☕ saturday mornings - November 26, 2022
short days, data & butterfly technology
Happy Saturday!
I hope you’re having a great start to your weekend.
What I’ve been up to:
I returned from Morocco and spent the week writing a few essays, working on a few projects, and catching up on school.
Here's a recap of the most interesting things I've explored this week.
✍️ Quotes I’m pondering:
John Burroughs, American naturalist, on struggles with time:
“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.”
📚 Book passage I loved:
“I have no data yet.
It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
― The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
💡 Idea from me: Two-Faced Technology
Everything we think and do is influenced by the technologies we build and implement. But, without inspection, it's easy to miss how the technological environment shapes our world.
For better and for worse.
One of the best examples is transportation: innovations in transportation have molded our everyday lives.
In 1869, the Transcontinental Railroad joined America's coasts, creating a more interconnected society. It spurred the rise of big business and created jobs, as vendors could now sell their goods to the entire country. Trains also led to the spread of ideas. Books written in San Francisco found homes on New York bookshelves 1 week after publication. But, railways also accelerated the near extinction of the Indigenous people and stimulated iron and steel production on the backs of mistreated miners.
Ford's Model T automobile democratized personal transportation. For the first time in history, you could go wherever you wanted by yourself without needing to be extremely rich.
Some effects were obvious: the appearance of paved roads and vast superhighways, the emergence of new businesses (like gas stations, mechanics, and roadside motels), and the creation of the suburbs.
Some were less obvious: a change in how people eat (diners and fast food), how companies advertise (billboards), and how women impact society.
Many were decisively positive.
Henry Ford was a national hero, receiving thousands of letters of appreciation. A farm wife from Georgia wrote, "Your car lifted us out of the mud. It brought joy into our lives."
But, cars also weakened family ties and led to the erosion of community.
They increased independence because, as Sam Elliot writes, “individual family members could act upon their own wishes, rather than the dictation of the family as a whole”. Many families became dislocated and distant. Ivan Illich noted how, paradoxically, cars pull people apart even though they help us move faster.
Sociologist Robert Putnam found urban sprawl and suburbia lowers community involvement by ~20%. As a result, communities have lower trust, reciprocity, and cooperation than they once did.
Infrastructure for cars is equally damaging. Highways divide cities and parking lots destroy them. Plus, cars have given us pollution, noise, nerve-wracking traffic, and the corrosive oil industry.
The mobility of modern life has caused people to move more often, almost making rich, rewarding, multi-decade friendships a thing of the past.
So... what's the point?
With any new technology, it's neither good nor bad.
New transportation methods brought freedom to the individual, equality to the family, and immense wealth to the Western world. But they also catalyzed ecological damage, pulled families apart, and facilitated the mistreatment of people.
We can pull the same lessons into the modern age.
The Internet, smartphones, and social media aren't entirely good or entirely bad. It's not that simple.
Many of my friends make the ancient Roman conclusion that "our history now descends from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust".
We have to be discerning and pull apart the causes and effects to clearly see the impact technology has on our world.
It’s the only way to keep the good and discard the bad.
❓ Question for You:
What would this look like if it was fun?
My default is to grit my teeth and white-knuckle my way through work, getting it done as quickly as possible.
One of my close friends used to put on music and pour himself a glass of wine at night if he was still finishing a math assignment.
Perhaps a 10% decrease in "productivity" is worth a 10x increase in fun.
📸 Photo of the week:
Exploring Morocco!
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Have an excellent weekend.
Much love to you and yours,
Tommy