Getting Back to Technowizardry
Learning how to create (again)
I want to create. I’ve been feeling incredibly restless to do so these last few weeks (at least more so than before).
I want to create… but I feel incapable of doing so… I feel stuck. I am simultaneously too restless to be content, and too anxious to be motivated…
I want to create. But how does one do so when you feel like all the tools available are the wrong tools? And when the things you want to create are beyond your skill set to accomplish?
I suppose you just have to try… to learn how to create. That is one of the many vague reasons I took the moniker ‘Technowizard (in training)’... because I’ve always known that I want to create amazing, epic, innovative things… I want to invent magic. But I’d have to learn how to do so. I’d have to take myself back to the basics… I’d have to be a padawan… a student of the arts and sciences both. I’d have to learn how people create today before I can become the person that can summon the future out of the arcane arts of science tomorrow.
So here I am. Humbled and humble. Learning how to create with the tools at hand… with the skill and knowledge of a college opt-out who barely knows a thing or two about design and extending reality. With only 10 keys available on my keyboard.
Here’s what I’ve been doing to learn how to create (again):
Crafting - Water Bottles, Wire Jewelry, and (Paper) Brownboxing
Attempt 1 - Copper Rings, Failure
I bought a simple wire kit and attempted to make some of these cool rings and stuff I’ve seen online. But it was a miserable failure. I just took some wire and tried to wrap it into a ring… the result was ugly and flimsy and just not fun.
I realized that the wire I got was much too thin for something like this, so I had to try something else. Plus, just trying to come up with something out of my brain was like a wizard trying to cast their first spell without ever having read a spellbook. Foolish. Arrogant. I needed to learn from the masters first. Back. To. The. Beginning.
Attempt 2 & 3 - Bracelets, Semi-success
This time, I followed a tutorial. I found this cool, yet simple-looking design called a viking weave. I got some (slightly) better wire, and went ahead.
Well… actually, it took several weeks for me to try again after the first debacle… and then several more weeks after my first attempt to make the weave ended in me getting terribly frustrated and de-motivated… idk exactly why anymore… I think I was just too impatient… or too disgusted with the ugly mess I had in my hands… Either way, I only got a few loops into the design and then quit. So really, Attempt 2 was a failure.
But then I had a birthday coming up… a friend of mine was going through some tough times. She got Covid, had some housing issues, and it looked like she wasn’t gonna be able to do anything for her 30th birthday. I knew she loved hand-made gifts so I figured I’d try again.. This time with purpose.
Spoiler, it was a success! (mostly)
I got some thick, black wire this time. I figured it would look really cool once finished. Howeverrrr, though it did look interesting, the thickness made it so hard to craft that it was terribly frustrating throughout the whole process. Furthermore, the black ‘paint’ kept chipping off! So the end result was quite rough-looking. Plus it was terribly big and heavy.
Attempt 4 - Bracelet, Success!
After finally creating a finished piece, I rode that momentum and made another. This time, I used smaller wire (not as small as the first, but not nearly as thick as the black wire). It was much easier to maneuver this time around. Both because I knew what I was doing and due to the pliability of the wire. I even changed it up and did a double/triple weave to make it look more solid.
Unfortunately, I didn't have what I needed to do the polished finishing touches, so I had to use an old necklace rope to finish it. It ended up being a bit rough to be honest, but with some added charms, it seemed to turn out well! She really loved it!
I realized that I do better when I have someone else to show/present my creations! (As further supported by the creative challenges I've been doing for work, more on that later)
Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take pictures of this one soooo, just imagine a better looking, slimmer, silver version of the black one, but with charms (like little metal leaves, animals, and hearts) clipped onto the weave; plus a black, repurposed necklace string fashioned into a slipknot to tie the ends together.
Attempt 5 - Paper, Failure
I’ve done a bit of brownboxing before. Which basically means using cardboard (or paper) to prototype design concepts. Its a low-fidelity way to test game and VR ideas that can be surprisingly fun and insightful. So I figure I’d mess around and try to ‘brownbox’ a few ideas that’s been rattling around in my head… or just cut stuff and see what happens.
It did not go well. I simply did not have a clear enough idea of what I wanted to do. This method does not work very well with partially formed ideas. Especially with ideas as advanced as was rattling in my head (more on that later). And definitely not by just ‘cutting things and seeing what happens!’ Lol. I found myself just holding a bunch of paper squares, some copper wires, and mounting frustration. I even managed to prick myself!! Maybe I’ll try again once I have a more solid idea of what to do, like my new 3D website that I want to do… but for now, it was a big failure.
Attempt 6 - Water Bottles, Ongoing? (but not well)
My refrigerator’s water dispenser broke (somehow)... and so my family has had to start buying water bottles to stay alive. In retrospect, it probably would have been better to get some sort of sink filtration system, but we thought the landlord were actually gonna do their jobs for once and fix it… but its been nearly two months and all they’ve done is looked at it and told us what we already knew. All that being said, we’ve accumulated hundreds of water bottles in that time because I didn’t want to just throw away all those bottles. Not only do I feel bad adding to the plastic problem (as negligible as my individual household would add), but moreso I have been wanting to learn how to upcycle and recycle at home for a while now anyways… plus my family already overfills our garbage can every single week anyways.
Thus the bottles. I looked up some DIY bottle ideas. Even found several lists and such that I really liked. Unfortunately, most of the stuff was for things that we couldn’t use or didn’t need, like plant pots (we already have literally hundreds of plants in and out of the house, and dozens of extra pots of all sizes), watering cans (ditto), light fixtures, holders, and so on. There were even ideas for really time consuming projects like making curtains… plastic curtains.
But the most promising ideas was this little fair house, and these cute flowers (and maybe these snazzy lights).
I figure we could make our own little fairy garden with a ton of these bottles and flowers and such…. Buuuut week after week, I just didn’t have the time to do all that, and couldn’t organize my family to do a crafting day with me. So one day I just tried to do a few myself.
But it was a lot more underwhelming then I hoped for. It was kinda cool to make those flowers. Especially burning the edges to curve them. They really (kinda) look like flower petals! Buuuut I realized that I had a bunch of clear plastic bottles. And I’d have to go out and buy some specific paint to actually color all of these… or make paper mache. That’s when I called it quits.
I just don’t have the energy (or funds) to be buying all these extra materials for superfluous projects. Maybe one day… but not now.
So I just packed all the bottles up and took them to a local recycling plant (and no, I didn’t get paid for it, because GA is ass backwards).
I am still saving a few of the bigger or more unique looking bottles I find, because my next project is to create a little desk-sized aquaponics system. I’m hoping the practicality and alignment with my interest in solarpunk will make that project more fun and engaging for me. We’ll see.
Figma - Wizard Tower
For a while now, I’ve wanted to redesign my website to be an experimental 3D web experience! I’ve had this idea for years, but I feel like I have a better chance of doing so now… plus I don’t need to worry about potential employers not liking my experiments. I’m gainfully employed and they like me just the way I am, 😛
But anyways… I’ve been messing around with a few concepts in my design tool of choice, Figma, for years.
I’ve talked about the original idea in my earlier YouTube videos here:
Earlier this year, I got it in my head to finally move forward with the wizards tower idea… However, I am not at all a 3D modeler or any kind of artist, so I don’t really know how to do that in a 3D modeling tool like Blender. But I do know how to fake finesse 3D stuff via 2D shapes. Hence, I’ve also tried to express some of my creativity by attempting to recreate these scenes in Figma with simple shapes and gradient/shadow effects!
My first attempt was me just trying to do it from ‘sight’... meaning I’d look at the reference picture and try to recreate it. This worked fairly well, and has its own appeal, but the finer details are quite hard to copy this way. Even things like positioning are quite tricky to get right.
So then I figured I’d try to ‘trace’ it! Meaning I used the reference imagery as a background and placed elements over things, piece by piece. This method is far more tedious, but really helps me to bring out those details!
Both methods are promising,... but it’s an almost mindless/ single-minded process of doing a really detailed, time-consuming task. And I just haven’t had that much time. But I do enjoy it, so I’ll probably continue… when I’m not doing anything else with my free time. It's certainly a consistent way to get into flow.
Figma - Holocan
Another fun thing I’ve been doing on Figma is trying to visualize some of my invention ideas. One such I dubbed the ‘holocan’... a concept for a hologram that I made for a story my partner never finished.
The idea has been percolating in my brain for years now. And one thing I wanted to do with my website is showing off a few of these wild ideas I have in my mind. Not gonna lie, a part of me has always been scared to share these ideas because I worry folks will steal them… or just actually be able to create them (and likely poorly) before I have a chance to do so.
But honestly, that’s a poor excuse to not share ideas. As they say, ideas are a dime a dozen. It's execution (and luck… and privilege), that matters. I partially disagree.. I do think some ideas are better than others… perhaps even inherently ‘valuable’ if only because they inspire people to create amazing things where a more basic idea would not. Take the idea of AI. The idea was invented over a hundred years ago, thousands even if you count golems and automatons.. But in all that time, it has never been executed upon. Even today, its not quite there yet… Nonetheless, it has inspired countless products, research, and stories. The ‘timber’ or ‘tone’ of those stories and conceptions of AI has even guided how people go about trying to create them.
The man who invented what many consider the ‘grandfather’ of AI, ie the first chatbot: ELIZA at first saw AI as an opportunity to help people discover and become more of themselves. He thought that any AI that might come to be, would have to do so in a way that made it obvious it was a very different kind of intelligence than humans. As time went on and he began to see how people extrapolated far more from his bot than it could ever give, he grew worried that AI, and computers in general, were a grave danger to humanity. That they created a world in which people were thought to be reduced down to a set of programs that could be algorithmically duplicated and even controlled.
His colleagues, and rivals, saw AI as a way to become gods of sorts.. As an ‘evolution of humanity’. They thought it was only right and proper that machines would be able to distill all that humans were into code. That human intelligence could not only be fully understood, but also codified and replicated through relatively simple rulesets. It was this very mentality that made Weizenbaum’s fears a reality… We now live in a world where programmers are not only creating so-called ‘AI’ that make a mockery of human intelligence, but they have been creating tools and programs for the past few decades that have steadily made humans more robotic, such that people could be more easily ‘understood’ by advertiser algorithms and more prone to social engineering, and so on…
But anyways…
Meandering aside, this idea is ofcourse not ‘original’.. Its not meant to be. The idea of the ‘holocan’ was meant to be a ‘realistic’ (or at least believable) way for the famous concept of holograms to be included in the near-future scifi story my partner was writing. I began worldbuilding around this concept because she wanted to have holograms, but had no clue what that would ‘look’ like in the near future. She didn’t really like the idea of the typical Star Wars holograms with their monochromatic, flickery mess… and the Star Trek holodeck was way too much. So we needed a happy medium. Something that teenagers would have access to. It couldn’t be just randomly floating in the air, as she wanted to be able to describe a bit about how this technology worked.
So I came up with the holocan (name pending), a device roughly the size of a standard can of beans, or perhaps a bit smaller, but it would be able to sit on a desk or your lap, or comfortably be held in the hand. You could press a button and a three-dimensional hologram would pop out!
There could even be different versions. A really small pen-sized one that would be more like a mobile phone, a desk sized one that would be like a laptop or computer, a big screen one for the family entertainment center, and even industrial ones used for billboards and movie theaters.
They all would share the same deceptively simple technology: projecting light into a sort of loose field of particles.. Like a cross between bose-einstein condensate and everyday dust particles.
The devices would even have audio emitters that could send directed beams of ultrasound to also give a fairly high-fidelity sense of touch to the holograms as well.
There’d even be earlier versions (that I wanted to invent IRL) that used a sort of thin plastic film instead of just loose particles. I figured a prototype of this version would be feasible to make with today’s technology… It would ‘simply’ shoot air into a plastic bubble, and project light onto the inside of that bubble (which would be mirrored/corrected to appear correctly on the outside of the bubble). Later iterations of this prototype would find a way to make the ‘bubble’ a more responsive film… it would be able to produce haptic feedback, as well as conform to the contours of air/light projecting onto it.
I still have hopes of being able to make something like this… somehow… but yeah, the idea has kept crawling its way back into my brain, years after its ‘use’ (and despite my trying to dismiss it as impossible).
It was one of the simplest ideas I’ve had over the years (or at least the simplest to visualize), so I figured I’d give it a shot. Here’s the first little draft:
Simple stuff. But then I figured I could make it look more ‘real’... I wanted to make the cylinder look more like a can, and the projection look more hologram-y…
I was able to do just that by just making a semi-circle and giving it a drop-shadow effect, then duplicating it down the length of the cylinder! Similarly, I gave the hologram part a drop shadow, inner shadow, and blur effect. And Viola!
But I knew I could do better. So with some more layering, shadows, gradience, and tinkering, I was able to create this beauty:
Of course, this is nothing compared to what a real artist or 3D modeler can create, but it was a big accomplishment for me, and I am proud of it. It was fun to do and scratched a bit of the itch!! If only I could do this for reals… but alas.
Creative Challenges - Unreal & Construct
Folks at my job decided to do a monthly creative challenge. It's been a great way to encourage myself to actually use tools that I've always wanted to try but never made the time to do so. It's also served as a system of accountability encouraging me to actually follow through with a creative project.
The structure of our creative challenges is quite fun; everyone that is participating has to make a rule! So here’s how the two challenges went:
Challenge 1 - Space Bounce
500+ words(it can't just be word spam)
There has to be a moving target
Must use Unreal Engine
Must include bouncing Ball
Must be monochromatic
Has to include an educational component somewhere
I had some ambitious ideas on what I wanted to do at first… I was planning to do a “game where you have to build a rocket from parts, then fly it to space, land it on the moon, gather materials, and then fly it back to Earth to land on a raft in the ocean build a moonbase!”
But it took me a while just to learn how Unreal Engine works (and to stop procrastinating). I worked through a 5 hour tutorial over a week or so, and then watched a dozen more videos just on how to create a space environment.
By the time the month came to an end, I was scrambling to get a working program. Unfortunately, I was not able to get an executable working for whatever reason. Fortunately, I did still technically hit all the elements of the challenge. I didn’t win, but I did finish.
I ended up creating… not exactly a game… but a sort of cool-looking environment, if I do say so myself, and my coworkers seemed to like it as well.
Here’s my creation (warning: it’s pretty long, and didn’t capture in high resolution):
This process has taught me a lot! I probably should have done a retrospective immediately after to really document those learnings… but as I look back on it now, months after the fact, a few things still come to mind.
Leave more time than expected to learn the system, especially if its a new tool you’re using, but don’t spend Too much time ‘learning’! Because the best learnings come from implementation. There were quite a few videos and concepts that I ‘learned’, but didn’t really retain because I didn’t need to use them.
Don’t be ambitious, which is hard for me to say, or believe, so really its be ambitious, but dont be afraid to be creative with how I… let’s say… contextualize that ambition. Meaning, yes, I may need an ambitious idea to motivate me in the first place, but as I start actually attempting to make it happen, I need to be real about what I can accomplish and temper my expectations. This is only for personal projects though, because I’d never want to promise someone else that I could accomplish something that I am not confident I can actually do.
Leave more time at the end for polish and testing. I didn’t really try to make an executable till the night before it was time to present… so I had pretty much no time to troubleshoot the issues I was getting. Plus there were a few funny quirks that I had to work around as well.
Have fun! I found myself getting frustrated with some elements to the point of almost giving up, but when I focused on the aspects that I enjoyed or found interesting, I was able to really embrace the process.
Finally, timebox myself. Sometimes I found myself spending hours and hours trying to figure out (or just play around with) a really tough issue, or a really small detail, and I did not have all that much time to do this in the first place. So I’d be losing sleep or time for my other projects due to this. Plus I’d make no real progress on the actual project. Giving myself perhaps an hour to work on one thing that I am stuck on. If I can’t make meaningful progress in that hour, I should move on to something else and/or take a break. I can always come back to it later, but this should hopefully stop wasted effort and keep things fresh.
Challenge 2 - EggyBuilder
Has to be a builder of some sort
Can’t use Unity
Has to be used via a game-making tool
Has to feature an egg
For this one, I went in with a mission. I had some ambitious plans, but seemingly achievable ones, like building a lite version of my creation platform ideas such as flubbi, or the solarpunk city builder. Unfortunately, I again procrastinated… this time because I didn’t know what platform I wanted to use. I knew I wanted to try something other than Unreal this time, just to explore other tools. I was hoping to find a real no-code option for game making.
But the options were just not great… at least not for what I wanted to build. I don’t quite recall all the tools I looked up. But I ended going with Construct (after like 2 weeks of ‘research’).
This tool seemed the most approachable, especially with my dwindling time, patience, and budget of $0.
As I went through the tutorial, I even scrapped all of my ideas and just incorporated ideas as they came to me. My rationale at the time was that I just wanted to learn how to do the sort of thing I wanted to do in the simplest way possible. For instance, I knew I wanted to build things, so I learned how I could create a thing by pointing and clicking or pressing a button. That ended up looking like a platform on this 2D-centric tool. I knew I needed an egg, so I figured out how to import sprites (much simpler than trying to do anything 3D as well). And I new I wanted to be able to spawn things with my builder, so I figured out how to spawn something when the egg impacts the ground.
I eventually found myself making a very simple game of sorts… my lil piggy character needed to eat apples placed around the map, but the only way to get around was for the player to build platforms for the piggy to jump on. You also had to avoid the eggs falling from the sky, AND the bombs that would spawn from said eggs.
Viola! We had a game. But before I could get much further, something terrible happened… it didn’t save. At first, I thought it was just a terrible accident. My power went out suddenly due to a storm. So I knuckled up and recreated the whole thing… Then it happened again… this time when I just happened to close the tab… so I had to do it. All. again…
Turns out, the dang program I was using, which does mention auto-save as a feature.. Doesn’t actually save anything unless you set it up beforehand! I finally got it configured, but it did mean I wasted nearly a week just redoing the project.
So once again… I was up to the last minute trying to get it to a presentable state. I wasn’t able to create an executable… again. But it was a somewhat functional game.
Here it is (warning, crude and loud gameplay!):
I learned a good bit from this one too.
Make sure the project is actually getting saved…
Build the core concepts first. Even though I had to redo this three times, the fact that I focused on getting the core concept of the ‘game’ down first made it relatively easy to ensure I hit my goals (at least the very basic, just-meet-the-criteria ones)
Everything else was really an extension, or even a reaffirmation of those lessons I learned in the first challenge. Things like managing my expectations/ambitions, not getting stuck, experimenting and so on.
Surprisingly, I won this challenge!! I’ll credit the sound effects since that seemed to really bring it over the edge, even though it is a bit loud… 😀
Challenge 3 - TBD
For this third challenge we are doing as of this writing, I need to really apply all these lessons… but I’ve already fallen behind quite a bit. Once again, I’m struggling to find a more achievable way to ‘contextualize’ my ambition…
My third challenge is two fold! The team decided to do a coding challenge and/or a creative challenge. And of course I elected to do both. So I’m going to need to figure out something that accomplishes all of the following rules.
Coding Challenge:
Has to be something where you can construct something (like lego, playdough, voxels)
Must use a search or sort algorithm that isnt' built-in
Must involve moving something from point a to point b, how it is moved doesn't matter.
Creative Challenge:
Must have a theme of cooperation!
Must include a contrasting element.
Must connect in some way to the thoughts/feelings you get when you watch/listen to this -
Has to be an ode to creation
"Leave your comfort zone"
"Carry"
At first, I reeeallly wanted to do a Flubbi-lite finally! It seemed like a good opportunity, and I thought I learned enough to at least get the basics down: a clay-like builder where you can mash or mold some blobs around. But alas, my research has not born much fruit. It seems like even that ‘basic’ concept is far more complicated than even experienced programmers can achieve today.
So I may end up doing a pre-totype of flubbi that I came up with years ago… to use ‘sticks’ as the building blocks instead of blobs.
We’ll see how it goes!
How to build a better future
As always, I’ve been thinking about how to build a better future. I’ll have to expand on this in the next newsletter, but here’s a high-level step-by-step ‘guide’ I’ve been cooking up on how anyone and everyone can help build a better future.
Create local community
Buy land, get into a land trust, become a community land steward, or just upgrade squat (esp if local gov is tenant friendly)
Build up/experiment with urban farming and/or a food forests
Create a mixed use environment where people can work and live in the same communal town, neighborhood, or even block/plot of land
Invite a diverse groups of people.. or better yet build it up with a trusted group of friends (try to have a diverse friend group). Embrace diversity in background and ideas, but not necessarily at the cost of shared values.
Experiment, refine, and focus on what you enjoy about community building
Document and share the process
Connect with others doing the same
Build/use technologies in service of solving real community problems.
Employ a gift economy rather than a financial one
Use democratic consensus building as much as possible
Keep power as anarchic and decentralized/distributed as possible
Here’s what you can do on a personal level to help out no matter who you are:
If you have money (ie making 6 figures and/or consistently have discretionary income)
Donate to friends who are struggling financially
Help them with immediate needs (such as bills, rent, food, or debt that they really need)
Help them with debts and expenses that cause the most stress
Help them get more income and/or get into an environment that is more supportive (such as better work, better housing, low/no interest loans and grants, etc)
Provide opportunities and services that are low effort/low risk, high reward. Anything from rides to cars to tools to food etc…
Bankroll grassroots organizations. Do due diligence, but be graceful/generous
If you don't have money, but have time
Volunteer for grassroots organizations that are helping your local community. They likely need help with canvassing, phonebanking, marketing/sharing information, administration, and so on.
Share your knowledge and skills through classes or other means, especially if you know anything about gardening, farming, DIY construction, maintenance (house or car), coding, etc
Offer your services for free or cheap, especially if they are things like healthcare, childcare, maintenance, gardening/farming, web design, financial organization, and so on.
If you don't have money or time
Help broadcast the work of local orgs or mutual aid groups by sharing and engaging with their posts on social media, or even just word of mouth at your job, family, church, school, etc.
Direct people and/or resources towards people doing the work when you see them
Try to reassess your life to see how you can dedicate more time or resources to causes you truly care about. Because 9/10 you could use their help, and there will likely be opportunities that come about if you do make something happen.
No matter how much time or money you have, do your best to learn!!
Learn about the true history of how humans lived in all manner of ways (ie how many societies have utilized consensus-based democracy and socialistic/anarchistic practices to create egalitarian communities.)
Learn about sustainable food production (such as permaculture, aquaponics, food forests, regenerative farming, horticulture, and so on)
Learn about the true problems of capitalism (ie not just ‘late-stage’ or ‘crony’ but capitalism itself as inherently unsustainable and harmful to people and the planet.)
Learn about social issues, about science, about philosophy, about euro-centrism, about indigenous cultures, about psychology, about anthropology and archaeology, about urban design, about solarpunk, about storytelling, about utopia and protopia, about anarchism, about social ecology, and whatever else interests you and helps you to be more actionably optimistic! Learn, learn, learn!
The Death of Death
I’m going to end this newsletter with this nigh-diatribe I wrote after I listened to a podcast.
I was so impassioned that this basically kickstarted the whole newsletter. So thanks for that I guess.
Anyways, buckle up!
—
I was listening to the London Futurists podcast where this dude, José Cordeiro, was super excited about the idea that they would ‘cure death’ by 2045. He is confident that people who live to that time, or even to 2030, would be able to live forever (or at least not die due to age-related causes). He had a bunch of ‘arguments’... but none of them answered the interviewee’s questions, and the interviewee’s didn’t even ask the most important questions!!
I was, and still am, Greatly Disappointed (even disgusted) with his arguments for ‘curing death.’
And I’m not one to think death is some magical keystone to life. I’ve never been one to accept the saying that ‘life has no purpose without death’ or whatever.
I’ve always been of the mindset that I may live forever, or at least that I may not die from old age… I’ve always loved the idea of being immortal. I’ve always fought the idea that immortality is miserable, or that living forever will get stale/boring, or that life is inherently terrible, therefore long life would be terrible. And I also don’t fear death. I see it as the next great Adventure. One that is always there when I am ready for it, and not a moment too soon.
And yet, I find the current (ie technocratic, euro-centric, neoliberal) ideas around the concept of immortality and curing death to be absolutely abhorrent, naive, and ultimately missing the point.
His arguments were basically:
Other animals don’t die from old age, so why should we?
‘Curing death’ is the most important/biggest problem to solve
He didn’t really have many more arguments, as they all just circled back to one of those two. But feel free to listen and let me know if I’m wrong.
Let me be clear. I believe that we can and should ‘cure death’... that we can and should create ways for people to become immortal, if they so choose…
But I believe such a possibility can and should ONLY come After we’ve solved the world’s most important problems, such as: inequality, hierarchy, power hoarding, abuse, pollution, and so on…
These are the true issues that must be solved before we really open this pandora’s box, because if we do not solve them first, they will only compound exponentially.
The simple truth of the matter, that they ALL failed to even mention throughout the entire podcast, is that any longevity advancements would be used almost exclusively by the rich and powerful.
We are coming up against some of the worst, most dire problems in human history: climate change/environmental disaster and pollution on a global scale, an increasingly psychotic population due to unprecedented levels of loneliness from our anti-social societal systems, extinction from our very own technologies, and so much more.
And many of the people that caused or perpetuated these issues are still alive, profiting off of it all, or just ignoring and downplaying the reality of these tribulations.
One of the only things many young people look forward to as a source of tenuous hope for the future, is the realization that the people who put us in this terrible situation… will someday die. Many people who feel powerless to do much of anything, at least know that the incompetent, corrupt, and woefully outdated people who hold power today in our governments, companies, and institutions will all die in a decade or three. If all else fails, and we can’t make them see sense… if we can’t find another way to peaceably absolve them of their power… We just need to wait for them to shuffle off this mortal coil. That won’t be ideal, at all. But as time goes on, they theoretically get more fragile and senile with age. And thus, their power can be wrested from their weakened clutches.
But now you’re telling me, that these same people who hold 80% of the world’s wealth… who have lifelong seats of power… who hoard much of the housing supply… who will deplete the social security along with the rare minerals, who have consistently and knowingly fucked us all over so they could live ever better lives disconnected from these worsening issues… now you’re saying these people can live forever???
No. Absolutely not.
He claims that life is great, that the future will be better. That people will be happier… spoken like a true boomer with his head stuck so far up his shriveled ass that he can’t see he’s living in a completely different world than the vast majority of other people.
Obviously, I’m not referring to all of our elders here. I’m specifically talking about those who hoard power and resources, and use their age as a means of keeping it all away from the next generations.
The truth is that 80-90% of people alive today are fucking miserable. People are suffering from unprecedented levels of loneliness, depression, anxiety, and fear in addition to poverty, apathy, meaninglessness, addiction, and so much more bullshit. People are miserable not because they refuse to be optimistic in the face of so much so-called ‘economic progress’.. People aren’t ‘ungrateful’ for the supposed ‘advancements’ of cars, and medicine, and computers, and technology at large… no… its because the vast majority of said ‘progress’ is a fucking facade. Because most people, even in the apparent ‘developed economies’ of western nations, still live day to day struggling to survive. Most people are unsure if they will be able to maintain their way of life in the future, much less that their kids will have better lives. Even in the mOsT AdVaNcEd economies, people are Fucking Miserable. People are not happy. And rightfully so.
Most people literally cannot afford stable housing. Most people do not have access to truly healthy food. Most people don’t have friends. Most people do not feel safe even amidst the most over-policed cities in the world. Most people do not get enough rest. Most people do not drink enough water. Most people can’t or don't read for pleasure. Or make art. Or travel. Or spend enough time in nature. Most people do not enjoy being instantly connected to the dramas and anxieties and stupidity of anybody, anywhere in the world through the internet. Most people do not enjoy having to sit in traffic for their everyday commute. Most people do not enjoy their jobs that take up nearly 2/3s of their lives. Most people do not enjoy nor retain much of value from their 13 - 25+ years of ‘education’. Most people do not look forward to the future. And for good reason.
Our waters are choked with the garbage of our predecessors. Our land is poisoned by the hubris and arrogance of our grandparents. Our fucking air is thick with the smog of the last generation’s greed and apathy. Our food is carcinogenic and sickening thanks to the brutal industry of people who don’t even eat the same stock they unceasingly advertise to us. Our natural environment is all but lost to us… one part constructed in the worst possible way as asphalt wastelands where we don’t even want our children to be in; and one part being burned down, chopped up, mined through, and bombed out infuckingsatiably. Our children might never know the beauty of fireflies, the melody of birds, the vast variety of flora and fauna in the wild, the majesty of old-growth trees, the refreshing taste of unbottled water, and soon even the grandness of a blue sky may be taken from us in compensation for their ‘quick fix’.
This is the life we live today. This is the life we are fighting against. This is the life we hope beyond hope to let die so that a new, better, and yet recycled life can be born.
Death is not a sickness. It is not a disease. It does not exist merely as some parasite or mistake or apathetic process to be optimized and over-engineered. Death exists not merely because it's natural, but because change is necessary. Because life can become stale if left to stagnate. Because life can kill itself through lack of change… because beings that live too long in a perfectly stable environment can become incapable of adapting to the new when it inevitably comes along… because beings that seek to hoard resources and power will leave none for those that come after… because life needs new life, youthful life, fresh life for life to flourish.
This does not mean death should necessarily be inevitable for all creatures… certainly not from old age. There are indeed plenty of life forms that are naturally immortal. We, too, can and should pursue such a goal. But we should do so with ample respect, conscientiousness, and care. We should pursue such a dream with all the empathy and wisdom that we absolutely failed to use when we discovered fossil fuels and rare earth metals and money.
Becoming immortal should come with sacrifice. It should come with mechanisms and systems to discourage hoarding, to spread power, and to inject change.
Everyone should have access to immortality with no financial barriers. But they must somehow be required to give up any excessive wealth, influence, and power.
Such a thing would be impossible in our current world. If we (or rather these stupendously naïve people like Jorge) unleash death-defying technologies in our current world, it would only result in an abhorrently, exponentially more fucked up world. It would stratify and solidify these class lines and inequalities more rigidly than ever before. It would ramp capitalism up into a whole new level of exploitation where all the people that can’t afford this technology would be treated like actual cogs and cattle to be used and discarded even worse than we already are today. It would bring back feudalism, like many capitalists are already doing with their company towns and power abuse. It would be the ever receding carrot for the ever-desperate and delusional middle/managerial class to tap dance for the rich and powerful. They will do whatever dirty work is needed to ‘earn’ their taste of immortality.
The world would be an even worse dystopia, where instead of being split into simply ‘developed’ and ‘underdeveloped’ nations, there will be grotesquely gilded Elysium’s full of narcissistic ‘gods’, sprawling purgatories of people thinking they will one day live as the gods in those ‘heavens’, and the vast wastelands everywhere else that serve as nothing more than substrate for this ‘progress’.
And the worst thing about this is… you may think I’m exaggerating here.. That I’m just being a pessimistic doomsayer. But I’m honestly probably woefully underplaying this. Because our world is already like this.
This is a firmly established pattern. Just look at how people advertised/imagined the invention of cars, or plastic, or oil, or even modern medicine, and computers. Each and every one were filled with grandiose promises of untold abundance, progress, and freedom. We would be living lives of leisure, exploring space, talking to animals, living comfortably with no fear for our health, and so much more.
But what we got is pollution, social media, traffic, homelessness and all the problems I listed above (or that you can just see around you). We got a chrome-painted veneer of progress… they just painted over the mold and shit so that it looks shiny and ‘convenient’ and demanded we be grateful for the privilege.
No. Not again. We can’t keep falling for this shit. We can’t keep running head-first into this cesspool of golden trash. They think anything they touch with the ‘invisible hand’ of capitalism, industry, and ‘technology’ turns to gold. But the thing about Midas’ touch is that it was fools gold all along. And even if it was real gold… that’s still just a shiny rock. Its not food on your table. Its not medicine. Its not love and fulfillment. Especially if no one else cares how shiny it is either.
If we want to live in a world where immortality is a real option, then it has to be a better world.
A more decentralized, anarchistic world is required for immortality to be truly ethical and viable.
We must build a world where there are no positions of power. Where people who are creative and ambitious and talented are rewarded with the respect of their peers and the actual privilege of living in a world where Everyone benefits rather than just a few. We don’t and shouldn’t reward people with the power to control other people’s lives.
We must build a world where there are no ‘developed’ or ‘underdeveloped’ nations, where there are no rich or poor. but instead countless communities with the freedom and means to live the type of lives they want to live. Where people are thriving and striving to create rather than just trying to survive. We must build a world where everyone is richer than rich. Where resources are abundant not in some investor’s cap table, but in the regenerative practices of a society able and willing to balance consumption with production with rejuvenation.
A world where immortality is an option for all is a world where death is a choice as well. It is a world where life is truly worth living. Where people struggle with how to be the best they can be, rather than how to not be crushed under those who decide what you should be. Where everyone and anyone has the power to say no… and to mean it, to every and anyone else.
It is a world where the air is sweet, the waters are crystal, the sky is deep, and the mind is free of all baser worries. It is a world of adventure and creativity and fulfillment and community and love and harmony, and none of that sounds the least bit ‘unreal’ or even exciting because it is simply the norm. It is a world where prosperity and progress does not come at the cost countless other cultures and lives. Where all people can direct their own progress as they see fit. It is a world where conflict and disagreements and competition are all part of a fair, balanced, and consensual dance rather than a deadly gauntlet you are forced into with no explanation or calibration.
Death will never die. But in a better world, we can certainly learn to shake hands with the grim reaper.
Let’s build a better world so that we can come to a mutual agreement with mortality.
—
PS: I also talked about this in this episode: SFGE, Crafting, and the Death of Death
Here are some other things I wanted to write about but didn't have/make the time:
More ideas on AI
Bigger models with worse results… who woulda thunkit
More sloppy and pointless AI implementations
Calling for better AI (more specific, more user friendly, more punk)
What I want to do:
Digital playdough… Holographic reality…
Build a real Holocan
Invent Magic Sand (ie like kinetic sand, but for product design)
Spatial notes and open canvas mindmapping
Spin up simulations by 'hand'
Experiment with tools like Spline, Blender, SculptVR, Archio, and maybe even games like Valheim, Craftopia, and Minecraft to scratch that creative itch
Learning about land trusts
Ideas on what I want to do
Shouldn’t have to pay to live
Want to build my own home, and my own community
Want to experiment with mixed zoning
Resources I’ve found:
Atlanta Land Trusts
The Guild
Community Stewardship… (share notes)
Acorn Labs
Solarpunk
My own project(s)
Solarpunk Software
Resource Repository
Other project(s)
SolarPunk Stories
Shout out to Zach for keeping me going on this! And shout out to Jordan for suggesting this ‘two weeks ahead’ concept that I hopefully will do going forward.
I want to do my best to post another journal (likely covering the aforementioned ideas/topics) in two weeks (a month max).
Please feel free to let me know if there are any particular topics you’d really want to hear more about in the next journal.
Loved this one! Great to get another newsletter, and as expansive and interesting as always.