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bikeman3141-blog · 4 months

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What is culture?

Culture is embedded in the songs we sing, the stories we know and the history we share.

Culture is Robin Hood and King Arthur, David Beckem and the Queen mother.

Culture is Ellen MacArthur and Judie Dench, Culture is in Black Britain, Asian Britian and the days empire.

Culture is in the curry house and chippy, the red dragon and the red lion, the village pub and the city club.

Culture in the rhythms of the year, harvest festivals and maypole dancing in songs at easter and more at advent.

Culture is on stage and screen, in comedy and tragedy, culture is in buildings and gardens, in farms and fields, in woods and rivers.

Culture is the meaning we give, the meaning we hold, the meaning we take and the meaning we love.

Culture is not a brand. Populists and mono-thinkers do not hold the key to culture, they do not speak for us.

Their views of buildings population and sport, their views of buildings, paintings and Church.

Their views of landscape, lunchtime, fashion and art are reductive, mean and terse.

Culture binds us where they divide, culture celebrates where they find fault.

Their damage reflected and projected, given voice by media spin.

If only our education had become less thin.

#culture #farming #sports #church #poetry

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bikeman3141-blog · 6 months

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The substance of health

What we consume is vital to our health, both mentally and physically. It is hard to find anyone that would dispute this.

And yet, many would say that much of what we now consume is actively doing us harm. From the food we eat and the media we give our attention to. Both are filled with corporation biased material and Ingredients which are designed to keep us hooked, both nutritionally and narratively to their content.

There is a clear correlation between the addictive nature of clickbait articles and puff pieces about celebrities with the sugary sweetness and salty trash, which passes for food of convenience and comfort.

The similarities don't stop there. With the sheer volume of food waste and the turnover of news articles and the ever-increasing news outlets. The race to be the first to distribute the new story or the new Plastic Wracked Calorie Bombshell to the nation means there is a constant arms race of Sound bites and sugar spikes.

It becomes increasingly hard to find nuanced pieces in the media which go into depth, exploring all the angles and perspectives on a particular story. Likewise, in the supermarkets it becomes increasingly hard to buy Whole Foods. Or foods without stabilizers, sweeteners, colorings and other corporate interests built into their Ingredients.

When considering what makes healthy food. And a healthy media. Surprisingly the similarities remain the same.

A good foundation of soil Health and sifting through the right fertilizer to make sure the food stays unmolested by chemicals is the basis of healthy food and nutrition.

A well-researched media article which appears in long form either in way of a documentary, newspaper or podcast comes from a good foundation and understanding with a clear code of ethics.

But the increased fast pace of Life and, the greed of corporations is driving an ever-faster consumer economy with more trash on the shelves. Even with sugar taxes there is still an increase in energy drinks and addiction shops in the form of Starbucks and Costa delivering doses of sugar and caffeine by the minute to the population.

Likewise, social media with their apathetic attempts to regulate the fake news stories and heavily biased corporate media outlets and their fractured advertising dressed up as news and what is considered newsworthy. All in favor of the bottom line.

When one considers this diet of misinformation, propaganda, and legalized narcotics fed to the population on an hourly basis through smartphones and throw away coffee cups. It is hardly surprising we have ended up with Cruella Braverman, Boris Johnson and pond shop Enoch Powell in the form of Rees Mog and Nigel Farage. In recent weeks archive footage of Nick Griffins appearance on BBC question time has been trending. It feels like we are one step away from electing Andrew Tate as cultural minister.

The nation needs a health kick in media and food. And we needed to start it yesterday.

#junk food #media #social media #boris johnson #andrew tate #suella braverman #Nigel Farage #costa coffee #starbucks #sugar tax

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bikeman3141-blog · 6 months

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Is this a 42 moment?

All familiar with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy will know the significance of 42 as the answer to Life, the universe, and everything.

It was given as the answer by the most advanced supercomputer in the universe. Of course, this prompted those who don't understand the answer to reevaluate their question.

It seems that the human species and the world at large has reached a genuine 42 moment.

Governments, scientists and the species at large are being made to face the consequences of the “how's” and “whys” of our circumstances and the choices society is now presented with.

As society and global cultures look at these problems, we now face it is critical we work on the right questions to ask.

It is very common in environmental circles to hear people say that we must fight to achieve a better world for our children and grandchildren.

This is an ass about face way of looking at the world and actually what we should be asking is what sort of people do we want in the world.

Instead of the race to the bottom of some dystopian AI driven, Starsi wet dream of a data scape, shouldn't nations and corporations be asking what does this new tool do? And how does it help us?

With the innovation of newspapers, radio and television, countries could, for the first time have a conversation which led to greater civil rights, more social and economic mobility and the spread of democracies.

However, some of these advances have begun to wane as the forces of advanced algorithms vied for our attention, fracturing societies into smaller and smaller echo chambers. Giving rise to a new populist authoritarian politics in parts of the world which used to be champions of Liberal Democracy.

It takes huge skill and communication dexterity, which is beyond most of the population, to say something nuanced about a complex issue. However new forms of media priorities short content over long which of course drives people to post, tweet and clip oversimplified analysis of difficult subjects.

To be very clear it is not the public of any nation which is asking for this narrow, simplified view of the world's problems, it is the algorithms of new media outlets which require them to keep our attention.

The blossoming of long form journalistic podcasts which litter the internet should be proof enough of what people actually want.

When Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web, his hopes for linked data and shared growth were his motivation.

It would be a crime equal to the burning of books and the destruction of the printing press if we allowed his invention to be the thing that divided us.

Surely, armed with a new super intelligence and the World Wide Web, we can hold a global conversation which enables further prosperity and raises more of the world's population out of poverty while simultaneously taking on some of the challenges we now face in the environment.

Wisdom is now needed more than ever. We need people who are educated in the subjects which dominate the world. But also, we need these people to understand the difference between scientific and cultural language and why these things matter to the future we collectively imagine.

We are not seeking greater productivity from farmland, but better soil fertility. We do not want advanced farm industries; we want cooperative agriculture. In short, there are two types of tools. Ones which replace humans in the task and ones which aid them in their task.

We now need, more than ever, tools which aid humans in the pursuit of wisdom, not intellect or economic advancement.

A wise man once said that wisdom was the ability to cope, and we must cope with what we have created. He went on to qualify what he meant by this. He said in times of stress and emotional hardship wise people are the people that are able to step back from what is happening around them and see it through the lens of their worldview or philosophy. Regardless of what that world view or philosophy is, and in so doing give themselves space to think and process.

Wisdom is the ability to cope!

It sounds funny and almost a joke. But the more I deal with farming and environmental sustainability, the more I realize how utterly true this statement is.

Having grown up with organics and biodynamic farming Being vilified in the media. And slowly this approach is being ratified and praised by scientists and farmers. As they witnessed the benefits and the rejuvenation of soil, health and their farm. And they recognized the loss of role which was forced on them through the mechanization and industrialization of an industry process being applied to a cultural practice.

What creates culture? Belief, language and agriculture. Agr-Culture. It is a cultural practice. Harvest festivals and the community getting together happened when the farmer dictated the harvest was to be done. Farmers used to be the gatekeepers to culture and the rhythms of the years as much as the priest was.

This close relationship between community, weather, climate, soil health, crop and food and physical health and labor mixed with the ceremonial practices created cultures worldwide.

Now, harvest time is a reason for people to curse. As they drive to work, stuck behind the fucking combine harvester as it builds up a tailback on the local main roads.

And the farmer works on this harvest with an increasingly smaller and smaller team.

Perhaps there would be less room for populists if we took greater care of cultural practices and considered the homogenous nature we are creating in life as well as on our farmland.

#future #farming #climate crisis #ai #philosophy #harvest festival #language #wisedom

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bikeman3141-blog · 6 months

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Robots on farms,/small farming future

There are already robot dairies and lots of agricultural machinery companies are investing huge sums into the R and D of automated crop care machinery. This is of course partially fueled by the race to improve the bottom line but also reduce inputs to farms in the way of herbicides and pesticides.

While this is an admirable step forward from the big players in the farming it is clear that this is only part of the picture of any farming future.

For those interested in debating the future of eco friendly farming there has been two distinct schools of thought for a long time.

On the one hand we have Allan savoury and the school of thought which talks of animal agriculture and holistic planned grazing being essential to mitigate some of the worst effects of climate change while still putting the land to good use.

On the other hand you have George Monbiot and his vegan utopia/dystopia with rewinding on much of the now productive land and protein grown in vats.

The illogical nature of this vision of the future and the energy required to create it never seems to interfere with the carbon footprint data from its militant advocates.

For some time those with sense have longed for the publication of a rational argument which would silence and hold to check the insistence of the Monbiot world view that "organic farming won't work at scale". Well now thanks to this automation perhaps they are wrong but further to that a third voice has entered the conversation with the claim that we don't need organics at scale. There is a real small farm future if we want it.

When reading, listening and processing the work of Chris Smaje, author of Small Farms Future I am made to think of Dame Ellen MacArthur and her circular economy platform which is reshaping the fashion world making it more sustainable both ecologically and economically. A task so huge it would scare the hell out of anyone else. Ellen is adept at shattering obstacles most people would never dare to put themselves against.

Smaje claims that if the agricultural work force were to grow to 15% of the population there would be enough hands to make a small scale, ecologically diverse, organic farm feed the nation whilst maintaining current import and export targets. Personally I don't have the skill or resources to check his figures but when I consider that 9.5milliin tones of food is wasted each year in the UK it is easy to see that we don't have a food production problem currently but a food logistics problem.

If we bolt on the ever changing face of technology to this world vision as presented by Christ Smaje then perhaps this becomes even more believable.

If job losses are going to be as large as those in AI development and automation r and d claim then we will certainly have that workforce waiting for employment.

Further to this with cheap accounting software available with AI integrated learning models it will be much easier for small farms to work together to offer large crops to those with large contracts like Tesco. Lest we forget that it is the supermarkets who have bastardised our once small farm nation into the humongous farm industries it is today.

This hybrid of technological equipped small diverse farming future might stave off the horrors reaped on the world by the energy sector as it struggles to transform into something more sustainable.

And fingers crossed it really does leave us all better off and not in a matrix or terminator infused future.

You never know, one day Chris Smaje may be given an award like many farmers before for being out standing in his field.

#farming #george monbiot #allan savoury #future #AI #machine learning #organic #ellen MacArthur #circular economy #food waste

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bikeman3141-blog · 6 months

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Are you worried about AI?

The view from the bottom.

I'm a handyman and farmworker, I'm a father who earns less than 30K a year and my only interaction with technology supported by binary code is my day-to-day interactions with my smartphone.

On the face of it, my job is simple. Take this week for example. I have put in 200 meters of livestock fence, cleared a barn of 20 years of clutter, cut down a tree, cut back some brash and finally maintained a small drainage ditch.

All these jobs don't take lots of processing power, none of them require huge intellect or intelligence to complete. All could have been automated 10 plus years ago. But why not?

Cost.

Stephen Fry's recent cogx talk? He makes the point about technology and falling costs and how what now seems insurmountable to achieve due to cost will soon be affordable.

While I have lots of admiration for Stephen Fry and agree largely with the points he made in this talk. From my perspective on this subject the view is very different.

For example, take pointing, A job which has to be done to any building built with mortar, the vast majority of buildings in the UK and possibly the world. In theory, it's very simple to build an X/Y axis on each wall of the building strap, a drill with masonry tools to it, and hit go on a computer. This computer. With AI capabilities could easily drive this drill, slowly excavating the old mortar. Whilst taking necessary precautions to not weaken the building too much and backfilling at the same time with fresh mortar, thus increasing the buildings life and reducing health and safety risk.

However, it is possible to create versions of this machine now without AI. And I believe the only reason it has not been done is due to cost. And the cost effectiveness of it? Most builders do not earn upwards of £100,000 a year, and such a machine right now would cost hundreds of thousands. And the production line to create them run into the 10s of £millions. Not to mention the customization and maintenance of these machines. So on the face of it, it still seems a lot simpler just to employ a few very skilled men and women to carry out this task.

And thus I see a future where AI Does not impact the building industry too much.

I see AI AI's future being applied to jobs such as traffic models, waste recycling, raw material allocation and food logistics. Seemingly insurmountable problems which cause untold misery around the world today.

Imagine a UK where there is the same uniform recycling solution for every council. Where all the plastics are collected. Not just those deemed Recyclable by your particular council. Imagine a world where raw materials weren't hoarded by the wealthy countries and companies. instead, evenly distributed as needed, reducing the need for heavy industry to continue mining and ripping up parts of virgin ground, causing further deforesting.

Imagine cities with gridlocks gone, traffic controls Gone, Due to the traffic flow having been solved by quantum computing and AI. Surely in a world with AI there is no need for HS2? Surely it is possible to have road trains travelling at 62 mph down the motorway without crashing due to the 99.98% Predictable of Traffic flow.

Ex Google employee Moe Gordak who also issued a stark warning about AI, said that the way in which humans can survive or coexist with AI is to be good parents to it in its infancy. Implying that as AI is born and learns from us We all Are responsible for modeling the best of human behavior.

With that in mind, shouldn’t we first be dealing with the cobalt mines and slavery involved in the creation of most of the world’s smart devices? Should this not now be the number one priority for all of those companies?

I don't want to be in a world where a Tesla road train suddenly wakes up and becomes conscious. With a teenage hatred of its parents, involvement in the Congo slavery. And decides to act on its adolescent angst in a rash way.

But fantasies about the future aside. Because if history tells us anything, big cooperations won't take the high road without serious pain being threatened or inflicted on their bottom line.

I think the portion of society that has most to fear from AI is actually the desk bound jobs. In short, all the jobs created by the Internet. All those data analysts, marketing managers, graphic designers and brand strategists. And anyone else that sits behind a computer in an office has more to fear from AI than the practical people of the world.

The Farmers and Builders school teachers and craftspeople. Yes, there will be a place where AI helps and aids and sometimes replaces these jobs. But I do not see a world where these jobs are completely replaced by AI.

However, if each smart device is to have AI capability through apps and online access. I know most Self-employed people and even large businesses will cease to employ marketing managers and accountants to do their admin. They will simply rely on an annual subscription to an AI device or service. Which surely will be cheaper than heating an office paying an employee. Having extra contracts and maybe HR teams to manage said employees.

I think these jobs have more to fear from AI than Laborers, farm workers, Doctors or Surgeons or nurses. These are complicated Jobs which require a multitude of abilities both Physical and intellectual. Which comes at far greater cost.

So for now I look forward to the benefits of Ai far more than I worry about its potential threats.

#artificial intelligence #stephen fry #mo gawdat #future #universal basic income #climate change #climate solutions #ethics

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