Filed Under: Journal - Guest Journals

It probably strikes people as odd that I am a computer engineer without much faith in technology as a force for Good. It certainly seems weird to me. A bit over a decade ago, when frustration at the way the world works was first bubbling over in me, I still saw technology as a hope, at least for things like pollution and disease and the like. But my thoughts in the past 5 years have led me to visit the thoughts of the critics of civilization and technology, at least that more advanced than clothes and shelter.

Recently I have come to know several people who proclaim themselves as futurists or transhumanists, believing that the rapid acceleration of, amongst other things, information and medical technology will overcome a large cross-section of the problems of humanity. Certainly, there are technological trends that appear to following an exponential curve, leading to, at some point in the nearish future, a so-called "singularity" in which technological progress will become so accelerated that humanity will be utterly transformed.

One of these futurists has a professor who declared that no technological advancements in the last 20-30 years have significantly changed human lives, at least in the NorthWest (I will confine my discussion to that area, given that I have little direct experience with the other 3/4 of the globe. I also doubt that many outside of the NorthWest will ever read this, unfortunately.). This sounds like a pretty radical proposal, given that we have computers and cell phones and MP3 players and a host of other machines and gadgets that our parents never grew up with.

It didn't take me long to agree with his thesis. In fact, it makes quite a lot of sense if you also believe in the related idea that there have been no significant scientific breakthroughs since the 50s. The 20th century saw the discoveries of relativity, quantum mechanics, and DNA, all of which revolutionized scientific thought. However science hasn't had a big find since then, 60 years later, and there are really only two possible explanations: either we've identified "the big problems" and are working on filling in the gaps, or there are some surprises coming along.

It's not that technology hasn't progressed or been refined; rather, the trends started over the last few hundred years have been extended naturally. However most of these developments haven't had a profound effect on people's lives, certainly not as profound as the original development. Undoubtedly there are cases in which modern technology has transformed people's lives. Medical discoveries to formerly incurable or untreatable diseases (though how many have their been, compared to the discovered of vaccines a century ago?) means that small portions of our populace can live longer and better lives. Heck even telecommuting has improved lives by avoiding the notoriously aggravating process of the daily commute. But to be really revolutionary, technology has to affect the lives of the majority. Let's go through a couple cases of recent developments and see if they have significantly benefited the populace.

When I was young, there wasn't really such as thing as a cell phone. There were expensive, large wireless phones, but they lacked the defining characteristic of contemporary cell phones: portability. Now nearly everyone has one. Has this not significantly changed our lives?

No, I daresay it hasn't. Sure, we talk on the phone more—but kids when I was young spent hours on the phone just the same. They just do it out of the home now. True, having a cell phone can be a godsend when disaster strikes, but how many people do you know whose cell phone has saved their lives or limbs? Not many, I'm betting. So really the cell phone is an extension of the original invention of the phone 100 years ago—that undoubtedly changed lives, being truly revolutionary technology that affected both the home and the workplace, but there's nothing revolutionary in disconnecting the phone from the wall and carrying it around with you.

Another item that leaps to mind is the Internet. Acknowledging that its roots lie about 30 years ago, there's no question that the Internet we know today really got off the ground in the 90s, so that makes it a recent-enough invention. So what has it given to the average citizen? Communication and knowledge tend to be the answers we hear, but how has that changed our lives? We can now talk to people farther away for cheaper (at least, by text if not by the still nascent VOIP), and even people across the planet, for essentially free (or at least for a flat rate). But what about our daily life changes because of this? More communication, but, let's be honest, most of that communication is fairly vapid, if fun, and again it seems like just a further extension of the telephone. More knowledge? Definitely. It's arguable if the knowledge stores on the Internet constitute a revolution in themselves or if it is an extension of the invention of the printing press. Regardless, so far, this increased access to information has done precious little to remedy the woes of the world. If anything, it's downright embarrassing that we have so much information available yet continue to suffer needlessly.

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier; in utilitarian terms, all the new developments are supposed to bring us increased utility. The standard workweek is still 40 hours—a victory won over a hundred years ago. (And let's not forget the legislation proposed in Ontario a few years ago to "optionally" increase the workweek to 60 hours.) All our technology seems to be doing is giving us new ways to distract ourselves in our free time—on the phone, watching high-def TV, surfing through blogs and YouTube videos—without actually increasing our free time. All this technology should theoretically be increasing our productivity through corresponding gains in efficiency; to put it another way, we should be doing less work to secure more, or at least as many, resources. However we still fight for employment, when we should be fighting for better resource distribution. For the purposes of this argument I don't even mean completely equitable distribution—but surely some of the gains in efficiency should have translated into a consensus, or at least a majority, or even a sizable minority, that there's less work that needs to be done, and not into demands for more work to be created so we can earn the resources that are already there.

(To head off a possible critique, yes, the option exists for some people to work fewer hours and still live a decent life. However in most companies part-time work is rare and low-end, with low per-hour pay and rarely any benefits. Truly flexible hours, like the kind contractors and consultants have, are usually reserved for people with fairly specific, uncommon expertise.)

So, as usual, the problems appear to be social, and not technological. Progress of social welfare appears to have leveled off, at best, or more realistically decreased—the average wage of Canadians has gone down since the 1970s, inflation included, but the cost of living has only increased—so what are we doing with this technology? Using it to create more work, I guess, and therefore more drain on our resources.

To end this on a slightly positive note, as least we appear now to have the technological means to honestly start increasing our standards of living, assuming we correct the social factors that are preventing this from happening. As Murray Bookchin wrote 40 years ago, "This technological revolution . . . has created the objective, quantitative basis for a world without class rule, exploitation, toil, or material want." Or as a friend of mine said, "where are my flying cars?" except I would forget the flying car and just settle for more time to dream of them. It's too bad, but hardly surprising to me, that technological problems appear to be easier to solve than social ones...

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Filed Under: Journal - General

I'm still choking on a full article about the Olympics, which I'll probably never finish, but until then it feels like I should at least post some required viewing. Anyone who has spent any time out with me drinking, during or since the opening ceremonies of the Olympics knows that I have less than total respect for the games, or the West's passive approval of growing fascism and slave labour; that may go a ways in explaining why I'm having so much trouble trying to get a couple coherent sentences together without dissolving into a frothy mess of disconnected cursing.

At a minimum, I think it's safe to say that our standard cowardice, hypocrisy and criminal neglect for the principles we claim to hold dear is nothing short of breathtaking. But don't worry about all that, Michael Phelps broke several world records, including the most gold medals won in a single Olympics for ... swimming really, really fast. No, I mean really fast. In an enclosure of water he can get from one end of the enclosure to the other really, really fast.

I'm assuming that if he's still alive Ji Sizun will join us in our pathetic cheering as soon as the Chinese police stop torturing him.

BILL MOYERS: With a small group of media was in tow as protection, Ji went to police headquarters to file his request [for a permit to protest]. One of his friends had come here just days before to seek permission and he vanished.

Right away, Ji was treated as a suspect. For three hours, he was interrogated in a closed room. He emerged defiant and frustrated.

JI SIZUN: We had a heated discussion. They won't approve anything. They won't even accept my application.

BILL MOYERS: As Ji left, plainclothes police kept him under surveillance.

This is one of three parks in Beijing that the government set aside for demonstrations. We didn't see a banner, picket sign or protester in sight. In fact, all these days into the Olympics, the government has yet to permit a single demonstration in any of the official protest zones. Except for strollers, the park was empty, because China claims that only 77 applications were filed, and all but three were withdrawn, says the government, because the petitioners had their complaints satisfied. Those other three? "Oh", says China, "turned down on technicalities." Nothing is as it seems.

Two days later, Ji went back to the police station to ask about his missing friend. Witnesses said Ji was led by plainclothes policemen into a dark sedan, then gone...disappeared.

After the fact...

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Filed Under: Journal - General

Grey haired and disheveled and wild he tells me how he can sell me pot on the right day if I "look him up".

Ryan (presumed spelling) is jokingly "self employed" on or about the corner of Duluth and St. Laurent; and he works his corner for ten dollars to get access to the Salvation Army shelter and a hot meal. He asks if I have any spare change while I fumble with my ipod earphones trying to stuff them into my pocket. I hope the change I have there doesn't make too much of a noise while I do.

I get the impression that fully erect he would be taller than me, but instead he stands hunched a half foot below my eye-line impassionately making his pitch with a cigarette dangling precariously from his mouth. He tells me how taking marijuana in a tea will defeat the normal paranoia the the drug seats me with; the excuse I use to refuse his offers to sell some to me. He tells me how he likes to drink some tea, "throw his guts up," and then take some Valium to go to bed.

I offer another negative to his offer to deal for me as I notice a burn scar on his face. I ask as innocently as I can think of how he has ended up in a tattered jacket, unkempt beard and a seemingly good natured state of homelessness.

"LSD" he says. "I got in a car and I killed a guy. I don't even remember it." He continues, "I've been guilt tripping ever since."

I stupidly tell him that he's not doing himself, or anyone else any good at the moment with the intent to suggest he move on. I instantly regret it. He doesn't seem to take it as an insult any more than I meant it to be one, though it was.

Curious about the US recession, the effects of which on the Canadian economy I haven't followed, I ask how "business" has been going.

"I was asking down there [Avenue des Pine and St. Laurent] and a guy took out a ten so I could stay at a shelter; some other guy just walked by and took it saying 'thanks' and walked off."

His English is smooth and clean, and he seems like someone I could hold a conversation in with.

I ask him if things are going worse for him lately and he stops for a second to think. "Yes, I think so." Then launches into another pitch about how he could use a meal from the shelter.

Ryan. He works St. Laurent near Duluth with a dirty face, wild hair and clever eyes. Ryan, a hunched man my dad's age killed a guy, and has been guilt tripping ever since.

I hope he spends the money on food and not beer. I hope he can find the other end of that "guy he killed" somewhere other then the bottom of a pint, or in the bottom of a toilet after a cup of a doped tea.

I think I'll order in; after all, it has been a rough night.

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Filed Under: Charity

Just a short update, a very long time in coming. The Animal Housing project is not dead in the slightest. I've been trying to contact the author of the Gazette story to organize some kind of unified movement towards replacing the shelter which was destroyed, but my correspondence has fallen into some kind of black hole. The nature of that black hole in uncertain. It may be purposeful, or it may be bureaucratic.

Regardless of the reason, I think it's time to give up on unifying with any kind of established structure for the purpose of rallying. That leaves us to find a path on our own. This effort isn't over, it just stalled. It is stalled in a way I don't intend to become stalled in again.

What we need now is an intelligent way forward, and a solid goal. I'll be looking into individual organizations to find out where an infusion of money would be best allocated to do the most good, but what I'd really like is to find out what the community thinks would be a good way to proceed.

Please comment on this thread with any ideas you may have about the best way to progress with respect to fund raising, or fund dispersal. If anyone has any general comments, now would be a great time to raise them.

This isn't over.

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Filed Under: Journal - General

The Fifth Estate brings us The Lies that Led to War, a CBC documentary which covers the lead up, and selling of the war. Originally aired March 7th 2007, this film pulls no punches while they look more deeply into the horrific acts of Saddam at Halabja in 1988, the source of Bush's mantra: he gassed his own people. Thankfully they add the important, but missing, appendage "... with our [USA] help".

After this refresher on the beginning of the mess in Iraq, take a look at Frontline's analysis of the 'Surge' and the decisions which led to its implementation: Endgame. In the eyes of many non-partisan officials the Surge is the last best hope for any kind of victory in, or even a graceful withdrawal from Iraq.

If you really feel like a depressing hundred hours or so, Frontline has a full listing of all of its films covering the War on Terror. That page is a treasure-trove of fantastic resources to learn more about the family of military conflicts which will speak to history books about our morality, civility and in many ways, our sanity.

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Filed Under: Journal - General

June 5th 1989. In the mist of a gloomy morning true heroism was captured on film and has become an indelible symbol of courage and the purity of the human spirit that we should never allow ourselves to forget.

My wonderful girlfriend, Ayria got me a poster of the event which hangs on my wall, and that I look at every day, but that I rarely process for the act of pure strength of will it represents. In an environment more hostile that any of us can possibly understand a single man stood against the ultimate symbol of oppression and the weaker of us could only watch and hold our collective breath. Civilization faintly hoped that a country prison might change.

The Tank Man is a symbol of what we should all try to be in the face of terror and oppression, but he wasn't alone in his courage. Tiananmen Square, Beijing, and indeed more than 400 Chinese cities had become a seething mass of protest. Humanity en masse crystallized into an act of pure hope which was met by a military which was at times paralyzed by its own contemplation of what it is to be human, and at times succumbed to all the worst darkness of the human soul.

Thousands flooded the streets standing up for everything that is right about civilization and the evolution of society, only to be crushed under the wheels of dictatorship. Crushed, but not forgotten.

Please take 90 minutes of your life to learn more about the massacre at Tiananmen Square. It's one of the largest symbols of victory and defeat that we will ever encounter in our lives, and it should speak to us about how we lead our lives. Speak to us every day.

China is a dichotomy of progress and regression, and should enter our minds in the same thought as Darfur, globalization, appeasement and Taiwan.

China; 1,313,973,713 people and counting. One billion, three hundred thirteen million, nine hundred seventy-three thousand, seven hundred and thirteen people... one billion, three hundred thirteen million, nine hundred seventy-three thousand, seven hundred and thirteen of us... in need of democracy.

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Filed Under: Journal - General

All I can say is that I hope you were right and there's a Hell, Jerry.

Also, make sure to catch BoingBoing's listing of Famous Falwell quotes.

After the fact...

FAREWELL FALWELL

2007.05.18 04:18am
Aaron

There's so much more to see.

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Filed Under: Journal - General

Entirely a rehash of the older arguments made by Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort on their site, The Way of the Master, the debate is still interesting to watch. I think the initial rebuttal by the The Rational response Squad was powerful, but was followed up by a somewhat rambling response by the tremendously attractive, but largely inarticulate Kelly (last name pending, since no one seemed to want to mention it). It seems clear that she was uncomfortable with the audience, and it seems unfortunately equally clear that her attire was chosen with ... intent. Still, it's very interesting to see what could be considered a rational debate, even if short.

The first part embedded, the continuation is linked.

Unfortunately the QA doesn't seem to be available.

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Filed Under: Journal - General

The Onion, of all sources, brought to my attention the recently rectified exclusion of Wicca from the "official' religious symbols allowed on the tombstones of veterans. The military is always slow to move on things like this, and they have since corrected their mistake, after extensive legislation of course; but what strikes me is that the most openly religious leader that the United States has ever seen had this to say about the the religion that wasn't his:

I don't think witchcraft is a religion, I would hope the military officials would take a second look at the decision they made.

-- George W. Bush, 1999 during an interview
with `Good Morning America'

I think any commentary I could make would be unnecessary.

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