Category: Irregular ideas

The Doomsday Clock reaches it’s seventy-fifth anniversary this week. Designed by Martyl Langsdorf in 1947, the minute hand of the clock is positioned near to the number twelve and on this clock, 12 o’clock is midnight. And midnight is the end of humanity. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists set the clock to show, at any given time, how close humanity is to ending.

The clock started at seven minutes to midnight. In 1947 the threat of nuclear Armageddon following the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima just two years before felt very real. In 1991, with the end of the cold war, the hands of the clock were set back to seventeen minutes to midnight, the furthest the clock has shown us from destruction. Today, the clock is set at 100 seconds to midnight. The closest it’s ever been.

The clock is symbolic. It was never intended to be, and shouldn’t be taken as, an objective measure of how likely or how close we actually are to obliteration. It’s a warning and sign of hope. The clock doesn’t only tick towards midnight, the hands can move away from midnight too, showing us that at least in the short term, our destruction doesn’t have to be inevitable. Just as the Stoics kept their memento mori close at hand to serve as a constant reminder of the inevitability of death and the importance of appreciating life, perhaps the Doomsday clock is meant to do the same for our entire civilization.

But let’s not forget… the existential risk is real. It was real in 1947 when the only perceived threat to humanity was nuclear weapons, and it’s just as real now when we’re aware of potential threat from asteroids, climate change, bio-weapons, pandemics, cyber security attacks, and an artificial intelligence takeover. Of all these threats, perhaps artificial intelligence is unique in it’s potential.

Our lives are inexorably interwoven with our technology. Ours is a technologically advanced future. There’s no turning back that clock. And even if we could, would we want to? For all our complaints about the negative effects social media has on our mental heath and cars have on climate change, technology has been instrumental in raising the quality of life across the globe.

Nuclear weapons, although obviously catastrophically destructive, are extremely difficult to produce, creating a natural limiting factor to the risk they pose. If anyone could knock up an A bomb in their garage it would be very unlikely that you’d still be around to read this. Similarly, bio-weapons and other intentionally destructive technologies are all contained by the limiting factor of how difficult they are to produce. Artificial intelligence is vastly different because it isn’t being created and deployed as a weapon. We’ll welcome it into our homes, offices, cars and even our bodies, and so how we imagine that we might apply general artificial intelligence in the future does not have such a limiting factor. So, excluding some yet-to-be invented technology, artificial intelligence seems the most likely of our technologies to lead to our demise.

Whilst there are many who believe the creation of a general artificial intelligence will never come to pass, there are those, such as the futurist Ray Kurzweil who expect ‘the singularity’ to occur as soon as 2045. It is possible, even plausible, that within our lifetime computers will think for themselves rather than simply processing instructions we give them.

Once AI exists, we’ll come to expect it to be in everything, from self-driving cars to kitchen appliances, to medical diagnosis systems, and yes, in control of nuclear weapons. We’ll expect AI to be benign and to do as we say. Whereas nuclear weapons have an inherent limiting factor, AI will have an inherent growth factor that will lead it to have an inevitably large impact on the likelihood of a future for humanity.

Now, it’s important for us to know that a general AI, whilst super-intelligent, wouldn’t be self-aware in the same way humans are. Whether we argue that our self-awareness is a chemically-induced hallucination as a result of our nervous systems interacting with the world, or a uniquely human gift bestowed on us from a heavenly power, we can be fairly confident that no machine would experience self-awareness in the same way we do. But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have its own version of a sense of self-preservation and its own perspective on the usefulness of the continued existence of humanity.

Until Artificial Intelligence comes into existence, humans are the only species on the planet with the intelligence to understand what extinction actually means. We understand that it doesn’t just affect those that die in an extinction event, it also prevents the potential for any others to follow. When humans become extinct it will prevent the existence of trillions upon trillions of future humans. In 2000, when the Pyrenean ibex was declared extinct, it wasn’t just Celia, the last ibex, that had died, it was the millions of ibex that could have existed in the future. When the last polar bear, the last rhino, the last gorilla dies, the billions of animals that could have existed no longer can.

The Doomsday clock doesn’t just tick for us.

You probably feel pretty special right now. You’re part of the only Homo genus of the hominid species to currently inhabit planet earth. Go you! You won the evolutionary fight against those nasty Neanderthals. At least that’s the story of evolution we’re told. A story of species battling it out generation after generation until only the victor remains. But in fact, that isn’t how evolution works at all. Evolution involves far more coexistence than competition.

Around three hundred and fifty thousand years ago, when Homo sapiens rocked up, there were already other human species wandering around different parts of planet earth. Homo Erectus had been around the longest, in fact well over a million years when we joined them, and we both spent about two hundred thousand years together. At the same time, Homo Floresiensis, who had been around for three hundred thousand years already was also hanging out, and stuck around for two hundred thousand years after Homo Erectus became extinct. Homo Naledi arrived around the about the same time we did but left the party early after about a hundred thousand years. And then there was Homo Neanderthalensis. They turned up shortly before us and only left around 40,000 years ago.

So, what happened? How did we go from many homo species to just one? In 1920, the paleontologist Marcellin Boule popularised the idea that Neanderthals were brutish, dim-witted and less ‘advanced’ than Homo sapiens. The idea spread that as the ‘superior’ species Homo sapiens violently exterminated the Neanderthals. In fact, the science has debunked this extermination myth. And although we will never know for certain all the factors that led to the extinction of the other homo species, including the Neanderthals, in their case it looks more likely to have been a result of small population sizes and interbreeding. And yet we cling to the myth because it fits our misunderstanding of how evolution through natural selection works. We take ‘survival of the fittest’ to mean a battle for survival, a fight to death, as it were, one in which the superior species triumphs. We think we survived because we were better than all the others.

This competitive exclusionary thinking lets us believe that where species share similar traits and live in the same environment, that they must compete for the same resources until one is driven to extinction. The paradox of the plankton tells us otherwise. In plankton, aquatic biologists see different species coexisting. They live in the same environment, consume the same resources and yet are not fighting for survival by trying to exterminate each other. They coexist.

The idea of coexistence doesn’t compete with the idea of competition, it encapsulates it. Coexistence relies on competition as one force, but for every drive to compete there are stabilizing mechanisms that allow species to continue to live without having to fight against extinction. Different trees coexist in the same environment because they grow to different heights, spread roots in different ways, rely on different animals to spread their seeds. Different species of mosquito lay their eggs in different places. Different species of butterfly select different plants to feed on to reduce competition, which is why there are over seventeen thousand species around the world. If competitor always led to a single winning species we wouldn’t see the 8.7 million species of plants and animals that currently exist. Environments benefit from diversity. Evolution relies on it.

Why is this important for us to know? After all, there’s nothing we can do about how species evolve. It’s important because it of the story it tells us about how change happens. If we believe the story of evolution, the greatest example of change ever, as being about one thing replacing another, and that the thing doing the replacing is better, we only see one side of how change plays out. The more we accept this story, the more we miss out on the story of coexistence that is going on at the same time. What we learn about change from the complexity of evolution we can apply to what we know in other arenas and areas of our lives. We don’t have to accept the story of conflict over cooperation, of competition over coexistence, but in fact most of us do.

When calls to ‘Smash The Patriarchy’ ring out in challenge of the dominant social, political, cultural, and economic thoughts that value the idea of hegemonic, toxic masculinity, our intuited tendency would be to agree wholeheartedly. But what comes next? If one dominant idea is removed only to be replaced by another dominant idea, then what have we accomplished? We’ve taken one group of people who dominated others and given their position and power to a different group, who now also dominant others. If the competitive evolutionary thinking that created the patriarchy remains even after the patriarchy is dismantled, then something resembling the same pattern will emerge again.

We can’t build an inclusive society by applying that kind of competitive thinking, by saying that some ways of thinking, being or doing aren’t allowed. That’s exclusionary. What makes democracy so successful as a philosophical and ideological stance, even if our political implementation is lacking, is that it allows all other philosophies and ideologies to exist. It encapsulates them, just as coexistence encapsulates competition. We may find fascism abhorrent but as a democratic society we cannot set out to destroy it, for that would be undemocratic. We have to find ways for all philosophies and ideologies to coexist, and for there to be competing and stabilizing mechanisms that prevent any one from becoming dominant.

If all those millions of species can coexist, then maybe all of our ideologies can too, and we can build a society that is inclusive for everyone.

Red flags have always signalled a warning.

In the sixteen hundreds a red flag signalled that an army was preparing for battle. In the nineteenth century it became law to wave a red flag in front of a moving vehicle to warn unsuspecting pedestrians. And in the twenty-first century, toxic work culture is expressed in red flag emojis on Twitter.

All these warnings have something in common. They are all an abdication of responsibility.

Not a warning to exercise caution, but that the thing you are being warned about is going to carry on regardless of any harm it may do to you. The approaching army will attack, and if you are slain it is your fault for being on the battlefield. The car will precede along it’s intended route, and if are run over it is your fault for not getting out of way. The company will continue to be an unhealthy place to work, and if you are harmed it is your fault for continuing to be employed.

Displaying a red flag is the equivalent of walking around with your fist out in front of you and blaming those who get punched in the face for not getting out of your way.

The warning doesn’t say to those being warned, “I will be careful not to cause harm to you”. It doesn’t say, “I recognise that I could cause harm but I am going to change that”. Instead it says “I will carry on regardless, my warning is to tell you to get out of my way”. It says, “I’ve done all I am willing to do to minimise harm to you, I have warned you.”

When the first automobiles trundled the streets of nineteenth century cities they were required by law to have a person walk 60 yards ahead of them waving a red flag. The law has often been referenced as an example of innovation being held back by an incumbent industry, but if we consider that the law was actually meant for heavy traction engines it helps us appreciate how the red flag entered our modern public consciousness. The person waving the red flag told pedestrians to get out of the way. The red flag wasn’t used to tell the driver of the traction engine to navigate around the people. The expectation of the warning was that of, “We’re coming through, and if you don’t move you’ll be crushed”. That expectation of a red flag warning persists.

Today, red flags are still used to warn against entering live firing ranges but the armed forces have found other ways to indicate their battle readiness. Cars no longer need actual red flags because the blame has become implicit – if a pedestrian or cyclist is hit by a car it’s their fault for being in the wrong place. And so red flags have become more metaphorical than literal, although no less real, and those raising the red flags has shifted from those presenting the risk to the wary onlookers. So where does the responsibility lay now?

The red flag that is raised to call out unhealthy working practices and company cultures or toxic behaviours in relationships, is often done so with the best of intentions. It is done by those onlookers to warn others to avoid such situations, knowing almost implicitly that the situation will carry on regardless and so a red flag is the appropriate warning. The red flag has been so effective in removing the responsibility of those causing harm that they no longer bother to raise it themselves. Because you should know by now to get out of the way.

So, if you see something you think others should be warned of, and feel compelled to raise a red flag, pause a moment and think about whether it’s about something you can take responsibility for changing or whether your warning says that you accept it’s going to continue regardless. Perhaps we need another warning, one that alerts us to the risk and commits to reducing or removing it, but in the meantime, if you see a red flag raised take the warning and get out of the way, because whatever it brings will not change course to avoid harming you.

“We never step into the same river twice, for new waters are always flowing upon us”. Heraclitus taught us that change is constant, but what he didn’t say is that all things change at different paces. Rocks change more slowly than animal species, which change more slowly than a single tree, and the weather changes minute by minute. We know this to be true, obvious even, but we can find it hard to recognise and reconcile the impact it has on us. Perhaps, because we perceive time as a constant and continuous stream always appearing to us at the same pace, we glance over the fact that different things change at different rates.

The concept of change happening at different paces for different aspects of something was described by architect Frank Duffy when he coined the phrase ‘shearing layers’. He used it to describe how a building isn’t a single entity of its own but is made up of different things that change at different rates. So whereas the shell of the building might change slowly, needing to be replaced in fifty years, the wiring and plumbing within the building changes more quickly and so would need to be replaced every ten years, and the furniture within the building might be replaced within three years. To Duffy, and those architectural designers who build on his ideas, there was no such thing as a ‘building’, just the different shearing layers changing on different time scales.

We could say the same of so many things, and it might help us think of them in a different way. We could say there is no such thing as a ‘relationship’ between two people. Relationships are made up of component parts such as values, interests, trust, intimacy, which may change at different speeds for the people in the relationship. We could say that there is no such thing as an ‘organisation’. Organisations are just a collection of components: infrastructure, strategy, people, all of which change, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, than each other. We could say there is no such thing as an ‘economy’, just a means of production, distribution, supply and demand control mechanisms, which all operate on their own time scales.

We talk of change itself as a disruptive force when instead it is the misaligned rates of change that cause disruption and disconnection. So, just as the architects sought ways to design buildings that allowed things that change slowly to not prevent the things that change more quickly, perhaps we can consider the same. Perhaps we can accept that things will change at their own pace, not try to stop them, but find other ways to seek alignment and connection.

As I write these words I’m considering what to say and how to say it. I want you to be convinced by what I tell you, and I want it to seem well-informed and reliable. I try to make it thought-provoking. I vary the length of my sentences because I read somewhere that it adds impact to your writing. And all of this stuff, these writing ‘tricks’, affect what you think far more than what I write. They do even if you don’t notice it. Even if you don’t want to admit it.

Everything we say, read and write, in fact any message we convey or consume, has two essential elements; the factual content and the emotional construction. Rationally, we tell ourselves that we consider the factual content most when deciding what to think and how to act. But we make our decisions emotionally. This is known as the Russell Conjugation, from the work of Bertrand Russell over seventy years ago. It says that not only do we make decisions emotionally, but that our rational minds don’t realise we are and so convince us that we’re making rational decisions.

For decades, psychologists have been performing experiments that show that we are not as rational as we think we are. Some of this work demonstrates how we react to unexpected or uncomfortable truths, but the Russell Conjugation suggests that the facts presented to us don’t even need to be uncomfortable, and certainly don’t need to be false, in order for us to be manipulated, they just need to be presented emotionally. Our actions are based not on what we know but upon how we feel about what we know.

Our rationality is a myth that came out of the Age of Enlightenment. What seemed like a good idea in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries became dogma for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But in the twenty-first century, that myth has become dangerous. The idea that we can make rational decisions in an internet age, faced with mass media and social media messaging, all presented with varying emotions, all affecting us in different and contradictory ways, is nonsensical. But we’re unable to see it’s affect on us. Our rational minds continue to tell us we’re being rational.

We were told in school to pay attention to the teacher, to just that one source of information, and that was hard enough. How can we expect to pay attention to all the things that try to grab our attention every minute of every day?

According to Davenport and Beck, authors of ‘The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business’, attention is focused mental engagement on a particular item of information. They say that, “items come into our awareness, we attend to a particular item, and then we decide whether to act.” Just attending to an item of information and making the decision to act on it comes with cognitive load. But it doesn’t end there. Information overload, fear of missing out, and the constant demand of novelty, the never-ending scrolling, more podcasts and box sets to catch-up on, more messages to send and more emails to read. Content demands distribution.

“Attention is a resource – a person has only so much of it.”, according to Matthew Crawford, and he should know, he’s a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. Human attention is a scarce commodity in the knowledge economy, and as knowledge workers are all producers and consumers.

We are all attention grabbers. We try to get people to pay attention to our emails, chat messages and tweets. I’m trying to grab your attention by sending you this email. Grabbing and holding someone’s attention is an ethical choice. One we all make. One that we don’t consider nearly enough. What right does anyone have to my or your attention? Why are you reading this? Why am I sending it? Does my choice to send this email reduce your choices of where to focus your attention?

The British Film Institute’s critics think Vertigo is the greatest movie of all time. Empire says it’s Lord of the rings. Time Out think 2001: A Space Odyssey is the best. But they’re all wrong. The greatest movie of all time is Dirty Dancing. It is unique. There is no other film like it. Vertigo is just a thriller, and there are lots of those. Lord of the rings is a fantasy adventure among other fantasy adventure films. 2001 is just another sci-fi movie.

But Dirty Dancing is in a genre of it’s own. It’s a musical without being a musical. It’s a romance that doesn’t shrink from the difficult realities of relationships. It’s a coming-of-age story that tackles social issues around class, wealth and privilege. It’s proudly feminist in how it treats abortion and women’s agency over their choices. There is no other movie that is so thought-provoking and challenging at the same time as being uplifting and life-affirming, and that makes it the greatest movie of all time. Nobody puts Dirty Dancing in the corner.

Epictetus, the Greek Stoic philosopher, thought that all external events are beyond our control. But, he said, individuals are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline. And here lies the paradox. If you are in control of your own actions, that means you can choose to direct your time and energy at taking control of external events.

An example? External event: asteroid hitting planet earth. Taking control: become a planetary scientist and work at NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies to track comets and asteroids that pass close to the Earth.

Perhaps what Epictetus was really trying to say was that as individuals we can’t control all external events ourselves. So, that’s why we have civilisations and learn to work together, and have people that specialise and dedicate their life’s work to one thing, all so that as a species we can control more and more of the external events in our world.

Every so often the OSS Simple Sabotage Manual on sabotaging workplaces gets shared on social media in return for a few knowing laughs about how it seems to describe the modern workplace. Its description of how saboteurs can slow the pace of work in an effort to hinder the production capabilities of the enemy parallels the bureaucratic work practices that we all love to hate. The implication? That companies sabotage themselves by working in the way they do. And so, if we could only just stop making decisions by committee and revisiting the same discussions and misunderstanding regulations then work could happen faster, and that would just be better.

Or maybe it wouldn’t be. Maybe slow work is better. Maybe the aspects of the future of work that no one talks about because they’re busy arguing over whether work should happen in offices or homes, is that Schumpeter’s legacy of innovation that relies on speed, on first-mover advantage, doesn’t fit the future of innovation we need. People and planet need an innovation that is paced, considered, connected, and intentionally so because it recognises the complexity of the world we live in and that nothing exists in isolation. The ’move fast and break things’ meme is the sabotage manual of the modern day.

Started during the reign of King Louis VII in 1163, Notre Dame cathedral took 182 years to build. Four or five generations of stone masons, carpenters and labours worked on the gargantuan construction project. Today we build virtual worlds for 2.9 billion people in the time it would have taken one of those stone masons to learn his craft. What differs in the minds of those that built things centuries ago to those that build today is not only their concept of time and what the future holds but more importantly the concept of whether something is ever finished.

If we’re building something that has an end state, a point in time when that thing will no longer be changed, then perhaps we may think more deeply about getting it right. If we expect that what we build will never be finished, will always be changing, can always be undone and redone, then we might not approach it with the same depth of consideration.

Philosopher Derek Parfit said, “We live during the hinge of history”, to describe the hypothesis that given how much change society has seen over the last few centuries, we are at a point in time where present humanity has more influence over the future of humanity than it has ever had before. We could look to the obvious advances in technology like A.I. or social ideologies like Democracy as holding that influence over the future, but it seems more likely that our ways of thinking and understanding are more likely to endure for the coming millennia.

When we no longer conceive of things as having an end, even as our awareness of existential threat increases, then we implicitly build things that we expect others to take over. We expect these future others to fix our mistakes, correct our errors of judgement, or, perhaps, to just pass them on to their future others. What we build, for now and for the future, becomes always changing, never fixed, in either sense of the word.