Disparate thoughts – tech & losing our humanity, pressures of “stuff”, meaning/purpose & Moby Dick, Jefferson’s re-constitution, & Michio’s migration to a parallel universe

1) Studying attention & memory as it is effected by the technology & pace of modern culture. Being off-grid & in nature repairs our tech-hysteria & dependence: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/technology/16brain.html?_r=0

2) Cartographic clues and cognitive overhead: Reading online doesn’t work properly, physical print helps you remember better.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3009366/leadership-now/you-wont-remember-this-article-or-anything-else-you-read-online-unless-you-pr

3) We pay a price for being over attached to tech – it is changing the way we behave, interact, and exist within the moment. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html

I love the notion that constantly filming your present puts you in a simulacram, where you are the future self reviewing your past at present. It’s a fascinating removal of oneself for reality. Barring a very rare moment, my wife and I *never* both have devices out, and exceedingly rarely have one device out in front of one another. Never, ever, ever at dinner / meals together.  Also, knowing we’re human and imperfect buffers the reality of when it happens (looking up a movie, restaurant reviews on the go, etc).

So 3-i) Digital Cameras are messing with your memory: http://www.fastcodesign.com/3023373/evidence/digital-cameras-are-messing-with-your-memory

4) Material items and stuff not only won’t make you happy, it makes you less happy. The brain craves experience and travels, not stress of things we don’t need: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/business/08consume.html

5) Vacations have been poisoned, of course: http://www.economist.com/node/16846330?story_id=16846330.  No one expects you to be on vacation anymore. With the fear mongering of assuming you are dispensible if you do go on vacation, might not be helping: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/11/20/vacation_day_underutilization_nobody_wants_to_reveal_how_replaceable_they.html

——————
Meaning and purpose are human concepts and don’t exist in any quantifiable manner. I keep telling people to reread moby dick to understand that Ahab was looking for meaning and purpose in a Godless universe (the whale representing both).  You can search for it all you want, during your life time, but the empty abyss of nothing comes for you, and takes you, regardless of whether you ever find it. Don’t waste your time looking for something, when the cold, stark reality of the universe will find you when the time is right.

————

So here’s the note where Jefferson suggest to Madison that the Constitution should be rewritten every 17-20 years because town councils will get co-opted and laws will become out of date.  He knew that entrenched democracies become corrupt oligarchies which, then, in turn, are no longer free.  You cannot enforce rules that are out of date and consider yourself free.

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-james-madison-17/

He knew this. Why do so many confused people extol the virtues of this obsolete piece of lambskin. Let’s talk about what needs reform:

Amendment 1 – never prepared for audio or video recording devices.

Amendment 2 – when they made that document, it took about 1m30s to load a gun. Now they have a million rounds a minute, not to mention larger munitions and delivery systems.

Amendment 4 – never took into account search and seizure in relation to 3rd party contracts, and how businesses handle your private/personal information & sells it to other parties.

It’s a smart doc with a good heart and values that can still apply in the way we draft a new one…. but it needs updating… desperately!

We do a disservice to the vast complexity of the necessary solutions needed, by blindly and simplistically shaking our fists over a noble but outdated piece of paper.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ideas-innovations/Should-the-Constitution-Be-Scrapped-189838121.html

—————–

Michio Kaku says we will resolve our dying universe’s inhospitality for our future human lives by migrating to a new universe.
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/06/the-human-species-will-one-day-migrate-to-a-parallel-universe-michio-kaku.html

He knows that this universe will end in too little energy, and not enough mass to make it collapse in on itself.  That is a cold and lonely death for us wee humans, to be sure.  But, Micio thinks we will migrate into an alternate dimension.

That stuff brought me back to life, a bit. Lovely. At least more imaginative and less deadened for the holiday spirit. =)

As a skeptic who wishes not to bungle stuff, this is obviously horseshit and we’re still doomed. But it can also be a fantastical warm blanket to the uninitiated, cannot it not?

Back to the lonely darkness of walking through life awaiting that painful dissolve of losing oneself and building doomed yet joyful memories to the vestibule and hallways of time.