Remembrance Day 2016

This Remembrance Day, Canada gathers to remember the fallen heroes who defended our country and our freedom.

Lest we forget.

Every media outlet agrees, blasting this message across wired, wireless, fibre optic, and myopic signals at full volume. And who wouldn't agree? Who would dare suggest that the soldiers of World War I weren't dying to defend the freedom of the West? Or that the people of World War II don't deserve to be praised for their sacrifice to defeat fascism?

And yet this message makes me uncomfortable, and merely suggesting that will probably anger many people before I even get the words out.

And that's the first part of the problem. This is a message that we dare not question. A blind belief.

The blindness allows us to ignore the ugly side of war, like the fact that in World War I the West were the same kind of selfish, imperialistic dirtbags that the Germans were. We didn't just abuse our fallen enemies with the Treaty of Versailles, we also mistreated our allies, dividing the Middle East like kids divvying up a candy bar, sewing seeds of conflict which continue to haunt us one hundred years later in Syria and Iraq. There are other causes for the strife in the Middle East, of course, and we'd be taking too much credit to say that it's all us, but the greed of the West has a big role.

The blindness allows us to ignore the bombing of Dresden, or the nuclear weapons deployed against Japan. These events could be argued as either necessary to shorten wars and ultimately save lives, or as monstrous acts of evil against civilian targets. We don't have to deal with that complexity if we just remember how heroic our soldiers were as we fire bombed and nuclear bombed children.

The blindness allows us to ignore the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have failed to curb terrorism, are largely responsible for the instability that allowed ISIS to come to power, and were probably motivated by the politics of oil and pipelines.

Lest we forget.

The message also puts war on a pedestal above healing. The technology and heroism of World War II were certainly striking, but the social progress afterwards was truly monumental. The entire globe developed the idea of human rights in a new light after discovering what happened in concentration camps in Germany. Even Nazi supporters were horrified and disgusted when they found out what their government had been doing. The world also had to deal with refugees on an unprecedented level. There were entire cities that had been flattened to the ground that needed to be rebuilt.

At home, soldiers returned and saw how blacks, indigenous people, and other minorities were being treated at home. Having seen what racism had wrought under the Nazis, many soldiers were forced to question the racism at home.

Much of our understanding of good, evil, compassion, equality, and civil rights was shaped by World War II. This is more important than who won the Battle of the Bulge or why, or how many jet fighters Germany had by the end. This was the dawn of a new kind of morality about human life.

Lest we forget.

The veterans--and the civilians who supported them--of World War I are now gone, and those of World War II have mostly passed away. While they were and are alive, they remember these lessons in a way that someone like me, born in the late seventies, can't possibly understand. As they pass on, we are faced with the first true memory test: will we remember not just the fact that they struggled, but why?

Lest we forget.

Many of the institutions that were built after World War II, like the United Nations, are now unpopular, despite the fact that world poverty and disease are at their lowest points of all human history.

This year has seen Britain vote to leave the European Union, supporting a campaign that was at least partially fuelled by racism. A campaigner on the Remain side was murdered in the street.

This year has seen Donald Trump, an anti-Semite and outspoken racist demagogue become president elect of the United States. He promises to build walls and deport minorities--a disturbingly familiar call to anyone who remembers the lessons of World War II.

Lest we forget.

Lest we forget? Lest we forget what? Lest we forget the soldiers who died?

Partially. Yes, our fallen are worthy of our respect and our thanks. They really did die so that the rest of us could live free. But there is so much more that we also need to remember: how those wars got started, what terrible toll they had, what we learned about human nature and ourselves, and why we need to make sure that events like World War I and II never, ever happen again.

When we cheer blindly about how all soldiers are heroes, these are the things that we forget.

Yet I believe that this is a momentary lapse.

The younger generations of voters--the oft-vilified millennials--voted to Remain in the European Union. They voted against Donald Trump, and are now in the streets in protest to indicate that they are not going to tolerate abusive policy without resistance.

Even the majority of The Donald's supporters don't like him. Hillary Clinton is the second most unpopular presidential candidate in modern history, outdone by Trump. Trump won despite being despised, and in fact lost the popular vote. He was elected as a protest against the present, not as a vision for the future.

So let's go back to World War II. Let's watch documentaries, read Wikipedia articles and books. Let's remember those lessons.

Let's deal with the troubles facing our beleaguered journalists, who are increasingly out of work, increasingly bullied on social media, and increasingly monitored by police forces.

Let's keep a wary eye on the rise of political bots on Twitter, fake news on Facebook, and the lies and demagoguery of some internet "news" sites.

Let's bring truth back journalism and politics.

Let's do these things lest we repeat the mistakes of the past. Lest we return to the barbarism of racism, slaughter, and neglect.

Lest we forget.

It's My Last Weekend Being "Gainfully Unemployed"

I've had a lot of ways of spinning my year-and-half off of working. I've used the term "gainfully unemployed" to emphasize that I'm doing more with my time than just playing video games (though playing video games has been a significant component). I've used the term "self-financed sabbatical" to further press the idea that I am working on education and creativity during my time off. I've also used the term "convalescing" to remind myself that there is a strong element of healing, both physically and emotionally.

And as I reflect on my last weekend before starting my new job, I have this sense that all of these terms are accurate and true. The amount of good that this time off has done for my physical health is apparent in a 5 second glance at the mirror. The good it has done for my mental health can be discerned by a momentary reflection on my mood, which is generally relaxed and cheerful these days. The amount I have learned in the last year and a half is enormous. Then there's the experiences I gained from living in another city with wise and intelligent room mates and their wise and intelligent dog.

I'm a bit nervous about the new job, but that's to be expected. I also feel confident that I'm up to the challenge. I'm excited about the fact that it's a long but reasonable walk and close to the kung fu studio's new location, so it'll be easy to get lots of exercise while working a desk job.

I'm a little bit sad that I'll have less freedom. On the other hand, I will have to carefully consider how I use my free time in order to still be constructive with it without undermining the restorative necessity of it.

And it'll be nice to have a new desk to store some of my toys. In the game industry, it's not just possible to be an unapologetic nerd, it's an asset.

Should be a good time.

Of Wheat And Hayfever

Sorry for my long absence from the blog, but I have recently been hit with a wave of vegetative erotic activity--that is, plant pollen. For the majority of the past week, I have been getting hit with classic hayfever, including the sneezing, itchy throat and eyes, and immense lethargy. And this is while taking anti-histamine.

What's interesting about this is how long it has been since I have had bad allergies. I noticed that last year, I had much milder symptoms. I had also hypothesized that it might be the reduction in wheat that reduced my allergies, since my aunts have found other auto-immune disorders like arthritis were better on a low-wheat diet. And recently I have been eating a lot of wheat.

So for the last several days I have returned to a low-wheat diet, and lo, my symptoms have tamed themselves quite a bit. Now this is bad science, of course, because there is only one data point, no control group, and I am unable to control the variable of how much pollen is in the air. In fact, I don't even know how much pollen is in the air. It's possible that the season for poplar pollen has ended and that's why my symptoms have abated. But it is still one more datapoint suggesting that wheat somehow causes the immune system to go rampant.

So I'm going to stick to the philosophy of, "I don't know the science of the low-wheat diet, but I feel better when I am on it, so I will keep going with that."

Victoria Update: Caps and Plants

I realize I'm keeping a very loose schedule with these posts, but I think that reflects a theme of unstructuredness this trip. There are routines, like the morning coffee, hashbrowns, and eggs (often accompanied by bacon) and the swim nights from Monday through Thursday (except today, which is family day). But otherwise I'm making things up as I go along. Sometimes I do a little reading in French, or watch a movie in French, or listen to a World War I documentary on YouTube. Yesterday I walked a couple of kilometers to Dairy Queen to get ice cream and had some edamame salad at Planet Organic on a whim.

My ninjas this trip have been full of surprises too--which, as I type this, I realize is what ninjas are all about. But my first ninja, intended as a statement of "I am here!" instead turned into a sleepy ninja. The next one, depicted above, was meant to be a recovery, a taking of action. This one would also change its message, however, when Mark noticed that it was "a bit pole-dancey" if you turn it slightly:

I figure that's fine though. Nothing wrong with a ninja willing to flaunt what they've got, I figure. More seriously, this came represent the accepting of mistakes. Because while the ninja ended up being a pole dancer rather than a polearm wielder, I could either get upset about it or I could call it serendipity.

For the most recent cap, I decided to give in and whole-heartedly embrace emotions and other mushy stuff, because even ninjas need mushy stuff now and again:

Yep. That's a ninja holding a sun and a heart while prancing on a rainbow. Some interpretations see the sun as a bouquet of flowers. Still works.

And more seriously, it represents the notion that I've had recently that people need to be accepted and loved for who they are. We place a lot of emphasis on earning things like love and respect and acceptance, but I'm more and more convinced that it works the other way around. People who have emotional support are far more able to get things done than people who lack that support, and our society is unhelpful by emphasizing the reverse, as though love is a transaction to be bought with some kind of correct-enough behaviour. This seems especially important when it comes to self-acceptance and... well, I would say self-love, but I think that would lead to another unintended meaning.

Status Update: Irradiated Kittens

I've been stumbling around in shock for the last few days, the image of the mushroom cloud seared into my mind. And everywhere I go, I see the devastation of the Great War, and the struggle for life to continue in its wake.

I found this cat outside of a shack that had some scavengers squatting in it. I'd found an actual working camera in a ruined subway station, so I decided to dust off the lens and get a quick photo. A reminder of a time before the War.

A couple of minutes later, he pounced on a bug the size of grape, not counting wings and legs. It was a mosquito. Many insects got a lot bigger since the bombs dropped. I don't understand the science, but I know that some of the new bugs are now so big that they would be able to eat the cat--or his owners.

Yes, I've been playing Fallout 4 a lot since it came out on Tuesday.

I had very high expectations and even higher hopes. They have all been exceeded. Fallout 4 borrows the best ideas from every RPG I've played in recent years. Let's walk through them in chronological order:

Splash Screen: The splash screen is beautiful. The camera pans slowly across the biggest symbols of the Fallout franchise: power armour, bobbleheads, workbenches. The tone is beautifully sad, with a touch of hope. I actually just watched it for a minute or two before hitting start, soaking up the tone.

Intro Story: The game transitions smoothly into a cinematic introduction to the setting, wonderfully sentimental for those familiar with the franchise while rapidly on-boarding anyone new. You then get some time to immerse yourself into life in this world. I will avoid story spoilers, but suffice it to say that the content isn't really anything new--one element is arguably hackneyed--but the execution is excellent. The fact you get to play through this introduction is a big part of it. The other part is that they keep the dialogue purposeful, introducing you to critical elements, setting the tone of peril and fear without turning the sequence into a dialogue-heavy slog.

Character Creation: The interface is very innovative, and I love the fact that they adopted so many good ideas from the Saints Row franchise. The "happy family" atmosphere that they added to the character creation gets a little over-the-top and cloying at points. On the other hand, they added atmosphere to the character creator. That alone is ground-breaking. Not a huge thing, but a new and valuable thing.

Entering the Wastes: Maybe an hour into the game, you finally emerge from the Vault you took shelter in to view the post-apocalyptic wasteland. I found my first few hours in the post-nuclear wasteland to be a little overwhelming and confusing. I have mixed opinions on this. On the one hand, this is something game designers should typically try to avoid. On the other hand, it mirrors your character's sense of being overwhelmed and confused. Actually, I think the thing I missed in the later conversations was a that the emotional impact of the starting sequence on my character seemed to fade quite a lot. But then again, I decided to help a small settlement rather than pursue the main plot at first, and those side plots can't have dialogue differences based on whether or not you *just* entered the wasteland or if you've been wandering it for months. I later encountered the main plotline and it felt really engaging again. Overall, Bethesda's writing gets better every game, and this is no exception.

Crafting: Possibly the biggest, most effective gameplay improvement in a Bethesda game. They like to scatter "junk" around the world, like coffee mugs and wrenches, just to create the sense that the world is real. But it was always just props. Sometimes they'd throw a collection quest at you (e.g. bring me 100 screwdrivers and I'll give you a screwdriver coat or something like that). But in Fallout 4, everything is now made of raw materials, and those raw materials are needed for crafting weapons, armour, and even entire communities! It now really feels like you're scavenging for parts in order to survive a hostile wasteland. So good!

Communities: Speaking of which, you are no longer just a lone adventurer, killing monsters and taking treasure. You can actually build up towns, providing them with farms, water supplies, electric generators, and defences. You can build houses and walls and place them how you like. It's incredibly powerful. I'm amazed they managed to provide this kind of functionality, as this is a big technological challenge for games. Usually customizability comes at a cost, like simplified worlds (e.g. Minecraft). I suppose there is one cost: my computer only runs on medium graphics settings, and it sometimes chugs to keep up--especially at dawn and dusk when the lighting effects are changing rapidly.

Progression: For non-gamers, progression is the sense that you start weak and get stronger over time. This is the experience points you earn and the new skills you unlock. So far, I've spent a significant amount of time studying the charts to figure out exactly what skills I need for the type of character I want to play. I may have made some mistakes, but they're mistakes that I can live with. For example, I am now not sure if the "Science" skill was a good choice. On the other hand, it let me build a really cool laser rifle, improve the armour pieces on my power armour (an unstoppable juggernaut that was the height of infantry technology before the Great War), and will even let me build superior power generators for towns later. So I'm still pretty happy to have the skill.

Time for me to hit the real-life wasteland of Edmonton to scavenge for some groceries and to get some exercise. I'm starting to feel like a Vault Dweller.

How Master Yoda Is Changing The Way I Think About Elections

This election, I have gotten more political than in any other. The reason for this is simple: I am more worried in this election than in any other.

But as an avid fan of Star Wars--at least until Jar Jar ungraced the silver screen--I can’t pour my energy into something based on fear without taking a moment to pause and wonder if this is the right thing to do.

As the short green dude said: fear, anger, and aggression are the dark side.

Sure, I feel that my fears are well-founded, and I believe my actions are good for my country. But that’s exactly when the dark side is at its most seductive: it starts with fighting for good things that you believe in, then convinces you to hate what threatens what you believe in, then turns you against your friends and family. Soon, you are a twisted reflection of your former self, representing everything you used to hate.

So I have decided to radically change my approach, before I go too far down this dark path. I have decided that efforts predicated on fear are toxic, and that my actions must now be predicated on calm, informed, and even loving thoughts.

While I am being deliberately silly and talking about these things in the context of Star Wars, let me be serious for a moment: every religion on Earth professes a love for fellow humanity. Some followers lose this message, of course, as we’ve seen with groups like ISIS, but that’s exactly the point: the dark side, rooted foremost in fear, is exactly what causes an extremist to lose sight of the messages of love in favour of the messages of hate.

So let me first of all apologize to my conservative-leaning friends and family: your values are a part of Canada’s identity, and that is precious to me. In fact, I share almost all of them. Liberty, democracy, justice, courage, safety, and most of all, family. These are things I value dearly. I believe my recent fear-motivated efforts have made me say things that might make this unclear. So let me state it explicitly again: these values are also my values. These are the reasons I love Canada and Canadians.

Second of all, I am now going to promote things I do want out of this election, rather than things I don’t want. Hopefully many Canadians will agree with me:

1. Election Reform. First and foremost, I would like to see more positive politics. I feel like every election in this country gets more divisive and angry, and I think this is being caused by our election system: when we vote, the winner takes all, and the loser has no voice. Both Stephen Harper and Rachel Notley had less than 50% of the popular vote, but essentially 100% of the political power. This creates a lot of fear, fear leads to anger, and anger leads to ugly politics. So as a positive solution, let’s fix this. There are other systems we can consider that gives better representation by population. Regardless of who gets in, let’s work on making our elections healthier, and protect the voices of all Canadians.
2. Democratic Rights. One of the things I fear is the ability for the government to take away a citizen’s right to vote. Bill C-51 makes that possible, and it has some dangerous loop-holes. Now I’m not saying all this in order to encourage fear, but merely to point out a potential threat that we need to deal with rationally. I am 100% in favour of protecting our country from terrorists and dangerous extremists, but we need to ensure that democracy--the right to vote--is not threatened. We need to protect the right of citizens to retain their vote, lest a future government abuse that power. The positive thing to campaign for is, therefore, democratic rights. Democratic rights are something Canadians of all political stripes can agree are important.
3. Economics Endorsed By Economists. Running a country is complicated, and involves a lot more work than a handful of random promises. As a non-economist, I don’t know if spending 10 million dollars on veterans is a lot, a little, or a giant financial mistake. It would literally take me years of online research to answer this question. This means I need to trust people who do this for a living. Organizations like the World Bank, the OECD, the Bank of Canada, and the IMF have economic research that is world-wide and decades-old. They know what they are talking about, so it’s worth getting their opinion.
4. Informed Voters. I accept that I make mistakes. Sometimes I become passionate about an idea, only to later discover that the idea was wrong. In order to make sure I vote well in this election, I want to be informed, so I can avoid making a mistake. I also think it would be good for all Canadian voters to be informed, because that will help Canada make a good decision, which is good not just for Canadians, but for all people in the world.

So here is my rationale for siding with the Liberal Party, at least for the moment--and if you disagree, please exercise your democratically-protected freedom to speak, a right I will defend for you even if I disagree with you.

1. The Liberals promise to reform the election system. They aren’t endorsing a single solution yet, and that’s wise: this isn’t a change we want to make carelessly. It needs to involve all parties, and that’s what they’re promising to do.
2. The Liberals promise to close the loop-holes in Bill C-51. This won’t make Canada less secure, it will just make sure that your most precious right, the right to vote, is better protected.
3. The Liberal economic plan is endorsed by economists who have resumes that include the World Bank, the OECD, the Bank of Canada, and the IMF. Let me address concerns with this that both right-leaning and left-leaning Canadians may have:
1. Right-leaning Canadians may ask how it’s possible that an economic plan to take on debt could possibly be endorsed by leading economists. Isn’t debt the worst idea ever? As it turns out, no. Microsoft has debt. Apple has debt. Dow Chemical has debt. Debt is a useful financial tool used by businesses all the time. Bloated, unmanageable debt can be bad, yes. But world-class economists aren’t concerned about the debt outlined in the Liberal plan, so it’s okay--this is just a tool to make some wise investments that will get the economy back on track.
2. Left-leaning Canadians may ask if organizations like the World Bank and the IMF have common people’s interests at heart. Aren’t they just shills for big companies? As it turns out, no. Visit their websites. Every one of them is calling for more investment in the vulnerable people of the world. They support taking care of people who are vulnerable, because taking care of them gets them back into the economy. When you just let them suffer, they remain alienated from the economy and can’t contribute. Taking care of people isn’t just kind, it’s smart economics.
4. When I talked to a Liberal campaigner, he didn’t try to argue policy with me. He just suggested that I look at the party platforms online, and see which one sounded the most reasonable. This was a huge risk for him: for all he knew, I would side with a different party. But he didn’t just want my vote, he wanted my vote to be informed. And that’s the point here: I don’t care how you vote. I’ve given you my reasons for supporting the Liberals, but you might have a different opinion. I just want your vote to be informed.

To recap, let me again apologize for the fear that has gripped me recently. I apologize for anything hurtful or rude I may have said. Canada is a beautiful country, and Canadians are beautiful people.

As we go to the polls, let’s celebrate this most of all: we get to go to the polls.

And may the Force be with you, always.

Spending The Night In Emergency Is Good For The Soul

By Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (CCBRT Disability Hospital waiting room 1) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

First off: Don't worry, I am fine.

Now, the full story.

Starting around Wednesday and getting worse into Thursday, I felt a mild discomfort under my ribcage on the right side. It was especially noticeable when sitting, especially if I slouched.

I did a quick web search and the internet suggested it might be appendicitis, though fortunately I didn't have any other symptoms like fever or vomiting. Still, I decided not to take chances, and given that appendicitis can be dangerous even over night, I decided at around 11:00 pm on Thursday to go to Emergency.

The result is that my bloodwork and ECG came back normal, with a mild distortion in my bloodwork that potentially suggested a gall bladder issue. But the physician didn't feel that this was an urgent issue, recommended I avoid eating fatty meals for a while, and advised me to return to Emergency if I started to get fever, vomiting, or jaundice (because the area of discomfort is near the liver).

I initially turned down an ultrasound test, but I've since decided to play it safe and get one. I'll drop by the clinic on Monday to get one arranged.

But the result of this process was that I spent many hours over-night in a hospital waiting room and emergency ward, and I've decided that everyone should do this once in a while for the good of their soul. Because while I was there just as a precaution, some people were there with serious injuries. There was one moment where a stretcher rolled in with a woman crying as she followed it. A patient next to my bed in the emergency ward sounded like they were in significant pain and sometimes had laboured breathing.

There are two things I thought about for these hours:

1. How lucky I am to have good health.
2. How lucky I am to live in a country where hospitals just help you, no questions asked.

I went to Emergency for the sake of my body, but it turned out to be a wonderful treatment for my soul.

Back In Business

[ David Rose | Innovations in Capital Formation | www.singularityu.org ]

Three events occurred this week which have me thinking about business models.

The first was running across the above video, where David Rose talks about that the internet is doing to the way businesses get finances. It's well worth a look if you're curious. The short version is, it's getting easier and easier for new businesses to get starting capital.

The second was a visit to the website Jobbatical, where in about 2 minutes of browsing (literally), I ran across a job add for software QA in South Africa. The global job market is getting extremely connected.

The third was a conversation with a man named Shannon, an entrepreneur at a local web company called Mediashaker. Gerry, the environment artist on our game project, arranged the meeting to talk about jobs, careers, and related opportunities. But Shannon's perspective is that of an entrepreneur, and his advice was that people who run business don't really know anything special--they just try things.

All of this is adding up to me thinking a lot about businesses. In today's super-connected marketplace, it's reasonable for someone with a good idea, but not necessarily the right skills for that idea, to find the financing and talent required to turn the idea into a reality.

This isn't something I intend to do immediately, but it is something I'll be watching for during the next few months.

Weekly News: 2015-09-11 (Friday)

Well, I've been full of activity this week.

I'm not sure that my activity has been entirely focused in a coherent direction. I'm diving into the French lessons, I'm engaged in writing Toastmasters speeches about technology in order to transform them into YouTube videos. I haven't been pursuing the yoga jobs yet, but I may start to do so this afternoon.

My instincts are telling me that these activities are all headed in a good direction. I'm figuring out ways of getting employed in ways that will allow the lifestyle I'm after.

The fact that my expenses are so low buys me both some time and some long-term options. I only need one option to work out, and I only need it to work out a little bit to gain some financial security. So maybe my strategy is coherent after all. Time will tell.

As an aside, I came across my new favourite internet video. I spend a lot of time thinking about world peace--especially as I consider what a robot war in the 2020's might look like (not fun, to put it mildly). So I did a search for "Google Talks World Peace" and found this (although the link is a TED link and not a Google Talk):


This video is inspirational in a special way, and I am feeling dedicated to helping our species win the World Peace Game for real.

As a random guy in Edmonton, I may not have the pull of, say, a leader of the armed forces in the United States or a UN diplomat. But I can still participate. In fact, the internet is making individuals more powerful than ever. I can use that power to spread positive messages, like the important lessons that John Hunter is cultivating in his classroom. Because I think we win the game when everyone, including ordinary people like me, play to win.

The World As I Understand It (Draft)

This is just a draft. I had a busy day to day and I have a busy weekend coming up, so it's going to be hard for me to get a Thoughts or News post out this week unless I post something half-finished.

The message below contains a lot of mad science in it. Some of these predictions may be overly optimistic or over-hyped. I will try to get it edited for sanity soon.

But most of the thoughts below are basically factual, with the ethos coming from Wall Street leaders, doctors, scientists, and mainstream media personalities. Some of the information came from BBC News and a lot of it came from Singularity University, an organization supported by places like Google and CNBC.

Anyway, hopefully these rantings will suffice for a few days until I can edit them.

Thanks. :)

---

The World As I Understand It

• Energy Crisis: The power is running out, and the fuels we are using are killing us.
• Solar
• The energy generated from solar panels is doubling every two years.
• We're only about nine doublings away from complete replacement of fossil fuels through solar.
• Nuclear
• A Canadian company called Terrestrial Energy is only a few years away from producing nuclear reactors which will burn nuclear waste.
• These reactors are safe. No more Fukushimas.
• These reactors burn nuclear waste as fuel. No more 250,000-year waste storage.
• They have a business model so good that they are 100% funded by private investment. No government money is involved in this. They plan to make money off of these things, which means they expect to be commercially viable.
• Information
• Big data gets bigger at a faster rate every day.
• AI is getting smarter at the same rate.
• Robotics is getting cheaper and smarter exponentially as well.
• Finance is an information technology. The ability to bring capital together is improving exponentially.
• Industry is also improving at this rate, from robot-operated assembly lines to the "maker revolution" inspired by 3D printers, Arduinos, and similar technologies.
• Faster and faster, we will solve the problem of how to do everything faster.
• Labour
• Self-driving trucks are now replacing mine workers.
• Self-driving trucks will soon be replacing truck drivers.
• Self-driving cars will soon be replacing taxi and Uber drivers.
• Robots are now replacing factory workers, tens and hundreds of thousands of people at a time. That's happening today, not in the future.
• Digital writers are beginning to replace journalists in some fields.
• Digital assistants will soon be doing administrative work--reducing our need for administrative jobs.
• The faster we replace human labour with robotic labour, the better our industry gets, and so the faster we will be able to build robots to replace us.
• Health
• Exponential improvements in health care will allow us to live longer and longer.
• How long? Some estimates say 120 years.
• What does medical science look like in 50 years? 100 years? How much bigger can that 120 year estimate get by the time a baby born today reaches 120?
• Pattern-recognition engines are now out-performing highly trained medical specialists in some fields. They are rapidly discovering new trends in old data, and the data available to them is rapidly growing.
• The cost of sequencing a human genome is getting cheaper at a rate that is significantly faster than Moore's Law. In a few years, genome-sequencing could be part of routine medical check-ups. Babies could be getting sequenced at birth, and before birth.
• Democracy
• (These are my own thoughts, and are not supported by academics or industry leaders as much as the other categories are.)
• Freedom of information is critical to democracy, and that freedom could be lost without constant vigilance. We must be very careful not to let our information be withheld or corrupted by domineering people and organizations.
• Privacy is equally important--and it is vanishing overnight, without public discussion. Recently, a man lost his basketball team based on racist remarks he made in a private conversation with his girlfriend. Racism is bad, yes, but are we sure we want a world where everything everyone says can be held against them forever, with dire economic and social consequences?
• We will need to find solutions where freedom of information and privacy clash.
• Economy
• In a world of ever-increasing abundance, where human labour is increasingly less necessary for wealth, what work will humans do?
• One promising solution is the idea of a basic wage
• Everyone gets paid a living wage just for being alive.
• Easy to administer--no complex rules about who gets it and who doesn't.
• No stigma, because rich people get paid too.
• Costs less than currently existing social programs.
• Studies show that productivity increases under a basic wage.
• Studies show that new companies are formed at triple the normal rates.
• More studies are needed to verify that these findings are scalable and accurate.
• Spirituality
• (Again, these are just my thoughts.)
• Humanity will (may?) continue to have the advantage in terms of spirituality, morality, and in answering the questions of what we should do and why we should do it.
• It is imperative we guide our AI creations well.
• It's inconvenient when your computer crashes.
• It's disastrous when your AI's morality fails.
• This is not a problem to solve later. It is a problem to solve now.
• Connectivity
• The genius of BitCoin was not in creating digital currency.
• The genius of BitCoin was in creating a distributed system for storing knowledge. There is no "BitCoin server". Every computer that participates adds to the computing pool that maintains BitCoin.
• BitCoin is hugely efficient in handling transactions. Banking fees are likely to drop to almost nothing--not necessarily because BitCoin itself will be adopted, but because its technology will be adopted.
• BitCoin is, in practical terms, impervious to cyber attack, unlike most current security implementations.
• BitCoin is just knowledge. It was designed to store information on finance and transactions, but in theory it could be used to store anything.
• Scientific findings?
• Digital media?
• The algorithms that AIs run on?
• The "distributed ledger", or else an even better connectivity technology, may become the global human memory, the global human consciousness, and the global AI mind.
• (This is one of my own thoughts, but the rest in this category are coming from Wall Street executives and leading computer experts.)
• Space
• With enormous and cheap manufacturing power, we will go to space.
• Moon base will allow us to travel beyond Earth much more cheaply.
• Mars base will allow humans to start living on other worlds.
• Many of us will live long enough to see this happen.

What to Take-Away From This

(Everything after this point is just my own thoughts.)

The most important laws we need to make in the next few years will relate to:

• Artificial Intelligence - How much do we let it do? How do we make sure it works for us and not against us?
• Monitoring - How do we ensure that nobody is violating these laws?
• Defence - How do we protect ourselves if somebody escapes the monitoring and creates an illegal AI or robot? Swarms of cheap, autonomous, killer robots are potentially a near-future technology, if not a present one.
• Economy and Finance - How do we deal with a disruption to the very foundation of the labour market, where the ancient arrangement of money for labour is changed forever?
• Freedom of Information - How do we ensure that information remains available for the benefit of all humankind, and doesn't get restrained by selfish parties seeking to gain control?
• Privacy - How do we protect our privacy in a world of exponentially increasing sensors and surveillance?
• World Peace - How do we promote cooperative growth across the whole world? If we don't, a robot and/or AI war is likely to happen. If we do, a whole new future becomes possible for the world, a future where life is safe, peaceful, healthy, fun, and fulfilling.

Things we can do as individuals include:

• Look into how your job is going to get taken over by a robot or AI.
• Start planning your 110th birthday party, because you might get to have it.
• Promote world peace. Seeing your 110th birthday may depend on it.
• Find a way to become involved in this global transformation, whether that's to help it happen or to help it happen peacefully and well.

All Of This Is Happening Right Now

It's going to be a wild ride. There's no stopping it. Just grab on to the seat of your pants and yell, "Wheeee!"

Tim O'Reilly and the 'WFT Economy'

Another video about automation (in this case, social connectivity) and the economy:

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/08/12/1844243/tim-oreilly-and-the-wtf-economy-video#ooid=tkbmt5djqMbgumH2B9Yh7JBTZPSecCaO

Here's another talk he gave on the sharing economy, and how open-source work adds value to the economy and becomes, overall, profitable for many people:

Robots At Last--And Possibly Forever

For a couple of weeks now, I've been promising posts about robots. So here's the first one.

I've decided to start on a cautiously positive note dealing with the effects of robots on the economy. More depressing topics like military robots will need to get dealt with too, but since I'm thinking about jobs and careers a lot lately, these talks are closer to my heart.

First, Rodney Brooks:



And then Andrew McAfee:


And lest I let a day go by without talking about thorium, remember that we'll have limitless, green, safe energy thanks to thorium reactors, so this robotics revolution will be happening in a planet that is getting greener, richer, and, as a result, hopefully calmer.

Nukes Back On in Japan!

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33858628

Per the above link, Japan is turning their nuclear plants back on again! This is good news. Just to recap:

• Nobody died at Fukushima.
• Nobody will die to do radiation exposure. In fact, the radiation in the Fukushima area is lower than naturally-occurring radiation in some other parts of the world--places where there is no elevated cancer risk!
• All of the fear was just media hype designed to attract viewers in order to generate advertising dollars.
• Turning off the nuclear plants forced Japan to burn more fossil fuels.
• Burning fossil fuels puts carbon, mercury, and radioactive waste into the air.
• Yes, fossil fuels spread more radioactive waste than nuclear energy, mainly because nuclear keeps it all contained while carbon sources blow it out of smoke stacks.
• But it's the mercury to watch for, because that causes cognitive impairment in newborns, and the carbon, because that's altering the world's climate which may lead to widespread economic collapse.

All in all, Japan turning its nuclear plants back on is a very good thing.

Hurray for sensible energy planning. Boo for media fearmongering.

Nuclear Families

This past week, courtesy of my friend Jason, I came across an interesting talk by a demographer and economist named Peter Zeihan. Mr. Zeihan uses the economics of transportation and energy, combined with demographics, to make some predictions about the future of our planet. It's about an hour long, but he's an entertaining speaker and anyone interested in these topics should have a good time.



Now despite the fact that I find this analysis really sharp, it isn't likely that Mr. Zeihan's predictions are going to be 100% accurate. The world is simply too complicated. In particular, I think we're going to see a very different energy future thanks to technologies discussed by Kirk Sorensen in his TEDx Talk.

This one is a wicked-cool 10 minutes, so everyone should enjoy it:


Multiple nations and commercial groups are seriously looking at Thorium power. Then there's technologies like the Integral Breeder Reactor or Bill Gates' still-experimental Travelling Wave technology. But sooner or later, cheap, clean, safe nuclear will become a reality, at which point even shale will look expensive and toxic.

If you're interested, there's a documentary called Pandora's Promise on Netflix, and Kirk Sorensen has a longer, more detailed video as well.

Deep Dreaming

Recently, I've been talking with my dad about a phenomenon called pareidolia, which is the tendency for people to see familiar patterns in random images. This is the how you might see a face in a pile of dust or the virgin marry in a burn pattern on some toast.

I recently found out that Google, ever willing to get creative with the way computers process data, has created a project called DeepDream that attempts to interpret, and then modify, images.

I don't fully understand how it works, but apparently the computer looks at an image and then tries to find familiar patterns in it. It then imposes those familiar shapes back onto the image, resulting in fascinating and often disturbing results.

Fittingly, someone applied this to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a film about a couple of guys who take a lot of drugs:


A theme that is likely to arise in my next few Friday posts is the robot revolution. We are about to see a profound, sea change in the way human life is lived thanks to robots. They're going to be manufacturing things for us, delivering things for us, even writing news articles for us.

I always thought that there would be certain activities that computers would never excel at, like art, philosophy, science, religion--all the things that are quintessentially human. But could DeepDream be the first step in robotics towards replacing humans in those most human of pursuits? How fantastic does DeepDream get in ten years? In twenty?

For the moment, I'm not worried. Generating messed up images is cool but not really the same as dreaming. Not yet. Not until it starts asking "Why do I dream?"

Careering and Careening

As I mentioned in my check-in yesterday, I'm feeling some consternation in the job hunt as I yet again consider my options for the future.

In some ways the mission is simple: find a job that pays money so that I can work on the novel and game project.

In other ways, it's gotten complicated. The placement agent I spoke to on Wednesday told me that most offices will want staff in dress pants. This is entirely reasonable and expected. It's also something I can do. But I was surprised by how much I don't want to do it.

The problem is, part-time work isn't really available in office environments, which means such a job would have extended periods of time where I'd be living my life in dress clothes. Dress clothes are poor choices for doing exercise--even just with walking, dress shoes are crap for it. And maintaining a healthy lifestyle, predominantly through walking, has become so important to me that the idea of being cooped up in an office and hobbled by impractical, status-focused clothing doesn't sound appealing.

It also sounds like the work right now isn't all that much better than minimum wage, at least for office temping. Which is fair, since the employers are just hiring someone to cover a hold in their admin staff for a few weeks. But if I'm going to be working for low wages, I'd almost rather work part-time at Staples or something where, yes, I'd be wearing crap clothing, but at least I wouldn't be living in it most of my life.

This is all causing me to realize that if I want to earn decent money, pick my own hours, and/or have other such conveniences, I can't go in half-assed. I need to find a job that is actually career focused and not just a placeholder to make money. While this will make it harder to work on the projects I want to, I would at least be compensated by working at a job that interests me.

The other option is another variety of impractical: finally start leveraging my yoga teaching certificate to earn money. The money would be bad, but the hours few, and the dress code would be mandatorily exercise-friendly. If on top of that I start promoting myself as a script reader/editor/doctor, I could find drips and drabs of interesting set-your-own-hours work.

This post is stream-of-consciousness. I'm figuring out my angle as I type. Thanks for the talk. :)

Anti-bacterial Nope

Once every generation, there comes a time when I finish up a bottle of dish detergent and have to buy a new one. Yesterday was this generation's time.

It's a task I didn't really give much thought to. I added dish detergent to my grocery list on my phone, and when I was at Save On I casually strolled down the isle thinking I could just grab a bottle and go. I spotted one that was citrus flavoured and reached for it, but then realized it was anti-bacterial.

This is actually a bit of a problem. And by "a bit", I mean a serious one. Short version: anti-bacterial soap both damages the environment and yet is completely unnecessary.

The Fiction

The fiction that soap manufactures are catering to is something like this: bacteria can cause illness, so by using anti-bacterial soap you are protecting yourself and loved ones from disease.

The truth is more like this: if you wash the bacteria off your hands, they can't hurt you anyway, plus you're over-sanitizing your environment which can actually reduce the efficiency of your immune system in the long run, making you and your loved ones more vulnerable.

Now, I once saw a George Carlin stand-up where he advocated swimming through sewage to strengthen your immune system, which, as you might guess, isn't a good idea either, as described by Paul Ewald describes in the following TED Talk:



As usual, nature forces us to take a balanced path rather than zealously pursuing one extreme or another. Practice cleanliness, but don't sterilize your environment. Get exposure to germs, but take precautions against deadly diseases.

Reinforcing Misconceptions

Recently, my dad sent me an article on how misinformed people are often very confident in their misinformed belief. I suspect that these mechanisms are at work with anti-bacterial soap. Given how harmful it is, and how popular it is, and how there is virtual no discussion about this problem, we as a culture have managed to become extremely confident in our fiction.

And that's why I have a picture of Palmolive at the top of this blog, focusing on the tagline: "Washes Away Bacteria from Hands". In other words, it's soap. It doesn't have damaging chemical agents that are unnecessary. And their marketing department managed to phrase it in a way that may actually let them sell to a misinformed public.

There are of course exceptions to all this. People with compromised immune systems may need to take extra precautions. But the general buying public should be avoiding the anti-bacterial soap.

So it's a small thing, choosing a soap. But sometimes small things can still be important things.

Climate Change: The Hilarious and The Informative

John Oliver is rapidly becoming a new hero of mine. He's the guy who did the comedic rant about tobacco that I posted recently.

Here's his take on climate change. Even if you're a skeptic and disagree, it's funny as hell.



And if you are skeptical, the channel Veritasium has a great video where they answer a lot of the the concerns in a polite and informative manner.

Worth a look.

Fun Construction Videos

More fun videos courtesy of my dad. Returning to the construction theme, these are videos showing time lapse or else describing the processes of large constructions.





https://youtu.be/o4eM0qoUhaE

(This last one is a link because the video uploader has disabled embedding.)

The Angel Learns To Dance

This week has been very introspective. This introspection was triggered by the Cirque du Soleil show, Varekai, which is now cemented as my favourite Cirque show. It has made me think about the nature of story, the history of my life, and who I want to be as a person. Pretty heavy stuff for a show about acrobats doing flips in colourful unitards.

A single post can only cover these topics briefly, like the trailer for the movie rather than the movie itself.

The Nature Of Story

Lately I've been reading a lot of TV Tropes. This is an excellent exercise for understanding the intellectual side of story craft, where tropes are like Lego bricks and the writer is a craftsman sculpting a house or spaceship with the pieces. This is important to becoming good at the craft.

But it's not what makes audiences feel a story. Feeling and emotion are intangibles and not easily described in terms of tropes. You can arrange the Lego bricks in all manner of intellectually stimulating patterns without necessarily generating a single Watt of real emotion. We can look at structures to an extent, such as the Three Act Structure or Dan Harmon's plot circles, and those help by showing us the nature of conflict. But conflict, critical as it is, isn't quite the same as emotional connection.

Varekai is intellectually very simple. A young man and a young woman are fascinated by each other, then overcome trials that keep them apart, and then find lasting love together. That's tied for "oldest story ever told" alongside the Hero's Journey--or rather, it is the Hero's Journey as applied to romantic love, one of the oldest subjects ever fictionalized. The gender roles are also very conservative. Men are physical and brash. Women are beautiful, ranging from delicate prettiness to confident sexuality.

It would be easy to criticize the plot on its simplicity. But that simplicity is also why it is effective. Unburdened by any desire for originality, it is free to emphasize only honesty. It captures the timidity of the lovers in their first meeting. It captures their feelings of loss when being separated. It captures their celebration when re-united. Adding a bunch of twists to the classic tropes would just interfere.

In my own fiction, I've often felt this conflict between the intellectual and the emotional. I've probably even blogged about it before. And time and time again, I find myself drawn to the emotional more. Something that is unoriginal but has good emotional content is still gratifying. Something that is intellectually clever but lacks emotional connection feels like a practice exercise, intricate but in itself pointless.

Cleverness and emotional connection are not mutually exclusive, of course. But sometimes decisions must be made that will take one path at the expense of the other. For now, I will follow the emotional path in most cases.

The History Of My Life

One of the characters in the story is called the Limping Angel, and spends the whole show on crutches. Icarus, the male protagonist, is unable to walk after his fall. I interpret the Limping Angel as the manifestation of Icarus's own spirit, or perhaps a physical manifestation of Icarus's injuries.

There's a powerful scene, not long before the lovers are reunited, where Icarus and the Limping Angel lend each other strength, giving the Limping Angel the power to dance despite his injuries. Icarus, meanwhile, struggles to regain his ability to walk. The Limping Angel's dance is the struggle to heal, to become whole again.

I feel a strong connection to the Limping Angel. For a variety of reasons, I have been injured in the past. I see Icarus's inability to walk as akin to the depression that held me to the ground for many years. And while I feel that I am now walking, metaphorically, I still have a limp.

These thoughts caused me to think back on my life. Many of these memories are distressing, causing me feelings of intense shame or guilt or jealousy. To cope with the distress, I have forced myself not to dwell on them. This is, I now realize, what it means to repress a memory. And the problem with repression is twofold: a) it doesn't actually make the pain go away, it just numbs it, and b) it carves holes in your identity. Bereft of your own history, who are you?

But the Limping Angel succeeds in dancing in the face of his demons. Icarus learns to walk again. I think it is time for me to deal with these memories.

Who I Want To Be As A Person

This is the part where things start getting hard to describe, so I'm not going to try to cover everything. Here are a few random thoughts:

• Facing the memories I don't like is difficult. It requires an emotion I have not often felt before, but allows us to take action when we want to avoid that action: courage.
• Remembering these things is allowing me to see my own past again, which is allowing me to see who I am again.
• It is difficult, but I am learning to accept the person who inhabits these memories, even when he failed or made mistakes or behaved poorly.
• Many of these memories are incredibly petty, like times I said something slightly mean to someone in high school, or when I met someone who I didn't manage to win over--someone who might not like me, oh no!
• I realize now that part of why I have lacked pride is because I've often lacked a male role model, at least in terms of popular culture. The male role models of the 80's and 90's tended to be anti-intellectual assholes who were always grim and violent. This is only marginally better now. Albertan men are still expected to be, in most cases, gruff, loud, and ignorant. I could never and will never identify with this. So I assumed, most of my adult life, that I must be weak and unmanly, and was ashamed. Recently I've been changing my definition of manliness. A couple of years ago, my dad gave me the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling, which is a much better way to see manliness. My dad himself, the male half of the super-team that held our family together in the face of extreme difficulty, exemplifies this definition.
• I am going to continue to have courage, to remember my past, and to accept the person I have been. This is how the Limping Angel will learn to dance, and how I will learn to have pride in who I am.