Genghis Con

I don't know about you guys but when I studied history in high school there was very little mentioned about Genghis Khan. He conquered a large part of the world including part of Europe temporarily, but he was a Barbarian and uncivilized and worthy only of contempt. This is the impression I got, and his mention was little more than a footnote in the history book. Well, imagine my surprise when I picked up Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford and found that this impression was grossly prejudiced, incomplete, and inaccurate.

First, let me just list off a few of his accomplishments:

1. In 25 years the Mongol army conquered more lands and people than the Romans did on 400 years.
2. If measured by the number of people defeated, or the countries annexed, or the total area occupied, Genghis Khan conquered more than twice as much as any other man in history.
3. At its peak the empire covered between 11 and 12 million contiguous square miles. This is about the size of the African continent, and considerably larger than North America. Larger than Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America and the islands of the Caribbean put together.
4. The majority of people today live in countries conquered by the Mongols. On today's maps that covers 30 countries and 3 billion people.
5. The entire Mongol tribe that accomplished the above was only about one million people, and out of that 100,000 were warriors. A number that could fit into some of our modern sports stadiums.
6. He organized the towns along the Silk Route into history's largest free trade zone.
7. He lowered taxes for everyone, and got rid of taxes totally for doctors, priests, teachers, and educational establishments.
8. He started the first International Postal system, and established a census.
9. He established a system of International Law. He believed in Rule of Law, and that rulers should be judged by the same law as herders.
10. He granted religious freedom in all his conquered lands, demanding only loyalty regardless of religion.
11. He abolished torture, but sought out raiding bandits and terrorists and killed them.
12. He started the novel practice of granting diplomatic immunity to ambassadors including from hostile nations.
13. Genghis Khan redrew national boundaries across the world after he conquered, apparently dissatisfied with the large number of little kingdoms. In Eastern Europe, a dozen smaller Slavic principalities into one Russian state. During three generations of Mongol rule, they united remainders of the Sung Dynasty, parts of Manchuria, Tibet, lands next to the Gobi, and eastern regions of Turkestan in to the country of China. They also created the countries of India and Korea.
14. Before the rise of Genghis Khan, countries and kingdoms lived in relative isolation knowing only the neighboring kingdom. In the Genghis Khan empire commercial and diplomatic communication was established throughout his conquered lines. For example, trade routes between Europe and China. Many of the channels established then still exist today.
15. Wherever he conquered he smashed the feudal system of aristocratic privilege and birth and replaced it with a unique system of based on individual merit, achievement, and loyalty.

Not quite what you would expect from a total Barbarian. On the contrary, it looks more like many of the civilizing influences we hold dear today may have originated with Genghis Khan's efforts.

But there is much more intrigue and fascinating history surrounding this man. Why was he so maligned in the West. Why was his personal history only known in a secret document only recently found and decoded. Why did the Soviet Union set up a military guard around his original homeland, and make it off limits?

More to come.

Sin … Sin … Sin …Gularity

Say what, you say? What is a singularity? Well, it can mean different things in different contexts, but basically it is the idea of some measurable quantity approaching a limit, like infinity, where in the extreme there can be no understandable value. Let's take a real example.



Here we see CPU processor speed graphed against time. This is an example of an exponential graph, where the speed keeps accelerating, not just going up, but at an ever increasing rate. If the speed kept increasing at the same rate as shown on the graph, in another 10-20 years it would reach a point where it was undefinable, and beyond anything we might know or could explain currently. You might say in the limiting case the CPU speed would be such that it would take 0 time for a calculation. But what does instantaneous calculation really mean?

Next we see a graph which is increasing more and more rapidly also. But this one looks like it is going up at approximately the same rate. That is because the vertical scale is what is called a logarithmic scale. On the left-hand vertical scale each gradation upwards represents 10 times the previous value. So you can see that the number transistors per chip has indeed been going up more and more rapidly.



The rest of the graphs will all have logarithmic scales. So you can see the trend here. Many many areas of technology are increasing in power not just on a steady basis but exponentially. The increase is increasing.



It is the contention of Ray Kurzweil in his book The Singularity is Near that our advances in technology is reaching a singularity point. More specifically that our technologies in certain areas are advancing so quickly that in the not distant future they will advance beyond any conception of what we might even conceive of at this point. That Humanity will reach a totally undefined, unfathomable level. But lets take the areas one at a time.

He breaks these major areas of advance down into three categories: Genetics, Nanotechnology, and Robotics, alias Artificial Intelligence (AI). Part of this process, he believes, is that man will transcend his current biological limitations and become a part biological, part computer machine individual.

Genetics is the first to come to fruition. Through DNA manipulation and various technologies now being worked on Kurzweil feels that all human disease and maladies will be handled. Any tissues and organs in the body can be replaced, and new ones grown, either in the body or in the lab. He even feels that the body could be improved upon and re-designed for more efficiency. Everyone could have a new body basically with replaced body parts and cured of all diseases. Kurzweil projects that these advances will come to fruition in the next 10 to 15 years.



Next comes Nanotechnology. Now it starts to get really wild. Nanotechnology deals with building and using little molecule sized machines to perform tasks at the molecular or atomic size level. These little machines or robots, called nanobots, can be programmed to do jobs we can't easily accomplish. They can also communicate with each other and network, and communicate with a central computer. In mass numbers they can do incredible feats at incredible speeds. There is a huge amount research and current applications already developed in the Nanotechnology field and it is advancing incredibly quickly. Some of the proposed uses for humans is to replace the bacteria in the intestinal tract with nanobots who can decide what nutrients are needed by the body and pass all the other 'food' out. This would allow individuals to eat any thing they wanted and as much as they wanted and only get healthy benefits from it. Another idea is to replace the red blood cells with nanobots. It is calculated that delivering oxygen and the other functions of these cells could be done enormously more efficiently. Basically, there are plans to re-engineer many of the organs in the body, and indeed the whole body to be much much more efficient and durable. A bit like Superman, only for real. This technology is projected to be available by 2030.



And then there is robotics, or more importantly Artificial Intelligence. People in this field honestly believe that they can reverse engineer the human brain. There are projects going on now. They also believe that they can come up with computer programs that are as intelligent as any human, and are indistinguishable. There is a thing called a Turing Test, developed by Alan Turing, an early pioneer of computer theory, which postulates that a computer is as intelligent as a human if you can have a conversation with it, separated by walls, and you can't tell the difference between the computer and a person. You would be able to asked and answer questions, joke, do whatever you would with a human. Well, people in AI are convinced the time will come. They think its just a matter of having enough computing power, and memory. Just think of a computer program that you could discuss philosophy with, tells jokes, talk of ethics, etc., yet it could calculate thousands of times faster than you and had access to all the knowledge accumulated by humans and computers. Such a computer could then come up with plans to re-design itself. It could even control machinery and reproduce itself. This has been the subject of Science Fiction in the past, but this time its for real.



Now think of the possibilities of putting some of this computing power to use on a personal basis. It is proposed that we have computers linked to our brains, as implants, so that we can access much much more data and at lightning speeds. Instead of having to go to the Internet (or library) and research a topic, you could just instantly access the data through your implant. The whole area of human-machine fusion is being actively explored. Again, cyborgs used to be just in the domain of science fiction and comic books, but this is for real. Kurzweil thinks, from his calculations, that the age of man-machine intelligence, and advanced AI will fully arrive before 2040.



So where does this all lead? Well that is the big question. Thats where the singularity comes in. Technology, humankind, and the world as we know it is all changing at such a rapid pace that by the year 2040 we will all be in totally undefined territory.

Here is wishing you a bright new future!

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See Kurzweil's website: http://www.kurzweilai.net/

Head Room

The bathroom is known by many names. The lavatory, powder room, restroom, toilet, head, washroom, john, and in England the water closet, loo, or WC. Also the johnny, latrine, pot, potty, sandbox, throne, poo parlor, can, outhouse, privy, commode, crapper, stool, and the piddly diddly department. But I also think of it as The Library. This is because of the many books I read there, including the New Testament (no aspersions on religion intended). It is a great place to read short passages from your current favorite tome. Along these lines I have just finished a delightful little book for poo parlor consumption called The Low Brow Guide to World History by Micahel Powell.

Now I grant that this book might not be for everyone. It is admittedly presents smatterings of the shadier side of history. But who can resist such attention getting chapter titles as Tutankhamen, the King of Bling, or Alexander the Not So Great, or What Was So Terrible About Ivan. But true the 'Low Brow' part of the title there are Chapters such as A Brief History of Defecation, and How Many Balls did Hitler Have?, and Which of Henry VIII's Wives Was the Most Beddable?.

But despite the the otherwise lowly demeanor one might find some of the content quite informative. I am sure you have all wondered about Ugly People Throughout the Ages, The Opium Wars: How Great Britain Created a Nation of Junkies and Stole Hong Kong from the Chinese, or Great Moments in the History of Food.

At any rate, I think that anyone whose brow is inexorably stuck in the 'high' position might find this book amusing. Enjoy.