Future Perfect: A Listener's Vision Of A Better Tomorrow

Intro:00:00

Welcome to the Futurist Society podcast where we delve into the latest advancements in technology, science, and culture. The Futurist Society is your window into all of the awesomeness that the future holds.

Doctor Awesome:00:22

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Futurist Society where as always we're talking in the present but talking about the future. Today we have a very special guest, actually one of our listeners, Sage, the Robotanist slash Galactic Colonist. He's very interested in speaking with us.

He contacted us, he's one of our listeners, and I'm so excited to talk with you because I don't often get the opportunity to talk one-on-one with our listeners and this is a really exciting moment for myself. Tell us a little bit about why you reached out and a little bit about what you're doing.

Sage:00:57

Well, I reached out as one might expect because I'm really interested in discussing futurism. I mean, you listen to this kind of thing, go all over social media pulling in different stuff about the future, about different technologies and ideas, all the fantastic things we're heading for in the brilliant future. Then, you know, I want to be able to chat a little bit about that.

I listen to it all the time so why not bring something back and say hello and see what we can, you know, have a great chat about. You know, my background is pretty broad so I have a little bit of experience with a lot of different things like the robotness thing comes up because that's kind of what I've been doing with drones or, you know, degrees in botany and things like that. I have been following futurism, transhumanism, related topics for a long time.

Doctor Awesome:01:49

Tell us a little bit about what makes you optimistic about the future because that's the whole goal for the podcast is to get people excited about it. I think that, you know, when I see a lot of this stuff that's happening in the futurist articles or the technological progress we're making, it makes me very excited. For some other people it makes them a little bit more concerned but you're obviously a techno-optimist just like myself.

So, to tell me from your perspective what makes you hopeful about the future?

Sage:02:21

Well, I think a large part of it is the past. If we just look at the progress of technology of humankind over the span that we have any kind of record for, it is basically positive. Sure, there are periods when bad things happen, when things are looking pretty grim.

You can have the Black Plague spreading across Europe or the onset of World War One. You know, terrible things do happen and there are setbacks but as long as we keep moving forward, and we always have been, then there's no reason not to be completely optimistic about the way things are going and the trajectory long term that we're going to have an ever better and more brilliant future. Right now is the best time that it's ever been to be alive and that's true worldwide.

We can look at the statistics on, you know, the number of people living in grinding poverty that keeps coming up. We can look at the ability to travel across the world in a matter of hours. You know, you want to go to Europe?

Okay, you can hop on a plane and do that. This is completely different from 200 years ago when you had to have, at most, hop on a cramped ship and sit there for, you know, a month trying to get across the Atlantic. And even then, you know, you probably were either doing it in a very uncomfortable, well, I guess the comfort hasn't improved as much as we'd like, but we're working on that too.

But you would get there and you, you know, either you had a lot of wealth to do this or you weren't doing it at all. It's not only been something that's been come available to those who are in power, who have a lot of money to throw at these things, but it continues to be ever more available to the broad spectrum of humanity. It becomes ever cheaper and more accessible and we're seeing that faster and faster.

The advent of AI is a great example of that right now. It's not just, you know, once the researchers got a few things figured out, they're like, okay, now everybody can have access to this. We're gonna throw it on the phone or on the basic Internet and people in third world countries can hop on their laptop and say, okay, now I have access not just to the sum of human knowledge that came with the Internet, but we now have a person or an entity, I guess, however you want to frame that, that can now be a guiding system to understand that, to figure out where we want to go with it and take it to the next step.

Doctor Awesome:04:36

I agree. I think that when I hear what you're saying, I think that it reminds me of that quote from Martin Luther King that the arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice. I think it bends towards progress.

And I think that we are continuing to progress as a civilization. I don't know if that's met with the same kind of optimism from everyone, though. And I'm sure that you probably have people in your life or even family members that may not feel the same kind of optimism.

And I'm always trying to spread the gospel of progress. I feel like everybody should be optimistic about the technological progress that is happening. But I think there's so much fear that's out there with a lot of these new technologies.

There's people that are thinking that AI is going to be an existential threat. A lot of people are saying that we're closer to nuclear Armageddon than we've ever been. How do you reconcile those ideas or speak to those people that are in your social circles, maybe?

Sage:05:39

Well, I speak to them very positively and kind of disagree politely with them. That all of these things, I mean, every technology that we have, every solution that we've ever found, every step that we've ever gone forward brings with it challenges, potential problems. And we do have to be aware of those.

We can't just you know, sit back and say, Oh, nothing bad will ever happen from building more nuclear power plants, something good, we have to be thinking about that. But the benefits so much outweigh the potential harms, that to not do so is actually far more damaging than anything that is likely to happen or and we can mitigate any of those harms that are coming along. And you know, if you look at that historically, the same thing is going to be the case.

People who refuse to move forward to embrace new technologies or new ideas, or simply decided that they were going to, you know, put their head in the sand and say, No, you know, this is evil, we should not go after it tended to not do as well to not find as much success as happiness progress, as the people who embraced it and move forward. And actually, when people change that perspective, their entire trajectory changed as well, we can look at something like the Arabia, or that region of the world, Middle East, where they have, there was a period until about 1300, when they were doing extremely well when there were the leaders in technology when they were really ahead of most of the world. And then there was a shift in the culture and the political climate, and they turned away from a lot of that, and became far less advanced and capable of providing for themselves or for others.

Doctor Awesome:07:33

Yeah, that's my biggest worry is that we become regressive as a society, and we take steps backward. I don't think that that's going to happen now with the ubiquitous nature of progress these days, it's not isolated to a particular region, or a particular technology. I think it's we're having technological progress in a number of different fields.

But certainly you can you can you can feel that pushback that is out there.

Sage:08:02

Oh, very much so. And there is a lot of emphasis on that. Our media environment tends to reinforce that, unfortunately, it's really always more interested in the negative than the positive.

That's why we have so many people out there who think, you know, this is suddenly turning. And we're, things are suddenly worse than they were 20 years ago, or even 50 years ago. So we're just, you know, going in the wrong direction.

And everything is heading toward disaster, which is like, no, there's no evidence for that anywhere.

Doctor Awesome:08:37

When I'm talking with people, I like to ask them what brings them happiness in their own life, you know, and oftentimes it is a lot of it does come from technology, you know, like, for, for me, some of my favorite TV shows, or video games that I'm playing are relatively recent. And that's something that I feel like is technologically progressing as well. What about you?

What brings you happiness that you point to that, listen, like, this is technology that may have not been available. And that's something that is very clear evidence that we're heading towards the right direction as a species.

Sage:09:15

Well, I've really been enjoying virtual reality systems. So getting in there and jumping in, you really get to experience things. You know, for a while, you could just watch Star Trek, and they're on the holodeck.

And it's like, Oh, yeah, I really want that technology. When does that become available? And so, you know, we're making those first steps and just moving along with it.

And you know, getting the new technology and appreciating that is fantastic. Having the opportunity, as it has become ever more democratized to do some of these things. So I can actually go out and, you know, just pull up a quick tutorial. It's like, oh, I can build a lightsaber. Now. This is awesome.

Doctor Awesome:09:52

That is huge. That is huge. Like the ability to learn things without having to do a really exhaustive research or like library.

That's amazing. You know, like you can pull up a YouTube video and, like you said, build a lightsaber or fix a door or, you know, learn how to code, you know, those things have become ever more democratized, which is great.

Sage:10:16

Yeah. And the productive capacity is so cheap that you can do that too. You don't just have the knowledge to build a lightsaber. It's like, well, okay, so I need a circuit board for my lightsaber. Oh, okay, that's $5 on Amazon. That's great. I can order five of those. And even if I screw it up, I can still make this thing work. And so, you know, everything is available in quantities that are frankly amazing in just about any place you care to go to.

They're more available than they've ever been. And so I really appreciate that opportunity to, you know, do new things and to have new experiences. You know, we're talking a little bit about some of the ways you can travel really, really fast and do different things.

Now you can have ski lifts that will just pull you up the thing. You don't have to try and learn by hiking it 500 times. You can just, you know, take the ride. It's great. E-bikes will take you where you want to go right there. You can try going to whatever part of the world interests you.

And now you have a translator that will help you communicate effectively in real time, verbally. I mean, you know, you don't need a TARDIS to do this for you. Yeah.

Doctor Awesome:11:27

You know, Sage, we're kind of dancing around a lot of different science fiction topics like Star Wars and Star Trek and all those things. And, you know, utopian science fiction is my inspiration, not only for the podcast, but also in just the research interests that I have. And I can tell it's obviously part of the inspiration for you.

What are the utopian science fictions that you look towards as kind of like where you hope that we become?

Sage:11:59

Well, certainly, I think Star Trek has a big part to play in that, you know, I grew up watching, you know, Star Trek with my parents, just even before I knew anything about it, they were just had it on and I've been enjoy that. Which ones would be the most utopian? I don't know.

I really like something even like Babylon 5, I guess. It's not particularly utopian, but it's always looking forward. This is the idea that we can build something bigger and better.

And even with all of the challenges thrown at us or whoever we may meet out there, we can overcome them and succeed in the long term. I try to look at, I think, a lot more of that than trying to be too utopian about things, because I don't think a utopia is possible. It's a goal.

It's kind of the what we look to as an objective, what we want to aim for. But I think there also has to be a realization that it's, you know, just as it was originally written, a concept that is unreachable. So we always have to be moving in that direction.

And the best science fiction or literature that we're looking for is about trying to always build that better world and find ways to move through the challenges, looking at all of the things that are going to get in our way and then saying, OK, that's fantastic. So how do we overcome that? How do we get better?

How do we choose how to move forward? You know, Star Wars is kind of looking at that too. It's like, OK, so, you know, we've got this evil empire that's making it so everybody's lives are not as great as they could be.

Let's go overthrow them. If you want to look at something like, well, I was referencing Doctor Who earlier, and that's a great one. Somebody is out there trying to fix things.

And, you know, there are small problems, large problems everywhere. What do you do? You become the doctor.

You go out there and heal the hurts. That is the entire concept around that series.

Doctor Awesome:14:04

Yeah, I think civilization is going to be messy. Society is going to be messy. But all in all, we are headed in a really interesting and, I think, positive direction.

I'm so excited about so many different technologies. What are you most excited about? What topics like you just can't get enough of when you're reading about them?

Sage:14:26

Well, I think drone technology of late has been a big one.

Doctor Awesome:14:30

Yeah, yeah, huge. I mean, I mean, warfare side, right. But like also just, you know, personalized vertical takeoff and landing. I think that's going to be huge. Also, just like that, even like the drone technology has progressed. But I mean, you're in this space. What are you most excited about?

Sage:14:52

Well, I think the ability to use drones for transportation is going to be the biggest one in my mind long term, because now we have what can be the flying car. Finally, people have been wondering, where's my flying car for decades? But this really could be it.

They have systems already that are autonomous that can carry up to two people. They can do it safely over extended distances, and they'll automatically coordinate with the other vehicles. And you don't necessarily need the FAA to do a lot to intervene and all of that.

So it'll be cheaper. It'll be point to point, you can skip the airport and trying to go through security, which is always lovely. And you can end up in these amazing places.

It'll also be fantastic transportation for packages and shipping. Because of course, you know, Amazon's been working on that, and they're getting closer, and there are a lot of other companies doing it. There's one, oh, I'm remember the name of it.

But their basic focus is on trying to get emergency medicine to places, especially in the third world where they're hard to get to. And you can just launch that and instead of, you know, a couple days later, when it might arrive, you can get it there in an hour or two just flying over even these rough terrains. And that's going to be a huge improvement.

So it's going to make the economics of transportation across the board just that much better, that much faster, that much cheaper. And, you know, improve lives of people all around.

Doctor Awesome:16:24

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the time where we can have easy access to personalized takeoff and landing technology. I think that that's, that's something that's going to be very interesting. I mean, I live in Boston, and I frequently go to New York, but just the whole going through the security, you know, getting to the airport, all that stuff, it adds hours and hours of time, whereas it's realistically a three hour drive, I just choose to go through the airport.

And it's equivalent in time, it's just I either bring my car or I don't bring my car. But if I was able to cut that down in half, people could live in rural areas, I think it would also open up a lot of different places for human beings to live. Now, we're kind of clustered around these cities, and there's becoming these really large and ever expansive urban oases.

But the rural side of America, and also the rest of the world is kind of being neglected. And I think that that's something that would really be awesome for people to get back into nature to be living in these places and still have access to a lot of the amenities that a city provides.

Sage:17:40

Yeah, that will be fantastic if we can get more of that going on and improve our capabilities. And I think, you know, we're going to see a lot of other technologies converging to make that happen. Artificial intelligence has been the big one that everybody's been looking at and talking about.

And if you can implement that alongside the drone systems to automate this even further, then you're going to get a lot of advantages there. And I think it's going to help a great deal in terms of being able to simplify a lot of the tasks. Even something like farming becomes that much easier when you just say, hey, I'm just gonna let the drone go out and identify the plants and poke at them, maybe, you know, throw some water on this one that needs it.

This one's got a nitrogen deficiency, let's take care of it. And we're getting to that point where we can do individual plants, right? Not just a whole field.

Doctor Awesome:18:30

Yeah, you know, I was looking into that. I mean, you might be a little bit more in, you know, in the know about this kind of thing. But I was really interested in like vertical farming for a while.

I had my own hydroponics set up. But, you know, the energy inputs and productive outputs were never sufficient enough that some of these companies became profitable. Do you know much about that?

Sage:18:55

Yeah, it's an interesting balance, but it definitely has an energy problem. There was a paper by Dr. Bruce Bugbee from Utah State University that talked about that really well. And he points out that you have a particular issue when it comes to the cost of electricity and running LEDs versus the value that you can get out of the majority of crops.

And you can do something that has basically very low biomass. A lot of these like microgreens and things are mostly water. And you can probably do some of those economically, but it doesn't go much beyond that.

So if you're talking about grains or staple foods are things that are going to be provided needed in mass. It's just not feasible at this point. We have to find much cheaper ways of providing the energy to the plants.

And that's going to require probably some whole biology, engineering of species, even more efficient lighting systems and probably, you know, picking up nuclear power as a really popular standard before we're ever going to get to that point. Unfortunately, you know, there's a little bit of pushback on nuclear lately.

Doctor Awesome:20:08

Yeah, well, you know, I think that the tides are shifting, right? Like if we're talking about it again, whereas like, you know, 20 years ago, it was kind of like this really taboo subject. But I think right now, I hear a lot more about it, like from people like you that are future thinking and really looking at the energy balances that we have and saying that we're going to need a ton more energy.

But the reason why I brought it up is because that's something that's of particular interest to me. I look at the technology that's coming down the pipeline, and I kind of filter it out from stuff that is going to give me the kind of life that I want. I would love in a perfect world to live in a rural setting, have my own farm of completely self-sufficient, you know, energy independent type of setup.

But with current technology, we're not there, you know, and even just the idea of farming is so labor intensive. Realistically, I would only be able to do that if I had some sort of like robots helping me or some sort of technology that would be able to be a force multiplier so that I could make the food myself and not have to hire other people and bring other people in. And that's the kind of like, back to basics kind of future that I want.

You know, I, we mentioned Star Trek, like, if you remember from the next generation, John Luke Picard had his own little winery that he would go back to, and it was being run by all the best robots. And he was out running a starship, right? Like he wasn't really doing anything, but he had the opportunity to come back and get back to basics when when he needed it.

That's kind of what like the oasis that I want. And I see a lot of the technologies are coming down the pipeline that are going to be able to make that happen. And that's what I get really excited about.

But what about for you? You know, what kind of what kind of life in the future do you want? What technologies are you really excited about that are going to be bringing that to fruition?

Sage:22:05

Well, I think the biggest ones are enhancements in biotechnology, especially in the areas of cybernetics and medicine. Because I love the idea of regenerative medicine, of not just, you know, being able to repair damage, but to being a, you know, avoid significant aging or cellular degeneration, being able to keep people alive much longer and healthy and happy conditions. You know, we can do things that we never dreamed of before, create societies that have people who, you know, have five doctoral degrees and, you know, 150 years of experience in multiple fields coming up with things that, you know, you never imagined working alongside artificial general intelligence systems to achieve things that were would have been completely outside the realm of feasibility before as well. I mean, you know, if you find that perfect farm that you're talking about, or that little patch of heaven, you know, you got to enjoy it and make the most of it, have time to appreciate those things and, you know, go see and do all the other amazing things out there.

It's like, you know what, I want to take a few years and just do a full tour of France. I can't probably do that with the way things are sitting right now. But if we can solve that in the future, that's great.

You know, a lot less pain, a lot less ache. And then we can, of course, do the enhancement side of it as well. If we get into some of those cybernetics or bio enhancements, you can have vision into spectra that no human has ever seen before.

We can start moving and doing things faster than was ever possible. I love what's coming up with that. I can't remember what it's called, but it's basically the transhuman Olympics for 2026 in Las Vegas, where, you know, okay, so we're finally going to have real high level sporting competition where they're going to say, if you want to try some chemicals to improve your performance or something else, go for it.

This is how we learn to improve our abilities. And that's just a first step. And what we could do, you know, going forward, forget the scuba diving gear, I'm just going to go swimming and breathe the water. Because we've figured out how to make the body that can do that.

Doctor Awesome:24:16

Yeah, that's really interesting. I never really thought about so much of the enhancement portion. I mainly thought about quality of life.

And I do know that there is that component of the transhumanist movement, which is, you know, the longevity part, I'm a very, very big proponent of I think that the idea of aging, hopefully will be something that, you know, we tell our kids about that was like this disease that we got over, right. But also, you know, it's interesting that they bring up is I know that there's this element of the transhumanist movement, which is about, like performance and increasing your abilities, as opposed to just like lengthening your, your health span. And honestly, I haven't really done too much research in it.

But I do know that, you know, just like you said that there is this sporting competition that was coming in. And to be quite honest with you, like, the most people that I talked to had a pessimistic view of it. They're like, you know, thinking very much along the lines of these people are going to be very unhealthy and destroy themselves on the pursuit of this stuff.

But the people that I have talked to that are using these types of things, judiciously, are some of the healthiest people that I've ever met in my life, you know, like, I do know a few people that are trying out peptides, and for regeneration of cartilage and stuff like that for, for overcoming sports injuries, and, and they're not kooks, right? Like they're, they're people that are, you know, very in tune with their health, more so than I am. So that's an interesting topic.

Are you doing any of that stuff, like in your own life at all?

Sage:26:01

I am not at present doing any significant stuff with that. Maybe a little bit of, you know, like, maybe let's get some Metformin, we can work on seeing if we can improve a little bit of that, but nothing too major. I don't feel that I have the expertise or access to the expertise to make it most effective.

I think part of the reason I'm so excited to see this at high levels of competition out in the open with lots of money behind it, is that that's what we bring in the experts, the best people in this field, and who can say, Look, this is what you should be taking, this will probably have the best effect, this is the research that we're going to do, so that we can get all of the information and then disseminate it to everybody to say, Okay, so this is the best way to use this health in a safe and effective way to get the best benefit for everybody. Having it, you know, always be a taboo and something that's terrible, because, you can't be enhancing or doing anything for sporting competitions, means that it's never been as developed as it could have been, because we've been not only avoiding it, but actually demeaning it. And this hopefully will begin to change that as it comes out into the open.

Yeah, a lot of people are going to have a negative opinion to begin with. But that is the case with many technologies. And it's one of those that we're going to work through and having it be more visible, and, you know, hopefully become more popular, people will come around to it.

That has been the case with many technologies, especially the ones that seem controversial at first, anything that involves the human body people get really, really antsy about.

Doctor Awesome:27:35

Yeah, I mean, I think some of it is appropriate. There's so much snake oil that's out there. You know, I think that there's, there's a lot of false remedies.

But also, I mean, I think especially with like the whole COVID pandemic thing, we've found that there's whole avenues of technology and science that are being neglected. And I think that sometimes, those same voices are kind of pushed aside and discredited, when they may be accurate, they may be beneficial. I mean, for example, steroids, right?

Steroids are something that for the longest time, were looked at as like this extremely negative thing. And rightfully so, you know, there are a lot of pretty significant negative side effects to it. But now like testosterone replacement, which is so close to steroids, right?

It's like, it's two hands of, it's just like a different type of performance enhancement. It's being sold everywhere. It's being sold on like, on the Super Bowl ads and stuff, right?

Like they're, they're advertising it everywhere. Because there is this, you know, some sort of idea that's like that, that's less negative for your body or something like that. And I think that it wasn't until relatively recently, that that is something that became mainstream.

But for a long time, it wasn't, you know, and I think that that's, that's one of the things that I learned about just like the whole, the whole after the pandemic is that science can come from anywhere, like the, the democratization of science has become really interesting. I think in the past five years or so that the ideas that are being presented are not just like immediately neglected anymore. Everybody has a much more open mind, I think, than they once did.

And, you know, I think it's just like a really interesting time to be a scientist. So not only are we having a much more open mind, but also technological breakthroughs are happening at an extremely rapid pace, right? And so it's almost hard to keep up with.

I can see how people can be overwhelmed by it. But I think that if you look at it from a positive mindset, I think all in all, it's super positive.

Sage:30:01

Yeah, this is actually one area I would like to see more popular science fiction kind of catching up with. It's some, one of the things that's always surprised me even in, you know, something like Star Trek, or you don't see much of that kind of a transhumanist element. We don't, everybody's pretty much your standard basic human as we would see them now.

You know, they have really great technology, but it's all external. They don't even have significant life extension capabilities from what I've seen on there. Although Dr. McCoy is kind of weird in that regard. But it never gets talked about. It's something that's never developed. Whereas something like Sequest, suddenly you have, you know, a few people who actually have interesting modifications, and it seems to work out really well for them.

And then there's ones that have been, you know, popular recently, The Expanse, I really love. I think that's fantastic science fiction, but they seem to have a very negative view of any kind of modification. The few people we actually see who have anything like that going on, are, you know, villains or people who are kept away from society because they're considered too dangerous.

Doctor Awesome:31:09

Yeah, I think that I think that the first thing that's going to be interesting to see is bring to computer interface. You know, we're in the first fledgling stages of that. And I think they're doing in very shrewd way of using as a therapy to help people, as opposed to immediately going to, you know, performance modifications.

I think that that that's going to be something that's going to be really interesting, because especially with the augmentation with artificial intelligence, I think that that's going to be very, very much a situation where, you know, it's gonna be difficult to keep up with people like that, you know, the old saying, right? And it's not an old saying, but like a relatively new saying that I've been hearing recently is that either you figure out artificial intelligence, or you're going to be replaced by somebody who does. And that's what I think that the next the next step is, but, but, you know, the biological type of modifications, those are, those are like, very difficult to get through all the regulations and everything like that.

So I do, I do look forward to the brain and computer interface stuff. What specifically other than like the longevity thing? Are you looking for in regards to performance?

Sage:32:27

Well, like I said, like to be able to, you know, jump around like John Carter, from, you know, being able to do amazing athletic capabilities like that. I'd like to, you know, be able to actually you know, even further down the line have a true body flexibility, I guess you could call it where it's like, well, you know, maybe I want this arm today, maybe I want the different arm today. It depends on what I'm doing, what I'm trying to accomplish.

Maybe I don't want an arm, maybe I want a paw, maybe I actually want to, you know, have an animal tail. I mean, you know, be really interesting stuff. Simpler than that, though, you know, just an ability to take on things that can't maybe do right now, just a little flexibility and height, maybe get through that rock climbing challenge, get that 512.

Finally, a lot more robustness would be good in that regard. So if I crashed the mountain bike, you know, it's like, oh, well, that sucks. Pick yourself, dust yourself off, you know, you don't have two broken bones that you have to deal with and walk around for a while with you're holding your poor sides.

Rapid healing will be a huge part of that. So much better repair mechanisms than we have right now. Hopefully something that will be self-repairing where you have cellular stuff, but if it's nanites that do it as well, that's great too.

Having direct and immediate feedback on all health issues so you can have something floating around inside going, oh, yeah, by the way, you may want to look into this particular issue. You might have something going on with cancer in six years.

Doctor Awesome:34:09

Just saying, have a look at it. Yeah, we're in the fledgling stages of that. You know, I think that there's a lot of primary care physicians that are going into that type of preventative medicine a lot more now.

You know, I'm actually looking into one of those myself. I'm joining a concierge medical practice that specifically focuses on longevity and they measure my VO2 max and, you know, all these other indicators of longevity and we're all we're trying to work on it. So I'm looking forward to that also.

I just wanted just to change gears a little bit. You know, I really appreciate like the fact that we get to hear your perspective on this stuff. Like what other media, like podcasts are you are you normally listening to just that?

Are you listening to like all futurism stuff or are you listening to science oriented stuff?

Sage:35:08

I listen to a wide variety of stuff. Futurism is great. I love to listen to people talking about it.

But if we don't know what's going on now and we don't understand that, make the most of it. We don't get to the futurism. We have to build that future.

And so I try to have a pretty wide ranging perspective on things, listen to something earlier just working on. Okay, so this is the basic concepts around the derivation of I and, you know, basic mathematics to build on that. Looking at a walkthrough on how to do develop fundamentals of AI using Python, how you actually do the wiring, if you wanted to build your own drone system, and you know how to not have issues with it breaking down when you're mid flight, because I had fun with that the other day while it was sparking up.

So, you know, different learning and projects are part of that. I like to watch a little bit of the politics on both sides, or I guess all sides. You know, both sides always seem so limited in thinking.

But try to get a wide perspective to understand where people are at, where they're coming from, what they're suggesting. The technology is all fantastic. But if the politics don't align, if the culture can't get on board, it's going to be very hard to get these things done to actually build the future, move it forward. And so I think that's an important part of it.

Doctor Awesome:36:42

And I'm following a lot of that same stuff, too. So it's nice to hear from your perspective, because I feel like people who are in this are usually following the same kind of stuff. And I'm very much interested in current events.

But from a passive perspective, like I don't get as heated with the politics as some of my friends do, I don't get as heated with the news as some of my friends do. It's more like an as an observer of history, just kind of seeing where we're going, and passively hoping that we're going to make the right decisions. Do you feel like that too?

Or are you more like, you know, interested in active roles trying to spread activism in some way, shape or form for a particular philosophy, whether it's politics or something else?

Sage:37:37

Well, I guess you could call even just being active in futurism, a form of political involvement. So I'm actively futurist, actively transhumanist, trying to push these ideas and get them out there, and to see what's going on in the current political environment that's going popular, that would align with that or what different perspectives are being missed by the conversation that might move it a bit forward. I agree that we shouldn't get particularly heated or extra emotional about these things.

But involvement, I think, is useful toward building, you know, the future that we want to see because that's, I guess, an important part of the societal and political aspect, you have to get the laws to align in order to get some of these things done. That's one of the challenges that we're working with, especially in the biology field right now, that we have a lot of things that kind of get in the way of doing research for a while with stem cells. For instance, that they were saying, like, no, you can't do that, because, you know, you're getting them in this way.

Then they had to find a workaround to get a lot of that done. It's working much better now. But there are always things that are coming up in some of the interesting discourse to look at with something like bodily autonomy is playing a bigger role.

And the discussion surrounding transgenderism are playing a large part in that and watching the discussions on, you know, different sides and how they're looking at that can be very informative on how they're going to approach other topics that are related to it, what people think of making choices about what you do with your body and when and how people are going to look at it if you do this particular thing. I mean, we, you know, we're talking about sports, there's that whole unfairness question again.

So you know, if we're modifying people, then do we do we have completely separate categories? Are they going to compete equally? These are questions that are going to need to be resolved.

And they're going to obviously get people really excited, because they've already clearly are about the relevant related topics that are the current discussions of the day.

Doctor Awesome:39:47

Yeah, very, very interesting time to be alive as a human. I think it's not something that I could have even imagined growing up that we would be talking about these kind of things. It's just, you know, the Chinese have a saying may live in interesting times, I feel like we are living in the most interesting times of all times.

And not only is it the best times of all times to be human, it's much more comfortable, we have air conditioning, I'm able to talk to somebody that's halfway across the country via this amazing revolution called the internet. But also just like just even just seeing what's happening on a daily basis. And other countries and other states, it's just too much information at times, you know, it's almost like information overload.

So we do have to pick our areas of focus. And I appreciate the fact that, you know, you're choosing futurism, because I think that if you can think, make people think that progress is something that is inevitable, and B is for the benefit of human beings, I think it makes people locked in to the sheer mission of humanity. I think that like they look at it and like, okay, if we're all going forward, we got to do this together, you know, and it makes us confront these kind of difficult issues that you're talking about.

But it always ends up shaking out to be what's best for humanity, in my opinion, you know, certainly, there's some, some difficult times and conflict that oftentimes comes from it. But I do think that it does end up being an overwhelmingly positive experience. So you mentioned that you were doing other things about futurism, like you're trying to spread the word.

What else are you doing? Because I'm also trying to do that. I'm also trying to inspire people and make people hopeful about the, about what's coming down the pipeline. But it's nice to hear from other people that will tell like what they're doing.

Sage:41:44

Yeah, I'm trying to get some more discussions going, I would like to actually get more opportunities to network and interact with other futurists. It's been one of the greater challenges to actually find and have these conversations because futurists tend to be rather dispersed group, especially for people who aren't living in major urban areas where you could kind of get close to them. You know, if I already had my flying car, I'd be better suited to finding them.

But it happens at the moment, you don't have a lot of opportunity like this, these kind of conversations, I would love to see more of. So, you know, like regular weekly groups or something I'd like to push a little bit more of. I did actually get my own YouTube channel going just to, you know, kind of have a voice and talk about some of these topics in more detail what I'm thinking about them.

Doctor Awesome:42:34

Cool, you should blog it. What's your YouTube channel?

Sage:42:37

It's called Path of the Polymath.

Doctor Awesome:42:39

Okay. Yeah, I love that. I love polymath, the idea of being a polymath in general. I think that it's so limiting to only be interested in one thing.

Sage:42:49

Absolutely. I find everything interesting. It's one of those reasons I want to live indefinitely and be able to constantly learn and explore. It's what really makes life worthwhile and meaningful to me.

Doctor Awesome:43:01

Yeah, there's just like too much content out there. You know, one of my favorite comic book story arcs was this story arc in DC where Lex Luthor and this artificial intelligence are kind of battling and having a crisis of wills, right, like a battle of wills. And, you know, his response to the idea for this artificial intelligence to leave us alone and to allow us to grow and flourish is that it's just so interesting to learn what we're going to become, right?

Like, it's so cool to be a passive observer and just see this stuff happening. And I think that's one of the reasons why I also want to be alive. It's like, I just look at the amount of content that's out there, the amount of video games that I'll be able to play, the amount of cool TV shows I'll be able to watch, like the amount of places I'll be able to see or just the events to see that humanity goes through, I think is going to be super interesting.

Sage:44:07

Oh, yeah.

Doctor Awesome:44:08

So I do hope that you're correct and that we get to that place. And not only are we explorers of the stars, which honestly, I also want to talk with you about, but just we can be explorers of humanity itself and just overall knowledge. But why don't we talk about that?

I know that one of the introductions that you said is that you were a galactic colonist. And, you know, I think that there is this renewed interest in the space race. You know, what are you hoping out of that title? And what are you hoping out of just the space race in general?

Sage:44:43

Well, I am hoping that, you know, one day in the not too distant future, I will be able to go to the moon and Mars and beyond, that I will be able to go and live on these worlds, actually start building societies and cities and farms and everything else, you know, with the red soil outside and, you know, find ways to work on converting that, making things a better world. That's one of the great things you can do with the robots, too. You can send them outside and they can work on these things and help with a lot of that.

That's another great direction for drone systems. We already found ways to fly them on Mars. So we just build on that and start doing more with it.

You know, it's going to be a little while before we can get there and know sufficient quantities and with the right technology to make all these things happen. But there's nothing stopping us on the moon right now from building a nice little base. We could have done that some time ago if we'd really had the interest and support to do so. That's going to be a next great step.

Doctor Awesome:45:47

Well, if Katy Perry can be in space, it's only a few decades before you and I are up there, man. Honestly, I think everybody was making so much fun of her. But the way that I was thinking about it is like if she can get there, it's not going to be too long for the regular person.

You know, it's like the first person that they send up for anything. It's very soon after that, you know, outside of like astronauts and things like that. The first civilian that they send up there, it's not going to be too long for us, I think.

Sage:46:19

Well, yeah, and that was something I was thinking about on actually that YouTube channel. I was talking about the idea of space sports. So, you know, not only do we get to go to space, but we do.

If you're on the moon in one eighth G, you can do some interesting stuff. And you can kind of start doing triple backflips that would otherwise have been basically impossible in one G. We can start having stuff flying around the room and start doing forms of rock climbing where you just jump, climb and jump right off because the landing is not going to hurt.

There are a million different really interesting concepts. One of the best examples in science fiction where you can do that is the battle school from Ender's Game, where you can have everybody just floating around between the different objects. They can do a whole mess of different novel strategies because of microgravity.

So that's one aspect that'll be a great deal of fun and I'm looking forward to a lot. We're going to have to figure out how to, you know, medically or, you know, find some solutions to microgravity issues from long duration spaceflight. But I don't think that's going to be a nearly insurmountable problem.

Doctor Awesome:47:34

Yeah, I think if I were to and I'd love to hear your perspective, if I were to say like big problems that we're going to tackle, number one, it's going to be the energy systems. You know, I think once we get the energy systems right and dialed in, then it's going to be space exploration and then it's going to be abundance. I think once we get it to space, the abundance issue is not going to, like it's going to be ubiquitous and it's, at least that's my hope.

You know, I think that my biggest concern is that it's not going to be as democratized as, you know, it appears in Star Trek and some of these other more utopian science fictions. But honestly, like even if my life was, you know, if everybody's basic levels of needs were met, I think that most of humanity would sign up for that. You know, even if there was a certain class that had a different type of access to much better technology, like it's going to be so marginal the differences.

I don't know. How do you think about it? Do you think it's going to be democratized?

Sage:48:49

I think it'll be mostly democratized. I mean, by the time we have nearly limitless energy and nearly limitless access to resources, which basically is what happens once we get space travel figured out sufficiently. So just mining an asteroid will produce all huge piles of everything you want and we don't have to do it on earth.

So leaving holes in the ground will no longer be necessary. Fantastic opportunities. And at that point, it's like, well, there'll be people who may have a little more power, but they won't have more resources because the resources will be everywhere.

And everybody will have a lot of access to them, much like we're seeing, you know, AI now. It's like, okay, I have my own little army of robots too, because it was so cheap to produce. They just threw them out there.

And it'll basically become, if not something that everybody does independently, like a resource UBI, I guess you could call it just like, okay, so we've got some spare energy and some spare minerals or whatever. Have fun, build whatever you want. And, you know, you don't have to worry about something like, you know, medical provisions because the robots will be doing it better than the humans anyway. And so you just go to the RoboDoc and get that done. It'll be better than the systems that we, you know, see in Fallout. Like, yep, just fix me up. Come on.

Doctor Awesome:50:09

Can't wait. Yeah. Can't wait.

Well, listen, this was such an interesting conversation. Please keep in touch. And thank you so much for listening.

I did want to start out a new segment that I have been experimenting with, which is my future in five segments. So I'm going to ask you five questions. Give me five answers that you would give for each single question.

So first one is name five thought leaders that you think are really going to contribute to the future over the course of our lifetimes.

Sage:50:47

Oh, I don't know.

Doctor Awesome:50:49

That's why I put it as five, because you don't need to quantify them in regards to importance. But like, who are you listening to? Who are you following? You know, those people that maybe that might not even be giving a contribution to the future, but maybe that you're most interested in what they have to say.

Sage:51:08

I mean, I'm still listening to Ray Kurzweil. Yeah. Absolutely.

Doctor Awesome:51:15

And I can help you out. I can give you mine if you can, if you need some, some prompting.

Sage:51:19

Well, I'm bad at names has always been the problem. It's like, that one person from that one thing that I was looking at the other day.

Doctor Awesome:51:27

It's like, yeah, well, I would say like it or not, Elon Musk has to be in the conversation. You know, I know that he is very polarizing, but the fact of the matter is that without him, we would not have a space program. I think that that's something that is very much on the forefront.

I think, especially for lifespan, David Sinclair is somebody that I look at as, you know, he's the one who kind of popularized the end of aging. Right.

Sage:51:59

Was it Sinclair that did that more or was it Aubrey de Grey coming out of it?

Doctor Awesome:52:03

Yeah, yeah, you're right. Aubrey is probably the first. He's, I think the most widespread though, right?

Like most people, I would say more people know Sinclair than Aubrey de Grey, but I would, that's a toss up, you know, we can put those two as one. But I do love Aubrey. I had him on the show.

Actually, it was a really awesome experience. Our highest rated podcasts, you know, most, a lot of people that was, it was just like a really interesting conversation because I'm deep into the longevity space. You know, like I can tell you that the proteins that I think are going to be the most significant and stuff like that.

Sage:52:39

But yeah, I would actually love to get deeper into it. It's one that I've kind of been on the periphery of, but it is one of the, if not the single most important problem we can solve right now, because if we get that right, then most of the other problems become a lot easier.

Doctor Awesome:52:54

Yeah, absolutely. Anybody else that you can think of? Um, so I also like, I gotta say, I'm a big fan of Sundar Pinchai, the CEO of Google.

I think he's, he's very much a proponent of knowledge for everyone. You know, I think that he's very much a democracy of knowledge for everyone is something that I think is, has to go hand in hand with the future as somebody that I've been following for, for quite some time. Um, and sorry, go ahead.

Sage:53:32

Oh, I like Peter Diamandis for some of that and, uh, Sal Khan for democratization of knowledge.

Doctor Awesome:53:39

I would also, yeah, yeah. Those are two really, really cool guys that are, that are in the mix. And then, yeah, I mean, I would have to say that, you know, the, uh, Kurzweil is probably number one, though.

I think that if it was not for Kurzweil, we would not really have any futurism, right? But even the term itself, I mean, you know, the idea of like the, the computing power increasing exponentially over time and him extrapolating that out to so many different technological feats was just so mind blowing and has held up for really every single field. You know, I can't, I can't really, you know, say that it's limited to just semiconductors or processing power.

Right. Um, but yeah, that's, that's five. So let's, let's go on to the next question. Okay. So, uh, what about, what about books? Like what are your, what are your top five books that you're, that you're reading right now? And it can be science fiction. It can be nonfiction, any, anything really.

Sage:54:42

Oh, let's see. Well, um, right now I'm into a good one. That is the science of disc world.

Doctor Awesome:54:51

Okay.

Sage:54:52

So basically it's a book that describes some science through basically building a concept of the earth and of physics and chemistry and all those things, uh, done through the perspective of the disc world series, uh, of novels. And so basically the wizards and the unseen years for it to get together and basically run our world or our universe as an experiment. It's, it's very interesting perspective.

Doctor Awesome:55:23

You gave me one, I'll give you one of mine. So I'm reading, uh, Peter Thiel's, um, zero to zero to one. Um, cause you know, he's obviously in the mix. He's, you know, being talked about left and right with all this stuff in, in the politics. And so he wrote this book about startups and like his view on technological progress. And, and I'm reading that right now. It's really, really interesting.

Sage:55:48

No doubt. I'll have to get to that one eventually. Uh, and we were talking about her as well. So I'm also reading the future is nearer.

Doctor Awesome:55:55

So, yeah, yeah, that's a good one. Um, I'm reading a book on Bayesian probability, which is like, uh, you know, using it to predict, predict stuff, you know, it's predictive statistics and it's called, uh, everything is predictable. I think so much of futurism is like, not only, it's not only like being a passive observer, but having opinions on where you think stuff is going to go.

Like a lot of the stuff that you said is stuff that you, you hope that it's go, but also like your own opinions, you know, part of, I think being a futurist is, is seeing the trajectory and kind of making like internal bets on it, you know? And so I just, I want to get better at that. So I'm, I'm trying to read that.

Sage:56:40

Probability is definitely good. Um, just working on one at the moment that is basically the, uh, drone developments and artificial integration systems.

Doctor Awesome:56:53

Okay. Yeah. Are you going to try to start up like your own drone company or are you mainly using it for your research?

Sage:57:02

Well, I'm going to do some of both. I actually would love to start a drone company that focuses on research. I think, you know, some of the ideal would be something like, okay, so I'm marketing all of my drone and AI capabilities to different fields that need better research tools, especially over range.

And then I just travel around the world, flying this thing. So, um, that would be awesome. And yeah, that's, that's the company I'm going for.

It's like exploration robotics.

Doctor Awesome:57:27

Wow. That's awesome, man. Best of luck to you. So super interesting. Um, okay, cool. So that's five.

Now let's go on to what are your five top five science fiction? Um, I would say inspirations, you know, I mean, I'm going to start with Star Trek because we already talked about it, but what about you?

Sage:57:51

Uh, let's see science fiction inspirations. Uh, well, I mean, that's definitely, definitely a good place to start. Uh, I think something like, uh, the expanse would actually be in there.

So I'm looking at relatively near future achievable stuff. Um, like I say, other lacks a little bit less transhumanism and perhaps a little bit less utopianism than but I think that also points to something that we could say about, you know, a better future, if not a perfect one.

Doctor Awesome:58:25

Yeah. I like the expanse a lot. Definitely into that.

Um, I really enjoyed the, uh, minority report movies. Like, you know, I think that near future science fiction to me is like the most interesting to see a vision of the future. That's almost tangible.

You know, it's something that's really close. Um, I mean, a lot of it was, was, I feel like unrealistic with like precognition and stuff like that, but the ideas of like, you know, having interesting abilities, like open screens and stuff like that, I mean, that's where we're in that now, you know?

Sage:59:03

Oh, absolutely. Um, I don't know what's it called. Uh, Oh, I think a ready player one was a great inspiration.

Doctor Awesome:59:17

Dude, if we can get one of those, sign me up, just take my money.

Sage:59:23

Absolutely. That kind of level of immersion, that perfect opportunity to jump in and be whoever and do whatever and go wherever that is fantastic. I look forward to that.

Doctor Awesome:59:33

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's going to be really awesome. I think I I'm a big fan of star Wars. Obviously it's, it's very prescient, you know, I don't know if you've seen the new and or series, but like, it's just so applicable to like all the chaos that's happening in the U S right now in the world right now.

Sage:59:51

Yeah. I'm definitely going to have to go watch it. I've kind of been avoiding some of the newer star Wars series, but yeah, they're not all great, but this one's fantastic.

Doctor Awesome:01:00:00

I'll definitely look at it, but I think that's five. Let's, let's move on to the last thing. So five areas of technology that you're really hoping will, uh, that you're really interested in.

I think we talked about, you know, um, some of them, but you know, it's certainly, uh, just so it gives an overarching view, like what, what can't you get enough of? Like when you see a, uh, something in the news that you're really super interested in, what are you, what are you looking at?

Sage:01:00:29

Well, I think number one has to be what we were discussing about, uh, regenerative medicine, longevity science. It's like, Oh my gosh, they, you know, there was a new mouse study out. Okay.

I'm going to go read the paper. I'm going to go watch all the videos on it. I gotta, you know, see if I can get some feedback from the researchers.

Doctor Awesome:01:00:45

Yeah.

Sage:01:00:47

Uh, yeah. I love that stuff. Always, uh, look waiting and rebated breath to see what's new.

Doctor Awesome:01:00:54

And you know, robots, okay. We can have personalized humanoid robots. That is the future for me.

Like it's going to be, you know, the, the guy that washes our dishes, the, the maid that cleans up after us for dinner. Oh my God, that's going to be game changer.

Sage:01:01:12

That's awesome. Yeah. Um, and I'm also always very excited with a new space science and technology.

So it's like, okay, you know, something just drop launch costs. Oh, we got this, you know, new mining, uh, technology or, you know, we just, uh, managed to grow a new species in microgravity. It's like, Oh, this is all fantastic.

Doctor Awesome:01:01:33

Yeah. I'm really excited about the starship, uh, uh, tests that I saw the last one live. And I mean, it just looks so beautiful coming up.

If we can get that to go up, they can catch it with those chopsticks. Oh my God. I'm such a fan boy when it comes to that stuff, you know?

Sage:01:01:52

Yeah, that's great. I actually want to see, um, SpaceX do well, but I want to see more other companies coming along. I want to make it a true space race and really have them all pushing each other.

Doctor Awesome:01:02:03

That would be cool.

Sage:01:02:04

Hear more from Sierra.

Doctor Awesome:01:02:06

Yeah. AI obviously is one of those that were, were probably underselling in this conversation. I think that's going to like, you know, like I was telling you, uh, I'm following pseudopanchai.

He likens it to, this is going to be as profound as fire or electricity or the internet. And, uh, I feel like we're just scratching the surface with it.

Sage:01:02:28

Well, I think so too. I guess the old, one of the reasons I've been not talking about it as much here is simply that I think it's become so ubiquitous in conversations everywhere and about everything for very good reason. It is going to have a profound revolutionary impact on everywhere and everything.

Um, but in some ways that does mean that other aspects get left behind a little bit. So it's, it's fun to talk about those as well and kind of look at other areas. Yeah.

Doctor Awesome:01:02:57

Yeah, no, it's going to be, it's going to be really interesting to watch. I wish I was more involved with that stuff. You know, my background is medicine, so I'm seeing a lot of those revolutions come in, but the AI revolution is something that I'm looking at as a passive observer.

Do you use it at all in your own life to use like Claude or, you know, chat GPT?

Sage:01:03:16

Uh, I was using chat GPT and Gemini earlier today, uh, for various purposes. Um, you know, and sometimes they're just fairly laid back things. I was actually doing a costuming design on them.

So yeah, it's like, we've got an upcoming convention. Okay. So let's go, uh, see what kind of costs do we want to do?

Uh, so chat GPT, if I was going to try to do a fantasy monk character, well, give me some feedback and concepts on that. You know, it goes and draws half a dozen pictures and it's like, Oh, okay. I like that.

Doctor Awesome:01:03:51

Yeah. Yeah. That is pretty awesome. I love the image generation. I do that with my daughters. I'm like, what do you want to have a picture of? And they're like, I want to be riding a unicorn Tyrannosaurus rex. And it makes them like, you know, writing this thing.

And they're just like, so amazed that this thing can just pop out these images. Like that's good. That's going to be their norm. You know, like it's, they will never understand a time before that, which I think is so interesting.

Sage:01:04:20

It will be. Yeah. I mean, it really, uh, really find it fun for a lot of different things.

When I was trying to figure out where to, or what to do with the business concept and what, uh, part of the market to target, that's what I was asking. And it's like, you know, looking around, what would you suggest? And they threw out some ideas based on a level of knowledge of the markets, a depth of, you know, background and reading and material that's out there that I probably would never have been able to get there.

Doctor Awesome:01:04:49

Yeah. Yeah. Very astute and like coming with plans. I feel like it's next level when it comes to that. So, you know, last topic is I cannot wait until we have mech suits, you know, like, like to me, when I think about the future, like the biggest, lowest hanging fruit is some sort of robotic augmentation of like strength and in a mech suit type of fashion, you know, whether it's like, uh, the, the one in aliens that Ripley gets into and fights off the aliens with, or like Gundam or any of these Japanese inspired mech suits.

But man, if we can get giant robots fighting each other, that's going to be the Superbowl that I watch, you know?

Sage:01:05:35

Oh yeah. That'd be great. Uh, I guess on the other side of that, I'm looking at cognitive enhancement.

Um, yeah, I want to be able to keep track of all these different things. And even if the new cycle is going and talking about 500 different elements, I can keep track and keep up and all of this stuff and use that to build all the other things that I want to see.

Doctor Awesome:01:05:56

Yeah. That's going to be pretty awesome. Well, listen, um, I feel like we could talk forever.

This has been our longest podcast thus far, because I feel like we're like-minded people. Thank you so much for listening and thank you to all of the other listeners that are out there. If you'd like to get on the podcast, feel free to email me and we'll get you on.

It was so interesting talking to Sage. Best of luck to you, my friend, in the future. And for those of you guys who are tuning in on a regular basis, we will see you again in the future. Have a great day, everybody.

Outro:01:06:32

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