We're talking about...

We've been talking about some BIG subjects in the past few posts, and I was gearing myself up for another round, but decided it was time to take a break and poke some fun at myself.

Most of you have commented at some point that I tend to overwrite things and, in conversation, I can be a little wordy and didactic.  This is all very true, but let us take a step back and watch a true master at work:

Enjoy.

The conversation continues...

Josh, over at leegertrained, posted a great comment on my last entry.  Here it is...

Why not do less with less? We always want to do more, but where does that cultural prejudice come from, that “more is better?”

We also say “less is more,” but what does that mean?

Is the problem the interface, the technology, or the way in which it is used, and the way in which we allow ourselves to be used by it?

Culture (and I think, the human mind, generally) is insidious in the ability to create a myth that is then forgotten as a “created thing,” and accepted as “fact.”

What is significantly different about life now, from life 100 years ago? 1000 years ago? 10000 years ago?

Agriculture is different. But not better. Masanobu Fukuoka produced higher yields on his “organic” (beyond organic, actually) plot than the surrounding “industrial” fields. So we don’t need “new” technology there…and we don’t need to do “more” in agriculture.

You might say “longevity,” or “life-span.” I might agree, to a point. The “masses” are living longer, but lifespan itself hasn’t changed that much. Plato lived to the ripe old age of 80, in the 4th C BC. Many more examples of 80+ year lifespans in the “privileged classes” throughout ancient history.

You might say “connectedness.” But what has that connectedness changed? Fundamentally?

Knowledge? What has it given us, this knowledge? I like it, you know that. I think it’s fun. It’s my main hobby. But more and more, I turn within for knowledge…

We don’t really need to do “more” of anything…less, I think, is in order.

Maybe if we need more of something, it’s active sensitivity…sense-itivity. Sensing our environment, and ourselves as continuous with that environment (or vice versa). Using “sense” to grow things, or to act in our lives. “Making sense” in ways that are consistent with a happy life…

Your thoughts?

And here's my response:

When I say "more," I didn't necessarily mean "more stuff."  I absolutely agree that our current level of material consumption needs to stop.  There is currently a resurgent austerity meme flying around in response to the global recession - hopefully this can merge with some of the "green" memes and create some meaningful cultural change. 

But, no matter how clever we are, and how successful our memes, our genes are still boss.  And we have a genetic directive that compels us to acquire as many resources as we can get our hands on.  Rather than fighting the EXTREME uphill battle of getting people to not acquire as many resources for themselves, we would do better to perform some cultural aikido and help convince the world that material things are not the resources that matter any more.  Knowledge and information are.

Think about it - without your ability to access, aggregate, and analyze information, would you have been able to develop your thoughts on human health to the degree that you have?  We do indeed live in the Information Age and the Knowledge Based Economy.

True, I am a technology optimist, but I like to imagine a world in which people are satisfied with a simple material existence but are never satisfied with their level of knowledge, and spend their time and resources investing in additional knowledge.

In this scenario, more would be better, yes?  Unless of course "more" was, for instance, ICBM launch codes... but that's a different issue...

So perhaps we can restate "do more with less" as "do more/better/more meaningful work with less material/temporal resources."

For example:  email sucks.  It really does - especially as a work/productivity tool.  How easy is it to get completely overwhelmed by your inbox, spin your wheels trying to handle 15 different requests at the same time, and end the day hunched over your desk, with 15 unfinished tasks and a sore back?  The "low tech" solution is to take a break from email, skip off to Esalen for a week and do some yoga.  Fine, but when you get back you'll have 500 messages and the process of dealing with all that crap will stress you out even more.

Better if we took a "high tech" approach (point of order - this does not mean "more complicated"), and devoted some resources to creating a brand new system that allowed/assisted you to aggregate all messages, automatically generated and sent replies for more routine requests, and helped prioritize your tasks.  All handled through voice and simple gesture commands.  The AI and adaptive algorithms exist and many software companies are already experimenting with similar concepts.  While the computer science behind such an idea is pretty complicated, the end result should be very simple to use and comprehend.  I take more of a "design thinking" approach to technology and tend to think better technology should be simpler and faster to use, not more complicated.

Don't get crossed

I’m warning you up front, this is a long post.  Make sure you take a break at some point to get up and move around.

 Physical therapists, chiropractors, and personal trainers use the term “crossed syndrome” to describe a very common muscular/skeletal problem that, unfortunately, most of us struggle with to some degree.  Put simply, spending long periods of time sitting in one position have caused certain opposing muscle groups to become overly tight or overly weak.  One group tries to do what the other group should be doing.  The result? A litany of problems including tight shoulders, back pain, headaches, unattractive posture... the list goes on.

 I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about how crossed syndrome affects us on a macro level, not just an individual level.  I fear that we tend to get crossed up by proposing high tech solutions to low tech problems and low tech solutions to high tech problems.  I'm not really satisfied with this terminology - we could also use "old vs. new" or "simple vs. complex."

 For starters, let’s revisit running (again).  Modern running shoes provide more and more “features” but result in more and more injuries.  The solution?  Simple, cheap shoes and/or running barefoot.

FAIL

 Or, take the treatment of crossed syndrome itself.  An increasingly popular option to treat chronic back pain is complicated spinal surgery.  The procedure is expensive and risky.  The results?  Most people experience some relief.  However, studies show that a regimen of light back exercises are just as effective, cost next to nothing, and are far less dangerous.

 Things tend to flip as we move to “bigger" issues.  Take energy.  The ongoing tragedy of the Gulf oil spill has us once again asking why we’re still relying on oil for fuel.  I’d expand that to include other fossil fuels like coal.  It is old technology and it will no longer suffice.  Rather than figuring out ways to drill for more oil or to scrub some of the NOX out of coal emissions, we need to move towards newer, more high tech forms of energy production like wind and solar.  This is hardly a new and groundbreaking argument, but progress has been far too slow.

 If we broaden the energy topic to “consumption of resources,” a popular argument is that we all need to consume less.  Fine, I absolutely agree.  But many then go on to say we all need to drive less, fly less, use less technology, and generally adopt an older, slower way of life.  I confess to thinking along these lines quite often.  Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), this is quite impossible.  

 Sapience [the ability to think and/or judge] does not render us beyond the control of evolution.  Rather, it shifts the driving force of our evolution away from biology and towards, for lack of a better term, intellect.  Richard Dawkins coined the term “meme” to describe this phenomenon - a  meme can be thought of as a unit of a cultural idea.  The evolution of memes is almost identical to biological evolution.  They undergo “natural” and “sexual” selection, mutation, variation, etc. but at a much much faster rate.  Memes have allowed us to progress from the stone age to the information age in, geologically speaking, a blink of an eye.  Biologically, we haven’t changed a bit, but if you dropped your average cave man off in the middle of modern day Manhattan he would be utterly unable to comprehend his surroundings - and would most likely suffer severe mental trauma.

 Still reading?  Do me a favor - get up and stretch.  I don’t want to contribute to your crossed syndrome!

 ...back? Awesome.

 Okay, memes, got it.  So what?  Well, the evolution of memes share something else in common with biological evolution.  They only go in one direction - forward.  We never see populations of humans and chimps devolving to a common ancestor... 

 (This, by the way is a very common misconception about evolution.  Humans did not evolve from chimps.  Rather, we are genetic “cousins,” sharing a common ancestor species that was neither human nor chimp.  Think of life as a great tree that is constantly branching.  Trace the branches back far enough and they all connect... so we are closest cousins to chimps, more distant cousins of goldfish, and very distant cousins of trees.  Sorry, now back to the essay)

 ...because we cannot erase information from our genetic memory.  Similarly, we cannot erase information from our cultural memory.  The benefits of technological development (one of the most successful memes) cannot simply be done away with.  While individuals may choose to forgo the trappings and comforts of modern life, we cannot expect global culture to regress wholesale to a preindustrial way of life.

 We must therefore focus on creating technology to do more with less.  Clean electrical generation will be an important step, as will improving efficiency standards.  Rather than lamenting the continued dominance of cars as a means of transportation and venting over how people should drive less, we need to consider why cars are more popular than other mass transit options (namely, the convenience and the ability to travel point-to-point).  We can’t tell our entire culture to confine themselves, so how can we leverage technology to solve this problem?  Advanced light rail? Something completely different? I for one am in favor of bringing back the meme of personal dirigibles...

WIN

The evolution of memes suggests that while applying "old" ideas to "new" problems is futile, we can adapt elements of these ideas, combine them, and perhaps come up with an innovative solution.  Agriculture is an interesting example. Industrial food production provides large quantities of food, but at a terrible environmental and ethical cost. Organic food production is less harmful per unit, but we would need to cultivate far more land to feed the world, not to mention reverse the global trend of urbanization to find the manpower... unlikely, as not many people want to be farmers these days. A potential solution? Urban gardens, living roofs, etc.

 Now let’s look at a complex issue like public health.  I’ve often written about how high tech “solutions” to personal fitness are ineffective, and have turned what should be fun and liberating into a dreaded chore.  However, the Exuberant Animals and “Paleos” among us must realize that we cannot expect the masses to not sit behind a computer all day and eat convenient food.  Our constant need to use information technology is at the root of the problem, but is not the problem itself.  The real problem is the interface, and this is a problem that requires a high-tech solution.  Once we’ve been unshackled from keyboards, screens, and office desks, and have more fully integrated with our IT (haptic interface, heads-up-displays, Augmented Reality, etc.) maybe we will be free to move more, sit less, spend more time with our meals, etc.  The interesting question is how this continued evolution of our "always on, always connected" meme will interact with our very biological need for rest.  But I've rambled for far too long already, so that will be the subject of another blog post.  I'd love to know where all of you stand on this - let me know!