Raise Creators of Technology, Not Just Consumers

The lonely creator. From Moby's recent video criticizing our obsession with Smartphones.

Once upon a time, children played outside, at parks, in the neighborhood and in the schoolyard. I know, seems like a fantasy from some twentieth century dream, but they honestly did play, lots of them, screaming, yelling, falling down, running and laughing. Yes, they got hurt, but they slept well. 

Evidence of 20th Century children playing

There was a time when children slept? I swear to you it's true. They went to bed after a hot bath and a good story and slept till the sun came up. Sometimes nine hours.

This of course, is a legend, almost a myth, from a time before the Smartphone. In 2001, the year my second son was born, the iPod was invented. It was pretty cool, but storing 10,000 songs on one small device wouldn’t be the game changer here. Six years later, the iPod grew into the iPhone, and this invention would disrupt the life of the child more dramatically than anything else since the invention of electricity.

Kids these days?

There are plenty of articles written about the issues that can arise when kids and technology mix. One of the best articles I’ve ever read is a Medium article titled, "Porn is Not the Worst Thing on Musical.ly" by Anastasia Bell. A must read for all people with kids. With over 22K claps, it appears she really hit the nail on the head. The data is still out, but the rise in pre-teen suicide, FOMO anxiety, and self-harm have all been linked to a blend of too much time online and lack of sleep that comes with screen time. Put a kid to bed with his iPad rather than a hot bath and a story, and he’s very likely to Snap or play games till the wee hours, only to be awakened to go to school, whether he likes it or not. Adolescents and children are vulnerable to everything they see, hear, touch, taste and smell. This is because their sensory experience of the world is literally nature's way of programming their brains. The way they think as adults will be determined by their experiences during this critical time of brain development.

However, there’s one aspect about kids and technology that doesn’t quite get as much attention—the consumerist nature of the culture they are literally immersing themselves in. Our world is less safe when too many of our kids are in mental agony, the increase in suicide, self-harm and mass shootings point to this. Yet our world is even more dangerous when too few of them are unplugged for another reason as well—as our minds consume more and more ideas from others, fewer of us are actually creating anything ourselves. 

We may think watching an arts and crafts channel on YouTube is creative, but if you never make the craft and just watch others do it, then nothing has happened at all. If the online community is more about logging in and letting others do the thinking for us than it is about sharing ideas back and forth within creative groups, with time there will be fewer and fewer content creators, and those few will be the ones with the real power.

It’s important that a healthy percentage of the next generation unplugs and creates, otherwise the world will become one big YouTube unboxing episode, and do we really want our creative capacity as a species to devolve in such a way?

The job of parenting is to create a nurturing space for our children to mature so that one day they can join us in the work of the world. To make civilization, we need creators, not just consumers. This used to be a natural part of growing up—the kids played, built things, did their chores and imitated the adults around them. In this technological age, parents now have to be conscious of the online world their children are so drawn to, and step-in, so to speak. Not only to save their childhood, but to also teach them about the real power of technology. For those who know how this network is built and can create new content in the Information Age will shape the future for us all.

So how do we do this? There are plenty of books and TED Talks on this subject, but honestly, the method for raising creators is fairly simple—delay the introduction of personal technological devices until they’re old enough to drive, play with them until then and make learning about technology a family affair.

Let’s break these three things down.

Delay Personal Devices (i.e. gaming systems, computers and Smartphones) Till the Kid Can Drive

I’m sure most people think this is counter-intuitive, this is after all an article on how to raise content creators in the 21^st century yet my first suggestion is to become Amish? However the fact is plain and simple, the moment you put your iPhone in your children’s hands, you have lost them to the content already created by someone else online. Some of this content is inspiring, but most of this endless data stream is blather and unworthy for most adult human beings, much less our children. I’m not kidding here. Perhaps if we'd listened to the Buddha and trained our minds in the practice of right thought, things would be different. Even if you set your children’s accounts to private, they’re still online, CONSUMING EVERY BYTE of information that any old person throws out there. Ms. Basil says this best:

"Pretend you can turn your kid invisible. Pretend you drop your invisible kid off at a warehouse in downtown LA. You have no idea who’s inside — fingers crossed it’s packed with Nobel Peace Prize winners, board certified pediatricians, and J.K. Rowling. Pray it is not packed with the worst of humanity. No one can see your kid, but your kid can see everyone and hear everything.

Would you do it?

Of course you wouldn’t. Most parents are careful about who and what their child is exposed to. Setting your child’s account to private may make him invisible, but he’s still there, fully present, taking it all in."

She goes on to suggest the #16by16 plan, where you tell your kid that if they can make it without a smartphone and computer in their room till their 16, you’ll pay them $1600. It’s not a crazy idea. My own sons were 15 when they got computers, 16 and 18 respectively when they got their first Smartphones. They survived without and I didn't even have to pay them. 

Delaying the technology forced them to wire-up their minds to the world around them BEFORE they linked up to the hive-mind of the internet. During this time, they learned to play with others, manage their time and institute good study habits. How in the world did I keep them entertained? It’s not really my job to entertain them, it’s my job to love them, feed them and drive them to school. Just as they’re not responsible for my happiness, I’m not responsible for their entertainment. However, there were a few things I did to make their lives enjoyable without electronics…

Play With Your Kids

Ms. Basil suggests that, “Kids should be watching witty cartoons, riding bikes, making slime, doing art, playing Minecraft, learning chess, and boring us with bad magic tricks. They shouldn’t be stopping other kids from killing themselves.”

Childhood is about play!!!! And Ms. Basil’s suggestions are exactly the things we can do with our kids. Make slime and playdough, ride bikes and learn bad magic tricks. Teach them to juggle or ride a unicycle. What are you good at? Can you tumble? Then buy a mat and give them that skill. Can you build structures? Then get them at your side while you build a shed. Can you knit, or write, or put on a good puppet show? Essentially play to your strengths and invite the other adults in your lives to do the same. What our kids learn from their grandparents is precious, and the children will cling to those memories of learning from grandma as the elders pass away.

Kids also need to play with each other, even if it gets rough sometimes. But small kids love nothing more than being with you, so read books together, build blocks and Lego sets together, and play board games. This is fun and all of them build social as well as problem solving skills. Family dinners are also wonderful when no Smartphones are at the table. Want to go out to dinner but you have a two year old? Leave them at home with a sitter. Wait till they're four, then bring them to the nicest restaurants and start teaching them manners. But don't put the phone in their hands so you can have a moment to talk as adults. You have a lifetime to be with adults and you will regret it when they're teens and refuse to talk to you, because that's going to happen no matter what. But when they're small, they're open to learning to communicate and want nothing more than to tell you their latest knock-knock joke at the dinner table. Give them a phone instead of your attention and you miss the best chance you have for building a line of communication between you.

I mentioned that our kids learn by imitating us, so this means that in order to play with them in this way, we too have to be unplugged. I myself didn’t get a Smartphone until the eldest was 16 and they never used it. I did however share my computer with them because while it’s important to build up their minds and bodies spatially and through their experiences in the real world, there does come a time where kids need to learn what exactly makes the Information Age tick…

Make Learning About Technology a Family Affair

My father was a geek who spent a lot of time in his office either on his Ham Radio or building electronic Heathkits. One day when I was about ten, I wandered in from playing with the kids, tired and sweaty and looking for a break from the summer heat. I found him soldering together a bunch of electronic parts. I asked what it was and he told me he was building a binary clock. For work? I asked. No. For fun.

Fun?

I asked him to show me how and by dinner I had not only built my first computer, I’d also learned to count in 1’s and 0’s. It was thrilling and from that day on, my father did everything he could to share technology with me. No, he didn’t run out and get me an Atari. Instead he gave me a TI-99 and I taught myself to code in Basic and thus began a life-long interest in computers and how they worked.

My totally adorable first computer. I still have it, in case the Smithsonian calls.

And note, this wasn't a computer in my room. I had to hook it up to the family TV in the living room and only got to use it in a public place. This meant I could easily ask for help, because Dad would often walk by and ask me what I was doing.

I think it’s important for everyone to know how information systems work. From coding to network protocols to the hardware behind the gadget in your hands, we all need to ask, How? So don’t be reluctant to teach your kids how to program if you don’t know how. It’s never too late, so start yourself!

Play Minecraft with them. Don’t plug them in without you, sit with them, build worlds with them, maybe even build modpacks with them. There are a few cute visual programming languages like Scratch. Instead of giving them an iPad, get an Arduino Lego project going. Take them to a Maker Faire. Build their first computer with them. Please don’t think of these activities as only for those who are “smart” or “geeks.” In this century, we’ve got to know how to make our kids tech savvy, so that means we should learn it as well. The more informed our citizenry is about the network that now governs the very political discourse of our democracy and controls the Electoral College, the better.

Most of All, Be Worthy of Imitation

Is this what we want to share with our children?

The most powerful thing you can do as a parent when it comes to raising a creator is to become a creator yourself. So close the Facebook app and make your own chatbot. Look up from your phone and instead look at what’s under the hood. It’s a powerful world inside of there, trust me.

Go on, take a peek. Then share what you've discovered with your kids.

The Right to Choose

I dedicated my research today to the subject of wearables and was pleased to find that way cooler things than the Apple Watch are out there. From jewelry like objects that can use your body’s energy to recharge your cell phone to the famous magnetic finger implants that are all the rage within the biohacker community, people are obviously interested in manipulating and changing the human body in brand new ways. What impresses me most are the potential implantable technologies of the future. Wearables are really just a stepping stone for bringing the technology outside of us, inside of us, and forever changing the human being.

It got me thinking, is this really a new trend? Humans have been modifying their bodies since the beginning of time. Egyptians removed their body hair, makeup has been a mainstay for both men and women, our founding fathers wore powdered wigs and breast and butt augmentation are becoming the norm. I color my hair differently to pass the seasons and have several tattoos, as well as pierced ears.

Modifying the body is a very human thing to do. We are creating and re-creating constantly.

So the addition of computer interfaces, eye scans, RFIDs and nanobots into our physical being seems like the next step in our evolution. We are a species that takes our technology and experiments upon ourselves. This is the reason we can effect the world the way we do—we’re intrusive in our experimentation.

Yet part of me hesitates, the way I do about plastic surgery or shaving my legs. Why must I change this body? Why can’t I just be happy with what is, with what I am?

I’m caught between the thrill of advancement and wanting to just Be.

I believe very strongly that this next wave of technological enhancements to the human form—by which I mean the point where wearables become implants—will change the entire face of the human race. While it comes from the ancient impulse to change and craft ourselves, it will have the power to create a whole new species. The difference between those who chose to adopt these technologies into their bodies and those who don’t will be much greater than the differences between those who are tattooed and those who aren’t. Famous actresses may change their looks to remain young, but they aren’t really younger. In the future, there is the potential they actually could be younger through technology.

I don’t fear our future and I encourage technological advancement. To stop humans from their path of creativity is wrong. Yet it would be even more wrong to force implants into someone who doesn’t want them. The key is choice. We need to begin to get comfortable with others choosing paths different from ours. Rather than judge that woman for having Botox, respect her decision. Rather than state there’s only one way to love, or one way to be married, or one way to look, or one way to worship God, we need to move into a place where we can just be with ourselves, and one another, without judgement.

If we can’t get over telling others how to live their lives, then the future isn’t so bright. As technology finds its way into our bodies, our xenophobia will turn from the current divisions of race, sex, and religion to those who chose to adopt and the non-adopters. Given that adopters will most likely be more technically advanced, they’ll find themselves in a place of power, which often leads to domination.

If someone doesn’t want to jump on that ship, if someone would like to live a simple life unplugged from the systems, defining technology to their own beat, then they should be allowed to do it. The freedom to chose what goes into our bodies must be held sacred, no matter how far technology advances.

We’re still having a hard time allowing people to chose their path in freedom. Let’s work as hard on the skill of acceptance as we are on our scientific advancements.

I'm a Believer

I haven’t blogged in a while, mostly because I’ve been busy writing the sequel to eHuman Dawn. It seems I can’t write two things at once, or at least, I don’t believe I can. The sequel has been exciting to create and while I’m pleased to announce the first draft is finished, the final product is far from complete. Now comes the time for editing and rewriting, for pulling out scenes, adding new ones and reshaping worlds, as well as words.
   
While writing the second eHuman novel, a new thought began to circulate through my head:

“How do our beliefs shape the world as we know it?” 

At the end of eHuman Dawn, the female lead, Dawn, announces that she’s about to take on a quest to search the world for humans--those who remained in the flesh after the rest of the population Jumped into eHuman bodies. (Sorry readers, if you haven’t read the book, this might not make sense. You can remedy that unfortunate situation by purchasing it at Amazon, using regular currency, or from me using Bitcoin! Just click the appropriate button above.)

Dawn believes that someone must have avoided the Great Shift, and she’s willing to give up the role of World Leader to pursue her goal of finding what’s left of carbon based humanity. Like the whisper of a grand conspiracy theory, Dawn’s belief sets the course for the rest of her life, taking her from the victorious, immortal eHuman world into the unknown, and because he believes in her, her beloved Adam follows.

Belief is defined as, “Trust, faith or confidence in someone or something” and in my opinion, is the driving force of human life as we know it. Once, we believed that the world was flat, until someone began to believe it might be round, and set out to prove the rest of us wrong.

Once we believed that illness was literally a curse, or the devil inside of us, and healthcare was practiced accordingly. With time, curious minds began to wonder, thus believe, that perhaps something else was causing the illness. Eventually a new way of curing disease was created, but it would take decades for enough people to believe in them before antibiotics were accepted as normal.

Belief guides the scientist to invest his time into finding a new solution. Belief guides the investor to give his money to a new technology. Belief guides the population to purchase and use the innovations at hand. Any marketer knows that the adoption of a product requires teaching the consumers why the product is important before they’ll buy into it.

Belief has driven men to war against others, and encouraged humans to destroy or continue practices that are harmful. Belief is the driver of all evolution and devolution. We believe in the “survival of the fittest” and therefore have created entire economic systems based on such a belief--money that rewards the “strong” and destroys the “weak.”

My eHuman novels deal with the intersection between belief, immortality, and technology. When people ask me, “Will AI destroy us?” I answer, “Only if we believe it necessary to destroy one another.” As long as we believe some of us are good, and others aren’t even human, then there’s a good chance our AI will behave the same way.

Other readers ask me, “Could we really live forever?” I answer, “Do you believe we can?” My dear Transhumanists, here is the crux of the issue--as long as we accept that an average lifespan of seventy-six is an achievement, we’ll never live forever. Hell, we won’t make it past one hundred. Before the government will invest in life extension technologies, we the people must believe it possible. We must believe the human being has only just begun it’s ascent, and that we’re at the point where we can indeed inherit our true potential as peoples of the Earth.

Of course, immortality isn’t appealing to everyone. That’s fine. I’d reckon though that most of you reading this would like to live as long as possible, and in health and wellness. If this is true, then the place to start is your belief. Seventy-six really isn’t that long. Why not expect to live to be one hundred? Why not believe that fifty is just the half way point, instead of the end of your life? Why not live as though you’ll be on this planet forever, even if no one you know personally has done it? How many decisions would be different if you believed you’d be here for a lot longer? What would you do now to live a more meaningful life? Would we, as a race, continue to destroy the environment if we believed we’d be around for a long, long time?

Whatever we believe in, we become. Whatever we believe in, we invest in. Whether it’s a government or an individual, the choices we make are based on our beliefs about ourselves, our world, and one another. 

If we begin to believe that every human being is worthy, then our AI will do the same. Perhaps then our technology will serve us and help create a cleaner, greener, more prosperous world.

If we begin to believe that one hundred is the new seventy, perhaps it would be so. What if we age merely because we expect to age, whether consciously or not?

Well, that would be something, wouldn’t it?

Where My Demons Hide

"No matter what we breed
We still are made of greed
This is my kingdom come
This is my kingdom come"

~ Imagine Dragons, "Demons"

 

I've been spending time lately diving deeper into the psyche of the villain. My novel, eHuman Dawn, is the beginning of a trilogy about the beauty and pain that are possible in a future transhumanist society. Thus understanding power and control is key to completing the trilogy in a meaningful way. Technology is making progress in leaps and bounds, not in baby steps, and it's entirely possible that in my lifetime I will have to make a choice between dying or living forever through the aid of machines. What exactly that will be like, I can only imagine. But what I do know with all my heart is that such a "transhumanist wager", as author Zoltan Istvan has coined it, is a very serious wager indeed.

To rely on technology in order to live forever and achieve total health is to rely on those who own the technology to consider our lives as precious and important. This means that business and government leaders need to care for each and everyone of us in a way that considers human consciousness and life as valuable and worthy of investment and protection.

Take an honest look at the leadership in our society today--can we trust them with our lives? With our dreams, desires and hopes? NSA surveillance, drone attacks on innocents, dictators approving genocide, business leaders willing to take risks that leave millions without an income, jobs shipped overseas, goods made in sweatshops, children forced into slavery, mountaintops blown off to heat our houses. Yes, there are great things our leaders do, but more and more we are discovering that often our leaders in business and government act without empathy, without fear and without care for humanity and the world as a whole. Their personal interests come first, and if some people suffer, so be it. Sacrificing the many for the benefit of a few has been a theme in the story of domination for centuries.
   
What sort of a person would make such cold and unfeeling decisions? Who is able to shut of their empathy to such a degree that the enslavement of children in order to manufacture goods more cheaply is considered a brilliant business decision? Who manipulates others and markets for their own advantage? In the clinical world there is a name for such a person: the psychopath--a distinct subset of humanity who supposedly can't feel love, empathy, shame or compassion. People who operate for their own advantage, to the detriment of all around them.
   
The psychopath is real, known and well documented. That many of our leaders share traits with the psychopath is not surprising. As the modern philosopher Charles Eisenstein writes in his most recent book, "Living in a system that rewards psychopathy, it is not accident that the psychopathic rise to the top, and that the psychopathic tendencies in each of us rise to the surface. It is a mistake to blame the psychopaths for our present condition; they are a result, not a cause."
   
In a world that rewards the cool, calm and collected human being, is it surprising that our top 1% seem to be distant and callous? For the rest of us, it's no coincidence the use of anti-depressants in America is at an all-time high--we all want to numb ourselves and be distant, detached and level-headed. When our story as a society is that being tough is king and feeling anything at all is for the weak, are we surprised that a businessman might be capable of shipping our jobs overseas in order to make more money for himself? It's the American myth to be independent, self seeking and self-fulfilling. To admit we need each other to grow and learn is to admit defeat.
   
Eisenstein goes on to explain, "Given any cultural trait, there are always some people who embody it in extreme form, holding up a mirror so that we can recognize it in ourselves. These would be the psychopaths."
   
At this moment in history, we are in a place of transition between the story of domination and the story of interconnectedness. The path between the two world views is not straight, it's more like a maze. There is a way out, but in order to find it, we must see the bigger picture. Many look to technology to fix this. I would agree with them, but with a bit of caution.

If we develop the technology to live forever before leaving the story of domination, then the possible future could be one of power and manipulation unlike anything we've ever seen. The ability to own us, program us and abuse us would be very great, and extremely tempting to the psychopaths in charge. The machines would hate us, outsource us and eventually render us useless, because their creators saw humanity through those eyes first. Eisenstein suggests this is because, "…our current story facilitates the rise of psychopathy and empowers the psychopath."

But what if we change our story? What if we see that we are one and begin to look upon the connections between us as powerful, rather than as a weakness? What if we begin to see that humanity with all it's knowledge and wisdom is like the internet--connected, open, free and full of possibility? Would we settle for leaders who disdain us? Would we create machines to dominate us? Or would we create a more beautiful world, where technology serves us and the planet, in harmony with the web of life that surrounds us?

To me, the greatest threat to our race is our self-loathing. Ironically, I share this in common with the villain in my novel, Edgar Prince. Yet here's how he and I differ--He thinks humanity is unable to rise up and respect one another, therefore we must be controlled into behaving. I believe we can do it, because it's what we were born to do. Where he sees weakness, I see tremendous potential.

This is a personal development issue and yet, because we are connected, it's a global one as well. To look at ourselves and one another with respect and dignity is a place to start. From there we take it, person by person, all the way to the top. And perhaps, as a result, when we get to the top we'll discover that we aren't a pyramid at all, rather we're one large web of humanity, co-creating a future of possibility, health, beauty, and most of all, mutual respect and honor. Because when we look into the mirror of the story of interconnectedness, we'll see the light of humanity in one anothers' eyes.