Fiscal Obesity

It is a rare thing to see a paradigm shift take place on a world scale, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall. But I think that is what we are starting to see with Pope Francis as he exerts leadership over the Catholic Church. I’m certainly no expert on the Vatican, but like so many others around the world, I can’t help seeing what he is doing.

From the outset he made dramatic statements through his personal example as he declined lavish papal quarters and settled into a humble apartment. And he has adopted a similar lifestyle. But what strikes me the most are things that he says in this Apostolic Exhortation, such as:

Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills.

and

The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money

I’ve seen online comments in response, that range from “he’s a communist” to “let’s see the church give everything away” and everything in between. There is something about human nature that makes us want to see things as one extreme or the other, but the reality is that for a complex system to remain in equilibrium, there must be a constant dynamic balance. In other words, beyond a certain point, by taking an inordinate amount of wealth, the super rich end up damaging the “body” of the economic system (including themselves). It’s a systemic imbalance that is far more complex than any one person.

More than that, though, it really isn’t about economics or even politics, but rather the core mindset that global societies have taken on. And I think he is spot on. Analogies work because in real life, there are consistent patterns that hold true across disparate settings and situations. So by way of analogy, it’s not a stretch to say that consumption of wealth is quite similar to consumption of food.

Just as those sitting at a feast can choose how much to eat, those at the top who take in most of the wealth DO have a choice of how much to take. Just how much of a bonus is enough, and how much becomes just too much? Consumption, beyond what one needs, leads to obesity. So at what point does fiscal gluttony lead to what I call Fiscal Obesity?

I hope, as I introduce this term, that more of us start asking ourselves that question.

The Third Option

The other day I came across an interesting blog posting on Scientific American, one of my favorite places for ideas and scientific updates.

Just the title, Our Final Invention: Is AI the Defining Issue for Humanity? intrigued me, and I had to take a closer look.  This turned out to be a book review for a book by James Barrat called Our Final Invention.  I haven’t read the book yet, but it’s now on my short list.

The gist of the book is that it looks at what futurists revfer to as The Singularity.  For those who are not familiar with the concept, the technological singularity is that point where artificial intelligence exceeds human intelligence.  The date for this event is typically placed around 2050, though a few minutes surfing through my cable TV channels is enough to make me think we may be much closer.

A major theme of the review (it’s not overly technical, give it a read) is that when we reach the point where the technological singularity occurs, there are two possible outcomes: either we have programmed the AI to serve us and be our slaves (e.g. Issac Asimov and his robot series) or they turn against us and wage war against their oppressors, as in Terminator and Battlestar Gallactica.

Frankly, if they really do become smarter than us, I suspect the first outcome is highly unlikely–but should that happen, I recommend that the first place we send these altruistic einsteins has to be Washington D.C.

What I found most interesting, though, is that they didn’t realize there is a third possible outcome–which is the underlying premise to my upcoming novel, The Archivist.  Sorry, no spoilers.  You’ll have to wait for it to be published.

 

 

Why Our Society Is Sick

Our society is sick.

The news lately seems to be flooded with accounts of bullying, rape, murder and suicide. There is the tragic story of Rehtaeh Parsons, a 17-year-old high school student from Halifax, Nova Scotia. According to news reports, this beautiful young girl was gang raped, ignored when she reported it to the authorities, and then brutally harassed and bullied after photos of her rape were circulated on the internet by the perpetrators. Even then, the boys were not held accountable, and the bullying continued after the girl moved until she finally hanged herself.

Rehtaeh’s case is almost identical to Audrie Pott, a 15-year-old girl in California who hanged herself when she was also gang-raped and then pictures posted online to humiliate her. These cases, of course, have come to light on the heels of the infamous Steubenville, Ohio rape case.

While teen suicide is not a new problem (I used to be a volunteer counselor for a teen suicide hotline) the advent of social media has taken teen pressure to a whole new level. Unfortunately, this new technology hasn’t come with social guidelines.

In itself, these stories are shocking and disturbing, and countless commentaries will certainly be written about them. What I find most troubling is how the communities these girls lived in responded when these pictures and acts were posted. The deeper question is how society responds, or fails to respond to these kinds of situations. Specifically, is there is a growing tolerance for socially harmful behavior that may stop just short of being legally prosecutable?

While the legal aspects of these cases are being pursued, what do these cases say about our society? I think the vast majority of people would agree that “wrong” behavior in our society is escalating out of control. The question being asked more and more is, what has happened to our sense of right and wrong?

I think it comes down to morals, which have been largely discarded in recent years. Morals are not religious values (though they can be espoused by a religion). Really, morals and ethics are those guidelines to “right” and “wrong” behavior. In a sense, moral values form the immune system of society, identifying problem behavior and quickly responding to it so as to minimize damage to the body of society. But when society stops caring about what happens to it’s body, is it any suprise that more and more people feel disconnected to that body? In the wake of the social revolutions of the past few decades, I believe our society has been left with a deep void of moral values.

So when I say that our society is sick, this is what I mean: that our society has the cultural version of AIDS.

While there is no easy definition of what makes for a healthy society, a body that attacks itself and does not protect itself from toxic contaminants is clearly not healthy. The most important first step in fighting off an illness is to recognize not only what is causing the sickness, but in this case why the body is not fighting it off. So one of the most important things that we as writers (to my writer friends) can do then is to try to boost that immune system, and hope the body starts taking better care of itself.

It’s beyond the scope of a blog post to provide the answers. But perhaps it can help clarify the problem.

Why I Write

This evening while working out at the gym, I had an experience which reminds me why I separate myself from the world for days at a time: I witnessed the birth of a story.

One of the most common questions that readers ask writers is, where do we get our ideas from? Really, that’s the wrong question. The world is full of ideas, and unless one is an automaton you can not go through the day without encountering a host of ideas. But ideas do not make stories.

At least for me, the process is one of procreation, akin to having a child. They have to be raised, fed and cared for, sent to school and developed. Maybe they will just want a grade school education and become a story, others will go on to graduate school to do PhD dissertations and become novels. Usually you have a pretty good idea which is which, but they do have minds of their own and sometimes a story surprises you when it demands to go all the way through medical school to become a brain surgeon. But, story or novel, they all start out as a seed in the mind.

So back to the question: how does that seed form? At some point the DNA of multiple ideas unwind and wrap around each other, looking for common points to link up. When they do, a fertile embryo begins to form. Maybe these are chance ideas that randomly come together, and at other times they are planted in vitro by an anthology request.

Many of these potential tales are stillborn, and sometimes if it seemed promising there can be a sort of grieving over the unrealized potential story that just didn’t form right. But then a fertile concept plants itself in the womb of the mind and begins to grow and develop. It may have a short gestation, or it might take as long as an elephant fetus. But eventually, there comes a moment when that potential story emerges from the womb it has been growing in.

I expect that only someone who has given birth, or been present for a birth (as I was for my daughters), can really grasp the mystery of that moment, when a life begins to live on it’s own. But if you have experienced that, perhaps you can appreciate that miraculous instant when one realizes that what had previously been a medley of ideas has suddenly become a living thing. It still needs to be raised and nurtured, and someday hopefully it will find a place to live on its own.

So it was that for a brief moment this evening, I felt that awe and wonder of knowing that a story had been born, something which will grow and develop a life of its own.

And if you can relate to that, you’ll know why I write.

Daylight What Time?

Once more North America and Europe engage in the semi-annual tradition of screwing up our clocks. And one of the enduring legacies of the Bush administration is that this mind-numbing practice is foisted on us earlier than before and lasts longer. I find it ironic, as I look at the Wikipedia entry on Daylight Saving Time, that while most of the world has abandoned this archaic practice, the main holdouts are those regions where the practice of flex time and flexible schedules have made the practice literally obsolete.

Is there any good reason for DST? As far as I can tell, the only benefit has been to the computer programmer industry, which has had to implement these periodic changes in the countless programs and systems that are affected. Numerous studies have found that not only does DST not save any money or energy, it actually results in greater cost and energy usage.

The last time I petitioned my government to do away with DST back in 2007, their response was to actually extend the effective hours. Since I don’t want to change my clocks on Christmas, I’m not going to bother calling my congressman or senator. Instead, from now on I’m going to implement my own time change system.

Since (as I mentioned) we have flex schedules, this spring, I’ll just change my work hours to move back an hour, and in the fall I’ll move them forward again. In other words, call it whatever time you want…I’m going to start and end work at the same time. Let the world shift under my feet, back and forth.

I know what time to wake up, even if congress doesn’t.

The Need To Be Critical

I try to live a regret-free life, but one of the few misgivings I carry as a parent is having put my children through the public school system. Yes, it’s probably politically incorrect to say that. But I doubt many would dispute this stark reality, that the educational system in the United States is deeply flawed. So I won’t bother arguing the point.

The flaws are many. Some studies decry the amount of math knowledge, others lament the sorry state of science literacy. Employers groan about the lack of work ethics and basic skills that the emerging work force brings to them. Community colleges are not only underfunded and overflowing, they have to put high school graduates (including honors students) through multiple levels of remedial courses, just to bring them up to a level that would’ve been unacceptable a generation ago. But the root problem runs far deeper than most of these studies have addressed.

It’s not simply a matter of knowledge; as any kid can attest, Google has brought almost unlimited knowledge to the masses. The core issue I have maintained for many years, is that our educational system does not teach critical thinking. So imagine how pleased I was when I came across this Scientific American article on the failure of lower education to teach critical thinking skills. At last, someone gets it!

The point is NOT to bash teachers. Sure, some measure of responsibility lies with inadequate teachers and a system that doesn’t do enough to weed out poor performers and groom excellence. More of that fault, though, probably belongs to educational administrators. Accountability also has to be shared by parents, school boards and politicians. Entertainment and media devalue education to the point where achievers are ridiculed.

Yet, we live in an increasingly complex world, with deep and complicated problems, and the single most important task of our educational system is to teach the next generation the thinking skills to deal with these problems. But this is somewhat of a Catch-22.

Because addressing the lack of critical thinking is going to require critical thinking. While there are some critical thinkers left.

I Think, Therefore I Am…I Think

The next time you see someone standing on a street corner with a sign, proclaiming that the world is going to end tomorrow, just remember that they might not be as crazy as you think.

Physicists have been conducting all sorts of esoteric experiments for decades, teasing out answers only they can understand, to questions only they could think to ask. But when one considers  the recent results of some particle experiments, the ramifications are somewhat disturbing. To say the least.

These experiments have been searching for the Boson Higgs or so-called “God particle” and the results were applied to current theories. What the theorists found was that at some point, the universe we know and love so well is going to develop a rupture in it’s very structure. Somewhen, somewhere, the bubble of a new universe will spring into existence (not too different from the premise for my TerraMythos series) and spread at the speed of light throughout our universe. Needless to say, this revolutionary new universe will erase the one we know. And us with it.

The good news is that according to the values of the initial measurements, this will not happen for many billions of years. The bad news? Well, here is a quote from one of the researchers.

‘The calculation requires knowing the mass of the Higgs to within one percent, as well as the precise mass of other related subatomic particles. “You change any of these parameters to the Standard Model (of particle physics) by a tiny bit and you get a different end of the universe,” Lyyken said.’

What this means is that if the measurements are just a tiny bit wrong, in just the wrong direction, then for all we know the bubble may have already burst. The tsunami wave of a new universe could be sweeping toward us this very moment, and because it’s coming at the speed of light, we won’t know that it’s happening until it happens.

Here’s the comforting part…if it does, it’ll happen so fast the neurons in your brain won’t even have time to snap to the fact. If you are reading this, then it hasn’t happened yet. But it gives a new twist to the statement, “I think, therefore I am.”

I’m still thinking, therefore I still am.

Computerized Writers

I recently read a Wired magazine article that discussed how the reporting of local sports is starting to change.  Accounts of school sports, little league games, etc. are being outsourced, not to India or anywhere you can find on a map.  These stories are increasingly being written by computers.

All the virtual journalist requires are box scores, and using preset phrases and verbage, it can extrapolate an account of the game.  Those baseball stat lovers may not have been so far off base after all.  You can’t pass up how well a program like this runs, when it turns football games into a touchdown.  And get set to love what a good match this program is for tennis scores.

The point of all these bad puns is that computers are really good at running routine tasks.  But they can’t creatively express abstract concepts such as irony.  Though I suspect IBM’s Watson (the machine that beat Jeopardy champions) could make a good run at it.  What they can do is take routine facts and turn them into routine articles, something that humans probably found little joy in doing themselves.

We increasingly see ways that computers continue to take over more and more of what were once human chores.  Mindless chores, often thankless chores.  The problem is that often they were also paid chores.

In theory (and I’m sure it’s been done) a computer program could take an assortment of inputs (a 30 year old woman, a despondent police officer, a lost dog) and using an established formula, turn out a passable romance or mystery story.  Many genre after all have very well-defined patterns that are ideally suited for this sort of purpose.  And from what I’ve seen, humans will buy it up.

Where does that leave me, as a writer?  It doesn’t change a thing, because I’m still seeking to find what differentiates me from the average writer, be it human or cybernetic.  What special quality can I bring to the creative process that is unique?  It means I can’t simply churn out mindless drivel that any computer program can.

But that has always been my goal as an artist.  To be the best I can be.

The Correct Point Of View

My post today concerns writing, but applies to life in general as well.

Recently, an online question came up in one of the writing groups I’m involved with regarding what point of view (POV) was correct for a work of fiction.  I won’t go into an explanation of POV other than to say that the basic choices are first person (I wrote that), second person (you wrote that) and third person (she wrote that).  There are numerous variations of these basic choices and there are great websites that go into more detail on this than most people want to know.  In any case, the discussion revolved around some of those variations.

I made the point that rather than worrying about the popular trend, for me it’s more a matter of being true to yourself as a writer, and being honest with yourself as an artist.

There are very explicit rules for what a writer can and can’t do within certain genre, such as in romance and they do need to be followed. That said, you could follow a formulaic approach and write something that fits very comfortably within the herd, and you can probably manage to be successful (witness Eragon) even with mediocre writing.

However, I think it’s really important to be true to yourself and to the story. The POV is only one factor (albeit a very significant one) that makes up the complete personality of the work, so listen to the heartbeat of your story, how it wants to tell itself, and if you are really connecting with it you will know how to tell it…because that’s what we really are, are storytellers.

And if you try to tell your story in some way that isn’t “real” it’s going to come across as flat as a B-grade actor on the big screen. Because to really imbue your work with life, it has to flow from the deepest, most honest part of inside of you…and believe me, you can’t fake that effortless flow of genuinely honest writing. That’s something I’ve struggled with for a long time myself, my own personal Moby Dick.  And I am still hunting that great white whale but I’m seeing it come within harpoon range now.

My point with all this was that (and this is just my opinion)…worry about the quality of the prose, worry about the honesty and emotion of the writing, but don’t worry about the POV…if you are REALLY out in left field, you’ll know it if you’re honest with yourself and the story.

So how does this apply to life in general?  Whether it is work, our family life or the pursuits we fill our lives with outside of those things, we all have passions that we pursue.  And I think it’s important to be true and honest to those passions within yourself.  Some of the most miserable times of my life were when I was less than honest about what was inside myself.

So be true to what is inside yourself, and above all else, don’t stop pursuing your great white whale.

What Science Can Teach Religion About Faith

Today I came across this Scientific American article on a Tennessee law that just passed, allowing teachers in public schools to challenge scientific findings and theories. The article specifically addressed climate science, but the bill also covers evolution and cloning, topics which are a ‘third rail’ in public discussion these days. The implication of a teacher challenging a scientific subject is that one could refuse to teach it, or possibly even teach an alternative viewpoint, i.e. creationism. It wasn’t clear from the article just how far a teacher could go, and it may be that those boundaries have yet to be tested.

I have to question whether a teacher whose notion of challenging science is to discard it, is qualified to teach science. Because science is inherently based on the process of challenging anything and everything. Even the most basic foundation of a science is always open to challenge, if one dares to joust with it. That is why Einstein was able to put forward a theory that didn’t fit with a Newtonian theory that had stood for hundreds of years. If one wishes to challenge any scientific study or finding, the arena (of academic journals) is always open, provided your game is good enough to get you into that arena (kind of like trying to break into publishing). And like any game, there are rules, which science calls the scientific method.

Which leads to what science can teach religion about faith. Many religious adherents that I know view science as weak because with few exceptions, even the most solid constructs are called theories and open to challenge. But what they don’t understand is that scientists have a faith of their own, every bit as strong as the most passionate believer, in the scientific method. That is why even the most fundamental scientific truths are less than absolute, and that is also why science continues to advance by leaps and bounds. Because scientists are willing to examine their beliefs and modify them when confronted with inconsistencies.

As a Christian, I have spent a lot of time and effort examining my belief system, and I won’t pretend to have all the answers but the one thing I’m confident of is that no one else does either. That doesn’t mean I abandon my belief system or that I doubt God exists. It just means our understanding isn’t quite right yet. To me, faith is having the courage to acknowledge that you are probably wrong in some of your conclusions, and that you might need to revise some of those conclusions.

And that is what I think science can teach religion about faith: that it’s okay to be wrong.  Because reality doesn’t change, but our understanding of it certainly can.