H + Summit: Rise of the Citizen Scientist @ Harvard University LIVE in Russian, June 12-13, 2010

This weekend, June 12-13, the efforts of enthusiasts from the Russian transhumanist movement will broadcast live and in Russian an event held at Harvard University called H + Summit: Rise of Citizen Scientist .

I think on Habré no longer need to be reminded what transhumanism and H + are; Anyone can read this on the RTD website . Let's get right to the point. The theme of the current summit - “The appearance of a citizen-scientist” - reflects the phenomenon that in general has historically been inherent in science at the early stages of its formation in its modern form. A citizen-scientist is any person who uses the scientific method to study himself or his environment to answer a specific question or to satisfy curiosity. Personalities such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Edward Jenner carried out their discoveries and inventions, not being employees of academies and universities with expensive laboratories, but acting directly "in the field." Over time, science has become significantly more complicated, turned into a huge bureaucratic institution and became the lot of professionals, in a sense, "moving away from the people." They even talked about a kind of “crisis of science”, about the loss of its original purpose. But as they say, a holy place is never empty. Today, the banner of civic scientific research is picked up by enthusiasts who use all the cheaper computer and biological equipment, make the necessary devices on their own and, most importantly for this renaissance, sharing knowledge through the Internet and social networks. We already read news about genome garage hackers , projects like OpenWetWare , BioBricks , Freeman Dyson ’s predictions about home biotechnology , etc., and today more than 600 transhumanists — scientists, entrepreneurs, and writers — gather at a summit to exchange ideas about the further development of this trend and about the prospects that it opens.

What does all this have to do with IT and with us? The most direct.

Actually, the forerunners of a new generation of “citizen scientists” can be considered computer hackers of the 1970s. Stephen Levy wrote well on the evolution of geeks ( translated into Xacape ). Theorists will call those and other subcultures of the post-industrial type, based not on the formal structures with their hierarchy built by someone, but on the network principle, free open cooperation, priority of talents, abilities and live human curiosity over any external factors such as age, race, gender, degree or position.
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Of course, at the moment this “civilian” science does not set itself the task of replacing traditional academic science with its BAC and other expensive high-tech equipment, and this is not necessary. It is important that this movement is able to fill the growing gap between the “academies” and society, to transform the scientific method and the drive of the “wonderful discoveries” from a few professionals or early enthusiasts to the occupation of millions, just as familiar as the programming and research of computers today. Is it possible to imagine the Internet without the entire hacker community, in the real sense of the word, who created it and continue to create it? And even if some of them settle down, builds an ivory tower like Microsoft, sooner or later an open free alternative in the form of Linux appears. This is the movement, this is the development.

Similarly, when we talk about the world of the future, about the problems that confront the citizens of the Earth, and about the new opportunities that they open, we should take into account not only the classical industrial sector with the industrialized science and citizens who passively consume its achievements; But above all, the role of the growing community of info-, bio-, robo- ... hackers, geeks, DIY-enthusiasts, and in general everyone who wants to take an active part in this future in this future science. Now we are talking about web startups using the capabilities of mobile devices and penetrating into all new areas of RL - tomorrow there will be many more, new tools for cooperation, rapid response, security and mutual assistance will appear. In the dissemination of IT and civic research activities - with the possibility of further formalization of promising developments in business and / or big science - the key to solving a variety of problems: economic, environmental, social. Roughly speaking, the results that, for whatever reason, are not achieved in traditional organizational forms, may well be realized in new ones, which are now being created in the form of Internet resources and social networks. Ahead - the era of closer integration of man with the Internet, biofeedback, neural interfaces, and digital telepathy; we can only guess at the time what opportunities for interaction will give it to those who are able and willing to look out for new opportunities - to scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs, including in one person.

Today, such people include transhumanists - those who are given the prospect of applying new technologies not only to the outside world, but also to themselves. For example, in order to increase the effectiveness of their own activities, increase their intellectual, creative and other abilities, optimize health and prolong life, and in the long term, eradicate aging, death and other forms of meaningless suffering, give a person new fundamentally new abilities for self-upgrading and self-modification. Transhumanists put the philosophical and practical issues of possible and desirable directions of such modification, the further evolution of the relationship between people and potential new forms of rational beings, possible risks arising or detectable as technology develops, and ways to protect against them. In the "civil science" and DIY-practice, the summit participants see tremendous opportunities for developing breakthrough technologies, and for their democratic implementation for the benefit of the person and the surrounding biosphere, the solution of stagnant age-old problems, and of course - for business, for startups of tomorrow.

So, the live broadcast of the summit with the Russian translation will be conducted for two days (for us evenings) on June 12 and 13, starting at 15:00 Moscow time.

The original broadcast in English at the same time will be carried out here from 16:00 Moscow time (the Russian version opens an hour earlier with introductory material RTD).

Be a part of the future!