Over history, there have been many incentives provided to humans to ensure they work well, are happy, and do good things. They include capitalism, communism, and many others. They can be simple, but also very complex. For example, a Stone Age incentive might be the fact that you get a very shiny seashell for every mammoth you kill. As human needs and wants evolve, you might be providing different things, like a cure-all currency that can but anything (money). Human incentives throughout history have been one of the defining factors of success in a country. Countries with bad incentives, such as communism, or a tribe that gave out worms, failed and ended up dissolved for one of many reasons.

Some of those reasons are:

1. Lack of morale in soldiers. When your soldiers are not sure what they’re fighting for, many of them end up being far less effective in combat.
2. Lack of morale in the populace as a whole. When workers and families don’t function, you don’t produce anything and therefore can even give them less incentives, and therefore their efficiency drops even more.
3. Corrupt government. When the incentives are low, often the profits reach the upper social strata and the government, making it so that either the people revolt, or the government is ineffective, and in either case you have a failing country.

Those are just the basic reasons, and often, nations have risen and fallen based on the strength and conviction of their vassals in the incentives they shall receive. In the end, all humans strive for life and pleasure, and pleasure most of all. If one sacrifices themselves for a nation or country, it is because they want to, and it will give them pleasure to have died in the service of their country/nation. That’s an example, but it shows how humans strive for incentives, even if those incentives are not strictly the common goals of a human.

Stay safe,

Elliot

Apparently, the hottest new appliance in a home these days are smart appliances. There are computers inside these appliances that make your life easier in a number of different ways. But technology is changing all the time. Could everyone’s appliances be host to hacker botnets?

These days, anything and everything is a suitable target for hacking. To easily ponder whether a hacker would hack your computer/fridge/heater/camera, think about Risk vs Reward. The reward for hacking the nuclear football is extremely high, but so is the risk. The reward for hacking your phone is medium, and depending on how much antivirus protection you have, the risk could be low or high. Now in the case of smart appliances, if the thing can issue verbal commands, then it can talk to you. That means it can scam you, or hold your things at ransom. If it has access to a camera, then it can look at your house, profile you, and violate your privacy. This is very dangerous.

I would recommend antivirus software on eve your smart appliances. As technology gets better and better even your 1-year old smart fridge may be susceptible and can be hacked to scam or otherwise harm you just like a computer can. There already have been many instances of scares and scams happening through smart appliances, and you should be very careful with how you’re protecting anything with a computing centre. Also, in case of device breach, I suggest turning off the power to the device so they can’t talk or ruin it anymore.

Be safe,

Elliot

There are many plausible reasons why humanity’s growth in the regions of technology is exponentially expanding. One of them is this: As our technological capability expands, our ability to find new technologies increases. Usually, this would be a linear function. However, when combined with exploding populations and new, ever-expanding computing technologies, this otherwise innocuous line becomes an exponential curve. One that I call the Humanity Curve.
If you were paying attention in high school, you’d know what this is:

f(x) = 2^x

The Humanity Curve’s equation could be something like this right now.
However, during short bursts of technological explosions, like the possible rise of quantum computing, it may even go super-exponential, like this:

f(x) = 2^x^x

The Humanity Curve is an ever-expanding curve that is a metaphor for humanity’s growth and progress since the Stone Age. It would take population, technology, and many other factors into effect. Realistically, this wouldn’t be possible with our given technology, but it is a good metaphor for our current growth.

Sometimes, when I think about the Humanity Curve, I see many things that keep it lagging. People that are technology resistant, people that won’t allow certain things to happen because it interferes with their personal beliefs. Now, I fully understand these people. However, how much longer are we going to hold off on immortality and gene editing? Among other things, those two technologies are going to be very important. We might need them if we are ever going to advance to the stars, and we are holding ourselves back because we’re afraid. We need to push that curve and stay ahead of the game. Especially now, as it’s a ticking time bomb. If we don’t get to a specific technological or societal point before the planet becomes inhospitable to life, humanity will go extinct. It’s all a game, huh?
See you soon,
Elliot

Recently I read about this phrase in a book. It captivated me and made me think not only about the increasing rate of things we know exist, but not how they work, but also just how fast our technological growth is. Future shock refers to the idea that when exponential technological growth reaches a certain point, our lives will change more quickly than people can adapt to them. This effect hasn’t impacted our lives yet, not that I’ve seen, however, if and when this happens, it may contribute to the increasing feelings of meaninglessness and depression among first-world adults and children. Especially as life expectancy increases, many people will have to take on multiple jobs throughout their lives. Especially my generation, as work will continuously be made and destroyed, or destroyed and not made at all, like in the futuristic economic models that many economists hold dear. If let’s say, a random person goes to get a job at a retailer in college, only to find, ten years later, that his or her career has been replaced by a well-meaning, but job-destroying automated robot producer. Maybe they can change, and get a job manufacturing those robots. Not only will they have to start from the bottom of the corporate ladder again (in most cases), they will have to learn an entirely new skill. They will do this again and again, at a faster rate each time, until, perhaps, it may be impossible to hold down a job, as they get will replaced every few years/months. In actuality, this may be just a transition phase from the era of human work, to the era of human supervision, and there on to the era of full automation. Pick your jobs well, as some of them may not exist in 10 years!

See you later, Elliot

Over the years, many creative individuals have found ways to band together while gaming, and create limitless opportunities for all. In my experience, some have been good, and some have been horribly bad. They can be a great help to anyone looking to achieve more in a certain game. So I’ll explain what they are, and 4 ways to find them.

These communities can range from hardcore gamers that need you to be active 3 hours a day, to laid-back communities where once a week logins are OK. They have a variety of niches, some being. teammate-finding groups, and others being coaching or tournament groups. If you’re looking for people to game with, here are some easy ways to find these groups. They’re all over the internet, you just haven’t found them yet!

Before I tell you how to find them, a great discord for gamers is right here:

https://discord.gg/a5he6kK
I first found them, and they were a great, welcoming community that really helped me negate toxicity and have a safe space on the internet to play and watch games.
Now, on with the tips.

Let’s say you play Rocket League, and you are mainly playing on PC.

1. Go to the relevant game’s reddit
   

Going to a game’s reddit is often the easiest way to find gaming groups, as when you make a post, chances are recruiting head-hunters will find your post and give you a couple links or a discord.

2. Find teammates in-game

Let’s say you’re playing Solo Standard 3v3s in Rocket League. That’s 5 people you’ll reach with your “Looking For A Community” message. Eventually, you’ll find someone in a group or recruiting for a group, and if you’re lucky, they’ll invite you.

3. Search on Google

This one isn’t as effective, however you could search up “Rocket League LFT” (LFT being Looking For a Team), and probably get several sites. There are many ways to find sites on Google, but often these sites are deep in the back brain of Google, as their search relevance many not be high, and they usually do not pay for site ranking services.

4. Check with your existing friends and/or Steam/Xbox/PS4 friends

Often, checking in with friends in real life can be the easiest way to find these sites. There’s a very high chance that someone in your friends list knows someone/is someone that’s in a group. Also, this is a great time to check on your real life friends and see if they know any sites either!

Today I’m going to be delving into Google’s new quantum computer. It’s 1.5 trillion times faster as of late, but is it all it’s cracked up to be?

A 53 qubit quantum computer developed by Google recently solved a calculation in 3 1/3 minutes that would take a normal super-computer 10,000 years to calculate. However, quantum computers derive their amazing computing efficiency from superposition states. For example, a pair of normal semi-conductor bits can store just one of four possible combinations of binary states (00, 01, 10 or 11) at any given time. A pair of quantum qubits can store all four combinations simultaneously, because each qubit can represent both binary values (0 and 1) at the same time. Therefore, as you add qubits to the quantum computer, your computing power will grow exponentially. On a research paper, this technology looks amazing. However, the technology is still in its growth stages, and there are many existing problems with the computers, a few being that entangled qubits can become untangled after short bits of time, and that they are susceptible to errors. All in all, this technology has amazing, almost unlimited potential. But first, we need to learn how to harness it, like so many other technologies.

See you soon,

Elliot