Tag Archives: society

Lost in sensationalism

We’ve lost our plot as a species. We’ve lost our way. I haven’t been a fan of the news for a while now, but I still see enough of it to be disappointed and underwhelmed.

“If it bleeds, it leads.”

Give us the dirt, highlight the disaster, sensationalize everything. If it’s not a big enough story, find a more controversial angle. And sadly, if that’s not enough, exaggerate. Or worse yet, perpetuate a blatant lie… which is somehow ok by news standards because then they are still reporting (fact-checking can come later). This is awful because when you highlight a lie over and over it becomes more believable. It becomes the story. The apology or correction won’t get the same attention.

And we eat it up. We share before we fact check. We trust one-sided narratives, especially when they sensationalize in our favour. Meanwhile we are equally quick to discredit the ‘other side’ as fake news.

We are lost in sensationalism. And we can’t seem to find our way out. Polarizing points are thrown at us. Anger, hate, disgust, and disasterare worth our attention. Nothing else matters, nothing else makes the headlines, gets retweeted, or reshared, or discussed on podcasts and news stations.

And now AI is producing such realistic video content that it’s almost impossible to know if what you are watching is real. This is like putting sensationalism on steroids. Pump up the fake news, create doubt and division. Promote anger and disgust. Get those clicks, those likes, those reposts, and you will be financially rewarded. So what if you also leave everyone upset, confused, and lost.

Civilization and Evolution

Evolution is a slow process. Small changes over thousand and millions of years. I’m not thinking about bacteria becoming antibiotic resistant or moths changing colour over time to match their environment. I’m thinking about modern humans (Homo sapiens) who emerged approximately 300,000 years ago. Sure, certain traits like lactose tolerance evolved approximately 5,000–10,000 years in some populations, but for the most part we are a heck of a lot like our ancestors 100,000 years ago. Taller due to better nutrition, but otherwise pretty much the same.

And when we think about civilization as we know it, we are really talking about the last 2,500-3,000 years… and yet we are the same humans who lived as nomads and hunter-gatherers for tens of thousands of years before that. In other words we have not evolved to live in the societies we currently live in.

We didn’t evolve to live mostly indoors, away from nature, and out of sunlight for most of our day. We didn’t evolve to use artificial light at night before going to bed at hours well past dark. We don’t evolve to do shift work, or to sit at a desk all day.

We didn’t evolve to work for made up currencies so that we could go to buildings where we buy food that is over-processed, over-sweetened, and filled with empty calories. We didn’t evolve to spend time in front of screens that distract and overstimulate us.

We are simple but very intelligent animals who have not evolved much at all since we lived in small communities where we knew everyone, and knew what to fear, and how to protect ourselves from dangers.

Yet we now live surrounded by people we don’t know, and we are triggered by stresses that we evolutionarily were not designed for. Everything from being in constant debt, to working in stressful environments, to information overload, to time pressures, social comparison, choice overload, conflicting ideologies, environmental noises and hazards, and social disconnection.

We live in a state of overstimulation, stress, and distraction that we have not evolved to cope with. Then we identify diagnoses to tell us how we are broken, how we don’t fit in, and why we struggle. Maybe it’s the societies we have built that are broken? Maybe we evolutionarily do not belong in the social, technological, and societal structures we’ve created?

Maybe, just maybe, we are trying to live our best lives in an environment we were not designed for. Our modern civilizations are not well equipped to meet the needs of our primitive evolution… We have built ‘advanced’ cages and put ourselves in zoos that are nothing like the environment we are supposed to live in. And we don’t realize that all the things we think are broken about us are actually things that are broken about this fake environment we’ve trapped ourselves in.

And so we spend hours exercising, moving around weights that don’t need to be moved, meditating to empty our minds and seek presence and peace. We spend hours playing or cheering on sports teams so that we can have camaraderie with a small community. We spend thousands of dollars on camping equipment so that we can commune with nature. And some people take drugs or alcohol to escape the zoos and cages that we feel trapped in.

Maybe we’ve built our civilizations in ways that have not meaningfully considered our evolutionary needs.

Permission to lie

I don’t get it. A lie used to be something that was called out and the lier paid consequences.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Sounds silly, but metaphorically a call out to say that you are going to catch heat for what you said. And people in important positions of power were held to a standard that lies and deceit were called out and the consequential backlash was severe. There would be embarrassment, a public apology, and reputational consequences as a result of being caught in a lie.

No more. It’s still embarrassing, just not to the person sharing the lie.

I could mention his name, but I don’t have to. Isn’t that crazy? I can literally say everything I said above, which is completely generic, and relevant to any one of importance. But the moment I say ‘I could mention his name, but I don’t have to,’ the vast majority of the world’s population will know who I’m talking about.

And still he lies. It will continue. When will this unacceptable behaviour catch up with him? When will the backlash be too large to ignore?

I’m waiting, but admittedly not very patiently.

Vote or Hush

I wanted to title this, “Vote or Shut Up!” But since that seemed a bit crass, I thought I’d let my inner Bajan shine through with, “Hush your mouth,” but that would not translate as well as it does in my head… and is still not accurate in enunciation, so ‘Vote or Hush’ will have to do.

No matter how clear, crass, or complex I might say it, the message is simple:

If you don’t vote, you should lose the right to comment later.

You chose note to complete your civic duty. You didn’t participate in your democratic right. You decided not to be part of the decision of who represents you in a free and open society.

“But my one vote doesn’t matter.”

Wrong!

Over 10 million eligible voters did not vote in the last Canadian federal election… more than 1/3 of the eligible voters chose not to do their duty and cast a vote. Do you realize how influential it would be for ALL of those people to vote in the next election?

And so, if you are one of those people, I say, “Vote or hush-ya-mout”. You could have ‘had your say’ and chose not to… that negates your right to have a say later.

Vote or zip it.

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Ps. My bias this election: Unapologetically Political – It’s time to Smart Vote

Smart Voting

For most of my adult life I have been someone who has pushed the idea that it is our civic duty to vote and have tried to stay non-partisan in that messaging. I’ve voted for three different parties in elections in the last 20 years and so I am not a cardholding member of any party, and can be influenced by policies and principles, be those the principles of the party or the candidate.

The reality that we are in right now in Canada has me choosing to vote ABC, ‘Anyone But Conservative’. But the key here is that I’m choosing the party in my riding that is most likely to beat the Conservatives.

My reasoning for this Smart Voting strategy is simple, the Conservative patry sits on one side of the political spectrum and the other two (or three if you count Green) parties all sit on the other side of the spectrum… competing for the non-conservative vote. The reality is that in the past this split has allowed the Conservatives to get into power.

With the turmoil and instability of US politics, and the wave of conservatism globally, I don’t see a Canadian conservative government under its leader as remotely good in any way for Canada. Polling suggests a Liberal win this year, which under the current leader, Carney, would be great…. As long as it is a majority government that can actually get things done. So this year I would want to vote Liberal (something I haven’t done in a while).

However, I’m going see where the polling is in my riding and vote ABC, because as important as a majority government may be at this time, preventing a Conservative government is more important to me.

It feels weird to be so open about my politics. I truly prefer to be a proponent of civic duty, encouraging people to take advantage of living within a free and open democracy, in a non-partisan way. However, I can’t stay silent when I think that one of our political parties will take us down a path that is undermining the very democratic freedoms and rights I believe in.

So it’s Smart Voting for me. I’ll vote to make sure that the Conservatives don’t get in.

As a side note, I’ve had some interesting conversations with a conservative voter. I don’t believe anything I’ve shared with him is going to change his mind. I’m disappointed, but also respectful of his opinion. Our conversations are civil and respectful, though a little animated. I wish more public political conversations could happen like this. Discourse is healthy, and necessary for a democracy to not just survive, but thrive.

Awake

How often are we asleep when we think we are awake? Walking without awareness through the day. Going through the motions, doing what’s expected, participating within normal conventions, and doing what needs to be done. Playing the role we were dealt, to the best of our ability, using the resources we were given.

Sometimes it’s good to wake up, to step out of our sleepwalking state and to question what we see. Be observant of the roles we play, the patterns of our relationships, and the routines and rituals that both help and hinder us.

Sometimes it’s healthy to take some time to look at things from the outside in, to wake up and see the way we sleepwalk, and then to step back in… fully awake.

Appropriate Protest

I’ve written that we should have ‘Intolerance for bad faith actors’. And I’ve also written about ‘Free speech in a free society’. In both cases civil decisions are being made, so that we can live in a civil society.

It’s time to draw some pretty clear lines:

Creating a subversive anti-ad campaign against Tesla is an absolutely brilliant way to protest.

Vandalizing cars and dealerships is an embarrassment to the civil society we should be living in.

Holding a protest at a rally, and speaking out against someone you disagree with is the foundation of an open and free society. Shouting and throwing things at a speaker is immature and inappropriate behavior. Even if the person is spewing hate… in which case they should be dealt with legally, not with vigilante violence.

We need a society that allows disagreement. We need to be civil about how we protest. Because there is no civil society where violence and damaging property works one-way… only the way upset people think it should. Societies that tolerate inappropriate protest are inviting responses that are less and less civil. And nobody wins.

Not emergence but convergence

My post yesterday, ‘Immediate Emergence – Are we ready for this?’ I said, “Think about how fast we are going to see the emergence of intelligent ‘beings’ when we combine the brightest Artificial Intelligence with robotics…” and continued that with, “Within the next decade, you’ll order a robot, have it delivered to you, and out of the box it will be smarter than you, stronger than you, and have more mobility and dexterity than you.”

On the technology front, a new study, ‘Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks’ proposes: “measuring AI performance in terms of the length of tasks AI agents can complete. We show that this metric has been consistently exponentially increasing over the past 6 years, with a doubling time of around 7 months. Extrapolating this trend predicts that, in under five years, we will see AI agents that can independently complete a large fraction of software tasks that currently take humans days or weeks.”

More from the article:

“…by looking at historical data, we see that the length of tasks that state-of-the-art models can complete (with 50% probability) has increased dramatically over the last 6 years.”

“If we plot this on a logarithmic scale, we can see that the length of tasks models can complete is well predicted by an exponential trend, with a doubling time of around 7 months.”

And in conclusion:

“If the trend of the past 6 years continues to the end of this decade, frontier AI systems will be capable of autonomously carrying out month-long projects. This would come with enormous stakes, both in terms of potential benefits and potential risks.”

When I was reflecting on this yesterday, I was thinking about the emergence of new intelligent ‘beings’, and how quickly they will arrive. With information like this, plus the links to robotics improvements I shared, I’m feeling very confident that my prediction of super intelligent robots within the next decade is well within our reach.

But my focus was on these beings ‘emerging suddenly’. Now I’m realizing that we are already seeing dramatic improvements, but we aren’t suddenly going to see these brilliant robots. It’s going to be a fast but not a sudden transformation. We are going to see dumb-like-Siri models first, where we ask a request and it gives us related but useless follow up. For instance, the first time you say, “Get me a coffee,” to your robot butler Jeeves, you might get a bag of grounds delivered to you rather than a cup of coffee made the way you like it… without Jeeves asking you to clarify the task because you wanting a bag of coffee doesn’t make sense.

These relatively smart, yet still dumb AI robots are going to show up before the super intelligent ones do. So this isn’t really about a fast emergence, but rather it’s about convergence. It’s about robotics, AI intelligence, processing speed, and AI’s EQ (not just IQ) all advancing exponentially at the same time… With ‘benefits and potential risks.’

Questions will start to arise as these technologies converge, “How much power do we want to give these super intelligent ‘beings’? Will they have access to all of our conversations in front of them? Will they have purchasing power, access to our email, the ability to make and change our plans for us without asking? Will they help us raise our kids?

Not easy questions to answer, and with the convergence of all these technologies at once, not a long time to answer these tough questions either.

Immediate Emergence – Are we ready for this?

I have two daughters, both very bright, both with a lot of common sense. They work hard and have demonstrated that when they face a challenge they can both think critically and also be smart enough to ask for advice rather than make poor decisions… and like every other human being, they started out as needy blobs that 100% relied on their parents for everything. They couldn’t feed themselves or take care of themselves in any way, shape, or form. Their development took years.

Think about how fast we are going to see the emergence of intelligent ‘beings’ when we combine the brightest Artificial Intelligence with robotics like this and this. Within the next decade, you’ll order a robot, have it delivered to you, and out of the box it will be smarter than you, stronger than you, and have more mobility and dexterity than you.

Are we ready for this?

We aren’t developing progressively smarter children, we are building machines that can outthink and outperform us in many aspects.

“But they won’t have the wisdom of experience.”

Actually, we are already working on that, “Microsoft and Swiss startup Inait announced a partnership to develop AI models inspired by mammalian brains… The technology promises a key advantage: unlike conventional AI systems, it’s designed to learn from real experiences rather than just existing data.” Add to this the Nvidia Omniverse where robots can do millions of iterations and practice runs in a virtual environment with real world physics, and these mobile, agile, thinking, intelligent robots are going to be immediately out-of-the-box super beings.

I don’t think we are ready for what’s coming. I think the immediate emergence of super intelligent, agile robots, who can learn, adapt, and both mentality and physically outperform us, that we will see in the next decade, will be so transformative that we will need to rethink everything: work, the economy, politics (and war), and even relationships. This will drastically disrupt the way we live our lives, the way we engage and interact with each other and with these new, intelligent beings. We aren’t building children that will need years of training, we are building the smartest, most agile beings the world has ever seen.

Defining and Understanding Community

I call it the most important book I never read. It’s called “Bowling Alone”. I asked Microsoft Copilot to synthesize the message of the book for me:

“The main message of “Bowling Alone” by Robert D. Putnam is that social capital in the United States has been declining since the 1960s. Putnam argues that this erosion of community engagement and participation in civic life has led to a weaker democracy and a decline in personal well-being. He emphasizes the importance of revitalizing social networks and community bonds to strengthen society.”

I say that I didn’t read it, but I tried. It was suggested for a book club I was in 20+ years ago and while the premise is why I call it the most important book I never read, the actual text was very much like a textbook and way too boring. None of us finished it, but we had very interesting conversations about it and I’ve thought about a lot in subsequent years.

I think the message about lost community is more relevant today than 20 years ago. I have lived in the same house for over 25 years. I know my neighbours on either side of me well, but vaguely know the rest of my neighbours beyond that. I don’t live in a community as much as we cohabitate in a common local area.

Community should describe our neighbourly connections not our geographical location. Close community bonds strengthen a society. I think about this as I think about retirement. At some point my wife and I will downsize our home. Where do we move to? To me geography matters less than community. The more specific question to ask is, where do we move to in order to maximize our connections to our friends and community?

The difference between living 15-20 minutes away from a friend versus 45-60 minutes away is the difference between seeing them regularly versus making monthly plans. It’s the difference between living in a community and commuting to occasionally visit and see each other.

In the future I want to create the community that I want, in close proximity to me. I want to cohabitate with my social community, not travel from a place where I cohabitate with strangers to get to my community of friends.