what does it mean to be human?

Artificial intelligence and technology are weaving themselves into our lives to the point where we don't even realize how dominated we already are by it.  Already much of our lives happen in or behind the computer or smart phone screen.  Already most of our work is software based or supported.  Already much of our leisure time activities are brought to us through Facebook groups, apps such as Meet-up, and online event calendars.  Even the yoga class get's scheduled and paid through an app, and you can make the restaurant reservation through another one.  People's cellphone home screens look like a stamp collection.

 Most corn, soybeans and cotton in the US is genetically modified, a technological process that allows the introduction of genetic features from a different species, even animal, in order to force certain features on the organism, such as insect or drought resistance.  Animals can be genetically modified as well and supposedly GMO salmon will soon enter the market.

 In utero testing during pregnancy allows verification of the existence of genetic diseases, with the option to abort.  Last year, a Chinese scientist was rebuked by the international scientific community for going a step further.  With the help of the gene editing technique Crispr he altered a gene in two Chinese twin embryos before implanting them in utero with the goal of making the girls resistant to HIV infection.  

 This of course raises the question where we're going with this, a question Yuval Noah Harari eloquently explores in his books, 21 Questions for the 21st Century and Homo Deus.  Is the next step the manipulation of human genetic material, not to safeguard us from hereditary genetic diseases, but simply to make us better, super humans of sorts? Are we then not approaching what we so condemned about the Nazi regime?  Will this create a super human class for and of those who can afford such interventions with the rest of us left behind in servitude?  

 Perhaps the question is bigger yet.  What makes us human?  Is it our flaws and foibles, our complete individuality, even our mortality?  If so do we have to accept the good with the ugly? Will we become less human if we seek technologically manipulated superiority?  Will we seek immortality?  Is immortality on the physical level even achievable?  What role does consciousness play in the definition of humanness?   

Will we ultimately have to realize that the answer to our humanness cannot be found on the physical plane, in technology and artificial intelligence, and that immortality already exists, albeit on the spiritual plane?  How far will we take this experiment to find out our true humanity?

what will you do?

Jeremy Rifkin, the socio-economic visionary, has been saying for years now that technology and automation will eventually get us to a place where we may only need to work about four hours a day to earn a living.  That is incidentally the amount of time indigenous people spend on average to collect food. Yuval Noah Harari writes in Homo Deus that we have been pretty successful at bringing famine, plague and warfare under control, issues that have kept us sleepless and busy for millenia.  

 Over here in the US we are overworked and often required to be available 24/7 via cellphone in a corporate world more driven by perceived busyness than true focused productivity.  But Sweden has experimented with a 6-hour workday (although it's apparently not conducive in an entrepreneurial environment), Germany is on a 35hr week/7hr day and is currently trying a 28hr week/5.5hr day.   So experimentation with the best work-life balance is underway in the more forward thinking cultures. 

 But what will we do with ourselves as we are evolving beyond being busy with fire fighting, at least in industrialized countries. As we look at the shift in our Western culture, we see the answer already emerging - the pursuit of happiness, as Harari points out!  Between a vastly improved standard of living and not worrying about an early death from famine or warfare, and the slow shift to a shorter work week, we will have more time to take care of our inner life.  Perhaps we will focus more on the quality of life, the quality of our free time.  Perhaps we will take more time to reflect on how we eat, how we grow our food, how we think, how we treat the environment, how we treat each other.  

 It's a process and it's not happening by tomorrow, but the seeds for a shift are germinating.  What will you do?

it made me smile

Usually I don't work with music.  However, due to various background noises the other day I switched my Pandora baroque music track on  - and had to smile spontaneously.  Not having listened to baroque music in in quite a while I had forgotten how healing those frequencies are.

 Brooke Nelson wrote in Reader's Digest that classical music lowers blood pressure, opens you up emotionally and fosters social relations, can help you fall asleep, decreases pain, boosts intelligence and improves memory, relieves anxiety, and increases productivity.  Wow! What's not to smile about with a long benefits list like that.

Brain World Magazine explains that baroque music's characteristic 60-beats-per-minute pattern is the magic ingredients because it activates both sides of the brain equally. No wonder they play this soothing music in the Port Authority bus terminal in NYC. It calms you instantly.

nature's ingenious wrappers

If you still pack a lunch for your children, or perhaps even yourself, this is probably not a new realization.  But I am always wowed and amazed by nature's ingenuity.  Nature has produced a whole bunch of little portion size foods that come with their own natural protective wrapper.  These are ready to eat snacks that don't require washing, just remove nature's packaging and enjoy. 

On the fruit side there are of course bananas, mandarins and oranges, but also scaly lychees and fuzzy rambutans.  Kiwis, avocados, and passion fruit need to be cut open and scooped out with a spoon, but are just as transportable transportable and small enough in size as a one-person snack. Creative people invented that criss-cross mango cut to make them edible out of hand. Edamames, or soybeans, are also little nature protected morsels that are fun popping and eating when precooked in salt water.  Pistachios and peanuts come to mind as the only nuts that can be "unpacked" without a nutcracker.  And let's not forget that nourishing egg, which in its hardboiled form can be transported safely to lunches and picnics, and unwrapped aka peeled, when you're hungry.

Can you think of others? Did I leave any out?

reason for the bowtie

Creative out-of-the-box thinking and going through life with a critical eye have something in common.

This past weekend I spoke at the one-day Mom University event on how being a popular kid in school, the confinement to a few generic number of traits, behavioral and physical expressions, also somewhat stunts the development of more defined individual personality traits for a while, and that as parents we can help our kids along in breaking out of that mold.  That requires critical thinking and creativity.  

There is strength in numbers and generally we feel safer when we're among like-minded people.  But staying true to yourself sometimes involves going out on a limb.  The corporate world, for example, can feel so confining to a freethinker and non-conformist.  Many have been breaking out of it for the past few years and become entrepreneurs to work on their own creative terms.

If you prefer to be one of many you may feel safer wearing a tie, if you don't mind sticking up for a bit more creativity you might choose a bowtie instead.  Are you a tie or a bowtie kind of a person?

my phone, my cookbook

When there is a book or library sale I usually come back with a few cookbooks.  I love reading cookbooks for inspiration, and to indulge in the pretty pictures.  Hence, my cookbook library is fairly considerable - but now mostly unused. The NY Times cooking section and the stray magazine here or there are also sometime and one-time sources of inspiration for recipes.  However, once read I rarely go back into a cookbook for inspiration or a recipe, or trying to locate that recipe I cut out from the paper last year.   Hence, I also have a considerable pile of unsorted cut out recipes lying around my kitchen.

 The very modern reason for stopping to use cookbooks for my everyday/everynight referral needs is that I can find what I need so much faster on my phone.  No wonder we're all glued to our devices.  They're just so all round useful.  I can punch in any two or three main ingredients and add -recipe, such as pepper lentil celery recipe (just made that up), and pronto I find a selection of recipes with the ingredients I want to work with.  So practical! You can't do such a reverse search in a paper cookbook, and forget about that pile of newspaper clippings. It's of course different if I want to look up dessert options for a festive meal, or various ways of making panna cotta.  A cookbook can still be useful for such a search.  

 Are cookbooks going the way of the phone book? What works for you?

all the money we need?

Our economy and cultural construct are based on a monetary system of scarcity, which in turn is based on a foundation of competition, and winning versus losing.  Our currency used to be pegged to gold, but is no longer. Thus there is nothing actually backing your paper dollar bill other than our cultural agreement that that bill is actual worth a dollar because the government, and all of us, say so.  

If the scarcity of money is an agreement based on a belief system, then we could conceivably change that.   Enters MMT or Modern Monetary Theory.  This idea turns the idea of monetary issuance and taxes completely on its head.  Instead of the government raising taxes first to spend it later on programs, it offers jobs and social services upfront instead, raises no taxes, and funnels all that tax and government salary money back into the economy. Wow! 

Previously I have written about new economic thoughts like local currencies, hour banks, and a universal basic income.  I have also written about our culture of scarcity.  Yet nature is so abundant.  Where does this idea that there isn't enough come from? I am intrigued. MMT is a new buzzword but a highly controversial theory, as many completely new ideas are. But we need to think out of the present economic box to evolve our culture beyond its current paradigm.