No. 93 Gen Z are into maps now + tech and spirits
No. 93 • 1/27/2023
This week:
- the secret to being more prolific
- the tech future that never was
- AI needs more people talking about AI
- spirits come in many sizes and shapes
- Gen Z is into maps
If you want to be more prolific, just hit "send" more
I honestly think that the difference between "prolific" and "not prolific" is that prolific people hit "send" more than people who don't. I would even go as far as to say that, in general, creative people produce similar amounts of work. It's just that some people put more of it out into the world.
Things you will need to do in order to hit "send" more:
- Change how you define "done." If "done" to you means "no more edits needed," you're never gonna be prolific. There are always more edits than can be done.
- Recontextualize how you release "unfinished" work. You don't have to be the person who only releases finished work. You can be someone who releases unfinished work. That can be your thing.
- Get good at seeing the bigger picture. It's not so much about releasing "unfinished" work sometimes. It's how it reads over a long period of time. I often think of this as a chapter in a book. Could this aspect of your creative life be a chapter in your biography? Being someone who releases experiments rather than finished products and for what reason is an interesting chapter in your book.
We still live in a world of "those who know" and "those who don't know"
I think, like with most things, the biggest risk with the increased pervasiveness of AI is mass ignorance.
When we look back on history at times when there was a discrepancy between those who had knowledge/information and those who didn't, we think: Wow, that was terrible. State-Communist (capital "C" not little "c") countries censuring information. The Church (capital "C" not little "c") being literate, and the people not being literate. Knowledge is power, and those who have it have the power. But, that's just an evil of the past, right?
Just because there's no law making it illegal for people to know how to fix their own cars, know how the internet works, know how AI functions doesn't mean we aren't living in the same mass-illiterate world as before.
To break up the hold ignorance has on me, I sometimes dip into articles by Holden Karnofsky of Cold Takes who writes long, thoughtful pieces on "the most important century ever for humanity." This week, he talked about the importance of messaging, getting the word out about AI. But, not just any kind of messaging-words.
Karnofsky makes a distinction between bad messages:
- AI is super important and inevitable
- AI is super dangerous and inevitable
...and good messages:
- Explaining the conflict between misaligned AI and "all" humans
- Explaining how AIs could behave deceptively, and how “evidence of safety” might be misleading
- Explaining how it might be important for companies (and other institutions) to act in unusual ways due to the pervasiveness of AI
- Explaining how we're really not ready for this
Karnofsky goes into detail about the reasons for these and other messages we would benefit becoming proficient in discussing. It's a great piece (as are his others). Link below.
Why don't we ever achieve tech-utopia?
Flux has a great interview with author Richard Barbrook talking about possible reasons behind the failed promises of tech liberation, neoliberalism, and the "Californian Ideology."
Check it out here:
https://flux.community/matthew-sheffield/2023/01/richard-barbrook-californian-ideology-libertarianism-neoliberalism/And, if curious, check out Barbook's original sorry-not-sorry 1995 piece, "The Californian Ideology" here:
The Californian Ideology
'Not to lie about the future is impossible and one can lie about it at will' - Naum Gabo
A taste:
"The California Ideology is a mix of cybernetics, free market economics, and counter-culture libertarianism and is promulgated by magazines such as WIRED and MONDO 2000 and preached in the books of Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly and others. The new faith P has been embraced by computer nerds, slacker students, 30-something capitalists, hip academics, futurist bureaucrats and even the President of the USA himself."
Always use a "more" tag
If you ever plan on getting that blog going you've been putting off for ten years, here's a bit of technical advice: Always use a "more" tag for pieces longer than two paragraphs.
Some evil blogs think it's ok to simply showcase entire essays and articles in full on the homepage, one stacked on top of the previous one. This is bad practice.
I think of your landing page is the introduction. It's the greeting. Whether it's a greeting between old friends or new, it's still the beginning of a conversation. Don't hammer newbies and oldies with your entire life story the second they arrive. Start slowly.
The three categories of spirit(s)
For the past six or so years, much of my spiritual "work" has been invested spirits, specifically in a Christian, Catholic, Catholic-adjacent (Lucumi/santeria, spiritism, etc), Hindu-Christian context. Over time I have come to believe that there are three categories of spirits humans encounter in these contexts:
- The personal spirit (the one given at birth that can be either quickened, dampened, or at rest)
- God's interceding "Holy" Spirit (gifted through grace via Jesus the Christ)
- The spirits of other beings, living or dead (which can be called upon or rejected as necessary)
When examining our impulses, as in the practice of Ignatian "spirit discernment," which interprets internal "movements" (emotions, impulses, drives, thoughts, etc) as actually movements of spirit(s), it's important to recognize which of the above category of spirits we're responding to and engaging with. Each one is legit. But, each is very different.
Our personal spirit is the one we tend to engage with the most, but is, ironically for those disinterested in such things, the one we least acknowledge.
The Holy Spirit is the "big one" you often hear about in Christian (especially non-Catholic) scenes. "Overcome with the Holy Spirit," etc.
The spirits of other beings are often interpreted as pesky and troublesome, but are in actuality just more energetic stimuli. Some good . Some annoying.
If all this interests you, I wrote a short lil book about it:
https://www.amazon.com/Sitting-Spirits-Exploring-Margins-Christianity/dp/1648582192Western science is often just playing catch-up
In some ways this deserves more space than I can give. I other ways, it deserves far less. But....
Western science is a framework for understanding. It's a way of knowing. One way among many. Yoga, spiritual "technology," and traditional wisdom traditions are other ways. They're all just ways.
When Western science attempts to "prove" whether an ancient technology like acupuncture, yoga, pranayama, visioning, etc. "works," what it's actually doing is trying to see if the ancient technology fits conceptually into the Western science framework. Western science isn't "proving" anything about whether ancient, spiritual technologies work. It only proves whether the ancient technology can be reinterpreted into a Western framework of understanding reality.
Gen Z are now into physical maps
You never really know what Youth™️ trend is gonna fade once The Youth™️ lose interest, and which will become tried and true shifts in how humans engage with the world. Will, for example, recent Gen Z "Luddite groups" lead to a cultural shift toward appreciating dumb phones and hardcopy books? Or, will Gen Z appreciations of using physical maps over digital ones catch on...
"According to a spokesperson for Ordnance Survey, the national mapping agency of Great Britain, “sales of custom-made maps exploded in 2020, with an increase of 144% compared with the year before. A year later, in 2021, there was a further 28% increase.” The AAA produced 123% more maps in 2022 than in 2021. Enthusiasm for the organization, a representative said, is growing among millennials and members of Generation Z, who account for half of its new members in the last three years."
This bit sums up my experience of paper vs digital maps:
"A paper map, more like those made by early humans, can provide a bigger picture. You can think of them less like comprehensive guides to reaching your destination, and more like detailed portraits of areas of interest, created by someone with deep, experiential knowledge. After all, while a satellite can highlight unpaved paths, cartographers actually walk down them."
GPS is fine. But, like most tech innovations, I find the things I like about it are the same things that increase tension in my body-mind.
- Knowing how long a trip is gonna take is "good," but increased obsession with how long things take is very bad.
- Knowing which routes are fastest due to lack of traffic is "good," but constantly having to look at a moving screen for updates is very bad.
- Having play-by-play instructions on how to get somewhere is "good," but not having any context for where I am in relation to anything else (as I woudl when using a physical map) is very bad.
Rando Pone
And, that's that! See ya next week.
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