Month: July 2012

Sun 22 Jul 2012

I read “Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other” by Sherry Turkle, a sociologist of technology at MIT. I read it entirely on my Kindle, a device I love.

The subtitle pretty much sums up the book. It is very well-researched and never goes more than a page without material from actual interviews and studies. I appreciate that. The trends she points out are real: people learning to depend not on others, but on technology instead. And because of her vantage point inside the epicenter of robotics research – the MIT campus – she revealed to me how close robotic companions really are. I had not thought about how advanced robots are, but apparently consumer robots will be all over the place soon enough.

I agree with her that people are disconnected and adrift in some ways. But at the same time, people use the internet more and more to gratify the most ancient social impulses. The most popular sites are ones where people can check in and look at recent pictures of friends and relatives, and join discussions and commentaries on things that matter to them. So far most people are not hooked up to screens in dark rooms 24 hours a day, and I doubt that time will ever come. The author betrays again and again the belief that a phone call is better than an email, a walk in the park is better than a movie at home, an hour reading a book is better than an hour of web browsing, and so on. In addition, innocent comments from children are sometimes the cue for a long brooding commentary about how young children think about technology differently since they were born into it. But more often the children are simply committing the errors in thought that are common in their developmental stage. Piaget, who also studied children’s statements, is cited in the book and was shown by later research to have made some of the same mistakes of over-analyzing child-like thought.

I also am irritated by the constant use of “we” as in, “We pour our personal information out online. We edit and revise our online profiles” (not an actual quote). “We” is not a real group and by it the author seems to mean the highly educated lawyers, academics, professionals and their children that she quotes throughout the book. She also uses an anecdote about her hospitalization to discuss how sad it would be if the “human touch” were lost. But again she is showing privilege blindness. She is a respected professor at MIT in the city (Boston) with perhaps the best hospitals in the country. If robotic health services are near, they will benefit the people who don’t have access to health care in the first place. Poor people who need basic services are not as concerned about the human touch. What they need is real treatment, whether it is human or robotic.

In addition the author has extreme ethical misgivings about entrusting the care of the elderly to robots. But it seems to me that every one of these problems was already addressed when as a society Americans began to pay people to care for their grandparents in nursing homes and assisted living facilities instead of caring for them at home. The ethical problems of paying a person for elder care are virtually the same as the ethical problems of assigning robots to do elder care.

I also agree with the author that the promise of the internet has to some extent not been realized and that a “connection” is not the same as a relationship. I would highly recommend this book. I am grateful to anyone who encourages me to be deliberate and skeptical in the way I use technology. I only criticize certain points because it got me thinking so hard.

I picked up “The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 1907-1922” because I want to have better and more correspondence. I saw that my grandma, with her failing memory, was comforted by reading and re-reading letters from my grandpa (dead for 24 years). Some day when I am old and infirm I doubt I will enjoy clicking through old emails as a way of reminiscing. I want actual letters and postcards from loved ones. And to get them I have to first send them out myself.

I had no idea the old brute, as he was called, had killed himself. In fact he blew out his brain with a shotgun. I have only read one short story by him and would like to continue with him by reading “The Sun Also Rises.” I am not sure whether I will like his writing but his letters as a young man are certainly entertaining. I realize his incredible biography is part of his appeal. There is a picture of him on the cover as a dashing 18 year-old in uniform.

I got “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac, also for my Kindle. I was not impressed. I could not read the whole thing, especially when I realized the story included not one, but two trips west, followed by a trip to Mexico. Maybe as a teenager I would have taken this book as gospel, as an inspiring promise of the possibilities of this great continent. But now it seems to me to be a gushing, stream-of-consciousness account of several unsympathetic characters, including the author. Sal’s adventures seemed somewhat hollow for reasons I can’t quite explain.

However, I worry that my reaction to the book was influenced by a sharply critical comment I read somewhere that went, “The cruelest thing you can do to Kerouac is to re-read him at 30 years old.” I fear that this may have made me overly critical of the book. The same thing happened with the band “My Morning Jacket.” I listened to an album of theirs and thought, “These guys are great! Why didn’t someone tell me about them!?” Then I read a review from a trusted rock critic who totally trashed them for reasons I couldn’t quite understand. He seemed to deny their very legitimacy as a band. And sure enough, when I listened to the album again, I did not like it as much. In both cases a critic may have undermined my enjoyment of art. A funny thing.

Fortunately if I want to read Beat literature, there are plenty of other authors to try.

Lastly, I just started “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh” by Michael Chabon because it was recommended in a list of novels for the emerging adult. Again it is on my Kindle. I discovered that as long as I do not log into the wifi, I can take as long as I need to finish a book even though the lending period from the library has ended. I like it so far. After all, I need a book that ridicules my overwrought wistfulness and sentimentality.

We have an excellent movie critic in the town in the person of Colin Covert. I stopped in Dunn Bros after leaving work this morning and read the Star Tribune while having my poppy seed muffin and coffee and warming up near the gas stove they have in the middle of the room. I walked in quite cold in the hands but left with sweat forming on my back.

Anyway in the review I read, Covert described Robert Downey Jr as Sherlock Holmes as “projecting both condescension and charm.” But when he encountered a rare equal such as Professor Moriarty, he became careful and methodical, “stepping up his game,” to use a phrase I do not like. (Perhaps distasteful phrases persist because of their usefulness, not their appeal.)

I confess I wish I could “project both condescension and charm” as Holmes does, and get away with it. But you have to be really smart and talented to do so, like Dr House from the TV show, who is based on Sherlock Holmes.

But then again, these are two fictional characters. In real life you cannot get away with it. In real life people notice when you are insincere or when you look down on them or are sloppy with feelings. Condescension actually negates charm, turns people against you, blocks them off from you. Doors close, you become isolated, et cetera. It is fun to watch such a confident, rogue genius on TV. But I will resist the temptation to emulate them because I know the people I really admire, actual people such as Charles Darwin, were modest, self-doubting and careful. These qualities are important in any scientific, medical or criminal investigator.

Finally. And there was much rejoicing. By me. At the opening we had pizza and beer with the staff. When I signed my lease, it included free access to a gym. Then they took away the gym without lowering the rent. Now the gym is back and I am going to get some MONSTER TRAPS. I also want to be able to do that thing where you make grotesque ripples across your pecs at will.

But seriously, I have been thin all my life and it would be nice to have some muscles for once. I like fitness in general because it is the one area in my life where specific efforts are rewarded with specific results. Progress is natural and occurs in discrete parts. You do what the experts say and you get rewarded. You can even choose among experts and their varied advice. You can mix and match advice, using skepticism and critical thinking. Using previous knowledge, you can evaluate the evidence and decide whether to rely on the lore of fitness or the high-quality, controlled trials with an experimental design. You can trust a former elite athlete who later wrote a book (not ideal), or you can trust the research coming out of universities and exercise scientists. You can choose exercises that fit your life and your special concerns about your heart or your lower back, your endurance, your weight problem, et cetera.

Personally I just want to be fit enough to continue doing the things I already like to do, especially biking, camping, urban exploring, tree climbing, ultimate frisbee, and so on. And it wouldn’t hurt to balance out any excess right arm strength that may have resulted from my, um, lifestyle.

I have even been using the elliptical, a machine I previously thought was only for ladies. It shows you your wattage. I find I can comfortably put out 170 W for ten minutes or so. Watching the wattage fluctuate with effort is not discouraging like watching the "calories burned" meter. Putting out ten minutes of effort only to realize you have "burned" a handful of peanuts is not a fun realization.