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Chinese film authorities issued a new document outlining policy measures to boost the country’s production of science fiction movies.

Entitled “Several Opinions on Promoting the Development of Science Fiction Films,” the document highlights how the sci-fi genre fits into the ruling Communist Party’s broader ideological and technological goals. It was released earlier this month by China’s National Film Administration and the China Association for Science and Technology, a professional organization.

The document focuses on domestically developing pro-China science fiction film content and high-tech production capability. It comes in the wake of the country’s first VFX-heavy sci-fi blockbuster hit, “The Wandering Earth,” which remains the third highest grossing film of all time in the territory with a local box office of $691 million.

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Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard provided a broad description of the Fed’s ongoing research and plans in the potential development of a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC), also described in the U.S. as a Digital Dollar. Brainard, who has for years led the discussion at the Fed on distributed ledger technology and digital currencies, noted the Fed is active in conducting research and experimentation in these areas.

In her speech to during Federal Reserve ‘Innovation Office Hours’ at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco today, Brainard noted, “Given the dollar’s important role, it is essential that the Federal Reserve remain on the frontier of research and policy development regarding CBDCs. As part of this research, central banks are exploring the potential of innovative technologies to offer a digital equivalent of cash…We are continuing to assess the opportunities and challenges of, as well as the use cases for, a CBDC, as a complement to cash and other payments options.”

Brainard described ‘in-house experiments’ at the ‘Board Technology Lab’, where a multidisciplinary team of application developers from the Federal Reserve Banks of Cleveland, Dallas, and New York helps support a policy team at the Board studying the “implications of digital currencies on the payments ecosystem, monetary policy, financial stability, banking and finance, and consumer protection.”

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« In the form it is known today, macroeconomics began in 1936 with the publication of John Maynard Keynes’s “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”. Its subsequent history can be divided into three eras. The era of policy which was guided by Keynes’s ideas began in the 1940s. By the 1970s it had encountered problems that it could not solve and so, in the 1980s, the monetarist era, most commonly associated with the work of Milton Friedman, began. In the 1990s and 2000s economists combined insights from both approaches. But now, in the wreckage left behind by the coronavirus pandemic, a new era is beginning. What does it hold? »

It is not yet clear where it will lead.

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#SpaceWatchGL Opinion: Space Traffic Management – Impact of Large Constellations on Military Operations in Space.

🌚 #SpaceWatchGL

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch. Global and Joint Air Power Competence Centre, we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. We are pleased to present “Space Traffic Management – Impact of Large Constellations on Military Operations in Space”, originally published by the Joint Air Power Competence Centre for the Conference Read Ahead 2020.

by Mr. Marc Becker, DLR Space Administration, Bonn, Germany

As Space Actors Consolidate their Approaches to Space Traffic Management, What is the Role of the Military?

Space Traffic Management (STM) is currently one of the hottest topics in space policy. While a consensual definition of the term is yet to emerge, it becomes increasingly clear that the international community has to find ways to protect space infrastructure and guarantee the safe and sustainable use of outer space in the long run, amid an ever-growing number of actors and objects in the space domain.

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In December 2019, Donald Trump signed the U.S. Space Force Act, peeling off an orbit-and-beyond branch of the military, much as the Air Force grew out of the Army in the 1940s.

For now, the Space Force still resides within the Air Force, but nearly 90 of this year’s approximately 1000 Air Force Academy graduates became the first officers commissioned straight into the new organization. Some of those graduates were members of an academy group called the Institute for Applied Space Policy and Strategy (IASPS). Featuring weekly speakers and formalized research projects the students hope to turn into peer-reviewed papers, the group aims to game out the policies and philosophies that could guide military space activity when they are old enough to be in charge. In particular, these young cadets are interested in whether the Space Force might someday have a military presence on the Moon, and how it might work with civilians.

That activity could put the Space Force in conflict with scientists, who typically view the cosmos as a peaceful place for inquiry. But part of the club’s mission is speculating about that interplay—between the military and civilian scientists, civil space agencies, and private companies. Cadet J. P. Byrne, who will graduate in 2021, is the group’s current president. He chatted with ScienceInsider about the institute’s work. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What does IASPS hope to accomplish?

A: Our main goal is to develop space-minded cadets not just for the Air Force, but also for the Space Force. It’s really important to know how space works, and we like to think we drive the conversation for space information in an unclassified setting.

Q: What, as an Air Force Academy cadet, interests you about space?

A: I actually wanted to be a pilot originally. But going into my junior year, seeing all the developments, I started really enjoying space. You hear this idea of a “new space era” a lot. When I think about that, it reminds me of the early excitement about the powered aircraft of the early 20th century, in that we get to explore ideas that haven’t been thought of yet. A lot of people say it’s human destiny to explore space. To me, it’s more adventuring into the unknown, or at least the less known.

Future Space Force officers explore how military might interact with NASA on the Moon.

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In the COVID-19 outbreak frenzy, several countries are considering massive fiscal stimulus packages and printing money, to blunt the concurrent crises underway: the pandemic and the unraveling economic depression.

These plans are essential, but they need to be strategic and sustainable. Because in addressing the current crises, we must avoid sowing seeds of new ones, as the stakes are incredibly high.

It is time to add a new element to the policy packages that governments are introducing, one we know but have abandoned: Universal Basic Income (UBI). It is needed as part of the package that will help us to get out of this yawning pit.

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Last week the President Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) met (webinar) to review policy recommendations around three sub-committee reports: 1) Industries of the Future (IotF), chaired be Dario Gil (director of research, IBM); 2) Meeting STEM Education and Workforce Needs, chaired by Catherine Bessant (CTO, Bank of America), and 3) New Models of Engagement for Federal/National Laboratories in the Multi-Sector R&D Enterprise, chaired by Dr. A.N. Sreeram (SVP, CTO, Dow Corp.)

Yesterday, the full report (Recommendations For Strengthening American Leadership In Industries Of The Future) was issued and it is fascinating and wide-ranging. To give you a sense of the scope, here are three highlights taken from the executive summary of the full report:

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On Friday afternoon, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Director of Policy and Government Affairs Craig Hulse landed in Tulsa, OK, for a meeting with local officials. Musk’s trip comes amidst Tesla’s highly anticipated announcement about the site of the Cybertruck Gigafactory, the electric car maker’s upcoming manufacturing plant for its unique all-electric pickup.

Musk and Hulse were welcomed by Gov. Kevin Stitt and Secretary of Commerce Sean Kouplen, as well as the property owner of a plot of land that the city is offering to the electric car maker. Images shared by the Gov. Stitt show Musk and local officials conversing in the middle of a massive plot of land. The meetup seemed to be private and simple, though the governor highlighted that he still believes that Tulsa is the perfect place for Tesla’s next vehicle production plant.

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Leading futurist Tracey Follows has written an article at Forbes on #transhumanism documentary IMMORTALITY OR BUST. Check it out!

Zoltan has a more radical idea of change than almost anything else you are seeing on your TV screens today but the mainstream media continue to miss him. That’s why it’s good to see he has made his own documentary film explaining to a broader audience what he’s doing, how it all works, and why they should be interested in transhumanism at all.

‘Immortality or Bust’, winner of the Breakout Award at the Raw Science Film Festival in Los Angeles, follows Zoltan on his 2 year campaign running for President of the US. The film starts by explaining his passion for this transhumanist cause and shows him building a custom-made Bluebird motorhome like his father drove when he was a kid, turning it into a mobile coffin to take him on his journey to Washington DC. There he is to deliver his Transhumanist Bill of Rights.

He enlists friends and family in his quest but we also see him travelling to meet unbelievers and skeptics too, putting his case for Transhumanism over traditional religion. At one point in the documentary he reminds us that atheists never bomb anyone. An important plank of his policy platform is to drastically reduce military funding and redistribute that investment into science. He makes a strong argument that we are living in a military-industrial complex that is out of date, whilst the war we should really be fighting, in this century, is the war on cancer.

He’s actually fighting a war on ageing. For at the heart of transhumainsm is the idea of life extension. As the title suggests, it is life extension that ties together the threads of the film. Those threads include a man on a mission to spread the word of Transhumanism, a U.S. Presidential candidate coming face to face with the religiosity of his nation, and a son whose father has had four heart attacks and whom he would love to protect so he can live forever. These three stories together depict Zoltan as the impossibly human face of Transhumanism.

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