kg. Under these assumptions, your job is to design an economy, cost it out, and show that after a certain initial investment in time and money, that it can become successful.

Continue reading “Mars Colony Prize — Design the First Human Settlement on Mars” »

Maria Bustillos is founder of the blockchain supported publication, Popula. I stole the title of this post from her essay at Medium.com (linked below).* I hope that Maria considers it a tribute rather than title-plagiarism. Her article is blocked by a pay wall, so allow me to explain a concept that confounds even a Nobel Prize winning economist. My take on the issue is somewhat different than Ms. Bustillos.

The difficulty understanding or appreciating Bitcoin boils down to a misconception that the dollar is backed by something more tangible, such as gold, guns or the promise of redemption. Not only is this an illusion, but Bitcoin is backed by something far more tangible, intrinsic and durable.

The illusion that “real” value emanates from government coupled with a robust consumer economy has been woven into our DNA for millennia. But, the value we attribute to a Dollar, Euro, or Yuan is a result of conditioning rather than any intrinsic value. That same conditioning has led us to believe that there is something sane and inherent in a nation that controls its money supply and its monetary policy.

Most public works projects—power generation, space ships, or the telephone network—were controlled by government in the past. If not, they were regulated as a licensed monopoly. This creates a choke point, a lack of competition, and a gaping opportunity for inefficiency, mismanagement or graft. It defies a free market economy and it concentrates power in the hands of politicians. But, at one time, it seemed necessary.

Continue reading “You don’t understand Bitcoin because you think money is real” »

How high economic inequality negatively impacts nearly every aspect of human well-being—as well as the health of the biosphere.

Just where artificial intelligence is taking us, at what pace and along what trajectory, is uncertain. The technology, of course, is raising serious questions about its potential impact on jobs, privacy and politics.

The internet is a technology of low-cost communication and connection. Everything from email to e-commerce to social networks has hinged on the internet’s transformative role in changing the economics of communication. All those connections suddenly became both possible and cheap.

Artificial intelligence is a technology of low-cost prediction and discovery. It exploits the new resource of the digital age — vast amounts of data — to identify patterns and make predictions. Much of what A.I. does today can be thought of as a prediction. What product to recommend, what ad to show you, what image is in that picture, what move should the robot make next — all are automated predictions.

Continue reading “From Agriculture to Art — the A.I. Wave Sweeps In” »

A team of researchers led by Principal Investigator Dr. Jan Gruber from Yale-NUS College has discovered a combination of pharmaceutical drugs that not only increases healthy lifespan in the microscopic worm Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), but also delays the rate of ageing in them, a finding that could someday mean longer, healthier lives for humans.

The study, published in the peer-reviewed international journal Developmental Cell on 8 October 2018, lays crucial groundwork for further research into designing drug combinations that produce the same effect in mammals.

“Many countries in the world, including Singapore, are facing problems related to ageing populations,” said Dr. Gruber, whose lab and research team made the discovery. “If we can find a way to extend healthy lifespan and delay ageing in people, we can counteract the detrimental effects of an ageing population, providing countries not only medical and economic benefits, but also a better quality of life for their people.”

Hard as it is to believe, for the first time the life expectancy for Americans (not counting the effect of wars) has https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/health/cdc-life-expectancy-de…279HCufnO/” target=”_blank” rel=” nofollow noopener noreferrer” data-ga-track=” ExternalLink: https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/health/cdc-life-expectancy-de…279HCufnO/”>dropped for two consecutive years. Perhaps less hard to believe is that this is https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/04/for-life-expe…y-matters/” target=”_blank” rel=” nofollow noopener noreferrer” data-ga-track=” ExternalLink: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/04/for-life-expe…y-matters/”>not true across economic levels. The richest Americans are gaining in longevity, indeed to unprecedented levels. The poor don’t have it so well, and in the U.S., this includes the shrinking middle class, who are also dying earlier. With the widening income gap, there’s a growing discrepancy between life expectancies for the rich and poor. Depending on geography, those on the lower end of the income bracket spread can expect to live 20 years less than their better-off counterparts, a shocking finding from an http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullart.…2017.0918” target=”_blank” rel=” nofollow noopener noreferrer” data-ga-track=” ExternalLink: http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullart.…2017.0918”>in-depth study coming out of the University of Washington.

China wants to integrate four areas for stronger AI. China will use abundant data, hungry entrepreneurs, many AI scientists, and AI-friendly policy.

29 U.S. states have enacted their own laws regulating autonomous vehicles. And governors in 10 states have issued executive orders curbing testing and use.

In 2018, China adopted national self-driving car guidelines that allow any city to perform tests on self-driving cars. China has started engineering multi-tiered roads and entire cities tailored to incorporate driverless vehicles.

Continue reading “China plan to win AI with lots of money, data and easy regulations” »

Kudos to WallStreet analyst and advisor, Ric Edelman. He drank the Kool-Aid, he understands a profound sea change, and he sees the ducks starting to line up.

Check out the clearly articulated interview, below, with Bob Pisani at the New York Stock Exchange and legendary Wall Street advisor, Ric Edelman, (Not my term…That’s what CNBC anchor, Melissa Lee, calls him). Read between the lines, especially the last words in the video, below.

Ric Edleman has just joined Bitwise as both investor and advisor. This lends credibility and gravitas to the organization that created the world’s first cryptocurrency index fund. Bitwise benefits from Edelman’s affiliation, because the US has been slow (some would say “cautious”) in recognizing the facts on the ground: Cryptocurrency is already an asset class.

Edelman fully embraces a strong future for Bitcoin—not just as a currency or payment instrument, but as a legal and recognized asset class; one that is at the starting line of a wide open racetrack. He explains that the SEC sets a high bar for offering a Bitcoin ETF, but that this will be achieved. It will pave the way for large institutions, pension funds, etc to allocate a portion of money under management for blockchain products.

Continue reading “Ric Edelman: Bitcoin will be an asset class” »