2025 WSC: Reigniting the Future

Flashcards on the lecture notes

Rip Van Winkle

A Dutch-American short story written by Washington Irving, where the main character, Rip Van Winkle, falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains and wakes up 20 years later after the American Revolution.

Steve Rogers (Captain America)

A super-soldier in WWII who took a serum providing him with increased athleticism, endurance, and speed. He sacrifices himself in a fight with Hydra, crashing into the arctic and entering suspended animation for 70 years before being revived by S.H.I.E.L.D.

Aang

The protagonist of 'The Last Airbender', who is the incarnation of the Avatar. He ran away and trapped himself in an iceberg, sleeping for 100 years during which the Fire Nation declared war, throwing the world out of balance.

Slice of Life (film genre)

A film genre depicting holistic, realistic scenarios in peoples lives with notably little plot, character development, and timeline, and usually focuses on romantic relationships set in place at high schools or workplaces.

Moore's Law

The thought that technologies will become half as expensive every 2-ish years.

Robert Browning

English poet and playwright who made a reputation of being a philosopher or sage in his works and wrote "the best is yet to be" from his poem Rabbi Ben Ezra.

Ezra Klein

Cofounder of Vox and notes that Donald Trump's outlandish claims are underlying themes and messages many Americans are afraid to say.

Changeable Optimism

A positive-lensed motivation to make change.

Seed Valley

Area of technological innovation in agriculture in Holland.

Yield Gap

A barrier which poses that less-wealthy nations have less capability to produce efficiently.

Australian Broadband Network

Fancy way of saying Systems which can transfer internet connection quickly.

FTTP

Fibre-to-the-premise, built on the suggestion to connect every household to a fiber optic (internet) cable.

FTTN

fibre optic cables connect large hubs of internet traffic together and traditional TV/phone wires are used to connect households to these hubs.

Megaprojects

Projects defined to cost at least $1 billion.

Changeable Optimism

The view people should have when considering climate change.

Mpemba

A leader in the international commission of loneliness, and claims the effect is is an issue which sees past HDI and money, existing in every level of society.

Kodokushi

People who end up dying alone.

Hikikomori

People who shut themselves out of society; is seeing a rise in older generations.

Karoshi

Japanese term for 'overworking' and dying.

Paro

A robotic seal designed to provide companionship to elderly folks.

Sekigichi

Outsourcing of empathy, where the individual level of loneliness can be addressed with volunteers or members connecting in person, as humans.

Robert Browning

An english poet and playwright that made a reputation as a philosopher or sage.

Parasocial interaction

Describes people feeling like they know a radio presenter because the show seems conversational.

Charles Guiteau

Was certain he had a close personal connection with assassinated American President James Garfield.

social media "correlation"

What you call it when research shows Social media usage to loneliness and often goes hand in hand with distractibility and sleep deprivation.

the silo effect and echo chamber effect

People are quick to pick up onto sources which confirm their beliefs, resulting in algorithms pushing more sources with those beliefs.

AI Solution

Social Media can help with those who are shut in so finding friends and others and not judging face or appearance.

jealousy, firehose

Social Media, while it can have some positives is an overall negative effect of those who are are depressed the more Depressed they are.

Ezra Klein

The co-founder of Vox, claims that Donal Trump's outlandish claims are reflective of underlying themes and messages many americans are afraid to say.

Communication Decency Act (Section 230)

An act that dictates the internet is like a bookstore and that the ownders of platforms are not responsible for the content of the platform.

Fear Speech

When you amplify the problem of hate so much that you cause an influence.

media saturation overload, doomscrolling, headline anxiety

Mood may decline, and people may begin to suffer a heightened emotional state as a result of negative news media consumption.

Nostradamus

French astrologer and seer, most notable for his book Les Propheties allegedly predicting future events.

Robert Frost - Fire and Ice

A short poem describing how the world will end. He juxtaposes fire with desire, and ice with hate, stating the world will end by either one of the two.

Emily Dickinson - The Future–never spoke

A poem by Emily Dickinson describing some entity in the poem which refuses to let us know the future.

Comparative Horoscopy

Comparative Astrology uses astrology to analyze relationship dynamics between two things, often when determining the compatibility of two people in a relationship.

Haruspicy

A form of divination in the religion of ancient Rome where animals are sacrificed to inspect their organs (especially livers of sheep and chickens) to determine signs.

Ornithomancy

The act of doing divination by observing the actions of birds in ancient Greece.

Physiognomy

Drawing conclusions about someone based on their facial features.

Cartomancy

The tarot card inspired divination practices.

Bazi

Where the fates and destiny are predetermined by a person's birth year, month, day, and hour.

Jiaobei/Moon Blocks

Wooden tools used to aswer if a question is a yes or no.

Omikuji

Little fortunes one receives at a temple before beginning their day.

Ouija

Used as means a communications with spirits but causes controversies.

Crystal Ball

This is the practice of peering into crystal balls for signs and visions of what cannot be currently seen.

Fortune cookie

A small, wedge-shaped wafer that contains a word or saying for what may come in your future.

Horroscope

Are used to determinin a short glimpse of ones upcoming weeks using their Zodiac placement.

Michio Kaku

A world well known for his theories on string theory, applicable technologies, quantum mechanics, and all things future.

Julio Romero de Torres

A painter who drew about the fortune teller.

Barnum effect

People associate very general comments about someone with very specific traits traits of themselves.

Pygmalion Effect

When make someone do better when someone think they can do better.

Confirmation Bias

The effect when someone gives someone infromation that they alredy wanted to belive, so they are likely to use that.

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

Where you choose a different action because of somethign that you know from the fortelling.

Determinism

That the future has already happened, and that we are unnable to change anything at all with its trajectory.

Casual determinism

That everythign in the universe follows a chain reaction that we are born into, and that we cn contribute to changes to our future.

Predeterminism

All chaines of events are rigid and solid.

Fatalism

Suggests that everythign that will happen is already destined to, and that it thereis no freedom of will for people.

Theological determinism

that god has determiend events from the start.

Adequate determinism

The events are set and the quantum flunctuations do not affect the overall chain of events.

Determined probability

That the future ins't exact, but is categorized by what may come and it's probablility.

The many-worlds interpretation

Many chains of events exist and quatum actions devides us in these event chains.

carpe diem

the goal is to persuade someone away from seeking the future so thye only worry about what is right now.

Francis Fukuyama

an economist stated this as the end of all major conflicts as the result of the free world.

self defeating prohecy and fate driven casuazlzation

the action of a prediction coming true, however actions come after having heard it is going to happen no matter what.

Lunisolar calendar

A calendar with both solar and lunar aspects.

Zodiac

Area of astrology.

Computus

A series of computations that find the date of ester Sunday each year.

Saros Cycles

The sun, moon, and Earth having their three bodies be in the same rotation point as another solar rotation in order to show predictable eclipses.

metonic cycle

Where 19 lunar months (23 yrs )are equal to 1110 solar years in an alloted cycle to find the path of time.

Antikythera mechanism

Is the first computer that could predict solar events in some form.

generalization approach

To have a better long term value of an overal generlization than an explicit plan.

GenCast

As AI program which is used as a great soruce to better scale and give better acuracy to forcasting more data.

long-term statistics in broder arreas

The theory of climate models and weathers models.

initialisation

To get all the needed information needed before making the perfect calculations.

Accuracy and Precision

For two things seeming so simmular the two things can be totally apart.

chaos theory

Was termed by edward lorente, explains taht small events lead to much larger impacts which in turn can be as random that it seems deterministic.

emergent property

Where the final output is based on what may small acitons are taken in relation to other to the the whole output.

self perception theory

Describss when a person asssess their actions and public view changing their personlaity to match what people wnt it to be.

feedback loops

An effect when actions loop around in what might become a pattern.

3 Body Problem

System to try to find the movemnet of 3 bodies in space in a limited area.

Sensitivity; Unstable Equlibrium

Beliefs where things go out of the same way from a fixed oritgin.

wishful thinking

the phenomena when ppl want to believe what they want to happen over what wil do.

barnum effect

General points are associed with one spesific person and there traits.

pigmalion effect

people of highter ecxoectation do better while those fo lowe have less sucsess.

cold reading

using skills to find out infor about someone through social interaction.

attitude polarization

An effect where something makes belife more extreme.

belief perserverance

Where peope maintain a belif even after it dissaproves of others.

self fulling and defiting.

a trend that becomes popular after one person or orginaziton with something that is common or very known.

fashion cycle (20 year example)

There's the idea of a 20 year loop where fashion trends from that area repeat.

the nostalgia cycle

The desire for thing in the past with current items.

News Cycle

Involving news over periods of longer scale.

Business Cycle

A trenf in economy throught all of the trends that it cycles.

Market Cycle

A business trend that is also knowed as the Econamic cycle.

Moores Law

That technologies become have as much each year.

Eroom's Law

Drug development is growing slower dispite imprevoments in tech.

platform decay

the idea of new things always begin amazing and over time they only deminihs.

bathtub curve of electronics

a term for devises showing constant failure levels as compared to highter prices.

Nomadic War mechine

An older era type of army of people and their war tactics.

rocket Main

To deliver mail that never got made using rocket to transport items.

Flying Car

The ability of a plane to not only fly but also drive on a road.