Ken's Blog

Today I’m on yet another Zoom talk followed by a Zoom panel. It is amazing to me how our communities of intellectual thought are re-forming themselves around this completely non-physical space. In some ways it is inconvenient but in other ways it is very powerful, because people are getting the opportunity to experience each other’s ideas without needing to fly places, book hotels, or incur an expense that is beyond the means of many students. I wonder, when we look back on this time, will we see it as a time of intellectual growth and greater community, despite the terrible and tragic dimensions of the pandemic?

I wonder whether things will ever really go back to the way they were. Right several things are happening in parallel.

One thing is the race for a vaccine. Yet we know that the fastest development of a vaccine in history was for mumps, and that took four years. So it might be a while before we can stop social distancing.

But another thing is our gradual adjustment to life with social distancing. We are developing new technologies, social customs, business practices, in a massive and highly parallel effort just to deal with this new reality.

At some point, the results of all this might lead to a permanent shift in the way things are done. Entire industries may simply vanish, and entirely new industries will arise, tabula rasa, to take their place.

We might be seeing the beginning of a new era in human history. In a few years we might just take it for granted that everybody works from home.

sometimes you feel like a nut
sometimes you don’t

— famous TV commercial from about half a century ago

This morning on my phone over coffee, I was reading a wonderful interview with Bob Dylan in the New York Times. At some point he mentioned Ginsberg, Corso and Karouac.

I have loved the work of Ginsberg and Karouac since I was a teenager, but Corso was off my radar. I promptly Googled him, and then spend a happy 20 minutes reading the Wikipedia article about this fascinating Beat poet of the streets.

I love the way our modern world allows for random connections and happy accidents of discovery. I wonder whether those happy accidents will increase in the coming years, as SmartPhones are replaced by wearables.

That would be pretty cool.

One of the salient qualities of science fiction is that it talks about things that might happen, but have not yet happened. This distinguishes it from fantasy, which talks about things that can never happen.

But one odd thing about predictions of the future is that they sometimes come true. The geosynchronous satellites that Arthur C. Clarke described as a possible future because the actual geosynchronous satellites of a later time.

Similarly, Captain Kirk’s amazing pocket communicator became the SmartPhone of a later age. There are lots of similar examples.

I wonder which science fiction visions of today will become the ordinary of tomorrow. I also wonder whether there is any better way to predict this than simply to guess.

I know it took multiple terrible tragedies to make it happen, but finally I see a shift in the United States back to its best values. the peaceful protests that are currently going on in every major city in the country are really about affirming the inherent dignity of every human life

Somehow, as a nation, we seemed to lose sight of this core value. It is as though we had fallen into a deep dark slumber, from which we are only now emerging.

I am glad to see so many people now waking up. These are difficult times, and we will all need to draw love and support and strength from one another.

I have really been enjoying the Real Time Conference these last two days. I gave a keynote this morning and then participated in a really interesting panel and an on-line discussion. In a little while I am going to participate in an evening panel.

Being a presenter in a conference that is held entirely on-line is a fascinating experience. Of course there have been technical glitches, because all of this is new. But on the whole, I very much appreciate how people from around the world can share in the experience, without the great expense, inconvenience and difficulty of physical travel (not to mention the high ecological costs of physical conferences).

I am now watching the session just before the start of my own evening panel. A lot of really smart people are discussing “deep fakes”, algorithms which create very convincing visual simulcra of reality through the use of machine learning.

But my favorite moment came when Andrew Glassner started explaining how many of these algorithms need massive amounts of data, so they must rely on huge corpuses. But I was only half listening, so I misheard.

I admit that part of me was disappointed when I thought back on what I had just heard. Only then did I realize that Andrew was not talking about huge porpoises.

Sometimes I find myself throwing myself into work with a furious vengeance. In the moment I feel highly productive, yet there is, underneath, a certain manic quality to it.

At other times I work serenely, flowing into the task like a duck gliding across a pond. Clearly my mind is working differently in those moments.

I suspect that the working from fury is actually smoke from a different fire. I’m most likely working through something else, and trying to displace some sort of unresolved tension into my creative work.

I have a theory that the times when I work from peace are the times when I have the greatest insights, and do my most inspired work. They are also probably better for my blood pressure. 🙂

We have all had the experience of having a sudden insight, or meeting a person and knowing immediately whether we can trust them. There are many moments like this in human existence — momentary flashes of a greater or deeper intelligence.

Most of us, most of the time, are too distracted or worried or indundated by information to be able to tap into this part of our being. We try to pay attention, to reason things out. Yet we still miss a lot of what is going on.

I wonder whether there is a way to train our brains to be able to better access that place of hyperintelligence. Can we learn to shut out the surrounding noise and instead listen to that higher functioning inner voice?

I suspect meditation or something like it would be part of the answer. But I also suspect that there is more to it than that.

Hmmm. If only I had better access to my own inner voice, I would probably already know the answer.

Today, for the first time since the start of the outbreak, I visited a hospital. The person I am visiting is not suffering from anything COVID related, yet the entire scene is very very strange.

Everybody here is wearing a mask, and levels of screening are required even to enter the building.

But what strikes me is how normalized it has all become to the people who work here. The extra levels of mandatory social distancing, the safety protocols, they have just become part of everyday work at the hospital.

Doctors and nurses and other staff joke together, and see this now as just a normal part of existence. Perhaps that is what it has become.