Memia 2022.09: How does this end?🇺🇦// droneDAO wars⚠️// Alexa, go hack yourself🔃// peloton of one🚴🥽// dormant genes, regrown legs🧬🐸// the minimal cell🧫

Dreaming of UI💭

Mar 8

Kia ora,

Welcome to another Memia newsletter, your weekly scan across emerging tech and the complex, shifting future. Thanks for being here!

OK, apologies in advance for another newsletter dominated by the war in Ukraine, if that’s not what you’re here for. Hope these are still helpful links and analysis for you - please always feel free to send me feedback.🙏

Weekly roundup

The most clicked link in last week’s edition (7% of openers) was the ”choose your own adventure” war misinformation tweet (since made private).

My week:

Chaz Hutton @chazhutton

Today’s sketch comic. (a more refined version to come…)

Actually, TBH a sombre week being jolted by the reality of what humans are still capable of in war in 2022 FFS - harrowing footage from Ukraine of terrified civilians targeted by indiscriminate bombing - only 2 weeks ago Kiev, Kharkiv and other Ukrainian cities were humming with people going about their daily lives - now reduced to rubble. (And yes I accept we are collectively guilty of looking the other way in Iraq, Afghanistan, Grozny, Aleppo…). But just barbaric war crimes.

And here In Aotearoa, with our privileged, innocent sense of justice, complacent after years of peace and “rules and norms” in our part of the world, now violently challenged by the 24/7 window on the reality in Ukraine… we ask indignantly “why isn’t this being stopped?”, but with no real agency to affect anything. (While sitting comfortably on the other side of the world, scrolling through it all on social media while chattering about RAT tests, tax rates and rising fuel prices). Feel powerless.😞

Again, Kia Kaha, Ukraine. ✊🇺🇦

🇺🇦How does this end?

Three triangulation points to share from the tidal wave of commentary this week:

How Does This End? Christopher S. Chivvis from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace summarises the outcomes of multiple strategic wargames, which he argues distil down to two very different paths:
- 1. Nuclear escalation:

“Scores of war games carried out by the United States and its allies in the wake of Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine make it clear that Putin would probably use a nuclear weapon if he concludes that his regime is threatened.”

Or:
- 2. NATO Restraint, even if a puppet regime was installed in Ukraine after brutal bombardment:

“Would NATO’s door remain open to a Russian-dominated Ukraine? Probably, but it would be similar to claiming that NATO’s door is open to North Korea or Iran (which it theoretically is). All of the consequences that are likely from this conflict—growing conventional force buildup on the NATO-Russia border, higher levels of defense spending in the United States at the expense of domestic programs, an end to efforts to draw down U.S. military posture in the Middle East, and fewer resources for strategic competition with China—would still be a better outcome than the alternative, in which nuclear weapons have been used.”

Igor Sushko is (as far as I can authenticate) a well-known Ukrainian racing car driver. This week he diverged from his usual subject matter and posted this 2000-word translation of the alleged analysis of the current situation in Russia by an active FSB analyst on his website which makes for compelling reading (if genuine):

“…We have no analyses, we can’t make any forecasts in this chaos, no one will be able to say anything with any certainty (in Russia)…The tragedy is that we can easily miscalculate, and as a result lose everything. By and large, Russia does not have an out. There are no options for a possible victory, only of losses – this is it…
…To offer further cynicism, I don’t believe that Putin will press the red button to destroy the entire world. First, it’s not one person that decides, and someone will refuse. There are lots of people there and there is no single “red” button. Second, there are certain doubts that it actually functions properly. Experience shows that the more transparent the control procedures, the easier it is to identify problems. And where it’s mirky as to who controls what and how, but always reports full of bravado, is where there are always problems. I am not sure that the “red button” system functions according to the declared data. Besides, plutonium fuel must be changed every 10 years.”

And this podcast recording (from 28 Feb…an age ago…) with Te Whare Wananga o Waikato / University of Waikato international relations expert Reuben Steff analyses the situation from the viewpoint of the major global strategic players (US, China, Russia) and relates them to the Aotearoa context. Wake-up quote:

“International relations is essentially a chess sport of amoral actors pursuing their interests”

This is a masterclass in the global strategic landscape and a range of positive and negative scenarios are explored towards the end - well worth 45mins (faster at 1.5X speed.). One of Aotearoa’s most knowledgeable commentators on these topics. Kudos to interviewer Darcy Ungaro too for his intelligent but accessible questioning. (Starts 8min in)

Reuben Steff @ReubenSteff

Hey everyone, I was on the NZ Everyday Investor podcast recently talking about 'War in 2022'. If you're interested, check it out: podcasts.nz/war-in-2022/ @waikato @nziscs #nzpol #NewZealand

War in 2022 - Podcasts NZ: New Zealand PodcastsWatch the extended YouTube version here, complete with slides. Become a supporter on Patreon and help advance the mission of the NZ Everyday Investor! Listen to the Podcast Here: Subscribe via Apple Podcasts or iTunes Subscribe via Android Podcast Apps RSS Feed ______________________________________…podcasts.nz

⚠️DroneDAO wars

Global economic and financial sanctions are biting but seem so abstract and slow. And NATO military tactics of restraint, calculated to contain Putin into a conventional war and prevent nuclear escalation, have not prevented civilian loss of life or property.

While the information war is being fought vigorously online, ultimately these are just memes and don’t actuate in the physical world like guns, missiles and bombs.

Relatively soon (too late for Ukraine), commodity defence technology is likely to become readily available at scale - and this *could* prevent bombardment tactics like Russia’s from happening ever again…while also opening up whole new terrifying conflict scenarios.

This video from the end of last year profiles recent drone swarm research carried out by DARPA…only a small number of years until these are deployed in theatre:

Envisage a near-future conflict:

Autonomous targeted explosive microdrones which swarm across the territory, spotting hostile missile and mortar firing equipment and just fly down inside and neutralise them.
Autonomous microdrones which swarm runways where fighter planes are taking off and aim for the jet engines.
Autonomous microdrones which quietly seek out, detect and attach themselves to unlaunched [nuclear] missiles and drill holes to disable flight control systems…
Autonomous insect-like microdrones with facial recognition which ignore civilians but are able to crawl into highly secure buildings, identify and neutralise (non-fatally to follow up with war crime trials…) cornered dictators threatening to push the red button…

The whole battlefield calculus would change. Throw in two parallel eventualities:

Even if the tireless campaign to Stop Killer Robots is successful and achieves a new international law on autonomy in weapons systems… will this actually make any difference in a world without rules? Will future drone wars just annihilate entire armies based upon facial or uniform recognition? (Or, heaven forbid, civilians…)

Or: what if a substantial number of these drone swarms were manufactured and controlled by non-state actors… say like Anonymous? Or a massively decentralised DAO with globally democratic and transparent voting processes? (Is this actually how the world could “vaccinate against war”?)
DroneDAO, anyone?

[Weak] signals

Memia’s regular curation of signals received from near and far futures…

👀Wide angle takes

A few more links relating to Ukraine, but looking at the broader international and tech playing field:

Ben Thompson in Stratechery: Tech and War, an updated look at the pivotal nature of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry to China and the US in light of the Ukrainian invasion. Uncertainty reigns.
Balaji identifies potential tensions at the other end of Russia:

Balaji Srinivasan @balajis

About 15 years ago, Slate published a piece proposing that China buy the Russian Far East.

Why China should purchase the Russian Far East.Seven million people live on the frozen resource-rich taiga of Russia’s Far East, a region nearly as large as the contiguous United States. Roughly...slate.com

Australian Strategic Policy Institute: Putin’s folly and the end of Indian multialignment

“…some 60–85% of India’s military hardware is Russian. Russia is India’s primary supplier of civilian nuclear technology. And, until recently at least, Russia has played a major role in the imagined multipolar order many Indians would prefer to a Western-dominated world or one dominated by a Sino-American bipolar contest. For that reason, India has long engaged Russia in the hope that Moscow might settle its differences with the West, eschew an alliance with Beijing and embrace a multipolarity more in line with New Delhi’s interests. Putin’s war dashes that dream”

Russia is taking steps to secure its domestic internet, forcing on-shoring of all DNS servers (below)- this could be a step to completely cutting it off from the outside world, although most analysts I read think this is unlikely. (Click tweet to see English translation further down the thread.)

Anonymous Operations @AnonOpsSE

BREAKING: Russia is preparing to disconnect from the global Internet.

The Register in the UK: Where in the tech stack should sanctions start?

“So far…the embargoing of primary cloud infrastructure and on-demand services hasn't happened…this gets worse the further down the stack you go: whether you withdraw your application or not is up to you, but if you're looking at blocking entire classes of access on a regional or blacklist basis, that has many more ramifications – just ask ICANN.”

💱₿ Cryptowars

Cryptocurrency uses relating to the war:

Ukraine has already spent US$15 million of the US$50M+donations it received in cryptocurrencies on military supplies.
US warns banks to be on high alert for Russia sanctions evasion using crypto. (The US and other western governments still control the fiat on-ramps and off-ramps… there’s nothing stopping oligarchs transacting in BTC … but who’s trading when every transaction is there for everyone to see?)
Freezing foreign exchange reserves opens the door for central banks to buy (and HODL) Bitcoin.
All eyes are on China and whether it will break the SWIFT financial sanctions and provide banking services to Russia - in particular, whether its (so far) soft-launched Digital Yuan CBDC could defang sanction threats:

“There is no evidence that China intends to help Russian businesses circumvent sanctions — they are likely to face their own sanctions if they do — but if the dollar payments network is becoming a tool of foreign policy, it adds a new sense of urgency for some to develop an alternative. A broad range of countries might flock to participate in the development of a payments network that is free from western political influence.
Weaponising the payments network is likely to be useful only once. As soon as it has been, it will become a matter of urgent national security to develop means of trading without settling at the Fed or messaging via Swift.
CBDC development has been proceeding with a stately and prudent concern hitherto, but that could change very quickly.”

🔃Alexa, go hack yourself

Memia @memialabs

Attackers can force Amazon Echos to hack themselves with self-issued commands buff.ly/3vINKdS

🚴🥽Peloton of one

Zwift v.next: video of a British man who used continuous Google Streetview imagery in VR to cycle the length of the UK from his living room:

Tech Insider @TechInsider

This man traveled almost 10,000 miles without leaving his living room

🧬🐸Dormant genes, regrown legs

Two fascinating biotech stories this week:

By combining CRISPR technology with an AI-designed protein, scientists at University of Washington, Seattle have discovered how to awaken individual dormant genes by disabling the chemical “off switches” that silence them.
Scientists at Tufts University have discovered a way to treat frogs so that they were able to regrow a functional, nearly complete limb:

Memia @memialabs

Achieving a milestone, scientists regrow frog’s lost leg

Achieving a milestone, scientists regrow frog’s lost legFrogs briefly treated with a five-drug cocktail administered by a wearable bioreactor were able to regrow a functional, nearly complete limbbuff.ly

Mind expanding

Stretching my neurons this week:

🤯15 percent!

Rajan Patel is VP of Engineering at Google leading Search, this statistic blew my mind:

Rajan Patel @rajanpatel

Fun fact. 15% of the searches we see every day have never been Googled before.

World of Engineering @engineers_feed

What is something that you are 100% sure has never been Googled?

🧫The minimal cell

This is a wonderfully detailed long-form piece in the New Yorker, telling the story of how scientists at the Synthetic Biology and Bioenergy Group at the J. Craig Venter Institute conceived and discovered “the minimal cell”:

“Why not create a cell with as few genes as possible, and use it as a model organism? If you wanted to understand a more complicated biological process, you could add the genes for it to your minimal cell. Their function would be easier to comprehend against a comparatively blank canvas.”

Memia @memialabs

A Journey to the Center of Our Cells

A Journey to the Center of Our CellsBiologists are discovering the true nature of cells—and learning to build their own.buff.ly

(Also in researching deeper from the article I discovered the incredible Roche Biochemical Pathways map online).

Rollcall

One BIG shout out this week:

Like most customers around the country, my home fibre broadband connection was recently upgraded from 100Mbps standard speed to 300Mbps FOR FREE. (Thanks Marek and the team at Enable!).
(THREE. HUNDRED. MEGABYTES. PER. SECOND!!) (Actually 321Mbps):
Just one example of how this changes my work: I was recently giving a keynote talk on Zoom to conference attendees around Aotearoa, Australia and South East Asia, with my presentation including high resolution video clips plus my camera stream throughout - everything worked seamlessly across the public internet with no glitching. In many ways, the distant future has already arrived.
Tech journalist Bill Bennett’s blog has a guest post from Paris-based telco analyst Benoit Felten to provide an international perspective:

“As an international analyst of all things broadband, I use few examples more frequently than New Zealand when discussing decisive and effective policy. I have followed the development of the structural separation plans and the fibre rollout. To see New Zealand in the top tier of every international assessment of broadband quality is thrilling….New Zealand should leverage its gigabit head start…. it has plenty of space for future upgrades in speeds, not only 1 Gbps, but way beyond: most fibre company networks are already 10 Gbps-ready in New Zealand and 25 Gbps is just a technical upgrade away.”

(Aotearoa currently sitting in 13th spot in the Ookla international broadband speed league table for January) Kudos to then Minister Steven Joyce who signed off on that original investment decision… it’s worked out well, the country is in way better shape economically as a result.