Please help me with my first novel, Cobalt Slave

I have some exciting news! After a year of intense work I have finally finished my first science fiction novel, Cobalt Slave, and I would love your help to make it a success.

I chose to submit my book to Kindle Scout, a program through which Amazon chooses new, independent books to publish and promote. The more people who vote for a particular book, the more likely it is to be selected.

The best part is it's free to "nominate" any book, and if Cobalt Slave is selected you will get a free copy from Amazon.

Right now you can read the first several chapters of Cobalt Slave via Kindle Scout -- if you enjoy them, please nominate it. It only takes a minute to nominate a book, and your support would mean a
lot to me.

Legalizing private asteroid mining is great news for humanity

Last week President Obama took a small step which may help assure the long term survival of humanity. He signed into law the Space Act of 2015 which gives private companies the rights to keep anything they mine from an asteroid.

As long as all humans are living on Earth we risk society collapsing or even extinction from a single nuclear war, super plague, or massive meteorite strike. Having a viable human population living just off planet is the best insurance policy, but creating that would require an incredible amount of energy/money.

There are basically three ways such a massive undertaking would be funded. A government could foot the entire bill, a crazy rich individual/organization could pay to send hundreds of people into space for ideological reasons, or it could be the byproduct of a profitable private business venture.

Creating a clear legal framework for asteroid mining helps increase the chance the third option will be used. While some people left Europe for religious and ideological reasons, the big driving force behind the colonization of the New World was the search for profit. It is likely that will be the main driver behind colonizing space.

Pumpkin spice and the ultimate evil

While we are in the heart of the pumpkin spice season, it is worth thinking back to the sordid history of the spices in your latte. What we normally consider “pumpkin spice” is usually a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and ginger all sweetened with a generous helping of sugar. It is in the pursuit of these flavors that some of the greatest acts of evil ever were committed.

The hunt for cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove in the so-called “East Indies” is what began and fueled European colonialism. To secure these spices, governments were overthrown, wars were fought, nations were destroyed, colonies built, and whole groups of people were oppressed. Empires rose and fell on the trade of these spices.

Even worse is what was done to secure sugar, part of this popular spice combination. First, the native people of the Americas were enslaved or killed to make room to grow sugar. When they proved no longer a sufficient source of forced labor to meet demand, slaves were brought from Africa. The transatlantic slave trade was primarily about obtaining sugar. Over the centuries millions of slaves were brought from Africa to the Caribbean so they could be worked to death on sugar plantations. Suffering and greed was not limited to one side of the Atlantic. The sugar-fueled slave trade helped produce a near endless state of war in parts of Africa as local slavers needed to create a constant supply of new captives to sell.

It is not an exaggeration to say at one point in time millions of people were dying so some people could enjoy the equivalent of a pumpkin spice treat. I remind you of this history not to make you feel bad about your latte but to provide an example of why at my heart I’m a techno-optimist. While there are still some issues with international farming practices, things are dramatically better than they once were. Thanks to advances in technology, millions of people can enjoy the luxury of pumpkin spiced drinks and desserts without creating massive suffering. It makes me wonder how advances in automation will make the current production of luxuries (such as our cheap t-shirts and cellphones) look horrifying and barbaric to our grandchildren.

On a personal note - Freelancing, Novel, Wedding, and Moving

There are a few big personal developments for me. I'm going to be moving to Portland, Oregon at the beginning of January and getting married at the end of February. In addition, while I've been putting the finishing touches on my first novel, I've started to do some freelance writing for different outlets.

Some of my drug policy reporting and analysis is already being featured at Massroots. Two of my articles are currently on their blog:

Five of marijuana reform’s biggest opponents

Bernie Sanders wants to end federal marijuana prohibition

As a result of all this, my futurist posts here will be a little light for the next few months, but if your organization is interested in hiring me for freelance writing or consulting, please let me know. Similarly, if you have any suggestions, ideas, hints, or opportunities for me when I get to Portland, please send them along.

Thanks for your support.

My marijuana predictions coming true

Back in January of 2014 I published my first policy book, After Legalization: Understanding the Future of Marijuana Policy. In the book I try to predict what is likely going to happen over the next 20 years in marijuana policy. I'm going to take a moment to look back at some of the big predictions I got right and those I got wrong. So far three of my larger predictions have already come to fruition.

1.  That Alaska and Oregon would vote to legalize marijuana in November 2014 - While not the boldest prediction at the time, the success of these two legalization campaigns was in no way guaranteed. Midterm elections tend to see lower turnout among young voters, and in 2012 the voters of Oregon rejected a different legalization ballot measure.
2. The Liberal Party would likely win the federal Canadian election and will push for marijuana legalization in 2016 - Earlier this week, the Liberal Party won a majority in parliament, giving them free rein to implement any policy they want. Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau has promised to push for legalization "right away," and we should expect a bill in 2016 or 2017.
3. That some states would require individuals to register and pay a small fee to grow marijuana at home for personal use - I thought this strategy would be appealing to policy makers because it would allow states to get revenue from home growers and make it easier to prosecute people who are abusing home growing provisions to produce bootleg marijuana. This is exactly what the ResponsibleOhio ballot measure will do if it is approved this November. It will require people to pay a $50 registration fee if they want to grow up to four plants at home.

I have gotten a few things wrong, though. I predicted there wouldn't be a legalization measure on the local ballot in D.C. until 2020, because I thought pro-legalization groups would be worried about congressional interference otherwise. This prediction was only half right. The voters of D.C. did vote overwhelmingly to legalize marijuana use in November 2014, but in response Congress adopted a budget rider that has prevented the city government from implementing a tax-and-regulate system.

I similarly didn't expect Ohio to vote for marijuana legalization until 2020, but Ohio may actually legalize marijuana much earlier. With just a few weeks until the election, polling currently shows Issue 3 is tied 46 percent yes to 46 percent no. If Issue 3 fails, there is a good chance different legalization measures might appear on the ballot in 2020 like I initially predicted, but I would prefer not to be proven right that way.

Mars is also a harsh mistress

Warning: Spoiler alert for The Martian

I'm a big fan Andy Weir's book The Martian, and I recently saw the motion picture it inspired, which I think is one of the most faithful and enjoyable book adaptations in recent times.

For those who haven't read the book, it is the story of one astronaut who is accidentally left behind on Mars and the extraordinary efforts he needs to go through to survive. Since Earth is so far away it takes years to send help, so he needs to basically MacGyver everything in order to survive from only the supplies on hand.

One thing I love about the book is that it properly captures how Mars' distance from Earth, combined with its cold and completely inhospitable climate, make it a great setting for a dramatic story of survival. These factors also make it a really stupid place to colonize. The story really drives home that Mars has almost nothing to help a human survive besides some weak sunlight, rocks, and modest gravity.

While I strongly support limited manned missions to Mars for scientific purposes, the idea that it should become a second home to save our species from extinction is deeply misguided. If we are looking for a place to colonize, there are numerous asteroids which can be brought close to Earth, have better access to free solar power, and can be turned into rotating habitats to produce a more desirable level of artificial gravity.

*image of Martian landscape from NASA

Have we found an alien ringworld?

In one of my earliest posts on this blog, I speculated that our best chance of ever detecting intelligent alien life in the universe would come from actually seeing signs of their truly massive stellar architecture. A new paper indicates we just might already have.

Around one mature star there appears to be a highly unusual mess of objects circling it, which is very difficult to explain. From the Atlantic:

Boyajian, the Yale Postdoc who oversees Planet Hunters, recently published a paper describing the star’s bizarre light pattern. Several of the citizen scientists are named as co-authors. The paper explores a number of scenarios that might explain the pattern—instrument defects; the shrapnel from an asteroid belt pileup; an impact of planetary scale, like the one that created our moon. [...]

Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, is set to publish an alternative interpretation of the light pattern. SETI researchers have long suggested that we might be able to detect distant extraterrestrial civilizations, by looking for enormous technological artifacts orbiting other stars. Wright and his co-authors say the unusual star’s light pattern is consistent with a “swarm of megastructures,” perhaps stellar-light collectors, technology designed to catch energy from the star.

It is most likely this pattern was caused by an extremely rare set of natural phenomena, but the small possibility that it could be the result of some type of alien ringworld or Dyson sphere is extremely intriguing.

If follow-up research does indicate this pattern is caused by something artificial, it would carry two huge implications. The first is that we are not alone in the universe. The second is that there is alien civilization which possesses technology that is thousands or even millions of years more advanced than our own to be able to create something like this.

*image of Kepler from NASA