#16: 99 Non-Problems
Think about all the problems there are. The globe is getting warmer and we're not doing enough about it. American health care has been a mess for decades and people aren't getting any healthier. The NYC subway system is melting down. I could obviously keep going. The political response to these huge, difficult problems—and increasingly the popular response as well—is to not do much of anything: to deny, to equivocate, or to take symbolic action that leaves the underlying issue untouched.
Meanwhile, we have impressive innovations. Technology has advanced to a point at which it feels like we can do anything. With just my phone, I can buy real estate or get blocked on Twitter by the president. Cars are learning to drive themselves. Virtual reality, blockchains, and machine learning are creating possibilities that we'd have had trouble imagining or articulating even 20 years ago.
Why are all the problems seemingly growing as fast as the solutions? You may have noticed a pattern: The problems we're best at solving (and celebrating) are too often in the domain of software and too far from the big, hairy crises that sit firmly in the real world. Plenty of technology does address "meatspace" but it gets less attention these days. VR and blockchains, as sophisticated as they are, don't even purport to address the physical constraints of reality that cause all the pain, and sort of solve problems that weren't really problems. They sometimes just offer better tools for sidestepping the issues altogether.
Reads:
A superbly written, surprisingly fascinating description of what will happen in Britain when the Queen dies, and why that event is so hard for everyone to face.
This incredible, fictional exchange between Jim Henson, Ayn Rand, and Yoko Ono on a hypothetical ARPANET chatroom.
Until next time,
Drew