Thoughts

This is where I will ramble to myself.

15th Oct, 2012 
Uncaring People and Caring People Caring about Uncaring People
     Today I was eating cold and overly thick Cream of Wheat, watching the C-Span, basically just relaxing at 9am after dropping my brother off at school. They were discussing undecided voters and had people calling in explaining what issues they want discussed. One of the callers was this sweet grandmother; I couldn't see her but her voice painted this picture of a thin old lady with longish, curly grey hair, glasses, a blouse, and everything else you'd imagine with the words "sweet grandmother". Her voice was so frail and worried. She told the C-Span hostess that she was concerned for her grandchildren because of the state of the environment. She'd been doing lots of research, going to the library, contacting others who may be more knowledgeable. You could tell she was legitimately concerned. Through her research she found, among other things, that fracking shoved a bunch of chemicals into the ground including formaldehyde (toxic) and that some big oil and gas companies were exempt from some EPA regulations. The first bit I already knew and have written about in a school paper, but I'd never heard about big companies being exempt from EPA regulations (I mean I guessed it, but didn't know it was real). She went on to explain her concern over nuclear energy as well, citing the tragedy in Japan as a reason to worry. She was confused. Why is this election making no mention of the environment? It's all about jobs, which are important for the economy, yeah, but what about the environment? We all share the same oceans, they all flow together, we all should be concerned. I guess the thing that impacted me most was just her voice, the desperate, worried cracks in her voice that kept jabbing me in the heart. It was the three most heartbreaking minutes of public television I've seen in some time. Here is an honest, elderly citizen actively investigating the world in an attempt to iron out an informed opinion, just so she can cast a vote in the hopes of deciding a better world for her grandchildren. And here I am, three weeks from election, my unregistered ass sitting stupid trying to stomach some Cream of Wheat. What have I done? What can anyone really do? I don't know if any "normal" citizen can do much. We don't have the money or power to really influence elections. We can't spend millions broadcasting a bunch of propaganda about "clean coal" or how badly we need to tear up our Earth for more oil because Hey! It's jobs! and "smart" energy! We can't do much but sit back and let all the big guys spend tons of money to brainwash the hordes of dumb guys. But we can try, as individuals, to be smart. Being smart means not staying ignorant, not succumbing to stupid slogans or ads, not being a pigheaded party fanboy, and not being uninvolved. Don't vote based on some coal ad you saw, or what your friend likes, or what one CNN special showed you. But this is starting to sound old. It takes a lot more energy to keep up than to just sit down and let it all happen. It'll probably happen whether you're up or not. I don't know what I'm writing anymore. Sometimes my mind is a little funny. I guess I just wanted to share the little story of this old lady. I'm gonna try a little harder now. I hope everyone else does, too.

26th Sep, 2012 
Robots Who Help Us Help Ourselves by Helping Themselves to Us Robots
     It might be obvious, and I might be blind, but it seems that convenience makes us less appreciative. Yeah, I guess it's really obvious. But I realized that the Internet makes us take information for granted. We have millions of pages of information just a few clicks away, yet no one really seems to find that amazing anymore. We fly to far off places for the weekend and come back with a few pictures and stories, yeah, but that's basically it. I sound like an old geezer saying this (and I'm not even old enough to know if this is true), but back when travel was done by foot or carriage I imagine that visiting new towns was much more of an adventure. Information was more valuable. Time itself was more valuable, even. Today it seems we're always rushing, trying not to 'waste' time. We want to get things quicker and cheaper, but it seems it has to end at some point. And when it does end where are we left? Instant and inexpensive travel and instant and infinite information. Then what will travel and information mean to us? It'll be as common as dirt. And no one writes home about dirt.
     The easier things come to us the less we value and appreciate them. If you have a machine that creates music for you would you be as proud of it as if you'd spent hours writing it yourself? Would people listen to it all the same? If two men go to Paris, one having saved up for years to make the journey and the other a wealthy heir who decided last week to visit, who will appreciate it more? Who will be more dazzled by the buildings and culture? Who will spend more time soaking in the atmosphere and language? Again, I guess this is obvious.
     Yesterday, however, I read an article saying that SAT Reading scores for 2012 mark a 40-year nadir (see Cabby, I remembered an AP Eng Lit vocab word!). Then I thought maybe this is a result of the Internet. Words--whether in the form of information or entertainment--have become so cheap. Journalists often now run a spellcheck and call it a day rather than rely on thorough copy editing. The kidz use txt speak 2 shortn ther msgs. Kindle lets us download dozens of books instantly. The Internet allows us to change topics with one click. Our attention can be switched instantly from reading about a friend's relationship to who won the Emmy for Best Comedy. We don't realize how small our attention spans are becoming as a result of the Internet. Currently I have about 15 tabs open, maybe 8 of them are informative articles about how to mix/master music and a few about the ins and outs of a certain DAW, another one is a wiki article about Gershwin, another is this blog I'm typing in. Below these tabs are about 7 bookmarks that I frequent, shifting from one site to the next in seconds, immediately jumping from reading about music to checking my college homework to searching for writing contests. And I don't think anything of it. Some of us read hundreds of snippets online every day. No one goes to facebook to read a book about someone, or last.fm to read a lengthy 100-page biography about an artist. We get dozens of little bits of information--instantly. It's becoming much rarer that we sit down with a long piece of writing and stick to it for an extended period of time. It's becoming much easier to obtain information and thus much cheaper to discard it. Information is being taken for granted and our attention spans are shrinking as a result. When the SAT is about reading a 1-3 page excerpt or article and thinking critically about its contents, how can a kid who's used to skimming dozens of unrelated paragraphs and then forgetting about them supposed to dominate? I know that when I was taking it I sometimes read without taking in anything. I read the words but my brain didn't take in any meaning from them. So I had to read again. My mind kept getting distracted and I couldn't focus completely on any one article [bragging spoiler]still scored 790 on my Reading section[/bragging spoiler].
     I'm not saying the Internet is a bad thing. I love it. But I do think it's making us less attentive, less appreciative, and overall less able to handle ourselves--the exact same could be said about 'instant' travel. GPS is amazing, but what will we do if the battery dies and we're stuck with a road map we can't comprehend? The Internet is amazing, but if it somehow disappeared would we be as capable at communicating and researching as the generations before us who lived without computers? You know, the generations who could use the sun and stars as GPS, and libraries in lieu of the Internet, and horses and bikes instead of planes and cars.
     Are we, as humans, more or less capable of handling ourselves as a result of these technologies? Are we more or less capable of appreciating the information we receive and the towns we visit? Are we becoming too reliant on technology? Is technology literally, physically becoming a part of us? Is this making us less whole? Is the convenience achieved through these technologies worth the decay of our sense of appreciation--our appreciation of information, our appreciation of travel, our appreciation of life? 
     We, as in everything that makes us what "we" are, can only equal 100%. That includes our bones, our blood, and our brains. If technology takes over some of our brains (and possibly some of our bones and blood thanks to biomechanical engineering) then it constitutes some of our 100%. We become less even though “we” may become more, and if ever "we" are deprived of this "more", we become inadequate. And I feel that's something to think about. 


23rd Sep, 2012
     Just testing my template for this page.The alternating color highlight thing ended up looking pretty ugly with lots of text.

 23rd Sep, 2012
     n e 1 ever tot about like how we got here? lik wut if alens mad us n we just charactrs in gams they play lik pokman, or a mmorpg game lik warcraft n ea of us is controled by an alen. woah