Probaway – Person of the year 2014 – Jennifer Doudna

Tags

Artificial life, Controling DNA, CRISPR, Jennifer Doudna

The work of Jennifer Doudna of UC Berkeley will have a huge effect on the future of all life here on Earth and possibly beyond. She and her team have created the ability to insert stretches of DNA exactly where they want them to go in a living chromosome’s DNA. The technique she developed into a practical method is known as CRISPR, and it will enable future living things to create new stuff that even science fiction hasn’t dreamed of yet. The possibilities reside in the realms of the unknownable unknowns, but the door has been opened.

Jennifer Doudna, the creator of workable CRISPR technology.

This technology combined with Craig Venter’s replicator, the design of which could be sent to a distant star system and built there, could enable life of any description to be sent from here to there at the speed of light. This isn’t an Earth-shaking discovery; it is a galaxy-wide enabling of life discovery. It enables life to move though the Universe at the speed of light, and once established to intentionally modify its phenotype to fit the new situation.

The complete up-to-present list of – Probaway Person of the Year:

• 2017 – Albert Einstein for predicting black holes, their collisions creating gravity waves, and the laser for observing the gravity waves.
• 2016 – Xi Jinping for taking China from a backward economy to the most powerful one on Earth.
• 2015 – Peter Higgs and Alan Guth created theories that lead to proofs this year of mass and gravity sources.
• 2014 – Jennifer Doudna created a method for insertion of designed DNA precisely into existing DNA.
• 2013 – Plague Inc. is a computer game that explores the problems of creating a disease that will kill every last human being on Earth.
• 2012 – Zebrafish research-technique advances made it possible to observe drug interactions within living animals.
• 2011 – Craig Venter laid the groundwork for creating entirely new forms of life (greater than species) out of computer-generated DNA sequences.
• 2010 – Nadya Suleman (Octomom) and the society that created this travesty of good sense will be remembered into the distant future by many hungry people.
• 2009 – Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia, which will be still be used after our current computer operating systems are surpassed and forgotten.
• 2008 – Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) because he shows people how to relate to dogs and people much better than anyone else. His videos and techniques will be remembered and used as long as there are people and dogs.

These may seem like strange choices but they are potentially long-term-memorable events which had a major tipping point the year before their selection.

[Update January 16, 2014]
New Genome-Editing Method Could Make Gene Therapy More Precise and Effective
[Update Febuary 11, 2014]
DNA surgery from MIT

Starting the search for Probaway Person of the year 2013?

Tags

DNA, Jennifer Doudna, Life research.

Each New Year I have chosen a Probaway Person of the Year. The guiding principle is to choose someone who will probably be remembered in 500 years, for something they did in the previous year. It is now time to start narrowing down the list of candidates, but an hour ago it suddenly got easy; it looks like Jennifer Doudna of UC Berkeley is the top contender.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-more-we-looked-into-the-mystery-of-crispr-the-more-interesting-it-seemed-8925328.html

What do you think?

The complete up-to-present list – Probaway Person of the Year:

• 2013 – Plague Inc. is a computer game that explores the problems of  creating a disease that will kill every last human being on Earth.
• 2012 – Zebrafish research-technique advances made it possible to observe drug interactions within living animals.
• 2011 – Craig Venter  laid the groundwork for creating entirely new forms of life (greater than species) out of computer-generated DNA sequences.
• 2010 – Nadya Suleman (Octomom) and the society that created this travesty of good sense will be remembered into the distant future by many hungry people.
• 2009 – Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia, which will be still be used after our current computer operating systems are surpassed and forgotten.
• 2008 – Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) because he shows people how to relate to dogs and people much better than anyone else. His videos and techniques will be remembered and used as long as there are people and dogs.

These may seem like strange choices but they are potentially long-term-memorable events which happened the previous year.

Jennifer Doudna’s discoveries will be the breakthrough to modifying DNA at the will of the practitioner. This will eliminate DNA linked diseases, and will permit designing new life forms and improving any existing ones. Combined with Craig Venter’s ability to modify DNA sequences to anything whatsoever, the new possibilities are stupendous.

Probaway – Person of the Year 2013 – Plague Inc.

Tags

Common sense, person of the year, Plague, Plague 2012, Probaway Person of the Year, TIME person of the year

Each New Year I have chosen a Probaway Person of the Year. The guiding principle is to choose someone who will probably be remembered in 500 years, for something they did in the previous year. Originally the Probaway Person of the Year post was intended as a riposte to TIME magazine’s Person of the Year articles. Their method appeared to me to be shortsighted because they were mostly interested in the popular people of the previous year. Most of the choices were heads of state. It seemed TIME was selecting the office for that particular year, rather than something the person did that would be remembered in the distant future. When one looks at their previous 83 choices it becomes apparent that their person of the year vanishes from history within a few years after leaving public office. In 500 years whoever held office a particular year will be forgotten. There is something special about truly memorable actions, when seen from the future, and that is what this post attempts to reveal.

TIME has a fascination with creating Top 10 lists and this year they expanded their coverage with The Top Ten of Everything. I challenge you to find one item in their 16 lists of Top Tens, which makes 160 items, that is likely to be remembered in 500 years.  One repeated story on their lists is Linsanity, which is an interesting pop culture piece, and a friend of mine who predicted Lin’s rise to success two years ago got a feature article in the Wall Street Journal. That is wonderful, but it isn’t the stuff of long-term history. I found nothing on their lists that appeared to fit that criterion. TIME neglected to mention the Mars rover Curiosity, which successfully landed and is exploring Mars. It might be reporting any day now that it has found evidence of life. That discovery would mean that Earth is not truly a supremely magical place, but that life is common throughout the Universe. That would be a memorable Earth-shaking announcement, and if it comes will be remembered as long as there are people to remember anything.

When we look back from 500 years in the future it is probable that plagues will have killed huge numbers of people. It has happened many times in the past, and in this kind of subject the past is a good predictor of the future. Unfortunately, in addition to natural plagues man made ones are probably already in our labs, and to worsen the fragile situation humanity is presently in, scientists have published this year precise DNA sequences of various diseases. Combine that data with unlimited numbers of individual people in home labs brewing up DNA for fun and profit, it is the new startup industry, and with little doubt some of these labs will be successful in creating a deadly diseases. With access to the internet everyone has access, or soon will have access, to most if not everything needed to brew up pathogens in their own home.

Here is the game Plague Inc.’s opening page. Your goal is to kill everyone.

This year the  popular game Plagure Inc. was published that made it easy to explore the various problems of making a real artificial plague happen. It would appear that 500 years in the future, after there have been many plagues, some of them possibly generated in home labs, that the surviving people will look back at this game as the memorable event of the year 2012. The people who created the various parts of the Plague will be forgotten, but the millions of common people who supported their work will be remembered for helping them to create these horrible disasters. The game Plague Inc is fun to play, but in the distant future people will be asking, “Why was it so much fun helping to kill billions of living people who haven’t even been born?”

The complete up-to-present list of – Probaway Person of the Year:

• 2017 – Albert Einstein for predicting black holes, their collisions creating gravity waves, and the laser for observing the gravity waves.
• 2016 – Xi Jinping for taking China from a backward economy to the most powerful one on Earth.
• 2015 – Peter Higgs and Alan Guth created theories that lead to proofs this year of mass and gravity sources.
• 2014 – Jennifer Doudna created a method for insertion of designed DNA precisely into existing DNA.
• 2013 – Plague Inc. is a computer game that explores the problems of creating a disease that will kill every last human being on Earth.
• 2012 – Zebrafish research-technique advances made it possible to observe drug interactions within living animals.
• 2011 – Craig Venter laid the groundwork for creating entirely new forms of life (greater than species) out of computer-generated DNA sequences.
• 2010 – Nadya Suleman (Octomom) and the society that created this travesty of good sense will be remembered into the distant future by many hungry people.
• 2009 – Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia, which will be still be used after our current computer operating systems are surpassed and forgotten.
• 2008 – Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) because he shows people how to relate to dogs and people much better than anyone else. His videos and techniques will be remembered and used as long as there are people and dogs.

These may seem like strange choices but they are potentially long-term-memorable events which had a major tipping point the year before their selection.

Probaway Person of the Year will be announced January 1st.

Tags

Creation of Life, Destruction of life.

Each New Year I have chosen a Probaway Person of the Year. The guiding principle is to choose someone who will probably still be remembered in 500 years, for something they did in the previous year. The previous choices were:

Yearly choices for Probaway Person of the Year.

• 2012 – Zebrafish research-technique advances made it possible to observe drug interactions within living animals.
• 2011 – Craig Venter laid the groundwork for creating entirely new forms of life (greater than species) out of computer-generated DNA sequences.
• 2010 – Nadya Suleman (Octomom) and the society that created this travesty of good sense will be remembered into the distant future by many hungry people.
• 2009 – Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia, which will be still be used after our current computer operating systems are surpassed and forgotten.
• 2008 – Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) because he shows people how to relate to dogs and people much better than anyone else. His videos and techniques will be remembered and used as long as there are people and dogs.

The previous choices for specific persons are still valid, and I think the zebrafish choice was a good too because it will advance human and animal health tremendously. It is much more than a new drug because the new glowing molecule transparent zebrafish is like a telescope in that it gives a tool for exploration into the unknown operations of living processes. We may not hear much of this in the news media for a while, but the effect will be tremendous and long remembered.

At the moment, and there is still a month to go before the choice is made, perhaps the most amazing thing is the continuing explosion of transistor technology and the products that continuing development makes possible. What is happening is a synergistic coupling of many different processes bringing us new opportunities in every field of human activity. The product in hand may look like a tablet computer, but it is what that device brings to everyone which is fabulous, and that is everything which humans, all humanity, can think of. The problem for that to be a Probaway Person of the Year choice is that it isn’t a single person that is creating this wonderful breakthrough, it is all humanity. The technology is wonderful, but it is the ability of everyone to participate which is the most wonderful thing, and that isn’t a single person. The zebrafish had this same problem, and most big things take lots of unnamed backup people.

The next month may bring two earthshaking events which will rocket them into lasting fame. There is the ongoing possibility that Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, may okay Israel’s strike upon Iran’s A-bomb making factories. If that is done it will probably require the use of atomic weapons, because that seems to be the only way to destroy those deeply buried refinement centers. Time is running out! If that attack takes place it will be remembered in 500 years as the beginning of the Atomic Wars, probably more so than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings because of those weapons’ 62 years of non-use. It seems unlikely that another six decades of non-use would follow such an attack, but rather it would be the beginning of a new era of warfare. The war may already have begun with last week’s call up of the reserves. The current Gaza affair may only be a pretense for putting Israel onto a full war-alert status.

The other big event of December may be the announcement of discovering evidence of life on Mars. There are already clear rumblings about that announcement, but they are running further tests to verify what they may already be suspecting to be the facts. What they are saying is: the Mars Curiosity rover has made an earthshaking discovery “for the history books” according to NASA scientists. The tools they are using are designed specifically for searching for signs of life, and so that is virtually certain to be what they will announce they have found. It is unlikely they would say their discovery was earthshaking if it was only, “on our first shovel full of Martian dirt we haven’t found any signs of life.” What is striking about discovering life on Mars is that the planet isn’t really in what has been called the Goldilocks zone, and that would mean that life is very robust. With the vast number of planets now known to exist in the Universe it would be impossible that none of them were similar enough to Earth for them not to have developed life. However, for Mars to have developed life greatly expands the Goldilocks Zone and makes life in the Universe to be a much more common process. Hurray for life.

So, the Probaway Person of the Year might be a spectacular two-way event for life, both the discovery of life beyond the Earth and the beginning of massive destruction of life here on Earth. The Classic Mayans had it righter than they ever could have known, naming December solstice of this year as a dramatic end point of life on Earth and the beginning of new life. Our technology is making what they thought available only to their gods a reality.

Probaway Person of the year 2012 – Zebrafish

Tags

Fluorescent Zebrafish, person of the year, Probaway Person of the Year, TIME person of the year, Zebrafish, Zebrafish Person of the year 2012

The fluorescing transparent zebrafish will soon make your life better.

Perhaps the event of this last year that will have the greatest lasting impact on humanity has come from the zebrafish, Danio rerio. Varieties of these naturally transparent small fish have been developed with qualities which permit  experiments to be performed that are impossible to do with other methods. Various functions occurring within these fishes can be tagged with molecules that can be made to fluoresce. With that ability it became possible this year to see the function of cholesterol in a living animal, and with that ability research on these zebrafish will lead to more effective control of artery-choking plaque, which is created by cholesterol and other factors. Controlling cholesterol and a myriad of other bodily functions will probably lead to findings that will add many healthy years to the average person’s life expectancy. Many more as yet unknowable discoveries will undoubtedly follow from this new fluorescing technique for working with transparent zebrafish.

The zebrafish is revolutionizing human health. There are many scientists now working with zebrafish, but George Streisinger of the University of Oregon, who died in 1984, deserves a great share of the credit for developing the present zebrafish technology. It does appear to an outsider such as myself that this transparent fish being linked to visibly fluorescent dyes was a logical development of the existing widespread fluorescent dye marking technology. Therefore instead of picking a single scientist working in 2011 exploiting this fluorescent technology, it seems more reasonable to pick the zebrafish itself as the Probaway Person of the Year.

The complete up-to-present list of – Probaway Person of the Year:

• 2017 – Albert Einstein for predicting black holes, their collisions creating gravity waves, and the laser for observing the gravity waves.
• 2016 – Xi Jinping for taking China from a backward economy to the most powerful one on Earth.
• 2015 – Peter Higgs and Alan Guth created theories that lead to proofs this year of mass and gravity sources.
• 2014 – Jennifer Doudna created a method for insertion of designed DNA precisely into existing DNA.
• 2013 – Plague Inc. is a computer game that explores the problems of creating a disease that will kill every last human being on Earth.
• 2012 – Zebrafish research-technique advances made it possible to observe drug interactions within living animals.
• 2011 – Craig Venter laid the groundwork for creating entirely new forms of life (greater than species) out of computer-generated DNA sequences.
• 2010 – Nadya Suleman (Octomom) and the society that created this travesty of good sense will be remembered into the distant future by many hungry people.
• 2009 – Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia, which will be still be used after our current computer operating systems are surpassed and forgotten.
• 2008 – Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) because he shows people how to relate to dogs and people much better than anyone else. His videos and techniques will be remembered and used as long as there are people and dogs.

These may seem like strange choices but they are potentially long-term-memorable events which had a major tipping point the year before their selection.

 

TIME Person of the Year 2011 is The Protester
Introduction: History often only emerges in retrospect. Events only become significant only when looking back.

TIME’s opening quote is an important and well stated concept, but they follow it with an appalling naïve application of those simple ideas! They begin their analysis with why they chose The Protester. They might have chosen Steve Jobs, who had been getting a lot of attention as their possible choice. He would still have been a better choice than their empty term protester because it was the cell-phone, which he was a major pioneer in the development of, that was so important in making the protests so spectacular.

Their analysis was naïve because when they use the word history in retrospect they should project themselves at least several decades into the future and past, and when that is done these protests must be compared to other things like tens of millions of people getting killed in wars. The deadliest war of all time, the Taiping Rebellion, was apparently unknown to TIME or ignored. TIME totally fails in its concept of historical perspective. They publish the words but are oblivious to the ideas behind the words.

With their total lack of historical time-perspective, for them to consider these largely peaceful demonstrations as historically memorable is simply blindly shortsighted. TIME isn’t taking a historical perspective. In the long run, the cell phone was more important than the crowds it enabled. It was the cell phones’ capacity to instantly broadcast videos which was the critical event of the year. TIME was aware of this but they were too shortsighted to acknowledge its importance. TIME Person of the Year – The Cellphone, would have made more sense from a historical perspective.

The guiding concept for Probaway Person of the Year, memorability, is who will have done something or what will have happened in the previous year which will have impact and potentially be remembered in 500 years. As much as I respect Steve Jobs, it was his earlier work, and not his work of last year, which will be remembered in the distant future.

TIME’s Runner-Up category was occupied by real individual humans and not humanized corporations or masses of nameless people, but even these fine people were only place holders of some categorical office. Someone is going to be the General of the US military in Afghanistan, someone is going to be a protesting artist in China, someone is going to be an advocate for lowering US taxes, someone is going to marry the current Prince Charming. Even these wonderful individual people did not do anything of historically memorable importance last year. But what is probably memorable is that …

The zebrafish will soon change everyone’s life for the better.

Probaway – Person of the Year 2012 – ?

Tags

American idol, Cesar Millan, Craig Venter, dog whisperer, Fame, Fleeting fame, Jimmy Wales, Nadya Suleman, Octomom, Popularity, Probaway's - Person of the Year, TIME person of the year, Vernerium, Washington Irving, Wikipedia

I am watching and very interested to discover who will be Probaway’s person of the year. The method of choosing this person is to estimate whether what they did will still be considered remarkable enough that they will be remembered personally five hundred years into the future. TIME magazine’s Person of the Year is generally based on the current reigning US President, or some other head of state, or the most currently newsworthy personality. Few of their fifty-year-old choices would be known to living young adults, and yet there are persons from each of those years who are still known. It is those qualities which intrigue me and help me to decide whom I think will still be known to future people.

The idol of today pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow.

Washington Irving (1783-1859)

Presently the public attention is dominated by movie and TV personalities, and typically even politicians other than the chief executive get only fleeting attention. And yet, we are living in fabulous times and there are many people doing amazing things, and yet they are almost unknown to the public. Some of these will probably gain fame as the years roll by, and it is my effort to discover who they are – now.

= = = = Below is updated from my Probaway 2011/01/01/ post = = = =

Each New Year I have chosen a Probaway Person of the Year. The guiding principle is to choose someone who will probably still be remembered in 500 years for something they did in the previous year. Originally the Probaway Person of the Year post was intended as a riposte to TIME magazine’s Person of the Year articles. Their method appeared to me to be shortsighted because they were mostly interested in the newsworthy people of the previous year. Most of the choices were heads of state, which seemed like they were selecting the office for that particular year rather than something the person did that would be remembered in the future. When one looks at their previous 82 choices it becomes apparent that their person of the year vanishes from history, as an individual person, within a few years after leaving public office.

The Probaway choices for memorable persons of the year may seem strange, but these individuals have done something which will be remembered and used long after they have departed this year’s public awareness, as their accomplishments will keep bringing them back into prominence for a very long time.

• 2011 – Craig Venter  laid the groundwork for creating entirely new forms of life (greater than species) out of computer-generated DNA sequences.
• 2010 – Nadya Suleman (Octomom) and the society that created this travesty of good sense will be remembered into the distant future by many hungry people.
• 2009 – Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia, which will be still be used after our current computer operating systems are surpassed and forgotten.
• 2008 – Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) because he shows people how to relate to dogs and people much better than anyone else. His videos and techniques will be remembered and used as long as there are people and dogs.

Probaway Person of the Year – Craig Venter

Tags

Craig Venter, Mark Zuckerberg, person of the year, Probaway Person of the Year, Probaway's choice

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What Craig Venter and his team did was much more important than creating primitive life out of pure chemicals; they laid the groundwork for creating entirely new forms of life (greater than species) out of computer-generated DNA sequences. They have created the possibility of shifting the DNA of these new species into new forms and creating the possibility of completely new intended behaviors. Craig Venter and his team have made it possible to make fuel out of CO2, make good food out of algae, make medicines and vaccines to do specific things and without doubt much much more.

Each New Year I have chosen a Probaway Person of the Year. The guiding principle is to choose someone who will probably still be remembered in 500 years, for something they did in the previous year. Originally the Probaway Person of the Year post was intended as a riposte to TIME magazine’s Person of the Year articles. Their method appeared to me to be shortsighted because they were mostly interested in the newsworthy people of the previous year. Most of the choices were heads of state, which seemed like they were selecting the office for that particular year rather than something the person did which would be remembered in the future. When one looks at their previous 82 choices it becomes apparent that their person of the year vanishes from history, as an individual person, within a few years after leaving public office.

The Probaway choices for memorable persons of the year may seem strange, but these individuals have done something which will be remembered and used long after they have departed this year’s public awareness, as their accomplishments will keep bringing them back into prominence for a very long time.

The complete up-to-present list of – Probaway Person of the Year:

• 2017 – Albert Einstein for predicting black holes, their collisions creating gravity waves, and the laser for observing the gravity waves.
• 2016 – Xi Jinping for taking China from a backward economy to the most powerful one on Earth.
• 2015 – Peter Higgs and Alan Guth created theories that lead to proofs this year of mass and gravity sources.
• 2014 – Jennifer Doudna created a method for insertion of designed DNA precisely into existing DNA.
• 2013 – Plague Inc. is a computer game that explores the problems of creating a disease that will kill every last human being on Earth.
• 2012 – Zebrafish research-technique advances made it possible to observe drug interactions within living animals.
• 2011 – Craig Venter laid the groundwork for creating entirely new forms of life (greater than species) out of computer-generated DNA sequences.
• 2010 – Nadya Suleman (Octomom) and the society that created this travesty of good sense will be remembered into the distant future by many hungry people.
• 2009 – Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia, which will be still be used after our current computer operating systems are surpassed and forgotten.
• 2008 – Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) because he shows people how to relate to dogs and people much better than anyone else. His videos and techniques will be remembered and used as long as there are people and dogs.

These may seem like strange choices but they are potentially long-term-memorable events which had a major tipping point the year before their selection.

These may seem like strange choices but they are potentially long-term-memorable events which happened the previous year.

Craig Venter has been considered right along for Probaway’s Person of the Year for various wonderful things like sequencing the human genome. That certainly would qualify, but these actions were done before Probaway Person of the Year choices were being made, and these selections are intended to commemorate a given person’s action for the year just ending. The just announced creation of the first cell with a synthetic genome will probably be unsurpassed. Even SETI discovering extraterrestrial life wouldn’t surpass Craig Venter’s remarkable achievement.

It will be the most memorable accomplishment this year and probably for the rest of human existence.

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Mark Zuckerberg is TIME’s Person of the Year 2010

Mark Zuckerberg created a new nation of humans named Facebook. It’s larger in population than the United States and it’s growing faster than our presently moribund country in population and power. TIME chose the Person of the Year well by their own criterion. The moderator in the introduction to their video about their Person of the Year says the choice is based on, “… Celebrating the people, the group of people, the idea, the individual that most impacted our society, our world, for this year.”

Probaway’s criterion is slightly different, not based so much on what impacted the public’s consciousness this year, but what will be remembered in the distant future. Craig Venter did something this year, in creating a new life form, which will impact all the world, not just this year’s humanity, for as long as life exists on Earth. None of the other people on TIME’s list did anything last year which will have much chance of being remembered in 500 years; that’s my fixed point for thinking about the modern world. But Venter’s creating life from pure chemicals opens up a whole new world of life forms, each of which has vast evolutionary possibilities.

Craig Venter will be a contender for the person of the 21st Century.

Probaway Person of the year Nadya Suleman (Octomom)

Tags

famine, Nadya Suleman (Octomom), Octomom, Overpopulation brings famine, Starving children

The Probaway Person of the Year is an attempt to identify people whose year was so outstanding that it will be remembered 500 years in the future. TIME magazine’s person of the year has other criteria. It appears to be maximum public exposure in the media. That makes any major country’s top politicians automatic candidates for TIME’s top spot but their choices are transient. The first person to walk on the Moon will be remembered but the people who sent him there will not be. Thus Neil Armstrong’s place in history is assured but President Kennedy’s is not. In 500 years many of heads of state will have been assassinated but only one person will be first to step on the Moon. There may be others or there may not but Armstrong will remain the first.

Nadya Suleman (the Octomom) may be remembered in 500 years because by that time there will have been repeated population collapses caused by overpopulation. At that time, if civilization is still thriving, there will probably be mandatory population limits, legally imposed, limiting individual women who are healthy to two children and unhealthy women to adopting children if they want them. Occasionally there will be some exceptions where there will be issued a permit for a third child. This will be a worldwide policy because any person or group who breeds more children is depriving the other people of the world their right to sufficient food and to raise a family of their own.

The population law will be enforced because any free breeding population will eventually expand to the carrying capacity of their environment and then attempt to expand into every other possible niche. That is the situation at present 2010 CE where there is a population of 6.8 billion and growing fast. The current living population will soon totally consume some of the Earth’s one time use minerals and the population will have been reduced by some calamity to a smaller but sustainable number before 2500 CE. After the collapse and partial recovery people will realize that to prevent another catastrophe they must limit the total population to some sustainable number.

The stable human population will probably be much smaller than the current number. If the current carbon footprint of a primitive agricultural farmer is taken as the standard then a high-tech population would be very approximately 100 million. After a librating balance is attained this number may be much larger or possibly smaller; only experience will find an ideal number and this number will be decided upon by those future people. At that time of balance they will still remember the Octomom because she will be a symbol of what went wrong with the 20th century and why the Doomsday disasters were so devastating. Even at present when the world is still in a fully functioning condition the unmarried Octomom’s 14 welfare dependent children will probably mean that before those children’s lives are done they will have eaten the food that would have saved the lives of a hundred 3rd world children.

The Octomom – Nadya Suleman pregnant with 8 artificially induced babies.

Picture source is Fanpop

Starving child with a vulture waiting for it to die.

This is what overpopulation means for some children. Why did the mother of this child not provide for it once she had brought it into the world? And if she couldn’t provide for it why did she have it? Why did Suleman who already had six children have eight more via artificial implantation of eggs? Her and her doctor’s appallingly bad judgment isn’t compensated for by hundreds of reasonable people behaving responsibly and acceptance and support of this wretched act will soon lead to overpopulation and scenes like the starving child.

We can prepare for a better future by showing people the connections provided in these two pictures because any thoughtful person can see that these were preventable tragedies. There must be enforceable laws that provide for more food in the world than there are people to eat the food. There is an ultimate limit to how much food the Earth can provide and therefore the human population must be controlled to be below that limit. If humans are unwilling to limit women to two children each then the above scene is the inevitable result. Nature will take over but we will find that solution very painful, but if we don’t choose to take responsibility for our own behavior we must accept nature’s merciless carnage.

Looking back from the distant future at our population problem.

The complete up-to-present list of – Probaway Person of the Year:

• 2017 – Albert Einstein for predicting black holes, their collisions creating gravity waves, and the laser for observing the gravity waves.
• 2016 – Xi Jinping for taking China from a backward economy to the most powerful one on Earth.
• 2015 – Peter Higgs and Alan Guth created theories that lead to proofs this year of mass and gravity sources.
• 2014 – Jennifer Doudna created a method for insertion of designed DNA precisely into existing DNA.
• 2013 – Plague Inc. is a computer game that explores the problems of creating a disease that will kill every last human being on Earth.
• 2012 – Zebrafish research-technique advances made it possible to observe drug interactions within living animals.
• 2011 – Craig Venter laid the groundwork for creating entirely new forms of life (greater than species) out of computer-generated DNA sequences.
• 2010 – Nadya Suleman (Octomom) and the society that created this travesty of good sense will be remembered into the distant future by many hungry people.
• 2009 – Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia, which will be still be used after our current computer operating systems are surpassed and forgotten.
• 2008 – Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) because he shows people how to relate to dogs and people much better than anyone else. His videos and techniques will be remembered and used as long as there are people and dogs.

These may seem like strange choices but they are potentially long-term-memorable events which had a major tipping point the year before their selection.

Probaway’s Person of the Year – TIME list

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Famous in 500 years, Famous people, Long term effective people

TIME magazine list of candidates for person of the year (with their links). The following is an estimate if that person’s work will be famous and still used and associated with their name 500 years in the future. For example people like: Politicians ~ Queen Elizabeth I, Stage ~ William Shakespeare, Military ~ Sir Francis Drake. All of the candidates are contributors to modern society but this list is for potential for distant fame. Something this person has done recently which will make their work relevant to people’s lives in the distant future. Previous choices were:

Probaway’s Person of the Year. – Cesar Millan – 2007

Probaway’s Person of the Year – Jimmy Wales – 2008

Probaway’s Person of the Year – 2009 – To be announced: Jan 2, 2010

TIME magazine’s list from December, 2009

Barack Obama – A bully pulpit – but not yet

The Twitter Guys, Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone – Yes

Jim Cramer – Wonderfully – current but only current.

The Charter 08 authors – Converting China – maybe if successful

Tzipi Livni – Negotiating peace – Great try but didn’t succeed so far

Bernie Madoff – Great theft – but no Sir Francis Drake

Arianna Huffington – Posting current events – no

Pope Benedict XVI – Administering adequately – no

Rain – A great stage performer – no

George W. Bush – A great THANK YOU for avoiding Armageddon – no

Katie Stam – A great beauty – but not Helen of Troy

Alex Rodriguez – Home run hitter – no famous 500-year-old athletes

M.I.A. – Dancing when due is awesome – no

Prince – Great entertainer – no

Bill O’Reilly – Powerful today but gone tomorrow – no

Joaquin Phoenix – He didn’t reach me – no

David Plouffe – Put Obama in office can’t go higher than boss – no

Rahm Emanuel – Obama’s front man at the moment – no

Dov Charney – A great haberdasher but no Beau Brummell – no

Mark Cuban – Entrepreneur sports team owner – n0

Eric Holder – Top lawyer with attitude – no

Odell Barnes – Dead real estate mogul – no

Rod Blagojevich – Senate seat salesman – no

The Pregnant Man: Thomas Beatie – Malemom – a first but no

Roland Burris – Senate seat purchaser – no

Stephen Colbert – Needs more word truthiness’s – no

Sarah Palin – Life of the dead party – not yet

The Jonas Brothers – Popular with teen pop – no

Britney Spears – Big with the now crazy set – no

Miley Cyrus – Super cute teenish idol – no

Angelina Jolie – Tabloid star with reversed tats – no

John McCain – Presidential timbre going down – no

Hillary Clinton – Buoyancy aplenty – not yet

Ron Paul – Unattained issues candidate – no

Mike Huckabee – Still a contender – no

Arnold Schwarzenegger – Numero uno can’t play – sorry

Ratan Tata – Best of Henry Ford’s legacy – maybe if electric

Oprah Winfrey – Current Queen of media – no

Tina Fey – Ultimate lovable perky – no

Michelle Obama – Excellent First Lady – no

Katie Couric – Anchored to a sinking media – no

Michael Phelps – Closer spaced events more medals – no

Kobe Bryant – Basketball hero – no

Lil’ Wayne – Super cool rapper – no

Mukesh Ambani – There are lots of billionaires – no

Ron Bloom – Salvage a moribund industry – no

Bill Gross – Big money mover – no

Sheikh Ahmed bin Zayed Al Nahyan – OIL – no

Warren Buffett – Knows other people’s value – no

Carlos Slim – Amasses mobile money – no

T. Boone Pickens – Energy prophet – yes

Ram Charan – Advisor to moguls – no

Neel Kashkari – Obama’s bailout boy – no

James Lockhart – Todays housing czar – no

Jamie Dimon – Bank grabber – no

Michael Duke – Retail empire – no

Ken Lewis – Bank of America CEO – no

Dick Kovacevich – Wells Fargo CEO – no

Sheila Bair – Money source chair – no

Charlie Gasparino – News editor of other people – no

Tim Geithner – Money creator – no

Meredith Whitney – Money manipulator – no

General Petraeus – A general with options – not yet

Abdul Rahman al-Rashed – Arab media mogul – no

Michelle Rhee – You no work you no eat – no

Nancy Pelosi – #3 in US power structure – no

Elizabeth Warren – Muddled bailout watchdog – no

Gordon Brown – GB PM unemployment – no

Boris Johnson – GB MofL with hair – no

Benjamin Netanyahu – Shaky trigger finger – hope not

Asif Ali Zardari – Pakistan turmoil – hope not

Ashfaq Pervez Kayani – Pakistani General – hope not

Morgan Tsvangirai – PM troubled Zimbabwe – no

Robert Mugabe – Faced with future famine troubles – no

Paul Kagame – PM of genocidal prone Rwanda – no

Richard Kelly – Greenhouse gas controller – set precedents

Alexander Lebedev – Russian newspaper owner – no

Ronnie Screwvala – Bollywood mogul – no

Steve Jobs – iPhone, home computer – yes

Jeff Kindler – Drug CEO – no

Nouriel Roubini – Foresaw meltdown – no

Yochiro Nambu – Broken symmetries – no

Stephan Schuster and Webb Miller – Re-cloning – yes almost

Linda Avey and Anne Wojcicki – Map your DNA – yes maybe

Douglas Melton – Stem cell innovations – yes maybe

Nicholas Christakis – You have your friends habits – impact

Nate Silver – Statistics guru – no

Rowan Williams – Reform the Anglicans – no

Paul Krugman – Economic columnist – no

Dr. Alain Carpentier – New heart for you – yes if it works

Doris A. Taylor – Another new heart for you – yes if it works

Roland Fryer – Race effects on education – no

Steven Chu – Renewable energy – yes

Connie Hedegaard – Wind energy advocate – no

Jon Favreau – Obama’s speech writer – no

Rachel Maddow – Far left ragger – no

Rush Limbaugh – Far right ragger – no

Kate Winslet – Great actress – no

Seth MacFarlane – Popular cartoonist – no

Damien Hirst – Moneyed artist – ?

 

Apparently one must be an American (almost) to be included on the list of 100 important people. The next ones are only the ones who have a chance at 500 year fame. All of these people are great at present but this list if for lasting fame.

 

Renzo Piano – Great architecture lasts – maybe

Will Wright – Games will last forever – maybe

Jeff Bezos – Amazon Kindle – maybe

Danica Patrick – Female wins mens sport – maybe

Manny Pacquiao –

Jessica Jackley – Micro-financing – maybe

Hu Jintao – China’s president – maybe

Sheik Mohammed al-Maktoum – Abu Dhabi mogul – maybe

Craig Venter – Geneticist for environment – yes

Larry Brilliant – Google investments – maybe

Jeff Han – Touch screens – yes

Peter Pronovost – Effective intensive care – yes

Eric Chivian and Richard Cizik – Environment – maybe

Mary Lou Jepsen – Inevitable $100 computer – maybe

Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook founder – maybe

Rem Koolhaas – Great architects – ?

Takashi Murakami – Art for money – ?

Ali al-Naimi – OIL mogul – ?

Jay Adelson – Digg meritocracy – yes

Nadya (Octomom) Suleman – Armageddon promoter – yes

Shigeru Miyamoto – Video-games – maybe

This list was derived from TIME magazines list which an attempt to find those whose work will still be associated with their name 500 years from now. All of the first 100 on TIME’s list were considered and the next 100 were checked only for the possible candidates. Some of my favorite candidates were not on TIME’s list but several were. After a months consideration, the Probaway’s Person of the Year will probably come from this list, most likely from someone with a ( yes ) rating. A couple of the comments were intended to be a bit comic and I hope there is no offense taken as there certainly wasn’t any intended.

Probaway’s Person of the Year – Jimmy Wales

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Barack Obama - Person of the Year, Craig Venter, Jimmy Wales, Jimy Wales - Man of the Year, man of the year, person of the year

TIME magazine has selected President elect Barack Obama their man of the year, excuse me, Person of the Year, I must maintain my political correctness, especially since I reside most of my waking hours here in Berkeley, land of the free, home of the intensely politically correct. Actually, that is a very good choice from TIME’s point of view, since sitting presidents always get a top billing and Obama is certainly going to be a media favorite for a while. So he was an obvious choice. Who else could it have been? Sarah Palin? A from out of nowhere throw back to the pre-Darwinian 19th century. That choice would have so outraged their readership that they would have lost half of their subscriptions over night.
From my point of view their choice should be based on someone actually accomplishing something of great merit and the fact that Obama has a skin tone half a shade darker than previous presidents doesn’t mean much to me. Those people who claim that we are electing a black man for the first time are closet racists to my way of thinking. The way I see it his oath of office should mean he is going to represent all Americans, not just those which he was formerly representing in Chicago. In fact his oath of office is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and being a Constitutional lawyer from Harvard he should be able to do that much better than any former president. It is a bit curious and worrisome that the two highest posts in the land come from what has to be a very tiny community of people, Harvard Constitutional lawyers. The other one being our Chief Justice, the sitting head of our legal branch of government, John Roberts. Another strange and disturbing fact is that six of the current nine Supreme Court justices come from that single source. In other words Harvard Law School dominates the United States! They are all fine people, no doubt, but we common people might worry about so many of the final decision makers coming from such a tiny constituency with what has to become a very narrowed frame of reference. Our country was designed to avoid having a military caste system, which has plagued countries like Germany, but perhaps the founding fathers overlooked the threat of too great a concentration of legal opinions.  So far it has worked quite well but perhaps it would work better if we had a broader representation.

Jimmy Wales founder of Wikipedia

All of those people have far more power and clout than my choice for man of the year. But, I make my choice on a slightly different criterion than TIME. I choose my person on my guess as who has done something so remarkable that it will be remembered 500 years in the future. Surely the half tone of a man’s skin isn’t going to be remarkable in the slightest in that passage of time and for Obama to be remembered will have to be based on some outstanding accomplishment. He must do something which is still important to those people at that time. We have two such people on TIME’s list of potential candidates. They are Jimmy Wales who created Wikipedia and Craig Venter who sequenced the human genome and the ocean and is doing some other things also. Venter will surely rate a person of the year on my rating system one of these years because he has done so many remarkable things. Wales, at this point, has done only one truely remarkable thing but that one thing is absolutely remarkable and it will endure for the rest of advanced humanity’s tour of this planet. Wikipedia is a growing and ever growing and ever more refined collection of human thought. In a way it was obvious and yet it took even Wales several years of failure with the idea until he finally got it right. But when he did it exploded in its value to humanity. Thank You Jimmy Wales!!!

The complete up-to-present list of – Probaway Person of the Year:

• 2017 – Albert Einstein for predicting black holes, their collisions creating gravity waves, and the laser for observing the gravity waves.
• 2016 – Xi Jinping for taking China from a backward economy to the most powerful one on Earth.
• 2015 – Peter Higgs and Alan Guth created theories that lead to proofs this year of mass and gravity sources.
• 2014 – Jennifer Doudna created a method for insertion of designed DNA precisely into existing DNA.
• 2013 – Plague Inc. is a computer game that explores the problems of creating a disease that will kill every last human being on Earth.
• 2012 – Zebrafish research-technique advances made it possible to observe drug interactions within living animals.
• 2011 – Craig Venter laid the groundwork for creating entirely new forms of life (greater than species) out of computer-generated DNA sequences.
• 2010 – Nadya Suleman (Octomom) and the society that created this travesty of good sense will be remembered into the distant future by many hungry people.
• 2009 – Jimmy Wales for Wikipedia, which will be still be used after our current computer operating systems are surpassed and forgotten.
• 2008 – Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) because he shows people how to relate to dogs and people much better than anyone else. His videos and techniques will be remembered and used as long as there are people and dogs.

These may seem like strange choices but they are potentially long-term-memorable events which had a major tipping point the year before their selection.