Hi. I’m Ramez Naam. I’m a computer scientist living in Seattle, Washington. In 2005 I wrote More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement (Broadway Books, 2005), for which I was awarded the 2005 HG Wells Award for Contributions to Transhumanism.
In 2013 I have three books coming out:
- The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet - This is a look at the power of innovation to overcome very real natural resource and environmental challenges that face us – challenges like providing water, food, and energy for billions while addressing climate change, deforestation, fresh water depletion, and peak oil. I show how new innovations have continually overcome such limits in the past and increased the carrying capacity of the planet, and make a case for the investments we need to make today to maximize our odds of doing so again. This book will be out in March of 2013 from University Press of New England.
- Nexus and Crux - A pair of near future science fiction thrillers set less than 30 years in the future, in a world struggling to deal with human enhancement technologies, and the explosive potential of a nano-drug that can link mind to mind.
In my technology career I led teams working on early versions of Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and most recently the Bing search engine, where I served as overall Director of Program Management for one year and led Program Management for the Ranking and Relevance team for 5 years.
Between stints at Microsoft I founded and ran Apex Nanotechnologies, a company working on advanced software tools for molecular design. We were, as they say, a bit ahead of our time.
This blog is my outlet for thoughts on future science and technologies, the impact of those on society, and current issues in politics and economics that interest me. I hope you enjoy it. I welcome your feedback.
Ramez Naam
mez@morethanhuman.org
Ramez,
Just read your guest article on Solar and Moore’s law in scientific american.
Just to point out the solar cost reduction curve is an example of exponential decay. Moore’s law pertains to exponential growth. Solar cost reduction log slope is negative, Moore’s is positive.
If you want to invert the curve to watts per dollar (the only gen tech in the power industry that uses this inverted metric) then you could have exponential “growth”. Even there though this is nothing like what is implied by Moore’s law as it pertains to computing. there is an order of magnitude difference in the rate of growth in processing per cm^2 and solar watt per dollar or cm^2.
Also taking the last 2 years as evidence of solar’s continued drop is very hinky as it assumes that price drops due to oversupply, chinese tampering, and gross margin reductions are sustainable. Wind had a similar situation as large companies fought for share by dropping their margins back in early 2000′s. That did not last. Price per KW (the normal energy metric) went back up by 30%.
Solar’s and wind’s and geothermal’s price reduction curves look exactly the same. Huge drops in the 80′s minimal drops post 2000 in absolute not first derivative terms.
There is no moore’s law for solar anymore than there is for wind or geothermal.
Would be nice if intelligent people like yourself could get these basic facts squared away.
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