Science, the future, and the revolutionary moment

We are still in the early stages of the 21st century, yet with every passing day, humans are confronted with rapid transformations in the fields of genetics, robotics, information technology, cognitive sciences and nanotechnology. We are promised longevity and trips to space even while harnessing the power of the sun with the potential for unlimited energy for everyone on earth. The transformations in high-energy physics, bio-molecular medicine and quantum computing have revolutionary potentialities to change social relations among humans and between humans and the universe. The question of how these technologies will further revolutionise the current century is the subject of a new book by Michio Kaku, ‘Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100’. This book attempts to convey to the lay person the most up to date directions in the fields of science and technology. In separate chapters, Kaku examines the future of computers, artificial intelligence, medicine, nanotechnology, energy and space travel over the next one hundred years. In each chapter he splits the future into three sections – the Near Future (Present to 2030), the Mid-Century (2030 to 2070) and the Far Future (2070 to 2100) – and he discusses the development and impact of science in each futuristic period. My critique of the book stems from the need to voice what is missing in the book: a note of reminder to Western scientists that while they seek to dominate nature and harness its full power, there are still billions of humans who live without the basic necessities of life. Scientists, like Michio Kaku, who are ensconced in laboratories in Europe and North America fail to understand that while neoliberal and corporate support for research may foster an economic environment conducive to a particular type of technological innovation, this same neo-liberal capitalism also accelerates inequality, poverty, and ecological degradation for the majority of humans on the planet.

WHO IS MICHIO KAKU?

Michio Kaku is a Japanese-American physicist who explores the terrain of the fourth dimension (usually referring to time) in physics. As a high school youth, he attended the National Science Fair with a home-made atom smasher he built in his parents' garage. Because of his creativity he was spotted as a promising physicist by Edward Teller, known by some as ‘the father of the atom bomb.’

Edward Teller was one of the most famous scientists of the twentieth century who was associated with the Manhattan project, the collaborative effort of the West that led to the development of the atom bomb. Hungarian-born theoretical physicist Teller is also credited for passing on the scientific information on how to build a nuclear bomb to the Israelis. Teller was co-founder of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of the numerous scientific labs across the world that was placed in the service of the United States military and consumed billions of dollars from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Kaku is a descendant of Japanese immigrants to the US, and his parents were interned in a concentration camp in California during the Second World War. After being mentored by the ultra-conservative physicist Edward Teller, Kaku wrote a very critical book critiquing the United States’ plans for nuclear war entitled, ‘To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon's Secret War Plan’. This was a public break with his mentor and the physicists associated with the military-industrial complex. For decades, Michio Kaku consciously associated himself with the progressive media. As a presenter on WBAI Pacifica Radio in New York City, he has been popularizing the ideas of theoretical physics. Kaku is currently the Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics at the City College of the City University of New York. He is co-founder of string field theory in physics and is the author of 10 books and over 70 scientific articles in physics journals. His latest bestseller, ‘Physics of the Future: How Science will Change Daily Life by 2100’, became number seven on The New York Times Bestseller List just a few weeks after publication.

PHYSICS OF THE FUTURE

In the first chapter of ‘Physics of the Future’, Kaku predicts that computer power will increase to the point where computers, similar to the fates of electricity, paper, and water will, ‘disappear into the fabric of our lives, and computer chips will be planted in the walls of buildings.’ In Chapter 2, ‘Future of Artificial Intelligence: Rise of the Machines,’ Kaku discusses robotic body parts, modular robots, unemployment caused by robots, surrogates and avatars, and reverse engineering of the brain. Kaku shares the perspective of many in Silicon Valley who believe that emerging technologies are qualitatively unique in the capacity to manipulate human beings at the genetic level thereby potentially altering ‘human nature’ or even changing the meaning of life itself. It is in chapter 3 on the ‘Future of Medicine’ that Kaku imagines a future, ‘where surgery is completely replaced by molecular machines moving through the bloodstream, guided by magnets, honing in on a diseased organ, and then releasing medicines or performing surgery. This would make cutting the skin totally obsolete. Or magnets could guide these nano machines to the heart in order to remove a blockage of the arteries.’

Kaku joins other futurist in predicting the reversal of the ageing process. Ray Kurzweil is among the most well-known futurist who has been working on the reversal of the ageing process. Kaku wrote that in the future, reprogramming one’s genes can be done by using a specially programmed virus, which can activate genes that slow the aging process. Nanotech sensors in a room will check for various diseases and cancer. Advancements in extracting stem cells will be manifest in the art of growing new organs.

TIPTOEING AROUND TECHNOLOGICAL DETERMINISM

In Chapter 4, ‘Nanotechnology: Everything from Nothing?’ Kaku restates the basic thesis that he propounded in the Visions: that nanotechnology has opened up a new era in the relationship between biology and technology. Quoting from Horst Stormer (winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for physics), Kaku started the fourth chapter with the statement that ‘Nanotechnology has given us the tools to play with the ultimate toy box of nature – atoms and molecules. Everything is made from these and the possibilities to create new things appear limitless.’ Kaku argued that within this century, we will possess this most important tool of nanotechnology that will allow humans to manipulate individual atoms. He added, ‘Nanotechnology might also, perhaps by the end of this century, create a machine that can create anything out of almost nothing.’ Surveying the incipient commercial applications of nanotechnology, he drew attention to the booming area of nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) that includes everything from inkjet cartridges, air bag sensors to gyroscopes for cars and airplanes.

In pointing to the possibilities of the post silicon era, Kaku focuses on the potentialities of carbon nanotubes that will take humans to the post silicon era. In this future era of atomic transistors and quantum computing that will take us to the mid-century 2030-2050, ‘almost every product will be enhanced via molecular manufacturing techniques, so they will appear superstring, resistant, conductive and flexible.’ By 2070 the advocates of nanotechnology envision an even more powerful machine: a molecular assembler or ‘replicator,’ capable of creating anything. Kaku waxes about the revolutionary possibilities of the bottom up approach or self-assembly possibilities, but he offers a rider that, ‘the holy grail of nanotechnology is to create the molecular assembler, or replicator, but once it is invented, it could alter the very foundation of society itself.’

Although Kaku steers clear of the discussions on technological singularity and Transhumans in the 21st century, the rapid development of genetic and nanotechnologies are outpacing ethical debate on the potential consequences of these innovations. Ray Kurzweil, one of the many scientists interviewed for ‘Physics of the Future’, believes that technological innovation is at the heel of a growth curve. In the coming years, technological development will proceed so rapidly as to foundationally alter life on earth. In his major book, ‘The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology’ (2005), Kurzweil forecasts that by 2045, the exponential growth of computer processing power will enable the creation of machines intellectually superior to human beings. Humans will ‘transcend biology’ by merging with these machines, effectively gaining control over evolution itself through enhancement technologies. These hyper-intelligent cyborgs will create new technological innovations—particularly in nanotechnology and genetic engineering—that will solve the world’s social and ecological problems. ‘The Singularity’ will occur when the cyborgs begin creating their own exponentially-advanced successors, sparking a period of rapid evolution that qualitatively alters the human history.

Unlike Ray Kurzweil, Michio Kaku does not come out with a specific date when we will reach Singularity or the era of Transhumans, but the general thrust of chapters 3 and 4 in ‘Physics of the Future’, is to reinforce the argument that genetics, robotics, information, and nanotechnologies (or GRIN technologies) have the potential to radically transform society through the development of technological fixes to problems ranging from poverty and disease to ecological degradation. Ray Kurzweil and the corporate sponsors who have now supported the opening of Singularity University support a brand of neo-liberal capitalism where individuals can freely research and develop new technologies, thus accelerating the pace of innovation and progress without critical reference to the political realities and ideation system that could exploit such ‘progress,’ thus posing potential dangers of generating new forms of eugenics and perpetuating conditions of domination and plunder around the world.

Kaku supports this brand of competitive capitalism and entrepreneurial environment while failing to recognize that most of the science labs that he visited in the course of his research came from public funds, from universities or from monies invested in research by the US military.When the big drug companies justify high prices for their products they justify in the name of the huge outlays for research and development. Many of the labs that Kaku visited were doing work that serves the interests of big pharma even while benefitting from scientists who are supported by public funds. The Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) are two of the more renowned laboratory visited by Kaku and praised in his book. Scholars such as Seymour Melman have written extensively on the content of Pentagon capitalism that privileged science labs such as the LLNL These labs mobilized science and technology in the service of the most militaristic sections of the establishment who hide behind the discourse of ‘national security.’ Ever flexible in the needs of the current buzz words for militarism, labs such as the LLNL represents itself as a laboratory with multidisciplinary capabilities to prevent the proliferation and use of weapons of mass destruction and bolster homeland security. In this way scientists in these labs could make the jump from being advocates of Star Wars to representing themselves as bioengineers in the frontline in the war on terror.

Michio Kaku complicates his awe for these military-sponsored laboratories by romanticizing what he calls Type 1, II and III civilizations; by calling the European Union and the North American Free Trade Area Type 1 civilizations, Kaku betrayed his love for the modernity that is based on destruction.

Using the European concepts of poverty and scarcity that had been the cornerstone of Western economic writings, life in Kaku’s vision of the future does not depart significantly from the present where corporations dominate society and turn everything, even human beings, into commodities. One has to be very familiar with the entertainment culture of Hollywood to follow some of the reference points for the book or risk being lost – he drew heavily from sci-fi films such as Star Trek, Star Wars, The Terminator, iRobot and the Matrix. He further displayed his training and preference for European history and culture by starting each chapter with references to Greek mythology. It is this constant reference to Greek mythology that placed this book within the confines of European history and transformation. This rendering of human history excludes the myths and transformations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It was therefore not surprising to see how Kaku came to his understanding f Type I civilizations that starts with the modes of policics, economics and consumption of Europe. He sought to generalize about human behavior from the individualistic and competitive culture that had been drummed into children in the United States, calling this the ‘caveman principle.’

ETHICAL ISSUES AND PHYSICS OF THE FUTURE

The discussion of the converging technologies brings important ethical issues to the forefront of the debate on physics of the future. I cannot ignore the reality that while scientists in North America are daydreaming on ‘Perfection and Beyond,’ there are billions of persons in all parts of the world without access to healthcare. Feminists in the United States have been writing against the investment in perfection and the association of whiteness with genetic perfection. The Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law at Northwestern University, Dorothy Roberts, whose area of research includes the effects of child welfare agency involvement in African-American neighborhoods and on race-based biotechnologies, and Harriet Washington, author of ‘Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present’ (2007), both have written extensively on the investment in whiteness. In the words of Dorothy Roberts (PDF):

‘[R]ace-based biotechnologies are combining to produce what I’m calling a new biopolitics of race. It attributes health and other inequities to inherent racial genetic difference, disguising the social determinants of racial inequality. According to this view, inequities aren’t caused by social power, privilege, and discrimination. They are caused by the natural genetic predispositions of people belonging to these so-called principal human races, which evolved differently. This racial biopolitics is a means of reinforcing racial inequality and disguising white privilege in post–civil rights America …’

Kaku did not interrogate the history of genetic perfection and the eugenics movement in the US. Although he mentions eugenics in passing, there was not enough attention to the reality that unless there was democratic and popular control over the science laboratories where the genetic engineering experiments were being conducted, the old eugenic ideas will come back, only this time dressed in modern white lab coats.

Kaku was out of his depth when he sought to place contemporary technological development within more structural contexts linked to political economy, culture, and ideology. This limitation of the book comes out in the chapters on the future of energy, the future of space and the Future of Wealth. As contributors to the special issue of Pambazuka News Issue 499 pointed out, wealth creation in the 21st century is reinforcing and reproducing the forms of exploitation of the past 30 years. This has been the period of neo-liberalism where the economic policies of the corporate forces strengthen the rich while further impoverishing the poor.

The ETC Group (Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration) has been one of those international non-governmental organs exposing the interconnections between the big pharmaceutical companies and other corporate elements in seeking to dominate how the research and use of these technologies are directed. These activists have rightly pointed out that many of the ideas discussed in Kaku’s chapter on the Future of Wealth are already being deployed by the big corporations.

As the special issue of Pambazuka observed:

‘Reading about such developments is like reading science fiction. The difference is that this is real; it is happening now. These technologies are being developed in a world that is grossly unequal, under conditions where accumulation and profiteering rule, enabling the rich to get richer by any means, while the majority are pauperised. They have developed under conditions created over the last 30 years that have allowed corporations to monopolise atomic-level manufacturing – whether of living or inanimate matter – and legitimise wide-scale corporate biopiracy, with Africa, a continent of extraordinary biodiversity, being a significant victim.’

Michio Kaku did not consider the choke hold of the pharmaceutical companies and the biotech companies in ensuring that medical care is out of the reach of most citizens of the planet. His typology of civilizations – type 1, II and III – does not interrogate the history of conquest and the reality that in this era, there is a new form of conquest underway where the tools of the quantum revolution are being mobilised in the service of global capital. Thus, even in the positive descriptions on the Future of Energy, Kaku discusses the current crisis of global warming and the continued use of fossil fuels without the power dynamics behind the present mode of economic organisation.

In an optimistic tone he said, ‘In this century, we will harness the power of the stars. In the short term, this means ushering in an era of solar/hydrogen power to replace fossil fuels but in the long term, it means harnessing the power of fusion and even solar energy from outer space.’

MISSED OPPORTUNITY: CLARIFYING TRUTH FROM FICTION

Kaku repeats the false assumptions of the West that uses energy consumption as the basic measure of civilisational transformations. Energy consumption and the capacity for colonial expansion have marked modern imperialism and one cannot discuss the current research into bio-engineering without grasping the massive plunder of humans and nature being carried out by biotech companies. It is here where Kaku’s exposure to the Pentagon’s capabilities for Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) weapons would have made an important contribution to the peace movement and better assist the US anti-war movement as to the real capabilities of the US military. For the past fifty years the US military suborned the scientific community, especially the physicists to support new weapons, and Kaku could have exposed some of these weaponry to break the suspicions that now surrounds projects such as the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). Since Karl Grossman (author of ‘Weapons in Space’) spoke at my University on the capabilities of HAARP for weather modification in 2001, I have been waiting for a respected scientist like Michio Kaku to clarify to the peace and justice forces the role of physicists in building military capabilities for the weaponisation of space and for the unleashing of destruction on earth. This is especially pertinent given that Michio Kaku wrote the foreword to the book ‘Weapons in Space’. Kaku could have delivered a major service to clarify truth from fiction in relation to weapons such as HAARP and electromagnetic capabilities. There is one small indication of the EMP capabilities when he discussed the work of the late Theodore Taylor who had designed nuclear warheads for the Pentagon. The reader is introduced to a discussion of third generation ‘designer bombs’ without an elaboration of whether these miniature atomic bombs, which can fit in a suitcase, already exist.

The chapter on the Future of Energy brings to light the vast potential for the socialization of production and the harnessing of multiple sources of energy in the medium and long term. While Kaku exposes the reader to fascinating possibilities, he gives one the sense that the solution to the burning problems of environmental degradation will come from a research laboratory without fundamental changes in the organisation of production and consumption. As fascinating as the new technologies are, this chapter on the Future of Energy did not critique the giant petroleum companies and their intense work to dominate research on alternative energy sources. Instead, Kaku delves into possible technical fixes for the challenges of global warming. Referencing, Craig Venter the biologist, Kaku repeats the proposition that it may be possible to use genetic engineering to ‘specifically create life forms that can absorb large quantities of carbon dioxide.’ Quoting Venter who gained fame from pioneering high speed techniques that successfully led to sequencing the human genome, Kaku writes, ‘We view the genome as the software, or even the operating system of the cell. The goal is to rewrite that software, so that microbes can be genetically modified, or even constructed almost from scratch, so that they can absorb carbon dioxide from coal burning plants and convert to useful substances, such as natural gas. Kaku also quoted approvingly from another physicist, Freeman Dyson who advocated ‘creating a genetically engineered variety of trees that would be adept at absorbing carbon dioxide.’

What these two alternatives from Dyson and Venter have in common is the idea that the current form of utilising energy could continue and that with a technical fix, humans could reverse global warming. Kaku warned however that, ‘as with any plan to use genetic engineering on a large scale, one must be careful about side effects. One cannot recall a life form in the same way that we can recall a defective car. Once it is released into the environment, the genetically engineered life form may have unintended consequences for other life forms, especially if it displaces local species of plants and upsets the balance of the food chain.’ When he wrote the foreword to the book ‘Weapons in Space’, Michio Kaku termed the moment of the end of the Cold War a missed opportunity because instead of ushering in an era of peace and prosperity, the beginning of the 21st century, saw increased militarisation, marked by the weaponisation of outer space. I would agree with that statement and also suggest that in this book there was a missed opportunity to join forces with those opposing the greater commoditization of life and nature.

ENERGY FROM THE SKY

For more than three decades, Kaku has been a supporter of the solar revolution and the vast potentialities of the future solar economy. He wrote simply that, by the end of the century, another possibility opens up for energy production: Energy from space. This is called space solar power. While the US government invests in wars of occupation, Japan, Germany and China have moved ahead with investments in research on the future of solar power. ‘Mitsubishi Electric and other Japanese companies will join a $10 billion program to launch a solar power station into space that will generate billions of watts of power.’ However, Kaku writes on the future of the revolutionary technologies for the provision of energy and expounds on the present catastrophe of global warming without conveying a sense of urgency in confronting the corporations that are profiting from the fossil fuel industries. Whether it is space based solar power, cold fusion, anti-matter reactors, nanotech solar cells or other novel breakthroughs integrated in the revolutionary superconductor grid, the current lords of finance and big oil companies are seeking to ensure that energy is not freely available to all humans and that energy will remain a commodity. Herman Scheer, the German environmentalist has written clearly that in a revolutionary situation, there will be a confrontation with the conventional energy industry. In his book, ‘The Solar Economy: Renewable Energy for a Sustainable Global Future’, Scheer wrote:

‘There is no point in constructing a global strategy for climate change if renewable energy is seen as a secondary issue. Where the aim is to replace fossil with renewable energy, there can be no question of compensation for the fossil energy industry. There can be no environmental revolution in energy supply without creative destruction (à la Schumpeter) of the existing conventional energy industry.’

FROM COMMODITY CAPITALISM TO INTELLECTUAL CAPITALISM

The weakest section of ‘Physics of the Future’ is the chapter on the future of wealth. Kaku discusses phases in the transformation of capitalism with his understanding of what he calls ‘perfect capitalism,’ without reference to the brutal forms of exploitation under the capitalist mode of production. After surveying the revolutionary technological changes and the impact on production and services, Kaku predicts that there will be a transition from ‘commodity capitalism to intellectual capitalism.’ He predicts this transition because although robots will do most of the work by the end of the century, ‘the human brain cannot be mass produced.’ Although the forms of relations that Kaku describes in this chapter on the future of wealth is based on socialised production of goods and massive investments in technologies, Kaku remains wedded to private property and the relations of capitalist exploitation. Hence, the transition to intellectual capitalism will reproduce ‘winners and losers’ and reinforce the ‘digital divide.’ According to Kaku, the forms of alienation and exploitation embedded in the meaning and sense of work that has been imposed on humans since the rise of the capitalist mode of production will be with humans well throughout the 21st century.

The revolutionary potentialities that were outlined in this book were undermined by the absence of a critical understanding of the militarism and domination that has been associated with capitalism. All of the evidence of the future possibilities of serving human needs in medicine, in energy and in creating a new concept of work pointed to the need for transformation beyond competition and greed to a form of human organisation that placed humans at the forefront.

Kaku compounded this weakness by developing a typology of civilisations that reproduced the same linearity that he is supposed to abhor as a quantum physicist. Ranking civilizations by energy use could not be repaired by a discussion on the move from the masters of nature to conservators of nature. Kaku reproduced worn out Baconian concepts of domination over nature, by discussing humans as choreographers of nature.

In his review of Kaku’s previous book, ‘Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century’, Marcus Anthony pointed out how a deeper examination reveals that Kaku's vision is vitally lacking in depth, and reflects modern scientific cultures' obsession with technology at the expense of humane and spiritual values. This same critique can be leveled at ‘Physics of the Future’. Scientists who explore the future of planetary civilizations must have an appreciation for all peoples and work to ensure that future transformations do not erase 60 per cent of human beings on the planet. Kaku reinforces the same technological determinism that is being promoted by scientists such as Ray Kurzweil and Craig Venter. It was Einstein who wrote courageously that,’ I find it strange that science, which in the old days seemed harmless, should have evolved into a nightmare that causes everyone to tremble.’

I am sure that Kaku did not want readers to tremble when reading this book, but his embrace of cyberlibertarianism and neo-liberalism placed this book in the service of the rich and powerful.

Michio Kaku, Steven Chu (1997 Nobel Prize winner in Physics and currently the United States Secretary of Energy) and President Barack Obama are representatives of outsiders who entered the corridors of power and are now the gatekeepers of the eastern establishment. They recognise the inequalities of the current capitalist system but are awaiting technological breakthroughs to curb the power of the oil majors and their bankers. These three public servants are representatives of a new generation of leaders who did not grow in the WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) corridors of power but seem to support technological determinism because such technological orientation conflates technological innovation with human progress while promising tech-fixes for many of the social and ecological problems indelibly linked to neo-liberal capitalism.

In my book, ‘Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics’, I termed the current moment in world history – starting from 2008 – as ‘a revolutionary moment.’ In that book I drew from the principles of Ubuntu to point to the centrality of upholding our common humanity in facing the challenges of the moment.

Kaku’s work does indeed point to the fact that we are in a revolutionary moment. In ‘Physics of the Future’, the idea of revolution is a constant theme, building on the themes of revolutionary scientific changes that Kaku elaborated in Visions. In the ‘Physics of the Future’, Kaku brings to the non-physicist the possibilities of transformative technological breakthroughs over the next 100 years. It is apt to restate what was said in my book, that ‘the challenges, principles and potential from this new scientific revolution that is on-going in our life time cannot be fully appreciated because of the eugenic thinking of the educational system.’ An in-depth study of the moral and ethical issues for this technology is constrained by an educational system geared towards dumbing down and incarcerating American youths. The ethical choices offered by new technologies can only be fully explored in a new context where the democratisation of knowledge and information lay the basis for new citizenship.

However, the strength of Kaku’s ‘Physics of the Future’ lies in how it breaks down the information on quantum physics in relation to energy transformation and livelihoods in the universe. Unfortunately, in his visits to many of the cutting edge labs across the world, Michio Kaku failed to thoroughly interrogate the intense exploitation across the planet and the deadly military operations and occupations that are continuing today in order to preserve the ugly status quo. In essence, the strength of the book is undermined by the fundamental weakness, the embrace of neo-liberal capitalism.

The only major political economy change that Kaku envisages in this physics of the future will be the change from commodity capitalism to intellectual capitalism. Twenty-five years ago Kaku wrote extensively to critique the war planning of the Pentagon from 1945 and how this planning was linked to interventions across the planet. In this recent book, Kaku is completely uncritical of the US military destruction of other societies and the military capabilities that he was given access to in the cutting edge labs financed by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Kaku is in a position to support the efforts of those scientists working for the demilitarisation of the planet earth, but has failed to avail himself of the opportunity to make a complete break with the traditions of Edward Teller.

While making an important contribution in popularising complex ideas of physics, Kaku could have conveyed to the younger generation the reality that the revolution in science cannot be separated from the real social relations between humans and the historical foundations of contemporary imperial domination. Technological revolution by itself cannot change society; it requires the intentional and purposeful intervention of humans to make a break from traditions of slavery, bondage and exploitation. This reality seems to be hidden by the neoliberal ideology that centralises political and economic power in the hands of a few in North America, Western Europe and Japan while placing profits above humans.

The weakness of the ‘Physics of the Future’ thus exposes how human societies are stymied by old and backward linear conceptions of progress, politics and political economy, incapable of catching up with the quantum changes taking place in the scientific world at this revolutionary moment. The task before us is to make some quantum leap in politics and global political economy in order to catch up with the quantum transformation in science, the failure of which poses the danger of new forms of eugenics, exploitation, human hierarchies, and catastrophic destruction of the ecosystem and the essence of our common humanity beyond what we can imagine at the moment. I enjoyed reading ‘Physics of the Future’ and call for Michio Kaku to make a break with sections of the scientific community that serve the interest of those who support new forms of domination in the twenty-first century.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Michio Kaku’s ‘Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100’ is published by Allen Lane (ISBN 1846142687).
* Horace Campbell is professor of African-American studies and political science at Syracuse University. He is the author of ‘Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the USA’. See www.horacecampbell.net.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.