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Barking Up the Wrong Technology

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Where Are We Headed with Technology?

When I was a student at Dartmouth, I taught myself how to use the new Basic programming language on the college’s General Electric computer. That was at some time in the mid 1960s. Little did I know that much of my post-graduate life would be involved with computers.

In March 1968, I was hired for the Lexicography & Discourse project at System Development Corporation in Santa Monica. My job involved proofreading and correcting the transcriptions of two Merriam-Webster dictionaries. The project was funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U. S. Air Force. That was the same agency which created the forerunner of the Internet, which was created to communicate with other computer nodes spread across the country even if several U. S. cities were destroyed by nuclear bombs.

The technology of the late 1960s was clunky, but it enabled us to land on the moon in 1969!

I went on to become a computer programmer and informational technology (IT) specialist for two accounting firms. During that time I saw technology change from a kind of intellectual priesthood into a pursuit for the masses. Everybody wanted in.

It all started with the Apple Macintosh, which supposedly made computing accessible to everyone. Then, the Internet was for everybody, via Prodigy and America Online. Kids were playing computer games.

A major hurdle was passed when touch-screen interfaces were invented. You didn’t need to remember commands with their complicated parameters: You simply pointed, and, if you were lucky, your choice was registered and acted upon. Of course, this went hand in hand with poor language skills. Who needed spelling and grammar when all you had to do was point at the options you wanted.

On one hand, there were many advantages to this; but techno continued to evolve with cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence (AI). Money was now worth what you wanted it to be worth. And, with AI, you didn’t have to think any more. These are ominous developments. If technology continues to evolve along these lines, I expect no good to come of it.

The Parts of 2023 I’d Gladly Jettison

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In the Biz Bag With Him and His Followers!

Looking back over the past year, there are a lot of persons, places, and phenomena I would gladly not have to confront in 2024—indeed, ever again.

First and foremost is America’s mumbling incompetent dictator-in-waiting. Currently, he is attempting to turn the death of a thousand cuts in court into victories. They aren’t and never will be. That goes for all his minions, those drooling red-hatted loons seated behind him at his rallies.

Mega-Billionaires, especially those in the tech sector, who want to enrich themselves by making everyone else miserable with their social media or artificial intelligence.

Time to shitcan crypto-currency once and for all. A form of anonymous, unregulated currency, it is of use only to evil dark web goons.

Quasi-celebrity influencers who foment flash mobs and twonky fashions. Like Paris Hilton, who in today’s issue of the Los Angeles Times is quoted as saying: “I also like butter and strawberry jelly on toast, then sometimes toasted bagels with strawberry cream cheese, which I’m like obsessed with.” If you come across something of that ilk in this blog, you are justified in disemboweling me.

And that’s only the beginning, but space is limited and I want to get to bed before midnight. I wish for you and yours a tolerable New Year. (Let’s not kid ourselves.)

Crypto-Economics

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Stack of Cryptocurrencies Including Bitcoin and Others

Today was my day downtown. After my mindful meditation session, I took the Dash B bus to Chinatown and had a delicious lunch of Beef in Black Bean Sauce at the Hong Kong BBQ on Broadway. As I ate my lunch, I read a long article in The New Yorker about cryptocurrencies. It was entitled “The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of” and was by Nick Paumgarten. I have held back from the subject because I used to be a computer programmer myself and know how tempting it can be to game whatever system I am designing to my advantage.

People are so mesmerized by the concept of a blockchain because it is something new and edgy. Therefore it exercises a powerful attraction, especially to people who are not quite conversant with the technology.

Do you know what a blockchain is? One can’t advance far into the subject without coming to terms with the concept. Here is a link to a graphic presentation from Reuters entitled “Blockchain Explained”: Click Here. I am familiar with hash codes in search algorithms, so I feel somewhat familiar with the ground. What disturbs me is that human nature keeps rearing its ugly head and leading to the system being easily scammed. Also, I am not happy about ransomware from hackers demanding payment in cryptocurrencies, because the transfer is untraceable by law enforcement.

I am always suspicious about economic activities that require more faith than I am willing to repose in them. There is such a marketing aspect to the whole technology that one feels one were being assailed by timesharing condominium salesmen, as I was when I landed at the Cabo San Lucas airport a couple years ago.

What if cryptocurrencies became more popular than the 1% share of the global financial services market they currently occupy. Even at the current level, blockchain software requires incredible computer power. According to the Paumgarten article:

This year, it is said, the Bitcoin network will use as much energy as the nation of Austria, and produce as much carbon dioxide as a million transatlantic flights. Mining rigs—computers designed specifically to do this work—are thirsty machines. Mining farms tend to sprout up where juice is cheap (typically, in proximity to hydropower projects with excess capacity to unload) and where temperatures are low (so you don’t have to burn even more electricity to keep the rigs cool). There are open-air warehouses in remote corners of sub-Arctic Canada, Russia, and China, with machines whirring away on the tundra, creating magic money, while the permafrost melts.

I can foresee Thomas Pynchon writing a sequel to his Bleeding Edge about this activity. It’s almost as if the subject of cryptocurrencies and the high priests who run them were made to order for him.

As David Chaum, one of the pioneers of cryptocurrency software, once said, “There’s never been, in the history of civilization, this much money aggregated as a result of doing nothing.”