4/15/2014

Reflections

This entry is for writing ideas that come out from somewhere

The brain is deceiving. It makes us think what we write is original when we took it from someone else, so comment when you find readings from some other people written as mine

Law is never above those who enforce it

-Taboo is what makes sex so exciting.
Sexualized culture spins around the mystery of prohibition, hiding within clothes, courtship, the concealed act...
Being completely free on instinct would lead to sexual boredoom.

-Get angry but think before striking
-Passion leads to insanity and violence. Without it life would be unbearable
-Little changes could make big differences. Try something new whenever you can
-Can anybody live without music?
-There is always another way to do it. There is always a completely different path

-Some of the most sour lifelessons will come from our own family

-Enjoy the trip, for there is no way back

-Reality is not chaotic but just hard to predict
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The more you have, the more you want (popular saying: more you get, the more you want)
-Relax about your parents. Whatever they want, you need to lead your own life

-The fooler, the more harassing

-Don't obssess about the perfect life. This is the only one you can live so relax

-Law is never above those who enforce it

10/18/2013

Social networks of tomorrow

    A few ideas on how could be the future of communication:

  • Online networks will evolve to cellphone-always-connection (gross?)
  • Other devices such as Google-glass will ease the experience
  • Spoken interfaces displacing keyboards
  • Batteries seem to be the great challenge
  • People are going to exchange now-pics, now-videos
  • Some will get some money for experiencing the outdoors for others who can't or do not want to go outside
  • Many freelancers working from body-attached devices
  • Criminals will specialize at intercepting data from those connections
  • People carrying a small keyboard with screen for transcriptions, but devices will be spread through the body
  • Video calls are going to be the norm
  • Devices will monitor the health of the user
  • 24/7 online doctors
  • Public services will be served online, and office-work will shrink to a minimum
  • There is going to be some kind of escort services to offer company anywhere-anytime you ask, so crimes and legal issues will arise
  • People being paid for having fun while connected
  • It will be an economy of entertainment, even for blue collars
  • Artificial intelligence avatars as people's companion
  • Laws will evolve a lot for adapting to this new world, particularly regarding online-love-contracts (relationships)
  • Governments' struggle with all the power cumulated by always-connection corporations
  • There will be a surge of always-connection startups
  • The emergence of the Internet of things could crash all the system


7/26/2013

Tackling a problem


When deciding whether or not a road is a good choice, our intuition could suggest it is dangerous, because of a couple car accidents seen long ago and forgotten. Then we unconsciously determine to follow another path, not knowing how risky it truly is. So -because of two isolated events- we made the permanent assumption one way must be avoided.

We model reality upon our own experiences, fears, expectations, biases, prejudices, beliefs, self-gotten knowledge, formal education and social pressures. All these components lie in our unconscious mind and surface without any awareness when approaching reality, defining problems or finding solutions. Our intuitions are basically the unconscious result from all those inner ideas and emotions. But intuition is sometimes a deceiver. It leads us to the immediate survival option. This means, no strategic vision, no planning, just reacting on emotion; which is good when under pressure. Yet, we can be easy prey of planners with priorities other than our own.

Writing down our theory of the problem, makes it easier to analyze or redefine. Searching the Internet might help gathering information, and could support finding biases and preconceptions. Being flexible to ideas that controvert our own is essential for a better theoretical construction. Asking others for viewpoints or questions, surely brings interesting and unexpected perspectives. Being skeptical is a need.

Before making an important decision, it is critical to visualize the future and ask ourselves questions such as: how will others react?, is it legal?, is it the problem or a symptom to it?, is it socially accepted?, am I under social pressure to follow certain path?, what could be its negative effects?, am I willing to bear its consequences?, are there issues not confronted because of fear or other reasons?, am I denying dangers that could arise from my decision? If our own intuitions lead to rejection, perhaps there is some hidden issue; so our solution needs deeper examination.

We can make better life-decisions if we follow some kind of method. This document is maybe a guide to my own procedure for solving problems. I have never tried it completely but I will.

7/06/2013

ROBOTS WITHOUT INTELLECT

Just a couple months ago I realized that robots are not capable of visual perception. An article I read exposes that watching is a very complex process that needs a lot of intelligence. Understanding a simple chair requires knowing it is the same thing when viewed from different positions. To do this it is not only necessary to have mental images of most chair's angles but an abstraction of the object, which means giving it a name, putting it into a category (furniture, objects for rest by sitting, etc.) Abstraction and defining categories require other skills not directly related to vision: language abilities such as syntax, semantics, words creation, and perhaps even assigning emotional attributes to things (e.g., fire hurts, electricity is dangerous and the like.) And these are not the only problems. Things are not static, they evolve and are part of a three-dimensional world. A glass falls and breaks; this is a process that needs understanding and a corrective action should be taken. People approach, move away or disappear behind a door. A robot will need to know people are its reason to exist, which poses an ethical challenge. Will they be self-aware or have some kind of soul with all this brainpower? For now robots are blind machines, with very restricted autonomy; it seems making them see the world, will not be an easy task.

5/10/2013

ON TECHNOLOGICAL STAGNATION



Guessing the roots of economic crisis
In 2013 the world is crossing through lots of uncertainty, economic difficulties and fear of environmental collapse. In a previous document I had suggested a few reasons to this state of things: oil price, disappearance of some industries, automation, shift of popular interest in cars and some other. But maybe there are other problems like the worldwide conflict between keeping contaminating technologies such as oil fuels and the need of more environmentally friendly ones. Another cause for economic downgrade might be that the private sector just reduced personnel to an optimum. I mean, maybe there was some sort of employment boom, in which there were many job positions not being really necessary. Perhaps outsourcing to less developed countries killed many work positions in the developed world. This should have led to better living standards in poor countries where the outsourcing economy created jobs. But it seems it did not happen. I guess one essential cause for economic difficulties is technological stagnation, I mean not searching for revolutionary options but only improving what already exists.

Cutting edge tech
Up until now technology and perhaps science, have been only refining what had been under development from the beginnings of twentieth century: airplanes, engines, computers, rockets, etc. Reaching the sky is a very expensive endeavor that prevents humanity from conquering new worlds or make use of minerals in the moon or somewhere else. Oil price rises every passing day, which reduces the chances to transportation, commerce and recreational travel. But reducing its cost would lead to higher atmospheric contamination. Renewable resources are reaching exhaustion limits which is a threat to human success on earth. Mineral reserves are decreasing. All of these issues require a true revolution in technology and science in order to guarantee humanity's sustainability and our expansion to new worlds.

What does it take
So far the only motor to technological revolutions has been worldwide war. The US financial crash of early twentieth century was resolved by entering World War II. Atomic technology came out of the war with a great financial cost. After the war all those German engineers and scientists were recruited by the USA and Soviet Union. As a result from this, rockets took people to the moon, airplanes evolved from wooden bodied ones to metallic jets capable of beating the sound barrier. But now planetary war does not seem likely due to nuclear weaponry and its devastating menace. There is a theoretical vision developed by The Club of Rome, which states that human race will collapse by 2040. Now we are experiencing depletion of sea-fishing resources, air pollution, metals shortage and climate change that seem to be confirmations of that doomsday scenario. A nuclear worldwide war is possible when economic crisis deepens to unmanageable. Maybe the world will not end, but atomic weapons apparently model a war to last just days or weeks, until parties at conflict negotiate a truce or someone just loses the fight. This would not allow time enough for a revolution in science and technology. So maybe the engine to this foundational shift will come after reaching the doomsday scenario suggested by the Club of Rome.

A final clarification
I decided to write this document without any Internet research. This is because I think when being too methodical, one misses creativity and our own biases are usually corrected without trace. So maybe I will develop a second document with data gathered from the web so I can check how close to reality I was.

5/02/2013

ROBOTS AREN'T TAKING OVER, YET


It's a common idea that robots will take most jobs and people won't work anymore. This would lead us to either fall into misery or enjoy a life of abundance, according to different views of the future. But this is an oversimplification of robotics. We assume robots are almost-human-machines with emotions and moral thought. That's far distant from reality. Currently robots are just tools with very limited capabilities and lots of technical issues. Except for drones, robots can't get freely around. They are like trees, stuck to a fixed place or requiring human supervision to move between locations. And there is another major problem: machine-understanding of visual content (watching things) is just at its beginnings. For now any image or video, is just a bunch of pixels that no computer can see as we humans do. So there is no way for a robot to process its surroundings in a human-like way. Finally, I think machines with some kind of consciousness will be ready in at least 30 years. Then, The Judgment Day is away. But robotics will have overcome most of current challenges when conscious machines arise. Therefore, perhaps robots will be ready to beat humanity when that day comes.

In 2013 the world economy is going through a crisis that could worsen. Automation is blamed for this and robots are perceived as a close danger for employment. How much of that is true? I searched the Internet and found the opposite: robotics boosts job creation! There is a double explanation for this. First, as I already explained, robots are unable to behave or move like humans. This means any job that requires understanding what's around, walking or simply casually interacting with people, needs human workers. The second reason is that robotics (broadly automation) at factories dramatically increases production. This leads to more distribution and sales forces that only can be met by humans (more jobs.) New technology usually leads to lower prices which allows people to buy other things, which leads to new companies and new jobs. Automation in general does not affect highly and lowly paid jobs but middle level ones seem to be decreasing either in manufacture or services. Then, maybe this is the big concern for most.

After all these marvelous ideas were written, the world economy remains in great turmoil. I searched for causes and found that everything started with banks uncontrolledly lending money in the US, for real state acquisitions that led to a financial crash when people failed to pay their debt. But why did banks follow this trend? Something is still missing. My next suspect was oil price, but I found that in the 80s it was even relatively higher than today. Then come all those gone industries: music-records, film-photography and even the current publishing-books industry victimized by the Internet and people like me at blogging. Have all those gone jobs not recovered? My last suspect is the car industry. The developed world has been spinning around cars and parts factories. But it seems production reached its peak and now people are not so interested in buying more of them. Maybe the technological shift to a more automated world is taking its toll.

More links:

4/09/2013

PROCRASTINATION AND COMPANY

Procrastination means doing something that feels more pleasant or less important, in order to avoid performing other things considered more relevant or harder to reach. Procrastination happens only when some kind of failure hits (because of the distraction). I think procrastination is linked to prohibitions, fears, conflicts or insecurities, all of them running in the unconscious mind. I guess the most difficult task is not necessarily the one being postponed, but that considered as more dangerous, forbidden, risky or conflictive. Perhaps the fear to expose ourselves to society and not succeed is a trigger. Performing activities or reaching objectives could fail if they are in conflict with some plan of life, which was abandoned on the road and unconsciously claims its place. But even chasing after your dreams could lead to procrastination if relatives are a very strong counter-influence. Then you end up unconsciously sabotaging all plans to get to your chosen destination. I think there exists some kind of broader social syndrome comprising the abandonment of projects, school failure, multitasking as a way not to focus on a particular chore, even self-destructive behaviors such as drug abuse or overworking. In fact all procrastination is harmful, because it leads to some kind of failure and the personal discomfort for not making what is owed. Taking time to rest when tired or pausing for creative thinking are not procrastination but could be when degrading the process.

Negative effects of procrastination
Guilt, anxiety, uncertainty, accumulation of pending work, loss of opportunity, missing the chance to learn, decreased self-steem, possible failure in achieving the goal, time loss, social failure, vice as a way of escape or compensation, vicious cycle of guilt and more procrastination, existential or personal failure, vulnerability.

Positive effects
Doing pleasurable things as substitutes, doing necessary things for substitution, personal growth in other areas as a compensation.

There are other causes for procrastination such as depression, anxiety, brain chemical imbalances that induce inactivity, mental illness not manifested, the adverse effects of drug use and even the side-effects of medications, especially psychiatric ones.

I think if one is constantly avoiding certain activities, abandoning projects or evading responsibilities, it is better to ask about one's general view of life or even either family or social relationships to determine possible motivations. Writing down the procrastination issues, even when they do not cause major problems, could help clarify ideas, clear doubts and define priorities.

Writing a to-do list with priorities and thinking constantly about the outcomes (good or bad) of procrastination could help push oneself into work. Once failure has hit, it is better not to burden oneself with guilt but making an evaluation so one can prevent repetitions.
I hope the procrastination taken to read this document is helpful.

Links
On procrastination