"...solving ever more complicated, nuanced problems, but the infrastructure these solutions are being built into creates its own problems." My take on this is: tech people gotta produce something to keep their jobs. Mostly, it is solutions in search of a problem.
"The beauty of nature is that you can look at a tree and your mind doesn't need to tell a story about it." Not entirely true. I know trees that dance, sometimes ballet, sometimes it's jazz, depending on the whims of the wind. Sometimes the trees dance far, far away, and you can hear the dancers coming closer and closer until they blast you overhead in their ecstatic frenzy. I've seen them bend to harsh Arctic winds, literally bent in half as they resist the wind's need to break them. Then, as soon as the wind isn't looking, they stand up straight, tall and laughing at the wind, reaching their branches out to release the birds who sheltered within.
Tech gonna tech, no doubt about that. I have spent the last three years realising just how happy I'd be to live in a world without electricity, if only to never find myself talking about the Hottest New Tech.
Regarding the trees and story, they share these things with you and no cognitive power is spent trying to understand the dance of the tree, or why it's dancing. A computer screen needs to be lit up, and it needs all these little pixels to act in unison, then my brain needs to repattern it into a form I can understand. But when I see a dancing tree I see a dancing tree. My brain doesn't need to do gymnastics to see it laughing at at the wind!
In Italia, natch! You two can bring the table, the bottle and I'll bring along a couple of pixies (so much more fun than pixels) from the trees. They can be a hoot with the right company!
"...solving ever more complicated, nuanced problems, but the infrastructure these solutions are being built into creates its own problems." My take on this is: tech people gotta produce something to keep their jobs. Mostly, it is solutions in search of a problem.
"The beauty of nature is that you can look at a tree and your mind doesn't need to tell a story about it." Not entirely true. I know trees that dance, sometimes ballet, sometimes it's jazz, depending on the whims of the wind. Sometimes the trees dance far, far away, and you can hear the dancers coming closer and closer until they blast you overhead in their ecstatic frenzy. I've seen them bend to harsh Arctic winds, literally bent in half as they resist the wind's need to break them. Then, as soon as the wind isn't looking, they stand up straight, tall and laughing at the wind, reaching their branches out to release the birds who sheltered within.
Tech gonna tech, no doubt about that. I have spent the last three years realising just how happy I'd be to live in a world without electricity, if only to never find myself talking about the Hottest New Tech.
Regarding the trees and story, they share these things with you and no cognitive power is spent trying to understand the dance of the tree, or why it's dancing. A computer screen needs to be lit up, and it needs all these little pixels to act in unison, then my brain needs to repattern it into a form I can understand. But when I see a dancing tree I see a dancing tree. My brain doesn't need to do gymnastics to see it laughing at at the wind!
Wouldn't it be fun to be sitting across a table, with a bottle of something between us, discussing the intricacies of dancing trees & pixels!
In Italia, natch! You two can bring the table, the bottle and I'll bring along a couple of pixies (so much more fun than pixels) from the trees. They can be a hoot with the right company!
Pixies are way more fun, although they've been known to be naughty!
Exactly! Why else have them along?