Mind Games @ Kioloa 2008 - Problem Set
From COSNet
| Mind Games at Kioloa 2008 |
Instructions
- The problems are intended to be fluid, please add/subtract/modify as you see fit
- Please indicate your interest in joining a problem team by adding your name beneath each problem (NB: you can join more than one)
Contents |
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Ocean acidification
Description
- The oceans are shifting to a new more acidic regime
- Will the new regime be stable or will it shift further to a more stable more acidic regime
- How will marine ecosystems change?
- How will it affect terrestrial ecosystems?
- How will it affect the Earth system?
- What can be done to manage, mitigate or reverse the change?
Members
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Megacities
Description
- The world passed a milestone this year – more than 50% of the population is now urban
- Some cities are now approaching 50 m people
- What will cities of 100 m look like?
- What are the social, economic, biological and physical dimensions?
- What are the complexity dimensions?
- What emerges?
Members
[edit]
The drug problem
Description
- How do the sociology and pharmacology of drugs interact?
- Can we predict when new drug problems might emerge?
- Where do we best put our resources in managing the drug problem – interdiction,
- therapy, policing, hospitals?
- Why are drugs a big problem now?
- Are illegal drugs a necessary part of modern society?
Members
| Mind Games at Kioloa 2008 |
[edit]
Transgenic humanoids
Description
- Transgenic pigs are here already – pigs with human genes
- Humans with pig genes are not far away, and are only a start
- Will we build aggressive super soldiers, or will North Korea do it first – strong, high pain
- threshold, high tolerance for performance-enhancing drugs?
- Will we build dull docile strong humanoids for dangerous jobs?
- Ethics aside, how do we integrate such creatures into society?
- If they are easier to build than cyborgs, will we do it even if it takes longer?
- Will we also build humanoid cyborgs?
Members
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The new energy system
Description
- We are moving from a high carbon to a low carbon global energy system
- What might it look like?
- What are the alternative paths?
- What are the stability and network properties?
- Can we do it better this time?
- Have we explored the adjacent possibilities as well as we could?
Members
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Beyond emissions reductions
Description
- What if carbon trading doesn’t work, in the sense of reducing emissions sufficiently to make a difference to global warming?
- Do we have a Plan B?
- Should we be working on multiple plans in parallel?
- What might other ways of handling global warming look like?
- Are heroic geo-engineering projects feasible?
- How does it all link together with the earth system?
Members
Working group page
Beyond emissions reductions - Working group page - Mind Games At Kioloa 2008
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Global terrorism
Description
- What is the complex systems nature of global terrorism?
- Can it be defeated by a complex systems approach?
- Or can it only be coped with?
Members
- Alex Ryan
- Simon Angus
- Frederic Bonnet
- Jen Badham
- Armita Zarnegar
- Kate Simms
- Behrooz Hassani-M
- Asef Nazari
| Mind Games at Kioloa 2008 |
[edit]
The internet of the world
Go to working page (coming soon) [1]
Description
- The internet is transiting to the internet of things – where more sorts of objects are intelligently interconnected
- What will the internet look like when, effectively, everything is connected – humans, their stuff, the ecosystem, the physical world?
- What will emerge?
- What opportunities or threats will there be?
Members
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The global financial meltdown
At the risk of proposing a topic where events will outstrip our time horizon, I'd be interested in taking a complex systems look at what is going on in the global financial system today.
Description
- Are there aspects of what was going on in the lead up to the current crisis that could have been more readily identified as a problem had policy-makers looked at the world from a CSS perspective?
- Do we have anything to say about the appropriate balance between market failure risk and government failure risk as the pendulum shifts back towards a more pro-regulatory stance? Perhaps along the lines of government evolving at a slow evolutionary pace (or punctuated equilibria?) and private sector adapting very quickly?
- How should policy makers consider risk from the interaction of behaviours/decisions when it isn't linearly related to the individual effects of those behaviours/decisions?
Members
