Quantum computing is widely considered to be: The most potentially transformative technology of this century; Nothing but hope and hype. A reliable reporter who is familiar with all of the rich variety of quantum research going on and the reality of the remarkable progress in the field (along with its still-expanding potential) is quantum pioneer Seth Lloyd, professor of mechanical engineering and physics at MIT. Lloyd describes himself as a mechanic of quantum computing, quantum communication, and quantum biology. He is director of MIT’s Center for Extreme Quantum Information Theory, which is working on breakthroughs in general-purpose optimization, vastly enhanced communication, and ultra-precise measurement. In his book Programming the Universe (2006) he proposes that the universe is a vast quantum computer that can eventually be completely understood through local-scale quantum computation.

Since the mid-01980s Kevin Kelly has been creating, and reporting on, the digital future. His focus is the long-term trends and social consequences of technology. Kelly’s new book, THE INEVITABLE: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future, is a grand synthesis of his thinking on where technology is heading in the next few decades, and how we can embrace it to maximize its benefits, and minimize its harms. Kevin Kelly is the founding executive editor of Wired magazine and is a founding board member of The Long Now Foundation.

Author Brian Christian discusses applying computer algorithms to human decision-making, including optimal stopping in apartment hunting, romantic pursuits, strategic voting, AI ethics, and interdisciplinary collaborations.

Delving into the famous Marshmallow Test, the podcast explores the impact of self-control on success. It discusses the evolution of self-regulation in children and the significance of hot and cool mental activities. The link between self-control, happiness, and decision-making is examined, along with strategies to enhance self-regulation skills from a young age. Embracing aging, responsibility, and legacy are also key themes discussed in the podcast.

No one thinks longer, or bigger, than astrophysicists. “This is the golden age of cosmology,” says Priya Natarajan, one of the world’s leading astrophysicists, because data keeps pouring in to vet even the most radical theories. And the dominant mysteries are profound. She observes that “The vast majority of stuff in the universe—both dark matter and dark energy, which dominate the content and fate of the universe—is unknown.“ The universe’s greatest exotica are the focus of her research—dark matter, dark energy, and black holes. She is an expert, for example, in the complex behavior and gravitational lensing of galaxy clusters, where arrays of 1,000 galaxies are 95% dark matter. Her theory of the “direct” formation of supermassive black holes may explain the profound mystery of quasars. Priyamvada Natarajan is a professor in the Departments of Astronomy and Physics at Yale University and at the Dark Cosmology Center, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She is an active proponent for the public understanding and study of science.

Three billion people—nearly half of us--depend on rice for survival. What if you could adjust rice genetically so 1) it has a 50% greater yield, 2) using half the water, 3) needing far less fertilizer, 4) along with higher resilience to climate change? It would transform world agriculture. All you need to do is switch rice from inefficient C3 photosynthesis to the kind of C4 photosynthesis employed by corn, sugarcane, and sorghum. That switch has been made in plants 60 independent times by evolution, so we have models for how to do it. In 02008 the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, set in motion a consortium of 12 labs worldwide working on developing C4 rice. One of the major leaders of the work is Professor Jane Langdale at Oxford University’s Department of Plant Sciences. Former Long Now speaker Charles C. Mann (who is writing about C4 rice) recommended her highly. If C4 rice proves successful, it could lead to similar radical improvement for other inefficient crops such as wheat. Decades of focussed research could produce centuries in which ever less land provides ever more food, leaving ever more of the planet to nature.

Once humans took charge of fire, fire remade humans and commenced remaking the world. “We got small guts and big heads because we could cook food,” says Stephen Pyne, the world’s leading historian of fire. “We went to the top of the food chain because we could cook landscapes. And we have become a geologic force because our fire technology has so evolved that we have begun to cook the planet.“ The understanding of wildfire as an ecological benefit got its biggest boost from Pyne’s 1982 landmark book, Fire in America. Since then he has encompassed the whole of fire history--from analysis of the chemical reaction that “takes apart what photosynthesis puts together” to study of the massive industrialization of combustion in the last two centuries. “The Anthropocene might equally be called the Pyrocene,” he says. A professor and “distinguished sustainability scholar” at Arizona State University, Pyne is author of 15 books on fire, including Fire: Nature and Culture and Between Two Fires: A Fire History of Contemporary America.

Consider this, optimists. All the societies in the world can collapse simultaneously. It has happened before. In the 12th century BCE the great Bronze Age civilizations of the Mediterranean—all of them—suddenly fell apart. Their empires evaporated, their cities emptied out, their technologies disappeared, and famine ruled. Mycenae, Minos, Assyria, Hittites, Canaan, Cyprus—all gone. Even Egypt fell into a steep decline. The Bronze Age was over. The event should live in history as one of the great cautionary tales, but it hasn’t because its causes were considered a mystery. How can we know what to be cautious of? Eric Cline has taken on on the mystery. An archaeologist-historian at George Washington University, he is the author of 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed. The failure, he suggests, was systemic. The highly complex, richly interconnected system of the world tipped all at once into chaos.

The pundits we all listen to are no better at predictions than a “dart-throwing chimp,” and they are routinely surpassed by normal news-attentive citizens. So Philip Tetlock reported in his 02005 book, Expert Political Judgement—and in a January 02007 SALT talk. It now turns out there are some people who are spectacularly good at forecasting, and their skills can be learned. Tetlock discovered them in the course of building winning teams for a tournament of geopolitical forecasting run by IARPA—Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity. His brilliant new book, SUPERFORECASTING: The Art and Science of Prediction, spells out the methodology the superforecasters developed. Like Daniel Kahneman’s THINKING, FAST AND SLOW, the book changes how we think about thinking. Philip Tetlock is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. With his co-researcher (and wife) Barbara Mellors he is running the Good Judgement Project, with its open competition for aspiring forecasters.

Infrastructure decisions—and failures to decide—affect everything about a society for centuries. That long shadow, James Fallows points out, is what makes the decisions so difficult, because "We must choose among options whose consequences we can't fully anticipate.” What we do know is that infrastructure projects are hugely disruptive and expensive in the short term, and neglecting to deal with infrastructure is even more disruptive and expensive in the long term. What would a healthy civilization do? These days California is making decisions about high-speed rail, about water supply for agriculture, about driverless cars, about clean energy—all infrastructure issues with long, uncertain shadows. Fallows reminds us that "Everything about today's California life is conditioned by decisions about its freeway network made 60-plus years ago, and by the decision to tear up the Southern California light-rail network in the decades before that.” (That remark came in a 15-part series of blogs about high-speed rail in California that Fallows posted at theatlantic.com. He approves of the project.) James Fallows is the journalist’s journalist, covering in depth subjects such as China, the Mideast, flying, the military, Presidential speeches (he once wrote them for Jimmy Carter), journalism itself, and his native California. Based at The Atlantic magazine for decades, he blogs brilliantly and has produced distinguished books such as Postcards from Tomorrow Square, Blind into Baghdad, and Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy. This will be the first time he speaks about civilization entire.