The Blog Continues

Well, so far so good with regard to me keeping up with my blogging schedule. Let's see: first, I discovered a rather neat little Amazon S3 client coded in python called S3cmd. This is notable mostly because I've been working on just such a thing in my spare time for the past year or so. Obviously, I haven't had enough spare time. Anyway, I've been giving it a whirl for the past few days and, so far, I really like it; especially the ability to run it from the command line; which, of course, means I can set it up to run as a cron job to automatically sync folders to the cloud.

Score.

Also, my friend Jenn was recently on Jeopardy and did quite well. Way to go Jenn! Seriously, I expect it's quite difficult to have to answer questions (or rather, state questions to match the answer, in this case) while on stage, in front of cameras and under bright lights. Speaking of Television, for better or worse, I've been kind of getting into Bones. It's still a guilty pleasure, rather melodramatic, but not a bad way to spend 42 minutes.

And, finally, at least from a personal perspective, I took 2 hours today to hang a new towel rack in my bathroom and a hook, also in my bathroom, which I intend to use for hanging things. Well, things other than towels, because that's what the towel rack is for. Perhaps I shall hang clothes from my hook. Or a robe. If I had a robe.

Perhaps I should get a robe.

As some of you know, I am an avid reader of The Atlantic. Anyway, I recently read this article, Get Smarter. I'm calling this one out largely because I disagree with (half, at least) the basic premise; namely that we are entering an age of "intelligence augmentation." I'm calling this out because (and to be fair, this is mentioned in the article, but I don't think it got the attention it deserved) since the moment writing was invented -- or perhaps more accurately, the moment the invention of writing became widely adopted -- we entered an age of Intelligence Augmentation. Since then, well, we've just gotten better at it.

What the article concerns itself with, or at least what it touches on and intimates, is that technological progress, innovation and adoption rarely occur evenly. Like many things, distribution is uneven. And, in this case, early adopters, those with the means, opportunity, and yes, intelligence, will have access to newer technologies first, and the risk exists that this knowledge gap will widen creating a gulf between the knowledge haves and the knowledge have-nots, Ultimately, I think this is just alarmist speak,in large part because as the spread of the Internet has shown, access to information technologies proves to be more enabling and democratizing (e.g. the rise of India, Singapore, and Eastern European countries as Information Worker powerhouses and, yes, even the recent events in Iran).

Anyway, the point is, or at least the point I'm trying to make, is that this is not a new development. This is just the steady march of human progress. Once we got an evolutionary advantage from being smart, we, as a species, sort of ran with it. Good for us.

Something that was touched on the article, but which I think is extremely concerning, is the potential for governments to legislate some technologies and not others. Think China. Many of these technologies have the potential to be a double edged sword. What can be used to enable and spread information can also be used to limit information. Do we run the risk of creating a Big Brother state where citizens are monitored and through monitoring are controlled? Or can we use these technologies to spread information and let citizens have a greater participatory role in government and their own lives.

Personally, I think both can happen and, to varying degrees, both will happen, potentially in the same country, at the same time. We should also not forget that, well, people are extraordinarily stupid. What I mean by that, though, isn't about intelligence, per se, or even having access to information, or even being able to make sense of that information. The fact of the matter is that, even with all that knowledge on hand people have a striking ability to disregard it. You have to realize, and you will, especially if you read anything from, you know, 500 BC, you'll understand pretty quickly that people have been doing the same dumb shit for a long, long, long time.

Now, the part of the article that I found most interesting was the possibility (potential?) that pharmacology will provide artificial means to actually increase our ability to concentrate and think clearly; which will make us more productive, sure, but I'm not certain it will produce the flashes of insight (brilliance? genius?) that are the actual hallmarks of intelligence. Having the ability to stay up longer (via Modafinil) won't really make you smarter, it'll just allow you to spend more time working on things.

I'm not sure if that's necessarily something I want. My fear here is that it will put pressure on the middle class (those who can afford to get prescriptions but not those rich enough to not need them) to work harder and longer hours. If use became widespread it would become the new norm. And then where would be? Mostly not able to sleep in. Fie to that, I say.

I would point out that back in the good old Hunter/Gatherer (ok, yes, it's still a theory) days we had significantly more free time than do now. All of our industrial progress has served to make our work easier, and thus easier to do more work.

To that point, all I can say is, thank God for beer. (and occasionally whiskey)