Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body … so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain …
-Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

If you follow my blog you’ll notice that I have moved from twitter skeptic to enthusiast.  And recently I have been struggling to explain why I think twitter is a bigger evolution in human communication than facebook, myspace, or anything else in social media.

“Why should I care that someone is getting up or going to the bathroom?”, they ask, just I originally did. And, quite frankly, you shouldn’t, just as I don’t.  But I think something bigger is happening on Twitter:

Twitter is a human/machine information revolution because Tweets are memes.

By memes, I mean fundamental units of discrete information that can be rapidly evolved, shared and aggregated.

I find myself forced into information compression with Twitter.  Heck, I can even sum-up most of my blog posts with a Tweet and the overall point wouldn’t be lost on the audience just as a Haiku can convey the same point in a fraction of the words of a short story.  For instance, this blog entry in 140 characters:

Twitter= info revolution b/c tweets=MEMES: shared, evolved, aggregated like genes. Bigger/different than MySpace, Facebook..

Actually this is only 124 characters, leaving me 16 characters to spare for a URL link created by is.gd.

When I ask people whether they are on Twitter I typically hear something like the following:

• “I’m not on Twitter but I’ve heard of it and don’t really get it.  What is it?”
• “How is Twitter different from blogging/delicio.us?”

Twitter is a microblog, a quick thought, a digestible blurb that is easy to type and easy to absorb by people who are constantly context-switching.  Of course it isn’t a substitute for a blog post, a novel, a movie or a poem – and I still enjoy all of these.

Tweets represent the fundamental units of human thoughts, and as our tools get better and better for aggregating them and using them practically I predict that everyone will be touched by Twitter one way or another.

Don’t believe me?  Check out what practical things you can already do with these memes.

But this blog post is theoretical and it doesn’t explain why I invest my time and energy into building relationships on Twitter.  I do think Twitter has a very practical purpose and I’ll explain it on my next blog post.

This is the second of three essays about my opinions on investing for individual investors.  In Part 1 I explained why I don’t try to predict the near future and why bad predictions can lead to disastrous financial result.

It’s no accident that there’s a snapshot of Fannie Mae headquarters alongside the family photographs on the memento shelf in my office.  It warms my heart to think of the place.  The stock has been so great they ought to retire the symbol.
-Peter Lynch, Beating the Street

I can be as wrong as the next guy.
-Peter Lynch, September 2008, when asked why he held Fannie Mae stock in his own portfolio to the bitter end.

The point of this essay:  I ignore all predictions about money from ANYONE. 

I don’t care if you’re Warren Buffet, the blithering idiot on TV, some random dude in my Twitter feed, or a famous hedge fund manager. You might be able to predict where a particular stock or the market is going, but I have no way of telling if you are right or wrong so it is just easier to tune you out completely.

I’ll summarize what is explained elsewhere more eloquently in books like Fooled by Randomness:

In any large pool of investors, mere chance will result in some of them greatly outperforming the average.  Unfortunately we have no means to determine whether or not these results actually indicate whether someone is lucky or good, so putting faith (or money) in their ability to continue this winning performance can lead to disaster if they have just been lucky and return to statistically average results.

We’ve been lucky. Well, maybe it’s not 100% luck—maybe 95% luck.
-Bill Miller, on his streak of beating the S&P 500 for 15 consecutive years.

“Countrywide’s long term business value… we think is in the $40’s compared to its current price of about $14-15.”
-Bill Miller, 2 months before Bank of America bought the company for $5.5/share.

Even if you can predict the future with some degree of reliability, I sure don’t want to take your advice on one of the occasions when you happen to be wrong.

Just as an experiment, spend a day analyzing how many times people make predictions about the future movement of stocks:

“This is going to be worse than 1929″
“They are too big to fail”
“Economists predict that….” (Put anything here.  They get it wrong constantly)
“The Paulson Plan will make money for taxpayers” (You want to take the future of our country on faith?)

The constant noise of the financial media does more than cause you sleepless nights or overconfidence.  Following the herd mentality will inevitably lead you to sell during panics and buy during boom periods – a recipe for lousy returns.

As I write this in October 2008, everyone around me seems to be “moving their money into something safer” until things stabilize.  I even hear “pundits” providing this advice on TV.  Countless studies show that this strategy is extremely risky since missing even a few good days in the market can drag your returns below inflation.

Nobody knows nothin’
-Marc Andreessen, in a speech I heard a few years ago.

Amen, Marc, amen.

I ignore predictions by me and everyone else in the world.  So making investment decisions must be agonizing, right?

On the contrary, this intellectual foundation makes investing so easy that it becomes boring.  I’ll discuss why in part 3.

Follow Kevin on Twitter.

I don’t usually blog amount myself, but I recently updated my LinkedIn profile and have been bombarded by inquiries and well-wishes from friends and co-workers.  Thanks everyone, it really helps.  For those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter, here is what I’m up to…

In-Q-Tel

In July I left In-Q-Tel, the strategic investing arm of the CIA and US Intelligence Community.  It was a happy parting and one of my best career experiences.  In-Q-Tel is a national treasure and I would recommend it to anyone, both as an employer and a source of innovation solutions for the US government.  A highlight was working with the Intellipedia team  (If you meet Steve, Sean, or Don at a social media event, be sure to thank them for their dedication).

But after 3 years of the investing side … time for another start-up.

ManyWheels, Inc. – Look out, world!

Through a rather unique set of circumstances I began exploring challenges in the automobile transportation space.  Ever drive past a half-empty truck hauling cars and wonder why the truck isn’t full?  Every wonder why getting a car shipped is a harrowing experience for most people?  Me too.

After due diligence with a large company in this space I applied to the National Science Foundation for a grant to develop technology to improve automotive transport efficiency.  More on this in a few weeks.

For the past few months I’ve been trying to follow the advice I give to entrepreneurs:  focus on the market.  We’ve been vetting the opportunity with prospective customers and partners for the past few months, doing dozens of site visits, interviews, etc.  We now understand the major problems, have a vision for the solution, and just last week incorporated ManyWheels.

The Motley Fool

I also returned to the Motley Fool this Summer to do some consulting on a couple of fun projects.  It felt like homecoming, seeing many great friends that I missed.  The company has done an incredible job keeping its culture intact while becoming a world-class business.  I have no doubt it will become a premiere institution in the DC area.

(shameless recruiting plug:  The Fool is an awesome place to work!)

So there you have it, my work life.  In the last few months I’ve been working in the financial services, automotive, and intelligence sectors and volunteering with the most aggressive biotechnology initiative in world history.

You’re probably wondering about the common thread of all of this.  Me too.

But in the meantime, I’m working like a maniac and having an absolute blast!

Follow Kevin on Twitter

In my previous post I mentioned that I’m now officially a member of the Twitter community.  Since then Twitter has become practically ubiquitous, a mainstream media and social networking channel.  Twitter is here to stay, at least as long as SMS is around and not supplanted by something more flexible.

Some quick advice for my fellow Twitterers:

1. Tweet less.  Seriously.  I am starting to unsubscribe from Twitter feeds for people who simply Twitter too much.  If I log into my Twitter home page and see your icon 5 times on the screen you are unfortunately a candidate for me to stop following.  And even if I don’t unsubscribe from your feed I’ll unconsciously tune-out your truly relevant points when the are drowned out in “…is eating breakfast” Tweets.  I’m guilty of this too sometimes…
2. Think of me when you Tweet.  I follow people on Twitter because I want to learn new things, keep track of the INTERESTING parts of my friends and colleagues daily lives, and laugh a little.  What do I really like?  Hearing where you are.  Links to interesting pieces.  Interesting blurbs and thoughts from conferences that I cannot attend.  Events in your life.  Requests for help.  I understand that people use Twitter for different reasons: some people just have fun with it and (almost obsessively) post social notes; others have very specific discussions with a small work group of people.  I understand why they use Twitter for these purposes…I just don’t want to follow it.
3. THINK ABOUT WHO WILL READ WHAT YOU WRITE.  I cannot believe how much people (even those my age) will mix the personal with professional on Twitter.  I have had co-workers post truly juvenile, obnoxious things on their Twitter feed.  I often read these Tweets while I’m sitting at work.  If you want to make comments about your social adventures, consider making a personal Twitter feed that is unconnected to your professional profile.  Not doing so really says volumes about your judgment.
4. Use Twitter Search (fka Summize) to track the RSS feed of responses to your tweets.  For instance, I have an RSS feed for “@kevindewalt”.  Thus I will catch replies to my tweets that I would otherwise miss.
5. Introduce me to new people on Twitter.  I’ve done this a few times quite successfully and I’m surprised that it isn’t a more popular practice.  Find a good feed?  Know of someone I should meet?  Feel free to drop a “@kevindewalt meet @MadamX.  You guys both…”

Hopefully I’m not giving folks the impression that I’m not excited about their Tweets.  Indeed, it makes a nice break in the daily routine to hear from bucchere, 8of12 and some of the other people I follow regularly.

But a little “consider the audience” goes a long way in Web 2.0 just as it has in the rest of human discourse.

If you read my last post on Podiobooks, you’ll know that I’m a fan of the new distribution medium for listening to books. It seems that I’m joining the chorus of people who want to be entertained constantly in day-to-day life. Whenever I engage in a mundane household task I try to catch up on my “reading”.

Scott Sigler pretty much created this space and continues to break new ground. His latest novel, Nocturnal, is once again both terrifying and addicting. His novel takes place in San Francisco and you can follow the plot online with Google Maps.

Yet another example of how the creation and consumption of content is changing so quickly.

Ok, I don’t advocate lots – or really any – violence. But I do enjoy science-fiction and thriller entertainment and have to pass along one of the coolest, little-known sites in the Web 2.0 world.

I’ve recently become addicted to PodioBooks, a site that – as it sounds – has podcasts of authors reading their books. The authors and podiobooks site distribute the content freely and ask for donations to support the author and site.

When I first heard about PodioBooks I expected to find piles of lame content written by authors who could never get a real publishing house to take them seriously. Instead, I found some amazing books that rival or exceed that which I’ve found in bookstores.

In retrospect, this shouldn’t have been surprising. The economics of the traditional publishing model force publishers to go with known authors rather than risk promoting and distributing someone new and unproven. And yet does anyone actually believe that a handful of authors like Koontz and King actually create the best of the best?

Indeed, the Internet continues to destroy the traditional content creation and distribution ecosystem. In its place, new models are emerging and newcomers are leveraging them to build a media audience. Which brings us to the following quote:

This podcast contains adult themes, situations, and Lots – AND LOTS – of Violence!

If you recognize this quote you must be a “junkie” of podiobooks icon Scott Sigler. Scott was one of the first authors to begin releasing his books as podcasts. The audience he developed through this medium ultimately propelled him to #1 on Amazon.com’s horror and sci-fi lists. I found his work to be as thrilling and entertaining as popular novelists like Michael Crichton.

But as good is Sigler is, he isn’t #1 on my list. After listening to 20+ podiobooks, here are my favorite authors:

#5 Timothy Callahan – If you like Star Trek, you’ll like Arwen, a similar space sci-fi drama. The creative story and action compensate for some rather flat characters.

#4 John Klawitter – I didn’t expect to like Devils but I’m glad I gave it a chance. It is a great story and Klawitter keeps the action rolling from start to finish even if the ending was a bit lame.

#3 J.C. Hutchins – If Sigler is King of podiobooks, Hutchins is certainly Prince. The 7th Son Series is a creative trilogy about a set of seven cloned human beings who struggle to save the world from their creators. A great story with constant twists and an unpredictable plot. “24″ fans should love it.

#2 Scott Sigler – The man who needs no introduction. Infection, Earthcore, and Ancestor are absolutely and totally addicting. After listening to the graphic (and absolutely disturbing) description of “Scary Perry” Dawsey tearing an alien organism from his flesh in Infection, I don’t think I’ll ever look at horror the same way. Sigler takes the best from Michael Crichton and the Texas Chainsaw massacre to create some masterpieces. And if you’ve ever imagined what pro football will look like in a few hundred years, you’ll want to listen to The Rookie.

and the winner is….drum roll please….

#1 Phil Rossi

Ok, maybe this contest is a bit unfair. After all, Cresent – his first podiobook – isn’t even finished at the time of this writing. But my-oh-my is Phil Rossi talented. Don’t get me wrong, Sigler and Hutchins are masters at their trade. But so far I haven’t seen anyone who leverages this new distribution medium like Phil Rossi.

Cresent is Blade Runner meets Stargate. Scratch that. Crescent is Crescent.

With flawed, multi-dimensional characters who seem to make bad choices at ever opportunity, Rossi weaves a space sci-fi horror that appears to be written for the podcast audience. I hear the creepy soundtrack in my head even when I’m not listening.

Rossi’s slow, deliberate voice adds to the dark undertone of the tale as the characters bumble about the cold, cruel reality of inter-galactic life on the space colony. At times I find myself pausing the podcast and taking a moment to visualize Rossi’s scenes. As much as I’d like to see Cresent on film, I doubt any Hollywood creation could top Rossi’s descriptions and my imagination.

I’m going to continue to follow Rossi’s career as a podiobook author. It should be interesting to watch this new distribution medium develop along with the career of its prodigies.

A lot of people are talking about Facebook and with good reason. The social networking site is getting traction with both business users and teenagers. When I recently asked a business colleague whether he was on LinkedIn, his reply was simple:

I don’t bother with LInkedIn because Facebook is the future.

I’m not on Facebook. I’ve been to the site a few times and I had to register before seeing anything. I’m sure this is an intentional feature and you can’t argue with success. I don’t explore it because I already spend too much time online and have a long list of other things I’m trying to finish.
If you do follow this space I would point you to a great post by Baris Karadogan on why Facebook may become a hugely valuable online property.

This argument reminds me of the principles in The Gorilla Game by Geoffrey Moore. He describes how Oracle, Microsoft, and Cisco became gorillas as a result of leveraging 3 key forces:

1. The development of open, proprietary standards. This clearly holds true in the case of Facebook as Baris points out.
2. High switching costs. This may or may not be true for Facebook users. Clearly this was a great benefit for AOL in its early days since nobody wanted to give up their email address. To date, the social networking crowd has been those fickle users in the 15-25 year-old category; clearly this is changing.
3. Marketplace economies of scale through choosing a single, dominant platform. Given the lower cost of developing online software applications today, I think it is debatable whether this force will apply to Facebook.

I’ve given up trying to predict the future in the online space – or just about anywhere in life – but it seems hard to believe that Facebook cannot reach market dominance without leveraging similar forces.

In any case, don’t be surprised if I write about my experience on Facebook in a future blog post.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=FJ88l5ql_FQ]

Dear Mr. Charles Darwin,

It has been nearly 150 years since you published The Origin of Species. What can I say, other than “Thank You”. In one brilliant, elegant book you lifted us from the intellectual darkness and created the theoretical foundation on which all modern biology is based.

You’ll be glad to know that your reputation has become better and better through the years. In fact compared to the other leading minds of your era – such as Marx and Freud – only your theories have stood the test of time and become reinforced through growing human knowledge.

Ok, now for the bad news. While the theories of evolution are uncontested within the mainstream scientific community, many people still don’t believe them. Regrettably, some will never believe in evolution despite the overwhelming evidence. As was the case in 1859, some people find your theories so disruptive that they cannot accept them.

I’d like to tell you that we’re only talking about a handful of ignorant zealots, but unfortunately some people running for political office in the United States openly dispute the theory that species evolve. Witness this video of Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, and Mike Huckabee – three candidates for the Presidency of the United States – who have gone on public record in this video regarding their beliefs.

I imagine this comes as quite a shock to you. Given the growing body of scientific knowledge supporting evolution I’m sure you never would have anticipated that educated people would still be debating this topic.

Thank you Stephen for passing this along and best of luck at Google…

One of my favorite essays by William Bernstein is called Too Much Capital. In it, Bernstein makes that argument that interest rates – or the “cost of capital” – have been steadily falling around the world for centuries. He attributes this phenomenon to a few sources:

• Lowering “friction” of borrowing money and comparing options. Obviously the Internet is the most recent example, driving down everything from the cost of stock transactions to mortgages.
• As people (and institutions) rise above subsistence level, they have the luxury of being more picky and waiting for better investment options.

If the second point appears a bit odd, consider Bernstein’s example:

How to understand it all? A simple paradigm is useful. Begin with a subsistence level society in which everyone is balanced on the knife-edge of starvation. By definition, there is no excess capital—every last bushel of wheat and barley and every last coin goes entirely towards the purchase of food and shelter. But even subsistence societies need capital for seed corn, tools, and housing. In such a world, the cost of capital is thus infinite—the first fortunate person with an excess shekel or drachma can name his interest rate. As the countryside becomes more productive, fabulous wealth rapidly accumulates in the hands of the fortunate few with money to spare.

What does this mean for us? Borrowing money is going to get much cheaper and earning money with money is going to get much harder. In other words, long-term stock returns may never hit 10% again, but our mortgages are likely to be much smaller than our parents would ever imagine.

If you’ve been reading my posts for some time, you’ll know I view everything through an optimistic lens. Bernstein summarizes the future quite well.

I, for one, do not despair our low-return world. Who in their right mind would trade the standard of living today, at almost any point on the map, for that of fifty or a hundred years ago? Who would prefer to deal with the horrors of the widespread rural poverty of 1900 or the specter of Hitler and Stalin in the 1940s than with jihadi terrorism or identity theft? The price we pay for this sanguine state of affairs is derisory expected returns. An agreeable piper indeed, and one well worth paying.

Consider low, long-term returns with the inevitable increase in human life expectancy. Those of you in (or contemplating) retirement may live years or decades longer than you expect. At the same time, your returns from your life savings will be lower. The net result is that you’ll probably run out of money while you’re still alive or be forced to re-join the labor market in one fashion or another.

Before you despair on this point, ask yourself whether you’d rather be rich and dead or (relatively) poor and alive? “An agreeable piper indeed.”

If you are interested in supporting US federal funding for stem cell research, you can send an email message to your elected representatives in about a minute through the Coalition for Advancement of Medical Research web site.

I suscribe to their email newsletters and send a message to my Senators and Congressmen whenever a key vote surfaces. Trust me, it makes a difference when they hear from their constituents.

While at a conference in San Francisco a few weeks ago I stumbled upon the following story in the local papers:

Stark’s atheist views break political taboo

I’m surprised this story didn’t get more coverage in the mainstream media. After all, the event is culturally significant – Pete Stark is the first Congressman to publicly admit he doesn’t believe in a Supreme Being.

I don’t make my personal beliefs public because…well…they’re personal. I will say that I don’t enjoy living in a world that is divided by religious fundamentalism and in a society which tolerates little debate on the subjects. Like most rational people, I believe we need a division of church and state to protect both state and church.

Studies suggest that about 10% of the American population considers itself “non-believers”. So far, only 1 out of 535 members of Congress has admitted to “non-belief”, or about .2%.

If anyone has a good reason why members of Congress should not reflect a cross-section of society, I’d love to hear it. Otherwise I think it is fair to say that members are not public (or honest) about their personal beliefs because they fear the political consequences.

Regardless of your personal beliefs, I think we can call agree that dishonesty isn’t something we want or need in a Democracy. We have little chance of uniting the world and overcoming the divisiveness of religious differences if our elected officials won’t (or can’t) engage in an honest, open dialog with their constituents.

Bravo, Mr. Stark.

Who wants to live to 94? Easy. A person who is 93.

As long as I can continue to live an enriching life – which is mainly a self-defined scenario – I have no doubt that I will never be ready to die. If you have any doubt about how you will view the world at 93, I suggest you check out this beautiful blog post by Donald Crowdis – a 93-year-old blogger.

Don, you are a hero and an inspiration to us all.

I’ve been practicing Calorie Restriction for about 4 years. If you’re not familiar with the concept, it is an attempt to slow the aging process by eating fewer calories but optimizing the nutrient levels of those you do eat.

Over the past year or so there have been a number of articles in the mainstream press about CR and I’m amazed at how much the purported experiences with the diet differ from my own. I suppose much of the confusion results from our society’s need for instant-gratification. Emily Yoffe’s My Starvation Diet from Slate is a perfect example. I’ll spare you the trouble of reading it with this summary: without apparently learning a lot about it, she suddenly tried CR for 2 months and gave up when she found herself too hungry and not feeling better.

There is a wealth of science and debate on the topic of CR. I’m not going to attempt to rehash the issues but instead provide some context based on my own experience.

For me, CR is a journey and not a destination, a part of puzzle in a personal commitment to longevity and the pursuit of an enriching life. The key for my long-term commitment to CR has been to practice it in such a manner that I can still enjoy occasional treats, play sports, and have a career and healthy relationships. This balancing act is different for everyone, and unfortunately articles like Yoffe’s suggest that we have two choices

* Continue to eat like the average blissfully-ignorant American and accept the consequences.
* Suddenly and permanently committing to eating 1500 calories/day in the pursuit of a longer life of starvation and misery.

FWIW, I think that suddenly picking arbitrary calorie targets and attempting to stick with them is an exercise doomed to failure. 1500 calories/day would not be enough for me, although based on this article some people will assume this is the magical number they would need to target for a Calorie Restriction diet.

I don’t track the number of calories I eat. I found the whole exercise of counting calories to be boring and unproductive. Most people who do target a specific calorie range usually eat the same thing for every meal. My career doesn’t allow this and I enjoy the social aspects of dining with my loved ones.

Instead I simply target a weight that keeps my BMI around 20 (which is about 10 pounds less than my college weight) and eat the healthiest foods I can find, including a large bucket of salad at least once per day. Some people call this approach “Mild CR”. I have dropped by BMI below 20 and found that I had a difficult time playing sports, I felt constantly cold, and I looked pretty scary. So 20 it is.

Hunger isn’t much of a problem. If I get too hungry I eat something. Being constantly cold is actually more of an annoyance and is the most frustrating part of the diet. At the same time I found that my digestion is much, much better and I need less sleep but still feel energetic. So there are pros and cons.
Fortunately, the emerging studies and common sense suggest that mild CR + exercise might be as beneficial as more severe CR. So I continue to exercise regularly as well.

Before you suddenly adopt a new starvation diet, take the time to do a bit of research. Phil Graves’ article is a great start, particularly the summary:

“The successful voluntary practice of CR in humans is

1) the life-long focused commitment
2) to gain knowledge, self-control, and motivation
3) to reduce calories consumed,
4) while maintaining adequate nutrition,
5) under active monitoring of current state of health,
6) with the hope of living better,
7) and the hope of living longer.

That’s really it in a nutshell.”

25% of people in developed countries die of cancer. One in 200 people are diagnosed with cancer every year. Almost everyone knows someone who has been afflicted with this horrible disease.

Cancer is terrifying because it seems to erupt like a bombshell without symptoms. Many of us know people who appear otherwise completely healthy (and often young) who suddenly develop melanoma, breast, or testicular cancer.

Cancer is also interesting because “the cure for cancer” stands out as a major scientific challenge for our species. The phrase regularly makes it into our common dialog.

“Nice solution. It’s no ‘cure for cancer’, but it sure is cool!”

“What do you want to do when you grow up, Billy?”, asks the teacher? “Why I’m going to find the cure for cancer!”, Billy proudly responds.

Can you think of a human achievement that would have a greater, instant, more positive impact on our species than curing cancer and alleviating the human suffering and lost productivity it produces every year? Imagine further if the cure was cheaply and widely available at almost no cost? Surely a potential solution like this would be front-page news in every major media outlet. What could possibly be more important to the American public?

Last week I stumbled upon this story in NewScientist.com. Researchers at the University of Alberta have discovered a drug called dichloroacetate (DCA) which has the potential to kill most cancers without harming healthy cells. They have demonstrated this solution outside the body and are now quickly moving to clinical trials. Because DCA has already been through Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials, they anticipate that the process will move forward much faster.

There are a lot of interesting aspects to this story. For instance, DCA is available in the public domain (no patent protection), so the funding from clinical trials won’t come from the pharmaceutical companies.

What I find most shocking is that nobody seems to care. On the day I discovered the story I couldn’t find one major news media outlet covering it. On the same day I was unable to find any outlet that wasn’t blasting me with information on the death of Anna Nicole Smith.

I had never heard of Anna Nicole Smith, but it sounds like the poor woman lead a tragic life that was on constant public display. I suppose the death of someone so young and who seemingly has everything you could want in the world is news. But is the story so critical to our lives and so interesting that we need constant, 24/7 updates for days on the situation? Does anyone really think that this story is more important than the prospect of a “cure for cancer”? What does this tell us about our human values?

Perhaps we should recognize that the public has grown cynical of “the war on cancer” after 40 years of little progress and billions of dollars spent on the fight. After all, DCA might very well turn out to be another “miracle” cure which works in the lab but is ineffective or harmful in the human body.

Nonetheless, this episode strikes me as another bizarre example of how the mainstream media doesn’t report news or put it into a meaningful context for the world. Fortunately, the old models are crumbling and we are entering a new age media where the public has the opportunity to drive the dissemination of news.

Consider this story my small contribution.

A couple of friends have recently asked my why I blog and what I get out of it. It is hard to explain, but spending time online, creating and interacting with innovative people feels like I’m “plugging-in” to a movement to redesign the world to our specifications.

At times I’m shocked by the contrast between the changes I see coming and what I see happening in the present, offline world. I can confidently say that most people are completely ignorant of how different the future will be and how rapidly it is approaching. Our existing laws, social structures, national organizations, and systems of government will have to be restructured to avoid irrelevance.

In no area are these changes more profound than biotechnology. Very soon we will be faced with the world of Do-It-Yourself Biotechnology, what Baris Karadogan correctly calls The Ultimate Empowerment of the Consumer. We will have to deal with new terrorist threats where small groups of people can home-grow biotech and nanotech weapons to wreak massive human destruction. We will be faced with complex social questions our parents couldn’t imagine, such as What is a Human Being?

Consider my experience this week. Every year in Washington D.C. we have thousands of pro-life and pro-choice protesters for the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. Monday was no exception. These passionate people come from all over the US (and probably the world) to publicly show disdain or support for this landmark court decision and attempt to lobby our government for action.

On Tuesday I read one of the most startling columns I’ve ever seen on the Internet, Attila Cordas’s piece on How to Isolate Amniotic Stem Cells from the Placenta, at Home! As the title promises, it is a step-by-step process for using a placenta to get amniotic stem cells in your garage.

I suspect that most of Monday’s protestors would not believe such activity is possible, never mind apparently relatively easy. Of course Attila’s process has nothing to do with the raging social debates over embryonic stem cell research. But I also believe that many of these protesters would be absolutely horrified to see this glimpse into the future. How long until someone demonstrates how we can create our own embryonic stem cells? Or grow new organs in our basement? Or even clone ourselves for replacement parts?

Naturally the reaction of many would be to turn to their legistaters for action. They may demand new laws preventing such activity or a halt to federal funding of certain types of research. Unfortunately the creative minds of determined individuals will execute and adapt so quickly to make these efforts utterly pointless. I’m sure Attila could care less what Senator Sam Brownback thinks of bioDIY.

There are reasons to be terrified and delighted by this new power. As you can probably guess, I don’t much subscribe to the gloom-and-doom view of the world. I believe putting this type of creative empowerment in hands of self-organizing people will bring an end to much human suffering.

I doubt most people in America will agree with me. I suspect most will race to their elected representatives to try and control – if not slow – this rate of progress. It will be interesting to witness their reaction when these efforts yield little more than rhetoric.