A DEBATE CLUB FOR THE GALACTIC AGE

YE OLDE FUTURIST UNION

2018 Winter/Spring Lab Project in Los Angeles

This lively and outlandish Oxford style debate — is filled with experts, and novices, and some people who dressed like they were from the future. We gathered in AltSpaceVR and in Angel City Brewery (LA) to take on the biggest ideas of our times in a balanced way. 

We debated about everything from Mind Control to Universal Basic Income.

PAST EVENTS

Resolved: CRISPR DESIGNER BABIES LIVE

Sunday October 29th, 8-10pm – Angel City Brewery

(Episode 05) For the final YOFU debate series we are pulling out the most controversial, legendary and bizarre futuristic topic: CRIPSR.

Picture CRISPR-Cas9 as like a “find and replace” search in a computer document, only instead of words, you’re editing genetic sequences. Whether you are wiping out an entire mosquito population, personalizing your cancer treatment, mixing species, or repairing a human genetic mutation for a designer baby the question at hand is: is it OK to start editing DNA?

Look for us at Angel City Brewery (back bar) for the final showdown. Doors open at 7:30, debate starts sharply at 8pm! Come down, drink beer, blow your mind, and after all the information is out on the table we invite you to slam down your cup and vote.

#CRISPR #GENEEDITING #DESIGNERBABIES

Resolved: Mind Control is Good for You

(Episode 04 – Los Angeles) Social media and our dependance on apps designed to manipulate us has become a common element in our daily lives. They deliberately influence us by manipulating our biochemistry through dopamine and other triggers. As these platforms are increasingly driven by AI, they will only get better and smarter at it. Is this evolution harmful or beneficial? Do we need “persuasive reality” to save us from ourselves?  

1st Speaker in the Affirmative Ramsay Brown @RAB1138 Founder and COO @ Dopamine Labs and Founding Advisor at the Juris Project.
1st Speaker in the Negative: Kasey McMahon, frontier technology artist and social app designer, will kick off the counter argument for this fascinating debate at the center of social media, brain hacking and AI today.

Resolved: Universal Basic Income (UBI) is the Solution to Automation FAILED

(Episode 03 – Los Angeles) Robots and intelligent machines are set to threaten 800 million jobs in 15 years as we approach the 2nd machine age.  Is universal basic income (UBI) the magic bullet?  Is UBI realistic?

1st Speaker in the Affirmative: Larry Cohen@larrycohen is founder of the National UBI Advocacy Organization Build the Floor. He also is a founding member of the Economic Security Project, and runs the Los Angeles Basic Income Meetup Group. Larry on Medium

1st Speaker in the Negative: Bret Lehne@WolfgangTowns

Resolved: We Need Virtual Reality to Recreate Reality. – FAILED

(Episode 02 – Los Angeles) Reality is breaking down for many people (planet & animals too) and it is essential to rely on virtuality to prototype potential futures and create a new world based on hyper collaboration. The “reality” we have today is much too flat to hold our creative power. Join us as Evo Heyning unpacks the future of virtual reality in this month’s YOFU debate.

This will be a mixed reality event (360 live in AltSpace and back out to Angel City)!

Evo is @amoration on Medium and Twitter
Featuring 1st Speaker in the Negative: Steven Schkolne from Vainmedia @schkolne on Medium and Twitter.
Other Docket Speakers include Cosmo Scharf  @cosmoscharf, August Bradley Cenname @augustbradley and Zenka @hellozenka. Get on the Docket.
AltSpaceVR Live 360 Moderator Erika Barazza@SV_SocEnt

Event Sponsored by Angel City Brewery, Zenka and Mind & Machine Live 360 VR in AltSpaceVR by Hot Bit VR.

Resolved: Resolved: A One World Crypto Currency is the Way Forward

Sunday Nov 27th, 3-6pm – Angel City Brewery

“The rise of sharing economies with reputation models, digital contracts and cryptocurrencies makes the role of central governments useless.”

Despite the fact that China and other countries starting to ban ICO (Initial Coin Offerings) and looking to prove how tax evasion, illicit markets and volatility could cause more damage than good, our 1st Speaker in the Affirmative believes that decentralized cryptocurrencies are the foundation of an anarchist model of a future we won’t regret.

File under: Blockchain, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Crypto, Decentralized Currency, Digital Currency.

Resolved: We Welcome our New Robot Overlords

Sunday October 29th, 3-6pm – Angel City Brewery

Kent Brockman reports: “One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the robots will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new robot overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.” An Empire of the Robots is coming, and H.G. Wells’ fantastical vision of the future may become reality unless Elon Musk has his way.

In its inaugural debate, Ye Olde Futurist Union will confront the growing fear of artificial intelligence with AI and robotics expert Sabri Sansoy.

File under: robots, artificial intelligence, universal basic income, self driving cars, singularity, HAL, automation, Watson, chatbots…

1st Speaker in the Affirmative Sabri Sansoy – CEO & Roboticist @ Orchanic LLC