Book Review - The Mortality Thief by Mark Griffin

 

You know you are in for a ride when the first pages of a book put you with a blood splattered figure in the back of an ambulance. 

Omni-Post 1.0: From Animation to Zuzalu

Let's explore innovations in tech and longevity that prompt interesting questions. 

1. Animation

Some scientists recently created a real life version of the animated Pixar lamp, and in doing so, have had to explore the some interesting questions around feelings. Can emotion be programmed? What does it mean to feel something?  How do we know if a robot can "feel?" Does it matter if it is actually feeing an emotion or just convincing us that it is?  How might this apply to caretaking industries? 

New Series: Omni-posts

A fun sequence of events, I have become part of a creative community for the latest manifestation of Andrew Schwab's heavy metal and hard rock entity formerly known as Project 86, now P86:OMNI.

The OMNI world imagines a centralized technocracy that has solved hunger, conflict, mental distress and energy through a series of technological innovations.  Ultimately, OMNI promises a final piece of tech that will circumvent the natural limit on the human condition:  mortality. 

Now, while these types of societal benefits sound good on the surface, it would not make good music without a bit of tension. Each innovation has a cost, and so we are left to ask what is the price going to be for the ultimate reward?

While this all seems like dystopian sci-fi, these issues are grounded in real events and some manifestations are not to far away. There are strong parallels to the Black Mirror series in this regard. 

This series will look at various aspects of the Omniverse and also our real world advances in tech and longevity. These are exciting and scary times and like any good actuary we have to try to distill how these things will shape our future.

Comedian Bill Burr Goes Full Actuary

Comedian Bill Burr's latest special is call "Drop Dead Years."  He explains the concept on Jimmy Fallon's show.

While the punchline creates a unique perspective on this chapter of life, the question remains, how did he come to his conclusions?  Understanding mortality patterns, and causes of death trends, is of interest to several types of groups: demographers, epidemiologists, researchers, governments, health officials, and especially actuaries.  In this article, we will explore if a comedian is actually an actuary in disguise.

V is for Virus. And Vaccine. And Vendetta? And Vigilance.

Last year, I wondered if I would be concluding my COVID series. 

But COVID keeps causing problems, including excess mortality in Australia. And it's not the only trouble maker. It appears the last flu was nasty. And then there's this chicken and egg problem, and its not about which came first!

So, here we are. I am now going to declare that this will be an annual tradition indefinitely. Although COVID may not be the central topic in future episodes, it seems we will have enough stuff going on to perpetuate prolific pontifications.

If you are just now tuning in, in this series I like to use the context of the virus to explore decision making and uncertainty (including modeling), and the post-COVID world.

In this installment, there are a couple themes that we will explore. 

First, this seems to be the age of retaliation, with more voices pushing back against previous policy decisions. 

Secondly,  there are some mean reversions occurring in the post-covid world, but there other items where COVID is still causing trouble.