Sometimes, I do not fit in with ‘the crowd’. And even though I understand my misfitted social standing better than most, it is a problem in my life as untamed as the very seas that surround me. Its a truth that perpetuates simply because I will not offer up my will to those almost automatic processes in my brain that say ‘just rely on altruistic fairness’.

What in the holy hell does that mean? Well, allow me to explain.

Other people seem to talk about their life as if like some shape, they have always been made just so, and managed to fit into some designated place. These people consider that they have always been right where they belonged. Sadly they are unaware, that this constant is a trick played by the mind. Implemented to keep people (most of them anyway) emotionally stable. This emotional counter-balance can only be described with two words: altruistic fairness.

Altruistic fairness as a measure, is exactly how the mind makes you accept whatever it is you end up with, and it is also what keeps you from trying to set the world on fire, if what you end up with substantially less than desired. The mind does this and other things through a complex process which has been re-enforced your entire life; activities learned all too soon become behavior.

For instance, If you were shooting for a $500,000 house, and end up with a house worth $250,000, almost immediately, neurological activity takes place that quite literally re-writes your preferences. You will now consider the $250,000 option to have been not only just as well, but better (and why not? its YOUR house — that too is part of the trick, just because this particular house is YOURS its better, it now shares all your ‘goodness’). You’ll ponder on how much closer it is to places you like to go. Maybe its near relatives. Its certainty much better than a house worth $100,000, you’ll reason. Besides, you had fallen in love with this particular house’s in-ground pool…

Did you really though? The answer was an obvious ‘no.’ But now, its, ‘of course’. Altruistic fairness provides guidance in this way and would act to make you feel great with whatever you ended up. The mind protects itself from being overwhelmed from any sort of consistently negative observation (as part of the survival instinct), it is achieved in the simplest and most economic way — through the measure of things under the scopes of altruistic fairness, we change what we fundamentally believe was best; we change our mind.  The facts however remain unchanged.

When I see this, I tend to immediately denounce it. Only because I hate to see someone allow such a simple mechanism stop them from the greater goal. For all the good it does, this leverage of altruistic fairness perhaps, is the greatest of human flaws. And as I sit there watching, writhing in unutterable anger at these people, I wonder: How few are we — those of us being weird — that look beyond our own sorted programming, and try to find the world hidden under our cheated senses, conceived within a mind full of lies?

As any writer worth his salt might reflect, we each are characters in a plot-line too big to comprehend. Or, put another way, we are each unique snowflakes thrown across the stormy sky. However you put it, this reality can sometimes make seeing change difficult. This aspect of human life while enjoyable, dynamic and mysterious also means, the actions we take are what make our environment; a place that might be as different without us as that storm without snowflakes.

Voltaire spoke in these exact terms only about people, noticing one way that the impossibly tiny connected with the impossibly massive. For people especially, and maybe with all things, this specific domain where an intersection of scale seems to take place ought to be referred to as the Scale of Truth. When Voltaire pinned down this Scale he did so saying, “No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.”

There is a hidden truth revealed in personifying snowflakes this way — perhaps only about people and societies, perhaps about all of nature. It is this: small things make big things; small things happening make big things happening; at least one very small event (like a molecule of air interacting with a molecule of water of a snowflake) must occur as the “responsible” cause of much more massive events (like a whole snowflake moving and causing an avalanche) or else no such larger events are ever able to take place. We call this logical ordering of things, causal thought — for humans it seems it has to due mostly with frame of reference and blame.

Remarkably unlike most, Voltaire, was not pointing out frame of reference, nor looking to blame. That’s probably because Voltaire possessed different knowledge, having realized much earlier than most, how rarely it is about who done it in nature’s court, instead how it was done. This idea of the responsible snowflake in an avalanche, points out how people do not view their own impact when that impact involves big, landscape-changing events. Voltaire observed how human beings over-quantify the fairness of their own assessment — I sense therefore must be correct, as it were; how we inflate ourselves as individuals, yet underestimate ourselves, dismissing the impact we have as groups. In short, on the Scale of Truth, what Voltaire found was, humans have a kind of blind-spot. They are only so considerate or aware (?) of those other people and things happening around them. As Al Gore pointed out, we have all the sense of a frog slowly set to boil.

Using this view of our individual impact, I can provide some realization about technologies or changes which already exists that have solved nearly impossible problems: a) Change must always occur first on the smallest of scales to ever be evident on larger ones and there it may look different (a realizaion that lead to Quantum Mechanics) b) Every change no matter how seemingly insignificant in any particular frame of reference resonates throughout all scales and all frames of reference (a realization called the Butterfly Effect). This suggests we need even newer forms of technology though. Technology not unlike the Internet which capitalizes on this problem within human design to create new ways to communicate on larger scales, decreasing the blind-spot.

If we go on though, each a little at a time, unable, unaware or simply discounting each other as we go, than we are that thing, that avalanche of change, and we are responsible for its consequences. In fact, if we continue to treat the world as we have, all the generations that come to follow us will have no such thing and not understand a snowflake in order to relate such ideas. Imagine, Voltaire’s wisdom will, along with all other wisdom, fall back into the abyss.

An assumption based in logic, that seems unfortunately too true about our Country is that, in the United States of America, not knowing something makes one popular. This is because, more Americans “don’t know” than those that “do know”,  making ignorance a more socially acceptable attribute at times than intellect.

America, in an age of information, has become a home for a Culture of the Stupid. So says the Washington Post and its sources in a piece titled The Dumbing of America. We have to wonder if this phenomena is the result of people mistaking vision for academic, intellectual or social elitism. Or, if this is just the beginning of an era of Anti-Intellectualism.

If I were like you I would keep all this inside and not tell you about my life.

I’ve wandered through this life without a point, mostly anticipating a day at some point in the future, where things would become better. But, better is a difficult thing to define, at least when what one compares it to — namely the present — is constantly changing. If I were like you, I’d bottle it up, but, I get mad at the world, and all the people in it.

I think sometimes it has to do with how much pressure I put on myself and how my observations of others would have me believe I’m the only one doing this — that I’m alone. In fact, I am alone, but only because this sort of view of the world allows for the creation of a gap of injustice between me and anyone else.

If I were like you, I might not notice it. But, when I’m not under the gun of some project with a complex implementation, one that keeps my mind a spin, I’m constantly disturbed with the nonsensical world that surrounds us. That too is not like you at all. But, if I were like you, it would be easier to explain, because I wouldn’t pressure myself into having to explain.

For instance, I, hate that people are so inclined to consume, transact, and seek excess. Stop it. No one cares about your ability to climb to a higher rung on a ladder that you, yourself, invented. You never consider those things in such general terms either. You, my friend, tend to specify. Thats why you invented and subscribe to a policy of life which is rooted in money. Because you my friend, have preferences.

Also, and somewhat to the contrary, I’m equally upset with people so inclined as to conform or seek sociality. Not because those things are inherently bad, but because I hate that most people do those things because they feel it offers them a better potential position in some non-existent social network. The fact is, this is not true. You, as I, are alone. And it is this misconception brought on by the fact that people rarely take time to wonder what life would be like, if they were like you.

All the truth man will ever know comes from the place by which he or she distinguishes self…. and other. The sooner man learns this, the better his existence will be.

If I were like you though, and I can tell just by looking out my window, none of that would matter. Instead, I’d sit quite ignorantly in my living room or bedroom, so despondent that I fear any one knocking at my door or calling my phone. The same way that you sit in that idle state of watching all the people you pretend to connect with, coalesce into the nothingness to which you have all subscribed. While at the same time you wait for a check from social services to which you expend no understanding nor true means of sociality or compassion. No, you seek only a reminder of your presence.

And yes, if I were like you, I’d do all this to a soundtrack; whilest I listened to digital music I didn’t pay for, stored in file format I didn’t understand, on a file system I had no awareness of, coming through and out of a device I could barely operate. All because if I were like you, I would never take any time to see beauty (even in nature’s cruel violence).

Nope, I would only dream as you do about a job performing for people who are equally despondent and apathetic. If I were you, I would dream to be the poster-child of the celebrity of nothing. I’m certain of it. If I were like you… I’d change.

As we look around, the closest things are the most immediate to us. So rarely do human beings take on a planetary perspective. In the 1990s Carl Sagan showed the world an image of a pale blue dot. For some of us the idea presented by Sagan with the picture changed the way we think about every thing. It helped to give some of us the first inkling of a planetary perspective. It has been over a decade since Sagan’s inspirational thoughts and I’m glad to announce NASA has helped to issue a bit of a reminder. Presentations so simple yet powerful are why NASA should never stop with manned space flight nor with unmanned space flight.

Here is a picture of every one of us, and all that all of us have ever achieved in the thousands of years of human civilization (as seen from the surface of Mars). So, if anyone asks…

There is an article I read which I can’t seem to say enough is Absolute Genius — because thats what its describing: absolute genius. Its called Programming can Ruin Your Life. I keep saying absolute genius because, for me, all of this is truth about reality. Every bit in the article.

I feel what the author has described here, is sort of the weight to which genius can burden. I covered and explained this idea that genius grows exponentially through its own internally created pressures or burdens in a series of essays I wrote entitled “Neurogenesis”. Maybe one day I’ll republish them here. In the meantime, let me lay in with examples of this wonderful piece of literary work… and give you an idea of the bold diagnosis this writer has made of most Programmers (or, as I state in Neurogensis, most geniuses).

When faced with an interesting programming problem your mind will chew it over in the background. Maybe it’s an algorithm you need to develop, maybe its a tricky architecture problem, maybe its data that needs a model. It doesn’t matter. Your mind will quietly work the problem over in search of a solution. The ah-ha! moment will come when you’re in the shower, or playing Tetris. This practice of constant churning will slowly work its way into the rest of your life. Each problem or puzzle you encounter will start its own thread; the toughest and most troubling of which will be blocking.

This all seems very, very accurate to me. I’ m even quite certain that this sort of problem-solving phenomena translate to other careers too. In fact, I contend it translates across so many disciplines because this describes a human compulsion toward optimization (or the providing of a solution of an optimization problem). I contend optimization is the only problem ever being solved during all human problem-solving. But, thats a contention that takes us to deeper place than I want to go with this post. Don’t worry, we’ll get there some day.

One thing I notice about other people is how little they think and I mean that about everything. I can’t imagine how one could exist with such precious little going on inside them as I find with most people. In fact what I’m noticing is not how little those people think but how much I myself think by comparison. I always wonder,”Why don’t they just stop and think for a second?” Thats a good example though.

No wait, its not good, its a Programmers example, its perfect! I’m wondering why others are NOT thinking, in effect, thats just more thinking I have to do [for them] (or thats how I observe the case to be). You see, in problem-solving with Programmers, what I realize is, they’re always thinking, because they’re always programming. But, consider it, and it should only make more sense to you even if you’re a non-programmer.

If your job is to feed exotic and somewhat exclusive phrases of a dynamic and specific language into some device and then predict outcomes as well as manage the unpredictable outcomes, you will become as much like that device as possible. This is the mammalian method-trait called mimicry. This method-trait is true of how human beings grasp information at all through all language. Progressively over time the input and output of procedures of communication with others grow as we do, embedding in our minds the pathology to interact socially. Or as it could also be described, so that we’re able to feed other people information and predict outcomes as well as manage the unpredictable ones.

So Programmers, like anyone learning or coping with anything follow a pattern of mimicry in order that they become even better at translating these exotic phrases and languages and predicting outcomes (or at least as close as they can become to the machine). But, mimicry has its draw backs in this case since we’re now trying to mimic something not nearly human — a programming language.

Programmers become obsessed with perfection. This is why they are constantly talking about rewrites. They cannot resist optimum solutions. Perfection requires tossing aside mediocre ideas in search of great ones. A good programmer would rather leave a problem temporarily unsolved than solve it poorly. A good solution takes into account all predictable outcomes and solves the largest number of them in the most efficient way. This mindset prevents you from writing code with limited utility and life span. While its a wonderful trait to have in programming, the demons of scope and efficiency will start to assert themselves on your ordinary life. You will avoid taking care of simple things because the solution is inelegant or simply feels wrong. Time to think will no doubt yield a better result, you’ll say.

This statement by the author acts to solidify my point as well as his; that an obsession for perfection is actually a shedding of the human condition. This means Programmers have trained their minds to be inhuman as such that they cannot make a choice knowingly acceptant that it will be deficient or have a limited life time. This kind of avoidance of care for simple things such as is described is something well known about the personality of most Programmers.

Finally, note the point above that thinking in this way reduces the number of your potential choices to those seemingly optimal at design time. This means Programmers only do things that they analyze as optimal in that moment. So, a night out on the town where one acts foolishly without regard for themselves to a degree, as well as the feelings of the others around (whom act and have cascading affect on those they surround thereafter) — throwing caution to the wind — would not be very attractive to someone measuring each element of their experience in terms of optimality toward building a method based in perfection.

And, it is for some of those reasons that genius tends to burden. Or, as I have put it in Neugenesis: Elegant thought is a symptom of a passionate, sensitive mind, its expression is nothing more than the easing of its burden.

From the mind there can be no escape. A simple notion can influence, until we’re a daze in thought. Yet, some thoughts are so complex and run so long they are able to penetrate the core of the mind from which they spring. Some realizations so ultimate they might even revoke our sense of self. For even when we are lost in thought do we rarely understand the truth, that we are lost to thought. Here the BBC covers exactly that in a documentary entitled Dangerous Knowledge. The film covers a group of geniuses who each ended their quest for knowledge in suicide.

This category, Unending Curiosity, is essentially for questions I can’t expect to answer but feel compelled to ask anyway. These questions seem like they’d go on for ever if you did try to answer them, and certainly just the asking could take a while.

So, one of these more interesting ideas is of course Technology, and I mean as a whole. However, it seems we rarely look at Technology from more than one, rather simple dimension. For most people, this dimension allows them to see a simple progression of tools or a linear release of innovations. But, technology has an interesting substance which I feel allows it to be better described as the evolution of human usage.

This, because without need there is no use, and vice versa. Moreover, there is little that can be innovated upon. Lacking these fundamental concerns, the idea of Technology slowly collapses , or at least, so does its underlying value.

What, and how we use it, is our Technology. And, Technology changes how existence, either in how skills or our uses are employed, improved and connected with each other and our existence, or through providing a platform for more innovative construction. Technology is an extension of our existence in this way.

None of this complexity dismisses the truth discovered though, in our single dimension view of things: as time changes, one might throw away tools for new one,s or replace tools with refined human skills.

This idea itself, specifically, is what I’m hung up on; this idea of the continuous refinement of human skills.

My question (read as Unending Curiosity) is: How does the mind integrate replacements for deprecated human skills and behaviors (as those mental tools are themselves Human Technologies)? Also, how, if at all, is the knowledge or wisdom accredited to obsolete or deprecated uses/behaviors/technologies retained or passed along (so as to ensure technologists are not working on the exactly same problem continuously, only being re-represented)?

( ref: http://www.tcf.ua.edu/AZ/ITHistoryOutline.htm )