This is insane. #savescience
Trumps federal budget includes big cuts to science and research (say what?!)
If the budget proposal pass the congress, The National Institute of Health would lose $6 billion (!!!!!). Futuristic batteries, metal and energy are eliminated from funding. And climate change research is apparently wasted time, according to Trump. Wow.
22nd of April, there will be a protest in DC, if you're there, join in, if not there will be local protests everywhere in the world. Just as the Womens March! If not you can donate your time, money or words. Let's stick together and speak up for what's important and create that revolution we are all awaiting.
If Trump had the opportunity to make America like North Korea I'm sure he'd jump on it.
Science is the key in order for the world to develop. .
And I'm just saying, Trump is the last snowflake launching an avalanche.
If Trump Brings Jobs Back, Will They Go To People Or Robots?
If Trump brings jobs back to America, will they go to people or robots?
Trump are blaming the immigrants, especially the Mexicans for unemployment but data shows that automation is the real threat. Why he didn't mention the exponential future approaching us in high speed at all is really weird but those reflections will be saved for another blogpost.
Over the coming years and decades, artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to usher in a new era of automation. In total, one study projected that 57 percent of the world’s jobs are at risk of being replaced by automated systems. Finance, transportation, manufacturing, information technology, and even law are among the first industries that will be affected. But in not too long, neither you doctor or surgeon will be a person.
The automation is extremely beneficial as it's way cheaper, it increases efficiency and limits or altogether eliminate human error. The access to technology is growing and the computing system are reduced to almost no cost. Everyone of us can now be a wizard of change if we do the work.
For instance
But how we shall master what some people has named "The Fourth Industrial Revolution" is still an unsolved issue even though top scientists, politicians, finance and business people are working on it. It's going to be chaotic, crazy, unpredictable and if you don't manage to find your comfortable surfing style you'll be swallowed by a big big wave.
Our structure of society needs to reorganize, completely rebuilt. Will we even need money? How will we trade? How will we live?
Meanwhile It's time to start experimenting and tap into our collective intelligence for answers by educating people, encourage participation in creating new jobs and new society structure.
For sure most of the job thats known today will be occupied by AIs, but new ones will be invented. It will be jobs that take care of the basic human needs. Care, community, entertainment and experiences.
Many of these will only be possibly to do by humans for a while, afterall we like to stick to our tribe, be understood and valued by our own people.
So, the jobs Trump claims to bring back, what kind of jobs are they? And will they be for people or robots?
The Future of Religion, What Will Happen When We Get God-Like Abilities?
in Religion
This is also a topic I find quite fascinating. Religion has for thousands of years dominated how countries, cultures, societies and the world is ruled and developed. But all these major religions are soon going to be outdated, when AI reach super intelligence and we merge with machines we will become God-like ourselves, and the AI will even go beyond that. How will that shape our society religiously? Will we invent something new to believe in? Will we pretend it's a complete different thing and just distinguish it with denial?
In so many ways the new area we march into will affect us beyond what we comprehend at this very moment but what it definitely will is to shake us and society to its core and we have to rebuild everything, from scratch, even our spiritual beliefs. What I think will remain from the global religions of today is the sense of community but the figures we once admired so badly, will be rather puny. So what doest the future of religion look like?
All religions are characterized by miracles, higher wisdom, grander knowledge and supernatural powers and some form of a creator. Them Holy Books are filled with all these incredible accidents describing so convincingly why religion is so special. It's magic, colorful hence too grand and untouchable for us humans. No wonder why we adore it so much. We can dream about something vaster than ourselves. Swift away in hopes, faith and belief of that we are watched and taken care of by some great force. That we are not solely in charge and responsible of our own life.
But, when I start examining the events and superpowers of the beings in the texts, I can't help but wonder, is the holy scripts pure futuristic foreseeing? Discreetly trying to tell us whats possible? Or wait a minute, it's not discreet at all. Anyhow.. Had the people writing it either experienced future technology from som advanced beings from outer space or did they just imagine it? Did it really happen? Or was it simply pure science fiction? And if so, where did the vision come from? They possessed one heck of an imagination.
And.. If it was real, what was it?
Most people seem to be able to settle down for the inexplicable but for me its hard. Cause I believe that everything imaginable is possible, and whats possible should be able to explain in a scientific way. The only problem we've always had is the limit of the human knowledge.
(As for instance 96,6 % of what's around us is dark energy and matter, which we have no clue about what is and how it functions. All we know is that it's dominated by one type of maths and physics that we have been able to discover but do not comprehend at all which is called quantum physics. Luckily more and more scientists are becoming aware of that if we want to further explore space and well, everything quantum physics needs to be investigated.)
What about this.. Perhaps, all the Gods, Buddha and Jesus Christ were extraterrestrial beings visiting earth? Showing to us what was possible with deeper knowledge of science? Certainly it was just too far out for us to wrap our head around it, so instead we worshiped it, called it God and invented religion?
So what I'm pondering about is what will happen when we have merged with machines and reach that level of intelligence and can easily manifest what the beings in all of religions can?
How will humanity handle that? Will we invent a new religion? Or will religion be just a joke then? Or will we make excuses trying to prove that it is more special even though its not. Will we deny the change in society and stick to the nostalgia of the old history and cultures? So that it is actually more special? In the short term will we worship robust AIs?
We are moving towards a time in history where we eventually actually will behold these Godlike superpowers. And even go beyond that. So I believe we are in for a major shift in global religious views. Maybe even just in 20 years the main religions of today will have faded away, and those who stick to it will be looked just as the amish are being looked at today?
We are in for such a grand shift that its difficult to predict but to do a forecast I think it will turn up side down and we will in short term find a new religion, perhaps worshiping the AIs or something else, in the long run I have absolutely no idea but I have a thought of it being either the creator of the universe and all of existence (if we do not figure it out) or non at all.
In 2029 the machines will surpass human level intelligence and the singularity will arrive by 2045 which means that the machines will reach super intelligence and then exponentially take it from there. Within 3 decades the IQ of an AI will be mere 12.925 +.
And this is a fact, and it' inventible.
So when we merge with technology and become transhumans only the AIs creativity will limit possibilities. At least everything you can imagine will come true.
Does the Gods have Gods? If so what are they like, how do they look? Most important of all, if you have all the knowledge in the world, do you need Gods? Do you need religion at all?
If the people in the holy texts were real and all the events also were, who were these beings? It can't then just be som random superficial inexplicable things. It must have been way more developed and advanced extraterrestrials visiting earth perhaps even billions of years ahead of us, but why were they here? Did they just want to have some fun? Or just swing by to check out what earth was all about, or, what if, they actually where the creators? They created us in "7 days", as an experiment for fun or for observation to see how life happened back in the days for them as well? Or just understand how much time would pass before we eventually managed to access AI.
So here is the thing, we all know where future are taking us. The law of accelerating returns is in charge and whats to come is inevitable. Meaning what we are marching towards is a world where we have merged with machines, this will give us super powers, incredible intelligence in every field. So, what then will happen to religion when we suddenly possess all the magic in the holy scripts? When get knowledge and power beyond whats possible in the bible?
Lets have a look at a few events in christianity
It seems to me that they where on to something quite normal in a futuristic society when every atom is manipulable. But to a civilization not even familiar with Television or anything this must seem quite frightening and fantastic at the same time.
- Jesus was born from a Virgin
Well that's even possible today, one can get pregnant or get a child only by using stem-cell technology or by injecting a fertilized egg.
- Walk on water
if we take an example of todays technology, perhaps he had a few underwater drones he stepped on?
- He fed 5000 people with 5 loaf of bread and 2 fish
with nanotech this wont be any problem in the future, make food appear from "nothing"
- Arise from the dead
Well he simply just restarted the software or since our consciousness will possibly be in the cloud it can be and get downloaded anywhere, so either he rebooted his system and made it work or he had lots of nano boots working for him repairing his cells an everything. Or perhaps he even was a transhuman then so he just pretend to be dead and pretend to look biological. So of course he could "awake" cause he already were.
- Make wine from water
No problem with all this nanotech knowledge that AI will give us. We can manipulate anything to become whatever we want.
- Parting the sea
No problem either in the future, cant give and explanation on how but it will be
- He made a blind man see
We can already do this now, and in the future we can also do it in an instant, seeming that we don't do any effort, simply put our hands on the blind persons eyes.
And Buddha that had telepathy, super-hearing, divine seeing and seeing past lives.. Well, this is possible as well in the future. Already now we can control robots with our thoughts.
However, as we become better and better masters of matter, atoms, chemistry and technology it starts to show that what Jesus did and god did is actually not that exciting, special and difficult after all. But to us and where we were in time this was pure incomprehensible. We had no knowledge of technology what so ever no knowledge of how to manipulate the smallest of matter or energy so we were completely shocked.
So if some way more advanced extraterrestrial beings visited us with this knowledge of course they seemed like wizards and gods.
What will our society become when we become the sacred people in the bible? Will we hold on to the past or create something more alined with the period of time we find ourselves in?
What does the future behold for religion? And.. Will the transition be smooth?
Are You Living In One?
Week In Review - March 19th
South By South West, an annual festival that should be high up on priority if you are interested in tech and future, music and film. Latest news and the pioneers in the field will be there.
Hope this weekly wrap-up sparks great conversations!
The annual SXSW was held in Austin this week, which is one of the ultimate festivals to go to. Ive been wanting to go for years but it's way to expensive if you dont travel for business purpose. I have a goal to be able to go there in 2018.
Haven't heard of it? Well you should definitely put that on the map travel destination if you are into tech, film and music. Its a massive festivals and the whole of California camp in Austin for a week to participate and get an update on the latest news in the field and where we are heading. If you are working on something, this is the best place to go to show case. Luckily many of the talks were live streamed so if you have some time, go watch a few!
Want more in dept information and news? Sign up to my weekly newsletter!
Space
China unveils working on a rocket that will land people on the moon by the early 2020s
Their announcement comes shortly after the US announced plans to fly two private citizens around the Moon by late 2018, under private aerospace company SpaceX.
China is working to develop a new spaceship that can both fly in low-Earth orbit and land on the moon.
NASA release the first images of the Trappist-1s planets
The Earth Like planet was discovered by the Kepler telescope as part of its K2 mission.
AI
At the SXSW he announced for the masses that the singularity will take place in 2045 and human level intelligence will be reached by 2029. For people who's been diving into Ray Kurzweils material this is nothing new, but now it seems to have been picked up by the masses as its been all over the news.
The Singularity happens when the Artificial Intelligence in machines surpass human intelligence.
He us super optimistic, and so am I :)
Sustainable Energy
We can officially collect solar energy without solar panels.
Science has now figured out a molecular "leaf" that can harvest sun power.
The molecular leaf is the most efficient method of carbon reduction to date.
Lab Grown Chicken by Memphis Meats, one of the many startups focusing on lab grown meat production. The firm's approach to what it calls “clean meat” is to culture animal cells in the lab, feed them nutrients until they grow into pieces large enough to cook and eat. Fried chicken might never be guilt-free. But you may soon be able to remove at least part of the remorse the next time you chow down, because it might not have required a single bird to be harmed.
Biology
Scientist are fully close to creating a fully human genome by the end of the year.
Prior to this announcement, the team had been able to completely synthesize one of yeast’s 16 chromosomes. And now they have discovered 5 more. They say they’re on track to finish the remaining ten chromosomes to form a completely synthetic genome by the end of this year.
DNA-editing
“What if a cell’s DNA could be edited just like the text of a document so that you could actually erase letters, you could erase whole sentences, [you could] replace sentences, and you could do things that would enable scientists to change the mutations that might cause genetic disease, make changes that allow us to understand the function of DNA and different kinds of organisms and perhaps, enable us to really direct the way that organisms are evolving on the planet?”
Watch Jennifer Doudna's talk at SXSW
Medicine
It's now possible to detect cancer through a blood test.
It screens the DNA through dying blood cells which then detects tumor and where it is.
Nanotech gets smaller and smaller, so the nano boots get better and better. Swimming in your bloodstream and entering molecules and cells. Pretty amazing. Read a detailed article about it here.
Assisted suicide? This roller coaster will make you die blissful.
Please make these ambulance drones mainstream asap!
Fashion-tech
The Levis and Google collaboration has been released. It's a smart denim jacked where you can answer calls and lower the volume and etc..
The future of wearable is no more devices but its smart clothes.
Automation
An AI just completed 360 000 hours of finance work in seconds.
In June, JP Morgan Chase & Co, the biggest bank in US, started implementing a program called COIN, which is short for Contract Intelligence. COIN runs on a machine learning system that’s powered by a new private cloud network that the bank uses.
The Bank has more than 240 000 employees, some of those employees are lawyers and loan officers who spend a total of 360,000 hours each year. Now, the company has managed to cut the time spent on this work down to a matter of seconds using machine learning.
Here is the weekly sum-up video of this weeks happenings by Singularity Hub!
The first AI Art Director
Yep it has happened, yep it is a fact. AI is eating its way through all of our professions from lawyers(Ross) to account workers, factory workers, to surgeons and now, yep, already occupying a creative profession. Which people did not see coming. Or perhaps, didn't want to see coming? The first Robot was just hired as an Art Director. Yep an Ad company now has the word's first AI Creative Director. (Awesome right? At least I think so) The company's name is McCann Japan and the employer is Shum Matsuzaka who wanted to test his personal theory that an Artificial Intelligence could serve as the creative director of a television commercial.
People have been saying that an AI won't be able to do art. That no one can do art as humans do. Meaning it won't be good. Cause machines doesn't have feelings and compassion and art is all about expressing humanly sensations and experiences. Well, that has always left me a bit puzzled with the thoughts of well is that really entirely true? How come they are so staunchly certain of that? Even though an AI wont have feelings to begin with it doesn't mean it can't be creative, does it? And how do they know that an AI won't get feelings? Creativity isn't something that only belongs to humans is it? No, we see it in other animals as well, so they mean it only belongs to biological beings? I think its just another excuse, just another way of resistance of what the future beholds.
Resisting by believing we are the special ones, the kings of the world. That we, we are the holy creators(?). Well, here is one for you, humans estimated average IQ is 100. Do you know where AI will end up in a few decades? With an AI of 10.000+. So it will en up with trillions times trillions times trillions times ++++++++++ in IQ because of the moores law. We will never beat that? Will we? Are we really that special? If you say we are you are living in denial. You honestly say pretty clear that you can't cope with change. Well, it's a fact. So the arrival of the first AI Creative Director has come, and guess what, by the two of those commercials added in the article to distinct human made and AI made, the AI one is the one I remember, sadly I can't even remember what the other one was about. So, the dooms day of humans in creative professions is not as far away either..
The future is inevitable, we will be newbies all of us, for ever. AI is here to stay, and wipe out all of our professions related to productivity, creativity, production and efficiency.
Acceptance is the only way to continue on a good path.
Can you guess which one was made by the AI Art Director and which one was human made?
It's the first one, later today, think which one you happen to remember, the one you remember will always be the best ad.
Happy Pi-rth Day!
in Science
Pi and Albert's Birthday is always celebrated with a big Pie.....
It's 14th of March, the day where the annual celebration of pi takes place. As I love maths, fancy Albert and observed the whole wide web honors it with articles, I had to write about it too. So, Congratulations!
Not familiar with Pi?
If you've been fortunate enough to go to school you've most definitely come across Pi in math class. Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159, but it doesn't stop there, Pi has been calculated to over 9 trillion digits beyond its decimal point.
To get a picture; NASA just need 15 digits to get rockets to space though, and to get an atom precise measurement of the universe you just need 40 thus for equations only a few handfuls are needed.
Pi has been known for 4000 years is the most famous and essential constant we need to be able to get anywhere and create stuff here on earth, if we didn't know pi we would never be able to watch TV, drive a car, travel by airplane, go to space, go to space or do any of the things we appreciate so much and take for granted. So indeed a reason to celebrate!
It's Albert Einsteins birthday also but he is completely shadowed by the celebration of Pi, at least it's maths that is celebrated, so I guess he would find that ok. Today mathematicians all over the world will be eating pie, the Holidays famous food dish... who would have thought.
NASA though wants you to celebrate to celebrate like a rocket scientist and issued a Pi in the Sky Challenge where you will be presented with a series of math problems NASA engineers and scientists might solve by using Pi, such as how much of Earth would be covered by an eclipse, or how many days the Cassini spacecraft will need to orbit around Saturn.
Or if you are in the US, you can celebrate by going to Whole Foods to buy a large pie which they today offer to a price of $3,14. Thats kinda cool,hehe.
I also would like to serve you a brief History of Pi here it is.
By measuring circular objects, it has always turned out that a circle is a little more than 3 times its width around. In the Old Testament of the Bible (1 Kings 7:23), a circular pool is referred to as being 30 cubits around, and 10 cubits across. The mathematician Archimedes used polygons with many sides to approximate circles and determined that Pi was approximately 22/7. The symbol (Greek letter “π”) was first used in 1706 by William Jones. A ‘p’ was chosen for ‘perimeter’ of circles, and the use of π became popular after it was adopted by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler in 1737. In recent years, Pi has been calculated to over one trillion digits past its decimal. Only 39 digits past the decimal are needed to accurately calculate the spherical volume of our entire universe, but because of Pi’s infinite & patternless nature, it’s a fun challenge to memorize, and to computationally calculate more and more digits.
And now, Imagine the world without pi....
So yes, definitely, lets give Pi our best wishes today.
Week in Review - March 12
This week has been as educational, eye-opening and inspirational as usual.
Hope this post will spark some great conversations! If you'd like more of the weekly goodies and news sign up for my weekly newsletter to get a good read!
Space
Congress passes an act requiring NASA to get humans to Mars by 2033. With this transformative development, the space agency got a lot more than just $19.508 billion in funding. They also got a very clear mandate: Get humanity to Mars.
Robotics
Humans can now scold a robot with their minds.
It's no longer only our body we can control with our thoughts but now also machines.
MIT developed a system to instantly tell a robot when it makes an error through brainwaves.
Automation
The Burger-Grilling Robot And Kitchen Assistant "FLIPPY" by Miso Robotics was introduced to us this week. CEO and co-founder David Zito says, 'We focus on using AI and automation to solve the high pain points in restaurants and food prep. That’s the dull, dirty and dangerous work around the grill, the fryer, and other prep work like chopping onions. The idea is to help restaurants improve food quality and safety without requiring a major kitchen redesign.'"
Automation
An AI just completed 360 000 hours of finance work in seconds.
In June, JP Morgan Chase & Co, the biggest bank in US, started implementing a program called COIN, which is short for Contract Intelligence. COIN runs on a machine learning system that’s powered by a new private cloud network that the bank uses.
The Bank has more than 240 000 employees, some of those employees are lawyers and loan officers who spend a total of 360,000 hours each year. Now, the company has managed to cut the time spent on this work down to a matter of seconds using machine learning.
3D printing
In just 24 hours a 38 m2 house was 3D printed with the cost of only $10.000.
Biology
Scientist have grown the first synthetic self-developing embryo.
A team of scientists from the University of Cambridge were able to synthesize mice embryos outside the womb. With the use of embryonic stem cells, developmental biologist Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz and her team at the University of Cambridge were able to replicate a living mouse embryo.
Cybersecurity
WikiLeaks Releases Trove of Alleged C.I.A. Hacking Documents
"The initial release, which WikiLeaks said was only the first installment in a larger collection of secret C.I.A. material, included 7,818 web pages with 943 attachments, many of them partly redacted by WikiLeaks editors to avoid disclosing the actual code for cyberweapons. The entire archive of C.I.A. material consists of several hundred million lines of computer code, the group claimed."
Future Society
The area of ownership is over. In the 20th century we got used to a certain way of thinking: if you needed something, you bought it. We are exponentially moving away from that, and that will be good for both us and the environment.
Environment
Tesla Unveils an Enormous Solar Farm to Replace 1.6M Gallons of Fuel a Year
Tesla has plans for a solar plant in Kauai, Hawaii. The Kauai plant, commissioned by the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative, includes a 13 megawatt SolarCity solar farm and a 52 megawatt-hour battery installation.
Environment
A New Clean Energy Record Was Just Set in the U.S. For the first time ever, a North American power grid produced over half its energy from wind power.
Tech Gadgets
The Return of the 3310. The Iconic Nokia 3310 mobile phone is back. Will you buy it?
The price range will be around $49. It will be available in a few months, you can pre-registrer here.
Mixed Reality
I'd love to check out this exploration game from Doraemon in VR.
It's Greener Because It's Fake
Yes, it's absolutely easy to vision that the grass is greener on the other side and who doesn't do that sometimes? We are constantly exposed to these gardens appearing so perfect. But how often do we go check it, touch it, feel it to see if its actually real? How come we don't do that too often? How come we keep living within that dream of the awesomeness of another persons life or the perfect life you could have if only..
Isn't it about time to get out of that fantasy bubble and start watering and growing your own real grass? Comparing yourself to the greenness off fake grass will only make you miserable but remember, real grass has a wonderful touch, it smells good, every grass straw is different and it can even grow flowers, plants and food! You just have to do it not use your time looking at tour neighbor's color. Go make your garden beautiful, water it, nurture it, love it. Its entirely up to you how valuable and stunning you want it to be.
Remember, you can't do whatever you want. There is no recipe. Even though your culture, religion, country's norms and rules and standard expectations says so. Don't listen. What makes you smile? What makes you laugh? What makes you excited? What fires you up? Go do that on a daily basis and you'll fuel yourself with nutrition and love, and you'll be an example the world needs to see. The world is a playground, it's your playground. You have a great opportunity all you have to do is to take it!
For reference, by garden I mean both your own mind and your physical life. If you dont have a healthy mind you'll never be content no matter which life situation, if you have a healthy mind you can be content anywhere and also figure out how to change your life to a more optimal you. If wanted.
Go love it.
The Future Belongs To The Most Adaptable
"You Can't"
Ever been told that annoying statement?
28 years and still hearing it in various forms and frases. "What do you mean I can't?"
"Keep your head down, follow the rules, do what you are told, play it safe, wait your turn, ask permission, learn to compromise"
This is terrible advice. After my opinion those are the words of the people who simply misunderstood what life is all about and how this world works.
Sure, it has made a barrier to my own life but I must say with laughter that its just... pure tragedy.
Imagine if all those people jumped in and started creating, making the world a huge playground. Oh what a magical world it would be?
YouTube Star Casey Neistat just made this genius video (below) pin pointing that we live in the days of "yes, you can". And that we don't have to stop ourselves by the words of the "no you can't sayers", which many of us has.
Ive been raised by grownups in fear of change, in fear of scarcity with a "do what you're told, do what the society says" kind of mindset. Not only has its been limiting my creative flow but with this collective thinking pattern its been a barrier for many!
Fortunately more and more people are breaking free from these imprisoning chains and set out to fly.
Those are the people who change the world, who's the openers to the sluice of the exponential craziness that are shaping our future in high speed. It blow all the nay sayers away. Literally.
As Casey explains in his own words:
"The haters, the doubters are all drinking champagne at the titanic, and we are the fucking iceberg"
The future belongs to the creators and innovators, the scientists and tech developers, the ones who wants to change the society to the better, cure human diseases and heal our earthly nature and make it better place. We are moving into an area now where its no longer survival of the fittest nor survival of the smartest. Its the survival of the most adaptable. The time of the adaptable has arrived and if your not willing to embrace what the exponential future behold you'll be wiped away pretty fast. It will be unpredictable, chaotic, crazy, creepy, far from understandable, and yes we will have no clue about what tomorrow will bring.
If you won't manage to find your comfortable spot in this time, if you are not able to surf the wave with excitement, sadly you will be swallowed by the tsunami in not too long. Keep your eyes open, be curious, learn how to ride the waves. Join the party and have no expectations. Simply live, live in the moment, participate and enjoy. It will make your life easier and more fun.
I guess that perhaps when we cure aging, the people who are not born adaptable, and simply can't cope with living like this, will be the ones who's gonna have their death arranged or commit suicide. They are also the ones who will refuse to merge with machines.
And this is the way homo sapiens die out for good.
As Casey says in the video below, Do What You Can't.
Women, Shouldn't We Be Supportive Of Each Other?
How come its not the norm, women being supportive of each other? That backing each other up is barely a thing? Why aren't we one big community proud of each other, worshiping each other, loving each other?
We share the same sex, of course that should not be the only reason to stand together, but we all know that we have huge challenges in this world. Why don't we stick together, speak up and take action for justice?
How did this happen to become reality? And why do we let it? Has it always been like this? Since the human race was created?
Its been bothering me for ages as long as I can remember Ive been an observer and victim of the evilness inhabiting some or many women. Thus we are raving for equal rights, yet we dont really do that much about it on a regular basis, a few might speak up every now and then in media.
I, friends of mine and women all around the world face these subtle but hurtful attacks from other women everyday. I think a good word to describe it is through the word "frenemies". Perhaps you get a clearer picture of it by this word.
The worst are those who pretend to be supportive, shouting out their supportive words in social media always smiling and hugging, but then behind the curtains they do everything they can to pull the person down, talking behind their back and never lending out a helping hand, keeping things secret etc.
This might be difficult to believe for some men I guess, as women are known for their emphatic and community feeling characteristics. But actually women look at each other as rivals. Feeling threatened by other women.
l think this is a result of insecurities and being afraid of not being liked by others? Fear is the underlying fact here, I guess. But how come fear can make people cruel? Why do we let ourself be controlled by fear, acting upon it? Why cant we just accept the fear and move on, why do we have to let it be in charge, do what it please? Because we dont know thats taking back control is an option? Because we dont learn how to become friends with our feelings in school? And because we have so much fear, this is because of low self-esteem? So then, how come so many girls and women suffer from low self-esteem? Where does this self-hatred come from? Are we simply born with it? Is it in our genes? Do we get it from our parents, the way they talk to us and behave towards us, dress us, address us? That we watch our mothers behave the same, talking bad about other women? TV? I wonder how it would be in a world where girls were raised the same way as boys. Talked to in the same ways, same clothes, same encouragement for doing and executing stuff etc?
Studies actually shows that girls are being raised different. Why does this happen? Why should we differentiate between girls and boys even immediately when they get out of the womb, or I mean, actually from the day the parents know the sex of their baby.
Well, one thing is for sure, women can't continue to step on other women. We cant have both men and women doing so. This way we, girls, will never get all the way up to the same level as all the brohs out there. Go ahead and support each other, ladies. All year around, not only 8th of March. Where is the sisterhood culture, similar to the broh culture we see in men being supportive of each other always?
Its a tragedy that this is not the normal standard amongst women. As you would think otherwise but its like women never fully understood that its place for everyone on the top. Not just one person.
I have one wish for this female birthday, lets celebrate together the whole year, shall we?
We are stronger together.
If we dont lift each other up. Then who will?
Ladies, Speak Up!
Happy Women's Day!
Let's celebrate with this quote by Malala.
"Don't wait for someone else to come and speak for you. It is you who can change the world."
It is really the only way to be heard and to be able to change what matters to you.
Being a woman with a loud voice I quickly noticed how easy it is to walk pass them whispering ladies without even hearing one word of what they are talking about. One had to strain to haul out of them what they meant. Men often didn't bother to stop at all to translate these unclear messages. Understandable, why should they stop to listen to something that might get in their way? Willingly creating more friction for themselves? Even I have done that, just continued to walk pass these low voiced women, as I knew that if I did stop, it would simply keep me from going wherever I wanted.
Take a stand girls and know that you are supported wherever you place your feet. Just put them somewhere and you'll help not only yourself by doing so but many more, of that I'm sure. As long as you are serving justice, of course.
Be an example to the world. Be of value. Stay true to yourself.
Should We Give The Health Care System An Upgrade?
How much longer can you stand this annoying fact of you paying thousands a month for someones self-imposed disease?
This post is mainly aimed at Norwegians and countries leading similar healthcare systems. It also questions the future of the health insurance companies and governance.
A background update: In Norway healthcare is free, our tax system covers healthcare for everyone. Only if Norwegians go abroad health insurance is needed.
Dearest Norwegians, isn’t it nice to know that your well earned tax money goes to helping people in need, developing the country and to educate your kids?
Isn’t it nice to know that if something terrible happens to you or your loved ones, you will be taken care of? And isn’t it great to know that if your health strikes, you are insured?
Such a great structure of society, right? Yes, I’m sure you're nodding from within.
All of us can agree upon that Norway has a great way of dealing with health care. I think the citizens of our country are highly privileged and in such luck (thank you oil….)
We also know that our country, or our world for that matter, do not behold an endless fountain of money. Meaning, we can not throw our money at everyone and everywhere. Can we? We need a clear strategy. Don’t we?
You probably think that Norway has that all figured out already?
Well. I'm not so sure if I can entirely agree on that.
I'd like to challenge you a bit. Do you ever think in depth on the whole perspective on the heath care system?
Thousands of people are hit by illness every month and estimated nearly 2 million people check in to hospitals in Norway on a yearly basis. In all of these cases our governments opens its wallet and pay up whatever the cost.
Many diseases appear out of the blue, in example leukemia, birth illnesses, malaria and pneumonia, infections etc. But, most people which is hospitalized or die from illness, are diagnosed with life style diseases like heart and vascular disease, lung cancer, overweight, and respiratory diseases etc.
And believe me, these costs are way from cheap.
So, here comes the golden question, how many of these cases could have been prevented if the people affected had an optimal lifestyle, with healthy habits? And how does this affect you?
What if the people with lung cancer simply never started to smoke? Or the people with hearth and vascular diseases didn't start eating a fatty and salty diet and were exercising on a regular basis? What if the people with diabetes type II stopped overeating on sugar and started to run everyday?
What if the mother didn't drink or smoke through pregnancy so that the kid entered the world in perfect shape, and not accompanied by a kidney disease or something like that.
What if all people stopped eating unhealthy, started to exercise and eat mindful, get enough sleep, and started spending lots of time with loved ones?
(I wonder how much less doctors and nurses and hospitals that would be needed today..)
What if everyone took care of themselves and their own health and their children and parents health? Would we have to pay such high medical bills then?
Has it ever hit you that you pay for the side effects of someones consistent lifestyle choices?
That you pay for the hospitalization of the annoying neighbor that sits outside smoking everyday. Or eventually also for the smoking gang working for your company which you already are hating for how much time they spend smoking outside and not working, and having the offices smell nasty. Or the bothersome uncle who simply weighs way too much and always keeps eating.
Yes, you do pay for the expensive results of someones terrible choice.
You have to pay the medical bill for the smokers diagnosed with lung cancer, you are the one paying for the operation and medicine to people with hearth attack when they could have prevented easily by eating less salty, fatty and sugary foods but the person chose not to.
To me, its a ridiculous irony that we actually pay our taxes so that we can pay for the people choosing to get sick.
Pay up whats needed for the people who has no choice but.. Should really our tax money go to pay for a persons hearth attack or diabetes caused by excessive eating of sugary and fatty foods, like meat, cheese, double lattes and drinking lots alcohol and no exercise or overeating?
Is that really fair? That we pay for the people who actually make themselves sick? How come this is actually allowed, how come politicians let this happen, that we, normal people choosing to live a healthy lifestyle going to work and pay our taxes have to pay for the silly ones? Actually we could pay less taxes if those people just reframed their habits and enjoy a higher salary or the tax money could go to better up the school system, innovation or elderly homes.. Wouldn't that be way more amazing?
What do you think about the future of health care and insurances when you think about all the smart things we will be surrounded with that will tell us the status of our health and how we can prevent it to get worse. Like the toilet, toothbrush, mirror, hairbrush, clothes and everything can keep track on your health. Lots of data will be available to tell you how you treat yourself, and this information could potentially go back to the health insurance company or the government where they actually can say, well, you had the choice and this is definitely self imposed, so in which case we won’t pay for you bad habits. Don't you think this should be the norm? That people actually took responsibility for themselves?
To me, this sounds fair.
It might also motivate the people who is not at all motivated by just “having a high quality” life as long as possible. Meaning their motivation is money, and time. They have to take responsibility for their own life, the government can't be doing that no more after my opinion. To me its like throwing a lot of trash at the floor and just expecting someone to go clean up, and in which case we Norwegians have someone coming to clean up, hired by the government, so we dont have to care about the mess we make. We can make as much as we really want to.
We do not live in an ego world, our society are built up on trust and relying on each other, we have to stick together and serve each other to make it go round, so, how come so many of us still today just think about ourselves?
I do not mean that I'm for all full detailed surveillance but to some point I'm pro keeping track on peoples health to check if they actually had themselves get ill or if it could have been prevented.
What do you think about this, how should this be solved, and.. is it a problem at all, do you think? Do you gladly go to work to pay these peoples bills? Or perhaps you lead a health insurance company, are you willing to pay up for these cases forever, when we have the tools to check if the person chose to let it happen?
But there is also another level to this, how about the people who simply are uneducated and not curious about figuring out that what they actually put in their body mirrors their health? Whos responsibility should that be, since its the governments responsibility giving us education? And how about the people with no discipline, going through the store and closest to the cashier they find all these chocolates and cookies.. why didn't the government make a law where this is not allowed since they have to pay for the medical bill of people with no discipline. And why do they allow smoking at all? And allow the stores and big companies to sell and make such sugary and salty foods? Its so much mess here which the government should be able to fix, yes, simply put their foot down.
What is your thoughts?
For your mess.
What Is Truth?
How do you really know that you are right when you are 100 % certain of having the correct conclusion and answer to something?
Which fact do you base your windup on? A study? One? Two? 10? 100? And, who did this research? And where? Who supported this study economically?
Or perhaps it was an article? How do you know that the journalist behind the article delivers the truth? And that they have read all the material ever existing from several angles and perspectives? What if the writer is paid by a company to make this statement, would you know? How? Or what if he just had a bad day and did a lazy and poor job? Or what if he simply wanted to force upon the masses his subjective opinion to influence the collective mindset?
Can you really trust everything you hear on the radio, podcast, from a teacher, read in the media, watch on Instagram or Facebook or in a book? Ever?
Is there something you really can be sure of? Left and right? Do you know if left and right is the same in all the cultures in the whole wide world or is it only in your daily visual reality? What if it was the opposite in japan? Who'd be right then? Would you?
Another example, what if you study the western medicine, you go to a university in London to become a doctor and you learn about how the body works, ie the kidney. You might develope a great confidence on that this is how the body functions, for all human beings. But did you ever consider that this might not be the case if you put a human being on planet mars? or venus? Would the kidney function the same way at mars or in another galaxy? With a different gravity and pressure and energy scale?
Yes you might be "right" from what the books and articles YOU have consumed by studying it because you've memorized it all but really, how many books and articles have you been able to accumulate on this topic in your short period of time on earth? Did you manage to feed yourself all the sources that there is? And what does the Eastern medicine say?
The point is.. when truth varies from person to person, from culture to culture, from planet to planet, from galaxy to galaxy..
... how do you know what truth is?
And..
Is there such a thing?
Them Big Lies Dumbing Us Down
Are You Better Than Others?
Are you better than others? What makes you think that you are?
What gives you the right to judge someone or quickly conclude assumptions about a person you met 1 minute ago?
What makes you think that you are above and of more worth than another person?
What makes you so special? And how do you explain that to yourself?
Is that rational?
What makes you superior and more important?
Grades from school? Your knowledge on a certain topic? How cool you friends are? What clothes you wear? How many meetings you go to during a day? How much money you got?
Do you ever think about that there is probably someone out there that thinks they are better than you? Someone looking at you just like you look at the cleaning lady when you pass by without a greeting and a smile.
Do you think about that? How does that thought make you feel? What do you think about that?
Are they more of value than you since they think that? Can you agree? What makes you agree or disagree? How do you explain that to yourself?
And..
what do you really know about the person you are judging? Do you know them personally? Do you know their passions or interests? Do you know who they are and what they do when you do not see them?
Really,
Who are you to judge?
And remember,
judging a person do not define who they are, it defines who you are.
Lets Put An End To Aging Together
Mark Zuckerberg and his wife are also on a quest to end aging and disease. And just invested 3 billion dollars in research.
"Yes! Together we can cure disease by the end of the century. Are you in?"
- Mark Zuckerberg, Chan Zuckerberg Foundation
As you can see from Zuckerbergs quote, Silicon Valley has begin its war on disease; Mark Zuckerberg, Google, Microsoft, Peter Thiel among others are all on a quest to end it. Is there a reason for you and me not to join forces and hack biology with them? If you think about it, would you like to get sick tomorrow and die a slow death, or that your loved one got ill and died? Do you really want that to manifest? Rationalize it.. You'd rather stay young and healthy forever, if you had the chance, wouldn't you?
To get a picture of what they are up to, following is a short overview
- Mark and his wife just started the Chan Zuckerberg Foundation to fight it. They've hired top scientific leaders to oversee 3 Billion dollars to help cure, prevent and manage all diseases in our children's lifetime.
- Both of the Google Co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page has said that they hope to someday cure death. Together with Bill Maris, the president and managing partner of Google Ventures, they invest millions in companies that can slow aging, improve longevity, and possibly reverse disease. "If you ask me today, is it possible to live to be 500? The answer is yes," Maris told Bloomberg Markets. Google has also started a project called Google Calico (short for The California Life Company), a multi-million dollar project that's studying how to reverse aging. Google alone reportedly has invested $240 million in the project, where Arthur Levinson is the Chief Executive.
- Microsofts main focus at the moment within the field of disease is fighting cancer, this they do this by using computer science such as machine learning and algorithms.
- The billionaire co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel has invested millions in companies trying to solve aging. Thiel gave anti-aging researcher Aubrey de Grey $3.5 million to co-found the Methuselah Foundation with Davel Gobel. Thiel has also made strategic investments through his venture capital firm Founders Fund into at least 14 health and biotech companies that are focused on extending life through regenerative medicine.The organization's goal is to make "90 the new 50 by 2030."
- Craig Venter founded the well known company Human Longevity Inc. (HLI), a genomics-based biotechnology company, with the intention of extending and enhancing the "healthy, high-performance lifespan and change the face of aging." The company has reportedly raised at least $70 million in venture capital.
Martine Rothblatt, is a woman thinking the way I do which makes me super excited to follow her projects. She is taking a unique approach to the anti-aging trend. Rather than keeping humans alive in their current bodily forms, she believes that immortality could come through a unique blend of technology and biology. The founder of Sirius Satellite Radio and CEO of United Therapeutics is betting that one of the first stages in this process may be uploading the "data" of a human brain into a software program, essentially keeping their being alive in a different, high-tech form.
She's created a nonprofit called Terasem Movement where people can already store their "mind files," the digital records of a person's life spread across email, social media, and computer files, so that when technology does catch up those files can be used to essentially bring that person back to life.- Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov said he plans to live to 10,000 and he wants you to be able to, also. He has founded Global Future 2045 conference and started the Avatar Project. In a press release, the Dalai Lama said about Dmitrys aging projects, “We should carry out these experiments with a full sense of responsibility and respect for life that will only benefit humanity, benefit others.”
- The Palo Alto Prize is a newly established Silicon Valley-based initiative of the Race Against Time Foundation. The Paolo Alto Longevity Prize is all about creating engagement and encourage people and companies to join in and help hack the code of aging. The prize is 1 ,000,000 Dollars with hedge fund manager Joon Yun in the front.
So, the tech titans are donating billions or personally leading the research into longevity solutions.
What I'd like to focus on in this post is aging, the worst disease of them all that attacks us humans.
You might be thinking, aging? Is that a disease? Well, more and more scientists believe in the fact and research shows that it is.
It might be difficult to grasp as the world is currently in a “pro-aging trance”, meaning we are happy to accept that aging is unavoidable., when the reality is that it’s simply a “medical problem” that science can solve.
The definition of aging is unclear and most of us do not have a full understanding of what it really is. Here is the usual explanation:
“Ageing, also spelled aging, is the process of becoming older. The term refers especially to human beings, many animals, and fungi, whereas for example bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentially immortal”
Unclear? Yes, it doesn’t explain much really. To give the scientific overview one can explain it like this.
“Its the life-long accumulation of “damage” to the body that occurs as intrinsic side-effects of the body’s normal operation.
Damage: Changes in structure and composition that the body cannot automatically reverse. The body can tolerate some damage, but too much of it causes disease and disability. Hence aging.”
So basically aging is a gene causing cell damage, to give you a visual input; think of a car, when buying a new one you dont expect it to stay brand new and in perfect shape forever? Do you? No, we all know that by using our cars it slowly gets teared down unless you repair it, pure physics, so every now and then you have to drive to the service station for an upgrade. We humans do not have such a service station, yet.
Therefore, aging kills 100.000 people every day, and will end yours too eventually, if we don't find a cure before your time is up.
I'm really passionate about this topic as I believe that we are the first generation that can cure aging. This is because of our knowledge and equipment for advanced computing, AI, machine learning, genomics, DNA engineering, biotech and nanotech.
“We’re now at the point where it’s easy to extend the lifespan of a mouse. That’s not the question any more, it’s can we do this in humans? And I don’t see any reason why we can’t,” says David Sinclair, a researcher based at Harvard.
So, we are not far away thanks to the magic of the Genetic Engineering and the stem cell revolution. Gene editing are getting more advanced and way cheaper. Over night the cost has shrunk by 99 %. Instead of a year it now takes a few weeks to conduct experiments, and basically everyone with a lab can do it.
Remember, if we target an aging process and slow it down then we will slow down all the diseases and pathology of aging as well. That’s revolutionary and has never happened before. Hence, the global market for healthy human longevity is enormous well over $7 trillion.
Aubry De Grey a British researcher is the most famous spoke person and pioneer on aging as a disease and has done several TED talks, one is added below. He has also written this book, which you should definitely consider checking out. He says that aging is curable and he claims has drawn a roadmap to defeat biological aging. According to him humans age in seven basic ways, all of which can be averted. He says that we have known about aging as a disease for two centuries but it has up to this date mostly been ignored by scientists because its been to difficult to grasp. He provocatively proposes that the first human beings who will live to 1,000 years old have already been born.
“There is an increasing number of people realising that the concept of anti-ageing medicine that actually works is going to be the biggest industry that ever existed by some huge margin and that it just might be foreseeable.”
Another person who is deeply involved with this cause is the successful internet entrepreneur Michael Greve who just donated 10 million dollars to the Sens Foundation and also founded his own foundation to battle it, Forever Healthy Foundation. Watch a talk by him on aging below.
How come I am obsessed about this and why do I look at it as a highly important first priority cause?
Obviously, I've been hit by a storm off questions on why. What the heck do I want to do on earth forever? And why should we mess with the "natural" cycle of life? And isn't it gonna be great fun to check out where death will take us?
Well, first of all, this is not the "natural cycle" of biology, there are at this day several species, bacteria and plants that do not have any signs of aging even though they have been living for 500 years (shark), jelly fish, lobsters, alligators ie just die if an accident happens to them, or if they get a disease(not aging) etc.. So, we are just the unlucky ones hit by the aging gene and no restoration one.
And the other things, is of course I'd never ever be interested in living on planet earth in a physical humanly body for eternity, which I know is not gonna be the case. What will happen within the next century is to us incomprehensible as our human brain is made to think linear. But you see, nano tech, biotech, quantum computing and AI can take us anywhere, really. Soon we will be able to live on other planets, in different galaxies and universes and so on. We will probably be able to manipulate ourselves into literally anything. Upload our consciousness to a nano boots and go anywhere.. and transform ourselves to anything whenever wanted and needed.
Thats why I want to stay alive. I'm so curious about all this, existence and consciousness and the nature of reality. So I just want to understand it all and explore. I’d love to experience living in different shapes and formes, not just in this body of flesh and bones limited by gravity. Thats why Im so eager to continue my spiritual journey.
You might be thinking that us regular people won't be able to afford such a cure but believe me, you will. The prices will shrink as low as the pills you nibble today. Over night. Due to our exponential growth within the fields as of nanotech, biotech, AI and quantum computing. So no reason to not keep your head up.
A side note:
Then there is an interesting question which I also like pondering about; what will happen to the medical industry now when we are developing organic ways to solve and cure diseases? Will it die completely? And how fast? I've been longing for a better solution than this synthetic madness which we accept within medicine cause we got no where else to go. I think its be quite an interesting collapse. The pharmaceutical industry have been dominant for the past century and has basically been doing whatever they want to the world and to the people in order to earn money by "saving" peoples lives. Yes, its a good thing but after what Ive been reading after digging into it too me it seems quite shady and corrupt. I think that within 100 years or sooner people (and computers) will laugh at us hysterically, in many ways because of our ignorance and stupidity. They will pity us. The same way we do when we think about solutions and way of doing things back in the old days when they were without the knowledge of today.
Think about it, its so stupid how we do it today, so fake, synthetic, its dangerous, literally, we have no idea what we are doing.
Even though billions of dollars are being invested there is still need for support as this is extremely expensive research and it is nothing that the governments are funding, yet. I guess they will do eventually when they see how much of a benefit it will be to our society. Unless they are corrupted by the pharmaceutical industry.. Think about what disease cost our society every year? That's a loooot of money and way too many lives.
I just came across that the Sens Foundation who is using biotech to research the cure of aging had a donate button on their webpage and without thinking I went in and hit monthly subscribe. (join us? Click here)
If you have a wish for becoming fragile and die thats ok, but perhaps a person you really love doesn't want it? So, support her or him.. I encourage you to activate yourself and help save peoples life. You can always kill yourself when you're tired from living your life. No pressure.
The more money they collect the faster we all can see an end to this. They need great brains and equipment. Seriously, every dollar counts. So only donating one dollar is of huge value.
The last golden question is the following..
What keeps you from participating?
The people who will figure out how to reverse and cure aging will go down in the history books and cash in loads of money. Hey, it could be you.
Remember, you can always kill yourself when you're tired from living your life.
----
My personal take on living forever?
I'd love to, hopefully being stuck in this biological body is one of many options. I could be a quantum particle, with my consciousness onboard and be able to transform myself into anything I wanted. Whatever was suitable for living on venus, whatever suitable for living in other galaxies and whatever suitable living in space and outside our universe.
Thats why I wanna stay alive, to explore the vastness of it all, and figure out what this is all about. The theory of everything.
Genetic Magic - The Stem Cell Revolution
in Tech, Existence, Future Society, Society
The magic of stem cell editing (CRISPR) is blowing my mind. It's so fascinating how our knowledge and equipment on genetic engineering is on an exponential take off.
Bye bye disease, and hello longevity. We are in for a great future in many ways but seriously, how awesome is it to be diseaseless and young forever, designed to be able to live on other planets and galaxies, and basically unbeatable to a life in misery.
What I love the most is that we will cure the worst illness of them all, which is after my opinion aging (further reading and here)
I'm not gonna dig deeper into it in this post but my goal is to get you to watch this short movie on Genetic Engineering this weekend. It's 16 minutes filled with graspable information on the topic. The video is made by the Youtube Channel Kurzgesagt which is also wort a long visit.
I'm obsessed, and you'll get why.
Enjoy!
The Future To Come
“I’m blown away about how palpable the feeling exponential change have become. I'm also certain that 99,9 % of humanity doesn’t understand or appreciate the ramification of whats coming”
This was said by Peter Diamandis in his recent ebook about the Tech Trends of 2016 transforming the humanity.
And it hit my mind, oh man, is it really so? Is it so that 99,9 % do not know of or pay attention to what’s going on?
Probably?
Am I just living in my own little real bubble of what that’s happening, completely obsessed by the breakthroughs that's right around the corner?
I just realized that I am, cause I do not check in on the daily news which most people do, which fuels us with terrible events, depressing situations, negative words and hopelessness. All the exceptions, that’s what is being served to the masses.
I’m on a quest to spread awareness and knowledge about what’s coming but I can help but wonder; how come people are not paying attention to the most exciting thing about being alive, growth, change and walking towards a better way of living, for us all?
You see, the future is so bright (sorry for this terrible joke but I just had to) we should all put on shades. Hah. Seriously, I'm about to explode from within of ecstacy because of this, and.. I can’t share it with anyone. Cause most of the people I meet in my daily life is apparently in the 99,9 % of humanity category.
Why aren’t people thrilled about this? Don’t people want a higher living standard?
I know most people live in their own little ego-bubble. But this is even ego beneficial! It’s a complete upgrade, of our life, our friends' lives, our families and the people in Africa we don’t even know. It’s gonna improve the human race times 1 trillion + , and also, our holy mother earth is gonna reach heaven.
I’m not being optimistic, I’m talking facts here. If you don’t believe me I really hope that we will cure aging (reverse the illness of cells dying) before you die so that you might be able to stay alive until the times of the complete exponential turnaround. It’s gonna blow your brains out. You won’t even be able to grasp what's going on. That’s only someone as smart as an super AI who can. A Cyborg, a transhumanist. I’m not even sure we will reach that level of intelligence or awareness ever, regardless we are in for a hell of a ride.
I swear. It's wild.
Don’t believe me?
Dig into Michio Kaku, Ray Kurzweil, Peter Diamandis among others and MIT Technology Review, Futurism, Singularity Hub and Big Think for some updates to level up your comprehension. We are just scratching the surface of what yet to come, not even that.
Just have a look at this awesomeness
#mindblownlyexcihlarated
Are We Too Dumb To Smile?
At least David Shrigley is having a blast.
How do you feel when someone smile at you or when you hear someone laughing?
Good? Yes?
Do you ever get this instant sensation of happiness? Yes? I do.
Think about it, how often do you smile? How many times a day do you smile to a stranger or to the people you surround yourself with at work? How about your friends? Family? And most important, to yourself, either in the mirror or when you take a selfie?
Can you even recall when the last time was and what made it happen?
Simply seeing someone smiling a delight arise within me, not only for a few seconds but for minutes. Seeing people smile or laugh from afar or even just by watching someone on a screen elevates my level of joy and fills my face with a grin immediately. It’s the best thing I know. Smiling feels like a shot of love entering my blood vessels going straight to my brain. If I get a smile from a stranger I can think about that smile until I fall asleep that night.
Science confirms the reason of our awe when smiling with a study showing that 1 smile can generate the same level of brain stimulation as up to 2000 bars of chocolate. The same study found that smiling is as stimulating as receiving up to 16 000 pounds in cash. 25K a smile. Well, that’s insane.
And it get me thinking, when this is the effect smiling has upon us, how come I do not see smiles more frequently throughout a day?
Research shows that kids laugh and smile 300 times or more a day. But statistics shows that the average adult only smile 20 times. Now I understand why the most of us feel happier when around kids. Even I who loves smiling may find myself smiling only between 5-40 times a day. Thats hilarious. Embarrassing. Really.
How come we don't smile more often when we are aware of the fact that it has a huge effect on us and the people around us?
Hell yeah.
It’s so simple, so easy. You can either fake it or real it. Fake or real. It doesn't matter which one you pick. The real one might look better outwards, but still, you get the same results according to research.
Lets dig into some more detailed benefits before we start reflecting on why we aren’t doing it
- Smiling makes you healthier. What happens when you smile is that the feel-good neurotransmitters dopamine, endorphins and serotonin are being released. This relaxes your body and reduces stress, it lowers your heart rate and blood pressure and it affects your sleep to the better. The endorphins act as a natural pain reliever and the serotonin which is released serves as an anti-depressant/mood lifter. Many of today's pharmaceutical anti-depressants also influence the levels of serotonin in your brain.
- It improves your immune system. It has been reported that when you’re smiling, the body releases more white blood cells than it usually does. And the prime purpose of white blood cells are to protect the body against both infectious diseases and foreign invaders. So, smiling more often actually makes your body more immune to diseases and hence makes you healthier.
- It also make you look good in other peoples eyes. A recent study at Penns university found that when you smile you don’t only appear to be more likable and courteous but you actually appear to be more competent.
- Smiling also helps to generate more positive emotions within. The best thing is that when you smile, your brain is aware of the activity and keeps track of it. The more you smile, the more effective you are at breaking the brains tendency to think negatively. And for us when we look better and sleep better we feel better.
- Smiling is contagious. Not only are you balsaming your body and soul but you also nurture others with the glory of your joy. It’s an amazing gift to give someone, you brighten up someone's day immensely. There is no better way to serve someone.
So there you go, want a more happy and relaxed mind and body? Simply, just smile.
Here comes the golden thought, what the h.. is wrong with us since we only smile 20 times a day?
Do we just wake up one day and decide to stop smiling and laughing?
I don’t think so.
Are we consciously trying not to smile or laugh?
I don’t think that’s the case either.
Perhaps we got so soar in our mouth muscles of smiling from our early adulthood that we basically can’t do it no more?
Nahh.
Are we afraid of looking silly when we smile? Are we afraid of smiling somewhere it's not appropriate to smile?
Don’t think that is how it is for most of us either. But, I think we are onto something...
It’s a subconscious habit that definitely has something to do with our culture, our society, our norms. Not smiling has become the standard way, a part of our body language, basically since to be able to smile more than 20 times we have to force ourselves consciously to remember to smile.
A real tragicomedy.
It cuts so deep in the structure of our society. School and adulthood educate us on how to be a zombie and we agree. We accept siting in our tight, unfresh classroom, being talked too, not encouraged to ask questions or to use creativity. We are just told to sit down, listen and do as we are told. We all wave and say good bye curiosity and flow state, our new mantra.
How come we ended up lost in thoughts and imprisoned by our emotions?
When I was 19 I figured out that I had to turn this bad habit around and force myself to smile more often everyday. But still, up to this day, I forget about it and have to remind myself over and over again. It’s only when I’m in an environment with others who do smile that I don’t have to consciously think about it. Than it becomes all natural suddenly I’m a part of this contagious choir of broad smiles.
So you can choose not to let your subconsciousness control you by becoming aware of that this is the force driving you. So, rebell and react differently. Take back control. It's not easy, but its definitely possible. What I do to get my grin going is to listen to podcasts that I know will make me smile and laugh out loud. I always try to smile to myself in the mirror and I always laugh a bit longer when I actually catch myself laughing.
Here is a list for you on how to remember to smile more often (yes we are so dumb that we need someone to make a list for us on how to remember how to smile..)
- Write SMILE with big letters on your mirror, reminding you to smile to yourself whenever you look in the mirror
- Have a person smiling big time on your computer screen or as wallpaper on your phone
- Start smiling to everyone; strangers, colleagues, friends, family, and yourself. and everyone will start smiling at you and a healthy circle starts developing.
- Laugh at peoples jokes no matter if they are bad or noe, just use any opportunity you got to either laugh or smile, and consciously keep laughing or smiling for as long as you can, push the limits
- Listen to podcasts, sound clips or video clips that you know will make you smile everyday. Play it over and over again, throughout the day
- Seek joyful places, hang around kids, kindergarten, preschool etc, and other places where you’ll find people smiling and laughing
- Play more, fail more, run around like a kid
- Laugh inside, and smile outside when seeing miserable, grumpy, ungrateful people
What you definitely should start with is to start observing yourself, your physical behavior and mental pattern. As I'm pointing out earlier and will continue to point out on all my following posts is that you can manipulate yourself. You can manipulate yourself to the better and to the worse. Your ego loves to level your happiness down, but you can keep raising the level of joy acting consciously. Take a 3rd perspective look on yourself. As a surveillance camera analyzing whats going on, this way you can catch yourself and change your behavior quite easily and efficiently. Start implementing smiling and laughing this way.
I've also got one challenge for you, I dare you (myself included) to smile to at least 3 strangers everyday starting now. I’d love to hear how it goes, I’d love to hear if you noticed any change, if it made you feel better or gain any new friends or strengthen your relationships with people at work etc.
I’m rarely being smiled at when walking on the street, if so solely by elder people. even when I smile at people, they dont smile back. Crazy, right.. But now, I'll be waiting for yours.
Help set the new standard, be the example the world needs.
Good luck!