Superclass and the New Elite

I've mentioned my obsession with the ultra-wealthy before. Reading David J. Rothkopf's The Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making today I was stuck by the utterly unoriginal insight that it might not be that much fun being an elite.

Rothkopf punctures a lot of the usual paranoid beliefs about a mysterious global elite - he observes that conspiracy theories are almost always psychologically comforting fictions: it is disturbing to think that one man, working alone, can assassinate a president.

This fact suggests a random and capricious universe. Much better to imagine that bad things that happen are the result of organised conspiracy.

However I do feel that it isn't really worth being a member of any kind of global elite.

The symbol of the global elite

Constant pressures on your time; scrutiny from the press, your peers, and governments; concerns over kidnapping, and the happiness of your friends and family would probably nullify most of the advantages of being extremely wealthy and/or powerful.

No, not for me famous, multi-billionaire status. Give me £30 million and obscurity, reputably and happily earned, and I will be satisfied.

New Year Resolutions

Why? Because it's been nearly six months and I've finally formulated the perfect resolutions. Here they are:

1. Legally purchase every single track of music I have on my PC.
   
2. Improve my German and French to the extent that I can translate the main, front-page article of both Die Welt and Le Monde into English without having to look up any words.
3. Read Sam's Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days.
4. Read one fictional classic, and one non-fiction classic. At the moment I'm thinking War and Peace and The Wealth of Nations.
5. Quit my job.
6. Start higher education again.
   

Mmm. This is not actually as interesting as it seemed in my head.

As compensation, here is the picture of the Firefox girl:

For your delectation or sneering

New Firefox 3

It is actually surprisingly good. Websites load appreciably faster. Other than that usability seem to be about the same.

There was actually a picture of an attractive woman in a Firefox top. But how could I pass up the crop-circle reference? Tears.

Firefox 3 has yet to do anything that seriously irritates me. This means I already consider it to be good software.

Maths and Melancholy

For a while now I've been meaning to write a very long post about maths, science, religion, and education.

The fact that I never finished the essay is testament to the fact that education is an immensely complex issue, and invites ignorant and uneducated opinion.

Take this appallingly titled article by Simon Jenkins: Maths? I breakfasted on quadratic equations, but it was a waste of time. Right, OK. Where to begin?

This all seems to be in response to something called The Reform Report, which has been compiled from a think tank called Reform.

Anyway let's look at what Jenkins says:

"In the age of computers, maths beyond simple and applied arithmetic is needed only by specialists. Ramming it down pupils' throats in case they may one day need it is like making us all know how to recalibrate a carburettor on the offchance that we might become racing drivers. Maths is a "skill to a purpose", and we would should ponder the purpose before overselling the skill."

Riiiight. So a journalist thinks that in the age of computers complex maths is needed only by specialists.

If economic prosperity is still considered a Good Thing, then surely preparing students for high-paying and rewarding roles in finance, economics, engineering, business, and science by promoting maths is a positive step. Anyway, let us ponder:

"When Kenneth Baker invented the national curriculum in 1987, it never occurred to him to question its content. Science and maths lobbied hard and captured the core, alongside only English. Not just history and geography, but economics, health, psychology, citizenship, politics and law - with far better claims to vocational utility - were elbowed aside."

All of those subjects have a strong claim to vocational utility. But there is a distinction between vocational utility and simple utility.

Learning psychology is fair enough: but without knowledge of statistics how are you to interpret pschological studies? Learning economics is good: but a central part of economic modelling relies on a knowledge of mathematics.

Maths is a subject that ensures all doors into future careers are kept open. Liberal arts still offer enormous choice but you are still locked out of some career paths.

Anyway as Ben Goldacre points out, there is some questionable use of maths in the Reform report itself.

I feel much more comfortable with the third way: no more conflict between arts and science and engineering, just an understanding that well-rounded people should be versed in as many subjects as possible.

One Last Post...

One of the more annoying aspects of the NewsCloud is it's tendency to simplify then exaggerate.

Take science vs. religion.

The mere fact that you have some idea of what I'm talking about it disgusting. How can such a puerile expression be useful? As a mental hook for something so complex and profound (and so misunderstood) that it escapes almost all serious consideration.

In the last 24 hours the British parliament has been debating and voting on a series of issues associated with abortion (should the last date at which an abortion can happen be lowered from 24 weeks), hybrid embryo research, and saviour siblings.

Some tasteful sketches of a foetus from Leonardo da Vinci

All these are important issues. I won't comment on them because there are facets of the debate (particularly associated with abortion), which I simple don't know about.

These issues are important and as such they should be treated as such. This is not, nor has it ever been, about "science vs. religion."

That expression "S vs. R" begs so many questions it is almost impossible to dissect it without falling into the trap of dignifying the debate, but I will attempt it.

Science is a tool. It is a way of thinking about, and observing the world. Empirical evidence (input from our sensory apparatus, both biological and artificial) and recorded data acquired through empirical means are considered.

Once they have been considered scientists think of ways that any patterns, or lack of pattern, in the data can be explained. They create a hypothesis.

They then attempt to disprove the hypothesis. They create experiments that are intended to disprove their hypothesis. If a hypothesis stands up to this treatment, and the work of one scientist is corroborated by the work of many other scientists, then an hypothesis is accepted as a scientific theory.

Yes, I know there's more to it than that. Check out this document on the scientific method for more details on the subject.

Religion is many things to many people. To me it is yet another system of control, external to myself.

It is also a panacea in moments of weakness. It is a crutch and it is community. Sometimes it is good and sometimes it is bad. Sometimes it is right. Usually it is wrong.

I do not judge those who have faith. I know what faith is. It is like a powerful drug, and it can make difficult things ... less difficult. I have had faith.

It's glowing! It must be SCIENCE!

However I am entirely within my rights to call anyone who believes in the afterlife a fool and anyone who thinks the universe is run by some dude with a beard who isn't a science fiction writer of some sort (if God can't be a science fiction writer, or is not a full-time [and published] science fiction writer I quit - god is wrong and it is immoral to have faith ;-)) an idiot.

Anyway I despise how this argument is corrupted and dragged through the dirt by slavering hacks wanting to churn out copy on a "controversial" debate.

Addendum: I am entirely aware that this article is without evidence, empirical or otherwise. It is also fairly badly written. So sue me.

Business and Capitalism

In recent months there has been an extensive debate in the NewsCloud (I'm fed up with talking about newspapers, media, the press, the blogosphere - the NewsCloud will suffice) about capitalism; where it is going, where it now, and how it got here.

Two articles in the Cloud today highlight two different issues:

1) Luke Johnson writing in the FT comments:

"Innovation and progress come from embracing markets and encouraging entrepreneurs. The world is more competitive than ever; we cannot rely on old industries and the state to maintain our standard of living."

I happen to agree with this. When commentators go on about how awful the credit crunch is and how evil all these userous capitalists are in dragging us into this mess they always fall foul of the fact that they do not have a coherent alternative strategy.

I also agree with Peregrine Worsthorne that a squeeze on the financial industry might lead to an egress of talent away from finance and towards more useful things like medicine, pharmaceutical research, and entrepreneurism.

Johnson goes on to say:

"Markets are naturally dynamic, whereas governments resist change and fresh thinking. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, overall early-stage entrepreneur activity in Britain involves about 5.6 per cent of the population, a much lower rate than in the US, Brazil or China."

An Entrepreneur

A nation of shopkeepers? I think not. However Johnson makes the point that:

"A slowdown in the economy and rising unemployment might just stimulate more to start their own business as an alternative. This would be the silver lining of the credit crunch cloud."

Although the UK is not openly hostile towards entrepreneurs, they are not afforded the same respect as accountants, physicians, architects, or academics. Johnson describes entrepreneurism as just as much a calling as these respected professions but (partly because of our confused and irritating emphasis on class) in the UK "entrepreneur" is not listed on the job sheet.

2) The second article is from Edward Pearce in The Guardian:

"Modern capitalism has become etiolated. It has flourished lately upon deals ever more remote from raising capital investment for steel mills and biscuit factories, upon leverage and derivatives, upon credit and the ghost of credit, upon financial rice paper."

Speculation seems to be endemic to capitalism. Fortunately all this credit crunch nonsense seems to be having a negligible effect on actual global economic growth. China makes things.

From a science fictional perspective there is something reassurring about this. Times change, technologies change, but wherever there are financial markets there are speculative bubbles, and crashes and crunches.

The two ends of capitalism: the rarified ivory tower of deriveratives of deriveratives (George Soros et al) and the coalface of business and wealth-creation (Felix Dennis, Richard Branson) and the inbetweeners of capital allocators like Warren Buffett.

How it worked in the good old days

The whole wagon will continue rushing into the future. If it all breaks down completely (a situation where "end of the world" insurance would come into play, from Pearce:

"The existence of such manic trade created secondary explosions (or do I mean secondary deposits?) in the insurance world. Here the rule is the greater the likelihood of damage, the higher the premium. But the least probable horrors may be insured against at modest cost. The top point is called "end of the world" insurance, the unthinkable: Hugo Chávez takes over the White House, the moon coming perceptibly nearer. It's so remote it's cheap, $2,000-$3,000 a year rents $10m worth. Or it did. That volume now sets you back $20,000-$30,000."

I know! WTH?) then at least capitalism, or at least the concept of trade, will survive.

A Self-Hating Pedant

...or should that be "A Pedant Who Hates Himself" or "A Pedant Which Hates Himself Because He Is A Pedant" or "A Pedant That Hates Himself, Due To His Pedantry."

Yes.

I am a pedant. I am not especially articulate, and I am not especially critical of others in most circumstances. However I have a verbal tic.

Every time someone is grammatically incorrect in speech, or mis-pronounces a word, I will respond with a correction.

Sometimes I manage to bite my tongue and get away with just thinking the criticism very loudly.

I am aware this is annoying and boorish and I can also bring to mind several occasions when it has got me into little social faux pas.

It is an artifact of my upbringing (and probably one that will, on balance, do more good than harm for me over the course of my life). One of my particular annoyances is when I want to use a word and suddenly realise that although I know perfectly well what it means and how it is spelt I don't know how to pronounce it.

Hegemony.

What? Exactly! Is the "g" like the "j" in "just" or is it like the "g" in "grandma?"

Thank goodness for Wikipedia and the phonetic alphabet.

Anyway Marcel Berlins has written a stock journalistic article: "let's do something really straightforward and easy to make the world a better place."



A long time ago USAmericans, Canadians, and Australians (and New Zealanders, possibly) rationalised their versions of English by pronouncing clerk as "clerk" rather than clerk as in "Clarke" (as in Arthur C...). They also changed the spelling of "colour" to "color" and did a whole load of other sensible things.

But in the UK these words remain irrationally pronounced and spelt.

The reason for this is that there is a very strong vein of illogical, bloody-minded, stupidity in the British (the English, in particular)...

[ouch! my future self just dropped a few points in the speculative polls or whatever the hell the media uses to cripple the democratic process 20 years hence ... don't worry Future Self, you'd never make it as a Tory (you went to comprehensive school for gawd's sake). Go and try to get elected in Scotland. Bashing the English would probably win you some votes there. Go squander what remains of the oil money...]

...that results in things like this (crappy video link, SSM).

It also results in the sort of people whose sense of morality is based around the sort of trash Melanie Phillips writes in the Daily Hate Mail (she's only doing it because she gets paid more as a "right wing" blowhard than a "left wing" blowhard --- and more power to her for it!) getting shirty because something profoundly "British" like inches, pounds, ounces, and pronouncing ghoti "fish" (Google it or read Berlins) is being "attacked" by meddling bureaucrats from Brussels.



None of that was actually very clear, was it?

Essentially a key component of Britishness is doing something stupidly perverse just because you've always done it like that.

Beyond the point of being funny or endearing.

Seriously.



Also: the first two comments on that Marcel Berlins article have a rather lovely bit of pedantry...

A Commentary on Commentaries

At any given time there are a smattering of article in the dead tree press, blogs, websites, and magazine outlets worthy of perusal by anyone with a healthy interest in what is said about what goes on in the world.

Collected here are a few items that I feel are worthy of comment (I'm going to have one post per article, 'cause it's easier that way).

Privacy and social networking are two key components of the zeitgeist of social debate in the first decade of the 21st century. Zoe Williams writes in The Guardian writes of teenagers and online exhibitionism:

"...trying to inculcate discretion at a time when everybody is seeking exposure is like teaching abstinence at a time when all they want to do is have sex. Never mind the rights and wrongs of it, it doesn't work..."

There is no doubt that adolescence is a time when children are emotionally crippled by their own biology until they emerge, as if from a crysalis, into the neurotic grab-bag of talents, proclivities, and questionable ethics that makes up what passes to be a fully-functioning adult and denizen of the 21st century (that's an awful sentence, on two levels, but I will keep it because I enjoyed writing it - damn it!). However. I don't think teenagers are necessarily stupid.

This brings us on to the next key point in Williams' article. Something that has already occurred to most journos and commentators is that all this rubbish that is stuck up on social networking websites will (theoretically) still be there in the year 2020, when yours truly might be thinking of running for election to political office.

What's to be done? Williams suggests:

"...that 15 years hence, people won't need to be protected from their past excesses, because the very fact that this is a universal impulse that social-networking sites merely cater to, will mean that tomorrow's politicians will all have as many skeletons in their closets as one another. In fact, if you don't have a YouTube video from when you were 16, dancing to Britney Spears's Toxic, then it'll be as much an impediment to your public approval rating as being single is today."

This point is well made. I will now smatter this blog with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, safe in the knowledge that people will draw from this the conclusion that I am "genuine" and "honest about my mistakes."

However they could also conclude that I am too computer-illiterate to spellcheck my post!

[However if Ray Kurzweil is right, by 2020 the computers will have taken over in an event already being labelled as "the technological singularity" - if I'm capaigning on a pro-singularity ticket my spelling mistakes will be interpreted as an early and tacit recognition of the need to augment my feeble human intellect with a Mighty Processor. On the other hand if I'm going to campaign on an anti-singularity platform my PC-illiteracy will be seen as being evidence of my inherent suspicions of technology.]

The agony of indecision! I feel like the press is saying Gordon Brown must be feeling.

I don't owe the person who I will be anything. I would vote for him, but only after a close examination of the policies he supports on a variety of issues and the relative positions of his opponents.

In conclusion if, by 2020, we're still going on and on about politicians' personalities as if they mattered a gnat's shite then Dog help us, Dog help us all.

And You're Only Just Realising This?

There comes a point in every man's life when he realises that he is almost certainly never going to create one of the fundamental circuit elements of electronics.

Also: one of the things that struck me as odd about the recent discovery/invention was how old-fashioned a discovery it seems.

We are no longer used to "fundamental" breakthroughs in areas other than the biological sciences, as Charles Stross comments in this interview:

"We seem these days to be seeing new ground-breaking theoretical developments at a rate of one every six months to a year: breakthroughs on the same order as general relativity or quantum theory. (You don't see such breakthroughs routinely in physics, which is a relatively mature field, but if you look into the biological sciences equivalent breakthroughs appear to be coming thick and fast.)"

There is something wonderfully retro-1950s-buttoned-down-white-labcoat-brylcreme- and-horn-rimmed-glasses about the invention/discovery of the "memristor."

Sadly my knowledge of electronics is ever-so-slightly too limited to truly grasp the theoretical implications of this. However the practical implications look extremely interesting:

"Today, most PCs use dynamic random access memory (DRAM) which loses data when the power is turned off.
But a computer built with memristors could allow PCs that start up instantly, laptops that retain sessions after the battery dies, or mobile phones that can last for weeks without needing a charge."

I spend at least ten minutes every morning waiting for my PC to power up at work (yes I know I could agitate for a better PC... but [deleted due to imminent curtailment of career prospects - free speech go hang]).

Imagine all the time you've spent waiting for a PC to power up: adding up all those two to three minute gaps could make a lot of difference in the world. You probably wouldn't even notice power cuts.

Of course my reading of this is that "instantly" means within a second or two and that the computer would retain the current session.

Anyway there's another thing off my list of things to do before I die...

C'est la vie.

Quotation Phase Space

There is a phase space of excellent quotations.

As the human race progresses human thought will expand through this phase space.

One day in the dim and distant future every thought that can be expressed will be expressed beautifully.

However as things are today this cannot be so.

So I have to add a lenthy addendum; what applies to programming languages also applies, in a slightly altered form, to natural language.

Natural language and expression can either be practical (easy to create and understand, efficient, complete) or beautiful (witty, concise, pleasing to read and hear).

Sometimes it is both.

The quality of being concise in natural languages can be both practical and beautiful. It depends on the user. Sometimes superfluous words aid understanding to someone who is new to the idea, but cause irritation to someone familiar with the idea.

On the other hand in some situations it is important that meaning be transferred as quickly and accurately as possible.

As such safety instructions are rarely written in iambic pentameter.

"Behind the line of white could patrons please remain."

or

"Beware the dog that lives within."

Perhaps one day we will learnt he basic principles behind the creation of natural language, and perhaps then we will be able to "create" one that works really well.

Someone Within Earshot is Perpetrating Morris Dancing

And as such I am doing a roundup of definitions:

Culture: something invented by the Victorians to describe the things people did that weren't directly connected with business, science, sex, politics, or making things.
Culture is nowadays afforded too much respect and taken too seriously.

Politics: the name for the study and practice of groups of people make decisions. It has the potential to be an enlightening and enjoyable experience but is generally irritating, boring, and full of pointless meetings and unnecessary complaining.

Voters: the cause of most of the problems facing any democratic country.

Technology: a much-overused word that should be avoided, if at all possible, in any discussion involving practical problem-solving. It is a general term for a massive variety of things and should be treated as such.
Also it is not synonymous with "consumer electronics" - whatever the BBC and every other news outlet seems to think.
"Technology" is any tangible or material product of the human mind.

Economics: the study and practice of how scarce resources like time, energy, materials and work are distributed.

Money: an arbitrary unit that equates to a certain amount of a particular resource. Money is used to distribute resources.

Those Morris Dancers are still at it!

Back

Sorry for my silence over the last few days. Stuff's been happening.

Anyway I've found a new idle hobby: browsing through the images of the space in which people work on Flickr's Workspace Karma Pool and workspace.

There is something oddly compelling about workspaces. They are a reflection of our passions, desires, neurosese, habits, beliefs and ideosyncracies - a sort of voyeurism of the soul.

Voyeurism in general seems rampant on the web. Anyone who comments on FaceBook will mention the compulsively stalkerish aspect of it.

Privacy, at least as baby boomers understand it, will become a scarce and valuable commodity over the next fifty years.

Addendum: Also, what is with men and Moleskine notebooks? They're great, but most of the satisfaction in them comes from telling other people men how great they are.

This creates a pyramid-scheme-style cascade of smugness, starting with the likes of Mark Twain 100 years ago and carrying on to the present day.

And of course they are great. I mean they really are. They perfectly designed notebooks, and they cost a little more than most, but it's worth it.

Nootropics and Alterable Brains

One of my big philosophical hangups is the nature of the Self. What defines what we are? I don't believe in the idea of soul (although I love Soul music...).

However I also believe that our physical brains are malleable enough to alter any identifiable characteristic of our personalities; our temperament, how we respond to different stimuli, how we react to situations; our emotional, social, philosophical, and intellectual temperaments...

All these can be altered by the twisting and rewiring of neurons in the brain.

This is a fascinating story in The New York Times about Dr Anne Adams, a teacher and scientist, who suffered from a neurological condition called frontotemporal dementia.

This caused her skills, abilities, and interests to shift away from mathematical, language-based, and scientific, and towards visual, spacial, and artistic.

FTD also changes your temperament.

Another story I noticed in the news today was a feature in The Independent about nootropics: these are drugs that improve the abilities of the brain in certain ways.

This sort of technology and this area of study is going to do the same for the 21st century what automobiles, HTA flight, and computers did for the 20th.

We don't even have the language required to describe many of the ideas of how our brain works and psychology and neurobiology are surrounded by myths and perceived weirdness.

Combining greater understanding with an ability to combat pathologies of the brain and even alter the brain to improve it's abilities will lead to a revolution, not just in medicine, but a revolution in what it means to be human.

Whining about My Generation

Considering the environment within which we have been brought up, I am disappointed in my generation.

If there is something we don't approve of we blog, or we set up Facebook groups.

Although we are supposedly incredibly "tech savvy" we only interact with technology in a fairly peripheral way. In fact there is currently a shortage of skilled, creative young programmers.

We don't take action.

It is possible that this is simply a demographic trend. But we are luke-warm on any political or ethical issue.

I, personally, have no strong beliefs whatsoever, but to hear myself going on you'd think I should be doing something to encourage my peers to action over the issues that matter.

But I honestly can't be arsed. Someone else do it. Or pay me...

Oh OK, my generation is pretty good. But we do whine a lot.

More Felix Dennis

Felix Dennis made the front page of The Times today with this interview in which he claims he “killed a man.” It’s an extraordinary claim to make. From what I’ve read about the man it might just be possible; but it is far more likely that it is part of his usual self-aggrandising self-promotion.

Opinion, Belief, Greg Egan and Philip K Dick

I’m currently reading Greg Egan’s Axiomatic. It is a collection of short stories. The ideas in them are extraordinary.

I have certain moral, ethical, and political beliefs. However I know that if a sufficiently strong argument was made against any of these beliefs I could change my mind. I also know that if a billion tiny nanomachines were injected into my skull and rearranged the structure of my brain they could also change my mind.

If, like me, you have decided to reject the idea that human beings are “defined” by an immortal soul then you are left with a wholly materialist (or “physicalist,” as materialist has the wrong connotations...) view of what a person is.

The physicalist view is that everything that makes up a human being can be expressed in the ordinary matter of the universe as we understand it at this point. We don’t have to invoke anything metaphysical to explain consciousness, love, art, mind, personality, or free will.

And if this physicalist view is correct then whenever we change our minds the person we were dies and becomes the person we are now. Of course this is nonsensical. Human beings are dynamic: changing with time. Phillip K. Dick spent a lot of time thinking about these topics:

The two basic topics which fascinate me are "What is reality?" and "What constitutes the authentic human being?" Over the twenty-seven years in which I have published novels and stories I have investigated these two interrelated topics over and over again. I consider them important topics. What are we? What is it which surrounds us, that we call the not-me, or the empirical or phenomenal world?

If my most fundamental beliefs; including: “I love my family” and “killing people is wrong” can be altered in this way then what is it about me that can truly be described as me?

The basic atoms I am made of are constantly in flux, and are rarely the same for more than a month or so. The shape of the pattern of these atoms also changes over time. I have a beginning and an end, and I am of finite physical size. I probably have more in common with people my own age than I do with my “self” from ten years ago.

So what gives? What am I? Does this question mean anything and if so, what is the answer? Egan’s book explores all these themes in a fascinating and readable way. Egan isn’t so arrogant as to offer answers, but he is uniquely gifted in posing the questions.

On Steampunk Design

One of my favourite SR subgenres is that of "steampunk." I love Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age and Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships.

Recently there have been a number of steampunk style casemods. These are great.

Part of the idea of steampunk is a celebration of the mechanisms within the machine itself.

There is also romance. The "style" of Steampunk, as exemplified by Alan Moore's depiction of The Nautilus in his The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series.


This "Bi-Orbital Spectral Audiometer" from Professor Emilio Zanturas is an example of a Steampunk style machine where the romance and style is more dominant than the fundamental mechanisms, which are hidden from view.


Here is another rather lovely Nautilus-inspired movie theatre from the designers of Tokyo Disneyland:


Combining this celebration of the mechanism with Victorian-era materials like brass, riveting, mahogany panelling, and a bespoke finish has lead to some amazing creations, all lovingly catalogued by the superlative Boing Boing.

RIP Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke is dead.

I'd have really liked to have met the guy at some point.

Clarke wrote the first ever "grown up" book I ever read: 2010: A Space Odyssey.

The Asus Eee, Google and Cloud Computing

I saw an Asus Eee in an electronics shop today. It is qualitatively different from any laptop I have ever seen. It has the feel of a child’s plaything, and carries the same air of cheapness.

As Charles Stross says, the laptop and PC are both heading for a period of commoditisation. As the cost of laptops, PCs, and consumer electronics in general start to fall they will become as expendable as pocket calculators and digital watches.

Aside from the size, the two things that struck me about the Asus Eee are how quickly it starts up, and the operating system. The OS is some Linux derivative. Because the Eee has a solid-state hard-drive and no disk drive it has no moving parts (except for the hinge and keyboard) and as such immediately feels less fragile than a normal laptop. There are no air vents either. Altogether it gives the impression of something you can pour tea on and drop on the floor and it will still work.

The OS is pretty straightforward. There is no messing around with desktop metaphors. There is a simple tab-based menu system with applications grouped into web, office, games, education etc. A great deal of the Eee functionality is based on connections with the Internet, and specifically with the web.

As I said, the laptop restarts in seconds. One of the single biggest causes of minor stress in my life is slow computers. It is a joy to finally discover one that starts in less than ten seconds.

These days most laptop/PC functionality for the casual user is connected with the Internet. Even office programs are now being brought online. Games are now played online. Programs can be developed online (I can’t actually bring an example of this to mind but I know they are there).

Would I buy an Asus Eee? Yes. If I had the disposable income, and if I actually needed one, and if I didn’t know that before my current lappy conks out there will be many cheaper and better laptops in the same league of cheapness and niceness as the Eee.

Google and Cloud Computing

If the Eee teaches us that laptops will become (even) cheaper and (more) ubiquitous then other movements in the world of technology show us even more about the nature of the world ahead.

One of the big buzzwords of recent months has been the idea of “cloud computing” where instead of running programs on a box on your desk, you just enter the data and the commands and they are actually processes in a big “cloud” out on the Internet. Eee-style computers will presumably one day be connected to the Internet via high-bandwidth links and farm out surplus processing to large servers many kilometres away.

Companies like Google have recently been moving towards support of this sort of computing. The Register article where I first noticed this is here. Those at The Register use the charming phrase data smelters (coined here) to describe the vast powerhouses of computation that exist for the purpose of swapping bits in the service of the Net.

The problem for Google is that what they really have (and all they’ve ever really had) is a good search algorithm, a superb brand, and a lot of computers. The search techniques that made Google so successful have now been copied by other search engines. The brand remains as strong as ever, and will be crucial to Google’s long term survival.

The last point: the lot of computers, gives us our glimpse into the future, not just of Google, but of computing in the second quarter of the 21^st century. Vast data-warehouses connected via high-bandwidth links to thin clients like the Asus Eee.

Moore’s Law will probably chunter along for another few decades and then we’ll be left with ludicrously cheap laptop/mobile form-factor devices equipped with prodigious memory and processing power themselves, but connected via high-speed links to processing yards many orders of magnitude more powerful.

Every individual on the planet will own one of these cheap laptop/mobile form-factor devices but only the largest companies and states will be able to pay the huge costs of running the data centres.

Of course this could all be complete rubbish. It could be that swarm computing networks will emerge that reject the centralised client-server model in favour of a more egalitarian “flat” model without hierarchies.

Anyway: I’m willing to bet an Asus-Eee-equivalent of 2018 (i.e. £50 or thereabouts) that the next major upgrade of the MacBook family will involve a solid-state hard-drive.

Tom out.

UPDATE 21/03/2008: Goodness me I am such a fool. The most recent update of the MacBook family, the MacBook Air, does have a solid-state hard-drove option.

Morals and Markets with Robert Skidelsky

Economics boffin Robert Skidelsky has written an interesting article over at CiF about the morality of capitalism, this is my paragraph-by-paragraph response:

"...Because no social system can survive for long without a moral basis..."

This isn't really correct. Slavery persisted for centuries in the ancient world as the economic prime mover and yet was and is morally suspect.

"...It has often been claimed that capitalism rewards the qualities of self-restraint, hard work, inventiveness, thrift, and prudence. On the other hand, it crowds out virtues that have no economic utility, like heroism, honour, generosity, and pity..."

I think this depends on other cultural factors. Capitalism may encourage or discourage certain characteristics, but it doesn't mean these don't exist.

Also it isn't entirely true that honour and generosity are "crowded out" - good businessmen and businesswomen know the value of honour and generosity.

"...For quality of life, we have to rely on morals, not markets..."

This is very true.

"...But it is truer to say that the market economy is sustained by the stimulation of greed and envy through advertising..."

I wonder if it is useful to distinguish between capitalism and consumerism, and if it is useful to distinguish between "good" (buying organic, locally produced, low-CO2-profile vegetables) consumerism and "bad" (cigarettes) consumerism?

"...In a perfectly competitive market, with full information, models of the market show that all the factors of production receive rewards equal to their marginal products, ie all are paid what they are worth..."

As in the market, so in life. If everyone had "full information" we'd all be much happier. But because having "full information" is unfeasible it isn't useful to use this as a stick to beat capitalism with.

"...But no actually existing capitalist market system spontaneously generates justice in exchange..."

This is why liberal democracies have (democratically elected) representatives who control the state and who provide justice.

"...That is why the liberal theory of justice demands at a minimum equality of opportunity: the attempt - as far as is compatible with personal liberty - to eliminate all those differences in life chances arising from unequal starting points..."

Sorry, I should read down further before I comment. I agree completely.

"...Finally, the claim that everyone is - under ideal conditions - paid what they are worth is an economic, not a moral, valuation..."

Yes, I agree with this.

"...The simplest way of doing this is to restrict advertising. This would prune the role of greed and envy in the operation of markets, and create room for the flourishing of other motives..."

Governments do restrict advertising. "Re-moralising" wants is an interesting idea. But I don't see how "restricting" advertising accomplishes that.

Promoting morality is a difficult thing to do without being morally puritan and judgmental of other people's pleasures.

I would say that a good step would be to replace "RE" lessons in UK schools with "morality and ethics" lessons where students were taught about different moral and ethical structures and asked to consider moral and ethical problems.

Word of the Day: Agonism

Agonistic pluralism is the idea that we will never eliminate all the divisions and differences of opinion in society, and that it is unwise to try. It also means individuals can win and succeed, but not forever and not in everything. You can be President of the United States but not for more than eight years. You can build up a big corporation but not a monopoly.

Rather than try to destroy what are really irreducible differences of opinion; as liberalism, socialism, capitalism, and all the other political and economic ideologies attempt to do, agonism tries to find ways to accommodate disagreement and pluralism.

I stumbled across this concept today whilst reading Lady of Mazes by Karl Schroeder. This is a superb transhumanist, post-singularity, hard SF novel that deals with some interesting ideas about reality, democracy, and the future of humankind.

I strongly recommend everyone read this book. If you don't like it then I clearly do not have the same taste in literature as you do. Neither of us is right or wrong, so what does it matter?

Addendum: I know this doesn't affect irreducible differences, but there are some things that are considered (almost) universally bad and as such will still be considered bad in a agonistic situation.

del.icio.us and 6pli

I've applied the ubercool data visualisation tool 6pli to my del.icio.us account: it's pretty awesome, and give me a new appreciation for how my interests overlap and relate to each other.


The results can be viewed for yourself here.

Saul Bass

A while ago I commented on a trend in the design of movie and TV programme credits.

I noticed this style again in the opening credits of the sublime Mad Men.



A casual reference in The Independent informed me that this style was pioneered by someone called Saul Bass.



This sequence is inspired. Saul Bass is truly the Duke Ellington of graphic design.

This style must be retro at the moment.

Politics

There are three distinct meanings of the word "politics."

1. The process by which groups of people make decisions.
2. The study of the processes, conventions, power structures, rules, laws, ideologies, and schema involved in the making of decisions.
3. The interactions between people involved in the process of making decisions.
   

The difference between the first and third definition is nice, to the point that I can't be sure there really is a distinction.

I dislike "office politics" and I dislike the personality-based gossiping that passes for political commentary in many newspapers (ooh, get me! - but I actually think commentators should concentrate on policy, process, and personality in that order of importance rather than the other way round).

I am fascinated by ideology. I haven't really made any firm ideological political commitments yet. In the past I've tried to define what my political beliefs are, but I've decided to suspend this definition for the time being to concentrate on policy and problem solving.

Ubuntu Update

This is by way of being an update, rather than a full blown review.

There are many aspects of Ubuntu that I like and there are some I dislike. The ones I like are:

1. There is no need for tedious and memory-consuming virus scans.
2. When new hardware is plugged in Ubuntu waits for me to do something about it, instead of trying (and failing) to be helpful by providing Autorun features as Vista does.
3. Change is good. It's refreshing to use something other than Windows.
4. There seems to be much greater scope for personalisation than with Windows.
   

All these things said, for the average and casual user there isn't a great deal in any of this. Most of the above points are more to do with the general crapness of Windows rather than anything good about Linux/Ubuntu.

Things I don't like about Ubuntu:

1. After dual booting Ubuntu with Vista I can no longer disable my Synaptics touchpad.
2. Ubuntu does not include native support for DVDs or mp3 players. I know that this is a niggle and shouldn't be a big obstruction, but for the casual and lazy user (like myself) it is just irritating.
3. New things scare me.
   
4. Ubuntu defaults to being so like windows that there doesn't really seem to be much point.
   
5. I've been prodding the bash shell or whatever it's called and it's all very oldschool and cool but to be honest I don't want to have to learn a whole new language just to get my PC to work when a GUI would do. And yes, I know that I can do pretty much everything through the GUI but I'm lazy.

OK - my conclusion so far is that there really isn't much point to Linux. If it's ever going to go mainstream it will be through things like the Asus Eee, which Charles Stross comments on at length here.

I'm still having trouble understanding the ubiquity of Microsoft Office in business, when OpenOffice is free and does exactly the same thing (at least as far as 90% of corporate users are concerned).

I think when I buy a new PC or laptop the first thing I'll do is install Ubuntu and use it from day one. This way I will avoid falling into the habit of using Windows.

Who do They Think They're Kidding?

A while ago I commented on the peculiar way computer/web use is portrayed in advertising brochures for banks and universities and news websites.

I've found another one on the Java website!

Laptop-use in a forest!?

Outrageous!

Such free-thinking-ness is absurd!

What is this? xkcd land?

Because that would be really cool!

Rudy Rucker and the Singularity

To quote from Rucker's post:

"This is because there are no shortcuts for nature’s computations. Due to a property of the natural world that I call the “principle of natural unpredictability,” fully simulating a bunch of particles for a certain period of time requires a system using about the same number of particles for about the same length of time. Naturally occurring systems don’t allow for drastic shortcuts."

Rucker's argument is fair enough as far as it goes but the whole point of the statistical mechanics invented by Gibbs and Maxwell and Boltzmann is that once you have enough particles in a system you can make accurate statistical statements about that system.

So we have the gas laws, the laws of thermodynamics etc.

Another point worth making is that current developments in spintronics (computations using the "spin" of electrons) offer a layer of computation beneath that of atomic matter.

I concede that at some point "fudging" will have to take place, but as I pointed out before: statistical mechanics isn't really fudging. Diffusion can be accurately modelled without having to model every single damn particle.

Anyway my gut feeling is that if something like a singularity happens it will be much weirder than simply grinding up the Earth into nanomachines then running a simulated Earth on the nanomachines.

I mean c'mon, if you're a superhuman intelligence what's the first thing you're going to do? Create the perfect lay? Work out the formula for the perfect cup of tea (of course, according to Douglas Adams this is a much more difficult computational problem than most anything else...).

Neil Gershenfeld

I stumbled across this talk with MIT Bits and Atoms dude Neil Gershenfeld on Edge.org from way back in 2003.

I'm too exhausted to comment on it now. But I implore you, dear reader, take a few minutes out of your day and read what Prof Gershenfeld has to say.

I'll comment on this further later.

Information Overload

Hi, my name's Tom and I suffer from Information Overload.

Every day I open up my web browser. The browser currently contains tabs linked to slightly over 100 blogs, newspapers, magazines, and news sites.

On a typical day each of these sites will have a couple of articles worth reading, but call it one article for simplicities sake.

On average each of these articles is around 500 words long.

That's roughly 50 000 words every day.

At the moment I'm also reading Lady of Mazes by Karl Schroeder, and Java for Dummies by Barry Burd.

I have a box of books in my bedroom and another virtual boxload in my Amazon wish list.

I also have a 9:00 - 17:00 job.

Something needs to be done.

But what?

....

RSS feeds have never impressed me. Taking blogs, mulching them up and squeezing them into an email format doesn't appeal.

The challenge then is to find a service or piece of software that combines several blogs together without pissing me off.

I would first have to define exactly what I wanted. This is actually pretty hard.

If anyone has any ideas I'd appreciate them. I haven't thoroughly researched RSS feeds and similar services and if I'm missing something I'd appreciate being told about it.

Mania

Like most people I have a few neurotic manias.

One of them is the one where I compulsively switch off wall sockets that don't actually have an appliance plugged into them.

I'm trying to wean myself off this as there is no discernible benefit.

However there is also my inability to tolerate TV screens left on standby. This is fairly reasonable as that TV is consuming valuable 'leccy but not actually being used. The puritan in me also suspects that getting up and turning the box on reduces sloth.

So standby button are bad for the soul.

The hotel across the street recently had a new wall-mounted flat-screen TV installed.

The room is unoccupied now but I can see that little red dot floating in the darkness...

...taunting me...

It would be the work of moments to email the hotel requesting they replace the offending item with a TV not equipped with a standby button.

..................

[some smart-arsed blogging title like "Maxed Out" or something...]

You remember that Max Gogarty thing a few weeks ago?

To summarise: some 19-year-old guy was planning on blogging his gap year experiences (P.S. I'm kind of technically on a gap year and I'm also 19 years old) through The Guardian.

Guardian Unlimited and CiF being what they are his first post (which was to a reasonable standard, certainly better than my own scrawlings) was soon inundated by sneering comments.

The usual hazing then turned into a flaming of thermonuclear proportions as it emerged that Max Gogarty was the son of The Guardian's travel writer Paul Gogarty.

I read Max's blog post after reading Andy Pietrasik's response at the time and my immediate response was anger directed not at Max himself, but rather at the troops of anonymous drones who spent their day writing venomous comments about the Gogartys, The Guardian, and how this was as foul a piece of nepotism as the world has seen since James Murdoch was appointed CEO of BSkyB (and I'm not just saying that 'cos I didn't get the job).

I even wrote a blog post about how annoying I find the majority of the commenters on CiF (which I didn't publish because I felt it lacked panache).

But now I've changed my mind. I've decided I find the majority of commentators in The Guardian more annoying than the idiots who comment on CiF.

There's something about the London-centric, hand-wringing, do-gooder, middle-class, Radio 4-listening-to, we-should-be-in-charge, Save the Polar Bears, Gordon's All Right Really, pompous, Oxbridge, media intelligencia that really sets my teeth on edge.

But what exactly is it that I find so irritating? I listen to Radio 4 and I like London and I think Gordon's all right really. So why do I find Polly Toynbee and George Monbiot and David Aaaaronovitch (or however many as he has in his damn name) so irritating?

Maybe my irritation stems from the fact that I feel I ought to be tribally loyal to these loudmouths in the face of the Richard Littlejohns and Melanie Phillipses of this world and my rejection of their values constitutes a heretical offense.

Maybe it's because, like all bloggers, deep-down I secretly long to be a London-based urbanite intellectual?

Or maybe it's because intelligent bloggers like Chris Applegate at qgwhlm whose views I respect and agree with also think this is damn nepotism and so do random but pretty good blogs that Applegate points to here like The Last Bus Home.

Although I broadly agree with Rafael Behr that this constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment targeting an innocent I also agree with CiF commenter oniongravy here. This storm in a nanocup does demonstrate one of the little faultlines in the UK today - that between those who live in London and write articles for quality newspapers (and most of the crap newspapers as well) and everyone else.

Britishness

Like most young people I'm used to being told that "things aren't as good as they used to be" or that the world's been going to Hell in a hajib since 1968.

Usually I dismiss this as fairly run-of-the-mill middle-aged-ness but occasionally I come across a genuinely thoughtful observation of how Britain has changed. This article at The Times by Minette Marrin doesn't actually contain any but it does discuss the effect of the belief that things ain't what they used to be has on people, specifically middle class (ugh) people.

I seem to have lost my thread....

OK: here it is again.

Britishness.

The state or the government, civil service, and public bodies in general are there to do their damn job and provide services effectively using tax appropriated from workers, companies, and tariffs.

The state is certainly not there to define moral values. The legislature obviously has to bear in mind commonly held moral beliefs and ethics but it has no place in defining them.

Judicial bodies have some say in the nature of morality and what constitutes legal behaviour but judges again have to bow to commonly held beliefs about what is right and wrong when they make their decisions.

The people who define what is right and wrong are the people. Individuals have to make choices in how they behave, and as it doesn't make any sense to discuss individuals without discussing society (the former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was quoted out of context on that one) then larger groups, tribes, and communities have to be brought in to chew the fat and make relative judgments on morality.

The state, in the form of the executive government, bureaucracy, legislature and judiciary have a small role to play in this process but in a democratic state should bow to the will of the majority.

So any discussion of "Britishness" is useless (i.e. this blog is useless, but I mean any serious discussion of Britishness --- actually now I come to think of it taking the piss out of the debate is probably the only thing everyone has in common when it comes to discussing Britishness, so in a way I suppose taking the piss is British...).

Forcing an ethical structure on groups of people from outside or from the higher power of the state or church is counterproductive and generates resentment and conflict.

"Shared values" are exactly that. If everyone in Britain suddenly took a liking for wanking-cherub-style water-features then we would say that Britishness was about liking wanking-cherub-style water-features.

In other words, "Britishness" and the "shared values" of the British people are defined by the British people as they are now, not by Gordon Brown or Minette Marrin or Paul Dacre or any other politician or commentator.

Of course these people are fully entitled to express their opinion as to what Britishness ought to be, and I'm fully entitled to complain about their pomposity and presumption.

'Cos it's freedom of speech, innit?

Call Centre

I recently got a job at a call centre. Working there is not quite the drone-like existence portrayed by the minions in Terry Gilliam's brilliant movie Brazil (I know it's a different context/background/type of drone-ishness but I wanted to use this clip):



Also I won't get the opportunity to practice my Eric Cartman-esque sales technique (we're not allowed to swear at customers):

[Damn Viacom took down the video!]

Watching Felix Dennis

It seems that Dennis Publishing is setting up a new venture: Bash the Boss.

Currently I'm thinking in terms of a website that reviews companies by virtue of how good they are to work for.

Or it could be a little game where you score points for punching your boss in the face.

Whatever, I wish the good people at Dennis Publishing every success.

Opinions

Who you are affects what you see as important and what opinions you have.

Recently there has been a debate on the comments pages of the main newspapers concerning Gordon Brown's obsession with "Britishness" and our "shared values."

It occurs to me that for the men and women of letters who, unsurprisingly, occupy the op-eds, editorials, and comment pieces in the mainstream media what matters are words, descriptions, names, titles, laws, treaties, phrases, syntax, semantics, symbolism, narratives, stories, and speeches.

If electrical engineers had such a powerful channel of communication then they would undoubtedly place more importance on practicalities such as how the national grid is set up, electrical component efficiency, and all manner of other eeng topics.

That is not to say that they would only talk about these topics, just as some commentators (most notably the excellent Johann Hari) occasionally deign to discuss practical topics.

Businessmen will opine on business matters, scientists will opine on scientific matters, and bloggers will rant about anything that takes their fancy (and perhaps occasionally stumble across something worthwhile in a million-monkeys-on-a-million-typewriters sort of way).

My point is that different people will always have different perspectives, as well as different ulterior motives.

Britishness is not something I personally give a damn about. I appreciate the arguments as to why Britishness is considered important but I still feel that it is being seized on as important not because it actually is but rather because it lies within the intellectual comfort-zone of the sort of people who write in newspaper editorials.

[Meta-commentary: damn, this came out all wrong. I'm pretty exhausted on account of having just come back from a week-long training junket, more on that and my new job later... Also I'll discuss Ubuntu later as well...]

Ubuntu Linux

As of today I am officially an Ubuntu Linux user. So far everything works very well.



Hooray!

Your move, Mr Doctorow...

Review: The Meaning of the 21st Century by James Martin

The basic thesis of this excellent book is that the 21st century will be a transformative era in human history, the book is partly in response to Lord Martin Rees' Our Final Century.

Unlike Rees, Martin is optimistic about human-beings surviving the 21st century. Martin feels that although the challenges are huge and there will be the potential for catastrophic failure (in the form of the human race ceasing to exist or civilization simply collapsing) we will still be able to tread a path to a better world.

James Martin believes that the trends in economic, demographic, technological, and social change will lead humanity into a period of history that will seem like white-water rafting after centuries of relatively smooth sailing.

Advances in areas like computing, nanotechnology, high-bandwidth communications, low-CO2 emitting power generation, genetic engineering of foodstocks and human beings, transhumanism, biotechnology, direct brain-computer links, and human augmentation will cause tremendous change and offer great promise.

But while this is happening there are also huge problems to be dealt with in the form of environmental degradation, climate change, collapsing of world fish stocks, overpopulation, nuclear war, bio-war, terrorism, failed states and poverty stricken "fourth world" countries.

After this transitional period we can build an ever more wonderful and exciting civilization.

Martin has faith in the idea of technological ingenuity and entrepreneurism solving many of the problems we are faced with.

The book reads rather like a series of slide presentations cobbled together. It's enjoyable to read and doesn't tax the mind with high-falutin' concepts (the book is apparently based on a TV series).

But I feel in his haste to make everything explicable and easy to understand Martin has left out some of the innate complexity in what he suggests.

For example his suggestions as to how to solve the problem of the development of dangerous technologies (genetically engineering viruses; cheap, portable nuclear bombs) are based around the precautionary principle, an idea I'm not entirely comfortable with.

The precautionary principle is applied when scientists are concerned that a particular line of research will lead to the creation of an immensely dangerous weapon. They will make a decision to stop pursuing that line of research.

The most obvious example is a smallpox virus, modified so as to be resistant to any vaccines that exist

The problem is that science thrives when there is a back-and-forth of knowledge and information. The precautionary principle would threaten that. If scientists decide to "hold back" in acquiring and disseminating knowledge and discoveries then the scientific community could become balkanised and fractured.

More seriously, just because one group of researchers (or their financial backers) decide to obey the precautionary principle doesn't mean there will be others who would seek their own advantage in the inaction and withdrawal of their competitors.

It is also likely that such a group will carry out their research in secret, without the overview and transparency required when dealing with potentially dangerous areas of research.

Any weapons or dangers that do emerge would then be completely hidden from everyone else, making the developments even more threatening and dangerous.

And if these weapons were used then none of the reputable and precautionary-principle obeying researchers would have the knowledge required to counteract the problem.

Although I believe advancing technology will render our current concepts of privacy irrelevant Martin is too keen to advocate extending state-control in the pursuit of terrorists.

However the vast majority of what he says makes sense. He is in favour of pebble-bed nuclear reactors, he is in favour of reducing population by educating and liberating women. He wants to extend to poor countries all the benefits and advantages of prosperous liberal democracies.

The book positively vibrates with buzz-words. One of the better ones is "eco-affluence". This is the idea that we can live happy and prosperous and enriching lives without destroying the environment. "Eco-affluence" will soon be picked up by politicians and used to describe an ideal situation for humanity.

He also discusses the idea of the singularity and non-human-like intelligence. NHL intelligence is distinct from "traditional" conceptions of AI because it concerns evolutionary programs, programs that try vast numbers of possible solutions to problems and select from those that work, learning techniques, pattern recognition and data mining.

In fact it concentrates on what computers have potential for and leaves human minds to do the stuff we have potential for, in conjunction with our computer helpers.

In conclusion, this is a must-read for everyone, particularly if you need a basic primer on where we're going as a species, the challenges we are faced with, what the opportunities are, and what human civilization will look like 92 years from now.

Pre-U

News that a new exam - the "pre-U" will be introduced in 2010 has me wondering what has to be done about education.

Education is an area where the genetic, biological, or innate predispositions of individuals come into conflict with the liberal desire for equality.

I have difficulty with the idea of intelligence, but I understand that "IQ" does correlate with financial success and other measures of success to a certain degree.

The difficulty is that it is arguably in the benefit of the "collective", or of society, to reserve the best education for those that will benefit most from it.

On the other hand you have the ideal of "comprehensive" education. It is often argued in support of comprehensives that they allow for everyone to access high standards of education (ideally) and therefore everyone achieves highly, not just those at the top of IQ/innate ability tables.

Someone who favours the "bipartite" system of elite grammar schools and comprehensive schools existing side by side would point out that many comprehensives (mostly, I understand, in inner-city areas) do not have particularly high standards of education.

A proponent of comprehensive schools would point out that comprehensive schools cannot be truly comprehensive if there is an elite alternative in the form of grammar schools or private schools.

In addition there are many comprehensive schools that are surrounded by middle-class families with "sharp elbows" that have bought homes with the strategic purpose of getting their kids into a "good school." These are hardly comprehensive, as poorer families are excluded because they can't afford the houses in an area with good schools.

This issue is also mixed up with ideas of class that are too prevalent in the UK. In somewhere like Germany or Sweden a plumber can look a physician in the eye without all the terrible overtones of class and status that plague us here in the UK.

To get back to the issue of pre-university examinations. I don't know if they are a good idea or not.

That's it.

What - you wanted me to construct some elaborate for/against argument and then plumb down on one side or the other?

I don't know the answer.

Why is it so difficult for journalists, commentators and politicians to admit, just for once, that they don't know?

Systems of Thought

The way I tend to view the world is in the form of a hierarchy of systems.

• At the most basic level everything is composed of waves, particles, and the forces that cause them to interact. It is at this level that the much-vaunted “theory of everything” will work. Other rules that work on this level are quantum physics and thermodynamics. This level is often referred to as “physics.”
• At the next layer of complexity everything is composed of molecules that interact in various ways. This level is often referred to as “chemistry.”
• Above we find the interactions of discrete cells in biological systems to create everything from neurons to connective tissue; from ivory to limestone.
• The next level consists of the creations of the human mind. This is everything that exists by virtue of human beings manipulating the layers below. Tools, engineering, electrical devices and artificial artefacts all fall into this category. However not all of the things at this level are material: some are expressed as patterns of information in material. Things like language (both human and computer), philosophical concepts like truth, beauty, morality and law, systems of rules and interactions.
• Above this comes the interactions between minds and the creations of the human mind. Politics and economics come into play at this level. So does literature. The difference between this level and the previous level is vague. Should “law” be considered something we hold within our minds or is it something we have “created” and that is held externally?
• Above this level is the sum of human endeavour. This could be described as “culture.” It is what Kevin Kelly might term “the Technium.” It is our civilization. It is where the Singularity will happen.

Freeconomy

This is brilliant.

From the BBC website:

"A man has started a two-and-a-half year walk from Bristol to India without any money - to show his faith in humanity.

Equipped with only a few T-shirts, a bandage and spare sandals, former dotcom businessman Mark Boyle is set to cross Europe and the Middle East."

The ideas of the "freeconomy" sounds a lot like anarcho-socialism promulgated in Ken MacLeod's The Cassini Division and Charles Stross' Accelerando (also available as a download here).

These are brilliant books, but the fact that someone is willing to experiment with a real Manfred Macx lifestyle is excellent.

Later:

After having thought about this for a while I realise why I am a filthy capitalist and why what Mark Boyle is doing is admirable but ultimately less-than-optimal.

Human beings will always trade and exchange goods and services. All money does is create a communal illusion of the value of a piece of paper or plastic that allows transfer of goods and services to be more efficient.

As a reformed Catholic I am also tempted to point out that freeconomy falls foul of the general question: "what if everyone behaved like this?"

In other words, if everyone decided to up sticks and travel across Eurasia with nothing but a pair of sandals and a can full of B.O. then pretty soon civilization would collapse and millions would starve as a result.

This is why anarcho-communism/syndicalism/socialism doesn't stand a chance. As a very general rule co-operation tends to be of a self-interested nature.

The ethic of reciprocity works. There may be an evolutionary basis for morality. This is heavy stuff.

Anyway good luck to Mr Boyle. I imagine he will be treated as a sort of mendicant monk.

Theatrical Stuff this Week

On Monday and Tuesday this week I saw Shakespeare's Henry IV part 1 and part 2 at the Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.

I strongly advise everyone to see these excellent plays. I admit that when it comes to Shakespeare I find the language a little difficult, but when the acting is of such high quality understanding roughly what's going on is fairly easy.

Falstaff, played by the wonderful David Warner, was particularly entertaining.

I also suggest any readers who do visit Stratford patronise the Chaucer Head Bookshop, now the only independent second hand bookshop in Stratford.

On Friday I went to the Impro at Playbox theatre company, which was absolutely splendid.