Me and my Shadow

There may be few of you out there who remember Ted Lewis, a performer in the earlier part of last century,  who among other songs was know for performing a song, “Me and my Shadow” about a person walking home alone with only their shadow to keep them company. It was with more than a bit of irony that this song came to mind when I read that the makers of Sophia the robot are planning a mass roll out in response to the pandemic.  It seems that Hanson Robots have found the cure for loneliness in Sophia’s electronic arms and feel that now is the time to fulfill the need for other people by creating robots that can act as other people. We have allowed the hysteria around the pandemic to reduce ourselves to a shadow of our former selves.  Single drivers in their cars wearing masks now can now go home to a sterilized home with a sterile robot to a live  a life of exclusively what, and restricted to whom?

While self-preservation is a strong instinct in humans, possibly one of the strongest, we have to think what exactly are we saving ourselves for when our lives are defined by our ability to self isolate. What if we save our lives at the cost of our livelihood? For, as another song says, alone is alone, not alive.

Post geographic world

If my memory serves correct, the golden age of discovery began in the early 1500’s shortly after the printing of the first maps in the late 1400’s. This idea of technology creating a new world is one that plays out over every technology and yet in listening to Seth Godin speak with Krista Tippet on the On Being Podcast, his works gave me pause. It has been spoken many times before, here and in other places, that a new technology creates new horizons to explore but for the first time we have a technology that doesn’t basically increase our discovery of the physical world. Yes, I can see the Louvre from my living room or even from the toilet, but that is not a new exploration but a binge-watching of former glories.

The only similar situation seems to be with Sigmund Freud, the Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis’ publishing of The Interpretation of Dreams in 1899 and began the ongoing examination of the subconscious and the workings of the mind. It seems that we, like Alexander, (Or Plutarch, tip of the hat to Hans Gruber...) weep when we see there are no more worlds left to conquer, have found with no exterior worlds to conqueror we have only interior spaces- a sort of living room  coup d’état- televised and probably binge watched.

As Freuds book changed the then world, one could say feminism and by extension civil and LGBTQ rights were outgrowths of this exploration. We can only hope for the courage to explore our new world and not be content with reruns.

We reserve the right to refuse service to you

In an attempt to shake things up at work the other day, I retuned our Sonos station to Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jew Boys. Now, to those of the un-initiated, the Kinkster is a songwriter, novelist, humorist, politician, and who styles himself in the mold of popular American satirists Will Rogers and Mark Twain. I was not surprised to hear, “We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to You“, a song about the trials of a Jewish Hippie who has issues getting served in a restaurant and later a synagogue only to be told, because of his appearance, that he is not welcome there and that they have the right not to serve him.
While those signs may not be directed at long-haired freaky people, it was interesting to see people react when the verbiage was used on our president after the capital and he was refused service to twitter, google and Facebook. People seem to forget that these media are businesses and while some refer to them as public forums, they are not. They are businesses run for the sole purpose of making money and our blessing or distain for their policies means nothing to them until consumers cause enough economic pain to cause the company to reexamine its policy. And while there are distinctions made between a public and private account, those are still open to interpretation in the courts. So while pundits may roll their eyes and gnash their teeth in the media how a public voice is being silenced, little do they think that their voices too are heard only at the pleasure of the master.
As we like to forget, freedom isn’t free and free speech is bought today by our attention.

The end of the Market Economy

At a recent school parent event, a technology teacher said, we are teaching children to solve problems that we don’t know we have yet. it made me think of capitalism or economic theory or marketing which presents people with problems and then suggests we purchase a product to solve it. What would happen if we would find ourselves in a happy place where we don’t need more than we have? Or in the current state of Covid-land, perhaps we can’t afford more than we need. How does a need based economy react when the need is no longer there? What would our media look like when it is found that we simply don’

t care about next years model or if our teeth look white enough. Would the government have to step in and create a sort of communist economy where everything is determined for us, would we generate an artificial need to satisfy our status quo word or would we find another way and see a complete and total upheaval. Or would we just try to survive on subsidies so that we could continue to buy things that we no longer needed nor interested us just to avoid facing a larger question of need, responsibility and sustainability?