shangri-la or a chicken in every pot

I was listening to a pretty interesting, if not rather sedate but being shrill does not presuppose being impassioned, podcast from BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time segment on the notion of Utopia. Many shun such rarefied discussions as purely academic and formal and human pursuits are not the staid stuff of quiet questioning—just something that we’ve named though cannot agree on the definition, however this panel show was particularly interesting as the episode had originally been broadcast in 1999, on the cusps of the new century and classic thought was indeed buffeted with a lot of future-forward and progressive predictions.
The term utopia is a bit of a puzzle in itself, sounding like έΰ-τοποζ (good-place) but introduced to describe a society that was nowhere (ου)—I don’t think that this was intended as some cynical pun but rather an admonition not to confuse the merely good with the best or the ideal. Even if it did point us to no place, nonpareil, it still gave us visions to aspire to—which were of course constrained by writers’ imaginations and the context that they were writing in. There was much fear and suspicion over perfect societies and technology’s role in creating them—as there is today, thinkers having witnessed the ways regimes can pervert mechanisation and eugenics to forward their own agenda and ideal. In speculative fiction and reality, many of these efforts have backfired in dystopia ways. Having every need and want fulfilled and a surplus leisure seems appealing, but by many past reckons, we are living in an era of great ease and security, the promise of realized of some authors’ reveries—or at least progressing there, yet we seem more and more dissatisfied.  Eventually the talk came around to categorizing futurists into two camps as to how this revelation might be achieved: the husbanders and the technocrats.
Although it was not so long ago and not a retro-future sort of prophesy (which lend us a world far better than what we’ve achieved), it was very interesting how the two groups, geneticists and artificial-intelligence proponents argued their cases. While we do speak in terms of the singularity today, a relinquishing control to a thinking-machine and trust it to keep human welfare as its pet-project and maybe engineer that ideal society, rather than slum around with the details, it is interesting how the panel framed and previsioned their creature-comforts. One side argued that genetic understanding would produce a class of beings where the fittest were not only the most competent but also the kindest and most generous (since the best and most efficient way to promote the individual is not only to fool one’s competition but moreover to fool oneself into being altruistic). The technologists, on the other hand, argued that surrendering day-to-day tasks to a network of computers that monitored our needs and health would greatly increase our efficiency in all things and eventually put us among the stars. Though there are some contemporary persuasive voices urging mankind to become space-faring whom might have become better know, it’s interesting that the proponent that they knew was the physicist Freeman Dyson, who believed that humans should hollow out comets and travel, sheltered, across the Universe like the Little Prince. What do you think? Has AI and our inter-connectedness made utopia and related concepts rather moot points?

br-549 or ncc-1701

A misunderstanding on my part—given days to ferment and fester before a little research disabused me of it, led me to believe that the networks had originally canceled the first iteration of Star Trek in 1969, before the crew had the chance to even fulfill their five year mission, for undisclosed reasons since not all allegory goes without controversy and filled that time-slot with Hee Haw. I was mistaken but not before I went as far as imagining how loyal-viewers might have comforted themselves and imagined that the Enterprise was having another encounter with the Mirror Universe, with helmsman Lieutenant Junior Samples and First Officer Minnie Pearl.  The reality behind the reason not to renew the series was in actuality over more mundane problems with the programming line-up of NBC and switching the show’s slot and many liberties were indeed afforded to the genre to address contemporary issues. Fans had already saved the show before from oblivion with a letter-writing campaign but a following attempt failed to persuade executives a second time. Perhaps the Moon Landing and the real promise that held was as good a cue as any to gracefully bow-out and had the series continued, perhaps it would not have been there for following generations in the way it has been, nor mobilised and inspired legions of fans and television might be loath to indulge re-runs and syndication.
It turns out that Hee Haw (also in 1969)—which I don’t recall at all except for the donkey animation and a few scattered images—did in fact come in to being rather hastily as a clone of one of those anodyne, niche (though surely pitched as family-friendly) programmes like Lawrence Welk, Laugh-In and Liberace with CBS’ decision to pull the subversive and unapologetic Smothers Brothers’ Comedy Hour for outspoken guests and questioning Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision to escalate the stakes in Vietnam, as the need for the founder of the Great Society to placate his chicken-hawk critics in Washington and prove his manhood.

mason-dixon oder deutsch-deutsche grenze

Having lived in Germany for an extended period, I have found it’s impossible to forget that certain canopy of history whose partition lasted up until a quarter-of-a-century ago with the division between East and West and the innerdeutsche Grenze.  I knew such separation-anxieties were hardly unique and reunification is certainly still pending for some, however, it was not until a recent trip to the Deep South in America did I appreciate how real some abolished borders can yet be. Though circumstances were very different and more distant history than what partitioned Germany and Europe, quite a lot of sentiment over the US Civil War (called alternatively the War of Northern Aggression) lingers.
It is not only in the monuments that extol rebellion or the city hall of Macon, Georgia that was for a time the capitol of the Confederate States of America—for history is, no matter how inconvenient or painful should not be sequestered and compartmentalised—but more immediately and undiluted by time in attitudes that have changed little since the cease-fire. Not that it is not getting better and not that we ought to resign ourselves to the patience of generational strife and contend with prejudices with an unnatural longevity necessarily for any parallel line-in-the-sand, it’s just that resistance to change can sometimes be glacially stubborn and there are few equipped to accept it at any pace.

fearbook

Dangerous Minds has a features an excellent profile on a magazine whose run in the late1950s and 1960s appealed to a certain niche readership and had quite a devoted following. The periodical Famous Monsters of Filmland not only showcased the distinctively creepy artwork of Basil Gogos on the cover but also invites a discussion on such cult phenomena since fandom is always something well-documented for those wanting to know more or to rediscover what was formerly frowned on as a poor investment of time and energy, unlike say Cat Fancy.

uncanny gulch

H introduced me to this fun but slightly unsettling Chinese app called myidol. One takes a shapshot of one’s face and the app (all in Chinese but intuitive and guiding enough to figure out—though a bit offputting since one is not exactly sure what one is consenting to, like most of the things on this platform) and allows one to create a three-dimensional paper-doll avatar that one can put in miniature animated adventures, like a cowboy in a Wild West shootout, motorcycle daredevil, cheerleader, etc. The rendering is seamless and an accurate reflection—the character coming across as a Voltron pilot.

human rights watch

At a very urgent juncture, the world was administered extreme unction in the aftermath of World War II in the form of the United Nations whose working-group applied the aspiration of universal human rights, which is a very good and needed model to aim for. This convention, however, is somewhat effacing to if not the true underlying factors then at least to that propaganda that inspired much of the outrage and tragedy that is failing to impart any real lessons unfortunately.

The mass deception and hysteria broke out owing in part (if not wholly) by appealing to scapegoats and the worst of people’s prejudices, applying the template of a host majority’s fears on minority groups, defined as outsider or other by the prevailing, dominant outlook. Of course, those draftsmen would prefer those others to be loyal adherents to progressive causes and progressive thinking, but the concept of a universal right worth protecting also obligates recognising a cultural identity—by that very difference—which may be in stark opposition to what’s been enshrined. There’s plenty of room for interpretation and the notion that one could choose to worship any way he or she sees fit or not at all or the inherent equality among the sexes, as I feel and values I cherish, could become quite a problem for others (given that this lack of choice in the matter is the way and the way it has always been and there’ve not been complaints worth registering), as could peddling a certain style of democracy over others, as the Swiss, for instance, might regard governance American style wholly inadequate and theirs the highest standard. Not that we should not hope for egalitarian goals and convictions that respectful of others nor that a certain set of ideals engenders greater foreignness but we ought not forget that the notion of rights is something malleable and conceived to protect those that may not ascribe to them.

rinse cycle

A group of clever engineering students in China have come up with a concept for a stationary bicycle with a workout routine that doubles as laundry duties. The design is still in its earliest phases and there are some obvious hurdles to its manufacture, like plumbing but hopefully in short order, rows of exercise bikes might start appearing in wash-salons and in laundry rooms. The drudgery of both chores is sure to be compounded by being tethered to dirty clothes for the entire duration but it might equally provoke thought on each task, making the environmental impact a little less through peddle-power.  Be sure to check out the link for more bright ideas whose time has come.

shoutbox

Via the inestimable Boing Boing, here is a parody on the Guardian’s Comment is Free section. I admit I don’t really understand that forum, which seems like a solicitous den of baiting and columnists finding a place for spare thoughts that were well formulated but didn’t really fit with their assignments but I suppose most of the internet is fashioned that way—just with guiding rivulets hewn deeper to direct the flow. I suppose ours is not to reason why. Each of the entries seems like an absolute jewel and we will be checking this blog, Comment is Weird, regularly.