Editing 2: What is The Portal (section)

=== Exploring Ground-Breaking Topics ===

''00:19:08''<br>
In particular, I think that one of the things we're really interested in doing is talking about a couple of new economic models that have been shared with the world rather narrowly up until now, one of which involves a, what might be called Coasian immigration, which I'll explain later, shows that simply opening borders is in no way a free market solution, that you have to securitize rights and allow people to trade them in order to get free market economics to work in the immigration area. Another of which has to do with bilateral trade, and the geometry of markets culminating, eventually, in a model of humans in which they are allowed to change their tastes.

''00:19:53''<br>
Now, it sounds very strange to say that economic theory falls apart when human beings change their tastes. But since at least the late 1970s, we've had an excuse in place in the work of Becker and Stigler that allows us to make assumptions about human beings that are known to be wildly untrue. And the way out, strangely enough, is through differential geometry, the [[Gauge Theory of Economics|differential geometry of markets]]. So that's something that I think we're going to be very interested in bringing to you. 

''00:20:22''<br>
I don't know whether the idea of geometric markets is something that can be easily explained to a mass audience, but this theory of geometric marginalism is in fact a starter theory that, if that is successful, might allow us to discuss an even more profound attempt, which would be this concept that I've called [[Theory of Geometric Unity|Geometric Unity]]. Now, when I talk about getting off the planet, I have no idea whether or not it is in fact possible to go beyond the solar system. Nobody's ever done it, it's been relatively irresponsible to think in these terms ever since we've understood what we're up against, in particular in the form of Einstein's restrictions, through the general and special theories of relativity, but I do know this: if we are to have a hope of visiting all of those exotic locations we can see in the night sky, when we're far from a city and the moon is not blocking out all of the stars and galaxies, I do know that if we are going to have a hope of visiting someplace truly remote, it's probably going to come through a better understanding of the source code of reality.

''00:21:26''<br>
Now, up until this point, we've talked about this in terms of the so-called theory of everything, and if you'll notice, we have a very funny pattern about this. A very small number of highly regarded physicists have been entitled to talk and dream openly about a theory of everything, most commonly in the form of string theory. Yet the current string theoretic revolution, which began in 1984 with something called the anomaly cancellation, has largely petered out. True, some people, diehards in the field, will continue to say that this is the best time to enter theoretical physics, and that even if some of the original hype was misplaced, that there's no reason to think that the long term prospects are dim.

''00:22:10''<br>
Well that's not true. We all know that that's not true. Why? Well, we had to buy an enormous accelerator in Geneva in which to test some of our earlier theories, and in fact, while it found the, what appears to be the Higgs particle, it's found very little else beyond the Standard Model. In fact, nothing of significance. Are we going to continue to fund such machines when our successes become more remote? Are we going to continue to be able to attract the top minds as we have always been able to attract them into theoretical physics?

''00:22:44''<br>
Again, I think that as other occupations continue to offer more money and physics offers less stability and less interest and excitement as a field, it's going to be very difficult to compete for talent. If we're going to do something, now is the time. We still have the expertise, we still have enough of the infrastructure. Sure, in my opinion, it may be decaying, and I don't even really particularly get along with this community, but this is the community of greatest agency of greatest intelligence, and it has to be reinvigorated.

''00:23:16''<br>
We need to get this community more money, we need to get them more security, and we need to get them, once again, dreaming up the future. Now, they brought us the future when they brought us the world wide web, which came out of CERN. When they developed the semiconductor. They effectively invented molecular biology as a side project. They ended World War II, and they gave us the communications technology in which our phones communicate with remote towers and allow us to connect to people a world away with very little delay. 

''00:23:46''<br>
In essence, our entire economy owes itself to theoretical physics. And are we going to let this field wither and die on the vine because it hasn't been able to succeed in roughly 45 years? I would say that this is the place that we have to bring the fight. People have not understood how vulnerable we are when we start to lose our most dynamic communities, and we find ourselves incapable of fighting for the resources, either in terms of neurons, or in terms of dollars, that are necessary to sustain our hope of progress.