For a very long time, Christianity and Judaism ruled in America. People were indoctrinated into a culture that emphasized Judeo-Christian values, and those values were placed at the forefront of our society from cradle to the grave. It was a very good system that ensured that people behaved themselves, which is a key characteristic to a society that functions well. Not perfectly, but well.
Then came the second world war. An entire generation of Americans went to war, facing a range of experiences that ranged from unpleasant to horrific. Those that returned from battling enemies around the world had a very natural reaction to peacetime: "go for it". I have never experienced war, but I can well imagine that the victors of a war that involved everyone in the nation could well have an attitude of celebration. And celebrate is exactly what America did.
The 1950s were an economic boomtime for America. Material goods flowed from our factories, and wealth was created at an astonishing pace. Conveniences that were unheard of before the war became commonplace. It was truly a time of social upheaval, except that the nation was so busy enjoying the fruits of success that nobody really noticed.
Then came the 1960s, which was when the children of the veterans of the second world war became teenagers. They were born as early as 1945, making them 15 in 1960. They were the vanguard of what we know now as the members of the "baby boom"; all those servicemen full of victory, vitality and that "go fr it" attitude were having babies. But they were so busy either "going for it" or instilling that same attitude in their children that those age-old Judeo-Christian values simply weren't being made the cornerstone of the American ethic.
The final nail in the coffin of the Judeo-Christian ethic in America was the advent of a number of new and dramatic technologies. Perhaps the poster child of these is the computer, which has revolutionized most aspects of life in America. That revolution has taken place so quickly that the elderly have no notion of how life works with the new technologies. Their experience is rendered inconsequential. At the same time, the young are able to adapt to the new technologies without conscious thought.
Now consider the effect of having a large population of young adults who were raised with an attitude of "going for it", living in a society that dramatically changes from decade to decade. That same society is democratic, meaning that that large population of young adults has a significant say in how the society will reward or punish a number of behaviors via the laws and ordinances that structure the society. Unfortunately, the value of the old-fashioned Judeo-Christian ethic to the society was overlooked in all the excitement, and fundamental values were not being instilled in any systematic way.
So the ultimate result of all this is that our society tripped. A generation of parents coming back from the second world war were too much changed by their experiences to have the energy and enthusiasm to sort through the good and bad habits of their children in a dynamically-changing environment. As a result, too many of those children turned to their instincts instead of those Judeo-Christian ethics. That was the point at which America tripped. A healthy stride had been broken.
Today, the children of the baby boom are approaching retirement, perhaps the golden age of their lives, where they have the opportunity to demonstrate their accumulated wisdom from the past 60 years. Unfortunately, the boomers seem to be more focused on remaining young and enjoying their retirement decades as they enjoyed their earlier decades. Viagra, cosmetic surgery and knee replacements may be the focus of that generation.
I like to think that Americans are so blessed that we have the time and resources to become a nation of philosopher kings. A democratic society so capable, so aware of the good and bad points in the nature of humanity that we can offer remarkable insights to others - and govern our own inevitable failings with grace and dignity. I believe that we have been on that path for two hundred years, barring our recent stumble triggered by the events of the second world war.
I look forward to the generations to come to recognize the way that the second world war impacted the development of our society and to put right the wrongs that we have committed to law for our citizens. I hope that we have retined the wisdom to again turn to the path of developing a nation of philosopher kings. As children, we are going to be indoctrinated into some set of values. Why not those of philosopher kings?
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Man versus Machine
In the song "John Henry", a man labors his utmost against a steam engine that is competing to drive a piling into the ground. Some variations have him drilling into rock, but the essential point of the story is that the man valiantly struggles to win out over a machine. In the song, John Henry wins, but dies of his labors.
I have always viewed this from the vantage of an engineer. John Henry didn't die because of a struggle with a machine. He died because of a struggle with thousands of other men. The steam engine is simply the embodiment of their imagination, skill and labors through the generations as we have sought to create tools to make our labors more manageable. John Henry could undoubtedly have won out over the machines for a very long time, but ultimately a machine was going to be created that could overmatch him. The song "John Henry" is about the point where man and machine are evenly matched.
The same process will happen with intelligence in machines. That intelligence will exist as a result of the labors of thousands upon thousands of scientists and engineers who will create, refine and tweak technique after technique until ultimately machines will be created that will be able to figure out how to walk, to talk, to work and - ultimately - to be creative. All of this will happen because of the millions of incremental improvements that smart men and women will apply to the basic capacity for decisionmaking that exists in computers today.
Today, we use the calculating ability of machines to help us solve creative problems. We do the creative work. Yet someday in the future, we will have advanced machines to the point where they can creatively solve problems on their own. Such as how to make machines better than they themselves are. When that happens, we will have been surpassed in intellect by our own creations. I believe that it is inevitable, but it's not something that will happen in my lifetime. At the current pace of technological advance, I'd guess perhaps another 100 years.
A final thought on this is that if we are going to embody intelligence and creative thought into machines, we may want to make sure that we know exactly what rules of operation we want those machines to operate under. Until we can figure out the rules under which we ourselves must operate, it will be dangerous to embody any rules into our machines when our machines will ultimately act on those rules more forcefully, whether physically or intellectually, then we ever could.
I have always viewed this from the vantage of an engineer. John Henry didn't die because of a struggle with a machine. He died because of a struggle with thousands of other men. The steam engine is simply the embodiment of their imagination, skill and labors through the generations as we have sought to create tools to make our labors more manageable. John Henry could undoubtedly have won out over the machines for a very long time, but ultimately a machine was going to be created that could overmatch him. The song "John Henry" is about the point where man and machine are evenly matched.
The same process will happen with intelligence in machines. That intelligence will exist as a result of the labors of thousands upon thousands of scientists and engineers who will create, refine and tweak technique after technique until ultimately machines will be created that will be able to figure out how to walk, to talk, to work and - ultimately - to be creative. All of this will happen because of the millions of incremental improvements that smart men and women will apply to the basic capacity for decisionmaking that exists in computers today.
Today, we use the calculating ability of machines to help us solve creative problems. We do the creative work. Yet someday in the future, we will have advanced machines to the point where they can creatively solve problems on their own. Such as how to make machines better than they themselves are. When that happens, we will have been surpassed in intellect by our own creations. I believe that it is inevitable, but it's not something that will happen in my lifetime. At the current pace of technological advance, I'd guess perhaps another 100 years.
A final thought on this is that if we are going to embody intelligence and creative thought into machines, we may want to make sure that we know exactly what rules of operation we want those machines to operate under. Until we can figure out the rules under which we ourselves must operate, it will be dangerous to embody any rules into our machines when our machines will ultimately act on those rules more forcefully, whether physically or intellectually, then we ever could.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Recycling
There are two simple strategies that I'd like to see applied to manufactured goods in America:
1. Charge the manufacturer for the cost of recycling their products.
The State of Washington just put a law in the books that has to do with charging companies the cost of recycling or disposing of their goods once the consumer is done with them. I thought I was the only one who thought this was a no-brainer.
If I choose to make a product with lead in it, I should be prepared to pay the cost of recovering that lead when the product is being trashed. I should also be prepared to deal with the cost of disassembling my nightmare product that is composed of different materials that simply can't be recovered in any other way.
Why do this? So that companies have an incentive to make their products recyclable and/or have no impact on the environment (and us) when they are thrown away. Our scientists will be provided with an incentive to come up with processes and materials that permit products to be vaporized, or that will rot - or that will last for a very long time, reducing the need for so many of them. They will also have an incentive for improving the recycling processes. If a company comes up with a glue, they would also come up with the process for dealing with the recovery of products that contain that glue. Perhaps some substance that renders the glue completely inert.
We're already paying for the cost of the landfills with taxes, and companies produce whatever products they want, and we throw them out willy-nilly with our attitude of a Throwaway Society. Making the producers pay for the ultimate recovery of the products means that there is a complete product lifecycle that must be considered when coming up with a new product.
Ultimately, consider that any company that processes a product is responsible for the cost that their actions will ultimately impose on the final product. A company that welds steel together is likely going to be charged almost nothing. Their steel products can be melted down whether welded together or not. A company that paints steel will be charged considerably more, because that paint is not recoverable while it is still attached to the steel. It needs to be removed. The company that puts the paint on is responsible for paying for its removal. So goes the theory.
2. If it can't be recycled, categorize it and set it aside for the day that it can be.
Each time that I finish preparing food, I might end up with empty cans, or empty bottles, or even empty cardboard containers. These things I can toss into my large recycle bin in the belief that they will be recycled into new products or at least new containers. It galls me no end to find the wrong recycle code on plastic, meaning that my city won't recycle it. So it goes into the trash.
For example, my city recycles type 1 and type 2 plastics. All other types of plastic get tossed into the trash, to be landfilled. Well, if we know the type of plastic in something we're going to throw out, why don't we put it into another bin? Better still, separate type 1 and type 2 right in my home. This helps the recycling effort in my city, and reduces the number of smelly, rotten jobs that people have to hold, picking through all that combined waste at the recycling center.
Give me a glass bin, a metals bin, a paper bin, a type 1 plastics bin, and so on. Give me a dozen bins. I don't care. Just stop telling me to do stuff that leads to more gunk showing up in our landfills when we could be using this stuff to some purpose. Heck, even my organic garbage could go into a landfill dedicated to methane production. Today, it goes into the same vast pile of stuff that contains everything else that can't be recycled today.
1. Charge the manufacturer for the cost of recycling their products.
The State of Washington just put a law in the books that has to do with charging companies the cost of recycling or disposing of their goods once the consumer is done with them. I thought I was the only one who thought this was a no-brainer.
If I choose to make a product with lead in it, I should be prepared to pay the cost of recovering that lead when the product is being trashed. I should also be prepared to deal with the cost of disassembling my nightmare product that is composed of different materials that simply can't be recovered in any other way.
Why do this? So that companies have an incentive to make their products recyclable and/or have no impact on the environment (and us) when they are thrown away. Our scientists will be provided with an incentive to come up with processes and materials that permit products to be vaporized, or that will rot - or that will last for a very long time, reducing the need for so many of them. They will also have an incentive for improving the recycling processes. If a company comes up with a glue, they would also come up with the process for dealing with the recovery of products that contain that glue. Perhaps some substance that renders the glue completely inert.
We're already paying for the cost of the landfills with taxes, and companies produce whatever products they want, and we throw them out willy-nilly with our attitude of a Throwaway Society. Making the producers pay for the ultimate recovery of the products means that there is a complete product lifecycle that must be considered when coming up with a new product.
Ultimately, consider that any company that processes a product is responsible for the cost that their actions will ultimately impose on the final product. A company that welds steel together is likely going to be charged almost nothing. Their steel products can be melted down whether welded together or not. A company that paints steel will be charged considerably more, because that paint is not recoverable while it is still attached to the steel. It needs to be removed. The company that puts the paint on is responsible for paying for its removal. So goes the theory.
2. If it can't be recycled, categorize it and set it aside for the day that it can be.
Each time that I finish preparing food, I might end up with empty cans, or empty bottles, or even empty cardboard containers. These things I can toss into my large recycle bin in the belief that they will be recycled into new products or at least new containers. It galls me no end to find the wrong recycle code on plastic, meaning that my city won't recycle it. So it goes into the trash.
For example, my city recycles type 1 and type 2 plastics. All other types of plastic get tossed into the trash, to be landfilled. Well, if we know the type of plastic in something we're going to throw out, why don't we put it into another bin? Better still, separate type 1 and type 2 right in my home. This helps the recycling effort in my city, and reduces the number of smelly, rotten jobs that people have to hold, picking through all that combined waste at the recycling center.
Give me a glass bin, a metals bin, a paper bin, a type 1 plastics bin, and so on. Give me a dozen bins. I don't care. Just stop telling me to do stuff that leads to more gunk showing up in our landfills when we could be using this stuff to some purpose. Heck, even my organic garbage could go into a landfill dedicated to methane production. Today, it goes into the same vast pile of stuff that contains everything else that can't be recycled today.
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