Embraces Shorter-Term Thinking

[Image: NYSE by Flickr user Ernst Moeksis]

This stellar piece of reporting, published earlier in the month at Onionesque news site Red Tractor USA, speaks for itself.

NEW YORK – It was champagne and truffles on Wall Street last Monday as the Dow soared almost two whole points during a five minute period between 9:12 and 9:17 AM, EST. Market analysts assert that the extraordinary surge marks the end of the recent epoch-long depression, and signals a new era of extreme shorter-term thinking in American capitalism.

“We are confident that these amazing 293 seconds signal a full market recovery worthy of lavish celebration,” said stock trader Donald Hughes while lowering a small pistol that had just been pointing at his own head. “Ten minutes ago I had lost all I ever worked for, but now I know that my money is secure in a powerful and revitalized economy that could last all of an hour.”
…
In direct contrast to the historic recession of 2008, the economic condition following Monday’s Wall Street boom has proven to be one of increased spending and luxury. Many homeowners have already cashed out equity on their homes in order to purchase flat screen televisions, gasoline, and exorbitantly expensive lunches. Top investors are also urging the public to invest money in real estate and the stock market as, according to Warren Buffet, “This is the most stable economy we have witnessed since yesterday afternoon, and could carry us all the way through dinner.”

(Great find, Laura.)

The recent collision of two satellites in orbit represents a pretty serious problem for proponents of spaceflight.  Some scientists are discussing ways of cleaning up the increasing amounts of debris in earth orbit.  They’re worried that more and more junk flying around up there will make it difficult for humanity to reliably operate satellites or manned vehicles.

Trash in orbit isn’t a new issue – it came up a couple years ago as a result of the Chinese test to shoot down a satellite, though the debris concern was somewhat overshadowed by totally legitimate fears of the militarization of space.

What scientists and spaceflight supporters hope to avoid is what’s called the Kessler Syndrome – a chain reaction set off by debris collisions that cause more debris and, therefore, more collisions.  The result of this scenario is such a high risk of collision in orbit that it renders impossible many or all of the space-based activities that we currently take for granted.

NASA’s on the case, though, with their Orbital Debris Program Office at the Johnson Space Center.  The coolest thing on their site is a link to the facility where orbital debris collisions are modeled – the Hypervelocity Impact Technology Facility.  They use high-speed cameras, light gas guns and computer simulations (with video!) to explore how collisions at orbital velocity (kilometers per second) will effect various shielding materials.

The European Space Agency is also taking a serious look at the space debris problem.  Watch a video showing the build-up of orbital debris over the last 50 years on their Space Debris Spotlight page and check out their own work on hypervelocity impacts on the space debris section of their website.

Long Now member Tony Hansmann spotted this piece in the Wall St Journal which cites Stewart Brand’s quote on information in regard to the collapse of newspapers.

 One reason most media companies suspended normal business practices online, such as seeking subscription revenues, was a misinterpretation of one of the most powerful observations of the Information Age. When author Stewart Brand coined the expression “Information wants to be free,” he focused on how technology makes it cheap and easy to communicate and share knowledge. But the rest of his quote is rarely noticed.

This says, “Information also wants to be expensive.” The right information in today’s complex economy and society can make a huge difference in our professional and personal lives. Not having this information can also make a big difference, especially if someone else does have it. And for valuable information, online is a great new way for it to be valued.

The Long Now Foundation’s monthly Seminars About Long-term Thinking

Daniel Everett, “Endangered languages, lost knowledge and the future”

Friday March 20, 02009 at 7:30pm

Long Now Members  can reserve a seat HERE

 You can purchase tickets for $10 HERE

We recommend purchasing or reserving your seats in advance as our Seminars can sell out.  There is room for 100 walk-ups (60 seats) for the free simulcast in the Lobby; this is a separate line, so get there early!

 About this Seminar:

The Pirahã, a remote Amazonian tribe with little outside contact, have attracted the attention of mainstream media, scientists, zen buddhists, professors of religion, mathematicians, philosophers and others because of their unusual confluence of values, language, and culture.

Now, after 20 years of high intellectual and physical adventure living among them, Daniel Everett proposes a revolution in anthropology and linguistics: culture profoundly shapes language, even at the most fundamental level.

What happens when a language-culture pairing like the Pirahãs’ is lost? The Pirahãs are not alone in their lessons and knowledge for all of us — there are hundreds of endangered languages in the world — but they provide  a remarkably clear example of alternative knowledge and ways of talking of importance to all of us as we ponder how we should try to build future lives.

Everett is author of Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazon Jungle (02008) and is Chair of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Illinois State University.

The latest Seminars About Long-term Thinking are now available as audio downloads or podcasts and in hi-res video for Long Now members.

*Dmitry Orlov on “Social Collapse Best Practices” – audio up now

Two recent TED talks present a striking contrast in what the near-term future of human communication might be like — a multilingual world increasingly enabled by technology, or one where we all learn a lingua franca to participate in global public discourse.

Given that one out of every six people on the planet speak Mandarin as a native language, the latter possibility is easy to imagine. And, when you take second language speakers into account, English is certainly a contender for that number one spot, as Jay Walker’s recent TED University talk makes abundantly clear:

But what about when technology enters the mix? Taken in aggregate, the “long-tail” of languages (that is, everybody else) is a pretty big group. As websites and mobile communication devices increasingly enable electronic communication in the world’s languages, and people realize the advantages of communicating with people in the roughly 6,500 languages of “home and heart”… well, maybe the long tail is itself a contender.

Here’s a glimpse of what that future might be like:

This has to be one of the best, if not most humorous, perspectives on the progress of technology in our lifetimes that I have seen. Louis CK on Conan Obrien.

 The New York Times is carrying and interesting story on some of the oldest US bonds ever issued, which are coming due in 02009.  They are civil war bonds from 01868.  Ironic that we are just about to pay off our very first bonds in the same year that we are likely to incur the largest bond debt in the history of our nation (that is if China will buy it of course).

Wired has a great interview with an author named Maggie Jackson who has written a book about the neurobiological basis of attention and how it is affected by all the “lovely distractions” modern society provides.   Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age describes three types of attention – orientation, a general sense of awareness, and executive.  Her concern is that our modern technological culture is constantly distracting us – and that we like it.  Scientific American just ran an article about a study with similar findings:

Results suggested that thinking fast made participants feel more elated, creative and, to a lesser degree, energetic and powerful.

In the Wired interview, Maggie Jackson explains:

We are programmed to be interrupted. We get an adrenaline jolt when orienting to new stimuli: Our body actually rewards us for paying attention to the new. So in this very fast-paced world, it’s easy and tempting to always react to the new thing.

As great as all this stimulation make us feel, though, it complements a loss of the more deeply engaged sort of attention we need for the strategic planning and accomplishment of larger goals.  Unfortunately, she paints a dire picture – not only do we have a natural inclination to be distracted (on top of ample opportunities), but we are encouraged to by social pressures:

In our country, stillness and reflection are not especially valued in the workplace. The image of success is the frenetic multitasker who doesn’t have time and is constantly interrupted. By striving towards this model of inattention, we’re doing ourselves a tremendous injustice.

The negative side-effects of this increased level of distraction manifest at individual and societal levels:

This degree of interruption is correlated with stress and frustration and lowered creativity. That makes sense. When you’re scattered and diffuse, you’re less creative. When your times of reflection are always punctured, it’s hard to go deeply into problem-solving, into relating, into thinking.

Dark ages are times of forgetting, when the advancements of the past are underutilized. If we forget how to use our powers of deep focus, we’ll depend more on black-and-white thinking, on surface ideas, on surface relationships. That breeds a tremendous potential for tyranny and misunderstanding. The possibility of an attention-deficient future society is very sobering.

An ‘attention-deficient’ society obsessed with staying on top of things is a society that is stuck in the orientation phase of attention, makes snap judgments and is subject to the whims of cognitive shortcuts.

The distinction Jackson is illustrating through her research was summed up pretty well in one of Kevin Kelly’s blog posts on those who have ‘dropped out.’  He quotes Donald Knuth, who no longer uses email, saying, “Rather than trying to stay on top of things, I am trying to get to the bottom of things.”

Update: Interesting criticism/follow-up discussion on Mind Hacks.

Paul Saffo sent in a note about this sculpture he saw on his last trip to Germany.  It reminds me of the pack rat middens archaeologists use to determine ancient climate, but made out of human relics:

While in Germany on Monday, I came across this rather remarkable sculpture by Maarten Venden Eynde. (pictured above, more about it here.)

As the artist describes it, Mo(NU)mentum is a “monument for the future, visualizing the impossibility to continue the current evolution”.  And as a rather nice touch, the plastic champagne fluter which were used to serve champagne at the dedication were collected and melted into the top layer of the piece.

It is quite evocative in person, with the feel of a giant core through a vast stratigraphic column of civilization and the natural world.      -p