one question: do you think that society and humanity were idyllic before the transistor?
less likely to end all human life on the planet? sure. but idyllic? you must admit i have trapped in a classic modern philosophical trap.
i ask only because you lay the blame for a chunk of our current woes on the transistor, and i offer that of course there were always woes caused by various woe-causers, which is not to discourage you from your current bemoaning, but merely i suppose to offer that there have always been woes, so we are (in our current woeful AND whoa-filled state) in good (or otherwise) company with most humans who have ever been, and probably most non-humans as well. and the solidarity feels at least a LITTLE nice.
(and i'm grateful that the transistors, despite their many unfortunate consequences, have also offered us the capacity to connect with like-minded, like-hearted bemoaners and non-bemoaners alike.)
grateful to you and for you! always enjoy what you write!
Good question. No, I don't think life was idyllic pre-transistor. Far from it. I don't think life has EVER been idyllic. What's changed since the advent of the transistor is that our inventions have now outstripped our ability to acclimate to them, which is creating terrible instability. One of the ways that instability manifests itself is through the distrust of our institutions. That's not necessarily an entirely bad thing, by the way, since institutions can become sclerotic, corrupt, and/or so deeply entrenched that the institution begins to view itself as more important than the people it was meant to serve. Scrutiny of power is always welcome. BUT, we've gone from mistrusting X organization to mistrusting entire fields of human endeavor. We can also lay some blame at the speciation of information: knowledge is becoming ever-more abstruse. I mean, who the hell understands quantum mechanics beyond the rudiments, and yet we're on the verge of entrusting our entire technological future to it. The world is operating at an unknowable level of complexity, which is only increasing. Moreover, it's increasing way faster than we can process. And it's scary!
I too am grateful for transistors and the good they have brought; without them, I wouldn't be able to write this message to you and send it to instantaneously (unless we want to use Morse code, which I do not.)
like this: "our inventions have now outstripped our ability to acclimate to them"
and this: "it's increasing way faster than we can process"
and generally with this: "The world is operating at an unknowable level of complexity" (though i'm working on knowing it, one knowable thing at a time)
with respect to THIS: "we've gone from mistrusting X organization to mistrusting entire fields of human endeavor," i would ask the question "who is the WE you're referencing," because i don't think that YOU are mistrusting entire fields of human endeavor and i don't think that I MYSELF am mistrusting entire fields of human endeavor, and i think that you and i are not alone in this!
another consequence that technology has wrought upon us is the double-edged sword of being able to know what many people are thinking (or at least saying that they're thinking), at a scope and scale that is impossible to take in all of, so we are essentially always only taking in PART of the story.
part of the story is that some humans are mistrusting entire fields of human endeavor. part of the story is that some are not. social media (and other media) probably makes it difficult for us to ascertain what the whole truth is by distorting and disproportionally amping up different aspects of the various stories. the unknowable complexity of it all!
it's always interesting to me when someone says "we" and it's not clear exactly who the "we" they're referencing refers to. thanks for being interesting!
I feel humbled by the thoughtful responses your post has engendered. I don't have anything thoughtful to say other than I am a habitual optimist and I feel that people are so doomy and gloomy because of 24x7 news and opinion and the magnifying effects of algorithm-driven social media. In the 60s/70s when we were growing up, the Cuyahoga river was on fire, we had nuclear war duck and cover drills at school, women couldn't have a credit card without their husband's support, every gay person was closeted, there was a massive hole in the ozone layer, and we were being told that population bomb was about to go off. All these things were addressed, resolved, or even reversed. The difference? Only 3 channels carrying national/world news, a few major news papers, on top of your local rag, delivered once a day. That's it! I have been engaged in a longterm exercise of curating my online life and behavior in an attempt to replicate this Shangri-La. I haven't completed succeeded, but I can tell you my mental health has significantly improved.
In the minds eye of my 60s and 70s childhood brain, the institutions of the USA looked like a pyramid. Public schools, churches, civic clubs, the little Seven Hills, Ohio municipal government, the Cuyahoga county water and power, roads and parks were a tiny speck with other tiny specks that formed the wide, wide base to rest the 50 state institutions upon. Atop it all, like the picture on the one dollar bill, the shining, benevolent eye of the federal government, uniting us, protecting us all. But perhaps others see the pyramid inverted, with themselves as the point at the bottom and the weight of institutions ever expanding up above them and weighing them down. With the Federal government the widest layer of all enveloping top, oppressing them the most. So these inverted pyramid people just want the pyramid to turn back over with one strong asshole at the top; a figure, a tangible person who is like their pastor, their head coach, the high school principal (acceptably white, male, authoritarian,, abusive) in order to feel like all is right in their world. The weight of self governing is off their shoulders. Institutions become servants of the asshole at the top.
Having lived in the DC area for two decades, it seems to me that institutions will still exist because people are drawn to be part of them, to form them, to have them. I can think of at least one institution, the US military, that is so pervasive it will never cease to exist. But any sort of pyramid of governance, of institutions may be over. The transistor has created a miasma, a jellied blob of shifting medium that individuals, the stock market, corporations, candidates, religions, entertainment, the arts, government agencies, social media personalities, billionaires, immigrants, elderly people, homeschoolers, religious fanatics, thieves, etc, all float around in , bubbling up in size, touching each other, repelling, drifting away, feeding on others, feeding on the miasma. Yeah, chaos, I guess.
IMO, we’re fucked because of capitalism and patriarchy, and they both feed each other. Until they’re no longer the global default operating systems of oppression that we all live under, it’s hopeless. Again, just my opinion.
Look even my iPad decided to post an incomplete rant. Well where was I - ah, yes killer Teslas - I doubt killing passengers is considered a feature and the driver is usually a co-conspirator. I could go on and on with ways our brilliance became a risk to humanity.
We shouldn’t stop progress but corporations must thoroughly discuss, test and go back to the drawing board to ensure that the latest and greatest innovation won’t harm our planet and its inhabitants. Money is the motivator of course. Got to male those investors, banks and stockholders happy and rich.
Our government agencies were designed (supposedly) to protect us from immediate and lasting harm. But the “let’s not talk about that” truth is that they aren’t actually doing what we think they are. We let major Railroads “test and clean up” with little government oversight their toxic spills. Ok, so a few people get cancer and babies are born with defects. That’s not how a government protects us.
An environmental holocaust is brewing because we have’t taken care of our greatest asset - Earth. Don’t want those government welfare recipients - oil companies to suffer any. Environmental health is a back burner item.
Ineffective and underfunded agencies make their jobs even more difficult. There simply not enough people to do what is necessary. Budgets matter to everyone except the do-nothing Republicans. In fact, the tRump plan is to eliminate these agencies.
So is there a solution - sure but it’s going to painful for some. The morbidity wealthy and their corporations and tax-free organizations must be made to pay their fair share of taxes and most importantly they must own what they have done in the name of profits at all costs.
The rest of us certainly have and we’re not going to take it any more. We’ve paid with our lives and our children’s future.
Technological and scientific advances often turn on us. Think of Agent Orange, Twitter (not going to say the new name because I’ll be damned if I give that asshat any credit), Tesla (cars kill enough people without making one that -again that asshat
I agree with all this. Except libraries. The LA public library is great and digital book loans are awesome. Maybe we can use them as a model to fix the courts?
dear michael,
delightful and astute as always.
one question: do you think that society and humanity were idyllic before the transistor?
less likely to end all human life on the planet? sure. but idyllic? you must admit i have trapped in a classic modern philosophical trap.
i ask only because you lay the blame for a chunk of our current woes on the transistor, and i offer that of course there were always woes caused by various woe-causers, which is not to discourage you from your current bemoaning, but merely i suppose to offer that there have always been woes, so we are (in our current woeful AND whoa-filled state) in good (or otherwise) company with most humans who have ever been, and probably most non-humans as well. and the solidarity feels at least a LITTLE nice.
(and i'm grateful that the transistors, despite their many unfortunate consequences, have also offered us the capacity to connect with like-minded, like-hearted bemoaners and non-bemoaners alike.)
grateful to you and for you! always enjoy what you write!
love
myq
Good question. No, I don't think life was idyllic pre-transistor. Far from it. I don't think life has EVER been idyllic. What's changed since the advent of the transistor is that our inventions have now outstripped our ability to acclimate to them, which is creating terrible instability. One of the ways that instability manifests itself is through the distrust of our institutions. That's not necessarily an entirely bad thing, by the way, since institutions can become sclerotic, corrupt, and/or so deeply entrenched that the institution begins to view itself as more important than the people it was meant to serve. Scrutiny of power is always welcome. BUT, we've gone from mistrusting X organization to mistrusting entire fields of human endeavor. We can also lay some blame at the speciation of information: knowledge is becoming ever-more abstruse. I mean, who the hell understands quantum mechanics beyond the rudiments, and yet we're on the verge of entrusting our entire technological future to it. The world is operating at an unknowable level of complexity, which is only increasing. Moreover, it's increasing way faster than we can process. And it's scary!
I too am grateful for transistors and the good they have brought; without them, I wouldn't be able to write this message to you and send it to instantaneously (unless we want to use Morse code, which I do not.)
i hear you and i agree with you a lot!
like this: "our inventions have now outstripped our ability to acclimate to them"
and this: "it's increasing way faster than we can process"
and generally with this: "The world is operating at an unknowable level of complexity" (though i'm working on knowing it, one knowable thing at a time)
with respect to THIS: "we've gone from mistrusting X organization to mistrusting entire fields of human endeavor," i would ask the question "who is the WE you're referencing," because i don't think that YOU are mistrusting entire fields of human endeavor and i don't think that I MYSELF am mistrusting entire fields of human endeavor, and i think that you and i are not alone in this!
another consequence that technology has wrought upon us is the double-edged sword of being able to know what many people are thinking (or at least saying that they're thinking), at a scope and scale that is impossible to take in all of, so we are essentially always only taking in PART of the story.
part of the story is that some humans are mistrusting entire fields of human endeavor. part of the story is that some are not. social media (and other media) probably makes it difficult for us to ascertain what the whole truth is by distorting and disproportionally amping up different aspects of the various stories. the unknowable complexity of it all!
it's always interesting to me when someone says "we" and it's not clear exactly who the "we" they're referencing refers to. thanks for being interesting!
I feel humbled by the thoughtful responses your post has engendered. I don't have anything thoughtful to say other than I am a habitual optimist and I feel that people are so doomy and gloomy because of 24x7 news and opinion and the magnifying effects of algorithm-driven social media. In the 60s/70s when we were growing up, the Cuyahoga river was on fire, we had nuclear war duck and cover drills at school, women couldn't have a credit card without their husband's support, every gay person was closeted, there was a massive hole in the ozone layer, and we were being told that population bomb was about to go off. All these things were addressed, resolved, or even reversed. The difference? Only 3 channels carrying national/world news, a few major news papers, on top of your local rag, delivered once a day. That's it! I have been engaged in a longterm exercise of curating my online life and behavior in an attempt to replicate this Shangri-La. I haven't completed succeeded, but I can tell you my mental health has significantly improved.
In the minds eye of my 60s and 70s childhood brain, the institutions of the USA looked like a pyramid. Public schools, churches, civic clubs, the little Seven Hills, Ohio municipal government, the Cuyahoga county water and power, roads and parks were a tiny speck with other tiny specks that formed the wide, wide base to rest the 50 state institutions upon. Atop it all, like the picture on the one dollar bill, the shining, benevolent eye of the federal government, uniting us, protecting us all. But perhaps others see the pyramid inverted, with themselves as the point at the bottom and the weight of institutions ever expanding up above them and weighing them down. With the Federal government the widest layer of all enveloping top, oppressing them the most. So these inverted pyramid people just want the pyramid to turn back over with one strong asshole at the top; a figure, a tangible person who is like their pastor, their head coach, the high school principal (acceptably white, male, authoritarian,, abusive) in order to feel like all is right in their world. The weight of self governing is off their shoulders. Institutions become servants of the asshole at the top.
Having lived in the DC area for two decades, it seems to me that institutions will still exist because people are drawn to be part of them, to form them, to have them. I can think of at least one institution, the US military, that is so pervasive it will never cease to exist. But any sort of pyramid of governance, of institutions may be over. The transistor has created a miasma, a jellied blob of shifting medium that individuals, the stock market, corporations, candidates, religions, entertainment, the arts, government agencies, social media personalities, billionaires, immigrants, elderly people, homeschoolers, religious fanatics, thieves, etc, all float around in , bubbling up in size, touching each other, repelling, drifting away, feeding on others, feeding on the miasma. Yeah, chaos, I guess.
IMO, we’re fucked because of capitalism and patriarchy, and they both feed each other. Until they’re no longer the global default operating systems of oppression that we all live under, it’s hopeless. Again, just my opinion.
Look even my iPad decided to post an incomplete rant. Well where was I - ah, yes killer Teslas - I doubt killing passengers is considered a feature and the driver is usually a co-conspirator. I could go on and on with ways our brilliance became a risk to humanity.
We shouldn’t stop progress but corporations must thoroughly discuss, test and go back to the drawing board to ensure that the latest and greatest innovation won’t harm our planet and its inhabitants. Money is the motivator of course. Got to male those investors, banks and stockholders happy and rich.
Our government agencies were designed (supposedly) to protect us from immediate and lasting harm. But the “let’s not talk about that” truth is that they aren’t actually doing what we think they are. We let major Railroads “test and clean up” with little government oversight their toxic spills. Ok, so a few people get cancer and babies are born with defects. That’s not how a government protects us.
An environmental holocaust is brewing because we have’t taken care of our greatest asset - Earth. Don’t want those government welfare recipients - oil companies to suffer any. Environmental health is a back burner item.
Ineffective and underfunded agencies make their jobs even more difficult. There simply not enough people to do what is necessary. Budgets matter to everyone except the do-nothing Republicans. In fact, the tRump plan is to eliminate these agencies.
So is there a solution - sure but it’s going to painful for some. The morbidity wealthy and their corporations and tax-free organizations must be made to pay their fair share of taxes and most importantly they must own what they have done in the name of profits at all costs.
The rest of us certainly have and we’re not going to take it any more. We’ve paid with our lives and our children’s future.
Technological and scientific advances often turn on us. Think of Agent Orange, Twitter (not going to say the new name because I’ll be damned if I give that asshat any credit), Tesla (cars kill enough people without making one that -again that asshat
The word CUBIT always makes me think of BC and his Noah bit in one of those great early albums. Then I get a little bit sick….
But loved the piece! Thank you.
It makes me think of Q*Bert, which makes me happy.
Ah, youth
I agree with all this. Except libraries. The LA public library is great and digital book loans are awesome. Maybe we can use them as a model to fix the courts?
agreed! libraries are fantastic!
Sorry, Mike, we’ll try to do better!
haha this is a wonderful response!