November 2013 Statewide Issues

I find I have left this blog unattended for longer than I meant, but once again, it is time to vote, so I'm back. There are two state initiatives, a few advisory votes and a slew of local candidates to consider, plus one local issue. In this entry, I'll cover the statewide issues: I-517 regarding initiative reform, I-522 regarding GMO labelling and advisory votes 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, regarding tax increases passed by the state legislature.

I-517: Initiative Reform
First up is I-517, which reforms the initiative process in Washington state. I-517 includes four key reforms:

1. It increases the time allowed to gather signatures for initiatives from ten months to sixteen months. Allowing at least a year (the time between elections) for gathering signatures seems like a reasonable reform.
2. Any initiative that receives enough signatures must be placed on the ballot for a vote, eliminating the possibility of interference from local officials. Here in Bellingham, we recently had an initiative against red light cameras that was blocked by a lawsuit from the company that had been given the contract to install the cameras. This is an obviously needed reform.
3. Official signature gatherers currently have the same legal protections as any other citizen standing on the street. I-517 would make it disorderly conduct (a misdemeanor) to "interfere with or retaliate against a person collecting signatures or signing any initiative or referendum petition..." Exactly what that means is defined by a long list in the initiative of actions that you shouldn't be doing to anybody anyway, whether or not they're collecting signatures. The claim by Riley Sweeney that "if you told someone to go jump in a lake when they asked for your signature, they could sue you for harassment" is simply false if you read the actual text of I-517 (I suppose, technically, anyone can sue anyone else for harassment, but that doesn't mean they have a snowball's chance of winning). Since gathering signatures is a required step for we citizens to exercise our right to petition the government, some special protection for those gathering and providing the signatures seems appropriate.
4. I-517 also defines the places where signature gathering will be protected. According to the text of the initiative, official signature gathering "shall be a legally protected activity" in three types of places:
1. "...inside or outside public buildings..." This one seems obvious--if the buildings truly are public (unlike national parks and memorials, as we found out during the recent shutdown), then you should be able to collect signatures in these public places.
2. "...on public sidewalks and walkways..." Again, this seems obvious if these places are to be considered truly public.
3. "...all sidewalks and walkways that carry pedestrian traffic, including those in front of entrances and exits of any store..." This is the one part of I-517 that might cause problems. Opposition to I-517 says this violates property rights. It certainly gives property owners less control over what happens on their property, which I don't like. That said, under I-517, signature gatherers are not allowed inside private buildings, nor are they allowed anywhere members of the public normally aren't, nor are they allowed in open areas that aren't sidewalks or walkways, nor are they allowed to do things (such as stalking, threatening or assault) that normal people can't do. Furthermore, existing law doesn't have a well-defined limit for where signature-gathering is or is not legal on private property, and this issue has gone to the courts several times. I-517's outside-walkways rule, while imperfect, is better than no rule at all.

Conclusion: Vote YES on I-517 to protect the initiative process for a better democracy.

I-522: GMO Labeling
The only other statewide initiative is I-522, which establishes a labeling system for food containing genetically-modified organisms. To decide which way to vote on I-522, I must ask three sequential questions, all of which must have an affirmative answer to vote for I-522. Those three questions are the following:

1. Should genetically-modified food be labelled as such? I think the answer is likely yes. To be clear, I believe the science that says GMOs are safe. They have been in use now for nearly two decades and are likely in the majority of our food with no apparent side effects. Genetic engineering has been happening for millennia through hybridization; GMOs are simply a more direct way to get the genes that we want into the organisms that we want. If anything, I would trust the genetics of a GMO more than some random animal that came out of some field. That said, I know not everyone agrees with me. One of the necessary prerequisites to having a well-functioning free market is the freedom of information, and if people believe that they don't want GMO food, it is their right to avoid it.
2. If GMOs should be labelled, should such labeling be required by the government? Here, I think the answer is likely no. The federal government already certifies organic food, and certified organic food cannot contain GMOs. For non-organic non-GMO food, private organizations like the Non-GMO Project are already picking up the slack. Since lots of people want to buy non-GMO food, there is a huge incentive for the private market to supply that information even without government requirements.
3. If GMO labeling should be required, is I-522 the right way to do it? The answer here is a definite no. While I-522 requires labels for many foods, there are quite a few exceptions, including alcoholic beverages, food served at restaurants and medical food. If labels are so important for public health, why are there so many exceptions? Moreover, while the state's Department of Agriculture is usually in charge of food safety and labeling, GMO labels would be regulated by the Department of Health. This may seem small, but it likely means food produces will have twice the paperwork and have to go through twice the bureaucracy. It also means the Department of Health would have to duplicate a regulatory infrastructure that the Department of Agriculture already has in place.

Conclusion: While GMO labeling is good, government regulation is unnecessary and I-522 is the wrong way to regulate it. Vote NO on I-522.

Advisory Votes
In Washington state, thanks to a 2007 initiative, any tax increase passed by the legislature is submitted to the people for an advisory vote. The results are not binding, but they do ensure the public is aware of all tax increases, even ones the media doesn't deem important enough to mention. The advisory votes also give voters a chance to give the legislature some much-needed feedback.

This year, there are five advisory votes, numbered 3 through 7 (A-1 and A-2 were on 2012's ballot). In deciding how to vote, I've followed a simple rule: Taxes should be lower and simpler. That means increases in tax rates and new special taxes on specific groups should be repealed, but that bills that eliminate special credits for specific groups should be maintained.

A-3 Substitute Senate Bill 5444
This bill eliminated a tax credit for taxpayers who lease public property. Taxes should be the same whether you're leasing publicly-owned or privately-owned property. This eliminates an unfair tax credit, so it should be MAINTAINED.

A-4 Senate Bill 5627
This bill imposed a tax on commuter air carriers "in lieu of property tax." Why do air carriers need a special tax? The Washington State Budget and Policy Center has the context: "Senate Bill 5627 was championed by Governor Inslee in order to reduce taxes for Kenmore Air, a commuter air carrier located in Washington state. ... Although Kenmore Air will pay an additional $35,000 per year in aircraft excise taxes, its state and local property tax bills will fall by about $51,000 per year, a cost that will automatically be recouped through higher property tax bills for other homeowners and businesses." The Legislature, at the behest of the Governor, is shifting property taxes from one favored company to other disfavored companies and homeowners. Obviously, this should be REPEALED.

A-5 Engrossed Substitute House Bill 1846
This bill eliminated a tax exemption for pediatric oral services from the insurance premium tax. As a consequence, it also ensures that dental services purchased outside the new health care exchange do not face a tax disadvantage compared to those purchased within the exchange. While it would be preferable not to have an insurance premium tax in the first place, given that there is such a tax, it should apply as fairly as possible. This bill should be MAINTAINED.

A-6 Second Engrossed Second Substitute House Bill 1971
This bill eliminated a tax exemption in the retail sales tax for some telephone and telecommunications services. Specifically, cell phone service was subject to the sales tax while landlines were not; instead landlines were subject to two special excise taxes. This bill eliminate the excise taxes and extended the sales tax to landlines, so that the same tax applies to all telephone services. This bill should be MAINTAINED.

A-7 Engrossed House Bill 2075
This bill extended the sales tax to some property transfers and raised the tax rates for estates over $4 million. This is a complicated one. On the one hand, it closes a loophole in the estate tax that was introduced by the courts. Closing loopholes and simplifying taxes is always good, and if that was the extent of what this bill did, I would vote to maintain. However, the legislature also introduced a new loophole for businesses, and to make up the revenue from the new loophole, raised the tax rate. Tax rates do not need to be raised and new loopholes do not need to be added, so this bill should be REPEALED.

Summary
I-517: YES
I-522: NO
A-3: MAINTAIN
A-4: REPEAL
A-5: MAINTAIN
A-6: MAINTAIN
A-7: REPEAL

Reasons for Optimism XI

Civil Rights
1. There is quite a bit of good news for civil rights. First, National Security Letters--which the federal government uses to get personal information on thousands of Americans from companies like Google--have been ruled unconstitutional. What made NSLs particularly disturbing was that the recipient companies were forbidden from ever acknowledging that they had given the government any information. Thankfully, these gag orders have also been ruled unconstitutional.

2. Second, the Supreme Court limited the use of sniffer dogs and expanded the Fourth Amendment's protection of the home by declaring that porches count as part of the home.

3. There's good news for civil rights in Canada as well. The Supreme Court there recently ruled that police need special wiretapping orders, not just ordinary search warrants, to intercept text messages.

Deficit & Spending
4. Via PostLibertarian, the federal deficit for the first six months of fiscal 2013 is 23% lower than the deficit for the same period in fiscal 2012. Government spending in March 2013 was more than 20% lower than in March 2012, a $76 billion fall from $369 to $293 billion. Moreover, an analysis of four major budget plans (President Obama's, Senate Democrats', House Republicans' and Senator Rand Paul's) shows that all four cut spending over the next ten years relative to the current-law baseline. The coming debate won't be whether or not to cut spending, it will be how much.

Energy & Climate
5. In November 2012, U.S. oil production surpassed that of Saudi Arabia! U.S. oil production also remained higher than Saudi Arabia's in December 2012. While month-to-month production fluctuates, and there may again be months where the Saudis produce more oil than we do, for at least two months in 2012, the United States was the largest oil producer in the world. U.S. oil production has continued to grow since then, and is now more than 7.2 million barrels per day, a level not seen since July 1992. Also in December, another country (China) imported more oil than the U.S. for the first time in four decades (ht).

6. Coral reefs are more resilient than we thought. Reefs damaged in super-hot 1998 were presumed to have little chance of recovery, yet they're recovering nonetheless.

Health
7. A new Bluetooth-enabled implant (ht) can monitor blood levels of up to five chemicals and transmit that data to a smartphone or tablet (and from there to the internet) in realtime. It can currently detect glucose (useful for diabetics), troponin (which is released during a heart attack) and a few other substances, but the device has been designed to accommodate sensors for substances not yet covered.

8. Functioning kidneys can now be grown in a lab, at least for rats. Doing the same with human kidneys will take some time, and even then the lab-grown versions are only 5% as efficient as natural, healthy kidneys. But if your natural kidneys aren't healthy, 5% could be enough of an improvement to be worth the transplant. No doubt researchers will also be working on improving that efficiency as well.

Poverty
9. Two recent studies, one from Oxford University and the other from the UN, highlight the improving conditions of the world's poor (ht via @LDoren). Many of the world's poorest nations are on track to eliminate acute poverty and growth is lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty. From the UN report: "Never in history have the living conditions and prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and so fast."

Other Optimists
10. Ezra Klein (ht MR) has his own list of reasons for optimism. Among others, he lists the slowing rise of health care costs, a turnaround in housing, corporate profits, natural gas and technological advances.

11. Stephan Kinsella (ht Bob Murphy) says, "The Golden Age of America is Now." Kinsella writes from a libertarian viewpoint, and therefore includes items like imminent marijuana legalization that some might not agree are actually good things. But many of his points cut across ideologies--there is no draft, air travel is safer and cheaper than ever and technology is amazing, from cell phones to the internet to 3D printing to private spaceflight. He also cites increased diversity and tolerance, saying, "some people are vegetarians, vegans; no big deal... Some people have nose rings, multiple earrings. Tattoos. Nobody cares... Mixed-race couples? Nobody bats an eye."

What happened in London

I missed this when it happened, but it is so very cool that I have to post it. To advertise the new Star Trek movie, Paramount launched a bunch of quadcopters into the air over London and flew them in formation to make the Star Trek symbol.



How cool is it to live in a time where this is possible?

The Singularity Is Here...

...but the new AI gods don't know my name.

The Cyborg Foundation

Via SingularityHub, the cyborg Neil Harbisson:



Harbisson was born colorblind, but now perceives color as sound thanks to a device called the eyeborg. "It's not the union between the eyeborg and my head what converts me into a cyborg, but the union between the software and my brain. My body and technology have united."

What makes this truly astounding is that Harbisson has gone beyond mere treatment of colorblindness to augmentation. He now directly perceives colors in the infrared and ultraviolet. He also founded the Cyborg Foundation to promote the use of cybernetics and develop new devices for augmentation, such as internal radar and 360º sensory perception.

"It's very, very human to modify one's body with human creations... During this century, we will see that more and more people will start using technology as a part of the body in order to perceive more and to expand senses."

Reasons for Optimism X

1. Americans today are 20% less likely to die from cancer than we were in 1991. The death rate from cancer has fallen from 215.1 to 173.1 per 100,000. The decrease has been seen in men, women and children. Although death rates for some cancers are up, death rates for the four most common types of cancer (lung, colon, breast and prostate) have all fallen by more than 30%.

2. A second person has been cured of HIV, this time a newborn treated with triple the typical dose of antiretroviral drugs. The only person to have previously been cured of HIV was Timothy Brown, cured after a bone marrow transplant from a donor who was naturally immune. This second case holds far more promise as it is cheaper and may be easier to replicate.

3. The FDA has finally approved an early version of Geordi's visor, although the manufacturer's have opted for the name "artificial retina" instead. The device wirelessly sends images from a camera to an eye implant. The downside is that the implant requires the user to have some functioning retinal cells, so this is not a full cure for blindness. The upside is that the bulk of the device can be removed just like normal glasses, making upgrades easy.

4. Don Boudreaux continues his Cleaned by Capitalism series with an entry on "health-care products supplied quite successfully by free markets on a fee-for-service basis."

5. Once again via Mark Perry, U.S. oil production continues to grow. Texas has doubled oil production in the last three years, and is now producing more domestic oil than the entire country imports from the Persian Gulf. Christof Rühl, chief economist for BP, wrote recently, "The United States is likely to surpass Saudi Arabia in daily output very soon, and non-OPEC production will dominate global supply growth over the coming decade."

Furthermore, as of October 2012, the United States is producing more oil per day than every country in Central and South America combined. As recently as 2009, those countries were consistently producing 25-30% more oil than the US.

But the shale revolution isn't just here in the United States. Global oil production for the first three quarters of 2012 was 1% higher than all of 2011. Once the numbers are in for the fourth quarter, 2012 is expected to set an all-time record. For those worried that increased oil production means we'll just run out sooner, consider that ExxonMobil discovered more new recoverable oil last year than they took out of the ground--for the 19th year in a row.

6. Mark Perry and Don Boudreaux together penned a Wall Street Journal opinion piece arguing against middle class stagnation. (AEI also has a copy, in case the WSJ version is eventually paywalled.) They address the CPI's overstatement of inflation, the expansion in non-wage compensation, the large-scale entry of women into the labor force, rising life expectancy, the falling cost of "basics" like housing and food at home, and falling inequality in services like air travel and goods like consumer electronics. The piece is a wide-ranging but somewhat shallow introduction to the many lines of evidence that life is actually improving for most Americans.

Boudreaux has follow-ups to the piece here, here, here and here, including responses to some critics. Perry has follow-ups here and here. There's also more on the topic from James Pethokoukis and David Henderson.

7. Via MR, a village in India has dramatically improved agriculture yields using a method called System of Root Intensification (SRI) that focuses on soil conditions and plant density. Poor farmers in Darveshpura have set new world records for rice and potatoes, and SRI seems to improve yields for other crops as well. Some doubt the claims are legitimate, but the ease of adopting the method would allow small farmers the world over to increase their yields if the claims prove true.

8. Oliver August of The Economist recently completed a wide-ranging journey across 23 African countries. In the interview, he speaks of how easy it was to complete the journey, and says, "The main experience of travelling across Africa is one of hopefulness, one of industry, one of striving amongst the many still-quite-poor people, and one of a sense of a future that is coming closer quite quickly."

Reasons for Optimism IX

1. Last week, initial jobless claims fell to a 5-year low. At 335k, jobless aid applications haven't been this low since the beginning of the recession in January 2008.

2. Don Boudreaux continues his Cleaned by Capitalism series with an entry on the washing machine. See Hans Rosling's TED talk for more on the washing machine.

3. The Slingshot water purifier, invented by Dean Kamen and backed by Coca-Cola, is expanding from initial trials in Ghana to Paraguay, Mexico and South Africa. In the video below, Kamen says, "Global organizations... work on top-down, government-to-government big programs, and we're working on the Slingshot, the little tool that David needs to take on Goliath. [...] We could empty half of all the beds in all the hospitals in the world by just giving people clean water."



4. A new study shows that official poverty statistics in the United States grossly overstate poverty. The poverty rate has declined by 25 percentage point since 1960, and 8.5 percentage points since 1980.

5. Via Mark Perry, U.S. oil production grew more in 2012 than in any other year since we started keeping track. Weekly U.S. oil production is now at it's highest point in 20 years.

6. Planetary Resources, the asteroid mining company, has released a tech update, including video of a prototype for the Arkyd-100 satellite. But perhaps I should call them an asteroid mining company, because Planetary Resources isn't the only one anymore. A company called Deep Space Industries is also targeting asteroids. Deep Space Industries plans to bring back samples weighing 50+ pounds by 2016, and to have an established mining operation by 2020.

7. Bigelow Aerospace's inflatable space station idea is getting a boost with a two-year trial as a module on the ISS.

8. TSA has cancelled its contract with Rapiscan, the makers of the naked scanners. All naked scanners will be removed from airports by June. They will be replaced by scanners that do not show such fine detail. While the health concerns remain, this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Reasons for Optimism VIII

1. The number of people imprisoned in the US has been falling since 2008.

2. More cars were sold in 2012 than any other year since the recession began, and sales grew 13% over 2011, more than in any year since 1984.

3. Audi is showing off technology that would allow a car to autonomously find a parking spot within a parking garage and park itself. No word yet on when this will be available for consumers, but a garage-only feature like this might circumvent some of the legal grey areas with autonomous cars, at least in privately-owned garages.

4. The Earth is getting greener. And I don't mean humans are becoming more environmentally-conscious; I mean the physical Earth is literally greener, as measured by satellites, because there's more plants. There are two reasons plants are growing more: higher temperatures and higher carbon dioxide levels. This is a another piece of evidence that climate tends to have stable equilibria.

5. Fully 64 new supplies of energy have been discovered in Africa in the past five years, and the pace seems to be picking up (ht). When combined with the previously-featured GravityLight, Africa is on track to save millions of lives in the coming years.

6. The incredible exponential growth of US oil production continues. We are now producing seven million barrels per day for the first time since March 1993.

7. More than two-thirds of Americans are optimistic about their own economic situation in 2013. On the other hand, nearly two-thirds are pessimistic about the economy as a whole. If you believe in Hayek's local knowledge, this is a great reason to feel optimistic about the economy as a whole (though perhaps pessimistic about the media's portrayal of it).

8. Herbert E. Meyer, who is called "the official who predicted communism's demise," says the good news that nobody is noticing is the global rise of the middle class (ht). In a recent interview [mp3] with Jerry Bowyer, Meyer says, "When you stand back from all the yelling and the screaming…you can see what I believe is the most important trend in the word…the world is emerging from poverty fast. ... Each year between fifty and one hundred million human beings are leaving poverty behind. ... By the way, it’s going to be a five billion-person middle class. This will become the most powerful force in the world. Their demand for our goods and services will set off an economic boom…I believe that we’re heading for not just a sonic boom, but maybe a supersonic boom."

Recent Reasons for Optimism VI

While it's been awhile, I think it's time for another installment of Recent (more or less) Reasons for Optimism.

The Best of Humanity
1. Buzzfeed profiles some of the heroes of Sandy Hook. A single man embodied the worst that humanity can be and caused enormous suffering. But these six women stood up to the challenge and saved dozens of lives, some at the cost of their own.

2. Buzzfeed also has a list of "26 Moments that Restored Our Faith in Humanity." My favorites include the responses to Hurricane Sandy at #4 and #5, the man with the arthritic dog at #23, and the "parents of the year" at #24.

Health
3. This infographic, covering the leading causes of death since 1900, has some great reasons for optimism. The number one cause of death in 2010 was heart disease, but the deaths caused by heart disease have fallen steadily since their peak in the 60s, from about 370 to 193 per 100,000. Deaths from the second-worst killer, cancer, have also been falling since they peaked in the early 90s.

4. Scientists in the UK have successfully spurred nerve regeneration in paralyzed dogs by transplanting cells from the dogs' own noses to the injured areas. It remains to be seen if the technique will work in humans, but over several months, the dogs went from complete paralysis in the rear legs to being able to walk on a treadmill without assistance.

5. Jan Scheuermann, who is paralyzed from the neck down, can now operate a robotic arm using only her mind "with speeds comparable to the able-bodied" and with a 91.6% accuracy rate.

Civil Liberties
6. The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed a bill that would require law enforcement to actually get warrants to read private emails, no matter how old the email is. The bill will now go to the full Senate, and if it passes there, would also need to pass the House and be signed by Obama, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Technology
7. Self-driving cars are inching closer to reality. Ford plans to introduce cars that can drive for you in stressful stop-and-go traffic, possibly by 2015. But Volvo will beat them to the punch with cars that can drive themselves at slow speeds in 2014. Meanwhile, a company called Rio Tinto is already using ten driverless trucks to transport iron ore, with plans to expand to 150 over the next few years.

8. 3D printing is coming to a store near you, at least in Europe. Staples will be offering 3D printing services next year in The Netherlands and Belgium. No doubt the US will soon follow, if this turns out to be profitable for them. Meanwhile, Virginia Tech is providing 3D printing free for students (ht). Researchers in Britain are also having some success in printing electronics.

9. From Planetary Resources, a nearly hour-long video with a great amount of detail on the work they're doing to mine asteroids. Early in the video, Eric Anderson says, "The fact of the matter is that the population of the planet has grown a lot over the last couple hundred years, and people live longer, people live much better lives. It's really an extraordinary time to be alive. And yet, we're just at the cusp of doing some of the more incredibly exciting things that we never thought were possible before."

Some more highlights:

• 17% of near-Earth asteroids are easier to reach than the surface of the moon.
• Platinum-group metals are usually mined in concentrations of a few parts per billion and have an average price of $1500 per ounce. A single 500-meter asteroid has more of these metals than have been mined from Earth in the history of humanity.
• Anderson: "Some of the naysayers to asteroid mining say, well gee, if you bring back all the platinum, then the price will crash. And I say, great. I would love to see that. I would like to see a world of abundance."

10. First-world technology is bringing simple, inexpensive solutions to third-world problems. The GravityLight uses the same idea as old weight-driven clocks to provide light and electricity to those not connected to the grid.

Economics
11. In the US, household net worth is the highest it's been since 2007, and higher than any point prior to 2006. The total value of US real estate is also on the rise for the first time since 2006.

12. Don Boudreaux is in the midst of a series of blog entries detailing how everyday items are both less expensive and higher quality today than in 1956, based on an old Sears catalog from that year. So far, he's included women's clothing, bedsheets and lawn care. Mark Perry has made similar observations using other old advertisements, including dishwashers and home entertainment.

And finally, not a reason for optimism, but rather a quote from Winston Churchill: "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

Recent Reasons for Optimism V

The latest installment of recent reasons for optimism was a bit delayed on account of this being the tenth day of a ten-day workweek for me. But that doesn't mean there was any less good news! There's been lots of good news in health, but there's also reasons for optimism on the economy, civil liberties and even the threat of asteroid impact.

Health

1. First the bad news-- the cytomegalovirus (CMV) infects 50-80% of people in the US, UK and Australia, and decreases life expectancy as much as smoking or drinking because of its unique effects on the immune system. Now the good news-- researchers at the University of Birmingham are working on an antiviral drug to reverse CMV's effects, potentially adding years to life expectancy. The drug has shown promise in mice, and tests on humans will begin soon. Finally, the great news-- researchers at the University of Connecticut at Farmington have genetically modified CMV to take advantage of what it does to the immune system. The result is a self-reinforcing cancer vaccine. In a study on mice, an untreated control group died of cancer within 23 days; the CMV-treated group lived for the entire length of the study.

2. A new breathalyzer can detect some kinds of cancer on your breath (ht Jason Silva). Although currently less accurate than more complicated tests, it's also far less costly, and could provide cancer screening to the poor around the world who can't afford current tests.

3. One more on cancer: Researchers have developed a patch (that looks very much like the birth control patch) that completely eliminated a certain kind of skin cancer after wearing it just three times, for three hours each. It was a very small trial, with just ten patients, but three months later the cancer was still gone from all ten patients, and after six months, there was no cancer in eight out of ten patients.

4. In Sweden, doctors have successfully transplanted a vein into a 10-year-old girl without the use of immunosuppressive drugs. They accomplished the feat by removing all of the donor's cells from the vein and replacing them with the girl's own stem cells.

Cyborgs and Robotics

5. We're one step closer to brain implants, as a team from MIT has invented a fuel cell to convert glucose in the brain into electricity that can be used by implants or prosthetics. (ht MR)

6. Picking up different kinds of objects is difficult and expensive for robots, especially when the shape of the object may not be known in advance. In an amazing example of the simplicity of innovation, a team at Cornell has found a solution using a balloon and ground coffee.



Economics

7. I've mentioned before on this blog that world income is higher than ever before and steadily increasing. Matt Ridley shares a graph showing that not only is world income higher, it's also more equitable.

8. Great news for free-traders: Both Mexico and Canada have now joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. The TPP, originally an agreement between New Zealand, Chile, Brunei and Singapore, is now being expanded to include the three NAFTA countries, the US, Canada and Mexico, as well as Japan, Australia, Peru, Vietnam and Malaysia. If an agreement is reached between all these countries, the TPP would become the largest free trade area in the world, comprising a full third of world GDP.

Civil Liberties and Crime

9. The Canadian government has backed down from their plan to record private conversations at border crossings and airports. What makes this even more encouraging is that this rapid about-face came in a non-election year, with the Conservatives' majority solidly in place until 2015. And it may not be just the Canadian government-- the US Department of State has withdrawn a request for bids to develop a system to monitor social media.

10. New Yorkers are striking back against that city's "stop and frisk" policy with a new app that allows New Yorkers to easily record and share video of police encounters and report them to the NYCLU. This is a small example of advancing technology being used to protect civil liberties.

11. Crime is down across-the-board. Violent crime fell by 4% from 2010 to 2011, the fifth year in a row it's fallen. That's true across the country, with every region except the Northeast seeing a drop of 4.5% or more. Property crimes were also down for the ninth year in a row, down 0.8% from 2010.

Everything Else

12. NASA scientists say there is little to no threat of a civilization-ending asteroid strike. Lindley Johnson of the Near Earth Object Observation Program says, "We know everything out there that is that big, and there is just nothing right now that's in an orbit that's any threat toward the Earth."

13. Ed Krayewski at Reason lists the "top 5 pieces of good news in the bad news." Some of his reasoning is a bit strained, but it's nevertheless an interesting list.

14. For even more optimism, check out these "21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity." Among the obligatory pictures of people rescuing animals, there's a Subway restaurant giving free food to the homeless, a dry cleaner's offering free cleaning for the unemployed for job interviews, and the story of the Japanese seniors who volunteered to clean the radiation at Fukushima so the young wouldn't have to.

The Beginning is Near

From Jason Silva, The Beginning of Infinity (ht Singularity Hub):



"I am very much an optimist. I'm reminded of Rich Doyle's line from Darwin's Pharmacy. He says, 'Dreams do not lack reality. They are real patterns of information.' Or the Imaginary Foundation says that the role of human imagination is to conceive of all these delightful futures and choose the most amazing, exciting and ecstatic possibility and then pull the present forward to meet it.

"That is what we do. We bring our imaginings into existence. But I think that as technology has advanced, we have found ways to outsource our mental capacities to our tools so much more. Our ability to manipulate the physical world has increased in an exponential fashion, so we've been able to shrink the lag time between our imaginings and their instantiation in the real world.

"David Deutsch speaks in his new book The Beginning of Infinity, he says, "If you look at the topography of the island of Manhattan today, that topography is a topography in which the forces of economics and culture and human intent have trumped the forces of geology." I mean, the topography of Manhattan today is no longer shaped by mere geology; it's shaped by the human mind and by economics and by culture.

"So what David Deutsch extrapolates is that ultimately that will be the fate of the whole universe. He says gravitation and antimatter might only shape the universe at its earliest and least-interesting stages, but eventually, the whole entire thing will be subject to the intent of substrate-independent, infinitely-more-powerful minds.

"And to conceive of that just... It just makes me feel ecstatic."

There's far more from Jason Silva here.

Recent Reasons for Optimism Reloaded

I know "Reloaded" was the second movie, and this is my third Recent Reasons for Optimism entry, but... yeah, I don't have a good reason, so on to the optimism! Space news dominated the week, but there are also reasons to be optimistic about agriculture, health and the economy.

1. For starters, Joshua at PostLibertarian has his own list of reasons for optimism, including SpaceX's success with the Falcon 9, Cubify's new 3D printer and the lowering of legal hurdles for driverless cars. Also check out his previous reasons for optimism, including lower child mortality and improving technologies, among others.

2 Speaking of space, SpaceX has also just signed their first commercial contract for the Falcon Heavy rocket. The Falcon Heavy is basically three Falcon 9's strapped together. When completed, it will be able to take 58.5 tons into orbit, more than double the shuttle's 26.8 tons at less than a quarter of the cost.

3. SpaceX isn't the only good news in space. A company in the UK has announced plans (ht One Per Cent) to launch nanosatellites that, once in orbit, can dock with each other in novel configurations. One of the benefits would be easier in-orbit upgrades to satellites equipped with the technology. In a perfect example of the Matt Ridley quote in the sidebar here, the nanosatellites would use Kinect cameras to sense each other and make docking possible. "The more we invent, the more inventions become possible."

4. Just one more about space: Virgin Galactic has been granted an FAA permit for the first rocket-powered tests of SpaceShipTwo, which will eventually carry tourists into space. They plan to begin those tests this year, with an eye to actual tourist flights starting in 2013-2014.

5. The Free Exchange blog at The Economist reviews two recent books, one painting a picture of an America in decline, the other the opposite. In blogger R.A.'s words, "To spin a story of decline, one has to demonstrate that policies are considerably worse than they used to be, and that they're unlikely to improve. It's actually quite difficult to do this." While there are looming problems, R.A. says, "these issues, and other worries as well, are not being ignored or greeted with complacency," and "American innovation is proving as impressive as ever."

6. Two studies covered at World Climate Report (ht @mattwridley) portend good news for crop yields. Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide helps rice out-compete weeds and encourages more photosynthesis in wheat. Higher temperatures also improve wheat water use efficiency. The scientists predicted that by 2050, global warming would raise wheat yields by about 5.8% in lower altitudes and more than 10% in higher altitudes.

7. A ten-year-old girl, Sammie Hicks, was until recently only able to hear with a hearing aid. In April, she was given a cochlear implant and recorded for Youtube the moment it was finally turned on in May. She jumps as the sounds come in, and adjusts to hearing herself breathe for the first time. In the video, she starts crying, and later said, "It was overwhelming. But the reason I really cried? I couldn’t believe all the stuff I was missing." In a later video, she talks about hearing pencils writing at school, and the wind on her way home.

8. Paralyzed rats with "severe spinal injuries" were effectively cured of their paralysis, regaining the ability to walk after 2-3 weeks and achieving "100% recuperation" after 5-6 weeks of treatment, including a special stimulating device and the ratty equivalent of physical therapy. A similar treatment for humans could be available within just a year or two.

9. The plural of anecdotes is not data. However, anecdotally, in my little corner of the world, the economy seems to be improving. People I know who have been unemployed, some for a very long time, over the last few weeks have been finding jobs. Walking down the street this past week, I've seen "Now Hiring" signs in the windows of local businesses. There are fresh faces working at businesses I frequent, and even the local mall is expanding.

10. With Friday's disappointing employment numbers from the establishment survey, you'd be forgiven for thinking the economic data is all doom and gloom. However, the household survey told a different story. While the establishment survey measured only 69k new jobs, the more-accurate household survey picked up 422k.  Even the establishment survey looks better when you look at the private sector, which is where we want the growth to happen anyway. And while the unemployment rate ticked up from 8.1% to 8.2%, this was because the labor force grew by 642k as the long-term non-employed start looking for work again. That's not a bad thing!

11. Finally, a note on optimism itself. The CultureLab blog at New Scientist interviews Elaine Fox, author of the book Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain. Fox believes that we can retrain our brains to become more optimistic. She also cites research on the benefits of optimism, saying, "The research shows that, as long as they are realists too, people who have an optimistic mindset and feel like they are able to cope when things do go wrong benefit in all sorts of ways. The evidence is also quite strong now that an optimistic mindset is beneficial for our health. People with optimistic mindsets are also more successful in business, and seem to live longer."

Recent Reasons for Optimism Redux

Some more good news from this week:

1) Child mortality rates in Africa are falling rapidly, and the decline appears to be speeding up. Twelve African countries are seeing declines rapid enough to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of cutting child mortality by two-thirds from 1990 to 2015. Child mortality in three countries, Senegal, Rwanda and Kenya, is falling twice as fast as needed to meet the MDG.

2) In Israel, human skin cells from patients suffering from heart failure have been turned into functionally young, beating heart cells which were "equivalent to the stage of his heart cells when he was just born." The cells were successfully grafted onto rat hearts; human tests are still a ways off.

3) A telomerase gene therapy, when applied to adult mice, extended their lifespans by 24%. Telomerase encourages the regrowth of telomeres, the DNA equivalent of the plastic nub at the end of shoelaces. Telomerase has been shown to increase cultured human cell lifespans; the successful tests on mice have taken the treatment to the next step.

4) In non-health news, a British company is building robotic fish that can automatically test the seas for pollution. The latest buzzphrase seems to be "the internet of things," but the Brits are pushing past that to bring nature itself online.

5) MIT has developed a more life-changing technology for some of us: a nanotech coating for the insides of glass and plastic bottles that lets you get all of the ketchup out of the bottle. And it's not just for fun-- they estimate their coating could help save one million tons of food from being thrown out every year.

6) This morning, the SpaceX Dragon capsule successfully berthed with the International Space Station, becoming the first privately-built spaceship to do so. In the images below, which I captured from NASA's live stream, you can see both the Dragon capsule and the CanadArm used to catch it.

7) It's not quite space, but two California men launched a balloon to about 27 km and took the picture below of the recent solar eclipse (ht). As technology and living standards improve, everyday people are now accomplishing feats for hobbies and even school projects that were once the sole domain of governments and well-funded academics.

8) Earth is often thought of as the solar system's watery planet, but Jupiter's moon Europa has 2-3 times more water than we do. On the surface it's all ice, but geothermal heat could mean liquid oceans under the ice dozens of miles deep. That's good news for extraterrestrial life in our solar system.

9) The provincial government of British Columbia decided this week that its mandatory vehicle emissions inspections had been successful. With the objective of cleaner vehicle emissions achieved, the government is now phasing out the program for non-diesel vehicles, which will save drivers $23 per year per vehicle, not to mention the hassle of the inspections themselves. That may not sound like much, but any time a government actually ends a program because it achieved its objective deserves celebration.

10) Finally, not really news per se, but a nice reminder in the form of Canadian graffiti. Photo courtesy of the Expected Optimist's better half on a trip to Tsawassen, BC.

Recent Reasons for Optimism

A few optimism-inspiring stories from the past week or so:

1) Researchers at UBC have taken the first step towards a universal flu vaccine.

2) Claire Lomas, paralyzed from the chest down, completed a full 26.2-mile marathon with the help of a bionic suit (video here).

3) Cathy Hutchinson, a tetraplegic who cannot move her arms or legs, was able to lift a bottle to her mouth for a drink with a robotic arm controlled through a brain implant (video here).

4) I've heard of wearing your heart on your sleeve, but how about carrying your pancreas in your hand? A new device billed as a "hand-held artificial pancreas" could soon be improving life for diabetics (ht Innovations).

5) Moving away from bionics, Bob Murphy highlights the case for energy optimism, focusing on proved oil reserves that have continued to grow even as we use more oil than ever before.

6) On the same topic, Mark Perry at Carpe Diem shares some data showing global oil production has now surpassed 75 million barrels per day, and after a few years of apparent stagnation, is now higher than ever before.

7) Randal O'Toole, aka The Antiplanner, recently took a ride inside Google's self-driving car, which I've covered before.

8) From The Economist's Free Exchange blog, researchers in India and Bangladesh have found that sometimes what the poor need most is optimism and hope. The belief that they can improve their lives gives them the ability to actually do so. Small interventions that provide hope, such as providing an $8 bus ticket, decreased depression and spurred the poor to take more action on their own.

Everything We Hold of Value

The company Planetary Resources, and their plans to mine asteroids for gold, platinum and water, have been all over the news and the blogosphere the past few days. Now that I've stopped jumping up and down in excitement, here are a few thoughts I've had.

I) This is yet another piece of evidence to counter Tom Murphy's idea that the space age is over. As such, it's also another piece of evidence against his idea that growth must stop.

II) The announcement came just days after the space shuttle Discovery's last flight over DC on her way to the Smithsonian, and while the other shuttles are still being sent out to their final resting places. I can think of no better timing-- and indeed, maybe this was intentional-- to symbolize the transition from public to private. Space exploration is no longer the sole domain of government. As the private sector takes over, the industry will grow like never before.

III) The venture very well may fail. As the New York Times notes, it wouldn't be the first time a company had aimed to mine asteroids only to fail before getting there. That kind of thing happens in the private sector. It also happens in the public sector, with one very important difference. When Solyndra failed, it took with it my money, as well as yours, if you're an American taxpayer. The continuing failure of the United States Postal Service keeps taking taxpayer money with no end in sight. But if Planetary Resources fails, the only people who will lose money are those who are running it.

IV) One piece of evidence cited by reporters and bloggers as a reason they'll fail is NASA's upcoming OSIRIS-REx mission, which is spending a billion dollars to bring back just two ounces of material from a near-Earth asteroid. If they succeed, it will be an amazing example of the private sector's ability to do the same thing government does only cheaper. And even if they fail, they will surely develop some technologies along the way that will make things easier and cheaper for NASA's next asteroid mission, as well as the rest of the private space industry.

V) If they succeed, the added supply of gold will wreak havoc on any country using gold as a base for their currency. Anyone who still wants to go back to the gold standard needs to convince themselves that Planetary Resources-- and any successor companies-- will fail.

VI) In related news, a Canadian company recently got its first customer for material mined from the bottom of the sea near Papua New Guinea, with what they say is the "world's first commercial sea-floor mine." They're planning to begin operations in 2013. With mining on the bottom of the sea and in space, in a couple decades everything we now think is rare will be plentiful.

I'll close this with a quote from Peter Diamandis, one of the billionaires backing this enterprise: "If you look back historically at what has caused humanity to make its largest investments in exploration and in transportation, it has been going after resources, whether it's the Europeans going after the spice routes or the American settlers looking toward the west for gold, oil, timber or land. Those precious resources caused people to make huge investments in ships and railroads and pipelines. Looking to space, everything we hold of value on Earth - metals, minerals, energy, real estate, water - is in near-infinite quantities in space."

The Lame Walk...

Okay, not "walk" exactly, but even so, this is another example of technology greatly improving the lives of the least fortunate. In this case a man paralyzed five years ago, Yusuf Akturkoglu, has regained a great deal of his mobility through a piece of technology called a "Robotic Mobilization Device."



On a related note, the video below shows Google's self-driving car allowing a blind man, Steve Mahan, to go through the Taco Bell drive thru and pick up his dry cleaning. These are just banal, everyday things for most of us, but that's the point-- for the blind, they're not. Mahan says, "There are some places that you cannot go. There are some things that you really cannot do... This would give me the independence and the flexibility to go the places I both want to go and need to go when I need to do those things."



Now, these videos were produced by the companies, Tek and Google, that make these two technologies. These are basically just two long ads; take them with the same pinch of salt you'd take with any advertisement. Even so, it's hard not to get excited. As technology advances, we are approaching a world where physical disabilities no longer matter.

The Blind Receive Sight...

I don't often talk religion in this blog, but for some time, I've been mulling over an idea that might brand me a heretic in some circles. Since it's related to optimism, I think this is an appropriate place to share it, so I hope you'll indulge me.

There's a story in the gospels, found in both Matthew 11:2-6 and Luke 7:18-23, where John the Baptist, imprisoned and soon to be executed, has a moment of doubt about Jesus. He sends two of his followers to Jesus to ask if he was actually the Messiah: "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?"

Jesus' response at first seems bizarre: "Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the good news is preached to the poor." This seems bizarre at first because we expect a yes or no answer, and it seems like Jesus is changing the topic. But a first century Jew would have recognized the claims Jesus was making. Every item on Jesus' list referred to Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament book of Isaiah. Jesus was effectively saying, "These are the things Messiah was prophesied to do. Look around and see; I'm doing them."

Why do I bring this up? Well, let's go through this list one at a time:

• The blind receive sight -- Check, thanks to stem cells and gene therapy.
• The lame walk -- Check, thanks to both medical treatments and robotic legs.
• Those who have leprosy are cured -- Check; when was the last time you heard of someone with leprosy? Even taking "leprosy" in the broader sense of "any skin disease," we can now grow human skin in a lab.
• The deaf hear -- Check, in the most adorable way possible.
• The dead are raised -- Alright, that's one we don't have yet, and I wouldn't hold my breath for cryogenics.
• The good news is preached to the poor -- Check, given current poverty trends, and Peter Diamandis' observation that "a Masai warrior on a smartphone can access more information than the US President 15 years ago."

What does all this mean? Well, we can't raise the dead, so I wouldn't be looking around for a new Messiah. But it is still an astonishing fact that we have achieved five of the six signs of the Messiah's coming through technology and human innovation. These are things that were once considered so outlandish that they could only be miraculous, yet they are now possible through modern technology. And this isn't speculation or wishful thinking. Real people who were once blind can now see. Real people are using medical exoskeletons to walk when their own legs have failed them. Real babies born deaf are now given implants so early that they will never remember being deaf. It really is true-- there's never been a better time to be human.