Dear Friend,
I don’t know where you are, what you’re doing, or how you happened to arrive at such a place. I don’t even know your name. All that I know is that you and I have a lot in common, because we’re both alive at a time when our access to the whole world and its creations is almost without limits.
It’s possible that you’re much younger than I am, or much older, but that’s alright. We’re both alive at an amazing moment in history. Distances mean very little. You might even be reading this from halfway across the world the same night that I post it. We live in a time when the entire spectrum of human understanding is ours for the discovering, and I am grateful for it.
The pace of change in the world is accelerating. It’s never been moving faster than it is right now, and it’s only going to continue, exponentially, along this trend. So if you’re reading this in October of 2011, this might all seem current and not especially interesting. I wrote this letter to you, dear friend, to leave it as a digital artifact. I don’t have any neural implants that make me ridiculously intelligent. Maybe you do, if you’re reading this in October of 2100. Things must be very different. You might be able to take some cues from my words and recreate my world in a completely immersive virtual environment.
I sit at my computer most nights and go exploring. I try to interact with the world and thereby with you in some meaningful way. With this unfettered access, it’s easy to take and take and not to give the energy back. I’m writing this at a moment when the ease of access to social media and online content is at unprecedented heights. I can talk in real time to somebody on a space station from my cell phone on the bus. Pretty amazing. But if you’re reading this in 2100, maybe you’re on a space station.
It can be distracting. This technology came quickly, and it’s vastly more entertaining than anything else that came before. We haven’t really adapted to carefully regulate our access to that sort of stimulus. It’s easy to be pulled in by the forces of the internet, especially since there’s no real need to contribute. I can be a pure consumer in that sense. But I find that it’s like making a lot of withdrawals from a bank and being shocked when your balance comes up low. If I spent half as much time producing content as I did consuming it, I’d probably manage 2,000 words per week instead of 1,000.
Discipline isn’t widely enforced anymore and regimental behaviour is somewhat of a thing of the past. I live in a time and place of immense privilege, but I worry that many people - even me, sometimes - seem to take it for granted. I suppose that’s because a lot of our parents got an education and worked hard. We didn’t have to work especially hard to sustain the momentum. We just lucked out. Lucky us, we say. How grateful we are to live in this amazing place. Gratitude seems to be expressed verbally in most cases, rather than actually.
What I’m most grateful for is the relative stability of my lifestyle. I might let my guard down a bit too much. I might be forgetting to stay well prepared for unexpected circumstances. But it gives me the time and the resources to ponder the sorts of questions that someone who’s worried about where their next meal might come from would never have the chance to ponder.
I might just be hallucinating all of this, you see. I’ve read a lot about the impeding singularity in which our biological bodies become fully integrated with technology - perfect integrated software/hardware human systems. Who’s to say that it hasn’t already happened? I might just be a line of code that’s been written to have a certain degree - or a certain perceived degree - of mental autonomy. How could I possibly know if what I’m experiencing in this life is real? Despite this - real or not - it sure seems real. I can take in the world through my senses. Am I deluding myself if I chose to believe that this is reality? Can I be happy - blissfully ignorant, even - if I believe that I have the freedom to choose even if I do not? Am I a slave in my own mind?
It’s tough to ponder those sorts of things while keeping a regular life well up on the rails and chugging along. I suppose that’s where striking a careful balance between accepting my perception and questioning it is important. Maybe by 2100, we will have worked out the bugs in our brain programs and we’ll simply be able to design reality however we chose. Maybe we can already? I hope I’m there for it.
I live at a time, dear friend, where the world is running in a billion directions at once at breakneck speed. It seems that revolution is pending. The old guard can’t hold on for much longer; they’re too few, and the masses of dissenters are too many. People are up and out and engaged and active. And here I am, in my kitchen with a computer, casually making commentary as people far more passionate than I are taking to the streets.
Despite my relative inaction on the political front, I would like to think that I have something worthwhile to contribute to my small pocket of the known universe. I never expect to have a long reach, but I certainly have the chance to affect my own little circle. I have a beautiful family, and we get by alright, with a little help from our friends. In case you missed the reference, that’s a lyric from a Beatles song - one of the greatest bands of all time. You should check them out if you haven’t heard them before. I hope that in 2100, one of the default applications in the human brain 2.0 will be access to the entire catalogue of human music on demand. If that’s the case, flip back about 150 years and feel it for yourself. I hope that I’m alive when that one gets booted up.
Dear friend, I’ve exceeded my self-imposed word limit, but it’s hard not to be excited about all of the interesting things that are going on all over the world. Occam once said (and I’m paraphrasing here) that the best solution is the simplest. Maybe by the time you’re reading this, we will have tamed the chaos, simplified our ways of interaction, and life will be much more peaceful. But maybe that would mean that it would be much less interesting, and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.
Sincerely yours,
John
Word count: 1,158
I don’t know where you are, what you’re doing, or how you happened to arrive at such a place. I don’t even know your name. All that I know is that you and I have a lot in common, because we’re both alive at a time when our access to the whole world and its creations is almost without limits.
It’s possible that you’re much younger than I am, or much older, but that’s alright. We’re both alive at an amazing moment in history. Distances mean very little. You might even be reading this from halfway across the world the same night that I post it. We live in a time when the entire spectrum of human understanding is ours for the discovering, and I am grateful for it.
The pace of change in the world is accelerating. It’s never been moving faster than it is right now, and it’s only going to continue, exponentially, along this trend. So if you’re reading this in October of 2011, this might all seem current and not especially interesting. I wrote this letter to you, dear friend, to leave it as a digital artifact. I don’t have any neural implants that make me ridiculously intelligent. Maybe you do, if you’re reading this in October of 2100. Things must be very different. You might be able to take some cues from my words and recreate my world in a completely immersive virtual environment.
I sit at my computer most nights and go exploring. I try to interact with the world and thereby with you in some meaningful way. With this unfettered access, it’s easy to take and take and not to give the energy back. I’m writing this at a moment when the ease of access to social media and online content is at unprecedented heights. I can talk in real time to somebody on a space station from my cell phone on the bus. Pretty amazing. But if you’re reading this in 2100, maybe you’re on a space station.
It can be distracting. This technology came quickly, and it’s vastly more entertaining than anything else that came before. We haven’t really adapted to carefully regulate our access to that sort of stimulus. It’s easy to be pulled in by the forces of the internet, especially since there’s no real need to contribute. I can be a pure consumer in that sense. But I find that it’s like making a lot of withdrawals from a bank and being shocked when your balance comes up low. If I spent half as much time producing content as I did consuming it, I’d probably manage 2,000 words per week instead of 1,000.
Discipline isn’t widely enforced anymore and regimental behaviour is somewhat of a thing of the past. I live in a time and place of immense privilege, but I worry that many people - even me, sometimes - seem to take it for granted. I suppose that’s because a lot of our parents got an education and worked hard. We didn’t have to work especially hard to sustain the momentum. We just lucked out. Lucky us, we say. How grateful we are to live in this amazing place. Gratitude seems to be expressed verbally in most cases, rather than actually.
What I’m most grateful for is the relative stability of my lifestyle. I might let my guard down a bit too much. I might be forgetting to stay well prepared for unexpected circumstances. But it gives me the time and the resources to ponder the sorts of questions that someone who’s worried about where their next meal might come from would never have the chance to ponder.
I might just be hallucinating all of this, you see. I’ve read a lot about the impeding singularity in which our biological bodies become fully integrated with technology - perfect integrated software/hardware human systems. Who’s to say that it hasn’t already happened? I might just be a line of code that’s been written to have a certain degree - or a certain perceived degree - of mental autonomy. How could I possibly know if what I’m experiencing in this life is real? Despite this - real or not - it sure seems real. I can take in the world through my senses. Am I deluding myself if I chose to believe that this is reality? Can I be happy - blissfully ignorant, even - if I believe that I have the freedom to choose even if I do not? Am I a slave in my own mind?
It’s tough to ponder those sorts of things while keeping a regular life well up on the rails and chugging along. I suppose that’s where striking a careful balance between accepting my perception and questioning it is important. Maybe by 2100, we will have worked out the bugs in our brain programs and we’ll simply be able to design reality however we chose. Maybe we can already? I hope I’m there for it.
I live at a time, dear friend, where the world is running in a billion directions at once at breakneck speed. It seems that revolution is pending. The old guard can’t hold on for much longer; they’re too few, and the masses of dissenters are too many. People are up and out and engaged and active. And here I am, in my kitchen with a computer, casually making commentary as people far more passionate than I are taking to the streets.
Despite my relative inaction on the political front, I would like to think that I have something worthwhile to contribute to my small pocket of the known universe. I never expect to have a long reach, but I certainly have the chance to affect my own little circle. I have a beautiful family, and we get by alright, with a little help from our friends. In case you missed the reference, that’s a lyric from a Beatles song - one of the greatest bands of all time. You should check them out if you haven’t heard them before. I hope that in 2100, one of the default applications in the human brain 2.0 will be access to the entire catalogue of human music on demand. If that’s the case, flip back about 150 years and feel it for yourself. I hope that I’m alive when that one gets booted up.
Dear friend, I’ve exceeded my self-imposed word limit, but it’s hard not to be excited about all of the interesting things that are going on all over the world. Occam once said (and I’m paraphrasing here) that the best solution is the simplest. Maybe by the time you’re reading this, we will have tamed the chaos, simplified our ways of interaction, and life will be much more peaceful. But maybe that would mean that it would be much less interesting, and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.
Sincerely yours,
John
Word count: 1,158
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