152 Big Thinkers Answer the Question “What Should We Be Worried About?”

in Life, Science | January 16th, 2013

Edge_2013_Flower

It’s a new year, which means it’s time for the Edge.org to pose its annu­al ques­tion to some of the world’s finest minds. The 2013 edi­tion asks the ques­tion, “What Should We Be Wor­ried About?”. And the replies — 152 in total — fea­ture thoughts by Nas­sim Nicholas Taleb, Daniel Den­nett, Sher­ry Turkle, Lawrence Krauss, and Esther Dyson, plus the ones excerpt­ed below. If you’re will­ing to go down the rab­bit hole, you can access the com­plete col­lec­tion of respons­es here.

What I fear most is that we will lack the will and the fore­sight to face the world’s prob­lems square­ly, but will instead retreat from them into super­sti­tion and igno­rance. Con­sid­er how in 375 AD, after a dream in which he was whipped for being “a Ciceron­ian” rather than a Chris­t­ian, Saint Jerome resolved no more to read the clas­si­cal authors and to restrict him­self only to Chris­t­ian texts, how the Chris­tians of Alexan­dria mur­dered the philoso­pher and math­e­mati­cian Hypa­tia in 415, and real­ize that, at least in part, the so-called dark ages were not some­thing imposed from with­out, a break­down of civ­i­liza­tion due to bar­bar­ian inva­sions, but a choice, a turn­ing away from knowl­edge and dis­cov­ery into a kind of reli­gious fun­da­men­tal­ism. [Read the rest here.]

–Tim O’Reil­ly, Founder and CEO of O’Reil­ly Media, Inc.

Death is what makes this cycli­cal renew­al and steady advance in organ­isms pos­si­ble. Dis­cov­ered by liv­ing things mil­lions of years ago, aging and death per­mit a species to grow and flour­ish. Because nat­ur­al selec­tion ensures that the child-who-sur­vives-to-repro­duce is bet­ter than the par­ent (albeit infin­i­tes­i­mal­ly so, for that is how evo­lu­tion works), it is bet­ter for many species that the par­ent step out of the way and allow its (supe­ri­or) child to suc­ceed in its place.… So impor­tant is death that we have, wired into our genes, a self-destruct senes­cence pro­gram that shuts down oper­a­tions once we have suc­cess­ful­ly repro­duced, so that we even­tu­al­ly die, leav­ing our children—the fresh­er, new­er, shinier ver­sions of ourselves—to car­ry on with the best of what we have giv­en them: the best genes, the best art, and the best ideas. Four bil­lion years of death has served us well. Now, all this may be com­ing to an end, for one of the things we humans, with our evolved intel­li­gence, are work­ing hard at is try­ing to erad­i­cate death.[Read the rest here.]

–Kate Jef­fery, Head, Dept. of Cog­ni­tive, Per­cep­tu­al and Brain Sci­ences, Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege, Lon­don

Most of the smart peo­ple I know want noth­ing to do with pol­i­tics. We avoid it like the plague… Is this because we feel that pol­i­tics isn’t where any­thing sig­nif­i­cant hap­pens? Or because we’re too tak­en up with what we’re doing, be it Quan­tum Physics or Sta­tis­ti­cal Genomics or Gen­er­a­tive Music? Or because we’re too polite to get into argu­ments with peo­ple? …  It’s pol­i­tics that’s bleed­ing the poor­er nations for the debts of their for­mer dic­ta­tors. It’s pol­i­tics that allows spe­cial inter­ests to run the coun­try. It’s pol­i­tics that helped the banks wreck the econ­o­my. It’s pol­i­tics that pro­hibits gay mar­riage and stem cell research but nur­tures Gaza and Guan­tanamo.… What wor­ries me is that while we’re lais­sez-ing, some­one else is faire-ing. [Read the rest here]

–Bri­an Eno, Artist, Com­pos­er, Pro­duc­er

You can dive into the full col­lec­tion at Edge.org. The pho­to above was tak­en by Katin­ka Mat­son.

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Wake Up and Smell the Coffee with Blind Master Roaster Gerry Leary

in Life | January 8th, 2013

Close your eyes. Makes it kind of hard to read your screen, huh? You can imple­ment a text-to-speech workaround, but after that, your sens­es are pret­ty much exhaust­ed as far as this forum is con­cerned.

Mas­ter cof­fee roast­er Ger­ry Leary, of Boul­der, Col­orado, would not be daunt­ed by such an exer­cise. You’ve like­ly heard oth­er DIY suc­cess sto­ries cit­ing a will­ful­ly blind eye with regard to all the things that could have gone wrong ear­ly on. Leary, who’s been blind since birth, may have blun­dered onto his life’s call­ing in a San Fran­cis­co cafe where he mis­took a roast­ing machine for a rock tum­bler, but after that, his route seems care­ful­ly plot­ted. He enrolled in a pro­fes­sion­al train­ing pro­gram. Before tak­ing over the lease to what is now the Unseen Bean Cafe, he tuned his ears to the pre­cise num­ber of feet con­sti­tut­ing near­by foot traf­fic. He is one of the very few with­in his field to roast by sound and scent rather sight, not­ing that the fla­vors of any bean is sub­ject to fla­vor vari­ance with every new crop.

He’ll have to take some­one else’s word for it that he’s best­ing the com­pe­ti­tion in the area of logo design. The Unseen Bean’s blind­fold­ed, cup-sniff­ing guide dog strikes this view­er as apt on every lev­el.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day depends on her dai­ly buck­et of black snakes to get her through.

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Ken Kesey Talks About the Meaning of the Acid Tests

in Life, Literature | January 4th, 2013

For me, there have always been at least three Ken Keseys. First, there was the anti­au­thor­i­tar­i­an author of the mad­cap 1962 clas­sic One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Inspired by Kesey’s own work as an order­ly at a Men­lo Park men­tal hos­pi­tal, the author’s voice dis­ap­pears into that of the nar­ra­tor, Chief Brom­den, and the dia­logue of the most mem­o­rable ensem­ble of trou­bled per­son­al­i­ties in twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry lit­er­a­ture. Then there’s the Kesey of the 1964 Some­times a Great Notion, a Pacif­ic North­west epic and the work of a seri­ous nov­el­ist pulling Amer­i­can arche­types from rough-hewn Ore­gon log­ging coun­try. Final­ly, there’s Kesey the Mer­ry Prankster, the mad sci­en­tist who almost sin­gle-hand­ed­ly invent­ed six­ties drug cul­ture with his ‘64 psy­che­del­ic bus tour and acid test par­ties. It’s a lit­tle hard to put them all togeth­er some­times. Ken Kesey con­tained mul­ti­tudes.

The acid test par­ties began after Kesey’s expe­ri­ence with mind-alter­ing drugs as a vol­un­teer test sub­ject for Army exper­i­ments in 1960 (lat­er revealed to be part of the CIA’s mind con­trol exper­i­ment, Project MKUl­tra). Kesey stole LSD and invit­ed friends to try it with him. In 1965, after Hunter S. Thomp­son intro­duced Kesey to the Hell’s Angels, he expand­ed his test par­ties to real hap­pen­ings at larg­er venues, begin­ning at his home in La Hon­da, Cal­i­for­nia. Always present was the music of The Grate­ful Dead, who debuted under that name at one of Kesey’s par­ties after los­ing their orig­i­nal name, The War­locks. The cast of char­ac­ters also includ­ed Jack Kerouac’s trav­el­ing bud­dy Neal Cas­sady, Allen Gins­berg, and Dr. Tim­o­thy Leary. Out of what Hunter Thomp­son called “the world cap­i­tal of mad­ness,” the psy­che­del­ic counter-cul­ture of Haight-Ash­bury was born.

In the inter­view above, Kesey talks about the acid tests as much more than an excuse to trip for hours and hear The Dead play for a buck. No, he says, “there were peo­ple who passed and peo­ple who didn’t pass” the test. What it all meant per­haps only Kesey knew for sure. (He is quot­ed as say­ing that he and his band of com­pa­tri­ots, the Mer­ry Pranksters, were try­ing to “stop the com­ing end of the world”). In any case, it’s a strange story—stranger than any of Ken Kesey’s works of fic­tion: covert gov­ern­ment mind con­trol pro­gram turns on one of the generation’s most sub­ver­sive nov­el­ists, who then mas­ter­minds the hip­py move­ment.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Ken Kesey’s First LSD Trip Ani­mat­ed

The Acid Test Reels: Ken Kesey & The Grate­ful Dead’s Sound­track for the 1960s Famous LSD Par­ties

Take a Trip to the LSD Muse­um, the Largest Col­lec­tion of “Blot­ter Art” in the World

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian. He recent­ly com­plet­ed a dis­ser­ta­tion on land­scape, lit­er­a­ture, and labor.

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James Brown Gives You Dancing Lessons: From The Funky Chicken to The Boogaloo

in Life, Music | January 4th, 2013

Don’t go into this expect­ing Arthur Mur­ray-lev­el clar­i­ty of instruc­tion. This is Soul Train-era James Brown, shak­ing way more than any sim­ple foot­print pat­tern could con­vey. That’s not to say there isn’t con­crete infor­ma­tion to be gleaned here, espe­cial­ly if you nev­er real­ly knew which moves con­sti­tute The Funky Chick­en.  Dit­to The Booga­loo, The Camel Walk, and some­thing I swear sounds like The Mac Davis.

James proud­ly demon­strates them all, as uncon­cerned as a pea­cock would be when it comes to break­ing things down for the folks at home. (Trust me, your kneecaps will be grate­ful he’s not more explic­it.) Enjoy this lit­tle dance break any time you need a boost. Or what the hell, see how your Robot stacks up against James’. (Be fore­warned, he blows Shields and Yarnell out of the water.) If — as the song goes — You Don’t Give A Dog­gone About It, you’ll have a lot of fun. Leave the shades open, and your neigh­bors will too.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day has nev­er shied away from embar­rass­ing her­self off or on the dance floor. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Albert Einstein Expresses His Admiration for Mahatma Gandhi, in Letter and Audio

in Life, Physics | January 2nd, 2013

In 1931, Albert Ein­stein wrote to Mohan­das K. Gand­hi to express his great admi­ra­tion for the Indi­an leader’s meth­ods. Trans­lat­ed from Ger­man, the let­ter reads in part:

You have shown through your works, that it is pos­si­ble to suc­ceed with­out vio­lence even with those who have not dis­card­ed the method of vio­lence.

The let­ter long pre­cedes the first atom­ic bombs and Einstein’s let­ters to F.D.R. warn­ing of their devel­op­ment and use; though often dis­cussed only in rela­tion to the hor­rif­ic events of World War II, the physicist’s oppo­si­tion to vio­lence and war was a long­stand­ing pas­sion for him. Ein­stein called his paci­fism an “instinc­tive feel­ing” based only on his “deep­est antipa­thy to every kind of cru­el­ty and hatred,” rather than any “intel­lec­tu­al the­o­ry.” His pol­i­tics often par­al­leled those of fel­low intel­lec­tu­al giant and anti-war activist Bertrand Rus­sell (the two col­lab­o­rat­ed on a 1955 “Man­i­festo” for peace).

Gand­hi remained an impor­tant influ­ence on Einstein’s life and thought. In the audio clip above from 1950, he again offers gen­er­ous praise for the man known as “Mahat­ma” (great soul). In the record­ing, Ein­stein says of Gand­hi:

I believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlight­ened of all the polit­i­cal men of our time. We should strive to do things in his spir­it: not to use vio­lence in fight­ing for our cause, but by non-par­tic­i­pa­tion in any­thing you believe is evil.

Gandhi’s con­cept of satya­gra­ha, which rough­ly trans­lates as “devo­tion to the truth,” appealed to Ein­stein, per­haps, because of its prin­ci­pled stand against polit­i­cal expe­di­en­cy and for a kind of moral com­mit­ment that depend­ed on self-scruti­ny and inquiry into cause and effect. Like the counter-intu­itive the­o­ries of Ein­stein and Rus­sell, Gand­hi biog­ra­ph­er Mark Shep­ard writes that the con­cept of satya­gra­ha is “a hard one to grasp”–Especially, “for those used to see­ing pow­er in the bar­rel of a gun.”

For more archival record­ings of Ein­stein express­ing his views on reli­gion, war and peace, and sci­ence, vis­it Amer­i­can Pub­lic Media’s On Being web­site.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Bertrand Rus­sell Turned The Bea­t­les Against the Viet­nam War

Face to Face with Bertrand Rus­sell: ‘Love is Wise, Hatred is Fool­ish’

Josh Jones is a writer, schol­ar, and musi­cian. He recent­ly com­plet­ed a dis­ser­ta­tion on land, lit­er­a­ture, and labor.  

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The Clock, the 24-Hour Montage of Clips from Film & TV History, Introduced by Alain de Botton

in Art, Film, Life, Philosophy, Video - Arts & Culture | January 1st, 2013

To ful­ly expe­ri­ence the clip above, you’ll need to be awake and press­ing play at pre­cise­ly 12:04 am. What you’ll be see­ing is a very small seg­ment of The Clock, a 24-hour video assem­blage that keeps time with clips culled from a cen­tu­ry’s worth of film his­to­ry. Some of these mark­ers are in the dia­logue, but most are shots of clocks and watch­es in which a spe­cif­ic time is clear­ly vis­i­ble.

If view­ing the com­plete piece sounds like a marathon, con­sid­er that artist Chris­t­ian Mar­clay and a pha­lanx of assis­tants spent three years locat­ing and plac­ing the clips and smooth­ing out the result­ing sound­track. Some of these moments came pre­loaded with the import of a High Noon. Oth­ers were of a more inci­den­tal, back­ground-type nature pri­or to being cast in Mar­clay’s project.

Those unable to spend qual­i­ty time with The Clock at the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art this Jan­u­ary can get a feel for it via philoso­pher and writer Alain de Bot­ton’s  brief chat with Mar­clay below.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day resolves to use it bet­ter in 2012. Per­haps you should­n’t fol­low her on Twit­ter @AyunHalliday.

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All You Need is Love: The Beatles Vanquish Pastor Terry Jones in the Big Apple

in Life, Music, Religion, Video - Politics/Society | December 25th, 2012

New York­ers go out of their way to avoid Times Square, espe­cial­ly at this time of year. What­ev­er the sea­son, it’s sure to be a mob scene of slow mov­ing tourists, mis­er­able Elmos, and loose screw loud­mouths preach­ing mes­sages of intol­er­ance. In this milieu, Flori­da pas­tor Ter­ry Jones is noth­ing spe­cial, and cer­tain­ly less pho­to­genic than the Naked Cow­boy.

Film­mak­ers Hei­di Ewing and Rachel Grady trailed the Quran-burn­ing, effi­gy-hang­ing, failed Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date there any­way, to cap­ture his “mes­sage to the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty” on the 10th anniver­sary of Sep­tem­ber 11.

Bystanders roll their eyes and hus­tle past, but only one young woman attempts to engage him direct­ly, smil­ing as if she knows that Jones’ is the sort of shell game you can’t win.

That is until one man breaks into a spon­ta­neous ren­di­tion of All You Need Is Love, the lyrics pulled up on his smart­phone. Was this brave per­for­mance moti­vat­ed in part by the pres­ence of a film crew? Who cares, as ran­dom pedes­tri­ans and staffers from the near­by TKTS booth join in, pro­vid­ing a fine alter­na­tive sound­track to the hate spew­ing from the bull pul­pit. In Ewing and Grady’s edit, the Bea­t­les are a force strong enough to drown him out.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day would like to teach the world to sing in per­fect har­mo­ny.

 

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Michael Pollan Presents an Edible Education, A Free Online Course From UC Berkeley

in Life, UC Berkeley | December 24th, 2012

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When seized with the desire to learn where their food comes from, many of today’s read­ers turn to Michael Pol­lan, author of books like The Omni­vore’s Dilem­ma, In Defense of Food, and Food Rules. Per­haps you know him as the guy who pop­u­lar­ized the guid­ing words, “Eat food. Not too much. Most­ly plants.” If you’ve stud­ied at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley, you might also know him as a pro­fes­sor at their Grad­u­ate School of Jour­nal­ism. Pos­sessed of both a jour­nal­ist’s curios­i­ty about sources and process­es and a pro­fes­sor’s abil­i­ty to explain — not to men­tion based in the same con­scious­ly hedo­nis­tic city that gave rise to Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse — Pol­lan has posi­tioned him­self well to remain Amer­i­ca’s fore­most pub­lic intel­lec­tu­al of the edi­ble. Who else would UC Berke­ley want to lead their Edi­ble Edu­ca­tion cours­es?

Above you’ll find Pol­lan’s open­ing ses­sion for the lat­est Edi­ble Edu­ca­tion lec­ture series, “Telling Sto­ries About Food and Agri­cul­ture.” Open to mem­bers of the pub­lic as well as Berke­ley stu­dents, the course exam­ines the real and poten­tial effects of the way we eat food and how that food gets to us in the first place. Oth­er lec­tur­ers include the­atre direc­tor Peter Sel­l­ars, radio pro­duc­ers the Kitchen Sis­ters, and “rock star of social jus­tice writ­ing” Raj Patel. Hav­ing “passed” the class, look into our archives and you’ll find the ide­al fol­low-up for next semes­ter: Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty’s Sci­ence and Cook­ing: From Haute Cui­sine to the Sci­ence of Soft Mat­ter, also free online. Nev­er before has a prac­ti­cal edu­ca­tion on our every­day food been so eas­i­ly acces­si­ble — or as live­ly.

Both cours­es men­tioned above appear in our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Michael Pollan’s Book, Food Rules, Brought to Life with Ani­ma­tion

Michael Pol­lan on Sus­tain­able Food

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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