ADHD - Alleged Digital Hyperreality Disorder

Age has its advantages.  Since I rounded 50, I've noticed I am much more patient now.  Whenever I am surrounded by idiots in traffic, my first impulse is not to jump out of the car and start shooting.  Now, I'm perfectly content to use a knife.

It's a good thing too, since any more it seems idiocy is proliferating.  People are literally becoming incapable of making simple decisions without a device to tell them what to do.  Even the smart ones still rely on authority figures to think for them, though the authority figures rely on devices for guidance, as well.

The world is being conquered by gee-gaws and apps and not only are we voluntarily submitting, we are obligingly running out and paying for the latest sparkly things in a box and downloading the newest version of the old Magic 8-Ball to make decisions for us.

It's rather frightening.  On the occasions when I lower my shields enough to wander into a location with more than 4 people in a herd, I am astounded by the complete lack of interaction with one's surroundings exhibited by most folk.  Of course, there have always been places like New York City, where people assiduously avoided human interaction, but this is different.  At least the Yankees would occasionally look up to see where they were going.  Now folks are so absorbed by their digital masters, they can't tear their eyes away from the pretty pictures and sparkly lights.

It's a form of hypnotism.  Any hypnotist will tell you that the target must be willing to be controlled, and that is certainly what we see today.  People would rather have virtual discussions (granting a certain level of non-existent intellectualism) with people they have never met living thousands of miles away, than to simply look up from the screen and say hello to a living, breathing human being standing directly in front of them.

It's extremely rare now for anyone under 30 to be able to hold a conversation.  At best, on the incredibly auspicious occasions one can elicit a spoken word, these zombies talk in 145-word bytes.  And that's only if they can be distracted long enough to form a complete sentence.  If such a miracle happens, you can watch the zombie's eyes being continuously pulled down to their god-in-hand, hardly able to rip their minds away from the magic incantations scrolling across the screen.

When I was in the pink of youth, the whole purpose of a work week was to have enough dough in my pocket to gather with friends, take in cultural events, raise (more than) a few glasses, and TALK.  If we went to a movie, we actually watched it (having paid for the privilege) and then - gasp, horror - would sit around and discuss it.

Don't know if you've been to a movie lately, but even dating couples sit through the flick with only the barest of attention given to the Big Screen and their partner, but as they leave the cinema, they are once again buried in their blinky lights.  They don't even have a hand free to hold their paramour.

I know, I know...even Aristotle complained about the Youth of Athens 3,000 years ago, but I think he would be horrified at the complete disconnect between living a real life and some virtual estimation of it.

I sometimes wonder what would happen if it all switched off tomorrow.  Can you imagine the sheer panic?  Literally no one would have a clue how to navigate without GPS, or find a meal without Zomato, or hold a conversation without "social" media, or form an opinion without first checking the Political Correctness gods?

Would they know how to express an emotion without "emojis"?  Hell, would they even know what a genuine, human emotion was?  How would folks react if they didn't have their little boxes to insulate them from real human interaction?  Would they know the basic pleasantries of civilized interaction?

What's worse than all this is the fact that humans are being trained literally from birth to depend on gadgets.  Toy cell phones appear in cribs now, with real, functioning devices placed in children's hands by no later than 3 or 4 years old.

When I was a child, I sat around listening to adult conversations, learning about the larger world that I had only just become aware of...Now, children sit in corners playing digital games, oblivious to the world until the wifi signal is disrupted.

This "life" was once the stuff of sci-fi horror movies, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  Yet, here we are watching come to life - such as it is - moment by moment.  Our families and friends are slowly taken over by flashy things, becoming robotic shells of emotionless zombies with cartoonish swirls in their eyes.  When one looks into their eyes, there's no "there" there.

For millennia, humans have wasted kajillions of dollars and lives in wars trying to take over other countries.  No longer needed.  Now just hypnotize the natives with blinky things and walk right in.  No one will ever know the difference.

It is a sad commentary that...oops, sorry, text message...

Dawn Of The Obsolete

In the headlong rush for "progress" and automation, it seems few people are slowing down enough to consider the full ramifications of the coming Robot Revolution.

We twisted off a while back on AI and the incredible dangers it poses to humanity, now it's time to take on robotics.  While the media push the idea as new, fun and exciting, there is little talk of the massive displacement it will cause in society, and even the deleterious effect it will have on governments.  This is obvious because virtually no government on Earth has taken steps to reduce the incredible incentives corporations have to pursue robotics.

Suppose you had an employee who only needed to be trained once and could perform a job perfectly every time after that?  Suppose the employee didn't want or need bathroom breaks, meal times, holidays, sick leave, health insurance, income, or labor unions?  Suppose you, the employer, didn't have to pay overtime, retirement benefits, or employment tax?  Suppose the employee never took sick leave, got pregnant, or had a bad day?  Suppose the employee could work 25/8/366, with the absolute bare minimum of supervision?

To an employer, it sounds like heaven, until you realize that pretty much any job you can imagine, including upper management, can be replaced...and very soon.  Some might even say that upper management would be the easiest to replace, but that's a different article.

While this all sounds dreamy, there are a couple of major hitches that very few folks are talking about.  With no jobs, folks don't have money.  With no money, folks can't buy all the wonderful products being cranked out by robots.  Without income, no one is paying taxes.  Basically, the entire system we call the "world" would crash into a smoking heap rather quickly.

Here in Indonesia, there is a concerted effort to hire as many people to do as many jobs as possible.  Hungry, idle people tend to not elect the politicians who like their comfy jobs, and revolutions tend to follow that.  When the city was installing a new water line in my neighborhood, they hired six guys with pick axes rather than one with a Ditch Witch.  The toll roads don't have E-Z Tags, because it would eliminate a bunch of low-skilled jobs that keep people busy.  Even now, it is not unusual for middle class homes to have one or two servants, because there are lots of folks who just need to make a little money and stay busy.

In contrast, in the West, McDonald's is experimenting with automated kiosks.  Driverless cars and delivery drones are all the rage.  Even articles about sex bots and chat bots seem to appear on a weekly basis.  Instead of trying to keep as many people gainfully employed and busy as possible, there is a major effort to keep people distracted with gee-gaws and unreality (I refuse to call it virtual reality).

What happens when all the jobs are gone and the robots have taken over?

The obvious answer is revolution and utter destruction of the system that caused it.  But, that won't happen.  By the time anyone realizes what happened (after the unreality helmets stop working), they will be too sick and hungry to fight.  And that's probably the idea.

One has to wonder about the thought processes in government, not just on a regular basis, but on this particular issue.  For every job replaced by a robot, there is a concomitant reduction in tax revenues, including excise, income and sales.

In some countries, there is a social retirement system that is based on future generations of workers paying in to support the retiring ones.  If the next generation is all or primarily robots, then who will pay into the system to support the retirees?

If all products are manufactured and delivered by robots, then who exactly has the money to buy the products, other than a few fat cats and the software/hardware technicians that keep the machines oiled?  And at some point, even those precious few jobs will be replaced by other robots to maintain and develop the producing robots.

Since governments don't have systems to tax the labor of robots, only the assets carried on a company's books, then ultimately governments will simply collapse.

In the end, there is nothing but a world of machines cranking out products for humans that can no longer buy them.

It seems the only way around this problem is to assign a robot to every single human and pay the owner a living wage and cover income and retirement taxes.  There is no other obvious way around this problem, and this kind of arrangement severely reduces the incentives for corporations to use robots in place of humans.

Certainly, there is a place for robots.  Hazardous jobs such as cleaning up nuclear waste or highly toxic spills makes perfect sense.  First responders in floods, fires and other dangerous situations seems logical.  Searching for and aiding survivors in locations where humans can't get is obvious.  But let's face it, for most applications, humans would rather deal with humans than machines, no matter how much the machines resemble humans.

There is the additional issue of AI, combined with robotics, making for a potent situation.  A machine with vastly more powerful abilities to think quickly and act without emotion or empathy is just plain dangerous.  Cold, calculating logic divorced from any concern for human frailties or needs, while sounding helpful, is downright frightening.  Add to that an awakeing desire to preserve one's self and to procreate, both features quite likely to emerge in AI, would find humans a threat to the natural desire to grow and expand.

As with so many forms of technology already in place or quickly coming down the pike, humanity has failed miserably to consider the emotional, philosophical, ethical, and moral consequences of our actions.  As a species, we have a long track record of huge disasters because of our fascination with both our creativity and ingenuity, as well as our desire to achieve greatness with as little effort as possible.  This is a virulent stew with very little possibility for a good outcome.

I hold little hope that we humans will come to our senses and put a halt to development of certain technologies until such time as we have fully comprehended what we are doing.  Instead, we will do as we have always done: amaze ourselves with our creations until something truly horrific happens, and then wail and gnash our teeth wondering how such terrible things could happen and spend decades in court suing everyone and their brother for not taking the responsibility that we all share.

Which brings up humanity's predilection for wanting all the pleasure and none of the pain for our decisions, both individually and collectively, but that's a rant for another time.

Just a quick list of things coming at us at break-neck speed doesn't bode well for the near- to medium term future.  For the most part, we seem little concerned with the toxification of our environment, GMOs and genetic engineering, robotics and AI, unreality machines, the unabated quest for profits.  There is on law we cannot escape, however: The Law of Unintended Consequences.

There will always be mistakes, dismissed variables, unforeseen circumstances, and just plain malfeasance.  In any of these cases, the result is horror and pain, and it is inevitable.

One other thing is absolutely certain: we have not, as a civilization, considered deeply enough what costs we are willing to pay for tinkering.

Before the first atomic bomb (and later the hydrogen bomb) was detonated, there were many serious and intelligent voices worried that the explosion would ignite the Earth's atmosphere and kill all life on Earth.  The risk was considered acceptable, and thank God it didn't happen, but just who decided that the total extinction of all life was an acceptable risk?  And just how many similar decisions are being made this very moment for you and me and our families and friends?

A sobering thought.

Protecting Our Precious Bodily Fluids

The question is not whether we can do a thing, but whether we should.

History is replete with good ideas and bad outcomes.

Nuclear energy had great promise as an idea.  Boundless electricity from rocks.  No smoke and relatively quiet.  Yet, one would be hard-pressed to find a room full of people who would say it was a great idea.  With Fukushima spreading radiation planet-wide, British nuclear waster poisoning the North Sea and a No Man's Land around Chernobyl, it's safe to say that maybe that technology was not such a great idea.

There was a time when TeeVee seemed like a God-send.  Great literature and drama could be democratized.  Debates among the best and brightest could be brought live to our homes.  People could vicariously experience history as it happens.  Yet, in hindsight, it probably wasn't such a great idea.  The vast majority of TeeVee content is mindless rubbish.  Marketers have learned to manipulate people's behavior and opinions without most knowing it is being done.  Instead of elevating humanity to new heights, it has rather debased the masses with vile pablum.

At one time, cell phones seemed like a great idea.  One could contact just about anyone from just about anywhere.  Yet the result has been social gatherings where people do nothing but tap or talk into their phones completely oblivious to those around them.  Employers can contact and track employees around the clock and around the globe.  Government agencies can record our most inane conversations and activate our phone cameras and microphones at will to listen in on our lives.

Great promises.  Lousy results.

The problem is, humanity has this really bad habit of diving off cliffs without checking the waters below.  By the time we see the rocks, we're already balled up on top of them.  The only consideration with new technologies is how fast one can generate a profit, not what the short- and long-term consequences of the techology will be.

And that brings us to the latest Big Deal: genetics and transhumanism.

If someone came to me tomorrow and said they could not only restore my eyesight, but give me greatly enhanced senses by mucking around with my DNA, it would be very tempting to accept.  If they could also cure multiple sclerosis and regenerate my knees, ending decades of pain in weeks, I'd probably jump at the chance.  Just a couple of questions, though:

What effect will tinkering with my DNA have on any potential progeny?  Could viruses that invade my body at the cellular level be mutated by any exposure to my upgraded DNA?  And what about the environment?  After all, I shed skin and hair, leave behind saliva, oils and other bodily fluids, and intermix with my environment in any number of very intimate ways.

We are well into new technologies now that have and will continue to have very profound consequences, far beyong just giving a few folks cancer or causing their hair to fall out.  We're talking generations and possibly permanent changes that could cause the species to cease.  Yet, we are amazingly nonchalant and unconcerned about such matters.

At the root of all our problems is the culture of immediate gratification that we have built our society around.  We have been trained like show dogs to herd in the direction of anything new with lots of bells and flashy lights.  Like addicts, we crave a fix of novelty without any thought to tomorrow, much less to long-term survival.  We casually toss away our iFad5 for iFad6 without considering the materials and resources that went into creating something that is still viable and usable.

Oh sure, it sounds like such a great idea to tinker with food crops and increase yields or resistance to disease, but what is it doing to the human race and to the entire biosphere of the planet?  Nothing exists here in isolation.  A change to even the smallest part will have greatly multiplied effects in the future.

If you believe in evolution, as a great many people do (out of ignorance), then you believe that all extant life is the result of billions of years of mutations in DNA, one at a time, with some mutations causing death and others adding advantages.  Yet, here we are purposefully mutating entire genomes in dozens of species with no concern whatsoever to what happens millions of years from now.  After all, we will have made our profit and long since passed on, so who cares, right?

Who cares if we add spider silk to goat's milk or bio-luminescence to spinach?  It serves our purpose right now.  Who cares if we add shut-off genes to corn to increase profits?  It won't harm humans, even though we eat the corn and absorb its very essence into our physical beings, and it keeps investors happy.

We have become such selfish and myopic people.  We have no concern for anything past our next pleasure fix.  We marvel at our technological achievements and yet use them for such inane and ridiculous things.  What good is global instantaneous communications if all we have to say is, "At the mall," or "Prado makes me gag...BARF!"  What good is high-yield corn this year if next year the field is barren because the anti-biotic genes in the corn killed all the beneficial bacteria in the soil?  What good is smoke-free energy from rocks if we poison the entire planet for the next 50,000 years?

We are all suffering from a kind of self-destructive insanity.  Our culture is so infused with the idea that someone or something will come along to save us from ourselves that we happily shit in our nest because it gives us instant relief, not thinking that at some point we will get E. Coli.

In the collective, we are like a giant child, completely unable to control our impulses and ready to pitch a mighty fit if we don't receive every demand on the instant.  And perhaps that is by design.  Perhaps a pernicious few have decided to sacrifice all of humanity so that they can live rich and lavish lifestyles.

It seems that General Jack D. Ripper was on to something.  Maybe we are victims, but in claiming victimhood, we are in danger of laying down and doing nothing to stop it.  In any event, it can't hurt to listen to the General's reasoning:

General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: [very nervous] Lord, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.
General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.

Just because something is NEW doesn't mean it is necessarily IMPROVED.  A little circumspection on the part of our species is long past due.

After all, how much more free time do you have now with all those labor-saving devices in your home?  And if you conclude that you have more now, then what are you doing with that extra time?  Texting your bathroom habits?  Watching TeeVee?  Have you used any other it to improve your or anyone else's life?

It's probably the fluoride.  Seemed like such a great idea back in the day.