Free University in Internet - despite his grammar woes, this guy has uploaded and organized hundreds of videos on Google to create his own online "university". Awesome.
10/09/2008
1984 is a favorite of mine; I read it at least once every couple years. I think it’s the questioning nature of Winston that gets me, feeling the same emotions myself on a smaller scale.
Interestingly in London this summer, I thought often of 1984. Whether they caused or were caused by the book, elements of the city constantly reminded me of the story. Cameras everywhere; tall, windowless buildings (used in the movie, natch); sensationalist newspaper headlines.
As with any political satire, it’s easy to find similarities in our current world. In a time of unrest and war, however, it’s especially good to recognize that many of our fears are artificially-created and harmful, and that an intelligent reading of the news handed down to us is necessary.
Notes
The dangers of oversimplification; be “as simple as possible, but no simpler”:
“In your heart you’d prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You don’t grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?” - Syme (55)
A similar sentiment to the “9/11 Truth” assertions; and of new importance in our digital age.
Once when he happened in some connection to mention the war against Eurasia, she startled him by saying casually that in her opinion the war was not happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably fired by the Government of Oceania itself, ‘just to keep people frightened’. (160)
The role of “feelings” in a police state:
Her feelings were her own, and could not be altered from outside. It would not have occurred to her that an action which is ineffectual thereby becomes meaningless. If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love…The terrible thing that the Party had done was to persuade you that mere impulses, mere feelings, were of no account, while at the same time robbing you of all power over the material world. (171-2)
War and suffering as a way to keep people in hardship and thus less ambitious. Reminded me of Huxley when I read it:
The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent…It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another. (198-9)
The danger of having the wrong goals:
The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought. There are therefore two great problems which the Party is concerned to solve. Once is how to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand. (201)
This is eerie given how routine the war in Iraq has become…and the public statements that we could be there much longer; continuous war has the same effect as continuous peace:
It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The particular pressure that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and been replaced by something quite different. The effect would be much the same if the three super-states, instead of fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace…this is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: War is Peace. (207)
A friend once said to me that he believed you “couldn’t learn from someone else what you didn’t already know”. I’ve tempered that to “what you aren’t ready to know”…but this passage reinforces his statement, and underlines the dangerous attraction of it:
The book fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him. In a sense it told him nothing that was new, but that was part of the attraction…The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already. (208)
Extended, the internet does far worse than this…but also far better, with its freedoms:
The invention of print…made it easier to manipulate public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the process further. With the development of television, and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end…The possibility of enforcing not only complete obedience to the will of the State, but complete uniformity of opinion on all subjects, now existed for the first time. (214)
If the evolution of genes is more fundamental than that of individuals, the evolution and survival of memes may be the ultimate societal goal…as Richard Dawkins posited 30 years later:
The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. (218)
Like “precrime” in Minority Report):
In Oceania there is no law. Thoughts and actions which, when detected, mean certain death are not formally forbidden, and the endless purges, arrests, tortures, imprisonments and vaporizations are not inflicted as punishment for crimes which have actually been committed, but are merely the wiping-out of persons who might perhaps commit a crime at some time in the future. (220)
Definitons (complete list of Newspeak words):
- Crimestop - “the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought.” (220)
- Blackwhite - “the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts; [or] the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary.” (221)
- Doublethink - “the power of holding two contradictory believes in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” (223) Interestingly, this is the main suggestion of a prominent design thinker.
An interesting corollary to memories as experience:
The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence by survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it. (222)
“But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon parishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be truth, is truth.” - O’Brien (261)
Nothing exists except through human consciousness. (278)
I think several politicians right now are wishing this were true…
To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed…all this is indispensably necessary (223)
I think this holds today…the first part addresses clearly the designer’s problem:
In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is…One clear illustration of this is the fact that war hysteria increases in intensity as one rises in the social scale. (224)
"Imagine, as a thought experiment, that everyone on the planet had the same share of the world's resources. It turns out your share is about six acres (2.5 hectares) of dry land. Now imagine if that were your whole world. How would you treat it?" - My little world (and yours, too), an interesting thought experiment that shows how radically we need to change our lifestyles in the developed world.
10/08/2008
This book tells the tale of two successful city-dwellers, Eric and Mary Brende, who choose to live in an Amish-like community for 18 months. It goes pretty much as you’d expect: they struggle to get going but eventually love the lifestyle and decide to keep much of it.
One thing the book explored was something I’ve thought of quite a bit. When we have numerous possessions, much of our time, energy, and money is spent just keeping them going. One especially ascetic member of their community referred to this as “turning the machine”. What would our required workload be like if we didn’t need to keep lots of possessions fixed up, fueled up, and upgraded? What could we do instead?
I also enjoyed seeing how minimal technologies can be very powerful. A hand-cranked washing machine, for instance, took less time and energy than an automatic one and spun clothes dry enough to hang. A “yankee drill” made it onto my wishlist for its elegant manual drilling action that spins the bit as you push down on the handle.
Obviously, in a time of environmental and financial crisis, the book sparked lots of thoughts about how this sort of lifestyle could “save the world”. But a doubt that nagged me throughout was that this approach to saving the world doesn’t seem to scale. Alex Steffen once wrote at his WorldChanging blog, “Don’t just be the change—mass-produce it”. I’m convinced that one of our world’s most pressing design needs is for ways to radically change the behavior of billions of people, and while I admire Eric and Mary’s courage and perseverance, their account doesn’t suggest a lifestyle that would be accepted voluntarily by most people living in developed countries.
But could it scale? I loved the title of the book: “Better off”. A double entendre about living better and shutting off machines, it suggests that people might enjoy their lives more by living this lifestyle—and that they might realize this through reading the book. I don’t think that this book is going to do that, but a similar approach that envisions a life made better by slowing down might.
That’s what I’m interested in designing, and while I do that I’ll continue to enjoy and be inspired by the ideas and strategies showcased in Better Off…many of which are listed below.
Notes
An interesting perspective on work was that it was not something to be avoided, but rather a natural part of life that can build friendships and be fun.
Certain Amish groups in the past went so far as to outlaw lightning rods, for fear of diminishing occasions of spontaneous barn raisings. To this day our neighbors forbade the purchase of insurance policies for similar reasons. (40)
They found a type of thought that you simply can’t get in a “normal” situation (reminds me of Anathem):
In the modern university, with its rapid turnover of assignments and fast-paced technology, the human brain is treated as just another processing device and is expected to keep pace with electronic blips. but Adams’s thought, ponderous and discursive as it was, could not be summarily ingested…This was the secret: to grasp his meaning, you had to be living it. (67)
On enjoying the moment:
In being slower, time is more capacious. The event is only in the moment. By speeding through life with technology, you reduce what any given moment can hold. By slowing down, you expand it. (67)
The strange ways we counterbalance our lopsided lifestyles:
Computer users, cramped in a cubicle all day long, jogging around the block…captives of the technological environment fleeing for brief weekends to mountains, beaches, and rustic cabins. (67)
Technology’s antisocial tendencies:
Cars, telephones, message machines, caller ID, and e-mail grant us unprecedented powers to associate with whom we want, when we want, to the degree we want, under the terms we want, finessing and filtering out those we don’t want—and thin out the possibilities of social growth accordingly. (80)
“Turning the machine”:
Though his job gave him flexible hours, he inevitably worked overtime in order to buy more refined, processed foods. “I’ve noticed,” he said, “that’s generally the way it goes. Most of the work around here is just to turn the machine.” (126)
A conclusion Brende finds similar to Max Weber’s study “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”
The means by which the spiritually reborn demonstrated their righteousness were threatening to become their ends. The outward tokens of salvation or self-worth were starting to stand in place of the inner reality. (126)
How taking your time leads to new conclusions, and why you can’t take shortcuts with creativity.
In true leisure their is mastery. If the enemy of self-direction was passion and impulse, its ally was quiet repose, mindfulness, perceptivity. Yet the act of reflection transcended the rational; it followed a course that could not be entirely foreseen, yielding conclusions that could not be reached if too deliberately pursued. (133)
The elders carefully evaluated each technology, deciding whether it had on the balance more benefits or detriments for the community:
Here were members of an obscure sect in a prayerful meeting—rationally evaluating the implications of a technology that the rest of us accept on faith. (134)
How less technology can make for a “lighter” life:
The dynamics of mutual activity take on their own life and liberate a sense of common cause. There is also a real savings in maintenance on fuel-consuming mouths. Now that we have gotten our routine down, it is a good guess that Mary and I spend only about two or three hours a day on work necessary to our livelihood. (227)
Brende’s “principle of minimation”:
Other things equal, it is better to find a non-technological solution than a technological one, or failing that, a less technological solution than a more technological one. (230)
The reasons for that:
First, a modern automatic machine is…a complex fuel-consuming being with needs of its own. It gobbles up energy; it demands care and maintenance.
[Second,] duplicating vital human capacities can have one of only two consequences: atrophying the capacities or creating competition between Homo sapiens and machine.
[Third,] a complex mechanical entity readily overwhelms or subverts the very purpose for which is was deployed. [think cars built for speed but sitting in traffic jams]
A bit of perspective, recognizing that he does use a tremendous amount of technology inherently:
Merely by existing in a Western country, I have ready access to sanitary water, vaccines, plentiful food, many mass-manufactured goods, and select forms of automation..and with this degree of usage, I enjoy a balanced life, blending family and work and leaving amply amounts of leisure.
Recommended tool and book: a Yankee drill and E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops
WorldChanging: Thriving on Earth ForeverAn interesting quote in the comments: "If plastics will be here for 50,000 years, how are we going to learn to live with 50,000 years of bad design decisions?" I think the assumption is that we won't have to--that we'll be extinct by then. But what if we aren't? What if we survive?
The Temples of Damanhur are an amazing set of underground buildings carved over 30 years, in secret, beneath an utterly unremarkable Italian country home. Wow.
A motto for our times: "Men seldom moved their bodies; all unrest was concentrated in the soul. " - from The Machine Stops, by E.M. Forster, a pretty good prediction of the future from 1909.
mobaganda* - world's simplest event invitation website. No registration, no nonsense.
"The important thing is not to stop questioning
. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day. Never lose a holy curiosity." - Albert Einstein
09/25/2008
bob posted a photo:
A gift from Hong Kong
09/25/2008
bob posted a photo:
Each of those pink clouds in the sky looked just like mini tornadoes...a few minutes before this.
09/25/2008
bob posted a photo:
I always love this view; at the top of Sandhill Road, near Hwy 280.
09/25/2008
bob posted a photo:
09/24/2008
bob posted a photo:
I felt bad asking for this to go; the plating was so nice. The Forbidden Mushroom wrap at Ital Calabash/Seed of Life in Berkeley.
09/17/2008
bob posted a photo:
Someone decided they didn't like watching the Shell gas pump ads.
09/07/2008
Let’s start at the beginning: these notes are 8 years old. On my European train tour in 2000, I ran out of books to read in Nice, France. At an English-language bookstore there, I found A Brief History of Time and learned about the universe for the next few days.
These are the things I flagged on the trains, in the hostels, and in the cities of Europe over the next few days, over 8 years ago.
Notes
Hawking’s definition of a “good theory”:
A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations. - 10
And the “eventual goal of science”:
The eventual goal of science is to provide a single theory that describes the whole universe. - 11
An interesting way to look at our role in the universe…
Space and time not only affect but also are affected by everything that happens in the universe. - 36
121-126: a concise explanation of how the universe likely began; its first few hours.
Hawking gives a good explanation of the anthropic principle:
We see the universe the way it is because we exist. - 130
The weak anthropic principle states that in a universe that is large or infinite in space and/or time, the conditions necessary for the development of intelligent life will be met only in certain regions that are limited in space and time. The intelligent beings in these regions should therefore not be surprised if they observe that their locality in the universe satisfies the conditions that are necessary for their existence. - 130-1
[The strong anthropic principle claims that] in most…universes the conditions would not be right for the development of complicated organisms; only in the few universes that are like ours would intelligent beings develop and ask the questions: ‘Why is the universe the way we see it?’ The answer is then simple: if it had been different, we would not be here! - 131
Perhaps Hawking should read Pilgrim by Tinker Creek…
The strong anthropic principle would claim that this whole vast construction [of our universe] exists simply for our sake. This is very hard to believe…there does not seem to be any need for all those other galaxies… - 133
From Pilgrim:
It occurs to me more and more that everything I have seen is wholly gratuitous
the sheer fringe and network of detail assumes primary importance. That there are so many details seems to be the most important and visible fact about the creation
If the world is gratuitous, then the fringe of a goldfishs fin is a million times more so.
An interesting way to explain rapid expansion of the universe in its beginnings:
In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.
Now twice zero is also zero. Thus the universe can double the amount of positive matter energy and also double the negative gravitational energy without violation of the conservation of energy. - 136
“It is said that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But the universe is the ultimate free lunch.” - Alan Guth - 136
How can the universe be finite and yet without end?
Because one is using Euclidean space-times, in which the time direction is on the same footing as directions in space, it is possible for space-time to be finite in extent and yet to have no singularities that formed a boundary or edge. - 143
Similar to something Einstein said:
The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
09/07/2008
We did some spring cleaning this weekend (yes, I know it’s September) and I’ve got a huge stack of books that I’ve read but never written out my notes for.
So brace yourselves, here come the notes.
09/03/2008
Years ago, when I was racing bicycles, I kept waiting for my body to finally get in good enough shape that the races didn’t hurt any more. I thought that eventually even the biggest mountains and fastest criteriums would hurt less, if only my legs and lungs were strong enough.
Instead, I found that the fitter I was, the more racing hurt. My increased fitness pushed me into more competitive races, where experienced competitors used new tactics of twisting the screws on me. Worse, I found that the stronger my legs became, the longer they could endure painful situations before failing. So the pain was worse, and longer, than it was when I was weak.
Of course, I responded the only sane way: I quit racing and now enjoy a painless life of leisure. Imagine my disappointment, then, when I found out that my career of design worked the same way.
The design process is notable for its long periods of uncertainty, which you must tolerate in order to get to the “a-ha moment” that comes eventually. Good designers are famous for their ability to tolerate ambiguity, opposing concepts, and the wait for the next big thing.
Yet I thought that with experience, this time of uncertainty would shrink significantly, if not disappear completely. After all, shouldn’t you get better at spotting the winners and skipping the losers? Shouldn’t your experience give you better ideas from the start?
Again, as with cycling, I found the opposite was true. Better design skills merely led to increased ambition, and I once again found myself struggling against problems that seemed bigger than my abilities. And like my legs’ ability to hold out for longer periods of pain, my design experience seems mostly to have given me the ability to tolerate—though unfortunately not enjoy—ever longer periods of ambiguity and uncertainty during the design process.
Looking back, I’m glad I pushed my cycling as far as I could; it’s one of the things I’m most proud of. And already it seems that the increased periods of discomfort caused by large design projects makes them more fulfilling in the end.
But I still wonder if perhaps I’m going about all this the wrong way—because shouldn’t it be getting easier?