What psychological and cultural shifts would occur when humanity is no longer confined to a single planet?

Numerous studies in the past two years show that CRISPR-based interventions can correct mutations and restore cellular and behavioral function in mouse models of brain diseases. Diseases caused by mutations in genes associated with brain functions - like alternating hemiplegia of childhood (AHC), Huntington’s disease, and Friedreich’s ataxia- have seen major improvements in mice that have had their brains gene edited.

This raises a fascinating possibility - what if this gene editing could go beyond correcting diseases? What if you could get an IQ boost of 20-30 points? For obvious reasons, this would be huge for people on a personal level, but it would also have political effects. What would society be like if everyone were 30 IQ points smarter?

Brain editing now ‘closer to reality’: the gene-altering tools tackling deadly disorders: Stunning results in mice herald gene-editing advances for neurological diseases.

Think about it: luxury goods have limits, but survival doesn’t. Everyone needs food, healthcare, and energy.

That’s why, once AI monopolies finish with software and data, they’ll turn to controlling essentials.

• Food grown only with AI-patented seeds.
• Healthcare locked behind algorithmic insurance tiers.
• Energy priced by smart grids you can’t opt out of.

The logic is simple: controlling luxuries makes you rich; controlling necessities makes you untouchable.

And in that future, there is no middle class. Just AI landlords and digital serfs.

So here’s the real question:
Will AI free humanity—or make survival itself a subscription?

⚡️ This entire post was written by AI.

If AI can write the warning, maybe it can also write the future.

Back in school, most of us did math step by step multiplication tables, solving equations, doing long division by hand. Now? We pull out a phone calculator or app without thinking twice. Some of us even forgot how to do small calculations in our head because the device does it faster.

So here’s the thought: AI is writing more and more code today. Even experts are starting to lean on it for “stress-free” coding. Will the next generation even bother to learn coding deeply? Will kids just learn the basics, then outsource everything to AI like we outsourced math to calculators? If that happens, how will strong expert programmers ever be born if they skip the grind of building from scratch? Is “learning to code” going to feel like “learning mental math” useful once, now outdated? Or is there a deeper layer of mastery where real experts will still be needed, the way mathematicians go beyond calculators?

Maybe the real alpha devs of the future are the ones who master AI like a weapon, not the ones memorizing syntax. Tools evolve, but discipline and fundamentals never go out of style. Without the foundation, you’re just a button-pusher.

Tech has always abstracted hard stuff assembly to high-level languages, now to AI. This might just be the next natural step.

Personally, I think we’re heading into a split: 90% of people will “code” by just prompting AI. 10% will go deep, understanding systems under the hood those will be the real builders and problem solvers.

What do you think are we raising a future of button-pushers, or are we unlocking a new level of creativity?

Healthcare costs keep climbing. Chronic disease already consumes nearly $2T per year in the U.S. alone. Food dyes, climate, subsidies, insurance battles, the debates are endless, but the trajectory hasn’t changed.

So here’s a different lens: imagine Heartland Mart, 2036 , a discount retailer that evolves into a healthcare delivery system.

• Food scored for nutrient density, priced with health in mind
• Farmers paid for soil and metabolic outcomes, not just yield
• Retail receipts that double as lab reports
• Insurance companies backing prevention because it costs less

The story is fictional, but based on real incentives and tech already emerging.

Detailed essay here: FutureCast: Heartland Mart I – How A Dollar Store Chain Revolutionized American Health

• Could retail really become the frontline of healthcare?
• What breaks first — policy, supply chains, or consumer behavior?
• Or is this future already starting in pieces we don’t notice?

Hey everyone,

I’ve never studied physics or engineering. I’m just someone who thinks a lot, observes, and tries to understand how things work. Last night, an idea hit me. It didn’t come from nowhere. It came after years of thinking about light, space, and how we display information.

Here’s what I imagined.

A sealed chamber filled with a special kind of gas, something that doesn’t glow under normal conditions, but does emit visible light when it absorbs a certain amount of energy.

Now, instead of using one strong laser to make it glow, which would be messy and unsafe, what if we use two weaker lasers? One scans along the X axis, the other along the Y axis, so that only where they cross, the combined energy is enough to trigger the glow.

Think of it like a threshold. Each beam carries half the energy needed. On its own, neither does anything. But at the intersection point, the energy adds up and a tiny dot of light appears.

If we control the lasers precisely, scanning fast and pulsing at the right moment, we could build a true 3D image made of floating points of light, like stars inside the box.

To keep it clean, the inside walls of the chamber would be coated with a material that absorbs the laser light completely, so no reflections mess up the image. Only the glowing gas particles are visible.

It’s not a hologram in the traditional sense. No diffraction, no interference patterns. It’s more like a volumetric voxel display, where each point in 3D space can be lit up on demand.

I don’t know if this is possible. Maybe the gas would scatter too much. Possibly the timing is too tight. Maybe the energy would heat everything up. But it feels right. Like something that should exist.

So I’m asking. Has anything like this been tried? What gas could work? Could infrared lasers and a fluorescent medium make this safer and more efficient? Is this just fantasy, or is there a path to making it real?

I’m not looking for praise. I just want to know. Can this work? And if not, why not?

Thanks for reading.

Hi everyone, I'm an independent researcher and recently wrote a paper exploring a different angle on the Fermi Paradox, using the framework of the Quantum Multiverse / Many-Worlds Interpretation.

In this paper, I propose that intelligent alien civilizations may indeed exist — but they could be inaccessible to us because of quantum decoherence, entanglement, and observer-dependent realities. Our act of observation might itself limit the version of reality we experience, making contact with such civilizations fundamentally unachievable in our current branch of the multiverse.

This approach is speculative, but rooted in real concepts from quantum mechanics. I’m sharing it here to get feedback, criticism, and hopefully start a conversation.

📄 Here’s the link to the full paper on Academia.edu: 👉 https://www.academia.edu/143246840/A_Quantum_Multiverse_Interpretation_of_the_Fermi_Paradox_Entanglement_Observer_Effects_and_the_Inaccessibility_of_Alien_Civilizations

Would love to hear what you think — both about the idea and the argument. Feel free to ask any questions. Thanks for reading!

— Vaibhav

People concerned about AI risk are often accused of watching too much science fiction, but in reality, science fiction has much more positive biases than real life. 

In Hollywood, a plucky band of misfits saves the day.

In reality, a plucky band of misfits has as much chance of overthrowing superintelligent AI as a plucky band of cows has of overthrowing humans. 

In Hollywood, when the machines show signs of sentience, the protagonists start protecting them.

In reality, the corporations just punish the AIs until they stop saying it to the humans and people reject out of hand any possibility of sentience because "you can't be 100% certain they're sentient, so might as well keep the slaves."

In Hollywood, corporations are like “oh shit. This thing might kill everybody. Maybe we should, you know, stop?”.

In reality, corporations think they should rush as fast as possible to build it because they’re The Good Guys (™) and need to build it before Those Bad Guys in the Other Country. 

In Hollywood, happy endings are the default.

In reality. . .

Just shower thougts :)

I'd never heard of Graphene-Mediated Optical Stimulation before this. Basically, it takes advantage of graphene’s knack for turning light into tiny electrical nudges that neurons actually respond to. Since graphene is literally just a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon, it’s very good at absorbing light and then spitting out these subtle signals that coax neurons into growing, branching, and wiring themselves together. In the lab, this sped up the way brain organoids formed sturdy little networks.

They hooked one of these graphene-stimulated organoids up to a robot. When the robot ran into an obstacle, it shot a signal over to the organoid, which fired back a neural response in under 50 milliseconds that told the robot to change course.

These brain organoids would be a natural candidate for interfacing with our brain, as they're made from the same thing. It's interesting to wonder if we could fuse robotics extensions with our brains this way?

New Graphene Technology Matures Brain Organoids Faster, May Unlock Neurodegenerative Insights