Messaging Matters—Our Obsession with Doom is Hurting Our Children

Our kids are hurting. From watching one another self-hurt on Musical.ly,  to the high rate of male college drop-outs, to the increase in suicide and mass-shootings led by our youngsters, it appears the next generation is crying out in pain, and most of us don’t want to see our role in their angst. We’ve done the best we could. We’re busy. There isn’t enough time or money. It’s the government’s fault. It’s the gun owners’ faults, it’s the media’s fault.

At some level, all of that is true, but we need to step back and admit it’s our fault as well. Each of us who lives in this society takes part in the society, particularly in the messaging that our kids receive. The culture we give them is the culture that they will literally embody, whether we like it or not. So perhaps we need to take a moment to look at the culture, and more specifically the messages we share with one another and our children.

The Buddhists practice the Noble Eightfold Path:

Right understanding (Samma ditthi), Right thought (Samma sankappa), Right speech (Samma vaca), Right action (Samma kammanta), Right livelihood (Samma ajiva), Right effort (Samma vayama), Right mindfulness (Samma sati), Right concentration (Samma samadhi)

The idea here is profound, yet one we often overlook when creating the societies in which we live. Beginning with the right understanding, we are able achieve right concentration and overcome the suffering of our souls. That lonely ache of being human can be transcended, if only we have the right understanding to follow the rest of the Eightfold Path.

We learn this understanding initially from those around us. If the elders practice right thought, based on right understanding, then through their speech, actions, livelihood and efforts they will hand down right understanding to the next generation.

Therefore, what we do reflects what we say which reflects what we think. Taking a sample from my Facebook, Twitter and Medium feeds, it becomes clear that the understanding we are teaching are kids is FAR from right in it’s thinking, speech or action. Rather than follow hope, we follow doom, and we sell it to anyone with eyes to see it and ears to hear it. Unless you live in a cave, you can’t escape the myopic American vision of death, destruction and hopelessness. Given our obsession with doom, is it any wonder that our kids want out? Whether through cutting, killing themselves or others, or escaping into video games, the world we’re telling them, the world we’re showing them, isn’t one of empowerment, it’s one set on pity and helplessness.

What exactly do I mean? The examples are endless, but here are four lies I think we feed each other, and thus our children, that teach them the world isn’t worth their time and that they themselves are irrelevant.

1.       The world is better off without humanity.

Yes, we’ve all heard this one. I hear it several times a day, when I bother to leave my cave and partake in this world I love so much. And every time I hear these words uttered, my heart breaks. Why, dear humans, do you hate yourselves so much that you would think this? Of course, we may have gotten ahead of ourselves when it comes technology combined with our yet-to-be-fully-developed frontal lobes, but we know enough now about biodiversity and the web of life to understand that the eradication of any species brings imbalance and great harm. We try to get rid of mosquitoes so that less humans die, only to create other pests intent on killing us. Hey, the fact that some parts of nature want to kill us isn’t because we’re evil. We really need to get over that concept. Viruses keep our population under control the way mountain lions keep the deer population under control the way birds keep the mosquito population under control. If humanity were to just die off, then who would be the hands of the Earth? Do you really think we’ve nothing to offer? Nothing at all? We have much to learn, that’s true. But the same minds that built oil rigs can figure out how to turn the sun into the next sustainable power-grid. Someone will do it, all we need to do is encourage them. And if that someone(s) happens to be the next generation, do you think teaching them that the world is better off without us is the road to such a monumental discovery? Not sure this message is one of motivation folks.

Rather than focus singularly on how much we suck because we used nuclear energy as a weapon of mass destruction rather than a tool for clean energy, we might want to also use that unfortunate event as a lesson and focus on how clever we are and how we can advance to the next level in our quest for renewable, constructive energies. The same brilliant minds are behind both destruction and redemption, but feed the soul with too much despair, and you’ll get what you fear. We can learn just as much from our successes as our failures, so a little truth, beauty and goodness can go a long way. Humans have made beautiful things as well: vaccines, the Davinci robot, bullet trains, art, physics, stories, comedy, music that will make your heart soar as well as cry, other humans. We can do that you know, create other humans. Just because it’s common doesn’t mean it’s not a miracle.

The message is this: Humans are stupid and evil. The world would be better off with us. Maybe the world is better off without me.

2.       Raising children is beneath us.

Many believe that by increasing their wealth, sending their kids to fancy camps and lessons, hiring the best tutors, being able to afford private school tuition and granting their kids the best in life is showing love. But more than anything, giving them our time and attention is what matters most. Yet in today’s world, wanting to spend time with your children is a big no-no if you want to be a successful, independent adult. Caring for kids makes you weak, puts you at an economic disadvantage and according to feminist theory, the very act of homemaking is misogynistic, patriarchal and designed to keep women down. Sick kid? Unless they're vomiting, have a fever or a rash, stuff some Mucinex down and send them on the way. Can't be late for work, the boss will notice and the promotion depends on pretending no one needs you at home.

Kids can feel this resentment. They know that their mothers feel vulnerable and afraid to leave the office at three to pick them up from school and care for them. They know that society would rather encourage they be sent to daycare, where other women, often the lowest in our caste system, working for $10/hr, raise them, rather than their own mothers or fathers. Here’s the thing though, kids take work. The human mammal needs tons of physical care the first seven years of their lives, and then a lot of emotional care until they’re young adults. But if we do this, if we invest our time in them, then they launch from the home, become adults and take their place beside us in the work of citizenship.

What message do our children hear when they’re told that having kids is the number one way to ruin their careers? We message this mostly to young women, but do you think the males don’t hear as well? Even Betty Friedan was wise enough to suggest that women would never be economically free until men entered into the work of the home. We pitted women’s needs against our children’s needs and now wonder why more men haven’t opted to be the main caregiver? When you spend decades messaging motherhood and caregiving in a negative light, who’s going to want that job?

Moreover, the kids know at some level their needs conflict with the economic and emotional freedoms their mothers deserve. We message that they’re a burden, that they’re the number one reason women are trapped, and are victims in society. Do we think they don’t internalize this? Do we think we haven’t internalized it in some way ourselves?

The message is this: Our mere existence puts our mothers—the first voice, the first heartbeat we hear in this world—between a rock and a hard place. Maybe it would have been better to never have been born.

3.       Everyone is either oppressed, or an oppressor.

Identity politics is king right now, and as a result you are either a victim of your identity or oppressing someone with your identity. There are many examples of this, the one that I’m most familiar with is the idea that the future is female, but only if you’re a badass female. Heaven forbid you might like to have babies and spend their early years with them. That makes you a victim, not a real female. As for men, particularly white men, you’re an oppressor. You can’t be anything else, due to your privilege, and god help you if you want to be an elementary school teacher, because only perverted men want to spend time with other people's children, and if you stay home with your kids you’re just as much a victim as any woman who would do the same, so we really don’t need you at all, unless we want a baby, but then we’d be victims again, wouldn’t we?

That’s an exaggeration of course, but it isn’t easy wearing the face of the oppressor and being told that’s the only role you can hold. Worse is being told you’re a victim due to your gender, color, etc. and that due to the natural imbalances in our society you will never be anything but, even if you do hold the role of CEO or Prime Minister. You’re still a victim because if you’re not a victim, then you’re an oppressor. There are no other options.

What point would there be to overcome your victimhood if the only other role in our Western world is that of oppressor? Yet who would give up being an oppressor if the only other option is to be oppressed?

Real life isn’t like this. The people I meet in my daily life don’t line up into such simple categories. At any moment, with the right understanding, thought, speech and action, we can be neither oppressor nor victim. We can be human together. To think otherwise is lazy thinking. We can’t control what others do, but we can control how we react to them.

To claim that either you’re a victim or an oppressor is to teach one another that there’s no hope, no room for growth and no personal accountability. The victims will never be truly satisfied, and the oppressors can never be truly forgiven.

The message is this: You’re either a victim or an oppressor. You can never break out of your role, for the other option is no better. Maybe I should just stop trying.

4.       Robots are going to replace you.

I’ve mentioned this before in an essay on resiliency, but it’s worth bringing it up once again. It may be that robots may replace many of the jobs that are familiar to us right now, but that doesn’t mean they will replace US. You and me. We’re people, how in the world does that robotic arm in the surgical unit replace US? My surgeon’s role will change, but her role didn’t even exist three centuries ago, not like it does now. Technology has brought surgery to a whole new level and will continue to do so. Would you go to a surgeon who only used ether and a rusty knife? Hell no. We should celebrate the fact that the surgeon today is joined by a robot. This is cool stuff people, and it’s only going to get cooler.

It’s hard to know what the future will bring, but we will need each other. We aren’t defined by the work we do in any given moment, rather our lifetimes tell the story of our efforts. We will do many things, but we will still be here. Star Trek’s Data might just be the ideal companion, completely programmable AND fully functional, but is he really the final solution? Perhaps, given lie number one above, many of you think this is a good thing. You pray that robots replace us in all ways, and rather than evolve ourselves into the new work of the future (whatever that will be), we die off. Or AI kills us.

But I don’t think that will be the case. As I suggested in The Zen ofArtificial Intelligence, AI might just be the Buddha we need, the mentors we will create ourselves in order to teach ourselves that we are worthy, that we are made in the image and likeness of the gods (all the creation myths claim this you know), that the Earth is better off with us, that we are worthy of care and that we can be more than victims or oppressors.

Otherwise the message is this: The robots our parents are creating right now will eventually take our jobs, our wealth, our sex partners and render us useless. Honestly then, what’s the point?

Pass me that bong, I got nothing but hours of Fortnite and several Netflix series to binge on the agenda—today, and every day.

Book Review: Prospects for Human Survival by Willard Wells

I recently read one of the latest releases from the Lifeboat Foundation titled, Prospects for Human Survival by Willard Wells. As a member of the Lifeboat Foundation Advisory Board, I was asked to review the book. While I’m not one for doom and gloom, alas I always hold out hope for humanity, I found Prospects to be an interesting read.

This is a very casually and yet carefully written treatise based on a formula that the author, Willard Wells, has been working on for some time. A Ph. D. in Physics from Caltech with a minor in math makes Wells quite qualified in his research into an equation that can predict the half-life the human species. For those of you who enjoy math, the time spent describing the logic behind his equation is very thorough. In addition, the appendices are filled with proofs and other research to back up his thesis, which is essentially that the our technological civilization has a half-life of only 20 – 50 years, unless we implement appropriate interventions.

The major reason Wells believes this to be a possibility is the invention of AI, which he claims has a destruction potential so great that this alone may spell our doom. He assumes in this book that AI will basically ruin us unless we begin to create a kind AI, one that’s programmed to love and serve humanity. Interestingly, he calls this the Nanny AI. I’ve seen this argument before, that the only way to stop a bad AI is a good AI. However, while I understand that AI has the power to destroy us, I also don’t think truly independent thinking machines are as much of a danger as we think. First, the technology to reproduce Artificial Consciousness or Sentience hasn’t even been invented yet. And it’s not even considered possible by most computer scientists. To base our future survival rate on something that may remain in the realm of science fiction is unrealistic. At a minimum, the value it’s given in Wells’ equation is at best exaggerated.

However this book isn’t only about the threat of AI. Wells does a great job covering many other scenarios, from the gray goo nanobot takeover to nuclear war/winter. He includes global warming and biological warfare as well. He’s created a fairly complete list and has taken the time to give some conspiracy theories some thought. While many of the hazards he lists may also seem like science fiction, the exercise of thinking about them is important. At a minimum, a science fiction writer could use this book to get some great story lines, which is something Wells encourages!

And to me, that’s one of the most interesting parts of this book, the author’s encouragement that we continue to use storytelling as a way to both awaken us to the dangers technology brings to our race, as well as the solutions. Wells rightly suggests that storytelling has a purpose in our learning as a species and allows us to delve deeper into scenarios in a way that mere mathematical formulas and data crunching can’t do for us. When we tell a story, we look at the danger from the perspective of many characters, and the plotline can reveal not only solutions, but touchpoints or places where decisions must be made, or else our chance to save ourselves will pass us by. To me, Wells is brilliant to encourage such exploration in storytelling, but then again, I’m a science fiction writer for that reason—I want to look at technology from all angles and see where might be headed.

Lastly, Wells spends a decent amount of time discussing Wall Street and their technology, specifically stock traders and their quants, Wall Street’s name for their computer finance geeks. Rarely do I see this aspect of our technology mentioned in a list of dangers to humanity, but it is one of the most nefarious aspects of our society right now. Quants are designing AI that will, “know as much as possible about human nature so they can exploit human biases in their evaluation of stocks.” Wells points out that this is a powerful AI already and unfortunately resides in the realm of Wall Street, a place where lawmakers are indifferent to risks or enacting legislation. Take the 2008 economic meltdown, caused by our “too big to fail” banks. It was a disaster and those responsible were barely held accountable. Instead they were rewarded with a HUGE bailout. Quants have already created a computerized money making scheme—high frequency trading (HFT), which allows traders to exchange millions of shares on a time scale of milliseconds that no normal investor can possibly track. As Wells puts it, “It is a parasitic activity that destabilizes the system without performing any useful service to anyone. By acting on price fluctuations milliseconds before anyone else, they essentially levy a tax on everyone else.”

Why include this in our list of hazards for the human race? One, the HFT technology can completely destroy our economy which can lead to widespread disease, hunger and social meltdown. Second, our Congress doesn’t care. Spread Networks, a telecom provider recently built a high-speed fiber-optic cable between Chicago and New York, shaving 3 milliseconds off the communication time between the two cities. Who wanted this? High-frequency traders, and they were willing to pay $300M to create it, most likely knowing that Congress has no plans to shut down or legislate HFT at all. Over time, as quants develop more and more sophisticated software, without any oversight, one can only imagine where it will lead. Combined with the accumulation of immense wealth in the hands of a few, Wells is right to point this vulnerability out, because of all the threats humanity faces, economic meltdown at the hands of an AI designed to exploit us in order to make money is probably the most likely disaster that will strike us. In fact, it's almost guaranteed unless some sort of regulation on the part of our government takes place.

Overall Willard Wells has written a very readable book for those who think about the end times and want suggestions on how to prepare. His writing style is both casual and chatty, as well as mathematically rigorous. If you’re wondering what your best next steps are in the face of potential technological devastation, then I think you’ll find Prospects for Human Survival a worthwhile read.

The book can be purchased at http://amzn.to/1P4ibiE

How To Survive the Robot Apocalypse

It’s in the air.

It’s in the news.

Our struggling economy. Our struggling democracy. The income gap. Technology and artificial intelligence. At first glance, these things might not seem connected, but upon closer inspection, I find they’re all part of one impulse, and together they create the web of humanity—and our future.

Many would have you believe we’re near the end of civilization as we know it. Their case is quite compelling. Even though our economy is showing signs of recovery, most employment improvements are in low-wage jobs—the very jobs our technology seeks to replace. We might be at a 5.8% national unemployment rate as of October of 2014, yet according to Paul Bucheit in his recent article for Common Dreams, “Nine out of ten of the fastest-growing occupations are considered low-wage, generally not requiring a college degree, including food service, health care, housekeeping, and retail sales.”

Not coincidentally, the job gains that are currently making our employment numbers look good, even though they’re low paying, were found on another list recently—the ones most likely to be replaced with robots in the next twenty years.

The coming “Robot Apocalypse” is such a big deal right now that Standford University has announced a “…century-long study of the effects of artificial intelligence on society, including on the economy, war and crime.”

There are two sides to every coin. One side would suggest that a world of extreme and growing wealth, paired with the technology to free up humans from low-wage jobs, will usher in the long awaited period of “Heaven on Earth.” Others suggest that since those with the wealth don’t want to share, the projected 50% unemployment rate will lead to extreme poverty, uprisings and the deterioration of humanity.

What now lies before us is a choice, which side of the coin do we wish to nourish? The future where technology finally lives up to its promise, or the future where most of humanity lives in dire straights and the elite have to take to the skies, as they do in the movie Elysium? It is a serious choice, and one from which we can't hide.

Here’s the catch, we have to make this choice together. Yet it seems that we're polarized as a people. How in the world can we move forward?

There are many ills in society, but in my observation they all boil down to one—xenophobia.

It’s our fear of others that drives us to let the poor suffer, because they didn’t work as hard as we did. It’s our fear of others that encourages the wealthy to horde their gifts, because no one else deserves them. It’s our fear of others that encourages war, or the withholding of life saving technologies from those who need them, simply because they’re uninsured. It's our fear of others that creates a national budget where 60% of resources are dedicated to the military industrial complex, and a mere 2% is invested in science and technology.

The truth is, until we can look one another in the eyes and see nothing but the dignity of our humanity, the future can and does look dire. For unless we can find compassion and a desire for all of us to thrive on this planet, the replacement of humans with robots in the economy can and will lead to extreme poverty. That is a bleak world for most.

Yet there are things you can do as an individual to choose to thrive not just survive, the Robot Apocalypse, turning the event into the next great leap forward for humanity.

1.     Learn to code. I’ve said this many times before and I’ll say it again: LEARN TO CODE. This is the language of machines, technology and power. Being a mere user makes you vulnerable. At a minimum, schools should be teaching all 7/8^th graders basic coding skills and high schoolers should be required to pass a programming class for graduation.

2.     Invest in your creativity. Humans are inventors. Yes, a truly learning machine will be able to create, but we’re unique in the way we see pictures in our minds. It's been said the Nikola Tesla could see his inventions in his imagination and even test them, making sure they worked, before committing to build them in the material world. We are storytellers, dancers, innovators, entertainers...Robots can of course assist us, but we’re the ones who see the world in bigger pictures, stories and humor. I’m not sure Watson could ever be as funny as George Carlin.

3.     Invest in your judgment, aka your thinking skills. Our minds are not merely if-then-else statements, but more like recursive loops calling upon themselves as the states around us change. In other words, we’re not nodes on the network, we are the network. Humans can make decisions by filling in the blanks. No one has to program us, and we can change our minds given new circumstances and situations. The human learning system is truly complex and dynamic. Nourish this by stretching beyond your comfort zone. Study a new language, or an entire field, to keep things fresh. Shake up your life on a regular basis to expand your ability to process information.

4.     Read “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible,” by Charles Eisenstein. Sure, you could read books on the singularity, AI and technology by leading experts, but as long as you still think the future is bleak, grim and full of starving, jobless people, that's exactly what we'll get. We need to open our own hearts and minds to a new possibility, a new story of how humans work, love and live on the Earth. Charles’ book is a fantastic place to start. Better yet, taking the time to read this book is also an investment in your creativity and judgment, making you more competitive in the robot workplace.

5.     Get to know yourself. What do you hate? Whom do you mistrust? What parts of humanity are beneath you? What belief systems do you mock? What do you call evil? We often spend time thinking about what we like and saying that defines us, but in reality it’s the things that make us want to run away that really make the difference. The things we disdain color our ability to co-create. They block us from our potential. Robots and artificial intelligences won’t have this issue. Unless we give them personalities, theirs will be a clean logic. Nothing is loved and nothing is hated. Hate is what makes us act out, hurt and horde. If we want to thrive we’ll need to clean up our emotional state, so that we can join with technology to shape a cleaner, more beautiful world, rather than be dominated by it—and abused in entirely new ways.

The goal here is to become resilient to a changing marketplace that no one entirely understands at this point. But we’ve been here before. In the mid 1800’s no one could truly understand what the invention of the factory would do to shape our world. Entirely new skills and economies were created. It’s about to happen again. Rather than fall into ruin, we can be prepared to take part in the story, in whatever way possible, even if the plot line isn’t yet clear. What is clear is that similar to Charles Dickens’ time, the chance for many to suffer during this change is high. Unlike Charles Dickens’ time, we have the ability to join together and communicate our goals and dreams as one. Let’s use our technology to inspire one another to evolve past our fear and hate, and be worthy of the world we’re building.