Culture – sethlewis.ie

Remixing Wonders

As my son and I sat at the stoplight, he pointed up through the windscreen to the clouds above us and said, “Look, it’s like a painting—you can even see the brush strokes!” Which was a good description, because these were not the common heavy grey or even puffy white variety of clouds, they were streaked and lined and spotted as if an artist had come along and dripped and wiped the last remnants of white from his paintbrush against a deep blue drop-cloth.

My Old, Obsolete Knowledge

The museum had radios from the 1920’s and an original Edison record player. They had rotary phones with a working switchboard, and an early TV camera hooked up to an old TV. After that came the room full of old computers—and that’s where the experience changed, for me. I recognised them. I remember one of them sitting on the desk when I was growing up. I know how to put the floppy disks in those slots, and flip down the lock. The ATARI game system in the corner—the one my kids thought was so ancient—was the one I used to play on. I can show you how to blow on the cartridges to keep them working, if you want me to. But why would you?

Across from the ATARI, there were mobile phone models that I used to own displayed in a glass case. The stuff I used to carry in my pocket—in a museum display! I still remember how to type out texts with the number pad, pushing the 3 twice for an “e” and the 7 four times for an “s”. I guess that skill isn’t all that useful anymore.

AI Beats Us At Our Own Game

I have a friend who works for NASA. He told me that the International Space Station has always struggled with a mould problem. He said everything that goes into orbit is fully sterilised and decontaminated, except for one thing: the people. Among all the clean and tidy machines, the people remain organic. Alive. Chock-full of microorganisms and a million other mysteries including (but not limited to) mould. Even when we leave the planet, we bring our mess with us.

The solution to the mould problem on the ISS is obvious. All we need to do is replace the people with robots. We’re told that AI is already more intelligent than we are, and getting better and more efficient at everything we do. Robots wouldn’t need sleeping quarters, wastewater recycling units, exercise facilities, showers, or a kitchen. All that human-oriented space on the space station could be re-purposed and used far more efficiently.

Choose Your Drama

Choose your drama. There is no shortage. Every streaming service can supply a few thousand options for you, and if fiction isn’t your preference the news is a never-ending reality show (based on a true story) that nobody has the guts to cancel. Too dark? You can follow the stars, watching for which celebrities are rising, which are falling, and which are cheating. Or sports. Or soaps. Or our newest option: a steady stream of short, viral video clips that are always ready to provoke a reaction—whether good or bad or surprising or outrageous or intriguing or ridiculous or sweet or funny or comfortable or all of the above one after another for as long as you can keep your eyes open.

Choose your drama. They’re all vying for your attention, shouting, popping up, playing on your emotions, always accessible and ready to give you the satisfaction of feeling something—because there is a kind of satisfaction in feeling, even if the feeling is bad. And the handy thing about receiving our feelings prepackaged and streamed through the internet is that it’s easier to put them back in our pocket or change channels when we’ve had enough. The real world isn’t nearly as accommodating.

The Treasure Chest at the Train Station

One morning as my wife and I were waiting for a train at our local station, I cast my eyes over the familiar utilitarian scene with its phone-holding inhabitants and I noticed something I had never paid attention to before. On the far side of the tracks there was an unassuming yellow-plastic treasure chest. I could see a padlock on it, but the latch was in front of the lock, ready to open. On the front it had large, black letters openly declared its contents: “Grit Salt”. I realise that this may not sound like treasure to you, or interesting or surprising or exceptional at all—and that’s just the point.

Feeding (a poem)

little love-heart likes
like drops of red rain
rain upon my image
imagine the approval—
approval!
       in my veins
in vain I try to keep it
it’s gone—the world moves on
on to ever newer stories
stories so sensational
sense is pushed aside
side yourself with someone
one side or the other—
other news is coming up
upward trending—multiplying
lying?
       maybe, I can’t tell
tell you what I saw just now
now is moving far too fast
faster still, the flow won’t stop
stop!
       or will it take us under?
understand that we will never
never find our fill
filling up on what this feed
feeds us

The Trouble Underneath

The problems in our world are easy to find. A quick glance at the headlines will prove that point at any time, any day. The more challenging search is for solutions that actually work, although there are always plenty of proposals. Every politician has a proven plan. Every organisation has a confident vision. Every government and charitable society invests its energy and resources into problem-solving—and yet, for all that, the problems persist, unsolved.

Becoming an Interesting Person

The ad popped up and promised to help me become an interesting person at parties. Should I be offended at what my algorithm is implying?

It told me the best way for me to stop being boring is to use an app that summarises the main ideas of popular books. With a tool like this, I could get all the key talking points quickly and efficiently, and always sound thoughtful and informed. Would people be impressed? Perhaps. But I’m not going to buy the app. I think the ad made at least three major assumptions about becoming an interesting person that are just plain wrong (besides the assumption that I’m obviously boring at parties, which I hope is also false).

Does Heaven Move More Slowly?

The area we live in is booming. The fields are growing houses, and there are rivers of tail lights flooding the little roads that used to flow freely. As I sat in the car, waiting again, I thought about how the people who lived here in generations past used to get around. It was walking, mostly, at the pace of people or animals, and even with the traffic my car is faster than that. On the other hand, I know that walking is healthier, and also when I walk I often bump into people I know and we might have a friendly chat—which isn’t possible when we only glimpse each other through passing windscreens. All of this got me thinking about a question I’d never considered before: what kind of transportation will we use in Heaven?

The Growing Power of Wilful Ignorance

She didn’t want to go to the dentist.

My friend already knew she had cavities, and she knew the dentist would want to do something about them. If she avoided seeing him, she could ignore the problem a little longer. It’s easy to ignore a cavity if the tooth is still functioning. Drills and fillings feel drastic when it’s entirely possible to carry on as normal with no intervention at all. The easiest way to deal with a little bit of decay is to apply a little bit of wilful ignorance to it. The trouble, of course, is that wilful ignorance is not an effective treatment for cavities. It only gives them time to grow. And as the decay grows, the wilful ignorance will have to grow with it. To keep a growing problem out of our minds, we must continually increase the capacity of our tolerance for it, slowly expanding the diameter of our blind spots to fit over its ugly edges.