To the best of our knowledge the planet earth was created 4.5 billion years ago. Some human like form of life has existed for roughly 3 million years. Our current human species has existed for about 200,000 years.We all know that there was a long period of time when the primary purpose of human life was to find food for survival. Even by optimistic estimates, the human species has had a few thousand years where the prime focus has not been to feed everyone so that the species doesn't become extinct. Survival is a basic instinct in all living beings. We reproduce, socialize and develop processes and procedures so that the survival of specis is ensured.
Back then even though no one had time to think about the meaning of life, but everyone worked real hard to survive, so that we can be here today. In hind sight the meaning of their life is very clear now. We owe our existence to our ancesters. We can all agree that they lived ameaningful life. Otherwise how would we be debating and trying to discover the "meaning of life". It is a formal topic in the world of philosophy today.
Even though there is lack of food and resources for some members of the human population, it is very clear that there is not much danger of extinction for human specis due to lack of food. At least for a 1000 years now the human being has turned its attention to tasks other than finding food. Every feature of our society today is a result of that development. Our daily activities today are not impacted by the needs of survival of human race. Should they be? Are we unconsciously working towards that goal?
Human Evolution interactive is a great resource to see the detail of our evolution so far.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Raising Children
Kids are the greatest teachers. Sounds backwards but it is so true. As parents,we have completed our education and have great jobs. We are proud of our contributions at work and feel pretty good about our achievements. Then the kids come along. You think how to raise them, take care of all their needs and give them a future that is better than yours. It gives you great satisfaction to see them learning from you. If you have not already experienced it, or if you sit back and think about what you have learned since you started raising kids, you will realize that your knowledge has increased several folder. The most visible evidence is in the use of technology: how to program the cell phone or TV remote or use facebook - stuff parents have to ask their kids.
But as a parent in particular, and society in general, most of us feel the responsibility to provide a good education for our kids. It is infact, in my opinion, one of the prime responsibility of parents and society is to provide quality and efficient education to the new generation. That is the path forward. We need to enable the children to make new discoveries and inventions and solve the mysteries of the universe and human kind. Obviously we need to help the learn the basic or foundational knowledge. But we need to do much more. We need to capture as much data as possible so that at some point in future, the data be available for research and discovery. It is not possible to forecast if the data will be needed, but today's conventional wisdom dictates that it is likely to be needed. We certainly wish that we had more data from the past.
I don't think anybody can argue that we have a lot more to discover and preparing the future generations to make those discoveries will make a significant contribution to survival of human race. We have established institutions to provide this knowledge. Schools and Universities all around the world are doing a tremendous job in fulfilling our responsibilities towards our future genrations. But can we do more. I have not seen much change in the way we educate kids in the last 40 years. Minor changes but nothing that can be called a major improvement. We are still teaching some subjects in a class room setting and testing every year or so to measure progress. It is the same degrees that students of today earn that were being earned 30-40 years ago. We have made significant progress in the availability of information to everyone. Internet has revolutionized this field. The education system needs to morph towards teaching children to look for desired information on the internet to supplement their current knowledge. Today that skill is mainly learned on the job by most adults. Soon nobody will be able to learn the vast knowledgebase or even a meaningful subsection of it.
Creating and organizing the ever increasing knowledge base in such a way that it can be more effectively used will be a challenge for our descendents.
But as a parent in particular, and society in general, most of us feel the responsibility to provide a good education for our kids. It is infact, in my opinion, one of the prime responsibility of parents and society is to provide quality and efficient education to the new generation. That is the path forward. We need to enable the children to make new discoveries and inventions and solve the mysteries of the universe and human kind. Obviously we need to help the learn the basic or foundational knowledge. But we need to do much more. We need to capture as much data as possible so that at some point in future, the data be available for research and discovery. It is not possible to forecast if the data will be needed, but today's conventional wisdom dictates that it is likely to be needed. We certainly wish that we had more data from the past.
I don't think anybody can argue that we have a lot more to discover and preparing the future generations to make those discoveries will make a significant contribution to survival of human race. We have established institutions to provide this knowledge. Schools and Universities all around the world are doing a tremendous job in fulfilling our responsibilities towards our future genrations. But can we do more. I have not seen much change in the way we educate kids in the last 40 years. Minor changes but nothing that can be called a major improvement. We are still teaching some subjects in a class room setting and testing every year or so to measure progress. It is the same degrees that students of today earn that were being earned 30-40 years ago. We have made significant progress in the availability of information to everyone. Internet has revolutionized this field. The education system needs to morph towards teaching children to look for desired information on the internet to supplement their current knowledge. Today that skill is mainly learned on the job by most adults. Soon nobody will be able to learn the vast knowledgebase or even a meaningful subsection of it.
Creating and organizing the ever increasing knowledge base in such a way that it can be more effectively used will be a challenge for our descendents.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Gun Safety using Google Maps
I don't need to talk about Gun safety to get the readers to agree that we need to do something about the increasing number of accidents involving guns that are killing so many innocent folks. Biden and Obama like so many other politicains are trying to come up with ways to help the situation. NRA and so many others are concerned about the right to own guns. They are justified in their views. There is a solution that works for everyone. All law abiding citizens can own their guns and the innocent people can be safe as well.
Here is a simple solution using technology that is already available. Infact Google and many others have all the pieces. The basic premise is to have GPS enabled smart chips in all the guns, so that an independent non-government entity can monitor the location of each gun all the time. Then you create safe zones on the map where the guns shouldn't enter. These are like your electronic virtual metal detectors. As soon as the monitoring service detects a dangerous situation, for example an assault rifle close to the Sandy Hook Elementary school, the monitoring service, much like a 911 service calls the police and brings safety to school. Atleast we can minimize the dangers from legally owned guns.
I can see everyone screaming: we cannot have government monitoring our guns every where they go. Where is my privacy? Actually by having private companies like Google operate these monitoring service, and making sure that the location information is secure and used to invoke law enforcement in situations of danger, we can do this without invading anyone's privacy.
The reality is that with today's location intelligence technologies we can implement a general system for preventing any kind of dangerous equipment / materials from entering places where the potential for accidents is unacceptable. +Barack Obama Joe Biden Blog - Is this possible?
Let us prevent the next Sandy Hook or the Cinema shooting or....
Here is a simple solution using technology that is already available. Infact Google and many others have all the pieces. The basic premise is to have GPS enabled smart chips in all the guns, so that an independent non-government entity can monitor the location of each gun all the time. Then you create safe zones on the map where the guns shouldn't enter. These are like your electronic virtual metal detectors. As soon as the monitoring service detects a dangerous situation, for example an assault rifle close to the Sandy Hook Elementary school, the monitoring service, much like a 911 service calls the police and brings safety to school. Atleast we can minimize the dangers from legally owned guns.
I can see everyone screaming: we cannot have government monitoring our guns every where they go. Where is my privacy? Actually by having private companies like Google operate these monitoring service, and making sure that the location information is secure and used to invoke law enforcement in situations of danger, we can do this without invading anyone's privacy.
The reality is that with today's location intelligence technologies we can implement a general system for preventing any kind of dangerous equipment / materials from entering places where the potential for accidents is unacceptable. +Barack Obama Joe Biden Blog - Is this possible?
Let us prevent the next Sandy Hook or the Cinema shooting or....
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