From Marc Almond, blogger at Have me Pompeii Your Town
While sitting in ‘da couch, listening to the blaze. I was thinking:
We don’t need to prove that God exists, just that such a being could exist, as in the laws of physics allow that the traits we think of as God are possible. That a being or more likely beings could have developed the knowledge to resurrect every living being, either physically or virtually, keep us alive forever, manipulate time and space in meaningful ways etc.
Because if such a thing is possible, odds are good that in the billions of years the Universe has existed, on one of the trillions and trillions of planets (that probably exist) such a thing has come to exist. And if it hasn’t, well, our Universe is relatively young. It has many more billions of years ahead of it than behind it, probably enough time that if it is possible, it will come into existence one day, perhaps even on our planet in the form of our descendants.
Hopefully whatever sort of species could achieve that level of power would have an expansive enough sphere of compassion that they would use their abilities for the benefit of every living thing in known existence. Of course, they may have no reason to see value in bringing all past life forms back into existence, but who knows?
Technology, the God who made the world better.
I had posted this before as part of something longer, but I realized it ought to have been two separate posts. This is the first half and the second part, about television, is below. So if you read the first paragraph and realize you already read it, feel, there is almost nothing new, so feel free to skip this.) I think those who lived through the enormous technological growth and changes of last century might be reasonable to conclude that technology, while it clearly has benefits, has been an overall a destructive force.
Life was made worse in multiple ways. Cities became dirty and polluted, people were compelled to work in dangerous, cruel conditions for long hours with meager compensation. And of course, the two World Wars. In a way, this seems like it was the inevitable result of societies and individuals suddenly having radically more power to alter the world and interact with each other than ever before. In fact, it seems almost inevitable that once the technology was invented, countries that had previously been relatively minor players on the world stage but who were unusually smart and industrious would quickly move to exploit this new understanding to try dominate the world before anyone else, which is what we saw with Japan and Germany.
And it seems almost inevitable that once technology gave people more power to join together and fight their oppressors in hopes of instituting new, modern ideas of governing that they believed would make society more equal and more just, they would: just like we saw in Russia and China and elsewhere. It seems inevitable that as we learned we could synthesize dangerous chemicals to solve our problems we would do it before understanding the negative consequences. And it seems inevitable that once we were able to farm on large scales, we would do it so much that we would ruin the soil, leading to apocalyptic clouds of dust blowing across the country.
And it seems inevitable that with so much change happening so quickly and on such large scales, things would go poorly. For someone who lived in the 40’s and 50’s, that the world was on the verge of collapse either from our own hands or the apparently fulfilled prophesies of the coming apocalypse seemed difficult to refute. Just as with the ancient Romans, the ills of urban life led to us romanticizing ‘The Noble Savage’ longing for our simpler past. (the Romans romanticized the Celts in the same way we do tribal people today)Technology seemed to have taken societies ills and turned up the volume to 11, allowing our self-destructive tendencies to expand faster and bigger than our ability to control or understand them. But at a certain point, a few decades ago, everything began to change. As Science and technology continued to progress we began to have a better understanding of the consequences, even developing governing boards to regulate and restrict how we used our continuously increasing knowledge about how the Universe functions while the social sciences has helped us better engineer society for good living.
In a way, the prophesied millennium has come. If prophets from the past had seen today, with our long, healthy, peaceful lives it would seem like a golden utopia. This is the most peaceful era of humanity. Crime is at historic lows, fewer people die from war than ever before. It is no longer considered okay to be racist, let alone own a slave. We have recognized the equality of Genders and are coming to recognize the equality of sexual orientation. The rates of rape and child abuse are lower than ever. In nearly every measurable way the the world seems to be improving. Of course, we have done damage to the environment, but it was initially out of ignorance. It is hard to change the inertia of an entire economy based on fossil fuels but we are trying and eventually, I believe, will succeed. All of the chaos from last century seem to be mere growing pains. Yet all of this has come as we’ve learned to rely more on our own understanding, rather that of Gods or ancient books. The more we as a society have turned away from prophets and scripture the better our world seems to be. The Millennium come, but from our own hands, not Gods except for the God Technology.
How TV Has Made us Better Humans and the World More peaceful.
I think one of the greatest moral strengths and moral weaknesses of Human beings is their ability for empathy and putting themselves in other’s shoes.
When we put ourselves in other people’s shoes, actually imagining how we would feel and react were we in that same situation , it is hard to not be filled with empathy and understanding.
The big problem is, we just don’t do it very often. I’m amazed at how frequently myself and others will rail against a person’s behavior with annoyance or anger, only to be reminded of some facet about that other person that allows us to see things from their perspective and we are suddenly filled with compassion and understanding.
Not only do we not do this very often, but we tend to be painful bad at imagining how we would act in a situation we have not yet experienced. I am also amazed at how many times I will find myself harshly judging another person for how they behave in a particular context only to eventually find myself in that same context behaving the e same way.
But with Television and movies, all the work is done for us. With no effort at all we are put in someone else’s shoes and are able to live their experience.
And what’s more, television and movies allows us to put ourselves in the shoes of people we would likely never even meet. People from other parts of the world or people whom we might despise and choose to segregate ourselves from. By seeing them and how they are like us, and by seeing the villains who oppress and persecute them, we are reminded that our supposed enemies are people just like us and that we don’t want to be the villains, we want to be the good guys who are understanding of what others are going through.
This is why I think even reality TV is a good thing. While I recognize there is much not ‘real’ about reality TV, it allows people, like A Gypsy family in Nyc (Ie. one of my new favorite shows ‘American Gypsy’) who we would otherwise not get the chance to empathize with to become real people that we can’t help but wish the best for.
Movies and television can make us empathize with virtually anyone! It can even make a hardcore conservative root for someone robbing a casino as in Oceans 11. (To be sure there is also dark side of being able to make us hate anyone.)While what I’ve said holds true for most forms story telling, including books, it has never been so accessible and so powerful until the development of technology to put moving images with sound. Outside of actual experience, few things allow us empathize with other people than getting to see observe other’s experience in narrative form, even if fictional.
In fact, we are wired to do so. We have what are called ‘Mirror Neurons’. Neurons in our brain that essentially fill the role of empathy. When we see someone lift a cup, mirror neurons in our brain fire that allow us to feel what it is like to lift a cup. When we see others hurt, we feel hurt. When we see others happy, we feel happy. When we interact with others, our mirror neurons cause our bodies to synch up, our vitals get closer together our body movements and facial expressions even mimic each other. I believe this is why every person has a ‘feeling’ or a ‘vibe’ about them. Because however they act and move their body, we literally feel it. I think everyone has experienced how a tense, stressed person makes you feel stress and tense and the reverse with a calm, relaxed individual. While mirror neurons can be triggered via our imagination through books, it occurs more powerfully and more easily through our sense of sight making TV and movies the ideal way to trigger this innate part of our biology. By 1960, 90% of households had a television. And since that time, the world has gotten better in almost every way. The 60’s led to an explosion of tolerance and understanding, manifest in hippies and the summer of love. Like never before the status quo was shaken up and people came to value the rights of others and respect the differences and individuality amongst humans. While no do doubt the factors involved are numerous, since the ubiquity of television (and now the internet, which can function in a similar way) we’ve come to see and value ‘the other’ like at no other period in time as manifest by the Civil Rights movement for racial equality, enormous strides in women’s rights and sexual equality, and as we are now experiencing similar strides in the area of gay rights (and I believe that television, with shows like Ellen and and Modern Family play a significant role). What’s more, we’ve seen a decrease in violent crimes to where it is now at a record low. When we can experience the lives of those we might want to fight in war, it becomes more difficult and perhaps that, (along with mutually assured destruction of the atom bomb) has led to wars being fewer than ever before and, as Steven Pinker has successfully argued (via a book I haven’t read, but I’ve seen his TED talk) in nearly every way measurable the world is more peaceful than at any other time. And Even depression (anxiety and other mental illnesses), the awful thing which makes even the best of environments a living hell for some people has been mitigated through pharmaceuticals. In a way, the prophesied millennium has come. If prophets from the past had seen today, with our long, healthy, peaceful lives it would seem like a golden utopia. Yet all of this has come as we’ve learned to rely more on our own understanding, rather that of Gods or ancient books. The more we as a society have turned away from prophets and scripture the better our world seems to be. The Millennium come, but from our own hands, not Gods except for the God Television. I think one of the biggest potential troubles as we move forward is that as we have continue to have increasing choices and people are able to self select what media they consume, we may be able to go back to something closer to the pre-Tv era where you weren’t forced to experience and empathize with people you weren’t naturally inclined to.
Matte Cars
On Sunday Marissa and I went to Expo Chicago, a brand new contemporary art fair and the first such art fair I’ve been to (it was a lot of fun and we saw some good stuff, but it was yet another confirmation to me that I fit better with a literary crowd than a high art crowd).
But the reason I mention it, is because there was some sort of luxury car in the lobby (I’m not much of a car person so I can’t remember what it was. BMW? Mercedes? Something European) and it had a matte finish!
I had never seen a car with a matte finish…well, I guess I’ve seen a handful of custom paint Jobs that are matte, but never on a brand new factory made car. I loved it.
Since lesser brands tend to draw their inspiration from luxury brands, it made me hope this was the beginning in a big trend and that in ten years matte finishes will be common place. Not that matte is inherently better than gloss. But too much of either gets boring and we’ve had many decades of nearly all gloss.
a wayfarer’s notes 
