And then faith? From a process guy? Having logic systems, as well as complex systems, burned into him over twenty five years of going from desktop computing, in its infancy, through all the developments of new hardware, and new software, to working eventually across a quite wide spectrum of service, and production oriented, commerce in the Pacific Northwest. Everything from mom and pop video stores, real estate offices, and small service oriented companies (like fleet maintenance, or electrical and air flow systems), to Boeing, Washington Mutual (before it got absorbed), Bogle & Gates (the law firm), Seattle City Light, Health Services Northwest (a former partnership of Providence and Swedish hospital groups), Nichirei Foods Usa inc., and finally, at the last, Microsoft (a real story in itself as I was there for the last year and a quarter of the Mobile Group).
Why should I want to be a purveyor of faith now? And from this venu?
Well, first of all, I didn't want to be a developer at all. There was a time I thought I was supposed to be a writer of science fiction, but a few years of banging my head against that wall made it clear that was not what I was supposed to be about; the only good thing there being that I kept writing, and in between bad submissions, I would write the odd essay. Essays that began to express more and more of what has always been motivating me. That the way things are are just not the way they should be. Something I am quite certain I was born into understanding. Even though I did not have the language to express it. Would not, in fact, have it for decades to come.
I came to understand computers, and programming, only because it was something that seemed essential, after I had discovered the writings of Marshall McLuhan; and from him, certainly, a blizzard of others. Essential because electrified experience retrieval was the next big "Extension" of our faculties; or so it seemed to me. That this also lent itself to falling back on, in order to earn a living, only came on the heels of my divorce from my second wife, Helen Vale (for whom, despite the divorce, I want to reiterate, there would not have been any, "Old Softy" anything, ever come to be developed). It also occurred to me, eventually, that, in order to really be able to criticize Capitalism, maybe you should spend some time dealing with it from the inside out first. That this process of investigation would take this long, however, never occurred to me at all.
Not until I was in my fifties did it finally begin to occur to me what all this experience, and struggle, was about, which was when I launched Old Softy Concerns as a non profit organization, and began running the Old Softy Concerns web site; a site that I wrote, and hosted myself, for at least ten years or so. And the odd thing about that, now that I look back on it, is that it was all going to have to be done on pure faith. And I say that not because I have always been a person of faith, but because at least one aspect of faith had finally hit home for me: you always take the "leap of faith" whenever the feeling in your bones tells you to do so. Regardless of whether you have the full "verbal" explanation for it, or not. And regardless of whether you are mistaken from time to time. And I had gotten to that faith because a form of it had served me very well in taking on ever more challenging programming projects throughout my career.
This new project would have to be taken on via faith for another important reason. And that is because a part of me has always known that I could never do this, let's call it an advocacy, as any kind of the "hard sell" that I had already lived through, all through my life, and come to hate, and ultimately define as immoral. No. I would have to do this purely as a professional analyst doing an analysis, and then presenting it; as well as to present what I thought might be an appropriate alternative. And to do nothing more than that.
Sure. There is a lot of bias involved here, and to which I've already acknowledged. I make no bones about being a Humanist Progressive, who has also come to appreciate certain aspects of Libertarianism. But the analysis itself, especially as it pertains to the technological aspects, is solid in my opinion. And because this hinges so much on technology (as well as social inequity), why shouldn't it be presented in one of the main venues of one of technology's biggest purveyors.
The main point here is that I refuse to do "whatever it takes" not only because I think it possible that I might be wrong, but also because I want to do this solely on the strength of what I have expressed, and how I have expressed it. From that point on, it must be out of my hands, and into the hands of others to make their decisions with. As is has always been with my work.
And so now I put my faith in not only words themselves, but also the inherent power of others to utilize words, and the idea structures that come from words. And that this will be enough, somehow, to make whatever needs to happen, happen, so that a majority of you begin to question this current bad operating system; at least to some critical degree, as I have.
So I am going to put it to you like this: If an impossible, broken kid, born of impossible, broken parents, who struggled to get to know words at all, all through the first five years of school. A kid who had to struggle mightily to understand having a little brother tortured for all of the the six, horrible, years of his short life (and for which the flawed system was responsible for allowing). A kid who fathered his own son way too soon. Who had to deal with his mother's madness, and her greatly flawed institutionalization (that flawed system again). Of how this kid could come to have not only faith in himself, but also come to have faith in people in general; if that kid could do all of that, don't you think you might have a chance to have faith in both yourself, and in others?
So why is faith so important now? I mean other than having any conviction at all that such flawed creatures generally could come to do what was really needed, when it really mattered; when, after all it was these same idiots who put us here in the first place?
Because I can feel it in my bones now, I swear to you; by my dead brothers spirit, whom I have always felt near me, throughout my life. I feel this sense that, if we can get some workable, common agreed upon vision of what is important, and what then to do about it, we can make it happen. Because we've always been like that; especially when the chips are down, and what is important gets simplified very quickly; as it does in times of floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, or even fire storms now. Times when you see just how loving, and giving people can be when they see others hurting and in need. When the mud, or the ash, or the smoke, or whatever else, make the superficial differences of our bodies disappear; and it's just another person in need.
And let's also be clear that what goes away this time is a lot more than just one more species that can't take what we've done; or one more group of faceless survivors, or refugees, or innocents just caught out in mindless collateral damage because they were in the wrong spot at the wrong time, No. This is about not having even the possibility of life as we have known it going forward at all anymore. This is about knowing what we've done and then simply giving up on doing anything more about it. And that is something that I just can't abide.
Just like the ultimate stupidity of weaponizing space. And I can say ultimate stupidity because expanding into space is absolutely mandatory if our species, and what's still left of life, is to continue. The thing is, though, nobody will get to go into space in a big way unless everybody does, because no one power can be allowed to control the high orbitals, and for a very obvious reason.
Other nations would be forced to consider "first strike" options in such a scenario because to do otherwise would be tantamount to surrender. How could it be otherwise? How long do you think anybody still left on the surface could take bombardment from the top of a significant gravity well? Where you don't even have to manufacture bombs anymore at all; you just accelerate, say tungsten rods, with the free electricity you can get out there, and then let their accumulated inertia do the rest upon impact.
Yes we are flawed. Yes we are too easily frightened. We're obstinate. Selfish sometimes, and too concerned with our personal gain; whether that's as simple as just "but I want to do it my way," all the way to "I'll do what I damn well please, and if you're in my way just be ready to get bloody."
But we are also capable of so much more. So much amazing more it would bring you to your knees if you felt it all at this very moment.
I can say that now, even though I have been getting only bits and pieces of what we are really capable of, over the last few years especially, and yet I can still assure you that I have been staggered on more than a few occasions already. And that, too, only fuels my new found appreciation for keeping faith with faith. As well as to suggest that spirit, and something that is higher, do actually exist. And it doesn't matter if you see that "higher" as a higher power, or a higher purpose, it still counts as coming to rely on that which transcends normal, Mind, Body, or Physical, meaning space explanations. A very good thing in my view; especially if it is applied as a part of seeking balance between as many diametrically opposed opposites as we can. A balance that understands that it will always have to be dynamic, and responsive to ongoing change. And that mistakes will always be made. And that we'll just have to figure out how to minimize the harm from those mistakes, even as we try to figure out how to better prepare ourselves to be better choice makers.
A SPACE FARCE
Trump Sets Goals Of Creating Space Force By 2020 — What Does That Mean, Exactly?
Trump Sets Goals Of Creating Space Force By 2020 — What Does That Mean, Exactly?
Are we going to Mars? Will Trump command a fleet of space ships and come to dominate the cosmos before any other space-faring nation can hope to lay claim to the resources of the infinite? The answers are, predictably, far more boring.
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[Post Note: How can you not love listening to a guy like this; especially when he relates, a lot better than I do, to how important being passionate about what you do is; about how important faith is, and also about how important not giving up is. And all because he got into studying how beautiful wave interference could be; even if they are smaller than an ant's butthole. Wow. That's all I can say here. J.V.]
Meet The Man Who Made Holograms His Life's Works
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