029 WTFuture Interview with Dr. Bruce Damer on the 30th anniversary of Earth to Avatars 96

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In this episode, we interview Dr. Bruce Damer about the mid-1990s birth of multi-user virtual worlds and the influential Contact Consortium. Damer describes arriving in the Bay Area amid the convergence of CD-ROM multimedia, fading headset VR, the early web, and the 1995 launch of screen-based avatar platforms like Worlds Chat/Alpha World, the Palace, Worlds Away (evolving from Habitat), and OnLive Traveler. 

He recounts the Consortium’s roots in anthropologist Jim Funari’s Contact Conferences, which paired planetary scientists (such as Chris McKay), science-fiction writers (Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven), artists, and anthropologists to simulate first - alien contact scenarios grounded in real science. Inspired by Snow Crash and text MUDs such as Reid Reiner’s Solstice Simulation, Bruce drove across the West seeking embodied cyberspace projects, settled in the Santa Cruz Mountains after meeting the likes of Sun and I at a local party, and from a riverside cabin, organized the 1996 Earth to Avatars conference at San Francisco’s ANA Hotel—personally underwriting costs that drew roughly 500 attendees from platform companies, academics, and users.

 We explore how those early social virtual worlds (distinct from single-user VR or later games) let ordinary people build shared spaces from pre-made parts, experiment with affordances such as teleportation, gravity, and bots, and staged events including the award-winning Sherwood Forest collaborative build and the fully virtual Avatars 98 conference. Key connections emerged from these efforts: Reed Hoffman and Konstantin Guericke met there and later co-founded LinkedIn.  Jim Bumgardner argued that 2D overviews (as in the Palace) offered clearer social navigation than neuron-heavy 3D perspectives, foreshadowing 2D social media; and the scene attracted figures from Burning Man, Hollywood, the CIA, John Sculley, and Jerry Brown. Damer links this history to his ongoing interests in origin-of-life research and generative systems via BIOTA.org, and closes by reflecting on lessons still missing from today’s platforms—theme-centered shared spaces, richer presence, and the integration of human and AI agents—while floating the idea of an Earth to Avatars 26 reunion later this month. Enjoy! 

 

Future News - Controversial Covid Docs Banned from Youtube and Twitter, Dr. Bruce Damer on the Perseverance Mission to Mars

Listen Now to Future News 7.28.20

So much fear, uncertainty and doubt surrounds Covid-19, and in this episode we look at the banning of a group of front-line docs who do not adhere to the current medical party line and have been banned from Twitter and Youtube. Mrs. Futue expresses some strong opinions on masks and the lack of preventative care and controversial treatments of Covid-19

The second half of the show is about NASA’s latest mission to Mars this week, with Dr. Bruce Damer giving us some details about the new Mars rover, Perseverance, and it companion helicopter, Ingenuity! Enjoy.

Interview Video Experiment with Dr. Bruce Damer

Greetings dear listeners! We have been experimenting with a Youtube version of our Dr. Mrs. Future radio show, utilizing visuals to illustrate the concepts discussed during our interviews. Our goal is to create visuals that are engaging, yet produced quickly and as timely as possible. Our first experiment is a recent interview we did with Dr. Bruce Damer, on his work with asteroid capture and origin of life. We also have close captions working, if you want to see what is being said. So without any further ado, we look forward to your feedback and comments to this illustrated interview:https://youtu.be/3ICOrzH0oiU

Interview - Dr. Bruce Damer- Update on his Origin of Life and Consciousness Explorations

Listen Now to Dr. Bruce Damer

It’s been a few months since we’ve caught up with ‘Dr. Bruce’ and his globe-trotting adventures exploring the origins of life and consciousness.  An indy scientist, Bruce explores what most interests him in the world, which lately has been revolving around the origins of life on earth and a theory that biological life emerged from hot springs on the land, not volcanic vents under the sea. 

Dr. Bruce DamerAnd then there is the thorny question of how humanity got the way it is, with seemingly higher intelligence than the trillion other species on this planet, and an amazing ability to not simply create amazing works, but to also muck things up royally. Dr. Bruce spent some time last month at a major conference on research in consciousness and met with many fellow researchers, including Deepak Chopra, who interviewed Bruce for his daily podcast.  

Last month Dr.  Bruce returned from Pakistan and shares with us their changing perception of America and the rise of China and the new digital ‘silk road’ in the Middle East.  A good, albeit brief interview.  Enjoy!

Dr. Bruce Damer - An update on his work in Asteroid Capture and Origin of Life Research

Listen Now to Dr. Bruce Damer

We catch up with  Dr. Bruce, just back from a trip deep into the Outback of Australia, researching the oldest forms of life on this planet, stromatolites, and how they originated in the froth of ancient hotsprings in the late Haedian Age when much of the planet was flowing with hot lava and steaming water, over 4 billion years ago.

Dr. Bruce Damer photo- Reno DeCaroIn a characteristic verbal style that allows us to readily visualize what he is saying, he takes us into the tightly squeezed bubbles that were the home to the first bootstrap code of life itself, a perturbation in the froth of an ancient hotsprings on Earth’s young land.

Our conversation also takes us out into the depths of outer space, looking deep in the past, at the origins of the moon, and later what the next steps for our species might be in creating a true solar system economy.  How about a rdie in a Damer Disc? 

Mixing in some of her delightful magic, Dr. Bruce’s wife Galen completes the show with an appropriate classic Sinatra tune.  Enjoy!