Question Technology

Deep Ecology founder Arne Naess has died

Arne Naess, the Norwegian philosopher who introduced the concept of "deep ecology" has died. (Norway Post, AP.)

His short article from 1973 in which he lays out the principles of deep ecology as contrasted with shallow ecology is online here: The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement (and probably elsewhere). Some excerpts:

The emergence of ecologists from their former relative obscurity marks a turning point in our scientific communities. But their message is twisted and misused. A shallow, but presently rather powerful movement, and a deep, but less influential movement, compete for our attention. I shall make an effort to characterize the two.

I. The Shallow Ecology movement:

Fight against pollution and resource depletion.
Central objective: the health and affluence of people in the developed countries.

II. The Deep Ecology movement:

1. Rejection of the man-in-environment image in favor the relational, total-field image. [...]
2. Biospherical egalitarianism-in principle. [...]
3. Principles of diversity and of symbiosis. [...]
4. Anti-class posture. [...]
5. Fight against pollution and resource depletion. [...]
6. Complexity, not complication. [...]
7. Local autonomy and decentralization. [...]

See also the Foundation for Deep Ecology, which has a good summary of the movement's history.

"How to think about science" now in print

The CBC Ideas series by David Cayley on "How to think about science?" (mentioned previously here and here) is now available to buy as printed transcripts (presumably bound in some format, but I don't know) at the CBC shop.

The audio is still available at the Ideas web site in Real or mp3 format. You can also find it on iTunes.

Aldous Huxley's Island

Jeffrey Kripal on Aldous Huxley:

I find it strange, and more than a little depressing, that, despite all of this well-known biographical and metaphysical material, Aldous Huxley is best known today for his dystopian novel, Brave New World. Why is a man who had so much to say about the synthesis of science and spirituality and the deeper dimensions of human consciousness known primarily for a novel about the authoritarian horrors and technological dead-ends of the modern consumer state? Why is this consummate individualist, intrigued by the potential for spiritual ecstasy, still mostly identified with a story of moral despair and fascist political control? Obviously, part of the answer is because Brave New World was so incredibly accurate. But Huxley did more than diagnose the disease; he also provided what he thought of as a realistic treatment in Island.

I interviewed Laura Huxley about Island a few years ago (she died last year at the age of 96). She described the novel to me as "the last will and testament" of her late husband. Island, she suggested, is where he left his most sincere convictions and deepest thoughts about what human beings are capable of at their best. He was very careful, she pointed out, not to include anything in the novel that was not possible, that had not been practiced somewhere before and found useful. So he was quite upset when Island was received as a piece of fantasy rather than a practical program for translating his abstract philosophy of consciousness and existential mysticism into effective social, educational, and contemplative experiments. Island was no fantasy for Aldous Huxley. It was, as Laura said, his "ultimate legacy."

This seems like the right time to entertain the possibility that Aldous Huxley is more relevant now than he ever was, that Island is as important as Brave New World, and that the two novels should be read together. I am particularly struck by Huxley's vibrant critique of religious literalism and the whole psychology of belief in Island. "In religion all words are dirty words," the Old Raja's little green book declared. Hence the novel's ideal of the "Tantrik agnostic" (Aldous's grandfather returns) and its scorn for that "Old Nobodaddy" in the sky (the expression is pure William Blake). Hence the humorous prayer of Pala: "Give us this day our daily Faith, but deliver us, dear God, from Belief." The scarecrows in the fields were even made to look like a God the Father, so that the children who manipulated them with strings to scare off the birds could learn that "all gods are homemade, and that it's we who pull their strings and so give them the power to pull ours."

Link: Brave New Worldview: The Return of Aldous Huxley (Chronicle of Higher Education)

The full article is much longer and worth reading if you're interested in Huxley and issues of science and religion. I haven't read Island, but I'm tempted to give it a try now, though I think it may still be a wee bit too metaphysical/new-agey for me.

Kevin Kelly on Screen Culture

Tech-pontificator Kevin Kelly has a long piece in the NY Times magazine about screens. An excerpt:

When technology shifts, it bends the culture. Once, long ago, culture revolved around the spoken word. The oral skills of memorization, recitation and rhetoric instilled in societies a reverence for the past, the ambiguous, the ornate and the subjective. Then, about 500 years ago, orality was overthrown by technology. Gutenberg’s invention of metallic movable type elevated writing into a central position in the culture. By the means of cheap and perfect copies, text became the engine of change and the foundation of stability. From printing came journalism, science and the mathematics of libraries and law. The distribution-and-display device that we call printing instilled in society a reverence for precision (of black ink on white paper), an appreciation for linear logic (in a sentence), a passion for objectivity (of printed fact) and an allegiance to authority (via authors), whose truth was as fixed and final as a book. In the West, we became people of the book.

Now invention is again overthrowing the dominant media. A new distribution-and-display technology is nudging the book aside and catapulting images, and especially moving images, to the center of the culture. We are becoming people of the screen.

Link: Idea Lab - Becoming Screen Literate,
via Kelly's blog The Technium: Screen Fluency.

I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I'm skeptical. One of the messages from Naomi Baron's book Always On was that, perhaps surprisingly, today's youth are likely reading and writing more text than their parents did. There are differences in how they use text (and some reasons for concern) but there's little doubt that they're still hooked into a kind of word culture. So I don't buy Kelly's idea here, unless he has some real evidence for it (and Kelly's style seems heavy on opinion and low on evidence).

Kelly has been posting many lengthy articles like this one to his blog recently, which has made me suspect that he has a book forthcoming, and indeed he does according to the blurb at the end of the NYT piece: "Kevin Kelly is senior maverick at Wired and the author of “Out of Control” and a coming book on what technology wants." What technology wants? Interesting...

One of those recent blog posts in particular caught my eye. It's called The Pro-Actionary Principle and in it he rejects the precautionary principle, or at least his interpretation of it, which looks a lot like a straw man to me. He argues instead for his own "pro-actionary principle" based on extropian/futurist Max More's earlier document by the same name. I think Kelly and More's project is flawed from the start because it is based on a faulty premise --  that the precautionary principle means "technology must be proven safe." Perfect proof is almost never possible and the intention is not to hold up progress until it is achieved. Governments that use the precautionary principle seem to understand this without any difficulty.

The Rise of Malcolm Gladwell-ish Anecdote Books

This is a good little rant by Joel Spolsky (of "Joel on Software" fame) about what he sees as a trend in current science books. He starts off by commenting on a review of Malcolm Gladwell's latest book...

This review captures what's been driving me crazy over the last year... an unbelievable proliferation of anecdotes disguised as science, self-professed experts writing about things they actually know nothing about, and amusing stories disguised as metaphors for how the world works. Whether it's Thomas Friedman, who, it seems, cannot go a whole week without inventing a new fruit-based metaphor explaining everything about the entire modern world, all based on some random jibberish he misunderstood from a taxi driver in Kuala Lumpur, or Malcolm Gladwell with his weak theories on tipping points, crazy incorrect theories on first impressions, or utterly lunatic theories on experts, it all becomes insanely popular simply because the stories are fun and interesting and everybody wants to hear a good story. Spare me.

Friedman and Gladwell's outsized, flat-world success has lead to a huge number of wannabes. I was really looking forward to reading Simplexity, because it sounded like an interesting topic, until I settled down with it tonight and discovered that it was chock-full of all those amusing bedtime stories about the map of the cholera plague in London in 1854, which I've heard a million times, ...

Link: Anecdotes

I haven't read anything by Malcolm Gladwell, but I have read Jeffrey Kluger's Simplexity and I also found it disappointing for similar reasons. I expected Kluger to get around to explaining some actual theory or scientific work going on at Murray Gell-Mann's Santa Fe Institute, but Kluger never got beyond anecdotes and simplistic "storifying," if that's a word.

Update: After more thought, and after reading some comments on Joel's post and a good counterpoint by Dan Saffer, I feel like clarifying my opinion on this...  I think there is great value in pop science books, in articles written by non-experts, and in anecdotes. I read Joel's piece not as a rant against all those things but against those things badly done. Where you draw the line on that is probably a personal thing -- it depends on the reader. I was probably not the intended type of reader for Kluger's book (I think this is partially the fault of the publisher for marketing that book in the science category instead of business).

My point in quoting Joel's article here is not to bash non-experts or "soft" science writing. I think he's probably right that there are more and more "big think" books out there that are not very original or substantive.

Synthetic Biology Debate

If you're in the San Francisco area you might want to check out this upcoming Synthetic Biology debate with Drew Endy and Jim Thomas. It takes place Monday November 17th and is sponsored by the Long Now foundation. Here is their description:

Bioengineer Drew Endy is the leading enabler of open-source biotechnology. Technology activist Jim Thomas is the leading critic of biotech, based with ETC Group in Ottawa.

"Synthetic Biology includes the broad redefinition and expansion of biotechnology, with the ultimate goals of being able to design and build engineered biological systems that process information, manipulate chemicals, fabricate materials and structures, produce energy, provide food, and maintain and enhance human health and our environment." -- Wikipedia.

Synthetic biology is swarming ahead all over the world, at a self-accelerating pace far greater than Moore's Law, with a range of impacts far greater than genetically engineered food crops. Jim Thomas raises the question: "Is Synthetic Biology reckless or wise from the perspective of 'the long now?'. I feel the synthetic biology community is driven by immensely short term assumptions and motivations, and as a result the medium term prospect for this platform holds both predictable problems and nasty surprises."

Drew Endy says: "Jim and I have somehow managed to establish a productive working relationship, and feel that there is now a once-in-a-generation opportunity to develop the cultural foundations needed to support long term and constructive discussions of the issues existing and emerging with biotechnology---safety, equity, security, community, and so on."

The point of Long Now debates is not win-lose. The point is public clarity and deep understanding, leading to action graced with nuance and built-in adaptivity, with long-term responsibility in mind.

Link: Synthetic Biology Debate (Long Now Seminars About Long-Term Thinking)

Audio and video of the talk will be available at the Long Now site after the event.

The ETC Group has a lot of good material about the issue on their site: ETC Group - Synthetic Biology.

Convergence 08

I just learned about Convergence 08, a two-day event at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA featuring a bunch of futurists and other thinkers on technology. From their buzzword-heavy blurb:

On November 15-16, 2008, the world's most dangerous ideas will collide in Mountain View, California. Convergence⁰⁸ examines the world-changing possibilities of Nanotech and the life-changing promises of Biotech. It is the premier forum for debate and exploration of Cogtech ethics, and ground zero of the past and future Infotech revolution. Convergence⁰⁸ is an innovative, lively unconference, the first and only forum dedicated to NBIC (Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno) technologies.

Link: Convergence08.org.

The speaker list includes some heavyweight futurists/technologists like Paul Saffo, Aubrey de Grey and Peter Norvig, and at least one critic, Denise Caruso.

I'm not sure I get the idea of an "unconference" as the main event, though. I thought those were typically free, alternative forums that took place outside big conferences.

The New Nuclear Danger

I've been reading Jonathan Schell's excellent book The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger (new in paperback), so I found this moment from last night's debate interesting:

IFILL: What should be the trigger, or should there be a trigger, when nuclear weapons use is ever put into play?

PALIN: Nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be all, end all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet, so those dangerous regimes, again, cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, period.

Her next utterance was a bit more coherent but didn't answer the question either: "Our nuclear weaponry here in the U.S. is used as a deterrent. And that's a safe, stable way to use nuclear weaponry."

I imagine that Palin agrees with the Bush doctrine, regardless of whether she knows what it is.  That doctrine in fact puts US use of nuclear weapons on the table as a pre-emptive measure against states that are acquiring weapons of mass destruction. This is a far cry from cold-war era "no first strike" deterrence postures.

The world has changed a lot since the end of the cold war.  In his book, Schell does an excellent job of describing what's changed, why the end of the cold war did not lead to disarmament, why rogue states acquiring nukes is a tremendous threat, and why Bush's doctrine of US global dominance and pre-emptive war to prevent proliferation is not a solution.  Something needs to be done -- nobody can feel comfortable with states like Iran and North Korea wielding nukes -- but in Schell's opinion the only rational answer is global nuclear disarmament.  Surprisingly, the world came closest to enacting such a plan during the Reagan/Gorbachev summits in the late 80s.  Reagan was a hawk but he also believed in abolishing nuclear weapons.  Unfortunately nuclear disarmament treaties are all but defunct now. Neoconservatives, on the contrary, have pushed for new types of nukes and new protocols that allow for US first-use (see "global strike" doctrine).

I hope Barack Obama reads this book or has someone like Schell advising him.

Regarding Sarah Palin, I found a post at a foreign policy blog called Democracy Arsenal that describes better than I can why it's so scary that a vice-presidential candidate can't speak intelligently about the decision to launch a nuclear strike: Palin on Nuclear Weapons.

On a related note, check out PD Smith's recent article Faust and the Physicists.

Rapture for the geeks

A new book about the singularity, this one by novelist Richard Dooling: Rapture for the Geeks: When AI Outsmarts IQ. From the publisher description:

In this fascinating, entertaining, and illuminating book, Dooling looks at what some of the greatest minds have to say about our role in a future in which technology rapidly leaves us in the dust. As Dooling writes, comparing human evolution to technological evolution is “worse than apples and oranges: It’s appliances versus orangutans.” Is the era of Singularity, when machines outthink humans, almost upon us? Will we be enslaved by our supercomputer overlords, as many a sci-fi writer has wondered? Or will humans live lives of leisure with computers doing all the heavy lifting?

With antic wit, fearless prescience, and common sense, Dooling provocatively examines nothing less than what it means to be human in what he playfully calls the age of b.s. (before Singularity)—and what life will be like when we are no longer alone with Mother Nature at Darwin’s card table. Are computers thinking and feeling if they can mimic human speech and emotions? Does processing capability equal consciousness? What happens to our quaint beliefs about God when we’re all worshipping technology? What if the human compulsion to create ever more capable machines ultimately leads to our own extinction? Will human ingenuity and faith ultimately prevail over our technological obsessions? Dooling hopes so, and his cautionary glimpses into the future are the best medicine to restore our humanity.

Dooling has a website and blog.

Considering long-term ramifications of technologies

The New York Times has a good article today by Cornelia Dean about our growing need (and ill-preparedness) to consider the long-term impact of new technologies, particularly geoengineering and nanotechnology.  Excerpt:

Last year, a private company proposed “fertilizing” parts of the ocean with iron, in hopes of encouraging carbon-absorbing blooms of plankton. Meanwhile, researchers elsewhere are talking about injecting chemicals into the atmosphere, launching sun-reflecting mirrors into stationary orbit above the earth or taking other steps to reset the thermostat of a warming planet.

This technology might be useful, even life-saving. But it would inevitably produce environmental effects impossible to predict and impossible to undo. So a growing number of experts say it is time for broad discussion of how and by whom it should be used, or if it should be tried at all.

Similar questions are being raised about nanotechnology, robotics and other powerful emerging technologies. There are even those who suggest humanity should collectively decide to turn away from some new technologies as inherently dangerous.

“The complexity of newly engineered systems coupled with their potential impact on lives, the environment, etc., raise a set of ethical issues that engineers had not been thinking about,” said William A. Wulf, a computer scientist who until last year headed the National Academy of Engineering. As one of his official last acts, he established the Center for Engineering, Ethics, and Society there.

Rachelle Hollander, a philosopher who directs the center, said the new technologies were so powerful that “our saving grace, our inability to affect things at a planetary level, is being lost to us,” as human-induced climate change is demonstrating.

Link: Handle With Care

More hydrogen

There's lots of debate happening about this topic, of course.  Romm sounds convincing but I don't know enough to say whether he's correct.  I just listened to a debate about this topic on CBC Radio's Ideas: The Hydrogen Solution (it's a 3-part series, but I've only heard part 3).  David Scott argued the pro-hydrogen side and Norm Rubin argued the anti- side.  It was interesting but I came away feeling more confused (though still leaning towards anti) because both were pretty good at demolishing their opponent's arguments.  Scott did a good job of poking holes in some standard environmentalist lines against hydrogen and nuclear.  Rubin sounded at times suspiciously like a climate change denier, so I don't know how credible he is.

Hydrogen Car Hype

Joseph Romm has a good post at Technology Review debunking the current hype about hydrogen cars.  Excerpt:

Would you buy a car that costs 10 times as much as a hybrid gasoline-electric, like the Prius? What if I told you it had half the range of the hybrid? What if I told you most cities didn't have a single hydrogen fueling station? Not interested yet? This should be the deal closer: what if I told you it wouldn't have lower greenhouse-gas emissions than the hybrid?

Other than the traditional media, which is as distracted by shiny new objects as my 16-month-old daughter, nobody should get terribly excited when a car company rolls out its wildly impractical next-generation hydrogen car. Too many miracles are required for it to be a marketplace winner.

Take Honda's new FCX Clarity. As the New York Times reported, "the cars cost several hundred thousand dollars each to produce," although Honda's president Takeo Fukui "said that should drop below $100,000 in less than a decade as production volumes increase."

But why would production volumes increase for a car that delivers no real value to the consumer and has no significant societal benefit to motivate government support? Answer: They wouldn't, so prices may never drop below $100,000.

And who, exactly, is going to buy a car that can't easily find fuel? On the other hand, who is going to build tens of thousands of fueling stations--price tag $2 million apiece or more--until the cars are wildly successful? That is the so-called chicken-and-egg problem, which is especially acute for hydrogen. After all, why should oil companies spend tens of billions of dollars building a hydrogen fueling infrastructure, which at best will take away business from their tremendously profitable gasoline sales, and at worst will be a complete business loss, assuming, as now seems likely, that hydrogen cars never catch on?

And yet the media can't get enough of these hi-tech Edsels.

Link: The Last Car You Would Ever Buy -- Literally.

Aging with Aubrey de Grey Event

Aubrey de Grey's Methuselah foundation is having an event in LA later this month called Aging 2008.  From the description:

Applying the new technologies of regenerative and genetic medicine, the engineering approach to aging promises to dramatically extend healthy human life within the next few decades.

How do you and your loved ones stand to benefit from the coming biomedical revolution? Are you prepared? Is society prepared?

At Aging 2008 you will engage with top scientists and advocates as they present their findings and advice, and learn what you can do to help accelerate progress towards a cure for the disease and suffering of aging.

It looks to be a fairly one-sided affair, with no ethicists or skeptics on the program, but nonetheless it's free and might be interesting if you want to hear more about what these people are up to.

You can win "VIP" entry to the event and free admission to a dinner with Aubrey et al. by going to a contest page and describing what you'd do if you lived to 150.

The Need for a Treaty to Control Human Genetic Engineering

Jamie Metzl has an article in the current issue of Democracy magazine calling for a global treaty, modeled after the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, to manage the risks of human genetic engineering.  Some excerpts:

What would a Genetic Heritage Safeguard Treaty (GHST), based on the NPT model, look like? Above all, it would require states possessing greater knowledge in the field to share basic-science capabilities with others, in exchange for all members agreeing to common protocols and appropriate regulations (requiring, for example, the non-inheritability of germline genetic manipulations and the banning of human reproductive cloning). [...]

Although the prospect of human genetic modification is terrifying to many, it is an emergent reality that holds both tremendous promise and unimaginable danger for the world community. As difficult as it will be to establish an international framework for maximizing the benefits and minimizing the dangers of this revolutionary advance, the alternative–allowing these capabilities to emerge unregulated and unchecked–will prove nationally and internationally destabilizing and dangerous to the future of our species. This may sound like science fiction, but it is fast on its way to becoming our reality. America and the world must do far more to prepare. A Genetic Heritage Safeguard Treaty, modeled after the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, can be one important step in the right direction.

Link: Brave New World War (free registration required).

The article was also reprinted by the Center for Genetics and Society (no registration required): Brave New World War.

New Book: Enhancing Me - The hope and the hype of human enhancement

I just picked up a copy of Enhancing Me: The Hope and the Hype of Human Enhancement by Pete Moore.  From the book description:

In Enhancing Me, Pete Moore examines the ways in which technology can change our bodies, our brains, our emotions, and how long we live. He talks to people who have actually been 'enhanced' to find out what it's like and how beneficial it is; and to the experts to find out what the future holds - including a look at some of the more controversial, headline-grabbing claims.  He also looks at what drives us to want to be 'superhuman', and the consequences for the individual and society alike:I

• If you could live forever, would you want to?
• If you could download your mind onto a computer, would you still be you?
• Should we insert chips into our children, so we can track where they are?
• Should we force violent criminals to have mood-controlling brain implants?
• Would you want technology to improve your memory… or help you forget?

I've only read a couple of chapters, but it seems quite good.  It's written for a popular audience but is not too terribly dumbed down.  The glossy full-color presentation makes it look a bit like a museum guide (which it sort of is -- see below) or a Rough Guide.  That also makes it a bit pricey at $20 in the US.  My only other quibble is that it's missing a bibliography or further reading guide (though Pete Moore does have suggestions on his own website).

Enhancing Me is part of a book series called TechKnow, produced by the Dana Centre, which is affiliated with the London science museum. The Dana Centre is "a stylish, purpose-built venue in London (UK). It is a place for adults to take part in exciting, informative and innovative debates about contemporary science, technology and culture." They host multiple events every week on science and technology issues. It sounds like a fantastic project -- I wish they had something like that here.

So far there are four other books planned for the series, covering computer games, human enhancement in sports, living online, and the consumer electronics industry.  The site has previews, blogs, and videos for each.