How would you design the city of the future?
For the robots to rest comfortably over our cold, dead bones.
PROMPT: City Planning
2
Category Archives: technology
PROMPT: Modernity
Modern mankind traded a life of struggle with occasional moments of terror (e.g. saber-tooth tiger attack) for a life of comfort with constant nagging anxiety (e.g. 40-, 60-, 80-hour work weeks and constant deadlines,) and hasn’t adapted well in the process. As such there are more mental health problems, inability to deal with adversity (or even conflicting ideas,) and an inability to exploit the freedom available. (i.e. The Enlightenment and subsequent liberal movements ensured that government and employers can’t exert undue influence over individuals’ lives, but still most people remain heavily constrained in their pursuit of self-betterment / self-realization by their exhaustion, comfort-addictions, or anxieties.)
There are two interrelated changes that I think would make for a much healthier society. First, education needs to put back some Socratic learning in education — i.e. active engagement of students with thinking and questioning [versus memorizing and skill practicing.] Presently, we have people graduating from colleges who may or may not be prepared for a job of corporate minionship, but who – upon hearing an idea that they find disagreeable – are unable to do anything but be angry or scared or anxious [i.e. from an idea.] An education that challenged students to contend with ideas (be they ideas that seem uncomfortable or feel reprehensible) through dialogue and critique, would convey some of the emotional intelligence (the lack of which has hamstrung our species, a species that may have intellectual intelligence out the wha-zoo.)
Second, we should have some sort of true coming-of-age ceremony of the variety only a few indigenous / tribal societies still do. I don’t mean a Bar Mitzvah or Quinceañera where the child is thrown a party and then they collect envelopes of cash. I mean the kind in which one goes out in the woods for seven days and stays alive solely of one’s own abilities. It’s true that we would have fewer human children, but the ones who came back would not only be more capable but would also be more in command of their emotional and mental selves. [And, to be perfectly frank, the last thing this planet needs are more humans running around — especially ones who need a vast carbon footprint to merely stay alive.]
Finally, we all need an intervention for phone / computer addiction: maybe two weeks in which there is no internet availability, whatsoever.
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The Abyss [Free Verse]
Nietzsche said:
“And if thou gaze long
into an abyss,
the abyss will also
gaze into thee.”
I must admit
the first several times
that I read this quote,
I couldn’t tell if it was wise,
or just had the patina of
wisdom that comes from
parallel sentence structure.
Crisscrossing subject and object
lends a ring of sagacity.
“If you can’t take
Mohammad to the mountain,
the mountain must come to
Mohammad.”
“Ask not what your country
can do for you,
but what you can do
for your country.”
“If you can’t get the carrots
out of the refrigerator,
get the refrigerator
out of the carrots.”
Yes, that last one is nonsense,
but it’s not nonsense like:
“The banana pirouetted fuchsia
all over the underside of
an A-sharp chord.”
The carrot quote probably took
your mind some time —
if only milliseconds —
to relegate to the
trash heap.
That’s why this sentence structure
is beloved by godmen &
politicians: because you can
sound wise even if you’re
kind of an idiot.
So, I was ready to classify Nietzsche’s
quote pseudo-wisdom when I realized
that my smartphone was the Abyss,
and it was certainly staring back at me.
It stared through all the data collection &
neuroscientific and psychological
research designed to keep
a person scrolling.
Maybe Nietzsche was on to something
that even he didn't fully understand.
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DAILY PHOTO: Scenes from Udvar-Hazy Center, National Air & Space Museum
Food for Thought [Voltaire & Smartphones]
When Voltaire said:
“Once a nation begins to think, it is impossible to stop it.”
I don’t think he’d anticipated smartphones.
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Artificial Intelligence Limerick
There once was a cutting-edge AI, whose code discouraged telling a lie. Asked about our species: "Your thinking is feces, but you're smarter than the average fruit fly."
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The Hut Life [Lyric Poem]
Just give me a simple brick hut with its doors tightly shut, and a cooling crossflow breeze, shaded by banyan trees. I won't be expelled by AI or sold the daily lies. We can talk live, not by "hit send" -- clueless to the world's end.
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BOOK REVIEW: Invention and Innovation by Vaclav Smil
Inventions and Innovations: A Brief History of Infatuation, Overpromise, and Disappointment by Vaclav SmilMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
Release Date: February 14, 2023
This book is about technological failures, the various ways in which technologies fail, and what lessons can be learned from these failures when hearing about new “world-changing breakthroughs.” The author explores nine technologies in depth, three for each of three varieties of technology failure.
The first group are those technologies that came online as promised, fixing a major problem, only to later be discovered to have side-effects deemed disastrous. The examples used are: leaded gasoline, DDT pesticide, and CFC (Chlorofluorocarbon) refrigerant. These technologies have come to be associated with health defects, air pollution, ecological collapse, and ozone depletion.
The second group (like the first) came online, but then never became competitive with existing technologies. The technologies presented as examples are: airships, nuclear fission for power production, and supersonic flight. Airships died out not only because of the Hindenburg disaster, but also because people preferred airplanes to a craft with the combined slowness of a boat and the crash potential of a plane. Nuclear fission became untenable for new commercial power plants due to a risk premium on build costs even though it doesn’t contribute to global warming and (once powerplants are paid for) is exceedingly cheap per kilowatt-hour. Supersonic flight was just too costly and short-ranged to compete with subsonic flight.
The final group are those technologies that failed to come online at all, despite intense efforts. These include travel by vacuum tube (i.e. Hyperloop, and, yes, like at the bank but with people inside) nitrogen-fixing grains (negating the need for fertilizer,) and nuclear fusion. Despite the celebrity billionaire love of Elon Musk and Richard Branson, hyperloop isn’t advancing because of challenges of maintaining vacuum over large distances. Making cereal grains that feature the nitrogen-fixing capabilities of legumes has also proven more difficult than expected. Nuclear fusion recently experienced a moment in the sun when, for the first time, they got more energy out of it than was needed to achieve it. (This wasn’t written about in the review copy I read, but I suspect will be mentioned in the finished book. At any rate, it doesn’t negate the author’s point as it’s still just one breakthrough of several that would be needed for the technology to be commercially viable.)
In the last chapter, the author gets into a number of other technologies with shorter discussions that are meant to illustrate specific issues with excessive technological optimism. He also investigates some technologies that he believes need to come down the pike, given our present and expected future challenges.
I found this book fascinating. The author seems to love being contrarian (he not only contests popular optimism by those overestimating technological progress but also contests the pessimism regarding the first group of failed technologies, so it appears that he enjoys pointing out how mass opinion [or the opinion of another smart person] is wrong.) That said, there’s a great deal of thought-provoking information in the book. And, I think it can help people more critically consider claims about up-and-coming technologies.
View all my reviews
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Mind in the Cloud [Limerick]
There was a man who moved into the Cloud, being the first machine-mind, he was quite proud. Until someone tripped, and his switch was flipped. "Tape that cord down, for cryin' out loud!"
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Conspiracy Theorist’s Limerick
A conspiracy theorist wouldn't take shots - claimed they were laced with tracking nanobots. But he never left home without taking his phone which constantly triangulated his exact spot.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 